Video: Muse of besieged Leningrad: the tragic fate of the poetess Olga Berggolts
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
May 16 marks 108 years since the birth of the famous Soviet poetess Olga Berggolts … She was called "the besieged Madonna" and "the muse of besieged Leningrad", since during the Second World War she worked in the House of Radio, and her voice in many instilled hope and faith in salvation. She owns the lines carved on the granite of the Piskarevsky memorial: "Nobody is forgotten, and nothing is forgotten." The poetess had a chance to survive the death of loved ones, repression, blockade, war and die in peacetime, in complete loneliness and oblivion.
Olga was born in 1910 in St. Petersburg in the family of a surgeon. She began writing poetry in childhood, and from the age of 15 she was actively published. When Korney Chukovsky first heard her poems, he said: “Well, what a good girl! Comrades, this will eventually become a real poet."
In the literary association of working youth "Smena" Olga met the young poet Boris Kornilov and married him, and soon they had a daughter, Irina. After graduating from the Faculty of Philology of Leningrad University, Olga worked as a correspondent for the newspaper "Soviet Step" in Kazakhstan, where she was sent on assignment. At the same time, her marriage to Kornilov broke up. And in the life of Berggolts, another man appeared - classmate Nikolai Molchanov. They married in 1932 and had a daughter, Maya.
And then misfortune fell upon the family, which since then seemed to have pursued Olga Berggolts. In 1934, her daughter Maya died, and 2 years later, Irina. In 1937 Boris Kornilov was declared an enemy of the people on an absurd reason, and Olga, as his ex-wife "for being in touch with an enemy of the people", was expelled from the Writers' Union and fired from the newspaper. Soon Boris Kornilov was shot, only in 1957 it was admitted that his case had been falsified. Lydia Chukovskaya wrote that "troubles followed on her heels."
In 1938, Olga Berggolts was arrested on false denunciation as "a member of the Trotskyist-Zinovievist organization and terrorist group." In prison, she lost another child - she was constantly beaten, demanding confessions to her involvement in terrorist activities. After that, she could no longer become a mother. Only in July 1939 was she released for lack of corpus delicti.
Months later, Olga wrote: “I have not yet returned from there. Remaining alone at home, I speak aloud with the investigator, with the commission, with the people - about the prison, about the shameful, concocted "my case." Everything responds to prison - poetry, events, conversations with people. She stands between me and life … They took out the soul, dug into it with smelly fingers, spat at it, shit, then put it back and say: "Live." Her lines turned out to be prophetic: And the path of a generation Is that simple - Look carefully: There are crosses behind. Around - a churchyard. And also crosses - ahead …
In 1941, the Great Patriotic War began, and at the beginning of 1942 her husband died. Olga remained in besieged Leningrad and worked on the radio, becoming the voice of the besieged city. It was then that her poetic talent manifested itself in full force. She gave hope, supported and saved many people. She was called the poet, personifying the resilience and courage of the Leningrad people, "the besieged Madonna", "the muse of the besieged Leningrad." It was she who became the author of the lines about "one hundred and twenty-five grams of blockade, with fire and blood in half."
But after the war, the poetess again found herself in disgrace: her books were withdrawn from libraries because she communicated with Anna Akhmatova, disagreeable to the authorities, and because of "the author's obsession with the questions of repression already resolved by the party." Olga felt broken and broken, in 1952 she even ended up in a psychiatric hospital due to alcohol addiction that had appeared before the war.
She passed away on November 13, 1975, abandoned and forgotten by everyone. Only in 2010 were her diaries published, in which she frankly wrote about her most difficult years - 1939-1949. The monument at her grave appeared only in 2005. And 10 years later, the muse of the besieged city, Olga Berggolts, was erected a monument in St. Petersburg.
And today her poems do not lose their relevance. "Answer": a poem by Olga Berggolts, inspiring hope
Recommended:
As the heiress of the French aristocrats, she defended besieged Leningrad and painted sketches on the virgin lands: Irina Vitman
The fate of the Soviet artist Irina Vitman is full of contrasts. Childhood spent in bohemian Paris - and the defense of besieged Leningrad. Dreams of conquering the Arctic, traveling the world - and twenty years of a happy life in a deep province. And also - constant artistic experiments behind the screen of socialist realism. Irina Vitman did not rebel, did not go underground and did not create a new Soviet avant-garde, just as she was not a "socialist realist" artist. She just lived by painting
Documentary photographs from besieged Leningrad and today chilling blood
The troops of Nazi Germany took the Soviet city of Leningrad into a blockade for 872 days - from September 8, 1941 to January 27, 1944. Residents of the city and soldiers fought sparing no effort. The military losses during the defense and liberation of the city amounted to about half a million people, over 600 thousand Leningraders died of hunger. Today, it is simply impossible to look at photographs of that time without shuddering. It's hard to imagine how people were able to survive this terrible time
The comedy about the besieged Leningrad from the laureate of "Nika" caused a wave of indignation even before the release of the screens
For 2019, director Alexei Krasovsky has scheduled the release of a feature film entitled "Holiday". The film is dedicated to the besieged Leningrad. It has not come out yet, but in the State Duma it was called blasphemy
Lyudmila Savelyeva: the best Natasha Rostova comes from besieged Leningrad
Director Sergei Bondarchuk long doubted which of the actresses to approve for the role of Natasha Rostova in the film "War and Peace". Ballerina Lyudmila Savelyeva seemed to him not the best contender: inexpressive appearance, unsuccessful auditions, lack of experience in filming. But later he did not regret his choice - the whole world fell in love with Lyudmila Savelyeva, she was recognized as the best actress who embodied the image of Natasha Rostova on the screen
Football match in the "city of the dead": how the besieged Leningrad proved that it is alive
In St. Petersburg there is a monument that not everyone knows about - a monument in memory of the footballers of besieged Leningrad. The legendary football match, which took place 75 years ago, had a powerful ideological and psychological impact on the inhabitants of the besieged city and on the enemy. Famous Leningrad footballers of that time changed their tunics to T-shirts to prove that Leningrad is alive and will never surrender