1940), Russian writer, scientist, philologist. Geyser Matvey (Motel) Moiseevich (b. 1940), Russian writer, scientist, philologist Geyser Matvey Moiseevich

Matvey Geyser

Leonid Utesov

ABOUT A SONG THAT HELPES LIVE

I cannot hide my joy at the upcoming publication of a book about Utesov in the “ZhZL” series, beloved by me and many other readers. Fortunately, I have a lot in common with this publishing house; I carefully preserve my books published by the Young Guard. The ageless “guard” of youth still gives us wonderful books, invents new series and revives those that we loved a long time ago. One of these legendary series is “The Lives of Remarkable People.” And it is very important that wonderful literary pens again tell us about “wonderful people”. One of them belongs to Matvey Geyser. I read his books on Mikhoels and Marshak with great interest and gratitude. And here is a new story describing the life of a wonderful favorite of millions - Leonid Utesov.

For many years I was a close friend of Leonid Osipovich and I have the right to assure: the author spoke with endearing authenticity about the rare talent, creative path, and character of my unforgettable friend. I am not going to retell the contents of the book and thereby take away from the readers the joy of first communication with it. But based on one fact that Matvey Moiseevich did not ignore, I will try to prove that Utesov is certainly worthy of being in an authoritative and demanding book series.

...Once upon a time, Leonid Utesov was the first to confidently proclaim that a good song “helps to build and live.” In this regard, I will return my memory to the years of the Great Patriotic War... People at that time grew up early. So I had the chance, before reaching adulthood, to become the executive secretary of the daily newspaper “Fortress of Defense” (not a large-circulation newspaper, but a newspaper!) at one of the most important defense construction sites in the country that fought against fascism. I remember walking from the printing house at five in the morning and invariably seeing my mother waiting for me near the barracks. And on the way I often encountered hillocks sprinkled with snow if it was winter, or with factory smoke if summer was coming. These were people, heroes of a fierce battle, who, on frost-bound construction sites or in the so-called “harmful workshops”, where, according to medical laws, it was possible to work no more than four to five hours a day, worked for 12–14 hours, receiving “for harmfulness” a bottle of milk, which was most often given to children... Some could not withstand dystrophy, extreme exhaustion and, having fulfilled their heroic duty, fell lifelessly to the ground they were defending...

Sometimes, however, there were holidays: famous and even famous cultural figures came. And one of the main holidays was, I remember, a meeting with Leonid Utesov and his pop orchestra. Nowadays it’s hard to believe that the concerts started at eleven or twelve at night: people worked until midnight...

Leonid Osipovich was greeted as an old and faithful friend. I saw how fatigue left their faces and how their eyes brightened. The audience picked up familiar songs - that night, people who seemed to have forgotten how to laugh and sing began to sing excitedly and not only applauded, but gave their beloved artist and his musicians a standing ovation that did not subside for a long time.

“The song helps us build and live!” - the workers heard that Utesov was asserting this on their behalf. When reading Matvey Geyser’s book, it seems to me as if he saw everything I told with his own eyes. Like many other things, which he, like me, did not witness, but which he knows for sure.

At the request of the leaders of the legendary construction site and the gigantic enterprise it built, Utesov stayed with us for another week and a half. And then he went to other heroic labor collectives who fought the fierce enemy selflessly, albeit far from the front. In this regard, I cannot help but remember how Klavdia Shulzhenko and the orchestra created by her husband Vladimir Coralli, to the best of their creative abilities, helped Leningraders to courageously withstand the nightmare of the fascist blockade. This was also the contribution of outstanding masters of art to the country’s struggle and its Victory.

...The main sign of true talent is its individuality, its dissimilarity to anyone other than itself. Such was the gift of Leonid Utesov. His voice, style, manner of communicating with the audience and with Time can be recognized immediately, from the first words, from the first sounds...

