Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev - biography, personal life of the division commander: The same Chapaev. Find Chapaev! Where was the legendary Civil War hero buried?

In 1995, one of the central newspapers published a sensational interview with the daughter of Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev - legendary divisional commander, hero of the Civil War.

Photo frame from the movie "Chapaev"

Klavdia Vasilievna told how, after one of the screenings of the film "Chapaev", two elderly Hungarians, who had once fought under her father's command, approached her. The Hungarians told that Chapaev died in a completely different way, as the official version claims, according to which the division commander died in the waters of the Ural River, struck by a White Guard bullet.

According to them, Chapaev did not drown at all. They took their commander to the other side, where he died of wounds received during the battle, after which he was buried with all the honors. To prove their words, the former Red Army soldiers even brought Klavdia Chapaeva a plan of the area, on which the burial place was marked. Then they told other equally sensational details. It turns out that the fatal shot for Chapaev was fired in the back and at close range.

Photos hungarians-chapaevtsy

On the basis of these testimonies, a version soon emerged that Chapaev was killed by his own. This publication stirred up a whole wave of controversy that continues to this day. Here and there, new circumstances of the death of the legendary division commander emerge, which fundamentally contradict the official version. And the details are still not completely clear death of Chapaev and who was responsible for his death.

The story told by the daughter of the famous division commander is really intriguing. Is it really all that we know about the death of Chapaev from official sources - this is a complete lie? What, then, are the true circumstances of his death? At the place indicated on the map by the Hungarians, there is no grave now. Over the past decades, the river could change its course, the banks were washed away and the grave could well be under water. Or she wasn't there. Can you trust the Hungarians?

If you look at the facts of Chapaev's biography, you can see that many legends have formed around his name that do not correspond to reality. As, for example, the "psychic attack" of the Kappelites. Allegedly, a whole horde in black uniforms with a banner with a skull and bones in a close formation is advancing on the few Red Army men. This scene has become one of the most iconic in Soviet cinema. But here's the bad luck. In reality, the Chapaevites never met Kappel's troops on the battlefield. And the White Guards never wore such a uniform, not to mention the operetta banner.

Photo frame from the film "Chapaev"

One more point. In the film, Chapaev is a dashing horseman rushing towards the enemy with a sword bald. In fact, Chapaev had no particular love for horses. Preferred a car. We know the details of the death of the division commander from the book of political instructor Dmitry Furmanov. However, he was not with Chapaev during the last fight. That is, he cannot be an objective witness.

The Hungarians claimed that they carried the wounded man on a raft to the other side of Chapaev's hand. He could not swim on his own. With one hand and taking into account the blood loss, it is simply unrealistic.

Photo frame from the film "Chapaev" Furmanov

Why did this person deserve such mythologization? According to anecdotes, he is such a cheerful, swaggering person, a drunkard. In fact, Vasily Ivanovich did not drink alcohol at all, tea was his favorite drink. The orderly drove a samovar everywhere for him. Arriving at any location, Chapaev immediately started drinking tea and at the same time always invited the locals. So the fame of a very good-natured and hospitable person was established behind him. The film has the following words of the protagonist: "You come to me at midnight after midnight. I drink tea - sit down to drink tea. I have lunch - please eat. Here I am, what a commander!"

It is a myth that he was semi-literate. In fact, he was a very talented military leader and certainly literate. If the whites found out that Chapaev was against them, they worked out the operations especially carefully. This speaks of the authority of Chapaev not only among the Reds but also among the Whites. One Chapaevsky regiment fought successfully against an entire enemy division. Legends were made about him and songs were sung.

Legend: Chapaev comes after the battle, takes off his overcoat, shakes it, and the bullets that hit him fall out of the overcoat. Mythologization took place immediately after Furmanov's book and the release of the film by the Vasiliev brothers. And until the 30s, they spoke about him very differently.

Photo frame from the film "Chapaev" Attack

What happened in the last fight? It is believed that the Reds were attacked by superior enemy forces. In fact, there were about 4 thousand reds, which is much more than whites. According to the official version, Chapaev died on September 5, 1919 in the area of ​​the city of Lbischensk, now this is the village of Chapaev. At that time, in this area, the Reds were opposed by the Ural Cossack army... The headquarters of the 25th division, commanded by Chapaev, was located in Lbischensk itself. At the beginning of September, the whites carried out the Lbischen raid - a daring breakthrough into the depths of the red defense. As a result, they utterly defeated the Chapaevites and destroyed their commander.

Photo frame from the movie "Chapaev"

There are a lot of oddities in this whole story. Cossacks, exhausted by the retreat, suddenly break the 25th division, which was considered one of the best in the Red Army? The division had artillery batteries and armored cars, and even 4 airplanes. For those times, a colossal strategic advantage. It was the pilots who were entrusted with the task of tracking the movement of the enemy and observing the surrounding area. However, the airplanes did not help Chapaev for some reason. How could such an experienced commander miss the movement of the whites, who had been moving across the bare steppe to his headquarters for several days? Air reconnaissance could not fail to notice the detachments of the Cossacks who were approaching Lbischensk. It remains to assume the betrayal of the pilots. According to eyewitnesses, during the attack on Lbischensk, two of the four airplanes flew to the enemy's location.

Photo of Klavdia Vasilievna Chapaeva

It turns out that the daughter of Chapaeva has been collecting information bit by bit about that last fight of her father for 25 years. Moreover, she managed to communicate with the very pilots who killed Chapaev. Klavdia Vasilievna claimed that when she asked the pilots why they behaved so shamefully, they replied that they were well paid and they wanted to live. Allegedly, later these people occupied rather high posts in the Red Army. The daughter also tells us the names of these traitorous pilots: Sladkovsky and Sadovsky. But bad luck, these names are not on the list of pilots of the Chapaevsk division.

Photo frame from the movie "Chapaev"

Yet the fact is that Chapaev did not know about the approach of the White Cossacks. There is also a version that the assistant to the divisional commander Orlovsky, the chief of the operational unit, betrayed him. It was he who was given all the information by the pilots. But one questionable point. It is known that Chapaev had a nose for comrades in arms, would he really not have sensed treason? In addition, Orlovsky repeatedly proved his loyalty to the commander in battles. All the same, the version of Orlovsky's betrayal is unlikely. As for the pilots, the whites would hardly be able to recruit them in the shortest possible time. All the pilots could not commit betrayal at once.

And here's another version... The pilots had some very compelling argument. Order of the high command of the Red Army. In the turbulent years of the civil war, this could well have happened. Chapaev's daughter also assures that her father wanted to kill her own people, since he interfered with everyone. His tough temper and independence irritated many in the Bolshevik elite. One more important point... Chapaev was a complete knight of St. George. This suggests that he was previously selflessly devoted to the tsarist regime. This could be an argument for the Red leadership to eliminate him.

Photo. The real Chapaev - the cavalier of St. George

Furmanov describes such a case, included in the film, when the peasants asked Chapaev: "Are you, Vasily Ivanovich, for the Bolsheviks or for the Communists?" And he couldn't answer. But the Bolsheviks adhered to an iron rule. He who is not with us is against us. Chapaev, even after such an innocent episode, could well have been blacklisted.

