Shesterikov, Mikhail Vasilievich

Born in 1906 in the village of Khvatovka, Arzamas county, Nizhny Novgorod province in a family of a medical assistant .

During the NEP , a village activist, he joined the Komsomol at the age of sixteen, was the secretary of the rural Komsomol cell, then the secretary of the Arzamas volost committee of the Komsomol.

He graduated from the Arzamas concurrent school , became a candidate member of the CPSU (b), was elected a member of the Nizhny Novgorod provincial committee of the Komsomol.

In 1926 he was sent to Komsomol work in Nizhny Novgorod as an instructor in the administrative department of the Union of Agricultural Workers. In 1927 he was transferred from candidates to members of the CPSU (b).

After graduating from rabfak entered the Gorky Pedagogical Institute .

He led the circle of writers at the provincial newspaper "Young Army", wrote articles, essays, reviews.

In 1932 he entered graduate school at the department of Russian literature, the supervisor was Professor M. Grigoriev , wrote about the work of Mayakovsky.

At the same time as teaching and studying at graduate school, he worked in tight consultations with the regional newspapers Leninskaya Smena, Gorky Kommune, and Onslaught magazine.

In 1934 he was delegated to the First Congress of Soviet Writers , returning from which he became one of the founders of the Gorky Writing Organization.

In 1936 he graduated from graduate school and was left at the Department of Russian Literature at the Gorky Pedagogical Institute, where until the summer of 1942 he taught the theory of literature and the history of children's literature.

During the war years

Already on June 25, 1941, two days after the start of World War II , he published the poem “We Will Win!” In the Gorky Kommuna newspaper.

Even before being drafted into the army, he was awarded the medal “ For Labor Distinction ”: “ for good work in the newspaper on the construction of fortifications on the far approaches to Moscow ”.

From the summer of 1942 to the spring of 1947, he was a correspondent who headed the literary department of the front-line newspaper Krasnoye Znamya of the 24th Army, which in April 1943 became the 4th Guards Army .

Together with the army, he participated in the Battle of Stalingrad, the Kursk arch of the Korsun-Shevchenkovsky and Iasi-Kishinev operations, through the battles on the Dnieper, he ended the war in Vienna.

He finished the war with the rank of Major Guard. After the Victory , he served in Austria for another two years until the dissolution of the 4th Guards Army in March 1947, continuing to work in the newspaper.

As a correspondent for the newspaper Red Banner, he attended the Nuremberg trials .

He was awarded the orders of the Red Star (04/04/1943) and World War II degree (04/30/1945), medals " For the Defense of Stalingrad " and " For Military Merit " (08/08/1943).

After the war

Returning from the front for three years - from September 1947 to August 1950 - he taught literature at the Gorky Pedagogical Institute.

In 1948-1960 - the head of the Gorky branch of the Union of Writers of the USSR.

He helped a number of Gorky writers in their creative development, for example, advised V.V. to seriously study poetry . Polovinkin , who especially noted in his autobiography the role of Shesterikov who took over his patronage, and so recalled the first meeting with the poet: “ Tight, with a shock of dark curly hair over a high clean forehead, in an officer’s overcoat draped over his shoulders with traces of shoulder straps and buttonholes - this is my first time I saw Mikhail Vasilyevich Shesterikov back in 1948. "

He actively wrote and printed. Literary work M.V. Shesterikova was awarded the Order of the Badge of Honor (1966). ^[one]

He died on December 2, 1974 in Gorky. He was buried in the Red Cemetery (13 site).

Shesterikov’s poems are marked by the simplicity and clarity of the poetic system, humor, proximity to folk song creativity.

- Brief Encyclopedia of Literature

The first poem was published in 1926 in the Gorky newspaper "Young Army".

