Zhzl the latest edition of Pasha Angelina. The daughter of the famous tractor driver Pasha Angelina Svetlana: “they said about my mother that she was Stalin’s mistress, an alcoholic and ours is not a house, but a brothel
In 1928, in our backward village, a foreign “miracle of technology of the 20th century” appeared, rattling throughout the entire area. The tractor not only increased the speed of tillage, but also changed the entire patriarchal way of life of rural residents. Even women's emancipation in the village I walked along a tractor track: a female tractor driver, Pasha (Praskovya) Angelina, appeared, pretty girl, which for the first time in history Russian village took up “not a woman’s” business. Hundreds of thousands of other women followed her.
Why did Pasha Angelina dream of becoming a tractor driver at the age of 16? Why did she, at the age of 20, organize the first women's tractor brigade in the USSR, instead of calmly getting married, having children and poking around in her garden?
Our correspondent Dmitry Tikhonov talks with the nephew of the legendary tractor driver, Alexei Kirillovich Angelin.
My father, Kirill Fedorovich, and Praskovya Nikitichna - cousins and sister. My grandfather, Fyodor Vasilyevich, died very early due to a wound received in the First World War, and Praskovya Nikitichna’s father, Nikita Vasilyevich, actually adopted his brother’s children. Grandfather Nikita treated our family as his own.
We were all born in the regional village of Staro-Beshevo, Donetsk region. My mother, brother and Praskovya Nikitichna’s son, Valery, still live there. By the way, Valery and I studied at the same institute, and I always go to see him when I’m in those parts.
Praskovya Nikitichna’s husband worked in party bodies, and during the war he was seriously wounded and died in 1947. She never remarried and said that the main thing for her was to get her three children on their feet. The eldest daughter Svetlana graduated from Moscow State University and has been living in Moscow for a long time, already retired. Middle son Valery remained, as I said, in his homeland. Youngest daughter Stalin graduated from medical school, but died early. There was also adopted son Gennady is her brother's son. When his brother died, his wife abandoned the child, and Pasha adopted him.
-What kind of person was she?
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They say about such women: a man in a skirt. She really had male character. She was directly drawn to tractors! But back then in the village this was not very welcome. Those women who dared to ride a tractor were subjected to real persecution. She even described it in her memoirs. In addition, Praskovya Nikitichna is Greek by nationality, and among them women were generally forbidden to meddle in men’s affairs. Her father and the whole family were categorically against it, but despite everything she mastered this purely male specialty and became first a machine operator and then a foreman of the first female tractor brigade in the USSR.
In 1938, attention was paid to her. She got into the groove. As a result, she issued an appeal to everyone Soviet women: "One hundred thousand girlfriends - on a tractor!" And 200 thousand women followed her example.
She was a purposeful person, assertive, demanding, even tough, but very fair. And, of course, a great organizer. Always in the brigade perfect order and cleanliness. By the way, there was a women’s brigade from 1933 to 1945, but when they returned from Kazakhstan, from evacuation, the women fled, and only men remained in the brigade. And Praskovya Nikitichna is their foreman. They called her Aunt Pasha.
It must be said that she was a real ace driver: she drove both a tractor and a car, she practically never got out of her Pobeda and did not want to exchange it for the new Volga, which was fashionable at that time.
- Was she really not interested in anything else in life, besides tractors?
She had a very strong desire for books. And although she did not receive a higher education, she loved to read. When I was a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, I sent dozens of parcels with books from Moscow. And all the neighbors thought that she was sending all sorts of scarce things from the capital. Her library was magnificent. I subscribed to a whole bunch of different newspapers and magazines. The postman brought them in bags.
- By the way, at that time Praskovya Nikitichna was quite famous, or, as they said then, a noble person. Did this help her in life? How did the authorities treat her?
She never used her opportunities and connections for herself personally. Although she had great connections. Judge for yourself - member of the Central Committee Communist Party Ukraine, twice Hero of Socialist Labor, laureate Stalin Prize, had several Orders of Lenin, was a deputy of the Supreme Council for 20 years in a row, was familiar with Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin, and met Stalin several times. But she remained a foreman until the end of her life, although she was more than once offered to become the chairman of the collective farm.
I remember such an incident. She, as a deputy of the Supreme Council, had a personal driver. He once broke some rules, so she made him apologize to the guard. She did not allow anyone to use her connections. Her family was often offended by her because of this. I think that famous surname helped us in only one thing - our family escaped repression.
- Praskovya Angelina died in January 1959, when she was only 46 years old...
