Legendary House of Writers of Ill Fame: Tragic Stories of Real Residents of Bulgakov's House of Dramlit
Legendary House of Writers of Ill Fame: Tragic Stories of Real Residents of Bulgakov's House of Dramlit

Video: Legendary House of Writers of Ill Fame: Tragic Stories of Real Residents of Bulgakov's House of Dramlit

Video: Legendary House of Writers of Ill Fame: Tragic Stories of Real Residents of Bulgakov's House of Dramlit
Video: Social Inequality in Pre-Revolutionary Russia - YouTube 2024, November
Anonim
Mikhail Bulgakov and the House of Writers in Lavrushinsky Lane
Mikhail Bulgakov and the House of Writers in Lavrushinsky Lane

Famous House of Writers in Moscow, which is located at 17 Lavrushinsky Lane, opposite the Tretyakov Gallery, was built 80 years ago on the personal order of Stalin. Its tenants were representatives of the literary elite, members of the Union of Writers of the USSR, among whom were A. Barto, I. Ilf, E. Petrov, K. Paustovsky, M. Prishvin, V. Kaverin, Yu. Olesha, V. Kataev, B. Pasternak … Serious battles were going on for apartments, not everyone managed to get a residence permit here. I never got my turn Michael Bulgakovwho portrayed this house in The Master and Margarita under the name of the House of Dramlita. Many of its inhabitants suffered an unenviable fate.

House of Writers in Lavrushinsky Lane in Moscow
House of Writers in Lavrushinsky Lane in Moscow

The construction of the legendary house was preceded by the creation in 1934 of the USSR Writers' Union, the charter of which stated: "The Union of Soviet Writers sets the general goal of creating works of high artistic value, saturated with the heroic struggle of the international proletariat, the pathos of the victory of socialism." Stalin wanted to unite the representatives of the creative elite not only ideologically, but also territorially - it was easier to keep them under control that way.

View from the roof of the Writers' House, 1956
View from the roof of the Writers' House, 1956
Boris Pasternak on the balcony of an apartment in the House of Writers, 1948
Boris Pasternak on the balcony of an apartment in the House of Writers, 1948

The settlement in the house began in 1937. B. Pasternak was one of the first to move here, to a small apartment in a tower under the roof. He mentioned this house in one of his poems (“The house was like a tower …”). At the beginning of the war, Pasternak remained in Moscow and, together with other residents, was on duty at night on the roof, filling incendiary shells with sand. One night, high-explosive bombs hit the Writers' House, destroying 5 apartments. After the war, Pasternak returned to Lavrushinsky lane. It was here that the novel "Doctor Zhivago" was written.

House of Writers in Lavrushinsky Lane in Moscow
House of Writers in Lavrushinsky Lane in Moscow

Not everyone got apartments in the Writers' House. Mikhail Bulgakov was denied housing. And this was largely facilitated by one of the writer's most zealous persecutors - critic Osaf Litovsky, head of the Main Repertory Committee. It was he who branded the work of the writer after staging "Days of the Turbins" with the contemptuous term "Bulgakovism" and forbade his play to be staged. The critic himself settled in the Writers' House in apartment no. 84.

This is how the prototype of the House of Dramlit looks today
This is how the prototype of the House of Dramlit looks today
The same facade of the house, lined with black marble
The same facade of the house, lined with black marble

It was in this apartment that Bulgakov placed Latunsky's critic in the novel The Master and Margarita: “Margarita flew out into the alley. In the end, her attention was attracted by the luxurious bulk of an eight-story, apparently newly built house. Margarita … saw that the facade of the house was lined with black marble … and that the inscription "Dramlit's House" was inscribed above the doors in gold. … Rising higher in the air, she greedily began to read the names: Khustov, Dvubratsky, Kvant, Beskudnikov, Latunsky … - Latunsky! - screamed Margarita. - Latunsky! Why, it's him! It was he who ruined the Master! " And after that Margarita staged a pogrom in apartment No. 84.

House of Writers in Lavrushinsky Lane in Moscow
House of Writers in Lavrushinsky Lane in Moscow
This is how the prototype of the House of Dramlit looks today
This is how the prototype of the House of Dramlit looks today

Apartments in a house in Lavrushinsky Pereulok were distributed based on the merits and importance of the writer - “the bigger the writer, the more living space”. This housing was considered privileged - the residents also had their own dining room, clinic and kindergarten at their disposal. However, many paid dearly for these privileges. Soon after settling in 1937, searches and arrests began in the house. Some residents disappeared without a trace, and other people settled in their apartments. After the war, in 1948, Lieutenant General V. Kryukov, who was arrested for "robbery and appropriation of captured property on a large scale", was taken from this house to the Lubyanka. And after him, his wife, the famous singer Lydia Ruslanova, was arrested for “anti-Soviet activities and bourgeois corruption”.

Agniya Barto
Agniya Barto

Misfortune also pursued other residents of the Writers' House: Paustovsky's son Alexei died here, the prose writer Knorre's daughter and the poet's son Yashin committed suicide. The wife of the poet Lev Oshanin could not forgive him for betrayal and threw herself out the window. Near the house, a car hit Agnia Barto's 9-year-old son, after which she always wore black. They said that the tenants of the house were haunted by an evil fate.

House of infamous writers
House of infamous writers

As you can see, not only apartment No. 50 in Bulgakov's novel turned out to be “bad”, but also “House of Dramlit” in reality. Although it is hardly worth seeing a mystical subtext in this: the arrests in the 1930s. were massive, and misfortunes overtake families in any other houses - but the residents of this house were outstanding people, and millions of them became aware of their fate. And the House of Writers has earned a bad reputation, which, however, did not prevent the fact that in the 1960s. officials and other people who were very far from art began to receive apartments here.

Michael Bulgakov
Michael Bulgakov

In addition to the house in Lavrushinsky lane, there is at least 6 places in Moscow worth visiting for fans of "The Master and Margarita".

Recommended: