It’s probably no secret to anyone that during the terrible thirties of Stalin’s rule, many people innocently rotted in camps and prisons, whose number is in the tens, hundreds of thousands. Among the victims at the hands of the tyrant and his minions was a large number of famous people. Among them is the journalist Evgenia Ginzburg. Arrest and prison wanderings divided her life into "before" and "after." About how and what happened, she frankly told in her book “The Steep Route”. The book is recommended for reading to everyone and everyone, and then a short biography of Eugenia Ginzburg and a story about how her confession was written.
The beginning of all beginnings
Eugenia's parents belonged to Jewish families, therefore, she herself was Jewish, despite the completely Russian name Zhenya. But the patronymic betrayed immediately - her father's name was Solomon (and her mother was Rebekah).
The first cry of the newborn Zhenechka rang out in December 1904, on New Year's Eve, in one of the Moscow maternity hospitals. In Moscow, Zhenya, together with her parents, lived until she was five years old. And when she turned five, the Ginzburgs moved from the capital to Kazan. Already there, in Kazan, the youngest sister, Zhenya, was born - Natasha (it is interesting that Rebekah and Solomon called their children Russian, not Jewish). There, in the capital of Tatarstan, Ginzburg had its own pharmacy - Solomon worked as a pharmacist. The whole city knew the family; they were one of the most respected people in Kazan.
Time passed, my daughters grew up, my parents began to think about where Zhenya would study in the future. In such respected intelligent families of that time, it was customary to send older children to study abroad. It would be the same with Eugenia - parents opted for Geneva. However, 1917 came, and all plans rolled down the drain.
Youth
At the Kazan Institute, where Zhenya entered, she studied history and philology. Having successfully graduated from a higher educational institution, for some time she worked as a teacher at school, and then went to college - she worked as an assistant in two departments at once. At the same time, the girl defended her thesis, but ultimately did not devote herself to science, but her younger sister Natalya did it. Evgenia chose another path - journalism, having got a job in the editorial office of the newspaper Krasnaya Tataria. There Ginzburg led the department of culture.
Thirties
The "steep route" of Evgenia Ginzburg begins with this - a description of her work in the newspaper. And also from the murder of Sergei Kirov, a revolutionary. This happened in December thirty-fourth in Leningrad, and a wave of arrests, reprimands, dismissals and other “work-outs” swept through the country in the thirty-fifth, from the very beginning. Here we need a remark. The fact is that when separate arrests, reductions and other “bells and whistles” began, Eugene was calm and was not afraid of anything, just like her then husband, a party leader (we will tell more about the personal life of Eugenia Ginsburg below). Both Ginzburg and her husband Pavel Aksyonov (they had different surnames) were convinced communists, piously believed in the ideas promoted. And they thought that if someone is taken away, then this person is really to blame.
And since their conscience is clear, the biography is not tarnished, then they simply have nothing to worry about. Unfortunately, at that time very, very many people were mistaken. The first time Eugene faced injustice in the same thirty-fifth, when she was reprimanded, and later removed from the opportunity to teach (the young woman did this too) and selected a party ticket for not exposing her colleague, allegedly a convinced Trotskyist. As Yevgenia Ginzburg writes in Steep Route, she was very worried at that time, hard times had come for her, and she even thought about suicide, but still she had no doubts about the party’s policy.
Arrest
However, two years later a new “blow under the breath” was received. The journalist was arrested. Here is what Evgenia Ginzburg herself writes in her Steep Route book:
It was a terrible night. But it happened just in the afternoon.
We were in the dining room: me, husband and Alyosha. My stepdaughter Mike was at the rink. Vasya in his nursery. I ironed the laundry. I was often drawn to physical work now. She distracted thoughts. Alyosha had breakfast. The husband read aloud the book, the stories of Valeria Gerasimova. Suddenly the phone rang. The call was as piercing as in December thirty-fourth.
We are not on the phone for a few minutes. We really do not like phone calls right now. Then the husband pronounces in the same unnaturally calm voice with which he now speaks so often:
- This is probably Lukovnikov. I asked him to call.
He picks up the phone, listens, turns pale like a canvas and adds more calmly:
- This is you, Zhenyusha ... Versus ... NKVD ...
The head of the secret political department of the NKVD, Vevers, was very sweet and gracious. His voice gurgled like a spring trickle:
“Greetings, comrade.” Tell me, please, how are you doing today with time?
“I'm always free now.” What?
- Ltd! Always free! Already lost heart? All this is transitory. So you could have met me today? You see, we need some information about this Elva. Additional information. Oh, and he let you down! That is OK! Now all this will be clarified.
- When to come?
- Yes, when it’s more convenient for you. You want it now, you want it after dinner.
“Will you hold me for a long time?”
- Yes, so forty minutes. Well, maybe an hour ...
The husband standing nearby hears everything with signs, in a whisper, insistently advises me to go now.
- So that he does not think that you are afraid. You have nothing to fear!
And I declare to Vevers that I will come now.
After this visit to the enkavedeshnikov, Eugene did not return. She was accused of the same thing - of complicity with the Trotskyists, who organized their cell in the newspaper and as a result of the actions and conspiracies of which Kirov was killed. Of course, attempts to prove that this is complete nonsense, that not only did she not participate in anything like that, but, in principle, there was no such organization in the newspaper, nor did it lead to anything. For Evgenia Ginzburg, another life began ...
Further fate
What happened next? And then - the languid expectation of a sentence, then in a cell full of all kinds of women, so packed that there’s nowhere to even stand, now in the "deuce", then alone. For similar chambers and transit prisons, Eugene wandered for two long years. She wandered, each time not knowing where she was being transported, each time expecting that this day could be her last.
