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Memoirs read online Trubetskoy Evgeny. Trubetskoy Andrey Vladimirovich

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Ways are inscrutable (Memoirs 1939-1955)

Memories of the camp and military experience of Andrei Vladimirovich Trubetskoy, son of the writer Vladimir Sergeevich Trubetskoy.

Trubetskoy A.V.

M. : Kontur, 1997.

Like prayer smokes
Dark and inscrutable
your final paths.
M. Voloshin

It is known that memoirs historical source have significant drawbacks. Their authors tend to idealize the past, focus on the bright moments of their lives and sacrifice details for the sake of generalizations. And only in rare cases, when reading memoirs, one can feel both the air of the era and its ontological dissimilarity with others. From this point of view, the memoirs of A. V. Trubetskoy are extremely interesting to both the reader and the researcher. As a witness and participant in the events described, Andrei Vladimirovich is interested and important in everything. As a witness, he has a rare memory, and being inside the events, Trubetskoy fixes them with merciless honesty, which gives these memories a confessional character. This is not autobiographical prose, but the most valuable "living literature of facts", which, according to P.A. Vyazemsky, and creates the historical and cultural background of the time. The unhurried and detailed narrative is devoted to two key topics for Russia in the middle of the 20th century - the Great Patriotic war and Stalin's camps - and covers the period from 1939 to 1956. In this relatively short period of time, the life of one person contained strikingly dissimilar years; as the author himself writes, on the example of his "atypical" story, "merciful fate has shown its wide possibilities." This atypicality life paths within the experience of a whole generation and forced the physiologist, Doctor of Biological Sciences, A.V. Trubetskoy in the 1960s to take up writing memoirs.

"Inscrutable Ways" have a subtitle - "from the history of human life”, indicating the chronological limitations of these memories, beyond which the genealogical digression remained.

V family tree Trubetskoy, branches of the most noble intersect Russian surnames- Golitsyn, Obolensky, Sheremetev, Lopukhin. (This could not help but play a role in the fate of the author.) This family gave an amazing number of historical figures, starting with the first mention in the XIV century of its ancestors, the princes of Gediminovich, and ending with modern times. Among them are statesmen and public figures, and artists, and scientists. 1
See the Legend of the Trubetskoy family. M., 1891, as well as S.G. Trubetskoy. Princes Trubetskoy. Quebec, 1976 and Genealogical collection “The offspring of Prince N.P. Trubetskoy". Paris. 1984.

If you believe the connoisseur of archival materials historian P.I. Bartenev, Catherine II should also be included in this list, since he considered I.I. Betsky.

The eldest son of Sergei Nikolaevich, Nikolai, who later became a major linguist, by this time, like many of Trubetskoy's relatives, was in exile. Mother A.V. was Elizaveta Vladimirovna Golitsyna, daughter former governor, and then the mayor of Moscow, Prince Vladimir Mikhailovich Golitsyn. Like many nobles at that time, the Trubetskoys lived near Moscow, first with relatives of the Bobrinskys in their Bogoroditsky estate, and then in Sergiev Posad. V.M. Golitsyn and his wife (nee Delyanova) lived with their daughter's family. Both grandfathers of Andrey Trubetskoy were outstanding people, but S.N. died back in 1905, and Andrei found Vladimir Mikhailovich. This grandfather was “all on fine delicacy, and a white bone and blue blood”(this is how the journalist S. Yablonovsky described Prince Golitsyn); he was lucky to avoid reprisals; he was engaged in translations from French, worked on Botanical Studies, wrote memoirs and read them at home in the evenings. The family lived hard: Vladimir Sergeevich was repeatedly arrested, and in the intervals between arrests he was deprived of his job. But the children did not see their father broken: he remained in their memory as a wonderful storyteller, a talented musician, a bright, witty person.

Vladimir Sergeevich and his daughter were sent to Central Asia, to the city of Andijan. The family followed them, and for Andrei Trubetskoy, the years of early youth fell on life in the Uzbek outback with its exoticism and all the complexities of the existence of a family of Russian exiles. Andrei was an excellent student at school (the craving for learning was the strongest passion throughout his youth), but he managed to finish the ten years only thanks to the perseverance and charm of his father - the Trubetskoys were "dispossessed", and children did not have to count on more than 7 classes .

“In 1937, the family suffered a terrible blow: the father and Varya were again arrested, who received a sentence of “10 years in camps without the right to correspond” (that is, they were shot by VL). At the same time, the second sister Tatya (Alexandra) and the older brother Grisha were arrested, who received “just” 10 years in the camps. And we - the rest - left at the first opportunity Central Asia". In 1939 Andrei Trubetskoy was drafted into the Red Army; in July 1941 he was taken prisoner with a severe wound. And this is where the similarity between the story of Andrei Vladimirovich Trubetskoy and the stories of many descendants of the "former" in post-revolutionary Russia ends. His own Odyssey had begun.

Then life could turn out like Christmas story. Miraculously, he was released from captivity and got the opportunity, forgetting about the war, to live comfortably in the German rear. And here he faced the problem of choice: to remain a “titled person” in prosperity in the West or to return through the heat of war to where the very word “prince” became abusive, to a devastated, truly impoverished house to his relatives, about whose fate he did not know did not know. Trubetskoy chose Russia - love for his mother, merged with love for the Motherland, forced him to make this choice. Then A.V. fought in partisan detachments in the Augustow forests - first in the Polish, then in the Soviet, and returned home already with the army in the field. Life offered Trubetskoy more than once to choose. In 1949, as a student of the Faculty of Biology of Moscow State University, refusing to cooperate with the MGB, A-V. was arrested and sent to the copper mines in Dzhezkazgan. In the camp, the "organs" again offered cooperation, and again Trubetskoy chose, following not the simplest logic of life, but an internal moral law. As a result, he spent almost all the years of his stay in the camp in the penal, the so-called regime brigade, essentially in prison. But the “springiness” of Trubetskoy, about which his grandfather Sergei Nikolayevich spoke, did not disappear: the more difficult the circumstances, the more collected and stronger Andrei Trubetskoy became.

Returning from the camp after reviewing the case in 1955, Trubetskoy found the strength to re-enter the university. His educational epic, which began in 1938, was finally able to end. Then Andrei Vladimirovich successfully worked for almost 30 years on the problems of cardiology at the All-Russian Scientific Center and slowly wrote memoirs with long breaks - “I never even wanted to take up a pen, especially when I described 1949-50 and subsequent years. Then even dreams became more frequent, and these dreams were, oh! how heavy. But I had to write. Let the children read, we tell them little about our life, and they live in a completely different way than we do.

In the book of memoirs of A.V. included original documents. Among them are various certificates, including about rehabilitation, search protocols, excerpts from newspaper articles, diaries of the commander of the partisan detachment. The chapter of memoirs of the author's wife, Elena Vladimirovna Golitsyna, included in the main body of the book, should certainly be included among the documentary materials. In 1951, she came to her husband in the camp, which was unheard of at that time. This act was so out of the ordinary that the unsentimental, coarsened people in the camp took off their hats at the sight of her trying to get into the zone. Returning home, Elena Vladimirovna immediately wrote down everything that she saw and experienced then, and this story shocks with acute emotionality. Together with the text of Trubetskoy's memoirs, all this gives an understanding of the peculiarities of the time and how infernal phenomena are closely intertwined in Russia with human destinies.

