Early Career
In 1915, Babel graduated and moved to Petrograd, in defiance of laws restricting Jews to living within the Pale of Settlement. Babel was fluent in French, besides Russian and Yiddish, and his earliest works were written in French. However, none of his stories in that language have survived.
Also in St. Petersburg, Babel met Maxim Gorky, who published some of his stories in his literary magazine Letopis' ("Летопись", "Chronicle"). Gorky advised the aspiring writer to gain more life experience; Babel wrote in his autobiography: "... I owe everything to that meeting and still pronounce the name of Alexey Maksimovich Gorky with love and admiration." One of his most famous semiautobiographical short stories, "The Story of My Dovecot" ("История моей голубятни"), was dedicated to Gorky.
The story "The Bathroom Window" was considered obscene by censors and Babel was charged with violating criminal code article 1001.
There is very little information about Babel's whereabouts during and after the October Revolution. According to one of his stories, "The Road" (Дорога), he served on the Romanian front until early December 1917. He resurfaced in Petrograd in March 1918 as a reporter for Gorky's Menshevik newspaper, Novaya zhizn (Новая жизнь). Babel continued publishing there until Novaya zhizyn was forcibly closed on Lenin's orders in July 1918.
Babel later recalled,
"My journalistic work gave me a lot, especially in the sense of material. I managed to amass an incredible number of facts, which proved to be an invaluable creative tool. I struck up friendships with morgue attendants, criminal investigators, and government clerks. Later, when I began writing fiction, I found myself always returning to these 'subjects', which were so close to me, in order to put character types, situations, and everyday life into perspective. Journalistic work is full of adventure."
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