Эссе о Юрии Олеше и его современниках. Статьи. Эссе. Письма. - Ирина Григорьевна Панченко

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About the Book

"Yury Olesha and His Contemporaries: Collection of Essays" was written by Irina Panchenko, a literary critic and a professor of Russian Literature.

The book encompasses a period of forty years of work by Prof. Panchenko dedicated to different aspects of Olesha's literary heritage, including the article about Olesha's working process on his famous novel "Envy"; the study on Olesha's meticulous work on his drafts; and the research of Olesha's verbal satirical commentaries of his day, often repeated and turned into aphoristic sayings and anecdotes among the Soviet intelligentsia.

Olesha was lucky enough to avoid being sent to the gulags. However, after the literary fame of "Envy" in the late 1920s and early 1930s, his books later became targets of relentless political criticism in the mid to late 1930s by Soviet critics.

Olesha stopped writing his work that was dear to his heart and instead turned to simple propaganda essays for newspapers. Prof. Panchenko suggests that Olesha's jokes served as his own small resistance against the bleak reality of Stalinism. Even being sardonic was dangerous enough at the time and could have cost him his freedom.

The book contains two virtually unknown early works by Yury Olesha: his poem "Beatriche" («Беатриче», 1920) and his short propaganda play "Slovo i Delo"'(«Слово и дело», 1922).

The chapter entitled "Authors who were Yury Olesha Contemporaries" includes an especially interesting article, "Memoirs about Bulgakov's family life in Kiev," which was based on Prof. Panchenko's interviews with old Kievans who remembered Russian and Soviet writer Mikhail Bulgakov and his family during Bulgakovs life in this city.

The chapter "Irina Panchenko in a Circle of Colleagues and Friends" contains Prof. Panchenko's memoir on Russian and Soviet writer, literary critic, and gulag political prisoner, Arkadiy Belinkov, who eventually escaped to the West. Belinkov wrote the controversial book: "Surrender and Death of Soviet Intelligent, Yury Olesha." Also included are Belinkov's letters to Irina Panchenko. Belinkov was an unofficial mentor for Panchenko's PhD thesis.

Irina Panchenko's admiration for Olesha's literary works and their fresh, metaphoric style makes this book an engaging read.

About the Author

Irina Grigorievna Panchenko (1939–2009) was a literary critic and a professor of Russian literature. She taught Russian Literature in higher education institutions in Kyiv, Ukraine for 30 years, first at the National Pedagogical Dragomanov University, then at her alma mater at the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, and later at the Borys Grinchenko Kyiv University.

Inspired by Khrushchev's Thaw in the 1960s, Irina Panchenko was one of the first Soviet scholars who studied the work of Russian and Soviet novelist Yury Olesha (1899–1960). She defended her PhD Thesis, "Yury Olesha's Literary Style and its Connections with the Fate of Romantic Tradition in Soviet Literature," in 1968.

Since 1997, Prof. Panchenko lived in Philadelphia. As a member of AATSEEL, she participated in its annual conferences with her papers on Yury Olesha for a number of years.

She is an author of five books, including "V poiskax sovershenstva. Pro tvorchestvo Uriya Oleshi" («В поисках совершенства. Про творчество Юрия Олеши», 1974) and over 200 papers and articles.

She is the co-editor and co-author (together with Prof. Vadim Skuratovsky) of "Silver Age of Russian Poetry," a 640-page poetic anthology published in Kyiv in 1991.

Prof. Panchenko's works were published in Ukrainian, Russian, American, German and Danish literary periodicals such as "Suchasnist", "Renaissance", "Voprosy Literatury", "Literaturnoe obozrenie", "Novyi Zhurnal", "Poberezhie", "Слово/Word", "Symposion – A Journal of Russian Thought", "Novyi Bereg", "Mosty", and many others.

Примечания

1

Розанова Е. Забытая тетрадь. Ранние стихи Ю. Олеши // Вопросы литературы. 1965. № 11. С. 251–252.

2

Олеша Ю. Пушкин // Огоньки. 1918. № 1.

3

Олеша Ю. Художник и эпоха // Советский театр. 1932. № 3. С. 31.

4

Олеша Ю. Рассказ об одном поцелуе // Южный огонёк. 1918. № 5.

5

Олеша Ю. Автограф // РГАЛИ. Фонд № 358. Опись № 1. Ед. Хр. 22.

6

Олеша Ю. Автограф // РГАЛИ. Фонд № 358. Опись № 1. Ед. Хр. 23.

7

Опыт публичных выступлений Олеша приобрёл в 1922 г.: «Сценическая карьера моя началась в городе Харькове, где я работал в кавказском ресторане «Верден» на Сумской улице в качестве конферансье, исполнителя «Буримэ» и отгадчика мыслей (вместе с Георгием Нежинским)». См.: Автограф Ю. Олеши. Альбом Кручёных № 2. РГАЛИ. Фонд № 358. С. 32.

8

Овчинников И. В сб.: Воспоминания о Юрии Олеше // М.: Сов. писатель, 1975. С. 46.

9

Катаев В. Алмазный мой венец. В кн.: Трава забвения // М.: Вагриус, 1999. С. 138.

10

«Юрий Олеша очень много ездил. У него был бесплатный билет по всем железным дорогам страны. Олеша работал фельетонистом газеты «Гудок», подписывался «Зубило». Есть два пионеротряда имени «Зубилы». См.: Из недописанных биографий // Экономическая жизнь. 1934. 18 августа.

11

Олеша Ю. Беатриче (Поэма). Публикация Панченко И. Послесловие Скуратовский В. // COLLEGIUM (Киев). 1994. № 1. С. 157–160.

12

Строфы века. Антология русской поэзии. Сост. Евтушенко Е., науч. ред. Витковский Е. // Минск-Москва: Полифакт,1997. С. 335–336.

13

Катаев В. Алмазный мой венец. В кн.: Трава забвения. С.184.

14

Катаев В. Там же.

15

Slonim Mark. Soviet Russian literature. Writers and Problems // N.Y., Oxford Univ. Press, 1964. P. 113–124.