Russian poets and writers came up with many new words: substance, thermometer (Lomonosov),

industry (Karamzin),

bungling (Saltykov-Shchedrin),

to fade away (Dostoevsky),

mediocrity (Northerner),

exhausted (Khlebnikov).

Pushkin has more than 70 epigraphs, Gogol has no less than 20,

Turgenev has almost the same amount.

Korney Chukovsky's real name was Nikolai Vasilyevich Korneychukov.

Voltaire ridiculed Duke Rohan for his arrogance.

The Duke ordered his servants to beat Voltaire, which was done. Voltaire challenged the Duke to a duel, but the Duke refused because Voltaire was not a nobleman.

When starting to work on a new work, Balzac locked himself in a room for one or two months and closed the shutters tightly so that light would not penetrate through them. He wrote by candlelight, dressed in a robe, for 18 hours every day.

Mark Twain was born in 1835, when Halley's Comet flew close to the Earth. He predicted that he would die the next time she appeared. This is what happened in 1910.

Alexandre Dumas once took part in a duel where the participants drew lots, and the loser had to shoot himself. The lot went to Dumas, who retired to the next room. A shot rang out, and then Dumas returned to the participants with the words: “I shot, but missed.”

The writer Charles Dickens always slept with his head facing north. He also sat facing north when writing his great works.

French writer Guy de Maupassant was one of those who was irritated by the Eiffel Tower. Nevertheless, he dined at her restaurant every day, explaining that this was the only place in Paris from which the tower could not be seen.

Beaumarchais, after performing his play The Marriage of Figaro, was arrested and imprisoned. Louis XVI, playing cards, wrote an arrest order on the seven of spades.

Jules Verne spent many hours a day studying scientific literature, writing down facts that interested him on special cards. The card index he compiled could be the envy of the scientific community: it contained more than 20 thousand cards.

Hans Christian Andersen got angry when he was called a children's storyteller and said that he wrote fairy tales for both adults and adults. For the same reason, he ordered that there should not be a single child on his monument, where the storyteller was originally supposed to be surrounded by children.

In 1925, the Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to Bernard Shaw, who called the event "a token of gratitude for the relief he has given the world by not publishing anything this year."

American writer Emily Dickenson (1830-1886) wrote more than 900 poems during her life, only four of which were published during her lifetime.

Some biographies of Erich Maria Remarque indicate that his real name is Kramer (Remarque backwards). In fact, this is an invention of the Nazis, who, after his emigration from Germany, also spread the rumor that Remarque is the descendants of French Jews.

L.N. Tolstoy was anathematized. Once a year in all churches anathema was solemnly proclaimed to three persons: Mazepa, Grishka Otrepiev and Tolstoy.

The Belarusian poet Adam Mickiewicz was also a science fiction writer. In the novel “The History of the Future,” he wrote about acoustic devices with the help of which, sitting by the fireplace, you can listen to concerts from the city, as well as about mechanisms that allow the inhabitants of the Earth to maintain contact with creatures inhabiting other planets.

Jules Verne never visited Russia, but, nevertheless, the action of 9 of his novels takes place in Russia (in whole or in part).

The American extravagant writer Timothy Dexter wrote a book in 1802 with a very peculiar language and the absence of any punctuation. In response to reader outcry, in the second edition of the book he added a special page with punctuation marks, asking readers to arrange them in the text to their liking.

Lord Byron had four pet geese that followed him everywhere, even to social gatherings. Despite being overweight and having a rather severe clubfoot, Byron was considered one of the most energetic and attractive people of his time.

Alexandre Dumas, when writing his works, used the services of many assistants - the so-called “literary blacks”. Among them, the most famous is Auguste Macquet, who invented the plot of The Count of Monte Cristo and made significant contributions to The Three Musketeers.

The author of Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe, was sentenced to prison (in 1703) for a satirical article. He spent a day tied to a pillory in the square. Those passing by were obliged to spit at him. Defoe was then forty-two years old.

The creator of the famous novel “The Gadfly,” Ethel Lilian Voynich, was a composer and considered her musical works even more significant than her literary ones.

The famous Soviet writer and public figure Konstantin Simonov lisped, that is, he could not pronounce the letters “r” and “l.” This happened in childhood when, while playing, he accidentally cut his tongue with a razor, and it became difficult for him to pronounce his name: Kirill. In 1934 he took the pseudonym Konstantin.

The expression “Balzac age” arose after the publication of Balzac’s novel “A Thirty-Year-Old Woman” and is acceptable for women no older than 40 years.

Ilf and Petrov avoided cliché thoughts in a very original way - they discarded ideas that came to both of their minds at once.

One of the most prolific writers of all times was the Spaniard Lope de Vega. In addition to “Dog in the Manger,” he wrote another thousand eight hundred plays, all of them in verse.

He never worked on a single play for more than three days. At the same time, his work was well paid, so Lope de Vega was practically a multimillionaire, which is extremely rare among writers.

The famous fabulist Aesop was so poor that he sold himself into slavery to pay off his debts. At that moment he was thirty years old.

Robinson Crusoe has a sequel. In it, Robinson again suffers a shipwreck and is forced to get to Europe through all of Russia. He waits out the winter in Tobolsk for eight months. The novel has not been published in Russia since 1935.

Of the American writers, the works of Edgar Allan Poe have been filmed the most - 114 times.

Once, at an official reception, Khrushchev called the writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn Ivan Denisovich.

Chekhov sat down to write, dressed in full dress.

Kuprin, on the contrary, loved to work completely naked.

