When Bourdonsky died. The fate of Stalin's descendants: why Alexander Burdonsky abandoned his grandfather's surname

On May 24, Alexander Vasilyevich Burdonsky, People's Artist of Russia, Honored Artist of the RSFSR, director of the Central Academic Theater of the Russian Army (TsATRA), grandson, son and Galina Burdonskaya, died in Moscow at the age of 76.

This was announced by the press secretary of the Central Academic Theater of the Russian Army Marina Astafieva.

"Alexander Vasilievich died late last night after a serious illness at the age of 76," Astafieva said.

The director died in a hospital in Moscow. According to preliminary data, the cause of death was sudden cardiac arrest.

Farewell to him will take place in TsATRA.

Alexander Vasilievich Burdonsky Born October 14, 1941 in Kuibyshev (now Samara) in the family of Vasily Stalin and Galina Burdonskaya.

Until the age of 13 he was Stalin, in 1954 he changed his last name.

Born in evacuation when his parents were only 20 years old. Four years later, they broke up, Bourdonskaya was not allowed to keep the child, and his father was engaged in his upbringing.

He graduated from the Kalinin Suvorov School and the directing department of GITIS. He also entered the acting course of the studio at the Sovremennik Theater to Oleg Nikolaevich Efremov.

After graduating from GITIS in 1971, Anatoly Efros invited Bourdonsky to play Shakespeare's Romeo in the theater on Malaya Bronnaya. Three months later, Maria Knebel calls to the Central Theater of the Soviet Army to stage the play “The One Who Gets a Slap in the Face” by Leonid Andreev, in which Andrey Popov and Vladimir Zeldin played. After the implementation of this production in 1972, the chief director of the TsTSA Andrey Alekseevich Popov invited A.V. Burdonsky to stay in the theater.

As the director himself noted, fate saved him from the fate of the royal child - he happened to take his first steps in the profession at a time when his origin, to put it mildly, did not help him. But talent helped - this is evidenced by at least the fact that in 1971 (that is, a year before moving to the Army Theater) Anatoly Efros called a young graduate of GITIS to the Theater on Malaya Bronnaya for the role of Shakespeare's Romeo.

Alexander Burdonsky. Alone with everyone

For ten years he taught at GITIS together with.

He was married to his classmate Dalia Tumalyavichuta, who worked as the chief director of the Youth Theater. Widowed, had no children.

Theatrical performances by Alexander Burdonsky at the Theater of the Russian Army

"The one who receives a slap in the face" by Leonid Andreev
"Lady with Camellias" by A. Dumas son
"Snows have fallen" R. Fedenev
"Garden" by V. Arro
"Orpheus Descends to Hell" by T. Williams
"Vassa Zheleznova" by Maxim Gorky
"Your sister and captive" L. Razumovskaya
"Mandate" by Nikolai Erdman
"The conditions dictate the lady" E. Alice and R. Reese
"The last passionately in love" N. Simon
Britannic J. Racine
"Trees die standing" by Alejandro Casona
"Duet for soloist" T. Kempinski
Broadway Charades by M. Orr and R. Denham
“Harp of greeting” by M. Bogomolny
"Invitation to the Castle" J. Anuya
"Duel of the Queen" by D. Marrell
"Silver Bells" by G. Ibsen
"The one that is not expected ..." Alejandro Casona
"The Seagull" by A. Chekhov
Elinor and Her Men by James Goldman
“Playing the Keys of the Soul” based on the play “Liv Stein” by N. Kharatishvili
"With you and without you" K. Simonov
“This madman Platonov” based on the play “Fatherlessness” by A.P. Chekhov

Vasily Stalin, the future lieutenant general of aviation, was born in the second marriage of Joseph Stalin with Nadezhda Alliluyeva. At the age of 12, he lost his mother. She shot herself in 1932. Stalin did not deal with his upbringing, shifting this concern to the head of security. Later, Vasily will write that he was brought up by men "not distinguished by morality ... ... Early began to smoke and drink."

At the age of 19 he fell in love with his friend's fiancee Galina Burdonskaya and married her in 1940. In 1941, the first-born Sasha was born, two years later Nadezhda.

After 4 years, Galina left, unable to withstand her husband's spree. In retaliation, he refused to give her children. For eight years they had to live with their father, despite the fact that a year later he had another family.

The new chosen one was the daughter of Marshal Timoshenko Ekaterina. The ambitious beauty, born on December 21, like Stalin, and who saw this as a special sign, disliked her stepchildren. The hatred was manic. She locked them up, “forgot” to feed them, beat them. Vasily paid no attention to this. The only thing that bothered him was that the children did not see their own mother. Once Alexander met with her secretly, the father found out about this and beat his son.

Many years later, Alexander recalled those years as the most difficult time of his life.

In the second marriage, Vasily Jr. and daughter Svetlana were born. But the family fell apart. Vasily, together with the children from his first marriage, Alexander and Nadezhda, went to the famous swimmer Kapitolina Vasilyeva. She accepted them as family. Children from the second marriage remained with their mother.

After Stalin's death, Vasily was arrested.

The first wife Galina immediately took the children. Nobody stopped her from doing this.

Catherine renounced Vasily, received a pension from the state and a four-room apartment on Gorky Street (now Tverskaya), where she lived with her son and daughter. Either due to severe heredity, or no less difficult situation in the family, their further fate was tragic.

Both did poorly in school. One, because she was sick all the time. Others were not interested in studying at all.

After the 21st party congress and the exposure of the cult of personality, the negative attitude towards all Stalin's relatives intensified in society. Catherine, trying to protect her son, sent him to Georgia to study. There he entered the Faculty of Law. I did not go to classes, spent time with new friends, became addicted to drugs.

The problem was not immediately recognized. From the third year, his mother took him to Moscow, but she could not cure him. During one of the “breakdowns”, Vasily committed suicide at the dacha of his famous grandfather, Marshal Timoshenko. He was only 23.

After the death of her son, Catherine withdrew into herself. She did not love her daughter and even refused custody of her, despite the fact that Svetlana suffered from Graves' disease and a progressive mental illness.

Svetlana died at the age of 43, completely alone. Her death was not known until a few weeks later.

Vasily's children from his first marriage were more successful.

Alexander graduated from the Suvorov Military School. The military career did not interest him, and he entered the directing department of GITIS. He played in the theater, received the title of People's Artist. He worked as a director of the Theater of the Soviet Army. He considered grandfather a tyrant, and his relationship with him was a “heavy cross”. He loved his mother very much, lived with her most of the time and bore her surname Bourdonsky. Passed away in 2017.

Nadezhda, unlike her brother, remained Stalin. She always defended her grandfather, argued that Stalin did not know much of what was happening in the country. She studied at the theater, but the actress did not work out of her. For some time she lived in Gori. Upon her return to Moscow, she married her adopted son and mother-in-law Alexander Fadeev, gave birth to a daughter, Anastasia. Nadezhda died in 1999 at the age of 56.

Vasily had no other native children.

The last wife was the nurse Maria Nusberg. He adopted two of her daughters, just as he had previously adopted the daughter of Kapitolina Vasilyeva.

Alexander Vasilievich Burdonsky direct grandson of I. V. Stalin, eldest son of Vasily Stalin.

He is the only one of Stalin's descendants who published his DNA.

Joseph Stalin's grandson Alexander Burdonsky: "Grandfather was a real tyrant. I can't see how someone is trying to invent angel wings for him, denying the crimes he committed."

Joseph Stalin's grandson Alexander Burdonsky: "Grandfather was a real tyrant. I can't see how someone is trying to invent angel wings for him, denying the crimes he committed."

After the death of Vasily Iosifovich, seven children remained: four of his own and three adopted. Now, of his own children, only 75-year-old Alexander Burdonsky is alive - the son of Vasily Stalin from his first wife Galina Burdonskaya. He is a director, People's Artist of Russia - lives in Moscow and heads the Central Academic Theater of the Russian Army.

Alexander Burdonsky met his grandfather the only time - at the funeral. And before that, I saw him, like other pioneers, only at demonstrations: on Victory Day and on the October anniversary. The eternally busy head of state did not express any desire to communicate with his grandson closer. And the grandson was not too eager. At the age of 13, he basically took his mother's surname (many relatives of Galina Burdonskaya died in the Stalinist camps).

