Playwright Lyudmila Petrushevskaya. Biography of Lyudmila Petrushevskaya . A talented person is talented in everything

- (b. 1938) Russian writer. In plays (Love, staged 1975; Cinzano, Smirnova’s Birthday, both productions 1977; Music Lessons, staged 1979), novels and stories (Own Circle, 1988; Songs Eastern Slavs, 1990; Time is night... ... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

Petrushevskaya, Lyudmila Stefanovna- PETRUSHEVSKAYA Lyudmila Stefanovna (born 1938), Russian writer. In plays (“Love”, staged in 1975; “Cinzano”, “Smirnova’s Birthday”, both productions in 1977; “Music Lessons”, staged in 1979), stories and short stories (“Own Circle”, 1988;… … Illustrated encyclopedic dictionary

- (b. 1938), Russian writer. In plays (“Love”, staged 1975; “Cinzano”, “Smirnova’s Birthday”, both productions 1977; “Music Lessons”, staged 1979), novellas and stories (“Own Circle”, 1988; “Songs of the Eastern Slavs”, 1990; “Time... ... Encyclopedic Dictionary

PETRUSHEVSKAYA Lyudmila Stefanovna- (b. 1938), Russian Soviet writer. The plays “Love” (post. 1975), “Cinzano”, “Smirnova’s Birthday” (both post. 1977), “Suitcase of Nonsense” (1978), “Music Lessons” (post. 1979). Stories. Film scripts. Translations.■ Plays, M., 1983 (in... ... Literary encyclopedic dictionary

Prose writer, playwright; born 1938; graduated from the Faculty of Journalism of Moscow State University; author of the plays “Love”, “Cinzano”, “Smirnova’s Birthday”, “Music Lessons”, “A Glass of Water”, “Three Girls in... ... Large biographical encyclopedia

Lyudmila Petrushevskaya February 1, 2009 on the 25th anniversary of the rock group “Zvuki Mu” Birth name: Lyudmila Stefanovna Petrushevskaya Date of birth: May 26, 1938 Place of birth: Moscow, USSR Citizenship: Russia ... Wikipedia

Lyudmila Stefanovna Petrushevskaya- The anniversary of Lyudmila Petrushevskaya, who turns 70 on Monday, will be celebrated with a special “Petrushevsky Festival”, which will last almost a month and will present the writer in an unusual role for her. Prose writer, playwright... ... Encyclopedia of Newsmakers

Petrushevskaya Lyudmila Stefanovna - prose writer, playwright, poet, screenwriter, author of watercolors and monotypes, artist and director of eight of her own animated films (“Manual Labor Studio”), composer and singer, creator of the traveling theater “Lyudmila Petrushevskaya Cabaret”.
Born on May 26, 1938 in Moscow into a family of students at the IFLI (Institute of Philosophy, Literature, History). Granddaughter of the linguist, professor of oriental studies N. F. Yakovlev. Mother, Valentina Nikolaevna Yakovleva, later worked as an editor, father, Stefan Antonovich Petrushevsky, whom L.S. I almost didn’t know, I became a Doctor of Philosophy.
L.S., whose family was subjected to repression (three were shot), experienced severe famine during the war, lived with relatives who were not given work (as family members of enemies of the people), and also, after the war, in an orphanage for disabled children and tuberculosis survivors of famine near Ufa. She graduated from school in Moscow with a silver medal and received a diploma from the Faculty of Journalism of Moscow State University.

