The real Chapaev. The legendary division commander did not become a general, but his son became one

Chapaev Vasily Ivanovich short biography participant in the Civil and First World Wars, commander of the Red Army is described in this article.

Chapaev Vasily Ivanovich short biography

Chapaev Vasily Ivanovich was born on January 28, 1887 in the village of Budaika in a peasant family. He was the sixth child in the family. The large family looking for better life moved to the village of Balakovo. His parents sent him to a church school, hoping that their son would become a priest. But he never became one. But he married Pelageya Metlina, the daughter of a local priest. When he was drafted into the army, he served there for a year, and the guy was discharged due to health reasons.

Returning home, Chapaev worked as a carpenter until 1914, trying to feed his wife and three children. In January 1914, he was sent to the front of the First World War, where he proved himself to be a brave and skillful warrior. For his courage and bravery he was awarded the St. George Medal and the Crosses of St. George. He received the title of Knight of St. George.

In 1917, with the Bolsheviks coming to power, he took their side and proved himself to be an excellent organizer. While in the Saratov province, Chapaev created 14 Red Guard detachments. They successfully fought with General Kaledin. A year later, in May, the Pugachev brigade was formed from 14 detachments. It was headed by Chapaev.

His fame and popularity grew before our eyes. In 1919, he was the commander of the 25th Infantry Division and conducted combat operations against Kolchak's White Guard army.

He was prevented from revealing the true talent of a commander early deathSeptember 5, 1919. Vasily Ivanovich's division carried out an offensive operation and fell behind the main part of the forces. They were attacked by Borodin's White Guard army. Chapaev was wounded in the stomach and head, from which he died.

As often happens in history Civil War In Russia today, true and tragic facts have become densely mixed with myths, speculation, rumors, epics, and, of course, anecdotes. There are especially many of them associated with the legendary red division commander. Almost everything that we have known about this hero since childhood is connected mainly with two sources - with the film “Chapaev” (directed by Georgy and Sergei Vasiliev) and with the story “Chapaev” (author Dmitry Furmanov). However, at the same time, we forget that both the book and the film are works of art, which contain both the author’s fiction and direct historical inaccuracies (Fig. 1).

The beginning of the way

He was born on January 28 (February 9 according to the new style) 1887 in Russian peasant family in the village of Budaika, Cheboksary district, Kazan province (now the territory of the Leninsky district of the city of Cheboksary). Vasily was the sixth child in the family of Ivan Stepanovich Chapaev (1854-1921) (Fig. 2).

Soon after the birth of Vasily, the Chapaev family moved to the village of Balakovo, Nikolaev district, Samara province (now the city of Balakovo, Saratov region). Ivan Stepanovich enrolled his son in a local parish school, the patron of which was his wealthy cousin. Before this, there were already priests in the Chapaev family, and the parents wanted Vasily to become a clergyman, but life decreed otherwise.

In the fall of 1908, Vasily was drafted into the army and sent to Kyiv. But already in the spring next year Due to illness, Chapaev was transferred from the army to the reserve and transferred to first-class militia warriors. After this, until the outbreak of the First World War, he did not serve in the regular army, but worked as a carpenter. From 1912 to 1914 V.I. Chapaev and his family lived in the city of Melekess (now Dimitrovgrad, Ulyanovsk region). Here his son Arkady was born.

With the outbreak of war, Chapaev was drafted on September 20, 1914. military service and was sent to the 159th reserve infantry regiment in the city of Atkarsk. He went to the front in January 1915. The future Red commander fought in the 326th Belgorai Infantry Regiment of the 82nd Infantry Division in the 9th Army of the Southwestern Front in Volyn and Galicia, where he was wounded. In July 1915, he completed training courses and received the rank of junior non-commissioned officer, and in October - senior. War V.I. Chapaev graduated with the rank of sergeant major, and for his bravery was awarded the St. George medal and soldiers' St. George crosses of three degrees (Fig. 3,4).

He met the February Revolution in a hospital in Saratov, and here on September 28, 1917 he joined the ranks of the RSDLP (b). Soon he was elected commander of the 138th reserve infantry regiment stationed in Nikolaevsk, and on December 18, by the district congress of Soviets, he was appointed military commissar of the Nikolaev district. In this position V.I. Chapaev led the dispersal of the Nikolaev district zemstvo, and then organized the district Red Guard, which consisted of 14 detachments (Fig. 5).

