Vasily Makarovich Shukshin Born July 25, 1929, Srostki village, Biysk district, Biysk district, Altai Krai Date of death October 2, 1974, Kletskaya village, Volgograd region — Soviet film director, actor, writer, screenwriter.

Honored Artist of the RSFSR (1969). Laureate of the Lenin Prize (1976), USSR State Prize (1971) and the Vasiliev Brothers State Prize of the RSFSR (1967). Member of the CPSU since 1955.

Biography
Beginning of career

Vasily Shukshin was born on July 25, 1929 into a peasant family. His father, Makar Leontyevich Shukshin (1912-1933) was arrested and shot in 1933, during collectivization, and was posthumously rehabilitated in 1956. His mother, Maria Sergeevna (née Popova; in her second marriage, Kuksina) (1909 – January 17, 1979) took on all the care of the family. His sister, Natalya Makarovna Shukshina (November 16, 1931 – July 10, 2005). After his father’s arrest and until he received a passport, Vasily Makarovich was called by his mother’s surname, Vasily Popov.

In 1943, Shukshin graduated from the seven-year school in the village of Srostki and entered the Biysk Automobile College. He studied there for two and a half years, but did not finish the college. Instead, in 1945, he went to work on a collective farm in the village of Srostki. He did not work on the collective farm for long, and in 1946, he left his native village. In 1947-1949, Shukshin worked as a mechanic at several enterprises of the Soyuzprommekhanizatsiya trust: at a turbine plant in Kaluga, at a tractor plant in Vladimir. Shukshin was called up to serve in the army from the village of Butovo in the Moscow region.

In 1949, Shukshin was called up to serve in the Navy. He served as a sailor in the Baltic Fleet, then as a radio operator in the Black Sea Fleet. Shukshin’s literary activity began in the army, where he first tried to write stories that he read to his fellow soldiers. In 1953, he was discharged from the navy due to a stomach ulcer and returned to the village of Srostki.

In his native village, Vasily Makarovich passed the exams for the school-leaving certificate as an external student at Srostki Secondary School No. 32. He went to work as a teacher of Russian language and literature at the Srostki School for Rural Youth. For some time, he was even the director of this school. As Vasily Makarovich himself admitted, he was a “poor” teacher.

In 1954, Shukshin went to Moscow to enroll in VGIK. To raise money for the trip, his mother sold a cow. At first, Shukshin applied to the screenwriting department, but then decided to enroll in the directing department and graduated in 1960 (workshop of M. I. Romm). While studying at VGIK, on ​​Romm’s advice, Shukshin began sending his stories to Moscow publications. In 1958, his first story, “Two on a Cart,” was published in the magazine “Smena.”

Member of the CPSU since 1955.

In 1956, Shukshin made his film debut: in S. A. Gerasimov’s film «Quiet Flows the Don» (second episode), he played in a tiny episode — he portrayed a sailor looking out from behind a fence. It was with this sailor that Shukshin’s cinematic career as an actor began.
While studying at VGIK in 1958, Shukshin starred in his first leading role in M. M. Khutsiev’s film «Two Fyodors». In his diploma work «They Report from Lebyazhye», Shukshin acted as a screenwriter, director and performer of the leading role. His acting career was developing quite successfully, Shukshin did not experience a shortage of offers from leading directors.

1963-1974

In 1963, Shukshin began working as a director at the Central Committee for Children and Youth Films. That same year, the magazine Novy Mir published the stories “Classy Driver” and “Grinka Malyugin”. Based on them, Shukshin wrote the script for his first full-length film, “There Lives Such a Guy”. Filming began in the summer of that year in Altai and was completed in 1964. The director’s classmate from VGIK, Leonid Kuravlyov, played the leading role. The film received good reviews from the public. Experts paid attention to Shukshin’s directorial style, restrained and a little simple-minded.

Shukshin’s first book, “Village Residents,” was published in 1963 by the Molodaya Gvardiya publishing house. Edward Kuzmina noted in the magazine «Novy Mir» that in the best stories of the book Shukshin demonstrates «life instinct, keenness, flexibility»: «the writer seems to be dissolved in his heroes, looks through their eyes.»

