Years of life: 1912 - 1959
The labor exploits of Praskovya Angelina, the founder of the movement of women machine operators, have not been forgotten to this day: her name was even included in the World Biographical Encyclopedia.
Pasha Angelina was called the first tractor driver. This is not entirely accurate: of course, there were tractor drivers before her. And yet she is the first. The first organizer (in 1932) and foreman of the country's first women's tractor brigade. The first female machine operator, who twice became the Hero of Socialist Labor, a pretty girl who, for the first time in the history of the Russian village, took up “not a woman's” business. Hundreds of thousands of other women followed her.
The traction force of the first Soviet tractors reached 30-40 kilograms. Yes, soot, fumes, roar, shaking ...
Pasha Angelina on the right
“They say about such women: a man in a skirt,” recalled Pasha Angelina’s nephew Alexei. - She really had male character. She was directly drawn to tractors! But then in the village it was not very welcome. Those women who dared to sit on a tractor were subjected to real persecution. She even described it in her memoirs. In addition, Praskovya Nikitichna is Greek by nationality, and among them women were generally forbidden to get into men's affairs. Her father and the whole family were categorically against it, but, in spite of everything, she mastered this purely male specialty and first became a machine operator, and then the foreman of the first female tractor brigade in the USSR. In 1938, attention was drawn to her. She got into the groove. As a result, she issued an appeal to all Soviet women: "One hundred thousand girlfriends - on a tractor!" And 200,000 women followed suit.”
... Holidays in the life of Angelina happened infrequently. Praskovya Nikitichna raised four children alone. She broke up with her husband when the children were very young - apparently, not from a good life. In any case, she herself emphasized that public life for her above the personal, - probably, it was so.
Evgeny Khaldei
Pasha Angelina's husband, the father of her three children, did not die in 1947 from wounds received at the front, as the nephew of the legendary tractor driver said in an interview, she simply consigned him to oblivion during her lifetime. Remaining in the shadow of the loud glory of his wife, he was jealous of Pasha so much that he once went after the tractor drivers to VDNKh in Moscow, where he made a huge scandal ... Thanks to the weight that the deputy Angelina had, everything was forgiven her husband. Praskovya Nikitichna endured his antics until the last moment in order to save her family. But a domestic quarrel in 1947, when in the presence of children the husband shot at the ceiling, overflowed the cup of patience. This scene caused a nervous breakdown in the eldest daughter, after which the girl had to be treated in Donetsk.
The exiled husband settled in a neighboring area, started a second family. Angelina herself did not marry again. She raised three of her children and her adopted son Gennady. Sometimes she joked bitterly: “Who needs me with such a “tail”?”
“Nevertheless, the men of that time did not consider the emancipated Aunt Pasha to be a “tractor attachment” and were interested in her,” writes the Moskovsky Komsomolets in Donbass newspaper. - Your second big love Praskovya Nikitichna met her when her female tractor team was evacuated to Kazakhstan along with the equipment. There, before returning to their homeland (in 1943, women returned to the Donbass), they grew bread for the front. And there, the first secretary of the Terekinsky district party committee, Pyotr Ivanovich Simonov, fell in love with her. Simonov had a wife, but she was very ill. Pasha stopped his courtship in the bud, cutting off: “I won’t fornicate while your wife is alive!”
With sister Hope
To the huge work load, this woman added endless public affairs, an external school, studies at the agricultural academy ...
…O feeling unwell Praskovya Nikitichna did not tell anyone. Only more often she put her hand to her right side: the liver ... Relatives noticed and became worried. In the end, I had to go for an examination - first in Donetsk, then in Moscow.
“She had cirrhosis of the liver, which is not surprising with such work,” the nephew clarifies. - Affected permanent presence in the body of fuels and lubricants. Previously, fuel was sucked through a hose. She died very quickly, within a few months, and literally worked to the last. came to the session Supreme Council felt unwell, went to the doctors.
Until the last moment, Praskovya Nikitichna believed that the operation would help her. However, Soviet medicine of the 1959 model did not create such miracles ...
Saying goodbye to her workmates, Pasha gave several orders that were to be executed by her arrival - after treatment in Moscow. Then she called one of them aside and, with tears in her eyes, ordered, "if anything," to bury her in her homeland. The doctor honestly warned his workmates that the operation would give Praskovya Nikitichna one chance in a hundred ...
“I came to my mother every day, and she was worried: the fifth year, how not on time! She understood everything, - recalled the daughter of Angelina Svetlana. But even in their last days thought about us, about our problems. Patients came to her room, and for everyone she found words of hope. And she believed in miracles. This belief was passed on even to doctors - they decided to operate: what if? ..
