Honored Artist of Russia and Ukraine Nikolai Dupak was born on October 5, 1921. He studied with Yuri Zavadsky, filmed with Alexander Dovzhenko, for a quarter of a century he was the director of the legendary Taganka Theater, where he brought Yuri Lyubimov and where he hired Vladimir Vysotsky …
But today's conversation is more about the Great Patriotic War, with which the squadron commander of the 6th Guards Cavalry Corps, Senior Lieutenant Dupak, returned with three military orders, three wounds, a concussion and a second group disability …
Son of the fist
- On June 22, exactly at four o'clock, Kiev was bombed …
“… They announced to us that the war had begun.
Yes, everything was like in a famous song. I lived in the Continental Hotel, a stone's throw from Khreshchatyk, and woke up from the powerful, growing roar of engines. Trying to understand what was happening, I ran out onto the balcony. On the next one stood the same sleepy, like me, a military man and looked at the sky, over which heavy bombers flew low and low. Many! I remember asking: "Sho tse take?" The neighbor answered not too confidently: "Probably, the exercises of the Kiev district. Close to the combat …"
A couple of minutes later, sounds of explosions were heard from the side of the Dnieper. It became clear that these were not exercises, but real military operations. The Germans tried to bomb the railway bridge to Darnitsa. Fortunately, we missed. And we flew low so as not to fall under the fire of our anti-aircraft guns.
But, perhaps, it is necessary to tell how I ended up in Kiev in June 1941 and what did I do there?
To do this, let's rewind the tape twenty years ago.
- By the time you were born, Nikolai Lukyanovich?
- Well, yes. It is a sin for me to complain about life, although sometimes you can grumble. Suffice it to say that I almost died at the age of three. My grandmother and I were sitting in the hut, she broke the collected poppy heads with her hands and passed it to me, and I poured the seeds into my mouth. And suddenly … he choked. The crust got, as they say, in the wrong throat. I began to choke. Okay, the parents are at home. Dad grabbed me in his arms, put me in a chaise and rushed to the hospital. On the way from lack of air, I turned blue, lost consciousness. The doctor, seeing my condition, immediately understood everything and cut the trachea with a scalpel, pulling out a stuck piece of a poppy box. The scar on my throat, however, remained for life. Here, see?..
I grew up in the family of a kulak. Although, if you figure out which of the Bati is the enemy of the working people? He was the head of a large family, the breadwinner of five children, a hard-working man, a real plowman. My father took part in the imperialist war, returned to his native Vinnitsa, then moved to Donbass, where land was distributed in the Donetsk steppe. Together with his relatives, he took fifty free hectares, settled on a farm near the town of Starobeshevo, and began to settle down. Sowing, mowing, stinging, threshing … By the end of the twenties, my father had a strong economy: a mill, an orchard, clounies *, various animals - from cows and horses to chickens and geese.
And in September 1930 they came to dispossess us. The poorest man in the village, a former father's farmhand, commanded everything. He was not very adapted to work, but he knew the way to the glass very well. We were ordered to pack up our belongings, load whatever fits into a cart and go to Ilovaisk. There was already a train of eighteen boxcars, into which the families of kulaks were being driven. We were driven north for several days until we were unloaded at the Konosha station in the Arkhangelsk region. We settled down in huge barracks built in advance. My father, along with other men, was sent to felling - to procure building materials for the mines of Donbass. They lived hard, hungry. People were dying, and they could not even be buried properly: you go deep into the ground with two bayonets of a shovel, and there is water. After all, there is a forest, swamps around …
A year later, the regime was relaxed: relatives who remained at large were allowed to take children under the age of twelve. Uncle Kirill, a fellow countryman from Starobeshevo, came for me and seven other guys. We got back not in a freight train, but in a passenger train. They put me on the third, luggage rack, in a dream I fell to the floor, but did not wake up, I was so tired. So I returned to Donbass. At first he lived with his sister Lisa in a shed. By that time, our house had been plundered, having stolen everything of value, then even the brickwork was dismantled, they were allowed to build the Starobeshevskaya GRES …
Zavadsky's student
- And how did you enter the theater school, Nikolai Lukyanovich?
