The brilliant actress Pavel Wulf played on the stages of provincial theaters, occasionally visiting the capital of Russia. The woman tried on roles in productions around the world famous plays and made acquaintances with famous directors and actors. She became the first theater teacher and close friend.
Childhood and youth
Pavel Leontievna was born in the city of Porkhov (Pskov province) into a family of hereditary nobles. Some sources claim that the parents are Russified Germans, but there are versions that they have French or Jewish roots.
A wealthy family had the opportunity to involve teachers from Moscow University in the education of their children. program high school Pavla mastered it at home, and then became a student at the St. Petersburg Institute noble maidens.
The girl dreamed of becoming an actress since childhood and enjoyed trying on various roles in home performances. One day I was so fascinated by the performance of Vera Komissarzhevskaya, the famous Russian actress, founder of her own theater, that she decided at all costs to devote her life to acting.
Pavla wrote a letter to Vera Feodorovna, which, surprisingly, did not go unanswered. The actress recommended that the girl enroll in the Pollack Drama School. After Wulf accepted into its ranks the Imperial Ballet School, opened under Alexandrinsky Theater. The graduate wanted to get into the capital Art Theater, but was refused. Pavla Leontyevna was destined to do brilliant career provincial actress in the role of a lyrical heroine.
Theater
Pavla Wulf's appearance on the big stage happened back in student years– played Laura in the play “The Fight of the Butterflies”, written by the German playwright Hermann Sudermann. The certified actress first went on tour around Ukraine with her idol Komissarzhevskaya. On the stages of Nikolaev, Kharkov and Odessa, she got roles in a scattering of productions - she played Lisa in “ fairy tale", Polixena in the play "Truth is good, but happiness is better", Nastya in "Fighters". Young actress in behavior and appearance I tried to copy my mentor.
Pavla Wulf in the theater In 1901, Woolf came to Nizhny Novgorod, where she gave a year to the enterprise of Konstantin Nezlobin. Here creative biography I was inspired by the role of Edwige from the drama “The Wild Duck”. Then she served in the Riga City Theater, where women were also assigned vivid images– she represented herself from a famous play, from a tragedy.
Pavla Leontyevna had to wander across the expanses of Russia and Ukraine. The actress was received by theaters in Kharkov, Kyiv, Irkutsk, and Moscow. And after the revolution, the woman settled in Rostov-on-Don. However, not for long. Three years later, residents of Simferopol enjoyed Wulf’s game. The collection of works has been replenished with the roles of Lisa from “ Noble nest", Nina from "The Seagull" and Nastya from the play "At the Depths".
Additional opportunities for career development have opened up in Simferopol. Pavla Wulf was invited to teach at a theater school. Later, in the early 30s, an actress and already a director theatrical productions led a movement class and staged a stage speech for members of the section of the Baku Theater of Working Youth.
Alexey Shcheglov, Faina Ranevskaya and Pavla Wulf In 1931, Wulf again found herself in Moscow. She worked tirelessly, managed to combine the stage with teaching at school Chamber Theater, then she taught acting wisdom to young people at a drama school opened on the basis of the Red Army Theater.
One of latest works women became the role of Agrafena in the play “Wolf”, created by Leonid Leonov. However, in 1938, Pavel Wulf suffered from a serious illness, due to which she had to say goodbye to the stage.
Wulf’s grandson, Alexey Shcheglov, eloquently wrote in his memoirs about Pavla Leontyevna’s acquaintance and friendship with Faina Ranevskaya. Faina Feldman was so impressed by the performance of the actress of the Rostov Theater in the production of “The Cherry Orchard” that the very next day she came to her home.
Pavla Wulf and young Faina Ranevskaya Wulf, suffering from a migraine that morning, at first did not want to accept the guest, but she turned out to be too persistent. Faina Georgievna begged to be taken into the troupe. To get rid of the girl, Pavel Leontyevna handed her a play she didn’t like based on the plot and told her to come back in a week with any role she had learned.
When the future Ranevskaya appeared in the form Italian actress, Wulf was delighted and realized that in front of her was a real diamond. Moreover, Faina prepared very thoroughly - she was not too lazy to find an Italian in the city, from whom she adopted facial expressions and gestures. Since then, Ranevskaya settled in the house of Pavla Leontyevna, who became young talent mentor and close friend.
Personal life
Pavel Wulf did not live long with her first husband Sergei Anisimov. Then the woman met a gentleman of Tatar blood, the son of a military man, Konstantin Karateev, who died early. The actress did not have time to divorce her first husband and marry her second. Therefore, daughter Irina, born in 1906, received the surname and patronymic of her first husband.
Pavla Leontievna had a hard life, filled with travel and frequent changes of residence. They say that the actress called her wanderings “provincial hard labor.” This affected her daughter’s health - Ira became very ill.
The child was nursed by costume designer Natalya Ivanova, who in the Wulf household was simply called Tata. The girl took on all the worries about Irina, becoming her second mother. Pavel Leontievna was immensely grateful to her assistant for giving her the opportunity to devote herself to acting.
