Best quotes by Evgeny Schwartz. Life quotes of the great storyteller Yevgeny Schwartz Sayings about Schwartz e l
Evgeny Schwartz presented us with "An Ordinary Miracle" and "The Tale of Lost Time", breathed a second life into the story of Cinderella and the Snow Queen and launched his own wise and ironic "Dragon" into the sky. With all his work, Schwartz showed that miracles, like goodness, love, justice, always have a place in the life of any adult.
Today we recall our favorite quotes from the fairy tales of Eugene Schwartz.
About a man and a woman
The best decoration for a girl is modesty and a transparent dress.
I've been chasing you for three days to tell you how indifferent I am to you.
Ah, I once loved him, and then I hate such people terribly.
I don't have time to care. You are attractive, I am damn attractive - why waste time?
It is their lovers who seem especially strangers. Everything has changed, but theirs remained the same.
What you call love is a little indecent, quite funny and very pleasant.
About a human
Look, people are terrible when you fight them. And if you live with them in peace, it may seem that they are wow.
A man will make a statue out of dead stone - and then he will be proud if the work was successful. And go ahead and make even more alive out of the living. Here is the work!
A person who wastes time in vain does not notice how he grows old.
People do not know the shadow side of things, namely, in the shadows, in the twilight, in the depths lies what gives sharpness to our feelings.
We would expose the blackmailer, we would catch the thief, we would outwit the dodger and the sly one, but this one ... The actions of simple and honest people are sometimes so mysterious!
About life
When you lose one of your friends, you forgive everything for a while.
The only way to get rid of dragons is to have your own.
Oh, how many worries, how many worries. No, being desperate is much more pleasant. You doze off and don't expect anything.
The real war starts all of a sudden.
When you are warm and soft, it is wiser to doze off and keep quiet, my dear.
Children need to be pampered - then real robbers grow out of them.
Sometimes it's better to spend a little time in order to save it later.
Let's take life as it is. Rains rain, but there are miracles, and amazing transformations, and comforting dreams.
The main thing
A fairy tale is told not in order to hide, but in order to reveal, to say with all its might, with all its might, what you think.
I am not a magician. I'm just learning. But for the sake of those I love, I am capable of any miracles.
Glory to the brave who dare to love, knowing that all this will come to an end. Glory to the madmen who live for themselves as if they were immortal—death sometimes retreats from them.
Trusting nothing and no one is death. To understand everything is also death. And indifference is worse than death.
Someday they will ask: what can you present, so to speak? And no connections will help you make your foot small, your soul big, and your heart fair.
Love, love each other, and all of us at the same time, do not cool down, do not retreat - and you will be so happy that this is just a miracle!
Quotes based on the works of E. Schwartz "Ordinary Miracle",
"Shadow", "Dragon", "Tale of Lost Time",
scenarios "Cinderella", "Snow Queen"
Evgeny Lvovich Schwartz (1896-1958) tried to keep a diary more than once, but any systematic study was not easy for him. It was only in the last seven years of his life that he was able to force himself to write daily: it became an exercise in self-discipline and an attempt to find his own style not only in drama (“We must finally learn to write!”).
“I was afraid, horrified, if I was deaf and dumb. Or rather, not dumb. After all, I have lived my life and seeing and hearing - can't you tell me about all this? Recorded May 21, 1952. As a result, the diary quickly turns into memoirs about childhood and youth, and the “Phone Book” was compiled from the records of 1955-1956: Schwartz used the pages of his huge notebooks to create almost 200 portraits of his contemporaries.
1. About family
Evgeny Schwartz with parents Maria Fedorovna and Lev Borisovich and younger brother Valentin. Maikop, 1917 WikiReading“I lived a difficult life, but I spoke and wrote simply, not even rustic, dependent, stupid. Annoyed the teachers. And of the parents, especially the father. They had already firmly decided that “nothing would come of me”. And my mother was in the heat of reprimands, or rather disputes, because I always senselessly and ugly snapped at any of her remarks, I said several times: “People like you grow up as losers and commit suicide.”
Evgeny Schwartz was born into a family where "something came out of everyone." Father, Lev Borisovich Schwartz (1875-1940), a talented surgeon, played the violin wonderfully - and all Jewish relatives were bright and musical, arranged evenings with recitations and performances. The Schwartz were famous as improvisers and wits - noisy, bright, quick-tempered. The Russian maternal relatives, the restrained and thoughtful Shelkovs, were no less artistic: the whole family played in the Ryazan amateur theater, and Evgeny Lvovich's mother, Maria Fedorovna (1875-1942), received praise in the provincial press like a strong actress.
Having discovered that their son Zhenya was not only deprived of an ear for music, but also incapable of simple recitation, intelligent parents did not hide their disappointment. The already shy teenager could only console himself with his doom:
“It seems to me that everyone looks after me and notices that I am a clumsy boy, and they talk about it. And then I think: “Now, if they knew that a future suicide was walking past you, then they would probably look differently than they do now. With fear. Sincerely"".
