Valentin Lavrov: “Literary creativity is like love. Valentin Lavrov: “Literary creativity is like love” Fragments from the book

Son of the popular pre-war football player Viktor Lavrov (Lokomotiv Moscow). In the 1950s he was a famous boxer; graduated State Institute physical education. The first profession is a boxing coach.

From the age of 19 (September) he was published in newspapers and magazines (about 1000 publications) - feuilletons, reports, interviews, stories about rare books. In January, the publishing house “Young Guard” published the first book - “Cold Autumn. Ivan Bunin in exile."

Since this year, the Kniga publishing house has published a 6-volume fundamental anthology “Literature of Russian Abroad” (Lavrov is the compiler, author of notes).

From now on, the newspaper "Moskovsky Komsomolets" weekly publishes Lavrov's books - historical detective stories written on the basis of archival materials: "Bloody Block", "Fornication on Blood", "Secrets of the Sovereign's Court", the series "Count Sokolov - a detective genius" and others - only eight books. These works were a success. Many were published in eight or nine editions.

In 1994 it was released historical novel“Catastrophe” - about the fate of Russian emigration after the revolution (four editions in total).

Valentin Lavrov - Laureate of the State Prize of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Sholokhov Prize, the Arkady Koshko Prize for the best detective of the year, etc.

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See what “Lavrov, Valentin Viktorovich” is in other dictionaries:

- (born May 2, 1935) Russian literary critic and writer; Academician of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, professor. Author of 21 books, 68 books in reprints until December 2007. Biography The son of the popular pre-war football player Viktor Lavrov (Lokomotiv). In the 1950s he was famous... ... Wikipedia

Valentin Viktorovich Lavrov (born May 2, 1935) Russian literary critic and writer; Academician of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, professor. Author of 21 books, 68 books in reprints until December 2007. Biography The son of the popular pre-war football player Viktor Lavrov (Lokomotiv). In... ... Wikipedia

Contents 1 Men 1.1 A 1.2 B 1.3 D ... Wikipedia

Contents 1 1980 2 1981 3 1982 4 1983 5 1984 6 1985 ... Wikipedia

This article or section needs revision. Please improve the article in accordance with the rules for writing articles... Wikipedia

Contents 1 1941 2 1942 3 1943 4 1946 4.1 Awards ... Wikipedia

- ... Wikipedia

Full list full members Academy of Sciences (St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, Imperial Academy Sciences, Imperial St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, Academy of Sciences of the USSR, Russian Academy sciences). # A B C D E E F G H ... Wikipedia

Books

Book fever. Moscow, second half of the twentieth century. Printed treasures, bibliophiles, second-hand book dealers, Valentin Viktorovich Lavrov. For more than half a century, the author was involved in bibliophilism, which only for the uninitiated can...

For years he was a famous boxer; graduated The first profession is a boxing coach.

Since this year, the Kniga publishing house has published a 6-volume fundamental anthology “Literature of Russian Abroad” (Lavrov is the compiler, author of notes).

From now on, the newspaper “Moskovsky Komsomolets” publishes Lavrov’s books weekly - historical detective stories written on the basis of archival materials: “Bloody Block”, “Fornication on Blood”, “Secrets of the Sovereign’s Court”, the series “Count Sokolov - a detective genius” and others - only eight books. These works were a success. Many were published in eight or nine editions.

In 1994, the historical novel “Catastrophe” was published - about the fate of Russian emigration after the revolution (four editions in total).

Valentin Lavrov - Laureate of the State Prize of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Sholokhov Prize, the Arkady Koshko Prize for the best detective of the year, etc.

Reviews

V. Lavrov “creates a historically accurate biography, with all the complexities of the hero’s character, with his attractive and negative qualities. The book very convincingly debunks the myths about the writer as a callous, selfish person. “He was an amazingly pure person who passionately loved Russia and its people” - this is the impression we get after reading the book...

