Demyan Bedny

Demyan Bedny

(1883-1945;autobiography). - It is unlikely that any of our writers has had to share a life story more terrible and expressive than D.B.’s childhood. In his early years, he was closely connected with people who, in their souls and on their clothes, wore all the smells of criminality and hard labor. And it took enormous inner strength to so easily shake off this dirty scum of life. Horrifying cruelty and rudeness surrounded D.B.’s childhood. His ancestors, by the name of the Pridvorovs, belonged to the military settlers of the Kherson province. Military settlements - the brainchild of the terrible Arakcheev - represented the worst kind of serfdom, the worst slavery that the world has ever known. The military settlers looked at the ordinary serfs with the greatest envy. After the fall of serfdom, the spirit of Arakcheevism hovered over the entire Kherson region for a long time, supporting cruelty, riotousness, and bandit-robber instincts in the local population, which found their echoes later in the Makhnovshchina and Grigorievshchina.

D.B. was born on April 1 (13), 1883 in the village. Gubovka, Alexandria district, Kherson province. This is a large Ukrainian village, cut through by the Ingul River, separating the left - Ukrainian part of the village from the right, which has long been occupied by military settlers. D.B.’s grandfather, Sofron Fedorovich Pridvorov, still remembered the times of settlement well. Mother, Ekaterina Kuzminichna, was a Ukrainian Cossack from the village of Kamenki. An exceptionally beautiful woman, tough, cruel and dissolute, she deeply hated her husband, who lived in the city, and took out all her severe hatred on the son whom she gave birth to when she was only 17 years old. With kicks, beatings and abuse, she instilled in the boy a terrible fear, which gradually turned into an insurmountable disgust for his mother that remained forever in his soul.

“...An unforgettable time, a golden childhood...” the poet later ironically recalls this time of his life.

Efimka was barely 4 years old. It was a holiday and it was terribly stuffy. As usual, beaten and tearful, Efimka, trailing behind his mother, found himself at the shopkeeper Gershka. Huddled in a corner, he became an involuntary witness to the shameless scene that took place right there on the bags, in front of the shocked child’s eyes. The boy cried bitterly, and his mother frantically beat him with a stick all the way. Father, Alexey Safronovich Pridvorov, served in the city, 20 versts from Gubovka. Coming home on leave, he beat his wife to death, and she returned the beating to her son a hundredfold. Returning to his service, his father often took Efimka with him, who, like a holiday, waited for these happy respites. Until the age of 7, Efim lived in the city, where he learned to read and write, and then until the age of 13 in the village with his mother. Opposite the mother's house, right across the road, there was a shinok (tavern) and a village "massacre". For whole days Efimka sat on the rubble and looked village life in the face. Voiceless, silent, enslaved Rus', plucking up courage in a tavern, wildly bawled obscene songs, used disgusting foul language, raged, brawled, and then humbly atoned for its tavern heresies by repenting in a “cold one.” Right there, side by side with the “cold” one, where there was a struggle against the individual vices of the drunken Gubs, Guba life unfolded in all its noisy breadth on the field of social struggle: village gatherings were noisy, dejected defaulters were staggering, dissatisfied complainers were shouting and demanding, and, rattling with all the strings village justice, “retribution” instilled in the Guba peasants respect for the foundations of the landowner system. And the boy listened and learned.

More than once among the characters he had to meet his own mother. Ekaterina Kuzminichna was rarely at home and, enthusiastically indulging in drinking and fighting, contributed greatly to deviations from the formal and legal order in Gubovka. Hungry, the boy knocked on the first hut he came across. “So from a young age,” said D.B, smiling, “I got accustomed to public catering: wherever you come, there is your home.” In the evenings, climbing onto the stove, Efimka shared his stock of everyday observations with his grandfather. And on Sundays, the grandfather took his grandson with him to a tavern, where the boy’s worldly education was completed in a drunken haze. At home, when he was tipsy, the grandfather loved to reminisce about antiquity, about settlement times, about the lancers and dragoons who stood post throughout the Kherson region. And my grandfather’s imagination, fueled by vodka, eagerly painted idyllic pictures of serfdom.

“As it happened, for the settlement...” - the grandfather began.

It turned out that one could not wish for a better order than the patriarchal antiquity. Any innovation here is an unnecessary insertion. But when he was sober, my grandfather said something different. With hatred, he told his grandson about Arakcheevism, about the favors of the lords: how settlers were punished with sticks, how men were exiled to Siberia, and women, torn from their babies, were turned into dog feeders. And these stories are forever etched in Efimka’s memory.

“My grandfather told me a lot.

They were harsh and uncomplicated

His stories are clear

And they were worried after them

My baby dreams..."

For the lively and impressionable boy, the time had come for difficult reflections. He grabbed his grandfather's stories on the fly and struggled in anxious thoughts. On the one hand, the grandfather seemed to demand justification for the serfdom, on the other hand, he instilled a sworn hatred of antiquity with the everyday truth of his stories. And imperceptibly in Efimka’s brain a vague idea of ​​two truths was born: one - the unctuous and reconciling, embellished with the dreamy lies of her grandfather, and the other - the harsh, intractable and merciless truth of peasant life. This duality was supported in the boy by his rural upbringing. Having learned to read and write early, under the influence of the village priest, he began to read the psalter, "Cheti-Minea", "The Path to Salvation", "The Lives of the Saints" - and this directed the boy's imagination onto a false and organically alien path. Gradually, a desire to go to a monastery even developed and became established in him, but his grandfather insultingly ridiculed the boy’s religious dreams and in his garrulous conversations he paid a lot of attention to the hypocrisy and tricks of the priests, church deception, and so on.

Efimka was sent to a rural school. He studied well and willingly. Reading plunged him into a fairy-tale world. He memorized Ershov's The Little Humpbacked Horse and almost never parted with Churkin the Robber. He instantly turned every nickel that fell into his hands into a book. And the boy had nickels. The Pridvorovs' house, due to its strategic position (against the "massacre" and the tavern and not far from the road) was something like a visiting yard. The policeman, the constable, the village authorities, the passing carts, the horse thieves, the sexton, and the peasants summoned for “retribution” came here. In the midst of this motley crowd, the boy’s receptive imagination is replenished with images of future “entertainers”, “administrators”, “streets”, “farmers”, “rebellious hares” and “guardians”. Along with the knowledge of life, Efimka acquired business skills here, and soon he began to work as a village clerk. For a copper nickel, he writes petitions, gives advice, carries out various assignments and fights in every possible way against “retribution.” His literary career began from this fight against “retribution.” And the influx of everyday experience is growing and expanding, and hundreds of new stories are accumulating. For a short time, the literate Efimka becomes necessary for his mother. Whether as a result of constant beatings or other perversion of nature, but, except for Efimka, Ekaterina Kuzminichna had no more children. This has given her a strong reputation as a specialist in progeny insurance. There was no end to this type of insurance from hunters. Ekaterina Kuzminichna deftly maintained the deception. She gave the women all sorts of drugs and gave them infusions of gunpowder and onions. The Gubov girls swallowed regularly and gave birth regularly by the due date. Then Efimka was involved in the case. As a literate man, he wrote a laconic note: “baptized name Maria, herewith a silver ruble,” and “the secret fruit of unhappy love” was forwarded along with the note to the city. The guys knew that Efimka was privy to all of his mother’s secret operations and, catching him in a dark corner, asked: “Did Pryska go to your mat? But Efimka tightly kept the girl’s secrets. In addition, as a literate boy, he earned nickels by reading the psalter for the dead. These nickels were usually also drunk by the mother.

