After his death, the archive of Dmitry Sergeevich Likhachev went to Pushkin House, where he worked for over sixty years. Scattered notebooks with notes remained: these are translations of fragments of English books about gardens and parks, which Likhachev was so keen on and about which he wrote in recent years; plans for the near future. There are also notebooks where grandfather wrote down thoughts not only for memory, but, probably, for future work. In very small, beady handwriting, most likely in the last months of his life, in 1999, he wrote: “Atheism gives nothing. On the contrary, he takes something away from the world, makes it empty. Faith in God, on the contrary, expands the world, makes it significant, fills it with meaning. This meaning is different in different religions, but at the same time it is always rich and in some respects the same, because it presupposes the immortality of the soul... This meaning unites people.”
I keep these notes and letters at home. For example, messages addressed in the summer of 1988 to me, my husband and daughter Vera, who was then an infant. We, still students at that time, were on vacation in Estonia; my grandparents lived in a dacha in Komarov. Each letter included a message from both grandmother and grandfather. We are all accustomed to this style of communication. There were no secrets from anyone. Grandfather always asked grandmother to fill in if he forgot something. This is how my grandfather’s famous memoirs about the Leningrad blockade, “How We Stayed Alive,” were created.
“Dear Zinochka and Verochka! Our weather is rainy and cold. Grandfather is going to London for three days. The magazine “Our Heritage” is printed there, and on August 23 there will be a reception at which the finished magazine will be presented. Grandfather is traveling with Enisherlov. Maybe Myasnikov will join. Yesterday my grandfather was filmed by the Sverdlovsk studio. A film about the Old Believers. We almost never have guests. Once the Granins came. More often on business, you have to give tea, and sometimes<кормить>lunch. Now it’s very difficult for me to cook...” - this is what my grandmother writes.
On the following pages, the grandfather’s firm handwriting: “Dear Zinochka, Igor and Verochka. We really miss. I have too much work to do. And I really don’t want to work. Either from fatigue. Either from meaninglessness. They call, come, and ask all the time. I often refuse, but often I cannot refuse, because I need help. I am very concerned about my grandmother's health. She gets tired immediately and has sudden attacks of weakness. Today I’m going to the city, and tomorrow we’ll go to our doctor, Tamara Grigorievna. Age takes its toll, but I’m stronger than my grandmother. This is also very bad. We all think and talk about Verochka - what she is like.”
Grandfather and grandmother were a married couple who were admired by everyone around them. But if Likhachev’s life has been studied quite well, more than one has been written biographical book, then little is known about his life partner. As well as some tragic family situations.
Of course, at that time in the USSR there were much richer, hospitable houses and luxurious dachas. But these are, as a rule, the houses of great artists, favorites of the party and government, the apartments of Soviet bars, like the descendants of Alexei Tolstoy, the official “writer’s generals.” The Likhachevs were neither Soviet bars, nor, of course, party favorites - on the contrary. They did not receive the house as a gift from the country's leaders or by inheritance. By the way, foreigners were surprised at the dacha in Komarov. This is an apartment in a wooden barracks, with cardboard walls, and a kitchen of four square meters. A garden containing one apple tree and one bench. The St. Petersburg apartment is also in a new building, with small rooms and low ceilings. The Likhachevs created their home, their idyll themselves, in spite of all the circumstances of life. They built it together, otherwise it was impossible. In the 1930s, a strong family is the only way to withstand the surrounding horror and chaos. During the blockade, the “Leningrad Affair” and ideological studies, this is the only way to survive.
In addition to his family, Likhachev also built another house in 1970: The Department of Old Russian Literature in the Pushkin House ceased to be only the scientific sector of the institute. Likhachev gathered faithful disciples, for whom, if necessary, he stood strong. Their joint scientific works became known throughout the world. Likhachev and his students were also incredible popularizers of Russian antiquity. Thanks to the academician Old Russian culture became so significant that it was discovered not only by specialists. Likhachev takes care of provincial scientists; he organizes trips for his students to the provinces, where they visit monasteries and give lectures at local universities. They also compile books for children - retellings of Russian chronicles. Among the students there are outstanding ones: for example, the future academician Alexander Panchenko. The “sector workers” wrote humorous poems, one of which became the department’s anthem - “In the house that DS built.”
It was October 1934. A young man came to the Leningrad branch of the publishing house of the Academy of Sciences to get a job. While he modestly waited for an audience with the director, young female employees looked at him with curiosity. Among them is proofreader Zina Makarova: she immediately liked the visitor. Tall, handsome, intelligent... And he was also very poorly dressed. In late autumn - in summer canvas shoes, carefully polished with chalk. A thought immediately flashed through her mind: he probably had big family, children. But in the publishing house the salaries of employees are small. It was clear that the petitioner was timid and unsure of himself: he had probably been knocking around for a long time in search of work. When the director left the office, the determined Zina immediately began to ask him: “Take this young man to our publishing house, take him!” The visitor was Dmitry Likhachev, a future academician, a great scientist. Zinaida Makarova will marry him, save his life several times, become his support, support, best friend.
There were less than two months left before Kirov’s murder, and six months before the “Kirov stream,” that is, the expulsion of all unreliable people from Leningrad. But even in October 1934, Leningrad was very restless. Windowless vans with the sign “Bread” drive around the city at night. And the next morning people find out: they took a neighbor, a colleague, a relative. They talk about it in whispers, they are afraid. The Leningrad branch of the publishing house of the Academy of Sciences is headed by Mikhail Valerianov. In his youth, before the revolution, he worked as a page maker, a highly qualified typesetter at the Printing Yard. Then, before the revolution, the chief engineer here was Sergei Mikhailovich Likhachev. Valerianov remembered Dmitry as a little boy. Mitya loved books, he liked to watch the typesetters at work. And now he is looking for a job. Valerianov took it. At that time, the publishing house of the Academy of Sciences was filled with “ former people" This is a completely official term that was used in relation to nobles, officers of the tsarist army, priests and their children, and merchants. Many of them will soon be arrested, shot, and expelled from Leningrad. Dmitry Likhachev's friend, Mikhail Steblin-Kamensky, a nobleman, left home with his wife every day - to the Philharmonic, to visit, and then for a long time, on foot through the night city, they returned home. They were playing for time because they knew that they could be arrested at any moment.
There was a legend in our family. Grandfather was embarrassed to meet grandmother, so his friend, Steblin-Kamensky, introduced him to the girl. Well, then, eighty years ago, in the intelligent circles of Leningrad, the rules still remained good manners pre-revolutionary times. Soon they started dating. We went for a walk to the islands, favorite vacation spots for many generations of Leningraders: Elagin, Kamenny, Krestovsky. Mitya - that’s what his loved ones called him - spoke, Zina listened. Pretty soon she recognized him main secret. He was arrested on political charges and served time in Solovki. People knew about the Solovetsky special purpose camp. They told terrible things about him. To be there meant to go through all the circles of hell. And this unsociable young man with blue eyes, modest, shy even for that time, was in this hell. She knew how to listen, and he told her. Of course, not all. The worst thing was impossible to remember. My memory refused, it didn’t want to recreate the details.
At the end of the 1920s, the Soviet government began to fight all companies, circles, and journals where thinking people and, of course, young people gathered. Mitya Likhachev also had such a group of intelligent, well-read friends. They were in their twenties. And so they came up with the comic Space Academy of Sciences - CAS. How joyful the future seemed to them! It was a hard time, but they were very young. They wanted to be happy. We would gather at someone’s house and exchange books. They made reports and argued. Mitya read a serious report about the dangers of the new spelling. The fact that the spelling introduced by the Soviet government supposedly to simplify the written language, abolishing some letters, changing the spelling of words, is “damage and decline in Russian literacy.” A few days later, Mitya and his friends decided to congratulate one of the members of the circle, Dmitry Kallistov, with a comic telegram. It said that the Pope was sending congratulations. This was enough for the investigator to open a case about counter-revolutionaries, develop it, and receive a promotion.
In the investigative file it was said: “According to the testimony of members of the KAN, it was established that at the end of December 1927, at the 54th meeting, a member of the KAN, Dmitry Sergeevich Likhachev, in his report on Bero’s book “What I Saw in Moscow,” published abroad, cited statistics of those executed bodies of the GPU during the revolution... He, Likhachev, made a report on the topic “Traditions of holy Russian spelling.” The report boiled down to the fact that Russia, after the change in spelling, is deprived of the grace of God...
Dmitry Pavlovich Kallistov read anti-Soviet articles to some members of the KAN. Members of KAN obtain prohibited literature and newspapers. At the same time, it became known that the above-mentioned Dmitry Pavlovich Kallistov kept in his apartment a secret report on the white-emigrant press issued by the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, which he read to his anti-Soviet friends.
In order to prevent further growth of this circle, on the night of February 8th of this year. the following members were arrested: Rosenberg Eduard Karlovich, Kallistov Dmitry Pavlovich, Likhachev Dmitry Sergeevich, Terekhovko Anatoly Semenovich, Rakov Vladimir Tikhonovich, Moshkov Petr Pavlovich ... "
On February 8 they came for Mitya. They looked for books and found banned publications. It was clear: a provocateur had infiltrated the Space Academy. Although only close friends were accepted there. Our own. Other members of the Space Academy and some senior mentors were also arrested. They also took the girl whom Mitya was courting - Valya Morozova. She was 17 years old. She, a schoolgirl, asked to give her a ball to her cell. Then they finally released her.
...After being in a cell on Shpalernaya and grueling interrogations, they are given sentences. Some are three years old, and Mitya Likhachev, Volodya Rakov, Eduard Rosenberg are five years old. They were supposed to serve them on Solovki. There were no other terms then, but later 10 and 25 years appeared, and then the five-year term began to be called “children’s”. The horrors began from the very moment the prisoners were sent to Solovki: people suffocated in the hold of the steamship Gleb Bokiy. But even this nightmare could not obscure the meeting of the future researcher of ancient Russian literature and history with the mighty northern monastery.
At first, Mitya worked as a laborer, a “vreedl,” that is, a temporary horse worker. Simply, he carried loads on himself. Every day could be the last. Many times he was on the verge of death. The pass was stolen - an old criminal helped out - the pass was planted. One time Mitya went into the forest without permission and was discovered by one of the camp commanders. He chased him on horseback and tried to shoot him, but Mitya escaped. Then came typhus, from which hundreds of prisoners died. And again he miraculously survived.
And the most important story for him is the Solovetsky story. That day, his parents and brother came to visit him. But the prisoners escaped, and to intimidate the others they planned mass shooting. Everything was done at night; Dmitry Likhachev was also supposed to be shot, but he hid, and in the confusion they forgot about him.
But Mitya remained a scientist. In the camp I wrote down and studied the thieves' argot of criminals. I wrote an article about this, it was published in the Solovetsky Islands magazine, which was published in the camp. Then a second article appeared - about card games of criminals. Likhachev knew the vocabulary of thieves very well, obscenities. And one day it saved his life. The Urks lost it at cards. After all, sometimes they played on people. The loser had to kill one of the neighbors in the barracks. The choice fell on Mitya. The knife was already raised above him when Likhachev sent the attacker towards his mother. Yes, it’s so ornate and multi-story that the idiot pulled back his hand with the knife: “Student, you’re one of ours!” The criminals took him for one of their own, a thieve.
Dmitry Sergeevich did not tell anyone about this. And he didn’t write it in his memoirs. The son of one of his cell neighbors told about this incident. Likhachev already realized his mission. He must become a great scientist. And Mitya recorded what he experienced and learned in the camp: words, conventional signs, drawings. He understood perfectly well that he had become a participant in an incredible historical event. Moreover, he took some rarities from Solovki. He put them in a box, which he called a “family museum.” There was a spoon with inscriptions - an indispensable part of a prisoner's property. And an English dictionary - Mitya Likhachev in the camp tried not to forget the language he studied at Leningrad University.
