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Korney Chukovsky

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Birth Date:
31.03.1882
Death date:
28.10.1969
Extra names:
Корней Чуковский, Никола́й Васильевич Корнейчуко́в, Корне́й Ива́нович Чуко́вский, Kornejs Čukovskis, Korney Chukovsky, Корнейчуко́в
Categories:
Journalist, Poet, Publicist, Translator
Nationality:
 ukrainian, jew
Cemetery:
Переделкинское кладбище (ru)

Korney Ivanovich Chukovsky (Russian: Корне́й Ива́нович Чуко́вский; IPA: [kɐrˈnʲej ɪˈvanəvʲɪt͡ɕ t͡ɕʉˈkofskʲɪj] ; 31 March NS 1882 – 28 October 1969) was one of the most popular children's poets in the Russian language. His catchy rhythms, inventive rhymes and absurd characters have invited comparisons with the American children's author Dr. Seuss. Chukovsky's poems Tarakanishche ("The Monster Cockroach"), Krokodil ("The Crocodile"), Telefon ("The Telephone") and Moydodyr ("Wash-'em-Clean") have been favourites with many generations of Russophone children. Lines from his poems, in particular Telefon, have become universal catch-phrases in the Russian media and everyday conversation. He adapted the Doctor Dolittle stories into a book-length Russian poem as Doktor Aybolit ("Dr. Ow-It-Hurts"), and translated a substantial portion of the Mother Goose canon into Russian as Angliyskiye Narodnyye Pesenki ("English Folk Rhymes"). He was also an influential literary critic and essayist.

Early life

He was born Nikolay Vasilyevich Korneychukov (Russian: Николай Васильевич Корнейчуков), which he reworked into his now familiar pen-name while working as a journalist at Odessa News in 1901. He was born in St. Petersburg, the illegitimate son of Ekaterina Osipovna Korneychukova (a peasant girl from the Poltava region of Ukraine) and Emmanuil Solomonovich Levinson, a man from a wealthy Jewish family whose legitimate grandson was mathematician Vladimir Rokhlin). Levinson's family did not permit his marriage to Korneychukova and the couple eventually separated. Korneychukova moved to Odessa with Nikolay and his sibling. Levinson supported them financially for some time, until his marriage to another woman. Nikolay studied at the Odessa gymnasium, where one of his classmates was Vladimir Zeev Jabotinsky. Later, Nikolay was expelled from the gymnasium for his "low origin" (a euphemism for illegitimacy). He had to get his secondary school and university diplomas by correspondence.

He taught himself English and, in 1903-05, he served as the London correspondent at an Odessa newspaper, although he spent most of his time at the British Library instead of the press gallery in the Parliament. Back in Russia, Chukovsky started translating English works, notably Walt Whitman, and published several analyses of contemporary European authors, which brought him in touch with leading personalities of Russian literature and secured the friendship of Alexander Blok. His influence on Russian literary society of the 1890s is immortalized by satirical verses of Sasha Cherny, including Korney Belinsky (an allusion to the famous critic Vissarion Belinsky). Later he published several notable literary titles including From Chekhov to Our Days (1908), Critique stories (1911) and Faces and masks (1914). He also published a satirical magazine called Signal (1905–1906) and was arrested for "insulting the ruling house," but was acquitted after six months of investigative incarceration.

Later life and works

It was at that period that Chukovsky produced his first fantasies for children. As the 2004 Encyclopædia Britannica put it, "their clockwork rhythms and air of mischief and lightness in effect dispelled the plodding stodginess that had characterized pre-revolutionary children's poetry." Subsequently, they were adapted for theatre and animated films, with Chukovsky as one of the collaborators. Sergei Prokofiev and other composers even adapted some of his poems for opera and ballet. His works were popular with emigre children as well, as Vladimir Nabokov's complimentary letter to Chukovsky attests.

During the Soviet period, Chukovsky edited the complete works of Nikolay Nekrasov and published From Two to Five (1933), a popular guidebook to the language of children. As his invaluable diaries attest, Chukovsky used his popularity to help the authors persecuted by the regime including Anna Akhmatova, Mikhail Zoshchenko, Alexander Galich and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. He was the only Soviet writer who officially congratulated Boris Pasternak on winning the Nobel Prize. His daughter, Lydia Chukovskaya, is remembered as a noted writer, memoirist, philologist and lifelong assistant and secretary of the poet Anna Akhmatova.

At one point his writings for children were under severe criticism. Nadezhda Krupskaya was an initiator of this campaign, but criticism also came also from children's writer Agniya Barto.

Starting in the 1930s, Chukovsky lived in the writers' village of Peredelkino near Moscow, where he is now buried.

For his works on the life of Nekrasov he was awarded a Doctor of Science degree in philology. He also received the Lenin Prize in 1962 for his book, Mastery of Nekrasov and an honorary doctorate from Oxford University in 1962.

Source: wikipedia.org

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        Relation nameRelation typeBirth DateDeath dateDescription
        1Лидия  ЧуковскаяЛидия ЧуковскаяDaughter24.03.190707.02.1996
        2
        Цезарь ВольпеSon in-law00.00.190400.00.1941
        3Matvej BronshtejnMatvej BronshtejnSon in-law00.00.190618.02.1938
        4Елена  ЧуковскаяЕлена ЧуковскаяGranddaughter06.08.193103.01.2015
        5Vladimir  MayakovskyVladimir MayakovskyFriend19.07.189314.04.1930
        6Moura  BudbergMoura BudbergFriend00.00.189200.00.1974
        7Lidia  CharskayaLidia CharskayaCoworker19.01.187518.03.1937
        8Olga BerggolcOlga BerggolcCoworker16.05.191013.11.1975
        9Yury   TynyanovYury TynyanovCoworker18.10.189420.12.1943
        10Юрий БондаревЮрий БондаревFamiliar15.03.192429.03.2020
        11Адриан  ТопоровАдриан ТопоровFamiliar05.09.189123.07.1984
        12Николай ГрибачевНиколай ГрибачевFamiliar19.12.191010.03.1992
        13Boris  EikhenbaumBoris EikhenbaumIdea mate04.10.188624.11.1959
        14Elizaveta  PolonskayaElizaveta PolonskayaIdea mate26.06.189011.01.1969
        15Nikolai  TikhonovNikolai TikhonovIdea mate04.12.189608.02.1979
        16Nikolai  NikitinNikolai NikitinIdea mate27.07.188526.03.1963
        17Vladimir  PoznerVladimir PoznerIdea mate18.01.190519.02.1992
        18Vsevolod  IvanovVsevolod IvanovIdea mate24.02.189515.08.1963
        19Вениамин КаверинВениамин КаверинIdea mate19.04.190202.05.1989
        20Mikhail  ZoshchenkoMikhail ZoshchenkoIdea mate09.08.189522.07.1958
        21Yevgeny  ZamyatinYevgeny ZamyatinIdea mate20.01.188410.03.1937
        22Konstantin  FedinKonstantin FedinIdea mate24.02.189215.07.1977
        23Anna AkhmatovaAnna AkhmatovaIdea mate23.06.188905.03.1966
        24Nikolay GumilevNikolay GumilevIdea mate15.04.188624.08.1921
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