She had cirrhosis of the liver, which is not surprising given such work. The constant presence of fuels and lubricants in the body had an effect. Previously, fuel was sucked through a hose. She died very quickly, within a few months, and literally worked until the last. I came to the session of the Supreme Council, felt unwell, and went to the doctors. She was treated at a Kremlin clinic, but it was no longer possible to save her. She was awarded the second star of Hero of Socialist Labor when she was already in the clinic, almost before her death. They wanted to bury him in Moscow, on Novodevichy Cemetery, but at the request of relatives they were buried at home in Staro-Beshevo. There is still a monument to her and an avenue named after her.
- Why did you connect your life with agriculture?
My father was also a machine operator and worked as a foreman of a tractor team on a neighboring farm. And we, children, followed in his footsteps. I am the eldest son. At first he worked as a mechanic at MTS, then graduated from the Melitopol Institute of Mechanization and Electrification agriculture, became a mechanical engineer. He worked in Kuban and was the chairman of a collective farm. My younger brother also a machine operator. True, my children are no longer connected with the village. My granddaughter actually studies at MGIMO.
- What do you think, in modern conditions Is Pasha Angelina’s experience applicable?
Everything is good in due time. Then it was simply necessary, especially during the war and after it. But today, it seems to me, there is no need to en masse involve women in such a difficult task. There is no need for this. The men can handle it themselves.
“There is no sex in the USSR” - this already historical phrase stunned the audience from the Soviet participant in the first teleconference with America. What the country didn’t have were sex symbols as they are understood today. But there certainly were ladies who were worthy and admired. And not only movie stars, but also women who made professional career in traditionally male fields of activity. Such as the first tractor driver Pasha Angelina.
On horseback
In the favorite book of Soviet children - the fairy tale “Old Man Hottabych” by Lazar Lagin - there is a remarkable dialogue: “And whose wife is Pasha Angelina, that you consider her more noble than sheikhs and kings?” - asks the old genie, who has been sitting in a bottle for centuries. And who freed him from captivity Soviet pioneer patiently explains to the politically illiterate grandfather: “She is noble in herself, not because of her husband. She’s a famous tractor driver!”
Formally, the fate of the first Soviet tractor driver fits perfectly into the canons of feminism. In a peasant country with a patriarchal structure, Pasha was the first to saddle, as they said then, a “steel horse” - she sat behind the wheel of a modern tractor, becoming an example for thousands of compatriots. In other words, she despised the tradition that cemented a woman’s place in the kitchen and nursery and made a professional career. Career in the field high technology- Soviet “high-tech” of the twenties! However, remembering what time it was, other horses come to mind. And other women - Nekrasov’s: “He will stop a galloping horse, he will enter a burning hut...”
Praskovya Angelina (for the whole country she remained simply Pasha for the rest of her life) was born in 1913 in the Donetsk region into the family of a rural farm laborer. The girl grew up and prepared for a calm rural life. Until a rattling foreign miracle of technology - a tractor - burst into a backward Russian village. This happened in 1928, and the very next year Pasha completed a tractor driving course and, according to the official version (we will never know the unofficial version), was the first woman in the country to drive a tractor herself.
The latest technology Soviet collective farmers appreciated it, but managing steel units was traditionally considered a non-female task. The mechanic driving the car was the first guy in the village at that time. You could even give your chosen one a ride on a tractor, secretly from the collective farm authorities. Any of the village beauties would take their breath away from such proposals - but not Pasha Angelina, who herself ruled to the envy of the entire village.
Adding to the jealousy of local tractor drivers was the brewing conflict in the family. Nikita Angelin, the father of the first tractor driver, was from the Greeks, and greek men had strict ideas about which areas of life were inaccessible to women. But Pasha’s legendary tenacity—on the verge of obstinacy—also had Greek roots. Since childhood, she was nicknamed the man in a skirt, and everyone in the village knew: if anything happened to Nikita’s daughter Angelina, everything would be her way!
Record holder
After some time, news of the initiative of a tractor driver from Ukraine reached Moscow. Moreover, up to the leader himself. The pre-war decade and a half was a time of endless records. Not sports, but production, and not for the sake of money, but on the wave of mass enthusiasm. Sincere or carefully directed by the authorities - in this case it does not matter. New country Heroes were urgently needed, and they became miners, steelworkers, combine operators and pilots. The first five-year plans with their labor impulse and constant records were a ceremonial showcase of socialism - the same as the movie “Circus”, songs that “help you build and live”, and Mukhina’s pathetic sculpture “Worker and Collective Farm Woman”. Official propaganda, naturally, kept silent about what was hidden behind the window display - mass terror, famine in Ukraine, the destruction of the Russian village, slave labor of people on many great construction projects of socialism and everything else.
Whether the young tractor driver had any idea why her unusual act aroused such warm approval from the supreme authorities is now impossible to understand. Most likely not. She was young, uneducated and very passionate about her work. And Pasha’s first priority, like many of her peers, was then “to build”, and only then to “live”.
