Korney Chukovsky

Korney Chukovsky — his real name and surname were Nikolai Vasilyevich Korneichukov. Russian writer, literary scholar, translator, publicist, literary critic, journalist, Doctor of Philological Sciences. Father of Lydia Chukovskaya and Nikolai Chukovsky

ORIGINS

Chukovsky, Korney Ivanovich, was born on March 31, 1882, in St. Petersburg. The frequently encountered date of his birth, April 1, appeared because of an error in the transition to the new style (13 days were added, rather than 12, as should have been the case for the 19th century).

Nikolai’s mother was a peasant woman from the Poltava Governorate, Ekaterina Osipovna Korneichukova, who worked as a maid in St. Petersburg in the Levenson family household. She lived in a common-law marriage with the family’s son, the student Emmanuil Solomonovich Levenson. The boy born to her already had a three-year-old sister, Maria, from the same union. Soon after Nikolai’s birth, Levenson the student left his illegitimate family and married “a woman of his own circle.” Ekaterina Osipovna was forced to move to Odessa.

Nikolai Korneichukov spent his childhood in Odessa and Nikolaev. In Odessa, the family settled in an annex in the Makri house on Novorybnaya Street, No. 6. In 1887, the Korneichukovs changed apartments, moving to the address: Barshman House, Kanatny Lane, No. 3. Five-year-old Nikolai was sent to Madame Bekhteyeva’s kindergarten, about which he later recalled: “We marched to music, drew pictures. The oldest among us was a curly-haired boy with Negro lips named Volodya Zhabotinsky. That was when I met the future national hero of Israel — in 1888 or 1889!!!” For some time, the future writer studied at Odessa Second Gymnasium (later renamed the Fifth). One of his classmates then was Boris Zhitkov (later also a writer and traveler), with whom the young Korney formed a friendship. Chukovsky never managed to graduate from gymnasium