Mikhail Andreevich Osorgin: interesting data and facts from life. Brief biography of osorgin

OSORGIN, MIKHAIL ANDREEVICH(real name Ilyin) (1878–1942), Russian prose writer, journalist. Born on October 7 (19), 1878 in Perm in a family of hereditary columnar nobles, direct descendants of Rurik. He began to print in his gymnasium years, from 1895 (including the story Father, 1896). In 1897 he entered the law faculty of Moscow University, from where in 1899 he was exiled to Perm for participation in student unrest under the covert supervision of the police. In 1900 he was restored at the university (he graduated from the course in 1902), during his studies he led the column "Moscow Letters" ("The Diary of a Muscovite") in the newspaper "Perm Gubernskie Vedomosti". Confiding intonation, soft and wise irony, combined with apt observation, are also noted by Osorgin's subsequent stories in the genre of "physiological sketch" ( On an inclined plane. From student life, 1898; Detention wagon, 1899), romantic "fantasy" ( Two moments. new year fantasy, 1898) and humorous sketches ( son's letter to mother, 1901). He was engaged in advocacy, together with K.A. Kovalsky, A.S. Butkevich and others founded the publishing house "Life and Truth" in Moscow, which published popular literature. Osorgin's pamphlets appeared here in 1904. Japan, Russian military leaders Far East (biographies of E.I. Alekseev, A.N. Kuropatkin, S.O. Makarov and others), Compensation of workers for accidents. Law June 2, 1903.

In 1903, the writer married the daughter of the famous Narodnaya Volya A.K. Malikov (memoir essay by Osorgin Meetings. A.K.Malikov and V.G.Korolenko, 1933). In 1904 he joined the Socialist-Revolutionary Party (he was close to its "left" wing), in whose underground newspaper in 1905 he published an article Behind What?, justifying terrorism by "struggle for the good of the people". In 1905, during the Moscow armed uprising, he was arrested, due to the coincidence of surnames with one of the leaders of the combat squads, he was almost executed. Sentenced to exile, in May 1906 he was temporarily released on bail. The stay in the Taganskaya prison was reflected in Pictures of prison life. From a diary in 1906, 1907; participation in the Social Revolutionary movement - in essays Nikolay Ivanovich, 1923, where, in particular, the participation of V.I. Lenin in the dispute at Osorgin's apartment was mentioned; Small memorial wreath, 1924; Nine hundred and fifth year. Anniversary, 1930; and also in the story Terrorist, 1929, and a documentary dulogy Witness of history, 1932, and Book of Ends, 1935.

Already in 1906, Osorgin wrote that “it is difficult to distinguish a revolutionary from a hooligan”, and in 1907 he illegally left for Italy, from where he sent correspondence to the Russian press (part of it was included in the book. Essays on Modern Italy, 1913), stories, poems and children's tales, some of which were included in the book. Tales and tales(1918). Since 1908, he has been constantly collaborating in the Russkiye Vedomosti newspaper and the Vestnik Evropy magazine, where he published stories Emigrant (1910), My daughter (1911), ghosts(1913) and others. Around 1914 he joined the Masonic fraternity of the Grand Lodge of Italy. In those same years, having studied the Italian language, he closely followed the news of Italian culture (articles about the work of G.D. Annunzio, A. Fogazzaro, J. Pascali and others, about the “destroyers of culture” - Italian futurists in literature and painting), became the largest specialist in Italy and one of the most prominent Russian journalists, developed a specific genre of fictionalized essay, often imbued with lyrical irony characteristic of the writer’s manner from the end of the 1910s. In July 1916 he semi-legally returned to Russia. published his article. Homeland smoke, which provoked the anger of the "patriots" with such maxims: "... I really want to take a Russian person by the shoulders ... shake and add:" And you are much more sleepy even under a cannon! Continuing to work as a traveling correspondent, he published series of essays Home(1916) and On the quiet front (1917).

He accepted the February Revolution enthusiastically at first, then warily; in the spring of 1917 in Art. old proclamation warned about the danger of Bolshevism and the "new autocrat" - Vladimir, published a series of fictionalized essays about the "man of the people" - "Annushka", published brochures Freedom fighters(1917, about the Narodnaya Volya), About the current war and about eternal peace"(2nd ed., 1917), in which he advocated a war to a victorious end, Security department and its secrets(1917). After the October Revolution, he opposed the Bolsheviks in opposition newspapers, called for a general political strike, in 1918 in Art. Day grief predicted the dispersal of the Constituent Assembly by the Bolsheviks. The strengthening of Bolshevik power prompted Osorgin to call on the intelligentsia to engage in creative work, he himself became one of the organizers and the first chairman of the Union of Journalists, vice-chairman of the Moscow branch of the All-Russian Union of Writers (together with M.O. Gershenzon he prepared the charter of the union), and also the creator of the famous Bookstore writers, which has become one of the important centers of communication between writers and readers and a kind of autographic (“manuscript”) publishing house. He took an active part in the work of the Moscow circle "Studio Italiana".

In 1919 he was arrested and released at the request of the Union of Writers and Yu.K. Baltrushaitis. In 1921 he worked in the Commission for Assistance to the Starving at the All-Russian Central Executive Committee (Pomgol), was the editor of the bulletin "Help" published by it; in August 1921 he was arrested along with some members of the commission; from death penalty they were saved by the intervention of F. Nansen. He spent the winter of 1921–1922 in Kazan, editing Literaturnaya Gazeta, and then returned to Moscow. He continued to publish fairy tales for children and stories, translated (at the request of E.B. Vakhtangov) the play by K. Gozzi Princess Turandot(ed. 1923), plays by C. Goldoni. In 1918 he sketched out a long novel about the revolution (a chapter Monkeys town). In the autumn of 1922, with a group of opposition-minded representatives of the domestic intelligentsia, he was expelled from the USSR (feature How we left. Anniversary, 1932). Yearning for his homeland, until 1937 he kept a Soviet passport. He lived in Berlin, gave lectures in Italy, and since 1923 in France, where, after marrying a distant relative of M.A. Bakunin, he entered the most peaceful and fruitful phase of his life.

World fame was brought to Osorgin by a novel begun back in Russia. Sivtsev Vrazhek(separate ed. 1928), where in a freely arranged series of main short stories, a calm, measured and spiritually rich life in the old center of Moscow of an ornithologist professor and his granddaughter is presented - a typical life of the beautiful-hearted Russian intelligentsia, which is first shaken by the First World War, and then the revolution cracks. Osorgin seeks to look at what happened in Russia from the point of view of "abstract", timeless and even extra-social humanism, drawing constant parallels human world with an animal. The statement of a somewhat student-like attraction to the Tolstoyan tradition, reproaches for the “dampness”, insufficient organization of the narration, not to mention its obvious bias, did not prevent a huge reader success. Sivtseva Vrazhka. The clarity and purity of writing, the intensity of lyrical and philosophical thought, the light nostalgic tonality dictated by the enduring and keen love for one’s fatherland, the liveliness and accuracy of everyday life, resurrecting the aroma of the Moscow past, the charm of the main characters - bearers of unconditional moral values ​​give Osorgin’s novel the charm and depth of a highly artistic literary evidence of one of the most difficult periods in the history of Russia. The creative success of the writer was also A story about a sister(separate ed. 1931; first published in 1930 in the journal Sovremennye Zapiski, like many of Osorgin's other emigrant works), inspired by warm memories of the writer's family and creating a "Chekhovian" image of a pure and whole heroine; book of memoirs dedicated to the memory of parents Things human(1929), Sat. Miracle on the lake(1931). Wise simplicity, sincerity, unobtrusive humor, characteristic of Osorgin's manner, also appeared in his "old stories" (part of it was included in the coll. The story of a certain girl, 1838). Possessing an excellent literary taste, Osorgin successfully acted as a literary critic.

A series of novels based on autobiographical material is noteworthy. Witness of history (1932), Book about ends(1935) and Freemason(1937). The first two give an artistic interpretation of the revolutionary mindsets and events in Russia at the beginning of the century, not devoid of the features of an adventurous-adventure narrative and leading to the idea of ​​the dead end of the sacrificial idealistic path of the maximalists, and in the third - the life of Russian emigrants who associated themselves with Freemasonry, one of the active whose figures Osorgin has been since the early 1930s. Criticism noted artistic innovation Freemason, the use of cinematographic style (partly akin to the poetics of European expressionism) and newspaper genres (information inclusions, factual saturation, sensational slogan "hats", etc.).

Clearly manifested in the novel Sivtsev Vrazhek Osorgin's pantheism found expression in a cycle of lyrical essays Green World Incidents(1938; originally published in " latest news”signed “Everyman”), where close attention to all life on earth is combined with a protest against the offensive technotronic civilization. In line with the same "protective" perception, a cycle was created dedicated to the world of things - the richest collection of Russian publications collected by the writer Notes of the old bookworm(1928-1937), where the prose writer's unmistakable ear for the Russian word was expressed in an archaic-accurate, correct and colorful author's speech.

Shortly before the war, Osorgin began work on memoirs ( Childhood And Youth, both 1938; Time- publ. 1955). In 1940 the writer moved from Paris to the south of France; in 1940–1942 he published correspondence in the New Russian Word (New York) Letters from France. Pessimism, awareness of the senselessness of not only physical, but also spiritual opposition to evil are reflected in the books In a quiet place in France(published in 1946) and Letters about insignificant(ed. in 1952).

Mikhail Andreevich Osorgin is a well-known Russian writer and journalist, author of a large number of essays. One of the most popular Freemasons among Russian emigrants, founder of several lodges in France.

Origin

Mikhail Andreevich Osorgin was born in Perm in October 1878. His surname at birth was Ilyin, the pseudonym Osorgin appeared later. It was my grandmother's name. His parents were hereditary columnar nobles.

Father was engaged in jurisprudence, was one of the participants in the judicial reform carried out by Emperor Alexander II. Brother Sergei, a well-known poet and journalist in the province, died in 1912.

Education

He studied at the Perm gymnasium. During these years he published his first works in local periodicals. In the "Perm Gubernskie Vedomosti" his obituary on the death of the class warden was published, and in the then popular "Journal for All" in 1896, the story "Father". Osorgin graduated from the gymnasium in 1897.

Immediately after that, he entered the Moscow University, the Faculty of Law, deciding to follow in his father's footsteps. As a student, he did not leave his job as a journalist, mainly writing articles and essays for the Ural newspapers.

He became one of the participants in student unrest, for which he was expelled from Moscow back to Perm. He received his university degree in 1902. He entered the service of a sworn attorney in the Moscow Judicial Chamber. At the same time, he worked as a sworn solicitor in a commercial, orphan's court, as well as a legal adviser. During this period, he published his first publicist book - "Remuneration of workers for accidents."

Political Views

In 1903, the biography of Mikhail Andreevich Osorgin changes dramatically - he marries the daughter of the famous Narodnaya Volya Malikov. Then his political views are formed.

Osorgin was a zealous critic of the autocracy, given his origin and anarchist temperament, he decides to join the Social Revolutionary Party. First of all, he supported the ideas of the Social Revolutionaries about supporting the peasantry, calls to respond to violence with violence and even terror.

Mikhail Andreevich Osorgin, in his apartment in Moscow, organized gatherings of members of the committee to hide the terrorists. At the same time, he himself did not take a direct part in the revolution, but actively participated in its preparation.

During the February Revolution, Osorgin's apartment and a dacha in the Moscow region were used as meeting places for party functionaries; Socialist-Revolutionary appeals and slogans, party documents were compiled and replicated here.

Osorgin himself took part only in the December uprising, which took place from December 20 to 31, 1905. Then the fighting squads of workers opposed the police, Cossacks, dragoons and the Uprising was suppressed, reliable data on losses were not preserved.

Imprisonment and emigration

For participation in the uprising, Mikhail Andreevich Osorgin was arrested and imprisoned. He spent about 6 months in prison. The only thing that saved him was his release on bail. He was placed in prison as a dangerous barricader.

As soon as he was released, Osorgin immediately emigrated, as he feared further prosecution. First he went to Finland, from there he soon moved to another Scandinavian country - Denmark. Then he lived in Germany, Switzerland.

Found a temporary home in Italy, in an emigrant commune near Genoa. Mikhail Andreevich Osorgin spent about 10 years in exile. Books published during this period are devoted to life away from Russia, the most famous - "Essays on Modern Italy" - was published in 1913.

Life in exile

In exile, Mikhail Andreevich Osorgin briefly got acquainted with the basics of the Futurists' creativity and was immediately imbued with their ideas. He was especially impressed by the early representatives of this trend, who were as resolute as possible. His work in Italian Futurism played a certain role in the development of this trend.

In 1913, another significant event takes place - Mikhail Andreevich Osorgin, whose personal life was practically upset by that time, marries a second time. His chosen one is 17-year-old Rosa Gintsberg, for her sake he even accepts Judaism. Her father is the famous Jewish philosopher Ahad HaAma.

Osorgin traveled extensively in Europe. I visited the Balkans, Bulgaria, Montenegro and Serbia. In 1911, he publicly announced his disappointment in the ideas of the Social Revolutionaries and soon joined the Freemasons.

In exile, Osorgin continued to write for Russian magazines. His publications were published in Russkiye Vedomosti and Vestnik Evropy. In 1916 he secretly returned to Russia and lived in Moscow.

February Revolution

The year 1917 was received enthusiastically by Mikhail Andreevich Osorgin. The biography briefly notes that he accepted the February Revolution. He began to actively cooperate with the new government, became a member of the commission for the development of archives and political affairs, which worked closely with the security department. Published in the literary-historical magazine "Voice of the Past".

At the same time, his works "Ghosts", and his secrets", "Tales and non-tales" are published.

After the October Revolution

Osorgin did not accept the victory of the Bolsheviks, becoming their ardent opponent. Because of this, in 1919 he was imprisoned. The writer was released only under the guarantee of the Union of Writers and the poet Baltrushaitis.

In 1921 he worked for a short time in the famine relief commission. However, in August he was arrested again, this time Nansen rescued him. However, he was sent to Kazan. In 1922 he was expelled from the country on the so-called philosophical ship.

The second stage of his life in exile began in Berlin, in 1923 Osorgin Mikhail Andreevich finally settled in Paris. Biography, the writer's family interested his associates. Changes took place here again, in 1926 he marries for the third time - to Tatyana Bakunina, who held the position of professor

Parisian destiny

While living in Paris, Osorgin retained Soviet citizenship until 1937. After he lived without official documents, since he did not receive French citizenship.

After the outbreak of World War II, Osorgin and his wife fled from occupied Paris and settled in the town of Chabris, not occupied by the Germans. Here he wrote his last significant works- "Letters of insignificance" and "In a quiet place in France." In them, he condemns the outbreak of war, and also predicts the decline and even death of culture.

Creativity Osorgin

One of his most famous works - the novel "Sivtsev Vrazhek" - Osorgin released in 1928. The main characters of the story are the old scientist, retired professor of ornithology Ivan Aleksandrovich, as well as his granddaughter Tatyana. She lives with an elderly relative and in the course of the work she turns from a young girl into a young bride.

This novel is also called a chronicle. This is illustrated by the fact that the narrative does not unfold along a strict storyline. In the center of "Sivtseva Vrazhka" is the house where Professor Ivan Alexandrovich lives. Literary critics compare it even with the microcosm. The image of the sun at the center of this universe is a table lamp in the scientist's office.

The two main ideas in the work of Mikhail Osorgin are love for the world around and craving for the world, at first glance, not the most important and ordinary things.

A passion for nature underlies a series of essays published by Osorgin in Latest News under the pseudonym Everyman. Later, they were released as a separate book, Incidents of the Green World. They have a deep drama.

Second fundamental idea- in Osorgin's passion for collecting books and collecting. He owns a huge collection of domestic publications, a detailed list of which is presented in the Notes of an Old Bookworm, as well as in a collection of historical short stories, often criticized by representatives of the monarchist camp. They appeared in print in 1928-1934. Critics especially zealously noted in them an irreverent attitude towards the imperial family and the leadership of the Orthodox Church.

pince-nez

In 1924 in Berlin, in the magazine "Days", one of the most famous stories was published, the author of which is Mikhail Andreevich Osorgin - "Pence-nez".

The work begins with the statement that every thing in our world lives its own life. The author actively uses such a technique as personification. With its help, inanimate objects acquire human qualities. For example, Osorgin's watch paces and coughs.

Another favorite technique of the author is a metaphor. With its help, he manages to give ordinary household items a special, unique character. The main character of the story is made by Mikhail Andreevich. The work describes his demonstrative story.

As evidence that things sometimes live by themselves, the author cites cases when household items first suddenly disappear, and then just as unexpectedly and unexpectedly are found. This playful proof, interpreted by Osorgin, is similar to Murphy's law.

As an example, the author cites a pince-nez that disappeared at the most inopportune moment - while reading. His search gradually developed into general cleaning the whole house, but even when all the rooms were sparkling clean, it was not possible to find pince-nez.

His friend comes to the aid of the narrator. They approach the matter in detail, draw a plan of the room indicating the places where the pince-nez could be, but all searches turn out to be in vain.

In the finale, pince-nez can be discovered quite by accident. At the same time, the very fact of his discovery is considered by the heroes as a completely natural event.

The narrator refers to pince-nez as an animated object that has its own character, needs and lives its own life. In the end, like any other living being, the life of a pince-nez comes to an end. It dies. The finale is described very tragically, according to all the canons of a dramatic work. It died, shattered into small pieces.

The unique and peculiar approach to the image and understanding of the essence of things makes this story prominent in the work of Osorgin.

In the camp of the Masons

Starting to live in exile, since 1925, Osorgin has been involved in organizing several Masonic lodges, while working under the auspices of the Grand Orient of France, one of the oldest Masonic organizations. He was one of the leaders of the "Northern Star" and "Free Russia" lodges, while holding officer positions. For example, he was a venerable master.

Until 1938 he was a member of the chapter - the supreme council of the great college of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite.

He died and was buried in the French city of Chabris in 1942.

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Mikhail Andreevich Osorgin (1878 - 1942)

Osorgin's childhood 1878, 7 (October 19) Born in Perm. Father - Ilyin Andrey Fedorovich (presumably 1833-1891), a small estate hereditary nobleman. Mother - Savina Elena Alexandrovna (died in 1905) 1888-1897 study at the Perm classical gymnasium

In 1897 Mikhail Andreevich entered the law faculty of Moscow University. He later wrote with great warmth about his first Moscow impressions, and about the semi-poor life in the student quarter in the area of ​​Bronny Streets, and about university lectures, where "they taught to be people, not solicitors and pharmacists." After graduating from the university in 1902, he began working as a lawyer in Moscow. Mikhail Andreevich received the title of assistant barrister of the Moscow Court of Justice, sworn solicitor at the commercial court, guardian at the orphan's courts, was a legal adviser to the Society of merchant clerks, a member of the Society for the Guardianship of the Poor.

1905 Eser. One of the organizers of the All-Russian Union of Journalists and a deputy chairman of the Moscow branch of the Writers' Union. Participant in the preparation of the Moscow armed uprising. Arrest (by mistake, confused with namesake). Taganskaya prison, six months in solitary confinement awaiting a death sentence. Death of mother from anxiety.

Osorgin spoke modestly about his revolutionary activities: he was "an insignificant pawn, an ordinary excited intellectual, more a spectator than a participant"; "More than myself, my apartment took an active part in the revolution of the fifth year" revolution

May 1906 Gendarmerie's sentence to a five-year exile. Release on bail by an investigator who did not know about it. Escape to Finland, then to Italy.

Italy Osorgin settled in the town of Sori near Genoa, where an emigrant commune arose at the Villa Maria. Having existed for about two years, the commune broke up. Osorgin moved away from the emigrant circles, again found himself in opposition. Italy for Osorgin was not a museum, but became alive and close.

In 1916, saying goodbye to Italy, Osorgin wrote: “Even if the sky of Italy, its seas and beaches are forgotten, there will remain a grateful memory of simple, kind, disinterested and grateful people whom I met everywhere<...>And where did they get this friendliness and subtlety of communication, this attentive approach to someone else's and not always understandable to them emotional anguish?

Osorgin, a permanent correspondent for the Russkiye Vedomosti newspaper, chronicled the life of Italy from issue to issue. Talking about big and small events in the country, he published more than four hundred articles and feuilletons. He considered the most significant series of articles about high-profile lawsuits, the Italo-Turkish war, the Slavic lands, the Balkan war of 1912, and modern Italian literature.

He collaborated a lot in the journal "Bulletin of Europe", wrote the book "Essays on Modern Italy", chapters on Italy for the "History of Our Time", published by the Granat brothers. Osorgin organized excursions for folk teachers (more than three thousand of them visited Italy in those years). He himself traveled a lot ("The cities of Italy were my rooms: Rome - a study, Florence - a library, Venice - a living room, Naples - a terrace from which such a beautiful view", traveled all over Europe without a passport and visas, was twice in the Balkans.

Return to Russia In 1916 Osorgin arrived in Petrograd via France, England, Norway, Sweden and Finland. He was not arrested, and the intercession of the authoritative deputy of the State Duma V.A. Maklakov, and simply the confusion of the police in the pre-revolutionary months, played a role. Still, he lived in a semi-legal position, which did not prevent him from going on a trip along the Volga from Moscow, to visit Perm at the opening of a university, and to go to the Western Front. Osorgin continued his collaboration with Russkiye Vedomosti. His article "Smoke of the Fatherland" caused a flood of letters from readers who welcomed his return.

The February Revolution The February Revolution found Osorgin in Moscow. “I remember the turning point,” he recalled, “in the vast courtyard of the Spassky barracks in Moscow, where a crowd came; the soldiers were shaking in their hands, the officer did not dare to give the command. We were hit in the chest by a blank volley, as bullets could hit. the same day the human river along Tverskaya Street - the day of general radiance, red bows, the beginning of a new life. In essence, only this day was glorious and pure.

"The security department and its secrets" Osorgin took part in the analysis of the materials of the Moscow secret police, in 1917 he published the book "The security department and its secrets". And although he soon left this work, the sore mark in his soul remained for a long time. Let us recall Danilov, one of the heroes of the Book of Ends, who spent the rest of his life in the archives of the Okhrana, where, in search of a petition for pardon he had once written, he “swam in the sea of ​​the greatest dirt, raked mountains of sewage with his hands, learned a lot about many things, which and it was impossible to assume and what was enough to lose forever faith in human decency"

The book "From the Little House", written in 1917-1919, testified to the moments of despair he experienced. In the chapter on October, entitled "Ga ira - symphony", Blok's image of a soldier with a girl appears. The soldier has stupid and kind eyes, the snub-nosed girl sings a song, but it seems impossible for Osorgin to love them: “They are scary to me, a soldier with a girl.” He cannot forget about another soldier who beat the time of a song about two friends with a machine gun handle: to the bottom, and Yerema has been there for a long time. The idea of ​​Russia, where “some kind of stray bullet fired by an October machine gunner got lost and flies”, where “there is no way to live like this, so that this bullet does not threaten you”, will appear more than once in his articles, then it will end up on the pages of the novel “Sivtsev Enemy".

After the revolution In the first post-revolutionary years, M.A. Osorgin was the first chairman of the All-Russian Union of Journalists, deputy chairman of the Moscow branch of the Union of Writers, the first charter of the Union was written jointly by M.A. Osorgin and M. O. Gershenzon.

Bookshop When the private periodical press was liquidated in August 1918, “a group of writers, united by the bonds of old friendship and work on Monday, decided to found a small bookstore and “to run it exclusively on their own, so as to be near the book and not enslave service, to have an extra chance not to die of starvation". Such work was unusual, but it saved "from the prospect of dancing to the official tune", for the independent Osorgin this consideration was decisive.

A group of shareholders arose, which included art critic P. P. Muratov, poet V. F. Khodasevich, young prose writer A. S. Yakovlev, literary historian, translator and researcher of Balzac’s work B. A. Griftsov, later they were joined by B. K. Zaitsev, who "disgustingly packed books and charmingly talked with buyers", the philosopher N. A. Berdyaev, the historian A. K. Dzhivelegov. However, the main person in the shop, according to contemporaries, was M.A. Osorgin.

Osorgin recalled: "The complicated life threw on the market a number of old libraries, which we bought up, trying to give our writer brother and scientists the maximum payment." But the Writers' Bookstore was, of course, not of commercial importance; it was an important living literary community center. “Behind the counters, we had philosophical and literary disputes, in which regular customers also took part,” Osorgin wrote. consciousness that our work is both curious and useful, and the only thing not official, living, our own.

"Princess Turandot" While working in a shop, Osorgin collected an exceptionally valuable library of Russian books about Italy, he translated a lot from Italian: plays by C. Goldoni, L. Pirandello, L. Chiarelli. At the request of E. B. Vakhtangov, he translated the play by C. Gozzi "Princess Turandot", which was a great success in this translation.

All-Russian Committee for Assistance to the Starving One of the most difficult pages of Osorgin's life in Moscow is the history of his participation in the All-Russian Committee for Assistance to the Starving, which existed for a little over a month. However, it was this short-lived activity that caused another tragic turning point in the fate of the writer.

The Famine Relief Committee, "relying only on the moral authority of those who formed it," managed to quickly unite people, it enjoyed the trust and support of the Russian public, and foreign organizations: "A few days were enough for trains of potatoes, tons of rye, carts of vegetables from the center and Siberia to go to the starving provinces,<...>money flowed from everywhere into the cashier of the public Committee, which they did not want to give to the official Committee.

Arrest Osorgin edited the Committee's newspaper "Help", but managed to publish only three issues. The work of the committee was interrupted by the sudden arrest of its members at the end of August 1921. Political charges were brought against them, which were formulated very vaguely.

The role of V.I. Lenin's defeat of Pomgol Letters from V. I. Lenin testify that the committee, which he disparagingly called "Kukish" (after the names of Kuskova and Kishkin), was doomed even before its official creation. In the activity of the members of the committee, Lenin saw a threat of counter-revolution, and his point of view was supported by many prominent figures in the party.

