History of satirical magazines satirikon and new satirikon. Magazines "Satyricon" and "New Satyricon" and their employees. A. Averchenko New Satyricon of Arkady Averchenko

Students 133 groups

Yakovleva Olga

Shadrinsk, 2008

Satyricon…………………………………………………………………..3

A.T. Averchenko ……………………………………………………..….5

“Two crimes of Mr. Vopyagin”……….7

Sasha Cherny…………………………………………………………………8

Poems…………………………………………………………………………….10

Taffy………………………………………………………………………..11

"Woman's Book"…………………………………………………………..14

Bibliography………………………………………………………….16

Satyricon

Speaking about the main directions of Russian poetry of the Silver Age, poetic schools and individual groups, one cannot fail to mention another association that entered the history of literature under the name "Satyricon".

The Satyricon was that outlet which is always lacking in a regime in the old sense of the word. The regime was royal, life was so-so, and there were plenty of characters and plots for ridicule. This is how the "Satyricon" appeared - a caustic and mocking magazine.

April 1, 1908 became a symbolic date. On this day, the first issue of the new weekly magazine "Satyricon" was published in St. Petersburg, which then had a noticeable impact on public consciousness for a whole decade. The first editor-in-chief of the magazine was the artist Aleksey Alexandrovich Radakov (1877-1942), and from the ninth issue this post was transferred to the satirist, playwright and journalist Arkady Timofeevich Averchenko.

The editorial office of the magazine was located on Nevsky Prospekt, at number 9. The Satyricon was a cheerful and caustic publication, sarcastic and evil; it interspersed witty text with caustic caricatures, amusing anecdotes were replaced by political caricature. At the same time, the magazine differed from many other humorous publications of those years in its social content: here, without going beyond the bounds of decency, representatives of the authorities, obscurantists, and Black Hundreds were uncompromisingly ridiculed and scourged. The position of the magazine in the last paragraph was determined not so much by writers and journalists with Jewish roots - V. Azov, O. Dymov, O. L. D'Or, but by purebred Russians: A. Averchenko, A. Bukhov, Teffi and others who gave anti-Semites far more violent rebuff than their Jewish counterparts.

Such satirists as V. Knyazev, Sasha Cherny and A. Bukhov were printed, L. Andreev, A. Tolstoy, V. Mayakovsky were printed, famous Russian artists B. Kustodiev, I. Bilibin, A. Benois performed with illustrations. In a relatively short period of time - from 1908 to 1918 - this satirical magazine (and its later version, The New Satyricon) created a whole trend in Russian literature and an era that was unforgettable in its history.

A special merit in such a loud popularity of the "Satyricon" largely belonged to the gifted poets - satirists and humorists who collaborated in the magazine.

The reader quickly appreciated everything that the satirists tried to convey to him. All of Russia was reading stories, poems, humoresques, epigrams, parodies, which complemented the brilliant caricatures, cartoons and drawings. The "Satyricon" attracted readers by the fact that its authors practically refused to denounce specific high-ranking persons. Nor did they have "compulsory love for the junior janitor." After all, stupidity remains stupidity everywhere, vulgarity remains vulgarity, and therefore the desire to show a person such situations when he himself is ridiculous comes to the fore. Objective satire is being replaced by "lyrical satire", self-irony, which allows revealing the character "from the inside". This was especially pronounced in poetry, where the object of a satirical or humorous image is a lyrical hero.

The work of Sasha Cherny, Teffi, P. Potemkin, V. Goryansky, V. Knyazev, E. Vensky and other leading poets of the Satyricon was presented on its pages in various genres: poetic cartoons, pamphlets, humoresques, parodies, fables, epigrams.

During the heyday of the journal, in 1911, its publisher M. G. Kornfeld published in the journal library “The General History, processed by the Satyricon”. The authors of this brilliant parody-satirical work were Teffi, O. Dymov, Arkady Averchenko and O. L. D'Or; the book was illustrated by the satyric artists A. Radakov, A. Yakovlev, A. Junger and Re-Mi (N. Remizov).

The popularity of Teffi and Averchenko in those years is difficult to find analogues. Suffice it to say that Nicholas II himself read these authors with pleasure and bound their books into leather and satin. And it is no coincidence that the beginning of the “General History” was instructed to “process” Teffi, knowing whose favorite writer she was, one could not be afraid of censorship objections. Thus, speaking against the Duma, the government, officials, bureaucrats of all stripes, the Satyricon, with the highest goodwill, unexpectedly fell into the role of legal opposition; its authors managed to do much more in politics with their poetic and prose works than any politician.

However, in May 1913 the magazine split over financial issues. As a result, Averchenko and all the best literary forces left the editorial office and founded the New Satyricon magazine. The former "Satyricon" under the direction of Kornfeld continued to publish for some time, but lost the best authors and, as a result, closed in April 1914. And the "New Satyricon" continued to exist successfully (18 issues came out) until the summer of 1918, when it was banned by the Bolsheviks for its counter-revolutionary orientation.

Alas, the fate of the satyriconians was not happy. Someone left their homeland, someone was repressed and died ... An attempt to revive the magazine by Russian emigrants was not successful. But a considerable legacy remains, which must certainly find its reader.

BUT rkady

Timofeevich Averchenko

Born March 15, 1881 in Sevastopol in the family of a poor businessman Timofey Petrovich Averchenko.

Arkady Averchenko graduated from only two classes of the gymnasium, because due to poor eyesight he could not study for a long time and, moreover, as a child, as a result of an accident, he severely injured his eye. But the lack of education was eventually compensated by the natural mind, according to the writer N. N. Breshkovsky.

Averchenko began to work early, at the age of 15, when he entered the service in a private transport office. He did not stay there for long, just over a year.

In 1897, Averchenko left to work as a clerk in the Donbass, at the Bryansk mine. He worked at the mine for three years, subsequently writing several stories about life there (“In the Evening”, “Lightning”, etc.).

In 1903, he moved to Kharkov, where on October 31 his first story appeared in the newspaper Yuzhny Krai.

In 1906-1907, he edited the satirical magazines "Bayonet" and "Sword", and in 1907 he was fired from his next job with the words: "You are a good person, but you are not good for anything." After that, in January 1908, A. T. Averchenko leaves for St. Petersburg, where in the future he will become widely known.

So, in 1908, Averchenko became the secretary of the satirical magazine "Dragonfly" (later renamed "Satyricon"), and in 1913 - its editor.

Averchenko has been successfully working for many years in the magazine's team with famous people - Teffi, Sasha Cherny, Osip Dymov, N.V. Remizov (Remi), and others. It was there that his most brilliant humorous stories appeared. During the work of Averchenko in the "Satyricon", this magazine became extremely popular, based on his stories, plays were staged in many theaters of the country.

In 1910-1912, Averchenko repeatedly traveled around Europe with his Satyricon friends. These travels served as Averchenko rich material for creativity, so that in 1912 his book “The Expedition of the Satyriconists to Western Europe” was published, which made a lot of noise in those days.

After the October Revolution, everything changed dramatically. In August 1918, the Bolsheviks considered the New Satyricon to be anti-Soviet and closed it down. Averchenko and the entire staff of the magazine took a negative position in relation to the Soviet government. In order to return to his native Sevastopol (in the Crimea, occupied by the whites), Averchenko had to get into numerous troubles, in particular, to make his way through the Ukraine occupied by the Germans.

Since June 1919, Averchenko worked in the newspaper "South" (later "South of Russia"), campaigning for the help of the Volunteer Army.

November 15, 1920 Sevastopol was taken by the Reds. A few days before that, Averchenko managed to sail away on a steamer to Constantinople.

In Constantinople, Averchenko felt more or less comfortable, because at that time there were a huge number of Russian refugees, just like him.

In 1921, in Paris, he published a collection of pamphlets A Dozen Knives in the Back of the Revolution, which Lenin called "a highly talented book ... of a White Guard embittered to the point of insanity." It was followed by the collection "A Dozen Portraits in Boudoir Format".

Averchenko did not stay in any of these cities for a long time, but moved on June 17, 1922 to Prague for permanent residence.

In 1923, the Berlin publishing house Sever published his collection of émigré stories, Notes of the Innocent.

Life away from the Motherland, from the native language was very difficult for Averchenko; many of his works were devoted to this, in particular, the story "The Tragedy of the Russian Writer".

In the Czech Republic, Averchenko immediately gained popularity; his creative evenings were a resounding success, and many stories were translated into Czech.

"New Satyricon"

In the spring of 1913, a scandal erupted in the Satyricon, which led to Averchenko and Co.'s break with Kornfeld. Different sources give different reasons for what happened.

The first version was presented by L. Evstigneeva (Spiridonova) in the monograph “The Journal Satyricon and the Satyricon Poets” (M., 1960). The researcher claims that “the immediate cause was monetary misunderstandings and a quarrel between the main shareholders of the journal: the publisher Kornfeld, on the one hand, and Averchenko, Radakov and Remizov, on the other. According to the agreement concluded between the publishers and employees, Averchenko, Radakov and Remizov had the right to control the economic part of the magazine, and Kornfeld undertook not to increase the subscription and retail fees for the magazine. However, from January 1, 1912, Kornfeld arbitrarily increased the retail fee, which subsequently caused a drop in circulation. Averchenko, Radakov, Remizov accused Kornfeld of having ceased to allow them to control business books, arbitrarily spent the amounts belonging to the magazine, and began to delay the payment of fees to employees. Kornfeld, in turn, complained about the desperate financial situation of the magazine, forcing him to do business in a new way. As a result of the quarrel, most of the leading employees left the magazine and founded a new one - on a cooperative basis.

We find the second version in Vasily Knyazev's article "Cement" Satyricon "" (Literaturny Leningrad. 1934. No. 31): Averchenko, Re-Mi and Radakov literally grabbed Kornfeld by the throat and secretly obtained from other employees the right to receive 50 percent of the profit, that is, they began shareholders. Then they allegedly decided to completely eliminate the publisher from business, developing a plan to ruin him by releasing unprofitable literature on expensive paper, with a luxurious cover, etc. In the end, guardianship was established over the affairs of M. G. Kornfeld in the person of Schoenfeld and Kugel, who, however, refused to give the magazine to the trio of friends in exchange for some monetary compensation, which led to a breakup.

