"Can you believe that I am a traitor to the Motherland?" How the great Soviet director Meyerhold was killed

I probably would have written more for the magazine, if it weren't for my neatness. After all
the information supplied by the zomboyaschik is more than enough for analysis. But here's the problem
- as soon as I see the face of Svanidze or Radzinsky on the screen, the hand automatically
stretches ... no, not to the holster, but to the remote control to switch the channel.

And last week I had a great flu and there was simply no other entertainment.
Therefore, I was honored to watch V. Wolf's program "My Silver Ball",
dedicated to Zinaida Reich, however, not so much to her as to her second husband,
Vsevolod Meyerhold.

The narrative begins from the end, i.e., from the murder of Z. Reich, as he assures
the author, by agents of the NKVD, immediately after the arrest of her husband. Mr Wolf tells
chilling details of how two strangers entered the actress's apartment,
gave her seven knife wounds into the region of the heart and disappeared, leaving behind
bloody footprints. It is only strange that Z. Reich after that remained alive and died
in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. Reason for killing, according to
Mr. Wulff received a letter from the actress to Stalin with accusations that he did not
versed in theatrical art, etc. A good reason for a brutal murder,
nothing to say! Wouldn't it be easier to arrest Z. Reich in the case of her husband and pronounce a sentence?
At least there would be less gossip. But the magic phrase "killed by order
Stalin" is still working.

Meyerhold's name is now not customary to pronounce without the epithet "brilliant" or
at least "great" and Mr. Wulff is no exception. Here in their "hysterical
chronicles" Svanidze also extols Meyerhold as the theatrical genius of all
times and peoples.

But the opinion of the famous Russian publicist M. Menshikov, who was shot in
1918 Meyerhold's ideological comrades literally before the eyes of the family:

"Really seriously mr Meyerhold took root on the imperial stage?
Recently I saw Mr. Meyerhold for the first time at a subbotnik
Literary and Artistic Society. I was just petrified with amazement: really
this is what it is famous mr Meyerhold, the actor about whom they shouted so much -
right, Jewish newspapers? Is the once talented Ms. Komissarzhevskaya
precisely this skinny, reddish, ugly gentleman with a cap of curly hair
made her the chosen one of her taste, her half-mad love for the theater? Truth,
Madame Komissarzhevskaya parted at last with Mr. Meyerhold, convinced that he
destroys her theater, as she had to part with Mr. Flexer (Akim Volynsky),
who also strove to do something mind-blowing on her stage. But what
thus rejected even by a minor scene, an insignificant Jew suddenly
jumped into the directors of the Imperial Alexandria Theater? Straight miracles
going on in our unfortunate country! Petersburg they say that Mr. Meyerhold
only one colonel liked him, and she gave him patronage. So really
the first theater in Russia, our national theater, depending on the taste of some
staff officer, completely unknown to the fatherland?

The point, of course, is not at all that Mr. Meyerhold is a Jew. Be it ingenious
man, he could be a Hottentot, and everyone would come to terms with it. But Mr.
Meyerhold is only somewhat disheveled, agitated, nervously
an excitable, and, moreover, quite mediocre representative of the Jewish race.
Brilliant people are very rare, but even talented people would be a godsend - however
It doesn't even smell like talent. I judge by that lecture, which I read very cheekily
us Mr. Meyerhold about the "theatre of searches". Lord, what nonsense it was!

I must say that the subbotniks of the Literary and Art Society are attended
more or less chosen public - writers, artists, theater-goers,
people who are familiar with both the best Russian and European scenes. have courage
to go out in front of such a partner with a newspaper article of a decadent kind is one thing
already testifies to the mediocrity of Mr. Meyerhold. Talent when not on the beat
is silent: he is the first to despise his accidental emptiness and is afraid to take it out on
scene. Not that - a claim, not that - a fake for talent. The fake thinks
the public is a fool, will not notice a fake - it is worth stunning it with some "Blue
bird", or by comparing Leonid Andreev with Goethe, or deftly twisted
phrases about a new, unknown, unprecedented, incomprehensible art of "search".

