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Many intellectuals of his era could recognize themselves in Bulgakov's characters. But in the life of one of the artists of that time, "Bulgakovism" reaches an unprecedented concentration: friendship with the mighty of the world this, a grand opening, glory, persecution, an attempt to escape ... And somewhere at the end - peace, a piece of land in a quiet city. The name of the artist is Vera Mukhina, and the author of the discovery was her husband Dr. Alexei Zamkov.
Run
At first glance, this story looked like the truth. In any biography of Mukhina, it was said that her grandfather made a large fortune on the trade in flax, hemp and bread. In Riga, he owned the Kuzma Mukhin trading company, dozens of warehouses and a large part of Gostiny Dvor. He also had other large real estate - several estates, houses in Roslavl and Riga. His sons also turned a lot of money - they had factories, tenement houses. After the revolution, the descendants of Kuzma Mukhin continued to live in independent bourgeois Latvia. The factories that belonged to them worked and made a profit. And the elder sister Mukhina left Russia forever in the early 20s and lived in Hungary. So Mukhina had where and why to run.
On the other hand, in the 1920s, Mukhina was one of the most prominent members of the Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia. She created sketches of monuments to the Russian educator Nikolai Novikov and Zagorsky, secretary of the Moscow Party Committee, dedicated the sculpture Flame of Revolution to Yakov Sverdlov. Mukhina participated in the competition for a monument to "Liberated Labor", and by the tenth anniversary of October, Mukhina created "Peasant Woman", which made her a very famous sculptor. So there seemed to be no point in looking for good from good.
However, the most mysterious thing seemed to be that in the criminal case of the scientist there was no evidence of verification of information about the escape. Why was Lubyanka not interested in this story?
Diaboliad
It was not without difficulty that it was possible to find out that the case on the charges of Zamkov A.A. and Mukhina V.I. really exists, but access to it is closed by order of their son Vsevolod Zamkov. He also closed access to the parents' fund in one of the Moscow archives. I could not persuade him to change his anger to mercy. It remained to collect information bit by bit.
Mukhina's biographies mentioned that her husband worked at the Institute of Experimental Biology (IEB) of the People's Commissariat of Health. In the 1920s, the IEB, led by the outstanding biologist Professor Nikolai Konstantinovich Koltsov, was a real oasis for those who could not or did not want to reckon with the general line of the party. Among several dozen of his employees there was not a single member of the CPSU (b). Accordingly, the institute lacked not only a party organization, but even a trade union organization.
It all ended in the middle of 1929. As a result of regular purges, quite a few old Bolsheviks found themselves without leadership positions in the party. And some of them, remembering that in their youth they were considered students, moved into big science. The situation in the IEB has changed as if by magic. Judging by the minutes of the general meetings of the Institute, since then the topics of research have been discussed and approved with the participation of all employees, including stokers and janitors. Moreover, these events lasted for six or eight, and sometimes for ten hours. And then the representatives of the party at the institute began to eradicate social inequality. Professors were forced to give up part-time jobs, and Dr. Zamkov was forced to give up a very profitable private medical practice, as colleagues believed. They began to squeeze him out of the institute, discussed it several times at meetings. And on May 18, 1930, he wrote a letter of resignation.
The last paper in his case was a request from the Voronezh polyclinic named after the 10th anniversary of October with a request to send the work list of Dr. Zamkov A.A. dated December 13, 1930. There was not a word about the escape in the personal file. However, in the papers of the institute there was a mention of a certain petition of Professor Koltsov to the GPU.
doctor's note
I did not look for a petition in the FSB archive - a smart one will not go uphill. The right thought helped: usually copies of such letters were sent to the first persons of the country. According to the file of "complainants", the petition was found in a matter of days. More precisely - "Review of the work of Dr. A. A. Zamkov at the Institute of Experimental Biology of the NKZ in 1929-1930." Here is what Professor Koltsov wrote.
"In 1929, the German scientists Anheim and Sondek published a work in which they proved the presence in the urine of pregnant women of a substance (hormone) that, when injected under the skin of a mouse, can cause maturation of the genital organs in 4 days. They proposed using this method ... for accurate determination of pregnancy in women ...
When, in 1929, I suggested to Dr. Zamkow that he check the work of Anheim and Sondek, he quickly mastered the technique of exposing young mice to urine and immediately determined the pregnancy of women by this method. The urine of the patients was sent from clinics and hospitals to the IEB, and Dr. Zamkov, based on experiments with mice, diagnosed the presence or absence of pregnancy in 4 days. In almost all cases, without exception, the diagnosis was subsequently justified ...
The institute was able to put this diagnosis on a large scale only thanks to the kind assistance of A. M. Peshkov (Maxim Gorky), who treated the works of A. A. Zamkov with great interest. Thanks to A. M. Peshkov and M. F. Andreeva, a large number of white mice needed for diagnosis were quickly obtained from abroad.
In view of the clear action of the hormones of the urine of pregnant women on the reproductive organs of rodents, it was a natural transition for the physician to use this urine as a therapeutic agent in patients suffering from underactive gonads. But unlike the German researchers, A. A. Zamkov did not try to extract the hormone from the urine with alcohol and other reagents and decided to inject pregnant urine directly under the skin of patients, of course, sterile. This is the invention of Zamkov himself... We gave the drug the name "gravidan"...
The use of gravidan gives particularly striking results ... in mental disorders ... A brilliant example of such a healing effect of gravidan was observed a few months ago by the wife of an IEB employee, prof. Skladovsky. The patient after the operation, which entailed the cessation of menstruation, showed symptoms of violent insanity. Psychiatrists (Prof. Gannushkin) diagnosed her with an incurable mental illness... Prof. Skladovsky ... in a difficult moment for himself, he remembered gravidan, took out sterile urine of pregnant women and after three injections he achieved a complete "sudden" cure for the patient ...