Finally, the third, similar to the previous two, the motive for leaving Satyricon is cited in her memoirs by the second wife of Alexei Radakov, E. L. Galperina: “According to the condition concluded between the senior staff of Satyricon and the publisher, after increasing the circulation of the magazine to a certain figure these employees were to become shareholders of the magazine<…>Well, Alyosha (Radakov. - V. M.) said with his characteristic ease, one day I was sitting in the place where the tsar walks on foot, and I heard a conversation between our accountant and Kornfeld's uncle - a very nasty type who came from somewhere from Poland and intervened in all matters. The accountant told him that the magazine had long ago stepped over the circulation stipulated by the agreement. When I heard that, I jumped out like crazy. Well, then I raised such a terrible storm and persuaded Averchenko and others to leave the Satyricon and organize their own magazine.

The scandal at the Satyricon received extensive press coverage. On May 19, 1913, the Russian Rumor newspaper published the following statement by Averchenko: “In view of the rumors spread in literary circles by Mr. M. G. Kornfeld that the reason for my departure from the Satyricon is material disagreements and settlements with the publishing house, I hereby categorically declare that my departure from the journal was caused mainly by the impossible working conditions in which I and my comrades were placed by Mr. Kornfeld, and also by a whole series of violations of elementary literary and publishing ethics.

Before that, on May 15, Averchenko, Radakov and Remizov appealed to the St. Petersburg Commercial Court with a claim to protect their material interests. On May 18, Kornfeld referred his conflict with former employees to the court of honor at the All-Russian Literary Society. They agreed to take part in the trial.

Two court sessions were held - on June 5 and 7 - under the chairmanship of Vladimir Dmitrievich Nabokov (father of the writer Vladimir Nabokov). Litigation further confused the situation.

Perfectly aware of the global nature of what happened, Kornfeld tried to bring back and reason with his former employees. “The path of a progressive art journal in Russia is so difficult and fraught with material, not to mention other, troubles, and it is so difficult, almost hopeless, to create a new literary and artistic organ, that it is deliberately and ruthlessly to break this long and successfully serving weapon against darkness, stagnation and violence is a direct crime against literature, against society ”(New Satyricon. 1913. No. 21)," he wrote, but ... in vain. On July 7, Kornfeld, through the Satyricon and other newspapers, said: “... seeing in a number of actions of the above-mentioned persons signs of such acts that are subject to the conduct of the crown court, after the refusal of gentlemen Averchenko, Radakov and Remizov from a professional court of honor, I am forced to turn to the defense crown court. I stop any further controversy ”(Satyricon. 1913. No. 28).

Already in the 1960s, Kornfeld wrote: “The closer I come to the end of my memoirs concerning the history of the Satyricon, the more incomprehensible and absurd its end seems, if we consider the end of my break with my closest collaborators: Arkady Averchenko, Radakov and Remizov ( Re-Mi), who left the editorial staff without warning.<…>When asked what the real reasons for the split were, I answered that I didn’t know - no one wanted to believe me ... When friends and well-wishers suggested that I take on the role of mediators and conciliators, I rejected these proposals that did not In fact, reconciliation presupposes a quarrel. We never quarreled.<…>After the editorial defeat that had taken place, I had a thankless and difficult task, in the order of involuntary improvisation, to re-establish the release of the Satyricon with a new composition of employees ”(Kornfeld M. G. Memoirs).

Of course, what happened created a lot of problems for Kornfeld, but the position of Averchenko, Radakov and Re-Mi was not easy either. They, too, had to start a new publishing venture from scratch. Thinking about this, they left, taking with them a book of addresses of old subscribers of the magazine. There was one more "but", the most significant - the lack of money to open their own business. A friend of Re-Mi, artist Nikolai Radlov, came to the rescue and borrowed five thousand rubles. According to Radakov, they returned this amount a year later, and a couple of years later they were able to buy their own printing house and had a large publishing house. Radlov was thanked: since 1913 he became a permanent employee of the New Satyricon.

In a record short time, Averchenko, Radakov and Re-Mi created the New Satyricon partnership (they didn’t think about the name for a long time), in which all three became owners on equal shares. Together with them, P. Potemkin, Teffi, V. Azov, O. L. D'Or, G. Landau, A. Benois, M. Dobuzhinsky, K. Antipov, A. Yakovlev, V. Voinov and other. Ark later joined them. Bukhov.

The following remained in the old Satyricon: V. Knyazev, B. Geyer, V. Tikhonov, as well as young poets V. Goryansky, S. Marshak (Dr. Friken), V. Winkert, N. Agnivtsev, D. Aktil and others . Vasily Knyazev, who immediately became the "star" of Kornfeld's "Satyricon", wrote the evil poem "Arkady Leikin" after the departed Averchenko. It began with the glorification of the "king":

He was like a whirlwind. In love with life and the sun

Healthy in body, strong, young,

He drunk us, bursting into our window,

And blinded, shining between us like a star.

Burning in the fire of immeasurable success

Charmingly fooling around and shalya,

He laughed, and the whole country, like an echo,

Rejoicing, echoed the fun of the king.

And it ended like this:

His animal laughter, so dear to us at first,

Bored, having lost the piquancy of novelty;

And it is in vain to look for inscriptions of sadness in it,

Spiritual value, ideological whiteness.

Cheerful, rude laughter. Clown laugh...

Arkady Timofeevich once again praised Knyazev for his talent, very soon forgave him and took him to his new magazine.

The first issue of the New Satyricon was published on June 6, 1913, that is, literally a month after the scandal and in the midst of the trial! The picture on the cover hinted that in the new edition the reader would find all the traditional headings of the Satyricon. He portrayed a cab: Averchenko on the box, holding the reins, on the seat - Radakov, Re-Mi, littered with suitcases-departments. Signed under the picture:

“The move of the Satyriconites to a new apartment.

Fat Satyricon (carefully): - Have you got everything?

Say everything.

Have you taken the Wolfberries?

Feathers from the tail, a mailbox - did you put it?

Here, here.

Haven't left anything?

Say nothing.

Well, okay, Arkady, touch with God - Nevsky, 65.

In the same issue of the magazine, an official statement appeared:

“We, the undersigned, employees of the New Satyricon, inform the readers that we no longer find an opportunity to cooperate in the Satyricon magazine published by M. G. Kornfeld and are leaving the editorial staff in corpore. For the further direction and content of this journal, published by M. G. Kornfeld, we decline all responsibility.

The first address of the editorial office is Nevsky, 65. Subsequently, it was located on Nevsky, 88, in the courtyard to the left, on the third floor. It was a big apartment. In one room - the editorial office, in the other office of the head of the office and publishing house, in the third - the office; two rooms were occupied by the expedition. The remaining three rooms were inhabited by people who had nothing to do with the New Satyricon. In the same apartment there was a warehouse of the publishing house.

Kornfeld made frantic attempts to save the Satyricon; the magazine was published until the end of 1913, a subscription was announced for 1914. For some time, the "Satyricon" and the "New Satyricon" existed simultaneously. However, very soon the first, deprived of the best authors, sunk into oblivion ... Averchenko, thus, became one of the owners and editor of the country's leading satirical and humorous publication.

Having adjusted the work of the journal, Averchenko, Radakov and Re-Mi no longer indulged the editorial office with their visits - the mechanism had already been launched and did not fail. Radakov did not even bother to bring drawings - they were sent for them to his home. Arkady Timofeevich also finally had the opportunity to take on work matters “at home”.

In 1913, he became so wealthy that he was able to rent a three-room apartment in the new apartment building of Count M.P. Tolstoy at 15/17 Troitskaya Street (now Rubinstein Street). This building, built in 1912 according to the project of the architect F. Lidval in the style of "northern modern", is to this day an architectural landmark of St. Petersburg. Here Arkady Averchenko for the first time in his life got his own corner! His childhood years were spent in cramped quarters; there is no need to talk about the amenities at the Bryansk mine or in Kharkov. In the early Petersburg years, the writer wandered around the furnished rooms. And finally, the first in my life (and, looking ahead, the last!) my permanent apartment.

Let's mentally visit Arkady Timofeevich. Let's turn off Rubinstein Street into a semicircular arch, decorated with a gothic wrought iron lantern. Before us is the courtyard of the Tolstoy House with magnificent arcades leading towards the Fontanka embankment. The writer lives in the first entrance on the right. He has already seen us, because the window of his office looks at the front door of the front entrance. We need the second floor, apartment 203. But you won't have to climb up on foot - there is a steam elevator in the house.

The owner himself opens the door and invites us into the spacious hallway.

Well, this is my apartment, he says. - I'm happy with it. Central heating, hot water, telephone. What else do you need? .. The area is good - Five corners. Again, not far from work - the street overlooks Nevsky Prospekt, almost next to the editorial office of the New Satyricon.

Directly in front of us is the door to the office. Let's go. A large room, the walls lined with lilac cloth, a huge library. There is a desk by the window. Arkady Timofeevich laughs:

Here every day there is a deaf, secret, ferocious struggle between me and my maid Nadya. Every morning I look through the correspondence, bills ... I read and no longer need to throw on the floor. I'm going to the editor. Nadya comes, sweeps the floor, picks up all the papers from it, carefully smooths it out and puts it between the candlestick and the clock on the desk. In the evening I come, I throw this pack on the floor again. In the morning Nadya comes and puts it in again... We never talk about it, because the mortally warring armies do not negotiate with each other!

Of course, the owner is joking - he has an excellent relationship with Nadia.

From the study, a door leads to the bedroom. Here, on the walls, the cloth is of a calm blue color. Next to the bed, littered with books and newspapers, oddly enough, a gramophone and ... bars! Arkady Timofeevich smiles again:

The most boring thing for a person is to dress. I do it with music. You tie your shoes - and listen to Sobinov! And the barbells ... Do not be surprised - sometimes I like to exercise my muscles.

The third room is a dining room and a reception room at the same time. Fruits in vases, fresh flowers. Cream wallpaper, on the walls - paintings by Repin, Bilibin, Dobuzhinsky, Benoit, a close friend of Re-Mi ...

