On August 3, 1924, a great writer was born in Moscow, especially fond of readers of childhood and adolescence. However, the dramaturgy and journalism, which A.G. Aleksin also worked on, were no worse than his prose. The younger generations, both in the Soviet Union and now, in the post-Soviet era, are still vividly interested in the books of Anatoly Aleksin. The questions that arise in his works are eternal. Here the story will be considered, one of many of the same excellent quality, - "Meanwhile, somewhere ...". A summary will also be presented. In the collection under the first edition, next to this story there were equally interesting and famous "My brother plays the clarinet", "Actors and Performers", "Late Child", "Very Scary Story", "The Day before Tomorrow and the Day After Tomorrow" and others.
about the author
A. G. Aleksin is a pseudonym, in life he was Anatoly Georgievich Goberman. So reverently and at any age young is not given to love life for everyone. Anatoly Aleksin experienced a lot, felt and considered in his childhood, which is why he is so close and understandable the structure of thoughts of this particular age. His father, Georgy Platonovich, who made the October Revolution and fought as a citizen journalist, was repressed in 1937, but the writer’s mother managed to remain not only smart, courageous and fair, but also very kind.
Almost all the lyrical heroines of Aleksin are equipped with certain details of character, habits, and words that were inherent in his mother, Maria Mikhailovna. This is also evident in the story “Meanwhile, somewhere ...”, a brief summary of which conveys the main quality of the heroine - Nina Georgievna. And that, of course, is kindness. As a schoolboy, Anatoly Aleksin has already published a lot (Pioneer magazine, Pionerskaya Pravda newspaper, Flagok collection). Then the war came, and the writer had to quickly grow up.
Creation
Evacuated from the capital to the Urals, at the age of sixteen, Aleksin first became a literary officer in the daily newspaper "Fortress of Defense", and after a short time became the executive secretary of this body of the aluminum giant under construction. In addition to the large-circulation newspaper, with its daily crazy business fluid, the writer worked on his own future works. “Remember this face”, “Ivashov”, “Behind the rear as the rear” and many other stories and novels contain rich autobiographical material. In 1947, the writer had already taken part in the First All-Union Conference of Young Writers.
In 1951, he graduated from the famous Institute of Oriental Studies in Moscow and published the first big book. Konstantin Paustovsky, who praised the talent and kind heart of the young writer Aleksin, became his first editor. This great story was called "Thirty One Day or the Diary of the Pioneer Sasha Vasilkov." With a light hand of Paustovsky, the book became popular, and its author was one of the favorite writers in the country of childhood and youth. Until 1966, Aleksin wrote for children, and did it excellently. Who has not been to the pages of "In the country of eternal vacation"? His novels “Sasha and Shura”, “Kolya writes to Ola”, “The extraordinary adventures of Seva Kotlov” were read in the libraries literally to holes. But even then, the writer was thinking about the problems of youth education. And soon these thoughts were embodied in the lines of the story "In the meantime, somewhere ...". The summary already shows how the problems raised by the writer have become broader and more serious.
New stage
In the second half of the 60s and 70s of the last century, plays, novels, and stories that made Aleksin famous among adult readers were released. Here, first of all, the novels played a decisive role: “A very scary story”, “Call and Come”, “Third in the fifth row”, “My brother plays the clarinet”, “Mad Evdokia” and, of course, “Where then ... " A summary of this story will be presented below. The writer made the trilogy “Behind the rear as in the rear” a testimony to the everyday, almost imperceptible from the front line, but a tremendous feat of the people in the great war. "Heart failure" and "Division of property" well show the high qualities of Soviet man in the most ordinary living conditions.
The eighties brought readers new stories by Anatoly Aleksin: “Home Advice”, “Groom's Diary”, “Signalers and Horns”, “Healthy and Sick”, “Forgive Me, Mom”, “Toy” and many others, always enthusiastically and with a huge love perceived by readers. Then, based on Fadeev’s novel, Alexin wrote the play “The Young Guard”, several screenplays and many other works in the field of dramaturgy, for example: “Let's go to the cinema”, “Tenth graders”, “Return address”.
