Maya Plisetskaya: biography, personal life, photo. Biography of Maya Plisetskaya - the great Russian ballerina
Time has no power: Plisetskaya danced on stage at the age of 80.
Ballerina Maya Plisetskaya dies
On May 2, the legendary ballerina Maya Plisetskaya passed away. Earlier, NASHA wrote that the cause of Plisetskaya's death was a heart attack. The Bolshoi Theater is preparing an evening in memory of Maya Plisetskaya. It will take place on the birthday of the great ballerina - November 20th. She would have turned 90 this fall.
Her hands in "Swan Lake" were compared with swell of water, with iridescent waves, with the bends of swan wings.
The critic of the Parisian newspaper Le Figaro assured that she was doing it "inhumanly" and that
“When Plisetskaya begins the wave-like movements of her hands, you no longer know whether these are hands or wings, or her hands turn into the movements of the waves along which the swan swims.”
OUR reference
Maya Plisetskaya
Birthday: 11/20/1925
Age: 89 years old
Place of birth: Moscow, Russia
Date of death: 05/02/2015
place of death: Munich, Germany
Citizenship: Russia
Prima ballerina, People's Artist of the USSR
Honorary Doctor of the Sorbonne University, Honorary Professor of Lomonosov Moscow State University, Honorary Citizen of Spain.
She also acted in films, worked as a choreographer and as a teacher-tutor; memoir author.
She was the wife of the composer Rodion Shchedrin.
Childhood of Maya Plisetskaya: mother played Uzbek women in movies
Maya Plisetskaya was born on November 20, 1925 in the family of Mikhail Plisetsky and silent film actress Rachel Messerer.
Maya Mikhailovna herself wrote in her memoirs:
“Father, far from the world of art, occupied quite earthly administrative positions. And the colorful appearance of my mother, black-haired Rachel, during the time of the Great Mute could not but attract directors, and she was filmed several times in the roles of ... Uzbek women.
Ballerina from the North Pole
In 1932, Maya's father was appointed head of the coal mines in Svalbard.
It was on this harsh island, on the amateur stage, that Maya made her debut in the opera Mermaid.
The tiny role was performed brilliantly, and the young ballerina sang and danced all day, playing all the roles at the same time. Parents reacted to their daughter's hobby with attention and decided, when they returned to the capital, to send the girl not just to "dancing", but to a real choreographic school.
And so they did. From the age of 9, Maya began to comprehend the secrets professional ballet. By today's standards, it's too late - if your last name is not Plisetskaya.
Father was repressed, mother was exiled as the wife of an enemy of the people
Maya was eleven when her father was expelled from the party and fired from his job. On the morning of May 1, 1937, my father was taken away in a black "funnel" and the family did not hear anything more about him. The mother and the baby, Maya's brother, were sent to a camp where the wives of the enemies of the people were kept.
Many years later, Maya was given a certificate of rehabilitation of her father. The modest piece of paper contained the cruel truth: my father was shot in 1938, a year after his arrest. Why? For what? No answer.
Maya was adopted by her aunt, the ballerina Shulamith Messerer. This helped Plisetskaya avoid the orphanage.
Relations with Aunt Shulamithy were not easy. On the one hand, I owe her a lot: after all, I didn’t end up in an orphanage, I still did what I loved ... On the other hand, Shulamith, in retribution for kindness every day, every day painfully humiliated me.
Mother returned, but the war began. Plisetsky in evacuation in Sverdlovsk
Just before the war, Maya's mother and her little brother returned from exile and also settled with Sulamith (the Plisetskys lost their apartment).
Premiere 21 June 1941
On June 21, 1941, on the eve of the war, Maya made her successful debut in the graduation concert of the school, accompanied by an orchestra. Bolshoi Theater on the stage of his branch.
During the war they were evacuated to Sverdlovsk. Maya, along with her brothers, stood in long queues for bread and potatoes. For a whole year she lived without a ballet barre. She was in her seventeenth year and time was against her. Overage ballerinas, and even without constant rehearsals and training, are not needed by anyone. Besides, there was a war going on. Ballerinas, in principle, were valued less than nurses and home front workers.
She abandoned everything and rushed to military Moscow. do ballet
Maya decided on a desperate act: without the consent of her relatives, without money, without a capital pass, she made her way to Moscow and again entered the ballet school. In the spring of 1943, she received an A in the exam and was enrolled in the troupe of the Bolshoi Theater. Since the bulk of the theater artists were evacuated, all graduates were taken into the troupe.
“Let the corps de ballet, let the extras, just to dance!” young Plisetskaya said to herself.
Spectators went specially "to Plisetskaya"
For the first time, success came to her in Chopiniana, where she danced the mazurka. Each jump of Plisetskaya, in which she hung in the air for a moment, caused a thunder of applause.
For the next performances of "Chopiniana" some of the balletomanes already went specially "to Plisetskaya". Add to this the fact that Maya was very pretty in her own way: slender, with a straight back, excellent posture, a dizzyingly long neck and expressive eyes.
Previously, in ballet, they were 155-160 cm. With my 1 m 65 cm, I was already tall. And then, I always held myself in such a way that I seemed even taller. Plus the arms are long. “Oh, you are small in stature, but we thought Plisetskaya was big,” - they have been telling me this all my life. But today's ballerinas are already head and shoulders above me. Beautiful, long legs. I love this mod.
According to some reports, Plisetskaya's weight hovered around the 52 kg mark for many years.
Diet one - nothing to eat!
To all questions about how she manages to look so young and good, the famous ballerina answered:
“There is only one diet - nothing to eat. Other ways to look good people have not yet come up with.
Plisetskaya acted not only as a prima but also as a choreographer, staging such ballets as Anna Karenina, The Seagull, Lady with a Dog at the Bolshoi Theater and she herself performed the main female roles in them. And she explained it with her characteristic self-irony:
Since we had been on a diet for decades, she had to stage ballets for herself out of desperation, out of necessity.
Plisetskaya's aphorisms
Maya Mikhailovna was rather sharp-tongued. “Each gopher is a prosecutor!”, “You don’t choose everything in life, something else chooses you,” she said. She called her nutrition system “I’m not eating!”
She tried not to eat foods such as muffins, sugar, refined foods, fatty foods, sausages and smoked meats. She gave preference to low-calorie and simple food, did not eat a lot at one time and never ate at night.
Plisetskaya - "restricted" ballerina
For a long time, the ballerina was "restricted to travel abroad": her repressed father and relatives abroad "interfered". The paradox was that all eminent foreign guests were certainly taken to Swan Lake with Plisetskaya in the main party, but she was not allowed out of the country anywhere.
Personal life of Maya Plisetskaya: an affair with Kennedy
In November 1962, the Bolshoi Theater arrived in Washington. By that time, Plisetskaya had already begun to actively travel abroad.
The diplomat personally introduced Maya Plisetskaya to him. And since the famous ballerina knew only a few words of English, he also served as an interpreter for a short conversation. We got talking.
It turned out that he and Robert were born on the same day and year. On the morning of November 20, she was awakened by a knock on the door of her hotel room. The messenger brought the ballerina a bouquet of white roses and an elegant box tied with a wide ribbon. On a velvet cushion rested a magnificent gold bracelet with two pendants.
“Then it became a tradition that Robert and I tried to find an opportunity closer to the birthday to congratulate each other,” Maya Mikhailovna admitted.
During the next meeting, they hugged and kissed like old acquaintances. The day after lunch, Kennedy took her to see New York...
A couple more times Kennedy ran into the theater when Maya Plisetskaya was dancing there.
"What was it? - the ballerina argued after many years. - Flirting is not flirting. The game is not a game. The call is not a call ... Something mutually attracted us to each other ... We were interested in each other.