Kazan Osorgin, who was completely ill, was sent into exile in Tsarevokokshaysk (now Yoshkar-Ola), but he could not get there. They were allowed to stay in Kazan. And although he was considered a "counter-revolutionary" and was subjected to searches, he still found interesting things there: he was engaged in setting up a bookstore, edited the Literary Gazette (without signing and hiding his participation in it), and was a frequent guest at Kazan University.

Before deportation In the spring of 1922, Osorgin was allowed to return to Moscow. "The last Russian summer" he spent in the village of Barvikha, Zvenigorod district. Seeing a car with Chekists near his hut, he disappeared, got to Moscow, spent several days in a hospital owned by his friend, but, not seeing a way out, he went to Lubyanka. There, a sentence was announced to him: expulsion with an obligation to leave the RSFSR within a week, and in case of failure to comply, capital punishment. They were exiled for three years, it was not supposed to be for a longer period, but with an oral explanation: "That is, forever." In parting, the investigator offered to fill out another questionnaire once again. To her first question: "How do you feel about Soviet power?" - Osorgin answered: "With surprise."

Reasons for the deportation Osorgin did not know what the reasons for the deportation were. Specific reasons were not needed. Osorgin wrote: “The investigator who was entrusted with the case of the expulsion of representatives of the intelligentsia, who interrogated us all about all sorts of nonsense, was asked by someone: “What are the motives for our expulsion?” He answered frankly and sweetly: “The devil knows why they We can assume that the reason could be the connection with the Social Revolutionaries (in the past), and participation in the Committee for Assistance to the Starving, and many years of friendly and business ties with Berdyaev (they even spent the last summer of 1922 together in the country). Berdyaev and other participants in the collection Oswald Spengler and the Decline of Europe, Lenin wrote to N.P. Gorbunov on March 5, 1922: “This looks like a“ literary cover for the White Guard organization.

Not only for Osorgin, but for many of those who were expelled, all thoughts, plans, whose works were inextricably linked with Russia, the departure was a tragedy. Lives were broken - it seemed then - with senseless cruelty. In the autumn days of 1922 there was only pain, resentment, despair. Osorgin wrote about the last moments, when the “departing coast of Russia” was still visible: “A surprisingly strange feeling in my soul! But I'm not her nanny, just like she's not a very loving mother to me. It's very sad at this moment." who kicked us out!"

Abroad, Osorgin spent the winter in Berlin. In the autumn of 1923 he left for Paris. Mikhail Andreevich retained Soviet citizenship and a Soviet passport until 1937, when a sharp conversation and a break took place in the Soviet consulate. For the last five years he has lived without any passport.

"Sivtsev Vrazhek" Osorgin's first novel "Sivtsev Vrazhek" (1928) was published in France and brought the writer worldwide fame. Immediately after the release, it was translated into the main European languages, including Slavic. It had great success in America, where the English translation was awarded a special prize by the Book Club as the best novel of the month (1930).

M.A. Osorgin - a writer Well known for his articles and essays to Russian pre-revolutionary society, as a prose writer Osorgin declared himself precisely in exile. And almost all of his books about Russia: the novels "Sivtsev Vrazhek" (1928), "Witness of History" (1932), "The Book of the Ends" (1935) and peculiar memoirs written in a free poetic manner, where lyrical outpourings turn into genre episodes or reflections on life and fate - "Things of a Man" (1929), "Miracle on the Lake" (1931), finally "Times" (1955). Abroad, Osorgin continued journalistic activity, collaborating in "Days", "Latest News", "Modern Notes", etc.

Osorgin about Russia “That vast land and that multi-tribal people, to whom I, in gratitude for the feelings born and for the structure of my thoughts, for the grief and joy lived through, gave the name of the motherland, cannot be taken away from me in any way, neither by purchase, nor by sale, nor conquest or exile of me - nothing, no way, never. There is no such power and cannot be. Does a green leaf love its tree? Simply - he, only connected with him - only belongs to him. And while he is connected, while he is green, while he is alive, he must believe in his native tree. Otherwise, what to believe? Otherwise - what to live!

Mikhail Andreevich Ilyin (Osorgin - the writer's pseudonym since 1907) was born on October 7, 1878 in Perm. His memories of childhood were bright, he called them in the most difficult moments, they helped to live. We will not talk here about the writer's parents, no one can do this like he himself - who was not afraid of openness of feelings, who sought and found his "best words" for his father and mother. Autobiographical stories were included in this collection, and the reader to whom Osorgin directly addressed in them: "Someone loving, whom I believe in, whose tenderness I feel, whether close, distant, dear or unfamiliar" (Osorgin Mux. Miracle on the lake . Paris, 1931. S. 42.), - will understand what wonderful people they were - Andrei Fedorovich Ilyin and Elena Alexandrovna Savina.
The kindness of close people and pictures of nature, which completely filled his world in his childhood, remained with him forever: “We, local people, were born in the open, drank the air with buckets and never considered ourselves either kings or slaves of nature, with which we lived in friendship for centuries - wrote Osorgin in his dying book "Times". - I rejoice and am proud that I was born in a deep province, in a wooden house, surrounded by countless acres, who never knew serfdom, and that the blue blood of my fathers was oxidized in me by independent expanses, cleansed by river and spring water, recolored in the breath of coniferous forests and allowed me to remain in all my wanderings a simple, middle, provincial Russian person, not perverted by either class or racial consciousness, the son of the earth and the brother of any two-legged "(Osorgin Mux. Times. Paris , 1955. S. 11--12.).
Osorgin recalled the days of the "gymnasium jacket and student cap" with irony. Mockingly, though not maliciously, he told about the years of study in the Perm classical gymnasium, which gave only "one advantage: full consciousness,<...>What<...>everyone who does not want to remain an ignoramus must learn on his own "(Osorgin Mux. Times. Paris, 1955, p. 43.). The boy fell in love with books early, the time came to search for independent thought, the desire to write appeared early. He was a seventh-grade gymnasium student, when the Permskiye Gubernskiye Vedomosti newspaper published his first article, and the Journal for Everyone under the pseudonym M. Permyak published his first fictional work, the story Father.<...>, - Osorgin recalled about his first, still naive literary experiments, - a young girl fell into the water and drowned, and her father went crazy and ran with wild exclamations through the fields and forests. In the next story, the mother was to hack her baby with an ax, and hang herself.<...>It has begun!” (Ibid., p. 67.)
In 1897 Mikhail Andreevich entered the law faculty of Moscow University. With great warmth, he later wrote about his first Moscow impressions ("The soul immediately became related to it, in Moscow everyone finds a native ..." (Osorgin Mux. Blessed days / / Russian land / Edited by A. Cherny. Paris, 1928. C 32.)), and about semi-poor life in the student quarter near Bronny Streets, and about university lectures, where "they taught to be people, but not solicitors and pharmacists" (Osorgin Mux. Salting//In memory of Russian students. Paris, 1934. S. 15.).
In his student years, a permanent journalistic work began, he wrote a lot for the Ural newspapers, became not only a regular correspondent for Perm Gubernskiye Vedomosti, but also edited them when he returned home. He did not stand aside during the days of student unrest - he was sent to Perm for a year.
After graduating from the university in 1902, he began working as a lawyer in Moscow. Mikhail Andreevich received the title of assistant barrister of the Moscow Court of Justice, sworn solicitor at the commercial court, guardian at the orphan's courts, was a legal adviser to the Society of merchant clerks, a member of the Society for the Guardianship of the Poor. The work was "not profitable, but fun" - "a bunch of tiny things, ten-ruble income, a thick portfolio with a monogram"; "I have a small mustache, a tailcoat, a wife, a typewriter, a stamp:" copied "," with perfect respect. Prague, 1923. No 3. P. 88.) Such was the outward side of his life before his arrest in December 1905.
But there was another, hidden from prying eyes.
The heroine of Osorgin's novel "The Witness of History" Natalya Kalymova made a sudden, it would seem, decision: "With strong in spirit- against the strong with weapons!" (Osorgin Mux. Witness to history. Paris, 1932. S. 231.) She left home "into the ranks of those whom some called criminals, others called saints" (Ibid., p. 31. ), those who went to kill and die "for the glory of the mirage". The author of the novel belonged to the same generation of people whose youth coincided with the days of the revolution. Like his heroine, Osorgin was carried away by the beauty of an unequal struggle. "Reckless - we loved them for recklessness" (Osorgin Mux. A wreath of memory of the small / / On a foreign side. 1924. No 6. P. 101.), - he wrote about his dead comrades.
Osorgin spoke modestly about his revolutionary activities: he was "an insignificant pawn, an ordinary excited intellectual, more a spectator than a participant"; "more than myself, my apartment took an active part in the revolution of the fifth year" (Osorgin Mux. Nine hundred and fifth year (on the occasion of the anniversary) / / Sovremennye zapiski. Paris, 1930. No 44. S. 268, 294.). “On one side I joined the party, but I was the smallest knitting needle in its chariot,” he recalled with humor, “I wrote and edited various appeals more (Forty years have passed since the peasants were given freedom, and that do we see?.. Autocratic executioners... But the hour is already close... Down with the rapists..."). The font of my typewriter was clogged with wax: it worked for the rotator. , high school students ... reigning arbitrariness and despotism ... scoring brains ... down with "-" We, pharmacists, as part of the working people ... down with"). My apartment also served for party essays, and in it "Invincible" (N.D.A.), "Zhores" (I.I.F.) and others read their first reports.Furious Social Democrats and Social Democrats came to fight them ("The previous speaker, with his characteristic eloquent frivolity .. petty-bourgeois thinking..."). I remember that Comrade Lenin, under the nickname Vl. Ilyin, did honor to my apartment..." (Osorgin Mux. Nikolai Ivanovich//On the Foreign Side. 1923. No 3. P. 91. N. D. A. - Nikolai Dmitrievich Avksentiev; I. I. F. - Ilya Isidorovich Fondaminsky.).
Not only crowded meetings were held in the apartment of a novice lawyer, later it became the meeting place of the Moscow Committee of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, was both a turnout, and a place to sleep, and a "temporary shelter" for weapons and "candy boxes with bombs." However, "an active part in the revolution" was taken not only by the apartment, but also by the dacha of Mikhail Andreevich, where "bales of appeals and propaganda leaflets printed on the rotator" were stored: "I came" from the court "with a half-pound briefcase, and in it - clean brilliant typographic type, straight from the type foundry, folded into tiles, but did not disdain second-hand - the printers delivered it. There were seven pounds of type "(Osorgin Mux. Nikolai Ivanovich / / On the Foreign Side. 1923. No 3. P. 92.). For several months, "Nikolai Ivanovich" (Petr Andreyevich Kulikovsky), who had fled from Siberia, was hiding at Osorgin's, the organizer of major terrorist acts, who, together with Kalyaev and Savinkov, participated in the assassination attempt on Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, who later killed the Moscow mayor Shuvalov.
When the contradictions in the Socialist-Revolutionary Party escalated and a wing of maximalists began to stand out from among them, Osorgin found himself in opposition to the "party generals". He did not like "party squabbles", he had different people - both from the center, and from the opposition, and leaders, and ordinary revolutions of 1905. Among them were terrible people, capable of killing without hesitation, and idealists who, - - this was the horror of their situation, - they did not find "another beauty of a feat, like" sacrificing oneself for the good of the people "by murder and, at the same time, suicide" (Osorgin Mux. "Unknown, nicknamed Werner" / / On the foreign side. 1924. No 4. S. 202.). Such was both Pyotr Kulikovsky and Vladimir Mazurin, who was executed in 1906. He dreamed of being a teacher, but became a maximalist, a participant in insane terrorist acts, an organizer of the expropriation of the Credit Society (this money was used to feed "politicians" in prisons, including in Taganskaya where at that time Osorgin was sitting alone). Such was Vsevolod Lebedintsev (Kalvino), "sympathetic, ardent, altruist" (Ibid.), who participated in the assassination attempt on Minister Shcheglovitov, who was handed over to Yevno Azef and also executed. "What confusion for historians - what material for novelists!" (Osorgin Mux. Nine hundred and fifth year//Modern notes. 1930. No 44. S. 299.) wrote Osorgin. Later, first in the memoirs written in the early 1920s, and then in the dilogy (in the novels Witness to History and The Book of Ends), he tried to understand what had happened, to show the tragic inconsistency of the lives of people with whom fate brought him together in years of the first Russian revolution.
In prison, where Osorgin spent half a year, awaiting a death sentence, he maintained good spirits, was the headman on the floor, tried to work - he translated from french book E. Dolleans "Robert Owen" (The book was published in Moscow in 1906), read, wrote a diary, later published. In May 1906, miraculously, he was free - the investigator released him on bail, without communicating with the gendarmerie, which had already sentenced Osorgin to a five-year exile; fled to Finland, where it was also unsafe, so I had to go to long way via Helsinki to Italy. He hoped that he would return in a month, it turned out - in ten years.

Osorgin settled in the town of Sori near Genoa, where an emigrant commune arose in the villa "Maria". “The great beauty of the Mediterranean Sea is liquid azure in a malachite frame, with a rim of pearl foam ...,” he recalled. “And we were engaged in statistics of the horseless, Lavrov, Mikhailovsky and the parallels between Orthodoxy and social democracy” (Osorgin Mux. Venok memory of the small//On a foreign side. 1924. No 6. P. 193.).
Having existed for about two years, the commune broke up. Osorgin moved away from emigre circles, again - as it happened more than once in his life - he found himself in opposition. E. A. Lyatsky wrote about Osorgin Gorky on October 7, 1912: "There is some kind of prejudice against him in the émigré environment" (Literaturnoe nasledstvo. T. 95. P. 505.). The dislike was mutual. Osorgin wrote about Russian emigrants in Italy more than once, even in the book "Essays on Modern Italy", devoted to completely different topics, he could not resist irony, speaking of the love of Russians "to lead a company" with "a complete inability to organize on the basis of tolerance" (Osorgin Mux. Essays on modern Italy, Moscow, 1913, pp. 20-21). "What a pitiful picture!<...>Incidents, oppositions, counterpositions, comrades' courts, comrades' gossip, protocols on morality, exposure of traitors.<...>Rottenness, rottenness, rotten air, a terrible infection!<...>Who flew higher there, the lower he fell here.<...>Abroad, I stay away from them "(Osorgin Mux. Ghosts: Three stories. M., 1917. S. 18.), - such was the harsh characterization given by Osorgin to the Russian emigrant environment, which he even compared with the prison. In " The Book of the Ends (1935), he remained true to this assessment, which lost its straightforward harshness in the novel, but remained just as bitter.
Italy for Osorgin was not a museum, but became - and this distinguished him from many Russian emigrants who closed themselves in narrow circles - alive and close. In the working-class quarter of Rome, he led a common life with the people around him. In 1916, saying goodbye to Italy, Osorgin wrote: “Even if the sky of Italy, its seas and beaches are forgotten, there will remain a grateful memory of simple, kind, disinterested and grateful people whom I met everywhere<...>And where did they get this friendliness and subtlety of communication, this attentive approach to someone else's and not always clear to them spiritual anguish?" (Osorgin Mux. Where he was happy: Stories. Paris, 1928. p. 24.)
Osorgin, a permanent correspondent for the Russkiye Vedomosti newspaper, chronicled the life of Italy from issue to issue. Talking about big and small events in the country, he published more than four hundred articles and feuilletons. He considered the most significant series of articles about high-profile trials, the Italo-Turkish war, the Slavic lands, the Balkan war of 1912, and modern Italian literature (See: Osorgin Mux. Autobiography // Russian Vedomosti. 1863-1913: Collection of articles. M., 1913. S. 129.). He collaborated a lot in the journal "Bulletin of Europe", wrote the book "Essays on Modern Italy", chapters on Italy for the "History of Our Time", published by the Granat brothers. Osorgin organized excursions for folk teachers (more than three thousand of them visited Italy in those years). He himself traveled a lot ("The cities of Italy were my rooms: Rome - a study, Florence - a library, Venice - a living room, Naples - a terrace with such a beautiful view" (Osorgin Mux. Times. Paris, 1955 119.)), traveled all over Europe without a passport and visas, and was twice in the Balkans.
One of Osorgin's books is called "Where I Was Happy". It has many pages devoted to Italian impressions. In Italy, youth passed, but then he was sure that the main thing in life was yet to come. Later, in cold and hungry Moscow, recalling sunny Italy, he still called it "blue prison" (Osorgin Mux. From a small house. Moscow, 1917--1919.<Рига>, 1921. S. 22.).
The constancy of his thought, "directed to the northeast" (Osorgin Mux. Italian letter / / Will of Russia. Prague, 1923. No 15. P. 45.) - to Russia, was reflected in a sharp polemic with M. Gorky (they met still in Russia in connection with work in the Society for the Guardianship of the Poor). In 1913, Osorgin worked on an article on the attitude of Russian emigrants to the amnesty, which was to follow as a result of dynastic celebrations dedicated to the tercentenary of the Romanov dynasty (he himself did not fall under this amnesty). On Capri, Osorgin met with Gorky, who immediately dismissed the topic of "homesickness", saying that he did not understand and did not recognize this longing in Russians. "He brought me proof of the Doukhobors and his countrymen<...>, who became genuine Frenchmen and said: "Come on, her, your Russia!" (Osorgin M.A. Russian emigrants and the "Roman Congress" // Bulletin of Europe. 1913. No 7. P. 298.) Gorky asked not to mention him in the article, speaking of his desire to "remain in the shadows" (Letter to M. Gorky to Osorgin from March 3-16, 1913//M. Gorky's Archive (Moscow). A sad letter followed from Osorgin, who tried to resolve his doubts: “You not only did not convince me, but, I think, you will not be able to convince yourself.<...>We in Russia are afraid of many things: for example, the word "patriot".<...>Why, then, do you doubt the naturalness of the most typical and sharply expressed "homesickness" of a Russian emigrant, who, moreover, was forcibly torn from his native soil?<...>I have no doubt that you understand her.<...>Our cosmopolitanism is only a beautiful form of our suffering pride and our lack of frankness even with ourselves "(Osorgin's letter to Gorky dated March 18, 1913// M. Gorky's archive.). Gorky replied with "severe and laconic notation" (Osorgin's letter to Gorky dated March 25, 1913// Archive of M. Gorky.), he again repeated the idea "about the lack of a sense of homeland among Russians": "I consider Russian" homesickness "as longing for a familiar place where it is easier, more convenient to live, where you can live with the least responsibility to people. Longing for a familiar place is also familiar to animals: dogs, cats "(Gorky's letter to Osorgin (end of March 1913) / / M. Gorky's archive.).
Gorky's thoughts, formulated sharply polemically, were dictated by his political views of that time, his attitude to the problems of nationalism and great-power chauvinism that had become aggravated in Russia. Osorgin, on the other hand, was guided not by political motives, but by simple human feelings, and no one could convince him that Russians have atrophied a sense of homesickness. “I myself am Russian,” he wrote bitterly to Gorky, “but I yearn in a way that I would not wish to yearn for anyone else. Maybe this feeling is not of a high caliber, it really is an animal, but that doesn’t change the matter. Yes, and it is not true, it is not low, just as the feeling of love for a mother is not low, also of animal origin "(Osorgin's letter to Gorky dated March 25, 1913 / / Archive of M. Gorky.).

