In 2014, the 100th anniversary of the birth of the famous botanist-morphologist Ivan Grigorievich Serebryakov, the author of the monographs “Morphology of vegetative organs of higher plants” (1952) and “Ecological morphology. Life forms of angiosperms and conifers" (1962). His work brought the study of the rhythms of seasonal development and life forms of plants to a new level and forced researchers to take a fresh look at living plants in nature. Largely thanks to the works of I.G. Serebryakov's field of science, which studies the life forms of organisms, took shape as an independent discipline - biomorphology.

Ivan Grigorievich Serebryakov was born on September 7, 1914. in the village of Chernaya Sloboda near the city of Shatsk in the current Ryazan region. From his father, a hereditary rural blacksmith, a master of his craft and an extraordinary personality, he adopted not only the ability to work, but also a thirst for knowledge and general culture. Ivan’s path to science began when he was less than 6 years old, when he and his 8-year-old older sister entered the first grade of a rural school. Despite the age difference, he studied better than anyone. After graduating from the seven-year school and the Shatsk Pedagogical College, he returned to his school at the age of seventeen as a teacher of biology and chemistry. Four years of work at school revealed in Ivan Grigorievich both the makings of a natural scientist - a love of nature and the desire to understand it, as well as pedagogical inclinations: he organized a circle of young naturalists, created a herbarium and a living corner, and took students on excursions around the outskirts of Shatsk.

The need to continue education was obvious. While working at school, Ivan Grigorievich (which is natural for a young provincial teacher) enters the correspondence department of the Moscow Pedagogical Institute. New horizons opened up for the part-time student: he realized that his vocation was science, and the very next year (in 1935) he transferred to the first year of the Faculty of Biology at Moscow State University. There he simultaneously studies at the Department of Geobotany with prof. V.V. Alekhin and at the Department of Plant Physiology under prof. D.A. Sabinina. From the second year he begins to engage in scientific work - he gets involved in the study of the rhythm of the seasonal development of plants in the Moscow region, and in his senior years he goes on expeditions to the Tien Shan, where he collects material for his diploma. Ivan Grigorievich’s pedagogical inclinations are also being realized - he talentedly leads a student circle, leads excursions into nature, and is engaged in social work.

In the spring of 1941, I.G. Serebryakov brilliantly defends his thesis, V.V. Alekhin recommends him for graduate school - immediately for the second year. The outbreak of the Great Patriotic War changed everything. Due to severe heart disease, Ivan Grigorievich was not subject to mobilization. Despite this, he joins the people's militia, where he is appointed platoon commander, but from there he is demobilized due to illness. He returned to the university and in November 1941 entered the Botanical Garden of Moscow State University as a senior researcher. In 1942, Ivan Grigorievich married a third-year student of the department. geobotany Tanya Zaporina, whom modern botanists know as Tatyana Ivanovna Serebryakova. Tatyana Ivanovna becomes his life partner, friend, like-minded opponent and support in all his plans and affairs.

In January 1943 (already a year and a half after graduating from Moscow State University) I.G. Serebryakov defended his dissertation, and in 1945, based on its material, he published the monograph “Biology of Tien Shan spruce and types of its plantings in Trans-Ili and Kungei-Alatau.” In the same 1943, he began giving a lecture course “Morphology of vegetative organs of higher plants” to botany students at the Faculty of Biology of Moscow State University. The main subject of Ivan Grigorievich's scientific interests was a living and integral plant and its life in nature; He sought to make it an object of scientific research (it was not for nothing that he spoke of the “biological direction” of his work). He perceived the plant as a dynamic phenomenon, changing over time, and behind the plant form he saw the process of its formation. In the life of a plant, Ivan Grigorievich is interested in the mechanisms of the influence of the environment on the body and their results - the relationship between “external and internal factors”, as well as the interrelation of phenomena occurring at different levels of plant organization - from physiological processes to phenomena of a phytocenotic and florogenetic nature. This was reflected in the variety of topics in the early (40s - early 50s) works of I.G. Serebryakov: from purely geobotanical, ecological-biological, morphological articles to works at the intersection of autecology, physiology, anatomy, morphology. It is noteworthy that the author often solves physiological problems using morphological methods of his own invention. Objects are always living plants in natural conditions.

Work in contact with the prominent morphologist K.I. Meyer (in the 40s he was the director of the Botanical Garden of Moscow State University) introduced I.G. Serebryakova to in-depth studies of morphology and, by her own admission, made him a morphologist. As can be understood, he realized that it is morphology that provides the basis for understanding the life of a plant in nature, since the entire complex of life phenomena - both the course of internal processes and the reaction to the influence of environmental factors - is manifested in plants at the morphological level: the shape of the plant from this point vision can be considered as an integral result and external expression of the impact on the plant of both environmental conditions and physiological processes occurring in the plant organism. It can be assumed that the development of these views was also facilitated by the study of the rhythms of seasonal development of plants - by doing this, Ivan Grigorievich continues the traditions of V.V. Alekhin and A.V. Kozhevnikov. I.G. Serebryakov placed the study of rhythm on a morphological basis: the development of all plant organs, including the intrabud phase, was traced in detail. The developed technique made it possible to visibly and clearly observe in morphological manifestations the very process of plant life against the background of rhythmically changing environmental conditions. At the same time, observations were carried out over all types of the phytocenosis under study - the rhythm of the seasonal development of plants became a characteristic of the phytocenosis and, with sufficient coverage of the material, should have shed light on the history of the plant cover: as you can understand, this was an important strategic task of Ivan Grigorievich’s rhythmological research. Based on the results of the first works in this direction, in 1947 he published a programmatic article, where he formulated the strategic objectives of the research, described the methodology, summed up the first results of what had been done and outlined ways for further research up to the writing of the final monograph. Thus, among other things, a scientific research strategy is developed - working in the Botanical Garden of Moscow State University, I.G. Serebryakov becomes a mature researcher.

Since 1945, Ivan Grigorievich begins to go on scientific trips every year - mainly to places with a harsh climate, where the impact of environmental conditions on the rhythm of seasonal development of plants is most clearly manifested. In 1948, when he was on an expedition to the Subpolar Urals, the so-called August session of the All-Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences took place in Moscow, after which the Serebryakovs (along with many other people) were fired from their jobs for no apparent reason. However, soon after returning from the expedition, I.G. Serebryakov was invited to work at the city pedagogical institute. V.P. Potemkin, where a year later he was offered to head the department. At the same time, despite his dismissal from the botanical garden, he continues to lecture at the Faculty of Biology of Moscow State University.

