in the spring of 1879, in moscow , a girl was born into the family of an official, who was named nina, she was very pretty, with big eyes that looked enthusiastically, anxiously, curiously at the world around her, probably very attractive, because in her youth she had many suitors, and one of them turned out to be a future very prominent figure on the political... stage of russia, it was vasily alekseevich maklakov, yes, later he was one of the politicians, public figures who led the cadet movement in russia, emigrated after the revolution, became such a prominent freemason, he lived a very long life, so he was in love with nina, proposed to her , but she refused him and married another man, which later, by the way, turned out to be quite sad in her fate, in general in her fate... a lot in

childhood, one can say so, in her youth in childhood about some missed opportunities, about some probably wrong paths that she took, if only now , more than 100 years later, we can talk about these wrong choices, which she did in her life, but nevertheless, she married sergei alekseevich sokolov, he was a young lawyer who decided to become a poet, the silver age, everyone was creating, everyone was writing poetry. everyone understood that creativity is the highest, most beautiful thing in life, so nina petrovskaya’s future husband also decided to take up poetry, but the lord didn’t give him very much talent, he couldn’t do it with poetry, then he found a very right one the right move: if no one wants to publish you, get published yourself, this word, of course, was not yet in the unit, but nevertheless, the opportunity, the financial opportunity to create his own from...

he had a publishing house, so sergei sokolov creates a publishing house, which he called grif, takes the pseudonym sergei krechitov, it is this man, sergei krechitov, who becomes the husband of nina petrovskaya, from the very at the beginning, in general, their union did not work out, perhaps because she was such a maximalist by nature, she was drawn to what was truly talented, to what was truly bright. she studied literature herself and wrote poetry herself. i wrote it myself prose, but obviously, subsequently vladislav khodosevich wrote wonderfully about this in an article called the end of renata, it was with this article that the brilliant book of memoirs of khadasevich and necropolis opens, and so khadasevich, reflecting on the fate of nina petrovskaya, said that people of the silver age often they mixed life with creativity, some had more talent for writing, others had more talent for living, from hadasi’s point of view. the story of nina petrovskaya is

the story of a girl, the story of a woman who mixed up these two concepts too much, it turned out she didn’t have very much literary talent, but the talent to live in a literary environment, communicate with poets, communicate with writers, eagerly respond to everything that happens in literature, make personal acquaintances, play a role in literary life of that time, to directly participate in it. and how to sunbathe in this fire, in this bonfire, in this she saw, she felt her calling, and the first poet who had a very great personal impact on her was konstantin balmont, balmont at that time was really such a literary star, he was very popular, fans crowded around him, admirers of his work, at some point our heroine... but this was

clearly not what nina was counting on. nina wanted to be exceptional, but for balmont she was just one of his fans, this absolutely did not satisfy her, they soon broke up, but as khodosevich later wrote, this ecstasy, well, maybe not of first love, but of first love with a big man... poet, this is the first love the connection that arose in her destiny, she left a very bitter aftertaste of a kind of hangover, subsequently she spoke mockingly of balbonte, spoke badly, she, in fact, of course, did not know how to forgive and did not want to forgive men the insults that they inflicted on her, but she was very attractive, all the same, life was ahead, and this mistake taught... it didn’t teach her, whether it was

a mistake or not, this can be debated endlessly, but one way or another, in her female destiny, in her poetic destiny , in her life-creativity, appears... the next hero, and her next chosen one turned out to be the legendary poet of the century, one of the key figures of the then literary process, the son of mathematics professor nikolai bugaev, boris nikolaevich bugaev, who, of course, is much better known to everyone as andrei bely, he took this pseudonym andrei bely, with this name he entered. into russian literature as a poet, prose writer, publicist and intellectual and theorist of symbolism, which is very important. andrei bely, unlike balmont, was not only simply talented as a poet, but he was a man for whom poetry was his

everything, it was his philosophy, it was his religion, it was the form of his life, nina petrovskaya just wrote about this, that balmont could be divided, here was balmont the man, there was balmont. .. poet, in some sense they did not coincide at all, it was hard to even believe that this selfish, narcissistic narcissist could write such bright, interesting poetry. as for white, here, as it seems to me, the situation was a little more complicated, or maybe, on the contrary, more simple, because the white poet and the white man were much closer to each other, the white one was a very interesting person, but the white one was unusual, if balmont’s attitude towards that ...