In 1916, through France, England, Norway, Sweden and Finland, Osorgin arrived in Petrograd. He was not arrested, and the intercession of the authoritative deputy of the State Duma V.A. Maklakov, and simply the confusion of the police in the pre-revolutionary months, played a role. Still, he lived in a semi-legal position, which did not prevent him from going on a trip along the Volga from Moscow, to visit Perm at the opening of a university, and to go to the Western Front. Osorgin continued his collaboration with Russkiye Vedomosti. His article "Smoke of the Fatherland" caused a flood of letters from readers who welcomed his return.
The February revolution found Osorgin in Moscow. “I remember the moment of a turning point,” he recalled, “in the vast courtyard of the Spassky barracks in Moscow, where a crowd came; the soldiers trembled in their hands with their rifles, the officer did not dare to give a command. On the same day, the human river along Tverskaya Street is a day of general radiance, red bows, the beginning of a new life. In essence, only this day was glorious and pure "(Osorgin Mux. Times. Paris, 1955. P. 139.).
Osorgin then collaborated in the journal "Voice of the Past", in the newspapers "People's Socialist", "Ray of Truth", "Motherland", "Power of the People", edited the literary supplement to the latter - "Monday". In the Moscow writers' cooperative publishing house "Zadruga", where Osorgin (together with S. P. Melgunov, N. A. Berdyaev, S. N. Prokopovich, E. D. Kuskova, O. I. Gruzenberg, F. A. Stepun) was a member of the partnership, several of his books were published, including two fiction - "Ghosts" (1917), "Tales and non-tales" (1918). Fatal passions, vague allusions, failed meetings of "Ghosts" - this was a stage in the writer's creative path, when neither his own language nor his own manner had yet been found. He went through the search for a complicated form, then to abandon it.
Osorgin took part in the analysis of the materials of the Moscow secret police, in 1917 he published the book "The Security Department and Its Secrets". And although he soon left this work, the sore mark in his soul remained for a long time. Let us recall Danilov, one of the heroes of the Book of Ends, who spent the rest of his life in the archives of the Okhrana, where, in search of a petition for pardon he had once written, he “swam in the sea of ​​the greatest dirt, raked mountains of sewage with his hands, learned a lot about many things, which and it was impossible to assume and what was enough to lose forever faith in human decency "(Osorgin Mux. Book of the Ends: Roman. Berlin, 1935. P. 232.).
In "Times" - a book of results - Osorgin defined his attitude to the October events in this way: "The revolution is consistent and united, and February is unthinkable without October. A complete social upheaval was inevitable and needed, and it could only take place in cruel and bloody forms "I know this and accept it fatally, as fate. But the feeling could never justify a return to organized violence, to a complete rejection of that which, in our eyes, softened the cruelty of the moments of the upheaval - the rejection of the establishment of civil liberty<...>. To change slavery for new slavery - it was not worth giving one's life "(Osorgin Mux. Times. Paris, 1955. S. 138--139.).
The book "From the Little House", written in 1917-1919, testified to the moments of despair he experienced. Osorgin told in it about an attempt to get out of a noisy city, "where heaps of newspapers reach the throat, where everyone is in a hurry - and everyone is late, everyone is busy - but it's of little use, all neurasthenics - but they want to teach healthy people" (Osorgin Mux From a small house.<Рига>, 1921. P. 3.), into the silence of a village house, in order to "protect themselves from infection with social hysteria" (Ibid., p. 32.), try to figure out what is happening at this amazing time, when life was "not that scary tale, either an insulting chronicle, or a great prologue of a new divine comedy "(Ibid., p. 3.).
In the chapter on October, entitled "Ga ira - symphony", Blok's image of a soldier with a girl appears. The soldier has stupid and kind eyes, a snub-nosed girl sings a song, but it seems impossible for Osorgin to love them: "They are terrible to me, a soldier with a girl" (Ibid., p. 43.). He cannot forget about another soldier, who was beating the time of a song about two friends with a machine gun handle: "Here Foma went to the bottom, and Yerema has been there for a long time." The thought of Russia, where “some kind of stray bullet fired by an October machine gunner got lost and flies”, where “there is no way to live like this, so that this bullet does not threaten you” (Osorgin Mux. Same Sea//Sovremennye zapiski. 1922. No 13 S. 217.), - will appear more than once in his articles, then it will also appear on the pages of the novel "Sivtsev Vrazhek".
In the first post-revolutionary years, Osorgin was the first chairman of the All-Russian Union of Journalists, a deputy chairman of the Moscow branch of the Writers' Union, the first charter of the Union was written jointly by Osorgin and M. O. Gershenzon.
When in August 1918 the private periodical press was liquidated, "a group of writers, united by the bonds of old friendship and work in "Monday" (Osorgin Mux. Writers' Bookstore//New Russian Book. Berlin, 1923. No 3/4. P. 38.), decided to found a small bookstore and "to run it exclusively on her own in order to be near the book and, without enslaving herself to service, have an extra chance not to die of hunger" (Ibid.). Such work was unusual, but it saved "From the prospect of dancing to the government pipe" (Osorgin Mux. Sheets//Latest News. Paris, 1925. No 1578. June 17.) - for the independent Osorgin, this consideration was decisive. Muratov, poet V. F. Khodasevich, young prose writer A. S. Yakovlev, literary historian, translator and researcher of Balzac’s work B. A. Griftsov, later they were joined by V. K. Zaitsev, who “disgustingly packed books and talked charmingly with buyers" (Osorgin Mux. About Boris Zaitsev//Latest news. 1926. No. 2087. December 9.), philosopher N. A. Berdyaev, historian A. K. Dzhivelegov. However, the main person in the shop, according to contemporaries, was Osorgin (Berdyaev N. Self-knowledge / Experience of philosophical autobiography. Paris, 1946. S. 255.).
The shop, located in Leontievsky Lane, was listed under the Union of Writers, all shareholders were members of the Union, three were members of the presidium, and B.K. Zaitsev was its chairman. This circumstance was important because it protected the store from the "municipalization" that threatened private shops and libraries, and in fact liquidation.
Osorgin recalled: "The complicated life threw a number of old libraries onto the market, which we bought up, trying to give our brother the writer and scientists the maximum payment" (Osorgin Mux. Writers' Bookstore / / New Russian Book. 1923. No 3/4. C 38.). But the Writers' Bookstore was, of course, not of commercial importance; it was an important living literary community center. “Behind the counters, we had philosophical and literary disputes, in which regular customers also took part,” Osorgin wrote. consciousness that our business is both curious and useful, and the only thing that is not state-owned, living, our own "(Osorgin Mux. Bookstore writers / / New Russian book. 1923. P. 39.).
A handwritten-autographic publishing house, characteristic of those years when it was not possible to print, arose at the shop: the writers themselves rewrote, illustrated and stitched their book. Talking about the unique collection of handwritten books made in the shop (there were about two hundred of them), V. G. Lidin recalled, in particular, Osorgin's book "Praise to birch firewood", written by the author on birch bark (See: Lidin Vl. My friends - - books: Stories of a book lover. M., 1976. P. 8.).
Members of the Religious-Philosophical Society gathered in the shop, meetings of the Italophile circle "Studio Italiano" were held, at which, as Osorgin recalled, "the cold did not prevent us from reviving our favorite images and sharing what the closeness of our common mistress, Italy, gave us" (Osorgin Mux. About Boris Zaitsev//Latest news. 1926. No 2087. December 9.). Here, in the studio, a few months before his death, A. Blok came to read his poems.
While working in the shop, Osorgin collected an exceptionally valuable library of Russian books about Italy, he translated a lot from Italian: plays by C. Goldoni, L. Pirandello, L. Chiarelli. At the request of E. B. Vakhtangov, he translated the play by C. Gozzi "Princess Turandot", which was a great success in this translation.
One of the most difficult pages of Osorgin's life in Moscow is the history of his participation in the All-Russian Committee for Assistance to the Starving, which existed for a little over a month. However, it was this short-lived activity that caused another tragic turning point in the fate of the writer.
About the Moscow menu, which allowed Osorgin to have a share of a shareholder in the Writers' Bookstore, he recalled more than once: "soup from potato peels", "roast from a dead cab horse", "millet on a wheeled ointment", "herring smoked in a samovar pipe" , "our bread of 1921, in which the most valuable admixture was quinoa" (Osorgin Mux. In a quiet place in France. Paris, 1946. S. 201.). But for residents of many regions of Russia, these dishes have become an inaccessible dream. According to the historian Yu. A. Polyakov, in 1921 at least 20% of the country's population and more than 25% of the entire rural population were starving (See: Polyakov Yu. A. 1921: victory over hunger. M., 1975. C 14, 19-20.), the number of victims was in the millions. Abroad, they were horrified by rumors of cases of cannibalism, but those who then visited the Volga region, where the villages were dying out completely, spoke not about individual cases, but about a phenomenon that had become widespread: “Objectively, from a distance it is an indescribable horror<...>. And on the spot, this is everyday life, a natural solution to the food problem. You need to be able to look life closely in the eyes" (Osorgin Mux. By the same sea / / Modern notes. 1922. No 13. P. 223.).
On June 29, 1921, M. Gorky submitted to the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks a proposal to create an All-Russian Committee for Assistance to the Starving. L. B. Kamenev and M. I. Kalinin called for the voluntary unification of public efforts to combat hunger. The Famine Relief Committee was formed on July 21, 1921 and housed in one of the mansions on Dog's Playground. It existed in parallel with the Central Commission for Assistance to the Starving at the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. The committee was headed by L. B. Kamenev, and A. I. Rykov became his deputy. It included A. M. Gorky, K. S. Stanislavsky, A. I. Sumbatov-Yuzhin, B. K. Zaitsev, P. P. Muratov. Most of the committee members were cooperators and specialists in agriculture - agronomists, economists, statisticians. Among them were the economist A.V. Chayanov, Professor N.D. Kondratyev, later repressed together with Chayanov in the case of the mythical Labor Peasant Party, the chairman of the board of agricultural cooperatives P.A. Sadyrin, the rector of the zootechnical institute M.M. Shchepkin, Chairman of the Moscow Society of Agriculture A. I. Ugrimov, and also famous doctors, Tolstoyans, who had extensive experience in helping the starving (P. I. Biryukov, V. F. Bulgakov, A. L. Tolstaya), representatives of religious sects with extensive international ties. Patriarch Tikhon blessed the activities of the committee and appealed to the believers for help to the starving. The committee was supported by the Academy of Sciences. Its members were the president of the academy A.P. Karpinsky, vice-president V.A. Steklov, academicians V.N. Ipatiev, A.V. Fersman, N.Ya. Marr, S.F. Oldenburg and others. The committee included people of different political persuasions. A prominent place in it was occupied by E. D. Kuskova, former ministers of the Provisional Government S. N. Prokopovich and N. M. Kishkin. There was also a cell of communists under the committee, consisting of twelve people, among whom were M. M. Litvinov, L. B. Krasin, N. A. Semashko, A. V. Lunacharsky and others. They undertook to ensure that this organization was not used for counter-revolutionary purposes.
The Famine Relief Committee, "relying only on the moral authority of those who formed it" (Osorgin Mux. Times. Paris, 1955, p. 161.), managed to quickly unite people, he enjoyed the trust, support of both the Russian public and foreign organizations: "Several days it turned out to be enough for trains of potatoes, tons of rye, carts of vegetables from the center and Siberia to go to the starving provinces,<...>money flowed into the cashier of the public Committee from everywhere, which they did not want to give to the official Committee" (Ibid.).
Osorgin edited the Committee's newspaper "Help", but managed to publish only three issues. The work of the committee was interrupted by the sudden arrest of its members at the end of August 1921. Political charges were brought against them, which were formulated very vaguely.
Lenin's letters testify that the committee, which he disparagingly called "Kukish" (after the names of Kuskova and Kishkin), was doomed even before its official creation. In the activity of the members of the committee, Lenin saw a threat of counter-revolution, and his point of view was supported by many prominent figures in the party. "My dear Semashka!<...>- Lenin wrote on July 12, 1921 - Do not be jealous of Kuskova<...>. From Kuskova we will take a name, a signature, a couple of wagons from those who sympathize with her (and others). Nothing else. It’s not difficult, she-she, to do it "(Lenin V.I. Poln. sobr. soch. T. 44. P. 24.).
Lenin's letter to I. V. Stalin and all members of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) dated August 26, 1921, in which he calls "not to hesitate" in deciding the future fate of the committee, sheds even more light on the reasons for his quick death.
Fridtjof Nansen, who in June 1921, on behalf of the International Red Cross, was negotiating with the Soviet government to send food to Petrograd, subject to the establishment of supervision over the distribution of products - and Lenin agreed to this condition - decided to appoint members of the Relief Committee as his representatives starving. Lenin was offended by this "impudent proposal" of Nansen. In addition, “a certain Runov,” as Lenin calls him (T. A. Runov was one of the organizers of the Moscow Exhibition of Achievements of Agriculture in 1921), informed A. I. Rykov, who in turn informed Lenin that “Prokopovich was holding anti-government speeches" at one of the committee meetings. These circumstances caused Lenin's order:
“Prokopovich is to be arrested today on charges of making an anti-government speech (at a meeting where Runov was) and kept for three months while we carefully examine this meeting.
The rest of the members of "Kukish" should be expelled from Moscow immediately, today, one by one in the county towns, if possible without railways, under supervision.
She-she, to wait still - the mistake will be huge. Until Nansen leaves, the deed will be done; Nansen will be given a clear "ultimatum". The game (with fire) will end.
Tomorrow we will print five lines of a short, dry "government message": dismissed for unwillingness to work.
We will give the newspapers a directive: tomorrow they will start ridiculing the "Kukish" in a hundred ways. Barichi, the White Guards, wanted to ride abroad, they did not want to go to the places. Kalinin went, but the Cadets were "out of place." With all your might, ridicule and poison them at least once a week for two months "(Lenin V.I. Poln. sobr. soch. T. 53. S. 141--142.).
Osorgin, one of the participants in this, as Lenin put it, "playing with fire", sharply brushed aside suspicions about the political goals of the committee members. "None of us<...>- he wrote - did not ask himself political tasks. Conscience did not allow us to remain spectators at such a terrible moment of national disaster<...>. It is a pity that we did not hold out longer and could not save at least a thousand, at least a hundred more people from death and cannibalism<...>. And history, if it is impartial, will forgive the Bolsheviks a lot, but it will not forgive this "(Osorgin Mux. By the same sea // Sovremennye zapiski. 1922. No 13. P. 224.).
Osorgin ended his diary, written in the tsar's prison, with the words: "We'll still live, we'll argue. We'll spend many, many more times in prison" (Osorgin Mux. Pictures of prison life: From a diary of 1906 // Russian wealth. 1907. No 12. ). Unfortunately, this joke turned out to be prophetic. The arrest for participation in the Famine Relief Committee was already the third. Behind him was not only the Taganskaya prison, but also the arrest in 1919, when Osorgin ended up in the Lubyanka, in the "Ship of Death". The arrest was accidental; then, together with the poet Yu. K. Baltrushaitis, the chairman of the Moscow Council, Kamenev, came to release him. Osorgin recalled: “A small misunderstanding,” explains Kamenev, “but for you, as a writer, this is material<...>". For five days in the "Ship of Death" I really could have collected some material if I myself did not feel like soulless material "(Osorgin Mux. Times. Paris, 1955. P. 149.). And here again - Lubyanka, a special department of the Cheka, an internal prison. In a damp, green cell with smeared windows, no books, no walks, where they fed "a soup of rotten and wormy roach, giving the "second course" the remains of this roach" (Osorgin Mux. In a quiet place in France. Paris, 1946. C 69.), Osorgin spent two and a half months: "I was completely swollen, edema, began to cough: and in general in those days I broke my health for a long time" (Osorgin Mux. To better feel freedom (From "Memoirs") // On a foreign side 1924. No 8. P. 119.). This time, the efforts of friends were in vain. The intercession of A. V. Lunacharsky did not help either. N. A. Berdyaev recalled: “The head of state, Kalinin, told us an amazing phrase: “Lunacharsky’s recommendation does not matter, it’s all the same, as if I gave a recommendation with my signature, it would also have no meaning; another thing, if Comrade. Stalin recommended "(Berdyaev N. Self-knowledge. Paris. 1949. S. 255.).
Osorgin, who was completely ill, was sent into exile in Tsarevokokshaysk (now Yoshkar-Ola), but he could not get there. They were allowed to stay in Kazan. And although he was considered a "counter-revolutionary" and was subjected to searches, he still found interesting things there: he was engaged in setting up a bookstore, edited the Literary Gazette (without signing and hiding his participation in it), and was a frequent guest at Kazan University.
In the spring of 1922, Osorgin was allowed to return to Moscow. "The last Russian summer" he spent in the village of Barvikha, Zvenigorod district. Seeing a car with Chekists near his hut, he disappeared, got to Moscow, spent several days in a hospital owned by his friend, and later father-in-law A.I. Bakunin, but, not seeing a way out, he went to Lubyanka. There he was sentenced: deportation with an obligation to leave the RSFSR within a week, and in case of failure to comply, capital punishment. They sent them out for three years, for a longer period they were not supposed to, but with an oral explanation: "That is, forever" (Osorgin Mux. How they left us // Latest news. 1932. No 4176. August 28.). In parting, the investigator offered to fill out another questionnaire once again. To her first question: "How do you feel about Soviet power?" - Osorgin answered: "With surprise" (Osorgin Mux. Times. Paris, 1955. P. 182.).
He did not know what the reasons for the deportation were, just as we do not know about them. Specific reasons were not needed. Osorgin wrote: “The investigator who was entrusted with the case of the expulsion of representatives of the intelligentsia, who interrogated us all about all sorts of nonsense, was asked by someone: “What are the motives for our expulsion?” He answered frankly and sweetly: “The devil knows why they deported!" (Osorgin Mux. By the same sea//Sovremennye zapiski. 1922. No 13. S. 218.). many years of friendly and business ties with Berdyaev (they even spent the last summer of 1922 together at the dacha.) About Berdyaev and other participants in the collection Oswald Spengler and the Decline of Europe, Lenin wrote to N. P. Gorbunov on March 5, 1922: on the "literary cover of the White Guard organization" (Lenin V.I. Complete collection of works. T. 54. P. 198.).
Osorgin repeatedly accused Trotsky of supporting the idea of ​​expulsion with his authority. However, it is clear that the expulsion was dictated by national policy. In May 1922, Lenin, proposing to replace execution by expulsion, decided: "We must expand the use of execution (with replacement by expulsion abroad) ..." (Ibid. T. 45. P. 189.). On the need to prepare for the expulsion of writers and professors abroad, Lenin wrote to F. E. Dzerzhinsky on May 19, 1922: spies "to catch and catch constantly and systematically and send them abroad" (Ibid., vol. 54, p. 226.). Lenin proposed and detailed plan actions: "To collect systematic information about the political experience, work and literary activities of professors and writers. Entrust all this to an intelligent, educated and accurate person in the GPU" (Ibid., p. 265.). Lenin himself named "candidates for deportation" and ordered the members of the Politburo to contribute to this matter.
This plan was carried out: more and more parties of representatives of the Moscow and Petrograd intelligentsia were sent abroad. Osorgin also set off on a steamer to Germany.
He later recalled the investigator's bewilderment at his statement about his unwillingness to leave: "Well, how can it be, not wanting to go abroad" (Osorgin Mux. How they left us / / Latest news. 1932. No 4176. August 28.). Not only for Osorgin, but for many of those who were expelled, all thoughts, plans, whose works were inextricably linked with Russia, the departure was a tragedy. Lives were broken - it seemed then - with senseless cruelty. In the light of what happened later, it became clear that the fate of the deportees could have been worse. But in those days of autumn 1922 there was only pain, resentment, despair. Osorgin wrote about the last moments, when the “sailing coast of Russia” was still visible: “A surprisingly strange feeling in my soul! everything can happen, you can’t see it. And I’m not her nanny, just like she’s not a very loving mother to me. It’s very sad at this moment "(Osorgin Mux. By the same sea / / Sovremennye zapiski. 1922. No 13. S. 216.) . The shore disappeared, and, joining his companions - comrades in misfortune, Osorgin proposed a toast: "To the happiness of Russia, which threw us out!" (Ibid., p. 217.)

Osorgin spent the winter in Berlin. "I am very grateful to Germany for its hospitality, but I don't like its language and the profiles of Berlin" (Osorgin Mux. Italian letter//Will of Russia. 1923. No 15. P. 36.), he wrote. He traveled to Italy, gave lectures, worked on stories about the special world of Italian port taverns for an album of drawings by Boris Grigoriev, "charmingly evil", according to S. Makovsky. Osorgin's stories were not evil, but simply sad. "We are people of random navigation, schooners without a compass with broken masts and a crazy rudder" (Grigoriev B. Boui boui au bord de la mer. Berlin, 1924, p. 31.), - these words convey his mood. Italy, where Mussolini had already come to power, did not like it either: "For the first time in Rome, I felt like a stranger" (Osorgin Mux. Italian letter / / Will of Russia. 1923. No 15. P. 37.).
In the autumn of 1923 Osorgin left for Paris.
Osorgin's relationship with the Russian emigration was not easy. F.A. Stepun spoke about the difficult psychological situation in which those deported from Russia found themselves: with obvious not only to me, but, above all, to Russia, affection and even love<...>. But such an attitude towards me was often somehow suddenly broken at the very first words about Russia. It was enough<...>note one or another positive phenomenon of a new life<...>how my listeners immediately became suspiciously alert and even in a strange way ... disappointed. The result was a completely incomprehensible picture: the love, the obvious, patriotic love of my interlocutors for Russia clearly demanded from me a completely unambiguous hatred for her.<...>. No, I worried and repulsed my interlocutors not by the defense of the Bolsheviks as a government, which was completely alien to me, but by the defense of my faith that, despite the Bolsheviks, Russia remained in Russia, and did not move in the hearts of emigrants to Paris, Berlin and Prague "(Stepun F. Thoughts on Russia // Sovremennye Zapiski, 1923, No 17, pp. 364--365).
The same was the opinion of Berdyaev, whose first meeting with representatives of emigration ended in literally scandal: "I was furious and screamed so much that the landlady announced that she would call the police" (Berdyaev N. Self-consciousness. Paris, 1949. S. 269.). "The atmosphere was saturated not only with reaction against the Bolshevik revolution, it was reactionary in general, according to the most initial emotions" (Ibid., p. 272), he emphasized.
Stepun wrote about "emigrantism" as an illness that struck many Russians who found themselves abroad, in which the feeling of irreparable suffering caused by the revolution overshadowed the whole world. Among the people who avoided "emigres", he called Osorgin one of the first.
Osorgin was ready for the fact that his meeting with foreign compatriots would be "dissonant". He spoke about the difference in worldview among those who immediately left and those who were with their people during the revolutionary years, who saw the sprouts of a new life. “We have not and will not renounce Russia or the revolution. We have not expected and are not expecting any “unexpected joy” from Russian misfortunes and misfortunes. "future" (Osorgin Mux. Meeting / / Days. Berlin, 1923. No 105. March 4.) - he wrote.
Articles by Osorgin, who missed work, free speech, when there is no supervision, there is no "dull, idiotic eye<...>wishing to read minds, not yet able to read in print" (Osorgin Mux. Same Sea//Sovremennye zapiski. 1922. No 13. P. 216.) newspapers and magazines.
“Instead of the Letters of a Russian Traveler, I present you with a treatise On Love for the Fatherland and National Pride” (Osorgin Mux. Italian letter / / Will of Russia. 1923. No 15. C 45.), - wrote Osorgin. In defiance of Russian emigrants, who "cry, complain, beg," he spoke of his creed: "When asked who you are, you need to answer not" sorry, I'm Russian ", but simply" Russian "(Osorgin Mux. Italian Letter//Will of Russia. 1923 No. 15. P. 41.). “The Russian government, throwing me out of the borders of the fatherland, preemptively provided me with a foreign passport book in a red cover, where, on the one hand, it is said that the owner of this book was expelled from the borders of Soviet Russia, on the other hand, it is proposed to the proletarians of all countries to unite in official wording. It would be truly cowardly to change such an interesting passport for a "white one" and insist on your homelessness and your statelessness! No, I am Russian, the son of Russia and her citizen! I want to bear responsibility for her, for her "eccentricities", for the natural qualities of her people and the antics of its rulers" (Ibid., p. 35.). Looking ahead, let's say that Mikhail Andreevich retained Soviet citizenship and a Soviet passport until 1937, when a sharp conversation and a break took place in the Soviet consulate (T. A. Osorgina wrote about this: "Renewal (of a Soviet passport. - O. A. ) broke off on the day when the consul made it appear to him that he was not in line Soviet policy". (Past: Historical Almanac. Issue 6. Paris, 1988).). For the last five years he has lived without any passport.
"Resentment is a bad adviser, melancholy is an unjust judge," Osorgin wrote. And he knew how to rise above his own resentment and grief, not to obscure his love for Russia: “That vast land and that multi-tribe people, to whom I, in gratitude for the feelings born and for the structure of my thoughts, for the grief and joy I lived, gave the name of the motherland, - There is no way and nothing that can be taken away from me, neither by buying, nor by selling, nor by conquest, nor by expulsion of me - by nothing, by no means, never. There is no such power and cannot be. I feel sorry for the speakers, so for them Russia was either a royal reception room, or an amphitheater of the State Duma, or their estate, house, profession, faith, family, regiment, tavern, the silhouette of the Kremlin, a familiar dialect, a police station - I don’t know what else , anything, but not the whole country of its culture - from edge to edge, not all the people - from the Russian to the Chukchi, from the academician to the hysteria and the village horse thief. Their beloved died, but Russia is not at all "beloved". a green leaf to own a tree? And while connected, while green, while alive, he must believe in his native tree. Otherwise, what to believe? Otherwise - how to live! (Osorgin Mux. Russia//Days. 1924. No 584. October 8.)
Osorgin understood that his position did not fit into any "complete collection of obligatory opinions" - neither emigre nor Soviet: "I burned myself from both ends."
He never tried to get "in tune with the general emigre choir." Many of the ideas that Osorgin stubbornly defended were met with hostility. This refers to his ironic assessment of the political role of the Russian emigration of the 1920s: “Herzen cast his bell from the copper that Russia sent him. (Osorgin Mux. Mutual understanding // Latest news. 1923. No 1122. December 19.). His words about the need for "spiritual rapprochement with the new Russia", about "spiritual fusion", about "spiritual return" (Osorgin Mux. A lancet is required // Latest News. 1925. No 1691. October 28.) caused a storm in the emigre press. His belief in the unity and indivisibility of Russian literature was also not accepted: "Aldanov, Bulgakov, Bunin, Gorky, Zamyatin, Kuprin, Leonov, Remizov, Fedin - they are all ours ..." (Osorgin Mux. Soviet Literature // Latest News. 1930. No 3319. April 24.)
The degree of rejection could be different - from the hidden injections of G. V. Adamovich, who portrayed Osorgin as a capriciously naughty, arguing for the sake of argument, "fervent writer" (Modern notes. Paris, 1930. No 5.) to "splashing poison in the face" (Osorgin Mux. Suicidal page from ...// Latest news. 1925. No 1714. November 24.) A. F. Kerensky, M. V. Vishnyak, I. I. Bunakov and others. “It took a long time to introduce the Soviet template into the emigre press so that the writers learned to swear like a prisoner: in chorus and on floors” (Ibid.), Osorgin ironically about the unanimity of the emigre press in assessing one of his articles. When Pavel Nikolaevich Milyukov pronounced the sentence: “Be forever alone” (Ibid.), Osorgin was not afraid of this either: “How did P.N. guess about my tastes? I remember how, sitting in the “general”, I always asked so that I could be transferred alone; this saves me from infection with hysteria, hysteria and other epidemic diseases. And it is much better to think and work "(Ibid.).
Osorgin was not alone. found mutual language with young writers, he knew how to support and advise. Poet V. L. Andreev, prose writers Gaito Gazdanov, Iv. Boldyrev (I. A. Shkott), V. B. Sosinsky, V. S. Yanovsky, B. Temiryazev (Yu. P. Annenkov) were among those whom Osorgin helped a lot. He edited a series of books "New Writers" and contributed to the publication of several successful books for literary youth. Osorgin's influence "among the emigrant youth of the left bias" (Gorky's letter to the All-Russian Committee of Drama of January 13, 1936 / / Archive of M. Gorky.) was noted by Gorky. The philosopher and sociologist G. D. Gurvich wrote about this important feature of Mikhail Andreevich’s spiritual appearance: “Osorgin was the youngest representative of the Russian emigration in spirit, and this eternal youth of his made him the leader not only of all Russian literary youth abroad, but in general Russian Youth in Emigration" (Gurvich G.D. In memory of a friend//New Journal. New York, 1943. No 4. P. 357.).
Osorgin dreamed of returning to his homeland, and this dream did not leave him until the end of his days, but he understood that it was impossible to fulfill. He was a man who lived with his eyes open, never tried to collude with his own conscience by putting on rose-colored glasses. He saw flaws in the moral state of Soviet society. And what happened to many people close in the past, he called briefly and bitterly: the loss of honor. “New times have come, concepts have changed radically,” wrote Osorgin, “an open and secret denunciation was erected in special honor, they envied those who managed to improve their affairs and divert suspicions from themselves with a penitent letter printed in the newspapers. They renounced the parties , from former friends and like-minded people, from origin, from scientific views, from rotten ideology, from artistic insights - and in these renunciations they put all the forces of passion, all eloquence, all poetry, all the talent of people, consciously, in a race, falling into the moral abyss "(Osorgin Mux. The book about the ends. Berlin, 1935. S. 233--234.).
After Osorgin's death, his letters of 1936 were published - "To an old friend in Moscow". Defending humanistic ideals, which in Soviet Russia were considered an untimely "abstraction", and sometimes just a relic, Osorgin turned to future generations, called for separating the eternal and truly human from the momentary advantage. Here is a small excerpt from this letter, which is fundamentally important for understanding the foundations of Osorgin's worldview: "You write:" Humanism in our time must invariably degenerate into tearful sugariness, sentimentality or hypocrisy. The time is now fighting, and in war, as in war, one must take a place on one side or another of the barricade. "I will answer this that it is better to let it degenerate into sentimentalism than into its opposite - into the denial of human personality<...>. My place is invariable - on the other side of the barricade, where the individual and the free public fight against violence against them, no matter how this violence is covered, no matter how good words justify itself.<...>. Restriction of the humanistic idea by the "conditions of the time" is, in essence, the purest liberalism and opportunism<...>. But we revolutionaries simply and without restrictions said that a person should be free, his conscience should not be constrained, his personality should be inviolable, his dwelling should not be accessible to impudent intrusion, the right to work is secured, the product of this labor should not belong to the capitalist, just like the product of the land they cultivate. For this people fought and died. And these were not sweet humanists, but true humanists, albeit naive ones. These people have achieved something, and now the satisfied man in the street, referring to the "circumstances of the time", asks them to wait with the future, and transfers those who disagree to the category of "expiatory victims" ... " (Cahiers du Monde Russe et Sovietique. Vol. XXV ( 2--3). April-- September. Paris. 1984.)
No, Osorgin did not judge indiscriminately, he understood the tragic inconsistency of the life of those who, like Andrei Sobol, who committed suicide in 1926, brushing aside the terrible and eerie, accepted the new Russia. “Do you really think that, having taken on a great burden, we at the same time became blind and deaf,” Sobol wrote to Osorgin. , and every little right to honesty is bought with great pain "(Osorgin Mux. The Tragedy of a Writer // Latest News. 1929. No 3100. September 17.).
Osorgin always tried to be objective. One can only be surprised at his attention and insight, because there was no noticeable literary phenomenon in Russia that he would not have noticed. Without setting himself such a task, he created, in fact, a history of Soviet literature of the 1920s, more complete and interesting than that which the Soviet reader had for many years. He never made the assessment of the artistic merits of a book dependent on the political views of its author. “I remember the old Narodnaya Volya member who, in his defense speech at the trial, said that “even in the prosecutor there may be a living spark of God,” wrote Osorgin about the hero of N. Ognev’s book, Kostya Ryabtsev. and in the chairman of the Komsomol cell "(Osorgin Mux. In the fields of words // Latest news. 1927. No 2318. July 28.).
"Every new word from Russia, every hint of the awakening of an independent writer's thought in her, everything is purely literary achievement, regardless of its political coloring, we not only welcome, but also consider it a contribution to the literary treasury of Russia, which has remained common to us" (Osorgin Mux. Russian writers about myself // Modern notes. 1924. No 21. S. 375.), emphasized Osorgin. He said "we", but in the literary émigré environment, not everyone shared his views. "What right do you have to write about Mayakovsky's talent?" - "But since I consider him a talent, and a great one." - "Anyway, one cannot say, because he is a scoundrel" (Osorgin's letter to Gorky dated March 6, 1925 / / M. Gorky's archive.), - about Osorgin told Gorky about this dispute with I. A. Bunin.
There was no unanimity with Gorky either. Osorgin could not bear Gorky's opinion that objective responses in the émigré press could harm Soviet writers (Ibid.), although worldly experience confirmed this. Thus, the Rappov critic V. Volin, having learned that Osorgin, “the notorious enemy of the Soviet Union, the proletarian revolution and communism” praised Boris Pilnyak (Literaturnaya gazeta. 1929. No. 24.), called for appropriate organizational conclusions to be drawn from this. But it was impossible for Osorgin to remain silent, resigned to the stigma of the "enemy". "Neither the local nor the local attitude will stop me if I want to say something frankly" (Osorgin's letter to Gorky dated March 6, 1925 / / Archive of M. Gorky.), - he remained true to this decision all his life.

