Konstantin Simonov biography. Simonov K

In the minds of living people, the name of Konstantin Simonov is strongly associated with works about the Great Patriotic War, with the lines of the poem “The Artilleryman’s Son” familiar from the school bench (“Major Deev had Comrade Major Petrov ...”), and even with serial versions about his romance with famous actress Valentina Serova. During the years of Khrushchev's "thaw", the suddenly "thawed" anti-Stalinists did not want to forgive the Soviet "general" from literature for either his lightning success, or high positions in the Writers' Union of the USSR, or loyal plays, articles and poems written in the late 1940s - early 50s -s. Post-perestroika "scribes" of national history even ranked K. Simonov - the winner of the Lenin and six Stalin Prizes, one of the most famous and (I'm not afraid of this word) talented writers of the 20th century - to the "anti-heroes". His works were unequivocally put on a par with the "official" works of Fadeev, Gorbatov, Tvardovsky and other Soviet authors, completely lost to the current generation behind the big names of Bulgakov, Tsvetaeva, Pasternak, Akhmatova, Nabokov, etc. Such “uniqueness” in the assessment of historical events, as well as poets, writers and their literary works, has more than once played a cruel joke on those who today seek to preach it from the political platform, in the media or school textbooks.

Neither the Stalinist repressions nor the great victory in the Patriotic War can be deleted from the history of the country. It is impossible to delete or “remove” truly talented works from Russian literature, even if you call their authors unscrupulous “Soviet functionaries”, Stalinist sycophants, “custom-made” socialist realist writers. Looking from the heights of past years, it is much easier to demand manifestations of civic courage from others than to show it yourself in real life. Today's critics should not forget this.

And even if we ignore the above "stamps" formed by public opinion in recent decades, there is simply no one to read the works of K. M. Simonov today. The theme of the war has long exhausted itself, and for all the time that has passed in conditions of absolute literary freedom, not a single work really loved by the people has appeared in the Russian-language literature of the post-Soviet space. The Russian literary market, in the form in which it exists now, is focused solely on the needs of lovers of "light reading" - low-grade detective stories, various kinds of fantasy and women's novels.

K.M. Simonov got another, more severe era. His spell-poem "Wait for me" was read like a prayer. The plays "A Guy from Our City", "Russian People", "So It Will Be" became heroic examples for a whole generation of Soviet people. A far from unambiguous, too frank cycle of lyrical poems dedicated to V. Serova (“With You and Without You”, 1942), marked a short period of “lyrical thaw” in Soviet military literature and brought its author truly national fame. Reading these lines, it is impossible, impossible not to understand that Konstantin Simonov wrote about the Great Patriotic War not out of duty, but out of a deep inner need, which from a young age until the end of his days determined the main theme of his work. Throughout his life, the poet, playwright, thinker Simonov continued to think and write about human destinies associated with the war. He was a warrior and a poet, able to kindle in the hearts of millions of people not only hatred for the enemy, but also to raise the nation to defend their homeland, inspire hope and faith in the inevitable victory of good over evil, love over hate, life over death. Being a direct eyewitness and participant in many events, Simonov, as a journalist, writer, screenwriter, artist of the word, made a considerable contribution of his work to shaping the attitude to the events of the Great Patriotic War among all subsequent generations. The novel "The Living and the Dead" - the largest work of the writer - is a deep understanding of the past war, as a huge, universal tragedy. More than one generation of readers read to them: both those who went through and remembered that war, and those who knew about it from the stories of their elders and Soviet films.

Family and early years

Kirill Mikhailovich Simonov was born in Petrograd, in a military family. His real father Mikhail Agafangelovich Simonov (1871-?) is a nobleman, a graduate of the Imperial Nikolaev Military Academy (1897), major general. In his official biographies, K.M. Simonov pointed out that "the father died or went missing" at the front. However, during the First World War, the generals did not go missing at the front. From 1914 to 1915 M.A. Simonov commanded the 12th Velikolutsky Infantry Regiment, from July 1915 to October 1917 he was chief of staff of the 43rd Army Corps. After the revolution, the general emigrated to Poland, from where Kirill's mother, Alexandra Leonidovna (nee Princess Obolenskaya), received letters from him in the early 1920s. The father called his wife and son to him, but Alexandra Leonidovna did not want to emigrate. By that time, another man had already appeared in her life - Alexander Grigoryevich Ivanishev, a former colonel in the tsarist army, a teacher at a military school. He adopted and raised Cyril. True, the mother kept the surname and patronymic of her son: after all, everyone considered M.A. Simonov dead. She herself took the name Ivanisheva.

Cyril's childhood years were spent in Ryazan and Saratov. He was brought up by his stepfather, to whom he retained sincere affection and good feelings for the rest of his life. The family did not live well, so in 1930, after finishing the seven-year plan in Saratov, Kirill Simonov went to study as a turner. In 1931, together with his parents, he moved to Moscow. After graduating from the faculty of precision mechanics, Simonov goes to work at an aircraft factory, where he worked until 1935. In Autobiography, Simonov explained his choice for two reasons: “The first and main one is the five-year plan, a tractor factory that has just been built not far from us, in Stalingrad, and the general atmosphere of the romance of construction, which captured me already in the sixth grade of school. The second reason is the desire to earn money on your own.” For some time, Simonov also worked as a technician at Mezhrabpomfilm.

In the same years, the young man begins to write poetry. The first works of Simonov appeared in print in 1934 (some sources indicate that the first poems were published in 1936 in the magazines Young Guard and October). From 1934 to 1938 he studied at the Literary Institute. M. Gorky, then entered the graduate school of MIFLI (Moscow Institute of Philosophy, Literature and History named after N.G. Chernyshevsky).

In 1938 Simonov's first poem "Pavel Cherny" appeared, glorifying the builders of the White Sea-Baltic Canal. In the "Autobiography" of the writer, the poem is mentioned as the first difficult experience, crowned with literary success. It was published in the poetry collection Review of Forces. At the same time, the historical poem "Battle on the Ice" was written. Turning to historical topics was considered mandatory, even "programmatic" for a novice author in the 1930s. Simonov, as expected, introduces a military-patriotic content into the historical poem. At a meeting in the journal "Literary Studies", dedicated to the analysis of his work, K. Simonov said: "I had a desire to write this poem in connection with the feeling of an approaching war. I wanted those who read the poem to feel the proximity of the war ... that behind our shoulders, behind the shoulders of the Russian people, there is a centuries-old struggle for their independence ... "

war correspondent

In 1939, Simonov, as a promising author of military subjects, was sent as a war correspondent to Khalkin Gol. In a letter to S.Ya. Fradkina dated May 6, 1965, K. Simonov recalled how he first got to the front: “I went to Khalkhin Gol very simply. At first, no one was going to send me there, I was, as they say, too young and green, and I had to go not there, but to Kamchatka to join the troops, but then the editor of the Heroic Red Army newspaper, which was published there, in Mongolia, in our group of troops, - sent a telegram to the Political Directorate of the army: "Urgently send a poet." He needed a poet. Obviously, at that moment in Moscow there was no one more solid in terms of his poetic baggage than me, I was summoned to the PUR something like that at one or two in the afternoon, and at five o’clock I left in a Vladivostok ambulance for Chita, and from there it was already to Mongolia...