The windows of the office, bedroom and dining room overlook the courtyard. People are running downstairs. The question involuntarily arises: what other celebrities live here? Arkady Timofeevich willingly says:

I am proud that I live in the same house with Ludwig Chaplinsky - three-time champion of Russia in weightlifting. By the way, Chaplinsky's "Sanitas" sports hall operates in the house. Kuprin and I visit him when we have time. I often see Alexander Ivanovich Spiridovich. Well, you probably know who this is - the head of the imperial palace guard. Remember, he had big troubles in 1911, after the assassination of Stolypin? He was even under trial, but the case was dismissed at the emperor's insistence... The most remarkable person in our house is Prince Mikhail Mikhailovich Andronikov. Yes, yes, the same one - from the entourage of Grigory Rasputin! Sometimes Grigory Efimovich with a company comes here at night. Terribly noisy, waking up all the tenants. The owner of the house, Countess Tolstaya, they say, does not even know how to get rid of this Andronikov. He is filing lawsuits against him. And my maid, the prince's servant, was told that he arranged a semblance of a chapel behind a special screen in his bedroom. Imagine - with a crucifix, an lectern, a sprinkler, icons and even a crown of thorns! However, on the other side of the screen, the prince calmly indulges in the most vile debauchery. The fact that he is a homosexual, everyone knows ... Yes! Not far from here, literally across the road, is the Trinity Theater of Miniatures, with which I collaborate. Very comfortably. I go to performances based on my plays. Sometimes I go to visit Levkiy Zheverzheev, he lives in the same house where the theater is. Zheverzheev is a collector, so he spends all his money on buying books and theatrical relics. He organized literary and artistic “Fridays” where Bakst, Altman, Khlebnikov, Mayakovsky, Malevich, Filonov, and the Burliuk brothers visit. I do too, but rarely. And Zheverzheev also started a “Friday album”, in which guests leave commemorative notes, drawings, impromptu. Good idea... Well, now let's have lunch. My cook is a great cook!

This is how Arkady Timofeevich lived on Troitskaya - comfortable and cozy. His apartment was remembered not only by the staff of the New Satyricon. We managed to talk to the nephew of the writer Igor Konstantinovich Gavrilov, who told that his mother for many years recalled her trip from Sevastopol to Averchenko in St. Petersburg at that time. She was shocked by her brother's apartment. She admired everything she saw with him, especially the vacuum cleaner and the home telephone, which seemed to her signs of a different, "foreign" use.

Several sketches "from life on Troitskaya" were left to us by Arkady Averchenko's colleagues. Efim Zozulya recalled: “The door was opened for me by the maid Nadya, a small blonde with smart, keen eyes. Before my arrival, she spoke on the phone, and, letting me into the dining room without any questions, she hurried to continue the conversation. The phone was on Averchenko's desk, and in order to hold the phone to an outsider, that is, not sitting at the table, he had to bend down. Somehow the device was so inconveniently located. And Nadia spoke, bending over Averchenko's shoulder. The conversation was not businesslike. It was about Nadia's relatives, about bows to some godfather, about someone's arrival. In my further visits to Averchenko<…>I have seen Nadya more than once in such a position, which did not prevent Averchenko from working. Nadia, a simple girl, but very tactful and intelligent, behaved freely, with dignity, felt at home, and maintained a surprisingly warm tone in the apartment and in dealing with numerous and varied visitors. This was typical for Averchenko, because the source of this tone was, of course, the owner ”(Zozulya E. D. Satirikontsy).

And here is a fragment of Nikolai Karpov's memoirs "In the Literary Swamp", stored in the RGALI funds and posted on the Internet. Once Karpov met the poet Yevgeny Vensky on the street and said that he was going to the editorial office of the New Satyricon with a fairy tale in verse "Father Frost".

“- Poems with you? Vensky inquired in a businesslike tone. - So we're going now to Averchenko's apartment. He is at home.

It's embarrassing. I hardly know him.

Here's the weirdo! He's going to eat you, right? He hasn't bitten in a long time. Abandoned this manner. And if you don't know me, I'll introduce you. Stomp!

At that time, Averchenko rented two furnished rooms, with a separate entrance on Troitskaya. He himself opened the door. Tall, clean-shaven, dressed in a well-tailored suit from the famous Teleska, Averchenko looked like a prosperous, prosperous entrepreneur.

Here, Arkady Timofeevich,” Vensky began in a buffoonish tone, “allow me (he said so: “allow me”) to introduce you to a talented poet. An accident happened to him.

Averchenko looked at him in bewilderment, invited us to sit down and put a treat on the table - a box of chocolates.

Misfortune? he asked.

Misfortune, Arkady Timofeevich. He wrote a fairy tale and sleeps and sees it printed in the Satyricon.

Averchenko looked at me questioningly. I silently handed him the manuscript. He read the story and stated:

Good. I will print it. Will go to the next room.

And he stood up, signaling that the audience was over.

Arkady Timofeevich,” Vensky unexpectedly cried out, “you are a god! By God, God! And even more than God! If, say, I now ask God for an advance, the old man will never give me. He is very angry with me, and he is stingy, like Harpagon. And you, Arkady Timofeevich, will give it without much displeasure. So you are above God.

How? Averchenko, who kept a serious face, inquired curtly.

I warn you, Arkady Timofeevich, - I do not take advances less than a ruble, - said Vensky.

Ruble? Averchenko was surprised.

Pyatishnitsa is required, dear Arkady Timofeevich, Pyatishnitsa. Now I am raising my standard, and in the Balabinsk hotel the lackeys are giving me an ovation, like some Hamlet, a Danish prince, - Vensky joked, - I began to give them a two-kopeck tip, like some Pierpont Morgan. Know ours! Yes, and drink to your health less than five, ashamed. I will only embarrass you!

Averchenko handed him five rubles, and Vensky profusely expressed his gratitude in buffoonery.

The above fragment perfectly shows the professional editorial qualities of Averchenko: even the little-known author N. A. Karpov, even the beggar and drunk Yevgeny Vensky could count on his patronage if they brought talented manuscripts. Apparently, Arkady Timofeevich could forgive a lot for his talent: in 1914-1915, the works of Alexander Grin and Vladimir Mayakovsky appeared in the New Satyricon, which were notorious in Petrograd.

Alexander Stepanovich Green was known as an unbalanced, heavy drinker, prone to swearing and arguing in public places under the influence of wine vapors. According to Yefim Zozulya, Green could come to the New Satyricon at the end of the working day and lie down to sleep on the editorial sofa. On one of these evenings, Zozulya tried to find him a place in a hotel, but no one wanted to accommodate a completely drunk Green. Finally, a place in one of the hotels was found. However, Alexander Stepanovich was extremist - right in the lobby, he stopped in front of a peaceful old woman in a dark mantilla and turned to her with extraordinary malice:

Do you require everyday stories from us? Are we supposed to describe your greasy hoods? So I declare to you: I will not describe your (epithets followed) hoods. Damn (it was said otherwise) mother! And do not think to demand. I spit on your whole vile, vile life together with your king (the definition followed)!

The old woman almost fainted, and Zozulya shuddered, because two officers were standing nearby and could hear the last words about the emperor. Already in the hotel room, sitting on the couch, Green continued to let out such abusive remarks at the old woman's address that Zozulya could not stand it and began to laugh.

What did this old woman do to you? - he asked. - Why do you think that she definitely needs everyday stories?

After some time, having sobered up and remembering the episode with the old woman, Green also began to laugh (Zozulya E.D. Satirikontsy).

Despite the peculiarities of Green's behavior, Averchenko greatly appreciated his talent and treated him with human warmth. He often repeated, looking after Alexander Stepanovich: "A strange man, but an interesting and talented one." The first book published by the publishing house "New Satyricon" in 1915 was Green's story "The Incident on Dog Street". Here is what the writer Lev Gumilevsky recalled about this in his essay “Far and Near”:

“Somehow I brought a story, which seemed to me humorous, to the New Satyricon. Averchenko rarely visited the editorial office, his secretary Efim Davydovich Zozulya received visitors, then still young, not yet bald, but already important, getting fat, dressed in a black jacket and gray trousers. He took the manuscript and told me to call in a week or two. The story was accepted, and I went to the editor. At Zozulya's table, as a guest, sat a well-shaven, well-dressed gentleman, a little overweight, handsome and lazy. This was Averchenko. He greeted me and politely handed me the book, which he had just examined from the face, spine and edge.

This is our first book, - he said, - do you like it?

On the gray cover, stamped "Satyricon" in the upper corner was printed "A. S. Green" and the title of the first story, I think it was "The Incident on Dog Street".

I replied that the book was published beautifully.

The poetess of the "New Satyricon" Lydia Lesnaya in the book "Memories of Alexander Green" (M., 1972) left interesting evidence about the relationship between Averchenko and Green:

Petersburg. Nevsky Avenue. A thin tall man in a coat of indeterminate color strides along the icy pavement. His hands are in his pockets, his head is pulled into his shoulders, his collar is turned up, and his hat is pulled down to his eyebrows.<…>... a man is in a hurry to finally enter the entrance of house No. 88. He goes up to the second floor. To the right is a door with the inscription "Yaghurt Prostokvasha", to the left - "The editorial office of the journal 'New Satyricon'". He enters. Pleasant warmth covers the man in the overcoat; he heads for the secretary's desk. I look up from the flagship issue of the magazine.

Hello Alexander Stepanovich. Did you bring something?

He holds out a folded sheet of writing paper.

Very well. Tomorrow I will hand it over to Arkady Timofeevich.

Tomorrow?!

The hope for advance collapsed. Small advance...

Tomorrow…

I'll call Averchenko and say that you brought the material. He will allow accounting. Come tomorrow at twelve. Good?

He looks at the table. Silent.<…>Green was considered a gloomy, gloomy person, they said: “He is strange.” He was deeply introverted...

Averchenko's attitude towards Green had the character of patronizing sympathy. He liked to wander with him after editorial meetings along the embankments. It was strange to see them together: a radiant, smiling man of athletic build, always elegant, and next to him was Green, in a dark coat with a turned up collar, pale and gloomy. However, when talking to Averchenko always in an undertone and somewhere far away from the mocking employees, Green began to smile.<…>

I remember such a case.

Alexander Fleet, a lawyer by education, served as a legal adviser in some institution, and suddenly - he wrote a poem! The young poet brought it to the New Satyricon. Came back a week later for an answer.

No, - Averchenko said good-naturedly, - this will not work for us.

Fleet decided never to write a line again.

But - wrote, brought - and the same result. And Fleet, as a sin, really liked the satirical and humorous atmosphere of the editorial office of the magazine. He began to drop in, got acquainted with everyone and became friends with the unsociable Green. Excited about the "returns" of a friend, Green decided to talk to the editor.

Arkady Timofeevich, it’s not for me, of course, to teach you, but Fleet is somehow being treated unfairly. Bukhov reads his poems and does not let him in. Are they so bad, these poems?

Bukhov says that Flit does not have a face, that he “scribbles”, but does not write.

