Alone with yourself or how to shout to you, descendants! Central Committee: “Total opportunists!”
In the year of the centenary of the Great October Socialist Revolution, two trends emerged in relation to its leader, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. This is the hatred of him replicated in the media by the self-proclaimed “intellectual aristocracy” serving the oligarchic-bureaucratic power, and the need of everything that is honest and thinking in Russian society to protect the people’s memory of the genius of the Russian revolution. The revolution that gave the world the prototype of its future - the Soviet Union. For every member of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, the centenary of the Great October Revolution is an excellent occasion to turn to the personality of Lenin, so that, while remaining alone with him while studying his works, take lessons from him in cultivating a communist in oneself.
A very important thing in "Materialism and Empirio-criticism"
In Soviet literary Leninian literature there are many works created on the basis of the study of Lenin's sources. The authors of these works are not only famous writers (Valentin Kataev and Emmanuil Kazakevich), playwrights (Nikolai Pogodin and Mikhail Shatrov), publicists (Ernst Henry and Valentin Chikin), but also philosophers, from whose pens came popular works for young people: Evald Ilyenkov and Genrikh Volkov. Marietta Shaginyan occupies a special place in this series. In 1972, her tetralogy "The Ulyanov Family" was awarded the Lenin Prize.
In its final part - “Four Lessons from Lenin” - Shaginyan carried out, as we believe, an artistic and philosophical study, the purpose of which is to show the inextricable connection between Vladimir Ilyich’s materialistic worldview and his attitude towards people. According to Shaginyan, we will turn to Lenin’s lessons in our article.
Let's start by noting Marietta Shaginyan's harsh criticism of the vicious practice of studying Lenin's works, which, alas, was established in the Soviet era in the party education system. The study program covered many of Lenin's works, but they were not studied in their entirety, but in fragments, with the pages needed to be read on a particular issue indicated: from such and such a page to such and such a page. “I consider myself fortunate,” writes Shaginyan, “that I avoided... this motley acquaintance with the book piece by piece and was able to read Lenin volume by volume, each work in its entirety. True, without having either a consultant or a senior comrade, who would "guide" me in this reading, I often "spread my thoughts" into secondary places, carried away by some detail, and missed the main thing. But these details were useful to me later. One of these details that stops attention on the very first pages of "Materialism" and empirio-criticism,” helps, it seems to me, to understand a very important thing: the connection between individualism in a person’s character and the tendency of his thinking towards theoretical idealism.” Further from Shaginyan we read: “Lenin, mocking the “naked” Ernst Mach, writes that if he does not recognize an objective reality that exists independently of us, “... he is left with one “naked abstract” I, certainly large and written in italics "I..."
The fragmentary study (if it can be called a study) of Lenin’s sources was one of the reasons for the formal, consumer-careerist attitude towards the ideological and theoretical heritage of V.I. Lenin. It was enough to memorize a set of quotes from Lenin to create the impression of ideological and theoretical erudition and thereby disguise the careerist, egoistic orientation of the individual, his pure individualism. In short, with the name of Lenin on your lips, act against the cause of Lenin - the cause of the working class, which, according to Marx and Lenin, should carry out its dictatorship, right up to the building of communism.
Of course, not everyone who takes the position of theoretical idealism is necessarily an individualist. History knows many examples of heroic self-sacrifice in the name of saving the Fatherland of believers, including those who tried to combine religion with science. The same Bogdanov, whom Lenin subjected to merciless criticism in “Materialism and Empirio-criticism,” sacrificed himself in the name of science: while exploring the capabilities of the human body in extreme situations, he deliberately performed a medical experiment on himself that led to death. But individualism, which has become the core of a person’s character, inevitably leads him to idealism, and often in forms that are dangerous for people (from abstract humanism, for which the masses pay in blood, to fascism).
For a communist, the transition to the position of idealism, covered with Marxist-Leninist phraseology, is always fraught with separation from the party, from the working class, from the people. It is fraught with ideological degeneration, and ultimately with betrayal of scientific ideas and living people.
What is M. Gorbachev’s “new thinking” if not pure idealism in politics: “We are sailing in the same boat”! In other words, the world of capitalism and the world of socialism, according to Gorbachev, are doomed to unity: the class struggle between them, the contradiction between labor and capital must be forgotten... And the CPSU forgot about it. The result is known throughout the world. For Gorbachev's abstract humanism in politics (namely, it was the basis of the “new thinking”) the people of Russia still pay a heavy tribute to the imperialist West.
What does it mean to take the position of an ordinary comrade?
But let’s return to the thoughts of Marietta Shaginyan in “Four Lessons from Lenin.” We read, as it seems to us, very instructive for us - modern communists: “It was precisely from the fullness of his materialist consciousness that Lenin very strongly felt the real existence of other people. And everyone to whom Lenin approached could not help but feel the reality of this approach of the man Lenin to another person , which means he could not help but reciprocally experience his human equality with him.”
Shaginyan defines the starting points of Lenin's real approach to another person: "his constant communication with the working class, the habit of first of all thinking about the simple worker, about his psychology, his attitude towards people, about his needs - and to develop his own judgment, take a position" ordinary comrades." Until the last days of his life, Ilyich retained this ability to never "keep his distance" from the people, to always feel among them, to take the position of an ordinary comrade."
Let us highlight “his constant communication with the working class.” We are talking about the inextricable connection between Lenin as a proletarian leader and a class called upon by history to play the role of gravedigger of the bourgeoisie. But in order to realize its historical mission, the working class needs to find its class materialist consciousness in the person of the most conscious, most thinking proletarians. Lenin devoted his entire life as an intellectual revolutionary, politician and scientist to bringing this consciousness into the working environment.
In "What to do?" - in this handbook for a communist, quoted more than once by Marietta Shaginyan, Vladimir Ilyich wrote: “The consciousness of the working masses cannot be truly class consciousness if the workers, using specific examples and certainly topical (current) political facts and events, do not learn to observe each of the others social classes in all manifestations of the mental, moral and political life of these classes; - will not learn to apply in practice materialist analysis and materialist assessment of all aspects of the activity and life of all classes, strata and groups of the population."
In our time - a time of general decline in mental culture, right down to clip-based thinking, it may well seem to the same “also Marxists” that Lenin’s maximalism is not realistic - to teach ordinary workers a comprehensive analysis of the life of each (?!) of the social classes. However, Lenin is talking about teaching materialist analysis, first of all, to advanced workers, that is, to worker-intellectuals, such as Babushkin, Shlyapnikov, Shotman and others. It was they, and not just the revolutionary intellectuals, who enlightened the class consciousness of the proletarians and enlightened themselves, being involved in Lenin’s ideological struggle with his many opponents.
And this struggle was fierce at the beginning of the twentieth century (1901 - 1903), as Marietta Shaginyan succinctly writes about, presenting us with a picture of that time: “It was intense, like a front-line fighter at the time of battle: attacking and repelling attacks on On all four sides, Ilyich passionately fought against the adherents of spontaneous practice - the "economists" ...; against the leftist phrases of those who would later receive the name of liquidators; against the Plekhanovites who were increasingly ruling the right, the future camp of the "Mensheviks"; and against the dangerous amateurism of the Socialist Revolutionaries, recklessly reviving populism and terrorism. Lenin's prose literally sparkles with sword and stiletto in these attacks." “He fights for the accuracy of the theory, for forging the basic theoretical principles.” More than once Shaginyan turns to “What should I do?” IN AND. Lenin, organically weaving extracts from this book into the fabric of his narrative, in which the theme of the simple worker is a cross-cutting theme.
For Lenin, “thinking about the simple worker, about his psychology, his attitude towards people, about his needs” meant not descending to his ordinary, everyday consciousness, but thinking about how to raise him a step higher “in terms of cultural, political”, that is how to bring it closer to materialistic (scientific) consciousness “with a minimum of friction.” “Taking the position of an ordinary comrade” meant for Lenin, first of all, respect for his ability for independent critical thinking, his self-esteem. In this regard, Lenin’s judgment expressed in “What is to be done?” has not lost its relevance.
“I am far from thinking,” wrote Lenin, “to deny the need for popular literature for workers and especially popular (only, of course, not farcical) literature for especially backward workers. But I am outraged by this constant entanglement of pedagogy with issues of politics, with issues of organization. After all, you, gentlemen, who are guardians of the "middle peasant", in essence, rather insult the workers with your desire to bend over before talking about labor politics and workers' organization. But you talk about serious things straight up and leave pedagogy to teachers, and not to politicians and organizers... Understand that the very questions about “politics”, about “organization” are so serious that they cannot be discussed except completely seriously.”
Not “how” and “who”, but “what”
But how can you learn to speak quite seriously so that you are understood? This question faces every communist propagandist and agitator. What can the experience of Lenin the orator teach us?
Marietta Shaginyan asks this question and gives her answer, focusing on the features of Vladimir Ilyich’s public speeches. To begin with, she reproduces the impression of the Leninist speeches of the Scottish communist Gallagher. In her opinion, he was able to accurately convey the main feature of Lenin the propagandist:
“I was at Lenin’s house twice and had a private conversation with him. What struck me most about him was that while I was with him, I did not have a single thought about Lenin, I could only think about what he was thinking about ..." (emphasized by M. Shaginyan). Here, finally, is a line,” concludes Marietta Shaginyan, “that thought can cling to. To see Lenin face to face, to hear his voice, perhaps to meet his eyes more than once and, despite this, all the time not to see or hear Lenin himself, not to think about him himself, but only about the subject of his thoughts, about that what Lenin thinks, how he lives now, that is, to perceive only the content of his speech not “how” and “who”, but “what”! Lenin was such a great speaker, and he was so able to completely renounce himself, pouring himself into the subject of his speech, that the whole depth of his conviction, the whole content of his thoughts was transmitted to the listener, making him forget about the speaker himself and not for a second thereby distracting attention from the essence his speeches or conversations."
