Shishkov is the writer of his works. Vyacheslav Shishkov - biography, information, personal life

Twenty years of his life connect Vyacheslav Yakovlevich Shishkov with Tomsk. And what years - early youth and full bloom: he arrived in Tomsk at twenty-one years of age. Having already parted with Tomsk, a few years later, in letters to Potanin and Shkapskaya, Vyacheslav Yakovlevich will admit: “I lived in Siberia for twenty years - this is my second homeland, perhaps no less close and understandable to my heart than Russia, I am filled with impressions, which will last me for the rest of my life.” “You know how much I love Siberia, my second and main homeland. Most of my works are dedicated to this charming country and its energetic, hardworking, honest people.”

To this we can only add that, as a writer, Shishkov was born in Siberia, in Tomsk.

Vyacheslav Yakovlevich was originally from the city of Bezhetsk, Tver province, from the most indigenous Russian, and even literary, region. He was born on October 3 (September 21, old style) 1873 in the family of a clerk for a refugee merchant-hotel.

The family was large, always in need, trying to save what they earned, with poor nutrition, and quarrels. It was during Shishkov’s childhood in the house of his father, a clerk, who served a wealthy merchant, much similar to the childhood of A.P. Chekhov.

After studying at the Vyshnevolotsk School of Railway Conductors, young Shishkov himself radically changes his life and destiny - he decides to go to work in Siberia. At the end of 1894, he arrived in Tomsk, a provincial, university city, probably not yet imagining that it was in this city that he was destined to reach the threshold of adulthood and find a new life and destiny as a writer.

At the beginning, his service was of little interest to him, but in 1900, Vyacheslav Shishkov passed the exams and received the right to lead expeditionary parties of the Tomsk Railway District. For almost a decade and a half, every year, since early spring until late autumn he made research trips along the Irtysh, Ob, Biya, Katun, Yenisei, Chulym, Lena, Lower Tunguska and Angara.

In 1911, he almost died, captured by unexpected frosts on the Lower Tunguska River, and he and his comrades were led out of the taiga, already through the snow, in the frosty winter by the Tungus, the same Senkicha and Girmanch, to whom he later dedicated the most sincere pages of his Siberian essays and stories . What the writer himself experienced helped him to speak so expressively about Prokhor Gromov, the hero of the famous novel “The Gloomy River,” who almost died in similar circumstances. Looking ahead, it should be noted that it is unfair to connect the writing activity of V.Ya. Shishkova only with this novel.

Of course, this is a magnificent work that captivates the reader with the poignancy of the plot and the depth of character development, but Vyacheslav Shishkov is an outstanding Russian writer who created not just one wonderful work, but a large collection of wonderful books. And Siberia played an invaluable role in his literary work. He admitted in his autobiography: “During my twenty-year stay in Siberia, I came into close contact with its nature and people in all their curious and rich diversity. I've seen all kinds of life ordinary people. I lived side by side with them, often ate from the same pot and slept under the same tent. Many hundreds of people passed before my eyes, they passed slowly, not in random fleeting meetings, but in conditions where you can read the soul of a stranger like a book. Convicts, Sakhalin residents, tramps, Varnaki, punks, strong, stocky Siberian peasants, new settlers from Russia, political and criminal exile, Kerzhaks, eunuchs, non-residents - I looked closely at many of them, and put their images into a common memory bank.”

And in 1908, after one of the next expeditions, especially abundant vivid impressions, Vyacheslav Yakovlevich, by his own admission, felt “how he was drawn to write, completely unexpectedly and uncontrollably.”

Celebrated twenty-fifth anniversary pedagogical activity good friend P. Vyatkin, to whom Shishkov dedicated the fairy tale “Cedar”, offering it to the Tomsk newspaper “ Siberian life" The newspaper published this tale. “I was 35 years old,” recalls Shishkov, “but when my little thing appeared in print, I was as happy as a child.”

This was how the first step into literature was taken, and it led to the fact that the desire to write became completely uncontrollable. Shishkov enthusiastically writes one after another new stories, essays, sketches, conveying his living impressions of Siberia, the taiga, rivers, imbued with sympathy and attention to ordinary people, filled with subtle and apt observations, and already in them one can feel the breath of the language of Shishkov’s future works, a living language, truly folk, colorful and precise. In the same newspaper “Sibirskaya Zhizn” and in the magazine “Young Siberia”, which was published for some time in Tomsk, they publish “Baushka Got Lost”, “On the Lena”, “Misfortune”, “One Evening”, “In the Wardroom”, “Enchantment of Spring” ", "Stepchildren", "A Dog's Life" and others.

