Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin is a famous Russian writer and translator. He made a significant contribution to the fund of Russian literature. His works were particularly realistic, thanks to which he received recognition in various strata of society.

Brief biography of Kuprin

We present to your attention short biography Kuprina. She, like everything, contains a lot.

Childhood and parents

Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin was born on August 26, 1870 in the city of Narovchat, in the family of a simple official. When little Alexander was only one year old, his father, Ivan Ivanovich, died.

After the death of her husband, the mother of the future writer, Lyubov Alekseevna, decided to go to Moscow. It was in this city that Kuprin spent his childhood and youth.

Training and the beginning of a creative path

When young Sasha was 6 years old, he was sent to study at the Moscow Orphan School, from which he graduated in 1880.

Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin

In 1887, Kuprin was enrolled in Aleksandrovskoe military school.

During this period of his biography, he had to face various difficulties, which he would later write about in the stories “At the Turning Point (Cadets)” and “Junkers”.

Alexander Ivanovich had good ability to write poetry, but they remained unpublished.

In 1890, the writer served in an infantry regiment with the rank of second lieutenant.

While in this rank, he writes such stories as “Inquiry”, “In the Dark”, “Night Shift” and “Hike”.

Creativity flourishes

In 1894, Kuprin decided to resign, being at that time already in the rank of lieutenant. Immediately after this, he begins to travel around, meeting different people and gaining new knowledge.

During this period, he manages to meet Maxim Gorky and.

Kuprin’s biography is interesting in that he immediately took all the impressions and experiences he received during his considerable travels as the basis for future works.

In 1905, the story “The Duel” was published, which received real recognition in society. In 1911, his most significant work, “The Garnet Bracelet,” appeared, which made Kuprin truly famous.

It should be noted that it was easy for him to write not only serious literature, but also children's stories.

Emigration

One of the most important moments The October Revolution became the life of Kuprin. In a short biography it is difficult to describe all the writer’s experiences associated with this time.

Let us briefly note that he flatly refused to accept the ideology of war communism and the terror associated with it. Having assessed the current situation, Kuprin almost immediately decides to emigrate to.

In a foreign land, he continues to write novels and short stories, as well as engage in translation activities. For Alexander Kuprin it was unthinkable to live without creativity, which is clearly visible throughout his biography.

Return to Russia

Over time, in addition to material difficulties, Kuprin increasingly begins to feel nostalgia for his homeland. He manages to return back to Russia only after 17 years. At the same time he wrote his last work, which is called “Native Moscow”.

Last years of life and death

Soviet officials benefited from a famous writer returning to his homeland. They tried to create from him the image of a repentant writer who came from a foreign land to sing the praises of the happy.

About Kuprin’s return to the USSR, 1937, Pravda

However, the internal memos of the competent authorities record that Kuprin is weak, ill, incapacitated and, practically, unable to write anything.

By the way, this is why information appeared that “Native Moscow” belongs not to Kuprin himself, but to the journalist assigned to him, N.K. Verzhbitsky.

On August 25, 1938, Alexander Kuprin died of esophageal cancer. He was buried in Leningrad on Volkovsky cemetery, next to the great writer.

• When Kuprin was not yet famous, he managed to master many different professions. He worked in a circus, was an artist, a teacher, a land surveyor and a journalist. In total, he mastered more than 20 different professions.
• The writer's first wife, Maria Karlovna, really did not like the unrest and disorganization in Kuprin's work. For example, having caught him sleeping at work, she deprived him of breakfast. And when he did not write the necessary chapters for a story, his wife refused to let him into the house. How can one not remember the American scientist who was under pressure from his wife!
• Kuprin loved to dress in national Tatar attire and walk the streets like that. On his mother's side he had Tatar roots, which he was always proud of.
• Kuprin personally communicated with Lenin. He suggested that the leader create a newspaper for villagers called “Earth”.
• In 2014, the television series “Kuprin” was filmed, telling about the life of the writer.
• According to the recollections of his contemporaries, Kuprin was truly a very kind person who was not indifferent to the destinies of others.
• Many are named after Kuprin settlements, streets and libraries.

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Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin- Russian writer of the early 20th century, who left a noticeable mark on literature. Throughout his life he combined literary creativity With military service and travel, was an excellent observer of human nature and left behind stories, novellas and essays written in the genre of realism.

