Kulish, Nikolay Gurievich

From the age of 9 he studied at a parish school, where he turned out to be a capable student. Chaplinsky intellectuals (especially school teacher Vladimir Filippovich Gubenko, who had long convinced Kulish's parents of his son's abilities) decided to help the gifted boy and raised funds - about 100 rubles - so that he could continue his education.

Since 1905 he studied at the Oleshkovsky city ​​eight-grade school; lived with his school mate Anton Aleinikov. In Oleshki I met the famous writer and translator Ivan Dneprovsky , who subsequently wrote many memoirs about Kulish. Several times he was expelled from school "for the organization of youth circles and disrespect for the authorities."

In 1908 he entered the Oleshkovsky gymnasium, did not finish his studies due to the closure of the institution. He lived in the apartment of his gymnasium friend Vsevolod Nevell, where he met his sister Antonina, his future wife.

The first works of Kulish were satirical poems, feuilletons, epigrams that appeared on the pages of student manuscript magazines, the initiator and editor of which was himself. Other, unprintable works were distributed in the lists among teenagers and youth and had a significant impact on them. The first dramatic experiments of Kulish appeared in Oleshki - colorful sketches from a former life. In 1913 he wrote his first play "On Fishing" in Russian, which subsequently formed the basis of the comedy "So Guska died."

At 22, he submitted documents to the Novorossiysk University at the Faculty of Philology, was enrolled in the first year, but in August 1914 he was mobilized. He served as a private in the reserve battalion. Having wanted to see the bride before being sent to the front, he left the barracks without permission, for which he received a punishment from the colonel, although not very strict. In 1914 he was sent to the Odessa school of ensigns, and upon its completion - to the front. 1915-1917 spent on the front line, was wounded several times, shell-shocked. He continued to write, mainly poems and small dramatic scenes. Some of his poems were published in the army newspaper, and one-act plays were played by soldiers.

In 1917, already being an officer, during the February Revolution took his side. From the beginning of 1918 - Chairman of the Oleshkovsky Council of Workers and Peasants' Deputies. In July 1919, while in Kherson , he formed the Dnieper peasant regiment as part of the Red Army , with which he subsequently defended Kherson and Nikolaev in battles with Denikinists. During the period of the Ukrainian state, he spent 5 months in custody. After the return of the Red Army to Ukraine, he becomes the chief of staff of the group of forces of Kherson and Dnieper district military commissariats.

After demobilization, he headed the public education authorities in Oleshkovsky district . He composed the first Ukrainian alphabet for adults - “Pervinka”, in which he used works of classical Ukrainian literature, as well as some of his own. Organizing schools, traveled a lot in southern Ukraine. During the famine of 1921-1922 he tried in every possible way to help schoolchildren and students. He reflected the events of this period in a documentary essay in Russian entitled "By Weight and Rural Village" (published in the Odessa pedagogical journal "Our School" No. 3, 4-5 for 1923).

In 1922 he worked in the provincial department of public education in Odessa as a school inspector. In 1924 he wrote the play "97", in which he spoke about the famine of 1921-22 in the Kherson region. The productions of this work and the play “The Commune in the Steppes” (1925) on the Kharkov stage brought Kulish universal recognition. In Odessa he became a member of the Gart Writing Union. In Zinovievsk from the end of April to the beginning of June 1925 he edited the newspaper Krasny Put, corresponded with Dneprovsky and other famous cultural figures.

In 1925 he moved to Kharkov , joined the literary organization VAPLITE . For many years he worked fruitfully with the troupe of the Berezil Theater and its director Les Kurbas .

By the mid-1920s, it gradually became one of the central figures of Ukrainian literary, social, and artistic life. In November 1926 he was elected president of WAPLITE and held this position until January 1928. In 1926-1928 he was a member of the editorial board of the magazine Krasny Put, published in the almanac Literary Fair, and wrote an article entitled Criticism or Prosecutor's Interrogation, where defended the artist's right to identity and internal independence.

Since the end of 1929, he has been a member of the presidium of the new literary association Prolitfront .