In the future, Irina Sergeevna Wulf became a theater actress and director, and played Yuri Zavadsky in plays. The woman gave Pavel Leontyevna her grandson Alexei.
Death
For the last 20-odd years, Pavel Wulf has been seriously ill. The great theater actress died in early June 1961. Ranevskaya noted that her friend was dying in terrible agony. Until the end of her days, Faina Georgievna never came to terms with her loss. Pavel Leontyevna rests in the Donskoye Cemetery.
In the biographical series “Faina”, which airs on Channel One, Pavla Wulf plays.
Performances
- “The Snow Maiden”, Alexander Ostrovsky - the role of the Snow Maiden
- "Romeo and Juliet", William Shakespeare - the role of Juliet
- “The Noble Nest” - the role of Lisa
- “The Seagull” - the role of Nina Zarechnaya
- “The Cherry Orchard”, Anton Chekhov - the role of Anya
- “Ivanov”, Anton Chekhova - the role of Sasha
- “Woe from Wit” - the role of Sophia
- "The Wild Duck", Henrik Ibsen - role of Edwige
Sofia Yakovlevna Parnok - how many people shudder in my heart on your behalf... Time distorts memories, but there are not many memories left about Sofia Yakovlevna Parnok. There was a time when people could not write about their lives, about their feelings, and I think this was basically not typical for Sofia Parnok. She lived with her soul, acted based on her soul, not her mind.
Recently I was leafing through the memoirs of my beloved actress Faina Georgievna Ranevskaya, who was friends with Sofia Parnok and whose life I was always keenly interested in (according to Faina Ranevskaya’s letter to Sofia Polyakova).
Photo by Sofia Parnok and Faina Ranevskaya (~20s of the twentieth century)
On the left is Faina Ranevskaya, on the right is Sofia Parnok.
One of Faina Georgievna Ranevskaya’s memories concerned Marina Tsvetaeva’s poem, which is dedicated to Sofia Parnok.
There are names like stuffy flowers,
And there are glances like dancing flames...
There are dark, twisting mouths
With deep and moist corners.
There are women. - Their hair is like a helmet,
Their fan smells deadly and subtle.
They are thirty years old. - Why do you, why?
My soul is a Spartan child?
Ascension, 1915
One night, Faina Ranevskaya suddenly remembered it. There is no mention of Sofia Parnok in the memoirs of F. Ranevskaya; only a few memories and thoughts about Marina Tsvetaeva can be found.
But remembering this poem by Marina Tsvetaeva, I first of all remember the one to whom it is dedicated, Sofia Parnok.
Are thoughts about Sofia Parnok (who, like Faina Ranevskaya, was from Taganrog) really so veiled in Faina Ranevskaya’s memoirs?
If I could meet Sofia Parnok, I would tell her that I admire people who can afford to live the life that they consider the only correct one, without relying on the opinion of anyone.
The same applies to poetry. Sofia Parnok, like other poets, found the strength to write on the table, knowing that the general population would not see her poems. As her adopted brother Vladislav Khodasevich said in Sofia Parnok’s obituary, “She published several books of poems unknown to the general public - so much the worse for the public...”
I, more than 70 years after the death of Sofia Parnok, join the words of Vladislav Khodasevich and shake his hand. Sincerely.
© Adele Linskaya
...Mother said, consoling:
"Don't be afraid, don't tremble, dear!
I will go to the palace crying;
With tears, screams and prayers
I will awaken the heart on the throne...
And in the morning, how will they lead
Take you to the square, I’ll stand here,
At the place of execution, on the balcony.
If I'm in a black dress.
Know that your death is inevitable...
Isn’t it true, my son, with a bold step
Will you go towards your destiny?
After all, Hungarian blood is in you!
But if in a white blanket
You'll see me above the crowd
Know - I begged with tears
Spare the life of the young..."
Later, Ranevskaya learned these poems by heart. Elizaveta Moiseevna told me that Bella, dying in Moscow, suddenly asked Faina if she remembered Sergei - that was the name of the high school student who was in love with her - and the poem “The White Veil”. Ranevskaya said that she still remembers some lines, especially those that describe her mother’s act:
...The Count does not notice anything:
He looks forward to the square.
There's a mother standing on the balcony -
Calm, in a white blanket.
And his heart began to play!
And take a bold step to the place of execution
He went... with a happy face
Stepped onto the platform with the executioner...
And clear to the noose rose...
And in the loop itself - he smiled!
Why was the mother wearing white?
Oh, holy lie!.. It could
Only a mother, full of fear, can lie,
So that the son does not flinch before execution!