V. Lavrov managed to collect enormous historical material. And he uses it freely, depicting through the prism of the hero various aspects of emigrant existence, open and behind-the-scenes struggle... In any case, a similar book about I.A. Bunin has never been here yet, either here or abroad.”

Sergey Makashin, Doctor of Philology, State Prize laureate.

(From the preface to Valentin Lavrov’s novel “Cold Autumn. Ivan Bunin in Emigration”, M. 1989. Tier. 250 thousand. The first version of the historical novel “Catastrophe”).

This word about a classic and a sufferer involuntarily comes to mind when reading “The Catastrophe.” You close the work with firm conviction - yes, this work is a rare and spiritually joyful phenomenon in the timelessness of our fine literature... In Lavrov’s book, facts are ascending currents on which the author’s inspiration and the power of creative imagination soar...

The novel is multifaceted and associative. Dozens and dozens of characters pass before the reader - from a St. Petersburg cab driver to a Russian lady selling herself on the panels of Istanbul, from Trotsky and Lenin to Mussolini and Stalin, from Rachmaninov to Alexei Tolstoy. But the most striking figure is the hero of the novel - the great Bunin... According to Lavrov’s pen, this writer grows to a kind of symbol of the Russian intelligentsia, the essence of which at all times has been the same - service to the Fatherland...

Any episode of the “Catastrophe” passes the test for complete historical accuracy and documentary evidence...”

A.F. Smirnov, professor, doctor historical sciences. (Preface to the fourth edition of the historical novel “Catastrophe”. M. 2003)

“Going to Lavrov is like going to a mausoleum. The television program “Vremechko” featured an amazing story: a kilometer-long line was freezing in the cold for autographs on the detective story “Count Sokolov - a detective genius.” Unfortunately, many left with nothing - several thousand copies were instantly sold out... After all, a better reading and a better gift cannot be found!”

“Valentin Lavrov has written many books, and all of them are bestsellers... To call Lavrov’s works simply popular would mean to say nothing. There are queues a kilometer long for his books.”

“Lavrov is the king of the Russian thriller. His books are a real sensation. Lavrov made a career in historical chronicles. It has no competitors in the historical thriller genre.”

“Valentin Lavrov has had a fantastic career. At the age of fifty-three he made his debut with the novel “Cold Autumn,” which was immediately published in a circulation of 250,000 copies. And then every year he publishes a full-length volume, which certainly becomes a bestseller.”

(“Man & Career”, No. 45, 1996)

“Valentin Lavrov’s chronicle novel Cold Autumn enjoys great reader success. Iv. Bunin in exile." The fascinating plot, lively figurative language, abundance of factual material, and the publication of previously unknown materials brought success to this work. The world's largest publishing house "Progress" is preparing "Cold Autumn" in English."

(“Fatherland”, No. 9, 1991)

“Long lines line up for the books of Academician Lavrov - this is also shown on television. These days! Everything that he published is unanimously recognized by the press as bestsellers: “Catastrophe”, “Fornication on Blood”, Russian Power”, the series “Count Sokolov - Detective Genius”, “Bloody Block”, etc. Foreign press awarded him the title of King of Russian Thriller.”

(“Gong”, No. 2, 1997)

“Having read, as if exhaling, “Count Sokolov...”, I thought: “Well, finally, here is our worthy answer to Conan Doyle!” Here he is, the domestic Sherlock Holmes, acting with the same unconventional (from the point of view of the police) methods as his English colleague , but only with a racial slant and scope... The main thing is that the book is written well. A great read."

("Playboy", October 1997)

“A large auction of manuscripts and rare books was held at the Photo Center on Gogolevsky Boulevard - almost four hundred lots... The greatest excitement was caused by the layout with numerous corrections of the first complete edition of Valentin Lavrov’s “Count Sokolov - a detective genius.” 12 million rubles were paid for this lot! According to rumors, a representative of an American university has become generous, apparently deciding to collect autographs of Russian writers ahead of time - while they are still alive.”

