Isaac Emmanuilovich Babel was born on July 13, 1894 in Odessa on Moldavanka in the Jewish family of a poor merchant Many Itskovich Bobel ( Emmanuel (Manus, Mane) Isaakovich Babel), originally from Bila Tserkva, and Feiga ( Fani) Aronovna Bobel. The family lived in a house on the corner of Dalnitskaya and Balkovskaya streets. The beginning of the century was a time of social unrest and a mass exodus of Jews from Russian Empire. Babel himself survived the pogrom of 1905 (he was hidden by Christian family), and his grandfather Shoil became one of the three hundred Jews killed then.
Isaac Babel with his father, 1905.
Isaac Babel at 14 years old in school uniform.
He studied at the Odessa Commercial School named after Nicholas I, then at the Commercial Institute. He was interested in history and studied languages - German, English, French. He started writing at the age of 15. He took part in amateur performances and composed plays. After completing his education, he did not go into finance, but began to serve in a book publishing house.
Odessa of his childhood and youth was a bright, colorful, festive world that he loved. The residents of the city had their own special dialect, way of life and a rare sense of humor. Moldavanka was a cluster of energy in Odessa, where cabbies, loaders, raiders and thieves lived - the characters “ Odessa stories» Babel.
In 1916, Babel came to St. Petersburg with the firm intention of living writing work. Two stories by Babel - “Elya Isaakovich and Margarita Prokofyevna” and “Mother, Rimma and Alla” - were published in the journal “Chronicle”. The stories aroused interest among the reading public and the judiciary. Babel was going to be prosecuted for pornography. February Revolution saved him from trial, which was already scheduled for March 1917.
For seven years, Babel traveled around the country, changing many professions - he served in the Cheka, was a correspondent for the newspaper "Red Cavalryman", participated in food expeditions, worked in the People's Commissariat for Education, in the Odessa Provincial Committee, fought on the Romanian, northern, Polish fronts, was a reporter for Tiflis and Petrograd newspapers.
In 1920, he goes to Rostov-on-Don, where he joins the first cavalry army of Semyon Budyonny, participates in hostilities and keeps a diary, which became the basis for the series of stories “Cavalry”. Budyonny was angry after reading the stories and demanded protection from irresponsible slander of those “whom the literary degenerate Babel spits on with the artistic saliva of class hatred.” Gorky, defending Babel, wrote that he showed the fighters of the first cavalry more clearly than Gogol did the Cossacks.
In 1924 he published a number of stories, which later formed the cycles “Cavalry” and “ Odessa stories" Babel managed to masterfully convey in Russian the style of literature created in Yiddish (this is especially noticeable in “Odessa Stories”, where in some places the direct speech of his characters is an interlinear translation from Yiddish).
Soviet criticism of those years, while paying tribute to the talent and significance of Babel’s work, pointed to “antipathy to the cause of the working class” and reproached him for “naturalism and apology for the spontaneous principle and romanticization of banditry.”
In “Odessa Stories,” Babel depicts in a romantic way the life of Jewish criminals of the early 20th century, finding exotic features and strong characters.
In 1928 Babel published the play “Sunset” (staged at the 2nd Moscow Art Theater), and in 1935 - the play “Maria”. Babel also wrote several scripts. Master short story, Babel strives for laconicism and accuracy, combining in the images of his characters, plot collisions and descriptions of a huge temperament with external dispassion. His flowery, metaphor-laden language early stories later it is replaced by a strict and restrained narrative style.
Babel family
Evgenia Borisovna Gronfein, with whom he was legally married, emigrated to France in 1925. His other (common-law) wife, with whom he entered into a relationship after breaking up with Evgenia, is Tamara Vladimirovna Kashirina (Tatyana Ivanova), their son, named Emmanuel (1926), later became known in the Khrushchev era as the artist Mikhail Ivanov (member of the "Group nine") and was brought up in the family of his stepfather, Vsevolod Ivanov, considering himself his son. After breaking up with Kashirina, Babel, who traveled abroad, was reunited for some time with his legal wife, who bore him a daughter, Natalya (1929), married to the American literary critic Natalie Brown (under whose editorship it was published on English language full meeting works of Isaac Babel).
Babel’s last (common-law) wife, Antonina Nikolaevna Pirozhkova, gave birth to his daughter Lydia (1937), and has lived in the USA since 1996. In 2010, at the age of 101, she came to Odessa and looked at the model of her husband’s monument. She died in September 2010.
In the subsequent period, with the tightening of censorship and the advent of the era of great terror, Babel published less and less. He was engaged in translations from the Yiddish language. Despite his doubts about what was happening, he did not emigrate, although he had such an opportunity. From September 1927 to October 1928 and from September 1932 to August 1933 he lived abroad (France, Belgium, Italy). In 1935 - the last trip abroad to the anti-fascist writers' congress. Babel’s wife lived in France, and his daughter was born and lived there. His mother and sister Maria lived in Belgium.
Delegate to the First Congress of Writers of the USSR (1934).
Arrest and execution
On May 15, 1939, Babel was arrested at a dacha in Peredelkino on charges of “anti-Soviet conspiratorial terrorist activity” and espionage (case No. 419).
During his arrest, several manuscripts were confiscated from him, which turned out to be lost forever (15 folders, 11 notebooks, 7 notebooks with notes). The fate of his novel about the Cheka remains unknown. In 1939, Aram Vanetsian began painting a portrait of Babel, which turned out to be the last lifetime portrait writer.
During interrogations, Babel was subjected to brutal torture. He was sentenced to capital punishment by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR and executed the next day, January 27, 1940. [The execution list was signed by the Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, I.V. Stalin. Among possible reasons Stalin's hostility to Babel is called the fact that he was a close friend of Ya. Okhotnikov, I. Yakir, B. Kalmykov, D. Schmidt, E. Yezhova and other “enemies of the people.”
In 1954 he was posthumously rehabilitated. With the active assistance of Konstantin Paustovsky, who loved Babel and left warm memories of him, after 1956 Babel was returned to Soviet literature. In 1957, the collection “Favorites” was published with a foreword by Ilya Erenburg, who called Isaac Babel one of outstanding writers XX century, a brilliant stylist and master of the short story. Babel's literary heritage includes eighty stories, two plays, and five film scripts.
