Konstantin Mikhailovich Simonov is wonderful. Kostya Simonov was born in November 1915 in Petrograd(). His father is Colonel of the General Staff Mikhail, his mother is Princess Obolenskaya. The boy was born at a difficult time for the country. The First World War was going on, followed by the revolution, then the years of the Civil War. Kostya's father has gone missing. Simonov moves with his mother to.
In Ryazan, the mother marries Ivanishchev. The new husband was a colonel in the Russian army, and was now teaching at a local military school. The boy grew up in a good family. Order and discipline reigned at home. ---After graduating from school, Simonov mastered the wisdom of the turner profession. In 1931, the family moved to Moscow, where Konstantin went to work at an aircraft factory. Soon he will change his job and will work as a technician at Mosfilm. At the age of 16, Simonov began writing poetry and went to study at Gorkov University. The young man studied the first three courses in the evening department, then transferred to the full-time department.
Simonov's first poems were published in 1936. Two years later (in 1938), Konstantin Mikhailovich graduated from the institute and immediately became the editor of the Literary Newspaper. I entered graduate school at IFLI and studied for only a year. Things were not calm in the east, a conflict broke out with Japan, and the poet was sent to Khalkhin Gol. There he worked for the newspaper “Heroic Red Army”. While on a business trip, the poet writes a series of poems about Mongolia. The series was called “To the Yurt Neighbors.” During the Soviet-Finnish War, the poet studied at war correspondent courses at the Frunze Military Academy. From the pen of Simonov come such works as “The Story of One Love”, “A Guy from Our Town”.
With the beginning, Simonov found himself at the front. The poet spent the entire war in the active army, he was called one of the most courageous and easy-going correspondents. Konstantin saw his duty in equating his literary creativity to weapons. The years of the War left many impressions and experiences in Simonov’s soul, which were reflected on paper. Everyone knows about Simonov’s war poems, which warmed the hearts of Russian soldiers in the trenches of World War II.
In 1942, Konstantin Mikhailovich joined the party. He became the senior battalion commissar. A year later, the commissioner was awarded the rank of lieutenant colonel. When the war ended, the poet became a colonel. Simonov the correspondent was not looking for hot soldiers' tales, nor was he looking for eyewitnesses of the events. He himself was always at the forefront, and could tell no less than others. He was among the defenders of Odessa, participated in, in. also could not pass without him, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria and - Simonov was everywhere. During the four years of the Great Patriotic War, the poet received four military orders.
When the war ended, Simonov was sent on a business trip abroad. The poet visited China, the USA, Japan, France, and Canada. During his travels he wrote several plays and poems. It is worth noting that the poet was awarded as many as six Stalin Prizes (!) for his work.
Simonov was the editor of Novy Mir, Literaturnaya Gazeta, deputy general secretary of the Writers' Union, was a deputy of the Supreme Council and a member of the CPSU Central Committee. During the post-war years, Simonov did a huge amount of work. He was creative and helped others. He communicated a lot with front-line soldiers, using his position to help them with “earthly issues” and issues of creativity.
Konstantin Simonov died at the end of August 1979 in Moscow. The poet's ashes were scattered over Buinichesky Field according to his will. The fact is that on July 13, 1941, it was here that he fought to the death as part of the 388th Infantry Regiment, and here he first realized that there was a chance to win the war.
Konstantin's work was close to the people. He spent the war years on the front line, and along with, he is the most popular poet of the 20th century.
Konstantin was born on November 15 (28), 1915 in Petrograd. But Simonov lived the first years of his life in Saratov and Ryazan. He was named Kirill by his parents, but then changed his name and took a pseudonym - Konstantin Simonov. He was raised by his stepfather, who was a military specialist and taught at military schools.
Education
If we consider Simonov’s brief biography, it is important to note that after completing seven years of school, the writer studied to become a turner. Then in the life of Konstantin Simonov, in 1931, he moved to Moscow, after which he worked at the plant until 1935.
Around the same time, Simonov’s first poems were written, and his works were published for the first time in 1936.
After receiving higher education at the Gorky Literary Institute (1938) and completing graduate school, he went to the front in Mongolia.
Creativity and military career
In 1940, Simonov’s first play, “The Story of a Love,” was written, and in 1941, the second, “A Guy from Our Town.”
Konstantin Simonov studied at war correspondent courses, then, with the beginning of the war, he wrote for the newspapers “Battle Banner” and “Red Star”.
Throughout his life, Konstantin Mikhailovich Simonov received several military ranks, the highest of which was the rank of colonel, awarded to the writer after the end of the war.
Some of Simonov’s famous war works were: “Wait for Me,” “War,” “Russian People.” After the war, a period of business trips began in the biography of Konstantin Simonov: he traveled to the USA, Japan, China, and lived in Tashkent for two years. He worked as editor-in-chief of the Literaturnaya Gazeta and the New World magazine, and was a member of the Writers' Union. Films were made based on many of Simonov's works.
Death and legacy
The writer died on August 28, 1979 in Moscow, and his ashes were scattered, according to his will, over the Buinichi field (Belarus). Streets in Moscow and Mogilev, Volgograd, Kazan, Krivoy Rog and the Krasnodar Territory are named after him. Also, a library in Moscow was named in his honor, memorial plaques were installed in Ryazan and Moscow, a motor ship and an asteroid were named after him.
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Simonov Konstantin (Kirill) Mikhailovich is a Russian Soviet writer, poet, playwright and publicist.
Born on November 15 (28), 1915 in the city of Petrograd (now St. Petersburg). Russian. Birth name: Kirill Mikhailovich Simonov. In 1919-1927 he lived in Ryazan, from 1927 - in Saratov. In 1930 he graduated from 7 classes of school, after which he studied at a factory school (FZU). At the same time, in the fall of 1931, he worked as a metal turner at the Universal plant in Saratov.
