What Simonov wrote. Literary and historical notes of a young technician

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early years

Konstantin was born on November 15 (28), 1915 in Petrograd. But Simonov lived the first years of his life in Saratov and Ryazan. He was named Kirill by his parents, but then changed his name and took a pseudonym - Konstantin Simonov. He was raised by his stepfather, who was a military specialist and taught at military schools.

Education

If we consider Simonov’s brief biography, it is important to note that after completing seven years of school, the writer studied to become a turner. Then in the life of Konstantin Simonov, in 1931, he moved to Moscow, after which he worked at the plant until 1935.

Around the same time, Simonov’s first poems were written, and his works were published for the first time in 1936.

After receiving higher education at the Gorky Literary Institute (1938) and completing graduate school, he went to the front in Mongolia.

Creativity and military career

In 1940, Simonov’s first play, “The Story of a Love,” was written, and in 1941, the second, “A Guy from Our Town.”

Konstantin Simonov studied at war correspondent courses, then, with the beginning of the war, he wrote for the newspapers “Battle Banner” and “Red Star”.

Throughout his life, Konstantin Mikhailovich Simonov received several military ranks, the highest of which was the rank of colonel, awarded to the writer after the end of the war.

Some of Simonov’s famous war works were: “Wait for Me,” “War,” “Russian People.” After the war, a period of business trips began in the biography of Konstantin Simonov: he traveled to the USA, Japan, China, and lived in Tashkent for two years. He worked as editor-in-chief of the Literaturnaya Gazeta and the New World magazine, and was a member of the Writers' Union. Films were made based on many of Simonov's works.

Death and legacy

The writer died on August 28, 1979 in Moscow, and his ashes were scattered, according to his will, over the Buinichi field (Belarus). Streets in Moscow and Mogilev, Volgograd, Kazan, Krivoy Rog and the Krasnodar Territory are named after him. Also, a library in Moscow was named in his honor, memorial plaques were installed in Ryazan and Moscow, a motor ship and an asteroid were named after him.

In the minds of living people, the name of Konstantin Simonov is firmly associated with works about the Great Patriotic War, with the lines of the poem “Son of an Artilleryman” familiar from school (“Major Deev had a comrade, Major Petrov...”), and even with serial versions about his affair with famous actress Valentina Serova. During the years of Khrushchev’s “thaw”, suddenly “thawed” anti-Stalinists did not want to forgive the Soviet “general” from literature, neither his lightning success, nor high posts in the Union of Writers of the USSR, nor loyal plays, articles and poems written in the late 1940s - early 50s -s. The post-perestroika “scribes” of Russian history even ranked K. Simonov, a laureate of the Lenin and six Stalin Prizes, one of the most famous and (I dare say) talented writers of the 20th century, among the “anti-heroes”. His works were clearly placed in line with the “official” works of Fadeev, Gorbatov, Tvardovsky and other Soviet authors, completely lost to the current generation behind the big names of Bulgakov, Tsvetaeva, Pasternak, Akhmatova, Nabokov, etc. Such “unambiguity” in the assessment of historical events, as well as poets, writers and their literary works, has more than once played a cruel joke on those who today seek to preach it from the political platform, in the media or school textbooks.

It is impossible to erase either Stalin’s repressions or the great victory in the Patriotic War from the history of the country. It is impossible to erase or “remove” truly talented works from Russian literature, even if you call their authors unprincipled “Soviet functionaries”, Stalinist sycophants, “custom” socialist realist writers. Looking from the heights of past years, it is much easier to demand displays of civil courage from others than to demonstrate it yourself in real life. Today's critics should not forget this.

And even if we ignore the above “clichés” formed by public opinion in recent decades, there is simply no one to read the works of K. M. Simonov today. The theme of war has long exhausted itself, and for all the time that has passed in conditions of absolute literary freedom, not a single work truly loved by the people has appeared in the Russian-language literature of the post-Soviet space. The Russian literary market, in the form in which it exists now, is focused exclusively on the needs of lovers of “light reading” - low-grade detective stories, various kinds of fantasy and romance novels.

K.M. Simonov faced a different, harsher era. His poem-spell “Wait for me” was read like a prayer. The plays “The Guy from Our City”, “Russian People”, “So It Will Be” became heroic examples for a whole generation of Soviet people. A far from controversial, too frank cycle of lyrical poems dedicated to V. Serova (“With You and Without You,” 1942) marked a short period of “lyrical thaw” in Soviet military literature and brought its author truly national fame. Reading these lines, it is impossible not to understand that Konstantin Simonov wrote about the Great Patriotic War not out of obligation, but out of a deep inner need, which from a young age until the end of his days determined the main theme of his work. Throughout his life, the poet, playwright, and thinker Simonov continued to think and write about human destinies related to the war. He was a warrior and poet, capable of igniting in the hearts of millions of people not only hatred of the enemy, but also raising the nation to defend their Motherland, instilling hope and faith in the inevitable victory of good over evil, love over hate, life over death. Being a direct eyewitness and participant in many events, Simonov, as a journalist, writer, screenwriter, and literary artist, made a significant contribution of his work to shaping the attitude towards the events of the Great Patriotic War among all subsequent generations. The novel “The Living and the Dead” - the writer’s most ambitious work - is a deep understanding of the past war as a huge, universal tragedy. More than one generation of readers read them: both those who went through and remembered that war, and those who knew about it from the stories of their elders and Soviet films.

Family and early years

Kirill Mikhailovich Simonov was born in Petrograd, into a military family. His real father, Mikhail Agafangelovich Simonov (1871-?) is a nobleman, a graduate of the Imperial Nicholas Military Academy (1897), major general. In his official biographies, K.M. Simonov pointed out that “my father died or went missing” at the front. However, during the First World War, generals did not go missing at the front. From 1914 to 1915 M.A. Simonov commanded the 12th Velikolutsk Infantry Regiment, and from July 1915 to October 1917 he was chief of staff of the 43rd Army Corps. After the revolution, the general emigrated to Poland, from where Kirill’s mother, Alexandra Leonidovna (nee Princess Obolenskaya), received letters from him in the early 1920s. The father called his wife and son to come to him, but Alexandra Leonidovna did not want to emigrate. By that time, another man had already appeared in her life - Alexander Grigorievich Ivanishev, a former colonel of the tsarist army, a teacher at a military school. He adopted and raised Kirill. True, the mother kept her son’s surname and patronymic: after all, everyone considered M.A. Simonov to the dead. She herself took the name Ivanishev.