In the 1930s, he wrote poems "Notes of the Collective Farmer", "Petka", "Cockroaches", "Poem about the Mother", "Notebook" (about the rural primary school teacher and her students); poems “Letter to a Girl”, “Ballad about an Old Man and a Komsomol”, “About My Grandfather”, “Song Haunting”, “Strange Guests of the Secretary of the District Committee”.

As the poet’s biographer G. Rodin noted, “ Shesterikov ’s texts are a chronicle of the history and culture of the Nizhny Novgorod Territory ” and were a response to real events: “A bus came to Khvatovka” - about the organization of constant bus traffic Arzamas-Khvatovka; the plot of the poem "Petka", about a Komsomol member and a village village burned alive, was inspired by the murder of village director Fyodor Mironov from the village of Sablukov in the Arzamas region; the essay “One of the Many” is about the locksmith-moulder Vasily Merkulov, the first in the region to be awarded the Order of Lenin.

In 1932, go out the first poetry collection of the poet "Bolshevik arable land".

Before the war he finished the poem "Valery Chkalov" (published in 1942).

He devoted a number of verses to wartime. For a long time in the newspaper of the 24th Army a novel was published in the verses "Vanya Brovkin." On the entries in the front-line correspondent notebooks, the essay “Four Boilers” is based. The Ballad of a Soldier is widely known - about how a soldier killed in 1945 near Budapest returns to his mother.

In the widely known “Ballad of a Soldier” by Mikhail Shesterikov, the conventionality and unnaturalness of what is described - a soldier who has risen from the grave returns home, to his mother — is perceived as something natural: for the mother, the son did not die; his return was deliberately grounded, casual. The contrast between the extreme conventionality of the plot and the everyday nature of its development gives the “Ballad” of Mikhail Shesterikov unusual significance.

- literary critic Vyacheslav Kharchev ^[2]

After the war, he was silent for over 10 years - not typing anything, except for a few poems.

In 1958, the lyric poem “The Twinkle of My Youth” was published in the New World magazine - the poet’s work is better than one of the significant poetry books of those years.

The poem “Katya” remained in the manuscript - in 1959 the poet sent it to A. Twardovsky , and she remained with him (transferred to the TsGALI for storage), Mikhail Shesterikov received the answer to the manuscript: ^[3]

I read Katya and I have to upset you, I did not like her. Of course, I’m not going to “point out flaws” to you — you and I have already come out of this age — I will say only one thing: prose drowns out some of the bushes of poetry in this thing. ... “Spark” was, in my opinion, freer from prose than “Katya”. I repeat, there are “bushes” here (digressions about cinema, etc.), but there are few of them, and they are in a subordinate position. Please do not be offended, and send us what will be new. I shake your hand.

- from a letter from Alexander Twardowski , April 13, 1959

In 1960, the book Through the Years was published, in which there are many verses of the pre-war era.

He writes poems for children ("Mitya at Sea", "Cloud", "Rain on Wheels") and for their parents ("Loving Dad"), an anti-religious poem, the novel "The Holy One."

In 1970, a poetry collection “Residential Zone” was published at the Gorky publishing house.

In 1971, in the central publishing house " Soviet Russia ", an anniversary collection "Kolos" was published, which included poems and poems "At the Light of Youth" and "Holy".

Shortly before his death, he managed to prepare a book of poems "Favorites", but did not see it printed - it was published a few months after his death.

Much more in Shesterikov’s work awaits deep thought. The final book of selected verses convincingly confirmed the significance of everything that he did in Soviet poetry.

- 1976 year ^[1]

Shesterikov's poems do not age. They continue to live, spiritually enriching their readers, for they contain the moral, aesthetic and historical potential that remains in demand today.

