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Pikul's novel evil spirits truth and fiction. Evil Force VS Valentin Pikul

“A formidable husband came and asked her:

- From whom did you conceive this trash, tell me! - He took the child by the leg, like a lousy frog, carried him to drown in the river. "That's where he's going," he would say, stumbling drunk on the pots.

The baby, hanging upside down, did not even utter a peep. Potemkin shook the baby once more over a deep pool in which lazy catfish were quietly swaying and black crayfish were crawling.

So who is it from? From Glinka or from the Tukhachevskys?

The animal cry of the mother announced the dense forest:

- Potemkin he ... Calm down, old dog!

Thus was born Grigory Alexandrovich Potemkin, His Serene Highness Prince of Taurida, Field Marshal General and brilliant holder of various orders, including all foreign ones (except the Golden Fleece, the Holy Spirit and the Garter), the Governor General of New Russia, the creator of the glorious Black Sea Fleet, he is also his the first commander-in-chief, and others, and others, and others ...!

Valentin Pikul, "Favorite"

Jung of the Northern Fleet

In the mid-1980s, at the beginning of perestroika, the most reading nation in the world, in addition to topical articles in the press, showed great interest in the past of their country. The well-established portraits of historical figures, familiar from textbooks, no longer suited me - I wanted something new, unconventional.

Such an unconventional approach to Russian history gave readers Valentin Pikul, a writer whose circulation of books during this period beat all records.

Valentin Savvich Pikul was born on July 13, 1928 in Leningrad. In 1939, his father, a former Baltic sailor and then a shipbuilding engineer, was transferred to a new shipyard in the city of Molotovsk (now Severodvinsk). Soon after him, the family also moved to the North.

In the summer of 1941, Valya Pikul visited his grandmother in Leningrad and stayed in the city blockaded by the Germans. He and his mother were taken out of Leningrad along the "Road of Life" in 1942. After returning to Molotovsk, Valentin fled to Solovki, to the Jung school. After its completion, until the end of the war, Pikul served on the destroyer Grozny.

Valentin's father, who served in the marines, died in the battles near Stalingrad.

From Ginseng to Ocean Patrol

After the war, Pikul worked as the head of a diving squad, served in the fire department, but literature became the main interest of his life. He devoted a lot of time to self-education, went to a literary circle, and talked with young writers.

It is interesting that Pikul's first published story had nothing to do with history at all - it was an informative article about ginseng, which was published in 1947. The self-taught writer was pondering the idea of his first novel when he came across a book about the destroyers of the Northern Fleet. Pikul found it very boring and decided that he could write much better on this topic close to him. But several versions of the planned story were destroyed by him, since Pikul considered them unsuccessful. However, some of these materials were published as fragments in the Tallinn naval newspaper "On Watch".

Real success came to Pikul in 1954 after the release of his first novel, Ocean Patrol, dedicated to the fight against the Nazis in the Barents Sea. And although later the writer himself considered this book unsuccessful, he received high marks from critics and became a member of the Writers' Union of the USSR.

The marine theme was one of the main ones in his work, but far from the only one. His works covered several centuries of Russian history, from the time of the creation of the Russian Empire to the Great Patriotic War.

Monument to Valentin Pikul. Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org / Nikolai Maksimovich

30 novels in 40 years

Pikul was an extremely prolific author by the standards of a time when most writers were in the habit of creating books on their own. For 40 years of his creative life, he created about 30 novels and stories, not counting numerous historical miniatures - short stories about historical figures and events of the past.

In the early 1960s, Pikul moved to Riga, where he lived until his death. It was there that he created his most famous works, such as "Requiem for the Caravan PQ-17", "Moonsund", "Word and Deed", "Pen and Sword" and others.

“To judge the Russian court of the 18th century by those palaces that we have now turned into public museums is erroneous and incorrect.

The royal court then resembled a bivouac, or rather, a walking camp. And the courtiers - nomads, Scythians! Hence the costume on women was often not female, but paramilitary; pants were replaced by skirts.