Kirill's childhood years were spent in Ryazan and Saratov. He was raised by his stepfather, to whom he retained sincere affection and good feelings throughout his life. The family did not live well, so in 1930, after finishing a seven-year school in Saratov, Kirill Simonov went to study to become a turner. In 1931, together with his parents, he moved to Moscow. After graduating from the factory department of precision mechanics, Simonov went to work at an aircraft plant, where he worked until 1935. In his “Autobiography,” Simonov explained his choice for two reasons: “The first and main thing is the five-year tractor factory that was just built not far from us, in Stalingrad, and the general atmosphere of the romance of construction, which captured me already in the sixth grade of school. The second reason is the desire to earn money on your own.” For some time, Simonov also worked as a technician at Mezhrabpomfilm.

During these same years, the young man began to write poetry. Simonov’s first works appeared in print in 1934 (some sources indicate that the first poems were published in 1936 in the magazines “Young Guard” and “October”). From 1934 to 1938 he studied at the Literary Institute. M. Gorky, then entered the graduate school of MIFLI (Moscow Institute of Philosophy, Literature and History named after N.G. Chernyshevsky).

In 1938, Simonov’s first poem, “Pavel Cherny,” appeared, glorifying the builders of the White Sea-Baltic Canal. In the “Autobiography” of the writer, the poem is mentioned as the first difficult experience that was crowned with literary success. It was published in the poetry collection “Show of Forces.” At the same time, the historical poem “Battle on the Ice” was written. Turning to historical topics was considered mandatory, even “programmatic,” for a novice author in the 1930s. Simonov, as expected, introduces military-patriotic content into the historical poem. At a meeting in the journal “Literary Studies” dedicated to the analysis of his work, K. Simonov said: “The desire to write this poem came to me in connection with the feeling of an approaching war. I wanted those who read the poem to feel the closeness of war... that behind our shoulders, behind the shoulders of the Russian people there is a centuries-old struggle for their independence..."

War correspondent

In 1939, Simonov, as a promising author on military topics, was sent as a war correspondent to Khalkin-Gol. In a letter to S.Ya. Fradkina dated May 6, 1965, K. Simonov recalled how he first went to the front: “I went to Khalkhin Gol very simply. At first no one was going to send me there, I was, as they say, too young and green, and I should have gone not there, but to Kamchatka to join the troops, but then the editor of the “Heroic Red Army” newspaper, which was published there in Mongolia, in our group of troops, - sent a telegram to the Political Directorate of the Army: “Urgently send a poet.” He needed a poet. Obviously, at that moment in Moscow there was no one more respectable in terms of their poetic baggage than me, I was called to the PUR something like one or two in the afternoon, and at five o’clock I left on the Vladivostok ambulance to Chita, and from there to Mongolia..."

The poet never returned to the institute. Shortly before leaving for Mongolia, he finally changed his name - instead of his native Kirill, he took the pseudonym Konstantin Simonov. Almost all biographers agree that the reason for this change lies in the peculiarities of Simonov’s diction and articulation: he did not pronounce “r” and the hard sound “l”. It was always difficult for him to pronounce his own name.

The war for Simonov began not in forty-one, but in thirty-nine at Khalkhin Gol, and it was from that time that many new accents of his work were determined. In addition to essays and reports, the correspondent brings a cycle of poems from the theater of war, which soon gains all-Union fame. The most poignant poem, “Doll,” in its mood and theme, involuntarily echoes Simonov’s subsequent military lyrics (“Do you remember, Alyosha, the roads of the Smolensk region,” “Nameless Field,” etc.), which raises the problem of a warrior’s duty to the Motherland and his people.

Immediately before World War II, Simonov twice studied at war correspondent courses at the Military Academy named after M.V. Frunze (1939-1940) and the Military-Political Academy (1940-1941). Received the military rank of quartermaster of the second rank.

From the first days of the war, Konstantin Simonov was in the active army: he was his own correspondent for the newspapers “Krasnoarmeyskaya Pravda”, “Red Star”, “Pravda”, “Komsomolskaya Pravda”, “Battle Banner”, etc.

As a correspondent, K. Simonov could move in the front-line zone with freedom, fantastic even for any general. Sometimes in his car he literally escaped the pincers of encirclement, remaining almost the only surviving eyewitness to the death of an entire regiment or division.

It is well known, confirmed by eyewitnesses and documented, that in July 1941 K. Simonov was near Mogilev, in units of the 172nd Infantry Division, which fought heavy defensive battles and broke out of encirclement. When Izvestia correspondents Pavel Troshkin and Konstantin Simonov arrived at the CP of the 172nd Infantry Division, they were detained, threatened to be put on the ground and held until dawn, and taken under escort to headquarters. However, correspondent Simonov was even pleased with this. He immediately felt discipline, order, confidence, and understood that the war was not going as planned by the enemy. K. Simonov finds in the courage and firm discipline of the regiments defending the city a certain “fulcrum”, which allows him to write to the newspaper “not a white lie”, not a half-truth, forgivable in those dramatic days, but something that would serve others a fulcrum, would inspire faith.

For his fantastic “efficiency” and creative fertility, correspondent Simonov was compared to a combine harvester even before the war: literary essays and front-line reports poured from his pen as if from a cornucopia. Simonov's favorite genre is the essay. His articles (very few), in essence, also represent a series of sketches, connected by journalistic or lyrical digressions. During the war days, the poet K. Simonov first appeared as a prose writer, but the writer’s desire to expand the genres in which he worked, to find new, brighter and more intelligible forms of presenting the material very soon allowed him to develop his own individual style.

K. Simonov’s essays, as a rule, reflect what he saw with his own eyes, what he himself experienced, or the fate of another specific person with whom the war brought the author together. His essays always have a narrative plot, and often his essays resemble a short story. In them you can find a psychological portrait of a Hero - an ordinary soldier or front-line officer; the life circumstances that shaped the character of this person are necessarily reflected; the battle and, in fact, the feat are described in detail. When K. Simonov’s essays were based on the material of a conversation with participants in the battle, they actually turned into a dialogue between the author and the hero, which is sometimes interrupted by the author’s narration (“Soldier’s Glory,” “The Commander’s Honor,” etc.).

In the first period of the Great Patriotic War - from June 1941 to November 1942 - Simonov sought to cover as many events as possible, visit various sections of the front, depict representatives of various military professions in his essays and works of art, and emphasize the difficulties of a normal front-line situation.

