Nikolai Leontovich. Ukrainian composer, choral conductor, public figure, teacher

Nikolai Leontovich’s biography is briefly outlined in this article.

Nikolai Leontovich short biography

Leontovich Nikolai Dmitrievich- Ukrainian composer, choral conductor, public figure, teacher. Author of famous folk songs for choir “Shchedryk”, “Dudarik”, “The Cossack is being carried”.

Was born December 13, 1877 in the village of Monastyryok, Podolsk province, in the family of a rural priest. Early childhood took place in the village of Shershnakh, Tyvrovsky volost, Vinnitsa district. Initial musical education Leontovich received it from his father.

In 1887, Leontovich entered the Nemirovsky gymnasium. In 1888, due to lack of funds, his father transferred him to the Shargorod elementary theological school.

In 1892, Leontovich entered the Podolsk Theological Seminary in Kamenets-Podolsky, where he studied music theory and choral singing, mastered the violin, piano, and some wind instruments, and began to process folk melodies, taking Nikolai Lysenko’s processing as a model.

In 1898, Leontovich graduated from theological seminary and decided to work as a teacher in rural schools and at the same time independently improve his musical education. In the village of Chukovi he organized an amateur Symphony Orchestra, who performed Ukrainian melodies and plays by Russian and Ukrainian composers. In 1901 he published the first collection of songs from Podolia. In 1903, a second collection of Podolian songs was published with a dedication to N. Lysenko.

From 1904 to 1908 - worked in the Donbass as a teacher of singing and music at the railway school of the Grishino station (currently Krasnoarmeysk).

During the 1905 revolution, Leontovich organized a workers' choir that performed at rallies. Leontovich’s activities attracted the attention of the police, and he was forced to return to Podolia, to the city of Tulchin, where he taught music and singing at the Tulchin Diocesan Women’s School for the daughters of rural priests. Since 1909, Leontovich has been studying under the guidance of the famous music theorist B. Yavorsky, whom he periodically visits in Moscow and Kyiv.

At that time he created many choral arrangements, in particular the famous “Shchedryk”, as well as “Singing Songs”, “Small Mother of One Daughter”, “Dudarik”, “Oh, the Dawn Has Come”, etc. In Tulchin he met the composer Kirill Stetsenko. In 1916, together with the Kyiv University choir, he performed his arrangement of “Shchedryk”, which brought him big success from the Kyiv public.

With the establishment of the Ukrainian People's Republic Leontovich moves from Tulchin to Kyiv, where he begins active work as a conductor and composer. A number of his works have been included in their repertoire by professional and amateur groups Ukraine. At one of the concerts, “Legend” by Nikolai Voronoi, arranged by Leontovich, was a great success. After the arrival of the Bolsheviks, Leontovich worked for some time in the music committee at the People's Commissariat of Education, taught at the Music and Drama Institute. N. Lysenko, together with the composer and conductor G. Verevka, works at the People's Conservatory, on preschool education courses, and organizes several choral clubs.

During the capture of Kyiv on August 31, 1919, Denikin was forced to flee to Tulchin. Founds the first music school in Tulchin. In 1919-1920 he worked on his first large symphonic work - the folk-fantasy opera " For the holiday of mermaids"Based on the fairy tale of the same name by B. Grinchenko. In the fall of 1920, a choir chapel tour took place in Tulchin under the direction of K. Stetsenko and Pavel Tychyna as the second conductor. During the chapel's concerts, works by Leontovich were performed. In the last months of his life, Leontovich was finishing the opera “On the Feast of Mermaids.”

On the night of 22 to 23 January 1921 the composer was staying with his father in the village of Markovka, Gaisinsky district, where he was killed by an agent of the Gaisinsky district Cheka, Afanasy Grishchenko. The text of the report revealing the agent's name was made public in the 1990s.

