Leonid Solovyov —the eternal wanderer

 

8 Apr 2018

Leonid Solovyov —the eternal wanderer

from https://vk.com/wall-89997328_2318?lang=en

also: https://biography-life.ru/art/225-leonid-solovev-biografiya-vechnyy-strannik.html

9 April Day of Remembrance of the Writer L. V. Solovyov

 

Not everyone knows this writer, his name is rarely put on a par with the classics of Soviet literature. But when readers hear about Khoja Nasreddin, their eyes light up: we know—we know! So, he wrote about Nasreddin - Leonid Solovyov.

 

The rattling wagons, the merchants calling for buyers, the smell of spices, the scorching sun... He remembered everything as it is now, but it was almost a quarter of a century. He will never forget the warmth of the East, which promises peace and quiet. Leaning against the cold wall of the prison cell, Leonid recalled his biography: childhood, youth, youth. How much is left in the past and how much is still to come.

 

Leonid Solovyov – childhood

The biography of Leni Solovyov began with adventures. He was born in 1906 in Tripoli (Lebanon), although his father and mother were Russian. They were sent to the East on an educational mission. Both worked as teachers, taught Russian in schools.

 

When the boy was 3 years old, the family returned home. However, a calm measured life did not work: the Civil War and the famine that followed it knocked the ground from under his feet. They remembered Uzbekistan — in those years a haven for many Russian refugees. So Solovyov Lenya ended up in Kokand.

 

The boy came to this land and fell in love with it. Soon he freely communicated with traders at the bazaar, and played with local children. Although the family was not rich, Lenya grew up happy. The railway technical school where he studied, Solovyov did not like. At an opportunity, he immediately ran away from classes and rushed to friends. His father, having learned about this, decided that the son became independent and could take care of himself. A bundle with things, some money came to him and he was on his way.

 

Lena was happy with the unexpected freedom. Traveling around Turkestan, he gave children Russian lessons, helped local residents on the farm, painted signs for shops. He was paid for his work — not much, but enough for food. After all, the most important food is not the one in the plate, but the one in the head. How many things have accumulated there: wise conversations and fleeting conversations, funny cases and stories ... It was impossible to keep them in.

 

Leonid Solovyov - a biography of his personal life

 

It all started in the local newspapers. The editors willingly accepted lively funny sketches of Solovyov for publication. Already at the age of 17, he became a correspondent of the newspaper Pravda Vostochny, popular in Tashkent. And when one of the stories received the second prize of the magazine “World of Adventures”, Lena finally believed in his talent and went to conquer Moscow.

 

In the capital Soloviev entered the Institute of Cinematography at the literary and screenwriting faculty. The course was accelerated, and two years later, in 1932, the young man received a diploma. Time passed quickly, but the memories remained for a long time. It was at the institute that Lena met Tamara Sedykh, who would later call the main woman in her biography - life. The young people decided to get married. For Tamara it was the first marriage, and for Leonid - the second. In distant Canibadam (Kondibodom), he tried to start a family, but his personal life did not take place, the marriage quickly broke up.

 

Tamara, Tomochka, at first lived well: love helped smooth out the sharp corners in the relationship and gave an incentive to work. But then it was not enough: Solovyov as a creative person constantly needed nourishment - first alcohol, then women. The wife was patient, silent, and he hoped: maybe it will cost ...

 

Leonid Solovyov - payback for frankness

 

When Leonid picked up a printed copy of his first book - the story "Nomad", almost wept. It was followed by others, but soon Solovyov realized: he is best able to write about what he personally experienced and felt. Scenes of his life in Uzbekistan immediately surfaced in his head. This is what he can tell people.

 

Leonid, an admirer of oriental tales, had a favorite character of Khoja Nasreddin: smart, insightful and obtuse. It would be nice to have a conversation on his behalf. But only the writer decided to make his hero younger, more cunning and fun. So, in 1940, the book “Troublemaker” was published. Solovyov only had time to receive laudatory reviews: readers liked the oriental flavor, humor and moral background of the work. His friends also praised him. Lena often stayed up late with them, discussing plans for the future and swearing at what the light is the present – many did not like the Stalinist government then.

 

Solovyov did not like to be silent at all and was excessively frank. During the war he worked as a war correspondent - sent essays from the front under the whistle of bullets and explosions of shells. Then he himself joined the ranks, received a severe shell shock, and therefore believed that he had every right to say what brave soldiers in our country and what cowardly commanders.