2. About sad endings
“I admired the brave boy, I admired the song, I read it calmly and happily, and suddenly Gavroche fell down dead. I experienced it as a real misfortune. “Fool, fool,” I cursed. To whom did it apply? To all. To me for making a mistake in thinking that Gavroche would live to see the end of the book. To the soldier who shot him. To Hugo, who was so ruthless that he didn't save the boy. Since then, I have re-read the book many times, but always skipping the scene of Gavroche's murder.
Yevgeny Schwartz at the rehearsal of his play The Shadow at the Comedy Theatre. Leningrad, 1940 Wikimedia Commons “The horror of stories with a bad ending” has haunted Schwartz since childhood: he recalls how he plugged his ears, not wanting to listen to the tale of Thumbelina, being sure that she was doomed. Parents used this: “If, for example, I refused to eat a cutlet, my mother began to tell a fairy tale, all the characters of which fell into a hopeless situation. “Eat up, otherwise everyone will drown.” And I finished eating, ”he recalled on August 27, 1950. Already a teenager, having read "War and Peace", Schwartz was disgraced when adults discovered that he did not know how the duel between Pierre and Dolokhov ended, as usual, skipping all the "dangerous" places.
If in Andersen's "Shadow" the Scientist is executed, then in Schwartz's variation for a severed head, there is suddenly living water. And so it will always be. The author of several dozen plays and screenplays, he escaped hopelessness even in the drama One Night (1942), which tells about besieged Leningrad. It is not for nothing that in The Ordinary Miracle, Emilia reprimands the writer-master: “It is a shame to kill heroes in order to touch the cold and stir up the indifferent. I can't stand it."
3. About favorite writers
“It is curious that other people's poems annoyed me. I praised one Blok without reading it. Pushkin did not open up to me. Lermontov did not understand. Of course, I grasped something from my time, from my contemporaries, but unconsciously. I read two of Mayakovsky's poems, printed, it seems, around that time in the New Satyricon, and I was delighted. It seemed to me that we have something in common. But he did not look for his other poems, did not feel the need. "Then somehow."
Yevgeny Schwartz, student of a real school. Maykop, 1911 WikiReading Already at the age of eight, Schwartz was sure that he would become a famous writer - a "novelist". Without composing a single line, embarrassed to write because of the terrible handwriting, he took blank sheets of paper and simply filled them with wavy lines. At the age of 15, Schwartz began to write poetry. They seem imitative, but the author himself admitted that he did not focus on anyone A parody of them by cousin Anton Schwartz - accurate, according to Yevgeny - looked like this: “The table was quadrangular, / Four corners at the ends. / He was studded with an executioner's robe, / Creepy as the chimeras of Notre Dame.. As a teenager, he really stumbled upon the line “The Night Kissed Their Eyes” from Alexander Blok’s drama “Puppet Show” and began to extol the poet, without reading, however, any poems or other plays. And already being an accomplished playwright, Schwartz will be surprised to find that if someone influences him, then unloved writers:
“I love Chekhov. It’s not enough to say I love him - I don’t believe that people who don’t love him are real people. When Chekhov is admired in my presence, I feel such pleasure, as if it were a close person, personally close to me. And in this love, consciousness plays an important role, that it is unthinkable for me to write like Chekhov, in his manner.<…>And romantics, storytellers and others like them do not cause me a feeling of a miracle. I think it's easy to write like that. I write like this myself. I write with a pleasure that is not at all like the one with which I read works like mine. Recorded October 4, 1948..
4. About beloved women
"In our real Maikop Alekseevsky real school, where Schwartz studied from 1905 to 1913. there was a special expression: "solka". It meant to annoy the one he was in love with if he quarreled with her. Do not approach her at the party. Deliberately caring for another. One of ours, a rude-looking kurkul, said that in love “solka” is the most important thing. and Yurka Yuri Vasilievich Sokolov(1895?-1918) - a close friend of Schwartz. He said that after these words he felt respect for him. That was more than inaccessible to me - it simply never occurred to me to be cunning, to offend Milochka deliberately in order to punish. I was directly and openly in love, and nothing more. And Milochka wanted me to dominate, to be strict and demanding.
Lyudmila (Milochka) Krachkovskaya. Maykop, 1912
© Vagrius Publishing HouseThe first wife of Evgeny Schwartz is actress Gayane Khalaydzhieva (Kholodova). 1920s
From the book of Evgeny Schwartz "Vertebrae of bygone days". Moscow, 2008
© Vagrius Publishing HouseSchwartz and Milochka Krachkovskaya had known each other since early childhood. In 1912, courtship grew into a romance, if you can call it that, a relationship in which a young man is so embarrassed to make a date that he simply runs around the city every day in the hope of meeting his beloved. This relationship lasted a year and a half, and that's when Schwartz started writing. He suddenly realized that in a poem you can "dominate" and invent whatever you want. Subsequently, youthful indecision turned out to be the opposite. In 1919, offering his hand and heart to the actress Gayane Khalaydzhiyeva (she performed on stage as Gayane Kholodova), he said that he would fulfill her every wish. “And if I say: jump into the Don?” she asked. Schwartz jumped over the parapet and, right in his overcoat, galoshes and hat, rushed into the cold November river. In April they got married.
