Boris Shergin. Wizards come to people
This collection represents the most complete edition of the works of Boris Viktorovich Shergin (1893-1973) - a remarkable Russian writer, storyteller, and expert on ancient Russian folk art. Along with Shergin’s well-known fairy tales and short stories, the collection includes his early works, never republished, published in newspapers and magazines and therefore difficult to access for the reader, as well as those that could not be published in the USSR for censorship reasons. Some fairy tales and essays are being republished for the first time. Recordings of epics made from Shergin’s voice over the years are also given. B.V.’s diary will appear before the reader in its most complete form. Shergin, which he led for several decades. The collection is illustrated both with works by famous book artists and with drawings by Shergin himself, preserved in the writer’s archive and never published. The first volume of the collection includes epics, historical songs and fairy tales of the writer.
Illustrations in the book: Vladimir Pertsov, Anatoly Eliseev, Victor Chizhikov, Vladimir Favorsky, Evgeny Monin.
Old folk art, along with the old way of life and way of life, has disappeared irrevocably from our lives. In its place came civilization and a varied variety of fleeting topical entertainment.
Our generation still remembers the old things alive. And now, having lost him forever, we begin to understand the loss. We did not take care of the old beauty, we did not even know it properly and did not know how to appreciate it or love it. Now they have almost buried it in museums and thick ethnographic works. Meanwhile, we still need her too much. In old folk art - our homeland. The Motherland is in everything: in the landscape, and in the houses, and in the crosses on the graves, and in antiquity, and most of all in art. A man without a homeland is an orphan. Because the soul is deeply rooted in its native soil, and if you pull it out, the roots will dry out and there will be a perecatipole. We were constantly torn away from our native soil and implanted with foreign cultures. It is necessary to preserve at least the memory of past wealth - not in a mutilated or alcoholized form, but alive and active.
If lullabies have fallen silent, old women have forgotten fairy tales, and old men have forgotten antiquities, can’t we adopt their vanishing skills? Not in a dead ethnographic record, but in an art book - to capture with love and reverence their full-bodied and spare language, the depth and integrity of their moods, the monotonous rhythm of simple melodies, naive and strict images.
So we conceived a series of books from the field of Russian folklore.So that every book is for both young and old.
Folk art has lived for centuries. It is not suitable to enclose it in modern, fleeting books that will be leafed through and forgotten.The old people wrote their books for a long time, choosing, without haste, what suited what. Books passed from generation to generation.
And in those books, the verbal image - the text - and the facial image - the illustration - did not argue with each other and did not shout separately, but in full and strict agreement influenced the reader's soul.
Nowadays the artist and the writer are separated from the book by lithographic stone and type.But love and attention to the material fully depends on them.In this respect the author has done all that he could do under the given conditions.
The words, spoken over the centuries in a melodious recitative, are imprinted in their living speech - hence the phonetic spelling of the book. Ancient words sound unusual for the modern reader, perhaps they make it difficult for him, and illustrations in the spirit and style of the images in front books come to his aid. Words, melody and illustrations - all together give the mood and introduce you to the spirit of old art. All these antiquities still live in the distant seaside in Arkhangelsk land.
Their texts in different versions can be found in many records of ethnographers and folklore collectors. So, in Grigoriev’s notes - “Arkhangelsk epics and historical songs” (three volumes), in Markov’s books - “White Sea epics”
and Onchukov’s “Pechora epics” and others. But the antiquities of this collection were perceived by the author from childhood from older generations in the living spontaneity of moods. Hence the originality, authenticity and integrity of these texts, which are in no way touched by scientific analysis, which often kills living creative thought.
A. Pokrovskaya, 1924
Victor Chizhikov talks about Boris Viktorovich Shergin and his illustrations for his books:
Anatoly Mikhailovich Eliseev talks about Boris Viktorovich Shergin and his illustrations for his books:
This was the famous storyteller and writer Boris Viktorovich Shergin (emphasis on the first syllable). The soldiers forgot about their wounds, listening to stories about Dvina shipmen and helmsmen, about White Sea fishermen and storytellers.
“The Wizard of Russian Speech”, “the storyteller of the Arkhangelsk land”, “the poetic soul of the North” and even “the Pomeranian Homer” - all this is about him, an original storyteller and amazing storyteller. July 28 marks the 124th anniversary of the birth of Boris Shergin.
