Vladimir Vysotsky: I will die this summer …
Signs happen when nothing portends. In the midst of general fun, in the epicenter of stagnation and the accompanying national Olympic jubilation, Vladimir Vysotsky died in the early morning of July 25, 1980. Tagansky Hamlet has gone into eternity, the heart of the frantic Khlopushi ceased to beat.
In Russia, poets have always considered it their duty to speak on behalf of the people, deprived of their own voice.
(Bengt Youngfeldt)
Signs happen when nothing portends. In the midst of general fun, in the epicenter of stagnation and the accompanying national Olympic jubilation, Vladimir Vysotsky died in the early morning of July 25, 1980. Tagansky Hamlet has gone into eternity, the heart of the frantic Khlopushi ceased to beat. "In the middle of a holiday" in a cleanly torn apart, hastily rebuilt, free of unwanted elements, an exemplary Olympic Moscow, an abyss of national grief opened up. Millions of people lost a loved one overnight - a comrade, fellow soldier, brother, beloved.
Some ten years will pass, and we will scramble out of the ruins of the empire along its rhythmic basis, so that, breathing in Vysotsky's hoarse recitatives, we will preserve ourselves, but for now a couple of meager obituaries in Vechorka and Sovetskaya Rossiya, no information about the place of farewell. The official authorities were silent even now. But we knew where to go. The tens of thousands of people gathered at Verkhnyaya Radishchevskaya, filling the nearby lanes and Taganskaya Square, were not a crowd. The human element, united by a common grief, found unity of purpose, unexpectedly and completely out of place the People appeared - organized, calm, strong.
The people are silent (A. S. Pushkin)
The authorities were understandably uneasy. We were preparing for unauthorized performances. Police were brought up from all over the city to Taganka. They were waiting for shouts and slogans. But the people were silent. Instead of the people, as before, uncontrollable and uncensored, from all the windows the familiar to everyone hoarse - his Voice. The police in white shirts for the Olympic celebrations could only watch. It seemed that one wrong move and the people would sweep away the horse cordons.
There were no wrong movements. Hooligan antics, provocations - not a single one. The erroneous division "into friends and enemies" within a single flock was canceled by the one who, delirious from suffocation, endowed us with his boundless spiritual space - natural and free. V. Zolotukhin recalled how V. Yanklovich, who had a bunch of photographs with Vysotsky's autographs, gave one photo to a policeman from the guard. “From the crowd, a woman yelled:“Who are you giving ?! He's a policeman! Let me! The policeman began to cry: - Are we not people?
We languish in spiritual thirst, Vladimir Vysotsky quenched this thirst for his flock - millions of listeners. He sang about the main thing: about the meaning of human life in Russia. That is why it was equally close and understandable to all of us - schoolchildren and veterans, workers and cosmonauts, academicians and collective farmers. Vysotsky's songs raised the "personal destinies" of people to the common destiny of Russia. The decrepit power struggled, but he did. Listening to Vysotsky, we recalled that not faceless "cogs", not a stupid crowd, but people worthy not of pity, but of mercy. He was merciful, showing with his whole life: since I can be free, then you can too.
The hum died down, I went to the stage … (B. L. Pasternak)
No one has ever helped him. Although they could. But no. Only myself. He himself decided and became an actor, and when the framework of the acting profession became cramped, without hesitation, he left his beloved theater. There was too little time left, he knew for sure. In general, he knew everything about himself. Absolute freedom presupposes an absolute understanding of one's purpose. He just wanted to know exactly how many years, months, days, hours were left to have time to give himself up to a drop. There was no time left. All unnecessary things should have been discarded. Acting, like songs, has become an unaffordable luxury. Only Hamlet remained. Only the verses remained, the chords were no longer needed.
Hamlet's monologue Vladimir Vysotsky will push it into the hall for the last time on July 19, 1980, less than a week before his death:
To be or not to be - that is the question.
Is it worthy to endure the shame of fate without a murmur
Or is it necessary to resist?
Rise, arm, conquer
Or die, die, sleep?
And to know that this breaks the chain of heartache
And thousands of hardships inherent in the body!
Is this not a goal that everyone desires -
Die, fall asleep, fall asleep?..
The strong body refused to serve, the phenomenal memory failed. Gertrude (Alla Demidova), embracing Hamlet, struggling in convulsions, whispered in his ear words that he could utter, seemingly, in any state, because this is his, Vladimir Vysotsky's, a daily, hourly dilemma - to win or die. Alas. Without doping, he could no longer. He was deceived. Injected vitamins. Right there, from the wings. He kept on this deception for a few more minutes, then again half-fainted and the order: "Kolite, damn it, I'm dying!" - and again deception, because "medicine" means instant death. The heart will not stand it. The audience did not notice his torment, they thought he was playing, as always, brilliantly, to the point of creeping, to tears, playing the Prince of Denmark. And he didn’t play, he was “the crown prince of the blood”. And he was dying.
I have come to quench my thirst, if any. (V. S. Vysotsky)
An addict? Such a word was not in use at that time. And in all honesty, did the urethral leader Vysotsky look like drug addicted goners and drunks, nothing but disgusting pity? The first and last filming of a solo concert on television - "Monologue", 1980. Calm concentration on thought. Benevolence, amazing charm of fortitude, confidence in every word. Mandatory: “I have come to quench my thirst, if any …” He reads again from Hamlet. He reads impeccably, each line penetrating into the blood, into the heart, into the soul: "Here is the answer … Here is the solution." Unique voice modulations, a real duel with death.
The last attempt to “jump out” was scheduled for “this summer,” July 2, 1980. Vysotsky was supposed to fly to a friend V. Tumanov at the gold mines and there, in the wilderness of the taiga, try to change fate and survive. Did not work out. "Curve" dragged to the bottom. Literally on the eve of his death, he sang somewhere else. With the last bit of strength I tried to cry out, to save souls. They applauded him. The agony was applauded.
Vysotsky did not criticize the Soviet regime, as the "voices" rushed to report on the day of his death. The Poet did not need this fussy pettiness. Vysotsky the poet opposed pharisaism. He imprinted their true life tasks into the psychic unconscious of people, taught everyone to be free not in a small-scale choice "what to use for his own benefit", but in the only correct measurement of the best possible properties for the common good.
If I could find out what light is … (V. S. Vysotsky)
From within his urethral-sound psychic, Vladimir Vysotsky brought into the flock the properties she needed for survival - fearlessness, love of freedom, faith in the highest destiny of Man. And mercy for the fallen. Always as a given - the mercy of the boundless and non-malicious Russian soul to the stumbled, lost, lost, as he said in the words of Yesenin Khlopushi:
… so that the angry faces
Along with the malice of the mind fill up.
Vladimir Vysotsky was not a victim of the regime and, in general, a victim. He had no mental points of contact with the regime. There was no censorship to tame him. There was no law to enforce it. No amount of silence and non-printing could prevent him from addressing millions. When Vysotsky forgot his words, the audience in chorus told him what had been written a week ago. He never knew in advance what he would say to the audience, he always worked out of lack. He did everything that was in human power. We can only appreciate the measure of civic responsibility of Vladimir Vysotsky, his contribution not even to culture - to the survival of Russia in the modern world - we can only systematically. Follow our publications.
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