Vasily Shukshin was full of plans, but many of them were never destined to be realized. In 1965, Shukshin began writing a screenplay about the uprising led by Stepan Razin, but did not receive approval from the USSR State Committee for Cinematography. Subsequently, the screenplay was reworked into the novel «I Have Come to Give You Freedom.» The screenplay for the future film «Boiling Point» also did not receive approval from the State Committee for Cinematography. For many years, Vasily Makarovich combined work on films with writing. He wrote by hand in a student notebook, usually at night.

Reality burdened him with all sorts of extraneous affairs — he worked on a collective farm, served in the navy, studied at an automobile technical school, taught at school, acted in films […] and all the while endlessly wandered the length and breadth of our country until he came up against the just conviction that his only and natural calling was literature, that his place was his desk, that his tool was a ballpoint pen and a notebook for three kopecks.
— Vyacheslav Pyetsukh

The years 1973-1974 became very fruitful for Shukshin. His film Kalina Krasnaya was released, winning the first prize of the All-Union Film Festival. A new collection of stories, Characters, was published. Director G. A. Tovstonogov was preparing to stage the play Energetic People on the stage of the LABDT. In 1974, Shukshin accepted an invitation to star in a new film by S. F. Bondarchuk. But Vasily Shukshin had long been tormented by attacks of stomach ulcers, which had haunted him since his youth, when he suffered from an addiction to alcohol. In the last years of his life after the birth of his daughters, he did not touch alcohol, but the disease progressed. Even during the filming of Kalina Krasnaya, he had difficulty coming to his senses after severe attacks.
On October 2, 1974, Vasily Makarovich Shukshin died suddenly during the filming of the film They Fought for the Motherland on the ship Danube. His close friend Georgy Burkov found him dead.

He was buried on Monday, October 7 in Moscow at the Novodevichy Cemetery.

Personal life

Shukshin’s first official wife was his fellow villager, school teacher Maria Ivanovna Shumskaya. They met in their youth and got married in the summer of 1955, when Vasily Shukshin, already a student at VGIK, came from Moscow for his first vacation. «It would be unfair to say that Vasily did not take this marriage seriously from the very beginning, that he deliberately deceived and abandoned his village wife,» says Anastasia Pryakhina, a friend of the Shukshin family. «After the registration, Vasya came home from the registry office alone without Maria. He tore off his shirt and started exclaiming: «What a marriage! Well, he got married!» It turned out that the young couple had quarreled at the registry office doors. Maria refused to go to Moscow with Vasily — she was afraid of the uncertainty and disorganization of her future Moscow life, she decided to stay with her parents and wait for her husband in Srostki. In 1957, Shukshin wrote a letter home from Moscow asking Maria for a divorce because he had fallen in love with another woman. There was no official divorce from M. Shumskaya. She never gave her consent to the divorce, even though Shukshin’s mother asked for it. Vasily Makarovich managed to «neutralize» this marriage only by losing his passport.

In 1963, he married Victoria Sofronova, the daughter of the writer Anatoly Sofronov. In 1964, V. Shukshin came with V. Sofronova to his homeland in Srostki. Maria Sergeevna Shukshina liked Victoria as a hard worker and a housewife. It was at this time that she had a conversation with Maria Shumskaya about her divorce from her son Vasily.

In 1965, Victoria Sofronova gave birth to a daughter from Shukshin — Katerina Shukshina.

From 1964 to 1967, V. M. Shukshin was married to actress Lidiya Aleksandrova (better known as Lidiya Chashchina, after her second husband’s last name; the actress who played the role in the film «There Lives Such a Guy»). According to her, the marriage broke up due to Shukshin’s numerous love affairs and his addiction to alcohol.

In 1964, on the set of the film «What is it like, the sea?» Vasily Shukshin met 26-year-old actress Lidiya Fedoseyeva. For quite a long time, Vasily Makarovich could not decide which of his beloved women to live with, and maintained relationships with both. In the end, he stayed with Fedoseyeva. In this marriage, he had two daughters:

Maria Shukshina, actress (1967).
Olga Shukshina, actress (1968).

Problems of creativity

The heroes of Shukshin’s books and films are Russian people of the Soviet village, simple workers with unique characters, observant and sharp-tongued.
One of his first heroes, Pashka Kolokolnikov («There Lives Such a Guy») is a village driver, in whose life «there is room for a feat.»
Some of his heroes can be called eccentrics, people «not of this world» (the story «Microscope», «Odd Man»).

Other characters have gone through the ordeal of imprisonment (Yegor Prokudin, «Kalina Krasnaya»).

