8 Dec 1855
Born Vladimir Gilyarovsky — "Uncle Gilyai." Journalist, writer, poet. "The King of Reportage."
There are two misfortunes in Russia:
Below is the power of darkness,
And above is the darkness of power
Born on Vologda region. My mother came from a family of Zaporozhian Cossacks. My father's surname, according to family legend, comes from the Latin "hilaris" (meaning "cheerful")—a nickname my grandfather received for his cheerful disposition.
He spent his childhood in communion with nature:
in the dense forests of Domshino, where bears walk along impassable drags and swamps, and wolves drag themselves in packs
In 1860, my father was given a position as an official in Vologda. In 1865, Volodya entered high school. He was held back in first grade the following year. He angered his teachers with epigrams—"dirty tricks on the instructors." He was a strongman and a brawler. From second grade, he became fascinated with the circus, mastering acrobatics and trick riding.
In 1871, after failing an exam, he ran away from home. He walked to Yaroslavl. Cholera was raging there, and the guy was immediately taken on as a barge hauler.
I learned later that I was taken into the gang in place of a man who died of cholera, whose body was hidden on a plank under a kichka - they were afraid to bury him in the city, lest there would be a delay from the police
Reaching up to Rybinsk, He got a job as a dockhand (loader) at the port. His father found him there and persuaded him to join the Nezhin Regiment, and later, the cadet school in Moscow. But his studies were again unsuccessful, and he was expelled after a month for disciplinary violations.
He worked in a bleach factory, in the fishing industry, as a stoker, a horse herder, and a circus performer. He made sketches—the basis for future essays.
The merchant Kopeikin's bleaching factory looks gloomy and uninviting... From all corners of Russia, the poor, the hungry, the homeless—the "doomed"—came here in search of work. Soon they began to choke and cough. Lead dust got into their lungs... From here, they had only one path left—to the grave.
He took part in the Russo-Turkish War in a detachment of hunter-scouts and received awards.
In 1881, he moved to Moscow to work in the theater. But he soon became a reporter for Moskovsky Listok. His fame as the "king of reportage" came in 1882.
On the night of June 30th, 312 km from Moscow in the direction Kursk The embankment above the ravine washed away, and a passenger train fell into the hole. The first seven carriages sank into the mud. More than 40 people died. When the tragedy occurred, Gilyarovsky was dining with the manager of the Moscow-Kursk Railway. Hearing about the emergency, he secretly boarded the ministerial train and was one of the first to reach the site. Kukuev disaster.
From the moment the excavations began, from dawn until midnight, I did not leave the workers. For 14 days! <> I was completely permeated with the smell of a corpse and for more than six months suffered from olfactory hallucinations and could not eat meat.
Thanks to the reports of Gilyarovsky and other journalists, the authorities were unable to "hush up" the tragedy.
Also, in 1896, through Gilyarovsky’s eyes, the country saw the scale Khodynka disaster. A reporter came to see the preparations for the celebration in honor of the coronation of Nicholas II and found himself in the center of a crush—it was caused by people rushing for free gifts in a field riddled with holes (military exercises were being held there).
These terrible wolf pits are filled with corpses. This is the main place of death. Many people suffocated while still standing in the crowd and fell dead at the feet of those running behind them... Women lay before me with their braids torn out, their heads scalped.
I was sure the article wouldn't be published, but it turned out to be impossible to conceal the deaths of 1400 people. The report was published in Russkie Vedomosti.
Not all of Gilyarovsky's texts were so fortunate. In 1887, the entire print run of "Slum People" was destroyed. From the censor's explanation:
Total darkness, not a single glimmer of hope, no justification, only an indictment of the existing order. Such truth cannot be written.
The printed sheets were burned at the Sushchevsky police station:
— What is that smoke over the Sushchevskaya part?
- Don't worry, it's nothing, they're burning "Russian Thought"
I talked with Chekhov, Tolstoy, Bunin, Blok, Chaliapin — he dedicated his memoirs to them.
After the October Revolution, he wrote for Izvestia and Ogonyok. He left behind the books Moscow and Muscovites, My Wanderings, and Friends and Meetings. He died in 1935.
Let death frighten the timid light,
And it will not make us fear:
When we live, there is no death,
And when death comes, we will no longer exist.