Gaidar's biography is briefly the most important. A military secret. Youth and military service

Arkady Golikov (Gaidar) is a children's writer, a participant in the bloody Civil War and a punisher of the anti-Soviet underground. Golikov is one of the most controversial personalities in Soviet history. Who is he: a brutal killer of civilians, an inveterate alcoholic, or a talented children's writer?

Childhood

Arkady Petrovich was born on January 9 (22), 1904 in the town of Lgov, in the Kursk province. On the maternal side, the writer was a hereditary nobleman (moreover, mother Natalya was related to), on the paternal side - the grandson of a serf.

Arkady Gaidar with his parents and sisters

Later the family moved to the city of Arzamas. Arkady was the firstborn, and in a new place he had three sisters - Natasha, Katya and Olya. The researchers argue that the talent woke up in the writer in his early years: he learned to compose and speak in rhyme earlier than to write and count.

Kursk library

At the age of 10, the boy is assigned to the Arzamas real school. Here, the young schoolboy made an attempt to escape to the front, where his father had been taken earlier, but the boy was returned home under escort. While studying at the school, Arkady amazed the teachers with his excellent memory - he memorized entire books and texts of textbooks.

Military career

After the fall of the royal family, many parties and student committees appeared in Arzamas. In the summer of 1917, Golikov received the position of a messenger, and in 1918 he joined the Bolshevik squad. Initially, the Bolsheviks took the young man to the RCP (b) as a candidate, and the 15-year-old Golikov became a full member of the party on December 15, 1918. At first he served as an adjutant, later he headed the department of protection of the railway.

The young man constantly asked to go to the front, but the commander insisted that the guy first undergo specialized training. And so it happened - Golikov went to the Moscow command courses of the Red Army. Later, the institution was relocated to Ukraine, to Kyiv. Once in Kyiv, Arkady fought with the Petliurists and Ukrainian rebels.

Krasnoyarsk library

In 1919, Golikov became commander, in 1920 - commissar of headquarters. At the age of 17, he knew more about military affairs than many commanders. In 1921 he received the rank of regiment commander. Golikov fought on different fronts (in Sochi, on the Don, on the Caucasian front), where he contracted typhus, was wounded and twice shell-shocked. In 1922 he was sent to suppress the anti-Soviet uprising in Khakassia. Here the young commander proved himself to be a bloodthirsty tyrant who did not like the Jews and shot the population on suspicion of banditry.

TVNZ

According to historians, Gaidar pushed women and children off a cliff and killed anyone he suspected of anti-Soviet activities. In 1922 he was accused of abuse of power. Gaidar was stripped of his post and expelled from the party, sent for a psychiatric examination. The case ended with a diagnosis of "traumatic neurosis".

Creation

Arkady Petrovich returned from the front as an inveterate alcoholic with a fairly undermined psyche.

“From the ship to the ball” - this is how historians characterize Golikov’s literary activity, which began immediately after the end of his military career. Arkady took his first manuscript "In the days of defeats and victories" and brought it to the popular Leningrad almanac "Kovsh". With the words: “I am Arkady Golikov, and this is my novel and I ask you to print it,” the writer handed over to the editor several written notebooks. And the work was printed.

Kursk Scientific Library

Then the writer moved to Perm, where his first work was published in the Zvezda magazine under the pseudonym Gaidar (“Corner House”).

In subsequent years, he published essays and feuilletons. In between nervous breakdowns and moving, he writes his best books: "RVS", "School" and "The Fourth Dugout". Several times Arkady Petrovich was taken away by doctors with bouts of delirium tremens, later he was arrested for drunk shooting.

Kursk Scientific Library

This is followed by several suicide attempts - the writer tries to cut his veins. Boris Zaks, a fellow journalist, claimed that his hands were covered with large scars, and Arkady cut his veins more than once. In 1932, Golikov ended up in a psychiatric hospital, where he wrote "Military Secret". In total, according to Gaidar himself, he was in psychiatric hospitals 8-10 times.

In 1938, the all-Union fame came to the children's writer - the country was reading books and collections of his stories with might and main, remembering "Timur and his team", "Chuk and Gek" by heart. The writer took his son Timur and adopted daughter Zhenya to the Crimea and for a while forgot about psychological problems.

Arkady Gaidar at the Artek pioneer camp | Kursk Scientific Library

In March 1941, Arkady Petrovich, while relaxing in the Sokolniki sanatorium, met Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya. When the war began, Gaidar just received an order to write a screenplay based on the work "Timur and his team." The script was completed within 12 days, after which Arkady wrote a statement to the front.

