Gaito Gazdanov's best works. Gaito Gazdanov - world famous writer from Ossetia

Chapter 25. From Montsegur to Wewelsburg: clear parallels Montsegur, or in the local dialect of Mont-sur, the Reliable Mountain. More than 850 years ago, the most dramatic performance took place here European history. The siege of the castle lasted two years, where those declared heretics were hiding

Literary scholars put Gaito Gazdanov on a par with Nabokov and Bunin - assessing his contribution to literature and looking at parallels in life. This is fair: the novels “An Evening at Claire’s”, “Night Roads”, seven more novels and almost forty stories have long become classics. It is also true as regards the biography: Gazdanov is an emigrant of that first wave that was loaded onto ships in Odessa and Sevastopol, lived in poverty in Constantinople, earned what she could in Paris, survived (if she survived) the occupation and never forgot her homeland and the Russian language . Everything is true for Gazdanov: an Ossetian by blood, nicknamed in exile the “Russian Proust,” considered himself a Russian writer, and, as history has shown, he was not mistaken in his self-assessment. I was wrong about something else - today it belongs to world literature.
As critics have long noted, in Gazdanov’s novels and stories the events themselves are not important, what is important is the response born in the soul and memory of the narrator. It has long been known that Gazdanov’s books are autobiographical: what he saw and experienced surfaced in his memory and soul.

All rivers flow into the sea, but the sea does not overflow;

to the place from which the rivers flow, they return to flow again.

(Book of Ecclesiastes. Chapter 1, verse 7)

BIOGRAPHY OF THE WRITER, TELLED BY HIMSELF AND LETTERS OF RELATIVES

There was always something inexpressibly sweet in my memories: I definitely didn’t see and didn’t know everything that happened to me after that moment that I resurrected: and I found myself alternately a cadet, then a schoolboy, then a soldier - and only that; everything else ceased to exist. I was getting used to living in a past reality restored by my imagination. My power in it was unlimited, I did not submit to anyone, to anyone’s will...”

("Evening at Claire's")

The attentive reader of “sweet memories” will find in Gazdanov details of the biography, skillfully inscribed in the context of the time. Gaito Ivanovich himself will speak about time and about himself, we will only add prose to life that does not fit into the framework of fiction.

Until then, I had to start life over again many times, this was explained by the extraordinary circumstances in which I found myself - like all my generation - civil war and defeat, revolutions, departures, travel in steamship holds or on decks, foreign countries, too often changing conditions - in a word, something sharply opposite to what I was used to imagining - a long time ago, as if in a book I read: an old house with the same porch and the same front door, the same rooms, the same furniture, the same shelves

libraries, trees, which, like the archives of my bureau, existed before my birth and will continue to grow after my death, and Lermontov's oak over my calm grave, snow in winter, greenery in summer, rain in autumn, light wind of the Russian, unforgettable month of April; many books, read many times, returning from travel and this slow charm of a family chronicle, one powerful and long breath, weakening as my life slows down, my voice loses its sonority, my tired joints gradually stiffen, my hair turns gray, my eyes see worse, until one fine day, looking back for a second, I will see myself exactly like my grandfather, in warm spring weather, sitting on a bench under a tree, in a fur coat and glasses, and I will know that my years are numbered and listen to the noise of the leaves, in order to remember it once again forever, and so as not to forget it when dying.

Then - if this were so - I would have known and understood, probably, much more than what I knew and understood now, and I would have looked at the world with calm and attentive eyes. Now, far from my homeland, from the possibility of any calm understanding, I would be doomed to a slow and gradual blindness, to a decrease in interest in everything that does not directly concern me, and the changes that would occur would probably be , insignificant - a number of minor deteriorations, and nothing more. But after this spiritual languor, after I had lived for a long time without any considerations except personal considerations, all the more comprehensive and strong, the narrower they were, after that - I again began to see and hear what was happening around me, and it seemed different to me than before.”

("Night Roads")

An old house, library shelves... There were many houses and shelves: my father’s profession did not imply settling down. Bappi, or in Russian Ivan, Gazdanov graduated from the St. Petersburg Forestry Institute and served as a forester in Siberia, Belarus, Tver province, and the Caucasus. He came from an Ossetian family, Russian in language and culture; brother Ivan, Daniil Sergeevich, was a famous lawyer and friend of the poet and artist Kosta Khetagurov. The family of Gaito's mother, Vera Nikolaevna (in Ossetian - Diki) Abatsieva, also belonged to the Ossetian intelligentsia. She grew up in St. Petersburg, in the house of her uncle, Magomet Abatsiev.

