Solzhenitsyn about Grigory Rasputin. Criticism about creativity A

Iliodor (Trufanov)

I cited part of the document published in Oleg Platonov’s book “Life for the Tsar (The Truth about Grigory Rasputin)”, in which a large number of archival materials are introduced into circulation for the first time. Unfortunately, with a biased attitude towards the documents he publishes, the author significantly devalues ​​his own work. Any information Not confirming the highest nobility and holiness of Rasputin, he disavows it as slanderous, and labels the carriers of this information as enemies of Russia, Freemasons, conspirators and simply scoundrels, moreover, his righteous anger knows no bounds. So, in order not to leave one stone unturned from the book of the defrocked monk Iliodor (Trufanov) exposing the elder, O. Platonov makes him... a “Bolshevik-Chekist,” specifying for greater persuasiveness: “The offer to become a Chekist, according to the same Trufanov, was made to him Dzerzhinsky himself, who involved him in carrying out the most “delicate” (and therefore the dirtiest and bloodiest) assignments.”

Trufanov was an immoral type, but how could he become an employee of the Cheka if this venerable institution arose in Soviet Russia in December 1917, and he fled from royal Russia in 1914 (to Norway, from where he later moved to the USA). Does O. Platonov want to say that the head of the Cheka specially went to New York to recruit Trufanov? I had to write about Dzerzhinsky and to do this, study a wide range of materials: there is no information about the trip of the Chairman of the Cheka overseas. Why did the author need this Rasputinism?

In recent years, Oleg Platonov has published mountains of “works” exposing the “Judeo-Masonic conspiracy against Russia” - in all the bizarre variety of variants of this “conspiracy.” I briefly dwelt on some of his creations in my book “Corruption by Hate.” He produced the Life of Rasputin using the same method as his other works. Numerous extracts from published and unpublished sources, palisades of bibliographic and archival references, voluminous appendices in which historical and literary rubbish of a hundred and two hundred years ago is reprinted, are designed to give the work the appearance of scientific thoroughness. But this is only framing, packaging. And inside is pseudo-patriotic trash. The purpose of the new essay is to incite hatred of Jews, Freemasons and other “enemies” of Russia, and the real result is mockery of Russia. Consider the very title of his book, which puts Grishka Rasputin (Rasputin!!) on a par with the legendary national hero Ivan Susanin!

Without drawing parallels between O. Platonov and A. I. Solzhenitsyn, I cannot help but draw attention to how extremes converge. In Solzhenitsyn’s book, Rasputin is a negative quantity, and he is “surrounded” by Jews. For Platonov, the elder is a positive quantity, and the Jews “stick around” his main subverters. The most malicious of them - almost as malicious as the undressed security officer Trufanov - is the journalist V.B. Duvidzon (the one who is called Davidson in Matryona Rasputina’s book; from Matryona’s fleeting suitor, O. Platonov turns him into her fiancé).

Platonov, of course, declares the police report about the incident in the Moscow restaurant “Yar” to be falsified, and on the instructions of Dzhunkovsky, who reported it to the Tsar not because he was must not only because of his position, but because he was a Freemason and had a goal - to destroy Russia and its righteous man. There is no need to argue with this, because the author himself admits that Dzhunkovsky’s secret affiliation with Freemasonry was revealed after the revolution; the tsar could not have known about his “subversive” activities. However, the result of Dzhunkovsky’s report on Rasputin’s obscenity was... Dzhunkovsky’s resignation. The old man’s miraculous power worked again!

Grand Duke Nikolasha was a much harder nut to crack than some chief of the gendarme corps, but when victorious reports from the front gave way to news of a disorderly retreat, Rasputin and his team realized that the time had come to settle accounts with him.

Alexandra Fedorovna began to convince her august husband that the Supreme Commander was to blame for all failures at the front. And all because he is the enemy of “our Friend” and the friend of “our enemies.” This was confirmed - if only by the fact that when Warsaw fell and German troops approached the city of Slonim, and nearby, in the Zhirovitsky monastery, Bishop Hermogenes languished as a prisoner, the Grand Duke sent him to Moscow, and even emphasized his respect for him and his dignity, allocating two separate carriages for the move. This episode was presented to “the Pope” as a flirtation with opposition circles who condemned the illegal (over the head of the Synod) disgrace of a popular bishop. And then there was talk about the disloyalty of the Grand Duke, about the preparation of a palace coup. Someone printed thousands of copies of the commander-in-chief’s portrait with the signature “Nicholas III.”

Having an army of millions at hand, the Supreme One could knock off the emperor with one movement of his finger! It was urgently necessary to deprive him of this opportunity. But who should be put in his place? Any general in the position of commander-in-chief will be just as dangerous! In a word, “dad” allowed “mom” and her (their!) spiritual leader to convince himself that he had no choice but to take this burden onto his shoulders!

When the sovereign's decision - not yet announced to the country, but already irrevocable - was announced at a meeting of the Council of Ministers, it caused a storm of emotions. The ministers did not at all expect such a radical change. They sought to replace the chief of staff, hoping that in place of the arrogant and incompetent Yanushkevich, a general would appear with whom they could work. And the Grand Duke in the role of commander-in-chief suited them quite well.

War Minister Polivanov called the sovereign’s decision an “irreparable disaster.” All ministers who had their own voice agreed with him. Thanks to the fact that the tsar had to follow Sukhomlinov in removing several more of the most odious ministers - Shcheglovitov, Maklakov, Sabler (Chief Prosecutor of the Synod), independent voices appeared in the government (alas, not for long!). The new ministers understood, although this was not stated directly, that the sovereign’s fatal decision was caused by the influence of “dark forces.”

Premier Goremykin warned “that any attempt to convince the sovereign would be unsuccessful: “Now, when there is almost a catastrophe at the front, His Majesty considers it the sacred duty of the Russian Tsar to be among the troops and with them either win or die. With such purely mystical moods, you will not be able to persuade the sovereign to abandon the step he has planned with any arguments. I repeat, neither intrigue nor anyone’s [Rasputin!] influence plays any role in this decision.”

But it was no secret to the ministers that Goremykin himself was Rasputin’s creature and was incapable of anything other than servility to those higher and stronger than him.

Some ministers at the next loyal reports tried to influence the tsar, but were met with stubborn silence. Then they, according to Katkov, “did something unheard of: they signed a collective letter in which they once again begged the sovereign not to take this terrible step that threatened the tsar and the dynasty.”

Katkov considers these “desperate attempts of ministers” incomprehensible, but they are more than understandable. Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich, as a high-ranking career military man, understood his business better than the sovereign, so the emperor’s assumption of supreme command did not bode well for the front, and responsibility for new defeats would fall directly on the sovereign, that is, every military failure would become a direct blow in terms of the prestige of power, which is already extremely shaky. And, most importantly, while dealing with the front, the sovereign had to pay less attention to the rear, and this led to even greater interference from the queen and her “elder.”

“Dear Alexander Isaevich. Thank you very much for the invitation to the meeting. To my great regret, I will not be able to be in Irkutsk during your stay, in connection with the writers’ congress. I hope to see you later. Sincerely, Valentin Rasputin."