ZhZL: Nikolay Dmitrievich Leontovich

Even if you are absolutely sure that you have never heard a single tune by this composer, do not rush to conclusions. One of his tunes became so popular that you couldn't help but hear it. This is a very popular Christmas tune that... different countries called differently. In Ukraine it is called “Shchedrik”, and in English-speaking countries “Christmas Carol of the Bells”.

The talented composer Nikolai Dmitrievich Leontovich endlessly loved Ukrainian folk art, and devoted his life to its study and preservation. But his life turned out tragically. He was killed by security officers in 1921.

Nikolai Dmitrievich Leontovich

Nikolai Dmitrievich Leontovich - talented composer, choral conductor, folklorist, teacher and public figure, deep connoisseur folk art, he wrote a bright page in history Ukrainian music. Nikolai Leontovich was born on December 13, 1877 in the village of Monastyrek, Bratslav district in Podolia (now Vinnytsia region) in the family of a village priest. Loved it since childhood folk singing. His father played different musical instruments, my mother knew many Ukrainian songs and skillfully performed them.

By family traditions Nikolai was supposed to become a priest - this is what his parents wanted, so he was sent to study at the Shargorod Primary Theological School, and then to the Kamenets Podolsk Theological Seminary. At school and seminary, the young man was primarily attracted musical notation and choral singing. Here he begins to record folk songs for the first time and sings in the choir. During this period, he persistently mastered playing the piano and violin, studied musical literature, get acquainted with the biography outstanding composers. He is especially attracted to choral arrangements of folk songs by Nikolai Lysenko. On musical formation Leontovich was also influenced by the fast cultural life administrative center Podolsk province - Kamenets-Podolsky. Troupes came to the city on tour and staged operas by Verdi, Bizet, Glinka, and Tchaikovsky. The leadership of the seminary did not encourage the seminarians' passion for theater, but Nikolai took every opportunity to attend the performance.

The musical successes of the young seminarian were quite noticeable, which gave him the opportunity, even before receiving his diploma, to take the place of director of the seminary choir. His talent developed quickly. He was not only the leader of the choir, but also tried himself as a composer - it was here that he began to write his first spiritual works. The choir singers who were delighted with young musician, upon completion of his studies, they presented him with a clavier of Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s opera “Cherevichki” with a dedicatory inscription: "To the future glorious composer, unforgettable regentsifrom the choir of singers". After graduating from the seminary in 1899, N. Leontovich renounced the priesthood and worked for several years as a teacher of singing, arithmetic and geography at the Chukovsky two-year school. But, as before, music remained at the center of his interests. He led the student choir, organized a symphony orchestra, the repertoire of which consisted of works of Western European and Russian classics, from plays by Ukrainian composers, as well as folk songs arranged by them. In 1902, Leontovich moved to Vinnitsa, where he got a job as a teacher at a church teacher's school. As in Chukovi, he creates a student choir and leads a spiritual orchestra. Processes folk songs for choristers. These wonderful arrangements of Ukrainian songs entered the treasury of the Ukrainian musical heritage. Eternal teacher and eternal student - these are the words that can define the position of Leontovich the teacher and Leontovich the artist. The composer paid special attention to self-education. The need to systematize and strengthen the knowledge acquired independently led him to the St. Petersburg court chapel where during school holidays 1903-1904 he passed the exams for the title of director of church choirs.

Nikolai Leontovych became the teacher of a whole generation of Ukrainian musicians, because through the power of talent he condensed in his work the choral and song practice of the people and the artistic opinion of his predecessors and contemporaries. Folk art revealed to him the finest features national character, the beauty of his creative spirit was forever determined by Leontovich’s civic creed. In some of his notes, he emphasized that for a real artist life goal must be fully operational under all circumstances. By personal example the composer proved the inextricable unity of word and deed, boundless devotion to the work to which he devoted himself.

Since the fall of 1904, Nikolai Leontovich has been working at the railway school at the Grishino station (now Krasnoarmeysk) in the Donbass. In a short period of time, he organized singing classes there, created a choir and an instrumental ensemble consisting of railway workers and members of their families. In 1905, fate returns Leontovich to native land. He settles in Tulchin and gets a job as a teacher at the diocesan school. Here he works with amateur choirs and continues to record and harmonize folk songs. By that time, he had already combined his musical attempts into two published collections, “Songs from Podolia.”

