In memory of Ivan Drozdov - the story of an amazing person

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Drozdov Ivan Vladimirovich was born on May 25, 1924 (according to passport data of 1922) in the village of Ananyino, Bekovsky district of the Penza region in a peasant family. A child of his era, he went through, as they say, fire, and water, and copper pipes, showing himself at once in several guises: journalist, military man, literary critic, critic, writer. Where fate did not bring him, in what alterations there were!

Svetlana TROITSKAYA recorded the conversation on the basis of a personal meeting and the books read by I. V. Drozdova

I would like readers to get acquainted with this amazing person and his work

You can live without food

Ivan Vladimirovich, is it true that, being the author of many fiction books and publicistic works, the correspondent of the Izvestia newspaper, the editor-in-chief of the Sovremennik publishing house, the President of the North-West branch of the International Slavic Academy, you have not finished a single class of a comprehensive school? How is this possible?

- Yes, I’m ready to admit that I didn’t go to school. How could this happen if the era of universal literacy began in Russia from my generation? Yes, like all my peers, I, as soon as I turned seven, excitedly crossed the threshold of the school and studied there for two or three weeks. But as soon as the cold came at the end of September, I had to interrupt my education due to the complete absence of warm clothes.

It was at the beginning of the thirties of the last century, when a skating rink of reforms passed through the Russian village - flour, grain and cereals were swept under the broom in the bottom of our house, a cow, sheep and pigs were brought out of the yard. Our village Sleptsovka moved away, carts with household belongings and small children were slowly moving along the only street. My father, my seventeen-year-old sister Anna and my fifteen-year-old brother Fyodor, said: “Go to Stalingrad for the construction of the Tractor Plant. And take Vanyatka with you - the city will not let him disappear."

There were hard times

- Yes … They settled us in the barracks: Fedor and I were in the male half, Anna - in the female. Fedor worked as an electrician's apprentice, Anna worked at a brick factory, and they gathered me to school. But then a misfortune happened: Fyodor was shocked strongly, he ended up in the hospital, and I went over to Anna. But I was not allowed to live in the women's barracks, the commandant said: "Get out!" He grabbed him by the collar and pushed him out into the street.

So I became a homeless child, settling with a friendly gang of other homeless children in a clay cave overlooking the Volga. In the company of 15 guys, I was the youngest. Instead of a hut, we had a starry sky above our heads, space from horizon to horizon and freedom! You have no job, no school, no other worries. Only one inconvenience: there is nothing. They scooped handfuls of water from the Volga, but the food did not work out … For four years I lived without food, and nothing. He ate something, of course: God leaves no one without care; when some chance comes up, and when luck survives. And now I can testify to the whole world: a person not only without a roof, but also without clothes, and even for a long time without food can live. I have an autobiographical novel, Ice Font. There I talk about my life in that period in great detail.

My Universities

Yes, it contains many interesting episodes about the life of the boys of that time. But how did you master the literacy so much that you became a famous writer?

- In that science of life, I received much more knowledge than my prosperous peers at school. After all, the main thing for a writer is plots. And chance helped me to master the Russian language and literature. It so happened that one day “on the wasar,” that is, on the clock during the robbery of the apartment by the adult “urkachs”, I saw two bags of books flying out of the window. The Urkachs then fled, and they did not need books. We dragged the bags into the boat and sailed down the Volga to our cave. The guys didn't want to take books either, and overnight I dragged them to my corner, made a bed out of them and then pulled out one by one and read. It's good that my sister Nyura taught me how to read, and now I, though slowly, through the warehouses, read. I read other books two or three times. At first I looked at the pictures, then I read a page or two, and I was drawn into the fantasies of great dreamers, a stormy whirlpool of human passions.

I know it helped you to enter one of the educational institutions

- At the age of 12, I still got a job at a tractor plant, adding myself two years. Then I saw an invitation to the Grozny aviation school and went there to enroll. I wrote the essay with an A - visual memory and erudition helped, but mathematics … And then, in the image of the Armenian Budagov, "fate approached me": "Write an essay for me, and I will hand over mathematics for you." So we both entered the school. If I had returned to Stalingrad then, in two years I would have certainly got into the militia, and no one returned from there alive … I graduated from the aviation school, got to the war at the very end. In the battle for Budapest, he visited, however, in the very hell and ended the war with the rank of senior sergeant and in the position of commander of a front-line anti-aircraft battery.