Fleet has absolute literary taste. And you remember how the stories of Yefim Zozulya didn’t go and didn’t go, and Fleet came up with the title “Premature Stories”, and immediately the zest appeared. Remember?

Yes, yes ... Let him write a fable, I'll read it myself.

The battle was won - they liked the fables. Fleet became a permanent employee."

As you can see, no antics of Green could damage the respect that Averchenko had for him. However, Alexander Green could do something outrageous only while intoxicated. But for the young Vladimir Mayakovsky, scandal was a concept of everyday behavior. Literally a few days before the appearance in the editorial office of the New Satyricon, the poet caused an emergency in Stray Dog. On February 11, 1915, from the cafe stage, he read his poem “To you!”, The general pathos of which and obscene language at the end shocked the audience. Some of the ladies fainted. As a result of this speech, a police report was drawn up. Teffi and Alexey Radakov were also present. Nevertheless, two weeks later, on February 26, Mayakovsky's satirical "Hymn to the Judge" appears on the pages of Averchenko's magazine!

Averchenko gave Mayakovsky a job at a very difficult time for the poet, lack of money and even starvation. In search of at least some kind of income, he asked Chukovsky to introduce him to Vlas Doroshevich, however, Doroshevich wrote in a response telegram to Korney Ivanovich: “If you bring me your yellow jacket, I will call the policeman ...” “King of the feuilleton” Doroshevich, apparently, was afraid of Mayakovsky’s reputation . The “king of laughter” Averchenko turned out to be bolder, although we have already spoken about the general policy of rejecting futurism by the “Satyricon” and the “New Satyricon”. Angry and well-aimed criticism, cartoons ridiculing the leaders of this movement repeatedly appeared on the pages of magazines. Let us cite, for example, Vasily Knyazev's poem "Recognition of a Modernist" (1908):

For a new rhyme

We are ready for typhoid

Sing in verse

And deal with it

And get infected

And die!

Arkady Bukhov was especially radical: at the mention of the futurists, he literally began to shake. In 1913, his poem "The Legend of the Terrible Book" was published in the "New Satyricon":

He put on an iron boot

And they drove nails under the nails,

But the exhausted smog did not give out the secret:

The lips were proudly silent.

………………………………….

The convoy sobbed and thought the court,

Suddenly someone said eloquently:

“Oh, your Excellency! Let them bring

Poems of a Futurist.

…………………………………………..

Exhausted silently rose from the ground

In anticipation of a terrible moment.

"Enough! - he said. - Tortured by fire

Subjected to unnecessary insults ...

…………………………………………….

No: iron boots are better.

What secret do you need to know?

Please - be kind!"

Bukhov could not forget the Futurists even in 1921 in exile. “You have, of course, heard about the futurists,” he wrote in the feuilleton “They knock on the skull.” -<…>Once literary elders said: per aspera ad astra - through obstacles to the stars. The literary youth of the futuristic persuasion put it more clearly: through the bazaar - to the station! Other Futurists also worked and wandered along the same path. The futurist Goltzschmit traveled around the cities with lectures and publicly smashed boards on his head. The lecture was called “The way to beauty!”. What does beauty have to do with it - it remained a secret of Mr. Goltzschmit. In any case, it was only clear that the road to beauty had to be punched through oak planks with one's own skull. Futurist Burliuk also gave lectures, but without boards, but with a shoe that he put on the pulpit and said: “This is beauty - and Venus de Milo is a noseless doll.” Futurist Vasily Kamensky read his poem "Stenka Razin"<…>in the circus, sitting astride a horse, facing the horse's butt and holding on to the horse's tail. Will be. There could be hundreds of such examples. Bukhov especially hated Mayakovsky and wrote that he "is noticeable only in a good publication, where everyone writes competently and talentedly, as noticeable as a boil on a healthy body."

However, not all satyricists disliked Mayakovsky. Alexey Radakov, for example, was under his great influence, although he was much older. It was he who brought the poet to Averchenko, who, according to some accounts, told Vladimir Vladimirovich: “You write as you like, it’s nothing that sounds strange, we have a humorous magazine.” It seems that Arkady Timofeevich guessed a great talent in Mayakovsky (at that time Maxim Gorky also drew attention to the poet) and was able to abstract himself from the tomfoolery and outrageous antics for which the young futurist was famous. Averchenko was able to very delicately make it clear to Mayakovsky that his talent imposes a certain responsibility on him.

Listen, Mayakovsky! he often said. - You are an intelligent and talented person, and it is clear that you will have fame, and a name, and an apartment, and everything that happens to all poets and writers who deserve it and achieve it. So why are you mad, walking on your head, clowning in this lousy cabaret "Comedians' Halt" and so on? Honestly, what is it for? You are a freak, right!

When Mayakovsky tried to answer something, Averchenko did not let him do this and turned to one of those present: “No, seriously, tell me, because a person is breaking through open doors! Well, what does he want? What the hell? The guy is young, healthy, talented ... "

Vasily Knyazev expressed his impression of the arrival of Mayakovsky in the magazine: “Mayakovsky is a huge cliff that has collapsed into a quiet pond. He in a short time ... put the entire "Satyricon" on his head ... overflowing the magazine with lyrics, to the detriment of satire and humor.<…>... one could be indignant, hoot, rage, but in the depths of their souls, sensitive (not me, of course) realized that this biologically necessary so that the hippopotamus would come to the Satyricon's china shop and do Messinian atrocities there” (letter to Ark. Bukhov dated May 28, 1935). The very presence of Mayakovsky, his visits to the editorial office, the noisy discussions that accompanied them, the witty and by no means always harmless squabbles with the magazine's employees, with the authorities brought diversity and anxiety to the editorial life. Mayakovsky did not let them get bored, and Averchenko sometimes added fuel to the fire, provoking it. The writer Viktor Ardov recalled: when Mayakovsky was mobilized and his head was shaved, Averchenko remarked: “You always overfulfill everything twice,” hinting that the poet should have shaved only half his head, like a convict.

Mayakovsky took root in the "New Satyricon", in which he published 25 of the 31 poems written during this time and excerpts from the poem "A Cloud in Pants". He liked working with Radakov, who undertook to illustrate the poems “Hymn to the Judge”, “Hymn to the Bribe”, “Hymn to Health”, “Hymn to the Scientist”, realizing that Mayakovsky should be illustrated differently from other poets. Thus, a new creative union was born, which in a few years will still manifest itself in the Windows of Satire ROSTA. Radakov recalled that for a long time he could not succeed in drawing for the ironic Hymn to the Scientist (1915):

Sits all night. Sun from behind the house

again grinned at human ugliness,

and down the sidewalks again prepare

actively go to the gymnasium.

Pass red-eared, but he is not boring,

that a man is growing stupid and submissive;

after all, but he can every second

take the square root.

The illustration turned out to be somewhat unconvincing. Mayakovsky, who himself was an artist by training, looked at the drawing for a long time and said: “And you hide the scientist’s head in a book, let him go into the book with his head.” Radakov did just that. And the drawing won thematically.

Yefim Zozulya testified that Mayakovsky took the affairs of the editorial board of the New Satyricon very seriously, and in the presence of Averchenko behaved "like an obedient boy." At Friday meetings, the poet looked so decent that Pyotr Potemkin, famous for his innocence, even once remarked:

Vladimir Vladimirovich, you are absolutely not rude here.

If it torments you, I can separately go to your house and get nasty, - he answered.

Cooperation in the "New Satyricon" provided Mayakovsky with the opportunity to reach a wide readership, but later, when the magazine was closed by the Bolsheviks as anti-Soviet, the poet wrote that he worked in it "in the discussion of what to eat" ("I myself." 1922).

With the outbreak of World War I, the staff of the New Satyricon, headed by its editor, Arkady Averchenko, took an active patriotic stance. In the last July issue for 1914, an editorial reported:

“When all the people face one great task that unites all - to defend their fatherland, defend their independence, when tens of thousands of families see off their loved ones to the war, when soon people will appear in deep mourning and in churches they will commemorate the dear names of soldiers who fell in battle - then not only laughter, but even a faint smile is an insult to people's grief, people's sadness ... Then laughter is inappropriate - the very laughter that is so needed in peacetime, so loved by everyone.

And, however, we consider it our necessary task, our duty, to contribute at least a tiny share that increases the general enthusiasm, to contribute at least a drop to that huge wave of patriotism, to the elemental ninth wave, which will powerfully lift us all on its sparkling crest to heaven. , forcing to forget the party strife, scores and quarrels of peacetime.

In the terrible hour of trials, let internal strife be forgotten.<…>

At first we wanted to suspend our magazine for the duration of the war. Before the impending great events, in this terrible time for the whole world, our work seemed to us unnecessary to anyone, having no meaning and interest - we were too depressed, like everyone else, by the greatness of the events taking place. But then we said to ourselves:

May everyone in this terrible hour for the motherland benefit his fatherland, as he knows how and how he can ...

We would be happy if the New Satyricon succeeded in capturing our great and terrible time on its pages. Capture our enemies and friends, heroism, suffering, horror, sadness, deceit, beauty and abomination of war.

From now on, the Satyriconists turned their critical talent against an external enemy - the Germans and their allies. The pages of the magazine were filled with feuilletons and caricatures ridiculing Emperor Wilhelm, the Austrians and Turks, and the Bulgarian Tsar Ferdinand. Thoughts about these figures did not leave Averchenko even during the rest. On August 8, 1914, while visiting Kuokkala, he left the following entry in the recently published Chukokkala almanac:

“Not because we are at war with Wilhelm, but in general - I find that Wilhelm is ridiculous. You can make a mistake in one case ... Well, in two! .. Well, in three!

1. I thought that England would be neutral... - I was wrong.

2. I thought that Japan would be against Russia. - Wrong.

3. I never thought that Japan would be for Russia. - Wrong.

4. Thought that Belgium would silently let the Germans through. - Wrong.

5. I thought that Italy would be for the Germans. - Wrong.

6. I thought probably that Italy would be neutral. - Wrong.

7. Hoped for the power of Austria. - Wrong.

Total - 7 errors. These are exactly those 7 troubles for which there is one answer ”(Chukokkala. Handwritten almanac of Korney Chukovsky. M., 2006).

