In 1962, Ryazanov’s comedy “The Hussar Ballad” was released on Soviet screens. The film has gained wide popularity. First of all, thanks to the songs that were sounded in it. A significant role in the success of the picture was played by the script written on the heroic poem of Alexander Gladkov. What other plays have left the pen of this playwright? The topic of the article is the biography and work of the writer.
Family and early years
Gladkov Alexander Konstantinovich was born in 1912 in the city of Murom. His father was an engineer. Since 1917, Konstantin Gladkov served as head of the city, but after the revolution, for unknown reasons, abandoned her. The future playwright was thirteen years old when the family moved to Moscow. In the capital, he graduated from a labor school.
The beginning of creative activity
For some time, the hero of this article worked in the theater as a director. The writing (or rather, journalistic) career of Alexander Gladkov began in the editorial office of the newspaper "Kino". In the late twenties, he collaborated with other publications, namely: Komsomolskaya Pravda, Worker and Art, Worker Moscow, Soviet Theater, New Spectator. At this time, Gladkov struck up friendships with prominent theatrical figures: playwright Alexei Arbuzov, director Valentin Pluchek, actor Isidor Shtok. Since 1934 he worked at the Meyerhold Theater. Collaboration and friendship with this talented director later played a fatal role in the life of Alexander Gladkov.
Artworks
Until 1955, the playwright wrote the following plays:
- "A long time ago".
- "Immortal".
- "Nahal".
- "Unknown sailor."
- "The newest method."
- "Cruel romance."
- "Until we meet again."
- "The first symphony."
- "Night sky".
- "Youth of the theater."
Gladkov composed the comedy in verses "Once Upon a Time" in 1940. Twenty-two years later, the film "The Hussar Ballad" was created on it.
"A long time ago"
Everyone who watched the famous comedy of Eldar Ryazanov knows that the play depicts the events of the Patriotic War of 1812. Gladkov's work has been translated into several languages. For many years, the play has been staged not only in Russia but also abroad. The first director to use it as a material for a theatrical production was Alexei Popov, who was awarded the Stalin Prize for this work.
The premiere took place in November 1941 in besieged Leningrad. The author himself said later that he had hatched the idea of ​​the play for many years. As a child, his favorite books were Captain Grant's Children and, surprisingly, War and Peace. The events of 1812, depicted by Tolstoy, and the adventure motifs characteristic of Jules Verne's prose, all this was wonderfully intertwined in the minds of the future playwright. When he became an adult, he was able to realize his old dream: to write about the patriotism of Russian soldiers, but easy, fun. Gladkov managed to create one of the best works on the theme of World War II.
Arrest
In 1948, Alexander Gladkov wrote the play "Until next time." But its formulation was realized only seven years later. In the work of Gladkov, according to representatives of Soviet censorship, there was no ideological content. In addition, at home, as it later turned out, he kept literature falling into the dubious category of “forbidden”. There was nothing criminal in these books. But this turned out to be enough to indict anti-Soviet activities.
The playwright was arrested and sent to the camp. But people lived there too. Ordinary, the same as at large, eager for "bread and circuses." Gladkov was appointed director of the camp theater.
He was released after the death of Stalin. He could have reduced his term if he had renounced Meyerhold, who had been shot back in 1938. But Alexander Konstantinovich did not refuse this friendship. He did not deny his brother, who was arrested in 1937.
Gladkov Alexander is a screenwriter based on the films of which were created the films The Incredible Yehudiel Chlamyda, The Green Carriage, and The Returned Music. He wrote several documentary works dedicated to Vsevolod Meyerhold, as well as to his other prominent contemporaries (B. Pasternak, O. Mandelstam, Yu. Olesha).
Five years after the liberation, Gladkov was reinstated in the Writers' Union. The playwright died in 1976 in Moscow. In 2015, the diaries of Alexander Gladkov were published, met with interest by readers.