Yury Trifonov | |
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| Born | (1925-08-28)28 August 1925 Moscow, Soviet Union |
| Died | 28 March 1981(1981-03-28) (aged 55) Moscow, Soviet Union |
| Language | Russian |
| Notable works | The House on the Embankment The Impatient Ones The Old Man |
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Yury Valentinovich Trifonov (Russian:Юрий Валентинович Трифонов; 28 August 1925 – 28 March 1981) was a leading representative of the so-called Soviet "Urban Prose". He was considered a close contender for theNobel Prize for Literature in 1981.[1][2]
Trifonov was born in the luxurious apartments on theArbat Street and, with a two-year interval inTashkent, spent his whole life in Moscow. His father,Valentin Trifonov (1888–1938), was of RussianDon Cossack descent. AnOld Bolshevik andRed Army veteran who commanded Cossacks in the Don during the civil war and later served as a Soviet official, he was arrested on 21/22 June 1937[3] and shot on 15 March 1938.[4][2] He wasrehabilitated on 3 November 1955.[4]
Trifonov's mother, Evgeniya Abramovna Lurie (1904–1975), an engineer and accountant, was of half Russian and of half Jewish descent.[5] She spent eight years in alabour camp for not denouncing her husband.[2] She was released in 1945, and returned to Moscow in 1946. Later in life, she worked in a school library, and wrote children's books under the name E. Tayurina.[6] She was rehabilitated in 1955.[6] During their mother's imprisonment, Trifonov and his sister were raised by their maternal grandmother, Tatyana Aleksandrovna Lurie (née Slovatinskaya, 1879–1957), who had been a professional revolutionary and took part in theRussian Civil War. Trifonov's maternal grandfather, Abram Pavlovich Lurie (1875–1924), had been a member of an underground Menshevik group, and a cousin ofAaron Soltz.[6] After the purge, Trifonov's family moved from the famousHouse on the Embankment (just across the river fromthe Kremlin), into akommunalka.[7]
At school, Trifonov edited class newspapers, composed poetry and wrote short stories. He spent 1941 and 1942 in Tashkent, capital of the Uzbek SSR. During the war, in 1942–45, he worked as a fitter in a factory in Moscow. In 1945, he edited the factory's newspaper.[8]
Trifonov attended theMaxim Gorky Literature Institute between 1944 and 1949. His first novel,The Students, was published inNovy Mir in 1950, and won him theStalin Prize.[8][9] His next novel,The Quenching of Thirst, appeared only in 1961.[10]
In 1964–1965, Trifonov published the documentary novelThe Campfire Glow, in which he described the revolutionary activities of his father and his uncle Evgeny (the excerpts of whose diaries are included in the narrative) before the revolution and during the civil war.[11] Later, he wrote several stories which were published in the Novy Mir, includingVera and Zoyka (1966) andMushroom Autumn (1968).[10]
The cycleMuscovite novellas, started in the late 1960s, marked the beginning of the "Urban Prose", portraying the everyday lives of city dwellers.[10][12] The cycle includes the novelsThe Exchange (1969),Taking Stock (1970),The Long Good-Bye (1971),Another Life (1975), andThe House on the Embankment (1976).[13] The last novel describes the lives of the residents of the House on the Embankment in the 1930s, many of whom were killed during theGreat Purge of 1937.[14]
In 1973, Trifonov published the historical novelThe Impatient Ones. The novel describes the assassination ofAlexander II of Russia in 1881 by thePeople's Will party. It was nominated forNobel Prize byHeinrich Böll.[15][16] Another historical novel,The Old Man, was published in 1978.[17] The collection of short storiesHouse Upside Down and the novelTime and Place were published after Trifonov's death in 1981.[18] Trifonov's last major work,The Disappearance, was only published in 1987.[19]
Trifonov was also known as a sports journalist. He published numerous articles on sports; for almost twenty years, he was a member of the editorial board of the magazinePhysical culture and sports.[20]
Trifonov was married from 1949 to 1966 to the opera singer Nina Nelina (born Nurenberg), the daughter of the well-known artistAmshey Nurenberg.[21] The marriage was ended by Nelina's death. In 1951, they had a daughter, Olga (Tangyan). Later, he was married to Anna Pavlovna Pastukhova, an editor. In 1975, he married for the third time, to Olga Romanovna Miroshnichenko (b. 1938), a writer formerly married to the writer Georgy Beryozko. Their son Valentin was born in 1979.[22]
After Trifonov's death, Olga Miroshnichenko-Trifonova published her late husband's diaries and notebooks, going back to the writer's schooldays and ending in 1980. She published her memoirs of Trifonov in 2003.[2]
Yury Trifonov died in 1981, aged 55, from apulmonary embolism after an operation to remove akidney. He is buried in Moscow'sKuntsevo Cemetery.[23]
A memorial plaque dedicated to Trifonov was opened on the House on the Embankment in 2003.[24]