5. About sweets in white clothes and sausage
“On the morning of the first day of my independent life, I went out to Tverskaya and bought bread, a newspaper and, on reflection, a box of sweets - sweets in ruffled white paper clothes. Immediately the great thought dawned on me that no one could force me to dine here. More precisely, there is the first. And I bought a pound of sausage from Chichkin This refers to one of the stores of the dairy products chain owned by A. V. Chichkin., deciding that this will be my lunch. The maid, with huge bright eyes of hatred, silently brought me a samovar. I drank tea for a long, long time, ate, and accidentally ate a whole pound of sausage brought for dinner. I read The Russian Word, and at the appointed hour the teacher of Latin appeared In a real school, Latin was not studied, but for admission to the Faculty of Law, it was necessary. It was possible to master the Latin gymnasium course on their own and then pass an exam at the educational district., another Moscow grief.
Moscow City People's University named after A. L. Shanyavsky on Miusskaya Square. 1913 Archive of the Center for Historical and Urban Planning Research After graduating from the Maikop Real School in 1913, Schwartz went to Moscow to study Latin with a tutor and go as a volunteer to the Shanyavsky People's University Now the Russian State University for the Humanities.. Rather, this is how the parents imagined the life of their son, to whom he solemnly sent a postcard with a building on Miusskaya Square. In fact, things were somewhat different. Waking up closer to one in the afternoon, 17-year-old Schwartz bought magazines and chocolate, lay in bed, and in the evenings went to the circus or opera (it was not possible to get tickets to a good drama theater). Parental money was dwindling, and even the dismissal of the Latin teacher did not help to save money. The university was abandoned after several lectures: melancholy rolled over from theoretical reasoning Abstract knowledge was not given before either: Schwartz never learned the Russian alphabet in his entire life, “didn’t believe in the depths of his soul ... neither in cases, nor in prefixes” and could not stand literary concepts..
And yet, despite the freedom and idleness, there was no joy: lack of money, a sense of guilt, and Moscow, unfriendly to the provincial, interfered. Six months later, the failed student came to the family for Christmas - unshorn and overgrown, in trousers with fringes, in worn shoes with knocked down heels. He looked so miserable that his parents allowed him to stay in Maykop. Since then, Schwartz forever disliked Moscow:
“Small shops, small cinemas, beer houses, gray, half-drunk, in caps and boots, people who don’t go anywhere in the evening, but hustle around on the corners of beer houses, near the cinema. Barefoot, terrible, hoarse prostitutes - here I saw them on the street for the first time. So here it is, the capital! This is the limit of the dreams of the Maikop intelligentsia, the city of people from whom something has come out. Deception, mirage, fiction of the elders" From an entry dated August 22, 1952..
6. About timidity and courage
"Him Schwartz writes about himself in the third person to make his self-portrait more authentic. His hands tremble so much when he pays for a ticket to the Arrow that the cashier looks out the window to look at the nervous passenger. If she had known that it didn't really matter to him whether he went today or tomorrow, she would have been even more surprised. He, due to his weakness, had already fallen into dependence on an insignificant circumstance - he did not believe that they would give him a ticket, then he hoped, then again fell into despair. He managed to remember the grievances of his whole life, until a tiny queue of four people led him to the semicircular window of the cash register.
Nikolai Zabolotsky with his wife and son From the book of Evgeny Schwartz "Vertebrae of bygone days". Moscow, 2008 Vagrius Publishing House Schwartz more than once bitterly admitted to self-doubt, to my invincible timidity when confronted with any officials and just employees. In 1914, languishing in hated Moscow and experiencing the collapse of his first novel, he decided to go to war as a volunteer, but gave in to the need to go to the offices. Paying the fare on the tram, getting a fee, sorting out the contract - all this caused a feeling of doom, dependence on petty circumstances. At the same time, cowardice disappeared when it came to serious things. Refusal to renounce the convicted Oberiut poet Nikolai Oleinikov Nikolai Oleinikov was arrested on July 3, 1937. According to the practice of that time, at the next meeting in the Writers' Union, those present had to explain their connections with the enemy of the people. Schwartz said that this news came as a complete surprise to him and he had nothing to say. He was asked to recall examples of Oleinikov's sabotage in the cinema (they were co-authors of several scripts), but Schwartz replied that the success or failure of the films could not be explained by sabotage. or helping the family of the arrested Nikolai Zabolotsky, apparently, was given easier than the need to negotiate with the ushers and cashiers.
7. About cans of sunflower oil and poverty
“In high, one and a half meters, cans splashed sunflower oil - the entire capital of the theater. Money was falling every day, and so special cans were ordered and everything that was due to us was turned into oil. The cans were leaking, which worried us a little, but the experts consoled us, saying that this was inevitable. Our personal cans fit under the bunks. One - with my student jacket turned into sunflower oil, lifting, monthly salary. Just before we left, dad arrived and, knowing how bad things were for me, brought a second can, painted red-brown. It was all our possessions."
