Postscript-2

Read “How Comrade Stalin Collected Autographs” Why do I continue? Why - I guess: my debts to the past are much greater than to the future. However, why push them against each other - it is not necessary for them to be at enmity. Confused in your...

Read " How Comrade Stalin Collected Autographs *" *

Why do I continue?

Why - I guess: my debts to the past are much greater than to the future. However, why push them against each other - it is not necessary for them to be at enmity.

Confused in my autumn-spring notes, sorting through them, I was surprised to find that the leaves are not to my liking. Tear them, perhaps, burn them, following in the footsteps of Nikolai Vasilyevich? Immodest: for this you have to be a classic and be ashamed of a pile of lies.

But firstly, I’m up to the classic crawl and crawl, I’ll peel off my knees. Secondly, there are no lies. Of course, I'm not telling the whole truth. The amazingly sighted blind man Homer did not sing the whole truth either. Crowds of supposedly truth-seekers, swearing that they had stripped naked, powdered their childishly gullible brains. But to honestly keep silent, clean up, clumsy lines, sweeping garbage out of life, is a sweet thing.

“Postscript-2” I start with the usual skepticism: I still start.

Once a good morning, I succumbed to temptation. From purely selfish motives: getting rid of the unsaid is good for health. Maybe the secondary truth will be no worse than the primary.

---

Spring 1966, the turn of March. High-rise building on Kotelnicheskaya embankment. One-room, but very respectable apartment of Wilhelm Liebknecht - the eldest son of Karl. The one who was named after Marx and killed on January 15, 1919, along with Rosa Luxembourg. In 1933, his widow Sophia and Wilhelm (son from his first marriage) left Berlin. You can’t imagine it on purpose: Karl, Wilhelm, and exactly 33 years later Marx and Lenin (Marlene for short) sip tea with them.

Chance allows itself whims, sometimes yielding to Patterns. In that autumn-winter season, I could celebrate decades of freedom and work in the press. Thick magazines ("New World", "Questions of Literature", "Teatr") preferred thin ones. Evaluated the genre of prefaces. The thaw allowed publishers to grow bolder. They published that foreign prose, from which they had retreated fearfully before. And I tried to overcome my illiteracy, preparing introductory words for Italian, Swedish, Danish novels.

By chance, the ancient Indian Shakespeare - Kalidasa (New World, 1956, No. 11), the Portuguese classic Esa de Queiroz (preface to a series of novels) entered my repertoire. Publicism of the beginning of the century occupied a special place in the colorful repertoire. More specifically, the first generation of European Marxists, even more specifically, their articles, correspondence, speeches about art.

Pushed me to the journalism of the Social Democracy, ordered me to understand it again by chance.

After the Lubyanka, then Lefortovo punishment cells, the guard brought me to the cell to Boris Suchkov, a well-known writer before his arrest, endowed with power (“Suchkov and Kovalchik closed the magazine”). The neighbor spent the second year in jail. And two more years later he became my guest in the Kazakh Peschanlag. And after two more we crossed paths in Western Siberia. Four Lefortovo years cost the prisoner dearly. Rising star, handsome thirty years old, erudite, connoisseur of German culture, organizer of a powerful publishing house, head of a magazine, etc. etc., was squeezed out in Lefortovo like a doormat. With the Moscow stage, a ruin arrived in Maikuduk. Three Kazakh-Siberian years were cheaper. Brought back to life. Until the untimely end, she was obliged to remember that in addition to the Tsekist-Zhdanov account, there is another one. Spetslagovsky is no joke either. The former convict and future director of the Gorky Institute of Literature, a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, who upon his return worked in modest roles, brought yesterday's fellow prisoner together with Clara Zetkin. I hope this is clear: Suchkov commissioned me to prepare Clara Zetkin's articles on art - on Schiller, Ibsen, Bjornson, the classics; collection.

To order textbook Clara to a student the day before yesterday, yesterday's convict who had accumulated crime meant making a bold and at the same time cautious move.

Leaving Germany, Sophia Liebknecht managed to smuggle the colossal archive of the German left to Russia. In Moscow, he found a place of honor, but even the widow and son of Liebknecht lost free access to the archive for a quarter of a century. The archive opened slightly after the XX Congress of the CPSU. Just when I was taking my first steps into the underground of the Social Democrats. The official paper of a reputable publishing house, confirming that I was studying their heritage, made it possible to delve into the correspondence, into the literature right here, in the archive, collected, forbidden.

I feasted in the archives from morning to evening, reading the Socialist-Revolutionaries, Mensheviks, Monarchists, Bernstein, Vandervelde, Trotsky—whatever I wanted.

A native of Rostov-on-Don, who stayed with her sick mother in Germany, then a gymnasium student in Lausanne, from 1906 a student, later a doctor of art history at Heidelberg University; from 1912 - the wife of Karl Liebknecht; from 1956 until her death in 1964 she was my interlocutor. Just like Karl and Rosa are convicts.

At first, I did not dare to disturb the gray-haired lady, crushed by a load of worries, with heretical questions. I can’t say on what account of the visit to Liebknecht’s widow I grew bolder and felt that Karl and Rosa were coming to life. In which of the evenings he made a discovery: Karl and Rosa are prisoners. It doesn't matter where - from Steplag or from Stuttgart. Their.

Soon it dawned again. Sofya Borisovna is also a convict. Ever since I met Carl. And she remained a convict after his assassination, the collapse of Wilhelm's empire, in the Weimar Republic.

In 1933, the wind of history blew to the East, to the country of the victorious proletariat. It was well received here. They were not imprisoned, they were not sent to the camp. Stalin, however, knew how to sweep clean. He plowed the German field in Moscow in the Stakhanov style. He paid special attention to the relatives of Spartak, the friends of the Comintern. He left the widow, the son of Liebknecht, in the wild - and he did the right thing. Their arrest would cause a sharply negative resonance, and at all latitudes. But he allowed me to breathe in freedom under escort. For a quarter of a century Sofya Borisovna taught foreign languages ​​at the Higher Diplomatic School. It must be under careful supervision.

1953 A sharp break. Thaw. Guests appeared in Moscow who had never returned from the Gulag before. One of them sits his pants in the archive. Reads letters from Karl and Rosa addressed to her, Sophia Liebknecht. Reflects on the books of her deceased acquaintances - good and unkind. Delves into her era, trying to understand his own. She rejects the duty stamps, which she had to swallow silently and which made her sick.

In 1961, the collection “Rosa Luxembourg. About Literature. Clearly anti-Stalinist, with an indispensable reference to Vladimir Ilyich. In one of the reviews of the collection, it flashed: in 1931, exactly thirty years after Stalin's letter to the Proletarian Revolution magazine (letters in which Mehring, Liebknecht, the German leftists who founded the Spartak Union received in full for their mistakes) , a collection has appeared that gives hope that Rosa Luxemburg is waiting for rehabilitation.

Later, when, having revolted at the Sorbonne, the new leftists decided to roam around Europe (and further across the continents) under the flag of Rosa and Karl, the Moscow collection was published in Dresden. Then in Italian Verona, without my permission, in a partisan way. In 1971, Moscow published an orthodox-heretical collection: “Karl Liebknecht. Thoughts on art. Treatise, articles, speeches, letters. Before releasing it in their native German, Dresden hesitated for seventeen years - until the Berlin Wall shook.

In the series of "Monuments" of aesthetic thought, the Moscow "Art" decided to include the works of Karl and Rosa, when perestroika was already and still distinguished by courage. However, their "Favorites" went only to the elite. The circulation announced, printed - 7780 copies - was sentenced to death. A dozen prisoners were released. But this is a special topic, not at all new. Her twists and turns amazed the ancient Romans - books also have a fate. …(?)