As an actor, I don't know Herr Meyerhold at all: I don't think I've ever seen him.
not in any of the plays. In this regard, I must trust the taste of Yu. D. Belyaev; and he
the other day he wrote the following: "The actor Mr. Meyerhold is not bad. This figure, these gestures,
this voice! "It stands like a tree, it is attached to the wall"..." Here is a review of our best
theater critic. But if so, if Mr. Meyerhold is even an excellent actor, then
tell me what inscrutable fates this untalented Jew got into
only in actors, but even in the directors of the imperial troupe? "

"Fi!" - someone will say - "this Menshikov understands nothing in art! Yes
also an anti-Semite in addition. "I will not argue, it may seem to someone the pinnacle
theatrical skill of dragging doors around the stage throughout the performance. Or
reading a monologue while standing on your hands. I imagine such stage tricks
outrageous bullshit. They probably seemed like hack work to Stalin, and therefore
this theater of the absurd was covered up. Well, about "anti-Semitism" - I don't know to whom
believe: Menshikov, who considers Meyerhold a Jew, or V. Wulff, who
Meyerhold is German, and even of noble blood. However, it doesn't matter.

I was also very embarrassed by the descriptions of the terrible tortures to which the disgraced
director in the dungeons of the NKVD. It's not that I don't believe in torture in general - in Russia
those under investigation were always beaten, starting from Khan Mamai and ending with the current
"democratic" police department. But in the case of Meyerhold, one cannot believe
somehow. Usually the intelligentsia of that time "surrendered" their friends, relatives without
any torture. And the fact that Meyerhold talks about terrible
torture in a letter to Stalin seems at least strange. It is unlikely that such a letter
finds its addressee.

Why was Meyerhold shot? Think not for great talent"like us
trying to convince Wulf, Svanidze and others like them. Of course, little is believed in espionage
in favor of England and Japan. I think not the last role was played by a long-standing friendship with L.
Trotsky. Plus the "genius" homosexuality, about which the Woolfs and Svanidzes are shamefaced
are silent. Meanwhile, it is known whom Stalin called "scoundrels".

It may seem to some that Meyerhold was treated too cruelly. Maybe
to be. But I'm reminded of a fact that the fans keep quiet
"genius director": in 1937, Meyerhold wrote a letter to Stalin, in
which offered to shoot "enemies of the people" on the stage of his theater. For
approaching the scene to the viewer, so to speak ... Well, as they say, for what
fought, and ran into it. And after that, how not to believe in God's Judgment on Earth and in
Supreme Providence?!

Why was Meyerhold shot? It is thought not for "great talent", as we are trying to assure Wulff, Svanidze and others like them. Of course, there is little faith in espionage in favor of England and Japan. It seems that the long-standing friendship with L. Trotsky played an important role. A plus homosexuality"genius", which the Woolfs and Svanidze bashfully keep silent about. Meanwhile, it is known whom Stalin called "scoundrels".

It may seem to some that Meyerhold was treated too cruelly. May be. But I am reminded of such a fact, which the admirers of the "brilliant director" keep quiet about: in 1937 Meyerhold wrote a letter to Stalin, in which he proposed to shoot "enemies of the people" on the stage of his theater. To bring the scene closer to the viewer, so to speak...
Well, as they say, what he fought for, he ran into. And after that, how can one not believe in God's Judgment on Earth and in the Higher Providence?!

Original taken from kosarex in The reason for the death of Meyerhold

Portrait of V. Meyerhold, 1916 B. Grigoriev

There is the life of the real Meyerhold, there is the posthumous glory that the liberal public began to rivet him on the occasion of the Khrushchev thaw. The liberal public wanted to glorify the non-Russian victims in order to forget about the Russian victims of Stalinism. No wonder so much effort was spent on praising Tukhachevsky, who became famous for his bloody suppression of peasant uprising in the Tambov region, after which the population only Tambov region decreased from 2.5 to 1 million people. The praise of Meyerhold also had its own meaning. His theater has always been considered scandalous, where the director's desire to show off prevailed over the concepts of art and aesthetics. In socialist realist productions, where there were no frills, templates prevailed. The subtext of the praises was simple - we will give the cook as a genius of culture, politics, philosophy, in short, anything.