After the horrors he experienced, his character became very difficult. After the camp, when his rights were impaired, when he could be arrested again and deported, he perceived every unexpected event in only one way - negative, and predicted the worst option. He was constantly wary of informers and informers. This remains for life. That’s also why it was always difficult with him. But Zina Makarova agreed to his marriage proposal. He took it on the tram when they were returning from a walk on the islands. She said yes without hesitation. It was main man her life. Now she knew that she would do everything for him. Will be able to give up a lot, if necessary, change. And so it happened.
There was no wedding. Young people couldn’t even buy elegant clothes; it was generally not customary to wear wedding rings back then, and they didn’t say: “they had a wedding,” they said: “they signed.” Photographs taken shortly after the remarkable event have been preserved. Sitting to the side is Zina's father, Alexander Alekseevich Makarov, a modest employee. He is clearly shy and feels awkward. Zina and Mitya now settled in a communal apartment with Mitya’s parents, Vera Semyonovna and Sergei Mikhailovich Likhachev. The house stood on Lakhtinskaya Street on the Petrograd side, the apartment was located on the top floor - dark, the rooms were small. But they were happy. Together they took “hack work” to the house for earning extra money, and sat down at the table with the older Likhachevs. Zina was an excellent cook. Sergei Mikhailovich liked her. The mother-in-law believed that her beloved son had married a girl of too simple origin, from the people.
Zinaida Aleksandrovna Makarova was born in 1907 in Novorossiysk. My father worked as a salesman in a store for wealthy relatives. Mom was a housewife. Zina is the eldest of the children. She had three brothers: Vasya, Kolya and Lenya. In Novorossiysk they survived the Civil War. Nobles, tsarist officers, merchants - everyone whom the Bolsheviks could shoot - fled through the Novorossiysk port from the Bolsheviks. Zina once saw a meeting of two middle-aged women in church. One rushed to the other with tears: “Princess, you are here too!” In 1920, there was a typhus epidemic, Zina fell ill, but recovered, but her mother died. At the age of 13, the girl was left an orphan and the older sister of three boys. Father's only assistant. She studied well at school, but she had to run the household and provide housework for her brothers. Grandmother always remembered and later told how she sewed a shirt for brother Kolya, but did not calculate it, and the sleeves turned out to be short.
Zina was dark-haired and dark-skinned. A true southerner. She swam beautifully and easily crossed Tsemes Bay. Many photographs have been preserved: she and her friends in swimsuits on the beach. Zina is slender, tall, height - 172 cm. At that time she was too tall and thin, now they would say - a model, but then plump girls were in fashion. She had many friends and was always the center of attention. She really wanted to study and become a doctor. But oh higher education and it was impossible to dream. I had to work and raise my brothers. Probably, these childhood circumstances made her like this - responsible, reliable, always ready to help. The family was supported by her. She was very religious. And capable of action. She recalled how a female agitator came to their home and called on her and her brothers to join the Komsomol. Zina pulled her down the stairs. And then - a new misfortune: the youngest Lenya died from a blow electric shock. After burying him, the family decided to leave for Leningrad in search of better life. Zina had absolute literacy, and she got a job as a proofreader at the publishing house of the Academy of Sciences.
Dmitry Likhachev - one of the St. Petersburg intellectuals. The family read a lot and had a box at the Imperial Mariinsky Theater. True balletomanes, they saw both the “short-legged” Kshesinskaya and Karsavina. Vera Semyonovna Likhacheva came from a family of very rich Old Believers merchants and was distinguished by some snobbery. She had many acquaintances in the artistic community. In the summer they rented a dacha in Kuokkala, now it is Repino. Before the revolution, Chukovsky, Repin, Kulbin lived here, on the shores of the Gulf of Finland... My grandfather remembered his neighbors forever.
All three Likhachev sons are handsome and very successful. Yura and Misha are engineers. And suddenly Mitya, my mother’s favorite, married a simple girl who speaks with a southern accent and pronounces a soft “g”, just like housekeepers. Since childhood, this Zina has not been accustomed to reading, going to the Philharmonic or the theater, or playing croquet. Her element, of course, is cooking borscht. In a word, a commoner. Mitya and Zina were so different that from the outside it was not entirely clear why they were together, what connected them. But, probably, this was the secret of their mutual attraction and strong relationship. He is a northern man, reserved, tough, even gloomy after the camp. In his wife, Dmitry received something that was not in his own character. Zinaida had purely southern vitality, optimism, and openness. She cooked with pleasure and always sang romances and popular songs. Gradually the spouses changed. Dmitry has changed. He had incredible complexes - a poor, useless camp prisoner in torn galoshes. His older brother Mikhail, who by that time had made a good career as an engineer in Moscow, made fun of him. His parents often scolded him, and even his loving father called him a poor man. And he reproached me for choosing a meaningless profession. Who needs philologists? It's different being an engineer. Now, until the end of his days, Dmitry had a strong rear, his beloved wife and her constant support. There was a man who always looked at him with loving eyes and considered him an outstanding scientist.
Zina quickly became a real Leningrader. She overcame her southern accent, the soft “g”, and now she had an intelligent, correct speech. Before her marriage, she spent a lot of time with her friends and loved noisy gatherings with a guitar and gramophone. Zina constantly supported her father and brothers. But, having become Dmitry’s wife, she practically stopped meeting with friends and family, all her time was devoted to her husband. After the war, she invited her only surviving front-line brother Vasily to the house. And only on those days when my husband was on a business trip.
This girl became the lifelong friend of the future academician. And she immediately began to help him in everything, selflessly, energetically. With all his southern temperament. She had practicality and the ability to win people over. She decided that precious Mitya should have her criminal record expunged. Otherwise, a new arrest may follow. What should I do? A plan came to her mind. A lady worked at the publishing house, scientific proofreader Ekaterina Mastyko, who in her youth had fun in the same company with the future People's Commissar Krylenko. Zina begged her to go to Moscow and ask for Mitya Likhachev... Zina found money for the trip and gave Mastyko her best jacket. And everything worked out. The trip was successful, Krylenko explained what to do and who to contact. The conviction was cleared. Just before the war, Likhachev got a job at the Institute of Russian Literature, otherwise Pushkin House, in the Department of Old Russian Literature. On the eve of the war, he defended his PhD thesis on the Novgorod chronicles.
And on August 4, 1937, he and Zinaida had twins, two girls. The nanny approached the woman in labor and said with sympathy: “Don’t be upset, honey. They don't live long." Times were hard. The birth of twins meant that the parents were in dire straits if the father was not a Red Army commander or a People's Artist. Dmitry did not earn much then, Zina had to quit her job. Sergei Mikhailovich helped. “You’re so sad, Zinochka,” he said and secretly handed Zina a few rubles.
The girls turned out to be very different. Vera was blonde with blue eyes and elongated features, all of the Likhachev breed. Fast, smart, brave. Lyudmila inherited her southern appearance: black, dark, snub-nosed. And her character was completely different. Shy and sickly, she began to walk late. I was too lazy to run after the ball. In all the childhood photographs she has this expression on her face as if she is about to cry.
The children had a nanny, Tamara, a peasant woman who had fled from a dispossessed village. She lived with the family: then it was a common thing.
On September 8, 1941, the blockade of Leningrad began, and already in October, famine began. They did not evacuate: it was very difficult, only certain enterprises and factories left the city. Professionals with families. The children were evacuated, but the Likhachevs decided not to part with their girls. If we die, then we all die together. They survived the worst blockade winter of 1941–1942 in Leningrad. The Likhachev family was starving, like everyone else. We survived thanks to Zina. And then every day for decades, Dmitry Sergeevich told his daughters and then granddaughters at dinner: “You all live thanks to your grandmother. She saved us during the blockade."
125 grams of bread, put on the cards, had to be redeemed in the store. The queues were terrible. And the frost is minus forty. Zinaida got up at two in the morning, put on all her warm clothes and went to take her place in line for bread. The police dispersed such queues. But people hid in the courtyards and then returned to their places. And so every morning. Zinaida also went to Malaya Nevka to fetch water: it was her responsibility. Sometimes a nanny helped. At the flea market, she exchanged her dresses and her mother-in-law’s gold rings for bread. It was very dangerous - they could kill. They could have put chalk instead of flour. Dmitry Sergeevich became very weak, and by spring he became dystrophic. He never went for bread or water; his wife did all this and relieved him of all responsibilities. And he was engaged in scientific work. At the beginning of 1942, Likhachev received an assignment from the city leadership. Together with the historian Tikhanova, they wrote the book “Defense of Ancient Russian Cities.” A thin book on bad paper - it was distributed to soldiers to increase morale. In the trenches, Arkasha Selivanov, a friend of Mitya’s youth and also a former prisoner, also received it. He was happy - it means Mitya is alive.
On March 1, Sergei Mikhailovich Likhachev died of hunger. Zina took his body on a children's sled to the park: from there the dead were taken and buried in mass graves. Dmitry Sergeevich was very close to his father and had a hard time experiencing this loss. Fully occupied with her family, Zina rarely visited her father; he lived on the other side of the city. One day she came to his communal apartment and found out that Alexander Makarov had died of hunger. It was never found out which cemetery the body was taken to. Many other relatives also died from exhaustion.
Having survived a terrible famine, the Likhachevs no longer wanted to evacuate. But then Dmitry Sergeevich was called to the police station. They scared me and pretended to be arrested. Tempered by the Solovki, he already knew how to behave. Then they simply crossed out his registration in his passport. And then the couple were forced to evacuate to Kazan, along with academic institutions.
Many details of that period remained blank spots. Letters have been preserved. Likhachev wrote to his wife from Leningrad. The family remained in Kazan, and he, in already liberated Leningrad, tried to settle down and call his family. Then a new misfortune befell him: his documents were stolen. Apparently, this is what he tried to talk about in the letter, but, of course, between the lines. During the evacuation, my daughter Vera became very ill and almost died.
Here are some letters that Likhachev, while in Leningrad, sent to his family in Kazan.
“8.11.44. Dear Zinochka and mommy. Yesterday I was at Aunt Olya’s, then at Varv’s for dinner. Pavel. She cooked a pie, a wonderful soup, unsalted cookies, etc. She also had Lyubov Grigorievna and Elizaveta Ivanovna. Anastasia Pavlovna, of course, was 3 hours late. Then in the evening I visited Peterson. I drank tea with fruit, etc. The Likhachevs live not bad. Today I’m going to Aunt Lyuba to pick up a parcel and I’ll call Anastasia Pavlovna from her, since Ninochka is going on vacation to Yurik. How good it is! Well done Ninochka. They have Yura’s photographs everywhere in their home. Today I’ll find out about the mountains. station about tickets. I want to leave on the 10th. Since on the ninth I will receive money from Zhakt for repairs and wages. I won’t bring any shoes or galoshes for the children. I kiss you deeply. Again no letters from you. Only received 2 these days (4 days ago). Mitya."
“Dear Zinochka and mommy! I was supposed to leave on the 11th and already had a ticket to Kazan on the 10th, but on the 10th it turned out that I had to stay for a week. It's terribly annoying. I really want to leave as soon as possible, but I have no luck. I'll come and tell you. I think that I will be able to leave around Saturday or Sunday. I’ll try to look for galoshes for children, but so far I haven’t come across children’s ones. I bought five oblique notebooks. Don't be bored - everything will be fine. Don’t worry about your health: I don’t do physical work. And the room is relatively warm: I heat the stove with the remains of the boards from the ceiling. I kiss everyone deeply. Mitya. 11/13/44."
They finally returned to Leningrad. Life seemed to be getting better. But then the Leningrad Affair began. This also affected the research staff of the Institute of Russian Literature. Likhachev was “worked through.” Now few people know this word, but then it had a very real sinister meaning. The person was seated on the stage facing the audience; there were colleagues in the assembly hall. The responsible party worker began to aggressively analyze the biography, scientific works, and views of the person being studied. The rest had to speak, discussing the biography and actions of the unfortunate man, and adding something. It was unbearable. And it could also end in arrest. Likhachev, they say, when they were working on him, looked at the ceiling. So that his colleagues do not see his tears...
