Vera Mukhina’s husband served Bulgakov as the prototype for Professor Preobrazhensky in “Heart of a Dog.” Forgotten history: gravidan The name of the father of faith Mukhina
Many intellectuals of his era could recognize themselves in Bulgakov's characters. But in the life of one of the artists of that time, “Bulgakovism” reaches an unprecedented concentration: friendship with the powers that be, a grand discovery, fame, persecution, an attempt to escape... And somewhere in the end - peace, a plot of land in a quiet city. The artist’s name is Vera Mukhina, and the author of the discovery was her husband, Doctor Alexey Zamkov.
Run
At first glance, this story seemed to be true. Any biography of Mukhina said that her grandfather made a large fortune trading flax, hemp and bread. In Riga, he owned the Kuzma Mukhin trading company, dozens of warehouses and a large part of Gostiny Dvor. He also had other large real estate - several estates, houses in Roslavl and Riga. His sons also moved a lot of money - they had factories and apartment buildings. After the revolution, the descendants of Kuzma Mukhin continued to live in independent bourgeois Latvia. The factories they owned operated and were profitable. And Mukhina’s older sister left Russia forever in the early 20s and lived in Hungary. So Mukhina had where and why to run.
On the other hand, in the 20s Mukhina was one of the most prominent members of the Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia. She created sketches of monuments to the Russian educator Nikolai Novikov and the secretary of the Moscow Party Committee Zagorsky, and dedicated the sculpture “Flame of Revolution” to Yakov Sverdlov. Mukhina participated in the competition for the monument to “Liberated Labor”, and for the tenth anniversary of the October Revolution, Mukhina created “Peasant Woman”, which made her a very famous sculptor. So there seemed to be no point in looking for good from good.
However, the most mysterious thing seemed to be that in the scientist’s criminal case there was no information about checking information about the escape. Why weren’t they interested in this story at Lubyanka?
Diaboliad
It was not without difficulty that we managed to find out that the case against A.A. Zamkov and V.I. Mukhina really exists, but access to it is closed by order of their son Vsevolod Zamkov. He also closed access to the parents’ fund in one of the Moscow archives. I could not persuade him to change his anger to mercy. All that remained was to collect information bit by bit.
Mukhina's biographies mentioned that her husband worked at the Institute of Experimental Biology (IEB) of the People's Commissariat of Health. In the 20s, the IEB, led by the outstanding biologist Professor Nikolai Konstantinovich Koltsov, was a real oasis for those who could not or did not want to take into account the general line of the party. Among several dozen of his employees there was not a single member of the CPSU(b). Accordingly, the institute lacked not only a party, but even a trade union organization.
It all ended in mid-1929. As a result of the latest purges, many old Bolsheviks found themselves without leadership positions in the party. And some of them, remembering that in their youth they were considered students, moved into big science. The situation in the IEB changed as if by magic. Judging by the minutes of the general meetings of the institute, since then research topics have been discussed and approved with the participation of all employees, including stokers and janitors. Moreover, these events lasted for six, eight, and sometimes ten hours. And then party representatives at the institute began to eradicate social inequality. Professors were forced to give up part-time work, and Dr. Zamkov was forced to give up what his colleagues considered a very profitable private medical practice. They began to force him out of the institute and discussed him several times at meetings. And on May 18, 1930, he wrote a letter of resignation.
The last paper in his file was a request from the Voronezh clinic named after the 10th anniversary of the October Revolution with a request to send the work list of Dr. A. A. Zamkov dated December 13, 1930. There was not a word about escape in the personal file. However, in the papers of the institute there was a mention of a certain petition from Professor Koltsov to the GPU.
Doctor's note
I didn’t look for the petition in the FSB archives - a smart person won’t get ahead. The right idea helped: usually copies of such letters were sent to the country's top officials. Based on the file of the “complainants,” the petition was found in a matter of days. More precisely - “Review of the work of Dr. A. A. Zamkov at the Institute of Experimental Biology of the NKZ in 1929-1930.” This is what Professor Koltsov wrote.
“In 1929, German scientists Anheim and Sondek published a paper in which they proved the presence in the urine of pregnant women of a substance (hormone) that, when injected under the skin of a mouse, can cause the maturation of the genital organs in 4 days. They proposed using this method... for accurate determination of pregnancy in women...
When in 1929 I invited Dr. Zamkov to start checking the work of Anheim and Sondek, he quickly mastered the technique of exposing young mice to urine and immediately determined the pregnancy of women using this method. The urine of the patients was sent from clinics and hospitals to the IEB, and Dr. Zamkov, based on experiments with mice, made a diagnosis after 4 days for the presence or absence of pregnancy. In almost all cases, without exception, the diagnosis was later justified...
The institute was able to carry out this diagnostic on a large scale only thanks to the kind assistance of A. M. Peshkov (Maxim Gorky), who was very interested in the work of A. A. Zamkov. Thanks to A. M. Peshkov and M. F. Andreeva, it was possible to quickly obtain from abroad a large number of white mice necessary for diagnosis.
