Message about the author gaydar. Unknown Arkady Gaidar. Literary and educational material about the life and work of A.P. Gaidar
During his lifetime, Arkady Petrovich Gaidar became a legend of the Soviet era: at the age of fourteen he entered communist party and went to the front Civil War; at the age of seventeen he commanded a regiment, dealing with bandits; then he became a writer, whose books were read by more than one generation of Soviet pioneers.
Countless streets, squares, and alleys in central and not-so-central cities are named after Gaidar. Houses of Pioneers, children's libraries, detachments and squads of Soviet schools bore his name. The writer’s biography, like a fascinating work of art, was read out at Lenin’s lessons and pioneer gatherings. A portrait of young Gaidar in the famous Kubanka, with a saber on his belt, hung in almost every “cool corner”. It seemed that there was no brighter and more heroic personality than the author of “Timur” and “The Fate of a Drummer.” Gaidar escaped the skating rink of Stalinist repressions, persecution and oblivion. He died in battle with the fascist invaders, being at the peak of his literary fame. It was impossible to suspect or accuse such a hero of anything.
However, during the period of so-called “perestroika,” a stream of negative assessments of the recent past, accusations and sensational revelations literally rained down on the heads of our fellow citizens. Arkady Gaidar did not escape this fate. By that time, in the minds of Soviet people, the image of the children's writer and hero was so idealized that some facts from his real life, deliberately and without evidence inflated by false historians and zealous scribblers, produced not just an unfavorable, but rather a disgusting impression. It turned out that the seventeen-year-old regiment commander proved himself to be a merciless punisher during the suppression of anti-Soviet uprisings in the Tambov region and Khakassia in 1921-1922. At the same time, he did not fight with heavily armed whites or bandits, but with the civilian population, which was trying to protect itself from the tyranny and violence of the local authorities. The famous children's writer taught the younger generation goodness, justice, loyalty to the Motherland, but he himself abused alcohol, did not have his own home, did not have a normal family, and in general was a mentally ill, deeply unhappy, half-insane person.
As it turned out, most of these accusations turned out to be deliberate lies.
Gaidar is a man of his heroic-romantic, but also tragic time. Today it is hard to believe that it was creativity that saved the famous writer from complete internal discord, illness, and fear of the reality in which he, a dreamer and romantic, had to survive. In his imagination, Gaidar created a happy country of the pioneer Timur, Alka, Chuk and Gek, the little drummer Seryozha. Gaidar himself firmly believed in this country, believed in the reality of the great future of his heroes. His faith inspired thousands, even millions of Soviet boys and girls to live according to the fictitious, but most beautiful and fair laws of the “country of Gaidar.” As V. Pelevin wrote in his famous book “The Life of Insects,” even the image of a child killer created by a children’s writer, free from the Christian commandment “thou shalt not kill” and the throwings of the student Raskolnikov, has a right to exist. This image does not look so disgusting if only because Gaidar was truly sincere when he drew it from himself, a non-fictional hero and victim of a cruel revolutionary era. In fact, he was one of the book’s ideal heroes, from whom they took their example and whom entire generations sought to imitate. This is the whole truth about Gaidar. It makes no sense to look for some other truth...
Parents and childhood
Arkady Petrovich Golikov was born in the small town of Lgov, Kursk region. His father, a school teacher, Pyotr Isidorovich Golikov, was from a peasant background. Mother - Natalya Arkadyevna, nee Salkova, a noblewoman of a not very noble family (she was the sixth great-great-niece of M.Yu. Lermontov), worked first as a teacher, later as a paramedic. After the birth of Arkady, three more children appeared in the family - his younger sisters. The parents of the future writer were no strangers to revolutionary ideas and even took part in the revolutionary events of 1905. Fearing arrest, the Golikovs left Lgov in 1908, and since 1912 they lived in Arzamas. It was this city that the future writer Arkady Gaidar considered his “small” homeland: here he studied at a real school, from here at the age of 14 he went to the front of the Civil War.
Pyotr Isidorovich Golikov was drafted into the army in 1914, after the February Revolution, soldiers of the 11th Siberian Regiment elected him commissar, then former warrant officer Golikov headed the regiment. After October 1917, he became commissar of division headquarters. Pyotr Isidorovich spent the entire Civil War at the fronts. He never returned to his family.
Natalya Arkadyevna, Gaidar’s mother, worked as a paramedic in Arzamas until 1920, then headed the county health department in the city of Przhevalsk, and was a member of the county-city revolutionary committee. She died of tuberculosis in 1924.
It is obvious that a boy from an intelligent family, such as Arkady was at the beginning of the Civil War, could perceive the unfolding events as a kind of game. He might not care on whose side he would realize his desire to accomplish a feat. However, the “revolutionary past” and the beliefs of his parents had an impact: in August 1918, Arkady Golikov submitted an application to join the Arzamas organization of the RCP. By the decision of the Arzamas Committee of the RCP (b) dated August 29, 1918, Golikov was accepted into the party “with the right of an advisory vote in his youth and until the completion of party education.”
In his autobiography, Gaidar writes:
According to the most authoritative “Gaidar expert” B. Kamov, Arkady’s mother brought him to the headquarters of the communist battalion. She was unable to feed four children alone, and Natalya Arkadyevna asked to take her son into the service. Battalion commander E.O. Efimov ordered that the literate and tall, precocious teenager be assigned as an adjutant to the headquarters. Arkady was given a uniform and put on allowance. The family began to receive rations. A month later, Efimov was suddenly appointed commander of the troops protecting the railways of the Republic. The commander took the smart boy, who had an excellent understanding of documents and was efficient, with him to Moscow. Arkady was not yet 15 years old at that time.
The Red Army soldier Golikov successfully served first as an adjutant, then as head of the communications team, but constantly “bombed” his superiors with reports of transfer to the front. In March 1919, after another report, he was sent to command courses, which were soon transferred from Moscow to Kyiv.
The situation in Kyiv did not allow the cadets to study calmly: they were continually created into combat detachments, sent to eliminate gangs, and used on internal fronts. At the end of August 1919, early graduation took place at the courses, but the new painters were not distributed in parts. Of these, the Shock Brigade was formed here, which immediately set out to defend Kyiv from the Whites. On August 27, in the battle near Boyarka, platoon commander Arkady Golikov replaced the killed half-company Yakov Oksyuz.
The years 1919-1920 pass for the newly made commander in battles and battles: the Polish Front, Kuban, North Caucasus, Tavria.
“...I live like a wolf, I command a company, we fight with bandits with might and main”, - Arkady Golikov reported to his comrade Alexander Plesko in Arzamas in the summer of 1920.
He is not yet seventeen, but not a boy: combat experience, three fronts, wounded, two shell shocks. The last one was on the attack, when the battalion occupied the Tuba Pass. Life path elected - career commander of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army.
From the autobiography of A. Gaidar:
Accepted to the junior squad of company commanders, Arkady Golikov graduates from “Vystrel” in the senior, tactical, squad. During his studies, he undergoes a short internship as a battalion commander and regiment commander, in March 1921 he took command of the 23rd reserve rifle regiment of the 2nd reserve rifle brigade of the Oryol Military District, then was appointed commander of a battalion that acted against two rebel “armies” Antonov in the Tambov province. At the end of June 1921, the commander of the troops in the Tambov province M.N. Tukhachevsky signed an order appointing Arkady Golikov, who was not yet 18 years old at that time, as commander of the 58th separate anti-banditry regiment.
