Biography, marital status, Alexander Bourdonsky, grandson of Stalin. Children of Vasily Stalin - their fate

40 days have passed since People's Artist of the Russian Federation Alexander Burdonsky passed away.

For 45 years he faithfully served the Russian Army Theater. In an interview he admitted that he wanted to leave at the peak. And so it happened... they remembered Alexander Vasilyevich along with his colleagues on stage.

Since the sad event happened quite recently, I first asked under what circumstances it happened.

“When Burdonsky got to the hospital, I called and asked him: “Are you staying late?” He replied that he would not be discharged for now. It was completely unlike him,” People’s Artist of Russia Olga Bogdanova, leading actress of the Russian Army Theater, told me. – Alexander Vasilyevich did not seem healthy: pale, thin, but he had incredible fortitude. During rehearsals, he literally got a second wind and all his illnesses went away. It seemed that he would survive on this strength of spirit.

However, after some time, on May 9, she called the actor to congratulate him on Victory Day and asked how he would feel about the visit. Burdonsky said: “Be sure to come.” The word “necessarily” alarmed her. And two days later the actress decided to visit him.

“To be honest, I was a little afraid of this meeting,” she admitted to me. “I decided to prepare myself mentally and asked the nurse to meet me. But it so happened that Burdonsky and I ran into each other in the corridor. And he said very simply: “You know, I have cancer.” Then everything went cold inside me. He began to tell me that chemotherapy was coming. It was important for him to know how much time he had left and whether he would be able to return home to work after the procedures. I encouraged him, said that we, the actors, were really looking forward to him and were ready to run to him at rehearsals...

Farewell to Alexander Burdonsky / YouTube still frame

Why didn't you take the leader's surname?

Despite the fact that Alexander Burdonsky was the grandson of Joseph Stalin, he saw his famous grandfather only at the funeral. From birth, Burdonsky bore the surname of his father Vasily, was Stalin, but then decided to take the surname of his mother Galina. As a boy, he already understood that his grandfather was the executioner of many innocent souls, and called him a tyrant.

“On the day of Stalin’s death, I was terribly ashamed that everyone around was crying, but I wasn’t,” Alexander Burdonsky admitted in an interview. “I sat near the coffin and saw crowds of sobbing people. I was rather frightened and shocked by this. What good could I have for him? What to be grateful for? For the crippled childhood I had? Being Stalin's grandson is a heavy cross.

From infancy it was hammered into his head that he had to be an excellent student at school and behave exemplarily. Then they said that he had to be a warrior, they sent him to the Suvorov Military School, even though Alexander resisted this.

Burdonsky's mother broke up with Vasily Stalin, unable to withstand his drinking, betrayal and scandals. It was rumored that Vasily was literally addicted to alcohol from the cradle by his father: he teased his wife Nadezhda Alliluyeva by pouring a glass for the one-year-old boy. Vasily deprived Galina of the opportunity to communicate with children. Her place was taken by her stepmother Ekaterina Timoshenko.

“She was a powerful and cruel woman,” Burdonsky recalled. “We, other people’s children, apparently irritated her.” We lacked not only warmth, but also basic care. They forgot to feed us for three or four days; some of us were locked in the room. Our stepmother treated us terribly. She beat her sister Nadya most severely - her kidneys were broken off.

He didn't have children

After such trials, Burdonsky was still able not to lose faith in love. The director lived in a happy marriage for 40 years with his wife Dalia Tumalyavichute (she died in 2006), but they had no children. As he believed, because his childhood was too difficult. He gave his unrealized fatherly love to GITIS students.

According to Alexander Vasilyevich, he had three crazy loves - mother, wife and theater.

“He was skeptical, sarcastic. Sometimes he was both despotic and menacing: he could shout at the actors if they didn’t hear him, didn’t feel him, or didn’t go in the same direction with him,” actress of the Russian Army Theater Anastasia Busygina shared her memories. “He loved us more than his own life.” All our gifts and photographs of us were kept at his house. He wasn't alone. And when he passed away, his loved ones were nearby.

On the day when Alexander Vasilyevich passed away, his favorite play “The Seagull” by A.P. Chekhov was on stage.

“He was in a good private clinic,” says actress Olga Bogdanova. – The actors promised to visit him after the performance. Alexander Vasilyevich waited. They told how the performance went. And after that, before their eyes, he fell into oblivion and left this world.

Biographies of directors often look sketchy until the moment when the directors first appear on stage. In the case of Burdonsky, the situation is the opposite - he was the son of Vasily Stalin and Galina Burdonskaya and the grandson of Joseph Stalin.

As a child, he was Stalin until he was 13, when he changed his last name in 1954. Born in Kuibyshev (now Samara), in evacuation, when his parents were only 20 years old. Four years later they separated, Burdonskaya was not allowed to keep the child, and his father was in charge of raising him.

One of the director's memories of that time was that he beat him for various offenses. Alexander was assigned to the Kalinin Suvorov School, but then he turned off the path of a career military man (on which the names of his father and grandfather would probably have come back to haunt him) and entered the theater school at the Sovremennik Theater. And then he graduated from the directing department at GITIS.

It is interesting that the military and theatrical paths were still intertwined in his life.

In 1972, he received an invitation to stage the play “The One Who Gets a Slap” based on Leonid at the Soviet Army Theater. The production, in which Vladimir Zeldin played one of the roles, turns out to be successful, and Burdonsky is invited to stay at the theater - where he worked until his death.

As the director himself noted, fate saved him from the fate of the royal child - he had the opportunity to take his first steps in the profession at a time when his origin, to put it mildly, did not help him. But talent helped - this is evidenced by the fact that the young graduate of GITIS in 1971 (that is, a year before moving to the Army Theater) was invited to the Theater on Malaya Bronnaya to play the role of Shakespeare's Romeo.

However, the great director and teacher saw a director's streak in the young artist - and invited him to the very production of Andreev that would determine his life. And in which, by the way, he worked with another legend of the Army Theater - already quite deserved by the beginning of the 70s.

Based on Burdonsky's productions in his native theater, one can read a short course on the history of Russian and foreign drama. There are no hackneyed and polished works here, but there are real, weighty, tastefully chosen classics.

For example, “The Lady of the Camellias” by, “Invitation to the Castle” by Jean Anouilh, “Orpheus Descends into Hell” by Tennessee Williams, “Silver Bells” by Ibsen, “Elinor and Her Men”. Among the domestic ones - the spectacular “Vassa Zheleznova” by Gorky, a must for every director, “The Seagull” by Chekhov and his “Fatherlessness” (the play was called “That Madman Platonov”). He also had a flair for “instant” classics - he staged the play “With You and Without You” based on the famous poetic cycle.

In his mature years, Burdonsky returned to where he studied - to GITIS, where he taught artists and directors together with the actress.

Burdonsky’s theatrical merits are undeniable - in time, and not at all “through connections”, he became both an Honored Artist (in pre-perestroika 1985) and a People’s Artist (in the stormy year of 1996).

But, despite all his attempts to distance himself from his grandfather, he remained the grandson of Joseph Stalin - at least in the eyes of the public; Only theater professionals know that Burdonsky is a master director and an excellent teacher. He was often interviewed not about performances, but about his father and grandfather, and in reports of his death he is called exclusively “Stalin’s grandson.” But this is the fate of all descendants of famous people - in order to prove their separation from the clan and individual exclusivity, they have to spend a thousand times more effort than their colleagues who are not burdened with “origin.” Although it was Burdonsky who tried all his life.

Vasily Stalin, the future lieutenant general of aviation, was born in Joseph Stalin's second marriage to Nadezhda Alliluyeva. At the age of 12, he lost his mother. She shot herself in 1932. Stalin was not involved in his upbringing, shifting this concern to the head of security. Later Vasily will write that he was raised by men “not distinguished by morality......He began to smoke and drink early.”

At the age of 19, he fell in love with his friend's fiancée Galina Burdonskaya and married her in 1940. In 1941, the first-born Sasha was born, two years later Nadezhda.

After 4 years, Galina left, unable to bear her husband’s spree. In retaliation, he refused to give her the children. For eight years they had to live with their father, despite the fact that a year later he started another family.

The new chosen one was the daughter of Marshal Tymoshenko, Ekaterina. The ambitious beauty, born on December 21, like Stalin, and who saw this as a special sign, did not like her stepsons. The hatred was manic. She locked them up, “forgot” to feed them, and beat them. Vasily did not pay attention to this. The only thing that bothered him was that the children should not see their own mother. One day Alexander met with her secretly, the father found out about it and beat his son.

Many years later, Alexander recalled those years as the most difficult time of his life.

In his second marriage, Vasily Jr. and daughter Svetlana were born. But the family broke up. Vasily, together with the children from his first marriage, Alexander and Nadezhda, went to the famous swimmer Kapitolina Vasilyeva. She accepted them as family. The children from the second marriage remained with their mother.

After Stalin's death, Vasily was arrested.

The first wife Galina immediately took the children. Nobody stopped her from doing this.

Catherine renounced Vasily, received a pension from the state and a four-room apartment on Gorky Street (now Tverskaya), where she lived with her son and daughter. Either due to severe heredity, or an equally difficult situation in the family, their further fate was tragic.

