Steinman, Zelik Yakovlevich

Critical articles published since 1922 in the newspaper "Red Black Sea". Since 1925 he lived in Leningrad. He studied at the Higher Courses in Art History at the State Institute of Art History. In 1927, his first book, The Man from the Panopticon, was published about the work of the prose writer Andrei Sobol who had committed suicide by then. Since 1927 he was a member of the Union of Poets. In 1930, expelled from the Union of Poets and soon sent to Novorossiysk. Then he returned to Leningrad. An employee of the newspaper Literary Leningrad (1934), an active literary critic, with an accusatory bias. The poet and prose writer Elena Tager remarked in personal communication with N. Lyubimov: “And our critics!” Their malice is directly proportional to their mediocrity. Recently I went to the Leningrad Union of Writers. I look, our entire critical synclite is sitting on the stage: Nyusya Beskina , Raisa Messer , Zeliky Shteinman, Tamarchenko, Gorelov, Dobin ... I looked at them, and involuntarily I had a philanthropic desire: oh, if the ceiling had fallen over them! Still, at least a little, but the air would have freshened in Leningrad ... ” ^[1]

On August 26, 1936, he was arrested as part of a group of Leningrad writers led by G. Gorbachev (critics Anna Beskina, Mikhail Mayzel, Evgenia Mustangova, prose writer Leonid Grabar-Shpolyansky ). The arrested were condemned by the Military College as “members of the Trotsky-Zinoviev terrorist organization that carried out the murder of S. M. Kirov on December 1, 1934 and was preparing a series of terrorist acts against the leaders of the CPSU (b) and the Soviet government.” The minutes of the trial, which lasted from 22 hours 25 minutes on December 23 to 00 hours 15 minutes on December 24, 1937, noted that all the defendants pleaded guilty. Sentenced to 10 years in the camp. He served time on Solovki until the camp was closed in 1939, then in Norillag. He worked as a dispatcher of the river port of Dudinka, led a team of movers in Dudinka ^[2] . He was left there for permanent settlement, in 1949 he was again briefly arrested by the NKVD department in the Krasnoyarsk Territory.

In 1954, he appealed against his sentence. In a statement dated June 4, 1954 addressed to the USSR Prosecutor General, he wrote from Igarka: “The only“ evidence ”against me was the“ testimony ”of a certain Grabar , b. a member of the Stroyka group, thanks to which I was arrested. I do not know if Grabar really gave such evidence. But - the fact is that they in every possible way sought confirmation of the testimony of Grabar. And when, through exhausting methods of “interrogation”, they reached my “confirmation” - I was confronted with a confrontation with Grabar. At the confrontation, Grabar refused his “testimony” allegedly given to them. And it so happened that I was arrested on the basis of Grabar’s “testimony”, with these “testimonies” I was “exposed” ... and Grabar, in turn, was “exposed” by “evidence” forcibly received from me. ... The court did not show us any new data. None of our books, articles, letters, quotes from reports, etc., were featured in court. When I stated that I had never held a gun in my hands, the chairman of the court, Matulevich, replied to me: “Someone with a gun, and some with a pen.” ... The trial lasted exactly 50 minutes. " On November 3, 1955, Steinman answered questions in his case as a witness: “After reviewing the minutes of the court session presented to me, I declare that he was falsified. The protocol says that I and the other accused pleaded guilty, in fact, none of us pleaded guilty and did not confirm our testimony. ” A year later, on November 10, 1956, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR ruled that the members of the Gorbachev literary group were not convicted, reversed its long-standing sentence and released Steinman from places of eternal settlement ^[3]

After rehabilitation, he lived in Leningrad. A. Gorodnitsky , who in his youth worked in a geological party near Igarka, recalled: “In this prison there turned out to be a pretty good library of fiction, composed of books selected from prisoners at the shmona. I remember when we worked on the Kolyu River, we took a pack of books with books for temporary use in the prison library. Among these books was, in particular, the first volume from the never-published two-volume Eduard Bagritsky, who was then my favorite poet. In the corner of the title page of the book there is an inscription: “Zelik Steinman”. Knowing that the famous Leningrad critic Zelik Steinman returned from the camps to Leningrad, I healed this book and brought it to St. Petersburg. When I came to meet him to return the book, I bitterly and regretfully heard his passionate speech that they planted correctly, that Stalin was a genius, and the like " ^[4]

Studying the work of Andrei Sobol, Steinman tries to find the reason that he turned out to be incomprehensible and not accepted by critics and the reader, "who for the most part is doing book weather now", and sees it as the fact that all the heroes of Sable are "baseless." The current reader, Steinman writes, “we need a big hero, even complex, but orthodox,” who “must live beautifully, live smartly and see who are facing that goal,” and Sobol’s hero is “all people with bad nerves and huge tiredness. And most importantly - they are torn from their midst. " “Sable is one of those writers throughout whose work the same defining motive has invariably developed”: “from book to book, changing its appearance in places, Sable comes with the same individualistic romanticism, with the same search "Truth, which has no name," and with the emptiness of the same intellectual whom the revolution knocked out of his usual rut, who started the revolution, but stumbled at its first step. " Hence the absence of a positive philosophy, and emotional immediacy, and the installation of lyrical estrangement - this is what Steinman unites in the concept of “impressionism”.