Maria Demchenko, L.D. Muravin, Pasha Angelina.
Ivan Dmitrievich Papanin escorted her to the operation, he was then also in that hospital. I knew my mother from the pre-war years, I was amazed at her courage. They were people of the same generation, the same outlook on life. Without further ado, they understood each other.
Mom passed away at dawn on January 21, 1959. We buried her in the costume she had made for the convention. And in the same shoes ... "
Pasha Angelina passed away at the age of forty-six, a few days before the opening of the 21st Party Congress, of which, like the previous three, she was elected a delegate.
Sergei Fedorovich Chernyshov, the former first secretary of the district party committee of the Starobeshevsky district and the ex-husband of the famous tractor driver, came to say goodbye to her, but the children did not let him near their mother ... Only after some time they forgave their father.
Monument tractor Pasha Angelina
On the night when deputy Angelina died, her adopted son Gennady had a daughter, who was named Praskovya in honor of her heroic grandmother.
Text by E. N. Oboymina and O. V. Tatkova
Now few people remember the legendary tractor driver Pasha Angelina. And in Stalin's times, her name thundered throughout the country just like the legendary names of Chkalov, Stakhanov, Papanin. But even then it was difficult to imagine that the leader of production, the Stakhanovite, the “man in a skirt” was a normal, ordinary woman. Moreover, not very happy and not very healthy.
Soviet propaganda was always looking for those whom the youth could look up to. Those who fell into the field of view of the "PR people" of the Stalinist regime were made leaders, heroes of labor, idols. Only the advertising machine of the Stalinist system did not spare its heroes, who became cogs in its rigid mechanism. This is exactly what happened with the legendary tractor driver Pasha Angelina.
By the end of the 20s of the last century, the fashion for sophisticated beauties of the Art Nouveau era died completely. Now, from the pages of periodicals, thick, full-legged, wide-hipped peasant women smiled broadly. It is not surprising - after the destruction of the peasantry during the years of dispossession, the leadership came to its senses. It became clear that we needed to somehow raise the economy. And this should be done by young, strong and healthy people. The type of powerful rural worker has come into fashion: let us recall at least the muscular heroine of Vera Mukhina's famous composition "Worker and Collective Farm Woman".
True, according to one parameter, Pasha did not fit into the heroes of labor: she was a Greek by nationality. She grew up in a Christian, very patriarchal family. Women in their family since ancient times were engaged in housework and children. That is why Pasha's interest in the miracle machine, the tractor, horrified her father and brothers. But Praskovya from childhood was considered a kind of "boy in a skirt." And the family had to put up with it: in 1929, 16-year-old Pasha Angelina successfully completed the courses of tractor drivers and began working in the fields of her native Donetsk region.
Soviet journalists could not fail to notice the strong, pretty, smiling tractor driver. She was forgiven for belonging to a national minority. And it started...
The widely promoted social movement was called "One hundred thousand friends - to the tractor!". In 1933, Angelina led the first female tractor brigade. From the pages of Soviet newspapers did not leave her cheeky smiling face, which has become, in a modern way, a symbol of Soviet feminism.
Not a hundred, but two hundred thousand women of the USSR followed the example of the charming Pasha!
So she was remembered by her contemporaries: healthy, pretty, smiling, saddling her iron horse. I wanted to ask: was Angelina a living person, did she have feelings? There were feelings. And they did not bring much joy to her.
But the fact of the matter is that the legendary tractor driver could not stop working, could not become something like a wedding general under the government of the country. From meetings in the capital, where she was often seated next to Stalin, Pasha rushed to her native fields and served her work shift from morning to night. The villagers were amazed at her energy, knowledge of technology and ... interest in literature. Angelina wanted to match the title of a highly educated village worker. From Moscow, to her address in her native village of Starobeshevo, there were endless parcels with books ordered by a well-deserved tractor driver.
What was the personal life of Pasha Angelina? It's hard to even imagine, but this "woman of iron" was married - unfortunately, unsuccessfully. She raised four children: three of her own and a nephew, whom she accepted into the family without hesitation when her mother abandoned the boy.
Her husband was Sergei Chernyshev - a party leader. He was described as a capable man, but painfully proud. Even before the war, he rolled scary scenes to his wife when invitations came to government receptions. After all, it was written in them: “Praskovya Nikitichna Angelina with her husband.” He felt like some insignificant "trailer" to the legendary Pasha. And it hurt his male ego.
The older children, Svetlana and Valery, were born before the war. Youngest daughter, named after the leader Stalin, was born in 1942. The history of her birth vividly characterizes the mores of the era, the heroes of which became her own victims. When Angelina was nine months pregnant, she was summoned to the capital for a session of the Supreme Council. And she went, afraid to disobey. And on the way back on the train, she gave birth to her youngest daughter. Then the train was bombed - Angelina with breastfed baby took several months to get home. The sister said to Pasha:
- It is necessary to name the child Stalin.
