Ivanov-Classic, Alexey Fedorovich

Alexei's father, a native of Lyubimsky district of the Yaroslavl province , was a serf of Count Buturlin , served in St. Petersburg as a clerk . Having saved money, he bought himself free and opened his own trade in cloth. Alex was born on February 2 (14), 1841 in St. Petersburg. The boy spent his childhood in the village. Thanks to my semi-literate sister, I learned to read early, studied for one year at school. At 11, his father took him to a shop and began to accustom him to trade. He was very unkind to the desire of his son for self-education. Aleksei liked to read, especially he liked the series “Classics of Russian Literature” by A. F. Smirdin , for which the clerical neighbors from a nearby bookstore who gave him this publication jokingly called Ivanov “a classic.”

After the death of his father in 1861, Alexei got a shop on the Apraksin market , but he was little interested in trade. Soon, Ivanov began to gather students interested in literature, poor actors, writers ( G.N. Zhulev , N.I. Krol , V.I. Nemirovich-Danchenko ), etc. In 1862, during a city ​​fire, the shop burned down to Ivanov I had to go to work as a clerk in one of the pantries of the Gostiny Dvor .

The first printed work of Ivanov, who wrote under the pseudonym Classic, was the poem "On the Death of Nikitin " ( St. Petersburg Bulletin , 1861). V. S. Kurochkin , noting the talent in him, invited him to the number of permanent employees of Iskra . Since then, Ivanov finally abandoned the trade and published many poems in the Petersburg Leaflet , as well as Dele , Alarm Clock and other periodicals. In the 1880s, he was published in the humorous magazines Zanoza , Dragonfly , Shards , World Illustration . His written in a brisk verse, usually with a “civilian” lining, “songs”, were published in separate collections: “Songs of the Classic” (1873), “At Dawn” (1882) and “Poems” (1891). In 1874, his short story entitled “Dissolute Children” was published. Ivanov traveled a lot: he was in the Caucasus, Siberia, Ukraine, the Crimea, Austria, Italy and Germany. He collected his memories of the trips in the book "Merry fellow traveler" (1889).

He died in St. Petersburg on January 3 (15), 1894 from croupous pneumonia .

Ivanov-Classic is the author of the poem “From Children’s Talks” (“In July, in our village / Hurrying home in the heat of the day, / Two brothers, Kolya and Yasha, wandered / And they met a big pig ...”), published in the collection “The reciter ", Then reprinted in 1907 without a signature in the journal" Cadet Leisure ". This poem, which became popular among gymnasium and junker circles (see, for example, a testimony in Valentin Kataev ’s short story “Broken Life, or the Magic Horn of Oberon”), was rewritten in 1922 in a notebook by Daniil Kharms (with distortions “In July, somehow in our summer / Going raving in the heat of the day ... ") and was reprinted several times in collected works as the earliest of his poems. Atetez was justified by A. L. Dmitrienko in the article “Imaginary Harms”. ^[one]

• " Historical Bulletin ", 1894, Prince. 2, p. 583-584;
• "Russian Review" , 1894, Prince. 9, p. 219-221; Prince 10, p. 951;
• Corinthian A. A. F. Ivanov (Classic), obituary // World illustration : journal. - 1894. - T. 51 , No. 1303 . - S. 46-47 .
• Astafyev A.V., Astafyeva N.A. A.F. Ivanov-Classic // Writers of the Yaroslavl Territory. - Yaroslavl: Upper Volga Book Publishing House, 1974. - S. 164-168. - 248 p. - 5,000 copies.

• Ivanov-Classic in the library of Maxim Moshkov
• Biography on the unofficial site of Lyubim