Such a biography might not exist if Andrei Trubetskoy, following his ancestors and those among whom he grew up, did not consider that high lineage obliges - and no more. The true value is only the aristocracy of the spirit with those "non-life virtues", which, according to the philosopher and theologian C. Lewis, "only have the power to save our race."

V. Polykovskaya

PART 1

Chapter 1. IN THE RED ARMY

In the summer of 1939 I turned nineteen years old. The remnants of our family: my mother with my brothers and sister (Volodka - 15 years old, Seryozhka - 13 years old, Gotka - 7 years old and Irinka - 17 years old - as we used to call each other) lived in the city of Taldom, or rather, in an almost merged with the city of Vysochki village. But I lived in Moscow, with relatives of the mother of the Bobrinskys, on Trubnikovsky, and rarely visited Taldom. We moved to this town in the spring, having left Andijan, where in 1934 my father and older sister Varya, who was not yet 17 years old, ended up against their will. They were deported to this Uzbek city for a free settlement after their arrest in 1934, and in the same year we moved from Zagorsk to them. In 1937, the family suffered a terrible blow: the father and Varya were arrested again, who received the sentence “10 years in camps without the right to correspond” - only now it became known what was hidden behind these words. At the same time, the second sister Tatya (Alexandra) and the older brother Grisha were arrested, who received “just” 10 years in the camps. And we - the rest - left Central Asia at the first opportunity.

I was a part-time student of the Faculty of Physics of Moscow State University. However, in the fall, instead of university classrooms, I ended up in the barracks - according to the new, just adopted Law on universal military duty, I was called up for active service in the Red Army (Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army).

Already in September I knew that I was going to military service, and therefore did not work, but went to rare lectures for correspondence students and completed assignments that came by mail. And although I had one semester of the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics in Samarkand behind me, these classes were not easy for me, and after all, I passed the winter session at the Uzbek University with excellent marks. The Military Medical Commission assigned me to the Signal Corps. The duty lieutenant of this commission fairly outraged me:

- Go get your hair cut first.

- Why?

- That's the way it's supposed to be.

“Maybe I won’t be called yet.

- Don't worry, we'll take it.

“Then cut here.

“If you don’t get your hair cut, we’ll bring him in as a military service evader.”

Phew, dog! The most annoying thing was to pay money at the city barbershop.

Then it was decided to take a picture. Mother was in Moscow, having arrived for groceries, and the Bobrinskys and I agreed to go to a photo studio on Kuznetsky Most. But it turned out that only Uncle Kolya, his son Kolya and I came. This photograph has been preserved as a memory of those days ...

In mid-October, I received a summons that I was called up on the 26th and that I had to appear at the recruiting station at the club of the Trekhgornaya Manufactory factory. The agenda, printed in a typographical way, said that you should have a spoon, footcloths and a pair of underwear with you - apparently, this form was almost from the time of the civil war. I went to Taldom and returned with my mother. By the appointed hour, we went with her to Presnya. The old large building and the courtyard of the club are full of conscripts, seeing off. Everywhere there is hustle and bustle from conversations. But then they began to collect teams, and my mother and I began to say goodbye. She was quiet and sad all the time, crossed me and kissed me, said some words which I forgot in the excitement that had taken possession of me.

The calm, middle-aged captain gathered a team according to the list and announced that we would now get into the cars and go.

- Not far, about 7-8 hours from Moscow.

While we were waiting for the cars, it turned out that we were all assigned to different branches of the military. They began to find out what was what, but the captain did not give any explanation: "You will find out everything soon."

In three open trucks they set off towards the Garden Ring. “I wonder which station they will take you to?” - flashed through my head. From Vosstaniya Square we turned right: “To Kievsky?” We passed Smolenskaya Square: “To Paveletsky?” On Kaluzhskaya Square, we turned into a quiet Donskaya Street, and soon the lead car, turning sharply to the left, illuminated the gate and the sign next to it with its headlights - “ secondary school No. 15". Behind the gates there was a red brick building, military men around it, and a camp kitchen was smoking. All this in the evening lights. Here you have 7-8 hours from Moscow! In the buttonholes of the military - hatchets. It was a sapper battalion - the 22nd Separate sapper battalion of the Moscow Proletarian Rifle Division. I must say that at that time, in connection with the Polish campaign, many public buildings of the city were occupied by military units.

There are many elderly people among the soldiers (then it was customary to say “fighters”, “Red Army men”, and not “soldiers”, just as the word “officer” was not mentioned). We were surrounded, there were questions, conversations. But here we are, in the same cars, going to the third-rate bathhouse that Crimean bridge. At the entrance to the washing department, everyone was given a piece of laundry soap the size of a half-matchbox (washing with such pieces, but usually much smaller, later accompanied me for many years in army and camp life). Finally, we are already dressed in all uniforms and immediately stop recognizing each other - everyone is the same, everyone is in Budyonovka with a black star (engineers), tunics, boots (tarpaulin boots were still a rarity then). And one more "innovation": tunics with one pocket. The same captain, who accompanied us here, quipped about this: "Some clever quartermaster calculated that in a hundred years he would save material for one regiment."

In the barracks, that is, at school, dinner: thick pea soup with large quantity meat, then hang up - sleep. V former classes beds. The commanders attached to us warned that the rise at six o'clock in the morning, the rise was fast. Wear only bloomers - that's what the army called trousers - boots, helmets and undershirts for exercise.

This first morning, the first wake-up call, getting up, exercising are well remembered. I woke up from loud cries: “Rise! Rise! Get up! Quickly! Quickly!" Footcloths - this was not given for a long time - did not want to wind up in any way, the commanders urged on, the head was still sleepy, it did not understand anything, it was chaos. But that's all downstairs, in the yard. Early Moscow morning. Dark. Foggy drizzle, through which the red lights on the Shabolov radio mast flicker a little. Cold - end of October. We run in single file along the ring of the yard, then we do some exercises mechanically under the command, and there is still a dream in my head and an internal protest against this violence is growing: why is this necessary? Washing, a hearty breakfast and the first classes. They led us in formation to Mytnaya Street, to the stadium. It started raining with snow. And we march for four hours under the command: “To the left, to the right, around!” Stupidity and at the same time a riot are spreading inside, because yesterday there was a university auditorium, a living thought, human knowledge. And what's that? You are some kind of soulless machine. Why this drill? But by the summer of next year, when I was graduating from the regimental school for junior commanders, I realized that drill was necessary in the army - morale, cohesion, individual and collective discipline, readiness appeared - all those qualities for which the regular troops are so valued.

Thus began my service in the army, which continued, however, with a long break until May 1946.

Classes flowed: materiel, drill; drill, materiel, political studies, special classes - we are sappers. But all this soon ceased to concern me. I don’t know why, but they made me a clerk and at the same time a storekeeper at the battalion’s gas depot. I was appointed to this position by the same elderly captain, a man of an intelligent warehouse by the name of Lifshitz, who received us, recruits, at the Trekhgorka club (he was, it seems, the head of the technical unit of the battalion).