The poet never returned to the Institute. Shortly before leaving for Mongolia, he finally changed his name - instead of his native Cyril, he took the pseudonym Konstantin Simonov. Almost all biographers agree that the reason for this change lies in the peculiarities of Simonov's diction and articulation: he did not pronounce "r" and the hard sound "l". It was always difficult for him to pronounce his own name.

The war for Simonov began not in the forty-first, but in the thirty-ninth year at Khalkhin Gol, and it was from that time that many new accents of his work were determined. In addition to essays and reports, a correspondent brings a cycle of poems from the theater of military operations, which soon gains all-Union fame. The most poignant poem “The Doll” in its mood and theme involuntarily echoes Simonov’s subsequent military lyrics (“Do you remember, Alyosha, the roads of the Smolensk region”, “Nameless Field”, etc.), which raises the problem of the warrior’s duty to the Motherland and his people.

Immediately before the Patriotic War, Simonov twice studied at the courses of war correspondents at the Military Academy named after M.V. Frunze (1939-1940) and the Military-Political Academy (1940-1941). He received the military rank of quartermaster of the second rank.

From the first days of the war, Konstantin Simonov was in the army: he was his own correspondent for the newspapers Krasnoarmeyskaya Pravda, Krasnaya Zvezda, Pravda, Komsomolskaya Pravda, Battle Banner, and others.

As a correspondent, K. Simonov could move around in the frontline zone with freedom that was fantastic even for any general. Sometimes, in his car, he literally slipped away from the pincers of the encirclement, remaining almost the only surviving eyewitness to the death of an entire regiment or division.

It is well known, confirmed by eyewitnesses and documented that in July 1941, K. Simonov was near Mogilev, in parts of the 172nd Infantry Division, which fought heavy defensive battles and broke through from the encirclement. When Izvestia correspondents Pavel Troshkin and Konstantin Simonov arrived at the command post of the 172nd Infantry Division, they were detained, threatened to put them on the ground and kept until dawn, and taken to headquarters under escort. However, Simonov's correspondent was even pleased. He immediately felt discipline, order, confidence, he understood that the war was going far from what the enemy intended. K. Simonov finds in the courage and firm discipline of the regiments defending the city a certain “foothold”, which allows him to write to the newspaper “not a lie for salvation”, not a half-truth, forgivable in those dramatic days, but something that would serve others fulcrum, would inspire confidence.

Even before the war, correspondent Simonov was compared with a harvester for his fantastic “efficiency” and creative prolificacy: literary essays and front-line reports fell from his pen like from a cornucopia. Simonov's favorite genre is the essay. His articles (very few), in essence, are also a series of essay sketches connected by journalistic or lyrical digressions. During the war, the poet K. Simonov first appeared as a prose writer, but the writer's desire to expand the genres in which he worked, to find new, brighter and more intelligible forms of presenting material very soon allowed him to develop his own individual style.

K. Simonov's essays, as a rule, reflect what he saw with his own eyes, what he himself experienced, or the fate of another specific person with whom the war brought the author. In his essays there is always a narrative plot, and often his essays resemble a short story. In them you can find a psychological portrait of the Hero - an ordinary soldier or officer of the front line; life circumstances that shaped the character of this person are necessarily reflected; the battle and, in fact, the feat are described in detail. When K. Simonov's essays were based on the material of a conversation with participants in the battle, they actually turned into a dialogue between the author and the hero, which is sometimes interrupted by the author's narration ("Soldier's Glory", "Commander's Honor", etc.).

In the first period of the Great Patriotic War - from June 1941 to November 1942 - Simonov sought to cover as many events as possible, visit various sectors of the front, depict representatives of various military professions in his essays and works of art, and emphasize the difficulties of the usual front-line situation.

In 1942, Konstantin Simonov was awarded the rank of senior battalion commissar, in 1943 - the rank of lieutenant colonel, and after the war - colonel. As a war correspondent, he traveled to all fronts. During the fighting in the Crimea, Konstantin Simonov was directly in the chains of counterattacking infantrymen, went with a reconnaissance group behind the front line, and participated in the military campaign of a submarine that mined the Romanian port. He also had to be among the defenders of Odessa, Stalingrad, the Yugoslav partisans, in the advanced units: during the Battle of Kursk, the Belarusian operation, in the final operations to liberate Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia. Simonov was present at the first trial of war criminals in Kharkov, was also in the newly liberated, unimaginably terrible Auschwitz and in many other places where decisive events took place. In 1945, Simonov witnessed the last battles for Berlin. He was present at the signing of Hitler's surrender in Karlshorst. Awarded four military orders.

The difficult, sometimes heroic work of front-line correspondents, who not only collected material for essays and articles, but also took part in battles, saved others and died themselves, was subsequently reflected in the works of the writer K. Simonov. After the war, his collections of essays appeared: Letters from Czechoslovakia, Slavic Friendship, Yugoslav Notebook, From the Black Sea to the Barents Sea. Notes of a war correspondent. Simonov is the author of the popularly beloved "Song of War Correspondents", which for many years became the anthem of journalists working in the "hot spots" of the planet:

"Wait for me": a novel of an actress and a poet

On July 27, 1941, K. Simonov returned to Moscow, having spent at least a week on the Western Front - in Vyazma, near Yelnya, near the burning Dorogobuzh. He was preparing for a new trip to the front - from the editors of the Red Star, but it took a week to prepare the car for this trip.

