Boris Efimov is a cartoonist. Over a century old. Boris Efimov died. Boris Efimov: I am puzzled by my own longevity

Boris Efimovich Efimov (real name Fridlyand, (September 15 (28), 1900, Kyiv - October 1, 2008, Moscow, Russia) - Soviet graphic artist, master of political caricature, folk artist USSR (1967).

Hero of Socialist Labor (1990), twice laureate Stalin Prize(1950, 1951), corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Arts (1954). Last year life (at the age of 107-108 years) was the main artist of the Izvestia newspaper. The name of Boris Efimov is included in the Guinness Book of Records.

Biography

Boris Fridlyand was born on September 15 (28), 1900 in Kyiv. Parents - Fridlyand Efim Moiseevich (1860-1945), an artisan shoemaker, and Rakhil Savelyevna (1880-1969). Boris began drawing at the age of five. After his parents moved to Bialystok, Boris entered a secondary school, where his older brother Mikhail also studied. There they published a handwritten school magazine together. My brother (future publicist and feuilletonist Mikhail Koltsov) edited the publication, and Boris illustrated. In 1915, he found himself in Kharkov - there was a war going on, and Russian troops were forced to leave the city of Bialystok.

In 1917, Boris Efimov was a 6th grade student at the Kharkov Real School. Having entered the seventh grade, he moved to Kyiv. In 1918, the first cartoons of Boris Efimov on Blok appeared in the Kiev magazine “Spectator”. In 1919, Efimov became one of the secretaries of the editorial and publishing department of the People's Commissariat for Military Affairs of Soviet Ukraine.

Since 1920, Boris Efimov has worked as a cartoonist in the newspapers Kommunar, Bolshevik, and Visti, and as the head of the visual propaganda department of YugROST in Odessa.

Since 1922, the artist moved to Moscow, where he collaborated with the newspapers Pravda and Izvestia, with the magazine Krokodil, and since 1929 with the magazine Chudak.

After the arrest of M. Koltsov, he worked in book illustration. Since 1941 he returned to the genre of political caricature.

In 1966-1990 Efimov - Chief Editor creative and production association "Agitplakat". Author of politically topical cartoons on international topics.

Together with Denis, Moor, Brodaty, Cheremnykh, Kukryniksy, he created a unique phenomenon in world culture - “positive satire”.

He actively participated in all political campaigns of the Soviet government: the fight against the “social fascists” - the social democratic parties of the West, the fight against the Trotskyists, Bukharinists, etc., with cosmopolitans, with geneticists - “Weismannists-Morganists, murderers-fly-lovers”, with the Vatican , “killer doctors”, with Marshal Tito, with “enemy voices” - radio stations Western Europe and America, etc.

In August 2002, he headed the caricature art department of the Russian Academy of Arts.

In 2006, Boris Efimov took part in the preparation of the publication of the book “Autograph of the Century”.

On September 28, 2007, on his 107th birthday, he was appointed to the position of chief artist of the Izvestia newspaper.

And at 107 years old, Boris Efimov continued to work. He mainly wrote memoirs and drew friendly cartoons, accepted Active participation V public life, speaking at all kinds of memorable and anniversary meetings, evenings, and events.

Boris Efimov died on the night of October 1, 2008 in Moscow at the age of 109. He was buried at the Novodevichy cemetery.

Cousin of the famous Soviet photographer and journalist Semyon Fridlyand.

Ambiguity in assessing Efimov’s activities

Irina Korshikova, widow of the outstanding and most brilliant cartoonist " new wave"Vitaly Peskova, writes very warmly about the help provided by Boris Efimovich (the book “To Vitaly from Irina. In memory of the artist Vitaly Peskov,” Mir Collection, NY 2007; written in the form of a letter; a shortened version of the book, original website - http://www. peskov.org, parts 1 and 3; text copying: Caricaturist.ru and Encyclopedia of Caricature):

part 1:
When in " Literary newspaper"Your picture appeared with the image of a flock of birds flying in cages (my favorite picture, you repeated this drawing for me. I drew it on dark paper - there was no other. Or rather, there was a little - the oldest cartoonist Boris Efimov got it for you for work in a special store - but don’t waste it on us!), very high authorities called the lower ones and said over the phone: balance must be maintained! If you publish something like this, then there should be something else nearby, balancing...
part 3:
There is no paper, like anything else, in stores. The artist Boris Efimov gets it for you (he treats you with great love and admiration), and his grandson Vitya brings it. And this paper is not for mere mortals, it is strictly forbidden for me to use it for my notes, it is exclusively for your pictures.

