"The most precious thing a person has is life.

It is given to him once, and it is necessary to live it so that it does not hurt excruciatingly for the years spent aimlessly, so that it does not burn shame for the petty and petty past and that, dying, he could say: all life and all strength were given to the most beautiful in the world - the struggle for the liberation of mankind ".

Nikolay Ostrovsky

Nikolay Ostrovsky was born on September 29, 1904 in the village of Viliya in Volyn in the family of a retired military man.

His father, Alexei Ivanovich, distinguished himself in the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878 and was awarded two St. George's crosses for special bravery. After the war, Anatoly Ostrovsky worked as a malt operator at a distillery, and Ostrovsky's mother, Olga Osipovna, was a cook.

The Ostrovsky family did not live richly, but amicably, appreciated education and work. Nikolai's elder sisters, Nadezhda and Ekaterina, became rural teachers, and Nikolai himself was early admitted to the parish school "because of his outstanding abilities", which he graduated at the age of 9 with a certificate of honor. In 1915 he graduated from a two-grade school in Shepetovka, and in 1918 he entered the Higher Primary School, later transformed into the Unified Labor School, and became a student representative on the pedagogical council.

From the age of 12, Ostrovsky had to work for hire: a cuber, a worker in a warehouse and an assistant to a stoker at a power plant. Subsequently, he wrote to Mikhail Sholokhov about this period of his life: "I am a full-time fireman and I was a good master about filling the boilers."

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Hard work did not interfere with Ostrovsky's romantic impulses. His favorite books were "Spartacus" by Giovagnoli, "The Gadfly" by Voynich, the novels of Cooper and Walter Scott, in which brave heroes fought for freedom against the injustice of tyrants. In his youth, he read Bryusov's poems to friends, and when he came to Novikov, he swallowed Homer's Iliad, Erasmus of Rotterdam's Praise of Stupidity.

Under the influence of Shepetov's Marxists, Ostrovsky became involved in underground work and became an activist in the revolutionary movement. Brought up on romantic and adventurous book ideals, he accepted the October Revolution with enthusiasm. On July 20, 1919, Nikolai Ostrovsky joined the Komsomol and went to the front to fight against the enemies of the revolution. He first served in the Kotovsky division, then in the 1st Cavalry Army under the command of Budyonny.

In one of the battles, Ostrovsky fell off his horse at full gallop, later he was wounded in the head and in the stomach. All this severely affected his health, and in 1922, eighteen-year-old Ostrovsky was retired.

After demobilization, Ostrovsky found an application for himself on the labor front. After graduating from school in Shepetovka, he continued his studies at the Kiev Electrotechnical Technical School without interruption from production, and together with the first Komsomol members of Ukraine was mobilized to restore the national economy. Ostrovsky participated in the construction of a narrow-gauge road, which was supposed to become the main highway to provide firewood for Kiev, dying from cold and typhoid. There he caught a cold, fell ill with typhus and was sent home unconscious. Through the efforts of his relatives, he managed to cope with the disease, but soon he caught another cold, saving the forest in the icy water. After that, studies had to be interrupted, and, as it turned out, forever.

He later wrote about all this in his novel "How the Steel Was Tempered": and how, saving timber rafting, he threw himself into icy water, and a cruel cold after this labor feat, and about rheumatism, and about typhus ...

At the age of 18, he found out that doctors had given him a terrible diagnosis - an incurable, progressive ankylosing spondylitis, which leads the patient to complete disability. Ostrovsky's joints hurt badly. And later he was given the final diagnosis - progressive ankylosing polyarthritis, gradual ossification of the joints.

Doctors suggested that the shocked young man go to a disability and wait for the end. But Nikolai chose to fight. He strove to make life in this seemingly hopeless state useful to others. However, the consequences of grueling work increasingly made themselves felt. He experienced the first attacks of an incurable disease in 1924 and in the same year became a member of the Communist Party.

With his characteristic full dedication and youthful maximalism, he devoted himself to working with youth. He became a Komsomol leader and organizer of the first Komsomol cells in the border regions of Ukraine: Berezdov, Izyaslavl. Together with Komsomol activists, Ostrovsky participated in the struggle of ChON detachments against armed gangs seeking to break into Soviet territory.

