14.01.2011

Writer, screenwriter Anatoly Naumovich Rybakov (real name Aronov, Rybakov - mother's surname) was born on January 14 (January 1, old style) 1911 in the city of Chernigov (Ukraine) in the family of an engineer.

In 1919, the family moved to Moscow and settled on Arbat, in house No. 51, later described by Rybakov in his stories and novels. Anatoly Rybakov studied at former Hvorostovskaya gymnasium in Krivoarbatsky Lane. He graduated from the eighth and ninth grades (then there were nine-year-olds) at the Moscow Experimental Communal School (MOPSHK), where the best teachers of that time taught.

After graduating from school, Anatoly Rybakov worked at the Dorogomilovsky Chemical Plant as a loader, then as a driver. In 1930, he entered the road transport department of the Moscow Transport and Economic Institute.

On November 5, 1933, student Rybakov was arrested and sentenced to three years of exile under Article 58-10 - counter-revolutionary agitation and propaganda. At the end of his exile, not having the right to live in cities with a passport regime, Rybakov wandered around the country, worked as a driver, mechanic, and worked at motor transport enterprises in Bashkiria, Kalinin (now Tver), and Ryazan.

Shortly before the war, he lived in Ryazan, where he met his first wife, an accountant by profession, Anastasia Alekseevna Tysyachnikova, and in October 1940 their son Alexander was born.

In 1941, Anatoly Rybakov was drafted into the army. From November 1941 to 1946, he served in atomic units and took part in battles on various fronts, from the defense of Moscow to the assault on Berlin. He finished the war with the rank of Guards major engineer, holding the position of head of the automobile service of the 4th Guards Rifle Corps. "For distinction in battles with German fascist invaders“Rybakov was recognized as having no criminal record, and in 1960 he was completely rehabilitated.

Having been demobilized in 1946, Anatoly Naumovich returned to Moscow. Then he began his literary activity, began to write adventure stories for young people. His first story "Dirk" was published in 1948, in 1956 its continuation was published - the story "Bronze Bird", and in 1975 - the third and final part of the trilogy - "The Shot".

He is the author of the trilogy "The Adventures of Krosh", the novels "Drivers" (1950), "Ekaterina Voronina" (1955), "Summer in Sosnyaki" (1974). In 1978, the novel “Heavy Sand” was published, in 1987 - the novel “Children of the Arbat”, written back in the 1960s, the continuation of which “The Thirty-fifth and Other Years” was published in 1989.

In 1990, the novel “Fear” was published, and in 1994, “Dust and Ashes”. In 1995, the collected works of Anatoly Rybakov were published in seven volumes, and two years later the autobiographical “Novel-Memoirs” was published.

Films and television films have been made based on the writer’s books. In 1957, his novel “Ekaterina Voronina” was filmed; in 2005, the television series “Children of the Arbat” was released; in 2008, the television series “Heavy Sand” was released. Based on his scripts, the stories "Dirk" (1954), "The Adventures of Krosh" (1961), "The Bronze Bird" (1973), " Last summer childhood" (1974), the series "The Unknown Soldier" (1984) was filmed.

In the 1990s, when the Soviet Union collapsed, Anatoly Rybakov, not accepting the changes that had taken place in the country, left for the United States, but he did not emigrate. He came to his homeland every year for virtually 4-5 months, was aware of everything that was happening here, took part in literary and public life Russia.

From 1989 to 1991, Anatoly Rybakov was the president of the Soviet PEN Center, and from September 1991, he was the honorary president of the Russian PEN Center.

Since 1991, he served as secretary of the board of the USSR Writers' Union.

Rybakov was an honorary Doctor of Philosophy from Tel Aviv University (1991).

He was awarded orders Patriotic War I and II degrees, Red Banner of Labor, Friendship of Peoples. He was a laureate of the USSR State Prize (1951) and the RSFSR State Prize (1973).

Anatoly Rybakov died on December 23, 1998 in New York. Six months earlier, he had undergone heart surgery. He was buried on January 6, 1999 in Moscow at the Novo-Kuntsevo cemetery.

