Mikhail Mikhailovich Prishvin is a great traveler, a Russian prose writer who once said: "I am writing about nature, but I think about a person …". He is called the "Singer of Nature", the study of his stories is included in the school curriculum. But the work of the writer is much deeper - in each of his works he reflected on the meaning of being.
Biography
The future famous prose writer was born on the 23rd day of January 1873 from the birth of Christ in the Konstandylovo family estate, located in the Oryol province. The boy was named Michael in honor of his father, who soon lost a rich inheritance at cards and died with paralysis.
In the hands of the widow of the merchant Prishvin, Maria Ivanovna, the pledged estate and five children remained. But an intelligent woman was able to straighten out the shaky financial affairs of the family and give a good education to every child.
The village school, then the Elets gymnasium and, finally, the Riga Institute - and everywhere Mikhail, not particularly distinguished by his knowledge, was distinguished by impudent behavior. In his youth, Prishvin became interested in the philosophy of Marxism, for which he spent a year in prison, and then left for Leipzig, where he studied the profession of a land surveyor.
Career
Constant traveling, and then endless travels through the forests and fields of endless Russia, left their mark on the writer's books. He published several books on agronomy, and then, in 1906, took up journalism and began to write the first stories. He became interested in photography in 1920 and tried to illustrate his travels with wonderful photographs.
In 1930, Prishvin went on a long trip to the Far East, and the local nature, like the local folklore, which he carefully recorded, made an indelible impression on him. Then the writer made a trip to Norway, St. Petersburg. And everywhere he collected legends, local legends and admired the beauty of nature.
Mikhail Mikhailovich attached particular importance to the protection of nature, the glorification of its beauty and connection with man, and constantly improved his style, extremely respectful of the great Russian language. Prishvin's travel sketches made him famous, and soon he entered the literary society of Russia, communicated with M. Gorky, A., Tolstoy and others.
Having gained fame, the writer did not leave his travels. Soon there followed trips and pedestrian crossings to the Volga region, the Russian North (where he went with his son Peter), in a word, he went, sailed and traveled across Russia, admiring its riches and generously telling his readers about them.
Revolution and World War I
Prishvin could not accept the power of the Soviets for a long time, he believed that it was unreasonable to destroy the great empire, and because of this he survived another imprisonment, published a number of articles on the impossibility of a compromise between the Bolsheviks and the creative intelligentsia.
The revolution deprived his family of his ancestral home, and the writer had to try himself in these troubled years as a teacher, librarian, museum curator. During the war he worked as a correspondent. He was horrified by the war, "a monstrous rampant human evil", which led to a large number of victims. His memories of the Second World War - realistic sketches, in which rumors of ordinary "village women" and bitter regret for the ruined lives are interwoven.
Personal life, recent years
Mikhail Prishvin married the peasant woman Euphrosyne immediately after returning from Leipzig, he had three sons, one died in infancy, and the others became his father's faithful companions on endless travels. Valeria became the second wife of the prose writer; the wedding took place in 1940. In 1946 he bought a small house in the village of Dunino near Moscow, where he spent the summer with his family.
Mikhail Prishvin, a great traveler, writer and photographer, died in January 1954 after a lingering stomach cancer. His main legacy was the "Diaries", entries for which he kept from 1905 to 1954, but readers were able to see this voluminous essay only after the abolition of censorship, in the 80s of the last century. Films have been made based on several of the writer's books.
