When on February 9 (January 28), 1887, in the village of Budaika, Cheboksary district, Kazan province, the sixth child was born into the family of Russian peasant Ivan Chapaev, neither mother nor father could even think about the glory that awaited their son.
Chapai's childhood.
Rather, they were thinking about the upcoming funeral - the baby, named Vasenka, was born at seven months old, was very weak and, it seemed, could not survive. However, the will to live turned out to be stronger than death - the boy survived and began to grow up to the delight of his parents.
Vasya Chapaev did not even think about any military career - in poor Budaika there was a problem of everyday survival, there was no time for heavenly pretzels.
The origin of the family surname is interesting. Chapaev’s grandfather, Stepan Gavrilovich, was unloading timber and other heavy cargoes rafted down the Volga at the Cheboksary pier. And he often shouted “chap”, “chap”, “chap”, that is, “catch” or “catch”. Over time, the word “chepai” stuck with him as a street nickname, and then became his official surname.
It is curious that the Red commander himself subsequently wrote his last name exactly as “Chepaev”, and not “Chapaev”.
The poverty of the Chapaev family drove them in search of a better life to the Samara province, to the village of Balakovo. Father Vasily lived here cousin, who acted as a patron of the parish school. The boy was assigned to study, hoping that over time he would become a priest.
War gives birth to heroes.
In 1908, Vasily Chapaev was drafted into the army, but a year later he was discharged due to illness. Even before joining the army, Vasily started a family, marrying the 16-year-old daughter of a priest, Pelageya Metlina. Returning from the army, Chapaev began to engage in purely peaceful carpentry. In 1912, while continuing to work as a carpenter, Vasily and his family moved to Melekess. Until 1914, three children were born into the family of Pelageya and Vasily - two sons and a daughter.
The whole life of Chapaev and his family was turned upside down by the First World War. Called up in September 1914, Vasily went to the front in January 1915. He fought in Volhynia in Galicia and proved himself to be a skilled warrior. Chapaev ended the First World War with the rank of sergeant major, being awarded the soldier's St. George Cross of three degrees and the St. George Medal.
In the fall of 1917, the brave soldier Chapaev joined the Bolsheviks and unexpectedly showed himself to be a brilliant organizer. In the Nikolaev district of the Saratov province, he created 14 detachments of the Red Guard, which took part in the campaign against the troops of General Kaledin. On the basis of these detachments, the Pugachev brigade was created in May 1918 under the command of Chapaev. Together with this brigade, the self-taught commander recaptured the city of Nikolaevsk from the Czechoslovaks.
The fame and popularity of the young commander grew before our eyes. In September 1918, Chapaev led the 2nd Nikolaev Division, which instilled fear in the enemy. Nevertheless, Chapaev’s tough temperament and his inability to obey unquestioningly led to the fact that the command considered it best to send him from the front to study at the General Staff Academy.
...Already in the 1970s, another legendary Red commander Semyon Budyonny, listening to jokes about Chapaev, shook his head: “I told Vaska: learn, you fool, otherwise they will laugh at you! Well, I didn’t listen!”
The Ural, the Ural River, its grave is deep...
Chapaev really did not stay long at the academy, once again going to the front. In the summer of 1919, he headed the 25th Rifle Division, which quickly became legendary, as part of which he carried out brilliant operations against Kolchak’s troops. On June 9, 1919, the Chapaevites liberated Ufa, and on July 11, Uralsk.
During the summer of 1919, Divisional Commander Chapaev managed to surprise the career white generals with his leadership talent. Both comrades and enemies saw in him a real military nugget. Alas, Chapaev did not have time to truly open up.
The tragedy, which is called Chapaev’s only military mistake, occurred on September 5, 1919. Chapaev's division was rapidly advancing, breaking away from the rear. Units of the division stopped to rest, and the headquarters was located in the village of Lbischensk.
On September 5, the Whites, numbering up to 2,000 bayonets under the command of General Borodin, carried out a raid and suddenly attacked the headquarters of the 25th division. The main forces of the Chapaevites were 40 km from Lbischensk and could not come to the rescue.
The real forces that could resist the Whites were 600 bayonets, and they entered into a battle that lasted six hours. He was hunting for Chapaev himself special squad, which, however, did not succeed. Vasily Ivanovich managed to get out of the house where he was quartered, gather about a hundred fighters who were retreating in disarray, and organize a defense.
About the circumstances of Chapaev's death for a long time There were conflicting reports until, in 1962, the daughter of the division commander, Claudia, received a letter from Hungary, in which two Chapaev veterans, Hungarians by nationality, who were personally present at the last minutes of the division commander’s life, told what really happened.
During the battle with the Whites, Chapaev was wounded in the head and stomach, after which four Red Army soldiers, having built a raft from boards, managed to transport the commander to the other side of the Urals. However, Chapaev died from his wounds during the crossing.
The Red Army soldiers, fearing that their enemies would mock his body, buried Chapaev in the coastal sand, throwing branches over the place.
There were no active searches for the division commander’s grave immediately after the Civil War, because the version outlined by the commissar of the 25th division Dmitry Furmanov in his book “Chapaev” became canonical - that the wounded division commander drowned while trying to swim across the river.
In the 1960s, Chapaev’s daughter tried to search for her father’s grave, but it turned out that this was impossible - the course of the Urals changed its course, and the river bottom became the final resting place of the red hero.
The birth of a legend.
Not everyone believed in Chapaev’s death. Historians who studied the biography of Chapaev noted that there was a story among Chapaev veterans that their Chapai swam out, was rescued by the Kazakhs, suffered from typhoid fever, lost his memory and now works as a carpenter in Kazakhstan, remembering nothing about his heroic past.
Fans of the white movement like to attach great importance to the Lbishchensky raid, calling it a major victory, but this is not so. Even the destruction of the headquarters of the 25th division and the death of its commander did not affect the general course of the war - the Chapaev division continued to successfully destroy enemy units.
Not everyone knows that the Chapaevites avenged their commander on the same day, September 5th. The commander of the White raid, General Borodin, who was victoriously driving through Lbischensk after the defeat of Chapaev’s headquarters, was shot by the Red Army soldier Volkov.
Historians still cannot agree on what Chapaev’s role as a commander in the Civil War actually was. Some believe that he actually played a significant role, others believe that his image has been exaggerated by art.
Indeed, Chapaev gained wide popularity from a book written by the former commissar of the 25th division, Dmitry Furmanov.
During their lifetime, the relationship between Chapaev and Furmanov could not be called simple, which, by the way, is best reflected later in anecdotes. Chapaev's affair with Furmanov's wife Anna Steshenko led to the fact that the commissioner had to leave the division. However, Furmanov's writing talent smoothed out personal contradictions.
But the real, boundless glory of Chapaev, Furmanov, and other now popular heroes overtook in 1934, when the Vasilyev brothers shot the film “Chapaev,” which was based on Furmanov’s book and the memories of the Chapaevites.
