Belyaev biography. Belyaev Alexander Romanovich. year. New stories

1. "Amphibian Man"

For Alexander Belyaev, science fiction became his life's work. He corresponded with scientists, studied works on medicine, technology, and biology. The well-known novel by Belyaev "The 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 a family 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. His father died and the young man had to support his family: he designed the 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 an orphanage, then he became an inspector of the criminal investigation department.

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, The Last Man from Atlantis, and 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.

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. 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 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 financial resources also grew: he was able to rent and furnish a good apartment, acquire a good collection of paintings, collect big 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, HG 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 orphanage, then he was given the position of 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 (former Tsarskoye Selo, a suburb of Leningrad), where he lived in last years A. Belyaev with his family 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 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 " Last person from 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?

In my early youth, I simply read the works of Alexander Belyaev. Everything was re-read more than once, not twice. Wonderful films have been shot based on his works, especially, in my opinion, "The Amphibian Man" with Korenev and Vertinskaya stands out. But still, no movie has made such an impression on me as books! But what did I know about the life of the writer, whose works gave me many wonderful moments while I enjoyed them? It turned out - nothing!

The famous Soviet science fiction writer Alexander Belyaev is called "Russian Jules Verne". Which of us didn't read Amphibian Man and Professor Dowell's Head as teenagers? Meanwhile, in the life of the writer himself there were many strange and incomprehensible things. Despite his fame, it is still not known exactly how he died and where exactly he is buried...

Belyaev was born in 1884 in the family of a priest. The father sent his son to the theological seminary, however, after graduating from it, he did not continue his religious education, but entered the Demidov Lyceum in Yaroslavl. He was going to be a lawyer. Soon Sasha's father died, the family was short of funds, and in order to continue his studies, the young man was forced to earn extra money - to give lessons, draw scenery for the theater, play the violin in the circus orchestra.

Alexander was a versatile person: he played on different musical instruments, performed in a home theater, flew an airplane. Another hobby was shooting the so-called "horrors" (of course, staged). One of the shots in this "genre" was called: "A human head on a platter in blue tones."

A significant part of life young man turned out to be associated with the theater, which he loved since childhood. He himself could act as a playwright, and a director, and an actor. The home theater of the Belyaevs in Smolensk was widely known, touring not only around the city, but also in its environs. Once, during the arrival in Smolensk of the capital's troupe under the direction of Stanislavsky, A. Belyaev managed to replace the sick artist - instead of playing in several performances. The success was complete, K. Stanislavsky even offered A. Belyaev to stay in the troupe, but for some unknown reason he refused.

As a child, Sasha lost his sister: Nina died of sarcoma. And with his brother Vasily, a student of the Veterinary Institute, a mysterious and creepy story. Once Alexander and Vasily were visiting their uncle. A group of young relatives decided to go boating. For some reason, Vasya refused to go with them. For some reason, Sasha took a piece of clay with him and, right in the boat, made it human head. Looking at her, those present were horrified: the head had the face of Vasily, only his features turned out to be somehow frozen, inanimate. Alexander with annoyance threw the craft into the water and then felt alarmed. Declaring that something happened to his brother, he demanded to turn the boat to the shore. They were met by a tearful aunt and said that Vasily drowned while swimming. It happened, as it turned out, at the very moment when Sasha threw the clay cast into the water.

After graduating 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 increased: he was able to rent and furnish a good apartment, acquire a good collection of paintings, and collect a large library. Having finished any business, he went to travel abroad; traveled to France, Italy, visited Venice.

Belyaev goes headlong into journalism. Collaborates with the newspaper "Smolensky Vestnik", in which a year later he becomes an editor. He also plays the piano and violin, works in the Smolensk people's house, is a member of the Glinkin musical circle, the Smolensk Symphony Society, the Society of Fine Arts Lovers. He visited Moscow, where he auditioned for Stanislavsky.

