Brief description of Kuprin's creativity

Alexander Kuprin

Kuprin Alexander Ivanovich - Russian writer, prose writer.

Love of life, humanism, plastic power of descriptions, richness of language make Kuprin one of the most read writers today.

Many of his works have been staged and filmed and translated into a number of foreign languages; Kuprin’s biography is also interesting.

Born: August 26, 1870, Narovchat

Died: August 20, 1938, Leningrad (St. Petersburg)

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Kuprin. Childhood and studies

Sasha Kuprin was born in 1870 in a small provincial town in the Penza province. His father Ivan Ivanovich was a hereditary nobleman, but the Kuprin family had become impoverished by that time, and the father of the future writer served as an official in the public service. Mother Lyubov Alekseevna in her maiden name bore the surname Kulunchakova and was a hereditary Tatar princess. Sasha had two older sisters.

House-Museum of A.I. Kuprina (village of Narovchat, Narovchatsky district, Penza region). Author: AAA333

When the boy was barely one year old, his father suddenly died before he was 37 years old. Mother decided to move to Moscow. They lived quite poorly, and Lyubov Alekseevna, after her son graduated from four grades of primary school, sent him to a military gymnasium, where the boy could not only study and comprehend military science, but also had full financial support. Military service never attracted Kuprin much, but in his youth he did not have much choice, and after graduating from high school he entered the Alexander Military School. At the age of 20, he graduated from his studies with the rank of second lieutenant and was sent to serve in the 46th Dnieper Infantry Regiment, where he served for four years, until his decision to resign. These years gave the future writer a lot of life experience. He would later describe many cases and situations in his books “Cadets”, “Junkers”, “Duel”.

Alexander Kuprin (life and work) short message report

Alexander Kuprin is the greatest Russian writer, famous for his novels, translations and short stories.

Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin was born in the small town of Narovchat on September 7, 1870 into a noble family. At an early age he moved with his mother to Moscow due to the death of the boy's father. He received his secondary education in a regular boarding school, which was also a boarding school for street children. After 4 years of training, he is transferred to the cadet corps, also located in Moscow. The young man decides to pursue a military career and, after graduation, becomes a student at the Alexander Military School.

Having received his diploma, Kuprin goes to serve in the Dnepropetrovsk Infantry Regiment as a second lieutenant. But after 4 years he quits his service and visits several cities in the western provinces of the Russian Empire. It was difficult for him to find a permanent job due to lack of qualifications. Ivan Bunin, whom the writer met quite recently, pulls him out of a difficult financial situation. Bunin sends Kuprin to the capital and gets him a job in a large printing house. Alexander remained to live in Gatchina until the events of 1917. During the First World War, he voluntarily set up a hospital and helped treat wounded soldiers. Over the entire period of the early 20th century, Kuprin created several novels and short stories, the most famous of which were “White Poodle” and “Garnet Bracelet”.

Kuprin's first publication

At the same time, Kuprin first tried himself in the literary field. But the experience did not end entirely successfully. At that time, military personnel were strictly forbidden to publish in magazines, at least without the approval of their superiors. Alexander Ivanovich signed his first story “The Last Debut” with the simple pseudonym “Al. K-rin” and gave it to the publishing house without notifying anyone. The authorities quickly identified the author, and he was sent to the guardhouse for two days. After that incident, Kuprin vowed to never write again! He spent a small fee of 10 rubles on his mother’s shoes, and used the rest to rent a horse in the arena, since he really loved horse riding.

Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin was very fond of horse riding. https://www.lit-info.ru/articles/copyright.htm

Report 4

Alexander Ivanovich, born in 1870, was a native of the Penza province of Narovchate. The future writer’s mother had Tatar roots, which Kuprin was later very proud of. Sometimes he dressed up in a Tatar robe and wore a skullcap, going out in such clothes.

The boy was not yet a year old when his father passed away; his mother was forced to send her son to an orphanage, moving to Moscow, where she was a native. For little Alexander, the boarding house was a place of despondency and oppression.

After graduating from college, Kuprin entered a military gymnasium, after which in 1887 he continued his studies at the Alexander Military School. The writer described the events of the period of his life in the work “Junker”. It was during his studies that Alexander Ivanovich tried to write. The first published story, “The Last Debut,” was written in 1889.

After graduating from college in 1890. Kuprin served for four years in an infantry regiment. The rich life experience acquired in the service more than once became the theme of his works. At the same time, the writer publishes his works in the magazine “Russian Wealth”. During this period, the following films were released: “Inquiry”, “In the Dark”, “Moonlight”, “Hike”, “Night Shift” and many others.

