A selection of amazing facts from the life of Russian writers. Interesting facts about poetry

Interesting Facts about the writers and poets who glorified Russian literature are of interest to everyone who is at least a little keen on Russian literature. Their books can be found on the shelves of any home library educated person in our country, but do we know everything about their biography? Sometimes Russian classics simply amazed those around them with their unexpected and extravagant actions and antics. Most interesting stories you will find in this article.

Alexander Pushkin is considered the founder of the Russian literary language, but there are enough interesting facts about this writer, although it seems that we know his biography thoroughly.

In fact, many may be surprised that the poet smoked a lot, and that the surrounding ladies were often shocked by transparent pantaloons, under which there was no underwear. Officially, Pushkin had four children, at least one child was illegitimate. This is the son of 19-year-old serf Olga Kalashnikova Pavel, whom the poet seduced in 1824 during his exile to Mikhailovskoye. He sent her to give birth to Boldino to Vyazemsky. The baby was born prematurely. By his fate already ex-lover and her son Pushkin was not interested, only after a few years he learned about the death of the boy. Most likely, he had other illegitimate children, but nothing is known for certain about them.

Here's another interesting fact from the life of a writer. Despite his education, he believed fortune-tellers and was sure that he would die by hand white man or a white horse. In general, Pushkin often thought about death - he himself chose a place for his grave, once presented a skull to his friend Delvig, grieved the death of the English poet Byron and even ordered a mass for the repose of the soul of the servant of God George.

Pushkin received his education at the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum. And he studied very badly, he demonstrated success only in literature. Throughout most of his life he played a lot of cards, often lost, constantly hung on him gambling debts.

Fatal duel

It must be admitted that his rival in the fatal duel in which he was killed was very unusual. was a relative of Pushkin. He was married to to my sister the wife of the poet Ekaterina Goncharova. Before his death, the poet was very worried that he had violated the royal ban on participation in duels, even said that he was waiting for forgiveness from the emperor in order to die peacefully.

In one of the last moments of enlightenment before his death, Pushkin asked for cloudberries, and finally said goodbye to the most faithful friends in the room, these were his books. Here are some interesting facts about literature and writers that Pushkin can open up for you in a new way.

Mikhail Lermontov became famous during the time of Pushkin, although he was much younger than him. If we talk about interesting facts about the writers and poets of Russia, then there is something to tell about him. His appearance was frankly unprepossessing: he was broad-shouldered, vertically challenged, big-headed and stocky. At the same time, he limped on one leg, as some believe, to be like Byron.

Most of all of his relatives he loved his grandmother, who reciprocated. Like Pushkin, he was an avid duelist. Once he took part in a duel with a Frenchman who supplied pistols for the fatal duel between Alexander Sergeevich and Dantes. For participation in duels he was exiled to the Caucasus, where he proved himself to be a brave officer. He also began to study the Azerbaijani language there.

He was amorous and changeable. Once he took the bride away from his friend, and when he got tired of the girl, he wrote an anonymous slander on himself. Friends noted that Lermontov was famous for his unpleasant character - he was vindictive, did not forgive people for their weaknesses, and treated everyone arrogantly.

heads or tails

For his short life(he lived only 26 years old) took part in three duels. He managed to avoid four more only thanks to the efforts of his acquaintances. One of his fun was to frustrate upcoming marriages. He portrayed himself as an ardent young man in love with a bride, showed her attention, sent poems and flowers. Sometimes he even went so far as to promise to commit suicide if she married someone else. When the girl succumbed to these courtship, he admitted that it was a joke.

Surprisingly, Lermontov managed to lose in all competitions and games in which he participated. Only the fall of an opponent saved him from death in the very first duel. Returning from exile to the Caucasus, he tossed a coin to determine where he was going - to the service or to call in Pyatigorsk. As a result, he had to go to Pyatigorsk, where he was killed by a retired cavalryman Martynov. As it turned out later, he had fired a pistol only three times before this duel.

You can find many interesting facts in the biography of the writer Chekhov. As a child, he worked in a shop with his father. At home he had a handmade mongoose named Bastard, whom Anton Pavlovich brought from the island of Ceylon.

As a schoolboy, he often disguised himself as a beggar, carefully disguised himself and begged for alms from his own uncle. He most often did not recognize him and gave him money. In general, Chekhov had a hooligan character. Somehow he handed the policeman pickle wrapped in paper, announcing that it is a bomb.

There are many writers. For example, his plays and stories made Chekhov one of the most screened authors in the world. On this moment directors have shot nearly 300 films based on his works.

"Antonovka"

Everywhere he was followed by a real army of female fans. When Chekhov moved to Yalta in 1898, many of his fans immediately followed to the Crimea. Local journalists wrote that the ladies were guarding the writer on the embankment, only to see their idol again, to try to attract his attention with something. The newspapers even christened the girls with the nickname "Antonovka".

An interesting fact about the writer Chekhov is that he often worked under a pseudonym. In total, he had about 50. For example, Antosha Chekhonte, Man without a spleen, Nut No. 9, Champagne, Akaki Tarantulov and many others.

