Efrosinia Kersnovskaya: biography, photos and interesting facts

Efrosinia Kersnovskaya is a writer, an artist, a Bessarabian landowner. The prisoner of the Gulag, exiled in 1941 to Siberia for forced labor. Author of 2,200 manuscript pages of memoirs, supplied with 700 drawings. This article will present a brief biography of the landowner.

Childhood

Kersnovsky Euphrosyne Antonovna was born in Odessa in 1908. The girl's father worked as a criminologist. Frosya grew up as a tender and thoughtful girl until the Civil War came. In 1919, all the royal lawyers, including her father, were arrested. Only by a miracle he escaped execution. In the middle of the night the family of Kersnovsky was awakened by the clang of rifle butts and the knocking of boots. All that my father had time to do was to bless an icon of children and wife who were crying out for fear. Then he was immediately taken away.

Later Kersnovsky told his daughter about that terrible night. All the lawyers arrested in the city (712 people) were brought to the gloomy Odessa Cheka, which was on Catherine Square. The building was fenced with barbed wire. People around were making noise and jostling. Automobile engines, working without a muffler, rumbled. Everywhere Latvians and Chineses went. Arrivals noted in the lists and displayed groups of 2-4 people.

Moving in

Soon my father was released, and the Kersnovsky family moved to Bessarabia (in those years - part of Romania). They settled in a family estate located in the village of Tsepilovo. Another estate of Kersnovsky was destroyed in 1917 by soldiers who fled from the front.

Learning

Despite the daily worries, parents paid enough attention to the education of their daughter. Efrosinia Kersnovskaya received an excellent education. The girl was instilled with a love of languages, painting, music and literature. After the gymnasium Frosya decided to go to veterinary courses and successfully graduated. Life conditions were constantly changing, so she needed to acquire useful skills.

Job

My father was not interested in the household at all. Everything fell on the shoulders of Euphrosyne, because there were no servants and wage-workers at Kersnovsky. The future artist regularly worked in the field, took care of the cattle and cleaned up the house. In addition, the girl had to regularly prove to her neighbors that at that age (20 years) she could easily cope with everything.

On 40 hectares of land Kersnovsky Euphrosyne grew grains and grapes. Soon the father died. To feed the family, the girl had to deal with the cultivation of grain for export and supply. And in rare hours of rest she loved to go with cousins and brothers to the sea or ride horses.

Repression

In the summer of 1940 Bessarabia was included in the Soviet Union and transformed into the Moldavian SSR. Mass repression began immediately. Frosya and his family were evicted from the house and confiscated property. The last thing Kersnovskaya remembers from her peaceful life is her mother on the porch of the house, a sieve of raspberries for dumplings and sunlight in the garden foliage.

Soon after, Uncle Euphrosyne lost his property. He immediately left with his family to Romania. Frosya herself stayed at home, and sent her mother for security reasons to Bucharest. This was a clear manifestation of patriotism, because the girl could easily leave in the first months of occupation. But she decided to share the grief with her people. This attitude to the Motherland was instilled in her from childhood. In addition, Kirsnovskaya hoped that soon all the turmoil would end and it would be possible to return home. But she was wrong.

Testing

As the "former landowner" Efrosinia Kersnovskaya was completely infringed in rights. The same was true for labor activity. The girl had a hard time working as a seasonal worker on the farm of the agronomical school. And after it all had to be hired to different people and perform not exactly a woman's job: to prepare firewood, to root stumps. Without citizenship, Frosya "was to be isolated from a normal society", so she had to spend the night on the street. The Soviet passport was handed to her on the eve of the January 1941 elections. After reading the list of candidates, Kersnovskaya crossed out the entire newsletter. She did this because she saw in it the name of a woman who "worked" before the advent of Soviet power as a prostitute.

Soon the staff of the NKVD came home to Euphrosyne, but it was not there. The girl did not feel guilty for her act and was not afraid of anything, so she went to the Cheka herself. She hardly suspected what would happen to her. And the following happened: Frosya was exiled to Siberia. Besides her, other Bessarabians were sent there.

Link

But even in the harsh conditions of Siberia, the future artist Euphrosynia Kersnovskaya did not want to put up with injustice. She tried to find the truth and constantly stood up for the weak. One day the girl regretted the old man and shared a piece of sugar with him. In response, he advised her never to share with anyone and not show her own weakness. In a wolf pack such people usually get finished. Fortunately, Frosya did not heed the advice. However, it did not turn into a beast and could survive.

One day a scene was played in her eyes: a woman working in the forest fell from impotence and asked the camp chief about a short break. He replied that if she can not work, then she should rather die. After that the chief turned and went into the lodge. Evphrosinia was seized with rage. She grabbed an ax and ran after him with the intention of killing. On the threshold, the woman stopped only because the chief was sitting with her back to her. Kersnovskaya realized - if she does now, then nothing will differ from him.

