There were four hours of waiting time for her exhibition.

In history, she remained an adult child. Just like her favorite character - A little prince. Nadya died very early - at 17. The day before, the girl returned from St. Petersburg, where she was filming a documentary about Pushkin.

“That day my daughter met me animated and joyful,” recalls Natalya Doydalovna, Nadya’s mother. “In her hand she held a burning red candle with white wax flowing down it. “Mom, look how beautiful it is!”

And the next morning she burned herself out. Sudden cerebral hemorrhage...

That candle, with frozen wax tears, still stands on the artist’s desk. Only now, from scarlet, it turned pale yellow. Over time, everything loses color - the drawings made with felt-tip pens fade, no matter how hard Natalya Doydalovna hides them from the light, the pages of the books that her daughter leafed through turn yellow - only the memories do not fade.

As cynical as it may be, early death only fueled the public's interest in the young artist. There were hours-long queues for her exhibition at the Pushkin Museum. Art critics spoke with aspiration about Rusheva’s graphics. Exhibitions were held in more than two hundred cities - not only in the Union, but also in the USA and Japan. Bulgakov’s widow, Elena Sergeevna, who met the Rushevs after the tragedy, claimed that Nadina’s illustrations for “The Master and Margarita” were the best, and that the artist’s gift was on the verge of clairvoyance. Her Master's ring is an exact copy of the ring that Bulgakov himself wore, while Margarita is the spitting image of the writer's widow... Elena Sergeevna was going to help publish the novel with Nadya's illustrations, but did not have time - shortly after meeting the parents of the artist Bulgakova died.

The 15-year-old girl’s drawings on the theme of the cult novel still look fresh and exciting – it’s even strange that “The Masters” with Rusheva’s illustrations were never really published (except for the Barnaul edition of the early 90s, the printing quality of which left much to be desired). The artist's graphics were rarely printed in the USSR due to poor printing - this was done in Japan and Germany. They are in no hurry to release albums even now, although technical capabilities have improved. “If I were rich, I would at least publish a calendar,” laments Natalya Doydalovna. The parents earned sheer tears from their daughter’s drawings: in 1976, the only album “Graphics by Nadya Rusheva” was released, father and mother were paid 990 rubles for it. But Natalya Doydalovna doesn’t even think about money: “When they make an exhibition, it’s an honor for us. In 1980, Nadina had an exhibition in Japan. The organizers printed drawings from Pushkiniana and gave me several copies.” Now the gift in a beautiful gilded frame decorates Natalya Doydalovna’s living room.

Could have become a ballerina

The artist’s mother lives in a cold Khrushchev-era building without an elevator, four stops from the metro. A petite woman with a neat hairstyle, despite her advanced years, opened the door to me. Showed my daughter's room. On the wall are black and white photographs of Dean Reed and Maya Plisetskaya, idols of the 60s.

And here is Artek, where Rusheva spent more than one summer: a group in swimsuits, with Nadya on the edge - cheerful, long-legged, with straight dark hair. She was not an introverted and reserved prodigy at all. On the contrary, I was drawn to people, new faces. She moved beautifully - she famously danced the Charleston, enjoyed skiing and skating. She could have become a ballerina, like her mother - she had grace and a high, “ballet-like” lift of her feet. But Natalya Doydalovna did not want such a fate for her daughter: “Standing in the crowd is nothing to do, and being the first is very difficult.”

...Nadya’s parents met in Tuva, where Muscovite Nikolai Rushev, a theater artist, was sent on a business trip. Young man was attracted by the East - from this trip he brought not only impressions, but also his wife - a ballerina, a girl exotic beauty(in old photographs, Natalya Doydalovna, a purebred Tuvan, looks like Chinese women from Wong Kar-Wai’s films. - N.K.). At that time - a rare union.

After Nadyusha was born, I took up housekeeping. In 1953, Nikolai Konstantinovich worked at the Bolshoi, and I wanted to watch all the performances - I put Nadyusha in bed, asked my neighbor to look after her, and ran to watch the production. My daughter was very calm; wherever you put her, you’ll find her. I wasn’t capricious...