The real Meyerhold was more valuable than Soviet power in that he immediately accepted it all - with all the demagogy, robberies, executions, Marxism. Such people were valued, they were given money and much was forgiven. Meyerhold set up his experiments, the authorities were touched. But Meyerhold remained the same non-systemic personality that the spontaneous Bolsheviks were before the revolution. He wrote denunciations on everyone, forgetting Golden Rule- the collective flow of denunciations is always more convincing than individual ones. He had nervous breakdowns. He did not understand that behind external eccentricity, calculation and a cold mind should be all around. As a result, he began to interfere and annoy the authorities. What, for example, was Ilya Ehrenburg supposed to answer to Meyerhold's denunciation? Not just a personal denunciation, but a collective one, when dozens, if not hundreds of his sympathizers, had to bare their pens and stain the paper like cutting a corpse in an anatomical theater. It is no coincidence that we are not given complete picture denunciations of that time. Too much will be seen.

Meyerhold was avenged by a large Bolshevik-Chekist collective.
Three weeks after Meyerhold's arrest, his 45-year-old wife was brutally murdered in her own bed - unknown persons stabbed her 17 times and cut out her eyes. At her funeral, the children were ordered to leave their parents' apartment within two days. A large living space was immediately divided between the family of a personal driverLavrenty Beriaand secretary of a loving dignitary.

After three weeks of torture, Meyerhold signed all the charges against himself and famous figures culture, and before his death he abandoned them.

To date, there are two documented versions of the death of the director. According to one, on February 1, 1940, in one of the offices of the Butyrka prison, an indictment of espionage was read out and a sentence was announced - the death penalty.

The night before the execution, Meyerhold wrote his last letter to the Prime Minister V. Molotov, in which he spoke about humiliation, systematic beatings and torture: In the archival documents of the Butyrka prison, there is an entry: “The sentence was carried out on February 2, 1940.”

But there is a second version, based on eyewitness accounts. Many years later, they said that before his death, the 66-year-old Meyerhold was brutally beaten, all his fingers were broken and drowned in a barrel of sewage.

Yes, the same Reich could have been arrested, but the punishment was planned in advance as public, so that there was no doubt, they say, they took Meyerhold to general order. I think that not many years later it was told that Meyerhold was soaked in the toilet, which was told to someone right away. You have to please yours. And the murder of Zinaida Reich is also exemplary - they not only killed, but also cut out their eyes so that there was no doubt, they say, they killed, but by accident and during a robbery. Everything here is symbolic from urinating in the toilet to cutting out the eyes.

But it is no less symbolic that they did not tell us the truth, but rather tried to fool our brains. Andrei Voznesensky and Alfred Schnittke even wrote a song in his honor, where we were sadly told that Meyerhold was a genius.

There have been many martyrs at all times. History shows that Vsevolod Meyerhold is one of them...

On June 20, 1939, Meyerhold was arrested in Leningrad; at the same time, a search was carried out in his apartment in Moscow. The search protocol recorded a complaint from his wife Zinaida Reich, who protested against the methods of one of the NKVD agents. Soon (July 15) she was killed by unidentified persons.

After three weeks of interrogation, accompanied by torture, Meyerhold signed the testimony necessary for the investigation: he was accused under Article 58 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR. In January 1940, Meyerhold wrote to V. M. Molotov:

... They beat me here - a sick sixty-six-year-old man, they laid me face down on the floor, they beat me with a rubber tourniquet on my heels and on my back, when I sat on a chair, they beat me with the same rubber on my legs […] the pain was such that it seemed to be on the sore sensitive places of the legs poured boiling water ...

The meeting of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR took place on February 1, 1940. The board sentenced the director to death. On February 2, 1940, the sentence was carried out. The Teatral magazine writes about the burial place of Meyerhold: “Granddaughter of Vs. E. Meyerhold Maria Alekseevna Valentey back in 1956, having achieved his political rehabilitation, but not knowing then how and when her grandfather died, she installed on the grave of Zinaida Nikolaevna Reich that on Vagankovsky cemetery, a common monument - to her, the actress and his beloved wife, and to him. The monument is engraved with a portrait of Meyerhold and the inscription: "To Vsevolod Emilievich Meyerhold and Zinaida Nikolaevna Reich."<…>




In 1987, she also became aware of the true burial place of Meyerhold - "Common grave No. 1. Burial of unclaimed ashes from 1930 - 1942 inclusive" at the cemetery of the Moscow crematorium near the Donskoy Monastery. (According to the decision of the Politburo of January 17, 1940 No. II 11/208, signed personally by Stalin, 346 people were shot. Their bodies were cremated, and the ashes poured into common grave, mixed with the ashes of other dead.)".

In 1955, the Supreme Court of the USSR posthumously rehabilitated Meyerhold.

