Liteyny Ave., 24a, Saint Petersburg, Russia, 191028
In the summer of 1919, criminal investigation agent Zoshchenko appeared at the newly opened Studio at the publishing house "World Literature," which was headed by Gorky himself. "Vsemirka," as enthusiasts of this grand project called it, was intended to provide the Russian reader with exemplary translations of the best works from the countries and peoples of the entire world. And the Studio was supposed to train translators for the publishing house. Something like courses for young translators — that was the original idea of its organizers, which, however, quickly underwent radical changes.
The Studio was located in the most spacious apartment of a rather ornate-looking building, which until recently belonged to a wealthy Greek named Muruzi. In this house on the corner of Liteyny Prospect and Spasskaya Street lived in earlier years the famous writer and publicist Merezhkovsky, who was later, as a "white émigré," erased (along with his wife, the poet Zinaida Gippius) from domestic culture for seventy Soviet years. And in this house, already in the 1960s, before his trial and exile, lived the future Nobel laureate in literature Joseph Brodsky, who was also later forced to emigrate due to the impossibility of living and creating in his homeland. Thus, the Muruzi house, still standing in Saint Petersburg (which regained its original name in the early 1990s), acquired its literary destiny.
Like other studio members "from the street," Zoshchenko came to this house by advertisement. The people gathered at the Studio at "Vsemirka" were diverse. Two wunderkinds stood out: fifteen-year-old schoolboy Vladimir Pozner (the future father of journalist Vladimir Pozner), who knew by heart Mayakovsky, Gumilev, Mandelstam, Akhmatova and continuously wrote epigrams, parodies, and humorous sketches himself; and university student Lev Lunts, a poet, also looking like a young schoolboy, fluent in five languages and having read a mountain of books in them. Sitting at the same desks were broad-shouldered, tall, leather-jacketed and high-booted communist guy Glazanov and well-mannered Mikhail Slonimsky, a shy young man with sad eyes from a literary family whose grandfather, father, uncle, and aunt were all writers. These two, having been to war, were full of impressions they intended to embody in their works. Of course, there were also aspiring poetesses. This part of the studio members was not interested in the craft of translation; they were drawn to their own creativity, and the Studio soon turned into their club. They needed active literary communication, reading aloud what they had written, immediate feedback.
One of the Studio's organizers, Korney Chukovsky, wrote about them in his memoirs: "...they could be taken for sleepwalkers, obsessed with literature as a mania. Their heated literary disputes might have seemed insane from the outside. The times were harsh: hunger, cold, civil war, typhus, 'Spanish flu,' and other diseases. By autumn, four of our best studio members had died — some in battles with Kolchak, others on the beds of infectious barracks. It took truly mad faith in literature, in poetry, in the great value and power of verbal creativity to, despite everything, in such painfully difficult conditions, quietly prepare for a literary feat."
This faith in literature was also supported among the studio members by the Studio’s leaders, who held regular seminars. Within these walls, wrote K. I. Chukovsky, "Victor Shklovsky raged, smashing and crushing the guardians of the old aesthetics; ...Nikolai Gumilev tempted his flock with tables of rhymes and rhythms; ...the ingenious Yevgeny Zamyatin wove wonderful lace from the works of Bely, Leskov, and Remizov..." And also: "From the very first days, the Studio resembled the Tower of Babel. Everyone tried to impose their own literary canon on the youth. Is it any wonder that in the first month the studio members split into hostile castes: Shklovites, Gumilevites, Zamyatinites." To this list, one must add the "Chukovites"...
One can say that fate, having thoroughly tested Zoshchenko in the crucible of life, now took great care to place him in a fertile literary nursery and created the most favorable conditions for rapid literary maturation. Down to organizational details: even lectures were held in the evenings so that study could be combined with constant work without interference.
The solemn opening of the Studio — floors wiped dry after a recent flood, walls cleaned of obscenities, a burning fireplace — in an abandoned apartment, fouled by the last inhabitants — homeless children, took place, as Chukovsky reports, in June of the nineteenth year. And already in September, the Studio in the Muruzi house ceased to exist. But these mere three months turned into a whole stage of practical literary formation for Zoshchenko — with the productivity of a creative explosion. In terms of the intensity of mastering knowledge and creative searches, these three months essentially became his "literary institute" or, at least, the foundational part of the academic training he needed.
He kept to himself in the studio. "Unsociable, sullen, as if arrogant," recalls K. Chukovsky, "he sat in the farthest corner, behind everyone, and with a frozen, almost indifferent face listened to the disputes taking place by the fireplace. The disputes were fierce. All literary currents of that turning time burst into the Muruzi house, but at first it was impossible to say which of these currents Zoshchenko sympathized with. He listened to the disputes indifferently, not joining either side."
His indifference was, of course, external; it concealed his desire to understand all that literary ferment independently and protected his independence and dignity. He generally shunned rudeness and familiarity. His distancing was also conditioned by life trials that the "literary boys" of the Studio had not experienced.
Zoshchenko’s very first report, written on Chukovsky’s assignment about Blok’s poetry, was a surprise for the entire seminar. Before Zoshchenko, a studio member — poetess Elizaveta Polonskaya — read her quite traditional report on the same topic, which she described in her memoirs as a remarkable session:
"Then Zoshchenko began reading his article but suddenly stopped reading.