Regimental Commander
With the command of the regiment, a new stage in the life of Arkady Gaidar began, perhaps the most controversial. According to some biographers, during this period Golikov showed himself to be a decisive, talented commander who defended the gains of Soviet power. Others will say: a cruel executioner and murderer.
We should not forget that in civil struggle there is neither right nor wrong. Still a very young man, formerly an intelligent boy, Arkady Golikov, like many of his peers, scorched by the Civil War, was hardly psychologically prepared for the activities that he had to conduct when he led the combat sector in the fight against banditry. The newly appointed commander of the Red Army tried as best he could to live up to the role imposed on him, but in reality he turned out not to be an executioner, but only a victim of the bloody military era and his own delusions.
After the defeat of the “Antonovschina” in the fall of 1921, commander Arkady Golikov received personal praise from Tukhachevsky for the work done. They wanted to send him to Moscow, giving him a recommendation for admission to the General Staff Academy. However, the “experienced” commander had to lead one of the battalions of special forces (CHON) and go to Bashkiria, where the need arose to fight kulak and nationalist gangs. The Chonovites failed to fight in Bashkiria: the battalion participated only in a few minor skirmishes, but already at the end of September 1921, Gaidar was transferred to Khakassia. Here, large gangs of the Cossack Solovyov intensified their activities.
The social basis of the rebel movement in Khakassia was the dissatisfaction of the local population with the policies of the communist regime (surplus appropriations, mobilizations, labor duties, seizure of pastures necessary for the Khakass herders). New power, disregarding the real interests and objective capabilities of the “wild” population, tried to suppress by force the centers of spontaneous resistance, destroying the way of life that had developed over centuries.
Under these conditions, Solovyov’s “criminal gang,” pursued by punitive detachments, acquired the status of protector of the Khakass population. The size of the gang at different times ranged from two squadrons to twenty people.
Finding himself with small forces in an area where, in his opinion, half of the population supported the “bandits,” Golikov informed the commander of the provincial CHON about the need, based on the experience of the Tambov region, to introduce harsh sanctions against the “semi-wild foreigners,” up to the complete destruction of the “bandit” uluses. Among the Khakasses, indeed, there were many people who sympathized with the bandits, so the Chonovites quickly adopted such methods of struggle as the capture and execution of hostages (women and children), forced expropriation of property, and executions (flogging) of everyone suspected of having connections with the rebels.
No real documents have been preserved confirming the direct participation of Arkady Golikov and his subordinates in the listed atrocities.
What is known is that the representative of the military authorities failed to establish relations with the local Soviets and with the representatives of the provincial department of the GPU. In his opinion, the “GPE” officers monitored the behavior of Chonov’s commanders more and wrote denunciations against them, but did not engage in their direct responsibilities - creating a local intelligence network. Golikov had to personally recruit spies for himself. He acted as any Red Army commander in his place would have acted: he arrested those whom he suspected of having connections with the gang, and then forced them to work as his intelligence officers. The young commander had no experience, and he was guided only by the combat situation and the laws of war, because he did not know other laws. Naturally, numerous reports and complaints to higher authorities rained down on Golikov.
On June 3, 1922, a special department of the provincial department of the GPU began case No. 274 on charges against A.P. Golikova for abuse of official position. A special commission headed by battalion commander J. A. Wittenberg went to the site, which, having collected complaints from the population and local authorities, concluded its report with a demand for the execution of the former commander of the combat site.
However, on June 7, the resolution of Commander V.N. was transferred from the headquarters of the provincial CHON to the special department. Kakoulina: “Under no circumstances arrest, replace and recall.”
On June 14 and 18, Golikov was interrogated at the OGPU in Krasnoyarsk. By that time, four departments had opened criminal cases against him: the ChON, the GPU, the prosecutor's office of the 5th Army and the control commission under the Yenisei provincial party committee. Each authority conducted its own investigation. During interrogations, the accused claimed that he shot without trial only bandits who themselves admitted to their crimes. However, no one in his unit carried out “legal formalities”, such as keeping an interrogation record or registering a death sentence. Gaidar explained this by saying that there was no competent clerk at the headquarters, and he himself was too busy to bother with unnecessary papers. During the investigation, it was nevertheless found out that most of the crimes attributed to Golikov were the work of other people or simply inventions of the informers themselves.
On June 30, the provincial department of the GPU transferred Golikov’s case to the control commission of the Yenisei provincial committee for consideration along party lines. The rest of the cases were also transferred there. On August 18, the party body considered this matter at a joint meeting of the presidium of the provincial committee and the CC of the RCP (b). Almost all charges, except for illegal expropriations and the shooting of three bandit accomplices, were dropped against Golikov. According to the decree of September 1, 1922, he was not expelled from the party (as some “researchers” now claim), but only transferred to the category of subjects for two years, with deprivation of the opportunity to occupy responsible positions.
As a result of the unrest, old traumas began to take their toll. Three years earlier, a fifteen-year-old company commander was wounded and at the same time seriously concussed by a nearby shell that exploded. The shock wave damaged the brain. In addition, the young man had a bad fall from his horse and hit his head and back. In peacetime, this injury might not have had such severe consequences, but during the war, Gaidar quickly developed a traumatic neurosis. Some eyewitnesses of his actions in the Tambov region and Khakassia claimed that commander Golikov, despite his youth, actively abused alcohol. People who knew Gaidar closely already in the 1930s recalled that he could often look and act like he was drunk, although in fact he did not drink. This is exactly how the writer’s attacks of neurosis began. After the trial in Krasnoyarsk, Gaidar was immediately scheduled for a psychiatric examination.
From Arkady’s letter to his sister Natasha:
This diagnosis was made to a nineteen-year-old boy! The young “veteran” was treated for a long time in Krasnoyarsk, Tomsk, and Moscow. Attacks of traumatic neurosis occurred less frequently and were not so acute. But the doctors’ conclusion crossed out the dream of an academy. In fact, Arkady Golikov was deprived of the opportunity to continue his service in the Red Army. The only way out for a disabled victim of the Civil War was writing.
Writer
Konstantin Fedin recalled:
Previously there was a regimental commander - understandable. I decided to become a writer - that’s also understandable. But who was he then when he appeared at the editorial office of the almanac in a tunic and an army cap, on the faded band of which there was a dark trace of a recently removed red star?
This question is answered by registration sheet No. 12371 of the Moscow City Military Commissariat, compiled for A.P. Golikov. in 1925. In the column “Are you in service and where?” Answer: “unemployed.”
It is known that from the end of 1923 until his appearance in Leningrad in 1925, former regiment commander Arkady Golikov wandered around the country, doing odd jobs, leading the life of a half-traveller, half-tramp.
The work submitted to the editor did not at all resemble a novel. It was the story “In the Days of Defeats and Victories,” which was published in the almanac, but it went almost unnoticed by the reader. Critics spoke unflatteringly about the story, considering it a weak and mediocre work. But failures do not stop Gaidar. In April 1925, his story “RVS” was published. It also did not bring wide fame to the author, but was liked by young readers.
