The Unknown Tsesarevitch. Reminiscences and Considerations on V. K. Filatov’s Life and Times
Kliver. The Trunovs lived next door. Trunov was the music teacher in our school. I observed that father associated with him both at work and after work. Father loved music and played various instruments, both keyboard and stringed. At school the music teacher Trunov Alexander Alexandrovich had bayans. Father would often take the school bayan, play it and sing songs. He did it in the following way: he would take the bayan, run his fingers over the buttons and then start playing. Especially popular were the war-time waltzes and the war-time songs – with lingering melody, sad, about the people’s lives, even sorrowful, one might say. I tried to understand then, what the matter was with him, why he was singing them if all of us were alive. But he would sing looking into the distance and suddenly would break off the song, sigh and lay the bayan aside. You could see how sad he was
It was very interesting to see how he, pressing the buttons, derived a melody from a special mosaic of black and white buttons. I myself tried to repeat this mosaic, but it was difficult. I was little and could derive nothing but a cacophony of sounds. Father saw it and later took me to Trunov A.A. He listened to me and said that “a bear had trod on my ear”. Father took it to heart, and even though I tried to persuade him to buy me a bayan, he never did it. Though many a boy whom I knew had bayans, Petia Peters, in particular
But father would try to develop my love of music since he considered that Trunov A.A. should not have said those words in my presence. Father showed us how to chord, how to press the bass buttons to harmonize them with the melody. Father would often sing the songs about “Orenburg down kerchief”, “River Volga”, “At an Unnamed Height”, “In a dug-out”, “Song about anxious youth”, about Maria, whom he was going to come to. He also sang chastushki. He was not a professional poet, but sometimes he wrote poetry. We have in our family a greetings card wrote by him for his younger daughter on August 31, 1985
В день рождения с любовью посылаем Вам привет
Желаем счастья и здоровья, и славных трудовых побед
Мы поздравляем Вас до срока, чтоб не забыли Вы о нас
И чтоб хорошая погода стояла в городе для Вас
Чтоб всё сбылось, о чем мечтали, в годину трудную для Вас
И чтобы нас не забывали, не проклинали бы подчас
Бывает в жизни часто трудно, без этого прожить нельзя
Но закаляться в этом нужно, тогда легко пойдут дела
Here is an English version
With love on your birthday we send you best regards
And wish your health and happiness, and great labour feats
We send congratulations beforehand so you do not forget us, And wish a spell of fine weather continuing for you
Let everything you’ve dreamed about in times of stress be realized
We ask you, do remember us and do not curse us much sometimes
Life’s often difficult to people, and no one avoids his fate
But steel your will, then all the problems will be solved
While reading a book on the murder of the Tsar’s family, I discovered a poem named “Pray”
Пошли нам, Господи, терпенья
В годину буйных, мрачных дней
Сносить народные гоненья
И пытки наших палачей
Дай крепость нам, о, Боже правый
Злодейства ближнего прощать
И крест тяжелый и кровавый
С твоею кротостью встречать
И в дни мятежного волненья
Когда ограбят нас враги
Стерпеть позор и оскорбленье
Христос Спаситель, помоги
Владыка мира, Бог Вселенной
Благослови молитвой нас
И дай покой душе смиренной
В невыносимо страшный час
И у преддверия могилы
Вдохни в уста твоих рабов
Нечеловеческие силы
Молиться кротко за врагов
Holy God, give us patience to bear the persecution and tortures
By our butchers in time of trouble
Do give us, God, the ability to pardon the evil deeds of our
Neighbours and to meet meekly the heavy bloody cross
Christ, Saviour, help us endure insults and disgrace
When enemies are robbing us. God, bless us and restrain our souls at an unbearably horrible hour
And at our mortal hour give us the superhuman power
To pray for our enemies
Of course, the poems are not of equal value and have been written on different occasions. But it seems to me that even a self-trained reader will find in them a consistence in style and form of expressing oneself. I deliberately cited these poems at the beginning of the chapter, because these poems seem to explain splendidly father’s state of mind and his ability to adapt to another life, even one built by his enemies who had killed his family, and, having adapted to it, to live in a fitting manner. Forced to conceal his real origin, he had to disguise his knowledge and breeding, to make himself as inconspicuous as possible
He lived as if everything around him was a sort of mirage, i.e., everything was different, not his. My sisters and I were close by and felt his inexplicable force and influence. We believed that his whole life is some other life, unknown to others
What was it? Probably, a mirage of his former life
Being alone with him, somewhere, like simply in a field, one could often observe how he would suddenly stop (and we were going to the management board of the kolkhoz, the chairman of which was a friend of his) and start counting the birds flying above. Suddenly, as if he recollected something, he would recite Esenin’s poem: “You’re still alive, my little old woman, and I am still alive. My kind regards to you, my greetings. Let the in extinguishable light stream above your hut…”
Then, as if he recollected something, he would look at me and say: “Come along, Oleg, We should go to the Board now.” I later understood that he was grieving over his mother, fair-haired, beautiful and kind
He associated with people easily. He would come to the Board with me. The chairman would say: “A-a, Ksenofontovich, do come in.” Entering