Ключи Захара. Почему Маяковский завидовал поэту Иосифу Уткину?

Summary

The program revisits the life and work of Iosif Pavlovich Utkin (1903–1944), a popular but later partly forgotten poet of the Komsomol generation. The hosts use his biography to discuss the distinctive character of Komsomol poetry, the upheavals of the Civil War, and the experience of poets who served during the Great Patriotic War.

Komsomol poetry and its generation

• The hosts distinguish Komsomol poets from both proletarian poets and the more epic poets associated with large-scale Soviet construction projects.
• They describe Komsomol poetry as drawing on traditional Russian and Russophile lyricism, folk and Cossack-song traditions, and ballad-like or criminal-song forms. Its writers could also absorb elements of Futurism and other modern movements.
• Unlike some proletarian poets, the Komsomol poets are presented as not seeking control of literary institutions. They were a socially lively, popular group whose work spoke to a broad young readership.
• Many belonged to a generation shaped by the Civil War in youth. The hosts argue that this experience helps explain their later determination and courage during World War II. They also note that some writers’ wartime and Civil War histories remain difficult to reconstruct.

Utkin’s early life and the Civil War

• Utkin was born in 1903 in a Jewish family in Siberia, near the Chinese Eastern Railway. His father left the family, and his older brother Alexander, who fought for the Reds, was killed in the Civil War.
• As a young man in Irkutsk, Utkin tried various ways to earn money, including selling newspapers and working in a billiards room. He reportedly made up rhymes to help sell papers.
• In 1919, during the anti-Kolchak uprising in Irkutsk, he and his brother joined a workers’ militia. In 1920, he joined the Komsomol and went with a volunteer group to the Far Eastern Front. By 1922, he was working as a reporter.
• The program emphasizes that the details of his Civil War experience are incomplete. In a region where control changed hands repeatedly, people often kept quiet about parts of their past. Utkin’s early story “Pluses,” about the conflict between Reds and Whites, is discussed as evidence of his close familiarity with that world.

Literary success, Mayakovsky, and Gorky

• Utkin became known in Moscow for his vivid performances, good looks, charm, musicality, and skill at reading his poems aloud. His work about a Jewish shtetl is singled out as an unusual literary achievement.
• The hosts recount that Vladimir Mayakovsky once defended Utkin when an audience failed to respond to him, urging the crowd to listen. Mayakovsky later praised his poetry but also reportedly felt competitive and jealous, especially of Utkin’s popularity with women. He teased him with nicknames such as “Zhutkin” and “Utochkin.”
• Maxim Gorky, by contrast, is described as warmly encouraging Utkin. In a letter, Gorky praised his talent as original and substantial and urged him to keep working. The hosts regard Gorky’s interest in Utkin as a sign of his promise.
• Utkin’s books appeared frequently in the 1930s, often combining previously published poems with new work. The discussion portrays him as a widely read poet whose books were familiar to young Soviet readers.

War service and courage

• At the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, Utkin reportedly served on roof-watch duty against incendiary bombs and then worked to get assigned to the front, despite health problems.
• In August 1941, while working for the front-line newspaper To Defeat the Enemy, he was credited with helping restore order when soldiers were wavering under fire. A mortar blast severely injured his right hand, and he received the Order of the Red Star.
• Rather than leave the front, Utkin continued as a war correspondent. He returned to the Bryansk Front in 1942 and remained involved in front-line work, repeatedly seeking to be near combat despite his disability.
• The program also presents a wartime story by Utkin, “The Story of Major Trukhlyov,” recovered from an archival microfilm. Its young scout, Gai, undertakes dangerous missions behind German lines. The hosts connect the character to the real Nikolai Alekseevich Gai-Vorontsov, whose wartime record appears to have informed the story.

Poetry, death, and legacy

• Utkin’s Civil War poem “Execution” is read as an example of the stark, ballad-like writing that distinguished him. Its condemned speaker’s ordinary request for a cigarette makes the scene especially bleak and human.
• The hosts suggest that Utkin and other poets of his generation carried the Civil War’s harsh experience into their World War II service.
• Utkin died in a plane crash on May 27, 1944, aged 41. The account says he was returning from Sofia when the aircraft crashed near Moscow in fog; he was reportedly holding a volume of Lermontov.
• His mother was not told of his death and continued to believe he was alive until she died in 1949. The program reads a poem by fellow poet Evgeny Dolmatovsky about this concealment and the mother’s lasting belief.
• The episode’s broader point is that Utkin’s life and work deserve renewed attention—not only as an individual story, but as part of the experience of a generation shaped by war, literary experimentation, and intense attachment to the country.

Speakers and sources featured

Speakers

• Zakhar Prilepin — host
• Oleg Demidov — co-host and literary commentator
• Alexey Kolobrodov — co-host and literary commentator

Sources discussed or quoted

• Iosif Utkin — poems, memoir material, and the wartime story “The Story of Major Trukhlyov”
• Ilya Podkovenko — biographical and archival research on Utkin, including material collected for the published volume
• Maxim Gorky — a letter praising and encouraging Utkin
• Utkin’s military award citation — an account of his conduct under fire in 1941
• Evgeny Dolmatovsky — a poem about Utkin’s death and the decision to conceal it from his mother
• Memoirs and archival records — cited in accounts of Utkin’s relationships with Mayakovsky and his wartime service