Eugene Rein is a popular domestic poet and prose writer, and a well-known screenwriter. This is one of the most significant literary figures of the mid-20th century, a close friend of Joseph Brodsky. Belonged to Anna Akhmatova’s social circle in the last years of her life, which greatly influenced the poet’s creative career.
The biography of the poet
Eugene Rein was born in Leningrad. He was born in 1935 in a Jewish family. Father Boris Grigorievich was an architect, and mother Maria Isaakovna Ziskand was a teacher of the German language, she herself came from Yekaterinoslav.
When the hero of our article was 9 years old, his father died. Boris Grigorievich died during the Great Patriotic War in the battle of Narva. The year before, Eugene returned with his mother to Moscow from evacuation. They experienced these few years with relatives of their father. Soon after, they moved to Leningrad when the blockade was lifted from the city.
An important stage in the biography of Eugene Rein was studying at the Lensovet Institute of Technology in Leningrad. The poet himself admits that the choice of an educational institution was largely a coincidence. Rain went to this university at the insistence of her mother, who wanted to provide for the future of her son, she did not believe that he would be able to make good money in the humanitarian sector.
At first, Rhine was even expelled from the institute because of a political scandal. The university published the wall newspaper "Culture", which often raised acute problems that caused dissatisfaction with the leadership. Despite the fact that Rhine was a diligent student, he was still expelled from the fifth year, right before the defense of the diploma. Returning a year later, he managed to enter the fifth year of another technological institute - the refrigeration industry, and get a diploma.
The next step in his career was the Higher Scripting Courses. Such classes played an important role in the life of the famous figure. As a result, he became the screenwriter of more than twenty documentaries. The most famous of them is called "Chukokkala" and is dedicated to the manuscript almanac, which from 1914 to 1969 was Korney Chukovsky. It has a large number of autographs and short sketches of famous contemporaries of his time.
At the same time, at the very beginning of his working career, Evgeny Borisovich worked in geological parties in the Far East, as well as in several Leningrad factories.
Rhine himself admits that the trip to Kamchatka, which was a real test for him, was largely decisive for him. This journey made a great impression on him, he met many unique people, he gained invaluable life experience.
Early career
The formation of the individual style of Eugene Borisovich Rein was greatly influenced by the poetry of Soviet constructivism. First of all, it was the works of Eduard Bagritsky and Ilya Selvinsky, in some way - Vladimir Lugovoi.
In the 1960s, Eugene Rein was among the so-called Akhmatovsky orphans. It was there that he became close to Brodsky.
"Akhmatovsky orphans"
“Akhmatov’s orphans” are called four poets who were in the inner circle of Anna Andreevna Akhmatova in the late 1950s and early 1960s. In addition to Eugene Rein, these were Dmitry Bobyshev, Joseph Brodsky, Anatoly Naiman.
Akhmatova highly appreciated the work of each of them. As Brodsky admitted, she was for them not only a literary, but also a spiritual and moral authority.
Nyman claims that Akhmatova taught them not poetic craft - it was something more. In fact, classes were optional, it created an amazing atmosphere in which it was possible to create.
In an interview with Solomon Volkov, Brodsky draws a parallel between their amazing fours and fours from the Golden Age. Brodsky believed that each of them at the same time fulfilled his role, corresponding to one or another poet of the Russian Golden Age. For example, the Rhine, according to Brodsky, corresponded to Pushkin, Bobyshev - to Delvig, Naiman - to Vyazemsky, and Brodsky himself compared himself with Baratynsky.
The very term “Akhmatov’s orphans” appeared thanks to a poem by Dmitry Bobyshev entitled “All Four,” which was dedicated to the memory of Akhmatova. Here is an excerpt from it.
And on the cemetery cross of the nail
the soul has seen: in a series of losses
Osya, Tolya, Zhenya, Dima come in
Akhmatov’s orphans in a row.
They were also called the "magic choir", "Avakumtsy", "magic dome". Moreover, none of them was their self-name.