My immediate superiors are junior lieutenant Yurkov, a rather colorful personality. Small, on crooked legs in chrome boots, which he lowered like an accordion as low as possible, tightly tied with a wide belt with a star and a harness, in a large cap, shifted to his forehead and slightly to one side, dark-haired, taut, with a mole on his cheek. He lived in an apartment in the city and appeared in the barracks in the morning. I was already at that time sitting at the table and writing something.

“Hello, fellow soldier Trubetskoy,” he said, coming up to me and tilting his head to one side.

“Hello, Comrade Yurkov,” I answered while sitting, not yet having tasted all the army rules. But he soon taught me how to use it, and when he appeared, I jumped up cheerfully and was the first to greet the authorities (before that, I believed that the one who entered was the first to greet). Sometimes Yurkov took our small team, consisting of rookie drivers, me and the junior commander, to drills. From the outside it looked, probably, quite comical. The guys got up all tall, of course, they didn’t know how to walk in the ranks under the command - the right hand was raised along with the right foot, and the left hand with the left. Yurkov trotted now from the side, now in front of us, now in front, now behind, went into a rage, hissed jerky commands, his eyes lit up; always tucked up, he sucked in his belly and puffed out his chest. But these activities were of little use.

From the episodes of the first days of service, even on Donskaya Street, I remember a trip to the laundry for linen. The laundry was located on the Garden Ring near Vosstaniya Square. From her yard, house 26 on Trubnikovsky Lane was visible very close by - the Bobrinskys lived in it. Painfully I wanted to run to them, especially since neither they nor my mother knew where I was yet. They didn’t take linen for a long time, there was time, but I still didn’t dare to run away and suffered. I asked our junior commander Teslenko - a handsome, simple-minded big man - he hesitated, but did not allow it. So I didn't visit.

Other times I was more determined. They took us to the conservatory for a concert - also close to Trubnikovsky. The concert began, and I quietly went into the locker room, put on my overcoat and went out. But he was detained by the political commissar of the battalion, who, with two or three junior commanders, was sitting at the beginning of the lower foyer on a bench in a niche and was not immediately visible. Confusion, but without consequences. And they were sitting, apparently, specifically for catching such arbitrators; we were not yet allowed into the city, but there were many Muscovites in the battalion.

One evening, my mother came to me on Donskaya - we had already written letters, and I told her where I was. They let me know that she had come, and we stood for a long time at the fence - she was on that side, and I was on that side. I am cheerful, cheerful, she is sad. And either with melancholy, or with reproach, she said:

- You are in the Red Army and in this helmet with a star.

What could I say?

But now they began to occasionally let us go to the city, on dismissal. At first, only in pairs, and for a few minutes I got to the Bobrinskys together with the same recruit, Ukrainian Malinovsky. He had relatives in Balashikha, where we still had to be in time. It is curious that the foreman of the battalion, an old campaigner, somehow called me back and persuaded me to follow and report to him about Malinovsky. I don’t remember what expressions I refused - it’s clear that since the authorities made me a clerk, I could be trusted.

Soon we were transferred from the school on Donskaya Street to the Chernyshevsky barracks near the Danilovsky market. This is now the barracks, but then they were enclosed by a wall and had large yard, and now trolleybuses are rolling past the buildings. Inside the barracks are huge rooms and bunks, bunks, bunks, and bedside tables between them. Old fighters began to disappear, young ones appeared, mainly from Ukraine. We were given rifles, and for some reason I remembered my number - 40629.

We already went to the city one by one, and even more so, since I continued to study at the university in absentia: I showed the authorities a piece of paper that I needed a consultation, and they let me go. On one of these layoffs, I went to the Raevskys, who lived in 5th Monetchikov Lane not far from the barracks - good friends of our families, relatives of the wife of cousin Vladimir Golitsyn. The youngest daughter of Uncle Shurik and Aunt Nadia Raevsky, Sonya, was a friend of Elena Golitsyna, and the three of us went to the Agricultural Exhibition, which had just opened then, where we had fun. I often visited the Raevskys, this house was cheerful. At that time, being on leave, I sat up with them, I did not want to return to the uncomfortable barracks, to leave the pleasant family hearth. The hosts, and Sonya too, made hints, but I did not understand ... But then the first guests began to appear, and it dawned on me, I began to hurriedly get ready. Then Aunt Nadia said:

- Well, stay now.

And I stayed. There were interesting guests, among them Sergei Prokofiev. There were dances, singing with a guitar ... But after this incident, I no longer wanted to go to the Raevskys.

Often I went to the family of Uncle Nix (Nikolai Vladimirovich Golitsyn), my mother's brother. His son Kirill had cute kids with whom I liked to mess around. Once I went to my cousin Mashenka Veselovskaya. They lived then on Usachyovka, and Anyutka's daughter had just appeared in the family. Nearby was the district Railway, where in the smoke, in vapors in the frosty evening haze, echelons went to the Finnish front - so, by association, that visit to Mashenka was remembered.

One day I received a postcard from my mother saying that on such and such a date at such and such a time she would be shopping near the barracks. Naturally, I received this postcard a few days later than the date indicated. And in the next dismissal, I found out that the “wise” aunt Masha Bobrinskaya came up with this text so that we could see my mother, who came to Moscow for groceries. Naive aunt.

In my service, I was in charge of refueling cars with fuel and kept records of it. Our garage is a wire-fenced section of the yard with our own sentry, a dozen trucks and rows of barrels. Sometimes they went for gasoline to the Vykhinsky tank farm. On one of these trips, a truck with crates of apples overtook us on the Ryazan highway. There were two loaders on the boxes, who, without any signs from our side, began to throw these apples at us - such was the attitude towards the soldiers.

The drivers of the battalion are accommodating guys, and I quickly got along with them, and they taught me a simple thing - to turn the steering wheel. When terrible frosts began, the drivers, returning from trips frozen, left the cars at the entrance to the barracks and ran to warm up. Then I went to put the car in the garage, but before that I had plenty of rides around the huge yard, fortunately it was large, right up to the Pavlovsk hospital, the dome of which towered behind the wall.

In my free time in the evenings, I sat down to study. I sat down systematically and one day I heard how they set me up as an example for this persistence.

Meanwhile, events unfolded. The newspapers began to write about provocations on Karelian Isthmus from the Whites. At the end of November, there was a rally in the battalion, from which the performance of one of the Ukrainian recruits was remembered for its artificiality. He "angrily branded the aggressor", and it all turned out painfully smoothly, as if he had just come from there and knew everything, saw everything with his own eyes. At that time, such performances were new to me. A day or two later, the Finnish campaign began. It lasted more than three months, cost us dearly, but did not bring honor or glory, although we received Vyborg and something else. A loudspeaker hung in the yard, broadcasting the latest news and other radio broadcasts. Now chaotic sounds often rushed from it - grinding and screeching - radio jamming. It is not clear why this jamming was transmitted to the general broadcast network.