It's still March 1966. Wilhelm Liebknecht has guests. It's time to disperse. Detaining the question: have I noticed that the press has become more frequent attempts to commute the sentence to Stalin? Not to annul the verdict handed down at the 20th, at the 22nd congresses, but to move it into the shadows, to correct it ... If I noticed, how do I feel about these experiments?

The question, of course, rhetorical, I answered without any desire.

- Mayakovsky had no hesitation whether to accept or not accept the revolution. And I have no doubt: to restore the cult of personality is an unworthy occupation. Dead. Failure is desirable.

The interlocutor did not object, but following the laws of controversy, he reproached: "Your view is from the outside."

- Naturally. It’s quite easy for me to find where she, my native side, is. Address suggested. It's hard to get lost. Resigning myself to the course of justifying Stalin, I would have betrayed my father who had been shot, my mother, who had drunk on prison gruel, and the prisoners with whom I sunbathed. All those bent in exile, in captivity, missing. In fact, the question is offensive.

Ernst Henry asked me this question

I’m not sure that tomorrow’s reader of these pages (as soon as he appears), having reached Ernst Henry, will immediately remember who he is, where he came from, whether he deserved, and how he deserved today’s attention. Since it is impossible to continue the story without Ernst Henry, I report. Ernst Henry, aka Semyon Nikolaevich Rostovsky - pseudonyms. A. Leonidov, Arkady Losev are also pseudonyms. Real name - Leonid, surname - Khentov. Year of birth - 1904, February 16. Place of birth - Vitebsk. The tenth child (the first boy among girls) was born in the family of a flax merchant, a manufacturer of matches. He became a Muscovite in the spring of 1917, graduated from high school.

European fame came to the enigmatic Ernst Henry when his book Hitler over Europe? (1934), two years later - "Hitler against the USSR". Soon there were reprints, translations. In Moscow - from English into Russian. From the responses. Albert Einstein: "If this book meets the understanding it deserves, then its influence on the development of relations in Europe cannot but become decisive and fruitful." Bertrand Russell: "Extremely interesting and valuable." Many years later, in the fund of the former leader of the Comintern, G.E. Zinoviev, as you know, sentenced to death, historians have discovered a preface to the book "Hitler over Europe?". It did not see the light. It was not customary for us then to publish the manuscripts of "enemies of the people". In Moscow, Pravda, Izvestia, and Komsomolskaya Pravda responded to Ernst Henry's books. Excerpts from bestsellers appeared in the "Red Star", in the "Banner".

Before the Patriotic War and in the first decade after it, I was not destined to reach out to both books. And by the mid-sixties, the fulfilled prophecies of Ernst Henry, his historical and journalistic insights moved into the layers of events thirty years ago. At this time, samizdat circulation had a sensational letter from Ernst Henry to Ilya Ehrenburg. "Open" was a response to the section on Stalin that ended Ehrenburg's memoirs. Tvardovsky, editor-in-chief of Novy Mir, punched them into print. The polemical response born on May 30, 1965, received a response not by chance. Let me emphasize that the evening conversation, which began in March 1966 at Kotelniki, was carried on by the author of the Open Letter with one of the authors of Novy Mir. The conversation went on.

From meetings with Ernst Henry and his articles, books, the posthumous meeting requires coverage.

On the occasion of the centenary of the birth of Ernst Henry, his son, also a publicist, internationalist Mikhail Rostovsky, published two fundamental, anniversary-ceremonial volumes. The first included both legendary bestsellers - "Hitler over Europe?", "Hitler against the USSR". In the second, the "Note" was published for the first time - "On the Question of Stalin's Foreign Policy" (150 pages); for the first time - the philosophical and journalistic novel "Prometheus" (another three hundred pages). The author of the introductory remarks to the first volume is Academician E. Primakov. To the second - the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation S. Lavrov. Two afterwords were written by Ernst Henry's friends, historians, experts in Germany - Lev Bezymensky, Yakov Drabkin. The volumes were published by the Moscow publishing house "Russian rarity". And they are really rare. Circulation of the first volume (2004) - 1500 copies; the second (2007) - 1000.

Apparently, the main part of the circulation went to friends, colleagues, and acquaintances. A modest part went to libraries - metropolitan, scientific. The rest went abroad. Anyone who wants to look into the two-volume book and leaf through it (as of old, before the Internet) will have a hard time. However, without referring to the publication erected by the son as a monument to the centenary of his father, a conversation about who he was, what is interesting about E. Henry (S. Rostovsky, A. Losev), is absolutely impossible. I will add: "Open letter" to Ehrenburg is printed in the appendix. A penetrating, important essay on the life and work of Ernst Henry, written by Doctor of Science Yakov Drabkin and titled meaningfully: "Our Man in the 20th Century." The essay reveals a detective biography of Ernst Henry, offers an analysis of his main works, articles, brochures.

“I was lucky to be acquainted with the author of these books, an outstanding journalist, scientist, one of the most powerful analysts ... with great knowledge, a brilliant pen ...” (E. Primakov)

The author of this book is "a man of extraordinary destiny... The predictions put forward by Ernst Henry staggered the imagination...". The publicist "remained faithful to the end of his life" to the highest professional standards. (S. Lavrov)

Remembering the 66th, when the "Note" was created, I return from this autumn to a long-standing spring.

Evening. Ernst Henry and I on Profsoyuznaya Street. The standard two-room apartment of the Slavutskys… If some young person were going to find out and then tell “only the truth, the whole truth” about the Slavutskys, the poor fellow would have had enough work for years. And the problem would remain unresolved.

At first, the head of the family settled in Solovki. He met his future wife in the camp ten years later. A native of Riga, raised by the Bonns, who as a child mastered three or five languages ​​​​(what should we count them?), Got married in Berlin. The husband was made of noble material: the Comintern, in Germany - Sachsenhausen, in Russia - the Vladimir Central (in the cell next to Field Marshal Paulus), a friend of Willy Brandt ... Wilhelmina Müller received the party nickname Mishka. In Moscow, I happened to work with Dimitrov, with Tolyatti. I received a normal term in the thirties. She had a rare talent for communication. The staunch and yet thinning company of former prisoners - guests of the Slavutskys - included Bukharin's widow, Anna Mikhailovna Larina; Evgenia Ginzburg, the "cool route" ... It would not be difficult to offer a list of eminent guests: members of the Solzhenitsyn family, starting with Ekaterina Ferdinandovna, mother Natalia Dmitrievna Svetlova, Heinrich Belle, Lev Kopelev, Roy Medvedev, Alexander Nekrich ... A long list is absolutely excluded. There were “nameless” guests from Riga, Vienna, Kolyma… I don’t know how many. Mishenka died at the age of 101 in Cologne. The faithful husband, who was younger, died a little later in the same luxurious almshouse.

Ernst Henry dropped in on Profsoyuznaya in a company close to him. Mishka did not allow regrading. The company of venerable, high-browed people included political scientists, Germanists, and economists. Among the staff of IMEMO - the Institute of International Economics, Politics - Donald McLean. Always reserved, silent member of the famous "Cambridge Five" Kim Philby.

The conversation that began at Kotelniki continued at Profsoyuznaya. He acquired a businesslike character in the kitchen, when the guests dispersed, and the owners did not interfere. I will briefly summarize the point.

... It would be a mistake not to take advantage of the upcoming party congress. It would be good to send an "Appeal" addressed to the General Secretary. There are no questions about the text. Main signature.

No objections. "What" always depends on "who". True, questions arise. After all, “who” has different dimensions. For example, quantity. Ernst Henry agrees, norms are out of the question. Perhaps ten. Better yet, twelve. But… But then another question. Collecting signatures takes time. What is the deadline? Ernst Henry considers. It turns out "term yesterday". We talk about quality. It is clear that the signatory must be a well-known person. And well-deservedly known. Respected tops, bottoms, country. And therefore quite independent. Of course, he must be a staunch opponent of the "cult of personality", having overcome the fears and doubts that were inevitable in the past. And, of course, so moral that the collector of signatures would not have fears: now the autograph will affectionately scribble, and when you leave the hospitable house, he will call where he should: “Your ears are slammed, dear comrades. Grab the thief…”

Ernst Henry agrees. The version is likely and highly undesirable.

