Nikolai Korneevich Chukovsky Born May 20 (June 2), 1904, Odessa Date of death November 4, 1965, Moscow — Russian Soviet writer, translator of prose and poetry.
Biography
Nikolai was the first-born son of Korney Chukovsky and his wife Maria Borisovna, née Goldfeld. Immediately after the wedding in 1903, Chukovsky and his wife went to London, where Korney Ivanovich worked as a correspondent for the Odessa News newspaper; at the beginning of 1904, pregnant Maria Borisovna returned to Odessa, where Nikolai Jr. was born.
He spent his childhood and youth in St. Petersburg and Kuokkala. His father introduced him to literary circles, he became friends with K. Vaginov, L. Dobychin, N. Zabolotsky, V. Kaverin, M. Slonimsky, saw A. Blok closely — “Chukovsky’s kind and sharp memory captured such features of the poet that had eluded him attention of other memoirists.» He spent the summer of 1921 at the Kholomki estate (in the 1920s — the dacha of the Literary Fund), surrounded by his father, V. Khodasevich, O. Mandelstam, R. Dobuzhinsky, Evg. Zamyatin, V. Milashevsky.
In 1921 he graduated from the Tenishev School and studied (until 1924) at the social and pedagogical (historical and philological) faculty of Petrograd University. Graduated from the Higher State Courses of Art History at the Leningrad Institute of Art History (1930).
He started out as a poet, participated in the work of the “Sounding Shell” literary studio, led by Nikolai Gumilyov. In 1921, he became close to the literary group “Serapion Brothers”, they jokingly called Kolya and some of his comrades at the Tenishev School and studio “younger brothers…” He himself became the “hero” of Zoshchenko’s works
One day, in the late autumn of 1921, I went with Tanya to the theater located in Passage… In the foyer of the theater — unheard of news! — there was a buffet… I took Tanya to the counter and offered to eat a cake… Tanya ate the cake with the greatest pleasure. She licked her fingers, and immediately — whoop — she took another one from the vase. Of course, I didn’t tell her: “Lie back.” But… I experienced several terrible minutes. I didn’t know exactly how much money I had in my pocket… The next day I was in the House of Arts, went to Zoshchenko and told him about my experience yesterday in the theater… At the next Serapion gathering, he read the story “Aristocrat”.
— N. Chukovsky. «About what I saw.» M.: Young Guard, 2005
In 1922-1928 he published poetry (sometimes under the pseudonym “Nikolai Radishchev”). The poems received the approval of N. S. Gumilyov, V. F. Khodasevich, M. Gorky. After the collection of poems “Through the Wild Paradise” (L., 1928), he did not publish his original poems, publishing only poetic translations.
Through his father he met Maximilian Voloshin and visited him in Koktebel, where he met Andrei Bely. In July 1932, I went to Koktebel on a voucher to the Literary Fund Rest House and saw the last days of the life of M. A. Voloshin, who died on August 11, 1932. He was one of the few who took part in the funeral; the coffin was carried in the arms of the poet to the top of the Kuchuk-Yanyshar hill.
The name of N.K. Chukovsky was repeatedly mentioned in investigative cases investigating “anti-Soviet groups among Moscow and Leningrad writers” in the period 1937-1938, along with the names of Yu. K. Olesha, L. V. Nikulin, A. D. Dikiy, B.K. Lifshits, V.L. Kibalchich, G.O. Kuklin, S.D. Spassky, V.I. Stenich, he was in danger of sharing the fate of B. Lifshits (he testified against E. Tager, N. Chukovsky , G. Kuklin, S. Spassky), N. Oleinikov, V. Stenich, but arrest was avoided.
In 1939 he was drafted into the army and took part in the Soviet-Finnish war. From the first day of the Great Patriotic War — June 22, 1941, he was a war correspondent for the newspaper «Red Baltic Fleet», in July 1941 he came to Tallinn on foot from Paldiski along with a group of surviving political workers of the 10th bomber air brigade of the Baltic Fleet, which was completely destroyed in the first week of the war . In 1941, somewhere in the battles near Moscow, Nikolai’s younger brother, Boris, died. Nikolai took this death hard; in one of his letters to his wife, he even uttered bitter words of condemnation of his father: “but he is not innocent in Bobin’s fate.”
A participant in the defense of Leningrad, he remained in the city during the siege. At this time he became friends with A. Tarasenkov, a famous bibliophile critic. Since October 1943, he has been an instructor at the Main Political Directorate of the USSR Navy and the Naval Publishing House. In besieged Leningrad, he once miraculously survived — having stayed too long visiting Leonid Rakhmanov, he was late for the opening of the bridges, and when he arrived at his house in the morning, he discovered that it had been bombed. Demobilized in 1946.
Translated into Russian the works of E. Seton-Thompson, R. L. Stevenson, M. Twain, S. Petőfi, Y. Tuvim. In particular, he completed the most famous translation of the novel “Treasure Island” by Stevenson.
In the late 1950s he began writing memoirs.
…There is almost no himself there, he only draws others and, perhaps, with extreme benevolence
— Lev Uspensky. Based on the transcript of the speech at the Central House of Writers. 1966
In the last years of his life, he was a member of the boards of the USSR Writers’ Union and the RSFSR Writers’ Union, chairman of the translators’ section of the Writers’ Union, and a member of the board of the Soviet Writer publishing house.
Chukovsky’s grave at the Novodevichy cemetery in Moscow.
N.K. Chukovsky died suddenly in his sleep on November 4, 1965. The death of his son became a difficult test for 83-year-old Korney Ivanovich, who returned to memories of him in diaries and letters.
N.K. Chukovsky was buried in Moscow at the Novodevichy cemetery (site No. 6).
On the anniversary of the death of his “younger brother,” one of the oldest “Serapions” said: “He was a writer of the 30s, 40s, 50s, but he was a man of the 20s. What was characteristic of the literature of those years? […] This is the responsibility of consciousness of belonging to great literature, secondly, the measure of taste and, thirdly, imagery” (quoted from a transcript from the personal archive of D. N. Chukovsky)
Family
His wife is translator Marina Nikolaevna Chukovskaya, née Reinke (1905-1993).
Children:
Natalya (1925) — married to Kostyukova, Doctor of Medical Sciences, Professor, Honored Scientist of Russia (2004),
Nikolay (nicknamed Gulka, 1933) — communications engineer, Moscow Higher Technical School named after. N. Bauman,
Dmitry (1943) — television director, directed, in particular, the film “You are a man of fire!” (Chief editor of literary and dramatic programs of the Central Television), based on the script of his cousin, Elena Tsesarevna Chukovskaya, for the 100th anniversary of the birth of the famous grandfather.