- researcher of the poet’s work Galina Rodina, candidate of philological sciences, associate professor of the University of Minin , 2001 ^[4]

Bibliography

Separate editions:

• Bolshevik arable land: Poems / Illustrations: S.M. Zakrzhevskaya - Nizhny Novgorod: Ogiz (typ. Nizhpolygraph), 1932 - 66 p.
• Poem about a hero (For middle-aged children) - Gorky: Gorky Regional Publishing House, 1933 - 19 p.
• Poems - Moscow: Journal and Newspaper Association, 1932 - 22 p.
• Notes collective farmer. Poem. Poems. - M .: Library "Growth", 1932 - 34 p.
• Poems - Gorky: Gorky Regional Publishing House, 1937 - 52 p.
• We go to the West: verses. - Gorky: Gorky Regional Publishing House, 1942 - 40 p.
• Valery Chkalov: Poem. - Bitter: Bitter. publishing house (11th type. Rospoligrafizdat), 1950 - 98 p.
• The twinkle of my youth: A poem. - Moscow: Soviet Russia , 1960 - 30 s.
• Poems and poems - Gorky: Prince. Publishing House, 1960 - 102 p.
• Mitya at Sea: Poems (For Preschool Children) / Ill. Yu.A. Trupakov - Gorky: Volga-Vyatka Book Publishing House, 1964 - 17 p.
• Poems. Poems / Ill. Yu.A. Trupakova - Gorky: Volga-Vyatka Book Publishing House, 1966 - 111 p.
• Living area: Poems and poems ("Twinkle of my youth"). - Gorky: Volga-Vyatka Book Publishing House, 1970 - 88 p.
• Kolos: Poems, poems (“At the Light of Youth”; “Holy”) - Moscow: Soviet Russia , 1971 - 142 p.
• Favorite: Poems. - Gorky: Volga-Vyatka Book Publishing House, 1975 - 159 p.
• Poems and poems - Gorky: Volga-Vyatka Book Publishing House, 1986 - 190 p.
• Four boilers (from the notes of the correspondent of the army newspaper) // Almanac “Arzamasskaya side” No. 4 for 2011 - pp. 9-45

In the magazines:

• Valery Chkalov. Poem // Volzhsky Almanac, 1948, No. 6 - pp. 165—223
• The old communist. Poems // Volzhsky Almanac, 1952, No. 9 - p. 6-9
• Valery Chkalov. Poem // Banner , 1955, No. 12 - p. 3-20
• In the bus. Poems // Ogonyok , 1955, No. 18 - p. 32

Poems of the poet were published in collections:

• Shesterikov M. - Cannonade; Soldier Widow; Poems about soldier wounds; Ballad of a soldier; “Names Weather Time ...” // Front lines - Gorky, 1975 - pp. 144-156
• Shesterikov M. - A selection of poems about the Great Patriotic War // Thorns wreath of Victory - Nizhny Novgorod, 1995 - pp. 243-250

He was the author and compiler of collections of Gorky poets:

• Start: Poems of young poets / Ed. M.V. Shesterikov. - Gorky: Volga-Vyatka Book Publishing House, 1969. - 111 p.
• Springs: Poems of the Nizhny Novgorod-Gorky inhabitants for half a century. 1917-1967 / Comp. and auth. entry articles by M.V. Shesterikov. - Gorky: Volga-Vyatka Book Publishing House, 1967. - 175 p.

• A.I. Eliseev - Mikhail V. Shesterikov // Brief Literary Encyclopedia
• Rurikov B - Bolshevik road. On the trends of creativity of Mikhail Shesterikov // Onslaught, 1931, No. 2-3
• Autobiography // Gorky Writers. Biobibliographic Index - Gorky, 1970.
• G. Rodina - Poet M. Shesterikov - graduate and teacher of the Gorky Pedagogical Institute // Arzamas News (3992)
• Alekseeva A. - Simple words // " Volga ", 1967, No. 3, p. 168-172
• On the Day of Remembrance of M. V. Shesterikov / Official site of the MBUK of the Central Computer Center of Arzamas, December 3, 2014
• Here my biography began ... (on the 110th anniversary of the birth of M.V. Shesterikov) // Official website of the Arzamas municipal district of the Nizhny Novgorod Region, December 6, 2016