Arkady Golikov again spends the summer of 1925 wandering, and in the fall he ends up in Moscow, where he meets his Arzamas friend Alexander Plesko, who at that time was “well settled”: he worked in Perm as the deputy executive editor of the newspaper of the district committee of the party “Zvezda”. Alexander Plesko advised Arkady to go to Perm. The newspaper is good, the staff is young and friendly, and in addition, Nikolai Kondratyev, their mutual friend from Arzamas, collaborates with Zvezda. Friends willingly accepted Arkady into their circle. Already on the eve of the 8th anniversary of the October Revolution, his material appeared in the festive issue of Zvezda. Here the pseudonym “Gaidar” appears for the first time. Arkady Golikov signed his story about the civil war “Corner House” with it.
Nickname
Writer A. Rozanov in 1979, in his essay “Read and Think,” recalls the story of A.P. Gaidar on the origin of the pseudonym:
Arkady Petrovich continued further - “... In the twenty-first year, our unit knocked out bandits from one village in Khakassia. I’m riding slowly down the street, suddenly an old woman runs up, strokes the horse and says to me in her own language: “Gaidar! Gaidar! This seems to mean “daring, dashing horseman.” And this coincidence struck me so much that later I signed one of the first printed feuilletons - Gaidar...”
The writer’s son Timur Gaidar also began to adhere to this version.
Subsequently, one of the biographers interpreted the translation of this word from Mongolian as follows: “Gaidar is a horseman galloping ahead.”
Sounds nice. But it was worth doing a simple thing - looking through dictionaries to make sure: neither in Mongolian nor in two dozen other eastern languages such a meaning of the word “gaidar” or “haidar” simply does not exist.
In the Khakass language, “khaidar” means: “where, in which direction?” Perhaps, when the Khakass saw that the head of the combat area for combating banditry was going somewhere at the head of a detachment, they asked each other: “Haidar Golikov? Where is Golikov going? Which way?" - to warn others about impending danger.
Permian period
In Perm, Gaidar worked for a long time in local archives, studying the events of the period of the first Russian revolution in Motovilikha and the fate of the Ural resident Alexander Lbov. He was helped in everything by the dark-haired, mischievous, agile girl Rakhil (Liya) Solomyanskaya, an active Komsomol member, organizer of the first printed pioneer newspaper in Perm, “The Miracle Ant.” She was seventeen, Gaidar was 21. In December 1925 they got married. For Arkady Petrovich this was already the second marriage. In 1921 he was married to Maria Plaksina. Their son Evgeniy died in infancy. In December 1926, Rachel also gave birth to a boy. This happened in Arkhangelsk, where Rachel temporarily went to stay with her mother. From Perm, Gaidar sent a telegram to his wife: “Name your son Timur.”
 With son Timur |
While living in Perm, Gaidar worked on the story “Lbovshchina” (“Life for nothing”), which was published with a sequel in the regional newspaper “Zvezda”, and then came out as a separate book. A good fee was received. Arkady Petrovich decided to spend it on traveling around the country without vouchers or business trips. He was kept company by his peer, also a journalist, Nikolai Kondratyev. First Central Asia: Tashkent, Kara-Kum. Then crossing the Caspian Sea to the city of Baku.
Before arriving in the capital of Azerbaijan, they didn’t count their money, but here, at the eastern bazaar, it turned out that the travelers couldn’t even pay for a watermelon. Friends quarreled. Both had to travel with hares to Rostov-on-Don. The clothes were worn out, and the holey trousers had to be sewn onto the underwear. In this form you will not go either to the editorial office of the Rostov "Hammer" or to a book publishing house where they could help a children's writer with money. The travelers went to the goods station railway station and worked for several days in a row loading watermelons. No one here cared about their clothes, since the others were no better dressed. And no one, of course, had any idea that the watermelons were being loaded by a writer, a former regiment commander. The journey, full of romantic adventures, ended with the creation of the story “Riders of the Impregnable Mountains” (published in Moscow in 1927).
Gaidar soon had to leave Perm. Because of the topical feuilleton published in Zvezda under his signature, a big scandal broke out. The writer was brought to court for libel and insult to personality. The charges of libel against him were dropped, but for the insult that took place on the pages of the newspaper, the author of the feuilleton was sentenced to a week's arrest. The arrest was replaced by public censure, but the editors of the publication had to answer for the insult. Gaidar’s feuilletons were never published in Zvezda. The scandalous journalist moved to Sverdlovsk, where he briefly collaborated with the Ural Worker newspaper, and in 1927 he left for Moscow.
The first works that brought Arkady Gaidar fame were the fascinating stories for youth “On the Count's Ruins” (1928) and “An Ordinary Biography” (published in the “Roman Newspaper for Children” in 1929).
Khabarovsk
In 1931, Gaidar’s wife Liya Lazarevna left for someone else and took her son with her. Arkady was left alone, homesick, unable to work, and went to Khabarovsk as a correspondent for the Pacific Star newspaper.
In the fifth issue of the almanac "The Past", published in Paris in 1988, the memoirs of journalist Boris Zaks about Arkady Gaidar (B. Zaks. Eyewitness Notes. pp. 378-390), with whom they worked together and lived in Khabarovsk, were published.
According to B. Sachs, after the divorce from his wife, Gaidar’s illness became especially worse. At times his behavior resembled violent insanity: he rushed at people with threats of murder, broke glass, and pointedly cut himself with a razor.
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“I was young, I had never seen anything like this in my life, and that terrible night made a terrifying impression on me. Gaidar was cutting himself. Safety razor blade. One blade was taken away from him, but as soon as he turned away, he was already cutting himself with another. He asked to go to the restroom, locked himself, did not answer. They broke the door, and he cut himself again, wherever he got the blade. They took him away in an unconscious state, all the floors in the apartment were covered in blood that had coagulated into large clots... I thought he wouldn’t survive. |
The events described in the memoirs allow the doctor to qualify Gaidar’s actions as “replacement therapy”: the physical pain from the cuts made it possible to distract himself from the terrible mental state that his illness caused. Those around him could perceive this as a suicide attempt, and therefore in Khabarovsk the writer again ends up in a psychiatric hospital, where he spends more than a year.
From the diary of Arkady Gaidar:
Children's writer Arkady Gaidar
Gaidar returns to Moscow in the fall of 1932. Here the writer has no permanent housing, no family, no money. This is how Gaidar describes his first impressions of his stay in Moscow:
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I have nowhere to put myself, no one to easily go to, nowhere to even spend the night... In essence, I only have three pairs of underwear, a duffel bag, a field bag, a sheepskin coat, a hat - and nothing and no one else, no home, no place, no friends . And this is at a time when I am not poor at all, and no longer at all rejected and unnecessary to anyone. It just turns out that way somehow. I didn’t touch the story “Military Secret” for two months. Meetings, conversations, acquaintances... Overnight stays - wherever necessary. Money, lack of money, money again. They treat me very well, but there is no one to take care of me, and I don’t know how to do it myself. That’s why everything turns out somehow unhuman and stupid. Yesterday they finally sent me to the OGIZ holiday home to finalize the story..." |
But his works for youth are published in central magazines. Books are published and republished in the capital's publishing houses. Gradually fame, high fees, fame, success come...