- Call me at least a pot, - answered Pasha, exhausted by the terrible road.
The girl in the family was called Stalochka.
During the war, Pasha Angelina raised virgin soil in the fields of Kazakhstan. She worked from morning till night, slept four hours a day. It was necessary to have time to set labor records. The fact is that the drummer often learned about her exploits from the press. She understood: this is how the authorities sent her signals for action. The figures indicated in the journalistic materials had to be matched.
In addition, at the front, he became addicted to alcohol. Relations between spouses became worse and worse. Finally, it came to the point that, in a drunken stupor, Chernyshev tried to shoot his wife. But he missed - then for a long time they could not remove the bullet from the wall of the house ...
Pasha, like a real village woman, endured for a long time and forgave her husband a lot. For example, the mistress he took at the front. She even financially supported her and the child she gave birth to from Chernyshev!
But Pasha did not forgive her wife for this evil drunken trick: she kicked him out of the house, refused alimony and changed the children's surname. They all became Angelinas. Chernyshev later died of alcoholism.
After the war, when the propaganda campaign ended, Angelina began to be offered high official positions. She wisely refused:
- Hold on to the ground. The tractor is low, you can't fall any lower.
Her daughter Svetlana said that her mother knew perfectly well the value of the time in which she lived. She took one of the children with her on all trips. And once in a Moscow hotel, during a serious conversation, she whispered to her daughter:
- Let's go outside. Here every cell hears everything.
Praskovya Nikitichna did not marry again, although they wooed her more than once. More than anything, she was afraid that some strange man would offend her children.
Angelina's relatives prayed for her, believing that only her name saved the religious family from repression. Only Praskovya Nikitichna's brother was arrested. She managed to rescue him, but too late: during interrogations, his lungs were beaten off, and he did not live long after his release.
The legendary tractor driver has died at the age of 46. And she died terribly. From constant contact with fuels and lubricants, Angelina fell ill with cirrhosis of the liver. The body could no longer get rid of excess fluid. Once a week, a bucket of water was pumped out through an incision in the stomach of the unfortunate woman ...
And Praskovya Nikitichna joked about her huge, swollen belly:
- I became pregnant, I will soon give birth to the fourth. I got blown away by the wind!
And she laughed.
In the end, she decided to have an operation. After her, she fell into a coma and died soon after.
Today, the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of Pasha Angelina live in the Don region and in Moscow.
Her children remember their mother with love. They believe that the era drove a tractor along Praskovya Nikitichna, depriving her of health and personal happiness.
Today we will talk about the legendary Praskovya Angelina - twice Hero of Socialist Labor, awarded three Orders of Lenin and the Order of the Red Banner of Labor [, laureate of the Stalin Prize, deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR
In their vicious attempts to discredit everything Soviet, heroic, popular, the anti-Soviet indulge in the most shameless inventions. Pasha Angelina is one of the victims of today's "truth-tellers"
First, let's give the floor to the anti-Soviet:
"... In the winter of 1933, Donetsk Starobeshevo, like all the surrounding villages, was severely starving. If it were not for the pieces of bread that were brought once a week by fathers and brothers who went to the mines, by spring, probably, there would not have been not only able-bodied, but also alive. When the villagers could not go out into the field, the long-awaited food loan finally arrived - several sacks of flour. From it, dumplings or mash were prepared on the field camps. Anyone who reached the boiler was given a bowl of this brew. The revived people reached out to the seeders and to the harrows, the sowing began.Here, in the camp, they spent the night, buried in the straw.
Dobrela here and Pasha. At first she helped keep the fire under the boiler and cook food, then she carried the seed grain to the seeders. I didn’t have the strength to lift the bag, so I dragged buckets around.
The first tractors arrived from the MTS for grain harvesting. An inquisitive, brave girl did not leave the outlandish cars. There were not enough tractor drivers, and courses had to be organized to train them. Pasha was the first to sign up for them. The tractor driver from Angelina came out noble. She plowed in such a way that the furrows that she laid in the field could be measured out with a ruler.
Elena Russkikh "NOBLE TRACTOR OPERATOR PASHA ANGELINA" http://pressa.irk.ru/kopeika/2005/04/009001.html
And now let's give the floor to Praskovya Nikitichna herself.
"In the spring of 1930, I became a tractor driver. I made sure that my car rarely broke down, in any case less often than others, and in terms of output I overtook many comrades ...