... During the next visit of the Bolshoi Theater to New York (it was 1968), Maya and Robert did not have a chance to meet. He called her at the hotel and told her he was going on a multi-state campaign trip. He asked her to reserve the evening of June 11 for him. On June 5, he was assassinated in Los Angeles. A day later, an American friend of Maya Plisetskaya died ...
The Soviet prima ballerina had a concert at the Metropolitan Opera that day. The poster read "Sleeping Beauty". Before the curtain went up, a representative of the theatre's directorate told the audience: “In mourning for Robert Kennedy, in honor of his memory, Maya Plisetskaya will dance The Dying Swan.
The whole room stood up.
Novels and marriage of Maya Plisetskaya
According to rumors, Maya was very amorous in her youth. Ballet dancer Vyacheslav Golubin danced with her at various concerts. Maya fell in love with him without memory. But at one of the rehearsals, the ballerina, not fitting into the turn, hit him with her elbow in the nose. The dancer was taken away by an ambulance. They did not dance together anymore, and soon the relationship ended.
Plisetskaya's first husband - Maris Liepa
The first marriage in 1956 was with ballet soloist Maris Liepa (1936-1989), which lasted only three months.
Liepa was eleven years younger than Plisetskaya. They met at the Bolshoi Theater during the decade of Latvian art. The fact that they were having an affair was clear to anyone who saw them together. Immediately, Plisetskaya and Liepa began to rehearse Swan Lake.
And when Plisetskaya was offered to perform ballet in Budapest, it was her first trip abroad after a long break! - she wanted to go with Liepa. But the candidacy of Maris did not pass in the Ministry of Culture and the KGB. Then Plisetskaya, without thinking twice, signed with a partner. They were released.
Liepa's daughter Maria talks about her father's marriage to Maya Plisetskaya
It is still a mystery to everyone, how long did their hasty marriage last? Three months, a month, a week?.. When I asked him about it, Maris laughed it off: “We were married for a week. At the beginning of the week, Maya told everyone: “God, what a magnificent Maris!” And at the end of the week, she repeated in disappointment: “God! How terrible he is!"
Shchedrin gave me not diamonds, but ballets!
Having met on a visit to Lily Brik, the composer and ballerina did not seem to be too interested in each other: Plisetskaya was seven years older than Shchedrin. However, three years later they began to meet, spent a vacation together in Karelia.
“I was very persistent,” emphasizes Shchedrin, “when a man likes a woman, there is little that can keep him. And Maya responded to me in return.
In October 1958 they got married. The wedding gift from the mother was a well-procured two-roomed flat on Kutuzovsky prospect.
"He extended my creative life for at least twenty-five years,” Plisetskaya said of her husband.
The ballerina, according to rumors, had an affair with actor Andrei Mironov.
Her friend Norbert Kuhinke (known to us by the role of the Slavic professor from the Autumn Marathon) said in an interview:
Maya was a sexually oriented woman. They knew about it, but they didn't talk about it. Plisetskaya had many novels - from drivers to film directors. Rodion Shchedrin turned a blind eye to everything, if only his wife was satisfied.
Shchedrin called Plisetskaya his Muse. And the Muses are allowed a lot, if not all.
Did Plisetskaya have a daughter?
In 1999, in the West, and then in Russia, the story of the self-proclaimed daughter of Maya Plisetskaya made a splash.
An Israeli woman, Yulia Glagovskaya, told the staff correspondent of Moskovsky Komsomolets a sentimental story about how in 1976, almost simultaneously, two women ended up in a Leningrad maternity hospital: Maya Plisetskaya and Lyudmila Glagovskaya, the wife of a Chekist. The Chekist's baby was born dead, and by agreement with the doctors and Plisetskaya, he allegedly secretly adopted the ballerina's child.
“Hello, I am the daughter of Maya Plisetskaya”
The legend was largely based on resemblance Yulia and Plisetskaya. Julia Glagovskaya also studied ballet.
A big scandal erupted.
Plisetskaya filed a lawsuit. The defendants were not even embarrassed by the fact that Plisetskaya was 51 years old at the time of the alleged birth, although she also danced on stage.
However, the work on the stage became decisive in the case.
It was at the time when this girl was born that Maya was dancing on tour in Australia. And for all her modesty, Plisetskaya told the journalist who wrote the article that she had never given birth at all! Which was subsequently confirmed by doctors. The examination was carried out by German gynecologists, who gave an official conclusion about this.
The husband may have wanted children, but supported his wife in her decision
“Ballet provides, among other things, a wonderful physique and excellent physical shape,” Shchedrin said. - After giving birth, any woman undergoes revolutionary changes. Many ballerinas have lost their profession…”
Maya did not lose her profession, bringing her sacrifices to the altar of ballet. We probably don't even know about many of them.
The honor of Maya Plisetskaya was estimated at 18 thousand rubles
The self-proclaimed daughter Julia began to look for a meeting with Maya Mikhailovna. She succeeded, they saw each other several times and even talked. Plisetskaya was reluctant to make contact and avoided conversations in every possible way.
Plisetskaya's blood is not enough for everyone
The court officially recognized that Maya had no children. The amount won by Plisetskaya in court was 18 thousand rubles. When asked by the public why the honor and dignity of the ballerina, “one of the brightest cultural symbols of the USSR and Russia,” is estimated at such a miserable amount, her lawyer Boris Kuznetsov only shrugged:
In different countries there is a different practice of compensation for non-pecuniary damage. In the United States, for example, this amount can reach several million dollars. In France, in general, they take a conditional amount of one franc. In our conditions, when journalists have not yet learned how to fully enjoy freedom of speech, such amounts should be significantly increased.
"All my life I've been fighting"
... At the reception after the awarding of the Orders of the Legion of Honor, one of those standing next to Maya Plisetskaya asked in surprise: "But I thought that this order was awarded only to Resistance fighters." To which the ballerina retorted:
And all I do is fight all my life.
The last years of Maya Plisetskaya
Most of the time she lived abroad, preferring the US and Germany.
“People should live the way they live in the West, that is, live normally, work normally, earn money,” Maya Mikhailovna said. “For me, the right way of life is in America and even more so in Germany, where everything is logical, where laws work to ensure that a person lives calmly and well.”
Maya Plisetskaya died at the age of 89 - a biography of the great ballerina, Rodion Shchedrin, Plisetskaya's family and children. The famous diet of the legend of Russian ballet.
Maya Mikhailovna was born on November 20, 1925 in Moscow, in the family of the famous business owner Mikhail Plisetsky and his wife, silent film actress Rachel Messerer. It is known that in 1932-1936 she lived in the Svalbard archipelago, where her father worked as the head of Artikugol, after which he was appointed to the post of Consul General of the USSR. On the night of May 1, 1938, Maya Plisetskaya's father was arrested and shot in the same year (however, during the Khrushchev thaw, he was rehabilitated). Maya's mother, Rachel Messerer, was arrested a year after her husband and, together with the ballerina's younger brother, was imprisoned in the Butyrka prison in Moscow. Later she was sent to Kazakhstan, and Akmola camp for the wives of traitors.
Maya and her two brothers were not sent to an orphanage - they were taken in by their maternal aunt, Shulamith Messerer. Plisetskaya's mother was able to return to Moscow just a few months before the start of World War II. In September 1941, the family was evacuated to Sverdlovsk, where they stayed for a year. it was there that Plisetskaya first played in The Dying Swan, although there were no great opportunities for ballet classes in Sverdlovsk. In 1943 she graduated from the Moscow Choreographic School and was immediately accepted into the troupe of the Bolshoi Theater, where she was in the status of prima ballerina.
In 1944, Maya got the main role of Masha in the play The Nutcracker, in 1945 she performed the part as the Autumn Fairy in Prokofiev's Cinderella.