The artist emigrated from Russia and is going to apply for political asylum in France. The artist said that he and Shalygina are suspected of committing sexual assault. require(["inlineoutstreamAd", "c.

Karl Casimir Theodor Mayergold (as Meyerhodl was called at birth) was born on February 9, 1874 in Penza. His parents were Lutherans, his father was engaged in winemaking. Karl Casimir graduated from the Penza men's gymnasium and in 1895 entered the law faculty of Moscow University. In the same year, he converted to Orthodoxy and changed his name to Vsevolod. The name was not chosen by chance - that was the name of the Russian writer, critic and poet Garshin, who denounced social injustice in his books. They say that along with the name, a person chooses his fate. Garshin at the age of 33 will commit suicide - he will step into the stairway. Meyerhold will live longer. But his death will be no less terrible.

The performer Young Thug himself did not appear at the shooting of the video. In the subtitles for the video, the creator of the video noted that the rapper did not appear at the shooting, so he had to improvise. Staake received a budget of $100,000, negotiated with the actors, and assembled sets and props.

In 1896, Meyerhold went to study in the class of Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko at the theater and music school of the Moscow Philharmonic Society. Together with other graduates of the school, the future legends of the Russian theater Olga Knipper, Ivan Moskvin, he becomes an actor in the newly created Public Art Theater. Meyerhold's debut was Vasily Shuisky in the first production of the new theater Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich. After Vsevolod will play a number of prominent roles.

But real fame waited for Meyerhold not at all in the acting field. In 1902, Meyerhold began to stage himself in Kherson. He called the theater "New Drama". For three years, Meyerhold was the author of ... 200 productions.

In 1906 Meyerhold was invited to Petersburg. Vera Komissarzhevskaya herself invited him to head her own Theatre of Drama. Vsevolod Meyerhold released 13 premieres in just one season, which were impossible to get into, so great success The audience enjoyed the performances of "Hedda Gabler" by Ibsen, "Sister Beatrice" by Maeterlinck, "The Life of a Man" by Leonid Andreev, etc.

Theater "Lenkom" for the 1500th time will play the play "Juno and Avos"

The first performance took place more than 35 years ago - on July 8, 1981. "This day is considered the birthday of the performance, which told from the stage the poignant love story of the Russian traveler count Nikolai Rezanov and the daughter of the Governor of California Conchita," the press service noted, adding that since then "Juno and Avos" invariably collects full houses. Today's performance will also be sold out. "All tickets are sold out," Lenkom's official website says.

Later, Meyerhold staged at the imperial theaters - at the Alexandrinsky Theater "At the Royal Doors" by Hamsun, "Jester Tantris" by Hart, "Don Giovanni" by Moliere, and others, at the Mariinsky Theater - the opera "Orpheus and Eurydice" by Gluck.

After the October Revolution, People's Commissar of Education Lunacharsky invited Vsevolod Meyerhold to head the theater department of the People's Commissariat for Education.

Created in Moscow in 1920 State Theater named after Meyerhold "Theater of the RSFSR-I". Then it was renamed into "Actor's Theatre" and the GITIS Theater.

"Joint experiences" at the Meyerhold Center In a cramped black room about fifty spectators are seated, but not like in an ordinary theater, but in a spiral: if you look from above, you get a snail. A green light sometimes lights up above the heads of those sitting, and something like a starry sky is projected onto the wall, through which figures fly instead of meteorites. Before the start, each viewer is given a piece of paper with a number and one remark (each has his own). If your number lights up, you must say a cue, and if the green light is on, you can tell the story of your first love.

Further, the site acquires its final name - the Meyerhold State Theater (GosTiM). In 1934, Vsevolod Meyerhold staged The Lady of the Camellias with the brilliant Zinaida Reich. Meyerhold married the actress in 1922, leaving a family with three children for her.

But... Stalin does not like the production. And this is a verdict. The press stigmatizes the director with terrible reviews, colleagues gloat. Reich cannot stand the persecution of her husband and writes a letter to the “father of nations”, where he accuses Stalin of not understanding much about theatrical art. The theater is closed.

On June 20, 1939, Meyerhold was arrested in Leningrad. At the same time, his Moscow apartment is being searched. The complaint of Zinaida Reich is preserved in the search protocol - the actress is protesting against the methods of the NKVD. Less than a month later, Reich was killed. Who - not established.

