The birth of the future Russian writer Ivan Alexandrovich Goncharov took place on June 6, 1812 in the family of a Simbirsk bread merchant. At the age of 7, the boy lost his father. All business went to the mother. She was a smart and energetic woman. Caring for the upbringing of children - brothers and sisters of the future luminary of Russian literature - fell on the shoulders of a retired sailor Tregubov, who settled in the Goncharovs' house and was the godfather of the boy. At his insistence, Ivan was sent to a private boarding school for the children of nobles, in which he studied foreign languages and literature.
A 10-year-old boy is sent to Moscow to continue his education at a commercial school. The years at the school became difficult for Goncharov and he reluctantly remembered them. The only bright moment of those years for him was his acquaintance with the works of A.S. Pushkin. Eight years later, Goncharov graduated from college and entered Moscow University. The meeting with Pushkin, who visited the university in September 1832, left in the soul of the writer memories for life.
Goncharov left for St. Petersburg, where he became a member of the family of the artist Maykov, in which he studied Latin and Russian literature with the artist's offspring. The family was a kind of literary salon, publishing handwritten almanacs and magazines. Painters, writers and famous people of St. Petersburg gathered here. And Goncharov placed stories in two of them "Dashing Pain" and "Lucky Mistake". According to V.G. Belinsky's stories made a favorable impression on the St. Petersburg public.
"Ordinary Story" appeared when Goncharov was 35 years old. The novel became the work of a mature writer.
14 years after leaving Simbirsk, Goncharov visits his native city. Under the yoke of sad memories, the idea of a novel is born "Cliff" . The creation of a work overshadows the work on the novel "Oblomov" . And in 1852, the quiet course of the writer's life was disturbed by a round-the-world voyage with an expedition of Russian ships to the shores of Japan and America. Goncharov was seconded to the expedition as a secretary.
In early 1855, Goncharov returned to St. Petersburg. The result of this journey was the writing of the two-volume "Frigate" Pallada ".
Seven years later, Goncharov returned to the service. He works as an editor of the Severnaya Pochta newspaper, then becomes a member of the press department. After thirty years of service, in 1867 Goncharov retired. Now he was free to be creative. The writer returns to his plan in 1849. The novel "Cliff" and publishes it in 1869. Contradictory rumors come to life around the name of the writer, which deal a blow to the suspicious nature of Goncharov.
The disease poisons his not very strong body, shortness of breath torments him more and more. Goncharov becomes withdrawn and suspicious of people. He lives alone in a Petersburg apartment. Sometimes he travels abroad. Sometimes his memoirs, small articles appear in the press: "At the University", "At Home", "Notes on Belinsky's Personality", "Million Torments" etc. The last of these articles is devoted to Griboedov's comedy "Woe from Wit". Goncharov made a subtle and precise analysis of the production that not a single literary historian has yet deprive his article of attention.
The writer painfully reacted to his creative silence of the last period. In his letters one can see a lonely and withdrawn person, distinguished by subtle observation, but eschewing life, at the same time suffering from his loneliness.
Once he caught a cold, the disease was complicated by pneumonia, and on September 15, 1891. The 79-year-old writer is gone. Ivan Alexandrovich Goncharov was buried at the Nikolsky cemetery of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra, after 50 years his ashes were transferred to.
The material was prepared by Larisa Gennadievna Dovgomelya
