David Samoilov short biography for children. Biography of David Samoilov

Samoilov David Samuilovich

Poet
Laureate of the USSR State Prize (1988)

His father was a doctor, a participant in the First World War and Civil War, during World War II he worked in a rear hospital. Images of parents were captured in Samoilov’s poems “Departure” and “The Yard of My Childhood”, and memories from childhood were reflected in the autobiographical prose of the late 1970s - early 1980s “House”, “Apartment”, “Dreams about Father”, “ From the eighth grade diary" and other works.

His Moscow childhood was surprisingly similar to the childhood of another remarkable poet, Boris Pasternak. Boris Leonidovich’s mother is Rosalia Kaufman, and David Samoilov’s father is also Kaufman, Samuil Abramovich. No, they were not relatives, they were simply namesakes, but it was very symbolic that in Russian literature the names of these poets were next to each other.

In 1938, David Samoilov graduated from high school and entered the Moscow Institute of Philosophy, History and Literature (MIFLI), an association of humanities faculties separated from Moscow State University. There, at MIFLI, the best scientists of the country taught at that time - S.I. Radtsig, N.K. Gudziy, Yu.M. Sokolov, D.D. Blagoy, D.N. Ushakov and L.I. Timofeev.

Samoilov’s first poetic publication, thanks to his teacher Ilya Selvinsky, appeared in the magazine “October” in 1941. The poem “Hunting the Mammoth” was published under the signature of David Kaufman.

During his years of study, David Samoilov (or Dezik, as his relatives friendlyly called him) became friends with poets who soon began to be called representatives of the poetry of the “military generation” - Mikhail Kulchitsky, Pavel Kogan, Boris Slutsky and Sergei Narovchatov. Samoilov dedicated the visionary poem “Five” to them, in which he wrote:

Five poets lived
In the pre-war spring,
Unknown, unsung,
Those who wrote about the war...

The feeling of war in this poem is amazing, as in other poems that have become favorites for millions of Russians. At the beginning of the Finnish War, Samoilov wanted to go to the front as a volunteer, but was not mobilized for health reasons. However, at the beginning of the Great Patriotic War he was not taken into the army due to his age, but here Samoilov was lucky: he was sent to the labor front - to dig trenches near Vyazma. In the first months of the war, the poet wrote down in a notebook all his unpublished works that he considered important for himself: about 30 poems and poetic excerpts, one comedy, three poetic translations.

On the labor front, David Samoilov fell ill, was evacuated to Samarkand, and studied at the Evening Pedagogical Institute. Soon he entered the military infantry school, after which in 1942 he was sent to the Volkhov Front near Tikhvin.

Subsequently, in his memoirs, Samoilov wrote: “The main thing that the war revealed to me was the feeling of the people.” In 1943, the poet was wounded, after which his life was saved by his friend, the Altai peasant S.A. Kosov, about whom Samoilov wrote the poem “Semyon Andreich” in 1946.

After the hospital, Samoilov returned to the front and became a scout. In parts of the 1st Belorussian Front he liberated Poland, Germany, and ended the war in Berlin.

During the war years, two collections of Samoilov’s poems, dated 1944, were published, as well as a poetic satire on Hitler and poems about the successful soldier Foma Smyslov, which he wrote for the garrison newspaper and signed “Semyon Shilo.” The post-war work “Poems about the New City” was published in 1948 in the magazine “Znamya”. Samoilov considered it necessary for the impressions of life to “settle” in his soul before being embodied in poetry. Regular publication of his poems in periodicals began in 1955. Before this, Samoilov worked as a professional translator of poetry and as a radio scriptwriter.

In 1958, Samoilov published his first poetic book “Neighboring Countries”, the lyrical heroes of which were a front-line soldier in the works “Semyon Andreich”, “I feel sorry for those who die at home...” and a child in the works “Circus”, “Cinderella” and "Fairy tale". The artistic center of the book was “Poems about Tsar Ivan,” in which Samoilov’s inherent historicism was fully revealed for the first time. This poetic cycle embodied the historical experience of Russia and, at the same time, the life experience of the poet, which uniquely reflected the traditions of Pushkin’s historicism. The poem “Pestel, Poet and Anna,” written in 1965, was dedicated to the historical theme. Samoilov reflected on the role of man in history in the dramatic scenes “Dry Flame,” written in 1963, the main character of which was Peter the Great’s associate, Prince Menshikov. A roll call of historical eras also occurred in the poem “The Last Holidays” in 1972, in which the lyrical hero traveled through Poland and Germany at different times along with the 16th century Polish sculptor Wit Squash.

Defining his poetic self-awareness, Samoilov wrote: “We always had a sense of the environment, even of a generation. We even had a term before the war: “generation of ’40.” Samoilov attributed his poet friends to this generation, “Who became soldiers in forty-first / And became humanists in forty-five.” He felt their death as the greatest sorrow. One of Samoilov’s most famous poems, “The Forties, the Fatal,” written in 1961, became the poetic “calling card” of this generation.

If you delete the war,
What remains is not much.
Poor art
To bear your guilt.

What else? Self-deception
Later becoming a form of fear.
Wisdom is like one's own shirt
Closer to the body. And the fog...

No, don't erase the war.
After all, it is for a generation -
Something like redemption
For myself and for the country.

The simplicity of its beginnings,
Life is cruel and Spartan,
Like civil valor,
He involuntarily marked us.

If the youths ask us,
How did you live, what did you live with?
We keep quiet or
We see scars and cicatrices.

As if it could save us
From reproaches and annoyance
One-tenth right
The baseness of the other nine.

After all, out of our forty
It was only four years old
Where is the unexpected freedom
It was as sweet as death to us.

After the release of the poetry collection “Days” in 1970, Samoilov’s name became known to a wide circle of readers, and in the collection “Equinox” in 1972, the poet united best poems from my previous books.

In 1967, David Samoilov settled in the village of Opalikha near Moscow. The poet did not participate in the official writer's life, but his circle of activities was as wide as his social circle. Heinrich Böll came to Opalikha. Samoilov was friends with many of his outstanding contemporaries - Fazil Iskander, Yuri Levitansky, Bulat Okudzhava, Yuri Lyubimov, Zinovy ​​Gerdt and Yuli Kim.

Despite his eye disease, he worked in the historical archive, working on a play about 1917, and published the poetry book “Book of Russian Rhyme” in 1973.

In 1974, he published the book “The Wave and the Stone,” which critics called Samoilov’s “most Pushkin-esque” book - not only in terms of the number of references to the great poet, but, most importantly, in terms of his poetic attitude. Evgeny Yevtushenko, in a kind of poetic review of this book, wrote: “And I read “The Wave and the Stone” / where wisdom is beyond a generation. / I feel both guilt and flame, / the forgotten flame of worship.”

Samoilov extensively and actively translated poems by Armenian, Bulgarian, Spanish, Latvian, Lithuanian, German, Polish, Serbian, Turkish, French and Estonian poets, participated in the creation of several performances at the Taganka Theater, at Sovremennik, at the Ermolova Theater, wrote songs for theater and cinema. In 1988 he became a laureate of the USSR State Prize.

Over the years, David Samoilov published books of poetry, among which were “Neighboring Countries” in 1958, “Second Pass” in 1963, “Days” in 1970, “Equinox” in 1972, “Message” in 1978, “Favorites” in 1980, “The Bay” in 1981 and many other works, as well as books for children “Traffic Light” in 1962 and “The Little Elephant Goes to Study. Plays in verse" in 1982.