From the end of 1931 he lived in Moscow. In 1932 he graduated from the Federal School of Precision Mechanics. In 1932-1935 he worked as a turner at an aircraft factory, in the mechanical shops of the Mezhrabpomfilm film factory and the Tekhfilm film factory.
Since 1932, he wrote poems, which were first published in 1936 in the magazines “Young Guard” and “October”. In 1934-1936 he studied at the Evening Workers Literary University, in 1938 he graduated from the A.M. Literary Institute. Gorky. In 1938-1939 he studied at the graduate school of the Institute of History, Philosophy and Literature, but interrupted his studies due to going on a business trip to Mongolia. In 1939 he took a literary pseudonym - Konstantin Simonov.
Participant in the battles with Japanese troops on the Khalkhin Gol River: in August-September 1939 - war correspondent for the newspaper "Heroic Red Army".
In March 1940, he completed a two-month course for war correspondents at the Military Academy named after M.V. Frunze.
In the pre-war period, K.M. Simonov created the poems “First Love” (1936, new edition - 1941), “Winner” (1937), “Battle on the Ice” (1937), “Pavel Cherny” (1938), “Five Pages” (1938) and “Suvorov” (1938-1939), the plays “The Story of One Love” (1940, new edition - 1954) and “The Guy from Our City” (1941), many poems.
In June 1941 he graduated from the War Correspondents Course at the Military-Political Academy. In the army since June 24, 1941.
Participant of the Great Patriotic War: in June-July 1941 - war correspondent for the Western Front newspaper "Krasnoarmeyskaya Pravda". At the same time, as a freelance correspondent, he sent military correspondence to the Izvestia newspaper. Since July 1941 - war correspondent for the Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper.
During the war, he repeatedly went on business trips to the front line (their list is below):
1941 - Western Front (June - July), Southern Front, Primorsky and 51st (Crimean) armies, Black Sea Fleet (August - September; participated in the defense of Odessa), Murmansk direction of the Karelian Front and Northern Fleet (October and November), Western Front (December);
1942 - Transcaucasian Front (January and February-March; participated in the Kerch-Feodosia landing operation), Western Front (January-February), Murmansk direction of the Karelian Front (April-May), Bryansk and Western Fronts (July-August), Stalingrad front (August-September), Murmansk direction of the Karelian Front (November), Western Front (December);
1943 – North Caucasus and Southern Fronts (January-March), Southern Front (April), Central Front (July and August-October);
1944 - 1st and 2nd Ukrainian Fronts (March-April), 2nd Ukrainian Front (May), Leningrad Front (June; participated in the Vyborg operation); 1st Belorussian Front (July-August), 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian Fronts (August-September), Southern Serbia among the Yugoslav partisans (October), Soviet air base in the Italian city of Bari (October);
1945 - 4th Ukrainian Front (January-April), 1st Ukrainian Front (end of April), 1st Ukrainian and 1st Belorussian Fronts (May). On May 9, 1945, he was present at the signing of the surrender of the German army in Karlshorst.Most of K.M. Simonov’s front-line correspondence, published during the war in Krasnaya Zvezda, Izvestia and Pravda, comprised the four-volume book “From the Black to the Barents Sea. Notes of a war correspondent" (1942-1945), as well as the collections "Yugoslav Notebook" (1945) and "Letters from Czechoslovakia" (1945).
During the war years, he also wrote many famous war poems (“Wait for me”, “Do you remember, Alyosha, the roads of the Smolensk region”, “If your home is dear to you...”), the poem “The Artilleryman’s Son” (1941), the plays “Russian People” (1942), “Wait for me” (1943), “So it will be” (1944, new edition - 1970) and “Under the chestnut trees of Prague” (1945), the stories “Days and Nights” (1943-1944) and “Proud Man "(1945), two collections of poems were published - “With You and Without You” (1942) and “War” (1944).
After the war, until September 1946, he continued to work as a correspondent for the Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper. He repeatedly went on long business trips abroad, in particular to Japan (December 1945 - April 1946) and the USA (April-June 1946). Since September 1946, Lieutenant Colonel K.M. Simonov has been in reserve.
In September 1946 - February 1950 - editor-in-chief of the New World magazine. In October-December 1949, as a war correspondent for the Pravda newspaper, he was in the 4th Chinese Field Army in South China.
In February 1950 - August 1953 - editor-in-chief of the Literary Newspaper, in July 1954 - July 1958 - again editor-in-chief of the New World magazine.
In 1958-1960 he lived in Tashkent (Uzbekistan), worked as a traveling correspondent for the Pravda newspaper in the republics of Central Asia. In 1963-1967, as a special correspondent for Pravda, he made many trips around the country, and in 1970 he was in Vietnam (during the war with the United States).
In the post-war years, K.M. Simonov created the trilogies “The Living and the Dead” (the novels “The Living and the Dead”, 1955-1959; “Soldiers Are Not Born”, 1960-1964; “The Last Summer”, 1965-1970) and “The So-Called personal life (From Lopatin's notes)" (stories "Four Steps", 1956-1964; "Twenty Days Without War", 1972; "We Won't See You", 1978), novel "Comrades in Arms" (1950, new edition – 1965), the story “Smoke of the Fatherland” (1946, new edition – 1956), “The Case of Polynin” (1969) and “Sofya Leonidovna” (published in 1985), the plays “The Russian Question” (1946), “Alien Shadow” (1949) and “The Fourth” (1961), the poems “Ivan and Marya” (1954) and “Father” (1956-1958), essay-reflection “Through the eyes of a man of my generation, Reflections on I.V. Stalin” (1979, published in 1988), collections of poems “Friends and Enemies” (1948) and “Vietnam, Winter of the Seventieth” (1971), diary collections “Far in the East” (1968), “Different Days of the War” (1974-1975), “ Japan - 46" (1976).