1947 - for the first time she danced Odette and Odile in Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake", and in 1948 she made her debut in the "Bakhchisarai Fountain", Maya performed the role of Zarema. 
Plisetskaya took part in such productions as Giselle (Adolf Charles Adam), Don Quixote (Ludwig Minkus), The Little Humpbacked Horse (Rodion Shchedrin), The Sleeping Beauty (Tchaikovsky), Raymond (Alexander Glazunov) . In addition, she participated in three productions of the ballet "Spartacus" by Aram Khachaturian (1958 and 1971 - the part of Aegina, 1962 - Phrygia). In 1961, Maya Mikhailovna's repertoire included the ballet Romeo and Juliet, staged by Sergei Prokofiev. And in 1965, Plisetskaya played the first role in the ballet The Legend of Love (Arif Melikov). 
In 1960, Maya Plisetskaya replaced Galina Ulanova as the first ballerina at the Bolshoi Theater. She expressed a desire to dance not only classical productions, but also modern ballet performances.
1967, April 20 - on the stage of the Bolshoi the first production of "Carmen Suite" (Bizet - Shchedrin), staged especially for Plisetskaya. ballet had resounding success, became one of the world's in ballet art and was even filmed in 1969 and 1978.
In 1972, Plisetskaya danced Anna Karenina in the production of the same name by her husband, Rodion Shchedrin. In addition, in "Anna Karenina" she tries herself for the first time as a choreographer. In 1980, Plisetskaya independently staged Rodion Shchedrin's ballet The Seagull at the Bolshoi Theater. 
In 1983, Maya Mikhailovna received a very tempting offer to become artistic director of the Rome Opera Ballet. She worked on that stage for only a year and a half, but managed to stage "Isadora", updated "Phaedra" and staged "Raymonda" for open stage(1984).
1987 - 1990, Plisetskaya most time worked in Spain, where she was the head ballet troupe Teatro Lirico Nacional. She staged and resumed The Vain Precaution (Pyotr Gertel, choreographer Alexander Gorsky), Carmen Suite. 
Plisetskaya worked closely with Montserrat Caballe for some time. On her initiative, she took an active part in the production of the ballet-opera "Willis" (Giacomo Puccini), the first performance was shown during the art festival in Perelada (Catalonia, Spain).
In 1988, the great ballerina danced in the ballet "Mary Stuart" (Emilio de Diego), staged especially for her. My last batch performed in 1990 - "The Lady with the Dog". In the same year, she left the Bolshoi due to strong disagreements with the leadership.
However, her career did not end there. She continues to work closely with many world choreographers, including Ballet de Marseille by Roland Petit and Ballet of the 20th Century by Maurice Béjart. In 1992, Plisetskaya performed the main role. In "Mad from Chaillot" on the stage "Espace Pierre Cardin". In 1994, on the stage of the Alexander Theater in St. Petersburg, Maya Plisetskaya became a member of the jury at the First International Ballet Competition "Maya". She herself formed the composition of the competition.
In 1995, Maya Mikhailovna became the honorary president of the Imperial Russian Ballet troupe.
Plisetskaya was the author of several autobiographical books, including I, Maya Plisetskaya, published in 1994, Thirteen Years Later: Angry Notes in Thirteen Chapters (2007), and Reading My Life (2010). "I, Maya Plisetskaya" was translated into 11 world languages and went through several reprints. Natalya Roslavleva dedicated a book to her work in the book of the same name.
She was awarded a great many awards, including People's Artist of the USSR (1959), holder of three Orders of Lenin (1067, 1976, 1985), the Order of the Legion of Honor (France, 1986), the "Order of Isabella the Catholic" (1991, the award received from the hands of King of Spain) gold medal Arts” (1991, Spain) and many others.
In 1994, the Institute of Theoretical Astronomy named Minor Planet No. 4626 after Maya Plisetskaya.
Plisetskaya's life ended on May 2, 2015 in Munich, where she and her husband Rodion Shchedrin left in 1991. official reason death was declared a heart attack.
Maya Plisetskaya - personal life, Rodion Shchedrin, family and children. In her own memoirs, Plisetskaya mentioned relationships with Esfendyar Kashani and Vyacheslav Golubin. In 1956, she was the wife of Maris Liepa for three months, but the hasty marriage also quickly fell apart. In 1958 she married Rodion Shchedrin, she lived with him until her death. They were not only loving spouses, but also colleagues. Shchedrin staged numerous productions, where the main roles were performed by Maya Plisetskaya. The couple had no children. At the very beginning of their marriage, Plisetskaya became pregnant by Shchedrin, but had an abortion.
Maya Plisetskaya is a famous diet. As such it really was not, Plisetskaya adhered to the basics proper nutrition. Once, when asked by journalists about her magnificent appearance and the secret of beauty, Plisetskaya answered: “I’m sitting on grub!”. 
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Biography and episodes of life Maya Plisetskaya. When born and died Maya Plisetskaya, memorable places and dates important events her life. ballerina quotes, Photo and video.
Years of life of Maya Plisetskaya:
born November 20, 1925, died May 2, 2015
Epitaph
"Harmony and beauty
Her divine movements
Will never happen again.
She is an incredible genius!"
From a poem by Lyudmila Leader dedicated to the memory of Maya Plisetskaya
Biography
The unsurpassed prima donna of the Bolshoi Theater - the ballerina Maya Plisetskaya has spent more than 60 years on the stage. The original dance technique and natural grace allowed Maya Mikhailovna to achieve tremendous success in the field of theatrical art. Mainly the ballerina is famous as a performer of the roles of Anna Karenina, Carmen, Juliet, but Plisetskaya's actual track record is much wider. Suffice it to say that in the Swan Lake alone, the ballerina danced more than 800 times.
The desire to become a ballerina haunted Maya Plisetskaya early childhood. However, the tragic reversals of fate, oddly enough, contributed to this. Before the start of World War II, she actually lost her parents: her father was convicted and shot as a political criminal, her mother was exiled to the camp for the wives of traitors in Kazakhstan. As a result, the girl remained in the care of her aunt Shulamith Messerer, a soloist of the Bolshoi Theater, who later helped Maya take the first timid steps towards her dream.
After graduating from the Moscow Choreographic School, Plisetskaya easily entered the troupe of the Bolshoi Theater and very soon established herself there as a soloist. The next 50 years in the life of Maya Plisetskaya were inextricably linked with the most prestigious theater in the capital. However, foreign tours also did not take long. Moreover, foreign directors were seriously and persistently interested in Plisetskaya's work. She was no longer invited to play roles - entire performances were staged for her.
After the collapse of the USSR, Maya Plisetskaya spent most of her time abroad. She worked as an artistic director in theaters in Rome and Madrid, acted as a choreographer and stage director, conducted master classes, collaborated with leading figures in theatrical art in holding festivals and gala concerts. creative image the great ballerina is fixed in the works contemporary artists and film directors. The authorship of Plisetskaya owns three collections of memoirs. For her unprecedented contribution to the development of culture and art, the ballerina was awarded dozens of awards, prizes, titles and orders.
The unexpected death of Maya Plisetskaya occurred on May 2, 2015. The artist died in Germany, in Munich, where she lived with her husband Rodion Shchedrin most of the time. The cause of Plisetskaya's death was a heart attack. Farewell to Plisetskaya took place in Germany in the circle of relatives and friends. According to the promulgated testament of the prima donna, after the death of Shchedrin, their ashes will be mixed together and scattered over Russia.
life line
November 20, 1925 Date of birth of Maya Mikhailovna Plisetskaya.
