Post in memory of Irina Antonova: Bouquets from Richter and Chagall, the only entry in the work book and one love for life
Post in memory of Irina Antonova: Bouquets from Richter and Chagall, the only entry in the work book and one love for life

Video: Post in memory of Irina Antonova: Bouquets from Richter and Chagall, the only entry in the work book and one love for life

Video: Post in memory of Irina Antonova: Bouquets from Richter and Chagall, the only entry in the work book and one love for life
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For museum workers, Irina Aleksandrovna Antonova was a legendary person. Even a brief listing of her awards and merits can take several pages: academician, honored worker, laureate of the State Prize, full holder of the Order of Merit for the Fatherland, director of the State Museum of Fine Arts named after A. S. Pushkin … However, it is probably not even this magnificent statistics of achievements that is more interesting, but those people with whom fate brought it together. Chagall and Richter, Furtseva and Brezhnev … this woman can rightfully be called a man of the era. On December 1, at the age of 99, Irina Antonova, President of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Honored Artist of the RSFSR, died.

Irina Aleksandrovna says that she has never radically changed her views. Since childhood, she has absorbed the confidence that she was lucky enough to be born in the greatest country. Her father, a native of the working class and a Bolshevik since 1906, managed to firmly instill in children the ideas of socialism. The girl, born in March 1922, fully experienced the hardships of the difficult post-revolutionary time. Mom worked in a printing house, often at night, and sometimes left the three-year-old baby at home alone. But then the girl got unique gifts - pages of newly printed books that she read with her mother. So Irina was probably the first Soviet child to read "Three Fat Men" by Yuri Olesha.

The student years, which, as you know, should be the happiest for a person, fell on 1940-1945. As soon as the war began, Irina Antonova graduated from nursing courses and went to work at a hospital in Krasnaya Presnya. At the same time, the junior sergeant of the medical service continued to study at Moscow State University - she studied art history, specialized in Renaissance Italy. On April 10, 1945, after graduating from the university, she went to work at the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts.

- Irina Aleksandrovna recalls today.

Irina Antonova, 1960s
Irina Antonova, 1960s

However, she had to "stay" in this building for 68 years. At first, together with other employees, she revived the museum after the war devastation. Then, having already worked in it for 16 years, Irina Aleksandrovna received a new appointment:

Antonova recalls the famous Minister of Culture of the USSR rather warmly. Tells a case that can be considered very indicative:

Another significant meeting made Irina Alekseevna worry:

Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev and Irina Antonova at the exhibition
Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev and Irina Antonova at the exhibition

Memories of people are an invaluable source of information about the past, about famous people. So, for example, for Irina Antonova, Marc Chagall was remembered as an unusually smiling person who loved to joke. They met in the Louvre, in the personal apartment of the director of the main museum of France.

But she got the impression of Svyatoslav Richter as a complex person: However, since 1981, together with the famous pianist, she organized the annual “December Evenings” in the museum. Irina Alekseevna tells how the idea of the famous festival was born:

In the life of Irina Antonova, there was enough time for purely female joys and sorrows: her husband, with whom she lived for 64 years, and whom she calls "a happy chance", a mother who passed away at the age of one hundred and was until the last minutes "the main friend" … The only son who, unfortunately, is disabled. Irina Aleksandrovna does not hide the secret of her longevity and vitality. She says that she simply absolutely does not think about death, but in life she always remains sincere -.

Irina Antonova at the Russian Federation State Prize ceremony. Kremlin, June 12, 2018
Irina Antonova at the Russian Federation State Prize ceremony. Kremlin, June 12, 2018

In our country, only eight women are full holders of the Order of Merit for the Fatherland. These are Maya Plisetskaya, Galina Volchek, Galina Vishnevskaya, Valentina Matvienko, Lyudmila Verbitskaya, Inna Churikova, Tatyana Doronina and Irina Alekseevna Antonova.

Ekaterina Furtseva is often remembered today. Most often, as a controversial and complex person, whose appointment to a high post was not the most successful decision. They are also discussing why the Minister of Culture of the USSR passed away so early

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