He is thirty years old, he is married and needs to somehow be determined in life. Belyaev is seriously thinking about moving to the capital, where it will not be difficult for him to get a job. But at the end of 1915, an illness suddenly struck him. For the young and strong man crumble the world. Doctors could not determine his illness for a long time, and when they found out, it turned out that it was tuberculosis of the spine. Even during a long-standing illness with pleurisy in Yartsevo, the doctor, making a puncture, touched the eighth spine with a needle. Now it has given such a severe relapse. In addition, his wife Verochka leaves him, besides, to his colleague. Doctors, friends, all relatives considered him doomed.

His mother, Nadezhda Vasilievna, leaves the house and takes her motionless son to Yalta. For six years, from 1916 to 1922, Belyaev was bedridden, of which three long years(from 1917 to 1921) he was bound in plaster. About these years, when one power replaced another in the Crimea, Belyaev, ten years later, will write in the story “Among the feral horses”.

Belyaev's willpower survived and during his illness he studies foreign languages ​​​​(French, German and English), is interested in medicine, history, biology, technology. He could not move, but some ideas for his future novels came to his mind just then, during real estate.

In the spring of 1919, his mother, Nadezhda Vasilievna, dies of starvation, and his son is sick, in plaster, with high temperature- can't even walk her to the graveyard. And only in 1921 he was able to take his first steps thanks not only to his willpower, but also as a result of his love for Margarita Konstantinovna Magnushevskaya, who worked in the city library. A little later, he, like Arthur Dowell, will offer her to see his bride in the mirror, whom he will marry if he receives consent. And in the summer of 1922, Belyaev managed to get to Gaspra in a rest home for scientists and writers. There they made him a celluloid corset and he was finally able to get out of bed. This orthopedic corset became his constant companion for the rest of his life. the disease, until his death, either receded, or again chained him to bed for several months.

Be that as it may, Belyaev began working in the criminal investigation department, and then in the People's Commissariat for Education, as an inspector for juvenile affairs in an orphanage seven kilometers from Yalta. The country, through the NEP, began to gradually raise its economy, and hence the welfare of the country. In the same 1922, before the Christmas fast, Alexander Belyaev got married in a church with Margarita, and on May 22, 1923, they legalized their marriage with an act of civil status in the registry office.

Then he returned to Moscow, where he got a job as a legal adviser. IN free time Belyaev wrote poetry, and in 1925 his first story, The Head of Professor Dowell, began to be published in the newspaper Gudok. For three years, "The Island of Lost Ships", "The Last Man from Atlantis", "Amphibian Man", a collection of stories were created. On March 15, 1925, their daughter Lyudmila was born.

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

In July 1929, Belyaev's second daughter, Svetlana, was born, and in September the Belyaevs leave for Kyiv, to a warmer and drier climate.

However, soon the disease again made itself felt, and I had to move from rainy Leningrad to sunny Kyiv. Living conditions in Kyiv turned out to be better, but there were obstacles for creativity - manuscripts were accepted there only in Ukrainian, so they had to be sent to Moscow or Leningrad.

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) worsened. As a result, in 1931 the family returned to Leningrad: ignorance Ukrainian language made life in Kyiv unbearable. Constant domestic turmoil prevented writing, and yet A. Belyaev creates in these years the play "Alchemists ...", the novel "Jump into Nothing".

The year 1937 also affected the fate of Belyaev. He, unlike many of his friends and acquaintances, was not imprisoned. But they stopped printing. There was nothing to live on. He goes to Murmansk and gets a job as an accountant on a fishing trawler. Depression and unbearable pain from the corset, to the surprise of many, give the opposite result - he writes the novel "Ariel". Main character puts experiments with levitation: the young man becomes able to fly. Belyaev writes about himself, more precisely, about unfulfilled dreams own life.

The war found the family in Pushkin. Belyaev, who had recently undergone spinal surgery, refused to be evacuated, and soon the Germans occupied the city.