In the new place I.G. Serebryakov fully demonstrated not only his talents as a research scientist, teacher, and organizer, but also his human qualities. Under his leadership, the department became a friendly, efficient team. Ivan Grigorievich knew how to interest colleagues and students and attract them to participate in the research that he himself conducted. He took students and colleagues on excursions and led a student circle. Close communication with students (both Potemkin scientists and Moscow State University botanists) - at lectures, excursions, circle classes, field practice - not only developed and spiritually enriched the students, but also gave Ivan Grigorievich the opportunity to identify among them capable, inquisitive and devoted people to science. Many of them later came to him for graduate school. Ivan Grigorievich was able to clearly, accessiblely and meaningfully formulate the strategic goal of the research and at the same time set clear and specific tasks for the person. In their implementation, he provided great freedom, but was very demanding in terms of accuracy and conscientiousness of execution. By teaching others, he learned and grew himself; according to the impressions of those around him, he remained this way until the end of his life. He treated employees and students (regardless of rank) as colleagues carrying out a common task on an equal basis with him. As you can understand, this was not a proven pedagogical technique, but came from his human essence. Ivan Grigorievich’s bright personality, his talent and passion for science attracted people. Young people were drawn to him. His students became graduate students, candidates (and some later doctors) of science, associate professors - scientists and teachers, but at the same time remained “Serebryakovites”.

Relying on his volunteer assistants, I.G. Serebryakov continued to develop the scientific directions he created. The study of the rhythm of seasonal development of plants in different natural zones continues: Ivan Grigorievich’s graduate students work in the floodplain meadows of the Northern Dvina and Lower Don, in the meadow steppe near Kursk, in the semi-deserts of the Caspian region, in the Tien Shan mountains. He always visited graduate students working “in the field” - to figure everything out on the spot, supervise them and help with advice.

The event was the appearance in 1952 of the book “Morphology of the vegetative organs of higher plants.” For a long time it became the most frequently cited source for this field of botany. The book contains enormous, mostly original, factual material and demonstrates a new (“biological”) approach to the plant as an object of study - for the author it is a living integral organism, a part of nature. He organically perceived the plant as a dynamic phenomenon, the morphology of plants for him is the science of the processes of morphogenesis in plants in their ontogenesis and phylogenesis, i.e. dynamic morphology of plants. At the same time, the author conceptualizes the plant as a system of similar interconnected structural elements that repeat in space and time: thus, he applies a systematic approach to the plant and its parts (this is the first time for plant morphology). As a result, for many generations of botanists, “Morphology of Vegetative Organs” became a textbook of scientific thinking. Its material formed the basis of a doctoral dissertation, which I.G. Serebryakov defended in 1953. At the same time, he also led the combined botanical and zoological practice of biology students at Moscow State University (about 250 people), where he also taught classes as an ordinary teacher.

The beginning of the 50s of the twentieth century was the heyday of I.G. Serebryakov’s creative activity. From consideration of parts (“vegetative organs”) he moves on to the study of the whole plant - its life form: this is a logical continuation of his previous works. Usually, when starting work on a new problem, Ivan Grigorievich simultaneously developed the methodological apparatus necessary for this, and published the results in print - as a rule, first in a programmatic article. So it was now. He already had methods and approaches to understanding life forms - this was the study of ontogeny through a structural analysis of the vegetative body of a plant (ontogenetic method). Already in 1954, 5 articles on this topic were published. 4 of them are devoted to specific life forms (trees, dwarf trees, shrubs), and the program article “Biological-morphological and phylogenetic analysis of life forms of angiosperms” represents the beginning of a future monograph. Among other things, it discusses the evolution of life forms and gives a general picture of their evolutionary development from woody to herbaceous forms in the extratropical zones of the Northern Hemisphere.

1954 was an important year in the life of I.G. Serebryakov. As part of a delegation of Soviet botanists, he took part in the VIII International Botanical Congress in Paris, where he successfully delivered a report “Rhythms of seasonal development of plants from the Arctic tundra to the deserts of Central Asia,” summarizing his many years of work on this topic. Of the excursion programs proposed by the organizing committee for congress participants, he chose two - the Pyrenees and equatorial Africa. It was medically contraindicated for him to go to the tropics, but he was unable to refuse the opportunity to visit them, although he knew that he was seriously ill. In the same year, he visited the Karakum desert (in April) and the Crimea - at the end of summer, in the very heat. This shows the extent to which he did not take care of himself when it came to science.

The trip to the tropics apparently forced Ivan Grigorievich to reconsider a lot. In 1955, he published a more complete diagram of the evolutionary relationships of the main life forms of plants on a global scale. The scheme provides for the possibility of parallel evolution of life forms in different geographical conditions and on different morphological basis, their mutual transitions and the phenomenon of convergence. Ivan Grigorievich also realizes that the evolution of life forms is an integral part of the evolution of taxa, and it can be understood by studying life forms in specific low-ranking taxa.

In the summer of 1955, the Serebryakovs traveled to the Khibiny Mountains, where they examined the collections of the Polar Alpine Botanical Garden and observed wild plants of the tundra and forest-tundra. And in March 1956 (Ivan Grigorievich is 41 years old), his heart disease sharply worsens and a severe stroke occurs with left-sided paralysis. It was a disaster.

Contrary to the doctors' predictions, Ivan Grigorievich not only survived, but was also able to return to scientific activity. This required enormous courage and colossal efforts from him - physical, mental and spiritual. Particularly important for him was the help and moral support of Tatyana Ivanovna, who, at 33 years old, was responsible for everything - from caring for the patient to supervising his graduate students. Already in the fall of 1956, I.G. Serebryakov returned to work at the Potemkin Pedagogical Institute, although he had to leave his part-time job at Moscow State University. In the summer of 1957, he and Tatyana Ivanovna (now she accompanies him everywhere) visited the Central Black Earth Nature Reserve, where they collected material on arboreal life forms of the forest-steppe zone. Ivan Grigorievich’s ability to work has partially recovered - he gives lectures, supervises graduate students, but most importantly, he continues to work on the monograph “Ecological Morphology of Plants. Life forms of angiosperms and conifers,” which was published in 1962, although, judging by the preface, it was completed in the second half of 1959. For Ivan Grigorievich in his condition this was a feat. There is also no doubt that Tatyana Ivanovna took a huge part in the creation and publication of this book - Ivan Grigorievich himself notes this in the preface.

