The Weiner brothers are known as popular Soviet writers of the detective genre, as well as authors of famous movie scripts. In 1990, their popularity reached a maximum: the circulation of the ten novels they wrote exceeded 1 million copies. The All-Union fame for the writers was brought by the film “The meeting place cannot be changed”, shot on their story “Era of Mercy” (1976).
The enthusiasm for journalism by Gregory and the legal profession chosen by Arkady became the creative platform from which the Weiner brothers came to literature. (Their biography in this sense resembles the later master of the detective genre, Friedrich Neznansky.) The age difference of 7 years did not become an obstacle to the cooperation of Arkady and Gregory.
About childhood
They were very friendly and were even ready to make sacrifices for each other. And so it has been since childhood. Once in hunger, when he and his mother evacuated to Samarkand, Arkasha found a loaf of bread. Mother, believing that she was poisoned and sabotaged by her, was adamant: to throw it away. But the guys were starving ... Arkasha, before sharing the bread, tried it on himself ... The Weiner brothers carried through this whole life this fraternity, which was born then.
Having returned from evacuation, the family settled on Sukharevka. They were different from childhood: Arkasha studied well, and Zhora was a two-member. Arkady made his brother study. He even wrote a receipt in 1956 that in 10 years he would become a great man ... It was Arkady who forced Zhora to learn to read. And when this happened, George began to read manically, around the clock ...
Biography
The Weiner Brothers were unusually friendly ... However, each of them at first did not even think about writing.
Indeed, could Arkady Alexandrovich (born 1931), who headed the investigative department of the capital criminal investigation department, a strong man (master of sports in freestyle wrestling), a graduate of the Moscow State University Law Department, know that his career would go in a completely different way and that his writing would become his weapon pen?
In character, the Weiner brothers were completely different. Perhaps that is why the fate of Grigory Alexandrovich (1938) went in a different direction. In his youth, he did not seek to become a silovik, nor to follow a solid life plan. Gregory began his career biography with working specialties: electrician, technician. Then he became an engineer. And suddenly (a person assumes, but God disposes) he becomes a journalist, and then - a TASS correspondent. Gregory also in absentia in 1960 (an example of an older brother) nevertheless receives higher education. Is it worth mentioning that it is legal? Unlike Arkady, he worked in the media.
To the attentive reader, their further journey into literature does not seem to be an accident. Perhaps the cornerstone for this was laid something like this: the Weiner brothers gathered with their families, and then Gregory began to talk about his most successful journalistic work. And the investigator Arkady listens and thinks to himself: “Well, brother, this is interesting, last year we investigated the case, and so there ...”
In short, believe our speculation is not there, but the plot of the brothers ’first joint novel“ Watch for Mr. Kelly ”(1967) had a real prototype in the investigative practice of the Moscow Criminal Investigation Department.
Creative Way of the Weiner Brothers
The first pancake did not come out lumpy! The novel did not stay under the cloth. The Russian literary magazine "Our Contemporary" in the same 1967 published it in Nos. 10 and 12.
The Weiner brothers after that finally decided on their creative path, they worked as a creative tandem. And this is twice as many ideas, twice as much information to rethink. Publishers willingly printed their subsequent works: the novel “I Feel At Noon” (1968) and the novel “I am an Investigator”. However, the writers themselves will later begin to speak ironically about these works. Why is that? On the one hand, it should be recognized that already from these books one can see a subtle understanding by the writers of the very nature of the detective. Their plot is dynamic. They masterfully plot the plot. However, there is one “but”, which, years later, caused an irony among the authors. The fact is that their first works were written in the framework of classical socialist realism. The Soviet investigative bodies themselves are shown from the ideal side. Those. a kind of high moral knighthood, devoid of flaws.
However, talent is talent. Having begun to develop with his brother-writers, he does not allow them to dwell on Soviet dogmatism (where 80% of their fellow writers remained forever). The Weiner brothers in their work “move deeper”, i.e. they are looking for the causes of the moral and social order that give rise to crime, strengthen the psychologism of their own vision of the plot. As a result, the story “Two Among People” (1969) and the novel “Racing Vertical” (1971) are gaining popularity. In the same film “Racing Vertical” Soviet stars play: Valentin Gaft, Andrey Myagkov, Galina Polsky ... It is obvious that the authors intuitively understood the crisis of the police detective genre and evolved to another genre - the police detective, where there is nothing ideal, where ideology excluded by definition.
Since that time, millions of readers and viewers have been eagerly awaiting their every new work of writers. In 1972, a new novel, A Visit to the Minotaur, was published. Here, something new appears in the detective story of the brothers: philosophical content. In their view, the investigation process does not look like a quest, but is more voluminous: it also affects the souls of the people involved in it. They seem to plunge into the world of their human soul, where, of course, there is evil. (The principle applies: we are all human, and we are all sinful.) As a result, in order to prevent Evil and follow Justice, the investigator must fight the Minotaur, who lives in the labyrinth of his soul. In the film adaptation of the Minotaur, the role of the investigator was played by Sergey Shakurov.
Having walked the path of the Master, having learned to create not so much with the mind as with the soul, finally, in 1976 the Weiner Brothers create a masterpiece. The photo of the authors of the script for the film “The meeting place cannot be changed” (the novel “Era of Mercy”) is becoming recognizable for the whole country. A nationwide love and recognition literally falls upon the brothers. Monologues are torn into quotes. The film is becoming popular ...
On the eve, in 1978, on the eve of filming (“The meeting place ...” was filmed in 1979), Vladimir Vysotsky literally flew into the Weiner’s house with a request to “stake out” the role of Zheglov for himself.
In the 70s and 80s, the novel “Do Not Lose a Man” (1978), the novel “The Kars Strait” (1981), and “Victims Have No Claims” (1986) were released from their pen. Famous writers are quite prosperous, but ....
Perestroika is drawing near. And here the brothers-writers perform a real civil feat. They go "against the tide." In the 90s they took out from under the cloth written in 1979 "on the table" a novel about Stalinist repressions "Stone and a noose in the green grass" and they wrote the novel "The Gospel of the Executioner".
The brothers began to resemble Don Quixote, trying to change Russia from imperial to democratic. 1999 is productive for them. The novels Multiplying Sorrow and The Devil's Garden of Eden are written.
Unfortunately, they are no longer with us, Arkady left in 2005, George - four years later, died in exile.
Conclusion
Creativity of the Weiner brothers really enriched Russian literature of the 80s - 90s. XX century.
It is characteristic that the plots of the detective story masters constantly evolved throughout their lives. So, in recent novels, the reader is faced with corruption of power, a war of incriminating evidence, and a financial crisis.
In their latest novels, the Weiner brothers as a warning show the "new race" of people deformed by the "scoop", in whose mind imperial principles strangled universal values. “We are all the mutation of lifelong prisoners thrown into the world,” their character Weiners characterizes extremely clearly.