In 1942, Konstantin Simonov was awarded the rank of senior battalion commissar, in 1943 - the rank of lieutenant colonel, and after the war - colonel. As a war correspondent, he visited all fronts. During the battles in Crimea, Konstantin Simonov was directly in the chains of counterattacking infantrymen, went with a reconnaissance group behind the front line, and participated in the combat campaign of a submarine that was mining a Romanian port. He also happened to be among the defenders of Odessa, Stalingrad, among the Yugoslav partisans, in the advanced units: during the Battle of Kursk, the Belarusian operation, in the final operations for the liberation of Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia. Simonov was present at the first trial of war criminals in Kharkov, and was also in the newly liberated, unimaginably terrible Auschwitz and in many other places where decisive events took place. In 1945, Simonov witnessed the last battles for Berlin. He was present at the signing of Hitler's surrender in Karlshorst. Awarded four military orders.

The difficult, sometimes heroic work of front-line correspondents, who not only collected material for essays and articles, but also took part in battles, saved others and died themselves, was subsequently reflected in the works of the writer K. Simonov. After the war, his collections of essays appeared: “Letters from Czechoslovakia”, “Slavic Friendship”, “Yugoslav Notebook”, “From the Black to the Barents Sea. Notes of a war correspondent." Simonov is the author of the popularly beloved “Song of War Correspondents,” which for many years became the anthem of journalists working in the “hot spots” of the planet:

“Wait for me”: a novel by an actress and a poet

On July 27, 1941, K. Simonov returned to Moscow, having spent at least a week on the Western Front - in Vyazma, near Yelnya, near the burning Dorogobuzh. He was preparing for a new trip to the front - from the editors of "Red Star", but it took a week to prepare the car for this trip.

“During these seven days,” Simonov recalled, “in addition to front-line ballads for the newspaper, I suddenly wrote in one sitting “Wait for me,” “The major brought the boy on a gun carriage” and “Don’t be angry, for the better.” I spent the night at Lev Kassil’s dacha in Peredelkino and in the morning I stayed there and didn’t go anywhere. I sat alone at the dacha and wrote poetry. There were tall pines all around, a lot of strawberries, green grass. It was a hot summer day. And silence.<...>For a few hours I even wanted to forget that there was war in the world.<...>Probably, on that day more than on others, I thought not so much about the war, but about my own fate in it ... "

Subsequently, very authoritative critics and literary scholars assured that “Wait for me” is Simonov’s most general poem, that in one lyrical poem the poet was able to convey the features of the time, was able to guess the most important thing, the most necessary for people, and thereby help millions of his compatriots in a difficult time of war . But he succeeded not at all because he tried to “guess” what was most needed now. Simonov never intended anything like this! On that hot summer day at L. Kassil's dacha, he wrote what was vitally necessary for him. Turning his thoughts to the only addressee of his love lyrics - actress Valentina Serova, the poet expressed what was most important and most desirable for him at that moment. And only for this reason, precisely for this reason, poems written by one person and addressed to one single woman in the world became universal, necessary for millions of people in the most difficult time for them.

With the rising star of Russian cinema, the prima of the Moscow Theater. Konstantin Mikhailovich met Lenin Komsomol V.V. Serova (nee Polovikova) in 1940. His first play, “The Story of a Love,” was staged at the theater. Valentina, by that time already the widow of the famous pilot, hero of the Soviet Union Anatoly Serov, played one of the main roles in it. Before that, in the 1939-40 season, she shone in the play “The Zykovs,” and the young, then still aspiring poet and playwright, did not miss a single performance. According to Serova, Simonov, who was in love, prevented her from playing: he always sat with a bouquet of flowers in the front row and watched her every move with a searching gaze.

However, Simonov’s love for Vaska (the poet did not pronounce the letters “l” and “r” and called his muse that way) was not mutual. Valentina accepted his advances, was close to him, but could not forget Serov. She preferred to remain the widow of the hero-pilot rather than become the wife of a still little-known young writer. Moreover, Simonov was already married to E.S. Laskina (cousin of B. Laskin), in 1939 their son Alexei was born.

From his first literary steps, the poet Simonov wrote “for print,” accurately guessing the path that would lead his work to the printed page. This was one of the main secrets of his early and lasting success. His ability to translate the current official point of view and offer it to the reader already in an emotional and lyrical package was forged from his first literary experiments. But “Wait for Me” and other lyrical poems dedicated to relations with Serova were the only works of the poet that were not originally intended for publication. And who in those pre-war, jingoistic, ideologically consistent years would begin to publish love lyrics full of erotic drama and suffering about unrequited love?

The war changed everything. Simonov read the completely personal poem “Wait for Me” more than once among his literary friends; it was necessary only for him; read to artillerymen on the Rybachy Peninsula, cut off from the rest of the front; read to the scouts before a difficult raid behind enemy lines; read to sailors on a submarine. They listened to him equally attentively both in the soldiers' dugouts and in the headquarters dugouts. The characteristics of the Russian Soviet reader, already fully formed, were such that he looked for consolation and direct support in literature - especially in the painful situation of war. Critics saw “one of the tasks of poetry” in providing such support. Simonov’s poem went beyond this function, receiving from the first moment of creation another, special function: “spell”, “prayer”, “cure for melancholy”, “faith” and even, if you like, “superstition”...

Soon the lines of the beloved poem began to be scattered in handwritten copies and learned by heart. The soldiers sent them in letters to their loved ones, conjuring separation and imminent death, glorifying the great power of love:

On December 9, 1941, “Wait for Me” was heard on the radio for the first time. Simonov accidentally ended up in Moscow and read the poem himself, making it in time for the broadcast literally at the last minute. In January 1942, “Wait for Me” was published in Pravda.

According to eyewitnesses, at post-war meetings with readers, Simonov never refused to read “Wait for Me,” but somehow darkened his face. And there was suffering in his eyes. It was as if he was falling again in his forty-first year.

In a conversation with Vasily Peskov, when asked about “Wait for Me,” Simonov wearily replied: “If I hadn’t written it, someone else would have written it.” He believed that it was just a coincidence: love, war, separation, and miraculously a few hours of loneliness. Besides, poetry was his work. So the poems appeared through the paper. This is how blood seeps through the bandages...

In April 1942, Simonov submitted the manuscript of the lyrical collection “With You and Without You” to the publishing house “Young Guard”. All 14 poems in the collection were addressed and dedicated to V. Serova.

In the very first large article about this cycle, the critic V. Alexandrov (V.B. Keller), well-known from the pre-war years, wrote:

The collection “With You and Without You” actually marked the temporary rehabilitation of lyrics in Soviet literature. The best of his poems express the conflict between the two strongest driving forces of the poet's soul: love for Valentina and military duty to Russia.

