More than a century has passed since his birth, but rumors about the controversial personality of Chapai, galloping on horseback, about his life and death still continue to circulate.
“Moskvichka” recalls the most interesting facts about Vasily Chapaev
1. Chapaev (and he himself signed as Chepaev) is not his real name. At his baptism he was registered as Gavrilov. He inherited the nickname “Chapai”, or rather “Chepai”, from his father, and he from his grandfather Stepan. When my grandfather worked as a senior worker in a team of loaders, he constantly urged the workers on, shouting: “Chepai, chapai!” The word meant “chain,” that is, “take.” The nickname “Chapai” remained with Stepan. The descendants were given the nickname “Chapaevs”, which later became the official surname.
2. Chapaev was almost the first of the Red commanders to move to a car. It was technique that was Chapaev’s real weakness. At first the division commander liked the American Stever, then the car seemed shaky to him. They sent a bright red, luxurious Packard to replace it. However, this vehicle was not suitable for combat in the steppe. Therefore, under Chapaev, two Fords were always on duty, easily squeezing out up to 70 versts per hour off-road.
When his subordinates did not go on duty, the commander raged: “Comrade Khvesin! I will complain about you to the Central Election Commission! You give me an order and demand that I carry it out, but I cannot walk along the entire front, it is impossible for me to ride a horse. I demand that one motorcycle with a sidecar, two cars, and four trucks for transporting supplies be immediately sent for the division and for the cause of the revolution!”
Chapaev selected the drivers personally. One of them, Nikolai Ivanov, was almost forcibly taken from Chapaev to Moscow and made the personal driver of Lenin’s sister, Anna Ulyanova-Elizarova.
3. It is interesting that Chapaev’s personal life, contrary to all the jokes, did not work out. From his first marriage to Pelageya Metlina, Chapai left three children. They lived together for six years, until Vasily Ivanovich went to war, and Pelageya, without hesitation, went with the children to a neighboring conductor. Having learned about this, Chapaev wanted to divorce his cheating wife, but changed his mind and took the children from their mother.
He soon became friends with Pelageya Kamishkertseva, the widow of Pyotr Kamishkertsev, a friend of Chapaev (Chapaev and Kamishkertsev promised each other that if one of the two was killed, the survivor would take care of his friend’s family). But this civil marriage was not happy for Vasily Chapev. Kamishkertseva cheated on him with the head of the artillery depot Georgy Zhivolozhinov. He learned about this shortly before his death.
In the last year of his life, Chapaev also had affairs with a certain Tanka-Cossack (the daughter of a Cossack colonel, with whom he was forced to part with under moral pressure from the Red Army) and the wife of Commissar Furmanov, Anna Steshenko, which led to an acute conflict with Furmanov and was the reason for Furmanov’s recall from the division shortly before Chapaev’s death.
4. One cannot help but say about Chapaev’s “friends” who became heroes of Soviet jokes.
The prototype of the famous “Anka the machine gunner” was Maria Andreevna Popova. After the end of the civil war, she completed diplomatic courses and was sent with Alexandra Kollontai to Sweden. Then she worked for a long time in pre-war Germany, knew Hitler, Himmler, and Bormann well personally. She died at a ripe old age in 1981.
“Petka” - Pyotr Semenovich Isaev. He died in 1920 under unclear circumstances, leaving behind a wife and two children. In 1934, after the release of the film “Chapaev,” his wife, seeing how on-screen Petka was having an affair with a machine gunner in the film, could not bear the shame and hanged herself. Relatives who tried to dissuade her from such a step talked about fiction, but the persuasion had no effect. Before her death, she said that her beloved had been slandered. The daughter did not recover from her mother’s suicide and also died soon after. There was a son left, who since then hated everything that was connected with the name of Chapaev.
By the way, in the 30-40s. Millions of Soviet girls and boys dreamed of becoming Ankas and Petkas, like today's Hollywood stars.
5. Chapaev did not learn to read and write, but tried to get a higher military education. It is known what Vasily Ivanovich displayed in his application form for applicants to the accelerated course of the Academy of the General Staff, filled out by him personally. Question: “Are you an active member of the party? What was your activity like?”, answer: “I belong.” Formed seven regiments of the Red Army." Question: “What awards do you have?” Answer: “Knight of St. George of four degrees. The watch was also presented.” Question: “What general education did you receive?” Answer: “Self-taught.”
And finally, the most interesting thing is the conclusion of the certification commission: “Enroll as having revolutionary combat experience. Almost illiterate."
