The blockade of Leningrad in art. The muses were not silent. There was a cultural life in the besieged city

The announcement of the beginning of the war on June 22, 1941, overnight turned the life of the entire city, as well as the entire country. Leningrad went over to martial law. Thousands of people defended the city, trying to turn it into impregnable fortress... The artistic fraternity did not stand aside either. More than 800 people - musicians, actors, artists, directors, teachers and students of creative universities - are enlisted in the ranks of the people's militia. Acting teams are urgently formed, which act at mobilization points. Many go to dig anti-tank ditches near Luga, Gatchina, Strelna.

The famous actor Nikolai Konstantinovich Cherkasov, who embodied the images of Alexander Nevsky and Ivan the Terrible on the screen, took Active participation in the formation of the troupe of the theater of the people's militia. He also headed it. The troupe lived in the Palace of Culture im. The first five-year plan was divided into departments. All were given short Canadian rifles. The daily routine is barracks: wake up at 6 am, refueling beds, exercising, washing. After - military exercises: drill, shooting, study of regulations and political hours. The actors took a solemn oath. Such training was necessary, because these artists were supposed to perform at the front. “The theater has repeatedly found itself in the most difficult and dangerous areas and completely shared the combat life and fate of its spectators,” later recalled the playwright A.P. Burlachenko. - ... Military life tempered the actors - they became soldiers and knew how not only to play, but also to fight for the Motherland. "

Meeting N.K. Cherkasov with the Red Navy. ... Leningrad. 1942

Shostakovich in a fire helmet in besieged Leningrad, 1941

“The entire theater has been mobilized for work that is directly related to the defense of the city. In the dexterous hands of the ballerina G.S. Ulanova and singer G.M. Nelleppa thread after thread weaves nets and are covered with bushes of bast, painted in green and brown colors. A few hours - and now the first camouflage lawns are ready, which should cover buildings and military facilities. They were made with the participation of theater masters E.V. Wolf-Israel and P.M. Zhuravlenko ”, - wrote in her memoirs Marietta Frangopulo, ballet dancer, teacher and ballet expert, who served at the Theater of Opera and Ballet. CM. Kirov (modern. Mariinsky Theater).

During the blockade of Leningrad, the building of the Mariinsky Theater was badly damaged

Actors BDT them. Gorky Tamara Zenkovskaya and Sergei Ryabinkin recalled: civil uprising, the remaining theater workers, along with all the Leningraders, got involved in the construction of defensive lines. In the morning, the actors gathered in the courtyard of the theater and, divided into platoons and squads, were engaged in the study of military affairs, brigades of labor army men dispersed along given routes, and the remaining actors hastily prepared a new repertoire necessary for today. "

The universal military training(Vsevobuch) residents on the square near the Alexandrinsky Theater ...

Remembers Nikolay Goryainov, director of Maly opera house: “The theater was also instructed to carry out work on masking important objects - artists of the chorus, ballet, opera soloists stayed after the performance and sewed long canvases until morning, which were then painted by the artists ... Artists and carpenters turned the trucks arriving from the military units into the theater's propaganda machines ... A group of ballerinas , under the direction of the opera soloist V. Petrova, carefully laid gifts for the theater workers mobilized into the army. There were many of them: only in the first months of the war on the fronts Patriotic War 158 people left ”.

What to play?

In the early days of the war, many imagined that it would be over in a few months, and no one could imagine that the city would be besieged within 900 days. However, they thought about the relevance of the repertoire right away. And if the program of the acting teams was hastily compiled - poems, feuilletons, songs, stories on military theme, then theaters had to urgently look for suitable plays and rehearse. It was necessary to rebuild the rhythm of the theaters as quickly as possible in a military manner, fighting performances raising the patriotic spirit were needed.

Residents of besieged Leningrad come out after the performance at the Academic Drama Theater

The most efficient was the Leningrad branch Central Theater dolls directed by Sergei Obraztsov. Already in July, they created a front-line program of anti-fascist satire "History Lesson" and "Aryans in the Zoo". As for the city theaters, they urgently introduced plays about the great warriors and commanders, Alexander Nevsky, Suvorov, Kutuzov and the heroes of the times into the repertoire. Civil war such as Chapaev.

Puppet theater of besieged Leningrad

Many theaters stage the play "A long time ago" about a girl who changed into a hussar uniform and fled to the front, the opera "Ivan Susanin" is performed again, a stage adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's novel "War and Peace" is being performed.

At a meeting at the Comedy Theater, the question was discussed whether laughter is necessary and even permissible at such times? Maybe change your favorite genre at least for a while? But it was decided that laughter is necessary, even necessary, - this is another weapon in the fight against the enemy. And in August, the theater will release Under the Lindens of Berlin, a topical satirical play about Hitler and his ministers.

And what about the Leningrad Youth Theater - the oldest children's theater in the country? Director Leonid Makariev will forever remember the then performance of the head of the collective Alexander Bryantsev, whose name the theater bears today: “Our young viewer in the harsh days of war, he is doomed to difficult experiences, which he himself is not yet aware of and which will inevitably darken his childhood. Right now, as never before, we are called upon to preserve the purity of childhood and bring in it a courageous will, preserve the joy of childhood and imbue it with faith in a brighter future, preserve the inquisitiveness of childhood and open before it the world of true heroism ... "And the Youth Theater continued to stage children's plays, emphasizing to those that in an allegorical form revealed the theme of heroism and nobility.

Terrible 900 days

“The Germans were waiting, the Leningraders would be confused,

They will be exhausted from the bombing and shelling.

But seeing in the days of the siege

Spirit and fortitude of Leningrad,

The fascists are already afraid for themselves ".

Couplets from the repertoire of the Frontline circus

The number of bombings increased. Leningrad has become a front city. Despite the mass evacuation, artists, writers and poets, composers remained in the city - responsibility for the morale of Leningraders fell on their shoulders. The whole country lived by what happened in the besieged city. To survive, not to lose heart and to defend Leningrad was a common task.

Artists of the Theater of Opera and Ballet. CM. Kirov on the preparation of firewood

Surprisingly, even at such a difficult time cultural life in the city continued. Despite the mass evacuation, the Lenin Komsomol Theater, the Leningrad City Council, the Youth Theater, the Comedy Theater, which were evacuated later, still remained in the city. A Theater musical comedy and the orchestra of the Radio Committee were in Leningrad throughout the blockade. And all these teams worked, showed performances that were interrupted by bombing several times, went to the army with performances, and most importantly, despite hunger and cold, they found emotions to work.

The Leningrad Theater of Musical Comedy had a serious mission during the Great Patriotic War. It is the operetta, the most cheerful and light genre, was next to the spectators of besieged Leningrad.

Sale of tickets from hands to the Theater of Musical Comedy in besieged Leningrad

Many of the troupe's actors moved to live in the theater building. The reasons were different: someone's house was bombed, someone lived very far away, and they had to walk, because transport in the city did not work, over time, when frost and hunger came, this saved energy for work. The daily bombing of the city, and the Germans were very punctual in this sense, taught all residents to adapt to this monstrous schedule. The performances were moved from evening to daytime, and still they were interrupted several times by an air raid. Spectators descended in an organized manner into the bomb shelter, the actors, as they were, in stage costumes, went up to the roof to extinguish incendiary bombs in order to prevent a fire.