However, there are cartoonists of the subsequent generation who cannot forgive the fact that Efimov did not consider them the best; in particular, M. Zlatkovsky wrote (see Cartunion; http://www.zlatkovsky.ru/text/file/?.txt=efimov), without citing sources, that B. Efimov made every effort in the ideological struggle against all new forms caricatures, “gluing” the labels of “anti-Soviet”, “admiration of the West”, “venality for currency” to the work of the younger generation. According to this version, Efimov regularly wrote denunciations and negative reviews on young authors, prevented their admission to creative unions. However, this version seems extremely unlikely. Much more trustworthy are not idle words, but specific memories of the widow of an outstanding caricaturist, an innovator in modern caricature, who always maintained honor and dignity under any power, and who certainly cannot be caught in an obsequious attitude towards those in power. Against this background, Boris Efimov’s accusations of informing on someone for “anti-Sovietism,” for “selling out for currency,” and the like, seem completely unlikely, especially if they are not supported by any factual materials.

We must not forget that his work fell on a very difficult period of the country’s development. Moreover, he went through a difficult path with her from the October Revolution to post-perestroika society and, unlike so many (for example, the Kukryniks, who did not recognize new aesthetic trends), he understood and accepted both new art and democratic social transformations.

Works

Works published in albums:

• "Political cartoons 1924-1934" (1935),
• “Fascism is the enemy of peoples” (1937),
• "Hitler and His Pack" (1943),
• "International Report" (1961),
• “Boris Efimov in Izvestia. Cartoons for half a century" (1969).

Awards

Essays

• Basics of understanding caricature. - M.: 1961.
• Fourty years. Notes of a satirist artist. - M.: Soviet artist, 1961. - 205 p.
• Work, memories, meetings. - M.: Soviet Artist, 1963. - 192 p.
• I want to tell you. - M.: 1970. - 208 p.
• True stories. - M.: Soviet artist, 1976. - 222 p.
• Contemporary of the century. Memories. - M.: 1987. - 347 p.
• Ten decades. What I saw, experienced, remembered. - M.: Vagrius, 2000. - 636 p. - .

Family

He was married twice; at the time of his death his eldest son, two grandchildren and three great-grandchildren were alive

• Koretskaya Rosalia Borisovna (1900-1969), 1st wife
  • Efimov Mikhail Borisovich (born 1929)
  • Efimova Irina Evgenievna (born 1929), his wife
    • Efimov Andrey Mikhailovich (born 1953)
    • Efimova Elena Vitalievna, his wife
      • Efimov Andrey Andreevich (born 1993)
      • Efimova Ekaterina Andreevna
• Fradkina Raisa Efimovna (1901-1985), 2nd wife
  • Alexander Borisovich Fradkin
    • Fradkin Viktor Aleksandrovich (born 1949)
    • Leskova Vera Anatolyevna, his wife
      • Fradkina Ksana Viktorovna

Efimov Boris Efimovich

Born on September 28, 1900 in Kiev. Father - Fridlyand Efim Moiseevich (born 1860). Mother - Rakhil Savelyevna (born 1880). The first wife is Rosalia Borisovna Koretskaya (born in 1900). The second wife is Fradkina Raisa Efimovna (born 1901). Son - Efimov Mikhail Borisovich (born 1929).

Boris Efimov never thought that he would become an artist, although he loved to draw since childhood. His ability to draw was discovered early, from the age of 5-6. On paper he preferred not to depict surrounding nature- houses, trees, cats or horses, but figures and characters born of one’s own imagination, stories from an older brother and the contents of books read. Very soon this childish hobby gave way to a conscious desire to put on paper the funny things in people’s habits and characters.

After his parents moved to Bialystok, Boris was assigned to a real school, where his older brother also studied. There they published a handwritten school magazine together. Brother Mikhail (future publicist and feuilletonist Mikhail Koltsov) edited it, and Boris illustrated it.

Efimov’s first cartoon was published in 1916 in the illustrated magazine “Sun of Russia”, popular in those years. Later he recalled this event like this: “As a fifth-grade student, using photographs, I made a cartoon of the Chairman of the State Duma Rodzianko and sent it to Petrograd. When I saw the drawing printed, I was shocked...”

Soon the family moved to Kharkov. My parents stayed behind, but my brother went to Petrograd. Boris returned to Kyiv, completed his studies at a real school and in 1917 entered the Kiev Institute of National Economy. However, after studying there for a year, he moved to the Faculty of Law of Kyiv University.