She started writing early, published notes in newspapers (Moskovsky Komsomolets, 1957, Mosk. Pravda, 1958, Krokodil magazine 1960, Nedelya newspaper, 1961), worked as a correspondent All-Union Radio and Krugozor magazine. She wrote her first story in 1968 (“Such a Girl,” published 20 years later in the magazine “Ogonyok”), and from that moment on she wrote mainly prose. I sent stories to various magazines, they were returned, only the Leningrad Aurora responded. The first works published there were the stories "The Story of Clarissa" and "The Storyteller", which appeared in 1972 in the magazine "Aurora" and caused harsh criticism in the Literary Gazette. In 1974, the story “Nets and Traps” was published there, then “Across the Fields”. In total, by 1988, only seven stories, one children's play ("Two Windows") and several fairy tales had been published. Having joined the Writers' Union in 1977, L.P. earned money by translating from Polish and articles in magazines. In 1988, she sent a letter to Gorbachev, the letter was sent to the Writers' Union for a response. And the secretary of the Writers' Union, Ilyin, helped with the publication of the first book (Immortal Love, 1988, Moskovsky Rabochiy publishing house, circulation thirty thousand).
The play “Music Lessons” was staged by Roman Viktyuk in 1979 at the Moscow State University Student Theater, after 6 performances it was banned, then the theater moved to the Moskvorechye House of Culture, and “Lessons” was banned again in the spring of 1980 (the play was published in 1983 in the periodical publication, in the brochure “To help amateur artists”, with a circulation of 60 thousand copies).
Lyudmila Petrushevskaya - author of many prose works and plays, books for children. She also wrote scripts for the animated films “Lyamzi-Tyri-Bondi, the Evil Wizard” (1976), “All the Dumb” (1976), “The Stolen Sun” (1978), “Tale of Tales” (1979, jointly with Yu. Norshtein ), “The Cat Who Could Sing” (1988), “Bunny Tail”, “You Make Only Tears”, “Peter Pig” and the first part of the film “The Overcoat” (co-authored with Yu. Norshtein).
Petrushevskaya's stories and plays have been translated into many languages ​​of the world, her dramatic works are staged in Russia and abroad.
Laureate International Prize"Alexandr Puschkin" (1991, Hamburg), State Prize of the Russian Federation in the field of literature and art (2002), Independent Prize "Triumph" (2002), Bunin Prize, Theater Award named after Stanislavsky, the World Fantasy Award for the collection “Once upon a time there was a woman who tried to kill her neighbor’s child”, the humorous award “Small Golden Ostap” for the collection “Wild Animal Tales”, etc.
Academician of the Bavarian Academy of Arts.

In 1991, from February to August, she was under investigation for insulting President M. S. Gorbachev. The reason was a letter to Lithuania after the entry of Soviet tanks into Vilnius, reprinted in Vilnius and translated in the Yaroslavl newspaper “Northern Bee”. The case was closed due to the resignation of the president.
IN recent years her books are published - prose, poetry, drama, fairy tales, journalism, more than 10 children's books have been published, performances are staged - “He is in Argentina” at the Moscow Art Theater. Chekhov, plays “Love”, “Cinzano” and “Smirnova’s Birthday” in Moscow and in different cities Russia, graphic exhibitions are held (in the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, in Literary Museum, in the Akhmatova Museum in St. Petersburg, in private galleries in Moscow and Yekaterinburg). L. Petrushevskaya speaks with concert programs under the name “Cabaret of Lyudmila Petrushevskaya” in Moscow, throughout Russia, abroad - in London, Paris, New York, Budapest, Pula, Rio de Janeiro, where he performs hits of the twentieth century in his translation, as well as songs of his own composition .
Started selling her watercolors and monotypes - via the Internet - for the benefit of orphanage for disabled teenagers in Porkhov near Pskov. Sick children live there, whom the PROBO Rostock Charitable Society saved from staying in an old age home for mentally disabled people, where they are sent at the age of 15 after orphanages - for life. The children are taught by teachers, they get used to independence, grow vegetables, do handicrafts, housework, etc. Now is a difficult time, they need help.

Biography, life story of Lyudmila Stefanovna Petrushevskaya

Petrushevskaya Lyudmila Stefanovna is a Russian writer.

Childhood and youth

Lyudmila Petrushevskaya was born in Moscow on May 26, 1938. Her father was a scientist, Ph.D., and her mother was an editor. When Luda was still very young, the war began. The girl spent some time in an orphanage in Ufa, and then she was taken into care by her grandfather Nikolai Feofanovich Yakovlev, a linguist and Caucasian expert, and her grandmother Valentina. It is important to note that Nikolai Yakovlev was against teaching his granddaughter to read early. But Luda had a passion for literature in her blood - she learned to distinguish letters secretly from her grandfather, while still quite a baby.

In 1941, Lyuda and her grandparents were evacuated from Moscow to Kuibyshev. Petrushevkaya spent several years of her life there. After the end of the war, she returned to Moscow, graduated from school, and then became a student at the Moscow University state university, Faculty of Journalism.

Job

After successful defense thesis Lyudmila Petrushevskaya worked for some time as a correspondent for various Moscow newspapers and collaborated with various publishing houses. In 1972, Lyudmila became an editor at the Central Television Studio.

