An expert from the TV show “Own Game” Andrei Zhdanov was found dead. Biography The struggle for the survival of Leningrad

For a long time he was the main ideologist of the Soviet state, a friend of Stalin, “bombed” Anna Akhmatova and Zoshchenko, survived the blockade, and in newsreels from his funeral he carried his own coffin.

Ensign General

Andrey Zhdanov has a unique “career destiny”. He did not have a serious education, but at the same time he was considered an intellectual. Zhdanov graduated from several classes of a real school, then studied for six months in the first year of the Moscow Agricultural Institute and completed four months at the Tiflis Warrant Officer School. In 1917, Zhdanov ended up in one of the reserve regiments, where his qualities as an agitator were very useful. It is along the ideological path that his career will develop. Zhdanov taught the people political literacy, was a member of the Tver provincial committee of the RCP (b) and editor of Tverskaya Pravda, chairman of the provincial executive committee of the Tver region. Noticed by Stalin, in 1924 he became First Secretary of the Nizhny Novgorod Region. In 1925, 29-year-old Zhdanov was already a candidate member of the Central Committee, and a little later a member of the Central Committee. Not noted for military achievements, ensign, during the war years Zhdanov was a colonel general.

Stalin's right hand

Zhdanov was the person to whom Stalin delegated the “dirty work”. Zhdanov had an undoubted talent as an agitator. In addition, he did not restrain himself in funds. According to historian Milchakov, after Zhdanov’s trip to Bashkiria, 342 people from among the party and Soviet activists were arrested. After the “purge” carried out by Zhdanov in the Tatar party organization, 232 people were repressed, and almost all of them were shot. In the Orenburg region, over the five months of 1937, 3,655 people were arrested, half of them were sentenced to VMN. Zhdanov found these measures “insufficient,” and only according to the NKVD lists, which were considered in the Politburo after Zhdanov’s trip, another 598 people were repressed.

Artist's embosser

Andrei Zhdanov became famous not only for his participation in repressions, but also for his active involvement in the “stifling of creative freedoms.” On April 3, 1946, when Anna Andreevna began to read her poems in the Hall of Columns of the House of Unions, the entire hall stood up. Stalin was informed about this, and his immediate question was: “Who organized the uprising?” Of course, no one organized the uprising, but Anna Akhmatova became a personal enemy of Stalin, and therefore of Zhdanov, who served as secretary of the Central Committee for ideology, and therefore this concerned him directly. On September 1, 1946, Andrei Zhdanov made his famous report on the magazines “Zvezda” and “Leningrad”. In the report, he defames Anna Akhmatova with all the magnificent skill of a party demagogue. He calls Akhmatova’s work “the poetry of an enraged lady, rushing between the boudoir and the prayer room... Either a nun, or a harlot, or rather, a harlot and a nun, whose fornication is mixed with prayer.” Zhdanov also covered the art of cinema. The second series of the film “Ivan the Terrible” by Sergei Eisenstein, films by cinema classics V. Pudovkin and G. Kozintsev were rejected. Composers Shostakovich and Prokofiev were convicted of an “anti-people tendency” in art.

Alcoholism

Khrushchev loved to talk about the fact that Zhdanov was a heavy drinker: “Suffering from numerous ailments, he lost his willpower and could no longer control himself in drinking matters. It was a pity to look at him." According to recollections, during banquets, when everyone drank wine and stronger drinks, Zhdanov, who was under the close supervision of Stalin, had to drink fruit water and juices. If Zhdanov was limited at events, then at home he was in Alcohol was one of the factors in the development of Zhdanov’s angina, and indirectly became the cause of his death.

Blockade

Zhdanov’s misdeeds, his often groundless cruelty, are largely compensated by the fact that he survived the siege of Leningrad, but even here, not everything is so simple. It would be a stretch to call Zhdanov a blockade hero. Today, historians have enough evidence that during the siege of Leningrad it was not Zhdanov who led it, but Alexei Kuznetsov, the second secretary of the regional and city committees. “Despite the famine that reigned in the city, Zhdanov, according to the memoirs of his contemporaries, was not going to share the difficulty of the blockade with the residents and did not deny himself anything; products were delivered directly to him from the mainland, including even pancakes and fruit." Zhdanov did not appear in public, did not speak in besieged Leningrad even on the radio, and in 1943 he was evacuated to Moscow, where he spent two months in the Kremlin hospital with " angina pectoris."

Merits

Despite all the “suffocating” activities of Zhdanov as the main ideologist of the state, one cannot fail to note the good undertakings carried out by Andrei Alexandrovich. It was on his orders that two years after the war, in 1947, the journal “Problems of Philosophy” began to be published and the Publishing House of Foreign Literature arose. Of course, these were strategic moves (the state could not allow Soviet philosophy and the “import of Western ideas” to develop by itself), but both the magazine and the publishing house exist today, no longer with ideological “filling.”