"Walk to the right, look good"
He was born in Arkhangelsk on July 28, 1893 into a maritime family. My father was a shipwright. He also found use for his talent at home. He made excellent models of sea vessels, painted doors, shutters, tables, and chest lids in the house. The Shergins' house was often visited by sailors and indigenous Pomors. The boy loved to listen to their stories and epics.The writer’s mother, Anna Ivanovna, was a hereditary Pomeranian and lived in Solombala before her marriage. “Mama was a master at speaking like a pearl, the word rolled out of her mouth. At home or on a boat, wherever she goes alone, everyone sings.”, - recalled Boris Viktorovich.
The Shergins' house stood close to the river in Arkhangelsk on the street. Kirochnaya, 12. “The rooms in the house were small, low, like cabins; The windows are short, the floors are yellow, the tables and doors are painted with herbs. Wooden birds burst from the ceilings - my father’s skill...", - so affectionately said B.V. Shergin about his parents' house.
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When Boris got older, they began to teach him to read and write at home. The father drew well and wrote the alphabet for his son, a whole book. In the alphabet - ships and steamships, fish and birds - everything is painted with paints and gold. The alphabet sign was carved and made of bone. My father gave the alphabet for the New Year, so first he wrote poems to his son, which he composed himself:
Happy New Year!
Live happily and learn.
The scientist leads, the unlearned follows.
Get up early, have fun -
Dawn forges happiness.
Walk to the right, look good.
The younger one gets a more expensive answer.
Be your father's son braver, your mother's kinder.
Live with people amicably, amicably, not burdensome,
And apart - at least give it up!
Borya went to school already able to read and write well. He excelled most of all in languages; he was not good at mathematics at all, which is why he did not like school. In winter, Borya occupied himself with books, letters and drawing. In the summer, fishing was a favorite pastime.
Young storyteller
From the age of 10, going every summer with his father to the White Sea, Boris saw how the Pomors certainly took a storyteller with them on a fishing trip.The storyteller was his father's friend, long-distance navigator Pafnutiy Osipovich Ankudinov, whom Shergin calls one of his first teachers. He remembered that Ankudinov, with his eloquent words, did whatever he wanted with people. If he wants them to cry, they cry. And he said about himself: “The artels will go to sea, the men will be beaten with chopping blocks because of me. For songs and fables, from the age of 18 I had a first name and patronymic,” that is, honor and respect.
Whether Ankudinov praised or scolded his henchmen, people passing by would always stop and listen seriously. For example, Ankudinov addressed a sleepy boy with reproaches: “You can’t get good by lying down, you can’t get away with dashing, you can’t eat sweets, you can’t wear red clothes.” In the autobiography of B.V. Shergin will write: “I loved to repeat legendary stories and fairy tales at home and somewhere among my peers.”
When he studied at the Arkhangelsk Men's Gymnasium named after. M.V. Lomonosov, in the circle of his comrades, he often told fascinating tales, constantly improvising. This is how Ilya Brazhnin remembers it.
“They were dancing in the hall, jostling around like midges in a swamp. I got bored with the hustle and bustle and wandered through the rooms. I ended up either in the office or in the teachers' room. A round-faced boy sat in the corner and told something. About twenty people sat around him and listened, looking into his mouth. I went in to listen to what was being said, I thought: I’ll stay for a minute or two and leave. But he didn’t leave, but got stuck thoroughly and for a long time.
The young storyteller was not only talented, but also unusually generous. He told one fairy tale after another and barely fell silent when impatient voices were heard from all sides:
- More. More. Please...
That’s how I met the storyteller Shergin.”
Young Shergin, like his father, was interested in drawing. But the young man, after graduating from high school, does not immediately make a choice (drawing or literature), he doubts.
Only in 1913 did his passion for art overcome, and he entered the Stroganov School and successfully studied painting and graphics. He was accepted into the 1st year, but by the New Year he was transferred to the third year for his success.
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“You have to make others happy, then you will get joy yourself.”
As a holiday, Shergin remembers his years of studying at the school. Moscow appreciated not only his abilities as an artist, but also his talent as a storyteller. He often gives oral histories about the North at libraries and clubs. |
In 1917, after graduating from college, the young man returned to Arkhangelsk and worked in the local Society for the Study of the Russian North, and then in handicraft workshops.
And in 1919, a misfortune happened to him: he was hit by a tram and lost his right leg and left toes. The girl he loved left him.
In 1922, he finally moved to Moscow for permanent residence. Here he worked for 8 years at the Institute of Children's Reading.
Almost every year Boris Shergin came to Arkhangelsk. Already in the fall of 1922, he visited his hometown, where the “Evening of a Northern Fairy Tale by the Storyteller B.V. Shergin” took place in the provincial public library. Tickets for this evening cost from five hundred thousand to three million rubles, and the entire proceeds went to the needs of the library. A newspaper report of the evening said that “the excellent reading held the whole hall in its grip.”
