A short and interesting biography of Korolenko. Revolutionary activity and exile. Personal life: wife and children

04.07.2020

Vladimir Galaktionovich Korolenko- Russian writer, public figure, publicist and journalist.

Was born July 15 (27), 1853 in Zhitomir. The writer's father was a stern district judge and collegiate assessor. His mother was from Poland, which is why the writer knew the Polish language perfectly from childhood. Korolenko received his primary education at the Zhitomir gymnasium, then the family moved to Rivne, where he entered the local school.

After the death of his father, Korolenko entered the Technological Institute in St. Petersburg, which he was unable to complete due to financial difficulties. In 1874, he transferred to the landowner academy in Moscow, where he studied on a scholarship. Due to the fact that the writer participated in populist movements in his youth, he was expelled and exiled to Kronstadt. In 1877 he returned to St. Petersburg and entered the Mining Institute. Around this time, his literary career began.

The first short story by V. G. Korolenko, “Episodes from the life of a “seeker”” appeared in 1879. In the spring of the same year, on suspicion of revolutionary activity, he was again expelled from the educational institution and deported to Glazov. And when in 1881 he refused the oath to Alexander III, he was exiled to Siberia for several years. The years 1885-1895 were the most fruitful for the writer. Korolenko’s real triumph was the release of his best works - “Makar’s Dream” (1885), “In Bad Society” (1885) and “The Blind Musician” (1886). .

In the 1890s, Korolenko traveled a lot. He visits various regions of the Russian Empire (Crimea, Caucasus). In 1893, the writer attended the World Exhibition in Chicago (USA). The result of this trip was the story “Without Language” (1895). Korolenko receives recognition not only in Russia, but also abroad. His works are published in foreign languages.

MAIN DATES IN THE LIFE, CREATIVITY AND SOCIAL ACTIVITY OF V. G. KOROLENKO 5

1853 July 15 (27)- Vladimir Galaktionovich Korolenko was born in the city of Zhitomir, Volyn province.

1864 - Enters the gymnasium.

1871 - He graduated from high school with a silver medal and entered the Technological Institute in St. Petersburg.

1873 - Leaving the institute. Proofreading work.

1874 - Admitted to the Petrovsky Agricultural and Forestry Academy.

1876 - Expelled from the academy for filing a collective application. Settlement in Kronstadt under open police supervision. Drawing, work.

1877 - Enters the Mining Institute in St. Petersburg. Proofreading work in the newspaper “Novosti”. Participation in Nekrasov's funeral.

1878 - He is studying shoemaking, intending to take part in “going among the people.”

The Korolenko brothers, Vladimir and Julian, translated the book “The Bird” by J. Michelet. The first appearance in the press was a note in the newspaper “Novosti” - “Fight at Apraksin Dvor (Letter to the Editor).”

1879 - Arrest and deportation to the city of Glazov, Vyatka province. Shoemaking work. The magazine “Slovo” published “Episodes from the life of a “seeker.” Sent to Berezovskie Pochinki.

1880 - Arrest and transfer to the Vyshnevolotsk political prison. The story “Wonderful” has been written. Korolenko was sent into exile in Siberia. The essay “The Unreal City” was written on the prison barge. Returned from the road and settled under police supervision in the city of Perm. “The Unreal City” is published in the Lay. Service as a timekeeper and clerk on the railway.

1881 - The story “Temporary residents of the “under investigation department” was published.” Refusal of the oath. Deported to the settlement of Amga, Yakutsk region.

1882–1884 - Agricultural and shoemaking work. The stories “The Killer”, “Makar’s Dream” were written, work on the stories “Sokolinets”, “In Bad Society”, “A Vagrant Marriage” (“Marusina’s Zaimka”), “Machine Operators” (“The Sovereign’s Coachmen”), etc.

1885 - Settlement in Nizhny Novgorod. Cooperation in the newspapers “Volzhsky Vestnik” and “Russian Vedomosti”. The stories “On the Night of the Bright Holiday”, “The Old Bell-Ringer”, “The Wilderness”, “Makar’s Dream”, and the essay “On the Machine” were published. Participation in the magazines “Russian Thought”, “Northern Messenger”. The stories “Killer” and “Sokolinets” appeared.

1886 - “The Forest is Noisy” was published. Marriage to A. S. Ivanovskaya. Visited L.N. Tolstoy. The story “The Blind Musician”, the stories “The Tale of Flora the Roman”, “The Sea”, and the essay “Containing” were published. The 1st volume of “Essays and Stories” has been published.

1887 - “Prokhor and students.” Acquaintance with A.P. Chekhov and G.I. Uspensky. "At the factory." Joined the editorial office of Severny Vestnik. “Behind the Icon”, “At the Eclipse” were printed. A separate edition of "The Blind Musician". Work in the Nizhny Novgorod Archive Commission.

1888 - Printed “Along the Way.” “From a notebook” (first edition of “Circassian”). "On both sides." Leaving the editorial office of Severny Vestnik. Story "At Night".

1889 - Meetings with N. G. Chernyshevsky in Saratov. Visit to Korolenko A. M. Gorky.

1890 - The essays “In Deserted Places” and “Pavlovian Sketches” were published.

1892 - Working on hunger. Articles “Around the Nizhny Novgorod region”.

The stories “The River Plays” and “At-Davan” appeared in print. Cooperation in “Russian Wealth”.

1893 - Articles “In a hungry year” in “Russian wealth”. Foreign travel.

1894 - “Paradox”, “God’s Town”, “Fight in the House” were printed. Joined the editorial board of Russian Wealth.

1895 - The story “Without Language” was published in Russian Wealth. The essay “Fighting the Devil” appeared. Secondary trial of the Multan case. Articles in defense of Multans.

1896 - Moving to St. Petersburg. "Death Factory", "On a Cloudy Day". Work on the story “The Artist Alymov”. Acting as a defense attorney in the Multan case.

1897 - Trip to Romania. "Above the estuary."

1899 - The essay “At the Dacha” (“The Humble”) was published. The satirical fairy tale “Stop, sun, and don’t move, moon!” was written. Work on the story “The Raiding Tsar”. The story “Marusya” (“Marusya’s Zaimka”) was published.