- Is it true that your father - "a man of crazy courage" - recaptured your mother from the famous hockey player Vladimir Menshikov in the past?

Yes, they were 19 at the time. When my father took care of my mother, he was like Paratov from "Dowry". What were his flights on a small plane over the Kirovskaya metro station, near which she lived ... He knew how to show off! In 1940, the parents got married.
My mother was cheerful, loved the color red. She even made a red wedding dress. It turned out to be a bad omen...

- In the book "Around Stalin" it is written that your grandfather did not come to this wedding. In a letter to his son, he sharply wrote: "Married - to hell with you. I pity her that she married such a fool." But after all, your parents looked like an ideal couple, even outwardly they were so similar that they were mistaken for brother and sister ...

- It seems to me that my mother loved him until the end of her days, but they had to leave ... She was just a rare person - she could not pretend to be someone and never dissembled (maybe this was her misfortune) ...

- According to the official version, Galina Alexandrovna left, unable to withstand the constant drinking, assault and betrayal. For example, the fleeting connection between Vasily Stalin and the wife of the famous cameraman Roman Karmen Nina ...

- Among other things, my mother did not know how to make friends in this circle. The head of security, Nikolai Vlasik (who raised Vasily after the death of his mother in 1932), an eternal intriguer, tried to use her: "Tick, you have to tell me what Vasya's friends are talking about." His mother is a mother! He hissed, "You'll pay for this."

Quite possibly, the divorce from his father was the price. In order for the leader's son to take a wife from his circle, Vlasik twisted an intrigue and slipped him Katya Timoshenko, the daughter of Marshal Semyon Konstantinovich Timoshenko.

- Is it true that the stepmother, who grew up in an orphanage after her mother ran away from her husband, offended you, almost starved you?

- Ekaterina Semyonovna was a domineering and cruel woman. We, other people's children, apparently annoyed her. Perhaps that period of life was the most difficult. We lacked not only warmth, but also elementary care. They forgot to feed us for three or four days, some were locked in a room. Our stepmother treated us terribly. She beat her sister Nadya in the most cruel way - her kidneys were beaten off.

Before leaving for Germany, our family lived in the country in the winter. I remember how we, small children, crept into the cellar at night in the dark, stuffed beets and carrots into our pants, brushed unwashed vegetables with our teeth and gnawed them. Just a scene from a horror movie. The cook Isaevna got a great deal when she brought us something ....

Catherine's life with her father is full of scandals. I don't think he loved her. Most likely, there were no special feelings on both sides. Very prudent, she, like everything else in her life, simply calculated this marriage. You need to know what she was up to. If well-being, then the goal can be said to have been achieved. Catherine brought a huge amount of junk from Germany. All this was stored in a shed at our dacha, where Nadya and I were starving... And when my father sent my stepmother out in 1949, it took her several cars to take out the trophy goods. Nadia and I heard a noise in the yard and rushed to the window. We see: "Studebakers" are walking in a chain "...

- Stalin's adopted son Artem Sergeev recalled that when he saw your father pour himself another portion of alcohol, he told him: "Vasya, that's enough." He answered: “I have only two options: a bullet or a glass. After all, I am alive while my father is alive. And as soon as he closes his eyes, Beria will tear me to pieces the next day, and Khrushchev and Malenkov will help him, and Bulganin will go there They won't tolerate such a witness. Do you know what it's like to live under an ax? So I'm getting away from these thoughts "...

- I was with my father in the Vladimir prison and in Lefortovo. I saw a man driven into a corner who could not stand up for himself and justify himself. And his conversation was mainly, of course, about how to get out. He understood that neither I nor my sister (she died eight years ago) could help with this. He was tormented by a sense of injustice done to him.

- You and your cousin Evgeny Dzhugashvili are fantastically different people. You speak in a low voice and love poetry, he is a loud-voiced military man, regretting the good old days and wondering why "the ashes of this Klaas do not knock on your heart" ...

“I don’t like fanatics, and Yevgeny is a fanatic who lives in the name of Stalin. I cannot see how someone adores the leader and denies the crimes he committed.

- A year ago, another of your relatives along the line of Yevgeny - 33-year-old artist Yakov Dzhugashvili - turned to Russian President Vladimir Putin with a request to investigate the circumstances of the death of his great-grandfather Joseph Stalin. Your cousin-nephew claims in his letter that Stalin died a violent death and this "made possible the coming to power of Khrushchev, who imagines himself a statesman, whose so-called activities turned out to be nothing more than a betrayal of state interests." Being sure that a coup d'etat took place in March 1953, Yakov Dzhugashvili asks Vladimir Putin "to determine the degree of responsibility of all persons involved in the coup."

- I do not support this idea. It seems to me that such things can only be done because there is nothing to do ... What happened, happened. People have already passed away, why stir up the past?

- According to legend, Stalin refused to exchange his eldest son Yakov for Field Marshal Paulus, saying: "I do not change a soldier for a field marshal." Relatively recently, the Pentagon handed over to Stalin's granddaughter, Galina Yakovlevna Dzhugashvili, materials about the death of her father in Nazi captivity ...

It's never too late to take a noble step. I would be lying if I said that I shuddered or my soul ached when these documents were handed over. All this is a thing of the distant past. And it is primarily important for Yasha's daughter Galina, because she lives in the memory of her father, who loved her very much.

It is important to put an end to it, because the more time passes after all the events related to the Stalin family, the more difficult it is to reach the truth ...

Is it true that Stalin was the son of Nikolai Przhevalsky? The well-known traveler allegedly stayed in Gori in the house where Dzhugashvili's mother, Ekaterina Geladze, worked as a maid. These rumors were fueled by the amazing external resemblance of Przhevalsky and Stalin ...

In the last year of his life, Vasily Stalin began his day with a glass of wine and a glass of vodka.

— I don't think so. Rather, it's something else. Stalin was fond of the teachings of the religious mystic Gurdjieff, and it suggests that a person should hide his real origin and even envelop the date of his birth with a certain veil. The legend of Przhevalsky, of course, poured water on this mill. And what is similar in appearance, so please, there are still rumors that Saddam Hussein was the son of Stalin ...

- Alexander Vasilyevich, have you ever heard suggestions that you inherited your talent as a director from your grandfather?

- Yes, they sometimes told me: "It is clear why the Bourdon director. Stalin was also a director" ... Grandfather was a tyrant. Let someone really want to attach angel wings to him - they won’t stay on him ... When Stalin died, I was terribly ashamed that everyone around was crying, but I wasn’t. I sat near the coffin and saw crowds of sobbing people. I was rather frightened by it, even shocked. What good could I have for him? Thank you for what? For the crippled childhood I had? I don't wish this on anyone... Being Stalin's grandson is a heavy cross. Never for any money will I go to play Stalin in the cinema, although they promised huge profits.

What do you think about Radzinsky's sensational book "Stalin"?

- Radzinsky, apparently, wanted in me as a director to find some other key to the character of Stalin. He allegedly came to listen to me, but he himself spoke for four hours. I enjoyed sitting and listening to his monologue. But he did not understand the true Stalin, it seems to me ....

- The artistic director of the Taganka Theater Yuri Lyubimov said that Iosif Vissarionovich ate and then wiped his hands on a starched tablecloth - he is a dictator, why should he be ashamed? But your grandmother Nadezhda Alliluyeva, they say, was a very well-mannered and modest woman ...

- Once in the 50s, grandmother's sister Anna Sergeevna Alliluyeva gave us a chest where Nadezhda Sergeevna's things were kept. I was struck by the modesty of her dresses. An old jacket darned under the arm, a worn skirt of dark wool, and patched on the inside. And it was worn by a young woman who was said to love beautiful clothes...

The famous director Alexander Burdonsky passed away last night

Late the night before, in one of the Moscow clinics, Alexander Vasilievich Burdonsky, the director of the Theater of the Russian Army, the son of Vasily Stalin, the grandson of the “father of peoples”, died. His whole life was overcoming the circumstances of his relationship. Read more in the Realnoe Vremya material.

Black chick on the escalator

We met Alexander Vasilievich in October 1989, in one of the first conversations he spoke about a documentary film that he had once seen at the Moscow Film Festival. It was a film by Hungarian filmmakers about a poultry farm. There, yellow chickens ran along a long line, and when they reached the machine, he dumped them into a basket.

