Samuil Marshak is a brilliant poet and translator who was saved by children's literature. Biography

1887 - 1964 Russian poet, translator. Verses, fairy tales, plays for children. Translations of R. Burns, W. Shakespeare's sonnets, fairy tales different peoples etc. Philosophical miniatures ("Selected Lyrics", 1962; Lenin Prize, 1963), lyrical epigrams. Literary criticism (book "Education with a word", 1961). The book of memoirs "At the beginning of life" (1960). State Prizes of the USSR (1942, 1946, 1949, 1951).

Biography

Born on October 22 (November 3 NS) in Voronezh in the family of a factory technician, a talented inventor who supported in children the desire for knowledge, interest in the world, in people. early childhood and school years spent in the town of Ostrogozhsk near Voronezh. In the gymnasium, the teacher of literature instilled a love for classical poetry, encouraged the first literary experiments of the future poet. One of Marshak's poetry notebooks fell into the hands of V. Stasov, a well-known Russian critic and art historian, who took an ardent part in the fate of the young man. With the help of Stasov, he moved to St. Petersburg, studied at one of the best gymnasiums, spent whole days in the public library where Stasov worked.

In 1904, at Stasov's house, Marshak met Gorky, who took great interest in him and invited him to his dacha in Yalta, where Marshak was treated, studied, read a lot, met with different people. When the Gorky family was forced to leave the Crimea due to repressions after the revolution of 1905, Marshak returned to St. Petersburg, where his father had moved by that time, who worked at a factory beyond the Nevskaya Zastava.

Labor youth began: going to lessons, collaborating in magazines and almanacs.

A few years later, in 1912, to complete his education, Marshak went to study in England, first at the Polytechnic, then at the University of London. During the holidays, I traveled a lot on foot in England, listening to English folk songs. Even then he began to work on translations of English ballads, which later glorified him.

In 1914 he returned to his homeland, worked in the provinces, published his translations in the journals Northern Notes and Russian Thought. During the First World War, Marshak was involved in helping refugee children.

Since the early 1920s, he has been involved in the organization of orphanages in Yekaterinodar, created a children's theater, in which his work as a children's writer began.

In 1923, having returned to Petrograd, he created his first original fairy tales in verse - "The Tale of the Stupid Mouse", "Fire", "Mail", translated children's folk songs from English - "The House That Jack Built", etc. He headed one of the first Soviet children's magazines - "New Robinson", around which talented children's writers were grouped. Since 1924, he headed the children's department of the OGIZ in Leningrad and was an active patron of avant-garde artists, such as the Oberiuts (D. Kharms, A. Vvedensky), E. Schwartz, B. Zhitkov, who, under his leadership, began to write for children.

Marshak's poems for children, his songs, riddles, fairy tales and sayings, plays for the children's theater eventually made up the collection "Tales, Songs, Riddles", repeatedly reprinted and translated into many languages.

His books for children, which are short stories in verse, - "Baggage", "Mr. Twister", "Blitz Fritz", are rich in content and form, they try to cover all aspects of life accessible to the child and at the same time correspond to modern topics.

In 1938 he moved to Moscow. During the years of the Great Patriotic War actively collaborated in newspapers - his parodies, epigrams, political pamphlets ridiculed and denounced the enemy.

In the post-war years, books of poems were published - "Military Post", "Fairy Tale", a poetic encyclopedia "Merry Journey from A to Z". In 1955, 1957, 1959 Marshak traveled to England again. He did a lot of translations of Shakespeare's sonnets and songs of R. Burns, translated poems by J. Keats, R. Kipling, W. Wadsworth, P. B. Shelley, J. Byron.

Among Marshak's dramatic works, the fairy-tale plays "Twelve Months", "Smart Things", "Cat's House" are especially popular.

In 1961, a collection of articles entitled "Education with a Word" was published - the result of the writer's great creative experience.

In 1963, "Selected Lyrics" was published - the last book of the writer. Marshak's lyrics, not intended for children, are distinguished by simplicity, concreteness, and clarity. His poetic style is conservative and classical, the language of his works is close to colloquial speech.

When the Bolsheviks came to power, he destroyed all his previous works - poems dedicated to Jewish culture and the city of Jerusalem. He chose "a world open to immortality" - he began to write children's poems and fairy tales, on which more than one generation grew up. Who does not know his Robin-Bobbin-Barabek, Scattered from Basseinaya Street, a lady with luggage and a small dog, Wax-Blot and the alphabet in verse? In November 2017, Samuil Yakovlevich Marshak would have turned 130 years old.