The monograph presents the foundations of a new direction in botany - the study of life forms, later called biomorphology. The book examines and clarifies in detail the concept of “life form” in the ecological and morphological aspect. The influence of environmental factors on plant growth processes (intensity, direction and duration of growth, life expectancy of shoots, roots, leaves, etc.) is shown, which determines the appearance - the life form of plants. Ontogenetic changes in life forms are traced, the comparison of which makes it possible to judge the evolutionary rearrangements of life forms in specific taxa. An original classification of life forms has been developed, reflecting not only their diversity, but also the paths of their evolutionary changes in different climatic conditions. According to the author, the leading characteristic of life forms for woody plants is the lifespan of their skeletal axes, and for herbaceous plants - the total lifespan of the plant.

The year 1960 brought big changes to the life of the Serebryakov spouses: by government decree, Moscow pedagogical institutes were united - the state one. Lenin and city named after. Potemkin. The head of the united department of botany was prof. A.A. Uranov, and I.G. Serebryakov took the position of professor. Merging departments was not an easy process; that helped him. that the scientific directions headed by A.A. Uranov and I.G. Serebryakov mutually complemented each other. Methods of morphological analysis of plants developed by I.G. Serebryakov were used by the phytocenotic school of A.A. Uranov to develop a unified scale of age periodization of plant ontogenesis. This scale is widely used in population ecology and plant demography. As a result, the Department of Botany of Moscow State Pedagogical Institute named after. Lenin and the Problem Biological Laboratory that arose under her in 1963 turned into a large scientific center.

At the Moscow State Pedagogical Institute, in the new conditions, I.G. Serebryakov, despite his deteriorating health, continues to perform teaching duties (lectures, supervises graduate students) and develops the scientific directions he created. His graduate students study the rhythms of seasonal development of plants in different climatic regions of the USSR: in the dry subtropics of the southern coast of Crimea (N.B. Belyanina), in the humid subtropics of Adjara (I.I. Andreeva), in the foothills and mountain semi-savannas of Tajikistan (E.I. Barabanov), coniferous-deciduous forests of the monsoon climate in Primorye of the Far East (B.P. Stepanov). I.G. Serebryakov visits some graduate students while collecting field material, but deteriorating health forces him to stop. His last trip - to Tajikistan - took place in 1964.

Ivan Grigorievich never had time to write the final monograph on the rhythms of seasonal development of plants. This gap is partially compensated by a review on this topic compiled by T.I. Serebryakova and published in the scientific collection “Problems of Ecological Plant Morphology”, 1976. Of the publications of I.G. Serebryakov himself, the article on the relationship between external and internal factors in the annual rhythm is especially important Plant Development (1966). The idea expressed there that annual rhythms are determined primarily by internal patterns of morphogenesis at the organismal level was subsequently confirmed in the concept of architectural models developed by a new generation of phytomorphologists (70s - 80s of the twentieth century). The correspondence of the rhythms of seasonal development to climate is developed historically through the process of natural selection, through adaptation and dynamic (usually cyclical) changes in the composition of the population.

The study of life forms continues. Ivan Grigorievich is interested in the directions, ecological and phytocenotic conditionality and morphological mechanisms of evolutionary rearrangements of life forms in specific taxa. Ivan Grigorievich’s graduate students study life forms in the genera Potentilla (L.M. Shafranova), Rubus (I.V. Ivanova), Hedysarum (L.E. Gatsuk), Trigonella (A.I. Izotova), Artemisia (L.N. Dorokhin), Astragalus (T.D. Mikhailova). Ivan Grigorievich himself managed to publish only a small article on this topic. Two other generalizing works, co-authored with T.I. Serebryakova, were published posthumously.

In the fall of 1968, Ivan Grigorievich again tried to give a lecture course, but this turned out to be impossible. Nevertheless, no longer leaving home, he worked until his last days. On April 18, 1969, I.G. Serebryakov died. He was only 54 years old. Ivan Grigorievich was buried in Moscow, at the Khimki cemetery.

It can be argued that I.G. Serebryakov succeeded in the main thing he strived for - to make an integral living plant in nature an object of scientific research. He realized that morphology provides the basis for this, since the entire complex of life phenomena - both the course of internal processes and the reaction to external influences - manifests itself in plants at the morphological level. The form of a plant is an integral result and external expression of the very process of plant life, which interested Ivan Grigorievich. The embodiment and external expression of the life of a particular plant organism is its life form, which changes over time during ontogenesis. Therefore, in order to understand and study the life of an entire plant in nature, I.G. Serebryakov used the ontogenetic method, carried out through structural analysis - isolating and studying subordinate structural units of different ranks that sequentially appear in the plant body (shoots - annual, monocarpic, skeletal and their systems, including partial bushes). Each such unit arises as a result of the growth (morphogenetic) process and, because of this, is a morphological embodiment and a unit of biological time. Ivan Grigorievich simultaneously imagined a living and integral plant as a hierarchical system of subordinate growth units (continuously rearranging during ontogenesis). This demonstrates his systematic thinking and systematic approach to material - for the first time in plant morphology.

Realizing the dynamism of the plant form, I.G. Serebryakov thereby introduced into his scientific ideas the concept of time as a certain fundamental category of “plant life” and its diversity: in rhythmological studies it is measured by the seasons of the year, in the study of the morphogenesis of individual plants - by periods from days and months to years, decades and centuries . But in both directions of his research (rhythmological and the study of life forms) I.G. From the very beginning, Serebryakov also has in mind the evolutionary aspect - processes taking place on the scale of historical (in the sense of the history of the Earth) time.

Ideas, developments and generalizations of I.G. Serebryakov contributed to the fact that the study of life forms, first of plants, and then of other groups of organisms, took shape into an independent field of science - biomorphology. Designed by I.G. Serebryakov’s approach to living plants has a worldview character and can serve as one of the foundations of environmental education.

Literature: personality I.G. Serebryakov and his contribution to science

Rabotnov T.A. / Bulletin of MOIP. Department of Biology. - 1970. - T. LXXV (1). - P. 5-19 (with a portrait and a list of printed works by I. G. Serebryakov). Rabotnov T. A. In memory of Ivan Grigorievich Serebryakov / Rabotnov T. A., Sokolova N. P., Tikhomirov V. N. /

Uranov A.A. Ivan Grigorievich Serebryakov and his contribution to the development of plant biomorphology (on the 3rd anniversary of his death) / Uranov A. A., Stepanov B. P. // Botanical Journal. - T. 57. - 1972. - No. 3. - P. 410-412.

Shafranova L.M. Ivan Grigorievich Serebryakov - man and scientist / L. M. Shafranova. - M.: Prometheus, 2004. - 48 p. : ill.

ShafranovaL. M. Ivan Grigorievich Serebryakov - man and scientist (on the 90th anniversary of his birth) / L. M. Shafranov // Bulletin of MOIP. Department of Biology. - 2004. - T. 109 (4). - P. 65-70.