Furmanov himself was no longer alive by that time - he died suddenly in 1926 from meningitis. And the author of the film’s script was Anna Furmanova, the commissar’s wife and the division commander’s mistress.
It is to her that we owe the appearance of Anka the Machine Gunner in the history of Chapaev. The fact is that in reality there was no such character. Its prototype was the nurse of the 25th division, Maria Popova. In one of the battles, a nurse crawled up to a wounded elderly machine gunner and wanted to bandage him, but the soldier, heated by the battle, pointed a revolver at the nurse and literally forced Maria to take a place behind the machine gun.
The directors, having learned about this story and having an assignment from Stalin to show in the film the image of a woman during the Civil War, came up with a machine gunner. But Anna Furmanova insisted that her name would be Anka.
After the release of the film, Chapaev, Furmanov, Anka the machine gunner, and orderly Petka (in real life– Pyotr Isaev, who actually died in the same battle with Chapaev) went into the people forever, becoming an integral part of it.
Chapaev Vasily Ivanovich (born January 28 (February 9), 1887 - September 5, 1919) - Soviet military leader, a prominent participant in the Civil War. Since 1918, he was the commander of a detachment, brigade and the 25th Infantry Division, which played important role in the defeat of troops in the summer of 1919. In the city of Lbischensk, he was captured by surprise by the Ural Cossacks, during the battle he was wounded and drowned while trying to swim across the Urals.
Origin. early years
Vasily is from a Chuvash peasant family with nine children. Chapaev's grandfather was a serf. Father is a carpenter. Vasily spent his childhood in the town of Balakovo, Samara province. He attended parochial school (1898-1901); due to the difficult financial situation in the family, Chapaev dropped out of school and went to work. Vasily worked from the age of 12 for a merchant, then as a sex worker in a tea shop, as an organ grinder's assistant, and helped his father in carpentry. 1908 - was drafted into the army.
World War I
After conscript service, Chapaev returned home. At that time, he had already gotten married, and when the First World War began, he already had three children in his family. During the First World War, he served in the 326th Belgorai Infantry Regiment. Was injured. 1916 - promoted to sergeant major. Vasily Ivanovich took part in the famous, was shell-shocked, several wounds, for military work and personal courage he was awarded three St. George Crosses and the St. George Medal.
October Revolution and Civil War(briefly)
1917, September - member of the CPSU. 1917 - was in a hospital in Saratov, then moved to Nikolaevsk, where in December 1917 he was appointed commander of the 138th reserve infantry regiment, and in January 1918 he was appointed commissar of internal affairs of the Nikolaev district.
Beginning of 1918 - Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev formed a Red Guard detachment and was engaged in suppressing kulak-Socialist Revolutionary uprisings in Nikolaevsky district. 1918, May - commanded a brigade in combat operations against the Ural White Cossacks and White Czechs. 1918, September - head of the 2nd Nikolaev Division.
1918, November - Vasily Ivanovich is sent to study at the General Staff Academy, where he was until January 1919. Then, at his personal request, he was sent to the front and appointed to the 4th Army as commander of the Special Alexandrovo-Gai Brigade.
1919, April - commander of the 25th Infantry Division, which distinguished itself in the Buguruslan, Belebeevsk and Ufa operations during the counter-offensive of the Eastern Front against Kolchak's troops.
1919, July 11 - the 25th division under the command of the legendary military leader liberated Uralsk.
Death of Chapaev
Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev died during a surprise attack by the White Guards on the headquarters of the 25th division. This happened on September 5, 1919 in the city of Lbischensk, West Kazakhstan region, which was in the rear and well guarded. It seemed to the Chapaevites that nothing could threaten them there.
Chapaev's division was separated from the main forces of the Red Army and suffered heavy losses. In addition to 2 thousand Chapaevites, there were almost as many mobilized peasants in the city, but they did not have any weapons. The commander could count on 600 bayonets. The main forces of the division were located 40–70 km from the city.
All these facts led to the fact that the unexpected attack of the Cossack detachment in the early morning of September 5 turned out to be disastrous for the Chapaevites. Most of the famous division was shot or captured. Only a few Red Guards managed to make their way to the banks of the Ural River, including Chapaev, who was fatally wounded in the stomach.
Vasily Ivanovich was hastily buried in the coastal sand, covered with reeds so that the Cossacks could not find the grave and violate the body. Such information was subsequently confirmed by other participants in the events. However, the legend embodied in books and films that the division commander dies in the stormy waves of the Ural River turned out to be more tenacious.
Description of contemporaries
Fyodor Novitsky, chief of staff of the 4th Army, described Vasily Ivanovich as follows: “A man of about 30, of average height, thin, clean-shaven, and neatly combed, slowly and very respectfully entered the office. The division commander was dressed not only neatly, but also elegantly: a beautifully tailored overcoat made of good quality material, a gray sheepskin hat with a gold braid on top, and smart reindeer burka boots with fur on the outside. He wore a Caucasian-style saber, with rich silver trim, and a Mauser pistol neatly fitted to his side.
Personal life
The legendary division commander was an eternal loser on the personal front. His first wife, the bourgeois Pelageya Metlina, whom Vasily Ivanovich’s parents did not like, calling him “a city white-handed woman,” bore him three children, but did not wait for her husband from the front - she went to a neighbor. Chapaev took this betrayal seriously - he loved his wife. Chapaev often repeated to his daughter Claudia: “Oh, how beautiful you are. She looks like her mother."
The second companion of the division commander, although already a civilian, was also called Pelageya. She was the widow of his comrade in arms, Pyotr Kamishkertsev, to whom Vasily promised to take care of his family. At first he sent her benefits, then they decided to move in together. However, history repeated itself - during the absence of her husband, Pelageya began an affair with a certain Georgy Zhivolozhinov. Once Chapaev caught them together and almost killed the unlucky lover.
When the passions subsided, Pelageya decided to make peace, taking the children, she went to her husband’s headquarters. The children were allowed to see their father, but she was not there. They say that after this she took revenge on Chapaev by informing the whites about the small number of forces stationed in Lbischensk.
In the last year of his life, Chapaev also had affairs with a certain Tanka-Cossack woman (the daughter of a Cossack colonel, with whom he was forced to separate under moral pressure from the Red Army) and the wife of Commissar Furmanov, Anna Nikitichnaya Steshenko, which led to an acute conflict with Furmanov and was the reason for his recall Furmanov from the division shortly before Chapaev’s death.
Chapaevsky myth
Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev did not immediately become a legend: the death of a division commander during the Civil War was not something exceptional. The Chapaev myth took shape over several years. The first step towards the glorification of the commander of the 25th division was the novel by Dmitry Furmanov, where Vasily Ivanovich was shown as a genius and, despite his simplicity, excessive gullibility and tendency to self-praise, a real folk hero.
The success of the film “Chapayev” was deafening: in 2 years more than 40 million viewers watched it, and Stalin watched it 38 (!) times in a year and a half. The lines at the box office turned into demonstrations.
