ERLIKH Anna Moiseevna
(1874 - 1955)
Mother of the poet Wolf Ehrlich. Born in Dubrovno, Goretsky district, Mogilev province.
ERLIKH Wolf Iosifovich
(07.06.1902 - 24.11.1937)
Poet, member of the Leningrad group of Imagists. After the Simbirsk gymnasium, he studied at the Faculty of History and Philology of Kazan University. During the Civil War, he served in the Red Army as secretary of the pedagogical laboratory of the Main Political Directorate of Education of the Committee of the Tatar Republic.
In 1920, he took a general education course in the 1st Infantry Kazan Territorial Regiment. He studied at the literary and artistic department of social sciences of Petrograd University, but in 1923 he was fired for poor progress.
In 1925, Erlich held the Chekist position of the responsible duty officer of the First House of Soviets, the former Astoria Hotel, in the same year he received a two-room apartment on Nekrasov Street. Erlich was also one of the witnesses in the 5th issue of Angleterre, where in the same 1925 Yesenin's body was found. Later, he wrote memoirs about the poet, putting the following words into his mouth: “You know, there is one person ... If he wants to whip me, then I will take off my pants and lie down myself! Oh God, I'm going to bed! Do you know who? - he lowers his voice to a whisper: - Trotsky! About the attitude of Sergei Yesenin to Trotsky, his character Chekistov-Leibman speaks in the poem "Country of Scoundrels".
Starting from 1926, Erlich published 9 books, in particular: "In the Village" (1926), "Wolf Sun" (1928), "Arsenal" (1931), etc. In 1929, his book about Sophia Perovskaya was published. In 1936, together with N. Bersenev, he wrote the script for the film Volochaev Days. Erlich was well known and appreciated by the reading public of the 1920s and 1930s.
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VERB TRADING Where are the carousel chimes Yes, farce buzz Broke off a light leash, Float, float, float - Under the cries of pedlars, Tearing the heart of children's sobs: The loudspeakers are lying Police whistles Where there! Above the radio Oh, balls, kind, Over you tipped over Wake up, sirs, |
Text source: collection "Bonfire" L. 1927
Tsarskoye Selo. July 1924
From left to right: Pyotr Sudnov, Mikhail Yakovlev, poet Wolf Erlich, Sergei Yesenin, Igor..., Alexander Kuimov.
Karokhin, L. Wolf Erlich - a friend and student of Sergei Yesenin. Oblik publishing house, 2007
Disputes around the death of S. Yesenin have been going on since the end of the 80s of the last century, when, after decades of “silence and smoothing” of history and literature, Russian literary criticism entered the era of discoveries. However, for contemporaries there was a lot of mystery in the death of Yesenin. Among the researchers there are supporters of versions of the murder, in which, as some believe, the Leningrad poet V. Erlich (1902–1937) was also involved, there are those who adhere to the traditional version - the poet's suicide. L.F. Karokhin has been studying the life and work of Yesenin since 1983, participating in the All-Union and International Yesenin readings and symposiums, in work on the “Chronicle of the life and work of S. Yesenin”. He has over two hundred articles in periodicals. This book is the ninth on Yesenin's topics. The author traces the life and creative path of Wolf Iosifovich Erlich - a poet, memoirist, screenwriter, friend and student of S. Yesenin. In a relatively short time of acquaintance, V. Erlich (this acquaintance took place at the beginning of 1924 and continued in 1924–1925) became not only a friend of Sergei Yesenin, but also a full representative in Leningrad for publishing affairs. He was next to the poet in the last days of his life. The author opposes attempts to denigrate the good name of Erlich, who was shot in November 1937 and slandered twice: in the 30s and 80s of the twentieth century. He draws his conclusions on the basis of archival documents, memoirs of contemporaries, memoirs of V. Erlich himself. The book of V. Erlich - “The right to the song”. Memories of Sergei Yesenin. L., 1932 - for a long time it was not reprinted and only in 1992 was it completely included in the collection “How Yesenin read”, published in Chelyabinsk. The researcher enters into an open debate with his opponents, including the creators of the television series Yesenin. Surprising or not? The sources of all modern researchers are the same, but the conclusions are different.
