"I am writing everything except denunciations." On the anniversary of Eugene Schwartz

KIROV. In Kirov, Eugene Schwartz was remembered.

In the anniversary year for Eugene Schwartz, he is remembered in Kazan, in which he was born in 1896, in Maykop, “the birthplace of his soul”, in St. Petersburg (formerly Leningrad) that had inspired him for more than two decades, in Dushanbe who sheltered his family during the war and Kirov. At the end of June 1941, the first stage of the evacuation of Leningraders began. Evgeny Lvovich Schwartz, like many residents of the city, did not want to leave it for a very long time. Only in December, a month and a half after the beginning of the blockade, being in an extreme degree of exhaustion, he moved with his family to Kirov. Here he still worked a lot. His favorite saying was the words: "I am writing everything except denunciations." On Vyatka land, plays were created about the besieged Leningrad and children evacuated to Kirov, a staging for the puppet theater based on the "Little Red Riding Hood" by Charles Perrault. The writer worked with the local drama theater, actively participated in the cultural life of the city.

In Kirov, Eugene Schwartz began work on the "Dragon", which was completed already in Dushanbe (Stalinabad). Aesop’s language of the tale gave him carte blanche for greater freedom and the opportunity to speak the truth, albeit in a veiled form. In a play that has not lost its relevance for seven decades, he reflects on tyranny, on the tolerance of those who are ready to put up with their slavish position for the sake of imaginary stability. But the fairy-tale flair did not work in the case of Dragon. The performance on it was banned even at the preparation stage in 1944. In the anti-fascist performance, vigilant censors saw a hint of criticism of the Stalinist regime. The great storyteller passed away in January 1958, and did not wait for the rehabilitation of the play. Even after the death of the Leader of the peoples. For the first time, viewers saw the "Dragon" on the stage of the legendary Student Theater of Moscow State University only in 1962. After a short time, the “harmful tale” suffered the same fate.

Elena Tanakova © Gallerix.ru