In view of the clear effect of hormones in the urine of pregnant women on the genitals of rodents, it was a natural transition for the physician to use this urine as a therapeutic agent for patients suffering from underactive gonads. But unlike German researchers, A. A. Zamkov did not try to extract the hormone from urine with alcohol and other reagents and decided to inject urine of pregnant women directly under the skin of patients, sterile of course. This is the invention of Zamkov himself... We gave the drug the name “gravidan”...
Particularly striking results are obtained from the use of gravidan... for mental disorders... A brilliant example of such a healing effect of gravidan was observed several months ago in the wife of an IEB employee, prof. Skladovsky. After an operation that resulted in the cessation of menstruation, a patient developed symptoms of violent insanity. Psychiatrists (Prof. Gannushkin) diagnosed her with an incurable mental illness... Prof. Skladovsky... in a difficult moment for himself, he remembered the gravidan, took out sterile urine of pregnant women and after three injections achieved a complete “sudden” cure of the patient...
Among scientists and doctors, envy of other people's successes often causes intrigue and squabbles. A real persecution arose against A. A. Zamkov... The persecution... affected him so strongly that it prompted him to make a mad attempt to travel abroad without permission. But the insignificance of the punishment for such a serious crime - deportation to Voronezh - shows that the GPU took into account the presence of passion under the influence of unfair persecution.
With the departure of A. A. Zamkov, the work on the preparation of gravidan at the IEB almost ceased... In view of the enormous interest represented by the possibility of therapeutic use of gravidan and diagnosis of pregnancy by urine analysis, I would consider it highly desirable to give Dr. Zamkov the opportunity to continue his research in the right way clinical setting..."
Fatal eggs
Under the pressure of facts, Doctor Zamkov’s son, Vsevolod Alekseevich, became a little more talkative. He confirmed that an escape attempt in May 1930 had taken place. Mukhina and her husband were planning to cross the southern border of Azerbaijan to Iran, and then decide where to go - to Latvia, Hungary or Algeria, where Zamkov’s teacher, Doctor Aleksinsky, lived. The decision to escape was made under the influence of a certain patient Zamkov, who turned out to be an agent provocateur of the OGPU. Mukhina, her husband and son were arrested on the way to the station.
Vsevolod Zamkov also said that Gorky played a significant role in the return of his parents from exile. But the main intercessors for Zamkov were his long-time patients - the head of the operational department of the OGPU, Karl Pauker, and the head of the intelligence department of the Red Army, Yan Berzin. Zamkov Jr. believes that they needed his father as a brilliant diagnostician. But, apparently, the leading comrades needed gravidan no less. This is what Dr. Zamkov wrote in one of his reports:
“An exhausted 20-year-old stallion, who could barely stand on his feet due to weakness and no longer took food, was injected 50 cm 3 with Gravidan 10 times. After the injections, the stallion began to eat, his diarrhea went away, and muscle strength appeared. They began to work on him again - harrow, plow and harness for riding. The stallion developed a strong sexual desire. The feeling of attachment to one mare became so great that when she called, he rushed to her with all his might, even while in harness, through all obstacles - canals, fences. . The stallion gave birth."
Viagra was wildly popular at that time. Demands to send the gravidan went to all authorities. Gorky’s secretary Kryuchkov, on whose opinion the return of Mukhina and Zamkov depended, now obsequiously asked the doctor to allocate a miracle drug to one or another old Bolshevik. The “petrel of the revolution” himself also used Zamkov’s services.
The wave of her husband's popularity raised Mukhina to the top of Soviet art. Gorky, in fact the Soviet Minister of Literature, whose audience the most famous writers, scientists and artists have been waiting for many months, receives Mukhina along with other prominent sculptors at the first request. After this meeting in July 1933, he wrote a letter to the Central Committee, Molotov, and petitioned for help for sculptors - for the transfer of closed churches to workshops, and the allocation of huge scholarships to young sculptors. He also conveys to Molotov the sculptors’ request for materials: “It would be possible to offer them marble for monuments in Moscow cemeteries.” In 1934, Mukhina received an order for the sculptural decoration of the Moscow Hotel under construction (however, Stalin later approved the project without these excesses).
And Zamkov’s business was going uphill. By decree of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, in May 1932, under the leadership of Zamkov, a research laboratory for gravidanotherapy began to operate. Several Moscow hospitals are creating “gravidan points” where patients are treated with this drug. At first, the results exceed all expectations. For example, the head physician of a neuropsychiatric hospital for acute alcoholism, Professor Strelchuk, reports to Zamkov about the results of treatment of 11 drug addicts and 23 alcoholics: “None of the patients discharged after treatment with Gravidan have yet relapsed.” Judging by Zamkov’s reports, “gravidan points” have opened in 250 hospitals in all corners of the country. In 1933, his laboratory was renamed the institute. And two years later he speaks at the congress of Soviet endocrinologists almost as the main speaker.
And here Zamkov began to feel dizzy with success. In the five-year plan of his institute, he makes a commitment to cure almost everything: epilepsy, schizophrenia, asthma, heart defects, typhoid, syphilis, tuberculosis, stomach ulcers, cancer, etc., etc. However, gravidan failed its creator. Or perhaps high-ranking users simply experienced an addictive effect. Vsevolod Zamkov, however, believes that a new wave of persecution began because his father treated Gorky too well. Be that as it may, in 1938 the Institute of Gravidanotherapy was closed.