Gatsuk L.E. The role of the structural-biological method I.G. Serebryakov in the formation of biomorphology as a science // Biomorphological studies in modern botany: materials of the international conference. "Biomorphologist. research in modern botany" (Vladivostok, September 18-21, 2007). - Vladivostok: BSI FEB RAS, 2007. - pp. 3-6.

Dorokhina L.N. Ivan Grigorievich Serebryakov - teacher, scientist, person (my memories and memory of the heart) // Biomorphological studies in modern botany: materials of international. conf. “Biomorphological research in modern times. botany" (Vladivostok, September 18-21, 2007). - Vladivostok: BSI FEB RAS, 2007. - pp. 6-9.

Shafranova L.M. Biomorphology of plants and its influence on the development of ecology / Shafranova L. M., Gatsuk L. E., Shorina N. I. - M.: MPGU, 2009. - 86 p. : ill.

Shafranova L.M. Ivan Grigorievich Serebryakov: life in photographs: on the 100th anniversary of his birth [ed. text, comp. L.M. Shafranova; under general ed. V. P. Viktorova]. - Moscow, 2014. - 94 p. : ill.

Shafranova L.M. I.G. Serebryakov: life in science and science in life // Proceedings of the IX International. conf. on ecological morphology of plants, dedicated to the memory of I.G. and T.I. Serebryakov: on the 100th anniversary of the birth of I.G. Serebryakova. T. 1 - Moscow: MPGU, 2014. - P. 6 - 17.

L.M. Shafranova
Moscow Pedagogical University, Moscow

Karakum. I.G. Serebryakov at a blooming Orobanchae

Africa. I.G. Serebryakov near a tree with plank-shaped roots

I.G. Serebryakov on an excursion with employees

The most developed classification of life forms of angiosperms and conifers based on ecological and morphological characteristics is the system of I. G. Serebryakov (1962, 1964). It is hierarchical, it uses a combination of a large number of characteristics in a subordinate system and the following units are adopted: departments, types, classes, subclasses, groups, subgroups, sometimes sections and life forms themselves. The life form itself is the basic unit of the plant ecological system.
By life form as a unit of ecological classification, I. G. Serebryakov understands the totality of adult generative individuals of a given species in certain growing conditions, which have a unique appearance, including above-ground and underground organs. They are allocated 4 departments of life forms.
1. Department A. Woody plants. Includes 3 types: trees, shrubs, shrubs.
2. Section B. Semi-woody plants. Includes 2 types - subshrubs and subshrubs.
3. Section B. Terrestrial herbs. Includes 2 types: polycarpic and monocarpic herbs.
4. Department G. Aquatic herbs. Includes 2 types: amphibious grasses, floating and underwater grasses.
The division of divisions is based on the degree of lignification of the above-ground axes (woody, semi-woody and herbaceous plants), the division of types is based on the relative life span of the above-ground axes or plants as a whole. Classes within types are distinguished based on the structure of the shoots (liana-like, creeping, succulent, etc.), based on the specifics of nutrition (saprophytes and parasites) or lifestyle (epiphytes). When characterizing the actual life form of plants, the nature of the above-ground shoots is taken into account (elongated, shortened, strongly branching and forming cushions, creeping, etc.), the type of root system (taproot, cystic root, root sucker plants, etc.), underground shoots (short and long rhizomes, tubers, bulbs, stolons, caudexes, etc.). The total lifespan and the ability to re-bloom (monocarpic and polycarpic), etc. are also taken into account.
Let us consider the position of specific plants in the system of life forms of I.G. Serebryakov.
The cordate linden belongs to the department of woody plants, the crown-forming class with completely lignified elongated shoots, the terrestrial subclass, the group with underground roots, the erect subgroup, the single-stem section (forest type), and deciduous trees.
Wild strawberries belong to the department of terrestrial herbs, the polycarpic type, the class of herbaceous polycarpics with assimilating shoots of a non-succulent type, the subclass of stolon-forming and creeping, the group of stolon-forming, the subgroup of terrestrial stolon. The native life form of wild strawberry can be characterized as a short-rhizome, cluster-rooted plant with rosette shoots and above-ground stolons.
I.G. Serebryakov noted the incompleteness and incompleteness of his classification due to poor knowledge of the life forms of plants in different communities, especially tropical rain forests. The habit of tropical trees is often determined not only by the nature of the trunks and crowns, but also by the root systems, so the latter serve as an important feature in classifying the life forms of trees. Herbaceous plants have a shorter duration of above-ground axes, various rhythms of seasonal development, and different characters of above-ground and underground organs. They are often vegetatively mobile, have high seed productivity, and are better adapted than trees to colonize a wide variety of habitats, sometimes in very harsh conditions. Therefore, the diversity of life forms in terrestrial herbaceous plants is unusually great.

Soviet Russian botanist, biomorphologist, ecologist, professor at Moscow University, author of a number of textbooks on geobotany. Born into the family of a rural blacksmith. After completing his studies at a seven-year school, he entered the Shatsky Pedagogical College and, after graduating, worked at the school as a teacher of biology and chemistry for four years. While still working at school, he entered the correspondence department of the Moscow Pedagogical Institute, and in 1935 he became a student at the Faculty of Biology at Moscow State University. He studied in parallel at two departments - geobotany, headed by V.V. Alekhin, and plant physiology, headed by D.A. Sabinin. During his senior years, he traveled to the Tien Shan for two field seasons, where he collected extensive material on the biology and phytocenology of Tien Shan spruce. In June 1941, I. G. Serebryakov graduated from the university and in November of the same year began working as a senior researcher at the Botanical Garden of Moscow State University under the direct supervision of the prominent morphologist K. I. Meyer. While working at the Botanical Garden, he prepared his Ph.D. thesis and defended it in 1943. At the same time, he taught at the university in the department of geobotany, and since 1943 he taught a special course “Morphology of vegetative organs of higher plants.” Since 1945, he annually went on expeditions, studying the life of plants in various habitat conditions. He visited Kazakhstan, the Khibiny Mountains, the Subpolar Urals, Taimyr, the Streletskaya steppe near Kursk, the floodplains of the Oka, Northern Dvina and Don, the Karakum semi-desert, the Tien Shan, Crimea, along the Kamyshin-Stalingrad-Cherkessk forest protection belt route. In 1948, after the August session of the All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Ivan Grigorievich and his wife Tatyana Ivanovna Serebryakova were fired from the Botanical Garden of Moscow State University with the stigma of “Weismann-Morganists,” although they had nothing to do with genetics. After leaving the Botanical Garden of Moscow State University, I.G. Serebryakov worked as a teacher at the Moscow City Pedagogical Institute named after. Potemkin, where he soon headed the department of botany. Simultaneously with his work at the Pedagogical Institute, he continued to teach at Moscow University, reading a special course “Morphology of vegetative organs of higher plants” to botany students, the material of which served as the basis for a monograph (1952) and for a doctoral dissertation, which he defended in 1953. In 1954, as part of the USSR delegation, he took part in the VIII International Botanical Congress in Paris. He gave a presentation and then went on an excursion to the tropics of equatorial Africa. This trip was extremely important for his scientific interests, but soon had a detrimental effect on his health, since he had been seriously ill for a long time. In the spring of 1956, there was a sharp exacerbation of heart disease, accompanied by severe left-sided paralysis. Contrary to the doctors' predictions, he managed to partially restore the mobility of his arms and legs and return to work - teaching and scientific. In 1962, Ivan Grigorievich completed work on the monograph “Ecological morphology of plants. Life forms of angiosperms and conifers." Despite his gradually deteriorating health, I. G. Serebryakov, with his characteristic courage, continued to lecture and supervise graduate students. In 1963 and 1964, he even traveled to the place where graduate students worked - in the Western Caucasus and Tien Shan. The scientific activity of Ivan Grievich Serebryakov brought domestic botany to a new level of understanding of plants as a component of the biosphere. He founded two scientific directions: rhythmological and the study of life forms, which later received the name “biomorphology”. In the study of life forms, he was the first to apply a systematic approach and for the first time to use structural analysis of plants in the study of the life cycle.

