My Life Became Fantastic. Diaries 1901–1921. Book 1

To millions of readers, K. I. Chukovsky is known as an author of children's works. He himself said about it: "All my other writings are so overshadowed by my children's tales that in the minds of many readers, apart from... 'Moidodyr' and 'Fly-Tsokotukha', I haven't written anything at all." Chukovsky left a vast creative legacy, including journalism, translations, literary criticism, philological works, memoirs, including diaries that Chukovsky kept throughout his life. The first part of the diaries (1901–1921) captures the literary and artistic atmosphere of the Silver Age. Chukovsky was acquainted with many famous contemporaries — Gorky, Korolenko, Repin, Blok, Merezhkovsky, Akhmatova, and others. Notes about meetings and conversations with them, about events in personal and public life are valuable precisely because these pages capture living, immediate impressions and evaluations. Not intended for publication, these diaries turned out to be the most important documentary evidence of the era…