Unpublished letters of Elvira Goryukhina to the chief editor

From the editorial office

Instead of goodbye

She was an absolute genius. Now, if they can be geniuses in journalism, this is definitely Elvira Nikolaevna Goryukhina.

She always desperately hoped for the power of the imagination of readers. Imagination as the beginning of understanding. I tried to turn on the imagination and with it to fall into place of another person. Therefore, the pain of people felt so sharply and so mercilessly to herself.

It was one of those geniuses that did not take conversations about their own genius to the spirit. There are those who carry it easily and with joy.
And Goryukhina is angry, waves his hand, stomping his feet when we tell her that she is a genius ... But we still told her and say to her. Because they knew and know - she is an absolute genius.

Elvira Nikolaevna Goryukhina could not help but work. She worked tirelessly all the time.

She was such a teacher-teacher. In the highest and touching sense of the word.

I never forgot her students. For decades, she maintained a close connection with them. And she did not forget her heroes. Just people from just life. Yes, for her all people were just people from just life. Even the most famous.

She loved Parajanov, Tbilisi, farmers from whom they took the lands, Beslan children who, after the tragedy, were treated with verse of Brodsky, Brodsky himself and, of course, Pushkin, Lermontov, Tolstoy, Shalamova, a school in Koneltsi, Altai peasants, with whom Evgeny Onegin, whose village was the laid and outdoor. Divine varieties of Dutch potatoes.

She loved her Chechen friends, she generally loved all her friends and us, her colleagues.

She never buried, did not rise, did not fall into arrogance or wild anger.

She loved to dance on the table, but did not like to be photographed, act on video and give interviews.

She really did not like those who offend people.

She was engaged in the most important in journalism - the lives of people.

And we loved her. And love.

Elvira Nikolaevna Goryukhina wrote letters to many of us. By hand, calligraphic small handwriting. Such long wonderful letters.

Now that she was gone, we publish - without demand - some excerpts from them.

"New Gazeta"

"All power - imagination!"

Unpublished letters of Elvira Goryukhina to the chief editor

“I did not think that you would seriously treat my letter. It was written in a hurry, the day after the sentence. This letter had the idea of ​​the teachers of Mikhail Kosenko (“Bolotnik”. - Ed.). Then and now it remains the main one for me. Since she is not clarified in a letter, I consider it possible to continue it.

If you want to consider this thought with repentance or an attempt to realize the role in the fate of those whom we teach and educate is not so important. And the important thing is that in my long teacher’s life two generations were deceived. In this deception I was directly involved. I was lucky to work in a wonderful school, where a teacher of history told my students: "You are statesmen." There were thawing years. 1950–1960s. They were replaced by a deaf stagnation.

Once, students in 1974 decided to arrange a court over me, their teacher. The fact is that after a number of years

They conducted a kind of "sociological study." It showed: those who succumbed to the spells of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, by teaching lamentations about statesmen did not succeed in life.

Those who least believe in these lamentations achieved success not only in career growth, but also in life success in the broad sense of the word.

And so they come to my house to tell about the idea of ​​court.

“And why didn’t the court take place?” - without trembling, I asked, ready for everything.

I don’t remember who Misha Kuzmin was, a prosecutor or lawyer, but he said: “I did not want to condemn the best that was in us and, perhaps, remained.”

Weak, I must say, comfort for the teacher. As brilliantly accurately noticed by my student Seryozha Pavlenko, "the Trifon conformists are in the present, which turned into eternal." “There were many events, but nothing has changed. Look, nothing has changed! " - The great phrase is the same Sergey. But the event happened. Gorbachev’s time has come. Best time for the teacher. Do not list the pedagogical and experimental sites. It really seemed to us that we can do a lot.

The other day I found the composition of Sasha Matveev. This is an examination composition. June 1989. The list of topics was this: a review of a work on choice. Brilliant theme. Sasha chose the "bison" by D. Granin. Composition on 12 pages.