The services provided by the boy to his mother did not make the latter more affectionate towards her son. She still tyrannized the boy, still left him for whole days without food and indulged in shameless revelry. One day a boy, completely hungry, searched every corner of the hut, but did not find a single crumb. In despair, he lay down on the floor and cried. But, lying down, I unexpectedly saw a wondrous sight under the bed: about two dozen nails were driven into the wooden bottom of the bed, and hanging from the nails on strings were: sausage, fish, bagels, sugar, several bottles of vodka, sour cream, milk - in a word, a whole shop. Notified of this, grandfather Sofron grunted: “That’s why she, the bitch, is always so red!” - but the hungry old man and the boy were afraid to touch the supplies. D.B. attributes one of the darkest memories of his childhood to this time. He is 12 years old. He is dying - probably from diphtheria: his throat is clogged to the point of complete muteness. They gave him communion and laid him under the icons. The mother is right there - bare-haired, drunk. She sews a mortal shirt and screams merry tavern songs at the top of her voice. It is painfully difficult for the boy. He wants to say something, but he just moves his lips silently. The mother bursts into drunken laughter. The cemetery watchman Bulakh enters - a drunkard and a cheerful cynic. He joins his mother in singing. Then he comes up to Efimka and good-naturedly reasons: “Well, Efimasha, let’s give a damn... Why do you want it? For a grandma. The mint smells so good there...” Someone let my father know that Efimka was dying.

Meanwhile, the abscess burst. The boy woke up from terrible screams. It was dark. A drunken mother was lying on the floor, screaming in a frantic voice under the blows of her father's boot. The father drove 20 miles from the city, found his mother drunkenly and dragged her home by her braids. From this memorable night, a turning point in Efimka’s life begins. The mother stopped beating him, the boy began to resolutely fight back and began to run to his father more often. In the city, Efimka became friends with two boys - Senka Sokolov, the son of an Elvort worker, and the son of a gendarmerie sergeant - Sashka Levchuk. The latter was preparing for paramedic school. It was prepared by a real teacher, who received 3 rubles a month. Having attended Sashka’s lessons a couple of times, the boy was completely captivated by the desire to follow in the footsteps of his friend. The father did not oppose this. He paid the teacher 3 rubles for Efimka’s right to attend lessons. For about 3 months Efimka went to see the teacher. In the fall of 1896, the boys were taken to Kyiv to take an exam.

And now the victory is won. The boy was admitted to a military paramedic school as a “officially paid” student. In the tall, warm rooms with white walls and polished floors, he immediately felt overwhelmed with sublime joy. Far behind were a fierce mother, beatings, fights, mutilations, obscene conversations, pregnant girls, foundlings, psalters for the dead, the desire to flee to a monastery. He eagerly listened to every word of the teachers, imbued with their faith and convictions. And here for the first time he gave his feelings the forms that were characteristic of his talent: he wrote poetry.

These were patriotic poems dedicated to Tsar Nicholas II on the occasion of his performance as a “peacemaker” with the convening of a conference in The Hague (in 1899):

"Sound my lyre:

I compose songs

Apostle of Peace

Tsar Nicholas!"

Could it have been different? He refuses to enter the monastery, but, of course, considers his luck as the grace of providence. Sharp by nature, but not yet touched by culture and knowledge, the boy’s thought continues to work in the same narrow church-patriotic circle. His whole soul is in the power of unctuous, reconciling truth.

“When I am asked to write about the “horrors” of military education in a military paramedic school,” says D.B., “then I just feel embarrassed. What horrors there were when I first felt free at school. High white walls, parquet floors, hot lunches every day - I never even dreamed of this. I was in tenth heaven.”

D.B. graduated from school in 1900. After that, he served in military service until 1904 in Elisavetgrad, where D.B. managed to prepare for a matriculation certificate. In the spring of 1904, he passed the exam and entered St. Petersburg University. This was a great triumph for D.B., since preparing for the matriculation certificate cost him incredible efforts. However, this triumph was, as usual, poisoned. When D.B. was leaving for St. Petersburg University, he saw a disheveled woman at the station, not entirely sober. Shaking her fist in his direction, she screamed wildly across the entire platform: “Oh, so that we get there and don’t come back...” It was Ekaterina Kuzminichna who sent her maternal blessing to her departing son. Since then, the mother has not made herself known for many years. Only in 1912, while working in the St. Petersburg public library, my son accidentally came across a small article in the Elisavetgrad newspaper: “The case of Ekaterina Pridvorova about the torture of minors.” Soon after this, the mother arrived in St. Petersburg, found her son and, without looking him in the eyes, gloomily said: “He’s gone.” - "Whom?" - "Old Man (father)." And getting confused, she said that at the bazaar in Elisavetgrad, in a latrine, they found her father’s corpse. The corpse was completely decomposed; on the finger there was a silver ring with the inscription: Alexey Pridvorov. From questioning it turned out that she had a big quarrel with her father over a house in the village. My father was going to leave somewhere and wanted to sell the house. Mother was against it. At that time she was selling at the market, and her locker was located not far from the latrine. Listening to his mother's confused testimony, the son came to the firm conviction that she was involved in the murder. But Ekaterina Kuzminichna knew how to keep her mouth shut.

Already during the years of Soviet power, when her son became known throughout Russia, she found him in the Kremlin, came to him more than once, received money and gifts, but when leaving, she invariably stole, and did not hesitate to shout in Elisavetgrad at the bazaar: “Here is hat D . B., for three karbovanets." But when asked about her murdered father, she answered with vicious abuse. And only on her deathbed did she repent and confess that her husband was killed by her with the assistance of two lovers. On the day of the murder, she invited all three of them to dinner, gave her husband poisoned vodka, and then the two wrapped him in thin string, strangled him and threw him into a latrine.