The disease progressed, and an endless series of stays in hospitals, clinics and sanatoriums began. Painful procedures, operations did not bring improvement, but Nikolai did not give up. He was engaged in self-education, studied at the Sverdlovsk correspondence communist university, and read a lot.

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At the end of the twenties, in Novorossiysk, he met his future wife. By the fall of 1927, Nikolai Alekseevich could no longer walk. In addition, he developed an eye disease that eventually led him to blindness, and was a consequence of complications from typhus.

Nikolai Ostrovsky with his wife Raisa a year before his death.

In the fall of 1927, Ostrovsky began writing his autobiographical novel "The Tale of the" Kotovtsy. "The manuscript of this book, created by a truly titanic work and sent by mail to Odessa to former military comrades for discussion, unfortunately, was lost on the way back, and its fate remained unknown But Nikolai Ostrovsky, accustomed to endure even less blows of fate, did not lose courage and did not despair.

In a letter dated November 26, 1928, he wrote: "People who are strong like oxen walk around me, but with blood cold like fish. Moldy blows from their speeches, and I hate them, I cannot understand how a healthy person can to be bored in such a stressful period. I have never lived such a life and will not live. "

From that time on, he was forever bedridden, and in the fall of 1929 Ostrovsky moved to Moscow for treatment.

"Brought feet in 20 - 30 books were barely enough for him for a week," - said his wife. Yes, there were not two - two thousand books in his library! And it began, according to the mother's testimony, with a journal sheet in which they wanted to wrap a herring for him, but he brought the herring, holding the tail, and put the journal sheet on the shelf ... "Have I changed a lot?" - Ostrovsky asked later to Marta Purin, his old friend. "Yes," she replied, "you have become an educated person."

In 1932, he began work on the book How Steel Was Tempered. After an eight-month stay in the hospital, Ostrovsky and his wife settled in the capital. Absolutely immobilized, blind and helpless, he remained completely alone for 12-16 hours every day. Trying to overcome despair and hopelessness, he was looking for a way out of his energy, and since his hands still retained some mobility, Nikolai Alekseevich decided to start writing. With the help of his wife and friends, who made him a special "banner" (a folder with slots), he tried to write down the first pages of the future book. But this opportunity to write himself did not last long, and later he was forced to dictate the book to his relatives, friends, flatmate, and even his nine-year-old niece.

He fought the disease with the same courage and tenacity with which he once fought in the civil war. He was engaged in self-education, read books one after another, graduated from the communist university in absentia. Being paralyzed, he led a Komsomol circle at home, prepared himself for literary activity. He worked at night, using a stencil, and in the daytime friends, neighbors, wife, mother together deciphered what was written.

Nikolai Ostrovsky strove to learn how to write well - the traces of this are clearly visible to the experienced eye. He studied the art of a writer from Gogol (scenes with Petliura's colonel Golub; beginnings like "evenings are good in Ukraine in the summer in such small towns as Shepetovka ..." and others). He studied with his contemporaries ("chopped style" B. Pilnyak, I. Babel), those who helped him edit the book. I learned to paint portraits (it turned out not very skillfully, monotonously), to look for comparisons, to individualize the speech of characters, to build an image. Not everything was successful, it was difficult to get rid of clichés, to find successful expressions - all this had to be done, overcoming illness, immobility, the elementary impossibility of reading and writing oneself ...

The manuscript sent to the "Young Guard" magazine received a devastating review: "the derived types are unreal." However, Ostrovsky obtained a secondary review of the manuscript. After that, the manuscript was actively edited by the deputy editor-in-chief of Molodaya Gvardia, Mark Kolosov, and the executive editor, Anna Karavaeva, a well-known writer of that time. Ostrovsky recognized the great participation of Karavaeva in the work with the text of the novel; he also noted the participation of Alexander Serafimovich.

The first part of the novel was a huge success. It was impossible to get the issues of the magazine where it was published; there were queues in the libraries for it. The editorial board was flooded with a stream of readers' letters.

The image of the novel's protagonist, Korchagin, was autobiographical. The writer rethought personal impressions and documents, and created new literary images. Revolutionary slogans and business speech, documentary and fiction, lyricism and chronicle - all of this combined in Ostrovsky's work into a work of fiction, new for Soviet literature. For many generations of Soviet youth, the hero of the novel has become a moral model.