Scene from "Gondla" by Nikolai Gumilyov. Rostov-on-Don, 1921 On the left - Anton Schwartz in the title role, Gayane Khalaydzhieva - Lera, "wolves" - M. Ego, I. Nikolaev, R. Kholodov, E. Schwartz - Snorre WikiReading Schwartz spent 1918-1921 in Rostov-on-Don, where he became an actor in the youth amateur theater "Theater Workshop". The repertoire included several plays, including The Gondla. He responded kindly about the performance and promised to help with the move to Petrograd. The theater arrived on October 5, when the poet had already been shot. Petrograd met coldly: the audience left after the first act - either because of the level of performances, or because of the inability to sit in an unheated room for a long time. The actors fried potatoes in the same Rostov oil, which never went on sale, and at night Schwartz loaded coal in the port. Having lasted one season, the Theater Workshop fell apart, but Schwartz and his wife remained in the city. They worked part-time with pair sketches in a farce theater, receiving two million rubles per evening. This was enough to buy a few sandwiches with brown bread and herring.
8. About fame and success
“For the first time in my life, I experienced what success is at the Youth Theatre, at the premiere of Underwood. I was stunned, but I remembered the special, obedient animation of the hall, I enjoyed it, but with the incredulity inherited from my mother.<…>However, Kharms quite noticeably despised the play from the very beginning. And I understood why. Marshak watched the performance sternly, flashing his glasses, then, two days later, looking away, he said that if you write a play, then like Shakespeare.<…>And in my experience, as if nothing had been added. I took up the new play as if it were my first, and so it has been for the rest of my life.”
A scene from the performance of the Leningrad Youth Theater "Underwood". 1929 WikiReading Having changed acting to writing, Schwartz began to publish a lot: from 1923 to 1928, several dozen publications were published (newspaper feuilletons, articles on the topic of the day, children's stories and one-day poems for the magazines "Chizh" and "Ezh"), signed by him name, as well as pseudonyms Shchur, Grandfather Saray, Brownie and Edgar Pepo. During these years, he closely communicates with the "Serapion brothers" "Serapion Brothers"- an association of young prose writers, poets and critics, which arose in Petrograd on February 1, 1921. The members of the association were Lev Lunts, Ilya Gruzdev, Mikhail Zoshchenko, Veniamin Kaverin, Nikolai Nikitin, Mikhail Slonimsky, Elizaveta Polonskaya, Konstantin Fedin, Nikolai Tikhonov, Vsevolod Ivanov. and around Marshak, but colleagues perceive him as a person who speaks much better than he writes.
After the premiere of the play "Underwood" on September 21, 1929, Schwartz realized that he was a playwright and should write plays. But what does "should" mean?
“I needed fame not to feel superior to others, but to feel equal to others. I, having done what I did, calmed down so much that I dropped my hands. Marshak was surprised: “I thought that you would start writing book after book, you can’t stop!”
But at the age of 30, and at 60, Schwartz could not bring himself to get to work and start a new thing for weeks.
9. About the war
“The bomb destroyed the house where the “nine” was A gastronome at the corner of Konyushennaya Square and Zhelyabova Street (now Bolshaya Konyushennaya).. Exploded under the arches of the gate. And there were crowds of passers-by. And their corpses were thrown to the middle of Konyushennaya Square. And our fire brigade, together with the units of all the surviving neighboring houses, carried out excavations in the ruins of the house. And the bodies were taken away on trucks. This is what the third, close impact of the bomb did, which, despite its deafening nature, seemed so mechanical, so insignificant. idiotic. It was difficult for me to determine then, and even now it is not easy to explain why the German planes seemed to me an idiotic misunderstanding. A combination of martinet stupidity and the automatism of a machine. Something that feels like a shooting range. A shot - and, in case of a hit, a dry clicking, and a flat, stupidly painted tin bird flaps its tin wings. Here is a very rough translation of a very clear feeling. What is happening is terrible. Terribly stupid."
Telegram to Boris Zon from Evgeny Schwartz from the evacuation. Congratulations on May 1st. 1942 WikiReading When the war began, Schwartz came to sign up for the people's militia. He prudently kept his hands behind his back, but when the papers were drawn up and it was left to sign, everything was revealed: with such a tremor, the military commissar said, it was impossible to shoot. Without getting to the front, Schwartz remains in Leningrad: he speaks at recruiting stations, writes anti-Hitler skits and plays for the radio, and at night he is on duty on the roof of the writers' house on the Griboyedov Canal (on the neighboring roof he extinguished "lighters", as they called incendiary bombs, philologist Boris Tomashevsky). Right there in the attic, Schwartz's second wife, Katerina Ivanovna Zilber, set up a health unit: "If they kill, then together." Once Yevgeny Lvovich said to the poet and translator Sergei Spassky, who was on duty with him:
“The main meanness is that if we survive, we will talk about what we have experienced, as if it is interesting. But in fact, what we are experiencing is, first of all, unheard-of, frantic everyday life.
Having refused to evacuate in October, by the end of autumn, the Schwartz realized that this was no longer a matter of honor, but of survival. They were taken out of the blockade by plane on December 11, 1941. Things could be taken no more than 10 kg per person, but parting with a heavy typewriter seemed unthinkable. I had to destroy a suitcase of manuscripts - the entire archive that had accumulated over 45 years of life.