Among scientists and doctors, envy of other people's successes often causes intrigues and squabbles. A real persecution arose against A. A. Zamkov ... The persecution ... affected him so strongly that it prompted him to a crazy attempt to go abroad without permission. But the insignificance of the punishment for such a serious crime - deportation to Voronezh - shows that the GPU took into account the presence of passion under the influence of unjust persecution.
With the departure of A. A. Zamkov, work on the preparation of gravidan at the IEB almost ceased ... In view of the great interest that is the possibility of the therapeutic use of gravidan and the diagnosis of pregnancy by urinalysis, I would consider it highly desirable to provide Dr. Zamkov with the opportunity to continue his research in the correct clinical setting...
Fatal eggs
Under the pressure of facts, Dr. Zamkov's son, Vsevolod Alekseevich, became a little more talkative. He confirmed that an escape attempt in May 1930 had taken place. Mukhina and her husband were going to cross the southern border of Azerbaijan to Iran, and then decide where to go - to Latvia, Hungary or Algeria, where Zamkov's teacher Dr. Aleksinsky lived. The decision to escape was made under the influence of a certain patient Zamkov, who turned out to be an agent provocateur of the OGPU. Mukhina, her husband and son were arrested on their way to the station.
Vsevolod Zamkov also said that Gorky played a significant role in the return of his parents from exile. But the main intercessors for Zamkov were his long-term patients - the head of the OGPU operations department, Karl Pauker, and the head of the Red Army intelligence, Yan Berzin. Zamkov Jr. believes that they needed his father as a brilliant diagnostician. But no less, apparently, the leading comrades needed a gravidan. Here is what Dr. Zamkov wrote in one of his reports:
"An emaciated 20-year-old stallion, who could hardly stand on his feet due to weakness and no longer took food, was injected 10 times with 50 cm 3 of gravidan. After the injections, the stallion began to eat, his diarrhea disappeared, muscle strength appeared. They began to work on him again - to harrow, plow and harness for riding. The stallion showed a vivid sexual desire. The feeling of attachment to one mare became so great that at her invocative call he rushed to her with all his might, even being in a harness, through all obstacles - canals, fences The stallion gave birth."
Viagra of that time was wildly popular. Demands to send gravidan went to all instances. Gorky's secretary, Kryuchkov, on whose opinion the return of Mukhina and Zamkov depended, now servilely asked the doctor to allocate a miraculous drug to this or that old Bolshevik. The "petrel of the revolution" himself also used Zamkov's services.
The wave of her husband's popularity raised Mukhina to the top of Soviet art. Gorky, in fact the Soviet Minister of Literature, whose audiences the most famous writers, scientists and artists have been waiting for many months, receives Mukhina along with other prominent sculptors at the first request. After this meeting, in July 1933, he wrote a letter to the Central Committee, Molotov, and petitioned for help to sculptors - to transfer closed churches to workshops, and to allocate huge scholarships to young sculptors. And he also conveys to Molotov the request of the sculptors to provide them with materials: "It would be possible to offer them the marble of monuments in the cemeteries of Moscow." In 1934, Mukhina received an order for the sculptural decoration of the Moskva Hotel under construction (although later Stalin approved the project without these excesses).
And Zamkov's affairs went uphill. By decree of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks in May 1932, under the leadership of Zamkov, a research laboratory for gravidanotherapy began to work. In several Moscow hospitals, "gravidan points" are being created, where patients are treated with this drug. At first, the results exceed all expectations. For example, Professor Strelchuk, head physician of a neuropsychiatric hospital for acute alcoholism, informs Zamkov about the results of treatment of 11 drug addicts and 23 alcoholics: "None of the discharged patients have yet relapsed after treatment with gravidan." According to Zamkov's reports, "gravidan points" have opened in 250 hospitals in all parts of the country. In 1933, his laboratory was renamed into an institute. And two years later, he appears at the congress of Soviet endocrinologists, almost as the main speaker.
And here Zamkov began to feel dizzy from success. In the five-year plan of his institute, he makes a commitment to cure almost everything: epilepsy, schizophrenia, asthma, heart defects, typhus, syphilis, tuberculosis, stomach ulcers, cancer, etc., etc. However, gravidan failed his creator. Or perhaps high-ranking users simply have an addictive effect. Vsevolod Zamkov, however, believes that new wave persecution began because the father treated Gorky too well. Be that as it may, in 1938 the Institute of Gravidanotherapy was closed.
In principle, the history of this family should have ended at the same time - they simply had to be repressed, as they had previously been convicted of a counter-revolutionary crime. But Mukhina and her family, at Gorky's long-standing request, were taken under their wing by the chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, Vyacheslav Molotov. Not without the participation of the latter, in 1937, Vera Ignatievna was allowed to participate in the competition for decorating the Soviet pavilion at the World Exhibition in Paris. Her project - the monument "Worker and Collective Farm Girl" - was recognized as the best.
Mukhina was not only released to Paris to mount the statue, she was released from the USSR along with her son. This was highest sign trust. Moreover, she was allowed to visit Latvia. As Vsevolod Zamkov said, the deadline for accepting the grandfather's inheritance was approaching, and Mukhina was recommended to abandon it.