And finally, the long-awaited spring of the thirty-third year has come. The cars were ready. Members of our brigade were waiting for the command. Final preparations were underway. Everything was checked, prepared, as before the battle. The girls were worried. They felt their responsibility, understood their honorable mission: they were members of the women's Komsomol tractor brigade - the first brigade in the Soviet Union.
The girls started the cars. And everything around seemed to come to life, spoke. The cars shuddered and moved smoothly forward. The mood of all the girls was festive, cheerful. They sang songs all the way to the collective farm. And suddenly I see: a huge crowd of women is moving towards us. Their excited voices were clearly heard. They were getting closer and closer. Shouts erupted from the crowd, threats rushed:
- Turn the shafts! We will not allow women's cars to our fields!
- Pull Pasha! She is the main stalker! Teach her!
... Some men appeared, everyone was shouting, waving their arms, women were yelling in unison:
- Don't let them!!!
- Drive! Get out of our fields!!!
When they saw Ivan Mikhailovich, they calmed down a little and stopped shouting, but did not disperse for a long time.
- Go to work, comrade foreman! - Ivan Mikhailovich ordered me ...
We drove slowly, and the crowd moved behind us at a distance. And Kurov did not lag behind her. We arrived at the field, turned around, began to plow...
Hour worked, another, third. The crowd stood still and did not disperse. And Ivan Mikhailovich also stood. Then the women whispered among themselves and turned to the village. Ivan Mikhailovich came up to me, shook my hand and said:
- So, Pasha, everything is taken with a fight! And now, good luck!
"Everything is taken with a fight!" I repeated these words every time there was any hitch when the car stopped.
We plowed virgin lands and sowed. The girls were silent. They worked tirelessly, day and night. Only I knew how tired they were from not being used to working on a tractor, from these monotonous races.
.... In the morning on the third day, black-haired boys appeared in the field, similar to their fathers and mothers, with the same bold, stern faces, slender and brown from sunburn.
- The men came to visit us! the tractor drivers shouted merrily.
The "men" stood and looked at us with particular curiosity.
- Hello! they shouted in unison. Children brought us white bread, milk, lard, butter.
“The whole village is going to visit you,” the guys informed us importantly.
- Will they come again? Natasha Radchenko asked anxiously.
"Don't worry," the curly-haired boy said briskly. - With good go to you. They planned to build something on your field ....
... I looked at my grandfather Alexei. He stood with his foot forward in a good low shoe, listened attentively and, as if rejoicing at something, smiled wider and suddenly burst out laughing.
Eh, you should have seen grandfather Alexei ten years ago. I remember. He walked hunched over, in torn clothes, always gloomy. In summer, spring and autumn - barefoot, always barefoot, and in severe frosts he put on fallen supports ....
... It was not in vain that they worked, did not get enough sleep, did not eat enough. good bread grew up. The collective farm paid off in full with the state. According to the plan and above the plan, ninety thousand poods were handed over. Collective farm barns were full of grain. Carts creaked through the streets of the village: the collective farmers were bringing home the bread earned by honest labor.
Bread lay in barns, bread delighted the soul of the peasant, white rolls were baked in Staro-Beshevo, and the struggle in the steppe for new tons of “white rolls” did not stop for a minute ... "
From the book of P.N. ANGELINA "People of collective farm fields"
You can compare these two passages.
The first lie of Elena anti-Russians is that Pasha Angelina nailed to the tractor drivers from hunger, and there she learned the tractor business.
In fact, Angelina has been a tractor driver since 1930.
The second lie is hunger itself.
The phrase "Children brought us white bread, milk, lard, butter" is very interesting. It's about about the spring of 1933. Years of liberal-democratic famine
What else can be learned from an excerpt from Angelina's book:
1. It is necessary to pay attention to the resistance of the peasants to machine processing. Was the same situation with collective farms?
2. In the memory of Angelina, the grandfather was imprinted in a good low shoe. Sometimes some little thing is remembered for many years. Apparently, this is exactly this option. And 10 years before the events described, Angelina remembers this grandfather "in torn clothes, always gloomy. In summer, spring and autumn - barefoot, always barefoot, and in severe frosts he put on fallen supports .." One can make a confident conclusion - the welfare of the peasants has seriously increased
3. "Wagons creaked through the streets of the village: collective farmers brought home bread earned by honest labor. Bread lay in barns, bread pleased the soul of the peasant, white rolls were baked in Staro-Beshev" You can again start talking about workdays and sticks
Anti-Soviet people like to swarm in dirty laundry
“The nephew of the legendary tractor driver Alexei Angelin, in one of his interviews, spoke about his aunt’s family: “Praskovya Nikitichna’s husband worked in party bodies, and during the war he was badly wounded and died in 1947. She did not marry again, she said that the main thing for her was to put her three children and her adopted son Gennady, the son of her older brother, who died in 1930, on their feet.