- Well, that was much later! First, my mother returned from the Arkhangelsk forests, then my father ran away from there. Thanks to the peasants who helped him hide between the logs in the car … Dad managed to get a job, but someone reported a fugitive fist to the authorities, and we had to urgently leave for Russia, in Taganrog, where it was easier to get lost. There my father was taken to a local pipe-rolling plant, and I was admitted to school No. 27.
Back in Ukraine, I started going to the House of Folk Art in the city of Stalino, present-day Donetsk, I even got into the group of the best pioneers who were entrusted to welcome the delegates of the First All-Union Congress of Stakhanovites and shock workers - Alexei Stakhanov, Peter Krivonos, Pasha Angelina to the Artyom Theater … said who we want to become when we grow up. An engineer, a miner, a combine operator, a doctor … And I said that I dream of being an artist. This is the role I got! Hearing these words, the audience laughed approvingly, but I, emboldened, added a remark not from the script: "And I will definitely be!" Then there was applause. The first in my life …
Although I got on the stage even earlier. Grisha's older brother worked as an electrician in the Postyshev Culture Park in Stalino and took me with him to a performance by the Meyerhold Theater, who had come on tour from Moscow. We were standing backstage, and then I lost sight of Grisha. I was confused for a second and even a little scared - it’s dark around! Suddenly I see my brother in front with a lantern in his hands. Well, I went to him. It turned out that I was walking across the stage, and the artists were playing around! Some guy grabbed me by the ear and dragged me backstage: "What are you doing here? Who let you in?"
- Was it Vsevolod Emilievich himself?
- If! Director's assistant …
In Taganrog, I went to the drama club of the Stalin Palace of Culture, where I was noticed by the director of the city theater, who was looking for the performer of the role of Damis in Tartuffe. So I started playing with adults, professional artists. Then I was introduced to a couple of performances - "The Silver Fall", "Guilty Without Guilt", the work book was opened … And this at fourteen! There was only one difficulty: I studied in the Ukrainian school for seven years and did not know Russian very well. But he did it!
Meanwhile, in 1935, a new building for the regional drama theater was built in Rostov-on-Don. Outwardly, it resembled … a huge caterpillar tractor. A grandiose building with a hall for two thousand seats! The troupe was headed by the great Yuri Zavadsky, who brought with him from Moscow Vera Maretskaya, Rostislav Plyatt, Nikolai Mordvinov. Yuri Alexandrovich went with master classes in the region and at the same time recruited children to a studio school at the theater. Visited Zavadsky and Taganrog. Something I attracted the attention of the master. He asked: "Young man, would you like to learn to be an artist?" I almost choked with delight!
I arrived in Rostov and was horrified to see how many guys and girls dream of going to drama school. Even from Moscow and Leningrad they were eager to see Zavadsky! Then I tried to pull myself together and thought: since I got into a fight, I must go all the way, pass the exams. He crossed himself three times and went. I read poems by Pushkin, Yesenin and Nadson. Maybe this recruitment made an impression on the teachers and actors who were sitting in the selection committee, but they took me. As well as Seryozha Bondarchuk, who came from Yeisk. We then lived with him in the same room, went to classes together, played in performances. We were also paid five rubles a fee for participating in the crowd!
Dovzhenko's student
- But you, Nikolai Lukyanovich, did not finish your studies, after the third year you left for Kiev?
- This is the next plot twist.
In April 1941, two men came to our theater, sat at rehearsals, selected a group of young actors and took turns taking pictures of them. I was also snapped several times, asking me to portray different emotions in front of the camera. They took off and left. I forgot about the visitors. And in May, a telegram arrives: "Rostov School of Zpt to Nikolai Dupak, pt. Please come to Kiev urgently pt. Test of the role of Andriya, pt. Film" Taras Bulba, pt Alexander Dovzhenko."
Imagine my condition. Everything looked like a magical dream. However, the invitation became an event for the school as well. Still would! The student was called by the person who shot "Earth", "Aerograd" and "Shchors"! I had no money for the trip, but I did not hesitate for a second. If necessary, I would set off on foot from Rostov to the capital of Ukraine! Fortunately, the theater has set up a mutual aid fund for such emergencies. I borrowed the required amount, bought a plane ticket and sent off a telegram to Kiev: "Meet me."
