Vasily aksyonov years of life. Was Maya's divorce difficult? Work in Russia

Vasily Aksyonov was born on August 20, 1932 in Kazan, in the family of Evgenia Solomonovna Ginzburg (1904-1977) and Pavel Vasilyevich Aksyonov (1899-1991). He was the third, youngest child in the family (and the only common child of his parents). Father, Pavel Vasilyevich, was the chairman of the Kazan City Council and a member of the bureau of the Tatar Regional Committee of the CPSU. Mother, Evgenia Solomonovna, worked as a teacher at the Kazan Pedagogical Institute, then as the head of the culture department of the newspaper "Krasnaya Tataria". Subsequently, having gone through the horror of the Stalinist camps, at the time of the exposure of the personality cult, Yevgenia Ginzburg became the author of the book of memoirs "Steep Route" - one of the first books-memoirs about the era of Stalinist repressions and camps, which told about the eighteen years spent by the author in prison, Kolyma camps and link.

In 1937, when Vasily Aksyonov was not yet five years old, both parents (first his mother, and then soon his father) were arrested and sentenced to 10 years in prison and camps. The older children - sister Maya (daughter of P.V. Aksyonov) and Alyosha (son of E.S.Ginzburg from his first marriage) were taken by relatives. Vasya was forcibly sent to an orphanage for children of prisoners (his grandmothers were not allowed to keep the child with them). In 1938, P. Aksenov's brother, Andrey Vasilyevich Aksyonov, managed to find little Vasya in an orphanage in Kostroma and take him to his place. Vasya lived in the house of Moti Aksyonova (his paternal relative) until 1948, when his mother Yevgenia Ginzburg, leaving the camp in 1947 and living in exile in Magadan, obtained permission for Vasya to visit her in Kolyma. Evgenia Ginzburg will describe the meeting with Vasya in "Steep Route".

Many years later, in 1975, Vasily Aksyonov described his Magadan youth in his autobiographical novel Burn.

In 1956, Aksyonov graduated from the 1st Leningrad Medical Institute and was assigned to the Baltic Shipping Company, where he was supposed to work as a doctor on long-distance ships. Despite the fact that his parents had already been rehabilitated, he was never given permission. Later it was mentioned that Aksyonov worked as a quarantine doctor in the Far North, in Karelia, in the Leningrad sea trade port and in a tuberculosis hospital in Moscow (according to other sources, he was a consultant at the Moscow Research Institute of Tuberculosis).

A family

• Half-sister (on her father's side) - Maya Pavlovna Aksyonova, teacher-methodologist, author of methodological and textbooks on teaching the Russian language. Stepbrother (by mother) - Alexey Dmitrievich Fedorov (1926-1941), died during the Leningrad blockade. The mother's adopted daughter is actress Antonina Pavlovna Aksyonova (original surname Khinchinskaya, born 1945).
• The first wife is Kira Lyudvigovna Mendeleva, daughter of the brigade commander Lajos (Ludwig Matvevich) Gavro and the granddaughter of the famous pediatrician and healthcare organizer Yulia Aronovna Mendeleva (1883-1959), founder and first rector of the Leningrad Pediatric Medical Institute (1925-1949).
  • Son - Alexey Vasilyevich Aksyonov (born 1960), production designer.
• The second wife - Maya Afanasyevna Aksyonova (nee Zmeul, Ovchinnikov's first marriage, Carmen's second marriage; born 1930), graduated from the Institute of Foreign Trade, worked in the Chamber of Commerce, taught Russian in America.
  • Stepdaughter - Elena (Alena) (1954 - August 2008).

Since 1960, Vasily Aksyonov has been a professional writer. The story "Colleagues" (written in 1959; the play of the same name together with Yu. Stabov, 1961; the film of the same name, 1962), the novels "Star Ticket" (1961) (the film "My Younger Brother", 1962 was filmed based on it), the story " Oranges from Morocco ”(1962),“ It's time, my friend, it's time ”(1963), collections“ Catapult ”(1964),“ Halfway to the Moon ”(1966), the play“ Always on sale ”(staged by the Sovremennik theater , 1965); in 1968 the satirical-fantastic story "Overstocked barrel" was published.

In the 1960s, V. Aksyonov's works were often published in the Yunost magazine. For several years he has been a member of the editorial board of the journal. On March 5, 1966, Vasily Aksyonov participated in an attempted demonstration on Red Square in Moscow against the alleged rehabilitation of Stalin. He was detained by vigilantes. In 1967-1968, he signed a number of letters in defense of dissidents, for which he received a reprimand with entry into a personal file from the Moscow branch of the USSR Writers' Union.

Back in March 1963, at a meeting with the intelligentsia in the Kremlin, Nikita Khrushchev subjected Aksyonov (together with Andrei Voznesensky) to sharp criticism. And in the 1970s, after the end of the "thaw", Aksenov's works ceased to be published in his homeland. The novels "Burn" (1975) and "The Island of Crimea" (1979) were created from the very beginning by the author without counting on publication. At this time, criticism of V. Aksyonov and his works becomes more and more harsh: such epithets as “non-Soviet” and “non-people” are used. In 1977-1978, Aksyonov's works began to appear abroad, primarily in the United States.

In 1972, together with O. Gorchakov and G. Pozhenyan, he wrote a parody novel of the spy thriller Gene Green - Untouchable under the pseudonym Grivadiy Gorpozhaks (a combination of the names and surnames of real authors). 1976 - translated from English the novel "Ragtime" by E. L. Doctorow.

In 1978 V. Aksyonov together with Andrey Bitov, Victor Erofeev, Fazil Iskander, Evgeny Popov, Bella Akhmadulina became one of the organizers and authors of the uncensored almanac “Metropol”. Never published in the Soviet censored press, the almanac was published in the United States. Like all the participants in the almanac, it was "elaborated". In protest against the subsequent expulsion of Popov and Erofeev from the Union of Writers of the USSR in December 1979, V. Aksyonov, as well as Inna Lisnyanskaya and Semyon Lipkin, announced their withdrawal from the joint venture. The history of the almanac is described in the novel "with a key" "Say" raisins "".

On July 22, 1980, he left at the invitation of the United States, after which in 1981 he was deprived of Soviet citizenship. Until 2004 he lived in the USA.

Since 1981, Vasily Aksyonov is a professor of Russian literature at various US universities: Kennan Institute (1981-1982), George Washington University (1982-1983), Gaucher College (1983-1988), George Mason University (1988-2009).

In 1980-1991, as a journalist, he actively collaborated with the Voice of America and Radio Liberty. Collaborated with the magazine "Continent" and the almanac "Glagol". Aksyonovskie radio sketches were published in the author's collection "Decade of Slander" (2004).

In the United States, the novels "Our Golden Iron" (1973, 1980), "Burn" (1976, 1980), "Crimea Island" (1979, 1981), written by Aksyonov in Russia, but first published only after the writer's arrival in America, collection of short stories "The Right to the Island" (1981). Also in the USA V. Aksyonov wrote and published new novels: "Paper Landscape" (1982), "Say" Raisins "" (1985), "In Search of a Sad Baby" (1986), the trilogy "Moscow Saga" (1989, 1991 , 1993), a collection of short stories "The negative of the positive hero" (1995), "New sweet style" (1996) (dedicated to the life of the Soviet emigration in the United States), "Caesarean glow" (2000).

