Svetlov Mikhail Arkadievich was born into a poor Jewish artisan family. Graduated from the Higher Primary School. He began publishing in 1917 (a poem in the newspaper Voice of a Soldier). The First World War, the October Revolution, the Civil War made it impossible to continue education. Svetlov joins the Komsomol. In 1919 he was appointed head of the press department of the Yekaterinoslav Provincial Committee of the Komsomol. In 1920, Mikhail Svetlov volunteered to defend his city as part of the 1st Yekaterinoslav Territorial Infantry Regiment and took part in the battles for several months.

In 1921 Svetlov moved to Kharkov, where he worked in the press department of the Central Committee of the Komsomol of Ukraine. Here was published the first book of his poems "Rails" (1922). Then, together with the poet M. Golodny. Svetlov arrives in Moscow, whose literary life captures young poets. In Moscow, Mikhail Svetlov studies at the workers' faculty, then at the literary department of the 1st Moscow State University, at the Higher Literary and Art Institute. V. Bryusov, where he met with, friendship with whom lasted for many years. In Moscow, Svetlov became a member of the Young Guard literary group, which united writers who sang of the revolutionary remaking of the world. At the same time, in 1924-1925 he was a member of the literary group "Pass", around which "fellow travelers" were grouped. Publishes collections "Poems" (1924) and "Roots" (1925).

In 1926, a book of poems "Night Meetings" was published. Svetlov considered the NEP period of the 1920s and 1930s to be a betrayal of revolutionary ideals. It was at this time - from dissatisfaction with the "bourgeois revolution" - Svetlov desperately rushed into romanticism and wrote the famous (1926), which he recited by heart at his concerts. About 20 composers in different countries wrote music for the words "Grenada". Svetlov also wrote poetry for underground Trotskyist leaflets. In this regard, he was summoned to the GPU, offered to be an informer, but Svetlov refused, citing the fact that he was a secret alcoholic and did not know how to keep secrets. Since then, he had no choice but to maintain this reputation.

In 1928 "for Trotskyism" Svetlov was expelled from the Komsomol. In the 1930s, another masterpiece of the poet, Kakhovka, was created. "Kakhovka" after "Grenada" became a popular song. Later it passed along all the roads of the Great Patriotic War. From the mid-1930s, Svetlov turned to dramaturgy: "Deep Province" (1935), "Fairy Tale" (1939), "Twenty Years Later" (1940), "Cape Desire" (1940).

During the war years, Svetlov was a war correspondent for the Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper on the Leningrad front. In 1942 he wrote the poem "Twenty-Eight". The most famous of the military poems - (1943). Front-line impressions of Mikhail Svetlov were reflected in the play Brandenburg Gate (1946).

In the post-war years, Svetlov's poetic work was in unspoken disgrace, he was not allowed to travel abroad. Svetlov took up teaching and became one of the most beloved professors of the Literary Institute. And again he returns to dramaturgy: “Someone else's happiness” (1953), “With new happiness” (1956) and a variation on the theme of C. Gozzi “Love for three oranges” (1964).

Only after the 2nd Congress of Writers (1954), at which Mikhail Svetlov was defended and, the wall of silence around his name was broken. After a significant break, a collection of Svetlov's poems "Horizon" (1959), "Hunting Lodge" (1964) and the last book of the poet - "Poems of recent years" (1967) appeared, for which Svetlov was posthumously awarded the Lenin Prize.

Biography

Mikhail Arkadyevich Svetlov (real name - Sheinkman; June 4 (17), 1903, Yekaterinoslav, - September 28, 1964, Moscow) - Russian Soviet poet and playwright. Laureate of the Lenin Prize (1967 - posthumously).

Mikhail Svetlov was born in Yekaterinoslav (now Dnepropetrovsk) in a poor family of a Jewish artisan. He began publishing in 1917.