Singers and ballerinas - probably the most gentle audience of all the acting fraternity - found the strength and courage not to leave the audience. And the halls were almost always full. Raisa Benyash, a theater critic, described the life of the Musical Comedy of that time: “Double responsibility - for oneself and for the audience - if it was doubly heavy, at that time gave rise to some kind of special determination and resourcefulness. A.A. Orlov (Alexander Orlov, tenor) was once filled up during a landslide; he lay in the hospital for a long time and left there traumatized. At the first alarm, he was seized with terror. And he was on the stage once, when the next bombing began, calmly pronouncing the text of his role ... he said, addressing the public: “Citizens, take your time! These are just glasses, ordinary glasses. "

Concert of artists of the Leningrad Musical Comedy Theater for wounded soldiers

Once a bomb fell into the building next to the theater, the actors urgently went to help the sanitary squad carry out the wounded. And then the foreman of the orderlies, the ballerina of the theater Nina Peltser, was seized with fear, and she suddenly got up and refused to go into the burning building. Further, this is what Raisa Benyash writes: “At these moments in the foyer they made the first victim - a child, a girl with short pigtails and a blue bow splattered with blood. Pelzer grabbed the child, laid him on the sofa, examined the bruise, covered her coat and rushed to the burning house. And then, along with everyone else, she wore the wounded, put on bandages, calmed the crying babies and did not notice that shells were bursting somewhere very close and that not only the dressing gown, but also the dress under it became sticky with blood. "

A scene from the heroic comedy "The Sea Spreads Wide" by the Leningrad Theater of Musical Comedy. The premiere of this play - about the sailors of the Baltic Fleet and life in a besieged city - took place on November 7, 1942 and was a resounding success. After the blockade was lifted, the performance was shown in Moscow, Tashkent, Orenburg, Kiev

And yet, the cheerful operetta allowed people to forget, at least for a short time, about the hardships of the besieged city. And the soldiers at the front needed to know that the city was alive, that performances were being staged in it. The ballerina of the theater Nina Peltser once received such a letter: “Yesterday I was in Leningrad, I was in your theater and saw you. Now I am calm. When the Germans spread a rumor on the front line that Leningrad had fallen, we did not believe, but we were very worried. And once a lieutenant came to us and said: “I saw Pelzer on Wednesday ...” Is Pelzer dancing? And now he saw that you were dancing. Leningrad should not be defeated; we will take care of that. "

Artists N.V. Pelzer (left) and A.G. Komkov in a scene from the play "The sea spreads wide"

And life in the city was getting harder and harder. From November 20 to December 25, 1941, the bread distribution rate for workers was 250 grams; employees and their families - 125 grams. The theater was losing colleagues. Some died on stage during rehearsals. Emaciated, blue with cold and hunger, the ballerinas put on warm leggings under their leotards: so it was warmer and their legs seemed fuller. The building was not heated. It was cold on the stage. To warm up, the actors sat behind the scenes in sheepskin coats over ballet tutus and tailcoats. When the Russian choir was given their morocco boots to perform, they all turned out to be small - the singers' legs were swollen. Dystrophy wore people down, every movement required effort, but theater is a process: to put on scenery, light, bring props, put on makeup ... The same people-shadows in the hall watched the performance in outerwear, there was no applause - the audience no longer had the strength to clap the artists. Skinny and exhausted artists and audiences needed each other.

Actress of the Musical Comedy Theater Z.D. Gabrielianz before going on stage

Here is another vivid memory of Raisa Benyash: “The flowers were gone. Tied branches of needles were thrown onto the stage. Pelzer received a basket made up of green spruce and pine twigs. When the basket was brought onto the stage, Komkov took it to pass it to his partner, but immediately lowered it to the floor. One actor wanted to help him, but gave up on his intention. The basket was incredibly heavy. When they brought her backstage during the intermission, it turned out that under the green branches there were potatoes, rutabagas, carrots and even a head of cabbage. " So the inhabitants of the city decided to feed the actors: after all, if the theatrical life died, the whole city would die ...

When the electricity was cut off in the theater in December, the actors began to travel to the Red Army with concerts. For 7 days on Ladoga they gave 32 concerts. January and February 1942 are the most terrible period of the blockade, these are the months of mass deaths. Life in the city came to a standstill, and only Musical Comedy was still working. In March, when the electricity was supplied, the theater immediately resumed performances.

Concert of the front-line brigade of the Theater of Opera and Ballet. CM. Kirov. 1942

The birth of a new theater - in the besieged city!

The City Theater (the modern St. Petersburg Academic Drama Theater named after V.F. Komissarzhevskaya) opened on October 18, 1942. Theaters are born in different ways, this one was born from the play "Russian People" by Konstantin Simonov, which was published in the newspaper "Pravda". A drama about the difficulties of war is the writer's first artistic response to the events taking place. The play was an immediate success. It was staged on every stage of the country, read on the radio, and the City Theater began its first siege season with it.

On August 9, 1942, the premiere of the Seventh Symphony took place. In the White Column Hall of the Philharmonic, the apple had nowhere to fall. Karl Eliasberg was greeted with a standing ovation. The conductor raised his baton, and previously unheard of sounds burst into the hall. When the orchestra began to sound, the audience jumped up in one impulse and gave a long standing ovation. It was clear that tears were running down people's cheeks ... And Karl Ilyich wondered why the Germans did not shoot today? The Germans were just shooting, or rather, trying to shoot the Philharmonic. But an hour before the concert, the 14th artillery regiment unleashed a flurry of fire on the enemy batteries, thus giving the conductor and the audience 70 minutes of silence. There were still many days left before the blockade was lifted ...

January 1944 Artists of the Leningrad Opera and Ballet Theater named after S.M. Kirov, before the start of the performance, they read the editorial of the Pravda newspaper. Before the start of the opera "Ivan Susanin". After lifting the blockade

Slide 2

Leningrad (fragment)

I am not a Leningradian by birth.

And yet I have the right to say quite

That I am a Leningrader in smoky battles,

According to the first trench poems,

Through the cold, hunger, hardships,

In short: in his youth, in the war!

In Sinyavinsky swamps, in battles near Mgoy,

Where the snow was now in ashes, now in brown blood,

The city and I lived by the same destiny,

As if like relatives, their own.

It was different for us: both bitter and difficult.

We knew it was possible, sliding on the bumps,

Perish in the swamp, you can freeze,

Fall under the bullet, you can despair,

You can do both,

And only Leningrad cannot be given away!

And I saved him, forever, forever:

Nevka, Vasilievsky, Winter Palace ...

However, not me, not alone, of course.

He was overshadowed by a million hearts!

Eduard Asadov

Slide 3

By order of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of May 1, 1945, Leningrad was named a hero city for the heroism and courage shown by the inhabitants of the city during the blockade. On May 8, 1965, by the decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, the Hero City of Leningrad was awarded the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star medal.

Slide 4

THE ART OF BLOCKAD LENINGRAD

Slide 5

Leningrad is one of the largest cultural centers

Slide 6

LITERATURE BLOCKAD LENINGRAD

“Every Soviet writer is ready to devote everything, his strength, all his experience and talent, all his blood, if need be, to the sacred cause. people's war against the enemies of our Motherland ”.