List of works:
Volume 1
Leaflets about Odessa. Odessa stories. The story of my dovecote. Petersburg diary. Sunset. Benya Krik. wandering starsVolume 2
Cavalry. Articles from "Red Cavalryman". Diary from 1920. Plans and sketchesVolume 3
Stories. Film scripts. Play. JournalismVolume 4
Letters. A.N. Pirozhkova. Seven years with Babel
Isaac Babel. Cavalry
Isaac Babel. Odessa stories
Isaac Babel. Odessa stories
original surname Bobel; birth name - Isaac Manyevich Bobel
Russian Soviet writer, translator, screenwriter and playwright, journalist, war correspondent
Isaac Babel
short biography
Babel’s biography has a number of gaps and inaccuracies due to the fact that the corresponding notes left by the writer himself are largely embellished, altered, or even “pure fiction” in accordance with artistic design or the political dictates of the times.
Date of Birth
There is a discrepancy in various sources regarding exact date birth of the future writer. In Brief literary encyclopedia Babel's date of birth is July 1 according to the old style, and July 13 according to the new style. However, the metric book of the office of the Odessa city rabbi indicates the date of birth according to the old style - June 30. Babel indicated the same birthday, June 30, in his handwritten autobiography of 1915, preserved in the documents of the Kyiv Commercial Institute. " Brief chronicle life and work of Isaac Emmanuilovich Babel”, compiled by Usher Moiseevich Spektor (see: Babel I. Awakening. Tbilisi, 1989. P.491), contains an error in translating the old style into the new: here June 30 Art. Art. corresponds to July 13 A.D. Art., and it should be July 12th. It must be assumed that a similar error has become widespread in reference literature.
Childhood
Born in Odessa on Moldavanka, the third child in the family of merchant Many Itskovich Bobel ( Emmanuel (Manus, Mane) Isaakovich Babel, 1864-1924), originally from Skvira, Kyiv province, and Feiga ( Fani) Aronovna Bobel (née Schwechwel). The family lived in a house on the corner of Dalnitskaya and Balkovskaya streets. In the directory “All Russia” for 1911, Emmanuel Isaakovich Babel is listed as the owner of a store selling agricultural equipment, located at number 17 on Richelieu Street.
Not late autumn In 1895, the family moved to Nikolaev, Kherson province, where I. E. Babel lived until he was 11 years old. In November 1903, he entered the first intake of the preparatory class of the Nikolaev Commercial School named after S. Yu. Witte, which opened on December 9 of the same year, but having passed three oral exams (on the Law of God, the Russian language and arithmetic) with straight A’s, he was not accepted “for lack of vacancy." After his father submitted a request for a re-test on April 20, 1904, Isaac Babel re-passed the exams in August and, based on the test results, was enrolled in the first class, and on May 3, 1905 he was transferred to the second. According to the autobiography of I. E. Babel, in addition to traditional disciplines, he privately studied the Hebrew language, the Bible and the Talmud.
Youth and early creativity
Fluent in Yiddish, Russian, Ukrainian and French, Babel wrote his first works in French, but they have not survived.
In 1911, having received a certificate of completion from the Odessa Commercial School, he became a student at the Kyiv Commercial Institute, where he studied at the economics department under his original name Bobel; received his diploma in 1917. During his studies, he first published his work - the story “Old Shloime” - in the Kiev weekly illustrated magazine “Lights” (1913, signed “I. Babel”). In Kyiv, student Babel met Evgenia Borisovna Gronfain, the daughter of a wealthy businessman, who was legally married to him in 1919.
In 1916, he went to Petrograd, without, according to his own recollections, the right to do so, since Jews were prohibited from settling in the capitals (researchers discovered a document issued by the Petrograd police, which allowed Babel to live in the city only while studying at higher education establishment). He managed to immediately enroll in the fourth year of the law faculty of the Petrograd Psychoneurological Institute.
In the same year, Babel met M. Gorky, who published the stories “Elya Isaakovich and Margarita Prokofyevna” and “Mama, Rimma and Alla” in the journal “Chronicle”. They attracted attention, and Babel was going to be tried for pornography (Article 1001), as well as two more articles - “blasphemy and an attempt to overthrow the existing system,” which was prevented by the events of 1917. On the advice of M. Gorky, Babel “went into the public eye” and changed several professions. The publication in the Chronicle was followed by publications in the Journal of Journals (1916) and Novaya Zhizn (1918).
In the fall of 1917, Babel, having served for several months as a private on the Romanian front, deserted and made his way to Petrograd, where at the beginning of 1918 he went to work as a translator in the foreign department of the Cheka, and then in the People's Commissariat for Education and food expeditions. Published in the newspaper New life" In the spring of 1920, on the recommendation of Mikhail Koltsov, under the name Kirill Vasilievich Lyutov was sent to the 1st Cavalry Army under the command of Budyonny as a war correspondent for Yug-ROST, and was a fighter and political worker there. In the ranks of the 1st Cavalry he became a participant in the Soviet-Polish War of 1920. The writer kept notes (“Cavalry Diary,” 1920), which served as the basis for the future collection of stories “Cavalry.” Published in the newspaper of the Political Department of the 1st Cavalry “Red Cavalryman”.
Later he worked in the Odessa Provincial Committee, was the producing editor of the 7th Soviet printing house (Pushkinskaya St., 18), and a reporter in Tiflis and Odessa, at the State Publishing House of Ukraine. According to the myth he himself voiced in his autobiography, he did not write during these years, although it was then that he began to create the cycle of “Odessa Stories.” In 1922, Babel collaborated with the Tiflis newspaper “Zarya Vostoka” and traveled as a correspondent to Adjara and Abkhazia.
Period of literary activity
The cycle “On the Field of Honor” was published in the January issue of the Odessa magazine “Lava” for 1920. In June 1921, Babel’s story “The King” was first published in the popular Odessa newspaper “Sailor”, which became evidence of the writer’s creative maturity. In 1923-1924, the magazines “Lef”, “Krasnaya Nov” and other publications published a number of his stories, which later formed the cycles “Cavalry” and “Odessa Stories”. Babel immediately received widespread recognition like a brilliant master of words. His first book, “Stories,” was published in 1925 by the Ogonyok publishing house. In 1926, the first edition of the collection “Cavalry” was published, which was reprinted many times in subsequent years.