happiness, and the white one in general was not ready for this, the white one for this did not strive, bely had generally different views on the nature of man, on the nature of the relationship between man and the talent of man and god, a different view on the relationship between man and woman, therefore nina, who turned out to be, well, so to speak, with all her unusualness and fantastic, it turned out to be too ordinary for bely, too earthly, their correspondence, and people in general... and you can name many different other correspondences, so nina petrovskaya and andrei bely also wrote letters to each other, but

later and nina ivanovna all these letters solemnly drowned salmon in a lake in finland, if we draw this parallel between nina petrovka. and nina zarechnaya, and, accordingly, between andrei bely, with whom nina petrovskaya was in love and the writer trigorin, with whom nina zarechnaya fell in love, then trigorin is shown in chekhov as a completely cynical, pragmatic person, who perfectly understands what he expects from a young beautiful woman, then andrei bely in this sense was absolutely not like trigorin, andrei bely would have. his ideas about life, so he writes her such a long, instructive letter, in which he talks about symbolism, talks about theory, talks about some tricky, smart things that might be interesting, there are graduate students, master's students

of some kind some university that writes his dissertation, but it was unlikely that they were curious about a young girl who was simply in love and was ready to give herself... to this wonderful poet, one way or another, bely at some point simply got tired of her, one can assume that this is her passionarity, she was obviously such a bundle of not only beauty and charm, but a bundle of energy, and energy of the most varied kind, yes, femininity was overflowing in her, one can assume that she would simply be charged with this femininity like an electric current, when white with this current shied away, then in general he... preferred to get away from this plot, and as she later wrote ironically, andrei bely’s mother ordered him to leave me for nizhny novgorod during holy week, and bely really left her, although later they were still continued to communicate, because in fact the circle of these

decadent writers and poets was quite narrow and they still couldn’t run away from each other just like that, right then... after this break with andrei bely on the horizon of nina petrovskaya a man appeared who determined her fate; he was no less famous and no less significant poet. bryusov, too, was not only a poet, but if the white andrei bely rather deviated towards theory, then bryusov, despite the fact that he was not alien to theory, and bryusov was in many ways one of the creators, and such intellectual creators of russian symbolism and russian savagery in general, and bryusov , as it were, decided for himself from childhood that he would be precisely... the leader of russian symbolism, in a sense, the leader of russian literature, but

it is no coincidence that bryusov was probably born into a merchant family, he has all these theoretical ideas, all these utopian dreams of his, they were often clothed in a very specific form, and bryusov, in addition to the fact that he was a poet, he was a publisher, and he was a very good publisher, and he really published very important magazines of the era... in particular scorpio magazine, which was very difficult to get into. bryusov had a very strict attitude towards literature in general, he was a real mayor, and he really believed that serving literature was the highest thing he could do. to be in life, this is work, this is not even work, but this is a person’s way of existence, which requires everything from him, so to be published by bryusov was such... the highest dream, it was the highest level of dedication for

the young authors of that time, and the husband nina petrovsky, this is the same sergei sokolov, sergei krechitov, with whom i began our story, he, of course , did not pass by these bryusov standards, but the fact that krechitov created his own publishing house, the publishing house was called grif, which began to compete with bryusov’s.