Ladies of state lived in tents and huts for a long time. And warmed by the fires. And they gave birth in the barracks. And the maids of honor knew the land maps of the empire as well as the lieutenants of geodesy.

Where the devil did not wear them only! ..

- Touch! “And Her Majesty’s court takes off.

Services, chests of drawers, toilets, Rubens and beds are dumped on carts. Kalmyks and arapoks are planted from above - we set off.

Everything is crackling, beating, ringing. Everything is being stolen!

On one night alone, the imperial palaces used to catch fire three times in a row.

Valentin Pikul, "Feather and Sword"

In bed with Elizabeth

Pikul's style was nothing like the classic historical novels of the Soviet era. The author invested in his books a personal attitude, drew extremely voluminous images of heroes, showed their emotions and experiences, colorfully described the life of that era. At the same time, the main characters of Pikul often became not fictional characters or prototypes of famous figures, but the most real historical figures.

Pikul in his works is not a detached conditional author, but an emotional narrator who openly sympathizes with some personalities and is completely ruthless to others.

Such a method of narration alarmed colleagues in the writer's shop, terrified professional historians and riveted the attention of those in power, who, in Pikul's disrespect for Empress Elizabeth Petrovna, Catherine the Great And Grigory Potemkin saw some hidden hints of modernity.

That is why real success came to Pikul during perestroika, when it became fashionable to allow everything and everyone.

The more popular the writer's books became, the more severely he was criticized by professional historians. Pikul's fans to this day take such criticism with hostility, arguing that the author worked a lot with sources before each book. Opponents object - Pikul did not spend a day in the archives, preferring to work with the memoirs of participants in the events or with the books of those writers who have already created works on this topic.

Un Certain Regard

Connoisseurs of the history of the fleet notice that Pikul, despite his own maritime past, sometimes describes naval battles with extreme freedom, gives wrong characteristics to ships, and even the portraits of some naval commanders even look like caricature.

There are indeed a lot of actual inaccuracies in Pikul, but, mainly, the claims are still not against them, but against the historical portraits of personalities that he described. In his unfinished novel Barbarossa, Valentin Pikul gave extremely derogatory characteristics to the entire Soviet leadership during the Great Patriotic War, almost without embarrassment in expressions.

“Stalin learned about the beginning of the war - from Molotov.

— Border incident? Stalin did not believe.

No, war...

Everyone saw how the paint drained from the face, Stalin sank into a chair in a bag. Everyone was silent, and he was silent. (“Hitler deceived Stalin, and Stalin deceived himself ... Stalin!” – that is exactly what was stated later at the Nuremberg Trials.)

“We must detain the German,” he said.

- Marshal Timoshenko has already given the order for the western districts, so that the enemy is not only detained - to destroy him!

“And ... destroy,” Stalin repeated like a parrot.

General Vatutin arrived from the General Staff with a report: the German army is advancing along the entire front - from and to, from sea to sea, early in the morning the Germans have already bombed the cities, the list of which is too long, the fighting is on Soviet soil. Stalin immediately became smaller, as if knocked down from above by something heavy, and his words were the most obscene:

“The great Lenin bequeathed us a great proletarian state, and you (he didn’t say “I”!), - you all forgot it!”

Valentin Pikul, Barbarossa

Professional historians note that the writer often intertwined events that never actually happened and appeared only in the form of rumors and historical anecdotes in his outline of the narrative. Pikul presented this as an indisputable truth.

But if the unfinished "Barbarossa", which came out at the peak of the revelations of the Soviet system, Pikul was forgiven, then many fans of "The Russia We Lost" are ready to anathematize the author posthumously for the novel "Unclean Power".

Rampage of "Unclean Forces"

"Unclean Force" is dedicated to the last years of the Russian monarchy and the influence Grigory Rasputin to the fall of the Russian Empire. Pikul was extremely unflattering with the images Nicholas II and his spouses, who are now canonized. The writer's view would hardly have surprised the contemporaries of the last Russian emperor, but at a time when it is customary to attribute only benefactors to Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov, some see blasphemy in the book.