Soviet criticism of those years, while paying tribute to the talent and significance of Babel’s work, pointed to “antipathy to the cause of the working class” and reproached him for “naturalism and apology for the spontaneous principle and romanticization of banditry.”
“To the thunder of guns, to the ringing of sabers, Babel was born from Zoshchenko”
(epigram, quoted from V. Kataev)
In the stories of the “Cavalry” series, the intelligent author-narrator Kirill Lyutov describes the violence and cruelty of the Red Army soldiers with mixed feelings of horror and admiration. In “Odessa Stories,” Babel depicts in a romantic way the life of Jewish criminals of the early 20th century, finding exotic features and strong characters in the everyday life of thieves, raiders, as well as artisans and small traders. The most memorable hero of these stories is the Jewish raider Benya Krik (his prototype is the legendary Mishka Yaponchik), according to the expression “ Jewish Encyclopedia" - the embodiment of Babel's dream of a Jew who can stand up for himself.
A master of the short story, Babel strives for laconicism and accuracy, combining enormous temperament with external dispassion in the images of his characters, plot collisions and descriptions. The flowery, metaphor-laden language of his early stories is later replaced by a strict and restrained narrative style.
In the spring of 1924, Babel was in Odessa, where his father died on March 2 of the same year, after which he finally settled in Moscow with his mother and sister.
In 1926, he edited a two-volume collection of Sholom Aleichem’s works in Russian translations, in next year adapted Sholom Aleichem’s novel “Wandering Stars” for film production.
In 1927, he took part in the collective novel “Big Fires,” published in the magazine “Ogonyok.”
In 1928, Babel published the play "Sunset". The basis for the play was the unpublished story “Sunset,” which he began in 1923-1924. In 1927, “Sunset” was staged by two theaters in Odessa - Russian and Ukrainian, but the 1928 production at the Moscow Art Theater was unsuccessful, and the play was closed after 12 performances. The play was criticized for its "idealization of hooliganism" and its "tendency to the bourgeois underground."
In 1935 he published the play "Maria". Babel also wrote several scripts and collaborated with Sergei Eisenstein.
With the tightening of censorship and the advent of the era of the Great Terror, Babel published less and less. He was engaged in translations from the Yiddish language. Despite his doubts about what was happening, he did not emigrate, although he had such an opportunity. From September 1927 to October 1928 and from September 1932 to August 1933 he lived abroad (France, Belgium, Italy). In 1935 - the last trip abroad to the anti-fascist writers' congress.
Delegate to the First Congress of Writers of the USSR (1934).
Discussion about "Cavalry"
The very first publications of the stories of the “Cavalry” cycle were in clear contrast with the revolutionary propaganda of that time, which created heroic myths about the Red Army soldiers. Babel had ill-wishers: for example, Semyon Budyonny was furious with the way Babel described the life and life of the cavalrymen, and in his article “Babel’s Babism in Krasnaya Novy” (1924) called him “a literary degenerate.” In the same year, 1924, Kliment Voroshilov complained to Dmitry Manuilsky, a member of the Central Committee and later the head of the Comintern, that the style of the work about the Cavalry was “unacceptable.” Stalin believed that Babel wrote about “things that he did not understand.” Viktor Shklovsky put it in a peculiar way: “Babel saw Russia as a French writer seconded to Napoleon’s army could see it.” But Babel was under the patronage of Maxim Gorky, which guaranteed the publication of the book “Cavalry.” In response to Budyonny’s attacks, Gorky stated: “Attentive reader, I don’t find anything “cartoonish and libelous” in Babel’s book, on the contrary: his book aroused both love and respect for the Cavalry soldiers in me, showing them truly as heroes, - fearless, they deeply feel the greatness of their struggle.” The discussion continued until 1928.
Collectivization in Ukraine
It is known that Babel collected material for a novel about collectivization. However, only one story “Gapa Guzhva” was published (with the subtitle “The first chapter from the book “Great Krinitsa”) and another one was announced, but never published (the second story from the planned book “Great Krinitsa” - “Kolyvushka” , written in 1930 - was published posthumously); working materials for the novel were confiscated when the writer was arrested.
V.I. Druzhbinsky: “In December 1929, Babel wrote criticism to Vyacheslav Polonsky: “ Dear V.P. I’m looking for a reason to go to Kiev, and from there to areas of complete collectivization, in order to immediately describe this event...“Leaving Kyiv for Boryspil on February 16, 1930, he wrote to his family: “ ...Now there is essentially a complete transformation of the village and rural life... an event that, in terms of interest and importance, surpasses everything that we have seen in our time“. Another letter: “I. Livshits. Boryspil. 20.02.30. I spend the night in the Boryspil region of complete collectivization. Hochst interessant. Tomorrow I am going to go live in one of the most remote villages... I.B.“ From Boryspil Babel moved to the village of Velikaya Staritsa, where he lived in the house of teacher Kirill Menzhegi for almost two months. Staying in this village left the writer, as he told his family, “ one of the sharpest memories of my entire life - to this very minute I wake up in sticky sweat"". And further: “A year later, Isaac Emmanuilovich wrote to his future wife Antonina Nikolaevna Pirozhkova: “ ...During the Civil Brawl I saw a lot of humiliation, trampling and destruction of a person as such, but it was all physical humiliation, trampling and destruction. Here, near Kiev, a good, wise and strong person is turned into a homeless, mangy and disgusting dog, which everyone shuns like the plague. Not even a dog, but something not a mammal...“».
According to S.I. Lipkin, returning to Moscow in April 1930, Babel told his friend E.G. Bagritsky: “Would you believe it, Eduard Georgievich, I have now learned to calmly watch how people are shot.” According to V.V. Kozhinov, collectivization delighted him. At the beginning of 1931, Babel again went to those places, and in December 1933 of the famine year he wrote in a letter from the village of Prishibskaya to his sister in Brussels: “The transition to collective farms occurred with friction, there was a need, but now everything is developing with extraordinary brilliance. In a year or two we will have prosperity that will eclipse everything that these villages saw in the past, and they lived comfortably. The collective farm movement has made decisive progress this year, and now truly boundless prospects are opening up, the land is being transformed. I don’t know how long I’ll stay here. Witness new relationships and economic forms- interesting and necessary".