Chekhov's grandfather was a serf who managed to redeem himself and his family free. The writer himself refused title of nobility, which was assigned to him by Nicholas II in 1899. Here's how many interesting factors about the biography of the writer, whose photo is in this article.

Leo Tolstoy often shocked those around him. One day he dressed himself as a beggar and went to his serfs to inquire about their problems. They recognized him and were intimidated, never admitting anything. Disappointed to understand the Russian soul, Tolstoy began making boots, which he gave to all relatives and friends.

An interesting fact about the Russian writer is that Tolstoy took a great interest in religion so seriously that some contemporaries even believed that he had gone mad. At the same time, the count himself explained his addiction to mowing and plowing by the habit of being in motion all the time. If he never went out for a walk all day, then by evening he became irritable.

There is also an interesting fact about the writer's books. He had a very illegible handwriting, moreover, in the drafts there was a whole system of additions and signs that only his wife Sofya Andreevna could understand. His wife rewrote his novel "War and Peace" by hand several times. Surprisingly, when the famous Italian psychiatrist Lombroso saw Tolstoy's handwriting, he said that only a prostitute with psychopathic inclinations could write this way.

The last journey

It is known that Tolstoy was a vegetarian, which was considered strange and unnatural in his time. At 82, Tolstoy decided to leave to wander, leaving his wife and children on the estate. In a farewell letter to his wife, he admitted that he was no longer able to live in luxury, he wanted to spend the last days in silence. He went to wander without any purpose, accompanied only by his doctor Dusan Makovitsky. Having stopped at Optina Pustyn, he went to his niece to the south, from where he intended to get to the Caucasus. He failed to complete the journey. Tolstoy caught a cold and died in the small house of the head of the railway station called Astapovo.

Many interesting facts about writers can be gleaned by studying the biography of Dostoevsky. Fyodor Mikhailovich began to show oddities from childhood. He had a closed character, and a vivid imagination only alienated him from his peers. Classmates often called him "a fool", and while studying at an engineering school, they simply called him an "idiotic."

An interesting fact about the writer is that in adulthood he was prone to seizures and excessive excitability. As it turned out later, he suffered from epilepsy. Specific changes in the psyche were manifested in his excessive pettiness, pedantry, irritability, resentment, numerous fears, bouts of melancholy and even spiteful mood.

In childhood, the sadistic inclinations of the writer were still manifested, who loved to whip frogs with a walnut whip. Many prominent psychiatrists were interested in the Russian writer. Galant noted that his psychopathy is most pronounced in the field of psychosexual experiences, and Sigmund Freud argued that the pursuit of perversion could lead to crime or sadomasochism.

Obsession with the game

Dostoevsky was obsessed with the game. He lost a lot of money at billiards, often got acquainted with the sharpers. Another oddity of his was anxious suspiciousness. For example, the writer never drank tea, preferring ordinary warm water, and the color of the tea leaves terrified him. Like Gogol, he was worried that he could plunge into Sopor and be buried alive. In this regard, he insisted that his funeral should take place no earlier than five days after the alleged death.

It is noteworthy and surprising that Dostoevsky, who was actively treated for his many illnesses, never sought help because of epilepsy. The writer turned to doctors for help because of problems with the intestines, lungs, somatic disorders, and did not consider epilepsy as some kind of disease. At the same time, the attacks were very difficult for them, but he believed that only thanks to these mental disorders it does not dry out creative potential.

Telling interesting facts about writers and poets, one should also remember about the great fabulist Ivan Krylov. Besides literature, his main passion there was food. Despite his obesity, he was the first to go to the dining room as soon as the footman announced that the table was set.

Krylov began lunch with a huge plate of pies, followed by three bowls of fish soup, veal cutlets, fried turkey, cucumbers, plums and cloudberries. I ate it all with apples, and at the end it was taken on a Strasbourg pate made from butter, goose liver and truffles. Having mastered several plates, I drank kvass, and finished lunch with two glasses of coffee with big amount cream.

Many of his acquaintances recalled that the main bliss in life for Krylov was in food. At the same time, by the way, it is not true that the fabulist died of volvulus due to overeating. In reality, death was due to extensive pneumonia.

The prose writer Kuprin also surprised many. For example, few people know that he preferred to work completely naked. At the same time, he was famous for his incredible flair. His friends even joked that he was more from the beast than from the person. And the ladies were often offended when Kuprin began to sniff them persistently. Once the writer amazed a noble French perfumer with his instinct, describing in detail all the components of the fragrance he had made.

They say that one of their most famous works(the story "Duel") the writer did not accidentally cut it off so suddenly. Instead of a logical ending, the ending is a short report. His wife demanded that he turn in the manuscript and not let him out of the office. Kuprin really wanted to drink, so he finished the piece in a hurry.

1. William Shakespeare was born and died on the same day (but, fortunately, in different years) - on April 23, 1564, he was born and, 52 years later, died on the same day.

