Many people know Evgeny Permyak as a children's writer. However, he also has works of art and plays that were staged in many theaters of the Soviet Union. And his whole life is a reflection of the history of a country that survived the war, devastation and yet recovered from this disaster.
Biography
Evgeny Permyak was born in 1902 in the city of Perm. At birth, his surname was Vissov, however, after becoming a writer, he took a pseudonym for himself, as was customary at that time.
The writer's childhood was spent in Votkinsk, where he often went to work with his aunt, who worked in the steel-making shop. He saw open-hearth furnaces, watched the work of steel makers and knew all their professional terms and tools. The child's mind absorbed these vivid impressions so that later, as adults, Eugene could put them on paper.
In this city, Evgeny graduated from high school and worked at a meat processing plant, then at a candy factory. Already then he began to write stories, notes, essays and poems and really wanted to work as a journalist. His works were published in local publications and readers knew him under the pseudonym "Master Nepryakhin".
In 1923 he was given a correspondent ticket from a local newspaper, and he also became a director of a drama club at the club. For a year, he performed these duties, and then went to Perm to enter the university.
Student years
At that time, this institution of higher education was poetically called the "smithy", because it was the only one in the Urals, and it was from there that specialists with higher education came out, who then worked in various sectors of the region.
Soon the student of Wissow became a celebrity of the university. He was engaged in social activities day and night, and was also one of the organizers of the original and extraordinary Live Theatrical Newspaper, which was insanely popular at the university.
The fact is that this "newspaper" was truly alive: it came out in the form of a stage performance. The information presented in the newspaper was accompanied by music, dances, recitations. On the day the newspaper was published, there was not a single empty seat in the university auditorium. And later, with these performances, students began to travel outside the university - it was a kind of tour of the collective.
However, it was not only entertainment that attracted spectators to these meetings. In their releases, students mercilessly criticized all the shortcomings they saw around. And people really liked it.
Evgeny Andreevich continued to write stories and publish in newspapers, received royalties for this. He also received a scholarship, but there was always not enough money. Therefore, he had to earn money wherever he could. However, student life did not seem difficult to him. It was filled with many interesting events and meetings, and there was no time to be bored and worried.
Moreover, he sometimes went to Moscow to the All-Union Congress of Club Workers to represent the university. These trips gave him the idea that he could best realize his writing gift in the capital.
Writing career
Having barely arrived in Moscow, Permyak begins to offer his plays to theaters. They were highly appreciated, and soon the name of the writer became known to the audience, and performances based on his scripts "Roll" and "Les Noises" soon began to be staged in most theaters of the country.
In 1941, when the war broke out, the Nazis rushed to Moscow, and many writers were evacuated to the Urals. Then Permyak met many of his colleagues in today's Yekaterinburg: Agnia Barto, Lev Kassil, Fedor Gladkov, Olga Forsh and others. They became friends and together experienced the hardships of wartime.
Creativity helped to survive the war: Eugene continued to write stories. It turns out that the Ural writer Pavel Bazhov knew about his writing work, and he was impressed by the writing style of the young writer. Once he invited Permyak to visit him, and then these meetings became more and more frequent. They later became close friends.
Although the times were difficult, Eugene was again in his native Urals, and this inspired him to write new stories. During this period, he wrote "The ABC of Our Life", "Solvinskie Memories", "Grandfather's Piggy Bank", "Memorable Bundles" and other works.
His portfolio includes a large number of literary works of various genres. Already during the life of the writer, his children's books appeared in libraries, and then they were included in the school curriculum for studying by younger students. This speaks of the recognition of Permyak's talent and the beneficial effect of his stories on children.
And the children themselves read his fairy tales "Magic Colors", "The Lost Threads" and others. It was thanks to them that he became famous.
As a rule, in the literature there is a division by age - it is noted for what age this or that work. Therefore, we can say that Permyak wrote for different ages of readers. For example, he has a number of books for young people: "Grandfather's piggy bank"; "Who to be?"; "Keyless lock"; "From a fire to a cauldron" and others.
If Yevgeny Andreevich's children's books are permeated with kindness, humor and a desire to convey eternal truths to children, then adult literature is already much deeper and more serious.
In the same way that students criticized the shortcomings of society in the university's "living newspaper", so his books covered existing problems. However, even in fairy tales, these motives were traced.
And in the "adult" literature there was a clash of events and characters, which fully showed the spirit of that time, those years and events. He described life almost in documentary terms, for which he often received comments from fellow writers. However, Permyak himself believed that by doing so he was paying tribute to the time in which he lived.
Evgeny Andreevich Permyak died in August 1982. He was buried in Moscow.