But then a black chicken fell on the tape, and it also ran to the right place, and the photocell did not work: the chicken was of a different color. It's hard to be a black chicken, not like everyone else. Alexander Vasilievich initially, by the fact of birth, was "not like everyone else." It is no coincidence that when he graduated from the directing department of GITIS, Yuri Zavadsky invited him to the theater. Moscow City Council for the role of Hamlet, the "black prince". After much deliberation, Bourdonsky refused.

In honor of Suvorov

He was born on October 14, 1941 in Samara, then Kuibyshev, where the Alliluyev-Stalin clan was sent for evacuation. His parents met shortly before the war, Vasily Iosifovich literally stole his bride, a charming blonde Galina Burdonskaya, from his hockey player friend. He courted beautifully, for example, he could fly up to her yard in a small plane and drop a bouquet of flowers.

The father, together with his friend, the pilot Stepan Mikoyan, flew to Samara a couple of days later - Vasily Iosifovich wanted to brag about his son. He named him Alexander in honor of Suvorov and planned a military career for him.

Galina Burdonskaya and Vasily Stalin with little Sasha. Photo bulvar.com.ua

Parents divorced almost immediately after the end of the war, and Vasily Iosifovich, in retaliation for his ex-wife, did not give her children to her and forbade even seeing them. Once Alexander Vasilyevich violated the ban and saw his mother. When the father found out about this, punishment followed: he "exiled" his son to the Suvorov School in Tver.

Burdonsky never saw his grandfather, Stalin was not interested in grandchildren. For him, his grandfather was a symbolic figure on the mausoleum, which could be seen at demonstrations. Never saw her father-in-law in her life and Galina Burdonskaya, although it is known that even after the divorce she did not fall under the hammer of repression thanks to Stalin's protection. Once he called Beria and told him: “Don’t you dare touch Svetlana and Galina!”

When Stalin died, the grandson was brought to his grandfather's funeral, and he sat near the coffin, looking at the long procession of people walking. Stalin's death did not cause any emotions in him. Soon his father was arrested, and Alexander Vasilyevich, together with his sister Nadezhda, was returned to his mother.

Vasily Iosifovich, an ambiguous, tragic figure, spent his last years in exile in Kazan. Here he died under mysterious circumstances. Burdonsky and his sister came to Kazan for his funeral. Alexander Vasilyevich later recalled that the death of Vasily Stalin was not officially reported, but the news spread throughout Kazan, and many people came to say goodbye to him. People walked and walked to his apartment on Gagarin, walked in silence. Men in civilian clothes came up, opened the flaps of their coats, and orders were visible under them. So the front-line soldiers said goodbye to the combat general - a brave pilot. Vasily Stalin really was an ace and did not hide in the war.

“He is the grandson of Stalin”

Bourdonsky never thought about a military career, from early childhood he thought only about the theater. Two of his childhood shocks are Galina Ulanova, seen at the Bolshoi Theater, and Vladimir Zeldin in the play "The Dance Teacher".

Vasily Stalin at the farewell ceremony for his father. Moscow, Column Hall of the House of the Unions, March 6, 1953. Photo jenskiymir.com

He decided to enter GITIS, the directing department. The course was recruited by the legendary student of Stanislavsky Maria Knebel, whose family suffered from repression. She later told Alexander Vasilyevich: “Stalin’s grandson stood in front of me, and I understood that now I could decide his fate. It lasted a fraction of a second, and I said to myself: “God, what am I thinking about! .. He’s not to blame for anything.” Bourdonsky later became her favorite student.

He graduated from GITIS, where he studied at the same time and was friends with the future chief director of the Kamalovsky Theater Marcel Salimzhanov, but could not find work in Moscow. Nobody wanted to take on the staff of Stalin's grandson. Maria Knebel helped, she took him as an assistant to her production of "The One Who Gets Slaps" at the Central Theater of the Soviet Army. And after a successful premiere, Alexander Vasilyevich was hired by this theater, which he did not betray until the end of his life.

Helped "Look"

Bourdonsky never advertised his relationship with Stalin. His view of his grandfather was always balanced and objective. As a matter of principle, he never staged performances about Joseph Vissarionovich, although there were such proposals. And he never got involved in politics.

During the years of perestroika, he rehearsed a play based on Erdman's comedy Mandate, and they tried to close the play, which was bold at that time. Alexander Lyubimov helped, inviting the director to the then super-popular Vzglyad program, then many learned that Alexander Burdonsky was Joseph Stalin's own eldest grandson.

Alexander Vasilyevich was one of the brightest representatives of romanticism in the Russian theater. The theater was the greatest love of his life. He worked in line with the Russian psychological theater, without betraying him even once. And that takes a lot of courage now. His "Broadway Charades" or "Invitation to the Castle" were impeccably stylish. "The Lady of the Camellias" - nostalgically beautiful. The performances of Chekhov's plays are like gentle nocturnes.

The theater was the greatest love in his life. He worked in line with the Russian psychological theater, without betraying him even once. Photo molnet.ru

A few years ago, Alexander Burdonsky came on tour to Kazan, his performances were sold out. He could no longer visit his father's grave - by this time, incomprehensible "relatives" had already reburied the ashes of General Vasily Stalin in Moscow.

It's hard to be a "black chicken". It is difficult not to fall into the temptation, having felt one's "peculiarity" due to the stellar relationship, just as it was not easy to endure the years of Stalin's overthrow and the dislike that stupid people projected onto his relatives. He passed all tests with dignity.

Tatyana Mamaeva

Alexander Vasilyevich Burdonsky was born on October 14, 1941 in Moscow. Graduated from the directing department of the State Institute of Theater Arts. A. V. Lunacharsky (GITIS). Director of the Theater of the Russian Army. People's Artist of Russia. Son of Vasily Iosifovich Stalin.

ALEXANDER BURDONSKY:

THE FATE OF THE TSAR'S CHILD PASSED ME

People's Artist of the Russian Federation director Alexander Vasilyevich Burdonsky (Stalin)

- This is not quite an interview, Alexander Vasilyevich, because an interview of a domestic plan is of no interest to me. I'm interested in something else. All of us are born one day, but for some reason only a few break away from their intended social function and become freelance artists. Were there any motives, moments in your life that pushed you on the path to art?