Slide 7

• Vera Mikhailovna Inber
• Olga Fedorovna Berggolts
• Nikolai Korneevich Chukovsky
• L. Panteleev
• Lidiya YakovlevnaGinzburg

Prose

• Vera Inber, Almost three years (Leningrad diary), Soviet writer, L., 1947
• Olga Berggolts, Day stars, Soviet writer, L., 1959
• Alexander Borisovich Chakovsky, The novel "Blockade" (book 1-5, 1968-75; Lenin Prize 1978)
• , Mirror
• Alexander Borisovich Chakovsky, It was in Leningrad
• Tamara Sergeevna Tsinberg, "Seventh Symphony", story - L., Det. lit., 1969.
• Nikolay Korneevich Chukovsky The novel "Baltic Sky", 1946-1954, publ. 1955, film of the same name 1960. About the pilots of the Baltic Fleet, defenders of the besieged Leningrad.
• Panteleev L., In a besieged city. Living monuments. / Collected works in four volumes. Volume 3.L .: Det. lit., 1984.
• Mikhail Chulaki novel "Eternal bread", 1984. Ed. Soviet writer.
• Ginzburg L. Ya. Characters passing: Prose of the war years. Notes of a blockade man. M.: New Publishing House, 2011.
• Nina Rakovskaya, A boy from Leningrad, State. publishing house of children's literature, L., 1945.
• Arif Saparov, The road of life. L.: Lenizdat, 1947.
• Arif Saparov, January forty-second. From the besieged Leningrad chronicle. L.: Soviet writer, 1969.
• Victor Konetsky, Who looks at the clouds. First edition mid-1960s
• Nikolai Tikhonov, Leningrad takes a fight. L .: Goslitizdat 1943.416 p.

Contemporary poetry and prose

• Polina Barskova, Live paintings. SPb. Ivan Limbakh Publishing House, 2014.
• Sergey Anufriev, Pavel Pepperstein, chapters from the novel "The Mythogenic Love of Castes" (1999-2002)
• Andrey Turgenev, Sleep and Believe: The Siege Romance. M., 2007
• Sergey Zavyalov, Nativity Fast, Poem (2009)
• Igor Vishnevetsky, Leningrad, story (2009)
• Polina Barskova, the poetic cycle "Handbook of Leningrad front-line writers 1941-1945", from the book "Ariel's Message" (2011)
• Boris Ivanov, Outside the city walls. Deserter Vedernikov, novella (2012)
• Kirill Ryabov, stories from the book "The Corpse Burner" (2013)
• Irina Sandomirskaya, “Blockade in the word. Essays on Critical Theory and Biopolitics of Language ”. Moscow: New Literary Review, 2013.
• Gennady Alekseev, free verse "The Firebird"

Music

• Dmitry Dmitrievich Shostakovich, Symphony No. 7 "Leningrad" (1941-1942)
• Boris Vladimirovich Asafiev, "Dithyramb to the great city" (1941), "Songs of sorrow and tears" (1941) for piano solo, "Cantes of the unforgettable memory of Alexander Dmitrievich Kastalsky" for mixed choir a capella (1941-1942) on texts from church use
• Gavriil Nikolaevich Popov Symphony No. 2 "Homeland" (1943, conceived in the winter of 1941-1942 in the besieged city)
• Boris Ivanovich Tishchenko, Symphony No. 5 "Chronicle of the Blockade" (1975)
• V. Kudryashov (music), M. Ryabinin (words), isp. Vil Okun and ensemble, Papa's waltz
• Songs of the group "Splin" "Blockade", "Waltz" and "Orchestra".
• Song of British rock musician Blaze Bailey City Of Bones from the album Promise and Terror (2010)
• Chris de Burgh's song Leningrad
• The album "The Diarist" (2006) by the Italian group Dark Lunacy is entirely dedicated to the siege of Leningrad.
• The song and video clip of the group "The largest prime number" (SBPC) - "Blockade"
• The song "Unconquered" by the rock group "Kipelov" from the single of the same name
• 09/08/2012 on the day of memory of the victims of the siege of Leningrad, the premiere of the Third Symphony (Military) op.13 by composer Alexei Kurbatov took place in Great Hall Philharmonic Society (St. Petersburg), orchestra conducted by Igor Ponomarenko. The symphony was broadcast live in the city squares.

Monumental art

Many artists directly followed the instructions emanating from the Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Political Directorate of the Front, calling for "to equate the pen with the bayonet", and turned their art into a powerful propaganda resource. Picturesque works written during the blockade are not nearly as numerous as graphic works. Battle painting includes numerous works created at that time by painters commissioned by the Leningrad Union of Artists, depicting episodes of the battles that took place during the battle for Leningrad, events taking place at the front, fighting partisans, and also raised the topic of the heroism of the defenders of the city. The artists received official orders to paint "military portraits", while many soldiers came to pose directly from the front, receiving a short vacation. Other orders were portraits of the Stakhanovites and the working life of the townspeople, much less often - the events of the Russian military history... The works glorified the fortitude and courage of the city's defenders, and carried the promise of victory. Among the artists who worked in this direction, the most famous were V. A. Serov, G. S. Vereisky, I. A. Serebryany, N. Pilshikov, V. A. Vlasov, V. I. Kurdov, and many other masters. A series of 24 lithographic works by A. F. Pakhomov " Leningrad Chronicle”, Completed in 1947, after the war was awarded State Prize.

Since the beginning of the blockade, the poster has become the most popular and popular form of art; one of the very first posters that appeared in the city was made by V.V. Lebedev, in the past, a famous master of this genre, in 1919-1920 he worked on a series of posters "Petrograd windows of ROSTA". At the beginning of the war, no more than five people worked on the poster, while by August the number of poster artists approached fifty, they worked in the renewed TASS Windows and for the Combat Pencil association. The posters had a strong impact, calling out to passers-by from the walls: "Death to the infanticide", "Destroy the German monster." In addition to the sheets " Combat pencil»And posters, prints, postcards, and portraits of war heroes were issued in large quantities. The postcards, which came out with a circulation of up to 25 thousand, were devoted to the military theme. During the war years in besieged Leningrad book charts could not find work, the activities of most publishing houses were almost paralyzed. , so that postcards became a possible source of income in the first place. The life of the siege was reflected, however, in these plots - the theme for the postcard could be "A woman knitting mittens for soldiers."

During the blockade, there was an active exhibition activity, the first exhibition was opened on January 2, 1942. The siege exhibitions, until 1944, were poorly attended (15-18 people per day), including not only because people had questions of survival in the first place. Thematic paintings were painted by artists socialist realism, which, unlike the "critical" realism of the 19th century, did not provide for criticism. "During the war, NN Punin compared the means of influence of art with weapons. You cannot wage military operations with weapons of the past ... There were orders. These were the so-called thematic paintings. And there was a contingent who easily fulfilled these orders, their artists half-disdainfully called picture-makers. They worked for the ever more undemanding taste of their bosses. Possessing a certain, but quite artisanal skill, they filled exhibitions with their products, which made a person who wanted to see genuine painting feel sick ... Something dead, frozen looked from the walls of exhibitions in St. Petersburg ... and this the process did not stop. Everything became more and more gray at the exhibitions .. "

The creative positions of the Leningrad artists were divided.

Already at the end of the 1930s, the academic hierarchy of genres was “restored” in socialist realism, artists turned directly to the authorities (in official canvases) or to colleagues (solving plastic problems in portraits and still lifes). The predominant works in the blockade art were works representing the landscape and genre of everyday life.

