Smelyakov Yaroslav was born on January 8, 1913 (December 26, 1912 in the old style) in the city of Lutsk, Volyn region of Ukraine.
His father worked as a weigher on the railway. Mother was a housewife and was engaged in raising children (there were three of them in the family).
When Yaroslav was about a year, the FirstWorld War. In this regard, the family was forced to move to relatives in the village. There they did not stay long. After some time the family settled in Voronezh, where it remained to live until the beginning of the next decade.
Smelyakov's father died early, when Yaroslav was only eleven years old.
At the same time, the future poet enters the seven-year school in Moscow, where he settles with his older brother and sister.
By the beginning of the thirties, Yaroslav graduated from the school and through the labor exchange he received a referral to the PFZH (Lenin Polytechnic Factory School).
It was she who played a huge role in shaping the future talent. Smelyakova was fascinated by the boiling life of the printing house.
Being a compositor, the poet was very proud that his favorite classes - work and work - were related to each other.
The publication of the first work took place thanks to his friend - Vsevolod of Jordan. It was he who motivated Smelyakov to take his works to the magazine "Rost".
However, having entered the publishing house, YaroslavSmelyakov confused the doors of the offices and mistakenly gave the poems for consideration in the more respected and serious "October", which at that time was popular among young people.
The fruits of his work were approved by the editorial board and published in the journal.
In 1932-1933, Yaroslav Smelyakov publishes his first collections: "Work and Love" and "Poems"
However, after a while he, as well as a number ofother poets (Pavel Vasiliev, Boris Kornilov), fall prey to a false denunciation, which, as characteristic of that time, became an occasion for immediate arrest without trial and effect. Yaroslav Smelyakov was able to throw off charges only in 1937. Then he was released ahead of schedule.
Until the war, the poet worked in the editorial offices of various publishing houses, was engaged in reporting activities, wrote satirical articles and notes.
During this period, he wrote the cycle "Crimean verses", is repeatedly published in well-known publications: "Litgazeta", "Young Guard", "Red Nova", etc.
Beginning of the war, Yaroslav Smelyakov met the rank and file of the Second Light-Rifle Brigade on the Northern and Karelian fronts.
In November 1941, surrounded, he, like many soldiers of his unit, falls into Finnish captivity, where for the next three years he has worked hard for a merciless host.
It is noteworthy that, being in a similar situation, Smelyakov skillfully concealed the creative status of the already well-known Russian poet at that time.
The poet was able to return to his homeland only in 1944, when as a result of a truce with Finland an exchange of prisoners of war was made.
Smelyakova was waiting for the fate of almost all liberated Soviet prisoners of war - he was sent to the camp for "filtration."
There are several versions about whereSmelyakov was in this period. It is precisely known that he worked in a coal mine near Moscow, but there is information about his arrival in the industrial town of Stalinogorsk (now - Novomoskovsk) of the Tula region.
After several years of imprisonment, the poet to the rescue comes his good friend Konstantin Simonov, who literally pulls his brother out of oblivion.
In 1948 the first postwar collection of Smelyakov's "Kremlin Spruce", which includes verses of the war years.
However, the poet does not stay long at liberty. Already in 1951, an unknown person wrote a denunciation about a conversation in Smelyakov's house.
The poet was stigmatized in Article 58 of the USSR Criminal Code, according to which he was to be punished in the form of twenty-five years of camps.
Thus, Smelyakov was able to get acquainted with the Arctic Circle. Camp life adversely affects the health of the poet.
In 1956, "exposing the cultStalin ", according to which many prisoners were granted amnesty. The freedom was released and Yaroslav Smelyakov. The poet will remember the days to the end of his life "in a state cap, in a camp jacket".
All subsequent years of his life he devotes to literary creation.
During this time, the poet was awarded three orders, as well as the State Prize of the USSR in 1967 and 1968.
Smelyakov died on November 27, 1972. He was buried at Novodevichich Cemetery in Moscow.
The first novel of the poet happened in the 30s.It is associated with the name of the poetess Margarita Aliger (her photo, given below, made in the mid-70s), which, together with Smelyakov, visited a literary club.
An interesting place in this novel is the ring presented by Smelyakov to the poetess.
According to Aliger, when something bad happened to the poet, the ring was lost. So, for example, it happened when Smelyakov got into Finnish captivity.
With Evdokia Vasilyevna he met inpostwar years. She became the first woman with whom Jaroslav Smelyakov was married. The poet and Evdokia lived together only two years: Smelyakov divorced his wife in order to protect her from the repressions that swallowed him. From this marriage the poet had a son.
The second family, created Smelyakov, was more happy. This time Tatyana Streshneva became an elected poet.
The poet Yaroslav Smelyakov, whose biography waspresented in this article, is a truly talented poet, "master of symbolic lists", to whose share truly terrible and terrible episodes of the history of our country fell out.