On the contrary, according to the memoirs of M. Ya. Makotinsky (in whose Kyiv apartment the writer lived during these trips), in 1930 Babel returned from the Kyiv region excited: “You can’t imagine! It’s indescribable what I observed in the village! And not in just one village! It’s impossible to describe! I do not understand anything!" “It turns out,” writes M. Makotinsky, “Babel encountered excesses in collectivization, which later received the name “dizziness from success.” Writes a researcher of the work of I. Babel, professor at Stanford University G. M. Freidin: “According to Babel’s friend Ilya Lvovich Slonim, who shared his memories with the author of this article in the 1960s, Babel, returning from another trip to the collectivization areas, said him that what is happening in the village is much worse than that what he saw during the civil war. Babel’s stories about collectivization that have come down to us, “Gapa Guzhva” and “Kolyvushka,” can serve as indirect confirmation of this evidence.”
The name of the village of Velikaya Staritsa, in which the writer lived, was replaced by Velikaya Krinitsa in preparation for the publication of the story “Gapa Guzhva”. Sending the corrected manuscript of “Gaps of Guzhva” to V. Polonsky in October 1931, Babel, who anticipated a possible reaction to the publication, wrote: “I had to change the name of the village to avoid excessive vilification.”
In an attempt to break the creative silence, in the early 1930s I. E. Babel also traveled to Kabardino-Balkaria, Molodenovo near Moscow, Donbass and Dneprostroy.
Arrest and execution
In the summer of 1938, the Presidium of the USSR Writers' Union approved Babel as a member of the editorial board of the State Publishing House fiction(GIHL).
On May 15, 1939, Babel was arrested at his dacha in Peredelkino on charges of “anti-Soviet conspiratorial terrorist activity” and espionage (case No. 419). During his arrest, several manuscripts were confiscated from him, which turned out to be lost forever (15 folders, 11 notebooks, 7 notebooks with notes). The fate of his novel about the Cheka remains unknown. In 1939, Aram Vanetsian began painting a portrait of Babel, which turned out to be the last lifetime portrait of the writer.
During interrogations, Babel was tortured. He was forced to admit his connection with the Trotskyists, as well as their pernicious influence on his work and the fact that, supposedly guided by their instructions, he deliberately distorted reality and belittled the role of the party. The writer also “confirmed” that he had “anti-Soviet conversations” among other writers, artists and film directors (Yu. Olesha, V. Kataev, S. Mikhoels, G. Alexandrov, S. Eisenstein), and “spyed” in favor of France. From the protocol:
Babel testified that in 1933, through Ilya Ehrenburg, he established espionage connections with French writer Andre Malraux, to whom he conveyed information about the state of the Air Fleet.
He was sentenced to capital punishment by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR and was shot the next day, January 27, 1940. The execution list was signed by the Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, I.V. Stalin. The writer’s ashes are buried in Common Grave No. 1 of the Donskoye Cemetery.
From 1939 to 1955, Babel's name was removed from Soviet literature. In 1954 he was posthumously rehabilitated. With the active assistance of Konstantin Paustovsky, who knew Babel well and left warm memories of him, after 1956 Babel was returned to Soviet literature. In 1957, the collection “Favorites” was published with a foreword by Ilya Ehrenburg, who called Isaac Babel one of the outstanding writers of the 20th century, a brilliant stylist and master of the short story.
Family
The writer's father died in 1924, after which Babel's mother and his sister Maria and her husband emigrated and lived in Belgium.
- His wife, artist Evgenia Borisovna Gronfain, went to France in 1925.
- Daughter Natalya (1929-2005, married to American literary critic Natalie Brown, under whose editorship the complete works of Isaac Babel were published in English).
- Babel’s second (common-law) wife, with whom he became close after breaking up with Evgenia, is actress Tamara Vladimirovna Kashirina (later Ivanova, wife of the writer Vsevolod Ivanov);
- Their son, named Emmanuel (1926-2000, was known in the Khrushchev era as the artist Mikhail Ivanov, a member of the “Group of Nine”), was brought up in the family of his stepfather V.V. Ivanov, considering himself his son. After breaking up with Kashirina, Babel, who traveled abroad, was reunited for some time with his legal wife, who gave birth to a daughter, Natalya.
- Babel’s last wife, Antonina Nikolaevna Pirozhkova, gave birth to his daughter Lydia:
- Daughter Lydia (1937), has lived in the USA since 1996. She died in September 2010.
- The son of Lydia Isaakovna and grandson of Babel - Andrey Malaev-Babel, director and theater teacher, professor at Florida State University (Sarasota, USA).
- Daughter Lydia (1937), has lived in the USA since 1996. She died in September 2010.
Literary influence
Babel’s work had a huge influence on the writers of the so-called “South Russian school” (Ilf, Petrov, Olesha, Kataev, Paustovsky, Svetlov, Bagritsky) and received wide recognition in the Soviet Union, his books were translated into many foreign languages.
The legacy of the repressed Babel in some ways shared his fate. He began to be published again only after his “posthumous rehabilitation” in the 1950s, and his works were heavily censored. The writer’s daughter, American citizen Natalie Babel Brown, 1929-2005, managed to collect hard-to-find and unpublished works and publish them with commentaries (“The Complete Works of Isaac Babel”, 2002).
Babel's works aroused interest all over the world. Thus, Jorge Luis Borges wrote about “Cavalry” in his youth:
His style of music contrasts with the almost unspeakable brutality of some scenes.
Study of life and creativity
- One of the first researchers of the work of I. E. Babel were I. A. Smirin and the Kharkov literary critic and theater critic L. Ya. Livshits.
- After the posthumous rehabilitation of the writer, an essay on his work was prepared by the Moscow literary scholar and critic F. M. Levin.
- In late Soviet and early post-Soviet times life path And literary heritage The writer was most actively studied by the Moscow engineer, collector of miniature books Usher Moiseevich Spektor (died 1993).