Frost hit. The street was breathtaking, the overcoat saved little, and Moscow trams turned into ice caves. The thermometer showed below forty. It is warm in the barracks - do not touch the radiators. Messages about the rapid movement of troops of the Leningrad Military District, about the enemy's panic, and mass surrender were replaced by descriptions of individual episodes and the words "heavy battles." Finnish names that are unusual for the Russian ear have ceased to appear settlements the front is up. Frightening news reached us about those who were frozen and frostbitten, about Finnish snipers who inflicted great damage. The expression Manmerheim Line appeared: impregnable fortifications on the Karelian Isthmus. Even in the first days of the war, the newspapers published the Declaration of the Finnish People's Government, signed by Kuusinen and someone else. Under the large-printed word "Declaration" in brackets was another, small-printed - "Radio Interception" - they say, we have nothing to do with it. Later, this word could often be heard in conversation when some kind of rumor was reported. Then it was transformed into a "radio shack" - you can't deceive people and you can't refuse humor. A few days later, our agreement with the government of People's Finland was published and a photograph of Stalin's reception of this government. It was rumored that neither before nor during the war did this government leave Moscow.

And the front from Leningrad to Murmansk stood. And a lot of troops were sent there, although fighting were conducted on behalf of the Leningrad Military District.

There was a searchlight regiment in our yard. They began to prepare him for being sent to the front and, among other things, dressed him in new military sheepskin coats: soldiers in plain white, and commanders in brown-yellow, dashing cut. “Here's a good separation of targets for snipers. Maybe only these searchlights will stand far from the front line, ”I thought.

Once I was summoned by the battalion commissar, senior political instructor Pukhov, and made the following speech:

- The time is serious, you are in the army and must give everything to the army, but it turns out that you are here in body, but in the university in soul. Throw your distance learning, now is not up to it. And in the summer, when we leave for the camps, you won’t be able to study at all. We will not be able to let you go to university for classes right now.

I felt that it was useless to resist, although I tried to do so in the conversation, and with regret I abandoned the correspondence course.

Let me say a few words about my colleagues. Among them were two students of the conservatory: Fedyashkin, who played wonderfully on a home-made xylophone, and the Ukrainian Malomuzh, who whistled masterfully - both permanent participants in the battalion's amateur performances. I remember Rozov, who was friendly to me (from the city of Belev). When he was in the kitchen in a dress, he always brought some kind of present: a pickle or something else of that kind. I became quite close friends with a certain Surikov, a student legal institute. After the war, I met him twice on the street near the old university (accidentally?). The first time was in 1947 or 48. He did not hide, and even boasted, as it were, that he worked in the organs. I kept my mouth shut for good reason, which I will talk about below, and only said that I was studying at the university. The second time I met him was after 1955. He looked sickly, although he was always thin. According to his stories, he continued to serve in the organs. He said that he “experienced such, such ... people were lowered from the tenth floor into the basement ...”, hinting at the shake-up of the organs after Beria. To my question “Well, what about you?” - He replied that he did not deal with these matters. What he did there, I don't know.

After the New Year, we were transferred to Lefortovo, to the Red Barracks. Our working day increased to twelve hours, and bunk beds appeared in the barracks. The battalion was made motorized - all on cars. Courses for column drivers were opened (to drive a car only as part of a column), and I signed up for them. Intensive classes flowed. I led them well a driver-mechanic who knows his business, but of little general literacy.

But one day, as they say, a fine day - it was March 5, 1940 - they called me from class, ordered me to hand over my rifle, gas mask, pack my things and announced that I was being transferred to another unit. The translation touched on three more: Igor Ershov, not the first youth of a family Muscovite, Sergei Mechev and Ukrainian Gubar. Pretty soon we found out that it was a social dropout. Igor of noble origin, Mechev from a well-known Moscow spiritual family, Gubar from a family of dispossessed kulaks. Well, and I ... In this way they "cleaned" the Proletarian division, which was in the position, or something, of the guard at that time. We arrived in Serpukhov. The escort handed us over to the headquarters of some unit located in the center of the city. As Igor later recalled, the chief of staff who received us was in thought: “Where can I send you? Maybe to the regimental school? he reasoned aloud. Igor interjected: "Which of us are commanders." “But I’ll send you to the regimental school.” Already in the dark, on a two-horse sleigh, we set off somewhere outside the city. This trip is still in front of my eyes. Clear frosty night, moon, stars, forest clearings, hillocks, large open spaces, again the forest and Igor's singing. His voice was not bad, although rather weak. He sang "I'll harness the three greyhounds ..." To the beat of the song, the sleigh hooted on the potholes, dark pines floated above. But there were a few glimmers ahead.

We drove up to a two-story wooden barrack-type house and entered. Corridor, at the nightstand, orderly with a gas mask, as expected. Silence. They called the foreman. He led us to one of the rooms where the soldiers were already sleeping. A warm, thick tailor-sweat smell hit my nose. Mattresses were brought and we fell asleep. But even before going to sleep, they found out that they were in the regimental school of the 210th reserve rifle regiment - infantry.

The first morning of the new service was also remembered well. After the usual exercise and washing, formation for breakfast, formation outside the barracks, which stood on the high bank of the Oka. Senior officer Panteleev, lean, fit, slightly freckled blond, urged those who were lagging behind in a ringing voice:

– Razenkov, when will you learn not to stretch?! Mittelman! Again the last one! - etc.

Finally lined up. We are four on the left flank. Panteleev leveled the formation for a long time, then turned the column and commanded: "Step march!" We walked a little, and then a senior lieutenant on skis met us. The lieutenant commanded:

- Attention, alignment to the right!

Senior lieutenant:

Hello fellow cadets!

“Hello, comrade senior lieutenant,” the column answered discordantly.

Ways are inscrutable (Memoirs 1939-1955)

Memories of the camp and military experience of Andrei Vladimirovich Trubetskoy, son of the writer Vladimir Sergeevich Trubetskoy.

Trubetskoy A.V.

M. : Kontur, 1997.

Like prayer smokes
Dark and inscrutable
your final paths.
M. Voloshin

It is known that memoirs as a historical source have significant shortcomings. Their authors tend to idealize the past, focus on the bright moments of their lives and sacrifice details for the sake of generalizations. And only in rare cases, when reading memoirs, one can feel both the air of the era and its ontological dissimilarity with others. From this point of view, the memoirs of A. V. Trubetskoy are extremely interesting to both the reader and the researcher. As a witness and participant in the events described, Andrei Vladimirovich is interested and important in everything. As a witness, he has a rare memory, and being inside the events, Trubetskoy fixes them with merciless honesty, which gives these memories a confessional character. This is not autobiographical prose, but the most valuable "living literature of facts", which, according to P.A. Vyazemsky, and creates the historical and cultural background of the time. The unhurried and detailed narrative is devoted to two key topics for Russia in the middle of the 20th century - the Great Patriotic War and the Stalinist camps - and covers the period from 1939 to 1956. In this relatively short period of time, the life of one person contained strikingly dissimilar years; as the author himself writes, on the example of his "atypical" story, "merciful fate has shown its wide possibilities." It was this atypicality of their life paths within the experience of a whole generation that forced the physiologist, Doctor of Biological Sciences, A. V. Trubetskoy, to start writing memoirs in the 1960s.

