At the last line The transformation of individuals from radical social democrats and revolutionary Marxists into social chauvinists is a phenomenon common to all warring countries. The flow of chauvinism is so swift, stormy and strong that everywhere there are a number of spineless or outdated leftists

Valentin Pikul

Devilry

I dedicate this to the memory of my grandmother, the Pskov peasant woman Vasilisa Minaevna Karenina, who lived her entire long life not for herself, but for people.

which could be an epilogue

The old Russian history was ending and a new one was beginning. Creeping through the alleys with their wings, the loudly hooting owls of reaction darted through their caves... The first to disappear somewhere was the overly perceptive Matilda Kshesinskaya, a unique prima weighing 2 pounds and 36 pounds (the fluff of the Russian stage!); a brutal crowd of deserters was already destroying her palace, smashing into smithereens the fabulous gardens of Babylon, where overseas birds sang in the captivating bushes. The ubiquitous newspaper men stole the ballerina’s notebook, and the Russian man in the street could now find out how this amazing woman’s daily budget worked out:

For a hat – 115 rubles.

A person's tip is 7 kopecks.

For a suit – 600 rubles.

Boric acid – 15 kopecks.

Vovochka as a gift - 3 kopecks.

The imperial couple were temporarily kept under arrest in Tsarskoe Selo; At workers’ rallies, there were already calls to execute “Nikolashka the Bloody,” and from England they promised to send a cruiser for the Romanovs, and Kerensky expressed a desire to personally escort the royal family to Murmansk. Under the windows of the palace, students sang:

Alice needs to go back

Address for letters – Hesse – Darmstadt,

Frau Alice rides "nach Rhine"

Frau Alice – aufwiederzein!

Who would believe that just recently they were arguing:

– We will call the monastery over the grave of the unforgettable martyr: Rasputin! - stated the empress.

“Dear Alix,” the husband answered respectfully, “but such a name will be misinterpreted by the people, because the surname sounds obscene.” It is better to call the monastery Grigorievskaya.

- No, Rasputinskaya! - the queen insisted. – There are hundreds of thousands of Grigorievs in Rus', but there is only one Rasputin...

They made peace on the fact that the monastery would be called Tsarskoselsko-Rasputinsky; In front of the architect Zverev, the Empress revealed the “ideological” plan of the future temple: “Gregory was killed in damned Petersburg, and therefore you will turn the Rasputin Monastery towards the capital as a blank wall without a single window. Turn the façade of the monastery, bright and joyful, towards my palace...” On March 21, 1917, precisely on Rasputin’s birthday, they were going to found the monastery. But in February, ahead of the tsar’s schedule, the revolution broke out, and it seemed that Grishka’s long-standing threat to the tsars had come true:

“That's it! I won’t exist, and you won’t exist either.” It is true that after the assassination of Rasputin, the Tsar lasted only 74 days on the throne. When an army is defeated, it buries its banners so that they do not fall to the winner. Rasputin lay in the ground, like the banner of a fallen monarchy, and no one knew where his grave was. The Romanovs hid the place of his burial...

Staff Captain Klimov, who served on the anti-aircraft batteries of Tsarskoye Selo, once walked along the outskirts of the parks; By chance he wandered to stacks of boards and bricks, an unfinished chapel lay frozen in the snow. The officer illuminated its arches with a flashlight and noticed a blackened hole under the altar. Having squeezed into its recess, he found himself in the dungeon of the chapel. There stood a coffin - large and black, almost square; there was a hole in the lid, like a ship's porthole. The staff captain directed the flashlight beam directly into this hole, and then Rasputin himself looked at him from the depths of oblivion, eerie and ghostly...

Klimov appeared at the Council of Soldiers' Deputies.

“There are a lot of fools in Rus',” he said. – Aren’t there already enough experiments on Russian psychology? Can we guarantee that the obscurantists will not find out where Grishka lies, as I did? We must stop all pilgrimages of the Rasputinites from the beginning...

Bolshevik G.V. Elin, a soldier of the armored car division (soon the first chief of the armored forces of the young Soviet Republic), took up this matter. Covered in black leather, creaking angrily, he decided to put Rasputin to death - execution after death!

Today, Lieutenant Kiselev was on duty guarding the royal family; in the kitchen he was handed a lunch menu for “Romanov citizens.”

“Chowder soup,” Kiselyov read, marching along long corridors, “smelt risotto pies and cutlets, vegetable chops, porridge and currant pancakes... Well, not bad!”

The doors leading to the royal chambers opened.

“Citizen Emperor,” said the lieutenant, handing over the menu, “allow me to draw your highest attention...

Nicholas II put aside the tabloid Blue Magazine (in which some of his ministers were presented against the backdrop of prison bars, while others had ropes wrapped around their heads) and answered the lieutenant dimly:

– Don’t you find it difficult to use the awkward combination of the words “citizen” and “emperor”? Why don't you call me simpler...

