Korney Ivanovich Chukovsky (short biography). Brief biography for schoolchildren

Korney Ivanovich Chukovsky(birth name - Nikolai Vasilyevich Korneychukov, March 19 (31), 1882, St. Petersburg - October 28, 1969, Moscow) - Russian and Soviet poet, publicist, critic, also translator and literary critic, is known primarily for children's fairy tales in verse and prose. Father of writers Nikolai Korneevich Chukovsky and Lydia Korneevna Chukovskaya.

Origin

Nikolai Korneychukov was born on March 31, 1882 in St. Petersburg. The frequently occurring date of his birth, April 1, appeared due to an error when switching to new style(13 days added, not 12, as it should have been for the 19th century).
Writer for many years suffered from being “illegitimate.” His father was Emmanuel Solomonovich Levenson, in whose family Korney Chukovsky’s mother, Poltava peasant Ekaterina Osipovna Korneychuk, lived as a servant.
The father left them, and the mother moved to Odessa. There the boy was sent to a gymnasium, but in the fifth grade he was expelled due to his low origin. He described these events in his autobiographical story “The Silver Coat of Arms.”
The patronymic “Vasilievich” was given to Nikolai by his godfather. At first literary activity Korneychukov, for a long time burdened by his illegitimacy (as can be seen from his diary of the 1920s), he used the pseudonym “Korney Chukovsky,” which was later joined by a fictitious patronymic, “Ivanovich.” After the revolution, the combination “Korney Ivanovich Chukovsky” became his real name, patronymic and surname.
His children - Nikolai, Lydia, Boris and Maria (Murochka), who died in childhood, to whom many of their father's children's poems are dedicated - bore (at least after the revolution) the surname Chukovsky and the patronymic Korneevich / Korneevna.

Journalistic activity before the revolution

Since 1901, Chukovsky began writing articles in Odessa News. Chukovsky was introduced to literature by his close friend at school, journalist Vladimir Jabotinsky, who later became an outstanding political figure in the Zionist movement. Jabotinsky was also the groom's guarantor at the wedding of Chukovsky and Maria Borisovna Goldfeld.
Then in 1903 Chukovsky was sent as a correspondent to London, where he became thoroughly acquainted with English literature.
Returning to Russia during the revolution of 1905, Chukovsky was captured by revolutionary events, visited the battleship Potemkin, and began publishing the satirical magazine Signal in St. Petersburg. Among the magazine's authors were: famous writers like Kuprin, Fyodor Sologub and Teffi. After the fourth issue, he was arrested for lese majeste. Fortunately for Korney Ivanovich, he was defended by the famous lawyer Gruzenberg, who achieved an acquittal.

Chukovsky (seated left) in Ilya Repin's studio, Kuokkala, November 1910. Repin reads a message about Tolstoy's death. An unfinished portrait of Chukovsky is visible on the wall. Photo by Karl Bulla.

In 1906, Korney Ivanovich arrived in the Finnish town of Kuokkala (now Repino, Leningrad region), where he became close acquaintances with the artist Ilya Repin and the writer Korolenko. It was Chukovsky who convinced Repin to take his writing seriously and prepare a book of memoirs, “Distant Close.” Chukovsky lived in Kuokkala for about 10 years. From the combination of the words Chukovsky and Kuokkala, “Chukokkala” (invented by Repin) is formed - the name of the handwritten humorous almanac that Korney Ivanovich led to last days of your life.

In 1907, Chukovsky published translations of Walt Whitman. The book became popular, which increased Chukovsky's fame in literary environment. Chukovsky becomes an influential critic, trashes tabloid literature (articles about Anastasia Verbitskaya, Lydia Charskaya, “Nat Pinkerton”, etc.), wittily defends futurists - both in articles and in public lectures- from the attacks of traditional criticism (I met Mayakovsky in Kuokkala and later became friends with him), although the futurists themselves are not always grateful to him for this; develops his own recognizable style (reconstruction of the psychological appearance of the writer based on numerous quotes from him).

In 1916, Chukovsky with a delegation State Duma visited England again. In 1917, Patterson’s book “With the Jewish Detachment at Gallipoli” (about the Jewish Legion in the British Army) was published, edited and with a foreword by Chukovsky.