 

Maybe because of these harsh words, or maybe because of the criticism of the leader in behind-the-scenes conversations in September 1946, Solovyov ended up in the Lubyanka. He was considered a dangerous man, opposing the authorities, and was accused of terrorism. The writer spent nine months in prison awaiting sentencing, without admitting his guilt. “You better agree with everything,” his cellmates advised him. “They’re going to jail you anyway, but maybe they’ll send you away.”

 

Soloviev confessed, but... They sent him far away to the Dubrovlag camp in Mordovia for 10 years. At first they wanted to send to Kolyma, but Solovyov caught up in time. "Leave it here - I will write the second part of the story about Khodja Nasreddin," he went all-in. The writer was left in Mordovia, allowing in his free time to engage in literary creativity.

 

Leonid Solovyov - to freedom!

 

Four years later, the writer had 735 manuscript pages of the story. He called it “The Enchanted Prince.” As if his main treasure, Solovyov took the sheets to the head of the camp for acquaintance. He did not comment, and did not give back the manuscript. For three years it lay in his desk, in the fourth year the manuscript was returned — Stalin died. Paperwork delayed Solovyov in the camp for another year.

 

On the threshold of the Moscow apartment of the former convict, he met his wife Tamara, but not as he expected.

 

- “Here are your things, my strength is no longer to endure!”

 

At the feet of Solovyov, a heavy bag fell. Tamara reminded him of everything — women, alcohol, and shame for his exile to the camps.

 

There was no place to live for Leonid Vasilyevich, the only refuge was in Leningrad, with his sister Zina. She accepted reluctantly, "The Closest!" Soon Solovyov met a woman who, as he admitted, understood his soul. It was the teacher of literature Maria Kudymovskaya. After the wedding, he moved in with her.

 

Leonid Solovyov - memories ...

 

Life was slowly improving: Soloviev began to work on writing and finalizing scripts on Lenfilm, he was restored in the Writers’ Union, both stories about Khoja Nasreddin were published together. Already a new generation of readers remained delighted with the dilogy. Many people wonder what is behind this work. And Solovyov sat down to write the Book of Youth, in which he wanted to tell about himself everything that he had kept in memory for so long. But the usual craving for fiction interfered with the narrative. People who personally knew Leonid Vasilyevich, after reading, unequivocally stated: “A lot of what was written was not reality...”

 

The author was forgiven for this slight deviation from reality. Even though he was only 55 years old, he felt the end was near. The stroke paralyzed part of the body, reminded of itself and a long-standing concussion ... The only thing that remained for Leonid Vasilyevich Solovyov was long wanderings through the back alleys of his memory. Who knows what will happen and what will be true...

 

Author of the biography: Sasha Tumanova

http://www.biography-life.ru/art/225-leonid-solovev-b..

#ЛеонидСоловьев #писатель #литература #творчество

See original

 

Leonid Solovyov 3rd Biography

 

Leonid Solovyov

From: https://www.vounb.ru/?option=view_post&id=1638

 

... The most curious fate was with Leonid Solovyov, the author of the famous dilogy about Khoja Nasreddin. Suffice it to say that he wrote the second book about Khoja Nasreddin in prison - and he spent 8 years out of the 10 assigned to him in the camp. - and absolutely legally, in the daytime. He served his camp duties as a night watchman.

This year, August 19, marks the 115th anniversary of the birth of Leonid Vasilyevich Solovyov, a writer and screenwriter.

Very prone to hoaxes, Leonid Solovyov, however, has a biography based on solid facts. Some of them will be discussed today.

Leonid Solovyov was born in the Lebanese city of Tripoli in the family of an assistant inspector of the North Syrian schools of the Imperial Orthodox Palestinian Society - the history of this organization is interesting, but this is a completely separate issue. From two years and subsequent years, the future writer lived already in the Russian Empire and in the USSR - in 1909 the family returned to Russia and settled in the Samara province. When the Empire collapsed and famine gripped Soviet Russia, in 1921 the Solovyov family moved to the Uzbek city of Kokand. There, Solovyov graduated from school a year later, entered the Mechanical College, but after studying two courses, he left it. For some time he worked as a repairman on the railway, taught at the school of the oil industry.