Both did poorly at school. Alone because I was sick all the time. The other one was not interested in studying at all.

After the 21st Party Congress and the exposure of the cult of personality, negativity towards all of Stalin’s relatives intensified in society. Catherine, trying to protect her son, sent him to Georgia to study. There he entered the Faculty of Law. I didn’t go to classes, spent time with new friends, and became addicted to drugs.

The problem was not immediately recognized. From the third year, his mother took him to Moscow, but could not cure him. During one of his “breakdowns,” Vasily committed suicide at the dacha of his famous grandfather, Marshal Timoshenko. He was only 23.

After the death of her son, Catherine withdrew into herself. She did not love her daughter and even refused custody of her, despite the fact that Svetlana suffered from Graves' disease and progressive mental illness.

Svetlana died at 43 years old, completely alone. They learned of her death only a few weeks later.

Vasily's children from his first marriage were more successful.

Alexander graduated from the Suvorov Military School. He was not interested in a military career, and he entered the directing department of GITIS. He played in the theater and received the title of People's Artist. He worked as a director at the Soviet Army Theater. He considered his grandfather a tyrant, and his relationship with him as a “heavy cross.” He loved his mother very much, lived with her most of the time and bore her last name Burdonsky. Died in 2017.

Nadezhda, unlike her brother, remained Stalin. She always defended her grandfather, claiming that Stalin did not know much of what was happening in the country. She studied at the theater school, but she did not become an actress. She lived in Gori for some time. Upon returning to Moscow, she married her adopted son and mother-in-law, Alexander Fadeev, and gave birth to a daughter, Anastasia. Nadezhda died in 1999 at the age of 56.

Vasily had no other children.

The last wife was nurse Maria Nusberg. He adopted her two daughters, just as he had previously adopted the daughter of Kapitolina Vasilyeva.

Alexander Vasilyevich Burdonsky was born on October 14, 1941 in Moscow. Graduated from the directing department of the State Institute of Theater Arts. A. V. Lunacharsky (GITIS). Director of the Russian Army Theater. People's Artist of Russia. Son of Vasily Iosifovich Stalin.

ALEXANDER BURDONSKY:

I HAVE PASSED THE DESTINY OF THE ROYAL CHILD

People's Artist of the Russian Federation director Alexander Vasilievich Burdonsky (Stalin)

- This is not really an interview, Alexander Vasilyevich, because an everyday interview is not of interest to me. I'm interested in something else. We are all born one day, but for some reason only a few break away from their intended social function and become free artists. Were there any motives, moments in your life that pushed you on the path to art?

You know, Yuri Alexandrovich, the question is, of course, difficult, because it may lead to some things that were invented. In order not to make things up, it is better to speak as everything actually happened. You know that I would not dare to answer your question in general terms, but I can probably even trace what was happening in my life quite consistently. I was born on Pokrov Day, October 14, 1941. At that time, my father, Vasily Iosifovich Stalin, was only 20 years old, that is, he was still quite green, he was born in 1921, he did not drink or go out yet. But I bear the name of my mother, Galina Aleksandrovna Burdonskaya. Father and mother were the same age, born the same year. Once upon a time in Napoleon’s army there was a Bourdone who came to Russia, was seriously wounded, stayed near Volokolamsk, got married there, and this surname took off. According to the Alliluyev line, through the great-grandmother, that is, the mother of Nadezhda Sergeevna, this is a German-Ukrainian line, and along the line of Sergei Yakovlevich Alliluyev, this is Gypsy and Georgian blood. So I have a lot of blood in me, which, perhaps, in its own way, also gave something, some extra gyrus. You know, perhaps, that I almost don’t remember, and only know from stories, my grandmother - my mother’s mother - who was very fond of literature, in general, and read avidly, and read in French, in particular, and spoke excellent -French, but then I forgot it, but I could read it. At one time, if you remember, French was the state Russian language, although it was the language of the aristocracy... But my grandmother was not an aristocrat, although she was raised by her godmother in the family of an oil millionaire who lived in Moscow. Her godmother was a woman who was interested in art and loved culture. My grandmother told me Wilde's tales. The only thing I remember is "Star Boy". This was before four and a half years. I started reading only when I was probably seven years old. By the way, my grandmother took me for a walk to the CDSA park. She took me under her arm like a little pig, carried me and told fairy tales... Then for a long time, life turned out that way, I didn’t live with my mother and grandmother, but lived with my father... But I think that grandmother’s fairy tales are that droplet that got somewhere, probably. Because they say that as a child I was a very impressionable boy. And then my mother said, when I grew up: “You have such iron hands.” This was the moment later. For a long time I lived in a dacha in Ilyinskoye, which is where Zhukovka is, a little further away, and Arkhangelskoye is not far away. There is the Moscow River, there are fields. Very good place. You can read about such a lordly life in Tolstoy or Benoit. There were truly wonderful conditions there, the dacha was very decent. There was a man there who loved nature very much, he was either a commandant or a gardener, it is difficult to determine his position, but I remember early spring, and he told me about every blade of grass, about every tree, about every leaf, he... knew everything about plants. And I listened to his stories with interest, I still remember this, I wandered with him all over this territory, went into the forest, looked at huge anthills, saw the first insects that crawled out into the light, and I was incredibly interested in all this . And I think that was the second drop. Then, as luck would have it, I learned to read. For some reason I started reading Garshin. From the very first authors. Apparently, under the influence of Garshin, I harbored a grudge against my loved ones, and there were many reasons for this, I just don’t want to dramatize anything, but one day, imagine, I decided to run away from home, and to the extent that I read books about running away from home, They take a stick over their shoulder and hang a bundle on the end, then I moved away from the house somewhere in an indefinite direction. But the guards there quickly took me and brought me back, for which I received a good slap in the face from my father. This is all preschool period. Then, when I was already in school, I was probably eight years old, I got into the theater, that is, my sister and I began to be taken to the theater. I remember that we were at “The Snow Maiden” at the Maly Theater, and I really didn’t like the way the scenery smelled, we sat very close, and it seemed to me that the forest smelled so bad. After some time, we got to see “The Dance Teacher” at the Red Army Theater. This is the 50-51st years. Maybe 52nd. It was amazingly beautiful. Around this period of time I ended up at the Bolshoi Theater. There was a ballet called “The Red Poppy” by Gliere, and Ulanova danced. This was my shock, apparently, because I cried terribly at the end, in general, I was amazed, they couldn’t even take me out of the hall. I have been obsessed with Ulanova all my life. Then, when I became a little older, I saw her on stage, and read everything about her, and followed all her statements, I believe that this is the greatest figure of the twentieth century in general, as a person, not even to mention , what an unearthly ballerina she is, although even now look at quite old recordings, she hasn’t danced for forty years, but still some kind of light remains on the screen, you still feel her magic. And I think that this played a very big role in choosing my path. I also need to say that maybe I understand quite little about genetic science in general, but my mother wrote. She wrote both poetry and short stories when she was still a girl. God knows, maybe this also had some influence...

- I have become a categorical person in this regard; I believe that talent is not transmitted genetically. The word is not transmitted. In general, recently, I have become a rather narrow-minded person, because I believe that, in principle, all people are born ready to develop, like computers. All new, all good, fresh from the factory (from the maternity hospital), all ready to be loaded with programs.