Arkady Timofeevich was not subject to mobilization due to the state of his eyesight. In December 1916, he underwent a full medical examination, as a result of which he was declared "completely unfit" for military service and enlisted in the second-class militia. Two other owners of the "New Satyricon" - Radakov and Re-Mi - served in the rear military automobile school, which trained drivers and motorcyclists. In Chukokkala, Re-Mi's comic drawing of June 28, 1915, in which he depicted himself in a soldier's uniform, with a gun and a shoulder pack, has been preserved. In a comment to this cartoon, Chukovsky wrote: “The artist Re-Mi, while waiting for the call to the army, tried to imagine what he would be like in a soldier's uniform. It turned out to be a ridiculous scarecrow.<…>In fact, in a soldier's uniform, he turned out to be even uglier ”(Chukokkala. Handwritten almanac of Korney Chukovsky). Aleksey Radakov already in the 1920s liked to tell how he was a “military darling” and “ladies just fell, fell, I was such a handsome man!” Since September 1915, Vladimir Mayakovsky worked as a draftsman in the same automobile school, and Viktor Shklovsky taught beginners to drive cars on the Field of Mars. Radakov recalled how they had fun: “Our service was of a rather strange order, even somewhat humorous. We had to quarter the troops that had come from the front. Suppose some unit comes from the front. For example, military vehicles, cyclists come, we had to find the appropriate premises in the city and represent them. For this it was necessary to go to the Duma, to bother and the devil knows what ”(Radakov A. A. Memoirs. Recorded on April 26, 1939. Manuscript. BMM).

Sasha Cherny (he served in the 13th field hospital in the Warsaw region), Vasily Knyazev and Arkady Bukhov were also mobilized, who were immediately demobilized after being called up: the first due to illness, the second due to "unreliability".

In the first years of the war, a wave of patriotism swept through all sections of Russian society. The owner of "Vienna" removed the sign of the institution and replaced it with "Restaurant I. S. Sokolov"; Teffi in July 1916 was photographed for the magazine "The Sun of Russia" in the costume of a sister of mercy. The caption under the picture read: "The famous writer N. A. Teffi, who brought gifts to the lower ranks in the army." Averchenko, on the other hand, wrote about manifestations of heroism at the front, ridiculed rear everyday life: rampant speculation, theft and bribery. In one of the feuilletons of 1915, he argued that an unscrupulous merchant who raises the prices of essential goods should be approached with the question: “Where is your patriotism, which embraces all decent, decent Russia?”

« Editor (sadly). Hm... Mniszek. I think I understand you. Pedigree of the Kaiser?

Writer. Mmm... n-n-no.

Editor. Sorry, I'm very busy. Try to explain what's going on.

Writer (thoughtfully, with conviction). The original, bright character of this woman, the general flavor of her personal life ...

Editor (strictly). Why is there a war here?

Writer. I say it doesn't matter.

Editor. Dear, the reader demands military, topical stories.

Writer. Is it? I didn't hear. Where did you read about it?

Editor. Sorry, I don't have time...( Looks at the writer with hatred.) And where have you seen anyone now read other than stories about the war?

The writer, having failed to please the Editor, leaves with nothing. Following him, the novelist Byashko enters the office, writing according to all the requirements of the “current moment”:

« Byashko. <…>Stay satisfied. It's in the trenches. Mass of shots.

Editor. And are there guns?

Byashko. Everything, everything. Armored forts, machine guns, zeppelins and even land mines.

Editor (lovingly). God! God bless man! Pen luxury! A feast of colors! Life, blood and fire!

Byashko (misheard). BUT? Yes: the hero is bled and thrown into the fire.

Averchenko raised a similar problem, for example, in the feuilleton “Specialist in Military Affairs. From the life of the small press ”(1915), in which he ridiculed amateurs who write about the war and do not understand the meaning of many special terms. The conversation between the editor of the newspaper and the “military observer” described in the feuilleton raises a smile:

“- What a strange thing you wrote:“ The Austrians continuously fired at the Russians from dugouts, directing them at them. What does "them in them" mean?

What is incomprehensible here? Directing them at them means directing dugouts at the Russians!

Can the dugout be directed?

Why, - the military observer shrugged his shoulders, - after all, he is mobile. If you need to aim from it, then it turns in the necessary direction.

So you think that you can shoot out of the dugout?

Why, of course, who wants to - can shoot, and who does not want to - can not shoot.

Thank you. So, in your opinion, the dugout is something like a cannon?

Not in my opinion, but in a military way! the reviewer exploded. - What are you, mocking me, or what? In any newspaper you will find the phrases: “Russians fired from dugouts”, “Germans fired from dugouts” ... The donkey just does not understand what a dugout is!

Arkady Timofeevich also amused himself when he saw manifestations of an exalted attitude to the military theme, which had become fashionable. In his notebook of that time, we found the following sketch:

"- Who you are?

Military…

Thank God! The first military...

Oh no, I'm a military tailor."

Believing in the healing power of laughter, Averchenko often spoke to the wounded in hospitals. One day, in the water from the infirmaries, an interesting incident occurred to him, described in the story "Terrible Boy". However, before quoting from it, we ask the reader to recall the circumstances of the Sevastopol childhood of the writer, namely the hooligan Vanka Aptekarenko, who kept the boys of the Artillery Sloboda in fear. Remembered? Now let's give the floor to Arkady Timofeevich:

“On November 12, 1914, I was invited to the infirmary to read several of my stories to the wounded, who were bored to death in a peaceful infirmary environment.

I had just entered a large ward lined with beds, when behind me, from the bed, a voice was heard:

Hello fraer. What are you doing about pasta?

A tone native to my childish ear sounded in the words of this pale, wounded man overgrown with a beard.

Are you this to me?

How about not recognizing old friends? Wait, you will come across me on our street, you will find out what Vanka Aptekaryonok is!

The terrible boy lay in front of me, smiling weakly and kindly at me.

Childish fear of him for a second grew in me and made both me and him (later, when I confessed this to him) laugh.

Dear Apothecary? Officer?

Yes. - And in turn: - Writer?

Not injured?

That's it. Do you remember how I blew up Sasha Hannibatzer in your presence?

Still would! And why did you get to me then?

And for watermelons from the chestnut tree. You stole them, and it was not good.

Because I myself wanted to steal.

Correctly. And you had a terrible hand, something like an iron hammer. I wonder what she looks like now...

Yes brother, he laughed. And you can't imagine.

Yes, look.

And he showed a short stump from under the blanket.

Where is it you so?

They took the battery. There were fifty of them. And we, this ... less.

In the summer of 1915, Averchenko undertook a trip that was called "Caucasian Evenings" in the press. He spoke to the wounded in the Caucasian Mineralnye Vody and tried to distract these people from heavy thoughts, to cheer them up. The writer deliberately selected pre-war works for public performance, allowing him to defuse the disturbing atmosphere and thoughtlessly laugh. On June 15, 1915, the Pyatigorsk Echo newspaper wrote with gratitude: “This tall man with such a good-natured character and a mocking face came to us at a time when twilight became especially painful and gloomy, when it was so difficult to breathe in the stale air, and said just one word - laugh! We obediently laughed, and somehow it immediately became easier, more cheerful in our souls.

New military realities evoked new themes of creativity: by 1915, in the "New Satyricon" a comic plot was firmly established, born of living conditions under the declared "dry law". On July 19, 1914, as a result of the royal decree on the prohibition of the production and sale of all types of alcoholic products throughout Russia, the trade in alcoholic products was stopped. The protest "alcoholic" humor of the satyricon was friendly to the drinkers. They were so ironic about the "prohibition" that in 1915 they released a whole satirical and humorous collection "Aspen Stake on the Grave of the Green Serpent", in which they skeptically considered the prospect of universal sobriety. The content of this book cannot but cause a smile: Arkady Bukhov "The World History of Drunkenness", Isidor Gurevich "Alcoholism and Medicine", Alexander Roslavlev "Drunken Poems", etc.

Averchenko wrote four feuilletons for the collection: "Aspen stake", "Dry holiday (Neo-Christmas story)", "Hypnotism" (Essay) and "Incomprehensible". In the feuilleton "Aspen stake", which opens the collection, the satirist clearly defined his position:

“Let me cry, the reader is my intimate trusted friend, you know what? On the disappearance of drunkenness in Russia.<…>

Sounds like you should be happy?

NEW YEAR Twelve. The bottle slammed, The baby-year-old looks out the window, My frosty wine hissed fervently in the glass. New desires are alien to me, But will I grieve about When memories bloom About my past happiness? Here again I am a Moscow student, And you are with me, and again

FOR THE NEW YEAR New Year eve. Eternity is boundless. I believe the pensive stars, I believe you, lunar spots! I know whose secret you are moaning, Your sadness is understandable to your heart: The days that you are chasing after me Do not come back. I see bowed eyes. Frozen blissfully in their power

NEW HOUSE Once upon a time with a black cat (What Kipling "by itself") We lived together ... And our calm house was a little warm with a calm love for Vikings and books, and this cool light of spacious loneliness flickered for no one. In vain someone's hearts were caught, as if

NEW AGE Even if you muffle the old English clock with a pillow, loudly beating the last and first minutes of breaking time, and at the same time hide your head under the covers and say to yourself at 11 pm: “Sleep!” - You still can't sleep. The subconscious captures the event: not a year

Birth of Av. "Satyricon" I successfully entered ... M. Bulgakov. Ivan Vasilyevich Arkady Averchenko appeared in St. Petersburg on New Year's Eve, 1908, with eleven rubles in his pocket and hope for good luck. In one of his autobiographies, he even named the date of arrival - December 24th. However, in another

"New Satyricon" 1 In the spring of 1913, a scandal erupted in the Satyricon, which led to a break between Averchenko and Co. and Kornfeld. Various sources give different reasons for what happened. The first version was presented by L. Evstigneeva (Spiridonova) in the monograph “Journal

I. The New World On a cold winter's night - as the transition from the previous century to the new one was taking place - a young man of twenty-six, sitting in a stuffy train car, wrote a letter addressed to a beautiful woman. From the window of the car, a view of the endless, snow-covered

NEW CHAIRMAN, NEW DEAL In March 1982, a year after I retired from Chase Bank, I became chairman of Rockefeller Center Inc. (RSI), which by that time owned not only the Rockefeller Center, but also other real estate. Framework,

New, well, very new I was sent to the village of Novy Gus-Khrustalny district to an old wooden orphanage. It's strange, I practically don't remember bright and beautiful orphanages. All of them were extremely miserable and old, as if the childhood of "such a" child could pass only in

The new century The 20th century has come. Alexandra Alekseevna Mayakovskaya: “In the spring of 1901, Luda finished seven classes. On the occasion of the completion of her course, we decided with the whole family to go to Sukhum, where acquaintances lived. ”In Sukhum, seven-year-old Volodya was interested in a tall tower that stood on

New Year Nikolai Markovich Emmanuel was a great connoisseur of female beauty. Only this can explain my presence with my wife in the company of academicians. I was the only one among them who did not receive this title. There were six academicians. We met New, 1956. We played

"SATYRICON FELLINI" While still studying at the Lyceum, Federico read an edition of the "Satyricon", equipped with rather nasty erotic illustrations. This version was not adapted for teenagers by removing obscene passages. The author of this, which has come down to us in the form

New Year On December 31, friends gathered at Serov's to celebrate the old year and welcome the new one. They remembered how they left Spain on New Year's Eve 1938. Yes, Spain is far away. And a whole year has passed. But how close she is, and how recently they were there, under her bright sky in scorched spaces.