Leonid Solovyov began to publish in 1923 in the newspaper Turkestanskaya Pravda (hereinafter Pravda Vostoka) and until 1930 worked as a special correspondent for this newspaper. He distinguished himself at the competition, which was announced by the Moscow magazine "World of Adventures". The story "On the Syr-Darya Shore" appeared in this magazine in 1927.

During trips around the Fergana region in 1924–1925, Solovyov collected and studied folklore. During these years, he recorded songs and stories about Lenin, which were included in the collection Lenin and the Works of the Peoples of the East (1930). According to the literary critic Yevgeny Kalmanovsky, “all the works included there were composed by Solovyov himself, thus creating a folklore and literary hoax.” Most likely, it was so, but nevertheless, the expedition of the Tashkent Institute of Language and Literature in 1933 confirmed the folklore source of the songs, the "original texts" of several songs in the Uzbek and Tajik languages ​​were presented.

In 1930, Solovyov arrived in Moscow and entered the literary and screenwriting department of the Institute of Cinematography, graduating in 1932. In the same 1932, his first book, the story "Nomad" was published - about the life of nomads during the years of the revolution, and two years later - a collection of stories and short stories "The Campaign of the "Winner"".

In 1939, the novel "Troublemaker" was published - the first book of Leonid Solovyov's most famous work - "The Tale of Khoja Nasreddin". In 1935, according to the scenario of Solovyov, the film "The End of the Station" (Mezhrabpomfilm) was shot.

 

It is curious that the author dedicated The Tale of Khoja Nasreddin to the memory of his friend Mumin Adilov. Immediately, in the preface, he briefly told his heroic fate. However, the folklorist, writer Dmitry Moldavsky, in his book Comrade Laughter, argued that this dedication is another hoax of the author. All searches on Uzbek soil for any information about Mumin Adilov, that he really existed, turned out to be in vain.

As for Khoja Nasreddin himself, this, of course, is a well-known folklore character, from which Nightingale made a 35-year-old man full of strength and energy, while the canonical Khoja Nasreddin is an old man.

In collaboration with the writer and screenwriter Viktor Vitkovich, Solovyov wrote the scripts for the films Nasreddin in Bukhara (1943) and The Adventures of Nasreddin (1946). The popularity of "Nasreddin" was very high, as evidenced even by the fact that the first film was shot during the difficult war years. The book was repeatedly reprinted, and one reprint occurred even after the arrest of the author on a political article. Published in translation into French, Dutch, Danish, Hebrew and other languages.

During the Great Patriotic War, Solovyov was a war correspondent for the Krasny Fleet newspaper. Front-line stories and essays of the writer were included in the collections "Big Exam" (1943) and "Sevastopol Stone" (1944). According to the story "Ivan Nikulin - Russian Sailor" (1943), he created a screenplay for the film of the same name (1944).

A year after the Great Victory, in September 1946, the front-line soldier and order bearer Solovyov was arrested on charges of preparing a terrorist act. The writer was kept in pre-trial detention for ten months. As a basis for the arrest, the investigation presented the testimony of the “anti-Soviet group of writers” previously arrested in 1944 - Sergei Bondarin, Semyon (Avraham) Gekht and Leonid Ulin, who admitted that L. V. Solovyov, whom they knew, had “terrorist sentiments” against Stalin. The file contains examples of the writer's anti-Soviet statements: collective farms have not justified themselves, literature is degrading, there has been a stagnation of creative thought. In prison, Solovyov pleaded guilty to the crime he was accused of, wanting to break out of the dungeon as soon as possible and get into the camp. The verdict of the Special Meeting of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of June 9, 1947 read:

“I only thought about how to quickly escape from the remand prison somewhere - even to the camp. It made no sense to resist in such conditions, especially since the investigator told me: "There will be no trial of you, do not hope. We will let your case go through a Special Conference." In addition, with my confessions, I often paid off the investigator, as it were, from his insistent demands to give accusatory evidence against my acquaintances - writers and poets, among whom I did not know the criminals. The investigator told me more than once: “Here you block everyone with your broad back, but they don’t really block you,” Solovyov later wrote in a petition for rehabilitation.

