Writer and poet Vadim Shefner

Russian writer Vadim Shefner, whose biography began in the year when the Russian Empire entered the First World War, left this world at the beginning of the third millennium. A significant part of his work fell to the Soviet era. But he was never an orthodox Soviet writer . Vadim Shefner did not oppose official literature and did not go into conflict with the nomenklatura bureaucracy, but felt comfortable only away from it.

Facts from the biography of the writer

In the formation and development of any creative personality, the birthplace and the environment in which childhood and adolescence have passed is of great importance. Shefner Vadim Sergeevich was born in the capital of the empire in the family of a regular military man. That's only a happy childhood it can not be called because it coincided with wars, revolutions, hunger, devastation and poverty. After the death of his father from tuberculosis, Vadim Shefner was brought up in the orphanage in Staraya Russa. Returning later to Petrograd, he graduated from a vocational school and worked in industrial enterprises. By the same time (30-ies) are the first literary experiments in poetry and prose, and the first publications in periodicals. From the first days of the war Vadim Shefner was on the Leningrad front rank. Later, at the height of the Leningrad blockade, he became a correspondent for the front-line newspaper Znamya Pobedy. He finished the war as a senior lieutenant.

Poetic creativity

Even in the pre-war fortieth year, the beginning writer managed to publish his first poetic experiments. But, it can be said, it was at the war that Shefner Vadim Sergeevich took place as a poet. The first significant book of his poems was published in 1943 in a besieged city. Many lines in it are devoted to the heroic defense of Leningrad. This same theme is also devoted to the poem "Meeting in the Suburbs," written and published later. These are literary facts. Vadim Shefner, whose verses almost do not address military topics, began as a front-line poet. Poetic creativity passed through his entire long life, but he himself refused to denote the priority of directions for himself. Prose, poetry, and fantasy were equally important to Vadim Shefner. It was impossible to conduct a boundary between them.

Prose of the sixties

Really famous in the literary world, Vadim Shefner became in the sixties. This was the period of the so-called "Khrushchev's thaw", when the country was experiencing a period of rapid renewal. At that time, a new generation was rapidly breaking into art and literature. Many of its representatives managed to pass both the fronts of the Great Patriotic War and Stalin's camps. They had something to say to the world. Always standing apart from political passions Vadim Shefner was, nevertheless, a particle of his front-line generation. All these years, the writer has worked hard and selflessly. Widely published. Gets recognition from readers and critics. And he is not going to stop there. Prose and poetry of Vadim Shefner is not lost in the general flow and in subsequent years, when the Khrushchev thaw replaced the endless Brezhnev stagnation. His books are too individual and do not resemble anyone. While their author has never sought to climb into the front rows and be in the public eye. But, perhaps, that is why he reflected his time so brightly and in a peculiar way.

Fantastic

With reference to what Vadim Shefner writes, any genre definitions seem very conditional. In the prose of this author, it is often difficult to draw a line between fiction and reality, between everyday routine and dreaming in real life. And it's very little like what is usually taken to mean fiction. And it seems that the author does not care at all - what kind of term will his prose stand for. He himself claims that fiction for him is nothing more than a continuation of poetry by other means. But on the very development of this genre, Vadim Shefner's work had a significant impact. This is recognized by many leading figures of Soviet and Russian fiction. And the author himself ironically described his fantastic works as "tales for the smart" and "semi-probable stories." In 1999, the writer became a laureate of the award "Paladin Fiction."

"Sister of Sorrow"

One of the unconditional vertices in the writer's work is the 1968 novel "Sister of Sorrow". It can not be called a full autobiographical work. But in its very plot and in many of the realities of pre-war Leningrad depicted in it, it is largely such and such is. In the center of it is the fate of three friends living in the same room in the hostel on Vasilievsky Island. Very soon all are waiting for the war and the blockade. Of course, no one knows about this. But strange things are foreseen by what should happen in a year or two. It is dissolved in the atmosphere. Although out loud and not pronounced. The author in this work showed himself as a thin stylist and brilliant master of prose. He himself considered this story to be his peak.

Poems for children

Many of the works of the poet Vadim Shefner are addressed to the younger generation. Sometimes it's hard to see at a glance. The fact is that with children Vadim Shefner always communicates without flirting. He talks with them in the same language as with adults. And this approach shapes both the level of thinking and the image of perception of reality. Perhaps that is why the younger generation is known for such a poet and fiction writer as Vadim Shefner. His books are read today. There is a possibility that they will not be forgotten tomorrow.