With D. Tolmachev, he founded the literary circle "Restless", positioning himself as the figures of "left art", close to the emerging officialdom. “In their manifesto, this group called for unity in form and content, argued that“ the true content of the poetic work is its basic emotional tone, ”and developed“ Formal Principles of the Installation Method. ” Critical actions of “Nepokoy” were directed against OBERIU. The main speaker of “Nepokoy” ... was Steinman. He was the main opponent of the Oberiuts in public discussions at the Union of Poets and at the Press House ” ^[5] .

Angry and unceremonious critic. He wrote about B. Pilnyak, Vl. Lidine, M. Slonimsky, A. Lezhnev. In 1936, he attacked Leonid Dobychin. Regarding the method of stringing images in prose, Dobychina claimed that the “City of En” is “a collection of literary tricks ... which are frankly opposite to the method of socialist realism” ^[6] .

In March 1936, at a meeting of Moscow writers in connection with the “struggle against formalism in art” campaign, he was criticized in a speech by L. Leonov , who sharply reacted to Steinman's review of the “Road to the Ocean” in Leningrad's “Krasnaya Gazeta”. “And this, like all other broad meetings, will not give anything to the writer or the party,” Leonov raised his voice. - One must understand that when a writer speaks to a wide audience, he cannot forget that he is a public figure, he cannot forget that his words have a political resonance. And consequently, the writer will not speak about his own, truly will not say. No matter how the speaker may say, yet everyone going to this meeting thought about whether they would beat him or not. And how can one not think when some Zelik Steinman with one review can question the meaning of more than two years of work. Of course, you are afraid that you might be beaten, and, of course, you prefer to be silent, sit out and not print anything. Babel’s tactics are clever: republish the same approved thing, but don’t let the new one go to print. If a review such as Steinman's review appears, I will close the shop, stop writing. Let the party decide who needs it, I am an artist or critic Steinman ” ^[7] .

He was engaged in literary work and in the settlement. “Dudins and Norilsk people often read his articles and poems in the district newspaper“ Sovetsky Taimyr ”(especially at the time when the editor was a great connoisseur of literature Pulman). He typed poems under the pseudonym Zin. Tents. He was a member of the Union of Soviet Writers. He published critical articles and literary reviews (in the Brief Literary Encyclopedia of both editions, references to them can be found in notes on the writers I. Kalinnikov and others). Years of exile excommunicated Zelik from literature. But nevertheless, in the early 1950s, Siberian Lights, from an old memory, published an article by Steinman. And although there was no sedition in the material, it attracted criticism of the editor of the magazine and caused discontent. After the Twentieth Party Congress, articles by Zelik Steinman began to appear in the Yenisei, the Siberian Lights, the Leningrad Zvezda, Neva and other publications ” ^[8] .

After rehabilitation, he published feuilletons. Criticism noted that in his fiction feuilletons and sketches, he makes fun of people with a cold heart, petty bourgeois, vulgar, hackworkers, and with a kind smile speaks of modest and respectable workers. He was also engaged in criticism. Detained in special guards was his old book, Literary Episodes.

• The man from the panopticon. (About Andrei Sable). - L.: Surf, [1927] (state type. Named after Evgeny Sokolova). - 38 p., [2] p.
• Preface // Sobol A. M. Collected Works [in 4 vols.]. T.1: Quiet flow. - M .; L .: Land and factory, [1927-1928].
• Literary episodes. L .: Surf, 1928. 222, [2] p.
• Plus a smile: satirical pictures and feuilleton. - M .; L .: Soviet writer, 1963. - 200 p.
• Under the protection of Eutherpa // 3stars. 1964. No. 8 (a devastating article about the poems of the Murmansk citizen V.V. Matveev).
• Unfinished topics. - M .; L .: Soviet writer, 1966. - 135 p.

• Schraer-Petrov D. Vodka with cakes. Novel with writers. - SPb .: Academic project, 2007.442 p. Chapter “The Accountant from the Gulag. Zelik Steinman. "
• Crucified. Writers are victims of political repression. Issue 3. The executioners are judged by time. Comp. Z. Dicharov. - SPb .: Publishing House "Historical and Memorial Commission of the Union of Writers of St. Petersburg", department of the publishing house "Education", 1998. S.219-223. The chapter "We met in the North."
• Between a rock and a hard place. Union of Soviet Writers of the USSR. Documents and comments. T. 1. 1925 - June 1941 / hands. The team of T. M. Goryaev; comp. Z. K. Vodopyanova (responsible compiler), T. V. Domracheva, L. M. Babaeva. - M.: Russian Political Encyclopedia (ROSPEN): Fund “Presidential Center B.N. Yeltsin”, 2011. 543 p.