1900 - Elected honorary academician. Editorial work. "Lights." Trip to Uralsk. Moving to Poltava. The story “A Moment” has been published.

1901 - The stories “Frost”, “The Last Ray”, essays “At the Cossacks” were published.

1902 - A trip to the city of Sumy for the trial of Pavlovsk sectarians. "Memories of G.I. Uspensky." Refusal of the title of honorary academician.

1903 - The articles “Autocratic Helplessness” and “Surrogates of Glasnost for the Highest Use” were published. The story "Not scary." Trip to Chisinau. The essay “House No. 13” was written (not passed by censorship). Celebrating Korolenko's fiftieth anniversary.

1904 - Korolenko - editor-publisher of Russian Wealth.

Memoirs “In Memory of A.P. Chekhov.” “Memories of Chernyshevsky” was published. The story “Feudal Lords” was published.

1905 - Article “January 9 in St. Petersburg.” Start of work on “The History of My Contemporary.” Participation in the newspaper "Poltava" (later "Chernozem"). The fight against pogromists in Poltava. Appeals to the city population with anti-pogrom calls. Banning of "Russian Wealth" for printing the "Manifesto" of the St. Petersburg Council of Workers' Deputies. The essay “House No. 13” was published. About 60 articles on socio-political topics.

1906 - “Open letter to State Councilor Filonov.” The persecution of the writer by the Black Hundreds. “The History of My Contemporary” began to be published. The article “Words of the Minister. Affairs of governors". About 40 articles throughout the year.

1907 - The article “Sorochinsk Tragedy” and “From Stories about People We Met” were published.

1909 - Essay “Ours on the Danube”.

1910 - Articles “Everyday Phenomenon”, “Features of Military Justice”. Meeting with L.N. Tolstoy. Participation in Tolstoy's funeral.

1911 - Articles “In a calm village”, “To hell with military justice”, “Torture orgy”, “Liquidation of the Pskov hunger strike”, etc. were published.

1913 - Article about Korolenko in Rabochaya Pravda, “Writer-Humanist.” At the Beilis trial in Kyiv. Articles "Gentlemen of the Jurors".

1914 - Travel abroad for treatment. Preparation for publication of complete works. During the year, nine volumes of complete works were published by the publishing house of A. F. Marx.

1915 - Article “Won Position”. Return to Russia. "Mr. Jackson's Opinion on the Jewish Question." Work on the story "The Mendel Brothers".

1916 - Editorial and journalistic activities. Articles “Old traditions and a new organ”, “On the Ma-riampole treason”, etc. were published. Work on “The History of My Contemporary”.

1918 - Work on “The History of My Contemporary.” Article “To help Russian children.”

1919 - Work in the Children's Rescue League. Protests against the robberies and pogroms of the Denikinites. Six "Letters from Poltava". The 2nd volume of “The History of My Contemporary” has been published.

1920 - Visit to A.V. Lunacharsky. Work on the 3rd volume of “The History of My Contemporary”. Letters to Lunacharsky about current events.

1921 - A sharp deterioration in health. The 4th volume of “The History of My Contemporary” has been completed. December 25 Korolenko died. December 27 At the meeting of the IX All-Russian Congress of Soviets, delegates paid tribute to the memory of the writer. December 28- mourning in Poltava, civil funeral of V. G. Korolenko.

This text is an introductory fragment.

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Ukrainian and Russian writer, journalist, publicist, public figure

Vladimir Korolenko

Brief biography

Vladimir Galaktionovich Korolenko(July 27, 1853, Zhitomir - December 25, 1921, Poltava) - Ukrainian and Russian writer, journalist, publicist, public figure, who earned recognition for his human rights activities both during the years of tsarist power and during the Civil War and Soviet power. For his critical views, Korolenko was subjected to repression by the tsarist government. A significant part of the writer’s literary works are inspired by impressions of his childhood spent in Ukraine and his exile in Siberia.

Honorary Academician of the Imperial Academy of Sciences in the category of fine literature (1900-1902, from 1918).

Childhood and youth

Korolenko was born in Zhitomir in the family of a district judge. According to family legend, the writer’s grandfather Afanasy Yakovlevich (1781-1860) came from a Cossack family that went back to the Mirgorod Cossack colonel Ivan Korol; Grandfather's sister Ekaterina Korolenko is the grandmother of Academician Vernadsky.

The Zhitomir house, where V. Korolenko spent his childhood and early youth, has been a museum since 1972

The writer’s father, stern and reserved and at the same time incorruptible and fair, Galaktion Afanasyevich Korolenko (1810-1868), who in 1858 had the rank of collegiate assessor and served as a Zhytomyr district judge, had a huge influence on the formation of his son’s worldview. Subsequently, the image of his father was captured by the writer in his famous story “ In bad company" The writer’s mother, Evelina Iosifovna, was Polish, and Polish was Vladimir’s native language in childhood.

The grave of the father and younger sister of the writer V. G. Korolenko. Rivne, Ukraine

Korolenko had an older brother, Yulian, a younger brother, Illarion, and two younger sisters, Maria and Evelina. The third sister, Alexandra Galaktionovna Korolenko, died on May 7, 1867 at the age of 1 year and 10 months. She was buried in Rivne.

Vladimir Korolenko began his studies at the Polish boarding school of Rykhlinsky, then studied at the Zhitomir gymnasium, and after his father was transferred for service to Rivne, he continued his secondary education at the Rivne real school, graduating after his father’s death. In 1871 he entered the St. Petersburg Institute of Technology, but due to financial difficulties he was forced to leave it and in 1874 go on a scholarship to the Petrovsky Agricultural Academy in Moscow.

Revolutionary activity and exile

From an early age, Korolenko joined the revolutionary populist movement. In 1876, for participating in populist student circles, he was expelled from the academy and exiled to Kronstadt under police supervision. In Kronstadt, a young man earned his living by drawing.