Name: Vasiliy Chapaev
Age: 32 years
Place of Birth: Budaika village, Chuvashia
A place of death: Lbischensk, Ural region
Activity: Chief of the Red Army
Family status: Was married
Vasily Chapaev - biography
September 5 marks the 97th anniversary of his death Vasily Chapaeva- the most famous and at the same time the most unknown hero of the civil war. His true identity is hidden under a layer of legends created both by official propaganda and the popular imagination.
Legends begin with the very birth of the future division commander. Everywhere they write that he was born on January 28 (old style) 1887 in the family of a Russian peasant Ivan Chapaev. However, his surname does not seem Russian, especially in the “Chepaev” version, as Vasily Ivanovich himself wrote it. In his native village of Budaika, the majority of Chuvash people lived, and today the residents of Chuvashia confidently consider Chapaev-Chepaev as one of their own. True, neighbors argue with them, finding Mordovian or Mari roots in the surname. The hero’s descendants have a different version - his grandfather, while working on a timber rafting site, kept shouting to his comrades “chapay”, that is, “catch on” in the local dialect.
But no matter who Chapaev’s ancestors were, by the time of his birth they had long been Russified, and his uncle even served as a priest. They wanted to direct young Vasya to the spiritual path - he was small in stature, weak and unsuitable for hard peasant labor. Church service provided at least some opportunity to escape from the poverty in which the family lived. Although Ivan Stepanovich was a skilled carpenter, his loved ones constantly subsisted on bread and kvass; out of six children, only three survived.
When Vasya was eight years old, the family moved to the village - now the city - Balakovo, where his father found work in a carpentry artel. An uncle-priest also lived there, to whom Vasya was sent to study. Their relationship did not work out - the nephew did not want to study and, moreover, was not obedient. One winter, in severe frost, his uncle locked him in a cold barn for the night for some other offense. To avoid freezing, the boy somehow got out of the barn and ran home. This is where his spiritual biography ended before it even began.
Chapaev recalled the early years of his biography without any nostalgia: “My childhood was gloomy and difficult. I had to humiliate myself and starve a lot. From an early age I hung around strangers.” He helped his father do carpentry, worked as a sex worker in a tavern, and even walked around with a barrel organ, like Seryozha from Kuprin’s “White Poodle.” Although this may be fiction - Vasily Ivanovich loved to invent all sorts of stories about himself.
For example, he once joked that it stems from a passionate romance between a gypsy tramp and the daughter of the Kazan governor. And since there is little reliable information about Chapaev’s life before the Red Army - he did not have time to tell his children anything, there were no other relatives left, this fiction ended up in his biography, written by Chapaev’s commissar Dmitry Furmanov.
At the age of twenty, Vasily fell in love with the beautiful Pelageya Metlina. By that time, the Chapaev family had gotten out of poverty, Vasya dressed up and easily charmed the girl, who had just turned sixteen. The wedding had barely taken place when, in the fall of 1908, the newlywed joined the army. He liked military science, but he didn’t like marching in formation and punching officers. Chapaev, with his proud and independent disposition, did not wait until the end of his service and was demobilized due to illness. Peace began family life- he worked as a carpenter, and his wife gave birth to children one after another: Alexander, Claudia, Arkady.
As soon as the last one was born in 1914, Vasily Ivanovich was again recruited as a soldier - the world war began. During two years of fighting in Galicia, he rose from private to sergeant major and was awarded the St. George Medal and four soldiers' Crosses of St. George, which spoke of extreme courage. By the way, he served in the infantry, he was never a dashing rider - unlike Chapaev from the film of the same name - and after being wounded he could not ride a horse at all. In Galicia, Chapaev was wounded three times, in last time so hard that after a long treatment he was sent to serve in the rear, in his native Volga region.
The return home was not joyful. While Chapaev was fighting, Pelageya got along with the conductor and left with him, leaving her husband and three children. According to legend, Vasily ran for a long time after her cart, begged to stay, even cried, but the beauty firmly decided that an important railway rank suited her more than the heroic, but poor and also wounded Chapaev. Pelageya, however, did not live long with her new husband - she died of typhus. And Vasily Ivanovich married again, keeping his word to his fallen comrade Pyotr Kameshkertsev. His widow, also Pelageya, but middle-aged and ugly, became the hero’s new companion and took his children into the house in addition to her three.
After the revolution of 1917 in the city of Nikolaevsk, where Chapaev was transferred to serve, the soldiers of the 138th reserve regiment chose him as regimental commander. Thanks to his efforts, the regiment did not go home, like many others, but almost in full force joined the Red Army.
The Chapaevsky regiment found a job in May 1918, when civil war broke out in Russia. The rebel Czechoslovaks, in alliance with local White Guards, captured the entire east of the country and sought to cut the Volga artery, through which grain was delivered to the center. In the cities of the Volga region, the whites staged riots: one of them took the life of Chapaev’s brother, Grigory, the Balakovo military commissar. Chapaev took all the money from another brother, Mikhail, who owned a shop and accumulated considerable capital, using it to equip his regiment.
Having distinguished himself in heavy battles with the Ural Cossacks, who sided with the whites, Chapaev was chosen by the fighters as commander of the Nikolaev division. By that time, such elections were prohibited in the Red Army, and an angry telegram was sent down from above: Chapaev could not command the division because “he does not have the appropriate training, is infected with a delusion of autocracy, and does not carry out military orders exactly.”
However, the removal of a popular commander could turn into a riot. And then the staff strategists sent Chapaev with his division against the three times superior forces of the Samara “constituent” - it seemed to certain death. However, the division commander came up with a cunning plan to lure the enemy into a trap, and completely defeated him. Samara was soon taken, and the Whites retreated to the steppes between the Volga and the Urals, where Chapaev chased them until November.
This month, the capable commander was sent to study in Moscow, at the General Staff Academy. Upon admission, he filled out the following form:
“Are you an active party member? What was your activity like?
I belong. Formed 7 regiments of the Red Army.
What awards do you have?
Knight of St. George 4 degrees. The watch was handed over.
Which general education got?
Self-Taught."
Having recognized Chapaev as “almost illiterate,” he was nevertheless accepted as “having revolutionary combat experience.” The questionnaire data is supplemented by an anonymous description of the division commander, preserved in the Cheboksary Memorial Museum: “He was not brought up and did not have self-control in dealing with people. He was often rude and cruel... He was a weak politician, but he was a real revolutionary, an excellent communard in life and a noble, selfless fighter for communism... There were times when he could seem frivolous...”
Basically. Chapaev was the same partisan commander as Father Makhno, and he was uncomfortable at the academy. When some military expert is in class military history sarcastically asked if he knew the Rhine River. Chapaev, who fought in Europe during the German War, nevertheless answered boldly: “Why the hell do I need your Rhine? It’s on Solyanka that I have to know every bump, because we’re fighting the Cossacks there.”