- Literary critic Elena Iosifovna Pogorelskaya, employee of the State literary museum(Moscow) - author of many articles and publications, dedicated to life, creativity and epistolary heritage of Babel.
- Creative biography of Babel and the circumstances of his tragic death long time investigated by literary critic S. N. Povartsov (Omsk).
- Local historian A. Yu. Rosenboim (Rostislav Aleksandrov) dedicated a number of publications to the Odessa pages of Babel’s life, and the historian M. B. Kalnitsky dedicated them to the Kyiv pages.
- In April 1989, the “First Babel Readings” took place in Odessa.
Memory
- Back in 1968, a group of climbers from Odessa, having conquered an unnamed peak 6007 m high in the Pamirs, named it Babel Peak (the name was approved two years later).
- In 1989, one of the streets of Moldavanka was named in honor of Babel.
- The grand opening of the monument to the writer in Odessa took place on September 4, 2011. The author of the monument is folk artist RF Georgy Frangulyan. The monument was erected at the intersection of Zhukovsky and Rishelievskaya streets, opposite the house where he once lived. Sculptural composition represents the figure of a writer sitting on the steps and a rolling wheel on which is inscribed “Isaac Babel.” The area near the monument is paved with traditional Odessa paving stones. The monument was built on the initiative of the World Club of Odessa residents with funds from sponsors from all over the world.
- In the city of Odessa, on a house located at st. Rishelevskaya 17, where the writer lived, a memorial plaque was installed. The house itself is an architectural monument, built at the beginning of the 20th century according to the design of Samuel Galperson. Initially the building belonged to engineer S. Reich and was apartment building. Babel's family settled here after returning from Nikolaev in 1905. Their apartment No. 10 was on the fourth floor, the balcony overlooked Richelieu Street. The apartment was owned by the writer’s father, Emmanuel Babel, an entrepreneur who had an office selling agricultural machines. The writer’s grandmother Mindlya Aronovna lived there until her death in 1913, who became the heroine of one of early works writer "Childhood. By Grandma". In 2015, work on a major reconstruction of this building was completed. The courtyard is decorated with images of Odessa sights and scenes from its history.
- The asteroid (5808) Babel, discovered by astronomer Lyudmila Karachkina at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory on August 27, 1987, is named in honor of I. E. Babel.
Literary heritage
In total, Babel wrote about 80 stories, collected in collections, two plays and five film scripts.
- A series of articles “Diary” (1918) about work in the Cheka and Narkompros.
- A series of essays “On the Field of Honor” (1920) based on the front-line notes of French officers.
- "Cavalry Diary of 1920"
- Collection "Cavalry" (1926), reprint. 1933.
- Jewish Stories (1927).
- "Odessa Stories" (1931).
- The play "Sunset" (1928).
- The play "Maria" (1935).
- The unfinished novel “Velikaya Krinitsa”, from which only the first chapter “Gapa Guzhva” (“Gapa Guzhva”) was published (“ New world", No. 10, 1931).
- fragment of the story “The Jewish Woman” (published in 1968).
- Cavalry diary of 1920.
Editions of essays
- Lyubka Kozak. - M., Ogonyok, 1925
- Stories. - M., Ogonyok, 1925. - 32 p.
- Stories. - M.-L., GIZ, 1925. - 112 p.
- Benya Krik. - M., Circle, 1926
- Libretto of the film "Benya Krik". Virob of the Odessa factory VUFKU 1926 rock. Kyiv, 1926. - 8 p. - 5000 copies.
- Wandering stars. - M., Kinoprint, 1926
- The story of my dovecote. - M.-L., ZIF, 1926. - 80 p.
- Cavalry. - M.-L., GIZ, 1926
- Stories. - M.-L., GIZ, 1926
- The story of my dovecote. - Paris, 1927
- The story of my dovecote. - M.-L., ZIF, 1927
- Cavalry. - M.-L., GIZ, 1927
- Cavalry. - M., FOSP, 1927
- The end of St. Hypatia. - M.-L., ZIF, 1927
- Stories. - M.-L., GIZ, 1927 - 64 p.
- Stories. - M.-L., GIZ, 1927. - 128 p.
- Sunset. - M., “Circle”, 1928. - 96 pp., 5,000 copies.
- Cavalry.- M.-L., GIZ, 1928
- The story of my dovecote. - M., GIZ, 1930
- Cavalry. - M.-L., GIZ, 1930
- Odessa stories. - M., OGIZ-GIHL, 1931. - 144 pp., 10,000 copies.
- Cavalry. - M., OGIZ-GIHL, 1931
- Stories. - M., Federation, 1932
- Cavalry. - M., GIHL, 1933
- Stories. - M., Goslitizdat, 1934
- Maria. - M., Goslitizdat, 1935. - 66 pp., 3,000 copies.
- Stories. - M., Goslitizdat, 1935
- Selected stories. - M., 1936, 2008. - 40 pp., 40,000 copies. (Library “Ogonyok”).
- Stories. - M., Goslitizdat, 1936
- Favorites / Preface I. Ehrenburg. - M., Goslitizdat, 1957.
- Favorites / Join Art. L. Pole. - M., Fiction, 1966.
- Favorites / Preface I. Ehrenburg. - Kemerovo, 1966
- Cavalry. Selected works/ Afterword V. Zvinyatskovsky; Ill. G. Garmidera. - K.: Dnipro, 1989. - 350 p.
- Awakening: Essays. Stories. Film story. Play / Comp., prepared. texts, intro. article, note, chronological index by W. M. Spector. - Tbilisi: Merani, 1989. - 432 p.
- Favorites / Comp., preface. and comment. V. Ya. Vakulenko. - Frunze: Adabiyat, 1990. - 672 p.
- Cavalry / Comp. A.N. Pirozhkova-Babel/. Entered: Cavalry. Cavalry diary of 1920. Odessa stories. Journalism. Stories different years. Memoirs, portraits, articles. - M., Pravda (Znamya magazine library), 1990. 480 pp. Circulation 400 thousand copies.
