"The life of a father is an era": the son of Mikhail Devyatayev about the post-war life of a pilot and a picture of Bekmambetov

- You said that you have long thought about the possibility of creating a feature film about your father Mikhail Petrovich Devyatayev.

Have you received such offers before?

- No, only documentaries were shot.

There was one attempt to remove an artistic one, but it ended in nothing, except for loud statements.

- It was important to you who exactly will take on the picture?

- Sure.

That's why I agreed to participate in this film.

- You acted as a tape consultant.

Tell us more about your participation.

- My participation consisted of three elements of work.

Firstly, since I have been studying my father's biography for almost 20 years (after he passed away in 2002), I consider myself the most knowledgeable in the details of his life.

When the script was being worked on, and even before that, questions arose: what really happened, what did not exist, which facts correspond to what was written in the autobiographical story, and which do not.

My job was to clarify this.

The second part - over the years I have collected some serious material: memories of pilots (first of all, fighter pilots), information about airplanes, and so on.

All this I also handed over for work.

Finally, when the script itself was being written, all the principal scenes were coordinated with me.

This is a routine job - at least for a consultant.

- Did you have the opportunity to express your opinion in the selection of actors?

- Yes, they sent photos or just said names, since famous actors were considered.

But, you know, we are not experts in this field, not filmmakers!

We wanted there to be an actor who would match the age - my father was 28 years old in 1945.

Pavel Priluchny was the closest to this.

- What was your goal when you agreed to participate in the project?

Did you want to debunk the myths around this story, convey it to a wide audience? ..

- I will say in the words of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin: "Of all the arts, cinema is the most important for us."

In the 1980s, there was a small four-page chapter with pictures in the history textbook for junior grades - a story about his father's feat.

It would seem that there is a history textbook, so everyone should know.

In fact, this is not the case.

In our millennium, a film is something that can interest.

Then you can already turn to the mass of information that is on the Internet, understand what this feat is about, what is its essence, what is the story.

Father's life is an era.

It can be traced back to the 1920s, and it so happened that every stage in the history of our country was reflected in his life.

- The plot of the film focuses on a relatively small episode - the escape and the preparation that preceded it.

We see the backstory as well, but judging by your stories, there are many other events and details that would be interesting to show.

It was immediately decided to focus on the escape?

- When it came to the script, it was one of the first questions I asked Timur (Bekmambetov. -

RT

).

Of course, we would like the film to begin with our father's hungry childhood in Torbeevo, but this, of course, is unrealistic.

Now I understand this a little bit and I know that even what has happened covers a lot.

To tell everything, you need to shoot a whole series.

• © Still from the film "Devyatayev"

- Is there something related to the period covered that you personally would like to include in the picture, but for some reason it was not included?

- If we talk about a feature film that was conceptually focused on only one thing, you can include something at the beginning and at the end.

There are many extremely interesting military episodes for which my father received orders.

He even had to receive a Hero Star for what he did to save one wounded general.

On June 24, 1941, he shot down the first Junkers.

We are all used to it - the war has begun, ours are running and retreating.

And in one newspaper it is written that on June 24, the pilot Devyatayev distinguished himself, he shot down the plane.

And there are a lot of such episodes.

- What are your overall impressions of the film, are you satisfied with the result?

- I have not seen the final version yet.

I only saw the technical tape, and I liked it. 

- Did you initially, when the actors were not yet approved, represent someone in the lead role?

- Not.

You know, when my father had already passed away, many of his friends and comrades (they were still alive then) emphasized that his greatness lies in simplicity.

He was great and very simple and clear.

Although my father had a very difficult inner world, and everything he experienced remained behind him.

I do not believe that ... No, perhaps it can be conveyed.

But then you have to try to make a copy.

He was a physically very strong man, and he had many features that cannot be shown in this film.

To convey all this, one must start from childhood, tell how it was formed.

Priluchny, on the other hand, managed to complete the task that was before him - to play so that the viewer believed.

- Tell us, how do you remember your father, if we talk about his life in peacetime?

What kind of father, family man, comrade he was?

- For myself, I divide my memories into three parts.

By 1957 I was six years old, I well remember our miserable existence.

There was a big family, we lived poorly, in the basement.

And that's one part.

Then there was the Star, national recognition, love.

At school, I could not be a hooligan, so that they would not say: "You are the son of a hero."

This is a different story, and the father is different in it.

But he, by the way, has not changed.

On the contrary, he always hid the asterisk so that no one could see that he was a Hero of the Soviet Union.

Then there was the third period - the 1980s and 1990s.

Six granddaughters and a grandson appeared.

Father did not find everyone, but he loved them very much.

There are wonderful photos with them.

He was a loving grandfather.

I didn't have a grandfather - one passed away in 1919, the other in 1938.

I looked at my father and thought: "I probably will be the same."

I am also lucky, I have two daughters and three granddaughters.

I always remember my father.

Different pictures emerge.

In some he is a tug captain tired after hard work, in others he is a hero-captain.

And finally, the grandfather, who is madly in love with his little girls.

All this forms a single image.

- Did you often talk to him about the war and directly about the episode shown in the film?

- I often listened to his performances in various interesting places and thought that I knew everything.

