Sergey Dovlatov - From Petersburg to New York

Sergey Donatovich Mechik was born on September 3, 1941, in Ufa, where his parents were evacuated during the war, in the family of theater director Donat Isaakovich Mechik and literary proofreader Nora Sergeevna Dovlatova. In 1944, the family returned to Leningrad. Soon after, Sergey Dovlatov’s father, Donat Isaakovich, left the family. After that, his mother gave her surname to her son. In documents, he was recorded as Dovlatova-Mechik, but the writer published only under his mother’s surname. They rarely communicated, mostly through notes.

About his childhood, Dovlatov later wrote: “A fat shy boy. Poverty. Mother self-critically left the theater and works as a proofreader. School.” The future writer was raised by his mother and grandmother. At school, Dovlatov studied poorly and often misbehaved. Since childhood, he drew well and often teased classmates by drawing caricatures on the blackboard.

Dovlatov’s friend Dmitry Dmitriev recalled: “Seryozha and I studied very averagely, if not poorly. Of course, we were decent hooligans, and our pranks were known throughout the school.”

In 1958, Sergey Dovlatov graduated from Leningrad Secondary General Education School No. 206. He applied to the journalism faculty but was not accepted. According to the rules of those years, one could only reapply after a year. In 1959, Dovlatov was admitted to the philological faculty of Leningrad State University, to the Finnish department. Dmitry Dmitriev wrote: “I think he chose the philological faculty under the influence of Nora Sergeevna. She always strictly monitored that we did not make speech mistakes. Why did he choose the Finnish department? Probably because, unlike today, there was less competition then.”

In 1962, Sergey Dovlatov was expelled from the university for poor performance and absenteeism and was drafted into the army. He served as a guard at corrective labor camps in the north of the Komi Republic. There, Dovlatov wrote several stories and began the novella “Zone. Notes of a Warden,” in which he described the daily life of wardens and other camp workers.

In the spring of 1965, the writer returned from service and enrolled in the correspondence department of the journalism faculty at Leningrad State University, and soon began publishing in the magazine “Koster” and the newspaper “For the Shipyard Cadres.” At the same time, Sergey Dovlatov continued writing stories and essays about camp work. He showed them to his friends — Joseph Brodsky and Anatoly Naiman.

“He disappeared from the streets because he was sent to the army. He returned from there, like Tolstoy from Crimea, with a scroll of stories and some bewilderment in his eyes. Why he brought them to me was not very clear, since I wrote poetry. On the other hand, I was a couple of years older, and in youth, a two-year difference is quite significant: the inertia of secondary school, the senior student complex; if you write poetry, you are even more a senior student compared to a prose writer. Following this inertia, he also showed his stories to Naiman, who was even more of a senior student. Both of us gave him a hard time then: however, he did not stop showing them to us because he did not stop writing them.”

Dovlatov skipped university classes, was not interested in foreign languages, but read a lot: “In short, I missed one lecture after another. Thus, I best remembered the university corridors. I remember... benches polished to a shine near the photo lab. Around noon, local loafers gather here. We talk about literature and watch girls passing by.” During his studies, he befriended Joseph Brodsky, Anatoly Naiman, and other Leningrad poets and prose writers. He also met his first wife, Asya Pekurovskaya.

In 1962, Sergey Dovlatov was expelled from the university for poor performance and absenteeism and drafted into the army. He served as a guard at corrective labor camps in the north of the Komi Republic. There, Dovlatov wrote several stories and began the novella “Zone. Notes of a Warden,” in which he described the daily life of wardens and other camp workers.

In the spring of 1965, the writer returned from service and enrolled in the correspondence department of the journalism faculty at Leningrad State University, and soon began publishing in the magazine “Koster” and the newspaper “For the Shipyard Cadres.” At the same time, Sergey Dovlatov continued writing stories and essays about camp work. He showed them to his friends — Joseph Brodsky and Anatoly Naiman.

Joseph Brodsky recalled: “He disappeared from the streets because he was sent to the army. He returned from there, like Tolstoy from Crimea, with a scroll of stories and some bewilderment in his eyes. Why he brought them to me was not very clear, since I wrote poetry. On the other hand, I was a couple of years older, and in youth, a two-year difference is quite significant: the inertia of secondary school, the senior student complex; if you write poetry, you are even more a senior student compared to a prose writer. Following this inertia, he also showed his stories to Naiman, who was even more of a senior student. Both of us gave him a hard time then: however, he did not stop showing them to us because he did not stop writing them.”

In these years, Dovlatov married for the second time. His wife was philologist Elena Ritman. They had a daughter, Ekaterina. Sergey Dovlatov continued to study poorly and skip classes. As a result, in 1968, he was expelled from the university again. The writer never obtained a full higher education. In the 1960s, Dovlatov worked as a literary secretary for the writer Vera Panova, who lived in the same building. Several times a week, the aspiring writer visited her and read books aloud. They discussed contemporary literature, and Panova gave Sergey Dovlatov advice.