fiery angel, this is the love triangle that underlies this novel, the action takes place in the middle ages in europe, in general he really liked history to mix times, then he needed all this in order to write a novel, that is, in fact, nina

petrovskaya initially appears on bryusov’s horizon as, well, if one can put it, as a kind of muse, but the muse is not in such a high sense of the word as it was in pushkin, no, it is such a more consumerist, but more pragmatic attitude towards a person, which will inspire him to create an artistic image, it should be noted that... nina petrovskaya was not some kind of fool, it cannot be said that she was just a naive victim, in the hands of all these poetic geniuses of that time who surrounded her, she actually does this. wanted, she strived for this, she can be assumed, intuitively feeling that , in fact, if she lacks direct literary talent in order to create literary texts, then let her feminine, her human talent manifest itself, to become, well, to put it so roughly, literary material for writing

works of art, which is why her union with bryusov initially turned out to be so... ugly harmonious, let me allow myself - such a connection, such an axumaron, but it seems to me that it can be , very accurately reflects what was happening then. and this is how this novel began: bryusov unexpectedly became a frequent visitor to the family of krechatov, sokolov and nina petrovskaya, who were very fond of spiritualistic seances. in general, this was also so common for the silver age phenomenon, everyone was very fond of dabbling in spiritualism, they called it out. some kind of spirits, sometimes some very funny hoaxes were arranged, nina petrovskaya later recalled what it meant, when bryusov first came to them for a seance, nothing worked, and bryusov was very dissatisfied, bryusov took this matter seriously, that is, they sat down around the table, took each other’s hands, began to call on some spirits there, but the spirits did not want

to appear, and bryusov sternly said that apparently one of those present here opposes what is happening and strictly... looked at nina petrovskaya, perhaps it was nina herself. then, therefore, a version arose that nothing was working out, because there is a bad house here, somewhere there is some house in the area in the moscow region, in this house, it means, there lives a family of newlyweds who constantly hear some kind of noise at night. then sounds, some voices, some, in general, something incomprehensible was happening in this house, they prayed, help us get rid of this, then, that means, bryusov said: bryusov, he considered himself like that a warlock, a magician, the heir of the great bruce, who even in the time of peter i was such a warlock, but came to moscow, and bryusov believed that he had inherited this warlock talent. so, it means that bryusov gathered this whole company, they went to this estate near moscow, where the newlyweds lived, it also means that they began to conduct some kind of

spiritualistic seance there, but nothing worked out for them, because it turned out that there was no matter of knocking. there were no grooks and no mystical voices in this house, but the owner of this house simply wanted these kick out the newlyweds, they somehow didn’t suit him there, and for this he played this whole thing out, this is this fact, when something serious, tragic, funny went hand in hand, and in life according to literature, this is for the silver century is also very typical, but the result of all these dates, all these visits to bryusov’s house -

the blyusovs, like all the people of the silver age, were very attentive to themselves, to their lives, to all the events of their lives, they took care of everything that attributed.

saima, this is a crazy summer, june 1905 years, after all, did not pass without a trace for him, after all, she launched these roots of hers, she launched them into his heart, and he could not part with her so easily, she, of course, wanted more, she, of course, wanted continuation of this love and the passion that flared up there, well, as probably required in the life of any woman, she probably assumed... that some other steps would follow, but bryusov himself was no longer ready for these other steps, so a whole volume of letters,

it was published not so long ago, fully published in our country, and with these letters are also such a very interesting story, when you read this correspondence, then in general there is a feeling of awkwardness, because this is a very intimate correspondence, because in this correspondence nina petrovskaya just really... bares, tears at the soul in the most literal sense of the word, and this is by far the best thing she wrote, all her literary, all her human, all her feminine talent, it’s in these letters, but it’s like the poems of marina tsvitaeva, maybe too bold a comparison, well, my dear, what do you want me to do? i did this, both of them he unclenched his little hands, and yesterday he leveled with the chinese state, she expressed this in prose, and poetic prose,

years after his death, and her death, these would already be the thirties in the stalinist soviet union, no one was interested in nina petrovskaya, in general, these letters

