Hello, dear readers! Today we’ll talk about the world-famous Soviet and Russian ballerina - Maya Mikhailovna Plisetskaya. Most recently, on November 20, she celebrated her birthday. We wish her health and many years life. Maya Plisetskaya no longer dances, but her memorable and inspired roles remain in the memory for a long time.
A good mood is promoted not only by our good health, but also by the positive emotions that can be obtained by enjoying something beautiful. Dear friends, I invite you to the ballet. Although some may not like this view performing arts, the content of which is embodied in musical and choreographic images. But anyone who has ever watched ballet in a theater will never remain indifferent to this form of art.
Maya Mikhailovna was born in 1925. From 1932 to 1936, she lived with her parents in Spitsbergen, her father Mikhail Emmanuilovich Plisetsky was the head of Artikugol, and later was the Consul General of the USSR. Maya Mikhailovna's mother, Rakhila Mikhailovna Messerer, was a famous silent film actress at that time. Uncle Asaf Mikhailovich Messerer was a ballet dancer, choreographer, and People's Artist of the USSR.
But this is how the circumstances developed: Maya Mikhailovna’s father was denounced and on the night of May 1, 1938, he was arrested, convicted, and a year later lost as a traitor to the Motherland. True, during the reign of Khrushchev, Plisetsky was rehabilitated.
Plisetskaya’s mother immediately after her husband’s arrest was sent to Kazakhstan to the Akmola camp for wives of traitors to the Motherland. To avoid being taken to an orphanage, the girl was adopted by her maternal aunt Shulamith Messerer, who at that time was a ballerina and soloist Bolshoi Theater. And brother Sasha was sheltered by Asaf Messerer.
During the war from September 1941 to September 1942, Maya Mikhailovna lived in evacuation in the city of Sverdlovsk, present-day Yekaterinburg. And although there was no opportunity to fully practice ballet here, it was in this city that the first performance with the number “The Dying Swan” took place.
In 1943, Maya Plisetskaya successfully completed her studies at the Moscow Choreographic School and was immediately accepted into the Bolshoi Theater troupe. Soon she began to be assigned solo roles and she established herself as a prima ballerina.
Maya Plisetskaya's husband - Radion Shchedrin, famous composer, with whom she still lives since 1958. The married couple lives in several cities at once: in Moscow, Munich and Trakai (Lithuania).
Maya Plisetskaya - her merits and titles
A talented ballerina, choreographer, teacher, actress, writer - that’s all Maya Plisetskaya. Her services were highly appreciated by the state, awarding her the title of Hero of Socialist Labor (1985); she is a laureate of the Lenin Prize, a full holder of the Order of Merit for the Fatherland, and People's Artist of the USSR.
To this we can add that she is a doctor of the Sorbonne, an honorary citizen of Spain and an honorary professor of the Moscow state university them. Lomonosov.
Maya Plisetskaya - her roles and performances
- Juliet – “Romeo and Juliet” by S.S. Prokofiev
- Tsar Maiden – “The Little Humpbacked Horse” by R.K. Shchedrin
- Aurora – “The Sleeping Beauty” by P.I. Tchaikovsky
- Kitri – “Don Quixote” by L.F. Minkus
- Zarema - “Bakhchisarai Fountain” by B.V. Asafiev
- Odette-Odile - " Swan Lake» P.I. Tchaikovsky
- Raymonda – “Raymonda” by A.K. Glazunov
- Carmen – “Carmen Suite” by J. Bizet and R. K. Shchedrin
- Mekhmene Banu – “The Legend of Love” by A.D. Melikova
- Mistress of the Copper Mountain – “Stone Flower” by S.S. Prokofiev
- Fairy of Autumn – “Cinderella” by S.S. Prokofiev
Of course, her most beautiful and memorable role is “The Dying Swan.”
Maya Plisetskaya - her philosophy
Her biography is rich in various events that cannot be invented on purpose. Perhaps someday they will make a film about this outstanding ballerina. Maya Mikhailovna herself says that she makes no secret of her life, having written a book of her memoirs, stunning in revelation and brilliant in style, “I, Maya Plisetskaya.”
This is an excerpt from her book:
“What else are you interested in knowing about me, reader? That I'm left-handed and do everything with my left hand? That I have suffered from insomnia all my life? That I have always been conflicted? Did you get into trouble in vain? That two poles were combined in me - I could be wasteful and greedy, brave and cowardly, a queen and a modest one? What did I prefer? nourishing creams for the face and loved to smear them thickly and play solitaire in the kitchen? What was an ardent football fan? That she loved herring, affectionately calling it “herring”? That I never smoked and didn’t favor smokers, that a glass of wine gave me a headache? Throughout my life, I have learned a simple philosophy. Simple, like a mug of water, like a breath of air. People are not divided into classes, races, government systems. People are divided into good and bad. Very good and very bad. And that’s the only way.”
The life of a dancer is short-lived - usually ballet dancers end their stage life before the age of forty, going either to teaching or to choreographing. But there is an example in the history of ballet that amazes the imagination - a seventy-year-old ballerina, with whom not every young performer could equal... This artistic feat was accomplished by Maya Plisetskaya.
The future ballerina was born in 1925 in the family of a businessman, but among her relatives there were many people of art: her mother was a film actress, her maternal uncle and aunt were ballet dancers, etc. Childhood was not easy: life on Spitsbergen, where his father worked, then the arrest and execution of his father in 1938, separation from his mother, who was sent to Kazakhstan to the camp for the wives of traitors to the Motherland. Maya was saved from being placed in an orphanage by adopting the girl.