Finally, Shishkov takes on a larger piece and writes the story “Taiga,” which he sends for review to Gorky, who not only responded positively to it, but also published it in 1916 in the journal “Chronicle.” In the same year, Shishkov’s first book, “The Siberian Tale,” was published, which included his best Siberian stories and essays. In mid-August 1915, Vyacheslav Yakovlevich left Tomsk forever and moved to Petrograd. It is not with a light heart that he parts with Siberia. “It was really hard for me to part with Siberia,” he recalls, “close acquaintance with the professorial world (Solntsev, Weinberg, Zubashev, Sobolev, etc.), personal friends (Anuchin, Bakhmetyev, Vyatkin, Krutovsky, Shatilov), my work (in members of the presidium) in the Scientific Society for the Study of Siberia and the local literary circle, as well as my private speeches at folk readings and public evenings - they tied me with tight ropes to local life, everyone knew me, I was respected, had a literary name, but in Petrograd I was almost a complete zero, and I had, so to speak, to start over.”

Of course, Shishkov was not at all a complete zero in Petrograd. Without giving up work in his specialty, he successfully advanced on the literary path.

V.Ya. Shishkov belonged to that part of the intelligentsia that immediately and unconditionally accepted the revolution. He wrote: “I became a professional writer after the October Revolution, when I felt and realized myself as a full member and employee of the new, young, Soviet society,”

In 1926-1928, the publishing house “Land and Factory” published the first collected works of Shishkov, consisting of twelve volumes.

In the post-revolutionary years, Shishkov wrote not only stories and essays from his immediate, present-day life, but continued to develop his favorite Siberian theme, and began working on “The Gloomy River.” And he travels again: through the northern regions of Russia, and in 1930, together with Alexei Tolstoy, he travels to southern cities.

And not only did the writer travel, but also created in 1924 a very serious, hitherto unappreciated work, the novel “The Band” about guerrilla warfare in Siberia, about the resistance of peasants to new transformations in the countryside, this work could be considered one of the very first to foresee the sharp clashes that would happen when mass collectivization unfolded, but, apparently, for ideological reasons, the novel “The Band” was not noted as noticeable phenomenon of Soviet literature. While working on “The Gloomy River”, Shishkov simultaneously wrote a new story “Peypus-Lake” about the fate of soldiers and officers former army Yudenich, who fled to Estonia. And this story seems unexpected after the optimistic essays about the new Soviet reality.

Shishkov, as a true and great humanist writer, seeks strength and solutions to his own thoughts in human characters, in their ability to resist any circumstances and the ability to behave according to conscience.

In this series is the story “Blizzard,” which tells about one of the tragic clashes between man and nature (the events take place in the Arctic). We can say with confidence that in terms of the strength of the characters depicted, the intensity of passions, and the courageous accuracy of the description of nature, this story will not yield to the best stories of Jack London, while remaining at the same time a deeply Russian work. At the same time, he begins to work on the grandiose plan of “Emelyan Pugachev,” and “The Gloomy River” was published in 1933, since then it has been republished many times, because the novel has become one of the most beloved works, and not only in our country.

Now Shishkov gives himself entirely to “Emelyan Pugachev”. No one has ever written anything like this about Pugachev’s uprising. It seems that the writer brought to life, into artistic fabric, Pushkin’s idea, with which great poet studied Pugachevism. This book embodies all of Shishkov’s life experience, knowledge of folk characters, natures, and those whose labors sustain the earth. True to himself, to his exactingness, Shishkov read the first chapters of the novel on the radio back in 1935, but only in 1940 did he hand over the first book.

Vyacheslav Yakovlevich at this time lives in Pushkin near Leningrad, young literary forces are drawn to him, he is surrounded by old comrades, writers, scientists, composers, who, years later, with warmth and tenderness will remember Shishkov’s evenings, intimate conversations in the writer’s house.

The Patriotic War forces Shishkov to postpone work on the novel “Emelyan Pugachev”; he writes combat essays and stories full of faith in victory, publishes brochures “The Glory of Russian Weapons”, “Partisan Denis Davydov”, “Partisans” Patriotic War 1812."

On his anniversary days, in the difficult year of 1943, Shishkov said: “I would like to use the time that Mother Nature will give me not for relaxation in my declining years, but for hard work. I would like to fall off the last step with a pen in my hand.”

And so it happened, on the night of March 5-6, 1945, Vyacheslav Yakovlevich Shishkov died, without having time to complete his work on “Emelyan Pugachev”, without having time to write everything that was planned during these war years.