Many people who knew the writer Arkady Gaidar in life considered him a cheerful, even reckless, but in his own way a very strong and integral person. In any case, outwardly he gave just such an impression. He himself believed in what he wrote and could make others believe. Real, resounding success came to Arkady Petrovich after the publication of the autobiographical story “School” (1930). This was followed by the stories “Distant Countries” (1932), “Military Secret” (1935), which included the famous fairy tale about Malchish-Kibalchish. In 1936, the magazine “Children's Literature” published a story “The Blue Cup”, remarkable for its lyricism, which caused a lot of discussion. In the end, the story was banned from further publication personally by the People's Commissar of Education N.K. Krupskaya. During the author’s lifetime, “The Blue Cup” was no longer published, but, in our opinion, this is the most talented and deeply psychological work of Arkady Petrovich. Gaidar was one of the first in children's literature to present the child as not just a unifying and reconciling factor in the family. Having made the child a full participant in “adult” relationships, the author provides his parents with the opportunity to look at the situation with different eyes, reconsider their actions, and evaluate them differently.
According to the recollections of Timur’s son, his father always very much regretted that he had to part with army service. Remaining true to the era of the Civil War that raised him, Gaidar always wore semi-military clothes, never wore suits and ties, and opened the window in any weather if some military unit was marching down the street singing. Once he bought a huge portrait of Budyonny, which did not fit in the room, and Arkady Petrovich had to give his wardrobe to the janitor in order to place the image of his beloved military leader on the wall.
Apart from writing, Gaidar did not find any other occupation in peacetime. He devoted himself entirely to literature, without reserve, grasping at war memories as the most important and precious thing in life. Creativity obviously helped the writer fill the inner emptiness and realize his failed dreams and aspirations. It is no coincidence that in his works almost all adult characters (male fathers) are military men, officers of the Red Army, and participants in the Civil War.
In 1938, Arkady Gaidar for some reason left Moscow for Klin. Why exactly in Klin is a “military secret” for all his biographers. It is difficult to follow the logic of a sick person, but it was in this town that Arkady Petrovich decided to “put down roots.” He rented a room in Klin and almost immediately married the daughter of his landlord, Dora Matveevna Chernyshova, and adopted her daughter Zhenya.
Zhenya recalled how one day her dad took her and two girlfriends for a walk around Klin. And he told them to be sure to take empty buckets with them. He brought the girls to the city center, blindfolded them with ribbons and filled them with ice cream in buckets... to the top!
Arkady Petrovich wrote his famous story “Timur and His Team” in Klin in 1940. True, at first it was a script for a film. In issues with continuation it was published by Pionerskaya Pravda. Each issue of the newspaper was discussed at a debate - with the participation of writers, professional journalists and, of course, pioneers.
In Klin, the writer worked as if he was striving with creative effort to save himself from attacks of mental illness. Literally “bingely”, in a few years “The Fate of the Drummer”, “Chuk and Gek”, “Smoke in the Forest”, “The Commandant of the Snow Fortress”, “Winter of 41” and “Timur’s Oath” were written.
Reading the memoirs of people close to Gaidar and his works, full of optimism and faith in the bright future of the Soviet country, it is difficult to believe that almost the entire period of 1939-41 Gaidar was haunted by a serious illness. He spent a lot of time in psychiatric clinics, often suffered and did not believe himself.
From a letter to the writer R. Fraerman (1941):
In this letter, in our opinion, Gaidar’s attitude to the reality around him is clearly manifested. He could not help but understand that everyone around him was lying, that he himself was stooping to previously impossible lies: he did not believe himself, he was deceiving himself, inventing unrealistic circumstances in the lives of his heroes. Perhaps in everyday life he goes against his convictions and principles, tries to arrange his personal life, knowing that his first wife was repressed, creates the illusion of a never-formed family with Chernyshova, and again plunges headlong into saving creativity.
By 1941, Gaidar's talent and fame reached their apogee. It was in the early 40s that his most famous works were published. Perhaps Gaidar would have written more than one wonderful book, but the Great Patriotic War.
Death
In June 1941, Arkady Petrovich Gaidar turned only 37 years old. There was not even a hint of gray in his light, light hair; he looked quite healthy, young, full of strength, but the medical commission refused to allow the writer, as a disabled person, to be called up for active military service.
 A.P. Gaidar, 1941 |
Then Gaidar went to the editorial office of the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper and offered his services as a war correspondent. On July 18, 1941, he received a pass from the General Staff of the Red Army to the active army and left for the Southwestern Front. In military uniform, but with plastic buttons on his tunic. Civilian and unarmed.
After the encirclement of units of the Southwestern Front in the Uman-Kyiv region in September 1941, Arkady Petrovich Gaidar ended up in Gorelov’s partisan detachment. He was a machine gunner in the detachment. He died on October 26, 1941 near the village of Leplyavo, Kanevsky district, Cherkasy region. The real circumstances of his death have not yet been clarified. According to the official version, a group of partisans stumbled upon a German ambush near a railway embankment near the village of Leplyavo. Gaidar was the first to see the Germans and managed to shout: “Guys, Germans!”, after which he was killed by a machine-gun burst. This saved the lives of his comrades - they managed to escape. The fact that it was Arkady Gaidar who was killed became clear only after the war, thanks to the testimony of two surviving witnesses (S. Abramov and V. Skrypnik). But there are other testimonies from local residents who claim that in the winter of 1941-1942 they hid in their house a man very similar to the writer Arkady Gaidar. In the spring of 1942, this man, introducing himself as Arkady Ivanov, left them, intending to cross the front line. His further fate is unknown to anyone.
Famous Soviet children's writer, participant in the Civil and Great Patriotic Wars.
Born on January 22, 1904 in Lgov, Kursk province, Russian Empire.
The son of a peasant teacher and a noblewoman mother who participated in the revolutionary events of 1905. Fearing arrest, the Golikovs left Lgov in 1909 and lived in Arzamas from 1912. He worked for the local newspaper “Molot”, where he first published his poems, and joined the RCP(b).
From 1918 - in the Red Army (as a volunteer, hiding his age), in 1919 he studied at command courses in Moscow and Kyiv, then at the Moscow Higher Rifle School. In 1921 - commander of a department of the Nizhny Novgorod regiment. He fought on the Caucasian front, on the Don, near Sochi, participated in the suppression of the Antonov rebellion, in Khakassia - against the “Emperor of the Taiga” I.N. Solovyov, where, accused of arbitrary execution, he was expelled from the party for six months and sent on long leave due to a nervous illness, which subsequently did not leave him throughout his life. A naive romantic, recklessly joyful perception of the revolution in anticipation of the coming “bright kingdom of socialism”, reflected in many of Gaidar’s works of an autobiographical nature, addressed mainly to youth (stories “RVS”, 1925, “Seryozhka Chubatov”, “Levka Demchenko”, “The End” Lyovki Demchenko", "Bandit's Nest", all 1926–1927, Smoke in the Forest, 1935; the story "School", original title "Ordinary Biography", 1930, "Far Countries", 1932, Military Secret, 1935, including the textbook in Soviet times, “The Tale of Military Secret”, “The Tale of Malchish-Kibalchish and his firm word”, 1935, “Bumbarash”, unfinished, 1937), in mature years it is replaced by grave doubts in the diary entries (“I dreamed of people killed in childhood").
