Kornei Chukovsky

My telephone rang. Who is speaking? Elephant. From where? From camel. What do you need? Chocolate. For whom? For my son. Should I send a lot? Five poods [about 180 pounds] should do it. Or six. He won’t eat any more. He’s still little.

Злая-злая нехорошая змея молодого укусила воробья.

The wicked-wicked bad snake bit the young sparrow.

Таракан, таракан, таракашечка, жидконогая козявочка-букашечка.

Cockroach, cockroach, little cockroach, skinny-legged, tiny little bug.

We heard them from our parents, our grandmothers, our grandfathers. We heard them in kindergarten and elementary school. We looked at the pictures (the most fortunate among us had editions of his books illustrated by Konashevich). We repeated the lines that grownups read to us, which easily stuck in our heads, and later we read them ourselves and watched the countless cartoon adaptations of Chukovsky’s works and listened to kindly “Grandfather Kornei” at his Peredelkino dacha, where special events were held for children.

How wonderful it all was! And how sad that only one facet of this man’s amazing talent was ever given the recognition it deserved.

We know that this bothered Kornei Ivanovich. “I wrote twelve books and nobody paid the slightest attention, but no sooner did I write Crocodile as a joke than I suddenly became a famous author. I’m afraid that all Russia knows Crocodile by heart. I’m afraid that the words ‘Author of Crocodile’ will be engraved on my tombstone.” He made this statement at the height of his literary success.

Many years later, nothing had fundamentally changed. At the end of his life he remarked, “People have always been very nice to me, but none of them knew that I had written anything besides children’s books and From 2 to 5. ‘What! You’re not only a children’s writer?’ It was as if in my entire 70-year literary career I only wrote five or six Moidodyrs.”

By now, a great deal has been written about Chukovsky. Literary scholars know and appreciate his books about the history of Russian literature and the unique qualities of the Russian language. The Chukokkala that Kornei Ivanovich conceived while living in the Finnish town of Kuokkala in 1914 is irresistible for anyone interested in the cultural history of twentieth-century Russia. This unusual and fascinating “autograph book,” into which some of the superstars of twentieth-century Russian culture penned drawings, poems, prose, memoirs, or pasted memorabilia, represents a genre all its own and continued to grow into the late sixties. Everything in the country changed over those decades – the government, the people, ideas – but Chukovsky continued to ask every writer, poet, or artist he knew to make an entry into his Chukokkala.

For translators, Kornei Chukovsky is the author of books on translation theory who himself produced many exemplary translations from English. For historians, he is a man who left behind a fascinating diary. For students of the human rights movement, he is not only the father of the famous human rights activist Lydia Chukovskaya, but the owner of the dacha where Solzhenitsyn holed up to write The Gulag Archipelago (during his breaks from writing, Solzhenitsyn is purported to have strolled the grounds with a pitchfork, in case of KGB attack).

Chukovsky is also someone who endured unbelievable hardship, who grew up with the stigma of being born out of wedlock, who outlived several of his own children, who experienced hunger, unscrupulous attacks by boorish critics, and who was compelled to publicly repent acts that warranted no repentance (Why do you write idiotic fairy tales about insects rather than celebrating the achievements of collectivization?) and endure backhanded references to his half-Jewish background. He also had to live with the seeming inevitability of arrest (that fortunately never came to pass), his own repugnance toward the big shots of official Soviet literature, and, in the end, the compulsory role of kindly “Grandfather Kornei,” whether he wanted it or not.

But it was not only hardship that comprised this exceptionally full life. He got to know many of the iconic figures of Russian culture, and knew them well – Repin, Mayakovsky, Pasternak, Blok. He had a profound feeling for Russian literature and a keen appreciation for the English language. Once, in response to a story told about a heated meeting at the Writers’ Union, he stated, “I have lived this long because I never went to meetings. I always believed that the most important thing was the written line. This is the only way we can stand up to THEM.” Alas, that is, of course, not true. Chukovsky had to attend many meetings in his lifetime, party congresses, where he had to glue an expression of enraptured attention on his face, and writers’ meetings, where the sin of “Chukovshchina” (a term invented by critics in the 1920s using a suffix suggesting a highly damaging and rampant phenomenon) was excoriated, and, toward the end of his life, the opposite extreme – official gatherings where he was celebrated in the lifeless idiom of Soviet encomium.

What would his life have been like had it been lived under more favorable circumstances? Would he have been known solely as a literary scholar, as a well-respected professor? A famous translator? Might he never have penned a children’s book? Would generations of children have been left without the wicked Cockroach («Тараканище»), the unfortunate Buzzer Fly («Муха-Цокотуха»), and the self-important Crocodile? It is hard to believe. Despite all his problems and misfortunes, Chukovsky was a man who literally radiated joy and exuberance. These qualities can be seen in a famous incident recorded by philologists and human rights activists Lev Kopelev and Raisa Orlova.

Kornei Ivanovich is standing with several companions at the gate to his dacha. Down the road comes Andronikov. [Irakly Andronikov was a well-known literary historian whose talks on Russian literature were so popular he became a television personality starting in the 1950s.] In the distance, with balletic grace, almost hopping on one leg, he waves his right arm expansively in greeting. Kornei Ivanovich imitates this gesture. The corpulent Andronikov is moving with fluent ease. Chukovsky’s movements are more jerky and awkward, but no less refined. Andronikov glides forward and bows deeply, sweeping an invisible hat a la The Three Musketeers before him. Again, Kornei Ivanovich reciprocates. Andronikov drops down onto his knees and, extending his arms in a gesture of devotion, pronounces:

“It is my immeasurable pleasure.”

Kornei Ivanovich falls to the asphalt on his boney knees and, in an even more elevated tone, replies:

“No, the pleasure is all mine, and it is much more immeasurable.” His companions try in vain to bring him to his feet. Andronikov approaches in a mincing gait. Kornei Ivanovich hastens toward him in the same affected manner. They embrace, rapturously exclaiming:

“No, it is my honor!”

“No, the honor is all mine!”

“It is you…”

“No, it is you…”

Finally, they solicitously raise each other to their feet. The assemblage applauds. Andronikov wipes the sweat from his face and gripes, “You can’t outplay this one! I should have known better!”

Kornei Ivanovich holds out his cap.

“You think this stuff comes free? Cough it up for thirsty orphans!”

Whether there was a deep satirical meaning to this horseplay we will never know, but we do know that Chukovsky simply could not have survived without his sense of humor. And he certainly would not have survived if he had not worked constantly, if he had not sat down at his desk every day at five or six in the morning no matter what else was going on around him. They say he even worked at his desk the day his son died. The only day he was completely unable to work was when Soviet troops entered Czechoslovakia. That shock stopped him in his tracks.

Probably someday somebody will write a biography befitting Kornei Chukovsky: long, like his life; sad, and funny, like his books; and amazing, like everything that he did. In essence, it would encapsulate the twentieth century, with its horrors and flights of inspiration, with all the varied ways in which the century saw people belittled and destroyed, but also witnessed the extraordinary ways people found to express their talent and maintain their dignity.