Pekarev, Alexander Vasilyevich

1920-1945

Alexander Vasilyevich Pekarev was born on December 7 (20), 1905 in the village of Stary Dvor, Suzdal district, Vladimir province ^[1] in a peasant family. In the early 20s, fleeing hunger in the village, Alexander Pekarev moved to Moscow ^[2] , where at that time his uncle worked as a construction worker as a bricklayer. Starting with a bricklayer on the construction of a house number 2 on Khamovnicheskaya embankment (now Frunzenskaya nab. 2/1) ^[2] . Alexander quickly mastered the new specialty of the fitter and then already worked as a foreman on the construction of the Central Telegraph building in Moscow.

The builders of the building of the Central Telegraph in Moscow. 09/04/1926.
Brigadier Alexander Pekarev in the second row, third from the right (in a checkered cap)

Upon completion of work at the Central Telegraph, together with his brigade, he proceeded to the construction of the “Government House” - a complex of buildings on the Bersenevskaya embankment of the Moscow River . Built by architect Boris Iofan , this complex is known as the “ House on the Embankment ”. In this construction, the team of A. Pekarev takes the first place in the All-Union socialist competition of the Komsomol-youth brigades ^[2] .

In 1930, Alexander graduated from Rabfak and entered the VKP (b) ^[2] .

The chief architect of the construction site, B. Iofan, drew attention to the young worker and, on his advice, Alexander Pekarev entered the Moscow Architectural Institute (ARCH) organized in 1933 ^[2] . Here Pekarev is chosen as a party organizer of the faculty ^[4] . After graduation, he worked in the Construction Administration of the Moscow Kremlin , and then in the Construction Directorate of the Palace of Soviets , which was supposed to be the tallest building in the world. Pekarev is elected secretary of the party building organization and is approved as the party organizer of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) ^[4] . He is also elected a member of the Bureau of the Frunzensky District Committee of the CPSU (b) of Moscow and a deputy of the District Council ^[2] , where he meets Ekaterina Furtseva , the future Minister of Culture of the USSR .

Great Patriotic War

The first year of the Great Patriotic War , Alexander Vasilyevich spends in Moscow on the construction of fortifications and organizing the evacuation to the Urals of the design workshops of the Palace of Soviets. They were sent to the village of Krasnaya Gorka, ( Kamensk-Uralsky ), for the construction of the Ural Aluminum Plant . The family of Alexander Vasilyevich was evacuated to Krasnaya Gorka. The son of Alexander Vasilyevich, Denis, tells:

There were four of us: my mother, both my grandmothers and me. In the village of Krasnaya Gorka on the second floor of a brick house we were allocated a large room in a two-room apartment. The room was a passage and we were given the right to find our own family in the second, smaller room. My parents stopped at Maria Mikhailovna Goberman, a mother with a 17 year old son. In 1937, her husband, Georgy Platonovich Goberman, was repressed ^[6] and Maria Mikhailovna, as the wife of the “enemy of the people” , could not get a job anywhere, but my father had the courage to take her to the design workshop of the Palace of Soviets. So we lived the whole war with six of us. And the boy who walked past my crib later became the Russian writer Anatoly Alexin .

On April 20, 1942, the Moscow Frunze Military Commissariat A. Pekarev was called up to the Red Army ^[7] and sent to Kovrov as the head of the political department of the 1st Reserve Cavalry Brigade ^{[8] [9]} , commanded by Major-General P. L. Rudchuk . In the army since 1943 . From April 1944 Guard Lieutenant Colonel A. Pekarev - Head of the Political Department of the 19th Guards Rudny Rifle Division ^[10] . He participates in the Smolensk , Belorussian , Memel , Gumbinnen-Goldapa and East Prussian offensive operations of the 3rd Belorussian Front . For participation in the Belarusian operation A. Pekarev, the Front Order No. 502 of July 2, 1944, signed by Army General I. D. Chernyakhovsky, was awarded the Order of the Red Banner ^[11] . It is interesting to note that by the same Front Order he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of the Guard by Colonel Vasily Iosifovich Stalin , the son of J. V. Stalin ^[12] .

Soviet-Japanese War

After the capture of Konigsberg ^[13] in April 1945, the 19th Guards Rifle Division, consisting of the 39th Army under the command of Colonel-General I. I. Lyudnikov, was transferred to the Far East in the Soviet-Japanese war , where the division participated in the Hingano-Mukden offensive operations ^{[14] [15]} . For participation in the battles of the Guard, Lieutenant Colonel A. Pekarev received the second Order of the Red Banner. In the presentation of the award is written:

During the period of military operations to defeat the Japanese-Manchurian troops, divisions and units of the division showed a high political and moral state, stubbornness in battle, swiftness in the offensive and in pursuit. This state of the troops was largely determined by the great political and educational work that was carried out both during the preparation for the operation and during its implementation.

Tov. PEKAREV, as the immediate leader of party political work in the division, under these conditions, showed his ability to educate warriors in the spirit of selfless devotion to their homeland and burning hatred for the enemy. The party and political apparatus and all the communists and Komsomol members of the division showed miracles of courage and endurance in battles, they cemented their units and units by their example and inspired them to combat exploits.