Imagine my horror when, in 2003, I began to prepare for the publication of a book for my father's 90th birthday and suddenly realized that I knew almost nothing about him.

I began to remember many things.

I was lucky, I saw his comrades.

Among them is the commander of his squadron Vladimir Bobrov, who saved his life, for me it's just Uncle Vova.

In 1957, he took me by the hand and led me to swim on the Kazanka River.

And this man is one of those who shot down the most planes, a magnificent ace pilot.

We established the "Mikhail Devyatayev Memorial Fund" and set ourselves the task of working on the biography of my father, studying it, as well as the biographies of his fellow escapees, pilots who fought with him and not only who passed the camps.

Many of them are undeservedly forgotten.

- As you already said, you have been perpetuating the memory of your father for about 20 years.

And what about the younger generation, their grandchildren, great-grandchildren?

Are they interested in his story?

- First of all, they are proud.

We try to make them visit their father's homeland, in the village of Torbeevo, Republic of Mordovia.

There, by the way, on June 26, a very beautiful monument opens.

This coincidentally coincided with the release of the film.

Earlier, the opening was slowed down by covid.

And grandchildren are all different.

There are those who are nearby, in Kazan, and are working more actively.

Some live far away, not in Russia.

But they are all proud of the feat of their grandfather and great-grandfather!

- Do those who are close to you take part in any initiatives?

- Sure.

Let's say they perform in schools.

My daughter is the director of the Mikhail Devyatayev Memorial Fund.

One of my great-granddaughters helps me with finding documents on the Internet.

I am already a laggard person due to my age, so I don’t understand Instagram and all sorts of TikTok ... The younger generation is taking on this.

- Returning to the plot of the film: tell us how documentary it turned out.

For example, the key scene, when they prepare the plane and try to raise it - does it accurately reproduce real events, as far as possible, taking into account the available information?

- Yes.

There is such a question, completely understandable: how my father, not knowing the German bomber, could control it, start the engine.

In the film, it is shown in the language of cinema how the prisoners prepared, trained their father so that he knew what was written on the plates in German and, accordingly, could figure it out.

There, in fact, not much is needed.

It is only important to know how to start the motors, and he spied on it.

Everything else is intuition and classic actions of a professional pilot.

Plus, before his captivity, he flew an Aircobra, an American plane, where the inscriptions were in English.

So the main thing is to know what to do.

All this is shown in the film.

I know that the actors in the film rehearsed the scenes every second.

So this is just not a documentary, but a documentary illustration of the father's story.

The filmmakers tried not to deviate one iota from how it was.

• © Still from the film "Devyatayev"

- Is there a lot of fiction in the film?

For example, there is a scene when a bomb hit the hangar and nearly damaged the plane ...

- Yes, this scene and the line with a friend are fictional fiction.

The bus scene is not autobiographical about my parents, but this kind of situation happened all the time. 

- Many documentaries have already been released about the exploits of Mikhail Petrovich, several books, including his own works.

Is there something previously untold in this movie?

- Unfortunately, many documents, especially from the moment of arrival, which are probably in our archives, are not yet available to us for a number of reasons.

Those who are already associated with Heinkel itself are generally a closed topic.

Therefore, we cannot find anything new, we can only guess - about Korolev, and about "V-2", and the rest.

We know something, but everything else is a hypothesis, there are no documents.

There are only protocols of interrogations of SMERSH, NKVD, then the KGB.

Father was interrogated in 1946, and in 1956, and every year.

For something new, you need to find some kind of archival opportunity.

We are looking for, including for this purpose, the “Mikhail Devyatayev Memorial Fund” was created, to purposefully work in the archives - German, Polish and English.

- Do you have any favorite films about the war?

- Sure.

If we talk about what is connected with the theme of the father, this is "Clear Sky" by Chukhraev.

And also, probably, the warmest and most real film - "Only" old men "go to battle.

The earlier one is "The Fate of Man".

In Soviet times, a lot of good films were shot in our country.

Of course, I watched them all.

Why do you think it is important to continue to attract the attention of a wide audience to the topic of war?

- There are wonderful words, their meaning is that if we want to understand a certain period of our history (and we probably want to know each period, but we always pay more attention to wartime), then first we need to know life and history specific people.

Through them we will be able to understand what happened at that time.

And abstractly, as it is written in the textbook, this is all inanimate history.

It is necessary to talk about the fate of specific people.

What is interesting about my father's story is that it can also tell about collectivization.

This is his personal life.

It also covers the 1930s, when Kazan became an "aviation Mecca".

There, the flying club trained pilots who played a colossal role in history.

This is also the wartime, when the aviation industry was created.

Only one "U-2" was made almost ten thousand.

And my father flew such.

Then, of course, the legendary Pokryshkinsky ... He flew there too.

And the concentration camp is generally a separate and sacred topic.

Then - the Stalinist times and aggression.

Later - insane nationwide fame, bags of letters, gifts.

But his father did not change at all, for which he was appreciated and loved.

You need to tell a story that is tied to a specific situation. Abstract heroes are appropriate if we are talking about the affairs of "the times of the Ochakovskys and the conquest of the Crimea", and even better - about the Greeks, Romans, and so on. There we can say some general things. And here you need to contact a specific person, with his merits and demerits. Then we will begin to understand something.