Belyaev is fantastic. Complete collection of works in one volume. "Judicial Formalism" and Travel Dreams: Alexander Belyaev's Childhood and Youth

In his sci-fi novels, Alexander BELYAEV anticipated the appearance of a huge number of inventions and scientific ideas: the KEC Star depicts the prototype of modern orbital stations, the Amphibian Man and Professor Dowell's Head show the miracles of transplantation, and Eternal Bread - achievements of modern biochemistry and genetics.
He had a great imagination and knew how to look far into the future, thanks to which he magnificently painted people's destinies in unusual, fantastic circumstances. Alexander Belyaev could not foresee one thing - what would be his own last days. If biographers know almost everything about the life of the writer, then the circumstances of the death of the "Soviet Jules Verne" are still mysterious.
The place of his burial is also a mystery. After all, a memorial stele at the Kazan cemetery of Tsarskoye Selo ( former Pushkin. - K.G.) is installed only on the alleged grave.

For three days in a row, the retreating units of the Red Army stretched through Pushkin in an endless file. The last truck with our soldiers passed on September 17, 1941, and by evening the Germans appeared in the city. There were so few of them that 12-year-old Sveta, looking at the enemy soldiers through the window, was even a little confused. It was incomprehensible to her why the invincible Red Army was running away from a small group of machine gunners? It seemed to the girl that they could be slammed in two counts. Then she did not yet know that in just three months the war would kill her dad, the famous Soviet science fiction writer Alexander Belyaev. And the rest of the family members will then wander around the camps and links for 15 years. However, we started our conversation with the daughter of the "Soviet Jules Verne" from a different topic.

As a child, he loved to swing devils on his leg

Svetlana Aleksandrovna, please tell us how your parents met?
- It happened in Yalta, in the late 1920s. My mother's family lived in this city for quite a long time, and my father came there in 1917 for treatment. In those years, he had already developed spinal tuberculosis, which put him in a plaster bed for three and a half years. Later, he will write that it was during this period that he managed to change his mind and re-feel everything that a “head without a body” can experience. However, the father's illness did not prevent either their acquaintance or the development of relations.

SVETLANA ALEKSANDROVNA: the pre-war years were the happiest

When the doctors made a special corset for dad, mom helped him learn to walk again. And her love finally put him on his feet. By the way, before meeting my mother, my father had another wife named Verochka. When he fell ill with severe pleurisy and lay with high temperature, Verochka left him, saying that she did not get married in order to become a nurse.
- Did your father tell you anything about his childhood?
- He is not much, but I remember most of these stories very well. I especially liked the story about the devil. Dad, after all, grew up in a family of a priest, and as a child, the nanny often scolded him for the habit of crossing his legs. "There is nothing unclean to swing!" - said the woman in the hearts. Dad always obeyed the nanny, but as soon as she left the room, he immediately crossed his legs, imagining that a cute little devil was sitting on the tip of his leg. "Let him sway until the nanny sees," he thought.
In the evening, when mother and grandmother went to breathe fresh air We stayed at home alone. And he came up with all sorts of things for me incredible stories. Let's say about tailed people who used to live on earth. Their tails did not bend, and before sitting down, they always drilled a hole in the ground for the tail. I remember I believed this for a long time. And shortly before the war, he promised me to write a children's fairy tale - about me and my friends in the yard. It's a pity that I didn't make it.

Marauders removed the suit from the deceased

From the memoirs of Svetlana Belyaeva: “Having occupied the city, the Germans began to walk around the yards, looking for Russian soldiers. When they came to our house, I answered in German that my mother and grandmother had gone to the doctor, and my father was not a soldier at all, but a famous Soviet writer , but he cannot get up, because he is very ill. This news did not make much impression on them. "
- Svetlana Aleksandrovna, why wasn't your family evacuated from Pushkin before the Germans entered the city?
“My father had been seriously ill for many years. He could move independently only in a special corset, and even then for short distances. I had enough strength to wash and sometimes eat at the table. The rest of the time, dad watched the course of life from a height ... own bed. In addition, shortly before the war, he underwent kidney surgery. He was so weak that leaving was out of the question. The Union of Writers, which at that time was engaged in the evacuation of writers' children, offered to take me out, but my parents refused this offer. In 1940, I developed tuberculosis of the knee joint, and I met the war in a cast. Mom often repeated then: "To die, so together!" However, fate was pleased to dispose of otherwise.

SVETA BELYAEVA: this is how the writer's daughter met the war

There are still quite a few versions about the death of your father. Why did he die anyway?
- From hunger. In our family, it was not customary to make some kind of stock for the winter. If you needed something, your mother or grandmother would go to the market and just buy groceries. In a word, when the Germans entered the city, we had several bags of cereals, some potatoes and a barrel of sauerkraut, which our friends gave us. The cabbage, I remember, tasted nasty, but we were still very happy. And when these supplies ran out, my grandmother had to go to work for the Germans. She asked to go into the kitchen to peel potatoes. For this, every day they gave her a pot of soup and some potato husks, from which we baked cakes. We had enough of such meager food, but for my father in his position this was not enough. He began to swell from hunger and eventually died ...
- Some researchers believe that Alexander Romanovich simply could not bear the horrors of the fascist occupation.
- I don’t know how my father experienced all this, but I was very scared. I will never forget a man hanging from a pole with a sign on his chest: "The judge is a friend of the Jews." At that time, anyone could be executed without trial or investigation. Most of all we were worried about my mother. She often went to our old apartment to pick up some things from there. If she had been caught doing this, she could easily have been hanged like a thief. Moreover, the gallows stood right under our windows, and every day my father saw how the Germans executed innocent residents. Maybe his heart really gave out...