In 1978, Anatoly Rybakov married for the third time. His wife was Tatyana Markovna Vinokurova-Rybakova (nee Belenkaya), with whom he lived until the end of his life. She passed away in 2008.

He had two sons: from his first marriage - Alexander (1940-1994), from whom he left a granddaughter - Maria Rybakova (born 1973), writer, author of the novels "Anna Thunder and Her Ghost", "Brotherhood of the Losers" and the collection "The Secret".

From his second marriage - Alexey Makushinsky (b. 1960), who took the surname of his mother, according to other sources - the surname of his maternal grandmother. Poet, prose writer and essayist, professor at the University of Mainz (Germany).

In 2006, the famous documentarian Marina Goldovskaya shot a portrait film “Anatoly Rybakov. Afterword,” dedicated to the life and work of the writer.

Anatoly Naumovich Rybakov (real name Aronov) was born January 1 (14), 1911 in Chernigov in the family of an engineer, since 1919 lived in Moscow.

He studied at the former Khvostovskaya gymnasium in Krivoarbatsky Lane. He graduated from the eighth and ninth grades at the Moscow Experimental Communal School (abbreviated as MOPSHK) in 2nd Obydensky Lane on Ostozhenka. The school arose as a commune of Komsomol members who returned from the fronts of the Civil War. After graduating from school, he worked at the Dorogomilovsky Chemical Plant as a loader, then as a driver.

After graduation in 1930 entered the Engineering and Transport Institute. Arrested in 1933 on charges of counter-revolutionary propaganda (Article 58-10), he was exiled to Siberia for 3 years. After serving his sentence, he was deprived of the right to live in big cities, lived and worked in Ufa, Kalinin, Ryazan, etc. Drafted into the army at the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, he fought as a private, then received officer rank, in 1960 his criminal record was cleared.

Having been demobilized in 1946, begins work on the children's adventure story "Dirk" ( 1948 ), which takes place during the Civil War and NEP; its continuation was the story “The Bronze Bird” ( 1956 ). Built on a poignant plot and rich in romance, Rybakov’s books have been reprinted many times. The trilogy, which includes the stories “The Adventures of Krosh” ( 1960 ), "Krosh's Holidays" ( 1966 ) and "The Unknown Soldier" ( 1970 ). Narrating from the perspective of the hero, who, before the reader’s eyes, transforms from a teenager into a young man, Rybakov shows how the process of character formation occurs, moral principles are developed, and a place in life is determined. Rybakov's stories are characterized by tense plot development, lightness of style, and the writer's warm sympathy for his to young heroes.

In the State Prize-winning novel “Drivers” ( 1950 ) the writer turns to the image of people close to him in his former profession as an automotive engineer. Written according to the canons of an “industrial” novel, Rybakov’s book attracts most of all with its meticulous knowledge and accurate depiction of the details of the lives of people working at a motor transport enterprise: it is in this labor sphere that the author’s interest is entirely focused. Rybakov’s soon-written books “Ekaterina Voronina” ( 1955 ) and “Summer in Sosnyaki” ( 1964 ): and here the central problems are those that arise in a team of people working in a large enterprise. In an effort to enlarge the scale of the narrative, Rybakov goes beyond the scope of the story about production: in the writer’s novels one finds persistent desire affirm the idea of ​​a person’s responsibility to himself and others for everything that happens in life.

Rybakov took a new step for himself with the novel “Heavy Sand” ( 1979 ): the time frame and field of the image expanded widely, the fates of numerous characters turned out to be associated with the movement of history. Achieving authenticity of the narrative, Rybakov at the same time writes passionately; pain determines the tone of the novel. The beginning of the history of the Jewish family described in the novel dates back to 1910; this story ends in the terrible year 1943 for its members. The era, the boundaries of which the narrative is outlined, fully reveals its inhuman character, which was reflected with such cruel force in the life - and death - of the heroes of the novel Rybakova.