For great services in the development of Soviet literature, active social activities and in connection with the 40th anniversary of the formation of the Union of Writers of the USSR by Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of September 27, 1974 Simonov Konstantin (Kirill) Mikhailovich awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor with the Order of Lenin and the Hammer and Sickle gold medal.
In addition to literary work, he was involved in film and television documentaries. With his participation as a screenwriter, the documentaries “Where Hemingway Lived” (1964), “If Your Home is Dear to You” (1967), “Grenada, Grenada, My Grenada...” (1967), “No Other Man’s Sorrow” were created. it happens" (1972) and "A soldier was walking..." (1975). According to his plan and with his direct participation, the series of television programs “Soldier’s Memoirs” (1976; 6 episodes) and “Soldier’s Memoirs. Letters" (1977, 2 issues).
Author of scripts for several feature films: “A Guy from Our City” (1942), “In the Name of the Motherland” (1943), “Wait for Me” (1943), “Days and Nights” (1944), “Immortal Garrison” (1956), “Normandy-Niemen” (1960, together with S. Spaak and E. Triolet), “The Case of Polynin” (1970, together with A.N. Sakharov), “Twenty Days Without War” (1976) and “Ordinary Arctic” (1976). He was engaged in literary translations of poetic texts (from English, Azerbaijani, Georgian, Uzbek and other languages).
Member of the USSR Writers' Union since 1938. In September 1946 - October 1953 - Deputy General Secretary of the Union of Writers of the USSR. In 1953-1959 - Secretary of the Union of Writers of the USSR, since 1967 - Secretary of the Board of the Union of Writers of the USSR.
Corresponding member of the Academy of Arts of the GDR (1966).
Candidate member of the Central Committee of the CPSU in 1952-1956, member of the Central Audit Commission of the CPSU in 1956-1961 and since 1976.
Deputy of the Supreme Soviets of the USSR of the 2nd and 3rd convocations (in 1946-1954) and of the RSFSR of the 4th convocation (in 1955-1959).
Lived in Moscow. Died August 28, 1979. After cremation, his ashes were scattered on the Buynichi field near Mogilev (Belarus), where on July 13, 1941, K.M. Simonov took part in a difficult battle with German tanks.
Colonel (1965). Awarded 3 Orders of Lenin (11/27/1965; 07/2/1971; 09/27/1974), Order of the Red Banner (05/3/1942), 2 Orders of the Patriotic War, 1st degree (05/30/1945; 09/23/1945), Order of the Badge of Honor (01/31/1939), medals, foreign awards - the Order of the White Lion "For Victory" 3rd degree and the Military Cross of 1939 (Czechoslovakia), the Order of Sukhbaatar (Mongolia), medals.
Laureate of the Lenin Prize (1974, for the trilogy “The Living and the Dead”), six Stalin Prizes (1942 – 1st degree, for the play “The Guy from Our City”; 1943 – 2nd degree, for the play “Russian People”; 1946 – 2nd degree, for the novel “Days and Nights”; 1947 – 1st degree, for the play “The Russian Question”; 1949 – 2nd degree, for the collection of poems “Friends and Enemies”; 1950 – 1st degree , for the play Alien Shadow") and the State Prize of the RSFSR named after the Vasilyev brothers (1966, for the literary basis of the film "The Living and the Dead").
Honorary citizen of the city of Gulkevichi (Krasnodar region, 1971).
A monument to K.M. Simonov was erected in Saratov. Streets in the cities of Moscow, Volgograd, Krasnodar, Gulkevichi (Krasnodar Territory), Nytva (Perm Territory) and Mogilev (Belarus), a library in Moscow and a small planet are named after him. In Moscow, memorial plaques were installed on the house in which his office was located, in Ryazan on the school building where he studied, and in the city of Gulkevichi. In 1982-1996, the writer's name was borne by the cruise passenger ship "Konstantin Simonov" (now sold abroad and renamed), currently the river passenger ship "Konstantin Simonov" (home port - Nizhny Novgorod) bears his name.
Collected works:
Works (in 3 volumes). M., 1952-1953;
Collected Works in 6 volumes). M., 1966-1970;
Collected works (in 12 volumes). M., 1979-1987.
Autobiography of K.M. Simonov (1978):
“I was born in 1915 in Petrograd, and spent my childhood in Ryazan and Saratov. My mother worked either as a typist or as a clerk, and my stepfather, a former participant in the Japanese and German wars, was a teacher of tactics at a military school.
Our family lived in commander's dormitories. Military life surrounded me, my neighbors were also military, and the life of the school itself passed before my eyes. Outside the windows, on the parade ground, morning and evening roll calls were carried out. Mother participated, along with other commander’s wives, in various assistance commissions; Guests who came to their parents most often talked about the service, about the army. Twice a month I, along with other guys, went to the food warehouse to receive commander's allowance.
In the evenings, my stepfather sat and prepared diagrams for the upcoming classes. Sometimes I helped him. Discipline in the family was strict, purely military. There was a strict daily routine, everything was done according to the clock, at zero-zero, it was impossible to be late, you were not supposed to object, you had to keep your word given to anyone, every lie, even the smallest one, was despised.
Since both father and mother were employees, there was a division of labor in the house. From the age of six or seven, I was assigned feasible, gradually increasing responsibilities. I wiped the dust, swept the floor, helped wash the dishes, peeled potatoes, looked after the kerosene stove, and if my mother didn’t have time, I went for bread and milk. I don’t remember the time when they made my bed for me or helped me get dressed.
The atmosphere of our home and the atmosphere of the military unit where my father served gave me an attachment to the army and to everything military in general, an attachment combined with respect. This childish, not fully conscious feeling, as it turned out later, became flesh and blood.