Once, dissatisfied with some of the family scenes of the novel, a critic wrote that they contribute to "liquefaction of the granite figure of Pavka Korchagin." Nikolai was outraged - granite is not a building material for a living person. He called the article "vulgar": "I have a heart disease, but I will answer with a saber strike." One of his volunteer secretaries, Maria Bartz, left us a testimony of what bothered him during the dictation: "Did it work out humanly? Isn't it popular? Isn't Pavel Korchagin too orthodox? Isn't he placard?"

In 1933, Nikolai Ostrovsky in Sochi continued to work on the second part of the novel, and in 1934 the first complete edition of this book was published.

In March 1935, the newspaper Pravda published an essay by Mikhail Koltsov, Courage. From it, millions of readers first learned that the hero of the novel "How the Steel Was Tempered" Pavel Korchagin was not a figment of the author's imagination. That the author of this novel is the hero. Ostrovsky began to admire. His novel has been translated into English, Japanese and Czech. In New York, he was published in a newspaper.

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On October 1, 1935, by a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, Ostrovsky was awarded the Order of Lenin. In December 1935, Nikolai Alekseevich was given an apartment in Moscow, on Gorky Street, and a dacha in Sochi was built especially for him. He was also awarded the military rank of brigade commissar.

Ostrovsky continued to work, and in the summer of 1936 he completed the first part of the novel Born by the Storm. At the author's insistence, the new book was discussed at a visiting meeting of the Presidium of the Board of the Union of Soviet Writers at the author's Moscow apartment.

The last month of his life Nikolai Alekseevich was busy making amendments to the novel. He works "in three shifts" and was preparing to rest. And on December 22, 1936, the heart of Nikolai Alekseevich Ostrovsky stopped.

On the day of his solemn funeral, December 26, the book was published - the workers of the printing house typed and printed it in record short lines.

Meyerhold staged a play about Pavka Korchagin based on a staging of the novel by Yevgeny Gabrilovich. A few years before his death, Yevgeny Iosifovich Gabrilovich told what a grandiose spectacle it was: "During the viewing the hall exploded with applause! It was so burning, so shocking! It was a solemn tragedy." We can clearly see the tragedy of that era today. Then it was forbidden to see her. After all, "life has become better, life has become more fun" ... The play was banned.

The novel "How the Steel Was Tempered" by Ostrovsky went through more than 200 editions in many languages \u200b\u200bof the world. Until the late 1980s, it was central to the school curriculum.

Nikolai Ostrovsky was buried at the Novodevichy cemetery.

It is difficult to find a person at an age who would not regret something that he did not do when he was young ... If you are still young, then you should definitely try some things, even if they seem to you today senseless and reckless. It is not a fact, of course, that you will like all this, but later there will definitely be something to remember!

Spend sleepless nights

Only until the age of twenty-five can we afford to stay awake without any consequences. For example, play tricks all night, and in the morning calmly and with a bright head go to an exam or to work. Nowadays, many, however, sit on the Web almost until dawn, but we suggest that you do not stare at a computer screen, but spend a magical night filled with adventures.

You can invite guests, or you can go to visit yourself. Or go to some nightclub where you can dance on the tables ... We guarantee that you will not want to sleep in a good and interesting company.

Of course, we are not encouraging you to lead a nocturnal lifestyle, so you will quickly fizzle out, and study and work will begin to suffer. But you can try at least once.

Go to parties

Sometimes we refuse to go to a party because we need to study or we are scared to go to an unfamiliar company. In fact, any party is a new experience and sometimes useful acquaintances.

Try to go not only to those companies in which you know someone, but also to places where you will be a stranger. This will teach you communication. In addition, parties are often associated with thrills, new experiences that will only benefit you. Do not forget about safety, but also do not be afraid to leave your comfort zone - this will become a kind of training for you, because you cannot spend your whole life in an exclusively greenhouse environment.

Try as many alcoholic drinks as possible

Of course, you shouldn't go to, say, a bar and try them all at once in one evening. Moreover, they should not be mixed with each other - the state of health will not be the best. But if you drink the same thing all the time, for example, champagne or gin and tonic, then it means that you are not yet a mature person and are not open to new experiences.

Try as much as possible and a little of everything: red and white wines, vodka, whiskey - drinking at least a small glass of this drink in one go ... This is the only way you can understand what you really like and what you don't.

Even if you really overdo it a couple of times, it's not that scary. Let this be a lesson to you. You will know your norm and learn to drink "right".