After the revolution, Chukovsky continued to engage in criticism, publishing his two most famous books about the work of his contemporaries - “The Book about Alexander Blok” (“Alexander Blok as a Man and Poet”) and “Akhmatova and Mayakovsky.” The circumstances of the Soviet era were ungrateful for critical activity, and Chukovsky had to “bury” this talent of his, which he later regretted.

Literary criticism

Since 1917, Chukovsky sat down to work for many years on Nekrasov, his favorite poet. Through his efforts the first came out soviet assembly poems by Nekrasov. Chukovsky completed work on it only in 1926, having revised a lot of manuscripts and provided the texts with scientific comments.
In addition to Nekrasov, Chukovsky was engaged in the biography and work of a number of others writers of the 19th century centuries (Chekhov, Dostoevsky, Sleptsov), participated in the preparation of the text and editing of many publications. Chukovsky considered Chekhov to be the writer closest to himself in spirit.

Children's poems

The passion for children's literature, which made Chukovsky famous, began relatively late, when he was already a famous critic. In 1916, Chukovsky compiled the collection “Yolka” and wrote his first fairy tale “Crocodile”.
In 1923 it was released famous fairy tales"Moidodyr" and "Cockroach".
Chukovsky had another passion in his life - studying the psyche of children and how they master speech. He recorded his observations of children, their verbal creativity in the book “From Two to Five” in 1933.
“All my other works are overshadowed to such an extent by my children’s fairy tales that in the minds of many readers, except for “Moidodyrs” and “Mukh-Tsokotukh”, I wrote nothing at all.”

Other works

In the 1930s Chukovsky deals a lot with the theory of literary translation (The Art of Translation, 1936, was republished before the start of the war, in 1941, under the title High art") and actual translations into Russian (M. Twain, O. Wilde, R. Kipling, etc., including in the form of “retellings” for children).
He begins to write memoirs, which he worked on until the end of his life (“Contemporaries” in the “ZhZL” series).

Chukovsky and the Bible for children

In the 1960s, K. Chukovsky started retelling the Bible for children. He attracted writers and literary figures to this project and carefully edited their work. The project itself was very difficult due to the anti-religious position of the Soviet government. A book called " Tower of Babel and other ancient legends" was published by the publishing house "Children's Literature" in 1968. However, the entire circulation was destroyed by the authorities. The first book publication available to the reader took place in 1990. In 2001, the publishing houses “Rosman” and “Dragonfly” began publishing the book under the title “The Tower of Babel and Other Biblical Legends.”

Recent years

IN recent years Chukovsky is a popular favorite, a laureate of a number of state prizes and orders, but at the same time maintained contacts with dissidents ( Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Joseph Brodsky, the Litvinovs, his daughter Lydia was also a prominent human rights activist). At the dacha in Peredelkino, where he lived constantly in recent years, he organized meetings with local children, talked with them, read poetry, invited them to meetings famous people, famous pilots, artists, writers, poets. Peredelkino children, who have long since become adults, still remember these childhood gatherings at Chukovsky’s dacha.
Korney Ivanovich died on October 28, 1969 from viral hepatitis. At the dacha in Peredelkino, where the writer lived most of life, his museum now operates.
From the memoirs of Yu. G. Oksman:

Lidia Korneevna Chukovskaya submitted in advance to the Board of the Moscow branch of the Writers' Union a list of those whom her father asked not to invite to the funeral. This is probably why Ark is not visible. Vasilyev and other Black Hundreds from literature. Very few Muscovites came to say goodbye: there was not a single line in the newspapers about the upcoming funeral service. There are few people, but, as at the funeral of Ehrenburg, Paustovsky, the police - darkness. In addition to uniforms, there are many “boys” in civilian clothes, with gloomy, contemptuous faces. The boys began by cordoning off the chairs in the hall, not allowing anyone to linger or sit down. A seriously ill Shostakovich came. In the lobby he was not allowed to take off his coat. It was forbidden to sit in a chair in the hall. There was a scandal. Civil funeral service. The stuttering S. Mikhalkov utters pompous words that do not fit in with his indifferent, even devil-may-care intonation: “From the Union of Writers of the USSR...”, “From the Union of Writers of the RSFSR...”, “From the publishing house Children’s Literature...”, “From the Ministry education and the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences ... "All this is pronounced with stupid significance, with which, probably, the doormen of the last century, during the departure of guests, called the carriage of Count such-and-such and Prince such-and-such. Who are we burying, finally? The official bonzu or the cheerful and mocking clever Korney? A. Barto rattled off her “lesson.” Cassil performed a complex verbal pirouette to make his listeners understand how personally close he was to the deceased. And only L. Panteleev, breaking the blockade of officialdom, clumsily and sadly said a few words about the civilian face of Chukovsky. Relatives of Korney Ivanovich asked L. Kabo to speak, but when in a crowded room she sat down at the table to sketch out the text of her speech, KGB General Ilyin (in the world - secretary for organizational issues of the Moscow Writers' Organization) approached her and correctly but firmly told her, that she won’t be allowed to perform.

