Biography
The French writer Henri Barbus was born, lived and worked at the turn of the XIX-XX centuries, in an era, marked by industrialization, major wars and a new height of the world.
Great events were reflected in the work of the writer: Worldwide, he brought the pacifist novel "Fire", in which the author almost opposes horrors of war, seeing the interests of the ruling class in it.
Childhood and youth
Henri Barbus was born on May 17, 1873 in the small French town of Annieres sur-Sen. The father of the future writer Adrian Barbus - Frenchman, worked as a journalist, wrote the theatrical reviews for the newspaper "Le Siècle" ("Century"), had literary works, wrote several plays. Mother - Annician Anni Benson, died in childbirth, when the boy was 3 years old.
The widower sends the newborn baby Anni to England to his native wife, and himself with the older children - Lily and Henri - moves to Paris. Here the boy entered Rollen College, where he studied from 1883 to 1890. Then the young Barbus makes a pen sample. Creativity carries the young man, and after college, he enters the literary Faculty of Sorbonne, begins the first experiments in poetry, participates in poetic contests.
Books and journalism
In Sorbonne, Henri received a brilliant education, in 1894 he defended his dissertation on philosophy. And next year, a collection of poems of the young poet "Plotchers" ("Pleureuses") comes out, which was successful in literary circles, the poems read in the salons, published in magazines. Barbus interested publishers.
The success of the poetic debut inspired the writer on prose. Bright samples of early creativity became novels "Praying" (1903) and "hell" (1908). The last work got good reviews of critics, and great reader demand. The author leads a story from the face of a young Parisian, who observes the surrounding life through the cloth of a keyhole. In her curly opening, the strings of fate of other people, joy and suffering, love and loneliness flashes. Barbus for the first time exposes human feelings with all realism.
"I always gave the value of the manifestations of feelings. Only through the heart, every self asserts and develops. Here only the true individuality of everyone is approved, "this is a quotation of the author about the novel" hell ".
In 1914, Henri Barbuse releases a collection of Novel "We", in which the reader introduces the stories of ordinary people, but does it again through the prism of the feelings and emotions of the main characters, be it an elderly couple, recalling youth ("Fairy Tale") or Madame Louis married to the first oncoming after the departure of the beloved ("Present").
Barbus stories read literary Paris, and the author himself is already famous so much that he was released from military service to the beginning of the First World War. However, still went to the front volunteer in 1914, although he was already the fifth tenth. The writer was enrolled by the rank 231th French rifle regiment.
However, and here, on the front line, it does not part with a pencil and paper, writing the plots born in the head, the history of ordinary soldiers who died in his eyes. And Barbus had increasingly understood that these victims were not in the name of the world, but for the sake of the interests of capitalism. The war in the root changed the worldview of the Frenchman, and the revolutionary ideas and principles and principles are increasingly in his speeches and letters.
All this could not not affect the work of the writer. The novel "Fire" was written literally under the root of the cannonads in a record short time. The first chapters printed in the Evr publishing house, Barbus read, lying down in the hospital. Soon as a state of health was dismissed, having deserved a high award - a military cross for the fact that he helped to endure wounded fighters from the battlefield.
At the time when the war occupied the minds of all sectors of society, the Roman "Fire" was adopted as the most relevant fiction. The writer is not trying to embello the military reality, on the contrary, its descriptions are so realistic that they bring the author to the reputation of "Zol Tren." Someone even initiated a wave of criticism for excessively free style and the fact that the book is filled with soldier jargon.
"Fire" brought a man world recognition and prestigious Hangovsk Prize (the highest literary award of France). The book was transferred to several languages, including in Russian, the translation was banned only in Germany and the countries of Austria-Hungary.
In 1917, Henri Barbuse was one of those who welcomed the revolution in Russia. His friendship with this country will be carried through all his life and creativity. The Frenchman is close to the idea of communism, which, as he believed, will relieve the world from imperial evil.
New novel, written in 1920, Barbus called "Clarity". In this work, the author shows the example of his hero Simona, how the reassessment of human values turning out of the conformist and the alignment in the revolutionary.
In 1923, the writer enters into the ranks of the French Communist Party, becomes the founder of the Clarit anti-war association and the editor of the magazine of the same name along with a colleague - writer Romen Rollyn.
From now on, Barbus pays a lot of time to public work: Heads the World Committee for the Fight against War and Fascism, participates in the convening of international anti-war congresses, acts in defense of revolutionary manifestos.
In 1924, the bibliography of Henri Barbus replenishes the Roman "Links", a great work, in which the author seems to take the reader at the excursion in all the historical periods of mankind, which has always been fidgeted by different "links": religions, freedom, morality and finally, with the arrival of XIX century - bourgeois system.
Barbus first arrived in the USSR in 1927, met Stalin, after which he began working on the leader's biography. The following year, the author publishes at once 2 collectors - "Accidents" and "Truthful Stories". For these works again receives a prestigious Gonorovsky Prize.
By the end of life, the writer again appeals to the lyrical genre of the novel. In 1935, one of his last works was published - a touching story "Tenderness". In the plot of the young man 20 years ago left the beloved by the will of his parents. The girl did not survive parting, leaving behind the letters he will receive many years later. Immortal play is still successful in many theater scenes of the world.
In the year of death of the writer, the book "Stalin. A person through which the new world is revealed, "which brought the world the image of the Soviet leader.
Personal life
In the biography of the writer there are few details from personal life. In 1898, he married Elion Mendez - the daughter of a prominent poet and the writer of the time of Katulle Mendez and the composer Augustus Holmes.
The relationship in the pair was harmonious. Barbus wrote his wife almost every day from the front of tender letters. They did not have children.
Death
Henri Barbuse died on August 30, 1935 in Moscow from pneumonia. In the capital of the USSR, he arrived, already being very sick, to participate in one of the conference and work on new publications (according to the same version, he worked on the biography of Lenin, on the other - wrote the second life of Stalin).
The writer was buried on the cemetery "Per Lashhez" in Paris. Consider the writer in the last let the entire French capital came. On the grave of Barbus, a monument from pink marble (Rhodonite) sent from Russia was established.
Bibliography
- 1903 - "Praying"
- 1908 - "hell"
- 1914 - "We"
- 1916 - "Fire"
- 1920 - "Clarity"
- 1924 - "Links"
- 1928 - "Incidents"
- 1928 - "Truthful Stories"
- 1935 - "Tenderness"