At the end of his exile, Korolenko returned to St. Petersburg and in 1877 entered the Mining Institute. The beginning of Korolenko’s literary activity dates back to this period. In July 1879, the St. Petersburg magazine “Slovo” published the writer’s first short story, “Episodes from the Life of a ‘Seeker’.” Korolenko originally intended this story for the magazine “Otechestvennye Zapiski”, but the first attempt at writing was unsuccessful - the editor of the magazine M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin returned the manuscript to the young author with the words: “It would have been nothing... but green... very green.” But in the spring of 1879, on suspicion of revolutionary activity, Korolenko was again expelled from the institute and exiled to Glazov, Vyatka province.

Literary debut in the magazine “Slovo”, 1879, No. 7

On June 3, 1879, together with his brother Illarion, the writer, accompanied by gendarmes, was taken to this provincial town. The writer remained in Glazov until October, until, as a result of two complaints from Korolenko about the actions of the Vyatka administration, his punishment was tightened. On October 25, 1879, Korolenko was sent to the Biserovskaya volost with the appointment of residence in Berezovsky Pochinki, where he stayed until the end of January 1880. From there, for unauthorized absence from the village of Afanasyevskoye, the writer was sent first to the Vyatka prison, and then to the Vyshnevolotsk transit prison.

From Vyshny Volochok he was sent to Siberia, but was returned from the road. On August 9, 1880, together with another batch of exiles, he arrived in Tomsk for further travel to the east. Was located on what is now the street. Pushkina, 48.

“In Tomsk we were placed in a transit prison, a large stone one-story building,” Korolenko later recalled. “But the next day a governor’s official came to the prison with the message that the Loris-Melikov High Commission, having examined our cases, decided to release several people and announce to six that they were returning to European Russia under police supervision. I was among them...”

From September 1880 to August 1881 he lived in Perm as a political exile, serving as a timekeeper and clerk on the railway. He gave private lessons to Perm students, including the daughter of a local photographer, Maria Moritsovna Geinrich, who later became the wife of D. N. Mamin-Sibiryak.

In March 1881, Korolenko refused an individual oath to the new Tsar Alexander III and on August 11, 1881 he was expelled from Perm to Siberia. He arrived in Tomsk for the second time, accompanied by two gendarmes, on September 4, 1881 and was taken to the so-called prison castle, or, as the prisoners called it, the “Containing” prison (now the rebuilt 9th building of the TPU on Arkady Ivanov Street, 4).

He served his term of exile in Siberia in Yakutia in the Amginskaya Sloboda. Harsh living conditions did not break the writer’s will. The difficult six years of exile became the time of formation of a mature writer and provided rich material for his future works.

Literary career

In 1885, Korolenko was allowed to settle in Nizhny Novgorod. The Nizhny Novgorod decade (1885-1895) is the period of the most fruitful work of Korolenko as a writer, a surge of his talent, after which the reading public throughout the Russian Empire started talking about him.

In January 1886, in Nizhny Novgorod, Vladimir Galaktionovich married Evdokia Semyonovna Ivanovskaya, whom he had known for a long time; he will live with her for the rest of his life.

V. G. Korolenko. Nizhny Novgorod, 1890s.

In 1886 his first book “ Essays and stories”, which included the writer’s Siberian short stories. During these same years, Korolenko published his “Pavlovsk Sketches,” which were the result of repeated visits to the village of Pavlova in the Gorbatovsky district of the Nizhny Novgorod province. The work describes the plight of the artisanal metalworkers of the village, crushed by poverty.

Korolenko’s real triumph was the release of his best works - “ Makar's Dream" (1885), " In bad company" (1885) and " Blind musician"(1886). In them, Korolenko, with a deep knowledge of human psychology, takes a philosophical approach to resolving the problem of the relationship between man and society. The material for the writer was the memories of his childhood spent in Ukraine, enriched with observations, philosophical and social conclusions of a mature master who went through difficult years of exile and repression. According to the writer, the fullness and harmony of life, happiness can only be felt by overcoming one’s own egoism and taking the path of serving the people.

In the 1890s, Korolenko traveled a lot. He visits various regions of the Russian Empire (Crimea, Caucasus). In 1893, the writer attended the World Exhibition in Chicago (USA). The result of this trip was the story “ Without tongue"(1895). Korolenko receives recognition not only in Russia, but also abroad. His works are published in foreign languages.

In 1895-1900, Korolenko lived in St. Petersburg. He edits the magazine Russian wealth"(editor-in-chief since 1904). During this period, short stories were published " Marusina Zaimka"(1899), " Instant"(1900).

In 1900, the writer settled in Poltava, where he lived until his death.

In 1905 he built a dacha on the Khatki farm, and until 1919 he spent every summer here with his family.

In the last years of his life (1906-1921), Korolenko worked on a large autobiographical work “ The story of my contemporary”, which was supposed to summarize everything that he experienced and systematize the writer’s philosophical views. The work remained unfinished. The writer died while working on his fourth volume from pneumonia.

He was buried in Poltava at the Old Cemetery. In connection with the closure of this necropolis on August 29, 1936, the grave of V. G. Korolenko was moved to the territory of the Poltava City Garden (now it is Victory Park). The tombstone was made by Soviet sculptor Nadezhda Krandievskaya.

Journalism and social activities

Korolenko's popularity was enormous, and the tsarist government was forced to take his journalistic statements into account. The writer attracted public attention to the most pressing, pressing issues of our time. He exposed the famine of 1891-1892 (series of essays “ In a hungry year"), drew attention to the "Multan case", denounced the tsarist punitive forces who brutally dealt with Little Russian peasants fighting for their rights (" Sorochinskaya tragedy", 1906), the reactionary policy of the tsarist government after the suppression of the 1905 revolution (" Everyday phenomenon", 1910).

Vladimir Korolenko. Portrait of I. E. Repin.

In his literary social activities, he drew attention to the oppressed position of Jews in Russia and was their consistent and active defender.

In 1911-1913, Korolenko spoke out against the reactionaries and chauvinists who were inflating the falsified “Beilis case”; he published more than ten articles in which he exposed the lies and falsifications of the Black Hundreds. It was V.G. Korolenko who was the author of the appeal “To Russian Society. Regarding the blood libel against the Jews,” which was published on November 30, 1911 in the newspaper Rech, and reprinted by other publications and published as a separate edition in 1912.

