Translated material
Alice in the Country of Soviets
The artist breaks, the poet Harms and all-all-all
On the left - Alice Porn, 1937; On the right is an illustration of A. Vvedensky's book “Railway”, 1929
On the left - an illustration to the book of A.A. Milna "Winnie the Pooh and All-all-all", 1960; on the right - a page from the diaries A. Porut
The girlfriend of the poet Daniil Harms-he even looked after her, the student of Filonov and Petrov-Vodkin, the first illustrator of the Russian edition of Winnie the Pooh, Alice Porut (1902–1984) is still a woman’s marriage. The owner of caustic cheerful memory, she left behind drawn diaries, a small amount of easel painting and a wonderful book graphics. But the main thing is the light of living life, which was possible even in Soviet Russia of the 30s.
A portrait hangs in front
Alisa Ivanovna Porn.
She is beautiful for sure the fairy
She is more insidious than the snake
She is cunning, my Alice,
The cunning Reine Lisa.
This poem by Harms Alice Pereta recognized this poem after his death. As the artist recalled, she grew up in a Puritan family, and Harms “opened my fun, laughter, game, humor - that which I missed so long”. They met in the 20s, when both collaborated with the magazines "Hedgehog" and "Chizh". “I am very pleased to be friends with you. You are not so stupid as not to understand me, but not so smart that I feel like a fool, ”wrote Harms. The poet borrowed five rubles from his friends to bring his girlfriend to the cinema, together they composed charades and arranged numerous draws, which Alice Porn remembered with a smile.
* Alexander Vvedensky - poet and philosopher from the unification of Oberiu, which included Daniil Harms
“When Sasha Vvedensky* had nothing to drink for, he held an extraordinary bet. For example, Harms was supposed to reach from our house to Liteiny Prospekt, having come to a bastard without a bottom, so that the hair stuck out over the fields; In a light jacket without a shirt, a large cross was visible on the body; My brother’s military Galifa, and night shoes on the bare legs. In the hand of a net for catching butterflies. Paris was held on a bottle of champagne: if Harms reaches the intersection and no one pays attention to it, then he won, and vice versa. Daniil Ivanovich gave himself to dress and walked along the sidewalk very calmly, without a smile, with dignity. We fled along the other side of the street and, dying with stupid laughter, looked - what about passers -by? No one paid attention to him, only one old woman said: "Here is a fool." And that's it. Vvedensky ran after a bottle, and Daniil Ivanovich again returned to us, and we all had lunch together. ”
“I am more and more in love with A.I., and on February 1 told her about this,” wrote Harms in the diaries. But the artist was not married at all. Harms presented a Samurai sword for the newlywed to the newlyweds. They decided to call their relationship friendship. Perhaps this was the best period in Alice's life.
Arrested at the beginning of the war, Harms died in a prison hospital on February 2, 1942. Alice's father died in 1924. The first husband, art critic, died in the 27th, second, artist Peter Polopkov, who repelled Alice from Harms, died in the camp in the 42nd. War, blockade, evacuation. However, in her memoirs, Alice Porot remains that very sunny and bright woman who was so loved by her former friends.
After the war, the artist settled in Moscow, there were no orders, how long had it had not been her own apartment. Over time, a circle of admirers formed around her, with whom she told stories from the life of her famous friends. It was an outlet of freedom in the rigid conditions of the Soviet era.
She again took up easel painting, painted many portraits of friends, some of them could be seen at the exhibition at the Galeev Gallery, as well as her handwritten diaries, which she would finish and illustrated, as well as drawings of the 20s from children's books Boris Zhitkov, Nikolai Oleinikov, Oberiuts-Vvedensky, Zabolotsky, Harms. Her own texts are also read as a fairy tale, perhaps it was this rare quality that helped her survive all these years.
** Boris Mayzel, Alice's third husband breaks, composer
“And now my day came - April 15 ... I opened my eyes and saw that Boris ** was squatting at my headboard. He has an English book in his hands - “Alice in Wonderland”, and it is open on the first page where my favorite picture of childhood ... “What you made me, dear, dear, wonderful gift,” I said in a happy voice ... ”
First published in NT No. 17 of May 20, 2013