Descendant of a rabbi

In October 1887, a son was born into the Marshak Jewish family. It was a difficult time, and the head of the family had to hide the fact that he came from a hereditary family of rabbis, adherents of the Talmud. Yakov Mironovich did not receive a special education, but worked as a technologist at a chemical plant, having several inventions in the soap industry. In addition, this naturally gifted man spoke several languages ​​and read Goethe and Heine in the original, and was well versed in the Russian classics. The father tried to instill love and desire for knowledge in his children. FROM early years it was clear to everyone that his son Samuel was a real child prodigy.

The first to notice this were the teachers of the St. Petersburg gymnasium, where Marshak Jr. studied. Syoma, the teacher of literature, also influenced the formation of the literary views of the young talent. The first poetic experiments of Samuel brought him unprecedented success, and soon many literary publications began to print his works.

Stasov, one of the well-known Petersburg critics of that time, after reading the poem of the young Marshak, declared him a genius. Soon Marshak met Maxim Gorky, who took an active part in the fate of Samuil and gave him a start in literary life. The young man works a lot: he spends hours in the library, writes poetry and makes wonderful translations from Hebrew and Yiddish.

Labor youth

Brilliantly coping with the first literary order, a poem to the music of Glazunov, Marshak became very popular in the creative environment of St. Petersburg. He began to be attracted to literary societies, many friends appeared among poets, artists and musicians. Samuil's works were printed not only in St. Petersburg, but also in Moscow and Kyiv.

Blok and Akhmatova admired him. But the poet, fortunately, did not have a star disease, and he continued to work with enthusiasm. As a correspondent for the capital's magazine, Marshak traveled almost the entire Middle East, which inspired him to create a cycle of poems "Palestine", which became a very popular collection of lyrics of that time.

During his travels, Samuel met a sweet girl Sophia, well-bred, educated and close to him in spirit, who became his wife. In 1914, the happy couple had a daughter. But fate gives everyone an equal measure: a handful of joy, a handful of grief. Marshak's daughter was destined to be terrible - she knocked over a samovar with boiling water and died.

Desperate parents did not withdraw into themselves, did not blame fate - they decided to help needy children, and there were plenty of those in those hungry times. It was then that Samuil Yakovlevich began to write children's poems. The lines themselves came out from under the pen, in a hurry to lie down on paper - kind, warm, full of childlike immediacy and tenderness. I so wanted to read them to my daughter before going to bed ...

From London to Petrograd

Studying in Great Britain left a special imprint on the poet's work. After St. Petersburg University, Marshak was educated at a London technical school, and then at the University of the British capital. By that time, England was perhaps the only country where literature for children took shape as an independent genre. Samuel traveled all over Albion, collecting a collection of English folk tales, ballads and songs, which he later translated into Russian.

Among them are the famous "The House That Jack Built" and "Heather Honey". Marshak was especially famous for his translations of the works of Shakespeare, Kipling, Burns, Milne, Keats and Wadsworth. Returning to his homeland and plunging into the maelstrom of political events, Marshak faced a choice: life or faith. Remembering the instructions of his teacher Stasov, he chose the first. He collected all his pre-revolutionary works and burned them.

At first, the poet worked in a provincial town, lectured in the Kuban, translated, and taught English. There he created the first theater for children. This event did not go unnoticed, and in 1922 Lunacharsky invited Samuil Yakovlevich to Petrograd. It was then that his book “Children in a Cage” and several scripts for the Theater of the Young Spectator appeared. In that year, Marshak created the first Soviet magazine for children, for which he gathered a team of talented poets and writers.

Already after the defeat of Detgiz, when many children's writers were repressed and disappeared in the Gulag, when the so-called thaw came, Samuil Yakovlevich found out that a pile of denunciations had already been laid on him in the NKVD. Miraculously, he managed to escape the millstones of the infernal political machine. He always said that he was saved by children's literature.

Half a century in poetry

After the war, Marshak moved to Moscow, where he continued to translate and became seriously interested in “lyrics for adults”. Here he began to write an autobiographical book and a number of articles on creative skill. Gradually, inexorable time took away the poet's relatives and close people, and only the devoted old housekeeper remained nearby, whom he jokingly called either “Shakespeare's tragedy”, or “Hitler in a skirt”. She hid cigarettes from him and called him “an old fool.” Illness and loneliness only gave strength to Marshak - he worked day and night. Even on the last day of his life, Samuil Yakovlevich was in a hurry to complete the play, the last in his half century in poetry...

BONUS

He left a deep mark in Russian poetry and. He did everything awry, and lived and wrote - with quirks and not according to the rules.