On the initiative of V.I. Chapaev on May 25, 1918, a decision was made to reorganize the Red Guard detachments into two regiments of the Red Army, which were named “named after Stepan Razin” and “named after Emelyan Pugachev.” Under the command of V.I. Chapaev, both regiments united into the Pugachev brigade, which, just a few days after its creation, took part in battles with the Czechoslovaks and the Komuch People's Army. Most major victory This brigade fought a battle for the city of Nikolaevsk, which ended in the complete defeat of the Komuchevites and Czechoslovaks.

Battle for Nikolaevsk

As you know, Samara was captured by units of the Czechoslovak corps on June 8, 1918, after which the Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly (abbreviated Komuch) came to power in the city. Then, throughout almost the entire summer of 1918, the retreat of Red Army units continued in the east of the country. Only towards the end of this summer did Lenin’s government manage to stop the joint offensive of the Czechoslovaks and White Guards in the Middle Volga region.

At the beginning of August, after extensive mobilization, the I, II, III and IV armies were formed as part of the Eastern Front, and at the end of the month - the V Army and the Turkestan Army. In the direction of Kazan and Simbirsk, from mid-August, the First Army began to operate under the command of Mikhail Tukhachevsky, to which an armored train was transferred (Fig. 6).

At this time, a group consisting of units of the People's Army of Komuch and Czechoslovak troops under the command of Captain Chechek launched a counter-offensive on the southern section of the Red Front. The Red regiments, unable to withstand their sudden onslaught, left Nikolaevsk in the middle of the day on August 20. It was not even a retreat, but a stampede, because of which the workers of Soviet institutions did not even have time to leave the city. As a result, according to eyewitnesses, the White Guards who burst into Nikolaevsk immediately began general searches and executions of communists and Soviet employees.

V.I.’s closest ally recalled further events near Nikolaevsk. Chapaeva Ivan Semyonovich Kutyakov (Fig. 7).

“At this time, Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev arrived in the village of Porubyozhka, where the 1st Pugachevsky Regiment was located, in a troika with a group of orderlies... He arrived at his brigade, excited by the latest failures.

The news of Chapaev's arrival quickly spread around the red chains. Not only commanders and soldiers, but also peasants began to flock to the headquarters of the 1st Pugachevsky Regiment. They wanted to see Chapai with their own eyes, whose fame spread throughout the Trans-Volga steppe, throughout all the villages, villages and hamlets.

Chapaev accepted the report of the commander of the 1st Pugachevsky regiment. Comrade Plyasunkov reported to Vasily Ivanovich that his regiment had been fighting for the second day with a detachment of White Czechs, who at dawn had captured the crossing over the Bolshoi Irgiz River near the village of Porubiezhka, and were now persistently striving to occupy Porubiezhka...

Chapaev immediately outlined a bold plan, which, if successful, promised to lead not only to the liberation of Nikolaevsk, but also to the complete defeat of the enemy. According to Chapaev's plan, the regiments were supposed to take vigorous action. 1st Pugachevsky received an order: not to retreat from Porubiezhka, but to counterattack the White Czechs and recapture the crossing over the Bolshoi Irgiz River. And after Stepan Razin’s regiment went to the rear of the White Czechs, together with him they attacked the enemy in the village of Tavolzhanka.

Meanwhile, Stepan Razin’s regiment was already on the way to Davydovka. The messenger sent by Chapaev found the regiment at a halt in the village of Rakhmanovka. Here the regiment commander Kutyakov received Chapaev’s order... Since there is no ford across the river, and the right bank dominates the left, it would hardly be possible to attack the White Czechs with a frontal attack. Therefore, the commander of the 2nd Stepan Razin regiment was asked to immediately move through the village of Gusikha to the rear of the White Czechs in order, simultaneously with the 1st regiment, to attack the enemy from the north in the area of ​​the village of Tavolzhanki occupied by him and then advance on Nikolaevsk.

Chapaev's decision was extremely bold. To many, influenced by the victories of the White Czechs, it seemed impossible. But Chapaev’s will to victory, his enormous confidence in success and boundless hatred for the enemies of the workers and peasants ignited all fighters and commanders with fighting enthusiasm. The regiments began to carry out the order in unison.