1932 Moving to Svalbard due to a change in the occupation of his father.
1941 Evacuation to Sverdlovsk with aunt Shulamith Messerer.
1943 Graduated from the Moscow Choreographic School and entered the Bolshoi Theater troupe.
1958 Marriage with composer Rodion Shchedrin.
1960 Approval in the status of prima ballerina of the Bolshoi Theater.
1983 Appointment to office artistic director Roman Opera.
1988 Appointment as Artistic Director of the Spanish National Ballet.
1990 Dismissal from the Bolshoi Theatre.
1994 Establishment of the annual Maya ballet competition.
May 2, 2015 Date of death of Maya Plisetskaya.
Memorable places
1. Moscow Choreographic School, where Maya Plisetskaya studied.
2. The Bolshoi Theater in Moscow, where Plisetskaya worked.
3. The city of Trakai in Lithuania, where Plisetskaya's country house is located.
4. Rome Opera, where the ballerina worked.
5. Street portrait of Maya Plisetskaya (on the wall of house No. 16, building 2, st. Bolshaya Dmitrovka), created by Brazilian artists Eduardo Cobra and Agnaldo Brito.
6. The Spitsbergen archipelago in Norway, where Plisetskaya lived with her family in the 30s.
7. The city of Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg), where Plisetskaya lived in the 40s.
8. The city of Munich, where the artist has lived since the 90s. and where she died.
9. Museum-workshop of Zurab Tsereteli in Moscow, where a monument to Plisetskaya is erected.
Episodes of life
Maya Plisetskaya was married to famous composer Rodion Shchedrin, but the couple had no children. In the early 2000s the newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets tried to refute this fact by publishing a sensational article "Hello, I am the daughter of Maya Plisetskaya." However, the Moscow City Court denied false information: according to the court, Plisetskaya really did not have any heirs.
When Plisetskaya became the leading soloist of the Bolshoi Theater, a split occurred in the troupe: the ballerina gradually entered into opposition to the main ballet master of the theater, and the artists, in turn, dispersed into “support groups”. So, under the unspoken auspices of confrontation, the team worked until Maya was finally fired. True, the public did not at all approve of the dismissal of the legendary ballerina, and Maya did not have to “idle” either: a lot of interesting offers awaited her abroad.
Covenant
“I never liked to train, rehearse. However, in recent times I began to think that this was what eventually extended my stage career: I danced two, or even three times longer than expected. Maybe because I had unexhausted legs.”
The legendary performances of Maya Plisetskaya
condolences
“It’s hard to talk about it, it doesn’t fit in my head yet. Just the other day, we met with Maya Mikhailovna in Moscow, discussed the celebration of her anniversary on November 20, and planned to hold a grand gala concert in her honor. Maya Mikhailovna was in perfect health, and nothing foreshadowed trouble.
Vladimir Urin, General Director of the Bolshoi Theater of Moscow
Maya Plisetskaya is no longer with us. But the legendary Carmen, Odette-Odile, Raymond remained. Her Dance remained. Deep condolences to Rodion Konstantinovich Shchedrin and all the relatives of Maya Mikhailovna.
Dmitry Medvedev, Prime Minister of Russia
Family and childhood of Maya Plisetskaya
Maya Mikhailovna Plisetskaya was born in Moscow, in a huge Jewish family. After 6 years, her middle brother Alexander was born, who later became a choreographer, and six years later, her younger brother Azariy, a future choreographer.She had 11 uncles and aunts, and all of them were somehow connected with ballet and dance. For example, my mother's uncle Asaf Messerer was a virtuoso dancer and an excellent teacher.
The mother of the future great ballerina Rakhil Mikhailovna Messerer (nee) was the star of the Great Silent Cinema. She attracted the attention of both viewers and directors. Due to the characteristic appearance: dark hair and oriental features, she often got the role of Uzbek women. True, the career of an actress had to be abandoned because of her husband and children.
But Maya's father, Mikhail Emmanuilovich, held economic and diplomatic positions. At first he worked in the executive committee, then in the commissariats of foreign affairs and foreign trade. Father future star also took part in the production of films, where he met his future wife.
In 1932, he was appointed to manage the coal mines in Svalbard, and the whole family had to move. There he simultaneously served as Consul General of the USSR.
It was on the island of Svalbard that little Maya first appeared on the stage. She played her first role in the opera Mermaid by Dargomyzhsky. From that moment on, the baby could not sit still and began to simply dream of the stage and public performances. She seemed to be preparing herself for a brilliant future and constantly sang, danced, improvised. In the family, it was decided upon returning to Moscow to give the fidget to the choreographic school. Seven-year-old Maya was sent to the class of the former soloist of the Bolshoi Theater Evgenia Dolinskaya.
In May 1937, Maya's father was taken away by Chekists and a year after his arrest, they were shot, suspecting him of espionage. A few months later, his wife Rachel was also arrested. It happened right at the Bolshoi Theatre, at a time when The Sleeping Beauty was on stage and Auntie was performing. future ballerina Shulamith. Rakhil Plisetskaya-Messerer received 8 years in prison as the wife of an enemy of the people. Her together with a newborn baby ( younger son Azariy) were placed in the Akmola camp for the wives of traitors to the Motherland. Only thanks to the efforts of her close relatives, she was first transferred to a free settlement in Shymkent. And only in 1941 was her sentence commuted and allowed to return to Moscow.
The middle son Alexander was sheltered by Uncle Asaf, and 12-year-old Maya was adopted by her aunt Shulamith. A kind relative took in her orphaned niece so that she would not be sent to an orphanage. True, as Maya Mikhailovna later admitted, the aunt did not just do good to her niece. She demanded that the girl be grateful to her and often humiliated her.
The beginning of the career of Maya Plisetskaya
Maya Plisetskaya's first significant performance at the Bolshoi Theater took place on the eve of the fatal Soviet Union day. Less than a day before the start of the Great Patriotic War on the stage of the branch of the State Academic Bolshoi Theater took place graduation concert choreographic school.Maya Plisetskaya - The Swan (ballet film 1975)
But the war made its own adjustments to further fate prima. Since September 1941, Maya Plisetskaya's family has been evacuated to Sverdlovsk. Unfortunately, in the city it was impossible to continue studying or practice ballet.
To finish her studies, the 16-year-old girl decided to run away to Moscow, where even during the war, classes continued at the Moscow Choreographic School. She was enrolled again, but this time - immediately in graduation class on the course of Elizabeth Gerdt and Maria Leontieva. In 1943, the training was completed, and Maya was immediately accepted into the staff of the Bolshoi Theater.
From the very first steps on the stage of the Bolshoi Theater, Maya's individuality, her expressiveness and dynamics of dance, her special passion, manifested itself. Success was not long in coming. Plisetskaya received recognition in the ballet "Chopiniana", where she performed a mazurka. Maya's every jump evoked incessant applause.
The girl loved to dance, but she did not want to work. Much later, she began to understand how interesting and creative the daily work of a ballerina can be. The path to the top of Plisetskaya's career can still be compared to climbing the stairs: she gradually climbed to her main roles. For example, in the ballet Sleeping Beauty, she was first the Lilac Fairy, then the Violante Fairy, and then Aurora. In Don Quixote, the ballerina danced almost all the female parts and, finally, got the role of Kitri.
Maya Plisetskaya - Raymond, 1959
In 1948 Maya danced Giselle in the ballet of the same name. And after Galina Ulanova left the theater for a well-deserved rest, Plisetskaya became a prima ballerina and received solo parts. Her unique dance style, flexibility, plasticity and graceful hand movement are recognized all over the world. She created her own unique style of ballet, which earned her worldwide fame.
True, not everything went smoothly in the career of a ballerina. With the chief choreographer of the Bolshoi Theater, Yuri Grigorovich, she could not get along, and over the years this confrontation only intensified.
