Valentin Savvich Pikul (1928-1990) Valentin Pikul did not immediately attract attention with his writings: in 1954, the novel "Ocean Patrol" was published, then the novels "Bayazet" (1961), dedicated to the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878, "From dead end" (1968), dedicated to

Valentin Savvich Pikul

Devilry

Valentin Pikul

Devilry

I dedicate it to the memory of my grandmother, the Pskov peasant woman Vasilisa Minaevna Karenina, who lived her whole long life not for herself, but for people.

A PROLOGUE THAT COULD BE AN EPILOGUE

The old Russian history was ending and a new one was beginning. Creeping in the lanes with their wings, the hooting owls of reaction shied away through their caves ... The first to disappear somewhere was the excessively quick-witted Matilda Kshesinskaya, the most unique prima weighing 2 pounds and 36 pounds (a fluff of the Russian stage!); a brutal crowd of deserters was already smashing her palace, smashing to smithereens the fabulous gardens of Babylon, where overseas birds sang in captivating bushes. The ubiquitous newspapermen stole the ballerina's notebook, and the Russian layman could now find out how the daily budget of this amazing woman was formed:

For a hat - 115 rubles.

A person for tea - 7 kopecks.

For a suit - 600 rubles.

Boric acid - 15 kopecks.

Vovochka as a gift - 3 kopecks.

The imperial couple was temporarily kept under arrest in Tsarskoye Selo; at workers' rallies there were already calls for the execution of "Nikolaska the Bloody", and from England they promised to send a cruiser for the Romanovs, and Kerensky expressed a desire to personally carry out royal family to Murmansk. Under the windows of the palace, the students sang:

Alice must go back, Address for letters - Hesse - Darmstadt, Frau Alice is going "nach Rhine", Frau Alice - aufwiederzein!

Who would have believed that until recently they were arguing:

- We will call the monastery over the grave of the unforgettable martyr:

Rasputin! the empress said.

“Dear Alix,” answered her husband respectfully, “but such a name will be misunderstood among the people, for the surname sounds obscene. The monastery is better called Grigorievskaya.

- No, Rasputinskaya! the queen insisted. - There are hundreds of thousands of Grigorievs in Russia, and Rasputin is only one ...

They reconciled on the fact that the monastery would be called Tsarskoye Selo-Rasputin; Before the architect Zverev, the Empress revealed the “ideological” plan of the future temple: “Gregory was killed in damned St. Petersburg, and therefore you will turn the Rasputin Monastery towards the capital with a blank wall without a single window. The facade of the monastery, bright and joyful, turn to my palace ... ”On March 21, 1917, on Rasputin’s birthday, they were going to lay the monastery. But in February, ahead of the tsar's schedules, the revolution broke out, and it seemed that Grishka's long-standing threat to the tsars came true:

“Here it is! I will be gone, and you will not be.” It is true that after the assassination of Rasputin, the tsar lasted only 74 days on the throne. When an army is defeated, it buries its banners so that they do not fall into the hands of the victor.

Rasputin lay in the ground, like the banner of a fallen monarchy, and no one knew where his grave was. The Romanovs hid the place of his burial ...

Staff Captain Klimov, who served on the anti-aircraft batteries of Tsarskoye Selo, once walked along the outskirts of the parks; by chance he wandered to the piles of boards and bricks, an unfinished chapel froze in the snow. The officer illuminated its vaults with a flashlight, noticed a blackening under the altar. Having squeezed into its recess, I found myself in the dungeon of the chapel. Here stood a coffin, large and black, almost square; there was a hole in the lid, like a ship's porthole. The staff captain directed the beam of the lantern directly into this hole, and then Rasputin himself looked at him from the depths of non-existence, eerie and ghostly ...

Klimov appeared at the Council of Soldiers' Deputies.

“There are a lot of fools in Russia,” he said. - Isn't it enough to experiment with Russian psychology? How can we guarantee that the obscurantists will not find out where Grishka is lying, as I found out? It is necessary from the beginning to stop all the pilgrimages of the Rasputinites ...