To imagine what Pasha Angelina was like, it is enough to recall the same monumental collective farmer Mukhina. A strong and broad-shouldered builder of a new world, physically in no way inferior to her companion, the peasant worker. Weary hands, a strong body, and in the face - will, pressure, energy, power. There is not a drop of doubt in your gaze directed towards a bright future! Softness, femininity, sexuality are absent. The builders of the new world have no use for them.
After Angelina led the country’s (and perhaps the world’s) first women’s tractor brigade in her homeland, the newspapers published her call: “One hundred thousand friends to go to tractors!” This was in 1938, and a year later not one hundred, but two hundred thousand collective farm women responded to the initiative. They had to not only master advanced agricultural machinery, but also replace men at the helm when the need arose... The country was intensely preparing for war. An entire generation grew up with the following idea: there are only enemies around, who are just waiting for an opportunity to attack the world's first state of workers and peasants.
Star
Pasha Angelina became famous throughout the country even before the war. The young rural tractor driver quickly turned into an all-Union celebrity, a real star, whose popularity even other movie stars could not dream of. Her smile graced the front pages of newspapers and magazines. Now every trip to the field of a noble tractor driver became newsworthy and rarely did without being accompanied by crowds of journalists and camera flashes.
In Soviet society, such popularity inevitably required corresponding awards. In 1935, Pasha Angelina received her first Order of Lenin, and two years later she joined the party and became a deputy of the Supreme Council. Now she had the opportunity to speak from a high platform, meet with thousands of people across the country and with those few on whom everything in this country depended. Pasha personally communicated with Stalin himself more than once and even, according to journalists, once dared to recite ditties composed by her friends in the brigade in the presence of the leader.
Social activities captured Pasha in the same way as technology did before. During her trips to Moscow, she had to do everything: take care of the timely dispatch of tractors and seeders, help her fellow countrymen with admission to the capital's institutes, get collective farmers tickets to the resort, deal with the affairs of disabled people whose pensions were delayed. Her concern extended to everyone except own family, - use social status indecent. As her nephew later recalled, the only, albeit useful, “benefit” from being related to a folk heroine was that her family happily escaped repression. From which no one was safe in those days.
Just before the war, Pasha finally received higher education, having graduated from the Moscow Agricultural Academy - the famous Timiryazevka. During these years, she read a lot, ordering whole boxes of books from the capital. And she even wrote one herself - “People of the Collective Farm Fields,” which was published shortly after the end of the war.
During the war years, Pasha Angelina again led the women's tractor brigade - but already in the rear, in Kazakhstan. Everyone who worked with her unanimously affirmed: she was a born leader, demanding and sometimes tough, but fair. When, after returning to Ukraine in 1945, ex-girlfriends— Pasha’s partners scattered in all directions, her authority was unconditionally recognized by the male tractor drivers who replaced them. In the new composition of the tractor brigade, the only representative of the weaker sex remained - Aunt Pasha herself.
However, a woman known throughout the country - a leader in labor, a deputy, an order bearer - still did not turn into a sexless Mukha collective farmer with a sickle in her hands. Angelina had a husband and three children (and another adopted one), for whom her mother brought toys from Moscow. Steel character she showed it differently when, after the death of her husband in 1947 (as a result of a wound received in the war), she single-handedly raised all four of them.
Sunset
In 1953, Stalin died, and a new era began, which needed completely different heroes and idols. Conversations about Pasha subsided, but did not disappear completely. In some socialist countries The spirit of the Russian female tractor driver gradually began to penetrate. A local movement of “successors of Pasha Angelina’s work” arose in China. And she could not complain about the favor of the authorities at home. Pasha was elected to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, added to her awards new Orders of Lenin, two stars of the Hero of Socialist Labor and the sign of the Stalin Prize laureate. At the same time, until the end of her life she remained a simple foreman, although she was repeatedly offered to take the post of chairman of the collective farm. She also refused to exchange her personal Pobeda, which she drove as dashingly as a tractor, for a more fashionable and prestigious Volga. She continued to be praised in the central press and was invited to various meetings and special events. But best time Pasha Angelina was already leaving.
She died in January 1959, four years short of her half-century anniversary. Death was caused by cirrhosis of the liver, but not for the reason that immediately comes to mind - Pasha Angelina did not abuse alcohol. In those days, cirrhosis of the liver was an occupational disease of tractor drivers, who sometimes had to “suck” fuel a little through a hose. She arrived in Moscow for the next session of the Supreme Council and literally burned out in a matter of months. In the hospital ward of the famous “Kremlin” noble tractor driver They still managed to award the second Star of Hero of Labor, and a few days later Praskovya Angelina passed away.
According to the nomenclature table of ranks that existed at that time, the twice-heroine and recent idol of millions should have been buried at the Novodevichy cemetery. However, at the insistence of relatives, the funeral took place in Angelina’s homeland.
