Not everyone knows that the author of the famous aphorism ātalents need to be helped, mediocrity will break through themselvesā was Lev Adolfovich Ozerov, Russian Soviet poet, doctor of philological sciences, professor of the department of literary translation at the A.M. Literary Institute Gorky in Moscow. Ozerov is a widely gifted person. He is the author of wonderful poems, translations, literary works. Finally, he is a talented cartoonist whose brilliant fleeting portraits of famous writers, Ozerovās colleagues in the workshop, still captivate with his enthusiasm, laconic lines and at the same time accurately convey the look of the model.
In the article we will talk about Leo Ozerov and his work.
Biography
Lev Adolfovich Goldberg was born (this is his real name) in 1914 in the family of a Kiev pharmacist. He studied at the seven-year school, after its graduation he tried himself in many professions - a student of a draftsman, designer, correspondent and even a violinist in an orchestra. About how hard it was in those days, the poet himself later recalled:
Born in 1914, I survived all the wars of the century and three famines. Especially the famine in Ukraine in 1930-1933, which Ukrainians call the stronger word "famine." We hung in the balance; how we survived is incomprehensible. I had already gone through the violin school, the conductor, I had my own compositions, drew, I began to write, received approval, but because of hunger I had to drop everything and go to laborers at the Kiev Arsenal. He transferred materials from the tool shop to the warehouse - there was strength - and pushed the trolley. At home, they were happy to bring a handful of porridge and fish tail ...
At the age of 20, the future poet Lev Ozerov moved to Moscow and became a student at the Moscow Institute of Philosophy, Literature and History. He graduated in 1939, among the graduates with him were Alexander Twardovsky, David Samoilov, Konstantin Simonov, Sergey Narovchatov and others.
Then Lev Ozerov continued his postgraduate studies and two years later successfully defended his thesis. This happened in 1941. Soon the young candidate of sciences was called up to the front and became a war correspondent. He wrote for radio and the press, including reports for the divisional newspaper of the 59th Guards Rifle Division, "Victory is ours."
Important in the biography of Leo Ozerov was 1943. Then he became a teacher at a literary institute, and later - a professor at the department of literary translation, a doctor of philological sciences. Proving himself as a wonderful teacher, he taught students literary skills until his death in 1996.
The beginning of the way
Lev Goldberg began to write poetry early. Later in his memoirs, he writes about this:
He composed the first poems in childhood, not knowing what it is to write poems. Spring Kiev noon, rain, I run from the street into the house and immediately to the table. Delight before the spring rain dictated lines to me. Thunderstorm and poetry became related.
His creations were first published when the poet was already eighteen.
By the way, Leo was born and grew up on the old and famous Tarasovka (Tarasovskaya street in Kiev) - that same āstreet of poets", which began to be built up before the middle of the XIX century. The history of this street is associated with such names as Maximilian Voloshin, Anna Akhmatova, Semyon Gudzenko, Lesya Ukrainka.
In his youth, the budding poet was read by the poems of Eduard Bagritsky, Nikolai Tikhonov, Mikhail Svetlov, with special attention, according to the memoirs of his contemporaries, he belonged to the poetic works of Boris Pasternak. At least some of the reports in the literary studio under the leadership of Nikolai Ushakov, which Lev Goldberg then visited, were devoted to the work of this particular poet. In addition, personal acquaintance with him affected. Later, literary critics write that for Ozerov Pasternak was the spokesman for "high tragedy", which became the ideological dominant of poetic creativity and Ozerov himself.
Lev Adolfovich also spoke with such masters of Russian poetry as Anna Akhmatova, Mikhail Zenkevich, Pavel Antokolsky and Nikolai Zabolotsky.
Creative career
In the years 1945-1949. worked in the capital's literary magazine "October", was a member of the editorial board.
The first poetic collection of Leo Goldberg appeared in 1940, eight years after the first publication of poems. It was called the Dnieper. Like the following editions of the poet's poems, books were favorably received by critics, among whom, in particular, were Ilya Selvinsky and Mikhail Svetlov. In total, during the life of the poet, about 20 collections of poetic works were published.
During his life, Ozerov was actively published in newspapers and magazines - his poems, poetic works, and essays were published in such publications as Literaturnaya Gazeta, Ogonyok, Arion, etc.
