Vasily Chapaev was born on February 9, 1887 in the small village of Budaika, in the Kazan province. Today this place is part of Cheboksary - the capital of Chuvashia. Chapaev was Russian by origin - he was the sixth child in a large peasant family. When it was time for Vasily to study, his parents moved to Balakovo (then modern Samara province).

early years

The boy was sent to a school assigned to the church parish. Father wanted Vasily to become a priest. However, his son's subsequent life had nothing to do with the church. In 1908, Vasily Chapaev was drafted into the army. He was sent to Ukraine, to Kyiv. For some unknown reason, the soldier was returned to the reserve ahead of schedule end of service.

The blank spots in the biography of the famous revolutionary are associated with the banal lack of verified documents. In Soviet historiography, the official point of view was that Vasily Chapaev was actually kicked out of the army because of his views. But there is still no documentary evidence of this theory.

World War I

IN Peaceful time Vasily Chapaev worked as a carpenter and lived with his family in the city of Melekess. In 1914 the First World War, and the soldier who was in the reserve was again drafted into the tsarist army. Chapaev ended up in the 82nd Infantry Division, which fought the Austrians and Germans in Galicia and Volhynia. At the front he was wounded and promoted to senior non-commissioned officer.

Due to his breakdown, Chapaev was sent to a rear hospital in Saratov. There the non-commissioned officer met February revolution. Having recovered, Vasily Ivanovich decided to join the Bolsheviks, which he did on September 28, 1917. His military talents and skills gave him best recommendation in the conditions of approaching

In the Red Army

At the end of 1917, Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev was appointed commander of the reserve regiment located in Nikolaevsk. Today this city is called Pugachev. First time former officer tsarist army organized the local Red Guard, which the Bolsheviks established after they came to power. At first there were only 35 people in his squad. The Bolsheviks were joined by the poor, flour-milling peasants, etc. In January 1918, the Chapaevites fought with local kulaks who were dissatisfied with the October Revolution. Gradually the detachment grew and grew thanks to effective propaganda and military victories.

This military formation very soon he left his native barracks and went to fight the whites. Here, in the lower reaches of the Volga, the offensive of the forces of General Kaledin developed. Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev took part in the campaign against this. The key battle began near the city of Tsaritsyn, where party organizer Stalin was also located at that time.

Pugachev brigade

After the Kaledin offensive failed, the biography of Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev turned out to be connected with the Eastern Front. By the spring of 1918, the Bolsheviks controlled only the European part of Russia (and even then not all of it). In the east, starting from the left bank of the Volga, white power remained.

Chapaev fought most of all with the People's Army of KOMUCH and the Czechoslovak Corps. On May 25, he decided to rename the Red Guard units under his control into the regiment named after Stepan Razin and the regiment named after Pugachev. The new names were references to the famous leaders of popular uprisings in the Volga region in the 17th and 18th centuries. Thus, Chapaev eloquently stated that supporters of the Bolsheviks defended the rights of the lowest strata of the population of the warring country - the peasantry and workers. On August 21, 1918, his army expelled the Czechoslovak Corps from Nikolaevsk. A little later (in November), the head of the Pugachev brigade initiated the renaming of the city to Pugachev.

Fighting with the Czechoslovak Corps

In the summer, the Chapaevites found themselves for the first time on the outskirts of Uralsk, occupied by the White Czechs. Then the Red Guard had to retreat due to lack of food and weapons. But after the success in Nikolaevsk, the division found itself with ten captured machine guns and a lot of other useful requisitioned property. With this goods, the Chapaevites went to fight the People's Army of KOMUCH.

11 thousand armed supporters White movement broke through down the Volga in order to unite with the army of the Cossack ataman Krasnov. There were one and a half times less red ones. The proportions in comparison of weapons were approximately the same. However, this lag did not prevent the Pugachev brigade from defeating and scattering the enemy. During that risky operation, the biography of Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev became known throughout the Volga region. And thanks to Soviet propaganda, his name became popular among the whole country. However, this happened after the death of the famous division commander.

In Moscow

In the fall of 1918, the academy General Staff The Red Army received its first students. Among them was Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev. short biography this man's life was full of all kinds of battles. He was responsible for many people under his command.

At the same time, he did not have any systematic education. Chapaev achieved his success in the Red Army thanks to his natural ingenuity and charisma. But now the time has come for him to complete his course at the General Staff Academy.

Chapaev's image

IN educational institution The chief amazed those around him, on the one hand, with the agility of his mind, and on the other, with his ignorance of the simplest general educational facts. For example, there is a well-known historical anecdote that says that Chapaev could not show on the map where London was and because he simply had no idea about their existence. Perhaps this is an exaggeration, like everything connected with the myth of one of the most legendary characters civil war, but it is difficult to deny that the head of the Pugachev division was a typical representative of the lower classes, which, however, only benefited his image among his comrades.

Of course, in the rear calm of Moscow, such an energetic person who did not like to sit still, like Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev, languished. The brief elimination of tactical illiteracy could not deprive him of the feeling that his place as a commander was only at the front. Several times he wrote to headquarters with requests to recall him in the thick of events. Meanwhile, in February 1919, on Eastern Front There was another aggravation associated with Kolchak’s counter-offensive. At the end of winter, Chapaev finally went back to his native army.

Back at the front

The commander of the 4th Army, Mikhail Frunze, appointed Chapaev as head of the 25th Division, which he commanded until his death. Over the course of six months, this formation, consisting mainly of proletarian conscripts, carried out dozens of tactical operations against the whites. It was here that Chapaev revealed himself to the fullest as a military leader. In the 25th Division, he became known throughout the country thanks to his fiery speeches to the soldiers. In general, the division commander was always inseparable from his subordinates. This feature showed a romantic character Civil War, which was later praised in Soviet literature.

Vasily Chapaev, whose biography spoke of him as a typical person from the masses, was remembered by his descendants for his unbreakable connection with this very people in the person of ordinary Red Army soldiers who fought in the Volga region and the Ural steppes.

Tactician

As a tactician, Chapaev mastered several techniques, which he successfully used during the division's march to the east. Characteristic feature was that it acted in isolation from the allied units. The Chapaevites have always been in the vanguard. It was they who launched the offensive, and often finished off the enemies on their own. It is known about Vasily Chapaev that he often resorted to maneuver tactics. His division was distinguished by its efficiency and mobility. The Whites often did not keep up with her movements, even if they wanted to organize a counterattack.