One of the most notable events in literature of the late 1980s was Rybakov’s novel “Children of the Arbat”: its conception dates back to the late 1950s, work on it continued for a long time. Magazine " New world» announced the novel in 1967, and "October" - in 1979, however, it was first published only in 1987. The events described here were continued in the novel “The Thirty-Fifth and Other Years” ( 1988 ), the second book of which was the novel “Fear” ( 1990 ), and the third is the novel “Dust and Ashes” ( 1994 ). In these multifaceted psychological novels provides a vivid picture of Soviet society in the era of beginnings - ever expanding, capturing all layers - Stalin's repressions: people of different generations living in different parts of the country find themselves under the ever-increasing terrible oppression of an inhuman dictatorship.

The writer not only talks about events, the terrible power of which is increasingly felt by the characters in his story, but also seeks to explore the psychology of society in the 1930s, where the fear that settled deeper and deeper in the souls of people only gradually replaced their faith in the expediency of what was happening.

Accurately reproducing the signs of the times, Rybakov now comes to an artistic understanding of the process of confrontation between different ideas about the ways historical development. One of the first writers to make readers think about the validity of the seemingly unshakable principle of the superiority of the collective point of view over the individual: the name of one of the parts of the trilogy - “Fear” - defines the feeling that was carefully instilled in Soviet society at that time, making it possible to make a person submissive. Rybakov was also one of the first to attempt to explain the character of Stalin and the reasons that, for several decades, allowed millions of people, despite everything, to believe in the wisdom of the leader and the justice of his state policy, which led to the destruction of millions of Soviet citizens. Rybakov shows how a dictator consistently, stopping at nothing, strengthens his power, resolutely suppressing any manifestation of dissent. But in the novel we're talking about and about how an understanding of the enormity of what is happening, an understanding of the true - tragic - meaning of processes in the life of society, directed by the cruel hand of the leader, matures in people.

From 1989 to 1991 Anatoly Rybakov was the president of the Soviet PEN Center, since September 1991- Honorary President of the Russian PEN Center. Since 1991 served as secretary of the board of the USSR Writers' Union. Honorary Doctor of Philosophy from Tel Aviv University ( 1991 ).

A. N. Rybakov(Aronov) was born on January 1 (14), 1911 in Chernigov in the Jewish family of engineer Naum Borisovich Aronov and his wife Dina Abramovna Rybakova.

Since 1919 he lived in Moscow, on Arbat, no. 51. He studied at the former Khvostovskaya gymnasium on Krivoarbatsky Lane. Yuri Dombrovsky studied at the same school and at the same time. He graduated from the eighth and ninth grades at the Moscow Experimental Communal School (abbreviated MOPSHK) in 2nd Obydensky Lane on Ostozhenka. The school arose as a commune of Komsomol members returning from the fronts civil war.

After graduating from school, he worked at the Dorogomilovsky chemical plant, as a loader, then as a driver.

In 1930 he entered the Moscow Institute of Transport Engineers.

On November 5, 1933, he was arrested and sentenced by a Special Meeting of the OGPU Collegium to three years of exile under Article 58-10 (Counter-revolutionary agitation and propaganda). At the end of his exile, not having the right to live in cities with a passport regime, he wandered around Russia. I worked where you didn’t have to fill out forms. From 1938 to November 1941 he worked as chief engineer of the Ryazan Regional Department of Motor Transport.

From November 1941 to 1946 he served in Soviet army in automobile parts. He took part in battles on various fronts, from the defense of Moscow to the storming of Berlin. The last position was the head of the automobile service of the 4th Guards Rifle Corps, the rank was guard engineer major. “For distinction in battles with the Nazi invaders” he was recognized as having no criminal record.

In 1960 he was completely rehabilitated.

A. N. Rybakov died on December 23, 1998 in New York. He was buried at the Kuntsevo cemetery in Moscow.

Poet, prose writer and essayist Alexey Makushinsky is the son of Anatoly Rybakov. Writer Maria Rybakova - granddaughter of A. N. Rybakov

Anatoly Rybakov was president of the Soviet PEN Center (1989-1991), secretary of the board of the USSR Writers Union (since 1991). Doctor of Philosophy from Tel Aviv University.