Leo Ozerov had many pseudonyms. At the beginning of his career, he signed with his real name, and Kornev, and Berg ... He later admitted that he had been looking for his pseudonym for a long time. Until I found it, I went through thirty different pieces.
Leo Ozerov was a master in the field of literary translation. He translated from Ukrainian, Lithuanian, Abkhaz, Ossetian, Georgian, Armenian, as well as Yiddish. This activity was not something separate, any special occupation for the poet. He himself said that he regarded his translations as a natural continuation of the original work.
In 1999, three years after his death, one of Lev Ozerov's most famous works was published. These are free verse techniques and collected in the same book āPortraits Without Framesā - poetic memoirs, memories of the poetās contemporaries, with whom Ozerov happened to meet and talk. They are written with invariable respect and sympathy for the difficult fate of contemporaries. Here, for example, is the ending of a verbiber dedicated to the prose writer Isaac Babel:
Gummies, cunning, sparks of eyes,
His large head attracts attention
She is still neither troubles nor sorrows
Does not foresee
And they are in a few years
Hard fall on this head.
She will be paid late.
People have a habit
But this is a different topic.
Leo Ozerov died in the 82nd year of life. The poetās grave is located at the Vostryakovsky cemetery in Moscow.
Positions and ranks
Soon after the release of the first book, Lev Ozerov was admitted to the Union of Writers of the USSR and remained in it until the end of his life. He was awarded the Order of Honor.
In 1980, for work on translations from the Lithuanian language, Ozerov was awarded the title of Honored Worker of the Lithuanian SSR.
Reputation
Ozerov at one time was called a cultural treasurer or cultural missionary. As a researcher, he devoted his work to many poets, including those about whom it was customary to remain silent rather than speak in that setting. He wrote articles about talented contemporary poets, whose life path was overshadowed by Stalinist repressions, about those who died during the war or died early.
Leo Ozerov was an excellent mentor - patient, attentive and meticulous. Many know. He devoted his whole life to teaching young writers at the Literary Institute. For a decade he led the Creative Association of Young Poets at the Moscow Automobile Plant named after Likhachev.
Literary studies
The first scientific works on literature were written by Lev Ozerov during his years at the institute.
The article "Poems by Anna Akhmatova", published in the Literary Newspaper on July 23, 1953, after many years of silence, became a real phenomenon in the study of the work of the famous poetess. As you know, Akhmatova herself called Ozerov's article āa breakthrough in the blockade.ā
There were many other studies - about Akhmatov's poetry, about the work of the "sixth acmeist" Zenkevich. And among the poetic heritage of Lev Adolfovich there are many poems dedicated to Akhmatova, Pasternak, Aseev.
Ozerovsky comments on the collection of Boris Pasternak (1965) can be considered brilliant scientific work. This one-volume edition was prepared for publication by Ozerov himself and saw the light in the series "Library of the poet." Lev Adolfovich remained faithful to his youthful passion for the work of Boris Pasternak for life. The video shows one of the lectures that he gave at the poet's memorial evening in 1994.
Later, whole books were written - monographic studies on the works of Afanasy Fet, Fedor Tyutchev, Evgeny Baratynsky, Konstantin Batyushkov.
Among the undoubted achievements of Lev Adol'fovich can be attributed "pioneering" to the masses of readers of Zenkevich's poetry, as well as Sergei Bobrov and Maria Petrova.
Under the editorship of Ozerov and compiled by him, the poetry collections of Pyotr Semynin, Georgy Obolduev, Alexander Kochetkov were published. A collection of poems by the latter, entitled āDo not part with your loved ones!ā, Released in 1985, has become especially popular.
Character
According to the memoirs of contemporaries of Lev Ozerov, he had an amazing and rather rare trait for a creative person - he knew how to admire his fellow writers. In the literary workshop, it is often customary to look down on others (or at least not notice), considering himself and only himself a real genius.
Lev Adolfovich in this sense was a modest man. A real intellectual. Bowing to the skill of other writers, he respected and appreciated them. Often, he defended against attacks and, as he could, contributed to the advancement of their work.
