Evgenia Garkusha-Shirshova: biography, creativity, personal life and death

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

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 People's Commissar of the Navy of the USSR Pyotr Petrovich Shirshov, gave birth to his daughter and, having lived to be only thirty-three years old, disappeared, crushed by Lavrenty 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 elder sister Svetlana. Although the parents of our heroine were completely far from the world of art and from any secularity, their youngest daughter, from a young age, declared herself unusual for their modest family of artistic nature and creative aspirations, first expressed in childhooddancing and singing, but over the years has grown into an irresistible and vibrant personality, as if created for the big screen.

When the girl was six years old, her family moved to Kyiv. In 1933, Evgenia 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 Kyiv Russian Drama Theater, after which in 1937 she was enrolled in the corpse of the Tula Drama Theater.

Work in the theater

The creative path of a young, talented and beautiful actress was bright and short-lived, like a light that flashed in the starry sky of a meteorite.

Having not worked at the Drama Theater of Tula even for a year, Evgenia Garkusha decided to make a sharp turn in her biography and went to sunny Baku, but she did not stay there either. Already in 1939, Evgenia left the Baku Workers' Theater and went to Sverdlovsk, where she became an actress in the local drama theater.

Having given the Sverdlovsk theater four years of her creative life, in 1941 Evgenia, 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.

Cinema

The filmography of Evgenia Garkusha is small - only two films, but two films were enough for a young talented actress to become a real star of Russian cinema at her twenty-five years old.

For the first time, Evgenia Alexandrovna, at that time still an actress of the Sverdlovsk Drama Theater, appeared on the bigscreen in 1939, starring 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, Evgenia won the hearts of millions of viewers of the Soviet Union

March 8, 1943, on the birthday of Evgenia Garkusha, the premiere of her film "The Elusive Yang" took place, which, 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 a former student of the University of Prague, Jan Smudek, against the Nazi invaders.

Pyotr Shirshov

Yevgenia'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 Pyotr Petrovich Shirshov, was a very famous and respected person in the Soviet state.

Born in the city of Dnepropetrovsk, Ukrainian SSR, on December 25, 1905, already at the age of twenty-five he took part in several Arctic expeditions, including drifting as part of the ice camp of Lieutenant Schmidt, and in 1937 he became one of the explorers of the famous Papanin four on station "North Pole".

Pyotr Shirshov first saw the last love in his life in 1939on the screen. It was the star role of Evgenia Garkusha in the film "The Fifth Ocean". Two years later, chance pushed them together again, but this time in real life.

Family

Before meeting each other, both Petr Petrovich and Evgenia Alexandrovna had already been tied by marriage more than once. They were also not free from family obligations on that happy, and in fact fatal for them, October day in 1941.

Pyotr Shirokov, who was driving in a car across Moscow, at one of the intersections almost knocked down a pretty girl, whom, to his amazement, he recognized as a pilot from a movie that he watched in a movie theater two years ago. For the rest of the day Pyotr Petrovich and Yevgenia Alexandrovna wandered the streets. The girl listened to the endless stories of the courageous officer about his Arctic adventures, not taking her admiring glance away from him. They were swirled with new, unknown to them feelings. Very soon, Peter and Evgenia broke up with their former spouses and began to live together, officially getting married in 1942.

They were a wonderful couple. On December 16, 1944, a daughter, Marina, was born in the family of Pyotr Shirshov and Evgenia Garkusha-Shirshova.

Their happiness seemed to last forever…

Death Slap

In July 1946, the People's Commissar of the Navy of the USSR Pyotr Shirokov and his young wife were invited to a reception in the Kremlin, where the Deputy Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars "laid eyes" on EvgeniaLavrenty Beria, a terrible man and a well-known lover of other people's wives, who practically did not know the word "no". He, as usual, offered Evgenia Alexandrovna to become his mistress, for which he publicly received a resounding slap from her.

A few days later, on July 29, 1946, on the personal instructions of Lavrenty Beria, People's Commissar for State Security Abakumov arrived at the dacha of Pyotr Shirokov and Yevgeny Garkusha, who fraudulently took the actress allegedly to the theater, but in fact delivered her to the first interrogations and torture. Having subjected the girl to terrible suffering, Evgenia Alexandrovna was forced to confess to complicity with Nazi Germany, and also to the fact that she was an English spy. By December 29, 1946, Garkusha received two execution articles at once.

At the cost of Pyotr Petrovich's inhuman efforts, by December 1947, these articles were replaced by an eight-year reference to the gold mines of Kolyma, which were considered deadly.

Six months later, Evgenia's mother, Elena Vladimirovna, obtained permission from the authorities to live together with her daughter in the village of Omchak, Magadan Region, where she was serving her exile.

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, but the true cause of her death remained unknown.

Afterword

After the death of his beloved wife, it seemed that Pyotr Petrovich himself also died. All his furtherlife and attempts to work are bogged down in the emptiness that has fallen on him. He thought about suicide many times. Only his little daughter Marina kept him from the last step. Here is what he once wrote to her in a fit of spiritual despair:

Marinka is mine! My little chirp! 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 how much agony it can cost to resist the simplest, most desired exit, so quick and clear… May you never know how difficult it is to take your hand off the gun that has become hot in your overcoat pocket…

A year after the death of Evgenia Garkusha, Petr Shirshov fell ill with one of the most severe forms of cancer. His struggle for life continued for several years.

On February 17, 1953, Pyotr Petrovich died. Eight-year-old Marina was left an orphan.

On the photo - Marina Petrovna Shirshova.

In 1956, Evgenia Alexandrovna Garkusha-Shirshova was posthumously rehabilitated, and her daughter Marina Petrovna devoted her whole life to restoring her mother's faithful name for many years.