The arrival of E. Pridvorov in the capital in the early autumn of 1904 is curious: a strong fellow came out of the Nikolaev station in a tan coat from his father’s shoulder, with a skinny suitcase, but in a brand new student cap and with a cane in his hand. On Znamenskaya Square. at the Nikolaevsky station there was no monument to Alexander III yet, but there was a wooden fence with an expressive inscription: “it is forbidden to stop,” and near an impressive policeman on duty. Timidly and hesitantly, the student approached the policeman and politely addressed him: “Mr. Policeman, can you walk around St. Petersburg with a cane?” The policeman was puzzled: “Why not?” - “But the king lives here...” The campaigner’s mustache moved menacingly. In the strange naivety of the visiting student, he sensed hidden sedition, and something flashed in his rounded eyes that made the frightened student immediately sharpen his skis. “Subsequently,” said D.B., recalling this episode of bad memory, “I atoned for the sin of my youth and justified the policeman’s guess.” This redemption was the inscription D.B., carved on all four sides on the granite pedestal of the monument to Alexander III. With it - this quilting inscription "Scarecrow" - the now revolutionary Leningrad greets everyone leaving the Oktyabrsky (Nikolaevsky) station on the former Znamenskaya Square:

"My son and my father were executed during their lifetime,

And I reaped the fate of posthumous infamy:

I’m hanging here as a cast-iron scarecrow for the country,

Forever throwing off the yoke of autocracy.

The military paramedic drill was ingrained into E. Pridvorova’s soul for a long time and firmly. A stubborn struggle against despotism was boiling all around, Russia was trembling from underground blows. And the own fate of yesterday’s Efimka, and the memories of the ugly Guba “retribution” - everything both around and behind, it would seem, pushed E. Pridvorov into the ranks of revolutionary students. But this could not happen right away for a young man who, from the age of 13 to 21, grew up and was brought up in the requirements of military drill. He tried to study, went to lectures, listened, took notes, not without secret horror, avoiding university unrest and “riots.” This period of D.B.’s life - the period of youthful maturity and personal growth - was marked by a complex process of external and internal breakdown, which found a very accurate and truthful depiction in the autobiographical poem “The Bitter Truth”: here the purely fabulous external transition from the “teenage shepherdess” is striking ", which

"... Rye bread... took a rug with me

And carefully put it in a bag with bread

Your favorite, well-read book"

To the life of the capital in the highest “society”, among the “gentlemen”, among the “brilliance of honors”, and then the “awakening” from the “bitter truth”, “deceptions”, a return to the lower classes of the people as an already experienced and knowledgeable fighter, in concise, strong verses here are not free poetic metaphors, but accurate images that correspond to reality, only artistically veiled - the whole history of the passionate falls and rises of this formative period of D.B.'s life - his period of Sturm und Drang.

Fate is a bizarre game

Then suddenly thrown into a noisy city,

How I was jealous at times

Having overheard an incomprehensibly clever argument among the gentlemen.

They walked - day after day, year after year.

Having mixed “shine” with light, I stubbornly pursued “shine”,

Looking at the gentlemen with peasant timidity,

Kowtow obediently.

Here, every word is a burning, self-flagellating confession, “a confession of a warm heart,” and only by deciphering every word and image of this completely truthful confession can one read the biography of these years of D.B.’s life.

But some kind of “wormhole” was invisibly eating away at the seemingly brilliant well-being of the young man, cut off from the soil on which he was born.

"...But the vague soul was yearning for the light of day,

The eternal chains pressed on my chest more painfully,

And more and more temptingly they opened before me

Another life, a road to another world,

Sublime books from native writers."

And now “the awakening has come” (as in Pushkin):

From the splendor of honors, from the host of princes,

How I fled from a sinful obsession.

In a different environment, different friends

I found it at the time of awakening."

We repeat, here very sparingly, but very accurately, the complex path of mental storms, internal cataclysms, incredible efforts and work on oneself is outlined, which turned the student Pridvorov into “the harmful man Demyan Bedny.” Somehow it immediately became clear that the country was treading on corpses and the all-Russian Guba “retribution” was wafting from everywhere. The hand reached for the pen.

"Avenging the fruitless waste of youthful strength,

For all the past deceptions,

I inflicted cruel gusto

Evil wounds for the enemies of the people.

This is the beginning of this different - literary and political career of D.B.

The first poems of the future satirist are of a gloomy nature and imbued with the spirit of strict self-examination. They date back to 1901-1908. Over the course of the decade from 1907 to 1917, the fable constituted almost the only form of his literary work, and it was during this period that D.B. deservedly gained the reputation of a fabulist of the proletariat. The political formation of D.B. also dates back to this time. First, he entered into friendship with the populists, there he became close to the famous poet Melshin (Yakubovich), and published his first poems in the magazine “Russian Wealth”. And then he irrevocably goes to the Bolsheviks. Since 1910, he has been a regular contributor to Zvezda and Pravda. From this moment on, D.B. no longer belongs to himself. He is completely at the mercy of the struggle. With a thousand threads it is connected with the buildings of factories, factories and workshops. The moral teachings of his fables are thoroughly saturated with rebellion and filled with dynamite of class hatred. From the first days of the revolution, D.B.’s fable naturally degenerates into a revolutionary poster, a rallying call and a “communist Marseillaise.” Their organizing influence on the working masses is enormous. All paths of the revolution are illuminated by the work of D.B. Monument after monument arises in his writings: February days, Bolshevik October, the Red Army, deserters, bagmen, kulaks, new economic policy, White Guard manifestos, priestly tricks. His satires, songs and fables are an excellent chronicle of our days. D.B. himself in the poem “My Verse”, written by. in response to M. Gorky and Nov. Zhizn, he clearly defined his significance as a political writer of the era, the meaning of the ideas inspiring his poetry-feat:

And my verse... there is no shine in his simple attire..."

The purpose of this poetry is not pure aesthetics, and this voice of the modern “muse of revenge and anger” sounds differently:

"...Deaf, cracked, mocking and angry.

Carrying a damned burden of a heavy legacy,

I am not a minister of muses:

My solid, clear verse is my daily feat.

Native people, labor sufferer,

Only your judgment is important to me,

You are my only direct, unhypocritical judge,

You, whose hopes and thoughts I am a faithful spokesman,

You, whose dark corners I am a watchdog!

And this feat was appreciated: by resolution of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on April 22, 1923, D.B. was awarded the Order of the Red Banner.

L. Voitolovsky.

. 2009 .