From a young age, Osorgin did not count on someone's help and remained a great worker all his life. He published a lot in Berlin, Prague, Riga, Parisian magazines and newspapers, constantly collaborated in the "Latest News" published in Paris by P. N. Milyukov, a popular newspaper, but distant in spirit to Osorgin. “If Mikhail Andreevich collaborated only in publications that shared his views, then he would have nowhere to write” (Aldanov M. Preface / / Osorgin Mux. Letters about the insignificant. 1940-1942. New York, 1952. P. 16. ), - M. A. Aldanov aptly noted.
In Latest News, Osorgin regularly published literary notes, political reviews, journalistic articles, many feuilletons ("Until the clown hangs himself, it is customary to consider him a merry fellow" (Zatsep A.<Осоргин М. А.>Small talk//Latest news. 1929. No. 2918. March 19.), he joked). He preferred to use pseudonyms: Timid Man, Misunderstood Woman, Inhabitant, Provincial, Optimist, Observer (Reviewer), Old Book Eater, Scribe, A. Zatsepa, etc., sometimes he did not sign notes in newspapers at all.
Work in newspapers did not bring satisfaction. “I know that that drop of literary opportunities that is allotted to me,” he wrote to M. Gorky, “is flooded with buckets of forced journalistic, newspaper, thirty-year work, disastrous for anyone who dreams of unearthing the artist in himself. I felt this curse all life" (October 23, 1924); “Now I write everything except what I would like: I sit over heaps of small newspaper notes that I don’t even want to sign. The right to write a day “for the soul” has to be bought with a month of work “for business.” and there is no news in this" (January 18, 1929) (Archive of M. Gorky.).
The work "for the soul" for Osorgin in those years was the implementation of the plan of his first novel, which was born in Moscow. On one of the October evenings in 1917, Osorgin, together with famous composer and the cellist was the guest of the old pianist. In the empty apartment there was only a piano: the day before, all the property of the hostess, earned by many years of music lessons, was requisitioned. They did not have time to pick up the piano, but they promised to return for it. "She did not mind - it was useless, but she could not deny herself the pleasure of answering them that she still would not give them the most valuable<...>: "My mind, my knowledge, my musical talent - this will remain with me<...>. You will take everything and leave as poor as you came here, and I, having lost everything, will remain as rich ... "(Osorgin Mux. Times. Paris, 1955. P. 136.).
Osorgin recalled how in the morning he walked along with the composer, who, shivering from the cold, hugged his cello: But only three years later, in Kazan exile, his first lines were written.In a foreign city, I christened my first big novel after one of the wonderful streets of my native city: "Sivtsev Vrazhek" (Ibid., p. 137.).
When it comes to this novel, the word "first" sounds strange, not having its traditional meaning, usual in application to other writer's destinies. The novel was published in 1928, when Osorgin was 50 years old. How many ups and downs had already been in his life, how many times it seemed that the earth was crumbling under his feet. And everything that he experienced, thought out, felt, all the vast life experience he invested in this book.
"Sivtsev Vrazhek" is a novel about the tragedy of the Russian intelligentsia in critical, troubled times, when the intelligentsia and the people merged together, lived in common joys and common difficulties. “We, writers and scientists,” wrote Osorgin, “in recent years have ourselves been shoemakers, merchants, snow cleaners, diggers, tillers, tailors, laborers, beggars. Philosophers traded behind the counter and carried out filthy buckets, writers sold herring and " packages against lice", professors sawed firewood and peeled potatoes, lawyers washed soldiers' underwear, artists buried blind people (the dead), everyone learned to carry and wash the prison "slop bucket", wipe the floors in prison latrines<...>- experienced everything ... "(Osorgin Mux. Meeting / / Days. 1923. No 105. March 4.)
Osorgin wrote to Gorky on October 23, 1924: “I am a pure skeptic and pessimist, and only inexhaustible animal joy prevents me from eliminating a person in myself. , love is illogical, and the light air, the beauty of someone else's soul, even a sprig of needles - pushes back into life, towards its acceptance in spite of the voice of reason and in spite of the passionate call into oblivion "(M. Gorky's archive.). The reader will feel the collision of these two principles in the book.
Osorgin saw the contradictions of his time and managed to show them. With a hard, stern pen of a person who has not reconciled himself with God (as B.K. Zaitsev said (Modern notes. 1928. No 36. S. 533.)), with fate (we say), pages are written about the life and death of Astafiev and his executioner. And nearby there are tender, graceful features of Tanyusha, paintings full of softness and lyricism, painted with "watercolors".
Critics wrote about the irony and bitterness of Osorgin, there were gloomy foresights in the novel. In the chapter "Opus 37", which tells about the last piece of music by the composer Eduard Lvovich - "tangle of tragic confusion", "criminal page", - there is a figure that has become terrible for millions of Soviet people. Tragic coincidence.
But there is no feeling of hopelessness in the novel - hope is alive. After the most severe winter, the time comes for the arrival of swallows returning from their "forced emigration". "Both Tanyusha and the swallows, images of softness and youth, seem to be the only thing that the author can oppose to the ferocity of life<...>- Boris Zaitsev noted. - Since he sees some consolation in youth, love, spiritual beauty and good looks, then everything is not so disgusting in our world "(Modern notes. 1928. No 36. S. 533.).
At the beginning of work on the novel, Osorgin wrote: “The shuffling of classes, fortunes, the exchange of gold for paper money, the twilight of the gods and the dawn of new idols, a great catastrophe ... Someone stepped on an anthill, and the forest stands, the forest rustles, and not a single leaf I didn’t move from the universal cry of the ant "(Osorgin Mux. By the same sea // Sovremennye zapiski. 1922. No 13. P. 214.). This idea, resounding throughout Osorgin's book, attracted Gorky's attention and took a key place in his review of the novel. Gorky's letters to Osorgin disappeared during the Second World War, but drafts of his letters devoted to the novel "Sivtsev Vrazhek" have been preserved in Gorky's archive. For the first letter, Gorky, trying to formulate his thought more precisely, wrote four draft versions - this fact alone speaks of attention to both the novel and its author. Approving the "impressive and huge", "seductive and humanly daring" plan of the book - "depicting our Russian tragedy as one of the scenes of continuous universal terror", Gorky also spoke about the hidden "danger of belittling and humiliating a person<...>, because against the background of "cosmic" dramas, our human dramas seem to lose their meaning, while, in my opinion, the death of An. Frans and even V. Bryusov should be more significant than the death of a whole herd of stars and all the mice of our world "(M. Gorky Archive.). The structure of Osorgin's thoughts, which, according to many critics, in vain imposed on a person "kinship with ants, mice, at best case, - swallows" (Modern notes. 1928. No 36. S. 532.), raised doubts among Gorky. Summing up this controversy, Osorgin answered Gorky: "Man is either the center of the world, or an insignificant grain of sand. You need to find some kind of tone, you need to catch some kind of love note, which should suddenly revive this "grain of sand" into the high dignity of a Human "(Osorgin's letter to Gorky dated October 23, 1924// M. Gorky's archive.). More than once repeating the idea of ​​the relativity of "great and small", of the fragility and fragility of human ideas, Osorgin emphasized: "Only the one who does not consider himself and his own as the center of the universe is wise, who studies the past and works for the future" (Osorgin Mux. Great and small // Voskhod Paris, 1933. No 6. P. 69.).
In 1930, Osorgin completed The Tale of a Sister. The eldest, beloved sister of Mikhail Andreevich - Olga Andreevna Ilyina-Rasevig - died when he lived in Italy. “The news of death,” Osorgin wrote, “was received so often in my earthly paradise, among roses, lilies, palm trees and cypresses, that I got used to them - may this word not offend a more sensitive heart. Our hearts of that time became hardened and covered with blisters from the frequent touches of death: somewhere in the depths grief was laid aside, but it did not come out "(Osorgin Mux. Sister / / Latest News. 1928. No 2824. December 15.). At night, having gone down to the rocks, he gathered into a bouquet "green leaves on thin, strong threads, growing like a fan" (Ibid.). The Italians call them "hair of Venus". Then the bouquet was the only possible tribute for him to the memory of his sister, later it became a book.
There is in the heroine of Osorgin and in the book about her, a mystery of discreet charm, "some kind of value of its own, like in a picture of an old master." This is a story about a charming and gifted woman, but unhappy. She "had a husband, had children, had a house, had a household, but there was no family", her house became a "cold house", her destiny was spiritual loneliness. In this woman, who observed all the laws and commandments, all the rules and regulations, one felt a "hidden fire", a "rebellious soul", "burning inwardly in rebellion". But she, "more capable of sacrifice than of resistance" (Ibid.), did not find any use for her abilities, nor ordinary human happiness. And did not try to change fate. In her spiritual appearance, pure and whole, the writer saw "the beauty of lost femininity."
Critics noted that the heroine of Osorgina is a woman of the turn of the century, an intermediate era. There is no former humility in it, but there is no independence either. It seems to stop halfway through: having destroyed the family, it continues to remain in it; dreaming of finding his own business, does not feel a serious need for independent work. And yet, the strength of this image does not lie in belonging to a certain era - such women have been and will be at all times. Its attractiveness lies in the artistic solution found by Osorgin, in the unobtrusiveness of the narration without precise explanations and definite interpretations. "The image remains alive and understandable, preserving the gentle vagueness of the outlines" (Sazonova Yu.//Modern notes. 1931. No 45. P. 509.).
In the 1930s, Osorgin's two novels Witness to History and The Book of Ends, the story The Freemason, dedicated to the life of the Russian emigration, and three collections of short stories published in Paris, Tallinn and Sofia were published.
Two very different cycles of Osorgin's stories are included in this book.
The stories from the book "Miracle on the Lake" are written simply and sincerely. literary critic K. M. Mochulsky spoke about the “method of a naive narrator” (Mochulsky K.//Modern notes. 1931. No 46. P. 494.), which was used by Osorgin. But it is unlikely that the writer's confidential intonation was just a literary device, the desire to create "the illusion of simplicity and truth" (Ibid.). Osorgin's stories about the most important things in a person's life are written with heartfelt feeling and heartache, the authenticity of which is beyond doubt.
"There is nothing more difficult than calm simplicity - the foundations of poetry" (Osorgin Mux. Kuprin / / Latest news. 1930. No 3354. May 29.), - Osorgin wrote. In the article “On Simplicity,” he also spoke about his path: “Almost every writer begins with poetry, with something difficult, with pretentiousness. Developing and maturing, he moves on to forced prose (lush epithets, far-fetched images, artificial rearrangement of words, etc.) until he comes close - if given to him -<...>to high simplicity..." (Osorgin Mux. About simplicity//Novaya Gazeta. Paris. 1931. No 4. April 15.)
The main thing for Osorgin was not a play on words, but the depth, significance, dignity of thought. His stories are simple in form, but in this simplicity there is something lofty and comforting, there is harmony.
Osorgin's favorite reading was books on folklore, on bibliography, from which he extracted materials for the Notes of an Old Bookworm, and linguistic literature. "Without her, having lived abroad for 17 years, I probably would have lost the Russian language" (M. Gorky's archive.), - he wrote to Gorky on March 31, 1930.
Osorgin believed that formal achievements in literature were impossible without a deep knowledge of the language. He urged young Russian writers living abroad to show "tenfold attention" to the language: "Feeling, talent, observation - all this will be in vain if the writer's vocabulary is poor and the spirit of words and phrases is alien to him.<...>. If for Parisian everyday life it doesn’t matter when the chicken cackles and when it cackles, then for the literary language, each loss of a synonym threatens with death "(Osorgin Mux. Literary Affairs / / Latest News. 1928. No 2689. August 2.).
For Osorgin himself, linguistic studies became an important part of his literary work. They were probably also one of the stimuli in the creation of the brilliant Old Tales cycle, with its subtle, elegant stylization. Osorgin's words about "the charm of old words, in which feelings are expressed better than if you write in the present" (<Осоргин Мих.>Notes of an old bookworm//Latest news. 1928. No. 2772. October 24.), - refer to his "Old Stories". The reviewer rightly noted: "It is not enough to show off a set of ancient words to make the reader feel old or old language. It is necessary to feel these words as alive and that penetration into their depth, which is given only with great love "(Saveliev S. / / Russian notes. Paris, 1938. No 11. P. 193.).
In Osorgin, love for his language and his history was combined with love for man. The simple-minded monastic servant Akaki, enthusiastically listening to the wonderful chime; the ugly dwarf Katka, who huffed in grief at the court of Anna Ioannovna; the soldier's son Vasya Rudny, who was beaten to death for finding a notebook with a story about the gods of Ancient Rome that was incomprehensible to his superiors; "armophrodites", live exhibits of Peter's Kunstkamera; serf haired Onesimus, imprisoned in a closet so that no one would know the secret of his bald mistress - this series of heroes of the Old Tales, little people who, being at the very bottom of life, retained human feelings and soul, was not accidentally chosen by Osorgin. And in the dust of historical sources, he was looking for traces of a concrete, living, suffering person. "Both in ancient times and in modern times," he wrote, "there was and is only one miracle: the miracle of the human soul..."

In the last decade, Osorgin's life has been divided between the old quarter of the left bank of Paris, "the realm of books, manuscripts, letters, engravings, portraits and small things that loaded the desk" (Osorgin Mux. In a quiet place in France. June - December 1940 Paris, 1946 P. 15.), and a place named after the patroness of the French capital, Saint Genevieve, where, by his labors, a garden was planted on the site of a wasteland and undergrowth.
In an effort to "go as far as possible from any participation in political life" (Osorgin Mux. In a quiet place in France. June - December 1940, Paris, 1946. S. 24.), Osorgin wrote about the only happiness possible for him now: " To bury oneself in books or flower beds, to be in a silent but so dignified company of people who did not live, dumb animals and plants - what the French, applying to their refined taste, call an ivory tower<...>, and we, Russians, avoiding castles, call the cell under the spruce. Don't need anyone, don't interfere with anyone or anything. Perhaps this is fatigue, but, in any case, not a too daring demand for life" (Ibid.).
But even this happiness, this meaningful life created with such difficulty, with such spiritual efforts, was lost. The second world war began. Osorgin's position - "in a foreign country that a foreign country wants to crush" (Ibid., p. 21.) - became more and more dangerous every day. In June 1940, Osorgin and his wife were forced to flee Paris. They went to Chabris, a "quiet and fertile place" in the middle of France, where their Russian friends had already settled. The town stood on the river Cher, which divided the free and occupied zones of France. The mood was heavy: “It’s useless to think, because you can’t think of anything. It’s useless to wish. It’s useless to dream.<...>. Sticky, non-drying Tosca. These anti-fly sticky papers are lowered from the ceiling. The flies are dying. A person sitting on such a piece of paper remains alive. But this is not life" (Ibid., p. 54.).
The Osorgins tried to return to Paris, but there a new blow awaited them. “In my long life,” Mikhail Andreevich wrote, “from time to time, all the past is crossed out, all its external environment and all its inner meaning, in any way connected with it; and then life begins anew, from the first stone of growing walls” (Ibid., pp. 81-82.). Osorgina's Paris apartment was found sealed, the library and archive of Mikhail Andreevich ("thousands of letters from close and distant, living and dead people, mainly writers from the turn of the century, collected over 35 years of my wanderings" (Ibid., p. 86.)) - were exported.
To save freedom, it was necessary to run again. Osorgin spent the last two years of his life in Chabris. Despite the difficult life of the war years and the growing old illness, he continued to work hard. The melancholy was won by the creative, constructive beginning of his character. "The tragedy of the insoluble, the impending abyss, this is, apparently, the most human in us, the highest, and, indeed, mysterious, mystical<...>- Osorgin wrote to A. I. Bakunin on January 26, 1941 - Rejecting the moral absolute, accepting its unavailability, you can dissolve yourself too much, become unprincipled<...>. Consequently, a person must have some kind of criterion of truth, some kind of disposition, orientation towards it. He must build something for himself, and not rest on destruction. It is necessary not to look for the abyss, but only to know that it is inevitable on the way, and not to strive for it, but through it to the unattainable, but alluring" (Cahiers du Monde Russe et Sovietique. Vol. XXV (2--3). April- - Septembre, Paris, 1984).
In an effort to be useful, he unsuccessfully sought permission to visit prisoner-of-war camps, spent a lot of effort working in the Society for Assistance to Russians created in Nice, sending food parcels to needy writers.
Two were written in Chabris nonfiction books: "In a quiet place in France" and "Letters on the insignificant", published after his death. They were composed of correspondence which Osorgin, at great risk to himself and with almost no hope of his friends receiving his letters, sent to America "as a farewell greeting." The last of the letters was sent a month before his death.
These books are not only an interesting historical source, but also a vivid human document, evidence of an observant, wiser person. In the same years, "Times" were also completed - Osorgin's best book, one of the pinnacles of Russian memoir literature. “Everything is excellent in this story, and I regret that I cannot quote entire pages from it” (Aldanov M. Preface // Osorgin Mux. Letters about the insignificant. New York, 1952. S. 18.), - wrote M A. Aldanov.
Mikhail Andreevich Osorgin died on November 27, 1942 in Chabri. There he is buried.

Biography (V. Shelokhaev. Encyclopedia of Russian emigration, 1997)

OSORGIN Mikhail Andreevich (real name Ilyin) (October 7, 1878, Perm - November 27, 1942, Chabris, Indre, France) - prose writer, essayist, publicist.

From a noble family, the son of A.F. Ilyin, a lawyer, a participant in the judicial reform of Alexander II. In 1902 he graduated from the law faculty of Moscow University. From 1895 he collaborated in newspapers. For participation in student unrest, he was expelled from the university for a year and sent to Perm. In December 1905, he was arrested, after a 6-month imprisonment in the Taganka prison, he was sentenced to 5 years of hard labor, replaced by deportation from Russia; in 1907 he went abroad through Finland. He lived from 1908 to 1913 in Italy, published in Russian liberal publications (Bulletin of Europe, Russkiye Vedomosti): O.'s articles about the Camorra - the Corsican mafia - were read in the capitals and provinces. In 1913 he published the book Essays on Modern Italy.

Returning to Russia in 1916, he welcomed the February Revolution, was a member of the Moscow "Commission for the provision of a new system." He did not recognize Soviet power. In 1918-21 he worked in the Writers' Bookstore in Moscow, was a member of the Zadruga Publishing Association, was one of the organizers of the All-Russian Union of Writers (comrade chairman of the Moscow branch) and the All-Russian Union of Journalists (chairman). As a member of Pomgol and editor of the Help bulletin he published, he was arrested in August 1921, then exiled to Kazan, and after returning, a few months later, to Moscow, he was among dissident cultural figures expelled from Soviet Russia in 1922; retained Soviet citizenship until 1937, when the Soviet consulate in Paris demanded that he return to the USSR. Before the deportation, he published several brochures, 3 books of fiction ("Signs", 1917; "Tales and non-tales", 1921; "From a small house", Riga, 1921).

Made O. translation of "Princess Turandot" K. Gozzi (ed. 1923) was used by E. Vakhtangov for his famous production.

After a short stay in Berlin and two trips to Italy, he settled in Paris in 1923. He was published mainly in the newspapers "Dni" (having interrupted work in it from 1925 to 1928 due to a conflict with A. Kerensky) and "Latest News", but, as M. Aldanov noted, if "a hater of parties", " anarchist" O. "wanted to cooperate in newspapers that shared his views, then he would have nowhere to cooperate." He tended to cyclize articles that were sometimes published for many months and even years; over time, a memoir shade began to prevail in them (the “Meetings” series was published in 1928-34), He regretted the disunity of the emigrant environment, the absence of a permanent writers' union and tried to support young writers - A. Ladinsky, Yu. Annenkov, G. Gazdonov , V. Yanovsky. He considered L. Tolstoy and C. Dickens to be his literary teachers. The share of the first novel published abroad by O. "Sivtsev Vrazhek" (begun in Kazan, the first chapters were published in 1926-28 in Sovremennye Zapiski, ed. Paris, 1928; M., 1990) had a huge reader success - it was republished twice, translated into many European languages, and in 1930 won the American Club's Book of the Month award (which was largely spent on helping needy emigrants). The action of the novel takes place in "places of Moscow of the nobility and literature and art." To comprehend the Russian catastrophe from the point of view of humanism, O. sought to recreate the way of life, thoughts and feelings of representatives of the intelligentsia and officers who did not join any of the warring parties, the 1st part of the novel showed the life of Muscovites on the eve and during the war, the 2nd - during the years of the revolution, they differ in tone, the Bolshevik coup is evaluated through metaphorical similes, the material for which O. drew from the world of fauna. Z. Gippius sarcastically assessed the novel, B. Zaitsev condescendingly, to whom the novel seemed “raw”, with a clear attraction to the Tolstoy tradition.

The author's pantheistic views, the idea of ​​the inseparability of the natural and the social caused the greatest criticism.

“The Tale of a Sister” (SZ, 1930, No. 42, 43; separate edition of Paris, 1931) plunged into the world of “irretrievable”, it was inspired by the memory of the family of O. Akin to Chekhov’s “sisters”, the image of a pure and whole heroine O.

muffles the hopeless note of "general emigrant longing", gives the story warmth and sincerity. Here, as in the stories, O. preferred soft, sincere tones, soft watercolor. The collection “Where I Was Happy” (Paris, 1928) is also autobiographical. The 1st part of the book - memories of life in Italy - G. Adamovich called "poems in prose"; he spoke of the stories from the 2nd part as written with “less poignancy”, seeing in them what “in the conditional emigre language it is customary to call“ birch trees ”. Other contemporaries saw O.’s “gentle lyricism” as his strength. In a review of the collection “Miracle on the Lake” (1931), K. Mochulsky noted the wise simplicity and artless style of stories, the author’s ability to speak with the reader about the most cherished “from the bottom of his heart .. . and, most importantly, without false shame ", O. was one of the most widely read authors of the Turgenev Library in Paris.

A small part of O.'s humorous stories, published in newspapers, was included in the collection The Tale of the Fatal Maiden (Tallinn, 1938). contemporaries wrote about the "brilliance of his humor", achieved primarily by a variety of styles - from a caustic joke to a good-natured mockery. O. also acted as a critic, who had an excellent literary taste and unmistakably distinguished fashionable ephemerals from significant phenomena of literature. flourishing "still to come" and seeing its advantage in the fact that "there is someone to write for."

O. himself published three novels in the 1930s: Witness to History (1932), The Book of Ends (1935), and Freemason (1937). The first two are artistic comprehension based on autobiographical material of the revolutionary mindsets of young people at the beginning of the century. The fates of the dying heroes confirm the doom and immorality of the terrorist struggle. In The Book of Ends, O. summed up the sacrificial-idealistic stage of the revolution described in Witness to History, which is marked by the features of an adventurous adventure novel and individual psychologism; Father Jacob Kampinsky appears as a "witness", whose views on life are conditioned by popular common sense.

In 1914 in Italy, Oh, was initiated into Freemasonry; in May 1925 he entered the Russian lodge "Northern Star", subordinate to the "Grand Orient of France", in 1938 he became its master. He opposed the politicization of Masonic lodges, in November 1932 he organized an independent lodge of the "Northern Brothers". With these pages of O.'s biography, the story "The Freemason" is connected, in which the image of a Russian philistine emigrant, carried away by the noble ideals of universal brotherhood, opposes the philistine-prudent environment of Parisians. The story is interesting by introducing the techniques of cinema and the newspaper genre into the epic narrative. All of O.'s work was permeated by two sincere thoughts: a passionate love for nature, close attention to everything living on earth and attachment to the world of ordinary, inconspicuous things. The first thought formed the basis of the essays published in Latest News under the signature "The Everyman" and compiled the book "Incidents of the Green World" (Sofia, 1938). eccentric", the protest against technotronic civilization was combined with a powerless protest against exile. The embodiment of the second thought was bibliophilia and collecting. collected the richest collection of Russian publications, which he introduced the reader to in the cycle "Notes of an Old Bookworm" (October 1928 - January 1934), in a series of "old" (historical) stories, which often provoked attacks from the monarchist camp for disrespect for the imperial family and especially to the church.

A direct heir to the democratic tradition of Russian literature, O. in his historical and literary delights did not make adjustments to the changed Russian realities. Readers and critics admired the slightly archaic language of these stories; “He had an unmistakable ear for the Russian language,” noted M. Vishnyak, M. Aldanov, calling the style of the book of memoirs O. “Times” excellent, regretted that he could not “quote entire pages from it.” Of the memoirs on which O. worked, “Childhood” and “Youth” were published before the war (Rus. Notes, 1938, No. 6, 7, 10), during the war - “Times” (NZh, 1942, No. 1- 5; in the popular ed. Paris, 1955; M., 1989 - this part of the publication under the title "Youth"). It is rather a novel of the soul, a guide to the milestones of the spiritual formation of the writer, who, according to O., belonged to the class of “miscalculated dreamers”, “Russian intelligent eccentrics”. The image of Russia in Molodist, written after the German attack on the USSR, acquired a tragic connotation on the final pages of the book. My public position Oh, expressed in letters in the USSR to an old friend A. Butkevich (1936), in which he drew attention to the similarity of regimes in the fascist states and in the USSR, although he claimed that he did not confuse them. “My place is invariable - on the other side of the barricade, where the individual and the free public fight against violence against them, no matter what this violence is covered with, no matter how good words justify it ... My humanism does not know and does not like the mythical "humanity", but ready to fight for the man. I am ready to sacrifice myself, but I don’t want to sacrifice a person and I can’t.