On August 21, the Pugachevsky regiment under the leadership of Vasily Ivanovich made a brilliant demonstration, drawing the enemy’s fire and attention to themselves. Thanks to this, the Razins successfully completed their march-maneuver and went from the north to the rear of the village of Tavolzhanki, at a distance of two kilometers from the enemy’s heavy battery firing at the Pugachevsky regiment. The commander of the 2nd Stepan Razin regiment decided to take advantage of the opportunity and ordered the battery commander, Comrade Rapetsky, to open rapid fire on the enemy. The Razin battery rushed forward at full gallop, dismounted from its limbers and, with direct fire, showered the Czech guns with grapeshot with its first salvo. Immediately, without hesitating for a minute, the cavalry squadron and three battalions of Razins rushed to the attack with a cry of “Hurray.”

The sudden shelling and the appearance of the Reds in the rear caused confusion in the enemy ranks. The enemy artillerymen abandoned their guns and panic fear ran to the cover units. The cover did not have time to prepare for battle and was destroyed along with the artillerymen.

Chapaev, who personally led the Pugachev regiment in this battle, launched a frontal attack on the enemy forces. As a result, not a single enemy soldier was saved.

By evening, when the crimson rays of the setting sun illuminated the battlefield, covered with the corpses of White Bohemian soldiers, the regiments occupied Tavolzhanka. In this battle, 60 machine guns, 4 heavy guns and much other military booty were captured.

Despite the extreme fatigue of the fighters, Chapaev ordered to continue moving forward to Nikolaevsk. At about one o'clock in the morning the regiments reached the village of Puzanikha, a few kilometers from Nikolaevsk. Here, due to complete darkness, we had to linger. The soldiers were ordered not to leave the formation. The battalions left the road and stood up. The fighters struggled with drowsiness. There is deep silence all around. At this time, unexpectedly, some convoy drove up from the rear close to the chains. The front carts were stopped only fifty meters from the artillery location. The commander of the 2nd battalion of the regiment named after Stepan Razin, Comrade Bubenets, approached them. In response to his question, one of those riding in the front cart explained in broken Russian that he was a Czechoslovak colonel and was heading with his regiment to Nikolaevsk. Comrade Bubenets stood in front, put his hand to the visor and said that he would immediately report the arrival of the “allies” to his colonel, the commander of the volunteer detachment.

Comrade Bubenets, a former guards officer, from the beginning of the Great October Revolution went over to the side of Soviet power and devotedly served the cause of the proletariat. Together with him, his two brothers voluntarily joined the ranks of the Red Guard. They were captured by the founders and brutally killed. Bubenets was one of the most combative, courageous, proactive and decisive commanders. Chapaev, who had an acute hatred for officers, trusted him in everything.

Comrade Bubenets's message raised the entire regiment to its feet. At the first minute, no one could believe this meeting. But in the darkness on the road where the enemy column stood, the lights of cigarettes could be seen and the perplexed voices of enemy soldiers could be heard, trying to find an explanation for the unexpected stop. There could be no doubt. About twenty minutes later, two battalions were brought up close to the enemy. At the signal, they opened fire in volleys. The frightened voices of the White Czechs were heard. Everything is mixed up...

By dawn the battle was over. In the morning twilight, a battlefield stretched along the road was outlined; it was covered with the corpses of White Czechs, carriers and horses. The 40 machine guns taken in this battle, together with those captured in the daytime battle, served as the main supply for the Chapaev units until the end of the civil war.

The destruction of the enemy regiment, captured on the way, completed the defeat of the enemy. The White Czechs, who occupied Nikolaevsk, left the city that same night and retreated in panic through Seleznikha to Bogorodskoye. At about eight o’clock in the morning on August 22, Chapaev’s brigade occupied Nikolaevsk, which was renamed Pugachev at Chapaev’s suggestion” (Fig. 8-10).

"The Red Army is the strongest of all"

Samara residents regularly remember this red division commander, primarily because since November 1932 in our city there has been a well-known monument to Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev by sculptor Matvey Manizer, which, along with a few other landmarks, has long become a symbol of Samara.

In particular, one can still hear the opinion that on October 7, 1918, Samara was liberated from Czechoslovak units, among others, by Chapaev military unit- 25th Nikolaev Division, which at that time was part of the IV Army. At the same time, allegedly Vasily Ivanovich himself, just as in the legends and anecdotes composed about him among the people, was the first to burst into the city on a dashing horse, slashing the White Guards and Czechs with his saber left and right. And if such stories still exist, then they are undoubtedly inspired by the presence of a monument to Chapaev in Samara (Fig. 11).