-- What nonsense! - the former accountant of the famous tractor brigade burst out laughing (he is also the unspoken guard of the All-Union heroine and confidant) Maxim Yuryev, who still lives in Starobeshevo. - Her husband Sergei Chernyshov, former first secretary of the district party committee of the Starobeshevsky district, died three years ago in the neighboring Volnovakhsky district. Back in 1959, he came to the funeral of Praskovya Nikitichna, rushed to the club, where they put the coffin with her body for parting. But I didn’t let him in, as Aunt Pasha (as we all called her) ordered before her death. Even scared him with a gun. He then went to the children, but they did not accept him either.
Elena SMIRNOVA "THE HER HUSBAND PASHA ANGELINA - THE ORGANIZER AND LEADER OF THE WORLD'S FIRST WOMEN'S COMMUNIST LABOR TEAM - KILLED OUT OF HOME. HE WAS VERY JEAL" newspaper "Fakty" http://www.facts.kiev.ua/archive/2003 -01-10/61665/index.html
In response to these statements, one can cite the memories of Angelina's daughter - Svetlana and son - Valery http://www.bulvar.com.ua/arch/2007/44/47289bea2a454/
"Once, in response to reproaches, a drunken father shot at my mother. I managed to throw myself on her neck, she deviated - a miss! We had a bullet in the wall for a long time. I lost consciousness from stress, then a terrible depression began, I was treated for a long time. The next the morning after this family life parents is over. Dad left for the Volnovakha district, married a teacher, a girl was born - Svetlana Chernysheva. We could have been full namesakes if my mother had not changed our last names from Chernyshevs to Angelinas.
Svetlana and I corresponded, and then got lost. After the divorce, my father came to us only twice - in last time to his mother's funeral, and before that he was already quite ill, and she, already unwell herself, sent him to a sanatorium. "
As you can see, to ex-husband Angelina reacted like real man- helped with treatment.
After that, who will believe that some former accountant did not let him go to the funeral, and even scared him with a revolver. Yes, and to scare a front-line soldier with a revolver is difficult.
"A deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR then received one hundred rubles for expenses and the right to free travel. Mom, as a deputy, had two rooms in a large Moscow communal apartment. Before the revolution, a doctor like Professor Preobrazhensky lived there, and after 1917 10 families settled there. There are 42 people in total. One toilet and washbasin for all - can you imagine? My mother's niece lived in Moscow at the time. With husband Hero Soviet Union and with a small child they filmed some kind of bedbug. And my mother begged for a corner for them. Later, I also settled with them - it was believed that this was better than a hostel. Those were the perks."
“After the war, for two years, we, like everyone else, were starving, until my mother got better with the brigade. In the queues for food, we also stood for help that came from America, too. In 47, my mother received the first Star of the Hero of Socialist Labor. Life became to get better, even though there was devastation in the country. In her brigade, people earned chic. For example, before the monetary reform on the collective farm, the salary was 400 rubles, and her trailer earned 1400. Tractor drivers and combine operators received 12 tons of pure grain. Not any barley "Something, but real grain. They rested only on Sundays. They had their own canteen in the field, dug out a "refrigerator", pork, beef is always fresh, clean. They built a pool for rainwater to pour it into radiators - they rusted from plain water "People built houses for themselves, they had many motorcycles, and still some people ride them. Everyone in the brigade could take a car, and if there were problems, the mother, of course, would have bothered."
Compare with at least a modern city council member.
"Praskovya Angelina died in complete obscurity."
BIOGRAPHICAL INDEX Chronos http://www.hrono.ru/biograf/angelina.html
.
" Most happy Days in my life when my mother died. We laughed and joked with her. Every evening someone visited her. Marshak came for tea, Papanin looked in and made me laugh to tears. He had an amazing sense of humor. Mom left beautifully and courageously. Five days before her death, she underwent surgery. Papanin accompanied her to the operating room, he followed the gurney. After the operation, my mother fell into a coma and never regained consciousness. She died in my arms."
From the memoirs of Angelina's daughter - Svetlana
“There is no sex in the USSR” - this already historical phrase stunned the audience of the Soviet participant in the first teleconference with America. What the country did not have was sex symbols in their current sense. But the ladies, worthy and admired, definitely were. And not only movie stars, but also women who have made professional career in traditionally masculine areas of activity. Such as the first tractor driver Pasha Angelina.
on a horse
In the favorite book of Soviet children - the fairy tale "Old Man Hottabych" by Lazar Lagin - there is a noticeable dialogue: "And whose wife is Pasha Angelina, why do you consider her more noble than sheikhs and kings?" asks the old genie, who has sat in a bottle for centuries. And who freed him from captivity Soviet pioneer patiently explains to the politically illiterate grandfather: “She is noble in herself, and not by her husband. She is a famous tractor driver!”