There is everything: up to a polemic with G. Popov, who believed that the system survived because it concluded contracts with people like a bison. This thesis Matveev resolutely rejected: “The bison was an autonomy. He had his own story, his ideals, his own science. <...> We must understand that to create a fair state, one does not need to forcibly destroy it. It is necessary to create a system of justice in itself and form other structures in the bowels of totalitarianism. And good will delight! "

And here is the final of the composition: “Will we understand the bison? Will we feel fear and delight, and not just fear? “Zubrov” is an open book, and the bison is an open book. We read it, we live on it. There is a high sky, the sky of fate, the bottomless abyss of the soul. And we are leafing through the book of Cosmos, embodied in several people. ” What a spiritual force in every line! On this pathos of Gorbachev’s time, they became citizens. (We should contact Granin and read this letter with him.)

But ... “The institution is more powerful than people” (this is the pearl of one of my students), it was not asleep.

The same 1989 was walking. Novosibirsk Lubyanka discovered an underground youth organization.
It consisted of five of my students.

Parents saved the children as best they could. Turned to our church. She informed that it was not interfering in worldly affairs. Catholics helped.

Two "underground" became theologians. One of them - Cyril Wojutzel - writes a dissertation about the humanity of God. The other - Sergey Grechushkin - traveled all our hot spots. The main “Troubles”, Misha Yudanin, writes a dissertation in America about the genetic substantiation of altruism.

The best of the best is not only not in demand, they are expelled.

My boys repeated exactly the experience of another generation. And what could I do, teacher? Nothing!

<...> So, everything returns to its circles. As Seryozha Pavlenko wrote, "only the reference point is definitely known, today that is spinning in yesterday, and nothing more." His composition was called "power - imagination."

More recently, she discovered that the May events of 1968 were under the slogan "All power of the imagination!" Sergei could not know this, because then he studied in the second or third grade. I found out later? In the dead of stagnation? And wrote about the power of his imagination? Who knows ... Sergey's traces were lost.

And the same question remains: will the event happen or will it turn into eternity again today?

PS

Sorry if something is wrong. So where is the teacher Kosenko?

Sincerely, Elvira.

November 27, 2013. "

***

“I was completely useless. Not a single thought tied to a specific case. And there is no business.

<...> Here are my three paragraphs. Now you understand my mediocrity? I need a fact. And only a fact. We have the only person who boldly wanders in abstractions (and deeply, seriously and humanly) is Zoya Eroshok. There are no others! And I need to go to the ground. Without it, my thought is not just starting, but simply does not appear. Well, no way! Sorry for the sake of God! You think about me better than I am. Stupid with terrible force.

Sincerely, Elvira

December 18, 2012. "

When Boris Nemtsov was elected deputies from the Yaroslavl region, Goryukhina accidentally met him there. She at that time treated him almost with hostility: some kind of playboy. But it was in Yaroslavl that she saw that Nemtsov was completely different. And wrote about it. And right away - in the newspaper. And a year later. In a letter to the chief editor

***

“Then, first of all, it struck how he enters into a conversation with the people. I'm not afraid of this word. From rural experience I know that people are not the amount of units. This is a new reality, this is a different way of reaction inconsistent with the reaction of an individual. What has occupied Tolstoy all his life. But where does the intellectual, intellectual physics have an accurate understanding of what is called folk life, folk psychology?

Damn it, I so wanted to understand what the mechanism of his interaction with people he sees for the first time. Bright and successful interaction. The point is not only that he knew everything about the maternity hospitals and the housing and communal services, about the Yaroslavl engines. The matter is something else. What? Would realize this ...

In my letter to you, I forgot to write about the fact that perhaps it is very significant. Boris Nemtsov felt his responsibility for those to whom he came. It was felt by everyone. It's like pouring rain. Someone suddenly opens an umbrella over your head.

One can only guess what mental (spiritual) expenses the whole election campaign cost. In fact, there is always one thing: joy and pride of involvement in a common life - the source of our forces.

Elvira Goryukhina

February 8, 2016. "

“... reduced the prayer of a nine -year -old girl that important for me.

Oh Allah! For the sake of born
and unknown language,
For the sake of bed
our old people,
For the sake of animals and birds who do not know
the language of my people
Stop the war!

(Fatima Baidueva)

This prayer is written in the lesson in my presence. In 1995. I asked the teacher Raisa Gayrakhanov, this is the first or second grade. She said: "This is Malik Du (an angel)." And then she added: “It does not matter, the Russian child or Chechen. Anyway - there is an angel. ”

And a year later, already in 1996, another teacher said that her children, who survived the first years of the war, came to school as if with an erased memory: they did not remember the hum of aircraft, as they were sitting in the basements. The teacher was delighted. She believed that this was a protective mechanism of childhood. The mystery of this protection was opened in the first lesson: children not only did not remember new information, they did not perceive it. No way! The perception channel was blocked.