V genre painting(and graphics) in the early years of the blockade, tragic and dramatic themes; narrative works appear by 1944. Historians distinguish two lines of this genre - one, with an accentuated plot, or with the disclosure of the topic through the image of one person, while the artist does not set himself the portrait task. The second line of development of the genre is a kind of landscape, often urban, with elements of genre action introduced into it. Another topic was “events taking place at the front or behind enemy lines”; these works, according to historians, also gravitated towards either everyday genre, with a clearly expressed plot basis, or to a "military" landscape.

Daily life of the city

A significant part of the works created during the blockade consisted of drawings that were of a documentary nature. Some of them were sketched, but in many cases they are complete, well-thought-out individual things. Most of these works are far from both the ceremonial "military officialdom" encouraged by the Regional Committee and from optimism. They reflect the life of the inhabitants of the city, confronting the adversity of difficult years. Images of suffering and sorrow often become the theme of these works.

Most of the blockade graphics (and partly painting) are drawings from nature, and are divided into groups - city landscapes filled with people, often desert, portraits and everyday sketches. Many of these works were made by government orders, most of them were purchased for the Museum of the Defense of Leningrad.

One of the dramatic images, characteristic precisely of the blockade winter, repeated in many works, is a man carrying a sleigh with the body of a deceased down the street. The themes of P. M. Kondratyev's watercolors were the cleaning of street fences, ambulance cards, trucks frozen into the ice; S.S.Boima's works - clearing snow on the streets, queues at a bakery, preparing and unloading firewood, evacuating children, a hospital, a Christmas tree market in December 1941. N.M.Bylyev-Protopopov's drawings depict dystrophies basking in the stove, street barricades , girls weaving camouflage nets, teenagers on duty on the rooftops, and a cluster of coffins at the gates of the Okhtensky cemetery. IA Vladimirov is known for his cycle of documentary sketches of the events of 1917-1918, the second such cycle he made during the siege, his themes this time were the cleaning of corpses on the streets, “the road of death”. The plots of L.I. Gagarina were people wrapped up, sitting at the smokehouse, cleaning snow from the streets, T.N. Glebova's plots - people sitting in a bomb shelter, mounted police, dismantling of collapsed houses after a raid, crowds of fire victims sitting in the streets among their belongings , dystrophics, dining at the Salt Union of Artists. LN Glebova painted the faces of children and women under siege with children's coffins on a sled. E.M. Magaril painted people in a hospital, G.K. Malysh - children's corpses on the streets, and - fireworks in honor of the lifting of the blockade in 1944, A.E. Mordvinov - people helping to put out fires, a woman with a newborn, sitting at a potbelly stove, a public teahouse, V.V. Sterligov - wounded in the hospital, A.G. Traugot - crossing the frozen Neva, S.N. Heeger - heating repair. A.N. and V.N. Proshkins wrote about captured Germans near Shlisselburg, echelons delivering fuel to the city. A. L. Rotach - a fire in the Zoological Garden, Ya.O. Rubanchik - vegetable gardens near St. Isaac's Cathedral, water intake and frozen transport, sandbags, an air raid, a queue to a tobacco shop, mountains of things taken with them by evacuees, piled up at the Finland Station A. I. Rusakov and A. F, Pakhomov in the winter of 1941 made sketches of people dying from dystrophy in F. Erisman's hospital.

L. A. Ilyin painted explosions in the streets (he soon died from one of them) and corpses piled in basements. The plots of M.G. Platunov are more tragic - murders and thefts on the streets, which occurred because of a piece of bread, desperate suicides, people frozen on the street. Many of the works made during the blockade can be confidently attributed to the genre, but not all, since it was impossible for the artists to accept the explosions in the streets and the piled-up corpses as everyday life.

The everyday life of the city and the portraits of the townspeople was also the theme of the works of P. I. Basmanov, V. G. Boriskovich, P. Ya. Zaltsman, V. V. Milyutina, V. V. Zenkovich, L. A. Ronchevskaya, A. I. Kharshak, M. A. Shepilevsky, N. Dormidontov, E. Belukha, S. Mochalov. Sculptors also worked during the blockade. Not all works created during the blockade have survived, many have been lost. The blockade works of Evgenia Evenbakh were also devoted to the military everyday life of the blockaded city. ...

Artistic merit works were different, so, especially highlight tragic cycle works (linocuts) by Solomon Yudovin and a lithographic series by Adrian Kaplan, where he combines a household plot with the finest texture of a "multilayer" drawing. In many of the blockade works of artists of the "Leningrad school" there is a conscious dispassionateness of fixation, a desire to present nature "as it is", without an expressive mood.

Some artists have set themselves a goal

“To draw like a chronicler .. like an eyewitness to things that many are not allowed to see, and many turn a blind eye to them ..” “.. I am doing art .. I have no inspiration to describe the beauty of air battles. searchlights, rockets, explosions and fires; I know what horror this extravaganza brings with it .. "

Such works include the series "The Horrors of War for the Civilian Population" and "The Siege of the City" by TN Glebova, a student of PN Filonov and a follower of his "analytical method." ...

The works created during the blockade have themselves become a part of history and the reason for the emergence of new works of art. There is a well-known series of drawings by Vera Milyutina "The Hermitage during the Siege", depicting the empty halls of the museum, walls without paintings, fallen chandeliers. It was this series that formed the basis for the works of the Japanese artist Yasumara Morimura “The Hermitage. 1941-2014 ", exhibited in the halls of the Hermitage in 2014 during the exhibition Manifesto 10 and recognized as" the most sensitive historical context a work about the Hermitage ”.

A special place among all the blockade art is occupied by the painting by L. T. Chupyatov "The Protection of the Mother of God over the besieged city." It was painted by the artist shortly before his death in the besieged city, on September 8-10, 1941, when the Badayev warehouses were burning in the city.

Siege landscape

"Many people believe that if an artist only deals with landscape, then he is distracted or deliberately moves away from the resolution of large significant topics, while the landscape - and this is confirmed by the whole history of painting - plays a big public role... The landscape, in essence, is the worldview of the era ", wrote GN Traugot. The artists reflected the blockade in their paintings and graphic works so that they remained far from direct naturalism in depicting suffering. But they are expressed, first of all, by the dying city itself.

Huge symbolic meaning Petersburg, which is obvious both for its defenders and for those striving to occupy its enemy troops, is also comprehended in a number of outstanding works of art high artistic expression.

Artists who were on the verge of starvation created works that were later combined by researchers into a special genre of "siege landscape".

The most poignant works were created by artists in the very first winter of siege, which left a strong impression on the Leningraders.

The work of artists directly on the streets of the besieged city was not welcomed, nevertheless, many of the works created during the siege belong precisely to the genre of the urban landscape. Sometimes it was necessary to work on the streets during shelling. Many artists depicted the streets of the city during shelling, houses destroyed by explosions, sheltered monuments.

Siege landscapes were painted and painted by M.P. Bobyshov, B.N. Ermolaev, A.L. Kaplan, A.V. Kaplun, S.G. A. Pavlov, N.E. Timkov, G.N.