In principle, the story of this family should have ended then - they simply had to be repressed, like those previously convicted of a counter-revolutionary crime. But Mukhina and her family, at Gorky’s long-standing request, were taken under the wing by the Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars, Vyacheslav Molotov. Not without the participation of the latter, in 1937 Vera Ignatievna was allowed to participate in the competition to decorate the Soviet pavilion at the World Exhibition in Paris. Her project - the monument "Worker and Collective Farm Woman" - was recognized as the best.
Mukhina was not only released to Paris to install the statue, she was released from the USSR along with her son. This was the highest sign of trust. Moreover, she was allowed to enter Latvia. As Vsevolod Zamkov said, the deadline for accepting his grandfather’s inheritance was approaching and Mukhina was advised to abandon it.
Zoyka's apartment
In Riga, Mukhina loudly renounced her inheritance and returned to Moscow, where her husband continued to have troubles that ended with a heart attack. He was unable to return to active research work (at the beginning of the war, Zamkov worked for free at the Sklifosovsky Institute). But in 1942 he suffered another heart attack. A young female doctor who came on call, not knowing the patient’s last name, recommended rest and, most importantly, “no nonsense like Zamkov’s drugs.” The founder shouted: “Get out!” - and died.
His wife survived him by eleven years. She created a lot and was considered the main official sculptor of the country. She received the Stalin Prize five times and was not spared other awards. Shortly before her death, she wrote a letter to Molotov, which she bequeathed to be sent after her death. On October 6, 1953, her son fulfilled her request.
"Dear Vyacheslav Mikhailovich,
You will receive this letter when I am no longer alive... My last requests for art.
1. Don’t forget fine art, it can give the people no less than cinema or literature. Do not be afraid to take risks in art: without continuous, often erroneous searches, we will not develop our own new Soviet art.
2. Clean out the arts administration apparatus - many of its leaders, instead of helping artists, work them to death; sometimes they take bribes.
3. Stage my Tchaikovsky in Moscow... I guarantee you that this work of mine is worthy of Moscow, believe me, because in my entire life I have never failed the trust of the party and government...
5. Give the order to cast in bronze the small things remaining after me; the main thing is to order the bronze to be released for this.
My last request: the studio apartment in which I lived still, due to legal formalities, does not belong to either the Ministry of Culture, the Moscow City Council, or me. I kindly ask you to make sure that it stays with my guys...
And in death, as in life, always yours,
V. Mukhina."
Already on October 8, Molotov sent copies of Mukhina’s letter to members of the Presidium of the Central Committee with a proposal to discuss the note at the Secretariat of the Central Committee. Tchaikovsky was installed, the apartment was left. It was not possible to clean the control device.
Molotov never found out that Mukhina had deceived him. In 1937, she did not sign a single document renouncing the inheritance. And after Latvia returned to independence, her son sued for the property that was now due to him. True, out of six hectares in the center of Riga, he received only one. But this is quite enough for a comfortable old age.
EVGENY ZHIRNOV
With the assistance of the publishing house VAGRIUS "Vlast" presents a series of historical materials in the ARCHIVE section
The amazing union of the talented pioneer doctor Alexei Zamkov and the outstanding sculptor Vera Mukhina was an outlet for the couple. They fought against all adversities shoulder to shoulder, steadfastly enduring the disgrace and affection of the authorities. Vera Mukhina and Alexey Zamkov were an example of not only sincere bright feelings, but also a model of dedication and devotion to their work.
Through the flames of the First World War
She was only 22 years old when, while vacationing with her uncle in the Smolensk region during Christmas, she flew off her sleigh and hit her face on a tree. She didn’t want to live after that, but she underwent 7 plastic surgeries, and doctors literally sculpted her a new face. Only the eyes were familiar and recognizable. All features were masculine. These changes brought her not only disappointment in her own appearance, but also disappointment in love. Vera believed that it was impossible to love a woman with a man's face. And she decided: from now on her happiness lies in her career. While studying the works of sculpture masters in Italy, she was inspired by the example of Michelangelo. Now she dreamed of becoming a famous sculptor, whose works would inspire thousands of people.
On the fronts of World War I, Alexey gained fame as an excellent diagnostician and clinician, and headed a hospital.
The moment of Vera and Alexei’s meeting in a Moscow hospital is blurred by time and scattered memories. According to some, Vera saved Alexei from typhus, constantly caring for the young doctor, according to others, it was he who saved Vera. Mukhina herself shared her memories according to which they first met in 1914.
The first meeting left only a slight memory of the young university graduate. He was then brought to the hospital in 1916, when he was practically dying of typhus. Vera was a nurse in the same hospital, although she worked not for money, but at the call of her own soul, trying to bring tangible benefits to people.
Faith and strength
They got married in 1918. Hard times tested the couple's strength, but they were not going to lose heart. They lived on what Alexey brought from his native village of Borisov, where he held receptions. The villagers paid with bread and potatoes.
