Maya Plisetskaya was born into a large Jewish family. The ballerina's mother, Rachel Messerer, came from Lithuanian Jews, her father was a dentist who began his practice in Vilna and then moved to Moscow. Rachel herself, as well as all her brothers and sisters, bore sonorous biblical names: Pnina, Azarius, Mattaniy, Asaph, Elisheva, Shulamith, Emanuel, Aminadab, Erella. Many of them connected their lives with ballet in one way or another. Azariy, who died early, became famous under the pseudonym "Azarin", was a dramatic actor, artistic director of the Theater. Ermolova. Shulamith, who made a ballet career, replaced Maya Plisetskaya's mother after her parents were arrested. Asaf Messerer also devoted his life to ballet and danced almost all the leading solo roles at the Bolshoi Theater. The mother of the great ballerina Rachel Messerer was an outstanding film actress. She attracted the attention of both spectators and directors. Because of characteristic appearance- dark hair and facial features - she often got the roles of Uzbek women.
Maya's father, Mikhail Emmanuilovich, was not associated with art. He held administrative positions. In 1932, he was appointed to manage the coal mines in Spitsbergen, and the whole family had to move. It was on the island of Spitsbergen that little Maya first appeared on stage. She played her first role in the opera “Rusalka” by Dargomyzhsky. From that moment on, the little girl could not sit still and began simply dreaming of the stage and performing in public. It was as if she was preparing herself for a brilliant future and constantly
sang, danced, improvised. The family decided to send the fidget to a choreographic school upon returning to Moscow. In 1934, the Plisetskys arrived in Moscow, and seven-year-old Maya was sent to class former soloist Bolshoi Theater Evgenia Dolinskaya.
Arrest of parents
In May 1937, Maya’s father was taken away by security officers and shot a year after his arrest. Almost immediately my mother was arrested. This happened right at the Bolshoi Theater, at a time when The Sleeping Beauty was on stage and the aunt of the future ballerina was performing.
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From the ballerina’s book “I, Maya Plisetskaya”: In the summer we were taken to pioneer camp, the whole bunch. And there - morning exercises, line, flag raising, bugles, brave counselors, reports, evening bonfires. In a word, we are pioneers. It's like the Hitler Youth. Maintain discipline and increase loyalty to the Motherland. To have something to live on, the mother began selling things. One by one. She was seven months pregnant when her father was taken away. While I was marching to the inviting music of Dunaevsky in the summer pioneer camp, my mother gave birth to my younger brother in July. Her milk was gone. There was always a great need for money. At the beginning of March 1938, I can’t remember the exact date of the day, Mita danced “Sleeping”. Now I am painfully straining to remember how it happened that in the evening in the theater I suddenly found myself completely alone. Without mom. With a large bouquet of Crimean mimosas. Just a memory loss. I still have in my character a stupid ability to immerse myself entirely in my thoughts, to detach myself from the world, to not notice anything around me. I don't like this trait of mine. So it was on that March evening. The performance ends, bows, applause. Where's mom? After all, we were together. I’m going to Mitya’s house with flowers. Congratulations. She lives next to the theater, at the back, in Shchepkinsky Proezd, in the building of the Bolshoi Theater. Where later in a large communal apartment for many years I will live too. Taking the flowers, Mita carefully and intently peers at me with serious dark eyes. And suddenly he offers to stay the night. At the same time, she spins some nonsense that mom was urgently called to her father and she immediately, straight from the theater, without finishing watching the performance, rushed off somewhere on the evening train. Naturally, I believe her. I'm still gullible. And at 12 years old you will believe in any nonsense. So I settled with Mita. I didn’t understand that my mother was in prison. That she was also arrested. Also at the most unexpected, inopportune hour. Have people already figured out the right time for arrests? |
It was with Aunt Shulamith that 12-year-old Maya found shelter. A kind relative adopted an orphaned niece so that she would not be sent to an orphanage.
Bolshoi Theater
Maya Plisetskaya's first significant performance at the Bolshoi Theater took place on the eve of the fatal Soviet Union day. Less than a day before the start of the Great Patriotic War The graduation concert of the choreographic school took place on the stage of the Bolshoi Theater branch. But after that there was a long break. To continue her studies, the 16-year-old girl decided to return to Moscow on her own, where classes at the choreographic school continued even during the war. She was enlisted again, this time straight into graduating class. In 1943, her training was completed and Maya was immediately accepted into the staff of the Bolshoi Theater. Success was not long in coming. Plisetskaya received recognition in the ballet Chopinian, where she performed a mazurka. Each jump of Maya caused incessant applause.
The path to the top of Plisetskaya’s career can be compared to climbing a ladder. For example, in the ballet “The Sleeping Beauty” she was first the fairy Lilac, then the fairy Violante, and then Aurora. In Don Quixote, the ballerina danced almost all the female roles and finally opened the role of Kitri. In 1948, Maya danced Giselle in the ballet of the same name. Since then, she has become a prima ballerina at the Bolshoi Theater.
Movie
In 1952, Maya Plisetskaya first appeared in films. She can be seen in the film " Big concert» Vera Stroeva. Well, then they followed it into ballet films: “Swan Lake”, “The Tale of the Little Humpbacked Horse” and “Anna Karenina”. Prima Bolshoi was invited to the film-opera “Khovanshchina”. The ballerina also participated in the film adaptation of the ballets “Isadora”, “Bolero”, “The Seagull”, “The Lady with the Dog”. In 1974, she was invited together with the Bolshoi Theater soloist Bogatyrev for the television number “Nocturne” to the music of Friedrich Chopin from the ballet “In the Night” by choreographer Jerome Robbins.
In 1968, the ballerina played Betsy in the film adaptation of the novel Anna Karenina by Zarkhi. Plisetskaya also starred in the role of Desiree in the film “Tchaikovsky” by Talankin. Then Vaitkus invited the dancer to play the role of Čiurlionis’s muse in the film “Zodiac”. In 1976, the actress played the star of the ballet and television film “Fantasy” based on Turgenev’s story “Spring Waters”.