With a pseudonym (Turkic word - “horseman galloping ahead”) he first signed the short story “Corner House”, created in 1925 in Perm, where he settled in the same year and where, according to archival materials, he began work on a story about the struggle of local workers with autocracy - “Life for nothing” (another title: Lbovshchina, 1926). In the Perm newspaper "Zvezda" and other publications he publishes feuilletons, poems, notes about travel around Central Asia, fantastic story The Secret of the Mountain, an excerpt from the story Knights of the Impregnable Mountains (other name: Horsemen of the Impregnable Mountains, 1927), poem Machine-Gun Blizzard.
Since 1927, he lived in Sverdlovsk, where he published the story “Forest Brothers” (other name: Davydovshchina - continuation of the story “Life for Nothing”) in the newspaper “Uralsky Rabochiy”.
In the summer of 1927, already a fairly well-known writer, he moved to Moscow, where, among many journalistic works and poems, he published the detective-adventure story "On the Count's Ruins" (1928, filmed in 1958, directed by V.N. Skuibin) and a number other works that nominated Gaidar, along with L. Kassil, R. Fraerman, among the most read creators of Russian children's prose of the 20th century (including the stories "The Blue Cup", 1936, "Chuk and Gek", the story "The Fate of the Drummer" ", both 1938, story for radio "The Fourth Dugout"; second, unfinished part of the story "School", both 1930).
The fascination of the plot, the rapid lightness of the narrative, the transparent clarity of the language with the fearless introduction of significant and sometimes tragic events into the “children’s” life (“The Fate of the Drummer”, which tells about spy mania and repressions of the 1930s, etc.), poetic “aura”, trust and seriousness of tone, the indisputability of the code of “knightly” honor of camaraderie and mutual assistance - all this ensured the sincere and long-term love of young readers for Gaidar, the official classic of children's literature. The peak of the writer's lifetime popularity came in 1940 - the time of the creation of the story and the film script of the same name (film directed by A.E. Razumny) Timur and his team, telling about a brave and sympathetic pioneer boy (named after the son of Gaidar), together with his friends surrounded secret care of the family of front-line soldiers. The noble initiative of the hero Gaidar served as an incentive for the creation of a wide “Timur” movement throughout the country, especially relevant in the 1940s–1950s.
In 1940, Gaidar wrote a sequel to Timur - “The Commandant of the Snow Fortress”, at the beginning of 1941 - a film script for the continuation and a screenplay for the film “Timur’s Oath” (production 1942, directed by L.V. Kuleshov).
In July 1941, the writer went to the front as a correspondent for the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper, where he published essays The Bridge, At the Crossing, etc. In August-September 1941, the magazine Murzilka published Gaidar’s philosophical fairy tale for children, Hot Stone - about uniqueness, inevitable difficulties and mistakes on the path to comprehending the truth.
The range of Gaidar’s “children’s” heroes, diverse in age, character and type (among which there are many “negative” persons: Malchish-Bad, Mishka Kvakin from Timur, etc.), is complemented by characters from miniature stories for preschoolers (“Vasily Kryukov”, “Hike” , “Marusya”, “Conscience”, 1939–1940).
Author of the film script "Passerby" (1939), dedicated to the Civil War.
Arkady Gaidar died in battle near the village of Leplyava, Kanevsky district, Cherkasy region on October 26, 1941.
Many of Gaidar’s works were staged and filmed (films “Chuk and Gek”, 1953, directed by I.V. Lukinsky; “School of Courage”, 1954, directed by V.P. Basov and M.V. Korchagin; “The Fate of the Drummer”, 1956, directed by V.V. Eisymont, and others).
Literary and educational material about the life and work of A.P. Gaidar
Gaidar(real name - Golikov) Arkady Petrovich (1904-1941), prose writer.
Born on January 9 (22 NS) in the city of Lgov, Kursk province, in the family of a teacher. My childhood years were spent in Arzamas. I studied at a real school, but when the First World War began World War and my father was drafted into the army; a month later he ran away from home to go to his father at the front. Ninety kilometers from Arzamas he was detained and returned.
Later, as a teenager of fourteen, in 1918 he went to the front of the Civil War. He was a physically strong and tall guy, and after some hesitation he was accepted into the Red commanders' course. At fourteen and a half years old, he commanded a company of cadets on the Petlyura front, and at seventeen he was the commander of a separate regiment to combat banditry.
In December 1924, Gaidar left the army due to illness (after being wounded and shell-shocked). I started writing. His teachers in the craft of writing were K. Fedin, M. Slonimsky and S. Semenov, who criticized Arkady's first manuscripts and explained the techniques of literary craftsmanship.
He considered his best works to be the stories “R.V.S.” (1925), “Distant Countries”, “The Fourth Dugout” and “School” (1930), “Timur and His Team” (1940). Arkady Petrovich traveled a lot around the country, met different people, and eagerly absorbed life. After the release of the story “Timur and His Team” he became one of the most popular writers among children and teenagers.
When the Great Patriotic War began, the writer again went to the front as a war correspondent. His unit was surrounded, and they wanted to take the writer out by plane, but he refused to leave his comrades and remained in the partisan detachment as an ordinary machine gunner. On October 26, 1941, in Ukraine, near the village of Lyaplyavoya, Gaidar died in a battle with the Nazis. Buried in Kanev.
A tale about a military secret, Malchish Kibalchish and his firm word
Then evening comes, and Malchish goes to bed. But Malchish can’t sleep - well, what kind of sleep is that?
Suddenly he hears footsteps on the street and a rustling at the window. Malchish looked and saw: the same man standing at the window. That one, but not that one: and there is no horse - the horse is missing, and there is no saber - the saber is broken, and there is no hat - the hat has flown off, and he himself is standing - staggering.
- Hey, get up! - he shouted for the last time. “And there are shells, but the arrows are broken.” And there are rifles, but there are few fighters. And help is close, but there is no strength. Hey, get up, who's still left! If only we could stand the night and hold out for the day.
Malchish-Kibalchish looked into the street: an empty street. The shutters don't slam, the gates don't creak - there's no one to get up. And the fathers left, and the brothers left - there was no one left.
Only Malchish sees that an old grandfather of a hundred years old came out of the gate. Grandfather wanted to lift the rifle, but he was so old that he couldn’t lift it. Grandfather wanted to attach the saber, but he was so weak that he couldn’t attach it. Then the grandfather sat down on the rubble, lowered his head and cried...
Then Malchish felt pain. Then Malchish-Kibalchish jumped out into the street and shouted loudly:
- Hey, you boys, little boys! Or should we boys just play with sticks and jump ropes? And the fathers left, and the brothers left. Or should we, boys, sit and wait for the bourgeoisie to come and take us into their damned bourgeoisie?
How the little boys heard such words, how they screamed at the top of their voices! Some run out the door, some climb out the window, some jump over the fence.
Everyone wants to help. Only one Bad Boy wanted to join the bourgeoisie. But this Bad guy was so cunning that he didn’t say anything to anyone, but pulled up his pants and rushed along with everyone, as if to help.
The boys fight from the dark night to the bright dawn. Only one Bad guy doesn’t fight, but keeps walking and looking for ways to help the bourgeoisie. And Plohish sees that there is a huge pile of boxes lying behind the hill, and black bombs, white shells and yellow cartridges are hidden in those boxes. “Hey,” thought Plohish, “this is what I need.”