Chapaev always kept a specially trained group on one of the flanks, which was supposed to deliver the decisive blow during the battle. With the help of such a maneuver, the Red Army soldiers brought chaos into the enemy ranks and surrounded their enemies. Since the fighting took place mainly in steppe zone, the soldiers always had room for the most maneuvers. Sometimes they took on a reckless character, but the Chapaevites were invariably lucky. In addition, their courage baffled their opponents.

Ufa operation

Chapaev never acted in a stereotyped manner. In the midst of a battle, he could give the most unexpected order, which turned the course of events upside down. For example, in May 1919, during clashes near Bugulma, the commander initiated an attack on a wide front, despite the risk of such a maneuver.

Vasily Chapaev moved tirelessly to the east. The brief biography of this military leader also contains information about the successful Ufa operation, during which the future capital of Bashkiria was captured. On the night of June 8, 1919, the Belaya River was crossed. Now Ufa has become a springboard for the further advance of the Reds to the east.

Since the Chapaevites were at the forefront of the attack, having been the first to cross the Belaya, they actually found themselves surrounded. The division commander himself was wounded in the head, but continued to command, being directly among his soldiers. Next to him was Mikhail Frunze. In a stubborn battle, the Red Army recaptured street after street. It is believed that it was then that the whites decided to break their opponents with a so-called psychic attack. This episode formed the basis for one of the most famous scenes of the cult film “Chapaev”.

Death

For the victory in Ufa, Vasily Chapaev received. In the summer, he and his division defended the approaches to the Volga. The division commander became one of the first Bolsheviks to arrive in Samara. With his direct participation, this strategically important city was finally taken and cleared of the White Czechs.

By the beginning of autumn, Chapaev found himself on the banks of the Ural River. While in Lbischensk with his headquarters, he and his division were unexpectedly attacked by the White Cossacks. It was a bold, deep enemy raid organized by General Nikolai Borodin. The target of the attack was largely Chapaev himself, who turned into a sensitive headache for whites. In the ensuing battle the division commander died.

For Soviet culture and propaganda, Chapaev became a uniquely popular character. A great contribution to the creation of this image was made by the Vasilyev brothers’ film, which was also loved by Stalin. In 1974, the house where Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev was born was turned into his museum. Numerous settlements are named after the division commander.

Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev - Soviet military leader, hero of the Civil War 1918 - 1920. Since 1918, he commanded a detachment, a brigade and the 25th Infantry Division, which played a significant role in the defeat of the troops of Alexander Vasilyevich Kolchak in the summer of 1919. Awarded the Order of the Red Banner. Wounded during a raid by the Ural Cossacks, he drowned while trying to swim across the Urals. The image of Chapaev is captured in Furmanov’s story “Chapaev” and the film of the same name.

Don't bother yourself with things that are not relevant to the present. You still have to be able to get into the future you are talking about. Perhaps you will find yourself in a future where there will be no Furmanov. Or maybe you will find yourself in a future where you will not exist.

Chapaev Vasily Ivanovich

Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev was born February 9 (January 28, old style) 1887, in the village of Budaiki, now within the city of Cheboksary, Chuvash Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, in the family of a poor peasant. From 1914 - in the army, participated in the 1st World War 1914 - 1918 (First World War). He was awarded for courage 3 crosses of St. George, a medal, and received the rank of lieutenant. In September 1917 he became a member of the CPSU. In 1917 he was in a hospital in Saratov, then moved to Nikolaevsk (now the city of Pugachev, Saratov region), where in December 1917 he was elected commander of the 138th reserve infantry regiment, and in January 1918 he was appointed commissioner of internal affairs of the Nikolaev district.

At the beginning of 1918, Vasily Chapaev formed a Red Guard detachment and suppressed the kulak-SR revolts in the Nikolaev district. From May 1918 he commanded a brigade in battles against the Ural White Cossacks and White Czechs, and from September 1918 he was the head of the 2nd Nikolaev Division.

In November 1918, Chapaev was sent to study at the General Staff Academy, where he remained there until January 1919, and then, at his personal request, he was sent to the front and appointed to the 4th Army as commander of the Special Alexandrovo-Gai Brigade.

From April 1919 he commanded the 25th Infantry Division, which distinguished itself in the Buguruslan, Belebeevsk and Ufa operations during the counter-offensive of the Eastern Front against Kolchak’s troops.

On July 11, the 25th Division under the command of Vasily Chapaev liberated Uralsk. On the night of September 5, 1919, the White Guards suddenly attacked the headquarters of the 25th division in Lbischensk. Vasily Ivanovich and his comrades fought courageously against superior enemy forces. Having fired all the cartridges, the wounded Vasily tried to swim across the Ural River, but was hit by a bullet and died.

I never understood why God needed to appear to people in an ugly human body. In my opinion, a much more suitable form would be a perfect melody - one that you could listen to and listen to endlessly.

Chapaev Vasily Ivanovich

The legendary image of Chapaev was reflected in the story “Chapaev” by D. A. Furmanov, who was the military commissar of the 25th division, in the film “Chapaev” and other works of literature and art.

Literature:

• Ivan Semenovich Kutyakov, V.I. Chapaev, M., 1958;
• Kutyakov I. S., Chapaev’s battle path, 4th edition, Kuibyshev, 1969.

Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev died September 5, 1919, near the city of Lbischensk, now Chapaev, Ural Region, Kazakh SSR.

Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev - quotes

Don't bother yourself with things that are not relevant to the present. You still have to be able to get into the future you are talking about. Perhaps you will find yourself in a future where there will be no Furmanov. Or maybe you will find yourself in a future where you will not exist.

On February 9, 1887, Vasily Chapaev, the most famous Red commander of the Civil War, was born. Although during his lifetime he was not very famous and did not particularly stand out among other commanders, after his death he unexpectedly became one of the main heroes of the war. The cult of Chapaev reached such a scale in the Soviet Union that it seemed as if he was the most successful and outstanding commander of that war. The feature film released in the 30s finally cemented the legend about Chapaev, and its characters became so popular that they are still the protagonists of many jokes. Petka, Anka and Vasily Ivanovich firmly entered into Soviet folklore, and the legend about them obscured their real personalities. Life found out true story Chapaev and his associates.

Chepaev

Vasily's real name was Chepaev. He was born with this last name, this is how he signed his name, and this last name appears in all documents of that time. However, after the death of the red commander, they began to call him Chapaev. This is exactly what it is called in the book of Commissar Furmanov, on the basis of which the famous Soviet film was later filmed. It is difficult to say what caused this change of name; perhaps it was a mistake or carelessness of Furmanov, who wrote the book, or a deliberate distortion. One way or another, he went down in history under the name Chapaev.