Vasily Chapaev was born on February 9, 1887 in the small village of Budaika, in the Kazan province. Today this place is part of Cheboksary - the capital of Chuvashia. Chapaev was Russian by origin - he was the sixth child in a large peasant family. When it was time for Vasily to study, his parents moved to Balakovo (then modern Samara province).
Early years
The boy was sent to a school assigned to the church parish. Father wanted Vasily to become a priest. However, his son's subsequent life had nothing to do with the church. In 1908, Vasily Chapaev was drafted into the army. He was sent to Ukraine, to Kyiv. For some unknown reason, the soldier was returned to the reserves before the end of his service.
The blank spots in the biography of the famous revolutionary are associated with the banal lack of verified documents. In Soviet historiography, the official point of view was that Vasily Chapaev was actually kicked out of the army because of his views. But there is still no documentary evidence of this theory.
First World War
In peacetime, Vasily Chapaev worked as a carpenter and lived with his family in the city of Melekess. In 1914, the First World War began, and the soldier who was in the reserve was again drafted into the tsarist army. Chapaev ended up in the 82nd Infantry Division, which fought the Austrians and Germans in Galicia and Volhynia. At the front he was wounded and promoted to senior non-commissioned officer.
Due to his breakdown, Chapaev was sent to a rear hospital in Saratov. There the non-commissioned officer met the February Revolution. Having recovered, Vasily Ivanovich decided to join the Bolsheviks, which he did on September 28, 1917. His military talents and skills gave him the best recommendation in the conditions of the approaching
In the Red Army
At the end of 1917, Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev was appointed commander of the reserve regiment located in Nikolaevsk. Today this city is called Pugachev. At first, the former officer of the tsarist army organized the local Red Guard, which the Bolsheviks established after they came to power. At first there were only 35 people in his squad. The Bolsheviks were joined by the poor, flour-milling peasants, etc. In January 1918, the Chapaevites fought with local kulaks who were dissatisfied with the October Revolution. Gradually the detachment grew and grew thanks to effective propaganda and military victories.
This military formation very soon left its native barracks and went to fight the whites. Here, in the lower reaches of the Volga, the offensive of the forces of General Kaledin developed. Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev took part in the campaign against this. The key battle began near the city of Tsaritsyn, where party organizer Stalin was also located at that time.
Pugachev brigade
After the Kaledin offensive failed, the biography of Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev turned out to be connected with the Eastern Front. By the spring of 1918, the Bolsheviks controlled only the European part of Russia (and even then not all of it). In the east, starting from the left bank of the Volga, white power remained.
Chapaev fought most of all with the People's Army of KOMUCH and the Czechoslovak Corps. On May 25, he decided to rename the Red Guard units under his control into the regiment named after Stepan Razin and the regiment named after Pugachev. The new names were references to the famous leaders of popular uprisings in the Volga region in the 17th and 18th centuries. Thus, Chapaev eloquently stated that supporters of the Bolsheviks defended the rights of the lowest strata of the population of the warring country - the peasantry and workers. On August 21, 1918, his army expelled the Czechoslovak Corps from Nikolaevsk. A little later (in November), the head of the Pugachev brigade initiated the renaming of the city to Pugachev.
Fighting with the Czechoslovak Corps
In the summer, the Chapaevites found themselves for the first time on the outskirts of Uralsk, occupied by the White Czechs. Then the Red Guard had to retreat due to lack of food and weapons. But after the success in Nikolaevsk, the division found itself with ten captured machine guns and a lot of other useful requisitioned property. With this goods, the Chapaevites went to fight the People's Army of KOMUCH.
11 thousand armed supporters of the White movement broke through down the Volga in order to unite with the army of the Cossack ataman Krasnov. There were one and a half times less red ones. The proportions in comparison of weapons were approximately the same. However, this lag did not prevent the Pugachev brigade from defeating and scattering the enemy. During that risky operation, the biography of Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev became known throughout the Volga region. And thanks to Soviet propaganda, his name became known to the whole country. However, this happened after the death of the famous division commander.
In Moscow
In the fall of 1918, the Academy of the General Staff of the Red Army received its first students. Among them was Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev. The short biography of this man was full of all kinds of battles. He was responsible for many people under his command.
At the same time, he did not have any systematic education. Chapaev achieved his success in the Red Army thanks to his natural ingenuity and charisma. But now the time has come for him to complete his course at the General Staff Academy.
