Writer Mikhail Veller: biography, personal life, family and interesting facts

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:47

Now Mikhail Veller is a famous participant in TV debates. Sometimes he is not even able to contain his emotions. But still, he is primarily considered a fashionable and iconic writer. His works are published in huge editions. At the same time, he writes serious books. In his youth, he experienced a passionate thirst for adventure. Actually, he actually remained so … The biography of M. I. Weller will be told to the reader in the article.

The writer's ancestor served Frederick the Great

The biography of Mikhail Weller (who by nationality - we will discuss later) began in the late spring of 1948 in the city of Kamenetz-Podolsk, in Western Ukraine. He grew up in a Jewish medical family. Initially, the writer's father lived in St. Petersburg and knew that one of his ancestors fought under the banner of Frederick the Great. After school, my father entered the military medical academy and, having received a diploma, became a military doctor. As a result, he had to move from place toplace and change garrisons.

The mother of the future prose writer was born in Western Ukraine, where her family lived in those days. Her grandfather was also a doctor. Mother followed in the footsteps of her grandfather, and she graduated from a medical institute in Chernivtsi.

The biography of Mikhail Weller provides such facts. The nationality of this person provokes a lot of controversy. Many believe that he is a Jew. But whoever studied the biography of Mikhail Weller in more detail, a completely different nationality is attributed to him - Russian. It is quite difficult to answer this question unambiguously.

First poetry experience

Little Misha was only two years old when his father was transferred to the Trans-Baikal Territory. Of course, the family left with him. By and large, Mikhail changed more than one school because of his dad's service. He wandered with his parents around the garrisons of Siberia and the Far East.

He grew up as a normal Soviet boy. The first work he read on his own was Gaidar's Malchish-Kibalchish. Then came the turn of Jules Verne and HG Wells. And a little later, he began to read books by Jack London.

When Misha was in the fifth grade, he realized that he wanted to write. During the winter holidays, the teacher of literature set the task - to compose a poem about winter. According to Weller's memoirs, he wrote an extremely poor poetic opus. But, as it turned out, the creations of classmates were even worse. As a result, the work of young Misha was recognized as the best. According to him, this event inspired him to new creative experiences.

In seniorsclasses, the Weller family moved to Mogilev, in Belarus. It was then that he consciously realized that he really wanted to create.

He graduated from school with a gold medal in 1964 and entered the philological faculty of the University in Leningrad.

Within the walls of the university

Arriving in Leningrad, young Weller began to live with his grandfather's family. He was a biologist and headed a department at one of the institutes.

At the university, Mikhail immediately joined the student life. Weller possessed outstanding abilities and outstanding organizational qualities. In any case, he became not only a Komsomol organizer, but also the secretary of the Komsomol bureau of the entire university.

True, within the walls of the university, he was able to study for a rather short time. According to him, he was interested in life in all its manifestations. As a result, student Weller abandoned his studies and went on an adventure.

Thirst for adventure

The life of Mikhail Iosifovich Weller has never been boring and monotonous. In 1969, he bet that he would get to Kamchatka with a "hare". Of course, without a penny in your pocket. He crossed the whole country and thus the bet was won.

The following year, he decided to formalize his academic leave. Having done this, he went to Central Asia, where he wandered there until autumn.

After that, the young traveler moved to Kaliningrad. It was here that he managed to complete sailors' courses as an external student. As a result, he went on his first sea voyage on a fishing boat.

Futurethe writer traveled around the Soviet Union to his heart's content and gained new impressions. Therefore, in 1971, he was reinstated at the Faculty of Philology. By the way, during these times his story was placed in the university wall newspaper.

At the same time he worked as a senior pioneer leader in one of St. Petersburg schools.

Soon, Weller was able to successfully defend his thesis and, becoming a professional philologist, set off for new adventures.

Find yourself

After high school Weller had to join the army. True, he served only six months. Then he was commissioned.

In the "citizen" he began to work in one of the rural schools. He taught students literature and Russian. In addition, he was a teacher of the extended day group. He worked in the village for one year, after which he decided to quit.

In general, in his entire life he changed about 30 professions. So, he was a concrete worker in the northern capital. In the summer, he came to the Tersky coast of the White Sea and the Kola Peninsula, where he worked as a feller and a digger. In Mongolia, he drove cattle. By the way, according to his memoirs, it was the best period in his life.

The beginning of a writer's career

When Weller returned to Leningrad, he intended to switch completely to literary activity. As mentioned above, he published his first story in the university wall newspaper. And since then, a pencil and a notebook have become his constant companions.

However, his early works were rejected by everyoneeditions.

At the same time, Weller participated in a seminar of young St. Petersburg science fiction writers. They were led by the brilliant Boris Strugatsky. Mikhail wrote a story called "The Button". And this opus won the first prize in this competition.

Unfortunately, the Leningrad publishing houses did not pay any attention to this victory of the young writer and continued to ignore him. In fact, he was deprived of his livelihood. And the need prompted him to take up other activities again. So, he processed military memoirs at one of the publishing houses. He also began writing reviews for the well-known Neva magazine.