Meyerhold wrote to Molotov from the Lubyanka prison: “Here is my confession, brief, as it should be, a second before death. I have never been a spy. I have never been a member of any of the Trotskyist organizations (I, along with the party, cursed Judas Trotsky). I have never been involved in counter-revolutionary activities ... They beat me here - a sick sixty-year-old man, laid him face down on the floor, beat him with a rubber tourniquet on his heels and back, when he sat on a chair, they beat him on his legs with the same rubber (from above, with great force) and in places from the knees to the upper parts of the legs. And in next days when these places of the legs were filled with profuse internal hemorrhage, then these red-blue-yellow bruises were again beaten with this tourniquet, and the pain was such that it seemed that boiling water was poured onto the painful sensitive places of the legs (I screamed and cried from pain). They hit me on the back with this rubber, they hit me in the face with swings from a height.

The Ministry of Culture was reproached for the significant funding of the "Satyricon" with a single production

The Ministry of Culture was reproached for significant funding of the Satyricon with a single production, "In 2017, the Satyricon Theater will receive 235 million rubles of funding. Last year, the theater received a total of about 213 million. Do you know how many productions there were? One," Pozhigailo said at the meeting working group advice on Tuesday.

© Provided by: Arguments and Facts© Public Domain

After almost a month of interrogations and torture, Meyerhold signs evidence against himself. He is accused of being an agent involved in anti-Soviet work.

The indictment reads: “In 1934-1935. Meyerhold was involved in espionage work. Being an agent of British and Japanese intelligence, he was active in espionage work directed against the USSR. He is accused of being a career Trotskyist, an active participant in the Trotskyist organization that operated among art workers.

In 1955, the genius of directing Meyerhold was posthumously rehabilitated by the Supreme Court of the USSR.

• Anton Adasinsky: “I don’t even need makeup to play Meyerhold”
• Aeroflot put into operation a new airliner "V. Meyerhold»

Most Russians will ignore Lent.
According to the Levada Center, two percent of respondents intend to comply with all restrictions. About 18 percent of respondents are going to partially observe fasting, for example, to give up meat and alcohol, and four percent plan to fast on the last, most strict week of fasting. , 15 percent of respondents are ready to give up sex. Lent for Orthodox Christians began on February 27 and will last until April 15. The fast will end with the beginning of Easter.

Vsevolod Meyerhold was recognized in pre-revolutionary Russia, where since 1907 he was the chief director of the Imperial Theaters of St. Petersburg, drama and opera - Alexandrinsky and Mariinsky. February 25, 1917, at the very beginning February Revolution in Alexandrinka there was a premiere of Lermontov's "Masquerade" staged by him. In 1918, Meyerhold became a communist - he wanted to serve the revolution with his art.

Meyerhold remained loyal to the Stalin regime, but, like many loyal communists, he was classified as a "stranger", arrested and shot as a spy. Several times, in particular, in a letter to Molotov written two weeks before the execution, he retracted his testimony, which denounced him as a foreign spy and a Trotskyist, made under torture, which he described in that letter. His wife, actress Zinaida Reich, was brutally murdered in her apartment shortly after Meyerhold's arrest.

In 1955, i.e. two years after the death of Stalin, then still revered, not yet debunked by Khrushchev, two young women in Moscow - 37-year-old Tatyana Yesenina, stepdaughter the great reformer of the world theater director Vsevolod Meyerhold, and his granddaughter, 31-year-old Maria Valentey, began to achieve at that time almost impossible - the rehabilitation of Meyerhold. The difficulties were that Meyerhold's enemies and haters were sitting in many instances, those who sought the closure of his theater, and after the closure they denounced Meyerhold in the press. those. participated in the persecution of the Master, as many called Meyerhold in the theatrical environment.

But both modern Antigone (as the embodiment of fidelity to family duty) in 1955 were ready to do everything possible and impossible. And fate sent them an ally in the person of a young investigator of the military prosecutor's office, Boris Ryazhsky.

After a letter from Tatyana Yesenina to Malenkov in January 1955, the Meyerhold case was taken under consideration for possible rehabilitation. And on July 1, 1955, it came from the authorities to the 29-year-old senior lieutenant, investigator of the Military Prosecutor's Office Boris Ryazhsky, who was entrusted with checking all the circumstances of the case.