Chapaev's image
At the educational institution, the director amazed those around him, on the one hand, with the agility of his mind, and on the other, with his ignorance of the simplest general educational facts. For example, there is a well-known historical anecdote that says that Chapaev could not show on the map where London was located and because he simply had no idea about their existence. Perhaps this is an exaggeration, like everything connected with the myth about one of the most legendary characters of the civil war, but it is difficult to deny that the head of the Pugachev division was a typical representative of the lower classes, which, however, only benefited his image among his comrades.
Of course, in the rear calm of Moscow, such an energetic person who did not like to sit still, like Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev, languished. The brief elimination of tactical illiteracy could not deprive him of the feeling that his place as a commander was only at the front. Several times he wrote to headquarters with requests to recall him in the thick of events. Meanwhile, in February 1919, another aggravation occurred on the Eastern Front associated with Kolchak’s counteroffensive. At the end of winter, Chapaev finally went back to his native army.
Back at the front
The commander of the 4th Army, Mikhail Frunze, appointed Chapaev as head of the 25th Division, which he commanded until his death. Over the course of six months, this formation, consisting mainly of proletarian conscripts, carried out dozens of tactical operations against the whites. It was here that Chapaev revealed himself to the fullest as a military leader. In the 25th Division, he became known throughout the country thanks to his fiery speeches to the soldiers. In general, the division commander was always inseparable from his subordinates. This feature revealed the romantic nature of the Civil War, which was later praised in Soviet literature.
Vasily Chapaev, whose biography spoke of him as a typical person from the masses, was remembered by his descendants for his unbreakable connection with this very people in the person of ordinary Red Army soldiers who fought in the Volga region and the Ural steppes.
Tactician
As a tactician, Chapaev mastered several techniques, which he successfully used during the division's march to the east. A characteristic feature was that it acted in isolation from the allied units. The Chapaevites have always been in the vanguard. It was they who launched the offensive, and often finished off the enemies on their own. It is known about Vasily Chapaev that he often resorted to maneuver tactics. His division was distinguished by its efficiency and mobility. The Whites often did not keep up with her movements, even if they wanted to organize a counterattack.
Chapaev always kept a specially trained group on one of the flanks, which was supposed to deliver the decisive blow during the battle. With the help of such a maneuver, the Red Army soldiers brought chaos into the enemy ranks and surrounded their enemies. Since the fighting took place mainly in the steppe zone, the soldiers always had room for maneuver. Sometimes they took on a reckless character, but the Chapaevites were invariably lucky. In addition, their courage baffled their opponents.
Ufa operation
Chapaev never acted in a stereotyped manner. In the midst of a battle, he could give the most unexpected order, which turned the course of events upside down. For example, in May 1919, during clashes near Bugulma, the commander initiated an attack on a wide front, despite the risk of such a maneuver.
Vasily Chapaev moved tirelessly to the east. The short biography of this military leader also contains information about the successful Ufa operation, during which the future capital of Bashkiria was captured. On the night of June 8, 1919, the Belaya River was crossed. Now Ufa has become a springboard for the further advance of the Reds to the east.
Since the Chapaevites were at the forefront of the attack, having been the first to cross the Belaya, they actually found themselves surrounded. The division commander himself was wounded in the head, but continued to command, being directly among his soldiers. Next to him was Mikhail Frunze. In a stubborn battle, the Red Army recaptured street after street. It is believed that it was then that the whites decided to break their opponents with a so-called psychic attack. This episode formed the basis of one of the most famous scenes of the cult film “Chapaev”.
Death
For the victory in Ufa, Vasily Chapaev received. In the summer, he and his division defended the approaches to the Volga. The division commander became one of the first Bolsheviks to arrive in Samara. With his direct participation, this strategically important city was finally taken and cleared of the White Czechs.
By the beginning of autumn, Chapaev found himself on the banks of the Ural River. While in Lbischensk with his headquarters, he and his division were unexpectedly attacked by the White Cossacks. It was a bold, deep enemy raid organized by General Nikolai Borodin. The target of the attack was largely Chapaev himself, who turned into a painful headache for White. In the ensuing battle the division commander died.
For Soviet culture and propaganda, Chapaev became a character unique in popularity. A great contribution to the creation of this image was made by the Vasilyev brothers’ film, which was also loved by Stalin. In 1974, the house where Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev was born was turned into his museum. Numerous settlements are named after the division commander.