Read books!

This is not the textbooks that you already have to read. Often we put off reading books "not in the specialty" for the future, believing that in this very future we will have time for this. And now there are more interesting activities - say, video games or dating ...

The fact is that in adulthood you will have so many jobs and other different things that you simply will not be able to allocate time for books, unless you are a philologist or literary critic by profession. Be prepared for the fact that if you do not read a lot in your youth, then this will never happen.

Play your acquaintances

From childhood, we are taught that lying is not good. And sometimes we grow up feeling embarrassed whenever we have to tell a lie.

But a competent and funny prank is a completely different matter! Tell classmates that the teacher is ill and will not have classes, whisper to a friend that Slavka, who has long liked her, asked for her phone number, call an excellent student and inform him that he won a prestigious grant and is going to study abroad ...

Try to keep your pranks harmless, so that they do not have far-reaching negative consequences and do not cause real pain to people ... It also does not hurt to involve friends in your ideas. Such a joint venture will most likely become one of the most pleasant and positive memories.

At a more mature age, this may not get away with you - they will be offended at you, because you are an adult and a serious person and you should not do such stupid things. But youth is just the time for doing stupid things ...

Life must be lived so that it would not be excruciatingly painful for the years spent aimlessly
From the novel (Part 2, Chapter 3) "How the Steel Was Tempered" (1932-1934) by the Soviet \\ "writer Nikolai Alekseevich Ostrovsky (1904-1936):" The most precious thing a person has is life. It is given to him once, and It must be lived in such a way that it is not painfully ashamed of the years spent aimlessly, so that it does not burn shame for its petty and petty past, and so that, dying, it can say: all life and all forces are devoted to the most important thing in the world: the struggle for the liberation of mankind. we must hurry to live, because an absurd illness or some tragic accident can interrupt it.
Gripped by these thoughts, Korchagin left the fraternal cemetery. "
Quoted: as a call for a dignified, active life.

Encyclopedic Dictionary of winged words and expressions. - M .: "Lokid-Press"... Vadim Serov. 2003.

See what "Life must be lived so that it does not hurt excruciatingly for the years spent aimlessly" in other dictionaries:

See Life must be lived so that it would not be excruciatingly painful for the years spent aimlessly. Encyclopedic Dictionary of winged words and expressions. M .: "Lokid Press". Vadim Serov. 2003 ... Dictionary of winged words and expressions

a life -, and, w. 1. The period of human existence. ** [No need to be sad] the whole life is ahead of [hope and wait]. // Lyrics from A. Ekimyan's song to R. Rozhdestvensky's poem “No need to grieve” (1975). The same motive is used in the song by A. Pakhmutova on ...

And, well. 1. A special form of motion of matter, arising at a certain stage of its development. The emergence of life on earth. □ Protein compounds form the basis of life, which coagulate at high temperatures. V. Komarov, Origin of Plants. ... ... Small academic dictionary

year -, a, m. \u003d\u003d Glorious years. ◘ It [industrialization] was carried out in the glorious years of the first five-year plans. XO, 388. \u003d\u003d Jubilee year. ◘ Your name? Uh uh. Surname? Uh uh. What are you complaining about? Uh uh. What year is it? Anniversary. Kupina, 122. * ... ... Explanatory Dictionary of the Language of the Soviets

- "PAVEL KORCHAGIN", USSR, KIEV Film Studio, 1956, color, 102 min. Heroic romantic drama. Based on the novel by N. Ostrovsky "How the Steel Was Tempered". “The most precious thing for a person is life. It is given once and you need to live it so that there is no ... ... Encyclopedia of Cinema

This term has other meanings, see How Steel Was Tempered (meanings). How Steel Was Tempered Genre: Novel

This term has other meanings, see How steel was tempered. How Steel Was Tempered Genre: Novel

Books

• How the steel was tempered, Nikolai Ostrovsky. "The most precious thing for a person is life. It is given to him once, and he must live it so that it does not hurt excruciatingly for the years spent aimlessly" is perhaps one of the most famous ...
• How the Steel Was Tempered (MP3 audiobook), N. Ostrovsky. "How the Steel Was Tempered" is one of the greatest novels of the Soviet era, an autobiographical novel by the Soviet writer Nikolai Alekseevich Ostrovsky. This is an immortal work ...