The mystery of death

Until now, the causes of Zhdanov’s death have not been reliably established. It is known that Zhdanov had two heart attacks, but when all the archival documents of Lechsanupra were raised in 1952, they clearly indicated either an error in diagnosis, or malicious intent, or, in any case, negligence unacceptable for Kremlin doctors. Zhdanov's death had fatal consequences. The investigation into the causes of death became the impetus that restarted the famous “doctors’ case.” In addition, after the death of Zhdanov, the so-called “Leningrad affair” began. Paradoxically, the mourning for Zhdanov lasted only a couple of days, his memory was not immortalized, they preferred to forget about him. Even the filming of the newsreel of Zhdanov’s funeral turned out to be an incident. The film turned out to be defective and the film was literally stitched together from archival materials from a previous funeral. In one of the frames of the chronicle, Andrei Zhdanov was carrying his own coffin.

Andrei Aleksandrovich Zhdanov was named by his comrades and later historians as a likely successor. Soviet citizens and the intelligentsia remembered Zhdanov for the “Zhdanovism” or “Zhdanov Doctrine” - an imposed ideological teaching. The new philosophy of artistic creativity, which was nurtured by a prominent party leader, was aimed at isolating Soviet culture from foreign influence.

Childhood and youth

The future ideologist of socialist realism was born in February 1896 in Mariupol, into an intelligent family. My father worked as an inspector of public schools. Andrei Zhdanov’s grandfather on his mother’s side is Pavel Platonov-Gorsky, an Orthodox biblical scholar, inspector of the Moscow Theological Academy. His paternal grandfather was a rural priest in the Ryazan province. Zhdanov’s father followed in the footsteps of his parent: he graduated from theological seminary, then from the theological academy in the capital. Remaining an assistant professor at the department, he became the first researcher of the “Apocalypse” and became interested in the ideas of Marxism, for which he was miserably expelled from the academy.

Alexander Zhdanov influenced his son, instilling in him the ideas of social democracy. After the death of the head of the family, the mother and her children - son Andrei and three daughters - moved to Tver. In 1915, Zhdanov graduated from a real school with one “B” grade. In the same year he became a member of the CPSU (b).

In the summer of 1916, Andrei Zhdanov was called up to serve in the student battalion in Tsaritsyno. A year later, Zhdanov, a cadet at the infantry school, ended up in a reserve infantry regiment stationed in the Ural Shadrinsk.

Policy

The biography of Andrei Zhdanov is closely connected with the Bolshevik Party. Since 1915, after joining the party ranks, the 16-year-old boy has been rapidly climbing the career ladder. In the winter of 1917, Zhdanov was included in the Shadrinsk Committee for Public Safety. Soon he becomes deputy chairman and participates in eliminating the unrest that occurred after the destruction of the alcohol storage facility: the committee members dumped the largest reserves of alcohol in the Urals into the Iset River.

The young communist Andrei Zhdanov in 1918 became the initiator and executor of the closure of the Socialist Revolutionary publication in Shadrinsk and the organizer of the Bolshevik newspaper. In the same year, he was sent to Perm to lead preparatory courses for political workers.

In the summer of 1918, Zhdanov was appointed inspector-organizer of the propaganda bureau at the Ural district military registration and enlistment office. As a strong ideologist, Andrei Zhdanov serves as an employee of the political department of the 3rd and then the 5th armies of the Eastern Front of the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army. A year later, he was entrusted with teaching political literacy at the cavalry command courses of the Red Army.

In 1922, Andrei Zhdanov became chairman of the provincial executive committee. Stalin drew attention to the intelligent 26-year-old communist, and in 1925 Zhdanov became a candidate, and 2 years later a member of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.

In 1934, Andrei Aleksandrovich Zhdanov was secretary of the Central Committee, and after the murder of Sergei Kirov, secretary of the regional and city party committees in Leningrad. After 4 years, the Secretary General elevated Zhdanov to Chairman of the Supreme Council. He is called the conductor of Stalin's terror, but they note less activity than that of and. But Andrei Zhdanov’s signature is under 176 “execution” lists.

In the summer of 1940, he was sent to Estonia, where Zhdanov was busy creating a Soviet republic and annexing it to the USSR.

During the Great Patriotic War, Andrei Aleksandrovich Zhdanov played a role in defense. In January 1945, he was relieved of his duties as First Secretary of the regional committee and city committee of the northern capital, but the politician retained his influence in the city.

In 1946, Joseph Vissarionovich entrusted Andrei Zhdanov with overseeing cultural policy in the USSR, and he zealously began to carry out the task. At the end of the same year, he criticized creativity and. Zhdanov labeled Akhmatova’s poetry as “completely distant from the people,” and Zoshchenko was “honored” of the description “literary scum.”

In the late 1940s, the devotee of socialist realism Andrei Zhdanov stigmatized representatives of “reactionary obscurantism and renegadery” - the poets of the Silver Age, Vyacheslav Ivanov, etc. The August 1946 report became the basis for the resolution “On the magazines Zvezda and Leningrad.” In it, Zhdanov proclaimed that “apolitical art is ideological sabotage,” and the only possible conflict allowed in works of Soviet culture is “the conflict between the good and the best.”