Indeed, a personal car was waiting for me at the airport. They took me to a luxury hotel, settled in a separate room with a bathroom (I only saw in films that people live so luxuriously!), They said: "Rest, we'll go to the studio in a couple of hours." At "Ukrfilm" I was taken to a man with a hoe in his hands, who was doing something in the garden. "Alexander Petrovich, this is an actor from Rostov for the role of Andriy." He carefully looked into my eyes and held out his palm: "Dovzhenko." I answered: "Dupak. Mykola".
And the conversation began. We circled the garden discussing a future film. More precisely, the director told how he was going to shoot and what was required of my hero. "Have you noticed: when the Cossacks die, in one case they curse the enemy, and in the other they glorify the brotherhood?" Then Dovzhenko told me to read something out loud. I asked: "Can I" Sleep "Shevchenko? Having received consent, he began:
Everyone has their share
ї I wide path:
To that ruin, to ruinu, That unseen eye
Over the edge of the light of the gap …"
Well, and so on. Alexander Petrovich listened for a long time, attentively, did not interrupt. Then he called the second director, told me to make up, cut my hair "like a potty" and take me to the set for auditions. We shot several takes. Of course, I was not the only contender for the role, but they approved me.
The filming was planned to start with a scene in which Andriy meets a lady. Three hundred people were called to the crowd. Can you imagine the scale of the picture?
- And who was supposed to play the rest of the roles?
- Taras - Ambrose Buchma, chief director of the Kiev Franko Drama Theater and a wonderful actor, Ostap - Boris Andreev, who was gaining popularity, who starred in Dovzhenko's "Shchors".
It's a pity that my collaboration with these outstanding masters was short.
- Well, yes, the war …
- German planes flew insolently over the very rooftops! After the first air raid, I left the hotel and took the tram to the film studio. On the way I saw a bombed-out Jewish market, the first killed. At noon, Molotov spoke on the radio and reported what Kiev already knew: about the treacherous attack of Hitler's Germany on the Soviet Union. Then Dovzhenko gathered a film crew for a rally and announced that the film "Taras Bulba" would be filmed in a year, not two, as originally planned. Like, let's make such a gift to the Red Army.
But it soon became clear that this plan could not be realized either. When we arrived at the shooting a day later, the extras, in which the soldiers participated, were gone. There were more important things to do than cinema …
The bombing of Kiev continued, and a stream of refugees from the western regions of Ukraine poured into the city. They put extra beds in my room. They started digging cracks in the studio. Do you know what this is? Basically, holes in which you can hide from bombs and shrapnel. For several more days we continued to shoot by inertia, but then everything stopped.
Guard cavalryman
- When did you get to the front, Nikolai Lukyanovich?
- I received a telegram from Taganrog that a summons came from the recruiting office. It seemed to me more logical not to travel a thousand kilometers, but to go to the nearest Kiev military registration and enlistment office. And so he did. At first they wanted to enroll me in the infantry, but I asked to join the cavalry, explained that I knew how to handle horses, said that on the set of Taras Bulba I had been practicing horse riding for almost a month.
I was sent to Novocherkassk, where there were KUKS - cavalry courses for command personnel. We were trained to be lieutenants. The squadron commander was the country's champion Vinogradov, and the platoon was commanded by a career officer Medvedev, an example of valor and honor. We did it as it should be: combat training, dressage, horse riding, vaulting, cutting vines. Plus, of course, horse care, cleaning, feeding.
Classes were supposed to continue until January 1942, but the Germans were eager for Rostov, and we decided to plug the hole. We were thrown closer to the front, we searched for the enemy on horseback for two days. The forward patrol ran into motorcyclists, our commander, Colonel Artemyev, ordered the attack. It turned out that there were not only motorcycles, but also tanks … We were crushed, I was wounded in the throat, in a semi-conscious consciousness I grabbed the horse's mane, and Orsik carried me for eleven kilometers to the Kalmius River, where the field hospital was located. I had an operation, a tube was inserted until the wound healed.