The escape

The punishment was severe - the woman was completely deprived of rations. Thus, Frosya was doomed to an agonizing and long starvation. She had no choice but to run away. With living in inhuman conditions Kersnovskaya still reconciled, but it was unacceptable for her to die like an animal. The weakened woman had to walk along the taiga fifteen hundred kilometers. In the future, many moments of this "journey" will be reflected in the drawings published in the albums under the title "Rock paintings" (Efrosinia Kersnovskaya will publish them in 1991).

New sentence

But in the end everything was in vain. A few months later, Frosya was arrested in the village, where she had wandered from the taiga, and was sentenced to death. During interrogation from the loudspeaker, the Italian Capriccio Tchaikovsky, familiar to Kersnovsky from childhood, was heard. Before the eyes of the women stood the garden, the house, the mother, and the father sitting in the rocking chair. Torture memories were much worse than physical ones. After the announcement of the verdict, the judge suggested Euphrosyne to file a petition for clemency, but she refused. Nevertheless, Kersnovsky was replaced by the death penalty with five years of exile and ten years in the camps. In 1944, she was added to the deadline for another 10 years for "counterrevolutionary agitation." Frosya received the status of an incorrigible offender, and these were kept only in the barracks of the reinforced regime (BUR).

Release

Conditions there were simply inhuman. Kersnovskaya repeatedly had to stand all day barefoot on the stone floor to dry washed clothes. Frosya rescued the camp physicians. They got the translation of the future writer into a medical unit. Two years the heroine of this article worked as a nurse in the clinic, and a year in the morgue. After Kersnovskaya demanded that she be transferred to the mine. There she hoped to gain inner freedom, because, according to her, "scoundrels do not descend to the ground." So in Norilsk appeared the first woman - a miner. In 1957, Euphrosinia finally released, but still continued to work there.

Soon a full-fledged citizen Kersnovskaya got a vacation and fulfilled her cherished dream. The woman went to her native Tsepilovo to her father's grave. There she was waiting for a pleasant message - an old friend of her mother told that she still lives in Romania, and gave her address.

Last years

After retirement, Euphrosynia Kersnovskaya bought an old house with a garden in Yessentuki. She immediately transferred her mother there, with whom she had been separated for 20 years. In subsequent years, Frosya took care of her and told a lot about the experiences she had experienced. But, regretting her mother, she kept silent about the camp horrors. Only after her death she wrote 2,200 pages of memoirs. Also, the woman drew 700 illustrations to them.

1994 - this is the year that Efrosinia Kersnovskaya died. The writer's books came out during her lifetime. In 1982, the memoirs were distributed through samizdat, and in 1990 - published in the British newspaper Obozrevatel and Soviet magazines Znamya and Ogonyok. Also during life Kersnovskaya received a full rehabilitation.

Why are people who have been through the war or camp given such a long life? Perhaps, in order that they could at least a little forget the experience and relax from it? Probably not! The life of Euphrosyne Antonovna shows that she survived to tell the descendants about the trials that fell to her lot, and teach them courage. This woman never departed from her principles and always remained a man!

Interesting Facts

• Efrosinia Kersnovskaya, whose biography is presented above, knew well Italian, Spanish and English. She also knew German, Romanian and spoke French fluently.
• Going into exile, Kersnovskaya did not take any winter clothes with her, thinking that she would buy everything on the spot. But in the Siberian stores almost nothing was sold. And the exiles could buy goods only with the permission of their superiors. As a result, Euphrosyne allowed to buy a jacket and felt boots, only when forty-degree frosts came.
• December 3, 1941 Kersnovskaya, being in exile, was present at the club meeting, where the lecturer Hohrin told how the US helps the USSR. The girl asked the speaker if America was going to get into this war with Japan (she meant the Anti-Comintern Pact). Only after many months Euphrosyne Kersnovskaya learned that Khokhrin wrote a denunciation on her, considering the question posed as "infamous slander against the peaceful Asian country". Five days after the incident, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor.
• Little is known that Kersnovskaya had an older brother named Anton. He left for Europe in the mid-1920s to get an education. In the end, Anton stayed in Paris and received the profession of "military historian". In 1940, in connection with the outbreak of the war, he was drafted into the French army. A few months later Euphrosinia received a notice of death. In fact, Anton did not die, but was seriously wounded. He only dies in 1944 from tuberculosis. His works and articles on the history of the Russian army will soon receive world recognition. But in Russia they will be published only after the collapse of the USSR.
• According to the diaries of the heroine of this article, two full-length documentaries were shot: "Euphrosyne Kersnovskaya. Life "(V. Meletin) and" Album "(G. Ilugdin).