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Heir from Calcutta

Robert Shtilmark was arrested in 1945 on charges of "counter-revolutionary agitation" and sentenced to ten years in prison. In a forced labor camp, he created the adventure novel "Heir from Calcutta". A certain criminal authority was going to send this work to I. Stalin under his own name in order to receive an amnesty.

The action of the novel takes place at the end of the 18th century in England, Italy, Spain and the seas of the Indian Ocean. A pirate ship led by the one-eyed captain Bernardito Luis El Gore captures the ship with the heir to the earl family, Fredrick Ryland, who travels to England from Calcutta with his bride Emilia ... All the features of the adventure genre are manifested in a vivid artistic form in the novel: unsolved secrets, amazing transformations, persecution , intrigues and, finally, the triumph of good over evil.

I still remember that sweet shiver that seized me when I plunged into this kaleidoscope of adventures. The noble captain of the pirate schooner "Black Arrow" Bernardito Luis El Gorra, the treacherous bastard Giacomo Grelli, nicknamed the "Leopard", the beautiful Emily, Italian Jesuits, Spanish inquisitors, pirates, slave traders, African blacks and American Indians. And good in the finale, of course And on the cover there was some non-Nashen, also a pirate name - Robert Shtilmark.

In the preface to The Heir, it was reported that the novel was written by a group of geologists, somewhere in the dense taiga. Long dreary evenings, in their free time from geological research, they invented, and then transferred to the publishing house and published this adventure novel.

Only much, much later did we learn the true story of its creation.

There were no geologists, taiga evenings with nothing to do, composing this story. The novel was invented and written in the camp where Robert Shtilmark ended up in 1945 for “anti-Soviet agitation”, and specifically for calling some building in Moscow a “matchbox”, for not approving the demolition of the Sukharev Tower and the Red gates and renaming of old cities.

Before his arrest, Robert Alexandrovich managed to work as a journalist in the Izvestia newspaper, and then fight the Nazis as an assistant commander of a reconnaissance company on the Leningrad Front. In 1942, after a combat wound, he was sent as a teacher to the Tashkent Infantry School, then transferred to Moscow, taught at the Higher Command Courses of the Red Army. In 1943 he graduated from the Leningrad Military Topographic School. It was as a topographer that the imprisoned Captain Shtilmark was transferred to the Yeniseystroy camp, where the Salekhard-Igarka road was being built.

Robert Alexandrovich had a phenomenal memory, loved literature and read a lot. In the camp, it was very useful to him. In the evenings, the criminals brought from the construction site liked to listen to long stories about the romantic adventures of fictional and non-fictional literary heroes. A person who could tell a story in a fascinating way was called a “ringer”, and Shtilmark “ringer” turned out to be outstanding. Day after day, he retold the novels of Fenimore Cooper, Walter Scott, Alexandre Dumas to his fellow campers, everything he could remember.

And the criminals respected him very much for this. Years flowed. It was necessary to remember and tell more and more new stories. Everything that Shtilmark had once read was told to him and in the end, straining his imagination, he had to invent plots himself, combining oriental flavor, medieval passions and human characters, understandable to thieves and murderers. And the local godfather, authority, in that zone was a certain Vasilevsky. And he had the idea that Shtilmark would write a book, the author of which would allegedly be Vasilevsky, he would send this book to Stalin, and he, imbued with such an outstanding talent, amnestied the criminal. Vasilevsky called Shtilmark to him and instructed him to write an adventure novel, setting, in addition to his authorship, the following conditions. So that there must be a lion, so that the action does not take place in Russia and not closer than the 19th century, so that it is far away, so that censorship does not find fault. And there should have been a kidnapping of a child from a noble family in the novel. This is the most sentimental thing for criminals.

Vasilevsky gave Shtilmark a separate room, he was given access to the camp library, and the work began to boil.

A year and three months later, the book was finished. All the wishes of the customer were fulfilled, there is in this novel a kidnapping of a child, and a lion flashed by, and the action takes place in the 18th century far from Russia.

The original title of this piece was "The Gentleman from Bengal".

This manuscript has survived to this day and is in the Forest Museum of the city of Lesosibirsk, Krasnoyarsk Territory.