From my early childhood I remember only one event. I was three years old; my parents returned for some time to St. Petersburg, from which they had left shortly before; they were supposed to stay there for very little time, about two weeks. They stayed with my grandmother, in her large house on Kabinetskaya Street, the same one where I was born. The windows of the apartment, located on the fourth floor, overlooked the courtyard.

I remember that I was left alone in the living room and fed my toy hare carrots, which I asked from the cook. Suddenly strange sounds coming from the yard attracted my attention. They were like a quiet rumbling, interrupted occasionally by a drawn-out metallic ringing, very thin and clear. I went to the window, but no matter how hard I tried to rise on tiptoe and see something, nothing succeeded. Then I rolled a large chair to the window, climbed onto it and from there climbed onto the windowsill. As now I see a deserted courtyard below and two sawyers; they alternately moved back and forth like poorly made metal toys with a mechanism. Sometimes they stopped to rest; and then the sound of a suddenly stopped and trembling saw was heard.

I looked at them as if enchanted and unconsciously slid down from the window. My entire upper body was hanging into the yard. The sawyers saw me; they stopped, raising their heads and looking up, but without uttering a word. It was the end of September; I remember that I suddenly felt cold air and my hands began to feel cold, not covered by the sleeves pulled back. At this time my mother entered the room. She quietly approached the window, took me off, closed the frame - and fainted.”

("Evening at Claire's")

Then, in difficult years, Gaito Gazdanov will return to childhood again and again.

It became hard for me - and, as always, I thought about my mother, whom I knew less than my father, and who always remained mysterious to me. She was a very calm woman, somewhat cold in her manner, and never raised her voice: St. Petersburg, where she lived before her marriage, her grandmother’s decorous house, governesses, reprimands and compulsory reading of classical authors had their influence...

While I ran towards my father and jumped on his chest, knowing that this strong man only sometimes he pretends to be an adult, but, in essence, he is the same as me, my age - I approached my mother slowly, decorously, as befits a well-bred boy...

I was not afraid of my mother: no one was punished in our house - neither me nor my sisters; but I never ceased to feel her superiority over me... She often reprimanded me, completely calm, spoken in the same even voice; At the same time, my father looked at me sympathetically, nodded his head and seemed to provide me with some kind of silent support.”

("Evening at Claire's")

Not by edification, but by example, his mother instilled in Gaito a taste and love for literature.

She loved literature so much that it became strange. She read often and a lot and, having finished the book, did not talk or answer my questions; she looked straight ahead with fixed, unseeing eyes and did not notice anything around her. She knew many poems by heart, all of “The Demon,” all of “Eugene Onegin,” from the first to the last line, but her father’s taste was German philosophy I didn’t like sociology either; this was less interesting to her than the rest. I have never seen fashionable novels in our house - Verbitskaya or Artsybashev; it seems that both father and mother were unanimous in their contempt for them.

I brought the first such book as a fourth-grade student, and the book that I accidentally left in the cafeteria was called “The Woman Standing in the Middle.” My mother saw her by chance, and when I returned home in the evening, she asked me, disgustedly lifting the title page of the book with two fingers: “Are you reading this? You have good taste." I felt ashamed to the point of tears...”

("Evening at Claire's")

In addition to Gaito, two daughters were born in the family, but they were not destined to grow up - both sisters died in childhood.

There were no disagreements or quarrels in our house, and everything went well. But fate did not spoil the mother for long. Mine died first elder sister; death followed after gastric surgery from a bath taken at the wrong time. Then, a few years later, my father died, and finally, during great war my younger sister A nine-year-old girl died of fulminant scarlet fever, having been ill for only two days.

My mother and I were left alone. She lived a rather secluded life; I was left to my own devices and grew up in freedom. She could not forget the losses that had befallen her so suddenly, and long years spent as if under a spell, even more silent and motionless than before. She was in excellent health and never got sick; but only in her eyes, which I remembered as bright and indifferent, such deep sadness appeared that when I looked into them, I felt ashamed of myself and of the fact that I live in the world.”

("Evening at Claire's")

After the death of her father and husband, the family's financial affairs were shaken. Vera Nikolaevna consulted with her family and decided to send Gaito to the Petrovsko-Poltava Cadet Corps.

The first time I separated for a long time from my mother was the year I became a cadet. The building was located in another city; I remember the blue-white river, the green bushes of Timofeev and the hotel where my mother brought me two weeks before the exams and where she went through with me a small French textbook, the spelling of which I was unsure of. Then the exam, farewell to mother, new form and a uniform with shoulder straps and a cab driver in a torn zipun, who incessantly pulled the reins and took his mother down to the station, from where the train home leaves. I was left alone. I stayed away from the cadets, wandered for hours through the echoing halls of the building and only later realized that I could be looking forward to a distant Christmas and a two-week vacation. I didn't like the cases.