In the first major work, written in Tomsk, the story “Taiga”, paints a merciless, murderous picture of the morals of the village of Kedrovka: “... they lived in envy and gloating, lived the stupid life of animals, without reflection and protest, without the concept of good and evil, without a road, without philosophizing, they lived to eat, drink, get drunk, give birth to children, burn from wine, freeze their hands and feet while drunk, knock out each other’s teeth, make peace and cry, starve and swear...”

The story ends symbolically: a forest fire completely burned Kedrovka.

But today there is an alarming feeling that it is beneficial for someone to revive the way of life of this Kedrovka.

Then let us remember the prophetic words of the outstanding Russian writer from the same story: “Rus! Believe! By fire you are purified and whitened. You will drown in tears, but you will be lifted up.”

Eduard Vladimirovich Burmakin, 2008

This book tormented me! Firstly, it is stupefyingly long (sorry, dean, I was aiming for 3-4 chapters), secondly, somehow it was not possible to capture the mood of the book, what is the author trying to show us? How bad was everything before the revolution? So much disgust and misanthropy. The heroes are entirely scoundrels, sycophants and drunkards, and the young ladies... hmm, to put it mildly, are not entirely chaste. I was especially amused by the scene where the girl begged the guy for intimacy, falling at his feet.

The book is divided into two impressive parts. In the first we're talking about about the youth of the merchant Prokhor Gromov, his journey along the Ugryum River, difficult relationship in a family and love polygon with the participation of the fatal beauty Anfisa. What a harmful woman this Anfisa is, just Beria in a skirt, neither yours nor ours, sometimes I’ll marry, sometimes I won’t, sometimes this one, sometimes the other. With her infernality and obvious mental health problems, she reminded me of Nastasya Filippovna from “The Idiot.” Somehow I didn’t really believe in all this love-hate. And yes, I really wanted to see with my own eyes what kind of beauty was there, because of which the whole village went wild. It seems that in those days there was trouble with pretty women in Siberia. With men, however, too. How else can we explain the unprecedented popularity of Prokhor himself among women?

In the second part, the hero matured, became rich and became quite brutal. The author constantly compares him to a wolf. Gromov is now the owner of gold mines, as well as factories, newspapers, and ships. An oppressor of the working people and a bloodsucker, do not forget that the book was written in 1933. Quite a lot of talk about social justice and the coming revolution, and then popular unrest, strikes, strikes. I have nothing against such topics, but it’s very boring, from empty to empty.

The plot is full-flowing: now a branch, now a tributary, now a rowlock. This is the only way I can explain a set of episodes that are quite often not justified by the plot, maybe they better reveal the characters’ characters, I don’t know, it’s written a little thinly, that’s why...

“The river is miserable, fierce... God created it this way [...] It’s just like human life: come and understand it. That's why it's called: Gloomy River. Exactly like human life.”

Despite the fact that the novel is secondary and drawn out, it could be quite good, although it does not live up to the Great Epic. If we shortened it by at least a third (or even halved) and made the narrative less...fluid or something, then the book would benefit significantly.

PS The cover suspiciously reminded us of “heaving rods”: a Hollywood-looking handsome man with a strong chin stares uncompromisingly into the frame, a naked beauty in the background arches invitingly. I have no idea what this image has to do with Siberian merchants?

Vyacheslav Yakovlevich Shishkov- (1873-1945), Russian writer (stories and novels). main topic creativity - the present and past of Siberia. The novel “The Band” (1923) is about the Civil War. In the novel “The Gloomy River” (vol. 1-2, 1933) the dramatic fates of people at the turn of the 19th century - the beginning. 20th centuries, drawn into the world of profit and acquisitiveness; colorful pictures of merchant life, the life of the Tungus.

Historical epic “Emelyan Pugachev” (books 1-3, 1938-45). USSR State Prize, 1946, posthumously), novellas, short stories.

A person learns in prison, he comes out of it wiser, calmer and more civic-minded.

Shishkov Vyacheslav Yakovlevich

Vyacheslav Shishkov was born on October 3, 1873 in the city of Bezhetsk, Tver province. Died on March 6, 1945.

The writer who glorified Siberia in his works was born far from this huge region. The creator of a whole series of Siberian stories was born in the ancient Russian provincial town of Bezhetsk, Tver province, into a merchant family. His father Yakov Dmitrievich Shishkov, a passionate lover of opera singing and theatrical art, being a spiritual and artistic person, instilled in the boy a love of beauty, and this was later reflected in the writer’s work. But Slava Shishkov began his work biography with a very prosaic occupation: after graduating from the Vyshnevolotsk Technical School, he acquired a rare specialty - the organizer of waterways, dirt roads and highways.