Was there a confrontation between Chapaev and the Bolshevik leadership? A document has been preserved in the archive. This is the protocol of the special department dated November 2, 1918. “We heard the case of Comrade Chapaev. prosecute and shoot... In view of a possible rebellion in the army, seek assistance from Comrade Trotsky, suggest that he summon Comrade Chapaev to his place for a report. "However, according to his daughter, Chapaev was warned about the real reason for the call to Moscow, and he sent Trotsky a telegram:" Do you need to kill me? So take it and kill it. But for my sake, killing the entire division is a crime. "Realizing that the situation is heating up, Trotsky decides to personally visit Chapaev. However, his visit to the division hardly resembled a friendly one. Trotsky apparently perceived Chapaev as an anarchist.

Photo. Real Chapaev

The fact is this. Trotsky always went to the troops on the same armored train. When he went to Chapaev, there were two armored trains. And an armored train is strength. When they arrived, they did not leave for several hours. One senses that Trotsky did not trust Chapaev. Here is a vivid picture of Trotsky's attitude to Chapaev. Just an amazing picture. When Chapaev reported on the situation at the front, Trotsky at that time was eating a watermelon and spitting out the bones. So rudely behaved in relation to the commander in the presence of his troops. After that, the relationship between Chapaev and the Bolshevik leadership escalated to the limit. In the summer of 1919, Lenin invited Kamenev to take the place of Chapaev. He refuses. Then in Moscow they decide to put Chapaev on a hunger ration. They cut off supplies of food and weapons to him.

And then it's even more interesting. It is known that it was Trotsky who sent those airplanes, which subsequently played a fatal role, to the Chapaev division. That is, it was Trotsky who obeyed the pilots. So it was Trotsky who probably ordered Chapaev.

Photo Ural river

According to the testimony of the Hungarians, their commander was shot in the back and at close range. Similarly, a week earlier, the legendary division commander Shchors was killed in Ukraine. And a few years later, under unclear circumstances, the famous Kotovsky was also shot. There is a version that this was done by Trotsky's people. However, historians are skeptical about this version. Trotsky, although he was the chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council, was not immediate superior Chapaeva. And Trotsky had no good reason to conflict with the division commander, whom he saw a couple of times in his life.

Feeling how enormous Chapaev's authority in the troops is, how much he is not at all like an anarchist, Trotsky does not dare to arrest him. Instead, he takes out a gold watch and a silver checker hands it to Chapaev. There was a conflict between Chapaev and Trotsky based on the fact that Chapaev is an upstart, a man who takes too much independent decisions and thus, as it were, discredits the leadership, the military policy of the Red Army. But still it is impossible to say unequivocally that Trotsky "ordered" Chapaev.

There was such an interesting figure - the commander of the 4th Army Khvesin. Chapaev wrote: "Khvesin betrayed me, he is a scoundrel." The betrayal consisted in the fact that Khvesin did not give Chapaev some reinforcements, an armored division, a car, or something else. This document came to Khvesin. When the question was discussed that the Red Army should get rid of Chapaev, Khvesin, on the contrary, supported his divisional commander, did not take offense at the accusations, and he himself flew from his post. This was long before Chapaev's death.

Photo frame from the movie "Chapaev"

In the Civil War, destinies instantly broke and heroes were born just as instantly. Anyone could fall into grace or into disgrace. If, for example, they wanted to shoot Chapaev a year ago, then it cannot be argued that a year later he was framed and killed.

It is also difficult to imagine that Trotsky would remove Shchors, Kotovsky, Chapaev at the height of the war. They were alive at that moment, the Bolshevik leadership needed much more. The bullet that killed Chapaev could have been a Cossack. The Whites, having captured Lbischensk, searched for the division commander among the killed, but did not find it. So if he died, then on the other side.

Photo frame from the movie "Chapaev"

There is another version. Chapaev was not killed at all, but survived. For all the fantasticness of this version, it has some grounds. The story is as follows. In 1972, an inconspicuous old man dies in one of the Kremlin hospitals. However, he is buried in the prestigious metropolitan cemetery. The tombstone reads: Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev. Suppose the wounded Chapaev was transported across the Urals, then somewhere he had to heal the wound, come to his senses. Some time passed, maybe several months, and after being cured, Chapaev went to Frunze and demanded that those who betrayed him be punished. And Frunze told him: "You died for everyone. The division was named by your name. So live for yourself and don't dare tell anyone that you are that very Chapaev." That is, he has already become a legend, at least among the soldiers of the Red Army. The dead Chapaev - a fearless hero - turned out to be much more necessary for the Soviet regime than alive.

Vasily Ivanovich grieved, but in the end agreed to silence. But after the premiere of the film in the middle of the 30s, he still could not resist, and he told his secret. For this, the obstinate divisional commander was first sent to the camps, and then taken to a psychiatric hospital. There were 5 Chapaevs in each ward. There, the finally broken Vasily Ivanovich quietly grew old and died.

The archives preserved the memories of the soldiers of the 25th division who allegedly met with their "deceased" commander in the early 30s and even after the Great Patriotic War. But it is not possible to verify this evidence. Witnesses have been dead for a long time. So the version remains the version. No graves with the name Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev have been found in well-known Moscow cemeteries.

One military historian claims that at first Chapaev was indeed buried on the banks of the Ural River, but later, when the Red Army launched a counteroffensive, the soldiers dug up the grave of their commander, and transported the body to Uralsk, where they were reburied in the cemetery near the St. Nicholas Church. One of the old residents of the city of Uralsk, a certain Stepan Prokhorov, claimed that as a child he saw how two Red Army men from the 25th division brought the body of their commander to the city. Initially, Chapaev was supposedly going to have a solemn funeral. But then a strange order was received - to bury in a common grave, and then we'll figure it out. Later, the same Prokhorov, chasing the boys through the cemetery, allegedly saw a metal sheet stuck into one of the graves, on which it was written: "Four Communists and Chapaevs are buried here." The boy reported what he saw to his father, a party worker. But he ordered his son to keep his mouth shut to avoid trouble. The story is strange.

The Nikolskaya Church in Uralsk still exists. Near her there is a small cemetery with many old obelisks with stars. Chapaev's grave is not here, at least not signed.

The Soviet government did everything possible to turn a living person into a monument, as it did more than once. And distort the true facts of his biography as much as possible.

He was respected not only by the reds but also by the whites. He was loved by both soldiers and peasants. And there was a reason. In Soviet times, we extolled the reds, and painted whites such scoundrels. Now it's the other way around. Already red such all scum. In fact, this is not the case. The civil war is a great national tragedy. And we must pay tribute to all those who died. And even more so for those who fought honestly for the idea. Chapaev was like that.

And the testimonies of the Hungarians still need to be recognized as genuine. After all, they did not have any selfish motives. They were not looking for any glory, but only wanted to tell their daughter how her father died. And then in 1919 they were saving their commander. There is no reason not to trust them.