Ostrovsky Nikolai Alekseevich (September 16 (29), 1904 - December 22, 1936) - Soviet writer. Born in the village of Viliya, Ostroh district, Volyn province, in a working class family. From the age of 11 he was forced to work. At the same time he studied at a higher primary school. During the Civil War he fought on the side of the revolutionaries. In 1919 he joined the Komsomol. In 1932, in the magazine Molodaya Gvardiya, he began to publish his novel How the Steel Was Tempered, which immediately became popular. In 1935 he was awarded the Order of Lenin. He died and was buried in Moscow.

Small is the love in which there is no friendship, partnership, common interests.

The main tragedy in life is the end of the struggle.

There are wonderful orators, they know how to fantasize remarkably and call for a wonderful life, but they themselves do not know how to live well. From the rostrum, they call for a feat, and they themselves live like sons of bitches.

Life gives every person an invaluable gift - youth full of strength, youth full of aspirations, desires and aspirations for knowledge, for struggle, full of hopes and hopes.

To live only for the family is animal selfishness, to live for one person is meanness, to live only for oneself is a shame.

You need to set yourself a definite goal in life. Of course, you need to have enough common sense to set yourself tasks within your powers.

The most precious thing in life is to always be a fighter, and not to drag along in a third-class train.

The most precious thing a person has is life. She is given to him once, and he must live it so that it does not hurt excruciatingly for the years spent aimlessly, so that he does not burn shame for the petty and petty past and so that, dying, he could say: all life and all strength were given to the most beautiful in the world - the struggle for the liberation of humanity.

Know how to live when life becomes unbearable.

If the personal in a person takes a huge place, and the public - a tiny one, then the destruction of personal life is almost a disaster. Then the question arises - why live?

I organically, viciously hate people who, under the merciless blows of life, begin to howl and throw themselves into hysterics in the corners.

Women give a clear and very offensive preference to people of lax morality and even sometimes vicious in front of clean people. Moreover, they harbor some kind of hatred towards completely pure people.

In educating others, we educate ourselves first of all.

When a person does not feel the need for work, when he is internally devastated, when, going to bed, he cannot answer a simple question: "What has been done in the day?" - then it is really dangerous and scary. We urgently need to gather a council of friends and save a person, since he is dying.

Creative work is wonderful, extraordinarily hard and joyful work.

Labor is the noblest healer of all ailments. There is nothing more joyful than work.

Where there is more severity, there is more sin.

Friendship is, first of all, sincerity, it is criticism of a friend's mistakes. Friends should be the first to give harsh criticism so that a friend can correct his mistake.

Criticism is the correct blood circulation, without it stagnation and painful phenomena are inevitable.

Courage is nurtured day after day in stubborn resistance to adversity.

The audience goes to the theater to watch a good performance of good plays, not the play itself: the play can be read.

How steel was tempered (1942):

The most precious thing a person has is life. She is given to him once, and he must live it so that he is not painfully ashamed of the aimlessly spent years, so that he does not burn shame for the mean and. petty past and so that, dying, he could say: all life and all forces are devoted to the most important thing in the world: the struggle for the liberation of mankind. And we must hurry to live. After all, an absurd illness or some tragic accident can interrupt it.

Triumph of will.The main feature of Nikolai Ostrovsky was the love of truth and the search for justice

On December 22, 1936, at eight o'clock in the evening, in Moscow, on Tverskaya, one man said:

“I was moaning? Not? It's good. So death cannot overpower me. "

Nikolay Ostrovsky. 1926 year. © / RIA Novosti

He died half an hour later. died not conquered - proudly and with dignity. His name was Nikolay Ostrovsky... He was 32 years old.

Ostrovsky's novel was released in a circulation of about 60 million copies. “Approximately” - because China is participating in the race, where the book was published with a circulation of 15 million. And this is not the limit - “How the Steel Was Tempered” in the Celestial Empire is considered a deficit, and Chinese youth are being met halfway and the circulation is constantly reprinted.

