The biography of Mikhail Svetlov, a Soviet poet, playwright and journalist, includes life and work during the revolution, civil and two world wars, and also during the period of political disgrace. What kind of man was this poet, how was his personal life, and what was the path of creativity?
Childhood and youth
Mikhail Arkadievich Svetlov (real surname Sheinkman) was born on June 4 (17), 1903 in Yekaterinoslav (modern Dnepropetrovsk). Mikhail's father, a Jewish craftsman, raised his son and daughter Elizabeth in an atmosphere of industriousness and justice. The ability to speak accurately and succinctly, to love the truth and to want to convey it - all this Mikhail received thanks to his honest and hardworking family. Svetlov, jokingly, told about his childhood that his father had somehow brought a whole stack of books by Russian classics to make bags for selling seeds. "My father and I concluded a contract - at first I read, and only then he turned off the bags," said the poet.
From the age of 14, fascinated by communist ideas, an ardent supporter of Leon Trotsky and an opponent of Russia's participation in the First World War, young Mikhail published his first publications in the local newspaper "The Voice of a Soldier".
The first steps in creativity
In 1919, 16-year-old Mikhail was appointed head of the Komsomol press department of Yekaterinoslav. At the same time, he first used the pseudonym "Svetlov".
Already in 1920, not wanting to stay away from revolutionary activity, the young man volunteered for the Red Army, proving himself a brave and fearless soldier in the Civil War. In 1923, the first poetry collection of Svetlov, “Rails,” was published in Kharkov, but he was successful only in the poet’s narrow circle of acquaintances. After this, the poet moved to Moscow, participated in the literary groups "Young Guard" and "Pass", released two more poetry collections entitled "Poems" in 1924, and "Roots" in 1925.
Grenada
On August 29, 1926, the poems of 23-year-old Mikhail Svetlov were published in Komsomolskaya Pravda. His biography as a famous poet began precisely with this event. This was the poem "Grenada":
I left the hut
I went to fight
To land in Grenada
Give the peasants.
Goodbye dear ones
Goodbye My friends -
"Grenada, Grenada,
My Granada! "
Poems instantly spread throughout the country and were literally on everyone's lips - even Vladimir Mayakovsky himself read them at one of his speeches. And Marina Tsvetaeva in one of her letters to Boris Pasternak called "Grenada" her favorite poem from all that she read in recent years.
The popularity of poetry did not fade even a decade later - in 1936, the Soviet pilots participating in the Spanish War sang the Grenada put to music, flying over Guadalajara. Behind them, the motive was picked up by European fighters - the poem has become international.
During the war, in a Nazi death camp called “Mauthausen”, prisoners sang “Grenada” as a hymn of freedom. Mikhail Svetlov said that it was in this poem that he discovered himself as a real poet.
Opposition
Since 1927, while studying at Moscow State University, the period in Mikhail Svetlov’s biography came when he decided to become a representative of the left opposition. The illegal printing house of the opposition newspaper Kommunist was located in his house. Together with the poets Golodny and Utkin, he arranged poetry evenings, the money from which went to the opposition Red Cross and provided material assistance to the families of the arrested Trotskyists. For this, in 1928, Svetlova was expelled from Komsomol.
In 1934, Svetlov spoke out negatively about the newly created Union of Writers of the USSR, calling his activity "vulgar officialism", and in 1938 - about the Moscow process of the anti-Soviet "right-Trotskyist" bloc, calling it "organized murders." The poet was disappointed with how the Stalinist government distorted all revolutionary and communist ideas. “The Communist Party has not existed for a long time, it has degenerated into something terrible and has nothing to do with the proletariat,” Mikhail Svetlov boldly spoke out.
In the war years, when the work of Mikhail Svetlov was on the lips of both the military and ordinary people, raising morale, and he himself served as a war correspondent in the ranks of the Red Army, the poet turned a blind eye to the "anti-Soviet" statements. He was even awarded two orders of the Red Star and various medals. In the photo below, Mikhail Svetlov (right) with a front comrade in defeated Berlin.
But in the post-war years, Svetlov’s poetry naturally fell under the tacit ban — he was not published, he was not talked about, he had a ban on traveling abroad. This continued until 1954, when they defended his work at the Second Congress of Writers. After the change in Mikhail Svetlov’s biography there were changes - his work was officially “authorized”, they finally started talking openly about him. At this time, Svetlov’s poetry collections were published: Horizon, The Hunting Lodge, and Poems of Recent Years.
Personal life
Mikhail Svetlov was married twice. No information was left about the first wife; the second marriage was with Rodam Amirejibi, sister of the famous Georgian writer Chabua Amirejibi. In 1939, Michael and Rodam had a son, Alexander, also known as Sandro Svetlov, a little-known screenwriter and director. In the photo below, Mikhail Svetlov with his wife and son.
Memory
Mikhail Arkadyevich Svetlov died of lung cancer on September 28, 1964, at the age of 61, and was buried in the Novodevichy cemetery. For the last poetry collection “Poems of the last years” he was awarded the Lenin Prize posthumously, and subsequently - the Lenin Komsomol Prize.
The bibliography of the poet Mikhail Svetlov includes a huge number of works, including poems, songs, essays and theatrical plays. In addition to Grenada, the most famous works are the poems Italian, Kakhovka, Big Road, My Good Friend and the plays Fairy Tale, Twenty Years Later, Love for Three Oranges (based on the eponymous works by Carlo Gozzi).
In October 1965, the Moscow Youth Library, which is still known as Svetlovka, was named after the poet. In 1968, Leonid Gaidai named the name of Mikhail Svetlov a cruise ship in his film "The Diamond Arm", in memory of the poet, whom he respected very much. The real ship - a river ship with the name of Svetlov - was launched only in 1985. In many cities of the former USSR, streets today named after the poet have been preserved, and the central microdistrict (Svetlovo) was named in his honor in Kakhovka sung by him.