In 1956, the theater troupe went on a foreign tour to England for the first time, but Maya Plisetskaya did not receive permission to leave the country. They tried to accuse her of espionage and for the next five years she was not allowed to travel abroad. But the ballerina successfully toured the country, winning the love of her compatriots. In 1959, Plisetskaya was awarded the title of People's Artist of the USSR.
Film career of Maya Plisetskaya
In 1952, Maya Plisetskaya made her first film appearance. She can be seen in the painting big concert» Vera Stroeva. Well, then roles in ballet films followed: "Swan Lake", "The Tale of the Little Humpbacked Horse" and "Anna Karenina". Prima Bolshoi was invited to the film-opera "Khovanshchina". The ballerina also participated in the film adaptation of the ballets Isadora, Bolero, The Seagull, Lady with a Dog. In 1974, she was invited together with Bolshoi Theater soloist Bogatyrev for the telenumber "Nocturne" to the music of Friedrich Chopin from the ballet "In the Night" by choreographer Jerome Robbins.Maya Plisetskaya - Bolero
In 1968, the ballerina played Betsy in the film adaptation of the novel Anna Karenina by Zarha. Plisetskaya coped with the work perfectly well, despite the difference in work on the theater stage and on film set. In some films, she even had roles with text. For example, in Bejart's ballets. Plisetskaya also starred as Desiree in the film "Tchaikovsky" by Talankin. Then Vaitkus called the dancer for the role of Čiurlionis's muse in the film "Zodiac".
In 1976, the actress played a ballet star in the TV movie Fantasia based on Turgenev's novel Spring Waters. She succeeded brilliantly in the role of Polozova. Choreographic duets were staged by choreographer Elizariev.
After feature films, documentaries began to be made. the main role again got Plisetskaya. Television people became interested in the fate of the artist, the formation of her career, different facets of her personal and creative life. The brightest documentaries about Maya Mikhailovna: “Maya Plisetskaya. Familiar and unfamiliar” and “Maya Plisetskaya”. In addition, the tapes "Maya" directed by Sakagushi for Japanese TV and "Maya Plisetskaya" directed by Delyush for the French are also dedicated to her work. In the film “Maya Plisetskaya assoluta”, he showed a ballerina in a dance and there were invariably “swan” hand movements that glorified Maya to the whole world.
However, Maya herself believes that it is necessary to dance with the whole body. Legs, head, body and, of course, hands should participate. “It is important to dance to the music, not to the music,” says the ballerina. The creative motto of a celebrity can be described as follows: do not imitate anyone, turn movements into music. By the way, Maya Plisetskaya's dance never showed the sketches that her predecessors had made. The ballerina always reacted to the solo musical instruments and accentuated accents, sometimes with an eyebrow movement or a glance. Dance career Maya Mikhailovna turned out to be surprisingly long - she left the stage only at the age of 65.
Further career of Maya Plisetskaya
The ballerina not only performed on the stage of the theater, but also took on the role of director. At the Bolshoi Theater she acted as a choreographer for Rodion Shchedrin's productions of Anna Karenina (1972, together with N. I. Ryzhenko and V. V. Smirnov-Golovanov), The Seagull (1980), Lady with a Dog (1985). ). And she herself performed the main female parts in them. 
The dance style of the ballerina has become the accepted canon. An unexpected turn in the fate of prima happened in 1983. She was offered to be the artistic director of the ballet of the Rome Opera and Ballet Theatre. Maya was in this post for a year and a half, periodically came to Rome. She staged "Raymonda" for the outdoor stage at the Baths of Caracalla, presented her "Isadora" and organized "Phaedra".
In 1985, Plisetskaya was awarded the title of Hero socialist labor. And from 1988 to 1990 she headed the Spanish National Ballet in Madrid. For the Spanish troupe, she resumed the ballet "Vain Precaution" by Peter Gertel (choreographer - Alexander Gorsky) and introduced the "Carmen Suite" into the repertoire. Here she began cooperation with Montserrat Caballe. At the suggestion of the latter, Plisetskaya performed in a production of Giacomo Puccini's opera-ballet Wilisa. The ballerina also danced The Dying Swan to the accompaniment of the live voice of the opera singer.
In 1988, Maya Plisetskaya performed in the title role, staged especially for her by the artistic director of the flamenco troupe Jose Granero, in the ballet "Mary Stuart" by Emilio de Diego.
In January 1990, Plisetskaya danced her last performance at the Bolshoi Theater. They became "Lady with a dog." The ballerina had to leave the Bolshoi Theater due to disagreements with the artistic director, which had continued from the very beginning of her career.
But the ballerina did not leave the stage, but continued to participate in concerts and give master classes. In the 1990s, Plisetskaya continued to collaborate with outstanding choreographers of the world: with Roland Petit's Marseille Ballet and Maurice Béjart's Ballet of the 20th Century. In 1992, at the Espace Pierre Cardin Theater, Plisetskaya performed main party at the premiere of the ballet "Mad from Chaillot" to the music of Shchedrin. And she celebrated her 70th birthday on stage, performing the number "Ave Maya", staged for her by Maurice Bejart.
Despite her venerable age, the ballerina led an active social activities. In 1994 she organized international competition ballet dancers under the name "Maya" and was the chairman of the jury of this competition. A year later, she was elected honorary president of the Imperial Russian Ballet troupe.
Personal life of Maya Plisetskaya
As a star of the Bolshoi Theater, Maya was surrounded by many men. She wrote about her romances with ballet soloists Vyacheslav Golubin and Esfendyar Kashani. The ballerina has been married twice. 
Her first husband, Maris Liepa, was also a theater soloist and dancer. They married in 1956 but divorced three months later.
Maya met her second husband Rodion Shchedrin while visiting Lily Brik. The ballerina and the composer did not seem to be very interested in each other. Plisetskaya was seven years older than Shchedrin. Only three years after they met, they began to meet and spent a vacation in Karelia. And in the autumn of 1958 they got married.
“He extended my creative life for at least twenty-five years,” Plisetskaya said about her husband. And her husband supported her in everything and defended her interests before the Soviet government. It was thanks to his efforts that the prima got the opportunity to travel abroad.
True, despite the happy family life The couple never had children. Shchedrin protested, but Maya did not dare to give birth to a child and leave the stage. Her husband justified her, saying that ballet provides for a wonderful physique, and after childbirth, the figure of any woman inevitably changes. Many ballerinas, he argued, lost their profession due to pregnancy.
The last years of the life of Maya Plisetskaya
In 1993, Maya Plisetskaya became an honorary professor at Moscow State University.A year later, she released an autobiographical book, "I, Maya Plisetskaya." The next book came out only in 2007 in the form of a memoir Thirteen Years Later: Angry Notes in Thirteen Chapters. Three years later, she published the book "Reading my life ...".
And in 2000, as a result of a survey of the fund " Public opinion» she was chosen as the person of the year in the field of science, culture and art. This is how universal love manifested itself.
From the early 90s to last days Prima and her husband lived in Munich. They were forced to stay there due to health problems. The doctors who helped Maya Mikhailovna to be in shape were found only in Germany. Also in 1993, the couple received Lithuanian citizenship.
The death of Maya Plisetskaya was a loss for the whole world
Initially, November 20, 2015 at the Bolshoi Theater was supposed to take place creative evening on the occasion of the anniversary of the star, her 90th birthday. Now, on this day, an evening in memory of the great ballerina will be organized.
Maya Plisetskaya Awards
Maya Plisetskaya has an uncountable number of various awards. In 1959 she was awarded the title of People's Artist of the USSR. She is also Honored Artist and People's Artist of the RSFSR. In 1985 she was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor. 
