Who is Ruslanova Lidia Andreevna? A biography that summarizes the life path of this outstanding artist could look something like this: the famous singer of Russian folk songs, the same age as the 20th century, who experienced all the sharp turns of Russian history in his first half. She knew orphanhood and poverty, fame, wealth and popular adoration, as well as the horror of Stalin's prison dungeons and the humiliating camp existence for any human person. But the Russian singer Lidia Andreevna Ruslanova managed again, contrary to everything, to return to active creative work. And did not stop her until her death.
Lidia Andreevna Ruslanova: biography
Her childhood and youth passed in the Saratov province. She was born in 1900, in a peasant family of Andrei and Tatyana Leikin. At birth, the girl was called Praskovia (according to other sources, Agafia). From his father, Mordvin Praskovye, he got dark almond-shaped eyes, an oblong "ugly" face and thick dark hair.
The girl’s father worked as a loader on one of the Volga marinas, her mother looked after three children. Together with them lived the parents of her husband - the mother Daria Leikina and stepfather Dmitry Gorshenin, who, as it turned out later, did not really like his adoptive son.
Russia in general, and the Volga region in particular, is famous for its song traditions. Songs accompanied the Russian man throughout his life: from birth to death, Russian people sang both during work and on vacation, in villages and cities. So little Praskovya Leikina from childhood absorbed Russian tunes into her soul. She was lucky in that her father’s brother, Uncle Yakov, was a real singing nugget, probably from that breed of folk (not by rank, but by origin!) Artists that Ivan Turgenev described in the story “Singers” (by the way, the main the hero of the story is just Yasha Turok). Grandmother Daria was also a notable singer, so Ruslanova inherited her singing talent along her paternal side.
Tests of childhood and adolescence
After parting with the Soviet past in Russia, at one time it was fashionable to idealize life in tsarist Russia at the beginning of the twentieth century. And industry then, they say, developed, and there was enough work, and social harmony reigned in society. And all this prosperity was allegedly destroyed by the “damned Bolsheviks”. A striking example of this approach is the documentary by Stanislav Govorukhin, "Russia We Lost." However, acquaintance with the facts, which contains the biography of Ruslanova Lidia Andreyevna, refutes this conventional wisdom.
Judge for yourself, reader. In 1904, the Russo-Japanese War began, and Andrei Leikin, the father of three young children, was taken into the army in the first recruitment. Moreover, as the researcher of the biography of Ruslanova, the writer Sergei Mikheenkov, testifies in his book “Lidia Ruslanova. Soul-singer ”, this was arranged by my stepfather, although the younger childless brother of Andrei Leykin Fedot was supposed to serve. But the Old Believer stepfather was a real family despot, in the house no one dared to argue with him (and how to object if the opponent claims that he is led by God's will itself!)
Then things went even worse. Mother Praskovya, to feed the children, gets a job at a brick factory in Saratov. Do you think she was offered easy work? Nothing of the kind, they put on such hard work, in which she overstrained herself in less than a year, fell ill and fell ill. And soon she died, leaving three young orphans.
Soon a notice came of the missing father at the front. In fact, the story that happened to him fully characterizes the lawlessness of the lower classes of society in then-Russia, as well as the complete absence of a social protection system. Remaining a legless disabled person, without any assistance from the authorities, he did not see the opportunity to return to his family, as he would be an additional burden for children and for his parents (especially his old-stepfather). Therefore, having arrived in Saratov, he was begging, asking for alms on the steps of the temple. Here is such a "social harmony" in the Russian version.
Street singer
What happened after the loss of parents biography Ruslanova Lidia Andreevna? After the disappearance of the stepson in the war and the death of the daughter-in-law, the old-man’s grandfather transferred his dislike for the Leikins to Praskovia’s elder granddaughter, mocked her and beat the girl. This was found out by the mother's grandmother, who lived in a neighboring village, who took her to her with her little brother. But the grandmother herself was in poverty and, moreover, she soon became blind. So, the six-year-old Praskovia became a beggarly beggar, together with her blind grandmother, walked along the streets of Saratov and the surrounding villages, sang folk songs, and her grandmother asked for alms. Fortunately for them, the girl turned out to have an unusually clear and strong voice along with perfect musical ear. Plus, an unusually tenacious memory, so that a young street singer pleased the audience with a wide repertoire of village and city songs, and the audience paid her as much as they could.