One hundred and six years ago, on April 1, 1908, the first issue of the Satyricon magazine was published in St. Petersburg, opening a new era in the history of Russian humor.

This journal, followed by the New Satyricon, became a unique phenomenon in the history of Russian culture in the early 20th century. Created by a small group of people, these publications for many years determined the main direction of domestic humor, having no equal among the humorous and satirical publications of the early twentieth century.
"Satyricon" was replaced by the old humorous magazine "Dragonfly" (1875-1908), which had completely lost its popularity.

About how the magazine began, N.A. Teffi wrote in her memoirs:

“And somehow the maid reports:
The Dragonfly has arrived.
Dragonfly turned out to be a brunette of small stature. He said that he inherited Dragonfly, which he wants to improve, make it a literary magazine, interesting and popular, and asks me to cooperate. I didn’t like our humorous magazines and answered neither this nor that:
- Mercy. With pleasure, although, in general, I can hardly and probably will not cooperate.
So this was decided. Two weeks later, the maid again reports:
The dragonfly has arrived.
This time Dragonfly was a tall blond. But I knew my absent-mindedness and poor memory for faces, I was not at all surprised and said in a very secular tone:
- Very pleased, we already talked about your magazine.
- When? he wondered.
Yes, two weeks ago. After all, I had you.
- No, it was Kornfeld.
- Really? And I thought it was the same one.
- Do you think that we are very similar?
- The fact of the matter is that no, but since they told me that you are also a Dragonfly, then I decided that I simply did not see it. So you're not Kornfeld?
- No, I'm Averchenko. I will be the editor and the magazine will be called Satyricon.
Then followed an exposition of all those extraordinary prospects about which Kornfeld had already told me..

Still, Teffi did not refuse to cooperate - already in the first issue of the "Satyricon" her story "From the diary of an imprisoned general" appeared. M.G. Kornfeld himself recalled in 1965 about his acquaintance with Averchenko: “Averchenko brought me several hilarious and excellent stories, which I gladly accepted. At that time, I was finishing the reorganization of Dragonfly and the formation of a new editorial staff. Averchenko became her permanent employee at the same time as Teffi, Sasha Cherny, Osip Dymov, O. L. d "Or and others ...".

A. Averchenko

By the beginning of 1908, many of the future “satiriconists” Re-mi (N. Remizov), Radakov, Junger, Yakovlev, Krasny (K. Antipov), Miss. However, the popularity of the magazine remained still low - the very name "Dragonfly" for almost 30 years of the magazine's existence determined the circle of its consumers: "officer libraries, restaurants, hairdressers and pubs," as A. Averchenko wrote. “About the magazine, the average intelligent reader has such a belief that the Dragonfly can only be read between soup and meatballs, waiting for a slow waiter who has entered into a squabble with the cook, or turn it in his hands while the hairdresser lathers your happier neighbor’s cheek”. Thus, the need to change the name became obvious.

According to the memoirs of Averchenko, after "stormy debate" the new name of the journal, proposed by A. Radakov, was approved - "Satyricon". It soon became obvious that this decision was the right one - they started talking about the magazine, and a year later “the name of the magazine firmly entered life and the expressions:“ themes for the “Satyricon”, “a plot worthy of the “Satyricon”, “here is the material for the Satyricon” - dazzled on newspaper columns, in serious political articles. E. Bryzgalova believes that the title "Satyricon" "referenced the reader to the ancient novel of Gaius Petronius the Arbiter from the era of the reign of Nero, characterized by venality and depravity, and hinted at the deplorable situation in modern Russia."

The need for such a journal was obvious. In 1905, after the October 17 Manifesto, hundreds of humorous and satirical magazines began to appear in Russia - Infernal Mail, Bulat, Windbreak, Wagon, Zhupel, Kosa, Masks, Pagliacs”, “Bullets”, “Arrows”, “Fiscal”, etc. A significant part of them was closed on the fifth or sixth issue, or even on the first. However, in the process of restoring social stability, the wave of “free laughter” began to subside, and by 1907 the main directions of satire and humor in society began to be again determined by “Dragonfly”, “Alarm Clock”, “Jester” and “Shards”. "Rough Leykin's humor amused few,- Taffy recalled, - In the newspapers, on the last page, the next anecdote chuckled dejectedly and sharp allusions to the "fathers of the city, eating from the public pie" ... Humorous magazines pulled through the mother-in-law, this inexhaustible topic, free from the censorship pencil ". Therefore, the fact that "five or six people whose only weapons were a pencil, pen and a smile" managed in those extremely harsh conditions to make the Satyricon the leading humorous magazine in a matter of months is an unprecedented phenomenon not only in the history of Russian humor, but also in Russian periodicals. print and in general.

Artists B. Anisfeld, L. Bakst, I. Bilibin, M. Dobuzhinsky, B. Kustodiev, E. Lansere, Dm. Mitrokhin, A. P. Ostroumova-Lebedeva, A. Radakov, Re-mi, A. Junger, A. Yakovlev and others. Writers A. Averchenko, Vl. Azov, I. M. Vasilevsky, L. M. Vasilevsky, K. Antipov, S. Gorodetsky, A. Izmailov, M. Kuzmin, A. Kugel, S. Marshak, O. L. D. Or, A. Radakov, Sasha Cherny, A. Roslavlev, Wanderer, A. Tolstoy , Teffi, N. Shebuev, N.I. Faleev, A. Yablonovsky and others. In addition to them, D. Moor, A.S. Green, V. Mayakovsky, V.A. Ashkinazi, A.S. Brodsky, A. Bukhov. The publisher of the journal was M.G. Kornfeld, the editor until No. 9, 1908 - A. Radakov, and after that - A.T. Averchenko.

The subject of the magazine was very broad - literature, culture, social life. There were special issues dedicated to N.V. Gogol and L.N. Tolstoy. The complete unanimity of the editors was observed in relation to the “modern trends” in literature and art - the mediocrity and pretentiousness of the apostles of new and non-traditional trends were ridiculed with talent, but sometimes with a touch of pity (in the words of Averchenko) to “people offended by fate and God”. A caricature has become famous, in which a staunch underground worker who has endured terrible torment (“they drove needles under his nails”), but did not give out secrets, is read “poems of a futurist” as a last resort, and he is no longer able to withstand this torture. With the outbreak of the First World War, the satyricon decide to suspend the publication of the magazine, believing that it is not the time to have fun, but this decision was not implemented. The magazine was turned into a means of fighting the enemy. Now every issue of the "New Satyricon" is largely devoted to military events.

In 1913, a conflict arose between a group of employees of the editorial board of the Satyricon and the publisher M.G. Kornfeld, which led to a split in the journal. The conflict spilled over into the pages of two magazines. In 1913, materials devoted to the split of the editorial board and the consideration of this case by the court of honor repeatedly appear in the New Satyricon. The editors of the "New Satyricon" were forced to warn subscribers about the bad faith of the former publisher, as well as about the degradation of the children's magazine "Galchonok", which was created largely by those who left the editorial board of the "Satyricon" and after the split of the editorial office remained in the hands of M.G. Kornfeld . Also in the first issue of the "New Satyricon" for 1913, two cartoons appeared, reflecting the conflict in one form or another.

In the middle of 1914, the Satyricon, having lost all the best employees and catastrophically losing subscribers, was forced to close (instead of it, the Lukomorye magazine was sent to subscribers until the end of the year). For the same reasons, the children's magazine "Galchonok" ceased to be published.

The "New Satyricon" partnership, founded on the site of the deceased old magazine, became a publishing center that published many books by domestic and foreign comedians. Many books by Averchenko, Teffi, Bukhov survived up to 12 - 14 reprints. The almanacs "Satyricon" and "New Satyricon" were published. "Aspen stake on the grave of the green serpent", "Theatrical Encyclopedia", "Self-Made Letterman", "Who are we at war with". Two publications became widely known: World and Russian History, processed by the Satyricon and Journey of the Satyriconites to Western Europe, which were repeatedly reprinted.

The February Revolution of 1917 was received enthusiastically by Averchenko and the “satirikonists”. What is important, the magazine, free from censorship, managed to maintain an artistic and satirical level. Seeing the indecision and weakness of the interim government, the “satiriconists” repeatedly turn to him from the pages of the magazine, calling for action and responsibility. At the end of the summer, when the situation became threatening, the "New Satyricon" began to appear with the subtitle "The Fatherland in Danger."
In October 1917, the editorial board of the New Satyricon split. Some of the permanent employees who accepted the October coup went over to the side of the new government and began to actively cooperate with it (V. Knyazev, O l D Or, etc.). those who remained in the journal took a tough anti-Bolshevik stance. The magazine is coming out less and less. In 1917, only 48 issues were published (instead of the usual 52). As for 1918, despite the subscription announcements, which spoke of 52 issues of the journal, the editors managed to publish only 18 issues by August 1918 (in January - two, in February - one, in March - three, in April - two, in May - three, in June - three, in July - three and in August (and actually in July) - one). Then, in August 1918, the journal was closed. Averchenko himself wrote about the reasons for closing the journal: “We drew a caricature of Trotsky in the Satyricon, who is speaking to the workers and peasants - so for this they moved the boot on the Satyricon so that I and my employees fled from St. Petersburg for two years.”

Then, in August 1918, after the closure of the journal, there was a final split in the editorial board. A. Radakov, V. Denis, B. Antonovsky, N. Radlov and others took over the new government. Some of them tried for some time to use the “capital” accumulated during their cooperation with the magazine. So, in 1919, O.L.D. Or published at his own expense “Russian History under the Varangians and Varyags”, adding, in accordance with the new realities, his piece of “Russian History”, released as part of the “General History, processed by the Satyricon”. However, most of the other former "satiriconists" never again referred to this period of their work.

