Falcons mikitas salt of the earth read. Publishing house of hunting literature era - by the grace of god

23.06.2020

Proverbs where there are numbers Folk definition of a saying

Cutugno with his wife. Biography. "I cheated, but I have only one woman of heart!"

When reading books, we are taught from childhood to pay attention to the author, and already in primary school, you need to know a short biography of the writer. Let's take a look at the life of a Russian prose writer, meet Ivan Sergeevich Sokolov-Mikitov. A biography for children will be described by me as for schoolchildren of grades 2-3, as well as for fifth graders.

Biography in full version
Brief biography for grades 2-3

Hello dear readers of the blog, today we will plunge a little deeper into the world of literature. I recently purchased a wonderful book with stories about winter. My son and I read it in one evening, but since the boy is in grade 2, it's time to start a reading diary. Having studied the information on how to do it correctly, as well as remembering my school experience, I decided to start with my biography.

Even in early childhood, when reading books to my son, I always called who wrote them. Subsequently, having learned to read, he began to do it himself. But after all, we all understand that the style and subject matter of the author depends on his fate, which leaves an imprint on knowledge and preferences. Here we will try to understand why Ivan Sergeevich wrote mainly about nature and animals.

Sokolov-Mikitov: biography for children

Sokolov-Mikitov is a Russian writer born in May 1892. He lived for 82 years and died in February 1975. At first his family lived in the Kaluga province (now the Kaluga region), where his father Sergei Nikitich worked as a forest manager for the merchants Konshin. When Ivan was a three-year-old boy, the family moved to the village of Kislovo (Smolensk region), where his father was from. But seven years later, at the age of ten, he entered the Smolensk Alexander School, where he studied up to grade 5, as he was expelled for participating in underground revolutionary circles.

Photo by: Sergey Semenov

In 1910, Ivan Sergeevich continued his studies, but already in St. Petersburg, where he entered courses in agriculture. It was at this time that his first fairy tale "The Salt of the Earth" was written, which is known today to all Russian people. From that moment on, Sokolov-Mikitov began to seriously think about writing, attend literary circles, and get acquainted with colleagues of that time. The future writer gets a job as a secretary of the newspaper "Revelskiy leaf" in the city of Revel (now Tallinn), then, continuing to search for himself, leaves for a merchant ship, with which he travels the world.

The First World War began and it was necessary to return to Russia, it was 1915. During the war, he flew in the bomber Ilya Muromets. And after its completion, in 1919 he returned as a sailor to a merchant ship, this time "Omsk". But 12 months later, the unexpected happened: in England, the ship was arrested for debt. The writer is forced to live in a foreign country for a year. And in 1921 he finds the opportunity to get to Berlin (Germany), where he was lucky enough to meet with Maxim Gorky. He helped make the documents that were required to return to Russia.

Returning to Russia, Sokolov-Mikitov goes on an expedition to the Arctic Ocean on the Georgy Sedov icebreaker. Then he travels to Franz Josef Land and Severnaya Zemlya and even participates in the rescue of the Malygin icebreaker. He writes about what he saw for the newspaper Izvestia, where he works as a correspondent.

In just two years (1930-1931) the prose writer publishes his works: "Overseas Stories", "On the White Land", the story "Childhood". Living and working in Gatchina, such famous personalities as Evgeny Zamyatin, Vyacheslav Shishkov, Vitaly Bianki, Konstantin Fedin come to him. In 1934, Sokolov-Mikitov was admitted to the Union of Soviet Writers, and subsequently three times awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor.

During the Second World War he continued to work for the Izvestia newspaper in Perm (then Molotovo). And after the onset of victory he returned to Leningrad.

The personal life of Ivan Sergeevich is tragic enough. In 1952 he began to live in his own house in the village of Karacharovo with his wife Lidia Ivanovna Sokolova. They had three children: Irina, Elena and Lydia. All girls died during the life of their parents. The writer only has a grandson - Professor Alexander Sergeevich Sokolov.

Brief biography for children of 2-3 grades

Ivan Sergeevich Sokolov-Mikitov is a Russian writer who wrote many stories about nature, birds and animals. And this is not surprising, because his father was a forest manager. The boy recognized the forest early and fell in love with it. In his youth, he studied agriculture, which also enriched his knowledge of our Earth. But realizing that he liked literature, he went to work as a sailor on ships. He visited different countries, went on expeditions to the north of our country.

The writer managed to survive two wars: World War I and World War II. During the first, he flew a bomber. In the second, he stayed in the rear and worked as a newspaper correspondent.

Sokolov-Mikitov wrote his first fairy tale "The Salt of the Earth" at the age of 18. In 1951, he settled with his family in a country house, which he built himself. There he had enough time to engage in literary activities. He lived a long and fruitful life, reaching the age of 82.