See what “Demyan Bedny” is in other dictionaries:

See Poor D... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

This term has other meanings, see Demyan Bedny (meanings). Demyan Bedny Birth name: Efim Alekseevich ... Wikipedia

See Poor D. * * * DEMYAN POOR DEMYAN POOR, see Poor D. (see POOR Demyan) ... encyclopedic Dictionary

See Poor D... Large biographical encyclopedia

- (1883 1945) Russian Soviet poet; see Poor D... Great Soviet Encyclopedia

Demyan Bedny photography

POOR Demyan (Efim Alekseevich Pridvorov) (1883-1945). Soviet poet and writer. Born in the village. Gubovka, Kherson region. He studied at the Kyiv Military Paramedic School and St. Petersburg University (1904-1908). Member of the First World War. Member of the RCP(b) since 1912. Published in the Bolshevik newspapers “Zvezda”1) and “Pravda”. Author of satirical poems, feuilletons, fables, songs, captions for TASS windows. The most famous epic poems of D. Bedny are “About the land, about freedom, about the working share” (1917), “Main Street” (1922). In the 20s, the work of D. Bedny was popular. “Today it would not occur to writers to carry out the “demyanization of literature,” but at that time the issue of reducing the entire diversity of literature to one example was seriously discussed: the poetry of Demyan Bedny” (Historians argue. M., 1989. P. 430). In 1925 the city of Spassk (now in the Penza region) was renamed Bednodemyanovsk.

According to the memoirs of V.D. Bonch-Bruevich, V.I. Lenin “remarkably sensitively, closely and lovingly... treated the mighty muse of Demyan Bedny. He characterized his works as very witty, beautifully written, accurate, and hitting the target.”

Demyan Bedny, having arrived in 1918 together with the Soviet government from Petrograd to Moscow, received an apartment in the Grand Kremlin Palace, where he moved his wife, children, mother-in-law, nanny for the children... The writer had a very good library, from which he borrowed with the permission of the owner books Stalin. They developed excellent, almost friendly relations, but later the leader unexpectedly not only evicted Demyan Bedny from the Kremlin, but also established surveillance on him.

“After the founding congress of the Union of Writers of the USSR,” recalled I. Gronsky, “the question arose about awarding Demyan Bedny the Order of Lenin, but Stalin suddenly opposed it. This was surprising to me, because the Secretary General always supported Demyan. During a face-to-face conversation, he explained what was going on. He took out a notebook from the safe. It contained rather unflattering remarks about the inhabitants of the Kremlin. I noticed that the handwriting was not Demyan's. Stalin replied that the statements of a tipsy poet were recorded by a certain journalist...” (Gronsky I.M. From the past. M., 1991. P. 155). The matter reached the Party Control Committee, where the poet was reprimanded.

M. Canivez writes: “At one time, Stalin brought Demyan Bedny closer to himself, and he immediately became highly honored everywhere. At the same time, a certain person, a red professor named Present, wormed his way into Demyan’s circle of close friends. This person was assigned to spy on Demyan. Present kept a diary, where he wrote down all his conversations with Bedny, mercilessly misinterpreting them... Once returning from the Kremlin, Demyan told about what wonderful strawberries Stalin served for dessert. The presentation recorded: “Demyan Bedny was indignant that Stalin was eating strawberries when the whole country was starving.” The diary was delivered “where it should be,” and with this Demyan’s disgrace began” (Kanivez M.V. My life with Raskolnikov // The Past. M. , 1992. P. 95).

Stalin repeatedly studied and criticized the writer. In particular, in a letter to him he wrote: “What is the essence of your mistakes? It consists in the fact that criticism of the shortcomings of life and everyday life of the USSR, an obligatory and necessary criticism, developed by you at first quite accurately and skillfully, captivated you beyond measure and, captivating you, began to develop in your works into slander of the USSR, its past, his present. These are your “Get Off the Stove” and “No Mercy.” This is your “Pererva”, which I read today on the advice of Comrade Molotov.

You say that Comrade Molotov praised the feuilleton “Get Off the Stove.” It may very well be. I praised this feuilleton, perhaps no less than Comrade Molotov, since there (as in other feuilletons) there are a number of magnificent passages, hitting right on target. But there is still a fly in the ointment that spoils the whole picture and turns it into a complete “Pererva”. That is the question and that is what makes the music in these feuilletons.

Best of the day

Judge for yourself.

The whole world now recognizes that the center of the revolutionary movement has moved from Western Europe to Russia. Revolutionaries of all countries look with hope at the USSR as the center of the liberation struggle of the working people of the whole world, recognizing in it their only fatherland. The revolutionary workers of all countries unanimously applaud the Soviet working class and, above all, the Russian working class, the vanguard of the Soviet workers as their recognized leader, conducting

mu the most revolutionary and most active policy that the proletarians of other countries have ever dreamed of pursuing. The leaders of the revolutionary workers of all countries are eagerly studying the most instructive history of the working class of Russia, its past, the past of Russia, knowing that in addition to reactionary Russia there was also revolutionary Russia, the Russia of the Radishchevs and Chernyshevskys, the Zhelyabovs and Ulyanovs, the Khalturins and Alekseevs. All this instills (cannot help but instill!) in the hearts of Russian workers a feeling of revolutionary national pride, capable of moving mountains, capable of working miracles.

And you? Instead of comprehending this greatest process in the history of the revolution and rising to the height of the tasks of the singer of the advanced proletariat, they went somewhere into the hollow and, confused between the most boring quotes from the works of Karamzin and no less boring sayings from Domostroi, began to proclaim to the whole world that Russia in the past represented a vessel of abomination and desolation, that today’s Russia represents a continuous “Pererva”, that “laziness” and the desire to “sit on the stove” is almost a national trait of Russians in general, and therefore of Russian workers, who, having done Russians, of course, did not stop being part of the October Revolution. And you call this Bolshevik criticism! No, dear Comrade Demyan, this is not Bolshevik criticism, but slander against our people, the debunking of the USSR, the debunking of the proletariat of the USSR, the debunking of the Russian proletariat.

And after this you want the Central Committee to remain silent! Who do you take our Central Committee to be?

And you want me to remain silent because you, it turns out, have “biographical tenderness” for me! How naive you are and how little you know the Bolsheviks..." (Stalin I.V. Collected works. T. 13. pp. 23-26).

“Demyan Bedny died of fear,” writes V. Gordeeva. - He had a permanent place on the presidium, where he habitually went. And suddenly in 1945 something changed. As soon as the poet headed to his usual place during the next celebration, Molotov, flashing his pince-nez glass unkindly, asked him in an icy voice: “Where?” Demyan backed away for a long time, like a geisha. Then he trudged home and died. His own sister told about this” (Gordeeva V. Execution by hanging. A non-fictional novel in four stories about love, betrayal, death, written “thanks to” the KGB. M., 1995. P. 165).

The writer's library has been preserved. “When in 1938 Bedny was forced to sell his wonderful library, I immediately bought it for the State Literary Museum, and it has been almost entirely preserved to this day, except for those books that he kept with him” (Bonch-Bruevich V .D. Memoirs. M., 1968. P. 184).

Poor (real name and surname Pridvorov Efim Alekseevich) Demyan (1883 1945), poet.

Born on April 1 (13 NS) in the village of Gubovka, Kherson province, in the family of a church watchman. Since childhood I have experienced the hardships of life. He studied at a rural school (1890 96), from where he developed a love for Russian literature. In 1896 he entered the military paramedic school in Kyiv. Then he began to write poetry and epigrams, dreaming of becoming a writer. From 1900 to 1904 he served in the barracks as a company paramedic, continuing his self-education.