In the spring of 1930, after finishing a seven-year school in Saratov, instead of the eighth grade, I went to the factory department to study to become a turner. He made the decision alone; at first his parents did not particularly approve, but his stepfather, as always stern, said: “Let him do as he decided, it’s his business!”
Remembering this time now, I think that there were two serious reasons that prompted me to act this way and not otherwise. The first and main thing is the five-year-old tractor plant that was just built not far from us, in Stalingrad, and the general atmosphere of the romance of construction, which captured me already in the sixth grade of school. The second reason is the desire to earn money on your own. We lived tightly, on a shoestring, and the thirty-seven rubles in salary that I began to bring in during my second year as a factory teacher were a significant contribution to our family budget.
At the FZU we studied theory four hours a day, and worked for four hours, first in training workshops, then in factories. I had to work in the machine shop of the Universal plant, which produced American chucks for lathes.
In the late autumn of 1931, I moved to Moscow with my parents and in the spring of 1932, having graduated from the factory department of precision mechanics and received the specialty of a 4th category turner, I went to work at an aircraft plant, and then to the mechanical workshop of the Mezhrabpomfilm film factory.
My hands were by no means golden, and my skill was achieved with great difficulty; however, things gradually improved, and after a few years I was already working in the seventh category.
During these same years I began to write poetry little by little. I accidentally came across a book of sonnets by the French poet Heredia “Spoils” in translations by Glushkov (Oleron). I find it difficult to explain now why these coldly beautiful poems made such a strong impression on me then that I wrote a whole notebook of my own sonnets in imitation of them. But, apparently, it was they who prompted me to make my first attempts at writing. Soon, after I defeated all of Mayakovsky with one spirit, my new brainchild was born - a poem in the form of a long conversation with a monument to Pushkin. Following it, I quite quickly composed another poem from the times of the Civil War and gradually became addicted to writing poetry - sometimes they turned out sonorous, but most were imitative. My family and workmates liked the poems, but I myself did not attach serious importance to them.
In the fall of 1933, under the influence of articles about Belomorstroy, with which all newspapers were then full, I wrote a long poem called “Belomorskal”. When she read loudly, she impressed her listeners. Someone advised me to go with her to a literary consultation - what if they take it and publish it?
Not really believing this, I, however, could not resist the temptation and went to Bolshoi Cherkassky Lane, where on the fourth floor, in a cramped room lined with tables, the literary consultation of Goslitizdat was located. It was headed by Vladimir Iosifovich Zelensky, who once wrote in Pravda under the pseudonym Leonty Kotomka, and Anatoly Konstantinovich Kotov, Sergei Vasilyevich Bortnik and Stefan Yuryevich Kolyadzhin worked as consultants. These were then still young people, enthusiasts, passionate about their work - painstaking and not always rewarding work with beginners. I arrived on time - the literary consultation of Goslitizdat was releasing the next, second collection of young authors called “Show of Forces”.
After reading my creation, Kolyajin said that I was not devoid of abilities, but there was still a lot of work to be done. And I began to work: for six months, almost every two weeks, I rewrote the poem and brought it to Kolyajin, and he again forced me to redo it. Finally, in the spring, deciding that we had both done everything we could with the poem, Kolyajin took it to Vasily Vasilyevich Kazin, who edited poetry at Goslitizdat. Kazin also recognized my abilities, but rejected the poem as such, saying that only individual successful passages, or, as he put it, fragments, could be selected from it. And these fragments, after I work on them some more, can probably be included in the collection “Show of Forces.”
Throughout the spring and early summer, every day when I came home from work, I sat until late and pored over the fragments. And when I was completely exhausted under the load of corrections, Kazin, who seemed to me a very strict person, suddenly said: “Okay, now we can - go to the set!” The collection “Show of Forces” went to the printing house. All that was left was to wait for his release. In the summer, having received a vacation, I decided to go to the White Sea Canal to see with my own eyes what I wrote poetry about, using other people’s newspaper articles. When I timidly spoke about this at the Goslitizdat consultation, I was unexpectedly supported not only morally, but also financially. In the sector of cultural work, money was found for this trip, and a few days later, having received three hundred rubles and adding them to my vacation pay, I went to Bear Mountain, where the administration of the so-called Belbaltlag, which was engaged in the completion of a number of canal structures, was located. I had a certificate in my pocket, which stated that Simonov K.M. - a young poet from production - is sent to collect material about the White Sea Canal and that the cultural sector of Goslitizdat asks to provide the said poet with all possible assistance.
I spent a month at the White Sea Canal. Most of the time he lived at one of the camp points not far from Bear Mountain. I was nineteen years old, and in that barracks where I settled down in the closet of the camp teacher (who, like everyone else, was a prisoner), no one, of course, took me seriously as a writer. My persona did not interest anyone or bother anyone, and therefore people remained themselves. When I talked about myself and that I wanted to write a poem about the White Sea Canal (and I really wanted to write a new one instead of the previous one), they treated this with humor and sympathy, patted me on the shoulder, approved - “Let's get through!”
Returning to Moscow, I wrote this new poem. It was called “Horizon”, the poems were still indigestible, but behind them there was already real content - what I saw and knew. During the consultation, I was advised to go study at the Evening Workers' Literary University, which had recently opened on the initiative of A.M. Gorky, and they even wrote a recommendation.
At the beginning of September 1934, having passed the admissions tests, I found my name in a long list of those accepted, posted in the corridors of the famous “Herzen House”. This list contained many names of people who never became writers, but also many who are now famous in poetry. Among them are the names of Sergei Smirnov, Sergei Vasiliev, Mikhail Matusovsky, Viktor Bokov, Olga Vysotskaya, Yan Sashin.
It was difficult to study for the first year and a half; I continued to work as a turner, first at Mezhrabpomfilm, and then at the Tekhfilm film factory. I lived far away, behind the Semyonovskaya outpost, worked on the Leningradskoe highway, ran to lectures in the evenings, and at night continued to write and rewrite my poem about the White Sea Canal, which became longer and longer the further I went. There was practically no time left for sleep, and then it turned out that I was much less well-read than I thought before. I had to urgently swallow literature in huge portions.