Formally, the fate of the first Soviet tractor driver fits perfectly into the canons of feminism. In a peasant country with a patriarchal way of life, Pasha was the first to saddle, as they said then, a “steel horse” - she sat behind the wheel of a modern tractor, becoming an example for thousands of compatriots. In other words, she despised the tradition that fixed the place of a woman in the kitchen and in the nursery, made a professional career. A career in high technology - the Soviet "hi-tech" of the twenties! However, remembering what time it was, other horses come to mind. And other women are Nekrasov’s: “He will stop a galloping horse, enter a burning hut ...”
Praskovya Angelina (for the whole country she remained simply Pasha for the rest of her life) was born in 1913 in the Donetsk region in the family of a rural farm laborer. The girl grew up and prepared for a quiet rural life. Until a rattling foreign miracle of technology burst into a backward Russian village - a tractor. It happened in 1928, and already in the next year Pasha graduated from tractor driver courses and, according to the official version (we will never know unofficial ones), she was the first woman in the country to drive a tractor herself.
The latest technology Soviet collective farmers appreciated it, however, it was traditionally considered unfeminine to manage steel units. The mechanic who steered the car was the first guy in the village at that time. It was even possible, secretly from the collective farm authorities, to give a ride on a tractor to your chosen one. Any of the rural beauties was breathtaking from such proposals - but not Pasha Angelina, who herself taxied to the envy of the whole village.
The growing conflict in the family was added to the jealousy of local tractor drivers. Nikita Angelin, the father of the first tractor driver, was from the Greeks, and Greek men had strict ideas about what areas of life were inaccessible to a woman. But the legendary tenacity of Pasha - on the verge of obstinacy - also had Greek roots. Since childhood, she was nicknamed a peasant in a skirt, and everyone in the village knew: if something gets into the head of Nikita Angelina’s daughter, everything will be her way!
record holder
After some time, the news of the initiative of the tractor driver from Ukraine reached Moscow. Moreover, up to the leader himself. The pre-war decade and a half was a time of endless records. Not sports, but production, and not for the sake of money, but on the wave of mass enthusiasm. Sincere or carefully directed by the authorities - in this case no matter. new country heroes were urgently needed, and they became miners, steelworkers, combine operators and pilots. The first five-year plans, with their labor impulse and permanent records, were the front showcase of socialism - the same as the movie "Circus", songs that "help build and live", and Mukhina's pretentious sculpture "Worker and Kolkhoz Woman". About what was hidden behind the window - mass terror, famine in the same Ukraine, the destruction of the Russian village, the slave labor of people at many great construction sites of socialism and everything else - official propaganda, of course, was silent.
Whether the young tractor driver had any idea why her unusual act aroused such an ardent approval of the supreme power is now beyond understanding. Probably not. She was young, uneducated and very passionate about her work. And in the first place for Pasha, like for many of her peers, then it was still “build”, and only then “live”.
To imagine what Pasha Angelina was like, it is enough to recall the same monumental collective farmer Mukhina. A strong and broad-shouldered builder of a new world, physically in no way inferior to her companion - a peasant worker. Worked-out hands, a strong body, and in the face - will, pressure, energy, power. There is not a drop of doubt in the gaze fixed on the bright future! Softness, femininity, sexuality are absent. They are of no use to the builders of the new world.
After Angelina headed the first in the country (it is possible that in the world) women's tractor brigade in her homeland, the newspapers published her call: "One hundred thousand friends - to the tractor!" This was in 1938, and a year later, not a hundred, but two hundred thousand collective farmers responded to the initiative. They had to not only master advanced agricultural machinery, but also replace men at the helm - when the need arose ... The country was intensely preparing for war. An entire generation has grown up next idea: there are only enemies around who are just waiting for an opportunity to attack the world's first state of workers and peasants.
Star
Pasha Angelina became famous throughout the country even before the war. The young rural tractor driver quickly turned into an all-Union celebrity, into a real star, whose popularity was not even dreamed of by other movie stars. Her smile graced the front pages of newspapers and magazines. Now every trip to the field of a noble tractor driver became an informational occasion and rarely did without the accompaniment of crowds of journalists and camera flashes.
In Soviet society, such popularity inevitably demanded appropriate awards. In 1935, Pasha Angelina received her first Order of Lenin, and two years later she joined the party and became a deputy of the Supreme Soviet. Now she had the opportunity to speak from a high podium, to meet with thousands of people across the country and with those few on whom everything in this country depended. Pasha more than once personally communicated with Stalin himself and even, according to journalists, once dared to recite ditties composed by her friends in the brigade in the presence of the leader.