"The Inscrutable Ways" have a subtitle - "from the history of human life", indicating the chronological limitations of these memories, beyond which the genealogical digression remained.

In the family tree of the Trubetskoys, branches of the most noble Russian families intersect - the Golitsyns, the Obolenskys, the Sheremetevs, the Lopukhins. (This could not help but play its role in the fate of the author.) This family gave an amazing number of historical figures, starting from the first mention in the 14th century of its ancestors, the princes of Gediminovich, and ending with modern times. Among them are statesmen and public figures, artists and scientists. If you believe the connoisseur of archival materials historian P.I. Bartenev, Catherine II should also be included in this list, since he considered I.I. Betsky.

Andrei Vladimirovich is a direct descendant of the philosopher and well-known public figure of the early 20th century, Prince S.N. Trubetskoy. He was born in 1920 in Bogoroditsk in the family of the youngest son S.N. - former cornet of the Life Guards of Her Majesty's cuirassier regiment and talented writer Vladimir Sergeevich Trubetskoy. The eldest son of Sergei Nikolaevich, Nikolai, who later became a major linguist, by this time, like many of Trubetskoy's relatives, was in exile. Mother A.V. was Elizaveta Vladimirovna Golitsyna, the daughter of the former governor, and then the mayor of Moscow, Prince Vladimir Mikhailovich Golitsyn. Like many nobles at that time, the Trubetskoys lived near Moscow, first with relatives of the Bobrinskys in their Bogoroditsky estate, and then in Sergiev Posad. V.M. Golitsyn and his wife (nee Delyanova) lived with their daughter's family. Both grandfathers of Andrey Trubetskoy were outstanding people, but S.N. died back in 1905, and Andrei found Vladimir Mikhailovich. This grandfather was “all in fine delicacy, and white bone and blue blood are immediately visible” (this is how the journalist S. Yablonovsky described Prince Golitsyn); he was lucky to avoid reprisals; he was engaged in translations from French, worked on Botanical Studies, wrote memoirs and read them at home in the evenings. The family lived hard: Vladimir Sergeevich was repeatedly arrested, and in the intervals between arrests he was deprived of his job. But the children did not see their father broken: he remained in their memory as a wonderful storyteller, a talented musician, a bright, witty person.

In 1934, Andrey Varvara's father and elder sister were arrested in the "case" of Slavic scholars fabricated by the NKVD. Vladimir Sergeevich was accused of having links with the head of the organization's "outside center" - his own brother, at that time an academician of the Vienna Academy of Sciences, Nikolai Trubetskoy. Vladimir Sergeevich and his daughter were sent to Central Asia, to the city of Andijan. The family followed them, and for Andrei Trubetskoy, the years of early youth fell on life in the Uzbek outback with its exoticism and all the complexities of the existence of a family of Russian exiles. Andrei studied well at school (the craving for learning was the strongest passion throughout his youth), but he managed to finish the ten years only thanks to the perseverance and charm of his father - the Trubetskoys were “dispossessed”, and children did not have to count on more than 7 classes .

“In 1937, the family suffered a terrible blow: the father and Varya were again arrested, who received a sentence of “10 years in camps without the right to correspond” (that is, they were shot by VL). At the same time, the second sister Tatya (Alexandra) and the older brother Grisha were arrested, who received “just” 10 years in the camps. And we - the rest - left Central Asia at the first opportunity. In 1939 Andrei Trubetskoy was drafted into the Red Army; in July 1941 he was taken prisoner with a severe wound. And this is where the similarity between the story of Andrei Vladimirovich Trubetskoy and the stories of many descendants of the "former" in post-revolutionary Russia ends. His own Odyssey had begun.

Further life could develop as a Christmas story. Miraculously, he was released from captivity and got the opportunity, forgetting about the war, to live comfortably in the German rear. And here he faced the problem of choice: to remain a “titled person” in prosperity in the West or to return through the heat of war to where the very word “prince” became abusive, to a devastated, truly impoverished house to his relatives, about whose fate he did not know did not know. Trubetskoy chose Russia - love for his mother, merged with love for the Motherland, forced him to make this choice. Then A.V. fought in partisan detachments in the Augustow forests - first in the Polish, then in the Soviet, and returned home already with the army in the field. Life offered Trubetskoy more than once to choose. In 1949, as a student of the Faculty of Biology of Moscow State University, refusing to cooperate with the MGB, A-V. was arrested and sent to the copper mines in Dzhezkazgan. In the camp, the "organs" again offered cooperation, and again Trubetskoy chose, following not the simplest logic of life, but an internal moral law. As a result, he spent almost all the years of his stay in the camp in the penal, the so-called regime brigade, essentially in prison. But the “springiness” of Trubetskoy, about which his grandfather Sergei Nikolayevich spoke, did not disappear: the more difficult the circumstances, the more collected and stronger Andrei Trubetskoy became.

Vladimir Sergeevich Trubetskoy

Notes of a cuirassier

“The Trubetskoys earned glory for their family by feats raised for the benefit of the Fatherland ...”

General Armorial of the noble families of the Russian Empire

Introductory article

This surname is undoubtedly familiar to the reader. The Trubetskoy family is associated with the most significant events in Russian history and culture. Among the Trubetskoy were military commanders, and statesmen, and public figures, and artists, and scientists. Also in late XIX century, an attempt was made to create a "catalog" of outstanding Trubetskoy (E. Beloselskaya-Belozerskaya. Legends of the Trubetskoy family. M., 1891), and today this work has been brilliantly performed in Canada by S. G. Trubetskoy (S. G. Trubetskoy. Princes Trubetskoy. Quebec, 1976) and in Paris by V.P. Trubetskoy (Genealogical collection “The offspring of Prince N.P. Trubetskoy”. Foreword by V.P. Trubetskoy. Paris, 1984). The publication of "Notes of a Cuirassier" adds one more to the already famous names, little known, but deserving of its own, special, place in the Trubetskoy family tree.

The life of Vladimir Sergeevich Trubetskoy (1892-1937) could not be called serene. It is beyond measure saturated with events so different that some of them could make an adventure novel, and others - the story of a martyr. Alas, the time for the “return of names” came when Vladimir Sergeevich’s contemporaries were no longer alive, the archive disappeared into the depths of the Gulag, and we have at our disposal only fragmentary memoirs of his relatives, surviving letters and documents that have become known in the most recent time.

The man who appeared in the early spring of 1927 in the editorial office of the popular magazine "The World Pathfinder" from V. A. Popov (the publisher who discovered and warmed A. Green, A. Belyaev and V. Yan), was thin, tall and, despite the shaggy from old age, the jacket and breeches, frayed windings and huge soldier's boots, left the impression of amazing elegance. Introducing himself as an amateur hunter, he offered the editor a story about how the cat stole and ate a million from him. Ornithologists promised to pay a million for the outlandish bird he had killed - a yellow chrome jackdaw, and now the visitor was counting on at least a fee for a tragicomic story about failed wealth.