In 1900, Korolenko, along with Leo Tolstoy, Anton Chekhov, Vladimir Solovyov and Pyotr Boborykin, was elected an honorary academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences in the category of belles-lettres, but in 1902 he resigned the title of academician in protest against the exclusion of Maxim Gorky from the ranks of academicians. After the overthrow of the monarchy, the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1918 elected Korolenko an honorary academician again.

Attitude to revolution and civil war

In 1917, A.V. Lunacharsky said that Korolenko was suitable for the post of first president of the Russian Republic. After the October Revolution, Korolenko openly condemned the methods by which the Bolsheviks carried out the construction of socialism. The position of Korolenko, a humanist who condemned the atrocities of the civil war, who stood up to protect the individual from Bolshevik tyranny, is reflected in his “ Letters to Lunacharsky" (1920) and " Letters from Poltava"(1921).

Korolenko and Lenin

V.I. Lenin first mentioned Korolenko in his work “The Development of Capitalism in Russia” (1899). Lenin wrote: “the preservation of the mass of small establishments and small proprietors, the preservation of connections with the land and the extremely widespread development of work at home - all this leads to the fact that very many “handicraftsmen” in manufacturing are also gravitating towards the peasantry, towards becoming small proprietors, to the past, and not to the future, they also seduce themselves with all sorts of illusions about the possibility (through extreme effort of work, through frugality and resourcefulness) to turn into an independent owner”; “for individual heroes of amateur performances (like Duzhkin in Korolenko’s “Pavlovsk Sketches”) such a transformation into the manufacturing period is still possible, but, of course, not for the mass of poor detailed workers.” Lenin, thus, recognized the real-life truthfulness of one of Korolenko’s artistic images.

Lenin mentioned Korolenko a second time in 1907. Since 1906, articles and notes by Korolenko began to appear in the press about the torture of Little Russian peasants in Sorochintsy by the actual state councilor Filonov. Shortly after the publication of Korolenko’s open letter exposing Filonov in the Poltava region newspaper, Filonov was killed. The persecution of Korolenko began for “incitement to murder.” On March 12, 1907, in the State Duma, monarchist V. Shulgin called Korolenko a “murderer writer.” In April of the same year, the representative of the Social Democrats, Aleksinsky, was supposed to speak in the Duma. For this speech, Lenin wrote a “Draft Speech on the Agrarian Question in the Second State Duma.” Mentioning in it a collection of statistical materials from the Department of Agriculture, processed by a certain S.A. Korolenko, Lenin warned against confusing this person with the famous namesake, whose name was recently mentioned at a meeting of the Duma. Lenin noted: “This information was processed by Mr. S. A. Korolenko - not to be confused with V. G. Korolenko; not a progressive writer, but a reactionary official, that’s who this Mr. S. A. Korolenko is.”

There is an opinion that the pseudonym “Lenin” itself was chosen under the impression of the Siberian stories of V. G. Korolenko. Researcher P.I. Negretov writes about this with reference to the memoirs of D.I. Ulyanov.

In 1919, Lenin, in a letter to Maxim Gorky, sharply criticized Korolenko's journalistic work on the war. Lenin wrote:

It is wrong to confuse the “intellectual forces” of the people with the “forces” of bourgeois intellectuals. I’ll take Korolenko as an example: I recently read his pamphlet “War, Fatherland and Humanity,” written in August 1917. Korolenko is, after all, the best of the “near-cadets”, almost a Menshevik. And what a vile, vile, vile defense of the imperialist war, covered up with sugary phrases! A pathetic bourgeois, captivated by bourgeois prejudices! For such gentlemen, 10,000,000 killed in an imperialist war is a cause worthy of support (deeds, with sugary phrases “against” war), and the death of hundreds of thousands in a just civil war against landowners and capitalists evokes gasps, groans, and sighs. , hysterics. No. It’s not a sin for such “talents” to spend a week in prison if this needs to be done to prevent conspiracies (like Krasnaya Gorka) and the death of tens of thousands...

In 1920, Korolenko wrote six letters to Lunacharsky, in which he criticized the extrajudicial powers of the Cheka to impose death sentences, and also called for abandoning the idealistic policy of war communism, which was destroying the national economy, and restoring natural economic relations. According to available data, the initiative for Lunacharsky’s contact with Korolenko came from Lenin. According to the memoirs of V.D. Bonch-Bruevich, Lenin hoped that Lunacharsky would be able to change Korolenko’s negative attitude towards the Soviet system. Having met Korolenko in Poltava, Lunacharsky suggested that he write letters to him outlining his views on what was happening; at the same time, Lunacharsky inadvertently promised to publish these letters along with his answers. However, Lunacharsky did not respond to the letters. Korolenko sent copies of the letters abroad, and in 1922 they were published in Paris. This publication soon appeared in Lenin's possession. The fact that Lenin was reading Korolenko’s letters to Lunacharsky was reported in Pravda on September 24, 1922.

Nicknames

Archivist;
V.K.;
Vl. TO.;
Hm-hm;
Journalist;
Viewer;
Zyryanov, Parfen;
I.S.;
K-enko, V.;
K-ko, Vl.;
Cor., V.;
Cor., Vl.;
Cor-o;
Kor-o, Vl.;
King, Vl.;
Kor-sky, V. N.;
King, Vl.;
Chronicler;
Little man;
N.A.;
BUT.;
Uninvited, Andrey;
Non-statistician;
Nizhny Novgorod;
Nizhny Novgorod employee of the Volzhsky Vestnik;
O. B. A. (with N. F. Annensky);
Everyman;
Passenger;
Poltavets;
Provincial observer;
Provincial Observer;
Simple-minded reader;
Passerby;
Old timer;
Old reader;
Tentetnikov;
P.L.;

Family

He was married to Evdokia Semyonovna Ivanovskaya, a revolutionary populist.
Two children: Natalya and Sophia. Two more died in infancy.
The wife's sisters P.S. Ivanovskaya, A.S. Ivanovskaya and the wife's brother V.S. Ivanovsky were populist revolutionaries.

V. G. Korolenko with his family. From left to right: Evdokia Semyonovna - the wife of V. G. Korolenko, Vladimir Galaktionovich and his daughters - Natalya and Sofia.