She remained in history as one of the most brilliant “Cinderellas” Soviet era. Pasha was not considered a beauty even then - however, in today’s opinion, even the faces of many movie stars of that era do not always evoke admiration. But fate did not deprive her of fame and simple female happiness.
And the question of whether women can lead on an equal basis with men and better than men- be it the steering wheel of a tractor, big business and even the state - has since been decided finally and irrevocably. They can, they have proven it.
In 1928, in our backward village, a foreign “miracle of technology of the 20th century” appeared, rattling throughout the entire area. The tractor not only increased the speed of tillage, but also changed the entire patriarchal way of life of rural residents. Even women’s emancipation in the countryside followed the tractor track: Pasha(Praskovya) Angelina, a pretty girl who, for the first time in the history of the Russian village, took up “not a woman’s” business. Hundreds of thousands of other women followed her.
Why Pasha Angelina at the age of 16 she dreamed of becoming a tractor driverN Why did she, at the age of 20, organize the first women's tractor brigade in the USSR, instead of calmly getting married, having children and poking around in her gardenN
Our correspondent Dmitry Tikhonov talks with the nephew of the legendary tractor driver, Alexei Kirillovich Angelin.
My father, Kirill Fedorovich, and Praskovya Nikitichna are cousins. My grandfather, Fyodor Vasilyevich, died very early due to a wound received in the First World War, and Praskovya Nikitichna’s father, Nikita Vasilyevich, actually adopted his brother’s children. Grandfather Nikita treated our family as his own.
We were all born in the regional village of Staro-Beshevo, Donetsk region. My mother, brother and Praskovya Nikitichna’s son, Valery, still live there. By the way, Valery and I studied at the same institute, and I always go to see him when I’m in those parts.
Praskovya Nikitichna's husband worked in party bodies, and during the war he was seriously wounded and died in 1947. She never remarried; she said that the main thing for her was to get her three children on their feet. The eldest daughter Svetlana graduated from Moscow State University and has been living in Moscow for a long time, already retired. The middle son Valery remained, as I said, in his homeland. Stalin's youngest daughter graduated from medical school, but died early. There was also an adopted son, Gennady, the son of her brother. When the brother died, his wife abandoned the child, and Pasha adopted him.
What kind of person was she?
They say about such women: a man in a skirt. She really had a masculine character. She was directly drawn to tractors! But back then in the village this was not very welcome. Those women who dared to ride a tractor were subjected to real persecution. She even described it in her memoirs. In addition, Praskovya Nikitichna is Greek by nationality, and among them women were generally forbidden to meddle in men’s affairs. Her father and the whole family were categorically against it, but despite everything she mastered this purely male specialty and became first a machine operator and then a foreman of the first female tractor brigade in the USSR.
In 1938, attention was paid to her. She got into the groove. As a result, she made an appeal to all Soviet women: “One hundred thousand girlfriends - on a tractor!” And 200 thousand women followed her example.
She was a purposeful person, assertive, demanding, even tough, but very fair. And, of course, a great organizer. The team is always in perfect order and cleanliness. By the way, there was a women’s brigade from 1933 to 1945, but when they returned from Kazakhstan, from evacuation, the women fled, and only men remained in the brigade. And Praskovya Nikitichna is their foreman. They called her Aunt Pasha.
It must be said that she was a real ace driver: she drove both a tractor and a car, she practically never got out of her Pobeda and did not want to exchange it for the new Volga, which was fashionable at that time.
Was she really not interested in anything else in life besides tractors?
She had a very strong desire for books. And although she did not receive a higher education, she loved to read. When I was a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, I sent dozens of parcels with books from Moscow. And all the neighbors thought that she was sending all sorts of scarce things from the capital. Her library was magnificent. I subscribed to a whole bunch of different newspapers and magazines. The postman brought them in bags.
By the way, at that time Praskovya Nikitichna was quite famous, or, as they said then, a noble person. This helped her in lifeN How the authorities treated herN
She never used her opportunities and connections for herself personally. Although she had great connections. Judge for yourself - a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, twice Hero of Socialist Labor, laureate of the Stalin Prize, had several Orders of Lenin, was a deputy of the Supreme Council for 20 years in a row, was familiar with Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin, met with Stalin several times. But she remained a foreman until the end of her life, although she was more than once offered to become the chairman of the collective farm.
I remember such an incident. She, as a deputy of the Supreme Council, had a personal driver. He once broke some rules, so she made him apologize to the guard. She did not allow anyone to use her connections. Her family was often offended by her because of this. I think that the famous surname helped us in only one thing - our family escaped repression.
- Praskovya Angelina died in January 1959, when she was only 46 years old...