He was buried there, in the cemetery in Peredelkino.

Family

Wife (since May 26, 1903) - Maria Borisovna Chukovskaya (nee Maria Aron-Berovna Goldfeld, 1880-1955). Daughter of accountant Aron-Ber Ruvimovich Goldfeld and housewife Tuba (Tauba) Oizerovna Goldfeld.
The son is a poet, writer and translator Nikolai Korneevich Chukovsky (1904-1965). His wife is translator Marina Nikolaevna Chukovskaya (1905-1993).
Daughter - writer Lydia Korneevna Chukovskaya (1907-1996). Her first husband was the literary critic and literary historian Caesar Samoilovich Volpe (1904-1941), her second was the physicist and popularizer of science Matvey Petrovich Bronstein (1906-1938).
Granddaughter - literary critic, chemist Elena Tsesarevna Chukovskaya (born 1931).
Daughter - Maria Korneevna Chukovskaya (1920-1931), the heroine of children's poems and father's stories.
Grandson - cinematographer Evgeny Borisovich Chukovsky (1937 - 1997).
Nephew - mathematician Vladimir Abramovich Rokhlin (1919-1984).

Addresses in St. Petersburg - Petrograd - Leningrad

August 1905-1906 - Academichesky Lane, 5;
1906 - autumn 1917 - apartment building- Kolomenskaya street, 11;
autumn 1917-1919 - apartment building of I. E. Kuznetsov - Zagorodny Avenue, 27;
1919-1938 - apartment building - Manezhny Lane, 6.

Awards

Chukovsky was awarded the Order of Lenin (1957), three Orders of the Red Banner of Labor, as well as medals. In 1962, he was awarded the Lenin Prize in the USSR, and in Great Britain he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Literature Honoris causa from the University of Oxford.

List of works

Fairy tales

Aibolit (1929)
English folk songs
Barmaley (1925)
Stolen sun
Crocodile (1916)
Moidodyr (1923)
Fly-Tsokotukha (1924)
Let's defeat Barmaley! (1942)
The Adventures of Bibigon (1945-1946)
Confusion (1926)
Kingdom of Dogs (1912)
Cockroach (1921)
Telephone (1926)
Toptygin and Lisa (1934)
Toptygin and Luna
Fedorino grief (1926)
Chick
What did Mura do when they read the fairy tale “The Miracle Tree” to her?
Miracle Tree (1924)
Adventures of a white mouse

Poems for children
Glutton
Elephant reads
Zakalyaka
Piglet
Hedgehogs laugh
Sandwich
Fedotka
Turtle
Pigs
Garden
Song about poor boots
camel
Tadpoles
Bebeka
Joy
Great-great-great-grandchildren
Christmas tree
Fly in the bath

Stories
Solar
Silver coat of arms

Works on translation
Principles of Literary Translation (1919, 1920)
The Art of Translation (1930, 1936)
High Art (1941, 1964, 1966)

Preschool education
From two to five

Memories
Memories of Repin
Yuri Tynyanov
Boris Zhitkov
Irakli Andronikov

Articles
Alive as life
To the eternally youthful question
The story of my "Aibolit"
How was “Tsokotukha Fly” written?
Confessions of an old storyteller
Chukokkala page
About Sherlock Holmes
Hospital No. 11

Editions of essays
Korney Chukovsky. Collected works in six volumes. M., Publishing house " Fiction", 1965-1969.
Korney Chukovsky. Collected works in 15 volumes. M., Terra - Book Club", 2008.