There is no such person who would not know the name of Samuil Marshak. The poems of this talented poet remain in the mind forever if they are heard once. Marshak's biography says that this amazing person was born in 1887. It happened on November 3 in the city of Voronezh. Samuil Yakovlevich, in addition to writing wonderful poems, was also a literary critic, playwright, and translator. He became a laureate of the Stalin and Lenin Prizes.

Childhood and youth

Marshak's biography tells that the poet was born into a Jewish family. His father worked in a soap factory. Mother was a simple housewife. Samuil studied at the Ostrogozhsk gymnasium, then he received his education at the St. Petersburg and Yalta gymnasiums. The future poet was already diligent and inquisitive in his youth. While studying in St. Petersburg, he spent a lot of time in the halls of the public library. This person, in addition to education at home, received it also abroad. First he studied at the Polytechnic College of London, then at the University of the same city.

Creation

Marshak's biography reports on his acquaintance with Maxim Gorky. It happened in 1904. The great Russian writer immediately saw and felt that Samuil was talented, he had a future in writing poems. Young Marshak lived at the Yalta dacha of Maxim Gorky for two years. And the first collection of a talented guy was not long in coming. He came out in 1907. However, the theme of the poems was Jewish. The collection was called "Sionides".

Marshak's biography reports that since 1906 he has been permanently living in St. Petersburg, until 1911. It was then that the poet, being a correspondent for a couple of St. Petersburg publications, went on a trip to the Middle East. That indelible impression that Samuel received made him create the best works.

Marshak also lived in England, and already with his wife. There he devoted a lot of time to his education, studied folklore. In England, he began to translate local works into Russian. V returned in 1914, worked as a correspondent for provincial towns and villages. Since 1920, he began to open children's cultural institutions, including on his own he created a children's theater (and the first at that time in Russia). For him, he writes plays himself. This man has done a lot for children. Everyone remembers his immortal "The Tale of the Stupid Mouse" or "Children in a Cage". The list of masterpieces is very long.

In Petrograd, a magazine for kids "Sparrow" was organized. And Samuil Marshak tried again. His biography reports that the poet devoted a huge part of his life to

During the war, his activities continued. This amazing person donates a lot for the construction of kindergartens and boarding schools. However, he created not only children's works, but also serious feuilletons on the topic of the day. Shortly before his death, he published an autobiographical story.

Personal life

Marshak's biography reports that he has been married since 1912 to Sofya Mikhailovna. They raised their daughter Natanel, who at the age of one year died under a terrible set of circumstances - a hot samovar overturned on her. The youngest son of the couple lived for 21 years - he died of tuberculosis. But the eldest even briefly outlived his father, he became famous physicist. The grandson of the poet is alive to this day. He works as a narcologist and is quite famous in certain circles.

A brief biography of Marshak reports that he left this world in 1964. The poet lived a decent life.

Samuil Yakovlevich Marshak was born October 22 (November 3), 1887 in Voronezh in the family of a technician-master at chemical plants. He spent his early childhood and school years in the town of Ostrogozhsk near Voronezh. In the gymnasium, the teacher of literature instilled a love for classical poetry, encouraged the first literary experiments of the future poet

He started writing poetry at an early age. In 1902 a notebook of poems by S. Marshak fell into the hands of V.V. Stasov, who took an ardent part in the fate of the young poet; later M. Gorky drew attention to him. With the help of Stasov, he moved to St. Petersburg, studied at one of the best gymnasiums, spent whole days in the public library where Stasov worked. In 1904-1906. Marshak lived with the Gorky family in Yalta. When the Gorky family was forced to leave the Crimea due to repressions after the revolution of 1905, Marshak returned to St. Petersburg, where his father, who worked at a factory behind the Nevskaya Zastava, had moved by that time.

Labor youth began: going to lessons, collaborating in magazines and almanacs. Began to be printed since 1907 in literary almanacs, later in the Satyricon, etc. In 1912 Marshak left to continue his education in England; attended lectures at the University of London ( 1913-1914). In 1915-1917 the first translations of Marshak were published in the journals Northern Notes and Russian Thought (poems by William Blake, Wordsworth, English and Scottish folk ballads).

Marshak's literary activity is very diverse: lyrics, satire, translations, dramaturgy. Marshak's poems for children gained particular popularity. During the First World War, Marshak participated in organizing assistance to juvenile orphans and refugees. This work brought him closer to the children. In 1920 he organized and headed the "Children's Town" in Krasnodar - a complex of children's institutions (school, library, children's circles), which included one of the first theaters for children. For the theater "Children's Town" Marshak and the poetess E. Vasilyeva wrote fairy tale plays, from which the collection "Theater for Children" was subsequently compiled ( 1922 ).