Then the best convict calligraphers rewrote the book in triplicate, convict artists made illustrations, convict bookbinders bound the volumes in blue silk from a shirt taken from Estonians. A pencil portrait of the imaginary author was pasted in front of the title page. And in the preface addressed to Stalin, it was written: "The book was created where the forces of darkness tried to extinguish the sun of reason."

Roman was sent to Moscow through the camp administration. However, Shtilmark encrypted the phrase “False writer, thief, plagiarist” in the text of the novel, referring to Vasilevsky. It can be found if you read the first letters of every second word in a fragment from the twenty-third chapter.

“The leaves turned yellow quickly. The forest, until recently full of life and summer freshness, is now reddened with crimson tones of autumn. Barely noticeable flaxen wisps of withering moss, withered heather, red, withered strips of unmowed meadows gave the August landscape a sad, gentle and purely English shade. Quiet, as if burnt out in a pink flame, the morning clouds in the east, the web flying in the air, the cold blueness of the lake waters foreshadowed the imminent onset of bad weather and frosts.

Vasilevsky, in order not to leave a witness, decided to kill Shtilmark. You never know what will happen later, here I have a "roman", here I am, here it is written "Vasilevsky", everything is in order. And he gathered a gathering of thieves, but the "brotherhood" decided not to kill Shtilmark, although Vasilevsky had already given money to the killer, and according to all thieves' laws they should have been killed. At this time, Stalin dies. Rehabilitation began, the camp was disbanded. Oddly enough for a political prisoner, Shtilmark was released before the criminal Vasilevsky. He returned to Moscow and after some time received a letter from the camp from his "co-author". He asked to get a novel in the Lubyanka archives, which they wrote together and which, he knows for sure, got there from the camp. The task is to get the manuscript and try your luck to publish the novel. Vasilevsky still hoped that he would be sentenced for the book. Shtilmark found the novel, and in 1958, through one of his acquaintances, he handed over the manuscript of the first two volumes to the writer Ivan Efremov.

I must say, Efremov took the manuscript with great reluctance, promising to give a review no earlier than six months later. However, less than a week later the phone rang. The impatient voice of the writer sounded in the receiver.

Why the hell are you not talking to me... the third volume! Bring it to me soon! And then in our family, all the nerves were shaken from impatience. I can send my son Allan myself: he should have left, but he can't go without knowing how things ended in the novel!

And a novel called "The Heir from Calcutta" was published by the "Detgiz" publishing house. Published under two names - Shtilmark, Vasilevsky.

In 1959, Shtilmark proved through the court that he was the sole author. Criminals, who were the first readers of the novel, acted as witnesses at the trial.

In the same year, the novel was reprinted, with only one name on the cover - Robert Shtilmark, and the first edition, or rather its unsold part, was withdrawn. That is why the first edition is today highly valued by collectors and bibliophiles. The first edition costs about $250.

It must be said that Shtilmark nobly transferred part of the fee to Vasilevsky, as an inspirer and organizer.

Subsequently, already being a member of the Writers' Union of the USSR, Shtilmark would write several more works. The most famous are “The Passenger of the Last Flight” about the Social Revolutionary rebellion and the biographical “A Fistful of Times”. But these books did not have such success as the "Heir from Calcutta".

Vladimir FETISOV.

"Heir from Calcutta" is an adventure historical novel by Soviet writer Robert Shtilmark, published in 1958.

The plot of the novel

The action takes place in the 18th century, in the era of the completion of the great geographical discoveries, the English industrial revolution and the formation of the British colonial empire.

L istya quickly and yeltel. Forest, e more recently P full of life And summer With news, now A lel crimson T onami of autumn. E two conspicuous eh nanny tows V moss O blooming heather, R wrinkled, dried P strips of uncut l persuasions attached A Augustow landscape G rustic, soft And purely A English tint. T theirs, as if O burned in R The morning clouds in the east, the cobwebs flying in the air, the cold blueness of the lake waters, foreshadowed the imminent onset of bad weather and frosts.

Vasilevsky did not take into account one thing when, after finishing the book, he decided to kill Shtilmark with the hands of thieves, that they listened to each chapter of the work and looked forward to continuing. It was they who later helped to prove Shtilmark's authorship in court.