- The task is not an easy one, Semyon Mikhailovich.

Later there was a clear division of labor. Ernst Henry takes over the scientists. Guarantees the signature of Academician Sakharov, followed by physicists close to Andrei Dmitrievich. Holders of higher titles, awards. Addressing the military leaders is at least tactless. By discrediting the generalissimo and at the same time reducing the army, Khrushchev hurt the generals, marshals, starting with Zhukov, the top command staff. So, my frame is artists. So, I was very lucky: the soldiers have discipline, and the masters of culture are free people, aren't they?

It is, of course, true, but if things go seriously, then technical problems will arise. The six signatories of the "Appeal" suggest six who refused to sign. Or twelve. Eighteen of both offer thirty-six phone calls. Meetings are not possible without them. After all, you won’t show up early: “Hello, I’m your aunt.” By the way, I'm a horseless. Neither "Mercedes" nor "Zaporozhets" is and never will be. It turned out that Ernst Henry was a horseless person in principle, with a fair amount of experience. For the good of the case, it would not hurt, however, the third superfluous. The deal is not trifling. Ernst Henry agreed, not triflingly, but did not change the principle. To this day I regret it. "Stinginess" got in the way. Together with a nice company, I would gladly chip in for gasoline.

Returning home, I lost a serene sleep on my native Volkhonka. Half the night he tossed and turned, sighing: "... if only Stepan Pavlovich had lingered in this world!" Then I would have shown up in the morning at Kotelniki, in the same skyscraper, but in a different building, entrance. Stepan Zlobin lived next to Paustovsky - just with those venerable people whose signatures gave weight to the Appeal. For a day it would be possible to cope with the problem that does not allow to fall asleep.

Reference. S.P. Zlobin left the world in September 1965. Born in 1903. Parents - with convict sentences. In 1917, Stepochka from Ryazan was already typing a step in the History column. Anarchist, Social Revolutionary, Red Guard, fighter in the detachment of Baltic sailors. Later Muscovite, poet, student in Valery Bryusov's seminar. A prisoner exiled to Bashkiria. The author of the story about Salavat Yulaev, included in the school curriculum. Since 1941 - a front-line soldier, journalist, prisoner who did not surrender in German camps. Rebel by genes, by family tradition. After the Patriotic War, he publishes Buyan Island, a novel about the Pskov uprising; fulfilling his duty, not sparing himself, brings to print a novel about prisoners - "Missing". For Stepan Razin, the Supreme Commander honors the prisoner with a prize of his own name - the Stalin first degree.

In December 1954, at a meeting of writers in Moscow, the chairman of the prose section, S. Zlobin, delivered a “vicious” (according to the recall of Pravda) speech about Stalin. The titles of Stepan Zlobin's books fall out of the publishing plans immediately - and for many years to come.

I loved and still love the forgotten laureate. I published something about him in different genres - an essay, an obituary, an afterword to Buyan, an article for an encyclopedia ... At Otdyv station, five minutes from Mishka, S. Zlobin bought a summer house, the doctors insisted. In winter, I visited it often, kept the schedule. The owner joked: "The lord is the keeper of the dacha"; it kept books on the history of Russia, pre-October editions.

It's easier to start a progress report without arguing with the alphabet.

In the morning I called Avdeenko, with whom I crossed paths at Zlobin. In his youth, Alexander mined coal. He became famous when his novel “I love” reached Stalin, and the Arbiter of destinies descended. They say that later he branded him a “hoarder”, but he did not take away junk and freedom. Alexander Ostapovich worked hard, published, kept himself in hand at meetings. At home at Zlobin, it happened, he chopped backhand.

Avdeenko lived in Peredelkino. In the country. Hearing the urgent - "to see you, the sooner the better" - he asked where and when. The conversation took place near Istorichka, in a quiet lane near Pokrovka, in the car.

Avdeenko supported the idea of ​​the appeal, but I did not ask for a signature. Giving practical advice, along the way he weighed the pros and cons of his own autograph. "So I'm a refusenik?" But in my then and current opinion, the right objector. There is no need to explain why "correct" here. Having said "A", say "B" ... Borshchagovsky. From the time they met until the death of Alexander Mikhailovich, until the funeral and commemoration, the meetings took place in the writer's house near the Universitet metro station, in his apartment. I was younger, visiting the "old man". Now I'm guessing: I was younger by a dozen years. Only? Wrong. He was older by an epoch. And in our total time there were no age gaps.

Is it really necessary to tell who it is - A.B.? "Three poplars on Plyushchikha" with Oleg Efremov in the title role was seen by millions - script by A.B. Thousands remember performances based on his plays. To count the readers of his documentary book "Blood Accused"; his memoirs Notes of the Minion of Fate; his short stories and essays translated into many languages. If our contemporary work of A.B. I didn’t see it, didn’t read it - I sympathize. But sorry, dear. Be healthy, hello to the descendants.

The signature under the "Appeal" to the congress of a recently "rootless cosmopolitan" would have been perceived ambiguously. Those offended by Comrade Stalin must be strictly dosed. Demand for the caresses.

I met Poyurovsky, a theater critic who writes frequently and speaks willingly. Boris was in charge of the military department of Sergei Obraztsov. "Eureka!" People's not only in rank, world-famous, the leader of all the dolls of the Union. "An Extraordinary Concert" is a classic. A simplified viewer enjoys no less than a complicated one. I ask Boris to arrange a date. I don’t explain why S.O. became necessary. Boris was somewhat surprised, perhaps offended that I was hiding the essence of the matter, but he succumbed.

The puppet theater then huddled in an old, obscenely dilapidated building on Mayakovsky Square - on Triumphalnaya. I arrived at the appointed time, before lunch. Of course, not alone, but together with Ernst Henry. Seeing the second, Boris was surprised again, expressed his protest with his eyes, but remained silent.

Sergei Vladimirovich sat at a solid desk. To the left of the door, a small table awaited visitors. Since there were two of us, we needed another chair. The arrangement of furniture and forces caused a comparison with the investigation room, I beg your pardon.

A few correctly-complimentary phrases - and the conversation rose to the top. I got worried. I caught the confrontation - intellectuals show off in front of each other? Touched global problems. Sergei Vladimirovich recalled an incident from a tour of Europe. The long-liver of London, who went to France, Belgium, Italy, Semyon Nikolaevich immediately recalled a case no less interesting. The dialogue was fascinating, but it stung me: he wouldn't sign! Meanwhile, the hour, minute, second hands did not announce a smoke break. But in vain. Next to the Puppet Theater on the same Triumphalnaya named after Mayakovsky, the Sovremennik won a haven. By two o'clock the rehearsal was to be completed there. Lyalya Kotova, who will call Sovremennik (I didn’t know my patronymic, I don’t want to know if she’s alive?), Suggested how to catch Oleg Efremov, but sternly warned: “You can’t be late! Immediately after the rehearsal, Oleg will be taken to the shooting, and then, you know, look for fistulas.

Again, I neglected the patronymic. How dare, where is "Nikolaevich"?

I was not a blood friend of a celebrity. I do not ask for the circle of close associates. I will leave Oleg without a patronymic. No time.

Almost two. But I dare not interrupt the dialogue. My duty is to listen. Confirm with eyes and ears that the words of polemicists are precious. Fortunately, Ernst Henry's chairs and mine touched, we sat tightly. I’m hinting with my knee: it’s time ... How, sir! Sergei Vladimirovich and Semyon Nikolaevich are only on the outskirts of the fundamental problem. I again knee: "It's time, brother, it's time!". But the guest cannot interrupt the host. Academically enlightened cannot put a boorish point. I have no doubt that Ernst Henry felt my knee, that Sergey Vladimirovich had already guessed my gloomy delight, however ...