Another part of the editorial staff, who categorically disagreed with the new Soviet order, went into exile (A. Averchenko, N. Teffi, Sasha Cherny, S. Gorny, A. Bukhov, Re-mi, A. Yakovlev and others). In Kyiv, the former "Satyriconists" attempted to publish the weekly newspaper "Devil's Pepper Pot", which had been started in Petrograd immediately after the closure of the "New Satyricon". A significant part of the former satyriconists gathered in the editorial office of the newspaper: A. Averchenko, Ark. Bukhov, Vl. Voinov, Evg. Vensky, A. S. Green, A. I. Kuprin, Willy, V. Fink, Lolo (Munshtein L. G. ), Don Aminado and many others. Vasilevsky (Ne-Letter) became the editor of the newspaper. Don Aminado recalled that "Devil's Pepper Pot" was "an official humorous sheet, unofficially - the center of collective insanity. Everything is unexpected, biting, impudent, unceremoniously. There are no names, only pseudonyms, and then, invented in an instant, right there on the spot.

Noteworthy is the fact that the "New Satyricon" turned out to be one of the most durable satirical anti-Bolshevik publications. Thus, the magazine "Trepach" was closed in the autumn of 1917, "Drum" - on the third issue in February 1918, the weekly "Beach" - on the fifth (June 1918), "Machine Gun" - on the 18th ( March 1918. The numbering of the numbers was continuous starting from 1905. In 1905-1906 5 issues were published, the rest - in 1917-1918). For obvious reasons, only publications published in Ukraine lasted longer than the New Satyricon, in particular, the magazine Sting (Echo of Socio-Political Humor), published in Kharkov and closed only in 1919 on the ninth issue). Therefore, we can cautiously assume that the reason for closing the magazine was other materials published in the last summer issues or the general tough anti-Bolshevik position of the magazine.

In 1917, the New Satyricon partnership began publishing the magazine Drum. Its first issue was published in March 1917. M.S. Linsky (Schlesinger), an artist who worked in many editions of Odessa, the author of sketches, parodies, film scripts, a journalist, art critic, theater entrepreneur, became the editor of the Drum. Since 1915, Linsky contributed to the New Satyricon magazine. In February 1918, the magazine "Drum" was closed (only three issues were published). “I drew a caricature of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in my magazine“ Drum ”, - recalled A. Averchenko, - clap! So they moved their foot along the “Drum”, that only a gaping hole remained”. MS Linsky emigrated through Constantinople to Paris and was shot by the Nazis during the occupation of Paris.

In the same 1917, the New Satyricon partnership undertook the publication of another magazine. They became the Scaffold - "the organ of pamphlets. It will come out on the days of the name day of stupidity and dishonor, ”as stated on the covers. P.M.Pilsky (1876(?)-1941), a writer, critic and feuilletonist, who worked in dozens of central and peripheral periodicals, became its editor. In 1918, Pilsky fled from the Bolsheviks to the Baltic states, where he worked in the newspapers Segodnya and Ezhednevnaya Gazeta, lectured on various topics in the cities of Latvia and Estonia, and was engaged in social and political activities. P. Pilsky later recalled the emergence of the “organ of pamphlets”: “Averchenko owes many, many things. It was not without his help that my first pamphlet magazine in Russia, Scaffold, appeared, because it was also published in the publication of the same Satyricon, with the blessing and consent of Averchenko.

In 1931, in Paris, the former publisher of the Satyricon, M.G. Kornfeld, decided to renew the magazine. Kornfeld recalled: “if you look at the lists of writers and artists of this magazine who ended up in Paris<…>it is not surprising that this synchronicity led to the publication of a magazine that did not differ in the least from its prototype.(Satyricon. 1931. No. 1.С.1.) Don Aminado took Averchenko's place in the magazine. The magazine was an undoubted reader success.

The first issue of the Parisian "Satyricon" was published on April 4, 1931. This date was most likely chosen purposefully, since the first issue of the St. Petersburg "Satyricon" was published almost twenty years before. The design of the Parisian "Satyricon" and its internal structure were also designed in the style of the previous edition. Thematic numbers came out in the same way. However, the main match - in spirit - did not happen, despite the brilliant composition of the staff, announced in the subscription announcement. With minor amendments, the magazine was very reminiscent of the "Satyricon" of the second half of 1913 after the departure of Averchenko and almost the entire editorial board. However, the point, obviously, was not only this - the general semi-impoverished atmosphere of emigrant life, the difficult moods that reigned in it, the pain that did not heal from the forced separation from the homeland - all this made the Parisian "Satyricon" not so much a humorous as a satirical publication. A remarkable phenomenon was the publication in the Parisian "Satyricon" of the novel by Ilf and Petrov "The Golden Calf", printed according to the old spelling. The Parisian "Satyricon" lasted less than a year and closed due to financial circumstances. Only 28 issues were released.

A few years ago, a group of enthusiasts attempted to recreate the magazine "New Satyricon", but only a control copy was made, which was never approved for release. Unfortunately, the reason turned out to be simple - the level of works proposed by the authors was so low that it was simply unacceptable to collect them under this historical name. Moreover, it was supposed to reprint the old materials of the Satyricon in each issue, which would have made the contrast even more striking. Perhaps this problem will be solved in the future, because such a publication is necessary. After all, satire and humor (and not foolishness and antics, which these concepts are usually substituted for today) are one of the best means of comprehending reality and understanding “what is good, what is bad, and what is mediocre.”

"Satyricon" is a Russian literary and artistic, satirical, illustrated weekly magazine of satire and humor. It arose in the bowels of the old Russian humorous magazine Dragonfly (1875-1918), which lost popularity, and soon replaced it. Published in St. Petersburg from 1908 to 1913. The name is in honor of the ancient Roman novel.

Writers Sasha Cherny, Teffi, A. S. Bukhov, O. Dymov, Ya. Gordin, V. L. Azov, O. L. d'Or, A. Yablonovsky, S. Gorodetsky, I. Vyshlevsky, Wanderer, V. V. Mayakovsky (participated), V. V. Knyazev, V. P. Lachinov, L. Vasilevsky, I. Vasilevsky, V. Ya. Abramovich, N. Ya. Agnivtsev, V. V. Adikaevsky, I. Ya. Gurevich, D. Aktil, Don-Iminado, A. A. Kondratiev, P. P. Potemkin, M. Ya. Pustynin, A. D. Skaldin, A. M. Fleet Graphics A. A. Radakov, N. V. Remizov-Vasiliev (Re-Mi), A. A. Junger (Bayan), A. V. Remizova (Miss), A. Radimov, I. Bilibin, L. Bakst, B. Kustodiev, D. I. Mitrokhin, V V. Lebedev, V. P. Belkin, B. D. Grigoriev, S. Yu. Sudeikin, A. E. Yakovlev

General history, processed by "Satyricon" This work is one of the first and to this day the main monuments of Russian black humor. For the first time, information about the upcoming edition of the humorous "General History" appeared in the 46th issue of the "Satyricon" for 1909: "All annual subscribers will receive a luxuriously illustrated edition as a free supplement." The work consists of 4 sections: Ancient history (author - Teffi, illustration - Re-Mi) Middle history (author - Osip Dymov, illustration - A. Radakov) New history (author - Arkady Averchenko, illustration - A. Radakov, Re-Mi) Russian history (author O. L. D'Ora, illustration - Re-Mi)

The author's position of the creator of the "Satyricon": He treats the creepy and vulgar world as a calm observer, not alien to humor, and sometimes poisonous irony, but without a sense of sorrow or anger. The magazine set itself the task of morally correcting society by satire on mores.

“We will bitingly and ruthlessly castigate all the lawlessness, lies and vulgarity that reign in our political and public life. Laughter, terrible, poisonous laughter, like the stings of scorpions, will be our weapon. » Objects of satire: State Duma Some of its deputies and parties Government and local authorities, including governors general Reactionary journalists

Causes of the crisis of the "Satyricon" The journal was not only far from the labor movement, but at the best of times did not go further than narrow political radicalism. “Multi-party system”, “polytheism”, indefinite skepticism gave rise to flashes of despair, notes of pessimism and disappointment. Censorship. Political censorship turned into a satire on mores. The editors of the magazine continually reported that the best works were not allowed to print or were mercilessly mutilated. In 1907, new rules on time-based printing were introduced. Bohemian atmosphere of creativity, the pursuit of cheap success. Vulgarity creeps into the pages of the magazine, which he diligently avoided. Changing the direction of satire (Averchenko's thought about the "healing" properties of cheerful humor): save an intellectual drowning in pessimism and help the "recovering" part of Russia to have fun. Monetary disagreements and a quarrel between the main shareholders of the journal: the publisher M. G. Kornfeld, on the one hand, and Averchenko, Radakov and Remizov, on the other.

"New Satyricon" In 1913-1918, the magazine "New Satyricon" was published, published by some of the authors of the old edition. After the revolution, the journal was closed, most of the authors ended up in exile. The magazine combined both political satire (directed, for example, against German foreign policy before and during the First World War, against the Black Hundreds, and after October 1917 against the Bolsheviks) and harmless humor.

Employees of the magazine The cover of the magazine indicated that the magazine was published under the editorship of A. Averchenko, with the close participation of A. Radakov, Re-Mi, A. Yakovlev and A. Junger, as well as "the entire composition of the former employees." Indeed, along with Averchenko, Radakov and Remizov, most of the leading employees left the editorial office: Potemkin, Teffi, Azov, O. L. d "Or, G. Landau, A. Benois, M. Dobuzhinsky, K. Antipov, A. Yakovlev, V. Voinov, etc. Subsequently, Bukhov joined them.New names appeared on the pages of the magazine (O. Mandelstam, V. Lipetsky, A. Bukhov, A. Green, S. Marshak, V. Mayakovsky, etc.), but his appearance The figure of the latter, who published his Satirical Hymns in the magazine, for a long time overshadowed all the other authors of the magazine.