In 1976, Samoilov settled in the Estonian seaside city of Pärnu. New impressions were reflected in the poems that formed the collections “Tooming Street” and “Hand Lines” in 1981.

Samoilov loved Pärnu and Estonia very much. Until 1980, while the family occupied only one floor on Toome Street, he had to live in somewhat cramped conditions. Having bought the second floor, David Samoilovich was infinitely happy. And, returning from another short trip to Moscow in 1983, he said: “You still have to live in Pärnu.” It was easier and calmer for him in Estonia, so many acquaintances are convinced that his stay in Pärnu gave him a few more years of life. Maybe that’s why at one of the dinner parties he said: “Kiss me: I’m environmentally friendly.”

David Samoilovich was never considered an ardent dissident, but the KGB kept an eye on him. One day, photographer Viktor Perelygin (thanks to whom subsequent generations received a whole gallery of photographic materials about the poet’s life) went to visit relatives who lived in Kaliningrad. While dining in a restaurant in the city of Chernyakhovsk, he saw a suspiciously familiar man at another table. A few weeks later, he remembered him when he saw him leaving the building of the Pärnu KGB office. Samoilov was not at all surprised by this news. “They were checking to see if you were sending any message from me to the Chernyakhov psychiatric hospital.” This institution, as it turned out, housed “abnormals” who questioned the ideas and deeds of the CPSU. Samoilov never put dates on his poems. When asked why he did this, he once answered: “I don’t want to take bread from literary scholars.” But there are no dates in the letters either. Only the last one, addressed to Lydia Lebedinskaya, was dated February 14, 1990. In the letter, Samoilov talked about the snowless winter, touched on the problems of relations between Estonia and Russia, and expressed fears that the promises of Estonian politicians to provide equal rights with Estonians to local Russian-speaking residents would not remain promises.

One more detail: since 1962, Samoilov kept a diary, many of whose entries served as the basis for prose, published after his death as a separate book, Memoirs, in 1995. Samoilov’s brilliant humor gave rise to numerous parodies, epigrams, a humorous epistolary novel, “scientific” research on the history of the country he invented, Kurzyupia, and similar works, collected by the author and his friends in the collection “In Myself,” which was published in 2001.

How it was! How did it coincide -
War, trouble, dream and youth!
And it all sunk into me
And only then did it awaken within me!..

Forties, fatal,
Lead, gunpowder...
The war is sweeping across Russia,
And we are so young!

Zinovy ​​Gerdt, at his anniversary party, read poems by David Samoilov, which were impossible to listen to indifferently:

... Oh, how late I realized
Why do I exist
Why is my heart racing?
Living blood running through my veins,

And sometimes it’s in vain
I let passions subside,
And that you can't be careful
And what not to be careful...

In 2010, a documentary film “Boys of Power” was made about David Samoilov.

Your browser does not support the video/audio tag.

Text prepared by Andrey Goncharov

Materials used:

Article by Andrey Demenkov “Estonia gave David Samoilov 5 years of life”
Materials from the website “Jewish Journal”: article “David Samoilov among himself”
Interview of Igor Shevelev with Samoilov’s son, Alexander Davydov, “Dreams about parents”
Materials from the site "Krugosvet"

"The Poet's Crystal Palace"

Interview with the poet’s son, Alexander Davydov.

Let's move on to the person this conversation is about - the poet David Samoilov and your view of your father? Or let's first clear up the Oedipus complex?

In children famous people They are constantly looking for and always finding the persistent Freudian complex. I am indifferent to this projection of the soul, but still I was ready to look for it within myself. Didn't find it. Rather, he can be suspected of a couple of generations of poets erupting in infantile protest against the Father. But to me he was my dad. Just in childhood, I remember, I lacked greatness and categoricalness in him. He was light, cheerful and funny. He remained like this for a long time, until in old age he became heavy, and under the weight of years his light image began to crumble. Perhaps my childhood feeling for him was akin to what he felt for his own father. Sometimes unbearable pity and a desire to protect - from whom? from what?

- Well, yes, I thought, many of our generation had military fathers.

My father did not at all correspond to the military ideal of my childhood era. I remember the eternal argument in the yard: “I am the commander” - “No, I am the commander.” My father did not look like a commander - he was short in stature, bald from his youth. In addition, he looked older than other fathers. Yes, and a strange occupation - a writer, even more exotic - a poet. At first, like others, I was sure that all writers had died long ago and lived only on bookshelves. It was difficult to realize that my living, cheerful, not solemn father seemed to be etched into eternity. However, his books were not serious, not volumes, but stacks of sheets of paper and paper brochures. Perhaps this fueled my pity for my father, who was not a real writer. No, I was not ashamed of him and his profession, but it would have been calmer if, like other fathers, he had gone to work every day.

- The self-perception of a child of a literary family in the early 60s is very interesting.

Yes, it was a time - they were fighting against parasites, state wariness towards creative people, precisely those unreal people, flourished. Of course, I didn’t suspect my father of anything wrong; rather, I feared for him. He himself advised me to answer the question “Who is your father?” not a solemn poet or, there, a writer, but a modest one - a translator. This activity seemed completely strange to me. I suspected that books were created, as it were, in Right-Babylonian, addressing soul to soul. Then the work of the translator became absolutely secondary, although significant in its secondary importance, for it required expressing exactly what was intended in the language of the spirit.

Reading David Samoilov’s diary, one is struck by the eerie patina of time, which can be called the primitiveness of “communist optimism.”

My father tried to maintain a simple and sober outlook on life, ridiculing the sophistication of feelings, and it’s not that he didn’t look into his soul, but not to the depths. He, avoiding the painful and inarticulate, tried to be a man of light, but the shadow stretched towards sunset, and over the years his father fit less and less into the brilliant and charming image he created, in which he accumulated everything light and beneficial in his nature. This image bore his childish, silly name.

- Yes, because to his friends David Samoilov remained Desik until his death?

And in the diary he suddenly appeared almost like a grouch, turning his relationships with people inside out. By simplifying his vision of the world, the Father seemed to awaken demons, which, I would like to believe, he eventually overcame. In his rejection of sophisticated feelings one can see the same spiritual modesty that was inherent in his father, but no longer in deep and intimate transparency, but undermined by passions. My father strove for classical simplicity, shielding himself from the complexity of his own nature. How deeply he succeeded in this is evidenced by his poems.

The Forties are fatal, to use his most famous line. And this is not only war, but also the external burden of time, which is carried by a person belonging to a generation and breaking out of it?

At the very core of his personality, the father built a crystal palace. Poems are both cause and effect. My father accomplished great spiritual work, overcoming the devilish temptation of the state and harmonizing the chaos of the war. He humbled the darkness of demons, not shunning them, but courageously going out to meet them, armed with nothing but wise innocence, which remained intact for many years.

- And yet he was not on his own. Was literature on his side?

Yes, literature served as a help, but it, too, is infested with demons. My father knew how to alienate his life, to see it in a literary frame, as if becoming the hero of a novel. It’s even surprising how much literature turned out to be alive for him, and indeed became a means of harmonizing life. In the literary construction of his soul, he was neither an epigone nor an imitator. Relying on someone else's, he built his own, created an independent and powerful hero, who became the subject and object of his poetry, who knew how to scare away small spiritual evil spirits.