Even before these terrible events, Maya began studying ballet and entered the Moscow Choreographic School. Classes had to be interrupted during the war - there was no opportunity to study during the evacuation in Sverdlovsk. She returns to Moscow - this was very difficult to do without a special pass, and continues to study. After the final exam in 1943, Maya was accepted into the Bolshoi Theater ballet troupe.
Mine creative path Maya Plisetskaya begins as a corps de ballet dancer, but soon it’s the turn of solo roles: the Autumn Fairy in the ballet “”, in the ballet of the same name, Odette-Odile in “”, “The Tsar Maiden” in “”, Kitri in “”... Year after year The ballerina's fame grew, and in 1951 - the year of the 175th anniversary of the Bolshoi Theater - she was awarded the title of Honored Artist of the RSFSR.
The distinctive features of the ballerina were the expressiveness of her movements and the talent of a tragic actress, easy step and a phenomenal jump, exceptional back flexibility. She was never afraid of innovations and experiments, and enriched her ballet vocabulary with a new jump - the “ring”. Maya Plisetskaya performs the central roles with equal perfection and classical repertoire, and in new works. For example, when the Bolshoi Theater premiered the ballet “The Tale of stone flower", staged, it was she who performed as the Hostess Copper Mountain, and five years later she performed this role in the production. In 1955, she danced Syuimbike in the ballet Shurale, which was staged at a branch of the Bolshoi Theater. A year later, she performed the title role in the ballet “,” staged by V. Chabukiani, receiving the title People's Artist RSFSR.
The year 1955 turned out to be fateful for the ballerina: while visiting L. Brik, she met Rodion Shchedrin, “an elegant gentleman by nature,” who seemed to her “a little more inspired than other musicians.” The union turned out to be creatively fruitful. As the ballerina later recalled, her husband “gave her not diamonds, but ballets.” The first such “gift” was the ballet “,” staged in 1960, on the title page of which a dedication was written to Maya Plisetskaya.
In 1967, "" was created. The image of Carmen always attracted the ballerina, and when in 1966 she saw Alberto Alonso at a Cuban ballet evening, she realized that this was the choreographer who could make her dream come true. When creating the musical accompaniment for the ballet, R. Shchedrin composed numbers from the opera of the same name by J. Bizet and arranged them for an unusual composition: strings and percussion - without winds. The plot is presented symbolically: the scene is a bullfighting ground, and one of the characters becomes Rock. Such innovation, especially in combination with the emphasized sexuality of the image main character, For Soviet era was a challenge. They did not dare to ban the ballet - after all, it was staged by a Cuban, and relations with Cuba in the USSR were given importance great value– but there was no shortage of accusations of “betrayal of ballet” and predictions of the “death” of the work. “Carmen will live as long as I live!” - answered the ballerina.
The next joint creation of the spouses was the ballet "". The idea was again proposed by M. Plisetskaya, who in 1967 discovered her talent as a film actress. While starring in A. Zarkhi’s film “” in the role of Betsy Tverskaya, she thought about translating L. Tolstoy’s novel into ballet. The music was written by R. Shchedrin, who dedicated the ballet to “Maya Plisetskaya, inevitably.” Having rejected several choreographers, the ballerina staged the ballet herself, entrusting the crowd scenes to N. Ryzhenko and V. Smirnov-Golovanov. Rehearsals were suspended by order of the Minister of Culture, and only thanks to the Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, the performance was saved, and the premiere took place on June 10, 1972.
In 1980, R. Shchedrin and M. Plisetskaya created an even more innovative ballet - "" by play of the same name A.P. Chekhov. The work fully corresponded to the words of one of the characters in the original source: “New forms are needed” - the score consisted of 24 preludes developing the action, 2 interludes revealing the history of the first production and failure of the play, and a postlude. M. Plisetskaya, who performed the role of Nina Zarechnaya, again staged the ballet herself.
The idea for the next "Chekhov" ballet by R. Shchedrin and M. Plisetskaya - "" - was suggested by a Swedish journalist who interviewed the composer during the production of "" in Sweden. In 1985 this one act ballet– very compact and concise. There are only two solo parts in it - Anna Sergeevna and Gurov, accompanied by a mimance. " " becomes last job M. Plisetskaya at the Bolshoi Theater.
The ballerina collaborated with many choreographers of her time. M. Bejar staged for her the ballets “Leda”, “Isadora” and “Kurozuka”, “The Death of the Rose”, N. Kasatkina - “Prelude”, J. Granero - the flamenco ballet “Asturias”.
Maya Plisetskaya did not leave the stage even in old age. At the age of seventy she danced in M. Bejart's ballet Ave Maya. The autobiographical book “I, Maya Plisetskaya” was published several times in Russia and was translated into eleven languages. The ballerina’s merits were appreciated not only in her homeland: she was awarded three French orders - the Legion of Honor and “For Merit in Literature and Art”, the Spanish Order of Isabella the Catholic, and a minor planet was named in her honor in 1994.
In 2015, the Bolshoi Theater was supposed to host anniversary evening ballerinas, but Maya Plisetskaya died in May, and instead of the anniversary, a memorial evening was held.
Musical Seasons
Greetings, our inquisitive friend! Today we’ll talk about Russian ballet, the brightest representative of which is the legendary Maya Plisetskaya. The biography of this truly unique woman is full of tragic events and triumphant ups, which we will tell readers about in this article.
At the end of November, on the 20th of 1925, his wife made Mikhail Plisetsky happy with the birth of a daughter, who was named Maya. The girl's mother, Rachel, acted in silent films for some time under the name Ra Messerer. My father was a major organizer of Soviet industry.