“Book records of Valentin Lavrov. Valentin Lavrov signed 4,800 autographs on the corresponding number of his books during the MK festival in Luzhniki. The achievement, unfortunately, is not recorded in the book of records. But in vain! However, it’s not evening yet. The writer continues to train: in the Moscow Biblio-Globus store there was such a line of people wanting to get an autograph that in the end about a thousand more readers will put books with dedicatory inscriptions from the master of historical detective on their shelves.”

“The ideal case is when a writer writes and publishes himself. The famous writer Valentin Lavrov founded his own publishing house this spring. “When you publish yourself, you think not so much about commerce, but about readers. I truly love my readers. Open any book from my publishing house, you will see something unprecedented in modern times: the books are printed on the best and most expensive paper, and are interestingly designed. The main reviews of my books are long reader queues,” the writer said. Indeed, even three hours before the meeting with Lavrov, the most reading people are already patiently waiting for autographs.”

"Not a single literary hero in recent years did not conquer the Russian readership so quickly and so comprehensively as the detective genius Count Sokolov. Academician Valentin Lavrov’s series about the adventures of this famous detective has become the favorite reading of millions of people.”

(InterPOLICE. 1999. No. 1)

“Lavrov masterfully manages to convey the flavor of a bygone era. Using his books, you can study Moscow life at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. You open Lavrov’s book and hear the roar of the Sukharevsky market, the ringing of horse-drawn horses, the clatter of horseshoes on the pavement, you see cabbies and merchants, high school students and students, policemen and police officers, and you become so accustomed to a bygone era that after reading the book you do not immediately return to boring reality.”

“Legends of old Moscow... Valentin Lavrov is an academician of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, laureate of the State Prize of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Sholokhov Prize, the Arkady Koshko Prize for the best detective of the year, the author of historical novels stunning in power and truthfulness “Cold Autumn”, “Catastrophe”, “Scaffold and Money”, "Royal Treasures" He is the creator of the series about the Russian detective genius Sokolov. In his books, the author writes with love and with the most curious everyday details about old, long-gone Moscow. And not by chance! His ancestors are Muscovites from the end of the seventeenth century!”

(“Culture healthy life. 2010. No. 4")

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Notes

“V. Lavrov managed to collect enormous historical material. And he uses it freely, depicting through the prism of the hero various aspects of emigrant existence, the open and behind-the-scenes struggle of forces hostile not only to the Land of the Soviets, but also to the manifestation of all sorts of progressive tendencies within the emigration itself. In any case , there has never been a similar book about I.A. Bunin - neither here nor abroad,” Sergei Makashin, member of the editorial board of “Literary Heritage”, Doctor of Philology, laureate of the USSR State Prize.

(Cold Autumn M, 1989 Preface)