With difficulty, due to the unusual subject matter, the novel Heavy Sand (1978), which made its way into the Soviet press and immediately brought Rybakov enormous popularity, tells about the life of a Jewish family in the 1910-1940s in one of the multinational towns of Western Ukraine, about the bright and all-overcoming love carried through the decades, about the tragedy of the Holocaust and the courage of the Resistance. This peak work of the writer combined all the colors of his artistic palette, adding to them philosophy, a craving for historical analysis and mystical symbolism (image main character, beautiful lover, then wife and mother of Rachel on last pages appears as a semi-real personification of the wrath and revenge of the Jewish people).

Based on Rybakov’s personal experiences, the novel Children of Arbat (1987) and the trilogy that continues it, The Thirty-fifth and Other Years (book 1, 1988; book 2 - Fear, 1990; book 3 - Ashes and Ashes, 1994) recreates the fate of the generation of 1930- 's, trying to reveal the mechanism totalitarian power. Among the writer's other works are the story The Unknown Soldier (1970) and the autobiographical Novel-Memoirs (1997). Anatoly Rybakov is a laureate of State Prizes of the USSR and the RSFSR.

This one is very interesting person- writer and public figure - lived in difficult times. We can say that he repeated the fate of the idol of more than one generation, Alexander Solzhenitsyn. His books became a symbol of an entire era, and even now, with the passage of time, they have not lost either their novelty or literary value.

Family and childhood of Anatoly Rybakov

The biography of the future writer began in the village of Derzhanovka, Chernigov province (now the territory of Ukraine). He was born on January 11, 1911 in the family of an engineer. Anatoly's father's surname was Aronov, and his mother's surname was Rybakova. In his autobiography, he always indicated the city of Chernigov. Perhaps Rybakov was ashamed of his rural origin.

In adulthood, having already become a writer, Anatoly Naumovich took his mother’s surname as a creative pseudonym, and then forever. Rybakov’s father worked at a distillery, and his grandfather was an elder in a synagogue. After the Pale of Settlement was abolished, the boy’s parents moved to Moscow. This happened in 1919. They lived on Arbat, in the very house that would later be described in the writer’s works. He studied at the Hvorostov gymnasium, and completed his education at a special experimental commune school in Moscow, where the best teachers of that time taught.

Youth

After graduating from school, the boy went to work at the Dorogomilovsky chemical plant. And in 1930 he entered the Moscow Transport and Economic Institute. But Anatoly Rybakov’s biography suddenly and terribly changed three years later. As a student, he was arrested for counter-revolutionary agitation and propaganda. True, at that time he received not such a long sentence - three years of exile. Having been released, Anatoly could not work in big cities where there was a passport regime. Therefore, he had to be hired as a mechanic, then as a driver, then as a loader in the provinces of Russia - Ryazan, Tver, as well as in Tatarstan and Bashkiria. Perhaps that is why no further arrests awaited him. He never filled out forms and seemed to have become invisible to state security agencies.

War and the beginning of creative activity

The biography of Anatoly Rybakov also has army pages. At the beginning of the Great Patriotic War he was called up. He served mainly in automobile units and saw the most famous battles - from the defense of Moscow to the storming of Berlin. He received the rank of guard engineer major, and for his military services his criminal record was cleared.

During the Khrushchev Thaw in 1960, Anatoly Rybakov was completely rehabilitated. But back in 1946, after demobilization, he returned to Moscow and began to try his hand at literary genre. His first literary successes were stories written for young people.

Official creativity in the USSR

The biography of the writer Anatoly Rybakov began in 1948. Then his first story, “Dirk,” was published. It was her who he signed with a pseudonym - his mother's surname. Since then, the writer has gone down in history not as Aronov. From now on he became Anatoly Naumovich Rybakov. His biography in the field of literature seemed to have a double bottom. He can be considered an official writer, since, for example, he received the State Prize of the Soviet Union back in 1951 for a not very remarkable artistically, but the ideologically correct novel “Drivers”. Although there was something in him too personal experience Anatolia.

It is interesting that, according to rumors, he was recommended for the prize by Stalin, who liked the novel. True, the author was either included in the list of applicants or thrown out as a counter-revolutionary. But in the end they left it anyway. But his adventurous stories, such as the continuation of “Dirk” “The Bronze Bird” or a series about the adventures and vacations of Krosh, were very popular among the youth of the sixties. Mysteries, romance with a pioneer-boyish flavor, ancient artifacts - all this was new and attracted with freshness.