He wrote this letter to Solzhenitsyn on June 11, 1994. In those days, Alexander Isaevich returned to his homeland after twenty years of exile, having traveled through the entire Far East and Siberia. Irkutsk became the fourth stop on Solzhenitsyn’s route to Moscow, where the IX Congress of the Russian Writers’ Union was being held at that time. A new board of the Union was elected, which included Valentin Rasputin. His name closes the list of deceased countryside writers: Vasily Shukshin, Boris Mozhaev, Viktor Astafiev, Vladimir Soloukhin, about whom A.I. wrote more than once. Solzhenitsyn, preferring to call them moralists.

The correspondence between A. Solzhenitsyn and V. Rasputin began in 1994, and today it is available to a wide range of readers. The letters were first published in the fifth issue of the Solzhenitsyn Notebooks anthology. Several copies were donated to the Ryazan Regional Library named after Gorky by the writer’s widow, Natalya Dmitrievna. The letters were found in Solzhenitsyn's archive in Trinity-Lykovo. After the death of Valentin Rasputin, his family donated copies of three letters from Alexander Isaevich from 1995 to 2000 to this archive. They became new evidence of the creative and human relations of the two writers.

– The form in which the two writers corresponded gave me aesthetic pleasure, especially in our time when people communicate through SMS messages. What mutual respect, humanity, and delicacy distinguish the letters of Solzhenitsyn to Rasputin and Rasputin to Solzhenitsyn! Note that the writers did not compliment each other. The mutual assessment of creativity was objective, everyone understood what the interlocutor was like,” shares his opinion Alexander Safronov, associate professor of the department of literature, head of the Scientific and Educational Center for the Study of the Heritage of A.I. Solzhenitsyn Russian State University named after S.A. Yesenina. – Solzhenitsyn received the Nobel Prize at one time. But Rasputin didn’t have it. Over the past decades, the authority of this award has fallen low. And it seems to me that in order to save her position and raise her prestige, the prize should have been awarded to Valentin Rasputin.

In 2000, the writer became a laureate of the A.I. Solzhenitsyn "for his poignant expression of poetry and the tragedy of people's life." Alexander Isaevich highly valued the literary work of Valentin Grigorievich: “Rasputin is one of those seers to whom layers of existence are revealed that are not accessible to everyone and are not called by him in direct words... We will not miss such qualities of Valentin Rasputin as a concentrated deepening into the essence of things, a sensitive conscience and unobtrusive chastity, so rare these days.”

According to the candidate of philological sciences, associate professor of the Russian State University named after S.A. Yesenin Regina Sokolova, Rasputin and Solzhenitsyn always listened to the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe soil scientists of the 19th century. This movement argued that the soil, that is, the people, is the basis for the social and spiritual development of Russia. Only the people preserve true Orthodoxy, the ideas of goodness and justice. V.G. Rasputin was the main ideologist of modern pochvennichestvo. He wrote “My Manifesto”, in which he did not agree with the commemoration of Russian literature.

– Probably, literary criticism was shredded, which turned into an advertising blurb. Its representatives allowed themselves to reason like this: “No, I don’t write criticism because I am dumb,” or “a hundred years ago the futurists threw the classics off the ship of modernity, but today we have no one to throw off.” And Rasputin said that Russian literature is alive and its best representatives are soil scientists, because they read the fate of the Russian people in very difficult times. Solzhenitsyn also agreed with this in one of his letters to Rasputin, notes Regina Sokolova.

Western culture, a big city - these are the sources of influence on the spirituality of the Russian people. Pochvenniki tried to resist selfishness, the greed of the market, and protect people from vulgarity. Thus, the peasants in V. Rasputin’s story “Unexpectedly” even refuse to watch TV: “Plant a nettle in front of the TV - and the nettle will faint at that very moment!” And what are they doing naked there!.. It’s us who look like worms, but the plants... she’s sensitive. She is the “guard!” He can’t scream, otherwise they would all scream at once...”

Solzhenitsyn shared Rasputin’s feelings and wrote to him in a letter: “I share your nagging concern for the spiritual and moral state of the current Russian people and their very survival. Rulers, consumed by greedy lust for power or insatiable enrichment, think about this least of all. Do not be embarrassed by the fact that your public speeches caused a stream of political dirty language on the purchased airwaves, from insignificant people who are not at all looking for the preservation of Russia, and often live outside of it. After the formidable decades we have lived through, the time has come in a new vile and gloomy way for all of us. And our vision into the future is no longer enough, but only as God wills. All that remains is to make the modest efforts available to us.”

Rasputin spoke of Solzhenitsyn as a fair man, dedicated articles to him “Living in Truth”, “He Returned to His Homeland as an Apostle” and followed with great interest the journalistic works of Alexander Isaevich.

According to V. Rasputin, a writer must become an echo of the people and “express the unprecedented with unprecedented power, in which there will be pain, love, insight, and a person renewed in suffering... Literature can do a lot, this has been proven more than once by domestic fate. Maybe it’s the worst, maybe it’s the best, depending on whose hands it’s in. But national literature has and cannot have any other choice but to serve to the end the land from which it was nurtured.”

Veronica Shelyakina, Ryazanskie Vedomosti

WHEN AWARDING THE SOLZHENITSYN PRIZE

VALENTIN RASPUTIN

At the turn of the 70s and in the 70s, a not immediately noticed, silent revolution took place in Soviet literature without a rebellion, without a shadow of a dissident challenge. Without overthrowing or exploding anything declaratively, a large group of writers began to write as if no “socialist realism” had been announced and dictated - neutralizing it silently, they began to write in simplicity, without any pandering, incense to the Soviet regime, as if having forgotten about him. To a large extent, the material of these writers was village life, and they themselves came from the village, from this (and partly from the condescending complacency of the cultural circle, and not without envy at the suddenly successful purity of the new movement) this group began to be called the villagers. But it would be correct to call them moralists - for the essence of their literary revolution was the revival of traditional morality, and the crushed, dying village was only a natural, visual object.

We have now buried almost half of this writing group untimely: Vasily Shukshin, Alexander Yashin, Boris Mozhaev, Vladimir Soloukhin, Fyodor Abramov, Georgy Semyonov. But some of them are still alive and await our grateful appreciation. The first among them is Valentin Rasputin.

Valentin Rasputin appeared in literature in the late 60s, but stood out noticeably in 1974 for the suddenness of the theme - desertion - which had been previously forbidden and silent, and the suddenness of its interpretation.

In general, in the Soviet Union there were thousands, even tens of thousands, of deserters during the war, and those who sat out in hiding from the first day of the war to the last, about which our history managed to remain silent, were known only to the criminal code and the amnesty of July 7, 1945. But in the bleak Soviet literature it was unthinkable to utter even half a word of someone who understood, much less sympathized with, a deserter. Rasputin crossed this ban. True, he presented us with a much more complicated case: an honored warrior throughout the war, three wounds, the last one especially severe, and a hospital in Siberia not far from his native Angarsk region; others are demobilized in this form or at least on short leave, our hero is not. And the war is clearly at its end, here death is especially offensive to him - and he trembled. He secretly returned to the outskirts of his village, did not even reveal himself to his parents, only to his wife Nastasya.

