Who was the writer Vasily Aksenov married to? Maya Zmeul (Carmen) - personal life, early life. Passion for Aksenov. The happiest time in life

September 20-21 House of Russian Abroad named after. A. Solzhenitsyn organized a memorial evening, an exhibition and a scientific conference for the 80th anniversary of the birth of Vasily Aksenov. Especially for RG, the widow of Andrei Voznesensky, writer Zoya Boguslavskaya, shares her memories of her friend and comrade-in-arms in the “sixties.”

He left for the States on a sultry July afternoon in 1980. There were a lot of people at the dacha in Peredelkino. Everyone laughed and told jokes, but the taste of hysteria from the knowledge that perhaps we would never see each other was felt, growing stronger. The farewell coincided with the wedding. Vasily Pavlovich Aksenov joined new life. Ahead is an uninhabited country, new woman- Maya, whom he fell in love with passionately, took a long time to conquer.

That day everything was intertwined: a celebration of love, the expectation of a miracle and separation, the bitterness of loss - everything was tragically unpredictable. What remains from the wedding is a photograph where a dressed-up Vasily and I are standing in an embrace in front of his car, pretending that everything is fine, that he has finally escaped, freedom, new sensations, and everyday comfort are ahead.

And a week before, in A. Voznesensky’s and my apartment on Kotelnicheskaya, we were furiously arguing about their upcoming departure. Vasily and Maya, me and Andrey with distorted faces, running around the room, uselessly and recklessly talk about the ways and meanings of the current emigration. Will he come back or won't he come back? If only it were possible to look into the book of destinies... If only I knew... If only I knew?..

You won’t be able to live there,” Andrey insists, turning pale, “without the elements of the Russian language, when faces, nature, smells are all just in memory. Besides, there are a dime a dozen celebrities there.

“Nothing like that,” Maya answers, gritting her teeth, “they will honor him there.” He will not hear daily threats or telephone swearing. Lord, just think that the nitpicking of every word, the persecution of censorship, will end! Already, American publishing houses are arguing about who will be the first to publish his new book.

Well, yes,” I scoff, “40 thousand couriers alone.” This won't happen! Each manuscript will go through the unbearably slow process of ordering reviews, then, even if they are enthusiastic, they will wait for the assessment of the publisher's internal experts.

That’s not the point, Zayata (Zoya), Vasya mumbles. “It’s just not possible here anymore.” They are pressing from all sides, you can’t breathe.

I knew that behind these words of Aksenov there was a harsh backstory associated with the publication of the novel “Burn,” the most significant work for him in recent decades. Banned by censorship in our magazines, it has already been in demand by several foreign publishers. The author's hesitation was painful; he began secret correspondence regarding the possible publication of "The Burn" in the West. Soon Aksenov was summoned to the KGB, where he was warned “in a friendly way”: “If this anti-Soviet movement comes out abroad,” he will either be imprisoned or deported. A softening of the harsh alternative could only be Aksenov’s consent to voluntary emigration within a month. The threat was real.

We remembered well how a decade ago N.S. Khrushchev destroyed exhibitions of abstract artists, the almanac “Tarussky Pages”, and during a historical meeting with the intelligentsia on March 8, 1963, he shouted that he would expel Andrei Voznesensky from the country:

Why do you advertise that you are not a party member? - the leader lost his temper and waved his fist. - Look what you are, you understand! "I'm not a party member!" He wants us to create some kind of non-party party. Here, you know, there is no place for liberalism, Mr. Voznesensky. Enough!..

And then Khrushchev saw that Aksenov was not applauding: “Why are you standing silently?” he switched to Vasily Pavlovich. “Avenge the death of your parents, Aksenov?” “Nikita Sergeevich, my parents are alive,” Vasily Pavlovich quietly corrected him. “Our family sees your merit in this.”

Khrushchev cast an angry glance towards the disinformers who had put him in a stupid position, and continued his work. This performance of “public” flogging, perhaps unique in Soviet cult history, united the two daring idols of that time for the rest of their lives.

Subsequently, Aksenov would sign one of his books to Voznesensky: “Dear Andrei! Do you remember how you and I stood under the dome of the Blue Hall, where we both had so much fun? With love, your Vasyata.”

And Voznesensky recalls this moment in verse: “The first meeting:/ the monster blew, but it didn’t mow us down./ Both stood before the numb elements./ The second meeting: over my father’s black grave/ I felt your hand, Vasily. /.../ Are we guilty of the terms in which they were friends, / that the city - venous - rivers repelled us?

Of course, Khrushchev's furious outburst against two young writers was not accidental. It was prepared by the denunciation of the Polish writer Wanda Wasilewska, who, during a personal meeting with Khrushchev, accused A. Voznesensky and V. Aksenov of ideological sabotage. She quoted an interview that they, while in Poland, gave to their leading newspaper, where they dared to assert that “socialist realism” is not the main and not the only method of Soviet art.

Thus, the historic meeting of the head of the country with the intelligentsia marked a sharp divide in the life of Soviet artists. Between the “Khrushchev Thaw” of 1961 and “Gorbachev’s glasnost and perestroika” of 1985, a black hole was dug into which a whole layer of outstanding creators of the generation of the 60-70s of different genres and directions fell.

After the arrest and exile of I. Brodsky (1972) and A. Solzhenitsyn (1973), under severe pressure, the following were pushed out of the country: V. Voinovich, G. Vladimov, Yu. Aleshkovsky, A. Galich, S. Dovlatov, M. Baryshnikov , R. Nuriev, M. Shemyakin, N. Makarov, Y. Cooper, O. Tselkov, L. Zbarsky, I. Rabin, O. Ioseliani, P. Lungin and many other now revered classics of the 20th century.

The Aksenovs left in 1980, when it seemed that the movement to the West had slowed down somewhat. However, at the border they endured all the bullying from officials who took away manuscripts, paintings, and tape recordings that accompanied forced emigrants...

When Aksenov came to America, our communication did not stop. It so happened that his arrival in New York coincided with my stay at Columbia University, for two months I was an invited “guest writer” to work on the book “American Women”... One of the most memorable for me was our intersection - in moment of the gravest drama in Aksenov’s life. That day he learned from newspapers and phone calls that he had been stripped of his Russian citizenship.

We are sitting with him in the cafeteria of Columbia University for professors. In the USA, meals for students and teachers are provided separately. - Criminals! - Aksenov shouts, not paying attention to his chewing colleagues. - You cannot deprive a person of his homeland!.. They want to cross out my life for all the past years, my books, my parents, my Magadan childhood in the Kostroma orphanage, my son Leshka (Keith in his stories), who continues to live in the Union.

I have nothing to object to; I completely share his indignation. Then we wandered for a long time along the dark embankment, the wet branches of the park tickled our faces. We both didn’t know that the citizenship taken away was just an episode in a long creative life writer Aksenov.