May 18 marked the 110th anniversary of the birth of Wolf Erlich (1902-1938), a poet, a native of Simbirsk, a graduate of the Simbirsk gymnasium. His name is associated with the last two years of the life of Sergei Yesenin. According to the revelatory versions of the latest time, he is an agent of the GPU and is either a direct participant, or an accomplice and concealer of the murder of Yesenin. However, sensational publications did not shake the version, which is still official today: Yesenin was not killed, he killed himself in Angleterre, having previously given his friend Wolf Erlich, Vovochka, a poem written in blood: “Goodbye goodbye my friend…”
Sexot
The official version of Sergei Yesenin's suicide raises many questions to which no one can give convincing answers. And this still allows us to assume with a high degree of probability that the poet was killed.
The author of the television series "Yesenin" proposed one of the versions of a possible massacre. Without touching on the artistic merits of the picture, we can say that the version shown in it is quite plausible. The writer was "removed" by the Trotskyists out of fear that Yesenin would give their inner-party enemies some compromising evidence. In the deadly struggle for power between the supporters of Trotsky and Stalin, the removal of the poet was only a fleeting episode. The writer Viktor Kuznetsov has another suggestion. The reason for the murder could be the intention of Sergei Yesenin to leave the country, which the Chekists became aware of from friends who “knocked” on the poet. Among those, it is quite possible - "dear friend" Vovochka, Wolf Ehrlich. Examining the archives, Viktor Kuznetsov discovered that since 1920 (from the age of eighteen) Erlich was a secret agent of the Cheka-GPU. Where is the boundary between the friendly, creative relations of two poets and squealing? the writer asks. - And in this case, what is the price of the memories of Erlich and those like him?
In the course of his research, Kuznetsov rejects both the very fact of stopping Sergei Yesenin in the Angleterre room, and the authenticity of the documents from the inspection of the scene and the conclusion of the forensic medical examination. According to the writer, Yesenin died from beatings in another place, and then was secretly taken to a hotel to simulate suicide. Almost the entire company of witnesses and witnesses who put their signatures under the documents on the death of Yesenin consists of acquaintances and friends of Wolf Erlich. Everything related to "Yesenin's last poem" is also in turn questioned, for example, the authorship and authenticity of the autograph. The verse could have been quickly bungled by another poet - the direct organizer of the massacre, the Chekist Yakov Blyumkin, although such a version is rejected by the handwriting examination. The poem is genuine. But why wasn't he included in the case as a suicide note? Perhaps the verse was written earlier and is not dedicated to Erlich at all. There are enough mysteries and fakes in this case. The main body of information is still carefully closed.
Younger brother
On June 7, 1902, the rabbi of the city of Simbirsk made a record that “the pharmacist Joseph Lazarevich Erlikh had a son from his legal wife Anna Moiseevna, who, according to the rite of the Mosaic law, was given the name Wolf.” In his native city, he graduated from the gymnasium and first entered the medical faculty of Kazan University, and then moved on to the historical and philological ...
The version about complicity of Wolf Erlich in the murder or in the subsequent perjury organized by the GPU is not accepted by the Ulyanovsk researcher of his work Larisa Ershova, who published the article “Gossip goes beyond the law” in the December issue of the Monomakh magazine for 2007.
She can oppose only one thing to the “villainous” version: evidence of the relationship between the two poets. But the evidence is very compelling.
The poets met in the 1920s. The poet Nikolai Tikhonov, in the preface to Ehrlich's posthumous collection of poems, wrote: “Wolf Erlich, having met Yesenin for the first time, was so excited and shocked by him that from that day he began to approach him, and, finally, this rapprochement ended in a great and true friendship. , which lasted until the last day of Yesenin's life. For Erlich, Yesenin became an idol, everything personal was subordinated to the "big brother". Ershova cites the memoirs of Wolf Erlich's sister Mirra Iosifovna Tolkacheva:
My mother and I,” she said in a personal conversation with the researcher, “did not recognize Wolf when Yesenin was next to him. My brother forgot everything.