So you want to say that David Samoilov brought not only into literature, but also into the life of a special lyrical hero?

Literature seemed to take away everything literary suitable from life. At first, foreign literature provided models of existence, then the father increasingly became the hero of a novel conceived in his youth, but never written, from which he put on paper only lyrical digressions. The harmonic core of his soul was constantly fighting with pinched, petty, but completely human emotions and feelings.

- Did you fit yourself into the image, gradually crawling out from under it?

The self-image fostered by my father was not false. Perhaps he was truer than life itself. Father was comfortable in the world of reason and light he had created through perseverance and effort. An uncomfortable life thorned his jealous and proud father’s soul, but in defending the world he created, his writing became brighter and more harmonious, and the subject of poetry, hero and author, spread to the entire space of the soul.

-Did you feel this lyrical image through his poems?

When did I learn not only to read, but also to understand what I read - when did this happen? at ten? twelve? fourteen years? - I was passionate about my father’s truth no less than he himself. It seemed inexhaustible to me. How could I know at that time that there are no inexhaustible truths? The crystal palace erected by his father elevated the soul, but was fraught with temptation. He subdued the demons of the era with the timid prayer of a hopeful man. This palace still stands in the same place; you can admire the beauty of its classical proportions. However, the time came, and the father, as a living person, had to leave him. The era changed, and the literary hero he raised became a shadow, ceasing to accumulate the truth.

Do you think that his time has passed, and David Samoilov has outlived him? But it was precisely at this time that the time of his greatest glory and fame came. That is, he was, as it were, recognized, having fallen out of time?

The father felt the character’s fatal illness acutely, as a harbinger of his own death. He seriously believed in the theory that a poet dies when he should. Not that he has the right to personally put an end to it, but his life will be cut short as soon as the plot he invented runs out. However, after the death of his hero, my father lived for another decade and a half. Maybe the most difficult, but also the most naked and authentic. His own bright image no longer seduced him with its charming middleness.

- Life outside yourself?

The insights from the later years of my father’s life remained hidden. He still composed many poems, but did not create a new harmony. It was not a new palace, but extensions to it, and the father’s soul no longer lived in them.

Don't forget, however, that it was precisely at this time, starting in the mid-70s, that we ourselves, a generation of children, were creating our own personal escapist worlds?

Having left his crystal palace, the father lived with a constant eye on it, tried to add another turret, but it no longer needed its creator. For me, this is a sad symbol of the alienation of creation from the creator, the alienation of the past, locked in beautiful hopelessness. I would like to know what my father learned in his later years. Have you renounced the authorship of your own life? He didn't tell me about this. The most important things were revealed filtered through his poetry.

To what extent could you talk about the most important things, which are the most difficult to talk about between close people?

I didn’t trust my father’s confessions and teachings from a young age. If I trusted them, I would carry within myself an even more false image than a simple reader of his poetry. But, being suspicious from an early age, I sensed that adults were hiding from me. Childhood mistrust is akin to old age, when weakened hearing turns someone else's speech into an ominous whisper. I did not imagine a disastrous conspiracy. Rather, on the contrary, it is a desire to protect from cruel truths.

- Can I ask a general question about the generation of our parents, people of the villainous era who were not villains?

The bottomlessness of both evil and good was alien to them, replaced by average decency. This is not a reproach - quite a lot. We stand on their shoulders, not giants, but what they are. In general, would we be able to perch ourselves on giant shoulders? The father was among those who cleared away the rubble of lies and dope to report that two and two are four. It is a pity that, proud of their discovery, they did not listen to life, which would have told them that in other cases it was not four, but five, zero, ten. Life refused to compose a novel of education for them. They themselves had not composed anything in advance and were horrified by the unforeseen nature of their tilted life.

Let us remember our childhood shared with them, which we are condemned to bear either as an experience, or a curse, or a myth?

Yes, somewhere in the past, but not sunk time, the “belieu of epochs” they created, which our youth fell upon, remained. For some reason, it warms me that I grew up with the consciousness of the country: childhood coincided with its infantilism, youth with a rush of romance, but maturity still does not come, which is also not without reason. I am grateful to the outgoing generation for an almost happy youth, and to my father, of course, first of all. He, thank God, did not live to see a new tragic rift, although, dying, he foresaw troubles. Nevertheless, his theory about the poet’s timely death came true. He could not have imagined a better and more timely death than the one his father received.

- How did this happen?

It was the anniversary of both the death of his friend, Boris Slutsky, and a day of repentance in memory of the great poet, Boris Pasternak, whom he loved passionately in his youth and later doubted. It was Slutsky who was seriously guilty before Pasternak, who perhaps never bore this burden of guilt. We can consider this to be repentance for him too. The death of an old warrior on the army holiday on February 23 is like a farewell salvo over the grave. My father hosted Pasternak’s evening, and died almost on stage, going backstage, as befits a great actor. The last words that my father said, momentarily returning from death, were like a gift and hope for all of us. And he said: “everything is fine, everything is fine.” I would like to believe that his struggles ended with this all-encompassing “good.”

For readers Literary names D. S. Samoilov

David Samoilovich SAMOILOV

Internet resources

David Samoilov: I was lucky enough to be a Russian poet

On the website:

• A few words about David Samoilov: statements by Jaan Kross, Sergei Narovchatov, Evgeniy Evtushenko, Pavel Antokolsky, Sergei Chuprinin
• David Samoilov about himself
• Pärnu period
• Pärnu album
• Museum
• Poetry
• Bibliography

Biography and personality of David Samoilov

People. Biography and People's history

Poetry of Moscow University: from Lomonosov to...

Encyclopedia "Around the World"
Defining his poetic self-awareness, Samoilov wrote: “We always had a sense of the environment, even of a generation. We even had a term before the war: “generation of 1940.” Samoilov attributed his poet friends to this generation, “Who became soldiers in forty-first / And became humanists in forty-five.” He felt their death as the greatest sorrow. One of Samoilov’s most famous poems, The Forties, Fatal (1961), became the poetic “calling card” of this generation.

Megaencyclopedia of Cyril and Methodius

S.S. Boyko. Biography of D. Samoilov
Family. IFLI and the beginning of poetry. War. “...And only then did it awaken within me!..” Lyrics. Poems. Children's poems and translations.

D. Samoilov. A few words about myself
Father my childhood. Neither the furniture of the apartment nor its comfort were the true atmosphere of my infancy. Her father was her air.
Before school, I was sick a lot, so I learned to read early. He started writing poetry early, most likely not out of imitation, but out of some inner need. (...) One fine morning (...) of the memorable summer of 1926 (...) I composed the first lines in my life:
In autumn the leaves begin to turn yellow,
They fall to the ground with a noise.
The wind lifts them up again
And it swirls like a blizzard on stormy days.

David Samoilov. Generation forty
One day, in a tiny, smoke-filled room behind Pavel Kogan’s kitchen, we were talking about teachers. There were many of them: Pushkin, Nekrasov, Tyutchev, Baratynsky, Denis Davydov, Blok, Mayakovsky, Khlebnikov, Bagritsky, Tikhonov, Selyvinsky. They named Byron, Shakespeare, and Kipling. Someone even named Rimbaud, although he clearly did not influence anyone.
From the book: Through Time. Collection. M., “Soviet Writer”, 1964, 216 p.