A year has passed for such a “happy creation." Grandmother died, unable to withstand the tribulations and hardships, and the seven-year-old girl continued to sing in the streets. But apparently, some wheel in the “heavenly office” turned around at that time, and the compassionate widow-official, who was once present among the street listeners of her singing, drew attention to the poor orphan. Through her efforts, all three young Leikins orphans were attached to various shelters, and the older Praskovye had to forever change the name and surname, becoming Lidia Ruslanova. This was done in order to arrange the girl in a good shelter at one of the central churches of Saratov, where he had his own church choir, in which talented pupils were recruited. But the trouble is, peasant orphans were not taken to the shelter (apparently because there were a huge number of them in “prosperous” tsarist Russia), and the girl's real name and surname betrayed her peasant origin. Therefore, in order to survive, she had to abandon her own name.
First successes
How did Lidia Andreevna Ruslanova live after that? Her biography developed under the influence of her own talent. At the shelter, little Lida was immediately accepted into the choir and made a soloist, she began to study at a parish school. A professional regent was engaged with the choristers, apparently, it was thanks to his efforts that Lida appeared with such a well-posed voice that brought her further national fame.
In the meantime, the little soloist sang church chants in the choir. Even then, her art had an almost magical effect on the audience. Lovers of church singing from all over Saratov flocked to the temple, where she spoke, to listen to the young singer, nicknamed "Orphan", and they said: "Let's go to the Orphan." The famous Soviet playwright and screenwriter I. Prut, who met Lydia as a child, left enthusiastic memories of her singing in the temple. By the way, from his words it is known that Lida’s disabled father asked for alms on the porch of this temple, but neither he nor his daughter showed their kinship, because officially she was listed as an orphan, and this gave her reason to be in a shelter.
This went on for several years. But in church shelters the children were not kept for long. As soon as the child grew up, he was given as a student to some enterprise. So it happened with Lida. As soon as she turned twelve, she became a polisher in a furniture factory. But here she was already known, some heard her singing in church, so many asked the young worker to sing, and in return helped her to complete the tasks.
In one of such improvised concerts, she was heard by a professor at the Saratov Conservatory, Medvedev, who arrived at the factory for furniture. He invited the young talent to classes at the conservatory, and Lida attended his class for a couple of years. Here she received the basics of a true musical education.
In the "German war" and during the revolution
How did Lidia Andreevna Ruslanova continue her life? Her biography changed dramatically with the outbreak of World War I. Many Russians perceived its beginning with enthusiasm. After all, Germany declared war on Russia, in response to tough demands to stop pressure on Serbia, which has always been perceived as a fraternal country and ally. It is only natural that a general wave of enthusiasm has captured Lydia. Barely waiting for sixteen, she is hired by a sister of mercy in a medical train. Here she also sang, but already for the wounded.
The first unsuccessful marriage of Lydia belongs to the period of service as a sister of mercy. Her chosen one was the handsome officer Vitaly Stepanov, who was twice as old as his young wife. As a result of this marriage, Lydia had a son in the spring of 1917. Lydia loved her husband and wanted a normal family life, but after October 1917 it became impossible. Vitaly Stepanov's appearance was too bright, defiantly noble, so that he could fit into life in Bolshevik Russia. Therefore, soon after the revolution, he disappeared and took his son with him, in fact, stole it from his mother. Lydia never saw him again, nor her son.
How then, during the years of the Civil War, did Lidia Andreevna Ruslanova live? Her biography turned out to be connected with the new, Soviet Russia. The fugitive husband made his choice, and Lydia made his choice. Since 1918, she began touring in parts of the Red Army as part of concert brigades. This is where professional skills acquired in Saratov come in handy. The performances of the team in which Ruslanova worked, enjoyed continued success. Her repertoire consisted of two large song blocks: folk songs in the original "Ruslan" interpretation and urban, so-called. cruel romances like "The month turned purple" or "Here is the three rushing away." Among the admirers of her talent in those years were the famous heroes of the Civil War, for example, Mikhail Budyonny.
During a tour of Ukraine, Lydia gets acquainted with the young Chekist Naum Naumin, who was assigned to guard their concert crew. Soon he became her husband, and this marriage lasted almost a dozen years.
Who was nothing will be everything
These lines of the Communist anthem "International" are fully applicable to the fate of our heroine after the end of the Civil War. Together with her husband, she moved to Moscow (Naumin received a position in the central office of the Cheka). They have a comfortable apartment, the husband receives a decent salary. How did Lidia Ruslanova take advantage of this gift of fate? Her biography testifies that in full. She makes acquaintances in the midst of Moscow bohemia, takes lessons in singing from the famous singers of the Bolshoi Theater and continues to tour. Most often, her tours take place in the south, in Rostov-on-Don and other large southern cities. There is not so hungry as in the center of Russia, the audience is more prosperous and does not skimp on buying tickets for concerts. Ruslanova makes good money, she has a huge capacity for work, she can give concerts every day for a whole month.