Excerpt characterizing Lavrov, Valentin Viktorovich

During the last period of Pierre's stay in Oryol, his old freemason acquaintance, Count Villarsky, came to see him, the same one who introduced him to the lodge in 1807. Villarsky was married to a rich Russian woman who had large estates in Oryol province, and occupied a temporary place in the city in the food department.
Having learned that Bezukhov was in Orel, Villarsky, although he had never been briefly acquainted with him, came to him with those statements of friendship and closeness that people usually express to each other when meeting in the desert. Villarsky was bored in Orel and was happy to meet a person of the same circle as himself and with the same, as he believed, interests.
But, to his surprise, Villarsky soon noticed that Pierre was very far behind real life and fell, as he defined Pierre to himself, into apathy and selfishness.
“Vous vous encroutez, mon cher,” he told him. Despite this, Villarsky was now more pleasant with Pierre than before, and he visited him every day. For Pierre, looking at Villarsky and listening to him now, it was strange and incredible to think that he himself had very recently been the same.
Villarsky was married, a family man, busy with the affairs of his wife’s estate, his service, and his family. He believed that all these activities were a hindrance in life and that they were all despicable because they were aimed at the personal good of him and his family. Military, administrative, political, and Masonic considerations constantly absorbed his attention. And Pierre, without trying to change his view, without condemning him, with his now constantly quiet, joyful mockery, admired this strange phenomenon, so familiar to him.
In his relations with Villarsky, with the princess, with the doctor, with all the people with whom he now met, Pierre had a new trait that earned him the favor of all people: this recognition of the ability of each person to think, feel and look at things in his own way; recognition of the impossibility of words to dissuade a person. This legitimate characteristic of every person, which previously worried and irritated Pierre, now formed the basis of the participation and interest that he took in people. The difference, sometimes the complete contradiction of people's views with their lives and with each other, pleased Pierre and aroused in him a mocking and gentle smile.
In practical matters, Pierre suddenly now felt that he had a center of gravity that he did not have before. Previously, every money question, especially requests for money, to which he, as a very rich man, was exposed very often, led him into hopeless unrest and bewilderment. “To give or not to give?” - he asked himself. “I have it, but he needs it. But someone else needs it even more. Who needs it more? Or maybe both are deceivers? And from all these assumptions he had previously not found any way out and gave to everyone while he had something to give. He had been in exactly the same bewilderment before with every question concerning his condition, when one said that it was necessary to do this, and the other - another.
Now, to his surprise, he found that in all these questions there were no more doubts and perplexities. A judge now appeared in him, according to some laws unknown to himself, deciding what was necessary and what should not be done.
He was just as indifferent to money matters as before; but now he undoubtedly knew what he should do and what he should not do. The first application of this new judge for him was the request of a captured French colonel, who came to him, talked a lot about his exploits and in the end almost declared a demand that Pierre give him four thousand francs to send to his wife and children. Pierre refused him without the slightest difficulty or tension, marveling later at how simple and easy it was that which had previously seemed insurmountably difficult. At the same time, immediately refusing the colonel, he decided that it was necessary to use cunning in order to force the Italian officer, when leaving Orel, to take the money that he apparently needed. New proof for Pierre of his established view of practical matters was his solution to the issue of his wife’s debts and the renewal or non-renewal of Moscow houses and dachas.
His chief manager came to see him in Orel, and with him Pierre made a general account of his changing income. The Moscow fire cost Pierre, according to the chief manager’s accounts, about two million.
The chief manager, to console these losses, presented Pierre with a calculation that, despite these losses, his income not only would not decrease, but would increase if he refused to pay the debts remaining after the countess, to which he could not be obliged, and if he does not renew the Moscow houses and the Moscow region, which cost eighty thousand annually and brought nothing.
“Yes, yes, it’s true,” said Pierre, smiling cheerfully. - Yes, yes, I don’t need any of this. I became much richer from ruin.
But in January Savelich arrived from Moscow, told him about the situation in Moscow, about the estimate that the architect made for him to renovate the house and the Moscow region, speaking about it as if it was a decided matter. At the same time, Pierre received a letter from Prince Vasily and other acquaintances from St. Petersburg. The letters talked about his wife's debts. And Pierre decided that the manager’s plan, which he liked so much, was wrong and that he needed to go to St. Petersburg to finish off his wife’s affairs and build in Moscow. Why this was necessary, he did not know; but he knew without a doubt that it was necessary. As a result of this decision, his income decreased by three quarters. But it was necessary; he felt it.
Villarsky was traveling to Moscow, and they agreed to go together.
Throughout his recovery in Orel, Pierre experienced a feeling of joy, freedom, and life; but when, during his travels, he found himself in the free world and saw hundreds of new faces, this feeling intensified even more. Throughout the trip he felt the joy of a schoolboy on vacation. All persons: the coachman, the caretaker, the men on the road or in the village - everything was important to him. new meaning. The presence and comments of Villarsky, who constantly complained about poverty, backwardness from Europe, and ignorance of Russia, only increased Pierre's joy. Where Villarsky saw deadness, Pierre saw an extraordinary powerful force of vitality, that force that in the snow, in this space, supported the life of this whole, special and united people. He did not contradict Villarsky and, as if agreeing with him (since feigned agreement was the shortest way to bypass reasoning from which nothing could come of it), smiled joyfully as he listened to him.