“During these seven days,” Simonov recalled, “in addition to front-line ballads for the newspaper, I suddenly wrote “Wait for me”, “The major brought the boy on a gun carriage” and “Don't be angry, for the best” in one sitting. I spent the night at Lev Kassil's dacha in Peredelkino and stayed there in the morning, I didn't go anywhere. He sat alone in the country and wrote poetry. All around were tall pines, lots of wild strawberries, green grass. It was a hot summer day. And silence.<...>For a few hours I even wanted to forget that there is a war in the world.<...>Probably, on that day more than on others, I thought not so much about the war, but about my own fate in it ... "

Subsequently, highly authoritative critics and literary scholars assured that “Wait for me” was Simonov’s most general poem, that in one lyric poem the poet was able to convey the features of the time, managed to guess the most important thing, the most necessary for people, and thereby help millions of his compatriots in a difficult time of war . But he succeeded not at all because he tried to "guess" what is most needed now. Simonov did not conceive anything of the kind! On that hot summer day at the dacha of L. Kassil, he wrote what was vitally necessary for him. Turning in his thoughts to the only addressee of his love lyrics - actress Valentina Serova, the poet expressed what was most important and most desirable for him at that moment. And only for this reason, precisely for this reason, poems written by one person and addressed to one single woman in the world have become universal, necessary for millions of people in the most difficult time for them.

With a rising star of Russian cinema, prima of the Moscow Theater. Lenin Komsomol V. V. Serova (nee Polovikova) Konstantin Mikhailovich met in 1940. His first play, “The Story of a Love,” was staged on the stage of the theater. Valentina, by that time already the widow of the famous pilot, hero of the Soviet Union Anatoly Serov, played one of the main roles in it. Prior to that, in the 1939-40 season, she shone in the play "Zykovs", and the young, then still aspiring poet and playwright, did not miss a single performance. According to Serova, Simonov, who was in love, prevented her from playing: he always sat with a bouquet of flowers in the front row and followed her every movement with a searching gaze.

However, Simonov's love for Vaska (the poet did not pronounce the letters "l" and "r" and that is how he called his muse) was not mutual. Valentina accepted his courtship, was close to him, but she could not forget Serov. She preferred to remain the widow of a hero-pilot, rather than become the wife of a still little-known young writer. Moreover, Simonov was already married to E.S. Laskina (cousin of B. Laskin), in 1939 their son Alexei was born.

From the first literary steps, the poet Simonov wrote "for the press", accurately guessing the path that would lead his work to the printed pages. This was one of the main secrets of his early and enduring success. His ability to translate the current semi-official point of view and offer it to the reader already in an emotionally lyrical package was forged from the first literary experiments. But “Wait for me” and other lyrical poems dedicated to relations with Serova were the only works of the poet that were not originally intended for publication. And who in those pre-war, jingoistic, ideologically sustained years would begin to print love lyrics full of erotic drama and suffering about unrequited love?

The war changed everything. Completely personal, necessary only for him, the poem "Wait for me" Simonov read more than once in a circle of literary friends; read to artillerymen on the Rybachy Peninsula, cut off from the rest of the front; read to scouts before a heavy raid behind enemy lines; read to sailors on a submarine. He was listened to with equal attention both in the soldiers' dugouts and in the staff dugouts. The features of the Russian Soviet reader, already fully formed, were such that he sought in literature - especially in the painful situation of the war - consolation, direct support. In providing such support, critics saw "one of the tasks of poetry." Simonov's poem went beyond this function, having received from the first moment of creation another, special function: "spell", "prayer", "cure for melancholy", "faith" and even, if you like, "superstition"...

Soon the lines of the beloved poem began to diverge in handwritten copies, memorized. Soldiers sent them in letters to their loved ones, conjuring separation and imminent death, glorifying the great power of love:

December 9, 1941 "Wait for me" was first heard on the radio. Simonov accidentally ended up in Moscow and read the poem himself, having managed to broadcast literally at the last minute. In January 1942 "Wait for me" was published in Pravda.

According to eyewitnesses, at post-war meetings with readers, Simonov never refused to read "Wait for me", but somehow his face darkened. And there was pain in his eyes. He seemed to fall again in his forty-first year.

In a conversation with Vasily Peskov, when asked about “Wait for me,” Simonov wearily replied: “If I hadn’t written, someone else would have written.” He believed that it just coincided: love, war, separation, and a few hours of loneliness that miraculously fell out. Besides, poetry was his work. Here are the verses through the paper. This is how blood bleeds through the bandages...

In April 1942, Simonov handed over to the publishing house "Young Guard" the manuscript of the lyric collection "With you and without you." All 14 poems of the collection were addressed and dedicated to V. Serova.

In the very first major article about this cycle, the critic V. Aleksandrov (V. B. Keller), known since the pre-war years, wrote:

The collection "With you and without you" actually marked a temporary rehabilitation of lyrics in Soviet literature. The best of his poems express the conflict between the two strongest driving forces of the poet's soul: love for Valentine and military duty to Russia.

In the days of the heaviest battles of 1942, the Soviet party leadership found it necessary to bring such verses to the mass reader, opposing the horrors of war with something eternal and unshakable, for which it is worth fighting and worth living:

However, Simonov's muse still did not dream that her longtime admirer would call her his wife. She also did not promise to wait faithfully and selflessly for her admirer from front-line business trips.

There is a version that in the spring of 1942, Valentina Serova was seriously carried away by Marshal K. Rokossovsky. This version was presented in Yu. Kara's sensational series "Star of the Epoch" and firmly rooted in the minds of not only ordinary viewers, but also TV journalists, authors of various publications about Serova in the press and on Internet resources. All living relatives, both Serova and Simonov, and Rokossovsky, unanimously deny the military romance of the marshal and the actress. The personal life of Rokossovsky, who was, perhaps, an even more public person than Serov and Simonov, is quite well known. Serova with her love simply had no place in her.

Perhaps Valentina Vasilievna, for some reason during this period, really wanted to break off relations with Simonov. Being a direct and open person, she did not consider it necessary to pretend and lie in real life - she had enough playing on stage. Rumors spread around Moscow. The novel of the poet and actress was under threat.

It is possible that at that moment jealousy, resentment, a purely masculine desire to get his beloved at all costs spoke in the rejected Simonov. By publishing love lyrics dedicated to Serova, the poet actually went for broke: he agreed to use his personal feelings for ideological purposes in order to gain real, nationwide fame and thereby “put the squeeze on” the intractable Valentina.

Written in 1942, the script for the propaganda film “Wait for me” made the personal relationship between Simonov and Serova the property of the whole country. The actress simply had no choice.