In 1932, the Plisetsky family changed their usual Moscow to Spitsbergen, where Mikhail was appointed head of the coal mines and part-time consul general.
Father's leave allowed the Plisetskys to return to the capital in June 1934, where Maya became a student at the Moscow Choreographic School. The outstanding choreographer Leonid Yakobson drew attention to the girl’s abilities back in the first grade. She, in turn, tirelessly admired him when confronted with his work upon reaching maturity.
The year 1937 became a tragic milestone in the biography of Maya Plisetskaya, beginning with the arrest and execution of her father, and ending with the imprisonment of her mother and her recently born son in Butyrka prison. Undoubtedly, the nationality of the parents contributed to the persecution by the authorities. Only the intervention of Asaph and Shulamith Messerer saved the girl and her brother from orphanage, uncle and aunt took the destitute children into their families.
They also achieved relief for their sister, who was exiled to Chimkent in Kazakhstan instead of more brutal repressions. Perhaps this was facilitated by the fact that at that time the Messerers were very famous dancers of the Bolshoi Theater. Subsequently, they found their calling in teaching, and Uncle Asaf taught the art of dance to members of the ballet troupe, including his famous niece.
The first successful performance was the participation of the future prima in the concert of graduates of the choreographic school on June 21, 1941. Although she still had two years left to graduate, the talented dancer was chosen from the high school. For her and two partners, Leonid Yakobson staged the number “Impromptu” to the music of P.I. Tchaikovsky. The next morning brought terrible news to the whole country about the outbreak of war.
Believing rumors about the evacuation of the Bolshoi Theater to Sverdlovsk, Rakhil Messerer-Plisetskaya, who had returned from exile in Chimkent by that time, went there with her children. As a result, Maya had to forget about ballet for a year, since the school remained in Moscow.
Having learned that classes are continuing and the rest of the troupe was able to organize a premiere on the stage of one of the branches, the girl secretly makes her way to the capital. And he immediately starts studying.
By the time she passed her final exam, she had already performed several solo parts on the branch stage. On April 1, 1943, the Bolshoi Theater troupe included Maya Plisetskaya in the corps de ballet.
Queen of Russian Ballet
great ballerina of the twentieth century
Maya Mikhailovna Plisetskaya was born on November 20, 1925 in Moscow.
In 1932-1934, she lived with her parents on the Spitsbergen archipelago in the Arctic Ocean, where her father worked as the head of Soviet coal mines. In 1937 he was repressed and shot. Mother - Rachel Messerer-Plisetskaya, a silent film actress, was arrested a year after her husband and sent to Butyrka prison along with youngest son. Then she was deported to Kazakhstan, to Shymkent; She managed to return to Moscow only in 1941, two months before the start of the war. Maya and her other brother were taken in by their aunt and uncle, Shulamith and Asaph Messerer, prominent dancers at the Bolshoi Theater.
In June 1934, Plisetskaya entered the Moscow Choreographic School, from which she graduated in 1943. Plisetskaya graduated from school in the class of teacher Maria Leontyeva, but she considers Agrippina Vaganova to be her best teacher, whom she met already at the Bolshoi Theater, where she was accepted on April 1, 1943, after graduating from college. With Vaganova, she prepared the role of Masha in Tchaikovsky's ballet The Nutcracker. 
IN Bolshoi Plisetskaya was enrolled in the corps de ballet, but soon they began to give her a repertoire that was interesting to her. In 1945, Plisetskaya became the first performer of the role of the Autumn Fairy in Sergei Prokofiev's Cinderella. Later, other leading roles appeared in her repertoire. In 1947, she danced Odette and Odile for the first time in Pyotr Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, and in 1948 she performed the role of Zarema in The Fountain of Bakhchisarai. In the 1960s, Plisetskaya was officially considered the first ballerina of the Bolshoi Theater. On April 20, 1967, Bizet-Shchedrin's Carmen Suite, staged by the famous Cuban choreographer Alberto Alonso especially for Plisetskaya, was first shown on the stage of the Bolshoi Theater. Her Carmen became one of the main roles of a ballerina in the repertoire of the Bolshoi Theater and forever entered the history of world choreography. 
In 1972, the Bolshoi Theater premiered Rodion Shchedrin's ballet Anna Karenina, where Plisetskaya not only played the role of the main character, but also tried herself as a choreographer for the first time. In 1980, Plisetskaya, as a choreographer, staged Shchedrin's ballet "The Seagull" on the stage of the Bolshoi Theater. 
In 1983, Plisetskaya received an offer to become artistic director of the Rome Opera Ballet. During the year and a half while she held this post, Plisetskaya showed her “Isadora” on the stage of the Rome Opera and organized the revival of “Phaedra” and several other ballets. In 1984 in Opera House In the Baths of Caracalla (Rome) she staged "Raymonda" for the open stage. 
In 1987-1990, Plisetskaya worked mainly in Spain, heading the Madrid ballet troupe Teatro Lirico Nacional. 
In the 1990s, Plisetskaya continued to collaborate with outstanding choreographers world, in particular with the “Marseille Ballet” by Roland Petit and the “Ballet of the 20th Century” by Maurice Bejart. In 1992, the premiere of the ballet “The Madwoman of Chaillot” to the music of Shchedrin took place at the Espace Pierre Cardin theater, where Plisetskaya performed the main role. 
In August 1994 in St. Petersburg on stage Alexandrinsky Theater The First International Ballet Competition "Maya" took place, where Maya Plisetskaya was the chairman of the jury and herself formed its composition.
In 1995, Plisetskaya was elected honorary president of the Imperial Russian Ballet troupe, created on her initiative. 