2. On the same day with Shakespeare, another died great writer- Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. The author of "Don Quixote" dies on April 23, 1616.

3. Contemporaries argued that Shakespeare was fond of poaching - he hunted deer in the possession of Sir Thomas Lucy, without any permission from this very Lucy.

4. The great poet Byron was lame, inclined to be overweight and extremely loving - for a year in Venice, according to some reports, he made 250 ladies happy with himself, lame and fat.

5. Byron had an amazing personal collection - locks of hair cut from the pubes of his beloved women. The strands (or maybe curls) were kept in envelopes on which the names of the hostesses were romantically inscribed. Some researchers argue that it was possible to admire (if this word is appropriate here) the poet's collection back in the 1980s, after which the traces of vegetation were lost.

6. And also great poet Byron loved to spend time with boys, including, alas, minors. We don't even comment on this! It was not enough for the scoundrel 250 ladies!

7. Well, a little more about Byron - he was very fond of animals. Fortunately, not in the sense that you might have put into this phrase after reading about Byron a little higher. The romantic poet adored animals platonically and even kept a menagerie in which a badger, monkeys, horses, a parrot, a crocodile and many other animals lived.

8. Charles Dickens had a very difficult childhood. When his dad went to debt prison, little Charlie was sent to work ... no, not in a chocolate factory, but in a wax factory, where he glued labels on jars from morning to night. Not dusty, you say? But stick them all day long instead of playing football with the boys, and you will understand why the images of unfortunate orphans turned out to be so convincing for Dickens.

9. In 1857, Hans Christian Andersen came to visit Dickens. This is not an anecdote of Kharms, this is life itself! Andersen met Dickens back in 1847, were completely delighted with each other, and now, 10 years later, the Dane decided to take advantage of the invitation given to him. The trouble is that over the years in Dickens's life, everything has changed and became more complicated - he was not ready to accept Andersen, and he lived with him for almost five weeks! "He does not speak any languages ​​except his Danish, although there are suspicions that he does not know him either," Dickens told his friends about his guest in this vein. Poor Andersen became a target for the ridicule of numerous offspring of the author of "Little Dorrit", and when he left, Dickens' dad left a note in his room: "Hans Andersen slept in this room for five weeks, which seemed to our family for years." And you also ask why Andersen wrote such sad fairy tales?

10. And Dickens was also fond of hypnosis, or, as they said at the time, mesmerism.

11. One of Dickens's favorite pastimes was going to the Parisian morgue, where unidentified bodies were exhibited. The dearest, in essence, man!

12. Oscar Wilde did not take Dickens' compositions seriously and made fun of them for any reason. In general, contemporary critics to Charles Dickens endlessly hinted that he would never enter the list of the best British writers... We'll get to Oscar Wilde.

13. But Dickens was devotedly loved by ordinary readers - in 1841 in the port of New York, where the continuation of the final chapters of the "Antiquities Shop" were to be brought, 6 thousand people gathered, and everyone yelled at the passengers of the mooring ship: "Will baby Nell die?"

14. Dickens could not work if the tables and chairs in his office were not in the right position. Only he knew how it should be - and each time he began work by rearranging the furniture.

15. Charles Dickens so disliked monuments and monuments that in his will strictly forbade him to erect them. The only bronze statue of Dickens is installed in Philadelphia. By the way, the statue was initially rejected by the writer's family.

16. American writer O. Henry began writing career in prison, where he ended up for embezzlement. And his business went so well that everyone soon forgot about the prison.

17. Ernest Hemingway was not only an alcoholic and a suicide, as everyone knows. He also had peiraphobia (fear public speaking), moreover, he never believed the praises of even his most sincere readers and admirers. I didn't even trust my friends, and that's it!

18. Hemingway has survived five wars, four car and two air crashes. And as a child, my mother forced him to study at a dance school. And he himself eventually began to call himself the Pope.

19. The same Hemingway often and willingly talked about the fact that the FBI was following him. The interlocutors smiled wryly, but in the end it turned out that the Pope was right - the declassified documents confirmed that it was indeed surveillance, not paranoia.

20. Gertrude Stein, a lesbian writer who hated punctuation marks and gave the world the definition of “lost generation”, was the first in history to use the word “gay” in literature.

21. Oscar Wilde - like Ernest Hemingway - was dressed up in girlish dresses for a long time as a child. In both cases, note that it ended badly.

23. Honore de Balzac loved coffee - he drank about 50 cups of strong Turkish a day. If it was not possible to brew coffee, the writer would simply grind a handful of beans and chew them with great pleasure.

24. Balzac believed that ejaculation is a waste of creative energy, since the seed is the brain substance. Once, talking with a friend after a successful conversation, the writer bitterly exclaimed: "This morning I lost my novel!"

25. Edgar Allan Poe was afraid of the dark all his life. Perhaps one of the reasons for this fear was that in childhood future writer studied ... at the cemetery. The school where the boy went was so poor that it was not possible to buy textbooks for children. The resourceful math teacher taught at a nearby cemetery, among the graves. Each student chose for himself tombstone and calculated how many years the deceased lived, subtracting the date of birth from the date of death. Unsurprisingly, Poe grew up and became what he became - the founder of world horror literature.

