Wolf Erlich: biography, photo. Wolf Erlich and Yesenin

The beginning of the Soviet era in our country was marked by the emergence of many works of literature belonging to the pen of well-known and still little-known authors. One of these talents was the Soviet poet Wolf Ehrlich, about whose work we will talk in more detail.

For modern readers this name is almost unknown, but contemporaries knew the bright and poignant poetic terms of this poet.

What is this man remembered?

We will try to answer this question.

Childhood and youth of the poet

Wolf Erlich was born in Simbirsk in 1902. His father was a pharmacist, his mother a housewife. The poet's name goes back to the Hebrew language and means "God-fearing man".

The future poet as a descendant of a Jewish family was very difficult to prove his right to receive higher education. A boy from childhood dreamed of a career and literary glory. He brilliantly graduated from high school, enrolled in Kazan University, but failed to obtain a diploma of this prestigious institution: the Civil War began, which abruptly changed the life of the provincial youth.

Wolf Erlich entered the Red Army, but he did not have to fight like a simple soldier. Showing his education, he was appointed to the post of secretary of the pedagogical laboratory of the department of education.

After the war, he moved to the then post-revolutionary Petrograd, decided to continue his studies, entered the Literary and Art Department of Petrograd University, but was expelled for poor progress.

In these same years, the young poet closely fell into the circle of Imagists, seeking to establish himself in the literary field.

Literary successes

Since 1926 Wolf Erlich begins to publish his work in the press, one by one he releases collections of poems. Among them are books entitled "In the Countryside", "Arsenal", "Wolf's Sun" and others.

Three years later (in 1929), he published his poem dedicated to the revolutionary-populist Sophia Perovskaya, who organized the assassination of Emperor Alexander. His poems are published in popular literary magazines of the time, such as "Red Night", "Star", "Literary Contemporary".

Wolf Erlich becomes a member of the newly organized union of writers. Already at the end of the 20-ies he is fond of translations, he translates a lot from the Armenian language.

Mature years

Literary activities Erlich combines with hard work for the benefit of the Bolshevik Party.

So, since 1925 he has been hiding a post that he called "Cheka". This was the post of a responsible duty officer at the Leningrad Soviet.

Later Erlich works as an editor of several literary magazines, works on screenplays.

His life ends tragically. This was due to the repression that Stalin consistently pursued among the old Bolsheviks. In 1937, the poet was arrested, sentenced to a notorious article number 58 to be shot, the verdict was carried out in the same year.

Love for Armenia

Many poems written during his life, Wolf Erlich, his biography reveals to us the sources of his creative inspiration. And Armenia became one of them.

Ehrlich made his first trip to this land together with N. Tikhonov in the 1920s. He fell in love with the beauty of these places. The poet wrote later in letters to his relatives that he had never seen anything better.

The poet created a whole series of poems about Armenia, which were then included in his collections "Alagazian Stories", "Armenia" and others.

Throughout his later life, the poet strove to come to these regions. Here he was arrested. Friends believed that he was accidentally arrested. On this day he came to visit one Armenian family, the feast lasted until late in the evening, and at night the hosts came to arrest NKVD officers. Together with all, Erlich was also arrested. For a long time nothing was known about his fate. Only in 1956, his relatives received a conclusion about his posthumous rehabilitation.

Friendship with S. Yesenin

Wolf Erlich and Yesenin were friends, they shared a common fate in the activities of the "order" of the Imagists, common interests and views on literature. Ehrlich often provided support to his talented friend, dealt with issues of publishing his works, and organized joint poetry evenings.

Arriving in December 1925 in Leningrad, Esenin wanted to stop at Ehrlich, but then changed his mind and took a room in a notorious hotel in the center of the city. Erlich, he handed over his farewell poem "Good-bye, my friend," which he asked to read at home.

Ehrlich complied with the request, but when he read the poem at home, he saw that his lines were written in blood. He rushed back to the hotel, but Yesenin was already dead.

After discovering the body of Sergei Esenin in the hotel, Erlich assisted in the organization of the funeral. He also spoke at the court, where he spoke in support of the version of suicide, introducing the text of Yesenin's last poem.

Some contemporary literary critics differently assess the role of Ehrlich in the fate and death of Yesenin. Some accuse him of being an agent of the GPU, so his relationship with the great poet was not a friendship, but a banal surveillance. It is difficult to answer anything to these people after so many years since the death of Yesenin, and Ehrlich himself. The only answer is Yesenin's lines, in which he addresses Erlich as a close friend.

The meaning of the poet's creative path

Many of his contemporaries remembered Wolf Erlich. His photo, made in 1928, gives out in him a humble man who knows the value of his word.

His contemporaries believed that the tragic death of Wolff cut short not only his life, but also future literary successes. Ehrlich's talent could still be fully revealed, the poet was full of creative strength and hope, but could not realize them, sharing the partly sad fate of the people of his generation who passed through the crucible of the civil war, full of faith in the possibility of building a socialist society of prosperity, making mistakes on The field of construction of a new state, but faced with the imminent and terrible reality that led to their death.