An illustration of what Shaginyan has said can be the memories of Clara Zetkin about Lenin the orator: “His report is a masterful example of his art of persuasion. There is not the slightest sign of rhetorical embellishment. He acts only with the power of his clear thought, the inexorable logic of argumentation and a consistently maintained line. He throws out his phrases , like uncouth blocks, and builds from them one complete whole. Lenin does not want to blind, captivate, he only wants to convince. He convinces and thereby captivates. Not with the help of ringing, beautiful words that intoxicate, but with the help of a transparent thought that comprehends without self-deception, the world of social phenomena in their reality and with merciless truth “reveals what is.”
Vladimir Mayakovsky said surprisingly simply and accurately about the transparency of thought in Lenin’s word:
I knew a worker
He was illiterate.
Didn't chew it
even the alphabet salt.
But he heard
as Lenin said,
knew everything.
Analyzing the peculiarity of Lenin’s public speech-making, Marietta Shaginyan identifies two forms of reaction to two types of speakers: “After his report, you approach one with admiration and congratulations: “How wonderful, how brilliantly you performed!” And you approach the other and say something other than how he spoke, and immediately about the subject of his speech, which captured, interested, captivated you. Having underlined with a red cross Gallagher’s deep and ingenuous words, I made the following conclusion for myself: if the audience begins to praise you and admire you after your report, then you are bad did your job, you failed it. And if the conversation immediately turns to the subject and content of your report, as if you weren’t here yourself, it means you performed well, did your job with an “A”.
“No one will ever give you anything if you can’t take it”
In order to cultivate a propagandist of the Leninist type, when your speech is perceived for its content (not “how” and “who”, but “what”), you must strive for its clarity and simplicity. And for this there is no other way than to constantly exercise your mind in comprehending new and new knowledge. I read with educational interest Shaginyan’s chapter “In the Library of the British Museum,” in which a portrait of Lenin the Reader is given. This is a system in the selection of scientific sources, their wide coverage, but most importantly - extreme attention to the internal dialectic of the content of the works of great authors: Kant, Hegel, Feuerbach, Marx, Engels, and many others. It was precisely this, this dialectic, that “entirely disappeared through the pages of school textbooks that were missed, like a fish through the too large meshes of a fish net” when studying Lenin’s works in the Soviet past. The name of Lenin was revered, but it was poorly read. Retribution did not take long to arrive: it came with Gorbachev’s perestroika.
As has already been said, the beginning of the twentieth century turned out to be especially tense for the young Lenin: the most crucial moment in the history of the young Russian Social Democracy was the creation of the program of its party. It was at this moment that Lenin’s book was published, which nominated him (along with Plekhanov and, as it turned out, to replace him) as a theoretician of the emerging RSDLP. “Like a rock among the oncoming breakers, his major work “What to do?” stands up, seemingly woven from the polemics of the “current moment.” But in fact, unshakable at all times, surprisingly topical for the present time.” These words of Marietta Shaginyan are worth repeating today due to their extreme relevance.
But let us follow her further: “Over eight articles in “Materials for the development of the RSDLP program.” A huge number of letters. Replies to letters, small articles in Iskra. “The Agrarian Question and “Critics of Marx”; "Agrarian program of Russian social democracy"; Lecture notes "Marxist views on the agrarian question in Europe and Russia."
Finally, the brochure “Towards the Rural Poor”. An explanation for the peasants of what the Social Democrats want" - about two hundred and thirty-five neat pages about only one agrarian question. Already from the titles we can guess how much Lenin read on the agrarian question... As is always the case with a true creator, the top of these huge knowledge, enormous reading with a pencil in hand (as Ilyich read), deep mastery of the topic, simplicity, sunny simplicity is born... - a brochure addressed to a simple illiterate and completely illiterate reader - the Russian peasant."
As Lenin was extremely attentive and sensitive to the backward workers and illiterate Russian peasants, so merciless was he in denouncing those Russian Social Democrats from the intelligentsia who were sent illegal literature from London, but they did not bother to master it, did not read into it, did not distributed and did not comment on it in workers' circles, but at the same time they demanded more and more brochures from Lenin and called what they were sent “junk.” Lenin furiously answered them: “This is old!” you scream. Yes. All parties that have good popular literature distribute old stuff: Guesde and Lafargue, Bebel, Brakke, Liebknecht, etc., by decade. Do you hear: by decade! And popular literature only that is good, only that is suitable, which serves for decades. For popular literature is a series of textbooks for the people, and textbooks set out the basics that do not change over half a century. That “popular” literature that “captivates” you and which “Freedom” ( "The publication of the Socialist-Revolutionaries - Yu.B.) and the Socialist-Revolutionaries publish tons of them every month, there is waste paper and charlatanism. Charlatans are always fussy and make more noise, and some naive people take this for energy."
In this Leninist letter to Lengnik (Bolshevik Iskraist) there is “not for publication” and the following words: “No one will ever give you anything if you cannot take it: remember this.” Shaginyan quite rightly characterizes this statement of Vladimir Ilyich as timeless, having an absolute character.
To be able to take from the classics what is eternally valuable and timeless - this is discussed between the lines in Lenin’s letter to Lengnik. Lastingly valuable is the art of mastering the dialectical-materialist method of analyzing and assessing social reality. You learn it all your life, because old contradictions manifest themselves in new conditions and new ones arise, not yet explored by anyone, or only partially explored.
Lenin's letter to Lengnik castigates charlatanism, superficiality, and disregard for scientific knowledge in the pursuit of fashionable, but in fact empty and alien to Marxism, “trends of thought.”
Is the Communist Party of the Russian Federation free from the craze of quackery? Unfortunately no. You can also hear a pretentious statement in the party environment: “Marx and Lenin are geniuses. But these are geniuses of the past. What they wrote is more than a hundred years old. This is the 21st century - the century of cosmic thinking. It is necessary to critically rethink the legacy of the classics through the prism of new thinking ". And they rethink... Then they question the historical mission of the proletariat (does it exist today?). Now, under the slogan of the creative development of Marxism-Leninism, they are going to revise it with a bias towards religion, covered either by Slavophilism or Eurasianism: from Marx and Lenin back to Danilevsky and Ilyin.
The Leninist lessons of Marietta Shaginyan allow, it seems to us, to raise in the Communist Party of the Russian Federation the question of the need to determine in the party education system the Marxist-Leninist minimum, mandatory for every communist, that is, knowledge of the individual works of K. Marx, F. Engels, V.I. Lenina, I.V. Stalin. This is our opinion, which, of course, can be challenged in a friendly discussion. But it is hardly possible to eradicate quackery from the party without communists knowing the fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism.
So that criticism is conducted on the merits and is creative
Another lesson taken from Lenin by Marietta Shaginyan. A lesson in irreconcilable, merciless criticism towards those communists who, in Lenin’s expression, lose “the feeling of solidarity with the party” and become disconnected from the working masses. Shaginyan gives an example of precisely this kind of criticism by Lenin of the young leader of the German Communist Party, Paul Levy. It would seem that there was no basis for it: Levi wrote a pamphlet about the spontaneous revolutionary movement (or its outbreak) in March 1923 in the German city of Mansfeld. In it, the criticism of the participants in the movement - the workers - was uncompromisingly harsh, although theoretically correct. The workers of Mansfeld and the proletarians of other cities who supported them opposed the intolerable oppression from the owners of factories and factories. They acted separately, in partisan detachments that were created spontaneously. But in clashes with the police they behaved with revolutionary courage and courage. The unpreparedness of the action of the Mansfeld workers (which, of course, was the fault of the communists), its lack of thought, low discipline, and weak connection with the proletarian masses doomed it to failure. Paul Levy wrote about all this. He wrote sharply, categorically and seemingly correctly, forgetting about one thing: to pay tribute to the revolutionary courage of the workers, their acquisition of albeit bitter, but valuable experience in the fight against capital.
Levi's criticism of the revolutionary action of the German proletarians caused a sharply negative attitude towards him in the Comintern. Clara Zetkin undertook to defend him as a “young, talented, promising” leader of the German communists. She turned to Lenin for help: “Paul Levy’s intentions were the purest, most selfless... do everything possible so that we don’t lose Levy!”
But Lenin did not heed the request of Klara, whom he extremely respected. This is what he told her: “Paul Levy, unfortunately, became a special issue... I believed that he was closely connected with the proletariat, although I detected in his relations with the workers a certain restraint, something like a desire to “keep at a distance.” From the time his pamphlet appeared, I had doubts about him. I fear that he has a great tendency towards self-examination, narcissism, that there is something of literary vanity in him. Criticism of the “March” speech was necessary. But what did Paul give? "Levi? He brutally cut up the party. He not only gives very one-sided criticism, exaggerated, even malicious, but he does nothing that would allow the party to find its bearings. He gives reason to suspect that he lacks a sense of solidarity with the party."
According to Lenin, one-sided, exaggerated, and even malicious criticism within the party, when the person being criticized is subjected to moral execution, is destructive criticism. This is exactly how it was in Khrushchev’s notorious report on the notorious “cult of Stalin’s personality.” This criticism served as the starting point for the destruction of the party, Soviet society and the USSR. Lenin's criticism could be murderous, but in polemics with a class enemy, and not in relation to party comrades. Internal party criticism of Lenin was always creative. Even being strictly principled and demanding, she relied on the best features of those criticized, and not on the worst. Respecting their human dignity, it gave the prospect of correcting the mistakes they had made.
