Brief biography of Daniil Kharms. Literary and historical notes of a young technician

Daniil Ivanovich Yuvachev (1905 - 1942) while still at school came up with a pseudonym for himself - Kharms, which varied with amazing ingenuity, sometimes even in the signature under one manuscript: Kharms, Horms, Charms, Haarms, Shardam, Kharms-Dandan, etc. The fact is that Kharms believed that an unchanging name brings misfortune, and took new surname as if trying to get away from him. However, it was the pseudonym “Kharms” with its duality (from the French “charme” - “charm, charm” and from the English “harm” - “harm”) that most accurately reflected the essence of the writer’s attitude to life and creativity.
Daniil Yuvachev was born on December 17 (30), 1905 in St. Petersburg, in the family of Ivan Yuvachev, a former naval officer, revolutionary-People's Will, exiled to Sakhalin and took up religious philosophy there. Kharms's father knew Chekhov, Tolstoy and Voloshin.
Daniil studied at a privileged St. Petersburg German school. In 1924 he entered the Leningrad Electrical Technical School, but was soon forced to leave it. In 1925 he took up writing.
In 1925, Yuvachev met the poetic and philosophical circle of plane trees. He quickly gained scandalous fame in the circles of avant-garde writers under his pseudonym “Kharms”, invented at the age of 17. Kharms was accepted into the All-Russian Union of Poets in March 1926 on the basis of the submitted poetic works, two of which (“The Case of railway" and "Poem by Peter Yashkin - a communist") were published in small-circulation collections of the Union.
The early Kharms was characterized by “zaum”; he joined the “Order of Brainiacs DSO” led by Alexander Tufanov. Since 1926, Kharms actively tried to organize the forces of “left” writers and artists in Leningrad, creating the short-lived organizations “Radix” and “Left Flank”. In 1927, S. Marshak attracted Kharms to work in children's literature. This is how Kharms received his first publications and his first money from them. Profits from publications remained almost the only source of money throughout Kharms’ life. He didn’t work anywhere else; when there was no money (and this was the case all his life), he borrowed money. Sometimes he gave it on time, sometimes he didn’t give it at all.
The first issue was published in February children's magazine“Hedgehog”, in which Kharms’s first children’s works “Ivan Ivanovich Samovar” and “Naughty Cork” were published. Since 1928, Kharms has been writing for the children's magazine Chizh. Surprisingly, with a relatively small number of children's poems (“Ivan Ivanovich Samovar”, “Liar”, “Game”, “Million”, “How Dad Shot My Ferret”, “A Man Came Out of the House”, “What Was That?”, “Tiger on the Street”...) he created his own country in poetry for children and became its classic.
At the same time, Kharms became one of the founders of avant-garde poetic and art group“Union of Real Art” (OBERIU). Later, in Soviet journalism, the works of OBERIU were declared “the poetry of the class enemy,” and since 1932, the activities of OBERIU in its previous composition ceased.
In December 1931, Kharms was arrested along with a number of other Oberiuts, accused of anti-Soviet activities and sentenced on March 21, 1932 by the OGPU board to three years in correctional camps. But two months later the sentence was replaced by deportation, and the poet went to Kursk.
He arrived on July 13, 1932. “I didn’t like the city in which I lived at that time,” he wrote about Kursk. It stood on a mountain and there were postcard views everywhere. They disgusted me so much that I was even glad to sit at home. Yes, in fact, apart from the post office, the market and the store, I had nowhere to go... There were days when I did not eat anything. Then I tried to create a joyful mood for myself. He lay down on the bed and started smiling. I smiled for up to 20 minutes at a time, but then the smile turned into a yawn...”
Kharms stayed in Kursk until the beginning of November, returning to Leningrad on the 10th. He continued to communicate with like-minded people and wrote a number of books for children to earn a living. After the publication in 1937 of the poem “A Man with a Club and a Bag Came Out of the House” in a children’s magazine, which “has since disappeared,” Kharms was no longer published. This brought him and his wife to the brink of starvation.
On August 23, 1941, Kharms was arrested for defeatist sentiments following a denunciation by an NKVD agent. In particular, Kharms was accused of saying, “If they give me a mobilization leaflet, I’ll punch the commander in the face and let them shoot me; but I won’t wear a uniform” and “ Soviet Union lost the war on the first day, Leningrad will now either be besieged and we will die of starvation, or they will bomb it, leaving no stone unturned.” To avoid execution, Kharms feigned madness. The military tribunal ordered Kharms to be kept in a psychiatric hospital. There, Daniil Kharms died during the siege of Leningrad, in the most difficult month in terms of the number of starvation deaths.
Daniil Kharms was rehabilitated in 1956, however for a long time His main works were not officially published in the USSR. Until the time of perestroika, his work circulated from hand to hand in samizdat, and was also published abroad with a large number distortions and abbreviations.