It is possible that it was during this period that their novel, largely invented by Simonov himself and “approved” by the authorities, gave the first serious crack. In 1943, Simonov and Serova entered into an official marriage, but, despite all the favorable circumstances and apparent external well-being, the crack in their relationship only grew:

We are both from the tribe, Where, if you are friends, then be friends, Where boldly the past tense is not tolerated in the verb "love." So it's better to imagine me dead, Such, to remember with good, Not in the fall of forty-four, But somewhere in forty-two. Where I found courage, Where I lived strictly, like a young man, Where, truly, I deserved love And yet I did not deserve it. Imagine the North, the blizzard Polar night on the snow, Imagine the mortal wound And the fact that I can't get up; Imagine this news In that difficult time of mine, When even farther than the suburbs I did not occupy your heart, When behind the mountains, beyond the valleys You lived, loving another, When from the fire and into the frying pan Between us threw you. Let's agree with you: Then - I died. God bless him. And with the current me - stop And talk again. 1945

Over time, the crack of misunderstanding and dislike turned into a “thousand-mile thick glass”, behind which “one cannot hear the beating of the heart”, then into a bottomless abyss. Simonov managed to get out of it and find new ground under his feet. Valentina Serova surrendered and died. The poet refused to extend a helping hand to his former, already unloved muse:

As their daughter Maria Simonova later wrote: “She died [V. Serova - E.Sh.] alone, in an empty apartment robbed by rogues who soldered her, from which they took out everything that could be carried by hand.

Simonov did not come to the funeral, sending only a bouquet of 58 blood-red carnations (in some memories there is information about a bouquet of pink roses). Shortly before his death, he confessed to his daughter: "... what I had with your mother was the greatest happiness in my life ... and the greatest grief ..."

After the war

At the end of the war for three years, K.M. Simonov was on numerous business trips abroad: in Japan (1945-1946), the USA, and China. In 1946-1950 he was the editor of one of the leading literary magazines, Novy Mir. In 1950-1954 he was the editor of the Literaturnaya Gazeta. From 1946 to 1959, and then from 1967 to 1979 - Secretary of the Writers' Union of the USSR. For the period from 1942 to 1950, K. Simonov received six Stalin Prizes - for the plays "A Guy from Our City", "Russian People", "The Russian Question", "An Alien Shadow", the novel "Days and Nights" and the collection of poems "Friends and enemies."

Simonov - the son of a tsarist general and a princess from an old Russian family - regularly served not just the Soviet government. During the war, he gave all his talent to the fighting people, his Motherland, that great and invincible country, which he wanted to see Russia. But once he got into the party “clip” (Simonov joined the party only in 1942), he immediately acquired the status of a “necessary” poet favored by the authorities. Most likely, he himself believed that he was doing everything right: victory in the war and the position that Russia had taken in the world after 1945 only convinced Simonov that the chosen path was right.

His ascent up the party ladder was even more rapid than his entry into literature and gaining all-Russian fame. In 1946-1954, K. Simonov was a deputy of the USSR Supreme Council of the 2nd and 3rd convocations, from 1954 to 1956 he was a candidate member of the CPSU Central Committee. In 1946-1954 - Deputy Secretary General of the Board of the Writers' Union of the USSR. In 1954-1959 and in 1967-1979 - Secretary of the Board of the Writers' Union of the USSR. Since 1949 - Member of the Presidium of the Soviet Peace Committee.

Yes, obeying the “general line of the party”, he participated in the campaign of persecution of Zoshchenko and Akhmatova, wrote “custom-made” plays about cosmopolitans (“Alien Shadow”) and ballad poems, tried to persuade I. Bunin, Teffi and other prominent white émigré writers to return to Soviet Russia. As editor-in-chief in 1956, Simonov signed a letter from the editorial board of the Novy Mir magazine refusing to publish Boris Pasternak's novel Doctor Zhivago, and in 1973, a letter from a group of Soviet writers to the editors of the Pravda newspaper about Solzhenitsyn and Sakharov.

But at the same time, it is impossible not to admit that Simonov's activity in all his high literary positions was not so unequivocal. The return to the reader of the novels of Ilf and Petrov, the publication of Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita (1966, in an abbreviated magazine version) and Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls, defense of L.O. Brik, which high-ranking "historians of literature" decided to delete from Mayakovsky's biography, the first complete translation of the plays by A. Miller and Eugene O'Neill, the publication of the first story by V. Kondratiev "Sashka" - this is not a complete list of K. Simonov's merits to the Soviet literature. There was also participation in the “breakthrough” of performances at Sovremennik and the Taganka Theater, the first posthumous exhibition of Tatlin, the restoration of the exhibition “XX Years of Work” by Mayakovsky, participation in the cinematic fate of Alexei German and dozens of other filmmakers, artists, writers. Dozens of volumes of Simonov's day-to-day efforts stored today in the RGALI, called by him "Everything done", contain thousands of his letters, notes, statements, petitions, requests, recommendations, reviews, analyzes and advice, prefaces, paving the way for "impenetrable" books and publications. There is not a single unanswered letter in the archives of the writer and the editorial offices of the journals he leads. Hundreds of people began to write military memoirs after Simonov read and sympathetically evaluated "pen trials".

In "disgrace"

Simonov belonged to that rare breed of people whom the authorities did not spoil. Neither the forced bowing in front of superiors, nor the ideological dogmas within which the path of Soviet literature of the late 1940s and early 1950s lay, killed the genuine, living principle in it, characteristic only of a truly talented artist. Unlike many of his colleagues in the literary workshop, over the years of his "symphony" with the authorities, K. Simonov has not forgotten how to perform actions aimed at defending his views and principles.

Immediately after Stalin's death, he published an article in Literaturnaya Gazeta proclaiming that the main task of writers was to reflect the great historical role of Stalin. Khrushchev was extremely annoyed by this article. According to one version, he called the Writers' Union and demanded the immediate dismissal of Simonov from the post of editor-in-chief of Literaturnaya Gazeta.

By and large, the editor Simonov did what he considered necessary to do at that moment. His honest nature as a soldier and poet resisted such forms of treatment of the values ​​of the past and present as "spitting and licking." With his article, Simonov was not afraid to express the opinion of that part of society that really considered Stalin the great leader of the nation and the winner of fascism. They, yesterday's veterans, who went through all the hardships of the past war, were disgusted by the hasty renunciations of the "thaw" shifters from their recent past. It is not surprising that shortly after the XX Party Congress, the poet was severely reprimanded and was relieved of his high post in the Union of Writers of the USSR. In 1958, Simonov left to live and work in Tashkent as Pravda's own correspondent for the republics of Central Asia.

However, this forced "business trip"-exile Simonov did not break. On the contrary, the release from social and administrative work and the share of publicity that accompanied him almost all his life gave a new impetus to the writer's work. “When there is Tashkent,” Simonov joked gloomily, but with courageous dignity, “there is no need to leave for seven years in Croisset to write Madame Bovary.