Meanwhile, the events near Samara in the second half of 1918 did not develop at all as we heard in the legends. On September 10, as a result of successful military operations, the Red Army drove the Komuchevites out of Kazan, and on September 12 - from Simbirsk. But on August 30, 1918, in Moscow, at the Mikhelson plant, an attempt was made on the life of the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, who was wounded by two pistol bullets. Therefore, soon after Simbirsk was liberated from the Czechoslovaks, a telegram with the following content was sent to the Council of People’s Commissars on behalf of the command of the Eastern Front: “Moscow Kremlin to Lenin For your first bullet, the Red Army took Simbirsk, for the second it will be Samara.”

In pursuance of these plans, after the successful completion of the Simbirsk operation, the commander of the Eastern Front, Joachim Vatsetis, on September 20 ordered a wide offensive on Syzran and Samara. Red troops approached Syzran on September 28-29, and, despite the fierce resistance of the besieged, over the next five days they managed to destroy all the main centers of the Czech defense one after another. This is how, by 12 o’clock on October 3, 1918, the city’s territory was completely cleared of Komuchevites and Czechoslovaks, mainly by the forces of the Iron Division under the leadership of Haik Guy (Fig. 12). The remnants of the Czechoslovak units retreated to the railway bridge, and after the last Czech soldier crossed it to the left bank on the night of October 4, two spans of this grandiose structure were blown up by Czechoslovak sappers. The railway connection between Syzran and Samara was interrupted at long time(Fig. 13-15).

On the morning of October 7, 1918, from the south, from the Lipyagi station, the advanced units of the 1st Samara Division, part of the IV Army, approached Zasamara Sloboda and captured this suburb almost without a fight. During their retreat, the Czechs set fire to the pontoon bridge that existed at that time across the Samara River, preventing the city fire brigade from extinguishing it. And after a red armored train headed towards Samara from the Kryazh station, Czech miners, as it approached, blew up the span of the railway bridge over the Samara River. This happened at about two o'clock in the afternoon on October 7, 1918.

Only after work detachments from Samara factories arrived at the pontoon bridge, which continued to burn, did the Czech units guarding the bridge in panic leave their positions on the river bank and retreat to the station. The last echelon with the interventionists and their henchmen left our city to the east at about 5 pm. And three hours later, the 24th Iron Division under the command of Guy entered Samara from the northern side. Units of Tukhachevsky’s First Army broke into our city a few hours later along the extinguished pontoon bridge.

What about the legendary Chapaev cavalry? According to historical documents, at the beginning of October 1918, the Nikolaev division under the command of Chapaev was located approximately 200 kilometers south of Samara, in the Uralsk region. But, despite such distance from our city, the unit of the legendary red commander still played a very noticeable role in the Samara military operation. It turns out that in those days when the IV Army began its attack on Samara, Divisional Commander Chapaev received an order: to divert the main forces of the Ural Cossacks to himself so that they would not be able to attack the rear and flank of the Red troops.

This is what I.S. writes about this in his memoirs. Kutyakov: “...Chapaev was ordered not just to defend himself with his two regiments, but to attack Uralsk. This task, of course, was beyond the strength of the weak division, but Vasily Ivanovich, unquestioningly following the orders of the army headquarters, decisively moved east... His energetic actions forced the white command to throw almost the entire White Cossack army at the Nikolaev division... The main forces of the 4th Army, moving towards Samara were left completely alone. Throughout the entire operation, the Cossacks never attacked not only the flank, but also the rear of the 4th Army, which allowed the Red Army units to occupy Samara on October 7, 1918.” In a word, it is necessary to recognize that the monument to V.I. Chapaev in Samara was established quite deservedly.

At the end of 1918 and beginning of 1919, V.I. Chapaev visited Samara several times at the headquarters of the army, which at that time was already commanded by Mikhail Frunze. In particular, after three months of training at the Academy of the General Staff in early February 1919, Chapaev, extremely tired of these, as he considered, aimless studies, managed to obtain permission to depart back to the Eastern Front, to his 4th Army, which he commanded at that time Mikhail Vasilievich Frunze. In mid-February 1919, Chapaev arrived in Samara, at the headquarters of this army (Fig. 16, 17).

M.V. Frunze at this time had just returned from the Ural Front. During this time, he heard a lot about Chapaev’s exploits, his determination and heroism from the fighters of Chapaev’s regiments, who had just taken the city of Uralsk, the political center of the Cossacks, and fought bloody battles for the possession of the city of Lbischensk. Frunze paid great attention to the creation of combat-ready units and the selection of talented, experienced commanders, and therefore he immediately appointed V.I. Chapaev as the commander of the Aleksandrovo-Gai brigade, and his commissar was Dmitry Andreevich Furmanov, who later became the author of a widely famous book about the legendary division commander. An orderly for V.I. Chapaev at that time was Pyotr Semyonovich Isaev, who became especially famous after the release of the film “Chapaev” in 1934 (Fig. 18, 19).