Try everything!

But in the 90s he met Ivan Bunin, and he, after reading some of Kuprin’s sketches, strongly advised him to continue his literary experiments. At the same time, Kuprin makes acquaintance with A.P. Chekhov, M.A. Gorky and other writers. In 1894, he finally said goodbye to military service - he retired, but could not devote himself to literature, because. this activity does not yet bring in enough money to support a novice author. And for the next few years, Kuprin tried himself in a variety of professions: actor, circus wrestler, journalist, psalm-reader, factory worker, office employee, teacher, advertising agent, land surveyor, fisherman, aeronaut, organ grinder... But as the writer himself admitted, all this was not so much for the money, but for the experience. Kuprin was interested in trying everything!

Creative biography and literary success of Kuprin

In 1901, Kuprin returned to St. Petersburg, got a job as a secretary in a magazine and began publishing again. This time he receives not a punishment for his publications, but quite decent fees. Kuprin's stories and stories find a wide response among readers, and he quickly becomes popular. Soon Alexander Ivanovich becomes one of the leading writers of his time, along with Ivan Bunin, Maxim Gorky and Anton Chekhov. In 1905, his story “The Duel” was published, which became a real event in the literary circles of St. Petersburg. Between the two revolutions, his story “The Garnet Bracelet”, a series of essays “Listrigons”, and a number of short stories were published. In 1909, I. Kuprin was awarded the Pushkin Prize.

Writer Alexander Kuprin with a Medellian dog named Sapsan. Photo signed by Kuprin and presented to the writer Ivan Bunin

Duel

The story was published in 1905. She talks about the conflict between the young sub-lieutenant Romashov and the senior officer. The main character Romashov is a sentimental man, a dreamer who would like to live a decent life and wait for true love.

The book shows that you should not hide from reality into your illusory world, and dissolution in love can destroy a person.

“ The Duel ” is a difficult book in psychological terms, but a very deep and worthy work, considered the most significant in Kuprin’s work.

Revolution and emigration in the biography of Alexander Kuprin

Alexander Kuprin supported the idea of overthrowing autocracy in Russia with all his heart, and he greeted the news of Nicholas II’s abdication of the throne with joy and excitement, anticipating the beginning of a new era. However, the writer categorically did not support the policy of war communism, which the Bolsheviks eventually chose. For some time he worked at the publishing house “World Literature,” headed by M. Gorky, while simultaneously translating F. Schiller’s drama “Don Carlos.”

Lieutenant Kuprin, 1914. P. Glybovskaya - Neva Magazine, No. 51, 1914. P. 997.

In July 1918, A. Kuprin came under suspicion in the murder of Volodarsky, but was soon released. In December 1918, he personally met with V. Lenin, discussing with him the possibility of creating a special newspaper for peasants, “Earth.” But this idea was not supported by Lenin's entourage. A year later, Kuprin went over to the “white” side: he worked as editor of the army newspaper “Prinevsky Krai,” which published information about the movements of the North-Western Army. After the defeat of the “whites”, he first went to Revel, a little later to Finland, and in 1920 emigrated to France. Alexander Kuprin lived in Paris until 1937, when the Soviet government issued a decree allowing Russian emigrants living in France to return to their homeland. The writer returned to Soviet Russia seriously ill (doctors diagnosed him with esophageal cancer); he lived in his homeland for less than a year: in August 1938, A. Kuprin died.

The life and work of the writer Alexander Kuprin

Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin is a famous Russian writer and translator. His works were realistic, and thus gained fame in many sectors of society.

Childhood and parents

Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin was born on August 26, 1870.

Kuprin's childhood years are spent in Moscow, where he and his mother moved after his father's death.

Education

In 1887, Kuprin entered the Alexander Military School.

He begins to experience various difficult moments, about which he writes his first works.

Kuprin wrote poetry well, but did not try to publish them or did not want to.

In 1890 he served in the infantry, where he wrote the works “Inquiry” and “In the Dark”.

Creativity flourishes

After 4 years, Kuprin leaves the regiment and begins his journey through different cities of Russia, looking at nature, people and acquiring new knowledge for his further works and stories.

Kuprin’s works are interesting because he described his experiences and feelings in them or they became the basis for new stories.

The very dawn of the writer’s creativity was at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1905, the story “The Duel” was published, which received enormous recognition from society. Then the most important work, “The Garnet Bracelet,” appeared, which made Kuprin famous.

It is impossible not to highlight such a work as the story “The Pit,” which became scandalous and was not published due to pornographic scenes in the book.