She helps him hide, secretly moves through the Angara, first in the winter snowstorm, then, then, across open water. She is stunned by his escape, but does everything for his life. Evades in hiding in front of family and others. We lived 4 years before the war - there was no child, and suddenly now she conceived. For him, this is the highest joy: “now... even tomorrow in the ground!”, “Is there really such guilt in the whole wide world that it would not be covered by him, our child?!” (The most impossible phrase on Soviet pages!) For Nastena, the inevitability of revealing her pregnancy and shame is weighing on her. The plot is formed not from contrived twists, but from simple life circumstances as they naturally flow. The narration is in no hurry, it is permeated with Siberian nature, and the events develop tightly. At the center of all tensions is Nastya. Shades of fears, hopes, growing torment - using not literary techniques at all, fashion us a bright female image. The mother-in-law kicks Nastya out of the house, in the village some are curious, some are mocking - Nastya loses the clarity of her feelings and thoughts, her feeling of the inevitability of trouble grows. “It seemed like this was the last day that she could still be with people.” The authorities have suspicions about the deserter, Nastya rushes to warn her husband about the threat, she is followed in boats along the night river - and in order not to give away her husband’s presence and relief from the unbearable condition - she drowns herself in the Angara, along with the unborn, so desired, life.

In the story, using small means, we are exposed to a dozen more characters - and the entire abandoned Siberian village, where the meager widow's celebration of the end of the war, is more painful than the battle scenes of other authors. In the thickening darkness there is a place for an enlightened ray - the eternal peasant labor joy of haymaking, without it Nastasya would be incomplete: she

Even before the sun, she loved to go out through the dew, stand at the edge of the plot, lowering the Lithuanian to the ground, and with the first test wave carry it through the grass, and then wave and wave, feeling the juicy uplift of the cut greenery with her whole body. She loved the standing, groaning crunch of the afternoon mowing, when the heat had not yet subsided and the hands lazily, persistently spread out after rest, but they disperse, gain ardor, get carried away and forget that they are doing work, and not creating fun; the soul lights up with a cheerful, itchy passion - and now you are walking without remembering yourself, brushing away the grass with playful encouragement, and it seems as if you are piercing, screwing yourself, stroke by stroke, into something forgotten, secretly dear. She even loved rowing in the dead heat, when the sleepy grass rustled dryly and brittlely; she loved the spores, with an eye to the sky and the evening, until the hay and the heaps departed.

Two years after “Live and Remember,” Rasputin published his strongest work, “Farewell to Matera.” First of all, this is a change of scale: not a private human episode, but a major national disaster - not just one flooded island, inhabited for centuries, but a grandiose symbol of the destruction of people's life. And even more enormous: some unknown turn, a shock - a parting for all of us. Rasputin is one of those seers to whom layers of existence are revealed that are not accessible to everyone and are not called by him in direct words.

From the first page of the story we find the village already doomed to destruction - and through the story this mood grows, sounds like a requiem - both in the voices of the people, and in the voices of nature itself and human memory, as it resists its demise. The farewell to the island, the drawn-out dying, the cutting of the heart grows piercingly.

The entire fabric of the story is a wide stream of folk poetic perception. (During its length, for example, the different patterns of rain are amazingly described.) There are so many feelings about our native land, its eternity. The fullness of nature - and the liveliest dialogue, sound, speech, precise words. And - the author’s urgent motive:

In the past, conscience was widely differentiated. If anyone struggled without it, it was immediately noticeable. And now - the cholera will be sorted out, everything is mixed up in one heap - something is something, something is different. Nowadays we don’t live on our own. People have forgotten about their place under God.

The burners, “the raiders from the state farm,” came and burned one after another, which was emptying. The giant king-tree Foliage, the mark of the entire island - only it turned out to be impenetrable and unburnable. They are burning - “Christ’s mill, how much bread it has ground for us.” Look, some of the houses have already been burned, and the rest “squeezed into the ground out of fear.” The last flash of the former life is the friendly time of haymaking, the favorite village time. “We are all our own people, we drank water from the same Angara.” And now this hay is sent across the Angara, and stacked near multi-storey inanimate buildings for homeless cows doomed to the knife. Farewell to the village, extended over time, some have already moved and come to visit the island, others stay in place until the last. They say goodbye to the graves of their relatives, the arsonists wildly swoop into the cemetery, dragging crosses into a pile and burning them. Old woman Daria, preparing for the inevitable burning of her hut, freshly whitewashes it, washes the floors and throws grass on the floor, as if on Trinity Sunday: “How much has been walked here, how much has been trampled on.” For her to give away the hut is “like putting a dead person in a coffin.” And Daria’s visiting grandson is alienated, careless about the meaning of life, and has long been cut off from the village. Daria to him: “Who has the soul, God is in him, guy.” “And you don’t care if you spent your soul.” “Now we find out: the hut, if you don’t touch it, burns on its own for two hours - but for many days it smokes sadly afterwards. And even after the burning of the hut, Daria is unable to leave the island; she huddles with two or three other old women in a worthless barracks. And so - the departure date has been missed. Daria's son is sent on a boat at night to pick up the old people - and then such a thick fog sets in, the likes of which they have never seen in their lives, and they can no longer find the familiar island on the Angara. This is how the story ends - a formidable symbol of the unreality of our existence: do we exist at all?

Glimpses of metaphysical forces are also felt in some of Rasputin’s stories, “What to convey to the crow”:

Heaven and earth - which is the question and which is the answer? We can, having approached with our last strength, only freeze in powerlessness before the inexplicability of our concepts and the inaccessibility of neighboring borders.

Or in “Natasha” - a mysterious story about a guardian angel.

The story “Fire”, nine years later “Matera”, is also symbolic, and as a direct continuation to it: the further fate of people forcibly torn away by flooding from their former indigenous existence and to meaningless destructive work - felling and felling of forests, without concern for the undergrowth new.

However, the fire itself is described not at all symbolically, not with literary beauty, but with real details of the development of the flame in different places of the building and at different stages of combustion - the author sees in detail and conveys to us the details; This is the view of both an artist and an expert in firefighting. I don’t know of such adequate descriptions of the progress of a fire in Russian literature. You have to be there to find out: “even the smoke that you had to breathe seemed to be burning.” And these shifts in the consciousness of people in the capture of fire work - to the complete loss of reality, even the understanding of where he is running from where or what he is doing.

Through this roaring fire the trumpet voice of the people's grief sounds, in prolongation of that irreversible parting of ours with rational existence.

In this fire, an undoubted arson: some sacrificially save the dying, others steal more and more along the way, and still others, unnamed and invisible, receive the main income from the arson. In the chapters interspersed with the fire, we see a general increase in dishonesty and theft, a dwindling remnant of conscientious people. “The earth itself is disappearing from under our feet.”

And - a triumphant new tribe advancing on common life - all the same arsonists, knowing only one destruction, now - “Arkharovites”, unpunished criminals in the vastness of the country. “Eternal melancholy in the eyes: where? For what?" - they don’t know themselves. “They harm anyone who talks about conscience.” For them, “what was impossible became possible, was considered a mortal sin - is revered as dexterity.” - “And how did it happen that we surrendered to their mercy?”

The story was published in 1985, insightfully showing how semi-criminal our country was at the beginning of Perestroika - how all this trash was about to unfold with the masters of our lives.

Following “The Fire,” the chain of Rasputin’s stories has extended into modern times, reflecting new types of cruelty in life. “Izba” is like a living creature that has accepted the soul of its inhabitant, an ascetic. - “Unexpectedly.” - “New profession.”