In 1919 he was appointed head of the press department of the Yekaterinoslav Provincial Committee of the Komsomol. In 1920 he volunteered for the Red Army and took an active part in the Civil War. For a short time he lived in Kharkov, from where he moved to Moscow in 1922. The first collection of poems "Rails" was published in 1923 in Kharkov. In 1927-1928 he studied at Moscow State University. According to the documents of the NKVD, he supported the Left Opposition, together with the poets Mikhail Golodny and Iosif Utkin, he published the illegal opposition newspaper Kommunist, timed to coincide with November 7, 1927. The illegal printing house that printed the newspaper was located in Svetlov's house. In 1927-1928, according to the NKVD, Svetlov, together with Golodny, organized poetry evenings in Kharkov, the collection from which went to the needs of the illegal opposition Red Cross, and later provided material support to the families of the arrested oppositionists.

In 1934, when the Writers' Union of the USSR was created, Svetlov believed that from this organization "except for the vulgar officialism, there is nothing to expect." Regarding the Third Moscow Trial, Svetlov spoke as follows: “This is not a trial, but organized murders, but what, however, can be expected from them? The Communist Party no longer exists, it has been reborn, it has nothing in common with the proletariat.” The NKVD informer recorded the following statement of the poet:

The excellent members of the Party have been telling me since 1919 that they do not want to be in the Party, that they are burdened, that being in the Party has become a burden, that there is all lies, hypocrisy and hatred for each other, but it is impossible to leave the Party. Whoever returns the membership card deprives himself of bread, freedom, everything.

In a certificate compiled for Stalin by the GUGB of the NKVD of the USSR, in addition to other “Trotskyist” sins of the poet, the following was indicated: “In December 1936, Svetlov distributed an anti-Soviet quatrain about the arrival of the writer Lion Feuchtwanger in the USSR.” This quatrain is known in various versions, only the last two lines coincide in them:

"Look, if this Jew does not turn out to be a Gide" Mikhail Svetlov's famous poem "Grenada", written in 1926, was set to music by about 20 composers from different countries. On December 31, 1926, Marina Tsvetaeva wrote to Boris Pasternak: “Tell Svetlov (Young Guard) that his Grenada - my favorite - almost said: my best - verse in all these years. Yesenin did not have one of these. However, don’t say this - let Yesenin sleep peacefully.

The play about collective farm life Deep Province (1935) was criticized in Pravda and removed from the stage. During the Great Patriotic War, Svetlov was a correspondent for the Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper, then worked in the front-line press of the 1st Shock Army. The most famous of the war poems is The Italian (1943).

For the book "Poems of recent years" Svetlov was posthumously awarded the Lenin Prize. “The lyrics of Svetlov,” writes V. Kazak, “are always multifaceted; much in it remains unsaid and gives free rein to the reader's imagination. His poems are predominantly subject-matter; concrete objects serve as symbols of feelings and thoughts.

In 1931-1962, Mikhail Svetlov lived in the "House of Writers' Cooperative" in Kamergersky Lane. For a number of years he taught at the Literary Institute.

Mikhail Svetlov died of cancer on September 28, 1964. He was buried in Moscow at the Novodevichy Cemetery (site No. 6).

Family

Wife (second marriage) - Rodam Iraklievna Amirejibi (1918-1994), sister of the Georgian writer Chabua Iraklievich Amirejibi and later the wife of physicist Bruno Maksimovich Pontecorvo.
Son - Alexander (Sandro) Mikhailovich Svetlov (born 1939), screenwriter and director.

The biography of Mikhail Svetlov - a Soviet poet, playwright and journalist - includes life and work during the revolution, civil and two world wars, as well as during the period of political disgrace. What kind of person was this poet, how did his personal life develop and what was the path of creativity?

Childhood and youth

Mikhail Arkadyevich Svetlov (real name Sheinkman) was born on June 4 (17), 1903 in Yekaterinoslav (modern Dnepropetrovsk). Mikhail's father, a Jewish craftsman, raised his son and daughter Elizabeth in an atmosphere of hard work and justice. The ability to speak accurately and succinctly, to love the truth and want to convey it - all this Mikhail received thanks to his honest and hard-working family. About his childhood, Svetlov jokingly said that his father once brought a whole stack of books by Russian classics to make bags for the sale of seeds. "My father and I signed an agreement - at first I read, and only then he rolled up the bags," the poet said.

From the age of 14, carried away by communist ideas, an ardent supporter and opponent of Russia's participation in the First World War, young Mikhail published his first publications in the local newspaper Voice of a Soldier.