On February 9, 1887, the legendary division commander of the Red Army Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev was born. Nowadays, the surname “Chapaev” is more associated with the hero of numerous jokes than with the legendary commander. We decided to correct this misunderstanding and today, on Vasily Ivanovich’s birthday, we are publishing little-known facts from his biography
Chapaev was born into a poor peasant family. The parents' greatest wealth was their 9 eternally hungry children, of whom the famous division commander was the sixth. Legend has it that Vasily Ivanovich was born premature and warmed up in his father’s fur mitten on the stove. When his son grew up a little, his father sent him to the seminary, in the hope that he would become a priest.
But Chapaev’s relationship with the church did not work out. When one day the guilty Vasya was put in a wooden punishment cell in only his shirt in the bitter cold, he escaped. “My childhood was gloomy and difficult. I had to humiliate myself and starve a lot. From an early age I hung around strangers,” the division commander later recalled.
There is an opinion that Vasily Ivanovich’s family bore the surname Gavrilovs. “Chapaev” or “Chepai” was the nickname given to the division commander’s grandfather, Stepan Gavrilovich. One day they were loading logs with their comrades, and Stepan, as the eldest, constantly commanded - “Chepai, chapai!”, which meant: “take it, take it.” So it stuck to him - Chepai, and the nickname later turned into a surname.
They say that the original “Chepai” became “Chapaev” with the light hand of Dmitry Furmanov, the author of the famous novel, who decided that “it sounds better this way.” But in surviving documents from the times of the Civil War, Vasily Ivanovich appears under both options. Perhaps the name "Chapaev" appeared as a result of a typo.
The division commander's education, contrary to popular opinion, was not limited to two years of parish school. In 1918, he was enrolled in the military academy of the Red Army, where many soldiers and commanders were sent to improve their general literacy and learn strategy. According to the recollections of his classmate, the peaceful student life weighed on Chapaev: “The hell with it! I’ll leave! To come up with such nonsense - fighting people at their desks!” Two months later, he submitted a report asking to be released from this “prison” to the front.
Several stories have been preserved about Vasily Ivanovich’s stay at the academy. The first says that during a geography exam, in response to an old general’s question about the significance of the Neman River, Chapaev asked the professor if he knew about the significance of the Solyanka River, where he fought with the Cossacks. According to the second, in a discussion of the Battle of Cannes, he called the Romans “blind kittens,” telling the teacher, military theorist Sechenov: “We have already shown generals like you how to fight!”
In the minds of many, Chapaev is such a courageous fighter with a mustache, a naked sword and galloping on a dashing horse. At least this image was created by the people's actor Boris Babochkin. In real life, Vasily Ivanovich preferred cars to horses. Back on the fronts of the First World War, he was seriously wounded in the thigh, so horse riding became a big problem for him.
This is how Chapaev became one of the first Red commanders to use a car. He chose his iron horses very meticulously. The first, the American Stever, was rejected due to strong shaking; the red Packard, which replaced it, also had to be abandoned - it was not suitable for military operations in the steppe. But the red commander liked Ford, which then pushed 70 miles off-road.
The legendary commander Chapaev suffered constant losses on the personal front. His first wife, the bourgeois Pelageya Metlina, whom Chapaev’s parents did not approve of, calling him a “city white-handed woman,” bore him three children, but did not wait for her husband from the front - she went to a neighbor.
Chapaev’s second wife, though a civilian, was also called Pelageya. She was the widow of Vasily’s comrade-in-arms, Pyotr Kamishkertsev, to whom the division commander promised to take care of his family. At first he sent her benefits, and then they decided to move in together. But history repeated itself - during her husband’s absence, Pelageya began an affair with a certain Georgy Zhivolozhinov.
One day Chapaev found them together and almost sent the unlucky lover to the next world. When the passions subsided, Kamishkertseva decided to go to war, took the children and went to her husband’s headquarters. The children were allowed to see Chapaev, but she was not. They say that after this she took revenge on Vasily Ivanovich by revealing to the whites the location of the Red Army troops and data on their numbers.
CHAPAYEV'S DEATH
The epic death of Vasily Ivanovich is shrouded in mystery. On September 4, 1919, Borodin’s troops approached the city of Lbischensk, where the headquarters of Chapaev’s division with a small number of fighters was located. During the defense, Chapaev was severely wounded in the stomach; his soldiers put the commander on a raft and transported him across the Urals, but he died from loss of blood. The body was buried in the coastal sand, and the traces were hidden so that the Cossacks would not find it.