Early life

Alexander Ivanovich was born in 1870 into a noble family, but his father died very early, and therefore the boy’s growing up was difficult. Together with his mother, the boy moved from the Penza region to Moscow, where he was sent to a military gymnasium. This determined his life next years he was somehow connected with military service.

In 1887, he entered to study as an officer, three years later he completed his studies and went to an infantry regiment stationed in the Podolsk province as a second lieutenant. A year earlier, the first story of the aspiring writer, “The Last Debut,” was published in the press. And during four years of service, Alexander Ivanovich sent several more works to print - “In the Dark,” “Inquiry,” “On a Moonlit Night.”

The most fruitful period and recent years

After retiring, the writer moved to live in Kyiv, and then traveled for a long time around Russia, continuing to collect experience for the following works and periodically publishing stories and novellas in literary magazines. In the early 1900s, he became closely acquainted with Chekhov and Bunin and moved to the northern capital. Most famous works writers - “Garnet Bracelet”, “The Pit”, “Duel” and others - were published between 1900 and 1915.

At the beginning of the First World War, Kuprin was again called up for service and sent to the northern border, but he was quickly demobilized due to poor health. Alexander Ivanovich perceived the revolution of 1917 ambiguously - he reacted positively to the abdication of the tsar, but was against the Bolshevik government and was more inclined to the ideology of the Socialist Revolutionaries. Therefore, in 1918, he, like many others, went into French emigration - but still returned to his homeland a year later to help the strengthened White Guard movement. When the counter-revolution suffered a final defeat, Alexander Ivanovich returned to Paris, where long years He lived quietly and published new works.

In 1937, he returned to the Union at the government invitation, because he greatly missed the homeland he had left behind. However, a year later he died from incurable esophageal cancer and was buried in St. Petersburg.

The work of Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin was formed during the years of revolutionary upsurge. All his life he was close to the theme of the epiphany of a simple Russian man who greedily sought the truth of life. Kuprin devoted all his work to the development of this complex psychological topic. His art, as his contemporaries put it, was characterized by a special vigilance in seeing the world, concreteness, and a constant desire for knowledge. The educational pathos of Kuprin's creativity was combined with a passionate personal interest in the victory of good over all evil. Therefore, most of his works are characterized by dynamics, drama, and excitement.

Kuprin's biography is like an adventure novel. In terms of the abundance of meetings with people and life observations, it was reminiscent of Gorky’s biography. The writer’s autobiography contains a truly terrifying list of the occupations that he tried after parting with his military uniform: he was a reporter, a manager at the construction of a house, he grew tobacco “silver shag” in the Volyn province, he served in a technical office, he was a psalm-reader, he worked on the stage, studied dentistry, even wanted to become a monk, served in a furniture-carrying company of a certain Loskutov, worked unloading watermelons, etc. Chaotic, feverish tossing, changing “specialties” and positions, frequent traveling around the country, an abundance of new meetings - all this gave Kuprin an inexhaustible wealth of impressions - it was necessary to artistically summarize them.

First on the list is: reporter. And this is no coincidence. Reporting work in Kyiv newspapers - judicial and police chronicles, writing feuilletons, editorials and even “correspondence from Paris” - was the main thing literary school Kuprina. He always retained a warm attitude towards the role of a reporter.

Is it any wonder, therefore, with what amazing detail military men of all ranks are depicted in Kuprin’s prose - from privates to generals - circus performers, tramps, landladies, students, singers, false witnesses, thieves. It is noteworthy that in these works of Kuprin, which convey his living experience, the writer’s interest is directed not at an exceptional event, but at a phenomenon that is repeated many times, at the details of everyday life, the recreation of the environment in all its imperceptible details, the reproduction of the majestic and non-stop “river of life.” The writer does not limit his task to accurate but simple “sketches from nature.” Unlike popular newspaper essayists late XIX century, he artistically generalizes reality. And when in one thousand eight hundred and ninety-six, having become the head of accounting for a forge and a carpentry workshop (at one of the largest steel and rail-rolling plants in the Donetsk basin), Kuprin wrote a series of essays about the situation of workers, at the same time the outlines of the first major work-story “Moloch” were taking shape. .

In Kuprin's prose of the second half of the 90s, Moloch stands out as a passionate, direct indictment of capitalism. This was in many ways a real “Kuprin” prose with its, according to Bunin, “apt and generous language without excess.” Thus begins the rapid creative flowering of Kuprin, who created almost all of his most significant works at the turn of two centuries. Kuprin's talent, which had recently been wasted in the field of cheap fiction, gains confidence and strength. Following Moloch, works appeared that brought the writer to the forefront of Russian literature. “Army Ensign”, “Olesya” and then, already at the beginning of the 20th century, “At the Circus”, “Horse Thieves”, “White Poodle” and the story “The Duel”.