In 1970, the writer’s landmark novel “The Unknown Soldier” was published, and in 1978 “Heavy Sand”. It already looked dissonant, since it talked about the difficult fate of a Jewish family, and even against the background of the then Soviet anti-Semitism.

What was written on the table

But it turned out that the biography of Anatoly Naumovich Rybakov is not so simple. Since the sixties of the twentieth century, he secretly wrote a novel based on memories of his life ordinary people in Moscow communal apartment at the very beginning of the Stalinist repressions. Tvardovsky wanted to publish it as soon as he read it. But the censorship did not let the novel pass. As soon as perestroika began, in 1987 Rybakov published this book under worldwide acclaim. famous name"Children of Arbat". The work had the effect of a bomb exploding. Together with Abuladze’s film “Repentance,” it became a symbol of perestroika. The confrontation between Sasha Pankratov, the writer’s alter ego, and Joseph Stalin, a ruler for whom only power matters, but not human lives- was probably the best that has been written on this topic.

The continuation of the novel was the trilogy “The Thirty-fifth and Other Years,” which talks about what happened later with the children of Arbat - the heroes of the first book. The trilogy includes the novel “Fear,” published in 1990, and “Dust and Ashes,” published in 1994. It is believed that the cycle of novels about the children of Arbat is the peak of Anatoly Rybakov’s creativity. After that, in 1997, he published only memoirs - an autobiographical novel with documentary memories.

last years of life

With books about Stalinist repressions and the period of the Great Terror to Anatoly Rybakov, short biography which is stated above, came worldwide fame. His works began to be translated into other languages ​​and were published in 52 countries. The writer becomes active public figure and even - until 1991 - headed the Soviet PEN Center. Rybakov's identity was that of a Russian Soviet Jew. He was a free and independent person.

But at the same time, I felt like I was part of the Jewish people. In the mid-nineties, after the collapse of the USSR, Rybakov became seriously ill. To have the operation, he leaves for the United States. But it's too late. On December 23, 1998, Anatoly Rybakov dies in a New York hospital. He was buried in Moscow at the Kuntsevo cemetery. The novels “Children of the Arbat” and “Heavy Sand” were adapted into television series after the writer’s death in the 2000s.

Biography of Anatoly Rybakov: briefly about the writer’s family

The writer's wife became no less famous woman- Tatyana Vinokurova, daughter of the former People's Commissar of the Food Industry Mikoyan, who was both the author and the victim of Stalin's repressions. She was the editor of Krugozor magazine for a long time. One of Anatoly’s two sons, Alexey, also became a writer. He was published in Russia under the pseudonym Makushinsky, and now lives in Germany in the city of Mainz and works at the university there at the department of Slavic studies. The writer’s eldest son died back in 1994 during his father’s lifetime. His daughter and granddaughter of Anatoly Rybakov Maria inherited the family gift for writing. She is the author of popular novels such as Brotherhood of the Losers and others.

Anatoly Naumovich Rybakov

(1911-1998)