26. The most psychedelic writer of all time is Lewis Carroll, the shy British mathematician who wrote the tales of Alice. His compositions were inspired by The Beatles, Jefferson Airplane, Tim Barton and others.

27. Lewis Carroll's real name is Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. He was ordained as a deacon, and in personal diaries Carroll constantly repented of some sin. However, these pages were destroyed by the writer's family so as not to defame his image. Some of the researchers seriously believe that it was Carroll who was Jack the Ripper, who, as we know, was never found.

28. Carroll suffered from swamp fever, cystitis, lumbago, eczema, furunculosis, arthritis, pleurisy, rheumatism, insomnia and a whole bunch of various diseases. In addition, he had a headache almost continuously - and very badly.

29. The author of "Alice" was a passionate fan technical progress, and he personally invented a tricycle, a mnemonic system for memorizing names and dates, an electric pen, and it was he who invented to write the title of the book on the spine and created a prototype of the beloved game Scrabble.

30. Franz Kafka was the grandson of a kosher butcher and a vegan.

31. The great American poet Walt Whitman adhered to a very definite sexual orientation... He admired, however, first of all, Abraham Lincoln, whom he sang in the poem "Oh, Captain! My captain!". And once Whitman met another gay icon - the sarcastic Irishman Oscar Wilde, who did not like Charles Dickens so much (who, in turn, did not like Andersen, see above). Wilde told Whitman that he loved Leaves of Grass, which his mother often read to him as a child, after which Whitman kissed the "great, large and handsome youth" right on the lips. “I can still feel the kiss of Whitman on my lips,” the author of The Portrait of Dorian Gray shared with friends. Brr!

32. Mark Twain is the literary pseudonym of a man named Samuel Langhorn Clemens. In addition, Twain also had the aliases Rogue, Josh, Thomas Jefferson Snodgrass, Sergeant Fatom, and W. Epaminondas Adrastus Blab. By the way, “mark twain” is a concept from the field of navigation, it means “measure two” fathoms: this is how the minimum depth suitable for navigation was marked.

33. Mark Twain was friends with one of the most mysterious people of its time - by the inventor Nikola Tesla. The writer himself patented several inventions, such as self-adjusting braces and a scrapbook with adhesive pages.

34. And Twain also adored cats and hated children (he even wanted to erect a monument to King Herod). Once a great writer said: "If it were possible to cross a man with a cat, the human breed would only benefit from this, but the feline breed would obviously deteriorate."

35. Twain was a heavy smoker (he was the one who wrote the phrase that is now attributed to everyone in a row: "There is nothing easier than quitting smoking. I know, I have done this a thousand times"). He started smoking as an eight-year-old and smoked 20 to 40 cigars daily until his death. The writer chose the stinkiest and cheapest cigars.

36. Author of the Lord of the Rings trilogy JRR Tolkien was an excellently bad driver, snored so much that he had to sleep in the bathroom so as not to disturb his wife's sleep, and was also a terrible Francophobe - he hated the French since William the Conqueror.

37. On their wedding night with Sophia Bers, 34-year-old Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy made his 18-year-old freshly baked wife read those pages in his diary, which describe in detail the writer's amorous adventures with different women, among others - with serfs. Tolstoy wanted no secrets between him and his wife.

38. Agatha Christie suffered from dysgraphia, that is, she practically could not write by hand. All her famous novels were dictated.

39. Chekhov was a great fan of walking into a brothel - and, finding himself in a strange city, the first thing he did was to study it from this side.

40. James Joyce was more than anything else afraid of dogs and thunderstorms, hated monuments and was a masochist.

41. When Tolstoy left home in old age, most of reporters rushed after him, and only one, the most ingenious journalist came to Yasnaya Polyana - to find out how Sofya Andreevna was doing. Soon the editorial office received a telegram: "The Countess, with a changed face, runs to the pond." So the reporter described Sofia Andreevna's intention to drown herself. Subsequently, the phrase was picked up by two completely different writers - Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov, presenting it to their brilliant hero Ostap Bender.

42. William Faulkner worked as a postman for several years until it became clear that he often threw undelivered letters in the trash bin.

43. Jack London was a socialist, and besides - the first American writer in history to earn a million dollars by his labor.

44. Arthur Conan Doyle, who invented Sherlock Holmes, was an occultist and believed in the existence of little winged fairies.

45. Jean-Paul Sartre experimented with mind-expanding substances and strongly supported terrorists. Perhaps the first had something to do with the second.