Zoya's apartment
In Riga, Mukhina vociferously renounced her inheritance and returned to Moscow, where her husband continued to have troubles that ended in a heart attack. Back to active research work he could not (at the beginning of the war, Zamkov worked for free at the Sklifosovsky Institute). But in 1942 he was overtaken by another heart attack. A young female doctor who came on a call, not knowing the patient's name, recommended rest and, most importantly, "no nonsense like Zamkov's drugs." The founder shouted: "Out!" — and died.
His wife survived him by eleven years. She worked a lot and was considered the main official sculptor of the country. She received the Stalin Prize five times, she was not bypassed by other awards. Shortly before her death, she wrote a letter to Molotov, which she bequeathed to be sent after her death. On October 6, 1953, her son complied with her request.
"Dear Vyacheslav Mikhailovich,
You will receive this letter when I am no longer alive... My last requests for art.
1. Don't forget art, it can give the people no less than cinema or literature. Do not be afraid to take risks in art: without continuous, often erroneous searches, we will not grow our new Soviet art.
2. Clean out the apparatus of the arts administration - many of its leaders, instead of helping artists, drive them to death; sometimes they take bribes.
3. Stage my Tchaikovsky in Moscow... I guarantee you that this work of mine is worthy of Moscow, believe me, because in all my life I have never failed the trust of the party and government...
5. Give the order to cast in bronze the small things that remain after me; the main thing is to order the bronze to be released for this.
My last request: the studio apartment in which I lived, still, due to legal formalities, does not belong to either the Ministry of Culture, or the Moscow City Council, or me. I beg you to make it so that it remains with my guys ...
And in death, as in life, always yours,
V. Mukhina".
Already on October 8, Molotov sent copies of Mukhina's letter to members of the Presidium of the Central Committee with a proposal to discuss the note at the secretariat of the Central Committee. Tchaikovsky was installed, the apartment was left. It was not possible to clean the control apparatus.
Molotov never found out that Mukhina had deceived him. In 1937, she did not sign a single paper renouncing the inheritance. And after the return of independence to Latvia, her son sued the property now due to him. True, he received only one of the six hectares in the center of Riga. But this is quite enough for a comfortable old age.
EVGENY ZHIRNOV
With the assistance of the VAGRIUS publishing house, "Vlast" presents a series of historical materials under the heading ARCHIVE
The leading theme of the sculptor's work has always been the glorification of the spiritual beauty of the Soviet people.
"In bronze, marble, wood, the images of people of the heroic era became sculpted with a bold and strong chisel - a single image of man and the human, marked by the unique seal of great years," wrote art critic D. Arkin about the art of Mukhina, whose work largely determined the appearance of the new Soviet art. Vera Ignatievna Mukhina was born into a wealthy merchant family. Soon after the death of the mother, the father and daughter moved from Riga to the Crimea and settled in Feodosia. There, the future artist received her first lessons in drawing and painting from a local gymnasium teacher of drawing. Under his leadership, she copied the paintings of the famous marine painter in the gallery of I.K. Aivazovsky, painted landscapes of Taurida.
Mukhina graduated from the gymnasium in Kursk, where her guardians took her after the death of her father. In the late 1900s, a young girl travels to Moscow, where she firmly decides to take up painting. In 1909-1911 she was a student of the private studio of K.F. Yuon. During these years, Mukhina first showed interest in sculpture. In parallel with her studies in painting and drawing with Yuon and Dudin, she visits the studio of the self-taught sculptor N.A. Sinitsyna, located on the Arbat, where for a moderate fee you could get a place to work, a machine tool and clay. The studio was attended by students of private art schools, students of the Stroganov School; there were no teachers here; a model was put up, and everyone sculpted as best he could. Often, her neighbor, the sculptor N.A. Andreev, famous for his recent open monument N.V. Gogol. He was interested in the work of Stroganov's pupils, where he taught sculpture. Often he stopped at the works of Vera Mukhina, whose originality of artistic manner was immediately noted by him.
From Yuon at the end of 1911, Mukhina moved to the studio of the painter I.I. Mashkov. At the end of 1912, she travels to Paris. As at the beginning of the 19th century, Russian painters and sculptors aspired to Rome, so at the beginning of the 20th century, the younger generation dreamed of getting to Paris, which became the legislator of new artistic tastes. In Paris, Mukhina entered the Grand Chaumière Academy, where Emile-Antoine Bourdelle led the sculptural class. The Russian artist has been studying for two years with Rodin's former assistant, whose sculpture attracted her with its "irrepressible temperament" and genuine monumentality. Simultaneously with classes at Bourdelle at the Academy of Fine Arts, Mukhina listens to an anatomy course. The artistic education of the young sculptor is complemented by the very atmosphere of the French capital with its architectural and sculptural monuments, theaters, museums, art galleries.
In the summer of 1914, Vera Ignatievna returned to Moscow. Launched in August, the first World War radically changed the habitual way of life. Mukhina leaves sculpture classes, enters nursing courses and works in a hospital in 1915-1917. The revolution brings the artist back to the realm of art. Together with many Russian sculptors, she participates in the implementation of Lenin's grandiose plan for monumental propaganda. Within its framework, Mukhina performs a monument to I.N. Novikov - Russian public figure XVIII century, publicist and publisher. Unfortunately, both versions of the monument, including the one approved by the People's Commissariat for Education, perished in the sculptor's unheated workshop harsh winter 1918-1919.