"— Different style," he declared.
Chukovsky took the notebook from him:
"— Let me read it."
Korney Ivanovich began reading aloud, habitually emphasizing certain words with intonation. He read to children "The Crocodile" and "The Cockroach." It was so funny that we could not hold back laughter. I do not remember exactly what Zoshchenko had written, but in Chukovsky’s reading it was really funny "in style."
Korney Ivanovich, wiping tears from his eyes as he laughed, said:
"— This is impossible! You will kill your readers like this. Write humorous works."
Zoshchenko took his notebook, rolled it into a tube, and carelessly shoved it into his pocket..."
"With his willful, daring report, going against our studio’s guidelines and requirements, Zoshchenko immediately stood out from the crowd of his comrades," says K. I. Chukovsky in his extensive memoir work about Zoshchenko (from the series of fascinating essays "Contemporaries"). "Here for the first time his future style was outlined: he wrote about Blok’s poetry in the vulgar language of the avid philistine Vovka Chuchelov, whose face later became one of the writer’s favorite masks. At that time, this mask was a literary novelty for us, and we welcomed it wholeheartedly. It was then, on that summer evening of 1919, that we at the Studio first felt that this silent criminal investigation agent with such a tired and sullen face possessed a rare, miraculous power unique to him — the power of contagious laughter."
The seeds of this "miraculous power" were apparently inherited by Zoshchenko from his father, an artist who published comic drawings-pictures from the life of Ukrainian peasants in the illustrated "Niva," the most popular magazine in pre-revolutionary Russia. Here lies the source of both humor and folk character in Zoshchenko’s literary talent.
After the Blok report followed direct parodies — of Chukovsky, Zamyatin, Shklovsky. In depth of content, they did not fall short of articles by professional critics, and the author’s sarcasm strikingly demonstrated the vulnerability of the parodied masters. It became clear that Zoshchenko possessed an absolute ear for word, style, and intonation.
Chukovsky recalled: "His stubborn unwillingness to submit to our studio routine became even more pronounced two or three weeks later when I assigned the studio members another task — to write a short article about Nadson’s poetry. A few days later, I received about a dozen articles. Zoshchenko brought his work — on long sheets torn from an accounting book. He brought it and handed it to me with a barely noticeable smirk: 'But this is not about Nadson at all... About whom then?' He paused. 'About you.'
I was already used to his willful actions, as there had not yet been a case when he ever fulfilled even one assignment from the Studio teachers. He preferred his own topics to assigned ones, his own style to the prescribed one.
Coming home, I began to read his manuscript and suddenly laughed like a madman. It was a sharp and deadly cruel parody of my old book 'From Chekhov to Our Days.' The parodist sarcastically mocked the flaws of my then literary manner, skillfully exaggerating them and bringing them to absurdity. The parody in significance was worth a critical article, but never had any most caustic critic responded to my poor writings with such concentrated malice. It was in this laconic mockery that the young writer’s skill manifested."
This, of course, refers to Vera Vladimirovna, whom Zoshchenko married in 1920, and the rather restrained tone with which he speaks of her was determined by their relationship at that time. Their relationship from the very beginning was complicated and uneven. Zoshchenko proposed to her twice. He was refused the first time in 1919. The second proposal was not without argument. Vera Vladimirovna, as she writes in her memoirs, declared: "I want a 'free marriage.'" Zoshchenko replied: "No! Marriage is marriage! No 'frees'." Nevertheless, during their three-year premarital period of close acquaintance, Zoshchenko was permanently away from Petrograd. Before his trip to the Smolensk province, they even decided to part completely. The difficulties of their future family union were probably outlined in that conversation, which Vera Vladimirovna recalled after his death in her article "Thus M. Zoshchenko Began" — when she asked him, "What is the most important thing in life for you?" instead of the expected and desired "Of course, you!" he answered: "Of course, my literature." Moreover, as time showed, literary work was immediately joined by everything that created the necessary mood for him and became an organic lifestyle. This main thing captured him entirely. In Zoshchenko’s soul, the signal must have sounded like a bell: "It’s time!" Indeed, it was already time to show himself; he was twenty-seven, and if not now, then when?! He had twice passed the front, survived political and social upheavals, tested himself, and finally decided to find his own place in this creative work. And now, he abruptly abandoned the book he had started, left the criminal investigation service for a calm position as a clerk, then assistant accountant at the Petrograd military port "New Holland," and began writing stories directly at work, very different from the "sweet absurdities" or "brie cheese" he had composed just yesterday. He wrote that winter of 1920/1921 at home, late into the night, often by lamp light, since electricity supply was limited and intermittent. Then, having lived with Vera Vladimirovna for about two years, he moved out to the House of Arts, opened through the efforts of Maxim Gorky in the former palace of the famous wealthy Eliseev (soon after the Studio in the Muruzi house ceased to operate). He moved out even despite the birth of a son in 1921.
Sources:
Bernhard Ruben, Zoshchenko
https://www.citywalls.ru/house2311.html