Emigration

During the October Revolution, Kuprin emigrated to France because he did not want to support communism.

There he continues his activity as a writer, without which he could not imagine his life.

Return to Russia

Gradually, Kuprin begins to yearn for his homeland, to which he returned in poor health. After returning, he begins work on his latest work, entitled “Native Moscow.”

Personal life

Kuprin had no descendants, because his only grandson died in World War II.

Last years of life and death

The government benefited from Kuprin’s return to his homeland, because they wanted to create from him the image of a man who regretted his action, that he left his native land.

However, there were rumors that Kuprin was very ill, so there was information that his work “Native Moscow” was not written by him at all.

Alexander Kuprin died on August 25, 1928 from cancer.

Alexander Kuprin. Personal life and family

Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin married for the first time in 1901 to Maria Karlovna Davydova, the daughter of a famous cellist, who headed the magazine “World of God,” having inherited the publication from her mother. Peace in the family did not last long: the active and domineering wife could not put up with the writer’s not very organized and at times lazy character. Stories are widely known when Maria Karlovna did not let her husband go home without new chapters of the story or refused to feed him breakfast if he was delaying the delivery of the work to the printing house. Of course, such relationships did not contribute to a happy family life. And in 1907 the couple divorced. From this union a daughter, Lydia, was born.

A. Kuprin, during his marriage, and even more so after the breakup with his wife, drank a lot and, as they say, “went wild”; parties followed one after another. This did not go unnoticed by the press: newspaper headlines of that time were often full of mentions of the name of Kuprin, noticed in yet another drunken scandal. Friends even composed a funny saying: “If truth is in wine, how many truths are there in Kuprin?” His daughter’s nanny, Elizaveta Heinrich, helped him get out of this vicious circle. Kuprin fell madly in love with a girl, and she was able to persuade him to undergo treatment in Finland. By all accounts, it was thanks to Lisa that Alexander Ivanovich finally learned what home comfort and peace of mind were. Elizaveta went through all the hardships with Kuprin, the years of emigration and return to the USSR.

To this union two daughters, Ksenia and Zinaida, were born. The youngest girl died in the first years of her life. And Ksenia became a famous model and actress in France, later returned to the USSR, and put a lot of effort into organizing the A.I. Museum. Kuprin in his homeland in the Penza region.

Kuprin, called up with the rank of lieutenant to the First World War, with Elizaveta Moritsevna Kuprin (Heinrich) in the uniform of a nurse.

Features of A. I. Kuprin’s creativity

The work of Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin was formed during the years of revolutionary upsurge. All his life he was close to the theme of the epiphany of a simple Russian man who greedily sought the truth of life. Kuprin devoted all his work to the development of this complex psychological topic. His art, as his contemporaries put it, was characterized by a special vigilance in seeing the world, concreteness, and a constant desire for knowledge. The educational pathos of Kuprin's creativity was combined with a passionate personal interest in the victory of good over all evil. Therefore, most of his works are characterized by dynamics, drama, and excitement.

Kuprin's biography is like an adventure novel. In terms of the abundance of meetings with people and life observations, it was reminiscent of Gorky’s biography. Kuprin traveled a lot, did a variety of work: he served at a factory, worked as a loader, played on stage, sang in a church choir.

At an early stage of his work, Kuprin was strongly influenced by Dostoevsky. It manifested itself in the stories “In the Dark,” “On a Moonlit Night,” and “Madness.” He writes about fateful moments, the role of chance in a person’s life, and analyzes the psychology of human passions. Some stories of that period say that the human will is helpless in the face of natural chance, that the mind cannot comprehend the mysterious laws that govern man. A decisive role in overcoming literary cliches coming from Dostoevsky was played by direct acquaintance with the lives of people, with the real Russian reality.

He begins to write essays. Their peculiarity is that the writer usually had a leisurely conversation with the reader. Clear plot lines and a simple and detailed depiction of reality were clearly visible in them. The greatest influence on Kuprin the essayist was G. Uspensky.

Kuprin's first creative quests culminated in the largest thing that reflected reality. It was the story “Moloch”. In it, the writer shows the contradictions between capital and forced human labor. He was able to grasp the social characteristics of the newest forms of capitalist production. An angry protest against the monstrous violence against man, on which the industrial flourishing in the world of “Moloch” is based, a satirical demonstration of the new masters of life, an exposure of the shameless predation in the country of foreign capital - all this cast doubt on the theories of bourgeois progress. After essays and short stories, the story was an important stage in the writer’s work.