Social activity captured Pasha in the same way as the technique used to. During trips to Moscow, she had to do everything: to bother about the timely dispatch of tractors and seeders, to help fellow countrymen with admission to the capital's institutes, to get collective farmers vouchers to the resort, to deal with the cases of disabled people who had their pensions delayed. Her concern extended to everyone except her own family - it was indecent to use her social position. As her nephew later recalled, the only, albeit useful, “benefit” from being related to a folk heroine was that her family happily escaped repression. From which in those days no one was insured.
Just before the war, Pasha finally received a higher education, graduating from the Moscow Agricultural Academy - the famous Timiryazevka. During these years, she read a lot, ordering whole boxes of books for herself from the capital. And she even wrote one herself - "People of the collective farm fields", which came out shortly after the end of the war.
During the war years, Pasha Angelina again headed the women's tractor brigade - but already in the rear, in Kazakhstan. Everyone who worked with her unanimously stated that she was a born leader, demanding and sometimes tough, but fair. When, after returning to Ukraine in 1945, Pasha's former girlfriends scattered in all directions, her authority was unconditionally recognized by the male tractor drivers who replaced them. In the new composition of the tractor brigade, the only representative of the weaker sex remained - Aunt Pasha herself.
However, a woman known throughout the country - a leader of labor, a deputy, an order bearer, still did not turn into a sexless Mukhina collective farmer with a sickle in her hands. Angelina had a husband and three children (and another adopted one), for whom her mother brought toys from Moscow. She showed her steel character in another way, when, after the death of her husband in 1947 (as a result of a wound received in the war), she raised all four alone.
Sunset
In 1953, Stalin died, and a new era began, which needed completely different heroes and idols. Talk about Pasha subsided, but did not disappear completely. The spirit of the Russian female tractor driver gradually began to penetrate into some socialist countries. In China, a local movement of "continuers of the work of Pasha Angelina" arose. And she could not complain about the favor of the authorities at home. Pasha was elected to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, added to her awards new Orders of Lenin, two stars of the Hero of Socialist Labor and the badge of a Stalin Prize laureate. At the same time, until the end of her life, she remained a simple foreman, although she was repeatedly offered to take the post of chairman of the collective farm. She also refused to change her personal Pobeda, which she drove as famously as a tractor, for a more fashionable and prestigious Volga. She was still praised in the central press and invited to various meetings and celebrations. But best time Pasha Angelina was already leaving.
She died in January 1959, four years before her 50th birthday. Death was caused by cirrhosis of the liver, but not for the reason that immediately comes to mind - Pasha Angelina did not abuse alcohol. In those days, cirrhosis of the liver was an occupational disease of tractor drivers, who sometimes had to “suck” a little fuel through a hose. She arrived in Moscow for the next session of the Supreme Council and literally burned down in a matter of months. In the hospital ward of the famous “Kremlin”, the noble tractor driver still managed to be awarded the second Star of the Hero of Labor, and a few days later Praskovya Angelina died.
According to the nomenklatura table of ranks that existed at that time, twice the heroine and the recent idol of millions were to be buried at the Novodevichy cemetery. However, at the insistence of relatives, the funeral took place in Angelina's homeland.
She has remained in the history of one of the most brilliant "Cinderella" Soviet era. Even then, Pasha was not considered a beauty - however, in today's opinion, even the faces of many movie stars of that era do not always cause admiration. But fate did not deprive her of fame and simple female happiness.
And the question of whether women can steer on an equal footing with men and better than men- whether it be the steering wheel of a tractor, big business, or even the state - has since been decided finally and irrevocably. They can prove it.
In 1928, a foreign "miracle of technology of the 20th century" appeared in our backward village, rattling throughout the entire district. The tractor not only increased the speed of tillage, but also changed the whole habitual patriarchal way of life of rural residents. Even women's emancipation in the countryside went along the tractor track: a female tractor driver Pasha (Praskovya) Angelina appeared, a pretty girl who, for the first time in the history of the Russian village, took up a "not a woman's" business. Hundreds of thousands of other women followed her.
Why did Pasha Angelina dream of becoming a tractor driver at the age of 16? Why did she organize the first female tractor brigade in the USSR at the age of 20, instead of calmly getting married, having children and poking around in her garden?
Our correspondent Dmitry Tikhonov talks with the nephew of the legendary tractor driver - Alexei Kirillovich Angelin.
My father, Kirill Fedorovich, and Praskovya Nikitichna - cousins and sister. My grandfather, Fyodor Vasilyevich, died very early due to a wound received in the First World War, and Praskovya Nikitichna's father, Nikita Vasilyevich, actually adopted his brother's children. Grandfather Nikita treated our family as his own.