Let us highlight the depressing story of great power “To the Same Land” (1995). On the outskirts of a city microdistrict, in which the air, plant and human life are irreversibly poisoned by factory releases of fluoride, lives lonely Pashuta. The last of the sisters, three died, she took her already helpless mother from the village. “The body, which is not completely numb, arches at the waist with a dry crack, as if it were breaking bones.” And the mother “pushed away with her last breath,” and now she’s dying; and “there was such peace on her face, as if she had not left a single thing, not even a small one, unfinished.” And - how to bury? In the village it would be much easier. And here’s the first thing: all prices have now gone up tens and tens of times, there’s no point even thinking about buying a coffin. And even more importantly: the mother is not registered here and no one will issue her a death certificate; but without a certificate you can’t bury him. Of course, you can get everything for money - but there is no money. “The time has come such a failure: everyone is around, no one needs everyone,” everything that nourishes goodness has gone to the dump, “life has opened up as a continuous wound.”

Not only has it become impossible to live, but our intimate, sacred right has been taken away from us - to peacefully give our ashes to Mother Earth.

About the coffin - Pashuta asks a hard worker, a person close to her in the past. But where and how to bury without permission? “If everything from beginning to end went wrong, then by no means this is so.” On the outskirts of the microdistrict there is a landfill, a vacant lot, it is “cluttered, filled with glass, littered with cans and bags”; but even beyond the wasteland - “the forest closest to the city is blackened by fire pits, trampled, polluted.” Even then, one would have to move further away, but this is so, “in order to get to the grave with legs that can no longer walk.” Pashuta's companion helps her find a dry clearing further in the forest. However: the forbidden funeral must be carried out secretly - that is, at night, and the grave must be dug, and the coffin - the “receiving abode” - must be silently carried out along the stairs of the common house, and taken to the place. Already at dawn they buried him, under the first snowball, as if “giving forgiveness for lawless actions.” On the face of Pashuta’s friend is “a strange and terrible smile - broken and sorrowful, like a scar, from the image of a deceived world imprinted somewhere deep in the sky.”

In addition to works of art, Rasputin has wonderful Siberian essays - about Altai, Lena and Russian Ustya - a legendary settlement on the shores of the Arctic Ocean, where a colony of Novgorodians preserved until our unfortunate 20th century - language and customs intact from the 16th century. If we remember here both Baikal and the Angara, Rasputin appears to us as a unique singer of Siberia and among its most staunch defenders.

And - the most organic features of his work: in everything written, Rasputin exists, as it were, not by himself, but in an undivided fusion:

With Russian nature and
- with Russian language.

For him, nature is not a chain of pictures, not material for metaphors - the writer is naturally living with it, imbued with it as a part of it. He does not describe nature, but speaks with its voice, conveys it internally, there are many examples of this, they cannot be given here. A precious quality, especially for us, who are increasingly losing our life-giving connection with nature.

The same is true with language. Rasputin is not a user of language, but he himself is a living involuntary stream of language. He does not look for words, does not select them, he flows with them in the same stream. The volume of his Russian language is rare among modern writers. In the “Dictionary of Language Expansion” I could not include from Rasputin even a fortieth part of his bright, apt words.

And if, above all that has been said here, we do not miss such qualities of Valentin Rasputin as a concentrated deepening into the essence of things, a sensitive conscience and unobtrusive chastity, so rare these days, then from all of this we will form the image of the writer to whom our jury is presenting the prize today - with the most cordial feeling.

Unfortunately, Valentin Rasputin’s article dedicated to the 80th anniversary of Alexander Solzhenitsyn arrived to us after the previous Saturday issue had been compiled. But has it lost its relevance? After all, the significance of a great writer is not determined by anniversaries. Our reader, no doubt, will be interested in the assessment that our famous fellow countryman gives to the work of Alexander Solzhenitsyn.

As in any great literature, in Russian literature there are several types of talent. There is a breed of Pushkin and Lermontov - young, sparkling, sensual, light-winged writing, which reached Blok and Yesenin; there is the Aksakov-Turgenevskaya, which absorbed Leskov and Bunin, an unusually warm, unusually Russian mood and a keen sense of smell of life that has now been lost; their conception and gestation have some kind of deep, pagan origin, from the very core of a national treasure hidden in the steppes and forests. There are other breeds where Gogol and Bulgakov, and Nekrasov and Tvardovsky, and Dostoevsky, and Sholokhov, and Leonov will stand. And there is a breed of Derzhavin - heroes of Russian literature, who wrote powerfully and resoundingly, who thought comprehensively, and who were also endowed with a heroic reserve of physical strength. This includes Tolstoy and Tyutchev. Here, in the twentieth century, Solzhenitsyn rightfully took his place.

Almost everything written by A.I. Solzhenitsyn had a huge resonance. The first work by no one then, in 1962, by an unknown author, was read by the whole country. I read avidly, with surprise and confusion at the sudden expansion of life and literature, at the expansion of the Russian language itself, which sounded unusual, in native forms and curves that had not yet been put on paper. An unfamiliar, rejected world has opened up, located somewhere outside of our consciousness, torn out from normal life and inhabited on the islands of abnormal life - the world from which Ivan Denisovich Shukhov, a small, unassuming man, one of the darkness of thousands, emerged. And one day he came out of the darkness of his days between life and death. But this was enough for the multi-million reader to be stunned, recognizing him and not recognizing him, bringing down on him an avalanche of compassion along with distrust, guilt and at the same time anxiety.

News, also of a literary nature, had come from that world before, but they were scattered, intermittent, indistinct, like in Morse code, signals, the key to deciphering which was held, for the most part, by those who had been there. Ivan Denisovich, on the day allotted to him, was taken out of the barracks to work sick and got better and even inspired at work, did not demand anything from us, did not reproach us with anything, but only presented himself as he is, turned out to be commensurate with our innocent consciousness and entered into it easily. Willingly or unwittingly, the author acted prudently, preparing the coming of the “GULAG Archipelago” with the insinuating and taut Shukhov, who in no way encroached on the reader’s well-being. Without Shukhov, the confrontation with the Gulag would have been too cruel an ordeal. Test - read? “What about going through the ordeal of being inside this terrible machine?” - we have the right to ask ourselves. Yes, these are incomparable concepts, existence on different planets. And yet, the test by one’s own skin does not cancel the “translational” test, the test by evidence. Measured, numbered, polyphonic and incessant Gulag in full size and “productivity” - even after Ivan Denisovich, for many it was an excessive blow; Unable to bear it, they gave up reading. They couldn’t stand it - because it was a blow close to physical impact, to the perception of torture exhaled by the victims. The influence of “Ivan Denisovich” was no weaker, but of a different - moral - order; along with pain, it also gave consolation. To recover from “Archipelago”, one had to return again to “Ivan Denisovich” and feel how martyrdom from the punishing force squeezes out the healing lacrimation.

Immediately after "Ivan Denisovich" - stories, and among them "Matrenin's Dvor". Both here and there in the heroes there is an amazing, some kind of supernatural tenacity for life and in general characteristic of the Russian person, but little noticed, not taken into account when looking at his vitality. When patience is undermined by tenacity, it is no longer weak-willed; with it you can overcome a lot. Solzhenitsyn himself, who was sentenced more than once, demonstrated this quality in his final torture, in his own words, when the light faded in his eyes, to rise to his feet again and again. L.N. Tolstoy seemed to have been born great in swaddling clothes. A.I. Solzhenitsyn had to make his way to his greatness from too far away. “If he doesn’t kill, he’ll break through” - this is for him, for a Russian person! - and let’s beat and beat him over all the potholes, and let’s chase him around every corner, and let’s put him on such a rack that the sky is as big as a sheepskin! This is the road that Alexander Isaevich followed towards his recognition. He survived, learned to take a blow, acquired the science of understanding what is worth what - after that, gifts in full measure in all “containers”, no norms.