Spanish playwright Antonio Silva was burned at the stake on October 19, 1739. On the same day, his play “The Death of Phaeton” was performed at the theater.

Writer Ernest Vincent Wright has a novel called Gadsby, which is over 50,000 words long. There is not a single letter E (the most common letter in the English language) in the entire novel.

Polish science fiction writer Stanislaw Lem wrote a collection of short stories called Absolute Emptiness. All the stories are united by the fact that they are reviews of non-existent books written by fictitious authors.

Brian Aldiss, an acquaintance of Agatha Christie, once spoke about her methods - “she would finish the book to the last chapter, then choose the most unlikely suspect and, returning to the beginning, redo some points to frame him.”

Lewis Carroll loved to communicate and be friends with little girls, but was not a pedophile, as many of his biographers claim. Often his girlfriends underestimated their age, or he himself called older ladies girls. The reason was that the morality of that era in England strictly condemned communication with a young woman alone, and girls under 14 were considered asexual, and friendship with them was completely innocent.

When the writer Arkady Averchenko brought a story on a military theme to one of the editorial offices during the First World War, the censor deleted the phrase from it: “The sky was blue.” It turns out that from these words, enemy spies could guess that the matter was happening in the south.

The real name of the satirist writer Grigory Gorin was Ofshtein. When asked about the reason for choosing the pseudonym, Gorin replied that it was an abbreviation: “Grisha Ofshtein decided to change his nationality.”

If you read the works of writer Stephen King, you will notice that most of his stories take place in Maine. Paradoxically, this state has the lowest crime rate in the United States.

James Barrie created the character of Peter Pan - the boy who will never grow up - for a reason. This hero became a dedication to the author’s older brother, who died the day before he turned 14 years old, and forever remained young in the memory of his mother.

Initially, on Gogol’s grave in the monastery cemetery there was a stone nicknamed Golgotha ​​because of its resemblance to Mount Jerusalem. When they decided to destroy the cemetery, during reburial in another place they decided to install a bust of Gogol on the grave. And that same stone was subsequently placed on Bulgakov’s grave by his wife.

In this regard, Bulgakov’s phrase, which he repeatedly addressed to Gogol during his lifetime, is noteworthy: “Teacher, cover me with your overcoat.”

After the outbreak of World War II, Marina Tsvetaeva was sent for evacuation to the city of Elabuga, in Tatarstan. Boris Pasternak helped her pack her things. He brought a rope to tie up the suitcase, and, assuring of its strength, joked: “The rope will withstand everything, even if you hang yourself.” Subsequently, he was told that it was on her that Tsvetaeva hanged herself in Yelabuga.

Daria Dontsova, whose father was the Soviet writer Arkady Vasiliev, grew up surrounded by the creative intelligentsia.

Once at school she was asked to write an essay on the topic: “What was Valentin Petrovich Kataev thinking about when he wrote the story “The Lonely Sail Is White”?”, and Dontsova asked Kataev himself to help her. As a result, Daria received a bad mark, and the literature teacher wrote in her notebook: “Kataev didn’t think about this at all!”

Escaped Agatha Christie and spiritualist Conan Doyle

Have you ever wondered that two of England's greatest deductive minds lived and worked at the same time? Moreover, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was an active participant in the search operation during the disappearance of Agatha Christie. In 1926, the writer’s husband asked her for a divorce, since he was already in love with someone else. This was a huge blow for the creator of the mustachioed Poirot. And she disappeared. Rumor has it that Christie wanted to commit suicide and fabricate evidence against her unfaithful husband.

And among the volunteers from all over the country who helped find the literary diva, Sir Conan Doyle himself turned out to be. True, all his help consisted in the fact that he took Agatha’s glove to a famous medium. You won’t believe it, but the man who invented the most pragmatic and atheistic character of all time was an ardent supporter and promoter of spiritualism, and simply believed in all otherworldly forces. Fortunately, or unfortunately, the medium did not help the search operation in any way, and the writer was found 10 days later in a small spa hotel outside the city, where she calmly registered under the name of a careless homewrecker and drank cocktails for the entire 10 days. By the way, no one knows when, how and why Agatha Christie ended up in that hotel. The writer herself claims that she had short-term amnesia. But we are girls, we guess...

Lord Byron or Casanova?

Byron's love affairs are legendary. Biographers clearly include in his biography the fact that once in one year of Venice, Byron had the good fortune of “communicating” with more than 250 ladies. And this despite the fact that the poet definitely limped and was extremely prone to being overweight. Moreover, the pride of all England had a rather strange collection. He collected strands of hair from the most intimate places of his mistresses. The curls, and at that time there probably were some, were lovingly kept in envelopes, where the poet himself wrote out the names in his own hand: “Countess Guiccioli”, “Carolina Lamb”... In the 80s, to the great regret of literary scholars, the collection was lost and no trace of it has been found to this day por.

But the most common gossip revolves around George Byron's love for youths and animals. If the first is exactly what you thought, then the second is platonic love. In the poet’s personal mini-pet one could find crocodiles, badgers, horses, monkeys and many different animals. And the great English romantic poet became furious at the sight of an ordinary salt shaker. Rumor has it that such people were never present at the lavish festivities with the lord. The secret of such fierce aggression towards the salt shaker remained unsolved.

Papa Hem and his cats

Everyone has heard about the cat lover, alcoholic and suicide Hemingway. He really did suffer from a severe form of paranoia, he really did endure a number of sophisticated psychiatric techniques, and towards the end of his life he stopped writing. And when Hemingway died, American intelligence services confirmed what the great writer had been saying all his life - he was indeed being monitored.