This brigade, formed mainly from peasants of the Volga region, was stationed in the Aleksandrov Gai region. Before the appointment of Vasily Ivanovich, it was commanded by an “old regime” colonel, who was very cautious, and therefore his unit acted indecisively and with little success, was mainly on the defensive, and suffered one after another defeats from raids and raids by white Cossack detachments.

Mikhail Vasilyevich Frunze set Chapaev the task of capturing the area of ​​the village of Slomikhinskaya, and then continuing the attack on Lbischensk in order to threaten the main enemy forces from the rear. Having received this task, Chapaev decided to stop by Uralsk to personally agree on its implementation.

Chapaev's arrival came as a complete surprise to his comrades. Within a few hours, all of Chapaev’s former comrades gathered. Some came straight from the battlefield to see their beloved commander. And Chapaev, upon arrival at the brigade, visited all the regiments and battalions in a few days, got acquainted with command staff, held a number of meetings, paid a lot of attention to the food supply of units and replenishing them with weapons and ammunition.

As for Furmanov, Chapaev was wary of him at first. He had not yet outlived the prejudice against political workers who first came to the front, which was then characteristic of many Red commanders who came from the people. However, the division commander soon changed his attitude towards Furmanov. He was convinced of his education and decency, had long conversations with him not only on general topics, but also on history, literature, geography and other subjects that seemed to have nothing to do with military affairs. Having learned from Furmanov a lot of things that he had never heard of before, Chapaev eventually gained trust and respect for him, and more than once consulted with his political officer on issues of interest to him.

Conducted by V.I. Chapaev's training of the Aleksandrovo-Gai brigade ultimately led the unit to combat success. In the first battle on March 16, 1919, the brigade with one blow knocked out the White Guards from the village of Slomikhinskaya, where Colonel Borodin’s headquarters was located, and threw their remnants far into the Ural steppes. Subsequently, the Ural Cossack Army also suffered defeats from the Aleksandrovo-Gai brigade, also near Uralsk and Lbischensk, which was occupied by the 1st brigade of I.S. Kutyakova.

Death of Chapaev

In June 1919, the Pugachev brigade was renamed the 25th Infantry Division under the command of V.I. Chapaev, and she participated in the Bugulma and Belebeevskaya operations against Kolchak’s army. Under the leadership of Chapaev, this division occupied Ufa on June 9, 1919, and Uralsk on July 11. During the capture of Ufa, Chapaev was wounded in the head by a burst from an aircraft machine gun (Fig. 20).

At the beginning of September 1919, units of the 25th Red Division under the command of Chapaev were on vacation in the area of ​​​​the small town of Lbischensk (now Chapaevo) on the Ural River. On the morning of September 4, the division commander, together with military commissar Baturin, left for the village of Sakharnaya, where one of his units was stationed. But he did not know that at the same time, along the valley of the small river Kushum, a tributary of the Urals, in the direction of Lbischensk, the 2nd Cavalry Cossack Corps under the command of General Sladkov, consisting of two cavalry divisions, was moving freely. In total, there were about 5 thousand sabers in the corps. By the evening of the same day, the Cossacks reached a small tract located only 25 kilometers from the city, where they took refuge in the thick reeds. Here they began to wait for darkness so that, under the cover of darkness, they could attack the headquarters of the 25th Red Division, which at that moment was guarded by soldiers of a training unit numbering only 600 bayonets.

An aviation reconnaissance unit (four aircraft), flying in the vicinity of Lbischensk on the afternoon of September 4, did not detect this huge Cossack formation in the immediate vicinity of the Chapaev headquarters. At the same time, experts believe that it was simply physically impossible for the pilots not to see 5 thousand horsemen from the air, even if they were camouflaged in the reeds. Historians explain such “blindness” by direct betrayal on the part of the pilots, especially since the very next day they flew on their planes to the side of the Cossacks, where the entire air squad surrendered to the headquarters of General Sladkov (Fig. 21, 22).