Among them, it is customary to single out an architectural landscape, characteristic of "the accuracy of reproduction of the object of the image." Among those who painted them were many architects: I. Astapov, A. K. Barutchev, E. B. Bernshtein, V. M. Izmailovich, L. A. Ilyin, V. A. Kamensky, A. S. Nikolsky, M. A. Shepilevsky, L. S. Khizhinsky. Famous architect L. A. Ilyin, in addition to a series of landscapes, drew a graphic diary, * Walks in Leningrad. "

The extraordinary and terrible beauty of the besieged city was reflected in their works, first of all, by the artists of the "Leningrad school" - V. V. Pakulin, A. N. Rusakov, G. N. Traugott.

V. V. Pakulin had never painted city landscapes before the war, and it was during the siege that the beauty of the city was revealed to him. Many artists noted that in the winter of 1941-1942 Leningrad was especially beautiful: sparkling with frost, motionless and almost deserted. Pakulin created about fifty city landscapes, including “House of Books. Prospect 25 October "(1942)," Near the Admiralty "(1941-1942)," The Hermitage. Jordan entrance "(1942)," Prospect 25 October. Spring ”(1943),“ Demidov Lane ”(1943) .. In many of these works, a pearly gray scale is used, reflecting the haze of a light-air environment.

The most famous of the picturesque series of blockade by G. N. Traugot are his paintings “Gunboat at Winter Palace"1942," Neva s Pushkin House"1942," Near Petropavlovka "1942, they depict deserted squares, snow-covered streets, transparent air, the Neva, on which there are warships. He also created a watercolor blockade cycle. All his works are strict in color, their color scheme tends to monochrome. The feeling of "mirage", ghostlyness remains even when genre scenes are included in the landscape. The artist does not paint the really terrible things that were in the city at every turn. The courageous attitude of his painting belongs to the sphere of high tragedy, the same can be said about the drawings ("Icy Sun of the Blockade"). The individual experience of the author grows to the scale of heroic pathos.

And I. Rusakov belongs to those rare artists who were able to survive the entire blockade. without stopping to work. He created picturesque portraits of the city with the strongest expressiveness, deserted and destroyed, in the most difficult time of the first winter for him; These works are often reproduced and exhibited. "Rusakov, apparently, felt the special significance of each written and pictorial evidence "from the inside", which was noted by Academician G. A. Knyazev in his blockade diary. " Hence an important property of his drawings. made in 1942-1943. , - they are detailed, and executed as finished things. not an outline.

The principally chamber nature of Rusakov's siege watercolors, both city landscapes and portraits, separates them from the famous series by AF Pakhomov ("Leningrad in the years of the siege and restoration") or the portrait series by GS Vereisky. There is no intentional emphasis on heroism or suffering. The artist carefully captures daily life cities.

Siege portrait

Self-portrait occupies an extremely important place in the blockade art. The main idea for the blockade self-portrait is the opposition of life and creativity - death and destruction. Self-portraits were painted by artists of different directions - from the students of P.N. Filonov, who only died in December 1941, - the artists P. Ya. Zaltsman (graphic self-portraits), T.N. Glebova (Self-portrait, Portrait of a family during the blockade, 1941 , both in the collection of the State Tretyakov Gallery) - and a series of tragic self-portraits by V.P. Yanova, before the works of Ya.S. Nikolaev (1942) and A.A. Bantikov (1944).

"Siege portrait" was fundamentally different from pictorial portraits, made by state order, and always depicting a person performing a feat, labor or military. To enhance the impression, the portrait was often half-length or generational. In contrast to them, the "siege portraits" have a different, intimate character. It can also be portraits - types like female images on the portraits of P. I. Basmanov and V. V. Zenkovich. Often the family or close friends of the artists become models for the siege portraits, as in the portrait of the artists E. Zazerskaya and T. Kupervasser, 1941, painted by A. I. Rusakov.

This chamber genre also includes portraits of artists socialist method, V.I. Malagis (Portrait of an old worker, 1943; Portrait of the artist Ivanov, 1943), Ya.S. Nikolaev (Portrait of M.G. Petrova, 1942, portrait of the artist Vikulov, 1942), N. Kh. Rutkovsky (Portrait of A . Frolova - Bagreeva, 1943). One of the main differences between these works from the official commissioned portrait is the expansion of the range of traditions used. Departing from the canons of socialist realism, these artists turned to french painting, to the portraits of the Impressionists, however, completely changing the concept of color, changing it to deliberately polluted. Although, in words, French impressionism was condemned in Soviet criticism of the 1940s.

Post-war art

Cinema

Art films

• Blockade (epic):
  • "Luga frontier"
  • Pulkovo Meridian
  • "Leningrad Metronome"
  • "Operation" Spark ""
• "Leningraders, my children ..." (Uzbekfilm, 1980)
• "The Riddle of Kalman"
• "Old friends"
• "Red streptocide" (short film, directed by Chiginsky, 2001)
• Martha's Line - a film with Alice Freundlich (2014)

Documentaries

• Siege of Leningrad
• Leningrad blockade
• Seventh Symphony
• Blockade tram
• Investigation program "Searchers"
  • "Witness of the great siege" (2005)
  • "Ghost Road" (2006)
• Documentary cycle "The investigation was conducted" with Leonid Kanevsky
  • "Gauleiter of Leningrad" (2008)
  • "Banner of Adolf Hitler" (2009)
• "Blockade", the second film in the documentary cycle "Altar of Victory"
• Leningrad Front (2008)
• "Blockade", author's program

“During the war, our people defended not only their land. He defended world culture... He defended everything beautiful that was created by art, ”wrote Tatiana Tess. Indeed, the Soviet people tried to preserve and protect from fascist barbarism all the cultural heritage that they left from the masters of the past. After all, the German invaders ruined not only Leningrad itself: many suburban cities suffered at their hands. The world famous monuments of Russian architecture were destroyed and plundered.

The priceless amber room, Chinese silk wallpaper, gilded carvings, antique furniture and a library were taken out of Pushkin's palaces-museums. The palace in Pavlovsk also became unusually impoverished after the Germans visited it: it lost sculptures, part of the collection of the rarest porcelain of the 18th century, parquet of great artistic value, bronze door decorations, bas-reliefs, tapestries, some wall and ceiling shades.

But more than in others, the Nazis committed atrocities in Peterhof. The Great Peterhof Palace, founded during the reign of Peter I, was burned down, and the property was plundered. The Peterhof Park suffered enormous damage. The statue-fountain "Samson tearing apart the lion's mouth" was sawn into pieces and taken to Germany. In the upper and lower parks, the Neptune fountain, sculptural decorations of the Grand Cascade terrace and other valuable statues were removed.

The State Hermitage Museum, although it was not subjected to fascist vandalism directly, that is, from the inside, but its treasures were under considerable threat, therefore, the salvation of its exhibits became a priority task. The director of the famous museum in those years was an outstanding orientalist, academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences Iosif Abgarovich Orbeli, who later recalled how, from the very first days of the war, the entire staff of the Hermitage worked tirelessly to pack the exhibits, spending no more than an hour on food and rest. The work went on continuously, day and night, for eight days. The museum staff was helped by a huge number of those people who previously could only be a visitor in these halls, but who were not indifferent to the fate of the objects that witnessed history. They were painters, sculptors, teachers, employees of scientific institutions and many others. They begged to let them go to even the hardest work. As a result, the first echelon with exhibits was sent on July 1, and the second was sent on July 20.