At the age of nineteen, “Vestenka” (that was his name in childhood) left his native nest. At first he worked in the Novgorod and Vologda provinces, where he built dams and compiled maps of waterways. Fate brought him to Siberia, where he lived from 1894 to 1915, serving in the Administration of the Tomsk Railway District. The future writer traveled all over Siberia - by land and by water: along the Lena, Yenisei, Pinega, Vychegda, Northern Dvina, Sukhon, canals on Sheskna and Vyshny Volochok. Thanks to the project he developed, the famous Chuisky tract was created, where now stands a monument to this to an outstanding person. During long and sometimes full of danger travels (once his expedition almost died in the taiga and was saved only thanks to a meeting with the Tungus nomads), the observant young man studied the life of ordinary people: land-poor peasants, gold miners, vagabonds, political exiles, became acquainted with the life and culture of indigenous peoples (Irtysh Cossacks, Kyrgyz , Yakuts). He began to put down the impressions that overwhelmed him on paper, and in 1908 his first publications appeared in the newspaper “Sibirskaya Zhizn” and in the magazine “Young Siberia”.

In 1911, a thirty-eight-year-old engineer decided to send two stories to Maxim Gorky - “Vanka Khlust” and “Kralya”. He writes with trepidation and hope to the distant and personally unfamiliar “Alexey Mikhailovich”: “If you recognize some of them positive traits, - help me emerge into God’s light. I have been writing for seven years, but I keep what I wrote with me - I still think that my wings have not yet grown... I wandered around the taiga a lot, bumping into people. Nonche on an expedition to the river. Lower Tunguska almost died. I would write in detail, but I don’t dare bother…” M. Gorky did not remain indifferent to the literary experiments of the young writer, and now, with his assistance, Shishkov’s stories are published in the new magazine “Testaments”, which publishes neorealists. He becomes close to R. Ivanov-Razumnik, A. Remizov, Mikhail Prishvin, V. Mirolyubov, M. Averyanov, who accept Active participation in his destiny.

Even though he is a bad person, if you tell him to his face that he is good, he will believe it and lead his life uphill.

Shishkov Vyacheslav Yakovlevich

The most significant story written by Vyacheslav Shishkov during these years was “Taiga,” which was highly praised by M. Gorky and published in 1916 in the journal “Chronicle” edited by him.

In 1915, Vyacheslav Shishkov said goodbye to Tomsk and, for creative reasons, moved to St. Petersburg. Here he met the revolution, which he warmly welcomed.

After the revolution, the writer left work in his specialty and devoted himself entirely to literary work. At this time, the cycles of his essays “To the Saint” (1918), “With a Knapsack” (1922-23), stories “Cranes”, “Fresh Wind” (both 1924), “Taiga Wolf” (1926), etc. were published. , which display different faces Siberian character - strength, will, integrity, originality, self-esteem.

However, there is no such person who knows himself to the bottom. Even the prophetic raven does not sense where he will lay his bones

Shishkov Vyacheslav Yakovlevich

The novel “The Band” (1925) is based on true events - the struggle of partisans from the detachment of the heroic Old Believer Zykov for the people, truth and God in the Kuznetsk district of the Tomsk province.

The story “Peypus Lake” (1924) is also based on real events.

A significant work that placed Vyacheslav Shishkov among the most readable writers, became the novel “The Gloomy River” (1933), which he called “a novel of passions put to paper.”

The last years of the writer’s life (1938 - 1945) were devoted to working on the historical epic “Emelyan Pugachev”. He continued to work on it in besieged Leningrad, where he spoke with patriotic articles and stories in the newspaper “On Guard of the Motherland.” In April 1942, the no longer young, seriously ill writer was forced to leave for Moscow. Civic duty turned out to be stronger than the disease. He set himself the goal of completing a grandiose work.

In July 1943, seventy-year-old Vyacheslav Shishkov writes in one of his letters: “But the spirit is vigorous, and creativity is raging, walking through the veins. I'm surprised at myself! Just to finish “Pugachev”, and then you can rest, in a coffin, in the ground. I will finish, I will be at peace with the people, everything I was called to do will be completed to the best of my ability. Let people get bored, smile, and learn about life on my pages.”

First degree (1946 - posthumously).

Biography

Vyacheslav Shishkov was born on September 21 (October 3), 1873 in Bezhetsk (now Tver region) in the family of a small shopkeeper. He studied at a private boarding school, then at the Bezhetsk city 6-grade school (1882-1888), and in 1891 he graduated from the Vyshnevolotsk School of Railway Conductors.

Creation

The first publication was the symbolic fairy tale “Cedar” (1908) in the newspaper “Sibirskaya Zhizn” (Tomsk), published in periodicals of 1908-1911 travel essays and stories by Shishkov.