Searching for the grave subsequently became useless, as the river changed its course. This story was confirmed by a participant in the events. According to another version, Chapaev drowned after being wounded in the arm, unable to cope with the current.
Vasily Chapaev: short biography and interesting facts. Chapaev Vasily Ivanovich: interesting dates and information Vasily Chapaev was born on February 9, 1887 in the small village of Budaika, on the territory of the Kazan province. Today this place is part of Cheboksary, the capital of Chuvashia. Chapaev was Russian by origin - he was the sixth child in a large peasant family. When it was time for Vasily to study, his parents moved to Balakovo (modern Saratov region, then Samara province). Early years The boy was sent to a school attached to a church parish. Father wanted Vasily to become a priest. However, his son's subsequent life had nothing to do with the church. In 1908, Vasily Chapaev was drafted into the army. He was sent to Ukraine, to Kyiv. For some unknown reason, the soldier was returned to the reserves before the end of his service. The blank spots in the biography of the famous revolutionary are associated with the banal lack of verified documents. In Soviet historiography, the official point of view was that Vasily Chapaev was actually kicked out of the army because of his views. But there is still no documentary evidence of this theory. First World War In peacetime, Vasily Chapaev worked as a carpenter and lived with his family in the city of Melekess. In 1914, the First World War began, and the soldier who was in the reserve was again drafted into the tsarist army. Chapaev ended up in the 82nd Infantry Division, which fought the Austrians and Germans in Galicia and Volhynia. At the front, he received the St. George Cross, wounded and the rank of senior non-commissioned officer. Due to his breakdown, Chapaev was sent to a rear hospital in Saratov. There the non-commissioned officer met the February Revolution. Having recovered, Vasily Ivanovich decided to join the Bolsheviks, which he did on September 28, 1917. His military talents and skills gave him the best recommendation in the conditions of the approaching Civil War. In the Red Army At the end of 1917, Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev was appointed commander of the reserve regiment located in Nikolaevsk. Today this city is called Pugachev. At first, the former officer of the tsarist army organized the local Red Guard, which the Bolsheviks established after they came to power. At first there were only 35 people in his squad. The Bolsheviks were joined by the poor, flour-milling peasants, etc. In January 1918, the Chapaevites fought with local kulaks who were dissatisfied with the October Revolution. Gradually the detachment grew and grew thanks to effective propaganda and military victories. This military formation very soon left its native barracks and went to fight the whites. Here, in the lower reaches of the Volga, the offensive of the forces of General Kaledin developed. Chapaev Vasily Ivanovich took part in the campaign against this leader of the white movement. The key battle ensued near the city of Tsaritsyn, where party organizer Stalin was also located at that time. Pugachev brigade After the Kaledin offensive failed, the biography of Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev turned out to be connected with the Eastern Front. By the spring of 1918, the Bolsheviks controlled only the European part of Russia (and even then not all of it). In the east, starting from the left bank of the Volga, white power remained. Chapaev fought most of all with the People's Army of KOMUCH and the Czechoslovak Corps. On May 25, he decided to rename the Red Guard units under his control into the regiment named after Stepan Razin and the regiment named after Pugachev. The new names were references to the famous leaders of popular uprisings in the Volga region in the 17th and 18th centuries. Thus, Chapaev eloquently stated that supporters of the Bolsheviks defended the rights of the lowest strata of the population of the warring country - the peasantry and workers. On August 21, 1918, his army expelled the Czechoslovak Corps from Nikolaevsk. A little later (in November), the head of the Pugachev brigade initiated the renaming of the city to Pugachev. Fights with the Czechoslovak Corps In the summer, the Chapaevites for the first time found themselves on the outskirts of Uralsk, occupied by the White Czechs. Then the Red Guard had to retreat due to lack of food and weapons. But after the success in Nikolaevsk, the division found itself with ten captured machine guns and a lot of other useful requisitioned property. With this goods, the Chapaevites went to fight the People's Army of KOMUCH. 11 thousand armed supporters of the White movement broke through down the Volga in order to unite with the army of the Cossack ataman Krasnov. There were one and a half times less red ones. The proportions in comparison of weapons were approximately the same. However, this lag did not prevent the Pugachev brigade from defeating and scattering the enemy. During that risky operation, the biography of Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev became known throughout the Volga region. And thanks to Soviet propaganda, his name became known to the whole country. However, this happened after the death of the famous division commander. In Moscow, in the fall of 1918, the Academy of the General Staff of the Red Army received its first students. Among them was Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev. The short biography of this man was full of all kinds of battles. He was responsible for many people under his command. At the same time, he did not have any systematic education. Chapaev achieved his success in the Red Army