Evgeny Yevtushenko. David Samoilov
I wrote poetry since childhood. But his first publications were translations from Albanian, Polish, Czech, and Hungarian. He was even accepted into the Writers' Union as a translator. Few people believed in him as a poet, with the exception of his beautiful wife, Boris Slutsky and several relatives and close friends.
Source: Stanzas of the century. Anthology of Russian poetry. Comp. E. Yevtushenko. Minsk-Moscow, “Polifact”, 1995

Alexander Davydov. 49 days with soul mates
Lyrical memories of the son of David Samoilov
My father bore the drama of his life with dignity and courage, but found it difficult to cope with the drama of his very existence in the world. He tried to maintain a simple and sober outlook on life, ridiculing the sophistication of feelings, and it’s not that he didn’t look into his soul, but he tried not to go to the depths. The father was upset by minor offenses of feeling, such as the insufficient depth of any emotion in the right case, but at the same time refused to recognize the complexity and inexplicability of the human soul as such. He, avoiding the painful and inarticulate, tried to be a man of light, but the shadow stretched towards sunset, and over the years the Father fit less and less into the brilliant and charming image he created, in which he accumulated everything light and beneficial in his nature. This image bore his silly childhood name. The Father ransomed himself from the shadow with small sacrifices, not knowing, or rather, not wanting to know, from what blackest depths its root grew. He kept a diary and there he suddenly appeared almost like a picky grump, turning his relationships with people inside out. This is how they hide their gaze in the darkness to protect their tired eyes. My father strove for classical simplicity, thereby shielding himself from the complexity of his own nature. How deeply he succeeded in this is evidenced by his poems. It was as if the Father had built a crystal palace in the very core of his personality. Poems are both the cause and the consequence. My father accomplished great spiritual work, overcoming the devilish temptation of the state and harmonizing the chaos of the war. He humbled the darkness of demons, not shunning them, but courageously going out to meet them, armed, it seems, with nothing except his wise innocence, which remained intact for many years. But I believe that I am also protected by the prayer of my father. Pliable in relationships with people, Father turned out to be strong.

Igor Shevelev. Interview with the poet's son - Alexander Davydov
At the very core of his personality, the father built a crystal palace. Poems are both cause and effect. My father accomplished great spiritual work, overcoming the devilish temptation of the state and harmonizing the chaos of the war. He humbled the darkness of demons, not shunning them, but courageously going out to meet them, armed with nothing but wise innocence, which remained intact for many years.

Samoilov David: 85th birthday: “Irony is the defense of honor...”
Samoilov - young, young and mature - has always had a special irony - one that allows you to easily relate to serious things, to be dissatisfied with yourself, but not to grumble, to feel sorry for your loved ones and to care for your comrades... This irony gave him the strength to understand the depth of the world and the extent responsibility to him.

Igor Shevelev. About David Samoilov and his diaries
The wonderful poet kept a diary all his life, starting at the age of 14. Then he thought about his school crushes, about the outline of Lenin’s article about Tolstoy, about the Komsomol. Then there was IFLI, friendship with Kogan, Kulchitsky, Narovchatov, Slutsky, Then there was the front. Literary life, “internal emigration” to Pärnu, recognition. The reader sees the enormous life of the country and the poet, who sees this life from the inside. It's no joke, 55 years of the diary! The last entry was made four days before the sudden death of David Samoilov. He worries about his loved ones, complains of persistent melancholy, as he always notes who was visiting.

Victor Kuznetsov. “...And we go and go somewhere”
Vasily Yan can be considered the first literary mentor of David Samoilov. Returning from Germany after the war, the aspiring poet brought his older friend two collections of poems by Reiner Rilke, whom Vasily Yan highly valued and whom he was personally acquainted with in the 1920s. That evening the young front-line poet read his poems about the war to the old prose writer. And although David Samoilov himself spoke of them as “immature,” Ian liked them...

G. Efremov. Yellow dust: Notes about David Samoilov
And in my opinion, David was precisely the man of glory. Public, social, sociable - whatever you call it. I couldn’t live without people, without thoughts about them, without their words – participation and approval. His life was accompanied by some kind of vague and persistent hum - of the forests, or the sea, or the crowds?...

A few words about David Samoilov
Statements by Jaan Kross, Sergei Narovchatov, Evgeniy Yevtushenko, Pavel Antokolsky, Sergei Chuprinin.
“The biography of the poet was the biography of a generation. These definitions can easily be reversed and it can be said that the biography of a generation was the biography of the poet.” (Sergey Narovchatov)

Nikolay Yakimchuk. David Samoilov: “I am an unexpected person!”
David Samoilov was a diverse personality. The sage and the reveler. A wit and a master of almost scientific formulations. An enlightened, Mozartian looking at the world, but sometimes, like a Nietzschean, discouraged.
In an incomprehensible way, all this diversity coexisted in one person.
Harmony was looking for the poet D. Samoilov and he answered her in kind.

Anna Marchenko. There is a philosophy of care...
Reflections by D. Samoilov on death, faith and God in the light of the teachings of the Catholic Church.

Yuri Pavlov. Life weaknesses of David Samoilov

David Samoilov “We ​​live in an era of results...”
Correspondence with L.K. Chukovskaya.
Correspondence between David Samoilov and Lydia Chukovskaya
A novel about friendship, brilliant psychological prose, an example of a respectful conversation between two intellectuals who often have different views - this is how readers respond to the book.

Sergey Shargunov. Ancient city in wine stripes
“And we are so young...” line from a textbook poem.
Samoilov ancient author. Even the sound of his name evokes ancient sorrow. Sharp shadows, drought, stone ruins of the city, where the clarity of architecture is naturally combined with failures.
David Samoilov a defeated giant, a freshly collapsed Goliath still in clouds of dust.

Olga Ilnitskaya. Swallows sat on the wall
Memories of a meeting with D. Samoilov
It's not every day that you talk to great and real Poets. Both of them were interested, attentive and affectionate with me, they asked me questions - I answered the questions, but I myself - nothing! It was so jammed that they took pity and let him go with God. But they both kissed. It seems like they were blessed.

David Samoilov. Among yourself
Compiler and author of comments Gennady Evgrafov.

Gennady Evgrafov. Romance with the Mausoleum
"An affair with the daughter of the leader of the DS ( David Samoilov) called a romance with the Mausoleum. Their relationship continued uninterrupted for several years Svetlana wanted to bring the matter to a marriage crown. But to become the son-in-law of even a deceased leader, everything that was possible and what was not? It was too much for the young poet.”

Gennady Evgrafov. Abram Khayyam
Gennady Evgrafov: “A few preliminary remarks. I don’t want to write either poetry or prose. Is it time like this? February. Get some ink and cry? The ink is long gone, the tears dried even before the ink disappeared. What remains? Computer. So I took up my memories in order, as best I can, to capture the time in which I had to live, the people with whom I had to be friends or meet. One of these people was David Samoilov. The other is Igor Guberman. We're talking about them."

Gennady Evgrafov. “Who has resisted in this difficult life...”
Memories of David Samoilov and his role in the publication of the anthology “Vest”.

Irina and Vitaly Belobrovtsev. The town of Pernov marveled at him
In the mid-seventies, a new phenomenon spontaneously arose in Estonia - the poet David Samoilov appeared (revealed himself) here.

In memory of David Samoilov. The word has been spoken, the saga has been written...