For that battle, I received the first combat award, and KUKS was taken away from the front line, ordered to go to Pyatigorsk on their own to continue their studies there. It took several days to get there. The winter of 1941 was harsh, even in the Mineralnye Vody area, where it is usually relatively warm in December, with severe frosts. We were fed average, the mood was the same, not too happy. We knew that the battles were going on near Moscow, and were eager for the front line …
In the evening we return to the barracks after dinner. The company commander commands: "Sing!" And we have no time for songs. We are silent and continue to walk. "Rota, run! Sing!" Let's run. But we are silent. "Stop! Lie down! Beat your bellies - forward!" And rain pours down from above, slush and liquid mud underfoot. "Sing along!" We crawl. But we are silent …
And so - for an hour and a half in a row.
- Who overpowered whom in the end?
- Of course, commander. They sang how cute they are. You must be able to obey. This is the army …
After graduating from college, we were sent through Moscow to the Bryansk front. There the horse saved me again. In the area of Bezhin meadow, which everyone knows thanks to Ivan Turgenev, we came under mortar fire. One charge exploded right under the Cavalier's belly. He took the blow on himself and collapsed dead, but there was not a scratch on me, only the head and the Hungarian were cut by shrapnel. True, I did not avoid a shell shock: I practically stopped hearing and spoke poorly. Apparently, the facial nerve was hooked, and diction was disturbed. By that time, I was already in command of a cavalry reconnaissance platoon. And what kind of scout is without hearing and speech? The regiment commander Evgeny Korbus treated me well, in a paternal way - I started as an adjutant with him, so I sent him not to the front-line hospital, but to Moscow, to a specialized clinic.
I was amazed at the sight of an almost empty capital. Military patrols and marching soldiers periodically met in the streets, and civilians were extremely rare. They treated me in different ways, tried everything, I started to speak little by little, but I still couldn't hear well. They wrote out a hearing aid, I learned to use it and got used to the idea that it was not destiny to return to the front. And then a miracle happened, one might say. One evening I left the clinic and went to Red Square. There was a legend among the people that Stalin worked at night in the Kremlin and the light in his window could be seen from GUM. So I decided to take a look. The patrol did not let me walk around the square, but when I was already leaving, the song "Get up, the country is huge!" Suddenly burst out of the speakers. And I heard her! Even goosebumps ran …
So the rumor returned. They began to prepare me for discharge. And Yevgeny Korbus, my commander, sending them to Moscow for treatment, ordered them to find wind instruments in the capital and bring them to the unit. Yevgeny Leonidovich said: "Mykola, well, judge for yourself, what kind of cavalry is without an orchestra? I want the lads to go on the attack with music. Like in the movie" We are from Kronstadt. You are an artist, you will find it. " The regiment knew that before the war I studied at the theater school and started acting with Alexander Dovzhenko, although during my service I did not participate in a single concert. I decided: we will win, then we will remember peaceful professions, but for now we are military and must bear this cross.
But the commander's order is sacred. I went to the Moscow City Committee of the Komsomol, I say: so and so, help, brothers. The request was treated responsibly. They began to ring up orchestras and various musical groups until they found what they needed in one of the fire departments. The instruments lay there idle, there was no one to play them, since the musicians had signed up as volunteers and left to beat the enemy. The city committee gave me an official letter, according to which I received thirteen pipes of different sizes and sounds, took them first to the Paveletsky railway station, and then further to the Bryansk front. You can write a separate chapter about this trip, but I will not be distracted now. The main thing is that I completed the assignment of Evgeny Korbus and delivered the wind instruments to our regiment near Yelets.
I remember that under the "March of the Cavalry" we walked in the western direction, and a column of German prisoners wandered dejectedly to the east. The picture was spectacular, cinematic, I even regretted that no one was filming it.
Rybalko's tank army broke through then, in December 1942, the front near Kantemirovka, and our corps rushed into the gap that had formed. So to speak, ahead, on a dashing horse … We swooped in on a large railway junction Valuyki, stopping there trains with food and weapons, which were going to the units of Field Marshal Paulus surrounded by Stalingrad. Apparently, the Germans did not expect such a deep raid along their rear. For Valuyki, the 6th Cavalry Corps was given a guards name, and I was awarded the Order of the Red Banner.