- Works: In 2 vols. - M.: IHL, 1990 / comp. A. Pirozhkova, entry. Art. G. Beloy, approx. S. Povartsova, reprint vol. 1 - 1991, vol. 2 - 1992
- Odessa stories. - Odessa: Voluntary Society of Book Lovers. 1991, p.221, format 93×67 mm, circulation 20,000 copies, hardcover.
- Works in two volumes. M., Terra, 1996., 15,000 copies.
- Diary 1920 (cavalry). - M.: MIC, 2000.
- Cavalry I.E. Babel. - Moscow: Children's literature, 2001.
- Collected works: In 2 volumes - M., 2002.
- Collected works: In 4 volumes / Comp., notes, intro. Art. I. N. Sukhikh. M.: Time, 2006.
- Collected works: In 3 volumes / Comp., approx. entry Art. I. N. Sukhikh. St. Petersburg: Azbuka, 2012. - 2,000 copies.
- Stories / Comp., prepared. texts, afterword, commentary. E. I. Pogorelskaya. St. Petersburg: Vita Nova, 2014. - 1000 copies.
- Letters to a friend: From the archives of I. L. Livshits / Comp., comp. texts and comments. E. Pogorelskaya. M.: Three squares, 2007. - 3000 copies.
Performances
The play “Sunset,” which was shown on the stage of the Moscow Art Theater 2 during the author’s lifetime (1928), was again staged by many theaters during perestroika and post-Soviet times, including:
- in 1987 by director Andrei Goncharov at the Moscow Theater named after V. Mayakovsky;
- in 1998 by director Semyon Spivak in Youth Theater on the Fontanka (play “Screams from Odessa”);
- in 2001 by director Marina Glukhovskaya in Omsk academic theater dramas.
A number of theaters - Theater named after. E. Vakhtangov in Moscow, the Riga Theater of Russian Drama, etc. - staged the musical “Bindyuzhnik and the King” (music by Alexander Zhurbin, libretto by Asar Eppel), created based on the same play; in several productions it was called “Sunset”.
Since the 1960s, in professional and amateur theaters different cities In the USSR, dramatizations of “Cavalry” and “Odessa Tales” were staged. In 1968, in Leningrad, director Efim Davidovich Tabachnikov staged a play based on I. Babel’s play “Maria” in folk theater at the Lensovet Palace of Culture. The most famous play is “Five Stories of Babel”, staged by Efim Kucher at the Taganka Theater (1980).
He returned to Odessa with his parents.
At the insistence of his father, he studied Hebrew and Jewish holy books, took violin lessons from the famous musician Pyotr Stolyarsky, and participated in amateur theater performances.
To the same period, researchers of the writer’s work attribute the appearance of Babel’s first unsurvived student stories, which he wrote in French.
In 1911 he graduated from the Odessa Commercial School.
In 1915, in St. Petersburg, he immediately entered the fourth year of the law faculty of the Petrograd Psychoneurological Institute, where he did not complete his studies.
In 1916 he graduated with honors from the economic department of the Kyiv Commercial Institute.
The writer's literary debut took place in February 1913 in the Kiev magazine "Ogni", where the story "Old Shloime" was published.
In 1916, Babel’s stories in Russian “Elya Isaakovich and Margarita Prokofievna” and “Mama, Rimma and Alla” were published in Maxim Gorky’s magazine “Chronicle”. In the Petrograd "Journal of Journals" notes "My sheets" appeared.
In 1954, Isaac Babel was posthumously rehabilitated.
With the active assistance of Konstantin Paustovsky, he was returned to Soviet literature. In 1957, a collection of the writer’s works, carefully censored, was published. From 1967 until the mid-1980s, Babel's works were not republished.
The work of Isaac Babel had a huge influence on the writers of the so-called “South Russian school” (Ilya Ilf, Evgeny Petrov, Yuri Olesha, Eduard Bagritsky, Valentin Kataev, Konstantin Paustovsky, Mikhail Svetlov), his books have been translated into many foreign languages.
On September 4, 2011, a monument to the writer was unveiled in Odessa on the corner of Rishelievskaya and Zhukovsky streets.
The material was prepared based on information from RIA Novosti and open sources
1933
Born on July 13, 1894 in Odessa on Moldavanka in the family of a small entrepreneur. Local historian A. Rozenboim managed to establish that Babel was born in the house of his maternal grandmother Chaya-Lea Shwekhvel, the owner of the “Trading Oats and Hay” shop on Dalnitskaya, 21. Babel’s family lived there for a little while more than a year, when his father was offered a job in Nikolaev. In 1905, Isaac and his parents returned to Odessa and lived with his mother’s sister, a dentist, at Tiraspolskaya, 12, apt. 3.
Only two years later, Emmanuel Isaakovich Babel, an Odessa representative of well-known foreign companies producing agricultural machinery, bought an apartment on Rishelevskaya, 17, where Isaac Babel lived both before and after the revolution, last time Having visited this apartment in 1924, when he came to his father’s funeral, he handed over the keys to the apartment to the Odessa journalist L. Borev. It was then that Isaac Babel wrote in a letter to his friend I.L. Livshits: “Odessa is deader than dead Lenin.”
1907
Let's return to the writer's biography. In 1905, Babel entered the Emperor Nicholas I Odessa Commercial School, estimated that he exceeded the “percentage norm” established for Jews, but was not accepted (the bribe system existed in Odessa even then). In a year home education I completed a two-class program, in addition to the required disciplines, I studied the Talmud and began learning to play the violin from P.S. Stolyarsky. The second time I entered college, graduated from it, and then learned French, which he owned so fluently that he wrote his first stories in French (they have not survived). Babel then studied at the Kiev Institute of Finance and Entrepreneurship. In Kyiv, in 1913, he published his first story, “Old Shloime,” in the magazine “Lights.”
Fame came to Babel when he moved to Petrograd. The young author took his stories to A.M. in 1916. Gorky. Gorky liked them, and he immediately published them in his journal “Chronicle”. True, the censorship had a different opinion. For stories published under the pseudonym Bab-El, the author was prosecuted under Article 1001 (this is not “A Thousand and One Nights”, but an article... about pornography).