Documentary films
The authors of documentary films became interested in the fate of the artist, the development of her career, different faces personal and creative life. The most striking documentaries about Maya Mikhailovna: “Maya Plisetskaya. Familiar and Unfamiliar" and "Maya Plisetskaya". In addition, the films “Maya” directed by Sakagushi for Japanese television, “Maya Plisetskaya” (directed by Deluch), “Maya Plisetskaya Assoluta” (directed by Elizabeta Kapnist and Christian Dumas-Lvovsky) are also dedicated to her work.
Maya Mikhailovna's dancing career turned out to be surprisingly long - she left the stage only at the age of 65.
Personal life
Maya met her husband Rodion Shchedrin while visiting Lily Brik. The ballerina and the composer did not seem very interested in each other. Plisetskaya was seven years older than Shchedrin. Only three years after they met, they started dating and spent a vacation in Karelia. And in the fall of 1958 they got married.
"He extended my creative life“for at least twenty-five years,” Plisetskaya said about her husband. They were never bored together. Shchedrin protested, but Maya never decided to give birth to a child and leave the stage. Her husband justified her, saying that ballet requires a wonderful physique, and after childbirth, the figure of any woman inevitably changes. Many ballerinas, he argued, lost their profession due to pregnancy.
80-90s
The ballerina's dance style has become a generally accepted canon. An unexpected turn in the prima's fate occurred in 1983. She was offered to be the artistic director of the Rome Opera ballet. Maya held this post for a year and a half and periodically came to Rome. She staged "Raymonda" for the open stage at the Baths of Caracalla, presented her "Isadora" and organized "Phaedra".
In January 1990, Plisetskaya danced her last performance at the Bolshoi Theater. It was “Lady with a Dog”. The ballerina left the theater due to disagreements with the artistic director.
Awards
Maya Plisetskaya has received countless different awards. Ballerina Hero of Socialist Labor, full holder of the Order of Merit for the Fatherland, Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters (France), Commander of the Order of the Grand Duke of Lithuania Gediminas, has the Order of Lenin, the Order of the Legion of Honor (France), the Lenin Prize, the Grand Commander's Cross of the Order " For services to Lithuania”, Order of the Rising Sun, III degree (Japan), Order of Isabella the Catholic. Honored Artist of the RSFSR, People's Artist of the USSR and the RSFSR, laureate of various awards.
Based on materials from the portals spletnik.ru, Jewish.ru, podrobnosti.ua, Wikipedia, VKontakte group https://vk.com/world_jews and other Internet sources.
In 2015, the whole world learned about the death of Maya Plisetskaya. Where is the Russian ballet star buried? Where is Plisetskaya's grave located - in Russia or Germany, where she spent her last days? It is impossible to answer this question. The place where Maya Plisetskaya is buried does not exist.
Daughter of the enemies of the people
The future ballerina was born in 1925 in Moscow. Plisetskaya's father was a famous business leader. Mother is a silent film actress. When the girl was seven years old, she came to Germany for the first time. Here my father ran a large enterprise. In 1936, the Plisetskys returned to Russia.
Soon a wave of repression swept across the country. She did not ignore the parents of the future star. In 1937, my father was arrested. A few months later, on a quiet March night, people in black leather coats came for their mother. The girl was taken in by her aunt, an actress of the Bolshoi Theater. saved Maya from the fate of the daughter of traitors to the Motherland, from orphanage, where the offspring of victims of Stalinism were raised.
If Messerer had not taken the daughter of enemies of the people to himself, there would have been no bright name Maya Plisetskaya. Where is the representative of the famous theater dynasty buried? Celebrities of Plisetskaya's level find their final refuge on Novodevichy Cemetery. Politicians, artists, writers are buried here. But the cemetery guard will not answer the question of where Maya Plisetskaya is buried. Isn't her grave here? So where is Maya Mikhailova Plisetskaya, a native Muscovite, an artist whose name is inextricably linked with the history of Russian ballet, buried?
First time at the ballet barre
Maya was accepted into the choreography school thanks to her aunt. One day a girl went to the play “Little Red Riding Hood”. She fell in love with ballet and constantly repeated dance moves at home. However, the girl was only seven years old. According to the rules, in ballet school accepted from eight. Shulamith managed to convince the commission members to enroll her niece.
War
Shulamith not only replaced the girl’s mother. She became its first choreographer. In 1941, the family was evacuated to Sverdlovsk. The war years were not best time for ballet classes. However, it was in Sverdlovsk that the young dancer first appeared on stage in the image of a dying swan. Shulamith drew attention to the extraordinary plasticity of her niece’s hands. And this is what I focused on when creating the issue. In 1943, a graduate of the choreographic school was accepted into the Bolshoi Theater. Soon she received the status of prima ballerina.
Career
Plisetskaya had rare plasticity and musicality. She created her own unique performance style. In 1960, another great ballerina, Ulanova, left the Bolshoi Theater. From now on, Plisetskaya deservedly played all the leading roles in the performances. For many years there was a struggle between Plisetskaya and the choreographer Grigorovich, in which the latter won, despite the fact that the feminine and graceful ballerina had a steely masculine character.
“Carmen Suite”, “The Death of the Rose”, “Mad Chaillot” - these and other performances were staged especially for Plisetskaya. The ballerina worked for many years with the French choreographer Maurice Bejart, who choreographed “Isadora” for her. In the early 70s she took part in the production of Shchedrin's ballet Anna Karenina. However, Plisetskaya never considered herself a choreographer. “I’m an improviser,” she said.
In 1990, Grigorovich fired Plisetskaya. Ekaterina Maksimova also had to leave the Bolshoi Theater. Plisetskaya, of course, did not leave the stage. Ballet for her was not a craft, but life. She took part in concerts and gave master classes. Plisetskaya is a phenomenal figure in the history of world ballet. For her 70th anniversary she prepared the number “Ave Maya”. One of the artist’s colleagues once told her: “It’s difficult not only to dance for so many years, but also to live.”
Since the mid-90s, the Maya competition has been held, in which artists from all over the world participate. Plisetskaya served as chairman.