During this period, the beginning of her famous collection of paintings, rare books, antiques and jewelry. The impoverished peasant daughter, an orphan who never had her own home or decent income, suddenly becomes a wealthy lady, beautifully and expensively dressed, a hospitable hostess, always generously treating her many guests with Naumin’s Moscow apartment (in between tours).
Rise to the heights of popularity
By 1929, she met her acquaintance with Mikhail Garkavi, the famous entertainer and, as they would say today, a professional art manager. By that time, Ruslanova’s concert activity had turned into a serious show business, which was expressed in modern terms, which was in dire need of a competent organizer. She needed a man like Garkavi, and that, in turn, a star like Ruslanova in his own sky. Both of them needed each other, and therefore decided to unite in a married couple, forming a creative and life union. Naminus understood everything correctly and did not impede Lydia. They divorced peacefully.
Under the leadership of Garkavi, the concert and touring activities of Ruslanova in the 30s gained the greatest scope, she became a truly popularly known singer. Records with her recordings appeared on sale. Ruslanova’s voice sounded then in every house where there was a gramophone, her recordings were often transmitted on all-Union radio.
Fedor Chaliapin, living in exile, also heard one of these programs. He was delighted with her singing talent and voice and conveyed his sincere congratulations to Lydia Andreyevna.
For all her fame, she was not a "court" Stalinist singer, like many famous performers of that time. I did not like official events and concerts in front of representatives of the party farm nomenclature. Her bold remark expressed to Stalin himself is widely known when at one of the concerts in the Kremlin, which could not be abandoned, the leader invited her to his table and offered to treat himself to fruit. To which Lydia Andreevena replied that she herself was not hungry, but it would be nice to feed her fellow countrymen from the Volga Region who are starving. Then this trick of her had no immediate consequences, but, as you know, the “leader of all peoples” never forgot anything and never forgave anyone.
Was with her people in all trials
Ruslanova Lidia Andreevna, a biography whose life story we are studying, is inseparable in the minds of our people (at least representatives of the older generation) from wartime. The war for Ruslanova, as well as for the whole Russian people, became the time of the greatest trials of the strength of spirit and physical strength, and at the same time elevated her personality to the rank of a real national symbol. Her selfless, selfless work throughout the war years remained forever in the memory of the people, and this memory could no longer be erased by the oblivion of power, nor the years of imprisonment, nor the new post-war trends in art and life itself.
The image of Ruslanova, performing songs for the fighters from the makeshift scene in the frontline in the form of a one-and-a-half body with flipped sides, has become in memory of generations the same symbolic sign of wartime as balloons in the sky over Moscow, crossed out by searchlights, or anti-tank hedgehogs on a city street. Probably, none of the artists of that time gave as much power to the front, did not drive as many hundreds of thousands of kilometers along frontline roads in four war years, like Ruslanova. It was she who was granted the honor by Marshal Zhukov on May 2, 1945, to give a concert on the steps of the defeated Reichstag in Berlin. And logical from some higher point of view is that the war itself helped her, a forty-two-year-old, three-time married woman to meet her real, so long-awaited love.
In 1942, she toured the first Guards Cavalry Corps, commanded by General Vladimir Kryukov, the former brave hussar of the First World War, the dashing red cavalryman of the Civil War and, finally, the General of the Great Patriotic War. We can say in the words of Mikhail Bulgakov that love attacked them as suddenly as a killer with a knife in the gateway. Their romance developed so rapidly that already at the first meeting in private, they agreed to get married.
Mikhail Garkavi showed nobility and stepped aside, remaining a good friend of Lydia Andreevna until the end of his days. She herself became a devoted wife to General Kryukov and a caring adoptive mother to his only five-year-old daughter Margosha, whose mother died before the war.
Trophy business
Lidia Andreevna Ruslanova, whose biography and songs so vividly reflected her originality and true Russian national character, suffered another terrible test after the war, namely, she was imprisoned for several years. How did this happen? Here a whole huge knot of contradictions, accumulated over decades, tied up in a tight ball, which was "cut" by the dictatorial Stalinist power with all its inherent decisiveness and cruelty.