Ratings

Contemporaries highly valued Korolenko not only as a writer, but also as a person and as a public figure. The usually reserved I. Bunin said about him: “You rejoice that he lives and thrives among us, like some kind of titanium, who cannot be touched by all those negative phenomena with which our current literature and life are so rich. When L.N. Tolstoy lived, I personally was not afraid of everything that was happening in Russian literature. Now I, too, am not afraid of anyone or anything: after all, the wonderful, immaculate Vladimir Galaktionovich Korolenko is alive.” A. Lunacharsky, after the February Revolution, expressed the opinion that it was Korolenko who should become the president of the Russian republic. In M. Gorky, Korolenko evoked a feeling of “unshakable trust.” Gorky wrote: “I was friendly with many writers, but none of them could instill in me the feeling of respect that V[ladimir] Galaktionovich instilled from my first meeting with him. He wasn’t my teacher for long, but he was, and that’s what I’m proud of to this day.” A. Chekhov spoke about Korolenko like this: “I am ready to swear that Korolenko is a very good person. Walking not only next to, but even behind this guy is fun.”

Bibliography

Publication of works

Collected works in 6 bindings. - St. Petersburg, 1907-1912.
Complete works in 9 volumes. - Pg.: Ed. t-va A.F. Marx, 1914.
Complete works, vols. 1-5, 7-8, 13, 15-22, 24, 50-51; Posthumous edition, State Historical Institute of Ukraine, Kharkov - Poltava, 1922-1928.
Siberian essays and stories, parts 1-2. M., Goslitizdat, 1946.
Collected works in 10 volumes. - M., 1953-1956.
V. G. Korolenko about literature. M., Goslitizdat, 1957.
Collected works in 5 volumes. - M., 1960-1961.
Collected works in 6 volumes. - M., 1971.
Collected works in 5 volumes. - L., Fiction, 1989-1991.
The history of my contemporary in 4 volumes. - L., 1976.
Vladimir Korolenko. Diary. Letters. 1917-1921. - M., Soviet writer, 2001.
Russia would be alive. Unknown journalism 1917-1921. - M., 2002.
Unpublished by V. G. Korolenko. Journalism. 1914-1916. - 2011. - 352 p. - 1000 copies. ;
Unpublished by V. G. Korolenko. Journalism. T. 2. 1917-1918. - 2012. - 448 p. - 1000 copies. ;
Unpublished by V. G. Korolenko. Journalism. T. 3. 1919-1921. - 2013. - 464 p. - 1000 copies. ;
Unpublished V. G. Korolenko (1914-1921): diaries and notebooks. - M.: Pashkov House, 2013. - T. 1. 1914-1918. - 352 s.
Unpublished V. G. Korolenko (1914-1921): diaries and notebooks. - M.: Pashkov House, 2013. - T. 2. 1919-1921. - 400 s.

Film adaptations of works

A Long Way (USSR, 1956, director Leonid Gaidai).
Polesie Legend (USSR, 1957, directors: Pyotr Vasilevsky, Nikolai Figurovsky).
The Blind Musician (USSR, 1960, director Tatyana Lukashevich).
Among the Gray Stones (USSR, 1983, director Kira Muratova).

Museums

View of the dacha from the entrance to the museum.
Dzhanhot village (Krasnodar region)

The house-museum “Dacha Korolenko” is located in the village of Dzhankhot, 20 kilometers southeast of Gelendzhik. The main building was built in 1902 according to the writer’s drawings, and utility rooms and buildings were completed over several years. The writer lived in this residence in 1904, 1908, 1912 and 1915.
In Nizhny Novgorod, on the basis of school No. 14, there is a museum that contains materials on the Nizhny Novgorod period of the writer’s life.
Museum in the city of Rivne on the site of the Rivne Men's Gymnasium.
In the writer’s homeland, in the city of Zhitomir, the writer’s house-museum was opened in 1973.
In Poltava there is the V. G. Korolenko Museum-Estate - the house in which the writer lived for the last 18 years of his life.
Landscape reserve of national significance "Dacha Korolenko". Poltava region, Shishaksky district, Maly Perevoz village (former Khatki farm). Here the writer rested and worked in the summer since 1905.
Virtual Museum of V. G. Korolenko

Memory

Libraries named after V. G. Korolenko

Kharkov State Scientific Library named after V. G. Korolenko
Chernigov Regional Universal Scientific Library named after V. G. Korolenko
Glazov Public Scientific Library named after V. G. Korolenko
Library No. 44 named after V. G. Korolenko in Moscow
Library in Izhevsk
Voronezh Regional Library for the Blind named after V. G. Korolenko
Kurgan Regional Special Library named after V. G. Korolenko
District library No. 13 in Perm
Central Library in Gelendzhik
Children's Library No. 6 in St. Petersburg
Library No. 26 in Yekaterinburg
Library-branch No. 11, Zaporozhye
Children's library in Novosibirsk
Central Library in Mariupol
Central District Library named after. V. G. Korolenko, Nizhny Novgorod district in Nizhny Novgorod
Pavlovsk Central Library named after. V. G. Korolenko. Pavlovo, Nizhny Novgorod region
Poltava Pedagogical University named after. V. G. Korolenko.
Poltava school No. 10 1-3 levels named after. V. G. Korolenko

Korolenko Street

Other institutions

In 1961, the State Russian Drama Theater of Udmurtia in Izhevsk was named after V. G. Korolenko, who acted as a defender of the Udmurt peasants in the Multan case. The play “Russian Friend” was staged about the events of the case.
In 1973, a monument was erected in the writer’s homeland in Zhitomir (sculptor V. Vinaykin, architect N. Ivanchuk).
The name of Korolenko was given to the Poltava State Pedagogical Institute, schools in Poltava and Zhitomir, and the Glazov State Pedagogical Institute.
Secondary school No. 14 in Nizhny Novgorod
Educational complex named after. V. G. Korolenko in Kharkov
School No. 3 in Kerch
School No. 2 in Noginsk (Moscow region)
The name was assigned to the USSR passenger ship.
In 1977, minor planet 3835 was named Korolenko.
In 1978, for the 125th anniversary of the writer, a monument was erected near the dacha in the village of Khatki, Shishaksky district, Poltava region.
In 1990, the Writers' Union of Ukraine established the Korolenko Literary Prize for the best Russian-language literary work in Ukraine.