Bella died in the spring of 1963, and then last meeting Ranevskaya with Marshak in a sanatorium near Moscow. She recalled that Samuil Yakovlevich cried about his grief - Tamara Grigorievna Gabbe died shortly before this - and Ranevskaya about hers - about the death of Pavla Leontievna Wulf. Then Marshak told Faina Georgievna that her story about her deceased brother turned out to be unforgettable for him: “Sometime after my brother’s death, I turned to the mirror to see how in tears I was. And I felt like an actress.”
But speaking about what made Ranevskaya an actress, we need to remember the one with whose death we began this chapter - about Chekhov. He became one of the few people who deeply influenced her and determined the course of her entire life - this was reflected in her very pseudonym, taken, as many say, in honor of the heroine of Chekhov’s “The Cherry Orchard.” In addition to the theater, they were brought together by another thing - Taganrog, although Chekhov, who was born here in 1868, did not like this city, experiencing the same dislike for it, combined with a special, strange attraction - Ranevskaya also experienced a similar feeling.
ABOUT hometown Chekhov wrote this: “Taganrog is absolutely dead city. Quiet, deserted, completely deserted streets, planted on both sides with trees in two rows - acacias, poplars, linden, because of which houses are not visible in the summer... lack of traffic on the streets, lack of commercial activity, a small port that did not allow large ships to come close to Taganrog... deserted sleepy boulevards by the sea and above the sea - and everywhere there is silence, dead, dull, overwhelming silence, which makes... you want to run out into the street and shout “guard”. The quiet charm of sadness and loneliness, abandonment, slow dying emanates from the deserted wide streets, overgrown with trees, immersed in drowsy silence; It seems that a few more years will pass - and the lush acacias and Brazilian poplars will bury the city, and in its place a thick, impenetrable noise will rustle. dense forest". In the article "Chekhov in Taganrog" Vladimir Lensky notes: "Chekhov could not help but be born in this city of sad silence, dreary hopelessness; he would not have been Chekhov, perhaps, if he had not been born in Taganrog."
As you know, Chekhov left Taganrog in 1879, came there almost every year, but invariably spoke sharply critically about the city. Faina Feldman, having left Taganrog in 1915, never returned there. She and the writer have one more thing in common. Unfortunately, the first drama written by Chekhov as a seventh-grader has not reached us (the author mercilessly destroyed it), but the title “Fatherlessness” has been preserved, which says a lot. In one of his letters, Chekhov wrote: “As a child, I had no childhood.” In another: “The difference between the time when they beat me and the time when they stopped fighting was terrible.” Faina was not beaten at home, but, as we saw, her impression of family life was almost as bleak; maybe this was one of the reasons that she never started a family. She had in common with her beloved writer a sharp, merciless, perhaps overly pessimistic view of life and people - a view that gave rise to many of her famous aphorisms.
During Ranevskaya’s childhood, Chekhov remained distant and incomprehensible to her. She, like all children, was more strongly influenced by those people whom she saw in person, for example, the neighboring Parnok (Parnakh) family. The Parnok and Feldman families were friends. Marianna Elizarovna Tavrog, in her memoirs about Ranevskaya, more than once mentioned Sofia Yakovlevna Parnok, the original poetess of the Silver Age. She was ten years older than Faina. They hardly met at the Mariinsky Gymnasium in Taganrog, but their destinies had mystically a lot in common. It so happened that Sofia Parnok was left early without a mother, who died while giving birth to twins - a son and a daughter. Loneliness became almost the main impression of her childhood and youth. Sofia left Taganrog in 1904, and they met Faina Feldman in Moscow, after the revolution.
Marianna Elizarovna recalled that during meetings Ranevskaya more than once asked her to recite Sofia Parnok’s poem “I don’t know my ancestors - who are they?” She immediately read this wonderful poem to me from memory, falteringly. Later I found out that it was written in 1915, back when Faina lived in Taganrog:
I don’t know my ancestors - who are they?
Where did you go when you came out of the desert?
Only the heart beats more excitedly,
Let's talk a little about Madrid.To these oatmeal and clover fields,
My great-grandfather, where did you come from?
All colors to my northern eyes
Black and yellow are more intoxicating.My great-grandson, with our old blood,
Will you blush, pale-faced one,
How do you envy a singer with a guitar?
Or a woman with a red carnation?
Marianna Elizarovna continued: “She dreamed of, if not writing, then at least telling some of her “trusted” listeners about Sofia Parnok - after all, acquaintance with her led Ranevskaya to Marina Tsvetaeva, and, perhaps, to A. Akhmatova... I think that in her personal life, her acquaintance with Parnok played an important role. Parnok Sofia Yakovlevna wrote in one of her letters (to M.F. Gnesin - M.G.): “Unfortunately, I have never been in love with a man.” Yakovlevna was so in love with Marina Tsvetaeva that they both did not even find it necessary to hide it. Of course, Faina never told me about this, but conversations about Parnok, and not only about her, hovered all my life..."
However, this is evidenced by Tsvetaeva’s own poems from the “Girlfriend” cycle dedicated to Sofia Parnok:
Can I not remember
That smell of White-Rose and tea,
And Sevres figurines
Above the glowing fireplace...We were: me - in a fluffy dress
From a little golden fai,
You are wearing a knitted black jacket
With a winged collar...
