Not long ago, in the article “Kharkiv and the Memory of Vsevolod Garshin,” I wrote that just one year after the writer’s tragic death (April 5, 1888), members of a club dedicated to his work approached the “Kharkiv Society for the Promotion of Literacy Among the People” with a proposal to transfer to the organization the funds raised to establish a school named after Garshin. As a result, in December 1900, a school offering free education and named after the writer—who was well-known and beloved by many in our city—opened in the village of Novopavlivka in the Kharkiv District.
But the opening of a school on our soil was not the only way Vsevolod Garshin’s memory was honored. He was also remembered in 1913, on the 25th anniversary of his tragic death.
On March 21, the literary and artistic circle held an evening in his memory, during which three papers were presented:
— “The Life and Works of Garshin”—
“A Literary Profile of Garshin”—
“Garshin in Kharkiv”
A few days later, the Kharkiv newspaper *Utro* published extensive articles devoted to both the writer himself and his work:
— “Garshyn as a Person”—
“The Tragedy of Talent”—
“The Flower of Evil”
On the anniversary of the writer’s death, a memorial service was held at the Pavlovsk school named in his honor, in the presence of numerous students and teachers. That same year, at the initiative of the Starobil’s’k City Council, plans were made to begin collecting donations for the construction of a community center named after V. M. Garshin. However, in November, the Minister of the Interior rejected this initiative.
The most important and significant event for Kharkiv in 1913—marking the 25th anniversary of Garshin’s death—was the one about which our city’s media reported the following on February 13:
The city administration received a petition from residents of Proektnaya Street requesting that the street be renamed after the writer V. M. Garshyn.
As noted in the petition, V. M. Garshin lived in this part of the city (on what was formerly Novo-Malo-Sumska Street). After the Russo-Turkish War, he was wounded and recuperated at a military hospital here; his first work, “Four Days,” was also written in Kharkiv. March 24 of this year marks the 25th anniversary of the writer’s death. In the upper part of the city, many streets are already named after writers
After some time, the request was granted, which is why there is still a Harshyna Street in Kharkiv’s Kyiv Administrative District today, connecting Chernyshevska Street with Alchevskyh Street. And today it is considered one of the shortest streets in our city—just as it was at the beginning of the 20th century.
And everything in this story would have been fine, if not for one “but.” Vsevolod Garshin, who had lived in Kharkiv for some time, had absolutely no connection to Proektnaya Street. On February 17, 1913, his close friend Viktor Andreevich Fausek lashed out in an angry note regarding this matter.
It began like this:
Five years ago, in March 1908, on the pages of the newspaper *Utro*, on the twentieth anniversary of the death of Vsevolod Mikhailovich Garshina, I had already proposed to our city government that one of the streets in Kharkiv be named “Garshinskaya.” March 24 of this year marks the 25th anniversary of this writer’s death, and in the February 13 issue of *Utro*, I read the news that this time, the residents of Kharkiv themselves support my proposal
Following the quotation from the text of the request—which we are already familiar with—from the residents of Proektnaya Street, Viktor Andreevich, as a firsthand witness to Garshin’s life, makes a few minor corrections to this statement in the interest of restoring historical accuracy. It turns out that:
- A famous writer was hospitalized at a military hospital, not after the war, but at the very beginning of it—and even then, for just one day in August 1877.
- His mother then immediately tracked him down and took her wounded son to her apartment on Novo-Malo-Sumskaya Street, which was renamed Myronosytska Street in 1894. Vsevolod Mikhailovich stayed there for about three months.
- The claim that “Garshina’s first work, the short story ‘Four Days,’ was written in Kharkiv” is also completely incorrect. For one thing, this story was merely the first of many written earlier that brought Garshina success. Second, it was not written in Kharkiv, but during a trip to Bulgaria.
Fausek also questions the very rationale behind renaming Proektnaya Street to Harshyna Street, on the grounds that many streets in the upper part of the city are allegedly already named after writers. After all, in the area around the city cemetery—near which Proektnaya Street is located—there is only one street, with the exception of the major thoroughfare Pushkinskaya (renamed Hryhoriia Skovorody Street in 2024), that is named after a writer—namely, Lermontovskaya Street (renamed Maika Yohansena Street in 2024). And even that, according to Garshina’s friend, “a small side street near the City Cemetery is not befitting such a great writer.”
In his article, Viktor Andreevich not only criticizes the location itself, but also suggests alternative places where Vsevolod Garshin actually lived:
— The beginning of Novo-Malo-Sumskaya Street near the Myronosytska Church;
— The former Gana House, located on Podgornaya Street (now Potebni Street);
— Name Myronosytska Square after him;
— Or, if city officials are unable or unwilling to do so, one day erect a monument to the writer at the entrance to Myronosytska Street itself.
However, much to our regret, none of this came to pass, and the opinion of a close friend of Garshina’s—who knew the actual places in Kharkiv associated with him—remained nothing more than “a voice crying in the wilderness.” So today, the actual places associated with Garshina remain forgotten. And the name of a tiny street near what is now Youth Park means little to anyone, and—I agree with Fausek on this—does not at all do justice to the name of this great son of Sloboda Ukraine.