But there is another side to the coin. The ideal man, life-fighter and womanizer, American dad Hem loved Cuban mojitos, beautiful journalists and honesty in everything. One day, while sipping a friendly cocktail, another giant of American literature, Francis Scott Fitzgerald, complained to Hemingway that his wife Zelda considered his “manhood” to be relatively small. To which the writer took him to the toilet, gave him a control check, and then reassured poor Fitzgerald that everything was fine. He already knew.

But as for cats, Hemingway’s favorite pet was Snowball, who has a small defect - six toes on soft paws. Now you can meet the descendants of Snowball, who continue to pay tribute to the genius of literature, and live in the house-museum of Uncle Hem in Florida.

Charlie and the Bax Factory


Being just a child, the future pride of England, Charles Dickens, had a very hard time. The writer's father ended up in debtor's prison, and little Charlie had to go to work, unfortunately, not at a chocolate factory, but at a real waxing factory, where the young talent had to stick labels on jars of polish all day long. No football with slingshots, no hulabud on a tree. That is why Dickens's images of unfortunate orphans were so realistic.

In general, one can write and write about the oddities of Charles John Dickens. The most famous of them says that the writer could not sit at the table or go to bed with his head not facing north. Charlie wrote his brilliant works in precisely this direction.

Legend has it that Dickens was an avid hypnotist and mesmerist (telepathic communication between humans and animals), and even went into trances at random. During this state, the writer fiddled with his hats, which very quickly wore out after the attacks. Later I even had to give up hats altogether. Well, among other things, the English prose writer’s favorite pastime was going to the morgue. Especially in those sections where unidentified bodies were exhibited. A wonderful time, I must say!

Antosha Chekhonte


A domestic example of a writer’s difficult childhood is everyone’s favorite Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, whose father ran a tailor’s shop and forced his youths to work in it. Little Anton managed to study and sing in the church choir, but he never saw his childhood.

Another extremely interesting fact about the great satirist: Chekhov kept more than 50 original pseudonyms in his arsenal: Champagne, My Brother’s Brother, The Man Without a Spleen, Arkhip Indeykin, and of course, Antosha Chekhonte - only part of Chekhov’s boundless imagination.

But Stanislavsky describes such a story in his memoirs. One day, while Anton Pavlovich was visiting him, a friend came to him. During the conversation, Chekhov was silent and only looked intently at the newcomer. When the guest left, the master of the short genre said: “Listen, he is a suicide,” to which Stanislavsky only laughed, because he had never met a more joyful, happy and optimistic person than this friend. Imagine the director’s amazement when a few years later the “cheerful” guest was poisoned.
And yet, contemporaries describe Chekhov as the kindest person on Earth. With the light hand of Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, Russia became richer in schools, hospitals and shelters for those who have nowhere to go.

Coffee instead of sex


Once a thief broke into the apartment of a young, not yet very successful, writer. When he began to rummage through the drawers in the only chest of drawers in the apartment, he heard loud laughter behind him. Honore de Balzac, that was the name of the aspiring writer, loudly remarked that it was unlikely that a thief would be able to find money where he had not been able to find it himself for a long time.

The author's contemporaries claim that it was a sharp sense of humor that helped Balzac survive in sorrow and poverty. Humor and coffee. The famous Frenchman could drink about 50 cups of extremely strong coffee per day. Someone even calculated that during the writing of The Human Comedy, Balzac drank 15,000 cups of aromatic liquor. And this is without the beans that the coffee lover loved to chew when it was not possible to brew his favorite drink.

And Honore de Balzac believed that sex is tantamount to one good novel. A man's seed, in his competent opinion, is nothing more than particles of brain tissue. After a night of love, he even bitterly admitted to one of his friends that he had probably lost a brilliant work.

From comet to comet


Another lover of pseudonyms, Mark Twain, came up with more than a dozen of them. And “Mark Twain” itself meant “by the mark twain,” that is, the safe immersion of a ship in two fathoms. In his youth, the creator of Tom Sawyer worked for a long time on a ship somewhere in the waters of the Mississippi.

Few people know that Samuel Clemens, that is the writer’s real name, was born two weeks after Halley’s Comet passed over the Earth. And in 1909, Twain wrote: “I was born with Halley, and I will leave with her.” On April 20, the comet circled the planet again, and the next day the genius was gone.

Probably, it was precisely this fact that Mark Twain predicted such an unreal life, full of secrets. One of the prose writer's best friends was the mysterious Nikola Tesla. Together with him, Twain participated in the development of mysterious inventions and even patented several, including an album with adhesive pages for photos and an original self-regulating suspenders.

And the world-famous American hated children (despite our favorites - Tom and Huck), but adored cats and tobacco. He started smoking when he was only 8 years old, and until the last day of his life he smoked 30 cigars daily. Moreover, Twain chose the cheapest and most smelly varieties.

Among other things, Mark Twain was one of the most famous American Freemasons. Little is known about his activities in the lodge. His initiation took place in 1861 in the small town of St. Louis and he quickly moved up the “career ladder.”

Looking for a green stick


Well, the last hero of our article is a writer, whose image has become legendary throughout Mother Russia. We have studied the life of Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy from school inside and out. But do you know what influenced the writer’s ideas about universal peace, love and harmony? As a child, little Levushka’s brother told him many times a story about a magic green wand that can be found on the outskirts of that same Yasnaya Polyana and with its help make the world a much better place. It was this fairy tale that influenced the entire subsequent life and worldview of the great novelist and teacher.

