Friedrich Gorenstein is a writer, talented screenwriter and playwright. He is an iconic person both in Russian and in world literature. Want to learn more about the life and work of this writer? Read the article carefully.
Friedrich Gorenstein: biography
The future writer was born on March 18, 1932 in Kiev. Friedrich's father, a professor of political economy, was arrested in 1935. And two years later he was shot. Since then, Friedrich began to bear the name of his mother - Felix Prilutsky. However, later the writer regained his last name and original name. During World War II, Friedrich's mother, who worked as the director of the house for young offenders, went with her son to evacuate from Berdichev. However, the woman could not survive the trip and died on the road near the city of Orenburg. After the death of mother, Frederick was placed in an orphanage. After the war, the boy leaves the shelter and lives with his sisters Zloty and Rachel in his native Berdichiv.
For several years, Gorenstein Friedrich Naumovich has been working as a laborer. The young writer graduates from the Dnepropetrovsk Mining Institute and has been working as an engineer since 1961. Later, Friedrich moved to Moscow, where he studies at the Higher Scenario Courses. During this time, Gorenstein wrote scripts for seventeen films. However, only five of them were implemented.
In addition, Frederick wrote for magazines. His works did not want to be published, so most of the work went into the box. In the USSR, only one story of the writer was published, "House with a Turret." It happened in 1964 in the journal "Youth". Thanks to one single publication, Frederick made a name and attracted attention.
Gorenstein’s work was highly appreciated by people to whom he gave read his unpublished works. It was a rather narrow circle of people, which included filmmakers (Andrei Konchalovsky, Andrei Tarkovsky), critics (Benedict Sarnov, Lazar Lazarev, Anna Berzer), writers (Yuri Trifonov) and other intellectual elite.
Emigration
Since 1978, Friedrich Gorenstein has been published abroad. Moreover, the writer decided to emigrate from the Soviet Union. Since 1980, Gorenstein has been living in Vienna in Vienna. After some time, the writer moved to West Berlin, as he was an applicant for a creative scholarship from the German DAAD exchange service. Thus, Frederick became the first Russian writer to receive such a prestigious scholarship.
Gorenstein’s works are actively published in New York's Slovo and various emigrant magazines like Grani, Syntax, Continent, etc. After 1992, when Gorenstein’s three-volume edition was published in Moscow, they forgot about the writer and stopped publishing his books. Friedrich and literary critics ignored. It lasted as long as ten years. Nevertheless, the works of Gorenstein continued to be published abroad. Thus, in the 90s in France 8 books of the writer were published, in Germany - 11.
Death
Gorenstein Friedrich Naumovich died on March 2, 2002 in Berlin. The cause of death was a serious illness with which the talented writer struggled for several years. Friedrich did not live only a few days before his 70th birthday. Gorenstein was buried on Weissensee - one of the oldest Jewish cemeteries.
Artworks
Friedrich Gorenstein during his life wrote quite a few works that are recognized as world classics. However, the greatest fame brought him a novel called "Place", which was released in 1976. The book consists of three parts and an epilogue. All events unfold in Russia in the 50s, when Stalin died and Khrushchev came to power.
The narration is conducted on behalf of a young man named Gosha Tsvibyshev - an orphan and a son of the repressed. The author is trying to portray the brutality of the communist regime, which faced the main character. The novel traces some autobiographical motifs.
Friedrich Gorenstein has established himself as a good playwright. For example, a play called "Childbear" (1985), which told about Peter the Great and the young Tsarevich Alexei, was staged in Russia. Over the years, this work did not descend from the stages of the famous Moscow theaters. The play received a ton of flattering reviews and reviews from critics.