What are these contradictions? First of all, between the ostentatious equality of all Soviet citizens declared in the main ideological guidelines and their glaring inequality in reality, the creation of opportunities for the party, economic and military elite of the country to enrich themselves and provide themselves with a standard of living several orders of magnitude higher than that of the bulk of citizens. After the war, this contradiction became simply flashy, because after the victory the Soviet generals concentrated in their hands the enormous wealth that had been at the disposal of the occupation authorities in Germany and Eastern Europe. Бесценные произведения искусства, предметы антиквариата, драгоценности стали наполнять дачи и квартиры многих советских офицеров и генералов, включая и высших военачальников. Не стал исключением и генерал Крюков, причем немалую роль в накоплении богатства генеральской четы играла именно Лидия Русланова с ее огромными связями в среде людей искусства и неплохим пониманием потенциальной ценности той или иной вещи.
Поначалу Сталин и его ближайшее политическое окружение не препятствовали этому и даже поощряли подобную практику, Но это был лишь тонкий тактический ход гениального политического интригана. Наблюдая (посредством спецслужб), как обрастают советские генералы бесчисленными предметами роскоши, он потирал руки в предвкушении того, как сможет предъявить им обвинения в моральном разложении и незаконном обогащении. Ведь он панически боялся их заговора против себя и своей власти. И эти опасения были вполне обоснованны. Многие из прошедших войну генералов не могли простить Сталину предвоенных репрессий, считали его виновным в позорных поражениях первых двух лет войны, стремились избавиться от постоянного страха впасть в немилость к вождю. Но некоторые из них скомпрометировали себя, присваивая себе трофейные ценности и делая это зачастую в обход даже весьма лояльных официальных процедур. И Сталин не преминул этим воспользоваться.
Осенью 1948 года была арестована большая группа генералов и офицеров, в основном из числа сослуживцев маршала Жукова в бытность его командующих оккупационными войсками в Германии. Среди них был и Владимир Крюков. В один день с ним была арестована и находившаяся на гастролях в Казани Лидия Русланова (а заодно и два ее аккомпаниатора и конферансье, так сказать, «за компанию»).
«Дай бог, чтобы твоя страна тебя не пнула сапожищем…»
В чем обвинялась Лидия Русланова? Биография и творчество ее были настолько прозрачны, а происхождение настолько пролетарским, что, казалось бы, уж к ней-то у пресловутых «органов» не должно было быть претензий. Так вот, кроме стандартного обвинения в антисоветской пропаганде, ее обвинили в незаконном присвоении трофейного имущества. Вот где «аукнулась» тяга к роскоши, которую сначала поощряла сама сталинская власть, а затем за нее же и наказала своих, пусть даже и мнимых оппонентов.
Но главное, чего добивались следователи, - это оговора подследственными маршала Жукова. Именно он был главной целью всего этого масштабного мероприятия. К чести Лидии Руслановой следует сказать, что вела себя она достойно и на сделку с совестью не пошла. То же самое можно сказать и о генерале Крюкове, которого истязали в следственных тюрьмах КГБ аж четыре года и осудили на 25 лет только в начале 50-х годов.
Лидию Русланову по приговору, кроме трофейных ценностей, лишили и всего имущества, которое она накопила за три десятка лет каторжного труда на сцене. У нее конфисковали коллекцию картин русских художников (потом ее удалось вернуть), мебель, антиквариат, редкие книги и, главное, шкатулку с бриллиантами, которые она собирала еще со времен революции. Для того чтобы набросить срок лишения свободы, к ней и ее мужу генералу Крюкову, кроме стандартной статьи УК РСФСР 58-10 «Антисоветская пропаганда», был применен пресловутый Закон «О колосках» от 7 февраля 1932 г., который квалифицировал хищения как контрреволюционную деятельность.
На пять лет Лидия Русланова исчезла со сцены. Всякие упоминания ее имени в прессе и на радио прекратились. А в обществе стали распространяться подлые слухи, что Русланову и ее мужа взяли «за барахлишко». Сама же она провела эти годы сначала в Озерлаге под Тайшетом, а затем в знаменитом Владимирском централе (постарался один из лагерных охранников, написавший донос, что Русланова и в лагере ведет антисоветскую агитацию).
После смерти Сталина и смещения Берии вновь занявший важное положение Жуков поднял вопрос о пересмотре дела Крюкова и Руслановой. Эта семейная пара была реабилитирована самой первой из миллионов узников ГУЛАГа. Они вернулись в Москву в августе 1953 года.