The old Russian history was ending and a new one was beginning. Creeping through the alleys with their wings, the loudly hooting owls of reaction darted through their caves... The first to disappear somewhere was the overly perceptive Matilda Kshesinskaya, a unique prima weighing 2 pounds and 36 pounds (the fluff of the Russian stage!); a brutal crowd of deserters was already destroying her palace, smashing into smithereens the fabulous gardens of Babylon, where overseas birds sang in the captivating bushes. The ubiquitous newspaper men stole the ballerina’s notebook, and the Russian man in the street could now find out how this amazing woman’s daily budget worked out:

For a hat - 115 rubles.
A person's tip is 7 kopecks.
For a suit - 600 rubles.
Boric acid - 15 kopecks.
Vovochka as a gift - 3 kopecks.

The imperial couple were temporarily kept under arrest in Tsarskoe Selo; At workers’ rallies, there were already calls to execute “Nikolashka the Bloody,” and from England they promised to send a cruiser for the Romanovs, and Kerensky expressed a desire to personally escort the royal family to Murmansk. Under the windows of the palace, students sang:
Alice needs to go back, Address for letters - Hesse - Darmstadt, Frau Alice is going “nach Rhine”, Frau Alice is aufwiederzein!

Who would believe that just recently they were arguing:
- We will call the monastery over the grave of the unforgettable martyr:
Rasputinsky! - stated the empress.
“Dear Alix,” the husband answered respectfully, “but such a name will be misinterpreted by the people, because the surname sounds obscene.” It is better to call the monastery Grigorievskaya.
- No, Rasputinskaya! - the queen insisted. - There are hundreds of thousands of Grigorievs in Rus', but there is only one Rasputin...

They made peace on the fact that the monastery would be called Tsarskoselsko-Rasputinsky; In front of the architect Zverev, the Empress revealed the “ideological” plan of the future temple: “Gregory was killed in damned Petersburg, and therefore you will turn the Rasputin Monastery towards the capital as a blank wall without a single window. Turn the façade of the monastery, bright and joyful, towards my palace...” On March 21, 1917, precisely on Rasputin’s birthday, they were going to found the monastery. But in February, ahead of the tsar’s schedule, the revolution broke out, and it seemed that Grishka’s long-standing threat to the tsars had come true:
“That's it! I won’t exist - and you won’t exist.” It is true that after the assassination of Rasputin, the Tsar lasted only 74 days on the throne. When an army is defeated, it buries its banners so that they do not fall to the winner.
Rasputin lay in the ground, like the banner of a fallen monarchy, and no one knew where his grave was. The Romanovs hid the place of his burial...

Staff Captain Klimov, who served on the anti-aircraft batteries of Tsarskoye Selo, once walked along the outskirts of the parks; By chance he wandered to stacks of boards and bricks, an unfinished chapel lay frozen in the snow. The officer illuminated its arches with a flashlight and noticed a blackened hole under the altar. Having squeezed into its recess, he found himself in the dungeon of the chapel. There stood a coffin - large and black, almost square; there was a hole in the lid, like a ship's porthole. The staff captain directed the flashlight beam directly into this hole, and then Rasputin himself looked at him from the depths of oblivion, eerie and ghostly...

Annotation:
“Evil Spirit” - a book that Valentin Pikul himself called “the main success in his literary biography” - tells about the life and death of one of the most controversial figures in Russian history - Grigory Rasputin - and, under the pen of Pikul, develops into a large-scale and fascinating story about the most paradoxical, probably for our country during the short break between the February and October revolutions...

I didn't read this book, but listened to it. I listened to the voice acting by Sergei Chonishvili. All at the highest level. Interesting, fascinating, in the faces.
BUT! Discouragingly sharp, harsh, unexpected. Like a tub with... filler!
The Emperor appeared before me as an uneducated, bloodthirsty, and worthless henpecked man.
The Empress is an ambitious slut and a hysterical woman.
Very unpleasant images that go against everything I've ever read. It left a nasty aftertaste. But it’s well written, and the voice acting is just incredibly cool.
In any case, there is something to think about on a large and small scale.

Well
Criticism (since the abstract does not really reveal the nature of this book):
Pikul's works conveyed an unofficial, although very rarely incorrect, view of historical events. His novels were censored. The author could not print what he wanted.
Pikul’s historical works have often been and continue to be criticized for careless handling of historical documents, vulgar, according to critics, style of speech, etc.
The one that suffered the most in this sense was his last completed novel, “Evil Spirits” (magazine version: “At the Last Line”), despite the fact that the author himself considered it “the main success in his literary biography.”
The novel is dedicated to the period of the so-called. "Rasputinism" in Russia. In addition to the story about the life of G. Rasputin, the author historically incorrectly portrayed the moral character and habits of the last Russian Emperor Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra Feodorovna (now canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church as holy martyrs), and representatives of the clergy (including the highest). Almost the entire royal entourage and the then government of the country are depicted in the same manner. The novel was repeatedly criticized by historians and contemporaries of the events described for its strong discrepancy with the facts and the “tabloid” level of the narrative. For example, A. Stolypin (the son of former Prime Minister P. A. Stolypin) wrote an article about the novel with the characteristic title “Broons of truth in a barrel of lies” (first published in the foreign magazine “Posev” No. 8, 1980), where, in particular, the author said: “There are many passages in the book that are not only incorrect, but also base and slanderous, for which in a rule-of-law state the author would be responsible not to critics, but to the court.”
Soviet historian V. Oskotsky, in the article “Education by History” (Pravda newspaper, October 8, 1979), called the novel “a stream of plot gossip.”