Anatoly Naumovich Rybakov was born in 1911 in the Ukrainian city of Chernigov, but already in early age moved with his parents to Moscow, and all of Rybakov’s childhood impressions and memories are connected with life big city 20s. Here, in Moscow, he joined the pioneers, when the first pioneer organizations were just being formed, here he studied at the then famous school-commune named after Lepeshinsky, here he became a Komsomol member, here he began his working life at Dorkhimzavod. In 1930, A.N. Rybakov entered the Moscow Institute of Transport Engineers and subsequently became an automobile engineer. The second half of the 30s was the time of Rybakov’s wanderings around the country; Then future writer I saw many cities and changed many professions, really got to know people and life.1
During the Great Patriotic War, Rybakov was a front-line officer, head of the automobile service of the rifle corps.
The literary path of A.N. Rybakov began after the war, when the writer was already 37 years old. Then, in 1948, “Dagger” was published and immediately won the hearts of readers - the fascinating adventures of Misha Polyakov and his friends, who were looking for a mysterious weapon that had disappeared during the First World War. The story was written according to all the rules of the adventure genre: energetic action, romantic mystery and unexpected plot twists - these are the main springs that held together the various pictures and events of this book and held it little reader in tense anticipation of the extraordinary. But there were already two more features in this funny story that were characteristic of Rybakov’s talent, determined by his biography and his attitude to the world.
Firstly, the color of the time, the colors of the era of his childhood, which was reflected in the bright reflections of the recent revolution, the tangible breath of the just subsided civil war, irreconcilable class clashes - they determine all the experiences, dreams and actions of Misha Polyakov and his comrades, who always simply establish and knowing exactly what is good and what is bad, whose side they are on and therefore exactly how they should act and act. There is no place for thoughts, doubts, or hesitations here.2
Secondly, the main moral qualities hero Rybakov; The hero of "Dirk", for all his childish features, is already a small man, determined, inquisitive, energetic, always acting in accordance with his beliefs and ideas about good and bad. This will remain forever, all of A. Rybakov’s favorite heroes, no matter how old they are, no matter what they do and no matter what they are called, strictly maintain a complex of male honor, where courageous courage and readiness to defend justice come first, and meanness is always is called meanness, no matter what clothes it dresses itself in.
“Dirk” was a great success among readers, but A. Rybakov did not follow the already beaten path following the first book, but tried his hand as a writer in a completely different genre. In 1950, he published a great novel, “Drivers,” which was awarded the USSR State Prize in 1951. It was a book about drivers and the work of drivers, about the joys and sorrows of the working man, about the problems of modern production. Neither the material, nor the plot, nor the style of the novel at all resembled A. Rybakov’s first story, and only the name of the hero of “Drivers”, the silent head of the motor depot - Mikhail Grigorievich Polyakov - betrayed the author’s inner intention to give a picture of the fate of the generation that began its journey in the light of the first pioneer bonfires and who took the main burden on his shoulders great war. But so far this was only a distant intention, and the connection between the hero of “Dirk” and the hero of “Drivers” was purely conditional, important mainly for the author, who, parting with the memories of his youth for a long time, made a sign that he did not want to leave them forever. 2
Rybakov’s first “adult” novel, Drivers (1950; USSR State Prize, 1951) is dedicated to people well known to the author from his previous profession as an automotive engineer, and belongs to the best examples of “industrial” prose, captivating with the authenticity of the image, skillful recreation of the everyday work of a provincial town motor depot , subtle individualization of characters.
Difficult problems of relationships in the team of Volga river workers in the center of Rybakov’s second “production” novel Ekaterina Voronina (1955; film of the same name 1957, directed by I.M. Annensky). In the novel “Ekaterina Voronina” we were again talking about transport workers, but now about those who work in river ports, on ships, who are connected with water, with the Volga. In “Ekaterina Voronina” A. Rybakov demonstrated another facet of his writing talent - knowledge female psychology and the ability to portray it. In the novel Summer in Sosnyaki (1964), the writer shows the intense life of a large enterprise through the prism psychological conflict an honest wretched man and a stupid dogmatist, which reflected the real explosive contradiction of the “stagnant” time.1