In nineteen hundred and one, Kuprin came to St. Petersburg. Behind are years of wandering, a kaleidoscope of bizarre professions, an unsettled life. In St. Petersburg, the doors of the editorial offices of the most popular "thick" magazines of that time - "Russian Wealth" and "World of God" - were open to the writer. In one thousand eight hundred and ninety-seven, Kuprin met I. A. Bunin, a little later - with A. P. Chekhov, and in November of one thousand nine hundred and two - with M. Gorky, who had long been closely following the young writer. When visiting Moscow, Kuprin visits the literary association “Sreda” founded by N.D. Teleshov and becomes close to wide circles of writers. In 1903, the democratic publishing house “Znanie”, led by M. Gorky, published the first volume of Kuprin’s stories, which were positively received by critics.

Among the St. Petersburg intelligentsia, Kuprin is especially close to the leaders of the magazine “God’s World” - its editor, literary historian F. D. Batyushkov, critic and publicist A. I. Bogdanovich and publisher A. A. Davydova, who highly valued Kuprin’s talent. In nineteen hundred and two, the writer married Davydova’s daughter, Maria Karlovna. For some time he actively collaborated in the “World of God” and as an editor, and also published a number of his works there: “In the Circus”, “Swamp”, “Measles”, “From the Street”, but to purely editorial work, which interfered with his work, It's getting cold soon.

In Kuprin’s work at this time, accusatory notes sound increasingly louder. The new democratic upsurge in the country causes him a surge of creative strength, a growing intention to carry out his long-conceived plan - “enough” for tsarist army, this center of stupidity, ignorance, inhumanity, idle and exhausting existence. Thus, on the eve of the first revolution, the writer’s largest work was formed - the story “The Duel,” on which he began working in the spring of one thousand nine hundred and two. Work on “The Duel,” according to M.K. Kuprina-Iordanskaya, proceeded with the greatest intensity in the winter of nineteen hundred and five, in the stormy atmosphere of the revolution. The course of social events hurried the writer.

Kuprin, an extremely suspicious and unbalanced person, found self-confidence in his abilities in friendly support M. Gorky. It was these years (1904 - 1905) that marked the time of their greatest rapprochement. “Now, finally, when everything is over,” Kuprin wrote to Gorky on May 5, 1905, after the completion of “The Duel,” “I can say that everything bold and violent in my story belongs to you. If you only knew how much I have learned from you and how grateful I am to you for it.”

Kuprin was an eyewitness to the Ochakov uprising. Before his eyes, on the night of November 15, the fortress guns of Sevastopol set fire to the revolutionary cruiser, and punitive forces from the pier shot with machine guns and finished off with bayonets the sailors who were trying to swim to escape from the burning ship. Shocked by what he saw, Kuprin responded to the reprisal of Vice Admiral Chukhnin with the insurgent angry essay “Events in Sevastopol,” published in the St. Petersburg newspaper “Our Life” on December 1, 1905. After the appearance of this correspondence, Chukhnin gave an order for the immediate expulsion of Kuprin from the Sevastopol district. At the same time, the vice admiral initiated legal proceedings against the writer; After interrogation by a forensic investigator, Kuprin was allowed to travel to St. Petersburg.

Soon after the Sevastopol events, in the vicinity of Balaklava, where Kuprin lived, a group of eighty sailors appeared who reached the shore from the Ochakov. Kuprin took the most ardent part in the fate of these people, exhausted by fatigue and persecution: he got them civilian clothes and helped throw the police off the trail. The episode with the rescue of the sailors is partially reflected in the story “The Caterpillar”, but there the simple Russian woman Irina Platonovna is made the “ringleader”, and the “writer” is left in the shadows. In Aspiz’s memoirs there is a significant clarification: “The honor of saving these Ochakovo sailors belongs exclusively to Kuprin.”

