January 17, 1865
Born in Moscow Vlas Doroshevich — journalist, theater critic, publicist. "The king of feuilletons."
The ability to speak is given only to man, and this makes him the most unbearable of all animals.
His father was a journalist. His mother, a writer, had noble roots. When her son was six months old, she abandoned him in a cheap hotel room and fled abroad "for political reasons." She left a note in French:
The child has not yet been baptized. I ask that you name him Vlas, in honor of Blaise Pascal.
He was taken in and adopted by the collegiate secretary, who arrived on the scene with the police as a witness, Mikhail Doroshevich. He also gave his last name.
Several years later, the mother got her son back through the courts, but the childhood trauma remained with her for the rest of her life: in his work, Vlas often addressed the theme of "illegitimate and legitimate, but unfortunate children."
He changed several gymnasiums, was repeatedly expelled for bad behavior and disrespect for his superiors, and eventually completed his studies as an external student.
I grew up in an average Russian family, which is afraid of its authorities like fire and considers explanations with the authorities to be one of the greatest misfortunes that can befall a person.
While still a high school student, he began working as a loader, a digger, a proofreader, an actor, and a tutor. Later, he worked as a reporter for Moskovsky Listok and Petersburgskaya Gazeta, and wrote humorous pieces for Budilnik. His views were close to those of the Narodniks.
Is it really possible to love people without seeing them?
He swore to himself to always “remain true to common sense” and avoided politics.
In the 1890s, he became famous while working for the liberal newspaper Odessky Listok, where his feuilletons were very popular.
I went on business trips to Western Europe, India, China, Japan.
In 1897, without permission from the authorities, he went on a steamship with convicts to the Far East and later published a book of essays about Sakhalin — "Death Island" — and about the Sakhalin penal servitude. It was banned in Russia.
However, how can a Russian person patiently and for a long time conceal a living person within himself?
By the age of 45 he had published a 9-volume collection of his works.
Such, it seems, is the fate of a Russian writer. To have a representative of the Russian intelligentsia drinking for psychological reasons around you! You keep waking her up all your life, and she'll wake up and get drunk.
Before the 1917 Revolution, he edited the newspaper "Russkoye Slovo," turning it into the most widely read newspaper in the Russian Empire. He became famous for his short, concise style.
My dear, they don't read long ones. What does the public do to a newspaper? Like a sparrow to a window! Pecked and flew away. Tsop, snatched and fluttered away. Sparrow! He needs a crumb. A crumb, my dear, a crumb.
He was criticized for "insincere journalism." Chukovsky attacked Doroshevich for "reader gratification" and "stylistic conformism."
Read Doroshevich on your bed, in the bathhouse, between a cutlet and coffee, and it won’t interfere with your work or your appetite.
(Korney Chukovsky)
In the early 1900s, in the pages of Russkoye Slovo, he warned against revolution and Lenin. He considered him out of touch with the realities of people's lives and an instigator of fratricidal war.
The red flag negates every nation. Don't stand under it, don't deceive with your numbers that perhaps handful of people who follow it consciously, understanding why and where they are going. Don't push them into terrible mistakes. This flag casts bloody shadows across the earth.
He accepted the February Revolution of 1917, but rejected the October Revolution. In the 1920s, he lived in Sevastopol. He refused to collaborate with anti-Bolshevik newspapers.
Now the cannons fire so loudly, the gold rings so loudly, that it's hard to hear the word love. Love whispers, hate screams.
There are no times of absolute peace—every child knows that. In the most peaceful times, nations wage their most brutal wars. When people aren't beating each other on the neck, they're beating each other on the pocketbook. Economic wars are constantly waged.
At the end of the Civil War, being seriously ill, he made a statement about “full accession” to Soviet power.
He died in 1922. Petrograd, from tuberculosis. He was 57.
How soon do people die and how long do prejudices last?
