Green gifted life. Alexander Green - biography, information, personal life. Characteristic features of Alexander Green's prose

The famous Russian writer Alexander Green gave the reading world many different works. However, most book lovers associate the name of this talented person, whose life is filled with interesting facts, with the extravaganza story “Scarlet Sails,” which tells the story of a girl named. The main character of the book met her lover, and the plot of this work about unshakable faith and a sincere dream became the background for the cinematic works of famous directors.

Childhood and youth

Alexander Grinevsky (real name of the writer) was born on August 11 (23), 1880. Young Sasha spent his childhood in the city of Slobodsky, which is now located in the Kirov region. Greene grew up and was brought up in an uncreative family that did not belong to the literary world.

His father Stefan Grinevsky, a Pole by nationality, belonged to the military class of gentry. When Stefan (in Russia he was called Stepan Evseevich) turned 20 years old, he became a participant in the January Uprising, which occurred in 1863.

For armed brawls in the former lands of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which were transferred to the Russian Empire, Grinevsky was permanently exiled to Kolyvan, Tomsk province. In 1868, the young man was allowed to settle in the Vyatka province.

In 1873, Grinevsky proposed marriage to Anna Lepkova, who worked as a nurse. The first-born Alexander was born to the couple only after seven years of marriage. Later, the Grinevskys had three more children: a boy and two girls. Greene's parents raised him inconsistently. Sometimes the future writer was pampered, and at other times he was severely punished or even abandoned without supervision.

It is noteworthy that Alexander’s love for reading appeared at an early age. When the child was 6 years old, he learned to read: instead of playing with his peers in the fresh air, the boy leafed through adventure books. The first work Sasha read was the tetralogy “Gulliver’s Travels,” which tells about how someone ended up in the world of Lilliputians.

In addition, young Green loved stories about fearless sailors who travel through the waters of the Earth. Therefore, it is not surprising that the little dreamer sought to repeat the life of literary heroes: Sasha, who dreamed of going to sea as a sailor, tried to run away from home.

In 1889, a nine-year-old boy was sent to a preparatory class at a real school. By the way, it was Sasha’s classmates who gave him the nickname “Green.” It is noteworthy that the author of the works was not an obedient child: Grinevsky, on the contrary, caused trouble for teachers, who noted that his behavior was “worse than all others.” However, Green managed to graduate from the preparatory class and move up to a higher level.

However, as a second-grader, the son of a Polish nobleman was expelled from school. The fact is that Sasha, remembered for his restless character, decided to show his talent and wrote a poem about teachers.

True, this work was not an ode in style: it contained ironic overtones and was considered very offensive. But in 1892, Grinevsky managed to return to study: thanks to his father, the young man was accepted into the Vyatka School, which had a bad reputation.

When the young man turned 15 years old, a terrible event happened in his life: Alexander Green lost his mother, who died of tuberculosis.

A few months later, Stepan Grinevsky married Lydia Boretskaya, however, the relationship with Sasha’s stepmother did not work out, which is why the guy settled separately from his father’s family. The master of words lived alone, and adventure books saved the young man from the atmosphere of provincial Vyatka, in which “lies, hypocrisy and falsehood” reigned.

The future prose writer spent six years wandering. During this time, he managed to work as a bookbinder, loader, fisherman, railway worker, navvy, and even a traveling circus performer. In 1896, he graduated from the Vyatka School and went to Odessa to become a sailor, receiving 25 rubles from his father. In the new city, Green wandered for some time; he had no money for food.

When Alexander found himself on the ship, his expectations did not coincide with reality: instead of delight, the young man felt disgust for the prosaic work of a sailor and quarreled with the captain of the ship.

In 1902, due to extreme need for money, Alexander Stepanovich entered military service. The hardship of a soldier's life forced Grinevsky to desert: after rapprochement with the revolutionaries, Green became involved in underground activities. In 1903, the young man was arrested and sent to Siberia for 10 years. He also spent two years in exile in Arkhangelsk and at one time lived under someone else’s passport in St. Petersburg.

Literature

Alexander Stepanovich Green wrote his first story in 1906: from that moment creativity captured the young man entirely. His first work, entitled “The Merit of Private Panteleev,” talks about the violations that occur in soldier service.

Green's debut work was published under the signature of A.S.G. as a propaganda brochure for serving in the army, punitive soldiers. It is worth noting that the entire circulation was confiscated from the printing house and burned by the police. All his life, Alexander Stepanovich considered his work lost, but in 1960 one copy of the brochure was found in the folder of the “Department of Material Evidence of the Moscow Gendarmerie.”

Beginning in 1908, the writer began publishing collections of stories, publishing under the creative pseudonym “Green”: the author wrote approximately 25 stories a year, earning good money at the same time. In 1913, the reading public saw the works of Alexander Stepanovich in the form of a three-volume book.

Every year Grinevsky improved his skills: the themes of his works expanded, the plots became deep and unpredictable, and the writer filled his books with quotes and aphorisms that became widely known among the people.

It is worth noting that Grinevsky occupies a special place in the world of Russian literature. The fact is that the author had neither predecessors, nor followers, nor imitators. However, the writer himself was accused of borrowing plots from and other creative personalities. But when analyzing the texts, it turned out that this similarity is very superficial and unfounded.

Also, the name of Alexander Green is compared with the country of Greenland. The author himself did not use the name of this fictional location in his works; it was invented by the Soviet critic Cornelius Zelensky, who thus described the locations of the main characters in Greene’s novels.

Researchers believe that the peninsula where the writer’s country is located is located on the southern maritime border of China. Such conclusions were made based on references to real places in the works: New Zealand, the Pacific Ocean, etc.

In 1916-1922, Green wrote the story “Scarlet Sails”, which made him famous. It is noteworthy that the master of the pen dedicated this work to his second wife Nina. The idea for the work was born spontaneously in the writer’s head: Alexander Stepanovich saw a boat with white sails in a toy window.

“This toy said something to me, but I didn’t know what, then I wondered if a red sail would say more, or better yet, a scarlet one, because there is a bright glee in scarlet. Rejoicing means knowing why you rejoice. And so, unfolding from this, taking the waves and the ship with scarlet sails, I saw the purpose of its existence,” this is how the writer described his memories in the drafts for “Running on the Waves.”

In 1928, Alexander Stepanovich released his significant work, to which he gave the title “Running on the Waves.”

This novel about the impossible has been classified by modern critics as a fantasy genre. Alexander Greene is also familiar to readers from his works “The Wrath of the Father” (1929), “The Road to Nowhere” (1929) and “The Devil of Orange Waters” (1913).

The writer’s latest novel is called “Touchable,” however, Alexander Green did not have time to finish this work.

