An unequal 64-year marriage: Academician Dmitry Likhachev and his Zinaida

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Dmitry Sergeevich Likhachev, already during his lifetime, began to be called the conscience and the voice of the Russian intelligentsia, and his opinion often became decisive in controversial situations. He was a very prolific scientist, wrote many works on the history of Russian literature. And always behind his back was the main woman in his life, his wife Zinaida Alexandrovna, thanks to whom, in fact, he remained alive.

Unequal marriage

Dmitry Likhachev met Zinaida Makarova in 1934, when he already had an arrest and five years in the camps behind him. He came to get a job at the Leningrad branch of the Academy of Sciences publishing house, where Zina Makarova worked as a proofreader. She was among those who looked at the unusual visitor with curiosity.

Dmitry was young and handsome, but at the same time he was very poorly dressed: summer trousers and canvas shoes, carefully cleaned. And this despite the fact that outside the window was already cold October. Dmitry was clearly shy and worried: this was far from the first place he tried to get. Then Zina still thought that the visitor probably had a wife and many heirs, and therefore she herself rushed to the director who had left the office with persuasion to hire a young man.

Dmitry Likhachev immediately drew attention to the pretty girl, but he was old-fashioned and did not dare to approach her. He had to ask a friend, Mikhail Steblin-Kamensky, to introduce him to Zinaida. Only after the "official" acquaintance did the young people become friends, and soon began to meet.

They often walked, Dmitry, Mitya, as his relatives called him, talked a lot, and she listened attentively. He spoke in an interesting, but sometimes scary way. For example, about how he was in the Solovetsky camp, how he went through all the circles of hell in prison and survived quite by accident. And, it seems, after the rest of the days he was afraid of informers.

Dmitry Likhachev had a difficult character, sometimes it was hard with him, but Zinaida, without a shadow of a doubt, responded by agreeing to Dmitry's proposal to become his wife. She was sure that she had met her man, with whom she would live together all her life. They did not have a wedding as such, there was just a painting in the registry office, even without rings, the newlyweds simply could not afford to buy them.

Dmitry and Zinaida were very different. He is a Petersburg intellectual, a native of a good family, in which they have always read a lot and loved the theater. Zinaida was born and raised in Novorossiysk, her father was a salesman in a store, and after the revolution and the death of her mother, she had to help her father put his younger brothers on their feet.

She dreamed of becoming a doctor, but she could not get a higher education due to lack of funds. After the death of one of the brothers, the family moved to Leningrad, and thanks to her impeccable literacy, Zinaida was able to get a job as a proofreader in the publishing house of the Academy of Sciences. When in Leningrad they began to talk to her about her recognizable southern dialect, the girl began to study and take care of herself on her own, and after a while no one would be able to say that she speaks in the dialect.

It seems that she was not at all a match for her Mitya, a simple girl with no education, but the couple were happy. At first, they lived in an apartment with Likhachev's parents and tried not to pay any attention to everyday problems and difficulties.

Dmitry Likhachev was restrained, sometimes even tough, and after the camp and gloomy. Zinaida is an open girl with a healthy sense of optimism and cheerful sparks in her eyes. Perhaps it was in this difference between them that their mutual attraction lay. And from the moment this amazing girl appeared in his life, the philologist knew for sure: he has a reliable rear and a person who will always support him in everything.

How I survived, only you and I will know …

Zinaida devoted herself entirely to her husband. She almost stopped meeting her friends and even relatives, helped her husband in everything. Having decided that it was necessary to remove the criminal record from her husband, she made every effort to achieve this goal. She remembered her acquaintance, who in her youth knew the future Commissar of Justice, begged her to come to Moscow and petition the Commissar for Dmitry Likhachev. It was difficult, it cost a lot of money for Zinaida, but she succeeded. After that, Likhachev was able to get a job at the Institute of Russian Literature and even defend his Ph. D. thesis.

In August 1937, two daughters were born to Dmitry and Zinaida Likhachev, Vera and Lyudmila. The family already had hard times, but during the war they were all able to survive only thanks to Zinaida Alexandrovna. It was she who stood in huge queues for bread in forty-degree frosts, she also carried water from the river, exchanged her clothes, her mother-in-law's jewelry for bread and flour. All this time, the husband was engaged in scientific work, wrote a book with the historian Tikhanova on the instructions of the city administration "Defense of Old Russian Cities." The book was then handed out to soldiers at the front.

After all of them were evacuated to Kazan, then Dmitry Sergeevich returned to Leningrad and later was able to call his family. And for many years, at all family holidays, Dmitry Likhachev said: they all survived the blockade only thanks to Zinaida Alexandrovna.

In 1949, when Dmitry Sergeevich began to get blood poisoning from a cut accidentally inflicted in a hairdresser's, he had already said goodbye to his wife and children, but his brother, who obtained penicillin, which was in short supply at that time, saved him. Fate seemed to keep Dmitry Likhachev so that he could write his works, could make his contribution to literature and history.

With the name of the beloved on my lips

The life of Dmitry Likhachev was very often endangered, but he always remained true to himself. He refused to sign a letter against Sakharov, after which he was beaten in his own entrance, the doors of his apartment were set on fire. But he never went against his conscience.

The Likhachevs' daughters grew up, got married and lived with their parents. So Dmitry Sergeevich wanted. He created a family with his own laws and foundations, where he was in charge. When the husband of Lyudmila's daughter was arrested for financial fraud, Likhachev, who did not treat his son-in-law very well, considered it his duty to intercede for him. For the sake of preserving the family. Nevertheless, the son-in-law was imprisoned, and after the granddaughter of Dmitry Sergeevich Vera married a dissident and was forced to leave the country.

In 1981, Likhachev's daughter Vera died, and the granddaughter Zinaida, named after her grandmother, remained in the arms of the middle-aged spouses. The house, carefully built by Dmitry Sergeevich, collapsed before our eyes. But under any trials, Zinaida Alexandrovna remained with him. The woman for whom he has always been the main person in life.

They retained their feelings throughout their lives, and already at sunset, when young journalists or women scientists appeared near Dmitry Sergeevich, Zinaida Alexandrovna could even be jealous of her spouse. But he loved her no less than she loved him. And when in 1999 he was in a semi-conscious state in the hospital, in delirium he uttered only one name, his faithful Zinaida, he called her and died with her name on his lips.

After his departure, Zinaida Alexandrovna lost the meaning of life. She stopped getting up and after a year and a half left after him.

Dmitry Likhachev was one of those who managed to survive in inhuman prison conditions. In conditions that kill both body and soul, it is not easy to survive physically and morally. The participation of others, the friendship, which began where, it would seem, there was no place for normal relations, also saved.