Selvinsky I. L. Biography briefly. Selvinsky Ilya Lvovich. Ilya Selvinsky: “No, I did not live an easy life. Throw a stone, who is without sin

Selvinsky Ilya

Ilya Lvovich Selvinsky

In the zoo - Spell - From the diary - Cossack comic - What happiness can be - Kokchetav - Do not believe my photographs .... - I do not choose the reader. He ... - Night plowing - The first layer - Sonnet (There is no immortality ...) - Sonnet (Raised by a variety of reading ...) - Sonnet (Mental suffering as a scale ...) - Happiness is the quenching of pain ... - Taman - Tractor `S-80` - Gypsy - Noises - Youth - I saw it!

SPELL Call me, call me, Call me, call me!

If trouble jumps on your shoulders, Not any, but precisely the Age-old misfortune-beard, Call me, call me, Do not be ashamed of yourself or me Just trade grief for joy, Melt your fear by the fire!

Call me, call me, Call me, call me, Don't you dare to whisper to a letter, Call me even by my name I will hold you with my breath!

Call me, call me, Pos-call me ... 1958 Thought armed with rhymes. ed. 2e. Poetic anthology on the history of Russian verse. Compiled by V.E. Kholshevnikov. Leningrad, Leningrad University Publishing House, 1967.

YOUTH You will fly into the air in the morning, Kissing women with the wind, Laughter, like a vigorous gem-chug, Jumping into the teeth, into the noz-dri ...

What would it be? It seems that there is no reason: the sky is slicked decorously, the sea is also at rest.

Neatly poured puddles The day before yesterday's rain; Nine hours at the Caterpillar tower for service;

And at me 1000 nya in the sub-tongue Something sprinkles peas, So the lungs loudly Laem explode into laughter ...

Listen, come on, it's full! But not a damn thing can be done: Laughter is golden, ripe, Nourishing and so full.

How many funny things in the world: Here, for example, "cabbage" ... It is necessary to think about the sad, Just what to outline?

Plague rats can get into the cellar Tomorrow. I will be bald too. The cliffs once perished ...

Somewhere in Norway, a flagship ... And suddenly again: "cabbage"! Devilry! How delicious So rattle the diaphragm!

Laughter of golden spill, Foamy, excellent. Shh ... come on: is it decent to be happy like that? Soviet poetry 1917-1929. Moscow, "Soviet Russia", 1986.

IN THE ZOO Here are scales, feathers and fur, Here are moans, growls, laughter, shouts, But the Philosophical in tigers shocks most of all:

Here from the board to the board Flickers, upholstered with twigs, Drunken whirling resentment, Phantasmagoria of melancholy. 1945 Russian poets. Anthology in four volumes. Moscow, "Children's Literature", 1968.

SONNET There is no immortality. And glory is only smoke, And drink for at least a hundred generations, But somewhere you will be replaced by another And still disappear, poor genius.

History you were necessary In total, maybe a few moments ... But do not despair, poor genius, Sad monotonous and unsociable.

As before, you strive for eternity! Let the thought never leave you that the echo from the distant future is more necessary for you than glory and medals.

There is no immortality. But life is full, when it is given by immortality. November 14, 1943, Adji-Mushkai quarries Ilya Selvinsky. Selected works. Library of the poet (Large series). Leningrad: Soviet writer, 1972.

I SAW IT! You can not listen to folk tales, Do not believe the newspaper columns, But I saw it. With my own eyes. Do you understand? Saw. Myself.

Here is the road. And over there is a hill. There is a moat between us. Grief rises from this ditch. A mountain without shores.

No! No words about this ... Here you have to growl! Weep! Seven thousand shot in a frozen pit, Rusted like ore.

Who are these people? Fighters? Not at all. Maybe partisans? No. Here lies the lop-eared Kolka. He is eleven years old.

All his relatives are here. Farm "Vesely". The entire "Samostroy" - one hundred and twenty yards Near stations, nearby villages All the hostages were sent to the ditch.

They lie, sit, crawl onto the parapet. Everyone has a gesture. Amazingly yours! Winter in the dead froze the feeling with which death was accepted alive,

And the corpses rave, threaten, hate ... Like a meeting, this dead silence makes a noise. In whatever form they are dumped With their eyes, teeth, neck, shoulders They argue with the executioners, They exclaim: "You will not win!"

Guy. He's very light. The chest is thrown open in protest. One leg in a thin boot, the other shines with the varnish of the prosthesis. A light snow falls and falls ... A young invalid opened his chest. He apparently shouted: "Shoot, devils!" Choked. Fell. Frozen. But the sentry above the rookery of death Sticks out a crutch stuck into the ground. And the fury of the dead did not freeze: She calls out to the front-line from the rear, She hoists a crutch like a pole, And her milestone is visible far away.

Grandma. This one died standing, Got up from the corpses and so died. Her face, glorious and simple, cramped in black spasm. The wind flutters her rags ... Sealing wax froze in the left orbit, But the right eye is deep in the sky Between the breaks of the clouds. And in this reproach to the Virgin of the Most Pure The collapse of faith for decades: "If fascists live in the world, So there is no God."

Nearby is a tortured Jewess. She has a child with her. Just like in a dream. With what care the child's neck Is tied with mother's gray scarf ... Mothers did not change their hearts: Going to be shot, going under a bullet, An hour, half an hour before the grave, Mother saved the child from a cold. But even death is not parting for them: Now enemies are powerless over them And a red trickle

from a child's ear Flows down

maternal

How scary to write about it. How creepy. But we have to. Necessary! Write! Fascism now cannot get off with a joke: You measured out the baseness of the fascist soul, You realized in all its falsity the "Sentimentality" of Prussian dreams, So let

through them

waltzes This maternal handful sticks out.

Come on! Brand! You are standing in front of a massacre, You caught them by the hand - catch them! You see how the executioners crushed us with an armor-piercing bullet, So zap like Dante, like Ovid, Let nature itself weep, If

saw And did not go crazy.

But silently I stand over a terrible grave. What are the words? Words have decayed. There was a time - I wrote about the dear, About the clicking of the nightingale.

It would seem, what's wrong with this topic? Truth? In the meantime, Try to find the real word Even for these topics.

And here? Why, there and then nerves, like bows, But the lines ... are more muffled than boiled vyzhig. No, comrades: language will not express this torment.

He is too accustomed, therefore, pale. Too graceful, therefore stingy, To the inexorable grammar reduced Each cry that leaves the lips.

Here it would be necessary ... It would be necessary to convene a veche, From all the tribes from staff to staff And take from everyone all human, Everything that has broken through the centuries, Screams, wheezes, sighs and groans, Echoes of invasions, pogroms, massacres ... Not this eh

bottomless torment

Are the words you are looking for akin to?

But we also have such a speech, Which is hotter than any words: The enemies are cursed with buckshot. Batteries are thundering with the words of the prophets. Can you hear the trumpets on the lines? Confusion ... Screams ... The thugs turn pale. They're running! But they have nowhere to run from. From your bloody grave.

Loosen the muscles. Cover your eyelids. Climb up these heights with grass. Who saw you, henceforth forever All your wounds in the soul will take away.

Moat ... Can you say about it in a poem? Seven thousand corpses.

Semites ... Slavs ... Yes! This cannot be said in words. Fire! Only with fire! 1942, Kerch Russian Soviet poetry. Ed. L.P. Krementsova. Leningrad: Education, 1988.

Cossack Joking Black-eyed Cossack Shod me a horse, She asked me for silver, Labor is not dearly valuing.

What is your name, young girl? And the young woman says: - You will smell my name From under the footfall of hooves.

I drove down the street, I rode along the road, Along the path between the brown ones, Between the brown ones between the rocks:

Masha? Zina? Dasha? Nina? It’s like she’s not ... "Ka-cha! Ka-cha!" - they carve Me the horseshoes of a horse.

Since then, - at least I'm going at a step, At least I'll gallop, "Katya! Katya! Katerina!" I whisper incoherently.

What kind of nonsense is that? Well I have another. But Katya, like a song, From the soul, brother, do not lime:

A black-eyed Cossack girl Shoe me a horse, At the same time, in passing, Chained me too. 1943 Russian Soviet poetry. Ed. L.P. Krementsova. Leningrad: Education, 1988.

TAMAN When in the Caucasian cavalry regiment I see a Cossack On a white-footed horse of a bay school, In a Circassian coat with a red soul and a helmet on one side, Which still calls the hut "kuren" Taman land! "

From the Crimean village from the village to Chushka to the spit I walked around yours, Taman, mustachioed oats, I know smoother fighting bloody rot, I can recognize your every hut by sight. It used to be that you would bring a letter from the front from a Cossack. They would make a guest sit on a trestle bed under a saber with braid, And a small peasant hall, covered in newspaper wallpaper, will begin to stare at you. Three samovars will boil, three lamps will hum, Three girls will vying with each other to turn your head, Until your mother screams and, taking a Turkish basin, Like a golden horse, does not redeem you.

Taman is mine, Taman is mine, an outpost of my country! I fell in love with the way of battle of antiquity in you, I fell in love with your military field breeze, Your guttural streams and your proud talk. Cavalry land! You will not be overwhelmed, Though you can plow 1000 with a bombing, harrow with infantry. Someone else's banner over you, someone else's speech in the house, But the enemy knows:

you will not surrender to him. My Taman, my Taman! Spring commotion Does not torn the swift with such longing home from afar, With which your Cossack regiments, the sons of Kuban, are drawn to you through fire and dreams.

Born into a simple working-class family, Ilya Lvovich, from his youthful age, strives to write poetic works, standing out among his peers for eloquence and a rare sharpness of mind. Selvinsky finds his true creative direction only after studying many secondary currents, so different in the art of poetry. After many years of hard work, the poems written by Ilya Lvovich attract public attention, which later contributes to his becoming the chairman of the literary center. Changing many professions, Selvinsky still does not break away from writing his works, persistently polishing each of the written lines. However, creativity leads Ilya Lvovich to dissatisfaction with the Soviet government, which considered his poems unacceptable for reading by citizens.

The views of the constructive currents of the twentieth century are invariably visible in Selvinsky's works. The poet holds an opinion that embodies the dominance of technology in modern human life. Having a membership in one of the clubs following avant-garde traditions, Ilya Lvovich finds himself among non-standard views of the world and an unusual structure of rhyme.

(1899, Simferopol - 1968, Moscow)

From the book of destinies: Ilya Lvovich Selvinsky - Russian Soviet poet, translator, prose writer, playwright of Crimean origin.

Born in Simferopol in the family of a furrier. He studied at Evpatoria. He graduated from high school in 1919. In search of work, he tried many activities: he was an actor, a wrestler in a circus, a loader in the port, a sitter, a reporter, a swimming instructor, and an agricultural worker.

In 1918, while still a high school student, he joined the Red Guard detachment, participated in battles with the German invaders near Perekop, and was wounded.

After graduating from the gymnasium, he entered the medical faculty of the Tavrichesky University. In 1920 he transferred to Moscow State University at the Faculty of Social Sciences, which he graduated in 1923.

He gathered a small circle of literary like-minded people, on the basis of which the LCC (Literary Center for Constructivists) group was created in 1924, which, in addition to him, included Valentin Asmus, Yevgeny Gabrilovich, Korneliy Zelinsky and other writers.

After graduating from Moscow State University, he served for some time in the Tsentrosoyuz and often went on business trips, visited the Far East and the Far North. In 1930-1932 Selvinsky worked as a welder at the Moscow Electrozavod, authorized by Soyuzpushnina in Kamchatka. In 1933 he became a correspondent for the newspaper "Pravda", visited many countries of Western Europe.

In 1927-1930 he led a sharp publicistic polemic with.

In 1933-1934, as a correspondent for Pravda, he was a member of the expedition headed by O. Yu. Schmidt on the steamer Chelyuskin, but he did not take part in the drift and wintering: as part of a group of eight people, he landed ashore while staying near the island Kolyuchin and walked with the Chukchi on dogs across the ice of the Arctic Ocean and the tundra to Cape Dezhnev.

Member of the CPSU (b) since 1941. Since 1941, he was at the front in the ranks of the Red Army, first with the rank of battalion commissar, then with the rank of lieutenant colonel. He received two concussions and one serious wound near Bataisk. He was awarded a gold watch by the Deputy People's Commissar of Defense for the text of the song "Combat Crimean", which became the song of the Crimean Front. At the end of November 1943, Selvinsky was summoned from the Crimea to Moscow. He was criticized for writing "harmful" and "anti-artistic" works. He was demobilized from the army, but then, in April 1945, he was reinstated in rank and allowed to return to the front.

He taught at the Literary Institute from the moment of its formation and, intermittently, until the end of his life.

The first poetic publications appeared in 1915 in the newspaper "Evpatoria Novosti". The first book of poems "Records" was published in 1926. During his years at Tsentrosoyuz he wrote the poetic epic "Ulyalaevshchina" (published in 1927). In the early 1930s, he created the satirical-fantastic drama Pao-Pao, the play Umka the Polar Bear. Impressions from the Chelyuskin epic were reflected in the poem "Chelyuskiniana" (1937-1938), and later in the novel "Arctic" (1960). Selvinsky wrote poetry all his life, from his school years to the very end. The poem "An old man has to get used to a lot ..." was written two days before his death.