Hermitage treasures were taken to the rear, accompanied by some of the museum staff, but its management “had to withstand the struggle with people who refused the opportunity to travel to safe areas of the country, so as not to part with their hometown and their home museum. Nobody wanted to leave the walls of the Hermitage and the Winter Palace. "

In the halls of the Hermitage, only those items remained that had secondary importance, or collections that are too bulky (one of them is the famous collection of historical carriages), which were too difficult to take out. A small group of employees stored the collections, packed and moved to secure storerooms and cellars. But from continuous airstrikes on the museum building (more than 30 shells hit it) and constantly bursting water pipes, hungry and weakened museum workers had to transfer exhibits from basement to basement, from hall to hall countless times, because antiques do not tolerate high humidity or cold air. But for the entire time of the blockade, not a single significant exhibit was lost, damaged or destroyed.

The Hermitage was rapidly emptied, but did not forget its purpose. In the Field Marshal's Small Throne and Armorial Halls of the Winter Palace, there was a large exhibition dedicated to the heroic military past of the Russian people. In the gallery of the Patriotic War of 1812, one could see the uniform of Peter the Great shot through by a Swedish bullet near Poltava, Napoleon's gray marching coat, Kutuzov's uniforms, etc. In the Armorial Hall of the Winter Palace, the banners of the Swedish king Karl XII, the Prussian king Friedrich, Napoleon were exhibited ─ trophies of Russian soldiers Joseph Abgarovich Orbeli also prepared a celebration on the occasion of the 800th anniversary of the Azerbaijani poet Nizami Ganjavi, which took place on October 19, 1941. When Iosif Abgarovich was hinted to the given time is, first of all, unsafe, but there are other reasons why the celebration of this round date could be derailed. In response to these words, Orbeli said: “The jubilee should take place in Leningrad! Just think ─ the whole country will celebrate Nizami's anniversary, but Leningrad will not be able to! For the Nazis to say that they thwarted our anniversary! We must carry it out by all means! " And they conducted them: two orientalists were sent from the front, they read the poems of this outstanding Azerbaijani poet, moreover, both in translation into Russian and in the original; speeches were made, reports on the life and work of Nizami, arranged a small exhibition of what was not taken out. The Director of the Hermitage calculated the time of the event with an accuracy of a few minutes: the anniversary was started and finished neatly between two shelling.

Less than two months later, on December 10, 1941 at 4 o'clock in the Hermitage, another meeting was held, this time dedicated to the 500th anniversary of the great poet of the Middle East Alisher Navoi. Introductory remarks to this event it was like this:

"The very fact of honoring the poet in Leningrad, besieged, doomed to suffering from hunger and the impending cold, in a city that the enemies consider already dead and bloodless, once again testifies to the courageous spirit of our people and their unbroken will ..."

In the fall of 1941, the Government proposed to the command of the North-Western Front and the leadership of the Leningrad party organization to ensure the departure from the besieged city to The mainland prominent figures of science and culture. The lists of the "Golden Fund", as the list of names of prominent Leningraders was called, began with Professor I. I. Dzhanelidze ─ chief surgeon of the fleet, corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, lieutenant general of the medical service. When asked to leave the besieged city, Janelidze replied: "I will not leave Leningrad anywhere!" The same were the answers of many other figures who were listed in the "Golden Fund".

The artists who worked during the blockade also tried to contribute to the common cause of the struggle against the fascist enemy. In early January 1942, an exhibition was organized under the title "Leningrad in the days of the Patriotic War", which presented 127 paintings and sketches by 37 artists. In the exhibition hall there was a ten-degree frost, and the exhibitors could hardly move. Especially tragic is the fate of the artist Hertz, who brought two sketches from Vasilievsky Island, one of them in a heavy gilded frame. “The paintings have to look good,” he said. On the same day, Geretz died of dystrophy in the exhibition hall.

Later, the works of Leningrad artists: drawings by N. Dormidontov ("Near the Water", "In the Yard", "Queue to the Bakery", "Cleaning up the City", etc.), drawings by A. Pakhomov ("They are being taken to the hospital", "For water ", etc.) were exhibited in Moscow. The artist P. Sokolov-Skalya, being impressed by what he saw, wrote: “The image of an angry, resolute city bristling with bayonets, images of the heroism of ordinary, yesterday peaceful people, images of selfless courage and resilience of children, women and elders, workers and scientists, fighters and academicians stand up in all their grandeur at this exhibition, modest in size, but deep in drama. "

Spring 1942 opened new page not only in the life of Leningraders themselves, but also in the cultural life of the city. Cinemas began to open everywhere, and concert and theatrical life was resumed. In March 1942, in the building of the Academy of Theater. A.S. Pushkin's first symphony concert took place. Although it was terribly cold in the room, and everyone was sitting in their outerwear, but listening great music Glinka, Tchaikovsky, Borodin, no one paid attention to these inconveniences.

Among all the entertainment establishments, the Leningrad Theater of Musical Comedy, created in 1924, worked during the entire period of the blockade, which gave 2350 concerts for front-line soldiers and townspeople. Headed during the war by N. Ya. Yanet, in 1941-45 he presented 15 prime ministers to the public. In 1942, two of the most significant premieres took place: the operetta about partisans "Forest Truth" by A. A. Loginov (premiere ─ June 18) and the musical comedy “The Sea Was Widely Spread”, timed to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution (premiere ─ 7 November) and narrating about the life of the blockade and their heroic struggle (staged by V.L. Vitlin, L.M. Kruts, N.G. Minkh).

We know a lot of literary works dedicated to the Great Patriotic War, in particular, the defense and blockade of Leningrad. For example, the cycle of poems "Courage" by Anna Akhmatova, whom the siege found in her beloved city. Akhmatova was already seriously ill when she was evacuated to Tashkent. Another outstanding Leningrad poetess, Olga Berggolts, did not leave her hometown at all. All Olga Fyodorovna's creativity is imbued with warmth even for that completely unattractive Leningrad in the winter of 1941 (the poem "Your Way"), with an endless faith that he will not die, he will return and become more beautiful than before, just like its inhabitants (the poem "Conversation with a neighbor "and so on.). She constantly performed on the radio with fellow poets Nikolai Tikhonov, Mikhail Dudin, Vsevolod Vishnevsky. N. Tikhonov once said that at such a time the muses cannot be silent. And the muses spoke. They spoke in the harsh but truthful word of a patriot. In his poem "Kirov is with us" Tikhonov turned the thoughts and aspirations of all Leningraders into a poetic form:

“The enemy could not overpower us by force,

He wants to take us with hunger,

Take Leningrad from Russia,

In full of Leningraders to pick up.

This will never be

On the holy Nevsky bank,

Working Russian people

They will die, they will not surrender to the enemy. "

Another well-known Leningrad woman, Vera Inber, in her poem "Pulkovo Meridian" is even more radical, which, however, is not devoid of its own logic. The poet writes with hatred about fascism, predicting an imminent and inevitable death, and also expressing a desire to avenge all the atrocities of the Nazis:

“We will avenge everything: our city,

The great creation of Petrovo,

For the inhabitants who were left homeless,

For the dead as a tomb, the Hermitage.

For the death of the Peterhof "Samson",

For the bombs in the Botanical Garden.

We will avenge young and old:

For the old people bent in an arc,

For a child's coffin, so tiny,

No more than a violin case.

