Few people today remember the name of the poet Stepan Petrovich Schipachev. However, for a generation of Soviet citizens of the 40-50s, he was as famous as A. Twardowski or K. Simonov. His poems were read, taught by heart, copied into notebooks. This story will be about the life and work of an almost forgotten poet.
Biography
Stepan Schipachev was born in 1899 in the family of a poor peasant from the village of Shchipachi, Yekaterinburg province. He was the youngest child in the family. When his father died, Stepan was barely four years old. Together with his grandmother, he went to neighboring yards to collect alms. As he got older, he went to work: he hired a laborer for seasonal work, served in the mines and in the hardware store.
In 1917, Shchipachev joined the ranks of the Red Army. In 1921 he graduated from a military school, after which he taught social studies for some time. At the same time, he became interested in literary work, served as editor of the Red Army journal, wrote poetry, which he had a great penchant for from a young age.
In the early 1930s, Stepan Schipachev received a literary education. And since then he was engaged exclusively in literary activity.
The path to literature
Stepan Schipachev, whose biography was atypical for poets and writers of the early XX century, later admitted that he loved poetry as early as childhood, when he attended a parish school. He told how one day a teacher read a lesson from Borodino by M. Yu. Lermontov in his lesson. This work excited the child’s soul so much that he was impressed for several days. Then Stepan decided that he would write poetry.
In the following years, he worked a lot on poetry, honed his style, and searched for his own rhymes. In 1923, Stepan Schipachev published his debut collection of poems, entitled "Through the Mounds of Ages." A small book of only 15 pages with early, yet inept verses was for the author the first step on the road to great literature.
Books
During his life, Shchipachev published more than 20 author's collections, many published in newspapers and magazines.
After graduation, Stepan Schipachev in his work began to gravitate to lyrical topics. During this period, the books “Lyrics” and “Under the Sky of My Homeland” were written.
During the Second World War, Schipachev again put on his military uniform. He took part in the operation to liberate the western regions of Ukraine, and later was involved in the creation of front-line newspapers and leaflets. During this period, his poems acquired vivid patriotic intonations and at the same time intimate lyrical. The two main collections of this time are Frontline Poems (1942) and Lines of Love (1945).
The most fruitful for the author were the 60s. During this period, he writes an autobiographical novel “Birch sap”, the poem “Heir”, the collection “Song of Moscow” and many other works.
"Lines of love"
Stepan Schipachev, whose verses are usually attributed to the section of civic poetry, was nevertheless a master in the field of love lyrics. His collection, modestly titled Lines of Love, went on sale in May 1945. 45 poems about a feeling that is understandable and familiar to everyone instantly glorified the author. Boys and girls of the 50s declared love in his lines, they were so simple and sincere.
Stepan Petrovich continued his work on this collection all his life, as a result of which the book increased almost four times. In the latest edition, the collection already included 175 poems.
In Soviet literature, a special type of hero was cultivated, hardworking, skillful, patriotic. Thanks to the verses of Shchipachev, this hero became more alive and human. It became clear that the Soviet citizen also knows how to feel, can fall in love, rejoice and be sad, hope and seek his happiness.