The ballerina is a full cavalier of the Order of Merit for the Fatherland, Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters (France), Commander of the Order of the Grand Duke of Lithuania Gediminas, has the Order of Lenin, the Order of the Legion of Honor (France), the Lenin Prize, the Grand Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit for Lithuania", Order rising sun III degree (Japan), Order of Isabella the Catholic.
Original taken from tanjand in "Where there is a will, there is a way"
This will be a story about a talented woman of amazing destiny, and a mother of amazing children. We all know and love her daughter, and we recently honored her with a monument. But few know the fate of this distinguished family…. She's like a book, like a novel to readin which there are many dramatic pages, and many bright, creative events. We will talk about Rachel Messerer-Plisetskaya, mother of Ra, as her relatives called her, mother of the star ballerina Maya Plisetskaya.
Her nephew Rakhil Messerer-Plisetskaya, Azary Messerer, tells about her fate.
Rakhil was born on March 4, 1902 in Vilna, the family moved to Moscow when she was two years old. Apparently, Rachel showed great abilities in childhood, because, despite the percentage norms for Jews, she was accepted into one of the prestigious Moscow gymnasiums, which was founded by Princess Lvova.
Studying at the gymnasium was interrupted during the revolution. Hungry, cold years came, and Rachel very early began to help her mother take care of her younger sisters and brothers.
The Messer family. From left to right sitting: Alexander, Sima Moiseevna (mother), Mikhail Borisovich (father), Rakhil and Elizaveta. Standing: Emmanuel, Azarius, Asaph, Mattanius and Shulamith.
Rachel made important decisions that determined the fate of her brothers and sisters. For example, in the family, only she knew about Asaf's passionate desire to do ballet.
He was afraid to tell his father about his plans, knowing that, with all his love for the theater, he would not approve of this decision. Rachel told Osa, that's what she called Asaph, - if you love ballet a lot, then go to ballet.
Having entered a private ballet school only at the age of 16, Asaf achieved such phenomenal success that two years later he was accepted into the graduating class of the Bolshoi Ballet School.
It was then that Rachel decided that her younger sister Shulamith has all the data to follow in the footsteps of Asaph. She took Mita, as she was called in the family, to the entrance exam to the Choreographic School, sewing her a beautiful tutu. So both famous artists chose a ballet career largely thanks to Rachel.
Nineteen-year-old Rachel entered the Institute of Cinematography shortly after its foundation.
At the entrance exam, the chairman of the commission, Lev Kuleshov, asked her to perform an etude - to catch a butterfly. Rachel sneaked up to an imaginary butterfly for a long time and missed - unsuccessfully "thrown a net." In the end, from vexation, she burst into tears so convincingly that the examiners themselves almost shed tears.
She studied with famous directors and teachers.
In her student company, the soul of society was classmate Vladimir Plisetsky - witty, charming, athletic.
He brought his older brother Mikhail to one of the parties. It so happened that both brothers began to look after the beautiful Rachel - a love triangle. Rachel gave her heart to Michael and married him.
Rachel's film career began very successfully. Protazanov believed that her extraordinary, one might say, biblical beauty (huge, sad eyes, blue-black hair and dark color face) - oriental type, so he invited her to star in the lead roles in new studio"Uzbekfilm", which opened in Tashkent.
There she starred in the films The Second Wife (1927), Leper (1928), Valley of Tears (1929) and others. These films were at one time a great success, and Rachel's sad eyes looked from the posters of many cinemas in the country.
Her roles were tragic.
There is no doubt that Rachel was talented actress, her suffering on the screen was taken for the soul. And it is especially painful for me to watch these films, because I know that fate prepared for her no less difficult trials than those of her heroines.
After the birth of Maya, Rachel continued to act in films both in Tashkent and Mosfilm for some time. Sometimes she took her daughter to shoot the comedy One Hundred and Twenty Thousand.
Four-year-old Maya also attended a screening of the film Leper. She burst into tears throughout the hall when she saw how the Basmachi threw the unfortunate heroine under the hooves of the horses. Her mother reassured her for a long time, saying that it was only a movie, that she was with her, but Maya stubbornly repeated: “They killed you!”
Rakhil was forced to leave the cinema when she was expecting her second child, and her husband was appointed manager of the Arktikugol mines and Soviet consul on the Norwegian Arctic island of Svalbard, where he organized coal mining.
In 1932, Rachel arrived in Svalbard with baby Alik and seven-year-old Maya with the last ship - navigation was stopped for almost half a year - having survived a monstrous eight-point storm at sea. It was immediately discovered that Arktikugol, the organization that sent workers to Spitsbergen, did not even provide the polar explorers with blankets. There was no need to wait six months for the next navigation, and Rachel, together with the wives of the miners, began to sew blankets from the materials available in the warehouse.
She worked as a telephone operator, but, most importantly, helped her husband brighten up the life of workers in the Soviet colony. For example, she organized amateur concerts. Under her leadership, the opera "Mermaid" was staged, where Maya played the role of the Little Mermaid. This was the first performance of the great ballerina on stage, and the family often recalled Pushkin's phrase, which she uttered with the spontaneity of a child: "I don't know what money is."
Academician Otto Schmidt, who headed the Main Directorate of the Northern sea way appointed him CEO Trust Arktikugol, and they received an apartment in the center of Moscow. At this time, the Messerer family was at the height of its glory. Suffice it to mention one event that took place in January 1936.
That day, after the end of all the performances, a crowd of actors and theater-goers gathered at the entrance to the Moscow Art Theater.
They did not leave the theater, but rather tried to get inside. The excitement was so great that it was necessary to put up a barrier of controllers who let only those who had an invitation to the evening of the Messerer family through.
Three sisters and two brothers participated - a great five. They showed excerpts from films in which Rachel starred. Shulamith and Asaph performed the pas de deux from Don Quixote and their best solo numbers. Azariy and Elizabeth played scenes from several classical and contemporary performances, and also performed parodies of Stanislavsky, Nemirovich-Danchenko, Alisa Koonen and others. The evening was an incredible success.
But the atmosphere in Moscow was already pre-stormy, and soon erupted Great terror. Rachel's husband was arrested on April 30, 1937, when Rachel was seven months pregnant.
Maya told how she vividly remembers her father's hands, thin long fingers and a scar left from a saber blow: he fought in civil war on the red side. She thought about it, and then added that every day she mentally sees how her father is being tortured, his arms are being broken...
I didn’t believe it: “Is it really every day?”
“Yes, and often at night,” she replied. I remember that then the thought occurred to me: maybe that's why she became not only great ballerina but also a tragic actress.<...>
Half a century later, more precisely in 1992-93, Rachel's younger brother Alexander got access to the interrogation protocols of Mikhail Plisetsky. From the yellowed pages it was very clear what excuse the investigators had come up with to crack down on Rachel's husband. True to his principle of helping friends in difficult times, he hired R.V. Pikel, when he was already in disgrace for being close to Zinoviev.
In 1936, Pikel made "confessions" at the famous public trial of Zinoviev, Kamenev and others. In particular, he admitted his "participation in the attempt on Stalin's life."
After the execution of Pikel, the NKVD began to arrest everyone who was associated with him.
Mikhail Plisetsky denied the monstrous accusations for a long time, but in mid-July he unexpectedly signed a confession. And the following happened: on July 13, 1937, Azariy was born. On July 22, Rachel returned with him from the hospital. On July 23, a phone rang and a voice on the phone said: “Don’t ask questions, answer, who was born ?!” Frightened, Rachel said, "Son."
That call was most likely made from the office where Mikhail Plisetsky was interrogated. The Chekists, apparently, promised something for this information. But soon they began to arrest the wives of "enemies of the people." Rachel with baby taken in the early spring of 1938.