Unlike many Red commanders who were engaged in illegal underground work even before the revolution, Chapaev was a completely trustworthy person. Coming from a peasant family, he moved to the provincial town of Melekess (now renamed Dimitrovgrad), where he worked as a carpenter. He was not involved in revolutionary activities, and after being called up to the front at the beginning of the First World War, he was in very good standing with his superiors. This is clearly evidenced by three (according to other sources, four) soldiers' St. George Crosses for bravery and the rank of sergeant major. In fact, this was the maximum that could be achieved with only a rural parochial school behind him - to become an officer, one had to study further.

During the First World War, Chapaev served in the 326th Belgorai Infantry Regiment under the command of Colonel Nikolai Chizhevsky. After the revolution, Chapaev also did not immediately join the turbulent political life, for a long time staying on the sidelines. Only a few weeks before October revolution he decided to join the Bolsheviks, thanks to which he was chosen by activists to be the commander of a reserve infantry regiment stationed in Nikolaevsk. Soon after the revolution, the Bolsheviks, who were experiencing an acute shortage of loyal personnel, appointed him military commissar of the Nikolaev district. His task was to create the first detachments of the future Red Army in his region.

On the civil fronts

In the spring of 1918, an uprising against Soviet power broke out in several villages of the Nikolaev district. Chapaev was involved in its suppression. It happened like this: an armed detachment led by a formidable leader came to the village and an indemnity was imposed on the village in money and bread. In order to win the sympathy of the poorest residents of the village, they avoided paying indemnities; in addition, they were actively encouraged to join the detachment. Thus, from several scattered detachments that arose spontaneously (actually autonomous, under the command of local batek-atamans), collected in local villages, two regiments appeared, consolidated into the Pugachev brigade led by Chapaev. It was named in honor of Emelyan Pugachev.

Due to its small size, the brigade mainly acted using guerrilla methods. In the summer of 1918, the white units retreated in an orderly manner, leaving Nikolaevsk, which was occupied by Chapaev’s brigade practically without resistance and was immediately renamed for this occasion to Pugachev.

After this, on the basis of the brigade, the 2nd Nikolaev Division was formed, into which mobilized local residents were brought together. Chapaev was appointed commander, but after two months he was recalled to Moscow to the General Staff Academy for advanced training.

Chapaev did not like studying; he repeatedly wrote letters asking to be released from the academy. In the end, he simply left it in February 1919, having spent about 4 months studying. In the summer of that year, he finally received the main appointment that made him famous: he headed the 25th Infantry Division, later named after him.

It is worth noting that with the emergence of the Soviet legend about Chapaev, a tendency arose to somewhat exaggerate his achievements. The cult of Chapaev grew to such an extent that it could seem as if he, almost single-handedly with his division, defeated the White troops on the Eastern Front. This is, of course, not true. In particular, the capture of Ufa is attributed almost solely to the Chapaevites. In fact, in addition to Chapaev’s, three more Soviet divisions and one cavalry brigade took part in the assault on the city. However, the Chapaevites really distinguished themselves - they were one of two divisions that managed to cross the river and occupy a bridgehead.

Soon the Chapaevites took Lbischensk, a small town not far from Uralsk. It was there that Chapaev would die two months later.

Chapaevites

The 25th Rifle Division, commanded by Chapaev, had a very bloated staff: it numbered more than 20 thousand people. At the same time, no more than 10 thousand were actually combat-ready. The remaining half consisted of rear and auxiliary units that did not participate in the battles.

A little-known fact: some of the Chapaevites, some time after the death of the commander, participated in a rebellion against Soviet power. After the death of Chapaev, part of the soldiers of the 25th division was transferred to the 9th cavalry division under the command of Sapozhkov. Almost all of them were peasants and were acutely worried about the food appropriation system that had begun, when special detachments completely requisitioned grain from the peasants, and not from the richest, but from everyone in a row, dooming many to starvation.

The surplus appropriation system provided significant influence on the rank and file of the Red Army, especially on the natives of the most grain-producing regions, where it was most cruel. Dissatisfaction with the policies of the Bolsheviks caused a number of spontaneous protests. In one of them, known as the Sapozhkov uprising, some former Chapaevites took part. The uprising was quickly suppressed, several hundred active participants were shot.

Death of Chapaev

After occupying Lbischensk, the division dispersed to surrounding settlements, and the headquarters was located in the town itself. The main combat forces were located several tens of kilometers from the headquarters, and the retreating white units could not counterattack due to the significant superiority of the red ones. Then they planned a deep raid on Lbischensk, having found out that the division’s practically unguarded headquarters was located there.

A detachment of 1,200 Cossacks was formed to participate in the raid. They had to travel 150 kilometers across the steppe at night (airplanes patrolled the area during the day), pass all the main combat units of the division and unexpectedly attack the headquarters. The detachment was headed by Colonel Sladkov and his deputy, Colonel Borodin.

For almost a week, the detachment secretly reached Lbischensk. In the vicinity of the city, they captured a red convoy, thanks to which the exact location of Chapaev’s headquarters became known. A special detachment was formed to capture him.

In the early morning of September 5, 1919, the Cossacks broke into the city. The confused soldiers from the divisional school guarding the headquarters did not really offer any resistance, and the detachment moved forward at a rapid pace. The Reds began to retreat to the Ural River, hoping to escape from the Cossacks. Meanwhile, Chapaev managed to escape from the platoon sent to capture him: the Cossacks confused Chapaev with another Red Army soldier, and the division commander, firing back, was able to leave the trap, although he was wounded in the arm.

Chapaev managed to organize a defense, stopping some of the fleeing soldiers. About a hundred people with several machine guns recaptured the headquarters from the Cossack platoon that had occupied it, but by this time the main forces of the detachment had arrived at the headquarters, receiving captured artillery. It was impossible to defend the headquarters under artillery fire; in addition, in the shootout, Chapaev was seriously wounded in the stomach. Command was assumed by the division chief of staff Novikov, who covered a group of Hungarians who were transporting the wounded Chapaev across the river, for which they built a kind of raft from boards.

The division commander was able to be transported to the other side, but on the way he died from blood loss. The Hungarians buried it right on the shore. In any case, Chapaev’s relatives adhered to this version, which they knew directly from the Hungarians themselves. But since then, the river has changed its course several times, and, most likely, the burial is already hidden under water.

However, one of the few surviving witnesses to the events, Chief of Staff Novikov, who managed to hide under the floor in the bathhouse and wait for the Reds to arrive, claimed that the White detachment had completely surrounded the headquarters and cut off all escape routes, so Chapaev’s body must be looked for in the city. However, Chapaev was never found among the dead.

Well then official version, canonized in literature and cinema, Chapaev drowned in the Ural River. This explains the fact that his body was not found...