Lenin especially demonstrated his caring attitude towards a person’s self-esteem in his criticism of the mistakes of his young comrades.
Instructive in this regard is Shaginyan’s recollection of V. Münzenberg, an organizer of Swiss youth, about his joint work with Lenin in the tenth years of the twentieth century: “His criticism never offended us, we never felt rejected, and even subjecting us to the most severe criticism , he always found something worthy of praise in our work."
When Lenin made a mistake in the tone and tact of his comradely criticism, he found the strength to admit it and apologize. When in June 1921, during the heated debate at the Third Congress of the Comintern on the tactics of the German Communist Party, Lenin came to the conclusion that he had been too harsh in his criticism, he wrote the following letter to the members of the German delegation: “I have received a copy of your letter to the Central Committee of our party "Thank you very much. I communicated my response orally yesterday. I take this opportunity to emphasize that I resolutely withdraw the rude and impolite language I used and hereby repeat in writing my verbal request to forgive me." Are there many similar examples in our internal party life?..
To whom Lenin was relentless in his harshness were those who encroached on the unity of the party - ideological, organizational, moral and political. During the period of crisis of the party, at the Tenth Congress of the RCP(b) in March 1921, he can be said to have defined the credo of internal party criticism: “Anyone who makes criticism must, in the form of criticism, take into account the position of the party among the enemies surrounding it”; “so that criticism is carried out on the merits, and does not at all take forms that can help the class enemies of the proletariat.”
Ethics of the proletarian leader
Marietta Shaginyan does not have a complete formulation of each of her four Leninist lessons. She examines the life of Vladimir Ilyich as an artist, painting images of his friends and enemies, the image of his existence as an ordinary person equal to us. From the dramatic stories she told, lessons in the life of a genius flow naturally. From Shaginyan’s narrative we can identify many Leninist lessons for us: lessons of dialectics, scientific analysis of social reality, lessons of truth and ethics of party criticism, lessons of courage, loyalty to revolutionary duty, lessons of oratory skills and others.
Lenin in the simplicity of his genius is revealed primarily in his writings. It would be disingenuous to say that they are all easy to read, without any difficulties in their perception. Is it easy to read State and Revolution, not to mention Materialism and Empirio-Criticism? And “What should I do?” You can't read it in one sitting. What makes Lenin’s lessons by Marietta Shaginyan valuable is, first of all, that they directly talk about serious preparation for mastering scientific texts, with a pencil in hand, as Lenin did when studying Marx, and not only.
These lessons are also valuable because Shaginyan, before turning to the analysis of a specific Leninist work, talks about the specific historical situation of its creation and highlights in it a specific historical meaning and a timeless, methodological meaning. She also talks about what Lenin was experiencing at that time, what and against whom he fought, who his friends and enemies were. All this allows us to perceive what he wrote in an emotional tone, to empathize with him the events he analyzes.
The history of the personality of a genius is extremely interesting and instructive. Much of it was said by Marietta Shaginyan. But in what she tells there are three moments in the life of Vladimir Ulyanov-Lenin, which, we think, most clearly represent his ethics as a revolutionary and politician. This is his moral sensitivity and self-detachment as a political fighter, puritan unpretentiousness in everyday life, everyday concern for ordinary people - ordinary comrades.
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, already in his youth, went through the tempering school of political struggle. As they say, he knew how to take a blow and deliver devastating blows to the class enemy. He was a master of polemics in a fierce ideological battle.
“But,” writes Shaginyan, “personal attacks could not, nevertheless, intertwined with the ideological struggle ... not torment and torment him.” Vladimir Ilyich’s nerves were so bad that he fell ill with a severe nervous illness - “sacred fire”, which is that the tips of the thoracic and spinal nerves become inflamed,” wrote Nadezhda Konstantinovna at the end of the London period.”
This recollection of Krupskaya confirms a simple truth: Lenin did not spare himself. He knew that his chosen fate as a revolutionary would require readiness for anything, including premature death. He risked his life more than once. The officer sent to arrest Lenin by order of the Provisional Government in July 1917 was instructed to kill him, so to speak, “while attempting to escape.” Let's not forget about Kaplan's shot.
Lenin was unusually cheerful, but he subordinated everything personal to revolutionary activity and led a Puritan lifestyle and was distinguished by extreme modesty in everyday life. Shaginyan cites the recollection of one of his contemporaries:
"Everyone knows that Lenin led a very modest lifestyle both abroad and in Russia. He lived incredibly modestly."
The Italian communist F. Misiano, who knew Lenin in Zurich during the First World War, said: “I then often went to the restaurant of the People’s House. Lunch was served there in three categories: for 1 franc. 25 sant. - “aristocratic”, for 75 sant. - "bourgeois" and for 50 cents - "proletarian". The latter consisted of two dishes: soup, a piece of bread and potatoes. Lenin invariably used the third category lunch." His modesty and unpretentiousness in everyday life became a museum rarity in the late CPSU, for which it paid. The Communist Party of the Russian Federation should not forget about this.
Of all the dramatic stories from Lenin's life told by Marietta Shaginyan, one haunts us more than others... It was October 1923. It seemed that Vladimir Ilyich began to recover from the blow: he could walk, move his left hand and pronounce, although with difficulty and unclearly, individual words. The only word he spoke clearly was “about.” At the end of October, I.I. came to him. Skvortsov-Stepanov and O.Ya. Pyatnitsky. They began to talk about the elections to the Moscow Soviet. Vladimir Ilyich did not show much attention to their story. But as soon as the visitors started talking about amendments to the order of ordinary workers to the Moscow Party Committee, he became extremely attentive in listing these amendments: about lighting the settlements where workers and the urban poor live, about extending tram lines to the suburbs where workers and peasants live, about closing of pubs, etc.
According to Pyatnitsky, “Ilyich... with his only word, which he mastered well: “just about”, began to make comments during the story with such intonations that it became completely clear and understandable to us, just as it had happened before, before Ilyich’s illness, that the amendments to the order are practical, correct, and that all measures must be taken to implement them.” Lenin had less than three months to live...
Here we will give the floor to Marietta Shaginyan: “This is Lenin’s dying lesson, given by him to every communist. And let us hear his “just about” every time our conscience tells us the main thing that a communist needs to do, what to pay attention to in working with people ". Every time you hold this or that work of Lenin in your hands and your eyes run along the lines of his text, you are left alone with the genius and your contemporary. What a blessing it is that there is the Complete Works of Vladimir Ilyich, that, re-reading his works again, you see the revolutionary future of Russia and the world. According to Lenin, it cannot be anything else. In continuous revolutionary thinking and action is all Lenin, in his life and his immortality.
Soviet writer Marietta Shaginyan is considered one of the first Russian science fiction writers of her time. A journalist and writer, poetess and publicist, this woman had the gift of a writer and enviable skill. It was Marietta Shaginyan, whose poems were very popular during her lifetime, who, according to critics, made her extraordinary contribution to Russian-Soviet poetry of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
A person’s awareness of himself as a writer and artist comes from nature. And when one person amazingly combines talent and thirst for life, a thirst for knowledge and amazing performance, then this person occupies a special place in history. This is exactly what Marietta Shaginyan was.
Biography
The future writer was born in Moscow, into a family of Armenian intellectuals, on March twenty-first, 1888. Her father, Sergei Davydovich, was a private assistant professor at Moscow State University. Marietta Shaginyan received a full education. At first she studied at a private boarding school, and later at the Rzhev gymnasium. She began publishing in 1906. In 1912, Marietta graduated from the Faculty of History and Philosophy at the Higher Women's Courses of V. I. Guerrier. She is going to St. Petersburg. It was here, in the city on the Neva, that the future writer and publicist met and later became close to such luminaries as Z. N. Gippius and D. S. Merezhkovsky.
From 1912 to 1914, the girl studied philosophy as a science at the University of Heidelberg in Germany. The formation of her work was greatly influenced by Goethe's poetry. In 1913, the first collection was published, the author of which was Marietta Sergeevna Shaginyan, who was then unknown to anyone. The poems of Orientalia, in fact, made her famous.
From 1915 to 1919, Marietta Shaginyan lived in Rostov-on-Don. Here she works as a correspondent for several newspapers, such as “Trudovaya Speech”, “Azov Region”, “Craft Voice”, “Black Sea Coast”, etc. At the same time, the writer teaches aesthetics and art history at the Rostov Conservatory.
After 1918
Marietta Shaginyan enthusiastically embraced the revolution. She later said that for her it became an event that had a “Christian-mystical character.” In 1919, she works as an instructor at Donnaroobraz, and then she is appointed director of the weaving school. In 1920, Shaginyan moved to Petrograd, where she collaborated with the newspaper Izvestia of the Petrograd Soviet for three years, and until 1948 she was a special correspondent for the newspapers Pravda and Izvestia. In 1927, Marietta Shaginyan moved to her historical homeland - Armenia, but in 1931 she returned to Moscow.
In the thirties she graduated from the Planning Academy of the State Planning Committee. Shaginyan spends the war years in the Urals. From here she writes articles for the Pravda newspaper. In 1934, the First Congress of Soviet Writers took place, where Marietta Shaginyan was elected as a member of the board.
