Valentin Dmitrievich Berestov, whose biography as a whole turned out to be happy, became a poet, a literary critic, and an archaeologist. He was wonderfully and variedly gifted and left a good memory of himself.
Childhood
On April Fools' Day, on April 11, in the eleventh year of Soviet power (1928), in the family of teacher D.M. Berestov, who went through the First World War, was born a son, Valentin. Little Valyushu, who, contrary to the meaning of his name (Valentin in Latin means “healthy, strong”), did not have good health, was brought up at home. When his grandson turned about a year old, his grandmothers secretly christened him. So Valentine was always looked after by a guardian angel. And his grandmothers were interesting: one was a peasant, the other a noblewoman. So strange began life Valya Berestov. His biography will continue in adolescence by no means dating children. In the meantime, he grew up an inquisitive little boy and at the age of 4 he learned to read the headlines. Their binder was collected by great-grandmother Alexandra Gerasimovna. There was a small library in the Berestovs' house. It also contained valuable books illustrated with old engravings. Their theme was the story that his father led at school. The family lived in poverty, had to cherish every penny. In those days, the majority of Soviet people were in poverty. So lived and Valya Berestov. The biography will tell how well-chosen children's books in the 30s will make him later an archaeologist.
During the war
The native Meshchovsk, in which the future writer was born, from the beginning of the Second World War quickly fell under German occupation, and the whole family was evacuated to Tashkent. There, at the age of fourteen, Valya Berestov showed his poems to Korney Chukovsky. The biography that he told himself describes how Korney Ivanovich literally saved the life of the boy, since he was starving and sick. There he met Anna Akhmatova, the widow of O. Mandelstam, the son of M. Tsvetaeva.
Lidiya Korneevna Chukovskaya taught literary criticism to the beginning poet, and Nadezhda Yakovlevna Mandelstam taught English. Anna Andreevna Akhmatova read to him and her son M. Tsvetaeva, but didn’t tell children about her bitter life, trying to protect them from everything terrible and forbidden, and Valentin Berestov, whose biography is interesting to his fans, accepted the love of very different people, becoming later large a phenomenon in the literature.
Study
In 1944, with A.A. Akhmatova, V. Berestov arrives in the capital. He graduates from the school for gifted children, which is located in Gorki, and then enters the Faculty of History of Moscow State University. And every week he goes home to Kaluga. But I must say that this is now an electric train from the Kiev station will bring to Kaluga in three hours. And how long had to travel in those war and post-war years! Already in 1946, he went to the excavations in Khorezm and Novgorod. Based on the received impressions and deep knowledge, the novels “The Sword in the Golden Sheath”, “There Will Be No Adventures”, and, of course, new poems will appear later. So the life of a novice historian and writer. Berestov, whose brief biography shows this, is not limited to just one genre.
Creative and life path
At the age of 14, a teenager wrote poems about imitation. But he himself was quite distinctive. His state of mind was poetic, and therefore his poems are accessible and easy to read. His first collection was published in 1957, and after the birth of his daughter Marina, he wrote so many children's poems and fairy tales that many began to perceive him as a children's writer.
And this at a time when he was conducting serious research work with the archives of A. Pushkin (we note in brackets that not everyone was allowed to access them). As a result, a work appeared, with the discoveries of which the Pushkinists are considered. An attentive and thoughtful reader has access to his articles, studies of the works of M. Lermontov, M. Prishvin, A. Blok, A. Akhmatova, A. Tolstoy, B. Pasternak, V. Vysotsky.
Writer's House
The wife of V. Berestov was the artist Tatyana Ivanovna Alexandrova. Their three-room apartment gathered young poets, artists and journalists. Valentin Dmitrievich helped many to become in art. It was a joyful family, in which two loving people set the tone.
The writer died when he was 70 years old, just two weeks after his anniversary. That was April 15, 1998.
So, before you - a biography of Berestov, summarized.
Life and poetry of V.D. Berestova
Children learn to read at different times: someone before school, someone at school. “How good it is to be able to read!” Marina's daughter, Marina Berestova, said in delight, and her words became the first line of the poem. "Reading room" is well known to all schoolchildren of our country.
Valya Berestov himself, when he was not yet five years old, began to read a little. And although the family always did not have enough money, for the children they wrote Chizh and Murzilka magazines, and Valya always waited for the postman at the gate who would bring the latest numbers. And he also liked to go to the library of the small town of Meshchovsk, in which he was born back in 1928. It was a real book paradise!
While still at school, Valya Berestov began to write poetry. They saved his life when the war broke out, and they had to leave Tashkent from their native places. There, his poems walked around the city between schoolchildren until they fell into the hands of Korney Chukovsky and Anna Akhmatova. They fed a completely starving and emaciated 14-year-old. A. Tolstoy was also interested in him. These great writers did not allow the boy to get lost and sent him to Moscow. Then he studied at Moscow State University and became a historian, but could not write. And in 1957 the first collection of his poems came out. Then more than one book for children and adults will be written.
In the library there are always many books of the writer, as well as a biography of Berestov for children. His life as an archaeologist and writer is interesting and instructive, and books are easy to read, because he was a man with a great sense of humor and moralizing, he did not like.