Selected Quotes

My phone rang.
- Who's talking?
- Elephant.
- Where?
- From a camel... - PHONE

...We must, we must wash ourselves
In the mornings and evenings,
And to unclean chimney sweeps -
Shame and disgrace! Shame and disgrace!.. - MOIDODYR

Little children! Not for the world
Don't go for a walk in Africa, children!
In Africa there are sharks, in Africa there are gorillas,
There are big angry crocodiles in Africa
They will bite you, beat you and offend you, -
Don't go for a walk in Africa, children!
In Africa there is a robber, in Africa there is a villain,
In Africa there is a terrible Barmaley... - BARMALEY

Korney Ivanovich Chukovsky

Biography

Korney Ivanovich Chukovsky(at birth given the name Nikolai Vasilyevich Korneychukov) is a Russian poet, famous children's writer, translator, publicist, critic and literary critic. His children Nikolai Korneevich Chukovsky and Lidiya Korneevna Chukovskaya are also famous writers.

Childhood years

On March 19, 1882 (new style 31), Nikolai Korneychukov was born in St. Petersburg. Some consider his date of birth to be April 1, which is due to incorrect translation of dates to the new style.

Nikolai was “illegitimate,” which caused him to suffer a lot. Mother Ekaterina Osipovna Korneychukova was a Poltava peasant woman and worked in the house of Emmanuel Solomonovich Levenson. Their family lived in St. Petersburg for about three years, they already had a child - daughter Maria or Marusya. After Nikolai's birth, his father married a woman from high society, and my mother moved to Odessa. In Odessa, he studied at the gymnasium until the fifth grade, from which he was expelled due to his low origin. Autobiographical story The Silver Coat of Arms describes this period of his life.

According to the metric, he and his sister did not have a middle name. His patronymic “Vasilievich” was given by the name of his godfather, and his sister used the patronymic “Emmanuilovna”. He wrote all his works under the pseudonym “Korney Chukovsky”. After the revolution, the pseudonym “Korney Ivanovich Chukovsky” became his legal name. All his children - sons Nikolai and Boris, daughters Lydia and Maria, after the revolution bore the surname Chukovsky and, accordingly, the patronymic Korneevich.

Youth

Chukovsky began writing children's literature when he became famous critic. The first collection “The Christmas Tree” and the fairy tale “Crocodile” were published in 1916. Some of the most famous fairy tales“Cockroach” and “Moidodyr” were written in 1923.

Korney Chukovsky was also interested in issues of the child’s psyche and methods of teaching speech. He outlined all his thoughts on this topic in the 1933 book “From Two to Five.” Most readers know him only as a children's writer.

30s in the life of the writer

Among critics, the term “Chukovism” appears. This leads to the fact that at the end of 1929 Chukovsky publishes a letter renouncing fairy tales, and he also promises to write a collection “Merry Collective Farm”. Renunciation was difficult for him; he never wrote the collection. During these years, his youngest daughter Murochka left his life, and his daughter Lydia’s husband was shot.

Beginning in 1930, Chukovsky began to engage in translations. In 1936, his book “The Art of Translation” was published, later republished under the title “High Art”. Also at this time he was translating into Russian the works of R. Kipling, M. Twain, O. Wilde. At this time he begins to write memoirs. They were published posthumously under the title "Diaries 1901 - 1969".

Maturity

In the 60s, Korney Chukovsky began working on a retelling of the Bible for children. Several writers worked on this book, but all texts were edited by Korney Chukovsky. Due to the anti-religious position of the authorities, the word God was replaced by “Wizard Yahweh.” In 1968, the Bible was published, and it was called “The Tower of Babel and Other Ancient Legends,” but all copies were destroyed. The book was published only in 1990.

Recent years

During his life, Chukovsky became a laureate of several state awards, a holder of orders, and gained nationwide love. Nevertheless, he communicated with dissidents. He spent his last years at his dacha in Peredelkino, communicating with local children, reading poetry, and arranging meetings with famous people. Korney Ivanovich died of viral hepatitis on October 28, 1969. His museum is now open in Peredelkino.