“I,” wrote Kharms on October 31, 1937, “are only interested in "nonsense"; only that which has no practical meaning. I am interested in life only in its absurd manifestation. Heroism, pathos, prowess, morality, hygiene, morality, tenderness and excitement are words and feelings that I hate.
But I fully understand and respect: delight and admiration, inspiration and despair, passion and restraint, debauchery and chastity, sadness and grief, joy and laughter.”

Name: Daniil Kharms (Daniil Yuvachev)

Age: 36 years

Activity: poet, writer, playwright

Family status: was married

Daniil Kharms: biography

Daniel Ivanovich Kharms- talented poet, member creative association"OBERIU", but above all, readers associate Kharms as the author of children's literature. He gave girls and boys poems and stories that, after many years, became immortal. Such works include “The Amazing Cat”, “Liar”, “Very scary tale”, “Firstly and secondly”, “A man came out of the house”, “Old woman”, etc.

Childhood and youth

Daniil Ivanovich Yuvachev was born on December 17 (30), 1905 in the cultural capital of Russia - the city of St. Petersburg. The boy grew up and was brought up in an intelligent and wealthy family. His father Ivan Pavlovich also left a mark on history: initially he positioned himself as a revolutionary and a member of the people’s will, and miraculously avoiding the death penalty, changed his outlook on life and became a spiritual writer.

It is known that during a trip to Sakhalin, where he spent eight years in hard labor, Daniil Kharms’s father met, who made Yuvachev the prototype of a revolutionary in his work “The Story unknown person"(1893). The exile helped Yuvachev get rid of unceremonious moods, and, having survived all the hardships of fate, in 1899 Ivan Pavlovich returned to St. Petersburg, where he served in the inspection office of the Savings Banks Administration, worked in the editorial office and worked literary activity.

Yuvachev Sr. communicated not only with Chekhov, but was also a member of friendly correspondence s and . In 1902, Ivan Pavlovich proposed marriage to Nadezhda Ivanovna Kolyubakina, who came from a noble family that settled in the Saratov province. She was in charge of the shelter and was known as a comforter to women who had been in captivity. And if Nadezhda Ivanovna raised her children in love, then Ivan Pavlovich adhered to strict rules regarding the behavior of his offspring. In addition to Daniel, the couple had a daughter, Elizabeth, and two other children died in early age.

When on site Russian Empire The first seeds of the revolution were growing, the future poet studied at the privileged German school “Die Realschule”, which was part of the “Petrischule” (the first educational institution founded in St. Petersburg in 1702). The main breadwinner in the house had a beneficial influence on his son: thanks to his father, Daniel began to study foreign languages(English and German), and also fell in love scientific literature.

According to rumors, Ivan Pavlovich’s son studied well, however little boy However, like all children, pranks were common: in order to avoid punishment from teachers, Daniil sometimes acted out acting scenes, pretending to be an orphan. After receiving his matriculation certificate, the young man chose a down-to-earth path and entered the Leningrad Energy College. However, on the bench of this educational institution Kharms did not stay long: the careless student never bothered to get a diploma due to the fact that he often skipped classes and did not participate in community service.

Poetry

After Daniil Yuvachev was expelled from the Leningrad Technical School, he began to engage in literary activities. Although, it is worth saying that his love for creativity appeared in early years: as a schoolboy, he composed an interesting fairy tale, which I read to my four-year-old sister Natalia, early death which became a shock for the future poet.