Creation
The literary interests of this talented woman covered a variety of areas of life. In her work, a special place is occupied by scientific monographs dedicated to Goethe, Taras Shevchenko, Joseph Myslivecek. It is Shaginyan who is the author of the very first detective Soviet novel “Mess Mend”. She was also an outstanding Soviet journalist. She is the author of many problematic articles and essays. At the same time, Shaginyan perceived journalism not so much and not only as a means of earning money, but as an opportunity to directly study life.
In her book entitled “Journey to Weimar,” the features of her prose style were clearly revealed for the first time. Critics believe that it is in this work that one can see the author’s amazing ability to reveal the personality of a person and his connection with time through the reality of everyday details. “Travel to Weimar” is the first work of this writer in the form of travel essays - in a genre to which Marietta Shaginyan will be faithful throughout her life.
Books
She began her first big novel in 1915 and finished it in 1918. “One's own destiny” is a philosophical book. Shahinyan was both a music connoisseur and a literary critic; she can safely be called both a fiction writer and a travel researcher. But first of all, Shaginyan was a writer and publicist. She left behind many literary works, such as “Hydrocentral”, “Diary of a Moscow Soviet Deputy”, “Ural in Defense”, “Travel to Armenia”, etc.
She also wrote four collections of poems, some of which were even included in the school curriculum. For many years, Marietta Sergeevna Shaginyan created literary portraits of those people with whom she was closely acquainted - N. Tikhonov, Khodasevich, Rachmaninov, and also described the life and work of authors dear to her - T. Shevchenko, I. Krylov, Goethe.
Family
Marietta Shaginyan's husband was philologist and translator from Armenian Yakov Samsonovich Khachatryan. They had a daughter, Mirel. The girl did not want to follow in her parents' footsteps. She was more interested in painting. Mirel Yakovlevna was a member of the Union of Artists. Shaginyan is survived by a grandson and granddaughter.
Marietta Sergeevna died in 1982 in Moscow. She was ninety-four years old. At the end of her life, she did not leave her small two-room apartment, located on the first floor of a completely ordinary residential Moscow building. The once popular writer did without luxury and frills. Her apartment had a standard Soviet set of furniture and ordinary household items. The only luxury in her house was old
The long life that Marietta Sergeevna Shaginyan lived was filled with small and large historical events, which the writer always spoke about with interest and passion. The Lenin theme occupies a special place in her vast work. Her chronicle novels “The Ulyanov Family” and “The First All-Russian” were not always perceived unambiguously. Marietta Shaginyan has been collecting biographical materials about the leader of the proletariat and his loved ones for many years.
The first edition of the chronicle book “The Ulyanov Family” was published in 1935 and immediately aroused Stalin’s sharp discontent. The anger of the “father of all nations” was caused by Shaginyan’s publication of the facts that Lenin had Kalmyk blood in his veins. Moreover, the novel was called a mistake and was discussed twice at the presidium of the USSR Writers' Union, where it was criticized for showing the leader's family as bourgeois.
MARIETTA SHAGINYAN. TWO STORIES
This multi-genre writer (1888–1982) was even known as a biographer, including Lenin. However, I know for sure: I wrote about him not for the sake of vanity, but in the hope of identifying something that would help move towards communism in the purity of intentions. But did she work calmly?
Writer Marietta Sergeevna Shaginyan. TASS photo chronicle
Central Committee: “Total opportunists!”
1969 "Young guard". Without any warning, her visit. And already from the threshold, as usual, nervously stamping his stick and falsetto - from deafness and the Armenian temperament - screaming:
I order you to delay the signing of your book “Four Lessons from Lenin” for publication... That’s it. Dot. And none of your schedules concern me. I demand justice be restored!..
She listened to me - sat down in a chair, caught her breath and again in a raised voice:
How do we understand that the publishing house does not want to mention Stalin in this preface due to his connection with Lenin? Are you a communist or not?!
Have you heard about the letter to me Alexandra Voronsky, when he was editor of Krasnaya Novy? Oh, didn’t you hear?! This doesn't make you look any better! You need to know this communist with pre-revolutionary experience! Yes, he is accused of Trotskyism, and you are afraid of this?! Still, read this letter of his. Yes, read in front of me so as not to put off urgent matters! Start with this last paragraph...
I read, paying attention to the date - 1923, during Lenin’s life it was written:
“Yes, I forgot: you know, Comrade really likes your things. Lenin. He once told Stalin about this, and Stalin told me. Unfortunately, Comrade Lenin is also ill, and seriously. Well, all the best for now. Get well. Hello. A. Voronsky."
Shaginyan continued, again exploding with exclamations of her indignation:
What kind of order is this in the party?! Complete opportunists! Yes, all the time! And at all times! This is a vile truth clamp! I'm tired! I'm exhausted!
Suddenly she calmed down and went to set out facts of truly strategic importance for understanding the order in the Kremlin:
When I was about to publish this letter, Voronsky, at the behest of Stalin, was repressed and consigned to oblivion. But Lenin is in a letter! And even that didn't work. Everyone refused to help me. I decide to call Stalin. Surprisingly, they connected within two days. I complained to him. She told him: “Comrade Stalin! Because of Voronsky, who was accused of Trotskyism, I am forbidden to write about the attitude of Lenin and you, Comrade Stalin, to my work!” In response, he said briefly, although impressively: “We’ll think about it. We'll figure it out. We will not allow injustice against Comrade Lenin. Let's try to restore justice..."
Soon they told me:
“Publish Lenin’s review with a direct link to Comrade Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin without any intermediaries. Why do you need any intermediaries?! Tell me what Comrade Stalin told me, that Lenin told him how highly he valued your things, Comrade Shaginyan.”
Again there were explosions of emotions:
Ban - and that's all for you! This is because you, the publishers, are cowards there, too, in the Central Committee and, as a result, contribute to historical bias! Yes Yes exactly!
Gradually the hail of exclamations dried up:
I thought: I need to talk to Khrushchev. They don't connect. I'm going to the assistant. Nothing intelligible in response. Yesterday I reminded her again - she’s bustling... How many months have passed.
By the end of the meeting there was a shot fired:
Who will help me and my book?! What does Lenin have to do with your opportunistic games?!
She finally achieved her goal. Still, they allowed me to print the letter in full. True, the one who called me on behalf of the Central Committee added, significantly lowering his voice:
“If possible, try to somehow persuade the old woman to do without Stalin’s name. Why do we need to rehabilitate him? If something happens, they will say that the publishing house is reconsidering the party’s decisions to condemn the cult of personality... Let the letter be retold, well, at least according to this scheme: Voronsky told Shaginyan about V.I.’s positive review. Lenin".
The writer, it turns out, has been in the insidious trap of a unique triangle in history for more than one decade, just in the convolutions of the constantly operating political situation. She, naturally, categorically refused the council member’s advice. I keep this book. On the title page, according to Shagnyan's custom, there was a diagonal line in teacher's neat handwriting and purple ink - again, like in school:
“To dear Valentin Osipovich and his dear wife with a feeling of heartfelt friendship. Marietta Shahinyan».
Not for hostility...
Standing on my shelf at Shagnyanskaya at home is a simple book, not for show, just for everyday bookworms, with a majestically sonorous title: “ Nizami Ganjavi. Great Azerbaijani poet».
Noticed the year of publication: 1981. Just a year before the death of Marietta Sergeevna. Another sign of the times that excited me is that on the last page the years of work with the book are listed: 1941–1981. Please note: the war has begun!
What a wonderful symbol: a Russian publisher receives from Baku a book that was written by an Armenian woman, and again published by Russia.
Why such pretentious lines? Let me remind you: the end of Soviet power, alas, alas, was marked by an outbreak of hostility - and even war! - between Yerevan and Baku.
They say that in the Caucasus there was an ancient custom: a woman with a white scarf in her hands could stand between the warring parties, and this would force reconciliation.
A woman with a book woven from snow-white paper...
This book also contains this wise instruction from Nizami:
Both white and black are all children of the earth,
They found something to do in her workshop.
I leaf through and leaf through... A reverently and inspiredly written study about the genius of the Azerbaijani people. In a wide range of information: biography, interpretations of heritage, and grateful attitude towards Nizami from the poet’s contemporaries and further along many stages of time: Persians, Arabs, then the British, French, Czechs, the great Rousseau and Goethe, then lines with the grateful attitude of the Soviet peoples .
From this book I learned that Shaginyan had “ Sketches about Nizami».
It is sad that for the last 25-30 years the works about the great Nizami, a wonderful Moscow writer with Armenian blood in her veins that give life to her generous creativity, have been forgotten.
Dmitry LIKHACHEV: HOW THE UNUSUAL 12-VOLUME BOOK WAS CREATED
Dmitry Sergeevich Likhachev(1906–1999). An outstanding literary critic and academician, he considered the publishing house “Khudozhestvennaya Literatura” his home. Many of his books have been published here.
Dmitry Sergeevich Likhachev (1906–1999)
Ehegi monumetum! He is a monument to himself...
Since 1978, our publishing house began to fulfill his plan - the most significant, as I am sure, both for the scientist and for the country: the Library “Monuments of Literature of Ancient Rus'” (BPLDR). There was no such thing in Russia before.
Likhachev never tired of worrying himself and society with such grief: they say, from school, they are taught that ancient Russian literature is only “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign”, which turns out to be lonely.
...The grand plan. He conceived it back in the early 1970s. And he led her with a doctor of philology Lev Dmitriev. They took on the most difficult role of compilers and general editing. And this meant heading the general staff. It’s impossible otherwise: what goals, what army...