My friend Hasmagomet Osmaev, the director of the Achha-Martan school, with whom I came Bamut and Samashki, said that the children were all sick. The difference is only in the degree of defeat.

I did not write about the most terrible - like Russian children born in Chechnya perceived the war. This is where the genuine drama. And what was the Russian teachers?

Nina Makarenko, in whom I lived in Achkhoi-Martan, entered the classroom after another bombing with the words: "Children, do you want to say anything to me?" The children answered the question with the question: "And you will not leave?" I asked why she was not leaving.

- What are you, Elvira, a difficult theme “Communion” began.

I found Nina. We call up. We meet. She is Russian. Father oilman. Born in the argon.

In the evenings, we went down to the apartment on the ground floor, where handsome Kuraysh lived with his family. This Chechen saved the Makarenko family from the pogrom. What he did with the pogroms, Nina still does not know. Suggests the worst.

We sat down on the carpet, in late night they were talking. I did not know a safer place than the Kureish house in Chechnya.

And the Chechen teachers Lisa and Louise from Samashki teaching Russian literature?!

- Did I really say this in the lessons about the Russian soldier and symbols of Russian honor? - either asked, or said Louise.

But Pushkin, Lermontov, Tolstoy were not touched by this war, as the Chechen Museum of Tolstoy remained intact, although all such institutions were turned to dust. This is where the Lord tells me to go.

<...> Tolstoy is a special article. Once I talked with an assistant to the mayor of Grozny Mohammed Satuyev. They talked about Haji Murat. I quoted the place where Tolstoy talks about the attitude of Chechens towards the Russians.

They treated the Russians as rats. Of course, I wanted to say about the degree of immersion of the writer in the psychology of another people.

Magomet interrupted me:

- This is the wrong translation!

- Hello! I yelled. - This is the original!

But Mohammed did not give up.

- Many difficulties on Earth come from the fact that the judgments of great people are read incorrectly. Tolstoy says only that each people have its own rats. We also have Chechens.

He did not correct Tolstoy. He could not allow this Tolstoy phrase to become a bargaining coin for someone. He stood guard of our relationship.

Do not judge too strictly.

With the deepest respect,

Elvira Goryukhina

January 9, 2015. "

***

“Don't be scared! This is not an article. This is a report. If you want, the report that Anya Artemyeva and I made in Konretsi. I do not know who we were there: volunteers, teachers, psychologists, and mass-and-beers. So, our duty was for the reader to see all the bonfires.

Barriers, like scam, are amazing by the lack of drunk, with whom conversations about the village are usually connected. Here they say about this simply: "The drunkards have already died out."

The complete absence of theft: the doors are closed mainly from livestock. The priest drove us to a new, not yet completed house. There are blocks, expensive tools. The house does not close.

<...> People live difficult. I was absolutely right when she said: "We are not one country." Fifteen years ago, a new district police officer came from Barnaul to my beloved Kosikha of the Altai Territory. Great guy. I found out why he was sitting in a kutuzka: one stole a chicken, the other - a bucket pulled out at a neighbor.

After living a month in Kosikha, seeing that everything fell apart and no work, he was surprised to say to me: “Well, the people went ... They would have to shoot each other and set fire to at home. And he - dragged the chicken. "

Sincerely, Elvira

January 13, 2014. "

***

“First, about the main thing: the third day from Moscow to Omsk, Pyotr Fedorovich Shumakov and his grandson flew out. Thanks to the help of readers of our newspaper, the child was examined in a German clinic. Our legendary farmer, whom I know 15 years, was amazed at how the examination was conducted. After 20 days, tests will come, and the actual treatment will begin. There is an encouraging forecast: the boy can stand up and go. It's like in the Gospel of Matthew: "Stand up and go."

Now the country suddenly found out that we have complete devastation in seed production. But Schumakov fought for the seeds all these years. Cool seed, he handed over 320 tons of elite grain of the Association of farms. Elite grain was replaced by forage and sold to farmers for calculation. The harvested harvest did not allow farmers to pay. Someone got into a psychiatric hospital, someone committed suicide, someone forever left the ground as a workplace.

