Shumyatsky, Boris Zakharovich
Shumyatsky B. Z.
(1886-1938; autobiography) - genus. in 1886, November 16, in the mountains. Verkhneudinsk, Trans-Baikal region At first, my father was engaged in agriculture and carpentry, and then, having moved to the city, he took up the bookbinding trade, which he studied in his youth, working at the bookbinding and cardboard factory of F. A. Marx in St. Petersburg. The mother was a completely illiterate woman. Until the age of 10, Sh. grew up in the countryside, then moved to the mountains with his family. Krasnoyarsk. A large family and constant poverty forced the relatives to give the boy to the service. For this purpose, he was sent to the mountains at the age of 12. Chita (2 thousand miles from home), where he goes to work, first in a private wallpaper workshop, then as an apprentice in the carriage shop of the main Chita railways. workshops. In 1903, at the request of the gendarmes (the secret police in Chita did not yet exist), he was dismissed from chap. workshops, and then after a while he gets a job as a messenger boy in the office of the t-th doctor, br. Kolesh, from where he soon also quits for participating in the strike of employees. After wandering unemployed for several months, he gets a job, first as a capper, and then as an assistant, in one of the local shops.
At the end of 1904, Sh. moved to Krasnoyarsk, meaning to learn a little literacy, since before that he had learned to read and write by himself. Moving to Krasnoyarsk, he counted on the help in self-education of his brother Mark (Social Revolutionary Maximalist), a good tutor, a railway technician, who had passed the exam for a matriculation certificate before that external student. During a trip to Krasnoyarsk, on suspicion of transporting and distributing illegal literature, he is arrested, but due to lack of evidence, after spending two weeks in Verkhne-Udinsk, he is released. In the spring of 1905, Sh. goes to work in the turning shop of the depot st. Krasnoyarsk and works illegally in the local social-d. organization: first as a member of the subcommittee and head of the so-called "technical group", and then in the summer of the same year he takes part in organizing the "great Siberian railway strike" and as a "travelling" (organizer, propagandist and agitator) goes to carry out this strike along the line of the Siberian railway.
In the "days of freedom" (October, November and December 1905), being a member of the Krasnoyarsk Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, he first participates in the 2½-month organic work of the council as a body of power, then at the end of December of the same year takes part in the Krasnoyarsk uprising. After the suppression of this uprising in January 1906, he ends up in prison, and after a while he escapes from there. From that moment until the imperialist war, S. leads throughout Siberia, the Far East and elsewhere the life of an illegal underground worker and a professional revolutionary, at the same time working professionally as a worker consistently in the railway. depot st. Kurgan, Slyudyanka, Verkhneudinsk, in the main workshops of the Chinese East. wish. dor., in Harbin, in Ch. workshops of the port of Vladivostok, at the stamping factory in South America during emigration. While working in 1907 in Vladivostok, Sh. participates and leads the Vladivostok uprising, from where, after his failure, he flees to Harbin, and from there to Western Siberia. There he works as a cooperator, statistician and journalist in a number of locations.
In August 1913, shortly after returning from exile, Sh., under the surname Mikhalev, participates and, together with Petrovsky (now the chairman of the Union from the Ukrainian SSR), leads the "workers' delegation" of the All-Russian. cooperative congress in Kyiv. He falls through there and, pursued by spies, is arrested on the way to Siberia and goes to prison, having previously gone through a series of staged prison sentences and transfers. Upon leaving prison and after the process, already in the middle of 1915, Sh. surrenders to the soldiers. On military service the February and October revolutions find him.
Sh. began his literary and newspaper work for the first time in 1906, when, from June of this year, by a decree of the Siberian Union of the RSDLP, he was sent as an editor from the Bolsheviks (together with the editor from the Mensheviks A.F. Sukhorukov) in the editorial offices of legal newspapers, which, on the instructions of the union, were then placed in Eastern Siberia. These newspapers are "Pribaikalye", "Baikalskaya Struya" and "Zabaykalets". Then, at the end of 1906, Bolsheviks led the Bolsheviks in Harbin. newspaper "Voice of Manchuria", taken by the Harbin party organization from one of the local radicals (engineer Borovsky), and collaborates in other publications related to the local party organization, especially on issues of the trade union movement, since at that time he works as a secretary of the center. bureau of trade unions of the right-of-way of the East China Railway. dor.
In 1912-1913. Sh. collaborates in Pravda, and from the beginning February Revolution takes a close part in the publication of the newspaper "Izvestiya Krasnoyarsk. Council". Since March of the same year, together with I. Belopolsky and Dzhorov, he has been preparing the release of the first Bolshevik in Siberia. newspaper "Sibirskaya Pravda", which appears on April 2, and then, together with V. Yakovlev, A. Rogov, A. Pomerantseva, F. Vrublevsky and A. Arkhipova, who arrived in Krasnoyarsk, leads this newspaper until the end of summer, until the local internationalists merge with the Bolsheviks, when the newspaper "Krasnoyarsky Rabochiy" becomes the organ of the party organization. In April of the same 1917, Sh., together with A. Pomerantseva and F. Vrublevsky, organized the first Bolshevik in Siberia in Krasnoyarsk. book publisher
"Prystup" and wrote for him the pamphlet "What the Bolsheviks Want", published in several thousand copies and then distributed not only in Siberia, but also, through the publishing house "Priboy", in St. Petersburg. Arriving after the July defeat in St. Petersburg, Sh., as a member of the "Voenka" under the Central Committee of the party, works together with N. Podvoisky in the newspaper "Soldat and Worker" and "Soldier", and then, on the instructions of the Central Committee, restores the destroyed printing house of "Pravda" and releases the center. organ of the party "Proletary", renamed after the closing into "Worker", and then into "Worker's Way". Making sure that the publishing center. body was already on its feet, the Central Committee of the party in mid-September designs a collegiate editorial board for it, to which it also appoints Sh. October revolution Sh takes part in the publication and editor. a number of Soviet party newspapers in Irkutsk, Perm, Tyumen, Novo-Nikolaevsk, Tomsk, Krasnoyarsk, Verkhne-Udinsk; edits the first journal in Siberia on revolutionary issues. oriental studies - "Peoples of the Far East" and collaborates in various organs of the party press. In the years of illegal Sh., by order of prof. Zubashev and Meleev are processed by an extra. materials of the Tomsk branch of the Russian technical. total about handicrafts of the Tomsk province. and based on statistics. cards and statements is a collection of "Handicrafts of the Tomsk province." and performs a number of other extras. works (on the issue of a free port in Vladivostok, on the Omsk-Tyumen railway, etc.).