Plisetskaya has been married to composer Rodion Shchedrin since 1958. Spouse - Shchedrin Rodion Konstantinovich (born 1932), composer, People's Artist USSR, laureate of Lenin and State Prizes. In 1991, Plisetskaya and Shchedrin moved to Germany, to Munich. The couple lived in three houses - mostly in Munich, Moscow and at his dacha in Lithuania. 
2
Plisetskaya acted a lot in films and on television. She can be seen in the concert film “Masters of Russian Ballet” (1953), ballet films “Swan Lake” (1957), “The Tale of the Little Humpbacked Horse” (1961), “Anna Karenina” (1975), and in the opera film "Khovanshchina" (1959), in film and television adaptations of "Carmen" (1969, 1978), as well as television adaptations of the ballets "Bolero" and "Isadora" ("Poetry of Dance", 1977), "The Seagull" (1982), "Dame with a dog" (1986). She also starred as a dramatic actress: “Anna Karenina” by Alexander Zarkhi (1968, the role of Princess Betsy Tverskaya), “Tchaikovsky” by Igor Talankin (1970, the role of the singer Desiree), the television film “Fantasy” by Anatoly Efros based on the story by Ivan Turgenev, " Spring waters"(1976, the role of Polozova), "Zodiac" by Jonas Vaitkus (1985, the role of the muse of the artist Mikalojus Ciurlionis). 
On May 2, 2015, the legendary ballerina, choreographer, writer and actress Maya Mikhailovna Plisetskaya died from heart attack in Germany. Farewell to Maya Plisetskaya will take place in Germany only with family and friends. According to the will, the bodies of the spouses will be burned after death, and the ashes will be scattered over Russia. 
Recognition and awards
Hero Socialist Labor (1985)
Full holder of the Order of Merit for the Fatherland (one of four women along with Irina Antonova, Galina Vishnevskaya and Galina Volchek):
Order of Merit for the Fatherland, 1st class (November 20, 2005) - for outstanding contribution to the development of domestic and world choreographic art, many years of creative activity
Order of Merit for the Fatherland, II degree (November 18, 2000) - for outstanding contribution to the development of choreographic art
Order of Merit for the Fatherland, III degree (November 21, 1995) - for outstanding services in national culture and significant contribution to the choreographic art of our time
Order of Merit for the Fatherland, IV degree (November 9, 2010) - for outstanding contribution to development national culture and choreographic art, many years of creative activity
Three Orders of Lenin (1967, 1976, 1985)
Honored Artist of the RSFSR (1951)
People's Artist of the RSFSR (1956)
People's Artist of the USSR (1959)
Lenin Prize (1964)
Gold medal of Paris from the mayor of the city, Jacques Chirac (1977)
Order of the Legion of Honor (France)
Knight's Cross (1986),
officer's cross (2012)
Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters (France, 1984)
Grand Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit for Lithuania (2003)
Order of Isabella the Catholic (Spain, 1991)
Commander of the Order of the Grand Duke of Lithuania Gediminas
Order of Barbora Radvilaitė (Vilnius, Lithuania, 2005)
Order Rising Sun III degree (Japan, 2011)
Gold medal "For services to culture Gloria Artis" (Poland)
Medal "About Finland" (1968)
Gold Medal for Merit in the Arts (Spain, 1991)
Medal “For Valiant Labor. In commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the birth of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin"
Doctor of the Sorbonne (1985)
Honorary Professor of Moscow State University (1993)
“Person of the Year” in the field of science, culture and art according to a survey of the annual Russian Foundation “Public Opinion” (2000)
First Prize and gold medal at the ballet competition II World Festival youth and students in Budapest (1949)
Anna Pavlova Prize of the Paris Academy of Dance (1962)
Award “Excellent 1986” (Paris City Hall for the most elegant woman of the year)
Via Condotti Award (1989, Italy)
Triumph Award (2000)
Russian National Olympus Award (2000)
Award " National pride Russia" (2003)
Prince of Asturias Award (2005, Spain)
International Imperial Prize of Japan (2006)
Vittorio de Sica Prize (Italy) "for an unprecedented career and outstanding achievements in the field of dance" (2009)
Russian Ballet Prize “Soul of Dance” in the category “Legend” (2009)
Honorary Prize of RAO "For contribution to the development of science, culture and art"
International award for the development and strengthening of humanitarian ties in the countries of the Baltic region “Baltic Star” (Ministry of Culture and Mass Communications of the Russian Federation, Union of Theater Workers of the Russian Federation, Committee on Culture of the Government of St. Petersburg, 2013)
Honorary Doctor of the Hungarian Dance Academy (Budapest, 2008)
Honorary Citizen of Spain
Original taken from tanjand in "Where There's a Will, There's a Way"
This will be a story about talented woman amazing fate, and mothers are amazing children. We all know and love her daughter, and we recently honored her with a monument. But only a few know the fate of this outstanding family... She's like a book, like a novel that you can read,in which there are many dramatic pages, and many bright, creative events. We will talk about Rachel Messerer-Plisetskaya, mother of Ra, as her relatives called her, mother of the star ballerina Maya Plisetskaya.
Rachel Messerer-Plisetskaya’s nephew, Azary Messerer, tells about her fate.
Rachel was born on March 4, 1902 in Vilna; the family moved to Moscow when she was two years old. Apparently, Rachel showed great abilities in childhood, because, despite the percentage norms for Jews, she was accepted into one of the prestigious Moscow gymnasiums, which was founded by Princess Lvova.