Daniil Ivanovich did not want to see himself as a prose writer and chose writing poetry as his field. But the first creative attempts of the aspiring poet resembled an incoherent stream of thought, and the father young man did not share his son’s literary preferences, since he was an adherent of strict and classical literature in the person of Leo Tolstoy and.

In 1921–1922, Daniil Yuvachev became Daniil Kharms. By the way, some writers are still struggling to solve the mystery that shrouded the creative pseudonym assigned worldwide famous author children's poems. According to rumors, the son of Ivan Pavlovich explained to a friend that his nickname comes from English word“harm”, which translated into Russian means “harm”. However, there is an assumption that the word “Kharms” comes from the French “charme” - “charm, charm.”

Others believe that Daniel's nickname was inspired by his favorite character Sherlock Holmes from the books of Sir. They also used to say that the poet signed his passport with a pencil next to his real surname with a dash “Harms”, and then completely legitimized his pseudonym. A talented literary figure believed that one constant nickname brings misfortune, so Daniil Ivanovich had many pseudonyms that changed like gloves: Kharms, Haarms, Dandan, Daniil Shardam, etc.

In 1924–1926, Daniil Ivanovich begins his creative biography. The young man not only writes poems, but also recites the works of others at public appearances. Also in 1926, Kharms joined the ranks of the All-Russian Union of Poets, but the writer was expelled three years later for non-payment of membership fees. At that time, the poet was inspired by creativity and.

In 1927, a new literary community emerged in Leningrad, called “OBERIU” (“Union of Real Art”). Just as he and other futurists once called for throwing modernity off the boat, the “chinari” rejected conservative forms of art, promoting original methods of depicting reality, the grotesque and the poetics of the absurd.

They not only read poems, but also organized dance evenings, where those who came danced the foxtrot. In addition to Kharms, Alexander Vvedensky, Igor Bakhterev and others were members of this circle. literary figures. At the end of 1927, thanks to Oleinikov and Zhitkov, Daniil Kharms and his associates began to compose poems for children.

Daniil Ivanovich’s works could be seen in the popular publications “Hedgehog”, “Chizh” and “Cricket”. Moreover, Yuvachev, in addition to poems, also published stories, drew cartoons and puzzles, which were solved by both children and their parents.

It cannot be said that this type of activity brought Kharms unprecedented pleasure: Daniil Ivanovich did not like children, but children's literature was the only source of income for the talented writer. In addition, Yuvachev approached his work thoroughly and tried to scrupulously work through absolutely every work, unlike his friend Vvedensky, who, according to some researchers, loved to hack and treated his duties extremely irresponsibly.

Kharms managed to gain popularity among little boys and girls, to whom mothers and fathers and grandparents read poems about cats who did not want to taste the onion and potato vinaigrette, about a pot-bellied samovar and about a cheerful old man who was passionately afraid of spiders.

Surprisingly, even the author of harmless works for children was persecuted by the authorities, who considered some of Yuvachev’s works unceremonious. Thus, the illustrated book “The Naughty Cork” did not pass censorship and was “under the curtain” for ten whole years, from 1951 to 1961. It got to the point that in December 1931, Kharms and his comrades were arrested for promoting anti-Soviet literature: Daniil Ivanovich and Vvedensky were sent to Kursk.

Personal life

It is not for nothing that in most of the illustrations Daniil Ivanovich is depicted with a tobacco pipe, since in life the gifted poet practically never let it out of his mouth and sometimes smoked right on the go. Contemporaries used to say that Yuvachev dressed strangely. Kharms did not go to fashion boutiques, but ordered clothes from a tailor.

Thus, the writer was the only one in the city who wore short pants, under which socks or leg warmers were visible. But his eccentric habits (for example, Kharms sometimes stood at the window in what his mother gave birth to) did not prevent others from seeing his kindness. Also, the poet never raised his voice and was a correct and polite person.