thanks to his natural ingenuity and charisma. But now the time has come for him to complete his course at the General Staff Academy. The image of Chapaev At the educational institution, the director amazed those around him, on the one hand, with the agility of his mind, and on the other, with his ignorance of the simplest general educational facts. For example, there is a well-known historical anecdote that Chapaev could not show on the map where London and the Seine River were located, since he simply had no idea about their existence. Perhaps this is an exaggeration, like everything connected with the myth about one of the most legendary characters of the civil war, but it is difficult to deny that the head of the Pugachev division was a typical representative of the lower classes, which, however, only benefited his image among his comrades. Of course, in the rear calm of Moscow, such an energetic person who did not like to sit still, like Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev, languished. The brief elimination of tactical illiteracy could not deprive him of the feeling that his place as a commander was only at the front. Several times he wrote to headquarters with requests to recall him in the thick of events. Meanwhile, in February 1919, another aggravation occurred on the Eastern Front associated with Kolchak’s counteroffensive. At the end of winter, Chapaev finally went back to his native army. Again at the front The commander of the 4th Army, Mikhail Frunze, appointed Chapaev as head of the 25th division, which he commanded until his death. Over the course of six months, this formation, consisting mainly of proletarian conscripts, carried out dozens of tactical operations against the whites. It was here that Chapaev revealed himself to the fullest as a military leader. In the 25th Division, he became known throughout the country thanks to his fiery speeches to the soldiers. In general, the division commander was always inseparable from his subordinates. This feature revealed the romantic nature of the Civil War, which was later praised in Soviet literature. Vasily Chapaev, whose biography spoke of him as a typical person from the masses, was remembered by his descendants for his unbreakable connection with this very people in the person of ordinary Red Army soldiers who fought in the Volga region and the Ural steppes. Tactician As a tactician, Chapaev mastered several techniques, which he successfully used during the division's march to the east. A characteristic feature was that it acted in isolation from the allied units. The Chapaevites have always been in the vanguard. It was they who launched the offensive, and often finished off the enemies on their own. It is known about Vasily Chapaev that he often resorted to maneuver tactics. His division was distinguished by its efficiency and mobility. The Whites often did not keep up with her movements, even if they wanted to organize a counterattack. Chapaev always kept a specially trained group on one of the flanks, which was supposed to deliver the decisive blow during the battle. With the help of such a maneuver, the Red Army soldiers brought chaos into the enemy ranks and surrounded their enemies. Since the fighting took place mainly in the steppe zone, the soldiers always had room for maneuver. Sometimes they took on a reckless character, but the Chapaevites were invariably lucky. In addition, their courage baffled their opponents. Ufa operation Chapaev never acted in a formulaic manner. In the midst of a battle, he could give the most unexpected order, which turned the course of events upside down. For example, in May 1919, during clashes near Bugulma, the commander initiated an attack on a wide front, despite the risk of such a maneuver. Vasily Chapaev moved tirelessly to the east. The short biography of this military leader also contains information about the successful Ufa operation, during which the future capital of Bashkiria was captured. On the night of June 8, 1919, the Belaya River was crossed. Now Ufa has become a springboard for the further advance of the Reds to the east. Since the Chapaevites were at the forefront of the attack, having been the first to cross the Belaya, they actually found themselves surrounded. The division commander himself was wounded in the head, but continued to command, being directly among his soldiers. Next to him was Mikhail Frunze. In a stubborn battle, the Red Army recaptured street after street. It is believed that it was then that the whites decided to break their opponents with a so-called psychic attack. This episode formed the basis of one of the most famous scenes of the cult film “Chapaev”. Death For the victory in Ufa, Vasily Chapaev received the Order of the Red Banner. In the summer, he and his division defended the approaches to the Volga. The division commander became one of the first Bolsheviks to arrive in Samara. With his direct participation, this strategically important city was finally taken and cleared of the White Czechs. By the beginning of autumn, Chapaev found himself on the banks of the Ural River. On September 5, while in Lbischensk with his headquarters, he and his division were unexpectedly attacked by the White Cossacks. It was a bold, deep enemy raid organized by General Nikolai Borodin. The target of the attack was largely Chapaev himself, who turned into a painful headache for White. In the ensuing battle the division commander died. For Soviet culture and propaganda, Chapaev became a character unique in popularity. A great contribution to the creation of this image was made by the Vasilyev brothers’ film, which was also loved by Stalin. In 1974, the house where Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev was born was turned into his museum. Numerous settlements are named after the division commander.
