They say that poetry is compressed time. This phrase fits the Russian poet Boris Kornilov like no one else, because his poems did not please people for very long - he was accused on a false denunciation and was shot when he was only thirty years old.
However, he was able to invest a lot in his poems. So many that one of his works even became the anthem of the United Nations. However, for a long time after the accusation, no one knew on whose verses the songs loved by the people were written. At the concerts, the name of the composer was announced, and the words were "folk".
Biography
Boris Petrovich Kornilov was born in 1907 in the Nizhny Novgorod province, in the village of Pokrovskoye. He began to write poetry early, and it was amazing for a country boy. However, he himself felt talent in himself, so he decided to go to Leningrad to meet his idol, Sergei Yesenin, and show him his poetic experiments.
However, Boris did not have time - the great poet died just before his arrival. Kornilov yearned for his native land, wrote touching poems about his feelings for the Nizhny Novgorod region, but stayed in Leningrad because he had to study. It was necessary to communicate in a circle of poets like himself in order to gain experience and receive objective criticism.
In addition, in Leningrad, the poet met his first love - the beautiful Olga Berggolts. Their couple was stunningly spectacular: beautiful, young, temperamental, they radiated energy and cheerfulness.
They got married in 1928, but the family did not work out, because both were too leaders - apparently, they could not get along. But they remained friends, and both quickly entered the circle of Leningrad poets.
Notoriety
In the early thirties, the name of Kornilov begins to sound more and more often in concerts, his poems are recognized and loved in the country. And his poems "On the Counter", set to the music of Shostakovich, became the anthem of Leningrad on the orders of Kirov himself. Shostakovich, already a famous composer, called Kornilov "the great poet of our time." Praise from the lips of such a person was worth a lot.
In addition, this song later became the UN anthem, and the verses in it remained original - Kornilov's.
It is possible that it was precisely such a rapid rise in his career, so to speak, that caused Boris to be hated by those who were not so successful. And everyone knew how harsh he was in judgments and how unflattering he could speak about a person, regardless of his rank. Of course, if he deserves it.
He understood and accepted a lot, but he could not come to terms with the destruction of the village, and spoke about it directly and openly.
The saddest thing is that familiar people wrote a denunciation of him - they accused him of preparing an attempt on Stalin's life. Him and his two other friends - poets. In addition, he was friends with the disgraced poet Mandelstam.
In 1938 he was arrested, convicted by a special commission and shot on the same day. Together with him, his bosom friend, the poet Pavel Vasiliev, was shot. The third of those who were denounced went to develop the mines for ten years. It was the poet Yaroslav Smelyakov.
Personal life
After a divorce from Olga Berggolts, the young poet married a quiet, inconspicuous girl. Apparently, this was what the rebellious soul needed - family comfort, warmth. They also had a daughter, Irina, which made their grandmother, Boris's mother, very happy.
Now Irina lives in Paris, works as a journalist, writes poetry.
True, until 1956, the family did not know that he had been shot. They hoped for a long time that he was alive. He was rehabilitated only in 1957. This is written in the book by Vitaly Shentalinsky "Crime without punishment".