“Apparently, for the children there was something very interesting in his appearance, and they ran after him. They really liked the way he dressed, the way he walked, the way he suddenly stopped. But they were also cruel - they threw stones at him. He did not pay any attention to their antics and was completely unperturbed. I walked and walked. And he didn’t react in any way to the looks of adults either,” recalled Marina Malich.

Concerning love relationship, then Daniil Ivanovich’s first chosen one was a certain Esther Rusakova. Kharms dedicated an unprecedented number of poems to his passion, but their love was not cloudless: according to rumors, Yuvachev walked to the left, and Rusakova burned with jealousy, as evidenced by the poet’s diary entries. In 1932, the couple filed an official divorce.

In the summer of 1934, Kharms proposed marriage to Marina Malich, and the girl agreed. The lovers lived hand in hand until Yuvachev’s arrest, which occurred in 1941.

Death

In August 1941, Daniil Ivanovich, again breaking the law, was arrested for spreading objectionable sentiments: the writer allegedly said that the USSR would lose the war (words that, according to researchers, were copied from a denunciation).

To avoid the death penalty, Kharms pretended to be mentally ill, so he was admitted to a psychiatric clinic, where he died on February 2, 1942. After 18 years, his sister managed to restore the good name of her brother, who was rehabilitated by the Prosecutor General's Office.

Bibliography

• 1928 – “First and second”
• 1928 - “About how Kolka Pankin flew to Brazil, and Petka Ershov did not believe anything”
• 1928 – “Ivan Ivanovich Samovar”
• 1929 – “About how the old lady bought ink”
• 1930 – “About how dad shot my ferret”
• 1937 – “Cats”
• 1937 – “Stories in Pictures”
• 1937 – “Plikh and Plyukh” (translation of the work of Wilhelm Busch)
• 1940 – “The Fox and the Hare”
• 1944 – “The Amazing Cat”

Daniil Ivanovich Kharms, real name Yuvachev, born December 30 (December 17, old style) 1905 in St. Petersburg. His father was a naval officer. In 1883, he was brought to trial for complicity in the Narodnaya Volya terror, spent four years in solitary confinement and more than ten years in hard labor, where he experienced religious conversion: along with the memoir books “Eight Years on Sakhalin” (1901) and “The Shlisselburg Fortress” (1907) he published mystical treatises “Between the World and the Monastery” (1903), “Secrets of the Kingdom of Heaven” (1910).

Kharms's mother had noble origin, was in charge of a shelter for former convict women in St. Petersburg in the 1900s.

After the revolution, she became a castellan at the Barracks Hospital named after S.P. Botkin, his father worked as a senior auditor of the State Savings Banks, and later as the head of the accounting department of the working committee for the construction of the Volkhov hydroelectric station.

In 1915-1918, Daniel studied at the privileged Main German School of St. Peter in Petrograd (Petrishul).

In 1922-1924 - at the 2nd Detskoselsky Unified Labor School, a former gymnasium in Tsarskoe Selo, where his aunt Natalya Kolyubakina was the director and teacher of Russian literature.

In 1924-1926 he studied at the First Leningrad Electrical Technical School, from where he was expelled for “poor attendance and inactivity in public works.”

In the early 1920s, Daniil Yuvachev chose the pseudonym "Kharms", which gradually became so attached to him that it became part of his surname.

In the 1930s, when all Soviet citizens were issued passports, he added a hyphen to the second part of his last name, so it became “Yuvachev-Kharms.”

The pseudonym "Kharms" is interpreted by researchers as "charm", "enchantment" (from the French charm), as "harm" and "misfortune" (from the English harm) and as a "sorcerer". In addition to the main pseudonym, Daniil used about 30 more pseudonyms - Charms, Harmonius, Shardam, Dandan, as well as Ivan Toporyshkin, Karl Ivanovich Shusterling and others.

He began writing poetry while studying at school, and later chose poetry as his main profession.

The earliest surviving poem by Kharms, “In July, Somehow Our Summer...” dates back to 1922.

The early Kharms was greatly influenced by the poet Alexander Tufanov, successor of Velimir Khlebnikov, author of the book “To Zaumi,” who founded the Order of Zaumni in March 1925, the core of which included Kharms himself, who took the title “Behold Zaumi.”