What and How
The author himself repeatedly explained in his interviews the understanding of the difference between literature for young people and literature for children. It is very important for children - HOW it is written, they tend to vividly feel the imagery, the beauty of the language, the clarity of style, just then they perceive what the author wanted to say in the work. And young people appreciate literature precisely for the problems that concern not yet adults, but no longer children. All of Aleksin’s works are distinguished by their acuteness and relevance (relevance in eternity!) Of the problems, issues of morality. The master of words, Aleksin, gave us a lot of excellent aphorisms, with which it is much easier to find the right path in life. We must hurry with goodness so that it does not remain without an addressee. Children cry not only over their broken knee, but also when it hurts another. There is no wiser approach to raising feelings.
Here and in a huge number of other lines the word itself is extremely condensed, the writer was able to put as much information as possible with the help of artistry into the very minimum number of letters. With all this, Alexin does not have a single gram of dry didacticism. There is always a combination of drama and tension with absolutely musical lyricism and humor, and the composition is built on centuries-old proven principles of roll-over of motives or variation of themes. There is no impression of repetition, although the same construction method is often used, the same problem is raised. "Meanwhile, somewhere ..." - a story that fully and completely meets these signs. It is also small in volume, but informative - huge, the moral height of this work will not leave anyone indifferent.
Now
The writer Anatoly Aleksin is known not only in Russia and the countries of the former USSR. His novels and plays have been translated into a huge number of languages, including Bengali, Persian and Hindi. Aleksin is readily reprinted in England, Italy, France, Spain, very fond of Japan. In all the works of Anatoly Alexin, his good heart beats. Not in vain is a writer - a laureate of prizes not only Soviet, but also international, including the name of Hans Christian Andersen. Many remember the television show where Alexin was the host - “Faces of Friends”. He also worked a lot in the Writers' Union, in the editorial board of the journal "Youth", in the committee for the defense of peace. Since 1982, Aleksin is a scientist-teacher, a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
And in 1993 he left the country, lives in Israel, writes absolutely “adult” books. Both the material and the thematic component have changed a lot. In 1994, the "Pevzner Saga" was published - about the terror, anti-Semitism, fascism that cripple humanity, in this case it is considered as an example of one family. Three years later, Alexin’s novel “Deadly Sin” and the memoir “Turning over the Years” were released. On these pages, it seems as if the author's inescapable optimism, faith in the future of mankind, confidence in the future, with which Anatoly Aleksin always filled his work, dried up.
"Meanwhile, somewhere ..."
For the first time, readers found this story in the December 1966 magazine "Youth". Subsequently, this work of Anatoly Aleksin was repeatedly reprinted as part of various collections, anthologies. These are the publications of 1975, 1977, 1982, 1990, 2000 (only large metropolitan publishers, in total there were much more reprints).
In this work, the world of youth is revealed for young people and adults, where the main characters show courage when faced with difficulties, they are full of kindness, uncompromising, ready to fight. Drama, intertwined with kind and very lyrical humor, is the hallmark of "Meanwhile, somewhere ...". The genre of the story helps to reveal the most adult and often dramatic aspects of life, solve such difficult issues as the right choice, understanding oneself and people, the feeling of being a strong, mature and generally good person in the world.
main characters
Sergey Emelyanov is not alone in this story. This name and this surname are carried by both father and son, therefore, around this coincidence, a harmonious plot building was built. The family in the full sense of the word is exemplary. Sergei Emelyanov Sr. is a worthy role model and a father whom one cannot help but be proud of. Together with his wife, the mother of Sergei Emelyanov Jr., he is actively involved in sports, independently learns English, promotes a healthy lifestyle.
And besides, they together design factories, that is, they do the most useful thing for the country. But most importantly, the Emelyanov family are very beautiful and impeccably binding people. On duty, often on long business trips, they write letters to their son — specific, accurate, correctly executed, with the date and time of writing. The son, leaving home to study, every morning receives another message from the mailbox. But once there were two messages.
