Shevtsov, Ivan Mikhailovich

Born in a poor large family. While still a student of the 6th grade of a seven-year school, he actively collaborated in the Shklovsk regional newspaper. He graduated from the Saratov border guard school.

He participated in the Soviet-Finnish and World War II ^[1] , was the commander of the reconnaissance and sabotage detachment. Lieutenant colonel.

After the war, he collaborated with a number of publications, worked in the Border Guard magazine, in the Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper, and the Izvestia correspondent in Poland and Bulgaria . After graduating from the Literary Institute (1952), he worked as deputy editor of the newspaper "Soviet Fleet" and deputy editor of the journal " Moscow ". Since the 1950s , begins to write and publish his novels ^[2] . In 1958, the Military Publishing House published two books of Shevtsov's stories - “Old Friends” and “Strong People”.

Aphid novel

“Aphid” - Shevtsov's most resonant text - was written in 1949, but then it was not possible to publish it. In 1964, this “pamphlet novel” was published in the publishing house “ Soviet Russia ” ^[3] . The publication “Soviet and East European Abstracts Series” says that the novel “Aphids” “caused a literary scandal in Moscow due to the author’s rude attacks on the art world” ^[4] . ^[5]

The plot is based on the opposition of the works and ideas of artists-socialist realists to all kinds of innovations and borrowings from the West, artists who follow the opinion of the author. It is crowned with a celebration of the defeat of the latter: the ending is timed to coincide with the scandalous events surrounding Nikita Khrushchev's visit to an art exhibition.

In the early 1950s, I offered the novel to the Young Guard publishing house and found support there. An agreement was concluded with me, and the manuscript of the novel was sent to the set. ... At the same time, the novel was adopted in the Leningrad magazine "Neva". But unexpectedly, as often happened, the ideological wind blew in the other direction. The manuscript of the novel was returned to the author “until better times”, in the offensive of which I did not really believe and put the novel in my archive, where he lay for 12 years. ... Suddenly flashed "better times": Khrushchev in the central exhibition hall "Manege" carried the spread of modern artists. In the evening, Vuchetich called me and in a raised voice told the “great news”: about Khrushchev’s performance in the Manege.

- Details in person! He said excitedly. - I now have Gerasimov, Laktionov and other comrades, we have just come from the Manege. Come immediately. You have a novel about artists. Now he is in time.

At that time I had a high influenza temperature, and I could not go, but I took note of the reminder of Tl. He took the manuscript from the archive, quickly wrote an epilogue and about three days later with a manuscript went to the director of the Sovetskaya Rossiya publishing house E. Petrov, who listened to Khrushchev’s speech in the Manege, and asked him to personally read the novel. The next day, Petrov called me, said that he had read the novel and invited me to come to conclude a contract.

- Ivan Shevtsov. Preface to the Aphid novel

The novel is written in a rather peculiar language, but on the whole gives a fairly complete picture of the backstage life of the metropolitan art hangout of that time, that is, it is valuable more as a journalism, as a document of the era, and not as a full-fledged work of art. According to the style of presentation, one could safely attribute it to production novels, if only there was production. But his main theme is gossip, intrigue, passion about reviews, reviews in the book of visiting exhibitions, subjective assessments of persons displayed under pseudonyms, “compromising evidence” (published in a print run of 500 copies of the unsuccessful early autobiography of the artist Barcelona, ​​which his fans sought to redeem), divorce stories , exposing incompetent magazine critics and the like. It is not surprising that with all this the novel excited and attracted the increased attention of progressive artistic intelligentsia, which received from its author a collective epithet "aphid" in addition to what Khrushchev said about it.

The novel "Aphid" became a kind of turning point in the biography of Shevtsov. Soon he was dismissed from the magazine Moscow, and his career as a journalist (but not a writer) ended here. ^[6] Then the military pensioner Shevtsov continued his literary work; He was a member of the late Soviet informal circles of the Russian-nationalist persuasion .

In 1997, the 77-year-old writer married a literary critic, doctor of philological sciences L. I. Shcheblykina (Shevtsova) ^[7] , the daughter of a literary critic I. P. Shcheblykin .