Then there was the divisional newspaper, then the Military-Political Academy, and behind it was the Moscow central newspaper Stalinsky Sokol. I was demobilized from the army with the rank of captain and immediately entered the Gorky Literary Institute. Then there was the Izvestia newspaper, the Sovremennik publishing house, and only then everything else.

Published books for the money of readers

Your book Bridges Opened describes how you worked on your novels without the hope of publishing them. Why was it so difficult for your works to find their way to readers?

- It so happened that long before my retirement I lost my job, was cursed and booed by our "most democratic in the world" press, which stopped printing me. As a result, at the age of fifty, I returned to the lifestyle of my ancestors - I found myself in the country and had to cultivate a garden and a vegetable garden, raise bees and conduct a subsistence economy. It was then that I wrote my books, and already at the dacha of Academician Uglov in Komarovo, where I arrived after the death of my first wife at the invitation of Fyodor Grigorievich, I finished them without any hope that they would ever reach readers.

By the way, this publishing house headed by you “Sovremennik” has published his famous book “The Heart of a Surgeon” …

- Yes. At one time, the publishing house "Sovremennik" published his memoir book "The Heart of a Surgeon", and I demanded from the editors that they correct, delete less, argue with the censors, and compel them to courage. And the book came out true and interesting. She, like an ivy gull, scattered across many countries of the world, was published and republished in all the republics of the Soviet Union, in all countries of people's democracies. I already knew a lot about his life, about his conflicts with the administration of the regional committee and with the minister, he, in turn, knew a lot about me; I also knew about the battles that I had withstood in the struggle for his book. Our friendship started from those times.

I remember once, already in the first hour of the night, Fyodor Grigorievich came to me. Looking at the manuscript lying on the table, Uglov said: “You probably don’t believe that soon your manuscripts will be published?” - "To admit, yes, I do not believe." “But then why did you write them? After all, you probably spent more than one year on them? " - “Yes, not one year. It took them about eight years. " “This is our Russian character,” Fyodor Grigorievich said quietly and added: “I have been to many countries, I know a little people of other nationalities. No one would spend so much effort without the hope of getting money for their work. There are no such people in nature!"

He was the popularizer of your creativity

- Yes. By the way, about my novel Baroness Nastya, ninety-year-old Fyodor Uglov later said at a meeting of Leningrad writers: “I read this novel in two days and immediately began to read it for the second time. This was the first book I read twice. The best certification for my book could not have been imagined.

Do the readers encourage you?

- Certainly! Their feedback is important to me. They write letters to me and send money to publish my books from different parts of Russia. For example, Nikolai Fedorovich Serovoy from Volgograd sent a thousand rubles, Vera Ivanovna Bouchara from Moscow - one hundred dollars, you can't count all of them. Money comes from different places in Russia, and even from America, Australia. They don't ask for books, they have them, but they send money.

And how many books have you written and published in your life, Ivan Vladimirovich?

- In the last Leningrad period alone, I wrote 18 books over 20 years, all of which were practically published in the Russian Novel series. In total, I have written 40 books, including children's books, which are now being reprinted. Moreover, I wrote 10 thick books for others - marshals, officials, scientists, who could not write themselves, but wanted to be published. Well, I wanted to eat and feed my family, so I sometimes hired myself, as they say now, as literary slaves. My last book was written and published when I was over 90, and it has the longest title - "God's clock is ticking for those who live on their own land."

With the blessing of Archimandrite Adrian

On the inside cover of your book "Philemon and the Antichrist" you write gratitude to Archimandrite Adrian and Abbot of the Pskov-Caves Monastery Methodius for their help in publishing this novel. How did you get to know the monks of this monastery and receive their support - not only prayer?