In 1923 Marshak's first poetry books for the smallest were published - the English children's folk song "The House That Jack Built", "Children in a Cage", "The Tale of the Stupid Mouse". Since that time, the fruitful activity of Marshak, a children's poet, editor and organizer of children's literature, begins. In 1924-1925. he headed the magazine "New Robinson", which played an important role in the history of Soviet literature for children. B. Zhitkov, M. Ilyin, E. Schwartz, V. Bianchi, and others began to publish in it for the first time. Since 1924 for a number of years Marshak headed the OGIZ department.

Marshak's poems for children, his songs, riddles, fairy tales and sayings, plays for the children's theater eventually made up an extensive collection of "Tales, Songs, Riddles", repeatedly reprinted and translated into many languages. In his very first poems (“Mail”, “Fire”, later “Master-lomaster”, “War with the Dnieper”, etc.), Marshak, without any didactics, instilled in children love and respect for the power of the mind, for work and working people. In the satirical pamphlet "Mr. Twister" ( 1933 ) he spoke to young readers about racial strife; in romantic poem"The Story of an Unknown Hero" ( 1938 ) described the feat of a fearless young man - one of the many modest heroes of our days. Marshak's children's poems are written simply, captivatingly, clearly, they are distinguished by their completeness, clear rhythm, and strictness of composition. And at the same time, they have the quirkiness, mischief of a folk song, counting rhymes, teasers. The verse acquires the utmost clarity and is remembered as a proverb.

In the works of Marshak, written in the war and post-war years, the lyrical beginning is enhanced. In the poetry books "Military Post" ( 1944 ), "Colorful book" ( 1947 ), « All year round» ( 1948 ), "False fiction" ( 1947 ) or poetic encyclopedia " fun trip from A to Z" ( 1953 ) Marshak expands visual means, referring to landscape lyrics, to an in-depth depiction of the hero's emotional experiences. This coincided with the beginning of S. Marshak's work on the "Lyrical Notebook", on translations of W. Shakespeare's sonnets and songs of R. Burns, whom Marshak began to translate back in the 30s.

Marshak translated into Russian W. Blake, W. Wordsworth, J. Keats, R. Kipling, E. Lear; Ukrainian, Belarusian, Lithuanian, Armenian and other poets. His translations have always been perceived as original poetry.

During the Great Patriotic War, the talent of S. Marshak-satirist developed. In collaboration with the artists Kukryniksy and others, he created many battle posters. Among Marshak's dramatic works, the fairy-tale plays Twelve Months, They Are Afraid of Grief - You Can't See Happiness, Smart Things, Cat's House, staged on the stages of many theaters, are especially popular. In 1960. published an autobiographical story "At the Beginning of Life". In 1961 a collection of articles on literary skill, notes and memoirs "Memories in a Word" was published - the result of the great creative experience of the writer.

Samuil Yakovlevich Marshak (1887-1964) - Russian Soviet poet, playwright, translator, literary critic.

Laureate of Lenin (1963) and four Stalin Prizes (1942, 1946, 1949, 1951).

Marshak. Biography

Samuil Marshak Born October 22 (November 3), 1887 in Voronezh, in a Jewish family, his father, Yakov Mironovich (1855-1924), worked as a foreman at a soap factory. Mother - Evgenia Borisovna Gitelson - was a housewife. The surname "Marshak" is an abbreviation (Hebrew מהרש"ק‎) meaning "Our teacher Rabbi Aaron Shmuel Kaidanover" and belongs to the descendants of this famous rabbi and talmudist (1624-1676).

Samuil spent his early childhood and school years in the town of Ostrogozhsk near Voronezh. He studied in 1898-1906 at the Ostrogozhsk, 3rd St. Petersburg and Yalta gymnasiums. In the gymnasium, the teacher of literature instilled a love for classical poetry, encouraged the first literary experiments of the future poet, and considered him a child prodigy.

One of Marshak's poetry notebooks fell into the hands of V.V. Stasov, a well-known Russian critic and art historian, who took an ardent part in the fate of the young man. With the help of Stasov, Samuel moved to St. Petersburg and studied at one of the best gymnasiums. He spends whole days in the public library where Stasov worked.

In 1904, at Stasov's house, Marshak met Maxim Gorky, who treated him with great interest and invited him to his dacha in Yalta, where Marshak lived in 1904-1906. He began to print in 1907, publishing the collection Zionides, dedicated to Jewish topics; one of the poems was written on the death of Theodor Herzl. At the same time, he translated several poems by Chaim Bialik from Yiddish and Hebrew.