Rodion Shchedrin
Plisetskaya wrote several books of memoirs. The actress spoke about her romances with ballet stars. In 1956, she married However, this marriage soon broke up. In 1958, Plisetskaya met a man with whom she lived for a long time and happy life. This man was Rodion Shchedrin, a world-famous composer.
Plisetskaya had no children. But she was lucky enough to meet in her life true love. Perhaps this is why there is no place in either Russia or Germany where Maya Plisetskaya is buried.
Photo famous couple located above. Perhaps this was the strongest union in the Russian artistic world.
Shchedrin was seven years younger than his wife. He was born into the family of a composer and teacher, studied music with early years. He graduated from the Moscow Choir School, then studied at the Moscow State Conservatory. Tchaikovsky. The question of where Maya Plisetskaya is buried is incorrect. The ashes of the spouses should be united and scattered over Russia. This is what it says in the will drawn up by Maya Plisetskaya.
Death
The artist did not live several months before her 90th birthday, however, her death came as a surprise to her colleagues and fans. At the end of April, Plisetskaya attended a festive banquet dedicated to the premiere of the opera “Lefty”. According to Plisetskaya’s colleagues, she was energetic and cheerful that day.
After settling some matters in Moscow, she left for Munich. In Germany, the ballet dancer visited football match. Plisetskaya loved this sport very much. Returning home, I suddenly felt unwell. Plisetskaya was taken to the hospital. The artist was going to have an operation at a Munich clinic, but they didn’t have time. The farewell to the great ballerina took place in Germany, in a narrow circle. Two days after Plisetskaya’s death, a performance was held in her honor at the Mariinsky Theater.
She was 89 years old. Millions of people admired her beauty, talent and grace. We invite you to remember the most interesting facts from the life of the legendary ballerina, and also see rare photographs with her in our gallery.
Maya Plisetskaya was born on November 20, 1925 in Moscow. Future star Ballet was born into the family of the famous Soviet business leader Mikhail Emmanuilovich Plisetsky and silent film actress Rakhila Mikhailovna Messerer. Maya Mikhailovna inherited the profession of her aunt - soloist of the Bolshoi Theater, ballerina Shulamith Messerer. Plisetskaya devoted herself entirely to her profession and, in order to stay in shape for as long as possible, refused to have children. She ended her career at the age of 65, but on her 70th birthday she made her debut in choreographer Maurice Bejart’s piece “Ave Maya,” specially written for her.
Maya Plisetskaya was a ballerina, choreographer (she worked as artistic director of the Rome Opera and Ballet Theater and the Spanish National Ballet in Madrid), writer (she did not allow her autobiographical books to be edited and spent hours editing each sentence). To last days Throughout her life, this amazing woman looked great and was full of energy.
- 1 Maya Plisetskaya admitted that ballet “was not the passion of her life.” She wanted to become an actress, like her mother, silent film actress Rachel Messerer. After Plisetskaya’s father was shot and her mother was sent to a camp for the wives of traitors to the motherland, 13-year-old Maya was adopted by her maternal aunt, Bolshoi Theater soloist, ballerina Shulamith Messerer, from whom she inherited her profession.
- 2 For the first time, who later became her business card Plisetskaya danced “The Dying Swan” at the age of 14. The piece was choreographed by her aunt Shulamith Messerer, changing the original version by choreographer Mikhail Fokine, in which ballerina Anna Pavlova entered the stage facing the audience. “Two considerations prompted me to do this. Firstly, the amazing beauty of Maya’s hands, the special plasticity of her dancing abilities.<…>Despite Maya’s exceptionally expressive face, I staged her exit with her back to the audience in order to divert attention from her unfavorable feet and focus it on Maya’s arms and neck. The number would not have become Maya’s trademark if it had not been in tune with her talent,” Messerer later explained.
- 3 Maya Plisetskaya admitted that “she spied her “Dying Swan” at the Moscow Zoo”: “I went there several times with the sole purpose of spying on the swan’s plasticity, the shape of the movement of the wings, the position of the head on the bend of the neck. I was lucky once. Suddenly, a black swan a few meters away from me spread its wings to its full width, raised its webbed foot and stood on the other in a classic arabesque. He stood there for an incredibly long time. I remember I was amazed - this is stability...”
- 4 The ballerina was critical of her first performances and believed that nowadays she would not even be accepted into a ballet school: “A weak knee and an average instep.”
- 5 Plisetskaya was the most glamorous ballerina in the country.
Her outfits were discussed with no less interest than her legendary roles. From her tours she brought costumes, about which Soviet era no one could have dreamed. Her outfits were created by the legendary Pierre Cardin and Yves Saint Laurent. Maya Mikhailovna developed a special relationship with Pierre Cardin - she was the designer’s muse, and he created suits and outfits for her for 30 years. “Carden made me many priceless costumes and never asked for money,” said the ballerina.
- 6 Plisetskaya drove me crazy not only famous designers. In 1962, she met the brother of the US President, Robert Kennedy. He gave her flowers and diamonds and courted her, but they remained friends.
- 7 The poet Andrei Voznesensky could not resist Plisetskaya: “A splash of applause can be heard in her name. It rhymes with weeping larches, Persian lilacs, the Champs Elysees, and the Advent. There are geographic, temperature, and magnetic poles. Plisetskaya is a pole of magic.”
- 8 Maya Plisetskaya lived in marriage with composer Rodion Shchedrin for more than half a century.
They were introduced by Lilia Brik, the muse and lover of the poet Vladimir Mayakovsky, who, according to Plisetskaya, loved to bring people together: “Once she asked me to sing a part from The Golden Cockerel on a tape recorder - and then she let Rodion listen to the recording. He developed an interest in me...” Later, Shchedrin got ready to write music for a ballet with the participation of Plisetskaya and came to her rehearsal. The ballerina recalled that she met him in a tight black elastic leotard, which emphasized all her advantages, which completely conquered the composer.
Maya Plisetskaya is an outstanding Soviet ballerina with a worldwide reputation, born on November 20, 1925, a native Muscovite.