In search of moral and spiritual ideals of life, which the writer contrasted with the ugliness of modern human relations, Kuprin turns to the lives of vagabonds, beggars, drunken artists, starving unrecognized artists, and children of the poor urban population. This is a world of nameless people who form the mass of society. Among them, Kuprin tried to find his positive heroes. He writes the stories “Lidochka”, “Lokon”, “Kindergarten”, “At the Circus” - in these works Kuprin’s heroes are free from the influence of bourgeois civilization.

In 1898, Kuprin wrote the story “Olesya”. The plot of the story is traditional: an intellectual, an ordinary and urban person, in a remote corner of Polesie meets a girl who grew up outside of society and civilization. Olesya is distinguished by spontaneity, integrity of nature, and spiritual richness. Poetizing life unconstrained by modern social cultural frameworks. Kuprin sought to show the clear advantages of the “natural man,” in whom he saw spiritual qualities lost in civilized society.

In 1901, Kuprin came to St. Petersburg, where he became close to many writers. During this period, his story “Night Shift” appears, where the main character is a simple soldier. The hero is not an aloof person, not the forest Olesya, but a completely real person. From the image of this soldier, threads stretch to other heroes. It was at this time that a new genre appeared in his work: the short story.

In 1902, Kuprin conceived the story “The Duel.” In this work, he undermined one of the main pillars of the autocracy - the military caste, in the features of the decomposition and moral decline of which he showed signs of the decomposition of the entire social system. The story reflects the progressive sides of Kuprin’s work. The basis of the plot is the fate of an honest Russian officer, whom the conditions of army barracks life made him feel the illegality of people's social relations. Once again, Kuprin is not talking about an outstanding personality, but about a simple Russian officer Romashov. The regimental atmosphere torments him; he does not want to be in the army garrison. He became disillusioned with military service. He begins to fight for himself and his love. And Romashov’s death is a protest against the social and moral inhumanity of the environment.

With the onset of reaction and the aggravation of social life in society, Kuprin’s creative concepts also change. During these years, his interest in the world of ancient legends, history, and antiquity intensified. An interesting fusion of poetry and prose, the real and the legendary, the real and the romance of feelings arises in creativity. Kuprin gravitates toward the exotic and develops fantastic plots. He returns to the themes of his earlier novella. The motives of the inevitability of chance in a person’s fate are heard again.

In 1909, the story “The Pit” was published from the pen of Kuprin. Here Kuprin pays tribute to naturalism. It shows the inmates of a brothel. The whole story consists of scenes, portraits and clearly breaks down into individual details of everyday life.

However, in a number of stories written in the same years, Kuprin tried to point out real signs of high spiritual and moral values in reality itself. “Garnet Bracelet” is a story about love. This is what Paustovsky said about it: this is one of the most “fragrant” stories about love.

In 1919, Kuprin emigrated. In exile, he writes the novel “Zhanette”. This work is about the tragic loneliness of a person who has lost his homeland. This is a story about the touching affection of an old professor, who found himself in exile, for a little Parisian girl - the daughter of a street newspaper girl.

Kuprin's emigrant period is characterized by withdrawal into himself. A major autobiographical work of that period is the novel “Junker”.

In exile, the writer Kuprin did not lose faith in the future of his Motherland. At the end of his life's journey, he still returns to Russia. And his work rightfully belongs to Russian art, the Russian people.

Kuprin Alexander Ivanovich - the writer’s appearance and character

Alexander Kuprin was very proud of his Tatar roots. He couldn’t stand it if his last name was somehow distorted by changing the emphasis. And later, when fame came to him, he often ostentatiously put on a striped robe and skullcap when going on visits or to social events. And I must say, this image of the Mongol khan with the sly squinting of his brown eyes suited him perfectly!

Alexander Kuprin as a Mongol Khan

Despite the fact that Kuprin’s appearance was rather prosaic: the writer was a little heavyset, of average height, with a short neck and did not have an athletic build, this did not prevent him from being a fair defender of the weak. He boldly got involved in disputes and fights, helped soldiers and sailors during the revolution, fearlessly rose into the sky and sank under the water at a time when this still seemed unthinkable.

Another remarkable feature of Kuprin was his sense of smell - the writer had a phenomenal sense of smell and could decompose almost any smell into its components. Once, when in the presence of a French perfumer he told what ingredients a lady’s perfume consisted of, he literally groaned, exclaiming: “God, what a gift! And this brilliant man is just a writer!”

Despite the apparent simplicity and romanticism of Alexander Kuprin’s texts, behind them hid a complex character, a complex fate and a very difficult, deep-thinking person.