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Biography, life story of Honore de Balzac

Honore de Balzac is a famous French writer of the 19th century, one of the creators of the realistic movement in European literature.

Origin

Honore de Balzac was born on May 20, 1799 in Tours, located near the Loire River. The daughter of a merchant from Paris gave birth to a boy. His father, Bernard Francois, was a simple peasant, but was able to become a fairly rich man thanks to his ability in trading.

Bernard was so successful in buying and then reselling land plots confiscated from nobles during the revolution that he was able to become a popular man. For some reason, Honore's father did not like the real name Balsa, and he changed it to Balzac. In addition, by paying officials a certain amount of money, he became the owner of the “de” particle. Since then, he began to be called more nobly, and by the sound of his first and last name he could well pass for a representative of the privileged class. However, in those days in France, many ambitious commoners who had at least some francs in their souls did this.

Bernard believed that without studying law, his son would forever remain the son of a peasant. Only advocacy, in his opinion, could somehow bring the young man closer to the circle of the elite.

Studies

In the period from 1807 to 1813, fulfilling the will of his father, Honore completed a course of study at the College of Vendôme, and in 1816-1819 he learned the basics of science at the Paris School of Law. The young Balzac did not forget about practice, performing the duties of a scribe for a notary.

At that time, he firmly decided to devote himself to literary creativity. Who knows, his dream could have come true if the father had paid more attention to his son. But the parents did not pay due attention to what young Honore lived and breathed. The father was busy with his own affairs, and the mother, who was 30 years younger than him, was distinguished by a frivolous character and often found pleasure in the chambers of strange men.

It should be noted that the future famous writer did not want to become a lawyer at all, so he studied at these institutions, overcoming himself. Moreover, he amused himself by mocking the teachers. Therefore, it is not surprising that the careless student was repeatedly locked in a punishment cell. At the College of Vendôme, he was generally left to his own devices, because there parents could visit their children only once a year.

CONTINUED BELOW

For 14-year-old Honore, his college studies ended with a serious illness. It is not known why this happened, but the administration of the institution insisted that Balzac immediately go home. The illness lasted for five long years, during which doctors, one and all, gave very disappointing prognoses. It seemed that recovery would never come, but a miracle happened.

In 1816, the family moved to the capital, and here the disease suddenly subsided.

The beginning of a creative journey

Beginning in 1823, young Balzac began to make a name for himself in literary circles. He published his first novels under fictitious names, and tried to write in the spirit of extreme romanticism. Such conditions were dictated by the fashion that prevailed in France at that time. Over time, Honore was skeptical about his attempts at writing. So much so that in the future I tried not to think about them at all.

In 1825, he tried not to write books, but to print them. Attempts with varying success lasted for three years, after which Balzac became completely disillusioned with the publishing business.

Writing craft

Honore returned to creativity again, finishing work on the historical novel “The Chouans” in 1829. By that time, the aspiring writer had such confidence in his abilities that he signed the work with his real name. Then everything went very smoothly, “Scenes of Private Life”, “Elixir of Longevity”, “Gobsek”, “Shagreen Skin” appeared. The last of these works is a philosophical novel.

Balzac worked with all his strength, spending 15 hours a day at his desk. The writer was forced to write to the limit of his capabilities, since he owed creditors a large sum of money.

Honore needed considerable finances for various dubious enterprises. At first, cherishing the hope of buying a silver mine at a reasonable price, he rushed to Sardinia. Then he acquired a spacious estate in the countryside, the maintenance of which took a toll on the owner’s pockets. Finally, he founded a couple of periodicals, the release of which was not commercially successful.

However, such hard work brought him good dividends in the form of fame. Balzac published several books every year. Not every colleague could boast of such a result.

At the time when Balzac loudly declared himself in French literature (the end of the 1820s), the direction of romanticism blossomed wildly. Many writers created the image of an adventurous or lonely hero. However, Balzac sought to move away from describing heroic individuals and focus on bourgeois society as a whole, which was the France of the July Monarchy. The writer depicted the life of representatives of almost all strata, from village workers and merchants to priests and aristocrats.

Marriage

Balzac visited Russia several times, in particular St. Petersburg. During one of his visits, fate brought him together with Evelina Ganskaya. The Countess belonged to a noble Polish family. A romance began, which ended in a wedding. The solemn event took place in the Church of St. Barbara in the city of Berdichev early in the morning, without outsiders.