Childhood
The girl was the first-born in the family of a Soviet manager and actress. When Maya was only six, and her younger brother was barely one year old, Mikhail Plisetsky was appointed to the position of head of the Arktikugol mining company and moved his family abroad. Arctic Circle to one of the islands of the Spitsbergen archipelago.
The family spent almost four years in the harsh northern climate. Then Plisetsky returns to Moscow again to the post of Consul General. She cost him his life. In 1937, when mass arrests began in the highest echelons of power, he was one of the first to be put behind bars. In January 1938 he was shot, although in Khrushchev's times his name was completely rehabilitated.
His wife Rachel was also injured. As a relative of a traitor to the motherland, she was also arrested, and then deported with her infant (Maya’s second brother, born in the tragic year 1937 for the family) to Akmolinsk (Kazakhstan), where she remained until 1941. The camp for the wives of traitors greatly undermined Rachel’s health, and besides, she constantly thought about the fate of her older children remaining in Moscow.
But everything went well with them. Maya was adopted sister mother, Sulamir Messerer, famous ballerina and soloist of the Bolshoi Theater. And her little brother was taken in by Uncle Asaf, an outstanding choreographer. They introduced Maya to the world Bolshoi ballet. And this acquaintance began with children's performance"Little Red Riding Hood".
When Maya and her aunt returned home after the performance, the girl began to imagine herself as the heroes of a fairy tale and repeat the movements that she had seen on stage. Sulamir noticed the natural ease with which she was able to do this, and gave the baby her first lessons. Maya fell in love with ballet and often asked to attend other performances.
At the age of eight, she entered the ballet class of a choreographic school, not without the patronage of her famous aunt. There she very quickly became one of their best students. The girl was predicted to have a great future, but the outbreak of war almost destroyed it. The family was evacuated to Sverdlovsk, where there was no way to continue studying ballet.
Nevertheless, it was there that Maya’s first solo performance took place. The famous dance of the dying swan was choreographed by her aunt. It was she who first used the technique when the ballerina dances with her back to the audience. So nothing distracts the viewer from the graceful movements of the dancer’s hands. The audience gave the girl a standing ovation.
Career
Realizing that without regular classes under the guidance of professional teachers in a real ballet class, she would simply ruin her talent, which needed to be honed for several hours every day, a 16-year-old girl decides to return to Moscow during wartime.
There she again returned to the graduating class of the ballet school, and in 1943 she graduated and was immediately assigned to the Bolshoi Theater troupe. A talented girl, within a couple of years after starting work, began to receive solo parts, and in 1948 she officially received the status of a prima ballerina.
However, her stage path was not so cloudless. Ballet involves hours of daily exercise, which Maya never liked. While practicing the game, she gave it her all, but the monotonous movements at the machine made her feel bored. As well as the fact that she had to start with small parts, although she considered herself capable of dancing the main parts right away.
So, in the ballet Don Quixote, before going on stage in leading role Kitri, Maya played absolutely all the female parts. And in “Sleeping Beauty” she began with images of fairies. And only as she grew up, Maya realized that, in essence, there is no minor roles. Every artist, even the extras, creates the atmosphere of the performance, so you always have to give your all.
This is what made her a real star. She began to perfect every swing of her arms, every jump, and thus achieved the perfection that brought her worldwide fame. During her dance, the applause practically did not stop. Spectators literally favored the young prima, and tickets for performances with her participation were impossible to get several weeks before the announced date.
Due to Plisetskaya’s independent character and lack of inclination to sycophancy, she developed a very difficult relationship with the main choreographer of the Bolshoi, Grigorovich. They were forced to work together, but over the years their mutual hostility only intensified. Grigorovich had a hand in ensuring that Plisetskaya was not taken on foreign tours.
It was he who attracted close attention to the daughter of the “enemy of the people” from the special services, who were already monitoring all the leading artists. In 1956, the ballerina was summoned several times for interrogation by the KGB, but they failed to convict her of anything serious. On suspicion of espionage activities, she was banned from traveling abroad, and instead of world tours, she was sent on tour to provincial theaters throughout the country.
World star
After Khrushchev's thaw and the rehabilitation of her father, Maya was finally officially cleared of all charges, and only then was the world able to enjoy the dance of the great ballerina. She began to actively tour and made the school of Soviet ballet famous throughout the world. The great performer was applauded best theaters Europe, and her dance style became the canon of ballet art.
Since 1972, she began staging performances on her own and in close collaboration with her second husband, composer Rodion Shchedrin. Naturally, she kept all the main parts for herself. This is how the classics “The Seagull”, “The Lady with the Dog” and “Anna Karenina” were born.
Plisetskaya made very high demands on the ballerinas dancing with her, repeating that the music must be felt with the whole body, and not just moved to it. Thanks to this, the performances she staged simply fascinated the viewer.
Since 1983, she has actively collaborated with the best European theaters: she stages performances in Rome and Madrid, while simultaneously presenting her productions there. And her famous “The Dying Swan”, performed to the vocal accompaniment of the opera star Montserrat Caballe, captivated all of Europe.
Maya Plisetskaya gave her last performance as the Bolshoi prima in 1990, dancing “The Lady with the Dog.” At that time, the great ballerina had already turned 65, nevertheless, her every movement was as precise and graceful as in her youth. The reason for leaving was not so much age as newly escalated contradictions with management.
Nevertheless, Plisetskaya continues to appear on stage and begins to actively engage in teaching: she conducts master classes and teaches ballet. She also celebrated her 70th birthday on stage, dancing the one-woman show “Ave Maya” created for her.
And since 1994 she has been the founder international competition for young ballet talents “Maya”. She is also active in social activities.
Several films have been made about the life and work of the great dancer. documentaries and many books have been written. It was only at an advanced age that she sat down to write her memoirs, from which it is clear that ballet became her whole life.
She is the owner huge amount prestigious Soviet and international awards and People's Artist of the USSR, Doctor of the Sorbonne University and honorary citizen of Spain. On the occasion of the 90th anniversary of the great ballerina, a monument was erected in her name in a Moscow park.