But in her youth, the future star of Russian literature suffered from a common disease - gambling. In one card game with his neighbor, the landowner Gorokhov, Tolstoy lost the house in which he grew up, and all in the same Yasnaya Polyana. Gorokhov, without thinking twice, dismantled the building brick by brick and moved it to his estate.

Tolstoy's oddities do not end there. On his wedding night, Lev Nikolaevich forced 18-year-old Sofia Bers to re-read his entire diary, especially devoting moments to love affairs. Tolstoy wanted to be honest with the woman he took as his wife, and told her about all his mistresses, including his affairs with countless peasant women. They say that what should happen between husband and wife did not happen that night.

The image of Russia on the scale of world literature is unthinkable without these names. And on the shelves of any more or less decent book lover, the books of these Russian writers are displayed in plain sight out of pride.

But what do we know about our favorite writers, whose books are considered mandatory reading at any conscious age? It is not enough for a modern person to read a book by an author; please give him another book about the author.

In continuation of the article about two great Russian classics — L. N. Tolstoy and F. M. Dostoevsky, I am posting another no less interesting selection of interesting facts about Russian writers:

A. S. Pushkin

- I smoked a lot.

He shocked the ladies of Ekaterinoslav with translucent pantaloons without underwear.

He was the father of four legitimate children and at least one illegitimate one.

He was sure that he would die from a white man or a white horse.

He chose the place for his grave himself.

I studied poorly at the Lyceum.

He ordered a mass for the repose of the soul of the servant of God George, that is, Byron.

Gave my friend Delvig a skull.

I lost a lot at cards, but always found means to cover my gambling debt.

Dantes was a relative of Pushkin. At the time of the duel, he was married to the sister of Pushkin’s wife, Ekaterina Goncharova.

Before his death, Pushkin asked for forgiveness for violating the tsar’s ban on dueling: “... I’m waiting for the tsar’s word so that I can die in peace...”.

M. Yu. Lermontov

- He was short, broad-shouldered, stocky, big-headed and limped like Lord Byron.

More than anyone in the world, he loved his grandmother, and she loved him.

He took part in a duel with a Frenchman who provided pistols for the duel between Pushkin and Dantes.

He considered himself a descendant of the Scotsman Learmont.

He stole a friend’s bride, and then wrote an anonymous slander against himself to get rid of the annoying girl.

Showed courage in battles in the Caucasus.

I studied Azerbaijani language.

He was keenly interested in various kinds of predictions, fortune-telling and symbols.

He was sarcastic, impudent, merciless to the weaknesses of others, vindictive and arrogant.

In his short 26-year life, Lermontov participated in three duels, and four more were avoided thanks to the common sense of those around him.

For fun, he loved to upset upcoming marriages, pretending to be in love with someone else's bride, and showered her with flowers, poems and other signs of attention. Sometimes he threatened, promising to commit suicide if his “love” married someone else. And then he admitted to the prank...

He managed to lose in all games and competitions; only the fall of the Frenchman Barant in a decisive attack was able to save the wounded Lermontov in the first duel. During his return from Caucasian exile, the poet decided to tell fortunes and tossed fifty kopecks - where should he go: to work or should he take another walk, stopping briefly in Pyatigorsk. And he had the chance to go to Pyatigorsk. There (July 15, 1841), near Mount Mashuk, he was killed in a duel by a retired cavalryman Martynov, who, as it turns out, was an amateur shooter. It turned out that before this duel he only fired a pistol three times...

A. P. Chekhov

- Worked in his father's shop.

Brought from the island of Ceylon a tame mongoose named Bastard.

In the gymnasium, for the sake of shockingness, he wore provocative-colored trousers under his uniform.

As a child, he dressed up as a beggar, put on make-up and received alms from his own uncle.

He gave the policeman a salted watermelon wrapped in paper, saying that it was a bomb.

Received a fee for furniture from the editorial office of the magazine "Alarm Clock".

He studied tailoring at the district school. At the request of his dapper brother Nikolai, he sewed gray gymnasium trousers, so tight that they were nicknamed macaroni.

He sang church hymns at home. As for his voice, Anton Pavlovich spoke in a loud bass voice.

An army of female fans followed him everywhere. When Chekhov moved to Yalta in 1898, many of his fans followed him to Crimea. As newspapers wrote, ladies literally rushed after the writer along the embankments, just to see their idol more often, “studying his costume, gait, and trying to somehow attract his attention.” For such devotion, the local gossip column aptly dubbed the girls “Antonovkas.”

One of the three most filmed authors in the world. More than 287 film adaptations.

At first glance he saw a suicide in a stranger.

Chekhov had about fifty pseudonyms. Well, you definitely know one of them from your school days - Antosha Chekhonte, of course. There were also: Schiller Shakespeareovich Goethe, Champagne, My Brother's Brother; Nut No. 6; Nut No. 9; Rook; A person without a spleen; Akaki Tarantulov, Someone, Arkhip Indeikin

Chekhov's grandfather was a serf, and the writer himself renounced hereditary nobility. Yegor Mikhailovich Chekhov was able to buy himself and his family freedom. Subsequently, his famous grandson never forgot about his origin. Moreover, in 1899, when Emperor Nicholas II, by his decree, awarded the writer the title of hereditary nobleman and the Order of St. Stanislaus of the third degree, Anton Pavlovich simply ... did not accept this privilege. The highest decree remained without attention and consequences - as well as the title of honorary academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, which Chekhov also considered useless for himself.