Balzac's beloved had an estate in Verkhovna, a village located in Ukraine in the Zhitomir region. The couple settled there. Their love lasted almost 20 years, at the same time Balzac and Ganskaya often managed to live separately and not see each other for several years.

Balzac's hobbies

Previously, Balzac, despite his shy nature, awkward behavior and rather short stature, had many women. All of them could not resist Honore's energetic pressure. The young man's partners were mostly ladies much older than him.

As an example, we can recall the history of his relationship with 42-year-old Laura de Berni, who raised nine children. Balzac was 22 years younger, however, this did not stop him from achieving a mature woman. And this can be understood, because in this way he tried, albeit with great delay, to receive the portion of maternal affection due to each child. Those that he was deprived of as a child.

Death of a Writer

In the last years of his life, the writer was often ill. Apparently, a disdainful attitude towards one’s own body made itself felt. Balzac never sought to lead a healthy lifestyle.

The famous writer found his last earthly refuge in the famous Parisian cemetery Père Lachaise. Death occurred on August 18, 1850.

fr. Honoré de Balzac

French writer, one of the founders of realism in European literature

Brief biography

The French writer, “the father of the modern European novel,” was born on May 20, 1799 in the city of Tours. His parents did not have noble origins: his father came from a peasant background with a good commercial streak, and later changed his surname from Balsa to Balzac. The particle “de”, indicating membership in the nobility, is also a later acquisition of this family.

The ambitious father saw his son as a lawyer, and in 1807 the boy, against his wishes, was sent to the College of Vendôme, an educational institution with very strict rules. The first years of study turned into real torment for young Balzac; he was a regular in the punishment cell, then he gradually got used to it, and his internal protest resulted in parodies of teachers. Soon the teenager was overtaken by a serious illness, which forced him to leave college in 1813. The forecasts were the most pessimistic, but after five years the illness receded, allowing Balzac to continue his education.

From 1816 to 1819, living with his parents in Paris, he worked in a judge's office as a scribe and at the same time studied at the Paris School of Law, but did not want to connect his future with jurisprudence. Balzac managed to convince his father and mother that a literary career was exactly what he needed, and in 1819 he took up writing. In the period until 1824, the aspiring author published under pseudonyms, releasing one after another frankly opportunistic novels that did not have much artistic value, which he himself later defined as “sheer literary piggy,” trying to remember as rarely as possible.

The next stage of Balzac's biography (1825-1828) was associated with publishing and printing activities. His hopes of getting rich were not justified; moreover, huge debts appeared, which forced the failed publisher to pick up the pen again. In 1829, the reading public learned about the existence of the writer Honore de Balzac: the first novel, “The Chouans,” signed with his real name, was published, and in the same year it was followed by “The Physiology of Marriage” (1829), a manual written with humor for married people men. Both works did not go unnoticed, and the novel “Elixir of Longevity” (1830-1831) and the story “Gobsek” (1830) caused quite a wide resonance. 1830, the publication of “Scenes from Private Life” can be considered the beginning of work on the main literary work - a cycle of stories and novels called “The Human Comedy”.

For several years the writer worked as a freelance journalist, but his main thoughts until 1848 were devoted to composing works for the “Human Comedy,” which included a total of about a hundred works. Balzac worked on the schematic features of a large-scale canvas reflecting the life of all social strata of contemporary France in 1834. He came up with the name for the cycle, which was replenished with more and more new works, in 1840 or 1841, and in 1842 the next edition was published with new title. Fame and honor outside his homeland came to Balzac during his lifetime, but he did not think of resting on his laurels, especially since the amount of debt remaining after the failure of his publishing activity was very impressive. The tireless novelist, correcting the work once again, could significantly change the text and completely redraw the composition.

Despite his intense activity, he found time for social entertainment and travel, including abroad, and did not ignore earthly pleasures. In 1832 or 1833, he began an affair with Evelina Hanska, a Polish countess who was not free at that time. The beloved gave Balzac a promise to marry him when she became a widow, but after 1841, when her husband died, she was in no hurry to keep it. Mental anguish, impending illness and enormous fatigue caused by many years of intense activity made the last years of Balzac’s biography not the happiest. His wedding with Ganskaya still took place - in March 1850, but in August the news of the writer’s death spread throughout Paris and then throughout Europe.