SEREBRYAKOV Ivan Grigorievich (September 7, 1914, Chernaya Sloboda village, Shatsky district, Tambov province - April 18, 1969, Moscow) - biologist, creator of rhythmological scientific research. directions and teachings about life forms (currently “biomorphology”); Doctor of Biological Sciences (1953); prof. (1960).

He graduated from a rural school and entered the Shatsky Pedagogical College, after graduating from college he returned to his school as a teacher of biology and chemistry. While working at school, he became a correspondence student at Moscow State Pedagogical Institute. In 1935 he entered the Faculty of Biology of Moscow State University, where he simultaneously studied at the department. geobotany and department plant physiology. He completed his studies in 1941 at the department. geobotany. Due to health reasons, he was not subject to mobilization, but in 1941 he joined the people's militia and was appointed platoon commander of the Krasnopresnenskaya division. He returned to the university in 1941 and was hired at the Botanical Garden of Moscow State University. M.V. Lomonosov as Art. scientific employee and manager ecology laboratory. Under the direct influence of Dir. Botanical Garden, plant morphology specialist K.I. Meyer was defended by Ph.D. diss. about the biology of Tien Shan spruce (1943). Simultaneously with work in the Botanical Garden of Moscow State University. M.V. Lomonosov was assistant professor. department geobotany Moscow State University. M.V. Lomonosov (since 1943), where he taught a special course “Morphology of vegetative organs of higher plants.” In 1948 he was fired from the Botanical Garden of Moscow State University. M.V. Lomonosov on charges of “Weismannism-Morganism.” In the same year, he was invited to give lectures at the Moscow City Pedagogical Institute named after. V.P. Potemkin, where a year later he became the head. department botanists. Defended by Dr. diss. based on the monograph “Morphology of vegetative organs of higher plants.” Simultaneously with his work at the institute, he continued to teach as a part-time teacher at Moscow State University. M.V. Lomonosov, still reading at the department. Geobotany has its own special course. Since 1960 as prof. department I read botany from the Faculty of Biology and Chemistry at Moscow State Pedagogical Institute. IN AND. Lenin lectured on the anatomy and morphology of plants, led a special seminar on biomorphology. S.'s works brought Russian botany to a new level of understanding of plants as a component of the biosphere. Founded two new directions at the intersection of a number of biological disciplines. Scientific S.'s interests were concentrated in the region. studying the rhythm of seasonal development of plants; morphological analysis of the vegetative body of a plant (mainly organs and their systems), considered in dynamics; teachings about life forms. Member National Committee of Soviet Biologists at the VIII International Botanical Congress (Paris, 1954), member. problematic scientific Council at the Department of General Biology of the USSR Academy of Sciences, member. scientific and technical Council of the Ministry of Higher and Secondary Education of the USSR and scientific methods. Commission on Biology of the Ministry of Education of the RSFSR.

From: Biology of Tien Shan spruce and types of its plantings in the Trans-Ili and Kungei-Alatau // Scientific notes of Moscow State University. Vol. 82. Proceedings of the Botanical Garden of Moscow State University. Book 5; Morphology of vegetative organs of higher plants. M., 1952; Ecological morphology of plants. Life forms of angiosperms and conifers. M., 1962.

About the poetry of Gennady Serebryakov

… “Between past and future”...

I came across this small book of poems in a bookstore in the city of Plyos. As always, when getting to know the city, I asked if there were any books by local authors. And the saleswoman took a small burgundy and gold volume from the shelf: “Here is our poet!” The name of the author - Gennady Serebryakov - was not known to me at that time. Indeed, the collection was published in Ivanovo, the regional publishing house “Ivanovo”. But, looking at the first lines of the preface, I mentally exclaimed: this is our poet! From the city where I came to stay in Plyos - from Sergiev Posad!

This is what Vitaly Serdyuk, the compiler of this collection, writes in the preface article “The Heart of a Friend”: “I came to Moscow on my literary business. And in the evening I took the train and went to the Serebryakovs, in the village of Semkhoz, which is a few kilometers from Sergiev Posad. There, at the dacha, Gennady and his wife Angelina lived constantly in recent years.”

Semkhoz is the closest settlement to Sergiev Posad on the Moscow side, the former village of Nikolo-Poddubenskoye. From the Nikolsky fields there is a wonderful view of the Lavra... The village is located next to the city of Sergius of Radonezh, under the wing of the Orthodox city. There is every reason to say about Gennady Serebryakov: this is our fellow countryman, this is the poet of Radonezh!

Another thing is the misfortune that we know little about the world around us, and it is bitter to read in the subtitle of the collection “Between the Past and the Future” that this is a posthumous book of poems, a book of memories of friends.

So, in 1998, the year the collection was published, I discovered a wonderful Russian poet, who, it turns out, lived nearby, looked at the starry winter sky of the town, rejoiced at the first sticky spring foliage, and was sad in the autumn rains and fogs. His earthly life was interrupted in 1995. The life of his poetic line goes on and on.

It turns out that I had heard the poems of the poet Serebryakov before - they came into our house, into the houses of Sergiev Posad, into the houses of Russia with bright, kind songs. They sounded like lively “Conversations”:

The narrow path winds
Through the snowdrifts near the fence.
I'm passing by, and at the well
Women gossip about me.
Talk, talk,
Word after word goes on.
Conversations will die down soon
But love will remain.