First steps in creativity

In 1919, 16-year-old Mikhail was appointed head of the Komsomol press department in Yekaterinoslav. At the same time, he first used the pseudonym "Svetlov".

Already in 1920, not wanting to stay away from revolutionary activities, the young man volunteered for the Red Army, showing himself to be a brave and fearless soldier in the Civil War. In 1923, Svetlov's first poetry collection, "Rails", was published in Kharkov, but it was successful only in a narrow circle of the poet's acquaintances. After he moved to Moscow, he participated in the literary groups "Young Guard" and "Pass", released two more poetry collections under the titles "Poems" in 1924, and "Roots" in 1925.

Grenada

On August 29, 1926, the poems of 23-year-old Mikhail Svetlov were published in Komsomolskaya Pravda. His biography as a famous poet began precisely from this event. It was the poem "Grenada":

I left the house

Went to fight

To land in Grenada

Give to the peasants.

Farewell, relatives,

Goodbye My friends -

"Grenada, Grenada,

Grenada is mine!"

The poems instantly spread throughout the country and were literally on everyone's lips - even Vladimir Mayakovsky himself read them at one of his speeches. And Marina Tsvetaeva, in one of her letters to Boris Pasternak, called "Grenada" her favorite poem from all that she had read in recent years.

The popularity of the poems did not fade even a decade later - in 1936, Soviet pilots participating in the Spanish War sang "Grenada" set to music while flying over Guadalajara. Behind them, the motive was picked up by European fighters - the poem became international.

During the war, in the Nazi death camp called Mauthausen, prisoners sang "Grenada" as a hymn to freedom. Mikhail Svetlov said that it was in this poem that he discovered himself as a real poet.

Opposition

Since 1927, while studying at Moscow State University, a period began in the biography of Mikhail Svetlov when he decided to become a representative of the left opposition. An illegal printing house of the opposition newspaper Kommunist was located in his house, together with the poets Golodny and Utkin, he organized poetry evenings, the money from which came to the opposition Red Cross and provided financial assistance to the families of the arrested Trotskyists. For this, in 1928 Svetlov was expelled from the Komsomol.

In 1934, Svetlov spoke negatively about the newly created Union of Writers of the USSR, calling its activities "vulgar officialism", and in 1938 - about the Moscow trial of the anti-Soviet "Right-Trotskyist" bloc, calling it "organized murders." The poet was disappointed with the way in which all revolutionary and communist ideas were distorted by the Stalinist authorities. "The Communist Party has been gone for a long time, it has degenerated into something terrible and has nothing to do with the proletariat," Mikhail Svetlov boldly spoke out.

During the war years, when the work of Mikhail Svetlov was on the lips of both the military and ordinary people, raising morale, and he himself served in the Red Army, the poet's "anti-Soviet" statements turned a blind eye. He was even awarded two Orders of the Red Star and various medals. In the photo below, Mikhail Svetlov (right) with a front-line comrade in defeated Berlin.

But in the post-war years, Svetlov's poetry naturally turned out to be under an unspoken ban - they did not publish it, they did not talk about it, he had a ban on traveling abroad. This continued until 1954, when his work was defended at the Second Congress of Writers. After that, changes took place in the biography of Mikhail Svetlov - his work was officially "permitted", they finally started talking about him openly. At this time, Svetlov's poetry collections were published: "Horizon", "Hunting Lodge", "Poems of Recent Years".

Personal life

Mikhail Svetlov was married twice. There is no information about the first wife, the second marriage was with Rodam Amirejibi, the sister of the famous Georgian writer Chabua Amirejibi. In 1939, Mikhail and Rodam had a son, Alexander, also known as Sandro Svetlov, a little-known screenwriter and director. In the photo below, Mikhail Svetlov with his wife and son.

Memory

Mikhail Arkadyevich Svetlov died of lung cancer on September 28, 1964, at the age of 61, and was buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery. For the last poetry collection "Poems of recent years" he was awarded the Lenin Prize posthumously, and later - the Lenin Komsomol Prize.

The bibliography of the poet Mikhail Svetlov includes a huge number of works, including poems, songs, essays and theater plays. In addition to "Grenada", the most famous works are the poems "Italian", "Kakhovka", "Big Road", "My Glorious Comrade" and the plays "Fairy Tale", "Twenty Years Later", "Love for Three Oranges" (based on the eponymous works by Carlo Gozzi).