By official version, the science fiction writer died of starvation in January 1942. The body was transferred to the crypt at the Kazan cemetery - to wait in line for burial. The queue was supposed to come up only in March, and in February the writer's wife and daughter were taken prisoner to Poland.

Here they waited for release Soviet troops. And then they were sent into exile in the Altai, for a long 11 years.

When they were finally able to return to Pushkin, former neighbor handed over the miraculously surviving glasses of Alexander Romanovich. On the shackle Margarita found a tightly wrapped piece of paper. She carefully unrolled it. “Do not look for my footprints on this earth,” her husband wrote. - I'm waiting for you in heaven. Your Ariel.

There is a legend that the body of Belyaev was taken out of the crypt and buried by a fascist general with soldiers. Allegedly, the general read Belyaev’s works as a child and therefore decided to honorably betray his body to the ground. According to another version, the corpse was simply buried in a common grave. Anyway, exact location The burial place of the writer is unknown.

Subsequently, a memorial stele was erected at the Kazan cemetery in Pushkin. But there is no Belyaev's grave under it.

One version of the writer's death is associated with the legendary Amber Room. According to the publicist Fyodor Morozov, 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 arrival of the Germans in Pushkin, the Gestapo specialists also became actively interested in the Amber Room. 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. But the answer to the question whether Belyaev could have been killed because of his interest in the Amber Room does not seem so difficult. Suffice it to recall what fate befell many researchers who tried to find a wonderful mosaic. Maybe he paid for knowing too much? Or died from torture? They also say that the corpse of the science fiction writer was charred. His death is as mysterious as his works.

2014 marks the 130th anniversary of the birth of the famous Russian writer Alexander Romanovich Belyaev. 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.

Early years of the writer

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, the boy from childhood was introduced to love music, photography, developed an interest in reading adventure novels and studying foreign languages.

Having graduated from the seminary at the insistence of his father, the young man chooses for himself the path to jurisprudence, in which he has good success.

First steps in literature

Earning decent money in the legal field, Alexander Belyaev began to be more interested in works of art, travel and theater. He also actively joins directing and dramaturgy. In 1914, his debut play, Grandmother Moira, was published in the Moscow children's magazine Protalinka.

insidious disease

In 1919, tuberculous pleurisy suspended the plans and actions of the young man. Alexander Belyaev struggled with this disease for more than six years. The writer struggled to eradicate this infection in himself. Due to unsuccessful treatment, he developed which led to paralysis of the legs. As a result, out of the six years spent in bed, the patient spent three years in a cast. The indifference of the young wife further undermined the morale of the writer. During this period, this is no longer the carefree, cheerful and resilient Alexander Belyaev. His biography is full of tragic life moments. In 1930, his six-year-old daughter Luda died, the second daughter Svetlana fell ill with rickets. Against the backdrop of these events, the ailment that torments Belyaev is also aggravated.

Throughout his life, fighting his illness, this man found strength and immersed himself in the study of literature, history, foreign languages ​​and medicine.

long-awaited success

In 1925, while living in Moscow, the aspiring writer publishes the story "Professor Dowell's Head" in Rabochaya Gazeta. And from that moment on, the works of Alexander Belyaev were massively published in the well-known at that time magazines "World Pathfinder", "Knowledge is Power" and "Around the World".

During his stay in Moscow, the young talent creates many magnificent novels - "The Amphibian Man", "The Last Man from Atlantis", "The Island of the Lost Ships" and "Struggle on the Air".

At the same time, Belyaev is published in the unusual newspaper Gudok, in which such people as M.A. Bulgakov, E.P. Petrov, I.A. Ilf, V.P. Kataev,

Later, after moving to Leningrad, he published the books “The Miraculous Eye”, “Underwater Farmers”, “Lord of the World”, as well as the stories “Professor Wagner's Inventions”, which Soviet citizens read with rapture.

The last days of the writer's life

The Belyaev family lived in the suburbs of Leningrad, the city of Pushkin, and ended up under occupation. The weakened body could not withstand the terrifying hunger. In January 1942, Alexander Belyaev died. After some time, the writer's relatives were deported to Poland.