“Surrounded by uncles and brothers, among whom the most heinous forms of debauchery flourished, Alexander III managed to maintain a healthy male inside. They said that the king was generally monogamous. In his diary, he filled a page with an immaculate description of his wedding night. And no orgies! A terrible drunkard, he did not arrange Homeric drinking parties, but got drunk on the sly. The head of his guard, General Pyotr Cherevin, concurrently served as the tsar's drinking buddy ... The poets of the democratic camp even praised the emperor for his obvious modesty "

Valentin Pikul "Unclean Force"

The rigidity of Pikul in "Unclean Force", published in 1979, surprisingly united the Central Committee of the CPSU and the descendants of Russian emigrants abroad. The Soviet leadership, which allowed the publication of the book only with significant reductions, put the writer's activities under special control. And in the émigré press, Pikul was attacked by the son of a Russian Prime Minister Pyotr Stolypin, who sharply disliked the way the Soviet writer treated the image of his father, and even with the picture of that era.

As a result, the full "Unclean Force" was first published only in 1989.

Russian Dumas

Both fans and critics of Valentin Pikul make the same mistake when they try to evaluate him as a historian. Pikul is not a historian, he is the creator of historical novels.

He was once called the "Russian Dumas", and this is a very accurate description. After all, France, created Alexandre Dumas, radically different from real France. For someone who grew up on the Three Musketeers, it's hard to come to terms with the idea that Richelieu, Anne of Austria, Buckingham in reality, they were completely different from how Dumas described them. But the writer's genius turned out to be stronger than the historical truth.

The situation is practically the same with Pikul's works. His historical narrative is the author's view of the era, which does not pretend to absolute objectivity. The magic of Pikul's works made many believe that everything he told was true from beginning to end. When it turned out that this was not the case, disappointment set in.

The real merit of Valentin Pikul lies in the fact that he managed to awaken a genuine interest in history among millions of readers. Many modern professional historians admit that Pikul's books, read in their youth, influenced the choice of their life path. And the fact that much in his novels is not confirmed by historical documents is the reason why history as a science differs from fiction.

Valentin Savvich Pikul died on July 16, 1990, without realizing many of his ideas. The second volume of the novel "Barbarossa" was not written, the book "When the Kings were Young" (about the events of the 18th century), historical novels about Princess Sophia, ballerina Anna Pavlova, artist Mikhail Vrubel...

“I wanted to cry - this is the end of the novel:

How beautiful, how fresh the roses will be, thrown into my grave by my country...

I think I've said everything I know. Farewell. I have the honor!

Valentin Pikul, "I have the honor"

The well-known slanderer of the elder Grigory Rasputin and the holy Tsar-Martyr, the pseudo-historian writer Valentin Pikul, finishing his novel “Unclean Power”, wrote “According to the definition of V.I. "the last line", revealed all its rottenness, vileness, all the cynicism and depravity of the royal gang with the monstrous Rasputin at its head ... "That's exactly what I wrote about!"

Oh, how the slanderer Pikul tried to please the then communist government. How! After all, against the background of the “royal lawlessness” described in the book, she looked like a lamb! But the famous spiteful critic did not take into account something. The authorities turned out to be not as vile as the writer himself. By 1979, by the time the abridged version of Pikul's novel was published in the journal Our Contemporary, something had changed in the communist regime. It is no coincidence that after the publication, L.I. Brezhnev was confused. The secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU, M. V. Zimyanin, even called the presumptuous writer “on the carpet”.

Then, at the All-Union Ideological Conference, Pikul was criticized by a member of the CPSU Politburo, the main ideologist of the USSR M.A. Suslov. And after that, a devastating article appeared in the Literaturnaya Rossiya newspaper by I.M. Pushkareva, directed against the novel at the "Last Line" (the author's title is "Unclean Power"). The learned historian Pushkareva bluntly declared Valentin Pikul’s poor knowledge of history and noted that “the literature that“ lay on the table ”of the author of the novel (judging by the list that he attached to the manuscript) is small ... a novel ... nothing more than a simple retelling ... the writings of white emigrants - the anti-Soviet B. Almazov, the monarchist Purishkevich, the adventurer A. Simanovich, etc. ”.