Having passed exams as an external student for the full course of a classical gymnasium, in 1904 he was admitted to the Faculty of History and Philology of St. Petersburg University. The student years of the future poet coincided with the revolutionary events of 1905 1907. Like all progressive students, Efim Pridvorov was overwhelmed by revolutionary sentiments. After the defeat of the revolution, he wrote the poems “On New Year’s Eve,” “With terrible anxiety...”, “Not reconciled, no!” (1909). In 1911, his poems were published in the St. Petersburg newspaper "Zvezda" (Bolshevik). This newspaper was closed, but in April the Bolshevik newspaper Pravda appeared, and Pridvorov, who now adopted the pseudonym “Demyan Bedny,” became an active contributor to it. His fables were most famous. His first book, Fables, was published in 1913.

During the First World War he served in the army as a paramedic and was awarded a military award.

In the revolutionary year of 1917, Demyan Bedny actively spoke on the pages of Bolshevik publications with pamphlets, epigrams, and parodies. He wrote a popular poem “About the land, about will, about the working share.”

Unconditionally accepting the revolution, D. Bedny selflessly served it. During the Civil War, he was constantly at the front, creating topical poems, songs, ditties, and poetic leaflets. This stage of creativity ended with the poem “Main Street” (1922).

He worked a lot and fruitfully in the 1920s, often traveling to factories and construction sites, constantly speaking to workers with poems agitating for a new life, for the fight against the remnants of the past.

During the Great Patriotic War, Demyan Bedny created many poetic texts for posters, wrote new poetic stories, legends, poems ("Russian Girls", 1942, "Revenge", 1943, "Boss", 1945).

Being seriously ill, the poet dreamed of only one thing - to live until Victory Day. His dream came true. He died on May 25, 1945.

Demyan Bedny Street

Demyan Bedny Street

Since October 2, 1970, a street in the Kalininsky district, running from Lunacharsky Avenue to Suzdal Avenue, has been named after Demyan Bedny.

Demyan Bedny is the pseudonym of Efim Alekseevich Pridvorov (1883–1945). He is considered one of the founders of the poetry of socialist realism.

Many years of Efim Pridvorov’s life were spent in the city on the Neva. He graduated from the Faculty of History and Philology of St. Petersburg University, where his poetic opuses - fables, fairy tales, epigrams - were first performed. The pseudonym Demyan Poor Poet took himself from his own poem “About Demyan Poor, a harmful man.” After its publication in the Bolshevik newspaper “Zvezda” in 1911, the author was greeted in publishing houses and printing houses with the words “Demyan Poor has come!” The nickname stuck to him so much that Efim Pridvorov had no choice but to take it as a literary pseudonym. Under it he entered the history of Soviet literature. Mainly as the author of poetic stories and feuilletons on topical topics, in which he ridiculed the enemies of Soviet power.

Today, of the entire creative heritage of Demyan Bedny, only the line is well known: “You, Vanek, would not become a soldier” from the song “How my own mother saw me off...”.

Petersburg in street names. The origin of the names of streets and avenues, rivers and canals, bridges and islands. - St. Petersburg: AST, Astrel-SPb, VKT. Vladimirovich A.G., Erofeev A.D. 2009 .

See what “Demyan Bedny Street” is in other dictionaries:

This term has other meanings, see Demyan Bedny. Demyan Bedny Street is the name of streets in various localities of the states of the former USSR. Russia Demyan Bednogo Street in Vladimir. Demyan Bedny Street... ... Wikipedia

This toponym has other meanings, see Demyan Bednogo Street ... Wikipedia

This term has other meanings, see Demyan Bedny Street. Demyan Bednogo Street Moscow ... Wikipedia

This term has other meanings, see Demyan Bedny Street. Demyan Bednogo Street Lipetsk General information Lipetsk Lipetsk region Russia ... Wikipedia

Demyan Bednogo Street: Demyan Bednogo street in Kaliningrad. Demyan Bednogo street in Kramatorsk. Demyan Bednogo street in Lipetsk. Demyan Bednogo street in Moscow. Demyan Bednogo street in St. Petersburg. Demyan Bedny street in Tula ... Wikipedia

Name of settlements: Russia Demyan Bednogo village in the Slavgorod region of the Altai Territory. Demyan Bednogo village in the Shadrinsky district of the Kurgan region. See also Demyan Bedny Street ... Wikipedia

Demyan Bednogo Street General informationRussia Pravoberezhny District Historic District Sokolskoye Length 660 m List of Lipetsk streets Demyan Bednogo Street ... Wikipedia

This street is located in a residential area that arose north of Murinsky Stream. It runs from Lunacharsky Avenue to Suzdalsky Avenue. It was named after it in 1970. Demyan Bedny (Efim Alekseevich Pridvorov, 1883 1945) Russian Soviet poet.… … St. Petersburg (encyclopedia)

DEMYAN BEDNOGO street- This street is located in a residential area that arose north of Murinsky Stream. It runs from Lunacharsky Avenue to Suzdalsky Avenue. It was named after it in 1970. Demyan Bedny (Efim Alekseevich Pridvorov, 1883 1945) Russian Soviet poet ... Why are they named like that?

Saltykov Shchedrin Street Lipetsk General information Lipetsk Lipetsk region Russia Country Russia Region ... Wikipedia

Books

• Demyan Bedny. Favorites, Demyan Bedny. Demyan Bedny (1883-1945) is an outstanding Soviet poet, his literary heritage is extremely rich and varied. This edition includes selected works by Demyan... Publisher: State Publishing House of Fiction,
• About land, about freedom, about workers' share, Demyan Bedny. The book includes selected works of the Soviet poet Demyan Bedny. Among them are poems from the cycles “Lenin”, “Construction”, “For our Soviet Motherland!”, “So It Was”, “On the Way to October”,… Series: School Library Publisher:

Seventy years ago, on May 25, 1945, the first Soviet writer and order bearer, Demyan Bedny, died. He quickly went from the lower classes - the peasants - to the “classic of proletarian poetry.” Poor lived for many years in the Kremlin, his books were published in large editions. He died, leaving a very ambiguous memory of himself, especially among the creative intelligentsia, of which, in fact, he himself never became a part.

Bastard of the Grand Duke

Efim Alekseevich Pridvorov (1883-1945) - that was actually the name of Demyan Bedny - from a young age he searched for the truth and walked into the fire of enlightenment. He walked, trying to establish his literary talent. The son of a peasant, he became not only one of the first poets of Soviet Russia, but also the most temperamental of the many subverters of the old culture.

