For all, Robert A. Shtilmark is the author of the legendary book The Heir from Calcutta, which was read to millions of Soviet boys who dream of traveling and long sea voyages. But it turned out that in fact he wrote quite a lot, his works were enough for the author's four-volume edition.
early years
Robert Aleksandrovich Shtilmark was born on April 3, 1909 in Moscow, in the family of a Soviet chemical engineer who was repressed and executed in Butovo in 1938. His surname came from the Swedish-German ancestors who moved to Russia in the 18th century.
Robert received an excellent home education, knew several languages. From his youth he became interested in poetry, so he went to study at the V. Ya. Bryusov Higher Literary and Art Institute, which he graduated in 1929. According to the memoirs of E. R. Stilmark, his daughter, his first book of poems “Dagger” was published at that time. The collection is not mentioned among the books of Robert Stilmark, because he considered it imitative and immature.
Prewar time
After graduation, Robert Stilmark worked in the All-Union Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Affairs - first as a referent in the Scandinavian department, then as the head of the department. He married in 1929 to Eugene Belago-Pletner, a specialist in Japanese economics.
Robert often went on business trips abroad, including to the Netherlands, where he presented an exhibition of Soviet children's books. Based on the materials collected on this trip, in 1932 his first book in the genre of travel essays was published - "Drying the Sea."
Shtilmark wrote a lot for TASS and the Izvestia newspaper. He later worked as an editor in the popular magazines Foreign Literature and Young Guard.
Since 1937, Robert A. Shtilmark began to work at the Military Academy. V. Kuybysheva as a researcher and teacher of the Department of Foreign Languages.
At war
Immediately after the outbreak of the war, in June 1941, he volunteered for the army. He served as deputy intelligence company on the Leningrad and Volkhov fronts. After a severe wound and concussion, he was sent to teach at the infantry school in Tashkent.
When Robert recovered completely, he returned to the front, where he was again seriously wounded. After the hospital, he was sent to serve in the General Staff, first in the Topographical Directorate, then - as deputy chief - in the editorial and publishing department. He rose to the rank of captain, was awarded military awards. Toward the end of the war, in 1944, his wife Eugene died.
In the camps
On the night of April 4, 1945, Robert A. Shtilmark was arrested, his origin was the reason. He was sentenced to 10 years in the camps on charges of counter-revolutionary agitation and propaganda.
Shtilmark served his sentence first in the suburbs, then in a camp on the construction of a railway in the Komi Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, where he worked as a surveyor. In Igarka, he also directed amateur performances at the Northern Camp Administration. After the troupe, consisting of prisoners, became the winner of the theaters of Siberia and the Far East, it was disbanded, and Stilmark was sent to the taiga camp as a surveyor-topographer. He fell ill with pneumonia at a logging site, where he was sent as a punishment, so he was assigned to an easier job - a bone-rump. The lumberjacks who came to the fire always asked Robert to tell something, and he retold adventurous novels, which were extremely successful. Later, in the preface to his work, he described these days, however, there his heroes were free people.
The story of one novel
The novel "The Heir from Calcutta" Robert Stilmark began to write by order of the local authority, the contractor V. P. Vasilevsky, who was sitting behind the theft of the echelon of roofing iron. He hoped to send the work to Stalin, who had once served a link to Igarka, and received an amnesty.
The customer has set several conditions:
- the action of the novel must take place abroad;
- the time of events - at least two hundred years before the present day;
- in the plot of the novel there must be something compassionate, for example, the abduction of a child, and something very scary.
Robert Aleksandrovich Stilmark wrote a book in 14 months. He wrote "The Heir from Calcutta" impromptu, without blanks, on the basis of adventure literature that he read in childhood. Subsequently, critics will call the work the digest of all adventurous novels of the 19th century.
The novel “The Heir from Calcutta: A Film without a Screen” was bound, decorated with a portrait of the customer on the bookend, the names of two authors are indicated. Vasilevsky officially sent the book to Stalin.
The remaining term of Shtilmarku was replaced by exile, in 1953 he was settled in the village Maklakovo of the Krasnoyarsk Territory. In 1955, they rehabilitated, and Robert returned to Moscow.
Peaceful life
By the time of his return, the manuscript of the book, taken from Vasilevsky during the search, was received by the son of Shtilmark from the Main Directorate of the camps and shown to the luminaries of Soviet science fiction I.A. Efremov. With the assistance of the latter, “The Heir from Calcutta” was printed by DETGIZ in the spring of 1958.
Shtilmark sent Vasilevsky, by that time amnestied, 20 copies of the book and half of the fee. But after he, having arrived in Moscow, robbed him, Robert Alexandrovich decided to restore justice. At the suit of DETGIZ in 1959, a court decision was made that Shtilmark was the sole author of the work. In the same year, the novel, without the permission of the author, was last published under two surnames, and in Alma-Ata - only under the name of Shtilmark.
The book enjoyed extraordinary success among readers, but devastating reviews that expressed doubts about the benefits of adventure literature closed the door to further editions of Robert Stilmark's novel. For thirty years it was published only in the countries of the socialist camp and the Soviet republics in national languages.
In 1958, Stilmark bought a house in Kupavna and devoted himself entirely to writing. The Tale of the Russian Wanderer was published in 1962, and the Images of Russia in 1967. In the 70s, several publications by Robert Aleksandrovich Shtilmark, including about Herzen and Ostrovsky, were published by the Young Guard publishing house.
Robert Alexandrovich suddenly died on September 30, 1985 from an aortic rupture that occurred while he was driving to perform in Peredelkino.
The last autobiographical narrative, “A Handful of Light”, was published after his death, in 2001, in collected works in 4 volumes. Robert Alexandrovich was married four times, he has five children.