In bad company

The History of My Contemporary ranks with such classics of Russian memoirs-writing as Herzen's The Past and Reflections and the autobiographical trilogies of Lev Tolstoy and Gorky.
During the Civil War Korolenko took up the cause of children who had been evacuated to the Ukraine from the starving Moscow and Petrograd. He headed the League for the Salvation of Children. In the summer of 1919 two bandits broke into Korolenko's home. They were after the funds of the League. The old sick writer, his wife and daughter, unarmed, fought against the armed bandits, who shot at them, and succeeded in resisting them and keeping hold of the money on which depended the subsistence of seven thousand children.
Once, also during the Civil War, the writer was warned that an attempt is being planned on his life for his articles and advised to go into hiding. Korolenko replied: "I shall remain here even if the warning is well-founded. Death? Very well then! A writer must live up to his works."
Gorky called Korolenko's life "A hero's thorny path".
By Alexander Khrabrovitsky

NOTES

IN BAD COMPANY

This short novel was written by Korolenko at the time of his exile in Yakutia (1881-1884). It first appeared in 1885. According to Korolenko himself, many aspects of the story are drawn from real life, and "the scene of the action is a faithful description" of the town (Rovno) where the writer spent part of his childhood. The character of the Judge embodies some of the features of his own father.

THE STRANGE ONE

"The Strange One" was written in March 1880 during Korolenko's detention at the Vyshne-Volochek transit prison (February-June 1880), pending further deportation to Siberia. "How he managed to write it in the common cell with the endless commotion and tumult that went on," reminisced S.Shvetsov, one of the "politicals", "is beyond my comprehension.... He read 'The Strange One' to us at one of our meetings (right in the common cell). It produced a tremendous impression." The idea was suggested by a story related to Korolenko by a gendarme who convoyed him at the beginning of 1880 from Beryozovskiye Pochinki to Vyatka. He has endowed his heroine, a girl exile, with the features of Evelyna Ulanovskaya whom Korolenko met in exile. The story first appeared abroad (London).

MAKAR'S DREAM

This story was written in the village of Amga in Yakutia, with the subtitle "A Christmas Tale". It was the writer's first work to appear after his return from exile in 1885. An Amga peasant, Zakhar Tsykunov, in whose house the writer had lodged, served as the prototype for this story's main character

THE RIVER PLAYS

Korolenko's Svetloyar impressions during his trip to Lake Svetloyar (Holy Lake) inspired him to write this story. It was rapturously received by Maxim Gorky who wrote Korolenko from Capri (July 14, 1913): "It is my favourite story, which I believe has helped me immensely in fathoming the 'Russian soul'...."

AT-DAVAN

At-Davan is the name of a station on the banks of the Lena River lying at a distance of 300 kilometres from the town of Yakutsk. The story and its pivotal character, the courier Arabin, are derived from fact. Korolenko had heard a great deal about Arabin in 1881 from the coachmen and station masters along the Lena route while going to his exile in Yakutia. Korolenko tried writing in the press about Arabin's acts of violence, right after his return from exile in 1855, demanding that he be brought to trial, and later in 1887, after learning about Arabin having killed a station master. The articles, however, were not passed by the censorship. In 1892, when the story "At-Davan" was published, it turned out that Arabin was still alive, and instead of being locked up in a lunatic asylum or in prison, was at large in St. Petersburg; moreover he appeared with threats at the office of the magazine which published the story, demanding a refutation.

LIGHTS

This is a kind of poem in prose, jotted down on May 4, 1900, on the spur of the moment in the album of the writer M. Watson. In a letter to one of his readers Korolenko had thus explained the substance of this short piece: "I did not mean to say that after the arduous journey would follow peace and happiness for all ... no, there would be yet another station to reach. Life consists in constant striving, achievement, and fresh striving."
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1These reminiscences are contained in a speech made by Maxim Gorky in 1918 in Petrograd at a meeting held to mark Korolenko’s 65th birthday.

1Main character of Lev Tolstoy’s story of the same name.

2 Popular personage of an essay by the Narodnik writer N. Koronin- Petropavlovsky.

1M. Gorky has in mind his story “Chelkash” written under the impression of a talk with Korolenko and brought out with his help in the magazine Russkoye Bogatstvo (Russian Wealth). Hitherto Gorky’s stories had appeared in the provincial press only