Stepan Raevsky

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15 years ago passed away

A wonderful culturalist

Republics

My friend is Stepan Raevsky

As many lovers of Boris Pasternak’s work, it would seem simple to the limit of the stanza:

Mel, Meling throughout the Earth -

To all limits.

The candle burned on the table,

The candle was burning ...

So Raevsky was disturbed by my lines:

Suffers the blizzard to stupor, to sweat,

Deprives of strength:

Someone opened there

Kara gates,

I forgot to close ...

During the feasts, which certainly happened during our meetings, Stepan Semenovich quoted the “Kara Gate” and exclaimed:

“Well, Greener! Well, Pasternak! " - and his pink face blurred in a simple smile. Such smiles are characteristic of children, not yet spoiled, not coarsened by the vicissitudes of an adult fate.

We met in the winter of 1962 in the editorial office of the newspaper "Obravary", where I then worked as a literary employee. Raevsky visited Vorkuta as part of a large delegation of writers of the republic. Then I was 32 years old, Stepan Semenovich 44. It seems that the difference at that age is not very significant, but he seemed an elderly person whose shoulders the main life remained.

Quite often, I experienced a similar feeling in communicating with people who were not even too superior to me in years, but passed the Great Patriotic War. Looking at the former front-line soldier, only three to four years older, it was thought:

“Is this man, being a boy, went on the attack or, moreover, commanded a company, a battalion, decided the fate of the country, and if you look deeper and wider, the fate of humanity?!”

This is later, decades after the defeat of fascism, some part of the inhabitants of the Earth began provocations of memory, dope of oblivion, and even a deliberate falsification of history. The media and the rulers of some countries deliberately distort the decisive role of the Soviet Union in the results of the Second World War, the unprecedented sacrifice of the multinational people.

And that was the considerable “merit” of Stalin: he canceled the celebration of Victory Day, which only the front -line soldiers recalled for twenty years, overturning their combat one hundred grams alone and small groups, as happened at the front. Thirty million lives are laid for the Victory altar. Thirty million! People of my generation have no shadow of doubt that without this feat today's world would be completely different.

I survived many horrors of that terrible disaster: I was under the "carpet" bombing, under the aiming fire of German attack aircraft; In front of my eyes, houses collapsed and people died, including relatives and friends; He survived the cold, hunger, the Central Asian heat, very early learned labor, love and hatred. But still, the war did not touch me to the extent that people took out through the slot of the weapon sight.

Stepan Raevsky belonged to the glorious cohort of the winners, who were lucky enough to survive. In appearance and character, it was a purely civilian person. Two years before the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, he received a diploma of the Komi Pedagogical Institute, managed to work as a teacher of the language and literature of the Mokhchenskaya secondary school. In the 40th, young teachers were called up for actual army service, where he graduated from commander courses. Raevsky met the war as a lieutenant, and walked along the front -line roads all the stages - from bitter defeats to victorious days.

An exceptionally modest person, Stepan Semenovich never flaunted combat awards and front -line scars, although they had enough of them. Only once, working in Raevsky’s home office, I accidentally discovered a box full of award metal on a book rack. There were also stored stripes for injuries and field epaulets of the artillery captain. I was also an artillery captain, but he became him in the mid -fifties, a decade after the Great Victory ...

Thirty post -war years, Raevsky permanently headed the Komi Republican publishing house and gave a ticket to the life of many talented people. He knew Russian classics very well, Soviet and foreign literature, he read a lot amazingly, including all the manuscripts passing through the publishing house. Raevsky himself continuously worked as a writer: he created excellent textbooks for national schools, advocated the development of his native language and literature. The careful owner, he hated any waste, knew how to protect the state penny. Therefore, the publishing house he head was one of the few among the republican-regenerative units of Rosidat, who worked unrticipiently or with meager state support.

However, at the writer's congresses, conferences and meetings, the director was invariably criticized, accused of all mortal sins: they say, clamps national authors, does not want to publish thick novels in their native language, in pursuit of financial terms prints the mass circles of Russian late authors, and consciously inhibits the development of the Komi literature. This has acquired the form of tradition, ritual; Only the lazy did not consider it his duty to twist the director and colleague in the writer's workshop.

Stepan Semenovich patiently listened to reproaches, bugged and smiled in a dimly. Sometimes he could not stand it and turned on his "quick -firing talker." But his fuse, as a rule, looked like Bengal fire - bright, but not burning anyone.