Korney Chukovsky

Russian Soviet poet, publicist, literary critic, translator and literary critic, children's writer, journalist

Brief biography

Korney Ivanovich Chukovsky(real name - Nikolay Korneychukov, March 19, 1882, St. Petersburg, - October 28, 1969, Moscow) - Russian and Soviet poet, publicist, literary critic, translator and literary critic, children's writer, journalist. Father of writers Nikolai Korneevich Chukovsky and Lydia Korneevna Chukovskaya. As of 2015, he was the most published author of children's literature in Russia: 132 books and brochures were published during the year with a circulation of 2.4105 million copies.

Childhood

Nikolai Korneychukov, who later took literary pseudonym Korney Chukovsky, was born in St. Petersburg on March 19 (31), 1882 to a peasant woman, Ekaterina Osipovna Korneychukova; his father was the hereditary honorary citizen Emmanuel Solomonovich Levenson (1851-?), in whose family Korney Chukovsky’s mother lived as a servant. Their marriage was not formally registered, since this required the baptism of the father, but they lived together for at least three years. Born before Nicholas eldest daughter Maria (Marusya). Soon after the birth of his son, Levenson left his illegitimate family, married “a woman of his circle” and moved to Baku, where he opened the “First Printing Partnership”; Chukovsky's mother was forced to move to Odessa.

Nikolai Korneychukov spent his childhood in Odessa and Nikolaev. In Odessa, the family settled in an outbuilding, in the Makri house on Novorybnaya Street (now Panteleimonovskaya), No. 6. In 1887, the Korneychukovs changed their apartment, moving to the address: Barshman's house, Kanatny Lane, No. 3. Five-year-old Nikolai was sent to kindergarten Madame Bekhteeva, about his stay in which he left the following memories: “We marched to music and drew pictures. The oldest among us was a curly-haired boy with black lips, whose name was Volodya Zhabotinsky. That's when I met the future national hero Israel - in 1888 or 1889!!!”. For a while future writer studied at the second Odessa gymnasium (later became the fifth). His classmate at that time was Boris Zhitkov (in the future also a writer and traveler), with whom he had young Nicholas Korneichukova developed friendly relations. Chukovsky never managed to graduate from high school: he was expelled from the fifth grade, according to his own statements, due to his low origin. He described these events in his autobiographical story “The Silver Coat of Arms.”

According to the metric, Nikolai and his sister Maria, as illegitimates, did not have a middle name; in other documents of the pre-revolutionary period, his patronymic was indicated in different ways - Vasilyevich (in the marriage and baptism certificate of his son Nikolai, it was subsequently fixed in most later biographies as part of the "real name"; given by godfather), Stepanovich, Emmanuilovich, Manuilovich, Emelyanovich, sister Marusya bore the patronymic Emmanuilovna or Manuilovna. From the beginning of his literary activity, Korneychukov used the pseudonym Korney Chukovsky, which was later joined by a fictitious patronymic - Ivanovich. After the revolution, the combination “Korney Ivanovich Chukovsky” became his real name, patronymic and surname.

According to the memoirs of K. Chukovsky, he “never had such luxury as a father or even a grandfather,” which in his youth and youth served as a constant source of shame and mental suffering for him.

His children - Nikolai, Lydia, Boris and Maria (Murochka), who died in childhood, to whom many of their father's children's poems are dedicated - bore (at least after the revolution) the surname Chukovsky and the patronymic Korneevich / Korneevna.

Journalistic activity before the October Revolution

Since 1901, Chukovsky began writing articles in Odessa News. Chukovsky was introduced to literature by his close gymnasium friend, journalist V. E. Zhabotinsky. Jabotinsky was also the groom's guarantor at the wedding of Chukovsky and Maria Borisovna Goldfeld.

Then in 1903 Chukovsky, as the only newspaper correspondent who knew English language(which he learned independently from Ohlendorf’s Self-Teacher of the English Language), and, tempted by the high salary for those times - the publisher promised 100 rubles a month - he went to London as a correspondent for Odessa News, where he went with his young wife. In addition to Odessa News, Chukovsky’s English articles were published in Southern Review and some Kyiv newspapers. But fees from Russia arrived irregularly, and then stopped altogether. The pregnant wife had to be sent back to Odessa. Chukovsky earned money by copying catalogs in British Museum. But in London, Chukovsky became thoroughly acquainted with English literature - he read Dickens and Thackeray in the original.