My comrades were different from me in many ways: in most cases they were the children of officers who came from a paramilitary environment, which I had never known; There were no military men in our house; my father treated them with hostility and disdain. I could not get used to “so sure” and “no way” and, I remember, in response to the officer’s reprimand, I answered: “You are partly right, Mr. Colonel,” for which I was punished even more. However, I soon became friends with the cadets; The bosses didn’t like me, although I studied well. Teaching methods in the building were very diverse. The German forced the cadets to read aloud to the whole class, and therefore in the German textbook text one could hear cocks crowing, singing an indecent song and squealing.

The teachers were bad, no one stood out, except for the teacher natural history, a civilian general, a mocking old man, a materialist and a skeptic.<...>Long later, when I had already become a high school student, I remembered the cadet corps as a heavy, stony dream.”

("Evening at Claire's")

The cadet torment did not last long. By the end of the year, the mother came to Poltava, talked with her son and the class teacher, and took Gaito to Kharkov. He entered the 2nd city gymnasium with a good reputation as an intelligent and cultural institution. The teachers will leave Gazdanov with a long and grateful memory.

And then I clearly saw in front of me the dense trees of the garden in the copper light of the moon and White hair my high school teacher, who sat next to me on a curved wooden bench.<...>He was very clever man, perhaps the smartest person I have ever known, and a wonderful conversationalist. Even withdrawn or embittered people felt extraordinary trust in him. He never abused in the slightest degree his enormous - mental and cultural - superiority over others, and therefore it was especially easy to talk to him. He told me then, among other things:

- There is, of course, not a single commandment, the validity of which could be proven in an irrefutable way, just as there is not a single moral law, which would be infallibly binding. And ethics in general exists only insofar as we agree to accept it.<...>He rose from the bench; I got up too. The leaves were motionless, there was silence in the garden.

“Dickens has a wonderful phrase somewhere,” he said. - Remember her, she's worth it. I don’t remember how it was said literally, but its meaning is this: we are given life with the indispensable condition that we bravely defend it until our last breath. Good night.
And now I got up from the chair in the same way as then from the bench on which I was sitting next to him, and repeated these words, which somehow sounded especially significant now:

“We have been given life with the indispensable condition of bravely defending it until our last breath.”

("Ghost of Alexander Wolf")

Gazdanov’s peaceful life in Kharkov was not generously measured out - five short years, from 1912 to the revolutionary year 1917. A little more, but important details:

Dinner and books awaited me at home, and in the evening there was a game in the yard, where I was forbidden to go. We then lived in a house that belonged to Alexei Vasilyevich Voronin, a former officer who came from a good noble family, a strange and wonderful man.”

("Evening at Claire's")

In Kharkov, the Gazdanovs lived in the Pashkovs’ house. Gaito grew up with the Pashkov children, as their relative later recalled, and when he grew up, he joined the company that met in the Pashkov house. The evenings were dominated by the hostess - Tatyana Pashkova, Gaito's secret and hopeless love. Friends called her Claire, “blonde” in French, for her luxurious blond hair, they remember. And these meetings, where they read poetry, listened to music and gave lectures - with some mockery - were “evenings at Claire’s”.

Tatyana Pashkova’s cousin-niece recounted from the words of her mother, Kira Gamaleya: “Sometimes they organized “seminars”: they listened to someone’s report on a given philosophical topic. And here Gaito deservedly shone. He gave excellent talks on the works of Nietzsche, Schopenhauer and other “fashionable” philosophers. People came specially to his performances It was getting dark and dark, and since Gaito was not tall, during the report they put a bench under his feet.”

Meanwhile, two revolutions occurred in Russia and the Civil War raged beyond the threshold of the salon. In 1919, Gaito Gazdanov was sixteen years old: it was time to rave about his exploits and look for a place in a changing world.

I wanted to know what war was, it was still the same desire for the new and unknown. I entered white army because he was on its territory, because it was customary; and if Kislovodsk had been occupied by Red troops in those days, I would probably have joined the Red Army. On the eve of the day when I was supposed to leave, I met Shchur, my gymnasium friend; he was very surprised to see me in military uniform.

- Are you going to join the volunteers?- he asked.

And when I answered that it was to the volunteers, he looked at me with even greater amazement.

- What are you doing, are you crazy? Stay here, the volunteers are retreating, in two weeks ours will be in the city.
- No, I’ve already decided to go.

- What a weirdo you are. After all, later you yourself will regret it.
- No, I’ll still go.

He shook my hand firmly.
- Well, I wish you not to be disappointed.

- Thank you, I don’t think it’s necessary.

- Do you believe that the volunteers will win?

- No, I don’t believe it at all, so I won’t be disappointed.

