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In the spring of 1958, Zoshchenko suffered nicotine poisoning, which led to a brief spasm of the brain vessels; his speech became difficult, and he stopped recognizing those around him. On July 22, 1958, at 0:45, Mikhail Zoshchenko died of acute heart failure.
The funeral of the disgraced writer was very much “in the Zoshchenko style.” As recalls the corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg historian Rafail Ganelin, in 1958, when M.M. Zoshchenko passed away, his widow, it was said, wanted to bury him in the cemetery in Sestroretsk, where they had a dacha. But the leadership of the Leningrad branch of the Writers' Union obtained permission from the regional committee to bury Zoshchenko at the famous Literary Bridges of the Volkovo Cemetery and to hold a memorial service at the Writers' House. At the service, the writer-fabulist Leonid Borisov, addressing the deceased, said: “They say you died, but in reality, you were killed, beaten on the head with sticks until you died.” This was followed by a refusal to bury him at Volkovo Cemetery and a gracious permission to the widow to choose any other cemetery, provided the grave would be ready for the arrival of the funeral procession. However, she refused this, saying she would bury her husband in Sestroretsk. One of the organizers asked the driver of the funeral bus, which was supposed to depart from the Writers' House to Volkovo Cemetery, to go instead to Sestroretsk. Hearing that burial at Volkovo was forbidden, he replied: “Not allowed, like Pushkin then… We’ll take him there, get in, who’s coming with me for the gendarme?”
Here is how the writer Alexey Panteleev described the funeral already in Sestroretsk in his letter to Lydia Chukovskaya:
“I learned about his death from a short notice in the ‘Leningradskaya Pravda.’ As expected, the Writers' Union phone did not answer. Eliko found out that the memorial service and the removal of the body were at the Union, at 12 o’clock. There were many people, but of course far fewer than some expected. The authorities sent a squad of militiamen, but P. Kapitsa, responsible for this ‘event,’ had enough sense and tact to remove them.
There were no incidents. And hardly any readers. Usually, such events attract young people, but Zoshchenko was unknown to the youth. After all, for twelve years in a row, schoolchildren were taught in literature classes that Zoshchenko was somewhere near Merezhkovsky and Gippius. And for many years, his books were not available in libraries.
And yet our union leadership was faltering. The civil memorial service was held at a trot. Stammering and nervous, with a disgusting look around, afraid to say too much or too little in condemnation of the deceased, Prokofiev spoke. He talked about Zoshchenko as he might have about I. Zavodchikov or M. Maryenkov.
Likharev spoke. Later his wife confessed to Eliko that he was so nervous all morning that he was taking valerian and swallowing some pills every minute.
Sayano, with bulging tin eyes, mumbled something incoherent. I only remembered his last phrase. Making a half-turn toward the coffin, he shuffled his thick foot and dryly, with a dignified, measured nod, like a head of an office, said:
— Farewell, Comrade Zoshchenko.
And suddenly:
— The floor is given to Leonid Ilyich Borisov.
He is an unpleasant person. Many speak very ill of him. He always performs with theatrical affectation. And here, at Zoshchenko’s coffin, when Borisov, having received the floor, stepped forward from the crowd, bit his lip ‘to the point of pain,’ then for two minutes literally clicked his teeth, as if unable to control his excitement — I remembered how Schwarz comically and accurately portrayed Borisov. Just the same, unable to control his excitement, Borisov clicked his teeth while speaking at a mourning rally dedicated to Stalin. Then, they say, he also drank water. But this time he said (for whatever reasons — I do not know) what someone had to say.
He began his speech like this:
— One does not lie at the coffin. Among all peoples, in all countries and at all times, both believers and non-believers had and still have the custom — to ask forgiveness at the coffin of the deceased. We know that Mikhail Zoshchenko was a magnanimous man. Therefore, I think he will forgive many of us our voluntary and involuntary transgressions against him, and there were many of these transgressions.
He also spoke about the place Zoshchenko occupies in our literature, about his patriotism, about his great merits to the Motherland and the people. One part of this speech seemed (not only to me) strange. He said that Zoshchenko was a patriot, another man in his place would have betrayed the Motherland, but he did not.
Immediately after Borisov, Prokofiev took the floor again:
— Comrades! It is not customary to start, so to speak, discussions at the coffin. But I, so to speak, cannot, so to speak, not respond to Leonid Ilyich Borisov...
And before Prokofiev could back down — Borisov’s shrill voice:
— I ask for the floor to reply.
Borisov justifies himself, explains what he meant. Prokofiev submits a reply from the floor.
In the crowd surrounding the coffin, female voices shout indignantly... In the cramped room of the writers’ restaurant, it is hot, stifling with the smell of flowers, outside the door, on the stair landing, four musicians serenely play Chopin’s march, and here, at the ashes of the last Russian classic, a quarrel is going on.
The widow, raising her head above the coffin, also joins this, “so to speak,” discussion:
— Allow me two words as well.
And without waiting for permission, she shouts these two words:
— Mikhail Mikhailovich always told me that he wrote for the people.
It becomes eerie. Someone else shouts something. The frightened organizers of this event bustle and rush in the crowd.
And Zoshchenko lies calmly among the flowers. His face — dark, swarthy in life, like a fakir’s — now has paled, turned gray, but on his lips plays (not frozen, but plays!) the unique Zoshchenko smile-smirk.
The memorial service was urgently stopped. Overriding other voices and the widow’s demands to “read telegrams,” Kapitsa suggests the relatives say goodbye to the deceased.
Mikhail Mikhailovich was buried — in Sestroretsk. They petitioned for the Literary Bridges — they were not allowed.
We were riding in the funeral home bus. Leonid Rakovsky sat in front of me. He joked with some ladies all the way, laughing loudly. Noticing, probably, my disdainful look, he sharply turned to me and said:
— You apparently condemn me. In vain. I swear. Mikhail was a cheerful man, he loved women very much. And he would not have condemned me.
And this depraved person was entrusted to “open the mourning rally” — at the grave. He said something in the same spirit — about what a cheerful man Zoshchenko was, how he loved women, flowers, etc.
At someone’s request, Grigoriev lied, saying that Mikhail Mikhailovich was being buried in Sestroretsk — at the request of the relatives.
But the cemetery is nice: dunes, pines, spacious sky. The day was unusual for the current Petersburg summer — sunny, hot, almost sultry.”
There are also graves of other famous people in this cemetery. For example, here rests the inventor of the rifle that served for more than half a century, Major General Sergey Ivanovich Mosin. Also buried here is the well-known cinematographer and screenwriter Yuri Abramovich Veksler, who filmed “The Tsar’s Hunt,” “The Key Without the Right of Transfer,” “Winter Cherry,” “Sherlock Holmes,” and many other Soviet films.
Sources:
http://www.m-necropol.ru/zoshenko.html
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