This dependence frightened relatives, but they could not do anything. “I am ready to serve you,” Erlich will once say to Yesenin.
On his last visit to Leningrad in December 1925, Yesenin instructed Erlich to rent an apartment for him, then changed his mind, deciding to stay with the Erlichs, then changed his mind again and settled in a hotel. When they said goodbye at the Angleterre Hotel, Yesenin thrust his last poem “Goodbye, my friend, goodbye ...” into Wolf’s breast pocket, asking him to read it at home. Returning home late at night, he read the sheet and shouted to his sister: “Mirka, he wrote with blood!” Immediately the brother and sister rushed out into the street to catch a cab. But it was already too late.
“Everyone reproached Erlich for not saving Yesenin, and he himself most of all was executed by this. But no one, I repeat, no one accused him of murder then,” writes Larisa Yershova.
Commentary of local historians
Irina Makeeva, Director of the Simbirsk Classical Gymnasium Museum:
In our museum, the information actually does not differ from the official one. They were friends with Sergei Yesenin, and Wolf Erlich was not involved in the death of the poet. When we wrote an inquiry about the identity of Wolf Erlich, the only thing we managed to find out (since the archives, the special guards still do not give accurate information) is the exact date of his death. Because before that it was 1944 everywhere, and that he died in prison from liver cancer, in fact he was shot as early as the beginning of 1938. As for the murder itself, here, apparently, there is still complete uncertainty. Although the Yesenin Committee, where we wrote the request, replied that Wolf Erlich had nothing to do with the murder of the poet.
Ivan Sivoplyas, local historian, researcher at the Museum-Reserve “Motherland of V.I. Lenin":
I think the impetus for the birth of this version (Erlich's participation in Yesenin's murder - A.Yu.) was the fact that Sergei Yesenin's friend's name was Wolf Erlich, and not Ivan Petrov. Hence - a conspiracy you know who against the national Russian poet.
We like to look for conspiracies. To say that Wolf Erlich was the man who destroyed Yesenin would be very incompetent. In itself, it is very interesting that a person who was born in Simbirsk was at that time next to Sergei Yesenin. Perhaps this fact will encourage someone to study the poet's work, his extraordinary and talented poems. We remember Yesenin's poem dedicated to him, but, alas, we don't know what poems the poet wrote. The poet himself was destroyed in the 30s during the Stalinist repressions. Also interesting is such a page in Erlich's life as an affair with Militsa Nechkina - later a historian, academician, laureate of the Stalin Prize. It was such a cruel time, and you will not envy the people who fell into its millstones.
Help "AiF"
Erlich Wolf Iosifovich (1902-1937 (?)). Born on May 18 (6), 1902 in Simbirsk in the family of a pharmacist. In 1911-1919. studied at the Simbirsk male classical gymnasium, after graduating he entered the medical faculty of Kazan University. Passion for poetry and literature forced him to transfer in 1921 to the second year of the literary and artistic department of social sciences at Petrograd University. In 1923 he was expelled for academic failure. He began to write his first poems in high school. He was a member of the "Militant Order of the Imagists", was friendly with Sergei Yesenin. Being a sincere person, a romantic by nature, enthusiastic and naive about life, Wolf Ehrlich unconditionally accepted the revolution and hated its enemies. In the poem "Simbirsk" the author draws the formation of Soviet power in the city. There is an assumption that Erlich took part in the battles for Simbirsk in September 1918 (the poem "Went Sixteen Times"). His poetry is not limited to the motives of the struggle, it is diverse and rich in poetic reflections and lyrical landscapes. In 1936, he wrote (together with N.Ya. Bersenev) the script for the film Volochaev Days about the events of the civil war in the Far East. Author of the books "Wolf's Heart" (1928), "Sofya Perovskaya" (1929), "The Right to Song" (1930), "Arsenal" (1931), "The Order of the Battle" (1933), "The Book of Poems" (1934), "An Extraordinary Meeting of Friends" (1937). In 1937, V. Erlich went to Armenia to collect material about the Armenian repatriates. On July 19, 1937, he was arrested, no one saw him again. According to one version, he was shot on November 24, 1937, but in the official certificate of rehabilitation (1955) it was reported that V. I. Erlikh died in 1944, and his grave is unknown. (Calendar of significant dates of the Ulyanovsk region for 2012).