Between the two glories lay a time of semi-oblivion. Akhmatova was alienated from the reading public (I remember she said that ten signal copies of unpublished books had been collected).
We, young poets of the pre-war era, of course, read what was once published. And they even kept “The Rosary” and “Anno Domini” on the bookshelves next to Tsvetaeva’s “Versts”, Mandelstam’s “Stone” and Khodasevich’s “Heavy Lyre”. It seemed that these were poets of bygone times.
Akhmatova seemed traditional, and easily recognizable, and immediately familiar. Much later I realized that this was not so. Akhmatova’s “familiarity” comes from the fact that she is extremely natural, like a natural phenomenon.
Epigrams. Epitaphs

Articles about the work of David Samoilov

Evgeny Yevtushenko. Quietly turned out to be a classic
From Evgeny Yevtushenko’s anthology “Ten Centuries of Russian Poetry”
He was the only one who wrote about Pushkin as if he were his constant drinking companion, when even the unbearable “Andropovka” was miraculously transformed into “Veuve Clicquot.” From Pushkin, Samoilov inherited the sparkling lightness of verse. And he moved through life just as easily, improvisationally, but behind Samoilov’s table-based carelessness hid the constant work of a sharp, sometimes ruthless mind, which is especially noticeable in his diaries. And the almost weightless feather fluttered from popular buffoonery to Pushkin-Shakespearean tragedy. Samoilov tried once again to translate Arthur Rimbaud’s “The Drunken Ship” into our stubbornly intractable language, in a serious study he tried to save the little rhyme, crushed by the waste heaps of empty free verse, and he did everything airily, gracefully, without straining himself.

Nemzer A.S. The sentry and the star: About the poetry of David Samoilov
Best years David Samoilov seventies. Not because he wrote “worse” in the previous and subsequent decades. First of all, who likes what? Secondly, how can we imagine our poet without the earlier poems (“The Forties”, “Old Man Derzhavin”, “House-Museum”, “Schubert Franz”, “Before the Snow”, “Names of Winters”, “The End of Pugachev”, “Pestel, the poet and Anna”, “Death of the poet”, etc.) and later (“Voices beyond the hills”, “Beyond the pass”, “In memory of Antonina”, “Play, Ignat, rattle, cymbal!..” , “I had the good fortune to be a Russian poet”, “Beatrice”, “The Uglitsky Murder”, etc.). And certainly not because the seventies were marked by a sign of external prosperity.

Father - famous doctor, chief venereologist of the Moscow region Samuil Abramovich Kaufman (1892-1957); mother - Cecilia Izrailevna Kaufman (1895-1986).

After recovery, from March 1944 he continued to serve in the 3rd separate motor reconnaissance unit of the reconnaissance department of the headquarters of the 1st Belorussian Front.

By order of the Armed Forces of the 1st Belorussian Front No.: 347/n dated: November 1, 1944, the clerk of the 3rd separate motorized reconnaissance unit of the reconnaissance department of the headquarters of the 1st Belorussian Front, Corporal Kaufman, was awarded the medal “For Military Merit” for receiving severe wounds in a battle in the area Mga station, participation in battles on the Volkhov and 1st Belorussian fronts and exemplary performance of his immediate duties as a clerk.

By order of the Armed Forces of the 1st Belorussian Front No.: 661/n dated: 06/14/1945, a machine gunner of the 3rd separate motorized reconnaissance unit. Department of the headquarters of the 1st Belorussian Front, Corporal Kaufman was awarded the Order of the Red Star for the capture of a German armored personnel carrier and three prisoners, including one non-commissioned officer who provided valuable information, and for active participation in the battles for the city of Berlin.

During the war, Samoilov did not write poetry - with the exception of a poetic satire on Hitler and poems about the successful soldier Foma Smyslov, which he composed for the garrison newspaper and signed “Semyon Shilo”.

One of D. S. Samoilov's first public appearances before a large audience took place at the Central Lecture Hall in Kharkov in 1960. The organizer of this performance was a friend of the poet, Kharkov literary critic L. Ya. Livshits.

He is the author of the poem “The Hussar’s Song” (“When we were at war...”), which was set to music by the bard Viktor Stolyarov in the early 1980s. “The Hussar Song” by Samoilov-Stolyarov became one of the beginning of XXI centuries popular among the Cossacks of Kuban.

He published a humorous prose collection “Around Myself.” Wrote works on versification.

Family

Since 1946, he was married to art critic Olga Lazarevna Fogelson (1924-1977), daughter of the famous Soviet cardiologist L. I. Fogelson. Their son is Alexander Davydov, writer and translator.

Later he was married to Galina Ivanovna Medvedeva, they had three children - Varvara, Peter and Pavel.

Awards

• Medal "For Courage" (1943)
• Medal "For Military Merit" (1944)
• USSR State Prize (1988)

Essays

Collections of poems

• Nearby countries, 1958
• The little elephant went to study, M., 1961
• Traffic light. M., 1962
• Second pass, M., 1963
• The little elephant went to study, M., 1967 (for children)
• Days, M., 1970
• Equinox, M., 1972
• Wave and Stone, M., 1974
• Interrupting our dates..., 1975
• Vest, M., 1978
• Zaliv, M., 1981
• Lines of the hand, M., 1981 (PBSh)
• Tooming Street. Tallinn, 1981
• The little elephant went to study, M., 1982.
• Times, M., 1983
• Poems, M., 1985
• Voices beyond the hills. Tallinn, 1985
• Let me suffer for the poem. M., 1987
• Handful, M., 1989
• Beatrice. Tallinn, 1989
• The little elephant went to study, M., 1989
• Snowfall: Moscow Poems, M., 1990
• The little elephant went to study. Plays. M., 1990

Editions

• Favorites. - M.: Fiction, 1980.- 448 p.
• Favorites. Selected works in two volumes. - M.: Fiction, 1989. - 50,000 copies. ISBN 5-280-00564-9
  • Volume 1. Poems. / Introductory article by I. O. Shaitanov - 559 p. ISBN 5-280-00565-7
  • Volume 2. Poems. Poems for children. Portraits. - 335 s. ISBN 5-280-00566-5
• Poems. - M.: Time, 2005.
• Poems / Comp., prepared. text by V. I. Tumarkin, introductory article by A. S. Nemzer. - St. Petersburg: Academic Project, 2006. - 800 p. - ISBN 5-7331-0321-3
• The Happiness of the Craft: Selected Poems. / Comp. V. Tumarkin, 2009, 2nd ed. - 2010, 3rd ed. - M.: Vremya, 2013. - 784 p. - ISBN 978-5-9691-1119-6

Prose

• People of one option // Aurora. - 1990. - No. 1-2.
• Daily entries. - M.: Time, 2002. - 416 p. - ISBN 5-94117-028-9
• Book about Russian rhyme, M., 1973, 2nd ed. - 1982; 3rd ed. - M.: Time, 2005. - ISBN 5-94117-064-5

Translations

• Albanian poems. M., 1950
• Songs of free Albania. M., 1953
• Grishashvili I. Fairy tales./ Translation from Georgian by D. Samoilov. M., 1955
• Senghor L. Chaka./ Translation from French by D. Samoilov. M., 1971
• The tale of Manjuna from the Benu Amir tribe. / Translation from Arabic by D. Samoilov. Interlinear translation by B. Shidfar. M., 1976
• Marcinkevičius Yu. Cathedral. / Translation from Lithuanian by D. Samoilov. Vilnius, 1977
• The shadow of the sun. Poets of Lithuania in translations by D. Samoilov. Vilnius, 1981
• D. Samoilov. I. Cross. Bottomless moments. Tallinn, 1990

