Vasily Chapaev did so much in the first three years of the Civil War that in the twenties he was numbered among the saints by Stalin himself.
He died in 1919, and in 1934 a legendary film was made from the diaries of Chapaev's colleague Dmitry Furmanov. Immediately after his release on the screens, the NKVD arrested a man who claimed that he was Chapaev, who did not drown and escaped. But the authorities were not happy about the resurrection of the hero from the dead …
Chapaev was the sixth child in a poor peasant family. When he was born, the midwife said that the boy most likely would not survive. But the grandmother left a stunted baby - she wrapped him in a warm "mitten" and kept him constantly by the stove. The boy survived. In search of a better life, the family moved to the village of Balakovo, Nikolaev province, where the opportunity to study appeared.
Ten-year-old Vasya was sent to a parish school, where he studied for two years - he learned to write tolerably and read syllables. Once he was punished for offense - Vasya was put in a cold winter punishment cell in only his underwear. Realizing an hour later that he was freezing, the child knocked out the window and jumped from the height of the third floor, breaking his arms and legs. So Chapaev's studies ended.
At the age of twenty, he was drafted into the army, where he served in the infantry. Already there, Chapaev distinguished himself by courage and dexterity. During the service he received three St. George's crosses and one medal! When the revolution began, he, without hesitation, went to serve in the Red Army.
“Chapaev never chased awards, fame and ranks,” says historian Anatoly Fomin. - He wrote petitions, where he asked to be sent to command at least a company, even a division, if only he could apply his military talent, knowledge, be useful …
A constant topic of conversation during these years is the enmity that arose between Dmitry Furmanov (the commander, Chapaev's comrade-in-arms) and Vasily Ivanovich. Furmanov periodically writes denunciations against Chapaev, but later admits in his diaries that he was simply jealous of the legendary divisional commander. In addition, Furmanov's wife, Anna Nikitichna, was the bone of contention in their friendship. It was she who became the prototype of the machine gunner Anki, who existed only in the film.
The creation of a film about Chapaev in 1934 was a matter of national importance. The country needed a revolutionary hero whose reputation was not tarnished. People watched this film fifty times, all Soviet boys dreamed of repeating Chapaev's feat. But the film was not all true. For example, there was actually no Anka-machine-gunner in the Chapaevsk division.
It was invented by the scriptwriters of the film, who at first wanted to make the heroic woman a doctor, but then read in the newspaper about a case when a nurse had to shoot a machine gun instead of a wounded machine gunner, and realized that this was a find. This incident happened with Maria Popova, who gave an interview after the release of the film, proudly claiming that she was Anka. However, Furmanov's wife, who advised the film, insisted that the legendary heroine be given her name.
But Petka, unlike Anka, really existed. It was Pyotr Semenovich Isaev, who entered the Chapaevsky detachment in 1918 and was the hero's faithful support until the moment of his death. How Isaev himself died is not known for certain. According to one version - together with Chapaev, according to another - he shot himself after the death of the commander. And historians are still arguing about how Chapaev himself died. In the film, we see that he, wounded, is trying to cross the Urals during the battle, they shoot at him and he drowns. But Chapaev's relatives, having seen the film, were outraged.
- As Chapaev's daughter Claudia wrote, when Vasily Ivanovich was wounded, Commissar Baturin ordered them to make a raft out of the fence and by hook or crook be able to transport Chapaev to the other side of the Urals, - says Chapaev's great-granddaughter, Evgenia. - They made a raft and nevertheless transported Vasily Ivanovich to the other side. When rowing, he was alive, moaning … And when they swam to the shore - he was gone. And so that his body would not be mocked, they buried him in the coastal sand. They buried it and covered it with reeds. Then they themselves lost consciousness from blood loss …
This information greatly excited the division commander's great-granddaughter. She wanted to organize a search for Chapaev's remains, but it turned out that in the place where he died and there used to be a coast, the Ural now flows. Thus, the official date of Chapaev's death is September 5, 1919. But the circumstances of the death are still debated.
For example, after the release of the film about the division commander, a person very similar to Chapaev appeared, who claimed that he had escaped. He was arrested, interrogated, and then, according to one version, he was shot, according to another - he was sent to the camps. The fact is that an answer came from the government to the authorities: we don't need a living Chapaev now. Indeed, if Chapaev had lived to see the time of the Red Terror, most likely he himself would have been in disgrace. And so they made him an ideal hero for the Soviet people.