The healing “Living Water” sounded:

I'll get off my native porch
And I’ll stand on the steep bank.
Wash me, bright river,
With your living water.
Living water, living water,
Take away both pain and sadness without a trace...

Gennady Serebryakov’s poems were published in many anthologies and were included in the anniversary volume “Poetry Day 2000”. The titles of G. Serebryakov’s books are listed in the encyclopedia “New Russia: The World of Literature,” compiled under the leadership of the poet Sergei Chuprinin. Let us also read the titles of the poet’s collections:

“Glade” (1963), “Listen to the Rain” (1964), “Pole of Joy” (1965), “Alone with Russia” (1969), “Annual Rings” (1971), “Rich People” (1972 .), “Pioneers” (1973), “Foundations” (1973), “Carnival” (1973), “In the Name of Love” (1976), “Smoke of the Fatherland” (1977), “Cintz Rainbow” ( 1980), “Sunny Horses” (1982), “Noon” (1984)…

Serebryakov is the author of a book of essays “Hello, new citizen!”, many notes and articles. But, perhaps, the most important work of his life is the biographical narrative “Denis Davydov”, which was published in 1985 in the famous “ZhZL” series by the publishing house “Molodaya Gvardiya”. The life story of the hero of the Patriotic War of 1812, hussar, partisan, poet-patriot Davydov is interesting to the reader in itself. And in this volume of the “Life of Remarkable People” series, the fate of Denis Davydov is told by his modern colleague, the patriotic poet Serebryakov... Such a narration is doubly interesting!

From the first book - “Prosek”, published in Ivanovo in the year the poet graduated from the Literary Institute, to the poet’s last book, compiled by friends, published there, in Ivanovo, 35 years have passed. A whole life devoted to literature. Life between past and future...

Whatever book of the poet Serebryakov we open, we will see again and again that before us is an amazing, pure, kind world of a creative person striving for the sun, light, the ideal of national happiness...

Recently, I had the opportunity to hear the poems of Gennady Serebryakov performed by wonderful readers at the Slavic Cultural Center in Moscow, at literary and musical evenings held by the poetess Irina Panova. Yes, the poems of the poet Serebryakov continue to live a full-blooded life. But still, their meetings with the reader are rare - we admit this, remembering the modern circulation of poetry books.

The memorable book, with which my acquaintance with the work of the wonderful Russian poet began, was published in an edition of 1000 copies in 1998, in Ivanovo. Thus, it remains practically inaccessible to the attention of a wide circle of readers. Taking this into account, I will allow myself to say a few words about the work of Gennady Serebryakov, based on the book “Between the Past and the Future.”

...Black bread salted with stars
night sky,
Yes to the blue of the day
Spring, living water,
Yes, as holy as the sun,
The warmth of the mother's bed -
It would happen to me
The rest is no problem...

...I wasn’t looking for positions,
I didn’t write compassionate petitions,
I didn't envy anyone
Is it just nightingales...
The mighty of this world
I did not sing poetic offerings,
I didn’t take revenge for insults
And he forgave the sins of his friends.

And I loved the way I breathed,
And he was not reasonable in love.
I only regret one thing -
In the hot confusion of affairs
Wonder Woman, that one
What became earth and heaven to me,
I'm happier and more festive
Couldn't do it...

This is how the book begins, this is how the path to the poet’s heart opens. The path of memory, like an arrow, will sweep through the bitter war childhood. Maybe the poet’s journey began from that village house where a baby lost among the bombings ended up:

...Izba. Bed. Portrait in a black frame.
Get stuck with a fallen board.
Four blonde girls
Behind the stove they whispered: - City...
And the hands, smelling spicy like hay,
They brought nostril pancakes to the table,
They pushed me a petrified gingerbread,
Brought from a shop before the war.
And how the milk from the krinka breathed!..
Leaning against the table with his shaggy head,
I felt the screams disappear.
How the plane's howl faded away.
And they faded strangely in my memory
Mouths twisted from anger.
And for the first time I cried not from fear -
For the first time I cried out of kindness...

The poem is called “Kindness”. The path to the poet's heart is in childhood. In that childhood there was a war, they were gray, with a sea smell of iodine. soldiers' hospitals, but there was also joy - the joy of life inherent in life itself...

And the apple-tree power
Leaned right onto the fence... -

A simple story about how the heroes of the poem “Apples,” hungry children, stole apples from someone else’s rich garden and brought them to the soldiers at the hospital. It seems that before us is a continuation of the poem “Kindness”:

...And how many were
Sunny smiles!
Hands reached out to the delights of the earth.
They told us kindly:
"Thank you…" -
Soldiers scorched by war.

Lifting the veil of memory,
I differentiate
Human souls are related.
...Once upon a time Prometheus
Stole from Zeus
Fire.
But is this theft?

Young children at the rear of the great war had to not only fight for life, help adults in difficult times, but also solve complex moral issues. The decision was made in favor of kindness... But if the old sin - stealing apples - had not stirred up the soul, would the poet have written a poem where the question - years later - was addressed to himself? It seems that the poet does not say out loud one more question: why didn’t the owner of the rich garden take the apples to the hospital himself? In the evenings, with a Berdanka in his hands, he guarded the garden from his enemies - the boys. Why didn’t he see the enemies there, and the wrong ones? In this context, the sin of theft turns into an act of mercy, indeed close to the act of Prometheus... But sin is sin, from a pure soul it requires painful justification...

And yet, even the childhood of a difficult war time is a childhood, neither hunger nor war could erase that closeness to the earth and that affinity for all living things, which, perhaps, was inherited by children's souls in the bright Paradise. Childhood was filled with happy joy and the power of life:

I'll quickly take off my shirt
In plain sight of the dewy earth
And a fair-haired, trusting Scythian
I will fall into the lake cold.

And I will sail tall and strong
Towards the birth of the day.
And it will be epically beautiful
My holiday of water and fire.

And then to the wormwood steppes
I'll plunge headlong into it again.
The ashy little bustard will whirl,
A disturbed goose will take off...

It seems that the poem glorifies valiant prowess, heroic strength - but then a turn of the topic follows...

Hunter, lucky archer,
I will spur my horse in pursuit.
But pity is a ray of sunshine
Suddenly it pricks me in the heart.
And it will be alarming and sad,
And I will not give free rein to the arrow.
A good feeling will be revealed
To everything that lives on earth.
And, vulnerable with hidden thoughts,
I will die both daring and ardor,
I understand how reckless it is sometimes
I destroyed those who were weaker...