In a reference article about V. Pikul in the newspaper “Literary Russia” (No. 43, October 22, 2004), literary critic V. Ogryzko spoke about the effect the novel had among writers at that time:
The publication of the novel “At the Last Line” in the magazine “Our Contemporary” (No. 4-7) in 1979 caused more than just fierce controversy. Among those who did not accept the novel were not only liberals. Valentin Kurbatov wrote to V. Astafiev on July 24, 1979: “Yesterday I finished reading Pikulev’s “Rasputin” and I think with anger that the magazine has very dirty itself with this publication, because such “Rasputin” literature has never been seen in Russia even in the most silent and shameful time. And the Russian word has never been so neglected, and, of course, Russian history has never been exposed to such disgrace. Now they seem to write more neatly in the restrooms” (“Endless Cross.” Irkutsk, 2002). Yuri Nagibin, as a sign of protest after the publication of the novel, resigned from the editorial board of the magazine “Our Contemporary”.
Despite this, V. Pikul’s widow believes that “... it is “Evil Spirits” that, in my opinion, is the cornerstone in understanding and, if you like, in knowledge of the character, creativity, and indeed the whole life of Valentin Pikul.”

Michael Weller in his book Perpendicular put it this way:
... all historians, on cue, began to write that Pikul was misrepresenting history. It is not true. Pikul did not distort history. Pikul took advantage of history. He took those versions that he liked best due to their scandalousness and sensationalism. He took from historical figures those traits that he liked best and were more suitable for this book. As a result, the books turned out to be quite exciting.

Based on materials from the article of the same name by S. Fomin (“Russian Bulletin” dated December 19, 2003 http://www.rv.ru/content.php3?id=1402) and “Encyclopedia of Great Russian Films. “Agony”” (http://top-rufilms.info/p1-84.html), with additions and comments from the author.

Year after year, and several times every year, TV "Culture" (as well as some other TV channels) again and again show E. Klimov's film "Agony" - a film as popular since 1985 as it is full of old ones (since 1916\1917) false myths about G.E. Rasputin and the Royal Family. (I don’t specifically keep track, but in 2010, on the “Culture” channel in December, I was, it seems, already on the third show).
It would seem that in recent years much has been written about the streams of slander and lies that befell the Royal Family under the Provisional Government (from March to November 1917) and then in the Soviet of Deputies. Having begun as streams of dirty rumors back in 1916, they then turned into stormy, fetid streams. If before the February Revolution these streams filled only drunken and hysterical Petrograd, then the Provisional Government deliberately and purposefully unleashed them on all of Russia.
And so, it turns out, the vile nine-month stream of slander of 1917 lasted for a long time. A very long time... Almost 100 years already!
We'll have to talk about all this in more detail.

PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT. LIES AND Slander in "THE FREEEST COUNTRY"
After the February Revolution of 1917, almost all newspapers and magazines were literally filled with slander and often absolutely fantastic lies - and no one could speak out against this (let me remind you that monarchist newspapers and organizations were banned immediately after the abdication of the Sovereign). This fetid stream flowed like a wide river from the pages of books, from postcards, cartoons, from theater stages and from movie screens. The theaters were filled with vicious farcical productions. In Petrograd there were plays by M. Zotov “Grishka Rasputin”, V. Ramazanov “Rasputin’s Night Orgies”, V. Leonidov “Grishka’s Harem”, A. Kurbsky “How the World Judged Grishka and Nikolka”; in Moscow, in addition to those listed - “Tea at Vyrubova’s”; in Vyborg, already on April 27, 1917, the premiere of the play of a certain “Marquise Dlyokon” (S. Belaya) “Tsarskoye Selo Grace” took place, in which, in all, blatant lies were peppered with foul language and even pornography - and, in modern slang, “people” In both capitals, they “haval” all this with delight, but not always, and not everywhere.
During March-November 1917, more than ten films about Grigory Rasputin were released. The first such film was the two-part "sensational drama" "Dark Forces - Grigory Rasputin and His Companions" (produced by the joint-stock company G. Libken; Grigory Libken is a famous sausage manufacturer and director of the "Magic Dreams" film studio, which "became famous" scandals back in the 1910s). The film was delivered in record time, within a few days: on March 5, the newspaper “Early Morning” announced it, and already on March 12 (! - 10 days after the abdication!) it was released on cinema screens. It is noteworthy that this first deceitful film was generally a failure and was successful only in small outlying cinema halls, where the audience was simpler.... Later, judging by press reports, the demonstration of the film caused a stir in the Tyumen cinema "Giant", where the audience met with "Grishka the horse thief, Grishka the arsonist, Grishka the fool, Grishka the debauchee, Grishka the seducer." However, it was not Rasputin’s adventures in the palace that caused the excitement and excitement in the hall, but the showing of Khionia Guseva’s assassination attempt on Rasputin in 1914 and his murder in the palace of Prince Yusupov.
It must be said that the appearance of these films led to a protest from the more educated public because of their “pornography and wild eroticism.” In order to protect public morality, it was even proposed to introduce film censorship (and this was in the first days of the revolution!), temporarily entrusting it to the police. A group of filmmakers petitioned the Minister of Justice of the Provisional Government A.F. Kerensky to ban the demonstration of the film “Dark Forces - Grigory Rasputin” and to stop the flow of “film dirt and pornography.” Of course, this did not stop the further spread of the Rasputin film across the country. G. Liebken's company has launched another series - "Rasputin's Funeral". In order to somehow support the shaky reputation, the company donated 5,000 rubles to the disabled and reported this in the newspapers. Other films “on the topic” followed: “People of Sin and Blood”, “Holy Devil”, “Mysterious Murder in Petrograd on December 16”, “Trading House Romanov, Rasputin, Sukhomlinov, Myasoedov, Protopopov and Co., Tsar's Oprichniki, etc. Most of them were issued by the same joint-stock company of G. Liebken.
Streams of dirty falsification spread throughout the country. Those who “overthrew the autocracy” were in power, and they needed to justify this overthrow. They were needed all the more because, as the main Russian liberal P. Milyukov testified back in May 1917, the people throughout Russia (except perhaps Petrograd and two other three large cities) were in a monarchical mood. And in general, by October 1917, massive streams of slander about Rasputin and the Royal Family had done their job - the country believed in this lie.

BOLSHEVIKS, USSR. TWO WAVES OF Slander about RASPUTIN AND THE ROYAL FAMILY
After October 1917, the Bolsheviks approached the matter more fundamentally. Of course, the film waste about Rasputin received a second wind, but much broader and deeper steps were taken to falsify history. The multi-volume Protocols of the Extraordinary Investigative Commission created by the Provisional Government, falsified by P. E. Shchegolev and others, were published; “diaries” of A. Vyrubova, forged from beginning to end by the same P. Shchegolev with the “red count” A. Tolstoy. In the same row stands the widely demonstrated play “The Conspiracy of the Empress” by A. Tolstoy. According to some information, in the 1920s, the “chief Soviet historian” Pokrovsky (even his party comrades called him a “dashing old man”) forged with the help of graphologists from the GPU many documents relating to the Royal Family, including the Diaries of Nicholas II, as well as documents about the murder of the Royal Family (the so-called “Yurovsky’s Note”) - laid a strong and “solid” foundation for future falsifications by both historians and and “engineers of human souls”, Soviet writers.
Only around 1930 did this company of falsification of history and mass stupidity of people begin to decline - the new generation, entering adulthood in the Soviet Deputies, was already sufficiently zombified.
***
A new campaign for mass stupidity and falsification of the history of the Royal Family and Imperial Russia began to unfold in the USSR in the second half of the 1960s and in the 1970s. Why then? Let me remind you that in those years in the West, much attention from the press, radio and TV was attracted by the lengthy trial to identify Anna Anderson, who proved that she was Anastasia Romanova, the surviving daughter of Nikolai and Alexandra. A series of trials took place in Germany from 1961 to 1977, and until the very end of the trial many were confident that Anderson was right. The sympathies of many were on her side, and wide interest in the history of the Royal Family arose in the West. In 1967, Robert Massey’s book “Nicholas and Alexandra” by Robert Massey was published in the USA and became widely popular - the first book by a foreign author, which spoke in detail and honestly (albeit from the point of view of a Western liberal) about the Royal Family and their brutal murder. And in 1969, a film based on this book (under the same name) was already made in Hollywood, which immediately attracted a huge audience, even by Hollywood standards.
Finally, let me remind you that in the USSR itself, around the beginning of the 1970s, a pilgrimage to Ipatiev’s house in Sverdlovsk began, although not a massive one, and KGB reports on Sverdlovsk more than once noted bouquets of flowers lying on the sidewalk near this house in the morning.
Of course, all this could not go unnoticed by the leadership of the KGB and the Politburo. “Government orders” of the “our answer to Chamberlain” type began to take shape already in 1966.
Significant works of the 1960s and 1970s, when no one was allowed to talk about it out loud, were M. Kasvinov’s book “Twenty-three steps down”, V. Pikul’s novel “At the Last Line” and the film directed by E. Klimov "Agony" The work of an almost unknown historian, a novel by a popular writer at that time, and the work of a famous film director.
As I wrote above, the deceitful and, I will add, in many details and generally blasphemous in essence, the film “Agony” is shown from time to time by some central television channels even to this day. So, in December 2006, the film was shown on Channel 5, and on July 8 this year. - on the TV channel... “Culture”, and again - November 7 this year.
Let me remind you that “Agony” was filmed in the 1970s, and, of course, a film about the Royal Family could not have been different then. But even the fact that Nikolai and Alexandra were shown, although weak and unworthy, were living people (who could evoke at least a small amount of, if not sympathy, then pity) - even this determined the difficult fate of the film (in the USSR it was released only ten years after the end of filming, in 1985). We will talk about this in more detail later, and also tell you in more detail about the opuses of M. Kasvinov and V. Pikul.

