Who is a Jew, or Rostropovich's letter. Galina Vishnevskaya
Alexander Solzhenitsyn
One of the most famous emigrants who returned to Russia was the Russian writer, playwright, public and political figure Alexander Solzhenitsyn. After his famous “Letter to the Congress” of the Writers’ Union, the Soviet government began to perceive the writer as an enemy. In 1968, the novels “In the First Circle” and “Cancer Ward” were published in the USA and Europe without the author’s permission, which brought him popularity. But this fact led to the launch of a propaganda campaign against the author; Solzhenitsyn was soon expelled from the USSR Writers' Union.
Since the late 60s, a separate division was created at KBG to develop Solzhenitsyn. In 1970, he was nominated for the Nobel Prize, after which anti-Solzhenitsyn propaganda only intensified. On January 7, 1974, at a meeting of the Politburo, the release of the “Gulag Archipelago” and the “suppression of anti-Soviet activities” of Solzhenitsyn were discussed. On February 12, the writer was arrested and accused of treason. On the 13th he was expelled from the USSR and taken by plane to Germany. On March 29, his family also left the country. Soon after his expulsion, Solzhenitsyn decided to temporarily settle in Zurich.
With the advent of perestroika, the attitude of the authorities towards the writer and his work changed. Some of his works were published; in 1989, separate chapters of “The Gulag Archipelago” were published in the magazine “New World”. The following year, Solzhenitsyn was restored to Soviet citizenship, and the criminal case against him was dropped. In December he was awarded the State Prize of the RSFSR for “The Gulag Archipelago.” By personal order of Boris Yeltsin in March 1993, the writer was given the state dacha “Sosnovka-2” in Trinity-Lykovo as a lifelong inheritable ownership. On May 27, 1994, Alexander Solzhenitsyn returned to his homeland, flying from the USA to Magadan. After leaving Vladivostok, he traveled by train across the country and ended his journey in Moscow. In a conversation with journalists, Solzhenitsyn said: “All these years, in separation from my homeland, I carefully followed the daily life of Russia, but that was an outside view.<…>I just want to be a good adviser to Russians, and I will try not to make mistakes myself, to avoid general reasoning, but to come to a specific point. I want to bring the greatest benefit to my homeland.”
Galina Vishnevskaya and Mstislav Rostropovich
In 1969, after the persecution of Solzhenitsyn began, the Soviet cellist, pianist and conductor Mstislav Rostropovich and his family strongly supported the writer. He allowed Solzhenitsyn to live at his dacha near Moscow and wrote an open letter to Brezhnev in his defense. Measures followed immediately - concerts and tours were canceled, recordings stopped. In 1974, Rostropovich and his wife, the famous opera singer Galina Vishnevskaya, received an exit visa and, together with their children, went abroad for a long period. This was framed as a business trip from the USSR Ministry of Culture. In 1978, they were deprived of Soviet citizenship, titles and awards.
This is how Rostropovich himself recalled it: “In 1974, we were expelled from the Soviet Union for two years, as if on a business trip. In 1978, together with my wife Galina Pavlovna Vishnevskaya, we renewed our passports. But there was no answer. On March 15, 1978, suddenly (we were in Paris) Galina shouted to me: “Slava, run quickly here, to the TV...” I ran up and saw our photographs on the screen. On this day, the parliament of the Soviet Union approved a resolution depriving Vishnevskaya and Rostropovich of their citizenship for anti-Soviet activities.”
After that, they bought an apartment in Paris, and soon left for America, where Rostropovich became the chief conductor of the US National Symphony Orchestra. Rostropovich and Vishnevskaya were returned to USSR citizenship in 1990. However, they renounced their citizenship, stating that they did not ask for it to be taken away or returned. Until the end of her days, Galina Vishnevskaya lived with a Swiss passport, and Mstislav Rostropovich considered himself a “citizen of the world.” In August 1991, during the putsch of the State Emergency Committee, Rostropovich specially flew to Moscow and joined the defenders of the Russian White House.
However, Vishnevskaya and Rostropovich finally returned to Russia only in 2002.
Vasily Aksenov
Back in 1963, the writer Vasily Aksenov, together with the poet Andrei Voznesensky, was criticized by Khrushchev at a meeting with the intelligentsia in the Kremlin. And in 1966 he was arrested for attempting to demonstrate on Red Square against the rehabilitation of Stalinism. In the 70s, Aksenov’s works ceased to be published in his homeland. Criticism against the writer became increasingly harsh; he and his activities were called “non-Soviet” and “non-national”. In 1977, Aksenov’s works began to appear abroad, primarily in America. In 1978, the writer took part in the creation of the Metropol almanac, which was never published in the USSR, together with Bitov, Erofeev, Akhmadullina, Popov and Iskander. Later, the almanac, like most works that were not censored, was published in the USA. All its participants underwent elaboration. In 1979, Popov and Erofeev were expelled from the Writers' Union, Aksenov followed them in protest.
In 1980, Aksenov left for the United States by invitation, after which he was immediately deprived of his citizenship. Until 2004 he lived in the USA. In America, Aksenov taught Russian literature at various universities. He worked as a journalist for the Voice of America and Radio Liberty, wrote for the magazine Continent and the almanac Glagol. In the USA, Aksenov’s novels, written in Russia, were published for the first time: “Our Golden Iron” (1973, 1980), “Burn” (1976, 1980), “Island of Crimea” (1979, 1981), a collection of short stories “The Right to the Island” ( 1981). For the first time after many years of emigration, the writer visited the USSR in 1989 at the invitation of the American Ambassador J. Matlock. And in 1990, Aksenov, like many famous emigrants, was returned to Soviet citizenship. However, Aksenov never returned to his homeland. He continued to live in France and Moscow.