To be continued…

Based on materials from the magazine

There are many interesting facts associated with Russian poets and writers that shed light on this or that event. It seems to us that we know everything, or almost everything, about the lives of great writers, but there are pages unexplored!

So, for example, we learned that Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin was the initiator of the fatal duel and did everything possible to make it happen - it was a matter of honor for the poet... And Leo Tolstoy lost his house due to his addiction to gambling. And we also know how the great Anton Pavlovich loved to call his wife in correspondence - “the crocodile of my soul”... Read about these and other facts of Russian geniuses in our selection of “the most interesting facts from the life of Russian poets and writers.”

Russian writers came up with many new words: substance, thermometer ( Lomonosov), industry ( Karamzin), bungling ( Saltykov-Shchedrin), fade away ( Dostoevsky), mediocrity ( Northerner), exhausted ( Khlebnikov).

Pushkin was not handsome, unlike his wife Natalya Goncharova, who, in addition to everything, was 10 cm taller than her husband. For this reason, when attending balls, Pushkin tried to stay away from his wife, so as not to once again draw the attention of others to this contrast.

During the period of courtship with his future wife Natalya, Pushkin told his friends a lot about her and at the same time usually said: “I am delighted, I am fascinated, In short, I am enchanted!”

Korney Chukovsky- it is a nickname. The real name (according to available documents) of the most published children's writer in Russia is Nikolai Vasilyevich Korneychukov. He was born in 1882 in Odessa out of wedlock, was recorded under his mother’s surname, and published his first article in 1901 under the pseudonym Korney Chukovsky.

Lev Tolstoy. In his youth, the future genius of Russian literature was quite passionate. Once, in a card game with his neighbor, the landowner Gorokhov, Leo Tolstoy lost the main building of his inherited estate - the Yasnaya Polyana estate. The neighbor dismantled the house and took it 35 miles away as a trophy. It is worth noting that this was not just a building - it was here that the writer was born and spent his childhood years, it was this house that he remembered warmly all his life and even wanted to buy it back, but for one reason or another he did not do so.

The famous Soviet writer and public figure lisped, that is, he could not pronounce the letters “r” and “l.” This happened in childhood when, while playing, he accidentally cut his tongue with a razor, and it became difficult for him to pronounce his name: Kirill. In 1934 he took the pseudonym Konstantin.

Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov were natives of Odessa, but met only in Moscow immediately before starting work on their first novel. Subsequently, the duo worked together so well that even Ilf’s daughter Alexandra, who is involved in popularizing the writers’ heritage, called herself the daughter of “Ilf and Petrov.”

Alexander Solzhenitsyn communicated more than once with Russian President Boris Yeltsin. For example, Yeltsin asked his opinion about the Kuril Islands (Solzhenitsyn advised giving them to Japan). And in the mid-1990s, after Alexander Isaevich returned from emigration and restored his Russian citizenship, by order of Yeltsin, he was given the Sosnovka-2 state dacha in the Moscow region.

Chekhov sat down to write, dressed in full dress. Kuprin, on the contrary, he loved working completely naked.

When a Russian satirist-writer Arkady Averchenko During the First World War, he brought a story on a military theme to one of the editorial offices; the censor deleted the phrase from it: “The sky was blue.” It turns out that from these words, enemy spies could guess that the matter was happening in the south.

The real name of the satirical writer Grigory Gorin There was Ofstein. When asked about the reason for choosing the pseudonym, Gorin replied that it was an abbreviation: “Grisha Ofshtein decided to change his nationality.”

Initially at the grave Gogol in the monastery cemetery lay a stone nicknamed Golgotha ​​because of its resemblance to Mount Jerusalem. When they decided to destroy the cemetery, during reburial in another place they decided to install a bust of Gogol on the grave. And that same stone was subsequently placed on Bulgakov’s grave by his wife. In this regard, the phrase is noteworthy Bulgakov, which he repeatedly addressed to Gogol during his lifetime: “Teacher, cover me with your overcoat.”

After the outbreak of World War II Marina Tsvetaeva They were sent for evacuation to the city of Elabuga, in Tatarstan. Boris Pasternak helped her pack her things. He brought a rope to tie up the suitcase, and, assuring of its strength, joked: “The rope will withstand everything, even if you hang yourself.” Subsequently, he was told that it was on her that Tsvetaeva hanged herself in Yelabuga.

The famous phrase “We all came out of Gogol’s overcoat,” which is used to express the humanistic traditions of Russian literature. The authorship of this expression is often attributed to Dostoevsky, but in fact the first person to say it was the French critic Eugene Vogüet, who discussed the origins of Dostoevsky’s work. Fyodor Mikhailovich himself cited this quote in a conversation with another French writer, who understood it as the writer’s own words and published them in this light in his work.

As a remedy for a “big belly” A.P. Chekhov prescribed a milk diet to his obese patients. For a week, the unfortunate people had to eat nothing and extinguish attacks of hunger with hundred-gram doses of regular milk. Indeed, due to the fact that milk is quickly and well absorbed, a glass of the drink taken in the morning reduces appetite. So, without feeling hungry, you can hold out until lunch. This property of milk was used by Anton Pavlovich in his medical practice...

Dostoevsky made extensive use of the real topography of St. Petersburg in describing the places in his novel Crime and Punishment. As the writer admitted, he drew up the description of the courtyard in which Raskolnikov hides the things he stole from the pawnbroker’s apartment from personal experience - when one day, while walking around the city, Dostoevsky turned into a deserted courtyard to relieve himself.