The editor read the story and invited the author to contribute to the magazine. So in the "World Pathfinder" a new name appeared - V. Vetov. The real name of the author was Trubetskoy. The former prince, a guards officer, and now deprived, was 35 years old. He lived in Sergiev Posad and, having a large family, worked as a pianist in silent films during the day, and in the evening in the orchestra of a small restaurant. At one time, his grandfather, Nikolai Petrovich Trubetskoy, almost went bankrupt, creating, together with Nikolai Rubinstein, free music schools and a conservatory in Moscow. Now the music helped the grandson to survive. A close acquaintance of Vladimir Sergeevich, the writer Mikhail Prishvin, brought him out in the story “Crane Homeland” under the name of musician T. But he became a musician V. Trubetskoy involuntarily (slightly exaggerating, he said that life had taught him to play thirty instruments simultaneously, conduct and compose music). He was a military man by profession.

When Vladimir Trubetskoy was born, the tribal tradition of military service, coming from the ancestors - the heroes of the Kulikovo field, the princes Gediminovich, was already shaken. Social activities military career Volodymyr's grandfather preferred it. The last military man was his great-grandfather - General Pyotr Ivanovich Trubetskoy, the notorious governor of Oryol, a somewhat caricatured character in many of Leskov's works. Vladimir's father, Sergei Nikolaevich, and uncle, Evgeny Nikolaevich, became scientists, philosophers, another uncle, Grigory Nikolaevich Trubetskoy, became a diplomat, and later a prominent church figure. My father's cousin, Paolo Trubetskoy, was an outstanding sculptor. According to N. Berdyaev, this family belonged to the spiritual elite of Russia.

The year 1905 was tragic for the Trubetskoys. This year, Sergei Nikolayevich, the founder of Russian historical and philosophical science, a prominent publicist, a major public figure, the first elected rector of Moscow University, died suddenly. From the press of that time it is clear how keenly this death was experienced by Russian society. “Faith was associated with the name of Sergei Trubetskoy ... in the overwhelming power of truth and the possibility of general reconciliation,” wrote the legal philosopher P. Novgorodtsev, “after his death, everyone felt that something had broken off in Russian life.” And left the family the whole world associated with friends and acquaintances of his father - L. Lopatin, V. Guerrier and V. Klyuchevsky, A. Scriabin and L. Tolstoy, with memories of a teacher and best friend Vladimir Solovyov, Petersburg philosophers. Praskovya Vladimirovna, the mother of V. Trubetskoy, despite her rather tough, tough character, did not have a decisive influence on her sons. The interests of the elder, the future linguist Nikolai, were determined during the life of his father. At the age of thirteen he became a member of the Moscow Ethnographic Society, at fifteen he published the first scientific work. And the younger, musical and artistic Vladimir, an indispensable marquis or shepherd boy in living pictures and charades, preferred theater, music and sports to the sciences. Related varying degrees kinship with almost all of Moscow, the brothers were especially friends with their cousins - the talented philosopher D. Samarin, who died early, the future church historian S. Mansurov, M. and G. Osorgins (about Georgy Osorgin, who was shot in 1929 in Solovki, writes in the Archipelago GULAG" A. Solzhenitsyn, recall D. S. Likhachev and O. V. Volkov). This company included Boris Pasternak, and his later poem “ Linden alley". After graduating from high school, Vladimir Trubetskoy entered Moscow University, but, without studying for even six months at the department of physics and mathematics, he got a job as a cabin boy on the destroyer "Horseman", which was part of the escort of the royal yacht "Standart", academic career was clearly not to his liking. True, soon a sudden passionate love makes him choose a shorter path “to people” than that of a sailor - in 1911 he enters the guard as a volunteer. This period of his life formed the basis storyline"Notes of a Cuirassier".

After serving a year as a lower rank, Trubetskoy, already a cornet and commander of a platoon of the Gatchina Blue Cuirassiers, marries the daughter of the famous Moscow mayor V. M. Golitsyn.

1914… The war began. At the very beginning, for the courage shown in the battle of Gumbinnen, Trubetskoy received St. George cross. After being wounded and hospitalized in 1915, he ended up at the headquarters of the Southwestern Front with General Brusilov. Trubetskoy did not have a higher military education, but the knowledge he independently obtained different types technology, general culture and fluency in European languages favorably distinguished him even among staff professionals. Brusilov appointed him commander of the first separate automobile unit in Russia. It is known that in this capacity he led the rescue of the treasury of the Romanian allies, when the German troops were already entering Bucharest.

V. Trubetskoy perceived the October Revolution as a destructive element. Almost immediately, conspiratorial officer organizations of various political shades began to form in Moscow. There was also a purely monarchical one, where Vladimir Sergeevich, along with his relatives, guardsmen, A. Trubetskoy, M. Lopukhin and N. Lermontov, entered. At the beginning of 1918, they all participated in one of the first attempts to free the tsar. He no longer fought with the new government, but he did not leave Russia either, although almost all of his relatives ended up in exile. Perhaps not only family circumstances (three small children and the elderly, the parents of his wife) kept him, but also the concept of civic duty and military honor.

A series of arrests began. For the time being, for Trubetskoy they amounted to nothing more than a confirmation of his loyalty. In 1920, Vladimir Sergeevich was drafted into the army. And here fate again brought him together with Brusilov. Walked Civil War. Brusilov, who joined the Red Army, was engaged in the mobilization of military personnel, and many responded to his "Appeal to all former officers, wherever they are." V. Trubetskoy’s story was preserved in the memory of his relatives about how Brusilov singled him out in the waiting room filled with officers and started a conversation, inviting him to his office, with the words: “Prince, the cart is stuck, and there is no one but us to pull it out. Russia cannot be saved without an army.” Vladimir Sergeevich was appointed to the Southern Headquarters of the front in Orel. However, Trubetskoy did not have to defend Soviet power either. On the way to Orel, he made a detour, stopping by the family, who then lived in Bogoroditsk near the Bobrinskys, to give them his huge ration for those times. This time, a noticeable, "princely" appearance did a disservice - he was immediately arrested. Neither the explanation for the sake of which he turned to Bogoroditsk helped, nor letter of recommendation Brusilov. Tuberculosis, which opened in prison, changed Trubetskoy's future life - he was released, demobilized, and he went to his family.

The memoirs of Prince Sergei Evgenievich Trubetskoy (1890-1949), the eldest son of the famous Russian philosopher and public figure Evgeny Nikolaevich Trubetskoy (1863-1920), will, I think, be of great interest to our reader. They were written far from the Motherland, when the author had not the slightest hope of returning to his native land. But not only nostalgic motives were the main motivation of the author to write his memoirs. First of all, he tries to comprehend the life of a whole generation on the example of prominent representatives of the Russian intelligentsia, many of whom, due to a number of circumstances, ended up outside their native Fatherland.

The memoirs cover the period from the 90s of the last century to the early 30s of this century, but many of the author's thoughts sound very modern even today. Of course, we do not accept Trubetskoy's perception of the revolution in everything. But at the same time, the author managed to recreate the historical situation of that era. His position is expressed on the last pages of his memoirs, imbued with love for the Motherland and anxiety for its fate.