The writer was sent to the Mordovian Dubravlag, where the head of the camp, who probably read The Troublemaker with a smile, allowed him to engage in literary work as an exception. In May 1948, Solovyov wrote to his parents and sister Zinaida that he did not need to send anything but paper: “I must be a dervish - nothing more ... That's where, it turns out, I need to save myself in order to work well - to the camp! .. No temptations and a life conducive to wisdom. I sometimes smile at this myself.

The story "The Enchanted Prince", the second part of "The Tale of Khoja Nasreddin", was written on the basis of the script for the film "The Adventures of Nasreddin", and completed by the end of 1950. The Charmed Prince is very different from the first book, it is written in a different, restrainedly sad style.

After Stalin's death, relatives, through the chairman of the board of the Union of Writers of the USSR, deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR Alexander Fadeev, petitioned to mitigate Solovyov's fate. He was released under an amnesty in June 1954.

Since 1954 Solovyov lived in Leningrad. In "Lenizdat" in 1956 was published in two books "The Tale of Khoja Nasreddin" - the publication was a huge success. Continuing to work in the field of cinematography, Solovyov wrote, in particular, the script for the film The Overcoat (1959) based on the story of the same name by N. V. Gogol. In 1961, parts of L. Solovyov's new work "The Book of Youth" began to appear in print for the first time, this work was published as a separate edition in 1963 under the title "From the "Book of Youth"".

The writer died at the age of 55 on April 9, 1962 in Leningrad. He was buried at the Red Cemetery, Narvskaya path.

We add that Leonid Solovyov was married three times and had no children in any of the marriages. For the first time, Leonid Vasilievich married very early, back in Central Asia, in Kanibadam, Elizaveta Petrovna Belyaeva. But their paths soon parted.

The Moscow family was Tamara Alexandrovna Sedykh. According to cursory eyewitness accounts, their union was extremely uneven. The writer who returned from prison was not accepted by his wife or her relatives in the house.

In April 1955 Solovyov married Maria Markovna Kudymovskaya, a teacher of the Russian language.

Yuri Olesha recalled in his diary: “I met Leonid Solovyov, who had returned from exile. Tall, old, lost his teeth. Recognized me immediately, unconditionally. Nicely dressed. This, he says, was bought by a man who owes him. I took it to a department store and bought it. He says about life there that he did not feel bad - not because he was placed in any special conditions, but because inside, as he says, he was not in exile. "I took it as retribution for the crime I committed against one woman" - the first, as he put it, "real" wife. "Now I believe, I will get something."

“The crime against a woman,” which Solovyov spoke about, he himself touched upon in his testimony during the investigation of 1946: “I broke up with my wife because of my drunkenness and betrayal, and was left alone. I loved my wife very much, and breaking up with her was a disaster for me.

From the memoirs of Ekaterina Vasilievna’s brother: “By nature, Leonid was a visionary and a dreamer and remained so all his life”; “... he often saw people not as they were, but as they seemed to him. Therefore, I often made mistakes ... "

 

In preparing the publication, materials of the VOUNB named after V.I. M Gorky

 

https://avidreaders.ru/author/solovev-leonid-vasilevich/ looks interesting…

 

Solovyov Leonid

Life of Leonid Solovyov

Life of Leonid Solovyov

The childhood and youth of the writer were spent in sunny places, almost like resorts. Leonid Vasilyevich Solovyov was born on August 19, 1906 in the city of Tripoli in Palestine (now called Lebanon). His parents - Vasily Andreevich and Anna Alekseevna - were there, as they say, on a long-term business trip, they taught at a Russian-language school for Arabs. They met in Palestine and got married there. And that's how they got abroad. Vasily and Anna received their education with state money and worked in Palestine "by distribution". By the time of Leonid's birth, his father was a collegiate adviser, assistant inspector of the Northern Syrian Schools of the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society. In 1909 the family returned to Russia. At home, Solovyov Sr. worked in different places. So until 1918 they lived in Buguruslan and at the Pokhvistnevo station of the Samara-Zlatoust railway, and since 1921 in Kokand. In Uzbekistan, Leonid graduated from high school and entered a mechanical college (but did not finish it). For some time he taught at the FZU of the oil industry. Solovyov's autobiographical "Book of Youth" written in 1960-61 is about those places ...