Do you know what Pushkin received as a dowry for N.N. Goncharova bronze statue? Not the most convenient dowry! But back in the middle of the 18th century, Afanasy Abramovich Goncharov was one of the richest people in Russia. The sailing fabric produced at his Linen Factory was purchased for the British Navy, and the paper was considered the best in Russia. The best society came to the Linen Factory for feasts, hunts, and performances, and in 1775 Catherine herself visited here.

In memory of this event, the Goncharovs bought bronze statue Empress, cast in Berlin. The order was delivered already under Paul, when it was dangerous to honor Catherine. And then there was no longer enough money to install the monument - Afanasy Nikolaevich Goncharov, Natalia Nikolaevna’s grandfather, who inherited a huge fortune, left his grandchildren debts and a disorganized household. He came up with the idea of ​​giving the statue to his granddaughter as a dowry.

The poet's ordeal with this statue is reflected in his letters. Pushkin calls her “copper grandmother” and tries to sell her to the State Mint for melting down (scrap non-ferrous metals!). In the end, the statue was sold to the foundry of Franz Bard, apparently after the poet's death.

The bard sold the long-suffering statue to the Ekaterinoslav nobility, who erected a monument to the founder of their city on the Cathedral Square of Ekaterinoslav (now Dnepropetrovsk). But when she finally got to the city named after her, the “copper grandmother” continued to travel, changing 3 pedestals, and after the fascist occupation she disappeared completely. Has “grandmother” found peace, or continues her movements around the world?

The main plot of N.V. Gogol’s immortal work “The Inspector General” was suggested to the author by A.S. Pushkin. These great classics were good friends. Once Alexander Sergeevich told Nikolai Vasilyevich an interesting fact from the life of the city of Ustyuzhna, Novgorod province. It was this incident that formed the basis of the work of Nikolai Gogol.

Throughout the time he was writing The Inspector General, Gogol often wrote to Pushkin about his work, told him what stage it was in, and also repeatedly announced that he wanted to quit it. However, Pushkin forbade him to do this, so “The Inspector General” was still completed.

By the way, Pushkin, who was present at the first reading of the play, was completely delighted with it.

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov In correspondence with his wife Olga Leonardovna, Knipper, in addition to standard compliments and affectionate words, used very unusual ones for her: “actress”, “dog”, “snake” and - feel the lyricism of the moment - “the crocodile of my soul”.

Alexander Griboyedov was not only a poet, but also a diplomat. In 1829, he died in Persia along with the entire diplomatic mission at the hands of religious fanatics. To atone for their guilt, the Persian delegation arrived in St. Petersburg with rich gifts, among which was the famous Shah diamond weighing 88.7 carats. Another purpose of the embassy's visit was to mitigate the indemnity imposed on Persia under the terms of the Turkmanchay Peace Treaty. Emperor Nicholas I went to meet the Persians halfway and said: “I consign the ill-fated Tehran incident to eternal oblivion!”

Lev Tolstoy was skeptical about his novels, including War and Peace. In 1871, he sent Fet a letter: “How happy I am... that I will never write verbose rubbish like “War” again.” An entry in his diary in 1908 reads: “People love me for those trifles - “War and Peace”, etc., which seem very important to them.”

The duel, in which Pushkin was mortally wounded, was not initiated by the poet. Pushkin sent a challenge to Dantes in November 1836, the impetus for which was the spread of anonymous lampoons exposing him as a cuckold. However, that duel was canceled thanks to the efforts of the poet’s friends and the proposal made by Dantes to Natalya Goncharova’s sister. But the conflict was not settled, the spread of jokes about Pushkin and his family continued, and then the poet sent Dantes’ adoptive father Heckern an extremely offensive letter in February 1837, knowing that this would entail a challenge from Dantes. And so it happened, and this duel became Pushkin’s last. By the way, Dantes was a relative of Pushkin. At the time of the duel, he was married to the sister of Pushkin’s wife, Ekaterina Goncharova.

Having fallen ill, Chekhov sent a messenger to the pharmacy for castor oil capsules. The pharmacist sent him two large capsules, which Chekhov returned with the inscription “I am not a horse!” Having received the writer’s autograph, the pharmacist happily replaced them with normal capsules.

Passion Ivan Krylov there was food. Before dinner at a party, Krylov read two or three fables. After the praise, he waited for lunch. With the ease of a young man, despite all his obesity, he went to the dining room as soon as it was announced: “Dinner is served.” The Kyrgyz footman Emelyan tied a napkin under Krylov’s chin, spread the second one on his knees and stood behind the chair.

Krylov ate a huge plate of pies, three plates of fish soup, huge veal chops - a couple of plates, a fried turkey, which he called “Firebird”, and also dips: Nizhyn cucumbers, lingonberries, cloudberries, plums, eating Antonov apples, like plums, finally began to eat Strasbourg pate, freshly prepared from the freshest butter, truffles and goose livers. After eating several plates, Krylov drank kvass, after which he washed down his food with two glasses of coffee with cream, into which you stick a spoon - it stands.

Writer V.V. Veresaev recalled that all the pleasure, all the bliss of life for Krylov lay in food. At one time he received invitations to small dinners with the Empress, about which he later spoke very unflatteringly because of the meager portions of the dishes served to the table. At one of these dinners, Krylov sat down at the table and, without greeting the hostess, began to eat. The poet who was present Zhukovsky exclaimed in surprise: “Stop it, let the queen at least treat you.” “What if he doesn’t serve you?” answered Krylov, without looking up from his plate. At dinner parties he usually ate a dish of pies, three or four plates of fish soup, several chops, roast turkey and a few "trifles." Arriving home, I ate it all with a bowl of sauerkraut and black bread.