- She had cirrhosis of the liver, which is not surprising given such work. The constant presence of fuels and lubricants in the body had an effect. Previously, fuel was sucked through a hose. She died very quickly, within a few months, and literally worked until the last. I came to the session of the Supreme Council, felt unwell, and went to the doctors. She was treated at a Kremlin clinic, but it was no longer possible to save her. She was awarded the second star of Hero of Socialist Labor when she was already in the clinic, almost before her death. They wanted to bury him in Moscow, at the Novodevichy cemetery, but at the request of his relatives they buried him at home, in Staro-Beshevo. There is still a monument to her and an avenue named after her.
- Why did you connect your life with agriculture?
- My father was also a machine operator and worked as a foreman of a tractor team on a neighboring farm. And we, children, followed in his footsteps. I am the eldest son. At first he worked as a mechanic at MTS, then he graduated from the Melitopol Institute of Mechanization and Electrification of Agriculture and became a mechanical engineer. He worked in Kuban and was the chairman of a collective farm. My younger brother is also a machine operator. True, my children are no longer connected with the village. My granddaughter actually studies at MGIMO.
- Do you think that Pasha Angelina’s experience is applicable in modern conditions?
- Everything is fine in due time. Then it was simply necessary, especially during the war and after it. But today, it seems to me, there is no need to en masse involve women in such a difficult task. There is no need for this. The men can handle it themselves
While the country was carrying Angelina in its arms, her own husband almost shot her, and doctors went to the house to examine the family for “bad diseases”
Pasha Angelina was from a Greek family, but this was not mentioned. She became a symbol of the industrial Soviet era - a girl in overalls, holding tractor levers in her strong hands. She also differed from the heroines of that time in that no one created her or artificially embellished her. Pasha was like this from birth: she loved technology, was deeply devoted and had the highest sense of duty. This ended her life at 46 years old.
Wikipedia
Guy in a skirt
Her first child was adopted. Pasha was barely 18 years old when her sister abandoned her son. Angelina was always ready to lend a hand to anyone who needed help. But she also knew how to stand up for herself.
In their Christian Greek family, which had long settled in the village of Starobeshevo, Mariupol district, in the Donbass, and sacredly preserved patriarchal traditions, she grew up the most stubborn and persistent child. She went against the will of her relatives, who insisted that a woman’s place was at the stove, and not at all near the iron machines that appeared in the village. She was teased as a “guy in a skirt,” but she graduated from machine operator courses and became the first female tractor driver in the USSR.
Pasha was born on January 12, 1913, and started driving a tractor at the age of 16. And for exactly 30 years, until her death on January 21, 1959, Praskovya Nikitichna did not leave this main “workplace” of hers.
It's not easy to be a symbol
The year 1929, when a young tractor driver amazed her fellow villagers by appearing in the field on an “iron horse,” was special in the history of the country: a movement of innovative shock workers was unfolding. Pasha Angelina’s initiative came in handy. Other girls followed her example, and in 1933 Pasha headed the women’s brigade, which showed good results in the first year, and the foreman Angelina received the title “Excellent Tractor Driver.” The capital's newspapers also began to write about her.
The youth repeated the miner’s names like a spell Alexey Stakhanov and other record holders. Pasha Angelina was also included in the list of idols. She became a symbol of women new era– free, strong, technically trained, in no way inferior to men.
For success in work, Praskovya was awarded highest award country - the Order of Lenin She was accepted as a member of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), and in 1938 she became famous with the slogan “100 thousand girlfriends - on a tractor!” Not 100, but 200 thousand women responded to the call. She met with Stalin, could even call him personally. But Pasha was embarrassed by her loud fame and used it almost only once: she had to rescue her arrested brother, the chairman of the collective farm. He was released, but too late: he quickly died from the beatings he received in prison.
She never asked for anything else for herself, but always helped others out. People often turned to her for help, and she more than once used her influence to get vouchers for villagers, help them enroll in universities, and find work. She herself found moments to brush up on her knowledge and pass exams at Timiryazevka. From Moscow, where she was invited to sessions, she sent packages home. At first, fellow villagers thought there was a shortage, but it turned out there was a shortage of books. Having become famous throughout the country, Praskovya Nikitichna still remained the foreman of her women’s brigade and, returning from the capital, day and night she made up for her plowing quota, keeping up with her friends.
Scythe on a stone
But to her husband, Sergei Chernyshev, the wife’s glory was across the throat. He himself was a leader by nature - energetic, intelligent, could speak for several hours without any cheat sheets, was an excellent drawer, and composed poetry. And he held a decent position - second secretary of the district party committee. In 1935, he married Pasha Angelina, who already had an adopted son. Gena.
It seems that everything is fine, and I could confidently feel like the head of the family. But it turned out that neither his talents nor his position had a price. For everyone, he is simply Pasha’s husband. And the invitations that the famous tractor driver received usually stated: “Praskovya Nikitichna Angelina with her husband.” Of course, since 1937, his wife began to be regularly elected as a deputy of the Supreme Council.