Since 1911, Shishkov has been a regular visitor to Potanin’s “Thursdays,” where the creative and scientific intelligentsia of Tomsk attended.

Active literary activity Shishkov began in 1913 (the stories “They Prayed,” “Emergency Court,” “Kralya”). In 1915 he moved to Petrograd, where he became close to Maxim Gorky. In 1916, with the assistance of Gorky, the first collection of stories, “Siberian Tale,” was published.

After moving to Petrograd, Siberia and especially Altai remained one of the main themes of his work. The pinnacle of Shishkov’s Siberian prose were the novels “The Band” (1923, about the Civil War) and “Gloomy River” (1933, about life in Siberia at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries). The result of several years of work in Altai as a road engineer was a collection of travel essays “Along the Chuisky Tract” and short stories “The Chuiskys Were.”

For the last 7 years of his life he worked on the 3-volume historical epic “Emelyan Pugachev” that he had conceived.

In 1941 and until April 1, 1942, Shishkov was in besieged Leningrad, writing articles for front-line newspapers, publishing the first volume of “Emelyan Pugachev,” which remained unfinished.

As an artist, Shishkov is perceived in line with the democratic direction of Russian realism. His achievements in everyday life are combined with the widespread use of allegory and symbolism. The ethnographic linguistic sensitivity of the writer evokes particular admiration among readers.

Shishkov is a good realist storyteller, who in his prose reflected in a variety of ways a deep knowledge of various regions of Siberia and an interest in the folk language.

Vyacheslav Yakovlevich Shishkov died on March 6, 1945. He was buried in Moscow at the Novodevichy Cemetery (site No. 2).

Awards

• Order of Lenin (October 3, 1943),
• Stalin Prize, first degree (posthumously)(1946) - for the novel “Emelyan Pugachev”.

Memory

• On August 20, 1950, a monument to V. Ya. Shishkov was unveiled in the city garden of the city of Bezhetsk. On November 5, 1973, the V. Ya. Shishkov Museum opened in Bezhetsk.
• In 1953, a bust of Vyacheslav Shishkov was erected in Tomsk, a street was named after him, and a memorial plaque was installed on the house (Shishkova St., 10), next door to which Shishkov (presumably) lived in 1911-1915.
• In 1965, a new street in the city of Pushkin was given the name Vyacheslav Shishkov Street.
• Several ships received the name "Vyacheslav Shishkov". One of them is operated on the Yenisei by the Yenisei River Shipping Company.
• The Altai Regional Universal Scientific Library (Barnaul) bears the name of V. Ya. Shishkov.
• IN Central region Voronezh has Shishkova Street.
• The Bezhetsk Intersettlement Central Library of the Tver Region bears the name of V. Ya. Shishkov.
• In the city of Biysk, the street along which the Chuisky tract runs is named after Shishkov.
• One of the streets in the Sovetsky district of Nizhny Novgorod also bears the name of V. Ya. Shishkov.
• Museum of Local Lore in the village of Erbogachen is named after V. Ya. Shishkov.
• On the Chuisky tract, near the village of Manzherok, a monument to V. Ya. Shishkov was erected.
• Scholarships named after V. Ya. Shishkov were established at Leningrad State University; memorial plaques were installed on the houses where the writer lived in Moscow and Leningrad.
• A railway station in the Bezhetsky district of the Tver region, located on the Bologoe-Sonkovo-Rybinsk line, is named in his honor.

All-Russian Literary Prize named after V. Ya. Shishkov

Established in 2003 in the city of Bezhetsk, Tver region. Cavaliers:

• 2003 - Cherkasov, Vladimir Georgievich - “At the helm of the Gloomy River: The life and adventures of the writer Vyacheslav Shishkov.”
• 2004 - Kalyuzhny, Grigory Petrovich - awarded a prize for great job for the publication of books about the Russian province.
• 2005 - Ivanov, Gennady Viktorovich - “Famous and famous refugees.”
• 2006 - Krupin, Mikhail Vladimirovich - “The Great Pretender”.
• 2007 - Trutnev, Lev Emelyanovich - “Resonant Horn”.
• 2008 - Smolkin, Igor Alexandrovich - “Sad Angel.”
• 2009 - Luginov, Nikolai Alekseevich - “At the behest of Genghis Khan.”
• 2010 - Murzakov, Valery Nikolaevich - “Polina. Tales of Love."
• 2011 - - “Aldan’s Gold”.
• 2012 - Tarkovsky, Mikhail Alexandrovich - “Frozen Time”, “Yenisei, Let Go!”, “Toyota Cresta”.
• 2013 - Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Vorobyov - for the book “Tver Toponymic Dictionary” and active creative work on the history of the Bezhetsk region.
• 2014 - Vadim Valerievich Dementyev - for a series of books about north-western Rus': “The Tale of the Belozersky Regiment”, “Monasteries of the Russian North”.
• 2015 - Sergey Ivanovich Senin - for the book “Quiet Songs: Bezhetsk Territory in Russian Poetry.”
• 2016 - Klimin Ivan Ivanovich