Personal life
Naturally, having youth many fans, the girl has been to romantic relationships. But, completely immersed in the world of ballet, it was there that she chose men. Among her partners were famous and not so famous dancers. But these romances did not last long. Even Plisetskaya’s first marriage to Bolshoi soloist Maris Liepa lasted only three months.
With Maris Liepa
This continued until the ballerina met her real fate in the person of the then aspiring composer Rodion Shchedrin. They met on home party at Lily Brik and at first they weren’t too impressed with each other. Maya was 8 years older than the young man and behaved slightly arrogantly, as befitted her star status.
But, as they got to know each other better, they realized that they were both in love with ballet, and this united them. This rapprochement took three long years. And only in 1958 they decided to spend a vacation together. Soon after returning from Karelia, they decided to get married, which changed the whole fate of the great ballerina.
With Rodion Shchedrin
Original taken from tanjand in "Where There's a Will, There's a Way"
This will be a story about a talented woman amazing fate, and mothers are amazing children. We all know and love her daughter, and we recently honored her with a monument. But only a few know the fate of this outstanding family... She's like a book, like a novel that you can read,in which there are many dramatic pages, and many bright, creative events. We will talk about Rachel Messerer-Plisetskaya, mother of Ra, as her relatives called her, mother of the star ballerina Maya Plisetskaya.
Rachel Messerer-Plisetskaya’s nephew, Azary Messerer, tells about her fate.
Rachel was born on March 4, 1902 in Vilna; the family moved to Moscow when she was two years old. Apparently, Rachel showed great abilities in childhood, because, despite the percentage norms for Jews, she was accepted into one of the prestigious Moscow gymnasiums, which was founded by Princess Lvova.
Studies at the gymnasium were interrupted during the revolution. Hungry, cold years came, and Rachel very early began to help her mother take care of her younger sisters and brothers.
Messerer family. Sitting from left to right: Alexander, Sima Moiseevna (mother), Mikhail Borisovich (father), Rachel and Elizaveta. Standing: Emmanuel, Azarius, Asaph, Mattanias and Shulamith.
Rachel took important decisions, which determined the fate of brothers and sisters. For example, in the family only she knew about Asaf’s passionate desire to study ballet.
He was afraid to tell his father about his plans, knowing that, with all his love for the theater, he would not approve of this decision. Rachel told Osya, that’s what she called Asaf, “if you love ballet very much, then go to ballet.”
Having entered a private ballet school only at the age of 16, Assaf achieved such phenomenal success that two years later he was accepted into the graduating class of the Bolshoi Theater Choreographic School.
It was then that Rachel decided that her younger sister Shulamith had all the ingredients to follow in the footsteps of Asaph. She took Mita, as she was called in the family, to the entrance exam to the Choreographic School, sewing her a beautiful ballet tutu. So both famous artists chose a ballet career largely thanks to Rachel.
Nineteen-year-old Rachel entered the Institute of Cinematography shortly after its founding.
At the entrance exam, the chairman of the commission, Lev Kuleshov, asked her to perform a sketch of catching a butterfly. Rachel spent a long time sneaking up on the imaginary butterfly and missing - unsuccessfully “throwing a net.” In the end, out of frustration, she burst into tears so convincingly that the examiners themselves almost shed tears.
She studied with famous directors and teachers.
In her student company the soul of the society was classmate Vladimir Plisetsky - witty, charming, athletically built.
He brought his older brother Mikhail to one of the parties. It so happened that both brothers began to court the beautiful Rachel - love triangle. Rachel gave her heart to Michael and married him.
Rachel's film career began very successfully. Protazanov believed that her extraordinary, one might say, biblical beauty (huge, sad eyes, blue-black hair and dark complexion) was of an oriental type, so he invited her to star in the leading roles in the new Uzbekfilm studio, which opened in Tashkent.
There she starred in the films “The Second Wife” (1927), “The Leper” (1928), “Valley of Tears” (1929) and others. These films were a great success in their time, and Rachel’s sad eyes looked out from the posters of many cinemas in the country.
Her roles were tragic.
There is no doubt that Rachel was talented actress, her suffering on the screen touched the soul. And it’s especially painful for me to watch these films, because I know that fate was preparing trials for her that were no less difficult than those of her heroines.
After the birth of Maya, Rachel continued to act in films for some time both in Tashkent and at Mosfilm. Sometimes she took her daughter to the filming of the comedy “One Hundred and Twenty Thousand.”
Four-year-old Maya also attended a screening of the film “Leper.” She burst into tears throughout the entire hall when she saw how the Basmachi threw the unfortunate heroine under the hooves of horses. Her mother reassured her for a long time, saying that it was just a movie, that she was with her, but Maya stubbornly repeated: “They killed you!”
Rachel was forced to leave the cinema when she was expecting her second child, and her husband was appointed manager of the Arktikugol mines and the USSR consul on the Norwegian polar island of Spitsbergen, where he organized coal mining.
In 1932, Rachel arrived in Spitsbergen with her infant Alik and seven-year-old Maya with the last ship - navigation was stopped for almost six months - having survived a monstrous force eight storm at sea. It was immediately discovered that Arktikugol, the organization that sent workers to Spitsbergen, did not even provide the polar explorers with blankets. There was no need to wait six months for the next navigation, and Rachel, together with the miners' wives, began to sew blankets from materials available in the warehouse.
She worked as a telephone operator, but most importantly, she helped her husband brighten up the lives of the workers of the Soviet colony. For example, she organized amateur concerts. Under her leadership, the opera “Rusalka” was staged, where Maya played the role of the Little Mermaid. This was the great ballerina’s first performance on stage, and the family often recalled Pushkin’s phrase, which she uttered with the spontaneity of a child: “I don’t know what money is.”
Academician Otto Schmidt, who headed the Main Directorate of the Northern Sea Route, appointed him general director of the Arktikugol trust, and they received an apartment in the center of Moscow. At this time, the Messerer family was at the height of its glory. It is enough to mention one event that occurred in January 1936.