“TWENTY-THREE STEPS DOWN” by Mark Kasvinov.
With its documentation, Mark Kasvinov’s opus, published in 1972-1974. in the Leningrad magazine "Zvezda", attracted a considerable number of readers. For the first time, the Soviet reader was able to become acquainted with a wider range of facts than in the traditionally strictly dosed works of Soviet historians, who were subjected to severe ideological scrutiny by Goslit officials and self-censorship. Judging by the links, the author had access to many archives, including Polish, Czechoslovak, Austrian and Swiss, closed party and personal ones; books, many of which were not even in our special storage facilities. This involuntarily inspired some confidence. Of course, despite the fact that the very content of the book was completely in the spirit of the previous lies and slander against the Royal Family, only wrapped in new wrappings of pseudo-documentary, carefully selected to suit the main old Bolshevik assessment. A brief summary back in 1988 testifies:
“The 23 years of reign of the last representative of the Romanov dynasty were marked by many serious crimes, and the people passed their fair verdict on him. Book by M.K. Kasvinova tells the story of the life and inglorious end of Nicholas the Bloody, and gives a fitting rebuff to those bourgeois falsifiers who tried and are trying to present him as an innocent victim.”
But who is the author himself? Before the publication of the second volume of the Russian Jewish Encyclopedia in 1995, it was difficult to answer this question. On the pages of this publication we read:
"KASVINOV Mark Konstantinovich (1910, Elizavetgrad, Kherson province - 1977, Moscow), journalist, historian. Graduated from history. faculty of Zinovievsky ped. in-ta. Since 1933 - correspondent, head. foreign policy dept. ""Teacher's newspaper""; printed in the center. newspapers, prepared materials for radio. In 1941-45 - at the front, in 1945-47 he served in Germany and Austria. In Vienna he edited the gas. owls occupation forces "Osterreichishe Zeitung". Since 1947 he worked in radio, in the department of broadcasting to German-speaking countries. Since the late 1960s. collected materials for the book “Twenty-three steps down” (magazine published in 1972; censorship removed the chapter “Evenings in a tavern on Taganka”, dedicated to the history of the Black Hundred movement)....”.
The first edition of the book was published in mass circulation in 1978 and 1982. in Moscow and in 1981 in the Bulgarian “Partizdat”. The second edition was published only after the start of perestroika - in 1987. A third edition followed the same year.
Then there was a “volley release” (based on the well-known example of the book “CIA against the USSR” by N. N. Yakovlev): Moscow - reprints in 1988 and 1989, Alma-Ata - 1989, Frunze - 1989, Tashkent - 1989. Finally, in 1990, the 3rd revised and expanded edition was published in Moscow. The total circulation was about a million copies. Undoubtedly, this is not the product of an ordinary ideological operation of the special services.

“UNCLEAN POWER” by Valentin Pikul
Less than a year after the publication of the first separate edition of M. Kasvinov’s book, the magazine “Our Contemporary” began publishing the novel “At the Last Line” by the then popular and undoubtedly talented writer V. S. Pikul. There is another curious coincidence. According to the writer, he sat down to write the novel on September 3, 1972 - chronologically following the appearance of the beginning of Kasvinov’s book in the magazine (August issue of “Stars”, 1972). It was completed by V. Pikul on January 1, 1975. “Our Contemporary” published it in four issues in 1979. Behind the anti-Jewish and anti-stagnant (stifling the Russian principle) pathos, the editors looked through the anti-Russian (implicit even for the most carried away author) lining.
“...The demon led him to compose this false and slanderous novel about Nicholas II and Grigory Rasputin,” A. Segen, the current head of the prose department of “Our Contemporary,” assesses this work by Pikul. - For what? Unclear. Knowing, for example, that the scar on [Emperor] Nicholas's head remained from the time of his trip to Japan, where the Russian Tsar was attacked with a saber by an overzealous samurai, Pikul composed a scene in which young Nicholas urinates in an Orthodox Serbian temple and receives a well-deserved blow for this with a saber to the head from a Serbian policeman. And such examples are a dime a dozen in Pikul’s novel. This is all the more offensive, since Valentin Savvich was a truly wonderful writer and patriot of our Motherland! "
The first separate edition of V. Pikul’s novel was published precisely in the year of the “volley release” of M. Kasvinov’s book (1989). Since then, this work, published under the title “Evil Spirits,” was published annually in mass editions until 1995. During this time, the total circulation of the two-volume book amounted to more than 700 thousand copies.
1990 The height of the prayer standing of the Orthodox for the glorification of the holy Royal martyrs. “On July 13,” writes A. Segen, “Pikul celebrates his 62nd birthday. Three days later, on July 16, he felt unwell all day, and on the night of the 16th to the 17th, precisely on the anniversary of the night of the execution of the Royal Family, Valentin Savvich dies of a heart attack. What is this? The Omen? If so, a sign of what? The fact that Tsar Nicholas summoned him to trial, or the fact that the Tsar forgave the writer?..""
One way or another, Pikul’s “Evil Spirit” stands in the same unclean series of falsifications of history as Kasvinov’s “Twenty-three steps down” and Elem Klimov’s “Agony”.