All this literally threw Sergei off balance. Pasha’s worries kept increasing, his family was growing - before the war they had two children of their own - Valery And Svetlana, and she still disappeared from dawn to dusk in the field.
In September 1941, Sergei Chernyshev went to the front. And Praskovya and her children were evacuated to Kazakhstan and there she continued to set her records, although she already had four children in her arms. The last daughter she almost lost it. The fact is that she, pregnant, already at a critical stage, in the summer of 1942, was called to Moscow for a session. She, afraid to disobey, went, and on the way back she gave birth right on the road. The train near Saratov was bombed. It’s scary to say what Praskovya had to go through during the few months that she and her newborn were traveling back to Kazakhstan. The girl's name was Stalin.
“You can’t fall lower than a tractor”
The war ended, and Praskovya Nikitichna returned to her native Donbass. Her pre-war women's brigade broke up, and she headed the men's team. The performance of the “angels” continued to be off the charts, and even in the dry year of 1946, they harvested a record harvest. Angelina first became a laureate of the Stalin Prize, and then next year received the star of Hero of Socialist Labor. Pasha came home after midnight and left at four in the morning.
This caused constant scandals in the family; her husband, who returned home in 1946, reproached Pasha for paying little attention to her family. However, this did not stop him from bringing with him his “front-line” wife with a baby in her arms. Not paying attention to the gossip of her fellow villagers, Praskovya helped her with money. And I forgave my husband.
Maybe because she understood: she couldn’t be alone. There are too many envious people around. They said that she was Stalin’s mistress, that the children were not her husband’s, they wrote dirty anonymous letters. All this fueled Sergei’s jealousy.
In addition, he returned from the war as a complete alcoholic. Once in a frenzy in front of eldest daughter shot his wife with a registered Browning. The bullet miraculously missed, the girl lost consciousness from fear. Praskovya could not forgive him for this. She refused alimony, transferred the children to her last name and never met her ex-husband again.
She never got married again, although people approached her more than once. She had to be very careful, because for 22 years she was elected as a deputy supreme body authorities of the country, on every business trip they had to take part in feasts. To keep a fresh head, Praskovya quietly exchanged vodka for water, and on a business trip she always took one of her children with her; she believed that no one would think of pestering a woman with a child.
But even these precautions sometimes did not save her from the envy of local party bodies: she behaved too independently. Her daughter Svetlana told in one of her interviews how one day in 1949, doctors came to their house in Starobeshevo, where guests from all over the country often came. They took a blood test from everyone at home... for syphilis (!). They explained: they say, there was a signal that there were often drinking and partying in the house and in general it was unknown what they were doing. Only after Angelina contacted Nikita Khrushchev, who at that time headed the Communist Party of Ukraine, the persecution of the famous tractor driver stopped.
Praskovya Nikitichna was repeatedly offered a promotion - to become, for example, the chairman of a collective farm or even the deputy minister of agriculture of the republic. But she refused, believing that “you have to hold on to the ground,” “the tractor is low, you won’t fall any lower.” But she dreamed of giving her children a full-fledged higher education. And it almost came true. Daughter Svetlana became a philologist, Stalin became a doctor, Gennady became an engineer. Only Valery did not receive a diploma.
Praskovya Angelina died when she was only 46 years old. She never complained, suffered Botkin’s disease twice on her feet, and literally burned out at work. When they rushed to save her, it turned out that she had cirrhosis of the liver - from many years of working with diesel fuel and machine oils.
Today we will talk about the legendary Praskovya Angelina - twice Hero of Socialist Labor, awarded three Orders of Lenin and the Order of the Red Banner of Labor [, laureate of the Stalin Prize, deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR
In their malicious attempts to discredit everything Soviet, heroic, and popular, anti-Soviet people indulge in the most shameless inventions. Pasha Angelina is one of the victims of today's "truth-tellers"
First, let's give the floor to the anti-Sovietists:
"...In the winter of 1933, Donetsk Starobeshevo, like all the surrounding villages, was severely hungry. If it weren’t for the pieces of bread that were brought once a week by fathers and brothers who went to the mines, by spring, probably, not only would there be no able-bodied people left, but also alive. villagers unable to go out into the fields, the long-awaited food loan finally arrived - several bags of flour. Dumplings or tart were prepared from it in the field camps. Anyone who reached the cauldron was given a bowl of this brew. The revived people reached for the seeders and harrows—the sowing had begun. Here, in the camp, they spent the night, buried in straw.
Pasha also made it here. At first she helped maintain the fire under the boiler and prepare food, then she carried seed grain to the seeders. I didn’t have the strength to lift the bag, so I carried it in buckets.