Personal life

The writer was married three times in his life:

The first wife of the writer was Maria Nikolaevna Plaksina, a 17-year-old nurse. The writer himself at the time of his marriage was 17 years old. The first wife gave Gaidar a son, Zhenya, but the first-born died in infancy.

Arkady Gaidar with his wife Leah and son Timur | Literary newspaper

The second wife of Golikov was 17-year-old Liya Lazarevna Solomyanskaya, a supporter of the pioneer movement and organizer of the newspaper "Ant-Wizard". In 1926, the couple had a son, Timur. However, it was difficult to live with the writer, he drank alcohol and suffered from mental disorders. In 1931, his wife Leah took her son and left her husband for Samson Glyazer (a journalist for Komsomolskaya Pravda).

Arkady Gaidar with his wife Dora and children | Kursk Scientific Library

For the third time, the writer tied the knot with Dora Chernysheva. It happened in 1938. Being a middle-aged woman, Dora already had a daughter, Eugenia, whom Arkady later adopted.

Last years and death

Despite the prohibitions, the writer nevertheless arrived at the front. He came to Kyiv. Acted as a correspondent, helped with advice. Later he ended up in the rear of the Germans, and then became a member of the partisan detachment.

Having gone on reconnaissance in 1941, the writer, along with several partisans, on October 26, found himself in an ambush near the railway embankment. Finding the enemy, Gaidar managed to warn his own, shouting: "Guys, the Germans!" This phrase saved the lives of the rest of the partisans, but led to the death of Arkady Petrovich.

TVNZ

However, there is another version of events, according to which the writer did not die on October 26. Ukrainian journalist Viktor Glushchenko, having conducted his own investigation, learned that Gaidar and several partisans were sheltered by a woman Kristina Kuzmenko. Having lived with Christina until spring, the warriors moved towards the front, but they were captured. The partisans later managed to escape. They hid in the forest, and a certain Ulyana Dobrenko brought them food. These data were not enough to revise the history of Gaidar's death. Another fact is also doubtful - the body of the deceased was wearing an officer's uniform and half-woolen linen, which does not agree with the story of the partisans.

Kursk Scientific Library

Today, dozens of streets are named after Arkady Gaidar, his image is used in music and literature, and in Khabarovsk there is a memorial to the writer.

Curious facts

More than 70 years have passed since the death of the writer. However, researchers are still arguing about his life history.

Interesting facts about Arkady Gaidar:

The writer joined the ranks of the Red Army at the age of 15.
Historian Andrey Burovsky gives an alternative version of Golikov's enrollment in the Red Army. In his opinion, his mother enrolled Arcadia in the army in order to save him from retribution for the murder (or murders) committed by her son. Gaidar, during fits of insanity, once admitted that he had committed a murder in his youth: “I dreamed of people killed by me in childhood ...”

Kursk Scientific Library

The history of the writer's pseudonym is also interesting. According to one version, "Gaidar" in translation from Turkic is translated as "herald", "advanced rider". Another source claims that the pseudonym comes from the phrase "Golikov Arkady from Arzamas." The third version reports that the pseudonym originates from the Khakass word "Khaidar", which means "where to." During the service in Khakassia, the locals shouted: "Khaidar-Golik is coming!"
There is an opinion that it is not Arkady Gaidar who lies behind the tombstone in Kanev (a city in the Cherkasy region). In particular, a few years after the burial, the slab cracked. It was replaced with a new one, but it also cracked.

Literary newspaper

There is a version that Timur (the son of Leah Solomyanskaya) is not a native, but an adopted son of the writer. For the first time, the writer saw Timur only at the age of two, and at the time of his alleged conception (April 1926) Gaidar was in Central Asia. Thus, it is possible that the writer does not have blood descendants.

Bibliography

The most famous works of Golikov:

"Blue Cup" (1936);
"Timur and his team" (1940),
"The fate of the drummer" (1938),
"School" (1930);
"RVS" (1925);
"The Fourth Dugout".

Arkady Petrovich Gaidar (Golikov) was born on January 9 (22), 1904 in the city of Lgov, Kursk province, into a family of teachers. The boy's childhood was mostly spent in Arzamas, a small town in the Nizhny Novgorod region. Here, the future writer studied at a real school.

Arkady was selfless at an early age. When his father was taken to the front during the First World War, the boy ran away from home to also go to fight. However, he was stopped on the way.

In 1918, an important event took place in Gaidar's brief biography - the fourteen-year-old Arkady joined the Communist Party, began working in the Molot newspaper. At the end of the year he was enrolled in the Red Army.