In 1978, Weller managed to place his short humorous stories on the pages of newspapers in Leningrad. But this situation did not suit him at all…

In Tallinn

Weller decided to quit everything - he left the city, friends, beloved woman, family. In fact, he lived in poverty, and apart from writing, did nothing. He ended up in Tallinn. There was only one reason for this decision - he wanted to release his book.

In 1979, he got a job in one of the republican publications. A year later, he left the ranks of newspapermen in order to join the "trade union group" of the Estonian Writers' Union. It was then that he had publications in such magazines as "Tallinn", "Ural" and "Literary Armenia". And in 1981, he wrote a story called "Reference Line". In this work, he managed for the first time to formalize the foundations of his philosophy. However, we will return to this a little later.

Firstsuccess

In 1983, the creative biography of the writer Mikhail Veller began. The book "I want to be a janitor" was his first of the numerous collection available today. It was a collection of stories. The publication became popular. The rights to this book were even sold to a Western publishing house. As a result, a year later Weller's collection was translated into several languages. In addition, a number of individual stories of the writer were published in countries such as France, Poland, Bulgaria, Italy and Holland.

By this time, B. Strugatsky and B. Okudzhava gave him their recommendations so that he could join the Union of Writers of the Soviet Union. Despite flattering assessments of Weller's work, he was not accepted into the organization. He became a member of the Union after five years. The immediate reason was the publication of the second book of the writer. It was called "All About Life".

After that, Weller's prose writer's career began to gain momentum with enviable activity.

Triumph

In 1988, Weller published the story "The Testers of Happiness", then - "Heartbreaker". By this time, the writer was in charge of the Russian literature department of the Russian-language publication Raduga in Tallinn.

Two years later, the work "Rendezvous with a Celebrity" was published. And according to the work “But those shish”, a feature film was even shot. During this period, he also founded the first Jewish cultural magazine in the Soviet Union, Jericho. Of course, he became the editor-in-chief.

A little later, he began to lecture on Russian prose at higher educationalrestaurants in Turin and Milan.

After that, a novel about the adventures of Major Zvyagin was published, which became very popular.

Two years later, a book of short stories appeared. It was called "Legends of Nevsky Prospekt". The book is still in unprecedented demand.

In the mid-90s, a new work appeared. We are talking about the novel "Samovar". A couple of years later, the writer undertook a trip to the United States. He spoke to readers in New York, Boston, Cleveland and Chicago.

And in 1998 the big work “All About Life” was published. It was there that Weller talked about his theory of "energy evolutionism".

Weller's philosophical theory

By and large, the philosophical views of the writer were set forth in a number of his works. But only over time he was able to generalize his postulates into a single theory, which he called "energy evolutionism."

He drew on the work of many philosophers. But first of all, to the works of A. Schopenhauer, G. Spencer, W. Ostwald and L. White.

Not everyone accepted this turn in Weller's creative evolution. One of the famous philosophers criticized him for dilettantism in the field of philosophy. He characterized his theory as "a mixture of platitudes". Others believed that this work, in fact, is a storehouse of original thoughts and an anthology of worldly wisdom.

Nevertheless, in different years Weller lectured successfully, outlining the foundations of his energy evolutionism. So, students listened with pleasure to him at Moscow State University, MGIMO and at the University of Jerusalem.

And in the Greek capital, he generally spoke with the correspondingreport. This happened at the International Philosophical Forum. It was then that his work was awarded the prestigious medal.

Politician

Since 2011, the writer Mikhail Veller, whose work has been loved by many, has become seriously interested in politics. So, at one time he called for voting for the Communist Party. He was sure that the Communist Party of the Russian Federation was the only association in the country that was independent of the oligarchs. Note that he repeatedly had to defend his point of view. They have participated in a number of television debates and political talk shows. True, sometimes because of the emotionality of the prose writer and philosopher, these shootings ended in scandals. So, in the early spring of 2017, on the air of the TVC channel, he was outraged by the accusations of lying against him. Then he launched a glass at the host. A similar incident happened a month later. On that day, Weller was at the Ekho Moskvy radio station. He explained his behaviour. According to him, the presenter was extremely unprofessional and interrupted him constantly.

The era of the new millennium

In the 2000s, Weller parted ways with Tallinn and moved to the Russian capital.

In the same period, he published a new work - "The Messenger from Pisa".

In the winter of 2008, the Estonian authorities awarded him the Order of the White Star.

A little later, new books appeared on the shelves of bookstores. These were Legends of the Arbat and Love and Passion.

In all, Weller wrote almost 50 literary works. Some of them have been translated into many languages of the world.

PoAccording to the author, his main income is literature. It continues to be reprinted, and it lives on roy alties. He believes that it is not necessary to write a lot. But the writing must be excellent.

As for his personal life, Mikhail Weller's biography is not replete with numerous facts. The writer does not like to expand on this topic. It is known that he married in 1986. Anna Agriomati, a graduate of the Faculty of Journalism of Moscow State University, became his chosen one. A year later, the newlyweds had a daughter, Valya…