After several similar skirmishes, Vasily Ivanovich asked to be sent back to the front. The army authorities complied with the request, but in a strange way - Chapaev had to create a new division literally from scratch. In a dispatch to Trotsky, he was indignant: “I bring to your attention, I am exhausted... You appointed me head of the division, but instead of the division you gave me a disheveled brigade with only 1000 bayonets... They don’t give me rifles, there are no overcoats, people are undressed " And yet, in a short time, he managed to create a division of 14 thousand bayonets and inflict a heavy defeat on Kolchak’s army, defeating its most combat-ready units, consisting of Izhevsk workers.
It was at this time, in March 1919, that a new commissar appeared in the 25th Chapaev Division - Dmitry Furmanov. This dropout student was four years younger than Chapaev and dreamed of a literary career. This is how he describes their meeting:
“Early in March, at about 5-6 o’clock, they knocked on my door. I go out:
I am Chapaev, hello!
In front of me stood an ordinary man, lean, of average height, apparently of little strength, with thin, almost feminine hands. Thin dark brown hair stuck to his forehead; a short nervous thin nose, thin eyebrows in a chain, thin lips, shiny clean teeth, a shaved chin, a lush sergeant-major mustache. Eyes... light blue, almost green. The face is matte-clean and fresh.”
In the novel “Chapaev,” which Furmanov published in 1923, Chapaev generally appears at first as an unattractive character and, moreover, a real savage in the ideological sense - he spoke “for the Bolsheviks, but against the communists.” However, under the influence of Furmanov, by the end of the novel he becomes a convinced party member. In reality, the division commander never joined the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), not trusting the party leadership too much, and it seems that these feelings were mutual - the same Trotsky saw in Chapaev a stubborn supporter of the “partisanism” he hated and, if necessary, could well have shot him, as commander of the Second Cavalry Army of Mironov.
Chapaev’s relationship with Furmanov was also not as warm as the latter tried to show. The reason for this is the lyrical story at the headquarters of the 25th, which became known from Furman’s diaries, which were recently declassified. It turned out that the division commander began to quite openly court the commissar’s wife, Anna Steshenko, a young and pretty failed actress. By that time, Vasily Chapaev’s second wife had also left him: she cheated on the division commander with a supply officer. Having once arrived home on leave, Vasily Ivanovich found the lovers in bed and, according to one version, drove them both under the bed with shots over their heads.
On the other hand, he simply turned around and went back to the front. After this, he flatly refused to see the traitor, although later she came to his regiment to make peace, taking with her Chapaev’s youngest son, Arkady. I thought I would pacify my husband’s anger with this - he adored children, during a short rest he played tag with them and made toys. As a result, Chapaev took the children, giving them to be raised by some widow, and divorced his treacherous wife. Later, a rumor spread that she was the culprit in Chapaev’s death, since she had betrayed him to the Cossacks. Under the weight of suspicion, Pelageya Kameshkertseva went crazy and died in a hospital.
Having become a bachelor, Chapaev turned his feelings to Furmanov’s wife. Having seen his letters with the signature “Chapaev, who loves you,” the commissioner, in turn, wrote an angry letter to the division commander, in which he called him “a dirty, depraved little man”: “There is nothing to be jealous of a low person, and I, of course, was not jealous of her, but I was I am deeply outraged by the impudent courtship and constant pestering that Anna Nikitichna repeatedly told me about.”
Chapaev’s reaction is unknown, but soon Furmanov sent a complaint to the front commander Frunze about the “offensive actions” of the division commander, “reaching assault.” As a result, Frunze allowed him and his wife to leave the division, which saved Furmanov’s life - a month later Chapaev, along with his entire staff and the new commissar Baturin, died.
In June 1919, the Chapaevites took Ufa, and the division commander himself was wounded in the head while crossing the high-water Belaya River. The Kolchak garrison of thousands fled, abandoning ammunition warehouses. The secret of Chapaev’s victories was speed, pressure and “little tricks” people's war. For example, near Ufa, he is said to have driven a herd of cattle towards the enemy, raising clouds of dust.
Deciding that Chapaev had a huge army, the whites began to flee. It is possible, however, that this is a myth - the same as those from time immemorial that have been told about Alexander the Great or. It’s not without reason that even before the popular cult in the Volga region, fairy tales were written about Chapaev - “Chapai flies into battle in a black cloak, they shoot at him, but he doesn’t care. After the battle, he shakes his cloak - and from there all the bullets come out intact.”
Another tale is that Chapaev invented the cart. In fact, this innovation first appeared in peasant army, from which the Reds borrowed. Vasily Ivanovich quickly realized the advantages of a cart with a machine gun, although he himself preferred cars. Chapaev had a scarlet Stever confiscated from some bourgeois, a blue Packard and a miracle of technology - a yellow high-speed Ford that reached speeds of up to 50 km per hour. Having installed on it the same machine gun as on the cart, the division commander used to almost single-handedly knock out the enemy from captured villages.
After the capture of Ufa, Chapaev's division headed south, trying to break through to the Caspian Sea. The division headquarters with a small garrison (up to 2000 soldiers) remained in the town of Lbischensk; the remaining units went forward. On the night of September 5, 1919, a Cossack detachment under the command of General Borodin quietly crept up to the city and surrounded it. The Cossacks not only knew that the hated Chapai was in Lbischensk, but also had a good idea of the balance of power of the Reds. Moreover, the horse patrols that usually guarded the headquarters were for some reason removed, and the division's airplanes, conducting aerial reconnaissance, turned out to be faulty. This suggests a betrayal that was not the work of the ill-fated Pelageya, but of one of the staff members - former officers.
It seems that Chapaev still did not overcome all his “frivolous” qualities - in a sober state, he and his assistants would hardly have missed the approach of the enemy. Waking up from the shooting, they rushed to the river in their underwear, shooting back as they went. The Cossacks fired after. Chapaev was wounded in the arm (according to another version, in the stomach). Three fighters took him down a sandy cliff to the river. Furmanov briefly described what happened next, according to eyewitness accounts: “All four rushed in and swam. Two were killed at the same moment, as soon as they touched the water. The two were swimming, they were already close to the shore - and at that moment a predatory bullet hit Chapaev in the head. When the companion, who had crawled into the sedge, looked back, there was no one behind: Chapaev drowned in the waves of the Urals...”
But there is another version: in the 60s, Chapaev’s daughter received a letter from Hungarian soldiers who fought in the 25th division. The letter said that the Hungarians transported the wounded Chapaev across the river on a raft, but on the shore he died from loss of blood and was buried there. Attempts to find the grave led nowhere - the Urals had changed its course by that time, and the bank opposite Lbischensk was flooded.
Recently an even more sensational version appeared - Chapaev was captured, went over to the side of the whites and died in exile. There is no confirmation of this version, although the division commander could indeed have been captured. In any case, the newspaper “Krasnoyarsky Rabochiy” reported on March 9, 1926 that “Kolchak’s officer Trofimov-Mirsky was arrested in Penza, who admitted that he killed in 1919 the head of the division, Chapaev, who was captured and enjoyed legendary fame.”