Chapaev and his team

Thanks to the film and book about Chapaev, orderly Petka, Anka the machine gunner and Commissar Furmanov became integral companions of Chapaev the legend. During his lifetime, Chapaev did not stand out too much, and even a book about him, although it did not go unnoticed, still did not cause a sensation. Chapaev became a real legend after the release of a film about him in the mid-30s. By this time, through the efforts of Stalin, a kind of cult of dead heroes of the Civil War had been created. Although in those days there were plenty of living participants in the war, many of whom played a big role in it, in the conditions of the struggle for power it was unwise to create an additional halo of glory for them, therefore, as a kind of counterbalance to them, the names of the fallen commanders began to be promoted: Chapaev, Shchors, Lazo .

The film about Chapaev was created under the personal patronage of Stalin, who even supervised the writing of the script. So, at his insistence, the romantic line between Petka and Anka the machine gunner was introduced into the film. The leader liked the movie, and the film was expected to have the widest possible release; it was shown in cinemas for several years, and there was, perhaps, not a single Soviet person who did not watch the film at least once. The film is replete with historical inconsistencies: for example, there is a psychic attack officer regiment Kappel (who never had one), dressed in the uniform of the Markov division (which fought on a completely different front).

Nevertheless, it was he who cemented the myth about Chapaev for many years. Chapaev, dashing on horseback with a sword drawn, was reproduced on millions of postcards, posters and cards. But the real Chapaev, due to a hand injury, could not ride a horse and traveled everywhere by car.

The relationship between Chapaev and Commissioner Furmanov was also far from ideal. They often quarreled, Chapaev complained about the “commissar power,” and Furmanov was dissatisfied with the fact that the division commander had his eyes on his wife and had absolutely no respect for the political work of the party in the army. Both repeatedly wrote complaints against each other to their superiors; their relationship can hardly be characterized as anything other than hostile. Furmanov was indignant: “I was disgusted by your dirty courtship of my wife. I know everything, I have documents in my hands where you pour out your love and boorish tenderness.”

As a result, this is what saved Furmanov’s life. A month before the death of the headquarters in Lbischensk, he was transferred to Turkestan after another complaint, and Pavel Baturin, who died along with everyone else on September 5, 1919, became the new commissar of the division.

Furmanov served next to Chapaev for only four months, but this did not stop him from writing an entire book in which the real Chapaev was turned into a powerful mythological image of a commander “from the plow”, who did not graduate from universities, but would defeat any educated general.

By the way, Furmanov himself was not such a convinced Bolshevik: before the revolution, he sided with the anarchists and defected to the Bolsheviks only in mid-1918, when they began to persecute the anarchists, and he oriented himself in time to the political situation and changed camps. It is also worth noting that Furmanov not only turned Chepaev into Chapaev, but also changed his last name (during the war years he bore the last name Furman, which is what he is called in all documents of that time). Having taken up writing, he Russified his last name.

Furmanov died of meningitis three years after the book was published and never saw Chapaev’s triumphant march through the Soviet Union.

Petka also had a very real prototype - Pyotr Isaev, a former senior non-commissioned officer of the musical team of the imperial army. In reality, Petka was not a simple orderly, but the commander of a communications battalion. At that time, signalmen were in a special position and were a kind of elite due to the fact that the level of their knowledge was inaccessible to illiterate infantrymen.

There is also no clarity with his death: according to one version, he shot himself on the day of the death of the headquarters in order not to be captured, according to another, he died in battle, according to the third, he committed suicide a year after Chapaev’s death, at his funeral. The most likely version is the second.

Anka the machine gunner is a completely fictional character. There was never such a girl in the Chapaev division, and she is also absent from Furmanov’s original novel. She appeared in the film at the insistence of Stalin, who demanded that the heroic role of women in the Civil War be reflected, and in addition, add a romantic line. Anna Steshenko, the wife of Commissar Furmanov, is sometimes cited as the prototype of the heroine, but she worked in the cultural education of the division and never took part in hostilities. Also sometimes mentioned is a certain nurse, Maria Sidorova, who brought cartridges to the machine gunners, and allegedly even fired from a machine gun, but this is also doubtful.

Posthumous fame

A decade and a half after his death, Chapaev gained such fame that in terms of the number of objects named in his honor, he stood on a par with the highest-ranking party figures. In 1941, the popular Soviet hero was resurrected for the sake of propaganda, filming a short video about how Chapaev swam to the shore and called on everyone to the front to beat the Germans. To this day, he remains the most recognizable character of the Civil War, even despite the collapse of the USSR.

Chapaev, Vasily Ivanovich

Chapaev V.I.

(1887-1919) - Carpenter by profession (from the city of Balakova), was drafted into the army during the World War. The October Revolution found him in the army, in the 138th reserve. regiment, and Ch. was chosen as regiment commander; Upon demobilization, he formed detachments of the Red Guard and with them suppressed the uprising in Balakovo and the village of Berezovo. In 1918, Ch., at the head of a detachment, set off to repel the Cossacks who had invaded Nikolaevsky (now Pugachevsky) district, successfully fulfilled the assignment and drove the Cossacks almost to Uralsk. The activities of the partisan detachment Ch. created his legendary fame. When the Czech-Slovaks attacked Samara and Pugachevsk, Ch. successfully fought against their detachments, after which he was appointed commander of the 22nd Nikolaev Division. From here he is transferred to the Ural front and wages an energetic fight against the Cossacks. After spending some time in Gen. Academy, Ch. again returned to Pugachevsk and took command of a special group, then moved against Kolchak and took Ufa. In the spring of 1919, Ch. was sent again to the Ural front, liberated Uralsk and forced the Cossacks to retreat to Guryev in the mountains. Lbischensk Ch. was captured by surprise by a Cossack detachment and during the battle drowned in the Urals (see " Pam. boron"). The novel "Chapaev" was written about Ch. by D. Furmanov, who was at one time a political commissar in the Ch. detachment.

Chapaev, Vasily Ivanovich

(Chepaev; 1887-1919) - communist, major organizer of the red units and hero of the civil war. Ch. was born in the city of Balakovo on the Volga in the family of a multi-family carpenter. As a carpenter, Chepaev worked in cities and numerous villages of the steppe Trans-Volga region before being called up for military service. military service(1909). In the war of 1914-18, Chechnya was awarded four crosses of St. George for military distinctions. After being wounded, Ch. ends up in the city of Nikolaevsk (now Pugachevsk), where the October Revolution found him.