Son Volik was born in 1920 right in their apartment; Alexey delivered the baby himself. The situation with money was gradually improving, but fate presented them with a new test: Volik was diagnosed with bone tuberculosis at the age of five. Doctors advised to prepare for the worst. But the parents were not going to give up so easily. Vera Mukhina first took her son to Crimea for treatment, parting for a long time with her husband for the first time.
And then Alexey Andreevich himself operated on his son. At home. On the dining table. The son not only survived, but after two years he stopped using crutches.
“Pass us above all sorrows and royal anger and royal love...”
Vera Mukhina and Alexey Zamkov found themselves in demand and favored by the authorities, each in their own field. Vera, together with other craftsmen, actively worked in the field of building new symbols and new monuments of the Soviet era. Mukhina’s sculpture “Peasant Woman” earned the Stalin Prize in 1928, and the author was given 1000 rubles and sent to Paris for three months. True, she returned home after two, unable to bear the separation from her husband and son.
"Collective farmer
Alexey Zamkov became the creator of a new drug based on the release of a special hormone from the urine of pregnant women. The use of the drug, which Alexey Andreevich called gravidan, gave amazing results. Among Zamkov’s patients were Budyonny, Gorky, and Clara Zetkin.
But Doctor Zamkov soon fell out of favor. Real persecution began in the press, he was fired from the Institute of Experimental Biology. Zamkov decides to flee abroad, and Vera agrees to this adventure with him. However, they were arrested already in Kharkov. Vera and her son were released after five days, and Zamkov was tried and sent into exile in Voronezh. Thanks to his high patrons, he returned to Moscow ahead of schedule and immediately after his return he was appointed director of the urogravid therapy laboratory.
They were given a huge apartment near the Red Gate. It was in this apartment that the family spent several surprisingly happy years.
Ups and downs
Once again, Zamkov and Mukhina are riding a wave of popularity and demand. The massive use of gravidan caused some unprecedented wave of healing, the doctor felt like a triumph. In 1937, Vera Ignatievna became the author of the unique sculpture “Worker and Collective Farm Woman,” which delighted not only the leader of all nations, but also Pablo Picasso himself.
The famous work of Vera Mukhina “Worker and Collective Farm Woman”. / Photo: www.colors.life
But after glory came new disgrace. Once again the doctor was accused of quackery and ignorance. And soon the war began, Vera Ignatievna and Alexey Andreevich and their son were evacuated to the Urals. Mukhina managed to get her call to Moscow, where she began working on heroic portraits of war participants. Zamkov began to waste away from the realization of his uselessness and became very physically weak. But most importantly: he did not feel the strength to fight for his own life.
He returned to Moscow as a seriously ill man. In 1942, Dr. Zamkov died after a second heart attack. Vera Ignatievna created a unique monument to her husband at the Novodevichy cemetery with the inscription “I did everything I could for people.” And after the death of Vera Mukhina herself, a second inscription appeared on this monument: “And me too...”
Vera Mukhina and Alexey Zamkov had the good fortune to spend almost a quarter of a century together. he preferred that his beloved woman only illuminate his life from time to time.
Vera Mukhina was born on July 1, 1889 in Riga into a merchant family. As a child, she lived in Feodosia (1892-1904), where her father brought her after the death of her mother.
Having moved to Moscow, Vera Mukhina studied in the private art studio of Konstantin Yuon and Ivan Dudin (1908-1911), and worked in the sculpture workshop of Nina Sinitsina (1911). Then she moved to the studio of the painter Ilya Mashkov, one of the leaders of the group of innovative artists “Jack of Diamonds”.
She continued her education in Paris in the private studio of F. Colarossi (1912-1914). She also attended the Grande Chaumire Academy (Acadmie de la Grande Chaumire), where she studied with the famous French monumental sculptor Emile-Antoine Bourdelle. At the same time, I took an anatomy course at the Academy of Fine Arts. In 1914 she traveled to Italy, where she studied Renaissance art.
In 1915-1917, during the First World War, she was a nurse in a hospital in Moscow. At the same time, from 1916 she worked as an assistant to production designer Alexandra Ekster at the Chamber Theater under the direction of Alexander Tairov.
After the October Revolution, the country adopted a plan for the so-called “monumental propaganda”, within the framework of which sculptors received orders from the state for city monuments. In 1918, Vera Mukhina completed the design of a monument to Novikov, a Russian public figure of the 18th century, which was approved by the People's Commissariat for Education. However, the clay model, which was stored in an unheated workshop, cracked from the cold.
In 1919 she joined the Monolit association. In 1924 she became a member of the "4 Arts" association, and in 1926 - the Society of Russian Sculptors.
In 1923, she participated in the design of the pavilion of the Izvestia newspaper for the first All-Russian Agricultural and Handicraft Exhibition in Moscow.
In 1926-27 she taught in the modeling class of the Art and Industrial College at the Toy Museum, from 1927 to 1930 - at the Higher Art and Technical Institute in Moscow.