Just as it is difficult to explain why and where ants rush from a scattered hummock, some away from the hummock, dragging specks, eggs and dead bodies, others back into the hummock - why they collide, catch up with each other, fight - it is just as difficult It would be possible to explain the reasons that forced the Russian people, after the French left, to crowd into the place that was formerly called Moscow. But just as, looking at the ants scattered around a devastated hummock, despite the complete destruction of the hummock, one can see from the tenacity, energy, and countless swarming insects that everything has been destroyed except for something indestructible, immaterial, which makes up the entire strength of the hummock - so too and Moscow, in the month of October, despite the fact that there were no authorities, no churches, no shrines, no wealth, no houses, Moscow was the same as it was in August. Everything was destroyed, except for something insubstantial, but powerful and indestructible.
The motives of people rushing from all sides to Moscow after its cleansing from the enemy were the most varied, personal, and at first mostly wild, animal. There was only one impulse common to everyone - this desire to go there, to the place that was formerly called Moscow, to carry out their activities there.
A week later there were already fifteen thousand inhabitants in Moscow, after two there were twenty-five thousand, etc. Rising and rising, this number by the autumn of 1813 reached a figure exceeding the population of the 12th year.
The first Russian people who entered Moscow were the Cossacks of the Wintzingerode detachment, men from neighboring villages and residents who fled from Moscow and were hiding in its environs. The Russians who entered devastated Moscow, finding it plundered, also began to plunder. They continued what the French were doing. Convoys of men came to Moscow in order to take away to the villages everything that had been thrown along the ruined Moscow houses and streets. The Cossacks took what they could to their headquarters; the owners of the houses took everything that they found in other houses and brought it to themselves under the pretext that it was their property.
But after the first robbers came others, third ones, and the robbery every day, as the number of robbers increased, became more and more difficult and took on more definite forms.
The French found Moscow, although empty, but with all the forms of an organically correctly living city, with its various departments of trade, crafts, luxury, public administration, religion. These forms were lifeless, but they still existed. There were rows, benches, stores, warehouses, bazaars - most with goods; there were factories, craft establishments; there were palaces, rich houses filled with luxury goods; there were hospitals, prisons, public places, churches, cathedrals. The longer the French stayed, the more these forms of urban life were destroyed, and in the end everything merged into one indivisible, lifeless field of plunder.

Biography

Son of the popular pre-war football player Viktor Lavrov (Lokomotiv Moscow). In the 1950s he was a famous boxer; graduated from the State Institute of Physical Education. The first profession is a boxing coach.

From the age of 19 (September) he was published in newspapers and magazines (about 1000 publications) - feuilletons, reports, interviews, stories about rare books.

In January, the publishing house “Young Guard” published the first book - “Cold Autumn. Ivan Bunin in exile."

Since 1990, the Kniga publishing house has published a 6-volume fundamental anthology “Literature of the Russian Abroad” (Lavrov is the compiler and author of the notes).

From 1998 to 1998, the newspaper “Moskovsky Komsomolets” published weekly books by Lavrov - historical detective stories written on the basis of archival materials: “Bloody Block”, “Fornication on Blood”, “Secrets of the Sovereign’s Court”, the series “Count Sokolov - a detective genius” and others are just eight books. These works were a success. Many were published in eight or nine editions.

In 1994, the historical novel “Catastrophe” was published - about the fate of Russian emigration after the revolution (four editions in total).

Valentin Lavrov - Laureate of the State Prize of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Sholokhov Prize, the Arkady Koshko Prize for the best detective of the year, etc.