The novel "Egg yolk" (1989) was written by V. Aksyonov in English, then translated by the author into Russian.

In the United States, Aksyonov was awarded the honorary title of Doctor of Humane Letters. He was a member of the PEN Club and the American Writing League.

For the first time, after nine years of emigration, Aksyonov visited the USSR in 1989 at the invitation of the American Ambassador J. Matlock. In 1990, Aksyonov was returned to Soviet citizenship.

Recently he lived with his family in Biarritz, France, and in Moscow.

The Moscow Saga trilogy (1992) was filmed in Russia in 2004 by A. Barshchevsky in a TV serial.

In 1993, during the dispersal of the Supreme Soviet, he expressed solidarity with those who signed the letter in support of Boris N. Yeltsin.

In 2004 V. Aksyonov was awarded the Russian Booker Prize for the novel "Voltairians and Voltairians". In 2005 Vasily Aksyonov was awarded the Order of Arts and Literature.

On January 15, 2008 in Moscow V. Aksyonov suddenly felt very bad, was admitted to hospital No. 23, where he was diagnosed with a stroke. A day after hospitalization, Aksyonov was transferred to the Sklifosovsky Research Institute, where he underwent an operation to remove a carotid thrombus. On January 29, 2008, doctors assessed the writer's condition as extremely serious. As of August 28, 2008, the condition remained “consistently serious”. On March 5, 2009, new complications arose, Aksyonov was transferred to the Burdenko Research Institute and operated on. Later Aksyonov was transferred back to the Sklifosovsky Research Institute.

On July 6, 2009, after a long illness, Vasily Pavlovich Aksyonov died in Moscow, at the Sklifosovsky Research Institute.

Since 2007, the International Literary and Music Festival Aksyonov-fest has been held annually in Kazan since 2007 (in October) (the first was held with his personal participation), in 2009 the building was recreated and the Aksyonov Literary House-Museum was opened, in which the city literary club operates.

In October 2009, Vasily Aksyonov's last completed novel, “Mysterious Passion. A novel about the sixties ”, individual chapters of which were published in 2008 in the magazine“ Collection of the caravan of stories ”. The novel is autobiographical; its protagonists were the idols of Soviet literature and art of the 1960s: Robert Rozhdestvensky, Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Bella Akhmadulina, Andrei Voznesensky, Bulat Okudzhava, Andrei Tarkovsky, Vladimir Vysotsky, Ernst Neizvestny, Marlen Khutsiev and others. In order to distance himself from the genre of memoirs, the author gave the characters in the novel fictitious names.

In 2010, Aksyonov's unfinished autobiographical novel "The Lend-Lease" was released.

In 2011, Alexander Kabakov and Evgeny Popov published a joint book of memoirs "Aksyonov". The authors are extremely worried about the question of the "writer's fate" related to the intricacies of biography, the birth of a great Personality. The super task of the book is to resist distortion of facts for the sake of one or another conjuncture.

I cannot call Aksenov a great writer of the 20th century. He has a peculiar view of art, which can be explained by the difficult life in an orphanage and resentment against the government for repressing parents. Perhaps for this reason, he became a harsh anti-Stalinist. For which he was expelled from the USSR. Almost in every of his works, there is a dislike for the system that existed at that time. If we consider this story, then oranges here act as a kind of symbol of freedom. But this symbol is small, it will not be enough for everyone, which means that it must be divided. In the same way, the two main characters are "divided". More precisely, they themselves are torn apart, not knowing what choice to make. I will definitely reread the book when it goes on sale. And I advise all fans of prose of the 60s to familiarize themselves with it.

I love Aksenov's prose very much! He writes great! His stories can be understood by both adults and children. I got acquainted with this work as a teenager. Then it made a huge impression on me! Actually, oranges are used here rather in a figurative sense. But the main message is that in the era of the 60s it was an unusual and scarce product, especially in the Far East. The orange here is a symbol of the sun, a breakthrough and an accomplished miracle! Perhaps someone will find references to the well-known rhyme: "We shared an orange ...", but in my opinion this is too primitive a comparison. Most importantly, this book is about people, not fruits. I'm very glad to be able to buy it again in hardcover.

Catherine

I had never read the stories of Vasily Aksenov before, so I was only familiar with novels. I read this book and was very impressed! Moreover, I liked the language of the story - light, relaxed and at the same time meaningful, literary, competent! I liked the way the author puts interesting thoughts into the mouths of the characters, how he endows them with characters and habits. You don't even notice how you involuntarily begin to feel some kind of kinship with them. After reading, there is a feeling that I do not want to let them go, I want to continue to follow their destinies.
The book is well-designed, such a publication is truly pleasant to hold in your hands! Despite the impressive volume, the stories are read easily and quickly, one might even say that you do not notice how you are approaching the ending of the story.

Thanks to this book, I discovered Vasily Aksenova in a new way! Previously, this author was for me exclusively a novelist, but now I discovered him as a great storyteller. This is an example of excellent intellectual prose, which makes you think about many things, rethink your attitude to life, somewhere to be sad, and somewhere to laugh ... I honestly admit that I liked this book even more than The Island of Crimea. Maybe due to the fact that I, in principle, gravitate more towards a small form of narration, of course. But Aksenov is undoubtedly a talented and amazing writer, whose work must be studied without fail.

I began to read the novel as historical, not fantastic, as it really is (if two assumptions, one geographic, the other historical, can make the novel fantastic? until it finally dawned on me to crawl into Wikipedia and read that the novel is a historical hoax, which has two assumptions: Crimea is an island, not a peninsula, and it was never Soviet, the White Guard emigrants who fled after the 17 revolution turned Crimea into a flourishing democratic state, and the purpose of the novel is to expose the flawed political system of the Soviet Union.
Despite my dislike for "political pamphlets," as some reviewers call the novel, I enjoyed reading, mostly love scenes, describing the beauties of Crimea and the way of life of its inhabitants, and the family relationship between the Archnikovs and the Lunins. Speaking, by the way, surnames. The main character, Andrei Luchnikov, is obviously the Sun, he even somewhere in the text is called "a ray of light in a dark kingdom", and his longtime love Tatyana Lunina is the Moon, as well as the image of the homeland, the homeland to which the hero strives to return ... Therefore, she leaves him closer to the end of the novel, since in the blindness of his ideological excitement, he not only ceases to notice her, but also to love her (their last bed scene is almost rape).
But, in order.
Three generations of evacuants (temporarily evacuated) Archnikov: grandfather, son, grandson - these are representatives of one of the most influential families on OK (Island of Crimea), they are also representatives of three different ideological trends: grandfather Arseny Luchnikov is an adherent of the old, pre-revolutionary Russia, he and the provisional government of the island are the heirs of the noble honor, officers, old men who never surrendered to the red regime (by the way, they surrender to the red invaders at the end of the novel, but no one needs their honor and dignity anymore - this is in the past). Son Andrei Luchnikov, editor-in-chief and owner of the Russian Courier magazine, race car driver, ladies' man, jam bond and betman in one bottle, as well as the creator and engine of the Idea of ​​Common Destiny, which embodied the longing of a Russian emigrant for his homeland, agreeing to any reunification with her with the best intentions - to be useful to her. Anton Luchnikov - the grandson of Arseny and the son of Andrey - a hippie, a man of peace, a child of capitalist progress and, as they say now, liberal-humanistic ideals, having arrived on the island after long wanderings around the world, he connects to the political movement of the yaki - a new nation that mixed Russians, Tatars and Europeans, and trying not only to develop a unified political strategy, but also to create its own language. And now, in fact, this family contradiction of views seems to be interpolated for the whole novel, but the confrontation of these forces, embodied in some kind of table disputes, bath gatherings, behind-the-scenes tactics and undercover games, and even in a car rally looks rather naive, overly glamorous and, despite the abundance of profanity, it is somehow family-friendly. From the very beginning, no one seems to have any particular doubts that the main truth and strength is in Andrey Luchnikov and in his idea of ​​a Common Destiny, which really wins. And only in this way, having won, it can discredit itself, since instead of a reasonable and mutually beneficial unification of the island with the Soviet Union, an absurd and treacherous attack on the island under the guise of the "Spring Games" takes place, although Crimea itself asked for annexation. The main characters are waiting for someone to come to them and ask how everything works. Nobody asks anyone, almost all the main characters die. And life from a free and colorful fair immediately turns into the absurdity of propaganda, false triumphs, imperial stupidity and senseless violence.