Under the shots, into the murk of snow,

On a sled, he made his way. "

However, the most significant cultural event in besieged Leningrad was the performance of the 7th symphony by D. D. Shostakovich, completed in December 1941. “Our fight against fascism, our coming victory over the enemy, my hometown─ I dedicate my 7th symphony to Leningrad, ─ Shostakovich wrote on the score for his work. In March 1942, it was first performed in The Bolshoi Theater Kuibyshev (now ─ Samara), and then ─ in Moscow. On August 9, 1942, the symphony was first performed at the Leningrad State Philharmonic. This was preceded by the perilous delivery of the score by air; replenishment of the orchestra by those who fought at the front; a change in the performance format associated with the threat of air strikes (according to Shostakovich's plan, there should be an intermission after the first movement, and the other three movements should be performed without interruption, but then the symphony was played without intervals at all); just five or six rehearsals before the performance. But still the concert took place! Here is how Leningrad citizen NI Zemtsova recalls this unprecedented event for the besieged city: “When we saw the posters on the streets that there would be a concert in the Philharmonic, we could not remember ourselves for joy. We could not have imagined that Shostakovich's Seventh Symphony would be performed here. It is difficult to describe the extraordinary atmosphere, the happy faces of the people who came to the Philharmonic Society as if it were a huge holiday. The musicians took their places. They were dressed in what. Many are in soldier's greatcoats, army boots, jackets, and gymnasts. And only one person was in full artistic form - the conductor. Karl Ilyich Eliasberg stood at the conductor's stand, as it should be, in a tailcoat. He waved his wand. And music of unspeakable beauty and greatness sounded. We were shocked. Our feelings cannot be conveyed. And the whole concert passed peacefully. Not a single alarm! " In the skies over Leningrad, everything was really calm: the 14th Guards Artillery Regiment did not allow any enemy aircraft to break through to the city.

The announcement of the beginning of the war on June 22, 1941, overnight turned the life of the entire city, as well as the entire country. Leningrad went over to martial law. Thousands of people defended the city, trying to turn it into an impregnable fortress. The artistic fraternity did not stand aside either. More than 800 people - musicians, actors, artists, directors, teachers and students of creative universities - are enlisted in the ranks of the people's militia. Acting teams are urgently formed, which act at mobilization points. Many go to dig anti-tank ditches near Luga, Gatchina, Strelna.

The famous actor Nikolai Konstantinovich Cherkasov, who embodied the images of Alexander Nevsky and Ivan the Terrible on the screen, took an active part in the formation of the troupe of the theater of the people's militia from the first days of the war. He also headed it. The troupe lived in the Palace of Culture im. The first five-year plan was divided into departments. All were given short Canadian rifles. The daily routine is barracks: wake up at 6 am, refueling beds, exercising, washing. After - military exercises: drill, shooting, study of regulations and political hours. The actors took a solemn oath. Such training was necessary, because these artists were supposed to perform at the front. “The theater has repeatedly found itself in the most difficult and dangerous areas and completely shared the combat life and fate of its spectators,” later recalled the playwright A.P. Burlachenko. - ... Military life tempered the actors - they became soldiers and knew how not only to play, but also to fight for the Motherland.

Meeting N.K. Cherkasov with the Red Navy. ... Leningrad. 1942

Shostakovich in a fire helmet in besieged Leningrad, 1941

“The entire theater has been mobilized for work that is directly related to the defense of the city. In the dexterous hands of the ballerina G.S. Ulanova and singer G.M. Nelleppa thread after thread weaves nets and are covered with bushes of bast, painted in green and brown colors. A few hours - and now the first camouflage lawns are ready, which should cover buildings and military facilities. They were made with the participation of theater masters E.V. Wolf-Israel and P.M. Zhuravlenko ”, - wrote in her memoirs Marietta Frangopulo, ballet dancer, teacher and ballet expert, who served at the Theater of Opera and Ballet. CM. Kirov (modern. Mariinsky Theater).

During the blockade of Leningrad, the building of the Mariinsky Theater was badly damaged

Actors BDT them. Gorky Tamara Zenkovskaya and Sergei Ryabinkin recalled: “After seeing some of the comrades into the people's militia, the remaining theater workers, together with all the Leningraders, got involved in the construction of defensive lines. In the morning, the actors gathered in the courtyard of the theater and, divided into platoons and squads, were engaged in the study of military affairs, brigades of labor army men dispersed along given routes, and the remaining actors hastily prepared a new repertoire necessary for today. "

General military training (Vsevobuch) of residents on the square near the Alexandrinsky Theater ...

Nikolai Goryainov, director of the Maly Opera Theater, recalls: “The theater was also instructed to carry out work on masking important objects - the choir, ballet dancers, opera soloists stayed after the performance and sewed long canvases until morning, which were then painted by the artists ... subdivisions trucks in the agitation machines of the theater ... A group of ballerinas, under the leadership of the opera soloist V. Petrova, carefully laid gifts to the theater workers mobilized into the army. There were many of them: in the first months of the war alone, 158 people went to the fronts of the Patriotic War. "

What to play?

In the early days of the war, many imagined that it would be over in a few months, and no one could imagine that the city would be besieged within 900 days. However, they thought about the relevance of the repertoire right away. And if the program of the acting teams was hastily drawn up - poems, feuilletons, songs, stories on a military theme, then theaters had to urgently look for suitable plays and rehearse. It was necessary to rebuild the rhythm of the theaters as quickly as possible in a military manner, fighting performances raising the patriotic spirit were needed.

Residents of besieged Leningrad come out after the performance at the Academic Drama Theater

The most efficient was the Leningrad branch of the Central Puppet Theater under the direction of Sergei Obraztsov. Already in July, they created a front-line program of anti-fascist satire "History Lesson" and "Aryans in the Zoo". As for the city theaters, they urgently introduced plays about the great warriors and commanders, Alexander Nevsky, Suvorov, Kutuzov, and heroes of the Civil War, such as Chapaev, into the repertoire.

Puppet theater of besieged Leningrad

Many theaters stage the play "A long time ago" about a girl who changed into a hussar uniform and fled to the front, the opera "Ivan Susanin" is performed again, a stage adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's novel "War and Peace" is being performed.

At a meeting at the Comedy Theater, the question was discussed whether laughter is necessary and even permissible at such times? Maybe change your favorite genre at least for a while? But it was decided that laughter is necessary, even necessary, - this is another weapon in the fight against the enemy. And in August, the theater will release Under the Lindens of Berlin, a topical satirical play about Hitler and his ministers.

But what about the Leningrad Youth Theater - the oldest children's theater in the country? Director Leonid Makariev will forever remember the then performance of the head of the collective Alexander Bryantsev, whose name the theater bears today: “Our young spectator in the harsh days of war is doomed to difficult experiences that he himself is not yet aware of and which will inevitably darken his childhood. Right now, as never before, we are called upon to preserve the purity of childhood and bring in it a courageous will, preserve the joy of childhood and imbue it with faith in a brighter future, preserve the inquisitiveness of childhood and open before it the world of true heroism ... "And the Youth Theater continued to stage children's plays, emphasizing to those that in an allegorical form revealed the theme of heroism and nobility.

Terrible 900 days

“The Germans were waiting, the Leningraders would be confused,

They will be exhausted from the bombing and shelling.

But seeing in the days of the siege

Spirit and fortitude of Leningrad,

The fascists are already afraid for themselves ".

Couplets from the repertoire of the Frontline circus

The number of bombings increased. Leningrad has become a front city. Despite the mass evacuation, artists, writers and poets, composers remained in the city - responsibility for the morale of Leningraders fell on their shoulders. The whole country lived by what happened in the besieged city. To survive, not to lose heart and to defend Leningrad was a common task.

