My Life Became Fantastic: Diaries 1901–1921. Book One (Zhizn Moya Stala Fantasticheskaya)

Millions of readers know K. I. Chukovsky as a children's author. He himself said this: 'All my other works are so overshadowed by my children's fairy tales that, in the minds of many readers, I have written nothing at all, except for 'Moidodyrs' and 'Fly-Tsokotukha.'' Chukovsky left behind a vast creative legacy, including journalism, translations, literary criticism, works on philology, memoirs, and, most notably, the diaries he kept throughout his life. The first part of his diaries (1901–1921) captures the literary and artistic atmosphere of the Silver Age. Chukovsky knew many famous contemporaries—Gorky, Korolenko, Repin, Blok, Merezhkovsky, Akhmatova, and others. His notes on meetings and conversations with them, as well as on events in his personal and public life, are valuable precisely because they capture vivid, immediate impressions and assessments. Not intended for publication, these diaries have become a vital documentary record of the era.