Tov. PEKAREV deserves a government award of the Order of the Red Banner ^[7]

1945-1978

In October 1945, after the capitulation of Japan, A. Pekarev returned to Moscow for his demobilization at his former place of work in the Construction Department of the Palace of Soviets, whose project had been frozen by that time and the Directorate was reoriented to the construction of high-rise buildings in Moscow ^[16] , including Moscow University . The main architect of the project was the same architect B. M. Iofan, who once noticed the gifted peasant youth Sasha Pekarev and gave him a “start in life”.

It was 1947. By this time many people returned from the front, with whom A. Pekarev studied at the architectural institute and worked here before the war, including his friends architects Jacob Belopolsky , Alexander Boretsky , sculptor Yevgeny Vuchetich ^[17] and many others, returned from the Urals from evacuation the whole team of design workshops. But the general mood in the design workshops was not joyful. After a powerful upswing in the patriotic feelings of the USSR, it entered an era of struggle with "rootless cosmopolitans" ^[18] . A. Pekarev began to receive calls from the Moscow city party committee with demands to fire one or another architect ^[19] , began to come the employees of design workshops with unusual complaints. As architect Boris Boretsky said, Sasha Pekarev had an absolute sense of justice and this did not allow him to make a deal with his conscience. In the Russian State Archives (RGASPI) ^{[20] there} should be letters to A. V. Pekarev to I. V. Stalin, beginning with the words “I, as an honest communist, ...”. Then A. Pekarev reported that he was again called by the secretary of the Moscow city party committee and demanded that a number of architects be dismissed and that he, Pekarev, would not do it under any circumstances, since it is obvious that this is not about their professional qualities (which no complaints), but about their national identity, and he, Pekarev, strongly objects to this. Alexander Vasilyevich understood perfectly well who such “rootless cosmopolitans” were, and being married to a Jewish woman, he felt this keenly.

By the end of 1947, A. Pekarev, a member of the CPSU (b) and party secretary, finally decided for himself that if he could not completely quit the party, he simply had to break with party work ^[4] . But how? And here comes his mother-in-law, Nina Ilyinichna , a sculptor who was educated in Paris and with extensive teaching experience in the famous VHUTEMAS and VHUTEIN . It was she who advised Alexander Vasilyevich to study sculpture. This, of course, required incredible efforts on the part of Pekarev himself: in the hallway of his apartment on the Frunzenskaya Embankment he organized an improvised workshop and not only all the weekends, but every evening until late at night after intense work in the Construction Department, which was often delayed until late at night, Alexander Vasilyevich I learned to sculpt from clay. He willingly posed for the construction workers and just friends. Nina Ilyinichna came and gave him what was called private lessons. “Alexander Vasilyevich, I will make you a good sculptor!” She said and kept her word: as early as 1948, the commission selects a sculptural portrait of Alexander Pekarev, a Stakhanovist worker V. R. Bykov, for the All-Union exhibition of works of young artists ^[21] . At the same time, his old friend sculptor Yevgeny Vuchetich ^{[22] was} appointed chief sculptor of the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition and invited Alexander Pekarev to become his deputy. After Vuchetich left in 1950, A. Pekarev became the main sculptor ^[2] .

The sculptor A. Pekarev worked primarily in the field of portrait sculpture. He is the author of an entire gallery of portraits of scientists and culture workers, advanced workers and collective farmers. Among them are writer Maxim Gorky , Russian traveler N. M. Przhevalsky , Nobel laureate I. I. Mechnikov , academicians V. V. Vernadsky and N. V. Tsitsin , Hero of Socialist Labor D. M. Garmash and others. He created monuments to A. D. Kosheva, the heroes of labor - on the territory of the Exhibition of Economic Achievements, Ibrai Zhakhaeva in Kzyl-Orda , tombstones to writer Alexander Bek , actresses Ekaterina Geltser and Maria Maksakova . The memorial plaque created by Pekarev to the ballerina Geltser, installed in Moscow ( Bryusov lane 17 ), critics are among the best works of this genre ^[2] .

Alexander Pekarev didn’t escape the need to sculpt the image of V. I. Lenin, the leader of the world proletariat. This is how the sculptor, the national artist of Russia Georgy Frangulyan describes this need:

It was the breadwinner such a nationwide breadwinner was. He fed all the sculptors. It was very beneficial to make a figure of Lenin. If the figure of a soldier cost 1200 rubles, then the figure of Lenin was twice as expensive. Therefore, there are many, just thousands. There is a certain iconography, but someone manages to rise, someone - no. I think that the number of works of art among these figures is very insignificant. In fact, probably units ^[23] .

These units can be confidently attributed to the sculptor Pekarev: to the 100th anniversary of Lenin, the number of the main magazine of Soviet architects Soviet Architecture was opened by the work of sculptor Pekarev ^[24] .

The workshop of Alexander Vasilyevich was located in Moscow on the Frunze Embankment on the eighth floor of the house number 46 (he lived in the same house in apartment 28). Writers Alexander Beck , poet Yevgeny Dolmatovsky , Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Nikolai Tsitsin , architect Jacob Belopolsky and many others came here to pose for him. A friend of Alexander Vasilyevich Eugene Vuchetich often visited this place.