Leonid Osipovich has not been with us for a long time. But Matvey Geyser’s book confidently proves that Utesov is alive, that he is still around.

Anatoly Aleksin, writer,

laureate of State Prizes of the USSR and Russia

During Leonid Utesov's lifetime, three versions of his memoirs were published. “Notes of an Actor” was published in Leningrad in 1939. This book was published by chance, because shortly before its publication, the author of the preface, Isaac Babel, was arrested. By some miracle, the book did not go under the knife, but appeared, of course, without a foreword by Isaac Emmanuilovich, although it was kept completely in the spirit of the times.

In 1961, Leonid Osipovich’s book “With a Song Through Life” was published in Moscow. In many ways it complements the previous one, but, of course, the perception of life during the Khrushchev Thaw was completely different. Then Utyosov not only sang on the stage, but wrote prose and even poetry. These poems were not included in the book “With a Song Through Life” - either the author did not want to, or the editor did not dare. Therefore, we reproduce one of the poems, written in 1961, here:

May is dressed in beautiful attire,
And on this day we send greetings
To all those who fight for peace,
To all those whose golden idol
Enslaved in captivity.

And so, like a triumph of labor,
In my country let it always be
The song flows freely.
And above the planet Earth
As a messenger of working life
The ship "Vostok" is rushing!

In these poems, Utesov’s attitude to the Khrushchev era is reflected much more clearly than in the book itself.

Another 15 years have passed since the publication of “With a Song Through Life.” In 1976, in Moscow, the All-Union Theater Society publishing house published Utesov’s book “Thank you, heart!” with the subtitle “Memories, meetings, reflections.” This book is not only more interesting than the previous ones, but also wonderfully illustrated. But even in it, Utesov talked about a lot, about many, but still not about everyone he could talk about. There are no memories in it, for example, of Mikhoels, Roman Karmen and many other significant people of the Soviet country with whom the author was friends. Utesov did not say a word about the dramatic episode of his life, which was so clearly reflected in his letter to Khrushchev in 1963 (this letter is reproduced in our book).

Utesov's posthumous literary fate turned out to be somewhat unexpected - it is not often that so much is written about deceased cultural figures. Soon after the artist’s death, a book by his friend, professor Yuri Arsentievich Dmitriev “Leonid Utesov” was published. This book is also interesting because it was read and approved by Leonid Osipovich shortly before his death. Utesov’s book “Thank you, heart!” has been republished in the “My 20th Century” series by the Vagrius publishing house. In 1995, the publishing house “Iskusstvo” published a book by Utesov’s second wife, Antonina Sergeevna Revels, “Next to Utesov” (literary entry by L. G. Bulgak). The book is frank, interesting, and controversial in many ways. And in recent years, the “harvest” of books about Utesov has become even larger. Journalist and photographer Leonid Semenovich Babushkin, in his two books under the general title “Notes of Tsidreitor,” paid a lot of attention to Utesov and the people around him. On the occasion of the 110th anniversary of the artist’s birth, a book by a collector and pop expert, a good friend of Utesov Valery Dmitrievich Safoshkin, “Leonid Utesov” was published. And in 2006, Arkady Inin and Natalya Pavlovskaya published the book “Utesov” in the St. Petersburg publishing house “Amphora” with the subtitle “A Song of a Lifetime”, honestly warning readers that their book is “a fantasy on the theme of Utesov.”

Thus, this is far from the first of the biographical books about Utesov. I consider it necessary, even necessary, to reproduce here a quote from Valentin Kataev’s book “My Diamond Crown”: “Probably, the reader noticed with displeasure that I am abusing quotes. But the fact is that I consider good literature to be the same integral part of the world around me as forests, mountains, seas, clouds, stars, rivers, cities, sunrises, sunsets, historical events, passions and so on, that is, the material which the writer uses to construct his works.”

