Video: Movie heroes and their prototypes: who Anka the machine gunner really was
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
Many famous film images have real prototypes. Despite the fact that in the legendary Chapaevsk division there was no Anki the Machine Gunner, this character cannot be called completely fictional. Life gave this image nurse Maria Popova, which once in battle really had to fire a machine gun instead of a wounded soldier. It was this woman who became the prototype for Anka from film "Chapaev"included in the top 100 films in the world. Her fate deserves no less attention than the exploits of the movie heroine.
In 1934, the directors Georgy and Sergei Vasiliev were tasked by the party to make a film about the victories of the Red Army. There was no Anka in the first version. Stalin was dissatisfied with the viewing and recommended adding a romantic line and a female image, which would be the embodiment of the fate of a Russian woman during the Civil War. The directors accidentally saw a publication about the nurse Maria Popova, who was forced by a wounded machine gunner on pain of death to shoot from the "Maxim". This is how Anka the machine gunner appeared. The story of her love with Petka was also invented - in fact, there was no romance between Chapaev's assistant Pyotr Isaev and Maria Popova. In the first two years after the film's release, Stalin watched it 38 times. Chapaev had no less success among the audience - huge queues lined up at the cinemas.
As part of the 25th rifle division of Chapaev, not only Maria Popova fought - there were enough women there. But the story of the nurse impressed the filmmakers the most. In the same division was the wife of the red commissar and writer Furmanov Anna, in whose honor the main character of the film was named. By the way, there was no such character in Furmanov's story, based on which the film was filmed.
Maria Popova was born into a peasant family in 1896. She lost her father at the age of 4, and her mother at the age of 8. From this age, she had to work for wealthy fellow villagers, including the Novikovs, which is why she was later accused of not being who she claims to be. In 1959, the fighters of the same Chapayev division wrote a denunciation to Maria Popova that she was allegedly the daughter of Novikov's kulak, fought on the side of the White Guards, and when the Reds prevailed in the Civil War, she went over to their side. All this turned out to be untrue, but it cost her health.
In fact, Maria Popova at the age of 16 married a poor fellow villager, but her husband died soon after. In 1917 she joined the Red Guard and took part in the battles for Samara. In 1918 she became a member of the party, in the same year she was included in the Chapayev division. She was not only a nurse - she served in cavalry reconnaissance, performed the duties of a military doctor. This is connected with one curious incident, told by Maria Popova herself. Once she brought two bags of soda to the division from a smashed pharmacy - there was nothing else there. She cut strips of paper, sprinkled the powder in them and signed "from the head", "from the stomach", etc. Some fighters claimed that they were helped.
After the Civil War, Maria graduated from the Faculty of Soviet Law at Moscow State University, then was engaged in intelligence activities in Germany. She was sent there as an assistant in the legal department of the Soviet trade mission. Then her daughter was born, whose father's name Maria hid until the end of her days. During the Great Patriotic War, she was again at the front as part of a propaganda brigade. In 1981, Maria Popova died at the age of 85.
Stalin had his own preferences in the art of cinema: he liked not only "Chapaev", he also watched films several times with his beloved actress Lyubov Orlova - the most beautiful film star of the 1930-1940s
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