The first tractors arrived from MTS for grain harvesting. An inquisitive, brave girl did not leave the outlandish cars. There were not enough tractor drivers, and it was necessary to organize training courses for them. Pasha was the first to sign up for them. Angelina turned out to be a distinguished tractor driver. She plowed in such a way that the furrows she made in the field could be measured with a ruler."
Elena Russkikh "NOBLE TRACTOR DRIVERS PASHA ANGELINA" http://pressa.irk.ru/kopeika/2005/04/009001.html
And now let’s give the floor to Praskovya Nikitichna herself
“In the spring of 1930, I became a tractor driver. I achieved that my car rarely broke down, at least less often than others, and in terms of output I surpassed many of my comrades...
And finally, The long-awaited spring of thirty-three has arrived. The cars were ready. The members of our brigade were waiting for the command. The final preparations were underway. Everything was checked and prepared as before a battle. The girls were worried. They felt their responsibility and understood their honorable mission: they were members of the women's Komsomol tractor brigade - the first brigade in the Soviet Union.
The girls started the cars. And everything around seemed to come to life and speak. The cars shuddered and moved smoothly forward. All the girls were in a festive, cheerful mood. They sang songs all the way to the collective farm. And suddenly I see: a huge crowd of women is moving towards us. Their excited voices were clearly heard. They were getting closer and closer. Screams erupted from the crowd and threats were made:
- Turn the shafts! We will not allow women's cars into our fields!
- Pull Pasha! She is the main locker! I should teach her a lesson!
...Some men appeared, everyone was shouting, waving their arms, the women shouted in unison:
- Don't let them!!!
- Drive away! Get out of our fields!!!
When they saw Ivan Mikhailovich, they calmed down a little and stopped shouting, but did not disperse for a long time.
- Go to work, comrade foreman! - Ivan Mikhailovich ordered me...
We drove slowly, and the crowd moved behind us at a distance. And Kurov did not lag behind her. We arrived at the field, turned around, started plowing...
They worked for an hour, then another, then a third. The crowd stood and did not disperse. And Ivan Mikhailovich was also standing. Then the women whispered among themselves and turned towards the village. Ivan Mikhailovich came up to me, shook my hand and said:
- That’s it, Pasha, everything is taken with a fight! And now good luck!
“Everything is taken with a fight!” I repeated these words every time there was some kind of hitch when the car stopped.
We plowed virgin lands and sowed. The girls were silent. They worked tirelessly, day and night. Only I knew how tired they were from the lack of habit of working on a tractor, from these monotonous races.
....On the morning of the third day, black-haired boys appeared in the field, looking like their fathers and mothers, with the same bold, stern faces, slender and brown from the tan.
- Men have come to visit us! - the tractor drivers shouted cheerfully.
The “men” stood and examined us with particular curiosity.
- Hello! - they shouted in unison. The children brought us white bread, milk, lard, butter.
“The whole village is going to visit you,” the guys told us importantly.
- Will they really come again?! - Natasha Radchenko asked with alarm.
“Don’t worry,” the curly-haired boy said briskly. - They come to you with good things. They are planning to build something on your field....
...I looked at grandfather Alexei. He stood with his foot in a good-quality low shoe put forward, listened attentively and, as if rejoicing at something, smiled wider and wider and suddenly burst out laughing.
Oh, you should have seen grandfather Alexei ten years ago. I remember. He walked hunched over, in torn clothes, always gloomy. In summer, spring and autumn - barefoot, always barefoot, and in severe frosts put on felted supports...
...It was not in vain that they worked, did not get enough sleep, did not eat enough. Good bread has grown. The collective farm paid the state in full. Ninety thousand poods were delivered according to plan and over plan. The collective farm barns were full of grain. Carts creaked along the streets of the village: collective farmers brought home bread earned by honest labor.
Bread lay in the barns, bread brought joy to the soul of the peasant, white rolls were baked in Staro-Beshevo, and the struggle in the steppe for new tons of “white roll” did not stop for a minute..."
From the book by P.N. ANGELINA “People of collective farm fields”
You can compare these two passages.
Elena’s first anti-Russian lie is that Pasha Angelina joined the tractor drivers out of hunger, and there she learned the tractor business.
In fact, Angelina has been a tractor driver since 1930.
The second lie is hunger itself.
The phrase “The children brought us white bread, milk, lard, butter” is very interesting. It's about about the spring of 1933. Years of liberal-democratic famine
What else can be learned from an excerpt from Angelina’s book:
1. It is necessary to pay attention to the resistance of peasants to machine processing. Wasn't the situation the same with collective farms?