Kuprin's work of this time is imbued with vivacity, faith in the future of Russia, and artistic maturity. He writes the stories “Staff Captain Rybnikov”, “Dreams”, “Toast”, and begins work on the essays “Listrigons”. A number of works, and above all the story “Gambrinus,” capture the revolution and its “straightening” atmosphere. Kuprin is under constant police surveillance. The writer’s social activity is as high as ever: he speaks at evenings reading excerpts from “The Duel”, puts forward his candidacy for election in the first State Duma. He openly declares in the parable “Art” about the beneficial impact of the revolution on the artist’s creativity. However, welcoming the “proletarian spring”. Kuprin saw in it the path to a utopian and vague system, a “world anarchist union free people"("Toast"), the implementation of which is a thousand years distant. His revolutionary spirit is the revolutionary spirit of a petty-bourgeois writer at a time of general democratic upsurge.

During the first decade of the 900s, Kuprin's talent reached its peak. In nineteen hundred and nine, the writer received the academic Pushkin Prize for three volumes of fiction, sharing it with I. A. Bunin. In nineteen hundred and twelve, the publishing house of L. F. Marx published a collection of his works in an appendix to the popular magazine “Nina”. In contrast to the increasingly rampant decadence, Kuprin’s talent remains realistic at this time, in highest degree“earthly” artistic gift.

However, the years of reaction did not pass without a trace for the writer. After the defeat of the revolution, his interest in political life countries. There was no previous closeness to M. Gorky. Kuprin places his new works not in issues of “Knowledge”, but in “fashionable” almanacs - Artsybashev’s “Life”, the symbolist “Rose Hip”, eclectic collections of the Moscow publishing house of writers “Earth”. If we talk about the fame of Kuprin the writer, then it continues to grow in these years, reaching its highest point. In essence, in his work of the 910s, alarming symptoms of crisis are already noticeable. Kuprin's works of these years are distinguished by extreme inequality. After “Gambrinus”, imbued with active humanism, and the poetic “Shulamithi”, he comes out with the story “Seasickness”, which caused a protest from the democratic public. Next to the “Pomegranate Bracelet,” where a selfless, holy feeling is glorified, he creates a faded utopia “Royal Park”, in which the hope for the voluntary renunciation of power by rulers sounds especially false, since it appeared shortly after the brutal suppression of the revolution of 1905 -1907. Following the full-blooded and realistic cycle of essays “Listrigons”, imbued with a cheerful feeling and filled with the aromas of the Black Sea, appears fantastic story“Liquid Sun”, somewhat unusual for Kuprin in terms of the exoticism of the material, in which despair before the omnipotent power of capital, disbelief in the future of humanity, and doubts about the possibility of social reconstruction of society are heard.

The atmosphere in which Kuprin lived during these years was little conducive to serious literary work. Contemporaries talk with disapproval about Kuprin’s violent revelries in the “literary” restaurants “Vienna” and “Capernaum”, and are indignant at the mention of his name in a tabloid album published by the “Vienna” restaurant. And the cheap literary tavern “Davydka,” according to E.M. Aspiz, at one time “became Kuprin’s residence... where, as they said, even correspondence addressed to him was sent.” TO popular writer clung to suspicious individuals, reporters yellow press, restaurant regulars. From time to time, Kuprin isolated himself to work in Gatchina, or F. Batyushkov invited him to his Danilovskoye estate, or the writer himself “escaped” from his St. Petersburg “friends” in Balaklava.

Literary work Kuprin was also hampered by a constant lack of money, and family concerns also increased. After a trip to Finland in nineteen hundred and seven, he married a second time, to the niece of D.N. Mamin-Sibiryak, Elizaveta Moritsovna Heinrich. The family grows, and with it, debts. Involuntarily at the top of its literary fame the writer was forced to return to the lightning pace of unskilled journalism from the times of his unsettled Kyiv life. In such conditions he worked on the creation of the great story “The Pit”.

The inconsistency of Kuprin’s work in the 910s reflected the writer’s confusion, his uncertainty and lack of understanding of what was happening. And when the Russian-German war began, he was among those writers who perceived it as “patriotic” and “liberation”. In a patriotic frenzy, Kuprin again puts on the lieutenant’s uniform. Drafted into the army, the writer, according to the correspondent, “bought charters, collected all the circulars, dreams of getting into business with his squad.” elated state of mind, the expectation of the beneficial consequences of the “cleansing” war continues with Kuprin until the end of one thousand nine hundred and fifteen. Having been demobilized for health reasons, he used his personal funds to organize a military hospital in his Gatchina house. At this time, Kuprin wrote a number of patriotic articles, but his artistic creativity almost dried up, and in his few works of these years, themes familiar from his previous work lost their social relevance.