"Matrenin's Dvor" ends with words that have remained on our lips for almost forty years:

“We all lived next to her (with Matryona Vasilyevna. - V.R.) and did not understand that she was the same righteous person, without whom, according to the proverb, neither a village, nor a city, nor our whole land would stand.”

It is hardly true, as it has been said more than once, that all “village” literature came out of “Matryona’s Dvor”. But with her second layer, the layer of my peers, she visited it. And then I couldn’t imagine how it was possible, speaking about my cradle - about the village, to do without a righteous man akin to Matryona Vasilyevna. There was no need to look for them - you just had to look at them and remember them. And immediately a candle lit up in the soul, under which it was so sweet and joyful to compose the life of each of our quiet homelands, and they, old women and old men who lived in truth, stood up, one after another, in some kind of unified formation of eternal support for our land.

Apart from this commandment - to live in truth - we have less and less other inheritance. And we neglect this.

Large figures have their own scale of activity and lifting power. I can’t understand how Solzhenitsyn, even before his exile, in very cramped conditions, managed to collect, process and put into the mainstream of the book all that huge and burning thing that made up the “GULAG Archipelago”! And where did the strength come from, already in Vermont, to cope with the mountain of material, one must think, several archive rooms for the “Red Wheel”! At the same time, managing to conduct a journalistic guidebook for Russia and the West, managing to compile and edit two multi-volume library series on modern Russian history! Only one comparison is suitable here - with "War and Peace" and Tolstoy. Solzhenitsyn and Tolstoy have a lot in common. The same blocky figures, enormous will and energy, epic thinking, the need for both one and the other, after approximately sixty years of distance from historical events, to turn to the foundational fateful centuries of the beginning of their century. This is some kind of mystical coincidence. Huge popularity in the world, the buzz of articles, sound on all continents. One is excommunicated from the church, the other from his homeland. Help for the hungry and help for political prisoners, then literature. Both are great rebels, but Tolstoy created his rebellion “out of the blue,” in conditions of personal and paternal (relatively, of course) well-being; Solzhenitsyn completely emerged from rebellion, the system nurtured it in him. Solzhenitsyn's fate abruptly threw him from one steepness to another; Tolstoy's biography, after the Caucasian campaign, took a quiet haven in Yasnaya Polyana and completely went into writing and spiritual life. But even after this: turns that bring them closer to each other. Solzhenitsyn in America plunges into seclusion, Tolstoy, before his death, commits the not at all senile act of an eternal rebel - his famous departure from Yasnaya Polyana.

And most importantly: “Leo Tolstoy as a mirror of the Russian revolution” and Alexander Solzhenitsyn as a mirror of the Russian counter-revolution seventy years after the revolution.

It is a rare person who sets an impossible goal and lives to see victory. This happened to Alexander Isaevich. Having declared war on a powerful system, in his homeland calling on the subjects of this system to live not by lies, and in exile constantly calling on the West to increase pressure on communism, Solzhenitsyn could hardly count on anything else during his lifetime other than the ideological weakening and retreat of communism to softer positions . What happened, however, was more and, as it soon became clear, worse: the system collapsed. History loves strong and quick moves, to justify which huge sacrifices are then made. This was the case in 1917, and this is what happened this time too.

Fearing precisely such an outcome in the future, Solzhenitsyn more than once warned: “... but suddenly the party bureaucracy falls away tomorrow... and our remnants will be destroyed in another February, in another collapse” (“Our Pluralists”, 1982). And over the past half century, Russia’s preparedness for democracy, for a multi-party parliamentary system, could only decline. Perhaps its sudden introduction now would only be a new sad repetition of 1917" ("Letter to the Leaders of the Soviet Union", 1973).

According to the clock of the turning point of Russian life, the course of which Solzhenitsyn studied well, it was difficult to make a mistake: just as February was inevitably followed by October, so in place of the educated people who had flown to power, petty, vile and roguish, incapable of governing, high-flying predators would come and set up the state for yourself. All this was both foreseen by Solzhenitsyn and said, but the rebel, who longed for a final victory over the old enemy, spoke more powerfully in him and drowned out the voice of the seer. The “red wheel”, which rolled from the beginning to the end of the century, burst... but if only the rim was red in it, which can be urgently and painlessly replaced and move on!.. No, the rim has grown together with both the axle and the hub , that is, with the entire national progress, with the national body - and with rage and rage they began to tear it, the body... and are still tearing it, thickly smeared with blood.

But what was said could not fall silent for a long time with the change of power. And it is not surprising that much of what belongs to one system has now naturally been redirected to another and even received intensification - along with the intensification of our misfortunes. This is how it should be: justice is fighting a crime against national Russia, and the new banner put up by the criminals will not confuse an honest judge.

“When violence bursts into peaceful human life, its face glows with self-confidence, it carries the flag and shouts: “I am Violence!” Separate, make way - I will crush you!" But violence quickly grows old, a few years - it is no longer confident in itself and, in order to hold on, to look decent, it certainly calls on Lies as its allies. For: violence has nothing to hide behind except lies, and Lies can hold on only through violence" (Live not by lies").

“A lie can stand up against much in the world, but not against art. And as soon as the lie is dispelled, the nakedness of violence is disgustingly revealed, and decrepit violence will fall” (Nobel lecture).

No, this is not a remade Solzhenitsyn - he is still the same, branding evil, no matter what forms it takes.

But this is quite curious - despite some old notations:

“One American diplomat recently exclaimed: “Let the American stimulant work on Brezhnev’s Russian heart!” It’s a mistake, he should have said: “Soviet.” Nationality is not determined by origin alone, but by the soul, but by the direction of devotion. The heart of Brezhnev, who allows his people to be destroyed in benefit of international adventures, not Russian" ("What threatens America with a poor understanding of Russia").

Exactly.

The return of Alexander Isaevich to his long-suffering homeland, which began four years ago, finally ended only recently, with the publication of the book “Russia in Collapse” (Russian Path publishing house), we can now say that after a 20-year absence, Solzhenitsyn again grew into Russia and occupied according to the moral influence that belongs to him, and from now on the guessing of soil currents coincides with him, the first place in Russia, electing him at a distance from all political parties, at the crossroads of roads leading to the outback, where there remains hope for democracy, which he understands by zemstvo. Again: not everything in the last book can be agreed with unconditionally. But that's a separate conversation. This is a separate reflection, and again it would not have happened without Tolstoy, who, of course, did not seek either February or October, but with his loud denials of the foundations of contemporary monarchical life, he unwittingly lent them a shoulder. This is a reflection on the preparation, as if by the people themselves and as if contrary to their immediate interests, of great moral authorities, whose influence and teaching are consistent with the long-term perspective of the national destiny.

80th anniversary of A.I. Solzhenitsyn is the impetus for many serious thoughts about the Way of the Cross in Russia. They, of course, are everyday, we fall asleep with them and wake up with them. But then one day comes a day like this, raised above the fatal routine into which we are sucked more and more - and then everything seems larger and more significant. If the Russian land gives birth to such people, it means that it is still rooted, and no villainy, no allowance can crush it into dust so quickly. If, after all the beatings inflicted on her by the bad weather, she only managed to strengthen herself and become richer in growth, why shouldn’t she also strengthen herself and turn her adversity into experience and wisdom over time?! There are people in whom contemporaries and descendants see the parentage of the earth as greater than father and mother.

