Stars Don’t Tell at School! Famous tyrannical writers – from Tolstoy to Uspensky

More than one generation grew up on the children’s stories of writer Eduard Uspensky. “Crocodile Gena and his friends”, “Uncle Fyodor, the dog and the cat”, “Guaranteed little men” (based on this story, the cartoon “Fixies” was filmed) – all these works are loved by children and adults.

No one could argue with the greatness of Eduard Uspensky. The writer’s death was a tragedy for the country.

However, everything changed in an instant. A few weeks ago, the daughter of the narrator Taťán Uspenská sent an open letter to the newspaper Sobesednik, in which she accused her father of violence and cruelty. The reason for this recognition was the decision to name the prize for children’s writers after Uspensky, which Taťána tried to prevent.

The daughter’s confession caused a scandal and numerous comments from close friends and relatives of the writer. The playwright’s ex-wife Eleonora Filina confirmed Taťána’s words. The woman stated that Uspensky attacked and beat her and the children.

There were those who justified the writer’s behavior. Boris Grachevsky and Grigory Oster considered Uspensky’s literary merits to be more serious than his atrocities.

By the way, the award was still named after the writer.

The famous American writer Norman Mailer became famous mainly for his novel The Naked and the Dead from the Second World War. The man was also a talented journalist and film director.

However, there were monstrous moments in the writer’s life. For example, once at a charity event, Norman Mailer became upset about the absence of some guests. The journalist went over the alcohol and got into a fight with the guests. The playwright’s wife tried to calm him down, but Mailer became angry and stabbed her twice in the chest.

Doctors managed to save Norman’s wife. After the incident, the writer was sent to a psychiatric hospital for some time.

Subsequently, Norman Mailer wrote the poem “On a Rainy Evening with My Wife”, which included the following lines: “As long as you use the knife, love lives on.”

Many people know William Golding as the author of Lord of the Flies. In the work, he condemns human cruelty, vices and weaknesses, raises the topic of morality and humanity.

Despite Golding’s understanding of human nature and condemnation of society’s actions in his novel, he himself was not the best example to follow.

The American writer confessed to pedophilia in his memoirs. At the age of eighteen, the young man tried to rape a 15-year-old girl, his first love. However, when she started hitting and screaming, Golding woke up and released the victim.

It is also known that after graduating from university, the writer got a job as a school teacher. The desire for cruelty did not let go of the playwright. William more than once conducted experiments on his students and played them.

The terrible nature tormented the writer, but he could not resist it. Until the end of his days, William Golding considered himself a monster.

The great Russian writer Ivan Alekseevich Bunin is a Nobel Prize winner, a talented poet and translator. However, his life also had dark sides.

Bunin was married to Vera Muromtseva, who together with him experienced many hardships – migration, poverty. However, the poet did not appreciate the sacrifice of his wife and began to write novels one after another. Vera suffered, but she was afraid to object to genius. One of Bunin’s lovers was Galina Kuznetsova, a girl who was 30 years younger than the writer.

The lovers suffered from separation, so Bunin made a monstrous decision – he moved his mistress to live in his house. Bunin explained to his wife that Galina was his student. The wife understood that it was a fraud, but she had to accept the girl and hide her emotional experiences.

Bunin’s “happy life” was interrupted when Galina found a new hobby – she fell in love with the opera singer Marga Stepun. The poet was very upset by the breakup, but during the war years, Galina returned and with her chosen one. The house of Věra and Ivan Bunin became a refuge for two other women.

Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov wrote the world-famous novel The Master and Margaret and put many enlightening ideas into it. “There are no bad people in the world, only unhappy people,” wrote the author.

However, despite his deep understanding of the world and human vices, Bulgakov himself could appear before Woland.

The first wife of the writer Taťána Lappa suffered enough during the years of marriage. During the war, Bulgakov worked as a doctor. During this period he began taking morphine to relieve an allergy to diphtheria serum.

It soon became a true addiction. Tatyana’s life turned into hell: the girl endured aggression from her husband during withdrawal attacks; found him new doses to avoid the beatings. The writer even threatened to kill his wife.

Tatyana did not give up and eventually helped Bulgakov cope with addiction. But after a while the marriage broke up because of the writer’s new love.

Like the works of the two previous heroes, Leo Tolstoy’s novels were etched into our souls at school. From them we learned what true friendship, love and family are. But was the genius able to follow his ideals in life?

To tell the truth, Tolstoy’s family had to put up with the difficult nature of the writer. He got the most to his wife – Sophia Bers. The author of War and Peace kept his wife completely isolated from the outside world. She took care of the household herself – kept the accounts, raised the children, cleaned the house, copied Tolstoy’s works by hand.

At the end of his life, the writer decided to give up the copyright to his works and sell all his things – it was a blow to the family. By the way, the writer had 7 children (another five died), but he was not interested in their fate.

The French writer Victor Hugo, who gave us the novels Notre Dame and Les Misérables, like the other heroes of our article, was characterized by cruelty.

As a married man, the writer took a mistress – Juliette Drouet. It can be assumed that again all the suffering fell on the wife, but the lover also got it.

The writer was terribly jealous of the girl and actually locked her in the house where she lived as a recluse for 50 years. “No one has the right to throw a stone at you but me,” Hugo told his captive. The writer gave the girl small amounts of money that were only enough for food.

In addition to his wife and Juliette, the author had many other women.

Text: Elizaveta Ovchinnikova

Photo: Vadim Tarakanov/TASS, Legion-Media