Writing

Lyudmila began writing poetry and prose in her youth. During her student days, she wrote scripts for skits and creative evenings, got real pleasure from it, but I never even dreamed of being a serious writer. Everything happened somehow by itself - naturally, smoothly, effortlessly.

In 1972, Petrushevskaya’s story “Across the Fields” appeared on the pages of Aurora magazine. This was Lyudmila’s writing debut, after which she disappeared for ten years. Only in the second half of the 1980s did her works begin to be published again. Very soon her plays were noticed by theater directors. At first, productions based on her texts appeared on the stages of small and amateur theaters, and over time, famous temples of art began to gladly stage performances based on Petrushevskaya. Thus, her play “The Music Lesson” was staged at the Theater-Studio of the House of Culture “Moskvorechye”, “Cinzano” was staged at the Gaudeamus Theater in Lvov, “Love” was staged at the Taganka Theater, “Colombina’s Apartment” was staged at Sovremennik, Moscow Art Theater - "Moscow Choir". Lyudmila Petrushevskaya was a fairly in-demand and popular author, and this despite the fact that for a long time she had to write “on the table”, since many editors could not publish her creations, which boldly talked about the shadow aspects of life.

CONTINUED BELOW

Separately, it is worth noting the books by Lyudmila Petrushevskaya about the adventures of Peter the Piglet, created by her in 2002: “Peter the Piglet and the Machine”, “Peter the Piglet and the Store”, “Peter the Piglet is Coming to Visit”. In 2008, a cartoon was made based on this story. And in 2010, Peter the Pig became an Internet meme after a video appeared online for the song “Peter the Pig Eat...”, created by users Lein (text and music) and Artem Chizhikov (video). However, it is not only Internet fame that makes Peter the Pig a special character for Petrushevskaya. The fact is that in 1943, the American writer Betty Howe published her book entitled “Peter Pig and His Air Travel.” The stories of Petrushevskaya and Howe are very similar in many details, including the main idea and the name of the main character.

Other activities

In parallel with the creation literary works Lyudmila Petrushevskaya created a “Manual Labor Studio”, in which she herself became an animator. Also, as part of the “Cabaret of One Author” project, the writer performed popular songs of the bygone century, read her poems and even recorded solo albums (“Don’t get used to the rain”, 2010; “Dreams of Love”, 2012).

Lyudmila Stefanovna, among other things, is also an artist. She often organized exhibitions and auctions where she sold her paintings and donated the profits to orphanages.

Family

Lyudmila Petrushevskaya's husband was Boris Pavlov, director of the Solyanka Gallery. Husband and wife spent many happy years together. They gave birth to three children - sons Kirill and Fedor and daughter Natalya. Kirill is a journalist, ex-deputy editor-in-chief of the Kommerant publishing house, ex-deputy editor-in-chief of the Moscow News newspaper, deputy editor-in-chief of the Vedomosti newspaper. Fedor is a journalist and performance artist, theater director. Natalya is a musician, creator of the funk band Clean Tone (Moscow).

In 2009, Lyudmila Stefanovna buried her beloved husband.

Awards and prizes

In 1991, Lyudmila Petrushevskaya received the Pushkin Prize from the Tepfer Foundation. In 1993, the writer was awarded the October magazine prize. She also received the same recognition from the same magazine in 1996 and 2000. In 1995, Petrushevskaya became a laureate of the magazine " New world", in 1996 - winner of the Znamya magazine award, in 1999 - Zvezda magazine award winner. In 2002, Lyudmila Stefanovna received the Triumph Prize and the State Prize Russian Federation. In 2008, Petrushevskaya became a laureate of the Bunin Prize. In the same year she was awarded Literary Prize name

The biography of Lyudmila Petrushevskaya is given in this article. This is a famous Russian poetess, writer, screenwriter and playwright.

Childhood and youth

You can find out the biography of Lyudmila Petrushevskaya from this article. The Russian writer was born in Moscow in 1938. Her father was an employee. Grandfather was widely known in scientific circles. Nikolai Feofanovich Yakovlev was a famous linguist and specialist in Caucasus. Currently, he is considered one of the founders of writing for a number of peoples of the USSR.

During the Great Patriotic War Petrushevskaya Lyudmila Stefanovna lived for some time with relatives and even in an orphanage located near Ufa.