I remembered these words of Kataev not only because further I quote a lot from Leonid Osipovich himself and his friends whom I met while working on the book, but also because I spent a lot of time studying the unique archive of Utesov, which I got acquainted with with the permission of Antonina Sergeevna Revels during her lifetime (the archive is now kept in RGALI). It will remain a mystery for a long time why Utyosov, an actor without theatrical training, a singer whose voice was criticized so many times, took such a prominent place in the history of Soviet pop music and culture in general. Very few can be placed next to him. It is probably no coincidence that among his three favorite singers Georg Ots (who you wouldn’t suspect of lacking an ear for music!) named Caruso, Chaliapin and Utesov. It is also no coincidence that before his flight into space, Yuri Gagarin wanted to hear songs performed by Utesov. Perhaps, the phenomenon of Utesov was explained more accurately than others by the people's artist Boris Chirkov - “he gave people joy, shared with them all the brightest things that filled his soul” - and the poet Robert Rozhdestvensky - “Utesov really was the lead singer. And if he started a new song, the people would definitely pick it up.”

Leonid Osipovich has not been with us for a long time. But Matvey Geyser’s book confidently proves that Utesov is alive, that he is still around.

Anatoly Aleksin, writer,

laureate of State Prizes of the USSR and Russia

May is dressed in beautiful attire,

And on this day we send greetings

To all those who fight for peace,

To all those whose golden idol

Enslaved in captivity.

And so, like a triumph of labor,

In my country let it always be

The song flows freely.

And above the planet Earth

As a messenger of working life

The ship "Vostok" is rushing!

In these poems, Utesov’s attitude to the Khrushchev era is reflected much more clearly than in the book itself.

Matvey Geyser,

writer and publicist

In the fall of 1992, I traveled around the towns of Ukraine, collecting photographic material for my book “Jewish Mosaic.” I recently found a post related to this trip. A shtetl, or rather a former shtetl, in Podolia. I wander through the streets and alleys and suddenly I see a window in which, as in a store window, hanging caps (among them even one military), caps of some special cut. I, of course, stopped and knocked on the door (I had no doubt that a Jewish artisan lived in the house). My knocking, even persistent, did not lead to anything. I knocked on the window. An elderly woman looked out and said, “If you need anything, come into the house.” She opened the door and, without even inviting me to come in, told me from the threshold that today was Saturday and nothing would be for sale. “If you want to buy something for your head, come in the evening or tomorrow morning. By your appearance, I see that you are not from Yampol or even from Shargorod, but you are definitely a Jew. There are so few Jews left around that I know everyone by sight. Where will you be from?” I said that I once lived in Bershad and am now photographing the remaining Jewish towns. My message did not make much of an impression on the hostess. “But in our house you were probably interested in hats? - she asked, looking at me attentively. - I see that you are most likely from Odessa. I guess? Ah, from Moscow! Zalman, come here! An intelligent buyer from Moscow came here. He wants something."

A tall old man with a huge Budyonnovsky mustache entered the room. Without saying hello, he began to say: “You want to have a cap of my work. I understand you well. I am not only the last “Shargorod Cossack”, but also the last hat maker in the town. Many left for Palestine, some simply died. Palestine is now called Israel, but my dad, may he rest in peace, called this land Palestine and really wanted to go there... Eh, I’ll tell you. If you can choose something from the finished product, please do so. If not, come tomorrow morning, I will take measurements from your head, and while you are reading “Vinnitskaya Pravda”, you will have a wonderful headdress ready. When they ask you in Moscow where you got it, you will say that it was from Zalman from Shargorod, on Sovetskaya Street. So you yourself will be from Moscow? Last year I had one interesting client, also a Jewish man from Moscow. He was so small that I bent over double to talk to him. He was with his wife, a tall, beautiful woman. When this man found out that my name was Zalman, he was very happy and said that in childhood he was also called Zalman. I sewed him such a cap that neither in Yampol, nor in Vinnitsa, nor in Moscow there is another one. And I didn’t take any money from him. You might still think that I am a rich man and I don’t need money? How necessary! I became a small-town poor man. Sometimes weeks go by without a single client. But I couldn’t take money from this little man from Moscow, because he had a big and smart head. When we talked about life, about death, he told me something that I remembered as a verse (in Ukrainian - a poem. - Ed.): “A person’s whole life passes on a train that takes us to the best of worlds. And this train goes only in one direction. Is there life beyond the last stop? I don’t know. Not sure. But you have to live as if at the last stop a new, eternal life will begin, and then you won’t be afraid to die... Well, tell me, after such smart words, could I take money for my work? Of course not!"