In February 1948, the Stalinist ideologist undertook to “cleanse” the ranks of musicians, calling the process “the fight against formalism.” Composers and dozens of others were purged.

But in 1948, Andrei Zhdanov himself fell out of favor. In June, the Secretary General sent him to Bucharest, where at the Cominform meeting the delegates were entrusted with condemning Yugoslavia and Josip Broz Tito. Zhdanov, unlike Malenkov, showed softness. Stalin removed his former favorite from all posts and replaced him with Georgiy Malenkov.

Personal life

Andrei Zhdanov's wife was Zinaida Kondratyeva, the daughter of an exile. The couple had a son, Yuri Zhdanov, who married Stalin's daughter -. In 1950, two years after the death of Andrei Zhdanov, his granddaughter Katya was born. And two years later, Yuri and Svetlana broke up.

Yuri Andreevich Zhdanov became a chemist, professor, and rector of Rostov University. During Gorbachev's perestroika he was persecuted.

Andrei Zhdanov's wife died in 1973. My son passed away in 2006.

Death

In his memoirs, he calls Zhdanov an “alcoholic,” claiming that Stalin shouted at his favorite in recent months, insisting on replacing alcohol with fruit juices.

Zhdanov’s associates hold a different opinion, arguing that Joseph Vissarionovich considered Andrei Alexandrovich as a successor, but the latter’s poor health and weak heart, as well as the intrigues of Georgy Malenkov, crossed out the plans of the Secretary General.

After the failure in Yugoslavia, health problems worsened: Andrei Zhdanov ended up in a departmental sanatorium near Valdai, where he died on August 31, 1948. The cause of death was heart failure.

The attending physician Lydia Timashuk did not agree with the opinion of the council of the Kremlin medical and sanitary department, which diagnosed Zhdanov with a heart attack. Timashuk wrote a letter to the Central Committee, where she pointed out the incorrect treatment methods that led to the death of the patient. In 1952, attention was paid to the note: it became the basis for the “doctors’ case,” and Zhdanov was declared a victim of “saboteur doctors.”

Monument to Andrei Zhdanov in Mariupol, dismantled in 1989

Andrei Zhdanov was buried near the Kremlin wall, on Red Square. The hometown was renamed Zhdanov in 1948, with a monument to the famous Mariupol resident erected on the central square. But in 1989 the name Mariupol was returned to the city, and the next year the monument was dismantled.

Andrey Alexandrovich Zhdanov(February 14 (26), 1896, Mariupol - August 31, 1948, Valdai) - Soviet party and statesman. Member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks since 1939 (candidate since 1935), since 1934 Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and member of the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, member of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks since 1930 (candidate since 1925) . Colonel General (06/18/1944).
Member of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Central Executive Committee of the USSR, deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of the 1st and 2nd convocations.

Andrey Alexandrovich Zhdanov
Member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks during the period March 22, 1939 - August 31, 1948
Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks during the period February 10, 1934 - August 31, 1948
First Secretary of the Leningrad Regional Committee and City Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) during the period December 15, 1934 - January 17, 1945
Chairman of the Council of the Union of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR during the period March 12, 1946 - February 25, 1947
Head of the Propaganda and Agitation Department of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks during the period March 21, 1939 - September 6, 1940
Chairman of the Supreme Council of the RSFSR during the period July 15, 1938 - June 20, 1947
First Secretary of the Nizhny Novgorod (Gorky) Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (from August 10, 1929), from 1924 - Executive Secretary of the Provincial Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks August 1924 - February 20, 1934
Chairman of the Tver Provincial Executive Committee of the SRKD April - July 15, 1922
Birth: February 14 (26), 1896
Mariupol, Ekaterinoslav Governorate, Russian Empire
Death: August 31, 1948 Valdai, RSFSR, USSR
Burial place: Necropolis near the Kremlin wall, Moscow
Party: Bolsheviks (since 1915)
Military service Rank: Colonel General
Battles: Soviet-Finnish War, Great Patriotic War: Defense of Leningrad

Was born Zhdanov in the family of public school inspector Alexander Alekseevich Zhdanov (1860-1909). On his mother's side, he is the grandson of the inspector of the Moscow Theological Academy Pavel Ivanovich Platonov-Gorsky.
His father Andrey Zhdanov Born into the family of a rural priest near Ryazan, where he graduated from theological seminary, and in 1887 he brilliantly graduated from the Moscow Theological Academy, where he was then an assistant professor in the department of the Holy Scriptures of the Old Testament, and was expelled from the academy with a scandal. He, as he notes biographer of Andrey Zhdanov A. Volynets, who became one of the first researchers of the Apocalypse in Russia and the creator of a series of lectures on the history of the Old Testament, popular in seminaries, also became interested in the ideas of Marxism and social democracy. Alexander Zhdanov became the first teacher of his son Andrei and had a great influence on him.

After the death of his father, the family - mother, Andrei and his three sisters - moved to the Tver province. In 1910, he entered the Tver Real School, from which he graduated in 1915 with excellent marks, with only a B in drawing. Member of the Bolshevik Party since 1915.