Service in the active army

After completing training courses for command personnel in Moscow in 1919, Golikov was appointed assistant platoon commander. In 1911 he graduated from the Higher Rifle School ahead of schedule. Soon he was appointed commander of the Nizhny Novgorod regiment, fought on the Don, on the Caucasian front, near Sochi.

In 1922, Golikov participated in the suppression of the anti-Soviet insurrectionary movement in Khakassia, led by I. Solovyov. Heading the command of the second combat site in the Yenisei province, Arkady Petrovich gave rather tough orders aimed at ill-treatment of local residents who opposed the arrival of Soviet power.

In May 1922, by order of Golikov, five uluses were shot. The incident was learned in the provincial department of the GPU. Arkady Petrovich was demobilized with a diagnosis of "traumatic neurosis", which arose after an unsuccessful fall from a horse. This event became a turning point in Gaidar's biography.

Literary activity

In 1925, Golikov published the story "In the days of defeats and victories" in the Leningrad almanac "Kovsh". Soon the writer moved to Perm, where he first began publishing under the pseudonym Gaidar. In 1930, work was completed on the works "School", "The Fourth Dugout".

Since 1932, Arkady Petrovich has been working as a traveling correspondent for the Pacific Star newspaper. In 1932 - 1938, the novels and the story "Far Countries", "Military Secret", "Blue Cup", "The Fate of a Drummer" were published. In 1939 - 1940, the writer completed work on his most famous works for children - "Timur and his team", "Chuk and Gek", which are now being studied in elementary grades.

The Great Patriotic War

During the Great Patriotic War, the writer Gaidar worked as a correspondent for Komsomolskaya Pravda. During this period, Arkady Petrovich created the essays "The Bridge", "Rockets and Grenades", "At the Crossing", "At the Front Line", the philosophical fairy tale "Hot Stone".

In 1941 he served as a machine gunner in the partisan detachment of Gorelov.

On October 26, 1941, Arkady Petrovich Gaidar was killed by the Germans near the village of Leplyavo, Kanevsky District. The writer was buried in 1947 in Kanev, Cherkasy region.

Other biography options

According to the most famous version, the pseudonym "Gaidar" stands for "Golikov Arkady D'ARzamas" (similar to the name of d'Artagnan from Dumas' novel).
In 1939, Gaidar was awarded the Order of the Badge of Honor, in 1964 he was posthumously awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree.
Arkady Gaidar suffered from severe headaches, mood swings, and was repeatedly treated in a psychiatric clinic.
Gaidar's personal life did not develop immediately. The writer was married three times - to nurse Maria Plaksina (their son died before he was two years old), Komsomol member Leah Solomyanskaya (son Timur was born in marriage) and Dora Chernysheva (he adopted his wife's daughter).
Among Gaidar's close friends were the writers Fraerman and P.

On October 26, 1941, the war correspondent of Komsomolskaya Pravda, the famous writer Arkady Gaidar, died from fascist bullets.

At the beginning of the destructive 1990s, in search of strength to lift the spirit in the heroic past of the country, I visited Krasnogorsk, in the State Archive of Film and Photo Documents. Once, in a photo lab, I caught a moment when a photo restorer was dipping some kind of black negative in turn into baths with solutions. Projected onto the screen, it reflected at first someone's half-blackened, unrecognizable image, which, as it was washed, began to light up, finally revealing the face of the beloved writer Arkady Gaidar, familiar to many in the country. And from the suddenly surging memories of his brave, disinterested heroes, my heart became cheerful and cheerful, and I was ashamed of my weak-heartedness.

In 1933, the alarming news about the coming to power in Germany of Adolf Hitler, threatening a new onslaught to the east, inspired him with "The Tale of Malchish-Kibalchish and his firm word." It was read and memorized by the guys of the Soviet country. And the generation of Malchish-Kibalchish, who grew up on courageous books, went together as volunteers from the first days of the fascist invasion to the front. It performed unparalleled feats. This is it, together with older brothers and fathers, having greatly thinned in battles, won.

And the story "Timur and his team", published in chapters in 1940 in Pionerskaya Pravda, and the screenplay "Timur's Oath", also published in Pionerka, completed in the first days of the invasion, created a Timur movement throughout the country - schoolchildren took care of families fighters and commanders, about the elderly and lonely people.

Of course, a writer of such gigantic power of influencing millions of young people could not but become a target for the haters of our country. But if during his lifetime and after his death, only rumors spread about his illness associated with a military shell shock, then after the victory of the bourgeoisie in the 1991 coup, they began to openly call him a “murderer and punisher” during the Civil War - in articles, books, television films. However, the cleansing of his name is inevitable.

