Boris Petrovich Kornilov is a talented Soviet poet who fell victim to the bloody Stalinist terror. During his short life, he wrote many poems and poems. His poetic lyrics have been compared to those of Sergei Yesenin.
"The morning greets us with coolness …", - the whole country sang a song from the film "Counter", the author of which was Boris Kornilov.
In 1938, Boris Petrovich was repressed and shot. The poet's life was cut short when he was 30 years old.
Biography
Boris Petrovich Kornilov was born on July 29, 1907 in the village of Dyakovo, Semenovsky District, Nizhny Novgorod Region, into a teacher's family.
His father, Peter Tarasovich, and his mother, Taisiya Mikhailovna, taught at a local school. Boris was the eldest child in the family. In addition to him, the Kornilovs had two daughters, Elizabeth and Alexandra.
A 5-year-old boy already knew how to read. From his parents, Boris passed on a love of literature. Petr Tarasovich presented his son with a book by N. V. Gogol. Boris enjoyed reading it to his little sisters. A few years later, the girls became the first listeners of their brother's poems.
In the village of Dyakovo, a seven-year-old boy went to first grade. During his school years, Boris began to compose his first poems.
When he was 8 years old, his father went to the front. The First World War began. The boy, as the eldest child in the family, fell under the hardships of wartime.
Boris had great respect for his father, who returned from the front alive. The poet wrote about love for his mother in many of his works. He dedicated his poem "Mom" to her.
Boris Kornilov knew and remembered his grandfathers and great-grandfathers. His grandfather Taras was a long-liver; he lived for a hundred years. In the poem "Grandfather" Boris wrote about his hard life as a peasant and poverty. To feed his family, my grandfather was engaged in the manufacture of wooden spoons. He had to walk from the village to Nizhny Novgorod and sell them. The poet felt a connection with his roots. Boris called his great-grandfather Yakov, who was considered a robber and a reveler, "his misfortune." The poet's personal experiences can be traced throughout his work.
In 1922, the whole family of the Kornilovs moved to a new place of residence in the city of Semenov.
In 1923, after graduating from school, Boris Kornilov worked as an instructor of the Komsomol organization in the city of Semenov.
In 1925, the young poet submitted his poem "To the Sea" to the newspaper "Young Army", which was published in Nizhny Novgorod. This was his first work published in the press. The author of the poems signed himself with the pseudonym Boris Verbin.
In January 1926, Boris Kornilov on a Komsomol ticket went to Leningrad to enter the Institute of Literature.
The young man had a cherished dream - to meet the poet Sergei Yesenin. Everyone who was familiar with Boris's poems noted their similarity with the lyrics of S. A. Yesenin.
When Boris Petrovich arrived in Leningrad, Sergei Yesenin was no longer alive. The young man's dream did not come true.
In the northern capital, Boris lived with his aunt Claudia Mikhailovna. He became a member of the Smena literary group, in which he established himself as an original poet from the Russian provinces. His talent was recognized and appreciated.
In 1928, the first book of poems by Boris Kornilov "Youth" was published.
In 1933, two collections of poetry, "The First Book" and "Poems and Poems", were published.
The most fruitful years in the poet's work were from 1931 to 1936. During this period, he wrote poems: "Salt", "Theses of the novel", "Criminal Investigation Agent", "The beginning of the earth", "Samson", "Tripoli", "My Africa ".
In 1934, at the First All-Union Congress of Soviet Writers, Boris Kornilov was called "the hope of Soviet lyricism." He was appointed to the post of staff poet of the Izvestia newspaper. His poems were often published in Izvestia. Publications of his poems appeared in the magazine "New World".
In 1935, the poet was in a creative crisis. He is addicted to alcohol. Critical articles began to appear in newspapers about his immoral behavior, which disgraced the name of the Soviet writer.
In October 1936, the poet was expelled from the Union of Soviet Writers.
On the night of March 19-20, 1937, the poet was arrested. He was charged with the authorship of counter-revolutionary works hostile to the political system.
On February 20, 1938, the killer's bullet ended the life of the poet of the Bolshevik era. On charges of counter-revolutionary terrorist activities, Boris Kornilov was shot in the Levashovskaya Wasteland near Leningrad.