And this exclamation of mine confirms the justification. The prospectus indicated the complex and multifaceted novelty of the idea. What can I say: everything is for the first time! Of course: it covered centuries that were long at that time - from the 11th to the 17th! More than 200 works! More than 8000 pages - that's 12 volumes!
In scientific preparation of texts, with comment sections! And also the bilingual method, that is, for the reader each text appeared bilingual - in the language of distant ancestors, in ancient Russian, on the next page - compare! - translated into modern Russian. And how many scientific workers were involved by Likhachev: for each text there was a translator, the one who prepared the text for publication, and a commentator.
There were opponents - in the Central Committee of the party. They reduced IRLI's request for the number of volumes: they left 12, but three more were required. They justified themselves by saying that there was a shortage of paper and printing capacity in the country. In fact, they were afraid to introduce the country to literature that was permeated with Orthodoxy.
Our editors of Russian classical literature took on this very complex publication with great enthusiasm. She voluntarily believed in her special calling - to help D.S. Likhachev to make a huge body of elementary Russian literature the property of the people.
And then in 1978 the first volume. It looked both solemn and unusual for this kind of publication. On the fabric binding there is an ornament in the stylization of an old Russian book, with story endpapers, in the illustrations section there are miniatures from ancient books and manuscripts, and photographs of churches, the format is unusual. Even the volume was impressive: 9/8 - almost 500 pages. And the circulation is not bad for such a scientific publication - 50,000.
Let me note: the academician was about 70 years old when he “came up” with this grandiose idea - he was completing the library when his 85th birthday was approaching.
Alarm! The 7th volume is being prepared - and suddenly there is a scorching letter from Likhachev!
One should not think that the authority of an academician saved him from the scrutiny of the party authorities in pre-perestroika times. It already caught on from the first volume: Likhachev and IHL started an anthology of Orthodox literature, unheard of and unprecedented for Soviet atheistic book publishing. They guessed correctly - it was so.
And it was precisely for this reason that it was necessary to be cunning. For example, I saw my task as protecting this important idea for national culture from frontal attacks by party censors. I had to resort to camouflage.
I knew that the authorities high up in party ideology would not read the volumes, they would only leaf through them, which means that first of all they would come across the illustrations and from them they would judge what was being discussed in the library. But I have long professed something cunning: if the theater, as they say, begins with a hanger, then a book begins with a binding and pictures. So he demanded that the section with illustrations include not just church symbols, but also something secular, fortunately, ancient Russian culture was generous with this too.
Likhachev also showed caution. Did not propose to print the Metropolitan’s “Sermon on Law and Grace” Hilarion. I hope that the current reader does not need to explain why: the “Word...” is purely for the glory of Orthodoxy - propaganda of religion! He began to promote this work only during “perestroika” - he published it and his article about it in the Bibliophile’s Almanac for 1989, which was published to commemorate, as it was indicated on the binding, “The Millennium of Russian Written Culture. 988–1988.”
So, 1985 is a letter; how much is there in it:
“Dear Valentin Osipovich! I really appreciate your attitude towards “Monuments of Literature of Ancient Rus'”. But I have a principle: don’t do anything that goes against my beliefs and for which you would later have to be ashamed. Now the question of the church is tense, but, let’s say, in 10 years it will become less tense (after the anniversary of baptism). Why “temporary statements”?
I was in conversation with N.N. Akopova (head of the editorial office - V.O.) is irritated by the “general situation”, pressure on the sector of ancient/r/ussian/l/literature/ along this line in general - from various individuals and institutions. This is precisely what obliges me to say that I am ready to stop publishing if it raises concerns.
I understand that your situation is more difficult than mine. You cannot close the publication. Therefore, I apologize to you for thinking only about my good name. At the same time, I do not deviate from my positions and, say, I will not agree to invite historians for additional articles. I removed some things and added three pages about the situation of the church in ancient Rus'. This is the most I can do. I'm glad I satisfied the publisher.
But the situation will be more difficult with the Troubles. There was a struggle with Catholic Poles, and therefore the church element in patriotic writings increased sharply.
It will be difficult with Old Believer works.
But you can't cut anything. We will have to wait for a time when the religious issue will become less acute. What to do? Publishing is good, but truth is more expensive.
I send you my best wishes. Hello Nat/aliya/Nik/olaevna/, who endured all this from me.
Sincerely yours D. Likhachev. Sorry about the handwriting. 05.20.85.”
Reply message. We discussed this letter with both the editor-in-chief and the head of the editorial office for an hour or two.
And they didn’t flinch, although I will not hide that I was frightened by the obvious panic in the mood of our main ally.
Thought: Likhachev is unpredictable. If he publicly announces that he is stopping publication, try to resume it later. He knew the psychology of the Central Committee workers: no loud protests that would provoke proceedings! If the proceedings happen, it will be Jesuitical: the director will be ordered to stop publishing propaganda of Orthodoxy, but so that not in the name of the Central Committee, but only in the name of the director, and so that - no, no! - no protests from Likhachev.
We need to calm Likhachev down. I am for a response letter, it contains the following lines: “The publishing house is proud of the library and is doing a lot of work to fulfill your idea, which so naturally merged with the patriotic aspirations of the editors.”
Next, I considered it necessary to introduce Likhachev to my personal attitude towards the publication: “Something has been done by me (these not very modest words have only one purpose - to prove to you that the director is not in the least plotting anything bad for the library) “Remember that, without any delay, I fulfilled your request to increase the number of volumes, sought to reduce the library’s production time, suggested the need to improve its artistic design and something else, gave the library good assessments in the press and at meetings at my publishing house.”
At the very end of the letter he wrote:
“I assure you that the publishing house will not give offense to our common cause, which is so necessary for the people and our socialist culture. If you are in Moscow, we look forward to your visit.”
Confessions of cunning. But is a letter enough? Of course, we need to go to Leningrad. The sitting at the table was long. There I dedicated Likhachev to how difficult it was for our common concern to increase the number of volumes. Cunning helped. It was I who, in my explanations with my superiors, went for the following agitation: “Let’s increase the number of works of the 17th century, which will entail an increase in the number of purely secular works, not religious.”
Leningrad - Vyoshenskaya: like-minded people!
Who would have thought that Dmitry Likhachev And Mikhail Sholokhov could have something to do with it. I have never heard anything from anyone about this.
Mikhail Sholokhov
2010 A scientific seminar of those associated with the Sholokhov Encyclopedia is taking place at the Gorky Institute of Literature. I’m sitting next to Lyudmila Petrovna Razogreeva. She is the deputy director for science of the Sholokhov Museum-Reserve in Vyoshenskaya. I look, I took out some bright book. She caught his eye and presented it as a gift. I’m reading: “Library of M.A. Sholokhov. Autograph books. Catalog". I’m scrolling through and suddenly - oh, surprise:
Autograph of Academician D.S. Likhachev “To Mikhail Alexandrovich Sholokhov with sincere respect. D. Likhachev. 12/30/62."
It is written according to the title page of his book “The Culture of Rus' in the Times of Andrei Rublev and Epiphanius the Wise.”
And - not only that: right there, on this page, there is a letter, and what enormous public importance! Lyudmila Petrovna explains: two books arrived that year - in 1962 - from Likhachev, accompanied by a letter.
I would not start this chapter with the reproduction of the letter and autograph, and not simply because the catalog circulation figure is small - only “100”.
The main thing is different: the letter from Leningrad to Veshki was connected 16 years later with the letter from Veshki to the Kremlin, and also made it possible to introduce a new - unexpected - line in the biography of Likhachev and Sholokhov. So the letter and then everything else.
“Dear Mikhail Alexandrovich! I am sending you two of my brochures: “Culture of the Russian people in the 10th–19th centuries.” and “Culture of Rus' during the times of Andrei Rublev and Epiphanius the Wise”, as well as a reprint of the article “Cultural Monuments - National Heritage”.
I am extremely concerned about the ongoing barbaric destruction of monuments of Russian culture and the current attitude towards the cultural heritage of the Russian people. If we took more care of our Russian traditions, Russian cultural heritage, if we did not destroy the Russian image of our cities and villages, if we did not deprive Moscow of historical memories, its historical appearance, we would not now have to defend ourselves from the influx of rootless abstractionism, we would have it at all not scary. And so... nature does not tolerate emptiness. It is impossible to oppose only the Itinerants to strong modern trends in the art of the West.
If you need information about what is now being destroyed, destined for demolition, removed from protection, perishing from neglect and from the lack of national pride among various bureaucratic officials, I will be happy to tell you (my article on this matter is far from complete a list of our various national misfortunes).
Isn't it time for us to remember that we are Russian? Isn’t it time to restore Lenin’s teaching on cultural heritage?
With sincere respect, D. Likhachev, corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, State Prize laureate, deputy of the Leningrad City Council, professor.”
What a passionate desire to find an ally in Sholokhov. I was unable to find out how Sholokhov responded. But I had the privilege of becoming an accomplice in the 1990s in the publication of what was kept in a special archive of the Central Committee - a top-secret one. It was called “Special Archive”.
1978: letter from Sholokhov to Brezhnev. It's huge. And in every paragraph there is a demand to take care of the existing belittlement of the spirituality of the Russian people. Perhaps the main thing was concentrated in this paragraph:
“By belittling the role of Russian culture in the historical spiritual process, distorting its high humanistic principles, denying it progressiveness and creative originality, the enemies of socialism are thereby trying to discredit the Russian people as the main international force of the Soviet multinational state, to show them as spiritually weak, incapable of intellectual creativity... »
And there were requests - specific ones - to support patriotic trends in literature and the arts, to engage in the restoration of cultural monuments, to create a magazine and a museum of Russian life...