Of the minuses, the author fails to show the very Russia with which the main character longs for unity. The Soviet Union is shown only from the bad side - it is an empire of lies, informers and fear. This is obviously how the author sees it. Nevertheless, he seems to be trying to reconcile the Russian emigration with the Soviet Union (I think that in the 70s this was an urgent task), but the events of the novel show that the Red Empire will simply swallow the emigrants, like a ruthless glowing shark (the image of the homeland or party, which pursued one of the GB officers, Kuzenkov Marlen Mikhailovich, who had gone mad and killed by the storm).

I would like to say about the image of the main character. At times it seemed to me that I was reading about Dunno in the Sunny City, only Dunno grew up, he has an adult son (and at the end of the novel a grandson is born), he drinks a lot, plays political games, and, like James Bond, without fear and reproach, fucks young beauties and escapes from the pursuit of any intelligence services in the world, but nevertheless remains Dunno, since the fact, which is obvious for all the other characters in the novel, does not reach him about the fatality for him and his family of the annexation of Crimea to the Soviet Union.

On the whole, a contradictory impression remains from the work. Although many reviewers are inclined to interpret it unambiguously, see in it an exposure of the "Sovdepia", the imperial manners of Russia, and sometimes even as the author's statement about the total inferiority and limitations of the Russian nation as a whole. I would not be so unambiguous in my assessments.
The novel is, without a doubt, a landmark. From the fact that the interim head of Crimea Aksenov (mind you, two coincidences! "Provisional" and "Aksenov") asked for the annexation of Crimea to Russia, from the events in which it happened, I admit, I get goosebumps. The writers again either prophesied or predicted. And if you do not go into the subtleties, then, in my opinion, this is a warning and a prejudice against the return of the “Sovdepia” (Stepanida Vlasyevna, as it is called in the novel). And in this sense, today, when "Crimea is our" novel is even more relevant than ever, because it warns and feeds those fears with which the liberal-minded intelligentsia is full.
On the other hand, the main character Andrei Luch nevertheless evokes sympathy for the author, and for the reader, nevertheless he is a super-hero, albeit in the format of an ironic Aksenov, nevertheless most of us understand the main character's longing for his homeland, and let his desire to reunite even at the cost of our own life, we are close to the author's attempt to discuss with himself and with the reader about the national idea, without which it is still impossible ... Without it, they will still be looking for it.

Aksyonov Vasily Pavlovich

Writer
Winner of the "Booker - Open Russia" prize for the best novel of the year "Voltaireans and Voltaireans" (2004)
Recipient of the Order of Arts and Letters, one of the highest awards in France (2005)
Holder of the title Doctor of Humane Letters (USA)
Member of the PEN Club and the American Author's League

“One of the brightest people of the“ thaw ”generation passed away, who all his life tried to preserve this warmth of the“ thaw ”and invited his readers to follow him." Andrey Bitov.

Vasily Aksyonov was born on August 20, 1932 in the family of party workers Evgenia Semyonovna Ginzburg and Pavel Vasilyevich Aksyonov. He was the third, youngest child in the family, and the only common child of his parents. His father, Pavel Vasilyevich, was the chairman of the Kazan City Council and a member of the bureau of the Tatar Regional Party Committee, and his mother Evgenia Semyonovna worked as a teacher at the Kazan Pedagogical Institute, then she was the head of the culture department of the newspaper Krasnaya Tataria, and was a member of the Kazan regional party organization.

In 1937, when Vasily Aksyonov was not even five years old, his mother, and soon his father, were arrested and sentenced to 10 years in prison and camps. After going through the horror of the Stalinist camps during the exposure of the personality cult, Yevgenia Ginzburg later became the author of the book of memoirs "Steep Route" - one of the first books-memoirs about the era of Stalinist repressions and camps, a story about eighteen years spent by the author in prison, Kolyma camps and exile.

The elder children - sister Maya (daughter of P.V. Aksenov) and Alyosha (son of E.S. Ginzburg from his first marriage) were taken by relatives, and Vasya was forcibly sent to an orphanage for children of prisoners, since his grandmothers were not allowed to leave child at home. In 1938, the uncle of Vasily Aksyonov (brother of P. Aksenov) managed to find little Vasya in an orphanage in Kostroma and take him to him. Vasya lived in the house of Moti Aksyonova (his paternal relative) until 1948, when his mother Yevgenia Ginzburg, leaving the camp in 1947 and living in exile in Magadan, obtained permission for Vasya to visit her in Kolyma. Evgenia Ginzburg described the meeting with Vasya in "Steep Route".

Magadan amazed Vasily with its freedom - a real "salon" gathered in the mother's barracks in the evenings. In the company of "former camp intellectuals" they talked about things that Vasily had never known about before. The future writer was shocked by the breadth of the problems discussed and the reasoning about the fate of mankind. Many years later, in 1975, Vasily Aksyonov described his Magadan youth in his autobiographical novel Burn.

In 1956, Aksyonov graduated from the 1st Leningrad Medical Institute and was assigned to the Baltic Shipping Company, where he was supposed to work as a doctor on long-distance ships. Despite the fact that his parents had already been rehabilitated, he was never given a visa. Aksyonov worked as a quarantine doctor in the Far North, in Karelia, in the Leningrad commercial sea port and in a tuberculosis hospital in Moscow (according to other sources, he was a consultant at the Moscow Research Institute of Tuberculosis).

In 1958, the magazine "Yunost" published the first stories of Aksyonov "Torches and Roads" and "One and a half medical units", and in 1960 his first story "Colleagues" was published, based on which the film of the same name was subsequently filmed. Thanks to this story, Aksyonov became widely known. He retired from medicine and took up literary work. Many of their early works by Aksyonov - the novels "Star ticket", "It's time, my friend, it's time", the stories "Oranges from Morocco" and "It's a pity that you weren't with us" caused an ambiguous reaction from the authorities. " That forced the leaders of the magazine "Yunost" in 1963 to persuade him to write and submit to the newspaper "Pravda" a repentant article "Responsibility". "True, not everyone believed in Aksyonov's repentance," noted the researchers of his work. Later, his satirical story "Overstocked Barrel", written in 1968, also became the reason for accusing the author of "hidden anti-Sovietism."