Some critics consider Shevtsov’s books as xenophobic and anti-Semitic ^{[8] [9]} . First of all, this refers to the novel " Aphids " ^[10] . Nikolai Mitrokhin - historian and social scientist, author of a monograph on the so-called. “Russian party” - writes that Shevtsov’s books “are based on an anti-Semitic myth”, and also popularize the derivative legend of “Kremlin wives” (having real or alleged Jewish ethnicity). ^[11] Literary critic Aleksey Kolobrodov characterizes Shevtsov as “a once glorious retrograde with a strong reputation as an anti-Semite.” ^[12] However, Shevtsov also has defenders ^{[13] [14] [15] [16]} . As Oleg Kashin wrote, Shevtsov himself considered himself not an anti-Semite, but a " fighter against Zionism ."

In the Brief Encyclopedia of Literature, Shevtsov’s novel “Aphids” is mentioned in the article “ Pasquille ”. According to the KLE, “Aphids”, where “representatives of the Soviet artistic intelligentsia were accused of immoralism, forgery, plagiarism, etc.,” met, like other attempts to create literary libels, “objections of the Soviet public and the press.” ^[17] Alexander Yakovlev in the article “Against Antihistorism” (1972), which had great consequences, referring to the unacceptability of a “nihilistic attitude towards the intelligentsia” (which, according to Yakovlev, is based on a misunderstanding of socialist progress), mentioned Ivan Shevtsov’s “hysterical writings.” ^[eighteen]

Yitzhak Brudny, an Israeli historian and political scientist, mentions Tlyu and describes it as a “fierce anti-intellectual Stalinist novel” ( English rabidly anti-intellectual, Stalinist novel ). ^[19] According to the memoirs of Shevtsov himself, the assistant to L. I. Brezhnev Viktor Golikov spoke positively about “Tle” in 1970: “the problems in“ Tle ”were raised sore, and we must speak about them loudly.” ^[twenty]

According to the doctor of philological sciences, professor of Tver State University Vladimir Yudin, Shevtsov’s novels are “an action-packed, psychologically in-depth philosophical narrative about the long-suffering fate of Russia in the fateful twentieth century for her”. ^[13]

Nikolai Mitrokhin quotes Sergei Semanov’s statement: “Unlike his boring books, Shevtsov is a very lively and interesting person.” ^[21] However, Semanov also stated that “patriotic passion and directness [of Shevtsov’s novels] more than cover aesthetic flaws” ^[22] . Literary critic Vladimir Bondarenko notes that in Shevtsov’s novels “there is a lot of controversy, spiciness, sociality, but not enough artistic breath”. ^[23] .

Sergei Semanov wrote that Shevtsov’s works “Love and Hate” and “Nabat” “exposed the subversive activities of Western intelligence services and the Zionist underground” in the USSR, “revealed the parasitism and anti-Russian character of the cosmopolitan intelligentsia and its patrons in the Central Committee of the CPSU”. ^[22]

Oleg Kashin wrote that he had no doubt - Shevtsov "always did what his conscience dictated to him." At the same time, Kashin calls Shevtsov "a maniac obsessed with Jewish wives and other tentacles of world Zionism." Later, in Shevtsov’s obituary, Kashin called Shevtsov “the most active and, pun, creative opponent of the sixties creative class”, noting, however, that Shevtsov remained a marginal figure in Soviet society that had no serious influence ^[24] .

• Order of the Patriotic War, 2nd degree (03/11/1985)
• medal "For Courage" (12/19/1941 ^[25] )

• Selected works in 3 volumes. - M., Military Publishing, 1988

  The three-volume edition included works: “The Seed of the Future”, “Among the Plain Valley”, “The Light Is Not Without Good People”, “In the Name of the Father and Son”, “Love and Hate”

• Aphid - 1964, 2000, 2014
• Youth of Bulgaria. Essays on the youth of new Bulgaria. - 1954.
• The world is not without good people - 1962, 1963 (two editions), 1980
• The heroic deed (1960) (in the second edition, entitled “The Eagle Looks at the Sun”)
• In the name of father and son. - M., 1970
• Love and Hate - M., 1970.
• Seed of the Future - 1964, 1969, 1980
• Nabat. - M., 1975, 1978.
• Borodino field. - M., 1977, reprints - 1980, 1981, 1985
• Devil's Island (1978–84)
• Robbery. M., 1988, 1990
• Forest distance. - M., 1978, 1986.
• Blue diamond. - M., 1998. (the book also includes the works “Collapse” and “What is Behind the Horizon?”)

• Oleg Kashin . One against world Zionism. Visiting Ivan Shevtsov, creator of Aphids // Russian Life , December 7, 2007.
• "Warrior and writer Ivan Shevtsov . "
• Ivan Shevtsov. What was, was // Tomorrow , February 11, 1997.
• Valentin Sorokin . Three wars behind us // Tomorrow, August 29, 2000.