Studies at the gymnasium were interrupted during the revolution. Hungry, cold years came, and Rachel very early began to help her mother take care of her younger sisters and brothers.
Messerer family. Sitting from left to right: Alexander, Sima Moiseevna (mother), Mikhail Borisovich (father), Rachel and Elizaveta. Standing: Emmanuel, Azarius, Asaph, Mattanias and Shulamith.
Rachel made important decisions that determined the fate of her brothers and sisters. For example, in the family only she knew about Asaf’s passionate desire to study ballet.
He was afraid to tell his father about his plans, knowing that, with all his love for the theater, he would not approve of this decision. Rachel told Osya, that’s what she called Asaf, “if you love ballet very much, then go to ballet.”
Having entered the private ballet school Only at the age of 16, Asaf achieved such phenomenal success that two years later he was accepted into graduating class Choreographic School of the Bolshoi Theater.
It was then that Rachel decided that her younger sister Shulamith had all the ingredients to follow in the footsteps of Asaph. She took Mita, as she was called in the family, to the entrance exam to the Choreographic School, sewing her a beautiful tutu. So both famous artists chose a ballet career largely thanks to Rachel.
Nineteen-year-old Rachel entered the Institute of Cinematography shortly after its founding.
At the entrance exam, the chairman of the commission, Lev Kuleshov, asked her to perform a sketch of catching a butterfly. Rachel spent a long time sneaking up on the imaginary butterfly and missing - unsuccessfully “throwing a net.” In the end, out of frustration, she burst into tears so convincingly that the examiners themselves almost shed tears.
She studied with famous directors and teachers.
In her student company, the soul of the party was fellow student Vladimir Plisetsky - witty, charming, athletic.
He brought his older brother Mikhail to one of the parties. It so happened that both brothers began to court the beautiful Rachel - love triangle. Rachel gave her heart to Michael and married him.
Rachel's film career began very successfully. Protazanov believed that her extraordinary, one might say, biblical beauty (huge, sad eyes, blue-black hair and dark complexion) - oriental type, so he invited her to star in the leading roles in new studio“Uzbekfilm”, which opened in Tashkent.
There she starred in the films “The Second Wife” (1927), “The Leper” (1928), “Valley of Tears” (1929) and others. These films were a great success in their time, and Rachel’s sad eyes looked from the posters of many cinemas in the country.
Her roles were tragic.
There is no doubt that Rachel was talented actress, her suffering on the screen touched the soul. And it’s especially painful for me to watch these films, because I know that fate was preparing trials for her that were no less difficult than those of her heroines.
After the birth of Maya, Rachel continued to act in films for some time both in Tashkent and at Mosfilm. Sometimes she took her daughter to the filming of the comedy “One Hundred and Twenty Thousand.”
Four-year-old Maya also attended a screening of the film “Leper.” She burst into tears throughout the entire hall when she saw how the Basmachi threw the unfortunate heroine under the hooves of horses. Her mother reassured her for a long time, saying that it was just a movie, that she was with her, but Maya stubbornly repeated: “They killed you!”
Rachel was forced to leave the cinema when she was expecting her second child, and her husband was appointed manager of the Arktikugol mines and the USSR consul on the Norwegian polar island of Spitsbergen, where he organized coal mining.
In 1932, Rachel arrived in Spitsbergen with her infant Alik and seven-year-old Maya with the last ship - navigation was stopped for almost six months - having survived a monstrous force eight storm at sea. It was immediately discovered that Arktikugol, the organization that sent workers to Spitsbergen, did not even provide the polar explorers with blankets. There was no need to wait six months for the next navigation, and Rachel, together with the miners' wives, began to sew blankets from materials available in the warehouse.
She worked as a telephone operator, but most importantly, she helped her husband brighten up the lives of the workers of the Soviet colony. For example, she organized amateur concerts. Under her leadership, the opera “Rusalka” was staged, where Maya played the role of the Little Mermaid. This was the great ballerina’s first performance on stage, and the family often recalled Pushkin’s phrase, which she uttered with the spontaneity of a child: “I don’t know what money is.”
Academician Otto Schmidt, who headed the Main Directorate of the Northern Sea Route, appointed him general director trust "Arktikugol", and they received an apartment in the center of Moscow. At this time, the Messerer family was at the height of its glory. It is enough to mention one event that occurred in January 1936.
That day, after all the performances ended, a crowd of actors and theatergoers gathered at the entrance to the Moscow Art Theater.
They did not leave the theater, but rather tried to go inside. The excitement was so great that it was necessary to set up a barrier of inspectors who let in only those who had an invitation to the Messerer family evening.
Three sisters and two brothers took part - a magnificent five. They showed excerpts from films in which Rachel starred. Shulamith and Asaph performed the pas de deux from Don Quixote and their best solo numbers. Azarius and Elizabeth played scenes from several classical and modern performances, and also performed parodies of Stanislavsky, Nemirovich-Danchenko, Alisa Koonen and others. The evening was an incredible success.
But the atmosphere in Moscow was already pre-storm, and the Great Terror soon broke out. Rachel's husband was arrested on April 30, 1937, when Rachel was seven months pregnant.
Maya told how she vividly remembers her father’s hands, thin long fingers and the scar left from a saber blow: he fought in Civil War on the red side. She thought for a moment, and then added that every day she mentally sees how her father is being tortured, his arms are being broken...
I didn’t believe it: “Really every day?”