Life dictates its own: dark tones appear in the rainbow colors of childhood. One has to endure both the hardships of peasant life and unbearable losses. Here is the beginning of the poem “In Memory of Grandfather”:

Shuddered and choked on blood
A heart that has served its time.
Putting the field under the head,
A Russian man is dying.
Without wheezing, without tearing out grass,
Without scratching the earth in delirium.
And she blooms around - alive,
Swallows chirp in flight.

Somewhere in the sky a lark is drowning,
The hum of churches floats across the river.
Nag calloused palms
She touched the man's lips.
The sky has fallen lower, lower,
It fell right on the crops.
A bundle of hard chaff bread
The abandoned one lies on the strip...

Childhood is a village. Childhood is a peasant way of life. The world of a people resistant to hardship, kindly, patient, with a childish soul open to goodness. This world once touched the fate of the hero of the poem “Kindness”:

...So a Russian forest village
It was included in my biography.

From that moment on, the hero’s fate happily changes, but most importantly, the hero’s soul happily transforms:

And from that moment she controlled me
It’s no longer a road, where a mile is a mile away,
Not hunger, but human pity,
Kindness as radiant as the sun.

The light of people's kindness permeates the whole life, all the lyrics of Gennady Serebryakov. Without this light, can a poet become a true poet in his soul? We will find the answer to this question in the book of the painter Ilya Glazunov “Crucified Russia”. This is what the artist writes about the secrets of creativity in the chapter “Music Sounds”:

“Creativity always contains a strong-willed element, a desire to transform the world according to a high spiritual ideal. Creativity is the creation of new spiritual values, the introduction of novelty into existence. This is the eternal youth of creativity, the eternal youth of its freedom.
Beethoven argued that the main thing for a creator is to be kind. “I awakened good feelings with my lyre,” said our Pushkin. Since childhood, Gigli remembered the words of his mother: “If you want to be a good singer, be a kind person.”

And it is not without reason that the lyrical testament of the poet Serebryakov sounds inviting and life-affirming - these are the lines from the poem “To Friends at the Literary Institute”:

Keep your youth, keep it!
Strive for heights throughout your life.
Keep your youth in granite,
In singing colors on canvas...

The poet returns to his beloved thought again and again... Youth, beauty, height - this is the eternal worldview of the people's soul, this is the enticing mystery of folk art, this is the inexplicable charm of folk tales, legends, epics and legends...

Harmony, grace, gratitude... Prowess, openness of heart, breadth of soul... Conscience, co-creation, community - all this is the writer’s circle of thoughts.

I'm thinking about beauty again
About that deep one, hidden from view,
About the one that will not open soon,
Subject to surprise and dream.

In the end, it depends on ourselves
Skill behind the misty veil
To comprehend the space and the call of the ringing heights,
And the feeling of wings behind your back.

...And suddenly realize that the world was created from colors.
How silence is woven from sounds,
And realize the reality of good fairy tales,
In which reality is intertwined with dreams.

And, gaining new hearing and sight,
Go forward, burn bridges behind you,
No longer thinking about retreat in life
From this
Into the distance of alluring beauty.

From the pages of the book “Between Past and Future” we seem to hear the voice of a poet. The book gives us words, sound, intonation... Here is a new page - and a wonderful poem about love:

Airports, marinas, train stations...
I stubbornly rush my life,
Isn't that why so little is said?
About the woman I love.

Everything seems: I’ll have time, I’ll catch up
And I will bring her the best words.
She's still waiting. And the years melt and melt
Rain in a birch forest.

But the day will come - and somewhere on the road
I understand, I’m white with gray hair.
What is in a woman, both affectionate and strict, -
One -
The whole world is easily connected.

“Somewhere on the road...” Let’s, dear readers, imagine that we are on the road... let’s mentally transport ourselves to that artistic bus that in 1972 carried a group of filmmakers from Russia along the roads of Italy. Let's open the page of Lyudmila Gurchenko's book "Applause" - let's open it to hear Serebryakov's poems!

The wonderful actress, Lyudmila Gurchenko, paints with words so well that we don’t even need to imagine anything. Just listen... Southern cities flash outside the bus window...

“...Sorrento, Capri, Naples, Rome. It was already the end of the trip. We were returning to Rome, and from there to Moscow. It was the beginning of October. The track was called “Sunny”, and the day was cloudy, it was drizzling... The Italian driver, to entertain us, turned the microphone towards himself and sang “Santa Lucia” - the Russians, they say, know this one... He looked at us questioningly in the mirror – why there is no reaction.
I sat immersed in my dark thoughts. The rain and grayness outside the window weighed even more on my soul. And suddenly I stood up. Why? I didn’t even think about getting up... Some kind of superpower lifted me up. I was again under hypnosis, as in childhood, then, in the hospital. (Lyudmila Markovna tells on the previous pages how as a child, in a front-line city, she entered a hospital and sang life-affirming songs for wounded soldiers. From that day on, the girl, a future actress, went to the wards to sing as if she were going to work. - N.M.)
I approached the driver and asked him for a microphone. I no longer looked at anyone, only at the boring gray landscape of the “Sunny” route.

The night is short
The clouds are sleeping
And lies in my palm
Your hand is unfamiliar.
Even though I don't know you at all
And my home is far from here...

...Vasya Shukshin looked at me with moist eyes. He looked straight into the depths... For the first time during the entire trip we heard his voice. He said loudly:
- Lucy, sing the one you sang on TV... Do you know which one?
- Huh? Certainly.

The narrow path winds
Through the snowdrifts, along the fence.
I'm passing by, and at the well
Women gossip about me.
Talk, talk,
Word after word goes on
Conversations will die down soon
But love will remain...

This feeling is most acute abroad. Your home, your land, your Motherland remained there... And you are here. And if you don’t have this feeling, you don’t have this strength that gives you support, then you are alone, defenseless, vulnerable, you fail and stumble, you become like a house without a foundation...”

Lyudmila Gurchenko does not define “this feeling” in prose speech: after all, it was just named in song speech, poetic speech - in Gennady Serebryakov’s song-poem “Conversations”. This feeling is Love.

Love for man, love for the Motherland, mental and spiritual kinship, patriotism.
That Love that will remain.

I will live under the clear sun,
Without lowering your head...

But isn’t Vasily Shukshin’s character revealed to us in a new way – through his love for song, through his affinity for the poetry of Gennady Serebryakov? Loud newspapers do not make noise about Serebryakov’s poetry. But far from the Motherland, Vasily Shukshin said to Lyudmila Gurchenko: “Lucy, sing that song!” Isn’t this the highest praise for a poet? His word is native, popular... It is heard. His purpose on earth is understood and accepted. He lives in high folk memory. He lives quietly, calmly and firmly, preserving the dignity and authenticity of the word of the righteous.