After the February and October revolutions, Sh. worked: deputy chairman of the city council. Krasnoyarsk and a member of the Krasnoyarsk Bolsheviks. committee; member of the Central Siberian. bureau of the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b), then chairman. center. perform. committee of councils of Siberia (Centrosibir); member of the Gubernia Bureau of the RCP of a number of provinces. party committees (Tyumen, Novo-Nikolaevsk, Tomsk, Leningrad); member of the Sibburo and Dalburo of the Central Committee of the RCP; pres. provincial committees, provincial executive committees of the mountains. Tyumen, Novo-Nikolaevsk, Tomsk, Krasnoyarsk; Presovminina FER; Commissioner of the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs for Siberia and Mongolia, Plenipotentiary and Trade Representative of the USSR in Persia; was elected a delegate to Soviet party congresses and a member of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of two convocations, and so on. On the military line of Sh., crossing the white front of Kolchak at st. Chaikovskaya, takes part in the capture of Perm, and then, as part of the 2nd brigade of the 51st division, takes part in the capture of the mountains. Tobolsk, from where, as a political worker, he was summoned by the Sibrevkom to Tyumen and appointed pre-gubernia committee. Then, in 1920, he was appointed presiding minister of the Far Eastern Republic, then deputy chairman of the Siberian Revolutionary Committee, and then a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the 5th Army, in which position he worked until February 1922, politically directing the Mongolian campaign against Ungern and helping the Mongols in creating a people's government of this country; for this work the Mongols elect him an honorary citizen. Mongolia.
On the diplomatic and economic lines, Sh. is working in Persia, where, during the three years of his stay, he strengthens the ties of the USSR with Persia, signs a trade agreement and a number of practical agreements; organizes a Soviet-Persian bank (Ruspers) and a number of mixed trading production joint stock companies (Perskhlopok company, Shark Island, Persazneft company, Rusperssahar company, Avtoiran company, Mesujat company, etc.), takes the first order for us to build six radio stations abroad, i.e. in Persia, etc. In recent years (1926-27) Sh. headed as rector of the Communist. University of the Workers of the East. I. V. Stalin, directs his department of the foreign East, edits the journal "Revolutionary. East" and is a member of the academic committee of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR.
[From 1930 chairman of Soyuzkino, from 1933 head of the Main Directorate of the film industry and deputy chairman of the Committee for Arts under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR. Unreasonably repressed, rehabilitated posthumously.]
Shumyatsky, Boris Zakharovich
(Andrei Chervonny; b. 1886) - an old Bolshevik (since 1903). In 1905 he was a member of the Krasnoyarsk Party Committee, a member of the strike committee, an organizer of the Red Guard and one of the organizers of the December uprising in the main Krasnoyarsk railways. workshops. After the suppression of the uprising, he was arrested; escaped from the Krasnoyarsk prison and conducted illegal party work in Omsk and other regions of Siberia. In November 1907 Sh. - one of the leaders of the Vladivostok uprising, after the failure of which he fled. Conducted underground work until 1911 in Harbin and other Siberian cities. In 1911-12 - in exile. In 1912 he worked for Pravda. Then in Kyiv and Kansk, where he was arrested, tried (in 1915) for participation in the Krasnoyarsk armed uprising of 1905 and was sent to the army. After the February Revolution, he was one of the organizers of the Krasnoyarsk Soviet, the organizer and head of the Sibirskaya Pravda newspaper. After the July days, he worked in Petrograd in the Bureau of Military Organizations under the Central Committee of the Party, in gas. "Soldier and worker"; was a delegate to the VI Party Congress and was a member of the editorial board of the gas. "Proletary", "Working" and "Working Way". After the October Revolution Sh. - Chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets of Siberia (Centrosibir), an active participant civil war. In 1918-19, during the Kolchak era, he worked underground, then in the front line (Tyumen - Perm). In the summer of 1919, he took part in the struggle for Perm and Tobolsk with units of the III Army. In November 1919 he was appointed chairman of the Tyumen provincial committee, in early 1920 - chairman of the Tomsk provincial committee and at the same time deputy. prev. Siberian Revolutionary Committee and a member of the Siberian Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP (b). In the summer of the same year, he was a member of the Dalburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) and chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Far East. In 1921-22 he was a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the 5th Red Banner Army, head of operations against Baron Ungern and authorized by the NKID for Siberia and Mongolia. In 1922-25 - Plenipotentiary and Trade Representative of the USSR in Persia. In 1926 - at the desk. work in Leningrad; from the end of 1926 to 1928 - rector of KUTV. In 1928-30 he was a member of the Sredazburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. From the end of 1930, Sh. was the chairman of the board of Soyuzkino and a member of the collegium of the People's Commissariat of Education of the RSFSR and the Park and Light Industry of the USSR (since 1932). In 1931 the government Mongolian Republic was awarded the Order of the Red Banner. Chairman of the Directorate of the Film and Photo Industry under the Council of People's Commissars since 1933.
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(now Ulan-Ude), Transbaikal region - July 29, Moscow) - Soviet statesman, participant in the civil war in Siberia, revolutionary, diplomat, journalist. Head of Soviet cinema (1931-1938). Member of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.
Biography
The beginning of the way
Boris Zakharovich's father worked as a bookbinder in St. Petersburg at the publishing house "Tovarishchestvo A.F. Marx" in the early 1880s. When, in connection with the assassination of Alexander II, Petersburg Jews began to be evicted beyond the Pale of Settlement, Zakhar Shumyatsky, like many others, was assigned a rural area somewhere in Belarus or Ukraine. However, he did not agree with this definition and went to the appropriate authorities, where he claimed that he had a city specialty and in the countryside he would not be able to feed his family and he needed a city. "Ah, the city," they said, "we will find you a city." And his family was sent to Transbaikalia to the city of Verkhneudinsk. "You yourself wanted a city, here's a city for you." The Shumyatsky family traveled to a new place of residence for several months. Upon arrival, they were registered as peasants, allocated land, sometimes involved in bookbinding in the services of local authorities.
Boris Shumyatsky was born in Verkhneudinsk and spent the first years of his life in the city. At school, he practically did not study. He often wrote that his education was "at home", but apparently at home he was taught to read and write in Russian, he mastered colloquial Buryat and, it seems, could explain himself in Yiddish.
Since 1898 - a student, and then a worker of the Chita railway workshops. In 1903, Boris Shumyatsky joined the RSDLP. Since 1904, he has been a worker at the Krasnoyarsk railway depot.
Revolution of 1905-1907
Shumyatsky was the editor-in-chief of the newspapers Pribaikalye, Baikalskaya Volna, Zabaikalets (Verkhneudinsk), Voice of Manchuria, Thought (Harbin). The owner of the newspaper "Pribaikalye" Verkhneudinsky merchant Nodelman was arrested in Irkutsk and the newspaper was closed. After leaving prison on bail, Nodelman agreed to publish a new newspaper, Baikal Wave. The newspaper "Zabaykalets", published in Verkhneudinsk on Naberezhnaya Street, was owned by Reifovich. The newspaper was closed in October 1906 and Shumyatsky fled from Verkhneudinsk to Chita on October 18 or 20. In Chita, he began publishing the newspaper Taiga. He was sent to work in the Vladivostok group of the RSDLP, actively participated in the armed uprising of the sailors of the Pacific squadron in Vladivostok.
He married Liya Isaevna Pandra (1889-1957), who took her husband's surname, a student of a medical assistant's school, the daughter of a wealthy merchant from the city of Kansk. In 1909 their daughter Nora was born, followed in 1922 by Ekaterina.
Revolution of 1917
In the period between the revolutions, fleeing the inevitable arrest in 1911-1913, he was in exile in Argentina. Already in Russia, he carried out active revolutionary work in the organizations of the RSDLP (b) in Siberia. Since 1914, it has been published in the central organ of the RSDLP, the newspaper Pravda.