When the war ended, she entered the Faculty of Journalism of Moscow State University. At the same time, she began working as a correspondent for metropolitan newspapers and collaborating with publishing houses. In 1972, she took up the post of editor at the Central Television Studio.

Creative career

Lyudmila Stefanovna Petrushevskaya in early age started writing scripts for student parties, poetry and short stories. But at the same time, at that time I had not yet thought about a career as a writer.

In 1972, her first work was published in Aurora magazine. It was a story called “Across the Fields.” After this, Petrushevskaya continued to write, but her stories were no longer published. I had to work at the table for at least ten years. Her works began to be published only after perestroika.

In addition, the heroine of our article worked as a playwright. Her productions were performed in amateur theaters. For example, in 1979, Roman Viktyuk staged her play “Music Lessons” at the theater-judge of the Moskvorechye cultural center. Theater director Vadim Golikov - in the studio theater of Leningrad State University. True, almost immediately after the premiere the production was banned. The play was published only in 1983.

Another famous production based on her text, called “Cinzano,” was staged in Lviv, at the Gaudeamus Theater. Massively professional theaters They started staging Petrushevskaya in the 80s. Thus, the audience saw the one-act work “Love” at the Taganka Theater, “Colombina’s Apartment” was released at Sovremennik, and “Moscow Choir” was released at the Moscow Art Theater.

Dissident writer

The biography of Lyudmila Petrushevskaya contains many sad pages. So, for many years she actually had to pee on the table. Editorials of thick people literary magazines had an unspoken ban not to publish the writer’s works. The reason for this was that most of her novels and stories were devoted to the so-called shadow sides of the life of Soviet society.

At the same time, Petrushevskaya did not give up. She continued to work, hoping that someday these texts would see the light of day and find their reader. During that period, she created the joke play “Andante,” the dialogue plays “Insulated Box” and “Glass of Water,” and the monologue play “Songs of the 20th Century” (it was this that gave the name to her later collection of dramatic works).

Prose of Petrushevskaya

The prose work of Lyudmila Petrushevskaya, in fact, continues her dramaturgy in many thematic plans. It also uses almost the same artistic techniques.

In fact, her works are a real encyclopedia women's life from youth to old age.

This may include next novels and stories - “The Adventures of Vera”, “The Story of Clarissa”, “Xenia’s Daughter”, “Country”, “Who Will Answer?”, “Mysticism”, “Hygiene”, and many others.

In 1992 she wrote one of her most famous works- the collection “Time is Night”, shortly before this another collection “Songs of the Eastern Slavs” was published.

Interestingly, her work contains many fairy tales for children and adults. Among them it is worth noting “Once upon a time there was an alarm clock”, “Little sorceress”, “A Puppet Novel”, and the collection “Fairy Tales Told to Children”.

Throughout its entire creative career Petrushevskaya lives and works in the Russian capital.

Personal life of Lyudmila Petrushevskaya

Petrushevskaya was married to the head of the Solyanka gallery, Boris Pavlov. He passed away in 2009.

In total, the heroine of our article has three children. The eldest - Kirill Kharatyan was born in 1964. He's a journalist. At one time he worked as deputy editor-in-chief of the Kommersant publishing house, then was one of the leaders of the Moscow News newspaper. Currently works as deputy editor-in-chief of the Vedomosti newspaper.

Petrushevskaya’s second son’s name is He was born in 1976. He is also a journalist, producer, television presenter and artist. The writer's daughter famous musician, one of the founders of the capital's funk band.

Peter the Pig

Not everyone knows, but it was Lyudmila Petrushevskaya who is the author of the meme about Peter the Pig, who is fleeing the country on a red tractor.

It all started when in 2002 the writer published three books at once entitled “Peter the Pig and the Machine,” “Peter the Pig is Coming to Visit,” and “Peter the Pig and the Shop.” 6 years later the film of the same name was filmed animated film. It was after its publication that this character turned into a meme.

He gained fame throughout the country after in 2010, one of the Internet users nicknamed Lein recorded musical composition"Peter the piglet ate...". Soon after this, another user Artem Chizhikov superimposed a bright video sequence from the cartoon of the same name onto the text.

There's another one interesting fact about the writer. According to some versions, the profile of Lyudmila Petrushevskaya served as a prototype for the creation of the title character in Yuri Norshtein's cartoon "Hedgehog in the Fog."