In the days of the heaviest battles of 1942, the Soviet party leadership considered it necessary to bring precisely such poems to the mass reader, contrasting the horrors of war with something eternal and unshakable, for which it is worth fighting and worth living:

However, Simonov’s muse still did not dream of being called his wife by her longtime admirer. She also did not promise to faithfully and selflessly wait for her admirer from front-line business trips.

There is a version that in the spring of 1942, Valentina Serova became seriously interested in Marshal K. Rokossovsky. This version was presented in the sensational series by Yu. Kara “Star of the Epoch” and is firmly rooted in the minds of not only ordinary television viewers, but also television journalists, authors of various publications about Serova in the press and on Internet resources. All living relatives, both Serova and Simonov, and Rokossovsky, unanimously deny the war romance of the marshal and the actress. The personal life of Rokossovsky, who was perhaps an even more public person than Serov and Simonov, is quite well known. Serova and her love simply had no place in her.

Perhaps Valentina Vasilievna, for some reason during this period, really wanted to break off relations with Simonov. Being a direct and open person, she did not consider it necessary to pretend and lie in real life - acting was enough for her on stage. Rumors spread throughout Moscow. The romance of the poet and actress was in jeopardy.

It is possible that at that moment jealousy, resentment, and a purely male desire to get his beloved at any cost began to speak in the rejected Simonov. Having published love lyrics dedicated to Serova, the poet actually went for broke: he gave his consent to the use of his personal feelings for ideological purposes in order to gain real, national fame and thereby “put the squeeze on” the intractable Valentina.

The script for the propaganda film “Wait for Me,” written in 1942, made the personal relationship between Simonov and Serova the property of the entire country. The actress simply had no choice.

It is possible that it was during this period that their romance, largely invented by Simonov himself and “approved” by the authorities, showed its first serious crack. In 1943, Simonov and Serova entered into an official marriage, but, despite all the favorable circumstances and visible external well-being, the cracks in their relationship only grew:

Over time, the crack of misunderstanding and dislike turned into “glass a thousand miles thick,” behind which “you can’t hear the beat of the heart,” then into a bottomless abyss. Simonov managed to get out of it and find new ground under his feet. Valentina Serova gave up and died. The poet refused to lend a helping hand to his former, already unloved muse:

As their daughter Maria Simonova would later write: “She [V. Serova – E.Sh.] alone, in an empty apartment, robbed by the crooks who soldered it, from which they took out everything that could be carried by hand.”

Simonov did not come to the funeral, sending only a bouquet of 58 blood-red carnations (in some memoirs there is information about a bouquet of pink roses). Shortly before his death, he confessed to his daughter: “... what I had with your mother was the greatest happiness in my life... and the greatest sorrow...”

After the war

At the end of the war, within three years, K.M. Simonov was on numerous foreign business trips: in Japan (1945-1946), USA, China. In 1946-1950, he served as editor of one of the leading literary magazines, New World. In 1950-1954 - editor of the Literary Newspaper. From 1946 to 1959, and then from 1967 to 1979 - Secretary of the Union of Writers of the USSR. During the period from 1942 to 1950, K. Simonov received six Stalin Prizes - for the plays “A Guy from Our City”, “Russian People”, “Russian Question”, “Alien Shadow”, the novel “Days and Nights” and the collection of poems “Friends” and enemies."

Simonov - the son of a tsarist general and a princess from an old Russian family - regularly served not just the Soviet regime. During the war, he gave all his talent to the fighting people, his Motherland, that great and invincible country that he wanted Russia to become. But once he got into the party “clip” (Simonov joined the party only in 1942), he immediately acquired the status of a “needed” poet favored by the authorities. Most likely, he himself believed that he was doing everything right: victory in the war and the position that Russia took in the world after 1945 only convinced Simonov of the correctness of his chosen path.

His ascent up the party ladder was even more rapid than his entry into literature and gaining all-Russian fame. In 1946-1954, K. Simonov was a deputy of the USSR Supreme Council of the 2nd and 3rd convocations, from 1954 to 1956 - a candidate member of the CPSU Central Committee. In 1946-1954 - Deputy General Secretary of the Board of the Union of Writers of the USSR. In 1954-1959 and in 1967-1979 - Secretary of the Board of the Union of Writers of the USSR. Since 1949 - member of the presidium of the Soviet Peace Committee.

Yes, obeying the “general line of the party,” he participated in the campaign of persecution against Zoshchenko and Akhmatova, wrote “commissioned” plays about cosmopolitans (“Alien Shadow”) and ballad poems, tried to persuade I. Bunin, Teffi and other prominent white emigrant writers to return to Soviet Russia. As editor-in-chief in 1956, Simonov signed a letter from the editorial board of the New World magazine refusing to publish Boris Pasternak's novel Doctor Zhivago, and in 1973, a letter from a group of Soviet writers to the editors of the newspaper Pravda about Solzhenitsyn and Sakharov.

But at the same time, it is impossible not to admit that Simonov’s activities in all his high literary positions were not so clear-cut. The return to the reader of the novels of Ilf and Petrov, the publication of Bulgakov’s “The Master and Margarita” (1966, in an abridged magazine version) and Hemingway’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls”, the defense of L.O. Brik, which high-ranking “literary historians” decided to delete from Mayakovsky’s biography, the first complete translation of plays by A. Miller and Eugene O’Neill, the publication of V. Kondratiev’s first story “Sashka” - this is not a complete list of K. Simonov’s services to the Soviet literature. There was also participation in the “punching” of performances at Sovremennik and the Taganka Theater, the first posthumous exhibition of Tatlin, the restoration of the exhibition “XX Years of Work” by Mayakovsky, participation in the cinematic fate of Alexei German and dozens of other filmmakers, artists, and writers. Dozens of volumes of Simonov’s daily efforts, which he called “Everything Done,” stored today in RGALI, contain thousands of his letters, notes, statements, petitions, requests, recommendations, reviews, analyzes and advice, prefaces paving the way for “impenetrable” books and publications. There is not a single unanswered letter in the archives of the writer and the editorial offices of the magazines he heads. Hundreds of people began to write war memoirs after reading Simonov’s “tests of writing” and sympathetically appraising them.

In disgrace

Simonov belonged to that rare breed of people whom the authorities did not spoil. Neither the forced shuffling before his superiors, nor the ideological dogmas within which the path of Soviet literature in the late 1940s - early 1950s ran, killed the genuine, living principle in him, characteristic only of a truly talented artist. Unlike many of his literary colleagues, over the years of his “symphony” with the authorities, K. Simonov has not forgotten how to take actions aimed at defending his views and principles.