Vera Ignatievna participates and wins in a number of sculptural competitions, often held in the first post-revolutionary years; she completed the projects of the monuments "Revolution" for Klin and "Liberated Labor" for Moscow. The most interesting solution is found by the sculptor in the project of the monument to Ya.M. This project is better known under the motto "Flame of Revolution". By the mid-20s, an individual artistic style of the master was taking shape, more and more moving away from abstract allegorism and conventionally schematic solutions in the spirit of cubism. The program work was the two-meter "Peasant Woman" (1926, gypsum, State Tretyakov Gallery), which appeared at the exhibition of the 10th anniversary of October. The monumentality of forms, the accentuated architectonics of sculpture, the power of artistic generalization from now on become hallmarks easel and monumental sculpture Mukhina.
In 1936, the Soviet Union began preparations for the World Exhibition "Art, Technology and modern life". The author of the multi-stage Soviet pavilion, architect B.M. Iofan, proposed to complete its 33-meter head pylon with a two-figure sculptural group with the emblem of our state - a hammer and sickle. Mukhina's plaster sketch, who developed this theme together with other artists, was recognized as the best. The sculptor, who always dreamed of grandiose scales, had to lead the most difficult work of making a 25-meter statue with a total weight of about 75 tons.The sculptural frame, consisting of steel trusses and beams, was gradually dressed with chromium-nickel steel plates. latest materials using industrial methods, conveyed, according to the sculptor, that "vigorous and powerful impulse that characterizes our country." And at present, the monument "Worker and Collective Farm Woman", whose plastic strength "is not so much in the beauty of its monumental forms, but in the swift and clear rhythm of a strong-willed gesture, in a precisely found and powerful movement forward and upward", takes pride of place at the entrance to VDNKh in Moscow, where it was installed in 1938 with minor compositional changes.
In 1929, Mukhina created one of his best monuments - a monument to M. Gorky for the city that bears his name. The figure of the writer, slightly elongated vertically, standing on the banks of his native Volga, is read in a clear silhouette. A characteristic wave of the head completes the image of the "petrel of the revolution" created by the sculptor, a rebel writer who came out of the people. In the 1930s, Mukhina also worked in memorial sculpture: she especially successfully solved the tombstone of M.A. Peshkov (1935) with a full-length figure carved from marble with a thoughtfully bowed head and hands in the pockets of trousers.
The leading theme of the sculptor's work has always been the glorification of the spiritual beauty of the Soviet people. Simultaneously with the creation in the monumental sculpture of a generalized image of a contemporary - the builder of a new world, this theme was also developed by the master in an easel portrait. In the 1930s, the heroes of the sculptor's portrait gallery were Dr. A.A. Zamkov and architect S.A. Zamkov, director A.P. Dovzhenko and ballerina M.T. Semenova. During the war years, Mukhina's portraits became more concise, all unnecessary effects were removed from them. The material is also changing: marble, which was often used earlier, is replaced by bronze, which, according to A.V. Bakushinsky, gives more opportunities "for building forms in sculpture designed for silhouette, for movement." Portraits of colonels I. L. Khizhnyak and B. A. Yusupov (both - 1943, bronze, State Tretyakov Gallery), "Partisan" (1942, plaster, State Tretyakov Gallery), for all their individuality, have the features of composure, resolute readiness for fight against the enemy.
In the post-war years, V.I. Mukhina continued to work in monumental sculpture. With a group of assistants, she translates into bronze the sculptural project of the monument to M. Gorky by ID Shadra (in 1951 it was opened on the square in front of the Belorussky railway station in Moscow). In 1954, after the death of Vera Ignatievna Mukhina, a monument to P.I.
And she smiled less and less and reluctantly appeared in public. After all, recognition and freedom are not the same thing.
In the photo, sculptor Vera Mukhina
Childhood, family
Vera was born in Riga in 1889, the son of a wealthy merchant, Ignatius Mukhin. Mother lost early - after childbirth, she suffered from tuberculosis, from which she did not escape even in the fertile climate of southern France. Fearing that children may have a hereditary predisposition to this disease, the father moved his daughters to Feodosia. Here Vera saw Aivazovsky's paintings and took up brushes for the first time...
When Vera was 14, her father died. Having buried the merchant on the shores of the Crimea, the relatives took the orphans to Kursk. Being noble people, they did not spare money for them. They hired a governess, first a German, then a French; the girls visited Berlin, Tyrol, Dresden.
In 1911 they were brought to Moscow to look for suitors. Vera did not like this idea of the guardians at once. All her thoughts were occupied by the fine arts, the world capital of which was Paris - it was there that she aspired with all her heart. In the meantime, she studied painting in Moscow art studios.
Misfortune helped Mukhina get what she wanted. In the winter of 1912, while sleighing, she crashed into a tree. The nose was almost torn off, the girl underwent 9 plastic surgeries. “Well, okay,” Vera said dryly, looking into the hospital mirror. “People live with scarier faces.” To comfort the orphan, her relatives sent her to Paris.
Sculpture
In the capital of France, Vera realized that her vocation was to be a sculptor. Mukhina was mentored by Bourdelle, a student of the legendary Rodin. One remark from the teacher - and she smashed her next work to smithereens. Her idol is Michelangelo, the genius of the Renaissance. If you sculpt, then no worse than him!Paris gave Vera and great love - in the person of the fugitive SR-terrorist Alexander Vertepov. In 1915, the lovers parted: Alexander went to the front to fight on the side of France, and Vera went to Russia to visit her relatives. There she was caught by the news of the death of her fiancé and the October Revolution.
Oddly enough, the merchant's daughter with a European education accepted the revolution with understanding. Both during the First World War and during civil war worked as a nurse. Saved dozens of lives, including her future husband.