What attracts in the memoirs of Prince Trubetskoy? First of all - the high moral sound of the book as a whole. Trubetskoy's thoughts have much in common with the ideas of Tolstoy, Chekhov, Uspensky, moral quest progressive Russian intelligentsia.

The reader has the opportunity to get acquainted with the peculiarities of education in the Trubetskoy family, where honor and dignity were valued above all else, where lies were despised, and relations between children in adults were based on mutual love, kindness and generosity.

Real memoirs are not only descriptions of everyday life or admiration of the author's own youth. Here one can feel the painful breakdown of his soul due to the historical trials that have befallen Russia. But what is especially important is not the pose of an offended aristocrat, but the reflections of a person who has experienced a lot and was once sentenced to death. As Trubetskoy recalls, while waiting for the verdict in the VChK prison, the main thing for him was to maintain his presence of mind and accept death with dignity.

Trubetskoy talks a lot about meetings with revolutionaries. It would seem that here we have the right to expect the most harsh epithets addressed to the revolutionary people, the “muzhiks” who took away all their fortune, those who imprisoned them in a casemate. But the reader will not find anything of the sort. Like a real historian, Trubetskoy lends his narrative the impartiality of a document. Moreover, a number of episodes described in the book betray his direct sympathy, understanding, and even sympathy for some socially alien representatives of society.

It must be emphasized that these memoirs are another, albeit deeply personal, but evidence of the events of those distant years, and their author is our compatriot, who with pain in his heart assured those who read his confession: “Will our npax rest in native land or in a foreign land, I don’t know, but let our children remember that wherever our graves are, these will be Russian graves, and they will call them to love and loyalty to Russia.

In the text of the book, separate abbreviations are made regarding the description of minor events and assessments of little significance for the modern reader.

The originality of the spelling of individual words and expressions, which, in our opinion, constitute the unique flavor of the language of that time, has been preserved.

Rudnev N. A., professor, doctor of sociological sciences

PART ONE

I was born on February 14, 1890 (according to the old style) in Moscow, in the house of my maternal grandfather, Prince. A. A. Shcherbatova, on Bolshaya Nikitskaya, No. 54.

I was born on the "reception day" of my grandmother, Prince. M. P. Shcherbatova, but, of course, on the occasion of my birth, the appointment was canceled.

According to the customs of that time, in high-society houses the porter kept a book of visitors. On my birthday, the page of the book was left blank. But the butler Osip ordered the porter to write down the only visitor me - my full name - in the address column write "here". Subsequently, I myself saw this entry in a huge, bound book. This act was typical of Osip: he loved order, form and ceremonial. A few days after my birth, my grandfather showed me to Osip and asked who I looked like. "Forehead our,- he answered, “I can’t report to Your Excellency about the rest.” "Our" - Shcherbatovsky meant:

Osip, like many old servants of that time, felt at one with his masters - "his last name", as he said.

My father used to say that our childhood and the childhood of his generation are not so different from each other. Quite another matter, he said, was the childhood of his parents (my grandfathers) and the childhood of his own generation: a sharp line lay between them - the abolition of serfdom.

Between my generation and the generation of my children passed another, incomparably more deep trait- Bolshevik revolution.

The abolition of serfdom, of course, had a very profound effect on that aristocratic and landowner environment to which all our grandfathers and great-grandfathers belonged, both on the paternal and maternal sides. However, the breaking of living conditions was then relative: there was an evolution, not a revolution. The old became obsolete and gradually left, and did not collapse as it happened in our memory.

The essential framework of the life of several generations of our ancestors remained in general the same. The atmosphere in which they lived, the atmosphere of the heroes of War and Peace, seems to me personally and to many people of my circle and generation utterly dear and close. Another thing is the atmosphere of the life of our ancestors of the Petrine era, and even more so before the Petrine, or even before the Moscow time. These eras are no longer alive for us: we can know, but we can no longer completely feel. It is unlikely that the gap between our lives and our children's life is less than the gap between us and the Petrine era. This gap is slightly reduced only by the possibility of live communication between the new generation and our generation, whose vital roots go back to the “drowned world”. I belong to the last generation who knew personally landlords and peasants who lived in the era of serfdom. Although I had this personal connection only in my childhood, it allows me not only to understand, but also to to worry that time. However, we can no longer convey this connection with the past to our children: the time of my grandfathers, close and alive to me, has already passed into dry History for them ... Now, God forbid that our children, at least in part, but vividly, feel so close and at the same time such a distant time of our childhood.

1894 I am 4 years old, my brother Sasha is 2. We are sitting on the couch in the "children's checkpoint" of our Kiev house. The nanny and nanny dress us up for a walk. Suddenly Mom comes in, and we see that she is excited about something. She says that the Sovereign is dead ( Alexander III). People enter the room (“people”, that’s also a word alien to the new generation!) - Ivan, Mitrofan, Aneta, someone else ... everyone is baptized, everyone is deeply worried ... “The Tsar is dead,” I repeat, and this impresses me no less than if part of the sky had fallen... “Now everything will not be the same as before, everything will change,” I think (although I don’t understand what exactly will change), and, of course, we won’t go for a walk today...” But I was mistaken in this: they took us for a walk, and I clearly remember the feeling in the city of some kind of solemn oppression; everyone experienced the event and it was vividly transmitted to my childish soul. Black mourning bands began to appear on the sleeves of officers, and poster posts were sealed with white paper. This made a great impression on me: “Yes, now everything must be only white or black,” I think. “The king is dead; what will happen to us now, to Kiev, to Nara, to Russia?” It was childish, but very deep patriotic and monarchist experience, experience personal, but at the same time - collective. Russia was still deeply monarchical at that time, and this personal experience gave me in the future not only to understand, but also to feel spirit many stories of people of the generation of my grandfathers, with their untouched, integral and organic monarchical worldview.

Trubetskoy V S

Notes of a cuirassier

Trubetskoy V.S.

Notes of a cuirassier

"The Trubetskoys earned glory for their family by feats performed for the benefit of the Fatherland..."

General Armorial of the noble families of the Russian Empire

Introductory article

This surname is undoubtedly familiar to the reader. The Trubetskoy family is associated with the most significant events in Russian history and culture. Among the Trubetskoy were military commanders, and statesmen, and public figures, and artists, and scientists. At the end of the 19th century, an attempt was made to create a "catalog" of outstanding Trubetskoy (E. Beloselskaya-Belozerskaya. Legends about the Trubetskoy family. M., 1891), and today this work has been brilliantly performed in Canada by S. G. Trubetskoy (S. G. Trubetskoy. Princes Trubetskoy. Quebec, 1976) and in Paris by V.P. Trubetskoy (Genealogical collection "The offspring of Prince N.P. Trubetskoy". Foreword by V.P. Trubetskoy. Paris, 1984). The publication of "Notes of a Cuirassier" adds one more to the already famous names, little known, but deserving of its own, special, place in the Trubetskoy family tree.