In my second year, it became clear that I could no longer do three things at once - work, study and write. Reluctantly, I had to leave my job and do odd jobs, because we were not given scholarships, and my poems had not yet been published.
Recalling my young years, I cannot help but mention my leaders at the poetry seminar of the Literary Institute, Ilya Dukor and Leonid Ivanovich Timofeev, and my poetic mentors of those years - Vladimir Lugovsky and Pavel Antokolsky, who played a significant role in my literary destiny. I still feel great gratitude to these people. In 1936, my first poems were published in the magazines “Young Guard” and “October”, and in 1938, under the title “Pavel Cherny”, the same poem about the White Sea Canal, with the first version of which I spent five years, was finally published as a separate book. I went back to the literary consultation. Its publication did not bring me joy, but - while I was writing and rewriting it - it taught me how to work.
However, it was not the publication of poetry or the publication of my first book that became for me the step upon which I felt that I was becoming a poet.
This feeling is definitely and definitely associated with one day and one poem.
Soon after the newspapers published the news of the death of the commander of the International Brigade, General Lukács, near Huesca in Spain, I suddenly learned that the legendary Lukács was the writer Mate Zalka, a man whom I had seen more than once and whom a year ago I had easily met on the tram, then on the street. That same evening I sat down and wrote a poem, “The General.”
It spoke about the fate of Mate Zalka - General Lukács, but internally, with youthful frankness and fervor, I answered myself the question - what should be the fate of my generation in our revolutionary times? Who to model life on?
Yes, I want to live my own life exactly like Mate Zalka. Yes, that’s exactly why I won’t be sorry to give it away!
In the poems “General” the rhymes were lame and there were clumsy lines, but the strength of the feeling that was in my soul made them, it seems to me, my first real poems. In fact, it’s time to put an end to this, talking about how you started.
I will outline my further biography of a professional writer who was accepted into the Union of Writers in 1938 only in the most general terms. If only you yourself can tell about the time when you were not published or were just starting to publish, then everything subsequent in the life of a writer is mainly spoken about by his books.
Therefore, everything further in this autobiography will be only a brief commentary on the most important thing - books.
In the fall of 1938, after graduating from the A.M. Gorky Literary Institute, I entered graduate school at IFLI. In the summer of 1939, he passed the first three minimum candidate exams. In August of the same year, by order of the Political Directorate of the Red Army, he left for Khalkhin Gol, Mongolia, as a war correspondent for the newspaper “Heroic Red Army”. I never returned to classes at IFLI.
After Khalkhin Gol, during the Finnish War, he completed a two-month course for war correspondents at the Frunze Academy. But I didn’t get to the front - the war was already over.
In 1940, I wrote my first play, “The Story of a Love,” which was staged at the Lenin Komsomol Theater at the end of that year. And after this he wrote a second one - “A Guy from Our Town”, staged in the same theater on the eve of the war.
From the autumn of 1940 to June 1941, he studied at the war correspondents' courses at the Military-Political Academy. He graduated from them in mid-June 1941, receiving the military rank of quartermaster of the second rank.
In June 1941 I became a party candidate. On June 24, 1941, he was called up from the reserves and, with an order from the Political Directorate of the Red Army, went to work in the newspaper “Battle Banner” of the Third Army in the Grodno region. Due to the situation at the front, he did not reach his destination and was assigned to the editorial office of the Western Front newspaper “Krasnoarmeyskaya Pravda”. He worked there until July 20, 1941. At the same time, as a freelance correspondent, he sent military correspondence to Izvestia. On July 20, 1941, he was transferred as a war correspondent to Red Star, where he served until the fall of 1946.
In June 1942 I was accepted as a party member.
In 1942, I was awarded the rank of senior battalion commissar. In 1943 - the rank of lieutenant colonel, and after the war - colonel.
In 1942 I was awarded the Order of the Red Banner, and in 1945 - two Orders of the Patriotic War of the first degree, the Czechoslovak Military Cross and the Order of the White Lion. After the war, for participation in the battles at Khalkhin Gol - the Mongolian Order of Sukhbaatar.
For services in the field of literature, he was awarded the Order of the Badge of Honor in 1939, the Order of Lenin in 1965, and the Order of Lenin again in 1971.
Most of my correspondence, published during the war in “Red Star”, “Izvestia” and “Pravda”, amounted to four books “From the Black to the Barents Sea”, the books “Yugoslav Notebook” and “Letters from Czechoslovakia”, much remained only in newspapers. During the war years, I wrote the plays “Russian People”, “Wait for Me”, “So It Will Be”, the story “Days and Nights” (1943-1944) and two books of poems - “With You and Without You” and “War”, and immediately after the war, the play “Under the Chestnut Trees of Prague.”
Almost all the material - for the books written during the war, and for most of the post-war ones - was provided to me by my work as a correspondent at the front.
In this regard, it is perhaps worth giving an idea of how the geography of this work evolved during the war years. Due to my duty, I was at different times on the following fronts:
1941: June-July – Western Front; August-September - Southern Front, Primorsky Army - Odessa, Special Crimean Army - Crimea, Black Sea Fleet; October and November – Murmansk direction of the Karelian Front, Northern Fleet; December – Western Front.
1942: January - Transcaucasian Front (Novorossiysk, Feodosia); January-February – Western Front; February-March – Kerch Peninsula; April-May – Murmansk direction of the Karelian Front; July-August – Bryansk Front, Western Front; August-September – Stalingrad Front; November – Murmansk direction of the Karelian Front; December – Western Front.
