Rurik Ivnev is a Russian prose writer, poet and translator, whose work is of genuine interest to the modern readership.
Kovalev Mikhail Alexandrovich (real name of the writer) was born on February 11, 1891 in a noble family living in Tiflis. Father - captain of the Russian army, worked in the military district court as an assistant prosecutor. Mom - a woman of rare beauty and a solid nature, was engaged in the upbringing of Michael and the eldest son of Nicholas. In 1894, after the death of her husband, with the aim of finding a stable income, with two boys in her arms, she was forced to move to the city of Kars, where she got a job as a superintendent in a female gymnasium.
Rurik Ivnev: biography
Sons, at the request of their mother, as well as in order to continue the family tradition, entered the cadet corps of Tiflis, where Mikhail studied for 8 years. During his studies, which became an important stage in the spiritual development of the future writer, the young man got acquainted with the works of Lermontov, Pushkin, A.K. Tolstoy. Of modern poets , I. Annensky, Balmont, Bryusov and Blok became close to him. It was at this time that Mikhail tried his hand at writing poetry lines and read the first verses among his friends.
After graduation, under the influence of revolutionary achievements in 1905, he decided to leave his military career and moved to St. Petersburg, where he entered the law faculty of Imperial University. He completed his education in the capital, after which in 1915-1917. settled in the Office of State Control.
On a creative path
The first publication of Michael is the poem Our Days, published in 1909 in the Student Book. Three years later, two more poems were presented to the readers' court, but already in the Bolshevik newspaper Zvezda. In 1913, the first poem collection “Self-immolation (Revelations)” was published, and off we go ... The works of the young author, including prose ones, began to be actively published in various publications.
The young author, who took the pseudonym Rurik Ivnev, began to speak a lot at
poetry evenings, the doors of literary salons and living rooms easily opened in front of him, there were meetings with famous poets and writers, among which was S. Yesenin and A. Blok. Ivnev Rurik and Yesenin, who became real sincere friends, were largely united by love for the poetic syllable and literary work in general.
Characteristics of early creativity
In his early work, Mikhail can be described as a sort of sad and helpless St. Petersburg boy, feminine unhappy, with a deep sense of guilt, who is in a desperate search for a way out. The writing style of this period was characterized by passionate self-flagellation, nervous fatigue, which reached a manner of hysteria, a feeling of unbearably burning shame, reaching its extreme limit and assuming the character of foolishness, whooper.
Political activity of Ivnev
The poet Rurik Ivnev, whose biography is of genuine interest to the modern reader, enthusiastically greeted the February and October revolutions, the events of which are captured in the poems "People" (1918), "Petrograd" (1918). The meeting with A. V. Lunacharsky, a Russian revolutionary, writer and publicist who took an active part in the revolution of 1905-1907, made a huge impact on the poet’s further worldview. Impressed by his brilliant speeches, the delighted and excited Rurik Ivnev became a voluntary assistant to Anatoly Vasilyevich, and then the official secretary. Since that time, the young writer plunged headlong into political activity, directing it to strengthen the position of the Soviet government.
In 1918, Rurik Ivnev moved to the capital, began working as a correspondent in the Izvestia VTsIK newspaper, in 1919 he traveled around the country as part of an agitation train and campaigned for the people of Soviet power.
In the ranks of imagists
In 1919, Rurik Ivnev joined the imagists, who claimed that the goal of creativity is to create an image, and the metaphor is the main expressive means for its transmission. After a short time, publicly, through the newspaper Izvestia, announced his withdrawal from the organization due to complete disagreement with its actions. Then he again changed his point of view by publishing an open letter to Marienhof and Yesenin on joining them in the collection The Imaginists (1921). A new collection of poems "The Sun in the Tomb", compiled by Sergey Yesenin, was published in the publishing house of the Order of Imaginists in 1921. In 1925, Rurik Ivnev, whose biography is quite complicated and instructive, visited Germany, worked at the Book Publishing House in Vladivostok, and after 2 years visited Japan.
last years of life
Rurik Ivnev, whose biography is a vivid example of human determination, paid a lot of attention to translations, worked on memoirs and autobiographical novels “At the Foot of Mtatsminda” and “Bohemia”, which he managed to complete before leaving for another world.
After the bloody war ended, he continued to write poetry and turned to the historical past of his country in the works “Sergei Yesenin”, “The Tragedy of Tsar Boris”, “Emelyan Pugachev”. All this time he traveled a lot around the country. The impressions received echoed in the poetic works “Baku morning”, “Dagestan”, “Farewell to Kamchatka”. The writer was especially warm in Georgia, where he lived since 1936. The dust of his mother rests on this earth.
The work of Rurik Ivnev of the 40-70s is characterized by transparency and clarity of the verse, traditional in its essence and close to the origins of 19th century poetry. The author feels a deep relationship with nature, which he devotes to many works.
Since 1950, Rurik Ivnev lived in Moscow. The last poem was written by him a few hours before leaving. The famous Soviet poet died on February 19, 1981.