One way or another, but no one was able to report to Chapaev, who returned to his headquarters late in the evening, about the danger threatening him. On the outskirts of the town, only ordinary security posts were posted, and the entire red headquarters and the training unit guarding it fell asleep peacefully. No one heard how, under the cover of darkness, the Cossacks silently removed the guards, and at about one in the morning the corps of General Sladkov struck Lbischensk with all its might. By dawn on September 5, the city was already entirely in the hands of the Cossacks. Chapaev himself, together with a handful of soldiers and orderly Pyotr Isaev, was able to make their way to the bank of the Ural River and even swim to the opposite bank, but in the middle of the river he was hit by an enemy bullet. Historians believe that the last minutes of the life of the legendary red division commander are shown with documentary accuracy in famous movie“Chapaev”, filmed in 1934 by directors Vasilyev.

On the morning of September 5, a message about the destruction of the headquarters of the 25th division was received by I.S. Kutyakov, commander of a group of red units, which included 8 rifle and 2 cavalry regiments, as well as divisional artillery. This group was stationed 15 kilometers from Lbischensk. Within a few hours, the red units entered into battle with the Cossacks, and by the evening of the same day they were driven out of the city. By order of Kutyakov, a special group was formed to search for Chapaev’s body in the Ural River, but even after many days of examining the river valley, it was never found (Fig. 23).

Anecdote on topic

An airplane was sent to Chapaev's division. Vasily Ivanovich wanted to see the strange car in person. He walked around him, looked into the cabin, twirled his mustache, and then said to Petka:

No, we don’t need such an airplane.

Why? – asks Petka.

The saddle is inconveniently located, explains Chapaev. - Well, how can you cut with a saber? If you chop, you’ll hit the wings, and they’ll fall off... (Fig. 24-30).

Valery EROFEEV.

Bibliography

Banikin V. Stories about Chapaev. Kuibyshev: Kuibyshev Book Publishing House, 1954. 109 p.

Belyakov A.V. Flying through the years. M.: Voenizdat, 1988. 335 p.

Borgens V. Chapaev. Kuibyshev, Kuib. region publishing house 1939. 80 p.

Vladimirov V.V. . Where V.I. lived and fought. Chapaev. Travel notes. - Cheboksary. 1997. 82 p.

Kononov A. Stories about Chapaev. M.: Children's literature, 1965. 62 p.

Kutyakov I.S. Chapaev's combat path. Kuibyshev, Kuib. book publishing house 1969. 96 p.

Legendary commander. Book about V.I. Chapaev. Collection. Editor-compiler N.V. Sorokin. Kuibyshev, Kuib. book publishing house 1974. 368 p.

Along Chapaev's battle path. A short guide. Kuibyshev: Publishing house. gas. "Red Army Man", 1936.

Timin T. Chapaev - real and imaginary. M., “Veteran of the Fatherland.” 1997. 120 p., ill.

Furmanov D.A. Chapaev. Publications of different years.

Khlebnikov N.M., Evlampiev P.S., Volodikhin Y.A. Legendary Chapaevskaya. M.: Znanie, 1975. 429 p.

Chapaeva E. My unknown Chapaev. M.: “Corvette”, 2005. 478 p.

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”).
Looking for 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 firm commander and an excellent tactician, skillfully assessing the situation and proposing the 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 get 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 a detailed description of the 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 as a disobedient people’s commander (in modern concepts, « 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 his 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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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 gave 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. A peaceful family life began - 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 forced into the army - the World War. 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, the last time so seriously that after 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 weak politician, but he was a real revolutionary, a wonderful communard in life and a noble, selfless fighter for communism... There were cases 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!

stood in front of me ordinary person, lean, of average height, apparently of little strength, with thin, almost feminine hands. Thin dark brown hair stuck to his forehead; short nervous thin nose, thin eyebrows in a chain, thin lips, shiny clean teeth, shaved chin, 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 “Chapayev, 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”: “K low man there is nothing to be jealous of, and I, of course, was not jealous of her, but I was 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 the speed, pressure and “little tricks” of the 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 the peasant army, from which it was borrowed by the Reds. 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 leading airplanes 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 Stalin Prizes, 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. A city in the Samara region, dozens of collective farms, and hundreds of streets were named after the division commander. 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.

Who is Chapaev? This is not just a soldier of two armies, this is a whole symbol of the era of the collapse of empires and revolutions.

He played a significant role in the Civil War in the territory Russian Empire. The Red Army soldiers under his leadership inflicted a heavy defeat on General Kolchak on the Eastern Front. Chapaev himself was a symbol of Red Cossack courage. His image was actively used for agitation and propaganda both during the Civil War and in the Soviet Union.