This is confirmed by the fact that Petrushevskaya herself, in one of her works, directly describes this episode in exactly this way. At the same time, he describes the appearance of this character differently.

At the same time, it is reliably known that Petrushevskaya became the prototype for the director when creating another cartoon - “The Crane and the Heron”.

"Time is night"

The key work in the biography of Lyudmila Petrushevskaya is the collection of short stories “Time is Night.” It included her various novels and stories, not only new works, but also those already known for a long time.

It is noteworthy that Petrushevskaya’s heroes are ordinary, average people, most of whom each of us can meet every day. They are our work colleagues, they meet every day in the subway, they live next door in the same entrance.

At the same time, you need to think that each of these people is a separate world, an entire Universe, which the author manages to fit into one small piece. Lyudmila Petrushevskaya's stories have always been distinguished by their drama, by the fact that they contained a strong emotional charge that some novels could envy.

Most critics today note that Petrushevskaya remains one of the most unusual phenomena in modern Russian literature. It skillfully combines archaic and modern, momentary and eternal.

The story "Chopin and Mendelssohn"

The story "Chopin and Mendelssohn" by Lyudmila Petrushevskaya serves a shining example her bright and unique creativity. Based on it, one can judge her as a unique Russian prose writer.

It surprisingly compares these two composers, and the main character The story begins with a woman who constantly complains that the same annoying music plays behind her wall every evening.

Lyudmila Stefanovna Petrushevskaya

1. Life and work of L.S. Petrushevskaya

2. Drama by L. Petrushevskaya

3. Prose by L. Petrushevskaya

Life and work of L.S. Petrushevskaya

Lyudmila Stefanovna Petrushevskaya is a modern prose writer, poet, and playwright. She stands in the same honorable rank with such modern writers, like Tatyana Tolstaya, Lyudmila Ulitskaya, Victoria Tokareva, Victor Pelevin, Vladimir Makanin... Stands in the same row - and at the same time stands out in its own way, as something, of course, out of this series, not fitting into any rigid framework and not subject to classification.

Born on May 26, 1938 in Moscow, in the family of a professor at Moscow State University. Her childhood was during the difficult, hungry years of the war; she was remembered for her wanderings among relatives, life in an orphanage near Ufa and evacuation. After the war, she returned to Moscow and graduated from the Faculty of Journalism of Moscow University. She worked as a correspondent for newspapers and radio, in a publishing house, and since 1972 as editor of the television reference department.

Petrushevskaya began writing early. Literary creativity started with composing poems, scripts for student evenings, without seriously thinking about writing activity. The first published work was the story “Across the Fields,” which appeared in 1972 in Aurora magazine. From that time on, Petrushevskaya’s prose was not published for more than ten years.

The very first plays were noticed by amateur theaters: the play “Music Lessons” (1973) was staged by R. Viktyuk in 1979, and the one-act “Love” (1974) was almost immediately banned by Yu. Lyubimov at the Taganka Theater in the 1980s. The 1985 performance at the Lenin Komsomol Theater based on the play “Three Girls in Blue” turned out to be successful. It was published only 10 years later, in 1983, in the series “To help amateur artists” (where Vampilov’s works began their journey to the viewer and reader). At the center of the action of Petrushevskaya’s play were two ordinary families- Gavrilovs and Kozlovs, and the most ordinary events unfolded here, which happen everywhere off the stage. And how to evaluate these events is also difficult to answer unequivocally: as in life, it is possible either way. Breakfasts, getting ready for work, lunches, TV in the evenings, family quarrels - nothing else seems to happen in the play. “Peeping through a keyhole”, “tape-recorder dramaturgy” - this is how the peculiarities of the work of Petrushevskaya criticism were defined. It seems that the “wrong side of life” shown by the playwright has long been familiar to everyone, but for some reason these everyday recognizable situations and characters evoke acute pity. Perhaps because both they and the author talk about themselves trustingly and innocently, without making any final assessments and without calling anyone to account. “Her talent is amazingly human,” director O. Efremov said about Petrushevskaya’s work. “She sees and writes modern man at the very depths. She has a sense of history, and her plays have a spirit of catharsis that is often forgotten by our playwrights and theater workers."