During this period, Leontovich perfectly mastered the techniques and means of choral technique in the process of live singing. The composer did a lot to preserve the pristine nature of folk art for future generations and protect it from the cliches of salon performance. Turning to the same work for many years, Leontovich discovered new facets of the song and gave it a new, unique flavor. The best samples His choral arrangements, built on folk song material, are the unforgettable “Shchedryk”, “Dudarik”, “The Cossack is being Carried”, “Oh from Behind the Stone Mountain”, “The Little Lischina Made a Noise”, “It’s Not Enough to Have One Daughter”. These and other adaptations by Leontovich were widely used among the people and were often performed in concerts of amateur and professional folk choirs.

The artist’s creative credo could be formulated as follows: folk art gave him its treasures, and he polished them and returned them to the creators in the form precious stones. However, this bright master of Ukrainian art, very original in his creative style, choral music was not known to the general public, and only after the successful performance of the folk song “Shchedryk” in its arrangement by the student choir of Kyiv University under the direction of Alexander Koshits, the name of the Podolsk teacher became known in musical circles. In 1909, N. Leontovich moved to Kyiv, where he directed choral groups and taught at the Musical Drama Institute. Nikolai Lysenko, works in the music department of the Kyiv Regional Committee and in the All-Ukrainian Arts Committee, heads the established state orchestra, communicates with famous scientists and musicians (Professor B. Yavorsky, singer L. Sobinov, conductors-composers Y. Stepovoy, Y. Kalishevsky).

Being engaged in active musical-organizational and pedagogical activity, N. Leontovich however does not leave composer's work. In addition to adaptations of folk songs, he writes works based on the words of modern Ukrainian poets: “My Song”, “Summer Tone”, “Ice Breaker”, “Legend”, begins working on an opera with fairy tale plot"mermaids", which I never finished.

Leontovych met the Ukrainian revolution of 1917-1920, the moment of formation of the Ukrainian state, with enthusiasm. He seemed to have added even more energy and strength. Together with other outstanding musical figures and composers - Kirill Stetsenko, Yakov Stepny, Alexander Koshits - Leontovich plunges into the whirlpool of turbulent cultural and public life. It was at this time that through their efforts they founded state choirs: Republican Chapel under the direction of Alexander Koshits, chapel "Dumka" (State Ukrainian Mandrivna Chapel) under the direction of Kirill Stetsenko; new amateur choirs are being organized; The activities of the Musical and Theater Institute named after. Lysenko; Concert, publishing and music-educational activities are intensifying - all this was due to the beginning of a new stage in the development of national musical culture.

The Bolshevik occupation stopped these movements. In fact, the Ukrainian revival was destroyed: newly created national institutions were closed or “reorganized”, re-examined or physically destroyed prominent figures Ukrainian culture, Sciences. These were the measures new policy, the slogan of which was “national culture in form, but Bolshevik in content.” In practice this meant the end cultural development, national upsurge, the end of Ukrainian statehood. Since 1920, having found himself on the “black list” of the Cheka, Leontovich was persecuted by the “authorities”. He had to hide and often change places of residence. Believing that he would be saved in his father’s house, he settled with him. On the night of January 22-23, 1921, a security officer sent killed him with a shot in the chest.

The truth about this villainous murder became known recently, after the opening of archives. And in Soviet time Officially, historians presented the fact of Leontovich’s death as an accidental death at the hands of an unknown bandit, as an accident. Immediately after the death of Leontovich in 1921, a Public Committee in his memory was created in Kyiv, which included famous figures culture - M. Verikivsky, Y. Stepovoy, P. Demutsky, D. Revutsky, G. Verevka, representatives of the musical and scientific community of Kyiv and Ukraine. Later this committee turned into the Society named after. Leontovich, whose task was to study, present, and promote creativity outstanding artist. Streets are named after him creative organizations, professional and amateur choirs, conservatory. A scholarship named after Leontovich was established for the best students, and museums were created.