The phrase "We all came out of Gogol's greatcoat" is known, which is used to express humanistic traditions Russian literature. Often the authorship of this expression is attributed to Dostoevsky, but in fact, the first to say it was French critic Eugene Vogue, discussing the origins of Dostoevsky's work. Fyodor Mikhailovich himself brought this quote in a conversation with another French writer, who understood it as the writer's own words and published them in this light in his work. The first manuscript of Stevenson's The Strange Story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was burned by his wife. Biographers have two versions of why she did this: some say that she considered such a plot unworthy of a writer, others that she was unhappy with the incomplete disclosure of the topic of multiple personality disorder. Nevertheless, Stevenson, a tuberculosis patient, rewrote this novel in three days, which became one of his most commercially successful works and allowed his family to get out of debt. The French writer Stendhal, after a visit to Florence in 1817, wrote: “When I was leaving the Church of the Holy Cross, my heart began to beat, it seemed to me that the source of life had dried up, I walked, fearing to collapse to the ground ...”. The masterpieces of art that excite a writer can have a similar effect on other people, causing rapid heartbeat and dizziness - a psychosomatic disorder called Stendhal's syndrome. The person who “picked up” it experiences extremely heightened emotions from contemplation of paintings, as if being transferred into the space of the image. Quite often the feelings are so strong that people try to destroy the works of art. In more broad sense Any observed beauty can cause Stendhal syndrome - for example, nature or women. The legend of the medieval Swiss archer Wilhelm Tell is widely known, who was forced to shoot an apple on his head for disobeying the German governor. own son and Tell didn't miss. Inspired by this story, the American writer William Burroughs wanted to surprise the guests at one of the parties. He put a glass on the head of his wife Joan Vollmer and fired a pistol - his wife died from being hit in the head. His first book, Harry Potter and philosopher's Stone JK Rowling graduated in 1995. The literary agent who agreed to represent it sent the manuscript to 12 publishers, but it was rejected everywhere. Only a year later, the manuscript was accepted by the small London publishing house Bloomsbury, although its Chief Editor even after the book was approved, he was sure that Rowling would not make much from children's books, and advised her to find a permanent job for her. V last years During his life, Ernest Hemingway became depressed and irritable, assuring family and friends that FBI agents were watching him everywhere. Several times the writer was treated in psychiatric clinic from where he also called his friends, saying that there were bugs in the ward, and their conversation was being listened to. Under the influence of electric shock, he lost the ability to write and formulate his thoughts, as he could do it before. Finally, on July 2, 1961, Hemingway shot himself with a gun in his home. A few decades later, an official request was made to the FBI about the writer's case, to which the answer came: surveillance and wiretapping took place, including in that mental hospital, as the authorities seemed suspicious of his activity in Cuba. The source of the plot for Gogol's play "The Inspector General" was real case in the city of Ustyuzhna, Novgorod province, and Pushkin told the author about this case. It was Pushkin who advised Gogol to continue writing the work when he more than once wanted to quit this business. François Rabelais once did not have the money to get from Lyon to Paris. Then he prepared three bags with the words "Poison for the King", "Poison for the Queen" and "Poison for the Dauphin" and left them in a prominent place in the hotel room. Upon learning of this, the innkeeper immediately reported to the authorities. Rabelais was seized and taken with an escort to the capital directly to King Francis I, so that he decided the fate of the writer. It turned out that the bags contained sugar, which Rabelais immediately drank with a glass of water, and then told the king, with whom they were friends, how he solved his problem.
Daria Dontsova, whose father was Soviet writer Arkady Vasiliev, grew up surrounded by creative intelligentsia... Once at school she was asked to write an essay on the topic: "What was Valentin Petrovich Kataev thinking when he wrote the story" The Lonely Sail Whitens "?", And Dontsova asked Kataev to help her. As a result, Daria received a deuce, and the literature teacher wrote in her notebook: "Kataev was not thinking about that at all!" Fairy tale "Wise Man of Oz" American writer Frank Baum was not published in Russian until 1991. At the end of the 30s, Alexander Volkov, who was a mathematician by education and taught this science in one of the Moscow institutes, began to study English and for practice I decided to translate this book in order to retell it to my children. They really liked it, they began to demand more, and Volkov, in addition to translating, began to invent something of his own. This was the beginning of his literary path, the result of which was "The Wizard of the Emerald City" and many other tales about the Magic Land. Alexandre Dumas, while writing his works, used the services of many assistants - the so-called "literary blacks". Among them, the most famous is Auguste Macket, who, according to the most famous biographer of the writer Claude Chopp, came up with the basis for the plot of "The Count of Monte Cristo" and made a significant contribution to " Three musketeers". Although it should be noted that it was thanks to Dumas' talent that his novels, even if they grew out of the rough notes of assistants, were saturated bright details and lively dialogues. Alexandre Dumas once participated in a duel, where the participants drew lots, and the loser had to shoot himself. The lot went to Dumas, who retired to the next room. A shot rang out, and then Dumas returned to the participants with the words: "I fired, but missed." Some biographies of Erich Maria Remarque indicate that his real surname- Kramer (Remarque vice versa). In fact, this is an invention of the Nazis, who, after his emigration from Germany, also spread the rumor that Remarque was the descendants of French Jews. Dostoevsky made extensive use of the real topography of St. Petersburg in describing the locations of his novel Crime and Punishment. As the writer admitted, the description of the courtyard in which Raskolnikov hides the things he stole from the pawnbroker's apartment, he made from personal experience- when one day while walking through the city, Dostoevsky turned into a deserted courtyard in order to relieve himself.