In July 1916 Andrey Zhdanov called up for military service in the Tsaritsyn student battalion, then cadet of the 3rd Tiflis School of Infantry Warrant Officers. Since February 1917 in the city of Shadrinsk in the 139th reserve infantry regiment.
In November 1917, as part of the Committee for Public Safety (chairman of the committee - Socialist Revolutionary N.V. Zdobnov, head of the Shadrinsk City Duma, deputy - A. A. Zhdanov) eliminated the riots associated with the destruction of the alcohol storage facility; As a result, the largest reserves of alcohol in the Urals were released into the Iset River. In 1918 Andrey Zhdanov was the initiator and direct executor of the closure of the Shadrin Socialist Revolutionary newspaper “Narodnaya Mysl” and the organizer of the Soviet newspaper “The Path to Commune”. In 1918, he led training courses for political, cultural and educational workers in Perm.

In June 1918 Andrey Zhdanov entered service in the Red Army, inspector-organizer of the propaganda bureau of the Ural District Military Commissariat, employee of the political department of the 3rd Army, at the beginning of 1919 - head of the cultural and educational department of the Ufa Provincial Military Commissariat and employee of the political department of the 5th Army of the Eastern Front of the Red Army. In 1919, he taught political literacy at the 1st Tver Soviet cavalry command courses of the Red Army.

Delegate to the IX Congress of the RCP(b) from the Tver organization. At the 8th All-Russian Congress of Soviets Andrey Zhdanov elected as a member of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. In April - July 1922, Chairman of the Tver Provincial Executive Committee.

From July 1922 to February 1934 Andrey Zhdanov in Nizhny Novgorod (Gorky). From 1922 to August 1924 head. Agitation and Propaganda Department (APO) of the Nizhny Novgorod Provincial Committee of the RCP (b). From August 1924 to August 1929, 1st Secretary of the Nizhny Novgorod Provincial Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. In 1924-34. 1st Secretary of the Gorky (Nizhny Novgorod) Regional Party Committee.

From 10.2.1934 Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and member of the Organizational Bureau of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. In March-April 1934, head of the Agricultural Department of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, then head of the Planning, Financial and Trade Department of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. Organizer of the First Congress of Soviet Writers. Since the 1930s, an influential ideologist of the party, the titular co-author (together with Stalin and Kirov) of notes on the basic principles of studying and teaching history (1934, published in 1936). Participated in the creation of the “Short Course on the History of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)”, the organizer of its assimilation by the party masses.

After the death of Kirov, from December 15, 1934 to January 17, 1945, 1st Secretary of the Leningrad Regional Committee and City Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, member of the Military Council of the Leningrad Military District (1935-1941, converted to the front). From February 1, 1935, a candidate member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (elected at the first Plenum of the Party Central Committee after the death of Kirov). Member of the ECCI (1935-1943).

In 1936, being the first secretary of the Leningrad regional party committee, Andrey Zhdanov announced a competition for writing literary works. First place in the competition (held only once) was the story “Shadrinsk Goose” by Evgeny Fedorov (it is possible that the competition was announced for this story, since in 1917 Zhdanov was the commissar of agriculture in Shadrinsk).
During the years of the Great Terror, Zhdanov became one of the members of the Politburo of the Central Committee who endorsed the so-called execution lists. In the fall of 1937, he was the leader and initiator of purges (repressions) in the Bashkir party organization. Also in Tatarstan and the Orenburg region.
Since March 1938 Andrey Zhdanov- Member of the Main Military Council of the USSR Navy.
From July 15, 1938 to June 20, 1947 Chairman of the Supreme Council of the RSFSR.

From 11/21/1938 Andrey Zhdanov- head of the newly formed Department of Agitprop of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, from March 31, 1939, transformed into the Directorate of Propaganda and Agitation of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, which he headed until September 1940.
From 1939 (from the XVIII Congress of the CPSU(b)) until his death - member of the Politburo. From June 26, 1939 to March 21, 1941, member of the Economic Council under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR.
1939-1940 - member of the Military Council of the North-Western Front during the Soviet-Finnish War. In June - August 1940, authorized representative of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks for Estonia.
Since July 1940, a member of the GVS of the spacecraft, since August of the same year, a member of the Defense Committee under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR. Since May 1941, a member of the Bureau of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR (Stalin became the pre-Soviet People's Commissar of the USSR on May 6, 1941), a member of the Commission of the Bureau of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR on military and naval affairs.

Activities of Andrei Zhdanov during the war and post-war times

During the Great Patriotic War Andrey Zhdanov- Member of the Military Council of the North-Western Direction and, until 1944, of the Military Council of the Leningrad Front.

Former director of the BDT Gennady Sukhanov recalled in a 2012 interview that “I once saw him (Zhdanov) in the corridor of Smolny at that time (the Siege of Leningrad). He was like the rest of us. His jacket was gray in color, empty, his face was clean-shaven, a little puffy, it also seemed to me that he had dropsy. He looked bad. He wasn’t as fat as he was before this nightmare.”
Member of the commission to investigate the atrocities of the Nazi invaders (1942), however, as noted by Ph.D. ist. Sciences M. Yu. Sorokin, he took almost no part in her work. In 1944-1947 Andrey Zhdanov headed the Allied Control Commission in Finland.