We got up. Farewell at the highest level. As soon as they were released, I did not throw a remark, but an order: “To the service entrance!”. I throw Ernst Henry and run.

I love Triumph. It's hard to miss her. The rehearsal was delayed. I fly into the lobby. The environment prevents Oleg from rushing to the exit. I am doomed to rudeness. I intrude: "Congress, Stalin, signature ...". Oleg cuts instantly: “What are we talking about!” - two steps to the windowsill. Ready to sign on it.

Who said: "There is no truth on earth ..." - Mozart, Salieri, Pushkin? Three of them were wrong. Just at that split second I saw Oleg Semyon Nikolaevich. He went to the windowsill to continue the conversation that had been cut short at the Puppet Hall. I hiss in my ear: "Text, text ...". I would pull it out of my pocket - but the pocket is in Ernst Henry's jacket, inside. Oleg signs without looking at the text of the Address. Hurry. However…

Marlen Khutsiev saw the scene on the windowsill. I understood the main thing in it: can Oleg, can I? Why? The "July rain" was pleasant, like rain in a drought. But the thought did not arise that you should ask for an autograph from the namesake. At the same age. Yes, I'm three months older!

There is truth on earth. However, the higher the more. There is no other way to explain why, after all the troubles in our cinema, the namesake's autograph under "Appeal" is more appropriate today than yesterday.

Lunch hour. It would be nice to have a bite to eat. They deserve a piece of bread. From Mayakovsky Square to Pushkinskaya ten minutes. As I walk, I ponder why Sergei Vladimirovich ended up in the refuseniks.

In the artistic world, especially among the main directors, and even in Stalin's time, few people would have been able to find a charm with a soul wide open. The supreme puppeteer of the Land of the Soviets was a button-up diplomat. So thought a person really close to him, a connoisseur of the theater. Planida smiled at me. In his early years, he was from St. Petersburg, and after he drank gruel and was forgiven by the perpetrators of captivity, SD became a Muscovite. Occasionally he came to Peredelkino, to the House of Creativity. They met there. Without a plan, by accident, but the camp experience brought them together. Our conversations touched once and twice on the Supreme in the kingdom of dolls.

It is childishly naive to suspect Obraztsov that in the depths of his soul he retained a childish stock of illusions. Their stock was wasted. However, the Puppet Theater was invited to concerts in the Kremlin much more often than the famous basses and tenors. Obraztsov was released abroad, when academic theaters timidly dreamed about tours abroad. True, the guest performers did not run away from Obraztsov to the West (ballet stars are more desperate, more obstinate than puppets). The authorities did not give out rations to any chief director for free-thinking, did not forgive Voltairianism, and Obraztsov - please, without any special ordeals.

Not a fact, but a hypothesis: Stalin's benevolence towards Obraztsov was explained by the subcutaneously intimate relationship of professions. The Generalissimo also wanted to command only puppets. He preferred to punish, reward - unquestioning. Ernst Henry's proposal to sign the "Appeal" condemning the cult of Stalin pushed Sergei Vladimirovich to an ethical barrier. It is indecent for a person who has been generously treated, who has accepted mercy with gratitude, to condemn the deceased benefactor. It is impossible to go up to the grave and spit, having discovered unsightly duplicity in front of a respectable public. Or trinity. One Obraztsov is for Stalin, another for the public, and a third for himself.

Pushkin Square. After parting with Ernst Henry at Izvestia, I go up to the house where Eliseevsky is. Before the memorable fire, the WTO, the All-Russian Theater Society, was located on the upper floors. On the ground floor there is a restaurant for people with a theatrical profile. On the top floor, in the offices of Russian and Western drama, I went more often than in a restaurant. Mini-groups of critics were created there, whose task was to analyze performances staged in vast Russia. At one time, trips were to my heart. I wanted to see the country. Without the theatrical business trips offered by the WTO and magazines, I would not have flown to Norilsk and the Far East, the Baltic states, the west of Ukraine, Moldova, the Transcaucasus ... Business trips were not easy. But this is also a special topic, also extensive.

In a restaurant I meet an employee of the WTO. The beauty bestows a smile, because she knows that everyone knows: good! It gives itself pleasure to wave its tail:

- Yesterday I had dinner with Georgy Alexandrovich, he said ...

I interrupted: "Tovstonogov in Moscow?" The beauty was upset by the faux pas, but condescended: "Even in Moscow ...". Yielding to a sincere urgent request, she again condescended: “In the Budapest Hotel.

During sadly rare visits to St. Petersburg, I certainly visited the BDT. Not only as a spectator. In the presence of Sergei Yursky, Efim Kopelyan, Oleg Basilashvili, he signed on the well-known, dotted ceiling of their dressing room. Tovstonogov knew how much I appreciated his classical style, his reading of Griboyedov, Dostoevsky, Gorky. I can’t resist, I’ll also wag my tail: Georgy Alexandrovich remembered my articles in the Theater magazine - about Vera Panova, about a foreign play on the Moscow stage.

I'm calling Budapest. Persistently. The answer is stubborn silence. The evening is late. Calling is unforgivable.

- Georgy Alexandrovich! Trust me, it's urgent. Otherwise, I wouldn't...

— Come.

How long did it take for Ernst Henry to get to the hotel? It appeared to be a year. The guard at the entrance was inexorable. "Night in the yard. If everyone skips ... ". I'm heating up. “Tovstonogov is waiting. Appointed." I reach for my office phone. The Guardian is relentless: “Give to everyone…”. Glavrezh BDT found the right words for the guard. And the guard violated the order - missed. Hey, thanks! But Georgy Alexandrovich did not know that there were two of us. A telephone explanation - who, what and why - was completely ruled out. I'm going up to number one. I am sure that Georgy Alexandrovich is cursing me for the umpteenth time. In Budapest I am brief, as in Sovremennik. The speech is polished to a shine: Congress, Stalin, signature. Instantly guessing the muffled question (Am I not in vain, is he ready?), Georgy Alexandrovich threw back the covers, got up and, in his underwear and slippers, proved that he was ready.

I like the work of Georgy Alexandrovich - but this scene is more expensive than performances and books. No looking back at the local party committee, regional committee, Tolstikov-Romanov, Uncle Joe's nephews in Tbilisi...

Everything is good, but it can be better, beautiful Marquise.

The text "Appeal" in the pocket. In a jacket inside, and Ernst Henry makes a useful exercise to the corner of Petrovka and back. To the corner and back. I run down to do exercise. Nice meeting. I shift the text into my pocket - I confess, with an eye. The vigilant guardian is surprised that I am returning. “Just a minute, dear!..” Hey, thanks.

Enough about the theatre. Five-act dramas are out of fashion. Time pressure, and next in line are poets, prose writers. The artists are offended. I decide to remain faithful to the stage for the time being. From the center of St. Petersburg to cross to the center of Moscow. From the Bolshoi Drama Theater it is not difficult to go to the Bolshoi Academic Opera and Ballet. Imperial rank won't hurt.

In the Central House of Artists - in the Central House of Artists, Professor Zis, known throughout the theater in Moscow, noticing me during the intermission, asks: can I give a lecture tomorrow, at ten in the morning? About what I want - about films, performances, poets. Tomorrow, Tuesday, at the Bolshoi "politday". "Thank you for the honor." I read a lecture.

Request-plea is stronger than orders and commands. It was unthinkable not to help out the master, who was favorable to many - "thank you for the honor."

