September 7, 1870 – August 25, 1938 (67 years old)
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Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin (1870–1938) is a famous Russian realist writer who has received popular recognition. The author of such famous works as “The Duel”, “Garnet Bracelet”, “Olesya”, which are deservedly included in the golden fund of Russian literature.
The material was prepared jointly with a teacher of the highest category, Kuchmina Nadezhda Vladimirovna.
Experience as a teacher of Russian language and literature - 27 years.
Training and the beginning of a creative path
At the age of six, Kuprin was sent to a class at the Moscow Orphan School, from which he left in 1880. After this, Alexander Ivanovich studied at the military academy, the Alexander Military School. The time of training is described in such works by Kuprin as “At the Turning Point (Cadets)”, “Junkers”. “The Last Debut” is Kuprin’s first published story (1889).
From 1890 he was a second lieutenant in an infantry regiment. During the service, many essays, short stories, and novellas were published: “Inquiry,” “On a Moonlit Night,” “In the Dark.”
Childhood and youth of Kuprin A.I.
Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin was born in 1870 in the small district town of Narovchat, Penza province. Father, Ivan Ivanovich Kuprin, worked as a clerk in the office of the peace mediator. He died in 1871. Mother, Lyubov Alekseevna, née Princess Kulunchakova, came from a family of Penza landowners with ancient Horde roots. Kuprin’s daughter, Ksenia Alexandrovna, recalled: “My father was very proud of his Tatar origins on his mother’s side. He believed that the founder of their family was the Tatar prince Kulunchak, who came to Rus' in the 15th century among the adherents of the Kazan prince Kasim, the brother of the Kazan prince Makhmubek. <…> Several generations of the Kulunchaks lived in Kasimov. In the second half of the 17th century, Alexander Ivanovich’s great-grandfather was granted estates in the Narovchatsky district of the Penza province. According to family legends, the ruin of our ancestors was due to violent morals, wasteful lifestyle and drunkenness.” Family legends about “Horde temper”, “about the wonderful great-great-grandfather’s equestrian” were reflected in the works of Kuprin (“Brave Fugitives”). In 1874, a mother with her son and two daughters moved to Moscow and settled in the common ward of the Widow’s House on Kudrinskaya Square; children were assigned to study at public expense. Lyubov Alekseevna “had a strong, unyielding character and high nobility” (A.I. Kuprin). She herself, having almost no means of subsistence, raised three children.
In 1876, the family’s situation was extremely difficult, and Kuprin was sent to the Aleksandrovskoye Orphanage School for Children. Four years later, the mother assigned her son to the 2nd Moscow Cadet Corps, then he entered the Third Alexander Junker School, but after which Junker Kuprin was promoted to the rank of second lieutenant. State educational institutions strengthened the boy’s character, and it was here that Kuprin’s deep love for literature arose. Based on his youthful memories, the writer created the story “At the Turning Point” (“Cadets”, 1900) and the novel “Junker” (1933). During this period, his literary debut took place: the story “The Last Debut” (1889) was published in the magazine “Russian Satirical Leaflet”.
Kuprin served as a second lieutenant in an infantry regiment in the city of Proskurov, Podolsk province, for four years. This time was enough to study army life and subsequently write the story “The Duel,” which was published in May 1905.
Creativity flourishes
Four years later, Kuprin retired. After this, the writer travels a lot around Russia, trying himself in different professions. At this time, Alexander Ivanovich met Ivan Bunin, Anton Chekhov and Maxim Gorky. Kuprin builds his stories of those times on life impressions gleaned during his travels.
Kuprin's short stories cover many topics: military, social, love. The story “The Duel” (1905) brought real success to Alexander Ivanovich. Love in Kuprin’s work is most vividly described in the story “Olesya” (1898), which was his first major and one of his most beloved works, and the story of unrequited love, “The Garnet Bracelet” (1910).
Alexander Kuprin also wrote stories for children. For children's reading, he wrote the works “Elephant”, “Starlings”, “White Poodle” and many others.
Return to homeland and death of the writer
If you believe numerous memoirs, letters, diaries, which became available to the public a little later, then Kuprin objectively did not accept the revolution and the established government. He called her familiarly “scoop.”