As a member of the Politburo and the Secretariat of the Central Committee, he was responsible for ideology and foreign policy, from April 1946 he headed the Directorate of Propaganda and Agitation (head G.F. Aleksandrov) and the Foreign Policy Department (head -), from August 1946, instead of Malenkov, he chaired the meetings of the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee. He headed the commission formed in 1946, which proposed a draft of a new party program.

After the war, he pursued the Communist Party line on the ideological front in support of socialist realism. In August 1946 Andrey Zhdanov made a report condemning the lyrical poems of Anna Akhmatova and the satirical stories of Mikhail Zoshchenko (“The Adventures of a Monkey”). Zoshchenko was characterized as a “scum of literature”, and Akhmatova’s poetry was recognized by Zhdanov as “completely distant from the people”. Representatives of “reactionary obscurantism and renegadeism in politics and art” included Dmitry Merezhkovsky, Vyacheslav Ivanov, Mikhail Kuzmin, Andrei Bely, Zinaida Gippius, Fyodor Sologub. This report by Zhdanov formed the basis of the party resolution “On the magazines Zvezda and Leningrad.”

On behalf of the Party Central Committee, he led the June philosophical discussion of 1947.
By order of Zhdanov, the journal “Questions of Philosophy” began to be published in 1947 and the Publishing House of Foreign Literature arose.

Illness, death and funeral of Andrei Zhdanov

Zhdanov died on August 31, 1948 from a long-term heart disease in the sanatorium of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks near Lake Valdai, where he was treated. A funeral train delivered the coffin with his body from Valdai to Moscow. He was buried near the Kremlin wall.

In the last days of life Zhdanova Doctor Lydia Timashuk, who, contrary to the opinion of the Lechsanupra council, diagnosed the patient with a heart attack, addressed the Central Committee with a letter in which she pointed out the incorrect treatment methods that had taken place Zhdanova that led him to death; At the end of 1952, attention was finally paid to this note, and it appeared in the development of the “Doctors' Case.” Zhdanov was declared one of the victims of the “saboteur doctors,” and Timashuk was awarded the Order of Lenin on January 20, 1953, but on April 3 of the same year (the day of the rehabilitation and release of the injured doctors), the award was canceled by a new decree.

Family of Andrey Zhdanov

Andrei Zhdanov's wife from the summer of 1918 - Zinaida Aleksandrovna (née Kondratyeva; b. 1898) - daughter of the exiled A.I. Kondratyev, classmate at the Shadrinsk gymnasium Nina Ivanovna (née Mikhaleva), wife of the creator of the first Shadrinsk newspaper “Iset” (1913), chairman of the Shadrinsk city Duma (1918), a prominent figure in the Socialist Revolutionary Party, deputy of the Constituent Assembly (1918), a classic of Russian bibliography, Nikolai Vasilyevich Zdobnov.
Son - Yuri Andreevich (1919-2006) - Soviet and Russian scientist, Doctor of Chemical Sciences, professor, in 1949 he married Svetlana Alliluyeva, becoming the son-in-law of I.V. Stalin.

Awards of Andrey Zhdanov

two Orders of Lenin (1935, 1946);
Order of the Red Banner (03/21/1940);
Order of Suvorov, 1st degree (21.2.1944);
Order of Kutuzov, 1st degree (07/29/1944);
Order of the Red Banner of Labor (04/04/1939).
Medals:
"For the defense of Leningrad";
“For Victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945”;
"For valiant labor in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945."

Opinions about Andrey Zhdanov

A. A. Zhdanov belonged to the revolutionary-democratic wing of the Russian intelligentsia, to commoners in the kindest sense. Hence his dislike of aesthetics, salon style, aristocracy, decadence and modernism. That is why, angry with his bourgeois relative, who loved to repeat: “We are aristocrats of the spirit,” he said in his hearts: “And I am a plebeian!”
- Son Yuri Andreevich Zhdanov, “In the darkness of contradictions”, “Questions of Philosophy” No. 7, 1993

Memory of Andrey Zhdanov

Many objects were named in honor of Zhdanov in the USSR, including his hometown of Mariupol, Leningrad University, St. Petersburg House of Scientists, Rozhdestvenka Street and the Zhdanovsky district in Moscow and Leningrad, and later the Moscow metro station “Zhdanovskaya” (now “Vykhino” ), cruiser "Zhdanov", former. “Putilov Shipyard” (now Northern Shipyard), Palace of Pioneers in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg City Palace of Youth Creativity), street in Kyiv (now Hetman Sagaidachny).