- In September 2002, the most memorable and, perhaps, the most important event in my life happened: the Lyulenovs came to us and brought the gifts of the Holy Dormition Pskov-Caves Monastery: a gilded temple cross with the crucifixion of Christ, a colorful book about the monastery with the archimandrite's autograph Adrian: "In memory of prayer to John and Luke from Father Adrian" and an icon from his personal collection, which depicts St. Philip, Metropolitan of Moscow in full height. Handing over the gifts, I was told: "Many monks of this monastery have your books - and now they send you these gifts and invite you to visit them at a convenient time for you."

I have never been to the Pskov-Pechersky Monastery, but, of course, I heard a lot about it and even read a book. The monastery is over 500 years old, it has survived many invasions of enemies, but it has never been plundered, and its library contains a rich collection of books, including old, handwritten ones. There are books donated by Peter the Great, Elizaveta Petrovna, Catherine II and other Russian tsars.

Go?

- I, of course, could not refuse such a flattering invitation and on the appointed day went to the monastery. The town of Pechora is located on the border of the Pskov region and Estonia - clean, tidy and all saturated with the spirit of the monastery, the largest in Russia, known throughout the Orthodox world for the high ascetics of the faith who lived there before and now live there, sages who stood close to the Throne of the Lord.

On the city square in front of the main entrance to the monastery there were many buses, crowded with people who had arrived from different cities of Russia, the Baltic countries and even from Germany, France, Holland. And all - to Father Adrian. The closer we got to the room in which Father Adrian lived, the denser the flocks of people became and the more monks there were. I admired them: stately, young, eyes shining with kindness and cordiality. The monastery is male, black monks here, as a rule, have two higher educations: secular and spiritual.

And now Father Adrian meets me. He is wearing clothes embroidered with gold, a white, wide, thick beard. His eyes shine young and as if he met a long-familiar, expected person. I go up to him, call myself: "The servant of God Ivan." And I bow down obediently. He hugs my shoulders, kisses my head, says: “It's good that you came. We have been waiting for you. Many of our brothers are your readers. Many books are being printed now, but there are few such books in which we would find echoes of our hearts. " I, in turn, hasten to admit: "I believe in God and attend church, but I repent: I do not perform all the rituals." This circumstance has always worried me, I felt guilty before the Church and God, and I hasten to confess this to Vladyka. And in response he utters words that put my soul in place: “You don’t need to perform all our rituals, you are already closer to God than all of us. He, our Lord Preveliky, judges us not by words, but by deeds."

Interesting dialogue

- Then a servant appears from the inner chambers and carries a long canvas embroidered with beads. The archimandrite covers me with his head, reads a prayer of permission. Then they will tell me: it was an epitrachelion, left to him by will by Metropolitan John of St. Petersburg and Ladoga. After Father Adrian forgave me all my previous sins, he blessed me for good deeds in the future. Then we sat down in armchairs at a small table, and a conversation began, which strengthened me in many good deeds and clarified many questions embarrassing my soul. So Archimandrite Adrian became my confessor, father, healing soul and heart, instructing me in various difficulties and doubts and strengthening me in moments of weakness.

Are you visiting the monastery now?

- I used to visit regularly. Now, however, I don’t go there. He himself has become old and sick, and the old man no longer accepts anyone and almost never leaves his cell - he is sick. But he periodically transmits obeisances. And although Father Adrian said that I didn’t have to observe all the rituals, it’s all the same: I began to visit churches more often, and although not often, but to receive communion.

About meetings with Vladyka John

You and Vladyka John, Metropolitan of Leningrad and Ladoga, were quite familiar, thanks to your joint activities at the Slavic Academy?

- Yes, it so happened that fate, which in other times loved to throw out an unexpected trick, threw me onto the bridge of a ship on which I had never sailed.

At the invitation and recommendations of a well-known sociologist in our country B. I. Iskakov, who was then President of the International Slavic Academy (ISA), his deputy V. A. For me it was already an overwhelming moment and test. What was it like for me when at one of the meetings I was elected a full academician and president of our department. After all, in this way, I was offered to lead scientists, in whose affairs I knew nothing, artists, artists, whose talents I, of course, did not possess, and, finally, teachers, and even those who moved pedagogical science forward. I found myself in the position of the famous writer Mark Twain, who, ironically, was forced to edit an agricultural newspaper, although he could not distinguish wheat from barley.