Boris Viktorovich liked to say: “You have to earn joy and peace, you have to make others happy, then you will receive joy yourself.” His performances and concerts were a huge success. One of the listeners recalled: “I had the opportunity to listen to Boris Viktorovich in the 3rd secondary school, he told the children several Pomeranian tales. The guys sat as if spellbound. Then, as if waking up, they applauded for a long time...”
Pomeranian incredibles
In 1924, books by B.V. began to be published in Moscow. Shergin. The first was “At the Arkhangelsk city, at the ship’s shelter” - a collection of old stories, epics, and songs. He drew the illustrations for the book himself. In these fairy tales of Shergin, kind and hardworking people live. All of them are masters of various crafts: shipbuilding, maritime crafts, wood cutting, bone carving, wood painting. Life is not easy for them, but they are kind, noble, and generous. |
Shergin's second book is “Shish Moskovsky” (1930). This is a series of short tales about the amusing adventures of the clever Shish, a tramp who knew how to trick a priest, a king, and a good fellow. Shergin collected more than 100 Pomeranian tales about Shisha. The result was a whole “buffoon epic about pranks on the rich and powerful.” In Shergin's fairy tales, Shish is cheerful and cheerful. “There is a red crest on the forehead, eyes like those of a cat. One is blue, the other is like currant. Nose up." This is how he is depicted on the cover of the book "Tales of Shisha."
Thousands of listeners froze in front of the radio receivers to listen to the incredible stories about the tricks of Shish performed by Boris Shergin - the audience was very diverse, and the success was extraordinary: it was interesting, fun, and instructive. Shish laughs and they laugh at him! Here he fooled the innkeeper and took away the roast goose, another time he was taught a lesson and forced to walk for ridiculing the relatives of the cart owner with offensive rhymes.
- Tell me what your grandfather's name was. 
— My grandfather’s name was Ivan.
Shish says:
— Your grandfather Ivan
I put the cat in my pocket.
The cat cries and sobs
Your grandfather is scolding.
The guy got excited:
— Why would my grandfather put a cat in his pocket? Why are you cleaning up such trifles?
— This, uncle, is for rhyme.
— I’ll tell you a rhyme; what's your name?
— My name is... Fedya.
Uncle says:
— If you are Fedya,
Then catch a bear in the forest.
Ride a bear
Get off my horse!"
In the next fairy tale, Shish will sue a rich merchant over a horse that he “rented” and accidentally tore off its tail.
“Shish brought a horse with a torn off tail to its merchant owner...
- Here, get a horse. We humbly thank you, sir.
The merchant saw that there was no tail:
— Did you bring the horse? Where is she going, little horse?
- Well, I'm sorry...
- Do you think this is a horse? And I thought - a bunny, without a fostak... Only the bunny has a well-known fostik planned, but here there is no fostik... Maybe it’s a witch?! But we are afraid of witch-bears!..”
After this book, real literary fame came to Boris Viktorovich. He was accepted into the Writers' Union in 1934 among the first writers.
The writer’s third book, “Arkhangelsk Stories,” includes the famous fairy tale “The Magic Ring,” which became a cartoon in 1979.
Shergin's largest and most representative book is “Sealed Glory.” It included the best short stories and tales about Shish of Moscow and antiquity. It is called “a textbook on the culture of Russian Pomerania.”
The heroes of Shergin's stories are most often people associated with the sea, with shipbuilding: helmsmen, carpenters - shipbuilders, navigators, craftsmen, artists... - courageous and selfless people. Boris Viktorovich wrote: “I like to say about those who are in love and harmony with the sea.”
“Before, on the Dvina, on the Pinega, on the Mezen, Chud lived: the people were dark-skinned, and their eyes were not like ours. We are Novgorodians, we have hair like white flax, thin, like a yellow sheaf.
We, still tenacious there, did not sew sails, did not resin carbass, but Chud knew that Rus' would come: in the local black forests a birch tree appeared, white as a candle, thin.
Here we are walking along Pinega in carbass. The men are in chain mail, their bows are tight, their arrows are feathered, and Chud, the bad one, is long gone. She retreated with the deer, with the plagues, and fell into the tundra.
So we came to the shore, where Karpova Mountain is now. Dozhzhinushka struck, and then we hid under the shore. And the weird girls, they are curious. Do they want to see what kind of Rus' it is? Does Rus' look like people? They climbed the rowan trees and are looking out for us. Because of the rain, they didn’t see that we were hiding under the shore. The rain stopped, the girls thought that Rus' had run past: “Oh, we fools missed it!”