Bolshevik G.V. Yelin (soon the first head of the armored forces of the young Soviet Republic) undertook this business. All in black leather, creaking angrily, he decided to put Rasputin to execution - execution after death!

Security guard today royal family there was lieutenant Kiselev; in the kitchen he was handed a lunch menu for "citizens of the Romanovs".

“Suppokhlebka,” read Kiselyov, marching along long corridors, “smelt risotto pies and cutlets, vegetable chops, porridge-slurry and pancakes with currants ... Well, not bad!”

The doors leading to the royal chambers opened.

“Citizen Emperor,” the lieutenant said, handing over the menu, “let me draw your highest attention ...

Nicholas II put aside the tabloid "Blue Journal" (in which some of his ministers were presented against the backdrop of prison bars, while the heads of others were wrapped around ropes) and answered the lieutenant dully:

– Doesn’t the awkward combination of the words “citizen” and “emperor” bother you? Why don't you just call me...

He wanted to advise that they address him by his first name and patronymic, but Lieutenant Kiselyov took the hint differently.

“Your Majesty,” he whispered, looking at the door, “the soldiers of the garrison became aware of Rasputin’s grave, now they are holding a meeting, deciding what to do with his ashes…

The empress, all in heightened attention, quickly spoke with her husband in English, then suddenly, without even sensing pain, tore off a precious ring from her finger, a gift british queen Victoria, almost forcibly pulled it on the lieutenant's little finger.

“I beg you,” she muttered, “you will get anything else you want, just save it!” God will punish us for this villainy...

The state of the empress "was truly terrible, and even worse - the nervous twitches of her face and her whole body during a conversation with Kiselev, which ended in a strong hysterical fit." The lieutenant ran to the chapel when the soldiers were already working with spades, angrily opening the stone floor in order to get to the coffin. Kiselev began to protest:

“Are there really no believers in God among you?” There were also such among the soldiers of the revolution.

“We believe in God,” they said. - But what does Grishka have to do with it? We're not robbing a cemetery to make a profit. And we don’t want to walk on the ground in which this bastard lies, and that’s it!

Kiselev rushed to the office telephone, calling the Taurida Palace, where the Provisional Government met. On the other end of the wire was Commissar Voitinsky:

- Thank you! I will report to Minister of Justice Kerensky... And the soldiers were already carrying the coffin with Rasputin through the streets. Among the local inhabitants, who came running from everywhere, wandered "material evidence" taken from the grave. It was a gospel in expensive morocco and a modest icon tied with a silk bow, like a box of sweets for a name day. From the bottom of the image, the empress drew her name with the names of her daughters with an indelible pencil, Vyrubova signed below; around the list with a frame were placed the words: YOUR - SAVE - US

Initially, I was interested in the multi-part film "Grigory R.", I looked with pleasure. I wanted to know more about the personality and life of Rasputin. And you don’t have to go far: just reach out your hand to the bookshelf.

I remember that at the dawn of perestroika, V. Pikul's novel "Unclean Power" was published in parts in some periodical, where I read it for the first time. When the book came out, I did not re-read it, and the tome stood untouched, the content of the novel was forgotten.

The novel "Unclean Power" V. Pikul

Oh ... it would be better not to remember, and not to touch.

So, I undertook to re-read the green book.

The novel "Unclean Power" V. Pikul

I felt bad starting with the prologue, where the cremation of Rasputin's remains is described.

The novel "Unclean Power" V. Pikul

According to Pikul, the coffin with the body of Rasputin was removed from the grave, he was driven around the city in an armored car, not knowing what to do with it. The protesters were on the coffin. As a result, it was decided to burn the body in public, right in the coffin. When burned, the body sat in a coffin and opened its eyes.

I would have to stop reading at this point, but I continued "historical" knowledge ..

