Alexander Kozachinsky: photo, biography, works

Kozachinsky Alexander Vladimirovich lived only 39 years, but his life was full of such adventures, events and adventures that would be enough for several people to write memoirs. Unfortunately, he did not leave such an exciting book after him, but he became an example of how one can not be afraid to change his life not just radically, but also from the condition of a law-abiding person to the leader of the gang.

Alexander Kozachinsky lived in the era of change in the most gay and unpredictable city in the world - in Odessa.

Childhood writer

A writer was born in Moscow in a noble family on September 4, 1903. The boy was only three years old when his family moved to Odessa because of his father's tuberculosis.

Although the warm climate and the sea somewhat improved the condition of the patient, he still passed away in 1911. His father's illness severely undermined the financial position of the family, but nevertheless Kozachinsky Alexander entered the best gymnasium in the city, where it turns out not only in one class, but also behind one desk with Yevgeny Kataev.

During the short school years, boys became not just friends, but blood brothers, having performed the ritual of "sharing" blood. The fascination with Fenimore Cooper's novels played an important role here. That's how the Apache Indians became brothers - a cut on the arm and an exchange of handshake fastened the blood union forever.

Youth

The adolescent period with all its complexes of maturation Alexander Kozachinsky escaped, immediately entering adulthood. After dropping out of school after grade 7 in 1917, the boy gets a job in order to help his mother somehow.

After Odessa, Odessa daily presented surprises. The money earned in the morning could no longer cost anything in the evening, and power changed along with the division of the city.

Eugene Kataev and Alexander Kozachinsky (photo of those years see below) for a while lost each other and could not see each other. Part of the city where the Kataevs lived belonged to the Petliurists (the district of Kanatna Street), while Denikin settled on Sofievskaya (the Kozachinskys area).

At the age of 16, the young man went to work in the district militia as a clerk. Having an adventurous character store, Alexander Kozachinsky did not last long on boring office work, and in 1920 he tried himself as an employee of the Odessa criminal investigation.

Prior to this, Alexander quite successfully played for the Odessa football team "Black Sea" as a goalkeeper, but the events that took place in the city and youthful romanticism led him to the department of the UGRO.

Work in the Criminal Investigation Department

A seventeen-year-old "specialist" was given the most complex bandit site. At that time in the Odessa Criminal Investigation there were many random people who were arranged there for the sake of a food ration. Kozachinsky Alexander not only took the work seriously and tried to eliminate the lawlessness in the streets of the city, but also opened the case of Bengalsky.

Envious colleagues, as they say in the people, "concocted" a lucky and honest young man the case, attributing him to official crimes. The court sentenced him to 3 years imprisonment, but Alexander insisted on reviewing the case and proved his innocence.

After the acquittal Alexander Kozachinsky became an inspector of the criminal investigation in the 1st Baltic district. His duties were to prevent bribery, abuse of authority, violation of the law by co-workers, officials and local authorities.

In this there was nothing romantic, and bribes and lawlessness alone could not be stopped, so the young man, without thinking twice, steals a green van loaded specifically for the police chief. In the form of a bribe millers from all over the country sent bags of grain, which in those hungry times was worth more than gold.

Bandit youth

The wagon van was carried out together with the deserter Georgy Fechem and ended with the fact that all the grain was "requisitioned" and appropriated by policemen in the area of Tiraspol. As there were no evidences, the accomplices were released, but a letter about their misdemeanor to the Odessa threat was sent.

Alexander Kozachinsky, whose biography might have ended somewhere near Tiraspol, if he had been shot, nevertheless did not stop and decided that he needed more people to carry out the attacks.

Georgy Fech brings his new friend to the German colony in Lustdorf and introduces Schmalz and Burgandt, known criminals in Odessa. After a while people joined them, led by Colonel Orlov, who commanded the punitive forces in the army of Kolchak.