A peasant in the village of Gubovki, Aleksandrovsky district, Kherson province, until the age of seven, Efim lived in Elisavetgrad (now Kirovograd), where his father served as a church watchman. Later he had a chance to take a sip of the peasant's share in the village - together with the “amazingly sincere old man” grandfather Sofron and his hated mother. Relationships in this triangle are a haven for lovers of psychoanalysis. “Mother kept me in a black body and beat me to death. Towards the end, I began to think about running away from home and reveled in the church-monastic book “The Path to Salvation,” the poet recalled.

Everything in this short memoir is interesting - both the embitterment of an unloved son and his confession of a passion for religious literature. The latter soon passed: atheistic Marxism turned out to be a truly revolutionary teaching for young Efim Pridvorov, for the sake of which it was worth renouncing both the past and everything that was most cherished in him, except, probably, the love for the common people, for “grandfather Sofron.” Efim ended up in the school of military paramedics in Kyiv, and the then fashionable Marxism fit well with the boyish dissatisfaction with army discipline and other manifestations of autocracy.

However, in those years, the future Demyan remained well-intentioned. Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich himself (a poet and curator of military educational institutions) allowed the capable young man to take gymnasium exams as an external student for admission to the Faculty of History and Philology of St. Petersburg University. By the way, Bedny later supported the rumor that the Grand Duke gave him the “court” surname... as his bastard.

At the university, Efim Pridvorov finally came to Marxism. At that time, he composed poetry in Nekrasov’s civic spirit.

But over the years, his beliefs became more and more radical. In 1911, he was already published in the Bolshevik Zvezda, and the very first poem was so loved by left-wing youth that its title - “About Demyan the Poor, a Harmful Man” - gave the poet a literary name, a pseudonym under which he was destined to become famous. The nickname, needless to say, is successful: it is remembered right away and evokes the right associations. For Zvezda, Nevskaya Zvezda, and Pravda, this sincere, caustic author from the people was a godsend. And in 1914, an astonishing quatrain flashed through a witty poetic newspaper hack:

There is poison in the factory,
There is violence on the street.
And there’s lead and there’s lead...
One end!

And here the point is not only that the author cleverly linked the death of a worker at the Vulcan plant, who was shot by a policeman at a demonstration, with factory lead poisoning. The laconic text has a poetic substance that sets it apart from other poetic journalism. To Demyan’s credit, many years later, at a meeting with young writers in 1931, he recognized this old miniature as one of his successes.

Fighting with censorship, the poet composed “Aesop’s Fables” and a cycle about the merchant Derunov: from his pen, rhymed swear words addressed to the autocracy and anthems of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Party came out almost daily. Vladimir Ulyanov (Lenin) from his “distance” called on his comrades to nurture Demyan’s talent. Joseph Stalin, who headed the party press in 1912, agreed with him. And all his life the poet was proud of the fact that he collaborated with the leaders long before October.

So that I don't hit small game,
And he would hit the bison wandering through the forests,
And by the fierce royal dogs,
My fable shooting
Lenin himself often led.
He was from afar, and Stalin was nearby,
When he forged both “Pravda” and “Star”.
When, having glanced at the strongholds of the enemy,
He pointed out to me: “It wouldn’t be a bad idea to come here.”
Hit with a fabulous projectile!

“The Red Army has bayonets...”

During the Civil War, Demyan Bedny experienced the highest rise in popularity. His talent was perfectly adapted to working under time pressure: “Read, White Guard camp, the message of Poor Demyan!”

The most masterly of the propaganda of those years was called “The Manifesto of Baron von Wrangel” - a reprise on a reprise. Of course, all this had nothing to do with the real Peter Wrangel, who spoke Russian without an accent and received orders for fighting the Germans in World War I, but such is the genre of unfriendly cartoon. The poet dragged in everything he could here, portraying the general of the Russian army as “Wilhelm the Kaiser’s servant.” Well, after the war, anti-German sentiments were still strong - and Demyan decided to play on them.

It is possible that this is the best example of Russian macaroni poetry (a type of comic poetry characterized by a mixture of “French with Nizhny Novgorod”): if only Ivan Myatlev and Alexei Konstantinovich Tolstoy just as wittily and abundantly introduced foreign words into the Russian rhymed text. And the phrase “We will watch” has become a catchphrase.

Definitely, in the white camp there was no satirist equal in enthusiasm and skill! Poor in Civil outplayed all the venerable kings of journalism of the Silver Age. And he won, as we see, not only by “following the reader, and not ahead of him” with ditty democracy: neither Nekrasov, nor Minaev, nor Kurochkin would have refused the “baron’s little thing.” Then, in 1920, perhaps the best lyric poem by the militant leader of the working class, “Sadness,” was born.

But - a provincial stop...
These fortune tellers... lies and darkness...
This Red Army soldier is sad
Everything is going crazy for me! The sun shines dimly through the clouds,
The forest goes into the deep distance.
And so this time it's hard for me
Hide my sadness from everyone!

On November 1, 1919, in a few hours, Demyan wrote the front-line song “Tanka-Vanka.” Then they said: “Tanks are Yudenich’s last bet.” The commanders feared that the soldiers would falter when they saw the steel monsters. And then a slightly obscene but coherent song appeared, at which the Red Army soldiers laughed.

Tanka is a valuable prize for the brave,
She is a scarecrow to a coward.
It’s worth taking the tank from the whites -
White people are worthless.

The panic disappeared as if by hand. It is not surprising that the party valued an inventive and dedicated agitator. He knew how to intercept an opponent's argument, quote it and turn it inside out to benefit the cause. In almost every poem, the poet called for reprisals against enemies: “A fat belly with a bayonet!”

Adherence to the simplest folklore forms forced Demyan Bedny to argue with modernists of all directions and with “academicians.” He consciously adopted a ditty and a patter: here is both a simple charm and an undoubted trump card of mass accessibility.

This is not a legend: his propaganda really inspired ideological Red Army soldiers and turned hesitant peasants into sympathizers. He covered many miles of the Civil War on a cart and an armored train, and it happened that he accurately hit distant front-line “tanks” from Petrograd and Moscow. In any case, the Order of the Red Banner was well deserved by Bedny: the military order was for combat poetry.

Court poet

When the Soviet system was established, Demyan was showered with honors. He - in full accordance with his real name - became a court poet. He lived in the Kremlin and shook hands with the leaders every day. In the first Soviet decade, the total circulation of his books exceeded two million, and there were also leaflets. By the standards of the 1920s–1930s, this was a colossal scale.

The former rebel now belonged to the officialdom, and, to be honest, his fame, not based on talent, was ambiguous. Sergei Yesenin liked to call his “colleague” Efim Lakeevich Pridvorov. However, this did not prevent Demyan from being at the epicenter of historical events. For example, according to the testimony of the then commandant of the Kremlin, Baltic Fleet sailor Pavel Malkov, the proletarian poet was the only person, with the exception of several Latvian riflemen, who saw the execution of Fanny Kaplan on September 3, 1918.