"Alive and Dead"

Simonov's first novel "Comrades in Arms", dedicated to the events at Khalkin Gol, was published in 1952. According to the original intention of the author, it was supposed to be the first part of the trilogy he conceived about the war. However, it turned out differently. In order to fully reveal the initial stage of the war, other heroes were needed, a different scale of the events depicted. "Comrades in Arms" was destined to remain only a prologue to a monumental work about the war.

In 1955, while still in Moscow, Konstantin Mikhailovich Simonov began work on the novel The Living and the Dead, but political intrigues after the 20th Party Congress, as well as attacks from the new party and literary leadership, prevented the writer from completely surrendering to creativity. In 1961, Simonov brought the completed novel to Moscow from Tashkent. It became the first part of a large truthful work about the Great Patriotic War. The author found heroes with whom the reader will go from the first days of the retreat to the defeat of the German army near Moscow. In 1965, Simonov completed his new book, Soldiers Are Not Born, which is a new meeting with the heroes of the novel The Living and the Dead. Stalingrad, the unadorned truth of life and war at a new stage - the overcoming of science to win. In the future, the writer intended to bring his heroes to 1945, to the end of the war, but in the process of work it became obvious that the action of the trilogy would end in the places where it began. Belarus in 1944, the offensive operation "Bagration" - these events formed the basis of the third book, which Simonov called "Last Summer". All three works are united by the author into a trilogy under the general title "The Living and the Dead".

In 1974, for the trilogy "The Living and the Dead" Simonov was awarded the Lenin Prize and the title of Hero of Socialist Labor.

According to the scripts of K. Simonov, the films "A guy from our city" (1942), "Wait for me" (1943), "Days and Nights" (1943-1944), "The Immortal Garrison" (1956), "Normandie-Niemen" were staged (1960, together with S. Spaak and E. Triolet), The Living and the Dead (1964), Twenty Days Without War (1976).

In 1970, K.M.Simonov visited Vietnam, after which he published the book "Vietnam, the winter of the seventieth ..." (1970-71). In dramatic poems about the Vietnam War, "Bombing the Squares", "Over Laos", "Duty Office" and others, comparisons with the Great Patriotic War constantly arise:

The guys are sitting, Waiting for rockets, Like we used to be In Russia somewhere ...

"I'm not ashamed..."

Of great documentary value are Simonov's memoirs "Diaries of the War Years" and his last book - "Through the Eyes of a Man of My Generation. Reflections on Stalin” (1979, published in 1988). These are memories and reflections about the time of the 30s - early 50s, about meetings with Stalin, A.M. Vasilevsky, I.S. Konev, Admiral I.S. Isakov.

In the book “Through the Eyes of a Man of My Generation” K.M. Simonov partly reconsiders his former views, but does not renounce them at all. Unlike some fairly well-known publicists and memoirists of the "perestroika" period, Simonov is far from "sprinkling ashes on his head." Carrying out painstaking work on the inevitable mistakes and delusions of his generation, the writer does not stoop to unsubstantiated defamation of the historical past of his country. On the contrary, he invites posterity to listen to the facts, so as not to repeat previous mistakes:

“I believe that our attitude towards Stalin in past years, including during the war years, our admiration for him during the war years - this admiration in the past does not give us the right not to reckon with what we know now, not to reckon with facts. Yes, it would be more pleasant for me now to think that I don’t have, for example, poems that began with the words “Comrade Stalin, can you hear us.” But these poems were written in the forty-first year, and I am not ashamed that they were written then, because they express what I felt and thought then, they express hope and faith in Stalin. I felt them then, that's why I wrote. But, on the other hand, I wrote such poems at that time, not knowing what I know now, not imagining to the smallest extent both the entire volume of Stalin's atrocities in relation to the party and the army, and the entire volume of crimes committed by him at thirty seventh - thirty-eighth years, and the entire scope of his responsibility for the outbreak of war, which could not have been so unexpected if he had not been so convinced of his infallibility - all this, which we now know, obliges us to reassess our previous views on Stalin , review them. Life demands this, the truth of history demands this... Simonov K. Through the eyes of a man of my generation. M., 1990. S. 13-14.

Konstantin Mikhailovich Simonov died on August 28, 1979 in Moscow. According to the will, the ashes of K.M. Simonov was scattered over the Buinichsky field near Mogilev, where in 1941 he managed to get out of the encirclement.

In conclusion, I would like to cite an excerpt from the book of memoirs of the philologist, writer and journalist Grigory Okun "Meetings on a distant meridian." The author knew Konstantin Mikhailovich during the years of his stay in Tashkent and, in our opinion, most accurately described Simonov as one of the most controversial and ambiguous, but bright and interesting people of his time:

“I knew Konstantin Mikhailovich. A non-transparent person, he was productively conscientious. He resisted doublethink and at the same time coexisted with it. He did not like to speak in whispers and was loudly frank with himself. However, his restless inner monologue sometimes powerfully broke out. His honest thoughts and motives, noble aspirations and actions coexisted in a strange way with the codes and statutes of his cruel and hypocritical time. At times he lacked ethical perpendicular stability. Is there a good poet who would not give, along with his flame, his smoke? .. "

Simonov Konstantin (Kirill) Mikhailovich, (1915-1979) Russian Soviet writer

Born in Petrograd, military. Brought up by his stepfather - a teacher at a military school.

Childhood years were spent in Ryazan and Saratov. After graduating from the seven-year plan in Saratov in 1930, he went to study as a turner. In 1931 the family moved to Moscow and Simonov, after graduating from the faculty of precision mechanics, became a factory worker. In the same years he began to write poems, which were first published in 1936 in magazines

"Young Guard" and "October". After graduating from the Literary Institute in 1938, he entered the graduate school of the IFLI (Institute of History, Philosophy, Literature), but in 1939 he was sent as a war correspondent to Khalkhin Gol in Mongolia. In 1940 he wrote his first play, The Story of a Love, and in 1941, his second play, A Boy from Our Town. With the outbreak of war, he was drafted into the army, worked in the newspaper "Battle Banner", "Red Star", where his military correspondence was published. During the war years, he wrote the play "Russian People", the story "Days and Nights".

He became widely known for the lyrics of the war years - the poems "Do you remember, Alyosha, the roads of the Smolensk region ..." and "Wait for me" (1941), as well as the collection "With you and without you" (1942).
After the war, he went on numerous foreign business trips - to Japan, the USA, France, China.