Fate decreed that he had to become what he became. She protected him for very important things: scientific works, social activities, protection of architectural and historical monuments, the struggle for Russian culture and defending its interests. Death seemed to follow him on his heels and let him go every time.
In 1949, Likhachev went to a barber, who accidentally cut him while shaving. Blood poisoning began. The children remembered how he lay on the bed and quietly moaned in pain. Zina was sitting by the bed. “Go work in a publishing house, they will remember you there. Take care of the children." They said goodbye and he was taken to the hospital. He should have died. But Misha’s older brother, who lived in Moscow and held a high position, managed to obtain penicillin, which was rare at that time. Antibiotics had just appeared then and ordinary people were not entitled to them. Misha did the impossible: penicillin was delivered to Leningrad, and Dmitry survived. They had not just a family, but a real clan. The brothers were friendly and always helped each other.
The Likhachev daughters grew up, Vera entered the Academy of Arts at the art history department, Lyudmila entered the art history department of Leningrad University. Both got married almost simultaneously: Vera - to the architect Yuri Kurbatov, Mila - to the physicist Sergei Zilitinkevich. Dmitry Sergeevich kept everyone in his household strictly. The daughters were not allowed to separate; everyone had to live together. He was the head of the family. He was the first to take a spoon at the table, he determined the entire strategy. Having created such a family with unmodern rules of life, he resisted the surrounding Soviet realities. And this is a story that can also be endlessly surprising.
Despite the outward prosperity, everything was not so simple. Likhachev was being watched. He was actually in disgrace - a former camp inmate, unreliable. He was not allowed to go abroad, despite a lot of invitations from dozens of universities around the world. Nowhere except Bulgaria. Since then and to this day, the cult of Likhachev has existed in Bulgaria. All the correspondence that came to him from abroad was roughly torn and glued together. The letters were read. Sometimes the party leaders of the city called, the first secretary of the regional committee, Grigory Romanov, especially tried. After all, according to their ideas, Likhachev created a nest in his department, where he warmed up anti-Soviet people.
Back in the early 1960s, Likhachev began to speak out against the demolition of churches and architectural monuments, and against ill-conceived high-rise construction in old cities. He wrote articles for newspapers, but he was not invited to television: there was a ban. He greatly irritated those in power. In 1975, he did not sign a letter against Academician Sakharov and was beaten on the stairs of his house. “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” saved me: there were pages with the text of the report in my coat, and they softened the blow. In the spring of 1976, the Likhachevs’ apartment was set on fire. The police directly said that they would not look for anyone and the case would be closed. It was an act of intimidation.
In 1978, a whole series of misfortunes began. The husband of Lyudmila's daughter was arrested. The case was related to financial fraud. Dmitry Likhachev did not particularly sympathize with his son-in-law. But the main thing for him was to preserve the family, its integrity. Reputation. He himself was looking for lawyers, to whom he paid considerable money for those times. He went to these lawyers, was humiliated, and returned broken and pale. But he was already 72 years old. But he did it for his daughter. She was capricious and prone to hysteria, and could not take a hit. They - father and mother - are the most important, they are the support of the family. My son-in-law left the camp in 1984. While he was serving his sentence, his daughter, the Likhachevs’ granddaughter, Vera, married dissident Vladimir Tolts, a man much older than her, unemployed. This was, of course, not the best groom for those times. Together they go abroad. Dmitry Sergeevich begged his granddaughter to wait, because her father is in prison, but the young people build their lives as they want. Created by such efforts, the Likhachev House begins to fall apart.
September 1981 was warm. Dmitry Sergeevich and Zinaida Aleksandrovna were vacationing in the Pushkin Mountains. On September 10, their daughter Vera Likhacheva was hit by a car and died without regaining consciousness. She was always in a hurry to live, she was fast and brave. By that time, at 44 years old, she had already made a career, was a brilliant art critic, a professor at the Academy of Arts, and taught a course on Byzantine art. We were thinking about how to inform the Likhachevs about the tragedy. After all, Vera is Dmitry Sergeevich’s beloved daughter, his hope. Together with her, he wrote several scientific articles, always consulted with her, and was so close to her. Life seemed to fade away. A little later, the academician will write memoirs about his daughter. Grief changed him. My wife Zinaida has become even closer. Now they had to raise me together, a granddaughter left without a mother, named after her grandmother Zina. In their arms was a weak and nervous Lyudmila, who cried and fainted every day. But only the closest and most devoted friends of the family knew about this.
Outwardly everything was the same. Likhachev helped many. He helped with admission to university and graduate school, even helped with money. There were many petitioners. Likhachev considered it his indispensable duty to help those who, like him, had been in Stalin’s camps. The views of Lev Gumilyov were not close to him, but it was he who did everything so that the first book of the “romantic scientist,” as he called Lev Nikolaevich, was published. He brought Gumilyov on television so that his lectures would be recorded. This is the highest nobility - not to waste time on trifles, not to interfere with those who stand in different positions. In 1981, a terrible year for the Likhachev family, he also supported Varlam Shalamov.
With the beginning of perestroika, a new time began for Likhachev. He performed on Central Television, and then they began to show him more and more. Thanks to this, the country recognized him. He headed the Soviet Cultural Foundation, where, thanks to the effective support of Raisa Gorbacheva, he did a lot. Without Likhachev, the Cultural Foundation sank into oblivion.
He finally became a traveller, and already at an advanced age he traveled to Paris, Rome, Tokyo, New York, and London. Sometimes Zinaida Alexandrovna went with him. He loved traveling with her. He did a lot for culture: organizing museums, restoring estates, returning archives to his homeland, publishing previously banned literature - all this took a lot of time and took energy. They started to reward him. He became the first honorary citizen of his native St. Petersburg, the first to receive the Order of St. Andrew the First-Called, restored in the new Russia, which he immediately gave to the Hermitage. His wife still looked at him with loving eyes and was even jealous of the numerous ladies who were surrounded by him. But in one interview, Likhachev said: “There was no happy ending.” The house he had built with such difficulty fell apart before his eyes. There is only one true friend left - his wife Zinaida.
In September 1999, D.S. Likhachev died in St. Petersburg in a hospital bed. He really didn't want to leave. Having already lost consciousness, he shouted to someone: “Get away from me, devils!” - and waved his hand, which contained an imaginary stick. He called his wife: “Zina, come!” The last thing that remained in his almost blacked out consciousness was the thought that Zina, as always, would save him. And he will survive.
The civil funeral service lasted for the whole day, almost the whole of St. Petersburg came to say goodbye to the academician, people came from other cities, they walked and walked in an endless stream. The modest cemetery in Komarov could not accommodate everyone who came to say goodbye.
Having become a widow, Zinaida Likhacheva lost the meaning of life. She fell ill and never got up again. She outlived her husband by a year and a half and rested next to him in the Komarovskoye cemetery.
SECRET FOLDER
In all the photographs of Likhachev’s workplace, we see a table cluttered and littered with folders and nearby bedside tables, armchairs and chairs also filled. And in each folder there is a separate life: loved or not so loved, rushing out or dormant... Only he knew the secret of these folders, only he felt which one should reach out to, and which one should wait for its time, keep the secret. He never published one folder during his lifetime, although he kept adding new pages to it. And even when dying, he didn’t say anything about her - apparently embarrassed. But, probably, he still hoped that it would be opened. Or maybe there is more than one such folder? After all, Likhachev’s archive has not yet been completely disassembled, many sheets and stacks of sheets have still not been read - and this further supports the ongoing interest in Likhachev: what if something else is discovered in his archives?! What if something else is added to the portrait of an impeccable academician who steadfastly withstands all persecution and steadily follows his own path?
And it was added! To the impeccable portrait of a classical academician (many consider him that way) was added secret history experiences and suffering, which he apparently did not want to open before, modestly considering it unnecessary, distracting from the main matters. And then it opened. But only after death... The dacha had already been sold, some of the folders were given to the Komarov library, and suddenly the art critic Irina Snegovaya, who had previously worked in the Pushkin House and is now studying the history of Komarov, brought Zina Kurbatova a Likhachev folder that had come to her with an inscription in Likhachev’s hand: “ Zina and her children." It is clear that the granddaughter Zina was meant. She began to read this manuscript... and the whole world appeared! Zina knew a lot and guessed about a lot, but much surprised her too. Before, it seemed to her that her grandfather was not interested in anything except science, and sometimes he even with a somewhat demonstrative dryness distanced himself from all family problems: “Don’t interfere with work!” Work is the main thing in life for him, if not the only thing. Dmitry Sergeevich was like a beautiful old wardrobe, in which everything was laid out in drawers, and in plain view there was everything that related to science, everything else - let it wait in the wings, free time, which, obviously, will appear only after death. Then let them look! And - in this folder a life was revealed, full of suffering, which the strict Likhachev did not allow himself to discover. This second, non-public, family life is in no way inferior in drama to the external one, visible to everyone. Now that these feelings will no longer affect his balance, the preparation of the next seminar or important meeting, he seemed to say: “Okay! Read!” Before, he hid his sick soul and worked as if suffering did not tear it apart. I didn’t show it to anyone, like this folder, and only opened it after his death. His famous “Memoirs” end with his return from hard labor, his arrival at the Pushkin House, then there was also “How we survived the blockade.” After which Likhachev’s personal life seemed to cease to exist. Further - only scientific books. This, as Likhachev decided, should be the focus of general attention. Everything else is in the shadows. And suddenly - this manuscript!.. It turns out that with what passion, with what clarity Likhachev remembered and experienced everything!.. He simply did not consider it possible to divert attention with his suffering from the most important thing - the more necessary, as he believed, scientific books. Apparently, the impetus - and the terrible impetus that prompted him to write what was in the folder - was tragic fate daughters of Vera... and not only death itself, but fate!
He begins with long-ago events, with the birth of his daughters (I used these pages in the chapter “Return”, where I talked about the family). The main thing that is shocking in this folder is Likhachev’s piercing memories of his deceased daughter Vera.
...Vera, according to Likhachev’s recollections, was different from her twin sister Mila, she was more active and mobile.
When my daughters finished school, both wanted to study art. It would seem that this does not promise any drama. We decided that Vera would study art history at the Academy of Arts, and Mila would study art history at Leningrad State University.
When Vera had to choose a specialization, Likhachev’s acquaintance from Solovki, a long-time friend of the Kallistov family, advised her to choose the theme of Byzantium, since there is a connection with Ancient Russia, so important for the Likhachev family, and an exit into the Renaissance. Vera did everything in good faith, and in order to better study Byzantium, in addition to classes at the Academy of Arts, she also went to Leningrad State University and studied Greek.
Vera studied well at the academy, and when the time came to decide on a job, Kallistov advised her to enter the Hermitage. The keeper of the Department of Byzantium and the Middle East was Alisa Vladimirovna Bank. “She works alone, she’s already elderly, she will need help,” Kallistov said.
Likhachev consulted with another acquaintance - also a “Solovetsky prisoner”, Antsiferov, from whom Alisa Bank studied: “What kind of person is she?” - “I forgave her!” - Antsiferov answered evasively and refused to go into any details.
The head of the department of foreign art at the Academy of Arts, Mikhail Vasilyevich Dobrosklonsky, noted Vera’s successes in Byzantine studies, but was evasive about plans for her admission to the Hermitage. Some kind of danger was clearly looming here, although no one spoke loudly about it. Perhaps, if Dmitry Sergeevich had not participated so actively in her fate, Vera herself would have felt opposition and would have acted differently, would have chosen a different path. But since Dmitry Sergeevich himself wanted this, the topic was not discussed. Vera only noticed that when she was doing an internship in the Byzantine department, she was struck by the chaos that reigned there. But the difficulties of the upcoming work did not frighten her. The director of the Hermitage Artamonov arranged Vera as a tour guide, then found a postgraduate position in the Byzantine department and issued an order to appoint Vera. This was done during the Bank's vacation. It turned out that this was no coincidence: the power-hungry Alisa Vladimirovna did not like hints about her age and did not at all need any assistants who were clearly aiming for her place. And - the war began. Alisa Vladimirovna reported wherever she could: “Likhachev’s daughter is mediocre, but her almighty dad is pushing her!” Likhachev suffered. I understood that his name both helps my daughter and greatly hinders her. No matter how successfully she works, malicious people will whisper: “Likhachev’s daughter!” He understood that this was people’s revenge on him, elementary envy: “Oh! Ascended! And there is no escape from this. The downside of fame. They are afraid to touch him - they are taking revenge on their daughter.