When the Gorky family was forced to leave the Crimea because of the repressions of the tsarist government after the revolution of 1905, Marshak returned to St. Petersburg, where his father, who worked at a factory behind the Nevskaya Zastava, had moved by that time.

In 1911, Samuel Marshak, together with his friend, the poet Yakov Godin, and a group of Jewish youth made a long journey through the Middle East: from Odessa they sailed on a ship, heading to the countries of the Eastern Mediterranean - Turkey, Greece, Syria and Palestine. Marshak went there as a correspondent for the Petersburg Vseobshchaya Gazeta and Blue Journal. Lyric poems, inspired by this trip, are among the most successful in the work of the young Marshak ("We camped in a tent ..." and others).

On this trip, Marshak met his future wife, Sophia Mikhailovna Milvidskaya (1889-1953), and soon after their return they got married. At the end of September 1912, the newlyweds went to England. There Marshak studied first at the Polytechnic, then at the University of London (1912-1914). During the holidays, he traveled a lot on foot in England, listening to English folk songs. Even then he began to work on translations of English ballads, which later glorified him.

In 1914, Marshak returned to his homeland, worked in the provinces, published his translations in the journals Northern Notes and Russian Thought. During the war years, he was involved in helping refugee children.

In 1915, together with his family, he lived in Finland in the natural sanatorium dock. Lübeck.

In 1920, while living in Yekaterinodar, Marshak organized a complex of cultural institutions for children there, in particular, he created one of the first children's theaters in Russia and wrote plays for it. In 1923, he published his first poetic children's books (The House That Jack Built, The Caged Kids, The Tale of the Stupid Mouse). He is the founder and first head of the department of English language Kuban Polytechnic Institute (now Kuban State Technological University).

In 1922, Marshak moved to Petrograd, together with the folklorist Olga Kapitsa, led the children's writers' studio at the Institute preschool education Narkompros, organized (1923) the children's magazine "Sparrow" (in 1924-1925 - "New Robinson"), where, among others, such masters of literature as B. S. Zhitkov, V. V. Bianki, E. L. Schwartz. For several years, Marshak also led the Leningrad editorial office of Detgiz, Lengosizdat, and the Young Guard publishing house. Was related to the magazine "Chizh". He led the "Literary Circle" (at the Leningrad Palace of Pioneers). In 1934, at the First Congress of Soviet Writers, S. Ya. Marshak made a report on children's literature and was elected a member of the board of the USSR Writers' Union. In 1939-1947 he was a deputy of the Moscow City Council of Workers' Deputies.

In 1937, the children's publishing house created by Marshak in Leningrad was destroyed, its best pupils were repressed - A.I. Vvedensky, N.M. Oleinikov, N.A. Zabolotsky, T.G. fired. In 1938 Marshak moved to Moscow.

During the Great Patriotic War, the writer actively worked in the genre of satire, publishing poems in Pravda and creating posters in collaboration with the Kukryniksy.

Marshak donated large sums of money for boarding schools established in Lithuania and kindergarten for Jewish orphans whose parents died during the Holocaust. At the end of 1945 and at the beginning of 1946, when the secret transfer of these children through Koenigsberg to Poland, and from there to Palestine, began, Marshak sent a large amount of money for these purposes.

In 1960, Marshak published the autobiographical story "At the Beginning of Life", in 1961 - "Education with a Word" (a collection of articles and notes on poetic skill).

Almost all the time of his literary activity (more than 50 years), Marshak continues to write both poetic feuilletons and serious, “adult” lyrics. In 1962, he published the collection "Selected Lyrics"; he also owns a separately selected cycle "Lyrical Epigrams".

Marshak is the author of translations of sonnets by William Shakespeare, songs and ballads by Robert Burns, poems by William Blake, W. Wordsworth, J. Keats, R. Kipling, E. Lear, A. A. Milne. As well as works by Ukrainian, Belarusian, Lithuanian, Armenian and other poets. He also translated poetry by Mao Zedong.

Marshak's books have been translated into many languages ​​of the world. For translations from Robert Burns, Marshak was awarded the title of honorary citizen of Scotland.

Marshak stood up for Brodsky and Solzhenitsyn several times. For the first, he demanded "to get translations of texts on Lenfilm as soon as possible", for the second he stood up for Tvardovsky, demanding that his works be published in the journal New world. He always stood up for the disgraced writers of that time.

His last literary secretary was Vladimir Pozner

Samuil Yakovlevich Marshak died on July 4, 1964 in Moscow. He was buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery (plot No. 2).