You know, Yuri Alexandrovich, the question is, of course, a difficult one, because, perhaps, it leads to some invented things. In order not to compose, it is better to say the way things really were. You know that I would not dare to answer your question in general terms, but I can perhaps even trace what happened to me in my life quite consistently. I was born on Intercession Day, October 14, 1941. At that time, my father, Vasily Iosifovich Stalin, was only 20 years old, that is, he was still quite green, he was born in 1921, he did not drink, he did not walk yet. But I bear the name of my mother, Burdonskaya Galina Alexandrovna. Father and mother were the same age, from the same year of birth. Once in the army of Napoleon there was such a Bourdone, who came to Russia, was seriously wounded, remained near Volokolamsk, got married there, and this surname went. On the Alliluyev line, on the great-grandmother, that is, the mother of Nadezhda Sergeevna, this is the German-Ukrainian line, and on the line of Sergei Yakovlevich Alliluyev, this is gypsy and Georgian blood. So there is a lot of blood in me, which, perhaps, in its own way, also gave something, some extra convolution. You know, perhaps, that I almost don’t remember, but I only know from stories, my grandmother, my mother’s mother, who was very fond of literature in general, and read avidly, and read French, in particular, and spoke excellent -French, but then I forgot it, but I could read it. At one time, if you remember, French was the official Russian language, however, the language of the aristocracy ... But my grandmother was not an aristocrat, although she was brought up by her godmother in the family of an oil millionaire who lived in Moscow. Here her godmother was a woman who was interested in art, loved culture. My grandmother used to tell me Wilde's tales. The only thing I remember is Star Boy. It was up to four and a half years. I only started reading when I was about seven years old. Grandmother, by the way, took me for a walk to the CDSA park. She took me, like a little pig, under her arm, carried and told fairy tales ... Then for a long time, life turned out like this, I didn’t live with my mother and grandmother, but lived with my father ... But, I think that grandmother’s fairy tales are the drop that got somewhere, probably. Because, they say, I was a very impressionable boy as a child. And then my mother said, when I grew up: "You have such iron hands." That was the moment later. For a long time I lived in a dacha in Ilyinsky, this is where Zhukovka is, a little further away, and Arkhangelskoye is not far away. There is the Moscow River, there are fields. Very good place. You can read about such a lordly life in Tolstoy or Benois. There were really wonderful conditions there, the dacha was very decent. There was a man who loved nature very much, he was either a commandant or a gardener, it is difficult to determine his position, but I remember early spring, and he told me about every blade of grass, about every tree, about every leaf, he knew everything about plants. And I listened with interest to his stories, I still remember it, wandered with him throughout this territory, walked into the forest, looked at huge anthills, saw the first insects that crawled out into the world, and it was all very interesting to me . And I think it was the second drop. Then I, as a sin, learned to read. For some reason, I started reading Garshin. From the very first authors. Apparently, under the influence of Garshin, I harbored a grudge against my loved ones, and there were many reasons for this, I just don’t want to dramatize anything, but one day, imagine, I decided to run away from home, and insofar as I read books that run away from home, they take a stick over their shoulder and hang a bundle on the end, then I also moved in the direction from the house somewhere in an indefinite direction. But the guards there quickly took me and returned me back, for which I received a good face from my father. It's all preschool. Then, when I was already at school, I was probably eight years old, I got into the theater, that is, my sister and I were taken to the theater. I remember that we were at the "Snow Maiden" at the Maly Theater, and there I really did not like how the scenery smelled, we sat very close, and it seemed to me that this forest smelled so bad. After some time, we got to see "Dance Teacher" in the theater of the Red Army. This is the 50-51st years. Maybe the 52nd. It was amazingly beautiful. Around the same time, I ended up at the Bolshoi Theatre. There was a ballet called "The Red Poppy" by Gliere, and Ulanova danced. That was my shock, apparently, because I cried terribly at the end, in general, I was smitten, they couldn’t even take me out of the hall. I have been obsessed with Ulanova all my life. Then, when I was already a little older, I saw her on the stage, and read everything about her, and followed all her statements, I think that this is the greatest figure of the twentieth century in general, as a person, not even talking about what an unearthly ballerina she is, although even now look at the pretty old recordings, she hasn’t danced for forty years, but still some light remains on the screen, you still feel her magic. And I think it played a very big role in choosing my path. I must also say that, perhaps, I generally understand quite a bit in genetic science, but my mother wrote. She wrote both poetry and short stories when she was still a girl. God knows, maybe it also somehow influenced ...

- In this regard, I have become a categorical person, I believe that genetic talent is not transmitted. The word is not transmitted. In general, recently, I have become a rather narrow-minded person, because I believe that, in principle, all people are born ready for development, like computers. All new, all good, just from the factory (from the hospital), all ready to be loaded with programs.

Right. As a rule, no. I think so too. In general, I think that some kind of eggs or small sprouts, or grains are laid in a person by nature ... Either you water them, touch something, they start to sound, this note starts to sound, or they dry up, stall. I cannot say that something like that came to me from my father, some kind of science was passed on. On the contrary, I had an almost open, but still secret, confrontation with him. What my father liked, I didn't like. I do not know why. Whether in protest, or even for some inner feeling. Although you can remember and bringing together moments. For example, like this. My father had three horses. And he had a groom, who was brought from Kislovodsk, I remember him, Petya Rakitin. I spent whole days in this stable, I fell asleep there in the hay. So he told me about horses, about night pastures, between gorges when they were driven there, somewhere near Kislovodsk. I was fascinated by these stories. I believe that this groom was a man of a romantic direction and, undoubtedly, endowed with the gift of an educator. Whether romanticism was already born in me, no one will explain this now. But I was madly drawn to him, to these endless stories... Now, it seems to me that this is such a small circle, at first glance, maybe even so naive... True, I was not allowed to ride a horse, but I could ride in a sleigh in winter yes. You know, and I didn’t have such incredible traction to get on a horse and ride myself. And in general, I honestly didn’t have any cravings for any kind of sports attractions. I also loved to draw. He painted wherever he could, even in his room he painted on the closet. And, of course, after I saw "Dance Teacher" and "Red Poppy", I drew with a redoubled desire. Ulanova made the strongest impression, and Zeldin, of course, probably, but I did not know then that he was Zeldin. Therefore, I tried to depict what I saw in the theater in a drawing. I really liked dancing, I really liked ballet. And then I was at the Suvorov School, where my father sent me, he wanted me to be a military man, although I never had any desire for this. I was thus punished by my father for meeting my mother. The thing is, I haven't seen my mom for eight years, ever since she left her father. And he, the father, in no case allowed me to see my mother, but there was a period, it was