But Vera tried so hard, worked so hard!.. Why did she do this? When the trade union committee opened up a trip to England and Vera wanted to go, the Bank refused her permission. positive characteristics under the pretext: “Does not participate in public work.” Although the conscientious, responsive Vera always did everything that was asked of her.
The time for defending my dissertation was approaching. Having such a specialist, a candidate of science, in their department was clearly not in the Bank’s plans. She suddenly invited Likhachev to the Hermitage for a “heart-to-heart conversation.” They sat down with him in the hall of the Little Dutchmen, and Alisa Vladimirovna began to impress upon Likhachev: unfortunately, his daughter lacks research abilities, does not know how to think or even simply somehow connect individual phenomena with each other. There were many accusations against Vera, but Likhachev, fully prepared, methodically and convincingly smashed all the Bank’s accusations. Having repulsed all the blows, Likhachev stood up and left.
Alisa Vladimirovna carefully prepared for the defense of Verina’s dissertation in the Department of Byzantium, and also prepared those who were supposed to speak. Professor M. S. Lazarev spoke out especially harshly. The pre-defense failed.
Dmitry Sergeevich calmed his upset daughter as best he could, and after consulting, they found a way out: to defend her dissertation not at the Hermitage, but at the Academy of Arts, where Vera was loved. Alisa Bank came to defend her dissertation at the Academy of Arts with a large “support group”, intending to disrupt the defense. But this was not her kingdom! The defense was led by the vice-rector of the academy, Professor I. A. Bartenev. He immediately explained to the Bank that she could not speak, because scientific supervisors were prohibited from talking about the work of applicants, and Alisa Vladimirovna was initially Vera’s scientific supervisor.
The defense was successful. But the Bank raised almost the entire Department of the East, and they wrote a letter to Moscow, to the Higher Attestation Commission (HAC), where all dissertations are approved. Professor Lazarev even wrote his own separate letter.
Vera had by that time married Yuri Ivanovich Kurbatov, an architect, and their daughter Zina had just been born. Vera came to the Higher Attestation Commission with her infant child and with another Zina - Zinaida Aleksandrovna, Dmitry Sergeevich’s wife, her mother. When Vera was called into the office, she left Zina in the arms of Zinaida Alexandrovna.
Vera brilliantly answered all the commission’s questions and refuted all the accusations contained in the letters sent from the Hermitage. She proved her scientific correctness. She did not skip the details: she explained that those phrases in which stylistic inaccuracies are indicated are quotes that belonged to other authors, some of them to Professor Lazarev. After discussion, the dissertation was approved. Vera went out into the corridor and fed her daughter.
Likhachev, remembering Vera, writes about her composure, strength of mind and character. She remembers how she and Vera, when she had an ulcer from all the experiences, were together in Kislovodsk, walked a lot, talked.
Their joint book “ Artistic heritage Ancient Rus' and modernity." The book is wonderful - but the grins started again: “Dad wrote it!” Likhachev was worried again: when will people finally believe that a famous scientist could have a talented daughter? Really - never?!
Literary critic Alexander Rubashkin recalls how Likhachev once addressed him:
Do you really think that I wrote the book?
No,” answered Rubashkin, “I think you wrote about literature, but she wrote about painting!”
Right! - Likhachev was delighted.
Vera's defense of her doctorate was much easier - her authority was undoubted, everyone was already convinced of Vera's talent, they understood that she did everything herself, and did it well. She already had many good books, she gave wonderful lectures. I was also attracted by her character - modest, reserved, sympathetic.
Home and family life was also going well. Vera's husband, architect Yura Kurbatov, earned enough to go to Finland and buy a car there - admittedly, our "Muscovite", but at that time this was also luxurious. They began to travel a lot, for example, they visited the village of Rozhdestveno and saw the house of Nabokov, whom Vera loved very much. Just after a long break, Pasternak, Tsvetaeva, and Mandelstam were published. Vera knew them by heart and read them often.
Likhachev recalls how they were once in Novgorod and how wonderfully Vera conducted the excursion - expressively, briefly, clearly, not a single extra word. In general, she was a woman of few words and did not tolerate telephone chatter - only to the point. She was distinguished by remarkable tact and approach to people. Likhachev wrote a lot about this in that folder: for example, how suddenly his relationship with his teacher, Vladislav Evgenievich Evgeniev-Maksimov, deteriorated, and only Vera managed to restore it. Professor Evgeniev-Maksimov, already an elderly man, suddenly became cold towards Likhachev: it seemed that he was jealous of his successes and even his trips abroad. Evgeniev-Maksimov himself was not allowed to travel abroad. One day Likhachev shared his experiences with Vera - and she arranged everything: easily, not tensely, naturally and as if by itself. Vera had just returned from England, where she met Evgeniev-Maksimov’s student, Dickie Pyman, and invited Evgeniev-Maksimov to visit to talk about her. The evening went wonderfully, Evgeniev-Maksimov became better, and their relationship with Dmitry Sergeevich warmed up again. And nowhere did Vera make a single mistake, never once said anything that would arouse his envy: after all, Evgeniev-Maksimov, despite all his merits, had never been abroad.
Likhachev remembers how Vera quickly and beautifully set the table, how she knew how to find a topic close to each guest for each guest, and everyone left happy. She was always fit, active, worked a lot - and always clearly, purposefully... as if she knew that she had little time allotted to her.
One day, professor of philology Viktor Andronikovich Manuilov, who was seriously interested in fortune telling by hand, came to visit and predicted a short life for Vera. Vera turned pale. Manuilov, having come to his senses, began to make excuses and muttered something...
Her death looks ridiculous and accidental, but in fact, there is a secret pattern in everything, character shapes fate, inspires hopes and forebodings. Then, when the grief has already happened, I even remember some signs of fate. It was imprinted in Dmitry Sergeevich’s consciousness how one day a boy fell under a tram in which Likhachev was riding, and he saw the boy’s face when his legs fell under the wheels. Since then, the “topic of transport” has caused horror in Likhachev. Since childhood, Vera seemed to play with this danger - she ran away from the nanny across the road. When they moved to Baskov Lane and went to the old school by tram along Saltykov-Shchedrin Street, Likhachev worried every day. And he wrote about his worries in this folder, which he “allowed” to be read only after his death... We found a school nearby - on Mayakovsky Street. How Vera did not want to move to a new school: she threw herself on her knees and begged!
And when she got married, her husband Yura bought a car - first there was a “Muscovite”, then a “Zhiguli”. Likhachev was worried and begged Yura (and Vera also drove!) to drive carefully. “How scary it was,” writes Likhachev, “when one day a barrier hit the roof of the car!”
“For all her efficiency and accuracy,” Likhachev recalled, “Vera was in a hurry all her life, as if she knew that her time was limited - with all her articles, dissertations, trips abroad. And how much she managed! When my mother and I traveled along the Volga, Vera’s students were in every museum, and they spoke about her with respect and gratitude.
Vera worked like an automaton at home - she quickly set the table, quickly cleared the table, quickly washed the dishes. When on Easter they went to the Shuvalov Church to visit the graves of their relatives, she cleaned them up... And she died in her own beautiful way - she hurried to the parents’ meeting.”
In the park of the Forestry Academy, near which, on Second Murinsky, the entire Likhachev family lived, there is a place where there are many garages and car depots. It was there that Vera died - she walked around in front of a truck parked on the sidewalk and was hit by a car.
“I was most afraid for the girls,” writes Likhachev. - I taught them, when crossing the street, to look first to the left, then to the right... She did not look to the left. And I didn’t have time to look to the right!”
When Vera died, the elder Likhachevs were on a trip... Eyewitnesses remember how they were brought by car to the house, how they got out and slowly walked arm in arm - no longer young people.
Alexander Rubashkin recalls how his sister, a doctor, and her husband, a resuscitator, who lived in the same house, tried to bring the Likhachevs back to normal. Likhachev refused to look at the dead Vera until the funeral.
Likhachev recalled: “Vera and Mila (Mila also became an art critic, worked in the department of Ancient Rus' of the Russian Museum. - V.P.) thanks to their red museum books, they took us all to museums, to Kitaeva’s house, in Pavlovsk - to exhibitions of costume, portraits, furniture... Vera, Yuri Ivanovich and Zina went to Pushgory.”
I recall Likhachev’s earlier notes: “Intelligence is created imperceptibly, cultivated in conversations, in the choice of places for walks, in comments about what is seen.”
According to the recollections of Likhachev employee N.F. Droblenkova, grief was universal:
"How tragic ending The last “workings” of Likhachev brought the news to all of us about the sudden death on September 11, 1981 of Dmitry Sergeevich’s daughter and co-author, Vera Dmitrievna Likhacheva. She was hit by a car that suddenly appeared around the corner, as if it was waiting for her. This year her fourth book, “The Art of Byzantium IV–XV Centuries,” was published, but with an obituary of G. K. Wagner.
Vera Dmitrievna was buried at the Komarovskoye cemetery. The day before, I was told Dmitry Sergeevich’s request to come with a camera. However, the day was cloudy, there was a light drizzle, the forest cemetery was too dark: and although I, bursting into tears, shot the entire film, not a single frame came out. In our memory, Vera Dmitrievna Likhacheva remained alive forever.
Dmitry Sergeevich remained calm, but when the first clod of earth fell on the lid of the coffin, his groan was heard and he quickly went to the cemetery gates...”
Likhachev himself drew a cross for Vera’s grave according to northern Russian models. I wanted to make it out of wood: if I put it in marble, will it be warm?! Then he kissed the cross: warm! I rubbed the cross with wax - and the rain rolled off it... Now they are lying next to each other.
Monument at the grave of V.D. Likhacheva at the Komarovskoye cemetery. The cross according to northern Russian models was made according to a sketch by D. S. Likhachev. Drawing by I. A. Bartenev. 1983
Likhachev’s notes in the “secret folder” began after Vera’s death and her funeral.
“...It was raining at Vera’s funeral. And in the rain, some large bird flew over the heads and umbrellas of those gathered.”
“...Tits flew in when I was at the cemetery and thinking about Vera... Before leaving for Uzkoye (sanatorium of the Academy of Sciences. - V.P.) I went to the cemetery, and I loudly turned to Vera: “Can you hear me?” - and asked her to help raise Zinochka happy and a good man. A small bird flew in and squeaked three times, like a muffled bell.”
Likhachev, becoming emotional, moves away from his strict scientific perception and allows himself to make completely “non-scientific” observations:
“One day, an acquaintance who had known Vera since childhood came to the dacha - and suddenly a bird hit the glass of our bedroom with all its might. But she didn’t fall, she made a circle and hit the glass again, fell and lay there as if dead. But she came to life."
The sick, bleeding Likhachev soul was revealed. Likhachev is so frank in these notes that he even tells his dreams:
“...I get into the car with Zina, and suddenly I see - not Zina, but Vera!”
...Zina’s daughter is really very similar to her mother!