A literary pseudonym is never accidental. Although Arkady Petrovich himself did not reveal his secret to anyone and anywhere. The most common explanation of the five known - supposedly translated from Mongolian or Khakass - "a horseman galloping ahead", it turns out, means in Khakass only the question "where?". At the same time, the sixth assumption remains unnoticed, expressed in the preface to the book "Tales of the Purring Cat" famous in the beginning. 20th century Russian Andersen Nicholas Wagner, a well-known professor of zoology at Kazan and then St. Petersburg Universities. In a book that survived at the beginning. Seven editions of the twentieth century (!) And the first in the Soviet Union back in 1923, which was read by both high school students with realists, and Soviet schoolchildren, among many smart and strange philosophical fantastic works: about Gingerbread Dad, Fairy Fantast, daring Smoking Room, Uncle Puda and others - there is "The Tale of Prince Gaidar" ("Great") ...

About how the young prince left the royal chambers and comfort, after the beautiful princess Gudana asked him to find out what “great” is. And he went to wander the world alone without a retinue, met many poor people with their sorrows and troubles, suffered for them, forgetting about the beautiful Gudan. I realized that the great thing is love for all people. However, the meeting with a man who dreamed of taking revenge on the enemy, but, seeing him sick, dying, took pity on him, forgave and fell in love, seemed even more Great. And out of compassion for all the people he met, “his heart fluttered freely and joyfully. It has expanded. It captured everything earthly, everything created by the Great ... and tore apart ... "

It is unlikely that a courageous person like Gaidar would have admitted that he chose a pseudonym for such a touching tale ... Although he himself spent his entire short life. Without starting property, a wardrobe of clothes - in a tunic and boots, with a backpack on his back or a hiking bag.

... He grew up in a family that professed the views of "creative populists." This was the name given in Russian history to the mass “going to the people” of educated young people, which began in the 1870s, and did not want to put up with the lack of rights and general illiteracy of working people, demanding equal rights for all classes. Arkady's father, Pyotr Isidorovich, great-grandson of the serf peasant princes Golitsyn, who, upon his release, was coined a name similar to the princely surname Golikov, became a teacher. Mother Natalya Arkadievna Salkova married him against the will of her parent, a poor nobleman, an officer. She worked as a paramedic, then also as a teacher. After the revolution, both went to the Red Army. Who could become their son, a 5th grade student of the Arzamas real school, left alone, without parents, at the age of 14?

He takes part in January 1918 in the defense of Arzamas from the attack of rampant gangs, is on duty with the patrol at night. Receives the first wound - with a knife in the chest. In December 1918, he entered the Red Army, adding to himself, strong, broad-shouldered, years old. Passes military training, system, shooting. He writes later in his autobiography: “He was at the fronts: Petliurovsky (Kyiv, Korosten, Kremenchug, Fastov, Alexandria) ... commander of the 6th company of the 2nd regiment of a separate brigade of cadets.”

Here it is appropriate to recall the lines from the story “School” that Soviet Russia fought in Civil War not only with whites: “Peace between Russia and Germany was signed a long time ago, but, despite this, the Germans flooded Ukraine with their troops, pushed into the Donbass, helping whites form units."

And the Red Army men peered into the advancing chains, guessing who was coming: whites, Petliurists, Germans? Everyone tried to tear Ukraine away from Russia. Already then.

“Then I was on the Polish front near Borisov, Lepel and Polotsk - the 16th Army. The regiment forgot, because I had three diseases at once - scurvy, contusion in the head and typhus. I came to my senses in Moscow. He was sent to the Caucasian front and appointed commander of the 4th company of the 303rd (formerly 298th) regiment of the 9th army. After the capture of the remnants of Denikin near Sochi, he stood with a company, guarding the border from White Georgians (and we didn’t know that there were such Georgians! - L.Zh.) - a bridge across the Psou River behind Adler. ... was transferred to the mountains, fought against the gangs of General Geiman and Zhitikov, who raised an uprising in the Kuban.

Then he is the commander of a separate 58th anti-Antonov regiment in the Tambov province. And is it not strange that the commander of the fighting Mikhail Tukhachevsky who jumped under the People's Commissariat of the Navy Leo Trotsky from lieutenant to marshals, who used artillery and chemical gases against the rebellious peasants, are they praised as a great commander? Regiment commander Arkady Gaidar is blamed for participating in the suppression of both this rebellion and another - in the south of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, in Khakassia (Tana-Tuva).