Biography

Born on December 1, 1877 in the village of Monastyrok, Bratslav district, Podolsk province, in the family of a rural priest. He spent his early childhood in the village of Shershnyakh, Tyvrovsky volost, Vinnitsa district. Leontovich received his initial musical education from his father, who played the cello, violin, guitar and for some time led the seminarians’ choir.

In 1887, Leontovich entered the Nemirovsky gymnasium. In 1888, due to lack of funds, his father transferred him to the Shargorod Primary Theological School, where the students were kept on full board. At the school, he mastered singing from notes, and could freely read complex parts in church choral works.

In 1892, Leontovich entered the Podolsk Theological Seminary in Kamenets-Podolsk, where he studied music theory and choral singing, mastered the violin, piano, and some wind instruments, and began processing folk melodies, taking Nikolai Lysenko’s processing as a model.

In 1898, Leontovich graduated from theological seminary and decided to work as a teacher in rural schools and at the same time independently improve his musical education. In the village of Chukovi, he organized an amateur symphony orchestra that performed Ukrainian melodies and plays by Russian and Ukrainian composers. In 1901 he published the first collection of songs from Podolia. In 1903, a second collection of Podolian songs was published with a dedication to M. Lysenko.

In the fall of 1904, he left Podolia and moved to the Donbass, where he became a teacher of singing and music at a local railway school. During the 1905 revolution, Leontovich organized a workers' choir that performed at rallies. Leontovich’s activities attracted the attention of the police, and he was forced to return to Podolia, to the city of Tulchin, where he taught music and singing at the Tulchin Diocesan Women’s School for the daughters of rural priests. Since 1909, Leontovich has been studying under the guidance of the famous music theorist B. Yavorsky, whom he periodically visits in Moscow and Kyiv.

At that time he created many choral arrangements, in particular the famous “Shchedrik”, as well as “Cocks Feeding”, “Mother of One Daughter is Small”, “Dudarik”, “Oh the Dawn Has Rose”, etc. In Tulchin he met the composer Kirill Stetsenko. In 1916, together with the Kyiv University choir, he performed his arrangement of “Shchedryk,” which brought him great success with the Kyiv public.

With the establishment of the Ukrainian People's Republic, Leontovich moved from Tulchin to Kyiv, where he began active work as a conductor and composer. A number of his works have been included in the repertoire of professional and amateur groups in Ukraine. At one of the concerts, “Legend” by Nikolai Voronoi, arranged by Leontovich, was a great success. After the arrival of the Bolsheviks, Leontovich worked for some time in the music committee at the People's Commissariat of Education, taught at the Music and Drama Institute. N. Lysenko, together with the composer and conductor G. Verevka, works at the People's Conservatory, on preschool education courses, and organizes several choral clubs.

During the capture of Kyiv on August 31, 1919 by Denikin, who were persecuting the Ukrainian intelligentsia, he was forced to flee to Tulchin. Founds the first music school in Tulchin. in 1919-1920 he worked on his first large symphonic work - the folk-fantasy opera “On Easter for the Mermaids” based on the fairy tale of the same name by B. Grinchenko. In the fall of 1920, a choir chapel tour took place in Tulchin under the direction of K. Stetsenko and Pavel Tychyna as the second conductor. During the chapel's concerts, works by Leontovich were performed. In the last months of his life, Leontovich was finishing the opera “For the Mermaids’ Easter.”

On the night of January 22-23, 1921, the composer was with his father in the village of Markovka, Gaisinsky district, where he was killed by an agent of the Gaisinsky district Cheka, Afanasy Grishchenko, who asked to spend the night in the house, calling himself a security officer who was fighting banditry. In the morning, the killer robbed the house, shooting Nikolai Leontovich and tying the hands of the composer’s family. The text of the report revealing the name of the composer's killer was made public only in the 1990s.