In October 1965, the Moscow Youth Library, known to this day as Svetlovka, was named after the poet. In 1968, Leonid Gaidai named a cruise ship after Mikhail Svetlov in his film "The Diamond Hand", in memory of the poet, whom he respected very much. The real ship - a river boat named after Svetlov - was launched only in 1985. In many cities of the former USSR, streets named after the poet have survived to this day, and in Kakhovka, sung by him, the central microdistrict (Svetlovo) is named after him.

The third year is the heading "Golden Feathers". All gold, gold! - bright yellow malleable metal, in the periodic system of Mendeleev serial number 79. Insoluble in acids and alkalis. The Golden Pen leaves a firm mark on history. Take Mikhail Svetlov's "Grenada" - who doesn't know it? They also know the author, an incorrigible romantic, a wit, a poet. What if someone forgot? Let's remember - Svetlov is worth it.

Let's start dancing from the stove. His real name is Sheinkman. Born in Yekaterinoslav (now Dnepropetrovsk) in a poor Jewish family. In his early autobiography, he wrote briefly and ironically: "I, Mikhail Arkadievich Svetlov, was born in 1903 on July 4/17. My father is a bourgeois, petty, even very petty. He gathered 10 Jewish acquaintances and created the Joint Stock Company. a pood of rotten pears and sold it by the pound. The difference between spending and income went to my education. I studied at a higher primary school. I have been working in the Komsomol since 1919. Now I am a student at Moscow State University. I have been writing poetry since 1917."

Acquaintance with literature happened by chance: my father brought a bunch of classics into the house in order to put paper on bags for seeds. Young Svetlov gasped and agreed with his father: first he reads, and then the parent wraps. So he got involved in literature. And he also liked to tell: “As a child, I studied with a melamed. They paid him five rubles. And suddenly my father found out that in a neighboring town they take three. He came to the melamed and said:“ Well, five is five. But for this money, teach him Russian literacy."

“So I became,” Svetlov concluded, “a Russian writer.

Reading gave impetus to his own creativity, and Mikhail Svetlov, being two inches from the pot, wrote the novel "Olga Mifuzorina", which broke off on the third page. Then he became interested in poetry. The first poem was published in 1917 in the newspaper Voice of a Soldier. At the age of 16, already a serious position - the editor-in-chief of the magazine "Young Proletarian". The next milestone is the 1st Yekaterinoslav Regiment, created to fight bandits (a consequence of the Civil War).

In 1923, Svetlov, together with his Ekaterinoslav friends - Mikhail Golodny and Alexander Yasny - moved to Moscow, where he settled in a youth hostel on Pokrovka. Rabfak University, Higher Literary and Art Institute. Bryusov. And the first books - "Rails" and "Night Meetings" ("Today, a sick engine / The paw was repaired in the depot"; "Time has gone wrong now, / You can’t walk straight, / And in order to open the door, / You need to take a pass. ..") All this is a test of the pen. Silver tint, not gold. "The verdict has sounded, / The mandolin sings / And the trumpet, like an executioner / Bent over it ... / Let's drink something, friends, / For the seventeenth year, / For our weapons, for our horses! .."

At the First Congress of Writers in 1934, Nikolai Bukharin said: “Of course, Svetlov is a very good Soviet poet, but can he be compared with Heine? .. He, like many of our poets, is still provincial, the breadth of his mental horizons and the height of skill do not in no comparison with similar properties of the creator of the "Book of Songs" ... "

Where did the comparison come from? Heinrich Heine? Svetlov himself allowed himself in one of his poems to talk with Heine (he spoke Mayakovsky with Pushkin). Vladimir Vladimirovich did not really approve of the conversation with the master and called Svetlov "a gay-like Jew." The famous parodist of that time, Alexander Arkhangelsky, also vividly responded to the vision of Heine Svetlov:

Sit down, I beg you, on this couch, Poems and poems I will read to you now! .. - I look at the guest, - he is white as a wall, And whispers with horror: - Thank you, not on ... - Yes, Heine exclaimed: — Comrade Svetlov! No need, no need, no need for poetry!