His first novel, Comrades in Arms, appeared in 1952, followed by a big

Simonov, Konstantin Mikhailovich- Konstantin Mikhailovich Simonov. SIMONOV Konstantin (Kirill) Mikhailovich (1915 - 79), Russian writer, public figure. Poems, intimate and civil lyrics (poems Do you remember, Alyosha, the roads of the Smolensk region ... and Wait for me, 1941; collection C ... ... Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary

- (real name Kirill) (11/28/1915, St. Petersburg 08/28/1979, Moscow), Russian writer, public figure, Hero of Socialist Labor (1974). Laureate of the Lenin Prize of the USSR (1974), Stalin Prizes (1942, 1943, 1946, 1947, 1949, 1950). Graduated… … Cinema Encyclopedia

SIMONOV Konstantin (Kirill) Mikhailovich (1915-79), Russian writer, public figure, Hero of Socialist Labor (1974). Poems, collections of intimate and civil lyrics (“With You and Without You”, 1942; “Friends and Enemies”, 1948). epic… … encyclopedic Dictionary

- (1915 79), Russian. owls. writer. In his poems, starting from the 30s, motifs dating back to patriotic sound distinctly. lyrics L. In painting verse. "Motherland" (1941), in composition. the ratio of long-range and near plans, the panorama of Rodina L. is recognizable. “a couple ... ... Lermontov Encyclopedia

Simonov Konstantin (Kirill) Mikhailovich [b. 15 (28) 11.1915, Petrograd], Russian Soviet writer, public figure, Hero of Socialist Labor (1974). Member of the CPSU since 1942. He graduated from the Literary Institute. M. Gorky (1938). Printed from... ... Great Soviet Encyclopedia

SIMONOV Konstantin (Kirill) Mikhailovich (1915-79) Russian writer, public figure, Hero of Socialist Labor (1974). Poems, collections of intimate and civil lyrics (With you and without you, 1942; Friends and Enemies, 1948). epic… … Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

- ... Wikipedia

Simonov Konstantin Mikhailovich Birth name: Kirill Date of birth: November 28, 1915 Place of birth: Petrograd ... Wikipedia

Wikipedia has articles about other people with that surname, see Simonov. Simonov, Konstantin: Simonov, Konstantin Vasilievich Russian political scientist, president of the Center for Current Politics in Russia. Simonov, Konstantin Mikhailovich (real name Kirill) ... ... Wikipedia

- (1915, Petrograd 1979, Moscow), writer, public figure, Hero of Socialist Labor (1974). Studied in the name of N.G. Chernyshevsky (MIFLI), then in (graduated in 1938). From the first days of the Great Patriotic War in the army; was… … Moscow (encyclopedia)

Simonov Konstantin Mikhailovich (1915-1979) - Soviet poet and prose writer, public figure and publicist, wrote scripts for films. He participated in the battles at Khalkhin Gol, went through the Great Patriotic War, receiving the rank of colonel in the Soviet Army. Hero of Socialist Labor, worked for a long time in the Writers' Union of the USSR. For his work he received the Lenin Prize and six Stalin Prizes.

Childhood, parents and family

Konstantin Simonov was born in the city of Petrograd on November 15, 1915. At birth, he was given the name Cyril. But since, already becoming an adult, Simonov burred, did not pronounce the sound “r” and the hard “l”, it was difficult for him to pronounce his own name, he decided to change it to “Konstantin”.

His father Simonov Mikhail Agafangelovich belonged to a noble family, graduated from the Imperial Nikolaev Academy, served as a major general, and had the Order of Merit for the Fatherland. During the First World War, he went missing at the front. His trace was lost in 1922 on the territory of Poland; according to documents, he emigrated there. Konstantin never saw his own father.

The boy's mother Alexandra Leonidovna Obolenskaya belonged to a princely family. In 1919, she and her little son left Petrograd for Ryazan, where she met A. G. Ivanishev. The former colonel of the imperial Russian army at that time was teaching military affairs. They got married, and little Konstantin began to be raised by his stepfather. Their relationship developed well, the man led tactical classes in military schools, and later he was appointed commander of the Red Army. Therefore, Kostya's childhood years were spent in military camps, garrisons and commander's dormitories.

The boy was a little afraid of his stepfather, as he was a strict man, but at the same time he respected him very much and was always grateful to him for military hardening, instilled love for the army and the Motherland. Later, being a famous poet, Konstantin dedicated to him a touching poem called "Stepfather".

Years of study

The boy began schooling in Ryazan, later the family moved to Saratov, where Kostya finished the seven-year period. Instead of the eighth grade, he entered the FZU (factory school), where he learned the profession of a metal turner and began to work. He received a small salary, but for the family budget, which, without exaggeration, could be called meager at that time, it was a good help.

In 1931 the family left for Moscow. Here Konstantin continued to work as a turner at an aircraft factory. In the capital, the young man decided to study at the Gorky Literary Institute, but he did not quit working at the factory and for another two years he combined work and study, earning seniority. At the same time, he began to write his first poems.

The beginning of a creative poetic path

In 1938, Konstantin graduated from the institute, at that time his poems were already published in the literary magazines October and Young Guard. In the same year, he was enrolled in the Union of Writers of the USSR, became a graduate student at the Moscow Institute of Philosophy, Literature and History (MIFLI), and his work "Pavel Cherny" was also published.

He failed to complete his postgraduate studies, because in 1939 Simonov was sent to Khalkhin Gol as a war correspondent.

Returning to Moscow, Konstantin came to grips with creativity, two of his plays were published:

• 1940 - "The Story of One Love" (which was staged at the Lenin Komsomol Theater);
• 1941 - "A guy from our city."

Also, the young man entered the military-political academy for a one-year course of war correspondents. Before the war, Simonov was given the rank of quartermaster of the second rank.

The Great Patriotic War

Simonov's first business trip as a correspondent for the front-line newspaper Battle Banner in July 1941 was to a rifle regiment located not far from Mogilev. The unit was supposed to defend this city, and the task was tough: not to miss the enemy. The German army dealt the main blow, using the most powerful tank units.

The battle on the Buinichsky field lasted about 14 hours, the Germans suffered heavy losses, 39 tanks burned down. Until the end of his life, the courageous and heroic guys, his brother-soldiers who died in this battle, remained in Simonov's memory.

Returning to Moscow, he immediately wrote a report about this fight. In July 1941, the newspaper Izvestia published an essay "Hot Day" and a photo of burnt enemy tanks. When the war ended, Konstantin searched for at least one of this rifle regiment for a very long time, but everyone who then, on a hot July day, took the blow of the Germans, did not live to see victory.