In 1972 he wrote an experimental novel "The Search for a Genre". At the same time in 1972, together with O. Gorchakov and G. Pozhenyan, he wrote a parody novel of the spy thriller Gene Green - Untouchable under the pseudonym Grivadiy Gorpozhaks (a combination of the names and surnames of real authors). In 1976 Aksenov translated from English the novel by E.L.Doktorow "Ragtime".

In the 1970s, after the end of the Thaw, Aksyonov's works were no longer published in the Soviet Union. The novels "Burn" in 1975 and "The Island of Crimea" in 1979 were created from the very beginning by the author without counting on publication. At this time, criticism of Vasily Aksyonov and his works became more and more harsh - such epithets as "non-Soviet" and "non-people" were used. In 1977 and 1978, Aksyonov's works began to appear abroad, primarily in the United States.

His friends recalled: “He was in his way untouchable and was respected even among those writers who belonged to a completely different 'camp'. They felt a certain reverence for him, even the secretaries of the Union called him Vasily Pavlovich. " However, after the Metropol, everything changed.

In 1979, Vasily Aksyonov, together with Andrei Bitov, Viktor Erofeev, Fazil Iskander, Evgeny Popov and Bella Akhmadulina, became one of the organizers and authors of the uncensored almanac Metropol. Never published in the Soviet censored press, the almanac was published in the United States. In protest against the subsequent expulsion of Popov and Erofeev from the Union of Writers of the USSR in December 1979, Vasily Aksyonov, Inna Lisnyanskaya and Semyon Lipkin announced their withdrawal from the joint venture.

Members of the Metropol almanac from left to right: Evgeny Popov, Viktor Erofeev, Bella Akhmadulina, Andrei Voznesensky, Zoya Boguslavskaya, Boris Messerer, Fazil Iskander, Andrei Bitov, Vasily Aksenov, Maya Carmen.

On July 22, 1980, Aksyonov left by invitation to the United States, after which he and his wife Maya Carmen were deprived of Soviet citizenship. Until 2004, he lived in the United States, teaching Russian literature at J. Mason University in Fairfex, Virginia. Vasily Pavlovich possessed amazing willpower. Those who sent him out of the country thought it would break the writer, but they were wrong. Here is how Aksyonov explained what happened: “There is an opinion that a Russian writer cannot write outside of Russia. That, as soon as he gets abroad, he begins to whine, suffocate and ends his life in the nearest ditch. This is not entirely true if we recall the experience of Gogol, Dostoevsky, Turgenev, who spent many years abroad and wrote far from their worst works there. This is how my destiny developed. When you leave your homeland forever, you experience stress, then you start to somehow struggle with it, come to your senses and suddenly realize that you can write great. "

Since 1981, Vasily Aksyonov has been a professor of Russian literature at various US universities: he worked at the Kennan Institute from 1981 to 1982, at George Washington University from 1982 to 1983, at Gaucher University from 1983 to 1988, at George Mason University from 1988 to 2009.

The novels "Our Golden Iron" (1973, 1980), "Burn" (1976, 1980), "The Island of Crimea" (1979, 1981), a collection of stories "The Right to the Island" (1981). Also in the USA, Vasily Aksyonov wrote and published new novels: "Paper Landscape" in 1982, "Say Raisins" in 1985, "In Search of a Sad Baby" in 1986, the trilogy "Moscow Saga" in 1989, 1991 and 1993 , a collection of short stories "The negative of the positive hero" in 1995, "New sweet style" in 1996, dedicated to the life of the Soviet emigration in the United States, "Caesarean glow" in 2000.

For the first time after nine years of emigration, Aksyonov visited the USSR in 1989 at the invitation of the American Ambassador J. Matlock. In 1990, Vasily Aksyonov was returned to Soviet citizenship, after which the writer lived in Moscow, and went to Biarritz in France, where he had a house since 2002.

From 1980 to 1991, Vasily Aksyonov, as a journalist, actively collaborated with the Voice of America and Radio Liberty. Aksyonovskie radio essays were published in the author's collection "Decade of Slander" in 2004. Eduard Topol told about Aksyonov: "Aksyonov was from a powerful cohort of dissidents of the sixties, which gave hope that we would remain human even under Soviet rule." In his opinion, without the spirit of dissidence, there is no real writer at all: “The revolution should not be on the street, but in the souls of people. And a real writer must say what he wants to say, despite the fact that it may be prohibited. "

The second wife of the writer was Maya Afanasyevna, whom Aksyonov recaptured from his friend, the Russian film director Roman Karmen. Vasily Pavlovich met Maya in Yalta, where Carmen came to rest after a heart attack. We met in secret in Sochi. Aksyonov admitted: “Everyone knew about our betrayals. Roman's comrade Yulian Semyonov almost beat me once. Shouted: "Give Roma to Mike."

Aksyonov was fond of historical literature, he was especially interested in the 18th century. He has read many books on the history of the sailing fleet. Since his student days, he was fond of jazz. His sporting passions included jogging and basketball. Vasily Pavlovich was not devoid of small human weaknesses. Smoking was his bad habit. The writer did not hide this, in one of his numerous interviews he said: “I smoked a pipe at 22, when I imagined myself as Hemingway. But the cigarette has always been nicer. Later, Marina Vlady gave me a cool pipe. I went with her for a very long time. "

They wrote about Aksyonov that it was he who, in the 1960s, “was the first to introduce the word“ jeans ”into the Russian language and made them his uniform.” “He walked, so denim and so jazzy,” Bella Akhmadulina recalled. And the writer Yevgeny Popov, congratulating the writer on his birthday, noted: "All modern Russian literature came out of Aksyonov's denim jacket, like Gogol's" Overcoat ".

“It was remarkable for its amazing power, and our literature was definitely empty without it,” the writer Dmitry Bykov believed. - And most importantly, he was a good man, which almost never happens among us. First of all, in Aksyonov I was amazed by his ability to experiment, because I do not know a single young writer who could write such a daring essay as "Moscow Kva-Kva", such a striking in courage, absolutely Platonic experiment. "

Aksyonov throughout his life led a very active lifestyle, he could stand on his head doing yoga. But on January 15, 2008, Aksyonov suddenly felt bad when he was driving a car. There was an accident, Vasily Aksyonov was urgently hospitalized in the 23rd hospital, from which he was transferred to the Sklifosovsky Institute. Aksyonov was found to have a blood clot in the carotid artery that feeds the left hemisphere of the brain. The thrombus was removed. Moscow neurologists did their best; they could not have done anything better in another country.

On January 29, 2008, doctors assessed the writer's condition as extremely grave. Vasily Aksyonov remained in the hospital under the supervision of doctors. On August 28, 2008, the condition remained “consistently difficult”. On March 5, 2009, new complications arose, Aksyonov was transferred to the Burdenko Research Institute and operated on. Later Aksyonov was transferred back to the Sklifosovsky Research Institute.