When in the first gymnasium in Balakovo, Saratov region, following the example of the TV channel "Russia", they conducted their poll "Name of Balakova", they were very surprised: in the first place was ... Chapaev. Almost forgotten official country, the hero of the civil war is alive in the memory of the people! And not only because in Balakovo there is his house-museum, a street named after him, not only because there are a lot of jokes about him. It's just that young people (and not only young people) always admire courageous, strong and fair people. And this was exactly what Vasily Ivanovich was, whose years of childhood, youth and maturity fell on the Balakovo period of his biography. It is no coincidence that even during the life of Chapaev, during the years of the civil war, legends were made about him.
And today the identity of the legendary red commander causes a lot of controversy. Either they try to challenge his talent as a nugget military leader, explaining the numerous Chapayev victories by chance, or they call him almost an anarchist who rushed with his troops between the Volga and the Urals, not obeying anyone. And in one of the recent publications, an ardent Bolshevik was presented as a deeply religious person and almost suggested to be canonized (!):
“Brought up in an Orthodox family, hardened in the war, Chapaev carried a sincere faith in God throughout his life. He knew many prayers by heart and asked the Lord for help before every serious matter. He prayed in the trenches of the First World War and on the fronts of the Civil War. Even when he became a division commander, before each battle he drove everyone out of his room in order to pray alone.
Only God's help can explain his constant, amazing victories over opponents, who many times outnumbered the Chapaevites in numbers and weapons. Perhaps this is the main discovery that the great-granddaughter of the hero gives us for the anniversary of her main ancestor. Trust in the Lord God, calling on Him for help in difficult circumstances more than made up for the lack of education, which is so diligently shown to us in a feature film, books and anecdotes about Chapaev. Their authors did not understand at all or concealed for political reasons, what is the secret of the invincibility of this uneducated commander. And he was in the truth and in the power of God. Truly "blessed are the poor in spirit" ... division commanders. "
But the most mysterious and mysterious still remains his death.
It is believed that Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev died on September 5, 1919. The White Guards attacked the headquarters of his division in Lbischensk early in the morning. According to the official version, which was reflected in the film of the Vasilyev brothers, "Chapaev", the Chapaevsk guards fell asleep, so the White Guard attack was unexpected. In fact, it was not like that.
Already in his famous story “Chapaev” Dmitry Furmanov asks the question: “so far it remains surprising and unsolved: who on that fateful night removed the divisional school from the guard? Chapaev did not give such an order to anyone. " And in the essay "Lbischenskaya Drama", which was written a year before the story, the writer-commissar asked one more question: why did they not "notice" the Cossacks approaching Lbischensk
the reconnaissance pilots who flew on the eve of the tragedy, nor the mounted reconnaissance, which received the task to explore the steppe as deeply as possible?
"Truth" was found out by the daughter of the legendary divisional commander (division chief) Klavdia Vasilievna. She, having studied a huge number of documents, came to the conclusion that the command of the 4th Army was to blame for the death of Chapaev. His inept, and possibly deliberate actions led to the fact that Chapaev's headquarters in Lbischensk was isolated from his regiments, which were scattered tens of miles apart. Any White Guard unit would break into such a "hole". "A catastrophe can happen from day to day," Chapaev warned the army staff officers the day before the Lbischen tragedy and, having learned that enemy patrols appeared nearby, ordered his troops to be on full alert. And these are their own - only 200-300 fighters from the training team, and even practically without weapons. Try to fight! And yet the Chapaevites gave their enemies a real battle!
According to the official version, the wounded Chapay, who was saving by swimming through the Urals, was overtaken by an enemy bullet in the middle of the river. However, when the Reds entered Lbischensk, they did not find any witnesses to the death of the division commander or his body. Thinking that it was carried downstream, the command even announced a reward of 10 thousand rubles in gold for whoever finds a hero. But alas ...
In the early 60s. XX century Klavdia Vasilievna received a strange letter from a Soviet officer serving in Hungary. He wrote that after watching the film "Chapaev" in the cinema, two Hungarians approached him and said that Vasily Ivanovich had not died like that. According to them, when the divisional commander was wounded three times (in the arm, in the head and in the stomach), the commissar Baturin, who took command of himself, ordered by all means to transfer the commander to the other bank of the Urals. In one of the courtyards, the gates were removed from their hinges, they put the seriously wounded Chapaev on them, like on a raft, and, accompanied by four fighters (these two Hungarians were allegedly among them), were sent across the river. But during the crossing, Vasily Ivanovich died. The Chapaevites buried him on the shore so that the White Guards would not abuse the body of their beloved commander. After such news, Klavdia Vasilievna tried to find her father's body and went to Lbischensk. But it turned out that the Ural had changed its course, and the grave, if there was one, was most likely washed away.
And during the so-called perestroika (80-90s of the XX century), another version was published in some mass media: Chapaev, for his obstinacy and people's love for him, was arrested by his own people. They, after many years, having kept the hero in dungeons, they shot him. This option was also voiced quite recently, in the spring of 2008, in one of the television "series" "The Battle of Psychics", when the clairvoyants were given the task: to find out from Chapaev's things how he died.
And the fantasy of a certain Vladimir Savchenko roamed even more. In his story "The Fifth Dimension", he put another, completely absurd "version" into the mouth of the "Father-Chapaevite":
“He profited his division there. He gave the Cossacks the opportunity to behead the headquarters. Himself barely escaped by swimming across the Ural River, the wounded hid in the reeds until we recaptured Lbischensk ... Well, we found him in the reeds of the wounded, barely alive. To the hospital, of course. With the division, of course, down with. They wanted to be put under a tribunal: they don't let them down in war, so that they would give their headquarters, the head of the division, to destroy. But ... hushed up, taking into account past merits. After recovering, I heard that they put him on the regiment. Not twenty-fifth, of course. And then I, to tell the truth, lost sight of him. They said he fought in the Don, then in Central Asia - and not bad. Then, in 1930, I saw his book "With Kutyakov across the Ural steppes" ... "
Comments, as they say, are superfluous. Suffice it to clarify that it was Kutyakov who wrote the book "With Chapaev across the Ural steppes", and everything immediately becomes clear. But a person who does not know would certainly have perceived (and, possibly, perceived) these words as "discovery", "truth." The only "excuse" for the author is that this story is fantastic and was published in the series "The Golden (!) Regiment of Fantasy".
And Chapaev's great-granddaughter Evgenia is convinced that her great-grandfather died in battle, but she has repeatedly stated in her interviews that he was simply handed over to the whites: did not go on an unplanned channel. " Evgenia is trying to prove that the Chapaevsky headquarters were deliberately left without cover. However, in her opinion, based allegedly on the memories of her grandmother, the daughter of the legendary commander Klavdia Vasilievna, his common-law wife is also to blame for the death of Chapaev:
“Pelageya was carried away by the head of the artillery depot - Georgy Zhivolozhinov. Zhivolozhinov tossed between the white and the red, just like Furmanov: whoever wins, we will join that. At that time, he seemed to be for the Reds and could not stand Chapaev. But fame flew around the country not about him, but about Chapaev. Envy led Zhivozhinov to the idea of ​​seducing Vasily Ivanovich's common-law wife, Pelageya. And he began to visit her in the absence of Vasily Ivanovich. Once Chapaev came home from the front on leave and found an opponent in his house. His machine gunner Mikhail Zhivaev knocked out the window and began firing a machine gun over the bed with his lovers. Pelageya immediately hid behind her youngest son Chapaev. Chapaev left for the front on the same day. The next day, Klavdia Vasilievna recalled, Pelageya took Chapaev's youngest son Arkady and went to his front to make peace. The son was allowed to go to the father, and the unfaithful wife was sent home. Pelageya got angry and on the way back drove into the headquarters of the whites and said that Chapaev's headquarters was not at all covered and the rifles of the fighters were training ... So Pelageya took revenge on her husband in a purely woman's way. By the way, when Chapaev died, Zhivozhinov continued to live with Pelageya, taking his children into care as a guardian. They say that when the family sat down at the table, he took a revolver and shot the ends of the hair off the children - such was his hatred for Chapaev, which he transferred to his children. "
At the suggestion of Evgenia, this news spread like a fan through the media - "Chapaev died because of the betrayal of his wife."
And in last years there were also "White Guard" versions of Chapaev's death.
On the website of the educational-methodical, informational and organizational portal of military-patriotic education "Banner" there was an article "Chapaev - to destroy!" Author Sergei Balmasov calls the defeat of Chapaev's headquarters in Lbischensk "one of the most outstanding and amazing victories of the White Guards over the Bolsheviks." He even states that this "special operation ... should go down in the history of the art of war."
Balmasov claims that "according to the most conservative estimates, during the Lbischen battle, the Reds lost at least 2,500 killed and prisoners, and the total losses of the Whites amounted to only 118 people: 24 killed and 94 wounded." The same article states that “the trophies taken in Lbischensk turned out to be huge. Ammunition, food, equipment for 2 divisions, a radio station, machine guns, cinematographic devices, 4 airplanes were seized. " But these figures do not fit in any way with the data that have been replicated many times by various publications, including those that sympathize with the fighters against Soviet power:
“There were 300 red cadets of the divisional school, the division’s headquarters and political department, signalmen,” says Valery Shambarov in the book “White Guard”.
In addition, according to Balmasov, “General N.N. Borodin ". Shambarov, however, claims that the White Guard detachment numbered only 300 sabers, one gun and one machine gun, and defeated the Chapaevites only thanks to a surprise attack. And yet another "researcher" attributes the "merit" in the destruction of Chapaev not to Borodin at all, but to a certain Colonel M.I. Izergin, whose "finest hour" was "planned by him and conducted under his leadership Lbischensky raid of units of the 1st Ural Corps, which ended with the defeat of the headquarters of the 25th Red Infantry Division located in Lbischensk and the death of Divisional Commander Chapaev."
All these "true" stories are nothing more than fiction or distortion of facts. This is indicated by the fact that they mention Chapaev's entourage Pyotr Isaev, who allegedly saved the division commander. But, firstly, in fact, Isaev was never Chapaev's assistant-adjutant. At first he served as the commander of a communications battalion, then as a regiment commissar and, finally, he was entrusted with special assignments: for example, to deliver a report to the army headquarters. And secondly, that night Isaev was not in Lbischensk. His life ended tragically later: he could not forgive himself for not being with Chapaev in the last minutes of his life, and committed suicide.
Closer to the truth is the testimony of another White Guard - a certain Nikolai Trofimov-Mirsky. They were kept for a long time in the secret archive of the NKVD-KGB-FSB and were published only in 2002 - in the “Parlamentskaya Gazeta”. Trofimov-Mirsky admitted that Chapaev did not drown, but, on his order, was chopped up with sabers. And then the Cossacks burned about three hundred Red Army soldiers in the barn. This, in part, explains why Chapaev's body was not found.
This "version", by the way, has something in common with the oral recollections of some Chapaevites. When in 1934 the world-wide best-selling film of the Vasiliev brothers "Chapaev" was released on the screens of the country, many of those who fought under the command of the legendary divisional commander were outraged by the artistic fiction of the scriptwriters and directors. First of all, they did not like that Chapaev was portrayed as a tramp, semi-literate and sloppy. Their commander was different: he was always smart, disciplined and demanded the same from his subordinates. And the strategist was, as they say, from God. Despite the parish education, he thought big, like a real commander. It was not for nothing that he had crosses of St. George of all degrees and was considered practically invincible.
Among the disgruntled Chapaevites was Arkhip Mayorov. A native of s. Maloye Perekopnoe (a village not far from Balakovo), he created a detachment of Red Guards in his native village, liberated Samara from the White Czechs, and after the death of Chapaev led the forward detachment of his 25th division. Mayorov did not believe that Chapaev could have succumbed to panic and retreated: the cadets could - there was no Chapaev. He told his niece Maria, who had served in the Balakovo militia for many years, that when the Reds entered Lbischensk two days after the tragedy, they saw that blood was everywhere in the building where the Chapaevsky headquarters was located, furniture was scattered and chopped up. This means that a real hand-to-hand battle was going on here: Chapaev and his staff officers fought back to their last breath ...
However, by that time the official version of the death of the hero had already taken shape, and no one was going to find out the truth. And how will you find out if there are no witnesses left? ..
By the way, when they learned about the death of Chapaev in Balakovo, the local executive committee, firstly, decided to bury the hero in his second homeland and sent a certain Rachkin for the body of the "leader of the Balakovo proletariat" Balakovo to Chepaev (at that time the surname of the chief of the division was written with an "e"). For preliminary expenses, even 2 thousand rubles were allocated from the funds of local departments. However, Chapaev's body was not found, and the city was not renamed.
But the name of the hero was given to his division. By order of the Revolutionary Military Council (Revolutionary Military Council) of the Turkfront of September 10 (according to other sources, October 4) 1919
Chapaev became a symbol of a courageous and selfless struggle for a brighter future. And not only in the USSR. In 1937-39, for example, in the Spanish people's army an international battalion named after Chapaev was organized, heroically fighting the fascist invaders. A song was composed in this battalion:

Franco and Hitler, doom awaits you.
Here we are Spain's loyal stronghold!
After all, the son of Chapaev is each of us!

With the name of Chapaev, they went on the attack during the Great Patriotic War... To raise the morale of the Soviet people and further strengthen their faith in victory, a short film "Chapaev with us" was urgently shot, in which Chapaev (actor Babochkin) swims out of the Urals, puts on his famous cloak and goes to beat the Nazis.
This desire to "revive" your favorite heroes, to immortalize them is characteristic of any nation. Couldn't get around this special attention and Chapaev. In 1938, in the village. Kurilovka of the Kuibyshev region (now Samara) a fairy tale was recorded, which ends with the following words: “Chapaev survived and changed his nickname, he began to be nicknamed not Chapaev, but somehow differently. For your mistake, it means that there is no shame in public. And now, people are failing, Chapaev is alive, he has become a big boss, - such a fair, kind one. "
And in Balakovo they always remembered their compatriot. Even before the film appeared (at the beginning of 1934), the Balakovo residents proposed to organize a fundraiser for the construction of a squadron of Red Partisan aircraft, including an aircraft named after V.I. Chapaev, and raise money for a monument, restore the house in which he lived, installing a memorial plaque on it.
But the City Council got down to business only two years later. Then local residents and public organizations collected various documents, household items and carpentry tools that Chapaev used. The authorities restored the house and surrounded it with a fence, but did not manage to create a full-fledged museum: the war began.
It officially opened only in 1948. True, in the house where not Chapaev lived, but his parents, after the death of his son.
About this in Soviet time immediately “forgotten”, and in 1969 a memorial plaque was installed on the house with the inscription “Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev lived in this house from 1897 to 1913”. This discrepancy between the real and the book biography was the reason for the period of "democratic transformations" in the late 80s-90s. XX century an attempt was made to overthrow the hero from the pedestal. In Balakovo, a huge building, built next to Chapaev's house for a full-fledged museum, was given as a communications center. But this attempt failed miserably. To destroy the myths of the past, you need to replace them with something. But there is nothing to replace yet. Therefore, Chapaev remains a legend, which will be attractive to researchers for a long time to come.