Lyudmila Alekseeva
The famous human rights activist and public figure Lyudmila Alekseeva began her participation in the human rights movement back in the mid-1960s. Her apartment was a place for storing and distributing samizdat. In 1968, for participating in the human rights movement, Alekseeva was expelled from the CPSU and fired from her job. And in 1974, she received a KGB warning to stop “anti-Soviet activities” and possible arrest. In 1976, she became one of the founders and a member of a new human rights organization - the Moscow Helsinki Group. Under threat of arrest in 1977, Alekseeva was forced to leave the USSR and settled in the USA. In exile, she continued her human rights activities, remaining a foreign representative of the MHG. She hosted programs on human rights on radio stations “Liberty” and “Voice of America”, published in emigrant periodicals, and consulted for human rights organizations. In the second half of the 80s, Alekseeva participated in the OSCE conference as part of the US delegation. The human rights activist received American citizenship in 1982.
In 1993, Lyudmila Alekseeva returned to Russia, and in 1996 she was elected chairman of the MHG. At home, she continued her active work. In 2009, Alekseeva was one of the organizers of the “Strategy-31” actions - regular speeches on Triumfalnaya Square in Moscow in defense of Article 31 of the Constitution on freedom of assembly. However, at the end of 2010, due to disagreements with Eduard Limonov, she left the organization. In 2007, Lyudmila Alekseeva prophesied a democratic future for Russia: “I believe that we, too, will be able to curb our bureaucracy. I don’t know if I’ll live to see this, but I wish you: in 2017 - easy to remember! - remember Grandma Lyuda’s prediction. In 2017, we will already be a democratic and legal state.”
Rostropovich
Duet
Mstislav Rostropovich played in honor of Alexander Solzhenitsyn
A concert was held in the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory in honor of the 80th birthday of Alexander Solzhenitsyn. The initiator of the solemn action was the writer’s old friend, cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, who performed together with the Russian National Orchestra and Finnish conductor Paavo Berglund. The absence of the political elite who usually attend Rostropovich's concerts has not affected the popular expression of love for the two former dissidents.
Thirty years of friendship binds these dissimilar people, whose human actions characterize them no less than their creativity. The recluse and sufferer Solzhenitsyn; joker, the soul of any - musical or political - Rostropovich company. The first regularly refuses state awards and collects the horrors of life. Rostropovich carefully collects insignia, as well as friendships of presidents and kings, cars and real estate, world premieres. Moreover, as he himself assures, a happy chance brings him together with people who then become the President of France, the Queen of Spain, the all-powerful Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR, and a Nobel laureate.
Friendship with Solzhenitsyn fits into this series. If the disgraced writer had not settled in the guest house at Rostropovich’s dacha in Zhukovka, it is unlikely that the musician, whom the authorities have always valued, would have cut off oxygen. This means that he would have remained in Russia and his name would have been known only to a narrow circle of music lovers. And even those would gradually become disillusioned with him: the years take their toll, and he shows the world less and less those cello miracles that can be heard in his old recordings.
A great master at organizing theatrical shows for any occasion, Rostropovich found himself out of work this time. Solzhenitsyn was against officialdom and wanted to keep congratulations to a minimum. Now Rostropovich himself is probably happy about this. After all, it was at the rebellious Taganka Theater, and not at his concert, that Solzhenitsyn refused to accept the highest order of Russia. For Rostropovich, who not only managed to drag Yeltsin to his concert at the BZK three months ago, but is also friends with his families and supports the president wherever possible, it is important to maintain good relations with all his friends.
A happy accident, after many years of separation, brought Rostropovich together with the Russian National Orchestra, which had a subscription concert in December with the music of the Finnish romantic Sibelius. They say that it is the music of Sibelius that the hero of the day loves. Sibelius's first symphony, performed in the second half of the concert, would be called "conflicting" by any musicologist - menacing, fantastic visions in the spirit of northern fairy tales and spare, harsh lyrics fight in it from beginning to end. It is not surprising that such music is close to the heart of a fighter for justice and creative freedom.
The famous Finnish conductor Paavo Berglund, of course, agreed to the participation of a soloist with such a big name in the concert. But it’s unlikely that the director of the Royal Danish Orchestra could have imagined that the audience would be so uninterested in him. The exalted atmosphere did not allow either the best Russian orchestra or a world-famous conductor to perform at their best. It's hard to do this when the audience is not interested in music.
From the moment Solzhenitsyn appeared in the hall (he, as a simple spectator, presented his ticket to the controller who did not recognize the hero of the occasion), he was surrounded by a crowd and accompanied by applause. From the moment Rostropovich appeared on stage, thousands of adoring eyes followed him, who did not care what or how he played. And Rostropovich played the First Concert of Saint-Saëns and Variations on a Rococo Theme by Tchaikovsky for a friend much better than at the September concerts as part of the Russian-Japanese festival “From Heart to Heart”. Of course, there were some technical errors. It would be cruel to demand special artistic expression from an elderly man who flew to Moscow the day before and managed to solemnly distribute scholarships from the Slava-Gloria Foundation to young musicians.
After the concert, Rostropovich bravely jumped into the hall to kiss the hero of the day. Solzhenitsyn said the usual words of gratitude to the musicians and thanked the audience for their “sympathy.” Another cultural event brought to naught all the efforts of hundreds of musicians. And the mood of the audience, who came not only to gaze at the “Moscow recluse” and world star, but also to listen to the music, was quite consistent with the mood of the best musical number of the concert - the hit, five-minute “Sad Waltz” by Sibelius.