In 1918, cartoons of Blok, then famous actress Yurenev, director Kugel, and poet Voznesensky, appeared in the Kiev magazine "Spectator". The series of color drawings “Conquerors” also dates back to the same time - a kind of satirical chronicle of the changing authorities in Kyiv, first German, then White Guard and Petliura.

With establishment in Kyiv Soviet power Boris Efimov works as secretary of the Editorial and Publishing Department at the People's Commissariat for Military Affairs. In June of the same year military newspaper“Red Army” saw the light of his first propaganda drawings, equipped with the autograph “Bor.Efimov” that later became world famous.

Since 1920, Boris Efimov has worked as a cartoonist in the newspapers "Kommunar", "Bolshevik", "Visti", as the head of the visual propaganda department of YugROSTA in Odessa. Here he made his first poster on a plywood sheet, on which he depicted Denikin beaten by the Red Army. Later, B. Efimov was the head of the Isolation Section of the propaganda posts of the South-Western Front in Kharkov. Upon returning to Kyiv, he became the head of the art and poster department of Kyiv - UkrROSTA. At the same time, he collaborated with the newspapers “Kyiv Proletary” and “Proletarskaya Pravda”.

In 1922, Boris Efimov moved to Moscow. Since then, his works began to be published on the pages of Rabochaya Gazeta, Krokodil, Pravda, Izvestia, Ogonyok, Prozhektor and many other publications, published in separate collections and albums. During these years, his main specialization was political satire. The “heroes” of his cartoons were: in the 20s, many Western politicians- Hughes, Daladier, Chamberlain; in the 30s and 40s - Hitler, Mussolini, Goering and Goebbels, whom he invariably portrayed as a lame monkey; in subsequent years - Churchill, Truman and others. Some cartoons provoked such a violent reaction from the characters depicted in them that it came to the point of diplomatic protests.

In the 1930s, albums of cartoons “The Face of the Enemy” (1931), “Cartoon in the Service of the Defense of the USSR” (1931), “Political Caricatures” (1931), “A Way Out Will Be Found” (1932), “Political Caricatures” were published. (1935), “Fascism is the enemy of peoples” (1937), “Warmongers” (1938), “Fascist interventionists in Spain” (1938).

The “destructive power” of Efimov’s cartoons fully manifested itself during the war years. His works were published in those years on the pages of "Red Star", "Front Illustration", as well as in front-line, army, division newspapers and even on leaflets that were scattered behind the front line and called on enemy soldiers to surrender. In search of subjects for his works, Boris Efimov repeatedly traveled to active army.

During the war years, he actively worked in the field of posters. Boris Efimov was among those Soviet writers and artists (Moor, Denis, Kukryniksy and others), who already on the sixth day of Germany’s attack on the USSR created the TASS Windows workshop. As in years civil war, posters made immediately upon receipt of reports from the front or the latest international messages were hung on the streets of Moscow, instilling in people even in the most difficult days faith in Victory. Then "Windows" was replicated and released in the rear - Pyatigorsk, Tbilisi, Tyumen.

The artist’s archive contains numerous reviews from the most demanding critics - fighters from the front line. Here are a few of these reviews:

"Dear comrade Efimov! Draw more... Caricatures are a weapon that can not only make you laugh, but also cause hot hatred, contempt for the enemy and force you to fight even harder and destroy the damned Nazis. Ilya Dukelsky. Field mail 68242."

“Your weapon, the weapon of the Soviet artist, is a great force in the fight against the Nazi invaders. If you knew with what impatience we, the army men, await each new issue of the newspaper “Red Star”... P/n 24595. V. Ya . Kornienko."

“Happy New Year, dear Comrade Efimov! A group of front-line soldiers from the N-unit sends greetings to you and congratulates you on the New Year. We wish you success in your fruitful and great job. It’s hard to convey how impatiently we look forward to each of your caricatures of those who will soon fall under our blows. The day is not far when we will see the leaders of Hitler's Germany hanged on the German Christmas tree. Greetings and good wishes front-line soldiers Leontyev, Evseev, Tleshov and others. P/n 18868."

During the war years, there were works by Efimov that caused an international resonance - his cartoons about the second front were also published in British newspapers. Moreover, the content of these cartoons was retold on the radio. However, the Allies still delayed the opening of the second front until June 5, 1944, i.e. until the moment when the outcome of the war was already obvious to everyone.