Personal life
The young doctor Alexei Zamkov was dying of typhus. For a whole month, Mukhina did not leave the patient's bed. The better the patient got, the worse Vera herself: the girl realized that she had fallen in love again. She did not dare to talk about her feelings - the doctor was painfully handsome. Everything was decided by chance. In the fall of 1917, a shell hit the hospital. From the explosion, Vera lost consciousness, and when she woke up, she saw the frightened face of Zamkov. "If you died, I would die too!" Alexei blurted out in one breath...
In the summer of 1918 they got married. The marriage turned out to be surprisingly strong. What the spouses did not have a chance to endure: the hungry post-war years, the illness of their son Vsevolod.
At the age of 4, the boy injured his leg, tuberculous inflammation began in the wound. All doctors in Moscow refused to operate on the child, considering him hopeless. Then Zamkov operated on his son at home, on the kitchen table. And Vsevolod recovered!
Sculptor's works
In the late 1920s, Mukhina returned to the profession. The first success of the sculptor was the work called "Peasant Woman". Unexpectedly for Vera Ignatievna herself, the “folk goddess of fertility” received a laudatory review from the famous artist Ilya Mashkov and a grand prix at the exhibition “10 Years of October”. And after the exhibition in Venice, "Peasant Woman" was bought by one of the museums in Trieste. Today, this creation adorns the collection of the Vatican Museum in Rome.
Inspired, Vera Ignatievna worked non-stop: "Monument to the Revolution", work on the sculptural decoration of the future hotel "Moscow" ... But all to no avail - each project was mercilessly "hacked to death". And each time with the same wording: "because of the bourgeois origin of the author." My husband is also in trouble. His innovative hormonal drug "Gravidan" annoyed the effectiveness of all the doctors of the Union. Denunciations and searches brought Alexei Andreevich to a heart attack...
In 1930, the couple decided to escape to Latvia. The idea was planted by agent provocateur Akhmed Mutushev, who appeared to Zamkov under the guise of a patient. In Kharkov, the fugitives were arrested and taken to Moscow. They interrogated me for 3 months, and then they exiled me to Voronezh.
Two geniuses of the era were saved by the third - Maxim Gorky. The same “Gravidan” helped the writer to improve his health. “The country needs this doctor!” - the novelist convinced Stalin. The leader allowed Zamkov to open his institute in Moscow, and his wife to take part in a prestigious competition.
The essence of the competition was simple: to create a monument glorifying communism. The year 1937 was approaching, and with it the World Exhibition of Science and Technology in Paris. The pavilions of the USSR and the Third Reich were located opposite each other, which complicated the task for the sculptors. The world had to understand that the future belongs to communism, not Nazism.
Mukhina put up the sculpture "Worker and Collective Farm Girl" for the competition, and unexpectedly won for everyone. Of course, the project had to be finalized. The commission ordered both figures to be dressed (Vera Ignatievna had them naked), and Voroshilov advised "to remove the bags under the girl's eyes."
Inspired by the era, the sculptor decided to assemble figures from sparkling sheets of steel. Before Mukhina, only the Eiffel with the Statue of Liberty in the USA decided on such a thing. "We will surpass him!" - Vera Ignatievna confidently declared.
A steel monument weighing 75 tons was welded in 2 months, disassembled into 65 parts and sent to Paris in 28 wagons. The success was enormous! The composition was publicly admired by the artist France Maserel, the writers Romain Rolland and Louis Aragon. In Montmartre, inkwells, purses, scarves and powder boxes with the image of the monument were sold, in Spain - postage stamps. Mukhina sincerely hoped that her life in the USSR would change in better side. How wrong she was...
In Moscow, the Parisian euphoria of Vera Ignatievna quickly dissipated. Firstly, her "Worker and Collective Farm Girl" was badly damaged during delivery to her homeland. Secondly, they installed it on a low pedestal and not at all where Mukhina wanted (the architect saw her creation either on the arrow of the Moscow River or on the observation deck of Moscow State University).
Thirdly, Gorky died, and the persecution of Alexei Zamkov flared up with renewed vigor. The doctor's institute was plundered, and he himself was transferred to the position of an ordinary therapist in an ordinary clinic. All appeals to Stalin had no effect. In 1942, Zamkov died due to the consequences of a second heart attack ...
Once in Mukhina's studio, a call came from the Kremlin. "Comrade Stalin wants to have a bust of your work," the official minted. The sculptor replied: “Let Joseph Vissarionovich come to my studio. Sessions from nature are required. Vera Ignatievna could not even think that her businesslike answer would offend the suspicious leader.
From that day Mukhina was in disgrace. She continued to receive Stalin's prizes, orders and sit on architectural commissions. But at the same time, she did not have the right to travel abroad, hold personal exhibitions, or even take ownership of a workshop house in Prechistensky Lane. Stalin played with the sculptor like a cat with a mouse: he did not finish him off completely, but he did not give him freedom either.
Death
Vera Ignatievna survived her tormentor for half a year - she died on October 6, 1953. The cause of death is angina pectoris. Last work Mukhina was the composition "Peace" for the dome of the Stalingrad planetarium. A majestic woman holds a globe from which a dove takes off. It's not just a testament. This is forgiveness.Vera Mukhina, who became famous for the project of the sculptural group "Worker and Collective Farm Girl" in 1937, made a great contribution to monumental propaganda. In addition, the woman has other popular works that brought her many prizes and awards.
Vera Mukhina in the workshop
Vera was born in the summer of 1889 in Riga, which at that time was part of the Livonian province Russian Empire. The girl's father, Ignaty Kuzmich, was a well-known philanthropist and businessman, her family belonged to the merchant class.
When Vera was 2 years old, her mother dies of tuberculosis. The father loved his daughter and was afraid for her health, so he moved to Feodosia, where she lived until 1904. There, the future sculptor received her first lessons in painting and drawing.