And how often did the Academy meetings take place and who attended them?

- Academicians met once a month, and these were interesting, exciting days for me. I got to know people whom I knew poorly before due to their high position. Here, if a scientist, then certainly a great, famous: one is the head of the institute, the other laboratory. All have books, their own schools, and even directions in science. If these are artists, then by all means the presenters: there was the artistic director of the theater Igor Gorbachev, the world famous singer Boris Shtokolov, People's Artists of the USSR.

Like almost all academies in the world, it was public, so its members could be prominent figures from any field of science and art. Vladyka John also became its honorary member even before me.

… We tried not to disturb Vladyka as much as possible. His legs hurt, and we knew about it. As well as about his employment, including the writing of articles that made up a new Bible for the Russian people called "Symphony of the Spirit." Vladyka John's articles pointed out the enemy to us and, with astounding courage and depth, revealed his essence. We also knew how this great old man, called by patriots the Father of modern Russia, is fighting on the battlefield for the future of our children and grandchildren.

For a long time I peered at this man, listened to his every word. Out of habit of the writer, he tried to capture the features of his image, the manner of speaking. By the way, he spoke little, was more and more silent and listened to the interlocutor, but his eyes, his face and his whole figure spoke about a lot. He was all open and directed towards you; he was all glowing and rejoicing, and it seemed that now he would tell you something that would make you happy for life. There was something childish and enthusiastic about his look and voice. He believed you, and he himself was ready to dissolve his soul in front of you. I see this more often on children's and even infant faces.

How I got acquainted with the Shichko method

As an activist of the temperance movement and a propagandist of Shichko's method, I cannot but ask you about books on a temperance topic: "Gennady Shichko and his method", "Gone with vodka", "Last Ivan", "The fate of a champion", "Forgive me a sinner", "Calvary". These and other books of yours vividly reveal the problem of drunkenness in Russia, talk about the causes of this vice and ways to get rid of alcohol addiction. How did you come to this topic?

- From a newspaper in the capital, I accidentally learned about a miracle healer who helps people with a scientific method and completely disinterestedly save themselves from drunkenness. I came to Leningrad, met the Shichko family and his wonderful method. First I wrote an article about him, then a book. And the more I got acquainted with this topic, the more I met people around me, whose life and work were cut short by this cursed potion. This is how the book "Gone with Vodka" appeared - about the drunken, perished and therefore failed writers. About athletes who could not stand the test of glory and succumbed to the cunning of the green serpent, which was reflected in the story "The Fate of a Champion".

Has your interest in this topic influenced your personal life in the future?

- Yes. When, after a long, happy marriage, I suddenly became a widower, it severely knocked me down. And G. A. Shichko's wife, who had been widowed a year earlier, supported me greatly during that period. Soon she became my second wife and faithful companion in life. Thanks to her, I moved from my beloved Moscow to the no less beloved St. Petersburg. Thanks to Lucia Pavlovna, the publication of my books began, in which she risked investing all her savings. And then the readers themselves began to help. I write about all this in my autobiographical novel "Bridges Open".

No, unfortunately, my longtime friend and main teetotaler of the country Fyodor Uglov is still alive, and my faithful friend Lucia, Lyusha, as she was affectionately called in the family, also died a year ago. Since then, I no longer write, but rather look forward to meeting people dear to my heart. I pray for the peace of their souls.

How is your life going now?

- Now I sit down at the computer extremely rarely, I hardly turn on the TV, because the screen is so terrible, deafening and blinding information that I just shut my mouth to the blue robber. Television stress knocks all thoughts out of my head, turns it into an empty bowler hat. As a writer, I urge people: watch less TV programs, no matter how interesting they are! Read books, read good prose, poetry and teach your children to do this. You will gain a lot more benefits and health.

Unfortunately, Ivan Vladimirovich Drozdov passed away on 2019-17-10. at the 98th year of life. Buried at the Vvedenskoye cemetery in Moscow. His bronze bust is installed in the Central Museum of the Great Patriotic War on Poklonnaya Hill in Moscow. "Children will learn to live on your books"

Documentary film - "Participant in the war-Ivan Drozdov" (Ivan Incomplete)