Balzac's creative legacy is enormous and multifaceted; his talent as a narrator, realistic descriptions, ability to create dramatic intrigue, and convey the most subtle impulses of the human soul put him among the greatest prose writers of the century. His influence was experienced by both E. Zola, M. Proust, G. Flaubert, F. Dostoevsky, and prose writers of the 20th century.

Biography from Wikipedia

Born in Tours in the family of a peasant from Languedoc, Bernard François Balssa (06/22/1746-06/19/1829). Balzac's father became rich by buying and selling confiscated noble lands during the revolution, and later became an assistant to the mayor of Tours. No relation to the French writer Jean-Louis Guez de Balzac (1597-1654). Father Honore changed his last name and became Balzac. Mother Anne-Charlotte-Laure Salambier (1778-1853) was much younger than her husband and even outlived her son. She came from the family of a Parisian cloth merchant.

The father prepared his son to become a lawyer. In 1807-1813, Balzac studied at the College Vendôme, in 1816-1819 - at the Paris School of Law, and at the same time worked as a scribe for a notary; however, he abandoned his legal career and devoted himself to literature. The parents did not do much with their son. He was placed at the Collège Vendôme against his will. Meetings with family were prohibited there all year round, with the exception of the Christmas holidays. During the first years of his studies, he had to be in a punishment cell many times. In the fourth grade, Honore began to come to terms with school life, but did not stop ridiculing teachers... At the age of 14, he fell ill, and his parents took him home at the request of the college authorities. For five years Balzac was seriously ill; it was believed that there was no hope of recovery, but soon after the family moved to Paris in 1816, he recovered.

The director of the school, Marechal-Duplessis, wrote in his memoirs about Balzac: “Starting from the fourth grade, his desk was always full of writings...”. Honore was fond of reading from an early age, he was especially attracted by the works of Montesquieu, Holbach, Helvetius and other French educators. He also tried to write poetry and plays, but his children's manuscripts have not survived. His essay “Treatise on the Will” was taken away by his teacher and burned before his eyes. Later, the writer would describe his childhood years at an educational institution in the novels “Louis Lambert”, “Lily in the Valley” and others.

After 1823, he published several novels under various pseudonyms in the spirit of “frantic romanticism.” Balzac strove to follow literary fashion, and later he himself called these literary experiments “sheer literary swinishness” and preferred not to remember them. In 1825-1828 he tried to engage in publishing, but failed.

In 1829, the first book signed with the name “Balzac” was published - the historical novel “The Chouans” (Les Chouans). Balzac's formation as a writer was influenced by the historical novels of Walter Scott. Balzac's subsequent works: “Scenes of Private Life” (Scènes de la vie privée, 1830), the novel “The Elixir of Longevity” (L"Élixir de longue vie, 1830-1831, a variation on the theme of the legend of Don Juan); the story “Gobsek” ( Gobseck, 1830) attracted the attention of readers and critics. In 1831, Balzac published his philosophical novel “The Shagreen Skin” (La Peau de chagrin) and began the novel “The Thirty-Year-Old Woman” (French) (La femme de trente ans). stories" (Contes drolatiques, 1832-1837) - an ironic stylization of Renaissance short stories. The partly autobiographical novel "Louis Lambert" (Louis Lambert, 1832) and especially the later "Séraphîta" (1835) reflected Balzac's fascination with the mystical concepts of E. . Swedenborg and Cl. de Saint-Martin.

His hope of becoming rich had not yet been realized (he was weighed down by debt - the result of his unsuccessful business ventures) when fame began to come to him. Meanwhile, he continued to work hard, working at his desk for 15-16 hours a day, and publishing 3 to 6 books annually.

The works created during the first five or six years of his writing career depict the most diverse areas of contemporary life in France: the village, the province, Paris; various social groups - merchants, aristocracy, clergy; various social institutions - family, state, army.

In 1845, the writer was awarded the Order of the Legion of Honor.

Honore de Balzac died on August 18, 1850, at the age of 52. The cause of death was gangrene, which developed after he injured his leg on the corner of the bed. However, the fatal illness was only a complication of several years of painful illness associated with the destruction of blood vessels, presumably arteritis.

Balzac was buried in Paris, at the Père Lachaise cemetery. " All the writers of France came out to bury him." From the chapel where they said goodbye to him, and to the church where he was buried, among the people bearing the coffin were Alexandre Dumas and Victor Hugo.