On Vagankovo birches,
Maple and white fur
What do you think our wind is hard
And prickly snow?
There, in the land of wonderful white,
The poplars are noisy...
Sleep my swan!
Sleep, my brave!
Sleep, my elder brother!
1928.
ABOUT PIG
When, having crossed all truths, all laws
And laying half a century under the cloth,
Your slow pantaloons
You will lead in front of my window,
And suddenly you smile pork snouts
A crimson scroll of uncooked miracles,
And you will bring in a balding nape
And fat on it under a canvas canopy,
And finally, when you enter the shop
And grunt yourself, without picking up saliva,
And a round knife hanging over the counter
You will cut a stack of ham,
Remind a friend: holy name day
Your celebrating is out of the habit of my poor age.
Think friend: not only for pork -
And man was created for execution.
BY THE WAY
There is nowhere to spit here. Some creators. haughtily
They sit and drink. Whatever the fool is the creator.
The rite is still the same. Table, mug of beer
And a shriveled cucumber on bread.
Where actors drink - looks richer:
Well, there is a jumper, glasses, stockings, cognac.
Europe is delirious, crying with all the seams
A jacket that did not reach the sacrum.
And the smell wanders - sweaty, slippery, warm.
Here the hysterical clings to the scoundrel.
There the poet drinks, smearing snot
By a stupid beautiful face.
But the day comes. It's simple as a theorem
Alive as blood, and accurate as a shutter.
I drank your wine, I ate your bread, bohemia.
I pay you with an aspen stake for that.
The beginning of the Soviet era in our country was marked by the appearance of many works of literature written by well-known and still little-known authors. One of these talents was Wolf Ehrlich, whose work we will talk about in more detail.
For modern readers, this name is practically unknown, but contemporaries were well aware of the bright and poignant poetic terms of this poet.
What is this person remembered for?
Let's try to answer this question.
Childhood and youth of the poet
Born in the city of Simbirsk in 1902. His father was a pharmacist, his mother was a housewife. The poet's surname goes back to the Hebrew language and means "God-fearing person."
It was very difficult for the future poet, as a native of a Jewish family, to prove his right to receive a higher education. And since childhood, the boy dreamed of both a career and literary fame. He brilliantly graduated from the gymnasium, entered Kazan University, but he failed to get a diploma from this prestigious institution: the Civil War began, which dramatically changed the life of a provincial youth.
Wolf Erlich entered the Red Army, but he did not have to fight as a simple soldier. Having shown his education, he was appointed to the post of secretary of the pedagogical laboratory of the education department.
After the end of the war, he moved to the then post-revolutionary Petrograd, decided to continue his studies, entered the literary and artistic department of Petrograd University, but was expelled for poor progress.
In the same years, the young poet became close friends with the circle of Imagists, trying to establish himself in the literary field.
Literary successes
Since 1926, Wolf Ehrlich began to publish his works in print, one after another he published collections of poems. Among them are books called "In the Village", "Arsenal", "Wolf Sun" and others.
Three years later (in 1929) he published his poem dedicated to the revolutionary populist Sofya Perovskaya, who organized the assassination of Emperor Alexander. His poems are published in popular literary magazines of that time, such as Red Night, Star, Literary Contemporary.
Wolf Iosifovich Erlich becomes a member of the newly organized writers' union. Already at the end of the 1920s, he was fond of translations, he translated a lot from the Armenian language.
mature years
Erlich combines literary activity with hard work for the benefit of the Bolshevik Party.
So, since 1925, he has hushed up the position, which was called "Chekist". It was the post of responsible duty officer at the Leningrad Soviet.
Later, Erlich works as an editor for several literary magazines, working on screenplays.
His life ends tragically. The reason for this was the repressions that Stalin consistently carried out among the old Bolsheviks. In 1937, the poet was arrested, sentenced under the infamous article number 58 to death, the sentence was carried out in the same year.