Fled in June 1940 with his wife from Paris, O. settled in the town of Chabris in southern France. O.'s correspondence was published in the New Russian Word (1940-42) under the general title Letters from France and Letters on the Insignificant. Pessimism grew in his soul. The book In a Quiet Place in France (Paris, 1946) incorporates motifs from his earlier books; essential for the writer life values turned out, as the war showed, too fragile. The pain and anger of the humanist O. were caused by the impasse into which the world entered in the middle of the 20th century. Having died in the midst of the war, the writer was buried in Chabri, the place of his last exile.

Biography (V.G. Krizhevsky.)

Osorgin Mikhail Andreevich ( real name Ilyin) (1878, Perm - 1942, Chabris, France), writer. The son of a lawyer, in 1902 he graduated from the law faculty of Moscow University. During his student years he lived in a hostel on Malaya Bronnaya Street. In 1905 he was arrested as a member of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, in 1906-16 he lived in exile in Italy; published in the Moscow "Russian Vedomosti" and other publications. Since 1916, having returned to Moscow, he actively participated in literary and social life. In 1918-21 he founded together with N.A. Berdyaev, B.K. Zaitsev, P.P. Muratov, A.M. Remizov, V.F. Khodasevich, A.K. Dzhivelegov and others. Bookshop of writers in Leontievsky lane, 16, then transferred to Bolshaya Nikitskaya, 22; was one of the organizers of the Moscow branch of the All-Russian Union of Writers (chairman) and the All-Russian Union of Journalists. Member of Pomgol (a famine relief organization from abroad) and editor of the Help Bulletin he publishes; in 1921 he was arrested, exiled to Kazan, shortly after returning to Moscow, exiled in 1922 from Russia on a "philosophical ship". Living in Germany, Italy, from 1923 in Paris, he was engaged in journalism, edited a series of books "New Writers". Osorgin's novel "Sivtsev Vrazhek" (Paris, 1928, Moscow, 1990), dedicated to the fate of the Moscow intelligentsia in the era of revolution, gained wide popularity. Author of the memoirs The Tale of a Sister (1931), the novels The Witness of History (1932), The Book of the Ends (1935), The Times (1955) and others, recreating the atmosphere of pre-revolutionary Moscow. He belonged to the circles of Moscow, then foreign Masons, which was reflected in the novel "Freemason" (1938). In 1966, the widow of the writer T.A. Bakunina-Osorgina transferred his archive to TsGALI.

Literature: Marchenko T.V., Osorgin, in the book: Literature of the Russian Diaspora: 1920-1940, M., 1993.

Biography

OSORGIN, MIKHAIL ANDREEVICH (real name Ilyin) (1878–1942), Russian prose writer, journalist. Born on October 7 (19), 1878 in Perm in a family of hereditary columnar nobles, direct descendants of Rurik. He began to print in his gymnasium years, from 1895 (including the story "Father", 1896). In 1897 he entered the law faculty of Moscow University, from where in 1899 he was exiled to Perm for participation in student unrest under the covert supervision of the police. In 1900 he was restored at the university (he graduated from the course in 1902), during his studies he led the column "Moscow Letters" ("The Diary of a Muscovite") in the newspaper "Perm Gubernskie Vedomosti". Osorgin's subsequent stories in the genre of "physiological essay" ("On an Inclined Plane. From Student Life", 1898; "The Prison Carriage", 1899), romantic "fantasy" (" Two Moments. New Year's Fantasy", 1898) and humorous sketches ("Letter from son to mother", 1901). He was engaged in advocacy, together with K.A. Kovalsky, A.S. Butkevich and others founded the publishing house "Life and Truth" in Moscow, which published popular literature. Here, in 1904, Osorgin's pamphlets "Japan", "Russian military leaders in the Far East" (biographies of E.I. Alekseev, A.N. Kuropatkin, S.O. Makarov and others), "Remuneration of workers for accidents. Law 2 June 1903".

In 1903, the writer married the daughter of the famous Narodnaya Volya A.K. Malikov (Osorgin's memoir "Meetings. A.K. Malikov and V.G. Korolenko", 1933). In 1904 he joined the Socialist-Revolutionary Party (he was close to its "left" wing), in whose underground newspaper in 1905 he published the article "For What?" Justifying terrorism by "struggle for the good of the people." In 1905, during the Moscow armed uprising, he was arrested, due to the coincidence of surnames with one of the leaders of the combat squads, he was almost executed. Sentenced to exile, in May 1906 he was temporarily released on bail. Stay in the Taganskaya prison was reflected in "Pictures of prison life. From the diary of 1906", 1907; participation in the Social Revolutionary movement - in the essays "Nikolai Ivanovich", 1923, where, in particular, the participation of V.I. Lenin in the dispute at Osorgin's apartment was mentioned; "Wreath of memory of small", 1924; "Nine hundred and fifth year. For the anniversary", 1930; as well as in the story "The Terrorist", 1929, and the documentary dilogy "The Witness of History", 1932, and "The Book of Ends", 1935.

Already in 1906, Osorgin wrote that “it is difficult to distinguish a revolutionary from a hooligan”, and in 1907 he illegally left for Italy, from where he sent correspondence to the Russian press (some of which was included in the book Essays on Modern Italy, 1913), stories, poems and children's fairy tales, some of which were included in the book. "Tales and non-tales" (1918). Since 1908, he has been constantly collaborating in the newspaper Russkiye Vedomosti and the journal Vestnik Evropy, where he published the stories Emigrant (1910), My Daughter (1911), Ghosts (1913), etc. Around 1914 he joined the Masonic Brotherhood Grand Lodge of Italy. In those same years, having studied the Italian language, he closely followed the news of Italian culture (articles about the work of G.D. Annunzio, A. Fogazzaro, J. Pascali and others, about the “destroyers of culture” - Italian futurists in literature and painting), became the largest specialist in Italy and one of the most prominent Russian journalists, developed a specific genre of fictionalized essay, often imbued with lyrical irony characteristic of the writer’s manner from the end of the 1910s. In July 1916 he semi-legally returned to Russia. his article "Smoke of the Fatherland" was published, which provoked the anger of the "patriots" with such maxims: "... I really want to take a Russian person by the shoulders ... shake and add:" And you are much more sleepy even under a cannon! work as a traveling correspondent, published a series of essays "Across the Motherland" (1916) and "On the Quiet Front" (1917).

He accepted the February Revolution enthusiastically at first, then warily; in the spring of 1917 in Art. The "Old Proclamation" warned of the dangers of Bolshevism and the "new autocrat" - Vladimir, published a series of fictionalized essays about the "man of the people" - "Annushka", published brochures "Fighters for Freedom" (1917, about the People's Will), "About the current war and about eternal peace" (2nd ed., 1917), in which he advocated a war to a victorious end, "The Security Department and its secrets" (1917). After the October Revolution, he opposed the Bolsheviks in opposition newspapers, called for a general political strike, in 1918 in Art. The "Day of Sorrow" predicted the dispersal of the Constituent Assembly by the Bolsheviks. The strengthening of Bolshevik power prompted Osorgin to call on the intelligentsia to engage in creative work, he himself became one of the organizers and the first chairman of the Union of Journalists, vice-chairman of the Moscow branch of the All-Russian Union of Writers (together with M.O. writers' shop", which has become one of the important centers of communication between writers and readers and a kind of autographic ("manuscript") publishing house. He took an active part in the work of the Moscow circle "Studio Italiana".

In 1919 he was arrested and released at the request of the Union of Writers and Yu.K. Baltrushaitis. In 1921 he worked in the Commission for Assistance to the Starving at the All-Russian Central Executive Committee (Pomgol), was the editor of the bulletin "Help" published by it; in August 1921 he was arrested along with some members of the commission; F. Nansen's intervention saved them from the death penalty. He spent the winter of 1921-1922 in Kazan, editing Literaturnaya Gazeta, and then returned to Moscow. He continued to publish fairy tales for children and stories, translated (at the request of E.B. Vakhtangov) K. Gozzi's play "Princess Turandot" (ed. 1923), plays by C. Goldoni. In 1918 he made sketches of a large novel about the revolution (the chapter "Monkey Town" was published). In the autumn of 1922, with a group of opposition-minded representatives of the domestic intelligentsia, he was expelled from the USSR (the essay "How They Left Us. Yubileinoye", 1932). Yearning for his homeland, until 1937 he kept a Soviet passport. He lived in Berlin, gave lectures in Italy, and since 1923 in France, where, after marrying a distant relative of M.A. Bakunin, he entered the most peaceful and fruitful phase of his life.

World fame was brought to Osorgin by the novel "Sivtsev Vrazhek" (separate edition, 1928), which began back in Russia, where in a freely arranged series of main short stories, a calm, measured and spiritually rich life in the ancient center of Moscow of an ornithologist professor and his granddaughter is presented - a typical the existence of the beautiful-hearted Russian intelligentsia, which is first shaken by the First World War, and then hacked by the revolution. Osorgin seeks to look at what happened in Russia from the point of view of "abstract", timeless and even extra-social humanism, drawing constant parallels between the human world and the animal world. The statement of a somewhat student-like attraction to the Tolstoyan tradition, reproaches for the "dampness", insufficient organization of the narration, not to mention its obvious tendentiousness, did not prevent the enormous success of "Sivtsev Vrazhok" among readers. The clarity and purity of writing, the intensity of lyrical and philosophical thought, the light nostalgic tonality dictated by the enduring and keen love for one’s fatherland, the liveliness and accuracy of everyday life, resurrecting the aroma of the Moscow past, the charm of the main characters - bearers of unconditional moral values ​​give Osorgin’s novel the charm and depth of a highly artistic literary evidence of one of the most difficult periods in the history of Russia. The writer's creative success was also "The Tale of a Sister" (separate edition 1931; first published in 1930 in the journal Sovremennye Zapiski, like many other émigré works by Osorgin), inspired by warm memories of the writer's family and creating a "Chekhovian" image of a pure and a whole heroine; a book of memoirs dedicated to the memory of parents "Things of a Man" (1929), Sat. "Miracle on the Lake" (1931). Wise simplicity, sincerity, unobtrusive humor, characteristic of Osorgin's manner, also appeared in his "old stories" (part of it was included in the collection "The Tale of a Certain Girl", 1938). Possessing an excellent literary taste, Osorgin successfully acted as a literary critic.

Notable is the cycle of novels based on autobiographical material Witness to History (1932), The Book of Ends (1935) and Freemason (1937). The first two give an artistic interpretation of the revolutionary mindsets and events in Russia at the beginning of the century, not devoid of the features of an adventurous-adventure narrative and leading to the idea of ​​the dead end of the sacrificial idealistic path of the maximalists, and in the third - the life of Russian emigrants who associated themselves with Freemasonry, one of the active whose figures Osorgin has been since the early 1930s. Criticism noted the artistic innovation of The Freemason, the use of cinematographic style (partly akin to the poetics of European expressionism) and newspaper genres (information inclusions, factual saturation, sensational slogan "hats", etc.).

Osorgin's pantheism, clearly manifested in the novel "Sivtsev Vrazhek", found expression in the cycle of lyrical essays "Incidents of the Green World" (1938; originally published in Latest News under the caption "The Everyman"), where close attention to all life on earth is combined with protest against an offensive technotronic civilization. In line with the same "protective" perception, a cycle was created dedicated to the world of things - the richest collection of Russian editions "Notes of an Old Bookworm" (1928-1937) collected by the writer, where the unmistakable hearing of the prose writer on Russian word.

Shortly before the war, Osorgin began work on memoirs ("Childhood" and "Youth", both 1938; "Times" - publ. 1955). In 1940 the writer moved from Paris to the south of France; in 1940-1942 he published in the "New Russian Word" (New York) correspondence "Letters from France". Pessimism, awareness of the senselessness of not only physical, but also spiritual opposition to evil are reflected in the books "In a quiet place in France" (published in 1946) and "Letters on the insignificant" (published in 1952).

(From the encyclopedia "Circumnavigation")

Artworks:

Materials for the biography of M. Osorgin - February 16, 2003
On the work of M. Osorgin - February 16, 2003
* Novel "Sivtsev Vrazhek" (1928) (357 kb) - February 4, 2002
* Novel "Witness of History" (1932) (245 kb) - February 7, 2002
* Novel "The Book of Ends" (1935) (192 kb) - May 6, 2004
* Memories "Times" (1955) (205 kb) - February 16, 2003
* Short story "Gambler" - February 19, 2003
Stories: (139 kb) - July 31, 2003
* Regarding the white box (As if foreword)
* Blindborn
* Circles
* Lucien
* Professor's novel
* Pawn
* Human heart
* Dr. Shchepkin's office
* Fate
* Game of chance
* Dreamer
* Anniversary
* Killing out of hate
* Anonymous
* Vision
* Newsboy François
* Empty but hard case
* What is love?

Biography ("Kazan stories", No. 13-14, 2003)

We bring to your attention research work Albina ALYAUTDINOVA, winner of the IV Volga region conference of schoolchildren named after N.I. Lobachevsky. A student of school number 36 spoke with him at the local history section. The work dedicated to the life and creative destiny of the Russian writer Mikhail Osorgin, who was in exile in Kazan, was made under the guidance of a teacher-methodologist I.A. Kamaletdinova. The study is published in an abbreviated form.

Mikhail Andreevich Ilyin was born in Perm in the autumn of 1878. future writer. In 1907, he took the pseudonym Osorgin - after the name of his grandmother.

After graduating from the law faculty of Moscow University, Mikhail Ilyin became close to the Socialist-Revolutionary Party. After the uprising of 1905, he was arrested and spent half a year in the Taganka prison. This was followed by emigration to Italy, which lasted 10 years.

Mikhail Osorgin semi-legally returned to the seething Russia in May 1916. The February Revolution, greeted with enthusiasm by the writer, became the pinnacle of his life. But he took October simply as inevitable ...

Osorgin completely devoted himself to work. He became chairman of the All-Russian Union of Journalists, vice-chairman of the Moscow branch of the Writers' Union. In September 1918, a group of Moscow writers, including M.A. Osorgin, established a bookstore on a cooperative basis.

Of particular note is the period associated with his activities to help the victims of the famine that broke out in 1921. The All-Russian Committee for Assistance to the Starving was created, whose members were Gorky, Stanislavsky, academicians Karpinsky, Fersman, Oldenburg, church leaders. The committee also included former ministers of the Provisional Government. M. Osorgin became the editor of the committee bulletin "Help". In six weeks of work, this "unofficial" committee launched a fruitful activity. Trains with food went to the starving provinces. Osorgin played a significant role in this.

At the end of August 1921, a reprisal against the public committee followed. Osorgin recalled on this occasion: "... They have already started talking about him as a new government that will save Russia"; "The October authorities should have killed the committee...".

All members of this organization were arrested. Osorgin faced the death penalty. Saved by the intercession of the Norwegian Nansen, who knew about the activities of the committee and had already offered him help on behalf of the International Red Cross. The government determined the committee members to be deported to remote places. Osorgin, due to illness, remained in Kazan, where he stayed for six months until the spring of 1922.

These six months left their mark on the life and work of the writer. His soul was sensitive and attentive to what was happening around, and it is not surprising that many impressions of the Kazan exile were reflected in his works.

Almost all information about Osorgin as an exiled writer remains inaccessible to this day. It is not easy to find it even in our libraries. The employees of the National Archives of the Republic of Tatarstan, the Central State Archive of Historical and Political Documentation of the Republic of Tatarstan, the bibliographer of the Department of Rare Books and Manuscripts of the Scientific Library of KSU I.A.Nedorezova helped me.

Let's go back to Kazan in the early twenties. What did she represent at that time?

Hunger was coming. “At the Kazan station, hungry people positively besieged the cars, trying to open them or drill a hole for the purpose of theft…,” one of the official documents reported. “We saw old men, women who could hardly stand on their feet. Hunger with an all-destroying weight hit the children hardest of all. They ate grass, oak bark, straw, quinoa, sawdust, earth." As a result of the death of children, the population of the republic decreased by 326 thousand people.

The hungry country did not need intellectuals, the authorities continued to persecute its prominent representatives. And at that time the exiled Osorgin happened to be here. However, in the cultural life of Kazan by this time there were some changes for the better. On the basis of the Tatar theater troupes "Sayyar" and "Nur" in 1921, the First Demonstrative Tatar Theater was formed. The Kazan Big Drama Theater also had a permanent audience. Professional Tatar music and painting developed.

Kazan was the place of Osorgin's exile, but even here he gathered around him the cultural forces of the provincial city. In Vremena, the author wrote: “I was somewhat amazed by the unexpected visits to me from Kazan, including a young man who presented me with his “scientific work” - a thin pamphlet on the economic issue; he turned out to be a communist, a professor at Kazan University. Local poets and artists also visited me - no one in Moscow would have dared to do this. Osorgin did not reveal names for fear of harming them. In the story “The Same Sea”, Osorgin writes: “It is difficult to write about the remnants of cultural life in Kazan, it is more correct to say - it is impossible. We have an unsleeping eye on all this.” The following lines testify to Osorgin's deep knowledge of the history of the long-suffering city: "Once it was ravaged by civil strife, it fought with Moscow for a long time, was conquered, plundered by Pugachev two centuries later, burned to the ground many times."

Osorgin did a lot for Kazan: he set up a bookstore - all the previous ones were ruined and destroyed, he published a literary newspaper - the only private newspaper in Russia after October 1917. “In Kazan, together with local young forces, I managed to publish a literary newspaper - only with the appearance of censorship ... The entire economy of the newspaper was established by a twenty-year-old youth, a handsome and ridiculous local poet with a funny past. In the first days of the communist takeover, he turned out to be an ardent figure - an investigator of the Cheka ... But he understood the revolution in his own way, and when they sent him a list of those arrested to be shot, he ordered these nineteen people to be released. It was Sergei Arbatov.

One of the issues - the sixth, dated February 20, 1922 - fell into the hands of the Moscow authorities, and the newspaper was closed. Unfortunately, not a single issue of the edition has been preserved in Kazan libraries and archives.

The history of the Literaturnaya Gazeta, bright, original, is a particle of the history of the cultural life of Kazan.

In the spring of 1922, Osorgin was allowed to return to Moscow. He wrote: “I spent only half a year in Kazan exile and do not consider this time lost; everywhere there are good people, everywhere there are fellowships, of which a grateful memory remains. This period was a time of reassessment of values.

A few months after returning to Moscow, the decision of the Soviet government to expel active "internal emigrants" from among the creative intelligentsia abroad was announced. Among them was Mikhail Osorgin.

Speaking about Kazan motifs in Osorgin's work, we, first of all, recall his autobiographical narrative "Times" - one of the highest achievements of Russian memoirs.

The beginning of the twenties was a very difficult time for the country's intelligentsia. And Osorgin acutely experienced the tragedy of his Kazan associates. The autonomy of higher educational institutions. There were no legal, historical and philological faculties of the university. The expulsion of dissidents abroad began to be practiced. “Great Exodus, Migration of Nations; giant fluff. The rest are timid, intimidated, colorless and are already giving way to people of great will and little literacy, "red professors" who confuse science with politics. “The shelves of the cooperative museum are bursting with new fragments of amateur collections. Where former owners these broken treasures? Didn't they go to Siberia? And already in exile, in the story “The Same Sea”, he wrote: “... In the capital of the Tatar Republic, the dog hunt for the intelligentsia continues until the last days. Here, in Berlin, I saw ... a professor from Kazan University sent abroad ... "

The writer created his most significant works during the years of his last emigration. Some of them contain memories of experiences in Kazan. Undoubtedly, the highest achievement of Osorgin the prose writer is the novel "Sivtsev Vrazhek", which went through two editions in Paris in a row (1928, 1929). Even during the life of the author, he appeared in many foreign languages. In the USA, the Book Club crowned the English translation of the book with a special award - as "the best novel of the month" (1930). This is a novel about the fate and quest of the Russian intelligentsia in the revolutionary era.

Sivtsev Vrazhek is the name of one of the old Moscow lanes where the elite of the capital's intelligentsia settled. But Kazan motives are also clearly present in the novel. After all, the epic canvas was begun by Osorgin in Kazan. In The Times, he recalls his idea: “I carried home a full bowl that I did not want to spill, the idea of ​​a novel. But only three years later, in Kazan exile, his first lines were written.

In the center of the novel is the family of an ornithologist professor, through whose house the waves of history roll over - world war, revolution, famine, devastation. "Sivtsev Vrazhek" is a novel about the tragic fate of a generation that found itself at the most formidable historical turning point.

Privatdozent of Moscow University Astafiev, a philosopher and former Socialist-Revolutionary, who had long been disillusioned with the theories of saving the world, was shot. He dies at the hands of a worker neighbor who becomes an executioner in the cellars of the Lubyanka. The most important in the novel is the writer's idea of ​​the inseparability of everything that exists on earth. In one of the chapters, the war between plants develops into a war between animals, and, finally, between people - disasters for all life in the world. Famine becomes a terrible consequence of the war between people (chapter "Wolf Circles").

To better understand the meaning of the chapter "Wolf Circles", you need to trace how the theme of hunger was reflected in the books "Times" and "The Same Sea". Osorgin writes: “There was a real famine in the Volga provinces, and it is impossible to describe it. Villages were dying out there. The best bread was considered green, entirely from quinoa; worse - dung. They also ate clay. I ... by the winter of the terrible year was exiled to the Kazan province. And again (“The Same Sea”): “And the children were the worst of all. They were ... sorted into hard and soft. They made something like a stack of firewood out of hard corpses…, and they tried to revive the soft ones… They take them to the bathhouse, soar the blue skeletons.” “From hunger, children rush into the wells” How much hopeless grief, how many children's tears and suffering in these lines!

Another, probably the most terrible consequence of the famine in Kazan - cannibalism - is also reflected in his works.

The highest point of emotional tension in the narrative is the phrase with which the wolf curses the village: "... And let human hunger be worse than the wolf's!" Before us is a sleeping village, the silence in which is broken only by the barking of dogs that have seen a hungry wolf. “And the village is sleeping… He ran around it, from hut to hut, howled at the village… The wolf cursed the village, cursed it for hunger.”

But in the finale, the night described in the chapter "Wolf Circles" is replaced by day, and the whole novel ends with a kind and bright event - the arrival of swallows. The author believes in a resurgent Russia, in its future, in its inexhaustible strength. The comprehension of the events shown in the novel comes from a humanistic position.

I hope that I managed to open one more page of the cultural life of Kazan. And the fact that this page is associated with the name of Mikhail Osorgin, a wonderful Russian writer abroad, is especially important. A cruel age treated him harshly and unfairly. Mikhail Andreevich wanted to think freely, express his opinion, and create. This did not please the Soviet government, which for a long time did not allow the reader to plunge into the creative world of Osorgin.

But the rich literary heritage of Mikhail Andreevich is back in Russia. In 1989-1990, his novels "Times", "Sivtsev Vrazhek", "Witness of History", many novels and short stories were published. In my opinion, every citizen of Russia should get acquainted with his work.

Our city has become not only a place of exile for the writer, but a source of rich material for his works. Osorgin accepted the terrible misfortune of Kazan as his own, because “if the world gives a crack, then this crack will pass through the heart of the poet ...” (G. Heine). Osorgin warned future generations against repeating mistakes already made. As before, blood is shed on the earth, as before, wars break out between people. But war inevitably leads to a catastrophe, the victims of which are not only people, but also plants, animals, the entire planet.

Among Russian writers whose books are returned to us from the archives, the name of Mikhail Andreevich is one of the loudest.

Biography

The real name is Ilyin. Born into a family of impoverished hereditary nobles. He studied at the Perm classical gymnasium, at the law faculty of Moscow University. He was a member of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, participated in the Moscow armed uprising of 1905. In 1906-1916 he was in exile. Semi-legally returned to Russia. After the October Revolution, he opposed the policy of the Bolsheviks. In 1922 he was expelled from Russia. Once abroad, he participated in the Masonic movement. Since 1926 he settled in France and lived there until his death, remaining unknown to the Russian reader. Novels, including "Witness of History" (1932), - about the activities of the Socialist-Revolutionary terrorists after the Revolution of 1905-07, "Sivtsev Vrazhek" (1928) - about the life of pre-revolutionary and post-revolutionary Moscow. Stories. Memories; autobiographical narrative "Times" (published in 1955).

Bibliography

* Ghosts. M., 1917
* Fairy tales and non-tales, 1918
* From a small house, Riga, 1921
* Sivtsev Vrazhek. Paris, 1928
* Dr. Shchepkin's office 19??
* Things of a man, Paris, 1929
* A story about a sister, Paris, 1931
* Miracle on the lake, Paris, 1931
* Witness to history 1932
* Book of Ends 1935
* Freemason 1937
* A story about a certain girl, Tallinn, 1938
* In a quiet place in France (June-December 1940)
* Memories, Paris, 1946

* Times. Paris, 1955

* Memoirs of an exile // "Time and Us", No. 84, 1985

Interesting Facts

* One of the organizers of the All-Russian Union of Journalists and its chairman (since 1917). Employee of "Russian Vedomosti".
* Trotsky on the expulsion of Osorgin and his comrades in the opposition: "We sent these people out because there was no reason to shoot them, and it was impossible to endure."

Biography

Mikhail Osorgin was born in Perm into a family of hereditary columnar nobles, which by that time had become impoverished. He studied at the Perm classical gymnasium. In 1897 he entered the law faculty of Moscow University. After student unrest, he was sent to Perm for a year. He graduated from the university in 1902, having received the title of assistant barrister. He worked as a sworn solicitor at a commercial court, a guardian at an orphan's court, and a legal adviser to a society of merchant clerks.