Petrushevskaya in “Music Lessons” and subsequent plays (“Three Girls in Blue”, 1980; “Colombina’s Apartment”, 1981; “Moscow Choir”, 1988, etc.) artistically explored a process that is important in Russian reality - the deformation of personality under the influence of humiliating for human dignity and living conditions. The notorious everyday life squeezes out all the vital forces from Petrushevskaya’s heroes, and in their souls there is no longer any room left for celebration, bright hope, faith in love. “Many artists generally believe that they have no place here,” notes critic N. Agisheva, “and disgustedly rush away from crying children and swearing alcoholics into the open spaces great life. Petrushevskaya remains where people feel bad and ashamed. Her music is there. And its secret is that feeling bad and ashamed, at least sometimes, happens to everyone. That’s why Petrushevskaya writes about each of us.”

Contempt for “philistinism”, “everyday life”, which has been cultivated for decades in Soviet literature, led to the fact that the key concept of home for Russian literature was gradually lost. Playwrights" new wave"we acutely felt this loss, and in addition to Petrushevskaya's plays appeared" old house" A. Kazantseva, "Look who came!.." and "Rut" by V. Arro, "Threshold" by A. Dudarev. It is worth taking a closer look at some of these plays.

Professional theaters began staging Petrushevskaya's plays in the 1980s. For a long time, the writer had to work “on the table” - the editors could not publish stories and plays about the “shadow sides of life.”

Petrushevskaya’s prose continues her dramaturgy in thematic terms and in use artistic techniques. Her works represent a kind of encyclopedia of women's life from youth to old age: “The Adventures of Vera”, “The Story of Clarissa”, “Xenia’s Daughter”, “Country”, “Who Will Answer?”, “Mysticism”, “Hygiene” and many others.

In 1988, the writer’s first book was published, a collection of short stories “Immortal Love”; professional theaters began to stage performances based on her dramatic works - “Cinzano”, “Colombina’s Apartment”, “Three Girls in Blue”, “Moscow Choir”.

Petrushevskaya's dramaturgy and prose give the impression of being realistic, but somehow twilight. Since the late 1990s, the predominance of the unreal has become increasingly obvious in her prose. The synthesis of reality and fantasy becomes the main genre, structural and plot-forming principle in the works of this writer. Notable in this sense is the general title of her book “Where I Was.” Stories from another reality" (2002), and the names of the short stories included in it: "Labyrinth", "There is someone in the house", " New soul”, “Two Kingdoms”, “The Phantom of the Opera”, “Shadow of Life”, “Miracle”, etc. In this collection, reality moves far towards the “kingdom of the dead”, thus refracting the idea of ​​romantic dual worlds, the opposition of “here” and "there" of being. Moreover, L. Petrushevskaya does not strive to give the reader a holistic idea of ​​either reality or the mysterious other world. The solution to the problem of commensurate man with the unknown “kingdom”, their mutual permeability comes to the fore: it turns out that the transcendental and infernal have not just penetrated into our real world- proximity to dark people mystical powers, terrifying and at the same time alluring, is completely organic, legitimate and for some reason not even surprising. Petrushevskaya never makes a distinction between the heavenly world and the earthly world, moreover, between the fabulous, archaic world and the civilized world. In her prose, everything transcendental is written on the same street and even in the same apartment in which everyday life lives. But not only the mysterious and otherworldly penetrates into “our” world, on the contrary, even more often the person himself penetrates from “this” world into “that”, infernal, inexplicable, frightening.

In 1990, the cycle "Songs of the Eastern Slavs" was written, and in 1992 - the story "Time is Night", which won the Booker Prize. Lyudmila Petrushevskaya also writes fairy tales for both adults and children: “Once upon a time there was an alarm clock”, “Well, mom, well!” - “Fairy tales told to children”, etc. A number of cartoons were produced based on the scripts of Lyudmila Petrushevskaya.

She wrote the scripts animated films“Hedgehog in the Fog”, “Tale of Tales”, cycles “Fairy Tales for the Whole Family”, “Wild Animal Tales”, plays “Two Windows”, “Suitcase of Nonsense”, the famous “Tale of Tales” by Yuri Norshtein, as well as “Stolen Sun” , “Bunny Tail”, “The Cat Who Could Sing”. etc.

Books by this author do not sit on the shelves, be it fairy tales or realistic prose. After all, they were created by the Master’s pen. Lyudmila Petrushevskaya is recognized as a classic of modern Russian literature, although her first book was published only in the late 1980s. She is one of the best playwrights of the past century.