ALEXANDER BELYAEV WITH WIFE MARGARIT AND FIRST DAUGHTER: the death of little Lyudochka was the first with great grief in a fantasy family

I heard that the Germans didn't even let you and your mother bury Alexander Romanovich...
- Dad died on January 6, 1942, but it was not possible to take him to the cemetery right away. Mom went to the city government, and there it turned out that there was only one horse left in the city and that they had to wait in line. The coffin with the father's body was placed in an empty apartment next door, and my mother went to visit him every day. A few days later, someone took off my dad's suit. So he lay in his underwear until the gravedigger took him away. At that time, many people were simply covered with earth in common ditches, but one had to pay for a separate grave. Mom took some things to the gravedigger, and he swore that he would bury his father like a human. True, he immediately said that he would not dig a grave in frozen ground. The coffin with the body was placed in the cemetery chapel and had to be buried with the onset of the first warm weather. Alas, we were not destined to wait for this: on February 5, they took me, my mother and grandmother into captivity, so they buried my father without us.

The Germans laughed at them, but the Russians hated them.

Why did you end up in a special camp where Russian "foreigners" were kept?
- I got foreign roots from my maternal grandmother. Before the war, passports were changed, and for some reason they decided to change the grandmother's nationality. As a result, she turned from a Swede into a German. And for the company, the Germans also recorded my mother, despite the Russian name and surname. I remember very well how they laughed merrily when they returned home. Who knew then that the banal mistake of a passport officer could turn into a camp term.
When the Germans came to Pushkin, they immediately registered all the Volksdeutsches. In the middle of February 1942 we ended up in one of the camps in West Prussia. They took us away from the USSR, allegedly saving us from Soviet power, and then for some reason they put us behind barbed wire. The food was so poor that very soon we even began to eat grass and dandelions. On Sundays locals They came to stare at us like animals in a zoo. It was unbearable...

MARGARITA BELYAEVA WITH DAUGHTER SVETA: together we went through fascist camps and Soviet exile

This whole nightmare should have ended for you no later than May 9, 1945.
- The last camp in which we sat was in Austria, but the troubles did not end for our family, even when the country capitulated. The head of the camp escaped. And so they entered the city soviet tanks. Many of the prisoners rushed to meet them. They shouted on the go: "Ours are coming!" Suddenly the column stopped, the commander got out of the lead car and said: “It’s a pity we didn’t get to you before the surrender, they would have sent you all to hell!” Children and old people stood as if struck by thunder, trying to understand why they did not please the soldiers-liberators so much. Soviet soldiers, apparently, they mistook us for the Germans and were ready to mix everyone with the ground.
The homeland met us with camps, where we stayed for 11 years. Later, I accidentally found out that Altai region we were sent a few months earlier than the corresponding order was signed. That is, people were imprisoned "just in case."
- How did you manage to return from exile?
- In the late 60s, a two-volume work by Alexander Belyaev was published, for which my mother was paid 170 thousand rubles. Huge money for those times, thanks to which we were able to move to Leningrad. First of all, they rushed to look for my father's grave. It turned out that the gravedigger kept his word. True, he buried his father not quite in the place that his mother agreed with him. Today, on the grave of his father, there is a white marble stele with the inscription: "Belyaev Alexander Romanovich - science fiction writer."

The last refuge is in a mass grave

The very first employee of the Kazan cemetery of Tsarskoye Selo, whom we asked to show a stele of white marble, readily responded to our request. It turned out that the monument to the science fiction writer does not stand at all on the grave of the writer, but on the site of the alleged burial. The details of his burial were found out by the former chairman of the local history section of the city of Pushkin, Evgeny Golovchiner. He once managed to find a witness who was present at the funeral of Belyaev.

ALEXANDER BELYAEV: he loved to fool around in spite of all diseases

Tatyana Ivanova was disabled since childhood and lived all her life at the Kazan cemetery - she looked after the graves and grew flowers for sale.
It was she who said that in early March 1942, when the ground had already begun to thaw a little, people began to bury people who had been lying in the local chapel since winter in the cemetery. It was at this time that the writer Belyaev was buried along with others. Why did she remember it? Yes, because Alexander Romanovich was buried in a coffin, of which there were only two left in Pushkin by that time. Tatyana Ivanova also pointed out the place where both of these coffins were buried. True, from her words it turned out that the gravedigger still did not keep his promise to bury Belyaev like a human being - he buried the writer's coffin in a common ditch instead of a separate grave.
And although to name exact location, where the ashes of Alexander Romanovich rest, no one can today, knowledgeable people they say that the "Russian Jules Verne" lies within a radius of 10 meters from the marble stele.

He was born in Smolensk, in a family Orthodox priest. The family had two more children: sister Nina died in childhood from sarcoma; brother Vasily, a student at a veterinary institute, drowned while riding a boat.