already, perhaps, the 51st year, when she came to my school after all. First, however, my grandmother came and said that my mother was waiting for me. We met. But, apparently, someone was following me, as I understand it. Because my father was informed about this, and he beat me up badly and sent me to the Suvorov military school in Kalinin, present-day Tver. There was no Suvorov military school in Moscow then. The father was actually a fighter. Beat me up great. He was not an intelligent person, but kind, but these are slightly different things. He was groovy, cheerful and not stupid, in my opinion, a person. But, it seems to me, he did not understand what it was, not what, not even a bridle, but, as it were, some laws of the hostel, then not the best qualities crawled out of him. The father had already gone through the war. They separated from their mother. She left him in 1945, in the summer, in July, after her birthday. I remember that at the Suvorov School, oddly enough, there were some kind of dances. Some kind of composition was made there, in which I took part. We even performed on the stage of the Kalinin Theater. Looking back, I understand that then I was broken in a terrible way. In general, it seems to me that all my directorial qualities have grown out of such a thing as confrontation. It was even intuitive. In addition to confrontation, it is also an attempt, as I can now interpret it, to preserve my view of the world, that is, to preserve myself. Someone could laugh at this, but I, how to say, did not betray it internally. And I think that it also played a huge role in my life. After a while, when we had already returned to my mother, I became stronger in my rightness: love for the theater. It was already 1953, my mother took us away, my grandfather, Stalin, had already died, we already lived with her, my father was already in prison. I had a sister who was a year and four months younger than me. Now she is no longer alive. Mom allowed us everything. At what plan? So I was dying, I wanted to go to the theater. And I could afford it. Here it must be said that, probably, my mother had not seen us for eight years and therefore she was terribly worried when we came to her. And we came already quite large children. Everything happened according to the hard will of the father. Now I believe that he wanted to take revenge on her. To hurt her. But she managed to become our friend. She managed to build our relationship in such a way, I think that she did not have such a special pedagogical gift, it is rather intuition, female, human, maternal, but we became friends. This is where my adult life began. I only dreamed of being a director. Why? I don't know. I did not understand then what directing is. At that time, I played everything at home, Nadezhda, my sister, and I played theater, and ballet, and opera. Then, when I was still living with my father, I constantly listened to operas on the radio. Because I had such a small receiver in my room, they put me to bed at some time, it was late, and I put the receiver under my pillow and then listened. And I was very fond of opera. I could sing by heart, say, something from "Carmen", or, say, from "Prince Igor", or from "The Queen of Spades" ... For some reason, everything was so fixated on directing. Knowledgeable people later explained to me that you need to understand first what the acting profession is. Someone, in my opinion, Vitaly Dmitrievich Doronin, God rest his soul, gave me a book by Alexei Dmitrievich Popov "The Art of the Director", which I read without stopping. And then he constantly began to choose literature on directing. Began to read Stanislavsky. It's been thirteen or fourteen years now. I started to study at the 59th school in Starokonyushenny Lane, house number 18, the former Medvednikov gymnasium, there were only boys. The school is old, built at the beginning of the century, in my opinion. She stands closer to Sivtsev Vrazhok. I took two classes there. I remember the teacher Maria Petrovna Antusheva, my first teacher, and I remember how she ate French bread. Pretty, absolutely, the woman who put my first mark - "four". She said: “Sasha, you answered very well, but I will give you a “4”, because in order to get a “five”, you have to work, work hard. You deserve an “five”. But for now, we will start with you with a “four ". I think that she wanted to, and it was, I know, later, when I was already older, somehow met her, she said that she did not want to give me "five", because everyone around knew, to whom I am related, so that I would not be singled out in any way. At first, they brought me to school by car. And even when they took me on the first day, I remember that I was very shy and asked to be dropped off earlier. After some at that time they stopped taking me, and I began to go to school on foot, it was nearby. We lived on Gogolevsky Boulevard. And now this mansion stands there at number 7. But it is still impossible to look into it, but now I would like to. The film group that made the film with me tried to get into this mansion, but they categorically strictly said that it was impossible. I call him, so I stayed. At that time, the house was surrounded by a deaf green fence, behind which we were not allowed to go for a walk, and it was impossible to invite anyone to our place. I was terribly jealous of one of my school friends, who either had a grandfather or a father, I don’t remember now, had a tailor, and they lived in a wooden one-story house, and I liked it so much, because it’s so cozy, there are some there were flowers on the windows. So, I went through two classes in the 59th school, and then my father drove me into exile in the Suvorov military school in Kalinin. For me it was a big, to put it mildly, shock. In school, for the first time, I encountered such words that I had never heard before. This, to be honest, was not a revelation for me, but a real shock. I didn't even know the language of the court before that. This was not the case at school either, because the guys came from intelligent families. I can't stand the team at all. And in the school I discovered all these "charms" of life. Fortunately or unfortunately, but I was there in formation along the parade ground and studied in the classrooms for only six months and became very ill. I was ill for almost a year and a half. I lay first in the medical unit of the school, then in the hospital, and I remember that I read Maupassant. Since then, I have often re-read Maupassant, I was madly in love with his novel "Life". I was lying with poisoning, where half the school was poisoned with milk. We were in camps in the summer. We were on one side of the Volga, and on the other side of the Volga were soldiers and officers. Everyone got sick there, and we all got sick. Dysentery, colitis, gastritis, then ulcers. I picked it up there and lay there for a very long time. But after a while my mother took me away. I was in Kalinin for two years, and almost one and a half of them spent in the hospital. The first year my father was, and Stalin was still alive, because, I remember, they took me from the school by plane to the funeral, I sat in the Hall of Columns at his coffin. And the second half of the school - it was already my mother who appeared and tried to return me. My father had a second wife, the daughter of Marshal Timoshenko, Ekaterina. She could not feed us for three days. My father lived with her very difficult, so she took out her grievances on us, children from her first marriage. There was a cook there, Isaevna, who quietly fed us. For this she was fired. Father, apparently, did not even know what was happening to us, although he was in Moscow, but, apparently, he was not interested in us at all. That is, I want to say that he had his own life. As for books, he could re-read The Three Musketeers many times, it was his favorite book. Although I didn’t talk about the theater with him, but, judging by the stories of my mother, he adored the theater. Mom said that she fell asleep at the "Once upon a time" in the theater of the Red Army, because she simply already knew everything by heart and could not watch. Father adored Dobzhanskaya and adored this performance "A long time ago." That was it, what I know. He was very fond of cinema, American films.