Knight at the crossroads

Father, what is “The Knight at the Crossroads”?

This, son, is the most difficult task in life. This is when before

you have many roads, but you have to choose one and only one.

Why is this the most difficult task?

Because this is your choice, for life ...

Ah, what glorious times were ... Time of romance: "Amid a noisy ball, by chance ...", "I met you, and everything is old ..." And what people, people were! "Sir! What does it mean? What is this? A challenge, or what? " - “Yes, sir! This is a challenge! "

And the time for ballads has come ... Accordingly, new heroes have appeared, simple in communication, without any "frills" there: "Do you want to be in the face? !!" They are nicknamed "nails". In one ballad it was said: “Nails would be made of these people. There would not be in the world stronger than nails! " There, there ran the "nails" in a crowd. And the banner in hand: "Anarchy is the mother of order!" These, then, with Bakunin and the prince, who is Kropotkin, in the head ... And this one, who sneaks and looks around every minute, and spurs a leaflet to the curbstone, is also a "nail." But already with Lenin (Ulyanov) in the head and in the heart. It is getting dark, however. So the light in the window was flickering, and you can see how in the little room around the table with the samovar people are huddling together, depicting tea drinking. And everyone is wearing pince-nez. And they say ... they say ... These, therefore, with Martov at the head, are called Mensheviks. Well, you can't make all kinds of "nails" out of these, as well as the "Octobrists" and the Cadets ...

From Selvinsky:

I had a nail life:

I've been on my hat,

And then it also happened:

I was torn away with ticks.

But lamenting the nail,

I was not a cog anywhere.

The son of a Crimean subject, Elliy-Karl Shelevinsky, stood at a crossroads. The song "Among the untouched roads - one way is mine" has not yet been composed, and its author was not included in the project, in the sense of conception. Before Ellius-Karl lay many roads, trodden by the "herds" of the possessed. And each trace carried a certain shade of vanity and glory. And these roads also had a common ending for all of them: "IZM".

Symbolism

I can see the vastness from the window of heaven.

Wavy whole area of clouds

Milky ridges, gray mountains,

And melting blocks of glaciers.

And, scattering gentle foams,

As a whole firmament a serene gaze,

Shine in their imperishable beauty

Jets of heavenly blue lakes ...

Ivan Konevsky, symbolist poet

Acmeism

A. Akhmatova

Iron hooks and blocks creak

And the carcasses should slide up and down.

Under pale hymen bruising

And the insides are blue-black.

It's just that. We are people in our power

This slippery wetted board

Ugly chopped off parts

Tear with knives into red pieces.

Mikhail Zenkevich, poet-acmeist

Futurism

Ded. Myself. Vermel

Dispelling a pearl water cannon,

Heavenly choirs descended,

I will not forget your spring fan

And some nonsense takeoffs ...

The blind man couldn't help but notice

Struck by a stately vision,

What is the first to meet the valley here

I was artificially born.

Poet-futurist David Burliuk

There were many "isms", and the young man stood in deep thought. "We'll go the other way!" - he resolved his doubts. It is unlikely that he assumed that long before him this phrase had already been uttered once by another young man and for a completely different reason.

Every era has its own symbol. Ask the current "latch" what is the symbol of the current era, and he will answer without hesitation: "iPhone" and "Otpad". (Oh, forgive me my backwardness, well, of course, "iPad"). And in my time, spaceships were the symbol of the era ... How long ago was it? Yes, some 40-50 years ago ... Epochs change, and symbols change with them.

Try to determine what was the symbol of the era of the time of Ellia-Karl? The revolution? Well, yes, yes ... Airplanes? And this, of course ... Auto? Not without it...

It seems to me that the symbol of that era was the Eiffel Tower. Grace, completeness, aspiration - all this showed the world a new beginning - engineering thought, and as its triumph - this tower, which caused so much indignation among the contemporaries of its birth and so much adoration among their descendants. It combined a completely new - engineering thought managed to embody grace and completeness into a metal structure.

"We will go the other way ..." So, among the many trampled roads, one appeared, still not traveled by anyone, although it ended with "ism".

This poetic road was called CONSTRUCTIVISM, and Ellia-Karl Shelevinsky became its founder. Although what kind of "Ellia-Karl" is he? Ilya Selvinsky stepped into Russian poetry.

And he got his surname from his grandfather, a cantonist of the Fanagoria regiment ... And his grandfather got the surname unusually, like a banner picked up from the hands of a fallen soldier. Having already become a cantonist, Elliogu's grandfather took the name of a friend, also a cantonist, who fell in battle. From his grandfather he got a pinch of adventurism. And from his father got a handful of romance. And from both, from his grandfather and father, young Ilya got handfuls of both courage and a sense of dignity. And from my mother ... No matter how hard she tried, she could not instill in her son a sense of pragmatism, rationality.

Adventurism, and even in conjunction with romance (and not to become a romantic there, in Evpatoria, where an amazing view of the sea opened from the window of the gymnasium, was impossible!), Turned into an explosive mixture of youthful adventures and adventures. By his 18 years, he managed to visit a cabin boy on a schooner, a sitter in an art school (and after all, he had a nature: athletic, physically strong!), A circus artist - a wrestler under the name "Lurikh 3", a newspaper reporter. And on top of that, he was a Red Army soldier (heredity affected, "military bone"), an underground worker, in Sevastopol he was arrested by the White counterintelligence service, sat in prison and miraculously survived. Yes, such a biography would be enough for several lives!

And the irrepressible thirst for life and passions either throws him on the Chelyuskin expedition, then makes him ride a dog sled with the Chukchi, or calls him to work as a welder at an electric plant. Or maybe trade furs (again heredity: his father, an invalid of the Russian-Turkish war, was a furrier, and his lessons were good).

In the days of gray-brown-crimson, he once also had to make a choice. And in that roulette, on which fate was at stake, he bet on red, and was devoted to this color all his life.

We were confused in the subtle systems of parties

we followed Lenin, Kerensky, Makhno,

despaired, returned to their desks,

to boil again if the banner flutters ...

There were a lot of conversations behind the back, sidelong glances and condemnations of the taciturn, “in the back,” from fellow writers, he knew about it. Much later it will break through in verse. But that will be later. Until then ...