That day, Rachel bought flowers and was going to go with the children to the Bolshoi Theater to see The Sleeping Beauty to see Shulamith and Asaph in the lead roles. When the Chekists came for her, she ordered Maya to go with Alik to the Bolshoi without her, give Mitya and Asaf flowers and tell them that she was urgently summoned to her husband in Svalbard.
Before the performance, Sulamith and Asaf were informed that children had come to them at the 16th service entrance. Shulamith writes in his memoirs: “I don’t remember how I danced. I only remember that my brother whispered with support: hold on, hold on, nothing like this, maybe it didn’t happen ... ”
During the intermission, Mita called Rachel. Her terrible fears were confirmed: Rachel and her child were taken to prison. Shulamith took Maya to live with her, and Asaf took Alik, who was a year older than his son Boris (now a famous artist).
At that time, Rachel was sitting in a huge round cell in the tower of the Butyrskaya prison, along with dozens of other mothers with screaming babies. The inmates tried their best to morally support each other. This, in particular, is evidenced by the lullaby that they sang in Butyrka and the words of which Rachel remembered and wrote down many years later:
Early in the morning, at dawn
Corps will come.
Children will stand in faith
The sun will rise.
A thin ray will make its way
On the damp wall
To an imprisoned child
To a little dear.
But it won't get any brighter.
dark housing,
Who will return your blush,
Sweetheart?
Behind the bars, behind the locks
Days are like years.
Children cry, even mothers
They cry sometimes.
But they grow a change by hardening their hearts.
You, child, do not believe in treason
Your father.
The last lines sound dissonant to the gloomy lyrics of the entire poem. However, they reflect life credo Rachel.
She was a fragile little woman, but in terms of stamina she was not inferior to hardened fighters. This was soon understood by her experienced murderers-investigators.
She did not make any compromises, denied that she knew about the alleged "criminal activities" of her husband. It is written in the case: “He denies, but could not help but know.”
After Butyrka, she and Azarik were sent to the Gulag, more precisely, to "ALZHIR" - that was the name of the "Akmola Camp for Wives of Traitors to the Motherland" then.
They rode in a calf-shed, a cattle car filled to overflowing with political and criminals. From a gypsy who slept with the head of the train, she learned that they were being taken to Kazakhstan. Cold winds whistled through the cracks. I was tormented by insane thirst - they were fed with dried vobla, almost without giving water. But even more she was tormented by the thought of how to let her family know about herself. Taught again by criminals.
On a piece of paper moistened with a match head, Rachel wrote a few lines: “We are going towards Karaganda, to the camp of Akmola region. The child is with me ... ”, and the Moscow address of relatives: Moscow, st. Dzerzhinsky, house 23, apt. 3.
She folded the paper into a triangle and sealed it with a crumb of black bread. When the train stopped at one of the sidings, Rachel, standing on the bunks, through the barred window saw two switchmen standing on the tracks.
She waved at them and dropped the letter. One of the women immediately turned away, and the other, following the leaf picked up by the wind and flying over the train, nodded to Rachel.
That kind soul knowingly nodded. The letter has arrived! Shulamith decided that it was the Almighty indicating to her that she needed to save her sister. Putting on the suit the newly received Order of the Badge of Honor, she made her way to an appointment with the Chekist ranks, asked for permission to visit her sister and take her child, and then went on a difficult journey thousands and thousands of kilometers to the Algiers camp.
Rachel fainted when she was told that her sister had come to visit her and she could meet her. When she came to herself, she learned that Shulamith wanted to take the child. Of course, she dreamed of sending Azarik free, but she also knew that this could lead to her death. The fact is that the jailers freed her as a nursing mother from the most difficult work.
She spoke to her sister in the presence of the camp commandant, but the sisters understood each other at a glance. At the end of the meeting, Mita said that the boy was still too weak to endure the long journey, and asked permission to send parcels to feed him.
How to shorten the term or even rescue Rachel and Azarik from the Gulag? There was one small hope. A rumor spread around Moscow that at one reception in the Kremlin, after the concert, Stalin proposed a toast to Asaf Messerer. Is it true? Many years later, in New York, I asked Asaf himself about this, and he confirmed it.
He and Lepeshinskaya, then considered the first couple in the Bolshoi, were sometimes invited to concerts in the Kremlin. Once, after a concert, he was sitting at a banquet table with a group of artists and talking about something with a neighbor, and suddenly felt uncomfortable: it seemed to him that everyone was looking at him.
He turned around and saw behind Stalin. He thought about getting up, but Stalin patted him on the shoulder and said: “You dance well. Jumping very high! Here she is - he pointed to Lepeshinskaya - like a dragonfly, and you - like an eagle.
At this time, Voroshilov asked Stalin a question. Stalin was distracted, but, having answered, he again turned to Asaf, raised his glass and said that he was drinking for him. Asaph was shocked and did not know how to answer. And Stalin went further.
The family began to demand that Asaf help Rachel, since Stalin himself was drinking for him. Shortly thereafter, Asaf was invited to stage a festive concert at the NKVD club.<...>
At the beginning of 1939, Asaf was sitting at the premiere of his production at the NKVD club and, after talking with a neighbor, he learned that he was none other than the secretary of the deputy people's commissar of the NKVD. Asaf, who so convincingly played heroic roles on stage, was very modest in life. One can imagine the agony he went through when he decided to take a bold step: suppressing his timidity, he asked a neighbor to arrange a meeting on a personal matter with his boss ... only, if possible, his sister would come, she is more familiar with this matter. It is possible that the success of the production and the fact that Asaf was given a standing ovation when he entered the stage had an effect on his seatmate, and he arranged for Mitya an audience with the deputy people's commissar, who was later also shot.
Shulamith eloquently described to him all the ordeals of Rachel and the child and achieved the incredible: the camp was replaced with a settlement in Kazakhstan, namely in the city of Chimkent. Moreover, Mitya was allowed to transport her sister herself.
Chimkent was a provincial Central Asian town, there were many exiles and widowed women with children like Rachel. There was even a culture club, in which Rachel organized a ballet circle.
The beautiful and still young Rachel attracted the attention of local men, and they even made proposals to her, but she refused everyone, believing that her beloved husband would return. Once she received a package from Mita, which contained sweets "Bear in the North". Apparently, she had never seen them before. The author of this name, as well as the Belochka sweets, was the famous director Natalya Sats, whose husband, before he was arrested and shot, was the Minister of the Food Industry. She half-jokingly told me during an interview that if her memory remains, it will be because of these candies.
So, Rachel decided that Mita sent her sweets not by chance, they say, this is a sign that her Mikhail returned to Spitsbergen and she will see him soon. Like many other women, for a long time she could not comprehend the monstrous meaning of Stalin's false sentence of "ten years without the right to correspond," which meant execution.
By that time, Mikhail Plisetsky had already been shot. It wasn't until four decades later that Rachel was documented:
“Dear Rachel Mikhailovna! - wrote in 1989 A. Nikonov, head of the secretariat of the military collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR. - I inform you at your request: Plisetsky Mikhail Emmanuilovich, born in 1899, member of the CPSU (b) since 1919, before his arrest - manager of the Arctic-Coal trust of the Glavsevmorput, was unreasonably sentenced to death on January 8, 1938 on false charges of espionage, in sabotage and participation in an anti-Soviet terrorist organization. The sentence has been carried out. This happened immediately after the verdict was passed - on January 8, 1938 ... An additional check carried out in 1955-56 established that Plisetsky M.E. was condemned unreasonably…”.
The execution was sanctioned by Zhdanov, Molotov, Kaganovich, Voroshilov - their names are on the title of the so-called "Stalinist execution list". Now even the place of execution and burial is known - the Kommunarka firing range of the NKVD, near Moscow.