The novel "Unclean Power" V. Pikul

The future Tsar Nicholas II in his youth is presented in the novel as "a real baby Nika", hanging puppies, crushing cats for the sake of interest "how they die."

The novel "Unclean Power" V. Pikul

These were the first and last 30 pages that I was able to read from the Unclean Force" by V. Pikul.

I understand that the interpretation of history is changing, but " historical facts", stated only at the beginning of the "historical novel" seemed to me doubtful.

I reviewed several Internet sources describing the biography of Rasputin R. According to all the data, Rasputin was Rasputin, not Vyatkin. As a child, he was weak and sickly; in order to gain health, he went on a pilgrimage to holy places.

Also, many minor contradictions were found with the information of the novel, more precisely the first 30 pages, which I hardly mastered.

Regarding the murder of cats and dogs by Nikolai, I will give a link to the data of historians, from which it follows that the fact of the extermination of animals was, but in a different context than presented in the novel "Unclean Power".

Cats, crows, dogs
Historian I. V. Zimin claimed that Nicholas II hunted cats, crows and dogs. With reference to the book Court Hunt, Zimin wrote that according to his calculations, “in just six years (1896, 1899, 1900, 1902, 1908, 1911) the tsar shot 3,786 ‘stray’ dogs, 6,176 ‘stray’ cats and 20 547 crows."

Historian P.V. Multatuli notes that in the diaries of Nicholas II “a cat as a trophy is extremely rare” and points out that for the whole of 1905 a dead cat is mentioned once. In his opinion, the remaining thousands of cats cited in the reports were killed by the imperial hunting department during the shooting of wild and stray animals dangerous to humans.

As for the "execution" of Rasputin's body, his body was indeed cremated, but under circumstances far from those described by Pikul, "in the absolute absence of unauthorized persons"

After February Revolution Rasputin's grave was found, and Kerensky ordered Kornilov to organize the destruction of the body. For several days the coffin with the remains stood in a special carriage, and then the corpse of Rasputin was burned on the night of March 11 in the furnace of a steam boiler. Polytechnic Institute. An official act was drawn up on the burning of the corpse of Rasputin.

I do not presume to evaluate the novel by V. Pikul "Unclean Force" as a literary and historical work, this has already been done more than once.

I will give an excerpt from the article "The crumbs of truth in a barrel of lies" by Arkady Stolypin (son of P.A. Stolypin, also presented in the narrative of "Unclean Forces").

“There are many places in the book that are not only incorrect, but also base and slanderous, for which, in a rule of law state, the author would answer not to critics, but to the court.”

The book, which Valentin Pikul himself called "the main success in his literary biography." A story about the life and death of one of the most controversial figures Russian history- Grigory Rasputin - outgrows under the pen of Pikul ......
I stumbled upon such a prologue after long wanderings, having resorted again to Valentin Savvich from modern authors.
But my curiosity was fueled by reviews - I laughed and interest increased. Therefore, under the tackle, I only quote statements that amused me, so that YOU would thereby arouse interest.
.

The reaction is ambiguous))) xx. Pikul is often accused of treating his heroes with malice, but it is precisely this objectivity that I like about him))
One can agree or disagree with V. Pikul's interpretation of certain historical figures. This is a matter of views, tastes, passions, and most importantly - historical knowledge and scientific training.
But he has some kind of magical Russian sadness, the charm of the Russian soul ......
So let's get back to the book))) But of course he walked through everyone)) xx. At some point you really feel the view of the Bolsheviks at that time ... at some point you light up history and want to look for sources of reliable events, but you still feel it style. Did not leave indifferent)))

Take at least REVIEWS:

>> No need to use Pikul's books as a history textbook! It's like learning the history of France according to Dumas! Both authors KNOW EVERYTHING, BUT APPROXIMATELY!

>>I was reading a book and crying... "Damn it... the mice cried, pricked but continued to eat the cactus... Tearfully kosher ran up here... And the book is good. And not at all a display of Vyrubova's sexual preferences, but a logical option for the topic of how Kolyunya pissed off the Empire ... For which he paid.