But, having finished the novel about adult woman“Ekaterina Voronina”, the dispatcher of the Volga port, the writer immediately returned to the adventures of his little heroes, beloved by young readers; he writes “The Bronze Bird” (1956) - a continuation of the adventures of Misha Polyakov and his friends in the summer pioneer camp. And again the book is a success, and again its author is looking for new themes and new literary paths, interspersing work on books about Krosha with work on “adult” works - film scripts, plays and a small novel, but very serious in content, “Summer in Sosnyaki” "(1964), where for the first time in his work he uses the technique of combining different time plans, when the action freely moves from the past to the present and back. He will use this technique in the story “The Unknown Soldier”.
Three stories by A. Rybakov about Krosh are widely known in Russia to both young and adult readers. The first of them, “The Adventures of Krosh,” was published in 1960, the second, “Krosh’s Vacation,” in 1966, and the third, “The Unknown Soldier,” in 1971. In their popularity they can compete with the famous “Dirk”, with which A. Rybakov began his literary career
and which is already well known to many successive generations of young schoolchildren, lovers of fun and dangerous adventures.
This combination of light and cheerful with serious and instructive is characteristic of the work of A. Rybakov as a whole, a writer as much for children as for adults. From the very beginning literary path A. Rybakov runs parallel to two independent streams of his creativity - exciting adventures about children and for children and social novels about adults and for adults. But why, after all, can books about Krosh be safely called a “new” phenomenon for A. Rybakov in comparison with his first children's stories? After all, here, as in “Dirk”, as in “The Bronze Bird”, the main characters are schoolchildren, and here, too, the plot is centered on funny and amusing incidents, only this time they happened at a motor depot during the practical training of one eighth grader, after all, here too the hero of the story is endowed with the traits of curiosity, courageous courage and honesty, which were already clearly visible in Misha Polyakov.
What was new, first of all, was that Krosh, Seryozha Krasheninnikov, lived and acted not long ago, but at the very time when the book was written about him, he was a contemporary of both his creator and his reader, and the bright signs of the city the lives of the 60s were already included in “The Adventures of Krosh” in order to pour out even more freely and abundantly on the pages of “Krosh’s Vacations”. The reader of Krosh's adventures - both young and adult (and Krosh quickly won the sympathy of both) - had every opportunity to compare the actions of the hero, the situation of his life, his language, judgments, jokes with what he himself had just seen, heard, thought and survived, and this independent work always gives the reader special additional pleasure. When getting acquainted with a historical narrative, without special preparation, the reader is deprived of this opportunity to confidently judge whether the writer has depicted this or that phenomenon “similarly” or “unlikely.” Reading modern book O modern hero, the reader, voluntarily or involuntarily, but certainly makes such a judgment, and if the reader considers himself to be a thinking and conscious reader, then he is even obliged to make this judgment. At the same time, however, it is necessary to remember that art is not a simple and accurate “cast” of life, that every piece of art It always has, so to speak, an additional aesthetic “coefficient”, that is, its own special task and a special expression of the author’s attitude towards what is depicted. Rybakov’s aesthetic quotient in Krosh’s adventures is humor, his cheerful and inoffensive smile, with which the writer watches his hero grow up, winning small victories and enduring small defeats. The humor with which the writer conveys Krosh's confession preserves for the reader the true scale of the events in the hero's life - significant for himself, but not so enormous for the rest of humanity, in other words, both truly serious and truly ordinary.
And here there is a transition to another new feature of Rybakov’s children’s stories of the 60s in comparison with his earlier stories. Although almost two decades have passed since Krosh first appeared in the world, it seems that today’s reader can easily recognize him as his contemporary. The charm and attractiveness of the character of this hero, created by A. Rybakov in the 60s, are inseparable from his modernity. Krosh’s very view of the world, of life, is modern, where he first of all wants to distinguish between the imaginary and the real from the false, pompous and exaggerated.