In a letter to his son, Shtilmark reported that he "came up with something adventurous, insanely complex and entertaining, not going through any gates."

In 1955, Shtilmark was rehabilitated and he left for Moscow. He managed to transfer the manuscript to Ivan Efremov, who gave a good review for the Detgiz publishing house. Allan Efremov, the son of Ivan Antonovich, recalled: “Father first gave me and my friend to read. We read avidly and expressed our delight to the father. He nevertheless broke through this adventure novel, and it was eventually published. The novel was published in 1958 in the Library of Adventure and Science Fiction series and became a bestseller. On the cover, in addition to Shtilmark, Vasilevsky was also indicated as the author. In 1959, Shtilmark proved through the court that he was the sole author.

About the book

• 1989 Year of the book's first publication

Robert Shtilmark was arrested in 1945 on charges of "counter-revolutionary agitation" and sentenced to ten years in prison. In the forced labor camp, he created the adventure novel "Heir from Calcutta". A certain criminal authority was going to send this work to I. Stalin under his own name in order to receive an amnesty. The book was first published in 1958, after the release and rehabilitation of R. Shtilmark. The action of the novel takes place at the end of the 18th century in England, Italy, Spain and the seas of the Indian Ocean. A pirate ship led by the one-eyed captain Bernardito Luis El Gore seizes the ship with the heir to the earl family, Fredrick Ryland, who is traveling to England from Calcutta with his bride Emilia. Bernardito's assistant, Giacomo Grelli, nicknamed the Leopard, appropriates Ryland's papers and arrives in England with a new name. Emilia is forced, under threat, to go with him as his bride.

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The bittersweet memories...
Alfred de Musset

Two men cautiously walked along a rocky path to a small bay between
rocks. A tall hook-nosed gentleman in a dark green cloak and triangular
hat walked ahead. From under the hat, a plait of a wig shone with silver, tight
intercepted with black tape, so as not to ruffle the wind. Marine boots with
raised lapels did not interfere with the elastic tread of a person. This walk
he did not work out the parquet of living rooms, but the rickety flooring of the ship's deck.
The man's companion in a cloak, a handsome young man in a groom's caftan, carried after him
a spyglass in a black case and a hunting rifle. The barrel of the gun was
the best steel - "bouquet Damascus"; smoothly polished butt decorated
mother-of-pearl inlays. Belt and even belt lugs - antabok - this
there was no gun: the owner did not need to carry his hunting equipment
on his own shoulders - he did not go hunting without a squire.
The semicircle of the open bay was bordered by gray granite cliffs. fishermen
called it Old King's Bay: the jagged peak of the median cliff
looked like a crown. Above the grey-green, smelling of iodine, the waters hovered low
seagulls. The morning was overcast, with a drizzle of rain. This summer weather was
common here in northern England, on the coast of the Irish Sea.
The first shot echoed through the desert rocks. disturbed flock
seagulls soared up and with piercing sharp cries scattered in all directions.
Separate small flocks of birds rushed to the neighboring cliffs and there, on
the other side of the bay, again began to decline. Gentleman obviously
missed: not a single shot bird fluttered on the foamy water.
“The gun is reloaded, your grace!” - The young groom held out
to his owner a gun ready for a new shot; the shooter and his companion
reached the top of a low cliff and looked down. -- Birds now
calm down and fall off again.
“Hunting is not successful for me if I miss the first
shot," answered the gentleman. - Perhaps our walk today in general
useless: not a single sail is visible on the horizon. Probably our "Orion"
anchored somewhere. But still I'll stay here, watch over
horizon. Keep the gun, Anthony. Give me a spyglass and wait
me downstairs, by the horses.
Groom handed Mr. a case with a sliding pipe and began to descend on
path. The rustle of pebbles crumbling from under his feet and the rustle of bushes soon
quiet down below. The gentleman was left alone on the cliff.
The sea churned restlessly under the rocks. A cloud from the ocean, slowly
growing, it covered the breaks of the coast. Outlines of distant capes and small
The islands were gradually hidden in a strip of rain and fog. From under this low
rows of brown sea ramparts arose in a shroud; the shore opened to meet them
stone embraces of bays and coves.