Leonid Zhukhovitsky: biography of the writer and facts from his personal life

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:55

Love everyone understands in their own way. For Don Juan, she is the light stored inside, which he bestowed on every woman he met on the way. The author of this understanding of the hero is Leonid Zhukhovitsky, an 84-year-old writer, playwright, publicist, creator of The Last Woman of Senor Juan, whose entire work and personal life are dedicated to Her Majesty Love.

Childhood

The writer was born into a Jewish family on May 5, 1932. Mother Faina Osipovna and father Aron Faddeevich were simple engineers. Place of birth - the city of Kyiv. Among his relatives there are many convicted during the years of repression of I. Stalin, one of them is an uncle on his father's side, who served 19 years. Therefore, Leonid Zhukhovitsky, whose biography is interesting to the reader, has never been a member of the party.

The family lived in Moscow, where the boy began to study. Due to his good abilities, he was accepted immediately into the second grade. The news of the beginning of the war caught the second-grader in Evpatoria, where he came with his father to rest. I had to urgently return to the capital, sohow Aron Faddevich was liable for military service. He, as a good specialist, was given a reservation. The military plant was relocated to Tomsk, and the wife and child were evacuated to Novosibirsk. After a while, the family was reunited. The most difficult test was not hunger and deprivation, but illness. The boy suffered from typhoid fever. In 1944, the family returned to Moscow, starting life from scratch in a barracks on the outskirts of the capital.

Education

After graduating from school No. 461 with a gold medal, Leonid Zhukhovitsky entered the Literary Institute. He submitted his poems to the creative competition. As a result, at the age of 16, he became a university student, where many former front-line soldiers studied, who had a whole life behind them. This communication helped the formation of the writer. From the student's bench, his friendship with Fazil Iskander began, which lasted until the death of the Abkhaz writer. Among poets-classmates were Konstantin Vanshenkin and Vladimir Soloukhin, Vasily Subbotin and Yulia Drunina.

But the main school of life the writer himself considers conversations and meetings with ordinary residents of the country, which he traveled far and wide. Dreaming about the profession of a journalist earlier, Zhukhovitsky traveled around the country with pleasure in the direction of periodicals, with which he actively collaborated. They did not take him on the staff, but they ordered essays with pleasure. On business trips, sitting in hotels, he wrote not only ordered articles, but also stories, keenly interested in what was happening around.

Bibliography

The author's first book was published in 1961. Its name is "Address tocover". But even after joining the Writers' Union in 1963, it was not easy to publish his stories and novels on the pages of magazines. Publishing houses helped out. The circulation of books was 200-300 thousand copies and was bought up by readers with pleasure. Leonid Zhukhovitsky, along with famous poets A. Voznesensky, E. Yevtushenko, B. Akhmadullina, spoke to student audiences, referring to himself as a member of the sixties. Although it was never officially banned, it was reproached for being "small". His love was never associated with the heroic everyday life of five-year plans, and the characters did not perform labor or military exploits.

During his creative life, the author published more than 40 books translated into 40 languages of the world. Today, the Internet is filled with his works, circulations have been reduced to 3 thousand copies, but he does not complain. As a playwright, he is fed plays, which amount to fifteen. The favorite performance about Don Juan has not left the stage for more than 35 years. Among the books, the most famous are Stop, Look Back (1969), The Bonfire on Thursdays (1976), Key to the City (1976), Attempted Prophecy (1987), On Love (1989). The latter is considered successful by Leonid Zhukhovitsky himself.

"Only two weeks" - a play about love

A typical work of the author is the play "Only Two Weeks" (new title - "Girl for Two Weeks") with a simple plot. Published in 1982, it tells about the short-term relationship of an experienced adult man, a builder from the North, and yesterday's schoolgirl, who embarked on an adventurous journey withstranger to the south. For him, love is in the past. Having suffered, Fedor chooses a wife so that she does not like, but is suitable. So that she travels with her husband through the harsh northern construction sites and does not "take out the brain."

Next to him is a young girl who gave innocence, proves her love with her actions and does not create problems: brave, forgiving, undemanding, faithful. The writer Leonid Zhukhovitsky in some incredible way forms the reader's admiration for a simple laboratory assistant from a scientific research institute, about whom a friend disrespectfully responded: "There is no prospect, no money." And when the girl disappears from the life of the protagonist, it is he who causes sympathy. The fact that he was unable to see something real next to him.

Affair with cinematography

Two of the author's works were filmed: "A House in the Steppe" and "A Child by November". The most successful work is Kira Muratova's film "Short Encounters" (1967), where Zhukhovitsky acted as a screenwriter. It was the debut of Nina Ruslanova and the first dramatic role of Vladimir Vysotsky. Filmed at the Odessa film studio, the melodrama was a great success and brought the main character a prize for the best female role. However, the cooperation of two talented people ended there, since Leonid Zhukhovitsky was used to thinking in words, and Muratova in frames. He felt the story was a man's story, she was a woman's. It turned out to be an impossible task for the author to rewrite his work to suit the director's idea.

Wives

Writer known for knowingly being an enemymorals. Without denying morality, he is as independent as possible from the opinions of others. Having known many women in his long life, he considers the only condition for two to be close is love. He was married four times, and all the companions were much younger than Zhukhovitsky. The first wife, Natalya Minina, passed away in 2002. She worked as an editor, the age difference was 12 years. Theater expert Tatiana Agapova was 28 years younger.

For ten years, the writer was in an unregistered relationship with Olga Bakushinskaya, a well-known journalist, with whom he defended the White House in 1991, considering this event one of the most important in his life. The difference between the spouses has already reached 33 years.

At 61, Leonid Zhukhovitsky, whose personal life is of constant interest, began to meet with the daughter of a friend Bakushinskaya, who appeared in the house on the eve of the New Year, 1994. The girl was only 16, but this did not stop the lovers. They have been together for over 20 years. At the age of 65, the writer became the father of a common daughter, who was named Alena.

Daughters

Zhukhovitsky has two children in total: Irina (b. 1967) and Alyona (b. 1997), who can be seen in the photo. The first daughter (from Natalya Minina) is 10 years older than Zhukhovitsky's current wife, Ekaterina Silchenkova. This does not prevent them from having a good relationship with each other. The writer has two grandchildren: Mikhail (born in 1985) and Arina (born in 1999).

The secret of youth

Leonid Zhukhovitsky, whose wife is youngerwriter for 45 years, admits that he never traditionally courted women: he did not give flowers, he did not take him to restaurants. He just recited poetry. And he lived by the principle: that youth ran a little ahead of him. The main thing is that the eyes burn and the desire to live does not fade away. Even while loving, he allowed himself to be changed, fueled as a writer by those adventurous novels that happened in his life. In the last family, he found harmony and peace, without thinking about new novels. But he stopped writing about love, feeling that living with it is better than telling others about it.

The hero of his play ceased to be Don Juan when he did not see happiness in the eyes of a woman lying next to him. Zhukhovitsky became it for the only remaining companion in his life - his wife Ekaterina.