Addresses in Petrograd - Leningrad

• 1920-1929 - DISK - 25th October Avenue, 15;
• 1929 - autumn 1941 - Detskoe Selo, Moskovskaya street, 9;
• autumn 1941 - 04.1942 - house of the Court Stable Department - Griboyedov Canal embankment, 9.

Addresses in Tomsk

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Literature

• Bakhmetyev V. Vyacheslav Shishkov. Life and art. - M., 1947.
• Bogdanova A. Vyacheslav Shishkov. - Novosibirsk, 1953.
• Izotov I. Vyacheslav Shishkov. - M., 1956.
• Chalmaev V. Vyacheslav Shishkov. - M., 1969.
• Eselev N. Kh. Shishkov. - M., 1976.
• Yanovsky N. N. Vyacheslav Shishkov. Essay on creativity. - M., 1984.
• Cherkasov-Georgievsky V. G. On the banks of the Gloomy River: The life and adventures of the writer Vyacheslav Shishkov. - M.: Terra, 1996. - ISBN 5-300-00867-2
• The work of V. Ya. Shishkov in the context of Russian literature of the 20th century. - Tver, 1999.
• Mina Polyanskaya. “The Gloomy River near the Anichkov Bridge. Petersburg story about Vyacheslav Shishkov."
• Mina Polyanskaya: “He was a real Russian nugget” (V.Ya. Shishkov) / “...In the same breath with Leningrad...”, Lenizdat, 1989. - ISBN 5-289-00393-2