Korolenko Vladimir Galaktionovich
Born: July 15 (27), 1853.
Died: December 25, 1921.

Biography

Vladimir Galaktionovich Korolenko (July 15 (27), 1853, Zhitomir - December 25, 1921, Poltava) - Russian writer of Ukrainian-Polish origin, journalist, publicist, public figure, who earned recognition for his human rights activities both during the years of tsarist power and during the Civil War war and Soviet power. For his critical views, Korolenko was subjected to repression by the tsarist government. A significant part of the writer’s literary works are inspired by impressions of his childhood spent in Ukraine and his exile in Siberia.

Honorary Academician of the Imperial Academy of Sciences in the category of fine literature (1900-1902, from 1918).

Childhood and youth

Korolenko was born in Zhitomir in the family of a district judge. According to family legend, the writer’s grandfather Afanasy Yakovlevich came from a Cossack family that went back to the Mirgorod Cossack colonel Ivan Korol: 5-6; Grandfather's sister Ekaterina Korolenko is the grandmother of Academician Vernadsky. The writer’s father, stern and reserved and at the same time incorruptible and fair, Galaktion Afanasyevich Korolenko (1810-1868), who in 1858 had the rank of collegiate assessor and served as a Zhytomyr district judge, had a huge influence on the formation of his son’s worldview. Subsequently, the image of his father was captured by the writer in his famous story “In Bad Society.” The writer’s mother, Evelina Iosifovna, was Polish, and Polish was Vladimir’s native language in childhood.

U Korolenko there was an older brother Julian, a younger brother Illarion and two younger sisters Maria and Evelina. The third sister, Alexandra Galaktionovna Korolenko, died on May 7, 1867 at the age of 1 year and 10 months. She was buried in Rivne.

Revolutionary activity and exile

“In Tomsk we were placed in a transit prison, a large stone one-story building,” Korolenko later recalled. “But the next day a governor’s official came to the prison with the message that the Loris-Melikov High Commission, having examined our cases, decided to release several people and announce to six that they were returning to European Russia under police supervision. I was among them...” From September 1880 to August 1881 he lived in Perm as a political exile, serving as a timekeeper and clerk on the railway. He gave private lessons to Perm students, including the daughter of a local photographer, Maria Moritsovna Geinrich, who later became the wife of D. N. Mamin-Sibiryak.

Literary career

In January 1886, in Nizhny Novgorod, Vladimir Galaktionovich married Evdokia Semyonovna Ivanovskaya, whom he had known for a long time; he will live with her for the rest of his life.

In 1886, his first book, “Essays and Stories,” was published, which included the writer’s Siberian short stories. During these same years, Korolenko published his “Pavlovsk Sketches,” which were the result of repeated visits to the village of Pavlova in the Gorbatovsky district of the Nizhny Novgorod province. The work describes the plight of the artisanal metalworkers of the village, crushed by poverty.

Korolenko’s real triumph was the release of his best works - “Makar’s Dream” (1885), “In Bad Society” (1885) and “The Blind Musician” (1886). In them, Korolenko, with a deep knowledge of human psychology, takes a philosophical approach to resolving the problem of the relationship between man and society. The material for the writer was the memories of his childhood spent in Ukraine, enriched with observations, philosophical and social conclusions of a mature master who went through difficult years of exile and repression. According to the writer, the fullness and harmony of life, happiness can only be felt by overcoming one’s own egoism and taking the path of serving the people.

In 1895-1900, Korolenko lived in St. Petersburg. He edits the magazine "Russian Wealth". During this period, the short stories “Marusya’s Zaimka” (1899) and “Moment” (1900) were published.

In 1900, the writer settled in Poltava, where he lived until his death.

In 1905 he built a dacha on the Khatki farm, and until 1919 he spent every summer here with his family.

In the last years of his life (1906-1921), Korolenko worked on a large autobiographical work, “The History of My Contemporary,” which was supposed to summarize everything that he experienced and systematize the writer’s philosophical views. The work remained unfinished. The writer died while working on his fourth volume from pneumonia.

Journalism and social activities

Korolenko's popularity was enormous, and the tsarist government was forced to take his journalistic statements into account. The writer attracted public attention to the most pressing, pressing issues of our time. He exposed the famine of 1891-1892 (a series of essays “In the Hungry Year”), drew attention to the “Multan Affair”, denounced the tsarist punitive forces who brutally dealt with Ukrainian peasants fighting for their rights (“Sorochinskaya Tragedy”, 1906), reactionary policies tsarist government after the suppression of the 1905 revolution (“Everyday Phenomenon,” 1910).

In his literary social activities, he drew attention to the oppressed position of Jews in Russia and was their consistent and active defender. In 1911-1913, Korolenko spoke out against the reactionaries and chauvinists who were inflating the falsified “Beilis case”; he published more than ten articles in which he exposed the lies and falsifications of the Black Hundreds.

Attitude to revolution and civil war

In 1917, A.V. Lunacharsky said that Korolenko was suitable for the post of first president of the Russian Republic. After the October Revolution, Korolenko openly condemned the methods by which the Bolsheviks carried out the construction of socialism. The position of Korolenko, a humanist who condemned the atrocities of the civil war, who defended the individual from Bolshevik tyranny, is reflected in his “Letters to Lunacharsky” (1920) and “Letters from Poltava” (1921).

Korolenko and Lenin

V.I. Lenin first mentioned Korolenko in his work “The Development of Capitalism in Russia” (1899). Lenin wrote: “the preservation of the mass of small establishments and small proprietors, the preservation of connections with the land and the extremely widespread development of work at home - all this leads to the fact that very many “handicraftsmen” in manufacturing are also gravitating towards the peasantry, towards becoming a small proprietor, to the past, and not to the future, they also seduce themselves with all sorts of illusions about the possibility (through extreme effort of work, through frugality and resourcefulness) to turn into an independent owner”; “for individual heroes of amateur performances (like Duzhkin in Korolenko’s “Pavlovsk Sketches”) such a transformation into the manufacturing period is still possible, but, of course, not for the mass of poor detailed workers.” Lenin, thus, recognized the real-life truthfulness of one of Korolenko’s artistic images.