Soviet writer Nikolai Ostrovsky (1st from left) at a meeting of the Berezovsky district party committee (from the collection of the N. Ostrovsky State Museum). 1923 year. Photo: RIA Novosti

In 1934, luhansk student-philologist Marchenkowrote an indignant letter to the magazine "Young Guard" (he wanted to borrow "How the Steel Was Tempered" from the library, but it turned out that 176 people were in line for the book):

“Why do they do this to readers? Please finish typing so that there is enough for everyone! "

Eight years later, in the fiercest winter of 1942, in besieged Leningrad, How the Steel Was Tempered was republished at the initiative of the townspeople. The text is being typed in a dilapidated building. The circulation is printed by turning the machines by hand, since there is no electricity. And they sell 10 thousand copies in two hours.

The book covers of How the Steel Was Tempered, published in Hungarian, German and Portuguese Photo: Collage AIF

Covers of How the Steel Was Tempered, published in Spanish, Vietnamese and Hindi. Photo: Collage AIF

This is the USSR. But here is a letter that Ostrovsky received from Queensland (Australia):

"If it were not for the injury to my leg, I would have worked and saved money for a trip to you, my favorite Russian writer." And here is the news from the prison of the Bulgarian city of Stara Zagora: “After long ordeals, one copy of the book“ How the Steel Was Tempered ”was finally received. Already two of us have read it, but all 250 political prisoners have to read it ... I am delighted with the book, and the comrade who is reading it now never takes his eyes off it. "

Many foreign reviewers have said that the book is not a primitive propaganda, but a great literary event. The English edition of the Daily Worker publishes an obituary:

"The fact that Ostrovsky died so young is a loss not only for the USSR, but also for the literature of the whole world."

Let's say it's a British communist newspaper. But here's how Reynold's Illustrated News responded to the lifetime edition of How the Steel Was Tempered:

"Ostrovsky is a genius in a certain sense."

“Genius”, “innovator”, “pride and glory of a generation”, “a beacon for many thousands of people”, “personification of courage” - this is all about him. And famous people talk about it. The authors of the last two definitions are Nobel laureate, writer Romain Rolland and poet, member of the Goncourt Academy Louis Aragon.

In his youth, Nikolai Ostrovsky suffered three typhus and dysentery. Then ankylosing spondylitis (inflammation of the joints and spine), glaucoma and blindness, heart damage, pulmonary fibrosis, kidney stones, and regular pneumonia. Against this background, the following is constantly happening:

“My gall bladder tore apart, causing hemorrhage and bile poisoning. The doctors then unanimously said:

"Well, now amba!"

But they didn’t succeed again, I scratched myself out, again confusing the medical axioms ”.

So Ostrovsky wrote 4 months before his death. Of course, he was treated. But even the treatment was often painful. So, in 1927 he was prescribed sulfur baths at the Goryachy Klyuch resort. The writer covered the distance from Krasnodar (which is 46 km) for 6 hours. During this time, he lost consciousness from pain 11 times. But he was silent.

Writer Nikolai Ostrovsky with his family on the day he was awarded the Order of Lenin. From left to right: the writer's wife Raisa Porfirievna, sister Ekaterina Alekseevna, niece Zina, brother Dmitry Alekseevich and mother Olga Osipovna. 1935 year. Photo: RIA Novosti / O. Kovalenko

Nine years of continuous suffering. “The patient's joints first freeze, and then the rest of the joints. It turns into a living statue - the limbs are in different positions, depending on how they were filled with lava of the disease ”- this is the most approximate description of how Ostrovsky lived.

Nikolai Ostrovsky received an apartment on Tverskaya, which became his last refuge, in 1935. Together with the Order of Lenin. What happened before this, the writer himself can tell:

“I'm not a pull champion. Let the hunters crawl through, occupy apartments, it doesn't make me feel hot. The place of the soldier is at the front, not in the rear quarrelsome holes. The purpose of my life is literature. Better to live in a toilet and write than to get an apartment. "

“His main feature was his love of truth. He was internally charged with the search for justice "- this is how the critic commented on Ostrovsky Lev Anninsky... This is a very Russian trait. source

Jet Li:“My favorite hero is Pavka Korchagin. And by the way, there is one great book that I read in my youth and which made a decisive influence on me - "How the Steel Was Tempered" by Nikolai Ostrovsky. As, however, and the main character - Pavel Korchagin.

This book, in fact, raised a person out of me. And I still constantly re-read it, remember it, and wherever I am - in the USA, in China, elsewhere in Asia - I always quote the words of Paul:

"Do not be afraid of any obstacles and twists and turns in your path, because steel can only be hardened in this way."