Dovlatov tried several times to publish his stories in Soviet magazines. However, he never succeeded; he was constantly rejected. Alexander Titov, an employee of the prose department of the magazine “Zvezda,” sent Dovlatov the following reply: “With sadness, we return your novella, approved by the reviewer but banned from above. However, postponed pleasure is not lost pleasure. I believe that sooner or later your meeting with the readers of ‘Zvezda’ will happen.”

In 1972, Dovlatov spontaneously went to Tallinn. In his autobiographical novella “The Craft,” he wrote: “Why did I go specifically to Tallinn? Why not to Moscow? Why not to Kiev, where I have influential friends?.. There were no reasonable motives. There was a ride. My affairs had reached a dead end. Debts, family troubles, a sense of hopelessness.”

He got a job as a correspondent for the newspapers “Soviet Estonia” and “Evening Tallinn” and later described journalistic life in the collection “Compromise.” For all the novellas, Dovlatov chose one structure: each story began with an excerpt from a newspaper, and then the writer told how that text was created.

In the 1970s, Sergey Dovlatov’s works finally began to be published. The novella “Voluntarily” was printed in “Neva,” and the story “Interview” appeared in the magazine “Youth.” However, editors of these publications still rarely accepted Dovlatov’s works. Most often, he was asked to write stories about Soviet reality specifically for the magazine. And the novellas Dovlatov sent to the editorial office himself were usually refused publication. Therefore, many of the writer’s works circulated in samizdat.

At that time, the Estonian publishing house “Eesti Raamat” began typesetting Dovlatov’s first novel “The Compromise” (also known as “Urban Stories”). The book was ready for publication when KGB officers became interested in it. At the last moment, the novel was banned. Its typesetting was destroyed, and “The Compromise” was never published.

In 1975, Dovlatov returned to Leningrad and got a job as an editor at the children’s magazine “Koster.” His colleague, poet Vladimir Uflyand, recalled: “Seryozha turned out to be an amazing editor and a golden worker. You come to the editorial office at nine in the morning, no one else is there yet, only Seryozha sits. He always came earlier than everyone else. I remember he spent a lot of time on children’s letters that arrived at ‘Koster.’ He read everything very carefully and then wrote replies in neat, legible handwriting.” Dovlatov also wrote reviews for the magazines “Neva” and “Zvezda.” About 10 of his articles were published in these publications.

Dovlatov’s beloved Tatiana Zibunova (according to the book by writer Valery Popov “Sergey Dovlatov” from the series “Lives of Remarkable People”) recalled: “At the beginning of 1974, a visiting employee of the magazine ‘Youth’ in Tallinn suggested Sergey Dovlatov write a story about the working class, attach another suitable and decent story for publication, and send it all to ‘Youth’: ‘Most likely, this combination will yield results.’ From his stories suitable for publication, Sergey chose ‘Soldiers on Nevsky.’ He wrote about the working class for a long and persistent time. The plot was quickly determined — ‘Interview,’ from journalistic practice. But the words were carefully and slowly selected. He rewrote several times. The stories were solemnly sent to Moscow. Soon came joyful news — wait for issue six. At the end of June, the long-awaited issue arrived in Tallinn. Only the story about the worker was published! It was a blow!”

From numerous attempts to publish in Soviet magazines, nothing came of it. The typesetting of his first book was destroyed by order of the KGB.

At the same time, Sergey Dovlatov continued creating stories. His works appeared in samizdat and also in émigré magazines “Kontinent” and “Time and We.” Some novellas were sent to foreign editorial offices by the writer’s friends without his knowledge. For publications in these magazines, in 1976, Dovlatov was expelled from the Union of Journalists of the USSR. However, even after that, he continued cooperating with foreign publications and the American radio station “Svoboda.”

To earn money, in the summer Dovlatov began traveling to the Alexander Pushkin museum-reserve “Mikhaylovskoye.” He got a job as a tour guide there: “I mechanically performed my role, receiving a decent reward for it.” Dovlatov described the daily life of museum employees in the novella “The Reserve.” The prototype of the main character — Boris Alikhanov — was the author himself.

In 1977, Dovlatov’s “Invisible Book” was published by Ardis Publishing in the USA — his memoirs, stories about life in the USSR, excerpts from notebooks. Later, the writer revised this work and included it in the novella “The Craft.”

In June 1978, Sergey Dovlatov’s “Invisible Book” was read on the air of Radio “Svoboda.” And just a few weeks later, the writer was arrested. Dovlatov’s friend, literary critic Andrey Aryev, recalled: “One day, Seryozha was simply taken off the street to the police. He was beaten and given fifteen days. He really spent those two weeks in jail... As for the formal charge, his case stated that Seryozha pushed a policeman who came to check his documents down the stairs... Seryozha was put under pressure.”

By that time, many of Dovlatov’s friends and relatives had already left the USSR. In the spring of 1978, the writer’s second wife, Elena Ritman, left the country with their daughter Katya.