There is probably no such person - at least in the vastness of the former USSR - who could not answer the question “who is Chapaev?”
In terms of the number of anecdotes, only Stirlitz can compete with him, but... in real life, the division commander was completely different. Tough, talented, smart. He loved to show off, to make an impression, as they say, and, unlike his mythical double, he preferred ... a Ford to a war horse. And he fought not only on the front line, but also on the love front, where he suffered defeat after defeat...
A boy from the outback
Vasily Chapaev (he himself always wrote “Chepaev”) was born in 1887 into a large peasant family - besides him, there were eight more children. The parents' land allotment barely reached two dessiatines, and the large family lived from hand to mouth. Fleeing from starvation, in 1897 the Chapaevs moved from their native Chuvashia to the Volga, to the city of Balakovo, Samara province. The children had to leave school - Vasya only managed to learn the alphabet.
There were priests in the Chapaev family. Legend has it that his father gave Vasily to his uncle, a clergyman, so that his son would continue the family tradition. But when one day the uncle of the guilty Vasya, in a bitter frost, put him in a wooden punishment cell in only a shirt, the boy ran away - from his uncle and from God. He didn't make a priest.
At the age of 12, Vasya’s father assigned him to a merchant, as an errand boy. The boy worked for a piece of bread. The merchant began to teach him the trade, where the main commandment was “if you don’t deceive, you don’t sell.” But the smart boy suddenly turned out to be slow-witted - he did not want to deceive. “My childhood was dark and difficult. I had to humiliate myself and starve a lot. From an early age I hung around strangers,” the division commander later lamented about his fate.
Two Pelagia
Unable to adapt to the trade business, the guy returned to his parents to work as a carpenter with his brothers. And at that time he fell passionately in love with a bourgeois woman named Pelageya. “If I don’t marry her, I’ll cut off my own head,” Chapaev decided. But the “sacrifice” was not needed - the young people happily got married and had three children.
However, Vasily did not have time to fully enjoy family happiness - he was taken into the army. And when the First World War began, they were sent to the front. So the Red Divisional Commander first served the Tsar-Father and even received either three or four “George” medals for personal bravery. And only then he went to fight “either for the communists, or for the Bolsheviks.” The Bolsheviks had problems with personnel, so they appointed the ensign immediately to a colonel's position - to command the 138th reserve infantry regiment.
When the red commander came home on leave, it turned out that no one was waiting for him there. His beloved wife exchanged him for another, and Chapaev had only one road left - back to war.
Vasily Ivanovich had a comrade at the front, and they gave each other a word: if one of them was killed, the survivor would take the children of the other. The friend died, and when Chapaev came to pick up the four orphans, their mother humbly said: “Take me too.” He took it. And the division commander had seven children - three of his own and four adopted. The new wife, also Pelageya, without thinking twice, moved with the children to Chapaev’s parents.
Pelageya the second with children
However, the red commander had no luck with women. Pelageya the second began a love affair with the head of the artillery depot, Georgy Zhivolozhinov, who was ten years younger than her. They say that Vasily Ivanovich caught the lovers in the act.
Friends and rivals
The country was in troubled times. The fight was not for life, but for death. Brother went against brother, friend against friend. And Chapaev, who was in the thick of this struggle, fell recklessly in love. Naya (Anna Steshenko) was the wife of Commissar Furmanov, who arrived to serve in Chapaev’s division. And she reciprocated. And what? Chapai is a prominent man, he earned his fame in battles.
Dmitry Furmanov himself met Naya in 1915, when they were sister and brother of mercy on a hospital train. Instead of a wedding, in the spirit of the times, they signed the “Project of Love-Freedom-Matrimonial Relations.” And Furmanov had no intention of giving up his positions. A battle for a woman began between the division commander and the commissar of the best division. It was a war of pride and ambition.
Dmitry FURMANOV and his wife Anna Steshenko spent their honeymoon in the Chapaev division, one might say, in front of the soldiers
Furmanov was ready to surrender the division commander at any moment. And he had the opportunity - the powerful chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council, Leon Trotsky, did not like Chapaev. All that remained was to find a reason, but Kuibyshev and Frunze saved the situation - they sent Furmanov to Turkestan, and Naya left with her husband. This whole love story was swift and brief - Chapaev and Naya knew each other for only six months. She left at the end of August 1919, and on September 5 Vasily Ivanovich died. He was only 32 years old.