And it was a voice. And this voice fascinated with its, not even rhythm, but TAKTics. And the voice was heard, and they started talking about the young poet. (For goodness sake, young? He began to compose poetry from the age of 15, and now he is already over 20, BUT: OWN ROUTE has been chosen!) And they started talking, rustling about young talent, akin to Pasternak and Mayakovsky. And there was no escape, and Mayakovsky had to admit his young talent! A. V. Lunacharsky called Selvinsky a "virtuoso of verse" and said that he was "Franz Liszt in poetry ...". Once listening to the poet's uniquely masterful reading of his lyric poems, Lunacharsky joked: "You should be applied to each volume of your poems so that poetry lovers could perceive the music of your poems not only with their eyes, but also by ear" (from the memoirs of Al. Deutsch).

Red coat

Red coat with some kind of brown fur,

Velvet beret, blue teeth,

Sweet face with such a sly laugh

A drunken crimson mouth, cheerful as spring.

Black eyes shimmering with caress

Curled bend like doll lashes

From which the shadow falls half-mask,

From which the look is like a lightning flash.

Where are you - Chardin, Whistler and Quentisti,

Where are you, Fragonard, Barbeux or Watteau?

Your holy and inspirational brush

Cover beret and red coat.

The poem is not yet a master, just standing at a crossroads, it was written in 1917. But it reflected one feature of Selvinsky the poet, which was clearly manifested in Elia-Karl's gymnasium years. Painter's talent. He was predicted in those years, success and luck in painting. Maybe from there, from those years in the poem and the brightness of colors, and the geometry of the picture, and the play of shadows and highlights?

I went out to the arap. Channel bourgeois.

And on the belly - a golden bamber.

"Musya, what time is it?" - I come easily ...

Dzzzyz between the horns ... - and amba.

I just wanted to take off my watch -

Someone's shmara hisses: "Sixth."

I, of course, move. For a bale. For the scales.

And the miltons are a bloody flock!

Raised hi: "Catch!", "Hold!"

The trees are green: they are running opposite ...

And I, you understand, have a chance to live, -

Like a rooster that has not been cut, my heart beats.

And sometimes it seems that Selvinsky's poems are blanks clamped in a lathe. This chisel removes shavings from the workpiece, just like a sculptor cleaves an extra stone from granite. And on the way out - you will get a part sharpened, polished to a shine. In this sketch "Thief" there are no unnecessary words, unnecessary "movements". Everything is in psychological dynamics, in rhythm.

The poet Selvinsky defended the positions of the constructivists and defended them most of all before the futurists. Perhaps, precisely because both of these "isms" were close in spirit, close in the measure of talent? Selvinsky was not alone on this "platform." The theoretician of the newly-minted "ism" was the literary critic Cornelius Zelinsky. He defined the task of the new direction in one phrase: "This is the style of the era, its forming principle, which we will find in all countries of our planet, where there is human culture, connected in one way or another with the culture of the world." Among those who creatively supported constructivism were Boris Agapov, Vera Inber, Evgeny Gabrilovich, Vladimir Lugovskoy.

Miners, cupolishers, drillers, chasers,

Planers, riveters, fighters and painters,

Gleaming in gloss the casting of the ribs and the embossing of the cheek

Were feverish from revolutionary malaria.

At least a second, at least a second

Open the valves of stagnant storms ...

And at this time Petersburg

Crumbled to smithereens in October.

Ilya Selvinsky, "Ulyalaevschina"

as always,

under capitalism.

For Troitsky

cars and trams,

Under the bridge

Neva river,

the Kronstadters are sailing ...

From govok's rifles

Winter to stagger.

Vladimir Mayakovsky, the poem "Good!"

And in this dispute, Vladimir Mayakovsky was right, who once said: “Let us be considered glory, because we are our own people! Let socialism built in battles be our common monument. ”

The tragic death of a rival friend broke Selvinsky. After Mayakovsky's death, he departed from the positions of constructivism, and the section of constructivists itself was disbanded.

"Oh, war, what have you done, vile ..."

In the war that became the Great Patriotic War, Ilya Selvinsky volunteered for the "post of a writer" in the newspaper "Son of the Fatherland" of the 51st Separate Army, which defended the poet's homeland, Crimea. Selvinsky coped with the "post of a writer". His poems constantly appeared in army newspapers, central periodicals, in books. And besides the "position" there was also heredity, which forced the poet to break into cities and towns with attacking units. And two military orders, and was presented to the third, and rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel. And the fact that he was in the ranks of the advancing troops made it possible to see the war "at first glance". With this "first glance" he will see the Bagerovsky ditch on the outskirts of Kerch, filled with the bodies of shot civilians. And the poem “I saw it” will be written.

You can not listen to folk tales,

Don't believe the newspaper columns

But I saw it. With my own eyes.

Do you understand? Saw. Myself.

Here is the road. And over there is a hill.

that's how -

Grief rises from this ditch.

A mountain without shores.

No! This is impossible in words ...

Here you have to growl! Weep!

Seven thousand shot in a frozen pit,

Rusted like ore.

It was one of the first stories about the Holocaust of the Jewish people in that war. I read - the poem "I saw it." Excuse me, but if you correct the syntax: “I! THIS IS! SAW!" No longer a poem. This is the speech of the accuser. And not speech at all. This is a SCREAM. CHARGE CERTIFICATE! Selvinsky, a military officer, knew the price of death. Two military orders, presented to the third ... he knew, he knew the price ... Therefore, he was horrified by the barbarism and shouted: “I! It! Saw! ".

And one of Selvinsky's poems from those war years gained truly nationwide fame, becoming a popular song. "Cossack comic", the music to which was written by Blanter, and today they like to sing. And the song was born 70 years ago.

The poet Selvinsky, who "performed the post of a writer" in an army newspaper, was seriously wounded and had two concussions. Was presented to the third military order. But...

The military career ended abruptly and almost catastrophically. At the end of 1943 he was recalled from the Adzhimushkai quarries in the Crimea to Moscow. The Secretariat of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) considered the personal file of Lieutenant Colonel Selvinsky. The matter consisted in writing the poem "Whom Russia lulls". The poet was required to explain what the line "The country will warm up and the ugly" means. Whom does Selvinsky mean by the word "freak"? Suddenly, Stalin entered the office where the Secretariat was sitting, his face pitted with pockmarks. And only now the whole horror of his situation reached Selvinsky. And everything would be ridiculous, because "the cap is on the thief," if it were not so scary. And I remembered how "more than once, and not twice my mother told me - do not get along with thieves ..."

All right. In the midst of the war at the beginning of 1944, Selvinsky was demobilized from the army. He remained in Moscow, experiencing both disgrace and isolation from the army. Only in April 1945 he will be reinstated in rank and return to service.