Returning to Odessa at the end of 1904, Chukovsky settled with his family on Bazarnaya Street No. 2 and plunged into the events of the 1905 revolution. Chukovsky was captured by the revolution. He visited the mutinous battleship Potemkin twice, among other things, accepting letters to loved ones from the mutinous sailors.

In St. Petersburg he began publishing the satirical magazine Signal. Among the magazine's authors were such famous writers as Kuprin, Fyodor Sologub and Teffi. After the fourth issue, he was arrested for lese majeste. He was defended by the famous lawyer Gruzenberg, who achieved an acquittal. Chukovsky was under arrest for 9 days.

In 1906, Korney Ivanovich arrived in the Finnish town of Kuokkala (now Repino, Kurortny district of St. Petersburg), where he made close acquaintance with the artist Ilya Repin and the writer Korolenko. It was Chukovsky who convinced Repin to take his writing seriously and prepare a book of memoirs, “Distant Close.” Chukovsky lived in Kuokkala for about 10 years. From the combination of the words Chukovsky and Kuokkala, “Chukokkala” (invented by Repin) is formed - the name of the handwritten humorous almanac that Korney Ivanovich kept until the last days of his life.

In 1907, Chukovsky published translations of Walt Whitman. The book became popular, which increased Chukovsky's fame in the literary community. Chukovsky became an influential critic, mockingly speaking about works that were popular at the time mass literature: books by Lydia Charskaya and Anastasia Verbitskaya, “Pinkertonism” and others, wittily defended the futurists - both in articles and in public lectures - from the attacks of traditional criticism (he met Mayakovsky in Kuokkala and later became friends with him), although the futurists themselves are far away they were not always grateful to him for this; developed his own recognizable style (reconstruction of the psychological appearance of the writer based on numerous quotes from him).

Osip Mandelstam, Korney Chukovsky, Benedikt Livshits and Yuri Annenkov, farewell to the front. Random photo of Karl Bulla. 1914

In 1916, Chukovsky and a delegation from the State Duma visited England again. In 1917, Patterson’s book “With the Jewish Detachment at Gallipoli” (about the Jewish Legion in the British Army) was published, edited and with a foreword by Chukovsky.

After the revolution, Chukovsky continued to engage in criticism, publishing his two most famous books about the work of his contemporaries - “The Book about Alexander Blok” (“Alexander Blok as a Man and Poet”) and “Akhmatova and Mayakovsky.” The circumstances of the Soviet era turned out to be ungrateful for critical activity, and Chukovsky had to “bury” this talent of his, which he later regretted.

Literary criticism

V.V. Mayakovsky with Boris and K.I. Chukovsky

In 1908 it was published critical essays about the writers Chekhov, Balmont, Blok, Sergeev-Tsensky, Kuprin, Gorky, Artsybashev, Merezhkovsky, Bryusov and others, who compiled the collection “ From Chekhov to the present day”, which went through three editions over the course of a year.

Since 1917, Chukovsky began many years of work on Nekrasov, his favorite poet. Through his efforts, the first Soviet collection of Nekrasov’s poems was published. Chukovsky finished work on it only in 1926, having revised a lot of manuscripts and provided the texts with scientific comments. The monograph “Nekrasov’s Mastery,” published in 1952, was reprinted many times, and in 1962 Chukovsky was awarded the Lenin Prize for it. After 1917, it was possible to publish a significant part of Nekrasov’s poems, which were either previously prohibited tsarist censorship, or they were “vetoed” by copyright holders. About a quarter of Nekrasov’s currently known poetic lines were put into circulation by Korney Chukovsky. In addition, in the 1920s, he discovered and published manuscripts of Nekrasov’s prose works (“The Life and Adventures of Tikhon Trosnikov”, “The Thin Man” and others).

In addition to Nekrasov, Chukovsky studied the biography and work of a number of other writers of the 19th century (Chekhov, Dostoevsky, Sleptsov), which is the subject of, in particular, his book “People and Books of the Sixties,” and participated in the preparation of the text and editing of many publications. Chukovsky considered Chekhov to be the writer closest to himself in spirit.

