10 years ago, in distant Alaska, the voice that lifted the spirits of millions of people during the Second World War was forever silent. Anna Marley! The Song of the Partisans, composed by her, became the second anthem for France after the Marseillaise. But few knew then that this anthem was of Russian origin …
Tens of thousands of our compatriots during the Second World War fought against Nazism in France. Soviet soldiers who escaped from captivity in Western German concentration camps, and the children of the first wave of emigrants, who, unlike many other Russian exiles, did not want to believe the tales about Hitler the savior, did not want revenge on their homeland for the family tragedy. For them, in the words of General Anton Denikin, there was no longer "neither the white army, nor the red army, but only the Russian army" … They fought in the Foreign Legion, in partisan detachments - poppies, in underground anti-fascist organizations.
Among the Russian heroes of France, along with Nikolai Vyrubov, Nikolai Turoverov, Vika Obolenskaya, Boris Wilde, Elizaveta Kuzmina-Karavaeva, Stepan Kotsur, is a beautiful and talented woman named Anna Marley (née Betulinskaya). She did not hold a weapon in her hands - her song became her weapon.
In Russia, engulfed in revolutionary frenzy, her loved ones died, the family was trampled and humiliated. And Anna did not remember Russia either: she was taken away very little. But all her life she proudly called herself Russian and never blamed her homeland for what happened …
The same age as the revolution, Anna was born on October 30, 1917 in Petrograd. Her father, Yuri Betulinsky, was related to Mikhail Lermontov, Pyotr Stolypin and Nikolai Berdyaev. Mother Maria Mikhailovna, nee Alferaki, came from a family of Greek aristocrats Alferaki, who settled in Taganrog back in 1763. Anna's maternal great-grandfather was the famous ataman Matvey Platov, a hero of the Patriotic War of 1812. Ataman Platov was the first military man to appreciate the advantages of partisan warfare. And it is about the partisans that his great-granddaughter will write her famous song …
The birth of her daughter Anna was a joyous event in the family. However, joy suddenly gave way to horror: in a matter of days the world turned upside down … The revolutionaries who burst into the house were looking for jewelry and money everywhere, even tried to search the blankets in little Anna's cradle, but they were stopped by a nanny, a Nizhny Novgorod peasant Natasha Muratova. All savings and savings of the family were confiscated. In 1918, the head of the Betulinsky family, Yuri, and uncle Mikhail Veselkin, were shot. Mother, a hereditary noblewoman, was kept in prison, in a dirty cell with prostitutes and thieves. And at home the baby was starving. Maria Mikhailovna threw herself at the feet of the commissars and begged to let her go to her daughter. In the end, the commissar took pity and, under cover of night, freed Betulinskaya. At home, Maria and her nanny decided to flee. We changed into peasant sheepskin coats and scarves, wrapped up the children. Family necklaces and rings were sewn into the lining of the clothes. And we went on foot to Finland, through forests and swamps … It was already within easy reach to the border, but these days an order was received: not to let refugees cross the border. The Finn border guard saved him: he took pity and let them pass.
After living for some time in Finland, the Betulinskys left for France. We settled in the south, in the town of Menton. “The Riviera is like Crimea. But less beautiful,”Anna Yurievna recalled. The nanny got a job as a housekeeper and always took Anya with her. Therefore, since childhood, Betulinskaya knew how to perfectly clean windows and wash floors.“The nanny taught me how to live how it should be. Rely only on yourself, your strength, your work,”Anna Yurievna admitted when she was old.
Anya and her sister entered the Russian school in Nice, organized by the Grand Duke Andrei Vladimirovich. All the students turned out to be small victims of the great tragedy of a huge country. Many had their fathers shot. Having gone through a lot during their young years, beggars, frightened, found themselves in a foreign country and among strangers, in this school they finally found happiness and peace. They could speak Russian, celebrate Easter and Christmas and not be afraid of anything else.
Composer Sergei Prokofiev discerned talent in little Betulinskaya and began to give her music lessons. And once at Christmas the nanny gave Anya a guitar … The first chords were shown to her by an emigrant Cossack. Who knew that the gift would be fateful for Anna?
Matured Anya has become an indispensable helper for her mother and sister. She sewed hats, collected jasmine for a perfume factory, nursed children - she tried with all her might to pull the family out of poverty. And she secretly dreamed of becoming an actress.
The first step towards the dream was entering the ballet school in Menton. But it was necessary to conquer new heights. And, after graduating from school, Anna went to Paris, to the alluring light of the Champs Elysees and the sounds of the Montmartre accordion. On the recommendation of the patron saint of a children's school in Nice, Grand Duke Andrei, Betulinskaya entered the Parisian ballet studio of his wife Matilda Kshesinskaya. In parallel, Anna began to come up with her own dance numbers.
In 1937, Betulinskaya won the title "Vice-Miss Russia" at the beauty contest "Miss Russia" (it was in emigration that they first began to choose the main Russian beauties). Then not only the appearance of the applicant was assessed, but also the charm, culture, manners and moral principles. The jury consisted of the most famous persons of the emigration: Serge Lifar, Konstantin Korovin, Vasily Nemirovich-Danchenko, Nadezhda Teffi. Although for Anna this victory was not the goal. And she did not at all want to enjoy the fame she had won, bathe in luxury and arouse admiration at social events. She was still driven by her dream of music. Russian music. And the guitar remained her main companion.
The surname "Betulinskaya" was difficult to pronounce for the French, it took them to come up with a beautiful pseudonym. Anna opened the telephone directory and chose the first random surname - "Marley".