1976 progressive income tax Swedish writer Astrid Lindgren made up 102%. The satirical article she wrote provoked violent q:) you, which are believed to have caused the members of the Swedish Social Democratic Party to be excluded from the government after regular elections for the first time in 40 years. After the outbreak of the Second World War, Marina Tsvetaeva was sent to evacuation to the city of Elabuga in Tatarstan. Boris Pasternak helped her pack her things. He brought a rope to tie up the suitcase, and, assuring her of her fortress, joked: "The rope will stand everything, even if you hang yourself." Subsequently, he was told that it was on her that Tsvetaeva in Yelabuga hanged herself. The famous formula "Twice two equals five", which George Orwell repeatedly emphasized in his dystopian novel "1984", came to his mind when he heard the Soviet slogan "Five-year plan - at four!" The term “robot” was coined by the Czech writer Karel Čapek. Although at first in his play he called humanoid mechanisms "laboratories" (from the Latin labor - work), he did not like this word. Then, on the advice of his brother Joseph, he renamed them robots. By the way, in Czech, the original word for this neologism robota means not just work, but hard work or hard labor. Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, in correspondence with his wife Olga Leonardovna, Knipper used to her, in addition to standard compliments and affectionate words, very unusual: "actress", "dog", "snake" and - feel the lyricism of the moment - "crocodile of my soul." Ill, Chekhov sent a messenger to the pharmacy for castor oil in capsules. The pharmacist sent him two large capsules, which Chekhov returned with the inscription "I am not a horse!" Having received the writer's autograph, the pharmacist happily replaced them with normal capsules.
When Alexandre Dumas wrote "The Three Musketeers" in the format of a series in one of the newspapers, a line-by-line payment for the manuscript was stipulated in the contract with the publisher. To increase the fee, Dumas invented a servant of Athos named Grimaud, who spoke and answered all questions in exclusively monosyllables, in most cases "yes" or "no". The sequel to the book, entitled Twenty Years Later, was paid word by word, and Grimaud became a little more talkative. Initially, on the grave of Gogol in the monastery cemetery, there was a stone called Golgotha ​​because of its resemblance to the Mount of Jerusalem. When they decided to destroy the cemetery, they decided to install a bust of Gogol on the grave during reburial in another place. And the same stone was subsequently put on the grave of Bulgakov by his wife. In this regard, Bulgakov's phrase, which he repeatedly addressed to Gogol during his lifetime, is noteworthy: "Teacher, cover me with your greatcoat." Alexander Griboyedov was not only a poet, but also a diplomat. In 1829, he died in Persia along with the entire diplomatic mission at the hands of religious fanatics. In redemption, the Persian delegation arrived in St. Petersburg with rich gifts, among which was the famous Shah diamond weighing 88.7 carats. James Barry created the image of Peter Pan - the boy who will never grow up - for a reason. This hero became a dedication to the author's elder brother, who died the day before he turned 14, and remained forever young in his mother's memory. In 1835, Halley's comet flew near the Earth, and two weeks after its perihelion Mark Twain was born. In 1909 he wrote: "I came to this world with a comet and I will leave with it when it arrives next year." And so it happened: Twain died on April 21, 1910, the day after the comet's next perihelion. The term "bata-kusai" (translated as "stinking oil") is not milk drinkers the Japanese call everything alien and pro-Western. Elderly Japanese dubbed the writer Haruki Murakami with the same expression for his adherence to the Western way of life. Lewis Carroll loved to communicate and be friends with little girls, but he was not a pedophile, as many of his biographers claim. Often his girlfriends underestimated their age, or he himself called the adult ladies girls. The reason was that the morality of that era in England strongly condemned communication with a young woman in private, and girls under 14 were considered asexual, and friendship with them was completely innocent. French writer and humorist Alphonse Allay, a quarter of a century before Kazimir Malevich, painted a black square - a painting called "The Battle of Blacks in a Cave deep at night". He also anticipated John Cage's "4'33", a minimalist piece of music from one silence by almost seventy years, with his similar work "Funeral March for the funeral of the great deaf." Leo Tolstoy was skeptical about his novels, including War and Peace. In 1871, he sent a letter to Fet: "How happy I am ... that I will never write verbose nonsense like" War "again." An entry in his diary in 1908 reads: "People love me for those trifles -" War and Peace ", etc., which they think are very important." The expression "Balzac's age" arose after the release of Balzac's novel "A Thirty-Year-Old Woman" and is permissible for women not older than 40 years. French writer Guy de Maupassant was one of those who were irritated by the Eiffel Tower. Nevertheless, he dined daily at her restaurant, explaining this by the fact that here is the only place in Paris from where the tower is not visible. The American extravagant writer Timothy Dexter wrote a book in 1802 with a very peculiar language and the absence of any punctuation. In response to the outrage of readers in the second edition of the book, he added a special page with punctuation marks, asking readers to arrange them in the text to their liking. Franz Kafka published only a few stories during his lifetime. Being seriously ill, he asked his friend Max Brod to burn all his works after death, including several unfinished novels. Brod did not comply with this request, but, on the contrary, ensured the publication of the works that brought Kafka worldwide fame.
The Shakespearean hero had real prototype Italian Maurizio Othello. He commanded the Venetian troops in Cyprus and lost his wife there under extremely suspicious circumstances. Diminutive name Mauro also means "Moor" in Italian, which led to the mistake of Shakespeare, who appropriated such a nationality to the hero.
Winnie the Pooh got the first part of its name from one of the real toys of Christopher Robin, the son of the writer Milne. The toy was named after a bear from the London Zoo named Winnipeg, who came there from Canada. The second part - Pooh - was borrowed from the name of a swan of friends of the Milnov family. In 1925 Nobel Prize on literature was awarded to Bernard Shaw, who called this event "a token of gratitude for the relief he brought to the world by not publishing anything this year."