In 1904 he joined the Socialist-Revolutionary Party. Meetings of the Moscow party committee were held in his apartment, terrorists were hiding. Participated in the Moscow armed uprising of 1905. December 19, 1905 arrested, kept in the Taganka prison. He was sentenced to exile in the Narym Territory. However, already in May 1906, Osorgin was released on bail, and soon he illegally left Russia and lived mainly in Italy for the next 10 years.

He lived at Villa Maria in Sori near Genoa. At the beginning of 1908 he participated in the conference of the "left group" of the AKP in Paris. As a correspondent he worked for Russkiye Vedomosti and Vestnik Evropy. As a war correspondent, he covered the Balkan wars. Presumably in 1914 he becomes a Freemason, joining the Grand Lodge of Italy.

Semi-legally returns to Russia in July 1916, having passed through France, England, Norway and Sweden. From August 1916 he lived in Moscow. One of the organizers of the All-Russian Union of Journalists and its chairman (since 1917) and fellow chairman of the Moscow branch of the Writers' Union. Employee of "Russian Vedomosti".

After the February Revolution, he was a member of the commission for the development of archives and political affairs in Moscow, which worked with the archives of the Moscow security department.

In 1921, he worked in the Commission for Assistance to the Starving at the All-Russian Central Executive Committee (All-Russian Committee for Assistance to the Starving "Pomgol"), was the editor of the bulletin "Help" published by it; in August 1921 he was arrested along with some members of the commission; they were saved from the death penalty by the intervention of Fridtjof Nansen. He spent the winter of 1921-1922 in Kazan, editing Literaturnaya Gazeta, then returned to Moscow. He continued to publish fairy tales for children and short stories. Translated from Italian (at the request of E. B. Vakhtangov) K. Gozzi’s play “Princess Turandot” (published in 1923), plays by K. Goldoni.

In the autumn of 1922, together with a group of opposition-minded representatives of the domestic intelligentsia (such as N. Berdyaev, N. Lossky and others), he was expelled from the USSR. Trotsky, in an interview with a foreign correspondent, put it this way: "We expelled these people because there was no reason to shoot them, and it was impossible to endure."

From the "Resolution of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) on the approval of the list of intellectuals expelled from Russia":
57. Osorgin Mikhail Andreevich. The Right Cadet is undoubtedly of an anti-Soviet trend. Employee of "Russian Vedomosti". Editor of the Prokukisha newspaper. His books are published in Latvia and Estonia. There is reason to think that he maintains contact with foreign countries. Commission with the participation of comrade Bogdanov and others for the expulsion.

From 1923 he lived in Paris. The initiator of the return to the USSR (1925), organized by Moscow. One of the organizers of the club of Russian writers in Paris. From 1931-1937 he was on the board of the Turgenev Library. He was a member of the Masonic lodges "Free Russia" and "Northern Star".

During the Second World War, he took a Soviet-patriotic position, was persecuted by the Nazis.

Artworks

* Security department and its secrets. M., 1917
* Ghosts. M., 1917
* Sivtsev Vrazhek. Paris, 1928


* Witness to history 1932
* Book of Ends 1935
* Freemason 1937
* Letters about the insignificant. New York, 1952
* Times. Paris, 1955

1. Mikhail Andreevich Osorgin (Ilyin) (From the encyclopedia "Circumnavigation")
2. How they left us. Anniversary essay 1932 (fragment from memoirs) Osorgin M. A. Times. Paris, 1955, pp. 180-185.
3. Resolution of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP(b) on the approval of the list of intellectuals expelled from Russia, August 10, 1922.

Biography

1878, 7 (October 19). - Born in Perm. Father - Ilyin Andrey Fedorovich (presumably 1833-1891), a small estate hereditary nobleman. Mother - Savina Elena Alexandrovna (died in 1905). The elder brother is Sergey (b. 1868). The elder sister is Olga (married Razevig).

1888–1897 - Studying in the Perm classical gymnasium.

1897–1902 - Studying at the Faculty of Law of Moscow University. Beginning of journalism. Participation in student unrest, for which he was exiled to Perm for one year.

From 1902. - The beginning of the lawyer's work in Moscow.

1905. - Socialist-Revolutionary. One of the organizers of the All-Russian Union of Journalists and a deputy chairman of the Moscow branch of the Writers' Union. Participant in the preparation of the Moscow armed uprising. Arrest (by mistake, confused with namesake). Taganskaya prison, six months in solitary confinement awaiting a death sentence. Death of mother from anxiety.

1906, May. - Sentence of the gendarmerie to a five-year exile. Release on bail by an investigator who did not know about it. Escape to Finland, then to Italy.

1906–1916 - Life in Italy. The emigrant environment, which he treated with hostility and was in opposition.

From 1907. - Taking the pseudonym "Osorgin". Permanent correspondent for the Russkiye Vedomosti newspaper.

1916. - Return to Russia. Life in Petrograd in a semi-legal position.

1916, autumn. - A trip to Perm as a correspondent for the opening of the Perm branch of Petrograd University, reporting on this in Russkiye Vedomosti.

From 1917. - Chairman of the All-Russian Union of Journalists. Vice-Chairman of the All-Russian Union of Writers, which arose from the environment of the Moscow Writers' Club.

1919, December. - Arrest. Lubyanka. Release by the Chairman of the Moscow Council L.B. Kamenev, who regarded the arrest as a small misunderstanding.

1921. - Active member of the All-Russian Committee for Assistance to the Starving (Pomgol). Editor of the newspaper of the Committee "Help"; only three issues have been released. At the request of the director E.B. Vakhtangov's translation from the Italian play by C. Gozzi "Princess Turandot" for staging on the stage of the theater; translation of Goldoni's plays.

1921, end of August. - Sudden arrest for participation in Compomgol. Presentation of political charges at the Lubyanka in the Special Department of the Cheka. Being in a dark, damp cell of the Inner Prison, no walks, no stew from a rotten wormy roach. A sharp deterioration in health.

1921, November - 1922, spring. - Setting up a bookstore in Kazan, editing the Literaturnaya Gazeta (anonymously). Obtaining permission to return to Moscow.

1922, summer. - Tracking detection. Appearance at the Lubyanka, where he ended up at the same time as Berdyaev, Kizevetter, Novikov. Interrogation conducted by illiterate investigators. Sentence: deportation abroad for three years (oral explanation - forever), with the obligation to leave the RSFSR within a week; in case of non-fulfillment of the term - the highest measure of punishment. Accusation of "unwillingness to reconcile and work with the Soviet authorities." Rationale L.D. Trotsky: "There is no reason to shoot, but it is impossible to endure."

1922, autumn. - Departure from Russia on the "philosophical ship".

1922–1923, winter. - Life in Berlin. Writing stories, lecturing.

1923, autumn. - Departure for Paris.

1924–1930 - Work on the novel "Sivtsev Vrazhek".

Marriage. Wife - Tatyana Alekseevna Bakunina.

1930. - The end of "The Tale of a Sister".

1930s - The publication of the dilogy "Witness of History" and "The Book of Ends", the story "Freemason", three collections of short stories. Unrealizable desire to publish in Russia. Member of the board of the Turgenev Library in Paris.

Before 1937, January. - Preservation of Soviet citizenship and Soviet passport. Then - a cool conversation and a break in the Soviet consulate for the fact that Osorgin is "not in the line of Soviet policy."

1937–1942 - Life without a passport.

Work in the Society for the Aid to Russians (Nice). Creation of non-fiction books "In a quiet place in France" and "Letters about the insignificant", published after his death. Completion of the memoir book "Times".

1942, November 27. - Mikhail Andreevich Osorgin died. Buried in Chabris (France). The surname is carved in Russian and French.

additional information

* The writer's wife Tatyana Alekseevna Bakunina-Osorgina after the war recreated the collection of books of the Turgenev Library in Paris, which had been taken out by the Nazis, and headed it until the last days. Osorginsky readings were held in Perm (1993, 2003), a memorial plaque was opened.

About the work of M. Osorgin (G. Adamovich)

"Sivtsev Vrazhek" by M. Osorgin is a book that cannot be overlooked, from which it is impossible to get rid of with a few approving or indifferent words. This novel "touches the mind", and I want to answer it. This is the first direct impression of reading.

M. Aldanov, in an article about "Sivtsev Vrazhek," said very evasively that it seemed to him superfluous to "go into a tiresome argument" with Osorgin. But, apparently, Aldanov would have liked to argue - and if he refrained from this, it was only because he understood where the argument could lead him, into what areas, into what jungle. Of course, this dispute would not be about the veracity of this or that image, this or that characteristic: it would touch upon the "ideology" of Osorgin. Osorgin is an extremely frank writer in this regard: he does not hide behind his heroes, he directly comments on the story in his own name, and sometimes does it in the form of an aphoristically clear and polished. And his heroes, however, do not pretend to obscure the author even for one minute.

The essence of Osorgin's ideology is anarchism, if not "mystical", which flourished in our country after 905, then, in any case, lyrical. I'm talking about shade. Anarchism from pointless tenderness, from good nature and good-heartedness, anarchism because "there is no one to blame in the world" and "everyone is responsible for everything", because "there is no need for blood" and "the sky above us is so infinitely blue" - anarchism from the Slavic feelings of "truth", from the impossibility of coming to terms with any kind of order. Perhaps this anarchism has not yet passed all the trials set for it, has not yet hardened in despair, there is sometimes something loose, damp in it. Sometimes - quite often - "Romain-Rollanism" is felt in him, much less often - Leo Tolstoy. But it is still based on the vision of "original purity": man, nature, freedom, happiness - and the author of "Sivtsev Vrazhak" does not sacrifice this vision to anything to please ... All this is abstract and confused. But I must say that Osorgin's "ideology" rather attracts me than repels me - and if I decided to answer Osorgin, then my answer would not be an objection. However, I will leave this matter "until another time" (alas! almost never coming) - and I will say a few words about the novel itself.

Place and time of action - Moscow, years before the war, war, revolution. Short, fragmentary chapters. Very easy and fascinating reading - sometimes even too easy. Osorgin is too slippery human existence, around him, above him. He sees, it seems, and the depth, but conveys the surface. There is no passion. I think that this novel loses a lot. First of all, with fragmentary and lightness, it is impossible to get used to the characters: you just run past them, just as the author himself runs with a smile. But we love only those images with which we “get along” ...

Separate episodes in "Sivtsev Vrazhek" are charming, fresh and original.

Tanyusha, her professor grandfather, musician Eduard Lvovich, impulsive Vasya, officers, soldiers, men, Chekists, even cats and rats - these are the heroes of Osorginsky's story. But not all of his attention is drawn to them. Russia stretches further, further history, nature, - Osorgin never forgets the whole behind the particulars. Perhaps that is why each of its pages is animated by the breath of real life. We are sometimes perplexed whether it is a novel or a diary, we are sometimes surprised, sometimes we criticize, but from the very first chapter we feel that the book, without stopping, will read to the end and that the book is worth it (Literary conversations. "Sivtsev Vrazhek" M. A . Osorgina).

Biography (Lev Lvov. http://www.lexicon555.com/voina2/osorgin.html)

On November 27, 1942, Mikhail Andreyevich Osorgin, one of the founders of the Russian Union of Journalists and its first chairman, died in Chabris (France). Death saved Osorgin from arrest and a concentration camp for anti-fascist articles that were published in French illegal publications.

Mikhail Andreevich Osorgin (real name - Ilyin) was born in 1878 in Perm. After graduating from the Faculty of Law of Moscow University in 1902, he practiced as a lawyer for some time, and also collaborated in liberal populist publications, such as the Russian Wealth magazine.

In 1905, for participation in the Moscow December armed uprising, he was arrested and imprisoned, but less than a year later he managed to free himself and emigrate to Italy. He stayed there for ten years, constantly publishing his essays and correspondence from Italy in Russian newspapers and magazines.

Peru Osorgin belongs to the translation from Italian of the play by Carl Gozzi "Princess Turandot", which from the beginning of the 20s staged by Yevgeny Vakhtangov to the present day has been staged with great success on the stage of the Theater. Vakhtangov in Moscow without any correction of the translation.

In 1921, Osorgin took an active part in the All-Russian Committee for Assistance to the Starving, which included Gorky, Stanislavsky, academicians Karpinsky (president of the Academy of Sciences), Fersman, famous agrarians Chayanov, Kondratiev, revolutionary Vera Figner and others. The work of the committee turned out to be more effective than that of state authorities, for which its members were punished. The activities of the committee were regarded by the country's leadership as anti-state, counter-revolutionary, and six months later it was banned. Six people were sentenced to "the highest measure". Osorgin ended up in prison, and the intervention of the famous Norwegian polar explorer F. Nansen saved him from execution. The death penalty was replaced by expulsion from the country. In August 1922, by decision of the XII Party Conference, 161 people from the Petrograd, Moscow and Kyiv professors, writers and journalists were expelled from the country for dissent. Osorgin was also in this group. They were sent by steamer to Germany. Officially for three years, but with an oral explanation: "that is, forever."

From Germany, Osorgin moved to France, where his main literary activity unfolded. He lived apart, not adjoining the Russian white emigration, its various currents.

For 47 years of literary activity, he wrote more than twenty books: five novels, including "Sivtsev Vrazhek" (1928), which gives an unvarnished image of revolutionary trials. After appearing on the pages of the Parisian "Modern Notes", the novel immediately brought the author to the forefront of the writers of the Russian emigration.

Biography (Materials for the biography of M. Osorgin)

3. Shakhovskaya

From the book "REFLECTIONS"

I first met him at Remizov's and, as I have already mentioned, I did not feel embarrassed in front of him. He was a kind of "pleasant" person, keeping himself simple, without any writer's antics. Then I met him in the editorial office of Native Land, read his "garden articles" in Latest News, where he somehow lyrically described his sitting on the ground, for which a Russian person always has nostalgia. And the novel "Sivtsev Vrazhek" - I was born on this street - and "Witness of History", all this in the style of lyrical impressionism, and his Italian essays, published in a book called "Where I Was Happy", are akin to memories of this the country of B.K. Zaitsev.

Osorgin's books and articles were read with pleasure by the Russian emigration - they did not bother her with the tragic present, but consoled her with a reminder of a brighter past. And Osorgin spoke not loudly, not authoritatively, with some kind of pleasant warmth. It seems that at Remizov's I heard his story about some student revolutionary commune of his youth, I don't remember where, in the countryside. These students of both sexes were preparing for terrorist activities and talked and argued a lot on political and social issues. The commune was helped with its worldly experience and household skills by the coming peasant servant, which is already quite remarkable.

One day, future terrorists faced the need to slaughter a rooster for dinner. Somehow there were no fans for this, we had to throw lots. The one who pulled it out took a kitchen knife without enthusiasm and went to catch his victim. Closing his eyes, he struck the rooster with a blow - but the bloodied bird escaped and began to run around the garden. With disgust and horror, the rapists rushed to catch the rooster, pale, the girls were already in tears. The executioner dropped his knife! And it is not known how all this would have ended if the servants had not come at that time. Looking with contempt at the bewildered terrorists, the woman in one minute caught the rooster and, twisting its neck, ended its suffering.

V. Yanovsky

From the book "FIELDS OF THE ELYSEES"

With complete indifference, I walked past some of the recognized writers of the émigré land (and now, perhaps, the Soviet one).

Kuprin, Shmelev, Zaitsev. They gave me nothing, and I owe them nothing.

I did occasionally meet Boris Zaitsev. I was repulsed by his indifference - although he wrote as if on Christian topics. His "transparent" style struck with its lukewarm sterility. Knowing him a little family life and an energetic wife, I think that Boris Konstantinovich in some way lived at the expense of someone else, Vera Alexandrovna.

In 1929 I was twenty-three; for several years now, in my portfolio there was a manuscript of a finished story - there is nowhere to print it! .

And a few days later I was already sitting in Osorgin's office (opposite the Sante prison) and discussing the fate of my book: he liked The Wheel, he only asked to be "cleaned". (Implied - "Wheel of the Revolution".)

Mikhail Andreevich then looked quite young, and he was probably already over fifty. Blond, with blond, smooth hair of a Swede or Pomor, he was one of the few Russian gentlemen in Paris ... How is it to be explained that there were so few decent people among us? Smart and talented - more than enough! Old Rus', the new Union, emigration are filled with outstanding personalities. But there are few decent, educated souls.

Osorgin and I played chess. According to an old habit, at the same time he hummed an aria from "Eugene Onegin": "Where, where, where have you gone?" ... He played with enthusiasm.

To get the chess from the top bookshelf, Osorgin had to stretch himself with an effort, although by European standards he was above average height; his young wife, Bakunina, then invariably exclaimed:

No, Mikhail Andreevich, I don't want you to do that! Tell me and I'll get it.

And I, to my surprise, noticed that the breathing of this youthful, light-eyed "Viking" immediately becomes difficult after any sudden movement, and his face turns pale.

He worked hard and hard. Like Aldanov, Osorgin liked to emphasize that he never received subsidies or handouts from public organizations. He had to write two basements a week for Breaking News. Even his feuilletons and essays testified to the true culture of the language.

M. Vishniak

From the book "MODERN NOTES. MEMORIES OF THE EDITOR"

Almost all members of the editorial board of Sovremennye Zapiski knew Mikhail Andreevich Ilyin-Osorgin from pre-revolutionary Moscow. Attractive blond, slender, graceful, cheerful and witty, he liked to laugh with bitter laughter - at others and at himself. He was the "soul of society", an excellent comrade, a center of attraction for young people and women. A lawyer by education, he denied the state and was not too fond of law, he belonged to the type of "eternal student" and "bohemia", although he was always tidy, he liked order, cleanliness, even comfort, flowers, plants on his desk - he also loved his garden .

Osorgin was unmercenary - not only to the extent that many Russian intellectuals are disinterested. He was a stranger to acquisitiveness and completely indifferent to money. When his "Sivtsev Vrazhek" was accepted for distribution by the American club "Book of the Month", Osorgin became rich, according to an emigrant scale. But not for long. He gave any applicant a "non-refundable loan" under one condition - that he promised in turn to help his neighbor when the opportunity presented itself.

Osorgin's writing career was made in Russkiye Vedomosti and Vestnik Evropy. His correspondence from pre-war Italy, in content and form, served the political education of the Russian reader in the same way as the correspondence of Iollos from Germany, Dioneo from England, Kudrin from France. Osorgin's semi-fictional works appeared from time to time in Vestnik Evropy. Emigration made him a novelist - more precisely, he became one in exile. Not everyone recognized the artistic merit of his works. But few people denied his gift of live presentation and excellent language.

Osorgin's weak point was politics. Throughout his conscious life in Russia, he was involved in politics, and in exile he began to push away from it and condemn it "in principle." In our young years, Fondaminsky, Rudnev, and I knew Osorgin as a Socialist-Revolutionary and a sympathizer with the Socialist-Revolutionaries. He provided his apartment for the so-called "appearances" or meetings of illegal revolutionaries, for a meeting of the Socialist-Revolutionary Committee in Moscow, for hiding the terrorist Kulikovsky. Osorgin was always a freethinker, "Voltairian", "leftist", "nonconformist". In exile, he self-identified as an ideological anarchist, "anarchically" not adjacent to anarchist organizations.

Osorgin always preferred to be on his own, with his own special approach to things and ideas. He loved to play chess, but he despised - at least he publicly stated so - logic, the multiplication table, civilization. And most of all he was afraid, in spite of all his courage, to coincide with the "emigrant choir" in any way. He spent 7 years in the first, tsarist time, emigration and, having got into the second, post-Bolshevik, he began to make a start from it in every possible way. He did not miss the opportunity to emphasize that he was not an emigrant who voluntarily left his fatherland, but was forcibly expelled from Russia. Osorgin cherished the Soviet passport and carefully kept it, defended the need for international recognition of Soviet power and challenged the opposition of Soviet Russia to Russia.<...>Justifying the cessation of the struggle against Soviet despotism as "completely aimless and even pointless," Osorgin spoke of post-revolutionary Russia in the same language in which his political "antipode" Shmelev spoke of pre-revolutionary and tsarist Russia. ...As a result of what he experienced during the first half of the World War, the cheerful M.A. Osorgin came, as you know, to the most desperate conclusions about the meaning of human activity. A little over a year before his death, he died on November 27, 1942; from the darkness! There is no happiness that would be generated by blood, murder, villainy! There is no nobility, the mother of which would be meanness! " And even more hopelessly a year later, on August 14, 1942: “... what will happen to Europe, Russia, France, humanity, I have no living interest. life on the ideas of the happiness of mankind ... people, country, forms social life- all this is fiction. I love nature, Russia, but "motherland" and so on. I don't see, I don't know, I don't recognize... And Europe is nonsense - with its "culture". Dying, I do not regret either its peoples, or my own, or culture, or broken ideas. I managed ... to comprehend not only the poverty of philosophy, but also the shame of its poverty "...

Mikhail Osorgin: godson of Kama (Elizabeth Shandera)

“Our generation is in extremely favorable memoir conditions:
not having time to grow old, we have lived for centuries.
M.A. Osorgin

Who is he, in whom “the blue blood of the fathers was oxidized by the independent expanses of the Kama River”, who drank the air with buckets, a provincial Russian man, recognized in Italy and France and a little forgotten in his homeland? Rome for him was a study, Paris was a living room, and he was torn to Russia “not understood by the mind”. Romantic and rebel - each of us has our own Osorgin.

To get acquainted with Osorgin, dry encyclopedic data was not enough for me. He, like his "Times" - out of numbers and dates. I wanted to go through the pages of his memoirs, saturated with love for Perm and Russia.

The attraction of the Permian land turned out to be great enough to concentrate on itself most of the creative forces and memories of Mikhail Osorgin, for which his contemporaries called him "the godson of Kama." The indestructible “memory of the heart” suggested plots, whispered the necessary words: “Full from head to toe, with brain and heart, with paper and ink, with logic and primitive godliness, with a passionate eternal thirst for water and resin - I was and remain the son of my mother the river and the father-forest, and I will never be able to and do not want to renounce them.

We drank the air with buckets

Mikhail Osorgin was born and raised in Perm in a family of hereditary columnar nobles, the Ilyins, and sonorous surname took from my grandmother. His memories of childhood were bright, he called on them in the most difficult moments, they helped to endure arrests, deportation from the country and meet the fascist forties in Europe.

“We, the locals, were born in the open, drank the air with buckets and never considered ourselves either kings or slaves of nature, with which we lived in friendship for centuries,” Osorgin recalled in his dying book “Times”. Mikhail Andreevich was proud that he was born in a deep province. “I draw a squat house with six windows with an attic and draw fences in a line on both sides, behind which there must certainly be trees ...” This house, according to Osorgin’s memoirs, was no longer there when he came to Perm to open a university in 1916. It can only be assumed that he was at the intersection of Kungurskaya Street (Komsomolsky Prospekt) and Pokrovskaya Street (Lenin).

Osorgin thanked Perm for the fact that “... that the blue blood of the fathers was oxidized in me by independent expanses, cleansed by river and spring water, recolored in the breath of coniferous forests and allowed me to remain in all my wanderings a simple, provincial Russian person, not perverted by either class or racial consciousness, the son of the earth and the brother of any biped."

Osorgin recalled the times of the “gymnasium jacket and student cap” with irony, especially about the classical gymnasium, which gave only “one advantage: the full consciousness that everyone who does not want to remain an ignoramus must study for himself.” At the exit from the poplar garden at the intersection of Petropavlovskaya and Obvinskaya streets (October 25), the building of the local women's gymnasium, which was not indifferent to all the boys of the city, was located. “Usually, high school students, passing by this house, puffed out their chests and plucked hair seedlings on their lips,” Osorgin recalled. Misha was a seventh-grade schoolboy when the Journal for All published his first story under the pseudonym M. Permyak.

We'll still live, we'll still argue

In 1897 Mikhail Andreevich entered the law faculty of Moscow University. First impressions from the capital, constant journalistic work: Osorgin wrote a lot for the Ural newspapers, became not only a regular correspondent for Perm Gubernskiye Vedomosti, but also edited them when he returned home. He did not stand aside during the days of student unrest, for which he was sent to Perm for a year.

Then a lawyer's job, not profitable, but fun: "a bunch of tiny cases, ten-ruble income, a thick portfolio with a monogram." Such was the outward side of his life until his first arrest in December 1905. It probably could not have been otherwise. Osorgin belonged to that generation of people whose youth coincided with the days of the revolution. Osorgin spoke modestly about his revolutionary activities: he was an insignificant pawn, an ordinary excited intellectual, more a spectator than a participant. More than the journalist himself, his apartment took an active part in the revolution of the fifth year. Osorgin ended his diary, written in the tsar's prison, with the words: “We'll still live, we'll still argue. Many, many more times we will go to jail.” If only Mikhail Andreevich knew how prophetic this idea would turn out to be. Six months later, he was miraculously free, fled to Finland, where it was also unsafe, and therefore had to go on a long journey - to Italy. He hoped to return to Russia in six months, but it turned out - in ten years.

Italy for Osorgin was not a museum, as for many emigrants, but alive and close: “Even if the sky of Italy, its seas and beaches are forgotten, there will remain a grateful memory of simple, kind, disinterested and grateful people whom I met everywhere.” Osorgin, a regular correspondent for the Russkiye Vedomosti newspaper, chronicled this sunny country from issue to issue, collaborated with Vestnik Evropy, and wrote Essays on Modern Italy. Later, in cold and hungry Moscow, recalling sunny Italy, he still called it "blue prison".

In 1916 Osorgin returned to Petrograd through France, England, Norway, Sweden and Finland. He was not arrested, the confusion of the police in the pre-revolutionary months played a role, which allowed him to visit Perm (for the last time) at the opening of the university. The years became rich in his books: "Ghosts", "Tales and Not Tales", "The Security Department and Its Secrets", "From the Little House". The revolution caught him trying to make sense of what was happening at this amazing time, when life was “neither a terrible fairy tale, nor an insulting chronicle, nor a great prologue to a new divine comedy. “Changing slavery for new slavery was not worth giving one's life to,” he later summed up.

