Chukovskaya L.K. (1907-1996), writer

Categories / Literature. Book Publishing/Personalia
CHUKOVSKAYA Lidiya Korneevna (1907, St. Petersburg - 1996), prose writer, critic, and author of memoirs. She was the daughter of K.I. Chukovsky. She spent her childhood years in Kuokkala (see her books To the Memory of Childhood: Memoirs of K. Chukovsky, 1972, published in 1983), in Leningrad she graduated from the 15th Comprehensive Labour School (formerly Tenishevsky School, 1924), to proceed to stenography courses and the Higher Courses in the Art History attached to the State Institute of Art History. She worked as a literary editor for Leningrad department of Children's State Publishing House from 1928 (the publishing house was managed by S.Y. Marshak; it was closed in 1937; see the book of Chukovskaya In the Editor's Laboratory, 1960, second edition in 1963). In August 1937, the authorities arrested her husband, physicist M.P. Bronstein, who was executed by shooting half a year later (her last book A Through Line, which she never completed, is about him). The action of her narratives Sofia Petrovna (1939) and the Descent under Water (1957) is set in the situation of the terror of the 1930-50s. Chukovskaya was also concerned with the study of the work of A.I. Herzen; she dedicated her book The Past and the Thoughts of Herzen, to him (1966). Her acquaintance with A.A. Akhmatova in 1939 which lasted nearly 30 years appeared to be a most important stage in the life of Chukovskaya. This acquaintance was reflected in her Memoirs of A.A. Akhmatova (in 3 volumes; the State Prize of Russia of 1995). In the 1950-70s Chukovskaya took an active part in the social life: she spoke in the defence of I.A. Brodsky, supported A.I. Solzhenitsyn, and wrote remarkable journalistic articles. Her books, essays and speeches were distributed at home, by the samizdat underground press, and abroad; all this led to her expulsion from the Writers Union (on this see her book The Cause of Expulsion, 1977-78). Her principal address in Leningrad was at 11 Zagorodny Avenue (September 1935 - May 1941; a memorial plaque to Chukovskaya and Bronstein).

References: Разумов А. Я. Памяти юности Лидии Чуковской // Звезда. 1999. №9. С. 117-136; Julius A. Lidija Иukovskaja: Leben und Werk. Mьnchen, 1995.

T. M. Dvinyatina. Akhmatova Anna Andreevna
Brodsky Iosif Alexandrovich
Bronstein Matvey Petrovich
Chukovskaya Lidia Korneevna
Chukovsky Korney Ivanovich
Herzen Alexander Ivanovich
Marshak Samuil Yakovlevich
Solzhenitsyn Aleхander Isaevich
Zagorodny Avenue/Saint Petersburg, city, house 11
Julius A. Lidija Cukovskaja: Leben und Werk. Munchen, 1995
Разумов А. Я. Памяти юности Лидии Чуковской // Звезда, 1999 Tenishev's School