Another entry by Likhachev:
“...In 1982, at the commemoration of September 11, Vera appeared in a dream. “There will be meat pies!” - but she didn’t say the word “commemoration”... as if she didn’t want to admit that she was no longer there... A whole bus from the Academy of Arts arrived at Komarov cemetery... The grave was very beautiful, and Igor Aleksandrovich Bartenev admired the cross (wooden )… There were pies with cabbage, homemade delicious salmon, lampreys, turkey, fish aspic. Everyone spoke very well about Vera. They emphasized her good manners, intelligence, tact, radiance, femininity, friendliness to people, to young people and students. When her books and articles were published, they always struck me with their seriousness. They didn’t suspect so much will, courage, ability to fight and ability to remain calm in her. Her a good relationship with foreign scientists they explained her femininity, good manners, ability to behave, and intelligence. After the sad toasts, when it was time to leave, a general interesting conversation arose. The best people to speak about Vera were Dmitriev, Yuzbashyan, Medvedev, Grivnina, Bartenev (after all, the noble upbringing has an effect).”
Another entry by Likhachev:
“Today is May 2. On this day, Vera always took the chair out into the garden - even if there was still snow. She sat in a chair and, closing her eyes, sunbathed. When they didn’t look at her, her face became sad and tired. How much she had to go through!
And Dmitry Sergeevich too.
...The writing of the history of the Likhachev family was continued by an author who was not quite “expected”: granddaughter Zina. It is probably no coincidence that the wise and insightful Likhachev bequeathed his “secret folder” to her. And Zina’s notes are clearly prompted by the “secret folder” bequeathed to her. It was she who continued the description of the Likhachev family life - just as poignantly and frankly as her grandfather.
It's not easy to be left without a mother as a child. The tragedy is also terrible because it does not end on its own, but inevitably grows into the future and destroys it too. The most observant Daniil Aleksandrovich Granin told me: “When we learned about the misfortunes, we got together with Rimma and went to the Likhachevs. Dmitry Sergeevich could not speak at first. Then he pulled himself together and started talking about how wonderful Vera was: smart, talented, beautiful, how everyone loved and respected her. He spoke for a very long time - and suddenly Mila got up and left the room.”
The tragedy with Vera also hit the second daughter. Everyone’s attention and love for Vera, caused by her death, suddenly began to offend Mila: “What about her? Nothing?" Some relatives say that there were reasons for her grievances: Dmitry Sergeevich paid more attention to Vera, who turned out to be more capable and had achieved great success in science. But this is rather speculation. After the death of Vera, Mila became a support for her father in life, helped him in everything when he was already weak, traveled with him abroad, and was by his side in the most difficult and responsible matters. But some jealousy seems to remain. And it was reflected most of all on the one who most resembled Vera - her daughter Zina. Zina’s memoirs were published only in the Likhachev anniversary year 2006, in the magazine “Our Heritage”.
She begins with early memories: how she and her childhood friend Vasya Kondratyev, the son of an academician, built sand fortresses on the shore of the bay in Komarov.
Granddaughter Zina remembers her grandfather as still relatively young and cheerful. He even talked about the Solovetsky camp cheerfully, it all looked almost like a fairy tale: the prisoners built a huge elephant out of white brick (SLON - Solovetsky Special Purpose Camp), and on the elephant the letter “U” was lined with red brick, which meant management. ELEPHANT management. It seemed to Zina then - according to her grandfather's stories - that this was such a fun game, and the Solovetsky camp was something like a pioneer camp.
But the main part of her memories dates back to a later time, when the entire Likhachev family gathered in an apartment on the green outskirts of the city, on Second Murinsky Avenue, near the Forestry Academy park.
Likhachev, with his large family, was offered other apartments - for example, in the famous old house academicians, completely hung memorial plaques, on the corner of the embankment and the 7th line of Vasilyevsky Island. When choosing apartments, we choose life, and not just some walls. This house was very close to the Academy of Arts, where Zina later began to study, and coming here from Second Murinsky, she felt, as she herself admitted, “a girl from the provinces.” And if they lived near the Academy, overlooking the Neva... Would everything be different? There's no way to know anymore.
Dmitry Sergeevich decided everything - and no one argued with him. He didn’t like this apartment in the prestigious House of Academicians. For others, perhaps this apartment would add importance. But Likhachev was alien to this. “I'm not a typical academic! - he used to say. “...There is no swagger.” So the criteria were different. As Zina writes in her memoirs: “The apartment seemed too dark. The very spirit of Vasilyevsky Island, with its foggy lines stretching into eternity, dark gateways and dubious inhabitants, was not close to him.”
As always in this family, everyone obeyed the “patriarch” - he was looking for a quiet place to work, not overloaded with unnecessary emotions (like Vasilievsky) - and found it: he chose an apartment on the outskirts of the city, on Second Murinsky Avenue. That it was too far from the “St. Petersburg places” - he didn’t care, during his long life he was already “overflowing with St. Petersburg”, he knew everything necessary for his work, and that the girls would grow up on the outskirts - this did not seem so important. Dmitry Sergeevich cared enough about their upbringing, he was constantly engaged in them!..
And the apartment on Murinsky was really spacious and bright. There was a living room, and Dmitry Sergeevich’s office, and rooms for daughters with husbands and granddaughters.
Dmitry Sergeevich had a cult of family, in it he tried to find peace from adversity.
Zina remembers her favorite place in the apartment - under her grandfather's desk, near the wastepaper basket. It was made of copper, inserted into a real, rough elephant leg. Hugging her dreamily, Zina plunged into happy contemplation. “The smell of geranium, dust swirling in sunlight“beautiful books locked behind glass”... It was no coincidence that Zina later chose the profession of book artist.
There were a lot of books - in the closet, on the table, on the chairs. Likhachev exclaimed in despair: “I am dying from books!” In addition to the books needed for work, there were also donated books from colleagues, books that required a review or review. But the main thing in his office is the huge library he collected. It contained, for example, all editions of “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign.” Books, with Dmitry Sergeevich’s permission, could be taken, but after reading they must be put back in their place. Zina recalls her grandfather’s very menacing cry: “Where is Dostoevsky? Why isn’t it there?” He paid great attention to raising his granddaughters. He gave them a variety of magazines to look at, but at the same time (a touching detail) he used scissors to remove pictures that he considered indecent.
In everything he was old-fashioned. He even wore a tie to breakfast. He was a dandy, loved beautiful clothes - hats, caps (a cap from Paris, a cap from Helsinki), “ties”, as he called them in the old manner. He liked to joke sadly: “Today I could give a report in London in a new blue suit.” Despite numerous invitations, he was rarely allowed to go abroad. He was a pedant - boxes of shoes were neatly stacked in the closet, on which there were inscriptions in his flying handwriting - for example: “Likhachev’s boots for slush No. 2.”
I worked for a very long time when I was at home, and all this time it was forbidden to make noise. Zina recalls the relief of the sharp creaking of the doors: this meant that Dmitry Sergeevich was going to rest. Sometimes I turned on the TV. He loved the programs “In the Animal World”, “Cinema Travel Club”, and even met and became friends with the host of the “Club” Yuri Senkevich. He did not tolerate other programs, especially political ones. I started watching “News” only with the beginning of perestroika. He loved English films, where, in his opinion, the costumes and spirit of the era were absolutely accurately conveyed. He hated Soviet cheerfulness - and his granddaughters watched the film “Volga-Volga” without him.
In the 1970s, Zina’s parents Vera Dmitrievna and Yuri Ivanovich began collecting antique furniture and bought mahogany at a second-hand store on Marat. Yuri Ivanovich did a wonderful job of restoring the apartment, it became very beautiful and cozy. Dmitry Sergeevich was at first indignant: “Philistinism, shameful, unworthy!” - then he fell in love with this environment, which reminded him of his childhood, and when they came to photograph him, he sat on chairs with azure upholstery, and behind him there were striped curtains and lambrequins.
He always appeared at the institute impeccably dressed, calm, and benevolent - but what suffering he hid in his soul! Things were not going smoothly in the family.
Likhachev's mother, Vera Semyonovna, had a great influence on the life of the family - let us at least remember how she taught Akhmatova's poems to them in Kazan. Vera Semyonovna lived her own special life. As befits a “society lady,” she did not work anywhere, but at the same time she demanded success from her sons in society and was often dissatisfied with them (remember how in Kazan she reproached Dmitry Sergeevich for the fact that he was still a candidate, and she was already friends with the academician’s sister Tarle!). Likhachev was given the title of corresponding member in 1953, and then, to Vera Semyonovna’s displeasure, the title of academician was not given for a long time; it was voted through three times!.. The world of science is not so harmless! And only in 1970 Likhachev received the title of academician! Vera Semyonovna lived a long life and died in 1971, still managing to see her son become an academician.
However, Likhachev’s life did not become easier over the years, but on the contrary, harder. His daughter Vera, whom he was clearly preparing to be an assistant in his scientific work, died absurdly. The fate of the second daughter, Mila, also turned out to be difficult.
In 1958, Mila and her friend Ivkina were expelled from the Komsomol because they left the collective farm without permission, where, according to the custom of those years, university students were sent (she studied art history). Likhachev behaved surprisingly in this situation (apparently, his secret hatred of everything Soviet was reflected): “From the Komsomol? It's OK!" They were not expelled from the university, but were sent to “correctional work” - to a construction site in the city, where others who had “offended” something to the Komsomol also worked. It was at this construction site that Mila met Sergei Zilitinkevich, a man who played a significant role in the history of their family.
Those events are interpreted differently, and I decided to turn to a direct witness who was then in the thick of events - Yuri Ivanovich Kurbatov. He was married to Vera, and Sergei Zilitinkevich married Mila. So they communicated quite closely.
Regarding Sergei and Mila, at first, as is usual in decent families, there was anxiety: what kind of hasty acquaintance was this, which so quickly turned into intimacy (which the young people did not hide). There were emergency meetings between the parents - fortunately, the Zilitinkevich family was quite decent, the head of the family was a professor at the Polytechnic Institute, the son studied at the university in the physics department.
He was short, but very well-built and dexterous. “Such a cute grasshopper! - Yuri Ivanovich described him with a smile. “The face is quite beautiful, intelligent.”
True, he already ended up in “history” once, which is why he ended up in “correctional labor”... but Mila ended up there too! It is common for young people to sometimes rebel against routine. And Sergei’s “sin” was not so particularly terrible - especially from Likhachev’s point of view. Sergei always tried to be fashionable, so he suddenly painted several abstract paintings and exhibited them at the faculty, which was considered an “ideological sabotage.” However, they were no longer judged too harshly. The young people got married. In 1959, their daughter Vera was born. The only one who did not immediately accept Sergei was Likhachev’s mother Vera Semyonovna. Despite her advanced years, she maintained a “high-society tone.” But she was generally too domineering - she did not like anyone with whom her sons and other relatives tied their fate. According to Zina’s recollections, Vera Semyonovna, seeing Sergei dressed like a normal “hip” of those years, laughed arrogantly.
“There was a short time of prosperity,” recalls Yuri Ivanovich. - I remember we all rented a dacha together in Zelenogorsk, on Listvennaya Street. Dmitry Sergeevich was very pleased and bright. All was good. Both daughters married handsome, talented young people... Dmitry Sergeevich worked a lot in his little room - he was then writing the book “Textology,” which many experts consider the best, the most profound of all his major works.
We lived together. What I noticed - but then I didn’t consider it a disadvantage at all - was Sergei Sergeevich’s amazing intelligence and quick reaction. Zinaida Aleksandrovna fed everyone porridge in the morning before leaving for work - and I remember that for some reason her porridge came out with lumps. Sergei Sergeevich, having eaten one spoon, suddenly glanced at his watch and exclaimed: “Oh, I’m late!” - and ran away. And this was repeated every morning. And I obediently finished the porridge to the end.”
Our conversation with Yuri Ivanovich took place in his apartment on Kamennoostrovsky. The ceilings were quite high. But it was not entirely clear: a new house or an old one?
Yuri Ivanovich, an architect and expert on the history of architecture, gave an exhaustive answer:
This is a post-war extension to an old house. But very accomplished famous architects- Guryev and Fromzel, who then built many houses on Kamennoostrovsky. Do you know, for example, house 17, where Raikin lived?