Merits of Boris Efimov during the Great Years Patriotic War awarded the medals “For the Defense of Moscow” and “For the Victory over Germany.”

In the post-war period, Boris Efimov continues to work actively in the most different genres. In 1948, a collection of his cartoons, “Mr. Dollar,” was published, and in 1950, an album of drawings, “For Lasting Peace, Against Warmongers,” was published.

In 1954 he was elected a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Arts, in 1957 - a member of the board of the Union of Artists of the USSR, in 1958 he was awarded the title "People's Artist of the RSFSR", and in 1967 - "People's Artist of the USSR". Since 1932 he has been a member of the Union of Artists. He was repeatedly elected as a member of the board and secretary of the Union of Artists of the USSR.

Since 1965 and for almost 30 years, Boris Efimov headed as editor-in-chief the Creative and Production Association "Agitplakat" under the Union of Artists of the USSR, while remaining one of its most active authors.

In just a few years creative activity Boris Efimov created tens of thousands of political cartoons, propaganda posters, humorous drawings, illustrations, cartoons, as well as easel series of satirical drawings for zonal, group and all-Union art exhibitions. Dozens of satirical albums were published, as well as a number of memoir books, stories, essays, and studies on the history and theory of the art of caricature. Among them: “40 years. Notes of a satirist artist”, “Work, memories, meetings”, “Stories about satirist artists”, “I want to tell”, “Basics of understanding caricature”, “In my opinion”, “True stories ", "For schoolchildren about caricature and caricaturists", "Stories of an old Muscovite", "The same age as the century", "My century" and others.

B. E. Efimov - Hero Socialist Labor, three times Laureate of the USSR State Prize (1950, 1951, 1972), academician of the USSR Academy of Arts, then - Russian Academy arts He was awarded three Orders of Lenin, the Order October revolution, three Orders of the Red Banner of Labor, the Order of the Badge of Honor, the Bulgarian Order of Cyril and Methodius, 1st degree, and many other domestic and foreign awards.

The year 2000 is the year of the 55th anniversary Great Victory- Boris Efimov met the year of his 100th birthday still in love with life, with beauty, books, theater, sports, a company of friends, a good prank, a good joke.

In August 2002, he headed the department of caricature art of the Russian Academy of Arts.
On September 28, 2007, on his 107th birthday, he was appointed to the position of chief artist of the Izvestia newspaper.
And at 107 years old, Boris Efimov continued to work. He mainly wrote memoirs and drew friendly cartoons, took an active part in public life, speaking at various memorable and anniversary meetings, evenings, and events.
Boris Efimov died on the night of October 1, 2008 in Moscow at the age of 109 on October 1, 2008. He happened to catch last days nineteenth century, live through the entire twentieth century and see the new millennium. Buried in the columbarium Novodevichy Cemetery.

Push. I don’t know how funny the fighters found Efimov’s cartoons, but, in any case and attitude towards his work, ideologically everything was correct, because The spirit of the fighters, among other things, rests not only on barley and meat; ideological nourishment was simply necessary, incl. in a similar humorous way. It would have been interesting to see caricatures and caricatures of Basayev, Raduev, Hottab and other evil spirits in newspapers during the 1st and 2nd Chechen campaigns. But of course, in the eyes of the hypocritical and two-faced world community, they are freedom fighters... It’s a pity.

Today would have been 115 years Soviet artist Boris Efimovich Efimov. This formulation may seem unusual - where has it been seen that a living person turns so many years old! - if not for the fact that Boris Efimovich passed away after celebrating his 108th birthday. So what could come true, why not? - but, alas, it didn’t happen.
I had the opportunity to meet Boris Efimovich several times. These were completely business meetings, the discussion was about the publication of a dozen and a half of his cartoons in one historical book. Then he was “only” 95 years old. But, I won’t hide, I was interested in talking with a person who seemed like living history to me. After all, his first caricature - of the Chairman of the State Duma Rodzianko - was published back in 1916 in the illustrated magazine “Sun of Russia”, popular in those years. When I listed the cartoons I had selected for publication, one of the first that came across was an old caricature of A.F. Kerensky - “Kerensky’s Offensive... on the Workers” from the magazine “Crocodile” for 1922.