The father wished to see in his son the successor of his work and gave him in 1895 to the Smolensk Theological Seminary. In 1901, Alexander graduated from it, but did not become a priest, on the contrary, he came out of there a convinced atheist. In defiance of his father, he entered the Demidov Juridical Lyceum in Yaroslavl. Soon after the death of his father, he had to earn extra money: Alexander gave lessons, painted scenery for the theater, played the violin in the circus orchestra.

After graduating (in 1906) from the Demidov Lyceum, A. Belyaev received the position of a private attorney in Smolensk and soon gained fame as a good lawyer. He has a regular clientele. His financial resources also grew: he was able to rent and furnish a good apartment, acquire a good collection of paintings, collect big library. Having finished any business, he went to travel abroad: he visited France, Italy, visited Venice.

In 1914 he left law for the sake of literature and theater.

At the age of thirty-five, A. Belyaev fell ill with tuberculous pleurisy. The treatment turned out to be unsuccessful - tuberculosis of the spine developed, which was complicated by paralysis of the legs. A serious illness confined him to bed for six years, three of which he was in a cast. The young wife left him, saying that she did not get married to take care of her sick husband. In search of specialists who could help him, A. Belyaev, with his mother and old nanny, ended up in Yalta. There, in the hospital, he began to write poetry. Not succumbing to despair, he is engaged in self-education: he studies foreign languages, medicine, biology, history, technology, reads a lot (Jules Verne, HG Wells, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky). Having defeated the disease, in 1922 he returned to a full life, began to work. First, A. Belyaev became a teacher in an orphanage, then he got a job as an inspector of the criminal investigation department - he organized a photo laboratory there, later he had to go to the library. Life in Yalta was very difficult, and A. Belyaev, with the help of acquaintances, moved with his family to Moscow (1923), where he got a job as a legal adviser. There he began a serious literary activity. He publishes science fiction stories, stories in the magazines "Around the World", "Knowledge is Power", "World Pathfinder", earning the title of "Soviet Jules Verne". In 1925, he published the story "Professor Dowell's Head", which Belyaev himself called an autobiographical story: he wanted to tell "what a head without a body can experience."

A. Belyaev lived in Moscow until 1928; during this time, he wrote "The Island of Lost Ships", "The Last Man from Atlantis", "Amphibian Man", "Struggle on the Air", a collection of stories was published. The author wrote not only under his own name, but also under the pseudonyms A. Rom and Arbel.

In 1928, A. Belyaev and his family moved to Leningrad and since then he has been exclusively engaged in literature, professionally. This is how "Lord of the World", "Underwater Farmers", "The Miraculous Eye", stories from the series "Professor Wagner's Inventions" appeared. They were printed mainly in Moscow publishing houses. However, soon the disease again made itself felt, and I had to move from rainy Leningrad to sunny Kyiv.

The year 1930 turned out to be very difficult for the writer: his six-year-old daughter died of meningitis, the second one fell ill with rickets, and soon his own illness(spondylitis). As a result, in 1931 the family returned to Leningrad.

In September 1931, A. Belyaev handed over the manuscript of his novel The Earth is Burning to the editors of the Leningrad magazine Vokrug Sveta.

In 1932, he lives in Murmansk (source newspaper "Vecherny Murmansk" dated 10/10/2014). In 1934, he meets with Herbert Wells, who arrived in Leningrad. In 1935, Belyaev became a permanent contributor to the Vokrug Sveta magazine. At the beginning of 1938, after eleven years of intense collaboration, Belyaev left the Vokrug Sveta magazine. In 1938, he published an article called "Cinderella" about the plight of modern science fiction.

Shortly before the war, the writer underwent another operation, so he refused the offer to evacuate when the war began. The city of Pushkin (former Tsarskoye Selo, a suburb of Leningrad), where he lived in last years A. Belyaev with his family was occupied. In January 1942, the writer died of starvation. He was buried in a mass grave along with other residents of the city. From Osipova's book “Diaries and Letters”: “The writer Belyaev, who wrote science fiction novels like Amphibian Man, froze from hunger in his room. “Frozen from hunger” is an absolutely accurate expression. People are so weak from hunger that they are not able to get up and bring firewood. He was found already completely stiff ... "

The surviving wife of the writer and daughter Svetlana were taken prisoner by the Germans and were in various camps for displaced persons in Poland and Austria until liberated by the Red Army in May 1945. After the end of the war, the wife and daughter of Alexander Romanovich, like many other citizens of the USSR who were in German captivity, were exiled to Western Siberia. They spent 11 years in exile. The daughter did not marry.

The burial place of Alexander Belyaev is not known for certain. A memorial stele at the Kazan cemetery in the city of Pushkin was installed only on the alleged grave.

This outstanding creator is one of the founders of the genre of science fiction literature in the Soviet Union. Even in our time, it seems simply incredible that a person in his works can reflect events that will happen after several decades ...