The novel “Heavy Sand” (1979) stands apart in the work of A. Rybakov. This novel was published in the pages of the October magazine. The novel “Heavy Sand” became a literary sensation for the Russian-Jewish reader: for the first time in Russian literature after the 1930s. a novel appeared devoted almost exclusively to Jewish life. The novel is dedicated to the love story of Rachel and Yakov Ivanovsky - a page in the history of the Jewish people. With difficulty, due to the unfamiliarity of the subject matter, the novel “Heavy Sand (1978)”, which made its way into the Soviet press and immediately brought Rybakov enormous popularity, tells the story of the life of a Jewish family in the 1910s - 1940s in one of the multinational towns of Western Ukraine, about a bright and all-overcoming love, carried through decades, about the tragedy of the Holocaust and the courage of the Resistance. Rybakov traces the life of the extensive Jewish Ivanovsky-Rakhlenko family from pre-revolutionary times to the Second World War (from 1909 to 1942) and the death of most of its representatives during the Nazi occupation of Ukraine. This pinnacle work of the writer combined all the colors of his artistic palette, adding to them philosophy, a craving for historical analysis and mystical symbolism (the image of the main character, a beautiful lover, then wife and mother Rachel on the last pages appears as a semi-real personification of the anger and revenge of the Jewish people). The background of the novel, Jewish life in Ukraine in the pre-war period, was recreated by the author on the basis of documentary materials collected during Rybakov’s trips to the places of extermination of Jews; the theme of the Holocaust is presented on a large scale and uncompromisingly. The novel is based on the idea of ​​the immortality of the Jewish people, its heroism, humanity, and resilience. (Rybakov donated some materials and versions of the novel, as well as letters from readers, to Tel Aviv University in 1991.)
Rybakov came up with the idea of ​​an anti-Stalin novel about his generation in the late 50s. And the next stages of Rybakov’s work were novels about the life of Soviet society during the years of Stalin’s terror: “Children of the Arbat” (1986), “The Thirty-Fifth and Other Years” (1989), “Fear” (1990), united by the clearly autobiographical image of Sasha Pankratov. It was only in 1987 that the first novel of the trilogy, “Children of the Arbat,” was published, followed by “Fear” (1991) and “Dust and Ashes” (1994). The books of the trilogy were published in the Soviet Union with a total circulation of 1.5 million copies, translated into dozens of languages, and were among the world bestsellers. The play of the same name was staged in more than 30 theaters in the USSR and Europe.
Based on Rybakov’s personal experiences, the novel Children of Arbat (1987) and the trilogy that continues it, “The Thirty-Fifth” and Other Years (book one, 1988; book two, “Fear,” 1990; book three, “Dust and Ashes,” 1994) recreates destinies generation of the 1930s, trying to reveal the mechanism of totalitarian power. Among the writer's other works are the story The Unknown Soldier (1970) and the autobiographical Novel-Memoirs (1997). Anatoly Rybakov is a laureate of State Prizes of the USSR and the RSFSR.
In the novel “Children of Arbat” the author attempted to give a picture of the life of the entire Soviet society in the 1930s; analyzing the state different layers society (student environment, intelligentsia, workers, prisoners and exiles, NKVD employees, etc.), Rybakov revealed the reasons for the transformation of a socialist state into a totalitarian one, with the gradual concentration of all power in the hands of the all-powerful dictator I. Stalin and the promotion of the repressive apparatus to the fore . Against this background, a detailed, fictionalized biography of I. Stalin, the culprit of the death of millions of Soviet citizens, including Jews, is given. In the novel there are many characters with Jewish surnames, both among the victims of terror and among the security officers and investigators of the “authorities”. “Children of the Arbat” expresses Rybakov’s internationalist views: he does not focus on the Jewish question, although he mentions one of the exiles, the Zionist Frida, with obvious sympathy. The author’s creed on the Jewish question is expressed through the lips of another Jewish hero, the exiled Boris Soloveichik, who, speaking about Jewish religion, says without a shadow of a doubt that “religion for a Jew is only a form of national self-preservation, a means against assimilation. But assimilation is inevitable." "Children of the Arbat", like Rybakov's subsequent books, caused heated controversy in public circles and in the Soviet press, including harsh criticism from the Stalinists and communist orthodoxies; the controversy surrounding the novel in 1987–88 was reflected in the collection of articles and letters from readers “Children of the Arbat.” From different points of view"
Rybakov’s books have been translated into many languages ​​of the world, including Hebrew (“Heavy Sand”, 1980; “Children of Arbat”, 1989; “The Thirty-fifth and Other Years”, 1992; “Fear”, 1992). A translation of the novel “Heavy Sand” into Yiddish was published in the magazine “Sovietish Gameland” in 1979. Rybakov visited Israel twice, where in 1991 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from Tel Aviv University. Based on many of Rybakov’s books, they staged art films. In 1981, Rybakov’s collected works were published in four volumes. The books were published in 52 countries, with a total circulation of more than 20 million copies.
Almost all of A. Rybakov’s works have been made into films and television films, the scripts for which were written by the author himself. Anatoly Naumovich left an autobiographical book “Novel-Memoir” (1997). In 2005, the television series “Children of Arbat” was released. In 2008, the television series “Heavy Sand” was released.
He died on January 23, 1998 in New York, and was buried in Moscow.