Konstantin Mikhailovich Simonov went through the entire war as a special war correspondent and met victory in Berlin.

During the war years they wrote:

• collection of poems "War";
• play "Russian people";
• the story "Days and Nights";
• play "That's the way it will be"

Konstantin was a war correspondent on all fronts, as well as in Poland and Yugoslavia, Romania and Bulgaria, reporting on the last victorious battles for Berlin. The state deservedly awarded Konstantin Mikhailovich:

"Wait for me"

This work of Simonov deserves a separate discussion. He wrote it in 1941, fully dedicating it to his beloved - Valentina Serova.

After the poet almost died in the battle near Mogilev, he returned to Moscow and, having spent the night at his friend's dacha, composed “Wait for me” within one night. He did not want to print the verse, he read it only to the closest people, as he believed that it was too personal a work.

Nevertheless, the poem was copied by hand and passed on to each other. Once Comrade Simonov said that only this verse saves him from deep longing for his beloved wife. And then Konstantin agreed to print it.

In 1942, Simonov's collection of poems "With You and Without You" was a resounding success, all poems were also dedicated to Valentina. The actress became a symbol of fidelity for millions of Soviet people, and Simonov's works helped to wait, love and believe, and wait for their relatives, friends and loved ones from this terrible war.

Post-war activities

The entire path of the poet to Berlin was reflected in post-war works:

• From the Black to the Barents Sea. Notes of a war correspondent”;
• "Slavic friendship";
• "Letters from Czechoslovakia";
• Yugoslav Notebook.

After the war, Simonov traveled a lot on business trips abroad, worked in Japan, China, and the USA.

From 1958 to 1960, he had to live in Tashkent, since Konstantin Mikhailovich was appointed special correspondent for the Pravda newspaper for the Central Asian republics. From the same newspaper in 1969, Simonov worked on Damansky Island.

The work of Konstantin Simonov was almost all connected with the war, one after another his works were published:

The scripts written by Konstantin Mikhailovich served as the basis for many wonderful films about the war.

Simonov worked as the editor-in-chief of both the Novy Mir and Literaturnaya Gazeta magazines.

Personal life

The first wife of Konstantin Simonov was Ginzburg (Sokolova) Natalya Viktorovna. She was from a creative family, her father was a director and playwright, he took part in the founding of the Satire Theater in Moscow, and her mother was a theater artist and writer. Natasha graduated with honors from the Literary Institute, where during her studies she met Konstantin. Simonov's poem Five Pages, published in 1938, was dedicated to Natalya. Their marriage was short-lived.

The second wife of the poet, philologist Evgenia Laskina, was in charge of the poetry department in the literary magazine Moscow. It is to this woman that all lovers of Mikhail Bulgakov’s work should be grateful, she played a major role in the fact that in the mid-60s the work “The Master and Margarita” saw the light. From this marriage, Simonov and Laskina have a son, Alexei, born in 1939, who is currently a well-known Russian film director, writer, and translator.

In 1940, this marriage also broke up. Simonov became interested in actress Valentina Serova.

A beautiful and flamboyant woman, a movie star who had recently become a widow; her husband, pilot, Hero of Spain Anatoly Serov died. Konstantin just lost his head from this woman, at all her performances he sat in the front row with a huge bouquet of flowers. Love inspired the poet to his most famous work “Wait for me”.

The work “A Guy from Our City” written by Simonov was like a repetition of Serova’s life. The main character Varya exactly repeated the life path of Valentina, and her husband Anatoly Serov became the prototype of Lukonin's character. But Serova refused to take part in the production of this play, she was very upset by the death of her husband.

At the beginning of the war, Valentina was evacuated to Fergana along with her theater. Returning to Moscow, she agreed to marry Konstantin Mikhailovich. In the summer of 1943, they officially registered their marriage.

In 1950, the couple had a girl, Maria, but soon after that they broke up.

In 1957, Konstantin married for the last, fourth time, Zhadova Larisa Alekseevna, the widow of his front-line comrade. From this marriage, Simonov has a daughter, Alexandra.

Death

Konstantin Mikhailovich died of a severe oncological disease on August 28, 1979. In his will, he asked that his ashes be scattered over the Buinichi field near Mogilev, where that first heavy tank battle took place, which was forever imprinted in his memory.

A year and a half after the death of Simonov, his wife Larisa died, she wanted to stay with her husband everywhere and to the end together, her ashes were scattered there.

Konstantin Mikhailovich said about this place:

“I was not a soldier, just a correspondent. But I also have a small piece of land that I will never forget - a field near Mogilev, where in July 1941 I saw with my own eyes how ours burned 39 German tanks in one day ".

Soviet literature

Konstantin Mikhailovich Simonov

Biography

Russian writer, poet, playwright, screenwriter, journalist, public figure. Konstantin Simonov was born on November 28 (according to the old style - November 15), 1915 in Petrograd. Childhood years were spent in Ryazan and Saratov. He was brought up by his stepfather - a teacher at a military school. In 1930, after completing a seven-year plan in Saratov, he went to study as a turner. In 1931 he moved to Moscow with his stepfather's family. After graduating from the faculty of precision mechanics, Konstantin Simonov goes to work at an aircraft factory, where he worked until 1935. For some time he worked as a technician at Mezhrabpomfilm. In the same years he began to write poetry. The first works appeared in print in 1934 (some sources indicate that the first poems by Konstantin Simonov were published in 1936 in the magazines Young Guard and October). He studied at the Moscow Institute of Philosophy, Literature and History. N. G. Chernyshevsky (MIFLI), then - at the Literary Institute. M. Gorky, who graduated in 1938. In 1938 he was appointed editor of Literaturnaya Gazeta. After graduating from the Literary Institute, he entered the IFLI graduate school (Institute of History, Philosophy, Literature), but in 1939 Konstantin Simonov was sent as a war correspondent to Khalkin Gol in Mongolia and never returned to the institute. In 1940, the first play (“The Story of a Love”) was written, the premiere of which took place on the stage of the Theater. Lenin Komsomol. During the year, Konstantin Simonov studied at the courses of war correspondents at the Military-Political Academy, receiving the military rank of quartermaster of the second rank. Wife - actress Valentina Serova (maiden name - Polovikova; first husband - pilot, Hero of the Soviet Union Anatoly Serov)

From the first days of the Great Patriotic War, Konstantin Simonov was in the army: he was his own correspondent for the newspapers Krasnaya Zvezda, Pravda, Komsomolskaya Pravda, Battle Banner, etc. In 1942, Konstantin Simonov was awarded the title of senior battalion commissar, in 1943 - rank of lieutenant colonel, and after the war - colonel. As a war correspondent, he visited all fronts, was in Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Poland, Germany, witnessed the last battles for Berlin. In 1942, the first film was shot based on the script by Konstantin Simonov (“A Guy from Our City”). After the war, for three years he was on numerous foreign business trips in Japan (1945−1946), the USA, and China. In 1946-1950 he was the editor of the Novy Mir magazine. In 1950-1954 he was again appointed editor of Literaturnaya Gazeta. In 1954-1958 - Konstantin Simonov was again appointed editor of the Novy Mir magazine. In 1958-1960 he lived in Tashkent as a correspondent for Pravda in the republics of Central Asia. In 1952, the first novel ("Comrades in Arms") was written. Ten plays were written between 1940 and 1961. Konstantin Simonov died on August 28, 1979 in Moscow. The ashes of Simonov, at his request, were scattered over the places of especially memorable battles during the Great Patriotic War.