Lenin mentioned Korolenko a second time in 1907. Since 1906, articles and notes by Korolenko about the torture of Ukrainian peasants in Sorochintsy by the actual state councilor Filonov began to appear in the press. Shortly after the publication of Korolenko’s open letter exposing Filonov in the Poltava region newspaper, Filonov was killed. The persecution of Korolenko began for “incitement to murder.” On March 12, 1907, in the State Duma, monarchist V. Shulgin called Korolenko a “murderer writer.” In April of the same year, the representative of the Social Democrats, Aleksinsky, was supposed to speak in the Duma. For this speech, Lenin wrote a “Draft Speech on the Agrarian Question in the Second State Duma.” Mentioning in it a collection of statistical materials from the Department of Agriculture, processed by a certain S.A. Korolenko, Lenin warned against confusing this person with the famous namesake, whose name was recently mentioned at a meeting of the Duma. Lenin noted: “This information was processed by Mr. S. A. Korolenko - not to be confused with V. G. Korolenko; not a progressive writer, but a reactionary official, that’s who this Mr. S. A. Korolenko is.”

In 1919, Lenin, in a letter to Maxim Gorky, sharply criticized Korolenko’s journalistic work on the war:271. Lenin wrote:

It is wrong to confuse the “intellectual forces” of the people with the “forces” of bourgeois intellectuals. I’ll take Korolenko as an example: I recently read his pamphlet “War, Fatherland and Humanity,” written in August 1917. Korolenko is, after all, the best of the “near-cadets”, almost a Menshevik. And what a vile, vile, vile defense of the imperialist war, covered up with sugary phrases! A pathetic bourgeois, captivated by bourgeois prejudices! For such gentlemen, 10,000,000 killed in an imperialist war is a cause worthy of support (deeds, with sugary phrases “against” war), and the death of hundreds of thousands in a just civil war against landowners and capitalists evokes gasps, groans, and sighs. , hysterics. No. It’s not a sin for such “talents” to spend weeks in prison if this needs to be done to prevent conspiracies (like Krasnaya Gorka) and the death of tens of thousands... In 1920, Korolenko wrote six letters to Lunacharsky, in which he criticized the extrajudicial powers of the Cheka to impose death sentences, as well as called for abandoning the idealistic policy of war communism, which is destroying the national economy, and restoring natural economic relations. According to available data, the initiative for Lunacharsky’s contact with Korolenko came from Lenin. According to the memoirs of V.D. Bonch-Bruevich, Lenin hoped that Lunacharsky would be able to change Korolenko’s negative attitude towards the Soviet system. Having met Korolenko in Poltava, Lunacharsky suggested that he write letters to him outlining his views on what was happening; at the same time, Lunacharsky inadvertently promised to publish these letters along with his answers. However, Lunacharsky did not respond to the letters. Korolenko sent copies of the letters abroad, and in 1922 they were published in Paris. This publication soon appeared in Lenin's possession. The fact that Lenin was reading Korolenko’s letters to Lunacharsky was reported on September 24, 1922 in Pravda: 272-274.

Family

He was married to Evdokia Semyonovna Ivanovskaya, a revolutionary populist.
Two children: Natalya and Sophia. (Two more died in infancy.)
The wife's sisters P.S. Ivanovskaya, A.S. Ivanovskaya and the wife's brother V.S. Ivanovsky were populist revolutionaries.

Ratings

Vladimir Galaktionovich Korolenko (1853 - 1921) - an outstanding Russian writer. Born in 1853 in the city of Zhitomir in the family of an official. He studied at the Zhytomyr gymnasium, and later at the Rivne real gymnasium. A major role in the formation of Korolenko’s worldview was played by democratic literature of the 60s, the works of N. G. Chernyshevsky, N. A. Dobrolyubov, M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, N. A. Nekrasov, T. G. Shevchenko; their views had a huge influence on all his work. In 1871, Korolenko entered the St. Petersburg Institute, but was unable to study due to lack of funds. He worked as a proofreader and geographical map drawer. In 1874 he entered the Petrovsky Agricultural and Forestry Academy in Moscow. As a student, he prepared for propaganda activities among peasants. In March 1876, Korolenko was expelled from the academy and then arrested because, on behalf of the majority of students, he protested against the administration, which performed purely police functions. Since 1879, Korolenko’s life began to undergo a long period of exile (to the Vyatka province, to Eastern Siberia, etc.). In August 1881, he was exiled to the Yakut region, after a demonstrative refusal to sign the oath to Alexander III. Korolenko was allowed to return to European Russia in the fall of 1884. Since 1885, he lived in Nizhny Novgorod, under police supervision.

Korolenko’s first story, “Episodes from the Life of a Seeker” (1879), to a certain extent reflected popular views. However, in the two subsequent stories, “Yashka” (1881) and “The Unreal City” (1881), the writer began to take a break from the people’s illusion, which was facilitated by direct acquaintance with the people during the period of exile. Already Korolenko’s early stories and essays are characterized by a realistic depiction of people’s life, attention to people who have not repented of a difficult fate, full of an indomitable desire to achieve truth and freedom. The tenacity and courage of the Russian revolutionary girl served as the theme of the story “Wonderful” (1880, published abroad in 1893, in Russia - 1905). The Yakut peasant, the hero of the story “Makar’s Dream” (1885), protests against social injustice. The ability of a Russian person to accomplish a feat and the strength of his soul is spoken of in the essay “The River Is Playing” (1892). Korolenko’s work reveals the deep inner beauty of people from the people who rise to fight for their liberation. At the center of the story “The Musician” (1886) is the spiritual drama of a blind man who “saw” the world through high art. This soulful work, the result of a blind musician with people from the people, helps overcome personal grief from which there seemed to be no way out. This idea of the story was pointed out by M.I. Kalinin in his speech on October 25, 1919 at a meeting dedicated to the defense of Tula from Denikin’s gangs: “The greatest artist of the word Korolenko in his blind “Blind Musician” clearly showed how problematic and fragile this individual human happiness is ... A person ... can be happy if then, when with all the threads of his soul, when with all his body and all his heart he is united with his class, and only then his life will be full and whole.”