When he returned home as a broken old man, he was driven through the streets to demonstrate the achievements of the USSR. Alexander Ivanovich said that the Bolsheviks are wonderful people. One thing is unclear - where they get so much money from.
Nevertheless, Kuprin did not regret returning to his homeland. For him, Paris was a beautiful city, but alien. Kuprin died on August 25, 1938. He died of esophageal cancer. The next day, a crowd of thousands surrounded the Writers' House in St. Petersburg. Both famous colleagues of Alexander Ivanovich and loyal fans of his work came. They all gathered to send Kuprin on his final journey.
The childhood of the writer A.I. Kuprin, unlike the youth of many other literary figures of that time, was very difficult. However, it was largely thanks to all these difficulties he experienced that he found himself in creativity. Kuprin, whose childhood and youth were spent in poverty, acquired both material well-being and fame. Today we get acquainted with his work back in our school years.
Emigration and last years of life
For Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin, life and creativity are inseparable. Not accepting the policy of war communism, the writer emigrated to France. It is impossible not to notice in the biography of Alexander Kuprin that even after emigration, the writer’s fervor does not subside; he writes novellas, short stories, many articles and essays. Despite this, Kuprin lives in material need and yearns for his homeland. Only 17 years later he returns to Russia. At the same time, the writer’s last essay was published - the work “Native Moscow”.
After a serious illness, Kuprin died on August 25, 1938. The writer was buried at the Volkovsky cemetery in Leningrad, next to the grave of Ivan Turgenev.
Brief biography (details)
Alexander Kuprin is an outstanding Russian realist writer of the late 19th century. The writer was born on September 7, 1870 in the district town of Narovchat, Penza region, in the family of a hereditary nobleman. The writer's father, Ivan Ivanovich, died shortly after the birth of his son. Mother, Lyubov Alekseevna, was from a family of Tatar princes. After the death of her husband, she moved to Moscow, where Alexander, at the age of six, was sent to an orphanage. In 1880 he entered the Moscow Cadet Corps, and in 1887 he entered the Alexander Military School. He would later write about the years spent at this school in the story “At the Turning Point” and in the novel “Junker”.
The writer's first literary experience manifested itself in poems that were never published. Kuprin's work was first published in 1889. It was the story "The Last Debut". The writer collected rich material for his future works while serving in the Dnieper Infantry Regiment in 1890. A few years later, his works “Russian Wealth”, “Overnight”, “Inquiry”, “Hike” and others were published. It is believed that Kuprin was a very greedy person for impressions and loved to lead a wandering lifestyle. He was interested in people of various professions, from engineers to organ grinders. For this reason, the writer could equally well describe a variety of subjects in his books.
The 1890s were fruitful for Kuprin. It was then that one of his best stories, “Moloch,” was published. In the 1900s, the writer met such literary geniuses as Bunin, Gorky, Chekhov. In 1905, the writer’s most significant work appeared - the story “The Duel”. This story immediately brought great success to the writer, and he began to give readings of individual chapters in the capital. And with the appearance of the stories “The Pit” and “The Garnet Bracelet,” his prose became a significant part of Russian literature.
The turning point in Kuprin’s life was the revolution that broke out in the country. In 1920, the writer emigrated to France, where he spent almost seventeen years. This was a kind of calm period in his work. However, after returning to his homeland, he wrote his last essay, “Native Moscow.” The writer died on the night of August 25, 1938 and was buried on the Literary Bridge in St. Petersburg.
Interesting Facts
- Kuprin had Tatar roots on his mother’s side, which he was very proud of. At the peak of his fame, he sometimes liked to dress up in a Tatar robe and skullcap and go to public places and to see friends.
- Before becoming a writer, Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin managed to master many professions. Among them are work in a circus and an advertising agency. He was also an actor, journalist, teacher, surveyor, and fisherman. He was interested in everything, and every time he wanted to try himself in a new business. In total, Kuprin changed about 20 professions during his life.
- Kuprin's first wife, Maria Karlovna, noticed a lack of order and disorganization in the writer, which she constantly struggled with: finding Alexander Ivanovich sleeping during working hours, she deprived him of breakfast; I didn’t let my husband go home without new chapters of the story he was working on.
- The very first monument to the writer was erected in the Crimean village of Balaklava in 2009. Kuprin, being a kind man and not indifferent to the fate of others, helped the sailors who took part in the Ochakov uprising hide, thus helping them escape from executions in 1905. That is why this monument was erected.
- In 1918, he approached Lenin with a proposal to create a newspaper for the village - “Earth”.
All interesting facts from the life of Kuprin
Biography of Kuprin Alexander Ivanovich
Alexander Kuprin, one of the most famous writers in Russia, was born into a family far from literature and from the capital. His father, a minor official, died when his son was barely a year old. Together with his mother, the family moved to Moscow, where the future prose writer spent his childhood and youth.
St. Petersburg glory of Kuprin
In St. Petersburg, Alexander Kuprin was too late for this city to fall at his feet. The writer was a little over 30. He had a not very successful military career behind him, which ended with the rank of lieutenant, and seven years of ordeal in Kyiv. There Kuprin, who did not have any civilian specialty, tried many professions and settled on literature.
Kuprin practically did not write large works in terms of the number of pages. But he always managed to depict the whole world in a story from a couple of book pages. The writer’s plots are original and dramatically structured: no unnecessary words or characters. The reading public immediately noticed the accuracy in everything: in descriptions, epithets, meaning. And St. Petersburg instantly accepted Kuprin.
At the beginning of the 20th century, people called him everywhere, just to recite his stories. And the enthusiastic audience filled the stage with flowers, where Alexander Ivanovich read his stories. Kuprin became a literary star. His Petersburg seems simple and ordinary, but in Kuprin’s stories the city is just a scene of action. The people who live and operate in the northern capital come to the fore.
The main hit of the St. Petersburg literary salons of the early 20th century was the spy story “Staff Captain Rybnikov.” Kuprin read this work as an encore everywhere: in salons, restaurants, student audiences. Current themes and an impeccable dramatic plot attracted the attention of the public. Kuprin was especially happy. It was at this time that the writer, who lived in St. Petersburg for almost a week, became a candidate for deputy of the first State Duma of the Russian Empire.
Relations with Kuprin's authorities
Kuprin loved his homeland. But the world war that began in 1914 changed him. Now patriotism became the meaning of his whole life. In the newspapers the writer campaigned for war loans. And in his Gatchina house, he opened a small military hospital. Kuprin was even drafted into the war, but his health was already weak then. Soon he was commissioned.
Returning from the front, Kuprin again began to write a lot. There was more St. Petersburg in his stories. Alexander Kuprin did not accept the Bolsheviks. They, with their animal desire for power and bestial cruelty, were disgusting to him. In his views, Kuprin was close to the Social Revolutionaries: not to those who were part of militant organizations, but to peaceful socialist-revolutionaries.
Kuprin worked as a journalist in Gatchina, but often visited Petrograd. He came to see Lenin with a proposal to publish a special newspaper for the village called “Earth”. However, the problems of the village were of interest to the Bolsheviks only in words. The newspaper was not founded, and Kuprin was sent to prison for 3 days. Having been released, they were included in the list of hostages, that is, they could put a bullet in the forehead any day. Kuprin did not wait and went to the whites.
Emigration of Kuprin
He did not fight there, but was engaged in journalism. But he never stopped writing stories. He settled his characters in Petrograd, which was close to him. Kuprin did not accept the new government at all, called it the Soviet of Deputies, and ultimately was forced to emigrate.
Soviet propaganda destroyed the emigrant Kuprin. Political literary critics close to the Kremlin wrote that abroad the once talented Russian writer had fallen into disrepair: he did nothing but drink and write nothing. This was not true. Kuprin wrote just as much, but the St. Petersburg scenery in his stories became less and less.
After 15 years, he wrote a petition to be allowed to return to the USSR. Stalin gave his consent, and Kuprin returned to the places from which he fled during the civil war. In 1937, Kuprin, suffering from cancer, returned to his homeland to die. He died a year later, and the government of the country of Soviets began to posthumously make the writer one of their own.
It wasn't easy. Kuprin's Petersburg with its people did not superimpose like a transparent tracing paper on the appearance of the city of three revolutions with the name of Lenin. These were two different cities. It is difficult to say for sure whether he recognized Soviet power. But Kuprin could not live without Russia.
Biography by dates and interesting facts. The most important.