For some reason, in this “client” of my new acquaintance I thought it was Zinovy Efimovich Gerdt, although at that moment I could not understand how he got to these places, why and why. After re-reading my notes, I called Tatyana Alexandrovna, the widow of Zinovy Efimovich. To my joy, I was right! Tatyana Aleksandrovna told me that in the summer of 1991 or 92 she and Zinovy Efimovich were on the set of the film “I am Ivan, and you are Abram.” The film was shot by a French director in the town of Chernivtsi, lost somewhere between Yampol and Shargorod. From one of the local residents, Zinovy Efimovich learned about a Jew, a famous master of sewing caps. On a day off from filming, Gerdt and his wife went to Shargorod. And the rest was approximately as described above.

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Grandfather Matvey Grandfather Matvey old. He himself says: “They don’t live that long these days.” He probably says it right, because there are no people his age left in the area, especially those who went through the war: with trenches, attacks, wounds and other fears, which we can now judge only from books

However, my family and friends still called me Marik. The first time I changed my name was when I decided to join the Komsomol. Then I committed a “double forgery.” Firstly, I was in such a hurry to be in the forefront of the Soviet youth that I added several months to myself. However, I was not the first in this forgery - Gennady Khazanov, when joining the Komsomol, wrote down in the “nationality” column: Ossetian. This is perhaps more seditious than confusing a birthday. So, according to my Komsomol card, I was born on January 14, 1940. For some reason I called myself Max. Perhaps I wanted to call myself Marx, but since I can’t pronounce the “r”, I turned into Max, and on my Komsomol card I was listed as “Max Moiseevich.” This is how my third name came about. Everything would probably remain the same: “Motel” - in the metric, “Max” - in the Komsomol card, “Marik” - in life, but...

In the summer of 1955, the Bershad Pedagogical School was closed, and the students were transferred to Tulchin. A celebration was held at the stadium near the school to mark the beginning of the new school year. At it, diplomas and letters of gratitude were presented based on the results of studies for the past academic year. Those present reacted quite calmly to what was happening. Activity increased sharply when the director of the pedagogical school, I still remember his sonorous surname Gorovy, said: “A donation (gratitude) for being included in the special right (in a personal file) is given to the Geyser Motel!” How sharp and unusual this name sounded! I didn't even realize that they were talking about me. Amid hooting, shouting and applause, I was pushed out of the line, the crowd cheered and chanted: “Mo-tel! Motel!" I approached the director, he handed me an “Extract from the order”, which included my name - Motel. I had a hard time with everything that happened. Perhaps it was on that day that for the first time I regretted that I belonged to “God’s chosen people.” I regretted it. I thought about this much earlier, when during the “Doctors’ Plot” I heard more than once from my classmates: “You killed Stalin!” That day I firmly decided to change the name “Motel” to any non-Jewish name. I was 15 years old then...

