The main Soviet science fiction writer, an outstanding scientist and thinker, to some extent, a staunch supporter of the victory of communism, remained in the Soviet past. Few people already believe in a bright kingdom on earth, where all people are engaged in science, and the incapable - in art. Ivan Efremov, nevertheless, will remain in his memory with his good books and contribution to paleontology as the creator of a whole scientific field.
Origin
The biography of Ivan Efremov began on April 9, 1908 in the village of Vyritsa, in the territory of the modern Gatchina district of the Leningrad region.
Antip Kharitonovich, his father, came from the Volga peasant Old Believers, rented a sawmill with land from Prince Wittgenstein. Antip was a tall and strong man, walking on a bear with a horn. He was a good entrepreneur, and after becoming rich, organized his own business, became a titular adviser, a prominent local wealthy and philanthropist.
After 1917, his son, Ivan Efremov, had to indicate Antonovich's middle name in the biography in order to hide that he was the son of a wealthy entrepreneur.
Family foundations were traditional, mother was engaged mainly in a lot of ill brother Vasily. Ivan grew up left to his own devices, learning to read early, at the age of four, and from the age of six he began to master his father’s library. Jules Verne, Jack London, Haggard were the children's companions of little Ivan. In 1914, the family moved to Berdyansk, where he went to study at the gymnasium.
Revolutionary years
In the dashing revolutionary years, the parents divorced, and the mother moved the children to Kherson, left them to her aunt, and she left with the red commander, her new husband. A relative soon died of typhus, and the Department of Education took over the younger generation.
Further, in the biography of Ivan Efremov, the Red Army period began, he nailed to the second author of the 6th army, with which he reached the Pericope. Once, during the shelling of Ochakov, the White Guard shell exploded very close, killed many, and Ivan was bombarded with sand and shell shock. After that, a slight stutter remained for life, so Ivan was a taciturn person. Even when he became an outstanding scientist and professor, he rarely engaged in teaching.
In the author, Ivan learned to drive a car, and since they often broke down, he thoroughly studied his device. All this came in handy in the future biography of Ivan Efremov in numerous expeditions. Love for the car remained with him for life.
After the end of the civil war in 1921, the unit was disbanded, it was demobilized, and he went to Petrograd. Ivan set a goal to get a real system education.
In St. Petersburg
The biography of Ivan Efremov began a difficult period. To earn a living, he undertook any business, including unloading firewood and logs from wagons and barges. Later, he managed to get a driver and a mechanic, thanks to army skills.
He again went to school, which he graduated in 2.5 years, thanks to the help of teachers. Ivan began to read a lot, while he especially liked the works on the evolution of nature. Efremov read everything, especially he liked books about adventure, research, and biology. He was greatly impressed by the article by Academician Pyotr Petrovich Sushkin "Evolution of terrestrial vertebrates and the role of geological climate changes."
Efremov wrote a letter to an outstanding scientist, and suddenly he received an answer with a proposal to meet. They talked for a long time, mostly at the Geological Museum. Ivan first saw the skeletons of prehistoric animals, which determined his further scientific specialization.
The path to science
In 1923, after completing courses at the Petrograd Nautical Classes, he passed exams for the specialty of a navigator of coastal navigation. In the spring of the following year, he hired a sailor on a sailing-motor vessel III International and sailed to the Far East. This was the first trip in the biography of Ivan Efremov, which lasted only one navigation. During this time, he managed to swim in the southern seas, all his life falling in love with long hikes.
Ivan pondered a lot about his fate, to dispel doubts, turned to the captain of the ship on which he worked. Captain D. A. Lukhmanov was a highly educated man, the author of marine stories.
Later in his biography, Ivan Antonovich Efremov recalled how they drank tea with jam in the house on the Sixth Line, he told, and the captain listened carefully, without interrupting. Lukhmanov, as Efremov noted, had a great gift: to listen. He advised to go into science, saying: "And the sea, brother ... well, all the same, you will never forget him. Sea salt has eaten into you."
Ivan Efremov returned home to Leningrad and, on the recommendation of Academician Sushkin, entered the Biological Department of the University.
Travel and discoveries
Since the mid-20s, Efremov’s passion for travel was combined with serious scientific work. The routes of his paleontological expeditions went through the most protected corners of the continent, he traveled to Central Asia, traveled all over Siberia and the Far East, traveled to the Caspian and Mongolia.
The results of these trips were numerous valuable findings and discoveries. Efremov was the second person in the world to discover the fossil remains of an ancient amphibian vetlugasaur. Equally important were the emotions and impressions received, which were then reflected in his stories.
The first scientific works prepared according to the results of the expedition appeared in the biography of Ivan Efremov, some of which were devoted to finding traces of extinct amphibians (labyrinthodonts) in coastal marine sediments. On field trips, he was already sent by the chief.