A.M. Gorky, A. Malraux, I.E. Babel, M.E. Koltsov. Tesseli, Crimea. 1936
M. Gorky, with whom Babel became friends for the rest of his life, suggested that the aspiring writer go into hiding - “go public.” Babel changed several professions. In the fall of 1917, he went to work at the Petrograd Cheka, in the foreign department, and everything that he saw became material for stories and essays that Maxim Gorky published in the newspaper Novaya Zhizn, which was opposed to the Bolsheviks.
Babel comes to Odessa, works as a printer in a printing house, writes a lot, and in 1920, with the recommendation of S. Ingulov, he becomes a correspondent (pseudonym - K. Lyutov) in the Cavalry Army. Returns to Odessa and begins publishing short stories from the future books “Cavalry” and “Odessa Stories.” But all-Union fame came to Babel when V. Mayakovsky took his stories and published them in the magazine “LEF”. The books “Cavalry” and “Odessa Stories” are published in Moscow. Within two or three years, Babel becomes one of the most famous writers, it is translated into all European languages. The negative assessment of S. Budyonny’s “Cavalry” is countered by M. Gorky: “Budyonny evaluates Babel’s work from the height of a cavalry saddle.”
In the 30s, I. Babel was the first Soviet prose writes tragic story about collectivization “Kolyvushka”, where he depicts the famine in Ukraine, the impoverishment of the village, its spiritual degeneration. In those same years, he wrote the plays “Sunset” and “Maria”, and worked on a book of stories about the Cheka, which was later confiscated during his arrest. Only one of the stories has survived, “Froim Grach,” a moral verdict on the new regime.
In May 1939, the writer was arrested. The accusation is standard: anti-Soviet propaganda and so on - everything up to the plot to assassinate Stalin. Having signed the interrogation protocols under torture, at the last interrogation Babel renounces all his “testimonies.” It did not help. January 27, 1940 I.E. Babel was shot. The writer's manuscripts, carried away by the security officers, were burned.
Isaac Emmanuilovich Babel. 1939
Photo from the investigation case.
The books of Isaac Babel returned to the reader during the “thaw”, when his volume “Selected” was published in Moscow with a foreword by Ilya Ehrenburg. And the subsequently published four-volume work of Isaac Emmanuilovich refuted the legend that this writer left “a small literary legacy.”
In Odessa, the memory of I.E. Babele is immortalized in the name of the street on Moldavanka, as well as memorial plaque on Rishelievskaya, 17 (sculptor A. Knyazik).
On the initiative of the World Club of Odessa residents, a international competition to create a monument to the writer. Received first place and the right to build a monument famous sculptor Georgy Frangulyan (architects M. Reva, O. Lutsenko).
Babel Isaac Emmanuilovich, whose biography is presented in the article, is a prose writer, translator, playwright, and essayist. His real name is Bobel, he is also known under the pseudonyms Bab-El and K. Lyutov. This man was shot by the Bolsheviks in 1940. In 1954, Isaac Babel was posthumously rehabilitated.
His biography begins on June 30 (July 12), 1894. It was then that Isaac Emmanuilovich was born in Odessa. His father was Emmanuel Isaakovich Bobel.
Childhood, education period
In the years early childhood future writer lived in Nikolaev, near Odessa. At the age of 9, he entered the local Commercial School. Count Witte. A year later he transferred to the Odessa Commercial School named after Nicholas I. Babel graduated from it in 1911. His training in playing the violin dates back to this time. Babel's lessons were given by P.S. Stolyarsky, famous musician. The future writer was also fond of the works of French authors. At the insistence of his religious father, Babel began to seriously study the Hebrew language at the same time. He read the Jewish holy books. Isaac Emmanuilovich received the title of honorary citizen after successfully completing his studies at the Odessa Commercial School. At the same time, he applied for admission to the economics department of the Kyiv Commercial Institute. Babel was accepted into the institute and lived in Kyiv for several years. He completed his studies with honors in 1916, receiving the title of candidate.
The first published work, life in Saratov
Babel's first work was published in the Kiev magazine "Ogni" - the story "Old Shloime". After the Russian-German war broke out, Isaac Emmanuilovich was enlisted in the militia, but did not take part in hostilities.
In 1915, Babel was enrolled in the fourth year of the Petrograd Psychoneurological Institute (Faculty of Law). However, he didn't finish it educational institution. In 1915, Babel spent some time in Saratov. Here he created a story called "Childhood. At Grandma's", after which he returned to Petrograd.
First meeting with M. Gorky
The meeting with Maxim Gorky took place in the fall of 1916 at the editorial office of the Chronicle magazine. In November 1916, two stories by Babel were published in this magazine - “Mama, Rimma and Alla” and “Elya Isaakovich and Margarita Prokofyevna”. In the same year, a series of essays, united under the title “My Leaflets,” appeared in the “Journal of Journals,” a Petrograd publication.
In his “Autobiography”, created in 1928, Isaac Emmanuilovich, speaking about his first meeting with Gorky, noted that he owed everything to her and still pronounces the name of this writer with gratitude and love.
Babel's life "in people"
I.E. Babel, whose biography is marked by friendship with M. Gorky, wrote that he taught him very important things, and then, when it turned out that several of his youthful experiences were a fluke, that he wrote poorly, Maxim Gorky sent him “to the people.” Babel noted in his “Autobiography” that he “went into the people” for 7 years (1917-24). At this time he was a soldier, on the Romanian front. Babel also worked in the foreign department of the Cheka as a translator. In 1918, his texts were published in the newspaper “New Life”. In the same summer, Isaac Babel took part in food expeditions organized by the People's Commissariat for Food.
In the period from the end of 1919 to the beginning of 1920, Isaac Babel lived in Odessa. short biography writer is supplemented with new important events. The writer served at the State Publishing House of Ukraine, where he was in charge of the editorial and publishing department. In the spring of 1920, under the name of Lyutov Kirill Vasilyevich, a correspondent for Yugrost, Isaac Emmanuilovich went to Here he stayed for several months. The writer kept diaries and also published his essays and articles in the newspaper "Red Cavalryman". After suffering typhus, at the end of 1920, Isaac Emmanuilovich returned to Odessa.