Reviews

V. Lavrov managed to collect enormous historical material. And he uses it freely, depicting through the prism of the hero various aspects of emigrant existence, open and behind-the-scenes struggle... In any case, there has never been a similar book about I. A. Bunin - neither here nor abroad.”

Sergey Makashin, Doctor of Philology, State Prize laureate.

(From the preface to Valentin Lavrov’s novel “Cold Autumn. Ivan Bunin in Emigration”, M. 1989. Tier. 250 thousand. The first version of the historical novel “Catastrophe”).

“Roman Gul once said about A.I. Solzhenitsyn: “For me, he is an exceptional phenomenon... It is difficult to imagine how such a spiritually untouched person and writer could appear in the Soviet Union. This word about a classic and a sufferer involuntarily comes to mind when reading “Catastrophe.” You close the work with a firm conviction - yes, this work is a rare and spiritually joyful phenomenon in the timelessness of our elegant literature. In Lavrov’s book, facts are rising currents on which the author’s inspiration and the power of creative imagination float...

The novel is multifaceted and associative. Dozens and dozens of characters pass before the reader - from a St. Petersburg cab driver to a Russian lady selling herself on the panels of Istanbul, from Trotsky and Lenin to Mussolini and Stalin, from Rachmaninov to Alexei Tolstoy. But the most striking figure is the hero of the novel - the great Bunin. Under the pen of Lavrov, this writer grows into a kind of symbol of the Russian intelligentsia, whose essence has at all times been the same - service to the Fatherland.

Any episode of the “Catastrophe” passes the test for complete historical accuracy and documentary evidence...”

A.F. Smirnov, professor, doctor of historical sciences. (Preface to the fourth edition of the historical novel “Catastrophe”. M. 2003)

“Going to Lavrov is like going to a mausoleum. The television program “Vremechko” featured an amazing story: a kilometer-long line was freezing in the cold for autographs on the detective story “Count Sokolov - a detective genius.” Unfortunately, many left with nothing - several thousand copies were instantly sold out. After all, you won’t find a better reading or a better gift!”

“Valentin Lavrov has written many books, and all of them are bestsellers. To call Lavrov’s works simply popular would be an understatement. There are queues a kilometer long for his books.”

“Lavrov is the king of the Russian thriller. His books are a real sensation. Lavrov made a career in historical chronicles. It has no competitors in the historical thriller genre.”

(“Man & Career”, No. 45, 1996)

“Valentin Lavrov’s chronicle novel “Cold Autumn” enjoys great reader success. Iv. Bunin in exile." The fascinating plot, lively figurative language, abundance of factual material, and the publication of previously unknown materials brought success to this work. The world’s largest publishing house “Progress” is preparing “Cold Autumn” in English.”

(“Fatherland”, No. 9, 1991)

“Long lines line up for the books of Academician Lavrov - this is also shown on television. These days! Everything that he published is unanimously recognized by the press as bestsellers: “Catastrophe”, “Fornication on Blood”, Russian Power”, the series “Count Sokolov - a detective genius”, “The Bloody Block”, etc. The foreign press awarded him the title of the King of the Russian Thriller." .

(“Gong”, No. 2, 1997)

“Having read, as if exhaling, “Count Sokolov,” I thought: “Well, finally, here is our worthy answer to Conan Doyle!” Here he is, the domestic Sherlock Holmes, acting with the same unconventional (from the police point of view) methods as his English colleague, but only with a racial slant and scope. The main thing is that the book is written well. A great read."

("Playboy", October 1997)

“A large auction of manuscripts and rare books was held at the Photo Center on Gogolevsky Boulevard - almost four hundred lots. The greatest excitement was caused by the layout with numerous edits of the first complete edition of Valentin Lavrov’s “Count Sokolov - a detective genius.” 12 million rubles were paid for this lot! According to rumors, a representative of an American university became generous, apparently deciding to collect autographs of Russian writers ahead of time - while they are still alive.”