Vasily Ivanovich died at 32 years old. Without a doubt, he could have become one of the prominent commanders of the Red Army - and, most likely, would have died in 1937, like his comrade-in-arms and first biographer Ivan Kutyakov, like many other Chapaevites. But it turned out differently - Chapaev, who fell at the hands of his enemies, took a prominent place in the pantheon of Soviet heroes, from where many more significant figures were erased. The heroic legend began with Furmanov's novel. “Chapaev” became the first big work of the commissar who went into literature. It was followed by the novel “Mutiny” about the anti-Soviet uprising in Semirechye - Furmanov also observed it personally. In March 1926, the writer's career was cut short by sudden death from meningitis.
The writer's widow, Anna Steshenko-Furmanova, fulfilled her dream by becoming the director of the theater (in the Chapaev division she headed the cultural and educational part). Out of love either for her husband or for Chapaev, she decided to bring the story of the legendary division commander to life on stage, but in the end the play she conceived turned into a film script, published in 1933 in the magazine “Literary Contemporary”.
Soon, the young filmmakers with the same names, Georgy and Sergey Vasiliev, decided to film a film based on the script. Already on initial stage During the work on the film, Stalin intervened in the process, always keeping film production under his personal control. Through the film bosses, he conveyed a wish to the directors of “Chapaev”: to complement the picture with a love line, introducing into it a young fighter and a girl from the people - “a kind of pretty machine gunner.”
The desired fighter became a glimpse of Petka Furmanov - "Little thin Black Mazik." There was also a “machine gunner” - Maria Popova, who actually served as a nurse in the Chapaev division. In one of the battles, a wounded machine gunner forced her to lie down behind the Maxim trigger: “Press it, otherwise I’ll shoot you!” The lines stopped the Whites' attack, and after the battle the girl received a gold watch from the division commander's hands. True, Maria’s combat experience was limited to this. Anna Furmanova didn’t have this either, but she gave the heroine of the film her name - and that’s how Anka the Machine Gunner appeared.
This saved Anna Nikitichna in 1937, when her second husband, the red commander Lajos Gavro, the “Hungarian Chapaev,” was shot. Maria Popova was also lucky - after seeing Anka in the cinema, a pleased Stalin helped her prototype make a career. Maria Andreevna became a diplomat, worked in Europe for a long time, and along the way wrote a famous song:
Chapaev the hero was walking around the Urals.
He was eager to fight with his enemies like a falcon...
Go ahead, comrades, don’t dare retreat.
Chapaevites bravely got used to dying!
They say that shortly before Maria Popova's death in 1981, a whole delegation of nurses came to her hospital to ask if she loved Petka. “Of course,” she answered, although in reality it was unlikely that anything connected her with Pyotr Isaev. After all, he was not a boy-guarantor, but a regiment commander, an employee of the Chapaev headquarters. And he died, as they say, not while crossing the Urals with his commander, but a year later. They say that on the anniversary of Chapaev’s death, he got drunk half to death, wandered to the shore of the Urals, and exclaimed: “I didn’t save Chapai!” - and shot himself in the temple. Of course, this is also a legend - it seems that literally everything that surrounded Vasily Ivanovich became legendary.
In the film, Petka was played by Leonid Kmit, who remained “an actor of one role,” like Boris Blinov - Furmanov. And Boris Babochkin, who played a lot in the theater, was first and foremost Chapaev for everyone. Participants in the Civil War, including Vasily Ivanovich’s friends, noted his 100% fit into the image. By the way, at first Vasily Vanin was appointed to the role of Chapaev, and 30-year-old Babochkin was to play Petka. They say that it was the same Anna Furmanova who insisted on the “castling”, who decided that Babochkin was more like her hero.
The directors agreed and generally hedged their bets as best they could. In case of accusations of excessive tragedy, there was another, optimistic ending - in a beautiful apple orchard, Anka plays with the children, Petka, already the division commander, approaches them. Chapaev’s voice is heard behind the scenes: “Get married, you’ll work together. The war will end, life will be wonderful. Do you know what life will be like? There’s no need to die!”
As a result, this suspense was avoided, and the film by the Vasilyev brothers, released in November 1934, became the first Soviet blockbuster - huge queues lined up at the Udarnik cinema, where it was shown. Entire factories marched there in columns, carrying the slogans “We are going to see Chapaev.” The film received high awards not only at the First Moscow Film Festival in 1935, but also in Paris and New York. The directors and Babochkin received the Stalin Prize, the actress Varvara Myasnikova, who played Anna, received the Order of the Red Banner of Labor.
Stalin himself watched the film thirty times, not much different from the boys of the 30s - they entered the cinema halls over and over again, hoping that someday Chapai would emerge. Interestingly, this is what ultimately happened - in 1941, in one of the propaganda film collections, Boris Babochkin, famous for his role as Chapaev, emerged unharmed from the waves of the Urals and set off, calling soldiers behind him, to beat the Nazis. Few people saw this movie, but the rumor about the miraculous resurrection finally cemented the myth about the hero.
Chapaev's popularity was great even before the film, but after it it turned into a real cult. The city was named after the division commander. Samara region, dozens of collective farms, hundreds of streets. His memorial museums appeared in Pugachev (formerly Nikolaevsk). Lbischensk, the village of Krasny Yar, and later in Cheboksary, within the city limits of which was the village of Budaika. As for the 25th division, it received the name Chapaev immediately after the death of its commander and still bears it.
The nationwide popularity also affected Chapaev’s children. His senior commander, Alexander, became an artillery officer, went through the war, and rose to the rank of major general. The younger one, Arkady, went into aviation, was a friend of Chkalov and, like him, died before the war while testing a new fighter. The faithful keeper of her father’s memory was her daughter Claudia, who, after the death of her parents, almost died of hunger and wandered around orphanages, but the title of daughter of a hero helped her make a party career. By the way, neither Klavdia Vasilievna nor her descendants tried to fight the anecdotes about Chapaev that passed from mouth to mouth (and now published many times). And this is understandable: in most jokes Chapai appears as a rude, simple-minded, but very likeable person. The same as the hero of the novel, film and all official myth.
130 years ago, on February 9, 1887, the future hero of the Civil War, people's commander Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev, was born. Vasily Chapaev fought heroically during the First World War, and during the Civil War he became a legendary figure, a self-taught man who rose to high command positions due to his own abilities in the absence of special military education. He became a real legend when not only official myths, but also artistic fiction firmly overshadowed the real historical figure.
Chapaev was born on January 28 (February 9), 1887 in the village of Budaika in Chuvashia. The Chapaevs' ancestors lived here for a long time. He was the sixth child in a poor Russian peasant family. The child was weak and premature, but his grandmother delivered him. His father, Ivan Stepanovich, was a carpenter by profession, had a small plot of land, but his bread was never enough, and therefore he worked as a cab driver in Cheboksary. Grandfather, Stepan Gavrilovich, was written as Gavrilov in the documents. And the surname Chapaev came from the nickname - “chapai, chapai, chain” (“take”).