VADIM Kommersant-ZHURAVLEV
SLAVA, this is Topol. We're caught in a thunderstorm and can't make it...
And where are you?
In the French Alps. It's so rainy here - you can't see the road!
And when will you arrive?
Well, we still have two hundred kilometers, in the rain.
And I left the guests. And I didn’t drink there, so that with you... - Rostropovich’s voice contained childish, sincere grief.
I understand, Slava. Sorry. But I will be the first to congratulate you on your birthday - we will be there in the morning.
I won’t be able to have even a glass in the morning; I have a rehearsal at ten.
Let's drink tea. At nine, okay?
No, come at eight, at least we can chat. What a pity!..
I turned off my mobile phone and glanced sideways at Stefanovich. He drove the car, leaning forward - either because the wipers did not have time to cope with the flow of water and even the powerful headlights of the BMW did not penetrate this downpour further than a meter, or because he was still not cooled down from the recent assassination attempt, when we were almost flattened by two "trucks".
This is terrible, I said. - Glory there without Galina Pavlovna. And just imagine - because of us, he will sit alone all evening. On the eve of your birthday! It's my fault!
Sasha didn't answer. The road, cut by the rain, meandering and meanly popped up first on the left, sometimes on the right with columns of side fences literally a meter from the front bumper. Every now and then I reflexively pressed my right foot on the imaginary brake. The road sign said that it was fifty kilometers to Turin, and one hundred and ninety to Milan.
We will be in Milan by one o'clock in the morning...
God willing, at two,” Sasha clarified. - How did you become friends with Rostropovich?
This is not a love story, Sasha.
Nothing. Today is our night of truth.
"Cheap provocateur"
YOU ARE RIGHT. OK. Nobody knows this, but if they do kill me, then let it remain at least in your memory. Do you remember my letter to Berezovsky and other Jewish oligarchs in Arguments and Facts? It was printed on September 15 last year, the day before the most important Jewish holiday - Judgment Day. According to the law of our ancestors, which they adopted at Mount Sinai, on these Days of Awe, every Jew is obliged to feed the hungry and clothe the poor. Obliged, you understand? And I wrote to my blood brothers that the billions of dollars they found in Russia did not fall on them because of any special talents they had - none of them are Bill Gates or even Ted Turner. They made this money in Russia - it’s none of my business why, but on a holy day for Jews they can and should help this poor country - after all, just the day before, on August 17, Russia plunged into a catastrophic crisis and, according to Russian tradition, is to blame for this there will be Jews. You know, in Russia they always blame someone for all troubles - Tatars, Lithuanians, Jews, Americans. Just not yourself. So here too - falling into an economic crisis is fraught, I wrote, with an outbreak of anti-Semitism. Help the poor, feed the hungry, it is your duty to your people - that’s essentially all I said. Couldn't they have done what Jan Kuren did in Poland ten years ago - take field kitchens from the army and feed hungry people on the streets? Is it difficult to create a national program to support school teachers? Or clothe children in orphanages and orphanages? But, Lord, what started here! You can't imagine how many dogs - and what kind! - they let me down! And not so much in Russia, but in the Russian-language press of Israel and America! I was called a pogrom provocateur, a fascist mercenary, Hitler’s heir, Makashov’s spiritual father. For months my name was on the pages of newspapers. “Shame on Topol!”, “Political savage”, “You can’t pay off the pogromists”, “Topol and his followers are playing with matches”, “God save Russia from Topol!”, “Topol should be hanged and his books burned!” .. My sister called from Israel and said that she was afraid for my life. An aunt from Brooklyn reported that she had been crying for five days because leading publicists were cursing me day and night on local radio and television. From Brighton to Tel Aviv, emigrant newspapers printed spreads with collective letters from readers, which explained to the public what a scoundrel I was and how much good the Jews had done to Russia. In Moscow, the delegates of the Jewish Congress unanimously branded me with shame. Joseph Kobzon explained to readers on the hotline of Komsomolskaya Pravda that I was a “cheap provocateur.” ..
Of course, I understood that these were the costs of the corporate fear of my people and their extremism, because I myself am an extremist. It was precisely such extremists who once crucified a Jew out of fear. But what came of it? How did this turn out for the Jews? And in general, blaming me for a new outbreak of anti-Semitism is the same as provoking bad weather to a sailor shouting from the mast about the approaching storm.
In short, it was worse than the thunderstorm we drove through. I stopped subscribing to Russian newspapers and did not listen to Russian radio. But when such a stream of dirt falls on you - and from three continents at once! - it is difficult to maintain working form. Even if you think that this is useful for creativity, that I experience firsthand what Pasternak had to experience when the entire Soviet press published collective letters: “We haven’t read Pasternak, but we think that he has no place in the Soviet Union!.. “I don’t compare myself to a genius, and the reasons were different, but the sensations of spitting and stoning are close. In the future, I thought, this will be useful for a novel about some social outcast...
"Turn on fax"
And now imagine that this outcast, “scum”, “traitor” and “provocateur”, spat upon by the entire emigrant press from Israel to Australia, suddenly gets a call from Moscow, from “AiF”, and says:
Please turn on the fax machine, Mstislav Rostropovich will now fax you a letter from Paris.
And indeed, fifteen minutes later a paper tape began to crawl out of the fax machine, and on it were flying handwritten lines of the great musician of our century.