Korolenko’s works reflected Russian reality associated with the collapse of patriarchal forms of peasant life and the penetration of capital into the countryside. His speech with essays about the famous handicrafts of the village of Pavlova, near Nizhny Novgorod ("Pavlovsk Sketches", 1890) was significant. The populists considered this village an example of handicraft production, supposedly having escaped the influence of capitalism about free exploitation. Resolutely rejecting these false statements, Korolenko painted a true picture of the ruin of artisans, their complete dependence on capitalist buyers. “There is no just a peasant,” Korolenko wrote in his essays “In a Hungry Year,” “there are poor people and rich people, owners and workers.” Korolenko expressed his disagreement with the fiction of late populism, which, in his words, viewed reality “through the prism of lies.” A significant place in Korolenko’s work is occupied by the story “Without a Language” (1895), which depicts the misadventures of a Ukrainian peasant who ended up in America. The hero of the story is faced with slavery, unemployment, and the criminal power of money. Driven into a frenzy, he exclaims: “Let the thunder break this damned city and some mayor you have chosen. Let the thunder break this copper freedom of theirs, there on the island...”.

In the years preceding the revolution of 1905, Korolenko continued the cycle of his stories: “The Sovereign's Coachmen” (1901), “Frost” (1901), “Marusina Zaimka” (1903), “Feudal Lords” (1901). Here, the humanist writer depicts the difficult life of people of forced labor, exposes the remnants of feudal-serfdom, and touches on the theme of the inhumanity of the bourgeois system. Despite the uncertainty of his political ideals, Korolenko believed in the victory of the people. The story “Unterrible” (1903) dates back to the same time, which, in terms of the power of exposing the bourgeois intelligentsia and the skill of its execution, can be classified as one of Korolenko’s best works.

In 1900, Korolenko was elected an honorary academician. In 1902, he, like A.P. Chekhov, refused this title in protest against the fact that M. Gorky was not approved by the tsarist government as an honorary academician.

Korolenko’s journalistic talent was especially evident in his essays “In the Year of Hunger” (1892 - 1893), “Sultan’s Sacrifice” (1895 - 1896), “Sorochinskaya Tragedy” (1907), “Everyday Phenomenon” (1910) . In an essay dedicated to the so-called. In the Sultan's case, the democratic writer came out in defense of the Votyak (Udmurt) peasants who were accused by the tsarist police of ritual murder. Korolenko proved that this process was started by the Black Hundreds in order to incite national hatred. Maxim Gorky wrote about this: “The “Sultan’s sacrifice” of the Votyaks, a process no less shameful than the “Beilis case,” would have taken on an even darker character if V. G. Korolenko had not intervened in this process and forced the press to convert attention to the idiotic obscurantism of the autocratic government." During the years of reaction, Korolenko published a pamphlet, “An Everyday Phenomenon,” in which he accused the tsarist government of an “orgy of executions” and police abuse of workers and peasants after the revolution of 1905–1907. From the 2nd half of the 90s, he took part in the publication of the liberal people's magazine "Russian Wealth" (his role was mainly limited to editing the fiction department). From Korolenko’s letters one can judge his serious differences with the editorial board of the magazine, which shared populist, liberal-bourgeois views. At the same time, the writer could not understand the shared significance of the revolutionary struggle of the working class, and this sharply distinguished his position from the position of the proletarian writer Maxim Gorky.

The last period of Korolenko’s work includes his largest work “The History of My Contemporary”, in which it is easy to consider the artistic embodiment of the author’s biography, its most important stages Korolenko at the same time introduces the reader to the development of the social movement of the 60s - 70s, with outstanding historical events of that time. The last chapters of the epic, covering the activities of the people's intelligentsia, were written after the great October socialist revolution. Without understanding its true meaning, the writer, however, saw that the revolution was victorious because the broadest masses of the people participated in it. In “The History of My Contemporary” he was able to show how naive the populists were in their hopes for the heroism of the “chosen ones” in the absence of support from the working masses.

Korolenko spoke with literary critical articles and memoir essays. The most significant of them: “In Memory of Belinsky” (1898), “About Gleb Ivanovich Uspensky” (1902), “A. P. Chekhov” (1904), “L. N. Tolstoy” (1908), a large work about N.V. Gogol “The Tragedy of the Great Humorist” (1909).

Korolenko’s realistic work with all its content opposed the decadent bourgeois literature of the pre-revolutionary era. It reflected the popular protest against the bourgeois serfdom of Tsarist Russia, against national inequality and oppression. In 1907, V.I. Lenin called Korolenko a “progressive writer.” The democratic nature of his work was noted in 1913 by Lenin's Pravda. Pointing out that Korolenko “stands apart from the labor movement,” Pravda at the same time wrote: “We honor in him both a sensitive, future artist, and a writer-citizen, a writer-democrat.” Highly appreciating the social and artistic significance of Korolenko’s work, setting him up as a writer as an example to young writers, M. Gorky wrote: “This big, beautiful writer told me personally a lot about the Russian people that no one could say before him.”

Korolenko is an excellent master of stories, essays, novels. Using extensive life material, developing a complex action even in a small work, he always remains in naturally developing compositions. Striving for a more accurate reproduction of life, Korolenko willingly introduced elements of journalism into his stories and novels. This feature is often indicated by subtitles from his stories: “Sketches from a travel album”, “From a reporter’s notes”, “From a traveler’s notebook”, etc. Korolenko is an outstanding artist of words, his art was highly appreciated by L. N. Tolstoy, A. . P. Chekhov, M. Gorky. Korolenko had a significant influence on writers who came from the people's environment. “In my early years, I was greatly influenced by Korolenko,” wrote A.S. Sirofimovich. Korolenko’s realistic method played a positive role in the development of Ukrainian, Belarusian, Lithuanian, Latvian, and Yakut prose. Korolenko's works have been translated into many languages of the peoples of the Soviet Union. In connection with the 25th anniversary of his death in 1946, the Council of Ministers of the USSR decided to perpetuate the memory of the outstanding Russian writer with a number of events. Korolenko's work, remarkable for its versatile richness of content, nobility of ideas, and perfection of artistic form, occupies a prominent place in the history of Russian classical literature.