Name A. A. Zhdanov was also awarded
the city of Mariupol (in 1948-1989).
the city of Beylagan (Azerbaijan) (Zhdanovsk in 1939-1989).
The Primorsky district of St. Petersburg was previously called Zhdanovsky (in 1936-1989).
Irkutsk State University.
Leningrad State University (in 1948-1989).
Gorky Polytechnic Institute (1934-1989).
Kaliningrad Higher Military Engineering Command Order of Lenin Red Banner School.
Leningrad Higher Naval Political School.
Order of the October Revolution and the Order of the Red Banner of Labor MPO "First Exemplary Printing House" Soyuzpoligraprom under the USSR State Committee for Publishing, Printing and Book Trade.
Izhora plant (in 1948-1989).
Pavlovsk Bus Plant (1952-1991).
Vladimir Tractor Plant.
Gorky shipyard "Krasnoe Sormovo".
The Severnaya Verf plant (St. Petersburg) was called the A. A. Zhdanov Shipyard (until the early 1990s).
tank model T-28, 20 brigade.
14th Guards Leningrad Red Banner Order of Suvorov Fighter Aviation Regiment
45th Guards Rifle Division (October 22, 1948).
Rozhdestvenka street in Moscow (in 1948-1989).
Chernikovskaya street in Ufa, Osinskaya street in Perm, Bazovskaya street in Krasnodar (1948-1989).
In Soviet times, one of the main streets of the village of Kartashevskaya (Gatchinsky district of the Leningrad region) was named after Zhdanov (now Zelenaya, formerly Ekaterininskaya)
In Soviet times, a street in Murom (now Moskovskaya) was named after Zhdanov.
Until 1989, a street in Syktyvkar (now Kortkerosskaya) was named after Zhdanov.
From its construction in 1966 until 1989, the Moscow metro station Vykhino was Zhdanovskaya.
During these same years, the entire Moscow metro line was called Zhdanovsko-Krasnopresnenskaya.
In 1948, a USSR postage stamp dedicated to Zhdanov was issued.
They were also named after A. A. Zhdanov

State farm "Zhdanovsky" Kokchetav region of the Kazakh SSR.
State farm "Zhdanovsky" of the Bulaevsky district of the North Kazakhstan region.
State farm “Zhdanovsky”, Nizhny Novgorod region.
State Farm named after Zhdanov, Leningrad region.
Imeni Zhdanov is a village in the Kizlyar region of Dagestan.
From 1935 to 1980, the village of Musakok, Samarkand region (Uzbekistan), was called Zhdanov.
During the years of perestroika, the name of Zhdanov was officially condemned by the leadership of the CPSU. In January 1989, the Decree of the CPSU Central Committee “On the abolition of legal acts related to the perpetuation of the memory of A. A. Zhdanov” was issued, which noted that in connection with “numerous appeals from workers with proposals to abolish legal acts perpetuating the memory A. A. Zhdanova“It has been established that A. A. Zhdanov was one of the organizers of mass repressions of the 30-40s against innocent Soviet citizens. He bears responsibility for the criminal actions committed during that period, violations of socialist legality.”

Based on this, the CPSU Central Committee made proposals to cancel the naming of the Zhdanov name to Irkutsk State University, the Kaliningrad Higher Engineering School of Engineering Troops, the Poltava Locomotive Repair Plant, the city of Mariupol and the Leningrad State University, as well as the cancellation of adopted decrees and resolutions related to perpetuating the memory of Zhdanov, naming him named after cities, districts, towns, streets, enterprises, collective farms, military units, schools, technical colleges, vocational schools and other institutions and organizations located on the territory of republics, territories and regions. On January 13, 1989, the Council of Ministers of the USSR adopted Resolution No. 46, which, “taking into account the numerous wishes of the workers,” abolished legal acts on perpetuating the memory of A. A. Zhdanov. After this, many of the largest objects were renamed in record time. On January 13, 1989, by a general resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR, the city of Mariupol was returned to its historical name. Within a week, three monuments to Zhdanov were dismantled there, and his memorial museum was transformed into a museum of folk life.
However, some objects named after Zhdanov have retained their names to this day. Such objects include Zhdanova Street in the village of Industrialny, a remote area of ​​the city of Krasnoyarsk.

Works and speeches of Andrei Zhdanov

Zhdanov A. A. Soviet literature is the most ideological, most advanced literature in the world [Text]: speech at the First All-Union. Congress of Soviet Writers August 17 1934 / A. A. Zhdanov. - [B. m.]: Gospolitizdat, 1953. - 10 p.
Zhdanov, A. A. Stakhanovites are real Bolsheviks of production [Text]: speech November 16, 1935 / A. A. Zhdanov. - M.: Partizdat of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, 1935. - 14 p.
Zhdanov A. A. Speech at the solemn plenum of the Central Committee of the Komsomol together with the activists, dedicated to the 20th anniversary of the Komsomol, at the Bolshoi Theater on October 29, 1938 [Text] / A. A. Zhdanov. - B. m.: Young Guard, 1939. - 15 p.
Zhdanov A. A. Speech at the discussion on the book by G. F. Alexandrov “History of Western European Philosophy.” June 24, 1947 [Text] / A. A. Zhdanov. - B. m.: Gospolitizdat, 1947. - 44 p.
Zhdanov A. A. Comrade Zhdanov’s report on the magazines “Zvezda” and “Leningrad” [Text]: an abbreviated and generalized transcript of Comrade Zhdanov’s reports at a meeting of party activists and at a meeting of writers in Leningrad / A. A. Zhdanov. - M.: Gospolitizdat, 1946. - 38 p.
Zhdanov A. A. On the transformation of the Karelian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic into the Union Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic [Text]: report of deputy A. A. Zhdanov at the meeting of the VI Session Top. Sov. / A. A. Zhdanov.

