Dobychin, Leonid Ivanovich

Born in the family of the district doctor Ivan Andrianovich Dobychin (1855-1902), in 1896 transferred to the service in Dvinsk (now Daugavpils ). The mother of the future writer, Anna Alexandrovna, graduated from the Petersburg Midwifery Institute and was a well-known midwife in Dvinsk. Leonid had two younger brothers and two sisters ^[2] .

He studied at the Dvinsky real school. In 1911 he entered the economics department of the St. Petersburg Polytechnic Institute . In 1916–1917, he was in charge of the Statistical Bureau of the Paper Industry in Petrograd. On June 21, 1917, Dobychin submitted a petition for expulsion from the institute. In 1918 he moved to Bryansk with his family. There, he first worked as a teacher in courses for perebezmenuyuschuyuschysya, then as an statistician-economist in the Gubstatburo and other institutions of the city ^[3] .

By the fall of 1925, the first unsuccessful attempt of Dobychin to move to Leningrad was related. At this time, he meets the Chukovsky family, later Slonimsky , Gore , Kaverin , Stepanov , Rakhmanov , Tager , Tynyanov , Schwarz , Shkapskaya and Erlich also fall into the circle of friends ^[3] .

The last lifetime book of Dobychin 'City of En' (M., 1935) did not attract the attention of censors, although it was she who caused the writer's unbridled harassment at the literary discussion held in Leningrad in late March and early April 1936 about the struggle against formalism and naturalism. .

After the pogrom meeting on March 25, 1936, in the Leningrad Writers' Union, in the middle of the discussion, Dobychin disappeared: most likely, he committed suicide, although this has not been documented in documentary form. On March 26, Benjamin Kaverin phoned the writer:

The next day I called him and the conversation began as if nothing had happened. Still, he wanted, and it felt, to talk about yesterday evening, and I cautiously asked why he limited himself to one phrase.
“Because I'm short and the light hit me in the eye,” he replied with irritation.
He spoke about the lights in the department, set in such a way as to illuminate the speaker's face.
Then we fell silent, and the nerve breathing was heard in the tube. In his manner of holding on, tension was always felt, as if with all his might he was holding on to the straightforwardness torn from him. So it was in this conversation. He laughed hoarsely when I said something indignantly about Dobin and Berkovsky, and sarcastically remarked:
- They were quite right.
We said goodbye calmly. It never occurred to me that the last time I heard his voice.

- Veniamin Kaverin . Epilogue. M.: The Russian Book, 2002. p. 204

He made his debut in 1924 with short stories in the Leningrad magazine Russian Contemporary. The collections of stories “Meetings with Liz” (1927), “Portrait” (1931) depict the clash of the “former” world with post-revolutionary reality; novels are characterized by antipsychological, lyrical overtones. In the novel “City of En” (1935), the narrative is based on the hero’s childhood memories.

Reprinted writer began only after the beginning of perestroika , in 1989.

In 2012, the writer Oleg Yuriev published “An Unknown Letter from the Writer L. Dobychin to Korney Ivanovich Chukovsky,” representing an alternative version of the events following the disappearance of Dobychin in 1936. According to this “found manuscript”, Dobychin, having played suicide, got a job under a different name at the Shushary kolkhoz, led the war under occupation in Pushkin, shortly before the end was taken out by the Germans, after the war served time in Ekibastuz and returned to work in collective farm "Shushary" ^[4] .

Since 1991, in Daugavpils, the local university has been conducting annual “Dobychinskie readings” - scientific conferences dedicated to the writer's work ^{[5] [6] [7]} .

September 2, 2012 at the Orthodox cemetery of Daugavpils, a monument to Leonid Dobychin opened at the grave of his father ^{[8] [9] [10]} .

On June 17, 2014, the 120th anniversary of the birth of Leonid Dobychin was celebrated at the symbolic grave.

December 27, 2016 on the facade of the house number 49 on Oktyabrskaya Street in Bryansk , next to the unsupported house, where Dobychin lived from 1927 to 1934, a memorial plaque was installed ^[11] .

• Meet with Liz. - L., 1927.
• Portrait. - L., 1931.
• City of En. - M., 1935.
• Selected prose: in 2 tonnes. - New York, 1984.
• En city: stories / Prep. and entry Art. Viktor Yerofeyev . - M .: Fiction, 1989. - 222 p. - (Forgotten Book).
• The Enchanted Circle: Vasily Andreev, Nikolai Barshev, Leonid Dobychin. - L .: Soviet writer, 1990. - (Heritage).
• En city // Difficult stories. 30s. - M .: Young Guard, 1992.
• Complete Works and Letters. - SPb .: Magazine "Zvezda", 1999. - 544 p.
• En city: novel, stories, stories, letters. - M .: Eksmo, 2007. - 448 p. - (Russian classics of the XX century).
• City of En. - Daugavpils: Daugavpils Universities Akadēmiskais apgāds "Saule", 2007. - (Bibliotheca Latgalica). ISBN 978-9984-14-354-5 .
• Complete Works and Letters. - SPb .: Star, 2013.

About Leonid Dobychin

• Second Dobychinskie reading. - Daugavpils: Daugavpils Pedagogical University, 1994.
• Golubeva E.S. Writer Leonid Dobychin and Bryansk. - Bryansk: Aftograf, 2005. - 127 p.
• The Dobychinsky Collection: [The collection of reports read on the Third (December 11-12, 1994) and the Fourth Dobychinsky Readings (January 12, 1997)]. - Daugavpils: DPI, 1998. - 107 p.
• The Dobychinsky collection: [A collection of reports read at the Sixth Dobychinsky Readings (December 8–9, 2000)]. - Daugavpils: Saule, 2001. - 195 s.
• The Dobychin collection 4. - Daugavpils: Saule, 2004. - 285 c.
• Dobychinsky collection 5. - Daugavpils: Saule, 2007. - 138 c.
• Dobychinsky collection 6. - Daugavpils: Saule, 2008. - 237 c.
• The Dobychinsky Collection - 2: [A collection of reports read at the Fifth Dobychinsky Readings (December 4—5, 1998)]. - Daugavpils: Saule, 2000. - 139 p.
• Dobychinsky collection - 7. - Daugavpils: Saule, 2011. - 232 p. - ISBN 978-9984-14-538-9 .
• First mining readings: [December 10–11, 1990. Abstracts]. - Daugavpils: DPI, 1991. - 113 p.
• Writer Leonid Dobychin. Memories. Articles. Letters / Comp. V. Bakhtin. - SPb .: Magazine "Star", 1996. - 300 p.
• Shekhovtsova, T. A. Prose L. Dobychina. Marginals of Russian modernism. - Kharkov: Kharkov National University , 2009. - 309 p.

• Leonid Dobychin. References, 1924–2008
• Igor Loshilov. "Nurse" Leonid Dobychin. "Microcosm" of the hero and the macrostructure of the artistic space.
• Igor Loshilov. Leonid Dobychin. "Savkina".
• The latest editions of books by Leonid Dobychin.
• Igor Gulin. Prose disappearance. On the reprint of the complete works of Leonid Dobychin.