And although the relationship between Tsvetaeva and Parnok caused undisguised condemnation from people who knew them (E. O. Kirienko-Voloshina, the poet’s mother, even addressed Parnok personally about this), for a long time it did not lead to anything. In one of Tsvetaeva’s letters to A. Efron it is written: “Sonya loves me very much, and I love her - and this is forever.”
Knowing that Ranevskaya knew both Tsvetaeva and Parnok, there is no doubt that the details of this novel were not a secret to Faina, although by the time they met (the mid-1910s) it had already become a thing of the past. We know nothing about her attitude to the personal life of the “Russian Sappho,” as Sofia Parnok was often called - Faina Georgievna never spoke publicly about such things. Her close, albeit short-lived, communication with Parnok, as well as many years of tender friendship with E.V. Geltser and P.L. Wulf, can (and already does) arouse in the public a certain kind of suspicion regarding Ranevskaya’s own commitment to same-sex love, to which, As you know, many creative people are prone to this. On this score, only one thing can be said: if Faina Georgievna herself considered it necessary not to make public the circumstances of her personal life, then to get to the bottom of them - especially when complete absence facts - clearly unethical.
Having remembered Sofia Parnok, I want to add to the story about her talented brother Valentin Yakovlevich Parnakh - especially since I also heard a lot about him from Elizaveta Moiseevna. Valentin Parnakh graduated with honors from the Taganrog Gymnasium in 1909, and in 1912, despite all sorts of percentage standards, he was admitted to the Faculty of Law of St. Petersburg University. The all-round talent of this young man aroused the admiration of many: his music lessons It was directed by Mikhail Fabianovich Gnessin himself, his artistic talent was not only noticed, but also highly appreciated by Meyerhold; in his magazine “Love for Three Oranges”, on the recommendation of Alexander Blok himself, he published a selection of poems by Valentin Parnach.
Elizaveta Moiseevna told me that Ranevskaya quoted many of V. Parnakh’s poems from memory. And here is her story about the last meeting of two fellow countrymen: “I will never forget the cold winter of 1951. We were with her at the funeral of Valentin Parnakh on Novodevichy Cemetery. Ehrenburg, Gnessin, Utesov, and I think Shostakovich were present there. On the way home, Faina suddenly said: “God grant that we don’t envy Valentin!” Why did she say this? The doctors' case has not yet begun, and Faina herself recently received another Stalin Prize". Ranevskaya helped Parnach in difficult years for him, placing his brilliant, but “ideologically dubious” translations of Spanish and Portuguese poets in various publishing houses.
Pavel Leontievna Wulf(1878-1961) - Russian actress, Honored Artist of the Republic (1927).
Biography
From a noble family.
She decided to become an actress after she saw V.F. Komissarzhevskaya on stage. On the advice of Komissarzhevskaya, to whom she addressed a letter, she entered the Pollak drama school, and a year later she switched to drama courses at the Imperial Ballet School at the Alexandrinsky Theater.
She made her stage debut as a student in the role of Laura in G. Suderman’s play “The Fight of the Butterflies.”
Upon completion of her studies, on the advice of her teacher V. Danilin, she tried to enter the Moscow Art Theater, but was not accepted. Since 1901 she worked at the Nizhny Novgorod Theater in Nezlobin's enterprise.
In 1902-1904 actress of the Riga City Theater.
After the revolution she lived in Rostov-on-Don. There I met Faina Ranevskaya. She became her friend and teacher.
She left memoirs.
Recognition and awards
- "Honored Artist of the Republic" (1927)
Roles P. L. Wolf
- “The Noble Nest” by I. Turgenev - Lisa
- “The Seagull” by A.P. Chekhov - Nina Zarechnaya
- « Cherry Orchard"A.P. Chekhov - Anya
- “Ivanov” by A.P. Chekhov - Sasha
- "Tsar Feodor Ioannovich" - Irina
- “Woe from Wit” by A. S. Griboyedov - Sophia
***********************
Poetess Sofia Parnok(1885 - 1933) was the most outspoken lesbian figure Russian literature" silver age"As a lesbian, Parnok lived to the fullest, and her long romances with women, very different - in age, profession and character, entered the work of the poetess; she spoke the language of poetry on behalf of her many silent sisters.
The first poems were written Sofia Parnok at the age of six. Later, while studying at the Mariinsky Gymnasium in Taganrog, she would start her first poetry notebooks. It must be said that Sofia was very capable in her studies and in 1904 she completed her gymnasium education with a gold medal.
Seventeen-year-old Parnok, without hesitation, broke up with Taganrog and “ran” after some actress she liked on her first of three European trips. She makes an attempt to enter the Geneva Conservatory, but gives up music and returns to St. Petersburg, where she goes to legal courses, which, however, also does not end.