I lived opposite the Pushkin-Tsvetaevsky Museum. There are two stops from the Kropotkinskaya metro station to Okhotny Ryad. Ten minutes. What are you talking about…

He did not lie at the lecture. He said that I was a random guest. I was invited to talk about films, performances ... I wonder what and about what you would like to hear?

A day later, I received an adventurous offer to drop in on Tuesday mornings. Until the end of the season. “We pay pennies, but if I modestly ask and agree to a free place in the stalls, so be it.” I didn't bother. The next season I got used to the director's box. Rodion Shchedrin was easy to communicate with, ironic. In March 1966, the thought of Maya Plisetskaya made me restless. Rodion Konstantinovich went to meet them. It remains only to call. I was as accurate as a clock in a Swiss pharmacy. The first call, the ninth... I swear that Shchedrin is an angel. But the angel also has a liver, a spleen. Balletomaniacs, apparently, became rabid, clung. Shchedrin answered the seventeenth call in a friendly manner:

- Maya Mikhailovna washes her ass.

I would not divulge a family secret, but I appreciate the colorful style, I hope for kindness. The statute of limitations has passed, have mercy, benefactor!

During the day there is no one in the director's box. Waiting for Plisetskaya. The prima donna is fast. I am brief: the congress, Stalin, signature. Hearing the need for her, Maya Mikhailovna was transformed. I forgot about time pressure. Young Maika returned from the past, whose father was arrested in 1937 in Svalbard. They took their mother and drove her into the southern steppe. We are relatives by historical fate. Children of the same era, and even of the same age (the star is three months younger than Marlena Khutsiev).

- Let's have a sheet.

It's easy to say. The sheet is in the jacket pocket, and the pocket is now in the Central Department Store. Why at TSUM? Because the calculation is correct. After all, I went through the service entrance, went up to the box, not having a guarantee that the meeting would take place. I didn't know if the prima donna would say yes. In the Bolshoi, in the Imperial, big stars are taking a big risk. And how can Ernst Henry get to the box if there is no pass to enter it? There are so many signatures on the "Appeal" sheet that it is priceless. There is no right to risk, to miscalculate either.

Opposite the 16th entrance is the entrance to the Central Department Store. Ernst Henry in a crowded room looking at the goods on the shelves. Thoughtfully. At this moment I am speaking calmly, but then I did not enjoy peace. The prima donna is angry. The guard will let Ernst Henry through on her call. But where is he, your "buyer"?

I don't count steps. I fly to Petrovka without a coat and a hat. The drivers think he's crazy. Where is he thoughtful? Gradually we leave TSUM. Ernst Henry is respectful to drivers. And to the guard, wardrobe, hat, coat. But not to Plisetskaya. The star is hot. Sign silently. Today I ask again: “Excuse me, Maya Mikhailovna.”

It's time, brother, it's time to leave the stage. Obraztsov, Efremov, Tovstonogov, Plisetskaya… Isn't that too much? I dare not remain silent about Innokenty Smoktunovsky. Signed regally.

---

Phone call. A conversation with a dear editor. About all sorts of things. I dropped that I was dirtying paper. And the pure lyrics turned into industrially rigid prose. The result of the conversation is fatal - "the deadline is yesterday."

Correct time. "Tomorrow" is a blur. Debts must be paid off now.

It is more difficult for me in the boundless world of art than on the stage, than in the sea of ​​literature. Meanwhile, painters are not easy people. They have hot fights. If only my fragile boat had a reliable helmsman!

He dreamed for the day, dreamed for the night, and appeared in Sokolniki, in a wooden house, long demolished, to Nina Alexandrovna. Respected, appreciated, loved. I respect, appreciate, love. Nina Alexandrovna left seven years ago. Here are the lines from the obituaries.

... For more than half a century, the work of Nina Alexandrovna Dmitrieva was perceived as a standard of honesty, incorruptibility, impeccable taste. “As an expression of a unique literary gift” (academician Dmitry Sarabyanov, graduate of Moscow State University, classmate).

The ideal of the deceased was Chekhov. Books and essays about Alexander Ivanov, Surikov, Ge, Vrubel, about Western European art of Modern and Contemporary times, about Van Gogh, Picasso, his brilliant essays by N.A. Dmitrieva finished "to the level of a Chekhov story."

For a relative of Fet, father Alexander Men was a spiritually kindred authority.

Here is an excerpt from a letter to N.A. Dmitrieva to an old friend, an atheist scientist. “I do not understand anything either in science or in theology, and, of course, my choice is determined not only by the fact that their paths clearly converge, but by something else. There are such things as religious feeling, religious experience, and finally, "the moral law is within us." Their existence is as certain as the existence of elementary particles that do something there, it is not known how and why. And the most important thing (for me at least) is that all the most beautiful things that people have done are connected in one way or another with religious consciousness. Real architecture is temples: Egyptian, antique, Gothic, Renaissance, Orthodox churches - they are all dedicated to the Divine and all are beautiful ... but you can’t see temples dedicated to matter. ”

More about music, about the visual arts, about Bach, about Giotto, Raphael, Rembrandt ... "Non-religious art is a drop in the ocean."

Without the mediation of N.A. Dmitrieva's meeting with Pavel Dmitrievich Korin would not have taken place. To give a certificate to the young and green, to remind the gray-haired, who is this - Korin? Please. People's Artist of the USSR, laureate of the Lenin Prize, before it - the Stalin Prize. It is Stalin, and not the State. Awarded in 1952.

In a modest in all respects, by today's nondescript mansion, we entered respectfully. They paid tribute to the canvases of the owner, the collection of icons. To behave like in a museum (the mansion became a museum) was commanded not only by the duty of courtesy. I wanted not to think about the purpose of the visit, to spend the day until the evening “at home”.

But the tea kept getting cold again and again. The owner has already read the text of the Appeal. Slowly, with peasant thoroughness. He turned to Praskovya Tikhonovna, who did not distract her husband, did not engage us in secular conversation. He smiled guiltily.

- Well, mother, you have to sign.

When the tea party was over, the demon pushed me in the side.

- Pavel Dmitrievich, do you think Konenkov will sign?

Ernst Henry gave me a worried look, while Korin gave me a thoughtful, long one. Went to the phone. The conversation was also long. Hardly with Konenkov.

- If you can right now, without delay, you will be accepted. They won't be able to later. Didn't mention your names. Say from me.

Leaving the mansion, I did not plunge into conjectures, why the great painter had an interest in whether the great sculptor would sign the Appeal. The task was easier, but it turned out not to be easy. I distracted from the first one: how to get from Malaya Pirogovskaya to Pushkinskaya. I glared at every passenger car. The drivers did not respond to calls. Ernst Henry frowned. Both of us understood that the law of meanness was at work, sandwiches were flying into the mud, into the melting snow, oil down.

Finally! Semyon Nikolaevich retained, however, his style and his fidelity to principles. Soberly assessing the mud and puddles, went ahead. Between the piles there should be a passage from the sidewalk to the pavement. will appear. The only question is when. I didn't wait. I waved through the first pile. He didn't say a word in the car. And I wanted...

The password "Korin" opened the door to Konenkov. Not to the workshop, however, and not to the living room, but, obviously, to the reception room. Boring institutional. However, complaining for insignificant reasons is useless. The main thing is that they did it.

A lady came into the waiting room. Strict, with traces of former beauty. Listened to Ernst Henry. I took the text. She suggested to wait. We looked at each other silently. It is clear that we are not guests here, but walkers. Thanks for letting me in.

We know that waiting is a tiring task. You curse seven minutes like seventy-seven. But the real passed eleven. Twenty one. We ask each other a rhetorical question: for how long? We ask silently. A glance is enough. I mark the time. Thoughts crowd, crush each other. I drive some away, I order others: in fives in a column! Poor things. Exhausted, waiting. Step march!

Let's say a column stomps to the music of a sculptor. Konenkov has finished reading the "Appeal" and, apparently, is discussing the text with his wife. No objection, the problem is serious, the signature is responsible. There are plenty of reasons for doubt and disagreement.