Balzac and Evelina Ganskaya

In 1832, Balzac met in absentia Evelina Ganskaya, who entered into correspondence with the writer without revealing her name. Balzac met Evelina in Neuchâtel, where she arrived with her husband, the owner of vast estates in Ukraine, Wenceslaus Hansky. In 1842, Wenceslav Gansky died, but his widow, despite a long-term affair with Balzac, did not marry him, as she wanted to pass on her husband’s inheritance to her only daughter (by marrying a foreigner, Ganskaya would have lost her fortune). In 1847-1850, Balzac stayed at the Ganskaya Verkhovnya estate (in the village of the same name in the Ruzhinsky district, Zhitomir region, Ukraine). Balzac married Evelina Ganskaya on March 2, 1850 in the city of Berdichev, in the Church of St. Barbara; after the wedding, the couple left for Paris. Immediately upon arriving home, the writer fell ill, and Evelina looked after her husband until his last days.

In the unfinished “Letter about Kyiv” and private letters, Balzac left references to his stay in the Ukrainian towns of Brody, Radzivilov, Dubno, Vishnevets, visiting Kyiv in 1847, 1848 and 1850.

Creation

The composition of "The Human Comedy"

In 1831, Balzac conceived the idea of ​​creating a multi-volume work - a “picture of the morals” of his time - a huge work, which he later entitled “The Human Comedy”. According to Balzac, The Human Comedy was supposed to be the artistic history and artistic philosophy of France - as it developed after the revolution. Balzac worked on this work throughout his entire subsequent life; he includes most of the already written works and reworks them specifically for this purpose. The cycle consists of three parts:

• "Etudes on Morals"
• "Philosophical Studies"
• "Analytical Studies".

The most extensive is the first part - “Etudes on Morals”, which includes:

"Scenes from Private Life"

• "Gobsek" (1830),
• "Woman of Thirty" (1829-1842),
• "Colonel Chabert" (1844),
• "Père Goriot" (1834-35)

"Scenes of Provincial Life"

• "Turkish priest" ( Le curé de Tours, 1832),
• Evgenia Grande" ( Eugenie Grandet, 1833),
• "Lost Illusions" (1837-43)

"Scenes from Parisian Life"

• trilogy "The Story of Thirteen" ( L'Histoire des Treize, 1834),
• "Caesar Birotto" ( Cesar Birotteau, 1837),
• "Banking House of Nucingen" ( La Maison Nucingen, 1838),
• “The brilliance and poverty of courtesans” (1838-1847),
• "Sarrasine" (1830)

"Scenes of Political Life"

• "An Incident from the Time of Terror" (1842)

"Scenes of Military Life"

• "Chouans" (1829),
• "Passion in the Desert" (1837)

"Scenes of Village Life"

• "Lily of the Valley" (1836)

Subsequently, the cycle was replenished with the novels “Modesta Mignon” ( Modeste Mignon, 1844), "Cousin Betta" ( La Cousine Bette, 1846), "Cousin Pons" ( Le Cousin Pons, 1847), as well as, in its own way, summing up the cycle, the novel “The Wrong Side of Modern History” ( L'envers de l'histoire contemporaine, 1848).

"Philosophical Studies"

They represent reflections on the laws of life.

• "Shagreen Skin" (1831)

"Analytical Studies"

The cycle is characterized by the greatest “philosophy”. In some works - for example, in the story “Louis Lambert”, the volume of philosophical calculations and reflections many times exceeds the volume of the plot narrative.

Balzac's innovation

The late 1820s and early 1830s, when Balzac entered literature, were the period of greatest flowering of Romanticism in French literature. The great novel in European literature by the time of Balzac had two main genres: the novel of the individual - an adventurous hero (for example, Robinson Crusoe) or a self-absorbed, lonely hero (The Sorrows of Young Werther by W. Goethe) and a historical novel (Walter Scott).

Balzac departs from both the novel of personality and the historical novel of Walter Scott. He strives to show an "individualized type." The center of his creative attention, according to a number of Soviet literary scholars, is not a heroic or outstanding personality, but modern bourgeois society, France of the July Monarchy.

“Studies on Morals” unfolds the picture of France, depicts the life of all classes, all social conditions, all social institutions. Their leitmotif is the victory of the financial bourgeoisie over the landed and clan aristocracy, the strengthening of the role and prestige of wealth, and the associated weakening or disappearance of many traditional ethical and moral principles.