In the book "Salt Lake" by a writer who dyed his hair as a monarchist Vladimir Soloukhin, published with the money of JSC "Khakasinterservice" in bad memory in 1994, it is suggested that it is not at all the gangs of the "emperor of the taiga" Ivan Solovyov, who sought to separate this distant land from Soviet Russia, were kept at bay by both Russians and Khakass, the vast majority of them illiterate. And the “punisher-chonovite Arkady Gaidar” fought “with the partisan detachment of Ivan Solovyov, the last center of armed resistance to the Bolsheviks throughout the territory of the former Russia” ...

"The last hearth", because the new government was supported and accepted by the majority of the people in a gigantic country! And among the primary tasks of this government were the elimination of illiteracy and the development of health care even in the most remote corners of the republic, such as Khakassia. Didn't the sponsors of the slanderous book and its author from an illiterate peasant milieu know this?

But a scientist who became a scientist in Khakassia under Soviet rule, a candidate of historical sciences Alexander Sheksheev considered it his duty to investigate the allegations against the writer. On December 14, 2005, he published an article in the Khakassia newspaper entitled "Gaidar and Red Banditry: The Last Secret." Now this article, turned by the author into a voluminous research work, is posted on the Internet. The scientist sums up on the materials of the archives: “Red banditry, the direct predecessor of which was the destructive behavior of the partisans, was due to the cruelty of the white military, peasant rebels; in response, the supporters of the Soviet government had a desire for revenge.

Having recounted the actions of the local Soviet authorities in the Yenisei province described by many researchers of the archives, now qualified as "red banditry", the author concludes: "But Gaidar had nothing to do with these crimes." And further: “The fact that Gaidar did not take part in the crimes attributed to him is confirmed by the chronological boundaries of his presence in the Yenisei province ... The certificate found in the archive indicates that he was here from FEBRUARY TO SEPTEMBER 1922. Summaries of events sent by the Chonovists to their headquarters, allow you to create a chronicle of the activities of the Golikov detachment ... Judging by the available documents, the Golikov detachment was engaged in reconnaissance, search and prosecution of "gangs" that did not bring him positive results ... Ascertaining his "inertia", the inspection commission concluded that it was necessary to remove Golikov from positions ... already on June 10, 1922, he was removed from his post and was at the provincial headquarters of the CHON ... But in June, the Minusinsk executive committee was notified (by whom?) that the battalion commander Golikov carried out executions of people. He threw the corpses into the river, and his case is being investigated ... After resolving his issue, Golikov left Krasnoyarsk. Considering the state of traumatic neurosis he was experiencing, on November 18, the Revolutionary Military Council granted the sick commander a six-month vacation. In January 1923, as a veteran of the Zlatoust division, he was awarded a cash prize and crimson breeches (!).

Arkady Petrovich himself writes about this short period in the Tana-Tuva region in his autobiography: “... then I began to fall ill (not immediately, but in jerks, periods.) They found a traumatic neurosis in me. He was treated several times ... In April 1924 he was transferred to the reserve. In November, he was fired due to illness. Only two years later, in 1926, that is, 8 years after I joined the army, the term for my 1904 draft came.

In the old days, boys from the age of 14 to 18 were called youths, that is, without the right to speak with adults (speech-rock-rock), undergrowth (not grown to adulthood), and now they are teenagers. Although life itself during revolutions and wars will grow up the children early. And 18-year-old Arkady Gaidar, with wounds at different times in the back, arm, leg, head, in search of a further work of his life, it was no coincidence that he chose the path of a children's writer. He lived his adult adolescence once again with his boy heroes and passed on to them his unfulfilled dreams, his passions and hobbies, his love for people and for his homeland, his willingness to sacrifice, if necessary, his life for the life of the country. Today, this self-sacrifice is cynically called "infantilism" by a new class of very literate consumers.

Author of the monument to Arkady Gaidar in Khabarovsk, where "The Tale of Malchish-Kibalchish" was born, sculptor Galina Mazurenko, having read Salt Lake, he admits in his memoirs: “... I went to Moscow, met Timur Gaidar, and he added to me hatred for Arkady Petrovich. I could not be inspired by such a monster. ... I reassured myself that he was just an infantile. He did not mature, and life was a game for him.

However, it is not at all interesting to discuss the opinions about the great Gaidar both of consumers who have forgotten how to read, and of his “false pseudonyms”, who made a career under the roof of the famous literary name, but secretly, as it turned out, hated his only legitimate bearer. But about the later life of the wanderer Gaidar, you can learn a lot more interesting things.

