November 6: writer Dmitry Mamin-Sibiryak's birthday
Dmitry Mamin, the future writer and playwright Mamin-Sibiryak, was born in the village of Visim, 40 km from Nizhny Tagil. The author of "Ural Tales" and "Privalov's Millions" wrote about life in the Urals and Siberia.
In the village We're hanging (40 km from Nizhny Tagil) was born Dmitry Mamin - future writer and playwright Mamin-SibiryakThe author of "Ural Tales", "Privalov's Millions" and "The Gray Neck".
It is impossible to live without conscience, just as it is impossible to live without sunlight.
("Bread")
Mamin-Sibiryak's childhood: seminary and law school
His father was a priest, and his mother came from a family of a village deacon. He was home-schooled. He attended seminary but did not graduate.
At 20, he entered the Imperial Medical-Surgical Academy to study veterinary medicine, then transferred to the law department at St. Petersburg University. He desperately needed money for his studies. To earn money, he published action-packed stories about bandits, Ural Old Believers, and hoaxes.
At 25, when financial problems compounded his health (a lung disease), he dropped out of school and returned to his homeland. He earned extra money as a tutor. He traveled extensively throughout the Urals, studying the region's history, economics, and ethnography. He was passionate about archeology and participated in expeditions and excavations.
While still a student, he wrote one of his first novels, “In the Whirlpool of Passions,” but it was harshly criticized at the time and he was not paid.
Mamin-Sibiryak returns to literature
By the age of 30, he had returned to literature. Later, he became an acquaintance of Mamin's, a descendant of an impoverished noble family. Ivan Bunin He will write that both are grateful for their early poverty, because it was poverty, and not vanity, that forced them to engage in literary work.
In 1881, his travel essays, "From the Urals to Moscow," were published in the Moscow newspaper "Russkie Vedomosti." In subsequent works, he began using the pseudonym D. Sibiryak, and then his double surname, Mamin-Sibiryak.
In 1883, his first major novel, Privalov's Millions, was published in the magazine Delo and was a great success.
I love this Siberia: the most mercantile country. It has never seen serfdom or lordship, and even the all-Russian bast shoe didn't dare cross the Urals... Our Siberia wears boots! And the people are just too smart.
Of course, it's not bad to be rich, but not to be a slave to your wealth.
Ural Tales and "Mountain Nest"
After the publication of the novel "Mountain Nest" in "Notes of the Fatherland", he became famous as a realist writer.
Other people's stupidity does not give us the right to do our own
He depicted life in the Urals and Siberia after Alexander's reforms, and the changes taking place in people's consciousness and society. He created vivid images of the Ural landscape, depicted the unique way of life and daily life in the Ural factories and gold mines, and reflected the irreconcilable hostility between workers and employers. The author himself called the "Ural Stories" series his best work.
In 1887 his first play, The Gold Miners, was staged.
The workers, of course, take risks, but that's the Russian way of life: he'll stick his neck out everywhere, just to avoid taking an extra step.
Daughter Elena and the Tales of Mamin-Sibiryak
By 40 I moved back to PetersburgAfter the death of his second wife, a 28-year-old actress at the Yekaterinburg Theater (she died in childbirth), he was left with a sick daughter. ElenaThe girl suffered from chorea, a neurological disorder characterized by jerky and involuntary movements. It was for her that her father composed "Alyonushka's Tales" before bed and wrote "The Gray Neck."
My rule is generally not to interfere in other people's affairs. Why bother? Let everyone live their own way.
(Gray Neck)
Previously, the vessels in the churches were wooden, and the priests were golden, but now the vessels have become golden, and the priests are wooden.
(Alyonushka's Tales)
He dedicated some of his stories (“The Breadwinner,” “In Training,” “The Spit”) to disadvantaged children and orphans.
He responded to the revolutionary events of 1905 with the collection "Criminals." Although he generally supported the idea of oppressed peoples fighting for their rights, he hoped for an end to the unrest.
Thank God, the terrible year has passed, and let us hope that this year will bring constructive silence.
(from personal correspondence)
Recent years: illness and severe depression
His last major works were the novels “Features from the Life of Pepko”, “Falling Stars” and the story “Mumma”.
In recent years he struggled with tuberculosis and suffered from severe depression and nervous exhaustion.
In 1911, he suffered a cerebral hemorrhage, and his arms and legs became paralyzed. He died in 1912 in St. Petersburg of lung disease, at the age of 60.