This year marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of one of the most famous and influential politicians of the 20th century - Winston Churchill.
Churchill is a figure around which there were many myths. Dozens (if not hundreds) of statements are unjustified to him, and many fables tell about his life. However, Churchill was an extraordinary personality, and often what seems incredible fiction is a real fact of his biography. At the request "Russian service BBC»We have sorted out a few common statements about the life of a politician.
Churchill was a US citizen
Most of the untruth. According to modern laws, he would have the right to this: Winston Churchill’s mother was American Jenny Jerome, the daughter of a successful New York financier Leonard Jerome. She often visited Europe, and once, in August 1873, during a regatta on the island of White, Prince Wales (future King Edward VII) presented her with a young aristocrat Randolf Churchill.
A few days later, the couple announced the engagement, and in April 1874 a wedding took place. In the same year, the first -born - Winston. In our time, he could get two citizenships: British in his father and American mother. However, before 1934 American citizenship abroad was transferred only along the paternal line. Only in 1994 did the US Congress adopted Amendments To the law on immigration and citizenship, which gave the right to US citizenship to people born abroad from American mothers to 1934. However, Churchill had already died by that time.
But the politician had honorary citizenship of the United States (which, however, did not give any rights, privileges and duties of ordinary citizenship). He received it on April 9, 1963 decree President John Kennedy. For Churchill, they even made a special passport of an honorary citizen-at the solemn ceremony in the White House he was awarded the son of a politician, since Churchill himself could not come to America due to poor health. Churchill was the first person to receive honorary citizenship of the United States. After him, this title was awarded again Seven peopleBut almost everything is posthumous.
Churchill was born in a female toilet during dancing
Most of the untruth. Winston’s mother really was at a ball in the Blenheim Palace, when she had a fight, and could not reach the bedroom she had assigned to her. However, she was allowed from burden not at all in the toilet, but simply in one of rooms The palace, which was used as a dressing room that day.
The most detailed circumstances of Churchill's birth are described in the trilogy The Last Lion The writer and historian William Manchester (this work is considered the most detailed biography of the politician).
Manchester writes: “This evening, the annual ball of St. Andrew took place in the palace. To the general surprise, including her husband, [Jenny] appeared on it in a free dress and with a ballbook. She danced when the fights began. Randolph wrote to his mother -in -law: "We tried to stop them, but to no avail." Actually, it's time to choose a place for childbirth. Her grandmother Anne Leslie later described these searches. Accompanied by servants and aunt Randolf Clementine, Lady Kamden, she stumbled, left the party, which seemed to have fun without her, and, staggering, headed "past the endless anniversary of the living rooms, through the library," the longest room in England ", to her bedroom.
She did not have time. She lost consciousness, and she was taken to a small room next to the large hall of Blenheim. Once she belonged to the chaplain of the first duke; Today it was a women's dressing room. She spread out, she lay on velvet capes and prides of feathers, who deftly pulled out from under her when the ball was over and the cheerful guests parted. It was a long night, the servants scurried back and forth with pumps and towels. ”
The myth of the toilet, probably, arose due to an error in translation, because in English the word Cloakroom has two meanings: “dressing room” and “toilet” (as euphemism).
Churchill was an experienced mason and built his country estate himself
Half truth. Churchill was not an avid athlete (although he fenced and played well in Polo), but he found physical labor extremely useful. He believed that this is the best rest from the labor of mental. And of all the options for physical labor, he liked the craft of the mason most of all.
He, of course, did not build a suburban estate - Churchill bought the old Cartwell estate in 1922, and the architect Philip Tayden was engaged in all his alterations at that time. But the politician himself built Brick fences in the garden of the estates and even took part in the construction of a small game Cottage For their daughters.
One of them, Mary, later recalled: “While my father erected the red -brick walls that now surround the garden, he came up with a great idea: to build a small one -room house. It was intended for us both, but Sarah, who entered the boarding house in 1927, quickly lost interest in him. So this charming building became known as a mastic. ”
For the construction of the cottage, Churchill hired professional masons, but worked with them. In 1928, he wrote to Stanley Balduin: "He spent a wonderful month, working on a book and building a cottage: 200 bricks and 2000 words a day."