Nadezhda Polyakova
Twenty-year-old Parnok is having an affair with Nadezhda Pavlovna Polyakova. Their relationship lasted more than five years. N.P.P. became the main recipient of poems in Parnok’s student notebooks.
Marina Tsvetaeva
In 1914, Sofya Parnok meets Marina Tsvetaeva...
Sofia Parnok was 29, she was 7 years older than Marina Tsvetaeva, who quickly fell in love with a confident and outwardly somewhat aggressive woman. Their relationship was on the verge of what was permitted: Marina completely submitted to her Sonechka, and she “pushed away, forced to beg, trampled underfoot...”, but - and Marina believed in this until the end of her days - “loved...”
Parnok for Tsvetaeva is her “femme fatale”. Rock will also be included in the poetics of Tsvetaeva’s texts addressed to Parnok. The main motive in them will be moderate submission and worship before the beloved, from whom you do not expect reciprocity, but whom you idolize. To a large extent, this novel, the emphasized coldness towards the “gray-eyed friend”, the feeling of power over the submissive girl who left her husband and family for Sonechka, transformed the inner feelings of Parnok herself. She accepted love for the first time, allowed herself to be loved and, as often happens, it was as if she was taking revenge for the fact that once in her youth she herself had become a victim of such blind love for Polyakova, who disappointed her ("... and this is what I have been doing for five years gave her life").
After Tsvetaeva, there were many women in Sofia’s life.
Lyudmila Erarskaya
Left a noticeable mark new love- theater actress Nezlobina Lyudmila Vladimirovna Erarskaya. Their affection for each other dates back to the dark revolutionary years. In the summer of 1917, when everyone was in a “murderous mood” and life had become “almost impossible,” the two of them went to Crimea, where they lived together.
Olga Tsuberbiller
In the early 1920s, Sofia Parnok met professor of mathematics Olga Nikolaevna Tsuberbiller, who became Parnok’s main support “in the most terrible” years. “Invaluable” and “blessed” friend Olga took Sofia, as she put it in one of her letters, “as her dependent.” Parnok finally settled in one of the Moscow communal apartments. Being under the peculiar everyday patronage of a friend, she does not give up trying to improve her literary life.
In Parnok's personal life, at the end of 1929, a short passion for a singer suddenly appeared. Maria Maksakova, but she, however, will not understand the “strange” desires of the aging poetess.
Rejected and misunderstood by Maksakova, Parnok, who in literature could only hope for the work of a laborer-translator, is approaching the end of her life.
Nina Vedeneeva
Half of the penultimate year of life Sofia Parnok spent in the city of Kashin with my random friend, a physicist Nina Evgenievna Vedeneeva. Both were under 50...
Vedeneeva became last love Parnok - Before her death, Sofia seemed to have received a reward from God... By the way, born into a family that professed Judaism, Sofia consciously baptized, accepted Orthodoxy and Christian culture. On the verge of death, Parnok fully felt the power of love and regained creative freedom, which was breathed into her by feelings for the “gray-haired Muse” - Vedeneeva.
Oh, on this night, the last on earth,
While the heat has not yet cooled down in the ashes,
With a parched mouth, with all my thirst to fall to you,
My gray-haired, my fatal passion!
After staying in Kashin, a cycle of poems remained - the last from the poetess. Kashin cycle - by all accounts, highest achievement lyrics by Parnok.
The following summer, in the midst of her unusual late romance and bright creative rise, Parnok, “overwhelmed” by feelings, died in a small Russian village not far from Moscow.
Faina Ranevskaya
There is a photo of two compatriots, two women from Taganrog, in an embrace, Sofia Parnok And Faina Ranevskaya. Unlike her older friend, Faina was a monogamist. Throughout her life, a red, or rather pink, thread ran through her love for the actress. Pavle Wulff.
Faina spent her childhood in a large two-story family house in the center of Taganrog. From a very young age she felt a passion for the game. In the spring of 1911, on the stage of the Taganrog Theater, Faina saw Pavel Leontyevna Wulf for the first time... But another four years would pass before, after graduating from high school, Faina would give up everything and, against the wishes of her parents, go to Moscow, dreaming of becoming an actress.
Having spent her savings, having lost the money sent by her father, who was desperate to guide his daughter on the true path, shivering from the cold, Faina will stand helplessly in the colonnade Bolshoi Theater. Her pitiful appearance will attract attention famous ballerina Ekaterina Vasilievna Geltser. She will bring the chilled girl to her house, then to the Moscow Art Theater; will take you to actors’ meetings and salons. There Faina will meet Marina Tsvetaeva, a little later, probably with Sofia Parnok. Marina called her her hairdresser: Faina cut her bangs...
In the spring of 1917, Ranevskaya learned that her family had fled to Turkey on their own steamship "St. Nicholas". She remained in the country alone - until the mid-1960s, when her sister Bela returned from emigration.