That’s why it sounds like this: Motherland, Fatherland!

The Emperor burst into tears, hugged and kissed me. We stood for several minutes, silently, in tears.
– What result will come from your conversation with such a tragic end? – I asked Kaufman.
- None! He is unfortunate, weak-willed! – Kaufman answered with tears.”
“...I decided to tell all this personally to the Emperor. That's what I did. I reported to the Sovereign without any concealment what I heard and saw, and directly told Him that dirty gossip had already been created about the relationship of the Sovereign Empress to Rasputin, which would discredit the very idea of ​​power; that the immediate removal of Rasputin is necessary. At the same time, I expressed my deep conviction that if this was not done, Rasputin would be killed. The Emperor listened to me. He didn't give me any of his opinions. He said only a few words, from which it became clear that the Emperor already knew the circumstances that I had just reported to Him,” Kaufman testified during the investigation.
And here is how the conversation between Metropolitan Pitirim and Kaufman is described in Zhevakhov’s memoirs. Kaufman listens without protest. Pitirim says:
“...I must say that although Rasputin’s authority in the eyes of the Sovereign and Empress was indeed high, Rasputin did not use his authority for criminal purposes and his most ardent enemies will not be able to point out a single deliberate criminal act on his part. If his name had not become a target for shelling of the Monarchy, he would have left the stage just as his predecessors had left the stage. It was necessary to suppress this name in the same way as the name of Count Eulenburg in Germany was hushed up at one time, and not to inflate his fame, no matter good or bad, for both were equally harmful and dangerous for the state.
Everyone was well aware of this, but they were afraid of being branded “Rasputinists” and the louder they shouted about Rasputin’s crimes, the more they wanted to distance themselves from him and not tarnish their reputation. And what the specific crimes of Rasputin were, no one could say, and when I asked about this, no one could answer me, but got off with only general phrases. It was not Rasputin who destroyed Russia, but the Headquarters and the Duma, but no one looked there. I suffered more than anyone because of Rasputin, I suffered more than others because of this name, because bad people took advantage of me, playing with the name of Rasputin.
They said that Rasputin replaces and appoints ministers. Perhaps there was some truth in the fact that he recommended this or that minister to the Emperor. And yet this terrible man, whose name thundered throughout the world as a synonym for the evil that allegedly caused the revolution, this same man did not recommend to the Emperor any of those persons who replaced the “Rasputin henchmen” and formed the Provisional Government that destroyed Russia. And in any case, Rasputin loved the Tsar and Russia more than these criminals. Yes, it was a painful growth on the state body, and it would be better if it did not exist, but to see in Rasputin the main evil in the life of Russia in recent years means not knowing either the history or the psychology of the revolution, on the pages of which the name of Rasputin is even was not mentioned."
This is what Pitirim said to Kaufman, and Kaufman conveyed it to Prince Zhevakhov. How much was lost and altered during this transfer and what Kaufman actually thought, what Pitirim, and what Zhevakhov - questions that remain unanswered, but that Rasputin loved the Tsar and Russia more than many of his enemies, and in no matter what sins Gregory is accused of, one thing is very important and, unfortunately, very widespread in pre-revolutionary Russia - in betrayal – he was not personally guilty, there is some truth in this.
“He was a typical personification of the Russian peasant and, despite his natural cunning and undoubted intelligence, he extremely easily fell into the networks laid out,” we read further in Zhevakhov’s memoirs. - Cunning and innocence, suspicion and childish gullibility, harsh feats of asceticism and reckless revelry, and above all this fanatical devotion to the Tsar and contempt for his fellow peasant - all this coexisted in his nature, and, truly, either intent or thoughtlessness is needed, to attribute crimes to Rasputin where only the manifestation of his peasant nature was reflected.
Precisely because he was a peasant, precisely for this reason, he did not take into account that proximity to the Court already imposes obligations, that everyone close to the Tsar is, first of all, a guardian of the name of the Sovereign, that not only in the Tsar’s Palace, but also beyond its threshold it is necessary behave in such a way that your behavior does not cast a shadow on the Sacred Names. Rasputin also did not take into account the fact that the Russian people highly value their faith in those whom they consider “saints,” demanding from them in return admiration for them, absolute moral purity and showing very strict requirements to them in this regard. The slightest doubt about the purity of their moral character is enough for them to be charged with a crime that constitutes ordinary human weakness, which under other conditions and in relation to other people is passed without attention; The most insignificant offense is enough for yesterday's "saint" to be declared a criminal today.
Rasputin did not take any of this into account and, therefore, when he was invited to visit, he went; they gave him wine and made him drunk - he drank and got drunk; offered to dance - he willingly started dancing, squatting, dancing Kamarinskaya to the deafening thunder of applause from the audience dying with laughter... But is it really possible to seriously say that Rasputin was aware at that moment of the criminality of his behavior?.. He did not even realize that he ridiculed with the most vile and criminal intentions, that by cunning and deceit they deliberately lure him into the set nets in order to mock the Sacred Names of the King and Queen, who considered him an ascetic. Rasputin was so far from such assumptions that he went to dinner parties wearing a blue silk shirt and boasted that he had received it as a gift from the Empress.
No, the psychology of peasant nature is clear to me, and I do not find any evidence to attribute a criminal nature to these actions of Rasputin.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

Rasputin and the army: a bone of contention. Denikin and Brusilov. Shavelsky and Pitirim: empty troubles. Warning from Father Vasiliev. Rasputin and the Jews. Aron Simanovich as a collective unknown. Solzhenitsyn about Rasputin. Russian Rocambole with a double surname. Senior Bonch. Our new national hero. Grigory Rasputin and the FSB. "Waterloo" by General Batyushin. Achilles' list of an experienced wanderer