“The ideal case is when a writer writes and publishes himself. The famous writer Valentin Lavrov founded his own publishing house this spring. “When you publish yourself, you think not so much about commerce, but about readers. I truly love my readers. Open any book from my publishing house, you will see something unprecedented in modern times: the books are printed on the best and most expensive paper, and are interestingly designed. The main reviews of my books are long queues of readers,” said the writer. Indeed, even three hours before the meeting with Lavrov, the most reading people are already patiently waiting for autographs.”

“In recent years, not a single literary hero has conquered the Russian readership so quickly and so comprehensively as the detective genius Count Sokolov. Academician Valentin Lavrov’s series about the adventures of this famous detective has become the favorite reading of millions of people.”

(InterPOLICE. 1999. No. 1)

“Lavrov masterfully manages to convey the flavor of a bygone era. From his books you can study Moscow life turn of XIX-XX centuries. You open Lavrov’s book and hear the roar of the Sukharevsky market, the ringing of horse-drawn horses, the clatter of horseshoes on the pavement, you see cabbies and merchants, high school students and students, policemen and police officers, and you become so accustomed to a bygone era that after reading the book you do not immediately return to boring reality.”

“Legends of old Moscow... Valentin Lavrov is an academician of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, laureate of the State Prize of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Sholokhov Prize, the Arkady Koshko Prize for the best detective of the year, the author of the historical novels “Cold Autumn”, “Catastrophe”, “Scaffold and Money”, stunning in power and truthfulness, "Royal Treasures". He is the creator of the series about the Russian detective genius Sokolov. In his books, the author writes with love and with the most curious everyday details about old, long-gone Moscow. And not by chance! His ancestors are Muscovites from the end of the seventeenth century!”

(“Culture of a healthy life. 2010. No. 4”)

Notes

“V. Lavrov managed to collect enormous historical material. And he uses it freely, depicting through the prism of the hero various aspects of emigrant existence, the open and behind-the-scenes struggle of forces hostile not only to the Land of the Soviets, but also to the manifestation of all sorts of progressive tendencies within the emigration itself. In any case, there has never been a similar book about I.A. Bunin - neither here nor abroad,” Sergei Makashin, member of the editorial board of “Literary Heritage”, Doctor of Philology, laureate of the USSR State Prize.

(Cold Autumn M, 1989 Preface)

Valentin Viktorovich LAVROV
(born 1935)

Valentin Viktorovich Lavrov(born 1935) - Russian literary critic and writer; Academician of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, professor. Author of 21 books, 68 books in reprints until December 2007.
The son of the popular pre-war football player Viktor Lavrov (Lokomotiv). In the 1950s he was a famous boxer; graduated from the State Institute of Physical Education. The first profession is a boxing coach.
From the age of 19 (September 1954) he published in newspapers and magazines (about 1000 publications) - feuilletons, reports, interviews, stories about rare books. In January 1989, the publishing house “Young Guard” published its first book, “Cold Autumn. Ivan Bunin in exile."
Since 1990, the Kniga publishing house has published a 6-volume fundamental anthology, “Literature of the Russian Abroad” (Lavrov is the compiler and author of the notes).
From 1990 to 1998, the newspaper “Moskovsky Komsomolets” published weekly books by Lavrov - historical detective stories written on the basis of archival materials: “Bloody Block”, “Fornication on Blood”, “Secrets of the Sovereign’s Court”, the series “Count Sokolov - the genius of detective” and others - eight books in total. These works were a success. Many were published in eight or nine editions.
In 1994, the historical novel “Catastrophe” was published - about the fate of Russian emigration after the Bolsheviks seized power (four editions in total).
Valentin Lavrov - Laureate of the State Prize of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Sholokhov Prize, the Arkady Koshko Prize for the best detective of the year, etc.
(From Wikipedia)

Chronicle novel "Cold autumn. Ivan Bunin in exile 1920-1953." - sent by David Titievsky

Publisher's annotation:
The name of I. A. Bunin is one of the most famous in the history of Russian literature. His life is full of acute dramatic turns. Fate either raised the writer to the crest of world fame, or forced him to eke out a miserable existence in a foreign land. This book for the first time tells in detail about Bunin’s life abroad against the motley background of literary and political emigration. The book contains many new documents - diary entries, letters from Bunin, memories of him.