And so he returned, began to live in his country with Maya, in the same city with the children - Alyosha and Alena. They were given an apartment in a high-rise on Kotelnicheskaya Embankment, and now Andrey and I’s apartment was right above them.

Personal history, as it happens, has returned to normal...

We witnessed the beginning of Aksenov’s romance with Maya. They arrived from Yalta by train, together with Bella Akhmadulina, having fun all the way. Aksenov and Maya decided not to separate; they both had families. Maya and Roman Carmen lived with us in the same house, all in the same high-rise building on Kotelnicheskaya. I became friends with Maya, she often came running to me in horror at the situation. Nothing seemed to suggest her divorce from Carmen, the world's highest-flying documentary maker. Roman Carmen was a kind of legend, an eyewitness to Spanish events, a friend of Hemingway and Castro, he captured unique footage of the Great Patriotic War.

Golden-haired Maya aroused admiration among secular society for her youth, temperament, and amazingly insightful mind. She went to Aksenov at the peak of his disgrace; his only elegant outfit for the wedding was brought from America by her. And since then they have never parted. His main character "beauty" is always Maya in different variations. In one of his plays (I think it was “Heron”) he portrayed Maya and all of us as girls of all tastes.

At the end of the 60s, Aksenov recalled, the turning point in my worldview was partly due to the general generational hangover (Czechoslovakia, Brezhnevism, totalitarianism). It seemed to me that I had missed something that could illuminate my life and my writing. And then, in 1970, in Yalta I met Maya. We experienced very strong romantic love, and then it grew into spiritual intimacy. She knows me like crazy, I’m smaller than her, but both of us, especially now in old age, understand who we can rely on...

In addition to their Moscow housing, the Aksenov couple still had two working apartments in the West - one in Washington, the other on the ocean in Biarritz, essentially an artist’s studio.

As the years passed, time repaid almost everyone who suffered because of Metropol. Almost all of the writers returned; fate rewarded them for their persecution with increased attention from others, an increase in book circulation, universal love and demand. It seemed that justice had triumphed... But who can calculate how many plans, loves and affections, experience, lost joy of communication and lack of creative connections emigration can cost an artist?

“How can we describe everything without a letter that replaces everything that is taken away in art,” Bella Akhmadulina from Moscow complains in a letter to Aksenov in Washington, “to see each other, chat, talk and make reservations, or should we always write a letter to you?.. My beloved and ours! Forgive the confusion of my speeches, my thought about you is my constant occupation, but I don’t know where to start, how to end. "... Her husband, the artist Boris Messerer, joins in, rhyming: “Here is a new day that I will send you / to notify about the tearing of hearts / when I walk on snow and ice / through the forest and the abyss between you and me.”

“Vaska, I congratulate you on your birthday,” Bella Akhmadulina writes another time. “I miss you very much and, as always, I talk to you “across hundreds of separating miles.” And later, when I was already seriously ill, I diagnosed myself: “The soul has overpowered the body”...

How do you evaluate the American period of your life? - I ask Aksenov just before his return to Russia. - I mean teaching at the university, writing, America itself.

I devoted 21 years of my life to the “American university,” more precisely, to teaching Rus-Lit and my own phil-concept to boys and girls (sometimes of advanced age) from different states and countries. The university campus is the most natural environment for me, but now I am already thinking about retirement. I don’t know yet where I’ll spend more time.

I remember our later conversation, when he had already spent a lot of time in Biarritz and once again returned to Moscow. Traditionally, we sit in the Central House of Writers, drink juices and water. There were many versions about how Vasily Pavlovich “gave up”. In fact, I have already stated more than once how I personally witnessed his conversation with the doctor, which instantly stopped his libations. Today he could taste a glass of wine, nothing more.

Aksenov divided himself and his time into several equal parts. “We live in two houses,” he explained, “in Washington and in Moscow. Now this has also been added to a small house in the Basque Country. You constantly forget where you left your sweater or pants. “Maya, you don’t know where my suit is, that , another?" And she replies: “Don’t you remember, Vasya, where my cloak hangs, on Kotelniki or in Fairfax?”

Why do you write better in French Biarritz than in Moscow?

Because in Biarritz I have only one interlocutor at my desk,” Aksenov smiles. - There are too many interlocutors in Russia, and I get lost. Sometimes I have the feeling that writing and emigration are quite close concepts.

Well, really. But you often look absolutely happy. When, at what moments does this happen to you?

“In the process of writing a novel,” Aksenov states extremely seriously. - While I am writing it, I am absolutely happy. I'm quite sad when I say goodbye to him. You see, in the new novel I create a special world and only from those characters that are interesting to me...

I don’t remember Aksenov casually dressed, in a rumpled suit or washed-out shirt. His outfit is always “company”, famous labels. I explain his persistent passion for corporate style, technology, and charming women to those deprivations in childhood, when, perhaps as a teenager, he stood in front of an elegant store window, like characters from a fairy tale, dreaming that someday he, too, would be able to buy all this. And I was able to, and I bought it.

Does your personal life influence your creativity? Biographical facts, an aura of intense passion? I remember Yuri Nagibin used to say: “Every novel of mine is my unwritten novel.” For you too?

I agree that every successful romance (in this case, a love adventure) can become a heap of fascinating pages. But it is worth adding to this that a failed love affair can become a heap of even more exciting pages...

I think that the decades after his return to Moscow were the most disturbing and fruitful for the late Aksenov. Inexhaustible creative energy (he wrote almost a novel a year), a constant feeling of being in demand and the realization that he no longer had the same drive... It seemed that Aksenov’s presence in our art and life, as well as in gossip columns, was immutable, undeniable. If only I knew?

There was no long-term illness, ailments, special nervous breakdowns or depression... The suddenness of a severe illness that instantly paralyzed his activities came as a shock to everyone around him. He failed to become old. Nature preserved in him the need to write, his external attractiveness and charm, and his outstanding talent as a writer. Even at 75, he daily included in his daily routine morning jogging along the Yauzskaya embankment, the intense rhythm of a jazz fan, easily hitting the basketball basket with the ball, and daily planning several pages of text on a Macintosh.

On that fateful day, he was driving a car with his editor, when suddenly his brain turned off, he lost consciousness, the car skidded and only a miracle saved the passengers from a fatal collision on the roadway. The companion called an ambulance, Vasily Pavlovich was admitted to the Tagansk regional hospital, and then to the Institute. Sklifosovsky, where a brain thrombus was removed.

In recent months he was in the Burdenko clinic with Academician A.N. Konovalova. Alexander Nikolaevich himself and the attending physician, neuropathologist Vladimir Naidin, did everything using the latest achievements of world medicine, but everything was useless. He spent many months in a coma, from which he never recovered.