10. About losses
“Real happiness, with all its madness and bitterness, was rarely given. Once, strictly speaking. I'm talking about the 29th year. But suddenly, after so many years, it sometimes seems blurred to me: there is no return to the past, there will be no future, and I seem to have lost everything.
Ekaterina Ivanovna Schwartz. Early 1950s WikiReading Happiness with madness and bitterness is about the beginning of an affair with Ekaterina Ivanovna Zilber. By the time they met at the end of May 1928, both were married (she is married to composer Alexander Zilber, brother of Veniamin Kaverin). On April 16, 1929, Shvartsev had a daughter, Natasha, and in October, Evgeny Lvovich left the family for Katerina Ivanovna, who had already parted with her husband for six months. Katerina Ivanovna and Evgeny Lvovich have been together for almost 30 years - "An Ordinary Miracle", a hymn of reckless love, is dedicated to her, the very Mistress, who accepts the folly of her husband-wizard with tenderness and annoyance.
Last year, Schwartz wrote very little: many months of bed rest after heart attacks drove him into apathy, he could not work, life in Komarov was reduced to the expectation of death, which he called "a day of incredible length." Leonid Panteleev recalled how Schwartz tried to joke: “I'm trying my luck. Subscribed to the thirty-volume collection of Dickens. I wonder what volume this will happen on? It happened at the third, his favorite Pickwick Club, on January 15, 1958. Schwartz's last words were "Katya, save me."
Images: A shot from the film "An Ordinary Miracle" based on the play of the same name by Evgeny Schwartz. Directed by Mark Zakharov. 1978
© Mosfilm Film Studio
Sources
- Binevich E. M. Eugene Schwartz. Chronicle of life.
- Schwartz E. L. I live restlessly… From the diaries (compilation, preparation of the text and notes by K. N. Kirilenko).
- Schwartz E. L. Leningrad phone book.
- Schwartz E. L. Calls of the past.
- Memories of Evgeny Schwartz.
“A person who wastes time in vain does not notice how he is aging” / E. Schwartz
PHOTO: Rusf.ruBased on the plays by Schwartz, films were made that became cult: "Shadow", "Kill the Dragon" ... The author created fairy tales in space, but the plots and characters of his works are real and recognizable. That is why many of the playwright's creations were banned (both in the Stalin era and for a long time after it). They looked too much like political satire, which is worth the words of one of the heroes of the play "The Dragon": "The only way to get rid of dragons is to have your own ..." or "But let me, if you look deeply, then I personally am not to blame for anything. I was taught that way! .. Everyone was taught, but why did you turn out to be the first student, brute like this!" What are the stories...
Evgeny Schwartz Born in Kazan on October 21, 1896 in the family of a baptized Jew Lev Schwartz and Maria Shelkova, Russian by birth. In 1914, the young man entered the law faculty of Moscow University, but dropped out two years later, deciding to devote himself to theatrical art. In the spring of 1917 he was drafted into the army. After the October Revolution, Schwartz joined the "volunteer army" (association of military units of the Whites in the South of Russia), participated in the legendary "Ice Journey" Kornilov to the Kuban, received a concussion during the storming of Yekaterinodar and, as a result, a tremor, which he could not get rid of all his life. After demobilization, Schwartz entered the Theater Workshop in Rostov-on-Don, from where he moved to St. Petersburg with the troupe. In performance reviews "Theatrical Workshop" critics noted the unique plastic and voice data of Schwartz and predicted a brilliant acting future for him. Despite this, he left the stage, trading the stage lights for ink and paper.
At first he worked as a journalist in Donetsk, where he wrote poetic feuilletons for local magazines and newspapers under the pseudonym "Grandfather Sarai". In 1924, he returned to St. Petersburg again and got a job in the children's editorial office of Gosizdat, under the direction of Samuil Marshak. During these years, the writer was close to the OBERIU group, which included Daniil Kharms and Alexander Vvedensky. Like many Oberiuts, he wrote children's stories and poems for the magazines "Chizh" and "Hedgehog". “Opponents of the anthropomorphism of fairy tales argued that even without fairy tales, a child hardly comprehends the world. They managed to capture key positions in pedagogy. All children's literature was taken under suspicion. The only thing they thought children's writers were allowed to do was create some optional add-ons to textbooks," Schwartz recalled. In this atmosphere of continuous "makeweights" the writer, he tried his hand at dramaturgy.
In 1929, Schwartz's play "Underwood" was staged at the Youth Theatre. Despite the warm reception of the premiere, many of the writer's inner circle rated the work very low: "If we are to write plays," he recalled the words Marshak- something like Shakespeare." Evgeny Lvovich continued to stubbornly seek his style. In 1934, the director of the Leningrad Comedy Theater N. Akimov persuaded him to write something comedy, but for adults. This is how the play "The Adventures of Hohenstaufen" appeared - a satirical work with fabulous elements in which the struggle between good and evil forces takes place in a realistically described Soviet institution, where the manager of the department, Vyryov, turns out to be a real ghoul, and the cleaning lady, Kofeykina, is a good fairy. Hans Christian Andersen: "Naked King", "Shadow" and others. In his plays, the playwright combined fairy-tale poetics with small everyday details that made his heroes modern - Many of his works turned out to be "undesirable" to the authorities. In 1940, already staged play "Shadow" was withdrawn from the theater repertoire immediately after the premiere.