Immediately after Stalin's death, he published an article in Literaturnaya Gazeta, declaring that the main task of writers was to reflect the great historical role of Stalin. Khrushchev was extremely irritated by this article. According to one version, he called the Writers' Union and demanded the immediate removal of Simonov from the post of editor-in-chief of Literaturnaya Gazeta.

By and large, editor Simonov did what he considered necessary to do at that moment. His honest nature as a soldier and poet opposed such forms of treatment of the values ​​of the past and present as “spitting and licking.” With his article, Simonov was not afraid to express the opinion of that part of society that truly considered Stalin to be the great leader of the nation and the winner of fascism. They, yesterday’s veterans who went through all the hardships of the last war, were disgusted by the hasty renunciations of the “thaw” changelings from their recent past. It is not surprising that soon after the 20th Party Congress, the poet was subjected to severe reprimand and was released from his high post in the Union of Writers of the USSR. In 1958, Simonov went to live and work in Tashkent as Pravda’s own correspondent for the republics of Central Asia.

However, this forced “business trip”-exile did not break Simonov. On the contrary, liberation from social and administrative work and the share of publicity that accompanied him almost all his life gave new impetus to the writer’s creativity. “When there is Tashkent,” Simonov joked gloomily, but with courageous dignity, “there is no need to leave for seven years in Croisset to write Madame Bovary.”

"The Living and the Dead"

Simonov's first novel, Comrades in Arms, dedicated to the events at Khalkin Gol, was published in 1952. According to the author's original plan, it was supposed to be the first part of the trilogy he planned about the war. However, it turned out differently. To more fully reveal the initial stage of the war, other heroes were needed, a different scale of events depicted. “Comrades in Arms” was destined to remain only a prologue to a monumental work about the war.

In 1955, still in Moscow, Konstantin Mikhailovich Simonov began work on the novel “The Living and the Dead,” but political intrigues after the 20th Party Congress, as well as attacks from the new party and literary leadership, prevented the writer from completely devoting himself to creativity. In 1961, Simonov brought a completed novel to Moscow from Tashkent. It became the first part of a large, truthful work about the Great Patriotic War. The author has found heroes with whom the reader will go from the first days of the retreat to the defeat of the German army near Moscow. In 1965, Simonov completed his new book “Soldiers Are Not Born,” which is a new meeting with the heroes of the novel “The Living and the Dead.” Stalingrad, the unvarnished truth of life and war at a new stage - overcoming the science of winning. In the future, the writer intended to bring his heroes until 1945, until the end of the war, but in the process of work it became obvious that the action of the trilogy would end in the places where it began. Belarus in 1944, the offensive operation “Bagration” - these events formed the basis of the third book, which Simonov called “The Last Summer”. All three works are combined by the author into a trilogy under the general title “The Living and the Dead.”

In 1974, for the trilogy “The Living and the Dead,” Simonov was awarded the Lenin Prize and the title of Hero of Socialist Labor.

Based on the scripts of K. Simonov, the films “A Guy from Our City” (1942), “Wait for Me” (1943), “Days and Nights” (1943-1944), “Immortal Garrison” (1956), “Normandy-Niemen” were produced (1960, together with S. Spaak and E. Triolet), “The Living and the Dead” (1964), “Twenty Days Without War” (1976).

In 1970, K.M. Simonov visited Vietnam, after which he published the book “Vietnam, winter of the seventieth...” (1970-71). In dramatic poems about the Vietnam War, “Bombing the Squares,” “Above Laos,” “Duty Room,” and others, comparisons with the Great Patriotic War constantly arise:

"I'm not ashamed..."

Simonov’s memoirs “Diaries of the War Years” and his last book, “Through the Eyes of a Man of My Generation. Reflections on Stalin" (1979, published in 1988). These are memories and reflections about the time of the 30s - early 50s, about meetings with Stalin, A.M. Vasilevsky, I.S. Konev, Admiral I.S. Isakov.

In the book “Through the Eyes of a Man of My Generation” K.M. Simonov partly revises his previous views, but does not renounce them at all. Unlike some fairly well-known publicists and memoirists of the “perestroika” period, Simonov is far from “sprinkling ashes on his head.” While doing painstaking work on the inevitable mistakes and delusions of his generation, the writer does not stoop to unsubstantiated defamation of the historical past of his country. On the contrary, he invites descendants to listen to the facts so as not to repeat previous mistakes:

Konstantin Mikhailovich Simonov died on August 28, 1979 in Moscow. According to the will, the ashes of K.M. Simonov was scattered over the Buinichi field near Mogilev, where in 1941 he managed to escape from encirclement.

In conclusion, I would like to cite an excerpt from the book of memoirs by philologist, writer and journalist Grigory Okun, “Meetings on a Distant Meridian.” The author knew Konstantin Mikhailovich during his years in Tashkent and, in our opinion, most accurately described Simonov as one of the most controversial and ambiguous, but bright and interesting people of his time:

Konstantin (Kirill) Mikhailovich Simonov. Born November 28, 1915, Petrograd - died August 28, 1979, Moscow. Russian Soviet prose writer, poet, screenwriter, journalist and public figure. Hero of Socialist Labor (1974). Winner of the Lenin Prize (1974) and six Stalin Prizes (1942, 1943, 1946, 1947, 1949, 1950).

Konstantin Simonov was born on November 15 (28), 1915 in Petrograd in the family of Major General Mikhail Simonov and Princess Alexandra Obolenskaya.

Mother: Princess Obolenskaya Alexandra Leonidovna (1890, St. Petersburg - 1975).

Father: Mikhail Agafangelovich Simonov (husband of A.L. Obolenskaya since 1912). According to some sources, he is of Armenian origin. Major General, participant in the First World War, Knight of various orders, received his education in the Oryol Bakhtin Cadet Corps. Entered service on September 1, 1889. Graduate (1897) of the Imperial Nicholas Military Academy. 1909 - Colonel of the Separate Border Guard Corps. In March 1915 - commander of the 12th Velikolutsky Infantry Regiment. Awarded the Arms of St. George. Chief of Staff of the 43rd Army Corps (8 July 1915 - 19 October 1917). The latest information about him dates back to 1920-1922 and reports his emigration to Poland.

Stepfather: Alexander Grigorievich Ivanishev (husband of A.L. Obolenskaya since 1919).