Zhevakhov – no, but most of his contemporaries found such data. This was especially true of the military environment - the only one that Rasputin never managed to penetrate, and he could not influence it in any way. Although Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich had not been on the Western Front for a long time, the menacing “come and I’ll hang you” hung over the Tsar’s friend like a curse, and the new generals wanted to see Rasputin in the disposition of their units as willingly as the previous ones. True, rumors that in connection with the change of commander-in-chief Rasputin came to the front circulated around Petrograd:
“Rasputin again! Everyone says that he dissolved the Duma. The Emperor had already decided to instruct Krivoshein to organize a ministry out of public figures, when he suddenly changed his mind and appointed Goremykin. It was as if Rasputin dissuaded him. They fear that he is now at headquarters and whether he has been bribed by the Germans, or whether he will persuade the Tsar to a separate peace. Just remember what you heard in one week here - and you will be horrified by the life of a St. Petersburg man: in a week you will age a month..."
This is what Mikhail Prishvin, who was very far from the palace, wrote in his diary, and it is amazing that his moods coincided with the intonations in the Empress’s letters to the Sovereign: “In dear Petrograd<…>they say that Gr. - at the rate. The people here are becoming more and more cretins, and I feel so sorry for you that you will return here...”
The queen tried to turn the situation around, but none of her aspirations worked out.
“Soon after the sovereign took over the Supreme Command, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna came to Headquarters,” wrote D. V. Lekhovich in the book “Whites against the Reds,” based on the memoirs of General Denikin. “Walking through the garden with Alekseev, she took him by the arm and began talking about Rasputin. “Somewhat worried,” General Denikin described this episode, “she passionately convinced Mikhail Vasilyevich that he was wrong in his relationship with Rasputin, that the elder was a wonderful and holy man, that they were slandering him, that he was passionately attached to their family, and the main thing is that his visit to Headquarters will bring happiness... Alekseev replied that for him this issue had been resolved long ago, and that if Rasputin appeared at Headquarters, he would immediately leave the post of chief of staff.
– Is this your final decision?
- Yes, definitely.
The Empress abruptly broke off the conversation and left without saying goodbye to Alekseev. This conversation, according to Mikhail Vasilyevich, influenced the deterioration of the sovereign’s attitude towards him. Contrary to established opinion, these relationships, which in external manifestations left nothing to be desired, were not of the nature of intimacy, friendship, or even exclusive trust.
Several times,” Denikin wrote further, “when Mikhail Vasilyevich, depressed by the growing popular displeasure against the regime and the throne, tried to go beyond the framework of the military report and present the tsar with a true account of events, when he touched on the issue of Rasputin and the Ministry of War, he met a well-known figure to many an impenetrable look and a dry answer:
- I know it.
Say no more.
But in matters of army management, the sovereign completely trusted Alekseev."
“It's too late to go to church. I am sending you a paper from our Friend, which please let Alekseev read,” the Empress wrote to her husband.
It is not known what kind of paper it was, it is not known whether Nikolai Alekseev gave it to him, it is not known whether the general read it, but it is known that no military advice coming from “our Friend” was accepted at Headquarters, although the Empress passed them on from time to time .
“...our Friend sends blessings to the entire Orthodox army. He asks that we not advance too much in the north, because, according to Him, if our successes in the south continue, then they themselves will begin to retreat or advance in the north, and then their losses will be very great if we begin there, we will suffer great damage. He says this as a warning."
Nikolai’s answer is also remarkable:
“A few days ago, Alekseev and I decided not to attack in the north, but to intensify our efforts to the south. “But I beg you, don’t tell anyone about this, not even our Friend.”
It is clear that it was not because they listened to Rasputin; rather, his correct advice in some cases only irritated the generals, just as individual successful advice in the church field irritated the bishops.
“He finds that in order to avoid large losses, one should not advance so persistently - one must be patient, without forcing events, since in the end victory will be on our side - one can attack furiously and end the war in 2 months, but then one will have to sacrifice thousands of lives, - and with more patience there will be the same victory, but much less blood will be shed" - here is another Rasputin recommendation, set out by the Empress in a letter to the commander-in-chief of the Russian army, and it contains a persistent motive: the main thing is not to rush, the main thing is to take care Russian lives. It is not easy to evaluate it from a military point of view, but the peasant thought can be seen here very clearly:
“Our Friend hopes that we will not climb the Carpathians and try to take them, because, He repeats, the losses will be too great”; “Darling, our Friend is completely beside himself that Brusilov did not obey your order to suspend the offensive<…>He says there will be needless losses again<…>Why stubbornly climb the wall, break your head, sacrifice people’s lives in vain, as if they were flies?”; “Our generals do not spare “lives” - they are indifferent to losses, and this is a sin,” she wrote a day later, and in these arguments the influence of Rasputin is undoubtedly felt.
“I just received your telegram in which you report that our Friend is very upset that my plan is not being carried out,” the Emperor answered and further, explaining to the Empress the reasons for this change, he wrote: “These details are only for you alone - I ask you, Expensive! Just tell Him: the Pope ordered reasonable measures to be taken.”
Whether he was afraid of treason, Rasputin’s talkativeness, or was simply disciplined and careful, Alexandra Fedorovna still attracted Rasputin to military councils, colored in religious tones:
“My dear, please do not rush into Polish affairs - do not allow this to be pushed into you until we have crossed the borders - I fully believe in the wisdom of our Friend, sent to Him by God, to advise what you and our country need - He sees far ahead, and therefore His judgment can be relied upon.”
Or this very important place:
“If only Alekseev had accepted the icon of our Friend with the appropriate mood, then God would undoubtedly bless his labors with you. Don't be afraid to mention Gr. with him - thanks to Him you remained determined and took command a year ago, when everyone was against you, tell him this, and then he will comprehend all the wisdom and many cases of miraculous deliverance in war of those for whom He prays and to whom He is known ..."
And a month later: “It’s a shame that a lot of people are writing vile letters against Him (Gr.) Alekseev.”
But there was another circumstance that was much more annoying:
“According to information that reached me, propaganda against the empress, who was accused of her acquaintance with Rasputin, began to spread throughout the army, especially in the rear units. I considered it my duty to report this information with all the details to His Majesty. The mention of Rasputin’s name was apparently painfully unpleasant for the Tsar,” recalled palace commandant V.N. Voeikov.
As for General Alekseev, he, like the rest of the generals, was sharply opposed to Rasputin and did not hide this from the Empress.
“Your Majesty,” the general answered her, “the voice of the people is the voice of God. I, a faithful servant of my sovereign, am ready to do everything to alleviate it, but I cannot allow the presence here of a person about whom the people and the army unanimously have the most negative opinion,” wrote Mich. Lemke in his book “250 days at Tsarist Headquarters”.
“...and he calls Rasputin and adds the word “canal”, Vyrubova, I don’t remember what epithet he gave her, then he calls the Empress, Andronikov, Rubinstein, Manus and some two or three other “Jewish surnames” ...” - he said in testimony about Alekseev, General Nikolai Iudovich Ivanov, who himself talked with the Emperor about Rasputin, as Stolypin, Rodzianko, Samarin, Shavelsky, Frederic, Tyutchev had said before...
"Ivanov: When he spoke to the sovereign, he was surprised. He said: “I didn’t expect to hear this,” but in a soft way.
Senator Ivanov: Were you unhappy?
Ivanov: No, in a mild form.
Chairman: You said that Rasputin is a harmful person?
Ivanov: I said that I am a harmful person. He told me: “I didn’t expect to hear this from you.” He said in a soft manner.
Chairman: General, tell me the fact.
Ivanov: He told me: “Thank you for your loyalty.” This ended our conversation, and he said goodbye to me. And he said it in a soft tone<…>.
Senator Ivanov: When you were at Headquarters, when P. M. Kaufman had to leave Headquarters, what were the reasons for this?
Ivanov: He left Headquarters for the State Council, but before that he had a conversation with the sovereign regarding Rasputin. The Emperor then hugged and kissed him, and then we read in the newspapers that he was expelled from the post of commander in chief.
Senator Ivanov: Why was he suspended?
Ivanov: They said then that it was because of the report to the sovereign about Rasputin.”