Creation

The basis of Leontovych's musical heritage consists of choral miniatures - arrangements of Ukrainian folk songs, which to this day are unsurpassed and are performed by all Ukrainian choirs in Ukraine and the diaspora. These are the pearls of folk melodies marked by the great talent of the composer: “Shchedryk”, “The Cossack is being carried”, “Dudarik”, “From behind the mountain a snowball is flying”, “Zhenchichok-strum”, “Gayu, gayu, green rose” and many others. Based on Ukrainian folk melodies, Leontovych created completely original, original choral compositions, comprehensively artistically rethinking them, giving them a unique sound. Leontovych was one of the first among the masters of Ukrainian music who interpreted folklore in a new way, using the musical achievements of European musical and choral culture. At the same time, Leontovich’s handwriting stands out among others due to its extreme flexibility and naturalness in the movement of voices, and the exquisite polishing of details. Leontovych successfully used the traditions of improvisation in the work of Ukrainian kobzars, who interpreted each new stanza of the song text in a new way. Leontovich used timbre variations in the performance of folk rhapsodies in his arrangements, providing the choir with the opportunity to reveal a huge variety of harmony and counterpoint. Consistently embodying the idea of ​​harmonization and polyphony in his arrangements, Leontovich, having a deep and varied musical education, widely used the best achievements of world choral technique.

The themes of the composer's choral miniatures are extremely diverse. These are ritual, church, historical, Chumatsky, comic, dance, and game songs. One of the central places in Leontovich’s work is occupied by choirs household topics. These are, in particular, “Oh in the forest by the road”, “Oh dark and invisible night”, “A little mother of one daughter”, “Oh from behind the stone mountain”. They are characterized by a dynamic development of the plot, active dramatization of events and images. An example of such a high dramatic rise can be the folk song “Spinning”, in which Leontovich reached the level of a tragic ballad.

In the requiem songs “The Cossack is being Carried”, “A Snowball Is Flying from Behind the Mountain”, “Death”, Leontovich talentedly rethought the melody of folk lamentation, using the specific sound of individual voices and entire choral groups, using various choral sound effects, for example, singing with closed mouth.

The highest achievement The songs “Shchedrik” and “Dudarik” are considered to be the composer’s, in which Leontovich achieved maximum rhythmic organization. “Shchedryk” was and remains especially popular, in which the techniques of folk polyphony are organically combined with the achievements of classical polyphony, and each voice plays a completely independent expressive role, reproducing the subtlest changes in mood in the song, giving each artistic image to the utmost completion.

Memory

• On February 1, 1921, a significant group of cultural figures, professors and students gathered at the Kiev Music and Drama Institute named after Nikolai Lysenko to celebrate, according to Christian custom, 9 days after the death of Nikolai Leontovich. Quickly, but with great responsibility, they organized a concert of Leontovich’s works and spoke with words of regret and grief. At this meeting, the Committee in Memory of Nikolai Leontovich was created, which later took shape as Musical Society named after Nikolai Leontovich. This society included such famous Ukrainian artists, like Boris Lyatoshinsky and Pavlo Tychyna, many of the society members, such as Les Kurbas and Gnat Khotkevich, later divided tragic fate Leontovich, dying at the hands of representatives of the USSR state security agencies. The very name of Leontovich was “recognized as irrelevant for Soviet era", and in fact remained so until the mid-1950s.
• Today, Ukrainians bear the name Leontovych. musical groups, in particular the Bandura Chapel and educational institutions (in particular, the Vinnytsia School of Arts and Culture and the Donetsk School of Music №1).
• Streets in Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities are named after Leontovych.
• Memorial Museum Leontovych works in the city of Tulchin, Vinnytsia region; in 1977, the Leontovych Museum was also opened in the village. Markovka not far from his burial place.
• In 1977 37 choral works Leontovich were recorded by a choir of students of the Kyiv Conservatory under the direction of P. Muravsky.
• In 2005, a disc with 32 sacred works by Leontovich was released by the Kyiv chamber choir under the direction of M. Gobdich.