Shukshin’s works provide a laconic and capacious description of the Russian village, his work is characterized by a deep knowledge of the language and details of everyday life, deep moral problems, Russian national and universal values ​​often come to the fore (stories «The Hunt to Live», «Space, the Nervous System and a Piece of Lard»).

Criticism and reviews
… I respect everything Shukshin did. I knew him closely, met him often, talked, argued with him, and I am especially upset today that I never got to star in any of his films. But I will remain their most regular viewer for the rest of my life.
— Vladimir Vysotsky
Vyacheslav Pyetsukh described Shukshin as «the last genius of Russian literature» and spoke of his literary talent as follows:
…from which «Alyosha Beskonvoyny», the first Russian story about personal freedom, emerged, how «Dancing Shiva», the personification of the nervous system of our dissolute life, or «Conversations in the Clear Moon» — its strangely animated background… And what’s curious is that this cannot be invented, cannot be retold from someone else’s words, but can only be caught in the air and transformed into fiction, passing it through the «black box» of your soul. In a word, it is impossible to explain «from what rubbish» Shukshin’s world emerged, this meticulous anatomy of Russian life in the 60s and early 70s, by which future generations will judge us.

Stanislav Rostotsky said:

“I have a copy of a letter in my desk that I once sent to Vasily Shukshin in his Altai Srostki. Not long ago, a woman gave me this copy. At one time, Vasily Makarovich was in a very difficult situation — both creative and everyday. He treated himself in two ways: with a Russian national drink and trips to his homeland in Srostki. So he left again. At that time, I was filming a movie. And suddenly the director of the Gorky Film Studio, Grigory Ivanovich Britikov, called me and said: “Stas, Vasya is not well, go and bring him.” I could not go then — I could not abandon the film crew, stop the film. I sat down to write this letter. In it, I discussed suicide — after all, everyone was afraid of this, that Shukshin would do something to himself. And I wrote about my generation, about the war, about the fact that I was one of the three percent of the lucky ones born in 1922 who returned in May 1945. Vasily Makarovich arrived. You should have known him… He came up to me in the hallway of the film studio and shook my hand: «Thank you.»

Awards and awards

1964 — Such a guy lives was awarded the Prize «For cheerfulness, lyricism and originality» in the feature films section at the All-Union Film Festival in Leningrad.
1967 — By the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, Vasily Shukshin was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor.
1969 — State Prize of the RSFSR named after the Vasilyev brothers — for the feature film «Your son and brother.»
1969 — Honored Artist of the RSFSR.
1971 — State Prize of the USSR — for his role in the film by director S. A. Gerasimov «By the lake.» 1974 — Kalina Krasnaya — Main Prize «For the original, bright talent of a writer, director and actor» at the All-Union Film Festival in Baku.
1976 — Lenin Prize — for creative achievements (posthumously).

Reflection in literature
«As the immortal Shukshin wrote, why don’t you look like a falcon?» Bushkov A. A. Beshenaya: Novel.-M: Olma-Press, SPB: Neva, Krasnoyarsk: Bonus, 1996.-P.535

Memory

Monument

A street and a drama theater in Barnaul, a pedagogical university and a station square in Biysk, a library in Kurgan are named after Shukshin.
Streets in Voronezh, Novosibirsk, Omsk, Prokopyevsk and a number of other cities in Russia are also named after Vasily Shukshin. There is also a V. Shukshin Street in Astana, Kazakhstan.
Since 1976, Shukshin Readings (Shukshin Days) have been held in his birthplace, in the village of Srostki.

In 1978, a new container ship-packet carrier «Vasily Shukshin», the lead one in the series, was transferred to the Soviet Danube State Shipping Company. As of the beginning of 2011, it is in operation with the Ukrainian Danube Shipping Company. The dry cargo ship «Vasily Shukshin» is in operation as part of the fleet of the North-Western Shipping Company (Saint Petersburg) (as of 2010).

In 2002, Shukshin’s admirers prevented the old ship on which the writer died from being written off. The ship was repaired and given the name «Vasily Shukshin». The ship’s home port is Volgograd. In the same year, the RT-723 pusher tug of the West Siberian River Shipping Company was given the name «Vasily Shukshin». Earlier, the West Siberian Shipping Company had a passenger ship of the VTU type, also named «Vasily Shukshin».