During the war years, the writer worked as a host of "radio chronicles", for which he wrote poems, songs, stories and feuilletons. In 1941, in collaboration with Mikhail Zoshchenko he wrote the play "Under the lime trees of Berlin". After the evacuation from besieged Leningrad to Dushanbe, Schwartz began work on the play "The Dragon", which was delivered after the war. After reviewing the director's revisions of The Dragon, Schwartz expressed in a letter to the director one of the main principles of his dramaturgy: “Miracles are beautifully invented. If a miracle, even for a moment, causes bewilderment, requires additional explanation, the viewer will be distracted from very important events. Entertained, but distracted. The human souls crippled by the Dragon, the Dragon itself, which is defeated, but not completely - all this was too reminiscent of reality - the performance was banned until 1962. Despite the failures, the writer did not leave the world of fairy tales.
Since 1944, Schwartz has been working on one of his most striking works. For a long time he searched in vain for the name: "Bear", "Merry Wizard", "Mad Bearded Man", "Obediant Wizard" ... until he came to a simple and ingenious phrase - "Ordinary Miracle". "What a strange name! If a miracle means extraordinary! And if ordinary - therefore, not a miracle. The clue is that we will talk about love. A young man and a girl fall in love with each other - which is common. They quarrel - which is also not uncommon "They almost die of love. And finally, the strength of their feelings reaches such a height that it begins to work real miracles - which is both surprising and usual," he wrote in the prologue to the play.
Actor and director Mikhail Kozakov he recalled how in 1948 in Komarovo he attended the first reading of The Ordinary Miracle. Then it was also called "Bear" and the author attached a wrapper from sweets "Bear in the North" to the first sheet of the work. After everyone had read the text, the poet and playwright Anatoly Mariengof turned to a colleague: “The play is what you need. But now hide it and don’t show it to anyone,” and added, referring to the 13-year-old Kozakov. “And you, Mishka, don’t tell anyone what you listened to.”
Schwartz died, leaving a rich legacy of drama for subsequent generations, but never found many wonderful theatrical and film productions of his works.
"Evening Moscow" offers you a selection of famous quotes from the plays of the great storyteller.
Ordinary Miracle (1956)
"When you lose one of your friends, you forgive the rest for a while."
"I've been chasing you for three days to tell you how indifferent I am to you."
"I have no time to court. You are attractive, I am attractive - why waste time here?"
"I wanted to talk to you about love. But I'm a magician. And I took and gathered people and shuffled them, and they all began to live in such a way that you laughed and cried. That's how I love you. Some, however, worked better, others worse, but I have already managed to get used to them. Do not cross out! Not words - people. "
"God knows what... Hey, you... Retinue... Look for something in the first-aid kit... I lost consciousness, only feelings remained... Subtle... Barely definable... Whether I want music and flowers, or to kill someone."
"What you call love is a little indecent, quite funny and very pleasant."
"And you know that only once in a life falls in love a day when they succeed."
"Hey, you there! Scaffold, executioner and a glass of vodka. Vodka for me, the rest for him. Quickly!"
"A man will make a statue out of a dead stone - and then he will be proud if the work was successful. And go ahead and make it even more alive out of a living stone. This is work!"
"It is their lovers who seem especially alien. Everything has changed, but their own have remained as they were."
Dragon (1944)
"The work is small. Worse than embroidery. In each of them you have to kill a dragon."
"In the Black Mountains, not far from the woodcutter's hut, there is a huge cave. And in this cave lies a book, a mournful book, written almost to the end. No one touches it, but page after page is added, to the previous ones, added every day. Who writes? World! Mountains, grasses, stones, trees, rivers see what people are doing. They know, recorded all the crimes of criminals, all the misfortunes of those who suffer in vain. From branch to branch, from drop to drop, from cloud to cloud, they reach a cave in In the Black Mountains, human complaints and the book grows ... Having looked into this book once, he will not rest forever.
"The real war starts suddenly."
"Oh, how many worries, how many worries. No, being in despair is much more pleasant. You doze off and do not expect anything."
"When you are warm and soft, it is wiser to doze off and keep quiet, my dear."
Shadow (1940)
"A person is easiest to eat when he is sick or gone on vacation. After all, then he himself does not know who ate him, and you can maintain the most wonderful relationship with him."
"Listen, people are terrible when you fight with them. And if you live in peace with them, it may seem that they are wow."
"One banker of the third day even transferred his gold teeth abroad. And now he travels abroad and back all the time. Now he has nothing to chew food with at home."
"Pay no attention to the fact that I smile. In our circle, in the circle of real people, they always smile just in case. After all, then whatever you say can be turned this way and that."
"To understand everything is also death."
“Suddenly it seemed to me that you are just the person whom I have been looking for all my life. It used to seem - in voice and in speeches - here he is, such a person, but he comes closer, and you see - this is not at all. it's late, he's come too close. It's a terrible thing to be beautiful and short-sighted."