Journal direction. Main departments. "New Satyricon" was a continuation of the old one. "So," the editors reported on June 6, 1913, - "New Satyricon" is the old "Satyricon", and the old "Satyricon" is actually the new "Satyricon", which began its life just two - three weeks ago and so far has declared itself only a respectful imitation of the former "Satyricon". "Moving to the" new apartment ", the satyricon took with them the best forces and retained those sections of the magazine that they especially valued: "Wolf Berries" (a satire on malice days), "Feathers from the Tail" (a weekly debate with publicists of a different direction) and "Mailbox"... The composition of the staff has not changed much.

objects of satire. Her themes. - 1913 -1914 is the theme of war. The objects of satire at that time were: merchants who inflated the prices of goods; a syndicate of speculators; the Pererburg Butcher and the Quartermaster-bribe-taker became a constant target; - literary and theatrical figures; - bourgeoisie; - in the magazine - futurists, in painting - cubists.

Arkady Timofeevich Averchenko (1881 - 1925) Russian writer, journalist and publisher, critic, editor of the Satyricon and the New Satyricon. writes essays, feuilletons and humoresques in the satirical magazines "Bayonet" and "Sword", quickly banned by censorship. He gave the "Satyricon" a direction: orientation towards the middle class reader, awakened by the revolution and keenly interested in politics and literature. He attracted to cooperation, in addition to the already inveterate comedians, L. Andreev, S. Marshak, A. Kuprin, A. N. Tolstoy, S. Gorodetsky and many others. other poets, prose writers. In the "New Satyricon" he developed his own complex type of story: exaggeration, painting an anecdotal situation, bringing it to sheer absurdity, which serves as a kind of catharsis, partly rhetorical. The political position of the magazine was emphatic and somewhat mocking disloyalty. During emigration (a trip to Istanbul), new types of stories developed: an anti-Soviet political anecdote and sketches stylized as essays and impressions of the revolutionary capital and the civil war. In the same place (in Istanbul) he created the variety theater "The Nest of Migratory Birds". Made several tours in Europe. In 1922 he settled in Prague, where he wrote and published several books of short stories and the play Playing with Death, which has the character of a comedy show.

Teffi (Nadezhda Alexandrovna Lokhvitskaya, 1872 -1952) Russian writer, memoirist She was known for satirical poems and feuilletons, she was a member of the regular staff of the magazine "Satyricon" and "New Satyricon". Teffi's satire often had an original character. She was called the first Russian humorist of the early 20th century, "the queen of Russian humor", but she was never a supporter of pure humor, she always combined it with sadness and witty observations of life around her. Gradually, satire leaves her work, observations of life acquire a philosophical character. Influenced by: Idols - A. S. Pushkin and L. N. Tolstoy. She was friends with the artist Alexandre Benois. N. V. Gogol, F. M. Dostoevsky, contemporaries - F. Sologub and A. Averchenko. During the years of the First Russian Revolution (1905-1907) Teffi composed acutely topical poems for satirical magazines (parodies, feuilletons, epigrams). The main genre of all her work is determined - a humorous story.

Sasha Cherny (Alexander Mikhailovich Glikberg, 1880-1932) He had a great influence on the young V. Mayakovsky and the Futurists, on N. Zabolotsky (his early work), E. Bagritsky. In the satirical magazine "Spectator" for the first time his poems appear, signed "Sasha Cherny". 1908 -1922 - years of cooperation in the "Satyricon", the most fruitful years, the years of his glory. In 1910, the book "Satires" was published, in 1911 - "Satires and Lyrics". They became milestones of the time and made Sasha Cherny famous. The protagonist of his satyr is an intellectual - an inhabitant. His satires are often hopeless and tragic. Their humorous coloring is not so much cheerful as paradoxical, built on a collision of high and low, the need for a pure feeling and dirty life, beauty and ugliness. It has the "tired heart" lyric. Lyrics of fragile hope, seeking honor and justice. His humor is the humor of a street picture. There is almost always duality in Sasha Cherny's poems: "I" - "not me", the author and the character. His strongest feeling is a sense of belonging, guilt for what is happening. And suffering from the fact that he can not change anything. Hence the despair and tragedy of intonations. Hopelessness of conclusions. His nature is different. She takes on all the shades of his moods. And gloomy, and sad, and painful, and hostilely alienated. Critics wrote a lot about Sasha Cherny. Famous contemporaries looked at him - M. Gorky, V. Mayakovsky, A. Kuprin ... In 1914, Sasha Cherny volunteered for the First World War. More out of desperation than under the influence of patriotic frenzy. Poems about the war 1914 -1917. show barracks stupidity, cruelty, bloody truth. 1919 -1920 - emigration. In 1923, he published with his own money the last book of poems for adults, Thirst.

One of the most beloved magazines in St. Petersburg at the beginning of the 20th century was Satyricon. It originated in the depths of the editorial office of the old humorous magazine "Dragonfly", at one time also beloved by readers, but by 1905 already rather bored. The young satirist Arkady Timofeevich Averchenko, who published the Beach magazine in Kharkov and moved to St. Petersburg, was invited to the editorial meeting of the Dragonfly. His appearance at first caused general discontent and grumbling - why invite an outsider to discuss internal editorial affairs? But a week later, Averchenko, who suggested several sharp and funny topics for cartoons, became indispensable and began working as an editorial secretary.
At that time, a number of talented young artists collaborated with Dragonfly: Re-Mi (N.V. Remizov-Vasiliev), A. Radakov, A. Yakovlev, Miss (A.V. Remizova), the poet Krasny (K.M. Antipov). Under the influence of Averchenko, the editorial office decided to publish a new magazine, Satyricon. This name was proposed by Radakov - by analogy with the well-known novel by the ancient writer Gaius Petronius the Arbiter "Satyricon". The direction of the new magazine was supposed to be ironically venomous, but the irony was supposed to be graceful and calm, without anger and fury - as in the aforementioned novel.
"Satyricon" began to appear in April 1908. In June, both editions - "Dragonfly" and "Satyricon" - merged under a new name. In addition to the named artists and poets "Dragonflies", the best satirists and comedians of the capital were involved in work in the "Satyricon" - Peter Potemkin, Sasha Cherny, Teffi.
The new magazine arose in difficult conditions, when despondency and decline were intensifying, and laughter turned from accusatory and impudent into a means of oblivion, distraction from troubles and pain. The Satyriconists themselves felt this. No wonder Sasha Cherny, one of the magazine's brightest poets, wrote:

And laughter, magical alcohol,
Against earthly poison
Ringing, swaying pain,
Like waves of a dead naiad.

But the "Satyricon" by some miracle remained sharp and caustic for a long time; later, the satyriconites began to skillfully use Aesopian language.
In the first issue of the magazine, the editors addressed the readers: "We will scourging and mercilessly all the lawlessness, lies and vulgarity that reign in our political and public life. Laughter, terrible, poisonous laughter, like the stings of scorpions, will be our weapon." The "Satyricon" was a kind of anomaly and allowed itself rather bold antics. The objects of his satire were the State Duma, its individual deputies and parties, the government and local authorities, including governors general, and reactionary journalists.
It featured, for example, cartoons with captions like this:
Lucky: Sorry, I'm not wearing a tie.
- Well, thank the Creator.
It was a transparent allusion to "Stolypin's ties" - that is how the gallows loops were ironically called at that time - a type of execution so common in the era of Stolypin's premiership.
Another caption under the cartoon parodied the famous conversation between Chichikov and the peasants about the location of the village of Zamanilovka:
“And where, brothers, is your constitution?”
- Not a constitution, but an execution?
No, the constitution.
- Execution, it will be to your left, but there is no constitution! It is called so, that is, its nickname is execution, but there is no constitution at all.
The methods of work of a friend and collaborator of A.S. Suvorin, an unprincipled journalist V.P. Burenin, were ridiculed in the poems of P. Potemkin:

A chizhik rides in a boat
In the rank of admiral
Do not drink vodka
For this reason?
The vodka is bought
Splashing in the decanter...
Do not scold Kuprin
For this reason?

Stolypin's statement: "The government and the state will steadfastly stand guard over the people's representation, protecting the Duma from the powerless attempts of the black crow" - was accompanied by a caricature: a black double-headed eagle claws at the Duma.
The Satyriconians were very friendly with each other: they were united by youth, talent, common satirical goals, and the ability to laugh. “The staff of the Satyricon,” recalled Chukovsky, “of a young magazine, at one time were inseparable from each other and went everywhere in a crowd. Seeing one, you could say in advance that you would see the others now. Ahead was the chubby Arkady Averchenko, a burly man, very prolific a writer who filled almost half of the magazine with his humor. Radakov, an artist, a laugher and a bohemian, picturesquely shaggy, walked beside him ... "
But times were getting tougher. More and more often, satires "on the Turkish sultan" had to be published, and the heading "Persian affairs" had to be introduced. The magazine began to appear more and more often with "blank spots" and announcements from the editorial board about materials removed from the issue by censorship. The satire became smaller, turned its edge on the layman and his vices. In the "Satyricon" laughter became bitter, tragic, hopeless notes sounded in it.
In 1913, a new press law was introduced, to which the magazine responded with Re-Mi's cartoon "Sad Note" with the caption: "Editor (standing over a black coffin). Of course I knew that the press bill would be shelved, but I didn't think it would be that shape." The death of Foma Opiskin was immediately reported - it was the pseudonym Averchenko, who stood under the sharpest materials. In the same year, there was a final split in the editorial board of the Satyricon: a group of employees led by Averchenko began to publish the New Satyricon, which lasted until the beginning of 1918.
Russian emigrants in the 30s tried to revive the Satyricon. In 1931, M. Kornfeld gathered a group of satyricists in Paris and began publishing the magazine again. The first issue of the revived Satyricon was published in April 1931. V.Azov, I.Bunin, V.Goryansky, S.Gorny, Don-Aminado (A.P. Shpolyansky), B.Zaitsev, A.Kuprin, Lolo (Munstein), S.Litovtsev, A. Remizov, Sasha Cherny, S. Yablonovsky. The art department consisted of A. Benois, I. Bilibin, A. Gross, M. Dobuzhinsky, K. Korovin and others. The revived "Satyricon" did not have much success (only about 20 issues came out). The lack of ties with his homeland harmed him much more than the lack of funds.
Sasha Cherny in 1931, in memory of the magazine dear to his heart, composed the following nostalgic poems:

Over the Fontanka gray-gray
In the good old Petersburg
In low cozy rooms
The Satyricon flourished.
Outside the window were full of barges
With white-barreled firewood,
Opposite Dvor Apraksin
I drank ocher into the sky.

In low cozy rooms
It was noisy and...
crazy drawings
Spread across all tables...

(Based on the book: Muravyova I.A. Former Petersburg. The Age of Modernity. - St. Petersburg: Publishing House "Pushkin Fund", 2004)