1943: January-February-March - North Caucasus and Southern fronts; April – Southern Front; May-June – leave received from the editors for writing “Days and Nights”. I lived these months in Alma-Ata and wrote almost the entire book in draft. July – Kursk Bulge; August-October - several trips to the armies of the Central Front. December - correspondent for "Red Star" at the Kharkov trial of fascists - organizers of mass murders of the population.
1944: March-April – First and Second Ukrainian Fronts; May – Second Ukrainian Front; June - Leningrad Front, from the beginning of the breakthrough of the Mannerheim Line to the capture of Vyborg; July-August – First Belorussian Front, Lublin, Majdanek; August-September - in parts of the Second and Third Ukrainian Fronts during the offensive from Iasi to Bucharest, then in Bulgaria, Romania and Yugoslavia; October - in Southern Serbia among the Yugoslav partisans. After the liberation of Belgrade, a flight to Italy to our air base in Bari.
1945: January-April - Fourth Ukrainian Front, Transcarpathian Ukraine, Southern Poland, Slovakia, in our units and parts of the Czechoslovak Corps; end of April - First Ukrainian Front, meeting with the Americans in Torgau. The last days of the battle for Berlin took place in parts of the First Ukrainian and First Belorussian Fronts. He was present at the signing of the surrender of the German army in Karlshorst. On May 10 I was in Prague.
After the war, I had to spend a total of about three years on numerous foreign business trips. The longest and most significant trips for me were those directly related to correspondent and writing work: a trip to Japan (December 1945 - April 1946); USA (April 1946 - June 1946), China (October 1949 - December 1949) - I made most of this last trip as a war correspondent for Pravda with the 4th Chinese Field Army in South China.
From 1958 to 1960, I lived in Tashkent and worked as a traveling correspondent for Pravda in the republics of Central Asia. These years included many trips to the Tien Shan, the Pamirs, the Hungry Steppe, the Karshi Steppe, the Kyzylkum Desert, the Karakum Desert, along the routes of gas pipelines under construction.
1963-1967 - I, also as a special correspondent for Pravda, traveled to Mongolia, Taimyr, Yakutia, Krasnoyarsk Territory, Irkutsk Region, the Kola Peninsula, Kazakhstan, Khabarovsk Territory, Primorye, Kamchatka, Magadan, Chukotka. In 1970 I was in Vietnam.
My social activities in the post-war years were as follows: from 1946 to 1950 and from 1954 to 1958 - editor-in-chief of the New World magazine. From 1950 to 1953 - editor-in-chief of Literaturnaya Gazeta. From 1946 to 1959 and from 1967 to the present - Secretary of the Board of the Union of Writers of the USSR. From 1946 to 1954 – deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. From 1955 to 1959 – deputy of the Supreme Council of the RSFSR. From 1952 to 1956 - candidate member of the CPSU Central Committee. From 1956 to 1951 - member of the Central Audit Commission of the CPSU.
He was elected as a delegate to the XXIII, XXIV and XXV Congresses of the CPSU. At the XXV Congress of the CPSU he was elected a member of the Central Audit Commission of the CPSU.
For many years I have been involved in the peace movement. In recent years, I have been one of the deputy chairmen of the Soviet Peace Committee.
During the period of my literary activity, I was awarded six USSR State Prizes for the plays “A Guy from Our City”, “Russian People”, “Russian Question”, “Alien Shadow”, for the book of poems “Friends and Enemies” and the story “Days and Nights” ", as well as the State Prize of the RSFSR named after the Vasilyev brothers for cinematography for the film "The Living and the Dead".
In 1974, I was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor, and for the trilogy “The Living and the Dead” I was awarded the Lenin Prize.
In 1966 I was elected corresponding member of the Academy of Arts of the German Democratic Republic.
In the post-war period, I continued to work in poetry and drama, wrote several plays, among which “The Russian Question” and “The Fourth” I consider more successful than others. He published three books of poetry - “Friends and Enemies”, “Poems of 1954” and “Vietnam, Winter of the Seventieth...”, and did quite a lot of poetic translations.
However, most of all he wrote prose. In the 1950s, the novel “Comrades in Arms”, the story “Smoke of the Fatherland”, and the book of stories “From Lopatin’s Notes” were published.
From 1955 to 1970, I worked on the books “The Living and the Dead,” “Soldiers Are Not Born,” and “The Last Summer,” which now, after completion, formed a single novel with the general title “The Living and the Dead.”
The most recent stories I wrote, “Twenty Days Without War” and “We Won’t See You,” complete the work on the prose cycle “From Lopatin’s Notes.”
In 1977, my two-volume diary “Different Days of the War” was published. The beginning of work on this book should be dated back to 1941, when the first of the entries included in it were made.
Shortly after the release of this two-volume set of war diaries, my other diary book, “Japan-46,” was published, almost adjacent to it in terms of action.
For the last few years, in addition to purely literary work, I have also been involved in film and television documentaries. With my participation, the films “If your home is dear to you...”, “Grenada, Grenada, my Grenada...”, “There is no such thing as someone else’s grief”, “A soldier was walking...”, “Mayakovsky makes an exhibition” were made with my participation. television films “Soldier’s Memoirs”, “Alexander Tvardovsky”, “What an Interesting Personality”.
One can say about Konstantin Mikhailovich Simonov that he was a Soviet legend, poet and writer, journalist, screenwriter and public figure, whose works have been appreciated by more than one generation. The biography of Konstantin Simonov is very rich and tells about the enormous literary talent that was forged under the bullets and explosive shells of World War II.
Konstantin Simonov. short biography
The writer's real name is Kirill; he was born on November 15 (28), 1915 in Petrograd. The writer did not know his father; he disappeared without a trace during the First World War.
When the boy was four years old, he and his mother moved to Ryazan, where he had a stepfather, A.G. Ivanishev, a former White Guard, colonel, who after the revolution taught combat tactics in military schools, and then became the commander of the Red Army.