Right. As a rule, no. I think so too. In general, I believe that a person by nature contains some eggs or small sprouts, or grains... Either you water them, touch something, they begin to sound, this note begins to sound, or they dry up and become deaf. I can’t say that something like that came to me from my father there, some kind of science was passed on. On the contrary, I had an almost open, but still secret, confrontation with him. What my father liked, I didn’t like. I do not know why. Either as a sign of protest, or due to some other inner feeling. Although we can remember some bonding moments. For example, this one. My father had three horses. And he had a groom who was brought from Kislovodsk, I remember him, Petya Rakitin. I spent whole days in this stable, I fell asleep there in the hay. So he told me about horses, about night pastures, between gorges when they were driven there, somewhere near Kislovodsk. I was fascinated by these stories. I believe that this groom was a man of a romantic tendency and, undoubtedly, endowed with the gift of an educator. Whether romanticism was already emerging in me, no one can explain this now. But I was madly drawn to him, to these endless stories... It seems to me that this is such a small circle, at first glance, maybe even so naive... True, I was not allowed to ride a horse, but I was allowed to ride in a sleigh in winter - yes. You know, I didn’t have such an incredible urge to get on a horse and ride myself. And in general, I honestly didn’t have any desire for any kind of sports attractions. I also really loved to draw. I drew everywhere I could, even in my room on the closet. And, of course, after I saw “The Dancing Teacher” and “The Red Poppy,” I painted with renewed desire. Ulanova made the strongest impression, and Zeldin, of course, probably, but I didn’t know then that he was Zeldin. Therefore, I tried to depict what I saw in the theater in a drawing. I really liked dancing, I really liked ballet. And then I was at the Suvorov Military School, my father sent me there, he wanted me to be a military man, although I never had any desire for this. I was thus punished by my father for meeting my mother. The fact is that I haven’t seen my mother for eight years, ever since she left my father. And he, my father, under no circumstances allowed me to see my mother, but there was a period, it was probably 1951, when she finally came to see me at school. First, however, my grandmother came and said that my mother was waiting for me. We met. But apparently someone was watching me, as I understand it. Because my father was informed about this, and he gave me a hard time and sent me to the Suvorov Military School in Kalinin, present-day Tver. There was no Suvorov Military School in Moscow at that time. My father was actually a fighter. He gave me a good beating. He was not an intelligent man, but he was kind, but these are slightly different things. He was a lively, cheerful and intelligent person, in my opinion. But, it seems to me, he did not understand what it was, not even a bridle, but, as it were, some kind of laws of community life, then not the best qualities came out of him. My father had already been through the war. They separated from their mother. She left him in 1945, in the summer, in July, after her birthday. I remember that at the Suvorov School, too, oddly enough, there were some kind of dances. Some kind of composition was made there, in which I took part. We even performed on the stage of the Kalinin Theater. Looking back, I understand that then I was broken in a terrible way. In general, it seems to me that all my directorial qualities grew out of such a thing as confrontation. It was even intuitive. In addition to confrontation, this is also an attempt, as I can now interpret it, to preserve my view of the world, that is, to preserve myself. Someone could laugh at this, but I, how to say, did not betray it internally. And it seems to me that this also played a huge role in my life. After a while, when we had already returned to my mother, I became stronger in my rightness: my love for the theater. It was already 1953, my mother took us, my grandfather, Stalin, had already died, we were already living with her, my father was already in prison. I had a sister, one year and four months younger than me. Now she is no longer alive. Mom allowed us everything. At what plan? So I was dying, I wanted to go to the theater. And I could afford this. Here it must be said that my mother had not seen us for eight years and therefore was terribly worried when we came to her. And we arrived already quite big children. Everything happened according to the harsh will of the father. Now I believe that he wanted to take revenge on her. To make her hurt. But she managed to become our friend. She managed to build our relationship in such a way, I think that she did not have such a special pedagogical gift, it was rather intuition, feminine, human, maternal, but we became friends. This is where my adult life began. I only dreamed of being a director. Why? I don't know. I didn’t understand then what directing was. I played everything at home then, Nadezhda and my sister and I played theater, ballet, and opera. Then, when I still lived with my father, I constantly listened to operas on the radio. Because I had a small receiver in my room, they put me to bed at some time, it was late, and I put the receiver under my pillow and then listened. And I was very interested in opera. I could sing by heart, say, something from “Carmen”, or, say, from “Prince Igor”, or from “The Queen of Spades”... For some reason, everything became so fixated on the direction. Knowledgeable people subsequently explained to me that I need to understand first what the acting profession is. Someone, I think Vitaly Dmitrievich Doronin, may he rest in heaven, gave me a book by Alexei Dmitrievich Popov “The Art of the Director,” which I read without stopping. And then I constantly began to choose literature based on directing. I started reading Stanislavsky. This is already thirteen to fourteen years. I started studying at school 59 in Starokonyushenny Lane, house number 18, the former Medvednikov gymnasium, there were only boys there. The school is old, built at the beginning of the century, in my opinion. She stands closer to Sivtsev Vrazhek. I studied there for two classes. I remember teacher Maria Petrovna Antusheva, my first teacher, and I remember how she ate French bread. An absolutely lovely woman who gave me my first rating - a “four”. She said: “Sasha, you answered very well, but I’ll give you a “4”, because to get an “A”, you have to work, work a lot. You deserve a “A”. But for now we’ll start with you with a “B”. ". I think that she wanted, and this was, I know, later, when I was already older, I met her one day, she said that she did not want to give me a high five, because everyone around knew, to whom I relate, so that I would not be singled out in any way. At first, they brought me to school by car, and even when they took me on the first day, I remember that I was very shy, and asked to be dropped off earlier. At that time they stopped driving me, and I began to walk to school, we lived nearby on Gogolevsky Boulevard. And now this mansion stands there at No. 7. But it’s still impossible to look into it, and now I would like to. The film group that was making the film with me tried to get into this mansion, but they categorically strictly said that it was impossible. It was a “house of unfreedom,” as I call it, and remains so. At that time, the house was surrounded by a dense green fence, beyond which we were not allowed to go for walks, and we could not invite anyone to our place. I was terribly jealous of one of my school friends, whose grandfather or father, I don’t remember now, was a tailor, and they lived in a wooden one-story house, and I liked it so much, because it was so cozy, there were some there were flowers on the windows. Therefore, I went to School No. 59 for two classes, and then my father forced me into exile to the Suvorov Military School in Kalinin. For me it was a big shock, to put it mildly. At school, for the first time I came across words that I had never heard before. To be honest, this was not a revelation for me, but a real shock. I didn’t even know the language of the court before. This didn’t happen at school either, since the kids came from intelligent families. I can't stand the team at all. And at school I discovered all these “charms” of life. Fortunately or unfortunately, I marched there on the parade ground and studied in classrooms for only six months and became very ill. I was sick for almost a year and a half. I was first in the medical unit of the school, then in the hospital, and I remember that I read Maupassant. Since then I have re-read Maupassant quite often; I absolutely loved his novel “Life”. I was hospitalized with poisoning; half the school was poisoned with milk. We went to camps in the summer. On one side of the Volga we were, and on the other side of the Volga there were soldiers and officers. Everyone there got sick, and everyone here got sick. Dysentery, colitis, gastritis, then ulcers. I picked it up there and lay there for a very long time. But after a while my mother took me away. I was in Kalinin for two years, and spent almost one and a half of them in the hospital. My father was in his first year, and Stalin was still alive, because I remember they took me by plane to the funeral from school, I sat in the Hall of Columns at his coffin. And the second half of the school - it was my mother who appeared and tried to bring me back. My father had a second wife, the daughter of Marshal Timoshenko, Ekaterina. She could go three days without feeding us. My father lived with her very difficultly, so she took out her grievances on us, the children from her first marriage. There was a cook there, Isaevna, who quietly fed us. For this she was fired. Father, apparently, did not even know what was happening to us, although he was in Moscow, but, apparently, he was not interested in us at all. That is, I want to say that he had his own life. As for books, he could re-read The Three Musketeers many times; it was his favorite book. Although I didn’t have conversations with him about the theater, judging by my mother’s stories, he adored the theater. My mother said that she fell asleep during “A Long Time Ago” at the Red Army Theater because she simply knew everything by heart and couldn’t watch it. My father adored Dobzhanskaya and adored this play “Once Upon a Time.” This was what I knew. He loved cinema very much, American films.

- Here I want to draw an analogy between your father, Vasily Iosifovich Stalin, and Yuri Markovich Nagibin. By the way, they are people of the same generation; Nagibin was born in 1920, a year earlier than Vasily Iosifovich. Nagibin, whom I knew and published, considered himself one of the so-called “golden youth”. He loved a rich, cheerful, I would even say, riotous life: women, cars, restaurants... In Nagibin’s “Diary”, at the end, I posted a memory of Alexander Galich, about the life of this very “golden youth”. These are dudes, this is a love of the sweet life, but, along with this, there is also work and creativity. Nagibin was married to the daughter of Likhachev, director of the automobile plant named after your grandfather, Stalin. Yuri Markovich was a passionate football fan, rooted for Torpedo...