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Literature

• Baevsky V. S. David Samoilov: The poet and his generation. - M.: Sov. writer, 1987. - 256 p.
• Davydov A. 49 days with soul mates. - M.: Time, 2005. - 192 p. - ISBN 5-9691-0068-4

Notes

1. . Retrieved January 20, 2010. .
2. Alexander Davydov.
4. . pamyatnaroda.mil.ru. Retrieved March 5, 2016.
5. . pamyatnaroda.mil.ru. Retrieved March 5, 2016.
6. . pamyatnaroda.mil.ru. Retrieved March 5, 2016.
7. Kazak V. Lexicon of Russian literature of the 20th century = Lexikon der russischen Literatur ab 1917 / [trans. with German]. - M. : RIC "Culture", 1996. - XVIII, 491, p. - 5000 copies. - ISBN 5-8334-0019-8.. - Page 363.
8. Stanislav Minakov// Neva. - 2010. - No. 7.
10. Samoilov D. S., Chukovskaya L. K.. Correspondence: 1971-1990 / Intro. Art. A. S. Nemzer, comment. and preparation text by G. I. Medvedeva-Samoilova, E. Ts. Chukovskaya and Zh. O. Khavkina. - M.: New Literary Review, 2004.

Links

• www.litera.ru/stixiya/authors/samojlov.html
• Zinovy ​​Gerdt reads David Samoilov's poem "Let's go to the city..." www.youtube.com/watch?v=qK7jkuo85GE

Declamation

Excerpt characterizing Samoilov, David

“I would see you off, yes, by God,” here (the doctor pointed to his throat) I gallop to the corps commander. After all, how is it with us?.. You know, Count, tomorrow there is a battle: for a hundred thousand troops, a small number of twenty thousand wounded must be counted; but we have neither stretchers, nor beds, nor paramedics, nor doctors for six thousand. There are ten thousand carts, but other things are needed; do as you wish.
That strange thought that from among those thousands of people alive, healthy, young and old, who looked at his hat with cheerful surprise, there were probably twenty thousand doomed to wounds and death (perhaps the same ones he saw), – Pierre was amazed.
They might die tomorrow, why do they think about anything other than death? And suddenly, through some secret connection of thoughts, he vividly imagined the descent from Mozhaisk Mountain, carts with the wounded, the ringing of bells, the slanting rays of the sun and the song of the cavalrymen.
“Cavalrymen go to battle and meet the wounded, and do not think for a minute about what awaits them, but walk past and wink at the wounded. And out of all these, twenty thousand are doomed to death, and they are surprised at my hat! Strange!" - thought Pierre, heading further to Tatarinova.
At the landowner's house, on the left side of the road, there were carriages, vans, crowds of orderlies and sentries. The brightest one stood here. But at the time Pierre arrived, he was not there, and almost no one from the staff was there. Everyone was at the prayer service. Pierre drove forward to Gorki.
Having driven up the mountain and into a small street in the village, Pierre saw for the first time militia men with crosses on their hats and in white shirts, who were loudly talking and laughing, animated and sweaty, working something to the right of the road, on a huge mound overgrown with grass. .
Some of them were digging a mountain with shovels, others were transporting earth on planks in wheelbarrows, and others stood doing nothing.
Two officers stood on the mound, ordering them. Seeing these men, obviously still amused by their new, military situation, Pierre again remembered the wounded soldiers in Mozhaisk, and it became clear to him what the soldier wanted to express when he said that they wanted to attack the whole people. The sight of these bearded men working on the battlefield with their strange clumsy boots, with their sweaty necks and some of their shirts unbuttoned at the slanting collar, from under which the tanned bones of the collarbones were visible, affected Pierre more than anything else he had seen and heard so far. about the solemnity and significance of the present moment.