It is quite possible that Efimov has not seen her since then, that is, more than 70 years - and during this time he drew more than 40 thousand drawings, caricatures, posters... - but then he instantly recognized her and nodded his head:
- Yes, this is in connection with the June offensive of 1917...
During the civil war, Efimov drew and published caricatures of Lenin and Trotsky in Kyiv White Guard newspapers. One of them - he himself spoke about this - was this: Lenin asks Trotsky - “How many devoted people do we have in our country?” "All!" - Trotsky answers. The meaning of the pun is clear: these two traitors, Ilyich and Davidich, betrayed every single one of them... :)
Then, in the 20s, Efimov managed to make friends with Trotsky, and he even wrote a laudatory preface to his first book of drawings. Efimov, in turn, drew friendly cartoons of the leader of the Red Army, like this:

He met with Trotsky, already expelled from the party, disgraced, at his home - this was definitely a brave act (Efimov himself was a non-party member). If you look at it from the point of view of our knowledge, he is so downright recklessly bold (although it may not have seemed so then). It turned out that I now knew Lev Davidovich “through one handshake” - which was also interesting. At that meeting, Trotsky said to Efimov:
- And your brother seems to have joined the Thermidorians.
It was about the journalist Mikhail Efimovich Koltsov, sibling artist.
“I remained silent,” Efimov wrote about this later. “I thought that this was hardly the time and place to tell the defeated and exiled Trotsky that Koltsov joined the Thermidorians not out of fear or servility, but because, like the majority of party members, he believed “that Stalin’s so-called general line is more reasonable and more necessary for the country than his, Trotsky’s, permanent revolution.”
By the way, above the desk in Efimov’s home office, a large oil portrait of Mikhail Koltsov, who, as you know, was shot in 1940 as a “Trotskyist,” caught my eye. It’s strange: while Trotsky considered Koltsov a Thermidorian, Stalin continued to consider him a Trotskyist...
That meeting between Efimov and Trotsky ended like this: “We went out into the hallway, and then something happened that became a fact of my biography. Trotsky took his coat off the hangers and handed it to me. I gasped: “What are you talking about, Lev Davydovich!” - “No, no, put it on." I was nervous, barely getting my hands into the sleeves, and then, I won’t hide it, I said: “Have a nice journey, Lev Davydovich!” We hugged and kissed.”
Later, in the 30s, Boris Efimovich, as he himself wrote, “drew vile caricatures of Bukharin and Trotsky, whom he sincerely respected.” He also knew Bukharin well from his work at Izvestia...
About which, already during the years of perestroika, he published a note in Ogonyok under the heading “I regret.” And then in an interview he returned to this topic more than once: “Even now I am ashamed of them... [For] the drawings where I depicted Trotsky, Bukharin, people whom I deeply respected.” “This is still my pain. He [Trotsky] favored me, but I couldn’t refuse to draw him, they would have dealt with me right away. I did it reluctantly and imagined Lev Davidovich looking at these cartoons and thinking: well what a bastard!"
I knew all this, but at the same time I really wanted to include a caricature of Bukharin in the form of a “damned cross between a fox and a pig,” according to Vyshinsky, in the book. And I carefully started talking about it, suggested that it be placed, if necessary, along with short excerpt from the article “I’m sorry,” but Boris Efimovich said abruptly: “No, no!..” (By the way, in the conversation Efimov succinctly remarked: “If this caricature had not existed, then I would not have existed”).

Then I tried to quickly flip through the famous drawing from among those selected for publication, where, if you look closely, the same acquaintances of Boris Efimovich - Lev Davidovich and Nikolai Ivanovich - were writhing in the “Stalinist hedgehog glove” of People’s Commissar Yezhov. :)


I believed that, after all, the “Gauntlets of Steel” had already become a fact of history a long time ago, and it would be strange to keep silent about them. And Efimov agreed to the publication of this laudatory drawing of 1933 - “The Captain of the Country of Soviets leads us from victory to victory”, good-naturedly, although with some annoyance, laughing at the sight of it:
- Well, what happened, happened.

Then I asked Efimov to sign the published book (which I usually never did, but in in this case I decided to make an exception for such a “historical” person), and he composed a long inscription in which he listed all his Soviet regalia and titles. Which in 1996 looked, admittedly, somewhat lonely - just like a magnificent, loud and fear-inducing noble title after the abolition of the aristocracy...
P.S. This is what he wrote to me then, first indicating my first and last name: “...to the editor of this volume with a feeling of sincere admiration for the enormous and excellent work that makes it possible to the younger generation ours to get a vivid and expressive idea of ​​the past of Russia, of the complex and unforgettable events of our history. Many, many thanks on behalf of the older and oldest generations.
Boris Efimov,
contemporary of the twentieth century, People's Artist of the RSFSR and USSR, Academician of the Russian Academy of Arts, Hero of Socialist Labor.
January 25, 1996."