Writers are people who write textual works that are intended for others to familiarize themselves. When we want to plunge into another Universe, we always turn to these very creations of writers. Their activity helps us a lot in life, teaches us to be useful to society and mutual assistance.

Writers Facts

Any connoisseur of literature is familiar with. According to rumors, he was very loving, but at the same time full and chrome, but this did not stop him from luring women into his nets.

Wasn't a child since happy childhood... His father was sent to a debt prison, and the boy himself had to work to support his family. He was admitted to a wax factory, where every day from morning till night he pasted labels on cans. Many will say that the work is not dusty, what's wrong with that? And you try to do this all day instead of the usual children's games and you will understand. That is why the images of unfortunate children in Dickens came out excellently.

We are all familiar with creativity. He was scared to death of the dark. Perhaps the reason for this was that the future writer studied at the cemetery. The school was too poor, so the mathematics teacher took the children to where the children chose a monument for themselves and counted how many years the person had lived. Now the themes of Allan Poe's works are not so surprising.

Was a friend of the inventor who was considered the most secretive person of its time. Twain even invented a couple of things.

He was addicted to drugs, and he also supported the ideas of terrorists. Perhaps it was because of his drug addiction, who knows?

A whole team of proofreaders worked for it. The thing is that he did not possess spelling and punctuation knowledge at all. Since he wanted his work to be published in good shape, had to hire people to correct his mistakes.

In Great Britain, they revered a little less than the queen. It is also called the symbol of the country. The circulation of its sales is practically the highest, it is second only to Shakespeare.

He was so popular that by the end of his life, loving readers sent letters with the address "Avenue V. Hugo", although the street had a specific name. However, the parcel always found its addressee.

About Russian writers and poets

All that can be said about Russian writers and poets is that they are loved all over the world. Every connoisseur literary works says that Russian classics are a necessary foundation for any person.

The most popular poet in Russia, he was very ugly, which distinguishes him from his wife, Natalia Goncharova. He was ten centimeters shorter than her. That is why at the balls, Alexander Sergeevich tried to stay as far from his beloved as possible, so that such a contrast would not greatly distract people.

When I was young, I spent a lot of time on gambling... Once he even lost his estate in Yasnaya Polyana... He wanted to buy it back, but for some reason he didn’t.

I helped to collect things for evacuation. He rewound her suitcase with a strong rope, joking that you can at least hang on it. It was on her that Tsvetaeva hanged herself in the end.

Gogol was not indifferent to needlework. For the summer he even sewed scarves for himself, which he loved very much.

Several years before his death, he wrote that he would not be buried until the moment the body begins to decompose. He was not listened to and was buried almost immediately. After dug up the body, they said that the skull was turned to one side. Another version says that the skull was missing. The writer was very afraid that he would be buried alive. Whether it happened or not, no one knows.

The only word he used to describe his homeland was the word "steal" when he was asked about Russia in another country.

Tolstoy had a terrible handwriting. It could only be understood by the writer's wife, who rewrote it several times. famous novel"War and Peace". He wrote quickly, so that the handwriting became illegible. Looking at the volume of his works, the theory seems to be real.

The most readable handwriting was u, for which he was thanked many times.

I had a keen sense of smell. Once he decomposed the scent of a French perfumer into ingredients, to which the latter only sighed in disappointment, regretting that Kuprin was just a writer.

- a historian-philologist by education.

From the life of writers and poets

Writers are the same people, they have a lot of funny things going on in their lives:

As a joke, Sir chose the twelve richest men in London, who enjoyed a reputation for honest and decent bankers, and wrote them notes, which said that everything had surfaced. The next day, every single banker left the city. So their criminal atrocities were revealed, and it was just a joke.