2. In Angelina’s memory, her grandfather wearing a good-quality low shoe was imprinted. Sometimes a little thing sticks in your mind for many years. Apparently, this is exactly this option. And Angelina remembers this grandfather, 10 years before the events described, “in torn clothes, always gloomy. In summer, spring and autumn - barefoot, always barefoot, and in severe frosts he put on felted supports..” We can draw a confident conclusion - the well-being of the peasants has seriously increased
3. “Carts creaked along the streets of the village: collective farmers were bringing home bread earned by honest labor. The bread lay in the barns, the bread brought joy to the peasant’s soul, white rolls were baked in Staro-Beshevo.” We can start talking about workdays and sticks again
Anti-Soviet people love to rummage about dirty laundry
“The nephew of the legendary tractor driver, Alexey Angelin, in one of his interviews spoke about his aunt’s family: “Praskovya Nikitichna’s husband worked in the party organs, and during the war he was seriously wounded and died in 1947. She never remarried; she said that the main thing for her was to get her three children and her adopted son Gennady, the son of her older brother, who died in 1930, back on their feet.”
- What nonsense! - laughed the former accountant of the famous tractor brigade (he is also the secret guard of the all-Union heroine and confidant) Maxim Yuryev, who still lives in Starobeshevo. — Her husband Sergei Chernyshov, former first secretary of the district party committee of the Starobeshevsky district, died three years ago in the neighboring Volnovakha district. Back in 1959, he came to Praskovya Nikitichna’s funeral and rushed to the club where they placed the coffin with her body for farewell. But I didn’t let him in, as Aunt Pasha (that’s what we all called her) ordered before her death. Even the revolver scared him. He then went to the children, but they didn’t accept him either.”
Elena SMIRNOVA "PASA ANGELINA - THE ORGANIZER AND LEADER OF THE WORLD'S FIRST WOMEN'S TRACTOR BRIGADE OF COMMUNIST LABOR - KICKED OUT OF HOME. HE WAS VERY JEALOUS" newspaper "Facts" http://www.facts.kiev.ua/archive/200 3 -01-10/61665/index.html
In response to these statements, one can cite the memories of Angelina’s daughter, Svetlana, and son, Valery. http://www.bulvar.com.ua/arch/2007/44/47289bea2a454/
“Once, in response to reproaches, a drunken father shot at my mother. I managed to throw myself on her neck, she moved away - a miss! The bullet remained in the wall for a long time. I lost consciousness from stress, then a terrible depression began, I was treated for a long time. The next day the morning after this incident family life parents is over. Dad went to the Volnovakha region, married a teacher, and a girl was born - Svetlana Chernysheva. We could have been complete namesakes if my mother had not changed our surname from the Chernyshevs to the Angelins.
Svetlana and I corresponded, and then got lost. After the divorce, my father came to see us only twice - on last time to his mother’s funeral, and before that he was already quite ill, and she, already unwell herself, sent him to a sanatorium. "
As can be seen, to ex-husband Angelina reacted like real person- helped with treatment.
After this, who will believe that some former accountant did not allow him to attend the funeral, and even frightened him with a revolver? And it’s difficult to scare a front-line soldier with a revolver.
"A deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR then received one hundred rubles for expenses and the right to free travel. Mom, as a deputy, had two rooms in a large Moscow communal apartment. Before the revolution, a doctor like Professor Preobrazhensky lived there, and after 1917, 10 families were accommodated. In total, 42 people. One toilet and washbasin for everyone - can you imagine? My mother’s niece lived in Moscow at that time with her husband Hero. Soviet Union and with a small child they were filming some kind of bedbugs. And mom asked for a corner for them. Later, I also moved in with them - it was considered better than a hostel. These were the privileges."
“After the war, for two years, we, like everyone else, were starving, until mother’s situation with the brigade got better. We stood in lines for food and for help that came from America, too. In ’47, mother received the first Star of the Hero of Socialist Labor. Life became to get better, even though there was devastation in the country. In her brigade, people earned great money. For example, before the monetary reform, the salary on the collective farm was 400 rubles, and her trailer driver earned 1,400. Tractor drivers and combine operators received 12 tons of clean grain. - well, they only rested on Sundays. They had their own canteen in the field, they dug out a “refrigerator”, the pork and beef were always fresh, they were clean, they built a pool for rainwater to pour it into the radiators - they rusted from simple water. “People built their own houses, many had motorcycles, and some people in the brigade still ride them. Everyone in the brigade could take a car, and if there were problems, the mother, of course, would have helped.”
Compare with at least a modern city council member.
"Praskovya Angelina died in complete obscurity."
BIOGRAPHICAL INDEX Chronos http://www.hrono.ru/biograf/angelina.html
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"The most happy days in my life when my mother was dying. She and I laughed and joked. Every evening someone visited her. Marshak came for tea, Papanin dropped in and made me laugh until I cried. He had an amazing sense of humor. Mom left gracefully and courageously. Five days before her death, she underwent surgery. Papanin accompanied her to the operating room; he followed the gurney. After the operation, my mother fell into a coma and never regained consciousness. She died in my arms."
From the memories of Angelina's daughter - Svetlana