Sergei Prokofiev compiled a short and a long autobiography where he gave a detailed account of his childhood and youth. The composer finished working on the short version in 1941. It included information about his life until 1936.

Prokofiev described his childhood, conservatory years, life as an independent artist after graduation, his time abroad, and his return to the Soviet Union. The autograph from the museum’s collection dates back to 1916. The young Prokofiev applied an innovative approach to everything he did. Striving to be original, he introduced several signature traits into his spelling. In pre-reform Russian orthography, there was a Latin letter “i” that corresponded to the modern letter “и” and was used instead of the Cyrillic equivalent in certain environments, mostly before vowels. Prokofiev decided that two letters “и” were superfluous and used only the letter “i”. However, his choice happened to be wrong since the orthographic reform eliminated the Latin “i” several years later.

The autograph of Prokofiev’s short autobiography shows that the composer used the Latin “i” even when it was not required according to the pre-reform spelling rules: “урокi теорii у С.I. Танеева” (theory lessons with Sergei Taneyev), “Глiэр” (Glière), “сiмфонiя” (a symphony). At the same time, Prokofiev dropped the use of the Russian hard sign (the letter “ъ”) at the end of all words that would otherwise end in a consonant. In this case, he was correct and anticipated the reform: several years later, the rule was changed. Another one of Prokofiev’s innovations was the elimination of vowels. He did this in his diaries and letters to friends as well as in his signature “С. Пркфв” (S. Prkfv). In this autograph, Prokofiev also eliminated some letters: “кнсрвтрiя” (cnsrvtry), “теор композ” (compos thry), “сочiн опер” (cmpsd the oper).