After a large number of years, Joseph Brodsky called Reina a "tragic elegik."
Poems
In 1971, the Rhine moved from Leningrad to Moscow. In 1979, he became a member of the Metropol almanac. His works were almost never published in official publications, so they began to be distributed in samizdat. Periodically, they could be seen in the journal Syntax.
Eugene Rein released his first book of poetry in 1984. At that time he was already 49 years old. It was called The Names of Bridges, and came out with a lot of censorship interventions. But he translated many works of poets of different peoples of his country, as well as English, Arabic and Indian authors. He was admitted to the Union of Writers of the USSR in 1987.
Now he lives in Moscow. Despite a very solid age, currently Rhine is 82 years old, he still works. He currently teaches at the Gorky Literary Institute, speaks at the Department of Literary Creativity. There he leads a poetry seminar, which is very popular among beginner young poets.
It is known that in 2004 he took part in the World Poetic Readings, which took place in the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur.
Publications
In the Soviet Union, poems by Eugene Rein were practically not published. But during this period he was constantly published in magazines published in the West. These are "Faces", "Continent", "Syntax".
When he participated in the almanac Metropol, which was not subject to censorship, he was responsible for the poetic section in it. For this he was subjected to brutal political persecution, deprived of the opportunity to work. He was able for a long time to deal only with documentaries. He returned to literary activity only in 1982. Moreover, he was allowed to work only with translations.
Only with the beginning of perestroika did his collections constantly begin to be published, compilation of poems, and also memoirs published.
The books of Eugene Rein came out with the following titles: “Darkness of Mirrors”, “Let everyone know this terrible incident with Petya”, “Irreparable Day”, “Tenderness”, “Prediction”, “Boot”, “I am Bored Without Dovlatov”, “Balcony”, “Arch above the water”, “Notes of the marathoner”, “Elevated passage”, “After our era”, “My best addressee”, “Memory of the journey”, “Labyrinth”.
Features of creativity
A well-deserved recognition for the work of the poet Eugene Rein came after the book "Names of Bridges". Researchers of his work note that he possessed great talent and intellect, and besides this he managed to preserve an eternal saving childhood in himself. Moreover, this was an extremely unfavorable and orphan childhood, which instantly fell into a nation-wide tragedy. He constantly talks about this in his poems, combining woeful maturity and pristine freshness in them. For example, this can be observed in one of the best poems by Eugene Rein - "Forty-first." We emphasize that by the names of his works he often gives a peculiar polemical reference to the cinema.
Was my dad an architect,
my uncle was a loser ...
Dad was killed near Pskov,
uncle returned without a leg.
We stood on the platform ...
In the forty-first ... in Leningrad ...
Thanks to these verses, you can see that the Rhine was pathologically lonely. At the same time, most likely, for this reason, he places his lyrical hero in the thick of the crowd. He is constantly in the circle of people, in squares, in stalls, in alleys.
Describing the work of Eugene Borisovich Rein, it should be noted that he is one of the few contemporary poets who impudently introduces everyday life and everyday life into his works, not at all afraid of this. You can meet with him the absurdity of the city communal apartment, and the beauty of the remote periphery, and rudeness in half with kindness.
Poems
Thinking to write a book of poems in 1974, he immediately decided that this should be a fundamentally new form. He constantly worked on it, engaged in the prose of the poetic form, while trying to maintain the energy potential inherent in the lyrics. Rain tried out the style of the white verse, which required an unprecedented virtuosity from him, and also came up with the so-called sliding line.
In the poem of the hero of our article “Nanny Tanya”, literary critics draw a clear parallel between the lyrical heroine of this work and the nanny of Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin Arina Rodionovna. At least the real woman played a similar role in the fate of the Rhine. Having gone through dispossession and fascist captivity, she managed to initiate the poet in the main secrets of human life.
I'll tell you everything. That you were right that you me
taught everything for this life:
patience and Russian dissoluteness,
which is clearly the highest score for a Jew.