Personal life

From Green's biography it is known that he was baptized according to the Orthodox rite, although his father was a practicing Catholic. Despite the fact that the religious views of the writer began to change over time, his wife noted: while in Crimea, Grinevsky attended the local church and especially loved the celebration of Easter.

Their marriage, which began in 1908, ended in divorce five years later on Abramova’s initiative: the woman, according to her, was tired of her husband’s unpredictability and uncontrollability. Green's frequent carousings did not add to mutual understanding. Alexander Stepanovich himself repeatedly made attempts to reunite. He dedicated several books to Vera, on one of them he wrote: “To my only friend.” Also, until the end of his life, Green did not part with the portrait of Vera Pavlovna.

However, in 1921, the young man married Nina Mironova, with whom he lived for the rest of his life. The couple lived happily and considered each other a gift from fate.

When Alexander Stepanovich died, Nina Green, after the occupation of Crimea by the Germans, was exiled to Germany to work. Upon returning to the USSR, the woman was accused of treason, so she spent the next 10 years in camps. It is noteworthy that both Greene’s spouses not only knew each other, but were also friends, and supported each other whenever possible during the difficult occupation and camp times.

Death

Alexander Stepanovich Green died in the summer of 1932. The cause of death was stomach cancer. The prose writer is buried in Old Crimea, and on his grave there is a monument based on the work “Running on the Waves.”

It is worth noting that after the victory of the Soviet Union in World War II, Greene's books were recognized as anti-Soviet and contrary to the ideas of the proletariat. Only after his death was Green's name rehabilitated.

In memory of the novelist, a museum was opened in Feodosia, streets, libraries, gymnasiums were named, sculptures were created, and much more.

Bibliography

• 1906 – “To Italy”
• 1907 – “Oranges”
• 1907 – “Beloved”
• 1908 – “The Tramp”
• 1908 – “Two Men”
• 1909 – “Airship”
• 1909 – “Maniac”
• 1909 – “An Incident in Dog Street”
• 1910 – “In the Forest”
• 1910 – “Box of Soap”
• 1911 – “Moonlight Read”
• 1912 – “The Winter's Tale”
• 1914 – “Without an audience”
• 1915 – “The Lunatic Aviator”
• 1916 – “The Mystery of House 41”
• 1917 – “Bourgeois Spirit”
• 1918 – “Bulls in Tomatoes”
• 1922 – “White Fire”
• 1923 – “Scarlet Sails”
• 1924 – “The Cheerful Fellow Traveler”
• 1925 – “Six Matches”
• 1927 – “The Legend of Ferguson”
• 1928 – “Running on the Waves”
• 1933 – “Velvet Curtain”
• 1960 – “We sat on the shore”
• 1961 – “Stone Pillar Ranch”

Alexander Stepanovich Green was born on August 11 (23), 1880, in the city of Slobodskaya Vyatka province. His father, S. Grinevsky, a Polish nobleman, was a participant in the January Uprising, for which he was exiled to the Tomsk province.

The home education of the future writer was not consistent. Unreasonable caresses were abruptly replaced by severe punishments. Sometimes the child was left to his own devices.

In 1889, Sasha entered the preparatory class of the local real school. There the nickname “Green” was “born”, which later became his literary pseudonym.

Alexander studied poorly, and, according to the memoirs of his contemporaries, was an “inveterate hooligan.”

When the young man was fifteen years old, his mother died of tuberculosis. Having married a second time, the father became estranged from his son, and young Green was forced to start an independent life.

The beginning of a creative journey

In 1906-1908 A turning point came in A. Green's life. In the summer of 1906, two stories came from his pen, which were published in the fall of the same year. The genre of early stories was defined as “propaganda brochure.”

They were dedicated to the soldiers of the tsarist army, who after the revolution of 1905 often staged bloody punitive raids.

The aspiring writer received a fee, but the entire circulation was destroyed.

At the beginning of 1908, Greene published his first collection. Most of the collection was dedicated to the Social Revolutionaries.

In 1910, the writer published a second collection. Most of it consisted of stories written in the genre of realism. Having shown himself as a budding writer, he met M. Kuzmin, V. Bryusov, L. Andreev, A. Tolstoy. He became closest friends with A.I. Kuprin.

Mostly the writer published in the “small” press. His stories were published in Birzhevye Vedomosti, Niva, and Rodina. Sometimes he was published in “Modern World” and “Russian Thought”.

In 1914, Alexander Green began collaborating with the New Satyricon magazine. This magazine published his collection “An Incident on Dog Street.”

After the outbreak of the First World War, another turning point emerged in the writer’s work. His stories began to be anti-war in nature.

Getting acquainted with the contents of the short biography of Alexander Green, you should know that he had rather complicated relations with the Soviet regime. Condemning the Red Terror, he was sincerely perplexed, not understanding how the apologists of the new government could destroy violence with even more violence. He expressed this idea more than once in the New Satyricon.

As a result, the magazine, like other opposition publications, was closed. This happened in 1918. Green was arrested and barely escaped execution.

Continuation of literary activity

In early 1920, Greene began writing his first novel, The Shining World. After 1924, the work was published in Leningrad. His literary talent was most clearly manifested in the stories “Fandango”, “The Pied Piper”, “The Loquacious Brownie”.

In 1926, the writer finished work on his main novel, “Running on the Waves.” The work was published in 1928. With great difficulty, the “sunset” works of the outstanding writer, “The Road to Nowhere” and “Jesse and Morgiana” were published.

Death

Alexander Green passed away on July 8, 1932, in Stary Crimea. The cause of death was stomach cancer. The writer was buried in the city cemetery. His grave is located on a plot from where Greene’s beloved sea can be seen.

In 1934, Greene's last collection of stories, Fantastic Novels, was published.

Other biography options

• In his youth, Green was a desperate rebel. His relations with the royal authorities were very difficult. Since the end of 1916, he was hiding from persecution in Finland. He returned to Russia only after the February Revolution.
• Having become a famous writer, Greene got rid of poverty. But the money did not stay in his hands. The writer was a fan of card games and night debauchery.
• In May 1932, a transfer was received from the Writers' Union addressed to the writer's wife, N. Green. The strange thing was that it was sent to the name of the “widow,” although Alexander Stepanovich was still alive. According to some reports, this happened against the backdrop of the writer’s mischief. A few days earlier, he sent a telegram with the words “Green is dead, send two hundred funerals.”
• The writer's wife, Nina, was his muse. It was she who became the prototype of Assol from “Scarlet Sails”.
• A minor planet was named in honor of the writer. In Riga there is Alexander Green Street. But it was named in honor of its full namesake, Alexander Stepanovich, who was also a writer.

Alexander Green (real name Alexander Stepanovich Grinevsky). August 11 (23), 1880, Sloboda, Vyatka province, Russian Empire - July 8, 1932, Old Crimea, USSR. Russian prose writer, poet, representative of neo-romanticism, author of philosophical and psychological works, with elements of symbolic fiction.