Leonid began writing and publishing in newspapers back in Kokand. He also wrote for the Tashkent Pravda Vostoka. In 1927, his story "On the Syrdarya Shore" was published in the Moscow magazine "World of Adventures". And in 1930, Leonid came to Moscow and entered the literary and screenwriting department of VGIK (Institute of Cinematography). In just two years, by June 1932, he graduated from the institute course, there is a corresponding entry about this in the archive of the institute.

Solovyov began to write short stories and stories about the present, about new buildings, about working people, about Central Asia. In 1935-1936, they started talking about the young writer, for example, articles were published about him in the magazines Krasnaya Nov, Literary Study. Here is a quote from Krasnaya Nov, A. Lezhnev, "About L. Solovyov": "Soloviev's stories are built around one uncomplicated idea, like the pulp of a cherry around a bone", "... his stories retain an intermediate form between everyday feuilleton and a story" .

At the age of 33, Leonid Vasilievich Solovyov wrote "The Tale of Khoja Nasreddin: Troublemaker" and became a famous writer. At the same time, official recognition took place. Solovyov was taken entirely. He talked about his last book, The Tale of Khoja Nasreddin.

During the Great Patriotic War, Solovyov was a war correspondent for the Krasny Fleet newspaper. Sevastopol stone". And Solovyov also worked "in his specialty" - films were staged according to his scripts.

After the war, in September 1946, Solovyov was repressed. He spent ten months in pre-trial detention and was forced to confess to the false charge of "planning a terrorist act against the head of state." The writer was sent to the Dubravlag camp: Mordovian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, Potma station, Yavas post office, mailbox LK 241/1Z. According to the memoirs of the prisoner A.V.Usikov, Solovyov was selected as part of the Kolyma stage, but he wrote to the head of the camp, General Sergeenko, that if he was left here, he would take up the second book about Khoja Nasreddin. And the general ordered Solovyov to leave.

The Enchanted Prince was written in the camp. Parents (they lived then in Stavropol) and sisters sent the paper. Solovyov worked as a night watchman in a workshop where wood was dried, then as a night attendant. Such night positions gave Solovyov the opportunity to concentrate on the book. And at the end of 1950, "The Enchanted Prince" was completed and sent to the authorities. The fate of the manuscript was not heard for a long time, and the author, of course, was worried. In mid-1953 he was transferred to Omsk. Finally, in June 1954, he was found not guilty and released.

Here is how the writer Yu.K. Olesha (Central Archive of Literature and Art (TsGALI)) describes the first days of Solovyov in Moscow: “July 13, I met Leonid Solovyov, who had returned from exile. Tall, old, (...) Decently dressed. This, he says, was bought by a man who owes him. I went to the department store and bought it. He says about life "there" that he did not feel bad, not because he was placed in some special conditions, but because inside, as he says, he was not in exile. I took it as retribution for a crime I had committed against one woman, my first and, as he put it, real wife. But now I believe, I will get something..."".

Leonid's wife's name was Elizaveta Belyaeva. They got married in their youth, in Kanibadam, and soon divorced. Then he married Tamara Sedykh in Moscow. According to the testimonies of acquaintances, the marriage was not smooth, and after being released from the camp, Tamara did not want to see Leonid at all and even returned all his letters unopened. Leonid had no children from either his first or second wife.

From Moscow, Leonid Vasilyevich went to Leningrad, to his sister Zina (the older sister, Katya, lived until the end of her days in Central Asia, in Namangan). In Leningrad, in April 1955, Solovyov married Maria Kudymovskaya, a teacher of the Russian language. They lived on Kharkovskaya street, building 2, apartment 16.

At the beginning of his writing life in Leningrad, Solovyov was supported by the front-line poet Mikhail Dudin, and, of course, by other benevolent people. And from the Leningrad literary environment, Leonid Vasilyevich kept a little aloof.

Life got better. The Enchanted Prince was published (in the same book as The Troublemaker, Lenizdat). The book was a huge success. Solovyov again began to work for the cinema. Wrote "The Book of Youth".

He died April 9, 1962. He was buried at the Red Cemetery in Avtov.

Sister Katya Solovieva recalled: "By nature, Leonid was a visionary and a dreamer, and he remained so for the rest of his life. ... He often saw people not as they were, but as he wanted them to be." (words and facts from the article by E. Kalmanovsky are used)

 

From: https://avidreaders.ru/read-book/zhizn-leonida-soloveva.html