Many noted the innovation of the Rhine poems. In them he was able to penetrate autobiographical narrative in poetic form.
In the 1990s, history with its decorative theater entered the poetry of the Rhine. It was all the same way of life, but already historical. The amazing relationship of the Rhine with space and time. The key to his personal chronotype is the deep nostalgic vision. Even the events that took place recently, he observes from the greatest possible distance, trying to give a global scale to even a trifle, which at first glance seems small. Raine misses every next moment, watching everything that happens here and now.
If we talk about the dominant genre in his work, then this is an elegy. And it’s not rural, as was usual in the time of Zhukovsky, but the urban elegy of the 20th century. No wonder Brodsky called him an "elegiac urbanist."
These are the poems about the love of Eugene Rein. In them you can always trace recognizable urbanistic details that give his lyric works realism and sincerity.
Rhine Movies
Among the most famous films, in the creation of which the Rhine participated, it is necessary to recall several of his outstanding works. This is a documentary production of Vladimir Dvinsky "Tram-memory", shot according to the script of the hero of our article.
It touched the touching lyric and musical history of the most ordinary tram. Recently, in an increasing number of cities, he goes into the streets into oblivion, remaining a bright hero of the past era. This picture is a kind of farewell to the XX century. The film contains poems by Yevgeny Rein himself, as well as the most prominent poets of the past century - Anna Akhmatova, Lev Losev, Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Osip Mandelstam, Vladislav Khodasevich, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Alexander Khazin.
The film was released in 2005. The voiceover is read by director Vladimir Dvinsky, and the verses are performed by Rafael Kleiner and Tatyana Shchigoleva.
Rhine also played a large role in creating Boris Blanc's drama "Career Arturo Wu. The new version." This is a film adaptation of the play by the German playwright Bertold Brecht "Career Arturo Wu, which might not have been." The real decoration of this tape are songs on the verses of Eugene Rein, which are heard in this picture.
Personal life
The hero of our article was married three times. His first wife was Galina Mikhailovna Narinskaya. Novels and strong feelings accompanied him throughout his biography. They met and fell in love immediately after graduation. Then officially formalized relations in the registry office.
They had a daughter, Anna, who now works as a journalist in the authoritative federal publication Kommersant. Her parents' marriage broke up after ten years.
The second time, Rhine married a translator of American and English literature, whose name was Natalya Veniaminovna Ruvinskaya. Together they stayed for nine years. It is known about the children of Eugene Rein. Natalia Ruvinskaya had a son, Boris, born to him. After school, he graduated from the bookselling institute, and now works in the business of this area. He currently collaborates with a major Western publishing house, whose office is located in Moscow.
The last love of the poet
At the moment, the wife of Eugene Rein is called Hope. They have been together for 30 years. Nadezhda Viktorovna works as an art critic, the poet himself and her colleagues emphasize that she is a talented and highly educated specialist.
Nadezhda Rain worked for a lot of time in museums, and for seven years served as secretary of the Museum of Fine Arts, located on Volkhonka. She currently works in the Moscow government as a consultant for the protection of historical monuments. She brilliantly knows the verses of the Rhine itself, and helps him a lot in his work.
For example, one of the latest books by the writer, entitled “My Best Addressee,” was so luxuriously and wonderfully published precisely thanks to Hope. She actually collected and faxed it. The book contains a large number of cartoons, drawings, graphic jokes by Joseph Brodsky, which were originally posted. In addition, she managed to find a philanthropist who provided substantial assistance in publishing this work.
In addition, Nadezhda Rain wrote the preface to this book. In a short text, she told how this book was created. Back in 1996, when Brodsky died, she immediately began to collect his archive. There were included poems of the Rhine, which were somehow connected with Brodsky. It turned out that many of the drawings that Brodsky left in the fields of letters or notes, perfectly fit the poems of her husband. So it was decided to create the book "My Best Destination".