Father - Stefan Gryniewski (Polish Stefan Hryniewski, 1843-1914), a Polish nobleman from the Disna district of the Vilna province of the Russian Empire. For participation in the January Uprising of 1863, at the age of 20, he was indefinitely exiled to Kolyvan, Tomsk province. Later he was allowed to move to the Vyatka province, where he arrived in 1868. In Russia they called him “Stepan Evseevich”.

In 1873 he married 16-year-old Russian nurse Anna Stepanovna Lepkova (1857-1895). For the first 7 years they had no children, Alexander became the first-born, later he had a brother Boris and two sisters, Antonina and Ekaterina.

Sasha learned to read at the age of 6, and the first book he read was Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift. Since childhood, Green loved books about sailors and travel. He dreamed of going to sea as a sailor and, driven by this dream, made attempts to run away from home. The boy's upbringing was inconsistent - he was either pampered, severely punished, or abandoned unattended.

In 1889, nine-year-old Sasha was sent to a preparatory class at a local real school. There his fellow practitioners first gave him nickname "Green". The school's report noted that Alexander Grinevsky's behavior was worse than all others, and if not corrected, he could be expelled from the school.

Nevertheless, Alexander was able to graduate from the preparatory class and enter the first class, but in the second class he wrote an offensive poem about the teachers and was nevertheless expelled from the school. At the request of his father, Alexander was admitted to another school in 1892, which had a bad reputation in Vyatka.

At the age of 15, Sasha was left without his mother, who died of tuberculosis. 4 months later (May 1895), my father married the widow Lydia Avenirovna Boretskaya. Alexander's relationship with his stepmother was tense, and he settled separately from his father's new family.

The boy lived alone, enthusiastically reading books and writing poetry. He worked part-time by binding books and copying documents. At the encouragement of his father, he became interested in hunting, but due to his impulsive nature, he rarely returned with prey.

In 1896, after graduating from the four-year Vyatka City School, 16-year-old Alexander went to Odessa, deciding to become a sailor. His father gave him 25 rubles of money and the address of his Odessa friend. For some time, “a sixteen-year-old, mustacheless, frail, narrow-shouldered youth in a straw hat” (as the then Greene ironically described himself in "Autobiographies") wandered around in an unsuccessful search for work and was desperately hungry.

In the end, he turned to his father’s friend, who fed him and got him a job as a sailor on the Platon steamship, which plied the route Odessa - Batum - Odessa. However, Greene once managed to visit abroad, in Alexandria, Egypt.

Green did not make a sailor - he had an aversion to the prosaic work of a sailor. Soon he quarreled with the captain and left the ship.

In 1897, Green went back to Vyatka, spent a year there and again left to seek his fortune - this time to Baku. There he tried many professions - he was a fisherman, a laborer, and worked in railway workshops. In the summer he returned to his father, then went on his travels again. He was a lumberjack, a gold miner in the Urals, a miner in an iron mine, and a theater copyist.

In March 1902, Green interrupted his series of wanderings and became (either under pressure from his father, or tired of hunger ordeals) a soldier in the 213th Orovai Reserve Infantry Battalion, stationed in Penza. The morals of military service significantly strengthened Green's revolutionary sentiments.

Six months later (of which he spent three and a half in a punishment cell) he deserted, was caught in Kamyshin, and fled again. In the army, Green met Socialist Revolutionary propagandists who appreciated the young rebel and helped him hide in Simbirsk.

From that moment on, Greene, having received the party nickname "Lanky", sincerely devotes all his strength to the fight against the social system he hates, although he refused to participate in the execution of terrorist acts, limiting himself to propaganda among workers and soldiers of different cities. Subsequently, he did not like to talk about his “Socialist Revolutionary” activities.

In 1903, Green was once again arrested in Sevastopol for “anti-government speeches” and the dissemination of revolutionary ideas, “which led to undermining the foundations of autocracy and overthrowing the foundations of the existing system.” For attempting to escape, he was transferred to a maximum security prison, where he spent more than a year.

In police documents he is characterized as “a closed, embittered person, capable of anything, even risking his life.” In January 1904, the Minister of Internal Affairs V.K. Pleve, shortly before the Socialist Revolutionary attempt on his life, received a report from the Minister of War A.N. Kuropatkin that “a very important civilian figure who first called himself Grigoriev, and then Grinevsky."

The investigation dragged on for more than a year (November 1903 - February 1905) due to Green's two attempts to escape and his complete denial. Green was tried in February 1905 by the Sevastopol naval court. The prosecutor demanded 20 years of hard labor. Lawyer A. S. Zarudny managed to reduce the penalty to 10 years of exile in Siberia.

In October 1905, Green was released under a general amnesty, but in January 1906 he was arrested again in St. Petersburg.

In May, Green was sent to the city of Turinsk, Tobolsk province, for four years. He stayed there for only 3 days and fled to Vyatka, where, with the help of his father, he got someone else’s passport in the name of Malginov (later this would be one of the writer’s literary pseudonyms), using which he left for St. Petersburg.

In the summer of 1906, Green wrote 2 stories - "The Merit of Private Panteleev" And "Elephant and Moska".

The first story was signed "A. S.G.” and published in the fall of the same year. It was published as a propaganda brochure for punitive soldiers and described the atrocities of the army among the peasants. Green received the fee, but the entire circulation was confiscated at the printing house and destroyed (burnt) by the police; by chance, only a few copies were preserved. The second story suffered a similar fate - it was submitted to the printing house, but was not printed.

Only starting on December 5 of that year did Greene's stories begin to reach readers. And the first “legal” work was a story written in the fall of 1906 "To Italy", signed "A. A. M-v"(that is, Malginov).

For the first time (under the title “In Italy”) it was published in the evening edition of the newspaper “Birzhevye Vedomosti” dated December 5 (18), 1906. Pseudonym "A. S. Green" first appeared under story "Happening"(first publication - in the newspaper "Comrade" dated March 25 (April 7), 1907).

At the beginning of 1908, in St. Petersburg, Green published his first collection of books "Invisible hat"(subtitled "Tales of Revolutionaries"). Most of the stories in it are about the Social Revolutionaries.

Another event was the final break with the Social Revolutionaries. Green still hated the existing system, but he began to form his own positive ideal, which was not at all similar to the Socialist Revolutionary.

The third important event was his marriage - his imaginary “prison bride,” 24-year-old Vera Abramova, became Green’s wife. Knock and Gelli - the main characters of the story “One Hundred Miles Along the River” (1912) - are Green and Vera themselves.

In 1910, his second collection “Stories” was published. Most of the stories included there are written in a realistic manner, but in two - “Reno Island” and “Lanphier Colony” - the future Greene storyteller can already be guessed. The action of these stories takes place in a conventional country; in style they are close to his later work. Greene himself believed that starting with these stories he could be considered a writer.

