The novella “School” was first published in the magazine “Oktyabr” in 1929, appearing in issues 4 through 7 under the section “Experienced.” The section title and the name under which the work was printed at that time, “An Ordinary Biography, ” emphasized the autobiographical nature of the novella. Under the same title, it was published in 1930 in two issues of “Novel-Magazine for Kids.”
Like the protagonist of the novella, the writer matured quickly: his mother worked as a paramedic, and his father was serving on the front lines. The character of the Bolshevik Galka in the novella represents Nikolai Nikolayevich Sokolov, a teacher at the real school where Arkady Petrovich Gaidar studied. Also, when Arkady Golikov, the future Gaidar, left for the Civil War in 1919, he, like the novella’s hero Boris Gorikov, was barely 15 years old.
Arkady Petrovich intended to depict a composite image of Boris Gorikov and initially titled the novella “An Ordinary Biography.” Later, Gaidar would also emphasize the typicality of his life path, just like that of the novella’s hero. “It’s not that my biography was extraordinary, but the times were extraordinary,” he wrote in 1934. “It’s simply an ordinary biography in extraordinary times.“
Before the title “An Ordinary Biography, ” another version existed — “Mauser.” This title appears in the writer’s contract with Gosizdat, signed in June 1928.
The “School” was conceived in 1923–1924 in Siberia, when Arkady Gaidar first began writing. He started working on the novella in 1928 in Kuntsevo, near Moscow, and finished it in Arkhangelsk between 1928 and 1930, while he was working as a staff member for the newspaper “Volna, ” a literary supplement to “Pravda Severa.” It was there that a small excerpt from the novella, then still titled “Mauser, ” first appeared.
Even after publication, the writer continued to look for a suitable title for the novella. In 1930, it was published in the State Publishing House as a separate book called “School.” This title has remained in literature.
With the publication of “School, ” Arkady Gaidar
firmly established his path as a children’s writer.