Naked King (1934)
"You are so innocent that you can say absolutely terrible things."
"Since his majesty declared that our nation is the highest in the world, we have been ordered to completely forget foreign languages."
Tale of Lost Time (1940)
"A person who wastes time in vain does not notice how he grows old."
"Sometimes it's better to take a little time to save it later."
Once, in a conversation with Yevgeny Schwartz, the writer Yuri German, the author of famous works in the spirit of socialist realism, said: “It’s good for you, Zhenya, fantasize and write whatever you want. You are a storyteller!" “What are you, Yura, I write life,” Schwartz replied to this. “The storyteller is you.” He believed that a fairy tale is told not in order to hide, but in order to reveal, to say with all your might, in a loud voice, what you think.***
Chamberlain. Excuse me, do you speak foreign languages?
Minister. No. Since His Majesty declared that our nation is the highest in the world, we have been ordered to completely forget foreign languages.
Naked king
***
Valet (quietly). Gentlemen weavers! You are respectable, old people. Respecting your gray hairs, I warn you: not a word about our national centuries-old traditions consecrated by the Creator himself. Our state is the highest in this world! If you doubt it, you, regardless of your age... (Whispers something in Christian's ear.)
Christian. Can't be.
Valet. Fact. So that children with inclinations to criticism are not born from you. Are you Aryans?
Henry. For a long time.
Naked king
***
Henry. Well, now tell me the truth.
Burgomaster Well, what are you, son, like a little one - the truth, the truth ... I'm not some kind of layman, but the Burgomaster. I have not told myself the truth for so many years that I forgot what it is, really. It turns me away from her, throws me away. Really - you know what it smells like, damn it? Enough, son. Glory to the dragon! Glory to the dragon! Glory to the dragon!
The Dragon
***
Burgomaster Every dog jumps like crazy when you let him off the chain, and then he runs into the kennel.
The Dragon
***
Lancelot. Hey Miller! I saw you cry with delight when you shouted to the burgomaster: “Glory to you, dragon slayer!”
1st citizen. It's right. I cried. But I did not pretend, Mr. Lancelot.
Lancelot. But you knew that he didn't kill the dragon.
1st citizen. I knew at home... but at the parade... (She spreads her arms.)
The Dragon
***
Behind the wall, people crush each other, cut brothers, strangle sisters ... In a word, everyday, everyday life goes on.
Ordinary miracle
***
I knew a man of extraordinary courage. He went with a knife to bears, once even went to a lion with his bare hands, however, he never returned from this last hunt. And this man fainted, accidentally pushing the Privy Councillor. This is a particular fear.
Shadow
***
And the sovereign took up the theater. But they say that this is even worse than running the state.
Shadow
***
Burgomaster OK. What's in the city?
Jailer. Quiet. However, they write.
Burgomaster What?
Jailer. The letters "L" on the walls. It means Lancelot.
Burgomaster Nonsense. The letter "L" means - we love the president.
Jailer. Yeah. So, do not plant those who write?
Burgomaster No, why not. Plant.
The Dragon
***
Boy. Mom, who is the dragon running away from all over the sky?
All. Shh!
1st citizen. He's not running, boy, he's maneuvering.
Boy. Why did he curl his tail?
All. Shh!
1st citizen. The tail is tucked in according to a premeditated plan, boy.
The Dragon
About a man and a woman
* The best decoration for a girl is modesty and a transparent dress.
* I've been chasing you for three days to tell you how indifferent I am to you.
* Ah, I once loved him, and then I terribly hate such people.
* I have no time to care. You are attractive, I am damn attractive - why waste time?
* It is their lovers who seem especially strangers. Everything has changed, but theirs remained the same.
* What you call love is a bit indecent, quite funny and very pleasant.
About a human
*Listen, people are terrible when you fight them. And if you live with them in peace, it may seem that they are wow.
* A man will make a statue from a dead stone - and then he will be proud if the work was successful. And go ahead and make even more alive out of the living. Here is the work!
* A person who wastes time in vain does not notice how he is aging.
* People do not know the shadow side of things, namely, in the shadows, in the twilight, in the depths lies that which gives sharpness to our feelings.
* We would expose the blackmailer, we would catch the thief, we would outwit the dodger and the cunning one, and this one ... The actions of simple and honest people are sometimes so mysterious!
About life
* When you lose one of your friends, you forgive everything for a while.
* The only way to get rid of dragons is to have your own.
* Oh, how many worries, how many worries. No, being desperate is much more pleasant. You doze off and don't expect anything.
* The real war starts suddenly.
* When you are warm and soft, it is wiser to doze off and keep quiet, my dear.
* Children need to be pampered - then real robbers grow out of them.
* Sometimes it's better to spend a little time in order to save it later.
* Let's accept life as it is. Rains rain, but there are miracles, and amazing transformations, and comforting dreams.
The main thing
* A fairy tale is told not in order to hide, but in order to reveal, to say with all its might, in a loud voice what you think.
* I'm not a magician. I'm just learning. But for the sake of those I love, I am capable of any miracles.