In the evening I said goodbye to my mother. My departure was a blow to her. She asked me to stay; and it took all the cruelty of my sixteen years to leave my mother alone and go to war - without conviction, without enthusiasm, solely out of the desire to suddenly see and understand such new things in the war that, perhaps, would regenerate me.

“Fate took my husband and daughters away from me,” my mother told me, - you are the only one left, and now you are leaving.”

("Evening at Claire's")

It is no coincidence that Kislovodsk appeared in the text: Ossetian relatives lived there. There and in Vladikavkaz, with his grandparents, Gaito Gazdanov spent his school holidays. He will never see his mother again: Gaito will join Wrangel’s army and, together with its defeated remnants, will sail from Sevastopol to Turkey. Vera Nikolaevna will leave Kharkov for Vladikavkaz and live there until the end of her life.

Vera Nikolaevna Gazdanova, Gaito's mother (in the center), and the Pashkov family in Pyatigorsk, 1926.

There was a lot of incredible things about the artificial connection different people, firing from cannons and machine guns: they moved across the fields of southern Russia, rode horses, raced on trains, died crushed by the wheels of retreating artillery, died and moved, dying, and tried in vain to fill large space sea, air and snow with some kind of their own, non-divine meaning.”

("Evening at Claire's")

The life of that time seemed to me to take place in three different countries: the country of summer, silence and the chalky heat of Sevastopol, the country of winter, snow and blizzards, and the country of our night history, night alarms, and battles, and beeps in the darkness and cold. In each of these countries it was different, and when we came to one of them, we brought others with us; and on a cold night, standing on the iron floor of an armored train, I saw the sea and lime in front of me; and in Sevastopol, sometimes the brilliance of the sun, reflected on an invisible glass, suddenly transported me to the north. But what was especially different from anything I had known up to that time was the land of nightlife.

I remembered how at night the sad, lingering whistle of bullets slowly rushed over us; and the fact that the bullet flies very quickly, and its sound glides so softly and leisurely, made all this involuntary revival of the air, this restless and uncertain movement of sounds in the sky especially strange. Sometimes the rapid ringing of the alarm bell could be heard from the village; the red clouds, until then invisible in the darkness, were illuminated by the flames of the fire, and people ran out of their houses with the same anxiety with which the sailors of a ship that had sprung a leak in the open sea, far from the shores, should run out onto the deck. I often thought then about ships, as if in a hurry to live in advance this life, which was destined for me later, when we were swinging up and down on a steamship, in the Black Sea, in the middle of the distance between Russia and the Bosphorus.

("Evening at Claire's")

In Constantinople, Gaito Gazdanov met cousin, ballerina Aurora Gazdanova, and with her help he entered the Russian gymnasium. Then the gymnasium moved to Bulgaria, and Gaito followed it.

Volodya left Constantinople alone, accompanied by no one, without tears, without hugs, even without a handshake. The wind and rain were blowing, it was quite cold, and he gladly went down to the cabin. He arrived on the ship almost at last minute, and therefore he barely had time to lie down and close his eyes when the steamer moved.

- We still need to look at Constantinople one last time.

He went up on deck. It was almost dark, slippery and wet; the irregular outlines of buildings disappeared through the rain, the wind threw splashes of water in the face; the noise of the port with the shouts of the Turks and the whistles of the boats, humidly heard through the thickening darkness, began to subside and move away. Volodya stood for a while and went down to the cabin again.

“Well, let’s go,” he said to himself out loud.

He lay down and closed his eyes, but did not fall asleep, only began to doze; Music was heard from a distant cabin. Volodya tried to make out the motive but could not, and, as always in such cases, it seemed to him that it was something familiar. Then the music stopped and he thought, looking at the thick glass of the porthole, crossed by irregular lines of rain.”

(“The Story of a Journey”)

In 1923, Gazdanov graduated from high school in the Bulgarian city of Shumen and immediately went to Paris. He washed locomotives and led the life of a clochard, worked as a loader, mechanic and God knows what else, until he got behind the wheel of a taxi.

Everything, or almost everything, that was beautiful in the world seemed to be tightly closed to me - and I was left alone, with a persistent desire not to be overwhelmed by that endless and joyless human abomination, with which my work consisted of daily contact.”

("Night Roads")

In a stubborn struggle against the “jolly abomination” and the flow of everyday life, Gazdanov emerged. Without looking up from the steering wheel, he studied at the Sorbonne, without leaving the taxi, he began to write. And he flew into literature at high speed. It was there that he found a new home and finally found free breathing.

I entered, without knowing how or why, into another world, light and glassy, ​​where everything was loud and far away and where I finally breathed this amazing spring air, from complete absence which I think would have suffocated. It was difficult for me to breathe, like almost all of us, in this European air, where there was neither the icy purity of winter, nor the endless smells and sounds of the northern spring, nor the vast expanses of my homeland.”

