Many people are well aware of the wonderful Russian actor Georgy Zhzhenov. Biography, his family, which he created four times in his long life, are the subject of the proposed article. Zhzhenov had to endure many hardships, but he endured them with honor and dignity.
Origins and parents
Where was Georgy Zhzhenov born? His biography began in Petrograd in 1915 in the family of an artisan baker. His father Stepan Filippovich married Georgy's mother Maria Fedorovna, already a widower and father of five daughters. I just went to my native Tver village, looked after a girl for my wife and took me to St. Petersburg, to raise existing children and give birth to new ones, of which as many as six people were added. The father did not particularly bother with the upbringing of children, he was friends with the "green serpent". During the years of the First World War and the Civil War, the post-war devastation and the first years of Soviet power, it was the mother, a simple Russian woman, whom Georgy Zhzhenov himself remembered with special warmth until the last days of his long life.
Youth and the beginning of an acting career
But despite all the difficulties, the family lived, the older children grew up and left to live an independent life. George's older brother Boris, with whom he was very friendly, entered the university in the early 30s, and he himself, being a very strong and athletic young man, after graduating from an eight-year school in 1930, entered the circus variety school in the acrobatic department. A year later, a circus actor Georgy Zhzhenov appeared, whose biography began in the arena of the Leningrad Circus in the acrobatic duet "2-Georges-2". His partner in performances was one of his fellow students, his namesake, hence the name of the duet.
Georgy Zhzhenov, whose biography subsequently made many sharp turns, always recalled his circus origins with gratitude. Until the end of his days, he maintained an excellent physical shape (thanks to her, he probably survived in Kolyma), and even in his eighties he performed acrobatic exercises.
Coming to cinema
It was in the circus that the "film people" from Lenfilm saw him and invited him to the main role in the film "The Hero's Mistake" (1932). He leaves the circus and enters the Leningrad College of Performing Arts for a course taught by the famous Soviet film director Sergei Gerasimov. In parallel, he continues to act in films. His filmography before his arrest in 1938 already included five films, including the super-popular Soviet film hit "Chapaev", in which Zhzhenov played Tereshka, the orderly of Commissar Furmanov.
How did Georgy Zhzhenov live then?His biography at the beginning of his life was similar to millions of other biographies of young Soviet guys. It would seem that the future promises him excellent prospects. However, the young film actor had every reason to fear for his fate, and his fears were soon confirmed.
The origins of the life drama of Georgy Zhzhenov
In December 1934, the head of the regional organization of the Communists was killed in Leningrad, in fact, the second person in the country after Stalin and his competitor (at least, so many then thought) Sergei Kirov. This murder was the pretext for Stalin and his entourage to start the so-called great terror in the country. Charges were brought against many former prominent party and government officials. But gradually, among the victims of the criminal practices of the Stalinist repressive organs, there were more and more ordinary people who had nothing to do with politics. So among them was a student of Leningrad University Boris Zhzhenov. The story that happened to him very clearly characterizes the atmosphere of hysteria and general suspicion in which Soviet society found itself in the second half of the thirties.
The fact is that the students of Leningrad State University were obliged to walk through the streets of Leningrad in a funeral procession. Boris, on the other hand, asked the secretary of the Komsomol organization of his course to release him from this event, since he simply did not have normal shoes to withstand hours of standing and walking in the cold (he hurried to the university in his completely broken shoes). This requestregarded as a manifestation of unwillingness to honor the memory of the deceased communist leader, and therefore a hostile attitude towards the Soviet government itself. The following year, Boris was arrested, then sentenced to be sent to the Vorkuta camps, and the entire Zhzhenov family was expelled from Leningrad. George was interceded by his friends, "filmmakers", in particular, Sergei Gerasimov himself. He had just started shooting the film Komsomolsk, in which Georgy Zhzhenov was also involved. The biography of the latter as a free man lasted for another two years, but the repressive authorities were simply looking for an excuse to bring him a new charge.
First arrest
In the summer of 1938, a group of film actors, which included Zhzhenov, was traveling by train to shoot in Komsomolsk-on-Amur. Their companion turned out to be an American diplomat on his way to Vladivostok. There was a usual contact between fellow travelers on the way (after all, they traveled for several days). But since all foreign diplomats in the USSR were continuously monitored at that time, a corresponding report was placed on a certain table in the central Moscow apparatus of the NKVD, which listed all the actors who had contact with a foreigner. Since Zhzhenov at that time was already a relative of the convicted "enemy of the people", he turned out to be the best candidate for accusation of espionage against the USSR. Soon he was arrested in Leningrad at his apartment, where he lived with his first wife, Evgenia, who was his classmate at the College of Performing Arts.
Two and a half years in the Cross
During the investigation, Zhzhenov went through all the circles of hell of Stalin's dungeons. Everything happened to him that is now widely known from the memoirs of other martyrs who went the same way. Endless interrogations “with prejudice”, beatings, sleep deprivation, when the defendant was put on the so-called investigative conveyor, which consists in a week-long (or more, whoever can stand it) interrogation by several successive investigators. According to Zhzhenov himself, when he fell to the floor, losing consciousness, the investigator lifted him to his feet by the hair, and the interrogation continued.
Many could not stand it, signed absurd accusations, slandered other people, that is, they did exactly what the Stalinist executioners needed to justify their actions. Zhzhenov's cellmate, who made such a deal with his conscience, later could not stand her remorse and committed suicide (opened the veins under the covers).