* Glory to the brave who dare to love, knowing that all this will come to an end. Glory to the madmen who live for themselves as if they were immortal—death sometimes retreats from them.
* To believe nothing and no one is death. To understand everything is also death. And indifference is worse than death.
* Someday they will ask: what can you present, so to speak? And no connections will help you make your foot small, your soul big, and your heart fair.
* Love, love each other, and all of us at the same time, do not cool down, do not retreat - and you will be so happy that this is just a miracle!
M i n i s tr (timidly). Hello!
A d m i n i s t r a t o r. BUT?
M i n i s t r. I said hello!
A d m i n i s t r a t o r. See you!
Bear. Goodnight. (Exits.)
Trakt and rshch and k. Good night. Just don't find it for you, you can't find peace anywhere. Lock yourself in a monastery - loneliness will remind you of her. Open a tavern by the road - every knock on the door will remind you of it. Do not laugh!
D a m a I have learned to cry. You recognize me, but you don't know me. I became vicious. Especially lately. No tubes?
Trakt and rshch and k. Tubes?
D a m a I smoke lately. Secretly. Sailor tobacco. Hell Potion. From this tobacco the candle went out all the time in my room. I also tried drinking. Did not like. Here's what I've become now.
Trakt and rshch and k. You have always been like that.
D a m a I?
Trakt and rshch and k. Yes. You have always had a stubborn and proud disposition. Now it affects in a new way - that's the whole difference. T r a k t i r s ch i k. It's all the same. I'm happy to see you.
D a m a Me too. The more stupid. OK. I have learned to cry now. Just laugh or scold. Let's talk about something else, if you don't want me to swear like a coachman, or neigh like a horse. You! Keep answer! How dare you not kiss her?
Bear. But you know how it would end!
Master. No, I do not know! You didn't love the girl!
Bear. Not true!
Master. Did not love, otherwise the magical power of recklessness would have seized you. Who dares to reason or predict when high feelings take possession of a person? Beggars, unarmed people throw kings off the throne out of love for their neighbor. Out of love for the motherland, the soldiers trample on death with their feet, and she runs without looking back. Wise men ascend to heaven and dive into hell itself - out of love for the truth. The earth is being rebuilt out of love for beauty. What did you do out of love for a girl?
Bear. I gave it up.
Master. Magnificent act. And you know that only once in a life falls in love a day when they succeed. And you missed your happiness. Goodbye. I won't help you anymore. Not! I'll start bothering you with all my might. What did I bring ... I, a merry fellow and a naughty one, spoke because of you like a preacher. Come, wife, close the shutters.
I suffer unbearably. Well, judge for yourself, I returned to my homeland. So? Everything around is great. Right? Everything blooms and rejoices, as in the days of my youth, only I am not at all the same! I ruined my happiness, I missed it. That's horror, right? As people die without bread, without water, without air, so I die because there is no happiness for me, and that's all.
E m and l and me. It's funny, but I can't laugh. When you lose one of your friends, you forgive the rest for a while... (Sobs.)
Let. Just don't leave. I can't be lost here alone anymore. Why haven't you come for so long? No, no, don't answer me, don't, I don't ask. If you didn't come, then you couldn't. I do not reproach you - you see how meek I have become. Just don't leave me.
Bear. No no.
Princess. Death came for me today.
Bear. Not!
Princess. True true. But I'm not afraid of her. I'm just telling you the news. Every time something sad or just remarkable happened, I thought: he will come - and I will tell him. Why didn't you walk for so long!
Bear. No, no, I went. Walked all the time. I only thought about one thing: how I will come to you and say: "Do not be angry. Here I am. I could not help it! I have come." (Embraces the princess.) Don't be angry! I came!
Princess. Well, that's good. I'm so happy that I don't believe in death or grief. Especially now that you've come so close to me. No one has ever come close to me. And he didn't hug me. You hug me like you have a right to. I like it, I like it very much. Now I will hug you. And no one dares to touch you. Let's go, let's go, I'll show you my room where I cried so much, the balcony from which I looked to see if you were coming, a hundred books about bears. Let's go, let's go.
Master. Sit down. Let's mourn together.
E m and l and me. Oh, how I would like to get to those wonderful countries that are told about in novels. The sky is gray there, it often rains, the wind howls in the pipes. And there is no such cursed word "suddenly" at all. One follows from the other. There, people, coming to an unfamiliar house, meet exactly what they were waiting for, and, returning, find their house unchanged, and still grumble about it, ungrateful. Extraordinary events happen there so rarely that people do not recognize them when they do finally come. Death itself looks understandable there. Especially the death of strangers. And there are no magicians, no miracles. Young men, having kissed a girl, do not turn into a bear, and if they do, then no one attaches importance to this. An amazing world, a happy world ... However, forgive me for building fantastic castles.
Master. Yes, yes, don't, don't! Let's take life as it is. Rains rain, but there are miracles, and amazing transformations, and comforting dreams. Yes, yes, comforting dreams. Sleep, sleep, my friends. Sleep. Let everyone around you sleep, and lovers say goodbye to each other.