And we are back to the main topic.
Zilitinkevich was a unique person! - said Yuri Ivanovich. - With amazing amplitude... including in the moral sense. From,” Yuri Ivanovich pointed to the ceiling, “and to!” - pointed to the floor. - He was absolutely not afraid of anything, including the Soviet regime - and did everything he wanted. His abilities were brilliant and comprehensive - among other things, he got along well with the right people. And when the Moscow Institute of Oceanography decided to open its own department in Leningrad, the young, talented scientist Sergei Sergeevich Zilitinkevich, who, among other things, had outstanding business qualities, was appointed its director without hesitation.
Anxiety, according to Yuri Ivanovich, began to arise somehow gradually and appeared first in the relationship between Sergei and Mila: his life was somehow opaque, he often did not say where and how far he was going... And suddenly - an investigation, an arrest! According to investigators, Zilitinkevich and his deputy Barangulov were charged with very serious abuse of official position. If you believe the accusation, Zilitinkevich was one of the “pioneers” of the now so widespread “cutting of money”, issued as if for the needs of science... Now, alas, this has become almost commonplace in the life of many enterprises and ministries. His inventive mind opened the “gate to the future,” which became an era of corruption. But then such “pioneers” were still severely punished. It cannot be said that Zilitinkevich opened the “gate to the future” without any insurance at all. He knew how to calculate everything, or almost everything. His deputy at the institute was Barangulov, the son of some major party leader in Uzbekistan. Then, too, there were “roofs,” and as long as Barangulov had such protection, no investigator would have dared to open a case against him. But just then a high-profile story began with the exposure of the Uzbek leaders; the country’s leadership decided to “hand over” the overly presumptuous Uzbek leaders - apparently in order to improve their own reputation. I remember that then the whole country lived with these events. The investigators of the Uzbek case, Ivanov and Gdlyan, eclipsed all the TV stars at that time, even Alla Pugacheva. The whole country looked at the screens with bated breath: had something really begun? Will they really punish party leaders of this rank... even in distant Uzbekistan? Has it really begun that what everyone has been waiting for so long has begun: the exposure of the abuses of the authorities - even if it started from the outskirts? Of course, this was presented not as an “exposure”, but, on the contrary, as a “cleansing of the ranks”, and this could not be done without victims. The management showed some persistence in this matter. And so, as soon as the revelations in Uzbekistan reached Barangulov’s relatives, both Barangulov Jr. and Zilitinkevich were immediately arrested. We can say that they came under a “campaign” - at that time, cases related to the Uzbek revelations were investigated with special, demonstrative severity. Of course, the “grief” that the authorities had long had against Likhachev was also shining here - how could one not take advantage of such a chance? For them, a lot of things “came together successfully” at once - so the matter was carried out with special zeal.
Dmitry Sergeevich was unable to “distance himself” from this compromising event. Daughter Mila, in despair, demanded more and more active intervention from him. Dmitry Sergeevich reached the chief prosecutor of the city. As Yuri Ivanovich said, there is a version that the prosecutor said to Likhachev: “Do you even know who you are protecting?!” - and showed Dmitry Sergeevich photographs of “fun parties” that were very compromising of Zilitinkevich. Likhachev had to endure this and, moreover, continue his efforts in this direction: Mila’s condition was very difficult, and Dmitry Sergeevich could not move away from this matter. At the same time, he could not help but understand the damage this activity was causing to his prestige (an academician covers up a criminal!) - and how much more difficult it would now be to “work with the authorities” to achieve his main goals, to protect culture. “Aren’t you asking for too much at once? - they could now tell him. - Choose one thing!” But he had to endure this too.
Granddaughter Zina, in the film “Private Chronicles” she made, dedicated to Likhachev, mentions his letter, which contains the following words: “The furniture was sold successfully. Now we can hire a good lawyer.” The Zilitinkevich case was considered by the courts for a very long time and, through the efforts of the most experienced lawyer Yarzhinets, was constantly revised, and the theme became more and more clear: Zilitinkevich suffered innocently, the authorities are trying to get close to the impregnable Likhachev in this way and influence him. This topic is becoming dominant, and the progressive public ardently supports this version. Exposing the machinations of the authorities was then the most important activity of the intelligentsia. And it must be said that the authorities did a lot to ensure that they did not like her. She was harsh. Entrepreneurship was punished, as was dissent. Although many already viewed dissent favorably... as did entrepreneurial spirit.
Alexander Vasilyevich Lavrov, the current academician, writes in his memoirs: “In January 1981, my friend and co-author Sergei Grechishkin and I collected letters in defense of our mutual friend, the famous literary critic and translator Konstantin Azadovsky, who became a victim of provocation by the “valiant authorities” and arrested (now rehabilitated)... We made a similar request to Dmitry Sergeevich, but he refused - and not at all for reasons of caution. “A letter with my signature will only worsen the situation in this case. For them, my name can play a role in one thing - to further convince them that they did the right thing." And he moved on to a sore subject for him at the time - the arrest of his son-in-law, oceanographer Sergei Zilitinkevich, who was then sitting in “Kresty” awaiting a verdict on trumped up charges. D.S. perceived this as an indirect attempt to deal with him.”
There was a threat of confiscation of property, which could affect the property of other family members, including Dmitry Sergeevich’s collection of icons. According to Zina, it was in the desperate fuss, in attempts to find transport to remove things that could have been unjustly confiscated, that her mother died, getting hit by a car. These memories can be considered not objective, but memories are never objective, they are always someone’s personal experiences, and there is no doubt about their sincerity.
But, of course, Mila suffered the most. Remembering those difficult years, Yuri Ivanovich Kurbatov said:
Of course, Dmitry Sergeevich also took it all hard. He so hoped for quiet happiness in a family fenced off from all social storms. And so, one daughter died, the other suffered terribly. Of course, Mila was already acting very unrestrained - and one misfortune, as usual, leads to another. Suddenly her daughter Vera announced she was leaving abroad - and she told her mother about this only on the eve of her departure! Apparently, the relationship between them was already tense; given the calm atmosphere in the family, this, of course, could not have happened. The daughter of Mila and Zilitinkevich, Vera, was born in 1959, and was seven years older than Zina, who was born in 1966.
Vera's decision shook the balance even more - both in the family and in Dmitry Sergeevich's relations with the authorities. In 1978, he began working on the publication of the monumental series “Monuments of Literature of Ancient Rus'”. He knew that this was his main business, everything else was in the way. He made a choice - to try in every possible way to work, to develop science, without making compromises, but in no case deliberately aggravating the situation. And then his closest people aggravated everything so much - there’s nowhere else to go!
Likhachev's granddaughter Vera and her husband Vladimir Tolts met in the house of sector employee Yakov Solomonovich Lurie, with whom the relationship was not easy anyway (ever since the history of Zimin, who opposed Likhachev, Ya. S. Lurie actively supported him). And suddenly Lurie acts almost as a matchmaker! There is a spiteful opinion that Likhachev kicked Lurie out of the department in retaliation for this. This, of course, is an exaggeration; Likhachev never took this kind of revenge. But that vexation settled in his heart is certain. The most balanced witnesses interpret the situation as follows: Likhachev, like a mother hen, covered his “chicks” with his wings from various kinds of persecution - and, perhaps, at some time he “did not cover”, and Lurie fell under the planned layoff. However, his scientific career did not stop and he still did a lot for science. Strict judges, who themselves had never done anything bad in their lives (but nothing good either), added this to Likhachev’s “list of offenses.” Should they be the only ones to judge him?
I am sure that he asked Vera not to marry Tolts not at all to please the authorities, but mainly because of his own personal experiences: the groom, already a well-known dissident Vladimir Tolts, was more than 20 years older than his granddaughter. I also didn’t like his activities, the tone of his speeches on Radio Liberty, and his rather strange biography (Tolz was hit by a German citizen’s car in Moscow, since then he has been limping and received a fairly decent allowance for the injury inflicted on him) ... All this together is like... it did not fit into the “scale of values” that Likhachev preached. Everything was, as if on purpose, “a knife to the heart.”
And now - Vera’s departure, another blow to Likhachev. He also suffered for Mila, understanding how her daughter’s departure would devastate her - and it was in no way coordinated, demonstratively conflicting. To say that this was inappropriate is to say little; the incriminating evidence on the “prisoner” Likhachev, who never became a “real Soviet citizen,” was very useful to the authorities. Likhachev tried to persuade Vera not to leave - her departure could have destroyed much in Likhachev’s life, ruined many of his useful undertakings, but she was adamant. Of course, the political component was also important here: a negative attitude towards the authorities in the 1970s and 1980s became almost universal - and the authorities tried a lot in this regard. It is worth recalling the extremely unpopular 1968 invasion of democratic Czechoslovakia. Everyone is fed up with the hateful, mediocre demagoguery and ideology. Despite the authorities' enhanced measures to combat dissent, it has almost become the norm. In fact, only the leaders allegedly believed in the bright future of the country - the majority of the population had an extremely negative attitude towards the authorities and the system. There were many jokes, puns, and sayings on this topic. “Winter has passed. Summer has come. Thanks to the party for this!” So there was nothing exceptional in the critical mood of young Vera Zilitinkevich. But leaving the country was something that few people dared to do back then. Everyone knew that this would certainly affect the lives of their loved ones, they could be kicked out of work with a “wolf ticket”, and the “traveler” himself could be accused of dissident or anything else and sent far to the North instead of the West. But Vera’s desperate determination was also facilitated by the situation at home: her father was sitting, her mother became unbearable, her grandfather tried to persuade her to stay - clearly more worried about the safety of his career and his “great deeds”!
And Vera left. This hit very hard both on the consciousness and on the official position of Mila, and especially Dmitry Sergeevich. Such departures of relatives were then highly condemned by the party committees and had a drastic effect on the allotments of those remaining! Dmitry Sergeevich’s position became critical and could lead to very serious consequences - in best case scenario, everything important for which he suffered so much could be disrupted, the “lordly anger”, growing, could paralyze Likhachev’s work: the choice of their methods of influence, as we have already seen, was wide, and I would say, unlimited - right up to “ accidental death." Salvation came with Gorbachev and perestroika.
However, there was no enlightenment in Likhachev’s family life. Zilitinkevich, having left prison, was still energetic - and with the reputation of being unjustly convicted, he went abroad: then such a noisy biography was a good springboard for a career.
He did not take Mila with him - however, he did not divorce, preferring to remain Likhachev’s son-in-law.
Mila's suffering has not diminished at all - if not increased. She often directed her emotions towards her niece Zina. At the same time, Yuri Ivanovich recalls, she was a sincere and kind person, and when suffering let her go, she did good things.
One day, Kurbatov recalls, a speculator they knew came to their house, almost a friend of the house, and suddenly took out excellent trousers from her bag - just for Yuri Ivanovich. The family became quiet, knowing Mila’s character. A conversation about buying trousers for Yuri Ivanovich could cause her to burst into anger. And then suddenly Mila said:
What is there to think? Excellent trousers, and just right for Yura!
He remembers how relieved everyone was. It was one of the rare moments of happiness in this family.
Since such moments were very rare, Yuri Ivanovich vividly remembered one more. One day, Dmitry Sergeevich gave Yuri Ivanovich, with whom they had the warmest relationship, his new book and had already begun to sign it. Here we need to remember how beautifully Dmitry Sergeevich signed books: he created, as it were, a whole picture from letters. Usually he beautifully drew a capital letter on a whole sheet of paper, and then placed small letters written in calligraphy inside it. He had already written a capital “D” - and then, Yuri Ivanovich recalls, Mila entered the room. Dmitry Sergeevich froze with a pen in his hand.
Why are you? - she said. - Write to “Dear”!
However, such agreement was no longer common in this family.