(September 16 (29), 1904, in the village of Viliya, Ostroh district, Volyn province - December 22, 1936, Moscow) - Soviet writer, author of the novel How the Steel Was Tempered.

Short biography.

Childhood and youth

Born on September 16, 1904 in the village of Viliya, Ostrozhsky district of the Volyn province of the Russian Empire (now the Ostrozhsky district of the Rivne region of Ukraine) in the family of a non-commissioned officer and excise official Alexei Ivanovich Ostrovsky (1854-1936).

He was admitted to a parish school ahead of schedule "because of his outstanding abilities"; He graduated from school at the age of 9, in 1913, with a certificate of merit. Soon after, the family moved to Shepetovka. There Ostrovsky since 1916 worked for hire: first in the kitchen of a station restaurant, then as a cuber, a worker in material warehouses, an assistant to a stoker at a power plant. At the same time he studied in a two-year school (from 1915 to 1917), and then in a higher primary school (1917-1919). He became close to local Bolsheviks, during the German occupation he participated in underground activities, in March 1918 - July 1919 he was a liaison of the Shepetivka Revolutionary Committee.

Military service and party work

On July 20, 1919, he joined the Komsomol. "Together with the Komsomol ticket, we received a gun and two hundred cartridges." - recalled Ostrovsky.

On August 9, 1919, he volunteered for the front. He fought in the cavalry brigade of G.I.Kotovsky and in the 1st Cavalry Army. In August 1920, he was seriously wounded in the back near Lvov (shrapnel) and was demobilized. Participated in the fight against the insurgency in the special forces (CHON). According to some reports, in 1920-1921 he was an employee of the Cheka in Izyaslav.

In 1921 he worked as an assistant to an electrician in the Kiev main workshops, studied at an electrical engineering school, at the same time was the secretary of the Komsomol organization.

In 1922 he took part in the construction of a railway line for the supply of firewood to Kiev, while he caught a bad cold, then fell ill with typhus. After his recovery, he was commissar of the Vsevobuch battalion in Berezdov (in the border area with Poland).

He was the secretary of the district committee of the Komsomol in Berezdovo and Izyaslav, then the secretary of the district committee of the Komsomol in Shepetovka (1924). In the same year he joined the CPSU (b).

Illness and literary creativity

From 1927 until the end of his life, Ostrovsky was bedridden with an incurable disease. According to the official version, the injury and difficult working conditions affected Ostrovsky's health. The final diagnosis is "progressive ankylosing polyarthritis, gradual ossification of the joints."

In the fall of 1927, he began to write his autobiographical novel The Tale of the Kotovtsy, but six months later the manuscript was lost in transit.

After unsuccessful treatment in a sanatorium, Ostrovsky decided to settle in Sochi. In a letter to an old communist acquaintance in November 1928, he described his "political organizational line":

“I am headlong into the class struggle here. All around us here are the remnants of the whites and the bourgeoisie. Our house management was in the hands of the enemy - the priest's son ... ”. Despite the protests of the majority of residents, Ostrovsky, through local communists, managed to get the "priest's son" removed. “There was only one enemy left in the house, a bourgeois underbite, my neighbor ... Then there was a struggle for the next house ... It was also conquered by us after the“ battle ”... Here there is a class struggle - for knocking out aliens and enemies from mansions ...”.

Since the end of 1930, with the help of a stencil he invented, he begins to write a novel "As the Steel Was Tempered"... Ostrovsky dictated the text of the book to volunteer secretaries for 989 days.

In April 1932, the magazine Molodaya Gvardiya began publishing Ostrovsky's novel; in November of the same year, the first part came out as a separate book, followed by the second part. The novel immediately became very popular in the USSR.

In 1935 Ostrovsky was awarded the Order of Lenin, he was allocated a house in Sochi and an apartment in Moscow on Gorky Street (now his house-museum) for living.

In 1936, Ostrovsky was enrolled in the Political Administration of the Red Army with the rank of brigade commissar.

For the past few months, he has been held in high esteem, hosting readers and writers. Moskovsky Dead Lane (now Prechistensky), where he lived in 1930-1932, was renamed in his honor.

Works:

1927 - "The Tale of the" Kotovtsy "(novel, the manuscript was lost in transit)
1930-1934 - "How the Steel Was Tempered"
1936 - Born by the Storm