Konenkov's talent manifested itself in the era of the Fifth Year. Confirmed in the Seventeenth. And later. But soon there were motives for a political aesthetic break with the Land of Soviets rising from the ashes. In a foreign land, the sculptor's talent did not die out, did not disappear. After the Victory of the 45th, Konenkov returned. Not from France, licking the wounds of defeat and shameful surrender (both domestic and moral wounds), but from the rich, triumphant States.

Stalin called Ivan Bunin to Russia. He called respectfully. He sent a poet, a soldier, a nobleman as a messenger to the Nobel Prize winner. I am convinced that Konstantin Simonov did not blunder. And yet... It didn't work. But Konenkov returned. With his return, he confirmed: the 45th is his, personally Stalin and, of course, Russia - a great Victory. The winner answered with Georgian generosity and Russian breadth. The sculptor became a People's Artist of the USSR, a Hero of Socialist Labor, a laureate of the Stalin and Lenin Prizes ... A full member of the Academy of Arts. By the grace of Joseph the First, he became the owner of a luxurious workshop. Near Pushkin Square, on the corner of Gorky Street. Here we are sitting in the waiting room to the general of Soviet Sculpture, to the marshal. And if I get out of here alive and go to the Manezh, to the metro, then on the right, at each of the entrances, on memorial plaques I will see the names of noble people, academicians, ministers.

The demon beguiled him to ask whether Konenkov would sign the Appeal. Pavel Dmitrievich wisely avoided answering. He picked up the phone, because he, Pavel Korin, was not at all indifferent to whether Sergei Konenkov signed. Other signatures did not raise questions. And the number of them did not excite at all.

Tired of sitting. He got up and started walking around. Like Stalin, only without a pipe. If we can't sit through "yes," then why sit through "no"? Gotta get the claws out of here. And you can't. Chained to the "Appeal", "like a convict to a wheelbarrow."

The second column paddled under my proud flag. She cursed me. I answered rudely.

— Yes, fraer. Not thieves, not nablatykanny, not a thief in law. But not as cheap as you shameful bitches bleat.

In the depths of my soul I admitted: they are right, not I. Eat your louse! Broken fraer, but fraer was so cheap. Screwed up shamefully. In a quarter of an hour or an hour, invited guests will come in here, take it by the scruff of the neck. Or they will show humanity by giving a knee in the ass.

I rejected both versions. In the waiting room at Konenkov's, next to Pushkin, on the corner at Gorky's to miss Ernst Henry? And me, excuse me, a member of three Unions - writing, theatrical, journalistic. At the same time, the fourth - the USSR. Scandal splashes out of bounds. The Union of Artists, the academies, the 23rd Congress - nobody needs a scandal. Here, closer to summer, in a quiet alley, where there is less fuss than on Tverskaya, a brother, a trained gangster, will meet. It will make holes in three or four places, according to the number of Unions. The investigation will stretch for fifteen years ... Normally. No complaints. Seventeen years ago, also in March, I said that I would not falter. For the motherland, for Stalin, cheers!

The third column minted a step under the banner of Ernst Henry, and I showed a bad temper. I grumble, I reproach. A wise colleague prophesied Hitler's adventure, predicted Barbarossa's plan, but in the center of Moscow he clapped his ears. I knew that Ernst Henry was imprisoned in Poland, in Germany, that he tasted his native Lubyanka. He was arrested following or earlier, together with his boss, Ivan Mikhailovich Maisky, the ambassador in London. Lucky. He became a prisoner on the eve of Stalin's death. The court did not wait, the verdict was not received. He was released because Molotov, the head of the Foreign Ministry, grew bolder. He turned to Beria, and the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs found reasons to show kindness. He returned Zhemchuzhina to his inconsolable husband from the Kazakh zone. I think Molotov helped - or at least did not prevent - the return to freedom of Ambassador to England Maisky, international publicist Ernst Henry. An honest worker of a noble department and at the same time a Lubyanka convict. Dialectics…

I turn to Ernst Henry:

We have different plans for the evening. Would it be nice to agree?

There is truth on earth. Entering the reception room, the Strict Lady returned the text, announced the decision: "Sergey Timofeevich will not sign." Ernst Henry bowed like a sophisticated gentleman and thanked the lady. And in the ignorant Lefortovo, questions got stuck in my throat ... Why didn’t they kick me out earlier, it would be better. Didn't take it by the collar?

Going out to the corner of Pushkin-Gorky, I felt: hunger is not an aunt. Working hypotheses wanted to consider independently. I suspect that Ernst Henry felt the same way. They parted, not doubting that God would give the day, and give food.

Looking ahead and realizing that it will not be possible to talk about Konenkov's sculptures tomorrow, I hasten to report: the most interesting of the questions cleared up with unexpected ease. Once I lay down on the couch. With General Sudoplatov. To be more precise, I lay down with a book of generals' memoirs - an event in the memoir games of our time.

The memoirist did not hide: Konenkov's wife became the passion of Albert Einstein. Her contribution to the work of our atomic scientists on the bomb was significant. The department of Lavrenty Beria appreciated the merits of the Soviet lioness. True, I did not understand myself, appreciated more or less than Albert Einstein, how, than appreciated merit. The question remains open. But it became clear: while we were bored idle, the strict lady was not bored. Phoned. Got an answer. Did it contain a request (hint, instruction, order) to discuss the text with Konenkov? More likely no than yes". There is absolutely no need to worry.

The conclusion was obvious. The assessment of Stalin given in the letter to Ehrenburg, and, accordingly, the idea of ​​writing a letter to the congress, to Leonid Brezhnev, received support from high up. Whose? I believe that the main ideologist of the Central Committee of the CPSU, the theoretician of the post-Stalin era - Mikhail Andreevich Suslov. I will refrain from substantiating my guess with quotes. Whoever has a time limit and the desire appears, let him look for them, rewrite, repeat my delusions. Let not be frightened by the multi-volume academician Sakharov and the two-volume book by Ernst Henry - evidence in favor of the proposed version in bulk.

But is it a paradox: Stalin's chosen one, according to reliable facts - his heir, a hard-working Stalinist, and suddenly against cleaning the soiled image of the Master, Master, Teacher? Yes, a paradox, but not without logic. The theoretician understood better than some of the powerful practitioners: after the 20th and 22nd Congresses, after the gates of the Gulag were opened and the surviving convicts fell free, steep, direct, rude Stalinization is undesirable. Doomed. Breaking the General Line is dangerous.

Glancing at the clock, he gasped. The minutes allocated for the Academy of Arts have run out. And ahead is a talk about the masters of the pen. Their relationship with Comrade Stalin was distinguished by deep intimacy. No less close friendship than the one that flourished in the world of arts among the masters of the chisel and brush.

Returning from the Moscow region, he hurried to Istorichka. Pay off debts accumulated over the summer. Spending morning, evening, afternoon in the library, I fell into despair. I was convinced that I would cut an oak without paying off my debts. I was amazed: it was forty-degree heat, smoke, waste, and there was so much piled up in the press that it was impossible to pay off before severe frosts.

Perked up, devouring "Continent" after "Continent". It so happened that in the expiring Tenth year he was on a "continental" diet, he was hungry. Now savored number after number.

No. 142. Editor-in-Chief I. Vinogradov recalled the completely forgotten I. Kramov. About a writer of the highest standard, twice a sixties ... The deceased would have celebrated his ninetieth birthday today. He died at the age of sixty. The diary prose of the hero of the day has not been published before.

The magazine contains an introductory lecture on Russian culture given by Olga Sedakova in England, at the University of Kiel, in English; an obituary, a lyrical-memoir essay by Tamara Zhirmunskaya about Alexander Mezhirov… It is a pity that my task does not include the correspondence of the “Selected Tables of Contents”, I would have made a lot of money on advertising.