In 1917, Shumyatsky - Deputy Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Krasnoyarsk Council of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, an active participant in the publication of the newspapers "Izvestia of the Krasnoyarsk Council", "Krasnoyarsk Rabochiy", the weekly "Sibirskaya Pravda", a delegate to the VII (April) Conference of the Bolsheviks, a participant in the 1st All-Russian Congress of Soviets, was elected a member of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, introduced to the editorial board of the newspaper "Pravda" responsible for organizing the publication.
Conflict with Stalin and transfer to diplomatic work
In 1922, Shumyatsky came into conflict with the Narkomnats and its leader I.V. Stalin on the issue of the autonomy of Buryatia, which had previously received it as part of the Far Eastern Republic. Shumyatsky managed to achieve the creation of an autonomous republic instead of three national districts, but he himself was exiled to an honorable retirement for diplomatic work.
From November 1930 - Chairman of Soyuzkino. Since 1933 - head of the Main Directorate of the film industry and deputy chairman of the Committee for the Arts (since 1935).
Soyuzkino
In 1929, a congress of Soviet filmmakers was held, at which the inconsistency of the management of the industry was revealed and a decision was made to change the leadership of the film and photographic industry. Since November 1930, B. Z. Shumyatsky headed the domestic film industry as chairman of the All-Union Film and Photo Association (“Soyuzkino”). For the reproduction of qualified cinema personnel, he organized on the basis of the film technical school.
GUKF
Since 1933 Shumyatsky - Chairman Government controlled film and photo industry (GUKF) ("People's Commissariat of Cinema"), then Deputy Chairman of the Committee for Arts under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR. During the period of Shumyatsky's leadership of the Soviet film industry, the films "Chapaev", "Merry Fellows", "Maxim's Youth", "Thirteen", "Circus" and many others were created. The success of Soviet films at international film festivals is associated with his name.
Shumyatsky regularly attended film screenings in the Kremlin. He left verbatim records of discussions of films by members of the Politburo and Stalin.
Memory
Streets in Ulan-Ude and Krasnoyarsk are named after Shumyatsky.
The image in the cinema
- - Orlova and Alexandrov (TV series). In the role of B. Z. Shumyatsky - Boris Khvoshnyansky
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Notes
Books and articles
- "Fight for the Russian Far East", Irkutsk, 1922.
- “In the Siberian underground. Essays 1903-1908", "Moscow Worker", M., 1926, 192 p.
- "Siberia on the way to October", M., 1927, 64 p. (2nd edition: Irkutsk, "Vostochno-Sibirskoe izd.", 1989, 411p.)
- "At the post of Soviet diplomacy", M., 1927, (2nd ed.: "Izd. Eastern literature", M., 1960).
- "1905 and the East", M.-L., GIZ, 1930, 80 p.
- "Cinematography of millions", "Kinofotoizdat", M., 1935, 387 p.
- "Ways of Mastery", "Kinofotoizdat", M., 1935, 192 p.
Literature
- "Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Russian Bibliographic Institute Granat", v.41, part 111, M. 1925, stb. 254-258.
- Yakushina A.P. "Boris Zakharovich Shumyatsky", "History of the USSR", 1969, No. 2, pp. 118 - 123.
- Bagaev B. F. “Boris Shumyatsky. Essay on life and activity "Krasnoyarsk, 1974, 204 p.
- Taylor R. "Boris Shumyatsky and the Creation of Soviet Cinematography in the 1930s" (from English) Film Studies Notes 1989, no.
- Richard Taylor , "Ideology as Mass Entertainment: Boris Shumyatsky and Soviet Cinema in the 1930s", in Richard Taylor and Ian Christie , (eds.), Inside the Film Factory, Routledge Ltd., 1991.
- Bernstein, Aaron. "People's Commissar of Cinematography", "LECHAIM" August - September, 1997
- Muzalevsky M. "He dreamed of Soviet Hollywood", "Cavalier", No. 7, 2002.
- Mayakovsky. V. Full. coll. op. M., 1957, v.5, p.120.
- Yesenin S. Full. coll. cit., vol. 4, M: "Science" - "Voice", 1996, p. 494.
- Bulgakova E. S. "Diaries", (January 1938).
- Schumatsky, Boris. "Silver bei Stalin", PHILO, Berlin 1999, 180 pp.
- “Kajarov carpet from Shumyatsky’s apartment in the House on the Embankment”, “Our Heritage”, No. 78, 2006.
- Shumyatsky B. L. "Facts and family legends about Boris Zakharovich Shumyatsky (on the occasion of his 120th birthday)" "Cultural space of Eastern Siberia and Mongolia", volume 1, pp. 157 - 164, Ulan-Ude, 2006.
- Shumyatsky B. L. “He was talented in everything - a revolutionary, a diplomat, people's commissar of cinema. 120 years since the birth of B. Z. Shumyatsky”, newspaper “Buryatia”, No. 231 (3871), December 8, 2006.
- Simacheva T. A. (author-compiler) "Boris Shumyatsky" (bibliography, documents, materials for a biography), "Kinograf", No. 18 p. 94 - 133, 2007, No. 19, 2008
- Shumyatsky Boris Zakharovich. Film organizer.
- Shumyatsky, Boris. Ogonyok No. 13 of 04/06/2015, p. 36
An excerpt characterizing Shumyatsky, Boris Zakharovich
“Dirty,” said Prince Andrei, grimacing.We'll clean it up for you. - And Timokhin, not yet dressed, ran to clean.
The prince wants.
- Which? Our prince? - voices began to speak, and everyone hurried so that Prince Andrei managed to calm them down. He thought it better to pour himself in the shed.
“Meat, body, chair a canon [cannon fodder]! - he thought, looking at his naked body, and shuddering not so much from the cold, but from disgust and horror, incomprehensible to him, at the sight of this huge number of bodies rinsing in a dirty pond.
On August 7, Prince Bagration wrote the following in his camp at Mikhailovka on the Smolensk road:
“Dear sir, Count Alexei Andreevich.
(He wrote to Arakcheev, but he knew that his letter would be read by the sovereign, and therefore, as far as he was capable of doing so, he considered his every word.)
I think that the Minister has already reported on leaving Smolensk to the enemy. It hurts, sadly, and the whole army is in despair that the most important place was abandoned in vain. I, for my part, asked him personally in the most convincing way, and finally wrote; but nothing agreed with him. I swear to you on my honor that Napoleon was in such a bag as never before, and he could lose half the army, but not take Smolensk. Our troops have fought and are fighting like never before. I held on with 15,000 for over 35 hours and beat them; but he did not want to stay even 14 hours. It's a shame and a stain on our army; and he himself, it seems to me, should not live in the world. If he conveys that the loss is great, it is not true; maybe about 4 thousand, no more, but not even that. At least ten, how to be, war! But the enemy lost the abyss ...
What was it worth to stay two more days? At least they would have left; for they had no water to drink for men and horses. He gave me his word that he would not retreat, but suddenly sent a disposition that he was leaving into the night. Thus, it is impossible to fight, and we can soon bring the enemy to Moscow ...
