Mikhail Mikhailovich Prishvin

Mikhail Mikhailovich Prishvin is a writer, prose writer, describing in his work man and nature in their relationship, questions of the fate of man, his being, the meaning of life, religion, who made a huge contribution to Russian literature.

Childhood

Prishvin was born on February 4, 1873 in the parental estate of Khrushchevo-Levshino, which is part of the Yelets district, located in the Oryol province. The fortune of the family, once accumulated by the successful merchant Dmitry Prishvin, the writer's grandfather, was completely spent by his father.

Mikhail Dmitrievich, the writer's father, who received a good inheritance, once lost at the card table, mortgaged his estate, parted with the stud farm, thereby leaving his family without any means of subsistence. The writer's father dies from a nervous shock, and his mother Maria Ivanovna is left with five small children and an estate mortgaged for a debt. It took her a lot of strength to remedy the situation by providing her children with a decent upbringing and education.

Education and professional activities

The future famous writer began his education in 1882 with an ordinary village school. After a short time (1883), still little Mikhail was transferred to study at the Yelets gymnasium. Studying there does not last long. Due to the lack of special zeal for study, differing from his older brothers in this, in six years of study he studied only up to grade 4. Poor academic performance and, most importantly, impudence to the teacher were the reason that the boy became a repeater several times and was expelled.

Since 1893, Mikhail continued his studies at the Alexander Real School, living with his uncle, a major industrialist Ignatov. Studying in Tyumen lasted six years. His uncle, who did not have his own children, saw his nephew as a future successor, heir, but young Mikhail gave up everything and entered the chemical and economic department of the Riga Polytechnic, which was popular at that time.

The activity of the future writer led to disastrous consequences: for participation in Marxist circles, organizing revolutionary activities, he was soon expelled and convicted (1897). The penalty for political motives was 3 years. It is the serving of the sentence that makes Prishvin never again engage in politics, so this period in his biography can be considered a turning point. He again returns to his native Yelets, having the status of an exile.

After prison, it was forbidden to be exiled in the large city of Prishvin. He asked permission to continue his studies abroad. By 1900, such permission was issued and the future writer moved to Germany "in order to study, to be useful for his homeland." In 1902, Prishvin graduated from the agronomy department of the University of Leipzig.

He returns to his homeland, lives in Klin, works as a zemstvo agronomist. He was also in the service of the Petrovsky Agricultural Academy under the guidance of Professor Pryanishnikov, served as secretary of a major official in St. Petersburg. The future writer published several articles on agricultural topics. He tried to introduce advanced ideas into agriculture and agronomy.

Origins of creativity

The first short story "Sashok" Prishvin published in the periodical "Spring" (1906). The story received many positive reviews. After him, Mikhail forgot a little about his profession as an agronomist, and began to get involved in folklore and the study of ethnography. He began to travel a lot in the northern regions. Visited Karelia, Norway. It was on these trips that he observed wildlife, life, speech of indigenous peoples, wrote down fairy tales, other forms of folklore as travel essays. Works come out: “In the land of fearless birds”, “Behind the magic bun”. Traveling across the expanses of the Crimea and Kazakhstan, the writer writes short stories "Adam and Eve", "Black Arab". He began to maintain his well-known notes, which he did not interrupt all his life, and their total amount was 25 volumes.

Photo: Mikhail Prishvin for a walk

Now Prishvin is completely immersed in literary life. He communicated with Petersburg decadents Remizov and Merezhkovsky. Their influence can be traced very well in the subsequent stories of the writer “Krutoyarsky beast”, “At the walls of the invisible city”. The writer owes the publication of the first collection of works by the Znanie publishing house to the literary figure of the era Maxim Gorky.

Personal life

According to Prishvin, every person should have a personal life. He married an ordinary peasant woman from near Smolensk when he was 25 years old. From the marriage, the writer had three children: all three were sons, two of them later were related to fiction. His wife never interfered with her husband's affairs and voluntarily devoted 30 years of her life to the writer.