Here is his story (1988):

“All the cases were written down and handed over to us by the boss. I see that a note “Please talk to me” is enclosed in Meyerhold’s file. I come to his office, he says: “The Decree of the Central Committee on Meyerhold’s theater is mentioned there. So you see, first investigate all the circumstances, then write a submission to the Central Committee to cancel the decision, and only then raise the question of rehabilitation.

In the very first days after I received Meyerhold's file, Tatyana Sergeevna Yesenina, the daughter of Zinaida Reich and Sergei Yesenin, who had been brought up by Meyerhold, and Meyerhold's granddaughter from her first marriage, Maria Alekseevna Valentey, came to me. They listened to me, Masha was very restrained, and Tatyana Sergeevna took my story warmly, excitedly. She soon had to leave for her place in Tashkent<где она навсегда осела после эвакуации во время войны>, decided that Masha would help me. I showed them a list of "saboteurs" and "spies", Meyerhold's accomplices, drawn up on the basis of the case file. Tatyana Sergeevna says: "Pasternak is alive, he is here in Moscow. And Olesha is in Moscow." I only learned these names from the materials of the case, in it Pasternak and Olesha passed as members of the "wrecking" organization recruited by Meyerhold, and I was sure that they died with him. Tatyana Sergeevna marked that day in my list with crosses, who is alive, who is in Moscow, who died, who is sitting ... "

Boris Ryazhsky began his surveys according to the list with the actors who played with Meyerhold, with his students.

"Even before the first meeting with Ilyinsky, I summoned Nikolai Okhlopkov to my prosecutor's office. He had just returned from a trip to England, he was very wary, official, the conversation did not work out. We decided that it was better for me to come to him at the theater. He and there at first he was intimidated, but in the theater I pressed him, he became more frank. There, in the theater, he introduced me to M. Babanova, we had an important detailed conversation with her. Okhlopkov introduced me and with someone else from After these meetings, I realized that there is no point in calling such people to the prosecutor's office and interrogating them, I need to talk to them like a human being, otherwise I will find myself in a stupid position.

And the kaleidoscope went. I interviewed everyone I could, a hundred people. A wireless telegraph quickly worked in Moscow, began phone calls, more often anonymous, suggested which articles to look for, whom to contact, and the like. I myself could not physically collect all this, I was not supposed to have assistants, Masha ran around to look for articles and get reviews of cultural figures about Meyerhold, and Yaroslav Mikhailovich, my father-in-law, sat in the Theater Library in a closed fund (I gave him a special mandate) and did it on a typewriter extracts and annotations.

I called Ehrenburg at home, arrived, brought the case, said that the accusations of espionage were no longer valid. He did not say that it was he, Ehrenburg, who allegedly recruited Vsevolod Emilievich into the French intelligence service, but Ehrenburg asked: "Probably, I am also passing through there somewhere?" I spent the whole day with him, he told me a lot, and pulled out a book about the theater of the revolution from somewhere under a bushel. “Read it,” she says, “she will help you.” And then, in addition to My Life in Art, I had already received from E. Garin the first volume of Volkov's Meyerhold.

I came to M. Romm's studio during the filming; when he found out what was going to be discussed, it became bad with him, he could not immediately speak. In the same place, at the studio, I also saw I. Pyryev. Highly good musicians were, Shebalin, Sofronitsky, especially Oborin Lev Nikolaevich. For a long time I could not catch D. Shostakovich and arrange a meeting with him. He was going to Leningrad, and I asked him to see me before leaving, to call on the prosecutor's office, but when he arrived, I saw that I had made a huge mistake. In our prosecutor's office (on Kirovskaya, 41) there were usually a lot of people around, you can’t find a place to talk calmly, and Shostakovich, when he learned from me the truth about the death of Vsevolod Emilievich, became ill, very bad, they could hardly bear him from me. After that, I didn’t call anyone, I went to people myself.

Once, I remember, they come to me at the Kukryniksy prosecutor's office. "Why don't you call us? We also worked with Vsevolod Emilievich, we want to write to you about him!" - "For God's sake, - I answer, - I ask you, Masha will come to you, hand over your application with her ..." ... At the end of September, I went to Leningrad, met with Cherkasov, Merkuriev, Vivien. For the course of rehabilitation, these reviews were very important. It became obvious that such prominent people would not risk their names and titles if Meyerhold did not deserve it. The letters looked very weighty, no one was limited to the simple "I knew Meyerhold", they wrote about something specific, about some performance, etc., and for rehabilitation these documents had great value. I understood that in 1955 no one would argue with A. Yablochkina, she would outguess anyone and defend her words. I went to her house, she treated me to tea and jam and wrote about Meyerhold directly to me by hand. I asked permission to make a copy of her letter, enclosed the typescript in the file, and kept the autograph as a memento.