Rumor has it that you think about the world. To reconcile, God forbid! After all the donations and after such extravagant retreats, make up your mind: you will turn the whole of Russia against you, and each of us, out of shame, will make him wear a uniform. If it has already gone like this, we must fight while Russia can and while people are on their feet ...
You have to lead one, not two. Your minister may be good in the ministry; but the general is not only bad, but trashy, and he was given the fate of our entire Fatherland ... I, really, go crazy with annoyance; Forgive me for writing boldly. It can be seen that he does not love the sovereign and wishes the death of all of us who advise to make peace and command the army to the minister. So, I am writing you the truth: prepare the militia. For the minister in the most skillful way leads the guest to the capital. Adjutant Wolzogen is giving the whole army a big suspicion. He, they say, is more Napoleonic than ours, and he advises everything to the minister. I am not only courteous against him, but I obey like a corporal, although older than him. It hurts; but, loving my benefactor and sovereign, I obey. It’s only a pity for the sovereign that he entrusts such a glorious army. Imagine that with our retreat we lost people from fatigue and more than 15 thousand in hospitals; and if they had attacked, it would not have happened. Say for God's sake that our Russia - our mother - will say that we are so afraid and why we give such a good and zealous Fatherland to bastards and instill hatred and shame in every subject. What to be afraid of and who to be afraid of?. It's not my fault that the minister is indecisive, a coward, stupid, slow and everything has bad qualities. The whole army is crying completely and scolding him to death ... "
Among the innumerable subdivisions that can be made in the phenomena of life, one can subdivide them all into those in which the content predominates, others in which the form predominates. Among these, in contrast to rural, zemstvo, provincial, even Moscow life, one can include life in St. Petersburg, especially salon life. This life is unchangeable.
Since 1805 we have been reconciling and quarreling with Bonaparte, we have made constitutions and butchered them, and the salon of Anna Pavlovna and the salon of Helene were exactly the same as they had been one seven years, the other five years ago. In the same way, Anna Pavlovna spoke with bewilderment about the successes of Bonaparte and saw, both in his successes and in the indulgence of European sovereigns, a malicious conspiracy, with the sole purpose of unpleasantness and anxiety of that court circle, of which Anna Pavlovna was a representative. In the same way, at Helene, whom Rumyantsev himself honored with his visit and considered a remarkably intelligent woman, just as in 1808, so in 1812, they spoke with enthusiasm about a great nation and a great man and looked with regret at the break with France, which, in the opinion of the people who gathered in Helene's salon, should have ended in peace.
Recently, after the arrival of the sovereign from the army, there was some excitement in these opposing circles in the salons and some demonstrations were made against each other, but the direction of the circles remained the same. Only inveterate legitimists from the French were accepted into Anna Pavlovna's circle, and here the patriotic idea was expressed that there was no need to go to the French theater and that the maintenance of the troupe costs as much as the maintenance of the whole building. The military events were eagerly followed, and the most beneficial rumors for our army were spread. In Helen's circle, Rumyantsev, French, rumors about the cruelty of the enemy and the war were refuted and all Napoleon's attempts at reconciliation were discussed. In this circle, those who advised too hasty orders to prepare for departure to Kazan court and women's educational institutions, under the auspices of the Empress mother, were reproached. In general, the whole matter of the war was presented in Helen’s salon as empty demonstrations that would very soon end in peace, and the opinion of Bilibin, who was now in St. Petersburg and at Helen’s house (every intelligent person should have been with her), reigned that not gunpowder, but those who invented it, would decide the matter. In this circle, ironically and very cleverly, although very carefully, they ridiculed the Moscow delight, the news of which arrived with the sovereign in St. Petersburg.
In Anna Pavlovna's circle, on the contrary, they admired these delights and talked about them, as Plutarch says about the ancients. Prince Vasily, who occupied all the same important positions, was the link between the two circles. He went to ma bonne amie [his worthy friend] Anna Pavlovna and went dans le salon diplomatique de ma fille [to his daughter's diplomatic salon] and often, during incessant moving from one camp to another, he got confused and said to Anna Pavlovna what had to be said to Helen, and vice versa.
Shortly after the arrival of the sovereign, Prince Vasily began talking with Anna Pavlovna about the affairs of the war, cruelly condemning Barclay de Tolly and being indecisive about whom to appoint as commander in chief. One of the guests, known as un homme de beaucoup de merite [a man of great merit], told that he saw Kutuzov, who was now elected head of the St. Petersburg militia, sitting in the state chamber to receive warriors, he allowed himself to cautiously express the assumption that Kutuzov would be the person who would satisfy all the requirements.
Anna Pavlovna smiled sadly and noticed that Kutuzov, apart from troubles, had given nothing to the sovereign.
“I spoke and spoke in the Assembly of the Nobility,” interrupted Prince Vasily, “but they did not listen to me. I said that his election to the head of the militia would not please the sovereign. They didn't listen to me.
“It’s all some kind of mania to frond,” he continued. - And before whom? And all because we want to ape stupid Moscow delights, ”said Prince Vasily, confused for a moment and forgetting that Helen had to laugh at Moscow delights, while Anna Pavlovna had to admire them. But he immediately recovered. - Well, is it proper for Count Kutuzov, the oldest general in Russia, to sit in the chamber, et il en restera pour sa peine! [His troubles will be in vain!] Is it possible to appoint a man who cannot sit on horseback, falls asleep at the council, a man of the most bad morals! He proved himself well in Bucarest! I'm not talking about his qualities as a general, but is it possible at such a moment to appoint a decrepit and blind person, just blind? The blind general will be good! He doesn't see anything. Play blind man's blind man... sees absolutely nothing!
Nobody objected to this.
On the 24th of July it was absolutely right. But on July 29, Kutuzov was granted the princely dignity. Princely dignity could also mean that they wanted to get rid of him - and therefore the judgment of Prince Vasily continued to be correct, although he was in no hurry to express it now. But on August 8, a committee was assembled from General Field Marshal Saltykov, Arakcheev, Vyazmitinov, Lopukhin and Kochubey to discuss the affairs of the war. The committee decided that the failures were due to differences of command, and, despite the fact that the persons who made up the committee knew the sovereign's dislike for Kutuzov, the committee, after a short meeting, proposed appointing Kutuzov commander in chief. And on the same day, Kutuzov was appointed plenipotentiary commander of the armies and the entire region occupied by the troops.
On August 9, Prince Vasily met again at Anna Pavlovna with l "homme de beaucoup de merite [a person of great dignity]. L" homme de beaucoup de merite courted Anna Pavlovna on the occasion of the desire to appoint a female trustee educational institution Empress Maria Feodorovna. Prince Vasily entered the room with the air of a happy winner, a man who had achieved the goal of his desires.
– Eh bien, vous savez la grande nouvelle? Le prince Koutouzoff est marechal. [Well s, you know the great news? Kutuzov - field marshal.] All disagreements are over. I'm so happy, so glad! - said Prince Vasily. – Enfin voila un homme, [Finally, this is a man.] – he said, significantly and sternly looking around at everyone in the living room. L "homme de beaucoup de merite, despite his desire to get a place, could not help but remind Prince Vasily of his previous judgment. (This was impolite both in front of Prince Vasily in Anna Pavlovna's living room, and in front of Anna Pavlovna, who just as joyfully accepted this news; but he could not resist.)