Alexander Vasilyevich also performed various sculptural works in his summer workshop, which was located in Snegiri near Moscow in the village of Architects. Here his neighbors were B. M. Iofan, A. B. Boretsky, D. N. Chechulin , as well as civil engineers V. Nasonov and G. S. Khromov . Here the oldest member of the Union of Artists of the USSR, sculptor N. I. Niss-Goldman, also had its summer workshop.

The works of A. V. Pekarev are exhibited in 18 museums ^[24] . He is a participant in most of Moscow, Republican and All-Union art exhibitions. Here are just some of them:

• 1948 - All-Union exhibition of works by young artists, dedicated to the 30th anniversary of the Komsomol . The Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts . Moscow. ^[21] .
• 1951 - "All-Union Art Exhibition of 1951". State Tretyakov Gallery . Moscow. ^[25]
• 1952 - "All-Union Art Exhibition of 1952". State Tretyakov Gallery . Moscow. ^[26]
• 1954 - "All-Union Art Exhibition of 1954". Moscow. ^[27]
• 1958 - Exhibition "40 years of the Soviet Armed Forces". In the halls of the USSR Academy of Arts . Moscow. ^[28]
• 1958 - All-Union Art Exhibition "40 years of the Komsomol." Central Exhibition Hall . Moscow. ^{[29] [30]}
• 1960 - Republican art exhibition "Soviet Russia" . Central Exhibition Hall . Moscow. ^{[31] A} detailed catalog of works was published for the exhibition. ^[32]
• 1961 - Exhibition of works by Moscow artists 1961
• 1962 - Exhibition to the 30th anniversary of the Moscow Organization of the Union of Artists of the RSFSR . Central Exhibition Hall . Moscow. ^[33] . This exhibition was remembered by a landmark visit of the exhibition by the party leadership headed by N. Khrushchev and was accompanied by sharp criticism of avant-garde works presented in the exhibition - see Khrushchev's visit to the avant-garde exhibition .
• 1965 - All-Union Art Exhibition "On Guard of Peace", dedicated to the 20th anniversary of the Victory of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War . Central Exhibition Hall . Moscow. ^{[34] [35]}

• Order of the Red Banner (07/02/1944) ^[11]
• Order of the Red Banner (09/28/1945) ^[7]
• Order of the Patriotic War , 1st degree (02.03.1945) ^[36]
• Medal "For the Defense of Moscow" (04/20/1945) ^[37]
• Medal "For the victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945."
• Medal "Thirty Years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945"
• Medal "For the victory over Japan"
• Medal "For the capture of Konigsberg"
• Medal "For Valiant Labor in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945"
• Medal "In memory of the 800th anniversary of Moscow"

• Father - Vasily Alekseevich Pekarev, peasant (1869 - 1929).
• Mother - Maria Feodorovna Pekareva (nee Arkharova), a peasant (1875-1960).
• His wife, Niss Alexandrovna Pekareva (vintage. Goldman) (1912–1984) is an architect, author of numerous articles and monographs on the history and theory of architecture, including “I. A. Fomin (1953), Novaya Kakhovka (1958), Moscow Metro (1958), Elektrostal (1962), Kremlin Palace of Congresses (photo album, 1965-1978, several reprints), M. V. Posokhin: People’s Architect of the USSR (1985) and others.
• Son - Denis ( 1938 ), graduated from LISI . He worked as a foreman at the construction of the Severonikel metallurgical complex ( Monchegorsk ). C 1973 lives in Rome. He worked in the Vatican on the Vatican Radio (1974 - 1977), in the Russian service of the BBC in London (1978-1981), on the Radio Liberty in Munich (1985 - 1995) ^{[38] [39]} .
• The sisters - Evdokia (1898-1967), Love (1900 - 1996), Alexandra (1902-1999), Anna (1914 - 1924), Antonina (1915 - 1998).
• Mother-in-law - Nina Ilyinichna Niss-Goldman (1892 - 1990) - an artist , sculptor , teacher, one of the founding members of the 4 Artists Society of Artists (1924–1931, Moscow), a member of the Russian Sculptors Society (ORF) (1925 - 1932, Moscow), a member of the MUSSH since its foundation ( 1932 ), the oldest member of the USSR Union of Artists .
• Uncle - Alexey Fedorovich Arkharov (1880 - 1938) - 176 road section of OSHDOR, Smolensk, accountant. Arrested on December 20, 1937, by the UGB NKVD, Smolensk region. He was shot on January 10, 1938. Rehabilitated on October 14, 1958 ^{[40] [41]} .
• Aunt - Tatyana Fedorovna Arkharova (1877 - 1938) - peasant. Believer. She lived in the Old Yard. Arrested on October 24, 1937. Verdict: 10 years in prison. She died in a colony in 1938 ^[42] .
• Nephew - Igor Vladimirovich Smirnov (1924 - 1942), the son of Lyuba’s sister, died at the front of the Great Patriotic War ^[43] .