A year before the execution, he wrote: "I still have half a century to live, - after all, the song is not finished …".
On January 5, 1957, the poet was rehabilitated "for lack of corpus delicti."
In the homeland of Boris Petrovich in the city of Semenov, Nizhny Novgorod region, a monument was erected to him and a memorial museum was opened.
Inhabitants of the city of Semyonov in memory of their wonderful compatriot arrange literary readings and poetry evenings.
The central square of the city of Semenov and a street in Nizhny Novgorod bear his name.
The tugboat "Boris Kornilov" runs along the great Russian river Volga, and the electric train "Boris Kornilov" runs on rails from Nizhny Novgorod.
Creation
At the beginning of his career, Boris Kornilov wrote poetry about nature and his small homeland. They are imbued with deep lyricism and folk melodies. Love for the native land, in which "sunsets graze in the fields", can be traced in the early poems of the poet. But at the same time, his soul aches for his country when he writes about Russia, crucified on the cross.
The first published poem of the young author "On the Sea" was an appeal to young people to serve on ships.
During the period of Kornilov's work in Leningrad, his rapid poetic growth took place. In the poet's work, the theme of the struggle against the enemies of the revolution, the coverage of the heroic Komsomol life appeared.
In the poem "Trypillia" he writes about how the Komsomol members perished, the detachment of which was captured by the army of the ataman Zeleny.
The plot of the poem "My Africa" is based on the story of seven blacks who fought with the White Guards during the Civil War. The hero of the poem, seventeen-year-old artist Semyon Dobychin, is experiencing the death of a black Red Army soldier who fell in battle. The artist decided for himself that he should die for Africa.
In 1932, Soviet viewers saw the new feature film Counter. The song from this film immediately became popular in all corners of the vast country. It was written by the composer Dmitry Shostakovich on the verses of Boris Kornilov. “The morning greets us with coolness,” sang people from all over the Soviet Union. But in 1937, the poet's name was removed from the credits of the film. Only the composer was left in the authors.
Boris Petrovich wrote a children's book in verse "How the Bear's Teeth Began to Ache from Honey."
"Pushkin Cycle" is the last published work of the poet, written for the centenary of the death of A. S. Pushkin. The author writes about Pushkin, intuitively anticipating his tragic fate.
Boris Kornilov wrote his last poem in prison, shortly before his execution. The poet dictated it to his friend, who was with him in the same cell. He asked him to memorize the poem. The name of this man is unknown, but he complied with Kornilov's request. When the poet was no longer alive, he passed on the poem "Continuation of Life" to Boris's mother, Taisia Mikhailovna.
Personal life
In 1926 Boris Kornilov met the poetess Olga Berggolts. Both of them were in the Smena literary group. Falling in love on the part of the girl did not arise immediately. She liked another member of the literary circle - Gennady Gor. But the more often Olga listened to the poems that the young poet from the Volga region read, the more she thought about him. In 1928, Boris and Olga got married. In October of the same year, their daughter Irina was born. The girl had a bad heart. She died at the age of seven.
Boris Petrovich dedicated his first book "Youth" to his wife. In the literary environment, Olga Berggolts was perceived as the wife of a young, but already famous poet. She remained in the shadow of her talented husband and suffered greatly from this.
Their marriage lasted two years. In 1930, Boris and Olga broke up.
In 1931, Boris Kornilov met his second love - Lyudmila Bornstein, who was 16 years old. They began to live together, but their marriage was not officially registered.
On September 21, 1937, their daughter Irina was born. The girl did not know her father, since she was born after his arrest. When the investigation ended, Lyudmila Bornshtein with her baby was awaiting the sad fate of the families of "enemies of the people" - exile to the camp. The woman and her daughter were saved by the young artist Yakov Basov, who was a friend of Lyudmila's brother. He hid them in his house. After a while, Lyudmila married him, and Yakov Basov gave her daughter Irina his last name.
Many years later, Irina Basova found out that she was the daughter of Boris Kornilov. She currently resides in France. Irina often comes to Russia. She is a biologist by education, but a poetic gift was passed on to her from her father. Two of her collections of poems were published in St. Petersburg. Boris Kornilov has grandchildren from his daughter Irina - Marina and Kirill.