In the Russian Empire

Balzac's work found recognition in Russia during the writer's lifetime. Much was published in separate publications, as well as in Moscow and St. Petersburg magazines, almost immediately after the Paris publications - during the 1830s. However, some works were banned.

At the request of the head of the Third Department, General A.F. Orlov, Nicholas I allowed the writer to enter Russia, but with strict supervision..

In 1832, 1843, 1847 and 1848-1850. Balzac visited Russia.
From August to October 1843, Balzac lived in St. Petersburg, in Titov's house on Millionnaya Street, 16. That year, the visit of such a famous French writer to the Russian capital caused a new wave of interest in his novels among local youth. One of the young people who showed such interest was 22-year-old engineer-second lieutenant of the St. Petersburg engineering team Fyodor Dostoevsky. Dostoevsky was so delighted with Balzac’s work that he decided to immediately, without delay, translate one of his novels into Russian. This was the novel "Eugenia Grande" - the first Russian translation, published in the magazine "Pantheon" in January 1844, and the first printed publication of Dostoevsky (although the translator was not indicated during publication).

Memory

Cinema

Feature films and television series have been shot about the life and work of Balzac, including:

• 1968 - “The Mistake of Honore de Balzac” (USSR): director Timofey Levchuk.
• 1973 - “Balzac’s Great Love” (TV series, Poland–France): director Wojciech Solazh.
• 1999 - “Balzac” (France–Italy–Germany): director Jose Dayan.

Museums

There are several museums dedicated to the writer’s work, including in Russia. In France they work:

• house museum in Paris;
• Balzac Museum at the Chateau de Sachet in the Loire Valley.

Philately and numismatics

• Postage stamps from many countries around the world were issued in honor of Balzac.

Postage stamp of Ukraine, 1999

Postage stamp of Moldova, 1999

• In 2012, the Paris Mint, as part of the numismatic series “Regions of France. Famous People”, minted a silver 10 euro coin in honor of Honoré de Balzac, representing the Center region.

Bibliography

Collected works

in Russian

• Collected works in 20 volumes (1896-1899)
• Collected works in 15 volumes (~ 1951-1955)
• Collected works in 24 volumes. - M.: Pravda, 1960 (“Library “Ogonyok”)
• Collected works in 10 volumes - M.: Fiction, 1982-1987, 300,000 copies.

in French

• Oeuvres complètes, 24 vv. - Paris, 1869-1876, Correspondence, 2 vv., P., 1876
• Lettres à l’Étrangère, 2 vv.; P., 1899-1906

Works

Novels

• Chouans, or Brittany in 1799 (1829)
• Shagreen Leather (1831)
• Louis Lambert (1832)
• Eugenia Grande (1833)
• History of the Thirteen (Ferragus, leader of the Devorantes; Duchess de Langeais; Golden-Eyed Girl) (1834)
• Father Goriot (1835)
• Lily of the Valley (1835)
• Banking house of Nucingen (1838)
• Beatrice (1839)
• Country Priest (1841)
• Screwtape (1842) / La Rabouilleuse (French) / Black sheep (en) / alternative titles: “Black Sheep” / “A Bachelor’s Life”
• Ursula Mirue (1842)
• Woman of Thirty (1842)
• Lost Illusions (I, 1837; II, 1839; III, 1843)
• Peasants (1844)
• Cousin Betta (1846)
• Cousin Pons (1847)
• The Splendor and Poverty of Courtesans (1847)
• MP for Arsi (1854)

Novels and stories

• The House of the Cat Playing Ball (1829)
• Marriage contract (1830)
• Gobsek (1830)
• Vendetta (1830)
• Goodbye! (1830)
• Country Ball (1830)
• Conjugal Consent (1830)
• Sarrasine (1830)
• Red Hotel (1831)
• The Unknown Masterpiece (1831)
• Colonel Chabert (1832)
• Abandoned Woman (1832)
• Belle of the Empire (1834)
• Involuntary Sin (1834)
• The Devil's Heir (1834)
• The Constable's Wife (1834)
• Salvation cry (1834)
• The Witch (1834)
• Perseverance of Love (1834)
• Bertha's Repentance (1834)
• Naivety (1834)
• The Marriage of the Beauty of the Empire (1834)
• Forgiven Melmoth (1835)
• Mass of the Atheist (1836)
• Facino Canet (1836)
• The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan (1839)
• Pierre Grassu (1840)
• The Imaginary Mistress (1841)

Film adaptations

• The brilliance and poverty of courtesans (France; 1975; 9 episodes): director M. Cazeneuve. Based on the novel of the same name.
• Colonel Chabert (film) (French Le Colonel Chabert, 1994, France). Based on the story of the same name.
• Don't touch the ax (France-Italy, 2007). Based on the story "The Duchess of Langeais".
• Shagreen leather (French: La peau de chagrin, 2010, France). Based on the novel of the same name.