“Yes, and often at night,” she replied. I remember that then the thought occurred to me: maybe that’s why she became not only great ballerina, but also a tragic actress.<...>
Half a century later, more precisely in 1992-93, Rachel’s younger brother Alexander gained access to the interrogation protocols of Mikhail Plisetsky. From the yellowed pages it was extremely clear what reason the investigators had come up with to deal with Rachel’s husband. True to his principle of helping friends in difficult times, he hired R.V. to work on Spitsbergen. Pikel, when he was already in disgrace for his closeness to Zinoviev.
In 1936, Pickel made “confessions” at the famous public trial of Zinoviev, Kamenev and others. In particular, he admitted his “participation in the attempt on Stalin’s life.”
After the execution of Pikel, the NKVD began to arrest everyone who was associated with him.
Mikhail Plisetsky denied the monstrous accusations for a long time, but in mid-July he unexpectedly signed a confession. And the following happened: on July 13, 1937, Azary was born. On July 22, Rachel returned with him from the maternity hospital. On July 23, the phone rang and the voice on the receiver said: “Don’t ask questions, answer, who was born?!” Frightened Rachel said: “Son.”
That call was, in all likelihood, made from the office where Mikhail Plisetsky was interrogated. The security officers apparently promised something for this information. But soon the wives of “enemies of the people” also began to be arrested. Rachel with baby taken away in the early spring of 1938.
That day, Rachel bought flowers and was going to go with her children to the Bolshoi Theater to see “The Sleeping Beauty” to watch Shulamith and Asaph in the lead roles. When the security officers came for her, she told Maya to go with Alik to Bolshoi without her, give Mitya and Asaf flowers and tell them that she was urgently summoned to her husband in Spitsbergen.
Before the performance, Sulamifi and Asaph were informed that children had come to them at the 16th service entrance. Shulamith writes in her memoirs: “I don’t remember how I danced. I only remember my brother whispering with support: hold on, hold on, maybe nothing like that happened...”
During intermission, Mita called Rachel. Her terrible fears were confirmed: Rachel and her child were taken to prison. Shulamith took Maya to live with her, and Asaph took Alik, who was a year older than his son Boris (now a famous artist).
At that time, Rachel was sitting in a huge round cell, in the tower of Butyrka prison, along with dozens of other mothers with screaming babies. The cellmates tried their best to morally support each other. This, in particular, is evidenced by the lullaby that they sang in Butyrka and the words of which Rachel remembered and wrote down many years later:
Early in the morning, at dawn
The corpsman will come.
Children will stand up in reality,
The sun will rise.
A thin ray will sneak through
On the damp wall,
To the imprisoned child
To the little one dear.
But it still won't get any brighter
Gloomy housing
Who will return your blush,
My sunshine?
Behind bars, behind locks
Days are like years.
Children cry, even mothers
They cry sometimes.
But they grow a new generation by hardening their hearts.
You, child, do not believe in treason
Your father.
The last lines sound like a dissonance to the gloomy lyrics of the entire poem. However, they reflect Rachel's life credo.
She was a fragile little woman, but in terms of tenacity of character she was not inferior to seasoned fighters. Her experienced murderer investigators soon realized this.
She did not make any compromises and denied that she knew about her husband’s alleged “criminal activities.” This is what is written in the file: “She denies it, but she couldn’t help but know.”
After Butyrka, she and Azarik were sent to the Gulag, more precisely to “ALZHIR” - that’s what they called the “Akmola Camp for the Wives of Traitors to the Motherland.”
They rode in a calf barn, a cattle car filled to capacity with political and criminal women. From a gypsy woman who slept with the head of the train, she learned that they were being taken to Kazakhstan. Cold winds whistled through the cracks. I was tormented by an insane thirst - they fed me dried roach, with almost no water. But she was even more tormented by the thought of how to let her family know about herself. Again, they were taught by criminals.
On a piece of paper moistened with the head of a match, Rachel wrote a few lines: “We are going towards Karaganda, to the camp of the Akmola region. The child is with me..." and the Moscow address of the relatives: Moscow, st. Dzerzhinsky, house 23, apt. 3.
She folded the paper into a triangle and sealed it with brown bread crumb. When the train stopped at one of the sidings, Rachel, standing on the bunk, through the barred window saw two switchmen standing on the tracks.
She waved at them and threw the letter. One of the women immediately turned away, and the other, following with her eyes a leaf caught by the wind and flying across the train, nodded to Rachel.
Ta kind soul No wonder she nodded. The letter has arrived! Shulamith decided that the Almighty was telling her that she needed to save her sister. Wearing the newly received Order of the Badge of Honor on her suit, she made her way to a reception with the KGB officials, begged permission to visit her sister and take her child, and then set off on a difficult journey thousands and thousands of kilometers away, to the Algeria camp.
Rachel fainted when she was told that her sister had come to see her and she could meet her. When she came to her senses, she learned that Shulamith wanted to take the child. Of course, she dreamed of sending Azarik to freedom, but she also knew that this could lead to her death. The fact is that the jailers freed her, as a nursing mother, from the most difficult work.
She spoke to her sister in the presence of the camp commandant, but the sisters understood each other at a glance. At the end of the meeting, Mita said that the boy was still too weak to withstand the long journey, and asked permission to send parcels to feed him.
How to shorten the sentence or even rescue Rachel and Azarik from the Gulag? There was one small hope. A rumor spread throughout Moscow that at one reception in the Kremlin, after the concert, Stalin proposed a toast to Asaf Messerer. Is this true? Many years later in New York I asked Asaph himself about this, and he confirmed it.
He and Lepeshinskaya, then considered the first couple at the Bolshoi, were sometimes invited to concerts in the Kremlin. One day after a concert, he and a group of artists were sitting at a banquet table and talking about something with a neighbor and suddenly felt awkward: it seemed to him that everyone was looking at him.