In January 1943, new bloody battles began, the squadron commander was mortally wounded, and I took his place. There were about two hundred and fifty personnel under my command, including a machine-gun platoon and a battery of 45-millimeter cannons. And I was barely twenty-one years old. I still wonder how I did it …
Near Merefa (this is already in the Kharkiv region), we encountered the Viking division that had been transferred there. They were seasoned fighters, did not retreat, fought to the death. Merefa passed from hand to hand three times. There I was again wounded, I was sent from the medical battalion to the hospital in Taranovka. The documents went ahead, but I was delayed, my horse breeder Kovalenko decided to personally take the commander. It saved us. The Germans broke into Taranovka and destroyed everyone - doctors, nurses, wounded. My medical record will then be found among other papers, they will decide that I, too, died in the massacre, and they will send the funeral home …
Kovalenko and a Bityug named Nemets were taken to theirs. We fitted a sled behind, and I lay on it. When we approached the village, we noticed a soldier on the outskirts, probably a hundred meters away. They decided that ours, wanted to move on, and suddenly I see: the Germans! Kovalenko turned his horse around and started up with a gait, which rushed at a terrible speed. We flew through ravines, hummocks, without making out the road, just to hide from machine gun fires.
This is how the German horse saved the Soviet officer. However, the injuries to the foot and arm were serious. In addition, tuberculosis developed, I caught a bad cold while lying on a sled for six hours. First, I was sent to Michurinsk, a week later I was transferred to the Burdenko clinic in Moscow. I lay there for another ten days. Then there were Kuibyshev, Chapaevsk, Aktyubinsk … I understood: if there was a chance to return to duty, they would not be taken that far. I was lying around in hospitals, until they were discharged outright, they were given a disability of the second group …
Comrade Director
- After the war, as you intended, you returned to the acting profession?
- For twenty years he served as an artist at the Stanislavsky Theater, even tried himself as a director. And in the fall of 1963 he asked to send me to the worst theater in Moscow. Then such frank impulses were in vogue, while the reputation of the Theater of Drama and Comedy on Taganka left much to be desired. Squabbles, intrigues …
This is how I got into this theater. At a meeting of the troupe, he honestly said that I do not consider myself a good artist, and that I will work as a director conscientiously. He persuaded Yuri Lyubimov to take the place of the chief director.
One of our first joint projects in a new place was an evening with the participation of poets of different years - both honored front-line soldiers, and very young Evgeny Yevtushenko, Andrei Voznesensky. It was held in 1964 on the eve of the next anniversary of the Victory and it was agreed that everyone would read war poems.
The first to speak was Konstantin Simonov.
That longest day of the year
With its cloudless weather
He gave us a common misfortune
For all, for all four years.
She so pressed the mark
And laid so many on the ground, That twenty years and thirty years
The living cannot believe that they are alive …"
Then Alexander Tvardovsky took the floor:
I was killed near Rzhev, In a nameless swamp
In the fifth company, On the left, With a brutal raid.
I didn't hear the break
And I did not see that flash, -
Exactly into the abyss from the cliff -
And no bottom, no tires …"
We read for two hours. The evening turned out to be emotional and poignant. We began to think about how to preserve it, turning it into a unique performance, unlike any other.
- As a result, the idea of the poetic performance "The Fallen and the Living" was born?
- Absolutely! Lyubimov asked me: "Can you make the Eternal Flame burn on the stage? This will give everything a completely different sound." I remembered my old connections with Moscow firefighters, who at one time had lent wind instruments to our cavalry regiment. What if they help out again? I went to their chief, explained Lyubimov's idea, said that it was a tribute to the memory of those who died in the war. The firefighter was a front-line soldier, he understood everything without further ado …
Of course, we ensured safety, took the necessary precautions: after all, there was an open fire on the stage, and next to it was a hall filled with people. Just in case, they placed fire extinguishers and buckets of sand. Fortunately, none of this was needed.