The biography of Konstantin Simonov further tells that his life was later spent in military garrisons and commanders' dormitories. After graduating from seven-year school, he studied at a factory school. Afterwards he began working as a turner in Saratov, and then, in 1931, his family moved to Moscow. A few years later, he entered to study at them. Gorky. During his student years, Konstantin Simonov wrote many works of art and poetry. A short biography further indicates that after graduating from the institute, in 1936, he began to publish in the literary magazines “October” and “Young Guard”. And in the same year he was accepted into the Union of Writers of the USSR.
War correspondent service
Then he studies at the IFLI graduate school and publishes the poem “Pavel Cherny.” He will change his name Kirill to the pseudonym Konstantin due to his failure to pronounce the letter “r”.
The biography of Konstantin Simonov contains the fact that in 1939 he was sent as a war correspondent to Khalkhin Gol, after which he would not return to his institute. At this time, its popularity begins to grow.
In 1940, he wrote the play “The Story of a Love,” followed by the play “The Guy from Our Town” in 1941. Then he entered the Military-Political Academy named after. Lenin and graduated in 1941 with the military rank of quartermaster of the second rank.
War
At the very beginning of the Second World War he was drafted into the army, worked at the publishing house “Battle Banner”, but almost immediately left as a special correspondent for “Red Star” to besieged Odessa. The biography of Konstantin Simonov in these years is very rich.
He received the rank of senior battalion commissar in 1942, in 1943 he was awarded the rank of lieutenant colonel, and after the war he received the rank of colonel. During these years, he wrote such famous works as “Wait for Me,” “Russian People,” “Days and Nights,” and collections of poems “War” and “With You and Without You.”
Konstantin Simonov visited Yugoslavia, Romania, Poland and Germany as a war correspondent. He witnessed the last days of the battles for Berlin.
All these events were described in numerous collections of essays: “Slavic Friendship”, “Yugoslav Notebook”, “Letters from Czechoslovakia”, etc.
Post-war creativity
At the end of the war, the biography of Konstantin Mikhailovich Simonov indicates that for three years he worked as editor of the New World magazine and was on frequent business trips to China, the USA and Japan. Then, from 1958 to 1960, he worked in the Pravda publication of the Central Asian republics.
His famous works of that time were the novels “Comrades in Arms,” “The Last Summer,” and “Soldiers Are Not Born.” Many artistic paintings were made based on them.
After Stalin's death, K. Simonov writes several articles about him, and for this he falls into disgrace with Khrushchev. He is urgently removed from the post of editor-in-chief of Literaturnaya Gazeta.
The writer died in Moscow on August 28, 1979. The biography of Konstantin Mikhailovich Simonov stops here. According to the writer’s will, his ashes were scattered near Mogilev, over the Buinichi field. The writer’s widow Larisa Zhadova, his children, front-line friends and veterans took part in this process. This place was dear to him because in 1941 he witnessed brutal battles and how Soviet troops knocked out 39 Nazi tanks. He describes these events in the novel “The Living and the Dead” and in the diary “Different Days of the War.”
Today there is a huge stone installed on the outskirts of the field with a memorial plaque “K. M. Simonov." He had many awards and titles. After all, he was a truly great Russian man.
Konstantin Simonov: biography, personal life
His first wife was Natalya Viktorovna Ginzburg, who graduated with honors from the Literary Institute. Gorky and worked as a literary critic, and then headed the editorial office of Profizdat. The writer dedicated his wonderful poem “Five Pages” (1938) to her.
His second wife was Evgenia Samoilovna Laskina, who worked as a literary editor and headed the poetry department at the Moscow publishing house. Thanks to her, Bulgakov’s novel “The Master and Margarita” was published in the 60s. In 1939, she gave birth to his son Alexei.
Serova
In 1940, Konstantin Simonov falls in love with actress Valentina Serova, the wife of the deceased brigade commander Anatoly Serov (Hero of Spain) and breaks up with Laskina.
In the topic: “Konstantin Simonov: biography and creativity,” one cannot help but note the fact that love has always been the main inspiration for him. At this time, he wrote his famous work “Wait for Me,” and then a film of the same name was released, where Valentina Serova played the main role. They lived together for 15 years, and in 1950 their daughter Maria was born.
In 1940 he created his famous work “The Guy from Our Town”. His wife became the prototype for the main character Varya, and Anatoly Serov was Lukonin. But the actress did not want to participate in the play, as she was still grieving the loss of her husband.
In 1942, a collection of poems “With You and Without You” appeared, which was dedicated to Valentina Vasilyevna Serova. It was completely impossible to get this book, so it was copied by hand and learned by heart. In those years, no poet had such resounding success as Konstantin Simonov, especially after the release of this collection.
They got married in 1943, and a huge number of guests gathered at their home. Valentina Vasilyevna went through the entire war with her husband as part of concert teams. In 1946, Simonov, on behalf of the government, travels to France to return emigrant writers I. Bunin, N. Teffi, B. Zaitsev to their homeland and takes his wife.
Zhadova
But their love story did not have a happy ending.
The writer's last wife in 1957 was the daughter of Hero of the Soviet Union General A.S. Zhadov - Larisa Alekseevna, the widow of Simonov's deceased front-line friend S.P. Gudzenko. She was a famous art critic. Simonov adopted her daughter from her first marriage, Ekaterina, then they had a daughter, Alexandra.
And in the same year he entered the Literary Institute named after A.M. Gorky, who graduated in 1938.
His fellow students were the poets Evgeny Dolmatovsky, Mikhail Matusovsky, Margarita Aliger.
In 1938, Simonov was appointed editor of the Literary Newspaper and was admitted to the Union of Writers of the USSR.
In the same year, he entered graduate school at the IFLI (Institute of History, Philosophy, Literature), but in 1939 he was sent as a war correspondent for the newspaper “Heroic Red Army” to Khalkhin Gol in Mongolia and never returned to the institute.