I am next to him in the bunker of the Burdenko clinic for the “unmemorable”. It is impossible to believe that Aksenov has been lying here unconscious for so long. Calm face, light blush, almost untouched thick hair. The body of a man that seemed to retain muscle strength and charm. It’s like a shell of a person from whom the personality, biography, and strongest passions have been taken out. And I sit next to him, turning over the pages of his life to myself.

“You talk to him, Zoya, talk,” Maya’s daughter, Alena, who loved Vasily Pavlovich very much, instructed me. It is she who constantly sits next to him for many hours. She is sure that this is temporary anyway, he will wake up and it will turn out that he heard everything, everything that was broadcast to him while he was in a coma. Following her instructions, I look at Aksenov’s prostrate body, covered in wires, and tell him last news. I outline in detail the gossip surrounding “The Mysterious Passion,” which he managed to read in the “Caravan of Stories” in a truncated form. A boom of delight and indignation was caused by the recognition of the prototypes caricatured in the novel. But the author did not think about this. It was written to him that the flight of fantasy led far from reality. Some grievances continued even after the death of Vasily Pavlovich. His inventions brought only tenderness to Andrey and me.

I remember him at that time when his mother was still alive - perhaps the most fateful person in the development of Aksenov the writer. As a person, Vasily Pavlovich was constructed from the first impressions of the Kostroma orphanage for children of “enemies of the people”, then Magadan, where he settled at the age of 12 with his exiled mother Evgenia Semyonovna Ginzburg. According to Vasily Pavlovich, the circle real characters The “steep route” (authored by his mother) consisted of outstanding people of that time: repressed scientists, politicians, artists, who formed a kind of “salon”, the content of which was reasoning on the highest topics. The impact of these considerations on children's consciousness is difficult to measure.

Even in his youth, he says, my mother developed a tendency to create a kind of “salon” around herself. thinking people. The first such salon, which included the Trotskyist Professor Elvov, exiled to Kazan, cost her her freedom.

The reader of Steep Route will find such a Ginzburg salon in a camp barracks. In post-camp exile, in Magadan, another salon arose, already of international class... The Soviet youth Vasya Aksenov was simply stunned in such a society: “I never imagined that such people existed in real life.” Soviet life... My mother and I immediately became friends. She revealed to me one of the main Soviet secrets, the existence of the “Silver Age”. In addition, she introduced me to the idol of her youth, Boris Pasternak.

By the end of school, I knew by heart many of his poems, which could not be obtained anywhere in printed form at that time... In addition, I learned from her how to be cunning with power, that is, how to find in " Soviet people" human qualities".

There was a short period when I had the opportunity to communicate quite closely with Evgenia Semyonovna Ginzburg. She lived in Peredelkino at the dacha of film screenwriter Joseph Olshansky. Her porch blends into the birch and pine trees of the expansive property. On this porch she read to me the final chapter of “The Steep Route,” which after her death remained a document of the era...

At this time, Maya, who was in love with him, came to Peredelkino almost every day. We already knew that Evgenia Semyonovna was terminally ill with the most terrible disease of the century; vitamins, vegetables, and fruits were needed to stabilize her condition. Maya brought freshly squeezed carrot juice and something else that she prepared herself. They became very close, which played an important role in their marriage.

Aksenov himself had an unusually close relationship with his mother. His love for her, his willingness to take on the most difficult situations is a rare gift. And, perhaps, the son’s great feat was his journey with his mother by car across Europe in the last year of her life. Hiding his despair, he fulfilled Evgenia Semyonovna’s dream and repaid what her life had wrongfully taken from her. She traveled her last journey with her son, talked with friends in France, Germany, and enjoyed the originals of world masterpieces in museums. They left and returned to Paris, to the same hotel where I was - L Eglon (Eaglet), whose windows overlook the Montparnasse cemetery. I watched their last holiday and how happy they both were!

She was buried on a chilly May day in 1977, the rain was pouring down, there were not many people there. It was striking that there were no those who would definitely have been present if it had not been for the rain.

Aksenov behaved courageously, from time to time turning away from the mourners, pressing his face to the tree, his shoulders trembling. For him, that part of his existence that was connected with his family, which fell under the steamroller of Stalin's time, was forever gone. He said goodbye to his mother, who had become the judge and lawyer of his life whom no one could replace.

I hope that in my homeland the boot that once gave me a kick in the ass will not grow again,” he laughs.

If you weren't writing, what would you be doing? - I ask him.

To be honest, I can’t even imagine such a situation...

Now Vasily Pavlovich would be eighty years old.

Andrey Voznesensky - about Aksenov

“For 20 years now, our country has been listening to Aksenov’s confessional monologue, listening eagerly - children became fathers, villages became cities, country roads became highways, heaven became everyday life, “fashion” became a classic - but the voice remained the same purity, it did not change us, the artist, the tape recorder of our existence - we have not betrayed him.

Aksenov is a tape recording, an almost uncensored recording of today's time - a city, a person, a soul. I once wrote him a poem for his fortieth birthday... “Falentary-year-old Vasily!/ Denim Sirin, an artist in flight and strength,/ Mustache forged your mouth with a rusty jeans, Vasily,/ Take away youth.../ O crowned name - Vasily.”

Vasily Pavlovich Aksenov was born in Kazan in August 1932. At the time of his birth, two children were already growing up in the family: sister Maya, Vasily’s brother on his father’s side, and brother Alexey, his brother on his mother’s side. These are children from the first marriages of Pavel Aksenov and Evgenia Ginzburg. Vasily became their first common child.

Vasily Aksenov’s parents were intelligent and quite famous people in Kazan. Pavel Vasilyevich is the chairman of the city council and a member of the bureau of the regional committee of the CPSU. Evgenia Solomonovna first taught at a pedagogical university, and later headed the cultural department at a regional newspaper.

In 1937, at the height of the “Stalinist purges,” both parents of Vasily Aksenov were arrested. At that time he was 4 years old. Vasily Aksenov’s older brother and sister were allowed to be taken by relatives. And the common son of the “enemies of the people” - Vasily - was forcibly sent to an orphanage for children of political prisoners like him.

Only a year later, Vasily’s uncle Andreyan Aksenov was able to find his little nephew and pick him up from the Kostroma orphanage. From 1938 to 1948, the boy lived with relatives in Kazan (now the Writer’s House-Museum, which houses a literary club, is open here). Mom managed to achieve reunification with her son only in 1948, when she left the Kolyma camps and lived as an exile in Magadan.