On August 24, 1978, Sergey Dovlatov and his mother emigrated: “I was unexpectedly released. And they offered me to leave. I agreed. I didn’t even ask if my mother was ready to leave.” At first, the writer lived in Vienna, and six months later moved to the USA. There he settled in the Forest Hills district of New York.

Sergey Dovlatov wrote in the novella “The Foreigner”: “We are six brick buildings around a supermarket, inhabited mostly by Russians. That is, recent Soviet citizens. Or, as newspapers write, third-wave emigrants... We have Russian stores, kindergartens, photo studios, and hairdressers. There is a Russian travel agency. There are Russian lawyers, writers, doctors, and real estate agents. There are Russian gangsters, madmen, and prostitutes. There is even a Russian blind musician.”

In 1980, Dovlatov became editor of the newspaper “New American,” which was published in Russian. The publication featured émigrés from the USSR — literary critic Alexander Genis, journalists Petr Vail and Boris Metter, theater critic and photographer Nina Alovert. The newspaper published works by Joseph Brodsky, Vasily Aksyonov, Vladimir Voinovich, and many other poets and writers. Dovlatov had his own column in “New American,” where he published articles and essays about literature, life in the USSR and the USA: “Once I rented a room in Pskov. Homeless dogs came in through the cracks in the floor. And cockroaches, I repeat, were not there. Maybe I just didn’t notice them? Maybe they were overshadowed by larger predators? I don’t know. In short, we arrived [in the USA], looked around. And a terrible scream arose: ‘No escape from cockroaches! They crawl out of all the cracks! Oh, this America! And it’s a civilized country!’” Later, the writer included these essays in the collection “March of the Lonely.”

“New American” quickly became popular among the Russian-speaking population of New York. It had a circulation of 11,000 copies. However, the newspaper lasted only two years: the publishers took out a large loan to publish it and were unable to repay it.

Dovlatov also hosted an author’s program “Broadway 1775” on Radio “Svoboda.” In it, the writer and guests discussed cultural and political news, books, and films.

By the mid-1980s, he achieved great reader success, publishing in the prestigious magazine "The New Yorker," becoming the second Russian writer after Vladimir Nabokov to be published in this respected publication. Readers loved his light style and ironic descriptions. Joseph Brodsky wrote: “His success with the American reader is equally natural and, I think, enduring. He turned out to be relatively easy to translate because his syntax does not put obstacles in the translator’s way. This man speaks as an equal with equals about equals: he looks at people neither from below nor from above, but as if from the side.”

In the USA, books Sergey Dovlatov had worked on in the USSR began to be published. The publishing house “Hermitage” printed “Zone” and “The Reserve,” and “Silver Age” published “Compromise.” At the same time, in Paris, the collection “Solo on the Underwood” was released. The book included excerpts from Dovlatov’s notebooks, which he kept in the USSR in the 1960s–70s. The writer’s wife, Elena Ritman, recalled: “Books began to come out one after another, every year. Of course, it was happiness because Sergey dreamed of publishing all his life.”

In the USA, Dovlatov also worked on new books. In the early 1980s, he created the collection “Ours.” Each story was dedicated to his relatives — from great-grandfather to son Nicholas, who was born in America. In the novellas “The Foreigner” and “The Branch,” and the collection “The Suitcase,” he told about the life of emigrants. In the late 1980s, Dovlatov’s works began to be published in the USSR as well. The novella “The Branch” and some stories were published in literary magazines.

During twelve years of life in emigration, he published a total of twelve books, which were released in the USA and Europe. In the USSR, the writer was known through samizdat and his author’s program “Writer at the Microphone” on Radio “Svoboda.”

Dovlatov was officially married twice. From the first marriage with Asya Pekurovskaya, he had a daughter, Maria. Two children — Ekaterina and Nikolai — from his second wife, Elena Dovlatova. Daughter Alexandra was from his common-law wife Tamara Zibunova.

In 1990, Sergey Dovlatov began working on another collection of stories, which he titled “The Refrigerator.” He planned to dedicate all the stories in this book to food. However, the writer managed to create only two novellas. The story “Old Rooster Baked in Clay” became his last completed work.

On August 24, 1990, Sergey Dovlatov felt unwell. On the same day, he died in an ambulance from heart failure.

The writer was buried at the Mount Hebron Jewish Cemetery in the Queens district of New York.

Sources:

https://m-necropol.ru/dovlatov.html

http://www.sergeidovlatov.com/life.html

https://www.culture.ru/persons/8262/sergei-dovlatov

Sergey Dovlatov. New York, USA, 1979. Photo: Nina Alovert / State United Museum-Reserve of the History of the Far East named after V.K. Arseniev, Vladivostok

Sergey Dovlatov with daughter Katya in Pushkin Hills. Pskov Region, 1977. Illustration from the book by Vladimir Solovyov and Elena Klepikova “Being Sergey Dovlatov. The Tragedy of a Cheerful Man.” Moscow: Ripol-Classic Publishing, 2014