Old man, I didn't publish this letter because it's personal. But I can tell it to you. It said: dear Mr. Topol, dear Edward, dear friend! Today I flew from Tel Aviv, where I played a concert, and my wife Galina gave me “AiF” with your open letter and told me to read it. But there was a lot to do, I only read it at two in the morning, when I went to bed. And he burst into tears like a child. And, realizing that I would no longer fall asleep, I sat down to write to you. I try not to talk about what Galya and I do in the field of charity, because we do it for ourselves, to feel our presence and participation in the drama, and maybe tragedy, that is happening now in Russia...
That's what he wrote. But for you, Sasha, I can call this “community” - Galina Pavlovna Vishnevskaya helps an orphanage in Kronstadt with food, clothes and furniture. Rostropovich, after the premiere of “Khovanshchina” at the Bolshoi Theater, left his fee in the bank, and they have been living on this money for three years twenty-two musicians of the Bolshoi Theater orchestra. And all 250 thousand dollars of his Gloria Prize go to pay scholarships to twenty-three students of the Moscow Conservatory. And they regularly ship tons - tons, man! - food to various orphanages and hospitals, and medicines worth millions of dollars...
Sasha, understand, he did not boast about this, he wrote that he and Galya simply want to feel like people among those compatriots who are in a difficult situation.
But I also wrote my letter, standing up for my people, and so that my fabulously rich blood brothers would become people among people. I couldn't help but shout to them about it. Are they poorer than Rostropovich? Moreover, this letter of mine did not apply to him at all, since he is neither an oligarch nor a Jew.
And Rostropovich wrote to me at the end of the letter that he was shocked by my courage. But I confess to you, Sasha, it was neither courage, nor stupidity, nor, moreover, some kind of calculated action. This article was written simply out of inspiration - it was literally breathed into me in the middle of the night. As if taking dictation, I wrote it in one go and took it to the editor without any corrections. Naively thinking that after me, my Slavic brothers Slava Govorukhin or Oleg Tabakov would make the same call to the oligarchs of Russian nationality. This did not happen - to my complete amazement - but now I stood in the midst of universal blasphemy over my fax machine and read the last lines of Rostropovich's letter. It was written there in his hand and in his flying handwriting: “I ask you one thing: if you ever get into trouble somewhere in connection with this publication, let me know. And if ever during my lifetime there will be a pogrom near you ", I consider it my duty and honor to stand in front of you. I hug you with gratitude and admiration, always your Rostropovich, and for you - simply Glory..."
Sasha, I received this letter on October 5 - three days before my birthday. And this congratulation was worth all the congratulations! I’ll tell you from the bottom of my heart, because now we have the Night of Truth - if they told me today: don’t write your letter to the oligarchs, don’t expose yourself to this flamethrower of curses - I would still write. And because I could not help but write, and also because without that publication I would not have received Rostropovich’s letter. The point is not that this, of course, is terribly flattering, just a wonderful letter from a great musician and no less great personality - a man who, despite all the power of the Soviet empire, at one time gave shelter and shelter to the great outcast of this government, Alexander Solzhenitsyn. No, that's not the point. And the fact is that it is this letter that makes me a Jew. Do you know what I mean? Yes, I am a Jew and I am proud of it, and I write about it in my books with pride and even boasting. And when I praise our intelligence and sexual power in these books, not a single Jewish newspaper disputes me, although among the Jews there are a lot of fools and impotents. But as soon as I called on my rich blood brothers to charity, I was cursed, anathematized, called a Judeophobe and an anti-Semite. But I think it’s not for them to judge. Even if they are all in step, and I am not in their step, I am not a Jew according to their judgment and not when I go to the synagogue. And then, when I, as a Jew, am respected and appreciated by the best people of other nations, and especially of the people among whom we were born. Because Jew is a title that still needs to be justified. And if Mstislav Rostropovich himself is ready to protect me from a pogrom, then I am a real Jew, a true one! By the way, let this be known to you - half Russian, a quarter Ukrainian and a quarter Pole.
I’ll take this into account, old man... - Sasha grinned. - Does this story have a continuation? Have you responded to this letter?
At the concert
THE CONTINUATION of this story happened in Moscow, last December, on the birthday of Alexander Solzhenitsyn. In honor of his anniversary, Rostropovich flew to Moscow and gave a concert in the assembly hall of the Moscow Conservatory. In those days I was in Moscow on my literary business. And, of course, I came to the conservatory. But, if you remember, there was a terrible snowfall that day, and I drove for more than an hour from Shmitovsky Proezd to the Conservatory and was already forty minutes late! My only excuse is that because of this snowfall, it was not just me who was late, but even the wife of the hero of the day! And Alexander Isaevich sat alone throughout the first section, next to his wife’s empty chair. And with a face petrified with resentment - after all, he never goes anywhere without her. And here - at a concert in his honor! under the lenses of television cameras! in full view of the entire Moscow elite and Rostropovich himself! - He sat alone. Can you imagine his face?!
Well, being forty minutes late, I no longer went to the administration to get a ticket, but, in order not to waste time, I bought a simple entrance ticket at some unimaginable price and ran into the hall. But all the doors to the hall were already closed, they were guarded by stern usherettes. Then I dived backstage and climbed the stairs somewhere up to the dressing rooms. And suddenly he found himself right in that narrow corridor that leads from the dressing rooms to the stage.
Where is Rostropovich's room? - I asked the administrator.
They won't let you in there. But stay here, he's about to go on stage.