Letter
The plot of the story is a letter from an unfamiliar woman addressed to Sergei Emelyanov, which the youngest Sergei opened up without any hesitation and read that forever turned over the page of his former life. Carefree childhood is over. Too subtle spiritual changes occurring with the hero are difficult for children and adolescence to understand. This story is clearly written for older people. Even author's gentle teasing over the exemplary family of the main characters is already addressed to youth rather than youth with its maximalism and straightforwardness. The ideal evenness of the parents ’relations and even a“ slightly wrong ”but cloudless attitude towards the elder mother Emelyanov ñ all this appears to the boy in the light of the read letter as completely incomprehensible and simple as he had seen this all his life.
Childhood ended with the bitter message of an unfamiliar woman, life itself, views changed, a sharp growth began. The book “Meanwhile, somewhere ...” also shows today's young people how great the need for kindness, sympathy, compassion is, these human qualities will truly never lose their value. Not all people are capable of being kind - this is another lesson that Sergei Emelyanov receives on the pages of the story. This is precisely what Anatoly Aleksin put at the forefront. "Meanwhile, somewhere ..." - a litmus test that can still be used to check a person’s personal qualities. It is a pity that the work of Anatoly Aleksin is gone from modern school programs in Russia. His story is an unforgettable moral lesson, which they will always say that they are "about us" - and after fifty years, and after two hundred and fifty. In any case, today is definitely still about us.
Another woman
If you need to protect a person, they don’t ask permission ... Such small postulates filled the entire fabric of the text of the work. What was in this letter that turned the whole previous life of Emelyanov Jr.? It turns out that his exemplary father was far from always so. He was very seriously ill after being wounded at the front, and Nina Georgievna, a doctor at the hospital where he was being treated, came out. It was she who sent him into the mainstream of a healthy lifestyle: terrible insomnia, seizures, lack of appetite and many other consequences of injury could be overcome only by a tough regimen and playing sports. When Emelyanov Sr. healed, fell in love with the other and left Nina Georgievna alone. But the letter is not about that at all.
She writes that she forgave everything, but now she is incredibly ill, and she is really looking forward to help. Which is much worse for her than it was then, after the departure of Emelyanov Sr. Because the loss this time is not of her husband, but of her son. Shurik, the adopted child whom she raised, suddenly found real parents. And now he, already an adult, ran away like a child, quietly collecting things and not saying goodbye. Immediately, Nina Georgievna writes that this can also be understood. Sergey Jr. decides to visit her, because her parents are still on a business trip. Here people live quietly, go to school or work, walk, eat, do not suspect anything, but in the meantime somewhere ... The main characters of the story, without the slightest straightforwardness, but without any obnoxious behavior, show how destructive the indifference of others is.
Why loyalty is needed
Emelyanov Jr. in the first minutes of the meeting looked at Nina Georgievna with some suspicion and even jealousy, but quickly believed, felt someone else's pain and shared the warmth of his soul. Visiting her, the boy himself became attached to this woman and, of course, she became very dear to her. They became friends. The emptiness around Nina Georgievna was filled with positive. Yes, and Sergei himself clearly became different: an adult, responsible, able to give joy.
Anatoly Aleksin finishes the story with the fact that Sergei Emelyanov Jr. receives a ticket to the sea, which his parents finally decided to encourage him. For a long time he made plans - all winter, he thought through every day of his rest. But then another letter came from Nina Georgievna. She did not know what Sergey dreamed about, and therefore refused her vacation just to see him. The dream of the sea began to fade and melt right before our eyes. Sergei cannot allow Nina Georgievna to once again feel such a loss as the two previous ones. And he knew for sure that he was the same to her, if not more than the previous losses of the roads. Sergey will not go to the sea, will not betray. He is reliable and faithful, decent and responsive, with a huge soul and kind heart.