The editorial conclusion, signed by the head of the editorial office of fiction, E. N. Gabis, and the senior editor, L. A. Plotnikova, also stated the same: “V. Pikul's manuscript cannot be published. It cannot be considered a Soviet historical novel…”.

So, the end of the 1970s. The era of stagnation. And the communist government is nevertheless reconsidering its views on history. And therefore, Pushkareva, in the editorial opinion of Lenizdat on Pikul's manuscript, writes rather patriotically: “The manuscript of V. Pikul's novel “Unclean Power” cannot be accepted for publication, because ... it is a detailed argument for the notorious thesis: the people have such rulers as they deserve. And this is insulting for a great people, for a great country ... "

When Lenizdat terminated the contract, Pikul handed over his manuscript to Our Contemporary and the novel Unclean Force, albeit with large cuts, and under the title At the Last Line, nevertheless came out. The well-known critic Valentin Oskotsky commented on the publication in Nashe Sovremennik in the following way: “The non-historicity of the author’s view, which replaced the social-class approach to the events of the pre-revolutionary period with the idea of the self-decomposition of tsarism, was clearly reflected in the novel.”

In a communist way? Yes. But that's not what's important. The important thing is that all critics agree on one thing - Pikul's novel is not historical. Distortion of history and (according to Pushkareva) "an insult to a great people, a great country" - these are the reasons why Pikul's work was not accepted by Soviet censorship.

For the same reasons, a meeting of the secretariat of the board of the SP RSFSR determined the publication of the novel in the journal Our Contemporary as erroneous.
Valentin Savvich, of course, fell into depression. In one of his letters he wrote: “I live in stress. They stopped printing me. How to live - I do not know. The writing didn't get worse. I just don’t like the Soviet government…”

But not only the Soviet authorities did not like the zealous communist Pikul. The anti-communists did not like him either. So, the son of the tsarist Prime Minister P. A. Stolypin, Arkady Stolypin, wrote an article about the novel entitled “The crumbs of truth in a barrel of lies” (first published in the foreign magazine “Posev” No. 8, 1980). In it, he stated: “There are many places in the book that are not only incorrect, but also base and slanderous, for which, in a rule-of-law state, the author would answer not to critics, but to the court.”

Valentin Pikul did not like his fellow writers either. For example, the prose writer V. Kurbatov wrote to V. Astafiev after the publication of the novel “At the Last Line” in Nashe Sovremennik: “Yesterday I finished reading Pikulev’s Rasputin and I angrily think that the magazine has very dirty itself with this publication, because such a“ Rasputin “Literature has not yet been seen in Russia even in the most mute and shameful times. And the Russian word has never been so neglected, and, of course, Russian history has not yet been exposed to such disgrace ... Now, even in the latrines, they seem to write more neatly. And Yuri Nagibin, in protest after the publication of the novel, even left the editorial board of the magazine Our Contemporary.

But other times have come. The so-called perestroika broke out (not by night, be remembered). The conservative patriotic communists were replaced by liberal communists, Westernizers who did not give a damn about historical Russia. Censorship weakened and since 1989 the novel by Valentin Pikul began to be published in various publishing houses, exposing Russian history, according to Kurbatov, "to shame." It is regrettable to talk about this, but the current chairman of the Union of Writers of Russia V. N. Ganichev personally wrote a preface to one of the books. And in 1991, he published Pikul's novel "Unclean Power" in his "Roman-gazeta" in more than three million copies. Thus began a large-scale replication of historical lies.

But we must pay tribute to the extreme interest of our people in history. Especially during the perestroika years. And especially to the novels of Valentin Pikul, which were read by millions of readers. In fairness, we note that they are written really talentedly. Critics and readers agree that Pikul's novels captivate with their plots and are read with great interest. Maybe it is so ... Maybe the drunkenness and debauchery of the Kings and Queens is really interesting for those who are trying to justify themselves. Probably, for millions of Soviet people, "gray scoops", it was important to understand that a great man is just as vile and vile as "every man"? At one time, Alexander Pushkin wrote about such an “interest” as follows: “The crowd eagerly reads confessions, notes, because in its meanness it rejoices at the humiliation of the high, the weaknesses of the mighty. At the discovery of any abomination, she is delighted. He is small like us, he is vile like us! You lie, scoundrels: he is both small and vile - not like you - otherwise! … It is not difficult to despise the judgment of people; it is impossible to despise one's own judgment."