In a peaceful post-war life, he continued to wander around different parts of a large country: Perm, Arkhangelsk, Sverdlovsk, Khabarovsk ... working as a correspondent for regional newspapers, staying in the cities for no more than a year or two. I saw my son Timur for the first time in Arkhangelsk, when he was two years old. He did not create a home - wife Leah Solomyanskaya went to another journalist Samson Glazer.

What a family man, journalist and person 22-year-old Arkady Golikov was can be imagined from the memoirs of colleagues in the Arkhangelsk newspaper Pravda Severa. They say that Gaidar lived on constant journeys, often “changed” his profession: he felled wood together with lumberjacks, worked on rafting, pulled a net with fishermen. Once I left the house to buy pickles for meat, and returned three weeks later! With an essay on the spring rafting of the forest. It turns out that he met an artel of raftsmen at the market, was carried away by their stories, went with them to the pier, and there he asked to join the artel, sailed with them on a steamboat. He collected logs with a hook into rafts, cooked food on the shore on duty, fed mosquitoes, and froze on cold nights. And also, “in order not to be a black sheep among the rafters,” as he explained to the accountant who issued the backdated business trip, “I had to play cards, lose and drink so much vodka.” “I consider the issue of compensation to be fundamental,” the travel officer said either jokingly or seriously. They paid, of course, - the essay turned out to be brilliant.

... In the spring of 1926, Gaidar was again called to the path of his beloved muse of distant wanderings. He went with a friend Nikolai Kondratiev on a trip to Central Asia, with an inspection of the sands of Kara-Kum, camels, saxaul, but most importantly - cardinal changes in these parts, where bai and khans recently ruled, women walked in a veil, and dekhkans cultivated the meager land with a hoe. Gaidar sent travel notes, stories, feuilletons (and very funny ones!) about his observations and meetings with new people of Asia to the Permian newspaper Zvezda. In it, he published the story “R.V.S.” written on the road. and the story "Life in nothing" ("Lbovshchina") still under the name of Golikov. Money is tight, and Arkady Petrovich writes several feuilletons for the Tashkent newspaper Pravda Vostoka.

On the received fee, friends get to Turkmenistan. In Poltoratsk, which has not yet been renamed Ashgabat, they are published in the newspaper "Turkmenskaya Iskra", again earning money with publications for their further journey. Having reached Krasnovodsk, they bathe in the Caspian Sea, shake dusty backpacks off the sand. They cross the sea on a steamboat, learn how "black gold" - oil is extracted, admire the Caucasian mountains. It was not clear to me, who read these essays in my youth, dreaming of journalism, how, constantly moving, collecting material for newspaper publications “for the sake of daily bread”, Arkady Petrovich wrote major literary works: the story “In the days of defeats and victories”, “ Riders of impregnable mountains”, “R.V.S.”, “Distant countries” and others.

On the example of one of the essays noticed by the Pravda newspaper, let's imagine the life of a journalist who does not seek peace.

After the publication in the Permian newspaper Zvezda of Gaidar’s feuilleton “Noisy at night Marseilles” about the addiction of local investigator Filatov to night gatherings in a low-class tavern, where he played foxes and tangos on the violin for money to a drunken public, the investigator sued the author, and he was convicted ... The Sverdlovsk newspaper "Uralsky Rabochiy" came out in defense of the journalist, followed by the main newspaper of the country.

In Pravda on April 5, 1927, the article “The Gaidar Crime” criticized the actions of the Perm court, based on the opinion of the people: “Public opinion rebelled against the verdict of the court. Public opinion turned out to be on Gaidar's side. The workers of a number of large factories, the rabbi district meeting, the regional newspaper "Uralsky Rabochiy" spoke out in defense of Gaidar.

Public opinion is still for Gaidar, while his books are still alive. And some private modest publishing houses continue to print them.

However, I still want to finish my word about my beloved writer with a mention of his last courageous act - leaving for the army in defiance of the prohibitions of doctors, because those were too difficult days of retreats and leaving our cities. Gaidar could not sit at home!

Evgenia Arkadyevna Golikova-Gaidar, daughter of his beloved wife Daria Kuznetsova, recalls: “Dad came with binoculars and a hiking bag, which he bought on the Arbat in a commission shop. I was very happy: “This is just what I need. Arbatia is an extraordinary country. And this is for you." And he hands me a thin bundle. And in it is a book, fairy tales!