Of course, they have something in common. But in my father, unlike Nagibin, there was little humanitarian. First of all, my father was incredibly interested in sports; he was endlessly interested in airplanes, cars, motorcycles, horses... He was always involved in football teams and recruiting them. And my father had enormous opportunities... He sent me to football in those moments when he had enlightenment and he believed that I should become a real warrior, like Suvorov. Therefore, with a driver or an adjutant, they sent me to football at the Dynamo stadium. I was sitting on the government tribune at the top, everyone was running below, I did not understand the rules of the game, nor the technique, nor the tactics, for me it was mortal boredom, football was absolutely not interesting to me. And because they seemed to force me there, my protest doubled. But, for example, when my second stepmother, she was an athlete, Kapitolina Vasilyeva, got us interested in sports, I did not resist her. Let’s say we did exercises, played tennis, I learned to skate, ski, swim well, and even competed at the Moscow championship later... But I was drawn to the theater. It’s no secret, and everyone knows that Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich patronized the Art Theater, and sympathized with Bulgakov’s works, got Bulgakov himself a job there, and visited the “Days of the Turbins”, which were given there almost every week, more than once. I never attended the “Turbin Days” as a child, because they never took place. As far as I know this story, “Days of the Turbins” ran from 1927 until the war. And in 1940 Mikhail Afanasyevich died. I saw “Days of the Turbins” for the first time at the Stanislavsky Theater. This was already staged by Mikhail Mikhailovich Yanshin when he was the main director there, and Liliya Gritsenko played. She was the marvelous Nina in Lermontov's "Masquerade". I also had one completely abnormal love, I saw Maria Ivanovna Babanova, she played “Dog in the Manger.” And then I got to the thousandth performance of “Tanya”. Can you imagine? I was fourteen years old. I was completely fascinated by her. They told me: “Sasha, what a strange boy you are. Look at what age she is, she’s old!” I said: "No, she's absolutely lovely!" I first entered the Theater and Technical School to study as an artist, there was a TXTU in Kuibyshev Passage, which is now called Bogoyavlensky Lane, it connects Nikolskaya Street with Ilyinka, now this school is located in the Airport metro area. I decided to go to the Theater and Art School because I wanted to be closer to the theater. And there were no ten classes yet. And I took part in amateur performances - I went to the studio of the House of Pioneers in Tikhvinsky Lane, where they predicted the fate of Raikin for me, since I then had a penchant for satire and humor. But still, I believed that the main thing for me was to see real theater. I remember how my mother once gave me and my sister such a brainwash: “This is impossible, look how long you go to the theater!” She collected all the tickets and laid them out on the table, and we kept the theater tickets. I knew all the troupes, I knew all the theaters. I adored Dobzhanskaya, just like my father. Everything she did seemed to me to be brilliant. I loved Efros very much. His performances were also a revelation for me. At one time I was stunned by Tovstonogov's "Physticians". "Barbarians" made a huge impression. Then I entered the studio of the Sovremennik Theater under Oleg Nikolaevich Efremov. We were friends with him. And later I passed the exams at GITIS with Maria Osipovna Knebel. We went to rehearsals with pleasure. Because, as it seems to me now, we had some kind of common language with the guys. Students are like children; they need understanding and affection. And Maria Osipovna gave it to us. It was such a long journey for me to get to GITIS. I was 24-25 years old at the time. And I entered the acting course at Sovremennik. They created a studio at the theater. At that time we read a lot. Then a lot of banned, as they said, authors appeared - Pilnyak, Rozanov, Artem Vesely, who had not been published for years, Babel, Mandelstam... I remember I begged my mother, someone brought me Mandelstam, to reprint his poems, and my mother reprinted it in several copies. On the course because everyone wanted to have Mandelstam’s works. You know, Yuri Alexandrovich, to be honest, it even angers me when people of our age say that they didn’t know that there was such literature, that there were such poets. But why did we know! So they didn't want to know. We heard any name from Maria Osipovna, immediately found his works, found out who he was, what he was. Yes, this even began before GITIS, when we were in Sovremennik. Oleg Nikolaevich Efremov himself hosted there. During the entrance exams, as required when entering drama school, I read fables, poems, and prose. Sergei Sazontiev studied there with me, he is now playing at the Moscow Art Theater. He turned out to be an actor, he became one. And the rest somehow disappeared into life, something didn’t work out for them. I think that the fact that the Sovremennik actors themselves were not yet ready to convey some kind of theatrical faith also played a certain role here; they were still students themselves, it seems to me so. If, say, Efremov had taught us directly, but he practically did not teach, I think the school would have been completely different. But I remember, for example, in Chekhov’s “Ivanov,” Sergachev worked with me and it seems to me that he didn’t figure me out, didn’t open me up, that is, he didn’t work with me correctly. He did not know how to reveal my nature, my individuality. I think this was a big hindrance because I was completely shackled. But when I came to Maria Osipovna Knebel for a course, she is a genius, I must say right away that she was a genius, she opened me up. I entered GITIS in 1966. So she managed to unpack me. Maria Osipovna managed not only to teach me, but helped me speak in my own voice. When I entered the acting class at Sovremennik, I still wanted to be a director. I frankly admitted to Efremov that I want to be a director. I met Oleg through Nina Doroshina. Nina was our friend. I was on vacation in Yalta, and made friends there with Nina, with Tamila Agamirova, the current wife of Nikolai Slichenko. They were filming some movie there. And we have been friends with Nina Doroshina since then. It was, if I'm not mistaken, 1956. She did not work at Sovremennik then. She later came to Sovremennik. Then she was at my house with Efremov, first on Novoslobodskaya Street, then on Kolkhoznaya Square, where we lived, since they didn’t even have a place to meet. They were with Dorer, coming up with the design for the play “Without a Cross,” based on “The Miracle Worker” by Vladimir Tendryakov. Nina Doroshina had an affair with Oleg Efremov for many years. They had a great relationship with my mom, she liked him. And we talked a lot, and he knew that I wanted to be a director. But Oleg told me that in order for a director to master the profession, it is important to know the psychology of the actor. And that’s right, I believe that the path to becoming a director lies through acting. But there was still happiness in my life, although I consider Oleg Efremov to be my godfather, but it was Maria Osipovna Knebel who really opened this whole huge, with terrible undercurrents, incomprehensible world of theater for me. She knew how to do it, and in general, I owe everything in my life to her. This is my god, she loved me very much, I loved her too.

- Maria Osipovna Knebel, as far as I know, also had a very difficult fate. Here we hit upon a theme that is very important in art and literature: not stopping in the face of obstacles. That is, the one who knows how to overcome obstacles, does not give up from failures, as if compensates, proves, succeeds. This is how your fate, Alexander Vasilyevich, unfolds. Life constantly puts obstacles in front of you, you overcome them. And a new obstacle is ready for you...