Vasily Chapaev: biography

Born on January 28 (February 9), 1887 in the Kazan province. His parents were ordinary peasants. There is no exact information regarding the name of Vasily Ivanovich. As the brother of the famous Red Army soldier recalled, the surname Chapaev was first a nickname. Allegedly, Vasily’s grandfather worked as a foreman in a construction team and constantly shouted to his subordinates: “Chepai! Chepai” (“take”). From then on, they began to call him Chapaev, which soon became a surname. This was confirmed by Ivanovich himself. The nationality of the “red” Cossack still unclear.According to some sources, his mother was a Chuvash.

The Chapaev family was quite large. In addition to Vasily, there were six children. The parents worked hard, but the family still lived poorly. Therefore, a few years after birth last child they move to Samara province. Vasily's father, who wanted to give his son an education, sends him to a church school. At that time, she was sponsored by her father's cousin. Initially, the parents wanted Vasily to become a priest, like some other relatives. However, in the fall of 1908, Chapaev was drafted into the army. His unit is stationed in Kyiv. However, after a few months Vasily is transferred to the reserve. The Kiev Military District did not know who Chapaev was, so it is impossible to accurately determine the reason for such a strange decision. According to the official version, the dismissal was due to illness. In Soviet times, there was a popular theory according to which Vasily was expelled from the army due to political unreliability. Upon arrival home, he is granted the rank of militia warrior.

At home, Vasily works as a carpenter. Soon he marries Pelagia Metlina, who is the daughter of a local priest. In nine hundred and nine they get married. Almost immediately they move to Dimitrovgrad and live there. In the fourteenth year, the First World War begins. All reserve military personnel are drafted into the imperial troops, and Chapaev is no exception. Vasily’s biography as a military man begins precisely then.

World War I

Vasily Ivanovich was mobilized into the one hundred and fifty-ninth reserve regiment, which was stationed in the city of Atkarsk.

There he undergoes training and retraining. Two months later he is sent to the front. They arrive in Galicia, where fierce battles take place against the Germans and Austro-Hungarians. In the cold winter of the fifteenth, the siege of Przemysl continued. Russian troops began preparing an operation to break through into Hungarian territory. To do this, it was necessary to reach the Hungarian Plain, which was prevented by the Austrian fortifications in the Carpathians. In mid-January, an almost simultaneous offensive by the warring sides began. The army of the German Empire planned to lift the siege of strategically important Przemysl and go behind the Russian troops.

V.I. Chapaev participated in the Carpathian operation. Stubborn fighting ensued in the mountains. The battles took place in the most difficult weather conditions. By this time the passes were almost completely covered with snow. It also affected the well-being of soldiers who grew up on flat terrain. Chapaev was wounded in one of the battles and was in the hospital for some time.

Battle of the Carpathians

After difficult battles, Russian troops still managed to occupy dominant heights and win tactically. However, in the spring a massive enemy offensive began. The German army was going to attack from East Prussia and encircle the Russian troops in the Warsaw area. At this time, a significant part imperial army got stuck in difficult passages in the Carpathians and could not move quickly. The Russian army was extremely poorly equipped. The Germans and Austrians had total superiority in both heavy guns and machine guns. For example, the Germans had ninety-six machine guns, and Russian troops no one. V.I. Chapaev was among those retreating from Poland in 1915. This defeat neutralized all the gains of the Russian army in the campaign of the fourteenth year and in the Carpathian operation. But the most severe blow was the moral blow.

Breakthrough of Russian troops

Who Chapaev was became known in the Belgorai regiment during famous Summer In the sixteenth year, a massive Russian offensive began near Lutsk. The goal was to occupy Galicia and Volyn, to capture the enemy enemy group. After several hours of artillery preparation, the troops of the entire front went on the offensive. Already on the first day they managed to break through the first line of defense and capture many trophies. By September the operation was completed. The Germans and Austrians lost one and a half million soldiers killed, wounded and captured. For his courage, Vasily Chapaev received the St. George Cross.

Homecoming

Chapaev returned home with the rank of sergeant major. I was in the hospital for a long time. At this time, changes were brewing in the country. Chapaev, like millions of Russian workers, was extremely dissatisfied with the state of affairs in the country. The standard of living was deteriorating, the social gap between the nobles and the “masses” was simply monstrous. Plus, in a war that no one understood, thousands of soldiers died every day. As a result, popular unrest reached its peak in February.

A revolution began in St. Petersburg. The Tsar abdicated the throne, and power passed to the Provisional Government. Vasily Ivanovich reacted positively to the new changes. In September '17 he joined the Bolshevik Party. As a person with combat experience, he was highly valued. Therefore, he is appointed commander of an infantry regiment.