It is Anna Marley who is the recognized founder of such a popular genre as art song. For the first time the public heard it in the famous Russian cabaret in Paris - in "Scheherazade". "Something like a large grotto with intimate shaded corners, with multi-colored lanterns, carpets, enchanting music," Anna wrote in the collection of her memoirs "The Way Home". - Garsons in Circassians, in operetta costumes with flaming kebabs on skewers. The dazzling audience poured down until dawn. I performed in an elegant, medieval dress (no one would have thought that the money for it was collected by centime). Success!"
Foxtrot, champagne and flirty looks. And in the distance the glow of a terrible fire was already igniting … These were the last dances, the last smiles, the last songs. In June 1940, the Nazis took over Paris. In the Parisian streets, accordions and barrel organs fell silent. Only the rumble of shells, bombing and the rattling of cannon fire. And the silent fear on the faces of the townspeople. Many are fleeing to escape arrest. Anna at that time was married to a Dutchman, together they left for London.
However, salvation did not come there either: the Germans bombed the British capital mercilessly. After another air attack, Anna picked up the wounded and killed. During the war, she also experienced personal grief: the loss of a child and a divorce from her husband. But Marley found the strength to live and fight again. She worked in the cafeteria, looked after the wounded in hospitals, wrote poetry, fairy tales, plays, scripts for films. And she sang constantly - to hospital patients and nurses, taxi drivers, soldiers and sailors. To support everyone with a song in this difficult time.
It was 1941. One day she got hold of a London newspaper. On the front page there was news of bloody battles for Smolensk and Russian partisan detachments. All genius is born suddenly. The rhythm of the new song seemed to descend on Anna from somewhere above: she heard the decisive steps of the partisans making their way through the forest path through the snow. And the same cherished lines began to come to mind: "From forest to forest, the road goes along the cliff, And there it floats hastily for about a month …". And so the song about fearless folk avengers was born.
Anna performed it on BBC radio. And once the "March of the Partisans" was heard by a prominent figure of the French Resistance Emmanuel d'Astier de la Vigeria, who happened to be in London in those days. At the same time, the headquarters of the French Resistance headed by Charles de Gaulle was located in London. La Vigeria immediately understood: this song should become the anthem of the fighting France, to raise the spirit of the occupied nation. At his request, the writer Maurice Druon and the journalist Joseph Kessel created the French lyrics for the song (Ami, entends-tu Le vol noir des corbeaux Sur nos plaines? - this is how the song began in the French version). Thanks to radio in France, the song was heard by the poppies. Whistling the melody of this song, they transmitted signals to each other. Whistling "Song of the Partisans" - that means his own.
Spring 1945. Anna Marley is finally in liberated Paris. The capital of France is jubilant. The Champs Elysees are buried in flowers and smiles. Sitting on the roof of the car, Marley commands the chorus of the crowd, which loudly sings "Song of the Partisans." A flurry of popularity falls on the Russian emigrant. In kiosks - magazines and newspapers with her photographs. "Her song is sung all over France!", "She wrote the anthem of the French Resistance!" - headlines are full of. She receives congratulations from de Gaulle himself: "With gratitude to Madame Marley, who made her talent a weapon for France." Anna Marly-Betulinskaya became one of the few women awarded the Order of the Legion of Honor. Marshal Bernard Montgomery confessed that this song was sung by his soldiers in the desert. Anna is invited to perform at a grandiose Victory concert at the Gaumont Palace on the same stage with Edith Piaf. The Russian singer sings not only the famous "Song of the Partisans", but also "Polyushko-Pole", "Katyusha" and other Russian songs. In the dressing room, Edith Piaf heard Anna hum softly to her guitar, her "Three-Bar Song". “Did you write this? Listen, you are a great poet. I take this song right away,”said Piaf and has since performed a song written by Marley.
After the war, she was invited to give concerts in different countries of the world. With a guitar, she traveled half the world: all of France, Great Britain, Belgium, Holland, Spain, Italy, Mexico, Peru and even visited South Africa. In Brazil, she met her fate - a Russian emigrant, engineer Yuri Smirnov. It turned out that he, too, was from Petrograd, grew up, like her, on Shpalernaya and also walked with his nanny in the Tauride Garden!
Of course, she dreamed of seeing Russia. But she was not allowed to go home: she was an “emigrant”. She recalled how the military leaders of the four victorious countries were present during a grand concert in London. They all thanked the artists. And only Georgy Zhukov did not shake hands with her …
After 10 years, she still visited Moscow and Leningrad. “My homeland is distant and close … Homeland, I don’t know you. But I warm myself with this word …”- as Anna will sing in one of her songs. She had only two weeks, and most of all she wanted to just wander the streets and breathe the air of Russia … To breathe it before a new long separation.
Anna Marley spent her last years with her husband in the United States. In Jordanville, much reminded of Russia: fields, low hills, birches … And golden domes in the distance: the Holy Trinity Monastery was not far away.
And at the same time, her name returned to Russia. Director Tatyana Karpova (author of the film "Russian Muse of the French Resistance") and journalist Asiya Khayretdinova during these years were lucky enough to catch Anna Marley alive, record her speech and capture her image. The Russkiy Put publishing house has published a collection of poems by Anna Marley, The Way Home. Anna Yurievna donated her priceless gifts to the Russian Cultural Foundation.
The Russian heroine of France died on February 15, 2006, on the day of the Meeting, in the city of Palmer, Alaska.
Without Anna Marley's name, the pantheon of World War II heroes would be incomplete. After all, this most terrible war in the history of mankind was won not only by those who went to the enemy with weapons in their hands, but also by those who waited and prayed, inspired faith and raised them to battle.