Ch. joined the party in July 1917. In August Ch. was elected commander of the 138th reserve regiment. At the district congress of workers, peasants and soldiers' deputies, Ch. was on the presidium and spoke on behalf of the Bolshevik faction, being elected to the military commissariat. In Nikolaevsk, under the leadership of the party organization, Ch. is developing military work. From the soldiers who remained in the city after demobilization, workers of flour mills and the rural poor, Ch. formed the first Red Guard detachments. At the head of the first detachment, Ch. in January 1918 suppressed kulak uprisings in Balakovo, then in Berezovo and other villages. Returning to Nikolaevsk, Ch. participates in the work of the district council. In April 1918, the Ural White Cossacks attacked the councils of the Nikolaev district and Ch. and a detachment were sent to protect them. The poor of many Trans-Volga villages knew Ch. as a carpenter, and when he began to create the first partisan detachments, hundreds of volunteers from Semenovka, Klintsovka, Sulak and other steppe villages came to Ch. The White Cossacks were under pressure; at the beginning of June 1918, Ch. with detachments approached the city of Uralsk, but the impossibility of transporting food and artillery supplies due to the destruction of the Ryazan-Ural railway. D. delays his occupation. Meanwhile, capitalist mercenaries - Czech-Slovak legionnaires - captured Nikolaevsk on July 20, and Ch. and his troops remained in the pocket between the White Cossack and White Czech forces. At this time, Ch. makes his heroic raid, having passed over 70 km into the night, and Nikolaevsk is liberated. This blow broke the junction between the two counter-revolutionary forces, and Ch.’s detachments, joining the forces of the Red Army, turned into regiments, brigades and a division (later called the 25th). In the division, Ch. received command of a brigade, which consisted of detachments organized by him directly. In the second half of August 1918, the 25th Division set out to liberate the city of Samara, and Ch. was appointed commander of the 22nd Division, which he formed until November, while simultaneously pushing the White Cossacks towards Uralsk.

In November 1918, Ch. was sent to the Military Academy, where he worked only until January 1919. By order of the RVSR, Ch. was again transferred to the Ural Front. The commander of the 4th Army, M.V. Frunze, appointed Ch. as head of the special Alexander-Gai group and entrusted him with the most responsible section of the front - the right flank. At this time, Chepaev successfully carried out the exceptionally brave Slomikha battle, vividly described in D. Furmanov’s story “Chapaev”. With Kolchak’s attack on the Volga region, Ch. was transferred at the head of the 25th division to the Samara region. Successful battles at Buzuluk and Buguruslan give Ch. the opportunity to proceed to the pursuit of the enemy, which ended with the capture of Ufa on June 9. Having received a crushing blow, Kolchak retreats to Siberia, and Ch. is transferred again to Uralsk to liberate the 22nd Division besieged there. Having made the transition at a distance of over 200 km, The 25th Division under the command of Ch. fulfills this task and drives the White Cossacks further south to Guryev. Halfway from the final goal in the city of Lbischensk, Ch. with his headquarters on the night of September 5, 1919 was surrounded by White Cossacks and after a long battle, wounded, he threw himself into the Ural River, where he died along with other soldiers. - The 25th division, awarded the Orders of the Red Banner and Lenin, is named after Ch. The city of B. is named after him. Ivashchenkovo ​​(Trotsk), factory, state farms, collective farms. From his associates, a society was created in the Middle Volga region, numbering up to 5 thousand members. - On the 15th anniversary of the October Revolution, a monument to Chepaev was unveiled in Samara.

Lit.: Furmanov D., Chapaev, vol. 1-2, M., 1925; Kutyakov I., With Chapaev in the Ural steppes, M.-L., 1928; Streltsov I., The Red Path of the 22nd Division (Memoirs of a Chapaevets), Samara, 1930; 10 rocks on varti [Journal of the Poltava Regional Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and Politich. viddil of the 25th Chapaev... division, 1918-28], [Poltava], 1928.

H. Streltsov.

Large biographical encyclopedia. 2009 .

See what “Chapaev, Vasily Ivanovich” is in other dictionaries:

Hero of the Civil War 1918‒20. Member of the CPSU since September 1917. Born into a poor peasant family... Big Soviet encyclopedia

- (1887 1919) hero of the Civil War. From 1918 he commanded a detachment, a brigade and the 25th Infantry Division, which played a significant role in the defeat of the troops of A.V. Kolchak in the summer of 1919. He died in battle. The image of Chapaev is captured in the story by D. A. Furmanov Chapaev and... ... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

The request "Vasily Chapaev" is redirected here; see also other meanings. This article should be Wikified. Please format it according to the rules for formatting articles... Wikipedia

- (1887 1919), participant in the Civil War. From 1918 he commanded a detachment, a brigade and the 25th Infantry Division of the Red Army, which played a significant role in the defeat of the troops of A.V. Kolchak in the summer of 1919. He died in battle. The image of Chapaev is captured in the novel... ... encyclopedic Dictionary

Chapaev, Vasily Ivanovich- (28.01 (09.02).1887, village of Budaiki (Cheboksary) 05.09.1919, approx. Lbischensk) prominent site. citizen war. From the cross. He served in a merchant's shop (1901), a carpenter's apprentice (1903), a carpenter. Drafted into the army (1908). Demobilized due to illness. Since 1910 carpenter in... ... Ural Historical Encyclopedia

Vasily Ivanovich: Vasily Ivanovich (1479 1533) Grand Duke Moscow Vasily III. Vasily Ivanovich Prince of Bryansk, son of Ivan Alexandrovich of Smolensk. Vasily Ivanovich Shemyachich (d. 1529) Prince of Novgorod Seversky and ... ... Wikipedia

Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev January 28 (February 9) 1887 (18870209) September 5, 1919 Place of birth ... Wikipedia

CHAPAEV Vasily Ivanovich- Vasily Ivanovich (18871919), participant of the Civil. war. From 1918 he commanded a detachment, a brigade and the 25th rifleman. division that played means. role in the defeat of A.V. Kolchak’s troops in the summer of 1919. Killed in battle. The image of Ch. is captured in the story by D.A. Furmanova... ... Biographical Dictionary

Books

• Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev. Essay on life, revolutionary and military activity, A. V. Chapaev, K. V. Chapaeva, Ya. A. Volodikhin. The book, on a strictly documentary basis, shows in its entirety the labor, military and socio-political activities of the hero of the civil war, the famous division commander V.I. Chapaev. Book…

Name: Vasiliy Chapaev

Age: 32 years

Place of Birth: Budaika village, Chuvashia

A place of death: Lbischensk, Ural region

Activity: Chief of the Red Army

Family status: Was married

Vasily Chapaev - biography

September 5 marks the 97th anniversary of his death Vasily Chapaeva- the most famous and at the same time the most unknown hero of the civil war. His true identity is hidden under a layer of legends created both by official propaganda and the popular imagination.