("Night Roads")

In 1929, Gaito Gazdanov’s first book, “An Evening at Claire’s,” was published in a small edition in Paris. It became an event, the novel was approved by a strict judge - Ivan Bunin. Gazdanov made up his mind and sent the book to Gorky. In February 1930, Maxim Gorky replied: “I cordially thank you for the gift, for the book you sent. I read it with great pleasure, even with pleasure, and this rarely happens, although I read quite a bit. Of course, you yourself feel that you are very talented person, to this I would add that you are also uniquely talented - I have the right to say this not only from “An Evening at Claire’s”, but also from your stories - from “Ukuleles” and others.”

In March of the same year, Gaito Gazdanov responded to Gorky with a letter of gratitude: “I am very grateful to you for the offer to send the book to Russia. I would be happy if it could come out there, because here we have no readers and nothing at all. On the other hand, as you may have seen from the book, I do not belong to the “emigrant authors”, I know Russia poorly and little, since I left there when I was sixteen years old, a little more; but Russia is my homeland, and I cannot and will not write in any other language other than Russian.”

Gazdanov began to think about returning to his homeland, and even asked Gorky to help him with this. But Gorky did not have time, although he intended to: in 1936 he died.

I lived in Paris on the fourth floor of a quiet house, so quiet that sometimes it seemed as if it was inhabited by dead people to whom no one had ever visited.”

("From Notebooks")

Letters went from Soviet Ordzhonikidze to the “quiet house” - in 1932, 1933, 1935. The mother wanted to see her son, but she understood that it was dangerous to return, and she warned her son in Aesopian language:

I personally would gladly give my life to see you, to hear your voice, to look at you, to be with you for at least a few months, incl. “to wish” that I felt the same as you did from our date - no need, mais tu ne reviendras que dans un an, n'est-ce pas? Pas avant. (“But you won’t be back until a year later, right? Not earlier.” - Author.) You need to think everything over, have everything you need on hand... My dear, beloved boy, I worry all the time whether you are healthy. Did you get enough sleep after long sleepless nights? What are you doing now and where will you live? Now I have absolutely no idea of ​​your lifestyle and your plans for the future.”

Mother and son soon received answers to these questions: Gazdanov met a Russian emigrant from Odessa, Faina Lamzaki, happily married and lived with her until his death. Together they survived the occupation of Paris, participated in the Resistance, and moved to Munich, where Gazdanov was offered a job at Radio Liberty.

In 1953, behind the noise of jammers soviet people heard: “Georgy Cherkasov is at the microphone.” Almost no one in the USSR knew at that time that this was Gaito Gazdanov. Gazdanov’s books will return to their homeland when Gorbachev throws back the Iron Curtain. Gazdanov worked at Svoboda until his death. He lived in Munich, then returned to Paris again as a correspondent for the Paris bureau, then again went to Munich as editor-in-chief of the Russian service.

Shortly before his death, in 1971, he resumed correspondence with Kharkov friends of his youth, interrupted when the writer began working for the “enemy voice.” Gaito Gazdanov received a letter from Tatyana Pashkova a month before his death:

“Gaito, dear!

First of all, I am infinitely glad for your recovery! I was sure that your strong body would cope with this illness. You are regaining your previous familiar dimensions... Very, very happy...<...>I was so happy to finally have established a connection with you. After all, for more than thirty years... we knew nothing about you. True, over the years information about you has appeared in literature several times. Somehow in the memoirs of Vadim Andreev, in the memories of Bunin’s wife, but all this is a long time ago.<...>Many memories are associated with you, Gaitosha. And for some reason you remembered the quarrels. And I remember your original manner of picking flowers and carrying them with their roots up! Even earlier - your stilts, which delighted our entire bachelorette party. And your memory is your readings for memory prose works and many many others.

You write that I should try to get your book from 1930 - but how? Kostya asked second-hand booksellers on the boulevards, but they didn’t have any. The only way is you have to send it to me... there is no other way. Manage it somehow.<...>Gaito, dear, write if this does not involve any inconvenience. There are so few people to whom you can say - remember. I send you the most tender, sincere greetings. I'd like to think you're healthy.

Years of life: from 11/23/1903 to 12/05/1971

Russian emigrant writer of Ossetian origin.

Gaito Gazdanov (real name Georgiy Ivanovich Gazdanov) was born and lived in St. Petersburg until he was four years old. Father, Ivan Gazdanov, was a forester, and, due to his duty, the family had to move a lot. They lived in Siberia, in the Tver province, in Kharkov, in Poltava. In 1911, Ivan Gazdanov died, which was a big shock for little George. In Poltava future writer trained in the Cadet Corps. And from 1912 - at the Kharkov gymnasium, finishing his studies up to the seventh grade, and leaving it due to the outbreak of the Civil War.