Pierre got out of the carriage and, past the working militia, ascended the mound from which, as the doctor told him, the battlefield could be seen.
It was about eleven o'clock in the morning. The sun stood somewhat to the left and behind Pierre and brightly illuminated the huge panorama that opened before him through the clear, rare air, like an amphitheater across the rising terrain.
Up and to the left along this amphitheater, cutting it, wound the great Smolensk road, passing through a village with a white church, which lay five hundred steps in front of the mound and below it (this was Borodino). The road crossed under the village across a bridge and, through ups and downs, wound higher and higher to the village of Valuev, visible six miles away (Napoleon was now standing there). Beyond Valuev, the road disappeared into a yellowing forest on the horizon. In this birch and spruce forest, to the right of the direction of the road, the distant cross and bell tower of the Kolotsk Monastery glittered in the sun. All along this blue distance, to the right and left of the forest and the road, in different places one could see smoking fires and indefinite masses of our and enemy troops. To the right, along the flow of the Kolocha and Moskva rivers, the area was gorged and mountainous. Between their gorges the villages of Bezzubovo and Zakharyino could be seen in the distance. To the left, the terrain was more level, there were fields with grain, and one smoking, burnt village could be seen - Semenovskaya.
Everything that Pierre saw to the right and to the left was so vague that neither the left nor the right side of the field completely satisfied his idea. Everywhere there was not the battle that he expected to see, but fields, clearings, troops, forests, smoke from fires, villages, mounds, streams; and no matter how much Pierre tried, he could not find a position in this lively area and could not even distinguish your troops from the enemy.
“We need to ask someone who knows,” he thought and turned to the officer, who was looking with curiosity at his huge non-military figure.
“Let me ask,” Pierre turned to the officer, “what village is ahead?”
- Burdino or what? - said the officer, turning to his comrade with a question.
“Borodino,” the other answered, correcting him.
The officer, apparently pleased with the opportunity to talk, moved towards Pierre.
- Are ours there? asked Pierre.
“Yes, and the French are further away,” said the officer. - There they are, visible.
- Where? Where? asked Pierre.
- You can see it with the naked eye. Yes, here you go! “The officer pointed to the smoke visible to the left across the river, and his face showed that stern and serious expression that Pierre had seen on many faces he met.
- Oh, these are the French! And there?.. - Pierre pointed to the left at the mound, near which troops could be seen.
- These are ours.
- Oh, ours! And there?.. - Pierre pointed to another distant mound with a large tree, near a village visible in the gorge, where fires were also smoking and something was black.
“It’s him again,” said the officer. (This was the Shevardinsky redoubt.) - Yesterday it was ours, and now it’s his.
– So what is our position?
- Position? - said the officer with a smile of pleasure. “I can tell you this clearly, because I built almost all of our fortifications.” You see, our center is in Borodino, right here. “He pointed to a village with a white church in front. - There is a crossing over Kolocha. Here, you see, where the rows of mown hay still lie in the low place, here is the bridge. This is our center. Our right flank is here (he pointed sharply to the right, far into the gorge), there is the Moscow River, and there we built three very strong redoubts. Left flank... - and then the officer stopped. – You see, it’s difficult to explain to you... Yesterday our left flank was right there, in Shevardin, you see, where the oak is; and now we have carried back the left wing, now there, there - see the village and the smoke? “This is Semenovskoye, right here,” he pointed to the Raevsky mound. “But it’s unlikely there will be a battle here.” That he transferred troops here is a deception; he will probably go around to the right of Moscow. Well, no matter where it is, many will be missing tomorrow! - said the officer.
The old non-commissioned officer, who approached the officer during his story, silently awaited the end of his superior’s speech; but at this point he, obviously dissatisfied with the officer’s words, interrupted him.
“You have to go for the tours,” he said sternly.
The officer seemed embarrassed, as if he realized that he could think about how many people would be missing tomorrow, but he shouldn’t talk about it.
“Well, yes, send the third company again,” the officer said hastily.
- Who are you, not a doctor?
“No, I am,” answered Pierre. And Pierre went downhill again past the militia.
- Oh, damned ones! - said the officer following him, holding his nose and running past the workers.
“There they are!.. They’re carrying, they’re coming... There they are... they’re coming in now...” suddenly voices were heard, and officers, soldiers and militiamen ran forward along the road.
A church procession rose from under the mountain from Borodino. Ahead of everyone, infantry marched orderly along the dusty road with their shakos removed and guns lowered downwards. Church singing could be heard behind the infantry.
Overtaking Pierre, soldiers and militiamen ran without hats towards the marchers.
- They are carrying Mother! Intercessor!.. Iverskaya!..
“Mother of Smolensk,” corrected another.
The militia - both those who were in the village and those who worked at the battery - threw down their shovels and ran towards the church procession. Behind the battalion, walking along a dusty road, were priests in robes, one old man in a hood with a clergyman and a chanter. Behind them, soldiers and officers carried a large icon with a black face in the frame. It was an icon taken from Smolensk and from that time carried with the army. Behind the icon, around it, in front of it, from all sides, crowds of military men walked, ran and bowed to the ground with their heads naked.
Having ascended the mountain, the icon stopped; The people holding the icon on the towels changed, the sextons lit the censer again, and the prayer service began. The hot rays of the sun beat vertically from above; a weak, fresh breeze played with the hair of open heads and the ribbons with which the icon was decorated; singing was heard softly in the open air. A huge crowd of officers, soldiers, and militiamen with their heads open surrounded the icon. Behind the priest and sexton, in a cleared area, stood the officials. One bald general with George around his neck stood right behind the priest and, without crossing himself (obviously, he was a man), patiently waited for the end of the prayer service, which he considered necessary to listen to, probably to arouse the patriotism of the Russian people. Another general stood in a militant pose and shook his hand in front of his chest, looking around him. Among this circle of officials, Pierre, standing in the crowd of men, recognized some acquaintances; but he did not look at them: all his attention was absorbed by the serious expression of faces in this crowd of soldiers and soldiers, monotonously greedily looking at the icon. As soon as the tired sextons (singing the twentieth prayer service) began to lazily and habitually sing: “Save your servants from troubles, Mother of God,” and the priest and deacon picked up: “As we all resort to you for God’s sake, as for an indestructible wall and intercession,” - to everyone the same expression of consciousness of the solemnity of the coming moment, which he saw under the mountain in Mozhaisk and in fits and starts on many, many faces he met that morning, flared up on their faces again; and more often heads were lowered, hair was shaken, and sighs and the blows of crosses on chests were heard.
The crowd surrounding the icon suddenly opened up and pressed Pierre. Someone, probably a very important person, judging by the haste with which they shunned him, approached the icon.
It was Kutuzov, driving around the position. He, returning to Tatarinova, approached the prayer service. Pierre immediately recognized Kutuzov by his special figure, different from everyone else.
In a long frock coat on a huge thick body, with a stooped back, an open white head and a leaky white eye on his swollen face, Kutuzov entered the circle with his diving, swaying gait and stopped behind the priest. He crossed himself with the usual gesture, reached with his hand to the ground and, sighing heavily, lowered his gray head. Behind Kutuzov was Bennigsen and his retinue. Despite the presence of the commander-in-chief, who attracted the attention of all the highest ranks, the militia and soldiers continued to pray without looking at him.

The biography of David Samoilov is of interest to many admirers of his work. This is a famous Soviet poet of the generation of front-line soldiers, like many of his peers, who went to war as a student.

Childhood and youth

The biography of David Samoilov begins in 1920. He was born into a Jewish family. The future front-line poet was born in Moscow.

His father was a well-known doctor in his circle named Samuil Abramovich Kaufman. At the time of David's birth, he was 28 years old. Over time, he became the chief venereologist of the Moscow region, consulting patients with the most complex pathologies. The mother of the hero of our article was called Cecilia Izrailevna Kaufman.

In 1938, an important event occurred in the biography of David Samoilov. He enters the capital's Institute of Philosophy, Literature and History. True, he failed to finish his studies. When did it start Finnish war, Samoilov decided to volunteer for the front. But they didn’t take him; he turned out to be unfit for health reasons.

When Nazi troops attacked the USSR, they were no longer so picky about the health of conscripts.

At the front

David Samoilov is a poet whose biography is closely connected with the Great Patriotic War. In 1941 he was sent to the labor front. First of all, he dug trenches in the Smolensk region, near Vyazma, where the fiercest battles were taking place at that time.

True, he could not endure such a test for long and became seriously ill. Samoilov was evacuated to Samarkand. When his affairs began to improve, he was able to enroll in the evening department pedagogical institute, remaining in evacuation.

At the same time, military education also appeared in the biography of David Samoilov. He became a cadet at the military infantry school, although he never managed to graduate. In 1942 he was sent to the front again. This time on Volkhovsky near the town of Tikhvin.

On March 23, 1942, in a battle near the Mga station, he was seriously wounded in left hand. The poet suffered from a mine fragment.

In that battle he proved himself to be a brave soldier, so a week later the command nominated him for a reward. David Samoilov, whose biography is given in this article, received the medal "For Courage". The leadership especially noted that he was the first to break into a German trench, entered into hand-to-hand combat simultaneously with three Nazi soldiers, whom he ultimately destroyed.

Having been wounded, he was again hospitalized and sent to restore his health, which had been undermined by the injury.

At the end of the war

According to many researchers, the most important thing in the biography of David Samoilov is his military exploits. It is noteworthy that he managed to recover only by March 1944. He returned to the regular army again, continuing to serve in a reconnaissance company on the First Belorussian Front.

In November he received another military award. This time the medal "For Military Merit". It is interesting that he was also awarded it for severe wounds received in battles at the Mga station, as well as for conscientiously fulfilling the duties of a clerk on the Belorussian Front.

In 1945, Samoilov participated in the Great Patriotic War already as a machine gunner. He is celebrated for capturing a fascist armored personnel carrier with three prisoners. Among them is one non-commissioned officer who provided the Soviet command with valuable information that helped the Soviet troops in the battles for Berlin.

Poems during the war

It is noteworthy that during the war years Samoilov did not write poetry. The only exceptions were poetic satire aimed at Adolf Hitler, as well as a poem about the luckiest soldier Foma Smyslov, which he wrote for the garrison newspaper. At the same time, Samoilov used the pseudonym Semyon Shilo.

The poet began publishing in 1941.

Translations

In the post-war years, David Samuilovich Samoilov, whose biography you are now reading, was engaged in translations. In particular, he adapted for the Soviet reader Lithuanian, Hungarian, Czech, Polish poets, as well as works by representatives of the peoples of the USSR.

Since 1974, he settled on the territory of the Estonian SSR in the town of Pärnu. He died in 1990 in Tallinn. He was 69 years old.

The poet's work

David Samoilov, his first post-war work, short biography which is before you, published in 1948. His “Poems about the New City” were published in the magazine “Znamya”. The poet deliberately did not write anything immediately after the victory. He believed that all thoughts, feelings and impressions should settle in his soul before he began to embody all this in poetic creativity.