>> but on the basis of what sources did it come to the conclusion that Pikul invented everything. Now some authors are refuted by others. It can be concluded that they are deliberately talking about us so that all interest in their history is lost, because this is also beneficial for the current government. So that we are Ivans of kinship not remembering and beneficial to the descendants of past bastards hiding the dirty past of their ancestors. Yes, and in general it is easier to manage cattle without clan and tribe.

>> And with all these sources, the non-smoking Stolypin drags cigarettes from Nikolai's table, the urban legends of those times about Doref are set out on a blue eye, Vyrubova fucks right and left (having managed, as the medical commission of the Provisional Government confirmed, to remain a girl).
So, it seems that Valentin Savvich was inspired by five hundred issues of the then analogue of the newspaper life.

>>wow, what a reaction......
"So it seems that Valentin Savvich was inspired by five hundred issues of the then analogue of the newspaper life." - some authors do not refer to anything at all, they write like that from the ceiling. History textbooks are written by people with no specialized education.
And at the expense of Vyrubova - her maiden name is Toneeva.
If the publishing house spared no money, time, or something else, there are links to the original source of information in the text of the book.

>>The book can claim the title of the record for the number of lies per unit of text. I got the impression that lies in it in almost every line. But maybe I'm just exaggerating: in fact, not in every line, but only in every paragraph.
I recommend that lovers of this book first read A. Stolypin's article "The crumbs of truth in a barrel of lies" (available on the Internet) - perhaps this will cool their exorbitant enthusiasm.
Rating: bad

>> Fascinating book. The image of Rasputin is amazing. I have never been fond of history, especially revolutionary times, but I read "evil spirits" in one breath. I advise everyone!

>> Strange discussions here are about history. No one studies history according to Dumas and does not reproach Dumas for the fact that his books are historically inaccurate. Any work about past events that includes direct speech is, by definition, inaccurate. You can always say to the author: "You were there (on the Kulikovo field, for example), did you hear it yourself?" So, people, quit puffing out your cheeks and pretending to be connoisseurs of everything and everything. Good book, the decomposition of society before and during WW1 is shown very prominently. And we all know the result. The result is consistent with the state of that society shown by Pikul

>> The thing is that Dumas, although he does not adhere to historical truth in the same "Musketeers", but at least he does not throw mud at everyone around. He pays tribute to the same Richelieu, although in his books he is clearly a negative character. Pikul pours mud on everyone and everything. At the same time, he again brazenly twists well-known facts and lies on every page. For example, about the Rasputin family, he writes that by the time G.E. in Petersburg, his father, mother, brothers, sisters all died. Where should we put a photograph of Rasputin in St. Petersburg, in which his father is clearly visible? Conclusion - Pikul is a liar.

>>Pikul does not reflect the reality of that time, but the view of the Bolsheviks at that time. He worked with archives, or rather, with propaganda materials of the Reds. So, there can be no talk of any reliability in the novel.

>> How can you write such nonsense?! A collection of propaganda leaflets of that time. Stolypin did not smoke. His daughter's legs were not amputated after the assassination attempt. The author has come up with a lot. Only they know the things that two people talk about. The book looks like a cheap vulgar tabloid tabloids. Fe.

>> if Pikul is a red agitator, why then did the Bolsheviks refuse to publish the novel?

>> As for the imperial family, especially the empress, if, according to Pikul, she was "fit" and so on, then what about the book compiled from her diaries - "Give love"? The soul-sick will never keep diaries of such deep wisdom and purity! The imperial family has been canonized and so much dirt has been poured out here. It doesn't fit in my head. At first I read Favorit and was under a good impression. Although, having opened the works of the historian Klyuchevsky, I read a completely opposite attitude towards Catherine ... I am in error. I will look for confirmation in historical reliable sources.