Children's poems and fairy tales

Even though the tales were printed large circulation and went through many editions, they did not fully meet the tasks of Soviet pedagogy. In February 1928, Pravda published an article by Deputy people's commissar education of the RSFSR N.K. Krupskaya “About Chukovsky’s Crocodile”:

Such chatter is disrespectful to the child. First, he is lured with carrots - cheerful, innocent rhymes and comical images, and along the way they are given some kind of dregs to swallow, which will not pass without a trace for him. I think we don’t need to give “Krokodil” to our guys...

Soon, the term “Chukovism” arose among party critics and editors. Having accepted the criticism, Chukovsky in December 1929 in “ Literary newspaper“will publish a letter in which he will “renounce” old fairy tales and declare his intentions to change the direction of his work by writing a collection of poems “Merry Collective Farm”, but will not keep his promise. The collection will never come out from his pen, and the next fairy tale will be written only 13 years later.

Despite criticism of the “Chukovism”, it was during this period that in a number of cities Soviet Union are installed sculptural compositions based on Chukovsky's fairy tales. The most famous fountain is “Barmaley” (“Children’s round dance”, “Children and a crocodile”), the work of a prominent Soviet sculptor R. R. Iodko, installed in 1930 according to a standard design in Stalingrad and other cities of Russia and Ukraine. The composition is an illustration of fairy tale of the same name Chukovsky. The Stalingrad fountain will become famous as one of the few structures that survived the Battle of Stalingrad.

By the early 1930s, another hobby had appeared in Chukovsky’s life - studying the psyche of children and how they master speech. He recorded his observations of children and their verbal creativity in the book “From Two to Five” (1933).

All my other works are overshadowed to such an extent by my children's fairy tales that in the minds of many readers, apart from “Moidodyrs” and “Tsokotukha Fly”, I wrote nothing at all.
Chukovsky K. I. “About myself” // Collected works: In 15 volumes. T. 1. - 2nd ed., electronic, revised.. - M.: FTM Agency, Ltd., 2013. - P. 11 -12. - 598 p.

Other works

In the 1930s, Chukovsky worked a lot on the theory of literary translation (the book “The Art of Translation,” published in 1936, was republished before the start of the war, in 1941, under the title “High Art”) and translations into Russian themselves (M. Twain, O . Wilde, R. Kipling and others, including in the form of “retellings” for children).

He begins to write memoirs, which he worked on until the end of his life (“Contemporaries” in the “ZhZL” series). “Diaries 1901-1969” were published posthumously.

During the war he was evacuated to Tashkent. Youngest son Boris died at the front.

As the NKGB reported to the Central Committee, during the war years Chukovsky spoke out: “...With all my soul I wish the death of Hitler and the collapse of his delusional ideas. With the fall of Nazi despotism, the world of democracy will come face to face with Soviet despotism. We'll wait."

On March 1, 1944, the Pravda newspaper published an article by P. Yudin “The vulgar and harmful concoction of K. Chukovsky,” in which an analysis of Chukovsky’s book “Let’s Defeat Barmaley!” published in 1943 in Tashkent was arranged. (Aibolitia is at war with Ferocity and its king Barmaley), and this book was recognized in the article as harmful:

K. Chukovsky's fairy tale is a harmful concoction that can distort modern reality in children's perceptions.
“A War Tale” by K. Chukovsky characterizes the author as a person who either does not understand the duty of a writer in the Patriotic War, or who deliberately trivializes the great tasks of raising children in the spirit of socialist patriotism.

Chukovsky and the Bible for children

In the 1960s, K. Chukovsky conceived a retelling of the Bible for children. He attracted writers and literary figures to this project and carefully edited their work. The project itself was very difficult due to the anti-religious position Soviet power. In particular, Chukovsky was demanded that the words “God” and “Jews” not be mentioned in the book; Through the efforts of writers, the pseudonym “Magician Yahweh” was invented for God. The book entitled “The Tower of Babel and Other Ancient Legends” was published by the publishing house “Children's Literature” in 1968. However, the entire circulation was destroyed by the authorities. The circumstances of the publication ban were later described by Valentin Berestov, one of the authors of the book: “It was the very height of the great cultural revolution in China. The Red Guards, noticing the publication, loudly demanded that the head of the old revisionist Chukovsky, who was clogging the minds of Soviet children with religious nonsense, be smashed. The West responded with the headline “New discovery of the Red Guards,” and our authorities reacted in the usual way.” The book was published in 1990.