By the end of the 1920s, easel sculptures “Julia”, “Wind”, “Peasant Woman” were created. In 1927, “Peasant Woman” was awarded first prize at the exhibition dedicated to the 10th anniversary of the October Revolution. In 1934, the sculpture was exhibited at the International Exhibition in Venice, after which it was purchased by the Trieste Museum (Italy). After the Second World War it became the property of the Vatican Museum in Rome. The bronze cast of the sculpture was installed in the Tretyakov Gallery.
In 1937, at the World Exhibition in Paris, Vera Mukhina was awarded the Grand Prix gold medal for the composition “Worker and Collective Farm Woman”. The sculpture crowned the Soviet pavilion, designed by architect Boris Iofan. In 1939, the monument was erected in Moscow near the northern entrance to the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition (now VDNH). Since 1947, the sculpture has been the emblem of the Mosfilm film studio.
From 1938 to 1939, the artist worked on sculptures for the Moskvoretsky Bridge by architect Alexei Shchusev. However, the sketches remained unfulfilled. Only one of the compositions - "Bread" - was performed by the author in large size for the exhibition "Food Industry" in 1939.
In 1942 she was awarded the title "Honored Artist of the RSFSR", in 1943 - People's Artist of the USSR.
During the Patriotic War, Mukhina created portraits of Colonel Khizhnyak, Colonel Yusupov, the sculpture “Partisan” (1942), as well as a number of sculptural portraits of civilians: Russian ballerina Galina Ulanova (1941), surgeon Nikolai Burdenko (1942-43), shipbuilder Alexei Krylov ( 1945).
Since 1947, Vera Mukhina has been a full member of the USSR Academy of Arts and a member of the academy's presidium.
Among the famous works of Vera Mukhina are the sculptures “Revolution”, “Julia”, “Science” (installed near the Moscow State University building), “Earth” and “Water” (in Luzhniki), monuments to the writer Maxim Gorky, composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky (installed near the Moscow Conservatory) and many others. The artist participated in the design of the Moscow metro station "Semyonovskaya" (opened in 1944), and was engaged in industrial graphics, clothing design, and design work.
Vera Ignatievna Mukhina is a laureate of five Stalin Prizes (1941, 1943, 1946, 1951, 1952), awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor, the Badge of Honor, and the Order of Civil Merit.
The name of the sculptor was given to the Leningrad Higher Art and Industrial School. In Moscow, in the Novo-Peredelkino district, a street is named in her honor.
The leading theme of the sculptor’s work has always been the glorification of the spiritual beauty of Soviet people.
“In bronze, marble, wood, images of people of the heroic era were sculpted with a bold and strong chisel - a single image of man and humanity, marked by the unique stamp of great years,” wrote art critic D. Arkin about the art of Mukhina, whose work largely determined the appearance of the new Soviet art. Vera Ignatievna Mukhina was born into a wealthy merchant family. Soon after the death of the mother, father and daughter moved from Riga to Crimea and settled in Feodosia. There, the future artist received her first lessons in drawing and painting from a local high school art teacher. Under his leadership, she copied paintings by the famous marine painter in the I.K. Aivazovsky gallery and painted landscapes of Taurida.
Mukhina graduates from high school in Kursk, where her guardians take her after the death of her father. At the end of the 1900s, a young girl travels to Moscow, where she firmly decides to take up painting. In 1909-1911 she was a student in the private studio of K.F. Yuon. During these years, Mukhina first showed interest in sculpture. In parallel with her painting and drawing classes with Yuon and Dudin, she visited the studio of the self-taught sculptor N.A. Sinitsina, located on Arbat, where for a reasonable fee she could get a place to work, a machine and clay. Students from private art schools and students from the Stroganov School studied in the studio; there were no teachers here; a model was set up, and everyone sculpted it as best they could. Often her neighbor, the sculptor N.A. Andreev, known for his recently opened monument to N.V. Gogol, came into Sinitsina’s studio. He was interested in the work of the students of Stroganov, where he taught sculpture. He often stopped at the works of Vera Mukhina, the originality of whose artistic style he immediately noted.
From Yuon at the end of 1911, Mukhina moved to the studio of the painter I.I. Mashkov. At the end of 1912 she goes to Paris. Just as at the beginning of the 19th century Russian painters and sculptors sought to go to Rome, so at the beginning of the 20th century the young generation dreamed of getting to Paris, which became the trendsetter of new artistic tastes. In Paris, Mukhina entered the Grand Chaumiere Academy, where the sculpture class was led by Emile-Antoine Bourdelle. The Russian artist studied for two years with Rodin’s former assistant, whose sculpture attracted her with its “irrepressible temperament” and genuine monumentality. Simultaneously with Bourdelle’s classes at the Academy of Fine Arts, Mukhina is taking an anatomy course. The artistic education of the young sculptor is complemented by the very atmosphere of the French capital with its architectural and sculptural monuments, theaters, museums, and art galleries.
In the summer of 1914, Vera Ignatievna returned to Moscow. The First World War, which began in August, radically changed the usual way of life. Mukhina left sculpture, entered nursing courses and worked in a hospital in 1915-1917. The revolution returns the artist to the field of art. Together with many Russian sculptors, she participates in the implementation of Lenin's grandiose plan of monumental propaganda. Within its framework, Mukhina is creating a monument to I.N. Novikov, a Russian public figure of the 18th century, publicist and publisher. Unfortunately, both versions of the monument, including the one approved by the People's Commissariat for Education, perished in the sculptor's unheated workshop in the harsh winter of 1918-1919.