In the early years he published 25 stories annually.

As a new original and talented Russian writer, he meets Alexei Tolstoy, Leonid Andreev, Valery Bryusov, Mikhail Kuzmin and other major writers. He became especially close to.

For the first time in his life, Green began to earn a lot of money, which, however, did not last long, quickly disappearing after carousing and card games.

On July 27, 1910, the police finally discovered that the writer Green was the fugitive exile Grinevsky. He was arrested for the third time and in the fall of 1911 he was exiled to Pinega in the Arkhangelsk province. Vera went with him, they were allowed to officially get married.

In the link Green wrote "The Life of Gnor" And "Blue Cascade Telluri". The period of his exile was reduced to two years, and in May 1912 the Grinevskys returned to St. Petersburg. Other works of a romantic direction soon followed: “Devil of Orange Waters”, “Zurbagan Shooter” (1913). They finally form the features of a fictional country, which literary critic K. Zelinsky will call “Greenland.”

Greene publishes primarily in the small press: newspapers and illustrated magazines. His works are published by “Birzhevye Vedomosti” and the newspaper supplement “Novoe Slovo”, “New Magazine for Everyone”, “Rodina”, “Niva” and its monthly supplements, the newspaper “Vyatskaya Rech” and many others. Occasionally, his prose is published in the reputable “thick” monthly journals “Russian Thought” and “Modern World”. Green published in the latter from 1912 to 1918 thanks to his acquaintance with A.I. Kuprin.

In 1913-1914, his three-volume work was published by the Prometheus publishing house.

In 1914, Green became an employee of the popular magazine “New Satyricon” and published his collection “An Incident on Dog Street” as a supplement to the magazine. Green worked extremely productively during this period. He had not yet decided to start writing a big story or novel, but his best stories of this time show the profound progress of Green the writer. The themes of his works are expanding, the style is becoming more and more professional - just compare the funny story "Captain Duke" and a sophisticated, psychologically accurate novella "Hell Returned" (1915).

After the outbreak of the First World War, some of Greene's stories acquired a distinct anti-war character: for example, “Battlelist Shuang”, “The Blue Top” (Niva, 1915) and “The Poisoned Island”. Due to an “inappropriate comment about the reigning monarch” that became known to the police, Green was forced to hide in Finland from the end of 1916, but upon learning about the February Revolution, he returned to Petrograd.

In the spring of 1917 he wrote a short story "Walking to the Revolution", indicating the writer’s hope for renewal.

After the October Revolution, Green’s notes and feuilletons appeared one after another in the magazine “New Satyricon” and in the small small-circulation newspaper “Devil’s Pepper Shaker”, condemning cruelty and outrages. He said: “I just can’t get my head around the idea that violence can be destroyed by violence.”

In the spring of 1918, the magazine, along with all other opposition publications, was banned. Green was arrested for the fourth time and nearly shot.

In the summer of 1919, Green was drafted into the Red Army as a signalman, but he soon fell ill with typhus and ended up in the Botkin barracks for almost a month. sent the seriously ill Green honey, tea and bread.

After recovery, Green, with the assistance of Gorky, managed to obtain academic rations and housing - a room in the “House of Arts” on Nevsky Prospekt, 15, where Green lived next to V. A. Rozhdestvensky, O. E. Mandelstam, V. Kaverin.

Neighbors recalled that Greene lived as a hermit and barely communicated with anyone, but it was here that he wrote his most famous, touchingly poetic work - the extravaganza "Scarlet Sails"(published 1923).

In the early 1920s, Greene decided to begin his first novel, which he called “The Shining World.” The main character of this complex symbolist work is the flying superman Drood, who convinces people to choose the highest values ​​of the Shining World instead of the values ​​of “this world.” In 1924, the novel was published in Leningrad. He continued to write stories, the pinnacles of which were “The Wordy Brownie,” “The Pied Piper,” and “Fandango.”

Green wrote a novel in Feodosia "Gold chain"(1925, published in the magazine "New World"), intended as "memoirs of the dream of a boy seeking miracles and finding them."

In the fall of 1926, Green finished his main masterpiece - the novel "Running on the waves", which I worked on for a year and a half. This novel combines the best features of the writer's talent: a deep mystical idea about the need for a dream and the realization of dreams, subtle poetic psychologism, and a fascinating romantic plot. For two years the author tried to publish the novel in Soviet publishing houses, and only at the end of 1928 the book was published by the publishing house “Land and Factory”.

With great difficulty, in 1929, Greene’s last novels were published: Jesse and Morgiana, The Road to Nowhere.

In 1927, the private publisher L.V. Wolfson began publishing a 15-volume collected works of Green, but only 8 volumes were published, after which Wolfson was arrested by the GPU.

NEP was coming to an end. Green's attempts to insist on fulfilling the contract with the publishing house only led to huge legal costs and ruin. Greene's binges began to recur again. However, in the end, the Green family still managed to win the case, winning seven thousand rubles, which, however, were greatly devalued by inflation.

In 1930, the Grinevskys moved to the city of Old Crimea, where life was cheaper. Since 1930, Soviet censorship, with the motivation “you do not merge with the era,” banned reprints of Greene and introduced a limit on new books: one per year. Green and his wife were desperately hungry and often sick. Green tried to hunt nearby birds with a bow and arrow, but was unsuccessful.

Novel "Touchable", begun by Greene at this time, was never completed, although some critics consider it his best.

In May 1932, after new petitions, a transfer of 250 rubles unexpectedly arrived. from the Writers' Union, sent for some reason to the name of “the widow of the writer Green, Nadezhda Green,” although Green was still alive. There is a legend that the reason was Green’s last mischief - he sent a telegram to Moscow “Green is dead, send two hundred funerals.”

Alexander Green died on the morning of July 8, 1932 at the 52nd year of his life in Old Crimea from stomach cancer. Two days before his death, he asked to invite a priest and confessed. The writer was buried in the city cemetery of Old Crimea. Nina chose a place from where she could see the sea... On Green’s grave, sculptor Tatyana Gagarina erected a monument “Running on the Waves”.

Upon learning of Greene's death, several leading Soviet writers called for the publication of a collection of his works; Even Seifullina joined them.

Collection by A. Green "Fantastic Novels" published in 1934.

Alexander Green. Geniuses and villains

Personal life of Alexander Green:

Since 1903, in prison - due to the absence of friends and relatives - she visited him (under the guise of a bride) Vera Pavlovna Abramova, the daughter of a wealthy official who sympathized with revolutionary ideals.

She became his first wife.