Notes

Links

Excerpt characterizing Shishkov, Vyacheslav Yakovlevich

“Oh, I suspected it,” Ilagin said casually. - Well, let's poison him, Count!
- Yes, we need to drive up... yes - well, together? - Nikolai answered, peering at Erza and the red Scolding uncle, two of his rivals with whom he had never managed to match his dogs. “Well, they’ll cut my Milka out of my ears!” he thought, moving towards the hare next to his uncle and Ilagin.
- Seasoned? - Ilagin asked, moving towards the suspicious hunter, and not without excitement, looking around and whistling to Erza...
- And you, Mikhail Nikanorych? - he turned to his uncle.
The uncle rode frowning.
- Why should I meddle, because yours are pure marching! - in the village they pay for the dog, your thousands. You try on yours, and I’ll take a look!
- Scold! On, on,” he shouted. - Swearing! - he added, involuntarily using this diminutive to express his tenderness and hope placed in this red dog. Natasha saw and felt the excitement hidden by these two old men and her brother and was worried herself.
The hunter stood on the half-hill with a raised arapnik, the gentlemen approached him at a step; the hounds, walking on the very horizon, turned away from the hare; the hunters, not the gentlemen, also drove away. Everything moved slowly and sedately.
-Where is your head lying? - Nikolai asked, approaching a hundred paces towards the suspicious hunter. But before the hunter had time to answer, the hare, sensing the frost by tomorrow morning, could not stand still and jumped up. A pack of hounds on bows, with a roar, rushed downhill after the hare; from all sides the greyhounds, who were not in the pack, rushed at the hounds and the hare. All these slowly moving hunters are screaming: stop! knocking down the dogs, the greyhounds shout: atu! guiding the dogs, they galloped across the field. Calm Ilagin, Nikolai, Natasha and uncle flew, not knowing how or where, seeing only dogs and a hare, and only fearing to lose sight of the course of the persecution even for a moment. The hare was seasoned and playful. Having jumped up, he did not immediately gallop, but moved his ears, listening to the screaming and stomping that suddenly came from all sides. He jumped ten times slowly, allowing the dogs to approach him, and finally, having chosen the direction and realizing the danger, he put his ears to the ground and rushed at full speed. He lay on the stubble, but in front there were green fields through which it was muddy. The two dogs of the suspicious hunter, who were closest, were the first to look and lay after the hare; but they had not yet moved far towards him, when the Ilaginskaya red-spotted Erza flew out from behind them, approached a dog's distance, with terrible speed attacked, aiming at the hare's tail and thinking that she had grabbed it, rolled head over heels. The hare arched his back and kicked even harder. Wide-bottomed, black-spotted Milka came out from behind Erza and quickly began to sing to the hare.
- Honey! mother! – Nikolai’s triumphant cry was heard. It seemed that Milka would strike and catch the hare, but she caught up and rushed past. The Rusak moved away. The beautiful Erza swooped in again and hung over the hare’s very tail, as if trying to grab him by the back thigh so as not to make a mistake now.
- Erzanka! sister! – Ilagin’s voice was heard crying, not his own. Erza did not heed his pleas. At the very moment when one should have expected her to grab the hare, he whirled and rolled out to the line between greenery and stubble. Again Erza and Milka, like a pair of drawbars, aligned themselves and began to sing to the hare; at the turn it was easier for the hare; the dogs did not approach him so quickly.
- Scold! Swearing! Pure march! - shouted at that time another new voice, and Rugai, his uncle’s red, humpbacked dog, stretching out and arching his back, caught up with the first two dogs, moved out from behind them, kicked with terrible selflessness right over the hare, knocked him off the line onto the green, Another time he pushed even harder through the dirty greens, drowning up to his knees, and you could only see how he rolled head over heels, getting his back dirty in the mud, with the hare. The star of dogs surrounded him. A minute later everyone was standing near the crowded dogs. One happy uncle got down and walked away. Shaking the hare so that the blood would drain, he looked around anxiously, running his eyes, unable to find a position for his arms and legs, and spoke, not knowing with whom or what.
“This is a matter of march... here is a dog... here he pulled out everyone, both thousandths and rubles - a pure matter of march!” he said, gasping for breath and looking around angrily, as if scolding someone, as if everyone were his enemies, everyone had offended him, and only now he finally managed to justify himself. “Here are the thousandths for you - a pure march!”
- Scold me, fuck off! - he said, throwing the cut-off paw with the earth stuck on it; – deserved it – pure march!
“She pulled out all the stops, gave three runs on her own,” Nikolai said, also not listening to anyone, and not caring whether they listened to him or not.
- What the hell is this! - said Ilaginsky the stirrup.
“Yes, as soon as she stopped short, every mongrel will catch you from stealing,” said Ilagin at the same time, red-faced, barely catching his breath from the galloping and excitement. At the same time, Natasha, without taking a breath, squealed joyfully and enthusiastically so shrilly that her ears were ringing. With this screech she expressed everything that other hunters also expressed in their one-time conversation. And this squeal was so strange that she herself should have been ashamed of this wild squeal and everyone should have been surprised by it if it had been at another time.
The uncle himself pulled the hare back, deftly and smartly threw him over the back of the horse, as if reproaching everyone with this throwing, and with such an air that he didn’t even want to talk to anyone, sat on his kaurago and rode away. Everyone except him, sad and offended, left and only long after could they return to their former pretense of indifference. For a long time they looked at the red Rugay, who, with his hunchbacked back and dirt stained, rattling his iron, with the calm look of a winner, walked behind the legs of his uncle’s horse.
“Well, I’m the same as everyone else when it comes to bullying. Well, just hang in there!” It seemed to Nikolai that the appearance of this dog spoke.
When, long after, the uncle drove up to Nikolai and spoke to him, Nikolai was flattered that his uncle, after everything that had happened, still deigned to speak with him.