“To my displeasure, I found Demyan Bedny here, running at the sound of the engines. Demyan’s apartment was located just above the Automotive Armored Detachment, and along the stairs of the back door, which I forgot about, he went straight down into the courtyard. Seeing me with Kaplan, Demyan immediately understood what was going on, nervously bit his lip and silently took a step back. However, he had no intention of leaving. Well then! Let him be a witness!

To the car! – I gave a curt command, pointing to a car standing at a dead end. Shrugging her shoulders convulsively, Fanny Kaplan took one step, then another... I raised the pistol...”

When the body of the executed woman was doused with gasoline and set on fire, the poet could not stand it and lost consciousness.

“He approached the altar with mockery...”

From the first days of October, the revolutionary poet conducted propaganda not only on topical issues of the Civil War. He attacked the shrines of the old world, and above all Orthodoxy. Demyan kept putting up caricatures of priests (“Father Ipat had some money…”), but that wasn’t enough for him.

The poor even took Pushkin as an ally in his poetic Preface to the Gabrieliad, unequivocally declaring about the great poet: “He approached the altar with mockery...” Such a militant atheist Demyan - it’s better not to come up with an anti-God agitation, because he’s not an infidel, not a foreigner, but a proletarian of peasant origin, an undoubted representative of the majority.

First - a book of poems “Spiritual Fathers, Their Thoughts are Sinful”, endless rhymed feuilletons against the “church dope”, and later - the ironic “New Testament without the flaw of the Evangelist Demyan”, in which Bedny tried to rethink the Scripture with a ditty.

These attempts caused consternation even against the backdrop of the hysterical anti-religious propaganda of Emelyan Yaroslavsky. It seemed that Demyan had been possessed by a demon: with such frenzy he spat at the already defeated icons.

In Bulgakov's main novel, it is his features that are discerned in the images of Mikhail Alexandrovich Berlioz and Ivan Bezdomny. And what is true is true: Poor, with great power of vanity, passionately desired to remain in history as the number one fighter against God. To do this, he rhymed the subjects of Scripture, diligently lowering the style to the “bottom of the body.” The result was an absurd story about alcoholics, swindlers and red tape with biblical names... Demyan had grateful readers who accepted this ocean of mockery, but “A Testament without Flaw” was embarrassed to be republished even during the years of new anti-religious campaigns.

In the obscene poem, Poor appeals to the well-known anti-church plot of the Gospel of Judas. The shocking idea of ​​rehabilitating “the first fighter against Christian obscurantism” was in the air then. Actually, already in the decadent tradition of the early twentieth century, interest in the controversial figure of the fallen apostle appeared (remember Leonid Andreev’s story “Judas Iscariot”). And when in the streets they sang at the top of their voices, “We will climb into heaven, we will disperse all the gods...”, the temptation to exalt Judas was impossible to avoid. Fortunately, the leaders of the revolution turned out to be not so radical (having received power, any politician involuntarily begins to cruise towards the center) and in Lenin’s “plan for monumental propaganda” there was no place for a monument to Judas.

The routine of “literary propaganda work” (this is how Demyan himself defined his work, not without coquetry, but also with communard pride) gave rise to such rough newspaper poetry that sometimes the author could be suspected of conscious self-parody. However, satirists and parodists usually do not see their own shortcomings - and Bedny quite complacently responded in rhyme to topical events in political life.

The poet created volumes of rhymed political information, although they became outdated day by day. The authorities remembered how effective an agitator Demyan was during the Civil War, and his status remained high in the 1920s and early 1930s. He was a real star of Pravda, the main newspaper of “the entire world proletariat,” and wrote widely propagated poetic messages to party congresses. He was published a lot, glorified - after all, he was an influential figure.

At the same time, people were already laughing at the pseudonym Bedny, retelling anecdotes about the lordly habits of the worker and peasant poet, who had collected an invaluable library in the revolutionary turmoil and NEP frenzy. But at the top, the everyday addictions of the non-poor Poor were tolerated.

“In the tail of cultural Americas, Europe...”

The problems started because of something else. The misanthropic attitude towards the Russian people, their history, character and customs, which appeared every now and then in Demyan’s poems, suddenly aroused the indignation of patriotic leaders of the CPSU(b). In 1930, his three poetic feuilletons - “Get Off the Stove”, “Pererva” and “Without Mercy” - gave rise to a harsh political debate. Surely, the poet did not spare derogatory colors, castigating the “birth traumas” of our history.

Russian old grief culture -
Stupid,
Fedura.
The country is immensely great,
Ruined, slavishly lazy, wild,
In the tail of cultural Americas, Europe,
Coffin!
Slave labor - and predatory parasites,
Laziness was a protective tool for the people...

The Rappites, and above all the frantic zealot of revolutionary art Leopold Averbakh, greeted these publications with delight. “The first and tireless drummer - the poet of the proletariat Demyan Bedny - gives his powerful voice, the cry of a fiery heart,” they wrote about them then. “Demyan Bedny embodied the party’s calls in poetic images.” Averbakh generally called for “the widespread desecration of Soviet literature”...

And suddenly, in December 1930, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks adopted a resolution condemning Demyanov’s feuilletons. At first, the resolution was associated with the name of Vyacheslav Molotov, and Bedny decided to take the fight: he sent a polemical letter to Joseph Stalin. But very quickly I received a sobering answer:

“When the Central Committee was forced to criticize your mistakes, you suddenly snorted and began shouting about a “noose.” On what basis? Maybe the Central Committee has no right to criticize your mistakes? Maybe the decision of the Central Committee is not binding for you? Maybe your poems are above all criticism? Do you find that you have contracted some unpleasant disease called “arrogance”? More modesty, Comrade Demyan...

The revolutionary workers of all countries unanimously applaud the Soviet working class and, above all, the Russian working class, the vanguard of the Soviet workers, as their recognized leader, pursuing the most revolutionary and most active policy that the proletarians of other countries have ever dreamed of pursuing. The leaders of the revolutionary workers of all countries are eagerly studying the most instructive history of the working class of Russia, its past, the past of Russia, knowing that in addition to reactionary Russia there was also a revolutionary Russia, the Russia of the Radishchevs and Chernyshevskys, the Zhelyabovs and Ulyanovs, the Khalturins and Alekseevs. All this instills (cannot help but instill!) in the hearts of Russian workers a feeling of revolutionary national pride, capable of moving mountains, capable of working miracles.