S. Borovikov: Mikhail Roshchin. Prince. Book about Ivan Bunin, Russian writer
“The method by which the book “The Prince” was created was once formulated by Tatyana Tolstaya: “with glue and scissors.” Well, collage is probably legitimate in literature, but there is no need to make it look like something else. Similar books have been and are being published, say , about Bunin there was Valentina Lavrova’s “Cold Autumn,” the worst in that Lavrov, unlike Roshchin, to the best of his weak ability, also fictionalized the text, which was completely terrible.”

Excerpts from the book:

“It is necessary that every literate person read Pushkin, Lermontov, Tolstoy, Chekhov. Otherwise, the fashion has gone for all sorts of decadents, from them only the disintegration of the word, its destruction, its innermost meaning, sound and weight,” said Ivan Alekseevich to Bukovetsky. “I meet Yesterday Osipovich, a writer after all, I ask:
-Are you going home? He answers:
- Not at all!
How can I explain to him that they don’t speak Russian like that? Doesn't understand, doesn't feel. He asks:
- How should I say it? In your opinion, not at all? But what's the difference?
“He doesn’t understand the difference. Of course, he can be forgiven; he will live in Odessa. It is also forgivable because in the end he modestly admits this and promises to remember that he must say “not at all.” And what an incredible number of self-confident insolent people in literature now, who imagine themselves to be terrible experts on words! How many admirers of the ancient (“vigorous and juicy”) folk language, who do not speak a word in simplicity, exhausting with their arch-Russianness!
The latter (after all the international “searches”, that is, some Young Turk imitations of all Western models) is beginning to come into great fashion. How many poets and prose writers make the Russian language sickening, taking precious folk tales, fairy tales, “golden words” and shamelessly passing them off as their own, desecrating them by retelling them in their own way and with their own additions, rummaging through regional dictionaries and compiling from them some kind of obscene in its arch-Russianism, a mixture that no one has ever spoken in Rus' and which is even impossible to read! How they rushed around in Moscow and St. Petersburg salons with various Klyuevs and Yesenins, even dressed as wanderers and good fellows, singing in their noses “about candles” and “little rivers” or pretending to be “daring little heads”!

“They soon got tired of being next to the Merezhkovskys. They loved to talk about the “high mental tension” in which they supposedly constantly live. But up close it turned out that there was no tension. They talked most of all about money, about other people’s mediocrity, about food and other trifles. True. “Zinaida Nikolaevna loved to argue, but this love, in the words of Vera Nikolaevna, was “sporting.”

"...Bunin wrote down words in his diary that explain a lot about his character:
Anyone who is called a “poet” should be felt as a person of rare intelligence, taste, aspirations, etc. Only in this case can I listen to his intimate, loving, etc. Why do I need the outpourings of the soul of a fool, a plebeian, a lackey, even someone who physically seems disgusting to me? In general, since the writer did such a thing that he lost my respect, that I don’t believe him, he was lost for me. And sometimes two or three lines do this..."

“The path to Stockholm lay through Germany, where the guys in brown shirts were rapidly introducing “ new order" Stormtroopers busily walked along the platforms, and small children, seeing the train, raised their little hands in a fascist salute.
We had to spend the night in Hamburg. “Herr Ober” in the restaurant offered them only sausages and cabbage, but on every table there were flags with a swastika. Not far from the station, Bunin saw a man in a decent black coat with a lambskin collar. He sold skinny bouquets of chrysanthemums. The golden pince-nez trembled pathetically on his nose.
-Are you Jewish?
The question made the little man flinch. But, seeing that there were foreigners in front of him, he answered French: “Former law professor...” Bunin put a large bill in the basket.”