In 1919, Gaito Gazdanov joined Volunteer Army, served as a soldier on an armored train. This act is not explained by political motives, but by the desire to find out what war is and experience something new for oneself. Subsequently, with the retreating White Army he finds himself in Crimea. In 1920, he left Sevastopol, saying goodbye to his homeland forever.

He will write an autobiographical novel “An Evening at Claire’s” about the events of these years.

Gazdanov arrived in Turkey by ship, and in Constantinople he wrote his first story, “The Hotel of the Future.” Afterwards he lived in Bulgaria, in the city of Shumen, where he graduated from a Russian gymnasium. In 1923 he moved to France.

The first year in emigration was the most difficult - Gazdanov had to work as a port loader, a locomotive cleaner, a worker at an automobile plant, a teacher of Russian and French. Subsequently, he worked as a night taxi driver, which ensured his existence for many years. From time to time he had to return to this work even as a famous writer. Working as a night taxi driver allowed him to see with his own eyes the life of the Parisian bottom, which gave him a lot of food for thought.

The novel “Night Roads” is precisely about these first years of Gazdanov’s life in France.

At the end of the twenties, Gazdanov managed to enter the Sorbonne University in Paris, where he studied for four years at the Faculty of History and Philology. At the same time, he writes stories and publishes in French magazines. At the same time, the above-mentioned novel “An Evening at Claire's” was written, which was highly praised by critics and Russian writers such as Bunin and Gorky. However, so far literary work does not bring material profit to Gazdanov. At the same time, he took part in the work of the literary association of Russian emigrants “Kochevye”.

In 1932, Mikhail Osorgin, a writer and journalist exiled from Russia, invited Gazdanov to the North Star Masonic Lodge. Gazdanov was a member of the lodge until his death.

In addition, he was a member of the Union of Young Writers and Poets (since 1931, renamed the Association of Writers and Poets).

At this time, Gazdanov makes attempts to return to Russia - he learns about his mother’s illness. The writer turns to Maxim Gorky for help. Gorky expressed regret and was ready to help, but died in 1936. Gazdanov remains in Paris.

In the same year the writer gets married. His bride was Faina Dmitrievna Lamzaki, the daughter of Greek merchants from Odessa. Gazdanov dedicates the novel “Night Roads” to his wife. The first three years after marriage turn out to be very fruitful in the life of a writer. In addition to Night Roads, two more novels have been written - “The Story of a Journey” and “Flight”, and several short stories.

Gazdanov remained in Paris during the Second World War. He and his wife join the ranks of the Resistance, shelter Jews in their apartment, and help French and Soviet partisans. Worked in an underground magazine. In 1946, he wrote the documentary book “On French Soil,” inspired by his interactions with fugitive Russians who fought in France against fascism. Under the pseudonym Georgy Cherkasov, since 1953 he worked as an editor, journalist and host of a program about Russian literature on the American radio station “Freedom”.

In the early 1950s, two novels, “The Ghost of Alexander Wolf” and “The Return of Buddha,” were published, which brought Gazdanov world fame and financial independence. Only now can he leave his job as a night taxi driver.

Gazdanov also worked in Munich. Since 1967, he held the position of senior and then editor-in-chief of the Russian service. Wrote on political and social topics. Then he moved on to literary critical articles, in which one can find an original approach to the scheme of perception of the literary hierarchy.

On December 5, 1971, Gaito Gazdanov died in Munich from lung cancer. He was buried near Paris, in the cemetery of Sainte-Genevieve des Bois.

In 1998, the “Society of Friends of Gaito Gazdanov” was created in Moscow, whose members are engaged in studying the writer’s work, his life, as well as popularizing his works. Rafael Gasparyants made the first film about Gaito Gazdanov called “The Fourth Life”.

The prototype of Claire was Tatyana Pashkova, with whom Gazdanov was unrequitedly in love in his youth. Tatiana's relatives called Nyushechka, or Claire, which translated from French means bright. The Pashkov family rented out one wing of the mansion in Kharkov to the Gazdanov family (then already a widow, Vera Nikolaevna, with a young son). During this time, their families grew closer.

During literary meetings in Paris, Gazdanov expressed an extremely unique point of view, did not recognize generally accepted authorities, which earned him a reputation as an unstoppable arguer and nit-picker.

At one of these meetings, Gazdanov spoke about Valery Bryusov as follows: “it seems that there really was such a poet, but he was completely mediocre, and who now wants to reread him?” In response to this, Marina Tsvetaeva jumped up and ran close to Gazdanov, waving her arms and shouting for him to shut up.