Love for Armenia
Wolf Erlich wrote many poems during his life, his biography reveals to us the sources of his creative inspiration. And one of them was Armenia.
Erlich made his first trip to this land together with him in the 1920s. He fell in love with the beauty of these places. The poet later wrote in letters to his relatives that he had never seen anything better.
The poet created a whole cycle of poems about Armenia, which were then included in his collections "Alagez stories", "Armenia" and others.
Throughout his subsequent life, the poet sought to come to these parts. Here he was arrested. Friends believed that he was arrested by accident. On this day, he came to visit an Armenian family, the feast lasted until late in the evening, and at night the NKVD officers came to arrest the hosts. Together with everyone, Erlich was also arrested. For a long time nothing was known about his fate. Only in 1956 did his relatives receive a conclusion on his posthumous rehabilitation.
Friendship with S. Yesenin
Wolf Erlich and Yesenin were friends, they were united by a common participation in the activities of the “order” of the Imagists, common interests and views on literature. Erlich often supported his talented friend, dealt with the issues of publishing his works, and organized joint poetry evenings.
Arriving in Leningrad in December 1925, Yesenin wanted to stay with Erlich, but then changed his mind and rented a room in the infamous hotel in the city center. He gave Erlich his farewell poem "Goodbye, my friend," which he asked to read at home.
Erlich complied with the request, but when he read the poem at home, he saw that its lines were written in blood. He rushed back to the hotel, but Yesenin was already dead.
After the discovery of the body of Sergei Yesenin in the hotel, Erlich helped organize the funeral. He also spoke at the trial, where he spoke out in support of the version of suicide, presenting the text of Yesenin's last poem.
Some modern literary scholars assess the role of Erlich in fate in different ways and some accuse him of being an agent of the GPU, so his relationship with the great poet was not friendship, but banal surveillance. It is difficult to answer anything to these people after so many years since the death of both Yesenin and Erlich himself. Yesenin's lines remain the only answer, in which he refers to Erlich as a close friend.
The value of the poet's creative path
Many contemporaries remember Wolf Ehrlich. His photo, taken in 1928, betrays in him a modest person who knows the value of his word.
His contemporaries believed that the tragic death of Wolf cut short not only his life, but also his future literary successes. Ehrlich's talent could still be revealed in full, the poet was full of creative strength and hopes, but he could not realize them, partly sharing the sad fate of people of his generation who went through the crucible of the civil war, full of faith in the possibility of building a socialist society of prosperity, who made mistakes on the field of building a new state, but found themselves in the face of an inevitable and terrible reality that led them to death.
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Biography
Erlikh Wolf Iosifovich, Russian Soviet poet, comes from a Jewish family.
After the Simbirsk gymnasium, he studied at the Faculty of History and Philology of Kazan University.
In 1936, together with N. Bersenev, he wrote the script for the film Volochaev Days.
Erlich was well known and appreciated by the reading public of the 1920s and 1930s. He was also known as a poet-translator from the Armenian language.
Member of the Union of Soviet Writers.
Lived in: Leningrad, st. Rubinshteina, 7, apt. 12.
On July 19, 1937 Wolf Ehrlich was arrested. Commission of the NKVD and the Prosecutor's Office of the USSR November 19, 1937 on charges: Art. 58-1a-7-10-11 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR sentenced to death. Shot on November 24, 1937. Rehabilitated in the 1950s.
Erlich and Armenia
At the end of the twenties, Erlich, together with Tikhonov, made his first trip to the Caucasus. Tikhonov, who persuaded a friend to go with him to the “discovery” of the biblical country, which he had already visited earlier, in 1924, and fell in love with it selflessly, giving the Russian reader a wonderful “Armenian cycle” of poetry and prose, recalled the delight of his companion, who discovered Armenia for myself:
"Works and reflections" of the poet himself were not long in coming. Together with Tikhonov, climbing Aragats, climbing the volcanic heights of the Armenian mountains above Sevan, Erlich wrote and published in the Russian literary press remarkable poems and essays about the Armenian land and the Armenian people (“Armenia”, “Alagez stories”, etc.).