He never saw his father: he went missing at the front in the First World War (as the writer noted in his official biography, according to his son A.K. Simonov - traces of his grandfather were lost in Poland in 1922).

In 1919, mother and son moved to Ryazan, where she married a military expert, teacher of military affairs, former colonel of the Russian Imperial Army A. G. Ivanishev. The boy was raised by his stepfather, who taught tactics at military schools and later became the commander of the Red Army.

Konstantin's childhood was spent in military camps and commander's dormitories. After finishing seven classes, he entered the factory school (FZU), worked as a metal turner, first in Saratov, and then in Moscow, where the family moved in 1931. So, while earning experience, he continued to work for two more years after he entered the A. M. Gorky Literary Institute to study.

In 1938, Konstantin Simonov graduated from the A. M. Gorky Literary Institute. By this time, he had already written several works - in 1936, Simonov’s first poems were published in the magazines “Young Guard” and “October”.

In the same year, Simonov was accepted into the USSR SP, entered graduate school at IFLI, and published the poem “Pavel Cherny.”

In 1939 he was sent as a war correspondent to Khalkhin Gol, but did not return to graduate school.

Shortly before leaving for the front, he finally changes his name and instead of his native one, Kirill takes the pseudonym Konstantin Simonov. The reason is in the peculiarities of Simonov’s diction and articulation: without pronouncing “r” and hard “l”, it was difficult for him to pronounce his own name. The pseudonym becomes a literary fact, and soon the poet Konstantin Simonov gains all-Union popularity. The poet’s mother did not recognize the new name and called her son Kiryusha until the end of her life.

In 1940, he wrote his first play, “The Story of a Love,” staged on the stage of the Theater. Lenin Komsomol; in 1941 - the second - “A guy from our city.” For a year he studied at the war correspondents' courses at the VPA named after V.I. Lenin, and on June 15, 1941 received the military rank of quartermaster of the second rank.

At the beginning of the war, he was drafted into the Red Army, as a correspondent from the Active Army he was published in Izvestia, and worked in the front-line newspaper Battle Banner.

In the summer of 1941, as a special correspondent for Red Star, he was in besieged Odessa.

In 1942 he was awarded the rank of senior battalion commissar, in 1943 - the rank of lieutenant colonel, and after the war - colonel. During the war years he wrote the plays “Russian People”, “Wait for Me”, “So It Will Be”, the story “Days and Nights”, two books of poems “With You and Without You” and “War”.

Konstantin Simonov during the war

By order of the Armed Forces of the Western Front No. 482 dated May 3, 1942, senior battalion commissar Kirill Mikhailovich Simonov was awarded the Order of the Red Banner.

Most of his military correspondence was published in Red Star.

11/04/1944 Lieutenant Colonel Kirill Mikhailovich Simonov, special. correspondent of the newspaper "Red Star", awarded the medal "For the Defense of the Caucasus".

As a war correspondent, he visited all fronts, walked through the lands of Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Poland and Germany, and witnessed the last battles for Berlin.

By order of the Armed Forces of the 4th Ukrainian Front No.: 132/n dated: 05/30/1945, the correspondent of the Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper, Lieutenant Colonel Simonov, was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree, for writing a series of essays about soldiers of units of the 4th Ukrainian Front and the 1st Czechoslovak Corps, the presence of the commanders of the 101st and 126th Corps during the battles at the OP and the presence in units of the 1st Czechoslovak Corps during the offensive battles.

By order of the Main Administration of the Red Army dated July 19, 1945, Lieutenant Colonel Kirill Mikhailovich Simonov was awarded the medal “For the Defense of Moscow.”

After the war, his collections of essays appeared: “Letters from Czechoslovakia”, “Slavic Friendship”, “Yugoslav Notebook”, “From the Black to the Barents Sea. Notes of a war correspondent."

For three years he spent time on numerous foreign business trips (Japan, USA, China), and worked as editor-in-chief of the New World magazine.

In 1958-1960 he lived and worked in Tashkent as Pravda’s own correspondent for the republics of Central Asia. As a special correspondent for Pravda, he covered the events on Damansky Island (1969).

stills from the film "Star of the Epoch"

The Last Wife (1957) - Larisa Alekseevna Zhadova(1927-1981), daughter of Hero of the Soviet Union General A. S. Zhadov, widow of front-line comrade Simonov, poet S. P. Gudzenko. Zhadova graduated from the Faculty of Art History of Moscow State University named after M.V. Lomonosov, a famous Soviet art critic, specialist in the Russian avant-garde, author of several monographs and many articles. Simonov adopted Larisa's daughter Ekaterina, then their daughter Alexandra was born.

Poems and poems by Konstantin Simonov:

"Glory";
“Winner” (1937, poem about Nikolai Ostrovsky);
“Pavel Cherny” (M., 1938, a poem glorifying the builders of the White Sea-Baltic Canal);
“Battle on the Ice” (poem). M., Pravda, 1938;
Real people. M., 1938;
Road poems. - M., Soviet writer, 1939;
Poems of the thirty-ninth year. M., 1940;
Suvorov. Poem. M., 1940;
Winner. M., Voenizdat, 1941;
The son of an artilleryman. M., 1941;
Poems of the year 41. M., Pravda, 1942;
Front line poems. M., 1942;
War. Poems 1937-1943. M., Soviet writer, 1944;
Friends and enemies. M., Goslitizdat, 1952;
Poems 1954. M., 1955;
Ivan and Marya. Poem. M., 1958;
25 poems and one poem. M., 1968;
Vietnam, winter of '70. M., 1971;
If your home is dear to you...;
“With you and without you” (collection of poems). M., Pravda, 1942;
“Days and Nights” (about the Battle of Stalingrad);
I know you fled in battle...;
“Do you remember, Alyosha, the roads of the Smolensk region...”;
“The major brought the boy on a gun carriage...”