Steps of promotion of Konstantin Simonov on the party and public ladder. Since 1942 - member of the CPSU. In 1952-1956 - a candidate member of the Central Committee of the CPSU. In 1956-1961 and since 1976 - a member of the Central Audit Commission of the CPSU. In 1946-1954 - Deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of the 2nd and 3rd convocations. In 1946-1954 - Deputy Secretary General of the Board of the Writers' Union of the USSR. In 1954-1959 and in 1967-1979 - Secretary of the Board of the Writers' Union of the USSR. Since 1949 - Member of the Presidium of the Soviet Peace Committee. Konstantin Simonov was awarded orders and medals, including 3 Orders of Lenin. Hero of Socialist Labor (1974). He was awarded the Lenin Prize (1974), the State (Stalin) Prize of the USSR (1942, 1943, 1946, 1947, 1949, 1950).

Among the works of Konstantin Simonov are novels, short stories, plays, short stories, scripts for feature and documentary films, poems, poems, diaries, travel essays, articles on literary and social topics: “The Winner” (1937; a poem about Nikolai Ostrovsky), “Pavel Cherny "(1938; a poem glorifying the builders of the White Sea-Baltic Canal), "Battle on the Ice" (1938; poem), "Suvorov" (1939; poem), "The Story of One Love" (1940; play; premiere - at the Theater. Lenin Komsomol), "A guy from our city" (1941; play; in 1942 - State Prize of the USSR; in 1942 - the film of the same name), "Russian People" (1942; play; was published in the Pravda newspaper; at the end of 1942 the premiere the play was successfully held in New York; in 1943 - the State Prize of the USSR; in 1943 - the film "In the Name of the Motherland"), "With You and Without You" (1942; collection of poems), "Wait for Me" (1943; film script ), “Days and Nights” (1943−1944; story; in 1946 - State Prize of the USSR; in 1945 - the film of the same name), “So It Will Be” (play), “War” (1944; collection of poems), "The Russian Question" (1946; play; in 1947 - State Prize of the USSR; in 1948 - the film of the same name), "Smoke of the Fatherland" (1947; story), "Friends and Enemies" (1948; collection of poems; in 1949 - State Prize of the USSR), "Alien Shadow" (1949; play; in 1950 - State Prize of the USSR), "Comrades in Arms" (1952; novel; new edition - in 1971; novel), "The Living and the Dead" (1954− 1959; novel; part 1 of the trilogy "The Living and the Dead"; in 1964 - the film of the same name, awarded the State Prize of the RSFSR in 1966), "Southern Tales" (1956−1961), "The Immortal Garrison" (1956; film script), "Normandy - Neman "(1960; script for a Soviet-French film)," The Fourth "(1961; play; premiere - at the Sovremennik Theatre)," Soldiers are not born "(1963-1964; novel; 2 part of the trilogy" The Living and the Dead " ; in 1969 - the film "Retribution"), "From the Notes of Lopatin" (1965; a series of stories), "If your house is dear to you" (1967; script and text of the documentary), "Grenada, Grenada, my Grenada" (1968; documentary film, film poem; Prize of the All-Union Film Festival), “Last Summer” (1970-1971; novel; 3rd part of the trilogy “The Living and the Dead”), “The Case with Polynin” (1971; film script), “Twenty Days Without War” (1972; story; in 1977 - film of the same name), "There is no other person's grief" (1973; film script), "A soldier was walking" (1975; film script), "Soldier's memoirs" (1976; TV movie script), "Reflections on Stalin", "Through the Eyes of a Man my generation” (memoirs; an attempt to explain the author’s active participation in the ideological life of the Soviet Union in 1940-1950; published in 1988), “Letters from Czechoslovakia” (collection of essays), “Slavic Friendship” (collection of essays), “Yugoslav Notebook” (collection of essays), “From the Black Sea to the Barents Sea. Notes of a war correspondent ”(collection of essays).

Konstantin Simonov first saw the light in Petrograd on November 28, 1915. He spent his childhood in Saratov and Ryazan. Since 1930, he studied turning skills. Until 1935, he graduated from the faculty of precision mechanics and worked at an aircraft factory. While working at Mezhrabpomfilm, he began to write poetry, which were first published from 1934-1936. in the magazines "Young Guard" and "October". Konstantin studied a lot: Moscow Institute. N.G. Chernyshevsky, Literary Institute. M. Gorky, postgraduate studies at the Institute of History, Philosophy, Literature, Military Correspondent Courses at the Military-Political Academy in Mongolia. His first play, The Story of One Love, was written in 1940. He is married to actress Valentina Serovo.

Konstantin Serov wrote a lot of works and literary works - poems, novels, scripts for feature and documentary films, stories, travel essays, articles on literary and social topics, novels, plays, diaries, poems. Here are examples of some of them: the poem "The Winner"; film "In the name of the motherland"; a collection of poems "With you and without you"; play "Russian people"; the novel "Comrades in Arms"; "Southern stories"; memoirs "Reflections on Stalin", "Through the Eyes of a Man of My Generation"; collections of essays "Letters from Czechoslovakia", "Yugoslav Notebook" and many others.

During the Great Patriotic War, Konstantin was a correspondent for the newspapers Pravda, Battle Banner, Krasnaya Zvezda and others. After the war he was promoted to colonel. In the post-war period, he traveled a lot on business trips - Japan, China, the USA. He was the editor of newspapers and magazines - "New World" 1946 - 1950. and 1954 - 1958, "Literaturnaya Gazeta" 1950 - 1954. From 1958 to 1960 Simonov was appointed correspondent for Pravda.

The Russian playwright, writer, screenwriter, journalist left this world on August 28, 1979 in Moscow.