Here's what's important to note. It was Rasputin who became one of the key reasons for the misunderstanding, cooling, and resentment that arose between the Church and the Sovereign, on the one hand, and the army and its commander-in-chief, on the other. Individual people who call themselves monarchists today often say that it was precisely these two forces - the army and the Church - that betrayed the Emperor in February 1917, failing to fulfill their duty and going over to the side of the Provisional Government. The Tsar's opponents, on the contrary, are convinced that he committed the abdication, and this was both his mistake and his crime. But whichever of these two opinions is closer to the historical truth, there is no doubt that Grigory Rasputin, against his will, was one of the central links in this discord, and what could somehow get away with in peacetime became in war extremely annoying factor.
It was difficult to find a person who would remain indifferent to rumors about him in the warring army. This was especially true for the officers - the soldiers reacted more simply and partly perceived Gregory as one of their own, but the officers and, above all, the senior command staff were outraged, and the difference in this perception, by the way, was also not accidental and did not promise anything good.
Mikhail Lemke wrote in his diary about a certain caricature, “depicting: on the left Wilhelm measuring the length of a German shell with a meter, and on the right Nikolai measuring, on his knees, with an arshin... Rasputin... And everyone laughed, no one considers it necessary to be shy... The collapse is complete.”
This is the officers' reaction. Here's another piece of evidence:
“Officers say that this is the evil genius of the royal family... all the troubles and misfortunes that befell our army, all the difficulties in the rear are being blamed on Rasputin’s head,” wrote Dmitry, a participant in the First World War, a peasant who rose to the rank of junior officer, in his notes. Prokofievich Oskin. “The soldiers were completely indifferent to the murder. I asked Larkin to specifically listen to conversations on this topic in the team and in the companies. But he never managed to hear anything.
– But still, how do they treat him? – I persistently asked Larkin.
- How do they feel? They say that the man was capable before the women, and the queen, of course, is also a woman, tea, and she needs it, her husband is at the front. After all, our women in the village, look how they fool around with the Austrians.”
“I was especially concerned not with the troops and their power, which I did not doubt at that time, but with internal affairs, which could not but influence the state of the army’s spirit,” recalled General Brusilov. – The constant change of ministers, the often extremely strange choice of ministers and prime ministers themselves, the chaotic governance of Russia with so-called irresponsible persons in the form of all-powerful advisers, endless stories about Rasputin, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, Sturmer, etc. worried everyone, and one might say that, with the exception of the mass of soldiers, who for the most part were inert, the officer corps and all the intelligentsia who were part of the army were extremely hostile towards the government. Everywhere, without hesitation, they said that it was time to put a stop to the outrages happening in St. Petersburg, and that it was absolutely necessary to establish a responsible ministry.”
One of the founders of the Red Army, General Lukirsky, spoke about the same thing: “On the eve of the February 1917 revolution, among the officers of the General Staff of the old army there was definitely dissatisfaction with the monarchical system: the extreme failure of the war; economic collapse of the country; internal unrest; calling to senior positions in the state apparatus persons who are clearly incompetent and undeserving of public trust; finally, the extremely outrageous fall of the tsar under the influence of a rogue (Grig. Rasputin) and the growth of intrigues at court and in the highest spheres of state. Therefore, the February revolution was met with sympathy by the bulk of all officers in general.”
Protopresbyter Shavelsky cites in his memoirs his conversation with General Alekseev: “You know, Father George, I want to leave the service. There is no point in serving: nothing can be done, nothing can help the cause. Well, what can you do with this child! Dancing over the abyss and... calm. The state is ruled by a mad woman, and around her is a ball of dirty worms: Rasputin, Vyrubova, Sturmer, Raev, Pitirim...”
Shavelsky also has one more memory: “Without stopping at Headquarters, I drove from the front to Petrograd and on May 13 attended a meeting of the Holy Synod. At the end of the meeting, Metropolitan Pitirim approached me.
- ABOUT<тец>Protopresbyter! “Her Majesty instructed me to talk with you about a very serious matter,” he turned to me. – When should we do this?
- Strange! – I answered. “Before leaving Headquarters, I saw the Empress every day and talked with her, but she didn’t say a word about the conversation I was about to have with you.
- Yes. But Her Majesty instructed me... So where and when will we talk to you?
“Wherever,” I answered, “either at your place or at mine.” I'm leaving for Headquarters on Tuesday, May 17th.
- Maybe we can talk here right now? – suggested Metropolitan Pitirim.
I, of course, agreed. We went to the window opposite the synod table and, standing, began a conversation. There was no one in the synod hall anymore. Only at the entrance doors to the synodal hall stood the Tver Archbishop. Seraphim, Archpriest A. A. Dernov and I. Deputy Chief Prosecutor V.I. Yatskevich.
“So,” the Metropolitan began, “Her Majesty is very concerned that there is a lot of talk in the army about Grigory Efimovich.” Why does anyone care that a good man stands near the royal family? But he’s disturbing someone! In the army they say this and that...
And the Metropolitan told me almost verbatim what I told the Emperor on March 17. It was clear that my conversation with the Emperor was reported to the Empress, and the latter or Vyrubova was transferred to Metropolitan Pitirim with the instruction to “influence” me.
“I don’t know if Rasputin is a good person,” as if they were saying something different about him, but the army is really worried about him, considering him the culprit of many nasty things. How great the hatred for him in the army is, you can see from the following... And I, without naming either place or names, told an episode on May 1, which was at a breakfast after the consecration of the banners of the 65th infantry. divisions.
- If the corps commander, a distinguished, old military general, allows himself such an outburst in relation to a person so close to the royal family, it means how far things have gone!
- So the Empress asks you to influence the army so that there are no such conversations in it. The army knows you, it loves you, “you can do this,” the Metropolitan interrupted me.
- Lord! – I turned to the Metropolitan. – Do you clearly understand what you are asking me for? Do you know what our army is now? It now has 10 million. It is on a two-thousand-mile front and in the endless rear, for the rear is all of Russia. How to convince her? Living word? You understand that this is impossible. It would take me several years to talk to all the parts. Appeal to the army? Then those who have been silent until now will start talking about Rasputin. And with what words, with what instructions would I address the army? I can't lie. And even if he began to lie, how could lying help the matter?
- How hard, how hard! – the Metropolitan almost groaned.
- Lord! Let me be honest with you,” I interrupted him. “Maybe I’m wrong, but it seems to me that you have absolutely no idea what a terrible question this is - the question of Rasputin.” This is the most terrible of all questions of our time. It must be resolved, it must be resolved as soon as possible, and the Church must help resolve it. Although you, Vladyka, are not the leading member of the Holy Synod, you are the Petrograd Metropolitan; Therefore, all eyes are turned to you. Believe me, the time will come when they will ask what the Church has done to resolve this issue, and first of all they will ask you. Then you will be presented with a big bill.
- How hard, how hard! – the Metropolitan began to sigh again. - You know what? – he suddenly turned to me. “With what joy I would resign.” If only they would give me a pension...
“Well, now is not the time for you and me to think about retirement,” I objected. – We will resign when they tell us: leave! In the meantime, we must do and do.
- What, what should I do? – the Metropolitan asked nervously.
– Rasputin’s closeness to the royal family threatens with dire consequences. We must rid this family of the dangerous Rasputin tutelage. We need to convince them to free themselves from Rasputin. If this cannot be done, convince Rasputin to leave them, so that, if they are dear to him, he can save them. “I don’t see any other way to calm the army and people and protect the falling prestige of the Sovereign,” I finished.
At this point we parted.
I completely objectively and, as accurately as I could, conveyed my conversation with the Metropolitan. I leave it to the reader to draw further conclusions. But I’ll say one thing about myself: I left the Metropolitan and returned home with some kind of disgusting feeling, which kept growing in me as I thought about the words, remembered the facial expression, gasps and sighs of my interlocutor...
What were the consequences of this conversation? – the reader will ask. There are no significant ones. The Metropolitan remained the same as he had been before. It was not yet profitable for him to change his position regarding Rasputin, because he stuck to Rasputin; Because of this story, he did not see a sad future both for Russia and for himself.<…>