Decisive Vera moved with Tolz first to Prague, then to Munich and began working at the Radio Liberty station, where Tolz also worked. She worked in the research department, focusing on a rather narrow area - the history of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
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From the book of Leonardo da Vinci by Chauveau Sophie"Last Supper" Lodovico planned to transform the monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie into a monumental ensemble for his own glorification. This monastery was to become the eternal resting place for himself and his wife. And he instructs Leonardo to create the greatest
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The book was born as a result of an expedition to Pinega, Mezen, Kenozerye and the Ustyansky region, which the authors made while working on documentary film"Woman's share." recorded stories from the life of northerners during the Great Patriotic War, and Aronchikov photographed these people. The presentation of the album took place in the One-Pillar Chamber of Gostiny Dvors.
In the photographs hanging on the walls of the chamber, you can see people and places that inspired television journalists to create a photo album: veteran spouses, two girls with a dog and a cat, a grandmother briskly walking along a country road, an elderly man in a fur hat, Kimzha with her famous windmills and the reserved Kenozerye.
Zinaida Kurbatova spoke mainly about the project, and Leonid Aronchikov only occasionally took the floor.
This project is a tribute, this is our offering to the Russian North, - said Zinaida Kurbatova, - this is our admiration for this region, these inhabitants, their beauty, their dignity, incredible nature, architecture, crafts, verbal creativity... You live in this environment, and we watch from the side. And, probably, we see something a little differently.
To the North - for the present
It’s not for nothing that the book is called “Brothers and Sisters” - after the great work of our fellow countryman Fyodor Abramov. In the photo album, Kurbatova and Aronchikov, in fact, develop Abramov’s idea.
Zinaida Kurbatova told how her acquaintance with the North and the work of the famous resident of Verkola happened:
“Every person has a moment when he feels his national identity. I felt it when I read Fyodor Abramov at school. He made an incredible impression on me. For life. At the Academy of Arts, one teacher told us that we need to go to the North, follow secret paths, to see the real thing. And I was lucky: in 1989, I, together with my comrades with backpacks containing some canned food, a blanket and paint, traveled around Kenozero. Then all my life I dreamed of returning there.”
For Leonid Aronchikov, his love for the Russian North began in much the same way: during his student years, he went on kayak trips here. And just like his colleague, he was happy to return here again.
By the way, Zinaida Kurbatova had a chance to meet Fedor Abramov in person: when he came to visit her grandfather, Academician Dmitry Likhachev.
I had already read his work, and when he came, I was very shy: after all, he was a great writer,” the journalist recalled. - I even remember that figure skating was shown on TV then, which everyone watched with such rapture. And one of the athletes skated there. Abramov looked at her and said: “Our northern short-legged dog.”
Igor Orlov presented Zinaida Kurbatova with the book “Lomonosov’s Arctic Project”.
The wealth of the Arctic is its people
The photo album “Brothers and Sisters” was born with the support of the governor of the Arkhangelsk region, Igor Orlov. At the presentation, he greeted the authors very warmly and spoke with great respect for the work they had done.
With the help of this album, we allow many to realize that the Russian North is not only about mineral resources, but above all about people,” said the head of the region. - On the eve of our Arctic events, a lot is said about the history of this land, and the fact that the Russian Pomors gave our great power, in fact, all of Siberia and the entire northern region with all these incredible opportunities is quite obvious. I like that today we are talking about the Arctic, about the Arctic territories, through people. I categorically do not accept it when our North is spoken of as a large storehouse of minerals. This is not a closet, this is a place where people live, where they create, create families, experience tragedies, and so on. And this is exactly what we must convey to everyone.
Igor Orlov presented Zinaida Kurbatova with a book that no one had yet held in their hands - “Lomonosov’s Arctic Project”. He also shared important news with the TV journalist. The fact is that the journalist began to create a memorial museum of her grandfather on Solovki. And at the presentation, Igor Orlov said that Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Rus' blessed the creation of the museum.
“You are wonderful!”
Zinaida Kurbatova agreed with the governor that the main wealth of the North is its absolutely amazing people. In her opinion, they were made the way they are by the absence of serfdom, learned bookishness and hard work.
She spoke with great sympathy about each character in her book. For example, about 90-year-old Apollinaria Kozlova, whose portrait graced the cover of the book. But at first my grandmother didn’t want to be filmed as passionately as she did: she even threatened Leonid Aronchikov with her fist. And then she changed into an elegant dress and baked pies for the journalists. Or about Ivan and Taisiya Potrokhov from the village of Dorogovskoye on Mezen - a kind of “old-world landowners” who live in perfect harmony all their lives. Or about the “dresser” “Aunt Shura” - Alexandra Yakovleva from Verkola.
Value yourself more, love yourself more! You are incredible, you are wonderful, you are wonderful! - Zinaida Kurbatova addressed everyone present in the hall.
This is Valery Popov's second attempt to compose a biography of his famous contemporaries, relying mainly on personal memories and stories of mutual acquaintances. The first - about Sergei Dovlatov - ended with the scandalous refusal of the writer's relatives, after reading Popov's manuscript, to provide photographs for the design of the book. The book about Dmitry Sergeevich Likhachev also caused negative reaction his relatives, family friends and colleagues. Vera Tolts-Zilitinkevich, granddaughter of Dmitry Sergeevich, professor at the University of Manchester, in an interview with Novaya, spoke about mistakes, fantasies, and fictitious details family life, personal and public life, which, in her opinion, Popov allowed in the book about Likhachev.
— Vera Sergeevna, did you know in advance that a biography of Dmitry Sergeevich was being prepared?
— No, my St. Petersburg friends told me about it after its release. We know Valery Popov, but for some reason he did not consider it necessary to contact me, although it was easy to do so - for example, through the Pushkin House.
“This struck me in the book: more than a third of the text is occupied by a story about purely personal details of family life, but only the second granddaughter and her father are quoted. About you, about your mother, father and husband - they say a lot, but they don’t give you the words.
“In my opinion, what’s even worse is that many members of our family are no longer alive, and they cannot answer, and Popov tells all kinds of fantasies about them. Passages about his attitude towards his wife, Zinaida Alexandrovna, especially insult the memory of Dmitry Sergeevich. Popov agreed to the point that in recent years Zinaida Aleksandrovna felt “unnecessary, restless” at home. This is complete nonsense. In fact, it’s not often that such a wonderful marriage happens as Dmitry Sergeevich and Zinaida Alexandrovna had. Grandfather’s love and devotion to his wife was rare. This was the case until the very last minutes of his life, when it was her name that he repeated as he died.
- This is the first detailed biography Likhacheva, published in Russia?
— Not quite like that: the first, fairly detailed biography of Dmitry Sergeevich was published in 2011. Its author is the famous historian Vladislav Zubok. This is a serious book, rather scientific. Popov tried to write about Dmitry Sergeevich for the general reader, and it is a shame that the book was published in the well-known series “Life wonderful people“, - the book, in my opinion, is not worthy of this. Part of it - a story about the scientific and social activities of Dmitry Sergeevich - was made in the style of socialist realism, a kind of canon of the life of a great man. This form has its roots in the Stalinist period: it was then that an extremely simplified scheme for constructing biographies was created, according to which - be it Pushkin or Newton - the image of a hero was molded, always sinless, right in everything, head and shoulders above those around him. But the second part - about family life - is written in the spirit of the cheapest Russian-style yellow press. The Western yellow press at least tries to interview several sides. And here - everything is told from the words of people, one of whom himself admits in a conversation that he never fully understood Likhachev.
— Are there any inaccuracies in the book? What do you think is completely distorted?
- In the book great amount both factual errors due to ignorance and negligence in the description of the scientific and social life of Dmitry Sergeevich, and fantasies, primarily in stories about the family. The family for my grandfather was by no means of secondary importance compared to his scientific and social activities. He felt a colossal responsibility for his family from a young age: it is no coincidence that it was Dmitry Sergeevich who took upon himself the main concern for his parents during the siege of Leningrad and for his mother in evacuation, and not his brothers, who by that time had already made a successful career. And the brothers always remained grateful to Dmitry Sergeevich for this. The same thing happened in 1981, when his daughter Vera died - it never occurred to anyone that anyone other than Dmitry Sergeevich could take care of Vera’s minor daughter. But he was already 75 years old then! The power of my grandfather’s love strengthened me for the rest of my life, and for this I feel not only reciprocal love for him, but also great gratitude. The image of my mother, Lyudmila Dmitrievna, was horribly distorted in the book. In the chapter about the last years of Dmitry Sergeevich’s life, Popov writes: “She (Lyudmila Dmitrievna) either lived in a cooperative on Novorossiyskaya Street or visited her parents.” Mom moved to live with her parents immediately after the death of her sister! Lyudmila Dmitrievna was the only family member who looked after Dmitry Sergeevich and Zinaida Alexandrovna when they needed help due to their advanced age. Constantly being with them, she completely devoted the last twenty years of her, unfortunately, too short life to them.
— Quite strangely, the book talks about the religious beliefs of Dmitry Sergeevich: it is completely unclear - was Likhachev a religious person or not?
— This important topic is misrepresented in the book. Suffice it to remember that in 1928 Dmitry Sergeevich was arrested precisely for participating in a religious circle! Dmitry Sergeevich’s religiosity comes from his childhood, from his family. Throughout his life he carried with him the attitude towards Orthodoxy that was characteristic of a significant part of the St. Petersburg intelligentsia of the early 20th century. Unlike what happens today, in that environment the ritual part of religion played a minor role. Popov, for example, reports that in the Likhachev family, Easter cakes were allegedly baked for show. But what family under Soviet rule baked Easter cakes for show?! In Dmitry Sergeevich's diary entries there are many reflections on Christianity. There is a published article about this by his student Oleg Panchenko. But it seems that Popov did not read it.
— Likhachev did not hide his religious beliefs even under Soviet rule?
“He didn’t show them publicly, but the family was religious. The whole family made sure to go to church on Easter. Throughout Holy Week, my grandfather read me relevant passages from the Gospels. The prayers that I know were taught to me by my grandfather. There was always a Bible on his bedside table. The issue of Likhachev’s religiosity, in my opinion, is of public importance, in contrast to many details of Dmitry Sergeevich’s family life.
— In the stories about the Likhachev family there is a story about your departure from the Soviet Union, about how it influenced your life, how Dmitry Sergeevich dissuaded you from leaving...
“This is an example of how even a small distortion of the truth turns it into a big lie.” You might think that in 1982 I made a voluntary decision to emigrate! Popov forgot, or perhaps never knew, that already two years earlier emigration from the USSR had almost stopped. My then husband was expelled from the country for being part of the inner circle of Academician Sakharov and Elena Bonner. We had a one-year-old child at the time. The situation of choosing between the child’s father and beloved relatives is completely extreme, and speculating on this is vile. The statement that Dmitry Sergeevich allegedly persuaded me to stay, a fantasy - I was deprived of citizenship, what kind of persuasion? Popov’s words that grandfather was more worried “about his career, about his great deeds than about the fate of his family” discredit his name. My family members were not subjected to any persecution in connection with my departure. The book claims that my departure created some kind of disastrous work situation for my mother. This is slander against the management of the Russian Museum, where my mother worked. On the contrary, it behaved highest degree with dignity, immediately telling her that there would be no consequences for her because of my departure.
— Your father, Sergei Zilitinkevich, is named in the book as almost the founder of the Russian money laundering system!
“This is one of the most fantastic passages in the book, where everything is thrown into one heap - the persecution of my father in 1979, the cutting of money, the cotton business, which had nothing to do with my father’s business. He headed the Leningrad department of the Moscow Academic Institute, their branch dealt with theoretical research, the funding was modest and there was nothing to “cut up”. The institute employee Burangulov, who was arrested along with his father, was not an Uzbek, but a Bashkir, and had nothing to do with the party leadership of Uzbekistan. Instead of repeating other people’s fantasies, Popov could have learned the truth from the preface of the famous literary critic Konstantin Azadovsky to excerpts from my father’s story “Hey, Professor,” published in the magazine “Zvezda,” and from the story itself.
— What is this story with the mysterious folder where Dmitry Sergeevich had memories of his deceased daughter Vera, which he seemed to hide from all family members?