So, who is Alexander Belyaev? The biography of this person is simple and unique in its own way. But unlike the millions of copies of the author's works, not much has been written about his life.
Alexander Belyaev was born on March 4, 1884 in the city of Smolensk, in the family of an Orthodox priest. There were two more children in the family: sister Nina died in childhood from sarcoma; brother Vasily, a student at a veterinary institute, drowned while riding a boat.
The father wanted to see in his son the successor of his work and sent him in 1894 to a religious school. After graduating in 1898, Alexander was transferred to the Smolensk Theological Seminary. In 1904 he graduated from it, but did not become a priest, on the contrary, he came out of there a convinced atheist. In defiance of his father, he entered the Demidov Juridical Lyceum in Yaroslavl. Soon after the death of his father, he had to earn extra money: Alexander gave lessons, painted scenery for the theater, played the violin in the circus orchestra, and was published in city newspapers as a music critic.

After graduating (in 1908) from the Demidov Lyceum, A. Belyaev received the position of a private attorney in Smolensk and soon gained fame as a good lawyer. He has a regular clientele. His material resources also grew: he was able to rent and furnish a good apartment, acquire a good collection of paintings, and collect a large library. In 1913 he traveled abroad: he visited France, Italy, visited Venice. In 1914 he left law for the sake of literature and theater. In 1914, his debut play, Grandmother Moira, was published in the Moscow children's magazine Protalinka.
At the age of 35, A. Belyaev fell ill with tuberculous pleurisy. The treatment turned out to be unsuccessful - tuberculosis of the spine developed, which was complicated by paralysis of the legs. A serious illness confined him to bed for six years, three of which he was in a cast. The young wife left him, saying that she did not get married to take care of her sick husband. In search of specialists who could help him, A. Belyaev, with his mother and old nanny, ended up in Yalta. There, in the hospital, he began to write poetry. Not giving in to despair, he is engaged in self-education: he studies foreign languages, medicine, biology, history, technology, reads a lot (Jules Verne, Herbert Wells, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky). Having defeated the disease, in 1922 he returned to a full life, began to work. In the same year he marries Margarita Konstantinovna Magnushevskaya.
First, A. Belyaev became a teacher in an orphanage, then he got a job as an inspector of the criminal investigation department, where he organized a photo laboratory, later he had to go to the library. Life in Yalta was very difficult, and A. Belyaev (with the help of a friend) in 1923 moved with his family to Moscow, where he got a job as a legal adviser. There he began a serious literary activity.

Publishes science fiction stories, stories in the magazines "Around the World", "Knowledge is Power", "World Pathfinder".
In 1924, in the newspaper Gudok, he published the story “Professor Dowell’s Head,” which Belyaev himself called an autobiographical story, explaining: “Illness once laid me in a plaster bed for three and a half years. This period of illness was accompanied by paralysis of the lower half of the body. And although I owned my hands, nevertheless, my life in these years was reduced to the life of a “head without a body”, which I did not feel at all - complete anesthesia ... ".

A. Belyaev lived in Moscow until 1928; during this time he wrote the novels "The Island of Lost Ships", "The Last Man from Atlantis", "The Amphibian Man", "Struggle on the Air", a collection of short stories was published. The author wrote not only under his own name, but also under the pseudonyms A. Rom and Arbel.

In 1928, A. Belyaev moved to Leningrad with his family and has since become a professional writer. "The novels Lord of the World", "Underwater Farmers", "The Miraculous Eye", stories from the series "Professor Wagner's Inventions" were written. They were printed mainly in Moscow publishing houses. However, soon the disease again made itself felt, and I had to move from rainy Leningrad to sunny Kyiv. However, in Kyiv, publishing houses accepted manuscripts only in Ukrainian, and Belyaev again moved to Moscow.

The year 1930 turned out to be very difficult for the writer: his six-year-old daughter Lyudmila died of meningitis, his second daughter Svetlana fell ill with rickets, and his own illness (spondylitis) soon worsened. As a result, in 1931 the family returned to Leningrad.

In September 1931, A. Belyaev handed over the manuscript of his novel The Earth is Burning to the editors of the Leningrad magazine Vokrug Sveta.

In 1932 he lives in Murmansk. In 1934, he meets with Herbert Wells, who arrived in Leningrad. In 1935, Belyaev became a permanent contributor to the Vokrug Sveta magazine.
At the beginning of 1938, after eleven years of intense collaboration, Belyaev left the Vokrug Sveta magazine. In 1938, he published the article "Cinderella" about the plight of his contemporary science fiction.

Shortly before the war, the writer underwent another operation, so when the war began, he refused the offer to evacuate. The city of Pushkin (formerly Tsarskoye Selo, a suburb of Leningrad), where A. Belyaev and his family lived in recent years, was occupied by the Nazis.
On January 6, 1942, at the age of 58, Alexander Romanovich Belyaev died of starvation. He was buried in a mass grave along with other residents of the city. “Writer Belyaev, who wrote science fiction novels like Amphibian Man, froze to death in his room. “Frozen from hunger” is an absolutely accurate expression. People are so weak from hunger that they are not able to get up and bring firewood. He was found already completely stiff ... ".