Vera Ignatievna participates and wins in a number of sculpture competitions, often held in the first post-revolutionary years; She completed the projects of the monuments “Revolution” for Klin and “Liberated Labor” for Moscow. The sculptor finds the most interesting solution in the design of the monument to Ya.M. Sverdlov (1923), where the allegorical male figure rushing upward with a torch in his hand personifies the selfless service to the cause of the revolution of the faithful Bolshevik-Leninist. This project is better known under the motto “Flame of the Revolution”. By the mid-20s, the master’s individual artistic style was taking shape, moving more and more away from abstract allegory and conventionally schematic solutions in the spirit of cubism. The program work was the two-meter "Peasant Woman" (1926, plaster, Tretyakov Gallery), which appeared at the exhibition of the 10th anniversary of the October Revolution. The monumentality of forms, the accentuated architectonics of sculpture, and the power of artistic generalization now become the distinctive features of Mukhina’s easel and monumental sculpture.
In 1936, the Soviet Union began preparations for the World Exhibition "Art, Technology and Modern Life". The author of the multi-stage Soviet pavilion, architect B.M. Iofan, proposed completing its 33-meter head pylon with a two-figure sculptural group with the emblem of our state - the hammer and sickle. The plaster sketch by Mukhina, who developed this theme together with other artists, was recognized as the best. The sculptor, who always dreamed of grandiose scales, had to lead the most difficult work of making a 25-meter statue with a total weight of about 75 tons. The sculptural frame, consisting of steel trusses and beams, was gradually covered with chromium-nickel steel plates. The group, symbolizing the union of the working class and the peasantry, made from the latest materials using industrial methods, conveyed, in the words of the sculptor, that “vigorous and powerful impulse that characterizes our country.” And at present, the monument “Worker and Collective Farm Woman”, the plastic power of which “is not so much in the beauty of its monumental forms, but in the rapid and clear rhythm of a strong-willed gesture, in a precisely found and powerful movement forward and upward,” occupies a place of honor at the entrance to VDNKh in Moscow, where it was installed in 1938 with minor compositional changes.
In 1929, Mukhina created one of her best monuments - a monument to M. Gorky for the city that bears his name. The figure of the writer, slightly elongated vertically, standing on the banks of his native Volga can be read in a clear silhouette. The characteristic swing of the head completes the image created by the sculptor of the “petrel of the revolution”, who emerged from the people of a rebel writer. In the 1930s, Mukhina also worked in memorial sculpture: she especially successfully designed the tombstone of M.A. Peshkov (1935) with a full-length figure carved from marble with a thoughtfully bowed head and hands placed in trouser pockets.
The leading theme of the sculptor’s work has always been the glorification of the spiritual beauty of Soviet people. Simultaneously with the creation in monumental sculpture of a generalized image of a contemporary - the builder of a new world, this theme was developed by the master in an easel portrait. In the 30s, the heroes of the sculptor’s portrait gallery were doctor A.A. Zamkov and architect S.A. Zamkov, director A.P. Dovzhenko and ballerina M.T. Semenova. During the war years, Mukhina’s portraits became more concise, all unnecessary effects were removed. The material is also changing: the previously often used marble is replaced by bronze, which, according to A.V. Bakushinsky, gives more opportunities “for constructing forms in sculpture designed for silhouette, for movement.” Portraits of Colonels I.L. Khizhnyak and B.A. Yusupov (both - 1943, bronze, Tretyakov Gallery), "Partisan" (1942, plaster, Tretyakov Gallery), for all their individuality, have the typical features of a wartime Soviet man of composure, decisive readiness to fight against the enemy.
In the post-war years, V.I. Mukhina continued to work in monumental sculpture. With a group of assistants, she translates into bronze the sculptural design of the monument to M. Gorky by I.D. Shadra (in 1951 it was opened on the square in front of the Belorussky railway station in Moscow). In 1954, after the death of Vera Ignatievna Mukhina, a monument to P.I. Tchaikovsky, on which she worked in 1948-1949, was cast and installed in front of the Conservatory building in Moscow.
“Heart of a Dog” is one of the most famous works of Mikhail Bulgakov. And after the film adaptation it became popular. The main role, superbly played by Evgeny Evstigneev, has long been dismantled into quotes. Several people are called the prototype of Professor Preobrazhensky. One of them, Alexey Andreevich Zamkov, lived in the Urals for ten months.
Evgeny Evstigneev as Professor Preobrazhensky
In search of the elixir of youth
The action of the fantastic story begins in December 1924 in Moscow. The famous surgeon Filipp Filippovich Preobrazhensky, studying the problem of human rejuvenation, decides to conduct an experiment: transplant the pituitary gland and seminal glands from a human to a dog. The result of the operation was unexpected: the dog Sharik took on a human form. And then... You know the rest.