“He suffered terribly and was physically tormented. Out of habit, they tried to rehabilitate him. Recently, he survived only because he was a very strong and courageous person. About three or four months ago, he had very good hopes for recovery. It seemed to us that psychological reactions and emotions were returning, but later this was not confirmed, ”said Vladimir Naydin, head of the rehabilitation department of the Research Institute of Neurosurgery at the Burdenko Hospital.

According to him, Aksyonov also suffered from intestinal thrombosis: “It was with this diagnosis that he was sent from our research institute to the Sklifosovsky Institute, where he was operated on. The operation was quite successful, but, given the serious condition that the patient had before, it was still not possible to avoid this tragic end. They say that God gives a person as much as he can withstand. Vasily Aksyonov withstood as much as the average person cannot withstand. "

According to the literary critic Vladimir Bondarenko, who studied the writer's work, the death of Aksyonov was a real blow to the literature of the sixties, the literature of the Russian emigration and all the literature of the last century. “Aksyonov is undoubtedly one of the brightest and most famous Russian writers in the whole world of the second half of the XX century. His books will of course be reprinted because they have already passed the test of time, ”he said.

About Vasily Aksyonov in 2009 a documentary film “Vasily Aksyonov. It is a pity that you were not with us. " In it, writers Anatoly Gladilin, Evgeny Popov, Alexander Kabakov, Bella Akhmadulina and Anatoly Naiman told about Aksyonov. Lily Denis, translator of Vasily Asenov, shared his memories of the early 1960s, telling about the first acquaintance with the writer's prose. Among those who also spoke about Aksyonov in the film are Boris Messerer, Oleg Tabakov and Alexey Kozlov.

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The text was prepared by Andrey Goncharov

Used materials:

Materials of the site www.biograph.ru
Materials of the site www.rian.ru
Materials of the site www.news.km.ru
Materials of the site www.jewish-library.ru
Site materials www.peoples.ru
The text of the article "Vasily Aksenov: Maya is the main love" by O. Kuchkina

Vasya, let's talk about love. Turgenev had Viardot, Scott Fitzgerald had Zelda, Herzen had Natasha, had it not been for her, the great book Past and Thoughts would not have been born. What is his woman for a writer? Has it happened in your life that you wrote for the sake of a girl, for a woman?

It was not like that ... But all the same, it was so sublime. And our main love - I don't know how Maya looks at it, but I look like this: Maya, yes.

I remember well: House of Creativity in Pitsunda, you appear with an interesting blonde, and everyone whispers that, they say, Vasya Aksenov took his wife away from the famous documentary filmmaker Roman Karmen ...

I didn’t take her away. She was his wife for another ten years.

- Did you know him?

No. I once went with him in the Red Arrow to St. Petersburg. I was under the can. I've already heard about his wife. And I say to him: is it true that you have a very pretty wife? He says: I like it. So he said, and maybe it was postponed somewhere.

- How old were you?

Years 32 or 33. I was married. Kira I had a wife. Kira is Alexey's mother. And it was somehow very bad with her ... In fact, we lived, in general, merrily. Before the baby was born, before she got so fat ...

- Has everything changed because she got fat? Did it ... offend you? ..

It began to offend her. By this time I had become, well, a famous writer. I went everywhere with our then celebrities ... different adventures happened ... she began to roll scenes ...

- Did it start as a student marriage?

No, I have already graduated from the medical institute in St. Petersburg. And my friend and I went to the Karelian Isthmus, our interests are sports, jazz, this and that. And he told me: I saw a girl at the dance ... She was staying there with her grandmother, an old Bolshevik woman. She served in prison, she was just released, it was 1956. And she had been in prison since 1949 ...

- And your mother was sitting ...

My mother was in prison in 1937. And Kirina's grandmother was somehow dragged into the Voznesensky case ...

- Which Voznesensky?

Not Andrei, of course, but the one who directed all party work in the Soviet Union. He was imprisoned and shot. His nephew came, who told how he was in prison in solitary confinement and wrote letters to Stalin all the time that he was not guilty of anything. And suddenly, one fine moment, the Politburo, almost in full force, entered his cell, and when he saw them, he shouted: I knew, my friends, that you would come to me! And then Lazar Kaganovich gave him so much in his ear that he became deaf.

- Why did they come?

Just look at the defeated enemy.

- Sadists ...

And Kira graduated from the Institute of Foreign Languages ​​and sang various foreign songs very well ...

- And your heart melted.

That's it. And then ... all sorts of things were ...

- Are things love interests?

Love hobbies. This always took place in the houses of creativity. And somehow we come to the House of Creativity in Yalta. Pozhenyan is there, my friend. We are sitting with him, and he rubs his hands: oh, Carmen's wife is here ...

- Rubbing her hands, thinking that you will have an affair now?

He thought he was going to have an affair. She just arrived and sat down at Bella Akhmadulina's table. Bella and I have always been friends. And Bella says to me: Vasya, Vasya, come here, you know Maya, how are you not familiar with Maya! .. And Maya looks at me like that, and she looks very exhausted, because Carmen had a heart attack, and she she looked after him all winter, and when he recovered, she went to Yalta. And then she began to laugh, cheered up. And in Yalta there was our steamer "Georgia", a steamer of literature. Because the captain was Tolya Garagulya, he adored literature and always lured us to him, arranging feasts for us. And here we are with Maya ... For some reason, Maya always set the table, well, somehow she tried, I spread something like that, trying to be closer to her ...

- Did you fall in love right away?

Yes. And I tell her: you see, what a captain's cabin, and in general, somehow all this is fraught, and tomorrow my wife will leave ... And she says: and we will be closer to each other. Pozhenyan sees everything and says: I'm leaving ... And he sailed away on this "Georgia". And we returned to the House of Creativity. I saw off Kira, and some feasts began. Bella came up with something, walked around and said: you know, I heard that previous people buried bottles of champagne for us, let's look. And we searched and found.

- Was Maya's divorce difficult?

There was no divorce as such, and it was not hard, she was such a laugh. Everything happened gradually and, in general, was already quite open. We met many times in the south, and in Moscow too. I still continued to live with Kira, but we already parted. Of course, it was not easy, but love with Maya was very strong ... We traveled everywhere together. In Cheget, in the mountains, in Sochi. We were not lodged together, since we did not have a stamp in our passport, but close by. Abroad, of course, she went alone, brought me some clothes ...

- The happiest time in your life?

Yes. This coincided with the Metropol, everything was spinning around Maya and me, she cooked everything there. But this is after the death of Roman Lazarevich. At that time we were in Yalta, her daughter phoned and said.

- He did not try to get Maya back?

He is not, but he had a friend, Yulian Semyonov, he walked around me and said: give him Mike.

- What do you mean give it back? She's not a thing.

Well yes, but that's exactly what he said.

- Do you have a habit, like poets, of dedicating things to someone?

No. But Burn is about Maya. And the story "Ivan" - to our Vanechka. Did you hear what happened to our Vanya?

- No, why? Is Vanechka Maya's grandson?