Conclusion

Dear readers, agree that having understood the life of the author, it will be easier for children to immerse themselves in the books they have read. I hope you enjoyed our work on the biography with my son. You can support the project, it's very easy to do, just share the article on social media. networks by clicking on the buttons below. And I say goodbye to you, in the next article we will talk about the stories of this great Russian prose writer.

Sokolov-Mikitov's books are written in a melodious, rich and at the same time very simple language, the same language that the writer learned in childhood.

In one of his autobiographical notes, he wrote: “I was born and grew up in a simple working Russian family, among the forest expanses of the Smolensk region, its wonderful and very feminine nature. The first words I heard were bright folk words, the first music I heard were folk songs that once inspired the composer Glinka. "

In search of new pictorial means, the writer, back in the twenties of the last century, turned to a peculiar genre of short (not short, but short) stories, which he aptly christened bylits.

To an inexperienced reader, these epics may seem like simple notes from a notebook, made on the go, in memory of the events and characters that struck him.

We have already seen the best examples of such short, non-fictional stories by L. Tolstoy, I. Bunin, V. Veresaev, M. Prishvin.

Sokolov-Mikitov in his epics comes not only from the literary tradition, but also from folk art, from the spontaneity of oral stories.

For his bylits "Red and Black", "Myself on the coffin", "Terrible dwarf", "Razorbikha" and others are characterized by an extraordinary capacity and accuracy of speech. Even in the so-called hunting stories, he has a person in the foreground. Here he continues the best traditions of S. Aksakov and I. Turgenev.

Reading small stories by Sokolov-Mikitov about Smolensk places ("On the river Nevestnitsa") or about bird huts in the south of the country ("Lankaran"), one involuntarily imbued a sense of patriotism.

"His creativity, having a source of a small homeland (that is, the Smolensk region), belongs to the big Motherland, our great land with its vast expanses, innumerable riches and diverse beauty - from north to south, from the Baltic to the Pacific coast", - said about Sokolov-Mikitov A. Tvardovsky.

Not all people are able to feel and understand nature in organic connection with human mood, and only a few can simply and wisely depict nature. Sokolov-Mikitov possessed such a rare gift. This love for nature and for people living with her in friendship, he was able to convey to his very young reader. Our preschool and school children have long fallen in love with his books: "Kuzovok", "House in the Woods", "Fox Escapes" ... And how picturesque are his stories about hunting: "On the wood grouse", "Stretching", "The First Hunt" and others. You read them, and it seems that you yourself are standing on the edge of the forest and holding your breath, watching the majestic flight of the woodcock, or in the early, predawn hour, you listen to the mysterious and magical song of the wood grouse ...

The writer Olga Forsh said: “You read Mikitov and wait: a woodpecker is about to knock over your head or a hare will jump out from under the table; how great it is with him, really told! "

The work of Sokolov-Mikitov is autobiographical, but not in the sense that he wrote only about himself, but because he always told about everything as an eyewitness and participant in certain events. This gives his works a vivid persuasiveness and that documentary authenticity that so attracts the reader.

“I was lucky to get close to Ivan Sergeevich in the early years of his literary work,” K. Fedin recalled. - It was shortly after the Civil War. For half a century, he devoted me so much to his life that sometimes it seems to me that it has become mine.

He never set out to write his biography in detail. But he is one of those rare artists, whose life, as it were, added up everything that was written to him. "

Kaleria Zhekhova

ON THE NATIVE LAND

Sunrise

Even in early childhood, I had the opportunity to admire the sunrise. On an early spring morning, on a holiday, my mother sometimes woke me up, brought me to the window in her arms:

- Look how the sun plays!

Behind the trunks of old lindens, a huge, flaming ball rose above the awakened earth. He seemed to be swollen, shone with a joyful light, played, smiled. My child's soul rejoiced. For all my life I have remembered the face of my mother, illuminated by the rays of the rising sun.

In adulthood, I have watched the sunrise many times. I met him in the forest, when before dawn the pre-dawn wind passes above the tops of the heads, one after another the clear stars go out in the sky, black peaks are more clearly and clearly indicated in the lightened sky. There is dew on the grass. A spider web stretched in the forest sparkles with a multitude of sparkles. The air is clean and transparent. On a dewy morning, it smells of tar in a dense forest.