No. 143. Half of my friends. The title character is Sergei Yuryevich Yursky, who blew off three-quarters of a century. Anatoly Smelyansky wrote a brilliant response to the celebration at the Moscow City Council Theatre. An essay about the hero of the day - an actor, director, prose writer, playwright. About talent, position, traveled path…

No. 144 demanded an epigraph: "There are no words, I cannot be silent." I've known Irina Rodnyanskaya for forty years. Fifty - with Igor Vinogradov. Seventy-seven - with Yuri Afanasiev. But to predict their fight, cutting backhand - neither under execution, nor for a billion. The conversation about the confession of the prisoner's son Mark Rozovsky, about the rebuke of Lev Timofeev, a prisoner of the post-Stalin years, about his essay on the current Stalinian and "many other things" I put aside for "shcha". Violating the auto-ban and limits, I will devote a few lines to Evgeny Yermolin and Evgeniya Shcheglova, reviewers of book and magazine products - very different in profile, guides, masters.

Thank you! Without you, I would wander in the thickets and thickets of waste paper, wander blindly, stumbling and falling. You disperse the twilight, clear the way, take you to the edge. From a tired lazy person to indefatigable workers, a respectful, cordial bow.

Stalin is a guest in each of the parts of the trilogy - in No. 2, 3, 4. You can’t believe your eyes, but you can see it from the hall, on the stage, in the central box, on all screens. The name is bowed everywhere, as in the years of the Cult.

The world grows up on legends, legends lie under a monument, fix or tear down a pedestal. A very restless dead man is provided with delights and curses for a long time. My generation will not succeed in being separated from Stalin. The 20th century was spent together. And in the new chained to the Best Friend. I am trying to look at the monument from the standpoint of historical-political, social-national, moral-immoral, legal, philosophical, ecological-medical…

Bad luck. On this "Postscriptum-2" remains a day. Tomorrow, October 21, I'm giving away a sketch. The editor will have nine days to chop, boil, fry. October 30 is Political Prison Day. So, having said goodbye to Pavel Korin, to Tovstonogov, you will have to rush to a treatise that enlightens how it happened: Korney Chukovsky signed the “Appeal” to Brezhnev!

I would have rushed, but Korney Ivanovich has hundreds of publications on his account. The daughter epic was born by Lydia Korneevna. A new life for diaries, "Chukkokale", fairy tales was given by the granddaughter Elena Tsezarevna. And I am a cockerel, a cockerel forward with my interpretation of the cunning moves of the great literary dynasty? Not funny.

Somewhere Colonel Meticulous prepared for battle. squinted:

- Illogical. A non-partisan resident of Peredelkino donated by Stalin should not wave a letter against the coming Stalinization. Why should an old summer resident rebel against a return to youth?

To fulfill a civic duty.

- A country neighbor is not necessarily a friend. Why did Valentin Kataev wave the Appeal?

“You are right, Colonel. Logic fails here. The dialectic worked.

- Valentin Kataev - an old soldier, laureate. It is clear why he supported Suslov's course. But why did Konstantin Paustovsky meet with Kataev while visiting Mikhail Andreevich? Awards, no prizes. Not a Hero. And why did Sergei Smirnov refuse to sign?

Correctly refused. He led the battle for the Brest Fortress. Talking on the TV about the difficult fate of her heroes, he took the fire upon himself. Letters to him came in a flood, and with them commitments. Striking a balance in the relationship of the suffering with those who could alleviate their suffering was not easy. Tvardovsky's signature would not have been superfluous either. But he was dragging a cartload of Novy Mir. He did not leave hope to break through the Cancer Ward, In the First Circle. It was impossible to bother him. The signature would have been a big mistake.

"I don't see the logic," the Colonel repeats. - Victor Nekrasov fought for Stalingrad, for Tsaritsyn and the Volga. Received the Stalin Prize. Root Russian. Why did he spit in the grave of his Benefactor? The Supreme Commander praised the Russian people. He did not replace his own son for a field marshal, but this "nekrasov" gave up the ends in a foreign land. Traitor.

- Viktor Nekrasov fulfilled his national, civil, military duty. I remember: at the very first camp, upon arrival, they threw me a question. Difficult. "What is the USSR?" How could he answer. The old prisoner chuckled: "Stalin's death will save Russia." Six dozen have passed since then. History has answered the old convict's question.

Today it is no easier than yesterday to say whether the decision to apply for a signature to Slutsky was the right one. When the Union of Writers took up arms against Pasternak, did not discuss, but condemned, Boris Abramovich was aware of the burden that would hang on him, since a fellow countryman, a relative from Kharkov from the Slutsky family, having replaced Russia with Israel, became a legend of the Mossad. Gritting his teeth, the poet - a soldier of the Patriotic War, a commissar, a military lawyer - fulfilled his duty. He threw the shortest remark about the namesake, who defiantly violated discipline. A forced move by others would be easily forgiven. But not Slutsky. He paid until the tragic end of a heroic life. And the low-grade riff-raff revealed a high talent, a poet of great courage. I forgot that having won the Victory, the poet-soldier in the capital of the State carried an unbearable burden on his shoulders: shell shock, lack of an apartment. When the house appeared - the fatal illness of his beloved wife ...

It is a pity that a computer has not yet been invented that calculates historically accurately, in advance: approach this boldly, do not come close to that. While preparing the “Appeal”, to bypass a poet of such a scale and rank as Slutsky meant to inflict on him the gravest insult ...

The text of the "Appeal" together with the list of signatories was published in one of the volumes of the most valuable edition of documents, conceived by Academician A.N. Yakovlev. "International Foundation "Democracy". Russia. XX century. By the autumn of 201, 57 were published; how much will come out in the winter, I'll find out by the spring. In one of the volumes devoted to rehabilitation - “How it was. February 1956 - the beginning of the 60s ”(M., 2003), along with the text and the list, as an introduction to them, a note by the Minister of State Security V.E. Semichastny in the Central Committee of the CPSU - about the wide distribution in Moscow of letters from scientists, literature, art against the rehabilitation of Stalin. I learned from the minister's report that a small group of refuseniks known to Ernst Henry and me since 1966 had been infiltrated by an unknown person, E. Yevtushenko. I suspected my memory. Sclerosis? He subjected himself to a severe interrogation. Making excuses, sinful memory from the bottom, from hidden corners, dragged meetings with E. Yevtushenko. On Herzen - in the Small Hall, in Oak, in the buffet ... In the Botkin hospital, when Evgenia Ginzburg was lying in it. In Georgia, in the days of Gamsakhurdia's rule. Despite his hostility to Chabua Amirejibi, the admirers of the author of the novel "Data Tutashkhia", friends, relatives celebrated his anniversary, as the age-old law dictated. At Yevtushenko's house, in the building of the hotel "Ukraine" ... The conclusion was clear: the chronology of intersections with Yevgeny Yevtushenko ruled out talking about a message to Brezhnev, to the congress. Perhaps Ernst Henry kept silent about the poet's refusal to accept his, Ernst Henry's proposal? Of every hundred facts hidden in his trunk, Ernst Henry withheld 97 from the most trusted. But he could not hide the fact of his meeting with Yevtushenko. She wasn't there. I'm sure it couldn't be. There is strong evidence.

E. Yevtushenko is now approaching the age of the patriarch. Connoisseurs of the poet's work will argue more than once how many excellent lines the patriarch has, how many for a four, a three. With any of their ratio - the path passed breathtaking. The distance behind is a marathon. For the poets of Russia, according to a bitter tradition, it is shorter. A week ago, in a record-circulation newspaper, E. Yevtushenko's friend-rival, his parallel companion, was called "the mouthpiece of the era." I would accept this formula with reservation. If a journalist also admits that our great, rich, overloaded era has many mouthpieces. What should be judged historically...