Novels and stories by Konstantin Simonov:

Days and nights. Tale. M., Voenizdat, 1944;
Proud man. Tale. 1945;
“Comrades in Arms” (novel, 1952; new edition - 1971);
“The Living and the Dead” (novel, 1959);
“They are not born soldiers” (1963-1964, novel; 2nd part of the trilogy “The Living and the Dead”);
“The Last Summer” (novel, 1971, 3rd (final) part of the trilogy “The Living and the Dead”);
“Smoke of the Fatherland” (1947, story);
"Southern Tales" (1956-1961);
“The so-called personal life (From Lopatin’s notes)” (1965, cycle of stories);
Twenty days without war. M., 1973;
Sofya Leonidovna. M., 1985

Plays by Konstantin Simonov:

“The Story of One Love” (1940, premiere - Lenin Komsomol Theater, 1940) (new edition - 1954);
“A Guy from Our City” (1941, play; premiere of the play - Lenin Komsomol Theater, 1941 (the play was staged in 1955 and 1977); in 1942 - a film of the same name);
“Russian People” (1942, published in the newspaper “Pravda”; at the end of 1942 the premiere of the play was successfully held in New York; in 1943 - the film “In the Name of the Motherland”, directors - Vsevolod Pudovkin, Dmitry Vasiliev; in 1979 - a teleplay of the same name , directors - Maya Markova, Boris Ravenskikh);
Wait for me (play). 1943;
“So it will be” (1944, premiere - Lenin Komsomol Theater);
“Under the chestnut trees of Prague” (1945. Premiere - Lenin Komsomol Theater;
"Alien Shadow" (1949);
“Good Name” (1951) (new edition - 1954);
“The Fourth” (1961, premiere - Sovremennik Theater, 1972 - film of the same name);
Friends remain friends. (1965, co-authored with V. Dykhovichny);
From Lopatin's notes. (1974)

Scripts by Konstantin Simonov:

“Wait for me” (together with Alexander Stolper, 1943, director - Alexander Stolper);
“Days and Nights” (1944, director - Alexander Stolper);
“The Second Caravan” (1950, together with Zakhar Agranenko, production directors - Amo Bek-Nazarov and Ruben Simonov);
“The Life of Andrei Shvetsov” (1952, together with Zakhar Agranenko);
“The Immortal Garrison” (1956, director - Eduard Tisse);
“Normandie - Neman” (co-authors - Charles Spaak, Elsa Triolet, 1960, directors Jean Dreville, Damir Vyatich-Berezhnykh);
“Levashov” (1963, teleplay, director - Leonid Pchelkin);
“The Living and the Dead” (together with Alexander Stolper, director - Alexander Stolper, 1964);
“Retribution” 1967, (together with Alexander Stolper, feature film, based on part II of the novel “The Living and the Dead” - “Soldiers are not born”);
“If your home is dear to you” (1967, script and text of the documentary, director Vasily Ordynsky);
“Grenada, Grenada, my Grenada” (1968, documentary film, director - Roman Karmen, film poem; All-Union Film Festival award);
“The Case of Polynin” (together with Alexei Sakharov, 1971, director - Alexei Sakharov);
“There is no such thing as someone else’s grief” (1973, documentary about the Vietnam War);
“A Soldier Walked” (1975, documentary);
"A Soldier's Memoirs" (1976, TV movie);
“Ordinary Arctic” (1976, Lenfilm, director - Alexey Simonov, introduction from the author of the screenplay and a cameo role);
“Konstantin Simonov: I remain a military writer” (1975, documentary film);
“Twenty days without war” (based on the story (1972), director - Alexey German, 1976), text from the author;
“We won’t see you” (1981, teleplay, directors - Maya Markova, Valery Fokin);
“Road to Berlin” (2015, feature film, Mosfilm - director Sergei Popov. Based on the story “Two in the Steppe” by Emmanuel Kazakevich and the war diaries of Konstantin Simonov).

Diaries, memoirs and essays of Konstantin Simonov:

Simonov K. M. Different days of the war. Writer's Diary. - M.: Fiction, 1982;
Simonov K. M. Different days of the war. Writer's Diary. - M.: Fiction, 1982;
“Through the eyes of a man of my generation. Reflections on J.V. Stalin" (1979, published in 1988);
Far to the east. Khalkingol notes. M., 1969;
"Japan. 46" (travel diary);
“Letters from Czechoslovakia” (collection of essays);
“Slavic Friendship” (collection of essays);
“Yugoslav Notebook” (collection of essays), M., 1945;
“From the Black to the Barents Sea. Notes of a War Correspondent" (collection of essays);
During these years. Journalism 1941-1950. M., 1951;
Norwegian diary. M., 1956;
In this difficult world. M., 1974

Translations by Konstantin Simonov:

Rudyard Kipling in Simonov's translations;
Nasimi, Lyrica. Translation by Naum Grebnev and Konstantin Simonov from Azerbaijani and Farsi. Fiction, Moscow, 1973;
Kakhkhar A., ​​Tales of the Past. Translation from Uzbek by Kamron Khakimov and Konstantin Simonov. Soviet writer, Moscow, 1970;
Azerbaijani folk songs “Hey look, look here!”, “Beauty”, “Well in Yerevan”. Soviet writer, Leningrad, 1978

SIMONOV Konstantin (real name - Kirill) Mikhailovich (1915-1979), poet, prose writer, playwright.

Born on November 15 (28 NS) in Petrograd, he was raised by his stepfather, a teacher at a military school. My childhood years were spent in Ryazan and Saratov.

After graduating from the seven-year school I in Saratov in 1930, he went to the factory department to study as a turner. In 1931, the family moved to Moscow, and Simonov, having graduated from the factory teacher of precision mechanics here, went to work at the plant. During these same years he began to write poetry. He worked at the plant until 1935.

In 1936, the first poems of K. Simonov were published in the magazines “Young Guard” and “October”. After graduating from the Literary Institute. M. Gorky in 1938, Simonov entered graduate school at the IFLI (Institute of History, Philosophy, Literature), but in 1939 he was sent as a war correspondent to Khalkin-Gol in Mongolia and never returned to the institute.

In 1940 he wrote his first play, “The Story of a Love,” staged on the stage of the Theater. Lenin Komsomol; in 1941 - the second - “A guy from our city.”

For a year he studied at the war correspondents' course at the Military-Political Academy and received the military rank of quartermaster of the second rank.

At the beginning of the war, he was drafted into the army and worked for the newspaper “Battle Banner.” In 1942 he was awarded the rank of senior battalion commissar, in 1943 - the rank of lieutenant colonel, and after the war - colonel. Most of his military correspondence was published in Red Star. During the war years, he also wrote the plays “Russian People”, “So It Will Be”, the story “Days and Nights”, two books of poems “With You and Without You” and “War”; His lyric poem “Wait for me...” became widely known.

As a war correspondent, he visited all fronts, walked through the lands of Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Poland and Germany, and witnessed the last battles for Berlin. After the war, his collections of essays appeared: “Letters from Czechoslovakia”, “Slavic Friendship”, “Yugoslav Notebook”, “From the Black to the Barents Sea. Notes of a war correspondent."

After the war, Simonov spent three years on numerous foreign business trips (Japan, USA, China).