So in the pre-revolutionary period, in the situation creative crisis, ends main period writing activity Kuprin, when his most significant works were created.

In extensive literary heritage Kuprin, that original, Kuprin thing that the writer brought with him lies on the surface. According to contemporaries, he is always saved by the instinct of natural healthy talent, organic optimism, cheerfulness, and love for life. This opinion undoubtedly had some basis. A hymn to nature, “natural” beauty and naturalness runs through all of Kuprin’s work. Hence his craving for integral, simple and strong natures. At the same time, the cult of external, physical beauty becomes for the writer a means of exposing the unworthy reality in which this beauty perishes.

And yet, despite the abundance of dramatic situations, vital juices are in full swing in Kuprin’s works, and light, optimistic tones predominate. He enjoys life in a childlike way, “like a cadet on vacation,” according to the apt remark of V. Lvov-Rogachevsky. He appears to be the same healthy lover of life as in his creativity. personal life this strong, squat man with narrow, sharp gray-blue eyes on a Tatar face, which seems not so round due to a small chestnut beard. L. N. Tolstoy’s impression of meeting Kuprin: “Muscular, pleasant... strongman.” And in fact, with what passion Kuprin will devote himself to everything connected with testing the strength of his own muscles, will, which is associated with excitement and risk. It’s as if he’s trying to squander the reserves that were not spent during his poor childhood. vitality. Organizes an athletic society in Kyiv. Together with the famous athlete Sergei Utochkin he climbs the hot-air balloon. Descends in a diving suit on sea ​​bottom. Flies with Ivan Zaikin on a Farman plane. At forty-three years old, he suddenly begins to seriously learn stylish swimming from the world record holder L. Romanenko. A passionate lover of horses, he prefers the circus to opera.

In all these hobbies there is something recklessly childish. So, living in the village, he receives a hunting rifle from St. Petersburg. Work on a new one was immediately abandoned a major work- the novel “Beggars”. “...The sending of the gun,” Maria Karlovna reported with alarm on June 22, 1906, to Batyushkov, “caused an unexpected break in Alexander Ivanovich’s working mood, and he wandered around the neighborhood with a gun all day long.” His friends: wrestlers Ivan Poddubny and Zaikin, athlete Utochkin, famous trainer Anatoly Durov, clown Zhacomino, fisherman Kolya Kostandi. Living year after year in Balaklava, Kuprin immediately “became friends with some fishing chieftains” who were famous for their courage, luck and bravery. He would rather work on a longboat as an oar or sit among fishermen in a coffee shop than meet with the local intelligentsia, eager to talk about “high matters.”

But there is something feverish and tense in the hasty change of all these hobbies - French wrestling and diving in a diving suit, hunting and cross-country style, weightlifting and free aeronautics. It’s as if there were two people living in Kuprin who had little resemblance to each other, and his contemporaries, who succumbed to the impression of one, the most obvious side of his personality, left an incomplete truth about him. Only the people closest to the writer, like F.D. Batyushkov, were able to discern this duality.

February Revolution, which Kuprin greeted enthusiastically, found him in Helsingfors. He immediately leaves for Petrograd, where, together with the critic P. Pilsky, he edits the Socialist Revolutionary newspaper Free Russia for some time. In his works of art this time (the stories “Brave Fugitives”, “Sashka and Yashka”, “The Caterpillar”, “Star of Solomon”) there are no direct responses to the turbulent events experienced by the country. Having met the October Revolution with sympathy, Kuprin collaborates, however, in the bourgeois newspapers “Era”, “Petrogradsky Listok”, “Echo”, “Evening Word”, where he published political articles “Prophecy”, “Sensation”, “At the Grave” (in memory of prominent Bolshevik M.M. Volodarsky, killed by the Socialist Revolutionary), “Monuments,” etc. These articles reflect the contradictory position of the writer. Sympathizing with the grandiose program of transformation old Russia, developed by V.I. Lenin, he doubts the timeliness of implementing this program.

A confluence of random circumstances leads Kuprin to the emigration camp in 1919. In exile, he writes the novel “Zhanette”. This work is about the tragic loneliness of a person who has lost his homeland. This is a story about the touching affection of an old professor, who found himself in exile, for a little Parisian girl - the daughter of a street newspaper girl.

Kuprin's emigrant period is characterized by withdrawal into himself. Large autobiographical work of that period - the novel "Junker".