Now let's figure out what to write in it. After all, I'm leaving for the front, and it may happen that we won't see each other for a long time. He opened the book and immediately wrote:

"Daddy goes to war
For the Soviet country...
Zhenya reads a book
And dreaming about dad.
He's on the far side
Beats the fascists in the war.

And the signature is Ark. Gaidar. July 1941".

He always signed like this - Ark. Gaidar seemed to have a presentiment that he would have to dissociate himself from the unworthy privatizers of his literary name.

Ludmila ZHUKOVA

Gaidar, Arkady Petrovich(1904-1941), real name Golikov, Russian Soviet writer. Born on January 9 (22), 1904 in Lgov, Kursk province. The son of a teacher from peasants and a noblewoman mother who participated in the revolutionary events of 1905. Fearing arrest, in 1909 the Golikovs left Lgov, from 1912 they lived in Arzamas. He worked in the local newspaper "Hammer", where he first published his poems, joined the RCP (b).
From 1918 - in the Red Army (as a volunteer, hiding his age), in 1919 he studied at command courses in Moscow and Kyiv, then at the Moscow Higher Rifle School. In 1921 - commander of the Nizhny Novgorod regiment. He fought on the Caucasian front, on the Don, near Sochi, participated in the suppression of the Antonov rebellion, in Khakassia - against the "emperor of the taiga" I.N. a nervous illness that did not leave him later throughout his life. The naive-romantic, recklessly joyful perception of the revolution in anticipation of the coming "bright kingdom of socialism", reflected in many of Gaidar's autobiographical works, addressed mainly to young people (RVS stories, 1925, Seryozhka Chubatov, Levka Demchenko, The End of Levka Demchenko, Bandit's Nest, all 1926-1927, Smoke in the forest, 1935; novel School, originally titled Ordinary biography, 1930, Distant countries, 1932, Military secret, 1935, including the textbook in Soviet times, the Tale of the Military Secret, of Malchish-Kibalchish and his firm word , 1935, Bumbarash, unfinished, 1937), in adulthood is replaced by serious doubts in the diary entries ("People killed in childhood were dreaming").
With a pseudonym (the Turkic word is "a horseman galloping in front") he first signed the short story Corner House, created in 1925 in Perm, where he settled in the same year and where, according to archival materials, he began work on a story about the struggle of local workers against the autocracy - Life into nothing (another name is Lbovshchina, 1926). In the Permian newspaper "Zvezda" and other publications, he publishes feuilletons, poems, notes about a trip to Central Asia, a fantastic story The Secret of the Mountain, an excerpt from the story Knights of the Unapproachable Mountains (other names. Horsemen of the Unapproachable Mountains, 1927), the poem Machine Gun Blizzard. Since 1927 he lived in Sverdlovsk, where in the newspaper "Ural worker" he published the story Forest Brothers (other names Davydovshchina - a continuation of the story Life for nothing).
In the summer of 1927, already a fairly well-known writer, he moved to Moscow, where, among many journalistic works and poems, he published a detective-adventure story On the Count's Ruins (1928, filmed in 1958, directed by V.N. Skuybin) and a number of other works, who nominated Gaidar, along with L. Kassil, R. Fraerman, among the most widely read creators of Russian children's prose of the 20th century. (including the stories The Blue Cup, 1936, Chuk and Gek, the story The Fate of the Drummer, both 1938, the story for the radio The Fourth Dugout; the second, unfinished part of the story School, both 1930).
The fascination of the plot, the rapid ease of narration, the transparent clarity of the language with the fearless introduction of significant, and sometimes tragic events into the "children's" life (The fate of the drummer, which tells about spy mania and repressions of the 1930s, etc.), poetic "aura", confidence and the seriousness of the tone, the indisputability of the code of "chivalrous" honor of comradeship and mutual assistance - all this ensured the sincere and long-term love of young readers for Gaidar - the official classic of children's literature. The peak of the writer's lifetime popularity came in 1940 - the time of the creation of the story and the screenplay of the same name (film directed by A.E. Razumny) Timur and his team, telling about a brave and sympathetic pioneer boy (who bears the name of Gaidar's son), who, together with his friends, surrounded by mystery care of the family of veterans. The noble initiative of the hero Gaidar served as an impetus for the creation of a broad "Timurov" movement throughout the country, especially relevant in the 1940s and 1950s. In 1940, Gaidar wrote a sequel to Timur - Commandant of the Snow Fortress, in early 1941 - a screenplay for the sequel and the screenplay for the film Timur's Oath (staged in 1942, directed by L.V. Kuleshov).
In July 1941, the writer went to the front as a correspondent for the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper, where he published essays on the Bridge, At the Crossing, and others. In August-September 1941, Gaidar's philosophical tale for children, Hot Stone, was published in the Murzilka magazine - about uniqueness, inevitable difficulties and mistakes on the way to the truth.
The spectrum of Gaidar's "children's" heroes, diverse in age, character and type (among which there are many "negative" persons: Malchish-Plokhish, Mishka Kvakin from Timur, etc.) is supplemented by the characters of miniature stories for preschoolers (Vasily Kryukov, , 1939-1940). Author of the screenplay Passer-by (1939), dedicated to the Civil War. Many of Gaidar's works have been staged and filmed (films Chuk and Gek, 1953, directed by I.V. Lukinsky; School of Courage, 1954, directed by V.P. Basov and M.V. Korchagin; The Fate of a Drummer, 1956, directed by V. V. Eisymont, and others).
Gaidar died in battle near vil. Leplyava, Kanevsky district, Cherkasy region, October 26, 1941.