- It is a myth. There was nothing secret in these memories. Dmitry Sergeevich himself typed them on a typewriter in several copies and gave them to all family members to read: the text is very personal, but there is nothing there that should be hidden from loved ones. I read these memoirs later than others, in the mid-1990s, when he was looking through all his unpublished notes - the Logos publishing house was preparing a reissue of his “Memoirs.” Having discussed the notes about his daughter Vera with me and my mother, he decided not to publish them: there was a description of her PhD defense - in it Dmitry Sergeevich used words that could offend the memory of one, now deceased, employee of the Hermitage. Therefore, the text remained unprinted. A few years after Likhachev’s death, in 2006, the magazine “Our Heritage” published these notes about Vera in violation of the will of Dmitry Sergeevich and the copyright law, which now belong to me. A scandal broke out, and the magazine was forced to print my response letter, in which I apologized for what happened to those who were offended by my grandfather’s memories.
Interviewed
Natalya SHKURENOK
Direct speech
Konstantin AZADOVSKY, cultural historian, translator, member of the Russian PEN Center, corresponding member of the German Academy of Language and Literature:
— I read Valery Popov’s book about Dmitry Sergeevich Likhachev with special attention. My parents, and I myself, were well acquainted with the Likhachev family, and therefore reading fables and gossip about his private life is unpleasant for me, sometimes offensive. Readers are informed that the academician’s “personal life” has completely fallen apart in recent years - his daughter died, his granddaughter got involved with an anti-Soviet and left for the West... Of course, all these facts can be interpreted in different ways, but Popov, describing Likhachev’s last years, uses exclusively one source - stories by Yuri Kurbatov, Likhachev's son-in-law, and Zinaida Kurbatova.
The book is replete with loud epithets and praises: “great scientist”, “great Likhachev”, “wise”, “insightful”, “brave”, “impeccable”, “martyr and thinker”... But I am sure: the modern enlightened reader is not expecting pathos, and “meanings” - reflections on who Dmitry Sergeevich was, what kind of life he lived. There are different ways to write about this. For Likhachev is a controversial figure. The entire 20th century was refracted in it - from the pre-revolutionary era to the post-perestroika era, and it can only be understood in the context of national history. Unfortunately, there is no history, its true content and unique flavor in this book. And there is no internal drama of a person who went through the Gulag, Bolshevik terror, Stalinist ideological campaigns of the post-war period and, finally, persecution in Romanov’s Leningrad of the 1970s.
In using the word “martyr” in relation to Likhachev, Popov is certainly right. I remember how in the late 1980s, speaking at the Blok Museum, at an evening in memory of Dmitry Evgenievich Maksimov, an outstanding researcher of Russian poetry of the Silver Age, Dmitry Sergeevich said with a heavy sigh: “You can’t even imagine how martyr’s life was.” our generation." However, Popov does not try to look deeper - to talk about the moral trials that Likhachev’s generation had to endure.
The book is written hastily and carelessly; it contains numerous repetitions and errors, caused, I believe, by the fact that the plot that our St. Petersburg author took on is extremely far from him. Likhachev's entourage, his teachers, colleagues and associates sometimes appear in a strange light, as if the author is hearing these names for the first time. Thus, in a conversation with one of the respondents, Academician Alexey Aleksandrovich Shakhmatov, Likhachev’s teacher, was mentioned. "Academician?" - the author asks again. If you don’t know who Shakhmatov is and what his place is in our philological science, then you shouldn’t write about Likhachev.
Another example is Grigory Aleksandrovich Gukovsky, an outstanding scientist, professor at Leningrad University. Popov calls him either Grigory or Alexander, and writes that he died in the camp (in fact, in the Lefortovo prison under investigation). His brother Matvey Gukovsky, also repressed, is named Mikhail.
I was especially outraged by what was written about Sergei Zilitinkevich, Lyudmila Dmitrievna’s husband. We met him in the Leningrad Kresty prison. A famous oceanographer, Sergei was arrested in the late 70s, tried and sentenced to prison. This case, I know firsthand, had political overtones.
The style and language deserve special attention. Popov mentions the French Slavist Rene Guerra: “Likhachev accompanied by Guerra...” Or writes: “I went through all the materials about Likhachev.” Retelling Likhachev’s memories of the days of his youth, the author exclaims: “What a rich, serious life he led... there is not a single mention of how they had a good time in a beer bar, talking about this and that.”
Writing a biography of a person who is called the “conscience of the nation” is a particularly responsible matter. And before us is a superficial book, written for the needs of the average person, in which one can see exactly what Likhachev did not organically accept: lack of culture and vulgarity. Moreover, there is a reservation regarding his closest relatives and loved ones...
Irina LEVINSKAYA, Doctor of Historical Sciences, leading researcher at the St. Petersburg Institute of History of the Russian Academy of Sciences:
- There is a certain classification of the genre of biographies, but no matter what type - artistic, scientific or popular - an essay about the life and fate of a particular person belongs, there is one principle, adherence to which is an absolute requirement for the author: it is necessary to carefully study and analyze all available sources. This is painstaking work that takes a lot of time and requires intellectual effort. Valery Popov's book, in my opinion, was written hastily and without serious research into the sources.
An irresponsible approach to the subject of study and absolute trust only in one’s own memory often leads to comical results. For example, Popov informs the reader that a Soviet citizen in 1980 could broadcast from Moscow on Radio Liberty. Or that Radio Liberty, before moving to Munich, broadcast from communist Czechoslovakia. Speaking about the 1960s, he suddenly declares: “All Western intellectuals (at least many) were then carried away by the bold idea: “Everything that was created in the USSR must be swept away, it is just a product of party ideology!” ( Quote.) In fact, the exact opposite happened! In the 1960s, Soviet scientists had the opportunity to communicate with their Western colleagues, and at this time Likhachev’s work became widely known abroad and received international recognition. Moreover, it was in the 1960s that a new movement emerged among Western scientists and intellectuals writing about the Soviet history of Russia: they began to criticize their colleagues for what they considered to be an unjustifiably critical attitude towards the Soviet experiment. This kind of ahistorical absurdity occurs constantly in the text.
And as a result, the value of Popov’s book as a biographical work telling the reader about the life of Dmitry Sergeevich Likhachev, about his time, from my point of view, differs insignificantly from zero.
VOICE OF BLOOD. APPLE FROM APPLE TREE. UNIT OF SOCIETY. KAZH-
WE HAVE STUDYED ONE OF THESE CONCEPTS WITH VERY PARTIAL PART -
STEW. FAMILY THOUGHT, FOLLOWING LEO TOLSTOY, DID NOT GIVE
WE REST. WE FOUND RELATIVES OF THOSE WHO INTRODUCED RUSSIAN
THE CONCEPT OF “INTELLIGENCE” WAS COMMONLY AND DIAGNOSED LENIN,
BUILT THE ROAD OF LIFE AND BECATED TO THE HERMITAGE A COLLECTION OF MA-
FUCKING DUTCHES. SCIENTISTS, ACTORS, COSMONAUTS, TV JOURNAL
LISTS, MUSICIANS AND STATE DUMA DEPUTY SAY THANK YOU
FOR PARENTS - IN THE PEDAGOGICAL POEM OF THE MAGAZINE "SOBAKA.RU".
Texts: Vitaly Kotov, Vadim Chernov, Svetlana Polyakova,
Sergei Minenko, Sergei Isaev
VERA AND ZINAIDA KURBATOVY
The great-granddaughter of Academician Likhachev did not become scientists,
but they founded their own dynasty - television journalists.
Zinaida: In our family they said: to whom much is given, much is asked. And as a child, I never had a second to spare. If I brought a four, my grandmother would ask: “Why not five?” I didn’t watch TV, didn’t walk in the yard, but studied at an English school, went to a French tutor, studied music and drawing. Sometimes sports sections were added to this. But their grandfather did not encourage them; he was a man of the Silver Age, when sports were considered a waste of time, and believed that walking was enough to feel good briskly and maintain a daily routine. Idleness was considered the greatest sin. Grandparents said that all quarrels, intrigues, and hysterical acts occur when a person is not busy with work.
Faith: I haven't been dealt with so closely before. Due to his age, Dmitry Sergeevich could not pay so much attention to me, but I remember him very well. In St. Petersburg, we walked together to the Silver Pond and to the Gulf of Finland - to Komarovo, where we spent every summer at the dacha. I could even afford to watch an Argentine TV series, but if my great-grandfather saw it, I, of course, got it. Everyone talks about the quiet voice of an intellectual, but he could shout like that!
Zinaida: Although it was generally not customary to raise one’s voice in the family. Coming home from school, I spoke a little louder, and they reproached me, saying that it was vulgar. It was important to be able to restrain your feelings, and to experience grief inside is right and worthy. When I entered the Academy of Arts, my grandparents said that the students there were poor students, visitors from other cities, so in no case should you stand out with your clothes. I was dressed simpler than others, so as not to embarrass anyone with my well-being. We had albums with photographs of pre-revolutionary Russia, and as an example they showed me the royal daughters, dressed in the same modest dresses.
Faith: This is not a code adopted specifically in the Likhachev family. These are just good manners.
Zinaida: We used to live big family in one apartment: grandparents, my parents’ family and my aunt’s family with her daughter. Grandfather did not want his daughters to be separated; this was part of the patriarchal way of life. There was a folding table that could seat up to forty people; we still have it to this day. Everyone sat down at the table together; it was not customary to be late for dinner or eat alone. Grandfather was the first to serve the plate; grandmother sat by the coffee pot and samovar. There were no advantages for children, everything was divided into equal parts. Perhaps it was due to the blockade. Grandfather and grandmother said that from the first days they shared food equally and thanks to this they saved their lives. And in those families where bread was given to children, the parents died first, followed by the children. The blockade experience also affected us in the fact that nothing was thrown away. You had to eat everything that was on the plate. Grandma was collecting crumbs from the table. The apples were drying.
Faith: At the table they discussed everything that had happened during the day. They didn’t hide anything from the children; I knew about all the misfortunes that happened in the family. In my opinion, this is correct: this is life, and children should not be excluded from life.
Zinaida: The family loved feasts, this is a professorial tradition. When grandfather’s students came to us, they were always treated to food, because they were poor students, and the professor received much more both before the revolution and in Soviet time. They treated everyone who came into the house - from scientists to couriers. I remember when my husband first came to visit, my grandmother rushed to feed him - he was a boarder, and my grandmother admired how well he eats. And at home, grandfather always gave coats to his students. They were embarrassed, and he explained that this is also a tradition.
Zinaida: It was customary for us to make toys for the Christmas tree with our own hands, to make gifts for the holidays. Here my dad worked with me a lot, he told me about architecture using the example of paper models that we made with him. And my grandfather encouraged me to make books myself and allowed me to type on his typewriter. In Komarovo, my comrades and I published the Indian Time magazine, where, in addition to comics about the adventures of the Indians, there were also scientific articles that we wrote ourselves. Grandfathers I knew brought me books about Indians in English. This is also an art - to notice what a child likes and guide his development. Grandfather was distracted from scientific activities by physical activities. He loved to work in the garden, he had a whole library on floriculture. I remember how in the fall my grandfather dug up the roots of dahlias and put them in boxes. He brought pink geranium from Bulgaria, which he considered a medicinal plant. We gave it to all our neighbors in Komarovo. There is still a huge jasmine bush growing there; my grandfather carefully watched when it bloomed in order to collect the flowers.
Faith: I entered the Russian department of the philological department, where my great-grandfather studied. Ancient Russian literature was a particularly important subject - of course, I could not do poorly in it. When I left the exam, the teacher breathed a sigh of relief: she was Likhachev’s student. Only at that moment did the group find out who my great-grandfather was. Even then I wanted to become a journalist, and not study science, so I transferred to the journalism department. From my second year I started working at Radio Russia, then got myself an internship at NTV, where I stayed for a year and a half.