What's the answer? He asks for a “broad and detailed consideration,” and a specially created commission accuses him in an insulting tone:
“To explain to Comrade Sholokhov the actual state of affairs with the development of culture in the country and in the Russian Federation, the need for a deeper and more accurate approach to the questions he raised in the highest interests of the Russian and Soviet people. Do not open any open discussions on the question he raised about Russian culture...”
Like a schoolboy: “Explain... More deeply...” This is a ossified way of thinking. Thunder struck at the end of “perestroika”. Society was split not just into victorious liberals and defeated partyocrats, but also into patriots with the support of the Church and Westerners with the support of the majority of the oligarchs.
Valentin OSIPOV
I doubted for a long time whether to return to a topic that had moved from site to site more than once. We are talking about an interview with the St. Petersburg historian Alexander Pavlovich Kutenev to the New Petersburg newspaper, which was called “What was Marietta Shaginyan silent about?” , where information was given about the illegitimate children of Alexander III. But after reading the post of our blogger Oksana Lyutova with materials about the genealogy of Ulyanov (Lenin), I decided to support my critical view of this article with an article by Vladimir Chizhik (the older generation probably remembers such a musician who emigrated to the USA in the mid-70s) in New York newspaper "Davidzon newspaper". To make it clear to the reader what we are talking about, I will cite both articles. So the article
What was Marietta Shaginyan silent about?
Marietta Shaginyan (1914)
NP: Alexander Pavlovich, can you tell us more about the illegitimate children of Alexander III?
AK: Alexander III, indeed, had many illegitimate children, since he was an unrestrained and passionate man.
Tsar Alexander III (1845 - 1894)
Among the children there were also historical celebrities. In particular, Alexander Ulyanov, the elder brother of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. The fact is that Maria Alexandrovna, Lenin’s mother, was a maid of honor at the court of Alexander II. When Alexander III was simply a Grand Duke, he had an affair with Maria Alexandrovna, from whom she gave birth to a son, Alexander, as a girl. History knows many similar examples: in Russia, bastards were treated humanely - they were given a princely title and assigned to a guards regiment. It is known that Lomonosov was the son of Peter I, Prince Bobrinsky was the son of Potemkin and Catherine II, Razumovsky was the illegitimate son of Elizabeth. All of them, as you know, had wonderful careers and never felt like outcasts. The same fate was in store for Alexander, Lenin’s brother.
Ulyanov family -
From left to right: standing - Olga, Alexander, Anna; sitting - Maria Alexandrovna with her youngest daughter Maria, Dmitry, Ilya Nikolaevich, Vladimir.
But Maria Alexandrovna ruined everything: after Alexander, she gave birth to another child - a girl, and this girl no longer had anything to do with Alexander III. It was indecent to keep a maid of honor with two children at court. To hush up the scandal, they decided to transfer the case to the secret police. The secret police found an unfortunate man in St. Petersburg - homosexual Ilya Ulyanov. As a person with a non-traditional sexual orientation, he was on the hook of the secret police. As a dowry to Maria Alexandrovna, he was given a noble title, a place of bread in the province, and the newlyweds went to Simbirsk.
Maria Alexandrovna Ulyanova
And all this backstory would have been hushed up if not for the passionate disposition of Maria Alexandrovna. She was not distinguished by strict behavior even in Simbirsk, and although her sexual life with Ilya Nikolaevich could not work out, she gave birth to four more children, it is unknown from which fathers.
You can imagine what it was like for the Ulyanov children in the gymnasium. In a small town, everything immediately becomes known, and the boys teased their Ulyanov peers: they remembered mommy, the tsar, and Ilya Nikolaevich. Ultimately, all this had a negative impact on Alexander: he grew up very embittered with a desire to spank his daddy at all costs. With these plans, he went to St. Petersburg to study. The rest was organized by the secret police. How in our time the secret services organized the Popular Front and other democratic organizations. There, in those distant times, the secret police helped Alexander Ulyanov enter the Narodnaya Volya revolutionary organization and take part in the assassination attempt on the Tsar.
As soon as Maria Alexandrovna found out that her son had been arrested for the assassination attempt on the Tsar, she immediately went to St. Petersburg and appeared before Alexander III. It’s an amazing thing: not a single source is amazed that an unknown poor Simbirsk noblewoman gets an appointment with the Tsar without any delay! (However, historians have never been surprised by the fact that the birth dates of the first two Ulyanov children precede the wedding date of Ilya and Maria.) And Alexander III accepted his old passion immediately and they visited Sasha together in the fortress. The tsar forgave the “regicide”, promising to give him a princely title and enlist him in the guard. But Sashenka turned out to have character; he said everything he thought about both of his parents. And he promised them that as soon as he was free, he would make their whole shameless story public and would definitely throw a bomb at daddy! Therefore, Alexander Ulyanov was never released, but was sent to a psychiatric hospital, where he died of natural causes in 1901. Historians do not agree on the methods of execution, but there was no execution.
So Maria Alexandrovna indirectly influenced the fate of her eldest son. Subsequent children were not very lucky in such a family. Since Ilya Nikolaevich knew that the children were not his, he treated them as potential objects of his love affection. He never touched Sashenka as the king’s son, but Volodya received all his ardent, unfatherly love. In his youth, Vladimir Ilyich was very attractive. No matter how the mother protested, she was powerless to defend her son: Ilya Nikolaevich reproached her with his own behavior.
NP: And what about Lenin?
AK: He remained a homosexual until the end of his days. By the way, this is known all over the world, only the Soviet people knew nothing and lived in reverent worship of the leader of the proletariat. Antonioni made a film about great homosexuals, and Lenin is given a special chapter in it. Several books have already been written about this.
We cannot say whether Lenin subsequently suffered from his orientation or not, but in childhood this was also not an easy test for him: he grew up embittered and hated the whole world. In the gymnasium, he took out his anger on his peers, fought, beat his adversaries, and for all that, he, of course, was a very talented person.
NP: Where did you get such stunning information?
AK: This is also a special and interesting story. At its origins is Marietta Shaginyan. In the 70s, this writer was writing a book about Lenin and gained access to the archives. Apparently, the keepers of the archives themselves did not know what was hidden in the papers behind seven seals. When Marietta Shaginyan got acquainted with the papers, she was shocked and wrote a memo to Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev personally. Brezhnev introduced this information to his circle. Suslov lay under pressure for three days and demanded that Shaginyan be shot for slander. But Brezhnev acted differently: he summoned Shaginyan to his place and, in exchange for silence, offered her a prize for a book about Lenin, an apartment, etc. and so on.
NP: And Shaginyan really received some kind of prize for her book about Lenin?
AK: Yes, she received the Lenin Prize for her book “Four Lessons from Lenin.” But the note was classified and it was in the archives of the Central Committee of the Party. When I read this note in the archive, I wanted to see the archival materials themselves. And I requested copies. That's exactly how it was...
Marietta Shaginyan (1980)
I present to the reader the second article by Vladimir Chizhik in the New York newspaper "Davidzon Newspaper".
SUCH SENSATIONS “PEOPLE DO NOT EAT”
An interview with St. Petersburg historian Alexander Pavlovich Kutenev published in “Davidzon Newspaper” No. 22 (72) based on materials from the newspaper “New Petersburg” was called “What was Marietta Shaginyan silent about?” Subtitle: “Sensational documents about the Ulyanov family.” My grandfather instilled in me a dislike for Vladimir Ilyich a long time ago. Like all of us (don’t deny it!) I fall for sensations.
In general, I started devouring the newspaper with this publication. But my pursuit of sensation lost pace at the very beginning: my eye stumbled over an unusual combination of words: “Prince Bobrinsky is the son of Potemkin and Catherine II.” Any Kiev Jewish post-war boy has at least once heard his grandmother say ironically: “Who will do this for you? Count Bobrinsky? The prince and the count, of course, are both nobles - but still they are not the same thing. I went to the Internet for clarification. It turned out that Jewish grandmothers understand noble titles better than the St. Petersburg author of the sensation. Bobrinsky was indeed a count. Along the way, it turned out that the count-prince’s father was not Grigory Potemkin, as our learned historian believes, but also Grigory, also the favorite of the loving Catherine, but Orlov. Perhaps this is not so important for the secrets of the Ulyanov house, but the qualifications and scientific integrity of their whistleblower intrigued me.
Once again I went on a little excursion through the Internet. At the same time, in order to weed out, if possible, the falsifications of Soviet-era propaganda, I used materials (both Russian and English) not “younger” than 2000, fortunately there are plenty of them. It became obvious that following historical facts is not Alexander Pavlovich Kutenev’s favorite pastime. His high fantasy naturally soars above low and inconvenient facts.
Kutenev: “The fact is that Maria Alexandrovna, Lenin’s mother, was a maid of honor at the court of Alexander II. When Alexander III was simply a Grand Duke, he had an affair with Maria Alexandrovna, from whom she gave birth to a son, Alexander, as a girl.”