And at this time the Chief Bourgeois asks his bourgeois:
- Well, bourgeois, have you achieved victory?
“No, Chief Bourgeois,” the bourgeois answer, “we defeated our fathers and brothers, and it was our victory, but Malchish-Kibalchish rushed to their aid, and we still can’t cope with him.”
Chief Burzhuin was very surprised and angry then, and he shouted in a menacing voice:
- Could it be that they couldn’t cope with Malchish? Oh, you worthless bourgeois cowards! How is it that you can’t break something so small? Download quickly and don't go back without winning.
So the bourgeoisie sit and think: what can they do? Suddenly they see: Bad Boy crawling out from behind the bushes and straight towards them.
- Rejoice! - he shouts to them. - I did it all, Bad Guy. I chopped wood, I hauled hay, and I lit all the boxes with black bombs, white shells and yellow cartridges. It's about to explode!..
Suddenly the lit boxes exploded! And it thundered as if thousands of thunder struck in one place and thousands of lightning flashed from one cloud.
- Treason! - Malchish-Kibalchish shouted.
- Treason! - shouted all his faithful boys.
But then, because of the smoke and fire, a bourgeois force swooped in and grabbed and tied up Malchish-Kibalchish.
They chained Malchish in heavy chains. They put Malchish in a stone tower. And they rushed to ask: what will the Chief Burzhuin now order to do with the captive Malchish?
The Chief Burzhuin thought for a long time, and then came up with an idea and said:
- We will destroy this Malchish. But let him first tell us all their Military Secrets. You go, bourgeois, and ask him:
“Why, Malchish, did the Forty Kings and Forty Kings fight with the Red Army, fight and fight, only to be defeated themselves?”
- Why, Malchish, are all the prisons full, and all the penal servitudes are packed, and all the gendarmes are on the corners, and all the troops are on their feet, but we have no peace either on a bright day or on a dark night?
- Why, Malchish, damned Kibalchish, and in my High Bourgeoisie, and in another - the Plain Kingdom, and in the third - the Snowy Kingdom, and in the fourth - the Sultry State on the same day in early spring and on the same day in late autumn on different languages, but the same songs are sung, in different hands, but they carry the same banners, say the same speeches, think the same and do the same?
You ask, bourgeois:
- Doesn’t the Red Army have a military secret, Malchish? Let him tell the secret.
— Do our workers have outside help? And let him tell you where the help comes from.
- Isn’t there, Malchish, a secret passage from your country to all other countries, which will be clicked on both yours and yours?
They respond to us, just as they sing from you, they pick up from us, what they say from you, they think about it from us?
The bourgeoisie left, but soon returned:
- No, Chief Burzhuin, Malchish-Kibalchish did not reveal the Military Secret to us. He laughed in our faces.
“There is,” he says, “and the strong Red Army has a powerful secret.” And no matter when you attack, there will be no victory for you.
“There is,” he says, “incalculable help, and no matter how much you throw into prison, you still won’t throw it in, and you will have no peace either on a bright day or on a dark night.”
“There are,” he says, “and deep secret passages.” But no matter how much you search, you still won’t find it. And if they found it, don’t fill it up, don’t lay it down, don’t fill it up. And I won’t tell you, the bourgeoisie, anything more, and you, the damned ones, will never guess.
Then the Chief Burzhuin frowned and said:
- So, bourgeois, give this secretive Malchish-Kibalchish the most terrible Torment that there is in the world, and extract from him the Military Secret, because we will have neither life nor peace without this important Secret.
The bourgeoisie left, but now they will not return soon. They walk and shake their heads.
“No,” they say, “our boss is Chief Burzhuin.” He stood pale, Boy, but proud, and he did not tell us the Military Secret, because he had such a firm word. And when we were leaving, he sank to the floor, put his ear to the heavy stone of the cold floor, and would you believe it, O Chief Bourgeois, he smiled so that we, the bourgeois, shuddered, and we were afraid that he had heard, How does our inevitable death walk through secret passages?..
- What country is it? - the surprised Chief Burzhuin then exclaimed. - What kind of incomprehensible country is this, in which even such little children know the Military Secret and keep their firm word so tightly? Hurry up, bourgeois, and destroy this proud Malchish. Load the cannons, take out your sabers, open our bourgeois banners, because I hear our signalmen sounding the alarm and our wavers waving their flags. Apparently, we will now have not an easy battle, but a difficult battle.
And Malchish-Kibalchish died...
hot stone
(Excerpts from a fairy tale by A. Gaidar)
Smeared with mud and clay, Ivashka struggled to pull a stone out of the swamp and, sticking out his tongue, lay down at the foot of the mountain on the dry grass.
"Here! - he thought. “Now I’ll roll a stone up the mountain, a lame old man will come, break the stone, become younger and start living all over again.” People say that he suffered a lot of grief. He is old, lonely, beaten, wounded and, of course, has never seen a happy life. And other people saw her.” Why is he, Ivashka, young, and even then he has already seen such a life three times. This is when he was late for class and a completely unfamiliar driver gave him a ride in a shiny passenger car from the collective farm stables to the school itself. This is when in the spring he caught a large pike in a ditch with his bare hands. And finally, when Uncle Mitrofan took him with him to the city for the merry May Day holiday.
“So let the unfortunate old man good life he’ll see,” Ivashka generously decided.
He stood up and patiently pulled the stone up the mountain.
And before sunset, an old man came to the mountain to the exhausted and chilled Ivashka, who was huddled and drying his dirty, wet clothes near a hot stone.
“Why, grandpa, didn’t you bring a hammer, an ax, or a crowbar?” - cried the surprised Ivashka. “Or do you hope to break the stone with your hand?”
“No, Ivashka,” answered the old man, “I don’t hope to break it with my hand.” I won't break the stone at all, because I don't want to start living all over again.
Then the old man approached the amazed Ivashka and stroked his head. Ivashka felt the old man’s heavy palm tremble.
“You, of course, thought that I was old, lame, ugly and unhappy,” the old man said to Ivashka. “But in fact, I am the happiest person in the world.”
A blow from a log broke my leg, but that was when we, still clumsily, were tearing down fences and building barricades, raising an uprising against the Tsar, whom you only saw in the picture.
My teeth were knocked out, but that was when, thrown into prison, we sang revolutionary songs together. In battle, they cut my face with a saber, but this was when the first people’s regiments were already beating and crushing the white enemy army.
On the straw, in the low, cold barracks, I tossed about in delirium, sick with typhus. And the words that sounded over me more menacingly than death were the words that our country was surrounded and the enemy’s power was overpowering us. But, waking up with the first ray of the newly sparkling sun, I learned that the enemy had been defeated again and that we were advancing again.
And, happy, from bed to bed we stretched out our bony hands to each other and then timidly dreamed that even if not with us, but after us, our country would be as it is now - powerful and great. Isn’t this, stupid Ivashka, happiness?! And what do I need another life? Another youth? When mine was difficult, but clear and honest!
Here the old man fell silent, took out his pipe and lit a cigarette.
- Yes, grandfather! - Ivashka said quietly then. - But if so, then why did I try and drag this stone up the mountain, when it could very calmly lie in its swamp?
“Let it lie in plain sight,” said the old man, “and you will see, Ivashka, what will come of it.”
Many years have passed since then, but that stone still lies on that mountain unbroken.