There was morning and there was day. Our carbass moored to the shore on their own. The old people said: “This is our shore. Here forty cooked porridge.”
Then we began to tear down the forest and build mansions.
At this time, there was a war between the water king and the goblin king. The water king grabbed stones from the bottom of the river and threw them at the goblin king. The goblin king snatched fir and pine trees from the ground by the roots and threw them at the water king. We helped the water king. In gratitude for this, the water princesses do not drown the children near our shore.”
A few years after "Sealed Glory" the book "Gandvik - the Cold Sea" was published.
Shergin himself illustrated his books; I made a dust jacket, binding and flyleaf for them.
He also painted landscapes, which experts called “heavenly” and believed that Shergin “not only owned a brush, but also knew the technique of painting as deeply as not everyone knows now.” The artist painted stoves, spinning wheels, dishes, spoons, and utensils. He painted icons that he gave away to friends.
“Live for people, people will live for you!”
Throughout the war years, Shergin lived in Moscow, endured all the hardships of the war years, and read his stories in Moscow and Moscow region hospitals. He turned 50 when he began to lose his sight. There was no need to wait for a miracle of healing.After the war, Shergin lived with his brother in a huge communal apartment, occupying an uncomfortable, high-ceilinged room with an iron bed. On the table in front of the bed there is a stack of blank paper and pencils. On the wall are paintings and drawings he painted, a large model of a Pomeranian boat made by his father’s hands...
For the last 15 years of his life, Boris Shergin was blind. But the creative spirit never left him. Every evening he climbed to the second floor, where the typist lived, and dictated. He himself lived very modestly and poorly for many years, waiting for the next edition of his books. Shergin's favorite word was “joy.” Although his life was unusually difficult.
The writer died in 1973. He died as he lived, quietly, calmly. It was late autumn, end of October, Boris Viktorovich’s favorite time of year.
His grave is at the Kuzminskoye cemetery on the outskirts of Moscow. It’s not easy to find her: she doesn’t stand out in any way. On the tombstone there is only: “Boris Viktorovich Shergin” and the years of his life.
In 2008, the name of Boris Shergin was given to Solombala Library No. 5.
In October 2011, the Writer’s Memorial Room was opened in Moscow on Rozhdestvensky Boulevard, in the house 10/7, in which Shergin lived the last difficult years of his life. The room's furnishings have been recreated, and Shergin's original belongings, his manuscripts, books, and household items preserved by his heirs are presented.
On September 21, 2013, a monument to the northern storyteller Boris Shergin was unveiled in the center of Arkhangelsk. The author of the sculpture is Sergei Syukhin. This is the first monument to the writer-storyteller erected in Russia.
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In one of the Shergin fairy tales there are the following words: “Live for people, people will live for you!” Shergin gave his whole life to people. He gave generously, without calculation, without regard to benefit. During his lifetime he was called differently: a wonderful Soviet writer, the poetic soul of the North, a wizard of Russian speech... His talent was amazing: he combined in himself a storyteller, historian, poet, ethnographer, artist, actor, and expert in folk northern speech. He had an amazing gift for storytelling. He also had comedic talent.
He wrote and spoke about only one thing - about the Russian North. “Arkhangelsk for me,” wrote Shergin, “is like the golden headband of my whole life.” In his books, he preserved beautiful, bright, original northern speech, and helped protect works of oral folk art from oblivion. “I fell in love with Arkhangelsk,” said a man who had never been to this city. And he explained: “I read Shergin...”.
The last, fourth volume of the first complete works of one of the most original Russian writers of the 20th century has been published
Text: Dmitry Shevarov/RG
Fragments of books provided by the Moskvovedenie publishing house
Boris Viktorovich Shergin. Collected works in 4 volumes.
Compiled by Yu. M. Shulman.
M., “Moscow Studies”, 2012–2016
Dvina-mati,
Father sea, blue abyss, take mine
Melancholy and sadness,
And I will go out to the sea, to the blue,
I’ll look into the wide expanse:
the father steers the ship.
Drink, father!
Calm down, human sadness.
They float over the sea
the clouds are as wide as boat sails.
The father sings about the depths of the sea,
about heavenly heights?
O song, Arkhangelsk glory!
Boris Shergin.
1910s
Every Sherga epic begins its run from the White Sea. Words fly into your face like sea spray. “Oh, you are the sea, the sea, the blue sea, // The blue sea, the salty sea!..”
Shergin’s heroes fall to the sea as if they were to their own father:
Father blue sea, breadwinner!..