That day, after all the performances ended, a crowd of actors and theatergoers gathered at the entrance to the Moscow Art Theater.
They did not leave the theater, but rather tried to go inside. The excitement was so great that it was necessary to set up a barrier of inspectors who let in only those who had an invitation to the Messerer family evening.
Three sisters and two brothers took part - fab five. They showed excerpts from films in which Rachel starred. Shulamith and Asaph performed the pas de deux from Don Quixote and their best solo numbers. Azary and Elizaveta played scenes from several classical and modern performances, and also performed parodies of Stanislavsky, Nemirovich-Danchenko, Alisa Koonen and others. The evening was an incredible success.
But the atmosphere in Moscow was already pre-storm, and the Great Terror soon broke out. Rachel's husband was arrested on April 30, 1937, when Rachel was seven months pregnant.
Maya told how she vividly remembers her father’s hands, thin long fingers and the scar left from a saber blow: he fought in Civil War on the red side. She thought for a moment, and then added that every day she mentally sees how her father is being tortured, his arms are being broken...
I didn’t believe it: “Really every day?”
“Yes, and often at night,” she replied. I remember that then a thought occurred to me: maybe that’s why she became not only a great ballerina, but also a tragic actress.<...>
Half a century later, more precisely in 1992-93, Rachel’s younger brother Alexander gained access to the interrogation protocols of Mikhail Plisetsky. From the yellowed pages it was extremely clear what reason the investigators had come up with to deal with Rachel’s husband. True to his principle of helping friends in difficult times, he hired R.V. to work on Spitsbergen. Pikel, when he was already in disgrace for his closeness to Zinoviev.
In 1936, Pickel made “confessions” at the famous public trial of Zinoviev, Kamenev and others. In particular, he admitted his “participation in the attempt on Stalin’s life.”
After the execution of Pikel, the NKVD began to arrest everyone who was associated with him.
Mikhail Plisetsky denied the monstrous accusations for a long time, but in mid-July he unexpectedly signed a confession. And the following happened: on July 13, 1937, Azary was born. On July 22, Rachel returned with him from the maternity hospital. On July 23, the phone rang and the voice on the receiver said: “Don’t ask questions, answer, who was born?!” Frightened Rachel said: “Son.”
That call was, in all likelihood, made from the office where Mikhail Plisetsky was interrogated. The security officers apparently promised something for this information. But soon the wives of “enemies of the people” also began to be arrested. Rachel with baby taken away in the early spring of 1938.
That day, Rachel bought flowers and was going to go with her children to the Bolshoi Theater to see “The Sleeping Beauty” to watch Shulamith and Asaph in the lead roles. When the security officers came for her, she told Maya to go with Alik to Bolshoi without her, give Mitya and Asaf flowers and tell them that she was urgently summoned to her husband in Spitsbergen.
Before the performance, Sulamifi and Asaph were informed that children had come to them at the 16th service entrance. Shulamith writes in her memoirs: “I don’t remember how I danced. I only remember my brother whispering with support: hold on, hold on, maybe nothing like that happened...”
During intermission, Mita called Rachel. Her terrible fears were confirmed: Rachel and her child were taken to prison. Shulamith took Maya to live with her, and Asaph took Alik, who was a year older than his son Boris (now a famous artist).
At that time, Rachel was sitting in a huge round cell, in the tower of Butyrka prison, along with dozens of other mothers with screaming babies. The cellmates tried their best to provide moral support to each other. This, in particular, is evidenced by the lullaby that they sang in Butyrka and the words of which Rachel remembered and wrote down many years later:
Early in the morning, at dawn
The corpsman will come.
Children will stand up in reality,
The sun will rise.
A thin ray will sneak through
On the damp wall,
To the imprisoned child
To the little one dear.
But it still won't get any brighter
Gloomy housing
Who will return your blush,
My sunshine?
Behind bars, behind locks
Days are like years.
Children cry, even mothers
They cry sometimes.
But they grow a new generation by hardening their hearts.
You, child, do not believe in treason
Your father.
The last lines sound like a dissonance to the gloomy lyrics of the entire poem. However, they reflect life credo Rachel.
She was a fragile little woman, but in terms of tenacity of character she was not inferior to seasoned fighters. Her experienced murderer investigators soon realized this.
She did not make any compromises and denied that she knew about her husband’s alleged “criminal activities.” This is what is written in the file: “She denies it, but she couldn’t help but know.”
After Butyrka, she and Azarik were sent to the Gulag, more precisely to “ALZHIR” - that’s what they called the “Akmola Camp for the Wives of Traitors to the Motherland.”
They rode in a calf barn, a cattle car filled to capacity with political and criminal women. From a gypsy woman who slept with the head of the train, she learned that they were being taken to Kazakhstan. Cold winds whistled through the cracks. I was tormented by an insane thirst - they fed me dried roach, with almost no water. But she was even more tormented by the thought of how to let her family know about herself. Again, they were taught by criminals.
On a piece of paper moistened with the head of a match, Rachel wrote a few lines: “We are going towards Karaganda, to the camp of the Akmola region. The child is with me..." and the Moscow address of the relatives: Moscow, st. Dzerzhinsky, house 23, apt. 3.
She folded the paper into a triangle and sealed it with brown bread crumb. When the train stopped at one of the sidings, Rachel, standing on the bunk, through the barred window saw two switchmen standing on the tracks.
She waved at them and threw the letter. One of the women immediately turned away, and the other, following with her eyes a leaf caught by the wind and flying across the train, nodded to Rachel.
Ta kind soul No wonder she nodded. The letter has arrived! Shulamith decided that the Almighty was telling her that she needed to save her sister. Wearing the newly received Order of the Badge of Honor on her suit, she made her way to an appointment with the KGB officials, begged permission to visit her sister and take her child, and then set off on a difficult journey thousands and thousands of kilometers away, to the Algeria camp.
Rachel fainted when she was told that her sister had come to see her and she could meet her. When she came to her senses, she learned that Shulamith wanted to take the child. Of course, she dreamed of sending Azarik to freedom, but she also knew that this could lead to her death. The fact is that the jailers freed her, as a nursing mother, from the most difficult work.