Facts: Maria Alexandrovna Ulyanova (nee Blank) was born in 1835 in St. Petersburg. Her father is Israel (Srul) Moiseevich (Moishevich) Blank, a Jew from Zhitomir, baptized in July 1820 under the name Alexander Dmitrievich, graduated from the Medical-Surgical Academy. Practiced in different cities of Russia. In 1838 he was widowed and three years later he remarried. Then A.D. Blank worked as an inspector of hospitals at the arms factory in Zlatoust. In 1847, he retired and went to Kazan, where, 42 km from the city, he bought the Yansaly (Kokushkino) estate with an area of more than 500 hectares and
39 souls of peasants. That year Mashenka Blank was twelve years old, and Grand Duke Alexander was seven. Maria Alexandrovna lived in Kokushkino with her large family in 1847-1863. In the fall of 1861, she came to Penza to visit her older sister Anna, where she met Ilya Nikolaevich Ulyanov, a physics and mathematics teacher at this institute. On September 6, 1863, 32-year-old I.N. Ulyanov and M.A. Blank, got married in the Kazan Mother of God Church in the village of Cheremyshevo (near Kokushkino), Laishevsky district, Kazan province. Maid of honor is a junior female court rank, which was given to representatives of noble noble families. Maria Alexandrovna’s father received a noble rank, rising to the rank of court councilor (roughly equivalent to
the rank of lieutenant colonel), that is, his family did not belong to a noble family. Moreover, as we already know, the family lived far from the royal court. Lenin's elder brother Alexander Ilyich Ulyanov was born in 1866, three years after the marriage of his official parents. That is, even if Maria Alexandrovna had been a “correspondence maid of honor,” by the time her son was born, the title of maid of honor, to which only unmarried girls were entitled, would have been removed from her.
Further, the historian Kutenev talks about the possible prosperous fate of the royal bastard (Alexander Ulyanov), which was ruined by his dissolute mother. “But Maria Alexandrovna ruined everything: after Alexander, she gave birth to another child - a girl... Keeping a maid of honor with two children at court was indecent... The secret police found an unfortunate man in St. Petersburg - homosexual Ilya Ulyanov... He was given a noble title and grain as a dowry to Maria Alexandrovna place in the province, and newlyweds
went to Simbirsk." This whole construction is the fruit of an inflamed imagination. The eldest child of the Ulyanov couple was not Alexander, but Anna Ilyinichna Ulyanova-Elizarova, born in August 1864 (11 months after the parents’ marriage),
two years before his brother, whose fate worried our scientist. Lenin's father, Ilya Nikolaevich Ulyanov, defended his dissertation for the degree of candidate of mathematical sciences at Kazan University in the fall of 1854. In 1855-1869, he taught at the Penza Noble Institute and the Nizhny Novgorod Men's Gymnasium, and did not roam around St. Petersburg with his vile harassment, as it seems
Alexander Kutenev. At the end of 1869, Ulyanov took the position of inspector, and from 1874 - director of public schools in the Simbirsk province. In 1877, he received the rank of full state councilor, which gave him the right to be considered a member of the hereditary nobility. I don’t know anything about his sexual orientation, so we’ll take this topic, which is most important for Mr. Kutenev, beyond the scope of our discussions, but the facts indicate that he received the title of nobility not as a dowry “for services to cover sin,” but after 14 (!) years after the wedding.
Kutenev also has some special information about the death of Alexander Ulyanov: “...<его>He was sent to a psychiatric hospital, where he died of natural causes in 1901. Historians do not agree on the methods of execution, but there was no execution.”
Facts: historians agree on the methods of execution: participants in the attempt on the life of the Tsar Shevyrev, Generalov, Osipanov, Andreyushkin and Ulyanov were sentenced to death and on May 8 were hanged in the courtyard of the Shlisselburg fortress. The next day, a message about this appeared in the Government Gazette newspaper. It is even known that Ulyanov before
execution kissed the cross, but Shevyrev refused. The historian Kutenev “saved” Alexander Ulyanov not only from execution, but also from the lustful attacks of his father.
I didn’t quite understand from the published interview whether all the Ulyanov children fell victim to the destructive passion of a homosexual pedophile, but the learned historian spoke categorically about Volodya Ulyanov: “.. Volodya received all his ardent non-fatherly love...
He (Lenin - V.Ch.) remained a homosexual until the end of his days.” Well, this is not the greatest sin of the leader of the world proletariat.
Mr. Kutepov gives an ironclad proof: “Antonioni made a film about great homosexuals, and Lenin is given a special chapter in it.” Everything would be fine, but in the filmography of the great director Michelangelo Antonioni there is a film about homosexuals
I couldn't find it. What a curiosity!
At the end of the interview, Alexander Pavlovich Kutenev reveals the source of his information. According to him, Marietta Shaginyan came across these sensational materials when she was working in the archives on a book about Lenin in 1970. That's right, she was working on such a book, but in 1965. The material that she found in the Zhitomir archive concerned not the moral character of Maria Alexandrovna or the sexual orientation of Vladimir Ilyich, but the nationality of his grandfather. The historian Kutenev’s passage about how Brezhnev offered Marrieta Shaginyan an apartment in exchange for silence cannot cause anything but a smile.
Every paragraph of the publication under discussion contains either an error, a fabrication, or an outright lie. If Soviet propaganda had not defaced the term “Falsifiers of History” in the middle of the last century, I would have known what to call these notes.
Vladimir Chizhik
Vladimir Chizhik (right)
I would not like to draw a line under this topic. I hope that readers will continue the discussion without being tied to dates and anniversaries.
| Lessons from Marietta Shaginyan
LESSONS OF MARIETTA SHAGINYAN
The first acquaintance with Marietta Shaginyan was brief and fleeting.
The writer often came to Baku, where I lived then. I started writing early, and, of course, I cherished the dream of meeting a real writer. One day, having heard about Shaginyan’s arrival, I went to see her. In my hands I carefully carried the sheets of manuscript rolled into a tube. Shaginyan received me unfriendly at first. Before taking the manuscript from me, she subjected me to a whole interrogation: “Who are you, what do you do? What are you writing about?
I answered, a little disappointed by the questions. But Marietta Shaginyan listened to me carefully. Having learned that I was a turner, and my story was about the master for whom I work, she completely changed. After a long time, I learned that Shaginyan does not like writers who “professionalize” early - they do not work, they feed on literature.
The next day I came for an answer. Shahinyan was busy and had many visitors. I wanted to leave, but Shaginyan stopped me. Only on the street, remembering her words, spoken hastily at the door, did I realize that she seemed to like the manuscript.
Several years have passed. Unexpectedly, I met Shaginyan on the street. I didn't dare approach her. If added up, both meetings would not have amounted to three minutes. It seemed to me that Shaginyan did not remember me. But she remembered.
Seeing me, Shaginyan smiled from afar. Calling me by name, she asked me in detail about me, what I was doing, what I had written.
As I already said, Shahinyan often came to Baku. I always saw her with a plump briefcase. Tirelessly traveling to the most remote corners, she listened to and recorded the stories of hundreds of people about the daily life of the country. Shahinyan knew Azerbaijan very well, like many other republics.
In 1939, my story about Nagorno-Karabakh was published in the magazine “Literary Azerbaijan”. I am from Karabakh, born and raised there, I visited my homeland every year and thought that I knew my land well.
And imagine my surprise when I received a letter from Shaginyan, in which she strongly scolded me for not knowing the region I was writing about.
“You write,” she quoted me, “the Karabakh mountains are mostly bare and only their tops are crowned with a small grove - tsakhatak, which from a distance resembles the lush crest of a hoopoe.” Where did you see bare mountains in Karabakh? - she wrote to me, - Karabakh is little Switzerland, it is all green. You are probably from the Martuni region, where there are few forests, and you attributed the poverty of your region to the whole of Karabakh. No good. You should definitely go and see all of Karabakh and correct your mistake.”...
I really came from the Martuni region, which was poor in forests, and did not know other regions. Taking advantage of Shaginyan’s advice, I immediately traveled all over Karabakh, became convinced of the correctness of the writer’s words, and made corrections when re-publishing the story. For this oversight, at the very first meeting, I received a severe blow from Marietta Sergeevna.
Marietta Sergeevna loves the sea. She especially loves the Caspian Sea, its sultry sandy shores.
Once, it was after the war, taking advantage of the writer’s arrival in Baku, the poet Amo Saghyan and I decided to give her a surprise - we took a car and, arriving at her hotel, demanded that she go with us to the sea, to Buzovny. At this time, Shahinyan was translating “Treasury of Secrets” by Nizami Ganjevi and flatly refused to come with us. We were unshakable, and Marietta Sergeevna eventually gave in.
At sea, we discovered a new hobby in Shaginyan, hitherto unknown to us. It turns out she is an avid shell lover and immediately got to work. We were glad to serve her in some way and also began to hunt for shells.
We collected a whole bunch of shells. They overfilled the briefcase that was with her, filled our pockets, but still could not accommodate all the collected shells.
Saghyan and I sincerely regretted that we did not know about this passion of Shaginyan and did not stock up with sufficiently capacious dishes.
The sun was mercilessly hot, we were pretty hungry, and we had collected a lot of shells, it was time to go home, but Shaginyan was in no hurry. Seeing some outbuilding far, far away in the steppe, she asked us what it was there.
We didn’t know, Shaginyan shamed us.
How so? Don't know what's going on under your nose?
The next minute, forgetting about her shells, sinking ankle-deep in hot sand, she moved across the steppe towards the house. There is nothing to do, we followed her.
The extension turned out to be the office of a new oil field that had just come into operation.
Shaginyan immediately took out a thick notebook and a pencil, turned on her hearing aid - she has poor hearing from birth - settled down on the bottom of an overturned bucket and got to work. While waiting for her, we wandered for a long time in front of the office.
The sun had already set, we were dizzy from hunger, but Shaginyan didn’t even think about leaving the office. We decided to remind ourselves. But when they entered, they found her having a heated conversation. Shaginyan, not paying attention to us, continued the conversation and wrote everything down in a notebook.