Legends begin with the very birth of the future division commander. Everywhere they write that he was born on January 28 (old style) 1887 in the family of a Russian peasant Ivan Chapaev. However, his surname does not seem Russian, especially in the “Chepaev” version, as Vasily Ivanovich himself wrote it. In his native village of Budaika, the majority of Chuvash people lived, and today the residents of Chuvashia confidently consider Chapaev-Chepaev as one of their own. True, neighbors argue with them, finding Mordovian or Mari roots in the surname. The hero’s descendants have a different version - his grandfather, while working on a timber rafting site, kept shouting to his comrades “chapay”, that is, “catch on” in the local dialect.

But no matter who Chapaev’s ancestors were, by the time of his birth they had long been Russified, and his uncle even served as a priest. They wanted to direct young Vasya to the spiritual path - he was small in stature, weak and unsuitable for hard peasant labor. Church service provided at least some opportunity to escape from the poverty in which the family lived. Although Ivan Stepanovich was a skilled carpenter, his loved ones constantly subsisted on bread and kvass; out of six children, only three survived.

When Vasya was eight years old, the family moved to the village - now the city - Balakovo, where his father found work in a carpentry artel. An uncle-priest also lived there, to whom Vasya was sent to study. Their relationship did not work out - the nephew did not want to study and, moreover, was not obedient. One winter, in severe frost, his uncle locked him in a cold barn for the night for some other offense. To avoid freezing, the boy somehow got out of the barn and ran home. This is where his spiritual biography ended before it even began.

Chapaev recalled the early years of his biography without any nostalgia: “My childhood was gloomy and difficult. I had to humiliate myself and starve a lot. From an early age I hung around strangers.” He helped his father do carpentry, worked as a sex worker in a tavern, and even walked around with a barrel organ, like Seryozha from Kuprin’s “White Poodle.” Although this may be fiction - Vasily Ivanovich loved to invent all sorts of stories about himself.

For example, he once joked that it stems from a passionate romance between a gypsy tramp and the daughter of the Kazan governor. And since there is little reliable information about Chapaev’s life before the Red Army - he did not have time to tell his children anything, there were no other relatives left, this fiction ended up in his biography, written by Chapaev’s commissar Dmitry Furmanov.

At the age of twenty, Vasily fell in love with the beautiful Pelageya Metlina. By that time, the Chapaev family had gotten out of poverty, Vasya dressed up and easily charmed the girl, who had just turned sixteen. The wedding had barely taken place when, in the fall of 1908, the newlywed joined the army. He liked military science, but he didn’t like marching in formation and punching officers. Chapaev, with his proud and independent disposition, did not wait until the end of his service and was demobilized due to illness. Peace began family life- he worked as a carpenter, and his wife gave birth to children one after another: Alexander, Claudia, Arkady.

As soon as the last one was born in 1914, Vasily Ivanovich was again recruited as a soldier - the world war began. During two years of fighting in Galicia, he rose from private to sergeant major and was awarded the St. George Medal and four soldiers' Crosses of St. George, which spoke of extreme courage. By the way, he served in the infantry, he was never a dashing rider - unlike Chapaev from the film of the same name - and after being wounded he could not ride a horse at all. In Galicia, Chapaev was wounded three times, in last time so hard that after a long treatment he was sent to serve in the rear, in his native Volga region.

The return home was not joyful. While Chapaev was fighting, Pelageya got along with the conductor and left with him, leaving her husband and three children. According to legend, Vasily ran for a long time after her cart, begged to stay, even cried, but the beauty firmly decided that an important railway rank suited her more than the heroic, but poor and also wounded Chapaev. Pelageya, however, did not live long with her new husband - she died of typhus. And Vasily Ivanovich married again, keeping his word to his fallen comrade Pyotr Kameshkertsev. His widow, also Pelageya, but middle-aged and ugly, became the hero’s new companion and took his children into the house in addition to her three.

After the revolution of 1917 in the city of Nikolaevsk, where Chapaev was transferred to serve, the soldiers of the 138th reserve regiment chose him as regimental commander. Thanks to his efforts, the regiment did not go home, like many others, but almost in full force joined the Red Army.

The Chapaevsky regiment found a job in May 1918, when civil war broke out in Russia. The rebel Czechoslovaks, in alliance with local White Guards, captured the entire east of the country and sought to cut the Volga artery, through which grain was delivered to the center. In the cities of the Volga region, the whites staged riots: one of them took the life of Chapaev’s brother, Grigory, the Balakovo military commissar. Chapaev took all the money from another brother, Mikhail, who owned a shop and accumulated considerable capital, using it to equip his regiment.

Having distinguished himself in heavy battles with the Ural Cossacks, who sided with the whites, Chapaev was chosen by the fighters as commander of the Nikolaev division. By that time, such elections were prohibited in the Red Army, and an angry telegram was sent down from above: Chapaev could not command the division because “he does not have the appropriate training, is infected with a delusion of autocracy, and does not carry out military orders exactly.”

However, the removal of a popular commander could turn into a riot. And then the staff strategists sent Chapaev with his division against the three times superior forces of the Samara “constituent” - it seemed to certain death. However, the division commander came up with a cunning plan to lure the enemy into a trap, and completely defeated him. Samara was soon taken, and the Whites retreated to the steppes between the Volga and the Urals, where Chapaev chased them until November.

This month, the capable commander was sent to study in Moscow, at the General Staff Academy. Upon admission, he filled out the following form:

“Are you an active party member? What was your activity like?

I belong. Formed 7 regiments of the Red Army.

What awards do you have?

Knight of St. George 4 degrees. The watch was handed over.

What general education did you receive?

Self-Taught."

Having recognized Chapaev as “almost illiterate,” he was nevertheless accepted as “having revolutionary combat experience.” The questionnaire data is supplemented by an anonymous description of the division commander, preserved in the Cheboksary Memorial Museum: “He was not brought up and did not have self-control in dealing with people. He was often rude and cruel... He was a weak politician, but he was a real revolutionary, an excellent communard in life and a noble, selfless fighter for communism... There were times when he could seem frivolous...”

Basically. Chapaev was the same partisan commander as Father Makhno, and he was uncomfortable at the academy. When some military expert is in class military history sarcastically asked if he knew the Rhine River. Chapaev, who fought in Europe during the German War, nevertheless answered boldly: “Why the hell do I need your Rhine? It’s on Solyanka that I have to know every bump, because we’re fighting the Cossacks there.”