The life of Vladimir Sergeevich Trubetskoy (1892-1937) could in no way be called serene. It is beyond measure saturated with events so different that some of them could make an adventure novel, and others - the story of a martyr. Alas, the time for the "return of names" came when Vladimir Sergeevich's contemporaries were no longer alive, the archive disappeared into the depths of the Gulag, and we have at our disposal only fragmentary memoirs of his relatives, surviving letters and documents that have become known in the most recent time.

The man who appeared in the early spring of 1927 in the editorial office of the popular magazine "World Pathfinder" from V. A. Popov (the publisher who discovered and warmed A. Green, A. Belyaev and V. Yan), was thin, tall and, despite the shaggy from old age, the jacket and breeches, frayed windings and huge soldier's boots, left the impression of amazing elegance. Introducing himself as an amateur hunter, he offered the editor a story about how the cat stole and ate a million from him. Ornithologists promised to pay a million for the outlandish bird he had killed - a yellow chrome jackdaw, and now the visitor was counting on at least a fee for a tragicomic story about failed wealth.

The editor read the story and invited the author to contribute to the magazine. So in the "World Pathfinder" a new name appeared - V. Vetov. The real name of the author was Trubetskoy. The former prince, a guards officer, and now deprived, was 35 years old. He lived in Sergiev Posad and, having a large family, worked as a pianist in silent films during the day, and in the evening in the orchestra of a small restaurant. At one time, his grandfather, Nikolai Petrovich Trubetskoy, almost went bankrupt, creating, together with Nikolai Rubinstein, free music schools and a conservatory in Moscow. Now the music helped the grandson to survive. A close acquaintance of Vladimir Sergeevich, writer Mikhail Prishvin, brought him out in the story "Crane Homeland" under the name of musician T. But V. Trubetskoy became a musician involuntarily (slightly exaggerating, he said that life had taught him to play thirty instruments simultaneously, conduct and compose music). He was a military man by profession.

When Vladimir Trubetskoy was born, the tribal tradition of military service, coming from the ancestors - the heroes of the Kulikovo field, the princes Gediminovich, was already shaken. Volodymyr's grandfather preferred public activity to a military career. The last military man was his great-grandfather - General Pyotr Ivanovich Trubetskoy, the notorious governor of Oryol, a somewhat caricatured character in many of Leskov's works. Vladimir's father, Sergei Nikolaevich, and uncle, Evgeny Nikolaevich, became scientists, philosophers, another uncle, Grigory Nikolaevich Trubetskoy, became a diplomat, and later a prominent church figure. My father's cousin, Paolo Trubetskoy, was an outstanding sculptor. According to N. Berdyaev, this family belonged to the spiritual elite of Russia.

The year 1905 was tragic for the Trubetskoys. This year, Sergei Nikolayevich, the founder of Russian historical and philosophical science, a prominent publicist, a major public figure, the first elected rector of Moscow University, died suddenly. From the press of that time it is clear how keenly this death was experienced by Russian society. “Faith was associated with the name of Sergei Trubetskoy ... in the overwhelming power of truth and the possibility of general reconciliation,” wrote the legal philosopher P. Novgorodtsev, “after his death, everyone felt that something had broken off in Russian life.” And the whole world left the family, connected with friends and acquaintances of the father - L. Lopatin, V. Guerrier and V. Klyuchevsky, A. Scriabin and L. Tolstoy, with memories of the teacher and best friend Vladimir Solovyov, St. Petersburg philosophers. Praskovya Vladimirovna, the mother of V. Trubetskoy, despite her rather tough, tough character, did not have a decisive influence on her sons. The interests of the elder, the future linguist Nikolai, were determined during the life of his father. At the age of thirteen he became a member of the Moscow Ethnographic Society, at fifteen he published his first scientific work. And the younger, musical and artistic Vladimir, an indispensable marquis or shepherd boy in living pictures and charades, preferred theater, music and sports to the sciences. Connected by various degrees of kinship with almost all of Moscow, the brothers were especially friends with their cousins - the talented philosopher D. Samarin, who died early, the future church historian S. Mansurov, M. and G. Osorgins (about Georgy Osorgin, who was shot in 1929 in Solovki, writes in "The Gulag Archipelago" by A. Solzhenitsyn, recall D. S. Likhachev and O. V. Volkov). This company included Boris Pasternak, and his later poem "Linden Alley" is dedicated to the memory of the Trubetskoys. After graduating from the gymnasium, Vladimir Trubetskoy entered Moscow University, but, without having studied for half a year at the physics and mathematics department, he got a job as a cabin boy on the destroyer "Horseman", which was part of the escort of the royal yacht "Standard", academic career was clearly not to his liking. True, soon a sudden passionate love makes him choose a shorter path "to people" than that of a sailor - in 1911 he enters the guards as a volunteer. This period of his life formed the basis of the storyline of the Cuirassier's Notes.

After serving a year as a lower rank, Trubetskoy, already a cornet and commander of a platoon of the Gatchina Blue Cuirassiers, marries the daughter of the famous Moscow mayor V. M. Golitsyn.

1914... The war began. At the very beginning, for the courage shown in the battle of Gumbinnen, Trubetskoy received the St. George Cross. After being wounded and hospitalized in 1915, he ended up at the headquarters of the Southwestern Front with General Brusilov. Trubetskoy did not have a higher military education, but his knowledge of various types of equipment, his general culture and fluency in European languages, which he independently acquired, distinguished him even among staff professionals. Brusilov appointed him commander of the first separate automobile unit in Russia. It is known that in this capacity he led the rescue of the treasury of the Romanian allies, when the German troops were already entering Bucharest.

A series of arrests began. For the time being, for Trubetskoy they amounted to nothing more than a confirmation of his loyalty. In 1920, Vladimir Sergeevich was drafted into the army. And here fate again brought him together with Brusilov. There was a civil war. Brusilov, who joined the Red Army, was engaged in the mobilization of military personnel, and many responded to his "Appeal to all former officers, wherever they are." V. Trubetskoy’s story has been preserved in the memory of his relatives about how Brusilov singled him out in a waiting room filled with officers and started a conversation, inviting him to his office, with the words: “Prince, the cart is stuck, and there is no one but us to pull it out. Without an army, you can’t save Russia” . Vladimir Sergeevich was appointed to the Southern Headquarters of the front in Orel. However, Trubetskoy did not have to defend Soviet power either. On the way to Orel, he made a detour, stopping by the family, who then lived in Bogoroditsk near the Bobrinskys, to give them his huge ration for those times. This time, the noticeable, "princely" appearance did a disservice - he was immediately arrested. Neither the explanation for the sake of which he turned to Bogoroditsk, nor Brusilov's letter of recommendation helped. Tuberculosis, which opened in prison, changed Trubetskoy's future life - he was released, demobilized, and he went to his family.

For the owners of the Bogoroditsky estate of the Bobrinskys, the terrible revolutionary events were softened by the quite sympathetic and even patronizing attitude of the peasants and city dwellers towards them, who helped the "counts" exchange things for food, and sometimes fed them. Against the backdrop of the general ruin of estates and arson, this was a rare, but not accidental exception. The related families of the Trubetskoy and Golitsyns came to the Bobrinskys. They all lived in the wing of the count's palace; the palace, declared "the property of the people", gaping with broken glass, stood boarded up. Of course it is