In 1956, Vasily Pavlovich Aksenov graduated from a medical school in Leningrad. According to his assignment, he was supposed to work as a doctor on long-distance ships belonging to the Baltic Shipping Company. But Aksyonov was never given permission. He had to work wherever he could get a job. In the Far North, the future writer worked as a quarantine doctor. Then he managed to find a place in a tuberculosis hospital in the capital. According to other sources, Aksenov was hired as a consultant at the Moscow Research Institute of Tuberculosis.

Creation

The creative biography of Vasily Aksenov began in the 1960s. The first to be published was his story “Colleagues,” which was later made into a film. Then the novel “Star Ticket” was published (a film was also made based on it, called “My Little Brother”) and two collections of short stories – “Catapult” and “Halfway to the Moon”. Based on Aksenov’s play “Always on Sale,” the Sovremennik Theater staged a play.

The name of Vasily Aksenov becomes more and more famous every year in literary circles, first in the capital, and then throughout the country. His works appear in thick magazines. The writer is accepted as a member of the editorial board of the magazine "Youth". But the authorities increasingly do not like Vasily Pavlovich’s social activities. In the spring of 1963, the writer came under criticism for the first time from the lips of a man who scolded Aksyonov at a demonstrative meeting with the intelligentsia within the walls of the Kremlin.

His situation was aggravated by his participation in a demonstration that the intelligentsia tried to organize on Red Square as a sign of protest against possible rehabilitation. Then Vasily Aksenov was briefly detained by vigilantes. In the late 1960s, the writer signed several letters in defense of dissidents. This resulted in punishment: a reprimand entered into a personal file from the capital branch of the Union of Writers of the USSR.

Since the mid-1970s, Aksenov has not been published in the Soviet Union. He writes his novels “Burn” and “Island of Crimea”, knowing that they cannot be published in the country. Criticism of the “non-Soviet” and “non-national” writer is becoming increasingly harsh. The time of the “thaw” is over.

At the end of the 1970s, the novels “Burn” about the Magadan period of Aksyonov’s youth and “Island of Crimea” were published in the USA. The last straw that broke the authorities’ patience was the voluntary withdrawal of Vasily Aksyonov and several other colleagues from the Writers’ Union. They decided to do this in protest against exclusion from the joint venture and. These events were later described in the novel “Say Raisins.”

Emigration

In July 1980, Vasily Pavlovich Aksenov received an invitation to America. After leaving, the writer was immediately deprived of citizenship in the USSR. He received the right to return to his homeland only after 10 years. During the period of forced emigration, Aksyonov worked as a professor of literature at several universities in America. For 10 years, Vasily Pavlovich has been a journalist for the Voice of America and Radio Liberty. His radio essays are published in various American almanacs. They are later collected in a book called “A Decade of Slander.”

In the USA, many of Vasily Aksenov’s works, written in different years and unreleased in their homeland. New works also appeared: the novels “Paper Landscape”, “In Search of the Sad Baby” and the “Moscow Saga” trilogy (filmed in Russia in 2004). In 1990, Aksenov was returned to Soviet citizenship, but he prefers to remain abroad, settling with his family in Béarritz, France. In Moscow it happens intermittently.

Vasily Aksyonov began publishing again in his homeland in the first decade of the 2000s. His novel entitled “Voltaireans and Voltaireans” appeared in the magazine “October”. He was awarded the Booker Prize. In 2009, the writer’s last novel, “Mysterious Passion,” was published. A novel about the sixties,” recently filmed in its homeland and released at the very end of 2015.

Personal life

Vasily Aksenov was married twice. His first wife is Kira Mendeleeva, a girl from a very famous family. Her father is brigade commander Lajos Gavro, and her grandmother Yulia Aronovna Mendeleeva is the first rector of a pediatric university in Leningrad. In this marriage, Aksyonov’s only son, Alexey, was born.

Vasily Aksenov’s personal life changed after meeting with the wife of the famous documentary filmmaker Roman Karmen. Aksyonov called Maya the main passion of his life. After moving to the USA, the wife worked as a Russian language teacher at one of the American universities.

Death

In January 2008, Vasily Aksyonov was hospitalized in one of the Moscow clinics, where he was diagnosed with a stroke. After the operation at the Sklifosovsky Scientific Institute, the expected improvement did not occur. Writer long time was in a coma. His wife Maya looked after him constantly.

In the summer of 2008, Aksyonov’s condition remained grave. In the spring of 2009, Vasily Pavlovich was operated on again at the Burdenko Scientific Institute. In July of the same year, the writer passed away. At the time of his death, Aksenov was 77 years old. Vasily Pavlovich was buried in Moscow, at the Vagankovskoye cemetery.

Bibliography

My grandfather is a monument
A chest in which something is knocking
Crimea Island
Say "raisin"
Looking for sad baby
Moscow saga
The negative of a positive hero
New sweet style
Caesarean glow
Voltaireans and Voltaireans

Premiere on Channel One: serial film “Mysterious Passion” based on the latest novel Vasily Aksenov, in which the author “encrypted” the names and surnames of his contemporaries. The prototypes of the heroes are the idols of the sixties: Robert Er - Robert Rozhdestvensky, Anton Andreotis - Andrei Voznesensky, Nella Akhho - Bella Akhmadulina, Yan Tushinsky - Evgeny Yevtushenko, Vasily Aksyonov himself under the nickname Vaxon and many others. AiF.ru invites you to recall the real biographies of the prototypes of the main characters of the novel.

Robert Rozhdestvensky

Creation: The first serious publications of Rozhdestvensky’s poems appeared in the Petrozavodsk magazine “At the Turnover” when the poet was only 18 years old. At that time he was just trying to enter the Literary Institute. M. Gorky, where he was accepted, but only on the second attempt. Rozhdestvensky’s first works contained a lot of civic pathos; he wrote about space exploration and the difficulties Everyday life. But the older the writer became, the more lyrical his poetry seemed, and love lyrics came to the fore.

Robert Rozhdestvensky. Photo: RIA Novosti / Boris Kaufman

Popularity of Rozhdestvensky Soviet years was huge: in the 60s he was one of those who conquered the Polytechnic and sports palaces, his creative evenings were held in front of full houses, and his books were published in huge editions.

Popular works: Rozhdestvensky’s famous poems about love are known in almost all countries, and many are familiar with his work thanks to the songs “My Years”, “Echo of Love”, “Ticket to Childhood”, “Gravity of the Earth”. He is the author of the words of the legendary song “Moments” from the movie Tatiana Lioznova"Seventeen Moments of Spring".

Personal life: Robert's entire personal life was connected with Alla Kireeva, artist and literary critic. He dedicated all his love poems to her, and she became the mother of his two daughters.

Death: Rozhdestvensky died in Moscow at the age of 62. In 1990, doctors gave the poet a terrible diagnosis: a malignant brain tumor. But after a successful operation, he managed to live another 4 years.