After several similar skirmishes, Vasily Ivanovich asked to be sent back to the front. The army authorities complied with the request, but in a strange way - Chapaev had to create a new division literally from scratch. In a dispatch to Trotsky, he was indignant: “I bring to your attention, I am exhausted... You appointed me head of the division, but instead of the division you gave me a disheveled brigade with only 1000 bayonets... They don’t give me rifles, there are no overcoats, people are undressed " And yet for short term he managed to create a division of 14 thousand bayonets and inflict a heavy defeat on Kolchak’s army, defeating its most combat-ready units, consisting of Izhevsk workers.

It was at this time, in March 1919, that a new commissar appeared in the 25th Chapaev Division - Dmitry Furmanov. This dropout student was four years younger than Chapaev and dreamed of a literary career. This is how he describes their meeting:

“Early in March, at about 5-6 o’clock, they knocked on my door. I go out:

I am Chapaev, hello!

stood in front of me ordinary person, lean, of medium height, apparently of little strength, with thin, almost with female hands. Thin dark brown hair stuck to his forehead; a short nervous thin nose, thin eyebrows in a chain, thin lips, shiny clean teeth, a shaved chin, a lush sergeant-major mustache. Eyes... light blue, almost green. The face is matte-clean and fresh.”

In the novel “Chapaev,” which Furmanov published in 1923, Chapaev generally appears at first as an unattractive character and, moreover, a real savage in the ideological sense - he spoke “for the Bolsheviks, but against the communists.” However, under the influence of Furmanov, by the end of the novel he becomes a convinced party member. In reality, the division commander never joined the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), not trusting the party leadership too much, and it seems that these feelings were mutual - the same Trotsky saw in Chapaev a stubborn supporter of the “partisanism” he hated and, if necessary, could well have shot him, as commander of the Second Cavalry Army of Mironov.

Chapaev’s relationship with Furmanov was also not as warm as the latter tried to show. The reason for this is the lyrical story at the headquarters of the 25th, which became known from Furman’s diaries, which were recently declassified. It turned out that the division commander began to quite openly court the commissar’s wife, Anna Steshenko, a young and pretty failed actress. By that time, Vasily Chapaev’s second wife had also left him: she cheated on the division commander with a supply officer. Having once arrived home on leave, Vasily Ivanovich found the lovers in bed and, according to one version, drove them both under the bed with shots over their heads.

On the other hand, he simply turned around and went back to the front. After this, he flatly refused to see the traitor, although later she came to his regiment to make peace, taking with her Chapaev’s youngest son, Arkady. I thought I would pacify my husband’s anger with this - he adored children, during a short rest he played tag with them and made toys. As a result, Chapaev took the children, giving them to be raised by some widow, and divorced his treacherous wife. Later, a rumor spread that she was the culprit in Chapaev’s death, since she had betrayed him to the Cossacks. Under the weight of suspicion, Pelageya Kameshkertseva went crazy and died in a hospital.

Having become a bachelor, Chapaev turned his feelings to Furmanov’s wife. Having seen his letters with the signature “Chapaev, who loves you,” the commissioner, in turn, wrote to the division commander angry letter, in which he called him “a dirty, depraved little man”: “There is nothing to be jealous of a low person, and I, of course, was not jealous of her, but I was deeply outraged by the impudent courtship and constant pestering that Anna Nikitichna repeatedly told me about.”

Chapaev’s reaction is unknown, but soon Furmanov sent a complaint to the front commander Frunze about the “offensive actions” of the division commander, “reaching assault.” As a result, Frunze allowed him and his wife to leave the division, which saved Furmanov’s life - a month later Chapaev, along with his entire staff and the new commissar Baturin, died.

In June 1919, the Chapaevites took Ufa, and the division commander himself was wounded in the head while crossing the high-water Belaya River. The Kolchak garrison of thousands fled, abandoning ammunition warehouses. The secret of Chapaev’s victories was speed, pressure and “little tricks” people's war. For example, near Ufa, he is said to have driven a herd of cattle towards the enemy, raising clouds of dust.

Deciding that Chapaev huge army, the whites began to run. It is possible, however, that this is a myth - the same as those from time immemorial that have been told about Alexander the Great or. It’s not without reason that even before the popular cult in the Volga region, fairy tales were written about Chapaev - “Chapai flies into battle in a black cloak, they shoot at him, but he doesn’t care. After the battle, he shakes his cloak - and from there all the bullets come out intact.”

Another tale is that Chapaev invented the cart. In fact, this innovation first appeared in the peasant army, from which it was borrowed by the Reds. Vasily Ivanovich quickly realized the advantages of a cart with a machine gun, although he himself preferred cars. Chapaev had a scarlet Stever confiscated from some bourgeois, a blue Packard and a miracle of technology - a yellow high-speed Ford that reached speeds of up to 50 km per hour. Having installed on it the same machine gun as on the cart, the division commander used to almost single-handedly knock out the enemy from captured villages.

After the capture of Ufa, Chapaev's division headed south, trying to break through to the Caspian Sea. The division headquarters with a small garrison (up to 2000 soldiers) remained in the town of Lbischensk; the remaining units went forward. On the night of September 5, 1919, a Cossack detachment under the command of General Borodin quietly crept up to the city and surrounded it. The Cossacks not only knew that the hated Chapai was in Lbischensk, but also had a good idea of ​​the balance of power of the Reds. Moreover, the horse patrols that usually guarded the headquarters were for some reason removed, and the division's airplanes, conducting aerial reconnaissance, turned out to be faulty. This suggests a betrayal that was not the work of the ill-fated Pelageya, but of one of the staff members - former officers.

It seems that Chapaev still did not overcome all his “frivolous” qualities - in a sober state, he and his assistants would hardly have missed the approach of the enemy. Waking up from the shooting, they rushed to the river in their underwear, shooting back as they went. The Cossacks fired after. Chapaev was wounded in the arm (according to another version, in the stomach). Three fighters took him down a sandy cliff to the river. Furmanov briefly described what happened next, according to eyewitness accounts: “All four rushed in and swam. Two were killed at the same moment, as soon as they touched the water. The two were swimming, they were already close to the shore - and at that moment a predatory bullet hit Chapaev in the head. When the companion, who had crawled into the sedge, looked back, there was no one behind: Chapaev drowned in the waves of the Urals...”

But there is another version: in the 60s, Chapaev’s daughter received a letter from Hungarian soldiers who fought in the 25th division. The letter said that the Hungarians transported the wounded Chapaev across the river on a raft, but on the shore he died from loss of blood and was buried there. Attempts to find the grave led nowhere - the Urals had changed its course by that time, and the bank opposite Lbischensk was flooded.