I invited the fire department to the premiere and made me sit in the best seats. The performance began with the words: "The play is dedicated to the great Soviet people, who bore the brunt of the war on their shoulders, withstood and won." A minute of silence was announced, the audience stood up, and the Eternal Flame lit up in complete silence.
Poems by Semyon Gudzenko, Nikolai Aseev, Mikhail Kulchitsky, Konstantin Simonov, Olga Bergholts, Pavel Kogan, Bulat Okudzhava, Mikhail Svetlov, and many other poets sounded …
- Vladimir Vysotsky including?
- Especially for the performance, Volodya wrote several songs - "Mass graves", "We rotate the earth", "Stars", but then he performed only one song from the stage - "Soldiers of the Center" group.
The soldier is ready for anything, -
The soldier is always healthy
And dust, like from carpets, We're out of the way.
And don't stop
And do not change legs, -
Our faces shine
Boots shine!"
I know that many are still amazed at how Vysotsky, who had never fought a day, wrote poetry and songs like a seasoned front-line soldier. And for me this fact is not surprising. You need to know the biography of Vladimir Semenovich. His father, a career communications officer, went through the entire Great Patriotic War, met Victory in Prague, was awarded many military orders. Uncle Vysotsky is also a colonel, but an artilleryman. Even my mother, Nina Maksimovna, served in the headquarters of the internal affairs. Volodya grew up among the military, saw and knew a lot. Plus, of course, God's gift, which cannot be replaced by anything.
Once Vysotsky came into my office with a guitar: "I want to show a new song …" And the lines sounded, which, I am sure, everyone heard:
Why is everything wrong? It seems like everything is as always:
The same sky is blue again
The same forest, the same air and the same water, Only he did not return from the battle …"
I sat with my head lowered to hide the tears that had come, and massaged my leg, which began to hurt in severe frost. Volodya finished the song and asked: "What about your leg, Nikolai Lukyanovich?" Why, I say, the old wound is aching from the cold.
Ten days later, Vysotsky brought me imported boots with fur, which were never found in Soviet stores. He was such a person … Then I donated these shoes as an exhibit to the Vladimir Semenovich Museum in Krasnodar.
Vysotsky was born in January 38th, Valery Zolotukhin - on June 21st, 41st, Nikolai Gubenko - two months later in the Odessa catacombs, under bombing … They are children of the scorched generation, "wounded". War from the first days of life entered their blood and genes.
- Who, if not them, was to play "The Fallen and the Living".
- That performance is still considered one of the most poignant stage works dedicated to the Great Patriotic War. There was no room for excessive sentimentality and pathos in it, no one tried to squeeze a tear out of the viewer, there were no directorial innovations, a minimum of theatrical techniques were used, there were no decorations - only the stage, the actor and the Eternal Flame.
We have played the show over a thousand times. That's a lot! They took "The Fallen and the Living" on tour, organized special trips like front-line brigades.
And so it happened that the Eternal Flame on the Taganka stage caught fire on November 4, 1965, and the memorial with the tomb of the Unknown Soldier in the Alexander Garden near the Kremlin wall appeared only in December 66th. And they began to announce the Minute of Silence throughout the country later than we did.
- Probably more important is not who started first, but what followed.
- Undoubtedly. But I'm talking about the role that art can play in people's lives.
- How did the play "The Dawns Here Are Quiet" appeared in Taganka's repertoire?
- If I am not mistaken, at the end of 1969, Boris Glagolin, who worked for us as a director, brought to the theater the issue of the magazine "Yunost" with the story of Boris Vasiliev published in it. By the way, did you know that after leaving the encirclement in 1941, Vasiliev studied at the regimental cavalry school?
I read "Dawns", I really liked it. I told Yuri Lyubimov, began to convince him, did not lag behind until he agreed to try …
To work on the play, I brought in a young artist David Borovsky from Kiev. At the film studio, which already bore the name of Alexander Dovzhenko, I starred in the film "Pravda" and on a free evening I went to the Lesia Ukrainka Theater for "Days of the Turbins" directed by Meyerhold's student Leonid Varpakhovsky. The performance was good, but the scenery made a special impression on me. I asked who made them. They say we have a painter Dava Borovsky. We met, I offered him the position of chief artist of our theater, which was vacant. Taganka already thundered all over the country, but Borovsky did not immediately agree, asked to help him with housing in Moscow. I promised and did, "knocked out" an apartment from the then head of the Moscow City Executive Committee Promyslov.