And you? Instead of comprehending this greatest process in the history of the revolution and rising to the height of the tasks of the singer of the advanced proletariat, they went somewhere into the hollow and, confused between the most boring quotes from the works of Karamzin and no less boring sayings from Domostroi, began to proclaim to the whole world , that Russia in the past represented a vessel of abomination and desolation, that today’s Russia represents a continuous “Pererva”, that “laziness” and the desire to “sit on the stove” is almost a national trait of Russians in general, and therefore of Russian workers, who, having done Russians, of course, did not stop being part of the October Revolution. And you call this Bolshevik criticism! No, dear Comrade Demyan, this is not Bolshevik criticism, but slander against our people, the debunking of the USSR, the debunking of the proletariat of the USSR, the debunking of the Russian proletariat.”

Already in February 1931, Bedny repented, speaking to young writers: “I had my own “holes” in the line of satirical pressure on the pre-October “past””...

After 1930, Demyan wrote a lot and angrily about Trotsky and the Trotskyists (he began back in 1925: “Trotsky - quickly place a portrait in Ogonyok. Delight everyone with the sight of him! Trotsky prances on an old horse, Shining with crumpled plumage ..."), but the leftist deviation, no, no, and even slipped. The new embarrassment was worse than the previous one, and its consequences for the entire Soviet culture were colossal.

The old scandal had almost been forgotten, when suddenly someone pushed the poet to come up with a farce about the Baptism of Rus', and even to caricature the epic heroes... The comic opera “Bogatyrs” based on Bedny’s libretto was staged at the Moscow Chamber Theater by Alexander Tairov. Left-wing critics were delighted. And many of them disappeared during the next purges...

Molotov left the performance indignant. As a result, the Central Committee’s resolution to ban the play “Bogatyrs” by Demyan Bedny on November 14, 1936 marked the beginning of a large-scale campaign to restore the old foundations of culture and “master the classical heritage.” There, in particular, it was noted that the Baptism of Rus' was a progressive phenomenon and that Soviet patriotism is incompatible with mockery of native history.

"Fight or Die"

For “Bogatyrs,” a year or two later, Demyan, a party member since 1912, was expelled from the CPSU(b) and the Writers’ Union of the USSR. An amazing fact: they were kicked out of the party, essentially, for their disrespectful attitude towards the Baptism of Rus'! “I am being persecuted because I wear the halo of the October Revolution,” the poet used to say among his loved ones, and these words were delivered to Stalin’s table in a printed “wiretap.”

Back in the fall of 1933, Osip Mandelstam created the famous “We live without feeling the country beneath us” - a poem about the “Kremlin highlander”: “His thick fingers, like worms, are fat...”

There was a rumor that it was Bedny who sometimes complained: Stalin took rare books from him, and then returned them with grease stains on the pages. It’s unlikely that the “highlander” needed to find out where Mandelstam learned about “fat fingers,” but in July 1938, the name of Demyan Bedny suddenly seemed to disappear: the famous pseudonym disappeared from the newspaper pages. Of course, work on the collected works of the proletarian classic was interrupted. He prepared for the worst - and at the same time tried to adapt to the new ideology.

Demyan composed a hysterical pamphlet against “hellish” fascism, calling it “Fight or Die,” but Stalin sarcastically threw out: “To the latter-day Dante, that is, Conrad, that is... Demyan the Poor. The fable or poem "Fight or Die" is, in my opinion, an artistically mediocre piece. As a critique of fascism, it is pale and unoriginal. As a criticism of the Soviet system (don't joke!), it is stupid, although transparent. Since we (the Soviet people) already have quite a bit of literary rubbish, it is hardly worth multiplying the deposits of this kind of literature with another fable, so to speak... I, of course, understand that I am obliged to apologize to Demian-Dante for the forced frankness. Respectfully. I. Stalin."

Demyan Bedny was driven out with a filthy broom, and now poets who resembled white-cowed men were in honor. Vladimir Lugovskoy wrote distinctly “old regime” lines: “Rise up, Russian people, for mortal combat, for a formidable battle!” - and together with the music of Sergei Prokofiev and the cinematic skill of Sergei Eisenstein (the film “Alexander Nevsky”), they became key in the pre-war heroics. The rapid rise of the young poet Konstantin Simonov with the tradition of military glory was linked even more tightly.

Demyan was finally excommunicated from the Kremlin, not only figuratively, but also literally. Disgraced, he was forced to move to an apartment on Rozhdestvensky Boulevard. He was forced to sell off relics from his very library. The poet tried to return to the literary process, but it did not work. Fantasy seemed to work well, he even came up with the image of a dual, according to the Indian model, deity “Lenin-Stalin”, which he sang - excitedly, fussily. But he was not allowed further than the threshold. And his character was strong: in 1939, at the peak of disgrace, Bedny married actress Lydia Nazarova - Desdemona from the Maly Theater. They had a daughter. Meanwhile, the bullets passed close: Demyan at one time collaborated with many “enemies of the people.” They could well have treated him like Fanny Kaplan.

It's good to smoke it...
Beat the damned fascist
Don't let him breathe!

In the most difficult days of the Great Patriotic War, he wrote: “I believe in my people with an indestructible thousand-year-old faith.” The main publications of the war years were published in Izvestia under the pseudonym D. Boevoy with drawings by Boris Efimov. The poet returned, his poems appeared on poster stands - as captions for posters. He loved calls:

Listen, Uncle Ferapont:
Send your felt boots to the front!
Send urgently, together!
This is what you need!

Ferapont is mentioned here not only for the sake of rhyme: the collective farmer Ferapont Golovaty at that time contributed 100 thousand rubles to the Red Army fund. The keen eye of the journalist could not help but grasp this fact.

Re-educated by party criticism, now Pridvorov-Bedny-Boevoy sang the continuity of the country’s heroic history with the victory on the Kulikovo Field and exclaimed: “Let us remember, brothers, the old days!” He glorified Rus':

Where the word of the Russians was heard,
The friend has risen, and the enemy has fallen!

New poems have already begun to appear in Pravda, signed by the familiar literary name Demyan Bedny: allowed! Together with other poets, he still managed to sing the glory of Victory. And he died two weeks later, on May 25, 1945, having published his last poem in the newspaper Socialist Agriculture.

According to a not entirely reliable legend, on the fateful day he was not allowed into the presidium of a certain ceremonial meeting. Bedny’s evil genius, Vyacheslav Molotov, allegedly interrupted the poet’s movement towards the chair with a question and shout: “Where?!” According to another version, his heart stopped at the Barvikha sanatorium during lunch, where actors Moskvin and Tarkhanov were sitting at the table next to him.

Be that as it may, the next day all newspapers of the USSR reported the death of “the talented Russian poet and fabulist Demyan Bedny, whose fighting word served the cause of the socialist revolution with honor.” He did not live to see the Victory Parade, although in one of his last poems he spoke about “victorious banners on Red Square.” Demyan’s books were again published by the best publishing houses, including the prestigious “Poet’s Library” series. But he was reinstated in the party only in 1956 at the request of Khrushchev as a “victim of the cult of personality.” It turned out that Bedny was the favorite poet of the new first secretary of the CPSU Central Committee.