In 1904, Vera's father also dies, so the girl with her older sister transported to Kursk. There lived relatives of the family, who sheltered two orphans. They, too, were wealthy people and spared no expense, hired governesses for sisters, sent them to travel to Dresden, Tyrol and Berlin.
In Kursk, Mukhina went to school. After graduating from high school with honors, she moved to Moscow. The guardians planned to find a groom for the girl, although this was not part of the plans of Vera herself. She dreamed of mastering the fine arts and someday moving to Paris. In the meantime, the future sculptor began to study painting in art studios in Moscow.
Sculpture and creativity
Later, the girl went to the capital of France and there she realized that she was called to become a sculptor. Mukhina's first mentor in this area was Emile Antoine Bourdelle, a student of the legendary Auguste Rodin. She also traveled to Italy, studied the works of famous artists of the Renaissance period. In 1914 Mukhina returned to Moscow.
After the completion of the October Revolution, he developed a plan for the creation of city monuments and attracted young specialists for this. In 1918, Mukhina received an order to create a monument. The girl made a clay model and sent it for approval to the People's Commissariat of Education of the RSFSR. Vera's work was appreciated, but she never managed to finish it. Since the model was stored in a cold room in the workshop, the clay soon cracked and the work was spoiled.
Also, as part of the “Lenin Plan for Monumental Propaganda”, Mukhina created sketches for monuments to V. M. Zagorsky and the sculpture “Revolution” and “Liberated Labor”. In her youth, the character of the girl did not allow her to stop halfway, Vera carefully worked out each of her works, took into account even the smallest elements and always exceeded the expectations of others. So in the biography of a woman, the first significant works in her career appeared.
Vera's creativity was manifested not only in sculpture. In 1925, she created a collection of elegant clothes. For tailoring, she chose cheap rough materials, including coarse calico, weaving cloth and canvas, buttons were turned from wood, and hats from matting. There were no decorations either. For decoration, the sculptor came up with an original ornament, called the “rooster pattern”. With the created collection, the woman went to an exhibition in Paris. She presented clothes together with fashion designer N.P. Lamanova and received the main prize at the competition.
In the period from 1926 to 1930, Mukhina taught at the Higher Artistic and Technical Institute and the Artistic and Industrial College.
A significant work in the professional career of a woman was the sculpture "Peasant Woman". The work is dedicated to the 10th anniversary of October, even famous artist Ilya Mashkov spoke positively about her. At the exhibition, the monument took 1st place. And after the "Peasant Woman" was transported to the Venetian exhibition, the museum of the city of Trieste bought it. Today, this work complements the collection of the Vatican Museum in Rome.
Vera also made a significant contribution to the culture of the country with her work “Worker and Collective Farm Girl”. The figures of a man and a woman were installed in Paris in 1937 at the World Exhibition, and later they were transported to the author's homeland and installed at VDNKh. This monument has become a symbol of the new Moscow, the film studio "Mosfilm" used the image of the statue as an emblem.
Among other works of Vera Mukhina are monuments and. For several years, the woman worked on creating sculptures for the Moskvoretsky Bridge, but during her lifetime she managed to realize only one project - the composition "Bread". The remaining 5 monuments were created according to sketches after the death of Mukhina.
In the post-war years, Vera created a museum consisting of sculptural portraits. The gallery of the woman was replenished with images of N. Burdenko, B. Yusupov and I. Khizhnyak. Although there are no documents confirming Mukhina's attitude to the creation of the design of the famous faceted glass, many people attribute to her the authorship of this dish, which was widely used in canteens in the Soviet years.
Personal life
Vera met her first love in Paris. When the girl studied there the art of creating sculpture, she did not think about building a personal life, because she was focused on gaining knowledge. But you can't tell your heart.
The fugitive SR terrorist Alexander Vertepov became the chosen one of Mukhina. However, the couple did not last long, in 1914 the young people broke up. Vera went to visit relatives in Russia, and Alexander went to the front to fight. Living in Russia, a few years later the girl learned about the death of her lover, as well as about the beginning of the October Revolution.
Mukhina met her future husband during the Civil War. She worked as a nurse, helping to nurse the wounded. A young military doctor Alexei Zamkov worked with her. The young people fell in love and got married in 1918. The Internet even presents joint photos couples. At first, young people did not think about children. Together they had to go through the hungry post-war years, which only rallied the family and showed the true feelings of a man and a woman.
In marriage, Mukhina had a son, who was named Vsevolod. At the age of 4, the boy became very ill. After a leg injury, tuberculous inflammation formed in the wound. All the doctors visited by the parents refused to treat him, because the case was considered hopeless. But the father did not give up when there was no other way out, he himself operated on the child at home, which saved his son's life. When Vsevolod recovered, he unlearned and became a physicist, and later gave his parents grandchildren.
Zamkov's career went up sharply when he created the hormonal drug Gravidan, which became the world's first industrial medicine. However, only patients appreciated the development of the doctor, while this annoyed Soviet doctors. Around the same period, the commission ceased to approve all new sketches of Vera, the main motive was the "bourgeois origin of the author." Endless searches and interrogations soon brought the woman's husband to a heart attack, so the family decided to escape to Latvia.
Before reaching their destination, the family was intercepted and brought back. The fugitives are interrogated, and then exiled to Voronezh. Saved the position of the couple Maxim Gorky. The writer some time ago was treated by a man and improved his health thanks to Gravidan. The writer convinced that the country needed such a doctor, after which the family was returned to the capital and even allowed Zamkov to open his institute.