And one of the students, recalling the years of communication with Ozerov while studying at a literary institute, wrote about him like this:
In a way, he was naive. He believed in democracy, that something bright was driving people in power, and when I gave him examples of the opposite property, he exclaimed: "How can they! But this is impossible! This is dishonorable! This cannot be!" And it was so sincere that I could not suspect him of any hypocrisy.
Style
Own poetic manner of Lev Adolfovich Ozerov was laconic and accurate. It is no accident that certain phrases from his creations became aphorisms and, as they say, "went into the people." This is one of the most remarkable features inherent in his poetry.
By the way, not only poetic works - and the diaries that he kept almost his whole life, are laconic, almost unemotional in nature. Only events. On the formation of his style, the poet wrote:
At first, I established external correspondences in the world, admired them and tried to convey them in appropriate sounds. Then everything went deep. The essence attracted by its infinity.
As for the general credo of his poetic work, Lev Ozerov expressed it like this:
I live in verse, through verse I know the world and myself. Like ambulances and fire engines, poems go to the red light. They go ahead of articles, translations, and the work of a teacher. They are written only at the call of the heart, which, incidentally, is in charge of the poet's actions. I wanted to be not so bright as useful. To be useful to the Fatherland. To contribute to the change of such a still imperfect world. Without this, albeit naive, belief that a word can move mountains, you cannot write. Itās hard to live and work without faith ...
Poetry
The poems of Lev Adolfovich Ozerov should rather be called poetic miniatures - so the words in them are in place, connected with each other and you can not throw out a single one without losing the general meaning. So, for example, the repetitions in one of Lev Ozerov's most famous lyric miniatures are completely natural (āI Think About Youā, 1964):
I want to think about you. Thinking of you.
I donāt want to think about you. Thinking of you.
I want to think about others. Thinking of you.
I donāt want to think about anyone. Thinking of you.
In his other work, he masterfully describes a frosty day. In Lev Ozerovās poem āMarch Shadows in the Snowā (1956), a picture of nature waking up after a winter dream and what the poet can only tell about a trace of skis on loose spring snow can be seen:
March shadows in the snow ...
I just canāt look enough.
In loose snow, in the radiance of the day
Blue embedded ski track.
Iāll slip by her guess
To the March sun of the southern days.
To the March warmth of ancient years,
The years that the track has been lost.
So I can not tear myself away
From shadows trembling in the snow.
Many poets wrote about the power of the influence of music on our souls. Here is how Leo Ozerov brilliantly did this in the poem "I Can't Tell Music":
I canāt tell music
And I dare not tell music
And numb, listening to music.
My dumbness is not a hindrance to me
And for sorrow and for laughter to me.
The fullness of being opens
At the time I listen to music.
Aphorisms
The craving for capacious, essentially precise statements gave rise to this passion of the poet Ozerov. Here are just the smallest fraction of his aphorisms known:
All my life I'm going to live ...
Poetry is a hot shop.
Stale bread is soft from your hands.
About Leningrad (now St. Petersburg):
Great city with a regional fate.
And here is another statement that has become history. Now hardly anyone remembers that in 1952 the old monument to Nikolai Gogol (1909) was, according to the wishes of the leader of all peoples, replaced by a new one. The former monument showed a pensive, sad, even mournful writer (which Stalin did not like), but the new one, created according to the project of Tomsky, the sculptor, laureate of several Stalin Prizes, in 1952 showed the world a smiling Gogol. The former monument was temporarily put in one of the courtyards nearby, later it was installed in the park near the Gogol House Museum on Nikitsky Boulevard. Ozerovās poem was dedicated to this fact, short as a sigh of regret, which at that time was heard by many:
Merry Gogol on the boulevard,
Sad Gogol in the yard.
The following aphorism about glory and immortality - verses on this subject we will meet with any poet:
There is a line on bye,
There is a line for centuries ...
And finally, the famous saying, so often quoted, that no one remembers the name of its author:
Talents need help
Mediocrity will break through themselves!
It is a pity that such a wonderful and bright poet, this multi-faceted gifted person, as well as the poems of Lev Ozerov, were almost completely forgotten in our time.
We talked about the Russian Soviet poet Lev Adolfovich Ozerov.