Contemporaries immediately recognized the main character as the writer’s uncle and his apartment. Nikolai Mikhailovich Pokrovsky was a gynecologist, but he did not conduct experiments on rejuvenation.
However, in the 1920-1930s there was no shortage of such researchers. The ethical principles of that time allowed for the most questionable experiments.
Surgeon Sergei Abramovich Voronov was born in Russia and worked in Egypt and France. He performed thousands of operations to transplant the gonads of monkeys into humans. The world was delighted with the new magician. But after a few years, disappointment set in: it turned out that it was not possible to instill any youth in the patients.
Biologist Ilya Ivanovich Ivanov conducted experiments to create a hybrid of monkey and human. To do this, he first went to Africa, and then brought animals to the USSR, founding the Sukhumi monkey nursery. Letters from women wanting to become pregnant with chimpanzees came from all over the country.
A.A. Castles Doctor Alexey Andreevich Zamkov achieved success by studying the urine of pregnant women. History remembers him as the creator of the world's first mass-produced hormonal drug.
“From peasants, graduated from the Corps of Pages”
Alexey Zamkov was born in 1883 into a peasant family. From the age of 15 he worked in a Moscow artel. He took part in the revolution of 1905, but later withdrew from politics and repeated throughout his life: “People should be treated, not killed.” Alexey studied continuously: he completed an accounting course, passed an exam for a gymnasium course, and graduated from the medical faculty of Moscow University.
Zamkov also has another biography. According to it, he received an education in the Corps of Pages (where the sons of the Russian elite studied), wore the shoulder straps of a colonel and was the head of hospitals. Apparently, he had to change his personal data in order to protect himself from repression by the young state of workers and peasants. But no matter what was written in the papers, Alexey Andreevich turned out to be a good, real doctor. He spoke about his specialty like this: surgeon, urologist, endocrinologist.
During the First World War, in a Moscow hospital, he met sister of mercy Vera Ignatievna Mukhina, a wealthy merchant’s daughter. In the hungry year of 1918 they got married. In 1920, their son Vsevolod was born. The father himself delivered the baby, and a few years later, at home, on the dining table, he surgically saved his son from bone tuberculosis.
Alexey Zamkov and Vera Mukhina Routine medical work was not enough for Zamkov - the spirit of a discoverer lived in him, trying to find the hidden reserves of the human body.
Gravidan recipe
Urine therapy has been known for a long time; Hippocrates and Avicenna knew about it. In the 1920s, Zamkov studied the urine of pregnant women, which contained large amounts of hormones. The result of the research was the drug gravidan (from the Latin graviditas - pregnancy). Experiments on animals were impressive: old, weak, bald mice were transformed after injections: their fur began to shine, they gave birth to healthy offspring. The old trotter, who was being prepared for slaughter, showed record agility. Then the doctor decided to test the medicine on himself and felt how it increased the overall tone of the body, creativity and sexual activity. The gravidan was also taken by his wife: he helped Vera Ignatievna work on large monuments.
There was also an entrepreneurial spirit in Zamkov. Without waiting for the end of clinical trials and stable results, he offers the “miracle” drug to the highest Soviet elite. His patients are called Maxim Gorky, Clara Zetkin, Ivan Michurin, Sergo Ordzhonikidze, Vyacheslav Molotov, Mikhail Kalinin, Semyon Budyonny, intelligence chief Yan Berzin, head of Stalin's guard Karl Pauker and many others.
A.A. Castles. 1928 This activity of Zamkov worries his colleagues. Some consider him a charlatan, others are simply jealous. In 1930, a devastating article was published in the Izvestia newspaper. Alexey Andreevich is fired from the Institute of Experimental Biology, where he worked. Deciding that he has no prospects in the USSR, the doctor, his wife and son go south by train to illegally cross the border with Iran.
But the OGPU authorities are not asleep: on the way, the family was arrested and returned to the capital. His wife and son were released five days later, and Zamkov was convicted. But the punishment turned out to be unexpectedly mild: 3 years of exile in Voronezh with confiscation of property.
Did high patrons help, but the link ended ahead of schedule. In 1932, Zamkov not only returned to Moscow, but also became director of the newly created State Research Institute of Urogravid Therapy. The production of the drug and its supply to hospitals, clinics, and sanatoriums began.
P. Kuznetsov. Portrait of A.A. Zamkova. 1932 In 1936, gravidanotherapy points appeared in the Urals: in the city clinic of the city of Kabakovsk (now Serov), in the clinic and skin and venereal disease clinic of the Krasnoufimskaya station, the clinic of the Chusovskaya station, the Soviet hospital of the city of Asha, and the railway hospital of Ufa.
Zamkov's fame thundered throughout the country. There are tens of thousands of patients. They try to treat all diseases with Gravidan: infectious and eye, heart and mental. Leading production workers report that the drug allows them to work 14 hours and exceed the plan by 300 percent. There is even a poem dedicated to Gravidan.
Vera Mukhina remained in the shadow of her famous husband. She is considered a sculptor, but she is almost fifty, and there is not a single erected monument. She will receive worldwide recognition only in 1937, when the world sees her “Worker and Collective Farm Woman” at an exhibition in Paris.