How we were "left" again

About the Moscow menu of the early twenties, which allowed Osorgin to have a share of a shareholder in the Writers' Bookstore, he recalled more than once: "soup from potato peels, herring smoked in a samovar pipe, our bread of 1921, in which the most valuable admixture was quinoa." But for residents of many regions of Russia, these dishes have become an inaccessible dream. Millions were starving. Having given his strength to the Committee for Assistance to the Starving, the journalist fell under political kneading. Unfortunately, Osorgin's early prison joke turned out to be prophetic. This is the third arrest. Behind him was not only the Taganka prison, but also the Lubyanka and the "Ship of Death" in 1919. And here again the Lubyanka, "with love" described in the essay "How We Left". They were saved from the death penalty by the intervention of the famous Norwegian traveler Fridtjof Nansen, who helped the Soviet starving people, and who was then afraid to refuse.

“There was a rumor in Moscow that in the commanding ranks there was no complete agreement on the part of our expulsion; named those who were for and who were against. It's bad that Trotsky was in favor. Probably later, when he himself was expelled, he was against it!” Trotsky, in an interview with a foreign correspondent, put it this way: "We expelled these people because there was no reason to shoot them, and it was impossible to endure."
When the panic subsided, they were congratulated: “Happy, you will go abroad!”.
- How do you want to leave? Voluntarily and at your own expense?
I don’t want to at all. - The interrogator was amazed. - Well, how can you not want to go abroad! And I advise you to volunteer, otherwise you will have to sit for a long time.
There was no need to argue, later it became clear that the fate of the deportees could be worse.
Perhaps today it sounds surprising, not only for Osorgin, for many of those who were expelled, all the thoughts, plans, whose works were inextricably linked with Russia, the departure was a tragedy, and they left the country "with broken masts and a crazy rudder."

In parting, the investigator offered to fill out another questionnaire. To the first question: "How do you feel about Soviet power?" Osorgin replied: "With surprise." About the last moments, when the departing coast of Russia was still visible, Osorgin wrote: “When she is here, before our eyes, it’s not so scary for her, but if you let her wander around the world, anything can happen, you won’t see it”

The writer spent the winter in Berlin. "I am very grateful to Germany for its hospitality, but I do not like its language and the profiles of Berlin," he wrote. The new Italy, where Mussolini had already come to power, did not like it either: “For the first time I felt like a stranger in Rome.” In the autumn of 1923 Osorgin left for Paris. Arguing with many emigrants, Mikhail Andreevich was convinced of one thing: that vast land and that multi-tribal people to whom he gave the name of the motherland cannot be taken away from him in any way, neither by purchase, nor by sale, nor by conquest, nor by exile of the writer himself. “And when they say: “Russia is dead, there is no Russia,” I feel sorry for the speakers. So, for them, Russia was either a royal reception room, or an amphitheater of the State Duma, or their estate, house, profession, faith, family, regiment, tavern, I don’t know what else. Anything, but not the whole country of his culture - from edge to edge.

Not having time to grow old, we lived for centuries

In the last decade, Osorgin's life has been divided between the old quarter of left-bank Paris and "the realm of books, manuscripts, letters, engravings, portraits and little things that loaded the desk" in an effort to get as far as possible from any participation in political life. He retained Soviet citizenship until 1937, after which he lived without a passport, and did not receive French citizenship. “The famous Sivtsev Vrazhek was also born here. But even this meaningful life created with such difficulty, with such spiritual efforts, was lost. With the outbreak of World War II, Osorgin's position "in a foreign country that a foreign country wants to crush" became more and more dangerous every day. In June 1940, Osorgin and his wife were forced to flee from Paris - to Chabris. The Osorgins' Paris apartment was sealed, the library and archive of Mikhail Andreevich (“thousands of letters from near and far, living and dead people, mainly writers from the turn of the century, collected over 35 years of my wanderings”) were taken out.

Having condemned the war, the writer reflected on the death of culture, warned of the danger of the return of mankind to the Middle Ages, mourned the irreparable damage that could be inflicted on spiritual values. In Letters on the Unimportant, the writer foresaw a new catastrophe: “When the war is over,” Osorgin wrote, “the whole world will prepare for a new war.”

In an effort to be useful, Osorgin unsuccessfully sought permission to visit prisoner-of-war camps, he spent a lot of effort working in the Russian Aid Society created in Nice, sending food parcels to those in need. Publicistic books were written in Chabris: “In a quiet place in France” and “Letters about the insignificant”, “Times” (Osorgin’s best book, one of the pinnacles of Russian memoir literature), published after his death. They were composed of correspondence which Osorgin, at great risk to himself and with almost no hope of receiving his letters by his friends, sent to America as a farewell greeting. Mikhail Andreevich Osorgin died on November 27, 1942 in Chabri. There he is buried.

The writer was forced to spend thirty years of his life away from his homeland.

Rereading Osorgin, you involuntarily draw parallels. I think everyone will find their moments. After all, our generation, like the generation of Osorgin, is also “in extremely favorable memoir conditions: without having had time to grow old, we lived for centuries.”
Excerpts from the journalism of M.A. Osorgin "Times", "Modern notes. Paris", "Pictures of prison life", "In a quiet place in France", "Letters about the insignificant" are used.

Biography

OSORGIN Mikhail Andreevich (real name, Ilyin) (10/7/1878, Perm - 11/27/1942, Chabris, dep, Indre, France) - prose writer, essayist, publicist. From a noble family, the son of A.F. Ilyin, a lawyer, a participant in the judicial reform of Alexander II.

All-Russian Union of Journalists (Chairman). As a member of Pomgol and editor of the “Help” bulletin he published, he was arrested in August 1921, then exiled to Kazan, and after returning, a few months later, to Moscow, he was among dissident figures. Cultures expelled from Soviet Russia in 1922: retained Soviet citizenship until 1937, when the Soviet consulate in Paris demanded that he return to the USSR. Prior to the expulsion, he published several pamphlets, 3 books of fiction (“Signs”, 1917; “Tales and not fairy tales”, 1921; “From a small house”, Riga, 1921). Made O. translation of "Princess Turandot" K. Gozzi (ed. 1923) was used by E. Vakhtangov for his famous production.

After a short stay in Berlin and two trips to Italy, he settled in Paris at 1923. He was published mainly in the newspapers "Days" (having interrupted work in it from 1925 to 1928 due to a conflict with A. Kerensky) and "Latest News" , but, as M. Aldanov noted, if the “hater of parties”, the “anarchist” Osorgin, “wanted to cooperate in newspapers that shared his views, then he would have nowhere to cooperate.” He tended to cyclize articles that were sometimes published for many months and even years: over time, a memoir shade began to prevail in them (the “Meetings” series was published in 1928-34). He regretted the disunity of the emigrant environment, the absence of a permanent writers' union and tried to support young writers - A. Ladinsky, Yu. Annenkov, G. Gazdanov. V. Yanovsky. He considered L. Tolstoy and C. Dickens to be his literary teachers. Osorgin's first novel, Sivtsev Vrazhek, published abroad (begun in Kazan, first chapters published in 1926-28 in Sovremennye zapiski, ed. Paris, 1928; was reprinted twice, translated into many European languages, and in 1930 received the American Club's Book of the Month award (which was largely spent to help needy emigrants). The action of the novel takes place in "places of Moscow of the nobility, literature and art." In order to comprehend the Russian catastrophe from the point of view of humanism, Osorgin sought to recreate the way of life, thoughts and feelings of representatives of the intelligentsia and officers who did not join any of the warring parties, the 1st part of the novel showed the life of Muscovites on the eve and during the war, the 2nd - during the years of the revolution, they differ in tone, the Bolshevik coup is evaluated through metaphorical similes, the material for which Osorgin drew from the world of fauna. Z. Gippius sarcastically assessed the novel, condescendingly - B. Zaitsev, to whom the novel seemed “raw”, with a clear attraction to the Tolstoy tradition.

“The Tale of a Sister” (SZ, 1930, No. 42, 43; separate ed. Paris, 1931) plunged into the world of the “irrevocable”, it was inspired by the memory of the family of Osorgin himself. Akin to Chekhov’s “sisters”, the image of a pure and whole heroine O. muffles the hopeless note of “general emigrant longing”, gives warmth and sincerity to the story. Here, as in the stories, Osorgin preferred soft, sincere tones, soft watercolor. The collection “Where I Was Happy” (Paris, 1928) is also autobiographical; about the stories from the 2nd part, he spoke as written with “less poignancy”, seeing in them what “it is customary to call in the conventional emigre language. "birches". Other contemporaries saw Osorgin's "gentle lyricism" as his strength. In a review of the collection “Miracle on the Lake” (1931), K. Mochulsky noted the wise simplicity and artless style of stories, the author’s ability to talk with the reader about the most cherished “from the bottom of his heart, and, most importantly, without false shame.” Osorgin was one of the most widely read authors of the Turgenev Library in Paris,

A small part of Osorgin's humorous stories published in newspapers was included in the collection "The Tale of the Fatal Maiden" (Tallinn, 1938). As a comic storyteller, Osorgin was distinguished by grace, ease and an amazing sense of proportion in the dosage of serious and funny; contemporaries wrote about the “brilliance of his humor”, achieved primarily by a variety of stylistics - from a caustic joke to a good-natured mockery, Osorgin also acted as a critic who had excellent literary taste and unmistakably distinguished fashionable ephemera from significant literary phenomena. He soberly assessed the state of affairs in emigre literature, was aware of the inevitable decline in its artistic and moral level. He closely followed literature in the USSR, believing that its heyday "is yet to come" and seeing its advantage in the fact that "there is someone to write for."

Osorgin himself published three novels in the 1930s: The Witness of History (1932), The Book of the Ends (1935) and The Freemason (1937). The first two are artistic reflection on autobiographical material of the revolutionary mentality of the youth of the beginning of the century. The fates of the dying heroes confirm the doom and immorality of the terrorist struggle. In The Book of Ends, O. summed up the sacrificial-idealistic stage of the revolution described in Witness to History, which is marked by the features of an adventurous-adventure novel, individual psychologism: Father Jacob Kampinsky appears in the role of a “witness”, whose views on life are conditioned by the people’s common sense

In 1914 in Italy, Osorgin was initiated into Freemasonry: in May 1925 he entered the Russian lodge "Northern Star", subordinate to the "Grand Orient of France", in 1938 he became its master. He opposed the politicization of Masonic lodges, in November 1932 he organized an independent lodge of the Northern Brothers. With these pages of Osorgin’s biography, the story “Freemason” is connected, in which the image of a Russian philistine emigrant, carried away by the noble ideals of universal brotherhood, opposes the bourgeois-prudent environment of Parisians . The story is interesting by introducing the techniques of cinema and the newspaper genre into the epic narrative,

All of Osorgin's work was permeated by two sincere thoughts: a passionate love for nature, close attention to everything living on earth and attachment to the world of ordinary, inconspicuous things. The first thought formed the basis of the essays published in Latest News under the caption “The Everyman” and compiled the book “Incidents of the Green World” (Sofia, 1938). The essays are inherently dramatic: in a foreign land, the author turned from a “lover of nature” into a “garden eccentric”, a protest against a technotronic civilization was combined with a powerless protest against exile. The embodiment of the second thought was bibliophilia and collecting. O. collected the richest collection of Russian publications, which he introduced to the reader in the cycle “Notes of an Old Bookworm” (October 1928 - January 1934), in a series of “old” (historical) stories that often caused attacks from the monarchist camp for disrespect for the imperial family and especially to the church.

A direct heir to the democratic tradition of Russian literature, Osorgin, in his historical and literary delights, did not make adjustments for the changed Russian realities. Readers and critics admired the slightly archaic language of these stories; “He had an unmistakable ear for the Russian language,” noted M. Vishnyak, M. Aldanov, calling the style of Osorgin’s memoirs “Times” excellent, regretted that he could not “quote entire pages from it.” From the memoirs over which Osorgin worked, “Childhood” and “Youth” were published before the war (Russian Notes, 1938, No. 6,7, 10), during the war - “Times” (NZh, 1942, No. 1-5; Paris, 1955; M., 1989 - this part is published under the title “Youth”) It is rather a novel of the soul, a guide to the milestones of the spiritual development of the writer, who, according to Osorgin, belonged to the class of “miscalculated dreamers”, “Russian intelligent eccentrics". The image of Russia in "Youth", written after the German attack on the USSR, acquired a tragic shade on the final pages of the book. Osorgin expressed his public position in letters to his old friend A. Butkevich in the USSR (1936), in which he drew attention to the similarity of regimes in the fascist states and in the USSR, although he claimed that he did not confuse them. “My place is invariable - on the other side of the barricade, where the individual and the free public fight against violence against them, no matter how this violence is covered, no matter how good words justify myself... My humanism does not know and does not love the mythical "humanity", but it is ready to fight for a person. I am ready to sacrifice myself, but I don’t want to sacrifice a person and I can’t.”

Having fled in June 1940 with his wife from Paris, Osorgin settled in the town of Chabris in southern France. Osorgin's correspondence was published in the New Russian Word (1940-42) under the general title "Letters from France" and "Letters on the Insignificant". Pessimism grew in his soul. In a quiet place in France (Paris, 1946) the motifs of his previous books are intertwined: the main life values ​​for the writer turned out to be too fragile, as the war showed. The pain and anger of the humanist Osorgin were caused by the impasse into which the world entered in the middle of the 20th century. Having died in the midst of the war, the writer was buried in Chabri, the place of his last exile.

Source: Russian Abroad. Golden book of emigration. First third of the twentieth century. Encyclopedic biographical dictionary. M.: Russian political encyclopedia, 1997. - P.472-475.

Mikhail Osorgin on anarchism (I'M IN. Leontiev, PhD in History, Associate Professor, Department of Political History, Lomonosov Moscow State University)

The writer and journalist Mikhail Andreevich Osorgin (1878-1942) became related to the Bakunins in the autumn of 1926, when he married T.A. Bakunina. There are articles about Mikhail Osorgin in encyclopedias1, monographs and dissertations are devoted to him. Such well-known literary historians as O.G. Lasunsky, L.V. Polikovskaya, Italian Russianist Anastasia Pasquinelli. The first books of M.A. Osorgin at home in the era of perestroika and glasnost were published with the close participation of the late N.M. Pirumova.

The life and work of Tatyana Alekseevna Bakunina-Osorgina (1904-1995) is dedicated to a recently published essay by V.I. Sysoeva.2 As for the political creed of her husband, much less was written about this than about the merits of Osorgin the writer. In his youth, Mikhail Ilyin (real surname Osorgina) began as a socialist-revolutionary, closely associated with the Maximalist Social Revolutionaries. He was an active participant in the armed uprising in Moscow in December 1905, scenes from which were captured in the novel Witness to History. Osorgin's photograph is exhibited along with other leaders of the uprising in the Museum of the Revolution of 1905-1907. in Krasnaya Presnya. For participation in the uprising, he was arrested, spent several months in the Taganka prison and was accused by the Judicial Chamber under Art. 100 of the Criminal Code. He was threatened with deportation to the Narym Territory for 5 years, however, having been released on bail from prison, Osorgin emigrated to Italy. Initially, he settled in the town of Cavi di Lavagna near Genoa, where a whole small colony of Russian émigré revolutionaries lived, mainly Socialist-Revolutionaries, anarchists and maximalists (including writer Andrei Sobol, publicist Yevgeny Kolosov, etc.). By the way, it was here, after leaving abroad in 1926, that the family of A.I. Bakunin - an old acquaintance of Osorgin from Moscow University.

In the early 1910s Osorgin settled in Rome. In 1916 he left the "eternal city" and voluntarily returned to Russia. After the revolution, the writer fairly "corrected", taking positions close to P.A. Kropotkin, V.N. Figner and other cautious veterans of the liberation movement. He headed the Moscow Union of Journalists and became a regular contributor to the "big weekly democratic and socialist newspaper" "Power of the People" edited by the well-known public figure E.D. Lump. After the closure of this newspaper, it changed its name to Motherland, and Osorgin became its new editor. In May 1918, he was arraigned by the Moscow Revolutionary Tribunal, on the recommendation of the Cheka, "for the deliberate and deliberate communication of a whole series of false sensational information." During interrogation, Osorgin described himself as a socialist-revolutionary, "not belonging to an organization."3

Subsequently, the writer was arrested in 1919 and 1921. (last time for editing the bulletin "Help" - an organ of the All-Russian Public Committee for Assistance to the Starving, which the Bolsheviks called "Prokukish"). He was in exile in Kazan, and in September 1922 he was expelled from Soviet Russia forever as part of the passengers of the famous "philosophical ship".

Below are excerpts from M.A. Osorgin to Maria Korn dated August 17, 1927, from which it follows that in the second emigration the writer began to identify himself with anarchism. It can be cautiously assumed that his marriage to a girl from the Bakunin family could contribute to this.

It is necessary to say about Osorgin's addressee. Maria Isidorovna Goldsmith (1858-1932), nee Androsova, was widely known in anarchist circles under the pseudonym Korn. From the end of the 19th century she was an active follower of the anarcho-communist teachings of P.A. Kropotkin and a translator of his works. Later, M. Korn became an energetic propagandist of anarcho-syndicalism. In 1903-1905. she provided organizational and financial assistance to the press organ of the Geneva group of anarchist-communists "Bread and Freedom". Then she became the founder of the "Group of Russian anarchist-communists" in Paris (1905). She was a member of the editorial boards and a regular contributor to a number of anarchist publications (To Arms!, Rabochy Mir, etc.), and a speaker at foreign congresses and conferences of Russian anarchists. In 1913-1914. she was a member of the Secretariat of the Federation of Russian Anarchist-Communist Groups Abroad, was involved in the preparation and coordination of the Russian General Anarchist Congress in London (August 1914). After Kropotkin's return to Russia, Korn became the custodian of his archives and personal property. After his death, some of the things were transferred by her to the Kropotkin Museum in Moscow. In the 20s and early 30s. she collaborated in anarchist émigré publications (Berlin's Rabochy Put, Paris's Dele Truda, etc.).

Now the archive of Goldsmith-Korn itself, numbering 271 items, is part of the "Prague" collection (materials of the former Russian Foreign Historical Archive) in the GARF. Osorgin's first published letter4 was written in connection with the tragedy of the anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti, who were sentenced to death by a Massachusetts court (August 23, 1927, they died in the electric chair).

"Dear Maria Isidorovna, I cannot write about Sacco and Vanzetti in the Epistle. Nov. "5, since I cannot write a trivial article, under someone else's mood, and the newspaper will not publish my free and sincere article on this topic. Therefore, I limit myself to mentioning this matter in passing in my feuilletons.<...>

The anarchists from Dela Truda6 are the purest Marxists. They are so fascinated by Marxism, its cretinous and animal psychology, that they lose all ability to think freely and independently of the "class struggle", the "moloch of capital" and the "international proletariat". Apparently, they do not even know that anarchism is not an economic theory, but a moral doctrine, spiritual aristocracy. That it must find, and indeed does find, a response in the poor and oppressed classes only because the conscience remains purer there, because there are more aristocrats of the spirit than among well-fed and ruling people - and not at all because the working class is striving to seize the state power, as the Marxists prescribe to him, these inveterate statesmen and police guards from birth.<...>

As for me, as an anarchist, it should be completely indifferent whether the court erred or judged according to the law, whether Sacco and Vanzetti were guilty or not. To protest against the "execution of the innocent", to use this expression, is to justify the trial<...>

I do not deny terror (of course, red, anti-government), but a terrorist who kills out of a sense of hatred and for practical purposes differs little from a vulgar killer. I knew many terrorists very closely,7 and those who are worth remembering were woven from love and tenderness; the rest were hysterics and adventurers, bastards of Marxism, only with a Socialist-Revolutionary temperament. Terror at the hands of the latter did not leave a bright trace in the history of the revolution. Anarchism preaches love and humanity, not hatred, even if it was called "sacred"<...>".

Notes

1 See, for example: Osorgin Mikhail Andreevich // Russian Abroad. Golden book of emigration. First third of the twentieth century. Encyclopedic biographical dictionary. M.: ROSSPEN, 1997. S. 472-475; Osorgin Mikhail Andreevich // Russian writers. M., 1999. V.4. pp.456-460. Mikhail Andreevich Osorgin // Russian Literature. XX century: Encyclopedia for children. M.: "Avanta+", 2000. S.195-206.
2 Sysoev V. Tatyana Alekseevna Bakunina-Osorgina: Illustrated biographical sketch. Tver, 2004.
3 "The newspaper "Rodina" to close forever..." / Publ. Ya. Leontieva // Motherland. 1994. No. 5. S. 99.
4 GARF. F. 5969. Op. 2. D. 19. - The letter is printed on 6 typewritten sheets, the signature is an autograph.
5 Parisian newspaper published by P.N. Milyukov.
6 Parisian magazine, edited by P.A. Arshinov.
7 First of all, Osorgin probably had in mind the Maximalist Socialist-Revolutionaries, with whom he had close contact and who were brought out in his novel Witness to History (Paris, 1932). In translations into foreign languages The novel was published under the title "Terrorists". Among its main characters were Natasha Kalymova (the prototype was N.S. Klimova), Alyosha, nicknamed Deer (M.I. Sokolov - "Bear").

Biography (RP: 1800, v. 4; Osorgin 1990)

Mikhail Andreevich Ilyin (pseudonym Osorgin)
Writer, journalist
7/19.X 1878, Perm - 27.XI 1942, Chabris, France
Graduated from the Faculty of Law of Moscow University

The writer's father Andrey Fedorovich Ilyin (1833–1891), from the pillar nobles, was the owner of a small estate in the vicinity of Ufa, which he abandoned in favor of his mother and sisters, in 1858 he graduated from the law faculty of Kazan University, in the 1860s in Ufa he was engaged in preparing and conducting peasant and judicial reforms, for which he was awarded a number of orders, then moved to Perm and served in the district court. Osorgin's first teacher was his mother, Elena Alexandrovna, nee Savina, who at one time graduated from the Warsaw Women's Courses. She herself prepared her son for admission to the Perm classical gymnasium (1888), where he was the third student. In high school, he tried to help his widowed mother by giving private lessons. His first story, "Father", signed with the pseudonym M. Permyak, appeared in the St. Petersburg Journal for Everyone (1896, No. 5). The writer will return to the memories of his father more than once, here are the lines from the late story "Father's Diary" [Osorgin 1990, p. 69, 84]:

Father! Forgive me this blasphemy! I turn over a notebook of pages yellowed from time, a diary of your love, your suffering and your happiness. I make notes and look with embarrassed surprise at how similar our handwriting is. I clearly see something else; how similar are our thoughts about ourselves, these ruthless characterizations in which truth alternates with idle self-flagellation.
The beautiful and unique remains sacred. Sheets of paper turn yellow, like the petals of a white rose, dried and hidden as a keepsake, turn yellow. But the flavor of the words remains.
Like a fragile, withered flower, I treasure this diary of my father. The sanctity of the past, which gave me the joy of life, the melancholy of doubts and the happiness of shared love, rests on it.

In 1897, after graduating from high school, he entered the law faculty of Moscow University, but he tried to spend all his free time in Perm, actively collaborating with the provincial press: under various pseudonyms (M. I., Stud. M.I., Permyak, M. .I.) wrote editorials, chronicles, feuilletons for the publications Perm Gubernskie Vedomosti, Kamsky Krai, etc. The last time he visited his native city as a correspondent for Russkiye Vedomosti was in 1916, during the opening days of the Perm branch of Petrograd University (his reports about this event were published in the newspaper issues of 14 and 16 October). Until the end of his life, Osorgin retained the conviction that unites all Permians that it is not the Kama that flows into the Volga, but the Volga flows into the Kama; Thus, his story "Pie with Adam's Head" ends with such lines [Osorgin 1990, p. 266]:

Anyone who has been to Perm knows both the gymnasium and the poplar garden opposite it, through which it is convenient to walk obliquely to the post office and to the embankment of the Kama, the beautiful and full-flowing Russian river, which is not the younger, but the elder sister of the Volga.

In 1902, after graduating from university, he became, in his own words, a "little Moscow lawyer", served as a sworn solicitor at a commercial court, a guardian at an orphan's court, and a legal adviser to a society of merchant clerks. Like many young people, he shared revolutionary sentiments, joined the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, but was against terrorist actions. Fonts for an illegal printing house were stored at his dacha, and revolutionary appeals were written. In December 1905 he was arrested and spent half a year in the Taganka prison. Released on bail, he, fearing police persecution, went through Finland to Western Europe and settled in Italy. In 1911 he announced in the press his "internal withdrawal" from all political activity.

With the outbreak of World War II, Osorgin decided to return to Russia. In a roundabout way through Paris, London, Stockholm, he reached Moscow in 1916. He enthusiastically accepted the February Revolution, later openly stigmatizing the October Revolution: “He who has taken power is already an enemy of the revolution, its killer.”

Using a well-deserved reputation as a brilliant novelist, Osorgin turned out to be vice-chairman of the All-Russian Union of Writers, chairman of the All-Russian Union of Journalists and one of the founders of a cooperative bookstore where writers themselves sold their works.

Cheka did not leave Osorgin alone. In December 1919 he was arrested and spent several days on death row. In 1921 he became a member of the Volga Region Public Committee for Assistance to the Starving; soon the members of this committee were arrested and sent to the Lubyanka prison. They were saved from execution by the intercession of the famous Norwegian explorer of the Arctic F. Nansen. After two and a half months in prison, Osorgin was sentenced to exile in Krasnokokshaisk (now Yoshkar-Ola), later replaced by Kazan. In 1922 he returned to Moscow, but already in September of the same year he was expelled from Russia on the “first philosophical ship”.

From the autumn of 1923, Osorgin lived in Paris, which he had to leave in 1940 due to the Nazi invasion. He went to a small town free zone Chabris, two hundred and thirty kilometers south of Paris. Meanwhile, his Parisian apartment was ransacked and looted, the library and the vast archive disappeared. The writer himself did not wait for the liberation of France - on November 27, 1942 he died.