- Here I want to draw an analogy between your father, Vasily Iosifovich Stalin, and Yuri Markovich Nagibin. By the way, they are people of the same generation, Nagibin was born in 1920, a year earlier than Vasily Iosifovich. Nagibin, whom I knew and published, referred himself to the so-called "golden youth". He loved a rich, cheerful, I would even say wild life: women, cars, restaurants ... In Nagibin's Diary, at the end, I posted a recollection of Alexander Galich, about the life of this very "golden youth". These are dudes, this is love for the sweet life, but, along with this, work and creativity. Nagibin was married to the daughter of Likhachev, the director of an automobile plant named after your grandfather, Stalin. Yuri Markovich was a passionate football fan, rooted for Torpedo...

Of course, they have something in common. But in my father, unlike Nagibin, there was little humanitarianism. First of all, my father was madly interested in sports, he was endlessly interested in airplanes, cars, motorcycles, horses ... He was always involved in football teams, recruiting them. And my father had great opportunities ... He sent me to football at those moments when he had enlightenments and he believed that I should become a real warrior, like Suvorov. Therefore, with a driver or with an adjutant, they sent me to football at the Dynamo stadium. I was sitting on the government platform upstairs, everyone was running downstairs, I didn’t understand the rules of the game, neither the technique, nor the tactics, for me it was mortal boredom, football was absolutely not interesting to me. And because I was being directed there by force, my protest doubled. But, for example, when my second stepmother, she was an athlete, Kapitolina Vasilyeva, fascinated us with sports, I did not resist her. Let's say we did exercises, played tennis, I learned to skate, ski, swim well, even performed at the Moscow Championship later ... But I was drawn to the theater. It's no secret, and everyone knows that Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich took care of the Art Theater, and sympathized with Bulgakov's things, arranged for Bulgakov himself to work there, and visited the Turbin Days, which were given there almost every week, repeatedly. I didn't go to "Days of the Turbins" as a child, because they didn't go. As far as I know this story, "Days of the Turbins" ran from 1927 until the war. And in 1940 Mikhail Afanasyevich died. I saw The Days of the Turbins for the first time at the Stanislavsky Theatre. This was already staged by Mikhail Mikhailovich Yanshin, when he was the chief director there, and Lilia Gritsenko played. She was the marvelous Nina in Lermontov's Masquerade. I also had one completely crazy love, I saw Maria Ivanovna Babanova, she played "Dog in the Manger". And then I got to the thousandth performance of "Tanya". Can you imagine? I was fourteen years old. I was completely fascinated by her. They told me: "Sasha, what a strange boy you are. Look at what age she is, she's old!" I said, "No, she's absolutely lovely!" I first entered the Theater and Technical School as an artist, there was such a TCTU in Kuibyshev passage, which is now called Bogoyavlensky Lane, it connects Nikolskaya Street with Ilyinka, now this school is located in the Aeroport metro area. I decided to go to the Theater and Art School because I wanted to be closer to the theater. And yet there were no ten classes. And I participated in amateur performances - I went to the studio of the House of Pioneers in Tikhvinsky Lane, where they predicted the fate of Raikin, because then I had a penchant for satire and humor. But still I thought that the main thing for me was to see a real theater. I remember how my mother once gave me and my sister such a brainwashing: "It's impossible, look how much you go to the theater!" She collected all the tickets, put them on the table, and we kept the theater tickets. I knew all the troupes, I knew all the theatres. I adored, like my father, Dobzhanskaya. Everything she did, I thought she did brilliantly. I loved Efros very much. His performances were also a revelation for me. At one time, I was stunned by Tovstonogov's "petty bourgeois". The Barbarians made a huge impression. Then I entered the studio of the Sovremennik Theater to Oleg Nikolaevich Efremov. We were friends with him. And later on I passed the exams at GITIS to Maria Osipovna Knebel. We went to rehearsals with pleasure. Because, as it seems to me now, we had a certain common language with the guys. Students, like children, they need understanding and affection. And Maria Osipovna gave us this. It was such a long way for me to GITIS. I was 24-25 years old at the time. And in "Contemporary" I entered the acting course. They created a studio at the theater. At that time we read a lot. Then, after all, a mass of forbidden, as they said, authors appeared - Pilnyak, Rozanov, Artem Vesely, who had not been published for years, Babel, Mandelstam ... I remember I begged my mother, someone brought Mandelstam to me, reprint his poems, and my mother reprinted in multiple copies. On the course because everyone wanted to have the works of Mandelstam. You know, Yuri Alexandrovich, to be honest, it even angers me when people of our age, approximately, say that they did not know that there is such literature, that there are such poets. But why did we know? So they didn't want to know. We, like some name, heard from Maria Osipovna, immediately found his works, found out who it was, what it was. Yes, it even started before GITIS, when we were at Sovremennik. Oleg Nikolaevich Efremov himself took it there. I read at the entrance exams, as it should be when entering a theater school, a fable, poetry, prose. Sergei Sazontiev studied there with me, he is now playing at the Moscow Art Theater. He became an actor, he became one. And the rest somehow disappeared into life, something didn’t work out for them. I think that the fact that the actors of Sovremennik were not yet ready to convey some kind of theatrical faith still played a certain role here, they were still students themselves, it seems to me. If, say, Efremov had directly studied with us, and he practically did not teach, I think the school would have been completely different. But I remember, for example, in "Ivanov" by Chekhov, Sergachev worked with me and it seems to me that he did not see through me, did not reveal me, that is, he did not work with me correctly. He did not know how to reveal my nature, my individuality. I think it hindered me a lot, because I was completely shackled. But when I came to Maria Osipovna Knebel for a course, she is a genius, I must immediately say that she was a genius, she opened me up. I entered GITIS in 1966. So she managed to unpack me. Maria Osipovna managed not only to teach me, but helped me to speak with her voice. When I entered the acting department at Sovremennik, I still wanted to be a director. I frankly admitted to Efremov that I wanted to be a director. I met Oleg through Nina Doroshina. Nina was our friend. I rested in Yalta, made friends there with Nina, with Tamila Agamirova, the current wife of Nikolai Slichenko. They were filming a movie there. And we have been friends with Nina Doroshina since then. It was, if I'm not mistaken, 1956. She had not yet worked at Sovremennik. She later came to Sovremennik. Then I was at home with Efremov, first on Novoslobodskaya Street, then on Kolkhoznaya Square, where we lived, since they even had nowhere to meet. They were with Dorer, came up with the design of the play "Without a Cross", based on "Miracle" by Vladimir Tendryakov. Nina Doroshina and Oleg Efremov had an affair for many years. They had a great relationship with my mom, she liked him. And we talked a lot with him, and he knew that I wanted to be a director. But Oleg told me that in order to master the profession, it is important for a director to know the psychology of an actor. And rightly so, I believe that the path to directors lies through acting. But happiness in my life was all the same, although I consider Oleg Efremov my godfather, but really all this huge, with terrible undercurrents, incomprehensible world of theater was opened for me by Maria Osipovna Knebel. She knew how to do it, and in general, I owe everything in my life to her. This is my god, she loved me very much, I loved her too.