Facts

• In K. M. Stanyukovich's story "A Terrible Disease" the name of Balzac is mentioned. The main character Ivan Rakushkin, an aspiring writer who has no creative talent and is doomed to failure as a writer, is consoled with the thought that Balzac, before he became famous, wrote several bad novels.

Categories:

Honore de Balzac - French novelist, one of the founders realistic and naturalistic trends in prose. Born on May 20, 1799 in the city of Tours, he was at one time a clerk for a notary, but did not want to continue this service, feeling a calling to literature. Throughout his life, Balzac struggled with a cramped financial situation, worked with tenacity and perseverance, composed a lot of unrealistic projects in order to get rich, but never got out of debt and was forced to write novel after novel, studying for 12–18 hours a day. The result of this work was 91 novels, which make up one general cycle “The Human Comedy”, where more than 2000 individuals are described with their characteristic individual and everyday traits.

Honore de Balzac. Daguerreotype 1842

Balzac did not know family life; he married only a few months before his death to Countess Ganskaya, with whom he corresponded for 17 years and came to Russia more than once to meet with her (Ganskaya’s husband owned extensive estates in Ukraine). The heart disease from which Balzac suffered intensified during his last trip, and, having arrived in Paris with his wife, whom he married in Berdichev, the writer died three months later, on August 18, 1850.

In his novels, Honoré de Balzac is an apt and thoughtful portrayer of human nature and social relations. The bourgeois class, folk morals and characters are described by him with a truthfulness and strength almost unknown before him. For the most part, each of the persons he deduces has one predominant passion, which serves as the motivating cause of his actions and very often also the cause of his death. This passion, despite its all-consuming dimensions, does not give this person an exceptional or fantastic character: the novelist so clearly makes these features dependent on the living conditions and moral physiognomy of the subject that the reality of the latter remains beyond doubt.

Geniuses and villains. Honore de Balzac

One of the most active and frequent springs that drive Balzac's heroes is money. The author, who spent his whole life inventing ways to get rich faster and more surely, had the opportunity to study the world of businessmen, swindlers, entrepreneurs with their grandiose plans, inflated, fantastic hopes, disappearing like soap bubbles, and carrying with them both the initiators themselves and those who I believed them. This world was transferred by Balzac to his “Human Comedy”, along with all the differences that the passion for money creates in people with different mental makeup and different habits created by one or another environment. Balzac's description of the latter is often sufficient to characterize his characters; The author depicts the smallest details of the situation with great accuracy, giving his overall picture an idea of ​​the moral side of the characters. This desire alone to reproduce the life situation of the characters in all its details can explain why Emile Zola saw Balzac as the head of naturalism.

Balzac studied the terrain, environment, and people in detail before starting to describe it. He traveled almost all of France, studying the areas in which his novels take place; he made a wide variety of acquaintances, tried to talk with people of different professions and different social environments. Therefore, all his characters are vital, although most of them burn out from one dominant passion, which can be vanity, envy, stinginess, passion for profit, or, as in “Père Goriot,” paternal love for daughters that has turned into mania.

But as strong as Balzac is in describing human characters and social relations, he is just as weak in describing nature: his landscapes are pale, dull and banal. He is interested only in man, and among people mainly those whose vices allow him to see more clearly the true lining of human nature. Balzac's shortcomings as a writer include the poverty of his style and lack of sense of proportion. Even in the famous image of the hotel in “Père Goriot,” the excessiveness of descriptions and the artist’s passion are noticeable. The plot of his novels often does not correspond to the realism of characters and settings; Romanticism in this regard influenced him mainly through its bad side. But the general picture of the life of the bourgeois class in Paris and in the provinces, with all its shortcomings, vices, passions, with all the diversity of characters and types, is presented to perfection by him.

Balzac comes from a peasant family, his father was engaged in buying up noble lands that were confiscated from the owners, then resold them.