Alexander Belyaev had two daughters: Lyudmila (March 15, 1924 - March 19, 1930) and Svetlana.
The writer's mother-in-law was a Swedish woman, named at birth by the double name Elvira-Ioanetta. Shortly before the war, when exchanging passports, she was left with only one name, and they also recorded her and her daughter as Germans. Due to the complexity of the exchange, it remained so. Because of this entry in the documents, the writer's wife Margarita, daughter Svetlana and mother-in-law were assigned the status of Volksdeutsche by the Germans and were taken prisoner by the Germans, where they were in various camps for displaced persons in Poland and Austria until liberation by the Red Army in May 1945. After the end of the war, they were exiled to Western Siberia. They spent 11 years in exile. The daughter did not marry.
The surviving wife of the writer and daughter Svetlana were taken prisoner by the Germans and were in various camps for displaced persons in Poland and Austria until liberated by the Red Army in May 1945. After the end of the war, they were exiled to Western Siberia. They spent 11 years in exile. The daughter did not marry.

The circumstances of the death of the "Soviet Jules Verne" - Alexander Belyaev still remain a mystery. The writer died in the occupied city of Pushkin in 1942, but it is not very clear how and why this happened. Some argue that Alexander Romanovich died of starvation, others believe that he could not bear the horrors of the occupation, others believe that the cause of the writer's death should be sought in his last novel.

Conversation with the daughter of the "Soviet Jules Verne".

Svetlana Alexandrovna, why wasn't your family evacuated from Pushkin before the Germans entered the city?
- My father had spinal tuberculosis for many years. He could move independently only in a special corset. He was so weak that leaving was out of the question. There was a special commission in the city, which at that time was engaged in the evacuation of children. He offered to take me out too, but my parents refused this offer. In 1940, I developed tuberculosis of the knee joint, and I met the war in a cast. Mom often repeated then: “To die is so together!”.
- There are still quite a few versions about the death of your father:
- Dad died of starvation. In our family, it was not customary to make some kind of stock for the winter. When the Germans entered the city, we had several bags of cereal, some potatoes and a barrel of sauerkraut. And when these supplies ran out, my grandmother had to go to work for the Germans. Every day she was given a pot of soup and some potato skins, from which we baked cakes. We had enough of such meager food, but this was not enough for my father.
- Some researchers believe that Alexander Romanovich simply could not bear the horrors of the fascist occupation ...
- I don’t know how my father experienced all this, but I was very scared. At that time, anyone could be executed without trial or investigation. Just for violating curfew or being charged with theft. Most of all we were worried about my mother. She often went to our old apartment to pick up some things from there. She could easily be hanged like a burglar. The gallows stood right under our windows.
- Is it true that the Germans did not even let you and your mother bury Alexander Romanovich?
- Dad died on January 6, 1942. Mom went to the city government, and there it turned out that there was only one horse left in the city, and we had to wait in line. The coffin with the father's body was placed in an empty apartment next door. At that time, many people were simply covered with earth in common ditches, but one had to pay for a separate grave. Mom took some things to the gravedigger, and he swore that he would bury his father like a human. The coffin with the body was placed in a crypt at the Kazan cemetery and had to be buried with the onset of the first warm weather. Alas, on February 5, my mother, my grandmother and I were taken prisoner, so they buried my father without us.

The monument to the science fiction writer at the Kazan cemetery of Tsarskoye Selo does not stand at all on the grave of the writer, but at the place of his alleged burial. The details of this story were unearthed by the former chairman of the local history section of the city of Pushkin, Evgeny Golovchiner. He once managed to find a witness who was present at the funeral of Belyaev. Tatyana Ivanova was disabled since childhood and lived all her life at the Kazan cemetery.

It was she who said that at the beginning of March 1942, when the earth had already begun to thaw a little, they began to bury people who had been lying in the local crypt since winter in the cemetery. It was at this time that the writer Belyaev was buried along with others. Why did she remember it? Yes, because Alexander Romanovich was buried in a coffin, of which there were only two left in Pushkin by that time. Professor Chernov was buried in another. Tatyana Ivanova also pointed out the place where both of these coffins were buried. True, from her words it appeared that the gravedigger still did not keep his promise to bury Belyaev like a human being, he buried the writer's coffin in a common ditch instead of a separate grave.

Much more interesting is the question of why Alexander Belyaev died after all. Publicist Fyodor Morozov believes that the death of the writer could well be connected with the mystery of the Amber Room. The fact is that the last thing Belyaev worked on was devoted to this particular topic. Nobody knows what he was going to write about the famous mosaic. It is only known that even before the war, Belyaev told many people about his new novel and even quoted some passages to his acquaintances. With the advent of the Germans in Pushkin, specialists became actively interested in the Amber Room.

Gestapo. By the way, they could not fully believe that a genuine mosaic fell into their hands. Therefore, they were actively looking for people who would have information on this matter. It is no coincidence that two Gestapo officers also went to Alexander Romanovich, trying to find out what he knew about this story. Whether the writer told them anything or not is not known. In any case, no documents have yet been found in the Gestapo archives. And here is the answer to the question whether Belyaev could have been killed because of his interest in Amber room doesn't seem all that complicated. Suffice it to recall what fate befell many researchers who tried to find a wonderful mosaic.

"Life after death.

More than 70 years have passed since the Russian science fiction writer died, but his memory lives on in his works to this day. At one time, the work of Alexander Belyaev was subjected to severe criticism, sometimes he heard mocking reviews. However, the ideas of the science fiction writer, which previously seemed ridiculous and scientifically impossible, eventually convinced even the most inveterate skeptics of the opposite.