- Maria Osipovna Knebel, as far as I know, also had a very difficult fate. Here we groped for a topic that is very important in art, in literature: not to stop in front of obstacles. That is, the one who knows how to overcome obstacles is realized, does not give up from failures, as if compensates, proves. Here you are, Alexander Vasilyevich, and this is how fate develops. Life constantly puts obstacles in front of you, you overcome them. And you already have a new obstacle ready ...

You know, Yuri Alexandrovich, it was easier to overcome obstacles when you were young. Although, who had a simple fate? In general, roughly speaking, an uncomplicated fate is of no interest to anyone, especially in the theater, where conflict is the basis of success. But now there are more obstacles. That's how they began to write about me, they found out, for example, what my pedigree is, and, frankly, it became more difficult for me. Suppose they are afraid to praise me. Seriously how to treat me, many also consider it unnecessary. You know, when I first worked in the theater, they told me: "Sasha, how can it be that you are such a person, Stalin's grandson, and you work in the theater. You are such a smart person, why did you go to the theater?" This seemed to suggest that not quite smart people work in the theater. Or the actors asked me when I told them something interesting: "How do you know all this?" Now they don’t say that anymore, apparently they got used to it, but in the early years they asked all the time. It seemed that I came from somewhere from another world, I was a person from the outside. Once there was such a curious incident, if, of course, it can be called "curious", because they were imprisoned for such cases, my cousin brought me a huge pile of typescript, two-sided, "In the First Circle" by Solzhenitsyn, and I read voraciously, even when I went by bus to GITIS. I read, I read, one part in my hands, the other in a folder. My stop. I close this thing, roll it up, and jump out of the bus. And I run to GITIS, and when I run, I understand that I don’t have a folder. And the rest of the book is in the folder. My God, I come to GITIS, to Maria Osipovna. And I say: "Maria Osipovna, trouble!" She: "What is it?" I explain: "I left a folder with part of the manuscript of Solzhenitsyn's novel on the bus!" She asks: "What else is in the folder?" I say: "Student card, passport, keys to the apartment, well, fifteen kopecks of money there ... Maybe go there, to the bus depot?" She says: "No. We have to wait." A week has passed. The doorbell rings, in the morning, I was in the shower, I jump out, open the door, my folder is standing near my apartment. There lies Solzhenitsyn, my documents, the keys to my apartment, and fifteen kopecks... Well, everything is whole! Maria Osipovna says: "Wait a little more. What if this is a provocation!" But everything worked out. I graduated from GITIS in 1971. And he first came to the theater on Malaya Bronnaya. Anatoly Efros called me there to play Romeo. Actually, when I graduated from GITIS, Zavadsky and Anisimova-Wulf invited me to play Hamlet, there were negotiations. And Efros is Romeo. And I really wanted to be an artist at that time, but Maria Osipovna dissuaded me from doing this. She was my second mother, and she, in general, is a person of colossal culture, what can I say, there are no such people now, there are not even close such teachers. Maria Osipovna felt the person very much, she felt my complexes, she felt my tightness, my fear, such intimidation, I would even say, unwillingness to offend someone, God forbid, to say something so that what I said hurt someone. She kind of helped me get out of this shell, out of this cocoon. I was very afraid to go on sketches, let's say. I wanted to, but I was afraid. And so I caught her gaze on me, she looked at me and covered her eyes and slightly lowered her head, which meant her complete faith in my luck. And that was enough for me to successfully make an etude. And six months later it was impossible to take me away from the stage. I had such a state, as if I had learned to swim, or learned to speak. At first we did exercises, then we did sketches based on the paintings of some artists, in order to then come as a director to the final mise-en-scène. Then we did sketches based on some stories. Everything was fantasy. Here I had a very good job, Maria Osipovna even showed everyone, from VGIK she invited people to watch, it was Yuri Kazakov's story "There is a dog running." Then we were all carried away by Kazakov. "Two in December" published a book, "Blue and Green", "Northern Diary". Maria Osipovna told me: "Sasha, this is very good literature, but not at all stage." But it turned out to be a very good piece. Then I played "What ended" by Hemingway, from such luck, they also loved this work very much. After some time, there was also quite a serious work on the "Prize" by Alexander Volodin. And then, as it were, they began to make fragments more complicated, they even played vaudeville, you had to go through this. Having gained experience, they began to play Shakespeare, and they staged and played in order to get through it. I played in Orlando's As You Like It, and I put on an excerpt from Richard the Third, the scene of Richard and Anna. I must say that I played a lot more from Shakespeare, I don’t remember now, if there were ten passages, then I played in nine. So, we went through these stages. And then there were graduation performances. We had two. It was "Eccentrics", it was staged by teachers, I played Mastakov there. And I headed the work that we did ourselves, the students, Arbuzov's Years of Wanderings. It was our diploma, where we were both directors and actors, where I played Vedernikov. Of those who studied with me, I will name a very interesting German Rudiger Volkmar, he now has his own studio, even something like an institute, in Germany. The Japanese Yutaka Wada studied with me, he subsequently staged here at the Art Theater, and for eight years he was an assistant to Peter Brook. My wife Dalia Tumalyavichute, a Lithuanian, also studied at the same course with me, she was the main director at the Youth Theater, she brought her theater here, Nekroshus, now famous, started with her. She is a People's Artist, she traveled a lot with her theater to America, to England, to Sweden ... After Lithuania separated, it was as if they did not forgive her that she was brought up in Moscow institutes. There is a beautiful Elena Dolgina, who has a rare gift for bringing people together, she is an honored worker of arts, she works in the Youth Theater, both as a director and head of the literary part. Natalya Petrova, who teaches at the Shchepkinsky School at the Maly Theater and has already released quite a few courses, is a very smart and talented person, and an absolutely grandiose teacher. So, you see, I am already gaining some number of my talented classmates, who later appeared. I remember another fellow student, Nikolai Zadorozhny. He was a very talented person, I want to say two words about him, literally, because it is very revealing. Thin, smart, not just a leader, but a person who was created in order to sculpt, do, create a team, a bad word, but, nevertheless, he was very captivating people. He worked in Engels lately and starved to death. We didn't know any of this. He worked, got some pennies there, when all this difficult life began. He weighed, in my opinion, thirty-five kilograms. He was a talented person, but who never aspired to be a leader in the theater. It was more important for him to mess around with young actors, they were drawn to him, many of his students later studied with Lena Dolgina, with Natasha Petrova. He always staged "Pinocchio", as such a drama of wooden men, save the wooden men. This is our common tragedy. We were very friendly with Yuri Eremin. He studied acting at the same time. Olga Ostroumova studied, and in my "The Seagull" she portrayed Nina Zarechnaya. They played together with Volodya Gostyukhin in excerpts, then I dragged him here to the theater, then he left to act, and now he became a popular person, now the first actor in Belarus. He is a man with his own position, with his own point of view, you can, of course, treat this as you like, but in him one cannot but respect the integrity of such a simple person from the people. Olga Velikanova works at the Stanislavsky Theater, she is also our classmate, she was very talented as an actress. What a bright theater this was in the late sixties, early seventies, when Lvov-Anokhin was there. Then Burkov first appeared, he brilliantly played Poprishchin in "Notes of a Madman". Although Kalyagin played at the same time in the Yermolovsky Theater, it was a little different. Poprishchin Burkov is complete adequacy to Gogol. But then, after all, it must be emphasized, and the entire theater named after Stanislavsky was very interesting. Because Boris Alexandrovich Lvov-Anokhin was an outstanding director and teacher. He's got an amazing cast as well. One Rimma Bykova was worth something, an amazing actress! Urbansky has hardly played yet. And what was Liza Nikishchihina like! She recently passed away unnoticed. I was very good friends with Lisa. And I really loved the Lvov-Anokhin theater, and its performances at the Army Theater. How quietly he went away, lay down and died! Boris Alexandrovich, God rest his soul, was a subtle man, brilliantly knew the world of theater. In general, I really appreciate people who are engaged in theater, let's say, I say it narrowly - theater, when they understand the theater, they know its history, - such a person was Boris Alexandrovich Lvov-Anokhin. And on Malaya Bronnaya I worked very little, literally, maybe three months. Alexander Leonidovich Dunaev, the main director and a wonderful person, clung to me, he wanted me to work with him as a director. And we even began to make Gorky's "Barbarians", and at that time Maria Osipovna invited me to the Army Theater to stage the play "The One Who Gets a Slap in the Face" by Leonid Andreev. Maria Osipovna offered me to be her co-director. And I went. But before that, I staged in Lithuania. And in Moscow I started staging together with Knebel. We started work on the play in 1971 and released it in 1972. This performance was on the big stage, and immediately Andrei Popov, Zeldin, Mayorov, the leading actors, all such a magnificent cohort, you know, were busy in this performance! The only thing I understood perfectly then was that I would never, I gave my word to my mother, I would not be the main director, because there were also such proposals when I graduated from GITIS and released two performances, undergraduate and graduation. I was offered the position of chief director in some province at the Ministry of Culture. Apparently they wanted to take me somewhere. But I didn't want to lead anything. And I, in general, was lucky that I made the first such entrance to the theater together with Maria Osipovna Knebel. And then Andrei Popov invited me to stay at the Army Theater. And I stayed. And friendship with Oleg Efremov was a huge piece of life. In the future, we talked with him, Oleg was already at the Moscow Art Theater when I graduated from GITIS, so that I could put something on him, but Maria Osipovna dissuaded me. She told me: “I know Efremov, he can still very easily through you,” she addressed me to “you”, “to step over. It can break you.” And I believed her, because I also knew this rigidity in Oleg. Therefore, I didn’t even go to the production at the Moscow Art Theater. Efremov came to see me at the Army Theater for my first performances, and seemed to treat them with sympathy. Oleg Efremov is a strong personality, and endlessly talented. And the most talented actor was, not held, perhaps, by such a large account, in the theater, as he was predicted. But, of course, he is a man kissed by God. And the charm of the incredible, such magic, the charm of the amazing. Both as an artist and as a person. I think that I was extremely lucky in general, because fate brought me together with the best directors: Knebel, Efros, Lvov-Anokhin, Efremov ... I even had a dream once, as if I were swimming, you know, like a submarine in a black sea , I am alone on this boat, there is no hatch, I can’t hide anywhere, the waves are raging, and suddenly from these waves a black cross rises towards me in flames, burning, and Efremov appears from behind it, who leads me by the hand, and some kind of wide illuminated arena opens up. I just remember this picture, after the institute I immediately dreamed of it. When I graduated from GITIS, whether to leave me in Moscow or not, they did not know how to behave towards me. But Dunaev and Efros did not pay any attention to this, to my profile, which is very important. Very smart people, like Maria Osipovna Knebel, by the way. There were directors who fell into the wave that went up, these are Efremov, Lvov-Anokhin, Tovstonogov, Efros. And when we graduated from the institute, the wave was already going down, and we, by the way, understood this. And the fact that we, despite this, took place, although I also have a very conditional attitude to this, because, say, I could not stage a number of plays, because I would have been dragged in with something that I would never have thought of , and everything went fine when I put on something kind of neutral, "Lady of the Camellias", for example. And here the main thing, it seems to me, was not to go with the flow, but to be able to think and look around, question the correctness of the decision made and again look for, look for that only true path in creativity, that only thing to which it is not a pity to give all your life without a trace.