In exile, the writer Kuprin did not lose faith in the future of his Motherland. At the end life path he still returns to Russia. And his work rightfully belongs to Russian art, the Russian people.

1. Years of study.
2. Resignation, beginning of literary activity.
3. Emigration and return to homeland.

A. I. Kuprin was born in 1870 in county town Narovchat of the Penza province in the family of a minor official, secretary of the world congress. His father Ivan Ivanovich Kuprin died of cholera in August 1871. Almost three years later, the widow Lyubov Alekseevna moved with three children to Moscow, sent her daughters to closed educational establishments, Alexander lived with his mother until he was six years old in the Kudrinsky widow's house. For the next four years, Kuprin studied at the Razumovsky orphanage, where in 1877 he began writing poetry. The story “Brave Fugitives” (1917) is about this period of his life.

After graduating from the boarding school, he enters the Moscow Military Gymnasium (cadet corps). He has been studying in the cadet corps for eight years, where he writes lyrical and comic poems, and translates from French and German. This period of life is reflected in the story “At the Turning Point” (“Cadets”) (1900). Enters the Alexander Military School, graduating as a second lieutenant in 1890. In 1889, the magazine “Russian Satirical List” published Kuprin’s first story, “The Last Debut.” The author considered the story a failure. For the publication, Kuprin received two days in a punishment cell - the cadets were forbidden to speak in the press. This is described in the novel “Junker” (1928-1932) and in the story “Printing Ink” (1929).

Service in the Dnieper infantry regiment in 1890-1894 was Kuprin’s preparation for a military career, but due to his violent temper when drunk, he was not accepted into the General Staff Academy (the strongman Kuprin threw a policeman into the water).

The lieutenant resigned. His life was stormy, he had the opportunity to try himself in the most different areas, from wanderer to mover and dentist. He was an inveterate adventurer and explorer - he went underwater as a diver, flew an airplane, and created an athletic society. He based many of his life experiences as the basis for his works. The years of service were reflected in the military stories “Inquiry” (1894), “The Lilac Bush” (1894), “Night Shift” (1899), “Hike” (1901), “Overnight” (1895), in the story “Duel” (1904 -1905), the story “The Wedding” (1908).

In 1892, Kuprin began work on the story “In the Dark”. In 1893, the manuscript was transferred to the editors of “Russian Wealth,” an almanac published by V. G. Korolenko, N. K. Mikhailovsky, I. F. Annensky. The story was published in the summer, and already at the end of autumn the story “On a Moonlit Night” was published in the same almanac.

IN early works Kuprin can see how his skill grew. There is less and less imitation, a tendency to psychological analysis. Army-themed stories are distinguished by their sympathy for to the common man, acute social orientation. Feuilletons and essays paint the life of a big city with rich colors.

After his resignation, Kuprin moved to Kyiv and worked in newspapers. The Kyiv period was a fruitful time in Kuprin’s life. He gets acquainted with the life of the townspeople and tells the most interesting things in the collection “Kyiv Types”. These essays appeared at the end of 1895 in the newspaper “Kyiv Slovo”, and the following year they were published a separate book. Kuprin works as an accountant at a steel mill in Donbass, writes the story “Moloch”, the story “The Wonderful Doctor”, the book “Miniatures: Essays and Stories”, travels, meets I. A. Bunin. In 1898, he lived with the family of his sister and brother-in-law, a forester, in the Ryazan province. In these wonderful places he began work on the story “Olesya”. Residents of the Polesie forests, such as Olesya, rich in internal and external beauty, continue to interest Kuprin later as an object for depiction - in the story “Horse Thieves” he paints the image of the horse thief Buzyga, a strong, brave hero. In these works, Kuprin creates his “ideal natural man».

In 1899, the story “Night Shift” was published. Kuprin continues to collaborate in newspapers in Kyiv and Rostov-on-Don, and in 1900 he publishes the first version of the story “Cadets” in the Kyiv newspaper “Life and Art”. He leaves for Odessa and Yalta, where he meets Chekhov and works on the story “At the Circus.” In the fall he leaves again for the Ryazan province, taking on a contract to measure six hundred acres of peasant forest. Returning to Moscow, in the same year he joined N.D. Teleshov’s literary circle “Sreda” and met L.N. Andreev and F.I. Chaliapin.