“AGONY” by Elem Klimov
Mosfilm", 1975. In 2 episodes. Script by S. Lungin and I. Nusinov. Director E. Klimov. Cameraman L. Kalashnikov. Artists Sh. Abdusalamov and S. Voronkov. Composer A. Schnittke. Cast: A. Petrenko, A. Romashin, A. Freundlich, V. Line, M. Svetin, V. Raikov, L. Bronevoy, G. Shevtsov and others.
Perhaps none of the “shelf” paintings were born so painfully and for so long. Work on the film began in 1966. It was filmed in 1974. Delivered in 1975. Released in 1985. Director Elem Klimov said about this: ““Agony” is half of my life. The film turned my whole destiny around. While working on it, I tasted everything - joy, luck, and despair. If only I could tell everything that happened on this film and around it, it would probably turn out to be a real novel..."
As far as I understand, the talented director Elem Klimov, having received a state order on this topic, made his way from the initial completely distorted and farcical, Kondov-Bolshevik understanding of history, to the truth, but got stuck halfway, on a half-truth - and in those years he could not find the truth about the Royal Family in the archives of the USSR, no matter how much I search. But let's talk about this in more detail.
Some specific facts of his biography played some (not yet entirely clear) role in this.
October 1942. First-grader Elem leaves Stalingrad with his little brother German and his mother. Houses burned to the sky. The fuel that spilled into the river after the bombing was smoking. The Volga was burning. The city was burning. “”...We got to Sverdlovsk,” the director recalled, “then we were transferred and taken to a village, 20 versts from the city, which was called Koptyaki, now the whole world knows it... Later I found these pits where they were, That’s why they are called “Royal Pits” in the forest, I climbed into this hole, the guys took a picture of me there. And in this pine forest I think: My God, but no one knows about this, I found out by chance. But there must be some kind of sign here, some kind of call sign. I look, one pine tree - it’s not so thick - the skin is peeled off from it, it stands white, it blooms, it grows, it lives, but someone is like a sign - then you couldn’t even talk about it - so these are the things "").
Probably, communication with the actor Georgy Danilovich Svetlani (Pinkovsky, 1895-1983) - a former cabin boy of the Imperial yacht "Standart", a childhood playmate of Tsarevich Alexy Nikolaevich - was not in vain. He played the only major role in his life in the film “Sport, Sports, Sports” (1970) by E. Klimov - the film that preceded “Agony”.
Klimov received an offer to stage a film about the tsar’s favorite from Ivan Aleksandrovich Pyryev himself: “Grishka Rasputin! This is a figure... I beg you - get and read the interrogation reports of the Commission of the Provisional Government, in which Alexander Blok worked. And, most importantly, don’t miss Rasputin there !"
We are talking, let us remind you, about the documents falsified by Shchegolev from the Extraordinary Investigative Commission of the Provisional Government. Further, E. Klimov said: - I make an agreement with Semyon Lungin and Ilya Nusinov, and the three of us are leaving for the Moscow region to write the script. He was then called “Antichrist” (20).
- We are talking about Ilya Isaakovich Nusinov (1920-1970), the son of an old Bundist who was arrested in 1949 and died in Lefortovo prison, and Semyon Lvovich Lungin (born 1920), who also suffered during the post-war campaign against cosmopolitanism.
In May 1966, the Luch association approved an application for the script “Holy Elder Grishka Rasputin” (“Messiah”). In August, the script was already discussed at the artistic council. It was called "Antichrist". “In my first films, I developed a bias towards satire,” said Klimov. “It made itself felt in Antichrist. The film was conceived in a farcical vein. We had, as it were, two Rasputins. One was, as it were, the “genuine” Rasputin. The other is folklore-legendary. The image of the “folklore Rasputin" was made up of incredible rumors, legends, anecdotes that at one time circulated about Rasputin among the people. Here everything was exaggerated, caricatured, grotesque. As if, being a German spy, he in the most incredible way made his way into the royal palace, climbed almost through the empress’s chamber pot, got through a secret passage behind the front line, etc., etc.”
Here Klimov, who boastfully declared that he had read “tons of literature on the topic”, for some reason not mentioned by him, deliberately, to put it mildly, misleads (this time the readers): these were not folk tales, but the calculated inventions of the enemies of the Tsar and His Russia.
“We had already chosen the location for filming,” writes Klimov, _ and it seemed that everything was in order. In any case, I experienced an extraordinary elation and did not yet understand that the atmosphere in the state had changed. And now I’m returning to Moscow with a finished script. I bring it to Pyryev and show him my storyboards.
The discussion of the script at the artistic council went off with a bang. Pyryev was pleased: “I haven’t read such a professional script for a long time. The genre of the thing is kept exactly. A farce is a farce. Today this is the most interesting, convenient and smart look at the last days of the Romanovs. Rasputin is depicted in the script as a positive character. And that’s good. It has irrepressible people's power. This power exists not only in Rasputin, but also in the people. The people are shown as wise - stories, legends, parables...