She saved Faina Ranevskaya from family loneliness Pavel Leontievna Wulf. New meeting happened to her in Rostov-on-Don just in those days when the “St. Nicholas” landed on the Turkish coast. Almost forty years of life began Faina Ranevskaya next to, along with Pavloy Wulff.
It must be said that there are no direct indications of the lesbian nature of the relationship between Faina and Pavla, there are only indirect ones. Yes, they were close like best friends are close. Yes, the artistic crowd cannot remember a single romance between Ranevskaya and men, except that they can remember her incomprehensible short friendship with Tolbukhin, which ended with the death of the marshal in 1949.
Add here the sparkling humor of Faina Georgievna, who loved to joke about her lesbianism. She often told a story about how, in her youth, she experienced a terrible insult inflicted on her by a man:
“One day a young man came to me - I carefully prepared for his visit: I cleaned the apartment, set up a table from meager funds - and said: “I want to ask you, please give me your room for today, I have nowhere to meet a girl". This story, writes art critic Olga Zhuk in the book "Russian Amazons...", Ranevskaya usually concluded with the words "since then I became a lesbian..."
http://skif-tag.livejournal.com/
“When they don’t give me a role, I feel like a pianist whose hands were cut off.”, “Starting in a bad film is like spitting into eternity.”
Faina Georgievna Ranevskaya, the legendary actress, passed away in 1984. Great people reserve the right to create legends about them. Their life seems to be always in sight and at the same time mysteriously hidden from prying and prying eyes. And death most often reveals the veil...
Many books of memoirs about Faina Ranevskaya have been published, a collection of jokes and aphorisms, the author of which was presumably Ranevskaya.
And I was once lucky to attend a theatrical evening dedicated to this inimitable actress.
It was a long time ago, at the end of the last century... But it is impossible to forget such an evening. Vitaly Wulf, the author of the TV show “Silver Ball,” popular in those years, and two actresses who were lucky enough to be on friendly terms with Faina Ranevskaya came to Israel: Elena Kamburova and Marina Neelova.
Vitaly Yakovlevich Wulf, who honestly admitted that he had a casual acquaintance with Ranevskaya, turned out to be an excellent storyteller. He did not reveal any shocking details from the actress’s life, did not present the audience with a “strawberry”, but turned over the pages of the actress’s fate, sad and funny...
Wolfe's story seemed so interesting to me then that I wrote it down from memory when I returned home. And Vitaly Yakovlevich was a great storyteller.
There are only a few brilliant actresses. Ranevskaya, who managed to combine tragic and comic principles in her roles, is one of them. Her influence on the viewer was magically bewitching, in even the smallest episodic role.
She worked in many theaters, but for twenty years Ranevskaya played on the stage of the Theater. Mossovet, led by Yuri Zavadsky.
In her declining years, Faina Georgievna was once asked:
— Why did you move from theater to theater? “I was looking for sacred art.”
- Found it? - Found it. In the Tretyakov Gallery.
And yet Faina Georgievna is more familiar and close to us from her film roles.
There was a film “Dream”, in which she played Rosa Skorokhod, a Jewish mother of a Jewish son. But this was not just the image of a loving small-town mother. Ranevskaya played the soul of the nation, and played superbly. "The Dream" is one of the few films of that time that crossed the border. American President Franklin Roosevelt watched it many times. They say that the wonderful Russian actor Mikhail Chekhov, who lived in Paris, cried after this film. "The Dream" was the only Soviet film highly rated by Charlie Chaplin. I have not seen this film, but according to my mother’s stories, it is an unforgettable film.
And I remember very well the sparkling comedy “Foundling”. She became sparkling thanks to the performance of Faina Ranevskaya. Over the years, the actress hated her role in this film. And all because of one phrase. In all the cities, boys ran after her and shouted after her: “Mulya, don’t make me nervous!”
It is interesting that Anna Andreevna Akhmatova, whom Ranevskaya idolized, once seeing her irritated, said: “I also have my own Mulya...” - and quoted, “I squeezed my hand behind a dark veil...”
The second film that I remember from my childhood was “Spring,” where Ranevskaya incomparably played a lonely aging housekeeper. To see the enthusiastically naive and unhappy Margarita Lvovna again, I watched “Spring” several times and laughed a lot when she, with a compress on her head, rolling her eyes, calls “ ambulance” and at the same time calls himself either Lev Margaritovich or Margarit Lvovich. Over the years, this character played by Ranevskaya seemed more and more sad to me, today, I would laugh through my tears...
With Lyubov Orlova, who played in “Spring” main role, Ranevskaya continued to maintain warm relations. Somehow, years later, she said in surprise: “Lyubochka and I are almost the same age. I'm getting old, and she's getting younger and looks like my granddaughter. What's the secret?
In general, she was very kind, but she knew how to be very unkind. People were afraid of her witticisms. During one of the rehearsals, not getting along with the director, she told Yuri Zavadsky: “You are an elongated midget.” The offended Zavadsky, saying that he would hang himself, left the hall. To the confused witnesses of this scene, Ranevskaya calmly answered: “Yuri Alexandrovich will be back now. At this time he goes to the toilet.” Five minutes later Zavadsky entered the hall.