After the press appeared in Churchill's photograph at work, James Lane, the mayor of Batterse and the founder of the United Union of Construction Workers, invited him to join their ranks. Despite the skeptical attitude to his construction skills, Churchill agreed, filled out the application, paid for the membership fee and was officially accepted to the trade union. His Membership card I read: “Winston S. Churchill, Westerchy, Kent. Profession: Mason ”, and the place of work was the estate of Cartwell.
However, Churchill's entry into this organization caused a violent reaction among the members of the trade union. Many were indignant at the fact that the policy, which led the suppression of the universal strike of 1926, was accepted into their ranks. Ultimately, these debates led to the fact that the Executive Committee of the Trade Union was canceled by Churchill's membership.
Churchill deliberately allowed the bombing of Coventry to hide the decryption of the German code by British intelligence
Not true. This information was distributed by the British military intelligence officer Frederick Winterbotam. During the Second World War, he, together with his colleagues, led the cipher’s hacking program used by the German army and the transfer of information received by the British command.
In 1974, Winterbotam published a book "Secret Ultra", In which he claimed: Churchill reported that the purpose of the next mass raid of German aviation would be Koventry, at about 15:00 on November 14, about four hours before the start of the bombing. However, the Prime Minister did not order either to evacuate people or take special measures to protect the city so as not to compromise the source of important information.
Working on the book, Winterbotam could only rely on his memories: the archival materials of that time were still classified. The texts of the reports of Churchill from the Ministry of Air Force were Medicked Only in the 1980s. In the report of November 12, on the basis of partial decoding as possible goals of the upcoming German operation, Lunar Sonata, five areas were mentioned, and there were no Coventry among them. As a possible facility of an imminent powerful bombardment, this city (along with Birmingham) was mentioned by a German military pilot, which was captured on November 9. But intelligence reacted skeptically to his information, continuing to consider the most likely goal of the London attack and the surroundings.
In the afternoon of November 14, Churchill received a secret report from the head of the secret intelligence service. Historian Frederick Taylor in the book "Coventry: November 14, 1940", Having analyzed a number of evidence and memories, comes to this conclusion: most likely, this report really said that the attack would not be aimed at London, but to another place, but Coventry was not necessarily indicated in it. However, the historian notes: even if Churchill and knew about the upcoming bombardment of Coventry, at the then level of communications to organize a large (about 250,000 inhabitants) of the city engaged in everyday affairs in a matter of hours. And the air defense of Coventry was already strengthened since November 7th.
Churchill appeared naked in front of the American president Roosevelt
Most likely, the truth. The testimonies of this were preserved in the memoirs of the bodyguard Churchill Walter Thompson and one of his secretaries - Patrick Kinnah.
How Writes The biography of Churchill Richard Langworth, the story occurred in late 1940 - early 1941, during the visit of a politician to the White House. Roosevelt drove into Churchill's room to share the idea with him: to call an international organization that he wanted to create after the war, united by nations. Churchill at that moment had just left the bath and was, as the closest assistant to President Harry Hopkins, "pink and shining, in which the mother gave birth to." Seeing Roosevelt in front of him, the politician was not at a loss and said: “As you can see, Mr. President, I have nothing to hide from you.”
Langworth notes that Churchill himself did not confirm, but did not refute the truthfulness of this story. On the one hand, having returned to the UK, he told King George VI: "Sir, I believe, I am the only person in the world who accepted the head of state what the mother gave birth to." On the other hand, in response to the direct question of the biographer Roosevelt Robert Sherwood, the politician evasively said that "he had never received the president, without at least in a towel."
Winston Churchill drank a bottle of Armenian cognac every day
Not true. The politician really loved cognac. On the website of the International Society Churchill, even indicated Mark The drink that he preferred to others is the French Hine.