Death
Vera Mukhina died in the autumn of 1953, then she was 64 years old. The cause of death was her long-tormented angina pectoris.
The grave of the sculptor is located on the second section of the Novodevichy cemetery.
Works
- Monument "Worker and Collective Farm Girl" in Moscow
- Sculptures "Bread" and "Fertility" in Moscow
- Sculptures "Sea" in Moscow
- Monument to Maxim Gorky in Moscow
- tombstones on Novodevichy cemetery in Moscow
- Sculptural composition "Farkhad and Shirin" in Volgograd
- Monument to Maxim Gorky in Nizhny Novgorod
- Sculpture "Peace" in Volgograd
Exactly 60 years ago, the heart of the famous sculptor of the 20th century, the author of the main monument of the Soviet era - "Worker and Collective Farm Woman" stopped beating
The monument "Worker and Collective Farm Girl" by Vera Mukhina is on a par with Michelangelo's "David" and Rodin's "Thinker". The 24-meter sculpture was created for the world exhibition in Paris, held in 1937. A 75-ton work of art, disassembled into fragments, was delivered to the capital of France by railway 28 (!) wagons.
The success of the monument was triumphant. The French even wanted to buy it and keep it.
But the sculpture was returned to its homeland and installed in Moscow not far from the entrance to VDNH, where it is located to this day. And since 1947, "Worker and Collective Farm Woman" has become the emblem of the film studio "Mosfilm".
* Alexey Veselovsky: “Great-grandmother and great-grandfather met in the hospital, on the site of which there was later a maternity hospital, where my mother and I were born” (photo by the author)
The fate of Vera Mukhina is no less interesting than her work. Famous Soviet sculptor was born in Riga in the family of a wealthy merchant. When the girl was one and a half years old, her mother died of tuberculosis, and at the age of 14, Vera remained an orphan. The impetus for serious art was a facial injury she received at the age of 22 while sledding. And in 1930, Vera Ignatievna and her husband tried to escape from the USSR ...
All this "FACTS" was told by her great-grandson - typographer Alexei Veselovsky.
- Alexei, what in your house reminds you of the famous great-grandmother?
- The very house in which I live was built by Vera Ignatievna. She moved into him in 1947, but did not live long - six years: in 1953, Vera Ignatievna died. There are a lot of her things in the house. For example, the dishes that we have always used and still use.
The dacha in Abramtsevo, which my great-grandmother built before the war, in 1935, has also been preserved. In this house, she created sketches for the monument "Worker and Collective Farm Girl". We didn't rebuild anything. In the modern sense, this is not a fashionable house at all, but it is very expensive for a family. The furniture in it, created according to the sketches of Vera Ignatievna, is very concise and simple, but at the same time you will not see this anywhere else. This house has a special aura. For example, on the windowsill there is still a piece of melted rock crystal, which was touched by the hands of my great-grandmother.
- What was Vera Ignatievna according to the recollections of your loved ones?
- My mother, the granddaughter of Vera Ignatievna, was four years old when her great-grandmother died. Remained memories of her father - only son Vera Mukhina Vsevolod Zamkov. Who was Vera Mukhina? In public, she was quite strict, but at home she was very soft. She has been through many trials. At the age of one and a half years, my great-grandmother lost her mother, at the age of 14 - her father. 
But she did not have a tragic attitude. She was distinguished by her love of life, openness, sociability, and activity. Support meant a lot friendly family with a good income. Relatives took care of Vera.
* Vera Ignatievna, according to her great-grandson, was quite strict in public, and at home she was very soft
And when she was 22 years old, there was an accident. While sledding, she crashed into a tree and badly injured her nose. She was sent to Paris for plastic surgery. But they had to make several. Vera Ignatievna spent in Paris whole year. About secular life, which Vera Mukhina loved very much in her youth, the trauma forced her to forget. Interest switched to sculpture, she studied with the famous muralist Bourdelle. Later she visited Italy, where she met with world masterpieces of art. And in 1914 she returned to Moscow.
It was a difficult time - the First World War began. Vera Ignatievna decided to work as a nurse in a hospital, where she met her great love. The surgeon Alexei Zamkov, who became her husband, lay with typhus. Interestingly, my great-grandmother and great-grandfather met in the hospital, on the site of which later there was a maternity hospital, where my mother and I were born. Is it mystic? I think it's just a coincidence. I don’t know if my great-grandmother was a believer, but Christmas and Easter were and are celebrated in our house. Pies were always baked at Christmas, and Easter cakes at Easter.
- Is it true that in the 1920s the fame of your great-grandfather was much louder than the fame of Vera Mukhina?
- Yes it is. Vera Ignatievna at that time herself said that she was “second violin” in the family. Alexei Zamkov was a fashionable doctor in Moscow. And even, according to legend, he became the prototype of Professor Preobrazhensky in Bulgakov's story "Heart of a Dog". Among the patients of Alexei Andreevich was the Kremlin elite. He advised Ordzhonikidze, Gorky... While working at the Institute of Experimental Biology, my great-grandfather invented the drug "gravidan" based on the urine of pregnant women, which has a rejuvenating and mentally strengthening effect, increasing male potency. True, it was later discovered that "gravidan" can be addictive. Great-grandfather was accused of quackery and fired from the institute.
- In order to continue work on experimental medicine, he, together with Vera Mukhina, tried to escape from Soviet Union abroad?