He turned around and saw Stalin behind him. He thought about getting up, but Stalin patted him on the shoulder and said: “You dance well. You jump very high! Here she is,” he pointed to Lepeshinskaya, “like a dragonfly, and you are like an eagle.”
At this time, Voroshilov asked Stalin some question. Stalin was distracted, but after answering, he again turned to Asaf, raised his glass and said that he was drinking to him. Asaph was shocked and did not know how to respond. But Stalin went further.
The family began to demand that Asaph help Rachel, since Stalin himself drank for him. Soon after this, Asaph was invited to stage festive concert at the NKVD club.<...>
At the beginning of 1939, Assaf sat at the premiere of his production at the NKVD club and, having talked with a neighbor, learned that he was none other than the secretary of the deputy people's commissar of the NKVD. Asaf, who played heroic roles so convincingly on stage, was very modest in life. One can imagine the torment he went through when he decided to take a bold step: suppressing his shyness, he asked his neighbor to arrange a meeting on a personal matter with his boss... only, if possible, his sister would come, she is better familiar with this matter. Perhaps the success of the production and the fact that Asaf received a standing ovation when he entered the stage had an effect on his seatmate, and he arranged for Mitya an audience with the deputy people's commissar, who was later also shot.
Shulamith eloquently described to him all the ordeals of Rachel and the child and achieved the incredible: the camp was replaced by a settlement in Kazakhstan, namely in the city of Chimkent. Moreover, Mitya was allowed to transport her sister herself.
Shymkent was a provincial Central Asian town; there were many exiles and widowed women with children like Rachel. There was even a Culture Club, where Rachel organized a ballet group.
Beautiful and still young, Rachel attracted the attention of local men, and they even made proposals to her, but she refused everyone, believing that her beloved husband would return. One day she received a package from Mita, which contained “Bear in the North” candies. Apparently she had not seen them before. The author of this name, like the Belochka candy, was the famous director Natalya Sats, whose husband, before he was arrested and shot, was the Minister of Food Industry. She half-jokingly told me during an interview that if her memory remains, it will be because of these candies.
So, Rachel decided that it was no coincidence that Mita sent her sweets, they say, this is a sign that her Mikhail has returned to Spitsbergen and she will see him soon. Like many other women, for a long time she could not understand the monstrous meaning of Stalin’s framed sentence of “ten years without the right to correspondence,” which meant execution.
By that time, Mikhail Plisetsky had already been shot. Only four decades later, Rachel received documentary evidence:
“Dear Rakhil Mikhailovna! - wrote in 1989 A. Nikonov, head of the secretariat of the military collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR. — In response to your request, I inform you: Mikhail Emmanuilovich Plisetsky, born in 1899, member of the CPSU (b) since 1919, before his arrest - manager of the Arctic-Coal trust of the Main Northern Sea Route, was unjustifiably sentenced on January 8, 1938 to death on false charges of espionage, in sabotage and participation in an anti-Soviet terrorist organization. The sentence has been carried out. This happened immediately after the verdict was pronounced - January 8, 1938... An additional check carried out in 1955-56 established that Plisetsky M.E. was convicted unjustifiably...”
The execution was sanctioned by Zhdanov, Molotov, Kaganovich, Voroshilov - their names are on the title of the so-called “Stalinist execution list”. Even the place of execution and burial is now known - the NKVD execution range "Kommunarka", near Moscow.
He died in the prime of life, not even suspecting that his daughter would become a great ballerina. Rachel, who remained alone forever, hated Stalinism, the bloody regime that deprived her and her children of a loved one - their father, and destroyed millions of other fathers... She instilled this hatred and at the same time strengthened the will to silently resist the Stalinist rabble both to Maya and her sons, and us, close relatives.
Rachel returned to Moscow two months before the start of the war and settled with Shulamith and her husband, where Maya lived. They barely fit into two small adjacent rooms in a huge communal apartment in Shchepkinsky Proezd, behind the Bolshoi Theater. Rachel and Azarik slept on a cot, which was placed at night right next to the door, and such conditions seemed like paradise to her after the camp and miserable shack in Chimkent.
She was also happy because just before the war she witnessed her daughter’s first great success in a school concert.
Maya Plisetskaya believes that the performance in the “Impromptu” number staged by Leonid Yakobson especially for schoolchildren had special meaning in her career, for she “stepped from a timid ballet childhood into an independent, adult, risky, but wonderful professional ballet life.”
A few months after the start of the war, Rachel and her children were evacuated to Sverdlovsk, where, with great difficulty, she managed to get a job as a registrar at a clinic in order to receive a card to support her children.
I was especially shocked by the letters from the father of the family, Mikhail Borisovich, to Rachel’s son and brother, Emmanuel Messerer - my father. He died during a bombing while on duty on the roof of a Moscow house. This tragedy was hidden from Mikhail Borisovich. The letters were returned to him with the stamp “the addressee has left,” and he forwarded them to Rachel, demanding to know why Nulya, as he called Emmanuel, was not responding.
She tried to send parcels to her older brother Mattaniy, a professor languishing in the Gulag, as can be seen from Elizabeth’s letter to her dated February 16, 1942.
“Rakhilinka, my sunshine. I shed many tears reading your letter. How terribly you learned about our great misfortune. You know the details of this catastrophe, and I will not irritate your nerves by describing all this again... I was deeply moved by the place where you write about Mattania.
What to do? What to do? Two days ago I received a postcard from him. He asks to send him a parcel. He asks for some sugar, crackers and shag. My heart aches in pain for him.