Interesting Facts: The poet stuttered badly, especially when he was worried, much less speaking in public, and this made him even more charming. But there was a reason for this speech disorder: they say that in childhood, in front of the poet’s eyes, his friend was hit by a car, after which Rozhdestvensky began to stutter.

Andrey Voznesensky

Creation: Voznesensky’s first collection, “Mosaic,” was published in 1958, when the poet was 26 years old. He immediately incurred the wrath of the authorities, because he did not reflect the principles that were instilled at that time. Then Voznesensky aroused sharp rejection among the Soviet literary community: his lyrics contained many daring metaphors and comparisons, an unusual rhythm of verse and a non-standard reflection of the tragedy of the Great Patriotic War. In 1963, Nikita Khrushchev himself sharply criticized the poet: “Look, what a Pasternak you found!.. Go to the damn grandmother. Get out, Mr. Voznesensky, to your masters!” Only in the 1970s did the persecution of the poet end and he finally began to be published in large numbers.

Popular works: Voznesensky was the author of eight poems and more than forty poetry collections. He is one of the creators of the rock opera “Juno and Avos” and the author of the words of the famous romance “I will never forget you.” Many popular pop songs were written based on his poems, including “A Million Scarlet Roses”, “Encore Song”, “Start Over”, “Give Me Back the Music”.

Personal life: Voznesensky lived for forty-six years in a happy marriage with theater and film critic, writer Zoya Boguslavskaya, who in 1964 left her husband for the famous author after he dedicated the poem “Uzza” to her.

Death: In 1995, Voznesensky was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, the poet began to lose his voice, and the muscles of his throat and limbs began to weaken. He died at home in the arms of his beloved wife at the age of 77 after a second stroke.

Interesting Facts: Popular in the 90s performed Evgenia Osina The song “The Girl is Crying in the Machine” was written based on Voznesensky’s poem “First Ice”. In the late 60s, the song “First Ice” was popular in urban courtyard culture, and in different years it was performed Nina Dorda and VIA "Jolly Fellows".

Bella Akhmadulina

Creation: Bella Akhmadulina began writing poetry during her school years, and her first publication was published in the magazine “October” when the author was only 18 years old. Many Soviet critics considered Akhmadulina’s poetry “irrelevant,” “vulgar,” and “banal,” but the young poetess, on the contrary, gained enormous popularity among readers. Despite her obvious talent, Akhmadulina was expelled from the Literary Institute for refusing to support bullying Boris Pasternak. Later she was restored and even given a honors diploma, but along with Yevtushenko and Voznesensky, the Soviet government never supported her.

Popular works: One of Akhmadulina’s most famous poems is “On my street which year...”, which became famous thanks to the film Eldara Ryazanova"Irony of Fate or Enjoy Your Bath!". The works of the poetess are also widely known: “And finally, I will say...”, “Oh, my shy hero...”, “From the depths of my adversity...”.

Personal life: Akhmadulina was married four times: to Evgeniy Yevtushenko, behind writer Yuri Nagibin, behind screenwriter Eldar Kuliev and for theater artist Boris Messerer.

Death: IN last years During her life, Akhmadulina was seriously ill. In 2010, at the age of 73, she died at her dacha in the village of Peredelkino near Moscow.

Interesting Facts: In 1964, Akhmadulina played a young journalist in the film Vasily Shukshina“There lives such a guy.” And six years later she starred in another film: “Sport, Sports, Sports.”

Evgeniy Yevtushenko

Creation: The poet's first poem was published when he was 17 years old, and the author's talent was so obvious that he was accepted into the Literary Institute without a school certificate. Then, in 1952, he became the youngest member of the USSR Writers' Union, bypassing the stage of candidate member of the joint venture.

The beginning of creativity coincided with the Khrushchev thaw, and Yevtushenko’s fresh poems turned out to be in tune positive sentiments youth. In the early 1960s, he was one of the first among poets to appear on stage, and his artistry and special manner of reading poetry contributed to his success.

In 1957, Yevtushenko was expelled from the institute for supporting the novel. Vladimir Dudintsev“Not by bread alone,” but he continued to participate in various protests and was in opposition to the authorities. In 1991, Yevtushenko signed a contract with an American university and left the country forever.

Personal life: Yevgeny Yevtushenko was officially married four times: to Bella Akhmadulina, Galina Sokol-Lukonina, my own fan Jen Butler and on Maria Novikova, with whom he still lives.

Popular works: In Yevtushenko’s bibliography there is a place not only for poetry, but also for prose works. The most famous of them are the autobiographies “Premature Autobiography” and “Wolf Passport”. He is also the author of the lyrics to well-known songs: “Do the Russians want war,” “And it’s snowing,” “Waltz about a waltz,” “This is what’s happening to me.”

Interesting Facts: After the publication of the poem “Babi Yar,” Yevgeny Yevtushenko was “excommunicated” from Ukraine for twenty years: he was not allowed to hold creative evenings and meetings with poetry lovers.

Vasily Aksyonov

Creation: In 1956, Aksyonov graduated from Leningrad medical school. He worked as a doctor in the North, in Karelia, in Leningrad, in Moscow. His first stories were published in the magazine “Yunost” already in 1958, but it took time for Aksyonov to give up medicine and take up writing seriously. His novels and stories turned out to be very popular, but aroused disapproval from the authorities: the writer was constantly accused of hidden anti-Sovietism. After the end of the “thaw” and the scandal with the publication of the uncensored almanac “Metropol” in the USSR, it was no longer published: as a sign of protest, Aksyonov voluntarily resigned from the Writers’ Union.

Vasily Aksenov. Photo: RIA Novosti

Popular works: The author’s most popular works are considered to be “The Moscow Saga”, “Trilogy”, “Burn” and “Island of Crimea”, which were unpublished due to censorship in the USSR. As well as his last completed novel, Mysterious Passion.

Personal life: Vasily Aksenov was married twice, his first wife was Kira Mendeleeva, and second Maya Carmen, which the poet himself called the main passion of his life.

Death: Aksenov died in 2009 at the age of 77 after a long illness.

Interesting Facts: After Aksenov was deprived of Soviet citizenship, he taught Russian literature at several US universities. In 1990, Aksenov and his wife were returned to Russian citizenship, but he never returned to his homeland, only appearing in Moscow from time to time.

Aksenov Vasily Pavlovich is a well-known Russian writer in wide circles. His works, imbued with the spirit of freethinking, tough and touching, sometimes surreal, do not leave any reader indifferent. The article will examine the biography of Vasily Aksenov and provide a list of his most interesting literary works.

early years

In 1932, on August 20, in the city of Kazan, Pavel Aksenov, chairman of the Kazan City Council, and Evgenia Ginzburg, a teacher at the Kazan Pedagogical Institute, had a son, Vasily. According to the family, he was already the third child, but the only one they shared. When the boy was not yet five years old, both parents (first his mother, then his father) were arrested and then sentenced to ten years in prison each. Having passed Stalin's camps, will subsequently publish a book of memoirs about the era of repression, “Steep Route,” which tells the story of eighteen years spent in prisons, exile, and Kolyma camps. But this is not about that now, we are interested in the biography of Vasily Aksenov.