The departure from Tufanov was predetermined by his friendship with the poet Alexander Vvedensky, with whom in 1926 Kharms created the "School of Plane Trees" - a chamber community, which, in addition to two poets, included philosophers Yakov Druskin, Leonid Lipavsky and the poet, later editor of the children's magazine "Hedgehog" Nikolai Oleinikov. The main form of activity of the “plane trees” was performances with the reading of their poems.

In 1926, Kharms' poem "An Incident on the Railway" was published in a collection of poems, and in 1927, "Poem by Pyotr Yashkin" was published in the collection "Bonfire".

In 1928, Kharms became a member literary group Association of Real Art (OBERIU), which included the poets Alexander Vvedensky, Nikolai Zabolotsky and others, who used the techniques of alogism, absurdity, and grotesque. At the “Three Left Hours” evening organized by the association, the highlight of the program was the production of Kharms’ play “Elizabeth Bam.”

In the same year, writer Samuil Marshak attracted Kharms to work in the Leningrad department of the children's literature publishing house "Detgiz". “Ivan Ivanovich Samovar” (1928), “Ivan Toporyshkin” (1928), “How Dad Shot My Ferret” (1929), “Jolly Siskins” (co-authored with Marshak, 1929), “Million” were published in print. "(1930), "Liar" (1930) and others. Kharms's poems were published in 11 separate editions.

In December 1931, Kharms, along with other employees of the Leningrad children's publishing sector, was arrested on suspicion of anti-Soviet activities and was sentenced to three years in prison, which was replaced in 1932 by exile to Kursk, where he was escorted along with Vvedensky. In 1932, he managed to return to Leningrad, where he continued to collaborate in the magazines “Hedgehog” and “Chizh”, and published a free translation of the story “Plikh and Plyukh” by the German poet Wilhelm Busch.

In 1934, Kharms was admitted to the Union of Writers of the USSR. In the same year, he began work on the philosophical treatise "Existence", which was not completed.

In March 1937, the magazine “Chizh” published the poem “A Man Came Out of the House,” which tells how in the USSR a man left his house and disappeared without a trace. After this, Kharms was no longer published in children's publications. In the same year, he began creating the prose cycle "Cases".

At the end of May - beginning of June 1939, Kharms wrote the story "The Old Woman", which many researchers consider the main thing in the writer's work.

In the fall of 1939, Kharms feigned mental illness, and in September-October he was admitted to the neuropsychiatric dispensary of the Vasileostrovsky district, where he was diagnosed with schizophrenia.

In the summer of 1940, he wrote the stories “Knights”, “Myshin’s Victory”, “Lecture”, “Pashkvil”, “Interference”, “Falling”, in September - the story “Power”, later - the story “A translucent young man was rushing about on the bed...”.

In 1941, for the first time since 1937, two children's books with Kharms' participation were published.

The last surviving work of Kharms was the story “Rehabilitation,” written in June 1941.

On August 23, 1941, Kharms was arrested and accused of anti-Soviet activities. In mid-December he was transferred to the psychiatric department of the prison hospital at Kresty.

On February 2, 1942, Daniil Kharms died in custody in besieged Leningrad from exhaustion. His name was erased from Soviet literature.

In 1960, Kharms’ sister Elizaveta Gritsyna appealed to the USSR Prosecutor General with a request to review her brother’s case. On July 25, 1960, by a decision of the Leningrad prosecutor's office, Kharms was found innocent, his case was closed for lack of evidence of a crime, and he himself was rehabilitated.

A collection of his children's poems, "The Game" (1962), was published in the USSR. Since 1978, his collected works have been published in Germany. By the mid-1990s, Kharms took the place of one of the main representatives of Russian literary literature of the 1920-1930s, opposing Soviet literature.

The first complete three-volume collected works of Daniil Kharms was published in Russia in the 2010s.

Daniil Kharms was married twice. The first wife, Esther Rusakova, the daughter of a former political emigrant, after a divorce from the writer in 1937, along with her family, was arrested, sentenced to five years in the camps and soon died in Magadan.