Recent years

In recent years, Chukovsky was a popular favorite, a laureate of a number of state awards and a holder of orders, but at the same time maintained contacts with dissidents (Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the Litvinovs, his daughter Lydia was also a prominent human rights activist). At his dacha in Peredelkino, where he lived permanently in recent years, he organized meetings with local children, talked with them, read poetry, and invited famous people, famous pilots, artists, writers, and poets to meetings. Peredelkino children, who have long since become adults, still remember these childhood gatherings at Chukovsky’s dacha.

In 1966, he signed a letter from 25 cultural and scientific figures to the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee L.I. Brezhnev against the rehabilitation of Stalin.

Korney Ivanovich died on October 28, 1969 from viral hepatitis. At the dacha in Peredelkino, where the writer lived most of his life, his museum now operates.

From the memoirs of Yu. G. Oksman:

Lidia Korneevna Chukovskaya submitted in advance to the Board of the Moscow branch of the Writers' Union a list of those whom her father asked not to invite to the funeral. This is probably why Arkady Vasiliev and other Black Hundreds are not visible from literature. Very few Muscovites came to say goodbye: there was not a single line in the newspapers about the upcoming funeral service. There are few people, but, as at the funeral of Ehrenburg, Paustovsky, the police - darkness. In addition to uniforms, there are many “boys” in civilian clothes, with gloomy, contemptuous faces. The boys began by cordoning off the chairs in the hall, not allowing anyone to linger or sit down. A seriously ill Shostakovich came. In the lobby he was not allowed to take off his coat. It was forbidden to sit in a chair in the hall. There was a scandal.
Civil funeral service. The stuttering S. Mikhalkov utters pompous words that do not fit in with his indifferent, even devil-may-care intonation: “From the Union of Writers of the USSR...”, “From the Union of Writers of the RSFSR...”, “From the publishing house “Children’s Literature”...”, “ From the Ministry of Education and the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences...” All this is pronounced with the stupid significance with which, probably, the doormen of the last century, during the departure of guests, called for the carriage of Count such-and-such and Prince such-and-such. Who are we burying, finally? The official bonzu or the cheerful and mocking clever Korney? A. Barto rattled off her “lesson.” Cassil performed a complex verbal pirouette to make his listeners understand how personally close he was to the deceased. And only L. Panteleev, breaking the blockade of officialdom, clumsily and sadly said a few words about the civilian face of Chukovsky. Relatives of Korney Ivanovich asked L. Kabo to speak, but when in a crowded room she sat down at the table to sketch out the text of her speech, KGB General Ilyin (in the world - secretary for organizational issues of the Moscow Writers' Organization) approached her and correctly but firmly told her, that she won’t be allowed to perform.

He was buried in the cemetery in Peredelkino.

Family

Wife (since May 26, 1903) - Maria Borisovna Chukovskaya (nee Maria Aron-Berovna Goldfeld, 1880-1955). Daughter of accountant Aron-Ber Ruvimovich Goldfeld and housewife Tuba (Tauba) Oizerovna Goldfeld.
- The son is a poet, prose writer and translator Nikolai Korneevich Chukovsky (1904-1965). His wife is translator Marina Nikolaevna Chukovskaya (1905-1993).
- Daughter - writer and dissident Lydia Korneevna Chukovskaya (1907-1996). Her first husband was the literary critic and literary historian Caesar Samoilovich Volpe (1904-1941), her second was the physicist and popularizer of science Matvey Petrovich Bronstein (1906-1938).
- Son - Boris Korneevich Chukovsky (1910-1941), died shortly after the start of the Great Patriotic War, in the fall of 1941, returning from reconnaissance near the Borodino field.
- Daughter - Maria Korneevna Chukovskaya (Murochka) (1920-1931), the heroine of her father’s children’s poems and stories.
  - Granddaughter - Natalya Nikolaevna Kostyukova (Chukovskaya), Tata (born 1925), microbiologist, professor, doctor medical sciences, Honored Scientist of Russia.
  - Granddaughter - literary critic, chemist Elena Tsesarevna Chukovskaya (1931-2015).
  - Grandchildren - Nikolai Nikolaevich Chukovsky (born 1933), communications engineer; Evgeny Borisovich Chukovsky)