- Mais on dit qu "il est aveugle, mon prince? [But they say he is blind?] - he said, reminding Prince Vasily of his own words.
- Allez donc, il y voit assez, [Eh, nonsense, he sees enough, believe me.] - said Prince Vasily in his bassy, quick voice with a cough, that voice and cough with which he resolved all difficulties. “Allez, il y voit assez,” he repeated. “And what I am glad about,” he continued, “is that the sovereign has given him complete power over all the armies, over the entire region, a power that no commander in chief has ever had. This is another autocrat,” he concluded with a victorious smile.
“God forbid, God forbid,” said Anna Pavlovna. L "homme de beaucoup de merite, still new to court society, wishing to flatter Anna Pavlovna, shielding her former opinion from this judgment, said.
- They say that the sovereign reluctantly transferred this power to Kutuzov. On dit qu "il rougit comme une demoiselle a laquelle on lirait Joconde, en lui disant: "Le souverain et la patrie vous decernent cet honneur." [They say that he blushed like a young lady who would have read Joconde, while he said to him: "The sovereign and the fatherland reward you with this honor."]
- Peut etre que la c?ur n "etait pas de la partie, [Maybe the heart did not quite participate,] - said Anna Pavlovna.
“Oh no, no,” Prince Vasily interceded fervently. Now he could not give in to Kutuzov to anyone. According to Prince Vasily, not only Kutuzov was good himself, but everyone adored him. “No, it cannot be, because the sovereign was so able to appreciate him before,” he said.
“God only grant that Prince Kutuzov,” said Anpa Pavlovna, “takes real power and does not allow anyone to put spokes in his wheels – des batons dans les roues.”
Prince Vasily immediately realized who this nobody was. He whispered:
- I know for sure that Kutuzov, as an indispensable condition, said that the heir to the Tsarevich should not be with the army: Vous savez ce qu "il a dit a l" Empereur? [Do you know what he said to the sovereign?] - And Prince Vasily repeated the words, as if said by Kutuzov to the sovereign: “I cannot punish him if he does badly, and reward him if he does well.” ABOUT! this is the smartest man, Prince Kutuzov, et quel caractere. Oh je le connais de longue date. [and what character. Oh, I've known him for a long time.]
“They even say,” said l “homme de beaucoup de merite, who still did not have court tact, “that the most illustrious made it an indispensable condition that the sovereign himself did not come to the army.
As soon as he said this, in an instant Prince Vasily and Anna Pavlovna turned away from him and sadly, with a sigh at his naivety, looked at each other.
While this was happening in Petersburg, the French had already passed Smolensk and were moving closer and closer to Moscow. The historian of Napoleon Thiers, like other historians of Napoleon, says, trying to justify his hero, that Napoleon was unwittingly drawn to the walls of Moscow. He is right, as are all historians who seek an explanation of historical events in the will of one person; he is just as right as the Russian historians who assert that Napoleon was attracted to Moscow by the skill of the Russian generals. Here, in addition to the law of retrospectiveness (recurrence), which represents everything that has passed as a preparation for an accomplished fact, there is also reciprocity that confuses the whole thing. A good player who loses at chess is sincerely convinced that his loss was due to his mistake, and he looks for this mistake at the beginning of his game, but forgets that in his every step, throughout the whole game, there were the same mistakes, that not one of his moves was perfect. The error to which he draws attention is noticeable to him only because the enemy took advantage of it. How much more complicated than this, then, is the game of war taking place under certain conditions of time, and where it is not the will alone that guides lifeless machines, but where everything springs from an innumerable clash of various arbitrarinesses?
After Smolensk, Napoleon was looking for battles for Dorogobuzh at Vyazma, then at Tsarev Zaimishch; but it turned out that due to the innumerable clash of circumstances to Borodino, a hundred and twenty miles from Moscow, the Russians could not accept the battle. From Vyazma, an order was made by Napoleon to move directly to Moscow.
Moscou, la capitale asiatique de ce grand empire, la ville sacree des peuples d "Alexandre, Moscou avec ses innombrables eglises en forme de pagodes chinoises! [Moscow, the Asian capital of this great empire, the sacred city of the peoples of Alexander, Moscow with its countless churches, in the form of Chinese pagodas!] This Moscou haunted Napoleon's imagination. yazma to Tsarev Zaimishch, Napoleon rode on his solo anglized pacer, accompanied by guards, guards, pages and adjutants. Berthier, the chief of staff, lagged behind in order to interrogate the Russian prisoner taken by the cavalry. He galloped, accompanied by the interpreter Lelorgne d "Ideville, caught up with Napoleon and with a cheerful face stopped the horse.
– Eh bien? [Well?] said Napoleon.
- Un cosaque de Platow [Platov Cossack.] says that Platov's corps is connected with a large army, that Kutuzov has been appointed commander in chief. Tres intelligent et bavard! [Very smart and chatterbox!]
Napoleon smiled, ordered to give this Cossack a horse and bring him to him. He himself wanted to talk to him. Several adjutants galloped, and an hour later the serf Denisov, who had been ceded to Rostov by him, Lavrushka, in a batman's jacket on a French cavalry saddle, with a roguish and drunken, cheerful face, rode up to Napoleon. Napoleon ordered him to ride beside him and began to ask:
- Are you a Cossack?
- Cossack, your honor.
“Le cosaque ignorant la compagnie dans laquelle il se trouvait, car la simplicite de Napoleon n "avait rien qui put reveler a une imagination orientale la presence d" un souverain, s "entretint avec la plus extreme familiarite des affaires de la guerre actuelle", [Cossack, not knowing the society in which he was, because Napoleon's simplicity had nothing that could open the presence of the sovereign to the Eastern imagination, spoke with extreme familiarity about the circumstances of the real war.] - says Thiers, telling this episode. Indeed, Lavrushka, who got drunk and left the master without dinner, was flogged the day before and sent to the village for chickens, where he was carried away by looting and was taken prisoner by the French. Lavrushka was one of those rude, insolent lackeys who had seen all kinds of things, who consider it a duty to do everything with meanness and cunning, who are ready to do any service to their master and who cunningly guess the master's bad thoughts, especially vanity and pettiness.
There is an opinion that in the second half of the 20th century there was no woman in our country who would have reached such political heights and made such an incredible career as Ekaterina Alekseevna Furtseva. She was the secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU, a member of the Presidium of the Central Committee, the first secretary of the Moscow City Party Committee, and for almost 14 years she was the Minister of Culture of the USSR.
Let's remember her life in the format of a biographical photo collection.
Portrait of a candidate member of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU E. A. Furtseva
Ekaterina Alekseevna Furtseva was born on December 7, 1910 in a village near Vyshny Volochkom. Mother Matrena Nikolaevna worked at a weaving factory. Father died in World War I.
Ekaterina Alekseevna with her mother
Ekaterina graduated from the seven-year school, at the age of fifteen she entered the weaving factory where her mother worked. But a different fate awaited her. At the age of twenty, the factory girl joined the party. Soon the first party task follows: she is sent to the Kursk region to raise Agriculture. But there she does not stay long, she is “thrown” to the Komsomol-party work in Feodosia.