In search of a better life, the Chapaev family moved to the village of Balakovo, Nikolaev district, Samara province. Since childhood, Vasily worked a lot, worked as a sex worker in a tea shop, as an assistant to an organ grinder, a merchant, and helped his father in carpentry. Ivan Stepanovich enrolled his son in a local parochial school, the patron of which was his wealthy cousin. There were already priests in the Chapaev family, and the parents wanted Vasily to become a clergyman, but life decreed otherwise. At church school, Vasily learned to write and read syllables. One day he was punished for a crime - Vasily was put in a cold winter punishment cell in only his underwear. Realizing an hour later that he was freezing, the child broke the window and jumped from the height of the third floor, breaking his arms and legs. Thus ended Chapaev’s studies.
In the fall of 1908, Vasily was drafted into the army and sent to Kyiv. But already in the spring of the next year, apparently due to illness, Chapaev was transferred from the army to the reserve and transferred to first-class militia warriors. Before the First World War he worked as a carpenter. In 1909, Vasily Ivanovich married Pelageya Nikanorovna Metlina, the daughter of a priest. They lived together for 6 years and had three children. From 1912 to 1914, Chapaev and his family lived in the city of Melekess (now Dimitrovgrad, Ulyanovsk region).
It is worth noting that Vasily Ivanovich’s family life did not work out. Pelageya, when Vasily went to the front, went with the children to a neighbor. At the beginning of 1917, Chapaev went to his native place and intended to divorce Pelageya, but was satisfied with taking the children from her and returning them to their parents’ house. Soon after this, he became friends with Pelageya Kamishkertseva, the widow of Pyotr Kamishkertsev, a friend of Chapaev, who died of a wound during the fighting in the Carpathians (Chapaev and Kamishkertsev promised each other that if one of the two was killed, the survivor would take care of his friend’s family). However, Kamishkertseva also cheated on Chapaeva. This circumstance was revealed shortly before Chapaev’s death and dealt him a strong moral blow. In the last year of his life, Chapaev also had an affair with the wife of Commissar Furmanov, Anna (there is an opinion that it was she who became the prototype of Anka the Machine Gunner), which led to an acute conflict with Furmanov. Furmanov wrote denunciations against Chapaev, but later admitted in his diaries that he was simply jealous of the legendary division commander.
At the beginning of the war, on September 20, 1914, Chapaev was called up for military service and sent to the 159th reserve infantry regiment in the city of Atkarsk. In January 1915, he went to the front as part of the 326th Belgorai Infantry Regiment of the 82nd Infantry Division from the 9th Army of the Southwestern Front. Was injured. In July 1915 he graduated from the training team, received the rank of junior non-commissioned officer, and in October - senior officer. Participated in the Brusilov breakthrough. He finished the war with the rank of sergeant major. He fought well, was wounded and shell-shocked several times, and for his bravery was awarded the St. George Medal and soldiers' St. George Crosses of three degrees. Thus, Chapaev was one of those soldiers and non-commissioned officers of the tsarist imperial army who went through the most severe school of the First World War and soon became the core of the Red Army.
Civil War
I met the February revolution in a hospital in Saratov. On September 28, 1917 he joined the RSDLP(b). He was elected commander of the 138th reserve infantry regiment stationed in Nikolaevsk. On December 18, the district congress of Soviets elected him military commissar of the Nikolaev district. Organized the district Red Guard of 14 detachments. He took part in the campaign against General Kaledin (near Tsaritsyn), then in the spring of 1918 in the campaign of the Special Army to Uralsk. On his initiative, on May 25, a decision was made to reorganize the Red Guard detachments into two Red Army regiments: named after Stepan Razin and named after Pugachev, united into the Pugachev brigade under the command of Vasily Chapaev. Later he participated in battles with the Czechoslovaks and the People's Army, from whom Nikolaevsk was recaptured, renamed Pugachev.
On September 19, 1918, he was appointed commander of the 2nd Nikolaev Division. In battles with the Whites, Cossacks and Czech interventionists, Chapaev showed himself to be a strong commander and an excellent tactician, skillfully assessing the situation and suggesting optimal solution, as well as a personally brave man who enjoyed the authority and love of the fighters. During this period, Chapaev repeatedly personally led troops into attack. According to the temporary commander of the 4th Soviet army of the former General Staff, Major General A. A. Baltiysky, Chapaev’s “lack of general military education affects the technique of command and control and the lack of breadth to cover military affairs. Full of initiative, but uses it unbalancedly due to the lack of military education. However, Comrade Chapaev clearly identifies all the data on the basis of which, with appropriate military education, both technology and a justified military scope will undoubtedly appear. The desire to receive a military education in order to get out of the state of “military darkness”, and then again join the ranks of the battle front. You can be sure that Comrade Chapaev’s natural talents, combined with military education, will give bright results.”
In November 1918, Chapaev was sent to the newly created Academy of the General Staff of the Red Army in Moscow to improve his education. He stayed at the Academy until February 1919, then he left his studies without permission and returned to the front. “Studying at the academy is a good thing and very important, but it’s a shame and a pity that the White Guards are being beaten without us,” said the red commander. Chapaev noted about the accounting: “I haven’t read about Hannibal before, but I see that he was an experienced commander. But I disagree with his actions in many ways. He made many unnecessary changes in sight of the enemy and thereby revealed his plan to him, was slow in his actions and did not show persistence in order to completely defeat the enemy. I had an incident similar to the situation during the Battle of Cannes. This was in August, on the N. River. We let up to two white regiments with artillery through the bridge to our bank, gave them the opportunity to stretch out along the road, and then opened hurricane artillery fire on the bridge and rushed into the attack from all sides. The stunned enemy did not have time to come to his senses before he was surrounded and almost completely destroyed. His remnants rushed to the destroyed bridge and were forced to rush into the river, where most of them drowned. 6 guns, 40 machine guns and 600 prisoners fell into our hands. We achieved these successes thanks to the swiftness and surprise of our attack.”
Chapaev was appointed commissioner of internal affairs of the Nikolaev district. From May 1919 - brigade commander of the Special Aleksandrovo-Gai Brigade, from June - 25th Infantry Division. The division acted against the main forces of the Whites, participated in repelling the spring offensive of the armies of Admiral A.V. Kolchak, and participated in the Buguruslan, Belebey and Ufa operations. These operations predetermined the crossing of the Ural ridge by the Red troops and the defeat of Kolchak’s army. In these operations, Chapaev's division acted on enemy messages and carried out detours. Maneuver tactics became a feature of Chapaev and his division. Even white commanders singled out Chapaev and noted his organizational skills. A major success was the crossing of the Belaya River, which led to the capture of Ufa on June 9, 1919 and the further retreat of the White troops. Then Chapaev, who was on the front line, was wounded in the head, but remained in the ranks. For military distinction he was awarded the highest award Soviet Russia- the Order of the Red Banner, and his division was awarded the honorary revolutionary Red Banner.