The well-known slanderer of the elder Grigory Rasputin and the holy Tsar-Martyr, the pseudo-historian writer Valentin Pikul, finishing his novel “Unclean Power” wrote “According to the definition of V.I. "the last line", revealed all its rottenness, vileness, all the cynicism and depravity of the royal gang with the monstrous Rasputin at its head ... "That's exactly what I wrote about!"

Oh, how the slanderer Pikul tried to please the then communist government. How! After all, against the background of the “royal lawlessness” described in the book, she looked like a lamb! But the famous spiteful critic did not take into account something. The authorities turned out to be not as vile as the writer himself. By 1979, by the time the abridged version of Pikul's novel was published in the journal Our Contemporary, something had changed in the communist government. It is no coincidence that after the publication, L.I. Brezhnev was confused. The secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU, M. V. Zimyanin, even called the presumptuous writer “on the carpet”.

Then, at the All-Union Ideological Conference, Pikul was criticized by a member of the CPSU Politburo, the main ideologist of the USSR M.A. Suslov. And after that, a devastating article appeared in the Literaturnaya Rossiya newspaper by I.M. Pushkareva, directed against the novel at the "Last Line" (author's title "Unclean Power"). The learned historian Pushkareva bluntly declared Valentin Pikul’s poor knowledge of history and noted that “the literature that“ lay on the table ”of the author of the novel (judging by the list that he attached to the manuscript) is small ... a novel ... nothing more than a simple retelling ... the writings of white emigrants - the anti-Soviet B. Almazov, the monarchist Purishkevich, the adventurer A. Simanovich, etc. ”.

The editorial conclusion, signed by the head of the editorial board, also stated the same. fiction E. N. Gabis and senior editor L. A. Plotnikova: “V. Pikul's manuscript cannot be published. It cannot be considered a Soviet historical novel…”.

So, the end of the 1970s. The era of stagnation. And the communist government is nevertheless reconsidering its views on history. And therefore, Pushkareva, in the editorial opinion of Lenizdat on Pikul's manuscript, writes rather patriotically: “The manuscript of V. Pikul's novel“ Unclean Force “cannot be accepted for publication, because ... it is a detailed argument for the notorious thesis: the people have such rulers as they deserve. And this is insulting to a great people, to great country…»

When Lenizdat terminated the contract, Pikul handed over his manuscript to Our Contemporary and the novel Unclean Force, albeit with large cuts, and under the title At the Last Line, nevertheless came out. The well-known critic Valentin Oskotsky commented on the publication in Nashe Sovremennik as follows: “The non-historicity of the author’s view, which replaced the social-class approach to the events of the pre-revolutionary period with the idea of ​​the self-decomposition of tsarism, was clearly reflected in the novel.”

In a communist way? Yes. But that's not what's important. The important thing is that all critics agree on one thing - Pikul's novel is not historical. Distortion of history and (according to Pushkareva) "an insult to a great people, a great country" - these are the reasons why Pikul's work was not accepted by Soviet censorship.

For the same reasons, a meeting of the secretariat of the board of the SP RSFSR determined the publication of the novel in the journal Our Contemporary as erroneous.
Valentin Savvich, of course, fell into depression. In one of his letters he wrote: “I live in stress. They stopped printing me. How to live - I do not know. The writing didn't get worse. I just don't like Soviet power…»

But not only the Soviet authorities did not like the zealous communist Pikul. The anti-communists did not like him either. So, the son of the tsarist Prime Minister P. A. Stolypin, Arkady Stolypin, wrote an article about the novel entitled “The crumbs of truth in a barrel of lies” (first published in the foreign magazine “Posev” No. 8, 1980). In it, he stated: “There are many places in the book that are not only incorrect, but also base and slanderous, for which, in a rule of law state, the author would answer not to critics, but to the court.”