On August 30, 1966, the literary script "Antichrist" was submitted for approval to the Main Script Editorial Board (GSRB).
The staff editors rejected it. E. Surkov, editor-in-chief of the GSRC, suggested that the authors refine the script: “A film about Rasputin can and should become a film about the need for revolution, about its not only inevitability, but also about kindness and justice. In short, it should be a film that tells about what the party saved Russia from in the October days and what tsarist Russia was, against which the Bolsheviks fought.
In April 1968, after the death of Pyryev, work on the film was stopped. Five days after the stop (April 14), E. G. Klimov addressed a letter to the Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee P. N. Demichev: “In recent years, significant interest in the events of Russian history of the first quarter of the twentieth century has arisen in the West. For several years now, the film “Doctor Zhivago” has been on the screens, enjoying incredible success even for commercial cinema. The memoirs of Prince F. F. Yusupov, telling about the last days of the autocracy and the murder of Rasputin, were published in huge editions in many countries. These memoirs were immediately filmed by French director Robert Hossein and American television. Recently a message was published that the largest American producer Sam Spiegel has begun work on the super-action film “Nicholas and Alexandra”, in the center of which are the images of Nicholas II, the Tsarina and Rasputin...”
Attached to the letter was a translation of an article from a French magazine about this new American film based on Massey's book "Nicholas and Alexandra." Part of it was supposed to be filmed in the USSR. The release was planned for 1969. The letter itself ended with the words: “Now time has not yet been lost; we still have the opportunity to release our film on the Soviet and world screens before the American film is completed, and thus neutralize its influence on the viewer. Our film (it is called "Agony") can have very high distribution prospects both within the country and abroad. It can become a serious weapon of counter-propaganda. Refusal of its production frees up the battlefield for American cinema in the ideological struggle." The distinguished addressee was assured: “if any comments or suggestions are made, we will try to make the necessary changes to the script without disrupting the previously scheduled release date of the film.”
The change of name (“Agony” instead of “Antichrist”) in the text of the letter should be perceived as a shift in the center of gravity (to calm the “externals”) from the personality of G. E. Rasputin to the interpretation of historical events of the pre-revolutionary time officially accepted by Soviet ideology . All this, of course, was done solely to “put to sleep” the guards.
Documents have been preserved that indicate the subject of concern.
“The figure of Rasputin,” considered the chairman of the Cinematography Committee under the Council of Ministers of the USSR A.V. Romanov, “despite all its repulsive essence, in some episodes of the script it suddenly acquires features that allow one to assume that this person, in some way, at least expressing the aspirations of the people" (27).
“The figure of Rasputin is placed at the center of this work; the interpretation of his actions and actions in individual episodes is given without the necessary social clarity,” this was the conclusion reached by the head of the culture department of the CPSU Central Committee, I. Chernoutsan, and the head of the sector, F. Ermash.
Filming began in August 1973, but was interrupted several times. On October 10, 1974, Klimov was given a list of amendments for mandatory execution from Goskino. The director resisted, but not everything was defended. For example, the demand to remove the Tsarevich came from Ermash himself: “Are you out of your mind? How can we show this boy, who in the West has been elevated to the rank of holy martyr? This means punching him in the gut. Then we need to explain everything, explain the whole story: and why were they executed in the first place... but just in passing, no, that won’t do!..”
But most of all, of course, the bosses were afraid of possible allusions. There was an episode in the film in which Vyrubova sighed heavily about the Tsar’s Prime Minister Goremykin: “Oh God, God! At such an age one can rule such a country!” Ermash, catching a hint of the Kremlin elders, immediately said to Klimov: “I beg you! I beg you! Cut it out immediately so that it doesn’t even go beyond the editing room!”
The film "Agony" was completed in its final version in 1975. But the film was not released on screen for a long time. There were rumors that someone from the top party leadership looked at it and was dissatisfied.
There is a well-known opinion dated August 1, 1975, that is, after all the revisions of the script, by the Chairman of the KGB of the USSR Yu. V. Andropov: “At the Mosfilm film studio, filming of E. Klimov’s film Agony has been completed according to the script by S. Lungin and I. Nusinov, which shows the “Rasputin” period of the Russian Empire. According to the information available to the security agencies, this film distorts the interpretation of historical events of that time, and unjustifiably much attention is paid to showing the life of the Royal Family...”