(A strange call to Moscow from the front - it seems strange in our times. But at that time it was quite natural. Such a "humane" ending became strange. But for Selvinsky ... was thrown to the ground by an evil force. And all the "kinetics", all the fuse ... Oh, what to say ...)

The theater audience votes with their feet. The reader, on the other hand, votes with another organ, an organ of perception - with his eyes. And in the eyes of readers, Ilya Selvinsky was remembered for his subtle and deep lyrics. And no matter how the poet himself resisted, was not indignant at such a "superficial" perception of his work, proving that, they say, he has a poem "Pushtorg", there is a poetic tragedy "Commander-2", and there is also "Chelyuskiniana" about the exploits of the Chelyuskinites ... From the confessions of Ilya Selvinsky to his readers: “By the way, to readers unfamiliar with my work, I must say that I do not belong to the number of lyric poets. Therefore, the poems printed in this book are only islands in the path of my poetry. Of course, the islands give an idea of the mainland, but it is an idea, not a concept. That is why, if anyone wants to travel in the world of my images, I advise you to read the epic poems: Lynx. Ulyalaevshchina. Notes of the poet. Pushtorg. Arctic. And tragedies: Commander-2. Pao-Pao. Umka is the Polar Bear. Knight John. Wearing an eagle on his shoulder. Reading Faust. Livonian War. From Poltava to Gangut. Big Kirill».

But the readers were worried about the innermost lyrical "digressions". And among the many such "digressions" the cycle "Alice" stands out:

I whisper your name relentlessly

I whisper your name relentlessly.

A magnetic wave through waters and countries

Your foreign name flies.

Five million souls in Moscow

And somewhere between them one.

Square. A park. Street. Square.

No, not her.

So I will live. One among the others.

And with me from now on for years

The eternal circling of these lines

And the deaf and dumb "never."

Ah, Alicia, Alicia ... What have you done ... It was not enough for you to come from Poland to Moscow, it was not enough for you to enter the Literary Institute ... years of wounds ... But among them were Kirill Kovaldzhi and Vladimir Soloukhin ... And each left a literary memory of you. As well as Selvinsky. Oh, how the young people laughed at the excitement of their master, how they made fun of his obvious courting for Alicia Zhukovskaya. And Alicia ... She was not just a beauty. She was the embodiment of her dear Motherland - Poland. The same proud, the same independent, the same hot-tempered and inaccessible ... And “the deaf-mute“ never ”was heard not only by Selvinsky. And the young, due to their "foal" age, simply did not understand that the meeting between Selvinsky and Alicia was not a meeting at all ... It was parting. Just like in the navy they say “Give up the mooring lines”, leaving the pier, and Alicia was the “mooring line”, connecting the poet with the age at which there were still falls in love. "Give up the mooring lines!" - the poet went to an age called old age ...

Throw a stone who is without sin

Ah, how Selvinsky got it from his fellows! He got it for the poems about Lenin, during the war he wrote "The Ballad of Leninism", for the poems about Stalin, in one "Chelyuskinian" there were enough references to Stalin ... He got it for these lines:

I've seen everything. What else should I wait for?

But, looking into the distance with her blue-gray mirage,

As the highest

grace -

Take a look at Communism with one eye.

But the poet especially got it when he publicly condemned Boris Pasternak. In relation to your attitude to the disgraced poet, the attitude towards you in "society" was determined: whether you are shaking hands or not. Selvinsky turned out to be "not shaking hands".

(A person is born in sin and lives in sin. So naturally. But now repentance ... Hard work, almost a feat. The act of Ilya Selvinsky was worthy of a heroic deed. And in this repentance is another feature of Ilya Selvinsky's character as a person and as a poet. capable?)

Selvinsky sent his wife to the sick Pasternak with a request to allow Selvinsky to visit the poet. Permission has been obtained. Sick Selvinsky on his knees asked Pasternak to forgive him this sin. And he was forgiven, and they talked for a long time, but not about sins, but about literary deeds. What to say, how to justify the poet Selvinsky? He could have said in the words of his old friend from the “constructivist workshop” Vladimir Lugovsky:

Oh, year thirty-seven, thirty-seven!

What do I hear at night ...

Steps from the darkness -

Whom? Friends, my comrades,

Which I honestly branded with shame.

Whom? Friends! And for what? For the light

Which seemed clear to me then.

And only the light of tragedy opened

To me the true manifestation of such a light.

To blame him for the faith that he sincerely served, even if in error? He was not a hypocrite, he was sincere both in his faith and in his actions, in which there was no meanness.

I do not choose the reader. He.

He pulls me off the shelf.

That is why the neighbor has a circulation of one million.

Well I have lonely as wolves.

However, I will not, fawning,

To do with a hundred words

You can't write lower than you can -

It is beyond human power.

By the way, by the way,

Why do we need the style of "this is the bottom"?

What a nonentity needs a reader

To whom

Not needed?

And yet I spent a lot of energy,

To become accessible to the heart, like a moan.

But only you do the work, reader:

The tunnel is digging from two sides.

August-October 2013

"POET ORCHESTRA"

Thirty years since the death of the poet is approaching, and everything is moving away from us, his powerful figure. Already few connoisseurs and gourmets of poetry imagine its scale.
But once his name was put in such a row: Mayakovsky, Selvinsky, Bagritsky - and they argued at the same time which of them could claim the first place among their contemporaries. All three have in some way the same destiny: the thirst to adapt with all his might to the new post-revolutionary life, to be promoted to leaders, to shout down everyone else.
Everyone along the way had both achievements and, alas, failures. Such was the era that forced to overextend the voice, sometimes rip it off, to forget that the role of the poet is essentially useless. Remember Parsnip's: "but you yourself must not distinguish between defeat and victory."
We will not condemn poets, but we also cannot fail to take into account the sufficiently weighty circumstances of their habitation in literature. On one of the watercolors of MA Voloshin, which he presented to the poet, there is an inscription “Ilya Selvinsky - Poet-Orchestra”. This definition seems to me to be very apt and succinct. Indeed, the poet's polyphony is amazing. Probably, he alone in poetry tried to speak not in "one language, dried up, without salt", but used all the richness of dialects, jargons, dialects of agitated Russia. Either he speaks lightly and gracefully on behalf of the Odessa thief Motka Malkhamoves, or on behalf of the commanders of the semi-partisan Red Army, feeling like a fish in water in their unthinkable "surzhik", that is, a fusion of the languages of Russian, Ukrainian, Jewish, God knows what else. He visited Chukotka - and wrote the play "Umka - Polar Bear", where the heroes speak like real Chukchi, who barely mastered Russian literacy. A significant part of his young poetry was spent on experiment and search. Searching for a genre, right up to writing poetry in the form of a report, searching for sizes that no one else wrote (imitation of drumbeats in "The Ballad of the Drummer").
It was all the spirit of the era. Kirsanov also knew the word perfectly, was a real circus performer in poetry: it was believed that without this new poetry, corresponding to the revolutionary pressure, could not be created.
Relentless time has shown that this is not the main thing, that the main thing is “not to step away from the face in a single slice,” but they all retreated, and this was one of the reasons that all of them, possessing great talent, faded and went into the shadows. Of course, Selvinsky was larger than both Aseev and Kirsanov - people who received a lot from God, but also ruined a lot in themselves with vanity. However, it is not given to anyone to serve God and mammon at the same time.
Later poets, such as Lipkin, Korzhavin, Tarkovsky, were disgusted with verbal grace, demanded that their students not write anything for the sake of form.
Mayakovsky thought that iambic was dead, but almost a century had passed, and neither A.S. Kushner, neither Timur Kibirov, nor I. Brodsky, finally.
Fans of "leftist" poetry easily enrolled A.T. Tvardovsky. Well? Twardowski from this became less. The "left" playing with words and rhythms had its own charm. But let us refer to the same A.T. Tvardovsky:

While you are young, there is little demand!
Play! But God save me
To live up to gray hair,
Serving empty fun.

Something can be explained by the “high tongue-tied language” that inevitably arises at the turn of eras, when all criteria change, perspectives shift.
In 1921, the poets had nowhere to print, and the main venue for their performances was various poetry cafes. One of these cafes was called "Sopo", that is, "Union of Poets", in common parlance "Sopatka". Many poets gathered there: from venerable or semi-venerable to beginners. Once there was another admission to the union. I.A. Aksenov, the then fashionable director who translated for Meyerhold the sensational play by Krommelink "The Magnanimous Cuckold" (ten years ago the author of these lines saw this play in Leningrad, and it - God forgive me - seemed surprisingly boring and mediocre). Then Aksenov was considered a sort of arbiter elegantiarum, that is, a judge of grace. Among those present was V.V. Mayakovsky, who did not hide his yawns and threw dismissive remarks like "poems as cold as a dog's nose" or "stolen from Mayakovsky."
But then a strong-built young man appeared on the stage, occupying half of the stage, for his costume was sewn from dense fabric that goes to the jibs of fishing dinghies. On his feet were homemade wooden shoes.
No, it was not some kind of shocking in a futuristic way. The fact was that in Evpatoria, where the young man came from, there were no clothes or shoes on sale. In a magnificent bronze baritone, the young man began to chant poetry that made everyone listen.

A fast-flying horse, cast from black and ringing bronze,
You are my one friend, you are my rude song.
All of you are beautiful and powerful, like the sonorous verse of Maron.
All your members are harmonious, like the plate of scarlet armor.

The majority looked at Mayakovsky with bewilderment. But Mayakovsky was silent and smiled. The young man continued:

Do you remember how we rushed with this girl through the fields of Rodan,
U-ear to u-ear with the wind? I am a muscular hand
He squeezed her a hundred-an, swallowed a mouth-a pomegranate honeycomb,
And under a wide palm, accustomed to the reins and iron,
Innocent Persians stood up in little silks.

I am telling this episode based on the recollections of Selvinsky himself.
Many were ready to ridicule the poet, who dared to read some Latin hexameters in the era of the October Revolution. But there were also quite friendly reviews. The poet-translator Argo exclaimed: "This is Latin bronze!"
But everything was decided by the already mentioned Ivan Aleksandrovich Aksenov, whose authority was then very high.
His main idea was that the young man's hexameters were not simple, but modern. Doubling of vowels is a technique, perhaps simplified, but until now no one has thought of it in order to convey the longitude and brevity in ancient poetry in this way. (I would like to note from myself that I fully understand the admiration of a young man, appreciated by an authoritative person, but it is completely incomprehensible when the old teacher of the Literary Institute, the author of the book "Studio of Verse" I.L.Selvinsky, who was supposed to not only AS Pushkin (“Chi-true shines like ol, glass bowls shine” (From Xenophanes of Kolofonsky), but even Trediakovsky and Sumarokov a century and a half ago) used the technique. Truly: the new is the well-forgotten old.
The young man was accepted into the union. When he passed by Mayakovsky's table, the latter, smiling, asked: "Are you really thinking of entering Soviet literature on this horse?"
The poet's relationship with Mayakovsky was ambiguous in different periods: from sympathy to hostility, almost enmity.
Despite his youth, the poet managed to endure and experience a lot. He began to write poetry while still studying at the Evpatoria gymnasium. The times were stormy, and I had to either leave my studies, carried away by the reality that had jumped off the brakes, then again to return to my desk. He was fond of French wrestling and even performed in a circus under the name of Lurich III, then he worked as a lifeguard on the waters, then a "water pump", that is, a man pumping water by hand.
However, he himself said it best in verse:

We were confused in the subtle systems of parties
We followed Lenin, Kerensky, Makhno,
Despaired, returned to their desks,
To boil again if the banner waved.

Is it not because the speakers of "truths"
From Gubkom caps to Berlin panamas
They said about us: "Adventurers,
Revolutionary rabble. Shpana ... "

He either worked in the gang of the then notorious Maruska, then he was a Red Guard. Therefore, he understood the elements of the civil war from the inside. But what he saw and understood did not coincide with what was required by the then criticism, and he almost always got into a mess.
After the revolution, he served in the Tsentrosoyuz. He is well versed in the fur business: his father was engaged in this. By nationality, he was a Krymchak, a Crimean half-Jew, half-Gypsy. No, these are not Karaites, as many thought, for some reason Hitler treated the Karaites condescendingly, but he exterminated the Krymchaks at the root.
As a Soviet employee, the poet was worried about the question of why the intelligentsia should be considered such a second class, isn’t they needed by socialism?

To the land of sheepskin and fleas
Raise on an industrial rope
At least to a level equal to Canada,
A phenomenon is needed, alas, inevitably,
The intelligentsia is called.