By the way, everyone believed that the fabulist Krylov died of volvulus due to overeating. In fact, he died from double pneumonia.

Gogol had a passion for handicrafts. I knitted scarves, cut out dresses for my sisters, wove belts, and sewed scarves for myself for the summer.

Did you know that the typical Russian name Svetlana is only 200 years old? Before it was invented in 1802 by A.Kh. Vostokov, such a name did not exist. It first appeared in his romance “Svetlana and Mstislav.” Then it was fashionable to call literary heroes pseudo-Russian names. This is how Dobrada, Priyata, Miloslava appeared - purely literary, not listed in the calendar. That’s why they didn’t call children that.

Vasily Andreevich Zhukovsky took the name for the heroine of his ballad from Vostokov’s romance. "Svetlana" became a very popular work. In the 60s and 70s of the 19th century, “Svetlana” stepped into the people from the pages of books. But there was no such name in the church books! Therefore, girls were baptized as Photinia, Faina, or Lukerya, from Greek and Latin words meaning light. It is interesting that this name is very common in other languages: Italian Chiara, German and French Clara and Claire, Italian Lucia, Celtic Fiona, Tajik Ravshana, ancient Greek Faina - all mean: light, bright. Poets simply filled a linguistic niche!

After the October Revolution, a wave of new names swept over Russia. Svetlana was perceived as a patriotic, modern and understandable name. Even Stalin named his daughter that. And in 1943, this name finally made it into the calendar.

Another interesting fact: this name also had a masculine form - Svetlana and Svet. Demyan the Poor named his son Light.

How many monuments to the Russian poet Alexander Pushkin are there in the world? The answer to this question is contained in the book of the Voronezh postcard collector Valery Kononov. All over the world there are them - 270 . No literary figure has ever been awarded so many monuments. The book contains illustrations of one hundred of the best monuments to the poet. Among them are monuments from the era of Tsarist Russia and Soviet times, and monuments erected abroad. Pushkin himself was never abroad, but there are monuments to him in Cuba, India, Finland, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Spain, China, Chile and Norway. There are two monuments each in Hungary and Germany (in Weimar and Dusseldorf). In the USA, one was staged in 1941 in Jackson, New Jersey, the other in 1970 in Monroe, New York. V. Kononov drew one pattern: monuments to Pushkin are usually erected not in large squares, but in parks and squares.

I.A. Krylov in everyday life he was very unkempt. His disheveled, unkempt hair, stained, wrinkled shirts and other signs of sloppiness caused ridicule from his acquaintances. One day the fabulist was invited to a masquerade. - How should I dress to remain unrecognized? - he asked a lady he knew. “Wash yourself, comb your hair, and no one will recognize you,” she answered.

Seven years before death Gogol in his will he warned: “I bequeath my body not to be buried until obvious signs of decomposition appear.” They did not listen to the writer, and when the remains were reburied in 1931, a skeleton with a skull turned to one side was found in the coffin. According to other data, the skull was completely absent.

The duels were quite diverse both in weapons and in form. For example, few people know that there was such an interesting form as the “quadruple duel”. In this type of duel, their seconds fired after the opponents.

By the way, the most famous quadruple duel was over the ballerina Avdotya Istomina: the opponents Zavadovsky and Sheremetev had to shoot first, and the seconds Griboyedov and Yakubovich - second. That time, Yakubovich shot Griboyedov in the palm of his left hand. It was from this wound that it was later possible to identify the corpse of Griboyedov, who was killed by religious fanatics during the destruction of the Russian embassy in Tehran.

An example of the wit of a fabulist Krylova serves as a famous incident in the Summer Garden, where he loved to stroll. Once he met a group of young people there. One of this company decided to make fun of the writer’s physique: “Look what a cloud is coming!” Krylov heard, but was not embarrassed. He looked at the sky and added sarcastically: “It’s really going to rain. That’s why the frogs started croaking.”

Nikolay Karamzin belongs to the briefest description of social life in Russia. When, during his trip to Europe, Russian emigrants asked Karamzin what was happening in his homeland, the writer answered with one word: “they are stealing.”


The handwriting of Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy

Leo Tolstoy the handwriting was terrible. Only his wife could understand everything that was written, who, according to literary researchers, rewrote his “War and Peace” several times. Perhaps Lev Nikolaevich simply wrote so quickly? The hypothesis is quite realistic, given the volume of his works.

Manuscripts Alexandra Pushkina always looked very beautiful. So beautiful that it is almost impossible to read the text. Vladimir Nabokov also had the most terrible handwriting, whose sketches and famous cards could only be read by his wife.

Sergei Yesenin had the most legible handwriting, for which his publishers thanked him more than once.

The source of the expression “No brainer” is a poem Mayakovsky(“It’s clear even to a no brainer - / This Petya was a bourgeois”). It became widespread first in the Strugatskys’ story “The Country of Crimson Clouds”, and then in Soviet boarding schools for gifted children. They recruited teenagers who had two years left to study (classes A, B, C, D, D) or one year (classes E, F, I). Students of the one-year stream were called “hedgehogs”. When they arrived at the boarding school, the two-year students were already ahead of them in the non-standard program, so at the beginning of the school year the expression “no brainer” was very relevant.

