The story of our heroine - a beautiful and talented actress, briefly flashed on the theater stage and movie screens, is infinitely tragic. By the age of twenty-five, she managed to become a real movie star, married the famous Hero of the Soviet Union and the People's Commissar of the USSR Navy Pyotr Petrovich Shirshov, gave birth to his daughter and, having lived only thirty-three years old, disappeared, crushed by Laurence Beria ...
Biography
Evgenia Alexandrovna Garkusha, the youngest daughter of agronomist Alexander Evmenovich and accountant Elena Vladimirovna, was born in pre-revolutionary Petrograd on March 8, 1915.
Evgenia's mother devoted all her short free time to raising her daughter and her older sister Svetlana. Although the parents of our heroine were completely far from the world of art and from any secularity, their youngest daughter from an early age declared herself unusual in their humble family with artistic nature and creative aspirations, which were first expressed in children's dances and singing, but over the years grown into an irresistible and vibrant personality, as if created for a large screen.
When the girl was six years old, her family moved to Kiev. In 1933, Eugenia Garkusha, who had just graduated from a seven-year school, had to take the first step towards artistic destiny - she entered the theater studio of the Kiev Russian Drama Theater, after which she was enrolled in the corpse of the Tula Drama Theater in 1937.
Theater work
The creative path of a young, talented and beautiful actress was bright and short-lived, like the light flashed in a starry sky of a meteorite.
Having not worked at the Drama Theater of the city of Tula for a year, Evgenia Garkusha decided to make a sharp turn in biography and went to sunny Baku, but she did not stay there either. Already in 1939, Eugene left the Baku Worker Theater and left for Sverdlovsk, where she became an actress of the local drama theater.
After giving the Sverdlovsk Theater four years of her creative life, in 1941 Eugene, obeying the dictates of her tragic fate, went to conquer Moscow, and by 1943 she became one of the leading actresses of the Mossovet Theater.
Movie
The filmography of Yevgenia Garkusha is small - only two films, but a young talented actress had two to make at the age of twenty-five a real star in Russian cinema.
For the first time, Evgenia Alexandrovna, at that time still an actress of the Sverdlovsk Drama Theater, appeared on the big screen in 1939, playing the main role in the film "The Fifth Ocean".
After the release of a patriotic picture telling about the difficult fate of young pilots who found themselves in the war and defended their homeland, Eugene won the hearts of millions of spectators of the Soviet Union
March 8, 1943, the birthday of Eugenia Garkusha, the premiere of her film "The Elusive Yang", unfortunately, became the last not only in the career of a young actress, but also in life.
The heroic picture, based on real events, was dedicated to the partisan struggle of Czech patriots led by former student of Prague University Jan Smudek against the Nazi invaders.
Peter Shirshov
Eugenia's future husband, academician, famous polar explorer, Hero of the Soviet Union, People's Commissar of the USSR Navy and the first director of the Institute of Oceanology Petr Petrovich Shirshov, was a very famous and respected person in the Soviet state.
Born in the city of Dnepropetrovsk of the Ukrainian SSR on December 25, 1905, at the age of twenty-five he took part in several Arctic expeditions, including drift in the ice camp of Lieutenant Schmidt, and in 1937 he became one of the researchers of the famous four Papanin at the North Pole station .
Peter Shirshov first saw the last love in his life in 1939 on the screen. It was the starring role of Eugenia Garkusha in the film "The Fifth Ocean." Two years later, they were again pushed together by chance, but this time in real life.
A family
Before meeting each other, both Petr Petrovich and Evgenia Aleksandrovna had already been repeatedly bound by marriage. They were not free from family obligations on that happy, but essentially fatal for them October day of 1941.
Pyotr Shirokov, who was driving around Moscow in a car, nearly knocked down a pretty girl at one of the intersections, in which, to his amazement, he recognized the pilot from a movie that he had watched at the cinema two years ago. For the rest of the day, Petr Petrovich and Evgenia Alexandrovna wandered through the streets. The girl listened to the endless tales of the courageous officer about his Arctic adventures, without taking his eyes off from him. They were surrounded by new, unknown feelings for them. Very soon, Peter and Eugene broke up with their former spouses and began to live together, officially married in 1942.
They were a wonderful couple. December 16, 1944 a daughter Marina was born in the family of Peter Shirshov and Evgenia Garkusha-Shirshova.
It seemed that their happiness would last forever ...
Deadly slap
In July 1946, People’s Commissar of the USSR Navy Peter Shirokov and his young wife were invited to a reception in the Kremlin, where Lavrenty Beria, deputy chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars, "laid eyes on Evgeny, a terrible person and a well-known lover of other people's wives, who practically did not know the word" no". He, familiar to himself, suggested that Evgenia Alexandrovna become his mistress, for which he received a public slap in the face from her.
A few days later, on July 29, 1946, at the cottage to Pyotr Shirokov and Yevgeny Garkush, on behalf of Lavrenty Beria, the People’s Commissar of State Security Abakumov arrived, fraudulently taking the actress allegedly to the theater, but actually delivering her for the first interrogation and torture. Having subjected the girl to terrible sufferings, Eugene Alexandrovna was forced to confess to aiding Nazi Germany, and also that she was an English spy. By December 29, 1946, Garkusha immediately received two articles of execution.
At the price of Peter Petrovich’s inhuman efforts, by December 1947, these articles were replaced by an eight-year reference to the Kolyma gold mines, which were considered deadly.
Six months later, Yevgenia's mother, Elena Vladimirovna, knocked out the authorities for permission to live together with her daughter in the village of Omchak, Magadan Region, where she was serving her link.
On August 11, 1948, Evgenia Alexandrovna passed away. She was only thirty-three years old.
The official version - the actress committed suicide by taking a lethal dose of sleeping pills, however, the true cause of her death remained unknown.
Afterword
After the death of his beloved wife, it seemed that Peter Petrovich himself died. All his further life and attempts to work got bogged down in the emptiness that had fallen on him. Many times he thought of suicide. From the last step he was kept only by the little daughter Marina. Here is what he once wrote to her in a fit of emotional despair:
My marinka! My little twittering! I know that I have no other choice, that I must live for you, for your mother, for my honor ... I hold on with all my might, I will hold on, no matter what it costs me. But may you never in your life have to find out what kind of torment it can cost to keep from the simplest, most desirable way out, so quick and clear ... May you never know how difficult it is to tear your hand away from a pistol that has become hot in the pocket of your greatcoat ...
A year after the death of Eugenia Garkusha, Peter Shirshov fell ill with one of the most severe forms of cancer. His struggle for life lasted several years.
February 17, 1953 Petr Petrovich died. Eight-year-old Marina remained an orphan.
In the photo - Marina Petrovna Shirshova.
In 1956, Evgenia Aleksandrovna Garkusha-Shirshova was posthumously rehabilitated, and her daughter Marina Petrovna devoted her whole life to restoring a devotee for many years to forget the honest name of her mother.