I left Tulchin in the summer of 1956. Then I had to get my first passport in my life. I went to Bershad, went to the passport office and explained the situation to the boss. I said that if he doesn’t change his name to “Mark” or “Max”, then I don’t know how I will live further or whether I will live at all. He looked at my metric for a long time, calculating something, and made a verdict: “Mark, it won’t work. Max - even more so." Having placed the metric in front of him, he took a pen and feather and wrote the word “Motel” on a piece of notebook paper. The letter “e” was transformed into “v”, the first part of the letter “l” was transformed into “e”. And from the second part of the “l” and the soft sign he created “y”. “In a week you will cease to be Motel and become Matvey,” he said solemnly, “you are due, comrade student!” Did the police officer think at that moment that, wanting to help me get rid of the Hebrew name Motel, which caused so much ridicule, he called me the beautiful Hebrew name Matvey, which translated from Hebrew means “Man of God”? Two weeks later I received my first passport with the name “Matvey”. Together with it, they returned the metric to me, where in place of my former name “Motel” there was a huge shiny dark purple blot... Mark, Motel, Max, Matvey... Which of these names is real? I remember the words of my grandfather Gershka Geyser: “The real name of a person is the one that remains after him.” And my relatives and friends still call me Marik.

Several years ago, at the hotel of the Central Committee of the Party (I don’t know what it’s called now), there was an evening summing up the results of a school essay competition on Jewish themes. There were children from different cities. The first place was taken by a Jewish boy from Kyiv, the second - by a Russian girl from St. Petersburg. This girl’s essay contained such knowledge of Jewish history of recent decades that not every Jew can understand it like that. Grigory Gorin presided over the evening, and he said the following phrase: “There cannot be a Jew without knowledge of Hebrew.” He was supported by Lev Novozhenov, and I spoke out sharply against this formula and gave several examples. The most convincing, in my opinion, is Theodor Herzl, the founder of Zionism. When he took up the Jewish cause, he knew neither Hebrew nor even Yiddish. There are many such examples. So is Herzl a Jew or not a Jew?

There are now a huge number of Jews writing in Russian. And not only now - at the beginning of the 20th century there were no less of them. Many of them were ashamed of their origin. Can such people be considered Jews? I don't think so. All his life Leonid Utesov wanted and found someone to speak Yiddish with. In this he saw a connection with his people. The same goes for director Mark Donskoy and artist Boris Efimov. The trio met once a month to speak Yiddish. As far as I know, Donskoy does not have anything on a Jewish theme in his films, but at the same time he emphasized his support for Jewry. There are other examples. The poet Ilya Reznik argued for a long time in one of his interviews that his ancestors are from Denmark. Why is this? To consider yourself a Viking? And this is a poet who wrote the script in Russian for the first performance of the Chamber Jewish Musical Theater (KEMT, artistic director Yuri Sherling).

As a result, I would say that it is impossible to determine and differentiate with mathematical precision who Russian Jews are - Russians or Jews? But if a person is at least to some extent interested in the history of his people, does not tolerate insults on anti-Semitic topics, in Russia this is already enough to remain a Jew. (From an interview in the newspaper “Jewish News” 03/23/2007 - A.Z.)

In 1947, I went to study in the first grade of the Bershad Ukrainian seven-year school. In third In class, the teacher asked me to bring the metric. But she was not there - during the war the archives of the registry office in Bershad disappeared. Mom began to fuss about a new metric. The secretary of the village council - his last name, it seems, was Kogan - issued a certificate where my name was listed as “Motel”. I remember my mother tried to object. “What bothers you?” he said to his mother, “after all, your son will be Motel Moiseevich. This is the name of the best teacher in Bershad, a friend of your late husband. And your son, when he grows up, will also become a teacher...” But his mother was not satisfied with his answer. At her request, the best teacher, Bershadi Motel Moiseevich, leaning on a stick, hobbled to the village council and tried to convince Kogan that in such an anti-Semitic time (and this was in 1950) I should not write the name “Motel” in my metric. But his campaign - alas! - also didn’t change anything. Many years later, I learned from Kogan that at that time there was an unspoken instruction to call Jews in documents by their traditional names. Motel Moiseevich - this is how my name and patronymic were written down on the certificate of completion of a seven-year school. So Motel is my middle name, with which I entered the Bershad Pedagogical School in 1954.