In everyday life and in the service, Raevsky was soft, modestly to shyness, deceptively phlegmatic, knew how to get along with subordinates, owned a high degree of diplomatic skill in relations with party authorities; Otherwise, he would not have to sit for so many years in the director's chair. And only very close people knew that the authorities, especially the Kremlin, he considered it insolvent, harmful to the holy cause ... the construction of communism.

Raevsky’s gust was seeming. He owned a peculiar, quite sharp mind, capable of calculating difficult situations, was self -critical, drawn conclusions from his and other people's mistakes. A sincere party man, he sacredly believed in a communist fairy tale. On this basis, we (one on one, naturally) arose acute discussions.

The “faithful Leninists” dismissed the people, corrupted the country and will soon lead to death. We have no real owner. They smear, you see, snot ... But you can’t liberal the liberal with our people ... ” - his life and political credo were read something like that.

The indignation of Raevsky, the true patriot of Russia, turned out to be prophetic. I represent his experiences in the early nineties, when everything collapsed and crumbled like a house in the sand. And he continues to pour, threatening the complete, often irreparable ruin of everything that exists on one sixth of the globe.

It is strange that with a flexible character and a democratic mood, Stepan Semenovich, as much as I knew him, remained a supporter of a “hard hand” - an unshakable Stalinist. And he did not hide this from friends and colleagues. But there was a time when such revelations required considerable courage ...

The director of the publisher was not just good to me, but with undisguised friendliness. For this, my literary enemies often accused and quarreled Raevsky. And then to say: in the first three years of our acquaintance and cooperation, Raevsky published three of my books for children, as well as the poetry collection “I am going to the world”. Accusing the director of a preferential attitude towards me, the ill -wishers forgot about the party decree duplicated, as was usual, in writing forums of all levels. This was the next "event" for a sharp rise in literature for children and youth. Having published outside the plan my children's books, Raevsky immediately fulfilled the “directive” of the higher Moscow authorities. And the collection of poems lay in the publishing house for three years and was released, according to the thematic plan ...

Stepan Semenovich was very reverent of old writers, front -line soldiers who could no longer work full -blooded, but they had to live and feed. The director of the Komi National Literature were special care of the director. When this was discussed, Raevsky said: “We will once go into repayment. Old age is a shipwreck. And we must save the drowning ... "

In 1977, Komi Publishing House prepared for the release of the one -volume man of my prose, which entered the “seditious” story “Black Saturday” at that time. The issue of the North magazine, where this thing was first published a year earlier, had not yet managed to come to Vorkuta, and Lenfilm sent a telegram with a proposal of adaptation. Wonderly appreciated by literary criticism and readers, the story caused a violent indignation of a certain circle of technical intelligentsia, especially scientific. They wrote complaints against me, called “to the carpet” in party instances, accused of all mortal sins. They demanded an apology and repentance. The thing was artistic, but some officials from science learned themselves. Some of the then signatures, crowned with high scientific degrees and titles, still live in the republic. These are very respected people who succumbed to the provocation of higher authorities and put their signatures under the deliberate untruth. I do not want to call their names, because I have long forgiven everyone behind the expiration of the statute of limitations. Solid people were victims of the Brezhnev time, and victims are not subject to victims. I understood this perfectly. And sorry them. And he thanked for a high assessment of my skill, if in an artistic essay they were able to discern themselves and their vices.

Despite the boiling resin around the Black Saturday, Raevsky was not afraid to leave her in the one -volume. Moreover, the story was the vigilant control of Alexander Ivanovich Klimushev, the main republican censor, who, in case of the slightest doubt, was enlisted by the support of party ideologists of the regional committee of the CPSU. I had the experience of “Book Issue”: in the same publishing house the story “I Learn to Live”, ready for printing, went under the knife of guillotines, and the set was scattered. Again - by the denunciation of one respected poet.

Teached by bitter experience, Stepan Semenovich called me from Vorkuta to quickly read the proof and start printing.

The circulation for such a low -power publishing house was large - 30,000 copies. The director considered everything that the book brought the state income, but not a loss.

From the airfield, I went straight to the publishing house. In the director of the director, the writer Yakov Rochev, the author of the famous trilogy about revolutionary events in the republic, was sitting at the premising table of the elderly. The first part was translated into Russian and withstood several publications. The second book "Izhma is worried" was waiting for the translation. The third, in my opinion, was never brought by the author to printed condition, although it was repeatedly announced. Raevsky told me that Rochev could not find a translator. And the book is put in the plan of the current year. Stepan Semenovich is not used to the tear off state plans. He lived, like the entire Soviet people, under the slogan "Plan - at all costs!"