New direction of science
Returning from distant expeditions to the work of the preparator at the Geological Museum, Ivan devoted more and more time to scientific work. Already in the first article published in an academic journal, he actually predicted the development of a new direction in paleopathological science - taphonomy.
In the scientific biography of Ivan Efremov, the first fossil animal appeared, which he described - the labyrinthodont from Sharjengi. According to a long scientific tradition, he named it Bentosaurus sushkini Efremov, in honor of Peter Sushkin who died in 1928.
From all expeditions, he brought the skeletons of extinct animals and, based on their study, gradually developed a scientific methodology for studying the processes of formation of the earth's crust.
To the heights of science
In 1935, Ivan Efremov defended his Ph.D., in 1941, a doctoral dissertation in biology. At this time, he already lived in Moscow, moving with the Paleontological Institute.
At the beginning of the war, Efremov was evacuated to Alma-Ata, then to Frunze, where he continued to work on the monograph "Tafonomia". The work that laid the foundations of a new direction in science on the laws of formation of the remains of fossil organisms was completed in 1943. In 1950, the book "Taphonomy and the Geological Chronicle" was published, for which he received the Stalin Prize in 1952. The theory gained general recognition in the 70s.
First stories
The biography of the writer Ivan Efremov began in the war years. Several times he tried to write stories about his experiences on numerous trips, but each time the circumstances interfered with or did not like the quality of what was written.
In 1942, he became seriously ill (typhoid fever) and was bedridden for a long time. Then he began to write, the first story Ivan Efremov created in a few months, and he was published in the journal "Technique - Youth."
After the first success, he wrote a few more stories that were included in the series "Seven Rumbas." Of great importance in the biography of Ivan Efremov and creativity was the meeting with the venerable writer Alexei Tolstoy, who praised the stories, saying that the most valuable thing in them was "the plausibility of the extraordinary." After a conversation with Tolstoy, Efremov transferred his stories to the New World magazine.
Becoming a writer
Towards the end of the war, in 1944, he was already very closely engaged in literature, many Soviet magazines published his stories, and the first book of Ivan Efremov was published.
In the writer's work, his scientific knowledge and writing talent are remarkably combined. The first works often put forward scientific hypotheses, and their artistic justification was given, which was often later confirmed by facts.
In the famous story "The Diamond Pipe" (1945), he predicted the discovery of kimberlite pipes in Yakutia, and they were opened not far from the place described by him. The theory of the existence of cave paintings, expressed in the "Yurt of the Raven", was also confirmed, and his other work prompted the invention of holography.
Efremov also took the plots of his works from folklore collected on time by the expedition, for example, the novel "The Road of the Winds". In 1949, he published the historical dilogy "On the Edge of the Oikumeny"
Novels
Soon, Efremov’s first novel, The Journey of Baurjed, was released, showing the ancient Egyptian world, where the life and nature of those times are clearly revealed. At the same time, his first space story “Star ships” was released, which raised the problems of contact with extraterrestrial civilizations.
In 1957, the Utopia “The Andromeda Nebula” came out about life in a victorious communist society, thanks to which Efremov’s work was known in many countries of the world. After 13 years, he published a continuation of the novel - “The Hour of the Bull”, which many perceived as a caricature of socialism. The book showed dead-end trends in its development.
The next novel "Razor Blade", an adventure in the Haggard style, combining elements of science fiction and a detective story, was very popular with readers, but was coldly received by critics. The writer shows the urgent need for new approaches to the management of society and the unification of mankind in the struggle for nuclear disarmament.
The last novel in the biography of the writer Efremov Ivan Antonovich "Thais of Athens" is devoted to ancient Greek history. It was completed shortly before a sudden death.
Personal life
In the biography of Ivan Efremov, personal life was successfully combined with scientific activity and creativity. He was married twice, the first wife Elena Dementievna Kozhukova, also a well-known learned paleontologist. In this marriage, Efremov had a son Alan. In 1961, after the death of E. Kozhukova, he married Taisiya Iosifovna Yukhnevskaya, with whom he lived the remaining years.
In recent years, he did not go on an expedition due to an incurable disease; Ivan Efremov died on October 5, 1972 from heart failure. He did not live to see the release of his fourth novel, Thais of Athens, dedicated to his wife and friend T. I. E.
A month after his death, KGB officers ransacked his apartment, seized documents, manuscripts and belongings belonging to the writer. Various versions of the interest of the authorities were put forward, including writing that they suspected the writer of working for British intelligence. In 1989, it was possible to find out that the investigative actions were carried out due to suspicions of the violent death of the scientist. Such is the brief biography of Ivan Efremov.