But Georgy Zhzhenov, whose biography will be filled with such trials more than once, withstood all the bullying and torture, refused to admit the charge of espionage, and thereby saved his life. After all, all those who confessed, as a rule, were sentenced to death. Zhzhenov, on the other hand, was given 5 years in the camps, which, according to the "good" Stalinist tradition, stretched out for two whole decades. What could Georgy Zhzhenov hope for when going to Siberia? Biography, family, children that he could have had - all this was now becoming inaccessible to him. He said goodbye to his wife and asked her not to wait for his return.
Kolyma, Kolyma, wonderful planet, ten months of winter, the rest is summer
When the ship, the hold of which was filled with hundreds of “convicts”, delivered Zhzhenov to Nagaev Bay in Magadan, he was 25 years old. Ahead were five years of camps, hard exhausting work, hunger, cold, daily struggle for survival. After all, he endured the most difficult war years in Kolyma, when the already meager supply was cut to a minimum. Entire camps with hundreds of “convicts” died out of hunger. Zhzhenov told about one such case in one of his published stories about camp life, which is called "Sanochki".
It was winter in one of the remote camps, located a few kilometers from the main camp. It was an inaccessible place where transport could only pass in the summer. The authorities deliberately did not bring food supplies there for the winter in the summer, and several hundred inhabitants of this camp, including Zhzhenov, began to starve and slowly die. At the same time, food was regularly delivered to the camp guards along the toboggan path, because there were only a couple of dozen guards, and several hundred "convicts". And then the news comes that Zhzhenov received a package from his mother in the main camp, and probably with food. But how to get to the main camp for the "goal", who, despite his youth and former strength, could hardly move on his feet from chronic malnutrition. There was no question of sending the parcel to the camp, because this is a violation of the order. And to lose a warm place thousands of kilometers from the front and end up in the trenches under German bombsno one from the administration wanted. Zhzhenov was in despair. A local commissioner of the NKVD, who visited the ill-fated camp site (arrived there on foot), became an accidental witness to this. It was he who suggested that Zhzhenov go to the main camp with him, as if accompanied. What was George's surprise when the next morning he saw this commissioner pulling a small sledge in which some kind of documentation lay. When they moved away from the camp at a decent distance, Georgy felt that his strength was leaving him, and he was losing consciousness. Without saying a word, the commissioner put him in a sled and drove several kilometers to the outskirts of the main camp, where he put him down, so that they ended up in front of the guards in their usual form: a “zek” and an officer accompanying him. What made this officer show mercy, unusual for the "Enkavedeshniki", we will never know. But for the mere fact that he practically saved the future outstanding Russian actor, we can be grateful to him. Indeed, in the mother's package there really were products that helped Georgy survive that terrible winter.
Life between two imprisonments
In 1943 Georgiy was literally pulled out of the penal camp at the Glukhar mine by the head of the Nikanorov traveling actor's propaganda team. In a terrible-looking, ragged "convict", covered with scabs and "chicks", he saw the former film actor and vowed to save him. First, Zhzhenov was transferred from the camp to the propaganda team, and then to the Magadan Musical Drama Theater, the troupe of which consisted almost of"convicts". What could Georgy Zhzhenov, who found himself again among kindred spirits, experience? Biography, family, children - all these ordinary human concepts are again becoming close to him. He marries the same as himself, a prisoner, actress Lidia Vorontsova, their daughter Elena is born. This marriage could not be long, as both of them soon received new terms.
In 1945, the term of his first sentence ended, and Zhzhenov briefly escaped from Kolyma. Director Sergei Gerasimov got him a job at the Sverdlovsk film studio. There he starred in the film "Alitet Goes to the Mountains", which told about the socialist transformation of the life of the indigenous people of Chukotka.
Second term
And then the same thing happened to him as to many other victims of Stalinist repressions - a second arrest and a new sentence. This time he was sentenced to exile in Norilsk. Fortunately, there he managed to get a job in the same drama theater as in Magadan. By the way, his stage partner was Innokenty Smoktunovsky, who went to Norilsk to sit out the time of troubles there at the turn of the forties and fifties, because he was afraid of being repressed for his short stay in German captivity in 1943.
What did Georgy Zhzhenov find in Norilsk besides acting? Biography, wife, children again became human concepts close to him. His third wife was the Norilsk actress Irina Makhaeva. After leaving Norilsk, their daughter Marina was born.
Finding freedom
In 1955, completelyrehabilitated Zhzhenov returns to Leningrad. At first he works in the regional drama theater, but a year later he gets a job as a film actor at Lenfilm. Since then, films with his participation have appeared almost every year. He fit into a new life surprisingly easily, as rarely did anyone from those who went through the horrors of the Gulag succeed. Undoubtedly, this was facilitated by a good physical form, which Zhzhenov managed to maintain after all the troubles that fell to his lot. Moviegoers, on the other hand, were attracted by the reserved manner of Zhzhenov's acting, full of genuine courage, in the images he created.
In 1960 he entered the theater. Lensoviet. What did Georgy Zhzhenov find in this team? Biography, his personal life again made a zigzag. Georgy Stepanovich met his fourth wife Lydia Malyukova here, with whom he lived until his death. They had a daughter, Julia.
So how many descendants did Georgy Zhzhenov leave? Biography, children, family - all these concepts were always close to him, he strove for family life. In total, Zhzhenov has three daughters from three marriages, as well as several granddaughters and grandchildren.
In the late 60s - early 70s, Zhzhenov gained nationwide fame after playing the role of Zarokov-Tulyev in the film adaptations "Resident's Mistake" and "Resident's Fate". He moves to Moscow, enters the theater. Moscow City Council, where he will work for more than three and a half decades, until his death at the age of 91.
In his declining years, Zhzhenov became a real patriarch of Russian cinema andtheatrical art. He was awarded many state awards. He filmed documentaries there, his 90th birthday was widely celebrated in the country.