Shumakov fought with this "scam of the century", as he said. He fought with everyone: governors, prosecutors, law enforcement agencies, scammers of all stripes. He wrote thousands of sheets in all instances - deaf! Neither human life nor the fate of seed production in the country excited anyone. Peter Fedorovich has one strange trait, the meaning of which I could never comprehend: when I read prosecutorial fairy tales (prohibitively stupid), he always laughed. Was his faith in the possibility of punishing a criminal?

And the criminals did not subside. They burned his courtyard. They turned off the light in the greenhouse, where the roses bloomed in the winter. Expressed equipment. Only once, three years ago, in a darkened elevator of our editorial office, I saw his tears. He awkwardly apologized: "... He could not stand it."

Sometimes we succumb to metaphorical designations: "Shumakov lives in the village patience and is full of patience that ends." So: he never endured the lawlessness of the authorities. The fighter is in the true meaning of the word. Was his laughter an attempt to hide the fatigue or did he already understood the futility of the started struggle? Don't know. His power went from the ground. The earth was his passion. The miracle of germination from the seed of a new living creature was bewitching for him. Why am I writing "was"? After all, he is now in resistance. Nevertheless, he was crushed by trouble with his grandson, a marvelous boy Denis. Gifted artistic word. Pyotr Fedorovich brought his stories, in which Grandfather's love of earth, animals, plants, gained a new life.

Pyotr Fedorovich is happy that he came to good doctors. They told the farmer what he not only guessed, but also knew: his grandson was poisoned.

Already saying goodbye, he said: “Do we really have to pay for the right to work on Earth ...” There was a long pause. Filled by his inner speech, the one that is difficult to transfer into an external plan. I got only the last part of the internal monologue.

- ... That's what I had to pay ...

***

“I have one pain that does not even leave in the hospital. This is Beslan. I understand that on this day there should be our Lena Milashina, who made as much for Beslan and Beslanians as much as not a single newspaper and not a single journalist. She is all for them. The idea to collect your observations of Beslanes remains in my life. I don't have as much time as we would like. But now this is not about that. Even then, in October 2004, when I first got into Beslan, I was struck by one circumstance: in the words of adults and children, I often heard what I knew. Later I realized a lot of what I heard, I knew from the book of the great man Victor Frankl. The book is called "Say life" yes! ": A psychologist in a concentration camp."

The great truths and human meanings are comprehended by Frankl as a prisoner and as a psychologist, but how do they know Bel Gubieva, who was 12 years old, and her eight -year -old brother?

On my second visit (December 2004 - January 2005) I have already tried to ask many questions to comprehend the similarity and difference in what is called an experienced. On New Year's Eve, Bela wrote another essay. I read it in schools of different cities and sat down. And what do you think? In my native tenth school, high school students exclaimed immediately: “This is the final of the White Guard. Bel Bulgakova did not read. Where does such a vision of the world come from? Where does the look at our land, as if from space? It does not have an abdication from earthly pain, but there is the height of the spirit that is not any adult. Someone in the editorial office called one of my articles about Beslan: "Cosmos." Something better-I thought. Much later, I realized: the one who invented such a title was the right of the truth that only those who passed the Beslan hell knew.

On my third visit to Beslan (April-May 2005), I led lessons in the sixth grade, where almost all students were hostages.

In her fourth visit (2009), she met with the same guys and showed their works. ABOUT! What it was! They ... did not recognize themselves. It seemed to them that they no longer think. The energy of thought turned out to be so strong immediately after Beslan.

In Beslan history, I was always occupied by what Frankl called me meaning. If life leaves no chance to realize values, where is it meaning?

<...> One of the mothers wrote letters to her son, who died at school. In one of the letters there are such great words: “I am your mother. I'm not afraid of anything. " If every mother realized this!

Victor Frankl wrote about the main achievement of the prisoner. Achievement in the literal sense of the word. This achievement is "an incomparable feeling that he can no longer be afraid of anything in the world except his God."

This is the highest truth about those who managed to escape.

Sincerely, Elvira Goryukhina.

August 26, 2014. "

For twenty years, doctors of the Russian Oncological Scientific Center named after N.N. Blokhina fought for the life of Elvira Nikolaevna.

Thanks to them for these twenty years.