Chukovsky Nikolai Korneevich is the son of the famous father, Russian and Soviet writer Korney Chukovsky, his firstborn, who also linked his life with literature, translations of prose and poetry. He was born in Odessa on November 4, 1965. His mother, Maria Borisovna, was nee Golfeld. After the wedding, she went with her husband to London, who at that time worked as a correspondent for the Odessa News newspaper. A year later, she already in the last month of pregnancy returned to Odessa and gave birth to a son.
Nikolai Chukovsky: biography
Nikolai spent all his childhood in St. Petersburg and in the resort village of Kuokkale (St. Petersburg region). The environment of their family could be envied. My father was friendly with famous writers and poets such as K. Vaginov, N. Zabolotsky, M. Slonimsky, V. Kaverin, etc. Therefore, he very quickly introduced his son to this circle. Nikolai was lucky to capture A. Blok in his memory. He spent the summer of 1921 with his father in the summer house of the Literary Fund with such great personalities as O. Mandelstam, V. Khodasevich, R. Dobuzhinsky and others.
Studying and starting creativity
Chukovsky Nikolai graduated from the Tenishev School in 1921, he spent several years studying at the IFF of Petrograd University (until 1924). Then in 1930 he graduated from the Higher Military Command at the Institute of the History of Arts in Leningrad.
And soon he began to work with Nikolai Gumilyov in the writing studio “Sounding Shell”. And then Chukovsky Nikolay became very close to the Petrograd association of young writers “The Serapion Brothers”. Once he even became the hero of a satirical work “Aristocrat” by Mikhail Zoshchenko.
M. Voloshin
From 1922 to 1928, his poems were repeatedly published under the pseudonym Nikolai Radishchev. His poetry was approved by M. Gorky, N. Gumilev, V. Khodasevich. In 1928, Chukovsky, Nikolai released the first poetic collection “Through the Wild Paradise”, after which he began to engage in poetic translations.
Father introduced his son to Maximilian Voloshin - a famous Russian poet, literary critic and landscape painter, and Nikolai even visited him in Koktebel. There he met another famous Russian writer and poet - Alexander Bely.
In the middle of the summer of 1932, Chukovsky went on a trip to the recreation center of the Literary Fund in Koktebel. There he witnessed the last days of M. Voloshin's life, who died of a second stroke on August 11, 1932. Nikolai Chukovsky was at his funeral. Friends carried the coffin in their hands to the very top of the Kuchuk-Janissar Upland.
Business
In the period from 1937 to 1938, the name of Chukovsky along with the names of L. Nikulin, V. Kibalchich, G. Kuklin, B. Lifshits and others began to be mentioned in investigative cases on anti-Soviet agitation among Moscow and Leningrad writers. He accidentally escaped arrest.
In 1939, Nicholas was drafted into the army. At first he was a participant in the Soviet-Finnish war, and then in the Great Patriotic War he served in the army as military commander of the newspaper “Red Baltic Fleet”. In July of the 41st, Chukovsky Nikolai came on foot from the Baltic port of Paldiski to Tallinn, with him was a group of several people from the 10th bombing air brigade, almost completely destroyed by the Germans in the early days of the war.
In the autumn of the same year, near Moscow, his younger brother Boris was killed. Nikolai very hard suffered the death of his brother.
Leningrad
During the siege of Leningrad, Chukovsky was in the city. Then he became friends with the famous critic-bibliophile A. Tarasenkov. In October 1943, he was appointed instructor of the Main Political Directorate of the Navy of the Soviet Union, Office of the Navy Publishing House. One day, the writer miraculously survived, because, having stayed up late at Leonid Rachmaninov’s house, he didn’t manage to make bridges. Arriving home in the morning, he saw that his house was bombed.
In 1946, Nikolai was demobilized. And then he began to translate popular works of famous foreign writers such as M. Twain, R. L. Stevenson, E. Seton-Thompson, J. Tuwima and others.
In the 50s, Chukovsky took up memoirs. Towards the end of his life, he was a member of the board of the Union of Writers of the USSR and the RSFSR, served as chairman of the translators section of the same Union of Writers, and was in the management of the publishing house Soviet Writer.
Nikolai Chukovsky: books
He began his creative activity with poems that are absolutely traditional in form and theme. It was first published in the Ushkuiki almanac in 1922 under the pseudonym N. Radishchev, these were three of his poems: “Above the Golden Domes”, “Towards the Soul” and “And the Lights Burn in the Temple”.
In the same year, several of his poems also appeared in the newspaper “On the Eve”. Then he began to be published in the publishing houses "Russian Contemporary", "Leningrad", "Red Raven", "Sounding Shell", etc. M. Gorky strongly supported the poetic experiences of a talented young man. In 1928, his only poetic collection “Through the Wild Paradise” will be released.
Soon he began to collaborate with the children's magazines "Hedgehog" and "Murzilka", where he composed poems for children, but criticism was not very flattering about them, they say, they are weak and they should not be remembered.
Then he leaves children's poetry and takes up the novel “Youth” (1930), a year later a collection of his novels and short stories “In the Sunny House” is published, and then in 1933 the book “Tales” was published, official criticism was negative about them: the author was accused of limited horizons.
The creative success was the novel “Yaroslavl” (1938) about the anti-Soviet uprising in Yaroslavl in 1918.
After the war, the theme of heroism became the main one. According to his story "Sea Hunter" (1945), a film was set. One of the brightest and best of his works was the novel "The Baltic Sky" (1955).
last years of life
Nikolai Korneevich Chukovsky suddenly died on November 4, 1965. According to his wife Lydia, after dinner he lay down to take a nap and did not wake up anymore. The death of his son for 83-year-old Korney Ivanovich was a terrible test. Then he often wrote about him in his diaries and letters.
N.K. Chukovsky was buried in Moscow at the Novodevichy cemetery. He was married to Marina Nikolaevna Reinke (1903-1993). She bore him two sons - Nikolai (communications engineer) and Dmitry (television director).
On the anniversary of his death, one of the Serapions writes that Chukovsky was a real writer of the 30s, 40s and 50s, but a man of the 20s who are characterized by an awareness of the responsibility of serving great literature, a measure of taste and imagery.