Arkady Petrovich Gaidar (Golikov) was born January 9 (22), 1904 in the city of Lgov, Kursk province, in a family of teachers. The boy's childhood was mostly spent in Arzamas, a small town in the Nizhny Novgorod region. Here, the future writer studied at a real school.

Arkady was selfless at an early age. When his father was taken to the front during the First World War, the boy ran away from home to also go to fight. However, he was stopped on the way.

In 1918 An important event took place in Gaidar's short biography - the fourteen-year-old Arkady joined the Communist Party and began working in the Molot newspaper. At the end of the year he was enrolled in the Red Army.

After graduation in 1919 training courses for command personnel in Moscow, Golikov was appointed assistant platoon commander.

In 1921 graduated from the Higher Shooting School ahead of schedule. Soon he was appointed commander of the Nizhny Novgorod regiment, fought on the Don, on the Caucasian front, near Sochi.

In 1922 Golikov participated in the suppression of the anti-Soviet insurrectionary movement in Khakassia, the leader of which was I. Solovyov. Heading the command of the second combat site in the Yenisei province, Arkady Petrovich gave rather tough orders aimed at ill-treatment of local residents who opposed the arrival of Soviet power.

In May 1922 by order of Golikov, five uluses were shot. The incident was learned in the provincial department of the GPU. Arkady Petrovich was demobilized with a diagnosis of "traumatic neurosis", which arose after an unsuccessful fall from a horse. This event became a turning point in Gaidar's biography.

In 1925 Golikov published the story "In the days of defeats and victories" in the Leningrad almanac "Kovsh". Soon the writer moved to Perm, where he first began publishing under the pseudonym Gaidar. In 1930 work on the works "School", "The Fourth Dugout" was completed.

From 1932 Arkady Petrovich works as a traveling correspondent for the Pacific Star newspaper. In 1932–1938 saw the light of the story and the story "Far Countries", "Military Secret", "Blue Cup", "The Fate of a Drummer". In 1939–1940 the writer finished work on his most famous works for children: “Timur and his team”, “Chuk and Gek”.

Arkady Gaidar was married three times.

In 1921, undergoing treatment in a hospital in the Tambov region after being wounded and shell-shocked, 17-year-old Arkady met 16-year-old nurse Marusya - Maria Nikolaevna Plaksina. They got married, a son, Zhenya, was born in the marriage. In the course of military service, Gaidar found himself in different parts of the country, due to these worldly circumstances, the family broke up. The firstborn died before he was two years old. In memory of the first love, heroines named Marusya often appear in Gaidar's works.

In the mid 1920s Arkady married a 17-year-old Komsomol member from Perm, Lia Lazarevna Solomyanskaya. In 1926 in Arkhangelsk their son Timur was born. But five years later, the wife went to another - the journalist I.M. Razin.

In 1934 Gaidar comes to see his son in the village of Ivnya, Belgorod Region, where Leah Solomyanskaya edited the large-circulation newspaper of the political department of the Ivnyanskaya MTS "For the Harvest". Here the writer worked on the stories "Blue Stars", "Bumbarash" and "Military Secret", and also participated in the work of the newspaper (wrote feuilletons, captions for cartoons).

Summer 1938 in Klin, Gaidar met Dora Matveevna Chernysheva, the daughter of the owner of the house where he lodged. A month later he married her, adopting her daughter Eugenia.

October 26, 1941 Arkady Petrovich Gaidar was killed by the Germans near the village of Leplyavo, Kanevsky region. In 1947 Gaidar's remains were reburied in the town of Kanev.