On July 25, 1989, on the day of the 60th anniversary of Shukshin’s birth, a monument was unveiled on Yurina Street in Barnaul (sculptors Nikolai Zvonkov and Mikhail Kulgachev, architects Vasily Rublev and Sergey Bozhenko).

In April 2002, a sculpture of V. M. Shukshin (sculptor V. M. Klykov), which was originally received as a gift from the USSR Art Fund in 1985 and was part of the exposition of the House-Museum of V. M. Shukshin’s mother, M. S. Kuksina, was moved to the territory of the main building of the V. M. Shukshin Museum in the village of Srostki.

On July 25, 2004, on the day of the 75th anniversary of V. M. Shukshin’s birth, a monument was unveiled on Mount Picket (or Poklon-Mount-Biket). The unveiling of the monument by sculptor V. M. Klykov took place as part of the 28th «Shukshin Readings», held annually at this location.

The German Mint, by order of the Altai branch of Sberbank of Russia, minted a coin to be presented to honored guests of the celebrations dedicated to the 80th anniversary of Shukshin’s birth. The issuer is the state of Malawi, the denomination is 50 Malawian kwacha.

On September 1, 2009, a monument to three famous graduates of VGIK was unveiled at the entrance to the Institute of Cinematography (VGIK). The author of the monument is sculptor Alexey Blagovestnov.

In Moscow, on Bochkova Street, on house No. 5, where V. M. Shukshin lived in his last years, a memorial plaque was installed.
The Altai Territory Administration for Culture and Archival Affairs established the Shukshin Literary Prize.

Filmography

1956: The Killers (Russian: Убийцы) (Short) as Ole Andreson
1957: And Quiet Flows the Don (Russian: Тихий Дон) as minor role (uncredited)
1958: Two Fyodors (Russian: Два Фёдора) as Great Fyodor
1959: The Golden Eshelon (Russian: Золотой эшелон) as Andrey Nizovtsev
1960: A Simple Story (Russian: Простая история) as Ivan Lykov
1961: Mission (Russian: Командировка) as combine operator
1962: Alyonka (Russian: Алёнка) as Stepan Revan
1962: When the Trees Were Tall (Russian: Когда деревья были большими) as chairman of the kolkhoz
1963: We, Two of Men (Russian: Мы, двое мужчин) as Mikhail Gorlov
1964: There Is Such a Lad (Russian: Живет такой парень) (director, screenwriter)
1965: Your Son and Brother (Russian: Ваш сын и брат) (director, screenwriter)
1967: The Journalist (Russian: Журналист)
1967: The Commissar (Russian: Комиссар) as The Commandant
1968: Three Days of Viktor Chernyshov (Russian: Три дня Виктора Чернышева) as Kravchenko
1969: Strange People (Russian: Странные люди) (director, screenwriter) as Nikolay Nikolayevich Larionov
1970: By the Lake (Russian: У озера) as Vasily Chernykh
1970: Liberation I: The Fire Bulge (Russian: Освобождение) as Gen. Konev
1970: Liberation II: Breakthrough (Russian: Освобождение) as Gen. Konev
1970: Lyubov Yarovaya (Russian: Любовь Яровая) as Roman Koshkin
1971: Dauria (Russian: Даурия) as Vasily Ulybin
1971: Liberation III: Direction of the Main Blow (Russian: Освобождение) as Gen. Konev
1971: Liberation IV: The Battle of Berlin (Russian: Освобождение) as Ivan Konev
1971: Liberation V: The Last Assault (Russian: Освобождение) as Ivan Konev
1971: Soldier Came From The Front (Russian: Пришёл солдат с фронта) (screenwriter)
1972: Happy Go Lucky (Russian: Печки-лавочки) (director, screenwriter) as Ivan Rastorguyev
1974: The Red Snowball Tree (Russian: Калина красная) (director, screenwriter) as Yegor Prokudin
1974: If You Want To Be Happy (Russian: Если хочешь быть счастливым) as Vladimir Fedotov
1974: Fellows (Russian: Земляки) (screenwriter)
1975: They Fought for Their Country (Russian: Они сражались за Родину) as Piotr Lopakhin
1976: I Want the Floor (Russian: Прошу слова) as Fedya, plawright (final film role)
1977: Call Me To The Light Far (Russian: Позови меня в даль светлую) (screenwriter)
1988: Yolki-palki (Russian: Ёлки-палки) (writer)
2004: High Boots (Russian: Ботушки) (writer)