We were all born in the regional village of Staro-Beshevo, Donetsk region. My mother, brother and son of Praskovya Nikitichna, Valery, still live there. By the way, Valery and I studied at the same institute, and I always go to him when I am in those parts.
Praskovya Nikitichna's husband worked in party bodies, and during the war he was badly wounded and died in 1947. She did not marry again, she said that the main thing for her was to put her three children on their feet. Eldest daughter Svetlana graduated from Moscow State University and has been living in Moscow for a long time, already retired. The middle son Valery remained, as I said, at home. Stalin's youngest daughter graduated from medical school, but died early. It was still Foster-son Gennady is the son of her brother. When his brother died, his wife abandoned the child, and Pasha adopted him.
- What kind of person was she?
They say about such women: a man in a skirt. She really had a masculine character. She was directly drawn to tractors! But then in the village it was not very welcome. Those women who dared to sit on a tractor were subjected to real persecution. She even described it in her memoirs. In addition, Praskovya Nikitichna is Greek by nationality, and among them women were generally forbidden to get into men's affairs. Her father and the whole family were categorically against it, but in spite of everything she mastered this purely male specialty and became first a machine operator, and then the foreman of the first female tractor brigade in the USSR.
In 1938, attention was drawn to her. She got into the groove. As a result, she appealed to all Soviet women: "One hundred thousand friends - to the tractor!". And 200 thousand women followed her example.
She was a purposeful person, assertive, demanding, even tough, but very fair. And, of course, a great organizer. The team is always in perfect order and cleanliness. By the way, the women's brigade was from 1933 to 1945, but when they returned from Kazakhstan, from the evacuation, the women fled, and only men remained in the brigade. And Praskovya Nikitichna is their foreman. They called her Aunt Pasha.
I must say that she was a real ace driver: she drove both a tractor and a car, she practically did not get out of her "Victory" and did not want to change it for a new fashionable at that time "Volga".
- Really, besides tractors, she was not interested in anything else in life?
She had a great passion for books. And although she did not receive a higher education, she loved to read terribly. When she was a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, she sent dozens of parcels with books from Moscow. And all the neighbors thought that she was sending all sorts of scarce things from the capital. Her library was excellent. I subscribed to a whole pile of different newspapers and magazines. The postman brought them in bags.
- By the way, at that time Praskovya Nikitichna was quite famous, or, as they said then, a noble person. Did it help her in life? How did the authorities treat her?
She never used her opportunities and connections for herself personally. Although she had great connections. Judge for yourself - a member of the Central Committee Communist Party Ukraine, twice Hero of Socialist Labor, laureate of the Stalin Prize, had several Orders of Lenin, 20 years in a row - a deputy of the Supreme Council, was familiar with Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin, met Stalin several times. But until the end of her life she remained a foreman, although she was repeatedly offered to become the chairman of the collective farm.
I remember such a case. She, as a deputy of the Supreme Council, had a personal driver. He once broke some rules, so she made him apologize to the sentry. She did not allow anyone to use her connections. Her family often resented her because of this. I think that the famous surname helped us in only one thing - our family escaped repression.
- Praskovya Angelina died in January 1959, when she was only 46 years old ...
She had cirrhosis of the liver, which is not surprising with such work. The constant presence of fuels and lubricants in the body affected. Previously, fuel was sucked through a hose. She died very quickly, within a few months, and literally worked to the last. I arrived at the session of the Supreme Council, felt bad, turned to the doctors. She was treated in a Kremlin clinic, but it was no longer possible to save her. The second star of the Hero of Socialist Labor was awarded to her when she was already in the clinic, almost before her death. They wanted to bury him in Moscow, at the Novodevichy cemetery, but at the request of relatives they buried him at home, in Staro-Beshevo. There is still a monument to her and an avenue named after her.
- And why did you connect your life with agriculture?
My father was also a machine operator and worked as a foreman of a tractor brigade in a neighboring farm. And we, children, followed in his footsteps. I am the eldest son. At first he worked as a mechanic at MTS, then he graduated from the Melitopol Institute of Mechanization and Electrification Agriculture became a mechanical engineer. He worked in the Kuban, was the chairman of the collective farm. My younger brother is also a mechanic. True, my children are no longer connected with the village. The granddaughter generally studies at MGIMO.
- Do you think the modern conditions Is Pasha Angelina's experience applicable?
All is well in due time. Then it was simply necessary, especially during the war and after it. And today, it seems to me, it is not necessary to involve women en masse in such a difficult task. There is no need for this. The men can handle themselves.