Determination of Agnia Barto. She was always determined: she saw the goal - and forward, without swaying or retreating. This trait of hers appeared everywhere, in every little detail. Once in Spain, torn by the Civil War, where Barto went in 1937 to the International Congress for the Defense of Culture, where she saw firsthand what fascism was (congress meetings were held in the besieged, burning Madrid), and just before the bombing she went to buy castanets. The sky howls, the walls of the store bounce, and the writer makes a purchase! But the castanets are real, Spanish - for Agnia, who danced beautifully, this was an important souvenir. Alexei Tolstoy later asked Barto sarcastically: had she bought a fan in that store to fan herself during the next raids?..

One day Fyodor Chaliapin introduced his friend to the guests - Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin.“Meet, friends, Alexander Kuprin - the most sensitive nose in Russia.” Contemporaries even joked that Kuprin had something “of a big beast.” For example, many ladies were very offended by the writer when he actually sniffed them like a dog.

And once, a certain French perfumer, having heard from Kuprin a clear layout of the components of his new fragrance, exclaimed: “Such a rare gift and you are just a writer!” Kuprin often delighted his colleagues in the workshop with incredibly precise definitions. For example, in an argument with Bunin and Chekhov, he won with one phrase: “Young girls smell like watermelon and fresh milk. And the old women, here in the south, use wormwood, chamomile, dry cornflowers and incense.”

Anna Akhmatova I composed my first poem at the age of 11. After re-reading it “with a fresh mind,” the girl realized that she needed to improve her art of versification. Which is what I began to actively do.

However, Anna's father did not appreciate her efforts and considered it a waste of time. That is why he forbade using his real last name - Gorenko. Anna decided to choose her great-grandmother’s maiden name, Akhmatova, as her pseudonym.

Poets and writers for some are crazy geniuses, for others they are nothing special, but only annoying in schools with their poems, stories and biographies. But some people don’t even realize how interesting many personalities are beyond their creativity. What about the most unusual and unknown interesting facts about writers and poets?

A.S. Pushkin is “our everything,” I hope everyone remembers this. The line “let’s drink from grief” immediately comes to mind; where is the mug? - these words are partly true, although the most favorite drink was sweet lemonade!

In the process of creating the work, the writer refreshed himself not with a cup of coffee or a glass of wine, but with a glass of lemonade, the poet especially loved it at night.

Surprisingly, before the duel with Dantes, Pushkin went into a pastry shop and drank a glass of aromatic lemonade with great pleasure.

Gogol's eccentricities

Oh, how many myths there are around the author of the famous “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka”. Contemporaries confirmed some of the writer’s oddities. Gogol slept sitting, loved to do needlework (sewed scarves and vests), wrote all his brilliant works only while standing!

For example, as a child I loved to roll bread balls, for which I usually got slapped on the wrist. And Gogol calmed his nerves by rolling balls all his life! Nikolai Berg, remembering the writer, said that Gogol constantly walked from corner to corner or wrote, while at the same time rolling balls of bread (precisely wheat). And the writer also threw rolled balls into kvass for his friends!

The Amazing Habits of Chekhov

But Chekhov, calming his nerves, did not roll balls, but used a hammer to smash crushed stone into dust, which was then used to sprinkle garden paths. The writer could spend hours breaking rubble without distraction!

Deep psychologist Dostoevsky

By the way, the characters of all the characters in Dostoevsky’s works were copied from real people. Dostoevsky constantly made new acquaintances, starting conversations even with random passers-by.

Contemporaries note that when the writer was immersed in writing works, he became so carried away that he forgot to eat. He walked around the room all day, saying sentences out loud. Once, while writing a famous novel, Dostoevsky wandered from corner to corner and talked to himself about Raskolnikov’s attitude towards the old pawnbroker and his motive. The footman got scared when he accidentally overheard the conversation and decided that Dostoevsky was going to kill someone.

Religious philosopher Leo Tolstoy

Here you can make a huge list of the eccentricities and oddities of the author of Anna Karenina, War and Peace and much, much more.

Firstly, as an 82-year-old man, he ran away from his wonderful wife, who could spend hours copying his works into clear copy. And all because of a discrepancy in views, which emerged only after 48 years of marriage.

Secondly, Leo Tolstoy was a vegetarian. Thirdly, the writer lost the family estate at cards. Fourthly, Leo Tolstoy denied all material wealth, constantly communicated with peasants and valued physical labor. The writer said about himself that if he doesn’t work at least a little in the yard a day, he will be very irritable. He also loved to do handicrafts, especially sewing boots for relatives, friends and even strangers.

Vladimir Nabokov and his butterflies

Entomology was a huge passion for Nabokov; he could spend hours running around the area looking for beautiful butterflies.

One of the funniest photographs of Nabokov with a net.

But still, Nabokov’s main love remained writing. The author's principle of writing texts is interesting. The works were written on 3-by-5-inch cards, which were then used to create a book. The cards had to have pointed ends, straight lines and an elastic band.

Mystical letters of Evgeny Petrov (Kataev)

After long travels around the world, the letter was returned, crowned with numerous stamps marked “Addressee not found.” But one day Petrov received a response from New Zealand; everything matched: the address, the name, and even the situation described by the domestic writer. Petrov wrote in a letter that he condoled the death of a certain Uncle Pete, and asked how his wife and daughter were doing. The addressee replied that he missed Petrov, remembered the days spent with him in New Zealand, his wife and daughter also said hello and hoped to see him soon. One would think that someone was playing a joke, but the interlocutor attached a photograph that showed a large man hugging Petrov!

The poor satirist got so excited that he ended up in the hospital with pneumonia. He had absolutely no idea who the person in the photo was and had never been to New Zealand! This story was adapted into the plot of the 2012 film “The Envelope.”