Kharms’s second wife, Marina Malich, came from the Golitsyn family; after her husband’s death, she was evacuated from besieged Leningrad to Pyatigorsk, from where she was taken away by the Germans for forced labor in Germany. She managed to get to France, and later Marina emigrated to Venezuela. According to her memoirs, literary critic Vladimir Glotser wrote the book “Marina Durnovo: My husband Daniil Kharms.”

The material was prepared based on information from RIA Novosti and open sources

By the mid-1990s, Kharms firmly occupied the place of one of the main representatives of Russian literary literature of the 1920–1930s, essentially opposed to Soviet literature.

Born on December 17 (30), 1905 in St. Petersburg. His father, who was a naval officer brought to trial in 1883 for complicity in Narodnaya Volya terror, spent four years in solitary confinement and more than ten years in hard labor, where, apparently, he experienced a religious conversion: along with the memoir books Eight Years on Sakhalin ( 1901) and Shlisselburg Fortress (1907), he published mystical treatises Between the World and the Monastery (1903), Secrets of the Kingdom of Heaven (1910), etc. Kharms’s mother, a noblewoman, was in charge of a shelter for former convicts in St. Petersburg in the 1900s. Kharms studied at the St. Petersburg privileged German school (Peterschule), where he acquired a thorough knowledge of German and English. In 1924 he entered the Leningrad Electrical Technical School, from where a year later he was expelled for “poor attendance” and “inactivity in public works.” Since then, he devoted himself entirely to writing and lived exclusively from literary earnings. The diversified self-education that accompanied writing, with a special emphasis on philosophy and psychology, as evidenced by his diary, proceeded extremely intensively.

Initially, he felt in himself the “power of poetry” and chose poetry as his field, the concept of which was determined under the influence of the poet A.V. Tufanov (1877–1941), an admirer and successor of V.V. Khlebnikov, author of the book To Zaumi (1924 ) and the founder (in March 1925) of the Order of the Zaumnikov, the core of which included Kharms, who took the title “Look at the Zaumi.” Through Tufanov he became close to A. Vvedensky, a student of the more orthodox “Khlebnikovite” poet and admirer of A. Kruchenykh I.G. Terentyev (1892–1937), creator of a number of propaganda plays, including the “actualizing” stage adaptation of The Inspector General, parodied in The Twelve Chairs by I. Ilf and E. Petrov. Kharms had a strong friendship with Vvedensky, who, sometimes without any particular reason, took on the role of Kharms’ mentor. However, the direction of their creativity, related in terms of verbal searches, is fundamentally different from beginning to end: in Vvedensky a didactic attitude arises and remains, while in Kharms a playful one predominates. This is evidenced by his first known poetic texts: Kika with Koka, Vanka Vstanka, the grooms say the earth was invented and the poem Mikhail.

Vvedensky provided Kharms new circle constant communication, introducing him to his friends L. Lipavsky and Y. Druskin, graduates of the philosophical department of the faculty social sciences, who refused to renounce their teacher, the prominent Russian philosopher N.O. Lossky, expelled from the USSR in 1922, and tried to develop his ideas of the intrinsic value of the individual and intuitive knowledge. Their views certainly influenced Kharms’s worldview; for more than 15 years they were Kharms’s first listeners and connoisseurs; during the blockade, Druskin miraculously saved his works.

Back in 1922, Vvedensky, Lipavsky and Druskin founded a triple alliance and began to call themselves “plane trees”; in 1925 they were joined by Kharms, who from “zira zaumi” became “plane-gazer” and quickly gained scandalous fame in the circles of avant-garde writers under his newly invented pseudonym, which became plural English word "harm" - "misfortune". Subsequently, he signed his works for children in other ways (Charms, Shardam, etc.), but never used his own surname. The pseudonym was also enshrined in the introductory questionnaire of the All-Russian Union of Poets, where Kharms was accepted in March 1926 on the basis of the submitted poetic works, two of which (An Incident on the Railway and Poem by Peter Yashkin - a communist) were published in the Union's small-circulation collections. Apart from them, until the end of the 1980s, only one “adult” work by Kharms was published in the USSR - the poem Maria Comes Out, Taking a Bow (Sat. Poetry Day, 1965).