Valentin Pikul did not like his fellow writers either. For example, the prose writer V. Kurbatov wrote to V. Astafyev after the publication of the novel “At the Last Line” in Nashe Sovremennik: “Yesterday I finished reading Pikulev’s Rasputin and I angrily think that the magazine has very much soiled itself with this publication, because such a“ Rasputin “Literature has not yet been seen in Russia even in the most mute and shameful times. AND Russian word has never been so neglected, and, of course, Russian history has never been exposed to such disgrace ... Now, even in the latrines, they seem to write more neatly. And Yuri Nagibin, in protest after the publication of the novel, even left the editorial board of the magazine Our Contemporary.

But other times have come. The so-called perestroika broke out (not by night, be remembered). The conservative patriotic communists were replaced by liberal communists, Westerners who did not care about historical Russia. Censorship weakened and since 1989, Valentin Pikul's novel began to be published in various publishing houses, exposing Russian history, according to Kurbatov, "to shame." It is regrettable to talk about this, but the current chairman of the Union of Writers of Russia V. N. Ganichev personally wrote a preface to one of the books. And in 1991, he published Pikul's novel "Unclean Power" in his "Roman-gazeta" in more than three million copies. Thus began a large-scale replication of historical lies.

But we must pay tribute to the extreme interest of our people in history. Especially during the perestroika years. And especially to the novels of Valentin Pikul, which were read by millions of readers. In fairness, we note that they are written really talentedly. Critics and readers agree that Pikul's novels captivate with their plots and are read with great interest. Maybe it is so ... Maybe the drunkenness and debauchery of the Kings and Queens is really interesting for those who are trying to justify themselves. Probably, for millions of Soviet people, "gray scoops", it was important to understand that great person just as vile and vile as "every man"? At one time, Alexander Pushkin wrote about such an “interest” as follows: “The crowd eagerly reads confessions, notes, because in their meanness they rejoice at the humiliation of the high, the weaknesses of the mighty. At the discovery of any abomination, she is delighted. He is small like us, he is vile like us! You lie, scoundrels: he is both small and vile - not like you - otherwise! … It is not difficult to despise the judgment of people; it is impossible to despise one's own judgment."

It can be assumed that Pikul deliberately lied about the abomination of the great. After all, he knew, for example, about the positive historical view of Grigory Rasputin. L.N., who knew Valentin Savvich well. Voskresenskaya recalled: “What kind of “evil spirits”? This, in his / Pikul / opinion, was Rasputin. Here I completely disagree with him. And although he personally showed me the documents on which he relied in his book, that Rasputin was a debauchee, I still told him that this was not true. Then someone, as if to spite him, gave me a small book by Nikolai Kozlov about Rasputin the day before. And in it, the author asked himself: how could Rasputin be a libertine if the Holy Couple had chosen him? And he answered that the slander was provoked by the Masons. And Rasputin was only a small pawn for them, since the goal was to compromise the Tsar and His Family... In this book, Kozlov recalled Rasputin's meetings with priests, elders, and even with the archbishop. Such spiritual meetings, such conversations, and suddenly - debauchery? It couldn't be like that. Well, it didn't fit. And I immediately thought: “Oh, what kind of enemies our Tsar had - they went through Rasputin.” And I told Pikul all this then.

In our time, the replication of the historical lies of Valentin Pikul continues. But it should be understood that his works for Orthodox Christians are blasphemous works. Lies about the Orthodox Russian Tsars and Tsarinas, lies about the Orthodox Russian monarchy, slander against the holy Tsar, the martyr and the person closest to him from the people - Grigory Rasputin, this cannot be called anything other than blasphemy. And therefore it is very regrettable when the Orthodox refer to the books of Pikul, defending their point of view (in particular) on Grigory Rasputin. Although, of course, it is not appropriate to commemorate the works of Pikul not only by the Orthodox, but also by everyone who tries to defend their views on history with references to him. In conclusion, I would like to recall once again the words of Arkady Stolypin that in Pikul's work there are "many places not only incorrect, but also base and slanderous, for which, in a rule of law state, the author would answer not to critics, but to the court."