At the end of the year, Kuprin moved to St. Petersburg to head the fiction department at the Magazine for Everyone. Introduced by I. A. Bunin to the publisher of the magazine “World of God” A. Davydova, he publishes there the story “In the Circus”. The story is imbued with the mood of the death of all that is beautiful. Kuprin reconsiders the “ideal of the natural man.” Man is beautiful by nature, capable of inspiring an artist, but in life beauty is belittled, therefore it evokes a feeling of regret, Kuprin believes. Chekhov assessed the story in this way: “Bunin’s “In Autumn” was made with a constrained, tense hand, in any case, Kuprin’s “At the Circus” is much more higher. “At the Circus” is a free, naive, talented work, and, moreover, written, undoubtedly, knowledgeable person" He also informed Kuprin that L.N. Tolstoy also read the work, and he liked it. Changes occur in Kuprin's family life - he marries M. Davydova, his daughter Lydia is born. Now he is a co-editor of the magazine together with A. I. Bogdanovich and F. D. Batyushkov. He is introduced to L.N. Tolstoy, M. Gorky. In 1903, the story “Swamp” appeared in print, and the first volume of works was published.

In Crimea, the writer makes the first drafts of the story “The Duel”, but destroys the manuscript. Based on his impressions of a meeting with a traveling circus, he writes the story “White Poodle.” At the beginning of 1904, Kuprin resigned from editorship of the magazine. Kuprin's story "Peaceful Life" has been published. He leaves for Odessa, then to Balaklava.

Kuprin was far from revolutionary movement, but the approach of the revolution was reflected in his work - it acquired a critical, revealing beginning. The essay “Frenzy” (1904), which expresses Kuprin’s ideological position, satirically depicts the “masters of life”; the joy of the idle public is depicted in contrast among the quiet, lyrical southern night. The stories "Measles", "The Good Society" and "The Priest" depict the conflict between the "good society" and the democratic intelligentsia. In fact " good society" turns out to be mired in fraud, these are rotten people with imaginary virtue and ostentatious nobility.

Kuprin works for a long time on the manuscript of the “duel”, reads excerpts to Gorky and receives his approval, but during the search the gendarmes seized part of the manuscript. When it was published, the story brought fame to the author and caused great resonance in criticism. The writer observes with his own eyes the uprising on the cruiser "Ochakov", for this he travels every day from Balaklava to Sevastopol. He witnessed the shooting of the cruiser and sheltered the surviving sailors. The St. Petersburg newspaper “Our Life” publishes Kuprin’s essay “Events in Sevastopol.” In December, Kuprin was expelled from Balaklava and banned from living there in the future. He dedicated a series of essays “Listrigons” (1907-1911) to this city. In 1906, the second volume of Kuprin's stories was published. In the magazine “World of God” there is a story “Staff Captain Rybnikov.” Kuprin said that he considered “The Duel” to be his first real work, and “Staff Captain Rybnikov” as his best.

In 1907, the writer divorced and married E. Heinrich, and in this marriage a daughter, Ksenia, was born. Kuprin writes “Emerald” and “Shulamith”, publishes another volume of stories. In 1909 he received the Pushkin Prize. During this time, he creates “River of Life”, “Pit”, “Gambrinus”, “Garnet Bracelet”, “Liquid Sun” ( Science fiction with elements of dystopia).

In 1918, Kuprin criticized the new times and was arrested. After his release, he leaves for Helsinki and then to Paris, where he actively publishes. But this does not help the family live in prosperity. In 1924, he was offered to return, and only thirteen years later, the seriously ill writer came to Moscow, and then to Leningrad and Gatchina. Kuprin's esophageal disease worsened and in August 1938 he died.

Russian literature Silver Age

Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin

Biography

Kuprin Alexander Ivanovich (1870 - 1938) - Russian writer. Social criticism marked the story “Moloch” (1896), in which industrialization appears in the image of a monster factory that enslaves a person morally and physically, the story “The Duel” (1905) - about spiritual death pure hero in the deadening atmosphere of army life and the story “The Pit” (1909 - 15) is about prostitution. A variety of finely outlined types, lyrical situations in the stories and short stories “Olesya” (1898), “Gambrinus” (1907), “Garnet Bracelet” (1911). Cycles of essays (“Listrigons”, 1907 - 11). In 1919 - 37 in exile, in 1937 he returned to his homeland. Autobiographical novel "Junker" (1928 - 32).