As soon as he crossed the threshold of the director’s office, Raevsky emotionally exclaimed his tongue twister:

-That, Yakov Mitrofanovich, your translator flew. You can start working ...

Rochev was a quiet shy person. In front of him lay a thick folder with the manuscript of the novel "Izhma is worried." I immediately realized that Raevsky arranged this staging after my call from Vorkuta, when he informed him that the weather was flying and soon I would be in the publishing house. He knew well and was sure: in the presence of the old writer I would not dare to refuse.

But after reading the manuscript, there was a desire to find a significant occasion to avoid this ungrateful work, since he had completely different plans for the summer. And the novel demanded not just a translation, but a sharp reduction, compositional restructuring, essentially a new understanding and writing. I told Raevsky about this.

-You are not going to be old? he asked, clearly disappointed that the performance he played failed. - Then call the author and say that you want to die young ...

I called. And when I heard the mournful sighs of Yakov Mitrofanovich, who had already received an advance for the future circulation and probably distributed the main fee of kefir, marshmallows and medicines, my heart trembled ...

All summer I spent in my Kyiv cottage, bathing in cold Izhma, instead of a warm Black Sea. But at the end of the vacation he sent a finished manuscript to the publisher. The novel received several good reviews, including a positive review of Anatoly Konstantinovich Mikushev - the greatest critical authority in the field of Komi literature. In the same year, the book saw the light. Almost simultaneously with my one -volume, the “line of the horizon”, in which the disgraced “Black Saturday” slipped. Therefore, this was in the 1977th year. And in 1985, Roman Rochev was released by the second edition.

But in my bibliographic certificate, already repeatedly published not only in paper printing products, but also on the Internet, it is persistent that Roman Jacob Rochev was translated by me and published in 1985. This is wrong. The first circulation took place eight years earlier, which is easy to check on catalogs of the Central Republican Library. Thus, the Komi Book publishing house should pay me a fee for the second edition. And if now this organization is privatized, then the debts of the predecessor have passed to it. And you will have to resolve other people's sins, as Russia unsuccessfully resolves the sins of the Soviet Union ...

If Stepan Semenovich was alive, on April 21 he would be 90 years old.

But he left twelve years earlier. And thirty years ago we celebrated its 60th anniversary and the achievement of retirement age. Lord, did it really flash thirty years like thirty days?! By the time of the significant date, I already moved to Arkhangelsk and specially flew to Syktyvkar to participate in the anniversary of a friend.

The restaurant hall was scored to capacity. Wine poured as a river. And sweet health resorts too. Responsible employees of the CPSU regional committee and the Council of Ministers swore love to the permanent director and claimed that they did not represent another person in his place. And Stepan Semenovich will work as much as he wants. People who are accustomed to deceive all their lives, even at the anniversary evening of a well -deserved man, who made more for the development of republican culture more than all party leaders combined ...

For six months, Raevsky worked in his former position, and was retired: it took place the right comrade who did not mean anything in the publishing business. A completely able -bodied, smart leader, a real culturologist who knows the subject perfectly, was thrown out of board the usual life. Laureate prizes and honorary titles did not help. Raevsky was an honored cultural worker of the RSFSR, laureate of the State Prize of the Komi Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic named after Kuratov. Many peacetime regalia increased to combat awards.

Of course, there was a great resentment. A sense of public uselessness is a very bitter feeling. Stepan Semenovich was closed in himself and spent most of the year in the father's house of Mezador. In the house of his village childhood, where everything began rosy and ended very sadly, passing all the circles of an invented paradise.

It is impossible to slow down the run of time. But the writer's happiness is that, leaving for another world, he leaves his books on Earth. Especially the books that Raevsky wrote - colorful textbooks for children of national schools, the same name of which overflows the soul of the child with a life -giving principle: “Morning dawn”, “Light of the Sun”, “Homeland” ...

Many more generations of the Komi children will pick up these wonderful books, and consider a portrait of a smart writer and a brave soldier who gives the light of life. Few of numerous acquaintances and even loved ones knew that most of his beautiful life, Soviet officer Stepan Raevsky carried a German bullet under his heart. The famous poet Konstantin Simonov wrote about this dangerous burden “... not to take it out - it means to wear death with him. And take it out - to die right away ... "

Stepan Semenovich Raevsky (“General Raevsky” died, as his writing fraternity) on June 29, 1996. Eternal memory and eternal peace, while our tired planet is spinning ...