Thrown out of the Ukrainian direction by the purging of Postyshev and Kosior, deprived of both “Berezil” and his whole life in Kharkov, Les Kurbas flees to Moscow in the autumn of the 33rd year. Finds work in the State Jewish Theater (Mikhoels).

Les Kurbas knew eight languages, including Yiddish, so there was no problem for him to work in the Jewish theater.. Here, in Moscow, the great Ukrainian director chose to play William Shakespeare's play “Othello”.

“Who controls their own destiny?.

I'm not dangerous, even armed.

All passed, I'm at the ultimate goal.

Why do you back up in fear?.

With a reed block the path of Othello, And he will turn. Where should he go? "(William Shakespeare" Othello ", translation B. Pasternak) However, the defeat of the Ukrainian Vidrodzhennya got him in Moscow. Too prominent a figure was a great Ukrainian director, so that the NKVD could not find him.

However, it is unlikely that he really believed that he would deceive fate? I would very much like to know, he chose the play “Othello” because he wanted to tell about “Yago's time” or how grateful fellow citizens tear the skin off his “ungrateful” idol Othello?.

But this is not given to us to know ... Reading the case of the NKVD on Les Kurbas, you unwittingly ask yourself a lot of questions, the answers to which are not. And it's not about the tricks of the NKVD investigators. In general, the case itself about the terrorist activities of the Ukrainian Military Organization (SVO) is not just sewn with white thread, but generally crumbles at the slightest touch.

Let us imagine that several people who were holding a weapon in their hands ten years ago decided to commit a public murder during the premiere of a performance or conference of the CPSU (b). The first thing that they inevitably have to do is to at least a couple of times shoot with a gun. No one could have doubts - this is pure suicide.. And to go for it, without having spent the minimum acquaintance to the weapon is already from the field of nonsense. And at the same time, during interrogations, everybody clearly says that they only talked about acts of terrorism, but did not make ANY attempt to tackle weapons.. The investigators did not even consider it necessary to ask whether the accused could even fire a pistol or a revolver? And here they have been discussing the attacks for almost a year, but have NEVER fired.

Thus, the whole story of the attack - of course, linden.

But if someone thinks that after answering this question t everything becomes clear - he is deeply mistaken. And the main question - WHY? Why do these people so easily agree with the charges, so diligently emphasize their "terrorist" intentions?.

There is a very simple and clear explanation - torture. This word must, as it were, explain everything: the accused were beaten, and they agreed to any testimony that the investigator needed.. Beautiful version, only in relation to Les Kurbas, she raises serious doubts. The fact that they may have beaten Tkachuk or Datskov, the excerpts from whose testimony we read in the case of Les Kurbas, we can neither deny nor confirm. But the situation is different with Les Kurbas himself..

In the case there is an interrogation of Les Kurbas by an employee of the Prosecutor’s Office (Deputy Prosecutor of the GPU of the Ukrainian SSR - Extreme) who controls the investigation. TSN, for example, in his program on the fate of Les Kurbas lead excerpts from this interrogation. At the same time, given the fate of the great director, these passages, as it were, speak of the monstrous hypocrisy of the NKVD and its investigators.. Usually give the words:.

“Question: Do you have any complaints about the actions of the GPU? Perhaps you were treated badly, forced to admit.

Answer: Absolutely no. The attitude to me in all cases was thoroughly correct and extremely polite. ”.

Well knowing the evidence of the countless torture of the late 30s, these words are perceived as pure hypocrisy, when the victim is forced to declare that no one beat him.

However, if we turn to the further conversation between the prosecutor and Les Kurbas, the picture will not seem so unambiguous..

In fact, Les Kurbas, even, argues with the prosecutor. He behaves like a person who has an opinion, a person, of course, frightened, but frightened is not fatal, trying to preserve his dignity. He is once again trying to explain his position.. There is a feeling that Les Kurbas is considering a meeting with this representative of the punitive organs, as with another attempt to explain to the "party" his line.

I am absolutely sure that if Les Kurbas had been systematically beaten, he would never have behaved this way during interrogation with the prosecutor.

We must remember that when Les Kurbas was only arrested in Moscow, he immediately tried to find a common language with the investigator. It is customary to say that Les Kurbas refused to admit the accusation in Moscow, and only after transfer to Kharkov began to confess. Unfortunately, we do not know what exactly he said during interrogations in Moscow Les Kurbas. He just did not acknowledge the charges..

But almost immediately after arriving in Ukraine, he begins to try to find a common language with the investigator.. At the first interrogation, Les Kurbas “disarms” before the party. He immediately admits that he made ideological mistakes:.

“I hereby declare my full and final disarmament before the Government and admit that I belonged to the counter-revolutionary organization of the SVR”.

Very quickly and very sincerely, he admits all his mistakes:.

