Alexey Panteleev did not immediately become a writer. He is a man of difficult destiny. He had to be homeless, move from place to place and engage in dubious matters. Lenka Panteleev reliably described many events in his life in the book "Republic of ShKID", which has become a favorite book of several generations of Soviet children and adults.
From the biography of the writer
Alexey (Leonid) Panteleev is the creative pseudonym of the Russian writer Alexei Ivanovich Eremeev. He was born on the 9th (according to the new style - 22nd) August 1908 in St. Petersburg. Alexei's father was a Cossack officer, he participated in the war with Japan, distinguished himself in battles, even received the Order of St. Vladimir and the title of nobleman. Panteleev's mother came from a hereditary merchant family.
In 1916, Alexei entered the Petrograd real school, but did not graduate from it. Subsequently, he abandoned film actor courses.
In 1918, Alexei's father went missing. The mother took the children to the Yaroslavl province, away from hunger.
In 1921 Alexey returned to Petrograd. Here he was engaged in small commerce, played roulette and simply begged, trying to make ends meet. Alexey later described the events of this period of his life in his autobiographical story "Lenka Panteleev".
Pupil of the Dostoevsky School
In the same year 1921, the commission on juvenile affairs sent Alexei for re-education to the Dostoevsky school. Here he received the nickname, becoming Lenka Panteleev. That was the name of the St. Petersburg "urku", which was chased by the police for a long time.
At Dostoevsky's school (abbreviated as SHKID) Panteleev met Grigory Belykh. During the two years of their stay at the educational institution, the guys became friends. Subsequently, they went to Kharkov together to try their hand at cinema. But nothing came of this venture. Then there was a period of vagrancy. Since 1924 Panteleev and Belykh began to publish in the magazines Smena, Kinonedelya and Begemot.
Path to literature
Alexey began composing at the age of eight. These were poems, adventure stories, plays, even treatises about high love. Since 1925, together with Belykh Panteleev, he began work on the documentary story "Republic of ShKID", which was published in 1927. The book brought two young writers unprecedented success at that time and received the approval of the famous Maxim Gorky.
The writers did not begin to build a unified and rigid storyline of their work. And yet, in their work, they managed to reliably and truthfully tell about the events that took place in the school for handicapped children, many of whom lost their parents during the devastation and civil war. The teenagers received their first education on the street. Many have forgotten what a family is.
The book contained many funny, tragic and instructive moments. The story raises the problem of homelessness and social adaptation of adolescents. For the next ten years, the book was reprinted every year, until Belykh was repressed in 1936. In 1960, a film of the same name was published on the basis of the work.
After this literary success, many talented works came out from under the pen of Panteleev, including: "New Girl" (1940), "Honest Word" (1941), the cycle "Squirrel and Tamarochka" (1940-1947).
Alexey Panteleev passed away on July 9, 1987 in Leningrad.