And clouds begin to gather over Zamkovo... The euphoria from the “wonderful” drug has passed. Patients say that Gravidan does not help them, is addictive and has side effects. Serious scientists and the authorities have accumulated questions. It all ended in 1938: the Institute of Urogravid Therapy was destroyed, Zamkov fell ill with a severe heart attack.
Having recovered from his illness, Alexey Andreevich got a job at the health center of the “Headdresses” artel.
Cottage on the banks of the Iset
With the outbreak of war, Zamkov rushes to the front. But with a bad heart, they don’t take him to the front or to hospitals. He works as a supernumerary doctor at the Sklifosovsky Institute.
Vera Mukhina worked in the Construction Department of the Palace of the Soviets, in the design workshop. The government decided to transfer this powerful trust to the construction of the Ural Aluminum Smelter, and its leader Andrei Nikitich Prokofiev became the head of Uralaluminstroy. Vera Ignatievna had to go with everyone else.
The whole family, four of us, left (together with a friend of Vera’s mother, Anastasia Stepanovna Sobolevskaya, who had been living with them for a long time). Personal belongings fit into three suitcases, and for the main cargo 24 boxes were needed: Alexey Andreevich took the archives of the Institute of Urogravid Therapy with him. 18 days of travel on a train of 110 heated vehicles... We reached Kamensk-Uralsky on October 30, 1941.
During the first months of the war, the city's population almost tripled, from 50 to 140 thousand people. There is nowhere for people to live. Even for the family of Stalin Prize laureate Vera Mukhina, they were able to allocate only one room. But in a good location - in apartment No. 4 of cottage No. 4 on the banks of the Iset, in a fenced and guarded area where the managers of the plant and construction lived.
Cottage No. 4, built 80 years ago as luxury housing, will soon be demolished “The house where we were placed is beautiful, reliable, warm, with beautiful nature all around. One wall on the first floor is entirely glass with a view of the river. They say that in summer the Iset is a stunningly beautiful river, wide and beautiful, since there is a dam below us, but now it’s winter and everything is covered with snow.”
Documents about the work of A.A. Castles in Kamensk-Uralsky are still stored in the city archive. Here is the order of the city health department: “Enlisted on the staff of the UAZ hospital from November 5, 1941, as a resident physician in the surgical department with a salary of 400 rubles per month.” A month later, on December 11, he was transferred to the UAZ outpatient clinic for a surgical appointment with the same small salary. Next are monthly payroll statements.
Home to Moscow!
Although life seems to be settled, Zamkova and Mukhina are uncomfortable in Kamensk-Uralsky, they are languishing here. Vera Ignatievna described her feelings this way: “I can’t find a place for myself, I’m terribly worried that I’m sitting in this damned hole, and life goes on, it’s in full swing, and I don’t know any of this.”
Fragment of a letter from Vera Mukhina with the Kamensk address But returning home is not so easy: you cannot move freely around the country. IN AND. Mukhina writes to the Arts Committee: “I’m too far from the events. Life here is dull. So don’t keep me here and send a challenge quickly.” She is joined by A.A. Zamkov: “At such a great, serious moment in our Motherland, gravidan could play a colossal role. I could again help millions of our population, and not hundreds, that’s what worries me so much. Understand, Comrade People’s Commissar, it is very difficult to realize that I can still bring a lot of benefit and am almost inactive.”
In May 1942, Vera Ignatievna received a call to the capital. But - only she is alone. Now the spouses communicate by letters: “Dear, dear Verusha! The city health department is taking all possible measures to keep me out. But that doesn't scare me. I will rush to you with all my might. I’m injecting myself with Gravidan again, eating rice porridge, and my strength seems to be coming back.”
The tone of the next letter is completely different: “Dear Verusha, my stay here is tantamount to death. I have turned into an old man who can barely stand on my legs. I don't believe that I will be able to revive the gravidan business again. So much struggle, so many dirty tricks and nasty things surrounding this matter completely broke me and paralyzed my will and fettered my desire to live. I'm sorry, my dear."
And finally, the last salary calculation at the UAZ outpatient clinic - for August 1942. Permission has been received. Zamkov goes to Moscow. Die.
The son Vsevolod remains in Kamensk-Uralsky the longest. He was given the task: to be sure to take the archives of the institute to the capital. With a large load, he cannot board the train for a long time. Passing train after train, he realizes that he won’t have time to see his father...
And Alexey Andreevich in his native Moscow seems to be getting better, life is returning to him. But then he suffers a second heart attack. The creator of the “elixir of eternal youth” dies on October 25, 1942 at the age of 59.
Vera Mukhina ensured that her husband was buried at the prestigious Novodevichy cemetery. She took her place next to him 11 years later, in 1953.
Gravidan was removed from the list of medications in 1964.
read the magazine version
Author: Lyskov Anton He graduated from the Faculty of Mathematics and Mechanics of the Ural University and works as a programmer. He studies the history of his native land in archives, hikes, and conversations with interesting people. Published in the newspapers “New Compass” and “Ural Highway”, the magazine “Vesi”, and collections of local history. Lives in Kamensk-Uralsky.
