Is it true that in 1941, by order of Stalin, an airplane with a miraculous icon flew around Moscow?

The legend is widespread that during the Great Patriotic War, an unusual ritual was carried out for the defense of the capital of the USSR - an icon of either the Kazan Mother of God flew over the city by plane. We checked if this legend has confirmation.

This story often appears in modern stories about the war and the participation of the Russian Orthodox Church in it - it is argued that thanks to the execution of the order of Stalin, who decided to turn to the Orthodox shrine for help, the advance of the Nazi troops miraculously stopped. The plot is mentioned as a historical fact in the press (for example, in the materials "Express gazeta"And TV channel"World 24"), Presented on a mosaic in the main temple of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in the Patriot Park near Moscow and lay down the basis of the script of the feature film"Maria. Save Moscow"(2021), removed with the support of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation and the Russian Military Historical Society. As part of the promotion of this picture about the flight with the icon around the capital in December 1941, actively They told The largest state and pro -government Russian media.

The earliest references to the history of the air procession over Moscow during the Great Patriotic War are found in the works of the writer and historian of the Russian Orthodox Church Petra Palamarchuk. In 1981, in the Russian Renaissance emigrant in the Emigrant Almanac in New York, he published under the pseudonym G. Ekhlakov article About the Kozelshchansky icon of the Mother of God. At the end of the article, discussing the change in the policy of the Soviet government in relation to the church during the war, he noted: "The frightened Stalin tried to death to be used to save a patriotic position, occupied by the Russian Orthodox Church, and even, as they say, sent around Moscow to fly around the plane with the Tikhvin icon of the Mother of God on board."

Later, in 1988, in the first volume published in Paris, already under the pseudonym Semyon Zvonarev edition "Forty forties" - the most complete at that time the history of the temples and monasteries of Moscow - Palamarchuk again brought the same story. At the same time, he clarified that not the original of the Tikhvin icon was carried by the plane (it was stored in Tikhvin, from where after the occupation of the city by the Wehrmacht in 1941 he was taken to Pskov, and later returned to the border and returned only in 2004), and its copy (list) stored in the Moscow Tikhvin Church in Alekseevsky, which never closed in Soviet times. Palamarchuk referred to this story as a “modern legend”, not indicating where he recognized him.

Probably, it was from the foreign publication "Forty forties" the story was borrowed by journalist Nikolai Malinin, who almost literally included him in published In January 1991, in the magazine "Capital" material "Moscow from under the table. The history of the city in legends, jokes and typos. ” Only because of a mistake or typo, the Tikhvin church at Malinin became the Church of Tikhon.

Soon, in 1992, “forty forty” were first published in Russia, already under the real name of the author. Obviously, it was thanks to the publications in the magazine and the book popular at that time about the circle of Moscow with the icon that was widely known, especially in Orthodox circles. It is important to note that then it spread precisely as a legend or legend, which, in principle, relieved the question of the need to give evidence or sources. As a legend, history is mentioned in the article on the Tikhvin icon in the fundamental ""Orthodox encyclopedia"(Volume 68, p. 363-364). By words The historian of Mikhail Kakarovsky, the author of a number of works about the Russian Orthodox Church in the twentieth century, the story "does not based real events."

In April 2005, on the portal "Ur.ru" was published noteIn which, as evidence of the authenticity of the flight with the icon, the memoirs of Valentin Vladimirov, who allegedly served in 1941 in the protection of the Kremlin, were quoted. He recalled how one day a car with the beards and crosses drove past the post at the Borovitsky Gate “drove a car with three priests, and only later it turned out why. A few days later, the Douglas aircraft rose into the air with the icon of the Kazan Mother of God and flew around Moscow three times. ”

Judging by the database of participants in the Great Patriotic War "Memory of the people", Vladimirov - a real veteran, awarded, in particular, the medal" For the Defense of Moscow ". Moreover, the only evidence of the existence of his memoirs that managed to find was Record In the Library of Orsk, which indicates that the book was published in this city in 2004 private (the publishing house was not named) and had a small volume of 115 pages. It was not possible to check if there was a quote published on the Internet in the Internet. But even if she really belongs to Vladimirov and he remembered the real event, a departure from the Kremlin of a car with people dressed as Orthodox clergy, does not directly confirm the story of the flight around Moscow with an icon.

Although Vladimir, presenting his version of events, mentions not the Tikhvin, but the Kazan icon of the Mother of God, she was also not stored in the Kremlin. This revered image back in 1918 stole From the cathedral dedicated to him on Red Square, and since then his whereabouts are unknown. The most famous list of this icon after 1938 was in the Elokhov Epiphany Cathedral in the Basmann district of Moscow. There were no other icons - Vladimir and Donskaya in the capital then, as both before the war, were transferred to the Tretyakov Gallery and in the fall of 1941 along with its funds evacuated In Novosibirsk, where they remained until the end of 1943.