On this basis, he had constant disputes with Mayakovsky, who, as you know, unconditionally declared: "I give all my sonorous strength of a poet to you, the attacking class." He sharply criticized Selvinsky's Pushtorg and told him: “Today your problem of the intelligentsia is of no interest to anyone ... It all boils down to joining the proletariat as an assistant attorney at law. If he had your biography, he wouldn't care about that! Now everyone says: we are proletarian, even Count A.N. Tolstoy. And then a Red Guardsman in windings comes out and declares: "And we are from the intelligentsia."
The enmity intensified when Selvinsky organized his "constructivism" against Lef. There were twelve “Konstrovs”, they also called themselves “a remarkable dozen”. It is hardly worth explaining in detail what this constructivism consisted of. They called their collection “Business” at the wrong time and depicted a skyscraper and horn-rimmed glasses on the cover. However, then it corresponded to the proclaimed slogan "American efficiency and Russian revolutionary sweep." Interesting observation: none of the twelve were hurt, although the attacks were quite violent. But the so-called peasant and proletarian poets were completely destroyed in the 30s. Let literary scholars ponder over this oddity. They did not touch the desperate N. Aduev, although N. Erdman was severely persecuted for his much more cautious humor.
For only one poem “V. V. Mayakovsky on demand ”, by the way, written in the manner of Selvinsky, Aduev could be erased into powder. Not erased.
Selvinsky's "Declaration of the Poet's Rights" was openly directed against Lef and Mayakovsky.

Even if with the best car
"Enthusiasm is a guarantee of victories",
What to demand from a man
Who is the poet, as they say?

And you call: to the throat of the song.
Be a flusher, be a vodoliv de.
Yes, there is as much poetry in this schema,
How much aviation is in the elevator.

When do you hurry to give up poetry too?
In rhymes as lush as a dragoon ball
It's funnier than the introduction of a hare
The Society of Rabbit Stew Lovers.

Got away with it, despite the frantic, almost denunciatory cries of Aseev and company. But the "upper circles" were somehow wary of Selvinsky. Sometimes the attacks made him desperate.

How many times, run aground
You growl: “I'm tired! To hell! Bent! "
And like raspberry caramel
I would suck a sour bullet with gusto ...

And suddenly you get a stub of a leaf
From somewhere across the Posiet Bay.
This is a great poetry reader
I felt the pain of my poet.

And again, holding the laughter in my teeth,
You live like Wagrams won
And again you walk among the howling of dogs
With his usual tiger gait.

Despite the poet's feuds with Mayakovsky, Vladimir Vladimirovich, attacking Selvinsky himself, did not allow others to do so.
Actor Erast Garin recalls how Meyerhold staged a rather risky play by Selvinsky "Commander 2", where, in addition to the already discouraged leftism of form, the objective and scary truth of the civil war was given. By the way, an interesting observation: if you take the last editions of Selvinsky's lifetime, you will find this play, but in a terrible, distorted form. (Apparently, in the 1950s, the poet was really bent so much that he became a real comprachicos in relation to his early works, right according to Boris Slutsky's formula: “I break their legs, I cut their hands off”). So, the creepy commander there is called Pankrat Chub. In the same, 20s, version he had a different name. And middle name. Joseph Rodionovich. It is, so to speak, a parte.
Let's go back to the memories of Erast Garin. I will not cite these memoirs abundantly, but will confine myself to a brief retelling of the most interesting places for our topic. Lunacharsky came to the discussion of the play by the artistic council of the theater and, in violation of the usual routine of such discussions, asked to be allowed to speak first. His main thought was: the play is filled with a complex philosophical content, it is very multifaceted, therefore it is impossible to stage it: the workers and peasants will not understand it. It can only be read.
Mayakovsky was the second to ask for the floor: it turns out, he said, that we must impoverish our creative possibilities in order to get closer to the level that is lagging behind today. If I had to be guided by such opportunistic attitudes, I would have dropped my pen and ... went to your assistant, Anatoly Vasilyevich.
Lunacharsky laughed, hugged and kissed Mayakovsky ... and the play was staged. It was still possible then.
Many were then pestered that the workers and peasants would not understand them, that they needed to get closer to working life.
Selvinsky went to work as a welder at an electric lamp plant. He tried with all his might, wrote an entire "Electrozavodskaya Gazeta" in verse, from which the essay "How a Light Bulb is Made" was published several times, even in the "Library" Ogonyok. The poet was praised, although, to be honest, all these products were completely indigestible. And all the same, he could not write like Demyan Bedny or A. Bezymensky, the ears of the intelligentsia stuck out from under the cap of the welder. Only a fragment from I. Ilf's notebook remained from this entire period: “It was at that happy time when the poet Selvinsky, in order to get closer to the industrial proletariat, was engaged in autogenous welding. Aduev was also welding something. They didn't cook anything. Good night, as Alexander Blok wrote, making it clear that the conversation was over ”(p. 151).
To reproaches that he would not succumb to "dressing up" (then there was such a slogan "dressing up literature"), the poet snapped:

Literature is not a parade
With his meticulous comparison.
I would be glad to get dressed
Yes, becoming impoverished is sickening.

Enemies he himself knew how to make amazingly. I think that A.A. Surkov, who later became a major literary functionary, could never forget his epigrams:

Curls it - like a September landscape,
Profile - at least knock out on the statues.
It's a pity - she can't write poetry,
And this
For a poet
Flaw.

The person who wrote these lines saw A.A. Surkov close. He really had a medal-handsome face. Well, as for the inability to write poetry, this is some exaggeration.
By the way, about the "poet-orchestra". Selvinsky himself considered himself a cellist in Russian poetry, indignant at the fact that he was appreciated below the three "accordionists", to whom he attributed the already mentioned A. Surkov, M. Isakovsky and, alas, A. Tvardovsky, which, in my opinion, is not does the poet honor. I must say that he was attacked by evil and unjust. They were accused of a cynical attitude towards women, quoting old, almost youthful verses:

In her, passion is changeable, affection is rare,
And gestures are seductive and unnecessary.
She's tainted but still sweet
Like a sparrow pecked cherries.

But in fact, most of his love poems are addressed ... to his wife, Berta Yakovlevna Selvinskaya, and these verses are pure and touching.

You are still walking, floating on the ground
In a cloud of feminine warmth.
But in a smile that is sweeter than the light,
An extra line has been laid.

But these wrinkles are yours too
Very much to you, dear, to face.
No, don't flatten our love
Even time for the wheel!

These are poems from 1932, "White Arctic Fox". Unlike almost everything else, I quote them from the late 1972 edition. In principle, I prefer editions of the 20s - 30s. Here the poet improved these lines, they became more human. For example, I would never recommend reading "Ulyalaevshchina" in the latest editions. Only early.
The poet addressed his wife in 1960:

You are the dream of my youth
The legend of my old age ...

