A photo open source Legendary Hero of the Civil War, red commander Vasily Chapaev is a favorite character of Soviet jokes. In terms of the number of the latter, he was even ahead of many leaders, politicians and famous people of later times. The official version of the biography of Chapaev says that he died from wounds crossing the Ural River … But is that so? I remember many teenagers, watching the last shots of the film “Chapaev”, passionately wanted the wounded commander to cross the river. Others even had dreams about how Chapaev emerges, comes to his senses, heals, and again continues to fight … And now the latest archival research has shown that behind these dreams could be a real “alternative” story the legendary divisional commander and that with the crossing of the Urals his life is not at all ended … The first to question the official version of the death of Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev, was his own son Alexander Vasilievich Chapaev (1910-1985), gunner, combat officer, past the entire Great Patriotic War and retired in the rank of major general. He wrote a book about his father’s life, though he was allowed to publish archival materials only in truncated form … “The prevailing opinion” about the last minutes of his father’s life, he didn’t shared, but also in the press did not express his attitude to the situation. AND nevertheless, some hints slipped … He, then still a teenager, on all my life the words of a fighter from my father’s division who visited their family: “Ermak is alive, everything is fine.” The fact is that Ermak – this was the pre-revolutionary nickname of Chapaev among friends and loved ones … And one more detail. Once upon learning that a certain invalid appeared, calling himself Chapaev, Alexander immediately wanted to see him. However, he was disappointed: a man turned out to be just mentally insane … And yet, apparently, the heart told Chapaev Jr. that his father’s fate could not comply with the official conclusion. For similar reasoning push and excerpts from the diary of Dmitry Furmanov, who put the beginning of the epic glory of Chapaev: “Today from Novitsky’s conversation with Commander-in-chief, I found out that Chapaev crawled to the 223rd regiment and was evacuating to Uralsk … but late in the evening from comrade Baranova found out that Chapaev, by information, died in the Urals. But these rumors do not want to believe. I think that Chapay remained alive and soon we will find out about this completely. ” Probably because of such rumors and conversations, the creators of the recent TV versions about Chapaev left their hero alive and deployed an incredible picture of subsequent events. Famous division commander being seriously wounded, overcomes the Ural … Wounds managed to heal, but had to amputate the limbs, and as a result of severe shell shock Chapaev lost his memory … In order not to shock the public, the disabled person, as was usual in those years, they decided to remove away. Chapaev was probably sent to one of the northern boarding schools for disabled people. So, in one of the contemporary feature films helpless cripples on carts beg for alms from the capital excursionists descending from the mooring to the Solovetsky Islands tourist liner … As for the new television movie about Chapaev, then, according to its creators, after his alleged death, the hero lived for a long time, but in an atmosphere of almost complete isolation from society … In support of this assumption are given testimonies of a certain Onyanov from the Tomsk region. That supposedly met the former commander blind. Saved and recovered the commander was first sent under an assumed name near Arkhangelsk, then transferred to a house of invalids, far from human eyes, where he nobody just believed the stories of combat youth, since after of all the ordeals that fell to his lot, outwardly this “human the stump “reminded little of the past Chapaev … Of course, there is many questions. Really rumors about such a famous person, being in a shelter, in no way reached relatives, comrades and others who were familiar with Chapaev? And did anyone see a divisional commander drowning? That’s the same … only they heard, no more … And then they passed all kinds of rumors from mouth to mouth. Reliable information about how the White’s attack ended, and was whether Chapaev was buried, or remained at the bottom of the Urals, no. So that the version of drowning is absolutely not supported by anything. But such a departure from the life of the red commander, who often demonstrated obstinacy and uncontrollability, was beneficial to associates, and the higher leadership of the young Country of Soviets. Can, someday we will know exactly how the legendary ended his days Vasily Ivanovich … Yuri Suprunenko
War Life