Chapaev loved his fighters, and they paid him the same. His division was considered one of the best on the Eastern Front. In many ways, he was precisely the people's leader, at the same time possessing a real gift for leadership, enormous energy and initiative that infected those around him. Vasily Ivanovich was a commander who strived to constantly learn in practice, directly during battles, a simple and cunning man at the same time (this was the quality of a true representative of the people). Chapaev knew very well the combat area, located on the far-from-center right flank of the Eastern Front.
After the Ufa operation, Chapaev's division was again transferred to the front against the Ural Cossacks. It was necessary to operate in the steppe area, far from communications, with the superiority of the Cossacks in the cavalry. The struggle here was accompanied by mutual bitterness and uncompromising confrontation. Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev died on September 5, 1919 as a result of a deep raid by the Cossack detachment of Colonel N.N. Borodin, which culminated in an unexpected attack on the city of Lbischensk, located in the deep rear, where the headquarters of the 25th division was located. Chapaev's division, separated from the rear and suffering heavy losses, settled down to rest in the Lbischensk area at the beginning of September. Moreover, in Lbischensk itself the division headquarters, supply department, tribunal, revolutionary committee and other divisional institutions were located.
The main forces of the division were removed from the city. The command of the White Ural Army decided to launch a raid on Lbischensk. On the evening of August 31, a selected detachment under the command of Colonel Nikolai Borodin left the village of Kalyonoy. On September 4, Borodin’s detachment secretly approached the city and hid in the reeds in the backwaters of the Urals. Air reconnaissance did not report this to Chapaev, although it could not have detected the enemy. It is believed that due to the fact that the pilots sympathized with the whites (after the defeat, they went over to the side of the whites).
At dawn on September 5, the Cossacks attacked Lbischensk. A few hours later the battle was over. Most of the Red Army soldiers were not ready for the attack, panicked, were surrounded and surrendered. It ended in a massacre, all the prisoners were killed - in batches of 100-200 people on the banks of the Urals. Only a small part was able to break through to the river. Among them was Vasily Chapaev, who gathered a small detachment and organized resistance. According to the testimony of the General Staff of Colonel M.I. Izergin: “Chapaev himself held out the longest with a small detachment, with whom he took refuge in one of the houses on the banks of the Urals, from where he had to survive with artillery fire.”
During the battle, Chapaev was seriously wounded in the stomach, he was transported to the other side on a raft. According to the story of Chapaev's eldest son, Alexander, two Hungarian Red Army soldiers put the wounded Chapaev on a raft made from half a gate and ferried across the Ural River. But on the other side it turned out that Chapaev died from loss of blood. The Red Army soldiers buried his body with their hands in the coastal sand and covered it with reeds so that the whites would not find the grave. This story was subsequently confirmed by one of the participants in the events, who in 1962 sent a letter from Hungary to Chapaev’s daughter with detailed description death of the red division commander. The white investigation also confirms these data. According to the words of captured Red Army soldiers, “Chapaev, leading a group of Red Army soldiers towards us, was wounded in the stomach. The wound turned out to be so severe that after that he could no longer lead the battle and was transported on planks across the Urals... he [Chapaev] was already on the Asian side of the river. Ural died from a wound in the stomach.” During this battle, the White commander, Colonel Nikolai Nikolaevich Borodin, also died (he was posthumously promoted to the rank of major general).
There are other versions of Chapaev’s fate. Thanks to Dmitry Furmanov, who served as a commissar in Chapaev’s division and wrote the novel “Chapaev” about him and especially the film “Chapaev,” the version of the death of the wounded Chapaev in the waves of the Urals became popular. This version arose immediately after the death of Chapaev and was, in fact, the fruit of an assumption, based on the fact that Chapaev was seen on the European shore, but he did not swim to the Asian shore, and his body was not found. There is also a version that Chapaev was killed in captivity.
According to one version, Chapaev was eliminated by his own people as a disobedient people’s commander (in modern terms, a “field commander”). Chapaev had a conflict with L. Trotsky. According to this version, the pilots, who were supposed to inform the division commander about the approach of the Whites, were carrying out orders from the high command of the Red Army. The independence of the “red field commander” irritated Trotsky; he saw in Chapaev an anarchist who could disobey orders. Thus, it is possible that Trotsky “ordered” Chapaev. Whites acted as a tool, nothing more. During the battle, Chapaev was simply shot. Using a similar scheme, Trotsky eliminated other Red commanders who, not understanding international intrigues, fought for the common people. A week before Chapaev, the legendary divisional commander Nikolai Shchors was killed in Ukraine. And a few years later, in 1925, the famous Grigory Kotovsky was also shot dead under unclear circumstances. In the same 1925, Mikhail Frunze was killed on the surgical table, also by order of Trotsky’s team.
Chapaev lived a short (died at 32 years old), but bright life. As a result, the legend of the red division commander arose. The country needed a hero whose reputation was not tarnished. People watched this film dozens of times; all Soviet boys dreamed of repeating Chapaev’s feat. Subsequently, Chapaev entered folklore as the hero of many popular jokes. In this mythology, the image of Chapaev was distorted beyond recognition. In particular, according to anecdotes, he is such a cheerful, rollicking person, a drinker. In fact, Vasily Ivanovich did not drink alcohol at all; his favorite drink was tea. The orderly took the samovar with him everywhere. Having arrived at any location, Chapaev immediately started drinking tea and always invited the locals. Thus, his reputation as a very good-natured and hospitable person was established. One more thing. In the film, Chapaev is a dashing horseman, rushing towards the enemy with a saber drawn. In fact, Chapaev did not feel much love for horses. I preferred a car. The legend that has become widespread that Chapaev fought against the famous General V.O. Kappel is also untrue.
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Where did Chapaev die and how did it happen? Unfortunately, there is no clear answer to this question. Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev is a legendary personality of the Civil War. The life of this person, starting from a young age, is filled with mysteries and secrets. Let's try to unravel them based on some historical facts.
The Mystery of Birth
The hero of our story lived only 32 years. But what kind! Where Chapaev died and where he was buried is an unsolved mystery. Why did it happen so? Eyewitnesses of those distant times differ in their testimony.
Ivanovich (1887-1919) - this is how historical reference books present the date of birth and death of the legendary commander.
It’s only a pity that history has preserved more reliable facts about the birth of this man than about his death.
So, Vasily was born on February 9, 1887 in the family of a poor peasant. The very birth of the boy was marked by the mark of death: the midwife who delivered the birth of the mother of a poor family, seeing the premature baby, prophesied his quick death.
The grandmother came out to the stunted and half-dead boy. Despite the disappointing forecasts, she believed that he would pull through. The baby was wrapped in a piece of cloth and warmed near the stove. Thanks to the efforts and prayers of his grandmother, the boy survived.