In 1958, the first separate collection of his poems, entitled “Neighboring Countries,” was published. His next books were a great success among readers. These are lyrical and philosophical poems in the collection “The Second Pass”, as well as “Days”, “Message”, “Wave and Stone”, “Bay”, “Voices Behind the Hills”. They talked in detail about the war and front-line years, as well as about the modern generation, the role and purpose of art, and historical subjects.

Evaluation of Samoilov's poems

Art critics and researchers of the writer’s work noted the uniqueness of his poems. In his works they saw the tragic attitude of a real participant in hostilities, which he managed to hide behind the simplest and most ordinary words, while focusing on Russian classics. Also, following the traditions of great Russian literature was always highly valued in his work.

Samoilov gained popularity during mass public appearances. The first of them took place in 1960 at the Central Lecture Hall in Kharkov. The poet read his magnificent poems and answered various questions from residents and guests of this city. The organizer of this and many of his subsequent speeches was a Kharkov writer, a close friend of the hero of our article, whose name was Lev Yakovlevich Livshits.

One of the most famous works created by Samoilov is a poem called “The Hussar’s Song.” Many Soviet and modern admirers of his work know it by the first line “When we were at war...”. These poems also became famous because at the very beginning of the 80s, the bard Viktor Stolyarov set the text to music. The result was a song and melody that is still popular today.

More recently, “The Hussar Song” by Samoilov and Stolyarov was recognized as the most popular work of the Kuban Cossacks at the beginning of the 21st century.

It is interesting that Samoilov managed to become famous not only for front-line texts. He is also known as the author of a humorous collection of prose called "Around Myself." He was also involved in literary criticism. Worked on research on poetry.

Personal life

Even in a biography for children of David Samoilov, it is important to talk about his personal life. The poet got married in 1946. His wife was 22-year-old Olga Lazarevna Fogelson. She was an art critic. Her father was well known in the Soviet Union. Like Samoilov, he was a prominent doctor. This is the famous cardiologist Lazar Izrailevich Fogelson.

In 1953, David and Olga had a son, known as Alexander Davydov. He became an excellent writer and translator. After school I entered Moscow state university who successfully graduated. Like his father, he was engaged in poetic translations. In particular, he adapted Arthur Rimbaud, Jacques Prévert, Guillaume Apollinaire, and Robert Desnos for the Russian reader.

He himself is the author of several popular books that have been published in publishing houses since the late 90s. These are “Apocrypha, or a Dream about an Angel”, “The Tale of a Nameless Spirit and a Black Mother”, “49 Days with Kindred Souls”, “Three Steps to Yourself...”, “Paper Hero” and many others. Regularly published in the magazines "Znamya", " New world", "Foreign literature", "Friendship of Peoples".

It is interesting that he is considered one of the founders and even leaders of the Vest publishing group, together with Veniamin Kaverin and Georgy Efremov. In the late 80s, this group united all the liberal-minded sixties people who were related to creative writing. Now he is 64 years old and lives in Moscow.

Over time, Samoilov left his family and married a second time. His chosen one was Galina Medvedeva. They had three children, who were named Peter, Pavel and Varvara.

In Moscow, in the family of doctor Samuil Abramovich Kaufman. The poet took the pseudonym after the war in memory of his father.

In 1938, David Samoilov graduated from school and entered the Moscow Institute of Philosophy, History and Literature (MIFLI), an association of humanities faculties separated from Moscow State University.

Samoilov's first poetic publication, thanks to his teacher Ilya Selvinsky, appeared in the magazine "October" in 1941. The poem "Hunting the Mammoth" was published signed by David Kaufman.

In 1941, Samoilov, a student, was mobilized to dig trenches. On the labor front, the poet fell ill and was evacuated to Ashgabat, where he entered the military infantry school, after which in 1942 he was sent to the Volkhov Front near Tikhvin.

In 1943, Samoilov was wounded, after hospitalization he returned to the front and became a scout. In units of the 1st Belorussian Front he liberated Poland and Germany; ended the war in Berlin. He was awarded the Order of the Red Star and medals.

During the war, the poet almost did not write. After the war, Samoilov worked as a professional poetry translator and as a radio scriptwriter.

His first publications were translations from Albanian, Polish, Czech, and Hungarian. As a translator, he was accepted into the Writers' Union.

The first post-war work, “Poems about the New City,” was published in 1948 in the magazine “Znamya.” Regular publication of his poems in periodicals began in 1955.

In 1958, he published his first book of poetry, the poem “Neighboring Countries.”

The military theme became the main one in the work of David Samoilov. In the period from 1960 to 1975, his best things about the Great Patriotic War were written: “The Forties”, “Old Man Derzhavin”, “Sorting through our dates”, “Thank God! Thank God ...”, etc. After the release of the poetry collection " Days" (1970), Samoilov's name became known to a wide circle of readers. In the collection "Equinox" (1972), the poet combined the best poems from his previous books.

Since 1967, David Samoilov lived in the village of Opalikha near Moscow. The poet did not participate in the official life of a writer, but his circle of activities was as wide as his social circle. Samoilov was friends with many of his outstanding contemporaries - Fazil Iskander, Yuri Levitansky, Bulat Okudzhava, Nikolai Lyubimov, Zinovy ​​Gerdt, Julius Kim and others. Despite his eye disease, Samoilov studied in the historical archive, working on a play about 1917; published the poetry book "Book of Russian Rhyme".

In 1974, the poet’s book “The Wave and the Stone” was published, which critics called Samoilov’s “most Pushkin-esque” book - not only in terms of the number of references to Pushkin, but, most importantly, in terms of its poetic attitude.

Over the years, David Samoilov published books of poetry “The Message” (1978), “Favorites” (1980), “The Bay” (1981), “Voices Behind the Hills” (1985), “A Handful” (1989), as well as books for children "Traffic Light" (1962) and "The Little Elephant Went to Study. Plays in Verse" (1982).

The writer did a lot of translations, participated in the creation of several performances at the Taganka Theater, at Sovremennik, at the Ermolova Theater, and wrote songs for theater and cinema.

In 1976, David Samoilov settled in the Estonian seaside city of Pärnu. New impressions were reflected in the poems that made up the collections “Message” (1978), “Tooming Street”, “Bay”, “Hand Lines” (all - 1981).

Since 1962, Samoilov kept a diary, many of the entries from which served as the basis for prose, published after his death as a separate book, “Memoirs” (1995).

In 2002, David Samoilov’s two-volume work “Daily Notes” was published, which for the first time combined the entire diary heritage of the poet into one publication.

Samoilov's brilliant humor gave rise to numerous parodies, epigrams, a humorous epistolary novel, etc. works collected by the author and his friends in the collection “In Myself,” which was published in 1993, after the poet’s death, in Vilnius and went through several reprints.

The writer was awarded the USSR State Prize (1988). His poems have been translated into many European languages.

David Samoilov died on February 23, 1990 in Tallinn, at the anniversary evening of Boris Pasternak, having barely completed his speech.

He was buried in Pärnu (Estonia) at the Forest Cemetery.

In June 2006, a memorial plaque to front-line poet David Samoilov was unveiled in Moscow. It is located on the house where he lived for more than 40 years, at the intersection of Obraztsova Street and Borby Square.

The material was prepared based on information from open sources