The story of N. Tikhonov about the days spent with Erlich in Armenia, and reflected in his famous essay "Days of Discoveries", is so exciting that it is impossible to bypass it, especially since it also contained the most interesting observations about Yesenin, sounded first hand.
“In the summer of 1929, together with the Leningrad poet Wolf Erlich, we wandered through the wonderful mountains of Armenia. Having overcome the Geghama Range, we had to go to the upper reaches of the Garni-chai and go down to Geghard, a monastery called Ayrivank, which means “cave”. Since no shelter awaited us in this stormy area, we found rocks in which, shimmering with a strange, phosphoric blue, flashing with white sparks, a small lake lurked. Among the dark basalt rocks, it seemed like a piece of blue flame. A better place to stay could not be imagined. The water in the lake was very cold. Before we had time to stop, an unusually strong wind blew ... A cold wind, a cold stone of rocks, a cold lake ... But we did not want to leave here ...
Wolf exclaimed: “This is a magical place! And the sorcerer is there ... ”I went to him. He stood in front of a stone statue, gloomy and concealing an unknown threat. "What it is?" - he asked. “This is vishap, only vishap! God knows what it is. Either a road sign, or an object of worship, or something else ... There are whole studies about vishaps. The opinions of scientists differ. But the fact that we found it here is very interesting. Let's drink to his health!" And we drank vodka like water, not feeling its taste - it was so cold ... The tall vishap also looked at us with icy wide eyes. The huge body of a monster, either a fish or a dragon, polished by the winds, beaten by storms, was hammered into stones as a sign of eternity. Vishap stood guard over the phosphoric lake. On its shore one could talk about anything, the emptiness of this place was conducive to frankness, and human voices were simply necessary here. And we talked, standing under the freezing wind of the desert ... "
On the volcanic heights of Armenia, among the ancient craters, Erlich suddenly asks Tikhonov: “What day is it today?” Hearing the answer "August 22, 1929", he pointedly says:
Not only the majestic nature, but also the people of Armenia amazed Erlich. Once among ordinary peasants, he confidently declares to Tikhonov: “I like this ancient and so young, fierce, strong people ... I will return to Armenia, I give you my word of honor. I have already seen many people of this country, but I want to see even more ... "
Erlich kept his word: he visited Armenia more than once, and later, without Tikhonov, he got to know it all, shared feasts with the winegrowers of the Ararat Valley, communicated with the border guards on the Araks, lived on the cares of repatriates, admired the Armenian intelligentsia ... Armenia conquered Erlich forever, and only it is sincerely a pity that his spiritual and spiritual attachment to the ancient country and people turned out to be the last in his life!
Wolf Erlich also became interested in translations from Armenian poetry, giving several generally successful examples from Mkrtich Nagash, Hakob Hakobyan, and others. The name of Erlich as a translator is found in a number of anthologies of Armenian poetry in Russian, which indicates a fairly high assessment of his translation exercises in Armenia.
The excitement of meeting a new land, comprehending the attractive world with strangers, customs, harsh bewitching nature make a revolution in the heart of young Wolf and give an excellent result: a talented writer with a dramatic finale of his life, with his brotherly inspired word, complements a worthy number of friends of the Armenian people, artists who sang Armenia.
In 1937 Wolf was arrested in Yerevan by local authorities and sent to Leningrad. In November of the same year, he was sentenced under the "execution" article ... There is a version that Erlich, who was really arrested in the thirty-seventh, was actually killed in prison only in 1944. It is only known for certain that in 1937. Erlich comes to Armenia to collect materials about Armenian repatriates (a new film was being prepared according to his script). Came and disappeared. As it was believed later, Erlich seemed to stay up to visit one of the Armenian families, and at night the whole family was arrested by the NKVD, at the same time taking the Russian poet. The relatives were not told anything, and they did not know what to think. N. Tikhonov energetically joined the search in Russia, Marietta Shaginyan in Armenia, however, their persistent search was promptly covered by the “authorities”, recommending that they not contact anyone else on this issue ...
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