Her grandson, I had a son. He was 26 years old, he graduated from an American university. Alena, his mother, had a very difficult life in America, and he somehow tried to distance himself from her. He left for Colorado, they had three friends: an American, a Venezuelan and he, three handsome men, and they could not find work. They worked part-time at the post office, at rescue stations, in the mountains. He had love with a German girl, they already lived together. But then she left somewhere, in general, it did not work out, and the three of them went to San Francisco. All are huge, and our Vanya is huge. He had already forgotten this Greta, he had a lot of girls. When everyone came to our funeral, we saw many pretty girls. He lived on the seventh floor, went out to the balcony ... They were all carried away by a book, allegedly written by a three-thousand-year-old Chinese sage. That is, no one saw him or knew him, but they knew that he was three thousand years old. I saw this book, it was possible to learn fate from it. And Vanya wrote letters to him. There it was necessary to somehow correctly write: dear oracle. And he supposedly answered something. And he seemed to say to Vanya: jump from the seventh floor ...

- Some kind of sectarian history.

He didn't seem to be going to jump. But he had such a habit of looking down ...

- They say you don't need to look into the abyss, otherwise the abyss will look into you.

And he flew down. Two students were with him then. They ran to him, he was already lying on the ground, woke up and said: I went over alcohol and leaned over the railing. After that he passed out and did not come to his senses any more.

- How did you handle it? How did Maya handle it?

Terrible. Absolutely awful. The nightmare began.

- When did it happen?

In 1999. We were just wonderful friends. Somehow he turned out to be close to me. I took the best pictures of him. I also wanted to take him to Gotland. When I lived in America, every summer I went to Gotland, to Sweden, there is also a house of creativity like ours, and there I wrote. This house of creativity is on the top of the mountain, and below the huge church of St. Mary. When you go up to the third floor, you see chimeras on the church, they look into the windows. I often looked and was afraid that the chimera would look into my life. And she looked in. Maya was in Moscow, I was in America. My friend Zhenya Popov called me and said ...

- It seemed to me that, in spite of everything, your life is happy and easy.

No, it's very hard.

You wrote a story about Vanechka - did it feel better? In general, when a writer transforms the substance of life into prose, does it become easier?

Do not know. No. Writing is happiness. But when you write about misfortune, it’s not easier. She is there in the story, that is, Maya, asks: what are we going to do now? And I answer her: we will live sadly.

- Vasya, why did you leave the country - this one and why did you come back - two?

I left because they wanted to get their hands on me.

- Were you afraid that you would be jailed?

No. Will kill.

- Will kill? Did you know that?

There was an attempt. It was 1980. I was driving from Kazan, from my father, on a Volga, a summer empty highway, and a KamAZ and two motorcycles came out on me. He walked straight towards me, they closed the road, blinded me ...

- Have you been driving? How did you manage to avoid collision?

Just a guardian angel. I have never been some kind of ace, he just told me what to do. He said: turn right to the very end, now gas, and turn back, back, back. And we slipped along the very edge of the road.

And I considered you a lucky man ... You entered literature so perfectly, instantly, one might say, starting to write, as no one else wrote. Is it the work of consciousness or is the hand leading?

In general, the hand drove, of course. I imitated Kataev. Then we were friends with him, and he was very proud that we are so friendly ...

Are you talking about his "Diamond Crown", "The Grass of Oblivion", about what they began to call "Movism", from the French "mo" - the word, the taste of the word as such? And I have the impression that first you started, then he came to his senses and began to write in a new way.

May be. Quite. He told me: old man, you know, everything is going so well with you, but you are in vain holding on to the plot, there is no need to develop the plot.

- You had a wonderful storyless piece “Search for a genre” with the definition of a genre “search for a genre” ...

By this time, he parted with us. There was already Metropol, and speaking on his 80th birthday on TV, he said: you know, I am so grateful to our party, I am so grateful to the Writers' Union ... I bowed. The last time I drove along the Kiev road and saw him - he was standing, so big, and looking at the road ... If there had not been such a threat to my novels, I might not have left yet. Were written "Burn", "Crimea Island", a lot of ideas. All this could not be printed here and began to be printed in the West. And in the West, when I started writing my great novels, such a story happened. My main publishing house, Random House, sold itself to another publisher. My publisher told me: don't worry, everything will remain the same. But they appointed a person who first looked closely, and then said: if you want to make a profit, you must expel all intellectuals.

- And you got on this list? Just like ours.

Bring in income or you will be lost - they have such a saying. This man became vice president of a publishing company, and I realized that my books would no longer be there. And I suddenly realized that I was returning to Russia, because I was again saving my literature. Most importantly, I returned to the host country of my language.

- Vasya, you lived in America and in Russia. What is better for life here and here?

I am warmed by the fact that they read my books in America. This, of course, is not what it was in the USSR ... But they publish me with a circulation of 75 thousand, 55 thousand ...

But I am not asking about your selfish, so to speak, joys, I am asking about something else: how is life in America and how is it with us?

In America, life is really amazing. Incredibly comfortable and cozy. France is not as cozy as America.

- What is the convenience? They are disposed towards you, they smile at you, do they help you?

It is too. There's a lot there. There, the university takes on a lot of your worries and deals with all this bummer, which is represented by the formalities of life, it's terribly convenient.

- What do you like in Russia?

Language. I really like the language. I can't say anything else.

- To whom and what do you feel obligated to in life?

I am now writing a piece about my childhood. It was monstrous. And yet the monster somehow made it possible for me to survive. Mom served time, father was. When I was exposed that I had hidden information about my mother and father, I was kicked out of Kazan University. Then they restored it. I could actually go to jail. Then such a successful combination of the 60s, the "thaw" and everything together - it tempered and educated me.

- Did you feel like a free person inside?

No, I was not a free person. But I never felt like a Soviet person. I came to my mother in Magadan for a settlement, when I was 16 years old, we lived on the very outskirts of the city, and these convoys dragged past us, I looked at them and realized that I was not a Soviet person. Absolutely categorical: not Soviet. I even once took aim at Stalin.

- How is it, in a portrait?

No, live. I walked with the guys from the Construction Institute along Red Square. We walked, and I saw the Mausoleum where they stood, black figures on the right, brown on the left, and in the middle - Stalin. I was 19 years old. And I thought: how easy it is to aim and get it out of here.

- I can imagine if you had something in your hands, what would have been done to you.

Naturally.

- Do you feel free now?

I felt it when I got to the West. That I can go there and there, anywhere in the world, and I can behave however I want. The only question is money.

- As we have now.

Now everything is completely different. Everything is different. Among other things, I have two citizenships.

- If anything, they will not beat on the passport.

Then I will resist.

- Returning to the beginning of the conversation, does a woman continue to be a driving incentive for you as a writer?

We are elderly people, we must die already ...

- You're going to?

Of course.

- How do you do it?

I think about it.

- Are you afraid of death?

I do not know what will happen. It seems to me that something is about to happen. It can't just end this way. We are all children of Adam, where he is, there we are, he is threatened with a return to paradise, here we are after him ...

