As a child, we get acquainted with the funny poems of Julian Tuvim: about Pan Trulyalinsky, Aunt Valya and glasses, the alphabet that fell from the stove, the fool Yanek, about the vegetables that the hostess brings from the market. The kind and funny lines of the poems of Tuwim will remain in our memory for a long time. The wonderful children's poet Samuel Marshak introduces us to these verses.
Some children and their parents did not even suspect that the favorite lines of verses were written not by Marshak, but by someone else. Few people know about Tuvim in Russia; let’s try to fill this gap.
Julian Tuvim: biography, creativity
His life was full of contradictions. Many people believe that Julian Tuvim is a children's poet. Unfortunately, few people know what he wrote for adults, he did a lot of translations. It was this man who introduced Poland to Russian classical literature. The poetry of Alexander Pushkin, Boris Pasternak, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Athanasius Fet and even "The Word of Igor's Regiment" was opened for Poles by Julian Tuvim.
His date of birth is September 18, 1884. He was born in the Polish city of Lodz in a Jewish family, but always considered himself a Pole. From birth, the boy heard Polish speech, his grandfather worked in a Polish magazine, his mother sang songs and read poetry in Polish. The family did not live well and not very friendly, but the boy was happy, how can you be happy and carefree only in childhood.
At school, Julian liked humanitarian subjects, but the exact sciences were given with great difficulty, especially mathematics, because of it Tuvim even stayed in the second year in the sixth grade. After graduation, he entered Warsaw University, first at the legal department, and then transferred to philology, but never finished it. Poetic activity interfered and distracted me from school all the time.
By the beginning of World War II he was already married, his children were not in the family, but the couple raised an adopted daughter. To save their life, they were forced to flee from Poland. Tuvima spent seven long years in exile. In which countries during this time did not visit: Romania, France, Brazil, Italy, America. They returned to Poland only a year after the end of the war. Only thanks to the lyrics and his inexhaustible wit did Julian Tuvim survive in these difficult years. The biography of this man contained a lot of grief and emotions, but despite this, he was always optimistic and infected them with others.
Favorite Activities
He really liked chemistry, he loved to conduct various experiments. One of these experiments almost ended in tragedy, an explosion occurred in the home laboratory. After that, Julian decided to choose a less explosive hobby for himself and began collecting stamps and butterflies.
But his favorite pastime was working with words. He liked to rhyme them, to invent new combinations. He could write down a formula in mathematics and an excerpt from a historical text. Despite the fact that Tuvim liked to rhyme words, he did not immediately begin to write poetry. This required some reason, shock. This happened when Julian became acquainted with the poetry of Leopold Staff. His poems struck the imagination of the young man, excited his soul, and he came to desire to write poetry himself.
Poet Julian Tuvim
The first publication took place in an experantist magazine; he translated two of Staff's poems into Esperanto. He will be engaged in translations throughout his life. Two years later, he will write his first poem, "Request."
Favorite poets whom Tuvim always wanted to be like were Arthur Rimbaud, Kokhanovsky, Slovak, Alexander Pushkin, Alexander Blok, and later Vladimir Mayakovsky. Of the prose writers, Tuvim very much liked the stories of Nikolai Gogol, especially the St. Petersburg cycle.
For some time, the author wrote for the stage: vaudevilles, humoresques, but real poetry still won. Tuvim lived in an era of social upheaval: the October Revolution in Russia, the First World War, the Second World War, the occupation of Poland, so his poems were political in nature. He could not stay away from what was happening and all his thoughts, his indignation at what was happening, found a way out in verse. Friends did not understand him, and enemies hated him, but the poet could not do otherwise. Once having embarked on the path of serving the truth, Tuvim was not going to turn off it.
Satire was still his favorite genre; he was very fond of writing epigrams, aphorisms. Biting lines made readers die laughing and buy any publication where Julian Tuvim could have been printed. At the end of his life, he almost stopped writing poetry, and even wrote what he wrote in a drawer, many of them Poles could only read after his death. The poems of Tuwim are filled with philosophical meaning and make you penetrate into the very essence of the things about which he writes.
The life principles of the poet
1. Never evaluate a person by nationality, but only by what type of person he is: smart or stupid, cunning or simple, evil or kind.
2. Never stand aside from social problems. Politics cannot be a profession, if a person has a conscience, he cannot stand aloof from it.
3. To endure all the hardships of life with humor.
"Flowers of Poland"
Julian Tuvim began to write his largest work in exile. “Flowers of Poland” - this poem is for the Poles just as significant as for the Russian “Eugene Onegin” by Pushkin and the British “Don Juan” Byron. The encyclopedia of Polish life was called by its critics. He wrote almost nine thousand lines, but, unfortunately, Tuvim did not manage to finish this work.
Polish poet Yaroslav Ivashkevich called Tuvim a sorcerer who knits bouquets of flowers. And he said about the poem itself that it can be listened to and read endlessly, enjoying the gentle melody of the lines.
Ilya Erenburg and Tuvim
Julian was very fond of Russia, Russian culture, always regretted that he had not spent the years of his forced emigration in this country.
In 1922, he met with the Russian writer Ilya Erenburg. They easily found a common language, it was very interesting for them to communicate, however, they met infrequently. Erenburg spoke of Tuvim as a great master with a pure soul and said that "few people I loved so dearly and superstitiously ..."
Deserved recognition
Everything that this amazing, talented person undertook, he did brilliantly. Satirical works, poems for children, journalism, ingenious translations - something that Julian Tuvim did not do throughout his life. Poetry ... Still, it was she who was the main thing of his fate, he devoted all his life to her, so short, but so bright.
At home, the talent of Tuvim was rated very highly. Posthumously he was awarded the Order of the Renaissance of Poland. He is remembered and revered even years after his death, 2013 in the homeland of Tuvim was declared the year of memory of him.
Fresh, like a sip of water from a spring, verses of a lively humor, the poems of Julian Tuvim rightfully enter the golden treasury of poetry for children. More than one generation will grow up on them, and today's children will read the poems of this wonderful poet to their children.