lay in the archive for a long, long time, only in the 2000s they were published, by the way, very well published with very deep, serious comments, a wonderful introductory article in the publishing house new literary review, if anyone wants to read it here such a real pistol... novel, a tragic novel of incredible intensity, i highly recommend finding this book, it’s true that awkwardness arises when you read it, but at the same time you understand that this is really a vivid example, that’s what this was the silver age, how people lived, how they simply really sacrificed their lives, from these letters one can very clearly see these fluctuations from despair to hope, they either parted, then got together again, then they met in moscow on nikitsky boulevard, then they were going to paris, then again she showered him with reproaches and could not forgive him that this way of life, this kitchen, this cooking, this playing

cards on sundays, was what bryusov really loved to do and what he found relaxation from everyone of his poetic flights, this is so important to him that he cannot leave his wife and give himself entirely to nina, as she, nina gave herself to him. nina really wanted equality, she wanted equality in these relationships, and by the way, here we can again recall chekhov’s seagull, where everything this was exactly the case, and bresov wrote the novel “fire angel,” a novel that was a success, a novel in which he killed nina, that is, at the end of this novel, nina dies, in general it is clear that as a literary character, she is no longer his needed and probably as a prototype for this character too, nina was of course furious. she was a very harsh woman, and there is evidence from bryusov, he writes about this to zenaidiya nikolaevna, gipios, with whom he also had such a very whimsical

relationship, how suddenly everyone was symbolic. writes about that once in one of the performances, by the way, it was almost chekhov’s seagull, well, maybe not a seagull, but in any case it was absolutely in the moscow art theater, yes, which is named after chekhov, nina petrovskaya approached him , took a browning out of her clutch and wanted to shoot at him, nearby, as bryusov said, there were several people who managed to get ahead of her, snatched this same browning from her, the shot did not take place, but bryusov writes. this browning, therefore, appeared several times later. weeks in another story, and he still shot, and bryusov remembers lermuntov’s fatalist himself writes that he did not have time to get scared, everything happened very quickly, but in any case, nina petrovskaya was just like that, love, death, eras, thanatas, all this was embodied in her fate, but even this could not motivate bryusov

to abandon this...

to unite, someone managed, as it were, not to perish, not to disappear, but for nina petrovskaya, but it’s another matter that someone unfortunately it was possible, all these experiments on her own destiny, which she set, they did not pass without a trace for her, because gradually her psyche simply began to wear out, she began to not be able to withstand this frantic tension in which she lived, otherwise... no, i would even said, she couldn’t give up this tension, she couldn’t just forget this life, she couldn’t just meet some normal person, get away from these madmen, yes, just spit on them and live with some kind of human, female fate, that probably well, theoretically it was possible, but she was not psychologically prepared for this at all, such sad, but

generally understandable things began to happen to her, she grew up with alcohol, in 1911 they finally decided to separate completely, this is where their letters end, and bryusov insists that nina go to europe, she actually leaves for treatment in germany, then she moves to italy, she never returned to russia and until the end of her days she lived abroad, but the end of her life was very sad, because in europe no one needed her, all these experiments...

the publishing house opened the day before, the newspaper opened the day before, headed by the writer alexei nikolaevich tolstoy, who invited nina petrovskaya as a literary collaborator, gave her a job, gave her an income , and this collaboration really meant a lot to her, but by the way , she also meant a lot to alexei nikolaevich tolstoy, because it was nina petrovskaya who suggested the story about pinocchio to tolstoy, it was she who translated it for him this fairy tale, from which later... he will write his famous golden key or the adventure of burotin, so at the same time ninya ivanovna should be eternally grateful, but for her cooperation with the day before had extremely negative consequences, because the day before there was an openly pro-soviet newspaper, it was made with the kremlin’s money, everyone in emigration understood this perfectly well, it was the collaboration with the newspaper the day before that actually presented the tolstoys with a choice: either you are with us, or you are with