Hear me, blue sea...
Boris Viktorovich Shergin was born to the sound of the sea and epic songs. He was born at the top of the short northern summer - July 16, 1893. In the metric book of the Solombala Cathedral of Arkhangelsk they wrote down in ancient script: “In this summer, 1893, on the 16th day of July, a son, Boris, was born to the Arkhangelsk tradesman Viktor Vasilyev Shergin and his legal wife Anna Ioanovna...”
The boy's father was the chief mechanic of the Murmansk Shipping Company, a first-class shipwright and a talented amateur artist. It was from him that both artistic taste and golden hands passed on to Shergin. And the heart and faith come from the mother.
“In the morning I will open the window, and the eternal bright sky will look into my basement. I will also open the page of the Gospel, from here the spring of eternal life will begin to flow into my wretched soul...”
You read, and it seems that a stream of old Russian speech is simply flowing before you, word by word - like pearls being strung. Nothing special, but touching. So much so that you want to run with the book into the next room and read it out loud to your loved ones paragraph by paragraph. And then suddenly, in the middle of the page, your eyes will fill with tears, and you will want to bury yourself in a pillow and cry like a child, cry from pity and sadness, from the thought of what we have turned our native language into.
Storyteller, poet, artist, incomparable connoisseur of the Russian Word - Shergin lived in the shadows and disappeared into obscurity.
As it was said in one Pomeranian epic: “There were people who passed by, but their names and titles were forgotten...”
No, lovers of Russian antiquity knew, of course, that somewhere in Moscow, in a semi-basement room, there lived an old man - legless, half-blind, sort of like a holy fool. Sometimes they came to him and asked him to sing and tell him something from the old days. He sang and told stories, the guests marveled and left, but he remained at the low window. Passers-by and cars splashed dirt through this window, the guys hit the ball so many times while playing football...
And so far:
Shergin seems to live like a bird in his native literature, although not in the basement, but somewhere in the far corner, where readers and critics rarely look.
43 years have passed since the death of Boris Viktorovich, and only now the first collected works of the Great Pomor is being published. This unique publication is carried out by the Moskvovedenie publishing house. Along with Shergin’s well-known fairy tales and short stories, it includes his forgotten early works. Some fairy tales and essays are published for the first time. Boris Viktorovich’s diary, which he kept for many years, will be published in its most complete form.
The collection is illustrated by works of outstanding masters of illustration - Vladimir Favorsky, Vladimir Pertsov, Anatoly Eliseev, Viktor Chizhikov, Evgeny Monin, as well as drawings by Shergin himself, preserved in the writer’s archive and never published.
Opening this publication to any page, we will be amazed at how deeply and far Shergin saw through his poor and dusty window, how much beauty was revealed to him in God’s world. Let us hope that his living word will wash our sad eyes.
“A person lying in sadness always wants to get up and cheer up. And for your heart to be merry, it is not at all necessary for everyday circumstances to suddenly change. The bright word of a kind person can cheer up..."
The book is in a convenient book format (pictured next to the 20 cm doll).
In the photo in the article - the first book from the 4-volume volume of Boris Shergin, Epics, fairy tales and songs. It was not possible to find the remaining volumes of the collected works for sale, and this book has already disappeared from stores, let's hope for a reprint, or choose books from other publishers.
The collected works are illustrated both by the works of famous book artists and drawings by Shergin himself, preserved in the writer’s archive and never published. The first volume of the collection includes epics, historical songs and fairy tales of the writer.
Preface to the book.
Shergin Boris Viktorovich.
This collection represents the most complete edition of the works of Boris Viktorovich Shergin (1893-1973) - a remarkable Russian writer, storyteller, and expert on ancient Russian folk art.
Along with Shergin’s well-known fairy tales and short stories, the collection includes his early works, never reprinted, published in newspapers and magazines and therefore difficult to access by the reader, as well as those that could not be published in the USSR for censorship reasons.
Some tales and essays are being republished for the first time.
Recordings of epics made from Shergin’s voice over the years are also given.
B.V.’s diary will appear before the reader in its most complete form. Shergin, which he led for several decades.
A unique book, amazing edition.
Arkhangelsk song rivers...
Hardcover.
The edition is simply luxurious: coated paper, beautiful illustrations.
The Russian language is rich in rare beauty and musicality. You can read it again and again, it's nice to read out loud.
Fairy tale and cartoon The magic ring here is called “Good Vanya”.
Publisher: IC Moskvovedenie.
There is also volume 2 of a 4-volume volume, 3 and 4 have not yet been published (as of 2014).