Portrait of a young Ekaterina Furtseva
She is noticed, summoned to the city committee of the Komsomol and offered a new Komsomol ticket. From the blessed South, she is sent to the North, to the very heart of the revolution, to the capital of October, to Leningrad. At the Higher Courses of Civil Aeroflot.
Nikita Khrushchev, Nina Petrovna, Ekaterina Furtseva (third from left in the front row). Moscow region, early 60s
In the new city, Catherine fell in love with a pilot. His name was Petr Ivanovich Bitkov.
At that time, “pilot” was an almost mystical word. Pilots are not people, but "Stalin's falcons". The pilot is irresistible, like Don Juan. To be married to a pilot meant to keep up with the times. Live almost like a myth. Everything could be shared with the pilot - even love for Comrade Stalin.
Ekaterina Furtseva with her husband Peter Bitkov and daughter Svetlana
In Moscow, Furtseva becomes an instructor in the student department in the apparatus of the Central Committee of the Komsomol. A year later, she was sent on a Komsomol ticket to the Moscow Institute of Fine Chemical Technology. The future process engineer plunges headlong into Komsomol work.
Kliment Voroshilov, Anastas Mikoyan, Ekaterina Furtseva
The war began, my husband was mobilized. She was left alone, with her mother, whom by that time she had discharged to Moscow. Land mines are exploding in Moscow, she, along with everyone else, is on duty on the roof, extinguishing incendiary bombs - saving the capital. And suddenly - a protracted news after a meeting with her husband: she is pregnant.
Ekaterina Furtseva with her daughter Svetlana
Svetlana was born in May 1942. Only four months after the birth of her daughter, her husband came on a visit. He announced that he had been living with another for a long time. Disappointment followed disappointment. After graduating from the institute, as a political activist, she was offered to enter graduate school, after a year and a half she was elected party organizer of the institute. Science was done away with forever.
Now they lived together: her mother, Svetlana and she. Ekaterina received a room in a two-room apartment near the Krasnoselskaya metro station. From the institute, she was sent to work in the Frunzensky District Committee of the Party. Furtseva's immediate superior - the first secretary of the district committee - was Pyotr Vladimirovich Boguslavsky. She developed a special relationship with him.
In 1949, during a party concert backstage at the Bolshoi Theater, Nikolai Shvernik gave her an audience with the leader. Stalin liked her. She saw him for the first and last time, but that was enough for her.
Ekaterina Furtseva speaking at the Plenum of Creative Unions. 1967
In December 1949, she speaks at an expanded plenum of the city party committee, where, harshly criticizing herself, she talks about the district committee's shortcomings.
In early 1950, she moved to a building on Staraya Square, to the office of the second secretary of the Moscow City Party Committee. A couple of months later, her faithful friend Pyotr Vladimirovich Boguslavsky fell victim to the struggle against cosmopolitanism - he was removed from all posts and expelled from the party. The novel ended by itself.
The family of Ekaterina Furtseva: daughter Svetlana, granddaughter Marina, son-in-law Igor Kozlov - with cosmonaut Adrian Nikolaev
From 1950 to 1954, Furtseva came into close contact with Khrushchev. There were rumors about their romance. Immediately after Stalin's death, she became the first secretary of the city party committee. Now all of Moscow was under her command.
N.S. Khrushchev, writer K. A. Fedin, Minister of Culture of the USSR E. A. Furtseva (right), and others talking at a country dacha during a meeting of party and government leaders with leaders Soviet culture and art.
She made a strong impression on Khrushchev: both by the fact that she spoke at meetings without a piece of paper, and by the fact that she was not afraid to confess and repent of imaginary sins, and by the fact that she was a “specialist”. It was her favorite word. When meeting new people, the first thing she asked was: “Are you a specialist ?!”
N. S. Khrushchev and E. A. Furtseva at the opening of the exhibition. 1950s
Furtseva, until the end of her life, retained a respectful attitude towards professors and important old men, associate professors, whom she had seen in graduate school. The "specialist" knows more than she does, this conviction was very strong in her. And in her team, she - a former weaver - wanted to see just such people.
It was happy time for Furtseva. And not only in public life. While still working as a secretary in the Moscow City Party Committee, she met Nikolai Pavlovich Firyubin, one of her subordinates.
Ekaterina Furtseva with Nikolai Pavlovich Firyubin
Nikolai Firyubin was a professional diplomat, a short, slender brown-haired man with a thoroughbred and expressive face. spoke English and French. For those who knew both of them well, it was amazing how such different people could come together.
Outwardly, she behaved inappropriately. At every convenient occasion flew to him in Prague, then to Belgrade, where he was transferred as an ambassador. All this was in front of everyone, but she was not going to hide. It flattered him. Firyubin was looking for a reason to break off the previous marriage, threatened to renounce everything.
Five years later, when he returned to Moscow and became Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, they signed. And only then Ekaterina Alekseevna realized how wrong she was. However, it was no longer possible to change anything.
Khrushchev did not forget what he owed her. Soon, Ekaterina Alekseevna was introduced to the Presidium of the Central Committee and overnight turned from a party Cinderella into a party Queen.
Khrushchev's gratitude, however, was not eternal. The fact that the first time served a good service - the telephone, the second time played against Ekaterina Alekseevna herself.
Participants of the 1st All-Union Congress of Journalists; among those present: 1st row from left to right: General Director of TASS under the Council of Ministers of the USSR N. G. Palgunov (2nd from left), Chairman of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Court K. E. Voroshilov, Chief Editor newspaper Pravda P. A. Satyukov, Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR N. S. Khrushchev, member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU M. A. Suslov (6th from left), member of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU E. A. Furtseva, member of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU N. A. Mukhitdinov.
It was 1960, the second half of Khrushchev's reign. Many were unhappy with it. Including Furtseva. This discontent was vented on steam. Just washing the bones. Once, in a telephone conversation, Furtseva "walked" on Nikita Sergeevich. The next day he read the transcript of her private conversation with Aristov, a member of the Central Committee. His reaction was lightning fast. At the next, extraordinary, plenum of the Presidium, Ekaterina Alekseevna was removed from the post of secretary.
Her reaction was as open-hearted and sincere as Khrushchev's "trip". On the same day she came home, ordered not to let anyone in, lay down in the bath and opened her veins. But she didn't want to die. That is why she did not cancel the meeting with one of her friends, who was assigned the role of an angel-savior. And this friend played her part.
There was surprise at the silence outside the door, then bewilderment. Then fear. Then - a call to the special services and the arrival of a special team, which broke the door and found Ekaterina Alekseevna bleeding. Khrushchev did not respond to this "cry of the soul". The next day, at a meeting of the expanded composition of the Central Committee of the party, of which Furtseva remained a member, he, laughing wryly, explained to the party members that Ekaterina Alekseevna had a banal menopause and should not pay attention to it. These words were carefully conveyed to her. She bit her lip and realized: the second time women's games in a company that plays only men's games do not work.