Osorgin became famous writer, the author of several books and hundreds of articles, while still living in Russia. However, he himself attributed the beginning of his writing activity to the years of emigration, and considered the novel "Sivtsev Vrazhek" to be the most important for himself. Numerous prose works of Osorgin in recent years make their way to their homeland. Few of Osorgin's poems have survived, but his translation of the play in 1921 at the request of E.B. Vakhtangov Carlo Gozzi"Princess Turandot" (blank verse) is still heard on the stage of the Vakhtangov Theatre.

Biography (Vlasova Elena Georgievna)

OSORGIN MIKHAIL ANDREEVICH (real name Ilyin) (1878, Perm - 11/27/1942, Chabris, France) - Russian writer, journalist, public figure.

Literary fame came to him with the release of the first novel "Sivtsev vrazhek" in 1928. Before that, there was work in newspapers and magazines, the result of which was the glory of one of the largest Russian journalists. It is no accident, therefore, that the main feature of the writer's literary style is considered to be the close interaction of journalism and fiction. Osorgin was convinced of social responsibility literary creativity, all his life he was faithful to the humanistic principles that prevailed in the classical Russian culture of the 19th century. Not only journalistic, but actually literary works Osorgin has always been distinguished by a close connection with the "sore issues" of the time and an open author's position. At the same time, having had a passion for politics in his youth, the mature Osorgin emphasized his independence from any political or cultural doctrines.

A contemporary of the Silver Age, Osorgin avoided its modernist excesses. As if in spite of the complexity of the symbolist language, he remained a supporter of the classical clarity of the literary word. Osorgin directly called L. Tolstoy and S. Aksakov his teachers, he “quoted” N. Gogol and A. Chekhov with pleasure. Following the traditions of Russian classics sometimes seems too straightforward. O. deliberately populates the modernity of his novels with recognizable characters, as if testing them for strength in the face of globally changed Russian reality. O. belongs to the generation of writers who completed the era of Russian classical literature and realized this fact.

O. was born in Perm, in the family of the provincial judge A.F. Ilyin, a liberal and participant in the judicial reform of Alexander II. The family loved music and literature, the elder brother O. Sergey Ilyin was a well-known journalist and poet in the city. Early death father had a dramatic effect on the life of the Ilyins. To help his mother, fourteen-year-old O. was engaged in tutoring with younger students of his gymnasium and began to earn extra money in newspapers. At this time, the first literary debut of O. took place - in the capital's "Magazine for All" (No. 5, 1896), the story "Father" was published. In 1897 he entered the Faculty of Law of Moscow University, graduating in 1902. All these years, Osorgin collaborated with the PGV: he sent Moscow correspondence, and in the summer, during the traditional Perm holidays, he prepared materials on local topics. I tried myself in different genres: correspondence, reviews, essay, story. The most noticeable among them is the cycle of publications “Moscow Letters”, in which the sketchy style of writing, characteristic of the future writer, with expressive lyric-ironic intonation, began to take shape.

"Moscow Letters" captured the young journalist's active involvement in the literary life of Moscow in those years. Osorgin reviews book novelties, writes reports on the most interesting meetings of the famous Moscow Literary and Art Circle, in particular, on the heated debates around the Symbolists. From a reporter's passion for literary news and scandals, Osorgin comes to realize his own literary position, which is based on the principles of democracy and realism. It is symptomatic that O. completes his letters about the literary and artistic life of the capital with the essay Korolenko.

After graduating from the university, he worked as a lawyer, however, by his own admission, "he was more busy with the revolution." In 1904 he joined the Socialist-Revolutionary Party. He did not take part in military operations, but meetings were held at his apartment, weapons and illegal literature were kept. The first marriage was also revolutionary: in 1903 he married the daughter of the famous Narodnaya Volya A.K. Malikov. In 1905, he was arrested and ended up in the Taganka prison due to the coincidence of surnames with one of the organizers of the Moscow uprising. The mistake was discovered, Osorgin was released on bail, but, fearing new persecutions, he flees abroad. The events of these post-revolutionary years will be reflected in the autobiographical dilogy Witness to History (1932) and The Book of Ends (1935).

From 1906 to 1917 lived in France and Italy. During this time, Osorgin's socio-political views are undergoing major changes, from the "Left" Socialist-Revolutionary, he becomes an opponent of any political violence. In 1914 Osorgin was initiated into Freemasonry in Italy. During the Italian emigration, the choice of a life field is finally determined. Since 1908, he became a regular correspondent for Russkiye Vedomosti and one of the most famous journalists in Russia. In 1907, the literary pseudonym Osorgin appeared (after the maiden name of the Ufa grandmother). Publications of this period were included in the books Essays on Modern Italy (1913) and Fairy Tales and Non-Fairy Tales (1918). He was keenly interested in modern Italian culture, which became the birthplace of European futurism (articles about the work of G. D "Annunzio, A. Fogazzaro, J. Pascali, etc.) Developed a specific genre of fictionalized essay.

In 1916, Osorgin semi-legally arrived in Moscow, and then, as a special correspondent for Russkiye Vedomosti, went on a big business trip to the Russian hinterland (cycles "Around the Motherland", 1916 and "On the Quiet Front", 1917). He also visited Perm, where in September 1916 the university was opened.

He accepted the February revolution with enthusiasm, which by October grew into an awareness of the fatality of impending changes. Nevertheless, he was actively engaged in social and literary work. He was one of the initiators and the first chairman of the Union of Russian Journalists. As vice president, he took part in the creation of the Writers' Union, and was also the founder of the famous Writers' Bookstore. In 1921, he was exiled to Kazan for participation in the work of the Volga Famine Relief Society, where he edited Literaturnaya Gazeta. In 1922, along with others, Osorgin was expelled from Russia on the famous “philosophical ship” (feature “How they left us. Yubileinoye”, 1932). He did not consider himself an emigrant, until 1937 he kept a Soviet passport. From 1923 he lived permanently in France. Here he married Tatyana Alekseevna Bakunina, a distant relative of M.A. Bakunin, with whom he lived until the end of his days and who was both a wife, a muse, and the first critic. Having survived O. for more than half a century, T. A. Bakunina-Osorgina devoted herself to the preservation and study of her husband’s work, preparing the fundamental “Bibliography of M. A. Osorgin” for publication.

In exile O. lived literary work. He was a regular contributor to the largest emigrant publications - the Latest News and Sovremennye Zapiski newspapers. Here, in particular, memoirs about the Perm childhood of M. Osorgin were published, which, according to critics, became one of the best works of the writer. Based on these publications, the books The Tale of a Sister (separate edition 1931; first published in 1930 in the journal Sovremennye Zapiski), Things of a Man (1929), Miracle on the Lake (1931) were compiled. They created a surprisingly cozy, bright image of childhood and the image of a small homeland, illuminated by these childhood, fabulous memories, which became a stronghold of the main life values ​​in Osorgin's emigrant far away.

O. paid much attention to the problem of preserving and developing his native literary language. In search of its renewal, he turns to the origins - folk dialect and Russian history. A cycle of magnificent “old stories” appears (part of it was included in the collection of Tale of a certain girl, 1938) with a surprisingly lively stylization of the old folk dialect of the 17-18 centuries. The history of Russia in those years appears in Osorgin's stories as a history of violence and suppression. common man as a story of spontaneous resistance and hardening of the Russian spirit. Rather harsh and ugly events of serf life are presented by Osorgin in a deliberately nonjudgmental, descriptive style of a folk story, nevertheless producing a strong emotional effect.

The debut of Osorgin as a novelist was unexpected and noisy. The novel "Sivtsev Vrazhek" was started by Osorgin back in 1918, and only in 1928 did he see the light of day in its entirety. The novel went through two editions in a row, was translated into several languages ​​at once, which was a rarity in the conditions of Russian emigration. Its success was largely due to the lively relevance of the topics raised by the writer. It is dedicated to the events of the last Russian revolution and reflections on the fate of the Russian intelligentsia and Russian culture at the turn of the era. In the center of the narrative, built on the principle of a journalistic association of main short stories, is the life of a Moscow ornithologist professor and his granddaughter, representing “the typical life of the beautiful-hearted Russian intelligentsia” (O. Yu. Avdeeva). Osorgin opposes the bloody logic of the Bolshevik revolution to the values ​​of non-social humanism, the natural harmony lost by mankind - therefore, parallels of the human world with the natural world are constantly drawn in the novel. The novel was reproached for tendentiousness and obvious adherence to the “Tolstoy tradition”. However, this did not prevent his reading success. The novel read like a book about old Moscow and real heroes, it was distinguished by a sharp nostalgic tone, textured details and intense journalistic pathos.

Osorgin's subsequent novels also turned to the events of the national history of her last fateful years. The dilogy Witness to History (1932) and The Book of Ends (1935) are dedicated to the outcome of Russian revolutionary terrorism. The novels are held together by a cross-cutting character from Osorgin's Permian past. They became a strange man, a pop-cut, a man from the people who are curious about everything, Yakov Kampinsky (Yakov Shestakov). Not devoid of the features of adventurous-adventure narration, the novels still did not have a great reader resonance, remaining too early evidence of the turbulent events of Russian history, which did not receive a convincing psychological study and a bright artistic solution. In this respect, the novel The Freemason (1937), which addresses the theme of Freemasonry, which captivated many Russian emigrants, turned out to be more wealthy. The novel uses the stylistics of cinematography and newspaper genres (documentary inserts, event saturation, heading "caps").

In 1940 the writer moved from Paris to the south of France; in 1940 - 1942 he published in the "New Russian Word" (New York) the correspondence "Letters from France" and "Letters about the insignificant", published in 1952 as a separate book and becoming the final manifesto of the writer. In the face of the threat of new and most terrible violence, which was embodied by the fascist dictatorship, O. defended humanism in it, protecting a particular person and his personal freedom.

The final and, according to many literary critics, the best work M. Osorgin began in 1938 memoirs (Childhood and Youth). They were published as a separate book under the general title "Times" in 1955 with a preface by M. Aldanov. Researchers call the book a "novel of the soul", a guide to the milestones of the spiritual development of the writer, who, according to Osorgin himself, belonged to the class of "miscalculated dreamers", "Russian intelligent eccentrics". For Perm "Times" have a special meaning. The city is reflected in them in a holistic, complete artistic image, in which the motifs of childhood and the life-giving natural force, personified in the images of the forest and Kama, converged. O. G. Lasunsky called M. Osorgin the godson of Kama, referring to the deep lyrical and philosophical significance of the theme of the small homeland in the creative life of the writer. Perm and Kama became one of the central characters in the artistic space of M. Osorgin. They embodied the writer's favorite theme of the Russian provinces and the accentuated lyricism characteristic of his manner, colored by the deepest nostalgia: for Russia and his family nest, for his native nature and great language, not wasted by the moths of Soviet Newspeak.

Lit.:

* Osorgin M. A. Memoir prose. Perm: Book. publishing house, 1992. 286 p.
* Osorgin, Mikhail. Time. Yekaterinburg, Middle Ural book publishing house. 1992.
* Osorgin, M. Collected works in 4 vols. Moscow, Publishing House "Intelvak", 1999 - 2001.
* Osorgin, M. Moscow Letters. Perm, 2003.
* Osorgin, M.A. Memoir prose: 2nd edition. Perm: Teacher's House, 2006.
* Mikhail Osorgin: pages of life and work. Proceedings of the scientific conference “First Osorginsky Readings. November 23-24, 1993 Perm: Perm Publishing House. University. 1994.
* Mikhail Osorgin: artist and journalist. Materials of the second Osorginsky readings. Perm / Perm State University, 2006.
* Avdeeva O. Yu. M. A. Osorgin. Bibliographic article. http://belousenkolib.narod.ru

Biography (en.wikipedia.org)

Mikhail Andreevich Osorgin; present fam. Ilyin was born in Perm - in a family of hereditary columnar nobles. The surname "Osorgin" was taken from his grandmother. Father A.F. Ilyin - a lawyer, a participant in the judicial reform of Alexander II, brother Sergei (died in 1912) was a local journalist and poet.

While studying at the gymnasium, he placed an obituary for his class supervisor in the Perm Gubernskiye Vedomosti, and published the story Father under the pseudonym Permyak (1896) in the Journal for Everyone. Since then, I have considered myself a writer. After successfully graduating from the gymnasium, he entered the law faculty of Moscow University. In his student years, he continued to publish in the Ural newspapers and acted as a permanent employee of the Perm Gubernskie Vedomosti. Participated in student unrest and was expelled from Moscow to Perm for a year. Having completed his education (1902), he became an assistant to a barrister in the Moscow Court of Justice and at the same time a jury solicitor at a commercial court, a guardian in an orphan's court, a legal adviser to the Society of Merchant Clerks and a member of the Society for the Guardianship of the Poor. Then he wrote the book "Remuneration of workers for accidents."

Being critical of the autocracy, a pillar nobleman by origin, an intellectual by occupation, a Fronder and an anarchist by temperament, Osorgin joined the Socialist-Revolutionary Party in 1904. He was attracted by their interest in the peasantry and land, populist traditions - to respond to violence with violence, to suppress freedom - with terror, not excluding individual ones. In addition, the Socialist Revolutionaries valued personal disinterestedness, high moral principles and condemned careerism. Meetings of the Moscow party committee were held in his apartment, terrorists were hiding. Osorgin did not take an active part in the revolution, but he was involved in its preparation. He himself later wrote that in the Socialist-Revolutionary Party he was "an insignificant pawn, an ordinary excited intellectual, more a spectator than a participant." During the revolution of 1905-1907, appearances were organized in his Moscow apartment and at the dacha, meetings of the committee of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party were held, appeals were edited and printed, and party documents were discussed. Participated in the Moscow armed uprising of 1905.

In December 1905, Osorgin, mistaken for a dangerous "barricader", was arrested and spent six months in the Taganka prison, then released on bail. He immediately left for Finland, and from there - through Denmark, Germany, Switzerland - to Italy and settled near Genoa, in Villa Maria, where an emigrant commune was formed. The first exile lasted 10 years. The writer's result was the book "Essays on Modern Italy" (1913).

Futurism attracted particular attention of the writer. He was sympathetic to the early, determined Futurists. Osorgin's work in Italian futurism had a significant resonance in Russia. He was trusted as a brilliant connoisseur of Italy, his judgments were listened to. [Literature of the Russian Diaspora (1920-1990): study guide / ed. A. I. Smirnova. M., 2006 - S.246-247]

In 1913, in order to marry seventeen-year-old Rachel (Rosa) Gintsberg, the daughter of Ahad ha-Am, he converted to Judaism (later the marriage broke up).

From Italy, he twice traveled to the Balkans and traveled to Bulgaria, Montenegro and Serbia. In 1911, Osorgin announced in print his departure from the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, and in 1914 became a Freemason. He asserted the supremacy of higher ethical principles over party interests, recognizing only the blood connection of all living things, even exaggerating the importance of the biological factor in human life. In relations with people, he placed above all not the coincidence of ideological convictions, but human closeness, based on nobility, independence and selflessness. Contemporaries who knew Osorgin well (for example, B. Zaitsev, M. Aldanov) emphasized these qualities of him, not forgetting to mention his soft, subtle soul, artistry and elegance of appearance.

With the outbreak of the 1st World War, Osorgin greatly yearned for Russia. Although he did not stop ties with the Motherland (he was a foreign correspondent for Russkiye Vedomosti, published in magazines, for example, in Vestnik Evropy), it was more difficult to carry them out. Semi-legally returns to Russia in July 1916, having passed through France, England, Norway and Sweden. From August 1916 he lived in Moscow. One of the organizers of the All-Russian Union of Journalists and its chairman (since 1917) and fellow chairman of the Moscow branch of the Writers' Union. Employee of "Russian Vedomosti".

After the February Revolution, he was a member of the commission for the development of archives and political affairs in Moscow, which worked with the archives of the Moscow security department. Osorgin accepted the February Revolution of 1917. He began to publish widely in the journal Voice of the Past, in the newspapers Narodny Socialist, Luch Pravdy, Rodina, and Power of the People, kept a current chronicle and edited the Monday supplement.

At the same time, he prepared for publication collections of stories and essays Ghosts (1917) and Tales and Non-Tales (1918). Participating in the analysis of documents of the Moscow secret police, he published the brochure "The Security Department and its secrets" (1917).

After the October Revolution, he opposed the policy of the Bolsheviks. In 1919 he was arrested and released at the request of the Union of Writers and Yu. K. Baltrushaitis.

In 1921, he worked in the Commission for Assistance to the Starving at the All-Russian Central Executive Committee (All-Russian Committee for Assistance to the Starving "Pomgol"), was the editor of the bulletin "Help" published by it; in August 1921 he was arrested along with some members of the commission; they were saved from the death penalty by the intervention of Fridtjof Nansen. He spent the winter of 1921-1922 in Kazan, editing Literaturnaya Gazeta, then returned to Moscow. He continued to publish fairy tales for children and short stories. Translated from Italian (at the request of E. B. Vakhtangov) K. Gozzi’s play “Princess Turandot” (published in 1923), plays by K. Goldoni.

Together with his old friend N. Berdyaev, he opens a famous bookstore in Moscow, which for a long time becomes a haven for the intelligentsia during the years of post-war devastation.

In 1921 Osorgin was arrested and exiled to Kazan.

In the autumn of 1922, together with a group of opposition-minded representatives of the domestic intelligentsia (such as N. Berdyaev, N. Lossky and others), he was expelled from the USSR. Trotsky, in an interview with a foreign correspondent, put it this way: "We expelled these people because there was no reason to shoot them, and it was impossible to endure."

From the "Resolution of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) on the approval of the list of intellectuals expelled from Russia":

57. Osorgin Mikhail Andreevich. The Right Cadet is undoubtedly of an anti-Soviet trend. Employee of "Russian Vedomosti". Editor of the Prokukisha newspaper. His books are published in Latvia and Estonia. There is reason to think that he maintains contact with foreign countries. Commission with the participation of comrade Bogdanov and others for the expulsion.

Osorgin's emigrant life began in Berlin, where he spent a year. Since 1923 he finally settled in Paris. He published his works in the newspapers "Days", "Latest News".

Osorgin's life in emigration was difficult: he became an opponent of all and sundry political doctrines, he valued freedom above all else, and emigration was very politicized.

The writer Osorgin became famous back in Russia, but fame came to him in exile, where his best books were published. Sivtsev Vrazhek (1928), The Tale of a Sister (1931), Witness to History (1932), The Book of the Ends (1935), Freemason (1937), The Tale of a Certain Girl (1938 ), collections of short stories "Where I Was Happy" (1928), "Miracle on the Lake" (1931), "Incidents of the Green World" (1938), memoirs "Times" (1955).

He retained Soviet citizenship until 1937, after which he lived without a passport, and did not receive French citizenship.

Since the beginning of World War II, Osorgin's life has changed dramatically. In June 1940, after the German offensive and the occupation of part of French territory, Osorgin and his wife fled Paris. They settled in Chabris, on the other side of the Cher river, which was not occupied by the Germans. There Osorgin wrote the book "In a quiet place in France" (1940) and "Letters about the insignificant" (published in 1952). They showed his talent as a perspicacious observer and publicist. medieval times, mourned the irreparable damage that could be inflicted on spiritual values. At the same time, he firmly stood for the human right to individual freedom. In the "Letters on the Insignificant" the writer foresaw a new catastrophe: "When the war is over," Osorgin wrote, "the whole world will prepare for a new war.

The writer died and was buried in the same city.

Creation

In 1928, Osorgin created his most famous chronicle novel, Sivtsev Vrazhek. In the center of the work is the story of the old retired professor of ornithology Ivan Alexandrovich and his granddaughter Tatyana, who turns from a little girl into a bride-maiden. The chronicle nature of the narrative is manifested in the fact that the events are not lined up in one storyline but simply follow each other. The center of the artistic structure of the novel is a house on an old Moscow street. The house of an ornithologist professor is a microcosm, similar in its structure to the macrocosm - the Universe and solar system. It also burns little sun- a table lamp in the old man's office. In the novel, the writer sought to show the relativity of the great and the insignificant in being. The existence of the world is ultimately determined for Osorgin by the mysterious, impersonal and extramoral interplay of cosmological and biological forces. For the earth, the driving, life-giving force is the Sun.

All of Osorgin's work was permeated by two sincere thoughts: a passionate love for nature, close attention to everything living on earth and attachment to the world of ordinary, inconspicuous things. The first thought formed the basis of the essays published in Latest News under the signature "The Everyman" and compiled the book "Incidents of the Green World" (Sofia, 1938). The essays are inherently dramatic: in a foreign land, the author turned from a "lover of nature" into a "garden eccentric", the protest against technotronic civilization was combined with a powerless protest against exile. The embodiment of the second thought was bibliophilia and collecting. Osorgin collected the richest collection of Russian publications, which he introduced the reader to in the cycle “Notes of an Old Bookworm” (October 1928 - January 1934), in a series of “old” (historical) stories that often provoked attacks from the monarchist camp for disrespect for the imperial family and especially to the church.

In his twenty books (including five novels), Osorgin combines moral and philosophical aspirations with the ability to tell a story, following the tradition of I. Goncharov, I. Turgenev and L. Tolstoy. This is combined with a love for some experimentation in the field of narrative technique: for example, in the novel "Sivtsev Vrazhek" he builds a series of separate chapters about very different people and also about animals. Osorgin is the author of several autobiographical books, which attract the author's modesty and his life position as a decent person.

Participation in Freemasonry

Osorgin Mikhail Andreevich - regularized and joined on March 4 (May 6), 1925 on the recommendation of B. Mirkin-Getsevich. Raised to the 2nd and 3rd degrees on April 8 (1), 1925. 2nd Expert since November 3, 1926. Great expert (performer) from November 30, 1927 to 1929. Orator from November 6, 1930 to 1932 and in 1935-1937. 1st Guard from 1931 to 1934 and from October 7, 1937 to 1938. Also lodge librarian 1934-1936, and from 27 September 1938. Venerable Master from November 6, 1938 to 1940.

From 1925 to 1940 he actively participated in the activities of several lodges working under the auspices of the Grand Orient of France. He was one of the founders and was a member of several Masonic lodges: "Northern Star" and "Free Russia".

Osorgin Mikhail Andreevich - founder of the lodge "Northern Brothers", its leader from the day of its foundation to April 11, 1938. Worked from October 1931 to April 1932 as a narrow Masonic group, from November 17, 1932 - as study group. The act of establishment was signed on November 12, 1934. Worked independently of existing Masonic obediences under the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. From October 9, 1933 to April 24, 1939, it held 150 meetings, then ceased its activities. Initially, the meetings were held at the apartment of M. A. Osorgin on Mondays, after the 101st meeting - at other apartments.

He held a number of officer positions in the lodge, was a Venerable Master (the highest officer position in the lodge). He was a very respected and worthy brother who made a great contribution to the development of Russian Freemasonry in France.

Mikhail Andreevich was a member of the Sovereign Chapter "Northern Star" of the Great College of Rituals

Osorgin Mikhail Andreevich - raised to the 18th degree on December 15, 1931. Expert circa 1932. Member of the Chapter until 1938.

A very characteristic example of a deep knowledge of Freemasonry is the work of Osorgin "Freemason", in which Mikhail Andreevich outlined the main directions in the work of Freemasonry and Freemasons. The humor inherent in the author permeates this work from the first to the last page.

Artworks

* Sketches of modern Italy, 1913
* Security department and its secrets. M., 1917
* Ghosts. M., "Zadruga", 1917
* Fairy tales and non-tales M., "Zadruga", 1918
* From a small house, Riga, 1921
* Sivtsev Vrazhek. Paris, 1928
* Dr. Shchepkin's office (Russian) "This happened in Krivokolenny Lane, which shortened the road to his own house from Maroseyka to Chistye Prudy." (19??)
* Person's things. Paris, 1929;
* A story about a sister, Paris, 1931
* Miracle on the lake, Paris, 1931
* Witness to history 1932
* Book of Ends 1935
* Freemason, 1937
* The story of a certain girl, Tallinn, 1938
* In a quiet place in France (June-December 1940). Memories, Paris, 1946
* Letters about the insignificant. New York, 1952
* Times. Paris, 1955
* Diary of Galina Benislavskaya. Contradictions // Verb, No. 3, 1981
* Memoirs of an exile // "Time and Us", No. 84, 1985
* Pince-nez

Editions

* Notes of an old bookworm, Moscow, 1989
* Osorgin M. A. Times: An autobiographical narrative. Novels. - M.: Sovremennik, 1989. - 624 p. - (From heritage). - 100,000 copies. - ISBN 5-270-00813-0
* Osorgin M. A. Sivtsev Vrazhek: A novel. Tale. Stories. - M.: Moskovsky worker, 1990. - 704 p. - (Literary chronicle of Moscow). - 150,000 copies. - ISBN 5-239-00627-X
* Collected works. T.1-2, M.: Moskovsky Rabochiy, 1999.

1. Russian literature - article from the Electronic Jewish Encyclopedia
2. How Mikhail Osorgin converted to Judaism // Newspapers. Perm. Perm News / 2009-10-23
3. Lyudmila Polikovskaya. The Russian courtYanin and the "Jewish question" // Lechaim, August 2005 - 8 (160)
4. Mikhail Andreevich Osorgin (Ilyin) (From the encyclopedia "Circumnavigation")
5. How they left us. Anniversary essay 1932 (fragment from memoirs) Osorgin M. A. Times. Paris, 1955, pp. 180-185.
6. Resolution of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP(b) on approval of the list of intellectuals expelled from Russia, August 10, 1922.
7. Literature of the Russian abroad (1920-1990): textbook / ed. A. I. Smirnova. M., 2006 - S.247
8. Russian abroad. Golden book of emigration. First third of the 20th century. Encyclopedic biographical words | download | book house
9. Prose by Mikhail Osorgin
10. Cossack V. Lexicon of Russian literature of the XX century = Lexikon der russischen Literatur ab 1917. - M.: RIK "Culture", 1996. - 492 p. - 5000 copies. - ISBN 5-8334-0019-8. - S. 298.
11. Dmitry Galkovsky's virtual server
12. PARIS. NORTH STAR LODGE
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