As a member of the literary association, Kharms received the opportunity to read his poems, but took advantage of it only once, in October 1926 - other attempts were in vain. The playful beginning of his poems stimulated their dramatization and stage performance: in 1926, together with Vvedensky, he prepared a synthetic performance of the avant-garde theater "Radix" My mother is all in a watch, but things did not go beyond rehearsals. Kharms met K. Malevich, and the head of Suprematism gave him his book God will not be thrown off with the inscription “Go and stop progress.” Kharms read his poem On the Death of Kazimir Malevich at a memorial service for the artist in 1936. Kharms’s attraction to dramatic form was expressed in the dialogization of many poems (Temptation, Paw, Revenge, etc.), as well as in the creation of the Comedy of the City of St. Petersburg and the first predominantly prose work - a play by Elizaveta Bam, presented on January 24, 1928 at the only evening of the "Union of Real Art" (OBERIU), which, in addition to Kharms and Vvedensky, included N. Zabolotsky, K. Vaginov and I. Bakhterev and which N. Oleinikov joined - with him Kharms developed a special closeness. The unification was unstable, lasted less than three years (1927–1930), and Kharms’s active participation in it was rather external and did not affect him in any way creative principles. The characterization given to him by Zabolotsky, the compiler of the OBERIU manifesto, is vague: “a poet and playwright whose attention is focused not on a static figure, but on the collision of a number of objects, on their relationships.”

At the end of 1927, Oleinikov and B. Zhitkov organized the “Association of Writers of Children’s Literature” and invited Kharms to it; from 1928 to 1941 he constantly collaborated in the children's magazines "Hedgehog", "Chizh", "Cricket" and "Oktyabryata", during which time he published about 20 children's books. These works are a natural offshoot of Kharms’s work and provide a kind of outlet for his playful element, but, as his diaries and letters testify, they were written solely for earning money (since the mid-1930s, more than meager) and the author did not attach much importance to them. They were published through the efforts of S.Ya. Marshak, the attitude of leading critics towards them, starting with the article in Pravda (1929) Against hackwork in children's literature, was unequivocal. This is probably why the pseudonym had to be constantly varied and changed.

The Smena newspaper regarded his unpublished works in April 1930 as “the poetry of the class enemy”; the article became a harbinger of Kharms’ arrest at the end of 1931, the qualification of his literary activities as “subversive work” and “counter-revolutionary activity” and exile to Kursk. In 1932 he managed to return to Leningrad. The nature of his work is changing: poetry recedes into the background and fewer and fewer poems are written (the last completed poems date back to the beginning of 1938), while prose works (with the exception of the story The Old Woman, a creation of a small genre) multiply and become cyclical (Incidents, Scenes, etc. ). On the spot lyrical hero- an entertainer, ringleader, visionary and miracle worker - a deliberately naive narrator-observer appears, impartial to the point of cynicism. Fantasy and everyday grotesque reveal the cruel and delusional absurdity of “unattractive reality” (from diaries), and the effect of terrifying authenticity is created thanks to the scrupulous accuracy of details, gestures, and verbal facial expressions. In unison with diary entries(“the days of my destruction have come”, etc.) latest stories(Knights, Falling, Interference, Rehabilitation) are imbued with a feeling of complete hopelessness, the omnipotence of crazy tyranny, cruelty and vulgarity.

In August 1941, Kharms was arrested for “defeatist statements.”

Kharms's works, even those published, remained in complete oblivion until the early 1960s, when a collection of his carefully selected children's poems, Game (1962), was published. After this, for about 20 years they tried to give him the image of a cheerful eccentric, a mass entertainer for children, which was completely inconsistent with his “adult” works. Since 1978, his collected works, prepared on the basis of saved manuscripts by M. Meilach and W. Erl, have been published in Germany. By the mid-1990s, Kharms firmly occupied the place of one of the main representatives of Russian literary literature of the 1920–1930s, essentially opposed to Soviet literature.