For three years the painting lay motionless. There was complete uncertainty.
In 1978, the film was returned to Klimov for revision. They allowed me to finish filming something and re-edit it. Taking advantage of the opportunity, the director improved something. And besides, he introduced a quote from Lenin, starred his friend Yuri Karyakin and Larisa Shepitko in the episode. He had barely finished all this when a book about Rasputin “At the Last Line” by Valentin Pikul appeared and a huge scandal broke out. They decided not to release "Agony" on screen.
For five years Klimov was not allowed to film anything. Only after the tragic death of Larisa Shepitko in a car accident was he allowed to complete the painting “Farewell to Matera” begun by his wife.
There is finally light at the end of the tunnel. Klimov was asked to make two versions of "Agony". One is complete, for abroad. The other (truncated by an hour) is for the Soviet viewer. The director agreed only to the full version.
I will quote an even larger excerpt from S. Fomin’s article “Protracted Agony”:
http://www.rv.ru/content.php3?id=1402
From the memoirs of E. Klimov: “I still repent that I abandoned the final. This is an episode of Rasputin's funeral. I wanted to make this scene very strict. Here is the body (a stuffed animal, of course, because Petrenko, after all the shocks that he had to endure during this filming, of course, would not have laid down in a coffin). Close-up, medium. Here is the priest at the tomb, who with hatred sings the funeral service for this “bastard.” Here is the Tsarina, Vyrubova, the Tsar, with their daughters nearby. And there is a boy - the Tsarevich, who is being held, almost covered by the huge hand of the sailor-nanny. And boy, he's definitely made of porcelain. He looks around, looks at his father and suddenly turns towards some alarming sound. And we see his profile, which could later be printed on all medals and coins. And the wide, snow-covered field along which they are running, some strange creatures are approaching from everywhere: giants, dwarfs, holy fools of unimaginable beauty... Peeking out from behind the shoulders of soldiers holding a strict chain. And then the Tsarina appears and with her Vyrubova. They look into the eyes of these people, looking for and not finding a new Rasputin.
So I also cut out this fragment. Himself, with your own hands! And how the Queen approaches the sleigh and shouts with a strong accent: “I hate it! I hate this country!" "This is not in the film either."
How much you have to hate Russia, its past and future, in order to see it like that, film it, and then, after many years, also write in youth: this is what I am like. And at the same time lie like this: "" While working on the picture, I read tons of literature, tons! Spent many months in the archives. It seemed that he knew everything about Rasputin."
Is it really possible, after reading so much literature, not to understand where the truth is and where the lies are? (If only, of course, there was a desire to find out the truth, and not act according to someone else’s instructions.)
The distribution fate of the film after 1975 was discussed at the “highest level” (secretaries of the CPSU Central Committee) and was discussed at least twice more: in 1979 and 1981. By the decision of the CPSU Central Committee of April 9, 1981, “Agony” was given the “green light,” but so far only for foreign viewers. In 1982, "Agony" received the prestigious FIPRESI Award at the Venice International Film Festival. With the beginning of perestroika, "Agony" was immediately taken off the shelf and released on the wide screen (1985). Her time has come.
But this was a different option. The transition from a purely artistic in the first version to a historical and chronicle (in the final version) presentation of the material was very symptomatic. Film critics note the "abundant inclusion of chronicles and scenes shot as documentaries" in the film. All this, again, was supposed to make the viewer believe in the “truth” offered to him by the authors. And most importantly: the Soviet viewer was prepared to perceive Klimov’s film, on the one hand, by Pikul’s novel, and on the other, by Kasvinov’s book.
Of course, even when not a single truthful line about Grigory Efimovich had yet been published, not everyone swallowed the poisonous bait. For example, the reaction of Rasputin’s fellow villagers is known, who were then given special attention. "On the day of the premiere, almost every one of the residents of Pokrovsky left the hall as a sign of protest, having not watched the film halfway through."

At the conclusion of his article “Protracted Agony,” S. Fomin writes:
Be that as it may, these three works - the books by Kasvinov, Pikul and the film by Klimov - played a powerful role in shaping the consciousness of Soviet people on the eve and in the first years of the so-called. ""perestroika"". It is on the basis of such “works” and various falsified “documents,” writes Doctor of Historical Sciences Yu. A. Buranov, revealing the meaning of such special operations to “blind the eyes” of readers, “the complex of historical unreliability, poisoning the public consciousness."
Let's hope that this poisonous dope is dissipating in recent years.
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For those who want to know more about G.E. Rasputin, I recommend reading also, for example, my article “Truth and lies about Rasputin” (