Scenario of a literary evening,

dedicated to the writer Ivan Sergeevich

Sokolov-Mikitov

(preparatory group)

Prepared by: Ya.L. Selyutina

Target:

- to develop interest in the work of I.S. Sokolova-Mikitova

-to promote the introduction of children to the book

-to instill the ability to emotionally perceive a work of Russian literature

- to enjoy reading, to feel the need for it

Tasks:

-to acquaint children with the life and work of the writer

- to educate the ability to listen and understand literary works, to emotionally respond to them

-to educate moral qualities

Preliminary work:

- acquaintance with the biography of the writer

- reading stories and fairy tales by I.S.Sokolov-Mikitov

-Viewing illustrations

- guessing riddles about animals

Equipment:

-portrait of I.S. Sokolova-Mikitova

-writer books

-pictures with traces of wild animals

- riddles about wild animals

-cards (confusion) with wild animals

-jetons

-chocolate medals

Stroke:

Children enter the hall to the music "In the animal world"

(sit on chairs, divide into two teams, choose team captains)

The first Znayka team

Motto: So as not to be known as a dunno, we must be friends with a book

The second team of "Why Much"

Motto: Where! Why! And why! - I will solve the mystery, I will take the book in my hands and find out the answer.

Educator: There are many different stories and fairy tales in the world, but today we will not talk about all fairy tales and stories, but one author I.S.Sokolov-Mikitov. (show portrait)

Let's remember the stories of I. Sokolov-Mikitov. (Cuckoo, Beavers, Hedgehogs, Russian forest, Foxes)

What about a fairy tale? (Salt of the earth)

And how are stories different from fairy tales?

(children's answers)

Well done, I think you know IS Sokolov-Mikitov very well, and now we will check it out. And we have the first competition, for each correct answer the team receives a token.

" Answer the question"
What kind of animals build two-story houses for housing? (Beavers)
What story did you learn this from? (Beavers)
What was the very first fairy tale written by I.S.Sokolov-Mikitov? (Salt of the earth)
What heroes of this tale do you remember? (children's answers)
Which bird lays its eggs in other people's nests? (cuckoo)
What is the name of the story in which this is described? (Cuckoo)
What do hedgehogs eat? (harmful insects, milk, snakes, mice ...)
Who wrote the "Hedgehog" story? (I.S.Sokolov-Mikitov)

Well done, with the first task. The teams did a great job, and now it's time to play.

NS/ and "Freeze"

Children act according to the text of the game.

Scattered across the lawns (running to loose)

Bears, foxes and bunnies

Began spinning merrily (spinning on tiptoes)

The animals began to have fun

One-jump, two-jump (jumping on two legs)

Freeze quickly friend (freeze until there is a command to die off)

The game can be repeated several times.

Now let's see how smart you are and earn a token for your team.

"Guess whose footprints?"

Pictures of animals and their footprints are laid out on two tables, children must choose the right footprints for the animals.

Three people are selected from each team to pick up the tracks. The team that picks up the tracks faster and correctly wins.

The winning team receives a token.

Educator: Well done guys coped with the task and get a token. And the next competition we have is "Riddles"

"Riddles"
The scythe has no den,

He doesn't need a hole.

Legs save from enemies

And from hunger bark

Bigfoot and big

He sleeps in dens in winter.

Loves cones, loves honey,

Well, who will name?

(Bear)

There are lumberjacks on the rivers

In silver-brown fur coats.

And from trees, branches, clay

Building solid dams

Angry touchy

Lives in the wilderness of the forest.

There are a lot of needles

And the thread is not one.

Red-haired hen

I came to the chicken coop

I read all the cars

And took away with me

This little baby

I'm glad even for a bread crumb

Because it's dark

She hides in a mink.

Touching the grass with hooves,

A handsome man walks through the forest

He walks boldly and easily

Horns spread wide.

Rustling, rustling grass

The whip is crawling alive,

So he got up and hissed:

Come who is very brave.

Educator: You guessed all the riddles correctly and received tokens. Now we'll see how attentive you are. I will give each team a confusion card, and you should see one wild animal on this card and name it, then pass the card to your neighbor. First, one team names the animals, then the other. Which team names more animals will win.

Confusion competition

Children take turns looking for one wild animal on the confusion card, name it and pass the card to their neighbor.

This concludes our quiz. Both teams handled all the competitions perfectly. Team captains count tokens. Now I propose to exchange your tokens for sweet coins.

BBK 84.R7
C59

Published with financial support
Federal Agency for Press and Mass
communications within the Federal Target
program "Culture of Russia"

I.S.Sokolov-Mikitov

"On my own land": Stories and stories / Comp. N.N. Starchenko. - Smolensk: Magenta, 2006 .-- P. 400.

ISBN 5-98156-049-5

The book by the classic of Russian literature of the 20th century I.S. Sokolov-Mikitov contains his best works written in the Smolensk region, in the village of Kislovo.

Technical editor E.A. Minin
Computer layout E.N. Kasyanenko
Drawings by V.V. Simonov
Proofreader T.A. Bykova
Cover photo A.V. Shlykov

Circulation 3000 copies.

FOREWORD

To the whole bright world.