And a lot of people visited him. They will come up, look, think, shake their heads and go home.
I was on that mountain once. Somehow I had an uneasy conscience, a bad mood. “Well,” I thought, “I’ll just hit the stone and start living all over again!”
However, he stood still and came to his senses in time.
“Eh! - I think the neighbors will say when they see me looking younger. - Here comes the young fool! He apparently failed to live one life the way he should, he didn’t see his happiness and now he wants to start the same thing all over again.”
According to the writer’s son, T.A. Gaidar, this fairy tale contains the writer’s life credo - life is given
a person once, he needs to live it with dignity, it cannot be “rewritten in full” later. Addressing young readers in a fairy tale, Arkady Gaidar says something intimate about himself: “And what do I need any other life? Another youth? When mine was difficult, but clear and honest!”
(real name - Golikov) (1904-1941) Soviet writer
The future writer was born in the small town of Lgov near Orel. The Golikov family was distinguished by its high cultural level at that time: the father was a public teacher, the mother was a paramedic. Therefore, from early childhood they instilled in their son a love of knowledge.
In 1911, the family moved to Arzamas, where Arkady Gaidar entered the local secondary school. There he continued to read a lot, became interested in dramatizations and, like many of his peers, began to write poetry.
A calm and settled life was interrupted by the First World War. The father was mobilized and went to the front, the mother became a nurse in the hospital. Therefore, Arkady had to take care of three younger sisters left at home. Like many other boys, he tried to run to the front, but did not have time to get there: he was caught and sent home. However, the young man was full of desire to quickly take up an active life and take part in the events that were happening around him. In the summer of 1917, he began working in the local Bolshevik organization. Arkady Gaidar was a liaison officer and was on duty at the local Council. All these events were later described by him in the story “School”. This is where his “ordinary biography in an extraordinary time” began. In the fall of 1918, he became a party member, and soon a Red Army soldier. True, instead of the front he ends up on a course for red commanders.
In 1919, Golikov completed his studies ahead of schedule and soon went to the front as a platoon commander. In one of the battles he was wounded, but in the spring of 1920 he again went into the army, where he was appointed to the post of commissar of headquarters. Soon he was again sent to study at higher command courses, after graduating from which he became a company commander, and then a cavalry regiment. Commanding punitive units, the future writer suppressed the protests of the Khakass against the Soviet regime. Golikov’s actions were always distinguished by tenacity and even cruelty - apparently, age and youthful maximalism made themselves felt. Later he would pass over this period of his biography in silence.
Golikov decided to forever connect his life with the army and was preparing to enter the military academy, but numerous injuries did not allow him to fulfill this desire. In 1924 he was transferred to the reserve due to health reasons. After painful thoughts about what to do next, he decides to take up literary work.
While still in the army, Arkady Petrovich Gaidar decided to write his first story - “In the days of defeats and victories.” It was published in 1925, but remained unnoticed by both critics and readers. Later, the writer reworked one of its chapters into a story called “R.V.S.” It was accepted into the magazine "Star" and published. From this time it begins literary life writer Gaidar. The first work signed by this pseudonym “Gaidar” was the story “The Corner House” (1925). There are many speculations about the origin of such an unusual pseudonym. Some researchers believe that it is translated into Russian as “a horseman galloping in front”, others see in it a kind of cipher: G - Golikov, AI - ArkadiI, D - French particle meaning “from”, AR - Arzamas. It turns out: Golikov Arkady from Arzamas.
Arkady Gaidar marries the daughter of the writer Pavel Bazhov and settles with his family in Leningrad. In an effort to gain new impressions and get away from the military topic, the writer travels a lot and constantly publishes essays about his impressions. Gradually, its readership is determined - teenagers, and the main theme is the romance of heroism. In 1926, Arkady Gaidar reworks his story “R.V.S.” and turns it into a romantic story about the events of the Civil War.
The theme of the Civil War continues in the story “School”. It is a romanticized biography of the writer himself, which shows his difficult development as a person. The story also marked a certain stage in the work of Arkady Gaidar. The characteristics of his characters became more psychological, the plot acquired dramatic tension. Subsequently, the writer no longer turned to such a large-scale depiction of the Civil War.
In the thirties, Arkady Gaidar published several stories about peaceful life. However, they also contain the theme of “cases as harsh and dangerous as war itself.” The most interesting is “Military Secret” (1935), in which the writer shows the life of a little hero against the backdrop of the events of his time - new buildings, pest control and saboteurs. After its release, the writer was bombarded with accusations that he was too cruel to his hero, who dies at the end of the story.
The next story, “The Fate of the Drummer” (1936), is also written on cutting-edge material. It is full of omissions and omissions that are understandable to contemporaries: the protagonist’s father, the Red commander, is arrested, his wife runs away from home, abandoning her son. The author uses a peculiar technique of secret writing - semantic and plot inconsistencies, since he could not tell the complete truth about the events taking place. The story “The Commandant of the Snow Fortress” was structured similarly, in which the writer, again in a hidden form, condemned the Finnish military campaign. The story was published, but caused such a public outcry that an order was issued to remove Arkady Petrovich Gaidar’s books from libraries.
The most popular work of this writer was the story “ Timur and his team”, which opened a cycle of five stories about pioneers. The beginning of the war prevented the writer from carrying it out to the end. On the eve of the war, Arkady Gaidar wanted to show that teenagers can also bring tangible benefits - for this they just need to be organized, directing their energy in the appropriate direction. Immediately after its appearance, the story was filmed and staged in many children's theaters.
In the very first days of the Great Patriotic War, the writer submitted an application with a request to be sent to the active army. As a war correspondent for Komsomolskaya Pravda, Arkady Gaidar went to the front, from where he sent several reports. In October 1941, during another business trip to the active army, covering the retreat of his comrades, he died, without having time to implement many of his plans.
The writer's son Timur Gaidar was also a military man and retired with the rank of rear admiral. He also inherited literary talent from his father, having published a book of novels and short stories, and worked for a long time in the newspaper Pravda. The grandson of Arkady Gaidar, Yegor chose a different profession - he became an economist and politician. He is the author of numerous publications, thus continuing the family tradition.
Name: Arkady Gaidar (Arkadiy-Gaydar)
Place of Birth: Lgov, Kursk province
A place of death: Leplyavo, Kanevsky district, Ukraine
Activity: Soviet children's writer
Family status: was married
Gaidar Arkady Petrovich (Golikov) - biography
The story “Timur and His Team” once became the reason for the emergence of a multi-million dollar loss of “Timurites”. Nevertheless, after its publication, Gaidar almost went to the camps.
In Soviet textbooks they wrote the same thing about Gaidar: a red commander, a children's writer, a hero of the Great Patriotic War. However, his biography was much more tortuous than the official certificate.
Arkady Golikov (Gaidar) - childhood
Arkady Petrovich Gaidar (real name Golikov) was born on January 22, 1904 into a teacher’s family in the city of Lgov, near Kursk.
The writer's father, Golikov Pyotr Isidorovich, was a peasant. Mother, Golikova Natalya Arkadyevna, nee Salkova, was a great-great-granddaughter of the famous poet Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov.