Zhdanov, Andrei Alexandrovich (February 14 (26), 1896 - August 31, 1948) - a prominent Soviet politician. After Great Patriotic War he was considered the most likely heir to the power of I. Stalin, but died before him.

Zhdanov's party career

Andrei Zhdanov joined the Russian Social Democratic Party ( Bolsheviks) in 1915 and during the Soviet years gradually made a brilliant career, becoming after murder of Sergei Kirov in 1934 by the communist ruler of Leningrad. In July 1938 he became Chairman of the Supreme Council of the RSFSR. Zhdanov was an active guide Great Terror Stalin, although he was not as active in this party purge as Molotov, Kaganovich and Voroshilov. However, Zhdanov's personal approval of 176 execution lists is documented. In June 1940, he was sent to Estonia to lead the creation of the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic and its annexation to the USSR.

Andrey Zhdanov. Photo 1937

Zhdanov played a prominent role during the defense of Leningrad, which was blockaded by German troops. After a ceasefire agreement between the USSR and Finland was concluded in Moscow on September 4, 1944, Zhdanov led the Allied Control Commission in Finland until the Paris Peace Treaty of 1947.

In January 1945, Zhdanov was relieved of his post as First Secretary of the Leningrad Regional Committee and City Committee, but retained considerable influence in the city. In 1946, Stalin instructed Zhdanov to direct the cultural policy of the Soviet Union. First of all (in December 1946) he censored writers, including Anna Akhmatova And Mikhail Zoshchenko. He put forward a slogan, often referred to in the West as the “Zhdanov Doctrine”: “The only possible conflict in the works of Soviet culture is the conflict between good and even better.”

In 1946 – 1947 Zhdanov was Chairman of the Council of the Union of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. In 1947 he organized Cominform, similar to the previous one Comintern, intended to coordinate the actions of the communist parties of Europe.

In February 1948, Zhdanov began purges among musicians - “the fight against formalism.” Dmitry Shostakovich, Sergei Prokofiev, Aram Khachaturian and many other composers were censured at this time. In June 1948, Stalin sent Zhdanov to a Cominform meeting in Bucharest. Its goal was to condemn Yugoslavia and Tito, but Zhdanov took a more restrained line here than the other Soviet delegate - and his rival - Georgy Malenkov. This infuriated Stalin, who removed Zhdanov from all posts and replaced him with Malenkov. Zhdanov was transferred to a sanatorium, where he died on August 31, 1948 from heart failure. It is possible that his death was the result of a deliberate misdiagnosis.

Zhdanov's hometown, Mariupol, was renamed in his honor on Stalin's initiative (1948). A monument to Zhdanov was erected on its central square. The name Mariupol was returned in 1989, and the monument was dismantled in 1990.

Nikita Khrushchev writes in his memoirs that Zhdanov was an alcoholic, and that in his last days, Stalin shouted at him, insisting that he stop drinking and drink only fruit juice. After the war, Stalin spoke of Zhdanov as his successor, but Zhdanov's poor health gave his rivals, Beria and Malenkov, the opportunity to undermine their rival's influence. After the death of Zhdanov, Beria and Malenkov were able to untie " Leningrad case" Zhdanov’s former protégés fell victim to him Nikolai Voznesensky And Alexey Kuznetsov, who also began to be nominated for the role of Stalin's successors.

Zhdanov's ideology

Having emerged in 1946 and lasting until the end of the 1950s, Zhdanov’s ideological teaching (“Zhdanovshchina”, “Zhdanov doctrine”) dominated cultural activity in the USSR. Zhdanov intended to create a new philosophy of artistic creativity. Zhdanov and his associates sought to eliminate foreign influence from Soviet culture, proclaiming that “apolitical” art was ideological sabotage. Their theories were based on the fact that the world was divided into two opposing camps: the “imperialist” one, led by the USA, and the “democratic” one, led by the USSR. This matched the terminology Cold War, which also began in 1946. The slogan “the only possible conflict in Soviet culture is the conflict between good and even better” perfectly expresses the meaning of Zhdanovism. This cultural policy was strictly enforced through censorship of writers, artists and intellectuals. Those who did not meet the standards defined by Zhdanov were punished. This course, officially discontinued in 1952, had a very negative impact on Soviet culture.

