Govorukha-Otrok, Yuri Nikolaevich

He was born in a noble family, originating from Zaporizhzhya Cossacks on January 25, 1851 ^[1] (according to other sources, January 29, 1850 ^[2] ). His childhood passed in the estate of his father. After the death of his father, Yuri moved to Kharkov , entered the second gymnasium there. While studying at the gymnasium, Govoruho-Otrok was influenced by revolutionary journalism, the ideas of Chernyshevsky , Pisarev , Dobrolyubov and others. After graduating from the five classes of the gymnasium, he lived in private lessons and prepared for exams at Imperial Kharkov University . At 18, he married the 16-year-old daughter of the county doctor Sofya Fedorovna Popova, who, like him, was fond of theater, literature, and revolutionary ideas. Govoruho-Otrok did not know how to manage the household and soon fell into a difficult financial situation, once even thought of becoming an actor, and with the assistance of his distant relative, actor Struzhkina joined a wandering troupe, playing in several performances in the province.

In April 1874, Govoruho-Otrok met one of the initiators of " going to the people " Kovalik and some other freethinkers. He joined a revolutionary circle, visited three gatherings, but soon left the circle and did not engage in revolutionary activities. In December of the same year, he went to Petersburg , where he met N.K. Mikhailovsky , but on December 18 he was arrested there and put in the Peter and Paul Fortress . In 1877 he was convicted under the “ Propaganda Case in the Empire (193 Process) ” and sentenced to exile in Tobolsk province for a year and three months. But he was taken into account the term that he had already served in prison, and in May 1878 he was released.

For several months, Govoruho-Otrok lived in St. Petersburg, with the help of Mikhailovsky, anonymously printed in the " Domestic Notes ". Then he was sent to Kharkov, worked there as an assistant librarian at Kharkov University and in the Kharkov newspaper. In September 1879, Zhelyabov came to him. In the 1880s, his prose was published in the St. Petersburg magazines Slovo and Vestnik Evropy , and in the Kharkov magazine Mir . By that time, Govorukha-Otrok revised his outlook on life, and criticism of the popular movement was met in his works. In 1881, he became an employee of the Kharkov newspaper " Southern Land ", finding himself in journalism and literary criticism. At that time, the work of Apollo Grigoriev had a great influence on him.

The stories “Fatum” and “Interchange” provoked a sharp reaction from Mikhailovsky, who called their heroes “hamletized piglets”, and later wrote a pamphlet “Career Oladushkina”, where Govorukha-Otrok was to be one of the prototypes of the renegade hero.

In 1889, Govorukha-Otrok was spotted by Moscow publishers, and was invited by a literary observer to the Moscow Gazette . There he met with prominent conservative writers - N. N. Strakhov , K. N. Leontyev , L. A. Tikhomirov , P. E. Astafyev , V. V. Rozanov and others. To this period, Govorukha-Otrok finally departed from the ideas of the “sixties”, which he called “not dead corpses”. Leo Tikhomirov described him as Orthodox to the core, a convinced, sincere monarchist. He was not a Slavophile , but at the same time he denied criticism of the Slavophiles by liberal publicists led by Vladimir Solovyov . The main merit of the Slavophiles, he considered the identification of the importance of Orthodoxy for Russia.

Govorukh-Otrok received great recognition as a literary critic. His outstanding talent in this field was noted by Vasily Rozanov, Nikolai Strakhov, Lev Tikhomirov. In 1890 it was published in the Russian Review and the Russian Herald .

• The last work of Count L. N. Tolstoy: A critical study. - M., 1890.
• Essays on Contemporary Fiction. V. G. Korolenko: A critical study. - M., 1893.
• Turgenev: Crete. sketch / [Op.] by Yu. Nikolaev [pseudo]. - Moscow: Univ. typ., 1894. - 263 p .; nineteen.
• Notes on progress and civilization. - M., 1897.
• What did Russian writers believe in? : literary criticism and religious-philosophical journalism. / Prep .: A.P. Dmitriev, E.V. Ivanova; [entry Art. E. Ivanova]; Institute of World Lite. RAS, Institute of Russian lit. (Pushkin House) RAS. - St. Petersburg: Rostock, 2012. - T. 1. - 893 p. ISBN 978-5-94668-093-6 - T. 2. - 1085 s. ISBN 978-5-94668-092-9
• Do not be afraid to be Orthodox, or the Russian-Orthodox idea. - Institute of Russian Civilization, 2015 .-- 768 p. ISBN 978-5-4261-0085-5

• Ivanova E.V. Literary gueuze (On the fate of Yu. N. Govorukhi-Otroka) // Context 2008. Historical, literary and theoretical studies. - M .: IMLI RAS, 2009. - S. 167-202 . - ISBN 978-5-9208-0327-6 .

• Nikolaev, Yu. // Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary : in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1897. - T. XXI. - S. 112-113.
• Govorukha-Otrok, Yuri Nikolaevich // Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary : in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907. - T. Ia, ext. - S. 587.
• Mikhail Smolin. Govorukha-Otrok Yuri Nikolaevich .
• Biography in the "Great Encyclopedia of the Russian people."
• Rozanov V.V. In memory of the departed. Yu. N. Govorukha-Otrok.
• [1] The village of Tavrovo. Noble clan Govoruho-Otrokov.
• [2] Z. T. Prokopenko, professor of BelSU. Noble clan Govoruho-Otrokov from the settlement of Tavrovo.