Shurmak, Grigory Mikhailovich

Grigory Mikhailovich Shurmak was born in Kiev on May 28, 1925 . Father is an accountant, mother is a laborer. Lived on the street Saksaganskogo. At the age of seven, he broke his leg and was bedridden for several months. His father gave him the one-volume edition of Pushkin’s poems, since that time the boy was carried away by literature ^[1] . Gregory, the middle, out of three children in the family, graduated from the seven-year plan (No. 131), then continued his studies at 10-year-old school No. 33. His friends lived next door, N. M. Mandel (future famous poet Naum Korzhavin ) and Lazar Shereshevsky (future poet and translator), who studied at school number 44 ^{[2] [3]} .

Together they studied in the studio at the newspaper “Young Pioneer” (not far from Sennaya Square), where they were nicknamed “a mighty bunch”. The circle was led by journalist Ariadna Gromova (Davidenko; subsequently a famous science fiction writer). In 1940, a city rally of juniors took place in Kiev. Gregory opposed the guidance of gloss in the youth press and formalism in the work of the Komsomol organization. After his speech, the debate took on a stormy character. The delegates supported their peers, unlike the members of the adult presidium. At the insistence of the Leninsky district committee of the Komsomol in September 1940, Grigory Mikhailovich was expelled from the Komsomol. “And the members of the [Komsomol school] committee confidentially informed Grisha that they sympathize with him, but will vote for his expulsion ...” ^{[4] The} literary circle in which he was in was liquidated. He and his friends moved to a studio at the city's Palace of Pioneers.

In 1941, he was evacuated to Uzbekistan with his parents. At the end of the Federal Labor Law, in order to ease the financial situation of the family, he entered the workers at the Koytash uranium mine (Koytashstroy, Samarkand region). There, in 1942, at the age of 17, he composed the song “Across the Tundra, along a Broad Road” (known also under other names: “Vorkuta-Leningrad”, “Escape”).

Since the spring of 1943, Shurmak was drafted into the army. He fought on the 2nd Ukrainian front. After two wounds (the last, in August 1944, severe) he returned to Kiev with an invalid of war. In 1949, after graduating from the Kiev Pedagogical Institute, he left for Donbass, taught Russian language and literature there. In 1963 he wrote the novel “Time taught us” (which was published only 26 years later).

Since 1967 he returned to Kiev, worked in a boarding school as a teacher and teacher. In 1968, in connection with the denunciation of students, he was dismissed. Occasionally published in the Soviet press (Kiev magazine "Rainbow", Moscow "Youth", "October", "Day of Poetry"). In 1975, the first collection of poems was published in Kiev.

Since November 1987 he moved to the city of Elektrostal, Moscow Region. Since 1988, he led a literary studio in the city of Elektrostal.

In 1997 and 2004, his poetry books Late Collection and Lyrics. Ballads. Songs". Since 1996 he became a member of the Writers Union of Moscow. The works of G. M. Shurmak were published in the magazines: “New World”, “Continent”, “Banner”, the Parisian weekly “Russian Thought”, the newspaper “Express Chronicle”, etc.

He died on September 16, 2007, was buried in the city of Elektrostal at the New Cemetery (8 site).

In September-December 2013, at the Specialized Library Depository (Rare Books), Elektrostal, the exhibition “Room of the Writer Grigory Shurmak” was open. At the opening of the exhibition, his famous song “in the soulful performance of the author” was sounded in the recording (Three years before the death of G. Shurmak, the correspondents of the radio of Noginsk, visiting the poet, made this recording.) ^[5]

• He was twice married. He left a son, a granddaughter and two great-grandchildren.

By the tundra, by rail
Where is the courier rushing
Vorkuta-Leningrad

The Story of the Song

Gregory's elder brother, Isaac (1920-1943; in the army, enrolled as Ivan) suffered a hunger strike in 1933, began to live with tramps, and ended up in a children's colony. Then in 1940, for the theft of watches, he was sentenced to two years in camps. He served his term in the North, in the area of ​​Pudozh, Karelian-Finnish Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, at a logging site. Gregory often recalled his older brother, whom it became known that in July 1941 he was drafted into the army. Shurmak G.M. recalled:

“... I yearned, thought a lot about him. In November 1942, a disabled soldier Pyotr Smirnov came to the community where I lived. His right hand was crippled. It turned out that he was taken into the army directly from the camps located in the Vorkuta area. Like my brother, he was a thief. Peter loved to talk about camp life, about sending to the front. It turns out that they were sent to the front by a train consisting of greenhouses. I was struck: the tundra is around, and the railway operates - exotic! I was drawn to compose a song dedicated to my brother, who also went through the northern camp and also fights somewhere. The beginning of the song arose by itself: “By the tundra, by rail”. What should the song be about? Clear business: about escape to freedom, about mother, the memory of which is sacred for every prisoner. ... [At the front] occasionally I sang it to the guys in the dugout and in the ward [in hospitals], and then in my student years to classmates ” ^[6] .

In the early Khrushchev thaw, he discovered that his song became widely known. “I accidentally heard my song on the radio performed by unknown radio amateurs.”

“At that time, under the amnesty, tens of thousands of prisoners convicted under criminal articles were released. Among them were craftsmen who acquired home-made radio installations, and one fine day I heard on medium waves how a baritone with diction typical of thieves relishly performed “On the Tundra, on the Railway”! ”

The song was first published in 1990 in the famous Moscow collection “Among Other Names”, where the works of poets created in Stalin’s camps were published ^[7] .

