Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin

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Aleksandr Kuprin ( Russian Александр Иванович Куприн , scientific. Transliteration Aleksandr Ivanovich Kuprin ; emphasis: Kuprin, * August 26 jul. / 7. September  1870 greg. In Narowtschat ( Penza province ); † 25. August 1938 in Leningrad ) was a Russian writer.

Life

Kuprin was born in a provincial town as the son of a civil servant and an impoverished nobleman from the family of the Tatar prince Kulanchakov. After the death of his father, his mother moved with him to Moscow , where Kuprin attended a private high school from 1877 to 1880 and then for ten years until 1890 various military schools for the offspring of officers . In 1894 he left the military and moved to Kiev , where he devoted himself fully to the profession of professional writer. He wrote several short stories and essays for various Kiev newspapers, including a cycle of life portraits of simple people around him, drawn with strong realism. In 1899 he met Anton Chekhov , who had a strong influence on him. In 1901 Kuprin moved to Petersburg, where he wrote some of his best short stories, including In the Circus (1902), which was highly praised by Lev Tolstoy .

Statue of Kuprin in Balaklava

In 1902 Kuprin became friends with Maxim Gorki , to whom he dedicated his novel Das Duell (1905). Kuprin felt strong sympathy for the first Russian revolution of 1905–1907 and immortalized it in several of his works. In 1905 he happened to be in Sevastopol at the time when Vice-Admiral Tschuchnin put down the armed uprising of the sailors of the cruiser Ochakov in an extremely brutal way and helped to rescue the survivors from the sea.

After the defeat of the revolution, Kuprin distanced himself from Gorky and his circle and later described this period as a "period of greatest disappointments". However, he continued to write and created real masterpieces such as Sulamif (1908), Marriage (1908) and the garnet bracelet (1911). He undertook an extensive journey through Western Europe, whose impressions he summarized in the travel stories under the title The glaze blue coast (1912). However, his greatest work was undoubtedly Der Graben (first part published in 1909, second part 1914–1915), a novel that described the everyday life of Russian prostitutes in a drastic and sometimes blatant language and paid tribute to the then fashionable naturalism .

After the October Revolution in 1917 Kuprin initially worked in the publishing world literature, which had been founded by Gorky, where he wrote for various magazines articles in which he glorified the revolution and its leader, but at the same time his fears of "cultural barbarism" of the Bolsheviks expressed . In December 1918, Kuprin met with Lenin and suggested that he publish a cultural newspaper for the village population. In the fall of 1919, Kuprin was in Gatchina , one of the suburbs of Petersburg, when General Yudenich's white troops blocked the town. Kuprin decided to emigrate with his family. It is not entirely clear whether he planned this escape in advance or just reacted spontaneously and seized the opportunity.

Kuprin's grave in the Volkovo Cemetery in Saint Petersburg

From the end of 1919 he lived mainly in Paris , where he actively participated in the political activities of Russian emigrants and wrote anti-Soviet articles and pamphlets . Since the mid-1920s, he gradually gave up his anti-Bolshevik sentiments and increasingly faded into the background. This phase of Kuprin's life was characterized by the fact that he devoted himself entirely to attempts to alleviate the financial misery of his family. Wedged in his work by such circumstances, he published several works that he wrote to order, including fairy tales, descriptions of Russian nature and historical essays.

In the spring of 1937, Kuprin returned to his homeland, already terminally ill. Stalinist propaganda exploited this as another fact that would have demonstrated the supposed merits of socialism. One can assume, however, that Kuprin, who knew that he would soon die, was only driven by the desire to find his final resting place in his homeland. He received a very friendly welcome, got his own apartment and died a year later in Leningrad.

Kuprin was honored in several monuments at different places of activity; Among other things, there is a statue of him next to a bench at the port of Balaklava .

Kuprin as a writer

Kuprin was one of the last representatives of Russian realism, who turned against the injustices of the primeval capitalist society and paid more attention to the so-called "lower classes". He was heavily influenced by Tolstoy and Chekhov, and for a time also Gorky, who thus became the landmark of his creative activity. In the period after 1907 he showed increased interest in the literary genre of naturalism, which he soon rejected. Kuprin was very interested in the psychology of the simple, "common man" and in the everyday situations in life around him. In this regard, he was a humanist-minded writer who dealt critically with his youth as a cadet in several works . B. in Die Kadetten (1900) or Junker (1928–1932). He was a master of short narrative prose , creating strong sculptural figures and landscapes in a few sentences and playing with associations.

The material for his stories arose both from his love of nature ( hunting for capercaillie , werewolf , dark forest ) and the current events that moved him as a writer ( Black Lightning , Staff Captain Rybnikow , The River of Life , Kismet ). During his emigration he created excellent pictures of his host country France, which had impressed the critics with their enormous eloquence and imagery of the language ( Jeanette , The Blessed South ). In addition, Kuprin wrote memorable memories.

Works

(in German translation)

  • The Moloch . Konegen, Vienna 1907; again: Rütten & Loening, Berlin 1954.
  • The duel . Book publisher for the German House, Berlin 1909.
  • The tomb . German by Carlo Philips . Munich and Leipzig, Georg Müller Verlag, 1910. 248 p. New edition under the title: Jama, die Lastergrube . Revised translation by Hans Liebstoekl. Vienna, Interterrit. Publishing house "Renaissance", [1923]. 458 pp.
  • The garnet bracelet and other things . Munich and Leipzig, Georg Müller Verlag, 1911. 319 pp.
  • Olessja and other short stories . Bondy, Berlin 1911; again: Insel-Verlag, Frankfurt / M. 2000, ISBN 3-458-34290-7 .
  • Vera . Novel. Renaissance-Verlag, Berlin [1925].
  • The seven nights of love of the Sulamith . Renaissance-Verlag, Berlin et al. [Around 1925].
  • The Sparrow King and other animal stories . Zollikon-Zurich, Evangel Verlag AG [1944].
  • The elephant . SWA-Verlag, Berlin 1949.
  • The duel . Verlag der Nation, Berlin 1964.
  • The emerald . 3 stories. Insel-Verlag, Leipzig 1972.
  • The night viol . Stories. Verlag der Nation, Berlin 1978.
  • The barrel organ and the white poodle . Narrative. Sanssouci Verlag , Zurich 1979, ISBN 3-7254-0327-9 .
  • The sinful village . Morals from ancient Russia. Rütten & Loening, Berlin 1986, ISBN 3-352-00035-2 .

literature

  • Viktor Grigoryevich Afanassjew: Kuprin. (Critical-biographical narrative.) Moscow 1960 (In Russian)
  • Fedor Kuloshov: Tvorcheskii put 'AI Kuprina . MVSSO, Minsk 1963
  • Nicholas J. Luker: Alexander Kuprin . Twayne Publishers, Boston, Mass. 1978 ISBN 0-8057-6322-8
  • Kratkaja literaturnaja enciklopedija. Vol. 3. Moskva 1966.
  • Thomas Grob: Uniform and Catachresis . The army in contemporary Russian films and the new discovery of Aleksandr Kuprin, in Between Apocalypse and Everyday Life. War narratives of the 20th and 21st centuries. Ed. Natalia Borissova, Susi K. Frank, Andreas Kraft. Transcript, Bielefeld 2009 ISBN 3837610454 pp. 289-318

Web links

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personal data
SURNAME Kuprin, Alexander Ivanovich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Куприн, Александр Иванович (Russian spelling)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Russian writer
DATE OF BIRTH September 7, 1870
PLACE OF BIRTH Penza Governorate
DATE OF DEATH August 25, 1938
Place of death Leningrad