Gina Lollobrigida, Yuri Gagarin, Marisa Merlini, Ekaterina Furtseva
The procedure for removal from power was worked out to the smallest detail. No one burst into the office, defiantly did not turn off the phone. The renunciation of power was marked by silence. They suddenly stopped greeting you, and most importantly, the turntable fell silent. She was simply turned off. However, a month later a message came that Furtseva was appointed Minister of Culture. And it was then that the nickname that stuck to her for a long time began to walk all over the country - Catherine the Great.
She considered tens of thousands of cultural workers in Moscow and the Moscow region to be her team. And another three or four million ordinary "army of cultural studies" throughout the USSR: modest librarians, museum scientists, arrogant employees of theaters and film studios, etc. All this army called her Great Catherine.
Delegates of the 24th Congress of the CPSU, Minister of Culture of the USSR E. A. Furtseva (right) and soloist of the Bolshoi Theater of the USSR, People's Artist of the RSFSR M. Kondratyeva talking during a break between sessions.
Furtseva's office was decorated with a portrait of Queen Elizabeth, with a laconic inscription: "Catherine from Elizabeth." There was a legend that, after talking for half an hour with Furtseva, the queen turned to her with a request: “Catherine, don’t call me Your Highness, just call Comrade Elizabeth.”
Ekaterina Furtseva and Sophia Loren
The Danish Queen Margrethe once said that she would like to do the same for her country as Furtseva did for hers.
Speech by Minister of Culture of the USSR E. A. Furtseva at the opening of the II International Ballet Competition at the Bolshoi Theater of the USSR.
According to her note addressed to Suslov, the Taganka Theater was established, and at the same time, with her light hand, the reviling of abstract artists took place in the Manege. With her blessing, Shatrov's play Bolsheviks went to Sovremennik. It was she who initiated the construction of a sports complex in Luzhniki and a new building for the choreographic school.
Minister of Culture of the USSR E. A. Furtseva and Hero of Socialist Labor, foreman of shipbuilders of the Baltic Plant named after S. Ordzhonikidze V. A. Smirnov
Everything ended with Firyubin. She didn't get divorced, but she didn't love either. Became closed. It revived, perhaps, only during noisy feasts, with a glass of good wine. IN last years this tendency was already noticeable to everyone. Her daughter Svetlana gave birth to Marishka, the granddaughter of Ekaterina Alekseevna.
Ekaterina Alekseevna with her daughter Sveta and granddaughter Katya
Svetlana and her husband really wanted to have a dacha. Furtseva did not want to build it, but under pressure from her daughter, she turned to the Bolshoi Theater - it was possible to buy cheap Construction Materials. The deputy director of the Bolshoi Theater for construction helped her, and then a scandal erupted. She was reprimanded, almost flew out of the party.
E. A. Furtseva, A. I. Mikoyan, L. I. Brezhnev, K. E. Voroshilov
Furtseva has been alone for the last two years. Almost no one was in her house, Firyubin had an affair on the side, and she knew about it.
On the night of October 24-25, 1974, a bell rang in the apartment of Svetlana Furtseva on Kutuzovsky Prospekt. The Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the USSR, Nikolai Pavlovich Firyubin, her mother's husband, called. He cried: "Ekaterina Alekseevna is no more."
One of the memorable characters in the TV series "Orlova and Alexandrov", recently shown on Channel One, was Boris Shumyatsky, chairman of the State Directorate of the Film and Photo Industry. It's really legendary person. About how he was in life, "Ogonyok" was told by the great-grandson of the "People's Commissar of Cinema" - also Boris Shumyatsky
- Your great-grandfather became the hero of the series. Doesn't it jar?
- You know, I expected that Stalin, in the spirit of the times, would be presented as effective manager, and great-grandfather - an enemy of the people or, at worst, a victim of the regime, necessary in the period of building a strong state. I was, of course, glad that my fears were not justified and my great-grandfather was depicted a good man, and Stalin is brought out as a villain.
- Well, how do the facts in the series correspond to the facts in life?
- I noticed that the authors of the script are well acquainted with the material, there are correct details. Well, for example, from family stories, I know that my great-grandmother cooked wonderful borscht, all of Moscow knew it - this is also mentioned in the series. But there are also many historical inaccuracies. However, I consider it unimportant, you should not demand fidelity to historical details from a feature film.
Something else confuses me: in the series, the absolute villain Stalin and his henchmen are bred, and the rest of the characters are their victims, who are not to blame for anything. With such a view of history, it is impossible to understand what Stalin's time did to the country, to the people, and then it penetrated into everyone. Here is just one example from the life of my great-grandmother, Leah Isaevna. Already after the execution of her great-grandfather, after prison, she once woke up in a great mood and said that she again dreamed of Stalin and that this was a good sign! On the same day, her youngest daughter was taken away and sent into exile as a member of the family of Shumyatsky, an enemy of the people.
- "Orlova and Alexandrov" is a series about the golden age of Soviet cinema. What role did Boris Zakharovich play in its creation?
- He had a concept - the modernization of film production, partly on the Hollywood model. And the misunderstanding that Shumyatsky developed with some directors, primarily with Eisenstein, was connected precisely with this. Great-grandfather wanted to make cinema a mass propaganda genre, a kind of television of that time. He believed that it was necessary not only to process people, loading them with ideology, but to seduce. That is, to make them go to see a movie of their own free will, cry in the cinema hall or laugh, but, of course, not to the detriment of ideology. Quite modern concept. However, it also implied a certain film language, understandable to the general public. Eisenstein, who made a revolution in the art of montage, was, of course, alien to such a simplified cinematic language. But, willy-nilly, everyone had to "speak" this language. The same Eisenstein, already after the arrest of my great-grandfather, in "Alexander Nevsky", "Ivan the Terrible".
— How about "Russian Hollywood"? Is it true that Shumyatsky dreamed of building it in the south of the country?
- Well, then there were different plans for this. The whole economy was centralized, and the cinema had to work in the same way. Large studios were created, production facilities (for example, film production) were set up. But my great-grandfather dreamed of creating a single cinema center, as it was in America, the Soviet Hollywood in the Crimea. By the way, at that time many claimed for the Crimea, there was even a project to create a Jewish Autonomous Region there. As for the plans for "Soviet Hollywood", it was never built. Some kind of ersatz film city arose nearby, in the Odessa film studio, but then the war began, and it was not up to it.
- How did Boris Zakharovich's relationship with Stalin develop?
- Here we need to make a small digression into history. Shumyatsky was an old Bolshevik who once headed the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets of Siberia, a kind of Bolshevik government in the region - they say they proclaimed Soviet power there even a day earlier than in Petrograd. Later, Shumyatsky was one of the leaders of the Far Eastern Republic, fought with the troops of Baron Ungern, and contributed to the establishment of ties between Mongolia and Soviet Russia. He was well acquainted with Stalin, they communicated on "you", great-grandfather called him Koba. But the relationship was by no means cloudless. Boris Zakharovich, in defiance of Stalin, then achieved autonomy for Buryatia, as he grew up there and knew the region well. And when he felt cramped in Siberia, he asked to be transferred to the government, but instead he was sent to an honorary exile - a plenipotentiary representative, that is, an ambassador, to Tehran.
- As far as I remember, the legend about the Qajar carpet, allegedly presented to Shumyatsky by the Iranian Shah, is connected with this period ...