She spoke to her sister in the presence of the camp commandant, but the sisters understood each other at a glance. At the end of the meeting, Mita said that the boy was still too weak to withstand the long journey, and asked permission to send parcels to feed him.
How to shorten the sentence or even rescue Rachel and Azarik from the Gulag? There was one small hope. A rumor spread throughout Moscow that at one reception in the Kremlin, after the concert, Stalin proposed a toast to Asaf Messerer. Is this true? Many years later in New York I asked Asaph himself about this, and he confirmed it.
He and Lepeshinskaya, then considered the first couple at the Bolshoi, were sometimes invited to concerts in the Kremlin. One day after a concert, he and a group of artists were sitting at a banquet table and talking about something with a neighbor and suddenly felt awkward: it seemed to him that everyone was looking at him.
He turned around and saw Stalin behind him. He thought about getting up, but Stalin patted him on the shoulder and said: “You dance well. You jump very high! Here she is,” he pointed to Lepeshinskaya, “like a dragonfly, and you are like an eagle.”
At this time, Voroshilov asked Stalin some question. Stalin was distracted, but after answering, he again turned to Asaf, raised his glass and said that he was drinking to him. Asaph was shocked and did not know how to respond. But Stalin went further.
The family began to demand that Asaph help Rachel, since Stalin himself drank for him. Soon after this, Asaph was invited to stage festive concert at the NKVD club.<...>
At the beginning of 1939, Assaf sat at the premiere of his production at the NKVD club and, having talked with a neighbor, learned that he was none other than the secretary of the deputy people's commissar of the NKVD. Asaf, who played heroic roles so convincingly on stage, was very modest in life. One can imagine the torment he went through when he decided to take a bold step: suppressing his shyness, he asked his neighbor to arrange a meeting on a personal matter with his boss... only, if possible, his sister would come, she is better familiar with this matter. Perhaps the success of the production and the fact that Asaf received a standing ovation when he entered the stage had an effect on his seatmate, and he arranged for Mitya an audience with the deputy people's commissar, who was later also shot.
Shulamith eloquently described to him all the ordeals of Rachel and the child and achieved the incredible: the camp was replaced by a settlement in Kazakhstan, namely in the city of Chimkent. Moreover, Mitya was allowed to transport her sister herself.
Shymkent was a provincial Central Asian town; there were many exiles and widowed women with children like Rachel. There was even a Culture Club, where Rachel organized a ballet club.
Beautiful and still young, Rachel attracted the attention of local men, and they even made proposals to her, but she refused everyone, believing that her beloved husband would return. One day she received a package from Mita, which contained “Bear in the North” candies. Apparently she had not seen them before. The author of this name, as well as the “Squirrel” sweets, was famous director Natalya Sats, whose husband was a minister before he was arrested and executed food industry. She half-jokingly told me during an interview that if her memory remains, it will be because of these candies.
So, Rachel decided that it was no coincidence that Mita sent her sweets, they say, this is a sign that her Mikhail has returned to Spitsbergen and she will see him soon. Like many other women, for a long time she could not understand the monstrous meaning of Stalin’s framed sentence of “ten years without the right to correspondence,” which meant execution.
By that time, Mikhail Plisetsky had already been shot. Only four decades later, Rachel received documentary evidence:
“Dear Rakhil Mikhailovna! - wrote in 1989 A. Nikonov, head of the secretariat of the military collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR. — In response to your request, I inform you: Mikhail Emmanuilovich Plisetsky, born in 1899, member of the CPSU (b) since 1919, before his arrest - manager of the Arctic-Coal trust of the Main Northern Sea Route, was unjustifiably sentenced on January 8, 1938 to death on false charges of espionage, in sabotage and participation in an anti-Soviet terrorist organization. The sentence has been carried out. This happened immediately after the verdict was pronounced - January 8, 1938... An additional check carried out in 1955-56 established that Plisetsky M.E. was convicted unjustifiably...”
The execution was sanctioned by Zhdanov, Molotov, Kaganovich, Voroshilov - their names are on the title of the so-called “Stalinist execution list”. Even the place of execution and burial is now known - the NKVD execution range "Kommunarka", near Moscow.
He died in the prime of life, not even suspecting that his daughter would become a great ballerina. Rachel, who remained alone forever, hated Stalinism, the bloody regime that deprived her and her children of a loved one - their father, and destroyed millions of other fathers... She instilled this hatred and at the same time strengthened the will to silently resist the Stalinist rabble both to Maya and her sons, and us, close relatives.
Rachel returned to Moscow two months before the start of the war and settled with Shulamith and her husband, where Maya lived. They barely fit into two small adjacent rooms in a huge communal apartment in Shchepkinsky Proezd, behind the Bolshoi Theater. Rachel and Azarik slept on a cot, which was placed at night right next to the door, and such conditions seemed like paradise to her after the camp and miserable shack in Chimkent.
She was also happy because just before the war she witnessed her daughter’s first great success in a school concert.
Maya Plisetskaya believes that the performance in the “Impromptu” number staged by Leonid Yakobson especially for schoolchildren had special meaning in her career, for she “stepped from a timid ballet childhood into an independent, adult, risky, but wonderful professional ballet life.”
A few months after the start of the war, Rachel and her children were evacuated to Sverdlovsk, where, with great difficulty, she managed to get a job as a registrar at a clinic in order to receive a card to support her children.
I was especially shocked by the letters from the father of the family, Mikhail Borisovich, to Rachel’s son and brother, Emmanuel Messerer - my father. He died during a bombing while on duty on the roof of a Moscow house. This tragedy was hidden from Mikhail Borisovich. The letters were returned to him with the stamp “the addressee has left,” and he forwarded them to Rachel, demanding to know why Nulya, as he called Emmanuel, was not responding.
She tried to send parcels to her older brother Mattaniy, a professor languishing in the Gulag, as can be seen from Elizabeth’s letter to her dated February 16, 1942.