Before today remains a mystery where Alexander Belyaev was buried, short biography which is saturated with the constant struggle of man for life. Nevertheless, in honor of the talented prose writer, a memorial stele was erected in Pushkin at the Kazan cemetery.

The novel "Ariel" is the last creation of Belyaev, it was published by the publishing house "Modern Writer" shortly before the death of the author.

"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.

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."

Science Fiction Writer's Prophecies

Comparing the predictions of science fiction representatives, it is important to note that the scientific ideas of the books of the Soviet writer Alexander Belyaev were realized by 99 percent.

So, the main idea of ​​the novel "Professor Dowell's Head" was 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 the scientific development of technologies for a long stay of a person 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 in the thirties of the twentieth century in Great Britain, as well as the creation of 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 of plastic surgery and the ethical problems that arose in connection with this. 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.

Throughout his creative life, Belyaev struggled with the disease. Deprived of physical abilities, he tried to reward the heroes of books with unusual abilities: to communicate without words, to fly like birds, to 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?

His life was not very fun - a serious illness, lack of money, forced wanderings and tragic death under German occupation. And it is all the more surprising that this man was able to create such life-affirming books.

In 1901 Alexander graduated from the Smolensk Theological Seminary. But he did not want to become a priest, and therefore he entered the Demidov Lyceum in Yaroslavl.

After the death of his father, he had to earn a living by drawing, playing the violin and private lessons.

After graduating from the Lyceum, he became a good lawyer, acquired his clientele. His business was successful, he often traveled abroad. But in 1914 he leaves everything and devotes himself to writing.

When he was 35 years old, he became seriously ill with tuberculous pleurisy. The treatment turned out to be unsuccessful - tuberculosis of the spine developed, which was complicated by paralysis of the legs. In search of specialists who could help him, Belyaev ended up in Yalta. There, in the hospital, he began to write poetry.

He was bedridden for six years, of which he was in a cast for three years.

But he managed to recover and return to a full life. At first he lived in Yalta, worked as an educator, a criminal investigation inspector, then moved to Moscow and took up law again, continuing to write.

In the 1920s, he wrote such famous novels as "Isle of Lost Ships" and "Amphibian Man".

In 1928 he moved again, this time to Leningrad, and already completely plunged into literary activity. Having become interested in the problems of the functioning of the psyche, he writes the novels "Professor Dowell's Head", "Lord of the World", "The Man Who Lost Face".

Alexander Belyaev was called the "Russian Jules Verne" for his ability to predict many events. In his books, the writer predicted not only the invention of scuba gear, the orbital station, but also his own death.

Amphibian and scuba. Frame from the film "Amphibian Man", 1961

When Alexander Belyaev, contrary to the will of his parents, chose the profession of a lawyer, a woman who called herself a clairvoyant came to look for his defense.

“I warned two women about the possible imminent death of their husbands,” she said. "Now the inconsolable widows accuse me of their willful death." Alexander only chuckled: “Tell me then.”

“Your life will be hard, but very bright. And you yourself will be able to look into the future, ”she answered the writer.

After that, Alexander agreed to take the case of the woman, she was acquitted at the trial.

But the prediction was not long in coming. Belyaev was not a prophet, but he knew how to notice what ideas had grown modern society, on the verge of what new discoveries and achievements it is.

One of his first predictive novels was the famous Amphibian Man.

where the writer foresaw the invention of an artificial lung and scuba with an open breathing system on compressed air, invented in 1943 by Jacques-Yves Cousteau.

By the way, the novel itself was largely biographical. As a child, Alexander had a dream in which he, along with his brother Vasily, was crawling along a long dark tunnel. Somewhere ahead, a light shone, but the brother could no longer move on. Overcoming himself, Alexander was able to get out, but without Vasily. Soon his brother drowned while riding a boat.