New publications, life in Moscow
In 1922-1923 Babel began actively publishing his stories in Odessa newspapers ("Sailor", "Izvestia" and "Silhouettes"), as well as in the magazine "Lava". Among these works, the following stories should be noted: “The King,” included in the “Odessa Stories” cycle, and “Grishuk” (the “Cavalry” cycle). Babel lived almost the entire year 1922 in Batumi. His biography is also marked by visits to other Georgian cities.
In 1923, the writer established connections with Moscow writers. He began publishing in Krasnaya Novy, in Lef, in Spotlight, as well as in Pravda (Odessa Stories and short stories from Cavalry). While still in Odessa, Isaac Emmanuilovich met Vladimir Mayakovsky. Then, after Babel finally moved to Moscow, he made acquaintance with many writers who were here - A. Voronsky, S. Yesenin, D. Furmanov. Let us note that at first Isaac Emmanuilovich lived in Sergiev Posad (near Moscow).
Popularity, creativity of the second half of the 1920s
In the mid-1920s he became one of the most popular writers in USSR. Only in 1925, three collections of his stories were published as a separate publication. The first set of short stories from Cavalry created by Babel was published the following year. Subsequently it was replenished. Isaac Babel planned to write 50 short stories, but 37 were published, the last of them is called "Argamak".
In 1925, Isaac Emmanuilovich began working on the creation of the script for Benya Krik, and also completed the play Sunset. In the second half of the 1920s, Isaac Babel wrote (at least published) almost all of his best works. The next 15 years of Babel's life added only very little to this basic legacy. In 1932-33, Isaac Emmanuilovich worked on the play "Maria". He created a number of new "cavalry" short stories, as well as stories, mostly autobiographical ("Guy de Maupassant", "The Awakening", etc.). At this time, the writer also completed the film script “Wandering Stars” based on the prose of Sholom Aleichem.
"Cavalry"
In the mid-1920s, his entry into literature was sensational. The short stories "Cavalry" created by Babel were distinguished by their extraordinary directness and sharpness in their depiction of the atrocities and bloody events of the period, even for that time. Civil War. At the same time, his works are characterized by a rare elegance of words and sophistication of style. Babel, whose biography indicates that he was familiar with the Civil War first-hand, conveys its bloody events with particular sharpness. They involved three cultural layers that were unlikely to have intersected before. national history. It's about about Jews, Russian intelligentsia and people. The effect of this clash shapes the moral and art world Babel's prose, full of hope and suffering, insights and tragic mistakes. "Cavalry" immediately caused a very heated debate, in which different points of view collided. In particular, the commander of the First Cavalry S.M. Budyonny perceived this work as slander against the Reds. But A. Voronsky and M. Gorky believed that the depth of depiction of human destinies in the conflicts of the Civil War, truth, and not propaganda, was the main task of the writer.
"Odessa Stories"
Babel in his “Odessa Stories” depicted a romanticized Odessa Moldavanka. Benya Krik, the “noble” bandit, became her soul. The book very colorfully, lyrically and ironically-pathetically presents the life of Odessa traders and raiders, dreamers and sages. It is depicted as if it were a passing era. "Odessa Stories" (the play "Sunset" became a version of the plots of the second book) is one of the most significant events Russian literature mid-20s of the last century. They provided big influence on the work of a number of writers, among whom are I. Ilf and E. Petrov.
Traveling around the USSR and foreign trips
Since 1925, Isaac Emmanuilovich has traveled a lot around the USSR (southern Russia, Kyiv, Leningrad). He collects materials about the recent events of the Civil War, serves as secretary of the village council in the village of Molodenovo, located on the Moscow River. In the summer of 1927, Babel went abroad for the first time. His biography is marked first after which - to Berlin. From this time on, trips abroad became almost annual until 1936. In 1935, Isaac Emmanuilovich presented a report in defense of culture at the Paris Writers' Congress.
Meetings with Gorky
Babel met many times with Maxim Gorky, who closely followed his work and supported him in every possible way. After Gorky’s son died, Alexei Maksimovich invited Isaac Emmanuilovich to his place in Gorki. Here he lived from May to June 1934. In the same year, in August, Babel gave a speech during the I All-Union Congress Soviet writers.
Babel: biography and creativity of the second half of the 1930s.
In the second half of the 1930s, the work of Isaac Emmanuilovich was mainly related to literary treatment works of other writers. In particular, Babel worked on the following film scripts: based on the work “How the Steel Was Tempered” by N. Ostrovsky, based on the poem “The Thought about Opanas” by Vs. Bagritsky, as well as on the script for a film about Maxim Gorky. He also created an adaptation of Turgenev’s work for cinema. We are talking about the script for a film called “Bezhin Meadow” for S.M. Eisenstein. This film, it must be said, was banned and destroyed as “ideologically vicious.” However, this did not break such a writer as Isaac Babel. His biography and work indicate that he did not pursue fame.
In 1937, Isaac Emmanuilovich announced in the press that he had completed work on a play about G. Kotovsky, and two years later - on the script for “Old Square”. During the writer's lifetime, however, none of these works were published. In the fall of 1936, the last collection of his stories was published. Last performance Babel in print are New Year's wishes, which were published on December 31, 1938 in the Literary Gazette.
Arrest, execution and rehabilitation
Babel’s biography by date continues with the fact that on May 15, 1939, a search was carried out at Isaac Emmanuilovich’s Moscow apartment, as well as at his dacha located in Peredelkino (where he was at that time). During the search, 24 folders with his manuscripts were seized. Subsequently, they were not found in the FSK archives. On June 29-30, after a series of continuous interrogations, Babel gave evidence. He subsequently renounced them in several statements. In a speech delivered at the trial, Isaac Emmanuilovich asked to be given the opportunity to complete his latest works. However, he was not destined to do this. Isaac Emmanuilovich was sentenced to death. On January 27, 1940, Babel was executed. His short biography ends with the fact that the writer’s body was cremated on the same day in the Donskoy Monastery.
After 14 years, in 1954, Isaac Emmanuilovich was completely rehabilitated, since no crime was found in his actions. After this, the controversy surrounding his fate and creativity resumed. They don't stop to this day. Babel, whose biography and work we have reviewed, is a writer whose works are certainly worth getting acquainted with.