And indeed, a minute later Rostropovich appeared in the depths of the corridor, hugging his cello. He walked quickly - towards the applause that rushed from the hall. And he, frowning, looked not forward and not at his feet, but somewhere inside himself, inside. As if he was already filled to the top with music that could not be spilled. And he also carried his huge cello, not like a weight or burden, but in an embrace and with the gentle strength with which I carry my very heavy son.
I, of course, would not interfere with his path at this sacred moment for him! But I interrupted. I stepped towards him from the wall and said:
Mstislav Leopoldovich, I...
He flew past without even pointing his eye in my direction!
Probably, such humiliation was reflected on my face that the administrator said:
Don't be offended. He just didn't hear you. You arrive at intermission.
I went downstairs to the buffet, took the cognac and, slowly sipping it, thought: should I get the hell out of here? Why did I come? I'm not a boy to stand against a wall. Yes, Rostropovich had a sentimental moment when he read my letter to the oligarchs. Yes, as an emotional person, he shed tears and even wrote me a few sublime lines. But he remembers
is he talking about this? Why does he need me? And what exactly do I need from him? What if he already regrets what he wrote to me? What if he is dry with me - on the run, in passing, because today is the anniversary of his friend, and what a friend! So does he care about me? But one more gesture of his inattention, indifference - and all this will cancel out his entire letter! And what will I be left with? With Kobzon's epithets?
But, apparently, cognac was not invented by your French in vain. With his support, I waited until the intermission and went backstage to the dressing rooms. There was already just a crowd there! Journalists, photographers, musicians, some ladies with flowers, orchestra members in tailcoats - a terrible crowd! But I squeezed my way to the maestro’s room. Here, however, there was a more serious barrier - grenadier bodyguards.
Mstislav Leopoldovich invited me...
Don't even think about it! Only after the concert!
I was late because of the snow...
Please clear the corridor! - a tall and broad-shouldered guy looked down at me with such steely eyes that I realized: this was either the FSB or the presidential security department.
Not less.
Evening of the Stars
I TURNED and walked away, but then I saw Vishnevskaya hurrying towards Rostropovich. She walked with a regal gait through the parting crowd.
Galina Pavlovna, I’m Eduard Topol, hello.
Oh, hello! Come to the banquet after the concert. And now he simply doesn’t see or hear anything, because he has to play. Do you understand?
I understand, Galina Pavlovna. Thank you.
And I went down the stairs, five floors, flight after flight, and straight to the locker room. The left hand was already holding the jacket number at the ready, and the right hand was feeling how much money was in the pocket for a drink in some tavern. I didn’t have much money, but at “Ekipazh” on Spiridonovka they know me and accept my “Visa”. And the containers of my “Visa” are enough for me today...
Someone's heavy hand lay on my shoulder and easily turned me 180. I looked up in amazement - the same young gray-eyed guard.
“I barely caught up with you,” he said. - Hurry up! Rostropovich ordered to find you and immediately bring you to him. Let's run!
Without saying another word, he grabbed me by the elbow with his claw and, like a crane, literally lifted me up the steep backstage staircase from the first floor to the fifth, and then along the corridors - a battering ram through the crowd and straight into the doors of Rostropovich’s room, which were wide open by other guards.
And I saw the Maestro.
In the middle of a spacious and almost empty room, he sat in a gilded Elizabethan chair and, holding a cello at his feet, leaned towards its neck and whispered something to her with his soft bow.
This is how children and lovers are stroked.
But the noise of the door opening distracted him, he looked up and suddenly...
I didn’t even notice where he jumped up and put his beloved cello.
My dear! - he rushed to me and literally squeezed me in his arms, whispering right in my ear: - Don’t go anywhere! Nowhere, do you hear! After the concert, I'm waiting for you at the banquet, we should have a drink for brotherhood! Do you understand?
Slava, this is the third call! - said Galina Pavlovna.
I'm coming! - he answered her and repeated in my ear: - Be sure to come, definitely!
I don’t need to tell you, Sasha, that it was a banquet in honor of Alexander Isaevich Solzhenitsyn. And that the hero of the day and the maestro were presented with addresses and glasses at least twice a minute. And that dozens of some ambassadors, celebrities, stars and friends made toasts and tore up the maestro to take pictures with him and the hero of the day. But amid this carnival of ambitions and ambitions, he suddenly came up to me and said:
Where's your glass? We must drink to the Brudershaft and get down to business.
I immediately found a glass, wine too, we crossed our arms and drank to the dregs while the photographers rushed by. But I couldn’t say “you” to him, I didn’t have the courage.
Ah well! - he was indignant. - Fuck me and you can do it right away!
Go wherever you want! - I said.
No! This will not work! Another glass! And fuck me! Necessarily! - he ordered.
I dared to send it. Rostropovich himself. After which he was introduced to Solzhenitsyn, his wife Natalya Dmitrievna said to Alexander Isaevich, who was already getting ready to go home:
Sasha, I want to introduce you. This is Eduard Topol...
Why! - Solzhenitsyn said without a second’s hesitation. - I remember. Seventeen years ago I wrote to you that I would not be able to take part in that project. I really couldn't, sorry.
Old man, this just amazed me! Seventeen years ago I was the editor-in-chief of the first Russian radio station in New York, and then we created theater at the microphone - I had the best emigrant actors, graduates of GITIS and "Pike". They famously played several chapters from “Cancer Ward” in front of a microphone, and I sent this recording to Solzhenitsyn in Vermont with a proposal to send, with his consent and support, a hundred of these tape cassettes to the USSR, so that people there would copy them with samizdat.