The origins of this ideology arose even before 1946, but it came into full force from the moment of the attack on the “apolitical,” “bourgeois,” “individualistic” works of the satirist Mikhail Zoshchenko and the poetess Anna Akhmatova, who wrote for the literary magazines “Zvezda” and “Leningrad.” In a special report by Zhdanov (August 1946), Zoshchenko was called “the scum of literature,” and Akhmatova’s poetry was declared “totally far from the people.” The result of the report was a formidable party resolution “ About the magazines "Zvezda" and "Leningrad"».

On February 20, 1948, Zhdanovism shifted its main focus to “anti-formalism,” targeting composers like Dmitri Shostakovich. In April of the same year, many of these musicians were forced to repent for “formalism” at a special congress of the Union of Composers. These composers were rehabilitated in the Soviet Union only on May 28, 1958.

Members of the Zhdanov family

Zhdanov's son, Yuri (1919 - 2006), married Stalin's daughter in 1949, Svetlana Alliluyeva, but already in 1950 he divorced her. They had a daughter together, Catherine.

He was found dead in his apartment in Tolyatti. According to preliminary data, the death of the 46-year-old man occurred on February 5, but his body was discovered only on the morning of February 7.

Zhdanov’s body was discovered by his mother, who came to visit her son.

said the head of the press service of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia for the Samara Region, Sergei. No external signs of violent death were found on the body. The authorities are conducting an investigation into this fact. Goldstein added that the man's cause of death will be determined during a forensic examination.

Zhdanov is one of the most successful participants in “Own Game” on. He appeared in 74 games and scored 49 wins, and won a car in 2001 with 10 wins. He was the winner of the 12th cycle of the “Golden Dozen” (2000), a member of the grandmaster team in Challenge Cup 2, the champion of the second half of 2005, the winner of the 2006 super final and the finalist of the 1st team tournament in 2012 as part of the Volga region team, reported on TV show website.

Andrei Zhdanov, who graduated from the Gorky Literary Institute, worked for many years as the editor-in-chief of the newspaper Prizyv, a corporate publication. According to the TLTgorod portal, friends often made fun of him, calling the newspaper in which he worked “Pozyv.” “For many, this attachment to the same place of work was incomprehensible. Because at one fine moment the whole world opened up before Andrei Zhdanov - in the literal sense of the word,” the media writes. It also states that

About a week ago Zhdanov took a vacation. His colleagues haven't seen him since then.

but, since in the work collective he was considered an uncommunicative person, no one was worried because of his silence.

A year and a half ago, Andrei lost his wife: on August 28, 2015, a teacher of foreign literature at Tatishchev University committed suicide. Relatives noted that Zhdanov took the death of his wife very hard. In an interview with the Togliatti Navigator publication, Zhdanov called “the most important thing in life is ZhIK: Wife, Game, Cats.”

“Every sumo wrestling school has an “oyakata” - a coach-mentor.

For me, my wife, Annushka, has always been such an oyakata. Without her, I would never have been in this program,

- said Zhdanov. — There was an interesting moment not so long ago. A question was asked (and dear, damn, 1500 points!): who published chess poems and sketches in the Russian emigrant magazine “Rul”? I was afraid to answer it, not being sure. And when the host of the program, Petya Kuleshov, answered “Vladimir Nabokov” for us, I said: “Damn, Annushka will kill me.” This moment was not broadcast. And on the set, the audience “collapsed” with laughter, knowing that I had a strict but fair “oyakata”. Therefore, when we were watching the program at home on TV, I wisely crawled to the other end of the room on this question. The “trick” is that my wife defended her Ph.D. in , and I proofread this work three times, like a real proofreader.”

Zhdanov described himself as having come to “His Game” without experience of such games, “from the couch.” “My wife and I haven’t missed almost a single program since 1996. It was then broadcast in the old format on NTV once a week, on Saturdays. Annushka usually worked on Saturdays, and we didn’t have a VCR at that time. And I recorded her sound from the TV onto an ordinary two-cassette player. I put it close to the speaker and turned the recording on louder.”

In 1998, Zhdanov decided to try playing himself. “I called the phone number that was listed on the screen. Then, to participate in the project, you had to go through a creative competition: send your questions so that the editors would understand how “into the material” you are. By that time, I had accumulated a lot of questions, which I sent to the program. My efforts were apparently appreciated and called for selection,” he said in an interview. “It took place the same way as filming, only in a small office on Shabolovka and without cameras. And the editor himself, as the presenter, read the questions to us. I won my round then. And at the same end of 1998 I was called to filming.”

For the first six months of his participation in “Own Game,” Zhdanov, at his own suggestion, was presented as an “everyman from Tolyatti”:

“A little later, when I was entrenched in the “main team,” the editor came up and said: “Andryush, let’s stop being “exhausted.” Your bad example turned out to be contagious.” At first, this idea was truly original. But then every second person who applied for the program began to demand to be represented as a Buddhist from Sevastopol, an existentialist from Saransk, an Esperantist from Pereslavl-Zalessky.”

As for the TV show, Zhdanov called it a game that lives by its own laws. “Anyone can lose to anyone. That’s why I never tire of saying: “Your own game” is a real school of humility.”