Zoya Boguslavskaya gave an interview on the eve of her 100th birthday

April 16 marks one hundred years (!) since the birth of Zoya Boguslavskaya – prose writer, playwright, literary critic, art critic, wife – for 46 years – of Andrei Voznesensky, the same Oza, sung by him in immortal poems and poems.

On the eve of her birthday, Zoya Borisovna, who has decades of friendship with MK, agreed to give an interview to our correspondent. We talked about the most important things: the changed and unchanged Moscow, childhood, adolescence, youth, the first publication and the main people who influenced Boguslavskaya’s fate. The hero of the day also shared her “secret of success,” which turned out to be the result of following one life principle.

— Zoya Borisovna, first of all, let me congratulate you on behalf of the editors on this significant date. Fate has given you the opportunity to remember Moscow as we see it in old photographs. Has it changed since your youth?

– Has changed a lot. It’s hard for me to judge whether it’s for the better; let our descendants evaluate that. But it seems to me that if there were no danger of raids and terrorist attacks, then everything would be fine. I adore our capital. And I don’t know a better city than Moscow. And I traveled all over the world, from San Francisco and Los Angeles to Sofia, Tokyo and whatever you want. I’ve traveled a lot, so I have something to compare with!

Moscow is an outstanding city for its warmth, friendliness, responsiveness… If something happens to you on the street, they will definitely help you; if, God forbid, there is an attack, they will intercede – our people will not run away. Maybe something has changed today, but it’s been like this all my life.

— How do you see the past century? How do you manage to keep such an array of historical events and images of people in your head?

— The question is posed a little funny: do you think that I understood what was happening around me when I was a year old? (Laughs.) I remember myself, probably from the age of six or seven.

I had a very bright adolescence, an equally bright youth. There are a lot of sports memories: I won a lot of competitions. And all thanks to my father. My dad was active and athletic. Despite his high rank (professor at the Moscow Machine Tool Institute, head of the department at the All-Union Correspondence Institute of Mechanical Engineering), he loved children. And he taught me to swim at the age of six. He just threw it into the water: “Swim!” I waved my arms in horror – but he didn’t help – and I learned to float on the water.

— I know how much you love Alexander Vertinsky, you sing his romances yourself. Will the spring of 2024 give you the mood to sing – and if so, what exactly?

— I know all of Vertinsky by heart and now I won’t single out my favorites. But I consider him an outstanding romance writer. By the way, he introduced me to talented people who loved him as much as I did. Among them is Oleg Evgenievich Menshikov.

— You always recite Andrei Andreevich’s poems by heart and know them better than anyone. But when the name “Voznesensky” is uttered, what one key work comes to mind?

Place your hands on my shoulders
clip,
only lips breathe
oh my,
only the sea
splashing behind them.

Our backs
like moon shells
that they have closed themselves
behind us now.
We will listen
leaning against
We are like a formula
life is twofold.
In the wind of world clownery
shield with our shoulders
arising between us –
how to keep the flame with your palms.
…
In the meantime, press, mess,
elastic back on the shell!
This immerses us into each other.
We’re sleeping.

— Do you remember your first day of school at the State Institute of Theater Arts? What did it mean for young Zoya to enter one of the main creative universities in the country?

— For me, the very fact that I was accepted into GITIS, where the entire audience was “pressed” to the theater, was happiness. The audience was bright and interesting, but the most amazing were our then teachers: Alexey Karpovich Dzhivelegov, Stefan Stefanovich Mokulsky (director of the institute at that time), musical, poetic leaders… The pedagogical atmosphere was wonderful – and we loved all our mentors, maybe , they remained indifferent to two or three, but they loved everyone very much.

— A hackneyed question, but let me follow the well-trodden path of journalists: which book do you consider to be the most important?

— The author always considers the last work to be the most important.

— I thought you would call it “Portraits of an Era.” Which acquaintance do you consider to have had the most powerful influence on your destiny? Who is this man?

– Vysotsky. And his funeral stuck in my head forever. When he was buried, I held his dead hand and walked behind the coffin. I loved, respected and appreciated him very much. Many people simply admired his semi-criminal songs. But in my life some of his—by the way, serious—songs played a decisive role.

– Which ones exactly?

— “Wolf Hunt.” It was banned in the USSR. And when Andrei Andreevich staged the play “Take Care of Your Faces,” the entire production was banned because of this song heard on stage.

— You were published for the first time in Znamya: the calendar showed 1967, the height of the “thaw.” Which editor first noticed you, and under what circumstances did your magazine debut take place?

— The editor-in-chief of Znamya at that time, in my opinion, was Viktor Kozhevnikov. And I started publishing under a pseudonym because I was embarrassed and expected defeat, I believed that a blow would be dealt to my authorial endeavors. So I called myself Irina Grineva. There is one funny episode connected with this. Do you want to tell me?

– Certainly!

“After sending the manuscript, a stranger came to our home and said: “I want to see Irina Grineva.” They answer him: “She doesn’t live here.” – “Well, he doesn’t live. Here is the address written in her hand: Leningradskoye Shosse, house such and such, apartment such and such. A new author sent us a story, obviously young, it’s so wonderfully written, we want to publish it!” – “There are definitely no such people!”

In short, he left in disappointment, not realizing that Grineva was a pseudonym. Then we figured it out, but the very, very first publication did not take place.

— Our current youth enters GITIS, “Pike” and “Schipka”, and the Literary Institute. Choosing a creative profession is a risk at any time. What advice would you give to today’s guys who are determined to become “lyricists” rather than “physicists”? Is there a secret to success from Zoya Boguslavskaya?

“I don’t know if I achieved success, but I didn’t make any special efforts for this. I just tried to always tell the truth.

I think that the most important thing in life is self-esteem: I should always be equal to myself. That’s the whole secret.