Life of wonderful people

90 years ago, at the initiative of Maxim Gorky, the USSR resumed the publication of the book series “The Life of Remarkable People”, founded in 1890. Whom the authors of ZhZL considered remarkable – in the study “Kommersant”.

Heroes of different eras

The original ZhZL series was founded by the educator Florenty Pavlenkov in 1890 and was published until the First World War. As conceived by Pavlenkov, biographies were supposed to acquaint readers with outstanding figures of past eras. The word “wonderful” was then understood in its original sense – “worthy of observation, attention, remarkable.” The main heroes of that period were writers, scientists and philosophers.

In 1933, Maxim Gorky revived the release of the series. The concept of “wonderful” began to change, moving closer to the words “outstanding” and even “great”. Gradually, the series began to take on an ideological character. So, in 1933, Gorky banned the publication of a biography of Molière written by Mikhail Bulgakov for “non-Marxist approach.” At the same time, in the same year, the biography of the French revolutionary communist Gracchus Babeuf, and a year later – a biography of one of the organizers of the assassination of Emperor Alexander II Andrey Zhelyabov.

Biographies of writers continued to be the most published, but revolutionaries and reformers now took second place. The top 5 also includes scientists and the military.

In the 1960s and 1970s, books dedicated to the heroes of Latin America were published regularly: biographies Che Guevara, Bolivar, Pancho Villa. Most of the heroes were ideologically consistent and morally impeccable, and very little was said about the difficulties in their fate. Most reprints in the Soviet period were awarded to the biography of a test pilot Valeria Chkalova, writer Nikolai Ostrovsky and scientist Mikhail Lomonosov.

With the onset of sociocultural changes and after the collapse of the USSR, the heroes of the Soviet past were replaced by dissidents, émigré writers, White Guards, tsars and officials of pre-revolutionary Russia, as well as mass culture stars and athletes. Particular attention was paid to various rulers: from the emperors of Byzantium to the presidents of the United States.

Biography caused public outcry Jesus Christ written by Metropolitan Hilarion in 2019. The publication was substantiated as follows: “He was God, which did not prevent him from being a man – interesting and bright.”

The most wonderful

Most biographies were devoted to literary figures, rulers and scientists.

The largest number of reissues was awarded to Alexander Pushkin – the first biography of the poet was published in 1891, the last – in 2017. Moreover, separate volumes were devoted to the poet’s entourage: his wife Natalia Goncharova, muse Anne Kern and even babysitter Arina Rodionovna.

What places and times gave birth to heroes

In total, natives are represented in the ZhZL 72 countries. Most often, the heroes of the books come from Russia (the Russian Empire, the USSR and the Russian Federation). The second place is taken by the French, and the third by the British. Next come the Germans and Italians. Interestingly, the only major developed country not represented in the series is Japan.

Inside Russia, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod and Smolensk regions gave the most remarkable people.

If the number of reprints of biographies is taken as the level of the scale of the personality, then the following rating is obtained by the age of birth:

• 15th century face Michelangelo Buonarroti (five books in the series);
• XVI century – Ivan groznyj (six books);
• XVII century – Peter I (10 books);
• XVIII century – Alexander Pushkin (27 books);
• XIX century – Nikolay Gogol (15 books);
• XX century – Vladimir Vysotsky (10 books).

The vast majority of remarkable people were born in XIX century. The 18th and 20th centuries were slightly less fruitful. Of those who were born in the 21st century, no one has yet entered the ZhZL series.

Collective image of a wonderful person

According to Kommersant’s estimates, over the 130 years of the existence of the ZhZL, the heroes of books dedicated to an individual have become 1063 people. The collective male image looks like this: a 60-year-old writer of the 19th century from Moscow named Alexander Ivanovich Ulyanov.

The surname Ulyanov met in the series five times. Beyond the leader of the revolution Vladimir Lenin, biographers dedicated books to almost all of his family – two brothers, a sister and a father.

Out of 1063 book characters women – only 65. Before the revolution, only four women’s biographies were written: about an associate of Empress Catherine II Ekaterina Dashkova, mathematics Sofia Kovalevskaya and female writers George Sand And Mary Ann Evans. In Soviet times, the ZhZL series devoted books to 12 women, including a participant in the Stakhanov movement Praskovya Angelina, wife of Lenin Nadezhda Krupskaya and poetess Lesia Ukrainka.

Attention to the weaker sex has increased in the post-Soviet period. Among 49 books there is a biography Cleopatra, princess Olga, mother of the current President of Azerbaijan Zarifa Aliyeva And Vanga.

The collective female image differs from the male one – this is a 58-year-old empress of the eighteenth century from Moscow named Maria Fedorovna Goncharova. The ZhZL series has two biographies of women named Goncharova – this is the wife of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin, Natalya Nikolaevna, and the avant-garde artist Natalya Sergeevna.

Andrey Egupets