In emigrant circles, Gazdanov was dubbed the “Russian Proust.”

Bibliography

Novels
1929 -
1934 - The story of a journey
1939 - Flight
1941 -
1947 -
1949 -
1953 - Pilgrims
1965 -
1968 - Evelina and her friends
1972 - Coup (unfinished)

Stories
1926 - Hotel of the Future
1927 - A Tale of Three Failures
1927 - Eight of Spades Society
1928 - Comrade Brak
1930 - Black Swans
1931 - Lanterns, Great Musician
1932 - Happiness, Third Life
1938 - Error
1939 - Evening Satellite
1942 - A story about Olga
1962 - Beggar
1963 - Letters from Ivanov
Bombay
Hana
Memorial service
Princess Mary
Iron Lord
Salome's fate

Other jobs
1929 - Notes on Edgar Allan Poe, Gogol and Maupassant
1936 - About young emigrant literature
1946 - Writer and team
1951 - Literature of the Social West
1959 - About Gogol
1961 - On the staging of Russian plays in French theaters;
1961 - About Chekhov
1963 - About the literary work of M. A. Aldanov
1965 - The role of the writer in the modern world.

Apollinary Svetlovzorov

Georgy Ivanovich Cherkasov

Gazdanov Gaito (Georgy) Ivanovich(12/6/1903 – 12/5/1971) – writer, literary critic. Born in St. Petersburg into a wealthy family of Ossetian origin, Russian in culture, education and language. His father’s profession – a forester – forced the family to travel a lot around the country, so until the age of four, the future writer lived in St. Petersburg, and then in different cities of Russia (in Siberia, Tver province, etc.). He often visited relatives in the Caucasus, in Kislovodsk. School years fell on Poltava, where Gazdanov studied in the Cadet Corps for a year, and Kharkov, where, starting in 1912, he attended a gymnasium (until the seventh grade).

In 1919, Gazdanov joined Wrangel’s Volunteer Army and fought in the Crimea on an armored train. When the army retreated, Gazdanov went with it, first to Gallipoli, then to Constantinople. The first story, “The Hotel of the Future” (1922), was written here.

In the Bulgarian city of Shumen, Gazdanov graduated from a Russian gymnasium. In 1923 he moved to Paris, where he lived most of his life. He studied at the Faculty of History and Philology of the Sorbonne for four years. He worked as a loader, a locomotive cleaner, and a worker at the Citroen automobile plant. Sometimes, when he could not find work, he lived like a clochard, sleeping on the street. For twelve years, already a famous writer, he worked as a night taxi driver.

The first novel, “An Evening at Claire's,” was published in 1929 and was highly appreciated by I. Bunin and M. Gorky, and critics recognized Gaito Gazdanov and Vladimir Nabokov as the most talented writers of the younger generation.

In the spring of 1932, under the influence of M. Osorgin, Gazdanov joined the Russian Masonic lodge “Northern Star”. In 1961 he became its Master.

In 1935, Gazdanov married Faina Dmitrievna Lamzaki. In the same year, he made an unsuccessful attempt to return to his homeland, for which he turned to M. Gorky for help.

During the war, Gazdanov remained in occupied Paris. He sheltered Jews in his apartment. Since 1942 he took part in the Resistance movement. In 1947, Gazdanov and his wife received French citizenship.

After the war, the book “The Return of the Buddha” was published, which brought Gazdanov fame and money. From 1953 until the end of his life, he worked as a journalist and editor at Radio Liberty, where, under the pseudonym Georgy Cherkasov, he broadcast on Russian literature.

In 1970, the writer was diagnosed with lung cancer. Gaito Gazdanov died on the eve of his 68th birthday in Munich and was buried in the Sainte-Genevieve des Bois cemetery near Paris.

Biography Note:

Fantastic in creativity:

Gazdanov’s fantastic is miracles in everyday life in a complex plot, which Gazdanov especially appreciated in E. Poe and N.V. Gogol. For example, either a ghost or a resurrected double of the man killed by the narrator in the novel “The Ghost of Alexander Wolf.” Vyacheslav Ivanov really called Gazdanov’s realism “magical,” but clearly did not put into this term the meaning that is usually meant when they talk, for example, about books by Latin Americans. Passion for Freemasonry practically does not appear in Gazdanov’s books; they are devoid of obvious mysticism, although after reading one is left with the impression that “this does not happen.”

In The Return of the Buddha, the work closest to fantasy, main character at times it seems as if in “ parallel world", which is described as happening in reality, but there is no rational explanation for this; moreover, it can be considered a dream, hallucination, vision. A fairly large episode is dedicated to the character’s stay in a certain Central State, totalitarian, reminiscent of the worlds of Kafka, Nabokov, and Orwell. Some believe that this was Gazdanov's hint to Soviet Union, a kind of dystopian picture.