P.S. The material was written in 2011. But last year in the Samara archive I found a passport for this house, drawn up in 1912 for taxing city real estate, where it is written that Ivan Stepanovich Chepaev acquired it in 1900, and there were 6 people in his family. Thus, after all, the future people's commander grew up in this small and cramped house. I decided not to amend this text. Let it be seen how, over time, on the basis of the newly revealed documents, the historical axioms change, the proofs of which, it would seem, are no longer needed.
More details about this in the article "Legend returns location", which is posted on my page.

Name: Vasiliy Chapaev

Age: 32 years

Place of Birth: the village of Budayka, Chuvashia

A place of death: Lbischensk, Ural region

Activity: Chief of the Red Army

Family status: Was married

Vasily Chapaev - biography

September 5 marks 97 years since the death Vasily Chapaeva- the most famous and at the same time the most unknown hero of the civil war. His true identity is hidden under a layer of legends created by both official propaganda and the popular imagination.

Legends begin from the very birth of the future division commander. Everywhere they write that he was born on January 28 (old style) 1887 in the family of a Russian peasant Ivan Chapaev. However, his surname does not seem Russian, especially in the version "Chepaev", as Vasily Ivanovich himself wrote it. Mostly Chuvash lived in his native village Budayke, and today the inhabitants of Chuvashia confidently consider Chapaev-Chepaev theirs. True, neighbors argue with them, finding Mordovian or Mari roots in the surname. The descendants of the hero have a different version - his grandfather, working on timber rafting, every now and then shouted to his comrades "chepay", that is, "cling" in the local dialect.

But whoever Chapaev's ancestors were, by the time of his birth they had long been Russified, and his uncle even served as a priest. They also wanted to send young Vasya to the spiritual path - he was small in stature, weak in strength and was not suitable for heavy peasant labor. Church service provided at least some opportunity to escape the poverty in which the family lived. Although Ivan Stepanovich was a skilled carpenter, his relatives were constantly interrupted from bread to kvass; out of six children, only three survived.

When Vasya was eight years old, the family moved to the village - now the city - Balakovo, where his father found work in a carpentry artel. There also lived an uncle, a priest, to whom Vasya was sent to study. Their relationship did not work out - the nephew did not want to study and, moreover, did not differ in obedience. Once in winter, in a bitter frost, his uncle locked him in a cold barn for some next offense. In order not to freeze, the boy somehow got out of the barn and ran home. On this, his spiritual biography ended before he could begin.

Chapaev recalled the early years of his biography without any nostalgia: “My childhood was dark and difficult. I had to humiliate myself and starve a lot. From an early age I roamed about strangers. " He helped his father to do carpentry, worked as a sex worker in a tavern, and even walked with a barrel organ, like Seryozha from Kuprinsky " White poodle". Although this may be an invention - Vasily Ivanovich loved to compose all sorts of stories about himself.

For example, he once joked about the ardent romance of a gypsy tramp and the Kazan governor's daughter. And since there is little reliable information about Chapaev's life before the Red Army - he did not have time to tell the children anything, there was no other relative left, this invention got into his biography, written by the Chapaevsky commissar Dmitry Furmanov.

At twenty, Vasily fell in love with the beautiful Pelageya Metlina. By that time, the Chapaev family had got out of poverty, Vasya dressed up and easily charmed the girl, who had just turned sixteen. As soon as they got married, in the fall of 1908, the newlywed joined the army. He liked military science, but he didn’t like walking in formation and chipping officers. Chapaev, with his proud and independent disposition, did not endure the end of the service and was demobilized due to illness. Peaceful began family life- he was a carpenter, and his wife, one after another, gave birth to children: Alexander, Claudia, Arcadia.

As soon as in 1914 the last was born, as Vasily Ivanovich was again shaved into the soldiers - began World War... For two years of fighting in Galicia, he rose from private to sergeant-major and was awarded the St. George medal and four soldiers St. George's crosses, which spoke of the utmost courage. By the way, he served in the infantry, a dashing rider - unlike Chapaev from the film of the same name - he never was, and after being wounded he could not ride at all. In Galicia, Chapaev was wounded three times, the last time so badly that after a long treatment he was sent to serve in the rear, in his native Volga region.

The return home was not joyful. While Chapaev was fighting, Pelageya got along with the conductor and left with him, leaving her husband with three children. According to legend, Vasily ran after her cart for a long time, begged to stay, even cried, but the beauty firmly decided that an important railway rank suited her more than the heroic, but poor and, moreover, wounded Chapaev. With her new husband, Pelageya, however, did not live long - she died of typhus. And Vasily Ivanovich married again, keeping his word given to the deceased comrade Pyotr Kameshkertsev. His widow, also Pelageya, but not young and ugly, became a new companion of the hero and took his children into the house in addition to her three.

After the 1917 revolution in the city of Nikolaevsk, where Chapaev was transferred to serve, the soldiers of the 138th reserve regiment chose him as regimental commander. Through his efforts, the regiment did not go home, like many others, but almost completely joined the Red Army.

The Chapaevsky regiment found a job for itself in May 1918, when a civil war broke out in Russia. The revolted Czechoslovakians, in alliance with the local White Guards, captured the entire east of the country and sought to cut the Volga artery, along which bread was delivered to the center. In the cities of the Volga region, the whites staged revolts: one of them took the life of Chapaev's brother - Grigory, the Balakovo military commissar. From another brother, Mikhail, who owned a shop and accumulated considerable capital, Chapaev took all the money, putting it into the armament of his regiment.

Having distinguished himself in heavy battles with the Ural Cossacks, who sided with the Whites, Chapaev was chosen by the soldiers as the commander of the Nikolaev division. By that time, such elections were banned in the Red Army, and an angry telegram was sent from above: Chapaev cannot command a division, because "he does not have the appropriate training, is infected with a mania for autocracy, and does not follow military orders exactly."

However, the removal of the popular commander could turn into a riot. And then the staff strategists sent Chapaev with his division against the three times superior forces of the Samara "constituent" - it seemed, to certain death. However, the division commander came up with an ingenious plan to lure the enemy into a trap, and completely defeated him. Soon Samara was taken, and the Whites retreated in the steppe between the Volga and the Urals, where Chapaev chased them until November.

This month, the capable commander was sent to study in Moscow, to the Academy of the General Staff. Upon admission, he filled out a questionnaire:

“Do you belong to the number of active party members? How was your activity expressed?

I belong. Formed 7 regiments of the Red Army.

What awards do you have?

Georgievsky Cavalier of 4 degrees. The watch was handed over.

What general education did you get?

SamoUchka ".