Lyudmila Petrushevskaya is a “drawing writer”. Her personal exhibitions were held at the Literary Museum, a joint exhibition with Yuri Norshtein and Francesca Yarbusova - in Tretyakov Gallery, in the Art Gallery.

Lyudmila Stefanovna Petrushevskaya is an academician of the Bavarian Academy of Arts, laureate of the Poushkin-prize (Topfer Foundation, Hamburg), the Dovlatov Prize and other awards.

Currently, Lyudmila Petrushevskaya lives and works in Moscow.

2. Drama by L. Petrushevskaya

The action of Petrushevskaya’s plays takes place in everyday, easily recognizable circumstances: in a country house (“Three Girls in Blue,” 1980), on a staircase (“Staircase,” 1974), etc. The personalities of the heroines are revealed during the exhausting struggle for existence that they wage in cruel life situations. Petrushevskaya makes visible the absurdity of everyday life, and this determines the ambiguity of the characters of her characters. In this sense, the thematically related plays “Cinzano” (1973) and “Smirnova’s Birthday” (1977), as well as the play "Music Lessons".

Ivanov, the partner of thirty-eight-year-old Granya, returns from prison to the Gavrilovs’ sparsely furnished apartment. He says that he wants to see his recently born daughter Galya and live in peace. family life. The Gavrilovs don’t believe him. Granya's eldest daughter, eighteen-year-old Nina, is especially uncompromisingly opposed to the drunkard Ivanov. She was forced to leave school, now works in a grocery store and babysits little Galya. Despite Nina's dissatisfaction and the admonitions of her curious neighbor Anna Stepanovna, Granya decides to let Ivanov in.

The only son Nikolai returns from the army to the apartment of the Kozlovs’ wealthy neighbors. The parents are happy about their son's return. The father demands that his son play something on the piano, and complains that he never finished music school, despite all the efforts of his parents, who spared nothing for him. The joy is darkened by the fact that Nikolai brought Nadya with him, who causes open hostility from Fyodor Ivanovich’s father and grandmother. Mother, Taisiya Petrovna, behaves with emphasized courtesy. Nadya works as a painter and lives in a hostel. She smokes, drinks wine, stays overnight in Nikolai’s room, acts independently and does not try to please the groom’s parents. The Kozlovs are sure that Nadya is laying claim to their living space. The next day, Nadya leaves without saying goodbye. Nikolai rushes after her to the hostel, but she declares that he is not suitable for her.

Nina does not want to live in the same apartment with the drunkard Ivanov. All day she stands on the street at the entrance. Here Nikolai, who was once teased as her fiancé, sees her. Nikolai is indifferent to Nina. Hoping to get her son away from Nadya, Taisiya Petrovna invites Nina to visit and offers to stay. Nina is glad to not have to return home. When Grane Kozlova came to pick up her daughter, she explains that the girl will be better off with them and asks her not to come again.

Three months later, Granya appears again in the Kozlovs’ apartment: she needs to go to the hospital for an abortion, but there is no one to leave little Galya with. Ivanov drinks. Granya leaves the child to Nina. By this time, the Kozlovs had already realized that Nikolai was living with Nina out of boredom. They want to get rid of Nina and reproach her with their good deeds. Seeing Galya, the Kozlovs finally decide to send Nina home. But at this moment Nadya appears. It is difficult to recognize her: she is pregnant and looks very bad. Instantly getting her bearings, Taisiya Petrovna announces to Nadya that Nikolai has already married, and presents Galya as his child. Nadya leaves. Nina hears this conversation.

Frightened by Nadya's unexpected appearance, the Kozlovs demand that Nikolai urgently marry Nina. It turns out that he knows about Nadya’s pregnancy and that she tried to poison herself. Nikolai refuses to marry Nina, but his parents are not far behind. They also persuade Nina, explain to her: it is important to take the man on a leash, give birth to his child, and then he will get used to the place and will not go anywhere - he will watch football on TV, occasionally drink beer or play dominoes. After listening to all this, Nina goes home, leaving the things the Kozlovs gave her. The parents are afraid that Nikolai will now marry Nadya. But the son makes it clear: before, perhaps, he would have married Nadya, but now the relationship with her turned out to be too serious and he does not want to “get involved in this matter.” Having calmed down, the Kozlovs sit down to watch hockey. The grandmother goes to live with another daughter.