In the fall of 1913, Vera decided to separate from her husband. In her memoirs, she complains about Green's unpredictability and uncontrollability, his constant carousing, and mutual misunderstanding. Green made several attempts at reconciliation, but without success. On his 1915 collection, given to Vera, Green wrote: “To my only friend.”

He never parted with the portrait of Vera until the end of his life.

In 1918 he married a certain Maria Dolidze. Within a few months, the marriage was considered a mistake, and the couple separated.

In the spring of 1921, Greene married a 26-year-old widow, a nurse. Nina Nikolaevna Mironova(after Korotkova’s first husband). They met at the beginning of 1918, when Nina worked at the Petrograd Echo newspaper. Her first husband died in the war. A new meeting took place in January 1921, Nina was in desperate need and was selling things (Green later described a similar episode at the beginning of the story “The Pied Piper”). A month later he proposed to her.

During the eleven subsequent years allotted to Green by fate, they did not part, and both considered their meeting a gift of fate. Green dedicated the extravaganza “Scarlet Sails”, completed this year, to Nina: “The Author offers and dedicates it to Nina Nikolaevna Green. PBG, November 23, 1922."

The couple rented a room on Panteleimonovskaya, transported their meager luggage there: a bunch of manuscripts, some clothes, a photograph of Green’s father and the constant portrait of Vera Pavlovna. At first, Green was almost never published, but with the beginning of the NEP, private publishing houses appeared, and he managed to publish a new collection, “White Fire” (1922). The collection included a vivid story, “Ships in Lisse,” which Green himself considered one of the best..

Nina Nikolaevna Green, the writer's widow, continued to live in Old Crimea, in an adobe house, and worked as a nurse. When the Nazi army captured Crimea, Nina remained with her seriously ill mother in Nazi-occupied territory and worked in the occupation newspaper “Official Bulletin of the Staro-Krymsky District.” Then she was taken to work in Germany, and in 1945 she voluntarily returned from the American occupation zone to the USSR.

After the trial, Nina received ten years in the camps for “collaboration and treason,” with confiscation of property. She served her sentence in Stalin's camps on Pechora. Green's first wife, Vera Pavlovna, provided her with great support, including things and food. Nina served almost her entire sentence and was released in 1955 under an amnesty (rehabilitated in 1997). Vera Pavlovna died earlier, in 1951.

Meanwhile, books by the “Soviet romantic” Green continued to be published in the USSR until 1944. In besieged Leningrad, radio broadcasts were broadcast with the reading of “Scarlet Sails” (1943), and the premiere of the ballet “Scarlet Sails” took place at the Bolshoi Theater.

In 1946, L. I. Borisov’s story “The Wizard from Gel-Gyu” about Alexander Green was published, which earned the praise of K. G. Paustovsky and B. S. Grinevsky, but later condemnation from N. N. Green.

During the years of the struggle against cosmopolitanism, Alexander Green, like many other cultural figures (A. A. Akhmatova, M. M. Zoshchenko, D. D. Shostakovich), was branded in the Soviet press as a “cosmopolitan”, alien to proletarian literature, “militant” reactionary and spiritual emigrant." For example, V. Vazhdaev’s article “The Preacher of Cosmopolitanism” (New World, No. 1, 1950) was devoted to the “exposure” of Green. Greene's books were confiscated en masse from libraries.

Since 1956, through the efforts of K. Paustovsky, Y. Olesha, I. Novikov and others, Greene was returned to literature. His works were published in millions of copies. Having received a fee for “Selected” (1956) through the efforts of Green’s friends, Nina Nikolaevna came to Old Crimea, found with difficulty her husband’s abandoned grave and found out that the house where Green died had passed to the chairman of the local executive committee and was used as a barn and chicken coop.

In 1960, after several years of struggle to return the house, Nina Nikolaevna opened the Green Museum in Old Crimea on a voluntary basis. There she spent the last ten years of her life, with a pension of 21 rubles (copyright no longer applied).

In July 1970, the Green Museum was also opened in Feodosia, and a year later Green’s house in Old Crimea also received the status of a museum. Its discovery by the Crimean regional committee of the CPSU was linked to the conflict with Nina Nikolaevna: “We are for Green, but against his widow. The museum will only be there when she dies.”

Nina Nikolaevna Green died on September 27, 1970 in a Kyiv hospital. She bequeathed to bury herself next to her husband. The local party leadership, irritated by the loss of the chicken coop, imposed a ban; and Nina was buried at the other end of the cemetery. On October 23 of the following year, Nina’s birthday, six of her friends reburied the coffin at night in its designated place.

Bibliography of Alexander Green:

Novels:

The Shining World (1924)
The Golden Chain (1925)
Running on the Waves (1928)
Jesse and Morgiana (1929)
Road to Nowhere (1930)
Touchy (not finished)

Novels and stories:

1906 - To Italy (the first legally published story by A. S. Green)
1906 - Merit of Private Panteleev
1906 - Elephant and Moska
1907 - Oranges
1907 - Brick and Music
1907 - Beloved
1907 - Marat
1907 - On the stock exchange
1907 - At leisure
1907 - Underground
1907 - Incident
1908 - Hunchback
1908 - Guest
1908 - Eroshka
1908 - Toy
1908 - Captain
1908 - Quarantine
1908 - Swan
1908 - Small Committee
1908 - Checkmate in three moves
1908 - Punishment
1908 - She
1908 - Hand
1908 - Telegraph operator from Medyansky Bor
1908 - Third floor
1908 - Hold and deck
1908 - Assassin
1908 - The Man Who Cries
1909 - Barque on the Green Canal
1909 - Airship
1909 - Big Lake Dacha
1909 - Nightmare
1909 - Little conspiracy
1909 - Maniac
1909 - Overnight
1909 - Window in the Forest
1909 - Reno Island
1909 - According to the marriage announcement
1909 - Incident in Dog Street
1909 - Paradise
1909 - Cyclone in the Plain of Rains
1909 - Navigator of the “Four Winds”
1910 - On tap
1910 - In the snow
1910 - Return of "The Seagull"
1910 - Duel
1910 - Khonsa Estate
1910 - The Story of a Murder
1910 - Lanphier Colony
1910 - Yakobson's raspberry plant
1910 - Marionette
1910 - On the island
1910 - On the Hillside
1910 - Nakhodka
1910 - Easter on a steamboat
1910 - Powder Magazine
1910 - Strait of Storms
1910 - Birk's story
1910 - River
1910 - Death of Romelink
1910 - The Secret of the Forest
1910 - Box of Soap
1911 - Forest Drama
1911 - Moonlight
1911 - Pillory
1911 - Atley's system of mnemonics
1911 - Words
1912 - Hotel of Evening Lights
1912 - Life of Gnor
1912 - A Winter's Tale
1912 - From a detective’s memorial book
1912 - Ksenia Turpanova
1912 - Puddle of the Bearded Pig
1912 - Passenger Pyzhikov
1912 - The Adventures of Ginch
1912 - Passage yard
1912 - A story about a strange fate
1912 - Blue Cascade Telluri
1912 - Tragedy of the Xuan Plateau
1912 - Heavy Air
1912 - Fourth for all
1913 - Adventure
1913 - Balcony
1913 - The Headless Horseman
1913 - Wilderness Path
1913 - Granka and his son
1913 - Long journey
1913 - Devil of the Orange Waters
1913 - Lives of great people
1913 - Zurbagan shooter
1913 - History of Tauren
1913 - On the Hillside
1913 - Naive Tussaletto
1913 - New circus
1913 - Siurg Tribe
1913 - Ryabinin’s last minutes
1913 - Merchant of Happiness
1913 - Sweet poison of the city
1913 - Taboo
1913 - The Mysterious Forest
1913 - Quiet everyday life
1913 - Three Adventures of Ekhma
1913 - Man with man
1914 - Without an audience
1914 - Forgotten
1914 - The Mystery of Foreseen Death
1914 - Earth and Water
1914 - And spring will come for me
1914 - How the strongman Red John fought the king
1914 - Legends of War
1914 - Dead for the Living
1914 - On the Balance
1914 - One of many
1914 - A story completed thanks to a bullet
1914 - Duel
1914 - Penitential manuscript
1914 - Incidents in the apartment of Madame Cerise
1914 - Rare photographic apparatus
1914 - Conscience has spoken
1914 - Sufferer
1914 - Strange incident at a masquerade
1914 - Fate taken by the horns
1914 - Three brothers
1914 - Urban Graz welcomes guests
1914 - Episode during the capture of Fort Cyclops
1915 - Lunatic Aviator
1915 - Shark
1915 - Diamonds
1915 - Armenian Tintos
1915 - Attack
1915 - Battlelist Shuang
1915 - Missing in action
1915 - Battle in the air
1915 - Blonde
1915 - Bullfight
1915 - Fighting with bayonets
1915 - Fighting with a machine gun
1915 - Eternal Bullet
1915 - Alarm clock explosion
1915 - Hell Returned
1915 - Magic Screen
1915 - The Fiction of Epitrim
1915 - Khaki Bey's Harem
1915 - Voice and sounds
1915 - Two brothers
1915 - Plerez Double
1915 - The Case of the White Bird, or The White Bird and the Destroyed Church
1915 - Wild Mill
1915 - Man's Friend
1915 - Iron Bird
1915 - Yellow City
1915 - The Beast of Rochefort
1915 - Golden Pond
1915 - Game
1915 - Toys
1915 - Interesting photo
1915 - Adventurer
1915 - Captain Duke
1915 - Rocking Rock
1915 - Dagger and Mask
1915 - A nightmare incident
1915 - Leal at home
1915 - The Flying Doge
1915 - The Bear and the German
1915 - Bear Hunt
1915 - Sea battle
1915 - On the American Mountains
1915 - Above the Abyss
1915 - Hitman
1915 - The Peek-Mick Legacy
1915 - Impenetrable shell
1915 - Night Walk
1915 - At Night
1915 - Night and day
1915 - Dangerous Jump
1915 - The Original Spy
1915 - Island
1915 - Hunting in the air
1915 - The Hunt for Marbrun
1915 - Hunting a hooligan
1915 - Mine Hunter
1915 - Dance of Death
1915 - Duel of leaders
1915 - Suicide note
1915 - Incident with the sentry
1915 - Bird Kam-Boo
1915 - The Path
1915 - Fifteenth of July
1915 - Scout
1915 - Jealousy and the Sword
1915 - Fatal place
1915 - A Woman's Hand
1915 - Knight Malyar
1915 - Masha's wedding
1915 - Serious Prisoner
1915 - The power of words
1915 - Blue Top
1915 - Killer Word
1915 - Death of Alembert
1915 - Calm Soul
1915 - Strange weapons
1915 - Scary package
1915 - The terrible secret of the car
1915 - The fate of the first platoon
1915 - The Mystery of the Moonlit Night
1915 - There or there
1915 - Three meetings
1915 - Three bullets
1915 - Murder at the Fish Shop
1915 - Murder of a Romantic
1915 - Asphyxiating gas
1915 - Terrible Vision
1915 - Host from Lodz
1915 - Black flowers
1915 - Black novel
1915 - Black Farm
1915 - Miraculous failure
1916 - Scarlet Sails (story extravaganza) (published 1923)
1916 - The great happiness of a little fighter
1916 - Cheerful Butterfly
1916 - Around the World
1916 - Resurrection of Pierre
1916 - High technology
1916 - Behind bars
1916 - Capture of the Banner
1916 - Idiot
1916 - How I Die on the Screen
1916 - Labyrinth
1916 - Lion's Strike
1916 - Invincible
1916 - Something from a diary
1916 - Fire and Water
1916 - Poisoned Island
1916 - The Hermit of Grape Peak
1916 - Vocation
1916 - Romantic murder
1916 - Blind Day Canet
1916 - One hundred miles along the river
1916 - Mysterious record
1916 - The Mystery of House 41
1916 - Dance
1916 - Tram sickness
1916 - Dreamers
1916 - Black Diamond
1917 - Bourgeois spirit
1917 - Return
1917 - Uprising
1917 - Enemies
1917 - The main culprit
1917 - Wild Rose
1917 - Everyone is a millionaire
1917 - The bailiff's mistress
1917 - Pendulum of Spring
1917 - Darkness
1917 - Knife and pencil
1917 - Firewater
1917 - Orgy
1917 - On foot to the revolution (essay)
1917 - Peace
1917 - To be continued
1917 - Rene
1917 - Birth of Thunder
1917 - Fatal Circle
1917 - Suicide
1917 - Creation of Asper
1917 - Merchants
1917 - Invisible Corpse
1917 - Prisoner of the Crosses
1917 - The Sorcerer's Apprentice
1917 - Fantastic Providence
1917 - Man from the Durnovo dacha
1917 - Black car
1917 - Masterpiece
1917 - Esperanto
1918 - Hit him!
1918 - Fight against death
1918 - Buka the Ignorant
1918 - Vanya became angry with humanity
1918 - The Jolly Dead
1918 - Forward and Backward
1918 - The Hairdresser's Invention
1918 - How I was a king
1918 - Carnival
1918 - Club Blackamoor
1918 - Ears
1918 - Ships in Lisse (published 1922)
1918 - The footman spat in the food
1918 - It became easier
1918 - Lagging platoon
1918 - The Crime of the Fallen Leaf
1918 - Trifles
1918 - Conversation
1918 - Make a grandmother
1918 - The Power of the Incomprehensible
1918 - The old man walks in circles
1918 - Three Candles
1919 - Magical disgrace
1919 - Fighter
1921 - Vulture
1921 - Competition in Lisse
1922 - White Fire
1922 - Visiting a friend
1922 - Rope
1922 - Monte Cristo
1922 - Tender Romance
1922 - New Year's holiday for father and little daughter
1922 - Saryn on a kitschka
1922 - Typhoid dotted line
1923 - Riot on the ship "Alcest"
1923 - The genius player
1923 - Gladiators
1923 - Voice and Eye
1923 - Willow
1923 - Whatever it is
1923 - Horse's head
1923 - Order for the army
1923 - The Missing Sun
1923 - Traveler Uy-Fyu-Eoi
1923 - Mermaids of the Air
1923 - Heart of the Desert
1923 - Talkative brownie
1923 - Murder in Kunst-Fisch
1924 - Legless
1924 - White Ball
1924 - The Tramp and the Warden
1924 - Cheerful fellow traveler
1924 - Gatt, Witt and Redott
1924 - Voice of a siren
1924 - Boarded up house
1924 - Pied Piper
1924 - On the cloudy shore
1924 - Monkey
1924 - By law
1924 - Casual income
1925 - Gold and miners
1925 - Winner
1925 - Gray car
1925 - Fourteen Feet
1925 - Six matches
1926 - Marriage of August Esborn
1926 - Snake
1926 - Personal reception
1926 - Nanny Glenau
1926 - Someone else's fault
1927 - Two promises
1927 - The Legend of Ferguson
1927 - The Weakness of Daniel Horton
1927 - Strange evening
1927 - Fandango
1927 - Four Guineas
1928 - Watercolor
1928 - Social reflex
1928 - Elda and Angotea
1929 - Mistletoe Branch
1929 - Thief in the Forest
1929 - Father's Wrath
1929 - Treason
1929 - Lock opener
1930 - Barrel of fresh water
1930 - Green lamp
1930 - The Story of a Hawk
1930 - Silence
1932 - Autobiographical story
1933 - Velvet curtain
1933 - Port Commandant
1933 - Pari