List of works

• “On Rusalkin Easter” (based on the fairy tale by B. Grinchenko, 1919, unfinished; 1975 M. Skorik completed, edited and instrumental for modern composition symphony orchestra);

• "Shchedrik"
  "Ice Breaker"
  "Dudarik"
  “I Believe” (from the liturgy of St. I. Chrysostom)
• Playback help

Choirs based on words of Ukrainian poets:

• “Ice Breaker”, “Summer Tones” (both to lyrics by G. Chuprynka),
• “My song” (lyrics by I. Bililovsky),
• “Legend” (lyrics by M. Voronoi);

Compositions on liturgical texts:

• Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom,
• Prayer service,
• Parts of the All-Night Vigil;

Ukrainian pedagogy in persons - XIX century / Edited by A.V. Sukhomlinsky / tutorial for higher education students educational institutions, in two books // “Lybid”, - K., 2005, book. 1. pp. 545 - 551.

Leontovich

Nikolay Dmitrievich

Composer,

Choral conductor,

Public figure

Nikolai Dmitrievich Leontovich was born on December 1, 1877 in the village of Selevintsi (according to the latest archival data, it was a suburb of the village of Monastyrek, which was previously considered the composer’s birthplace) of the Bratslav district of the Nemirov volost of the Podolsk province (now Vinnitsa region). He was the first born later large family village priest and teacher. His father, Dmitry Feofanovich Leontovich, came from a family of church ministers, but, like his grandfather and great-grandfather, he combined the performance of spiritual services with teaching. The Leontovich family brought up educated people who were not indifferent to the life and culture of Ukraine.

Nikolai Leontovich spent his childhood in the village of Shershen, Tyvrovsky volost, where his father was transferred to a new place of service in the summer of 1879. It was in family circle he joined musical folklore and Ukrainian song creativity. The father of the future composer played several string instruments(zither, balalaika, violin, guitar), and my mother knew many songs and sang well. Musical evenings were often held in the house. Little Kolya not only fell in love with listening to and subsequently performing songs, but also picked out folk melodies on musical instruments. WITH early years his creative destiny was revealed: he organized his younger brothers and sisters into a choir and they arranged family concerts in front of numerous relatives and peasants. Thus, even before studying at school, Kolya had some musical training.

Father, Dmitry Feofanovich Leontovich, dreamed of a thorough secular education for his eldest son - in 1887 he sent him to preparatory class Nemirovskaya gymnasium. But, burdened with a family, the poor rural priest was unable to pay for his education, and from January of the following year the boy entered the first grade of the Shargorod Theological School, where the priest’s children studied for free. In 1892, having received high marks in musical singing, penmanship, geography, and Greek, young Leontovich completed his primary education and in the same year continued his studies at the Kamenets-Podolsk Theological Seminary. It is known from memoirs and archival sources that he had little interest in theological sciences, but he was interested in literature and psychology, and most of all he loved and conscientiously studied singing and music. Fortunately for the student, musical subjects at the seminary were taught by a highly educated teacher Yu.O. Bogdanov, who received his musical education at the St. Petersburg Court Chapel, was an active collector of folk songs, and published a collection of choral arrangements of more than 100 melodies that he recorded in the villages of Podolia and Volyn. As a musician-educator, the teacher tried not only to give his students special professional knowledge and instill a love of music, but also to train them to be good singing teachers who would bring art to the people. It was under his leadership that Nikolai Leontovich made his first attempts to transcribe and arrange his own folk songs (“Ganja”, “The Sun Rises Over Siberia”), gradually accumulating song material for future pedagogical work. Already in 1898, he was assigned to lead the choir of seminarians, and he had the opportunity to master the art of managing a choir and orchestra. In an effort to expand the scope of the Seminary, Nikolai Dmitrievich Leontovich selected material not of a spiritual direction, but of a secular one, for which he was subsequently punished: he was removed from the dirigence and left for the second year. Forced to continue his studies, the seminarian began to collect even more actively musical folklore in villages and towns, preparing for professional work.