You know, Yuri Alexandrovich, in my youth it was easier to overcome obstacles. Although, who had an uncomplicated fate? In general, roughly speaking, an uncomplicated fate is of no interest to anyone, especially in the theater, where conflict is the basis of success. But now there are more obstacles. That’s how they started writing about me, they found out, for example, what my pedigree was, and, frankly, it became more difficult for me. Let's say they are afraid to praise me. No matter how you take me seriously, many people also think it’s not necessary. You know, when I worked in the theater for the first years, they told me: “Sasha, how can it be that you are such a person, Stalin’s grandson, and you work in the theater. You are such a smart person, why did you go to the theater?” This seemed to suggest that the people working in the theater were not entirely smart. Or the actors asked me when I told them something interesting: “How do you know all this?” Now they don’t say that anymore, apparently they’re used to it, but in the early years they asked all the time. It seemed that I came from somewhere else, I was an outsider. Once such a curious incident happened, if, of course, it can be called “curious”, because people were imprisoned for such things, my cousin brought me a huge pile of typescript, double-sided, “In the First Circle” by Solzhenitsyn, and I read voraciously, even when I was on the bus going to GITIS. I read and read, one part in my hands, the other in a folder. My stop. I close this thing, roll it up, and jump out of the bus. And I run to GITIS, and when I run, I realize that I don’t have a folder. And the folder contains the rest of the book. My God, I come to GITIS, to Maria Osipovna. And I say: “Maria Osipovna, trouble!” She: "What is it?" I explain: “I left a folder with part of the manuscript of Solzhenitsyn’s novel on the bus!” She asks: “What else is in the folder?” I say: “Student card, passport, keys to the apartment, well, fifteen kopecks of money there... Maybe we should go there, to the bus depot?” She says: “No. We have to wait.” A week has passed. The doorbell rang in the morning, I was in the shower, I jumped out, opened the door, there was my folder near my apartment. There lies Solzhenitsyn, my documents, the keys to my apartment, and fifteen kopecks... Well, everything is intact! Maria Osipovna says: “Wait a little longer. What if this is a provocation!” But everything worked out. I graduated from GITIS in 1971. And he first came to the theater on Malaya Bronnaya. Anatoly Efros invited me there to play Romeo. Actually, when I graduated from GITIS, Zavadsky and Anisimova-Wulf invited me to play Hamlet, there were negotiations. And Efros is Romeo. And I really wanted to be an artist at that time, but Maria Osipovna dissuaded me from doing this business. She was my second mother, and she, in general, is a person of colossal culture, what can I say, there are no such people now, among teachers there are not even close ones. Maria Osipovna really felt the person, she felt my complexes, she felt my tightness, my fear, such intimidation, I would even say, reluctance to offend someone, God forbid, to say something so that what I said would offend someone. It was as if she was helping me get out of this shell, out of this cocoon. I was very afraid to go out on sketches, for example. I wanted it, but I was afraid. And so I caught her looking at me, she looked at me and closed her eyes and slightly lowered her head, which meant her complete faith in my luck. And this was enough for me to successfully complete the sketch. And after six months it was impossible to take me away from the stage. I felt as if I had learned to swim, or learned to speak. At first we did exercises, then we made sketches based on paintings by some artists, so that we could then come to the final mise-en-scène as a director. Next we made sketches based on some stories. Everything developed imagination. I had a very good job, Maria Osipovna even showed it to everyone, she invited people from VGIK to watch, it was Yuri Kazakov’s story “There’s a Dog Running.” Then we were all carried away by Kazakov. "Two in December" a book was published, "Blue and Green", "Northern Diary". Maria Osipovna told me: “Sasha, this is very good literature, but not at all stage-like.” But it turned out to be a very good excerpt. Then I played “What Ended” by Hemingway, such a success, I also really loved this work. After some time, there was also quite serious work on “Win” by Alexander Volodin. And then they began to make the passages more complicated, they even played vaudeville, you had to go through it. Having gained experience, they began to play Shakespeare, and staged and acted, in order to get through this. I played in Orlando's As You Like It, and staged an excerpt from Richard the Third, the scene of Richard and Anna. I must say that I played a lot more from Shakespeare, I don’t remember now, if there were ten passages, then I played in nine. So, we went through such stages. And then there were graduation performances. We had two of them. It was "Eccentrics", it was staged by teachers, I played Mastakov there. And I headed the work that we, the students, did ourselves, “Years of Wanderings” by Arbuzov. This was our diploma, where we were both directors and actors, where I played Vedernikov. Of those who studied with me, I will name a very interesting German, Rudiger Volkmar, who now has his own studio, even something like an institute, in Germany. The Japanese Yutaka Wada studied with me; he later directed here at the Art Theater, and for eight years he was an assistant with Peter Brook. My wife Dalia Tumalyavichute, a Lithuanian, studied at the same course with me, she was the main director at the Youth Theater, she brought her theater here, Nekrosius, now famous, started with her. She is a people's artist, she traveled a lot with her theater to America, to England, to Sweden... After Lithuania separated, it was as if they did not forgive her for being raised in Moscow institutes. There is a beautiful Elena Dolgina, who has the rare gift of uniting people, she is an honored artist, she works at the Youth Theater as both a director and head of the literary department. Natalya Petrova, who teaches at the Shchepkinsky School at the Maly Theater and has already completed many courses, is a very smart and talented person, and an absolutely great teacher. So, you see, I’m already gaining some number of talented classmates of mine, who later showed up. I remember another classmate, Nikolai Zadorozhny. He was a very talented person, I want to say two words about him, literally, because it is very revealing. Subtle, smart, not just a leader, but a person who was created to sculpt, do, create a team, a bad word, but, nevertheless, he was very captivating to people. He worked in Engels recently and died of hunger. We didn't know any of this. He was working, earning some pennies there, when this whole difficult life began. He weighed, I think, thirty-five kilograms. He was a very talented person, but he never aspired to be a director in the theater. It was more important for him to work with young actors, people were drawn to him, many of his students later studied with Lena Dolgina and Natasha Petrova. He always staged "Pinocchio" as a drama of wooden men, save the wooden men. This is our common tragedy. Yuri Eremin and I were very friendly. At the same time, he took an acting course. Olga Ostroumova studied and portrayed Nina Zarechnaya in my “The Seagull”. Volodya Gostyukhin and I played together in excerpts, then I dragged him here to the theater, then he went to act in film, and now he has become a popular person, now the first actor in Belarus. He is a man with his own position, with his own point of view, you can, of course, treat this as you like, but you cannot help but respect the integrity of such a simple man from the people. Olga Velikanova works at the Stanislavsky Theater, also our classmate, she was very talented as an actress. What a vibrant theater this was in the late sixties and early seventies, when Lvov-Anokhin was there. Then Burkov first appeared, he brilliantly played Poprishchin in “Notes of a Madman.” Although at the same time Kalyagin played at the Ermolovsky Theater, it was a little different. Poprishchin Burkov is a complete adequacy of Gogol. But then, we must emphasize this, and the entire Stanislavsky Theater was very interesting. Because Boris Aleksandrovich Lvov-Anokhin was an outstanding director and teacher. He and the cast of actors were amazing. Rimma Bykova alone was worth it, an amazing actress! Urbanski has barely played yet. And what a great Liza Nikishchikhina she was! She recently passed away somehow unnoticed. I was very good friends with Lisa. And I really loved the Lvov-Anokhin Theater and his performances at the Army Theater. How quietly he left, lay down and died! Boris Alexandrovich, may he rest in heaven, was a subtle man, he knew the world of theater brilliantly. In general, I really appreciate people who are involved in theatre, let’s say, I say it narrowly - theater, when they understand the theater, know its history - such a person was Boris Aleksandrovich Lvov-Anokhin. And I worked very little on Malaya Bronnaya, literally, maybe three months. Alexander Leonidovich Dunaev, the main director and a wonderful person, grabbed me, he wanted me to work with him as a director. And we even started making Gorky’s “Barbarians,” and at that time Maria Osipovna invited me to the Army Theater to stage the play “The One Who Gets a Slap” by Leonid Andreev. Maria Osipovna invited me to be her co-director. And so I went. But before that I staged in Lithuania. And in Moscow I started directing with Knebel. We started working on the play in 1971 and released it in 1972. This performance was performed on the big stage, and immediately Andrei Popov, Zeldin, Mayorov, the leading actors, the whole magnificent cohort, you know, were busy in this performance! The only thing I understood perfectly well back then was that I would never, I gave my mother my word, would be the main director, because there were also such offers when I graduated from GITIS and produced two performances, a pre-diploma and a diploma. The Ministry of Culture offered me the position of chief director in some province. Apparently they wanted to take me somewhere. But I didn't want to lead anything. And I was, in general, lucky that I made the first such entrance to the theater together with Maria Osipovna Knebel. And then Andrei Popov invited me to stay at the Army Theater. And I stayed. And friendship with Oleg Efremov was a huge part of my life. Later there was a conversation with him, Oleg was already at the Moscow Art Theater when I graduated from GITIS, so that I could stage something with him, but Maria Osipovna dissuaded me. She told me: “I know Efremov, he can still very easily through you,” she addressed me as “you,” “overstep. This can break you.” And I believed her, because I also knew this toughness in Oleg. That’s why I didn’t even go to the Moscow Art Theater production. Efremov came to me at the Army Theater for my first performances, and seemed to be sympathetic to them. Oleg Efremov is a strong personality and endlessly talented. And he was a very talented actor, who, perhaps, by and large, did not succeed in the theater as they predicted for him. But, of course, he is a man kissed by God. And incredible charm, such magic, amazing charm. Both as an artist and as a person. I think that I was extremely lucky, because fate brought me together with the best directors: Knebel, Efros, Lvov-Anokhin, Efremov... I even had a dream once, as if I were floating, you know, like a submarine in the black sea , I am alone on this boat, there is no hatch, I can’t hide anywhere, the waves are raging, and suddenly from these waves a black cross, burning, rises towards me in the fire, and from behind it Efremov appears, who leads me by the hand, and some kind of wide illuminated arena opens up. I just remember this picture; after college I immediately dreamed about it. When I graduated from GITIS, whether to leave me in Moscow or not, they didn’t know how to behave towards me. But Dunaev and Efros did not pay any attention to this, to my questionnaire, which is very important. Very smart people, like Maria Osipovna Knebel, by the way. There were directors who were caught up in the wave that was going up, these are Efremov, Lvov-Anokhin, Tovstonogov, Efros. And when we graduated from the institute, the wave was already going down, and we, by the way, understood this. And the fact that, despite this, we succeeded, although I also treat this very conditionally, because, let’s say, I couldn’t stage a whole series of plays, because they would drag something into it that I would never have thought of , and everything went fine when I staged something neutral, “The Lady of the Camellias,” for example. And here the main thing, it seems to me, was not to go with the flow, but to be able to think and look around, question the correctness of the decision made and again look, look for that only true path in creativity, that only thing to which you don’t feel sorry for devoting your whole life without a trace.

- Didn’t the Red Army Theater frighten you with its enormity, not only its architectural size, not only the largest theater hall in our country, but also its organizational structure itself, the army hierarchy?