Here is a clear echo of Svetlov's super-famous "Grenada". This poem was published in Komsomolskaya Pravda on August 29, 1926 and immediately glorified Svetlov. Even Tsvetaeva wrote Pasternak from Paris: "Tell Svetlov that his "Grenada" is my favorite (almost said best) verse."

We rode at a pace, We raced in battles And "Apple" - the song We held in our teeth. Ah, this song is still kept by the young Grass - Steppe malachite ...

Later, Svetlov told the story of the creation of "Grenada": they say, he was walking along Tverskaya and saw the sign "Hotel Grenada" - "and a crazy thought appeared: let me write some kind of serenade." The serenade eventually developed into a ballad in the spirit of Leon Trotsky's "permanent revolution". There was a very tempting idea of ​​the 1920s: a world revolution; to expel capital and assert the victory of the workers and peasants, this is where the Ukrainian lad has "Spanish sadness": "We rushed, dreaming / To comprehend as soon as possible / The grammar of battle - / The language of batteries."

Some kind of cosmic idea of ​​universal truth and justice, regardless of the victims.

The detachment did not notice the Loss of a fighter And "Bullseye" - the song Finished to the end.

They did not notice the millions who died on various external fronts and on the internal fronts: so many "enemies of the people" were found on their own territory, among their own. But in the beginning no one thought about it. Most importantly, Grenada, Grenada, my Grenada! If we ignore the meaning, then bewitching poems. Sadly captivating. The poet instantly became famous.

"Grenada" became Elbrus and Kazbek of Mikhail Svetlov's creativity. He himself, in his mild ironic manner, said: “There are poems-officers, poems-generals. Sometimes a poem-marshal comes across. I have such a marshal -“ Grenada ”. "There are two generals. "Kakhovka" - also of respectable age. And - middle-aged - "Italian". And how many privates, untrained!"

The second peak is "Kakhovka", written in 1935 and set to music by Isaak Dunayevsky. People of the older generation will immediately remember the "Song of Kakhovka":

Do you remember, comrade, how we fought together, How the storm embraced us? Then Her blue eyes smiled at both of us through the smoke...

Such a sweet memory song, but it also has another meaning, which, perhaps, Mikhail Arkadievich did not put into it: the words "but our armored train / Stands on a siding!" sound like a threat. The threat of the return of Stalinism, the threat of the return of imperial manners, the threat of the suppression of any individual rights. As a romantic, Mikhail Arkadyevich, of course, did not think about this. But it turned out to be terribly menacing.

The poem "Italian" was written in 1943 (during the war, Svetlov was a political worker, wrote essays, poems, military correspondence).

A young native of Naples! What did you leave on the field in Russia? Why couldn't you be happy Over your own famous bay? I, who killed you near Mozdok, So dreamed of a distant volcano! How I dreamed in the Volga region At least once a ride in a gondola!

Svetlov had no more poetic peaks. The bulk of the wonderful and good poems came in the 1920s. These are "Rabfakovka", "Old Russia", "Don Quixote", when the poet could be lyrically relaxed, ironic and cheerful.

Years of many centuries Above me numb. It is so hard. If I lived indulging ... I'm alone - I left my Dulcinea ...

Yes, and Svetlov's sadness was, if a pun, it was exceptionally bright. In the 1930s, strained verses began to appear, without nerve and drive. And here it must be said about Svetlov's attitude to the Soviet government, to "Sofya Vlasyevna", as they said then. In his youth, Svetlov, like many others, believed in the promised bright distances, but, alas, life became psychologically worse and worse, and the poet had a longing that "didn't work out", "didn't come true", and maybe even Feeling "cheated". Add to this the sticky fear of constant repression.

“I remember him as a non-drinker, rejoicing in glory,” Semyon Lipkin wrote in his memoirs. “He was devastated by the defeat of the opposition. He sympathized with Trotsky, was not prepared for imperial cruelties. All Komsomol poets of the first generation, like the entire Komsomol of that time, were fascinated by Trotsky .. Bezymensky proudly declared: "I will open my chest like a sailor ... and shout:" Long live Trotsky!