The novel “Pilgrims” tells about the unusual transformation of several people. Sometimes fleeting fantastic notes slip through a completely real narrative. For example, here is a quote from the novel “Pilgrims”: “When the train departed, he continued to stand for a long time on the edge of the platform and looked up, to where, behind the electrical wires, poles and water pumps, the high sky. It was the same as always. He saw the same sparkling, transparent vault in the unforgettable days of Golgotha ​​and in the distant times of the Crusades. He was convinced that it had always existed, and it seemed to him that he remembered the sky of that time - exactly the same as now.” What is this? Who is this character who played a huge role in Fred's life, turning his life inside out?

The novel “Awakening” tells how a young man, out of a sense of compassion, brings home to his home a woman who has lost her human appearance (she does not speak, walks under herself, this is a vegetable in pure form), but he patiently looks after her, talks to her, and a miracle happens: she recovers, remembers everything that happened to her.

Gaito (Georgy) Ivanovich Gazdanov, prose writer, literary critic, born November 23 (December 6 n.s.) 1903 in St. Petersburg in a wealthy family of Ossetian origin, Russian in culture, education and language.

His father's profession - a forester - forced the family to travel a lot around the country, so the future writer spent only his childhood years in St. Petersburg, then lived in different cities of Russia (in Siberia, Tver province, etc.). He often visited relatives in the Caucasus, in Kislovodsk. My school years were spent in Poltava, where I studied in the Cadet Corps for a year, and Kharkov, where I started since 1912 studied at the gymnasium. I managed to finish my studies until the seventh grade. In 1919 At the age of sixteen he joined the Wrangel Volunteer Army and fought in the Crimea. Serves on an armored train.

When the army retreated, Gazdanov went with it, first to Gallipoli, then to Constantinople. Here he accidentally meets his cousin, a ballerina, who left before the revolution and lived and worked in Constantinople with her husband. They helped Gazdanov a lot. Here he continued his studies at the gymnasium in 1922. The first story, “The Hotel of the Future,” was written here. The gymnasium was transferred to the city of Shumen in Bulgaria, where Gazdanov graduated from the gymnasium in 1923.

In 1923 arrives in Paris, which he does not leave for thirteen years. To earn a living, you have to do any job: a loader, a locomotive washer, a worker at the Citroen automobile plant, etc. Then he works as a taxi driver for 12 years. During these twelve years, four of the nine novels were written, twenty-eight of the thirty-seven short stories, and the rest took thirty next years.

Late 1920s - early 1930s He studied for four years at the Sorbonne at the Faculty of History and Philology, studying the history of literature, sociology, and economic sciences.

Spring 1932 under the influence of M. Osorgin, he joined the Russian Masonic lodge “Northern Star”. In 1961 became her Master.

In 1930 Gazdanov’s first novel, “An Evening at Claire’s,” went on sale, and the writer was immediately hailed as a talent. The entire emigration praised the novel. He regularly begins to publish stories and novels along with Bunin, Merezhkovsky, Aldanov, Nabokov in Sovremennye Zapiski (the most authoritative and respectable emigration magazine). Actively participates in the literary association “Kochevye”.

In 1936 goes to the Riviera, where he meets his future wife Gavrisheva, née Lamzaki (from a wealthy Odessa family Greek origin». In 1937-1939 every summer he comes here to the Mediterranean Sea, spending the most happy years life.

In 1939, when the war began, remained in Paris. Survives the fascist occupation, helps those who are in danger. Participates in the Resistance movement. He writes a lot: novels, stories. The only thing that was written at this time and received recognition was the novel “The Ghost of Alexander Wolf” ( 1945-1948 ). After the war, the book “The Return of the Buddha” was published, which had big success, brought fame and money. Since 1946 lives only by literary work, sometimes working as a night taxi driver.

In 1952 Gazdanov is offered to become an employee of the new radio station - “Svoboda”. He accepts this offer and since January 1953 and works here until his death. Three years later he becomes chief news editor (in Munich), in 1959 returns to Paris as a correspondent for the Paris Bureau of Radio Liberty. In 1967 he was again transferred to Munich as senior and then editor-in-chief of the Russian service. Having visited Italy, I forever fell in love with this country, especially Venice. I came here every year.

In 1952 The novel “Night Roads” is published, then “Pilgrims” ( 1952-1954 ). Latest novels, which saw the light of day - “Awakening” and “Evelina and Her Friends”, started in the 1950s, but finished in the late 60s.

Gazdanov died of lung cancer December 5, 1971 in Munich. He was buried in the Russian cemetery of Saint-Genevieve-des-Bois near Paris.