In his early years, Mark Twain worked as a journalist in Nevada. One day he went to a billiard club, but had a bet with one young man for 50 cents that he would beat him at the game. The stranger said that he would play with his left hand, so he felt sorry for Twain, who played nowhere worse. Mark decided to teach him a lesson, but still lost, giving his money. He then said that he would like to see a guy play right hand, if so good left, to which the latter said that he was actually left-handed.

Pushkin was passionate, he had big debts. When time was pressing, he amused himself by drawing cartoons of creditors in his notebooks. One day it surfaced, there was a huge scandal.

Once, on the embankment of the Fontanka River, three students from a local university caught up. One of them said: “Look, a cloud is approaching,” alluding to the completeness of the fabulist. The latter did not remain in debt, saying that the toads began to croak.

Once collided with a cyclist, both escaped with only a slight fright. When the guy began to apologize to the writer, he laughed and said:

"It's so good that you didn't kill me, otherwise you would forever remain the one who killed Bernard Shaw."

About children's writers

Children's writers are just a name. Adults often like to read their works. There is even a list best writers children's literature:

Hans Christian Andersen is one of the most famous storytellers in the world. However, he always believed that his works were for an adult audience. He didn't even like children. When they decided to erect a monument to him, he demanded that the figures of the children not be close.

The works are familiar to each of us. He changed many professions before becoming a writer. During the Great Patriotic War Dragunsky took part in the defense of Moscow.

- a person whose poems we learn in the first place. His fairy tales have become very firmly established in the life of any person. By playing with children, he himself became a child. Children adored him for his simplicity of soul.

It is a part of every person's childhood. She was a very determined woman: if she hammered something into her head, do not hesitate, she will achieve her goal.

The work of a writer takes a lot of time and effort. People who study literature in this vein are much better spiritually developed than others. Their talent instills in us a love of beauty.

English poets of the 17th century had a particular interest in the form of the poem. And in the literal sense of the word. They wrote in such a way that poetic lines formed a boat, a star, a flower, a clock and other images. Epitaphs usually resembled a skull, wedding verses - an altar.

Byron was a big animal lover. And even while studying at Cambridge University, I wanted to get myself a dog, but according to the local rules it was forbidden. Then George Gordon brought a bear cub to Cambridge, since the rules did not say anything about keeping bears in the rooms by students. During his short life, the poet managed to share a shelter with a fox, an eagle, a badger, a crane, and even a crocodile. And when Byron went out for a walk, he was often accompanied by four goose living in his yard.

Poets drew inspiration from different sources... For Heinrich Schiller, in order for the muse to come to him, he needed to breathe the "aroma" of rotten apples. A plate with them was always in the poet's office when he worked.

During the reign of the Chinese emperor Qianlong, poets were forbidden to write sad poetry. The violators were executed.

Russian poets have enriched native language many new words that we consider everyday. Thanks to Igor Severyanin, the word “mediocrity” entered our lexicon, Velimir Khlebnikov invented the word “exhausted” and gave the name of the profession of a pilot - before that, pilots were called aviators.

Pushkin was a Russian poet who especially liked to indicate epigraphs to his works. His poems, poems and prose are preceded by 70 quotes from various authors.

In the monument to the poet Jose Almedo - national treasure Ecuador - in fact, Byron's features are easily guessed. Yes, this is the sculpture of Byron. It's just that the Ecuadorian government did not have the money to order the original work of the sculptor, and it decided to get out of the situation by acquiring a "second-hand monument" of a poet similar to Almedo.

Antiochus Cantemir was actually called Khariton Mackentin. Both the name and surname of his pseudonym are anagrams.

In the film "Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears", apart from the actors Kharitonov and Smoktunovsky, who play themselves, the poet Andrei Voznesensky also appears in the role of the poet Andrei Voznesensky. He reads the poem "Parabolic Ballad" on the square, and friends Katya and Lyudmila passing by cannot understand a single line.

In 1924, during Yesenin's vacation in Batumi, he could not get rid of the company of annoying fans who persistently and, by the way, not unsuccessfully stuffed him into drinking companions. The poet's health was deteriorating before our eyes, and the desire to work disappeared completely. The compassionate owner of the house where Yesenin was staying decided to help him. In the mornings, going to work, he locked it up with the consent of the poet until the time of his return - two in the afternoon. Yesenin liked this schedule: in Batumi he finished "Anna Snegina" and wrote several wonderful poems.

The Bible ranks first in terms of “pulling for quotes”. The second is the works of Shakespeare. At least a tenth of the Oxford Quotation Book includes lines from his comedies, tragedies, and sonnets.

Eldar Ryazanov was very fond of using the poems of Boris Pasternak, disgraced at that time, in his films. The song "No one will be in the house", which is sung by Zhenya Lukashin, was written on the basis of a poem by Boris Leonidovich. V " Office romance"Novoseltsev quotes Kalugina's lines that she is" beautiful without convolutions ", which also belong to the pen of Pasternak. It is worth noting that the appeal to the poet's work at that time was a rather bold step. Ryazanov took a chance, and the censors still left the script unchanged.

Boris Pasternak also tried his hand at composing music. He wrote two preludes for piano.