When Ilagin said goodbye to Nikolai in the evening, Nikolai found himself at such a far distance from home that he accepted his uncle’s offer to leave the hunt to spend the night with him (with his uncle), in his village of Mikhailovka.
- And if they came to see me, it would be a pure march! - said the uncle, even better; you see, the weather is wet, the uncle said, if we could rest, the countess would be taken in a droshky. “Uncle’s proposal was accepted, a hunter was sent to Otradnoye for the droshky; and Nikolai, Natasha and Petya went to see their uncle.
About five people, large and small, courtyard men ran out onto the front porch to meet the master. Dozens of women, old, big and small, leaned out from the back porch to watch the approaching hunters. The presence of Natasha, a woman, a lady on horseback, brought the curiosity of the uncle's servants to such limits that many, not embarrassed by her presence, came up to her, looked into her eyes and in her presence made their comments about her, as if about a miracle being shown, which is not a person, and cannot hear or understand what is said about him.
- Arinka, look, she’s sitting on her side! She sits herself, and the hem dangles... Look at the horn!
- Father of the world, that knife...
- Look, Tatar!
- How come you didn’t somersault? – said the bravest one, directly addressing Natasha.
The uncle got off his horse at the porch of his wooden house overgrown with a garden and, looking around at his household, shouted imperiously that the extra ones should leave and that everything necessary for receiving guests and hunting would be done.
Everything ran away. Uncle took Natasha off the horse and led her by the hand along the shaky plank steps of the porch. The house, unplastered, with log walls, was not very clean - it was not clear that the purpose of the people living was to keep it stain-free, but there was no noticeable neglect.
It smelled in the hallway fresh apples, and wolf and fox skins hung. Through the front hall, the uncle led his guests into a small hall with a folding table and red chairs, then into a living room with a birch round table and a sofa, then into an office with a torn sofa, a worn carpet and with portraits of Suvorov, the owner’s father and mother, and himself in a military uniform . There was a strong smell of tobacco and dogs in the office. In the office, the uncle asked the guests to sit down and make themselves at home, and he himself left. Scolding, his back not cleaned, entered the office and lay down on the sofa, cleaning himself with his tongue and teeth. From the office there was a corridor in which screens with torn curtains could be seen. Women's laughter and whispers could be heard from behind the screens. Natasha, Nikolai and Petya undressed and sat on the sofa. Petya leaned on his arm and immediately fell asleep; Natasha and Nikolai sat in silence. Their faces were burning, they were very hungry and very cheerful. They looked at each other (after the hunt, in the room, Nikolai no longer considered it necessary to show his male superiority in front of his sister); Natasha winked at her brother, and both did not hold back for long and burst into loud laughter, not yet having time to think of an excuse for their laughter.
A little later, the uncle came in wearing a Cossack jacket, blue trousers and small boots. And Natasha felt that this very suit, in which she saw her uncle with surprise and mockery in Otradnoye, was a real suit, which was no worse than frock coats and tails. Uncle was also cheerful; Not only was he not offended by the laughter of his brother and sister (it could not enter his head that they could laugh at his life), but he himself joined in their causeless laughter.
- That’s how the young countess is - a pure march - I’ve never seen another like it! - he said, handing one pipe with a long shank to Rostov, and placing the other short, cut shank with the usual gesture between three fingers.

To the collection famous writer V. Shishkov (1873-1945) included novels and stories that vividly depict the original customs of pre-revolutionary Siberia ("Taiga", "Scarlet Snowdrifts") and dramatic episodes of the civil war ("Mobile", "Peypus-Lake").

Vyacheslav Shishkov - Band

- Hello, hostess. Where is he? - One - a mustachioed, the other - a puny boy with a bird's face - stopped in the doorway, covered from head to toe with snow.

1919 Civil War crossed the Ural ridge and doused the Siberian expanses with a bloody tide. The native Chaldon Stepan Zykov led a detachment of partisans and recaptured the district town from the Kolchakites, helped the Bolsheviks who rebelled and... was shot by the Red Army soldiers along with his wife on the threshold of his own house...

Emelyan Pugachev lived a life full of victories and defeats, drunken free love and desperate daring before the executioner’s ax flew over his head. Russia of the 18th century... Unbridled morals, wild passions, Cossack and peasant freemen, rushing from the steppes, engulfed in rebellion, to Moscow and St. Petersburg. Conspiracies, intricacies of intrigue at the court of “Mother Empress” Catherine II, as voluptuous as she was cruel.

The famous historical epic - a trilogy novel by an outstanding Russian Soviet writer Vyacheslav Yakovlevich Shishkov (1873-1945) about the life and struggle of the Don Cossack Emelyan Pugachev, the leader of the most massive peasant uprising against the authorities in Russia in the 18th century. The first book tells about his youth, Cossack prowess, participation in wars and numerous battles.

The second book of the famous historical epic resurrects the dramatic events in Russia in the 18th century. Unbridled morals, wild passions, conspiracies, intricacies of intrigue at the court of “Mother Empress” Catherine II, as voluptuous as she was cruel. And next to her are famous statesmen...

The third book completes the famous historical epic. The peasant war of 1773-1775 is gradually fading away, the rebel troops are suffering one defeat after another, the royal entourage is triumphant, the executioner's ax is already raised over Pugachev's head... The novel "Emelyan Pugachev", based on many years of studying archival documents, has appeared major contribution in the development of the Soviet historical genre and was awarded the USSR State Prize in 1946.

Vyacheslav Shishkov - Peypus-Lake

Nikolay Rebrov last time looked back at Russia. Under his feet and everywhere where his gaze greedily rushed, fresh November snows lay, the air breathed frost, but Lake Peypus had not yet frozen, its calm waters were thoughtfully stern, and gray fog swept its manes above the surface. And there, on the horizon, the distant native forests were barely visible as a light blue.

Filka's parents died of typhus one after another in one week. And soon his grandfather and aunt left. Fourteen-year-old Filka went crazy. Forgetting his cemetery fears, he sat for two days on the grave of his father and mother, crying, burying his face in the clay, soggy from the rain...