Thus ended Shaginyan’s long-standing dream: to spend a day at sea and relax.
And a day or two later we read in one of the central newspapers a passionate word from a writer about the oil workers of a young, newly born field.
It was in Rostov. A woman walks through the cemetery among the graves. He looks around, looking for something.
This is where my mother is buried. There was a thuja nearby. And now she's gone. Maybe I'm wrong? - she says to the companion accompanying her.
The woman walks back and forth, then returns to her original place.
No, the thuja stood here. If it was cut down, there should be something left of it,” she says confidently, starting a new search.
Soon the thuja was found. It really turned out to be cut down, only a half-rotten stump protruded from the ground.
The woman takes out a penknife, cuts off a piece from the root and hides it in her briefcase.
I'll give it to you for chemical analysis. If this stump is a thuja root, then the grave is here.
This woman was Marietta Shaginyan. The episode above may have been made up. Others have told me about this, but it is typical. Analyzing, studying, actively intervening in life are indispensable character traits of a writer.
An active researcher and chronicler of our time, the writer very often does not limit herself to sharp words, but energetically and boldly invades life.
In Bashkiria, they say, Marietta Shaginyan met with prospectors who were supposed to determine the directional routes Magnitogorsk - Kuibyshev.
There were three options for this future road. The Ministry of Railways was inclined to the “southern option”, which, at first glance, made construction cheaper. But the “northern option” had its advantages; it unleashed the productive forces of the rich regions of the Southern Urals and Bashkiria.
Shaginyan passionately joins this debate among experts, and ultimately the “northern option” wins.
Residents of Bashkiria and the Urals will remember with love and gratitude the energetic and tireless champion of the “northern option.”
Here's another case.
In 1927, M. Shaginyan traveled to Armenia as a correspondent for Pravda. At this time, construction of one of the first hydroelectric power stations in the republic was underway on the Dzoraget River.
Marietta Shahinyan moves to Dzorages. The writer spends four years among construction workers, lives in a barracks where “there were no amenities, stars peeked out through the cracks in the roof,” sleeps in a fur coat, rides a horse.
Construction proceeded slowly; the necessary equipment was not available.
Shaginyan goes on a long journey to Kyiv and other cities, pushing through construction material that got stuck along the way.
She does not stand aside from the technical discussion of the construction project, delves into the dispute between engineers, goes to Leningrad to consult with leading hydraulic specialists, conducts cultural work among the wives of builders and at the same time writes a novel about construction - “Hydrocentral”, which is published in “ New world."
The efficiency was incredible, construction was still going on, the piles at the construction site of the hydroelectric station had not yet dried out, and the novel was already being read and re-read. It became a favorite book of readers. Thanks to her active participation in the life of the construction site, Shaginyan was able to create a true history of the construction of Dzorages.
For the effective assistance provided by the writer to the construction of Dzorages, in 1932 she was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor.
Subsequently, recalling these days, Marietta Shaginyan notes: “Hydrocentral” is not only a written book, but also an experienced piece of life.” These words can equally be applied to many of her books, and indeed to all of her work.
And it is no coincidence that many of its articles were adopted by government decrees and decisions.
In general, Armenia occupies a significant place in Shaginyan’s work.
The writer constantly writes essays and articles, and after the war she sits down to write the book “Travel through Soviet Armenia,” which was later awarded a state prize. This book is a kind of encyclopedia of the life and everyday life of the Armenian people in the past and, especially, in the present. “I want every Armenian, wherever he is, after reading this book, to want to come to Armenia, see it, breathe its air, feel its land under his feet. If my book succeeds in moving the heart of an Armenian so much, I will consider that I have not lived my life in vain.”
Marietta Shaginyan was not mistaken. This book received a warm response in the souls of not only the Armenian reader. Translated into many languages, it became the property of millions and millions of readers.
Someone, on instructions from the Sovinformburo, I visited the writer in Moscow. She then lived on Arbat. It was necessary to write an essay about her.
Marietta Sergeevna led me along a narrow steep staircase to her attic. This was her library. I must say that I have never seen such a library anywhere else. Any city library would envy her.
Shaginyan was in a hurry somewhere; there was not a minute to lose. We sat down at the round table. Without mincing words, I got down to business, but Shaginyan was slow to answer. She kept looking at my “empty” hands.
Where are your production tools? - she finally asked. I rushed to rummage through my pockets, but, as luck would have it, there was neither a pen nor a stub of a pencil in them. I didn’t even have my notebook with me.
Marietta Sergeevna went down the stairs and returned a minute later, carrying a thick notebook and pencil in her hands. Handing them over to me, she remarked:
Never part with your notebook. Don’t let what you saw and learned go to waste. A writer without a notebook is not a serious writer.
I took this next tricky lesson for granted and remembered it forever...
Our notes about Marietta Shaginyan would be incomplete if we did not also talk about such an episode, a new brainwasher.
Marietta Sergeevna does not like it when people come to her without warning. This disrupts her daily routine. However, it is not so easy to disrupt Shaginyan’s workday. She simply sends such a “violator” out the door.
It turned out that I was such a “victim”. I came to Shahinyan without asking her consent in advance.
Marietta Sergeevna greeted me with hostility. She scolded me with the last words for the uninvited visit, but there was no resentment. It’s hard to be offended by Marietta Shaginyan.
Well, okay, come in,” she invited, “sit down and lay out what you came with.” I'll give you five minutes.
She even placed an alarm clock with a convex glass above the dial in front of my nose. I met the regulations, but I couldn’t leave. Having learned that I had just left Armenia, Shaginyan quickly began asking me about everything. She asked me a thousand questions. I answered them with horror, looking at the dial. The hand showed three o'clock. I arrived at twelve.
Marietta Sergeevna finally came to her senses.
Robber! Barbarian! What have you done to me! Robbed me for three whole hours!
In her ninth decade, the writer, as before, is full of strength, vigor, and readiness for new and new routes around the world. And in her ninth decade, awarded the highest award in our country, an award bearing the name of Lenin, she did not sum up the results, writes her “Memoirs”, the readers of “New World”, where she publishes them, graciously pick up issues of magazines with “Memories”, each time surprised and rejoicing at the freshness and inexhaustible energy of this large, bright, ageless, intelligent talent.
And for those who are planning to interview Marietta Sergeevna, I would advise them to come to her in uniform, and not to forget anything at home from what is called a “tool of production.” Otherwise, you risk getting a good thrashing - Marietta Sergeevga has not lost her ability to give a thrashing. And the best thing is not to go, not to interview, not to interfere.
She's busy, she's working.
I visited Marietta Sergeevna Shaginyan at her dacha in Peredelkino. She is over 92, can’t see, but climbs the spiral staircase to her office without anyone else’s help. Lives alone. Lunch is brought to her from the kitchen of the House of Creativity, and she prepares breakfast and dinner for herself.
After giving me tea on the veranda, where it was a little cold, Marietta Sergeevna suggested that we go upstairs to the office. On the stairs, I wanted to help her, I took her by the elbow, but she abruptly pulled her hand away: “No need, I’ll do it myself.” You must get used to your blindness.”
They come to Marietta Sergeevna without a knock on the door, without a phone call. It's no use, she can't hear anything.
When I came to see her at the hour she had appointed, she was talking on the phone. Someone asked to visit her, and she fought off the annoying visitor.
I can not. I'm busy today. The Armenian writer Leogid Gurunts, a brave, wonderful man who saved me from Bagirov, should come to me. He will come with his beautiful wife, and I must receive them.
There was a stack of scribbled papers on the table. She writes. He writes blindly in huge letters.
We started talking. Marietta Sergeevna is interested in everything that happens in Armenia, she loves her in her own way, but is constantly offended by her. And all because of Stalin. Marietta Sergeevna is an ardent Stalinist, and this could not help but cool many people towards her. I remember her post-anniversary visit to Yerevan. She was already over 90, but she still saw. She spoke on television and at the university. I also had a meeting with writers. She spoke enthusiastically and intelligently. Everything was going well! Suddenly she again sat down on her favorite horse - neither village nor city began to declare her love for Stalin.
Several writers - from those who were imprisoned under Stalin - stood up and left the audience. This offended her. She did not understand how she herself was insulting people who had suffered enough from the “leader of the peoples.”
She did not fail to talk about Stalin in a conversation with me even today. “Everything they say about him is a lie. I searched for a long time in the archives and did not find a single death sentence signed by Stalin,” she assured.
I'm silent. Stalin is her weakness. One can only be surprised at the absurdity of the excuses, which cause bewilderment among everyone who knows Shaginyan closely.
Marietta Sergeevna again remembered Bagirov, who cannot be taught deceit. They called her to Baku as if on publishing business - she was translating Nizami’s “Seven Beauties”, writing a book about him - and, taking advantage of her arrival, they poured a whole tub of dirt on her head. The chickens laugh! - Marietta Sergeevna was declared a nationalist. After reading the dirty cooking in the newspapers, I ran to the hotel. Throughout the difficult time for her, he was by her side and did not leave her alone for a minute. I bought a train ticket, packed her for the trip, and brought her to the station by car.
Let's not talk about the consequences. I almost paid with my head, but it worked out.
It’s strange, due to her old age, Marietta Sergeevna doesn’t remember much. And I haven’t forgotten this small favor that I did her a long time ago.
Thank you for your kind words, Marietta Sergeevna!
And for Stalin, for forgetting about what he did, don’t expect forgiveness from me either.
His name alone makes everyone who lived under him feel their heart ache. Me too. Don’t try to convert me to your faith, dear Marietta Sergeevna.
| Additional Information: |