As for the Armenian cognac, he definitely drank it - many evidence was preserved about this. For example, c memories The Soviet military leader Alexander Golovanov, Marshal of Aviation since 1943, has a story about the meeting of Stalin and Churchill in August 1942. According to Golovanov, Churchill did not lose time at the table and drank together with the deputy chairman of the Council of People's Commissars Kliment Voroshilov pepper, and then switched to cognac: “Meanwhile, I saw a bottle of Armenian cognac in the hands of the British prime minister. Having examined the label, he filled Stalin's glass. In response, Stalin poured the same cognac to Churchill. Toasts followed one after another. Stalin and Churchill drank flush. "
However, the politician was unlikely to have regular supplies of cognac from the USSR, especially after the end of World War II and the beginning of the Cold War. Authors of the book "Armenian food: facts, fiction and folklore"Irina Petrosyan and David Anderwood tried to find at least some information about the supplies of Churchill Armenian cognac, but failed and came to the conclusion that this story was fiction.
The term "iron curtain" in the meaning of the "insulation policy of the USSR" was invented by Churchill
Half truth. Churchill did not come up with the term itself, but put it into widespread use. Probably, the first expression “Iron Curtain” in this context was used by Vasily Rozanov in the book “Apocalypse of our time"In 1918:" With a clang, creak, screech, an iron curtain fell over the Russian history. " Later, this term was mentioned by Ethe Snowden in the book “Through Bolshevik Russia”, as well as the German propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels in his article “2000” in the publication of Das Reich.
However, really throughout the world, this expression sounded thanks to the speech that Winston Churchill Said On March 5, 1946, in the city of Fulton (USA): “Having stretched through the entire continent, from Stettin on the Baltic Sea and to Trieste on the Adriatic Sea, an iron curtain fell into Europe. The capital of the states of Central and Eastern Europe - states, whose history has many and many centuries - ended up on the other side of the curtain. Warsaw and Berlin, Prague and Vienna, Budapest and Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia - all these famous cities with all their inhabitants and with the entire population of the cities and areas surrounding them fell, as I would call it, in the sphere of Soviet influence. ” And although Churchill himself entitled his speech to Sinews of Peace, which can be translated as “tendons (or muscles) of the world”, it went into history as “we are talking about an iron curtain”.
Churchill said: "Stalin accepted Russia with a Soh, but left with an atomic bomb"
Not true. The author of this phrase is the British historian and publicist Isaac Doycher. On December 21, 1949, on the day of the 70th anniversary of Stalin, The Guardian published an article by Doycher, in which he wrote: “Perhaps the historian of the future, summing up Stalin’s reign, will write that he accepted Russia with plowing wooden plows and left the nuclear reactors equipped with nuclear reactors.” A few years later, the next day after the death of Stalin, in the left newspaper The Manchester Guardian appeared an obituary of the authorship of the same Doyer. In it, he repeated his thesis: "The essence of Stalin’s historical achievements is that he received Russia, plowing with wooden plows, and leaves it equipped with atomic reactors." The quote later included in the book of Doyrey “Russia after Stalin” (1953) and even to the “British Encyclopedia” (Volume 21, 1964).
To attribute a quote to Churchill in the USSR due to the sensational article by Nina Andreeva "I can not make principles"(" Soviet Russia ", March 13, 1988). Later, a refutation appeared in the newspaper Pravda: “The Panehyryr Stalin cited by her [Andreeva] does not belong to Churchill. Something similar was said by the famous English Trotskyist I. Doycher. ” However, this clarification did not cause the same public resonance as the article itself.
Churchill - Nobel Laureate of Literature
Is it true. Churchill was not only a politician, but also a writer. In his youth, he collaborated a lot with the press: he served as a military correspondent of The Daily Graphic newspaper in Cuba, published reports from India in The Pioneer and The Daily Telegraph (later they formed his book “The History of the Malakand Field Corps”) and covered the second Anglo-Boer war in Th, Morning Post.
After the beginning of the political career, Churchill wrote a two -volume biography of his father, a four -volume volume of John Churchill, the first Duke of Malboro, and the memoirs of “My early years”. In total, his literary heritage includes about one and a half dozen books, not counting the numerous collections of speeches.
Most of his works are documentary. For non-fiction, he received in 1953 the Nobel Prize with wording "For the skill of historical and biographical descriptions, as well as for brilliant oratory, which serves to protect high human values." As for fiction, Churchill wrote only one novel and several stories.
Photo on the cover: CHURCHILL Archives Center in X
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