You understand what a bomb this would have been in 1982! Solzhenitsyn's books - "Cancer Ward",
“The Gulag Archipelago”, “Lenin in Zurich” and everything else - on cassettes that would multiply under the nose of the KGB and non-stop! Millions of copies! Yes, Soviet power would have collapsed a couple of years earlier!
A month later I received Solzhenitsyn’s answer. He literally wrote me three lines. They say that due to his heavy workload, he cannot take part in this action. I decided that he simply didn’t want to get involved with us emigrants; I couldn’t come up with another explanation then, because the idea was as clear as a tear. And the action with the delivery of these tapes to the USSR did not take place, I forgot about it and even now, having met Solzhenitsyn, I did not remember. And he remembered! Instantly! Just like a supercomputer, he pulled out a file with my last name from under his forehead and apologized for his dry letter seventeen years ago...
About the life of titans
IMMEDIATELY after the banquet, Rostropovich took me to a restaurant for dinner, where only he, Galina Pavlovna and three more of their friends were.
And in this restaurant I suddenly heard a completely different Rostropovich - not only a brilliant musician, but also a brilliant storyteller. Oh, Sasha! If only I had a movie camera or at least a tape recorder! Slava was on a roll, he drank a lot and without getting drunk, I was just a sucker against him in this matter. And he told stories from his life - but how! I heard in a narrow circle, in home groups, Arkady Raikin, Leonid Utesov, Alexander Galich, and Volodya Vysotsky. But I don’t remember them talking about themselves with such humor and artistry. Rostropovich talked about how, after his first concert in Paris, he was invited to Pablo Picasso, came to the master with a cello and a box of vodka, and by the morning, while drunk, he gave him his priceless bow - not just gave it, but scratched it with a nail "PABLO from SLAVA"! And Picasso’s wife responded by tearing off a diamond tiara on a gold chain and putting it on Rostropovich. For which Picasso immediately gave her a scandal, because, it turns out, this was the first gift that Picasso gave her at the beginning of their romance. And Rostropovich, waking up the next morning wearing a chain and a diamond tiara, which he didn’t even need, discovered that he had no bow and nothing to play with. By the way, now that bow is kept in the Picasso Museum on the French Riviera, and Rostropovich is ready to give any money for it, because there is no other bow like it in the whole world, but the director of the museum refuses not only to sell the bow, but even to exchange it for another one, also Rostropovich’s.
And after the restaurant, they took me to their home, where we sat in the kitchen, the three of us drank tea, discussed all sorts of charitable projects, and then Rostropovich told me that today was his last concert in Russia - new Russian “loose” critics are writing nasty things about him , and he won't play here anymore.
How? - I said. - You yourself just inspired me that I need to be above this blasphemy and dirt!
No, I don't play here anymore.
But it’s not the public’s fault!
However, he was adamant, and I thought: is it really true that the public is not to blame for what its “out-of-touch” critics write, what its idols sing from the screens and what its ministers and rulers do?
We parted at four in the morning, and at nine I was with him again and, imagine, I already found about ten singers with him, whom he auditioned in connection with his opera production in Samara. And then I understood what the word “titanium” means. Solzhenitsyn and Rostropovich are the last two titans of our century, this is indisputable. At the same time, I don’t know what a titan Solzhenitsyn is when it comes to drinking and table tales, but that Rostropovich is a titan in three faces - in music, in rhetoric, and in feasting - I saw this with my own eyes. And that’s why it’s triple a pity that we didn’t get to Milan today and have a drink with him. You should have heard the great stories of a great man!
“The town of Navarre,” interrupted Sasha. - Milan is half a hundred kilometers away.
“Still, it’s time to remember that the first thing to whom we belong is humanity. And humanity has separated from the animal world - in thought and speech. And they, naturally, must be free. And if they are chained, we return to animals.
Glasnost, honest and complete publicity - this is the first condition for the health of any society, and ours too. And whoever does not want openness in our country is indifferent to the Fatherland, he thinks only about his own self-interest. Whoever does not want openness for the Fatherland does not want to cleanse it of diseases, but to drive them inside so that they rot there.”
The campaign against Solzhenitsyn could no longer go back. “In Ryazan they would have strangled me,” he wrote later. And homeless wandering would have begun if not for Mstislav Rostropovich and Galina Vishnevskaya, who offered their shelter to the disgraced writer.
A year later, in the fall of 1970, Solzhenitsyn was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature - and the newspaper pandemonium began again. And then, unexpectedly for everyone, the “radiant maestro” spoke with an open letter in four Soviet newspapers:
“Hasn’t the past time taught us to be careful about crushing talented people?.. Why in our literature and art so often the final word belongs to people who are absolutely incompetent in this? Every person should have the right to fearlessly think independently... and not just weakly vary the OPINION embedded in it. We will definitely come to a free discussion without prompting and retaliation! I know that after my letter an OPINION about me will certainly appear, but I am not afraid of it and frankly express what I think. The talents that will make us proud are not must be beaten first."
“The authorities, who had already barely tolerated Rostropovich’s “Solzhenitsyn” hospitality, were seriously indignant. Now Rostropovich himself was subjected to embarrassment and persecution: his concerts and tours were canceled, a blockade was systematically built around his name.
In May 1973, Solzhenitsyn left the rescue shelter where he had worked so happily and where two of our three sons were born. When leaving, he left a letter on the table:
*Dear Stivochka!
Since a truck will soon come for things, and you are not yet there, I’m sitting down to write you this page, just in case.
Once again I repeat to you and Gala my admiration for your steadfastness, with which you endured all the oppression associated with me, and did not let me feel it. Once again I thank you for the years of shelter with you, where I lived through a very turbulent time for me, but, thanks to the exclusivity of the situation, I still wrote continuously, and I had a wonderful time working here.
