Chernykh Petr Nikodimovich - Yakutskiy

Chernykh Petr Nikodimovich - Yakutskiy, one of the first major talented writers of Yakutia, expressed the aspirations of his soul in Russian. Yakut and Russian cultures are uniquely intertwined in his work, creating an amazing world that holds the mystery of two languages, two poetic traditions.

A kind of poetic attitude, philosophical reflections, ideas about "eternal values" come from the inexhaustible inner wealth and the author’s original national mentality. Poet called "a singer of Yakutia", whose love for his native land became the vocation of the heart and the destiny of all life. The moral strength of the Yakut people served the poet as a solid foundation, creative beginning and inspiration.

Literary critics rightfully define the creative quest of Petr Chernykh as fundamental tendencies in the development of Yakut poetry. They appreciate the poet’s serious contribution to the culture of the Yakut people

Indeed, most of the author’s works (published and unpublished manuscripts) are devoted to the joys and sufferings, happiness and tragedies of his native land. In the poem «Родная Якутия» (“Native Yakutia”), the poet shows a whole panorama of historical events: the protest of “Romanovtsy”, the revolution of 1905, the Lenskiy shooting of 1912. The author draws pictures of Yakut reality of pre-revolutionary and Soviet periods with a sense of real anxiety for the further fate of the motherland. The author pathetically expresses his faith in change, in a better future.

In his memoirs, Petr Chernykh sincerely emphasized that his becoming as a poet and writer, despite the fact that he created his works in Russian, originated in the cradle of folk, epic, native culture, customs and way of life.
He expressed his heartwarming attitude towards the motherland in recognition: “Here is the cradle of my childhood, the cradle fanned by the violent winds of the north, the cradle swinging under the measuring recitative of the storyteller-olonkhosut, native Yakut bayan (singer, storyteller)”.

The work of Petr Chernykh was greatly influenced by Russian classical literature and the Yakut folk epic. There are many facts confirming the fact that the poet was a great connoisseur and admirer of the Yakut folklore.
While still a boy, Petr Chernykh traveled with his mother to his relatives and there with delight sank into the fascinating stories of the national narrator. Apparently, therefore, the source of his first major work, "The sounds of the weather" and was Yakut olonkho - an inexhaustible source of folk wisdom. He debuted on August 30, 1907 under the pseudonym Yury Fioletov in the “Yakutskiy krai” newspaper.

Petr Chernykh always ardently called for knowledge of the masterpieces of folk art. And in his journalistic works he incessantly spoke of their great value and importance. In 1930, in an unpublished article "About the Yakut folklore," he wrote: "If some Europeans think that our Yakut poetry (poetry culturally backward people) pale, has no imagination and devoid of poetic images, they are sorely mistaken ".

Petr Chernykh impeccably mastered the Yakut language. He owns translations from Yakut into Russian works that require the most subtle knowledge of the original language.

Translation of the poem “The Red Shaman” was highly appreciated by its author Platon Oyunskiy: "I am very satisfied with the translation. Such a translation was possible only because two such persons (A. Boyarov and P.Cherny) took it, for whom mythology and folk art are well known, who know the Yakut language and language of Yakut poetry as well as the author."

A letter from Platon Oyunskiy, addressed to Petr Chernykh - Yakutskiy.

There is evidence that Petr Chernykh was familiar with many writers of the twentieth century. Perhaps with Mikhail Prishvinin, he was tied up with questions of human existence, reflections on the meaning of life, religion, the relationship between a man and a woman, and the connection between man and nature.

A great event in the life of Petr Chernykh was a conversation with Maxim Gorky. In August 1928, Maxim Gorky received the poet in Moscow, and between them there was a lengthy conversation on the Yakut literature. Maxim Gorky was interested in the character, content and form of Yakut literature. At the same time, he noted that there is little prose in Yakut literature: stories, narratives and novels, and considering this a disadvantage, he pointed out the need to create Yakut prose.

Maxim Gorky agreed with Petr Chernykh on the translation of works of Yakut authors into Russian for the magazine “Soviet country” (later called “Our achievements”) and asked to involve writers and poets of Yakutia in the almanac.

In the same years, Petr Chernykh wrote a very interesting story “Terrible drug” from the life of the Yakut poor man, proving himself a gifted prose writer. At this time, the poem by Petr Chernykh "The Continuous" took the second place in the contest of the Moscow newspaper Proletary for the best poem.

Judging by handwritten materials, the story “In the Taiga” was supposed to cover a large historical period - from 1905 until the end of the Civil War, but the last part of the work remained unfinished. The author immerses readers in the complex, in a sense, exotic world of the yakutian ulus, displays the historical influence of exiles on the Yakut ideological consciousness. The style of narration is distinguished by rhythm, expressiveness, musicality of landscapes, and high pathetics.

Among the many unpublished handwritten materials of Petr Chernykh, stored in the funds of the National Library of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), there is a notebook with diary entries, the name of which immediately creates a romantic aura “The rustles of the Sergelyakh forest. Diary of a Dreamer ".

Lyro-epic genre was especially close to Petr Chernykh. His wonderful poems testify to this. The large-scale form of the poem made it possible to fully demonstrate the contradictory nature of time, the tragic and life-affirming essence of the era. Lyrical poem "Svetlana" stands out for its stunning sonority, encouraging people to love the whole world, to sing the freshness of the spring awakening.

I am a white snowdrop, I am the first flower
I bloomed alone in the field ...
Someone breathed holy hope into my heart
That the flower will not die young on top
And, tearing silvery snow clothes,
He will ascend to the burning sun in azure.
And leads madly to happiness
In this haze, in this gloom
Beats with a burning wave
Blood boils in the heart ...
Light up the earth
Life, and happiness, and love.

The image of the poet himself is similar to the first flower of spring, the national firstborn, who grew up in the country of cold snow and spiteful winds. The difficult fate of the people reflected in his personal fate. The path of the poet was hard and thorny. And it seems that sometimes the pure heart of the poet broke in an overwhelming struggle and in the darkness stretched towards the divine light.