- In 1930, they really decided to escape from the USSR, but in Kharkov they were taken off the train. Later it turned out that it was a planned provocation. An acquaintance suggested that his great-grandfather leave, promising to supply him with the necessary addresses abroad. In fact, this man turned out to be an agent of the NKVD. The family was sent into exile. Alexei Andreevich and Vera Ignatievna left for Voronezh and lived there for two years. Great-grandfather worked in the dispensary of the railway depot. But even there, the persecution continued. When they decided to fire Aleksey Andreevich, the workers of the depot held a meeting in his defense. According to one version, Alexei Zamkov and Vera Mukhina managed to return to Moscow thanks to the petition of Maxim Gorky. After all, Vera Mukhina already in 1927 was enough famous person received the Grand Prix at the Venice Biennale. Upon returning from exile, my great-grandfather was appointed scientific director of the Institute of Urogravid Therapy. Alexey Zamkov worked fruitfully for several years. And when the persecution of Nikolai Vavilov began, the institute was closed. Alexei Andreevich was broken and as a result fell seriously ill. He died in 1942 - his heart could not stand it. The great-grandmother had a hard time with the death of her husband, with whom she lived for 24 years and whom she loved very much.
- They say that your great-grandfather raised his son, who was doomed, to his feet.
- Yes. My grandfather Vsevolod had bone tuberculosis as a child. Doctors gave disappointing forecasts. And then Zamkov decided to perform an operation on his son himself. She passed successfully. Grandpa lived a long life.
— How was the Worker and Collective Farm Woman monument created?
— The idea belonged to the architect Boris Iofan. For its implementation, sculptors were selected on a competitive basis. The commission liked the variant of Vera Mukhina's plastic solution the most. Of course, creating a steel monument 24 meters high is not an easy task. And when he was already ready, suddenly someone noticed that in the outlines of the folds of the skirt of the collective farmer, it was as if one could guess ... the profile of Trotsky. 
They say that Voroshilov and Molotov came to inspect the statue at night by the light of searchlights. But nothing suspicious was found. Voroshilov and Molotov liked the monument very much. Well, then, as you know, there was a triumph in Paris.
*The monument "Worker and Collective Farm Girl" was installed in Moscow near the entrance to VDNKh
Was Vera Mukhina familiar with Stalin?
- As a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, she must have come across him in an official setting. But there were no personal meetings. When Vera Ignatievna had already become an honored master, the Stalinist retinue insisted that she make a sculptural portrait of the leader. But the great-grandmother did not burn with the desire to create it. Cunning, she explained that she likes to work only from nature. But Stalin did not have time to pose. I saw a note in the archives of the Academy of Arts, in which he wrote in blue pencil on an album sheet: they say, dear Vera Ignatievna, in response to your request to work, I can say that I am ready no earlier than in the spring. The letter is dated in the winter of 1951. However, as you know, nothing came of this. Apparently, neither she nor Stalin needed this. And both of them didn't have long to live.
- There are still disputes whether Vera Mukhina is the author of the faceted glass?
No, it's a legend. After the war, Vera Ignatievna became the artistic director of the Leningrad Experimental Art Glass Factory. She was interested in the plastic features of this material. She invented the famous “lotus” vase, “Kremlin” and “ruby” sets ... As for the faceted glass, about fifteen years ago, a journalist from one of the central newspapers let out a “duck” that it was invented by Mukhina and Malevich. Although the glass appeared 200 years before them! And Vera Ignatievna was not familiar with Malevich at all.
- Your famous great-grandmother received five Stalin Prizes. How did she manage them?
- She built a house-workshop in Moscow and a dacha near Moscow in Abramtsevo.
- What kind of person was Vera Mukhina in everyday life, how did she dress?
She had her own signature style. She loved to wear the so-called sculptural blouses and skirts - things are quite voluminous and very expressive. There was artistic thinking. Together with a fashion designer (who once dressed royal family) Nadezhda Lamanova, who was called Russian Chanel, they did exhibitions of Russian costume. By the way, Vera Ignatievna, coming from a merchant family, was a very practical person: she bought expensive things when they were sold cheaply. And it wasn't just clothes and jewelry. We also bought things for the house. My great-grandmother was a very down to earth person.
Did you manage to do everything around the house?
- After the marriage of the son, the mother of the daughter-in-law was mainly engaged in housekeeping, and, of course, there was a housekeeper. After all, the house was large, the table was often laid not only for family members, but also for those who worked with Vera Ignatievna in the workshop.
- Having become famous, did Vera Ignatievna travel a lot around the world?
- Not. Then they reluctantly let go. A significant trip to France was in 1937. When "Worker and Collective Farm Girl" was being edited, she spent several months in Paris. And after the war she visited Romania, Finland ...
- Vera Ignatievna died at the age of 64. What was the cause of death?
- Cardiac ischemia. Great-grandmother overstrained herself while working on the creation of a monument to Gorky. The commission did not want to accept this work, since the writer, in the interpretation of Vera Ignatievna, seemed to them too old and tragic. And since the opening of the monument was planned for the holiday - the next anniversary of the Great October Revolution, optimism was required. Usually, according to the technology of creating large monuments, a small model is first made, and then scaled by craftsmen under the author's supervision. In this case, due to the fact that the time was running out, it was necessary to redo Gorky's face on the erected monument.
Vera Ignatievna worked on the scaffolding. In order to evaluate each amendment made, it was necessary to go down, move a distance, look and again climb the scaffolding for work. The height was rather big - seven meters. And Vera Ignatievna at that time was already over sixty. After hard work, she fell ill and soon died. She was buried at the Novodevichy cemetery next to her husband. The words of Alexei Zamkov are inscribed on the monument to the spouses: “I did everything I could for the people.” And below them are the words of Vera Mukhina: "Me too"...