Collections of stories:

Cap of Invisibility (1908)
Stories (1910)
Mysterious Stories (1915)
Famous Book (1915)
Incident in Dog Street (1915)
Adventurer (1916)
Tragedy of the Suan Plateau. On the Hillside (1916)
White Fire (1922)
Heart of the Desert (1924)
Gladiators (1925)
On the Cloudy Shore (1925)
Golden Pond (1926)
The Story of a Murder (1926)
Navigator of the Four Winds (1926)
Marriage of August Esborn (1927)
Ships at Lisse (1927)
By Law (1927)
The Cheerful Fellow Traveler (1928)
Around the World (1928)
Black Diamond (1928)
Lanphier Colony (1929)
Window in the Woods (1929)
The Adventures of Ginch (1929)
Fire and Water (1930)

Collected works:

Green A. Collected Works, 1-6 vols. M., Pravda, 1965.

Green A. Collected Works, 1-6 vols. M., Pravda, 1980. Republished in 1983.
Green A. Collected Works, 1-5 volumes. M.: Fiction, 1991.
Green A. From the unpublished and forgotten. - Literary heritage, vol. 74. M.: Nauka, 1965.
Green A. I am writing to you the whole truth. Letters from 1906-1932. - Koktebel, 2012, series: Images of the past.

Screen adaptations by Alexander Green:

1958 - Watercolor
1961 - Scarlet Sails
1967 - Running on the Waves
1968 - Knight of Dreams
1969 - Lanphier Colony
1972 - Morgiana
1976 - Deliverer
1982 - Assol
1983 - Man from Green Country
1984 - Shining World
1984 - Life and books of Alexander Green
1986 - Golden Chain
1988 - Mister Decorator
1990 - One hundred miles along the river
1992 - Road to nowhere
1995 - Gelly and Nok
2003 - Infection
2007 - Running on the waves
2010 - The True Story of Scarlet Sails
2010 - Man from the Unfulfilled
2012 - Green lamp

Russian prose writer and poet Alexander Green(Alexander Stepanovich Grinevsky; August 23, 1880, Sloboda, Vyatka province - July 8, 1932, Old Crimea) entered literature as a representative of romantic realism (neo-romanticism) and the author of philosophical and psychological works with elements of fantasy.

His father, Polish nobleman Stepan (Stefan) Grinevsky (1843 -1914) was exiled from Warsaw to the Russian North for his participation in the 1863 uprising. Mother - Anna Grinevskaya (née Lepkova, 1857-1895), daughter of a retired collegiate secretary. In 1881, the family moved to the city of Vyatka (now Kirov).

At the age of sixteen, Alexander Grinevsky graduated from the four-year Vyatka City School with mostly satisfactory grades and completed his official education. The young man, who had dreamed of the seas and distant countries since childhood, set out on a free voyage through life - his mother had died by that time, and his father and stepmother did not object. He left for Odessa. He led a wandering life, worked as a sailor, fisherman, navvy, a traveling circus performer, a railway worker, and panned for gold in the Urals.

In 1902, due to extreme need, he voluntarily entered military service, but due to the severity of life, he escaped twice according to the regulations. During his service, he became close to the Socialist Revolutionaries (SRs) and became involved in revolutionary activities. True, after the fugitive soldier refused to participate in terrorist attacks, the Socialist Revolutionaries successfully used him for propaganda among sailors and soldiers. As the writer writes in the “Autobiographical Story”: “This happened in October 1903, after many strikes and demonstrations in such large cities as Odessa, Yekaterinoslav, Kyiv and others.” He was sent from Odessa to Sevastopol for revolutionary propaganda among the rank and file of the fortress artillery and the sailors of the naval barracks in order to win over the side of the “social revolutionary party.” But he was arrested on November 11, 1903. Thanks to his imprisonment, he came to Feodosia for the first time, where a trial of political prisoners took place. He was released from prison under an amnesty on October 20, 1905.

In 1906, he was arrested in St. Petersburg, where he lived illegally, and deported to the Tobolsk province; from where he escaped and returned to St. Petersburg. Lived on someone else's passport. Published in metropolitan magazines, pseudonym “A.S. Green" first appeared under the story "The Case" (1907). Green's first collections of short stories, The Invisible Cap (1908) and Stories (1910), attracted critical attention.

Alexander Greene was actually married twice. His first wife was the daughter of a wealthy official, Vera Pavlovna Abramova, whom he married in 1910. In the same year, in the summer, Alexander Grinevsky was arrested for the third time for escaping from exile and living on false documents and sent into exile in the Arkhangelsk province in provincial Pinega.
Years of living under an assumed name led to a break with the revolutionary past and Green's development as a writer.