The author's works continue to be published even today, they are quite in demand by the reader. Belyaev's books are instructive, his works call for kindness and courage, love and respect. Many films have been made based on the novels of the prose writer. So, since 1961, eight films have been filmed, some of them are part of the classics of Soviet cinema - "Amphibian Man", "Professor Dowell's Testament", "Island of Lost Ships" and "The Air Seller". The story of Ichthyander Perhaps the most famous work of A.R. Belyaev is the novel "Amphibian Man", which was written in 1927. It was him, along with the "Head of Professor Dowell", that HG Wells highly appreciated. Belyaev was inspired to create Amphibian Man, firstly, by the memories of the novel Iktaner and Moisette by the French writer Jean de la Hire, and secondly, by a newspaper article about a trial in Argentina in the case of a doctor who conducted various experiments over people and animals. To date, it is almost impossible to establish the name of the newspaper and the details of the process. But this once again proves that, creating his science fiction works, Alexander Belyaev tried to rely on real life facts and events. In 1962, directors V. Chebotarev and G. Kazansky filmed "Amphibian Man". "The Last Man from Atlantis" One of the very first works of the author - "The Last Man from Atlantis" did not go unnoticed in Soviet and world literature. In 1927, it was included in Belyaev's first author's collection along with The Island of Lost Ships. From 1928 to 1956, the work was forgotten, and only since 1957 it was repeatedly reprinted on the territory of the Soviet Union.

The idea of ​​searching for the vanished civilization of the Atlanteans dawned on Belyaev after reading an article in the French newspaper Le Figaro. Its content was such that in Paris there was a society for the study of Atlantis. At the beginning of the twentieth century, associations of this kind were quite common, they enjoyed the increased interest of the population. The astute Alexander Belyaev decided to take advantage of this. The science fiction writer used the note as a prologue to The Last Man of Atlantis. The work consists of two parts, is perceived by the reader quite simply and excitingly. The material for writing the novel is taken from the book by Roger Devigne “The Disappeared Continent. Atlantis, one sixth of the world." When comparing science fiction predictions, it is important to note that scientific ideas books by the Soviet writer Alexander Belyaev were 99 percent sold. So, main idea novel "Professor Dowell's Head" became the possibility of reviving the human body after death. Several years after the publication of this work, Sergei Bryukhonenko, the great Soviet physiologist, carried out similar experiments. The achievement of medicine that is widespread today - the surgical restoration of the lens of the eye - was also foreseen by Alexander Belyaev more than fifty years ago.

The novel "Amphibian Man" became prophetic in scientific developments technologies for long-term human stay under water. So, in 1943, the French scientist Jacques-Yves Cousteau patented the first scuba gear, thereby proving that Ichthyander is not such an unattainable image. Successful tests of the first unmanned vehicles aircraft in the thirties of the twentieth century in Great Britain, as well as the creation psychotropic weapons- all this was described by a science fiction writer in the book "Lord of the World" back in 1926.
The novel "The Man Who Lost Face" tells about the successful development plastic surgery and the resulting ethical issues. In the story, the governor of the state reincarnates as a black man, taking on all the hardships of racial discrimination. Here you can draw a certain parallel in the fate of the mentioned hero and the famous American singer Michael Jackson, who, fleeing from unfair persecution, did a considerable number of operations to change skin color.

All my creative life Belyaev struggled with the disease. Deprived of physical abilities, he tried to reward the heroes of books unusual abilities: communicate without words, fly like birds, swim like fish. But to infect the reader with an interest in life, in something new - isn't this the true talent of a writer?

Born on March 4 (16 n.s.) in Smolensk in the family of a priest. Since childhood, he read a lot, was fond of adventure literature, especially Jules Verne. Subsequently, he flew on airplanes of one of the first designs, he made gliders himself.

In 1901 he graduated from the seminary, but did not become a priest; on the contrary, he came out of there a convinced atheist. He loved painting, music, theater, played in amateur performances, took photographs, and studied technology.

He entered the legal lyceum in Yaroslavl and at the same time studied at the conservatory in the violin class. To earn money for his studies, he played in a circus orchestra, painted theatrical scenery, and was engaged in journalism. In 1906, after graduating from the Lyceum, he returned to Smolensk, worked as a barrister. Acted as music critic, theater reviewer in the newspaper "Smolensky Vestnik".

He did not stop dreaming about distant lands and, having saved up money, in 1913 traveled to Italy, France, and Switzerland. He kept the memories of this trip for the rest of his life. Returning to Smolensk, he worked in the Smolensky Vestnik, a year later he became the editor of this publication. A serious illness - bone tuberculosis - for six years, three of which he was in a cast, chained him to bed. Not giving in to despair, he is engaged in self-education: he studies foreign languages, medicine, biology, history, technology, and reads a lot. Having defeated the disease, in 1922 he returned to a full life, serving as a juvenile inspector. On the advice of doctors, he lives in Yalta, works as a teacher in an orphanage.

In 1923 he moved to Moscow, began a serious literary activity. He publishes science fiction stories, novels in the magazines Vokrug Sveta, Znanie-Sila, Vsemirnyi sledopyt, earning the title of "Soviet Jules Verne". In 1925 he published the story "Professor Dowell's Head", which Belyaev himself called an autobiographical story: he wanted to tell "what a head without a body can experience."