I would like to see who else from our illustrious intelligentsia, who at the tea table so decisively judges everything, condemns even more decisively and “does not forgive” - who among them would show at least a share of your courage and generosity...
I hug and kiss you!
Your Sanya
Nine months later, Solzhenitsyn was arrested, deprived of citizenship and expelled from the USSR. And after another 3 months, Mstislav Rostropovich and Galina Vishnevskaya were forced out of the country...
* Published for the first time.
In 1986, Krzysztof Penderecki dedicated his solo cello composition “Per Slava” to Mstislav Rostropovich. This laconic name contained everything that was characteristic of this artist: his enormous and recognized talent, his infectious love for music, his human charm and warmth.
Nicknamed Sunflower
Mstislav Rostropovich was born on March 27, 1927 in Baku, his father was also a musician, a teacher at the Azerbaijan Music Academy and the creator and leader of a string quartet. The artist’s mother was a pianist, she said that Mstislav was born not in the ninth, but in the tenth month of pregnancy. The great maestro later loved to joke about this, turning to his mother: “Well, since I’ve been under your heart for so long, couldn’t you have done a better job on my appearance?” To this she replied: “I worked on your hands, Slava.”
Mstislav began playing the piano and cello at the age of four, and at eight he made his first public performance. At the age of 16, Rostropovich entered the Moscow Conservatory, ending up in two faculties at once - composition and cello class, with Semyon Kozolupov. Mstislav once showed another teacher, the outstanding composer Dmitry Shostakovich, the score of his first piano concerto, and then played it masterfully. After this, Shostakovich invited Rostropovich to study with him in an instrumentation class, but Mstislav never became a composer. The cellist himself said that after the first rehearsal Shostakovich’s Eighth Symphony made such an impression on him that he stopped composing music: “Since then, thank God, I have not composed a single note.”
When asked why he chose the cello, Rostropovich admitted: “Because I fell in love with her as a woman. It was only many years later that I learned that in French the word cello is masculine. I was shocked! If I had known about this when I was introduced to music, I don’t know what instrument I would have chosen.”
Among the students he had the nickname Sunflower. “So they shouted: “Sunflower!” Come here!” Rostropovich recalled. “I once asked the famous pianist, professor of the Moscow Conservatory Viktor Merzhanov, who studied with me: “Vit, why do they call me Sunflower?” And he says: “Because for some reason you are always reaching for the sun.” The Lord gave me two unique qualities: memory and hands. If I ever repeated my life, I would say: everything can be changed, but leave it like this.”
In 1945, Rostropovich received 1st prize at the All-Union Competition for Young Musicians, and in 1950 he won the Hanus Vigan Competition in Prague. He quickly became popular in the West, during his career he performed 117 works for cello and gave 70 orchestral premieres. Many works for cello were written specifically for Mstislav Leopoldovich. About 60 composers dedicated their works to him, he performed with Svyatoslav Richter, Emil Gilels and Leonid Kogan, and as a pianist with Galina Vishnevskaya; he remained the constant accompanist of his wife and companion not only in life, but also in art.
"Last opportunity to change your last name"
Before meeting the Maestro, Galina was married twice. First - for the military sailor Georgy Vishnevsky, who turned out to be terribly jealous. Galina divorced him two months later. Then she married the director of the operetta ensemble, Mark Rubin. He was twenty-two years older than Vishnevskaya. In 1945, their son was born, but he died at two months old from food poisoning. Ten years later, in Prague, where the singer participated in the concert program of the youth and student festival held there, Vishnevskaya met Rostropovich.
It happened in a restaurant. One of Vishnevskaya’s acquaintances pointed to a guy with glasses sitting opposite her and asked:
- Do you know each other?
- No.
– So meet me – this is cellist Mstislav Rostropovich.
Rostropovich told his neighbors some funny stories and did not pay any attention to Vishnevskaya. When Galina was about to go home, a young man with glasses jumped up:
- Listen, can I take you out?
- Conduct...
-Can I give you these candies? Well, please, this is very important to me.
A woman stood on the street with a full basket of lilies of the valley. Rostropovich bought them all and gave them to Vishnevskaya.
– By the way, I’m married! – Vishnevskaya warned him.
– By the way, we’ll see about that later! – Rostropovich warned her.
“I was waiting for a love worth dying for, like my opera heroines,” the singer recalls. “We rushed towards each other, and no forces could hold us back.” The wedding took place soon. At the regional registry office, the registrar immediately recognized the famous soloist of the Bolshoi Theater Galina Vishnevskaya and asked who she was marrying. Seeing the rather plain-looking groom, the woman smiled sympathetically at Vishnevskaya, and having difficulty reading the name Rostropovich, said to the musician: “Well, comrade, you now have the last opportunity to change your last name.”
A year later, Olga was born to Galina and Mstislav, followed by Elena. The eldest daughter now heads the Rostropovich music foundation, and the youngest, living in Italy, runs a medical foundation named after him. They said that people with the same temperament as their parents would hardly be able to get along. Touring saved us. Either she was leaving somewhere, then he was. “We missed you, we came: Thank God, we’re together again! And if it were like this, together from morning to evening, they would probably explode,” admits Vishnevskaya.
Rostropovich adored her. He tenderly called him Frog - the Princess let him in as a matter of course, showered him with jewelry. Laughing and crying, he experienced the passion with which the chairman of the government, Bulganin, was inflamed for his Galina. “He looked after me in the Soviet way: he came and said: “I am at your service,” recalls Vishnevskaya. “My husband and I got into his car and drove to the government dacha. Bulganin confessed his love to me. With my husband. There were such times. Slava reacted calmly to this, listened and drank vodka with him. We got drunk together."