In May 1912, Grinevsky returned to St. Petersburg under his own name, but with the virus of the most common Russian disease of the soul. Due to continuous carousing, the first wife, Vera Pavlovna, left her husband. In 1912-1917 Greene worked actively, publishing about 350 stories. In 1914 he became an employee of the New Satyricon magazine.

Due to an “inappropriate comment about the reigning monarch” that became known to the police, Green was forced to hide in Finland from the end of 1916, but after the February Revolution he returned to Petrograd.

In the post-revolutionary years, the writer actively collaborated with Soviet publications, especially with the literary and artistic magazine “Flame,” which was edited by People’s Commissar of Education Anatoly Lunacharsky.

In 1919, Green was drafted into the Red Army, but soon became seriously ill with typhus and returned to Petrograd. The sick writer, without a means of subsistence and without housing, was helped by Maxim Gorky, at whose request Green was given academic rations and a room in the “House of Arts”. Here the writer worked on two novels, as well as the story “Scarlet Sails,” the idea of ​​which originated back in 1916.

The writer married for the second time in 1921 to a 26-year-old widow, nurse Nina Mironova (after Korotkova’s first husband). He dedicated the extravaganza “Scarlet Sails”, published in 1923, to her, which became the pinnacle of neo-romanticism. Nina became the prototype of Assol, dreaming of happiness, of a prince and a ship with scarlet sails. She became a real guardian angel of the writer and our next article is dedicated to her.

In 1924, the writer and his wife left for Feodosia in Crimea, where he worked fruitfully until November 1928. During this period, under the pseudonym Alexander Green, he wrote “Running on the Waves,” “The Golden Chain,” forty stories and began “Autobiographical Tale.”

Like the poet Maximilian Voloshin, who created the mysterious country of Cimmeria, Alexander Green placed his literary heroes in the fantastic Greenland, where the action of his romantic stories “Running on the Waves”, “Scarlet Sails” and other works takes place. True, the name was given after the death of the writer. The main advantage of his heroes was not only the ability to fly and walk on the waves, but the ability to realize their hopes and dreams. And this is so important for every person - hence the attractiveness of his works for readers, especially young people. As critics write, in his works Green conveyed the longing for the Unfulfilled. He did not become a sailor, became disillusioned with the revolutionaries (Socialist Revolutionaries), and lived in poverty and squalor. But the life of this untimely man was warmed by the sacrificial love of Nina Nikolaevna Green, his second wife.

In 1927, a 15-volume collected works of Green began to be published, but only 8 volumes were published. Since 1930, Soviet censorship, with the motivation “you do not merge with the era,” banned reprints of Greene, and the private publisher was arrested by the GPU. The fee was not paid in full, and lack of money, hunger and illness set in. Green's fashionable Russian disease of the soul worsened, and his binges began to recur more and more often. I had to sell my apartment in Feodosia and move to Old Crimea, where life was cheaper. At the end of April 1931, Green went to Koktebel for the last time to visit Voloshin. This route is still popular among tourists and is known as the Greene Trail.

In Old Crimea, a house (an adobe hut with an earthen floor) with a small plot was purchased from a nun in May 1932 by Alexander Green’s wife, Nina Nikolaevna, in exchange for a gold wristwatch

In the summer, Alexander Green went to Moscow, but not a single publishing house showed interest in his new novel “Touchable,” which some critics considered his best work. The Writers' Union refused a pension as an "ideological enemy." At the end of his life, Greene was almost no longer published. In the memoirs of his wife, this period is characterized by one phrase: “Then he began to die” in complete poverty and oblivion.

Alexander Green died in Old Crimea from stomach cancer on the morning of July 8, 1932, at the age of 52, and was buried in the Old Crimea cemetery. When Alexander Greene died, none of the writers who were vacationing next door in Koktebel came to say goodbye to him.

After Greene's death, at the request of several leading Soviet writers, a collection of Fantastic Novels was published in 1934. Posthumously, the writer Green was placed on the pedestal of the “Soviet romantic” by the communist authorities, and the ballet “Scarlet Sails” premiered at the Bolshoi Theater.

In the post-war years of the struggle against cosmopolitanism, Alexander Green, like other cultural figures (A. A. Akhmatova, M. M. Zoshchenko, D. D. Shostakovich) was again branded as a “reactionary and spiritual emigrant.” The writer's books were confiscated from libraries. Only after Stalin's death, through the efforts of Konstantin Paustovsky, Yuri Olesha and other writers, his works began to be published in millions of copies since 1956.

The peak of Green's readership came during Khrushchev's “thaw.” In the wake of the romantic upsurge in the country, Alexander Green turned into one of the most published and revered domestic authors, an idol of youth.

Today, the works of Alexander Greene have been translated into many languages, streets in many cities, mountain peaks and a star bear his name. Many works, including “Scarlet Sails” and “Running on the Waves,” have been filmed.

The annual creative festival “Greenland” (Old Crimea, August 22-24) is dedicated to the writer’s birthday. On the slope of Mount Agarmysh, festival participants raise symbolic scarlet sails. Creative groups, artists, musicians, writers, poets and bards perform on the improvised stage and concert platform of the Green House. The festival ends with a walk from Old Crimea to Koktebel, along the “Green’s path” with a visit to the House-Museum of M. A. Voloshin.

***
Konstantin Paustovsky, who did a lot to popularize the work of Alexander Green, has the following lines: “Green lived a hard life. Everything in her, as if on purpose, worked out in such a way as to make Green a criminal or an evil man in the street.” But it turned out the other way around. Even today, almost a century later, they write about his story “Scarlet Sails” on social networks: “This is such a wonderful book! This is an absolutely amazing book! This is the most romantic story I have ever read! And I can’t even explain why I didn’t meet her earlier, but, my God, what a charm passed me by all this time! “Scarlet Sails” is no longer just a name, it’s a symbol. Symbol of love and hope. A symbol of faith in a dream and the embodiment of the most unrealistic dreams. These are the simplest and most important truths. If you can create a miracle for someone, do it. Come to the rescue, smile, cheer, support. And you will understand how pleasant it is, how inexpressibly wonderful. There is no magic, and nothing happens on its own: miracles are created by the hands of people who love you. And how beautifully, incredibly beautifully Green writes! Creates absolutely bewitching, delightful intricacies of words. The text is literally tangible, it comes to life before our eyes. The splashing of waves and the cries of seagulls can be heard from the pages, and then a huge figure of a ship rises in front of us from the predawn fog. The lines of the mast are sharply defined. Flaming sails are torn in the wind. And the confused Assol was already frozen on the shore. And on her lips there are salty sea spray. And on her cheeks are the rays of the rising sun. The book gives a feeling of absolute, boundless happiness, great faith in miracles, in true, fabulous and beautiful love. Warm, bright, goosebumps wonderful story!” (Masha_ Uralskaya 09.10. 2013. —