Читать книгу Chukovsky: An Introduction. A Guide to Korney Chukovsky Memorial House and Beyond - Tatyana Knyazeva - Страница 4

STUDY. Ivory crocodile and a manuscript

The literary debut of a man, born as Nikolay Korneychukov, and later – and much wider – known as Korney Chukovsky, took place in 1901, when his first essay on contemporary art was published in Odessa News. The man who showed him the way to the editorial headquarters was Vladimir Zhabotinsky, the friend of his youth and the future Jewish Revisionist Zionist leader.

Lanky and stooping lad from a penniless and socially disadvantageous background, with barely five years of primary school education, and just come of age, Chukovsky turned out to be quite capable as a columnist, acquiring reputation for reviewing exhibitions, theatre productions and of course books. Apparently he was also the only one on staff who could read English and thus after hardly two years of freelancing for the newspaper was sent to London as an official reporter. During many months of his stay there Chukovsky for the most part spent his time in poor quarters, on a less then modest allowance, observing the city life from the slums and dispatching articles and essays on British people and politics.

English language and literature, however, seized him more than politics, so that eventually he found himself improving his skills and erudition at the expense of his journalist duties. He practically moved to the British Museum Reading Room, devouring book after book. Later on this voracious reading helped young Chukovsky to develop his own ingenious manner of writing.

Having returned to Russia with a prestigious air of someone with “foreign experience”, he left his provincial hometown of Odessa for the capital, St. Petersburg, where he collaborated – in various capacities – with many periodicals and even launched in 1905 his own magazine of political satire, Signal, specializing in all sorts of anti-government parodies. The publication grew popular enough to get banned for lèse-majesté after its fourth issue, with the following arrest and imprisonment (even if a short one) of its creator.

DINING ROOM. Antique table and armchairs

DINING ROOM. Phone table

In between the two Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917 Korney Chukovsky kept his columnist and reporter activities at the forefront of his schedule, having written scores of essays on different subjects, mostly art (and no longer politics!), but his enthusiasm for English life and letters by no means faded in the years to come.

World War I provided Chukovsky with yet another topic. In 1915 he published a book called The Silent Have Spoken: Tommy Atkins at War, having assembled and analyzed the letters of British soldiers, meaning to evoke sympathy and support for Great Britain – Russia’s ally – and its military efforts.

Next year he returned to London – on this occasion as a member of the official Russian delegation of journalists and writers, invited for the joined talks on war propaganda. The programme included touring shipyards and airports, as part of publicity routine, culminating with an audience with the King George V, who personally congratulated Chukovsky on his Tommy Atkins book. For Chukovsky himself the main result of the trip was another British-related book, full of his impressions, – England on the Eve of Victory.

Later on the journalist side of his career was taken over by his other pursuits, and yet even though Chukovsky wrote for periodicals less and less frequently, he never quite abandoned the role. In a multitude of newspapers and magazines of the Soviet era one could find his reflections and deliberations on a variety of issues, from certain aspects of education system to the shortage of books in libraries to the life of children in different regions of the Soviet Union.

During his evacuation months in Tashkent, the capital city of Uzbekistan Republic, in 1941—42, Chukovsky had to pen articles for the local paper – affiliation with the press was also a means to provide for himself and his family in times of irregular personal income, although he was not prone to sacrifice his professional integrity to financial concerns.

DINING ROOM. Washing set

DINING ROOM. Antique table, fragment

“Aircrafts on the March grass look smart and festive. Beside them – their proud, very handsome aviators. <…>

“Is there any chance I could fly?”

“You are welcome.”

During the short hassle they put on me a bulky coat, yellow leather trousers and a warm hat with earmuffs.

I am happy. I want to sing and behave like a child. I have never flown before. I am deadly afraid of heights. <…> So how come I feel so courageous and brave in this fragile tin box? There is delight and rapture in the clatter of a propeller and presence of some kind of freedom which we incessantly long for.” [England on the Eve of Victory, 1917]

***

“A portly woman went hastily to the school and inquired, appealing to no one in particular:

“Do they hand out children here?”

As if children were grapes or soap.

It was a month ago. I liked her impatience. It was obvious that she was in urgent need of a child – not tomorrow, but today, now! She even got angry when she was told that here, at school, there were no children for her – she should have applied to certain institution to process certain documents first, then visit the orphanage and still wait until tomorrow.

“I cannot,” she said, “The water in the tub is cooling down.” (Obviously, it had been already prepared for the child).” [Uzbekistan – to Children, 1942]

***

“Within an hour I was in the Chapel. It seemed that not a street block, but a thousand years separated me from the heart of London. One can find poverty in the central quarters too, but there it is veiled, silent, hidden. It lurks in the dark corners and is hesitantly afraid to break with its moan the merry vanity of the red-cheeked, confident, broad-shouldered men, who can work, love themselves and laugh so well.” [White Chapel, 1904]