Having recognized Chapaev as "almost illiterate", he was nevertheless accepted as "having revolutionary combat experience." These questionnaires are supplemented by an anonymous description of the divisional commander, preserved in the Cheboksary Memorial Museum: “He was not raised and did not have restraint in dealing with people. He was often rude and cruel ... He was a weak politician, but he was a real revolutionary, a wonderful communard in life and a noble selfless fighter for communism ... There were times when he could seem frivolous ... "

Basically. Chapaev was the same partisan commander as Makhno's father, and he was uncomfortable at the academy. When some military expert in a class on military history sarcastically asked if he knew the Rhine River. Chapaev, who fought in Europe in German war, nevertheless, boldly replied: “Why the hell is your Raine to me? It is on Solyanka that I have to know every bump, because we are fighting there with the Cossacks. "

After several such skirmishes, Vasily Ivanovich asked to be sent back to the front. The army authorities complied with the request, but in a strange way - Chapaev had to create a new division literally from scratch. In the dispatch to Trotsky, he was indignant: “I bring to your attention, I am exhausted ... You appointed me the head of the division, but instead of the division you gave me a disheveled brigade, in which there are only 1000 bayonets ... they don’t give me rifles, no greatcoats, people are undressed ". And yet for short term he managed to create a division of 14 thousand bayonets and inflict a heavy defeat with it on Kolchak's army, defeating its most combat-ready units, consisting of Izhevsk workers.

It was at this time, in March 1919, that a new commissar appeared in the 25th Chapayev division - Dmitry Furmanov. This drop-out student was four years younger than Chapaev and dreamed of a literary career. This is how he describes their meeting:

“Early in March morning, at 5-6 o'clock, they knocked on me. I go out:

I am Chapaev, hello!

Before me stood an ordinary man, lean, of medium height, apparently of little strength, with thin, almost female hands. Fluid dark blond hair stuck to her forehead; short nervous thin nose, thin eyebrows in a chain, thin lips, shiny clean teeth, shaved chin, lush sergeant-major mustache. Eyes ... light blue, almost green. The face is dull-clean, fresh. "

In the novel "Chapaev", which Furmanov published in 1923, Chapaev appears at first as an unattractive character and, moreover, as a real savage in an ideological sense - he advocated "for the Bolsheviks, but against the communists." However, under the influence of Furmanov, by the end of the novel, he becomes a convinced party member. In reality, the divisional commander never joined the CPSU (b), not trusting too much of the party elite, and it seems that these feelings were mutual - the same Trotsky saw in Chapaev a stubborn supporter of the "partisanship" he hated and, on occasion, could well have shot him, as commander of Mironov's Second Cavalry Army.

Chapaev's relationship with Furmanov was also not as warm as the latter tried to show. This is due to the lyrical story at the headquarters of the 25th, which became known from the recently declassified Furmanov diaries. It turned out that the division commander began quite openly courting the commissioner's wife, Anna Steshenko, a young and pretty failed actress. By that time, the second wife of Vasily Chapaev left him: she cheated on the divisional commander with a supplier. Arriving home somehow on a visit, Vasily Ivanovich found the lovers in bed and, according to one version, drove both under the bed with shots over their heads.

On the other, he just turned around and drove back to the front. After that, he flatly refused to see the traitor, although later she came to his regiment to reconcile, taking with her the youngest Chapaevsky son Arkady. I thought to humble my husband's anger with this - he adored children, during a short rest he played tag with them, made toys. As a result, Chapaev took the children, giving them to be raised by some widow, and divorced the treacherous wife. Later, a rumor spread that she was the culprit in the death of Chapaev, since she had betrayed him to the Cossacks. Under the yoke of suspicion, Pelageya Kameshkertseva went mad and died in a hospital.

Becoming a bachelor, Chapaev turned his feelings on Furmanov's wife. Seeing his letters with the signature "Chapaev, who loves you," the commissar, in turn, wrote an angry letter to the division commander, in which he called him "a dirty, depraved little man": I am deeply outraged by the impudent courting and constant harassment that Anna Nikitichna has repeatedly told me about ”.

Chapaev's reaction is unknown, but soon Furmanov sent a complaint to the front commander Frunze about the "offensive actions" of the division commander, "reaching the point of assault." As a result, Frunze allowed him and his wife to leave the division, which saved Furmanov's life - a month later, Chapaev, along with his entire staff and the new commissar Baturin, died.

In June 1919, the Chapayevites took Ufa, and the division commander himself was wounded in the head when crossing the high-water Belaya River. The thousands of Kolchak garrison fled, leaving ammunition depots. The secret of Chapaev's victories was speed, onslaught and "little tricks" of the people's war. For example, near the same Ufa, they say, he drove a herd of cattle against the enemy, which raised clouds of dust.

Deciding that Chapaev had a huge army, the whites rushed to flee. It is possible, however, that this is a myth - the same that from time immemorial told about Alexander the Great or. It is not for nothing that even before the nationwide cult in the Volga region, fairy tales were composed about Chapaev - “Chapay flies into battle in a black cloak, they shoot at him, and at least he has something. After the battle he will shake the cloak - and from there all the bullets will be intact and will get enough sleep. "

Another tale is that Chapaev invented the cart. In fact, this innovation first appeared in the peasant army, from which it was borrowed by the Reds. Vasily Ivanovich quickly realized the merits of a carriage with a machine gun, although he himself preferred cars. Chapaev had a scarlet "stever" confiscated from some bourgeois, a blue "Packard" and a miracle of technology - a yellow high-speed "Ford", which developed a speed of up to 50 km per hour. Having installed on it the same machine gun as on the cart, the division commander, it happened, almost single-handedly knocked out the enemy from the captured villages.

After the capture of Ufa, Chapaev's division headed south, trying to break through to the Caspian Sea. In the town of Lbischensk, the division headquarters remained with a small garrison (up to 2,000 fighters), the rest of the units went ahead. On the night of September 5, 1919, a Cossack detachment under the command of General Borodin quietly crept up to the city and surrounded it. The Cossacks not only knew that the hated Chapay was in Lbischensk, but also had a good idea of ​​the alignment of forces of the Reds. Moreover, the horse patrols, usually guarding the headquarters, for some reason were removed, and the division's airplanes, leading aerial reconnaissance, turned out to be out of order. This suggests a betrayal, which was not the work of the ill-fated Pelageya, but some of the staff workers - former officers.

It seems that Chapaev did not overcome all his "frivolous" qualities - in a sober state, he and his assistants would hardly have overlooked the approach of the enemy. Waking up from the shooting, they rushed to the river in their underwear, firing back on the move. The Cossacks fired after them. Chapaev was wounded in the arm (according to another version, in the stomach). Three fighters led him along a sandy cliff to the river. Further, according to eyewitnesses, Furmanov briefly described: “So all four rushed, swam. Two were killed at the same moment, as soon as they touched the water. Two sailed, already at the very shore - and at that moment a predatory bullet hit Chapaev in the head. When the satellite, crawling into the sedge, looked around, there was no one behind: Chapaev drowned in the waves of the Urals ... "

But there is another version: in the 60s, Chapaev's daughter received a letter from Hungarian soldiers who fought in the 25th division. The letter said that the Hungarians ferried the wounded Chapaev across the river on a raft, but on the shore he died of blood loss and was buried there. Attempts to find the grave did not lead to anything - the Urals had changed its course by that time, and the coast opposite Lbischensk was flooded.

Recently, an even more sensational version appeared - Chapaev was captured, went over to the side of the whites and died in exile. There is no confirmation of this version, although the divisional commander and the truth could have been captured. In any case, the newspaper Krasnoyarsk Rabochy reported on March 9, 1926 that "Kolchak's officer Trofimov-Mirsky, who confessed that he had killed in 1919 the captive and legendary division chief Chapaev, was arrested in Penza."