He died in the prime of life, not even suspecting that his daughter would become a great ballerina. Rakhil, forever left alone, hated Stalinism, the bloody regime that deprived her and her children of a loved one - a father, who destroyed millions of other fathers ... She instilled this hatred and at the same time strengthened the will to silent confrontation with Stalin's rabble and Maya, and her sons, and us, close relatives.
Rachel returned to Moscow two months before the start of the war and settled with Sulamith and her husband, where Maya lived. They barely fit in two small adjoining rooms in a huge communal apartment in Shchepkinsky Proyezd, behind the Bolshoi Theatre. Rakhil and Azarik slept on a cot, which they set up at the very door for the night, and such conditions seemed to her a paradise after the camp and the miserable shack in Shymkent.
She was also happy because just before the war she witnessed her daughter's first great success in a school concert.
Maya Plisetskaya believes that her performance in the Impromptu act staged by Leonid Yakobson especially for schoolchildren was of particular importance in her career, for she "stepped from a timid ballet childhood into an independent, adult, risky, but wonderful professional ballet life."
A few months after the start of the war, Rakhil and her children were evacuated to Sverdlovsk, where she managed with great difficulty to get a job as a registrar in a polyclinic in order to receive a card to feed the children.
I was especially shocked by the letters of the father of the family, Mikhail Borisovich, to Rakhil's son and brother, Emmanuil Messerer, my father. He died during the bombing when he was on duty on the roof of a Moscow house. This tragedy was hidden from Mikhail Borisovich. Letters were returned to him with the stamp "addressee dropped out", and he forwarded them to Rachel, demanding to explain why Null, as he called Emmanuel, did not answer.
She tried to send parcels to her older brother Mattaniy, a professor languishing in the Gulag, as can be seen from a letter from Elizaveta to her dated February 16, 1942.
“Rahilinka, my sun. I shed many tears reading your letter. How terribly you learned of our great misfortune. You know the details of this catastrophe, and I will not irritate your nerves by describing all this again... I was deeply moved by the place where you write about Mattania.
What to do? What to do? Two days ago I received a postcard from him. He asks to send him a parcel. He asks for some sugar, crackers and shag. His heart clenched in pain for him.
I can collect a parcel for him, except for sugar. But we only accept gifts to the front, but not to the rear. Maybe they will accept you? I'll keep trying... Write to me more often, Rahilinka. It is such a joy for me to receive your letters.
And here is an excerpt from a letter from Asaf, who at that time was in Kuibyshev, where he led the evacuated troupe of the Bolshoi Theater:
“Dear Rachilinka. I have received your letter, where you ask to arrange for you in Kuibyshev. It is very difficult with the housing issue here. It is impossible to get a room, the only possibility is to get a job in the hostel of the Bolshoi Theater. I think they will let me, but keep in mind that there are 20-25 people in a room ... I am very worried about your arrival in connection with the typhus epidemic.
Rakhil sought to move to Kuibyshev because of Maya, who had not studied ballet for a year, she needed to resume classes. But Rachel soon learns that part of the troupe has returned to Moscow and, according to rumors, work has resumed at the school. Despite the danger and the lack of a pass to Moscow, she lets her sixteen-year-old daughter go to the capital, to Sulamith, who was called to participate in the first Moscow performances of wartime. Fortunately, Maya was accepted into the senior class, and she began to participate in the performances of the Bolshoi, since there were not enough soloists in the theater.
I remember Rachel right after the war. Her sons, who studied at the Choreographic School, were sent for the summer to a pioneer camp in Polenovo, next to the famous Tarusa, and Rakhil got a job there. I was also taken to this camp, although I was only 6 years old. For the first time I was away from home for 3 months, and if not for Rachel, I would have been very hard. She treated me like a mother, and I ran to her to console myself after any boyish conflict.
Since then, I have loved her all my life like a second mother. When our communal apartment was being renovated, I asked to live with Rakhil in the same communal apartment, in Shchepkinsky Proyezd. I was accepted, despite the cramped conditions, and I slept on a bed between two famous ballerinas, Maya and Shulamith. My mother's brother, who lived with us, joked about this, saying that from an early age I showed great promise in relation to women. Of course, at the time I didn't understand what he meant.
In the 60s, Shulamith began to go on long business trips abroad, most often to Japan, where she founded the first ballet school and named it after Tchaikovsky. She left her son Misha with Rachel, knowing that her sister would not only take care of him, but would also be able to educate him. Rachel had enough maternal love for everyone. (Recently, Mikhail Messerer was appointed Chief Ballet Master Mikhailovsky Theater Petersburg, despite the fact that he continues to be a teacher at the Royal Ballet in London).
Film director Vasily Katanyan, who was friends with Maya Plisetskaya, writes in the book Touching Idols: “I loved her mother, Rakhil Mikhailovna, a worthy, kind woman very much. It was not clear how she managed to do everything - cooking, cleaning, everyone ate in different time, Maya went to class - she had to iron her tunic, Alik returned from a rehearsal, the younger one was preparing lessons ... She was mobile and impetuous.
All twists and turns hectic life Rachel's children were directly related to her: both triumphs on the stage and troubles. She, for example, was acutely worried about Maya in the 50s. Maya writes that she was then on the verge of suicide: for 6 years, the KGB suspected her of espionage because of one meeting with a British diplomat, refusing to allow her to travel abroad. English, American, French impresarios demanded that the Bolshoi's tour include ballets with Plisetskaya's participation, and the State Concert at the last minute announced that for one reason or another she allegedly could not come. Maya survived this disgrace largely thanks to the moral support of her mother. She also writes that she and her husband, the outstanding composer Rodion Shchedrin, managed to get a small apartment in 1958, largely thanks to the efforts of their mother, who "had a quiet but stubborn character to the extreme." Indeed, for the sake of the children, Rachel was ready to break through any bureaucratic wall.
In the 1970s, a fierce struggle between two camps unfolded inside the Bolshoi Theater - Maya Plisetskaya and Yuri Grigorovich, the authoritarian artistic director of the ballet, who did not allow major choreographers to stage performances. The careers of Azaria and Alexander, in particular, suffered from this feud. Grigorovich in every possible way prevented their advancement in the theater, and they were forced to leave Moscow for a long time. Rachel suffered greatly from separation from her sons. And, of course, the worst tragedy in her life was early death Alexander Plisetsky, who suffered from a heart defect. He did not wait for a call from America, where a famous surgeon promised to perform an operation on him, and died during an operation in a Moscow hospital. Rachel then abruptly gave up and grew old ...
There was a lot of grief and a lot of joy in her life. She did not miss a single performance with the participation of Maya, Alexander or Azaria. Rakhil usually sat in the front rows, next to her younger brother Alexander and the famous Lilya Brik, in one of the beautiful black dresses, smiling at the numerous admirers of her children who came up to her every now and then during the intermission. Sometimes she gave photos to friends, signing "In good memory from Mom Maya."
At the end of her life, Rakhil Mikhailovna got the opportunity to travel. She stayed in England with her sister Shulamith, whom the Queen of England awarded with the highest order for her contribution to the culture of Great Britain. She also spent half a year in Cuba, where Azaria worked, in France and Spain. In 1990, she came to America accompanied by her brother Alexander, who tenderly cared for her and actually extended her life.
Rachel died at the age of 91 and was buried in her family grave at Novodevichy cemetery, at first famous alley Cherry Orchard. The first to be buried there in 1937 was her brother Azary, an outstanding actor from the Moscow Art Theater, after whom Rakhil named her son, who was born in the same year. This grave is located next to the graves of Chekhov, Levitan, Stanislavsky and Gogol. It is surprising that, just as on the graves of these geniuses of Russia, flowers sometimes appear on her grave, laid by no one knows who. Apparently, Muscovites remember her.