SELECTED WORKS

Prose:

1960 - Colleagues (story)
1961 - "Star Ticket" (novella)
1963 - "Oranges from Morocco" (story)
1964 - "Catapult", (story and short stories)
1964 - "It's time, my friend, it's time" (story)
1964 - "Halfway to the Moon", (collection of stories)
1965 - "Victory" (an exaggerated story)
1965 - "It's a pity that you weren't with us" (story)
1968 - "Overstocked barrel" (story)
1969 - "Love for Electricity" (story)
1971 - "The Story of a Basketball Team Playing Basketball" (essay)
1972 - "In Search of a Genre" (story)
1972 - "My grandfather is a monument" (story)
1973 - Our Golden Iron (novel)
1975 - Burn (novel)
1976 - "Chest, in which something knocks" (story)
1979 - "Crimea Island" (novel)
1983 - Say Raisins
1987 - In Search of the Sad Baby
1989 - Yolk of the Egg ((English) translation into Russian - "Egg yolk", 2002)
1994 - "Moscow Saga" (epic novel) film adaptation of "Moscow Saga"
1998 - "New Sweet Style"
2000 - "Caesarean Glow"
2004 - Voltaireans and Voltaireans (novel, Russian Booker Prize)
2006 - "Moscow Kva-Kva" (novel)
2007 - Rare Earths
2009 - “Mysterious Passion. A novel about the sixties "

Movie scripts:

1962 - When the bridges are raised
1962 - Colleagues
1962 - My little brother
1970 - Master
1972 - Marble House
1975 - Center from the skies
1978 - While the dream is mad
2007 - Tatiana
2009 - Jester

Plays:

1965 - "Always on Sale"
1966 - "Your Killer"
1968 - "Four Temperaments"
1968 - "Aristophanian with the frogs"
1980 - "Heron"
1998 - "Woe, woe, burn"
1999 - "Aurora Gorenina"
2000 - "Ah, Arthur Schopenhauer"

Vasily Aksenov was born on August 20, 1932 in Kazan. His father, Pavel Vasilyevich Aksenov, was a party leader, served as chairman of the Kazan City Council. The writer's mother, Evgenia Solomonovna Ginzburg, taught at the Kazan Pedagogical Institute, was engaged in journalism, wrote several literary works. Vasily was the youngest child in the family and the only common child of his parents (Maya is the daughter of P.V. Aksenov, Alexey is the son of E.S.Ginzburg from his first marriage).

In 1937, the parents were convicted and sentenced (Evgeny Solomonovna - to 10 years in prison and camps, and her husband - to 15 years). Brother and sister Vasily were taken by relatives, and he himself was not allowed to stay with his grandmothers, and he was sent to an orphanage for prisoners. In 1938, he was taken from the Kostroma orphanage by his uncle, Andreyan Vasilyevich Aksenov, with whom he lived until 1948, when his mother, who left the camps in 1947 and lived in exile in Magadan, obtained permission for Vasya to move to her.

He received his medical education, graduating in 1956 from the 1st Leningrad Medical Institute, after which he worked in assignment in the Baltic Shipping Company on long-distance vessels. Aksyonov also worked as a quarantine doctor in Karelia, in the Leningrad commercial sea port and in a tuberculosis hospital in Moscow.

Beginning in 1963, when Nikita Khrushchev subjected Aksenov to devastating criticism at a meeting of the intelligentsia in the Kremlin, the writer began to have problems with the authorities. His works ceased to be published in the 70s, after the end of the "thaw", and the writer began to be called "non-Soviet" and "non-people". It is not surprising that in 1977-1978 his works began to appear abroad, mainly in the United States, where he went by invitation on July 22, 1980 (after which he was deprived of Soviet citizenship) and where he lived until 2004.

In 1980-1991 he actively collaborated with several major radio stations and magazines, wrote essays, was a professor of Russian literature at one of the universities. Literary activity also continued. For the first time after nine years of emigration, Aksyonov visited the USSR in 1989. The following year, he was returned to Soviet citizenship. In the last years of his life he lived with his family in Biarritz (France).

In 2008, the writer was diagnosed with a stroke. Since then, his condition has been "consistently grave." On July 6, 2009, Vasily Pavlovich Aksyonov died in Moscow. He was buried on July 9, 2009 at the Vagankovsky cemetery. In Kazan, the house where the writer lived in his youth was restored; in 2009, the Museum of his work was created there.

Literary activity

Vasily Aksenov began his journey as a writer by writing the story "Colleagues" in 1959 (in 1962, a film of the same name was filmed based on it). It was followed by the novel Star Ticket, written in 1961, which was also filmed in 1962 under the title My Little Brother. The year 1962 ends with the writing of the story "Oranges from Morocco" (1962). Collections of stories "Catapult", "Halfway to the Moon" were published in 1963 and 1966, respectively. In 1968, the fantastic story "Overstocked Barrel" was published. In 1964, Aksenov became one of the nine authors of the collective novel "The One Who Laughs Laughs", published in the "Nedelya" newspaper.

In the 60s, Aksenov often appeared in the Yunost magazine, of which he has been a member of the editorial board for several years. By 1970, the first part of the adventure dilogy for children "My grandfather is a monument" was written. The second part, entitled "The Chest in which Something Knocks", was seen by young readers in 1972.

The experimental work "The Search for a Genre" was written in 1972. At the first publication in the magazine "New World" the genre of the work was indicated as follows: "The search for a genre". There were also attempts at translation activities. In 1976 the writer translated from English the novel "Ragtime" by E. L. Doctorow.

Novels written in the USA: "Paper Landscape", "Say" Raisins "", "In Search of a Sad Baby", "Egg Yolk", "Moscow Saga" trilogy, collection of stories "Positive Hero Negative", "New Sweet Style", "Caesarean glow".

In 2010, Aksyonov's unfinished autobiographical novel "The Lend-Lease" was released.

The best books of the writer

• If you decide to study the work of this wonderful writer, I suggest starting with the literature dedicated to children. The story "My Grandfather is a Monument" will serve as an excellent start. Adventure, seas, oceans, pirates, captains - romance! While reading it is impossible not to recall the famous "Treasure Island" by Stevenson. Will not leave indifferent either adults or children.
• The story "Colleagues" is recommended if you plan to approach Aksenov's work thoroughly, since this work is his first literary experience, the starting point in his career. The story is about young doctors and their understanding of the world around them, their search for themselves in it.
• The novel "Star Ticket". I would really like to be impartial, but alas, I cannot calmly write about my favorite work of the author. Three guys and a girl, the first trip, youthful maximalism, mistakes and experience, parting are the main "tags" of this story. It was here that the writer's style was born, it is for this novel that readers love him.
• "Crimea Island". Historical and geographical alternative, where Crimea is a full-fledged island in the Black Sea. The plot is based on the biographies of the heroes; throughout the novel, there is a satirical and political subtext.
• "He who laughs laughs." The novel is interesting at least because 9 writers worked on it. The plot tells the story of a man who once returned home from work and did not find his wife and child at home. On the same evening, wandering around the city, he learns that he is considered a foreign agent ...

Vasily Pavlovich Aksyonov was born on August 20, 1932 in Kazan, in a family of party workers, Evgenia Semyonovna Ginzburg and Pavel Vasilyevich Aksyonov. He was the third, youngest child in the family (and the only common child of his parents). Father, Pavel Vasilyevich, was the chairman of the Kazan City Council and a member of the Bureau of the Tatar Regional Party Committee. Mother, Evgenia Semyonovna, worked as a teacher at the Kazan Pedagogical Institute, then as the head of the culture department of the newspaper "Krasnaya Tataria", was a member of the Kazan regional party organization. Subsequently, having gone through the horror of the Stalinist camps, at the time of the exposure of the personality cult, Yevgenia Ginzburg became the author of the book of memoirs "Steep Route" - one of the first books-memoirs about the era of Stalinist repressions and camps, a story about eighteen years spent by the author in prison, Kolyma camps and link.