A little later, the Orthodox writer Nikolai Blokhin was an active propagandist of the history of the air processing process. He Turned on This plot in its Rubezh novel published in 2006. Five years later in interview Blokhin brought the Russian People's Line portal a number of additional details that he allegedly heard in the summer of 1952 (when he was six and a half years old) from a direct participant in the flight, later the main marshal of the USSR Aviation Alexander Golovanov, as well as the son of Stalin Vasily. Blokhin’s father at that time served as a rider at the Moscow Hippodrome, and Basil Stalin, Golovanov and other military lovers were friends with him. The story of Blokhin contains a number of supernatural details (despite the blizzard raging over Moscow, the view from the plane was “like on the Kuindzhi canvases,” the engines worked completely silently, so Stalin in the Kremlin could hear the singing of the priest and singers who were on board and repeatedly critically sorted out on the Internet. Priest Nikolai Savchenko showed, in particular, that the weather description on December 8, 1941 Blokhin radically contradicts preserved reports, Golovanov could not physically manage the PS-84 aircraft alone (American “Douglas”), and Stalin in the Kremlin could not listen to the broadcast on board. In addition, it is known that Marshal Golovanov was not friends with Vasily Stalin, and therefore it is incredible that they spent time together at the Moscow Hippodrome.

Finally, in May 2017 in a number of Russian media (for example, on newspaper sites "Sight"And the television channel NTV) There was another story about the air procession. All publications referred to the TASS agency, but the original message in its tape could not be found (perhaps it was promptly deleted or was present only in a non -public tape). In all versions, the story of a certain Vladimir Kindyuk, a native of Odessa, who in 1941, at 16, as a pilot allegedly personally participated in this operation, was given. According to him, six I-16 fighter planes were involved, in each of which there was a pilot, a radio mechanic and a priest with an icon and some kind of brush (obviously, Kropil). Aircraft flew around Moscow along six routes, for which special radio beacons were installed on the ground. As a result, supposedly "the German never went beyond those lines, those boundaries that were then consecrated." The story was soon criticized as a clear gross errors containing. In particular, the I-16 was in service with the Red Army at that time single And either they did not have radio communications at all, or she worked extremely poorly. In addition, neither in the most complete base “Memory of the people”, nor in any other sources, it was possible to find information about the war participant Vladimir Borisovich Kindyuk.

So, it can be stated that no documentary evidence of the circle of Moscow with an icon by order of Stalin in 1941 exists. Numerous military memoirs are silent about this, for example, the same Marshal Golovanova. Among the soldiers and, possibly, even individual representatives of the command staff of the Red Army were Orthodox believers, but the official anti -religious policy of the Soviet authorities began to change only after the meeting of Stalin in September 1943 with three metropolitans of the Russian Orthodox Church. At the same time, according to the detailed detailed magazines With a list of persons that Stalin took, in October-December 1941 he did not meet with any clergymen.

Only the fact that on December 7 was a pilot, a participant in intercontinental flights, Mikhail Gromov, pays attention to the only one at the reception of the Soviet leader. Details of that day, he brought in his memoirs. According to them, Gromov himself asked for a meeting with the Soviet leader to report on the results of his business trip to the United States. Stalin, in turn, offered Gromov the position of commander of the aircraft division on the Kalinin Front, to which he agreed. Gromov has no references to the circle of Moscow with an icon.  

It cannot be excluded that it was the meeting of the leader with the famous pilot that became one of the shocks to the appearance of a legend about the air procession. Its origins are quite obvious - the liberation of Tikhvin on December 9, 1941 became The first major success The Red Army and received a great resonance. And for the Orthodox believers, this city in the Leningrad Region was associated primarily with the revered icon of the Virgin. On the other hand, like noted Back in 1997, the folklorist Elena Levkievskaya, the legend of the circle of the city with an airplane with an icon on board is similar to the ritual of creating a magic circle around a settlement to protect it from danger - a ceremony with ancient Indo -European roots and repeatedly described in scientific literature.

Photo on the cover: Sergey Strunnikov Via Wikimedia Commons

Not true

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Read on the topic:

1. J. Kormina. Political characters in modern hagiography: how the matron Stalin blessed
2. D. Pospelovsky. Stalin and the Church: The Concordat of 1943 and the life of the Church
3. Is it true that Andrei Rublev’s “Trinity” is the greatest Orthodox shrine?