It turned out that the entire artistic intelligentsia responded to the rehabilitation of Meyerhold, stood up for memory brilliant man. I was very impressed by this. It inspired me, I was sure that I was on the right path."

It cannot be discounted in any way that courage was needed then, and a lot of it, courage was required in order to write in response to a request from the Military Prosecutor's Office positive feedback about Meyerhold. After all, all this was before the 20th Congress, the turning point was extremely difficult, everyone was used to being afraid, a stick hung over everyone, Meyerhold had long been dead, and they were all working, it might seem that a career was hanging by a thread. Therefore, I want people to read these letters today, they characterize both Meyerhold and those who wrote them.

This walking for letters is a unique plot: several dozen people with names, not knowing anything about him after Meyerhold's arrest in 1939. future fate, learned from Ryazhsky terrible truth and tried to promote the return of the theater master to culture. Yet the fear was great. It is visible, in particular, in the fact that only 9 authors of the letters, knowing that it was about rehabilitation, dared to use this word in their texts.

It is impossible to cross out the outstanding role that Meyerhold played in the development of Russian and Soviet theatrical art. The name of the genius Vsevolod Meyerhold, his outstanding creative heritage should be returned to the Soviet people.

Composer D. Shostakovich,

People's Artist of the USSR

"…… I systematized all this, it turned out to be a thick volume.

It is necessary to write a submission to the Central Committee. Who am I to be listened to? By rank, I’m only a senior lieutenant, my performance will definitely be sent for rechecking, it will go around in circles, the whole bunch of collected materials will fly to dust.

No one, I think, can find documents more convincing than those that I have collected.

They had all the answers.

It is clear that Meyerhold is from a wealthy family that did not run away from the revolution abroad. Moved to the side Soviet power. In the south, the whites even sentenced him to death, we got a White Guard newspaper about this.

About the fact that he created a revolutionary theater, books were published at one time, the actors who worked with him are alive and well, they have long been people's, people's, and could, like him, be listed as pests.

I thought and thought and decided. I decided to take risks. And I took a risk. To hell with all of them, I think, he took out of the folder and tore up a piece of paper ("Please talk"), with which the boss warned that the question of canceling the decision on Meyerhold's theater should first be raised, and then on the rehabilitation of him himself.

Reported the matter to the authorities. The boss signed everything for me. So, I think they slipped through the prosecutor's office, let's see what happens in the Supreme Court. On November 26, the trial took place. I had three cases going on that day, I pushed the Meyerhold case into the middle, and it went well on the same day, Meyerhold was rehabilitated.

How was it possible to avoid the fact that those who remained in his enemies did not interfere with the rehabilitation of Vsevolod Emilievich, continued to consider him a formalist, and so on?

Thanks to Ilyinsky. He… said to me: “Look, he has many enemies, many will not want him to be resurrected… But this is all nonsense.” It was Ilyinsky who got me thinking. and Babanova. Thanks to them, I knew exactly the opposing sides, knew the enemies of Meyerhold and knew how to suppress them. Firstly, from the Theater Library, from its closed funds, everything valuable from what had been printed about Meyerhold during his lifetime since 1922 was taken. No wonder the father-in-law sat there, at Pushkinskaya, 8, for several months. Then I closed the Bakhrushin Museum: they gave a complete breakdown of each performance staged by Meyerhold after 1922, an analysis of the entire work of his theater and even his Leningrad productions. This document looked very authoritative. And finally, I had a huge number of letters from major cultural figures.

And when the forces that did not want the rehabilitation of Meyerhold arose, they could no longer change anything. On December 1, I sent an official letter to the Minister of Culture N. Mikhailov stating that V. Meyerhold was completely rehabilitated. The Ministry took this news as an explosion atomic bomb. The minister immediately called my boss. He called me: "What's the matter? Did you tell the Central Committee?" They made me draw up a certificate for the Central Committee. I made a very large reference. Those men, prosecutor-colonels, who raised me then, they treated me very well, taught me how to build this certificate. I attached all the materials I had to it. I brought it and all my Talmuds to the Central Committee, I put it on the table. They told me to explain on what grounds I carried out the rehabilitation. “Here,” I say, “is a reference, everything is listed here.” In response, it was said: "So it is, but you are doing something stupid." And it was also said that I had exceeded my rights and powers. "Sorry," I answer, "I'm young." They scolded me severely, reprimanded me, said that I had not grown up to the Central Office. But the Supreme Court is the highest instance, it would not be good to cancel its decision, they looked, looked and found it inappropriate.