A tiny bird sat on a tree stump ...
And everything bows, everything bows.
Bows to the whole bright world.
I. Sokolov-Mikitov.
From the recordings "In my own land"

There has never been such a book - a selected collection of works by the classic of Russian literature of the 20th century Ivan Sergeevich Sokolov-Mikitov.
Of course, both during the long life of the writer (1892-1975), and after his earthly limit, both collected works and separate collections of stories and stories were published, but nevertheless it is precisely such a book that appears for the first time - for it was compiled according to a special principle that was not applied to this day, neither by editors, nor compilers, nor publishers. Here, a happy and rare combination has turned out: the best works are collected under one spine, and they (almost all) are also written under one roof, in the writer's home.
I am very worried when I write these lines. That frosty February day in 2000 rises before my eyes, when I first saw the home of Sokolov-Mikitov, lost in the Smolensk wilderness. I was driving here, to the Ugransky district (these lands used to be part of the Dorogobuzhsky district), in the humble hope of finding at least some traces of the former stay of my favorite writer here, but then it turned out that even the whole house was worth it! True, only the walls and the roof were intact, and the rest was a complete looting: doors, frames with glass were torn out, stoves, oak floors, ceilings were dismantled ... Returning to Moscow, I made publications in several all-Russian periodicals: "Parlamentskaya Gazeta", "Literary Russia", the magazines "Ant", "Hunting and hunting economy", the almanac "Hunting collection" - I wanted to awaken a sense of empathy and participation in the largest possible number of readers, our public, urging, before it's too late , to save the home of a wonderful writer. I will not say that there was an immediate response. I had to listen to the following: "What are you bothering about? This is already a half-forgotten writer. Even now they hardly ask him in libraries ..."
But with this I could not agree in any way. Love for the work of Sokolov-Mikitov and anxiety for the fate of his native home brought me here again and again, in summer and winter, spring and autumn. More than once visited the villages of Kislovo, Poldnevo, Mutishino, Kochany, Latoyevo, Vygor, Burmakino, Pustoshka, Klets, where life still glimmers, and in those places where Fursovo, Novaya Derevnya, Lyadishchi, Subor, Krucha, Arkhamon, Kurakino have already disappeared , Zheltokhi ... All these names are often found in the writer's stories. A cherished dream was to visit that very capercaillie current beyond the Nevestitsa River, about which the wonderful story "Glushaki" is. And it happened! It was even possible to hear a mysterious, witching capercaillie song in the twilight of an early-early April morning. Imagine, the wood grouses are still singing there! And by itself the realization came that the restoration of the writer's house, the creation of a museum in it, should go along with the restoration for the modern reader of the true meaning of his outstanding work.
Indeed, even against the background of the incomprehensibly stormy twentieth century with its tragic and heroic events, the life and creative destiny of I.S. several human lives. It is enough to cite here a shortly stated autobiography of the writer, written just in one of such "cast-iron turns":
"Seventeen years old first went to sea as a sailor's apprentice around Europe.
The next summer I was drawn to the sea again. He sailed as a sailor in Alexandria, and when they came to Old Athos, he decided to stay. He walked the marble Holy Mountain, was a novice, had seen enough of Athonite miracles - it is inconvenient to talk about everything. On Mount Athos, the war caught up - he somehow made his way to Russia, almost got captured by the Turks, did not write anything.