In total, the gang consisted of more than 20 fighters. All the operations were carefully prepared by the young Kozachinsky, and they passed successfully. The gang robbed trains and banks, offices and well-off people. In the German village Alexander enjoyed great respect among men and great love among women. The nickname "Handsome", which he was given not only for his attractive appearance, but also for his good manners and his noble character, became the name of the hero of his novel The Green Wagon, for which he himself became a prototype.

Bandit youth could end in execution if fate had not brought Alexander with a childhood friend Evgeny Kataev. When the gang was ambushed at the Starokon Bazaar, it was Zhenya who arrested Sasha and offered him to surrender in order to save his life.

The trial of the bandits was strange even for Odessa. Residents of Lystdorff acted in defense of Kozachinsky and instead of witnesses they went to the dock, because of which the meetings were held indoors.

Kozachinsky was sentenced to death, but Kataev did not let a friend down, stood up for him, so the investigation was carried out by other people, and the sentence was replaced by imprisonment. This happened in 1922, and in 1925 Alexander was released under amnesty. Mom and his best friend met him near the prison.

Journalism

Yevgeny Kataev, having moved to Moscow in 1925, to his brother Valentine, already a well-known writer, offered Alexander a job as a reporter in one of the newspapers.

Evgeni Kataev is well known to readers under the pseudonym Eugene Petrov. While working as a feuilletonist in the Moscow newspaper Gudok, he met Ilya Ilf, thanks to which the Twelve Chairs and The Golden Calf appeared. It was he who insisted that Alexander write a story about the green van.

Writing career

Kozachinsky Alexander Vladimirovich, whose works are based only on real events, in fact, the writer did not intend to become. He successfully worked first as a correspondent for the newspaper Gudok, then for Economic Life, and if not for the insistence of his childhood friend, the world would not recognize the amazing and adventurous story of Beauty and Volodya Patrikeev.

In total, several stories and one story were written by Kozachinsky, but nevertheless he entered the category of not only readable authors, but also those that were being removed. The basis of the Green Wagon is the real events that took place in the 1920s in Odessa. Alexander's best friend Zhenya Kataev became the prototype of Volodya Patrikeev - not a despondent youth, hungry for the glory of Sherlock Holmes.

Images of main characters

The images of the main characters in the story "The Green Wagon" turned out to be alive and believable, since Kozachinsky did not have to invent them.

His friendship with Zhenya Kataev simply went to the pages of the work, where a friend became himself - a young worker of the Odessa threat. Volodya Patrikeev - a former high school student, full of romantic aspirations, dreams to make the world a better place, revealing crimes, like Sherlock Holmes.

Where, how not in the young Soviet militia can you show your "extraordinary" analytical skills? Patrikeyev's image is written with such sympathy and a subtle sense of humor that you fall in love with the main character and forgive all his mistakes and misses.

The events described in the story

The work is based on a true story about the author's gangster past and the hijacking of a green van from under the nose of the police chief.

As in the work of Krasavchik all ended well, so the author's life itself became the basis of the literary work, and not the ultimate penalty.

The sudden death of the writer

Publishers who printed books during the Soviet era decided that Alexander V. Kozachinsky wrote works for children, although they are more suitable for those readers who can understand the exclusive humor inherent in the hungry and cold Odessa of the 1920s.

According to the story, the film was shot in 1982 by the director Alexander Pavlovsky. Filmstrip very brightly and accurately conveyed both Odessa's humor, and the color of that time, and the main characters that become beloved from the first lines of the story and the film's frames.

Alexander Kozachinsky died at the age of 39 (08.01.1943) from illness, being evacuated from Moscow to Novosibirsk. There he was informed of the death of his best friend Yevgeny Kataev. He served as a military correspondent at the front when the plane on which he was flying was shot down by a German fighter.

In the memory of the readers, Alexander Kozachinsky will forever remain the author of the funny and sad story "Green van", the events of which occurred in fact.