Isn’t this what the poem “Elegy” talks to us about?

It's like nothing is happening...
Silence freezes in the deserted grove.
Sadness dissolved in nature,
My soul is full to the brim.

...Perhaps for us, the careless, as an edification
The fatherland is breathing sadness again,
So that we become more acute at times of withering
Have you realized the brevity of existence?

So that, returning to the roots of life,
Having overcome nature's oblivion,
We saw winged and tall
It has its own earthly purpose.

Earthly purpose... These words lead us to think about the meaning of life, about how the poet saw his purpose, his ultimate task in the earthly vale. And here the article “The Heart of a Friend” will help us - the preface by the book’s compiler, Ivanovo writer Vitaly Serdyuk:

“He keenly felt the continuity of generations, saw in it an important thread that unites the people, forces sons to pick up what their fathers started... Heroism, citizenship, patriotism, “sacred love for the Motherland” not only dominated his work, they also educated the author himself, forged his civic spirit self-awareness, worldview, his human essence,” writes Vitaly Serdyuk, speaking about the main thing in his friend’s character.

But Gennady Serebryakov himself speaks about the main thing:

Where do immortal souls roam?
Which light are they aiming at?
If antiworlds exist,
That's what's in them -
There is no anti-homeland.

Only to her - indivisible and eternal -
Stay, my native land,
As in the cold
We see it as spring
And the dawn rises in the darkness.

I’m not asking Russia for immortality,
Let me fall into oblivion forever,
Just to sparkle
Dawn dew
In her plowed field.

The question of the meaning of life is persistently repeated in the lines of other poems in the book:

...And suddenly I realize that the time has come
Do not waste high feelings and words in vain.
And empty tinsel will fly around,
The world will appear in its harsh essence.
And now the questions arise.
And there are no excuses, no preludes.
Did you fight evil?
Did you do good?
Did you live for yourself?
Or did you give your heart to people?
I am becoming more and more strict about my fate.
What I did wrong - I’m in a hurry to correct it...

It's not the end of my life that I'm afraid of,
I'm afraid to waste it on trifles.

An exciting topic appears on the pages again and again. In its own way, the question of the meaning of life is refracted in the poem “Birds of Flight”:

There are sparrows and tits under the window...
Specially dear to me
Evergreen modest birds,
That they spend the winter in their native land.

No matter how cold and blizzard it is,
There is nothing to lure them away from here.
They know that all this must be endured,
Share everything with your land.

Nothing that they don't live in abundance
Under the strict protection of forests, -
Don’t be greedy for overseas goods, -
And the chicks will be taught the same...

The theme of the meaning of life turns out to be inextricably linked with the theme of loyalty to one’s native land, with the theme of patriotism. A natural continuation of the conversation is the poem “Herbs”:

For some reason I want to stay
Here, in the wilderness, among the dense grasses.
Far from cities with radio stations
Fall like the wings of your arms outstretched...

...Everything has its time. Flowers exude honey.
Worlds are born and collapse...
But, foretelling good weather,
Mosquitoes dance in Kamarinskaya.

In such a cozy poem, full of summer bliss and warmth, suddenly - “worlds are born and collapse”, and without disturbing the harmony of mood, therefore, there - in distant Space, where it is no longer mosquitoes that dance - stars... And the theme of filial attention to the native earth is transformed into a different, cosmic, supramundane theme - the theme of participation in the destinies of the worlds, the theme of filial attention to the Divine verb. It is no longer the feeling of the Motherland, but the feeling of the Universe that guides the poet’s hand and puts the invisible thought into clearly readable lines... Serebryakov admits, starting a conversation with the reader:

Well what can I say? Well what can I tell you
At this blue night on the edge?
Listen better to how the shoots grow,
Believing in your youthful strength,
How the wind moves without crushing the grass,
Sweet sap boils in the birches,
Like a linen path from the moon
It lies diagonally through the forest...
...I accept all this as a sacrament,
Nature is pristine and new.
Well what can I say? Better listen to the earth.
I borrow words from her.

Speaking about the poetry of Gennady Serebryakov, it would be necessary to quote many other beautiful, sincere, heart-touching, surprisingly modern, insightful poems of the poet. Sometimes - touching the heart with acute pain... Take at least an excerpt from the poem “Room of Laughter”:

What's with that strange echo?
Cackle to the mountain heights...
It's like being in a funhouse
The Russian people are driven...

Where can you see the devastation?
Predatory machinations of evil,
Kohl in the sovereign circle
All mirrors, mirrors?

...Laugh at the ancient holiness,
Over the inescapable melancholy,
Above the ruined village
And urban poverty.

Above the waiting of the tired
In the roar of miles of wind.
Laugh at the loyalty of the fallen
And over the disbelief of the living.

Laugh at the blood shed
Water has become cheaper,
And over your love,
And over his relatives.

Laugh, don’t argue with your enemies,
Without trying to understand evil,
Well, there’s no point in looking at the mirror,
As they say, blame...

Or, for example, let’s read this short, untitled poem:

The silence in the forgotten huts is freezing.
The spirit of desolation over the ancient land...
The village doesn't owe us anything.
A long time ago, we owe everything to the village.

Everything returned to normal.
Only the dead, they say, have no shame...
We came to pay our debts.
But just who
Will he accept them from us now?..

Soon it will be ten years since the poet Gennady Serebryakov has been with us. Let's come and worship at the poet's house in Semkhoz - who will open the gate? But let’s open the poet’s books: he left his bright, deep poems to Russia. And this is what he himself told us at parting, in the poem “In Memory of Vasily Shabanov”:

Russian poets leave early
And they find eternal peace.
They leave through delight and slander,
Without breathing in the blue snow...

...And if friends suddenly stumble nearby
And they will fall backwards, as if under attack,
That's right, the load shouldn't sway,
Others will take it upon themselves...

Blinding our eyes with a flash of pain,
Russian poets leave early.
The lot of the living is to mourn this with your soul
And everything that is warmed by a furious heart,
Have time to speak for them
And for myself.

This article is just the beginning of a conversation with Gennady Serebryakov. How soon the continuation will be depends on you, reader! Take the poet’s books from libraries, read, worry, think with him! These are bright experiences and high thoughts! These are poems of the present time: the time of memory, the time of the heart. Russia speaks to us in the voice of its poet, Gennady Serebryakov:

I just know he won’t forget
My heart is nothing.
And what was and what will be -
Everything fits into it.
It started beating with renewed vigor
Quiet sadness out of place...
Over Russia,
Over Russia
Geese-swans are flying...