Leon Trotsky was expelled from the country, and then vilely killed. Yesenin and Mayakovsky themselves passed away. Many poets and writers were put against the wall. And who survived in the "great terror"? Mostly conformists, including Svetlov. He never bullied, but he didn't serve either. Once he was reproached for being too fond of Soviet power. Svetlov was surprised and replied: "And who should I love? The Belgian authorities, or what?" Mikhail Svetlov was never an excellent student of Soviet poetry, like, for example, Sergei Mikhalkov, he sat in the back of the classroom, "in Kamchatka", and from there he gave his witty reprises.

In the pre- and post-war years, Svetlov wrote not as vividly and interestingly as in the 20s, he did a lot of dramaturgy (“Deep Province”, “Fairy Tale”, “Twenty Years Later”), devoted a lot of time to teaching poetic youth (“In poetry should be entered like a Muslim into a mosque, having previously taken off his shoes. "Poems should have an infectious property - infect readers" - from statements at a poetry seminar at the Literary Institute). But on the whole, in the second half of Mikhail Arkadievich's life, a poignant note of sadness dominated. Being a romantic, the poet was out of work, in fact, in a deep reserve, and even under the heel of fear. Lev Ozerov noted: “It is customary to portray Mikhail Svetlov as a kind of merry fellow; a wit, the soul of a friendly feast, Khoja Nasreddin of Soviet poetry. I have never met a person more focused on the destinies of the world, saddened by them. this wit is the bitter root. All his anguish, all his loneliness, all his vulnerability he hid behind wit. This was his armor. Such brilliant wit could not be a mask. It was deeply rooted in the personality of the poet.

At a feast among the merry there is always one sad.

This "sad one" is Mikhail Svetlov. But this "sad" amused everyone. He masterfully mastered the hearts of the silent and sad. The presence of Svetlov guaranteed any audience from boredom and dullness ... "

There is a whole literature about Svetlov's jokes and smiles. He was always sparkling in poetry and sayings.

To my funny language You do not be Cruel and picky - I'm not a professor at Moscow State University, But just a modest son of Berdichev.

The golden book of humor includes many of Svetlov’s sayings, such as: “Friendship is a round-the-clock concept”, “Genius is our eternal friendship”, “A decent person is one who does nasty things without pleasure”, “He smelled amazingly of the presidium " etc.

One lucky playwright purchased a massive gold watch with a thick gold bracelet. Seeing this acquisition, Svetlov suggested: "Old man, why don't we drink the second hand?"

One importunate lady endlessly asked the ill Svetlov: "And what do they still find with you?" He replied: "Talent!"

Some enthusiastic admirer, seeing Svetlov, exclaimed: "My God, in front of me is a living classic!" To which the poet objected: "What are you! Barely alive." Regarding poetic texts, Svetlov liked to say: "I want to drink from a pure spring of poetry before the editor bathes in it." At the anniversary of Shota Rustaveli, Svetlov burst out impromptu:

We arrived in Tbilisi, We all got drunk there. They drank something, they ate something, In a word, Shota Rustaveli.

Svetlov helped people cheerfully and festively, like a kind magician, recalled Margarita Aliger. He could suddenly easily, cheerfully and naturally invite a middle-aged woman tired of worries, a modest employee of a publishing house, somehow making ends meet, to have lunch with her or go to the cinema. And inadvertently drag him into a shoe store and, as if playing, make him buy new shoes ...

Mikhail Arkadyevich Svetlov was an amazing unmercenary. Everything that he earned, he spent on friends, on treats, on gifts, and very little on himself. For some reason, there was never enough money. Once he came to the publishing house on the day of the fee, but it turned out that his name was not in the statement. Another would be upset, and Svetlov only joked: "I haven't seen money for a long time. I came to see how they look."

During the period of the struggle against cosmopolitanism, when the name of the organization "Joint" sounded ominous and many were suspected of being "paid agents", Svetlov somehow stayed too long in a restaurant and, rummaging through his pockets to pay, said to the whole hall: " I don’t know how I’ll burst into tears ... “Joint” hasn’t been sent to me for a long time. It was a daring joke!