I put here, in principle, what I wanted. In my lifetime, I have not found any particular difficulties in getting through any kind of performance. There was one story with Stroybat by Sergei Kaledin. But with this performance there was a problem of a completely different nature. We tried to stage it on a large stage, then we tried to put it together on a small stage, but no performance worked. And in the end we pretended that we weren’t allowed to do this. This thing doesn’t fit well on the stage, and there was no solution. I will simply say that I simply do not like “Stroibat” as a literary work. And “The Humble Cemetery” was not shown in the cinema. Something is missing from these works. They probably came at the right time, but there is no depth in them. And apparently they didn't find their director. I had some problems, perhaps, when I staged Rodik Fedenev’s play “The Snows Have Fallen”. The play was not very well done, but there was still something alive there, and it was a very good performance, and there they pulled me into the ministry. They asked why my soldier dies at the end? And they asked me to do something so that he would not die. But we managed to prove that it was necessary. Next I had the play "The Garden" by Arro. I was literally forced, for some reason, not by the Purovites, but by the theater management, in essence, to directly remove pieces of the text, and this, in general, was a play that, in my opinion, predicted absolutely our entire future. There were other notable cases. Well, for example, they removed my epigraph from the play “Orpheus Descends into Hell” by Tennessee Williams: “I, too, am beginning to feel an irresistible need to become a savage and create a new world.” This epigraph is in Williams' play, and so they took away the entire circulation of the programs and reprinted them. It’s a pity that good performances are leaving the repertoire. For example, "Paul the First" by Merezhkovsky. Oleg Borisov started and played brilliantly, even brilliantly. Then Valery Zolotukhin also played wonderfully. But in order for the performance to remain in the repertoire, it is necessary, firstly, that there be a person who monitors the performance, who makes sure that it does not fall apart at the seams. And, secondly, it is necessary that the public come to the performance. But the situation with the public is difficult now. They go to something, but to something, even a very good performance, a good play, they go reluctantly, or don’t go at all. I recently staged the play “Harp of Greetings” by Mikhail Bogomolny. Actor Alexander Chutko revealed himself remarkably in this performance. In general, I have been lucky to have actors in my life. After all, I also worked at the Maly Theater, I staged two performances there. They went with great success. And I met a very large cohort of people there. This was during the time of Tsarev. They asked me to stay in the theater twice. There I worked with Lyubeznov, Kenigson, Bystritskaya, Evgeniy Samoilov. At the Army Theater, of course, I worked with the best actors - with Dobzhanskaya, and with Sazonova, a great artist, I think, with Kasatkina, and with Chursina, with Vladimir Mikhailovich Zeldin, and with Pastukhov, and with Marina Pastukhova, and with Alena Pokrovskaya... I worked with everyone. But along with them, there are many young and not so young talented people who are not in honor. The viewer goes to other theaters with the same names: Mironov, Bezrukov, Mashkov, Makovetsky... But we have wonderful guys: Igor Marchenko, and Kolya Lazarev, and Masha Shmaevich, and Natasha Loskutova, and Sergei Kolesnikov.. . The same Sasha Chutko, how many years has he been sitting in the theater, well, they need a fat man - Chutko comes out. He was afraid to play this role in “The Harp of Greetings,” but he plays it wonderfully, and he feels the author, and he feels me, and he feels the form... Before “The Harp,” Chutko simply did not have such a role. You know, Yuri Aleksandrovich, I really liked this play, then, when, closer to graduation, I saw in it such, how to say, well, maybe a little bit of unnecessary decorativeness, which I don’t think I can overcome I succeeded, but I liked its thought, this play, because it contains, again, my theme of leaving a world that becomes false, that ceases to satisfy you. What I myself cannot do is overcome the uncreative atmosphere in the theater, leave and close the gate behind me. And there is a second theme in the play - an attempt to understand Russia. I don’t want to philosophize on this topic, but the fact that the heroine sees talent in Russia through the dirt, through torment, through rudeness, through this general dullness, gendarme and so on, that she sees some definite potential in her, seemed to me like this the thought is very interesting. For example, I believe that people now have a very large inferiority complex, that if we are Russia, if we are Russian, then we are some kind of second-class people. I do not think so. And this thought also seemed interesting to me here. Then, the play is written in a fairly decent language, unlike the plays that are in circulation now, where they want to call everything by its proper name. Surely “Harp of Greetings” is imperfect in some way, maybe not everything turned out the way we wanted, but, in any case, it was interesting for us to talk about it, it was interesting to work. This is not the first play by Mikhail Bogomolny. He also has such a play “Kira - Natasha”. This is the story of two women, essentially old women already, from intelligent families, who sit at a holiday, remember, go through, as it were, their entire lives, through all the stages that Russia lived through in the twentieth century. A very entertaining play. She was even, in my opinion, played by Nina Arkhipova and Nina Gosheva, an actress from the Lenkom Theater. I really wanted to stage it at the time. But somehow it all sorted out, and then “Harp of Greetings” arose. I don't regret staging this performance. And I feel in the mood of the actors, say, a roll call with Fellini’s clowns... It’s as if in this thing I have such an outsider’s view of our life situation in the country. Because we have been too caught up in a certain straightforwardness of ideas, and life is much more complex and interesting, and this chaos, from which the harmony of art is created, I think, is captured very accurately... But then I catch myself that I am strong in hindsight. So I staged the play “The Garden” by Arro, to which people came, our army intelligentsia; sophisticated audiences don’t come to us, and they said: “They’ll close it! You’re talking about the most important thing.” I remember Nonna Mordyukova stood so frightened and said in a whisper: “Guys, what are you doing? You can’t say this from the stage.” And so on... From what I have done in the theater over many years, for example, “The Lady of the Camellias” is still running, it has been running for twenty years. “Orpheus Descends into Hell” was shown for many years. “Ardently in Love”, “Broadway Charades” were shown many times... That is, what, let’s say in a beautiful word, is more democratic, more accessible. What surprised me was that a young actress, Masha Shmaevich, is playing there now, young people went. Masha Shmaevich also plays in "Harp", she is a very talented actress. We are very friendly with her, well, not because she is just a pretty girl, you know, but she is a huge personality. She left Russia with her parents for Israel after graduating from school. They stayed there, she studied in the studio with the daughter of the famous Solomon Mikhoels, Nina Mikhoels, then she wanted to return to Russia to study here. But this required money. The parents had no money. She washed public restrooms, she worked as a maid in a hotel to save money and come to study in Russia. She entered GITIS and paid for her tuition herself because she is a foreigner. Here's to overcoming! So it will be useful. She values ​​this very much. In the summer she went to Israel, again earned money to pay for her studies, and now she graduated from GITIS. A little exotic, beautiful girl. I saw her in the show, and so I invited her to play in my play “Invitation to the Castle,” then she played Mary Stuart, and played “The Lady of the Camellias,” and everyone began to say: “Shmaevich, Shmaevich!” If you think that after graduating from GITIS, she did not finish her graduate school in stage movement there, then she did. And she goes to Italy, she has a contract, she works part-time there. She did an independent work here - "The Lark" by Jean Anouilh, which she plays alone. Now she has received an invitation from Italy to play Juliet in an Italian play, there will be a huge tour in the winter. I know that there are talented young people, I am invited to institutes for screenings, but I almost never go and watch. I myself taught for ten years at GITIS with Elina Bystritskaya, this is a very painful process. Students become like your children, and then you can’t help them with anything. Their fates are difficult. Theater in general, and in the provinces in particular, lives a very complex life. And you have to help them somehow. For example, Andrei Popov once hired me as a staff member. And if Maria Osipovna had not brought me, he might not have taken me. She prepared him, Andrei, to enter. She is the mother-godmother of the Red Army Theater. She worked with Alexei Dmitrievich Popov at GITIS. I remember that before I really wanted to go on stage as an actor, and I would go out and play, but now I don’t want to play anything. At one time I was even tormented that Maria Osipovna would not let me play Hamlet, she said that when you really want to play something, such an opportunity will definitely present itself. I played “The One Who Gets a Slap” as Zeldin, and in my “Mandate” according to Erdman I beat Gulyachkin, Shironkin, and Smetanich. I had a play “The Lady Dictates the Terms,” an English play, Fyodor Chekhankov fell ill, so I played the central role for fourteen performances, a play for two people. So that was it. And recently I was in Japan, staging plays. I was away for two months, and then I came to the “Harp of Greetings”, and I think that he has changed. They moved a lot - Pokrovskaya, and Chekhankov, and Chutko, and everyone else.

- Yes, I had a chance to watch “Harp of Greetings” during the premiere. Of course, you are right that Masha Shmaevich plays wonderfully and the talent of the original actor Alexander Chutko is revealed in full force. And I’m extremely interested in hearing about Japan. How did you get there, who invited you there? And how can you work without knowing the language?

The Japanese language has nothing in common with ours. And from the intonation it is even difficult to understand what is being said. I actually went there for a conference on Stanislavsky. The conference was dedicated to improvisation. It was two years ago. Moreover, I was invited at the suggestion of my former classmate. The Japanese are cunning people. They are in crisis. Technical crisis. And they, therefore, believe that Japan can do everything amazingly, even execute, but it has no ideas. And so it occurs to them that, insofar as there is Stanislavsky’s school, which helps the development of individuality, the revelation of individuality, they should invite specialists from Russia. When I got to this symposium, where the Japanese, smart and cunning, spoke and wanted to understand what improvisation is, I spoke there. And the financing of this entire event was carried out not by art institutions, but by the Xerox company. This company is interested in the development of its employees. They want their employees to learn to think for themselves. They even make sketches for this. So that their personality, their individuality, develops. This is why the symposium was convened. And this man, who listened to me there, then asked me what I would like to stage in Japan. I said that I would like to stage The Seagull, my favorite play. Both the theater producer and the director of the theater who received us, helped us, they knew about me, a book about me was just published there. And, in short, they invited me to “The Seagull”. I went and directed "The Seagull". It was a wonderful performance. In Japanese, the text of the play is twice as long. The Japanese language itself is much longer than Russian. In Japan, for the first time in my life, I met the troupe that one can only dream of. They are educated. Yutaka Wada, my classmate, studied with Knebel, then with Brook, and raised them. The teachers were from Moscow - Natasha Petrova, Lena Dolgina. That is, they received a real Art Theater school. Yutaka Wada himself comes from an ancient, cultured samurai family. And so I ask him: “Yutaka, explain to me why I have a play put together on the thirtieth day of my stay in Tokyo?” And I have a contract of stay for sixty days. This is unrealistic in Moscow! I staged “The Seagull” there, the first one, then staged Tennessee Williams’ “Orpheus Descends into Hell” and Gorky’s “Vassa Zheleznova”. There were almost no Japanese at the premiere of "Vassa", only foreigners. Delight from Gorky. There were French, Italians, English in the hall... “Vassa Zheleznova” is a refrain, it’s a modern play, about our life, it’s about how people live now. You know that this year the repertoire of French theaters in Paris is six Gorkys, London - four Gorkys... So, I think Gorky’s dramaturgy meets the needs of today. About Gorky I will say in the words of Nemirovich-Danchenko: “I agree that Gorky is the Russian Shakespeare.” I know his prose well, and I mastered “Klima Samghin,” but I like his dramaturgy more. Yes, you may like him, you may not like him, yes, he is involved in a trend, but he is still a genius. After the performance, spectators from the French colony suddenly come backstage with volumes of Gorky translated by Arthur Adamov, for a second, “Vassa Zheleznova”.