them, but the emigrant... told him no, then he returns to the soviet union, and here his very interesting soviet fate takes shape, but she did not follow him to the soviet union, perhaps no one invited her there. and no one was waiting for her there and no one needed her, she leaves, returns to paris, where they look at her very askance, precisely because she has tarnished herself, tarnished her reputation by collaborating with a pro-soviet newspaper, so there is no opportunity to cooperate, to work in the emigrant press no longer exist for her, she actually finds herself in boycott situations, in isolation, she writes letters, she asks for... help, some crumbs are given to her, but this is all nothing, this is a terrible nothingness, this is hopelessness, then her beloved younger sister, her only one, dies in her arms , which connected her with life, and after that

life completely loses its meaning for her, in 1928 nina petrovskaya committed suicide in paris, in a poor hotel, and... dasevich soon after that wrote a short epilogue, well, not an epilogue, but epitaph, obituary, yes, dedicated, dedicated to her death, where he was very sad about what happened to her, mourned about her fate, wrote those same memoirs, necropolis, the end of renata, but in a sense it can be assumed that khatasevich loved her very much, and for her he was young man, she never treated him like that. seriously, but this unspoken, unrequited love of khadosevich, this grief about her female fate, about a man who loved literature so much, loved people so much with literature, that he recklessly gave himself up and became such material for creative

the fate of other people, ended up generally in oblivion, this is a story that personally touches me very much, i myself have a novel called the mental wolf, and where i just think about this relationship,

i would, for example, say that this is a collection of incidents and curiosities associated with gogol, such a kunskamera. well, i would say that this is probably a collection of gogol’s whims, but these whims, of course, on the surface, in

the depths, and we will talk about this, there are some things more, more important, well, in general with gogal it started from early childhood, a whim, while studying at the gymnasium, a lot happens there... he goes on stage playing an eighty-year old man plays so everyone gasped, it’s just that the parents were there , the governor was there, there were a lot of officials.

polenovo nature reserve, then he was there back in venice, gogol, this is one of his favorite cities, so it’s so interesting, here gogol travels with friends, he’s been there for a while, so they say, the police say: hello passports, gentlemen, yes, and nikolai vasilyevich begins to rummage around there for some reason there are bags, suitcases, everything is done, but the delegate is not allowed to go further, and pogodin there tells him, well, nikolai vasilyevich, well, well, come on. you have to go, he doesn’t let you go, but gogol

takes out your passport, gives it to the policeman , and that means he’s giving you the passport, eat it, then takes the passport, looks, gives it back to gogal, and gogol hides his hands behind his back and doesn’t take the passport back, then it all ended with him writing to the emperor ,

thirty-ninth year, uh, mama, yes, he sends her a letter to the poltava province, that means, he describes how he swims, that means, in the mediterranean sea from trieste, he sends her a letter from trieste, that i’m in trieste, that means, here are the waves of the mediterranean sea, here they speak this language, it’s similar to our slavic, everything is wonderful , so i won’t be in russia any time soon, maybe in 2-3 months there, so my mother receives these letters.

which means this is all from a letter with stamps from the city of trieste, vienna, and it turned out that nikolai vasilyevich forged these stamps, that is , he, he drew it himself, yes, he carefully with the finest feathers, that means, he drew , on the letters, the stamps of the free city of trieste and the capital, that means, austrian vienna, well, his mother was happy for him,

koluga must be told that you are going to rome, that means we had such stamps now , train stations, yes, then at the car wash there was such a station for mail carriages, a brik, here are the stagecoaches, here is the platform, you see. there is one, so they are waiting - everyone sits on this stagecoach, then there is a bell, the stagecoach drives off, yes, here is nikolai vasilyevich, he came from abroad, and goes from st. petersburg to moscow, here at this postal coach station and it was at the car wash, this station, it was at the car wash, goes there to this station, who also has a ticket for the same stagecoach, there was such a very famous person , officer, pyotr ivanovich peyker, this was the son of a senator.