One of last people who saw Old Russia. A young man from an intelligent family, even before Great War- student of the Bialystok Real School, in 1917 - student of the Kyiv Institute of National Economy.

In 1919 in Kyiv - sketches of combatants of all stripes:

1918

2opena wrote very well.
Written literally on the eve of death, but everything is true (the title of this post is his):

Boris Efimov. One hundred and eight years without remorse.

“While we are here growing spiritually and improving intellectually, the cartoonist of all times and peoples Boris Efimov celebrated his 108th birthday. But we didn’t notice (that is, we noticed, but a few days later). And the president noticed in time and said:

“You not only reflected, but also shaped the history of the 20th century. You always honestly and faithfully defended the interests of our country and its citizens. And millions of people answer you sincere gratitude for the joy of meeting your wonderful creativity."

As a close friend of mine, whose opinion I respect, once told me: “Maybe God gives talented but unscrupulous people a chance to repent during their lifetime - and that’s why they live so long?”

( bumblebeat notes:

“These people knew how to survive. Molotov died at the 97th year of his life, Kaganovich at the 98th, Malenkov at the 87th, Voroshilov at the 89th, Budyonny at the 91st, ..."

Only in all of the listed cases - including Efimov - we have to talk about talent in a very specific sense - in the sense of talent to do great meanness - approx. )

No answer. Talented but unscrupulous people are in no hurry to chain themselves. They prefer to rewrite the words of national anthems (to which one cannot stand up, but one wants to lie down in shame) and portray as enemies those whom those in power point out to him.

The young almost artist Boris Fridland draws dashing anti-anarchist pictures. But, as soon as the wind of change corrects the direction of its blowing, Judas Trotsky appears in the pictures (who, by the way, before turning into Judas, wrote the preface to Efimov’s first book of cartoons):

(But recently he was not only the patron of Bor. Efimov, but also an icon and a good chemist - approx. tapirr)

The fight against enemies continues - you just need to be equipped with ironclad gloves:

Does the government not like capitalists? Get this, fascist nannies:

Has a second front opened? Yes, please – let’s immediately cry over the apotheosis of friendship between peoples of different systems:

Is the leader in charge? Let's draw:

How did life become? Correct, better, correct, more fun:

You can even very, very carefully draw something like... no, not a caricature, but such a pleasant portrait:

And when everything becomes completely permissible, in order not to lag behind the times, let us draw crushed tender beauty under the boot of the executioner and tyrant:

Have the capitalists disappeared? It's OK! The oligarchs remain! So now the clawed paws will belong to them:

And let’s project sweet, kind humor onto all the rulers at once:

Why not “honest and dedicated defense of interests”? Depending on the line and directive. Whatever you order, I will defend. Whoever you order, I’ll shit on him.
It seems disgusting to attack an old man who is over 100 years old - well, we won’t do that.( written, let me remind you, 1 day before death - approx.. ) If an old man for a hundred and eight years has not understood what conscience is, he will never understand. But a state that rewards low sycophancy... uh-uh... let's not talk about the state..."

What's the humor? Who is depicted? (Apparently there was also a signature)

stanis_sadal

“He managed to live 95 days in the 19th century, lived through the entire 20th century and found the 21st...

He saw Nicholas II, Lenin, drew Trotsky, Bukharin, with whom he was familiar. He was present at the cremation of Mayakovsky, with whom he was friends. I saw how his hair caught fire in the oven... He said about himself: “I am a citizen of three centuries. Fate was favorable to me, I shook hands with Mussolini, dined with Tito, saw Trotsky into exile, talked to Stalin on the phone and saw off Lunacharsky.”

Famous artist Mikhail Zlatkovsky I decided to change the rule - the dead are either good or not at all. This is not the case, he believes:

“Efimov actively participated in all the provocative campaigns of the Soviet regime - his pen nailed it right and left during all the trials of the Bukharins-Zinovievs-Pyatakovs in the 30s, he mocked Trotsky (once his patron) with particular sophistication.

And then the “Weismannists-Morganists”, “fly lovers and murderers”, the independent policy of Yugoslavia with the “executioner of the communists” Joseph Tito, “murderers in white coats” were “sealed” and printed in the central press.

He wrote denunciations against young artists of Soviet caricatures and posters to the KGB, VAAP and wherever possible. Such vigorous activity is easily explained - Efimov painted very mediocrely.