A swing is swinging above the darkened stage, on which Nina and Nadya are sitting. “If you don’t pay attention to them, they will fall behind,” Taisiya Petrovna advises animatedly. Nikolay pushes away the approaching swing with his feet.

In the finale of “Music Lessons,” the characters are completely transformed into their antipodes: the romantically in love Nikolai turns out to be a cynic, the broken Nadya turns out to be a woman capable of deep feeling, the good-natured Kozlovs turn out to be primitive and cruel people.

The dialogues in most of Petrushevskaya’s plays are structured in such a way that each subsequent remark often changes the meaning of the previous one. According to the critic M. Turovskaya, “Modern everyday speech... has been condensed to the level of a literary phenomenon. Vocabulary makes it possible to look into a character’s biography, determine his social affiliation and personality.”.

One of the most famous plays Petrushevskaya – "Three girls in blue."

Three women in their thirties live in the summer with their young sons in the country. Svetlana, Tatyana and Ira are second cousins, they are raising their children alone (although Tatyana, the only one of them, has a husband). The women quarrel, figuring out who owns half of the dacha, whose son is the offender, and whose son is the offended... Svetlana and Tatyana live in the dacha for free, but in their half the ceiling is leaking. Ira rents a room from Fedorovna, the owner of the second half of the dacha. But she is forbidden to use the sisters' toilet.

Ira meets her neighbor Nikolai Ivanovich. He takes care of her, admires her, calling her a beauty queen. As a sign of the seriousness of his feelings, he organizes the construction of a toilet for Ira.

Ira lives in Moscow with her mother, who constantly listens to her own illnesses and reproaches her daughter for leading the wrong lifestyle. When Ira was fifteen years old, she ran away to spend the night at train stations, and even now, having arrived home with a sick five-year-old Pavlik, she leaves the child with her mother and quietly goes to Nikolai Ivanovich. Nikolai Ivanovich is touched by Ira’s story about her youth: he also has a fifteen-year-old daughter whom he adores.

Believing in Nikolai Ivanovich’s love, which he speaks so beautifully about, Ira follows him to Koktebel, where her lover is vacationing with his family. In Koktebel, Nikolai Ivanovich’s attitude towards Ira changes: she annoys him with her devotion, from time to time he demands the keys to her room in order to have privacy with his wife. Soon Nikolai Ivanovich's daughter finds out about Ira. Unable to withstand his daughter’s hysteria, Nikolai Ivanovich drives away his annoying mistress. He offers her money, but Ira refuses.

Over the phone, Ira tells her mother that she lives at the dacha, but cannot come for Pavlik because the road has washed out. During one of the calls, the mother reports that she is urgently going to the hospital and leaving Pavlik at home alone. Calling back a few minutes later, Ira realizes that her mother did not deceive her: the child is alone at home, he has no food. At the Simferopol airport, Ira sells her raincoat and on her knees begs the airport duty officer to help her fly to Moscow.

In Ira’s absence, Svetlana and Tatyana occupy her country room. They are determined because during the rain half of them were completely flooded and it became impossible to live there. The sisters quarrel again over raising their sons. Svetlana does not want her Maxim to grow up to be a wimp and die as early as his father. Suddenly Ira appears with Pavlik. She says that her mother was admitted to the hospital with a strangulated hernia, that Pavlik was left alone at home, and she miraculously managed to fly out of Simferopol. Svetlana and Tatyana announce to Ira that they will now live in her room. To their surprise, Ira does not object. She hopes for help from her sisters: she has no one else to count on. Tatyana declares that now they will take turns buying food and cooking, and Maxim will have to stop fighting. “There are two of us now!” - she says to Svetlana.

The inner wealth of her main characters, warring relatives, lies in the fact that they are able to live in spite of circumstances, at the behest of their hearts.

Petrushevskaya shows in her works how any life situation can turn into its opposite. Therefore, surreal elements that break through the realistic dramatic fabric look natural. This is what happens in a one-act play "Andante" (1975), which tells about the painful coexistence of the wife and mistress of a diplomat. The names of the heroines - Buldi and Au - are as absurd as their monologues. In the play Columbine's Apartment (1981), surrealism is a plot-forming principle.