Artists in the war: how Vladimir Etush's fellow soldiers helped him come up with the image of Comrade Saakhov

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

May 6 marks 96 years of a wonderful actor, People's Artist of the USSR Vladimir Etush … When the Great Patriotic War began, he just graduated from the first year of the Shchukin school. Etush went to the front as a volunteer, participated in the liberation of Rostov-on-Don and Ukraine. He remembered these terrible years forever and now says that friendly support and a sense of humor helped to survive all the hardships of wartime. Thanks to this, the image was later born comrade Saakhov in the "Caucasian Captive".

Vladimir Etush became one of the first witnesses of the outbreak of the war, without knowing it. On the evening of June 21, he, along with other students, celebrated the end of the session and returned home in the morning. A car with a German flag swept towards him from the direction of Manezhnaya Square. Later he realized that it was the car of the German ambassador to the USSR, who had just handed over a memorandum on the declaration of war. At noon, Vladimir Etush was woken up by his mother and said that the beginning of the war had been announced on the radio.

As a student of the Shchukin school, Vladimir Etush was entitled to a reservation, but he nevertheless decided to go to the front as a volunteer. Before the war, he studied German, so he entered the courses of military translators. Then he became deputy head of the intelligence department of the 70th fortified area, which defended Rostov. Later, he explained his decision to go to the front in the following way: “You see, when you see balloon fences, cross-sealed windows, blackout and gloomy, anxious faces, psychology somehow changes, and this is not hurray-patriotism - everything is much more complicated … the time of the talented, extremely popular at that time performance "Field Marshal Kutuzov", in which we also took part, that there were almost no spectators in the hall. I was shocked! And I realized: the country is not up to the theater. This also became an impetus so that the next day I went to the military registration and enlistment office."

He has many memories of the war, but one of them is the strongest: “Every time I bring him back to mind, I tremble and a lump appears in my throat. Imagine: having not conquered Stalingrad, the Germans were afraid that we would cut them off from the Caucasus, and began to retreat. They are retreating, and we are driving them away. And here's a local moment: at dawn we occupied a village that had been under the Germans for a long time. A grandmother came out onto the porch of her house, and I went up to her, asked for a drink - after all, we walked all night, thirst tormented. And the grandmother was so amazed that I was not German that she just exclaimed: “My dear!”, Then spat on her handkerchief and rubbed my entire black face. What seems to be wrong with that? And I can’t talk about it calmly!”

The actor admits that the feeling of fear did not leave him all the time he was in the war, but the ability to find funny even in the terrible and laugh at it helped to survive and not go crazy. In the battles for Azov, their wagon train with provisions fell behind, and all that they had to eat was only millet groats. She had to eat for a whole month. Even in these conditions, the soldiers did not lose the ability to joke: “Our food is like in a restaurant: millet soup, millet barbecue, millet compote…”. Since then, the actor hates millet and never eats it.

By distribution, Vladimir Etush ended up in the North Caucasian Military District. From that moment on, a real war began for him. Thanks to the fellow soldiers whom he met there, the image of Comrade Saakhov in the "Caucasian Captive" was later born. After all, it was the actor who proposed the idea that his character should speak with an accent in which Georgian, Armenian, and Azeri could be guessed. And so he learned to speak from his fellow soldiers in the Caucasus.

"Prisoner of the Caucasus" made Etush a national hero in the Caucasus and Transcaucasia. The actor recalls: “After the film was released, my acquaintances warned me to be careful - they say, Caucasians can beat me. But it turned out quite the opposite. Once I came to the bazaar, and they almost began to carry me there. They surrounded us from all sides, began to vie with each other to treat them. That is, they were accepted as a native. Although, as I understand it, the Azerbaijanis believed that Saakhov was an Armenian, the Armenians believed that he was an Azerbaijanian, the Georgians, too, obviously did not take him for their own … And everyone was pleased. Especially me".

He fought from Tbilisi to Zaporozhye. The war for Vladimir Etush ended in 1943, when in the village of Zhovtnevoy near Tokmak, Zaporozhye region, he was seriously wounded in battle. The bullet damaged the pelvic bones, and for six months the actor was treated in four hospitals. After that, he was discharged and given the second group of disability. Since then, he often celebrates Victory Day along with his own birthday. And he says that it is simply impossible to separate your life from the life of the country …

In the hearts of millions of viewers, Etush remained a charming comrade Saakhov, and behind the scenes of "Prisoner of the Caucasus" many curious and dramatic facts were hidden.