It can be assumed that Pikul deliberately lied about the abomination of the great. After all, he knew, for example, about the positive historical view of Grigory Rasputin. L.N., who knew Valentin Savvich well. Voskresenskaya recalled: “What kind of “evil spirits”? This, in his / Pikul / opinion, was Rasputin. Here I completely disagree with him. And although he personally showed me the documents on which he relied in his book, that Rasputin was a debauchee, I still told him that this was not true. Then someone, as if to spite him, gave me a small book by Nikolai Kozlov about Rasputin the day before. And in it the author asked himself: how could Rasputin be a libertine if the Holy Couple had chosen him? And he answered that the slander was provoked by the Masons. And Rasputin was only a small pawn for them, since the goal was to compromise the Tsar and His Family... In this book, Kozlov cited memories of Rasputin's meetings with priests, elders, and even with the archbishop. Such spiritual meetings, such conversations, and suddenly - debauchery? It couldn't be like that. Well, it didn't fit. And I immediately thought: “Oh, what kind of enemies our Tsar had - they went through Rasputin.” And I told Pikul all this then.

In our time, the replication of the historical lies of Valentin Pikul continues. But it should be understood that his works for Orthodox Christians are blasphemous works. Lies about the Orthodox Russian Tsars and Tsarinas, lies about the Orthodox Russian monarchy, slander against the holy Tsar, the martyr and the person closest to him from the people - Grigory Rasputin, this cannot be called anything other than blasphemy. And therefore it is very regrettable when the Orthodox refer to the books of Pikul, defending their point of view (in particular) on Grigory Rasputin. Although, of course, it is not appropriate to commemorate Pikul's works, not only for the Orthodox, but for everyone who tries to defend their views on history with references to him. In conclusion, I would like to recall once again the words of Arkady Stolypin that in Pikul's work there are "many places not only incorrect, but also base-slanderous, for which, in a rule-of-law state, the author would answer not to critics, but to the court."

(A participant in the review competition and all that. Having listened to the comments of strict critics, I added a few words about the peculiarities of the artistic style and the relevance of the book in our time.)

In general, I love the work of V.S. Pikul. His historical works are easy to read, quickly remembered. At one time, thanks to his books, I successfully passed the exam in history at the 4th year of university, which added even more weight to the writer in my eyes. In his books, Pikul took over from Karamzin and successfully delivered it to modern readers, passing it on to future generations. His goal was to compile a kind of artistic historical encyclopedia from the 16th century to modern times.

The author was in love with Russian history and collected so much material for each book that the text then had to be cut in three, leaving only the most important. At one time, his works were so popular that when one of his new novels, The Favorite, was sold, a crowd of pushing buyers squeezed out the windows in a bookstore. But the writer did not consider this novel his masterpiece. The main creative success for him was the novel "Unclean Power", which tells about the pre-revolutionary years of the 20th century. The novel was published with huge bills in 1979, and the full edition was published only 10 years later.

In the preface, Pikul wrote how difficult it was to publish this book, how he was threatened, he did not mention only that he was severely beaten for it. What was the reason for this? The author himself explained this in subsequent reprints with a brief preface, where he said that the crooks and corrupt officials of his contemporary times easily recognized themselves in the crooks and corrupt officials of the pre-revolutionary times.

Pikul always said that the study of history allows not only to know the past, but also to understand the present, and even to foresee the future. That is why, in his last interview in 1990, he extremely accurately predicted all the future problems of Russia and frankly did not share the enthusiasm about the upcoming reforms and democracy (“I told Tose then: “There was a revolution and all sorts of rubbish climbed into the stands. Nothing. The more they talk the less they write"). He also spoke about the importance of historical memory, that a person who does not remember his history is doomed to step on the old rake again and again, repeating past historical mistakes.