Vasily Ivanovich died at the age of 32. Without a doubt, he could have become one of the prominent commanders of the Red Army - and, most likely, he would have died in 1937, like his colleague and first biographer Ivan Kutyakov, like many other Chapayevites. But it turned out differently - Chapaev, who fell at the hands of enemies, took a prominent place in the pantheon. Soviet heroes from where many of the more significant figures were wiped out. The heroic legend began with Furmanov's novel. "Chapaev" became the first big piece of the commissar who left for literature. It was followed by the novel "Mutiny" about the anti-Soviet uprising in Semirechye - Furmanov also personally observed it. In March 1926, the career of the writer was cut short on takeoff by a sudden death from meningitis.

The writer's widow, Anna Steshenko-Furmanova, made her dream come true by becoming the director of the theater (in the Chapayev division, she led the cultural and educational part). Out of love, either for her husband, or for Chapaev, she decided to embody the story of the legendary division commander on stage, but in the end the play she conceived turned into a screenplay published in 1933 in the Literary Contemporary magazine.

Soon, young film directors with the same names Georgy and Sergei Vasiliev decided to shoot fshm according to the script. Already at the initial stage of the work on the film, Stalin intervened in the process, always keeping the film production under his personal control. Through the film bosses, he conveyed to the directors of "Chapaev" a wish: to supplement the picture with a love line, introducing into it a young fighter and a girl from the people - "a kind of pretty machine gunner."

The famous fighter became a glimpse of Petka's Furmanov - "Little Slim Chernomasik". There was also a "machine gunner" - Maria Popova, who actually served as a nurse in the Chapaevsk division. In one of the battles, a wounded machine-gunner made her lie down behind the Maxim's trigger: "Press, or I'll shoot you!" The queues stopped the attack of the whites, and after the battle, the girl received a gold watch from the hands of the division commander. True, Maria's combat experience was limited to this. Anna Furmanova did not have this either, but she gave the heroine of the film her name - and this is how Anka the machine gunner appeared.

This saved Anna Nikitichna in 1937, when her second husband, the red commander Lajos Gavro, "Hungarian Chapaev", was shot. Maria Popova was also lucky - seeing Anka in the cinema, a satisfied Stalin helped her prototype to make a career. Maria Andreevna became a diplomat, worked for a long time in Europe, and along the way wrote a famous song:

Chapaev the hero walked around the Urals.

He fought with his enemies with a falcon ...

Go ahead, comrades, do not dare to retreat.

Chapayevites are boldly accustomed to dying!

They say that shortly before the death of Maria Popova in 1981, a whole delegation of nurses came to the hospital to ask if she loved Petka. “Of course,” she replied, although in reality she was unlikely to have anything to do with Pyotr Isaev. After all, he was not a boy-messenger, but a regiment commander, an employee of the Chapaevsky headquarters. And he died, as they say, without crossing the Urals with his commander, but a year later. They say that on the anniversary of Chapaev's death, he drank himself half to death, came to the Ural shore, exclaimed: "I did not save Chapay!" -and shot himself in the temple. Of course, this is also a legend - it seems that literally everything that surrounded Vasily Ivanovich became legendary.

In the film, Petka was played by Leonid Kmit, who remained an "actor of the same role," as did Boris Blinov - Furmanov. And Boris Babochkin, who played a lot in the theater, was for everyone, first of all, Chapaev. Participants in the Civil War, including friends of Vasily Ivanovich, noted his one hundred percent hit in the image. By the way, at first Vasily Vanin was appointed for the role of Chapaev, and 30-year-old Babochkin was to play Petka. They say that the same Anna Furmanova insisted on the "castling", who decided that Babochkin was more like her hero.

The directors agreed and generally insured themselves as best they could. In case of accusations of excessive tragedy, another, optimistic ending - in a beautiful apple orchard Anka is playing with the children, Petka, already the division commander, comes up to them. Chapaev's voice sounds off-screen: “Get married, you will work together. The war will end, life will be splendid. Do you know what life will be like? Don't die! "

As a result, this foolishness was avoided, and the film by the Vasiliev brothers, released in November 1934, became the first Soviet blockbuster - huge queues lined up at the Udarnik cinema, where it was shown. Whole factories were marching there in columns, carrying the slogans "We are going to watch Chapaev." The film won high awards not only at the First Moscow Film Festival in 1935, but also in Paris and New York. The directors and Babochkin received Stalin awards, the actress Varvara Myasnikova, who played Anna, received the Order of the Red Banner of Labor.

Stalin himself watched the picture thirty times, not much different from the boys of the 30s - they repeatedly entered cinemas, hoping that someday Chapay would come out. It is interesting that in the end this happened - in 1941, in one of the propaganda film collections, Boris Babochkin, famous for the role of Chapaev, appeared unharmed from the waves of the Urals and went, calling the soldiers behind him, to beat the Nazis. Few have seen this movie, but the rumor about the miraculous resurrection has finally consolidated the myth of the hero.

Chapaev's popularity was great even before the film, but after it turned into a real cult. A city in the Samara region, dozens of collective farms, hundreds of streets were named after the divisional commander. His memorial museums appeared in Pugachev (formerly Nikolaevsk). Lbischensk, the village of Krasny Yar, and later in Cheboksary, within the city limits of which there was the village of Budaika. As for the 25th division, it received the name of Chapaev immediately after the death of its commander and is still wearing it.

The nationwide popularity also affected the children of Chapaev. His senior ssh Alexander became an officer - an artilleryman, went through the war, rose to the rank of major general. The youngest, Arkady, went to the aviation, was a friend of Chkalov and, like him, died before the war while testing a new fighter. The daughter of Claudia, who, after the death of her parents, almost starved to death, became a faithful keeper of her father's memory, wandered around orphanages, but the title of the hero's daughter helped her make a party career. By the way, neither Klavdia Vasilievna, nor her descendants tried to fight against the jokes about Chapaev that were passed from mouth to mouth (and now already published many times). And this is understandable: in most of the anecdotes, Chapay appears as a rude, rustic person, but very handsome. The same as the hero of the novel, the film and the entire official myth.

the river in which Chapaev drowned

Mountain system on the border of Europe and Asia

Mountain range in Russia

Cinema in Moscow, st. Ural

Periodical title

River in Kazakhstan

River in Russia

River flowing into the Caspian Sea

Homeland of the malachite box

Russian truck brand

Border of two parts of the world

The river that did not succumb to Chapaev

Russian truck brand

Malachite Mountains of Russia

Football club from the Sverdlovsk region

Which river had the name Yaik before 1775?

This mountain system is sometimes called the "stone belt", and its highest point is Mount Narodnaya

On which river is the city of Orenburg?

On which river is the city of Orsk?

On which river is the city of Arytau?

On which river is the city of Magnitogorsk?

On which river is the city of Novotroitsk?

On which river is the city of Chapaev?

Symphony of the Buryat composer M. P. Frolov "Gray-haired ..."

Hotel in Moscow

Which river banks are located - right in Europe, left in Asia?