In the novel, Belyaev describes how Ichthyander, getting out into the vast expanses of the ocean, had to swim through a tunnel. He swam along it, “overcoming the cold oncoming current. It repels from the bottom, floats up... The end of the tunnel is near. Now Ichthyander can again give himself to the current - it will carry him far into the open ocean.

Poster for the film "The Air Seller", 1967

When Alexander Belyaev was forced as a result bad health went to the Crimea for treatment, on the train he met people who had suffered as a result of a technological accident at the Kuzbass enterprise. This is how the idea of ​​the Air Seller was born.

In his work, Belyaev warns of an impending environmental catastrophe, where environment will be so polluted with gases and industrial emissions that clean air will turn into a commodity that will not be available to everyone. Is it worth recalling that today, due to poor ecology, there is a constant danger of oncology walking around the world, and life expectancy in major cities is rapidly declining.

Under these conditions, states are even forced to go to international agreements, an example of which is the Kyoto Protocol to limit carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere.

Orbital station

The KETs Star was written in 1936 under the influence of the writer's correspondence with Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky.

Strictly speaking, KEC is the initials of the Soviet scientist. The whole novel is built on the ideas of Tsiolkovsky: the possibility of launching an orbital station, people going into outer space, traveling to the moon.

The two dreamers were far ahead of their time - the first real Salyut orbital station appeared in space only in 1973.

In the book “Lord of the World” (1926), Belyaev “invented” an apparatus for transmitting thoughts at a distance according to the principle of radio waves, which made it possible to inspire an outsider with a thought at a distance - in essence, a psychotropic weapon.

In addition, in his book, he predicted the emergence of unmanned aircraft, the first successful tests of which took place in the UK only in the 1930s.

In his novel The Man Who Lost Face (1929), the author presents the reader with the problem of changing the human body and the subsequent problems associated with it.

In fact, the novel predicts modern advances plastic surgery, and invariably the ethical issues that follow.

According to the plot, the governor of the state turns into a black man and as a result experiences all the features of racial discrimination. It is somewhat reminiscent of the fate of the king of pop, Michael Jackson, who changed his skin color to escape prejudice against black people.

Frame from the film "Professor Dowell's Testament", 1984

In his new work "Island of Lost Ships" Belyaev was the first to note the mystery of the now famous Bermuda Triangle, the anomaly of which was first publicly announced by the Associated Press, calling this area the "Devil's Sea".

Suppose somewhere, for example, in the Bermuda region, there is a certain special zone. The nearby Sargasso Sea, with its many algae, has always hampered local navigation, and ships left here after shipwrecks could easily accumulate in its waters.

The year 1940 is coming. In the country, many have gloomy forebodings - coming terrible war. Belyaev special sensations- old illnesses make themselves felt, the writer foresees - he will not survive this war.

He recalls a childhood dream, writes a novel about Ariel, a man who could fly. He himself would like to fly above the hustle and bustle of everyday life. Ariel, like Amphibian Man, is biographical.

This piece is a prediction. own death. He wanted to fly away from this world like Ariel. And so it happened.

The writer died on January 6, 1942 from starvation in the occupied Pushkin Leningrad region. The writer Belyaev was buried in a common grave along with many others. The location of his grave is unknown. Therefore, a memorial stele at the Kazan cemetery in the city of Pushkin was installed on the alleged grave of Belyaev in 1968. He had two daughters - Lyudmila (1924 - 1930) and Svetlana (born in 1929).

After his death, his wife and daughter Svetlana were captured by the Germans.

Upon returning from there, they found the writer's glasses, to which was attached a note addressed to Belyaev's wife: “Do not look for my traces on this earth,” her husband wrote. - I'm waiting for you in heaven. Your Ariel.

In 1984, when the centenary of the birth of the famous science fiction writer was celebrated, the idea was put forward to establish a memorial prize in honor of Alexander Belyaev. It was first awarded in 1990.

Used materials:

http://www.liveinternet.ru/users/3331706/post317337318/

http://blog42.ws/aleksandr-belyaev/