After the imprisonment of the parents of the older children - Alyosha (son of Evgenia Ginzburg) and Maya (daughter of Pavel Aksenov) - they were taken into care by relatives. And Vasya was forcibly sent to an orphanage for children of convicts (the boy’s grandmothers wanted to keep him with them, but they were not allowed to do so). In 1938, Pyotr Aksenov’s brother, Andreyan, found the child in the Kostroma orphanage and took him to him. Until 1948, Vasya lived with a paternal relative, Moti Aksenova, until the boy’s mother, released from prison in 1947, obtained permission for her son to move to her in Kolyma. Later, the writer Vasily Aksenov will describe his Magadan youth in the novel “Burn”.

Education and work

In 1956, the guy graduated from the Leningrad Medical Institute and was assigned to work as a doctor at the Baltic Shipping Company on long-distance vessels. However, he was not given access, despite the fact that his parents had been rehabilitated by that time. There is information that Vasily Aksenov worked as a quarantine doctor in Karelia, in the Far North, in the Moscow tuberculosis hospital (according to other information, he was a consultant at the Tuberculosis Research Institute in Moscow), as well as in the naval commercial port Leningrad.

Beginning of literary activity

Aksenov can be considered a professional writer since 1960. In 1959, he wrote the story “Colleagues” (based on it in 1962, a film of the same name was made), in 1960, the work “Star Ticket” (the film “My Little Brother” was also based on it in 1962), two years later - the story “Oranges from Morocco”, and in 1963 - the novel “It’s Time, My Friend, It’s Time.” Then Vasily Aksenov’s books “Catapult” (1964) and “Halfway to the Moon” (1966) were published. In 1965, the play “Always on Sale” was written, which was staged on the stage of Sovremennik the same year. In 1968, the story of the satirical-fantasy genre “Overstocked Barrel” was published. In the sixties of the twentieth century, the works of Vasily Aksenov were published quite often in the magazine “Youth”. The writer worked on the editorial board of this publication for several years.

Seventies

In 1970, the first part of the adventure duology for children, “My Grandfather is a Monument,” was published, and in 1972, the second part, “The Chest in which Something Knocks,” was published. In 1971, the story “Love of Electricity” (about Leonid Krasin), written in the historical and biographical genre, was published. A year later in the magazine " New world"an experimental work was published with the title "Search for a Genre." In 1972, the novel “Gene Greene - Untouchable” was also created, which is a parody of an action film about spies. Vasily Aksenov worked on it together with Grigory Pozhenyan and Oleg Gorchakov. The work was published under the authorship of Grivadiy Gorpozhaks (a pseudonym from a combination of the surnames and names of three writers). In 1976, the writer translated from in English novel "Ragtime" by Edgar Lawrence Doctorow.

Social activity

The biography of Vasily Aksenov is filled with difficulties and hardships. In March 1966, while participating in an attempted demonstration against the intended rehabilitation of Stalin in Moscow, on Red Square, the writer was detained by vigilantes. Over the next two years, Aksenov put his signature on a number of letters sent in defense of dissidents, and was reprimanded for this by the Moscow branch of the Union of Writers of the USSR and included in the file.

Nikita Khrushchev, at a meeting with the intelligentsia back in 1963, sharply criticized Vasily Aksenov and Andrei Voznesensky. When the “thaw” ended, the writer’s works were no longer published in his homeland. In 1975, the novel “The Burn,” which we have already mentioned, was written. Vasily Aksenov did not even hope for its publication. “Island of Crimea” - a novel in the fantasy genre - was also initially created by the author without the expectation that the work would be published and seen by the world. At this time (1979), criticism towards the writer became more and more acute, epithets such as “anti-people” and “non-Soviet” began to creep into it. But in 1977-1978, Aksenov’s works began to appear abroad, mainly in the United States of America.

Together with Iskander Fazil, Bella Akhmadulina, Andrey Bitov and Evgeny Popov, Vasily Aksenov became the co-author and organizer of the Metropol almanac in 1978. It never made it into the Soviet censored press, but it was published in the USA. After this, all participants in the almanac underwent “workouts.” This was followed by the expulsion of Erofeev and Popov from the Union of Writers of the USSR, and as a sign of protest, Vasily Aksenov, together with Semyon Lipkin and Inna Lisnyanskaya, also announced their withdrawal from the joint venture.

Life in the USA

At the invitation, in the summer of 1980, the writer went to the United States, and in 1981, for this, his USSR citizenship was taken away. Aksenov lived in the USA until 2004. During his stay there, he worked as a professor of Russian literature at various American universities: the Kennan Institute (from 1981 to 1982), the University of Washington (from 1982 to 1983), Goucher College (from 1983). to 1988), Mason University (from 1988 to 2009). As a journalist from 1980 to 1991. Aksenov Vasily collaborated with radio stations Radio Liberty, Voice of America, the almanac "Glagol" and the magazine "Continent". The writer’s radio essays were published in the collection “A Decade of Slander,” published in 2004.

In the United States, works written but not published in Russia were published: “The Burn”, “Our Golden Iron”, “The Island of Crimea”, and the collection “The Right to the Island”. However, Vasily Aksenov continued to create in America: “The Moscow Saga” (trilogy, 1989, 1991, 1993), “The Negative of a Positive Hero” (collection of stories, 1995), “The New Sweet Style” (a novel dedicated to the life of Soviet emigrants in the USA, 1996) - all this was written while living in the United States. The writer created works not only in Russian; in 1989, the novel “Egg Yolk” was written in English (however, it was later translated by the author himself). At the invitation of Jack Matlock, the American ambassador, for the first time since going abroad (nine years later), Aksenov came to Soviet Union. In 1990, the writer was returned to Soviet citizenship.

Work in Russia

In 1993, during the dispersal of the Supreme Soviet, Vasily Aksenov again openly showed his convictions and expressed solidarity with the people who signed a letter in support of Yeltsin. In 2004, Anton Barshchevsky filmed the Moscow Saga trilogy in Russia. In the same year, the magazine “October” published the writer’s work “The Voltairians and Voltairians,” which was subsequently awarded. In 2005, Aksenov wrote a book of memoirs in the form of a personal diary entitled “The Apple of his Eye.”

last years of life

In his last years, the writer and his family lived either in France, in the city of Biarritz, or in Moscow. In the Russian capital, on January 15, 2008, Aksenov felt unwell and was hospitalized in the writer. The writer was diagnosed with a stroke. A day later, Vasily Pavlovich was transferred to the Sklifosovsky Research Institute, and he underwent surgery to remove a blood clot in the carotid artery. For a long time, the writer’s condition remained quite serious. And in March 2009, new complications appeared. Aksenov was transferred to the Burdenko Institute and operated on again. Then Vasily Pavlovich was again hospitalized in It was there that the writer died on July 6, 2009. Vasily Pavlovich was buried in Moscow, at the Vagankovskoye cemetery. In November 2009, in Kazan, in the house where the writer once lived, a Museum of his work was organized.