By the centenary of Tvardovsky, the family and friends of the family managed to bring Alexander Trifonovich's Novomirsky Diary to print. Two volumes. Without any reservations - an epoch-making publication. The best of the monuments to Tvardovsky. Monument of time. Comparable to "Vasily Terkin". The first volume ends in the 66th year.

Tvardovsky still does not know that Voznesensky will acquire the title of "mouthpiece". Alexander Trifonovich is not jealous - the boys are not worthy of jealousy. Alexander Trifonovich is much stricter than the current talents, geniuses. Much more responsible for the Word.

"March. Day 22 1964. Barvikha. About Joseph Brodsky. “The boy, generally speaking, is rather nasty, but, of course, gifted, perhaps more than Yevtushenko and Voznesensky combined.”

"March. Day 17 1965. A wonderful couple - Sofronov and Yevtushenko. Thick and thin, plump and curly. Both strongly stand each other - two sides of the same coin.

"July. Day 13 1968. There is a writer whose name is now the most significant (for the world's reading intelligentsia) in Soviet literature. No, just not Fedin, but not Sholokhov and not Yevtushenko-Voznesensky.

Do you need other evidence to insist: Ernst Henry did not offer E. Yevtushenko to sign an autograph next to Andrei Sakharov's. But let's assume for a moment that I suggested. Then I must believe that E. Yevtushenko refused the high honor. Pa-che-mu? His shares would rise in the Soviet republics, in the fraternal countries, in the sublunar world.

How, from whom did the enlightened minister learn that Yevgeny Yevtushenko refused to sign? I can not know. Yevgeny Alexandrovich is able to recall March 1966. Perhaps he will find a moment, tell you how and with whom poetic games were played then ...

My limit has been reached. But cutting off the story about the operation "Y", he has no right to conceal. A conflict arose between Ernst Henry and myself towards the close of the curtain. Ernst Henry wanted to put a full stop after the seventeenth signature. I wanted to continue. Other dates have already been scheduled and agreed upon. I couldn't cancel them. "The need has disappeared, you are free." I insisted, “A quarter is better than seventeen. Weighty. Ernst Henry was also right: the best is the enemy of the good.

Why did I stumble? How much prettier is a quarter? In a dispute about his beauty, I realized why he was dear to me. I am lucky. The OSO slapped a quarter in the gap between the abolition of the death penalty and its re-introduction. Soon, on the eve of recovery. Now I’m throwing my father’s execution into my purse, into my bag, my mother’s seventeen, my friends’ bones, I’m throwing a lot of things and I’ll go to Comrade Stalin. I’ll knock: “I beg your pardon that I return the debt with an unforgivable delay, that I lasted until the autumn of the zero year, until October 30th. Don't get angry. State holiday. True, for many personal.

Conceived, discussed the holiday on the bunk Kronid Lyubarsky. In Mordovia, in Potma.

This would be the point. “You don’t have a minute of time, but I, the unlucky one, remembered a wonderful May day. Please be patient."

I arrived in the capital of Ossetia from the capital of a single State. They sent the WTO and a thick magazine, waiting for an essay. The head of local writers took me to the mountains. How else - a colleague. The feast was seated next to the mighty old man. After him I drained the araki horn. The strongest, breath intercepted. And another horn - pride did not allow to refuse, to shame Moscow. Suddenly a push to the side:

— Sykudadel?

I don't understand. He furtively glanced at his fly. Isn't araka too strong?

— Sykudadel?

Before the third horn came. I carefully examined the companions - respectable and young - at a long table of planks covered with sheets. Similar to Koba, the spitting image of Vissarionich ... I remembered that in the company of my same-year-olds Donara (daughter of the people), Ninel, Vilen, Melor (friends shouted to him - Marx, Engels, Lenin, the October Revolution, come here). He answered dryly to his dear neighbor: "There are enough of our own." And he said goodbye to the old man coldly; he is sure that I am a traitor. Father and mother were called MarlenSom, and I renounced Stalin: “Where are you going?”.

By the way, there is no reproach to parents. They showed taste and restraint. Could have seated four luminaries on children's shoulders. Four are harder to carry.

In recent years, reading about Ossetia, about Georgia, about Abkhazia, I feel only pain and bitterness. Maybe on that May day, at a collective farm feast in the mountains, a gray-haired, powerful, handsome neighbor was not 100% wrong? Where should we, Marlen, Malor, go from Stalin? The century was spent in different ways, in different ways, but together. They won't let you forget, they won't let you. Why now she remembered the meeting in Ossetia? Not suddenly.

I leafed through the newspaper before going to bed. In Novaya for October 20, I finished reading the monologue of Mark Zakharov.

“Russian cities are to this day dotted with the names of Marx, Lenin, Sverdlov, Uritsky, Clara Zetkin, Rosa Luxemburg. Gilded dwarfs or gloomy gray idols…”. Stalin did not hurt, but still nobly, bravely. The chief director's monologue is a response to the Decree of the President. The first lines of the essay are devoted to the decree. I, Marlene, would have endured Marx-Lenin, although not gray idols. Finished by Rosa Luxembourg. I remember: I was 1 m 56 cm tall. I dragged my leg. I understood that the rebellious Spartak was doomed. Then, in January 1919, yesterday's prisoner was offered to leave the shelter, to save her life. Rejected escape. It is unworthy to leave the German proletariat in trouble!

They shot him, threw the corpse into the Landwehr Canal. Found after nine decades. And just now, the head of the Moscow "Lenkom", it is known why he who joined the Communist Party, then burned his ticket smartly, publicly, now in his sensitive monologue contemptuously tramples the convict four times?! Which is honored by the new left, the old right - in all latitudes! Next to this little lame-legged, some of her tall detractors look bad. Dwarfs without gilding.

Joy erupted in the last lines of the monologue. They talk about “Her Majesty Nadezhda”, about “the wind of inevitable changes”, about “stars in the sky”… Marlene, along with Mark, “managed to be born” in the Russian state. In the capital of our country. Little of. I would like to die not far from the Tagansky maternity hospital.

I will devote the last lines of my monologue to the funeral. Not his own, but Yuri Dombrovsky. He died in May, was born in May - he got tired. Chabua Amirejibi flew in to see off the camp friend on his last journey. The four of us decided to commemorate the deceased. In the Oak Hall of the Central House of Writers, Yuz Aleshkovsky, Chabua Amirejibi, Andrey Bitov and az sinny sat down at a table. Between a native of Krasnoyarsk, two "enemies of the people" - a Tbilisi, Moscow, disgraced St. Petersburg nobleman, there were no differences. Whoever and no matter how you were baptized, no matter what article of the Criminal Code is marked, you must carry your cross without staggering. There is a setting - do not reset. The dead man carried his cross to the end. Climb up Golgotha. He completed his main work - "Faculty of unnecessary things." Great novel.

Whoever said "there is no truth on earth ..." did not climb up. I didn't drink with anyone in heaven. And if he drank once, he did not eat. Two years ago, the late Dombrowski uncorked his second century. Three weeks later, on November 18, Chabua will drink a sip and two more, meeting his ninetieth year. In September of the past - the ninth - Hughes celebrated his eighty. A year after Dombrovsky's death - not in May, but in April - I went on a wedding trip with his niece. Who understands the dates philosophically, he flogs: science fiction is unscientific. May the youngest of the four, far-off Hughes, forgive me if I adorn this flawed prose with historically strict, unfading, as of old, young poetry.

... We immediately confessed to other people's sins,
Stage went to meet the evil fate,
But they believed you like that, Comrade Stalin,
How can you not believe yourself...
Smoke a thousand years, Comrade Stalin,
And let me have to die in the taiga,
I believe: there will be iron and steel
Quite per capita.

Marlene Korallov