Since the early 1930s, has been subjected to sharp political and aesthetic criticism. After a short trip to the Kherson region, seeing the famine of 1933, he began to give up on revolutionary ideas.

At the first All-Union Congress of Soviet Writers on August 17 - September 1, 1934 Kulish was declared a bourgeois-nationalist playwright.

In December 1934 he was arrested by the NKVD and accused of belonging to a nationalist terrorist organization and relations with the OUN . In March 1935, during the trial of the “ Borotbist Case”, he was sentenced by the visiting military collegium of the Supreme Court (together with G. Epik , E. Pluzhnik , V. Pidmogilny , etc.) to 10 years in the Solovetsky camps .

On Solovki kept in strict isolation. November 3, 1937, by order of a special trio of the NKVD in the Leningrad Region of October 9, 1937, was shot in the tract Sandarmokh as part of the so-called. "Solovetsky stage" in the amount of 1111 people.

Rehabilitated on August 4, 1956 for lack of corpus delicti.

The first plays “97” (1924), “The Commune in the Steppes” (1925) - mostly of a realistic-everyday character; the comedy farce "Julius Khurina" (1926) has expressionistic features; "The Zone" (1926) - a sharp satire on party careerists, the comedy "So Guska died" (1925) - with elements of symbolism. The peak of Kulish's work is considered to be the plays “People’s Malachy” (1927) and “Mina Mazailo” (1929), their theme is the lying ideals of the communist revolution, national opportunism and the falsity of the philistine environment. The Pathetic Sonata (1929) shows the struggle of the three forces in 1917-18. - Communist, White Guard, and national-patriotic; the play uses the means of the then experimental drama in combination with the traditional Ukrainian theater ( nativity scene ). In the 1930s He wrote the plays Macklen Grasse (1933), Farewell to the Village (1933), The Return of Mark (1934), The Eternal Riot, and others, which were defeated by official criticism.

While in custody, he continued to write. The texts of the very first (“On Fishing”) and the last (“Such”) plays were seized from the writer during his arrest and are considered lost.

In Russian

• Ninety-seven: A play in 4 d. / Per. with Ukrainian A. Gatova. - [Kharkov]: State. ed. Ukraine, 1926. - 72 p.
• 97: Piece in 4 d. / [Author. per. with Ukrainian P. Zenkevich and S. Svobodina]. - M.: Art, 1957. - 138 p.
• Pathetic sonata; Macklen Grasse: Pieces / [Author. per. with Ukrainian P. Zenkevich and S. Svobodina; Entry article by A. Deutsch]. - M.: Art, 1964. - 170 p.
• Pathetic Sonata / Authorization. per. with Ukrainian P. Zenkevich and S. Svobodina. - M., 1965. - 87 p.
• Ninety-seven: A play in 4 d. / Authorization. per. with Ukrainian P. Zenkevich and S. Svobodina. - M., 1966. - 78 p.
• Macklen Grasse / Authorization. per. with Ukrainian P. Zenkevich and S. Svobodina. - M., 1966. - 66 p.
• Plays / [Authorization. per. with Ukrainian; After N. Kuzyakina; Note N. Kornienko; The artist. A.P. Antonov]. - M .: Art, 1980. - 351 p. Content: 97; So Guska died; People’s Malachi; Pathetic sonata; Macklen Grass.

• Remaining address: Rosstrili Solovetsky v'yaznіv z Ukraine at 1937-1938 rock: In 2 volumes - 2nd species., Additional version. i additional - Kiev: Sphere, 2003. (Ukrainian)
• Sergiy Shevchenko . Solovetsky requiem. - Kiev: Express-Polygraph, 2013. (Ukrainian)
• Starinkevich E.I. Kulish Mikola (Nikolai Gurievich) // Brief Literary Encyclopedia. T. 3.M., 1966. Stlb. 888.

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• On the website of the Kherson Regional Children's Library (Ukrainian)
• Goloborodko Ya. "Enlightenment" in the life and spiritual legacy of Nikolai Kulish (Ukrainian)
• The site of the Virtual project "Regional Studies of Tavria". Kulish Nikolay Guryevich