Beginning of the Civil War

After Vasily showed his skills, he was appointed commissioner of the entire county. Almost autonomously he was engaged in the formation of combat communist detachments. In a fairly short period of time, he managed to organize the Red Guard of 14 battalions. Almost from the very beginning of the war, the entire Ural region was occupied by whites. This is due to the compact residence of the Cossacks in this territory. Therefore, Chapaev’s detachments operated in extremely difficult conditions. The Whites did not even need to conduct thorough reconnaissance, because wherever the Reds appeared, there were people among the local population who reported on their numbers, weapons and other important information.

Red offensive

In winter, fierce battles broke out near Tsaritsyn.

General Kaledin had at his disposal selected fighters who had good combat experience behind them. And many studied military craft from childhood. But Chapaev managed to train peasants and workers in a short time so that they fought on an equal basis with the military. After this, his units were included in the Special Army. As part of it, Vasily Ivanovich took personal part in the campaign against Uralsk. During the fighting he was wounded in the head. After the end of the campaign, he reorganized, dividing the guards into two regiments, which he united into a brigade under his command.

In the summer of '18 it was in full swing. Czechoslovak interventionists captured Nikolaevsk, in which less than a year ago, Soviet power was proclaimed with the active participation of Chapaev himself. Almost the entire Ural region came under the control of the whites. The Pugachev brigade (one of the regiments bore the name of Pugachev) besieged the city and, after several days of heavy fighting, recaptured it. During the battles for Nikolaevsk, the Red Army fought so desperately that many whites fled from the battlefield. After that, the entire north of Russia knew who Chapaev was. In the winter of the eighteenth year, Vasily Ivanovich studied at the academy General Staff. After this he receives the position of commissioner.

Army commander

Six months later, Chapaev commands a brigade, and a month later - a division. The troops are conducting an offensive on the Eastern Front against one of the best White generals - Kolchak. With the support of the Turkestan army, Bugulmi and Bugurslan districts were taken by the Reds. The front passed through the Ufa province. About thirty thousand soldiers began the offensive on May twenty-fifth, and by the end of June Kolchak's troops fled the province. Chapaev took part in the assault on Ufa. During the battle, he was wounded in the head by an air machine gun, but survived.

The commander of the Red Army continued to lead military operations in extremely difficult conditions. After a rapid offensive, Chapaev’s fighters pushed forward strongly and were exhausted. Therefore, in the fall of the eighteenth we stopped in Lbischensk to rest and wait for reinforcements to arrive. All administrative military institutions are located in the city itself. However, there were very few fighters. The garrison consisted of six hundred bayonets, commanded by Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev. The civil war squeezed the last juice out of the torn country. Therefore, peasants who did not know how to handle weapons were mobilized into the Red Army. About two thousand of these recruits were also in Lbischensk, but were not armed. The main forces of the division were located forty kilometers from the city.

Raid of the White Cossacks

The white Colonel Borodin decided to take advantage of the weakness of the Chapaevsky garrison. Under the cover of darkness on the last day of summer, his detachment, consisting of selected fighters, left Kalyonoy and went on a raid. The Red Army soldiers had four airplanes at their disposal. They were doing reconnaissance around the city.

However, the pilots were mobilized from the local population, and, apparently, sympathized with the whites. Therefore, on September 4th, Borodin’s detachment quietly approached the city. The commander of the Red Army, Chapaev, was in Lbischensk at that time. At dawn, the Cossacks attacked the city. The surprise factor worked - panic began. The Red Army soldiers tried to organize resistance in the chaos. The battle lasted about six hours.

Death

Many were captured. But some managed to break through to the Ural River. They tried to swim to the other side, despite the current. Chapaev was among them. The hero of the Civil War was seriously wounded in the stomach, but still continued to fight. According to the official version, after the arrival of the main part of the Cossacks, he ran to the river. He was almost halfway through when a bullet hit him in the head. He died barely reaching the shore. The monument to Chapaev was simple - made of reeds and algae. The Red Army soldiers who buried the glorious commander were afraid that the whites would find the burial place.

Memory

After the end of the Civil War, thanks to Soviet propaganda, Chapaev became one of its most striking symbols. Several films were made about him, many songs and poems were written. The image of a dashing red Cossack became an element of folklore. In jokes, Chapaev became something like Lieutenant Rzhevsky.

The monument to Chapaev, already made of stone, stands in many cities of the post-Soviet space.