Personally, Svetlov spent little on himself, just on a drink. In winter, he went in an autumn coat, his clothes were always in a sloppy look, but the poet did not care about this, he lived exclusively in poetry. Once, before leaving for Vilnius, where the Days of Russian Poetry were being prepared, Svetlov’s wife begged Lev Ozerov: “I don’t ask you to make sure that Mikhail Arkadyevich doesn’t smoke. so that he doesn't go to bed in a new suit." Well, and, of course, Svetlov fell asleep in a new suit, which is why in the morning the jacket became wrinkled and chewed. Ozerov, who lived with him in the same room, said: "We need to stroke." Svetlov replied with a joke: "Let them stroke me better, it will be more pleasant for me."

Svetlov was overthrown by a severe illness. One day in the hospital, the poet turned to Lydia Libedinskaya: "Old woman, bring me a beer!" — "Beer?!" “Yes, I think I have cancer.”

Yevgeny Yevtushenko wrote in The Ballad of Criminal Softness (1968), noting that Svetlov never made it to Spain:

And without reproach, Extinguished already, He died with the absence of Grenada in his soul ... Yuri Bezelyansky

Childhood. Youth

Svetlov was born on 4(17).06.1903. The hometown of Mikhail Arkadyevich Sheinkman (his real name) is Yekaterinoslav (now Dnepropetrovsk). In 1917 he graduated from a four-year school.

Since the Sheinkman family was not rich, Mikhail had to earn extra money during his studies. He worked as a photographer's assistant and as a "boy" at the stock exchange. At the age of sixteen, Mikhail became a member of the Komsomol.

Soon, Mikhail Sheinkman was appointed to head the press department of the provincial committee of Yekaterinoslav. At the age of seventeen, Mikhail voluntarily goes to the front. For several months he has been fighting for his city in an infantry regiment.

In 1922, the aspiring poet moved to Moscow, where he finally managed to continue his studies. First, he studied at the workers' faculty, then at the literary faculty of Moscow State University.

In the capital, a young man plunges headlong into literary life. He visits the literary groups "Young Guard" and "Pass".

The poet reacted very negatively to the poet, for him it was a betrayal of the idea. He even composed poetry for clandestinely issued Trotskyist leaflets. It was for Trotskyism that Svetlov was expelled from the Komsomol in 1928.

The Great Patriotic War

During the poet was at the front as a war correspondent. He told the readers of the Red Star about what was happening on the battlefields. Everything he sees and experiences he reflects in his work. After the war, Mikhail Arkadyevich taught at the Literary Institute, where he won universal love.

Creativity of Mikhail Svetlov

"Voice of a Soldier" is the first newspaper in which Mikhail Svetlov's poems appeared. He was fourteen years old when his poem appeared in print. With his first earned money, the young poet bought a large loaf of bread in order to feed his family in plenty.

The young man was a romantic to the core, he sincerely believed in the ideas of communism, he dreamed of remaking the whole world. He expressed the ideas and life ideals of the communist-minded youth in poetry.

Of course, his youthful poems are imperfect, they still do not have those “Svetlovka” intonations that will be so recognizable later. But even in the early works, the sincerity of experiences, faith in a brighter future is visible.

Early compilations:

• "Rails" (1923)
• "Poems" (1924)
• "Roots" (1925)

In 1926, the world-famous "Grenada" appeared. In the same year, the book of poems "Night Meetings" was published, which began a creative decline that stretched for several decades. In 1930, "Kakhovka" came out from Svetlov's pen - another famous creation that became a popular song.

Dramaturgy

In the mid-thirties, Mikhail Svetlov wrote dramatic works:

• 1935 - "Blue Province"
  
• 939 - "Fairy Tale"
• 1940 - "Twenty Years Later" and "Cape Desire".

The most popular works about the war:

• 1942 - "Twenty-eight" (poem)
• 1943 - "Italian" (poem)
• 1946 - Brandenburg Gate (play).

Creativity of the post-war period

After the war, Svetlov's poems fell into unspoken disgrace, they were not published, and the poet himself was not allowed to go abroad.

• 1953 - "Alien Happiness" (play)
• 1956 - "With new happiness" (play)
• 1959 - "Horizon" (collection of poems)
• 1964 - "The Hunting Lodge" (collection of poems)
• 1964 - "The Love for Three Oranges" (play).

"Poems of recent years" - Svetlov's last collection, published in 1967. She brought the author a high award (Lenin Prize). In the early autumn of 1964, the talented poet Mikhail Svetlov passed away. The cause of his death was severe cancer.