There were other moments of personal life. Even while studying abroad, a young Englishwoman became his lover. It was just student love, necessary for the flight, and not for family relationships. The girl had very strict manners and immediately refused the not yet very famous writer. From the transferred refusal, Prishvin took up poetry, then returned to his homeland. Mikhail, suffering from unrequited love, agrees to marry a semi-literate peasant woman, Efroksinya Pavlovna, who always reminded him of an Englishwoman from the past.

Photo: Mikhail Prishvin with a dog

After the death of his first wife, Prishvin suddenly married again. In 1950 he was looking for a secretary. A certain Valeria Liorko (Lebedeva) got a job with him, who promised that not a single page of his creations would be lost. He offered the woman his hand and heart. This woman really did not let the writer down: even after his death, she worked with archives, wrote books about an outstanding person, and for many years led the writer's museum.

Life and work - the "golden period"

During the First World War, Mikhail Mikhailovich worked as a correspondent at the front. His articles and essays on military events were often published in the newspapers Russkiye Vedomosti and Rech.

After the Great October Revolution, the prose writer worked as a teacher for a short time, worked as an agronomist, doing local history work in parallel with his main activity. It is noteworthy that he worked as a teacher in the same gymnasium in the city of Yelets, from where he was once expelled. He worked at the Dorogobuzh school, was an education instructor. From September 1917, Prishvin published in the newspaper Volya Naroda, preparing the release of his collection. He lived in Yelets, near Smolensk and the Moscow region.

The writer was passionately interested in hunting, studying his native land, which left an imprint on the works of his work: hunting stories, children's works, notes “Berendey's Springs” and “Calendar of Nature”. With his creations, he calls for a kindred attitude towards nature, its diversity. In parallel with this theme, a new direction of the works can be traced: essays appear related to one hero, who most likely represented the writer himself with his philosophical views and moral quests.

In the 20s of the last century, Prishvin began work on the novel "Kashcheev's Chain", continuing to work on it almost until his death. His works appear in the publications Novy Mir and Krasnaya Nov. Travels to the regions of the Far East, the North of Russia, and the Caucasus begin again.

The propaganda of the essay genre begins, and then the writer again moves away from his usual scientific knowledge, folklore to artistic classical prose. He creates new poetic stories, novels: “Dear animals”, “Ginseng”. In the latest creation, which is considered one of the best works of the writer, there is a line of search for the “creativity of life”, passion, pain of loss. The story "Undressed Spring" tells about his journey through the Russian lands. The writer creates a new genre of diary notes - poetic miniatures. The first of them appeared in the poem "Phacelia" (1940) and the cycle of works "Forest drops" (1940).

In the early 30s, the fashionable passion for cars did not pass by the writer. He was one of the first to buy his own car in Moscow and studied car business at the Gorky Automobile Plant. He did not trust his “Moskvich” to anyone. He rode it into the woods to seek inspiration with his faithful dogs.

The entire Prishvin family spends the years of the Great Patriotic War in a small and remote village near Pereslavl Zalessky, staying there until the very end of hostilities. 1943 was marked by the awarding of the writer with the Order of the Red Banner of Labor. During the war years, works on military topics were created “Stories about Leningrad children”, “The Tale of Our Time”, and the writer continues to reveal the beauty of nature in the works “Pantry of the Sun”, “Ship Thicket”.

In the post-war period, from 1946 to 1954, the literary figure lives at his country dacha near Zvenigorod, where the M. Prishvin Museum has now been created. In recent years, as always, he devoted a huge amount of energy to his work. The posthumous book “Eyes of the Snake” was published already in 1957 after the death of the writer.

By the age of 80, doctors diagnosed the writer with oncology - stomach cancer. Six months later, on January 16, 1954, Prishvin died. At the time of his death, the outstanding writer was 81 years old. The famous writer was buried at the Vvedensky cemetery in Moscow.

In the creative biography of this outstanding writer, one can trace the highest sense of moral duty, the observations of an artist, a naturalist, the contradictions of philosophical views, fed by the juices of folk culture and Russian traditions. It was this unusual combination that made this outstanding literary figure make an invaluable contribution to the development of Russian prose.

The relevance and reliability of information is important to us. If you find an error or inaccuracy, please let us know. Highlight the error and press keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Enter .