Childhood
Soon the Chapaev family is in search of better life moves from the village of Budaiki, in Chuvashia, to the village of Balakovo, Nikolaev province.
Things went a little better for the family: Vasily was even sent to study science at the parish educational institution. But the boy was not destined to receive complete education. In a little more than 2 years, he only learned to read and write. The training ended after one incident. The fact is that in parochial schools it was the practice to punish students for misconduct. Chapaev did not escape this fate either. In the cold winter, the boy was sent to a punishment cell with practically no clothes. The guy did not intend to die from the cold, so when it was no longer bearable to endure the cold, he jumped out of the window. The punishment cell was very high - the guy woke up with broken arms and legs. After this incident, Vasily did not go to school anymore. And since education was closed for the boy, his father took him to work, taught him carpentry, and they built buildings together.
Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev, whose biography grew with new and incredible facts every year, was remembered by his contemporaries after another incident. It was like this: during work, when it was necessary to install a cross on the very top of a newly built church, showing courage and skill, Chapaev Jr. took on this task. However, the guy could not resist and fell from a great height. Everyone saw a true miracle in the fact that after the fall Vasily did not have even a small scratch.
In the service of the Fatherland
At the age of 21, Chapaev began military service, which lasted only a year. In 1909 he was fired.
By official version, the reason was the illness of a serviceman: Chapaev was found to have an unofficial reason that was much more serious - Vasily’s brother, Andrei, was executed for speaking out against the tsar. After this, Vasily Chapaev himself began to be considered “unreliable.”
Chapaev Vasily Ivanovich, whose historical portrait emerges as the image of a man prone to bold and decisive actions, once decided to start a family. He got married.
Vasily's chosen one, Pelageya Metlina, was the daughter of a priest, so the elder Chapaev opposed these marriage ties. Despite the ban, the young people got married. Three children were born in this marriage, but the union broke up due to Pelageya’s betrayal.
In 1914, Chapaev was again called to serve. First World War brought him awards: the St. George Medal and the 4th and 3rd degrees.
In addition to awards, soldier-Chapaev received the rank of senior non-commissioned officer. All achievements were gained by him during six months of service.
Chapaev and the Red Army
In July 1917, Vasily Chapaev, having recovered from his injury, joined an infantry regiment whose soldiers supported revolutionary views. Here, after active communication with the Bolsheviks, he joined the ranks of their party.
In December of the same year, the hero of our story becomes commissar of the Red Guard. He suppresses peasant uprisings and goes to study at the General Staff Academy.
For the smart commander, a new assignment will soon arrive - Chapaev is sent to the Eastern Front to fight with Kolchak.
After the successful liberation of Ufa from enemy troops and participation in the military operation to release Uralsk, the headquarters of the 25th division, commanded by Chapaev, was suddenly attacked by the White Guards. According to the official version, Vasily Chapaev died in 1919.
Where did Chapaev die?
There is an answer to this question. The tragic event occurred in Lbischensk, on But historians are still arguing about how the famous commander of the Red Guard died. There are many different legends about the death of Chapaev. A lot of “eyewitnesses” tell their truth. Still, researchers of Chapaev’s life are inclined to believe that he drowned while swimming across the Urals.
This version is based on an investigation conducted by Chapaev’s contemporaries shortly after his death.
The fact that the division commander’s grave does not exist and his remains were not found gave rise to new version that he was saved. When the Civil War ended, rumors began to circulate among the people about the rescue of Chapaev. It was rumored that he, having changed his last name, lived in the Arkhangelsk region. The first version is confirmed by a film that was released on Soviet screens in the 30s of the last century.
Film about Chapaev: myth or reality
In those years, the country needed new revolutionary heroes with an unblemished reputation. Chapaev's feat was exactly what Soviet propaganda felt necessary.
From the film we learn that the headquarters of the division commanded by Chapaev was taken by surprise by the enemies. The advantage was on the side of the White Guards. The Reds fired back, the battle was fierce. The only way to escape and survive was to cross the Urals.
While crossing the river, Chapaev was already wounded in the arm. The next enemy bullet killed him and he drowned. The river where Chapaev died became his burial place.
However, the film, which was admired by all Soviet citizens, caused indignation among Chapaev's descendants. His daughter Claudia, referring to the story of Commissar Baturin, claimed that his comrades took his father to the other side of the river on a raft.
To the question: “Where did Chapaev die?” Baturin answered: “On the bank of the river.” According to him, the body was buried in the coastal sand and disguised by reeds.
Already the great-granddaughter of the red commander initiated the search for her great-grandfather’s grave. However, these plans were not destined to come true. At the place where, according to legend, the grave should have been located, a river now flowed.
Whose testimony was used as the basis for the film script?
How Chapaev died and where, the cornet Belonozhkin told after the end of the war. From his words, it became known that it was he who fired a bullet at the sailing commander. A denunciation was written against the former cornet, he confirmed his version during interrogation, and it was the basis for the film.
Belonozhkin's fate is also shrouded in mystery. He was convicted twice and amnestied the same number of times. He lived to a very old age. He fought during World War II, lost his hearing due to shell shock, and died at the age of 96.
The fact that Chapaev’s “killer” lived to such an old age and died a natural death suggests that representatives of the Soviet government, who took his story as the basis for the film, did not themselves believe in this version.
Version of the old-timers of the village of Lbischenskaya
How Chapaev died, history is silent. We can draw conclusions by referring only to eyewitness accounts, conducting all kinds of investigations and examinations.
The version of the old-timers of the village of Lbischenskaya (now the village of Chapaevo) also has the right to life. The investigation was conducted by Academician A. Cherekaev, and he wrote down the history of the defeat of Chapaev’s division. According to eyewitnesses, the weather on the day of the tragedy was autumn-like cold. The Cossacks drove all the Red Guards to the banks of the Urals, where many soldiers actually threw themselves into the river and drowned.
The victims were due to the fact that the place where Chapaev died is considered enchanted. No one has ever managed to swim across the river there, despite the fact that local daredevils, in honor of the memory of the deceased commissioner, organize such swims every year on the day of his death.
What Cherekaev learned about Chapaev’s fate was that he was caught, and after interrogation, under guard, he was sent to Guryev to Ataman Tolstov. This is where Chapaev's trail ends.
Where is the truth?
The fact that Chapaev’s death is indeed shrouded in mystery is an absolute fact. And researchers of the legendary division commander’s life have yet to find out the answer to this question.
It is noteworthy that the newspapers did not report Chapaev’s death at all. Although then the death of such famous person was considered an event that was learned about from the newspapers.
They began to talk about Chapaev's death after the release of the famous film. All the eyewitnesses of his death spoke at almost the same time - after 1935, in other words, after the film was shown.
In the encyclopedia “Civil War and Military Intervention in the USSR” the place where Chapaev died is also not indicated. The official, generalized version is indicated - near Lbischensk.
Let's hope that with the power of new research, this story will one day become clearer.