- Why supposedly? Indeed, there was such a story. Her main actor my great-grandmother Liya Isaevna became. I must say that she was also a professional revolutionary and, although she had a gymnasium education, she did not rotate in high society. And the staff of the embassy, left over from tsarist times, did not help the Soviet envoys much to understand the intricacies of the protocol. Once, Shah Reza Pahlavi invited the ambassadors' wives to his palace and began to demonstrate his treasures. Everyone was silent, only nodding with restraint, and Liya Isaevna wondered to herself: why does no one admire such beauty? The shah led them to the most valuable thing from his collection - a carpet depicting all the shahs of the Qajar dynasty, it began to be woven even under the founder of the dynasty. And the great-grandmother could not stand it, she praised this carpet. Then the shah said: "Peshkesh." Roughly translated: "It's yours." It turned out that in the East there is such a custom: if a guest liked something in the house, the owner should give it to him.
The next day, a whole procession delivered the carpet to the Soviet embassy. A scandal erupted. The custom meant that the guest, having received such a gift, should give back. Boris Zakharovich had to contact the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and use his own money to buy back some of the jewels of the royal family confiscated by the new government (then they were sold a lot to the West). The great-grandfather then presented them to the Shah as a return gift, and the carpet remained in the family. It was confiscated during the arrest of Boris Zakharovich, and only in the 2000s did we learn that the Shah's gift was kept in the storerooms of the Museum of the East.
- They say that in Iran your great-grandfather met Sergei Yesenin. Was Yesenin there?
- Yesenin has a famous cycle "Persian motives". In Soviet, and then in Russian literary criticism, it was believed that the poet had never been to Persia, but wrote poems under the impression of being in Baku. But another story is known in our family: Yesenin really went to Iran. And there, as we know from Persian Motives, Yesenin saw a stranger in a veil on the street, followed her. There are no poems about what happened next, but this is what my great-grandfather told: Yesenin began to break into the harem, where the stranger who was praised by him lived, a crowd gathered, the poet was almost lynched. But the police intervened, and then Ambassador Shumyatsky arrived and took Yesenin home. This story has indirect confirmation: after the return of his great-grandfather from Iran, the poet came to Shumyatsky's dacha in Morozovka to thank for the rescue, he did not find him at home, but presented his book with a dedication to my great-grandmother: "To Comrade Shumyatskaya With brotherly love. For tea without lunch, For my husband-plenipotentiary." Impromptu published in full assembly Yesenin's writings. As for the phrase "for tea without lunch", this is a funny detail: neither Boris Zakharovich nor Liya Isaevna drank alcohol in principle, and Yesenin considered lunch without alcohol just "tea".
Was the arrest of the people's commissar a surprise for the family?
- Shumyatsky foresaw his death: critical articles were published against him, intrigues began in the commissariat, besides, it was known that Stalin did not like him. Great-grandfather was arrested in 1938 and shot a few months later. I saw the case and the photo taken a couple of days after the arrest, I read his confession in the archive, where he claims to have been a Japanese, English spy. All the time I peered at the signature under the protocol of interrogation: I tried to understand from it whether he was tortured or not. Perhaps he was blackmailed by his family, or perhaps, as an old Bolshevik, he believed that by his death he would help the cause of the revolution ... In any case, he signed everything and was shot. A characteristic fact: in official documents, the date of his death was 1943, then it was often done, and my father, the grandson of Boris Zakharovich, had to make considerable efforts to establish the real date of Shumyatsky's death.
- And what kind of story was it, that after the beginning of the persecution he refused to drink for Stalin?
- As I said, my great-grandfather did not drink at all. Shortly before his arrest, he was suddenly summoned to the Kremlin for a New Year's reception. These Stalinist methods are well described by Fazil Iskander in Belshazzar's Feasts. Caviar, wine, vodka... Toast. Many drank half to death there, and, of course, great-grandfather looked like a black sheep against their background. So, at the reception they began to drink to the health of the leader, and Boris Zakharovich clinked glasses of water. Then Stalin lowered his glass and asked him: "Boris, don't you want to drink to my health?" To which my great-grandfather replied: "Koba, you know I don't drink." "Well, as they say, if you can't, we'll teach you, if you don't want to, we'll force you," Stalin replied... That's what my great-grandfather used to say when he returned home. And the very next day, he found a dismissal order on his desk.
- Who is your great-grandfather for you personally - a historical figure or a living person?
- Of course, a living person! What he experienced was passed on to the next generations, my father grew up in a family of enemies of the people. Maybe that's why I feel the connection of times more strongly. I see what's left of Stalin era in our time, in society and in myself. My great-grandfather, as it were, says to me: "The past has not passed."
Interviewed by Kirill Zhurenkov
Great-grandson of the People's Commissar
Dossier
Boris Shumyatsky, great-grandson of Boris Zakharovich Shumyatsky, writer and publicist, lives in Munich (Germany). In his book " New Year Stalin" he reproduces the history of his family during the years of revolution, terror, war and de-Stalinization.
The masters of the Soviet screen - Eisenstein, Vertov, Romm and others - could hardly bear the Bolshevik directness of Shumyatsky, willingly slandered him. In the eyes of Stalin and his courtiers, the inferiority of Boris Zakharovich was also beyond doubt: he did not like and could not drink. And you were supposed to know. Try not to drink a glass of vodka for the health of the leader at a government reception - they will not invite you to the next reception, you will fall out of the clip, roll down the career ladder. To the cellars of the Gulag.
The life path of the old Bolshevik Boris Zakharovich Shumyatsky is strange and bizarre: he established Soviet power in Siberia, served as the ambassador of the USSR in Persia, and since 1930 he received a completely awkward appointment - chairman of the film and photography department. Until 1933, this body was listed under the department of the People's Commissariat of Light
industry.
At the height of industrialization, the film industry was considered more important and more prestigious than the art of cinema. Therefore, Shumyatsky did not bother much with aesthetics. Under him - especially in the early thirties - films were planted more instructive than fiction; more agitprop than artistic. Poby
Having arrived in the USA, Boris Zakharovich returned, inspired by the idea of "Soviet Hollywood". He even found a place for him - in the Askania Nova reserve. But he didn't get to build it.
The masters of the Soviet screen - Eisenstein, Vertov, Romm and others - hardly endured the Bolshevik directness of Shumyatsky, willingly about him
slandered. In the eyes of Stalin and his courtiers, the inferiority of Boris Zakharovich was also beyond doubt: he did not like and could not drink. And you were supposed to know. Try not to drink a glass of vodka for the health of the leader at a government reception - they won’t invite you to the next reception, you will fall out of the cage, you will go to work
oh the stairs down. To the cellars of the Gulag.
In 1937, on November 7, the premiere of the film "Lenin in October" took place at the Bolshoi Theater. Its director Mikhail Romm recalled how Shumyatsky personally brought boxes of ribbons to the mechanic. To do this, Boris Zakharovich had to crawl on all fours between the chairs - and
Otherwise, he risked blocking the beam of the projector with his body, and the screen image would be eclipsed for a second in Stalin's eyes.
Did not help. The year was 1937, and the arrest of Shumyatsky, followed by execution, went unnoticed. Only the people of the cinema belatedly regretted him: after all, a Chekist sat in Shumyatsky's chair