When the official Pyotr Golikov was taken to the war with the Germans, his 10-year-old son was having a hard time with the separation. A month later, Arkasha secretly boarded a train and went to the front. Already in the morning, the tomboy was discovered by linemen and sent home. At home there were tears, sighs and lamentations, and Natalya Golikova decided to send her son Arkasha to the Arzamas real school. His mentor was the talented teacher Nikolai Sokolov.
It was he who instilled in Arkasha Golikov the habit of developing memory: “Learn poetry or passages of prose text every day. Or a foreign language. The time spent will be returned to you with interest.” Golikov’s memory became phenomenal; he easily remembered maps, the names of hundreds of soldiers, and could quote his stories for hours. “I find that you have literary abilities,” Sokolov once told him after reading his essay on friendship. And he knew how to value Arkash’s friendship.
At the age of 8, together with his friends Kolka and Koska Arkasha Golikov went to the Tesha River. The ice had just risen, but the boys were eager to skate. Suddenly Kolka’s scream was heard: the boy fell through the ice. Golikov rushed to his friend, but also ended up in the water. He gathered all his strength, grabbed his friend by the clothes and pulled him out into the shallow water...
February, and then October Revolution Arkady greeted me enthusiastically. He went to all sorts of meetings, but the one that aroused his greatest interest was the Bolshevik Committee.
Golikov was noticed, they began to attract him to work, and 14-year-old Arkasha applied to join the party. The request was granted.
Arkady Golikov-Gaidar: combat activities
One day Arkady saw a teenager dancing in a circle of soldiers near a train. He came up and started talking. Pashka-Gypsy, that was the boy’s name, explained that he was accepted into the Red Army as the son of the regiment. Arkady Golikov immediately became interested: “Will they take me?!” Having examined the volunteer, the commander was about to give the go-ahead, but remembered that he did not know his age. "Fourteen?! - he was surprised. - I thought you were sixteen. Grow up a little more."
Soon the mother found out about this incident. Just at that time, a new battalion was being formed in Arzamas, the commander of which was her acquaintance, Efim Efimov. Natalya begged him to take Arkasha Golikov as his adjutant.
A month later, Efimov was appointed commander of the troops for the protection of railways. He also took the clever adjutant Golikov with him to Moscow. There, a 15-year-old boy was appointed head of communications at the railway security headquarters, and Efimov took him to meetings with commanders, where he rattled off numbers and names.
With such inclinations, Golikov was guaranteed a staff career, but the young man was eager to go to the front. And Efimov decided to let Arkady go. True, not to the front, but to the command courses of the Red Army, where they took people with experience and from 18 years of age. However, Efimov solved this problem too.
The courses moved to Kyiv, 180 people were required to complete a 2-year infantry school program in six months. The workload was colossal, and besides, the cadets were thrown into defense breakthroughs. As a result, everyone was given the rank of commander ahead of schedule. Frunze himself came to the graduation and, instead of congratulations, honestly warned: “Many of you will not return from the coming battles.” After which the orchestra performed a funeral march.
Almost immediately after graduation, they were thrown into battle, where the company commander died. Yesterday's boys were confused, but Arkady seized the initiative: “Forward - for our Yashka!” The enemy was driven back. And at the next halt, the cadets chose Arkady Golikov as the new company commander.
For his excellent combat and command skills, the battalion commander sent 16-year-old Golikov to Moscow to the Vystrel commander school. The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army had no ranks, but after graduating from "Shot", 17-year-old Golikov, in fact, became a colonel. Immediately after graduation, he was given command of a reserve regiment of 4 thousand bayonets in the Voronezh region.
In April 1921, Arkady was sent near Tambov to pacify the Antonov uprising. The latter fought for the peasants, whom the Bolsheviks oppressed with extortion and surplus appropriation. Antonov could bet up to 50 thousand at the bayonet and still lost.
True, Golikov almost died then. During the battle, the explosion concussed him and knocked him out of the saddle, and shrapnel cut his leg. The worst thing is that he fell on his back and injured his spine. Subsequently, this injury will cause traumatic neurosis.
As a reward for his service, Army Commander Tukhachevsky sent Arkady to study at the General Staff Academy. But Golikov never became a red general.
In 1920, an anti-Soviet rebellion broke out in Khakassia. Counter-insurgency specialist Arkady Golikov was sent there. Tormented by terrible headaches, he drank a lot and sometimes committed lawlessness against the local population. Although compared to his “colleagues” he acted moderately. Nevertheless, in June 1922, the OGPU opened a case against him, threatening him with execution.
And yet the court acquitted Arkady. He was removed from Khakassia, and was not accepted into the Academy of the General Staff due to health reasons. For the same reason, in 1924 Golikov was commissioned.
For a man who knew nothing but war, this was a tragedy. At first he drowned it out with alcohol, and then he began to write. His story “The Corner House,” published under the pseudonym Gaidar, turned out quite well.
From Golikov - to Gaidar
The writer did not give clear explanations about his pseudonym. There is a version that Gaidar is an abbreviation of the phrase “Golikov Arkady from Arzamas”, because Arkady studied French(“G” is the first letter of the surname; “AY” is the first and last letter of the name; “D” is French for “from”; “AR” is the first letters of the name of the hometown).
Arkady Petrovich Gaidar - writing activity
Despite the fact that Arkady Gaidar's novels and stories became famous in the USSR, he himself was practically homeless for a long time - he traveled around the country without having his own corner. And his addiction to drinking and difficult character destroyed his second marriage. Only in 1938 did the Writers' Union procure a room for him in a communal apartment in Moscow.
The pitiful fees barely made it possible to make ends meet. However, there were worse things. Thus, the story “The Blue Cup” by Gaidar aroused the anger of the People’s Commissar of Education Nadezhda Krupskaya. After the publication of “The Fate of the Drummer” in Pionerskaya Pravda, a circular was issued banning the story, and all of Gaidar’s books were removed from libraries and destroyed.
A miracle saved me. From somewhere, an old list of writers nominated for awards surfaced. Stalin signed it, and Gaidar received the Order of the Badge of Honor. The NKVD did not dare to arrest the order bearer.
And in 1940, after the release of “Timur and His Team,” clouds gathered over the writer again. Like, you are replacing the pioneer movement with your invention! The scandal reached Stalin, who read the story and liked it. Gaidar Arkady Petrovich again became a popular Soviet writer, and a film was even made based on his work.
Arkady Petrovich Gaidar - The Great Patriotic War
When the Great Patriotic War began, Arkady Petrovich immediately asked to go to the front. However, due to health reasons, he was not accepted, and then he went to war as a correspondent for Komsomolskaya Pravda. Near Kyiv, he was surrounded.
The writer was offered a seat on a plane to Moscow, but he refused. Gaidar dreamed of gathering a partisan detachment from the encirclement and continuing the fight. It didn’t work out... On October 26, 1941, Arkady Gaidar was killed by the Nazis near the village of Leplyaevo, Cherkasy region. He was only 37 years old.
Arkady Golikov (Gaidar) - personal life
Biography personal life Arkadia Gaidar (Golikova) was very eventful. He was married as many as three times.
For the first time, Gaidar married Maria Plaksina, whom he met while staying in the hospital; at that time Golikov was 17 years old.
Gaidar's second wife was Permyachka Liya Solomyanskaya. In 1926. Having lived together for five years, Leah left Gaidar for another man.
Gaidar-Golikov's third wife was Dora Chernysheva, whom Gaidar met in 1938, and a month later they got married.