The novel "Unclean Power" describes with merciless accuracy all the cancerous tumors that corroded Russia: the unprecedented flourishing of mysticism and clericalism, and the blatant unprofessionalism of careerists striving for power, and the general plunder of the state budget, and the disregard for the tsar's elite towards their own people, which were all taxes and hardships of the war with Japan and Germany have been dumped. Of course, the fish rots from the head, so Pikul saw the root cause of the situation in the personality and character of Nicholas II. The author traces the reign of the last Russian tsar from the coronation and Khodynka to the abdication and revolution, noting his successes and failures, naming the direct culprits of political failures and mistakes.

However, the main place is given to the “evil spirits” - a fatal combination of circumstances that led to the royal throne of the Tobolsk whip Rasputin, who was a real symbol of the death of tsarist Russia. I had to see new history textbooks at the institute, where “Elder Gregory” is portrayed almost as a holy ascetic. Fortunately, these textbooks did not go beyond the institute, but the very tendency to “whitewash black males” is already alarming. Recall at least the memorial plaque of General Mannerheim, who starved 4,000 Russians in concentration camps, who strangled Leningrad with a blockade ring, or the film “Admiral”, where it is bashfully silent about how the brave Admiral Kolchak after the revolution became one of the commanders of the army fighting against the Russian people of the Entente, created military dictatorship on the corpses of not only the Bolsheviks, but also civilians, and also indirectly participated in the plunder of Russia by England and Canada, since during his reign almost 2/3 of its gold reserves were taken out of Russia. Thus, the subsequent devastation and famine of the 20-30s have their own name and surname, and only an enemy of Russia can admire such a person.

Many, many similar names and surnames will be in the novel "Unclean Force", and everyone will be rewarded according to their deserts. The most interesting thing is that almost every hero of the book can be chosen as a prototype of a modern historical figure. Provocateur and brawler Purishkevich - VV Zhirinovsky. Monk Iliodor - Archdeacon A.V. Kuraev. The events of the book with some mystical ruthlessness paint us a picture of modern Russia. I don’t know if we will wait for wagons with icons sent to the front instead of shells, and bandit pogroms that have religious overtones, but are lost because of the total corruption and disintegration of the war army, the lack of rights of the poor in front of those in power, the decline of morality, complete degradation in art (take, for example, modern Russian cinema), a suffocating economy and a dying social component of the country (medicine, education, pensions) - do not leave the slightest chance for a successful end to the existing order of things and the political system. This is what the author tried to say, who wrote this novel back in the period of Brezhnev's "stagnation".
Pikul painstakingly worked on the text of his works. He proudly wrote that his collection of historical documents and photographs made up a whole library, and more and more often, to letters from historians offering their help and a list of necessary documents and books, he had to answer: "Thank you, I already have all this."

Pikul wrote novels in a peculiar way. He rarely followed the method of historicity in the dialogues of the characters, rightly believing that the modern reader simply will not understand all sorts of "better" and "better". But he was very attentive to the depiction of historical events and the characters of the heroes. The text of any novel by Pikul includes entire passages from real historical documents and memoirs, so that we can literally hear the voices of a bygone era. These passages sometimes differ in style and view of certain events (one of the critics called this authorial technique “kaleidoscopic vision”), which helps us look at the phenomenon under discussion from different points of view. In addition to this technique, we can name another one - Pikul does not know how to write boringly and abstrusely, even a modern schoolboy can read his book with interest.

I strongly advise everyone to read this novel - adults and schoolchildren. This is a warning novel, a prophecy novel about what can happen to a country if an unsuitable person becomes its head, whose power will be absolute.

Initially, I was interested in the multi-part film "Grigory R.", I looked with pleasure. I wanted to know more about the personality and life of Rasputin. And you don’t have to go far: just reach out your hand to the bookshelf.

I remember that at the dawn of perestroika, V. Pikul's novel "Unclean Power" was published in parts in some periodical, where I read it for the first time. When the book came out, I did not re-read it, and the tome stood untouched, the content of the novel was forgotten.