Big encyclopedic Dictionary, M.-SPb., 1998

Biography

Kuprin Alexander Ivanovich (1870), prose writer.

Born on August 26 (September 7, new year) in the city of Narovchat, Penza province, in the family of a minor official who died a year after the birth of his son. After the death of her husband, his mother (from the ancient family of Tatar princes Kulanchakov) moved to Moscow, where the future writer spent his childhood and youth. At the age of six, the boy was sent to the Moscow Razumovsky boarding school (orphanage), from where he left in 1880. The same year he entered the Moscow Military Academy, which was transformed into the Cadet Corps.

After finishing the training he continued military education at the Alexander Junker School (1888 - 90). Subsequently he will describe his “ military youth"in the stories "At the Turning Point (Cadets)" and in the novel "Junkers". Even then he dreamed of becoming “a poet or novelist.”

Kuprin's first literary experience was poetry that remained unpublished. The first work to see the light was the story “The Last Debut” (1889).

In 1890, after graduating from military school, Kuprin, with the rank of second lieutenant, was enlisted in an infantry regiment stationed in the Podolsk province. The life of an officer, which he led for four years, provided rich material for his future works. In 1893 - 1894 in the St. Petersburg magazine " Russian wealth“His story “In the Dark” and the stories “On a Moonlit Night” and “Inquiry” were published. A series of stories are dedicated to the life of the Russian army: “Overnight” (1897), “Night Shift” (1899), “Hike”. In 1894, Kuprin retired and moved to Kyiv, without any civilian profession and having a small life experience. In the following years, he traveled a lot around Russia, trying many professions, greedily absorbing life experiences that became the basis of his future works. In the 1890s, he published the essay “Yuzovsky Plant” and the story “Moloch”, the stories “Wilderness”, “Werewolf”, the stories “Olesya” and “Kat” (“Army Ensign”). During these years, Kuprin met Bunin, Chekhov and Gorky. In 1901 he moved to St. Petersburg, began working for the “Magazine for Everyone,” married M. Davydova, and had a daughter, Lydia. Kuprin's stories appeared in St. Petersburg magazines: “Swamp” (1902); "Horse Thieves" (1903); "White Poodle" (1904). In 1905, his most significant work was published - the story "The Duel", which was a great success. The writer’s performances with the reading of individual chapters of “The Duel” became an event cultural life capital Cities. His works of this time were very well-behaved: the essay “Events in Sevastopol” (1905), the stories “Staff Captain Rybnikov” (1906), “River of Life”, “Gambrinus” (1907). In 1907, he married his second wife, sister of mercy E. Heinrich, and had a daughter, Ksenia. Kuprin's work in the years between the two revolutions resisted the decadent mood of those years: the cycle of essays "Listrigons" (1907 - 11), stories about animals, the stories "Shulamith", "Garnet Bracelet" (1911). His prose became a notable phenomenon of Russian literature at the beginning of the century. After October revolution The writer did not accept the policy of military communism, the “Red Terror”; he feared for the fate of Russian culture. In 1918 he came to Lenin with a proposal to publish a newspaper for the village - “Earth”. At one time he worked at the World Literature publishing house, founded by Gorky. In the fall of 1919, while in Gatchina, cut off from Petrograd by Yudenich's troops, he emigrated abroad. The seventeen years that the writer spent in Paris were an unproductive period. Constant material need and homesickness led him to the decision to return to Russia. In the spring of 1937, the seriously ill Kuprin returned to his homeland, warmly received by his admirers. Published the essay “Native Moscow”. However, new creative plans was not destined to come true. In August 1938, Kuprin died in Leningrad from cancer.

Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin (1870-1938) - famous Russian writer. His father, a small official, died a year after the birth of his son. His mother, originally from the Tatar princes Kulanchakov, after the death of her husband moved to the capital of Russia, where Kuprin spent his childhood and youth. At the age of 6, Alexander was sent to an orphanage, where he stayed until 1880. And immediately upon leaving, he entered the Moscow Military Academy.

Afterwards he studied at the Alexander School (1888-90). In 1889, his first work, “The Last Debut,” saw the light of day. In 1890, Kuprin was assigned to an infantry regiment in the Podolsk province, life in which became the basis for many of his works.

In 1894 the writer resigns and moves to Kyiv. The following years were devoted to wandering through Russia.

In 1890, he introduced readers to many publications - “Moloch”, “Yuzovsky Plant”, “Werewolf”, “Olesya”, “Kat”.