River in Russia, flows into the Caspian Sea

Stone belt of Russia

The river that Chapaev could not swim across

Russian vacuum cleaner brand

Russian motorcycle brand

Moscow cinema

Yaik now

The river flowing into the Caspian

Orenburg, river

Separates Europe and Asia

Mountains in the east of Europe

Mountains in Europe and Asia

Mountains in Russia

Renamed Yaik

River in Orsk

River in Orenburg

Mountains and motorcycle

Our sidecar motorcycle

Between Europe and Asia

River and motorcycle

Russian mountains

Place of death of Chapaev

Mountains, river or motorcycle

Russian truck

... Chapay's "grave"

The Yaik River now

Motorcycle brand

Yaik after 1775

Favorite mountains of Bazhov

... "Backbone of Russia"

Mountains between Europe and Asia

On which river is Orsk?

Bridge between Europe and Asia

The river separating Europe from Asia

The river that saw Vasily Ivanovich

Motorcycle, originally from Russia

Divides Russia in half

The river between Europe and Asia

Native to owls. citizens motorcycle

The river that separates Europe and Asia

On which river is the city of Orsk?

Russian motorcycle

A motorcycle native to Soviet citizens

Border between Europe and Asia

... "Motoreka" of Russia

Mountains, border of Europe and Asia

Mountain border between Europe and Asia

Truck make

Route "Moscow-Chelyabinsk"

Motorcycle with Russian registration

Motorcycle made in Russia

And the river, and the motorcycle, and both Russian

Motorcycle of Russian origin

Mountains rich in malachite

Motorcycle with sidecar

Motorcycle brand with sidecar

And the truck, and the motorcycle, and the river of Russia

Car, mountains, river

Military truck

Homeland of Bazhov

Truck brand

Mountains or river

car brand

Truck

Off-road truck

Siberia is behind him

Mountains and river in Russia

The river that killed Chapay

Soviet motorcycle

Russian truck

Mountain system on the border of Europe and Asia

Domestic car brand

River in the Caspian lowland

River in Russian Federation and Kazakhstan

Hotel in Moscow

The circumstances of the death of the legendary divisional commander still give rise to heated debates among historians. The official version says that Chapaev died on September 5, 1919 during a surprise attack by the White Guards in Lbischensk. The wounded divisional commander could not swim across the Ural River and drowned in its waters. The popularization of this version was promoted by the novel "Chapaev", written by the military commissar Dmitry Furmanov, as well as the film of the same name shot later. But many, including the Chapaev family, disagree with the official version of his death.

And, indeed, not everything is so smooth! Firstly, Furmanov himself was not an eyewitness to that terrible battle. When writing his famous novel, he used only the memories of the few surviving participants in the battle in Lbischensk. It would seem that firsthand information, what could be more truthful?

But, imagine: night, bloody and merciless battle, mutilated corpses around, confusion ... It is unlikely that any of the soldiers could clearly describe the picture of what is happening and, even more so, the fate of an individual, even his beloved commander. In addition, not a single surviving fighter with whom the author communicated confirmed that he saw the corpse of the division commander, then how can one say that he died? Rather, he disappeared without a trace.

And even a letter sent to the newspaper in 1927 "Rabochiy klich" by a certain "TVZ", telling that it was this Red Army soldier who swam with the Ural division commander, does not prove the fact of death. Since, according to the author of the letter himself, in cold water seized with convulsions, he lost consciousness. I woke up only on the other side, Chapaev was not there. He may have drowned ... but perhaps not!

Secondly, it is worth noting that, according to many, at the time of their joint service, Chapaev and Furmanov were people of "different caliber". They simply did not understand each other. By the way, the Chapaevites believed that in his novel Furmanov had created a too generalized image of the red commander, not at all like Chapaev. To which the author replied: "This is my right to fiction." And this is another reason for doubt!

If Furmanov could compose the image of his hero, then who would have forbidden him to invent or slightly change his fate? It turns out that this is not a biography of Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev, but just a work of fiction, a novel based on real events. Unfortunately, we cannot find out the truth from eyewitnesses of the event. It remains only to rely on the chronicles and documents of that time. There are many versions of the events of that fateful night walking around the world, but only a few of them deserve attention.

Slightly different from the official version, the story was told by a letter written by Hungarians by nationality and by the Red Army men of the famous 25th division, the head of which was Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev. The letter came to the daughter of the division commander. The main difference was that, according to their story, the divisional commander did not drown in the river, but was transported to the other side. But the national hero did not manage to live until the next day: wounded by the pursuers, he died. After that, Chapaev's body was hastily buried somewhere near Uralsk. Naturally, in such conditions, no one remembered the exact coordinates of the place, the hero's grave is lost forever ...

It is strange in general that the letter reached Claudia, Chapaev's daughter. AND main question why have they been silent for so long ?! Maybe they were forbidden to divulge the details of those events. But some are sure that the letter itself is not at all a cry from the distant past, designed to shed light on the death of the hero, but a cynical KGB operation, the goals of which are unclear.

One of the legends appeared later. On February 9, 1926, a sensational news was published in the Krasnoyarsk Rabochy newspaper: “... Kolchak's officer Trofimov-Mirsky was arrested, who killed in 1919 the captive and legendary division chief Chapaev. Mirsky served as an accountant in an artel of disabled people in Penza. "

Was the renowned hero captured after all ?! It is known that the white command promised 50 thousand gold rubles to the one who brought Chapaev. Therefore, it can be assumed that a hunt was announced for the divisional commander and, most likely, the White Cossacks tried to capture him. But there is no more information and evidence for this version.

But the most mysterious version is that Chapaev was able to swim across the Urals. And, having dismissed the fighters, he went to Frunze in Samara, but on the way he became very ill and lay for some time in some unknown village. After recovering, Vasily Ivanovich nevertheless got to Samara ... where he was arrested by the Red Army.

After the night massacre in Lbischensk, Chapaev was listed as dead. The party leadership declared the divisional commander a hero who fought steadfastly for the ideas of the party and died for them. The story of Chapaev's heroic death stirred up the public, raised their military spirit and gave them strength. The news that Chapaev was alive meant only one thing - the people's hero abandoned his soldiers and succumbed to flight. The top management could not allow this!

This version is also based on memories and guesses of eyewitnesses. Vasily Sityaev assured that in 1941 he met a fighter of the 25th rifle division, who showed him the personal belongings of the divisional commander and told him that after crossing to the opposite bank of the Urals divisional commander went to Frunze.

Another piece of evidence can hardly be called real, but there is no evidence to the contrary, so it deserves attention.

In 1998, journalists published a scandalous article! Allegedly, one of the Red Army men in his old age accidentally met with the division commander, he lived under a different name. The reason for this was his arrest of Frunze, the subsequent "information blockade". After the report of an unknown person that Chapaev had revealed himself, the chief of the department in 1934 went to Stalin's camps ... Exhausted by life, in the end he found himself in a home for the disabled. Only one thing is surprising: how did a person who survived so many shocks live to be 111 years old? And why, after the death of the leader, did he not even try to contact his relatives?

There are many versions of Chapaev's death, it is difficult to say which one is true. Some historians are generally inclined to believe that the historical role of the division commander in the Civil War is extremely small. And all the myths and legends that glorified Chapaev were created by the party for its own purposes. But, according to reviews who knew him closely enough, he was a real person! He not only knew military affairs excellently, but was also attentive to his subordinates, cared for them in every possible way. He did not hesitate, in the words of Dmitry Furmanov, "to dance with the soldiers", was honest and completely faithful to his ideals. He was a true folk hero!