She practically never had unsuccessful roles. Any episode in her performance became the most striking in the play or film, because she herself figured out how to play it.
But Ranevskaya was not an ideal person. And failures happened in her creative life. One of them is the role of Moskaleva in the dramatization of Dostoevsky’s novel “ Uncle's dream" The story of this failure is this...
In those years, the old actress Serafima Birman, whom Ranevskaya had disliked since the war years, no longer worked at the theater, but spent more time with. This was due to the fact that the role in the film “Ivan the Terrible,” first proposed by Ranevskaya, eventually went to Serafima Birman and was brilliantly performed by her.
And so, many years later, having drowned out the hostility in herself, Faina Georgievna proposed introducing Seraphim into the role of the old woman in one of the episodes of the play “Uncle’s Dream”.
During the premiere, Ranevskaya played beautifully until old Birman came on stage, slightly shuffling, and with her virtuoso performance made the audience pay attention only to her. Ranevskaya, who did not expect this, was embarrassed and finished playing crumpled.
At the end of her life she said: “Old age is just disgusting. I believe that it is ignorance of God when he allows people to live to old age. Lord, everyone has already left, but I still live. Birman - she died too, and I never expected this from her. It’s scary when you’re eighteen inside, when you admire beautiful music, poetry, painting, and it’s time for you to go. You haven’t managed to do anything, but you’re just starting to live...”
And she was eighteen too... And Faina Ranevskaya’s name was Fanya Feldman. She grew up in Taganrog, in a wealthy Jewish family.
At the time of Faina's birth, her father was the owner of a dry and oil paints, several houses, a store building materials and the steamship "St. Nicholas".
From the age of five, the girl tried to portray various images.
But when in early years She shared her dream of becoming an actress with her father, who succinctly answered her: “Mishigine!” However, at the age of fifteen she tried to enter one of the theater schools and was not accepted “due to lack of talent.”
Ranevskaya's stage debut took place in 1915 in the holiday village of Malakhovka. She played the role with virtually no text. The role of a girl in love. Ranevskaya “loved” without the words of her chosen one so much that she could not get out of this state after the performance.
“You will be a brilliant actress,” the director told her.
Faina Ranevskaya was a woman with a brilliant acting and difficult personal destiny. “When I was twenty years old,” she said, somehow thoughtfully, “I thought only about love. Now I only like to think.”
Faina Georgievna’s entire personal life was connected with one person - actress Pavla Leontievna Wulf. And although the relationship between them was difficult, Pavel Wulf forever remained the most dear person to Ranevskaya. Now I noticed a strange coincidence. The date of birth of Pavla Wulf - July 19 - became the date of Faina Ranevskaya’s departure...
Many years later, Wulf’s grandson, Alexey Shcheglov, whom Ranevskaya called “hertsats grandson,” wrote a book of memoirs about the actress: “Ranevskaya. Fragments of life."
Our life is really just fragments of one large, sometimes color, sometimes black and white film. And often our life can turn out to be much more interesting and “more complicated” than any written stories.
... After forty years of separation, Faina Ranevskaya met with her family, mother, sister and brother.
After the February Revolution, Hirsch Feldman said: “When February comes, March can come.” He wisely decided not to wait for “Mart” and emigrated to Romania. There, in Bucharest in 1957, Faina Georgievna met her loved ones. Four years later, her sister Isabella moved in with her. But brought up and raised outside of Russia, she was never able to get used to Moscow life in the 60s. A year and a half later, Isabella died, and Faina Georgievna was left alone again.
However, not alone. Ranevskaya was immensely attached to her dog. Because of her, she often could not leave Moscow. The dog's name was Boy. In connection with such an unusual nickname, Vitaly Wulf told one episode from the life of the actress. How emotional Faina Georgievna was can be understood from this episode.
In her youth, she once saw a play staged by Stanislavsky. Being in a state of strong emotional upheaval, she remained in the hall after it ended. When she was asked to leave, she replied that she was waiting for the next performance, although it was already late in the evening. “Wait outside,” the theater attendants calmly told her. Ranevskaya obediently left, but, still not coming to her senses, remained standing at the entrance. And at this time Stanislavsky himself was passing by the theater on a carriage. Unable to contain her feelings, Ranevskaya rushed after him and shouted: “My boy! My boy! Stanislavsky turned around, looked at the girl in surprise, and a moment later the carriage rushed on...
And the dog Boy was with Ranevskaya until the end. Marina Neelova told how she first saw the Boy. He had well-fed eyes, an impudent muzzle and a completely bald tail. But for Ranevskaya, the Boy was the height of perfection.