At the beginning of the war he volunteered. In the spring of the fifteenth I went to the front with a medical detachment. He was published by Mirolyubiv in "Hedgehog [monthly] zhur [nale]" and elsewhere. In the sixteenth he entered the Air Squadron, flew on "Ilya Muromets". The squadron was caught by the revolution. For the fact that at the meeting he surrounded the fool-throat with a strong word, he was unanimously elected to the chair of the squadron committee and sent to the St. Petersburg Soviet.
During the revolution he did not make a single speech.
In St. Petersburg, he remained to serve in the navy in the 2nd Balt [isk] Fl [otkom] Crew [even] as a sailor, received two pounds of bread each. I met October there. I almost got into the outfit to disperse the Constituent Assembly. He lived with Remizov. When the "Aurora" was shooting on the Neva, they read "The Enchanted Place" by a lamp under a green shade. At night I ran to look at the Nikolaevsky bridge. A narrow-shouldered soldier with a hat pulled down over his face stood at the bridge with a gun in his hands. A small group of people gathered around the soldier, the woman, sighing, said to the soldier: "Oh, dear, you have not taken up your business!" The soldier - the last defender - turned out to be a girl and cried out of fear and because they had left alone.
In winter, the publishing house "Segodnya" published the first small booklet "Zasuponya".
In the spring, after the demobilization of the fleet, he left for the village, worked on the ground, listened to the peasant buzz, wrote the story "The Gray Hare". In the fall, he entered the "school workers" in the unified labor school. He published the "Rabbit newspaper" with the children, taught the children to write and learned from them. Printed a little book "Istok-gorod". He was called a "Bolshevik", but survived in the spring - the landlady of the apartment, Baba-Yaga, stole the view from the oven in order to lime it.
On the first of May, with the manager of the military commissariat Ivanov, he went to his "own" heating house to the south, to God's Light - again in a sailor's cap. In Kiev, in a shop near the station, he ate eight French rolls at once, the Greek owner, looking at this, even cried out of pity. Then we went to the Crimea. Was in the sailor army comrade. Dybenko, who occupied the Crimea "lads", with "brothers", was with Makhn. He did not take any part in the civil war. At the beginning of the Denikin offensive, he left for Kiev. In Kiev he was "captured" by Denikin. He sat in "counterintelligence" twice. At the direction of the artist Ermolov, he was almost torn to pieces on his face and was saved by a miracle. I had to flee from Kiev. He fled to the sea, to Odessa, and ended up in Rostov and the Crimea. Was mobilized into the Navy, served in the archive of the Black Sea Fleet. In Crimea, he underwent sitting of Denikin, Slashchev and Wrangel. In the spring he went into the gardens, dug the ground and hammered a stone for a pound and a half of Tatar cobblestone bread, from dawn to dawn. Got acquainted and became friends with I.S.Shmelev, who ate rusty anchovy. In Kerch I used to catch bull-calves on a pier. In May he left as a sailor on the schooner "Dykh-tau" to Constantinople. I went to Kemel-lash in Chungulak with coal and live rams, to Evpatria and Smyrna with barley. In Constantinople, he took the helm on the ocean-going steamer Dobr [ovolny] Fl [ota] Omsk, which came from America, went on it to Alexandria and England. I ate it. They stayed in England until the spring of the twenty-first. In the spring the self-proclaimed "Board of the Good [Oval] Fleet" the steamer "drove" to someone. For protesting on behalf of the team, Captain Yanovsky was handed over to the British police as a harmful "Bolshevik", and if not for the intercession of the writer A. V. Tyrkova and her husband G. V. Wilms, it would have ended badly. From England, with the help of God, he made his way to Germany, put down roots and for the first time began to write more or less seriously.
Ivan Mikitov. February 23, 1922. Dahlem, near Berlin ".
(mospagebreak heading = Page 1)