From 1958 to 1960 he lived in Tashkent as a Pravda correspondent for the republics of Central Asia.

The first novel, Comrades in Arms, was published in 1952, followed by the first book in the Living and the Dead trilogy, The Living and the Dead (1959). In 1961, the Sovremennik Theater staged Simonov’s play “The Fourth.” In 1963-64, the second book of the trilogy appeared - the novel “Soldiers Are Not Born.” (Later - the 3rd book “The Last Summer”.)

Based on Simonov’s scripts, the following films were produced: “A Guy from Our City” (1942), “Wait for Me” (1943), “Days and Nights” (1943-44), “Immortal Garrison” (1956), “Normandie-Niemen” ( 1960, together with Sh. Spaakomi, E. Triolet), “The Living and the Dead” (1964).

In the post-war years, Simonov's social activities developed as follows: from 1946 to 1950 and from 1954 to 1958 he was editor-in-chief of the magazine "New World"; from 1954 to 1958 he was editor-in-chief of the New World magazine; from 1950 to 1953 - editor-in-chief of Literaturnaya Gazeta; from 1946 to 1959 and from 1967 to 1979 - secretary of the USSR Writers' Union.

K. Simonov died in 1979 in Moscow.

Biography and episodes of life Konstantin Simonov. When born and died Konstantin Simonov, memorable places and dates of important events of his life. Quotes from a writer, poet and public figure, Photo and video.

Years of life of Konstantin Simonov:

born November 28, 1915, died August 28, 1979

Epitaph

“But there is no envy or anger in the heart,
Words are wretched and helpless,
And only memory: what to do with it, Kostya?
There is no answer, but am I still alive..."
From a poem by Margarita Aliger in memory of Simonov

Biography

The lines of his poem “Wait for Me” became a spell for millions of people who survived the Great Patriotic War. In the biography of Konstantin Simonov there were ups and downs, personal victories and sometimes miscalculations, which are not surprising for the difficult times in which the writer lived. Nevertheless, he remained in the memory of his contemporaries and descendants as the author of wonderful poems, books and scripts.

Simonov's biography began in Petrograd, he did not know his father - he died in the war, and the future writer was raised by his stepfather. They lived quite poorly, like many in those days, so after seventh grade the boy went to school and worked as a turner. When Simonov was 16 years old, his family moved to Moscow. And although a seventh-grade education was not enough, he was accepted into the Literary Institute as a representative of the working class. By the time he graduated from the institute, Simonov was publishing his poems, and shortly before the war he wrote his first play, which was staged by the Lenkom Theater. Simonov went through the war as a war correspondent, reaching all the way to Berlin. Even before the war, he changed his name from Kirill to Konstantin, under which he later became famous throughout the USSR.

Simonov has always been considered a writer favored by the authorities. Films based on his scripts were released, his plays were staged, the number of awards for the writer, who was appointed to high literary positions, increased - Simonov worked for several years as editor of the magazine “New World” and “Literary Newspaper”. He fully supported the party's policies and was among the first to condemn Pasternak for the novel Doctor Zhivago and Solzhenitsyn for his "anti-Soviet actions and statements." But Simonov’s list of merits is also considerable - with his help, the novels of Ilf and Petrov were returned to Soviet readers, the book “The Master and Margarita” was published, and translations of plays by Arthur Miller and Eugene O’Neill were published. According to the recollections of his contemporaries, in the last years of his life Simonov seemed to blame himself for how zealously he carried out the party’s behests in the first years, and later, over the years, he chose a more independent position in relation to the authorities. Moreover, Simonov was a kind and generous person, he helped former front-line soldiers a lot - he arranged for them to undergo treatment, helped them obtain apartments and awards.

Simonov's death occurred on August 28, 1979. The funeral of Simonov, a famous and beloved literary figure by many, passed unnoticed. On September 2, Simonov’s relatives took his ashes and took them to Belarus to scatter them over the Buynichi field near Mogilev, as the writer bequeathed.

Life line

November 28, 1915 Date of birth of Konstantin (Kirill) Mikhailovich Simonov.
1933 Admission to the Literary Institute named after. A. M. Gorky.
1936 Publication of Simonov's first poems.
1938 Graduation from college.
1939 The birth of a son, Alexei, from his marriage to Evgenia Laskina.
1940 Separating from his wife, relationship with Valentina Serova, Simonov writing his first play, “The Story of a Love.”
1941 Conscription into the army.
1942 The release of the film “A Guy from Our City” based on Simonov’s script, the release of Simonov’s collection of poems “With You and Without You,” dedicated to Valentina Serova.
1943 Release of the film “Wait for Me” based on Simonov’s script, marriage to Valentina Serova.
1950 Birth of daughter Maria.
1952 Release of Simonov's first novel, Comrades in Arms.
1957 Parting with Serova, marriage with Larisa Zhadova, birth of daughter Alexandra.
1958-1960 Work in Tashkent as Pravda’s own correspondent.
1959 Release of the book "The Living and the Dead".
1961 Production of the play “The Fourth” by Simonov at the Sovremennik Theater.
1976 Release of the film “Twenty Days Without War” based on Simonov’s script.
August 28, 1979 Date of death of Simonov.
September 2, 1979 Simonov's funeral (the ashes were scattered over the Buinichi field).

Memorable places

1. Simonov’s house in Saratov, where he lived as a child.
2. Literary Institute named after. A. M. Gorky.
3. Theater named after. Lenin Komsomol, where Simonov's first play was staged.
4. The Sovremennik Theater, where Simonov’s play “The Fourth” was staged.
5. Monument to Simonov in Saratov.
6. Buinichi field, where Simonov was buried (the ashes were scattered) and where a memorial sign was erected in memory of Simonov.

Episodes of life

Simonov was married several times. His most striking romance was his relationship with actress Valentina Serova. Simonov was passionately in love with Serova, he courted her for a long time and finally they got married. Unfortunately, the marriage did not work out. When, a few years later, Serova died alone and oblivious, Simonov did not come to the funeral, but sent 58 pink roses to the coffin as a sign of past love.

Actress Valentina Serova and Konstantin Simonov were married for several years - the whole country followed their romance with bated breath

Covenant

"We can experience great grief,
We may be suffocating with sadness
Sink and swim. But in this sea
There must always be islands."

Documentary film about Konstantin Simonov

Condolences

“Simonov was able to guess the most important thing, the most universal thing, the most necessary thing for people then, and thereby helped them during the difficult time of the war.”
Margarita Aliger, Russian poetess