In the 1920s, such famous works, like "Island of Lost Ships", "Amphibian Man", "Above the Abyss", "Struggle on the Air". He writes essays about the great Russian scientists - Lomonosov, Mendeleev, Pavlov, Tsiolkovsky.

In 1931 he moved to Leningrad, continuing to work hard. He was especially interested in the problems of space exploration and ocean depths. In 1934, after reading Belyaev's novel The Airship, Tsiolkovsky wrote: “... wittily written and scientific enough for fantasy. Let me express my pleasure to Comrade Belyaev.”

In 1933 the book Leap into Nothing was published, 1935 - The Second Moon. In the 1930s, “Star of the KETs”, “Wonderful Eye”, “Under the Sky of the Arctic” were written.

He spent the last years of his life near Leningrad, in the city of Pushkin. War met in the hospital.

January 6, 1942 Belyaev died of starvation in the occupied Pushkin.
Books:

No series

witch castle

(Heroic fantasy)

Star CEC

(Heroic fantasy)

1. "Amphibian Man"

For Alexander Belyaev, science fiction became his life's work. He corresponded with scientists, studied works on medicine, technology, and biology. Famous novel Belyaev's "Amphibian Man" was praised by Herbert Wells, and scientific stories printed many Soviet magazines.

"Judicial Formalism" and Travel Dreams: Alexander Belyaev's Childhood and Youth

Alexander Belyaev grew up in the family of an Orthodox priest in Smolensk. At the request of his father, he entered the theological seminary. Seminarians could read newspapers, magazines, books and go to the theater only after special written permission from the rector, and Alexander Belyaev loved music and literature from childhood. And he decided not to become a priest, although he graduated from the seminary in 1901.

Belyaev played the violin and piano, was fond of photography and painting, read a lot and played in the theater of the Smolensk People's House. Jules Verne was his favorite author. The future writer read adventure novels, dreamed of superpowers, like their heroes. Once he even jumped from the roof, trying to "fly", and seriously injured his spine.

My brother and I decided to travel to the center of the earth. They moved tables, chairs, beds, covered them with blankets, sheets, stocked up on an oil lantern and went deep into the mysterious bowels of the Earth. And immediately the prosaic tables and chairs were gone. We saw only caves and abysses, rocks and underground waterfalls as wonderful pictures depicted them: eerie and at the same time somehow cozy. And my heart sank from this sweet horror.

Alexander Belyaev

At 18, Belyaev entered the Demidov Lyceum of Law in Yaroslavl. During the First Russian Revolution, he participated in student strikes, after which the provincial gendarme department followed him: “In 1905, as a student, he built barricades on the squares of Moscow. He kept a diary, recording the events of the armed uprising. Already during the advocacy, he spoke on political matters, was subjected to searches. Diary nearly burned.

After graduating from the Lyceum in 1909, Alexander Belyaev returned to his native Smolensk. father died and young man I had to support my family: I designed scenery for the theater and played the violin in the orchestra of the Truzzi circus. Later, Belyaev received the position of a private attorney, practiced law, but, as he later recalled, "the bar - all this judicial formalism and casuistry - did not satisfy". At this time, he also wrote theater reviews, reviews from concerts and literary salons for the Smolensky Vestnik newspaper.

Traveling around Europe and passion for theater

In 1911, after a successful lawsuit, the young lawyer received his fee and traveled around Europe. He studied art history, traveled to Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, the south of France. Belyaev went abroad for the first time and got a lot of vivid impressions from the trip. After climbing Mount Vesuvius, he wrote travel essay, which was later published in Smolensky Vestnik.

Vesuvius is a symbol, it is the god of Southern Italy. Only here, sitting on this black lava, under which a deadly fire seethes somewhere below, does it become clear that the deification of the forces of nature reigning over a small man, just as defenseless, despite all the gains of culture, as he was thousands of years ago in blooming Pompeii.

Alexander Belyaev, excerpt from essay

When Belyaev returned from his travels, he continued his experiments in the theater, which he had begun at the Lyceum. Together with the Smolensk cellist Yulia Saburova, he staged the fairy-tale opera The Sleeping Princess. Belyaev himself played in amateur productions: Karandyshev in "Dowry" and Tortsov in the play "Poverty is not a vice" based on the works of Alexander Ostrovsky, Lyubin in Ivan Turgenev's "Provincial Woman", Astrov in "Uncle Vanya" by Anton Chekhov. When artists from the Konstantin Stanislavsky Theater were touring in Smolensk, the director saw Belyaev on stage and offered him a place in his troupe. However, the young lawyer refused.

Belyaev the Science Fiction: Stories and Novels

When Alexander Belyaev was 35 years old, he fell ill with tuberculosis of the spine: childhood trauma affected him. After a complication and an unsuccessful operation, Alexander Belyaev could not move for three years and walked in a special corset for three more years. Together with his mother, he went to Yalta for rehabilitation. There he wrote poetry and educated himself: he studied medicine, biology, technology, foreign languages, read his beloved Jules Verne, Herbert Wells and Konstantin Tsiolkovsky. All this time, the nurse Margarita Magnushevskaya was next to him - they met in 1919. She became the third wife of Belyaev. The first two marriages broke up quite quickly: both spouses left the writer for various reasons.