Such a somewhat ragged, chopped-up page written in which we have not abbreviated a word cannot but impress. She gives a few notches for naming - and we will return to them later - but now I want to draw attention only to those three lines, which say that in the spring of the fifteenth year he went to the front with an ambulance detachment, and in the sixteenth he entered the squadron of air ships, flew on "Ilya Muromets V" and that was soon published in the then well-known all over Russia "Monthly magazine" V. E. Mirolyubov. There are only three lines, and how much they contain in themselves, what a truly unique material of life that was asked for on paper! He already had some writing experience at that time. "Salt of the Earth" was the name of the fairy tale, the very first work of the young, nineteen-year-old Vanya Sokolov, written in 1911. As an inquisitive, inquisitive young man, he tirelessly collected folk tales, sayings, bylits in his native village of Kislovo in the Smolensk region, and then skillfully selected the best of this wealth - truly the salt of the fatherland! This feature of it was noticed by the famous writer A.M. Remizov, supported, and helped to publish. And in letters to Remizov from the front, Sokolov writes: “I found out that in the near rear it is worse than in the trenches - people are worse. I cannot write about the war. I need a great skill to have - to write - or impudence. For nothing, of course, what you see does not disappear, the soul absorbs everything, and then, after the war, if I have enough strength, I will talk ... N. Tolstoy war stories - bad, insulting. " One feels that he himself really wants to describe what he saw, experienced! II, a few months later, in the spring of 1916, his war stories appeared in the periodical Russian press.
It must be said here that the First World War was unlucky either in our history ("imperialist") or in fiction. Unfortunately, we in Russia know more about this war from the novels of E. Hemingway and E. M. Remarque. But the orderly, then the mechanic of the most powerful bomber in the world "Ilya Muromets" Ivan Sokolov much earlier than Hemingway and Remarque wrote his stories - he sent them directly from the front (he wrote almost on the wing of the plane after returning from the bombing!) To the Birzhevye newspaper Vedomosti ", in the magazine" Ogonyok ", in the already mentioned here" Monthly magazine ". These extraordinary stories, about which practically nothing is said in our literary criticism (we find some coverage of this topic only in the book of M. N. Levitin1 "I see Russia ..."), simply amaze with their artistic maturity, the ability of an eyewitness author in to convey in words both the general picture and the state of mind of an individual. For the story "Glebushka", published in the newspaper "Birzhevye Vedomosti", the young writer even received a scolding from the military authorities: how is it that he, a simple non-commissioned officer, writes so familiarly about his commander, staff captain, the famous aviator Gleb Vasilievich Alekhnovich? In general, Ivan Sokolov's talented stories and essays about the everyday life of the first Russian pilots and his very name should have long been in the most honorable place in the glorious history of Russian aviation. And again you think with bitterness: everything in Russia from TV shows, films, books, plays, magazines, newspapers, and school programs knows about the French writer-pilot Antoine de Saint aviation and this very literary theme (the French writer flew on a military plane already during the Second World War), with very few exceptions, we have not even heard of it ... I hope that this book, its initial section "early stories" though would to some extent fill this gap.
It is noteworthy that Ivan Sokolov, swimming as a sailor before the war and already trying his pen, still could not write about the sea, but here the other, cruel reality of the war pushed to throw out what had accumulated inside. It is curious that in stories about combat flights there is a pet-pet and a nautical theme slips: "Flight is swimming, only there is no water: you look down, as you looked at the cloudy sky overturned in the mirror surface." Or elsewhere: "As high as the sea: you will get lost and you will not find the ends." And the young writer compares the plane "Ilya Muromets" with an airship - and here too, "like at sea, each has his own business." Yes, it "broke through" with war stories - and then the writer took up his favorite topics in full force: the warm land of his homeland and travels across the sea. Therefore, it's time to move on to the next and most important period of the writer's life, to the next section of the book, to those works that later became textbooks. Moreover, the word "reader" is not a catchword here. We, who were born in the 1950s, also found textbooks of the Russian language and literature in our schools, where many excellent examples of the Russian artistic word were given, where, along with A. Pushkin, M. Lermontov, N. Gogol, I. Turgenev, L. Tolstoy, A. Chekhov was named after I. Sokolov-Mikitov.
The stories "On the River Nevestnitsa" organically adjoin the ending of the first section of this book. But these are already other letters from the village ... Five years have passed, Sokolov-Mikitov has experienced and seen a lot - he pushed around the world, was in forced emigration, with great joy he returned to Russia in the summer of 1922, to his native Smolensk places. His creative line was supported by I. A. Bunin (they met in 1919 in Odessa), he was encouraged by the high appreciation of A. I. Kuprin, who wrote in a letter from Paris in 1921: true knowledge of folk life, for a short, lively and correct language. Most of all I like that you have found your own, exclusively your style and your form, and both do not allow you to mix with anyone, and this is the most expensive " ... Note, by the way, that among the stories sent to Kuprin from Berlin was "Fursik". And again let us recall Leo Tolstoy - after all, here it is not difficult to notice a new (after war stories) attempt to measure up strength against the great writer. And, I confess, to me, who grew up in the countryside, Tolstoy's "Kholstomer" is closer to the heart of the heartfelt and sad story of the hardworking village horse Fursik.
The section "On the Nevestnitsa River" includes the best stories of the writer about his native land, taken from two of his creative cycles - "On the Nevestnitsa River" and "On the Warm Land". With a loving, but strict selection, not only the involuntary repetition of one or another topic was excluded, but even its reflection. For example, when choosing between the story "Helen" and the story "Found Meadow", where the "wolf theme" is traced, preference was given to a short, capacious story. The reader will be convinced for himself: in this section of the book, every story is a masterpiece. And this was well understood by the writer's contemporaries. "I read your" Glushakov "once again. Here is a wonderful thing, without a flaw, beautiful. Here is real poetry, art in the real sense," wrote Vitaly Bianki, a writer known to everyone since childhood, to Sokolov-Mikitov. Indeed, in all of our Russian (and world) fiction there are few such harmonious, inimitably natural in their intonation and deep but meaningful stories, where man and nature are a single whole: "The blue smoking forest covered them simply and invisibly, like their relatives."
I. Sokolov-Mikitov's love for nature is an integral part of life itself, this is not the notorious "outdoor recreation" or the modern "Greenpeace ecology". His confession is characteristic: “It happens like this: living for a long time outside of close nature, I seem to cease to feel the movement of living life.
(mospagebreak heading = Page 2)