How to survive
You will not wish to experience the enemy what many and many inhabitants of the Soviet Union experienced in those terrible years. Not all survived, even the most seemingly persistent, strong, seasoned men “broke”. Not so much from physical sufferings, although there were, of course, a lot of them too, but from moral pressure on the soul. They went crazy, committed suicide, and died of heart attacks. It is all the more surprising that a woman, a fragile, weak creature, was able to withstand, withstand all this pain, all this horror and not break, remaining in her right mind. Eugene Ginsburg survived.
As she herself admitted to her bitter confession, poetry helped her a lot in this. She was a man of great erudition, she knew French, German, Tatar, verses by heart - including in foreign languages ​​- she remembered an enormous amount. And she was saved, lying on the bunk in anticipation of her future fate: she recalled poems, told them mentally in her head. And she compared what was happening now with various historical events, drew parallels - in general, she actively loaded her brain with mental activity, made him work so that there was no time to think about the worst. About what will happen to herself. About whether her husband is alive, have not taken away the old parents. About how and with whom the children will remain ... She tried to drive these thoughts away.
Sentence
Ginzburg was convicted under political fifty-eighth article, for which, as a rule, a convict was expected to be shot. However, Evgenia was lucky - she was not shot, she was given ten years in prison, five years of defeat in her rights.
The journalist spent these years in various places - she was in Butyrka and Kolyma ... There, in Kolyma, she met the end of her term in the forty-seventh year of the last century. As Evgenia Ginzburg wrote in The Steep Route, she was not only a victim, but also an observer - she watched what was happening around her, was amazed - she remembered her amazement, so that she could then simply and honestly tell how it was.
After forty-seventh
After the deadline, Eugene remained in Kolyma - in exile. She was not allowed to Moscow and other large cities. And two years later she was arrested again, however, this time only for a month. However, the threat of arrest hung over her head until the death of Stalin in fifty-third. Only after that it became possible, finally, to breathe more or less calmly.
It was partially restored to its rights, as indicated in the book of Eugenia Ginzburg, it was in the fifty-second year, and full rehabilitation came two years later. Nevertheless, for another ten years she was forbidden to live in large cities, and therefore the journalist, having finally left Kolyma, left for Lviv. There she began to draw up her camp notes ...
Family and personal life in the biography of Eugenia Ginzburg
For the first time, young Zhenya jumped out at the age of twenty to marry a doctor named Dmitry from Leningrad. The marriage did not last long, it soon broke up, but its result was the birth of the son of Alyosha. Despite the fact that after the divorce, the boy stayed with his father, he often met with his mother, often lived in her new family. After the arrest of Eugenia, Alexei, who was just at his mother’s place in Kazan, returned to his father in St. Petersburg. In Leningrad, father and son met the beginning of the war. In Leningrad, both died in a blockade in the terrible forty-first.
The second husband of Eugenia was a party leader Pavel Aksenov. Ginzburg had his stepdaughter Maya from him, and a son, Vasya, was also married. Subsequently, the raised Vasily became a famous writer - Vasily Aksenov. When Eugene was taken away, Vasya was only five years old. He stayed with his father, but a few months later they arrested Pavel, Vasya and Maya and ended up in orphanages. After some time, her father’s relatives were able to take the boy to her, and when Eugenia’s term ended, she managed to get permission for Vasya to come to Kolyma, to her. As for Paul, he also survived many prisons and exiles, was released only in the fifty-sixth. But, despite the fact that there was no formal divorce, Eugene and Pavel no longer lived together. The fact is that Ginzburg reported the death of her husband. And she got married a third time, and later Paul got married.
The third husband of Eugenia was the doctor Anton Walter, whom she met in Kolyma - he was also a prisoner. Together with him, Ginzburg adopted a three-year-old orphan Tonechka, who later became actress Antonina Aksenova. Together with Walter Ginzburg lived in Lviv until his death in 1966, having moved to Moscow only after he passed away. Such is the turbulent biography of Eugenia Ginzburg, and her personal life.
Steep Route: A Story
As the journalist herself wrote, she intended to make these notes in a letter of appeal to her grandson, so that he knew what was, which in no case could be repeated. The first part appeared in the sixty-seventh year, began to spread by samizdat - it was unrealistic to publish it. A few years later, the second one came out. The book was published abroad, but Eugene, fearing new arrests, said that this was done without her knowledge. In Russia, the “Steep Route” was published only in 1988.
By the way, there was another version of the book, more rigid, impudent, with lunges towards the power. However, Eugene destroyed it - also out of fear for his family and herself. The “steep route” is still relevant today, the Ginzburg book is called one of the best books of camp prose, along with the works of Solzhenitsyn and Shalamov.
Eugene Ginzburg died in May of the seventy-seventh year from breast cancer. She was buried in Moscow.
Interesting Facts
- Eugene is the full namesake of director Eugene Ginzburg, but nothing else binds them.
- A performance was staged along the Steep Route and a film was made (the latter did not gain popularity).
- Patronymic of Evgenia - Solomonovna, but often in the Russian manner she was called Semenovna.
- She was a candidate of historical sciences.
- She was a member of the party from the age of twenty-eight, and she also taught history courses of the CPSU (B.).
- She changed many types of work in the zone, including felling and working in the medical unit.
- From the son of Vasily, Eugenia Ginzburg has a grandson - production designer Alexei Aksenov.
- Thanks to Vasily, she was able to visit abroad already in old age.
- Stepdaughter Eugenia Maya (daughter of her husband Pavel) became a teacher-methodologist in the Russian language.
This is the biography of Eugenia Ginzburg, which everyone can read in more detail after reading the book “The Steep Route”.