In 1922, Belyaev got better. He returned to work: first he got a job as an educator in Orphanage, then became a criminal investigation inspector.

I had to enter the office of the criminal investigation department, and according to the state I am a junior policeman. I am a photographer who shoots criminals, I am a lecturer who gives courses on criminal and administrative law and a “private” legal adviser. Despite all this, you have to starve.

Alexander Belyaev

It was hard to live in Yalta, and in 1923 the family moved to the capital. Here Alexander Belyaev began to engage in literature: his science fiction stories were published by the magazines Around the World, Knowledge is Power and World Pathfinder. The latter published the story "Professor Dowell's Head" in 1925. Later, the writer remade it into a novel: “Since then the situation has changed. Huge advances have been made in the field of surgery. And I decided to rework my story into a novel, making it without looking up from scientific basis, even more fantastic". With this work, the era of Belyaev's fantasy began. The novel is autobiographical: when the writer could not walk for three years, he came up with the idea to write about how a head without a body would feel: “... and although I owned my hands, nevertheless, my life in these years was reduced to the life of a“ head without a body ”, which I did not feel at all - complete anesthesia ...”

In the next three years, Belyaev wrote "The Island of Lost Ships", " last person from Atlantis", "Struggle on the air". The author signed his works with pseudonyms: A. Rom, Arbel, A. R. B., B. R-n, A. Romanovich, A. Rome.

"Amphibian Man"

In 1928, one of his most popular works, The Amphibian Man, was published. The basis of the novel, as the writer's wife later recalled, was a newspaper article about how a doctor in Buenos Aires performed forbidden experiments on people and animals. Belyaev was also inspired by the works of his predecessors - the works of "Iktaner and Moisette" by the French writer Jean de la Hire "Man-Fish" by a Russian anonymous author. The novel "Amphibian Man" big success, in the year of the first publication it was twice published as a separate book, and in 1929 it was reprinted for the third time.

It was with pleasure, Mr. Belyaev, that I read your wonderful novels The Head of Professor Dowell and The Amphibian Man. ABOUT! They compare favorably with Western books. I even envy their success a little. In modern Western science fiction literature, there is an incredible amount of baseless fantasy and an equally incredibly little thought ...

H. G. Wells

The Belyaevs briefly moved to Leningrad, but due to the bad climate they soon moved to warm Kyiv. This period was very difficult for the family. Eldest daughter Lyudmila died, the younger Svetlana became seriously ill, and the writer himself began to worsen. Local publications accepted works only in Ukrainian. The family returned to Leningrad, and in January 1931 moved to Pushkin. At this time, Alexander Belyaev began to take an interest in the human psyche: the work of the brain, its connection with the body and emotional state. About this, he created the works "The Man Who Doesn't Sleep", "Khoyti-Toyti", "The Man Who Lost Face", "The Air Seller".

To draw attention to a big problem is more important than to communicate a pile of ready-made scientific information. Push same on self scientific work is the best and more that science fiction can do.

Alexander Belyaev

"Understand what a scientist is working on"

In the 1930s, Belyaev became interested in space. He became friends with the members of the group of the Soviet engineer Friedrich Zander and the staff of the study group jet propulsion, studied the works of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky. After getting acquainted with the work of a scientist on an interplanetary airship, the idea of ​​​​the novel "Airship" appeared. In 1934, after reading this novel, Tsiolkovsky wrote: “... wittily written and scientific enough for fantasy. Let me express my pleasure to Comrade Belyaev..

After that, a constant correspondence began between them. When Belyaev was undergoing treatment in Evpatoria, he wrote to Tsiolkovsky that he was planning new novel- Second Moon. Correspondence was interrupted: in September 1935, Tsiolkovsky died. In 1936, the magazine "Around the World" published a novel about the first extraterrestrial colonies, dedicated to the great inventor - "Star of KETs" (KETs - Tsiolkovsky's initials).

The science fiction writer must himself be so scientifically educated that he can not only understand what the scientist is working on, but also, on this basis, foresee consequences and possibilities that are sometimes unclear even to the scientist himself.

Alexander Belyaev

Since 1939, for the newspaper Bolshevik Word, Belyaev wrote articles, stories, essays about Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, Ivan Pavlov, HG Wells, Mikhail Lomonosov. At the same time, another fantasy novel- "Dublwe's Laboratory", as well as the article "Cinderella" about the difficult position of fiction in literature. Shortly before the start of World War II, the writer's last lifetime novel, Ariel, was published. It was based on Belyaev's childhood dream - to learn to fly.

In June 1941, the war began. The writer refused to be evacuated from Pushkin because he was operated on. He did not leave the house, he could get up only to wash and eat. In January 1942, Alexander Belyaev died. His daughter Svetlana recalled: “When the Germans entered the city, we had several bags of cereals, some potatoes and a barrel of sauerkraut, which our friends gave us.<...>We had enough of such meager food, but for my father in his position this was not enough. He began to swell from hunger and eventually died ... "

Belyaev was buried in a mass grave along with other residents of the city.