“Rakhilinka, my sunshine. I shed many tears reading your letter. How terribly you learned about our great misfortune. You know the details of this catastrophe, and I will not irritate your nerves by describing all this again... I was deeply moved by the place where you write about Mattania.
What to do? What to do? Two days ago I received a postcard from him. He asks to send him a parcel. He asks for some sugar, crackers and shag. My heart aches in pain for him.
I can collect a package for him, except for sugar. But we only accept gifts for the front, but not for the rear. Maybe they will accept it from you? I will try again... Write to me, Rakhilinka, more often. It is such a joy for me to receive your letters.”
And here is an excerpt from a letter from Asaf, who at that time was in Kuibyshev, where he led the evacuated Bolshoi Theater troupe:
“Dear Rakhilinka. I received your letter where you ask to be placed in Kuibyshev. The housing issue is very difficult here. It is impossible to get a room; the only possibility is to settle in the Bolshoi Theater dormitory. I think that I will be allowed, but keep in mind that there are 20-25 people in a room... I am very concerned about the issue of your arrival in connection with the typhus epidemic.”
Rachel wanted to move to Kuibyshev because Maya, who had not taken ballet for a year, needed to resume her classes. But soon Rachel learns that part of the troupe has returned to Moscow and, according to rumors, work has resumed at the school. Despite the danger and the lack of a pass to Moscow, she lets her sixteen-year-old daughter go to the capital, to Sulamith, who was called to participate in the first Moscow wartime performances. Fortunately, Maya was accepted into the graduating class, and she began to participate in Bolshoi performances, since the theater did not have enough soloists.
I remember Rachel right after the war. Her sons, who studied at the Choreographic School, were sent for the summer to a pioneer camp in Polenovo, next to the famous Tarusa, and Rachel got a job there. I was also taken to this camp, although I was only 6 years old. For the first time, I found myself away from home for 3 months, and if it weren’t for Rachel, it would have been very difficult for me. She treated me like a mother, and I ran to her for comfort after any boyish conflict.
Since then, I have loved her all my life as a second mother. When our communal apartment was undergoing renovations, I asked to live with Rachel in that same communal apartment, in Shchepkinsky Proezd. I was accepted, despite the cramped conditions, and I slept on a bed between two famous ballerinas, Maya and Shulamith. My mother’s brother, who lived with us, joked about this, saying that from an early age I showed great promise in relation to women. Of course, I didn’t understand what he meant then.
In the 60s, Shulamith began to go on long business trips abroad, most often to Japan, where she founded the first ballet school and named it after Tchaikovsky. She left her son Misha with Rachel, knowing that her sister would not only take care of him, but would also be able to raise him. Rachel had enough mother's love at all. (Mikhail Messerer was recently appointed chief choreographer of the Mikhailovsky Theater in St. Petersburg, while he continues to be a teacher of the Royal Ballet in London).
Film director Vasily Katanyan, who was friends with Maya Plisetskaya, writes in the book “Touching Idols”: “I really loved her mother, Rakhil Mikhailovna, worthy, kind woman. It was unclear how she managed everything - cooking, cleaning, everyone ate at different times, Maya was going to class - she needed to iron her tunic, Alik had returned from rehearsal, the younger one was preparing his homework... She was lively and impetuous.”
All the vicissitudes of the turbulent life of Rachel’s children directly affected her: both triumphs on the stage and troubles. For example, she was acutely worried about Maya in the 50s. Maya writes that she was then on the verge of suicide: for 6 years the KGB suspected her of espionage because of one meeting with an English diplomat, refusing her permission to travel abroad. English, American, and French impresarios demanded that the Bolshoi tour include ballets with the participation of Plisetskaya, and at the last minute the State Concert announced that for one reason or another she allegedly could not come. Maya survived this disgrace largely thanks to the moral support of her mother. She also writes that she and her husband, outstanding composer Rodion Shchedrin managed to get a small apartment in 1958, largely thanks to the efforts of his mother, who “had a quiet character, but stubborn to the extreme.” Indeed, for the sake of the children, Rachel was ready to break through any bureaucratic wall.
In the 70s, a fierce struggle between two camps unfolded inside the Bolshoi Theater - Maya Plisetskaya and Yuri Grigorovich, the authoritarian artistic director ballet, which did not allow major choreographers to stage performances. The careers of Azaria and Alexander, in particular, suffered from this enmity. Grigorovich did his best to prevent their progress in the theater, and they were forced to leave Moscow for a long time. Rachel suffered greatly from separation from her sons. And, of course, herself terrible tragedy In her life, the early death of Alexander Plisetsky, who suffered from a heart defect, appeared. He never received a call from America, where a famous surgeon promised to perform an operation on him, and died during the operation in a Moscow hospital. Rachel then suddenly declined and grew old...
There was a lot of sorrow and a lot of joy in her life. She did not miss a single performance with the participation of Maya, Alexander or Azaria. Rachel usually sat in the front rows, next to her younger brother Alexander and the famous Lilya Brik, in one of the beautiful black dresses, smiling at the many fans of her children who came up to her every now and then during intermission. Sometimes she gave photographs to friends, signing “In fond memory from Maya’s mother.”
At the end of her life, Rakhil Mikhailovna received the opportunity to travel. She stayed in England with her sister Shulamith, whom the Queen of England awarded with the highest order for her contribution to the culture of Great Britain. She also spent six months in Cuba, where Azaria worked, in France and Spain. In ninety, she came to America accompanied by her brother Alexander, who tenderly looked after her and actually extended her life.
Rachel died at the age of 91 and was buried in the family grave at the Novodevichy cemetery, at the beginning of the famous Cherry Orchard alley. The first to be buried there in 1937 was her brother Azariy, an outstanding Moscow Art Theater actor, after whom Rachel named her son, who was born the same year. This grave is located next to the graves of Chekhov, Levitan, Stanislavsky and Gogol. It is surprising that, just like on the graves of these geniuses of Russia, sometimes flowers appear on her grave, placed by someone unknown. Apparently, Muscovites remember her.