Such a social story as "Dust" is also permeated with this note. This was a fresh, even unexpected topic for the mid-1920s: the former landowner Almazov comes from the city to visit his village. This trampled man, humiliated by the new power, in his native places, amidst nature, dear from childhood, for at least a couple of days does not feel so destitute - a meeting with his homeland at least a little mentally healed him. The reader's heart will not be left indifferent by the stories about the tragic fate of two girls - a school girl ("Ava") and a peasant woman ("Honey hay"). Their images are on a par with the classic Turgenev and Bunin heroines.
The third section of the book includes "Sea stories". And here, too, the most powerful and unique is selected. Of the seventeen stories commonly published in this cycle, only ten were taken. And this is the "ten" that any writer dreams of! And again you are amazed: how quickly, how creatively this cycle was created, simultaneously with stories of "local" content. I bury it by the dates of their writing that they were created alternately - the writer probably felt great joy and a kind of relaxation from this, being transported from the banks of the Bride to the African coast, then back ...
We'll have to dwell here on one author's footnote - in the story "Knives" about "rascal monks". I do not know what prompted the writer to write a dozen and a half lines condemning the Athonite monks. Although some kind of dull hint is given in the one-page autobiography already known to the reader, where he writes that he was for some time a novice on the holy Mount Athos, getting off the ship where he served as a sailor. And in a notebook of the 1920s, he speaks disapprovingly of certain degraded ministers of the church of the Dorogobuzh district. With all this, the writer, of course, was no fighter against God. Already a deep old man, always delicate, he rather abruptly cut off one visitor, who was talking about her trip, during which she met a "lousy church" - apparently, it meant its neglect. According to the memoirs of VB Chernyshev, Ivan Sergeevich angrily snapped at this: "You can't say that." Lousy churches "do not exist." So I really want to remove this author's footnote to the story "Knives", but it is still not good to allow arbitrariness in relation to the author ... Everything is left as it was.
The only thing that I allowed myself, in addition to a careful selection of the best stories of the "sea" cycle, was to put the story "Sailors" at the end (for some reason it usually stood second) - both in accordance with the chronology of Sokolov-Mikitov's voyages, and in connection with with the fact that the events described in this story then logically continue in the story "Chizhikov Lavra". But before moving on to the section of stories, I would like to emphasize once again that the sea stories presented here are, in my opinion, the best of everything that Sokolov-Mikitov has ever written on the topic of travel - both sea and land. And here, apparently, a fundamental clarification is required. The fact is that, voluntarily or not, but through the efforts of literary critics and publishers, the image of Sokolov-Mikitov was formed primarily as a tireless traveler, pathfinder, polar explorer, etc. But this is still an external, superficial characteristic of the writer. Obviously, it will be appropriate to bring such a letter from the banks of the Bride: “Within myself I decided: either to live here, or, if I leave, then it’s far away. I will not live in the city.” They forced him to leave far away, and although he had to register in the city, in fact, while he had the strength, he did not live in the city - all on long journeys and expeditions. I dare to assert that these trips, after the loss of their small homeland, were often forced in nature - and but the desire to escape from the city, and, if necessary, to live something, support a family, and therefore regularly go on long business trips on the instructions of the editorial staff. And stories and travel sketches appeared that were far from equal in strength to the sea stories of the 1920s (the writer himself admitted this more than once with bitterness, reproaching himself that after Kislov a lot was written "for bread").
The story "Chizhikov Lavra" is a work of rare artistic power and moral feeling about a Russian man who became an emigrant not by his own will. Actually, there is still nothing equal to "Chizhikova Lavra" in our art on the theme of nostalgia and homesickness, although since that time more than one wave of emigration from Russia has passed: “I really miss my homeland. Until then, suddenly the local will become contrary. " The story is written in the first person, it is a suffering exhalation of a Russian man exhausted by nostalgia, for whom life without a homeland has lost all value. It is not difficult to guess in this work the author himself ... Telling K. Fedin from Kislov in September 1925 that he will soon finish the Chizhikov Lavra, he emphasizes its peculiarity: man. " It was his invariable creative and life principle - not to mock a person (compare with the current prevailing rights in the writers' and journalistic environment!) tyranny-mockery of local authorities: either they will be deprived of the electoral right, or they are trying to impose a tax. More than once he turned to Moscow for help, from there they pulled back zealous administrators. But by the summer of 1929, the clouds began to circle more and more ominously over the writer's head. They did not want to renew the lease, and Moscow did not help either. Collectivization and dispossession were imminent. I had to leave my home forever ... We settled first in Gatchina, then in Leningrad. "The collective farm tractor ran over you ..." - bitterly joked many years later AT Tvardovsky, who lovingly loved Sokolov-Mikitov like a son.
For many decades, the story "Childhood" has been winning the heart of the reader at any age. Work on it, pondering future chapters, began when Sokolov-Mikitov already knew for sure that he would have to leave his home by the decision of the "troika" (two votes against one ...). The writer, as it were, caught himself - after all, forever, forever losing his home! We need to have time to hold on, fix on paper, not let the grass of oblivion overgrow the cute stitches of a happy, serene childhood ... Most likely, the very writing of the story already in Gatchina (and then it was supplemented several times) was saving for the writer at that difficult time of losing his home , the father of the earth, that is, the loss of the most dear.
Having re-read the story "Childhood" again in this book, after the works written earlier, you somehow especially clearly see the pure, unclouded sources of his talent, but the essence is the very color, the very nickname of all the best that he had achieved by that time, by 1929. By the way, to his 37th birthday ... And what is it, really, for such a sworn age for Russian talents ?! If they do not destroy them physically, they will destroy the creative destiny, they will be kicked out of their home ...
And now Ivan Sergeevich Sokolov-Mikitov returns. Even after many years, but to his home, to the lovely banks of the rivers Gordota and the Bride, the most dear to him. Frankly, I am a little jealous of those readers who for the first time pick up this delightful book, addressed to the whole bright world. More than once painstakingly rereading Sokolov-Mikitov, sometimes painfully hesitating, choosing the best from the best, pondering the logical and temporal construction of the collection, I already know him, as they say, along and across. Another thing is to open a book for the first time and from the very first page to be captured by the amazing power of the artistic word, folk wisdom and human warmth! And "On My Own Land" is being published just at the time when the first museum of I. Sokolov-Mikitov in Russia opens in a house revived from oblivion. The book will serve as a living, bright, irreplaceable guide to the writer's native land, to the surrounding area, but to the house-museum itself.
And yet, how joyful, how lightly cleansing in the soul, that Ivan Sergeevich Sokolov-Mikitov is returning! To his home, with his best book, written mainly in these strong, resinous, imperishable walls ...