Chapaev's eldest son became an officer, went through the war, and rose to the rank of major general. The younger one went into aviation, was a friend of Chkalov and, like him, died while testing a new fighter. Daughter Claudia made a party career.
It's all due to jealousy
The beloved survived the division commander by 23 years and died in obscurity and loneliness. The fate of Pelageya, Chapaev’s first wife, was also unenviable: upon learning of his death, she went to pick up the children, fell into an ice hole on the way, caught a cold and died the same year.
And as for the second wife... Years later, it became known that the White Guards received information about the small number of guards at their father’s headquarters from Pelageya the Second - Chapaev’s daughter overheard her stepmother’s conversation with her lover, Georgy Zhivolozhinov. The girl wrote a letter to Krupskaya, which ended up in the OGPU. But the security officers arrested not the stepmother, but the head of the artillery depot, Zhivolozhinov. He was accused of propaganda against the Soviets and given 10 years in the camps.
Furmanov took the death of Chapaev hard. “No matter how you dismiss it, no matter how you look for serious reasons for which I tried to accuse Chapai all the time, I see that jealousy egged me on, set me on fire all the time,” Dmitry Andreevich recalled in his diaries. And in 1923, quite unexpectedly, he wrote the book “Chapaev,” which became more of a contribution to party history than to literature.
Dmitry Furmanov and Anna Steshenko
Three years after the creation of the novel, Furmanov died. Before his death, the writer wanted to debunk the image he had created, wanted to repent on the pages of a new novel, but he was not allowed to do this. He died in 1926 from meningitis, never knowing that a film had been made based on his book, and that Chapaev and he himself had become nationally famous.
Second life of a division commander
The film “Chapaev” appeared in 1934. Soviet power needed a hero outside of time and space. And it is desirable that this is not a real person, but a symbol. Chapaev was an ideal candidate for this role, and thanks to the film, an ordinary division commander became one of the most revered heroes of the Civil War. At the same time, the method of socialist realism received “legalization” for the first time.
The film was “supervised” by the Father of Nations himself, Stalin, who personally intervened in the process of creating the film. Having redrawn the plot, Joseph Vissarionovich introduced four heroes into the script: commander Chapaev - a native of the people, a commissar as the embodiment of the leading role of the party, an ordinary soldier and another heroine - to reveal the role of women in the Civil War. This is how Anka and Petka appeared. By the way, in the 30-40s. Millions of Soviet girls and boys dreamed of becoming Ankas and Petkas, like today's Hollywood stars.
The picture turned out to be grandiose - Stalin himself watched it 38 times! And it doesn’t matter that the plot of the film was far from reality, the main thing is that the epic about the Chapaev heroes educated an entire generation of Soviet people. Maxim Gorky sincerely admired: “A convincing picture! I admired the heroes... Here Chapaev and Petka are flying in a cart... Where? Forward to the future! This whole thing is damn talented!”
The only problem was that the people did not want to believe in the death of their idol. There was a legend about a boy who went to the cinema every day in the hope that Chapai would swim out... There were many rumors and even versions of historians that the hero managed to escape. Many looked for his grave, including his daughter, Klavdia Vasilievna. Alas, to no avail. During this time, the Ural River changed its course, where the bottom used to be - vegetable gardens appeared. And no one knows what really happened.
Chapaev is perhaps the only hero of the Civil War whom his descendants call by his first name and patronymic: Vasil Ivanovich. They laugh at him, but they also love him. He is credited with reckless courage, daring resourcefulness and wit. He is one of the few who were not left on dusty archival shelves, but were taken into the future. September 5 marks the 90th anniversary of the division commander’s death, but the legendary Chapai is still with us.
THE MAN FROM THE JOKE
Chapaev walks through the village, all tattered, covered in dirt, straw and some feathers, drunk as hell.
Petka asks in fear:
- Vasily Ivanovich, where are you from?
- From jokes, Petka, from jokes...
How did it happen that a man who had nothing funny in his biography became the character of jokes? He, and not Budyonny, Voroshilov, Kotovsky or Lazo. There are several versions on this score, the main one of which lies in the film directed by the Vasiliev brothers based on the novel by Dmitry Furmanov.