“My Boy knows all French poetry,” she said, “I read him poems in the original.” Ranevskaya, who loved to joke, said: “My dog lives like Sarah Bernhardt, and I live like a St. Bernard.” Taking care of the Boy, Faina Georgievna gave him the unspent love in her life.
She did everything from the heart. And therefore, transforming into her heroines, she became them. In the old, forgotten film “The Cochin Engineer’s Mistake,” she played the doctor’s wife, Ida Gurevich. The film was shot in 1939, and it took enormous courage and talent to create the image she created with virtually no text. Play intimidation, a direct feeling of fear - the fear of waiting for the “black raven”.
In one of the performances, she played the role of the prostitute Zinka, and performed it so brilliantly that all the prostitutes in Moscow ran to watch her and gain experience. Although his personal experience V love relationships she didn't have much.
Marina Neelova said during the meeting that everyone sees her personality in a different way. She was very different: gentle and sarcastic, friendly and harsh. The sharpness of her tongue was incredibly combined with the wisdom of an old man and childish naivety.
She also knew how to be generous with praise. And this doesn’t happen often in our pragmatic age. Both Elena Kamburov and Marina Neelova said that Ranevskaya was the first to extend an acquaintance to them by calling, praising their performances and inviting them to her place. It is a rare quality of a great actress to allow herself to call a young actress and say approving words.
Faina Georgievna Ranevskaya did not play enough and did not like her for 88 years. Each of us has our own destiny. But it was very sad for me to read such lines in the collection of her jokes and aphorisms... After the performance, Ranevskaya often looked at the flowers, the basket with letters, postcards and notes, full of admiration from fans of her talent, and sadly remarked: “There’s so much love, why don’t you go to the pharmacy?” no one."
Loneliness is sad... Long after that theatrical evening, dedicated to memory Ranevskaya, I thought about her, trying to highlight in my memory frames from the few films with her participation that I had seen.
She is buried next to her sister, at the Donskoye Cemetery. And not Novodevichy, where at that time it was customary to bury famous people. This is what Ranevskaya bequeathed. But admirers of the power of her skill find her grave; dozens of people come every day to pay tribute with fresh flowers. And at the top of the monument is a small bronze dog. In memory of the Boy who outlived his owner...
Marina Neyolova called her Planet. And it seems to me that this Planet is still spinning. Among other heavenly bodies.
I would like to add her phrases, thoughts, reflections to this story:
*I don't recognize the word "play". You can play cards, horse races, checkers. You need to live on stage.
*
Tolstoy said that there is no death, but there is love and memory of the heart. The memory of the heart is so painful, it would be better if it did not exist... It would be better to kill the memory forever.
*
Growing old is boring, but it's the only way to live long.
*
My God, how life has slipped by, I have never even heard nightingales sing.
*
It’s scary when you’re eighteen inside, when you admire beautiful music, poetry, painting, but it’s time for you, you haven’t managed to do anything, you’re just starting to live!
*
Women, of course, are smarter. Have you ever heard of a woman who would lose her head just because a man has beautiful legs?
*
- Which women, in your opinion, are more faithful - brunettes or blondes?
- Gray haired!
*
Life is too short to waste it on diets, greedy men and bad moods.
*
If you have a person to whom you can tell your dreams, you have no right to consider yourself lonely...
*
Loneliness is when there is a telephone in the house and the alarm clock rings.
*
Talent is self-doubt and painful dissatisfaction with oneself and one's shortcomings, which I have never encountered in mediocrity.
*
Everything pleasant in this world is either harmful, immoral, or leads to obesity.
*
If a woman walks with her head down, she has a lover! If a woman walks with her head held high, she has a lover! If a woman holds her head straight, she has a lover! And in general - if a woman has a head, then she has a lover!
*
Family replaces everything. Therefore, before you get one, you should think about what is more important to you: everything or family.
*
Damn nineteenth century, damned upbringing: I can’t stand when men are sitting.
*
I lived with many theaters, but never enjoyed it.
*
The main thing is to live a living life, and not rummage through the nooks and crannies of memory.
*
Remember for the rest of your life - you have to be so proud that you are above your pride.
*
A person's passport is his misfortune, because a person should always be eighteen, and a passport only reminds you that you can live like an eighteen-year-old.
***
And if I write one word at the end of my story about her: GREAT!
Will this be enough? 🙂
But I will still add that I adore her in all her roles. And for the first time, I probably saw her as Cinderella’s Stepmother, and since then I can’t forget the phrase: “The kingdom is not enough. There’s nowhere to go for a walk!” Such brilliance in her performance! :))
And yet, I don’t know if the fiction is true, everything can be... But I read that during the Great Patriotic War, some soldiers went into battle with the call “For the Motherland, for Stalin,” and others with its sacramental: “Mulya, don’t irritate me " And they went...
She was cynical. But everything fits into her image. Because - Magnificent!
This is the phrase she said after a heart attack:
“If a patient really wants to live, doctors are powerless.”
Bright Memory of a great actress! .
Short excerpts from films with her participation can be great fun!