- I consider Gorky to be a very intelligent, very cultured, and not a folk writer in a distorted sense, as they began to understand after the revolution of 17, which tried to interrupt the movement of the Word... The word moves like a wheel, and they are trying to put a log under it, but The Word calmly moves over the log, and the Word is God, as I now understand.

Interviewed by Yuri Kuvaldin

"OUR STREET", No. 3-2004

Yuri Kuvaldin. Collected Works in 10 volumes. Publishing house "Book Garden", Moscow, 2006, circulation 2000 copies. Volume 9, page 378.

45 years ago - March 19, 1962 - the youngest son of the “Father of Nations” Vasily Stalin died
Alexander Burdonsky met his grandfather the only time - at the funeral. And before that, I saw him, like other pioneers, only at demonstrations: on Victory Day and on the October anniversary.

"STEPMOTHER TREATED US TERRIBLY. FORGOT TO FEED US FOR THREE OR FOUR DAYS, MY SISTER'S KIDNEYS WERE KNOCKED OFF"

Yes, they were 19 years old at the time. When my father was caring for my mother, he was like Paratov from “Dowry.” What were his flights on a small plane over the Kirovskaya metro station, near which she lived, worth... He knew how to show off! In 1940, the parents got married.

My mother was cheerful and loved the color red. I even made myself a red wedding dress. It turned out that this was a bad omen...

In the book "Around Stalin" it is written that your grandfather did not come to this wedding. In a letter to his son, he sharply wrote: “If you got married, to hell with you. I feel sorry for her that she married such a fool.” But your parents looked like an ideal couple, they were even so similar in appearance that they were mistaken for brother and sister...

It seems to me that my mother loved him until the end of her days, but they had to part... She was simply a rare person - she could not pretend to be someone and never lied (maybe that was her problem)...

According to the official version, Galina Aleksandrovna left, unable to withstand the constant drinking, assault and betrayal. For example, the fleeting connection between Vasily Stalin and the wife of the famous cameraman Roman Carmen Nina...

Among other things, my mother did not know how to make friends in this circle. Head of Security Nikolai Vlasik (who raised Vasily after the death of his mother in 1932.- Auth. ), an eternal intriguer, tried to use her: “Galochka, you have to tell me what Vasya’s friends are talking about.” His mother - swearing! He hissed, "You'll pay for this."

It is quite possible that the divorce from my father was the price to pay. In order for the leader’s son to take a wife from his circle, Vlasik started an intrigue and slipped him Katya Timoshenko, the daughter of Marshal Semyon Konstantinovich Timoshenko.

Is it true that your stepmother, who grew up in an orphanage after her mother ran away from her husband, abused you and almost starved you?

Ekaterina Semyonovna was a powerful and cruel woman. We, other people's children, apparently irritated her. Perhaps that period of life was the most difficult. We lacked not only warmth, but also basic care. They forgot to feed us for three or four days; some of us were locked in the room. Our stepmother treated us terribly. She beat her sister Nadya most severely - her kidneys were broken off.

Before leaving for Germany, our family lived in the country in the winter. I remember how we, small children, sneaked into the cellar at night in the dark, stuffed beets and carrots into our pants, peeled unwashed vegetables with our teeth and gnawed on them. Just a scene from a horror movie. The cook Isaevna had a great time when she brought us something....

Catherine's life with her father is full of scandals. I think he didn't love her. Most likely, there were no special feelings on both sides. Very calculating, she, like everyone else in her life, simply calculated this marriage. We need to know what she was trying to achieve. If there is prosperity, then the goal can be said to have been achieved. Catherine brought a huge amount of junk from Germany. All this was stored in a barn at our dacha, where Nadya and I were starving... And when my father threw my stepmother out in 1949, she needed several cars to take out the trophy goods. Nadya and I heard a noise in the yard and rushed to the window. We see: Studebakers are coming in a chain...

From the Gordon Boulevard dossier.

Ekaterina Timoshenko lived with Vasily Stalin in a legal marriage, although his divorce from Galina Burdonskaya was not formalized. And this family fell apart because of Vasily’s betrayals and binges. Drunk, he rushed to fight. The first time Catherine left her husband was because of his new affair. And when Vasily Stalin, the commander of the Moscow District Air Force, performed a bad air parade, his father removed him from his post and forced him to get together with his wife. At least at the mourning events in connection with the death of the leader, Vasily and Catherine were nearby.

They had two children together - daughter Svetlana appeared in 1947, and son Vasily appeared in 1949. Svetlana Vasilievna, who was born sickly, died at 43; Vasily Vasilyevich - he studied at Tbilisi University at the Faculty of Law - became a drug addict and died at the age of 21 from a heroin overdose.

Ekaterina Tymoshenko died in 1988. She is buried in the same grave with her son at the Novodevichy cemetery.

"FATHER WAS A DESPERATE PILOT, TOOK INTO THE BATTLE OF STALINGRAD AND THE CAPTURE OF BERLIN

Yes. I remember Kapitolina Georgievna with gratitude - she was the only one at that time who humanly tried to help my father.

He wrote to her from prison: “I was very much in love. And this is no coincidence, for all my best days - family days - were with you, the Vasilyevs”...

By nature, my father was a kind man. He loved to do tinkering and plumbing at home. Those who knew him well spoke of him as “golden hands.” He was an excellent pilot, brave and desperate. Participated in the Battle of Stalingrad and the capture of Berlin.

Although I love my father less than my mother: I can’t forgive him that he took my sister and me to live with us and we lived with our stepmothers. My dad's last name was Stalin, but I changed it. By the way, everyone is interested in whether he left me a legacy of a penchant for alcoholism. But you see, I didn’t get drunk and I’m sitting in front of you...

I read that Vasily Stalin came from Lefortovo not to Kapitolina Vasilyeva, but to your mother. But she did not accept him - she already had her own life.

Mom said: “It’s better to be in a tiger’s cage than to be with your father for even a day, even for an hour.” This despite all the sympathy for him... She remembered how, separated from us, she rushed about in search of a way out and ran into a wall. I tried to get a job, but as soon as the personnel department saw a passport with a stamp about registering a marriage with Vasily Stalin, they refused under any pretext. After Stalin's death, my mother sent a letter to Beria asking her to return the children. Thank God, it did not have time to find the addressee - Beria was arrested. Otherwise it could have ended badly. She wrote to Voroshilov, and only after that we were returned.

Then we moved in together - me and my mother, my sister Nadezhda already had her own family (For 15 years, Nadezhda Burdonskaya lived with Alexander Fadeev Jr., the natural son of actress Angelina Stepanova and the adopted son of a Soviet classic writer. Fadeev Jr., who suffered from alcoholism and tried to commit suicide several times, was married to Lyudmila Gurchenko before Nadezhda.- Auth. ).

Sometimes people ask me: why do I like to stage plays about the difficult lives of women? Because of mom...

Last May, you showed the premiere of "The Queen's Duel with Death" - your interpretation of John Murrell's play "The Laugh of the Lobster", dedicated to the great actress Sarah Bernhardt...

I have had this play for a long time. More than 20 years ago, Elina Bystritskaya brought it to me: she really wanted to play Sarah Bernhardt. I had already decided to stage a play with her and Vladimir Zeldin on our stage, but the theater did not want Bystritskaya to “tour”, and the play left my hands.

Sarah Bernhardt lived a long life. Balzac and Zola admired her, Rostand and Wilde wrote plays for her. Jean Cocteau said that she did not need a theater, she could arrange a theater anywhere... As a theater person, I cannot help but be excited by the most legendary actress in the history of world theater, who had no equal. But, of course, she was also worried about the human phenomenon. At the end of her life, already with an amputated leg, she played the scene of the death of Marguerite Gautier without getting out of bed. I was shocked by this thirst for life, this irrepressible love of life.

From the Gordon Boulevard dossier.

Galina Burdonskaya, a heavy drinker, was diagnosed with smoker's veins in 1977 and had her leg amputated. She lived as a disabled person for another 13 years and died in the corridor of the Sklifosovsky hospital in 1990.

"WE WERE NOT GIVEN A CLEAR ANSWER ABOUT THE REASONS FOR THE FATHER'S DEATH (AT 41 YEARS OF AGE!)"

I visited my father both in Vladimir prison and in Lefortovo. I saw a man driven into a corner who could not stand up for himself and justify himself. And his conversation was mainly, of course, about how to get free. He understood that neither I nor my sister could help with this (she died eight years ago). He was tormented by a sense of injustice of what had been done to him.

From the Gordon Boulevard dossier .

Vasily loved animals since childhood. He brought a wounded horse from Germany and went out, keeping stray dogs. He had a hamster, a rabbit. Once at the dacha, Artem Sergeev saw him sitting next to a formidable dog, petting him, kissing his nose, giving him something to eat from his plate: “This one will not deceive, will not change.”...