I can collect a package for him, except for sugar. But we only accept gifts for the front, but not for the rear. Maybe they will accept it from you? I will try again... Write to me, Rakhilinka, more often. It is such a joy for me to receive your letters.”
And here is an excerpt from a letter from Asaf, who at that time was in Kuibyshev, where he led the evacuated Bolshoi Theater troupe:
“Dear Rakhilinka. I received your letter where you ask to be placed in Kuibyshev. The housing issue is very difficult here. It is impossible to get a room, the only possibility- this is to settle in a dormitory at the Bolshoi Theater. I think that I will be allowed, but keep in mind that there are 20-25 people in a room... I am very concerned about your arrival in connection with the typhus epidemic.”
Rachel wanted to move to Kuibyshev because Maya, who had not taken ballet for a year, needed to resume her classes. But soon Rachel learns that part of the troupe has returned to Moscow and, according to rumors, work has resumed at the school. Despite the danger and the lack of a pass to Moscow, she lets her sixteen-year-old daughter go to the capital, to Sulamith, who was called to participate in the first Moscow wartime performances. Fortunately, Maya was accepted into the graduating class, and she began to participate in Bolshoi performances, since the theater did not have enough soloists.
I remember Rachel right after the war. Her sons, who studied at the Choreographic School, were sent for the summer to a pioneer camp in Polenovo, next to the famous Tarusa, and Rachel got a job there. I was also taken to this camp, although I was only 6 years old. For the first time I found myself away from home for 3 months, and if it weren’t for Rachel, it would have been very difficult for me. She treated me like a mother, and I ran to her for comfort after any boyish conflict.
Since then, I have loved her all my life as a second mother. When our communal apartment was undergoing renovations, I asked to live with Rachel in that same communal apartment, in Shchepkinsky Proezd. I was accepted, despite the cramped conditions, and slept on a bed between two famous ballerinas, Maya and Shulamith. My mother's brother, who lived with us, joked about this, saying that with early years I show great promise with women. Of course, I didn’t understand what he meant then.
In the 60s, Shulamith began to go on long business trips abroad, most often to Japan, where she founded the first ballet school and named it after Tchaikovsky. She left her son Misha with Rachel, knowing that her sister would not only take care of him, but would also be able to raise him. Rachel had enough mother's love at all. (Mikhail Messerer was recently appointed chief choreographer of the Mikhailovsky Theater in St. Petersburg, while he continues to be a teacher of the Royal Ballet in London).
Film director Vasily Katanyan, who was friends with Maya Plisetskaya, writes in the book “Touching Idols”: “I really loved her mother, Rakhil Mikhailovna, a worthy, kind woman. It was unclear how she managed everything - cooking, cleaning, everyone ate at different times, Maya was going to class - she needed to iron her tunic, Alik had returned from rehearsal, the youngest was preparing his homework... She was lively and impetuous.”
All the vicissitudes of the turbulent life of Rachel’s children directly affected her: both triumphs on the stage and troubles. For example, she was acutely worried about Maya in the 50s. Maya writes that she was then on the verge of suicide: for 6 years the KGB suspected her of espionage because of one meeting with an English diplomat, refusing her permission to travel abroad. English, American, and French impresarios demanded that the Bolshoi tour include ballets with Plisetskaya, and the State Concert in last minute announced that for one reason or another she allegedly could not come. Maya survived this disgrace largely thanks to the moral support of her mother. She also writes that she and her husband, outstanding composer Rodion Shchedrin managed to get a small apartment in 1958, largely thanks to the efforts of his mother, who “had a quiet character, but stubborn to the extreme.” Indeed, for the sake of the children, Rachel was ready to break through any bureaucratic wall.
In the 70s, a fierce struggle between two camps unfolded inside the Bolshoi Theater - Maya Plisetskaya and Yuri Grigorovich, the authoritarian artistic director ballet, which did not allow major choreographers to stage performances. The careers of Azaria and Alexander, in particular, suffered from this enmity. Grigorovich did everything he could to prevent their progress in the theater, and they were forced to leave Moscow for a long time. Rachel suffered greatly from separation from her sons. And, of course, the worst tragedy in her life was early death Alexander Plisetsky, who suffered from heart disease. He never received a call from America, where a famous surgeon promised to perform an operation on him, and died during the operation in a Moscow hospital. Rachel then suddenly declined and grew old...
There was a lot of sorrow and a lot of joy in her life. She did not miss a single performance with the participation of Maya, Alexander or Azaria. Rachel usually sat in the front rows, next to her younger brother Alexander and the famous Lilya Brik, in one of the beautiful black dresses, smiling at the many fans of her children who came up to her every now and then during intermission. Sometimes she gave photographs to friends, signing “In fond memory from Maya’s mother.”
At the end of her life, Rakhil Mikhailovna received the opportunity to travel. She stayed in England with her sister Shulamith, whom the Queen of England awarded with the highest order for her contribution to the culture of Great Britain. She also spent six months in Cuba, where Azaria worked, in France and Spain. In ninety, she came to America accompanied by her brother Alexander, who tenderly looked after her and actually extended her life.
Rachel died at the age of 91 and was buried in the family grave at Novodevichy Cemetery, at the beginning of the famous Cherry Orchard alley. The first to be buried there in 1937 was her brother Azary, an outstanding Moscow Art Theater actor, after whom Rachel named her son, who was born the same year. This grave is located next to the graves of Chekhov, Levitan, Stanislavsky and Gogol. It is surprising that, just like on the graves of these geniuses of Russia, sometimes flowers appear on her grave, placed by someone unknown. Apparently, Muscovites remember her.
