Soviet art is rich in the names of many prominent people: these are writers, screenwriters, and playwrights. One of these artists was Nikolai Erdman, whose biography is little known. Meanwhile, it was he who wrote the scripts for such famous films of the Soviet era as Volga-Volga and Merry Fellows. Consider the life story of this man and his creative path in more detail.
Childhood and youth
Nikolai Erdman is the same age as the century, he was born in 1900. Moscow became his hometown. The parents of the future screenwriter and playwright belonged to different nationalities: mother Valentina Borisovna had Jewish roots, and father Robert Karlovich came from B altic Germans.
The future writer and poet studied quite well and managed to show himself as an excellent student at the Petropavlovsk Commercial School.
The revolution caught him at the age of seventeen, it changed his life dramatically. In 1919 hewas drafted into the active Red Army, a year later Nikolai Erdman was able to demobilize.
After demobilization, the young man plunged headlong into the creative environment of Moscow. He became interested in then popular Imagism, wrote poems for songs that were later performed in a cabaret, satirical works, and plays. Soon his name became known in the theatrical environment, and the young author was invited to theaters as a playwright with a sharp and tenacious pen.
Mature years
The twenties of the 20th century were very productive for Erdman. He collaborated with the famous V. E. Meyerhold. It was Nikolai Erdman who wrote the texts of plays called "Suicide" and "Mandate", which were staged with brilliance on the stages of Moscow theaters.
In 1927, a new era begins in the life of the playwright - he becomes a screenwriter. His most famous script of those years was written for the film "Jolly Fellows". However, in 1933, the screenwriter was arrested and released from exile only three years later.
After the exile, Erdman could not stay in Moscow, he had to live in Ryazan and Kalinin. In 1940, the writer moved to Saratov.
When the Great Patriotic War began, Erdman was sent to the rear as a politically unreliable person. However, it was the war that changed the life of the writer. Together with the concert team, he began to travel along the fronts of the war, acting as an artist and reader.
After the war, fate smiled at Erdman, and he himself tried to behave modestly and not criticize anymoreleadership of the country (it was because of such criticism that he was once arrested). The writer worked mainly as a playwright, collaborated with the country's leading theaters, and in 1951 was even awarded the Stalin Prize.
Nikolai Erdman died in 1970, was buried in Moscow.
Erdman and the NKVD
The story of Erdman's first arrest dates back to 1933. Then, together with the director of the picture, Nikolai Erdman lived in Gagra, where the film "Jolly Fellows" was filmed. However, for Erdman they ended tragically. He was arrested by the NKVD. Researchers of his work believe that the reason for the arrest was the text of the fable, satirically exposing the image of Stalin, which was written by Erdman and read at one of the literary evenings by the actor Kachalov.
In addition to the arrest of Erdman, another disappointment awaited - the director G. Alexandrov was forced to cross out his name from the credits for "Merry Fellows".
However, in those harsh years, Erdman was de alt with quite gently: the unlucky writer was sent into exile in Siberia (to the city of Yeniseisk, and then to Tomsk). Release from exile took place only in 1936. However, the playwright was deprived of his rights for several more years and was forced to stay in cities neighboring Moscow, unable to live in the capital in which he was born.
Nikolai Erdman and Angelina Stepanova: a love story
A bright page in the life of the playwright was an affair with actress Angelina Stepanova. Erdman and StepanovaWe met back in Moscow in the 1920s. Both had families (although Erdman lived in a civil marriage with one of the ballerinas, but Stepanova's marriage was completely legal and respectable). As a result, a stormy romance began between two talented people, which continued both in life and in letters.
Angelina Stepanova could not stand a double life and left her husband, but Erdman was in no hurry to become a bachelor. But their romance continued. Stepanova did not give up Erdman even when her lover was arrested. Moreover, it was she, being a famous actress, who was able to procure a mitigation of his fate for her chosen one. The actress's love for Erdman was so great that she made her secretly visit her lover in exile.
However, having learned that Erdman was not going to part with his common-law wife, Stepanova could not survive this blow and broke off relations with her lover. Their correspondence, which lasted about 7 years, also stopped.
Results of love drama
The fates of Erdman and Stepanova diverged. The actress married the writer A. Fadeev. Former lovers met only after 22 years. Stepanova wrote about this touching meeting in her diary as an unforgettable moment in her life. They never saw each other again.
Stepanova found out about Erdman's death while on tour in Kyiv. She deliberately did not go to his funeral.
This strong and beautiful woman outlived her lover by 30 years. At the end of her life, pouring out her soul in a diary, she bitterly recalledstories of their love, regretting that they could not save their feelings with Erdman. Stepanova also deeply regretted the fate of Erdman, believing that he, with his greatest talent, never managed to take his rightful place in Russian literature.
Cooperation with the Taganka Theater
Erdman Nikolai Robertovich wrote a lot of works in his life, the biography of this man is proof of this.
In the second half of his creative life, when the writer had not only the burden of the past years, but the bitter characterization of the "unreliable", he was greatly helped by his good friend - theater director Yuri Lyubimov. Erdman met Lyubimov during the war (they worked together in the same frontline cancer brigade).
It was Lyubimov, being a talented and sensitive person, who managed to see an unrealized talent in Nikolai Robertovich. Lyubimov, having become the chief director, staged many of Erdman's plays on the stage of his theater. It was thanks to the Taganka Theater that Erdman was able to once again feel like a playwright in demand by the audience.
Erdman's work: films for children
Modern art historians believe that Erdman Nikolai Robertovich was never able to fully realize his extraordinary talent. But he wrote magnificent scripts for films, which were then watched with interest by millions of viewers.
Erdman was talented in everything, even when he worked on scripts for fairy tales ("Fire, water and copper pipes", "Morozko", "City of Masters", etc.). After his arrest and exile, directorsthey were afraid to invite him to work on scripts for serious films, but the animators were more loyal to the figure of Erdman, so he acted as the scriptwriter for more than 30 Soviet cartoons. Among them are such well-known cartoons as "I drew a little man", "The Adventure of Pinocchio", "Thumbelina", etc.
The meaning of Erdman's creativity
The poet, writer, screenwriter and playwright Nikolai Erdman experienced a lot in his life. Photos of this man, taken throughout his life, allow us to see how his expression changed. If in youthful pictures a young author looks at the audience a little ironically, dreaming of realizing himself in life, then in the later ones we see the sad face of a tired person.
Some contemporaries called Erdman a loser. After all, despite his talent, he could not fully realize himself in literature, survived prison, exile and the ban on his works, and in his personal life, despite three marriages, the writer never took place. Yes, all this was in the life of Nikolai Erdman, but still this man managed to do a lot on earth, so his name should not be forgotten.