Vasily Aksenov: “Mysterious passion. A novel about the sixties"

This is the last completed work of the talented writer. It was published in full after Aksenov’s death, in October 2009. Prior to this, in 2008, individual chapters were published in the publication “Collection of the Caravan of Stories.” The novel is autobiographical, its heroes are the idols of art and literature of the sixties of the twentieth century: Evgeny Yevtushenko, Bulat Okudzhava, Andrei Voznesensky, Ernst Neizvestny, Robert Rozhdestvensky, Bella Akhmadulina, Marlen Khutsiev, Vladimir Vysotsky, Andrei Tarkovsky and others. Aksenov assigned fictitious names to the characters so that the work would not be associated with the memoir genre.

Prizes, awards, memory

In the United States of America the writer was awarded a doctorate. humanities. He was also a member of the American Authors League and PEN Club. In 2004, Aksenov was awarded the Russian Booker Prize for his work “The Voltairians and the Voltairians.” A year later he was awarded the honorary Order of Arts and Letters. The writer was a member Russian Academy arts

Every year since 2007, a literary and musical festival has been held in Kazan. international festival called "Aksenov-fest". For the first time it was held with the personal participation of Vasily Pavlovich. In 2009, the literary House-Museum of the famous writer was opened, and a literary city club now operates there. In 2010, the autobiographical unfinished novel of the writer “Lend-Lease” was published. Its presentation took place on November 7 at the Vasily Aksenov House-Museum.

In 2011, Evgeny Popov and Alexander Kabakov jointly published a book of memoirs about Vasily Pavlovich, which was called “Aksenov”. In it they examine the writer's fate, the intricacies of biography, and the process of the birth of a great Personality. The main task and idea of the book is to prevent the distortion of facts in favor of certain events.

Family

Vasily Aksenov's maternal brother, Alexey, died during the siege of Leningrad. Paternal sister, Maya, is a teacher-methodologist, author of many teaching aids In Russian. The writer’s first wife was Kira Mendeleva, and Aksenov’s son Alexei was born to her in 1960. Now he works as a production designer. The second wife and widow of the writer, Maya Aksenova (born in 1930), is a specialist in foreign trade by education. While the family lived in the United States, she taught Russian and worked at the Chamber of Commerce in Russia. Vasily Pavlovich and Maya Afanasyevna did not have children together, but Aksenov had a stepdaughter, Elena (born in 1954). She died in August 2008.

Roman Carmen was born in 1906 in Odessa. His father, Lazar Osipovich Karmen, grew up in a poor Jewish family. He became a self-taught writer. He gained fame for his stories about the people of the “bottom” - quarry workers and loaders of the Odessa port. While publishing in pre-revolutionary “thick” magazines, he met and became friends with Alexander Kuprin, Maxim Gorky, Leonid Andreev and other well-known writers of those times.

The books of Lazar Carmen “At the bottom of Odessa”, “Savages” and others were very popular. During the civil war, in 1920, when Odessa was in the hands of Denikin's troops, Lazar Carmen was arrested. The Red Army, which liberated Odessa, released the barely alive writer tortured by Denikin’s soldiers from prison, and he soon died.

As Roman Karmen writes in his memoirs, when his father died, he, still just a boy, had to sell newspapers on the streets of Odessa. Then he began working as an auxiliary worker in a port garage. And when he had a free minute, he ran to the sea, to the Austrian beach, which is remembered today only by old Odessa residents. Arriving in hometown already an adult, most spent time on Lanzheron or in Arcadia.

In 1923, like many young Odessa talents who later became famous - Valentin Kataev, Isaac Babel, Eduard Bagritsky, Yuri Olesha, Vera Inber, Ilf and Petrov, Roman Karmen moved to Moscow and became interested in photography, which had attracted him since childhood. He was only 17 years old when his mother, who worked at Ogonyok magazine, brought him to the editor-in-chief Mikhail Koltsov. Roman showed his photographs from the streets of Moscow at that time - he himself considered them not very successful and was afraid of a negative reaction, but Koltsov kindly said: “Well, you already know how to take pictures.” And the photographs of the young man were published. From that time on, his work began in photography, and then in film journalism.

His photographs were highly appreciated by Vladimir Mayakovsky and Mikhail Koltsov. Carmen films Lenin's funeral, the visit of writer Maxim Gorky to Moscow, photographs Mikhail Prishvin and Alexei Tolstoy. Four posthumous photographs of Sergei Yesenin were taken with Roman Karmen's camera, taken in the House of Press the day after the poet's death.

Photo: © Roman Carmen

During the same period, Roman Carmen began to write essays and notes, accompanying them with photo illustrations. Among Carmen's archival papers is a diploma awarded to him at an exhibition in honor of the decade Soviet power in 1927: “For the dynamic construction of the photographic frame, excellent composition and high technique of work.”

Soon Carmen left this career and entered VGIK. The following legend lives in the cinematic community about the reason that forced him to make this decision: once, when Roman Karmen was photographing Stalin, the leader of the peoples drew attention to the young photographer and asked:

Young man, how old are you?
“Twenty-four years,” Carmen stammered, frightened by the sudden interest of the formidable Secretary General.
“You’re such an adult, but you’re doing such nonsense,” Joseph Vissarionovich said affectionately.

Since 1932, the name of Roman Carmen has become associated with documentary cinema. After graduating from the cinematography department of VGIK, Roman Karmen was invited to work at the Central Documentary Film Studio, where he worked all his life, sending there film reports from all over the world from his long business trips.

Roman Karmen is filming on the icebreaker Joseph Stalin. 1939
Photo by Dmitry Debabov from the collection of S.N. Burasovsky.

Whoever he had to shoot! During the Spanish Civil War - Ernest Hemingway, who worked in Madrid as a correspondent for American newspapers, Secretary General Communist Party Spain Dolores Ibarruri, who, together with ordinary Spaniards, dug trenches near Madrid. After spending a year in China after Spain, he worked on a film about the struggle of the Chinese people against the Japanese invaders, filming the leaders of this country. During the Great Patriotic War, he photographed Marshals Zhukov, Rokossovsky, Vasilevsky, Konev more than once in the Kremlin at various receptions of Stalin. In Vietnam - the first president of this country, Ho Chi Minh. In Cuba - Che Guevara and Fidel Castro. In Paris - French President General de Gaulle and many other outstanding people of the 20th century.