Recently an even more sensational version appeared - Chapaev was captured, went over to the side of the whites and died in exile. There is no confirmation of this version, although the division commander could indeed have been captured. In any case, the newspaper “Krasnoyarsky Rabochiy” reported on March 9, 1926 that “Kolchak’s officer Trofimov-Mirsky was arrested in Penza, who admitted that he killed in 1919 the head of the division, Chapaev, who was captured and enjoyed legendary fame.”

Vasily Ivanovich died at 32 years old. Without a doubt, he could have become one of the prominent commanders of the Red Army - and, most likely, would have died in 1937, like his comrade-in-arms and first biographer Ivan Kutyakov, like many other Chapaevites. But it turned out differently - Chapaev, who fell at the hands of his enemies, took a prominent place in the pantheon Soviet heroes, from where many more significant figures were erased. The heroic legend began with Furmanov's novel. “Chapaev” became the first big work of the commissar who went into literature. It was followed by the novel “Mutiny” about the anti-Soviet uprising in Semirechye - Furmanov also observed it personally. In March 1926, the writer's career was cut short by sudden death from meningitis.

The writer's widow, Anna Steshenko-Furmanova, fulfilled her dream by becoming the director of the theater (in the Chapaev division she headed the cultural and educational part). Out of love either for her husband or for Chapaev, she decided to bring the story to life legendary division commander on stage, but in the end the play she conceived turned into a film script, published in 1933 in the magazine Literary Contemporary.

Soon, the young filmmakers with the same names, Georgy and Sergey Vasiliev, decided to film a film based on the script. Already at the initial stage of work on the film, Stalin intervened in the process, always keeping film production under his personal control. Through the film bosses, he conveyed a wish to the directors of “Chapaev”: to complement the picture with a love line, introducing into it a young fighter and a girl from the people - “a kind of pretty machine gunner.”

The desired fighter became a glimpse of Petka Furmanov - "Little thin Black Mazik." There was also a “machine gunner” - Maria Popova, who actually served as a nurse in the Chapaev division. In one of the battles, a wounded machine gunner forced her to lie down behind the Maxim trigger: “Press it, otherwise I’ll shoot you!” The lines stopped the Whites' attack, and after the battle the girl received a gold watch from the division commander's hands. True, Maria’s combat experience was limited to this. Anna Furmanova didn’t have this either, but she gave the heroine of the film her name - and that’s how Anka the Machine Gunner appeared.

This saved Anna Nikitichna in 1937, when her second husband, the red commander Lajos Gavro, the “Hungarian Chapaev,” was shot. Maria Popova was also lucky - after seeing Anka in the cinema, a pleased Stalin helped her prototype make a career. Maria Andreevna became a diplomat, worked in Europe for a long time, and along the way wrote a famous song:

Chapaev the hero was walking around the Urals.

He was eager to fight with his enemies like a falcon...

Go ahead, comrades, don’t dare retreat.

Chapaevites bravely got used to dying!

They say that shortly before Maria Popova's death in 1981, a whole delegation of nurses came to her hospital to ask if she loved Petka. “Of course,” she answered, although in reality it was unlikely that anything connected her with Pyotr Isaev. After all, he was not a boy-guarantor, but a regiment commander, an employee of the Chapaev headquarters. And he died, as they say, not while crossing the Urals with his commander, but a year later. They say that on the anniversary of Chapaev’s death, he got drunk half to death, wandered to the shore of the Urals, and exclaimed: “I didn’t save Chapai!” - and shot himself in the temple. Of course, this is also a legend - it seems that literally everything that surrounded Vasily Ivanovich became legendary.

In the film, Petka was played by Leonid Kmit, who remained “an actor of one role,” like Boris Blinov - Furmanov. And Boris Babochkin, who played a lot in the theater, was first and foremost Chapaev for everyone. Participants in the Civil War, including Vasily Ivanovich’s friends, noted his 100% fit into the image. By the way, at first Vasily Vanin was appointed to the role of Chapaev, and 30-year-old Babochkin was to play Petka. They say that it was the same Anna Furmanova who insisted on the “castling”, who decided that Babochkin was more like her hero.

The directors agreed and generally hedged their bets as best they could. In case of accusations of excessive tragedy, there was another, optimistic ending - in a beautiful apple orchard, Anka plays with the children, Petka, already the division commander, approaches them. Chapaev’s voice is heard behind the scenes: “Get married, you’ll work together. The war will end, life will be wonderful. Do you know what life will be like? There’s no need to die!”

As a result, this gravitas was avoided, and the film by the Vasilyev brothers, released in November 1934, became the first Soviet blockbuster - the Udarnik cinema, where it was shown, was lined up huge queues. Entire factories marched there in columns, carrying the slogans “We are going to see Chapaev.” The film received high awards not only at the First Moscow Film Festival in 1935, but also in Paris and New York. The directors and Babochkin received the Stalin Prize, the actress Varvara Myasnikova, who played Anna, received the Order of the Red Banner of Labor.

Stalin himself watched the film thirty times, not much different from the boys of the 30s - they entered the cinema halls over and over again, hoping that someday Chapai would emerge. Interestingly, this is what ultimately happened - in 1941, in one of the propaganda film collections, Boris Babochkin, famous for his role as Chapaev, emerged unharmed from the waves of the Urals and set off, calling soldiers behind him, to beat the Nazis. Few people saw this movie, but the rumor about the miraculous resurrection finally cemented the myth about the hero.

Chapaev's popularity was great even before the film, but after it it turned into a real cult. A city in the Samara region, dozens of collective farms, and hundreds of streets were named after the division commander. His memorial museums appeared in Pugachev (formerly Nikolaevsk). Lbischensk, the village of Krasny Yar, and later in Cheboksary, within the city limits of which was the village of Budaika. As for the 25th division, it received the name Chapaev immediately after the death of its commander and still bears it.

The nationwide popularity also affected Chapaev’s children. His senior commander, Alexander, became an artillery officer, went through the war, and rose to the rank of major general. The younger one, Arkady, went into aviation, was a friend of Chkalov and, like him, died before the war while testing a new fighter. The faithful keeper of her father’s memory was her daughter Claudia, who, after the death of her parents, almost died of hunger and wandered around orphanages, but the title of daughter of a hero helped her make a party career. By the way, neither Klavdia Vasilievna nor her descendants tried to fight the anecdotes about Chapaev that passed from mouth to mouth (and now published many times). And this is understandable: in most jokes Chapai appears as a rude, simple-minded, but very likeable person. The same as the hero of the novel, film and all official myth.