Nikolay STARCHENKO,
Candidate of Philology,
editor-in-chief of the magazine about nature for family reading "Ant"

All rights reserved. No part of the electronic version of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, including posting on the Internet and corporate networks, for private and public use without the written permission of the copyright holder.

I. S. SOKOLOV-MIKITOV

Sixty years of active creative activity in the turbulent XX century, full of so many events and upheavals - this is the result of the life of the remarkable Soviet writer Ivan Sergeevich Sokolov-Mikitov.

He spent his childhood in the Smolensk region, with its sweet, truly Russian nature. In those days, the old way of life and way of life was still preserved in the village. The boy's first impressions were festive festivities, village fairs. It was then that he merged with his native land, with its immortal beauty.

When Vanya was ten years old, he was sent to a real school. Unfortunately, this institution was notable for its bureaucracy, and the teaching went badly. In the spring, the smells of awakened greenery irresistibly attracted the boy to the Dnieper, to its banks, covered with a gentle haze of blossoming foliage.

Sokolov-Mikitov was expelled from the fifth grade of the school "on suspicion of belonging to student revolutionary organizations." It was impossible to enter with a "wolf ticket" anywhere. The only educational institution where a certificate of trustworthiness was not required was the St. Petersburg private agricultural courses, where he was able to enter a year later, although, as the writer admitted, he did not feel a great attraction to agriculture, as, incidentally, he never felt an attraction to settledness, property, domesticity ...

Boring coursework soon turned out to be not to the liking of Sokolov-Mikitov - a man with a restless, restless character. Having settled in Revel (now Tallinn) on a merchant ship, he wandered around the world for several years. I saw many cities and countries, visited European, Asian and African ports, got close to working people.

The First World War found Sokolov-Mikitov in a foreign land. With great difficulty he got from Greece to his homeland, and then volunteered for the front, flew in the first Russian bomber "Ilya Muromets", served in sanitary detachments.

In Petrograd he met the October Revolution, with bated breath listening to the speech of V. I. Lenin in the Tauride Palace. In the editorial office of Novaya Zhizn he met Maxim Gorky and other writers. In these critical years for the country, Ivan Sergeevich became a professional writer.

After the revolution, he worked for a short time as a teacher of a unified labor school in his native Smolensk places. By this time, Sokolov-Mikitov had already published the first stories noticed by such masters as I. Bunin and A. Kuprin.

"Warm Earth" - this is how the writer called one of his first books. And it would be difficult to find a more precise, more capacious name! After all, the native Russian land is really warm, because it is warmed by the warmth of human labor and love.

The stories of Sokolov-Mikitov about the campaigns of the flagships of the icebreaker fleet "Georgy Sedov" and "Malygin", which marked the beginning of the development of the Northern Sea Route, date back to the time of the first polar expeditions. On one of the islands of the Arctic Ocean, a bay was named after Ivan Sergeevich Sokolov-Mikitov, where he found the buoy of the lost Ziegler expedition, the fate of which was unknown until that moment.

Sokolov-Mikitov spent several winters on the shores of the Caspian Sea, traveled to the Kola and Taimyr Peninsulas, Transcaucasia, the Tien Shan mountains, the Northern and Murmansk regions. He wandered through the dense taiga, saw the steppe and the sultry desert, traveled all over the Moscow region. Each such trip not only enriched him with new thoughts and experiences, but was also imprinted by him in new works.

Hundreds of stories and novellas, essays and sketches were given to people by this man of kind talent. The pages of his books are illuminated by the wealth and generosity of the soul.

The work of Sokolov-Mikitov is close to Aksakov's, Turgenev's, and Bunin's manner. However, his works have their own special world: not outside observation, but live communication with the surrounding life.

The encyclopedia says about Ivan Sergeevich: "Russian Soviet writer, sailor, traveler, hunter, ethnographer." And although there is a point further, this list could be continued: teacher, revolutionary, soldier, journalist, polar explorer.