"We were thrown into the world without a penny"
None of those who attended Rostropovich's London concert on August 21, 1968, or heard him on the radio, will ever forget him. On this day, Russian tanks entered Prague, and he performed at the Albert Hall with the USSR State Symphony Orchestra: the famous cello concerto by the Czech composer Dvorak was performed. There were noisy protests outside and inside the concert hall, but the concert still took place. And at the moment when Rostropovich began to play - with a sophistication that it was impossible not to succumb to - the listeners became aware of the feelings that overwhelmed him.
After this, his life became even more closely connected with politics. However, he always said that he acted not based on political views, but on love for people. The musician and his wife began to be forced out of the Union after they became close friends with Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
And when he was expelled from the Writers' Union and began to be persecuted, they even sheltered him at their dacha. In addition, in the spring of 1972, Rostropovich, together with Sakharov, Galich, Kaverin and other scientific and cultural figures, signed two appeals to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR: on an amnesty for those convicted of convictions and on the abolition of the death penalty.
Vishnevskaya and Rostropovich began to have their concerts and radio recordings canceled, and the artists had little left from their fees. For example, once after a triumphant tour in the United States, Rostropovich was invited to the Soviet embassy and explained that he had to hand over the lion's share of his earnings to the embassy. The artist did not object, he only asked his impresario Yurok to buy a porcelain vase for the entire fee and deliver it in the evening to the embassy, where the reception was scheduled. When they brought it, Rostropovich took the vase, admired it and... spread his hands. The vase hit the marble floor and shattered into pieces. Having picked up one of them and carefully wrapped it in a handkerchief, the musician said to the ambassador: “This is mine, and the rest is yours.”
Sofya Khentova, author of the monograph Rostropovich, said that when Minister of Culture Furtseva promised Mstislav Leopoldovich to deprive him of foreign tours, he grinned: “I didn’t even know that performing in my homeland is a punishment!” But he left anyway. “When we submitted an application addressed to Brezhnev to leave for two years with the whole family, within half an hour we were summoned to the Ministry of Culture,” recalls Vishnevskaya. – Despite the end of the working day, Kukharsky and another deputy Furtseva were there. “Explain what’s the matter?” – Kukharsky demanded. “You know everything.” - “We need to hear from you - we need to report to the Central Committee.” They needed our voices - there was probably listening and recording equipment under the table. Slava says: “The reason is that they don’t let me play. All orchestras are closed to me, I cannot perform at any large venue.” And Kukharsky, looking into Rostropovich’s eyes, brazenly declares: “What are you saying: they don’t give it! The orchestras just don’t want to play with you.” “That’s great! – I intervened. “They don’t want to play with him, but orchestras in Paris and London dream of playing with him.” That’s why we’re leaving.”
In May 1974, first Mstislav Leopoldovich, and then Galina Pavlovna and her children left the USSR. “We were thrown out into the world without a penny. Everything remains in the Union,” says the singer. - My husband with a cello, with a dog, me - two months later with two daughters and two suitcases with concert dresses. Therefore, we had to work a lot to arrange for the children.” And they worked, at a great pace, with incredible dedication - what only Macbeth cost for the Edinburgh festival - 10 performances in 30 days. Their names thundered throughout the world. Looking at the prosperity of the outcasts, the USSR authorities did not find anything better than to deprive Mstislav and Galina of Soviet citizenship in 1978. The shameful decree was repealed only in 1990, but by that time Rostropovich was already called a citizen of the world.
“Immediately responded to high-profile events
In August 1991, secretly from his wife, the musician flew to Moscow when the putsch happened here. “I was in London, sitting at the TV and watching news broadcasts from Russia, and Rostropovich was in Paris,” Vishnevskaya recalls. – From time to time we called back and exchanged impressions: “Tanks and soldiers on the streets! There’s a real war there!” And then there was a call from the English Ministry of Foreign Affairs: “Madame Vishnevskaya, my husband asked me to convey to you his deepest bow, words of love and a wish not to worry. He’s doing well and will be back soon.” I ask: “Where from?” The invisible interlocutor was sincerely surprised: “From Moscow, of course.” I sat down in the chair. Oh, if only Slava had turned up to me at that moment! Fortunately for Rostropovich, after returning from Russia he immediately began touring, and we did not see each other for almost a month. By the time we met, I had already cooled down. However, Slava could not be changed. Likewise, in 1989, he rushed to Berlin when they began to tear down the wall there. He sat down with his cello at the Brandenburg Gate and began to play. A spontaneous person, he instantly responded to high-profile events!”
From Europe the family moved to the USA, where Rostropovich became the chief conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra. Not far from New York, he bought a huge estate, which he named Galino - in honor of his beloved wife. And on April 27, 2007, Mstislav Leopoldovich passed away. Rostropovich once told friends how he would cheat death: “I told Gala, when I die in Paris in the morning, send me on a supersonic Concorde flight to New York. I’ll fly towards time, beat it and land two hours before I die, which means I’ll officially be alive for another two hours?!” He laughed, everyone else added and subtracted this joke in their minds.
Vishnevskaya lived with him for more than fifty years: “The door opens, Rostropovich comes in and carries a cello on wheels. She was on roller skates. How he led her by the hand. Oh, finally, I'm home. Tired. This is the picture that stands before my eyes. And it helps you to move on."
Prepared by Lina Lisitsyna,
based on materials