So a new talented artist appeared on Taganka, and the performance based on the story of Boris Vasiliev became an event in the life of the theatrical capital.
Stanislav Rostotsky came to the premiere of "Dawn" and got the idea to make a feature film. He made a wonderful picture, which viewers still watch with great pleasure. Stas and I are fighting friends, fellow soldiers, he served as a private in my 6th Guards Cavalry Corps. He is also a war invalid. As, by the way, and Grigory Chukhrai. We fought with Grisha on different fronts, met and made friends after the Victory. I played in almost all of Chukhrai's films - "Forty-first", "Clear Sky", "Life is Beautiful" …
Both he and Rostotsky were talented directors, wonderful people with whom I had long-term good relations. It is a pity, they have not been around for a long time, both passed away in 2001. But I stayed in this world …
Veteran of the Great Patriotic War, Guards Lieutenant of the Cavalry, Honored Artist of the Russian Federation and Ukraine Nikolai Dupak at the opening of the exhibition "Victory" at the State Historical Museum, which presents documents, photographs and items related to the Great Patriotic War. April 24, 2015. Photo: Mikhail Japaridze / TASS Actress Galina Kastrova and actor and former director of the Taganka Theater Nikolai Dupak at the opening of an exhibition dedicated to materials on front-line theaters and front-line theater brigades, presented to the 70th anniversary of the Victory. April 17, 2015. Photo: Artem Geodakyan / TASSR Head of the Department of Culture of the city of Moscow Alexander Kibovsky and veteran of the Great Patriotic War, Guards Lieutenant of the cavalry, Honored Artist of the Russian Federation and Ukraine Nikolai Dupak (left to right) during the opening of the architectural and art exhibition "Victory Train" on Tverskoye boulevard. May 8, 2015. Photo: Sergey Savostyanov / TASS
Honored Veteran
- To tell the young about the past.
- Yes, I'm not sitting at home. They are constantly calling for meetings, creative evenings. Recently I even flew to Sakhalin …
- On May 9, as you celebrate, Nikolai Lukyanovich?
- For the last forty years, maybe more, I have been invited to Red Square, and I, together with other veterans, watched the military parade from the rostrum. But last year, for the first time in a long time, they were not invited. And this too. It turns out that someone showed concern for the elderly, who, you see, find it difficult to withstand the stress associated with holiday events. Thank you, of course, for such attention, but we were asked about this? For example, I still drive a car myself, in mid-April I took part in an action called "Library Night", read poetry on Triumfalnaya Square near the monument to Vladimir Mayakovsky …
And the parades now seem to be going to invite those who are not older than eighty. But if we consider that the country celebrated the 71st anniversary of the Victory, it turns out that in May 45 these veterans turned nine years at the most. However, I begin to grumble again, although I promised not to grumble about life.
As they say, if only there was no war. We can handle the rest …
Song about my foreman
I remember the military enlistment office:
Not good for the landing - that's it, brother, -
like you, there is no problem …"
And then - laughter:
what kind of soldier are you?
You - so immediately to the medical battalion!..
And from me - such a soldier, like everyone else.
And in war as in war, and for me - and at all, for me - doubly.
The tunic on the back dried up to the body.
I lagged behind, failed in the ranks, but once in one battle -
I don’t know what - I liked the foreman.
The trench lads are noisy:
"Student, how much is twice two?"
Hey, bachelor, is it true - was Tolstoy the count?
And who is the Evan wife? …"
But then my foreman intervened:
"Go to sleep - you're not a saint, and in the morning - a fight."
And only once when I got up
to his full height, he told me:
Get down!.. - and then a few words
without cases. -
Why two holes in my head!"
And suddenly he asked: What about Moscow, is there really at home
five floors?.."
There is a flurry above us. He groaned.
And the shard cooled down in it.
And I could not answer his question.
He lay down in the ground - in five steps, in five nights and in five dreams -
facing west and kicking east.