“Sabotage of the“ party line ”, detachment from the“ line ”of the repertoire of the Ukrainian theater process ...” and so on.

Initially, undoubtedly, Les Kurbas perceives his work as another “purge” of theater circles.. And he immediately agrees with the investigator. He is ready to "cleanse". Only later, it comes to him that they do not want to “clear” him, but accuse him of terrorist activity.. And at first, he tries to somehow refuse it, but very quickly realizes that the investigators want him to.

And this "ease" in the admission of guilt, does not fit into the scheme - knocked out!.

Les Kurbas is undoubtedly one of the greatest Ukrainian directors.. And his creative career in the 1920s, without any discounts, speaks of his genius.. And yet, sadly speaking, Les Kurbas turned out to be not just a Bolshevik wave in those years, it became, in many ways, a symbol of this wave..

In the 1920s, the Bolsheviks in Ukraine took advantage of the ideas of the national-democratic Ukrainian parties and relied on the mass Ukrainization of Ukraine, regardless of the opinion of the most living, living in the Bolshevik kingdom.. One digit. At the end of the 20s in Ukraine there were 66 - Ukrainian theaters, 12 - Jewish and three - Russian stationary theaters. Obviously, these figures did not correspond to the requests of Russian-speaking viewers.. The situation was similar in literature and journalism.. This wave of Ukrainization became a breeding ground for Ukrainian Industrial Development, for those hundreds of authors who came to literature, culture, art on this wave.. But by recognizing the right of the authorities to Ukrainization, they simultaneously recognized the right of the authorities to do with it everything that the authorities wanted..

In the early 30s, the government changes its policy in Ukraine. It is very difficult to determine why Stalin chooses such a strategy.. In Ukraine, unlike other regions, those people who carried out Ukrainization from above were reliable supporters of Stalin — the same Kaganovich. I mean the main conductors of the process, not the local governors. But neither punishing his henchmen, Stalin in the early 30s fundamentally changes the direction of his strategy. Perhaps this is due to the collapse of the NEP policy in the village, and Stalin decides that he has enough forces to crush the rural elemental opposition? Perhaps this is happening against the background of the destruction of the most competent representatives of Russian imperial science: at the same time, prominent St. Petersburg and Moscow scholars historians economists are also referring. The process of the Industrial Party is in progress, for which the USSR will pay with total engineering illiteracy - which has played a monstrous role in a future war.. Perhaps the idea of ??a “besieged fortress” played a role here, which becomes the main ideological postulate of Stalin’s power (“the aggravation of the class struggle in building socialism” was something like it was officially called).

In Ukraine, on the shoulders of Postyshev and Kosior came a new policy. And this new policy was not necessary for the “Ukrainian Ukrainian Development”, and in some respects it is even dangerous..

The worst thing in all of this is that these same Ukrainian intellectuals were morally ready for this.. Having said “A” to the forced policy of “Ukrainization”, they did not see the strength to say “No” to the new policy. They wanted peace with this power.. After all, it was "their" power.

These arguments may seem monstrous to someone: victims who voluntarily surrender themselves to the hands of their executioners.. But the fact of the matter is that they did not consider the punitive organs to be executioners..

You can imagine that the victim told the executioner - “I ask you to use me in the future in the specialty”. But this is precisely what says at the end of the interrogation by the prosecutor Les Kurbas. And I must say that he was not mistaken. Great director, really, used the specialty. Three years. He even put on “The Death of Tarelkin” - a very relevant play for the 30s.

Very characteristic detail. When in 1955 a new investigation was carried out in the case of the shot Les Kurbas, but the new investigator did not even need any special investigative work. He raises the director’s firing case and reads there that the director tells his friends in the camp that Stalin violates the Leninist norms of national politics. Considering that it is presented in the case, as a justification of the shooting, it is difficult to imagine that it was invented by the investigator. And then everything is simple. For this phrase, in the 37th year, they shot him, and in the 55th, they found him not guilty..

In many ways, Les Kurbas repeated the tragic fate of a man who, without any doubt, had a very large impact on his creative world - Vsevolod Meyerhold. It is not by chance that Osip Mandelstam, who saw the performances of “Berezil” in 1926, wrote that they very much remind him of a strange mixture of the performances of Meyerhold and the Chamber Theater (Tairov). Unfortunately, Joseph Stalin did not like Meyerhold or Tairov.. He forgave many things for Mikhail Bulgakov, whose “Days of the Turbins” were clear and close to him, and did not forgive anything for the bizarre searches of the zealous Bolshevik and the brilliant director Meyerhold. And the tragicomic searches of Les Kurbas and Nikolai Kulish were also alien to him. And they were not even given a chance to survive..

And lastly, remember the last words of Othello:.

“When you write to the Senate about these troubles, do not portray Me as something that is. No need to put thick shadows, do not soften colors.

You will say that this man Loved without measure and prudence ... ".