Shortly before leaving, he changed his name and instead of the original Kirill took the pseudonym Konstantin Simonov (it was difficult for him to pronounce his own name, since he could not pronounce the letter “r”).
In 1940, Simonov wrote his first play, “The Story of a Love,” staged on the stage of the Lenin Komsomol Theater; in 1941, his second play, “A Guy from Our City,” appeared.
For a year, Konstantin Simonov studied at war correspondent courses at the Military-Political Academy, receiving the military rank of quartermaster of the second rank.
With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War (1941-1945), Simonov was drafted into the active army on the Western Front: he was his own correspondent for the newspapers “Red Star”, “Pravda”, “Komsomolskaya Pravda”, “Battle Banner”.
In 1942, Konstantin Simonov was awarded the rank of senior battalion commissar, in 1943 - the rank of lieutenant colonel, and after the war - colonel.
Most of his military correspondence was published in Red Star. Simonov became one of the best military journalists, having covered the entire war from the Black Sea to the Barents Sea. He visited all fronts, was in Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Poland, Germany, went on a submarine to the Romanian rear, with scouts - to the Norwegian fjords, on the Arabat Spit - to attack with infantry and ended the war in Berlin; witnessed the last battles for Berlin, and then was present at the signing of the act of surrender of Nazi Germany.
The poet became famous for his poem “Wait for Me,” published in the newspaper Pravda in January 1942. During the war years, his lyrics (“Do you remember, Alyosha, the roads of the Smolensk region...”, “Kill him!” (“If your home is dear to you”), etc.) gained great popularity.
During the war years, Konstantin Simonov published two books of poems “With You and Without You” and “War”, five collections of essays and stories, the story “Days and Nights”, plays “Russian People”, “So It Will Be”, “Under the Chestnuts” Prague", diaries, which later comprised two volumes of his collected works.
After the end of the war, he was on numerous foreign business trips. At the same time, his collections of essays “Letters from Czechoslovakia”, “Slavic Friendship”, “Yugoslav Notebook”, “From the Black to the Barents Sea. Notes of a War Correspondent” appeared.
In 1952, Konstantin Simonov’s first novel “Comrades in Arms” was published, in 1959 - the trilogy novel “The Living and the Dead” (1959), from 1963 to 1964 he wrote the novel “Soldiers Are Not Born”, the continuation of which was “The Last Summer” ", was written from 1970 to 1971, a cycle of stories "From Lopatin's Notes" (1957-1978).
In 1961, the Sovremennik Theater staged Simonov's play "The Fourth".
In 1976, the two-volume book “Different Days of the War” and the novel “So-Called Personal Life” were published.
Simonov’s memoirs “Diaries of the War Years” and his last book, “Through the Eyes of a Man of My Generation. Reflections on Stalin” (1979), are of great documentary value.
Konstantin Simonov headed various Soviet newspapers and magazines: in 1944-1946 - the magazine "Znamya", in 1946 - the newspaper "Red Star", in 1946-1950 and in 1954-1958 - the magazine "New World", in 1950 -1954 - "Literary Newspaper".
Since 1942, Simonov worked in cinema as a scriptwriter. He was the screenwriter of the films “A Guy from Our City” (1942), “In the Name of the Motherland” (1943), “Wait for Me” (1943), “Days and Nights” (1943-1944), “Russian Question” (1948), “The Immortal Garrison” (1956), “Normandy-Niemen” (1960), “The Living and the Dead” (1964), “Retribution” (1969), “The Case of Polynin” (1971), “Twenty Days Without War” (1976 ).
Simonov was involved in cinematography for the last ten years of his life. Together with Roman Karmen, he created a documentary film, the film poem “Grenada, Grenada, My Grenada”, and was the author of the script for the documentary films “If Your Home is Dear to You” (1967). “There is no such thing as someone else’s grief” (1973), “A Soldier Walked” (1975), “A Soldier’s Memoirs” (1976).
In addition to creativity, Konstantin Simonov was engaged in social and political activities. In 1946-1954 he was a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. In 1949-1979 he was a member of the presidium of the Soviet Peace Committee.
In 1956-1961 and since 1976, he was a member of the Central Audit Commission of the CPSU.
In 1946-1954 he served as Deputy General Secretary of the Board of the Union of Writers of the USSR. In 1954-1959 and 1967-1979 he was secretary of the board of the USSR Writers Union.
In 1974, Konstantin Simonov was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor. He was a laureate of six State (Stalin) Prizes of the USSR (1942, 1943, 1946, 1947, 1949, 1950) and the Lenin Prize (1974). He was awarded three Orders of Lenin (1965, 1971, 1974), the Order of the Badge of Honor (1939), the Red Banner (1942), two Orders of the Patriotic War, 1st degree (May 1945, September 1945), and medals.
On August 28, 1979, Konstantin Simonov died in Moscow. Knowing that he was doomed - he had cancer, the writer left a will in which he asked that his ashes be scattered in a field in Buynichi near Mogilev, where he once fought. On the tenth day after Simonov's death, his last will was fulfilled.
The first wife of Konstantin Simonov is Evgenia Laskina (1915-1991), literary editor, head of the poetry department of the Moscow magazine. In 1939, their son Alexey was born, a Russian public figure, film director, and publicist.
In 1943-1957, Simonov was married to actress Valentina Serova. In May 1950, their daughter Maria was born.
The writer's last wife was Larisa Zhadova (1927-1981), daughter of Hero of the Soviet Union General Alexei Zhadov, widow of Simonov's front-line comrade, the poet Semyon Gudzenko. She was a famous art critic, a specialist in the Russian avant-garde. They had a daughter, Alexandra. Simonov adopted Larisa's daughter Ekaterina.
The material was prepared based on information from open sources