In 1937, when V. Aksenov was not yet five years old, both parents (first mother, and then soon - and father) were arrested and sentenced to 10 years in prison and camps. The older children, sister Maya (daughter of P.V. Aksyonov) and Alyosha (son of E.S.Ginzburg), were taken by relatives. The orphan Vasya was forcibly sent to an orphanage for the children of prisoners (his grandmothers were not allowed to keep the child with them). In 1938, V. Aksenov's uncle (P. Aksenov's brother) managed to find little Vasya in an orphanage in Kostroma and take him to her. Vasya lived in the house of Moti Aksyonova (his paternal relative) until 1948, when his mother Yevgenia Ginzburg, leaving the camp in 1947 and living in exile in Magadan, obtained permission for Vasya to visit her in Kolyma. Evgenia Ginzburg will describe the meeting with Vasya in "Steep Route".

Many years later, in 1975, Vasily Aksyonov described his Magadan youth in his autobiographical novel Burn.

The beginning of literary activity

In 1956 Aksyonov graduated from the Leningrad Medical Institute. He worked as a doctor for three years. Since 1960 he has been a professional writer. The story "Colleagues" (written in 1959; the play of the same name together with Y. Stabov, 1961; the film of the same name, 1963), the novels "Star Ticket" (the film "My Younger Brother" was shot on it) (1961), "It's time, my friend, it's time ”(1962), the story“ Oranges from Morocco ”(1963), collections“ Catapult ”(1964),“ Halfway to the Moon ”(1966), the play“ Always on sale ”(staged by the Sovremennik theater, 1965); in 1968 the satirical-fantastic story "Overstocked Barrel" was published.

In the 1960s, V. Aksyonov's works were often published in the Yunost magazine. For several years he has been a member of the editorial board of the journal. Adventure dilogy for children: "My grandfather is a monument" (1970) and "Chest, in which something knocks" (1972)

The experimental novel "The Search for a Genre" was written in 1972.

Also in 1972, together with O. Gorchakov and G. Pozhenyan, he wrote a parody novel of the spy thriller Gene Green - Untouchable under the pseudonym Grivadiy Gorpozhaks (a combination of the names and surnames of real authors). 1976 - translated from English the novel "Ragtime" by E. L. Doctorow.

Difficulties

In the 1970s, after the end of the Thaw, Aksyonov's works ceased to be published in the Soviet Union. The novels "Burn" (1975) and "The Island of Crimea" (1979) were banned from publication by the Soviet censors. At this time, criticism of V. Aksyonov and his works becomes more and more harsh: such epithets as “non-Soviet” and “non-people” are used. In 1977-1978, Aksenov's works began to appear abroad (primarily in the United States).

In 1979 V. Aksenov together with A. Bitov, Vik. Erofeev, F. Iskander, E. Popov, B. Akhmadulina became one of the organizers and authors of the uncensored almanac "Metropol". Never published in the Soviet censored press, the almanac was published in the United States. In protest against the subsequent expulsion of Popov and Erofeev from the Union of Writers of the USSR in December 1979, V. Aksyonov (as well as Inna Lisnyanskaya and Semyon Lipkin) announced their withdrawal from the joint venture.

On July 22, 1980, he left at the invitation of the United States, after which he and his wife were deprived of Soviet citizenship. Lived in the USA until 2004, teaching Russian literature at J. Mason University, Washington.

Since 1981, V. Aksyonov has been a professor of Russian literature at various US universities: the Kennan Institute (1981-1982), the J. Washington University (1982-1983), the Gaucher University (1983-1988), the George Mason University (from 1988 to present).

The novels "Our Golden Iron" (1973, 1980), "Burn" (1976, 1980), "Crimea Island" (1979, 1981), a collection of stories "The Right to the Island" (1981). Also in the USA V. Aksenov wrote and published new novels: "Paper Landscape" (1982), "Say Raisins" (1985), "In Search of a Sad Baby" (1986), the trilogy "Moscow Saga" (1989, 1991, 1993 ), a collection of short stories "The negative of the positive hero" (1995), "New sweet style" (1996) (dedicated to the life of the Soviet emigration in the United States), "Caesarean glow" (2000).

The novel "Egg yolk" (1989) was written by V. Aksyonov in English, then translated by the author into Russian.

For the first time after nine years of emigration, Aksyonov visited the USSR in 1989 at the invitation of the American Ambassador Matlock. In 1990, V. Aksyonov returned to Soviet citizenship.

In 1980-1991 V. Aksyonov as a journalist actively collaborated with Radio Liberty. Aksyonovskie radio sketches were published in the author's collection "Decade of Slander" (2004).

after 1991

The Moscow Saga trilogy (1992) was filmed in Russia in 2004 by A. Barshchevsky in a TV serial.

In 2004 he published the novel “Voltairians and Voltairians” in the magazine “October”, for which he was awarded the Booker Prize of Russia.

The book of memoirs "The apple of an eye" (2005) has the character of a personal diary.

In recent years, he lived with his family in France in Biarritz and in Moscow.

January 15, 2008 V. Aksenov was admitted to hospital number 23 after a stroke. A day after hospitalization, Aksenov was transferred to the N.N. Sklifosovsky, where he underwent an operation to remove a carotid thrombus. The writer died on July 6, 2009.

Since 2007, the international literary and music festival Aksyonov-fest has been held annually in Kazan since 2007 (in October) (the first was held with his personal participation), in 2009 the building was recreated and the literary house-museum of Aksyonov was opened, in which the city literary club operates.

Fantastic in the writer's work

Aksenov's prose was often grave to fiction- these were fairy tales, alternative stories and magical realism, and "strange" prose. The following works of the author can be attributed to fiction - the novels "Island of Crimea", "Yolk of an Egg", "Caesarean Glow", "Voltairians and Voltairians" and "Moskva-kva-kva" (2006); the stories "Steel Bird", "Overstocked Barrel", "Rendezvous", "Our Golden Iron" and the dilogy for children "My Grandfather is a Monument", "A Chest in which Something Knocks." It is also such plays as "Always on sale", "Four temperaments", "Heron", "Woe, mountain, burn", stories "Wild", "It is a pity that you were not with us", "Victory", "Halfway to the Moon", "On the Square and Beyond the River", "Happiness on the Shore of a Polluted Ocean", "A Million Separations", "The Right to the Island" (1991).

Honorary titles, awards

In the USA V. Aksyonov was awarded the honorary title of Doctor of Humane Letters. He was a member of the Pen Club and the American Writing League. In 2005, Vasily Aksyonov was awarded the Order of Literature and Art, one of the highest awards in modern France.

1990 - Prize to them. A. Kruchenykh

1991 - laureate of the literary prize of the magazine "Yunost" for 1990 for the novel "The Island of Crimea"

1998 - Nominated for the Booker Prize for the novel Sweet New Style

1998 - nomination for the State Prize of the Russian Federation for the novel "New Sweet Style"

2003 - Prize "Triumph"

2005 - Prize "Book of the Year" in the nomination "Prose" for the novel "Voltaireans and Voltaireans"

2005 - Awarded the Order of Literature and Art, one of the highest awards of modern France