- Didn't the Theater of the Red Army frighten you with its vastness, not only architectural, not only the largest theater hall in our country, but also the very organizational structure, the army hierarchy?

I put here, in principle, - what I wanted. In my lifetime, I did not find any special difficulties with breaking through a performance. There was one story with "Stroybat" Sergei Kaledin. But with this performance there was a problem of a completely different nature. We tried to put it on the big stage, then we tried to assemble it on the small stage, but no performance came of it. And in the end, we pretended that we were not allowed to do this. This thing does not fit well on the stage, and there was no solution. I will simply say that I simply do not like "Stroybat" as a literary work. Yes, and "Humble Cemetery" in the movie did not sound. Something is missing from these works. In time, they probably came in handy, but there is no depth in them. And, apparently, they did not find their director. I had some problems, maybe when I was staging Rodik Fedenev's play "The Snows Have Fallen". The play was not very well done, but there was still something alive, and there was a very good performance, and there they dragged me into the ministry. They asked why my soldier dies at the end? And they asked me to do something so that he would not die. But we managed to prove that it is necessary. Next I had a play "The Garden" by Arro. They literally forced me, for some reason it was not the Purovites, but the theater management, in fact, straight away pieces of the text, and this, in general, was a play that, in my opinion, predicted absolutely our entire future. There were other remarkable cases. Well, for example, I had an epigraph removed from Tennessee Williams' Orpheus Descends: "I, too, begin to feel an irresistible need to become a savage and create a new world." This epigraph in Williams's play is, and so, they took away the entire circulation of programs, reprinted. It's a pity that good performances are leaving the repertoire. For example, "Paul the First" by Merezhkovsky. Oleg Borisov started and played brilliantly, even brilliantly. Then Valery Zolotukhin also played wonderfully. But in order for the performance to remain in the repertoire, it is necessary, firstly, that there be a person who watches the performance, who makes sure that it does not fall apart at the seams. And, secondly, it is necessary that the audience go to the performance. And with the public now the situation is difficult. They go for something, but for something, even a very good performance, a good play, they don’t go willingly, or they don’t go at all. Recently I staged the play "Harp of Greeting" by Mikhail Bogomolny. The actor Alexander Chutko showed himself wonderfully in this performance. In general, I was lucky to have actors in my life. After all, I also worked at the Maly Theatre, I staged two performances there. They went on with great success. And I met a very large cohort of people there. It was in the time of the Tsar. They asked me to stay in the theatre, twice. There I worked with Lyubeznov, Kenigson, Bystritskaya, Evgeny Samoilov. At the Army Theater, of course, I worked with the best actors - both with Dobzhanskaya and Sazonova, a great actress, I think, with Kasatkina, and Chursina, with Vladimir Mikhailovich Zeldin, and with Pastukhov, and with Marina Pastukhova, and with Alena Pokrovskaya... I worked with everyone. But along with them, there are many young and not very young talented people who are not honored. The audience goes to other theaters with the same names: Mironov, Bezrukov, Mashkov, Makovetsky... But we have wonderful guys: Igor Marchenko, and Kolya Lazarev, and Masha Shmaevich, and Natasha Loskutova, and Sergei Kolesnikov.. The same Sasha Chutko, how many years he has been sitting in the theater, well, you need a fat man - Chutko comes out. He was afraid to play this role in the "Harp of Greeting", but he plays it wonderfully, and he feels the author, and he feels me, and he feels the form ... Chutko simply did not have such a role before the "Harp". You know, Yuri Alexandrovich, I really liked this play, then, when, already closer to graduation, I saw in it such, how to say, well, maybe a little excessive decorativeness, which, I think, I can’t overcome succeeded, but I liked it with its idea, this play, because there is, again, my theme of leaving the world, which becomes false, which ceases to satisfy you. What I myself cannot do is overcome the uncreative atmosphere in the theater, leave and close the gate behind me. And the second theme is in the play - it is an attempt to understand Russia. I don’t want to philosophize on this topic, but the fact that the heroine sees talent in Russia through dirt, through torment, through rudeness, through this general dullness, gendarme and so on, that she sees in her some kind of certain potential, this seemed to me the idea is very interesting. For example, I think that now people have a very large inferiority complex, that if we are Russia, if we are Russians, then we are already second-class people. I do not think so. And this idea also seemed curious to me here. Then, the play is written in a fairly decent language, unlike the plays that are now in use, where they want to call everything by its proper name. Surely, the "Harp of Greeting" is imperfect in some way, maybe not everything turned out the way we wanted, but, in any case, it was interesting for us to talk about it, it was interesting to work. This is not the first play by Mikhail Bogomolny. He also has such a play "Kira - Natasha". This is the story of two women, in fact, old women already, from intelligent families who sit at the holiday, remember, go through all their lives, through all the stages that Russia went through in the twentieth century. A very entertaining play. She was even, in my opinion, played by Nina Arkhipova and Nina Gosheva, an actress from the Lenkom Theater. I really wanted to put it in my time. But somehow it all dissipated, and then the "Harp of greeting" appeared. I don't regret doing this show. And I feel in the mood of the actors, let's say, a call to Fellini's clowns... I kind of have such an outside view of our life situation in the country in this piece. Because we were too driven into a certain straightforwardness of ideas, and life is much more complicated and interesting, and this chaos, from which the harmony of art is created, I think, is captured very accurately ... But then I catch myself that I am strong in my hindsight. So I staged the play "Garden" by Arro, to which people came, our army intelligentsia, but an exquisite audience does not go to us, and they say: "This will be closed! You are talking about the most important thing." I remember Nonna Mordyukova stood so frightened and said in a whisper: “Guys, what are you doing? You can’t say this from the stage.” And so on... From what I have done in the theater over the years, for example, The Lady of the Camellias is still going on for twenty years. For many years Orpheus descends into hell. For many times there were "Ardently in love", "Charades of Broadway" ... That is, what, let's say in a beautiful word, is more democratic, more accessible. On the "Lady", that's what surprised me, a young actress, Masha Shmaevich, is playing there now, the youth has gone. Masha Shmaevich also plays in "Harp", she is a very talented actress. She and I are very friendly, well, not because she's just a pretty girl, you know, but she's a huge personality. She left Russia with her parents for Israel after graduating from high school. They stayed there, she studied in the studio with the daughter of the famous Solomon Mikhoels, Nina Mikhoels, then she wanted to return to Russia to study here. But this required money. The parents didn't have money. She washed public restrooms, she worked as a hotel maid to save money and come to study in Russia. She entered GITIS, she paid for her studies, because she is a foreigner. Here's to overcoming! So, it will make sense. She values ​​it very much. In the summer she left for Israel, again earned money to pay for her studies, and now she graduated from GITIS. A little exotic, beautiful girl. I saw her in the show, and so I called her to play in my play "Invitation to the Castle", then she played Mary Stuart, and played "The Lady of the Camellias", and everyone began to say: "Shmaevich, Shmaevich!". If you think that after graduating from GITIS, she did not finish her postgraduate studies in stage movement there, so she graduated. And she travels to Italy, she has a contract, earns money there. She did independent work here - "The Lark" by Jean Anouilh, who plays alone. Now she has received an invitation from Italy - to play Juliet in an Italian play, there will be a huge tour in the winter. I know that there are talented young people, they call me to the institutes for screenings, but I hardly go, I don’t watch. I myself taught for ten years at GITIS with Elina Bystritskaya, this is a very painful process. Students become, as it were, your children, and then you cannot help them in any way. Their fates are hard. The theater in general, and in the provinces in particular, lives a very complicated life. And you have to help them somehow. For example, Andrey Popov hired me at the time. And if Maria Osipovna had not brought me, he might not have taken me. She himself, Andrei, was preparing to act. She is the godmother for the Red Army Theater. She worked with Alexei Dmitrievich Popov at GITIS. I remember that before I really wanted to go on stage as an actor, and I went out and played, but now I don’t want to play anything. At one time I was even tormented that Maria Osipovna would not let me play Hamlet, she said that when you really want to play something, such an opportunity will definitely present itself. I played "He Who Gets a Slap in the Face" as Zeldin; in my "Mandate" based on Erdman, I outplayed Gulyachkin, Shironkin, and Smetanich. I had a performance of "The Lady Dictates the Conditions", an English play, Fyodor Chekhankov fell ill, so I played a central role for fourteen performances, a play for two people. So everything was. And recently I was in Japan, staged performances. I was gone for two months, and now I came to the "Harp of greeting", and I think that he has changed. They moved very much - and Pokrovskaya, and Chekhankov, and Chutko, and all the rest.

- Yes, I had a chance to watch "Harp of Greeting" during the opening night. Of course, you are right that Masha Shmaevich plays wonderfully and the talent of the original actor Alexander Chutko is fully revealed. And about Japan, I am extremely interested to hear. How did you get there, who invited you there? And how can you work without knowing the language?

The Japanese language has nothing to do with ours. And it's even hard to understand what it's about. Actually, I got there for a conference on Stanislavsky. The conference was dedicated to improvisation. It was two years ago. Moreover, I was invited at the suggestion of my former classmate. The Japanese are smart people. They have a crisis. technical crisis. And they, therefore, believe that Japan can do everything amazingly, even perform, but it has no ideas. And then it occurs to them that, insofar as there is a school of Stanislavsky, which helps the development of individuality, the opening of individuality, specialists from Russia should be invited. When I got to this symposium, where the Japanese were talking, smart and cunning, and they wanted to understand what improvisation is, I spoke there. And the financing of this whole event was carried out not by art institutions, but by the Xerox company. This company is interested in the development of its employees. They want their employees to learn to think for themselves. To do this, they even make sketches. To develop their personality, their individuality. That's what the symposium was for. And this person, who listened to me there, then asked me what I would like to stage in Japan. I said that I would like to put on The Seagull, my very favorite play. Both the theatrical producer and the head of the theater, which received us, helped us, they knew about me, a book about me was just published there. And, in short, they invited me to "The Seagull". I went and put "The Seagull". There was a wonderful performance. In Japanese, the text of the play is twice as long. The Japanese language itself is much longer than Russian. In Japan, for the first time in my life, I met the troupe that one can only dream of. They are brought up. Yutaka Wada, my classmate, studied with Knebel, then with Brook, raised them. The teachers were from Moscow - Natasha Petrova, Lena Dolgina. That is, they received a real Art Theater school. Yutaka Wada himself is from an ancient cultural samurai family. And so I ask him: "Yutaka, explain to me why I have a performance assembled on the thirtieth day of my stay in Tokyo?" And I have a contract of stay for sixty days. This is unrealistic in Moscow! I staged The Seagull there, the first one, then I staged Tennessee Williams' Orpheus Descending into Hell and Gorky's Vassa Zheleznova. There were almost no Japanese at the premiere of "Vassa", only foreigners. Delight from Gorky. There were Frenchmen, Italians, Englishmen in the hall... "Vassa Zheleznova" is a refrain, it's a modern play, it's about our life, it's about what people live now. You know that this year the repertoire of French theaters in Paris is six Gorkys, London is four Gorkys... So, I think Gorky's dramaturgy meets the needs of today. I will say about Gorky in the words of Nemirovich-Danchenko: "I agree that Gorky is the Russian Shakespeare." And I know his prose well, and I mastered Klim Samgin, but I like his dramaturgy more. Yes, you may like him, you may not like him, yes, he is involved in a trend, but he is still a genius. After the performance, spectators from the French colony suddenly come backstage with volumes of Gorky translated by Arthur Adamov, for a second, Vassa Zheleznova.

- I consider Gorky a very intelligent, very cultured, and not a folk writer in a perverted sense, as they began to understand after the 1917 revolution, which tried to interrupt the movement of the Word ... The word moves like a wheel, and they try to put a log under it, and The Word moves quietly through the beam, and the Word is God, as I now understand.

Interviewed by Yuri Kuvaldin

"OUR STREET", № 3-2004

Yuri Kuvaldin. Collected Works in 10 volumes. Publishing house "Knizhny sad", Moscow, 2006, circulation 2000 copies. Volume 9, page 378.