After the rehabilitation of Meyerhold, Ehrenburg, at his own risk and fear, gathered someone, it seems, at Moscow State University, and announced it, but nothing was directly reported in the press, for some time the opinion of the Ministry of Culture and the corresponding department of the Central Committee dominated everything.

It is clear that if Ryazhsky, as recommended by his boss, had applied to the Central Committee of the CPSU before the decision of the Supreme Court, with a proposal to cancel the decision to liquidate the theater, then the rehabilitation would have been stopped and postponed for a long time. Ryazhsky, as can be seen from his memoirs, guessed this, and most likely was sure of it. And he violated the order. Therefore, his act, and indeed all his work on the rehabilitation of Meyerhold, can be called "the feat of an honest man" (such a characterization was given by Pushkin to Karamzin's "History of the Russian State"). There are times and situations when it's easy to be honest man in its place - a feat.

Boris Ryazhsky is silent about one of modesty in his memoirs. But Maria Valentey wrote about this:

"Boris Vsevolodovich Ryazhsky was demoted, and he even had to leave Moscow because he dared, at his own peril and risk, to refer the case directly to the Supreme Court and did not seek prior approval from the relevant offices of the Central Committee of the Party. Return to Moscow and It wasn't easy for him to find a job."

Ryazhsky was punished. To clarify: he was fired from the prosecutor's office and sent to work in the North. Returning a few years later to his native Moscow, he worked for some time at the MUR, and then taught the history of the CPSU at the University. Patrice Lumumba.

After rehabilitating Meyerhold, Boris Ryazhsky gave courage to many people of art, and the rehabilitation inspired them later to advocate for the abolition of the very resolution of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks “On the liquidation of the theater named after Vs. Meyerhold” (“eliminate the Meyerhold theater as alien Soviet art") dated January 7, 1938. But this happened after the 20th Congress, in 1961.

On the part of authorities, attempts to consider even the resurrected and, one might say, twice rehabilitated Meyerhold "dead and blasphemed" continued for a long time. In 1964, Yuri Lyubimov was required to take a portrait of Meyerhold in the foyer of the Taganka Theater, and 10 years later he was forbidden to make a performance for the 100th anniversary of Vsevolod Emilievich. And yet, his enemies failed to “kill” Meyerhold a second time, and Boris Ryazhsky made no small contribution to that.

Vsevolod Emilievich Meyerhold left incredible strength document - a letter to Molotov:

"... they beat me here - a sick 65-year-old man: they laid me on the floor face down, they beat me with a rubber band on my heels and on my back; when I sat on a chair, they beat me with the same rubber on my legs from above, with great force ... In the following days, when these the places of the legs were filled with profuse internal hemorrhage, then these red-blue-yellow bruises were again beaten with this tourniquet, and the pain was such that it seemed that boiling water was poured onto the sore, sensitive places of the legs, I screamed and cried from pain. on the back with this rubber, with their hands they beat me in the face with swings from a height ...

... the investigator kept repeating, threatening: “You won’t write (that is, compose, then!?) We will beat again, leave the head and right hand, we will turn the rest into a piece of a shapeless, bloodied, mangled body. "And I signed everything until November 16, 1939. I renounce my testimony as if it had been beaten out of me, and I beg you, the head of the Government, save me, give me back my freedom. I love my Motherland and give her all my strength recent years of my life".

Already under Brezhnev, the thesis about "a period of unreasonable rehabilitations" sounded. This thesis is alive, like Stalinism and the Stalinists, to this day.

Maria Valentey only in 1991, i.e. 36 years after the rehabilitation of Meyerhold, they managed to achieve the release and return to the heirs of the director’s apartment, in which, after his arrest, the murder of Reich and the eviction of her children, the secretary and driver Lavrenty Beria settled and lived for more than half a century.

Now the Meyerhold Museum operates in this apartment.