The beginning of Nikolai Dmitrievich Leontovich’s teaching career occurred during the period of intensification of the national democratic educational movement in the Ukrainian lands, when the nationally conscious intelligentsia waged a stubborn struggle for recognition of self-worth Ukrainian language and culture, for native teaching. The young Nikolai Leontovich also made his contribution to this movement, who on September 1, 1899 took the position of “teacher of singing ***, arithmetic and geography” of the Chukiv two-class parish school in Podolia.

repeat

I already forgot the details in advance
I say that I can tweak something. There is a museum in the Velikoluksky district of the Pskov region
Mussorgsky. MP was born there, in the village of Karevo. But the house where he was born is long gone
exists, there is only a foundation. Don't know. as it is now, but before it was on this foundation
small memorial plaque. On the board is a line from Mussorgsky's song with a slightly modified
text: `Our dear gentleman` (in the original - `mine`, not `ours`). This board appeared in
still very Soviet times. Local residents installed it at their own expense. Peasants, before
which, apparently, somehow reached the memory of Mussorgsky. How could such a text be allowed, I don’t
I know. And no one broke it. (I repeat, I saw the board in the early 80s, since then it has not been there
been. Further. Of the musicians of long ago, only V. Karatygin reached these places. The rest of us
everyone, musicologists, admirers, composers, performers, successfully used the fact that
Mussorgsky created, but after Karatygin no one was interested in anything else. wrote to
books. that he was born in Karev, that’s all. What kind of Karevo is it, who knows it, who is it for?
necessary. As far as I know the stories about the emergence of the museum, it again did not arise on the initiative of
us, the capital's connoisseurs, and on the initiative of an uncle teacher from those places who reached
until, it seems, Khrennikov, the latter gave the go-ahead to act. And so they made a museum. WITH
for whom, by the way, nothing but grief. There are very few exhibits, the place is far from the centers, income
no, they’ll steal, break in, or something else. But in the past years I was constantly involved in the museum
E.E. Nesterenko. I dare to recommend the article by N.S. Novikov, a completely unique
a person I knew personally: http://www.hrono.ru/libris/lib_n/novmus05.php. Somewhere at
I have printouts of some of his studies of Mussorgsky's genealogies, which
amazingly interesting and conscientious. Nikolai Stepanovich worked on them while sitting in the dust
archives for many years. They should be published systematically, I hope that Nesterenko has
all materials. Because all this was published chaotically and scatteredly.

I witnessed the hostility of the local leadership towards this whole matter.
Evgeniy Evgenievich, who then, in any case, was a very, very
powerful, achieved the decision to install large monument Mussorgsky in places. Where
the composer was born. The laying of this monument was supposed to take place. For this EE
prepared a big concert program, invited Migin’s choir, Eden Obraztsova, and me too
grabbed it, built a temporary stage under open air. We have all arrived. We're coming. A
the hill on which the monument was supposed to stand has been plowed. so wide open that it's hard to get there
impossible. It is clear that there was no agricultural need here. This form
local bossy hooliganism. The concert was held, but the ceremony was cancelled. AND
The monument was never laid. Years later, EE again went around the second circle, there was a certain
he organized a meeting in the workshop of the sculptor Dumanyan near the already cast monument,
spread something like that in the press, in general. somehow he managed to push through, I would say,
this project. With enormous resistance at different levels of power. - The museum itself is located in
another estate nearby, in the village of Naumovo, where close relatives of the MP lived, missed this
say. The monument seems to be standing safely, but I still haven’t seen it, I can’t get there,
the places are not close, you need to drive your own car, the closest civilian place is the town of Toropets,
It’s still 20-30 kilometers from it. It’s possible from Rizhsky station to Kunya station, there’s something
by bus, but it’s not clear where to spend the night. Difficult, in general. And the path to Toropets is not close.
Maybe I forgot something, but I definitely got it wrong, sorry. I still don’t have an answer to the question of who
cut off his hand.