Selvinsky traveled a lot in the North, participated in the expedition of the famous "Chelyuskin". His enemies spread rumors that he had escaped from the Chelyuskin. In fact, he was sent to reconnaissance with a group of Chelyuskinites when it seemed possible to find a way to land on the ice. They could not go back. Their position was hardly better than that of those who remained on the icebreaker. As you know, everyone was saved.
On the eve of the war, the poet anticipates:

Let's check our metaphors
Thunders, lights and banners
Maybe it will be tomorrow
Attack with the song.

I had to. And very soon. The poet collaborates in front-line newspapers. At this time, the theme of love for the Motherland, hatred for the Nazis became the main theme in his work. A stunning picture is the poem "I saw it" about thousands of people shot by the Nazis. It is large, and I will only give you the beginning.

You can not listen to folk tales,
Don't believe the newspaper columns.
But I saw it. With my own eyes.
Do you understand? Saw. Myself.

Here is the road. And over there is a hill.
Between them
that way - a moat.
Grief rises from this ditch.
A mountain without shores.

No! This is impossible in words ...
Here you have to growl! Weep!
Seven thousand shot in a frozen pit,
Rusted like ore.
…

Poems from this period also evoke attacks. Selvinsky was very different from the average image of a poet.
He writes easier after the war. Telling in the poem "Sevastopol" about how he once sat in prison in this city, and in 1944 ended up there with the Soviet troops that entered there and saw familiar places, the poet exclaims:

And then I realized
That lyrics and homeland are one
That homeland is also a book,
Which we write for ourselves
A cherished feather of memories
Striking out prose and lengths
And leaving the sun and love.

After the war, he continues to lead a seminar at the Literary Institute. Suffice it to say that among his students were S. Narovchatov, D. Samoilov, A. Yashin, R. Gamzatov.
The last years of his life he lived in a dacha near Moscow, students came to him there. During the war, he caught a bad cold, his beautiful voice broke. As he himself said: “The chest resonators have died out. There is nothing more to read about "Tiger." The tiger was one of his favorite images, and he was a great reader of his things.
Unfortunately, his poetic resonators in the post-war years also died out somewhat. He died on March 22, 1968, before he was 69 years old.
Pavel Grigorievich Antokolsky, who loved the poet very much, said heartfelt words about him: “Is it true that Selvinsky did not live to see anything that he dreamed of next to his loved ones. Is our confidence in the destruction of a living soul so firm?
I am many years old. My life is full of losses of the closest and most precious. In all honesty, I confess that I am not sure of the finality of death. True, I'm not sure about the opposite - about immortality ...
Standing in my old age at the threshold of this riddle, I dare to shout infinitely to my dear comrade, friend and brother: "Do not worry, dear. Your work continues. Your animation is breathing. Your books live. The end of their immortality is not foreseen."
On the gravestone (Novodevichye cemetery) his line is engraved: “People! Take at least a line as a keepsake! "
Take it, Ilya Lvovich! Certainly.

Literature
1. Aseev N. Letter to the editor // Komsomolskaya Pravda, 1930, No. 289.
2. Ilf I. Notebooks. M .: Sov. writer, 1957.
3. About Selvinsky. Memories. M .: Sov. writer, 1982.
4. Reznik O. Life in poetry (works of I. Selvinsky). M .: Sov. writer, 1981.
5. Selvinsky Ilya. Selected works. L .: Sov. Writer. Library of the poet, large series, 1972.
6. Selvinsky Ilya. Lyrics. M .: Art. literature, 1934.
7. Selvinsky Ilya. Selected Poems. M .: Library "Ogonyok", 1930.
8. Selvinsky Ilya. I will talk about poetry: articles, memoirs, "Poetry Studio". M .: Sov. writer, 1982.

One of the smallest peoples of Russia, the Krymchaks, gave the country one of the most prominent poets of the twentieth century. Ilya Selvinsky's poems, as well as his prose and drama, have taken their rightful place in Soviet culture. It is unusual that his work turned out to be cyclical: towards the end of his life, Selvinsky returned with his old works, having significantly edited them.
The poet died in Moscow on March 22, 1968. He went through a lot in 68 years: he fought in two wars, traveled in the Arctic, before his literary career, he changed a lot of professions.

The early years of Selvinsky
Selvinsky was born into a Crimean family on October 11 (24 in a new style), 1899. It happened in the city of Simferopol. The family had glorious military traditions: my grandfather served in the Fanagoria regiment, and my father was a veteran of the Russian-Turkish war of 1877. The poet himself will also spend a lot of time at the front.
Ilya Lvovich graduated from elementary school, then from a gymnasium - and already in these young years he studied poetry. Ilya Selvinsky first published his poems in 1915: they were published in the newspaper "Evpatoria Novosti".
The range of professions to which the poet devoted his youth is surprising: from the work of a loader to the work of a model, a reporter, and even a wrestler in a circus. Also Selvinskikh, seized by revolutionary sentiments, took part in the Civil War on the side of the Red Army.
After the war he went to Moscow, where he entered the Moscow State University. By this time, the poems of Ilya Selvinsky had gained popularity, and he himself had a significant weight in poetic circles. The Krymchak poet was rightly considered the leader of the constructivist movement.
In 1926, the first collection of Selvinsky's poems was published, and the same period became a time of experiments for the author: he wrote bold and unusual poems, poems strange for their time. Alas, much in Selvinsky's work will still be misunderstood by the authorities.

The mature years of the poet
Surprisingly, against the backdrop of such literary success, Selvinsky worked for some time as a welder at a factory in the late 1920s. And almost immediately after that he sent on a trip on the legendary "Chelyuskin", as a correspondent for the newspaper "Pravda".
In further legendary and dramatic events around this ship, he did not participate, leaving the board before the start of the drift and wintering. But even without the harsh nature of the Arctic, there were enough problems: in 1937, government resolutions were issued stating that Ilya Selvinsky wrote poetry "anti-artistic and harmful." Moreover, the officials had questions even about the harmless play "Umka - Polar Bear".
In 1941, Selvinsky was again at the front. There were enough poets in the fields of the Great Patriotic War, but in the rank of lieutenant colonel, to which Selvinsky rose to the rank - hardly. The classic distinguished himself in battles, received several wounds - but, fortunately, he was lucky again in the war.
True, the war actually ended for Ilya Lvovich already in 1943 - he was summoned to Moscow, and again about the "wrong" verses. According to rumors, Stalin personally participated in the discussion of the situation, who then noted that Selvinsky was highly valued as a poet by Trotsky and Bukharin.
Only in 1945, the classics were returned to the rank, and again sent to the front.

Postwar years
At the end of the war, Selvinsky finally devoted himself entirely to literature. He published poems and novels in verse, plays, as well as prose. The last work, the lyrical theatrical tragedy "The Swan Princess", was published in the year of the author's death.