Artists of the Theater of Opera and Ballet. CM. Kirov on the preparation of firewood

Surprisingly, even in such a difficult time, the cultural life in the city continued. Despite the mass evacuation, the Lenin Komsomol Theater, the Leningrad City Council, the Youth Theater, the Comedy Theater, which were evacuated later, still remained in the city. And the Theater of Musical Comedy and the orchestra of the Radio Committee were in Leningrad throughout the blockade. And all these teams worked, showed performances that were interrupted by bombing several times, went to the army with performances, and most importantly, despite hunger and cold, they found emotions to work.

The Leningrad Theater of Musical Comedy had a serious mission during the Great Patriotic War. It was the operetta, the funniest and easiest genre, that was next to the audience of besieged Leningrad.

Sale of tickets from hands to the Theater of Musical Comedy in besieged Leningrad

Many of the troupe's actors moved to live in the theater building. The reasons were different: someone's house was bombed, someone lived very far away, and they had to walk, because transport in the city did not work, over time, when frost and hunger came, this saved energy for work. The daily bombing of the city, and the Germans were very punctual in this sense, taught all residents to adapt to this monstrous schedule. The performances were moved from evening to daytime, and still they were interrupted several times by an air raid. Spectators descended in an organized manner into the bomb shelter, the actors, as they were, in stage costumes, went up to the roof to extinguish incendiary bombs in order to prevent a fire.

Singers and ballerinas - probably the most gentle audience of all the acting fraternity - found the strength and courage not to leave the audience. And the halls were almost always full. Raisa Benyash, a theater critic, described the life of the Musical Comedy of that time: “Double responsibility - for oneself and for the audience - if it was doubly heavy, at that time gave rise to some kind of special determination and resourcefulness. A.A. Orlov (Alexander Orlov, tenor) was once filled up during a landslide; he lay in the hospital for a long time and left there traumatized. At the first alarm, he was seized with terror. And he was on the stage once, when the next bombing began, calmly pronouncing the text of his role ... he said, addressing the public: “Citizens, take your time! These are just glasses, ordinary glasses. "

Concert of artists of the Leningrad Musical Comedy Theater for wounded soldiers

Once a bomb fell into the building next to the theater, the actors urgently went to help the sanitary squad carry out the wounded. And then the foreman of the orderlies, the ballerina of the theater Nina Peltser, was seized with fear, and she suddenly got up and refused to go into the burning building. Further, this is what Raisa Benyash writes: “At these moments in the foyer they made the first victim - a child, a girl with short pigtails and a blue bow splattered with blood. Pelzer grabbed the child, laid him on the sofa, examined the bruise, covered her coat and rushed to the burning house. And then, along with everyone else, she wore the wounded, put on bandages, calmed the crying babies and did not notice that shells were bursting somewhere very close and that not only the dressing gown, but also the dress under it became sticky with blood. "

A scene from the heroic comedy "The Sea Spreads Wide" by the Leningrad Theater of Musical Comedy. The premiere of this play - about the sailors of the Baltic Fleet and life in a besieged city - took place on November 7, 1942 and was a resounding success. After the blockade was lifted, the performance was shown in Moscow, Tashkent, Orenburg, Kiev

And yet, the cheerful operetta allowed people to forget, at least for a short time, about the hardships of the besieged city. And the soldiers at the front needed to know that the city was alive, that performances were being staged in it. The ballerina of the theater Nina Peltser once received such a letter: “Yesterday I was in Leningrad, I was in your theater and saw you. Now I am calm. When the Germans spread a rumor on the front line that Leningrad had fallen, we did not believe, but we were very worried. And once a lieutenant came to us and said: “I saw Pelzer on Wednesday ...” Is Pelzer dancing? And now he saw that you were dancing. Leningrad should not be defeated; we will take care of that. "

Artists N.V. Pelzer (left) and A.G. Komkov in a scene from the play "The sea spreads wide"

And life in the city was getting harder and harder. From November 20 to December 25, 1941, the bread distribution rate for workers was 250 grams; employees and their families - 125 grams. The theater was losing colleagues. Some died on stage during rehearsals. Emaciated, blue with cold and hunger, the ballerinas put on warm leggings under their leotards: so it was warmer and their legs seemed fuller. The building was not heated. It was cold on the stage. To warm up, the actors sat behind the scenes in sheepskin coats over ballet tutus and tailcoats. When the Russian choir was given their morocco boots to perform, they all turned out to be small - the singers' legs were swollen. Dystrophy wore people down, every movement required effort, but the theater is a process: to put on scenery, light, bring props, put on makeup ... The same shadow people in the hall watched the performance in outerwear, no applause was heard - the audience had the strength to clap the actors was gone. Skinny and exhausted artists and audiences needed each other.

Actress of the Musical Comedy Theater Z.D. Gabrielianz before going on stage

Here is another vivid memory of Raisa Benyash: “The flowers were gone. Tied branches of needles were thrown onto the stage. Pelzer received a basket made up of green spruce and pine twigs. When the basket was brought onto the stage, Komkov took it to pass it to his partner, but immediately lowered it to the floor. One actor wanted to help him, but gave up on his intention. The basket was incredibly heavy. When they brought her backstage during the intermission, it turned out that under the green branches there were potatoes, rutabagas, carrots and even a head of cabbage. " So the inhabitants of the city decided to feed the actors: after all, if the theatrical life died, the whole city would die ...

When the electricity was cut off in the theater in December, the actors began to travel to the Red Army with concerts. For 7 days on Ladoga they gave 32 concerts. January and February 1942 are the most terrible period of the blockade, these are the months of mass deaths. Life in the city came to a standstill, and only Musical Comedy was still working. In March, when the electricity was supplied, the theater immediately resumed performances.

Concert of the front-line brigade of the Theater of Opera and Ballet. CM. Kirov. 1942

The birth of a new theater - in the besieged city!

The City Theater (the modern St. Petersburg Academic Drama Theater named after V.F. Komissarzhevskaya) opened on October 18, 1942. Theaters are born in different ways, this one was born from the play "Russian People" by Konstantin Simonov, which was published in the newspaper "Pravda". A drama about the difficulties of war is the writer's first artistic response to the events taking place. The play was an immediate success. It was staged on every stage of the country, read on the radio, and the City Theater began its first siege season with it.

On August 9, 1942, the premiere of the Seventh Symphony took place. In the White Column Hall of the Philharmonic, the apple had nowhere to fall. Karl Eliasberg was greeted with a standing ovation. The conductor raised his baton, and previously unheard of sounds burst into the hall. When the orchestra began to sound, the audience jumped up in one impulse and gave a long standing ovation. It was clear that tears were running down people's cheeks ... And Karl Ilyich wondered why the Germans did not shoot today? The Germans were just shooting, or rather, trying to shoot the Philharmonic. But an hour before the concert, the 14th artillery regiment unleashed a flurry of fire on the enemy batteries, thus giving the conductor and the audience 70 minutes of silence. There were still many days left before the blockade was lifted ...

January 1944 Artists of the Leningrad Opera and Ballet Theater named after S.M. Kirov, before the start of the performance, they read the editorial of the Pravda newspaper. Before the start of the opera "Ivan Susanin". After lifting the blockade