On July 27, 1952, a parade dedicated to Air Force Day was held in Tushino. Contrary to the prevailing myth that the plane crashed because of Vasily, he coped with the organization brilliantly. After watching the parade, the Politburo in full force went to Kuntsevo, to Joseph Stalin’s dacha. The leader ordered that his son also be at the banquet... Vasily was found drunk in Zubalovo. Kapitolina Vasilyeva recalls: “Vasya went to his father. He came in, and the entire Politburo was sitting at the table. He swayed to one side, then to the other. His father said to him: “You’re drunk, get out!” And he: “No, father, I'm not drunk." Stalin frowned: "No, you're drunk!" After this, Vasily was removed from his post..."

At the coffin, he cried bitterly and stubbornly insisted that his father was poisoned. I was not myself, I felt trouble was approaching. The patience of “Uncle Lavrenty,” “Uncle Yegor” (Malenkov) and “Uncle Nikita,” who had known Vasily since childhood, ran out very quickly. 53 days after his father's death, on April 27, 1953, Vasily Stalin was arrested.

The writer Voitekhov wrote in his testimony: “In the winter at the end of 1949, when I arrived at the apartment of my ex-wife, actress Lyudmila Tselikovskaya, I found her in disarray. She said that Vasily Stalin had just visited her and tried to force her to cohabitation. I went to his apartment, where he was drinking in the company of pilots. Vasily knelt down, called himself a scoundrel and a scoundrel and declared that he was cohabiting with my wife. In 1951, I had financial difficulties, and he got me a job at headquarters. I didn’t do any work as an assistant, but received my salary as an Air Force athlete.”

The documents indicated that it was not Vasily Iosifovich Stalin who was taken to prison, but Vasily Pavlovich Vasilyev (the son of the leader should not be in prison).

In 1958, when Vasily Stalin’s health deteriorated sharply, as reported by KGB chief Shelepin, the leader’s son was again transferred to the Lefortovo detention center in the capital, and once he was taken to Khrushchev for a few minutes. Shelepin recalled how Vasily then fell to his knees in Nikita Sergeevich’s office and began to beg for his release. Khrushchev was very touched, called him “dear Vasenka,” and asked: “What did they do to you?” He shed tears, and then kept Vasily in Lefortovo for another whole year...

They say that a taxi driver who heard a message on the Voice of America told you about the death of Vasily Iosifovich...

Then the third wife of Father Kapitolin Vasilyeva, me and sister Nadya flew to Kazan. We saw him already under the sheet - dead. Capitolina lifted the sheet - I remember very well that he had stitches. It must have been opened. Although there is no clear answer about the reasons for his death - at the age of 41! - no one gave us then...

But Vasilyeva writes that she did not see any seams from the opening, that the coffin stood on two stools. No flowers, in a miserable room. And that her ex-husband was buried like a homeless person, there were few people. According to other sources, several monuments even fell in the cemetery due to the crowd of people...

People walked for quite a long time. Several people, as they passed, pulled aside the sides of their coats, underneath which were military uniforms and medals. Apparently, this is how the pilots arranged their farewell - it was impossible otherwise.

I remember that my sister, who was then, I think, 17 years old, came from this funeral completely gray-haired. It was a shock...

From the Gordon Boulevard dossier.

Kapitolina Vasilyeva recalls: “I planned to come to Kazan for Vasily’s birthday. I thought I’d stay at a hotel and bring something tasty. And suddenly I got a call: come to bury Vasily Iosifovich Stalin...

I came with Sasha and Nadya. Nusberg asked how he died. He says that the Georgians arrived and brought a barrel of wine. It was, they say, bad - they gave an injection, then a second one. It twisted and twisted... But this happens when blood clots. Toxicosis is not corrected with injections, but by washing the stomach. The man lay and suffered for 12 hours - they didn’t even call an ambulance. I ask why is this? Nuzberg says that the doctor herself gave him the injection.

I furtively looked around the kitchen, looked under the tables, in the trash can - I didn’t find any ampoule. She asked if there was an autopsy and what it showed. Yes, he says, it was. Poisoned from wine. Then I told Sasha to hold the door - I decided to check for myself whether there had been an opening. She approached the coffin. Vasily was in a tunic, swollen. I began to unbutton the buttons, and my hands were shaking...

There are no signs of an autopsy. Suddenly the door swung open, and two mugs who had been following me as soon as we arrived in Kazan burst in. They threw Sasha away, Nadya was almost knocked off her feet, and I flew... And the security officers shouted: “You are not allowed to! You have no right!”

Five years ago, the ashes of Vasily Stalin were reburied in Moscow, which you almost read about in the newspapers. But why at the Troyekurovskoye cemetery, if his mother, grandparents, aunt and uncle are buried at Novodevichy? Is this what your half-sister Tatyana, who has been trying to achieve this for 40 years, decided and wrote to the Kremlin?

Let me remind you that Tatyana Dzhugashvili has nothing to do with the youngest son of Joseph Stalin. This is the daughter of Maria Nuzberg, who took the surname Dzhugashvili.

The reburial was arranged in order to somehow join this family - a kind of piracy characteristic of our time.

"WHAT COULD I THANK MY GRANDFATHER FOR? FOR MY CRAPED CHILDHOOD?"

I don't like fanatics, and Evgeny is a fanatic who lives in the name of Stalin. I can’t see how someone adores the leader and denies the crimes he committed.

A year ago, another relative of yours on Eugene’s side, 33-year-old artist Yakov Dzhugashvili, turned to Russian President Vladimir Putin with a request to investigate the circumstances of the death of his great-grandfather Joseph Stalin. Your cousin claims in his letter that Stalin died a violent death and this “made it possible for Khrushchev to come to power, imagining himself as a statesman, whose so-called activities turned out to be nothing more than a betrayal of state interests.” Convinced that a coup d'état took place in March 1953, Yakov Dzhugashvili asks Vladimir Putin to “determine the degree of responsibility of all persons involved in the coup.”

I don't support this idea. It seems to me that such things can only be done out of nothing to do...What happened, happened. People have already passed away, why bring up the past?

According to legend, Stalin refused to exchange his eldest son Yakov for Field Marshal Paulus, saying: “I don’t exchange a soldier for a field marshal.” Relatively recently, the Pentagon handed over to Stalin’s granddaughter, Galina Yakovlevna Dzhugashvili, materials about the death of her father in fascist captivity...

It's never too late to take a noble step. I would be lying if I said that I shuddered or my soul ached when these documents were handed over. All this is a thing of the distant past. And it is primarily important for Yasha’s daughter Galina, because she lives in the memory of her father, who loved her very much.

It is important to put an end to it, because the more time passes after all the events associated with the Stalin family, the more difficult it is to reach the truth...

Is it true that Stalin was the son of Nikolai Przhevalsky? The famous traveler allegedly stayed in Gori in the house where Dzhugashvili’s mother, Ekaterina Geladze, worked as a maid. These rumors were fueled by the amazing resemblance between Przhevalsky and Stalin...

I don't think that's true. Rather, the matter is different. Stalin was keen on the teachings of the religious mystic Gurdjieff, and it suggests that a person should hide his real origin and even shroud his date of birth in a certain veil. The legend of Przhevalsky, of course, was grist for this mill. And the fact that they are similar in appearance, please, there are also rumors that Saddam Hussein was the son of Stalin...

Alexander Vasilyevich, have you ever heard suggestions that you got your talent as a director from your grandfather?

Yes, they sometimes told me: “It’s clear why Bourdonsky is a director. Stalin was also a director”... My grandfather was a tyrant. Even if someone really wants to attach angel wings to him, they won’t stay on him... When Stalin died, I was terribly ashamed that everyone around was crying, but I wasn’t. I sat near the coffin and saw crowds of sobbing people. I was rather frightened by this, even shocked. What good could I have for him? What to be grateful for? For the crippled childhood I had? I don’t wish this on anyone.... Being Stalin’s grandson is a heavy cross. I would never play Stalin in a movie for any money, although they promised huge profits.

What do you think about Radzinsky’s acclaimed book “Stalin”?

Radzinsky, apparently, wanted to find in me as a director some other key to Stalin’s character. He came supposedly to listen to me, but he talked for four hours. I sat and listened to his monologue with pleasure. But he didn’t understand the true Stalin, it seems to me...

The artistic director of the Taganka Theater Yuri Lyubimov said that Joseph Vissarionovich ate and then wiped his hands on the starched tablecloth - he’s a dictator, why should he be ashamed? But your grandmother Nadezhda Alliluyeva, they say, was a very well-mannered and modest woman...

Once in the 50s, my grandmother’s sister Anna Sergeevna Alliluyeva gave us a chest where Nadezhda Sergeevna’s things were kept. I was struck by the modesty of her dresses. An old jacket, mended under the arm, a worn skirt made of dark wool, and the inside is all patched. And this was worn by a young woman who was said to love beautiful clothes...

P.S. In addition to Alexander Burdonsky, there are six more grandchildren of Stalin on a different line. Three children of Yakov Dzhugashvili and three of Lana Peters, as Svetlana Alliluyeva renamed herself after leaving for the USA.