In February 1943, Carmen filmed the surrender of Field Marshal Paulus at Stalingrad. On May 9, in Berlin, he filmed the signing of the act of unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany.

Here is what Konstantin Simonov wrote about Carmen in May 1945: “I saw Carmen in Berlin, on the steps of the Reichstag, completely sick, with his throat wrapped in bandages, hoarse, without a voice, maddened by the amount of work, active, tense and infinitely happy with our Victory! "

Roman Carmen during filming in Berlin, near the Brandenburg Gate, May 1945

Cinematographer Roman Karmen during filming in Berlin at the Brandenburg Gate. Germany. 1945
Read further: http://svpressa.ru/war/article/55116/

The roads of war led Carmen to Berlin to the burning Reichstag, and then to Nuremberg, where the International Tribunal tried Hitler's war criminals. This tribunal sat for ten months, revealing step by step the crimes of German fascism. Roman Karmen led a group of Soviet cameramen who filmed this process. In the dock sat the leaders of Hitler's Reich, who until recently had wielded ominous power over millions of people in European countries enslaved Nazi Germany. The judges were from the USA, England, France and the USSR.
After the Great Patriotic War, Roman Carmen wandered, in the full sense of the word, all over the world, filming documentaries in the jungles of Vietnam, where the people of this country fought against the French colonialists, and then against the American imperialists, in the Arctic, which was explored for the first time in the world by Soviet nuclear icebreakers, in Cuba, making a film about the oil workers of the Caspian Sea, for which Carmen was awarded the Lenin Prize, in He rarely visited Odessa. The last time I came to my hometown was to rebury my father, the writer Lazar Karmen, but this was in 1974, when, by decision of the city authorities, the old Jewish cemetery located on the Black Sea Road was demolished. All that remained of the entire cemetery was the gate, near which in 1918, during the French intervention, members of the “Foreign Collegium” led by Jeanne Labourbe were shot. Members of the board and Jeanne herself carried out subversive work among French soldiers and sailors, persuading them to rebel against their officers and return to their homeland.

And the ashes of Father Roman Lazarevich now rest in the 2nd Christian cemetery, opposite the demolished Jewish one...

Carmen died in Moscow in 1976 while working at the editing table, preparing another film for release. He was buried at the Novodevichy cemetery.

Roman Karmen - Soviet documentary filmmaker, front-line cameraman.
Honored Artist of the RSFSR (1957).
Honored Artist of the Azerbaijan SSR (1959).
People's Artist of the RSFSR (1965).
People's Artist of the USSR (11/29/1966).
Hero of Socialist Labor (03/18/1976).
Awarded two Orders of Lenin, the Order of the Red Banner, two Orders of the Red Banner of Labor (05/23/1940, 05/09/1957), medals.
Lenin Prize, for the films “The Tale of the Caspian Oil Workers” and “Conquerors of the Sea” (1960).
Stalin Prize of the first degree for the day “New World Day”
(1942).
Stalin Prize, second degree, for the film “The Court of Nations” (1947).
Stalin Prize of the third degree for the film “Soviet Turkmenistan” (1952).
USSR State Prize (1975, for the films “The Burning Continent” (1973), “Chile - a time of struggle, a time of anxiety”, “Camarados. Comrade” (1974).

Among Carmen's famous works: "Spain", 1939; "Destruction German troops near Moscow", 1942; “Leningrad in Struggle”, 1942; "Berlin", 1945; "The Court of Nations", 1946 Nuremberg trials; “The Tale of the Caspian Oil Workers”, 1953; "Conquerors of the Sea", 1959; "Vietnam", 1955; "Morning of India", 1956; “My Country is Wide...”, 1958 - the first Soviet panoramic film; "Burning Island", 1961; “The Great Patriotic War”, 1965; “Grenada, Grenada, my Grenada...”, 1968, authors Roman Carmen and Konstantin Simonov; “Comrade Berlin”, 1969; "The Burning Continent", 1972.

IN family life Carmen was married (for his second marriage) to the famous Moscow beauty Nina Orlova. In November 1942, after a fun party in Zubalovo1 (where, by the way, Svetlana Alliluyeva-Stalina met A. Kapler), she unexpectedly went to Vasily Stalin. Carmen, jealous, wrote a letter of complaint to Joseph Vissarionovich. A scandal was brewing. The Secretary General quickly conducted a short debriefing of his son, called General Vlasik and ordered: “Return this fool to Carmen. Colonel Stalin is to be arrested for 15 days.” The family was restored.

Carmen's first wife was Maria Gubelman, daughter of E. Yaroslavsky.

This was our fellow countryman, whose name is given to a cozy Odessa street, located very close to his beloved sea.

___________________________________________________________________

Arkady Khasin

Carmen Roman Lazarevich (11/16/1906, Odessa - 4/28/1978) - director and cameraman, People's Artist of the USSR (1966), Hero of Socialist Labor (1976), three-time winner of the Stalin Prize (1942, 1947, 1952).

Educated in State Institute cinematography (1932). As a cameraman he was in the revolutionary troops during Civil War in Spain (1936-39). Based on his filming, 22 newsreels “On Events in Spain” (1936-37) and the film “Spain” (1939) were prepared, presenting Spanish events in a way favorable to the party, one of the creators of the legend of the heroic struggle of the communists. In 1939 he joined the CPSU(b). During the Great Patriotic War - at the front. The materials he shot were included in the films “The Defeat of German Troops near Moscow” (1942), “Leningrad in the Struggle” (1942), “Berlin” (1945).

Roman Carmen was the scriptwriter, director and director of filming of the propaganda film “The Court of Nations” (1947) about the Nuremberg trials. In addition, he directed “25th October” (1943), “Battle of Oryol” (1943), “Maidanek” (1944), “The Tale of the Caspian Oil Workers” (1953). Being a brilliant cameraman, K. created a documentary substantiation of the myth of the Great Patriotic War created by Soviet propaganda. Patriotic War. He always acted in line with the general line of Soviet party propaganda.

After the death of I.V. Stalin remained the leading documentary filmmaker of the USSR, making propaganda films. Among his works are “Conquerors of the Sea” (1954), “The Great Patriotic War” (1965), “The Heart of Corvalan” (1975). He was the director and author of 2 films in the epic “The Great Patriotic War” (1979). Since 1960 he headed the camera department of VGIK. In 1960 he received the Lenin Prize and in 1975 the State Prize.

Materials used:
from the book: Zalessky K.A. Stalin's Empire.
Biographical encyclopedic dictionary.