Poetess Natalya Gorbanevskaya ^[8] : ““ On the tundra, by rail / Where the courier “Vorkuta-Leningrad” rushes ”- who doesn’t know these words, albeit with options already in these first lines. One of the most piercing Gulag songs arose on the basis of a text written - not in the camp, but in evacuation - by a 17-year-old, not yet taken into the army by a Kiev citizen (in the 45th he will return from the army as an invalid). I liked that he made me sing with him until he remembered. thanks to him, the song spread throughout the Union. ”

Well, not just “thanks to him,” but thanks to “herself,” who so well laid down in folklore, overgrown with additions, refinements, simplifications - everything that people, accepting, decorates a true poetic text. ”

From the memoirs of the poet L.V. Shereshevsky

“We ... in the distant pre-war years, there were three - three Kiev schoolchildren who wrote poetry, raved poetry, argued about poetry ... Our trinity was distinguished by some special friendly unity, due, in particular, to the fact that we lived in the same area , not far from each other, and met not only in the studio, but also at home, and often walked along the streets together, sharing with each other their thoughts and poems. Our trinity is Emka Mandel, Grisha Shurman and I ... Love for literature, a community of interests and searches made us inseparable then ... "

“An evacuation wave brought Grisha to Tashkent, where he ... wrote the numberless, but very famous song“ On the Tundra, on the Railway ... ”Soon he was drafted into the army. He got - a city boy - into the Cossack cavalry unit ... He fought, was wounded, shell-shocked, and after the war he graduated from the pedagogical institute in Kiev and was assigned to the Donbass, an evening school for adults ... He conceived a great thing about our time and our generation, successfully finding her name in the line of Bulat Okudzhava: “Time taught us.” The novel turned out to have a difficult fate: despite the approving reviews of prominent writers, he spent many years in the publishing house “Soviet Writer” - the editors were all embarrassed by something, something scary and alarming. And only in 1986, when the winds of perestroika blew, Grisha called the editor of the publishing house and said literally the following: “We are returning to work on your novel.” The novel finally came out in 1989 ... " ^[9]

Military prose

The well-known Soviet front-line writer V. L. Kondratiev, in the preface to Shurmak’s book about the war, described her long way to the reader and the obstacles that she had to overcome: “It is hard to imagine that these pure and sincere things were spoken like these: note that the links cited in the conclusion are just examples of the negative formulation of political and military issues contained in the manuscript. Based on this, we believe that the publication of the novel ... will not benefit the cause of military-patriotic education of workers "... It is not clear what confused the editors of magazines and publishers in this honest, truthful book? Is it true that the students of the Kiev school - the narrator and his comrades - think about what is being done in the country, that the clashes with life raise different questions from them?

... As for the military pages of the story, I hope the reader imagines how meticulously I regard the truthfulness of the front-line realities, their accuracy ... The description of the war by G. Shurmak is in line with the best works of military prose, where the war is written extremely truthfully and harshly, where the war is shown as it really was ... " ^[10]

In 1992, Shurmak, in his article published in the newspaper “Russian Thought”, told the story of his clash with political commander D. Volkogonov, who at the beginning of B. Yeltsin’s presidency became the defense adviser to the latter ^[11] :

In April 1985, the publishing house "Soviet Writer" sent Major General Volkogonov, deputy. the head of the special department of Glavpur of the Soviet army and navy, the manuscript of my autobiographical novel, "Time taught us," - "by appointment for consultation." I quote the most characteristic excerpts from the resulting review: “The author, speaking of the 37th year, pursues the idea of ​​allegedly committed lawlessness” ... “Communists shows people without firm convictions”; “The focus is completely unjustifiably focused on the Jewish question that does not exist in our society” ...

I had no choice but to pick up the manuscript. ... In the fall of the same year, in Moskovskaya Pravda, I read a series of articles entitled Poisoners of the Air. Their author D. Volkogonov was introduced to readers as a lieutenant general .... “The Doctor of Philosophy, professor” wrote, for example, about the “clique on the Radio Liberty” V. Maksimov - in the past criminal, who moved to the West ... with zeal he worked out his “thirty pieces of silver.”

Two years later, “Soviet Writer” ... nevertheless decided to publish my book, but for the sake of publishing, Glavpur needed to close his negative review with a new, positive one ... And the publisher received an answer signed by the head of the press department, Colonel O. Sarin: “Our findings made in April 1985 remain valid. ” And - the point! Outside, perestroika is in full swing, in the fall of 1987, and D. Volkogonov’s subordinates are still focused on “dragging and not letting go”. My book was published in 1989, a quarter century after its creation.

As for Colonel-General D. Volkogonov (how quickly, however, some people get promoted!), In his speeches and interviews I never met remorse for doublethink ... By the way, is it not strange: for a consultation on military issues the president took a political commissar, commissioner?

• Stanzas of the century: Anthology of Russian poetry / Comp. Evg. Yevtushenko. M .: “Polyfact. The results of the century ”, 1999. - 1056 p. ISBN 5-89356-006-X .
• Kiev. Russian poetry. XX century: Poetic anthology / Comp. Yu. Kaplan. K .: LLC "South", 2003. - 439 p. ISBN 966-7082-17-2
• 100 Russian poets about Kiev: Anthology. Compiled by R. Zaslavsky. K .: The journal "Rainbow", 2001. - 398 p. ISBN 966-7121-39-9

• May 28, 1925 in Kiev was born Grigory Mikhailovich Shurmak - writer, poet and publicist. The author of the words of the song “Across the Tundra”. Member of World War II. (Russian)
• Grigory Shurmak (Russian)
• THE PEOPLE WAS 17 YEARS (inaccessible link) (Russian)
• Presentations (Russian)