Honore would not have been Balzac if his father had not changed his surname and bought the particle “de”, because the old one seemed plebeian to him.

As for the mother, she was the daughter of a merchant from Paris. Balzac's father saw his son only in the field of lawyering.

That is why in 1807-1813 Oneret was a student at the College of Vendôme, and in 1816-1819 the Paris School of Law became the place of his further education, at the same time the young man worked as a scribe for a notary.

But a legal career did not appeal to Balzac, and he chose the literary path. He received almost no attention from his parents. It is not surprising that he ended up at Vendôme College against his will. There, visiting relatives was allowed once a year - during the Christmas holidays.

During the first years spent in college, Honore was often in the punishment cell; after the third grade, he began to get used to college discipline, but he did not stop laughing at the teachers. At the age of 14, he was taken home due to illness; for five years it did not recede and hopes for recovery dried up. And suddenly, in 1816, after moving to Paris, he finally recovered.

Since 1823, Balzac published several works under pseudonyms. In these novels, he adhered to the ideas of “fierce romanticism”; this was justified by Honoré’s desire to follow fashion in literature. He didn’t want to remember this experience later.

In 1825-1828, Balzac tried himself as a publisher, but without success. As a writer, Honore de Balzac was influenced by the historical novels of Walter Scott. In 1829, the first one was published under the name “Balzac” - “Chouans”.

This was followed by the following works by Balzac: “Scenes of Private Life” - 1830. The story “Gobsek” - 1830, the novel “Elixir of Longevity” - 1830-1831, the philosophical novel “Shagreen Skin” - 1831. Begins work on the novel “A Thirty-Year-Old Woman”, the cycle “Naughty Stories” - 1832-1837. Partially autobiographical novel "Louis Lambert" - 1832, "Seraphite" - 1835, novel "Père Goriot" - 1832, novel "Eugenie Grande" - 1833.

As a result of his unsuccessful business activities, considerable debts arose. Fame came to Balzac, but his financial fortune did not increase. Wealth remained only in dreams. Honore did not stop working hard - 15-16 hours a day spent writing works. As a result, it was possible to publish up to six books a day. In his first works, Balzac raised various themes and ideas. But they all concerned various spheres of life in France and its inhabitants.

The main characters were people from various social strata: clergy, merchants, aristocracy; from various social institutions: state, army, family. The actions took place in villages, provinces and in Paris. In 1832, Balzac began correspondence with an aristocrat from Poland, E. Hanska. She lived in Russia, where he arrived in 1843.

Subsequent meetings took place in 1847 and 1848. already in Ukraine. Officially, the marriage with E. Ganskaya was registered shortly before the death of Honore de Balzac, who died in Paris on August 18, 1850. There he was buried in the Père Lachaise cemetery. A biography of Honoré de Balzac was written by his sister Madame Surville in 1858.

Honore de Balzac is a French writer, prose writer, and master of the realistic novel. Born on May 20, 1799 in the French city of Tours, into a peasant family. The writer’s most famous work is “The Human Comedy.” It was a cycle of novels and stories about the life of French society at that time. Balzac's work influenced many other talented writers, including Dickens, Zola, and Dostoevsky. From childhood, Balzac was prepared for a career as a lawyer. To do this, he studied at the College of Vendôme, at the Paris School of Law, and then worked as a scribe for a notary. However, he soon became bored with his legal career and devoted himself to literature.

The writer's first works appeared in the 1820s. These were novels in the spirit of romanticism. The publishing activity he began in 1825 was not successful. The first book signed with the name “Balzac” was published in 1829. It was the historical novel "The Chouans". After that, he wrote many essays and stories, which finally attracted the attention of critics. The next serious work, the novel “Shagreen Skin,” appeared in 1831. A year later, the partly biographical novel Louis Lambert was published.

Despite the fact that Balzac was unable to become rich as a writer, he continued to work hard and published several books a year. The main result of his work was the cycle of essays “The Human Comedy” on the topic of French life. The writer's creativity reached its greatest blossoming in the 1820-1830s. During his life, Balzac visited Russia several times. In 1832, he met his future wife Evelina Ganskaya, a Polish landowner and Russian citizen. The last years of his life Honore de Balzac lived on his wife’s estate in Verkhovna in what is now Ukraine. He wrote about his impressions of his stay in Ukraine in the unfinished “Letter about Kyiv.” The great writer died in Paris on August 18, 1850.