I gave birth to her at the age of 25, in Ulaanbaatar: my husband was sent there on a business trip. I suffered from toxicosis throughout my pregnancy. Newborn Nadyusha weighed only 2500. Fortunately, there was a lot of milk, and she quickly grew stronger. At the age of three, already in Moscow, she was sent to kindergarten. I remember that my daughter plays with the guys all day, but as soon as I appear, she comes running, buries herself in her lap and cries - quietly, quietly... But she doesn’t complain. I cried for a whole month until I got used to it. In general, she had an easy-going, easy-going character.

I drew while my father read fairy tales out loud.

For half a century now, Natalya Rusheva has been asked how she managed to raise a child prodigy. And in all these years she never gave a ready-made recipe. Simply because he doesn't exist. The Rushevs raised their only daughter without going to extremes.

– Nadyusha learned to read only at school, at seven and a half. We didn’t teach it specifically at home, we decided we’d teach it early - my daughter would be bored in class. We have never put pressure on her yet. Is it possible to force a child, because he will do the opposite! She started drawing, like all children, as soon as she learned to hold a pencil. My husband designs the book, hangs the drawing on the wall for a better look, and Nadya comes up and sticks hers next to it. What always surprised me about her was her unchildish, caring attitude towards things. She never tore books or broke toys.

Dad came home from work every day, lay down on the sofa and read fairy tales to her with expression - and Nadyusha sat next to her and drew. This is how many of her drawings appeared, including the famous cycle for “The Tale of Tsar Saltan,” which experts still admire to this day. She was already an adult, at the age of 14–15, and often asked: “Dad, read to me!” All children draw, but Nadyusha did it in an unusual way. Her husband showed her drawings to colleagues and art critics. Her daughter’s very first exhibition took place in the editorial office of the Yunost magazine, when she was only 12. After school, she wanted to enter VGIK and become an animator.

They promised to take her without exams...

On March 6, 1969, on a gray, chilly morning, Natalya Doydalovna prepared breakfast, ordered her daughter to dress warmly, and ran off to work. She never saw Nadya alive again. The girl bent down to lace her shoes and suddenly fell. Nikolai Konstantinovich ran to call a doctor. The Rushevs did not have a telephone. It was not possible to save Nadya. She died from a congenital cerebral vascular defect.

– In February, my daughter suffered from the Hong Kong flu that was then spreading around Moscow. She was burning all over, could neither write nor read, and complained of a headache. I was lying at home alone - it was impossible to be late for my work even by five minutes. They called a doctor - he prescribed pills, now I don’t remember which ones. Having barely recovered, my daughter left for filming. If only I knew then how dangerous that flu was...

I learned about Nadya’s death only in the evening, when I returned home, my husband and colleagues simply did not dare to immediately talk about the tragedy. I open the door and the house is full of people... It was difficult to bear it.

Nadya was buried at the Pokrovsky cemetery, where Nikolai Konstantinovich now lies - the father outlived his daughter by only six years. And the mother never ceases to ask herself why her child was taken away by death so early. For what sins?

Nadya (Naydan) Rusheva was born in the city of Ulaanbaatar (Mongolia) into a family of Soviet theater workers sent to Mongolia to help establish the national Mongolian ballet. Her mother is the first Tuvan ballerina Natalya Doydalovna Azhikmaa-Rusheva, her father is theater artist and teacher Nikolai Konstantinovich Rushev. In Mongolia, my parents worked at an art school: my father was an artist-theater instructor and teacher, my mother was a choreographer, and also performed as a soloist in concerts.

In the summer of 1952, the family moved to Moscow.

Like many other children, Nadya began drawing at the age of five. No one taught her how to draw, and she was also not taught to read and write before school. The family did not take her drawings seriously until she was seven years old. At the age of seven, as a first-grader, she began to draw regularly, every day for no more than half an hour after school. Then, in one evening, she drew 36 illustrations for “The Tale of Tsar Saltan” by Pushkin, while her father was reading this favorite fairy tale out loud.

The first exhibition of her drawings was organized by Yunost magazine in May 1964, when Nadya was in fifth grade. After this exhibition, the first publications of her drawings appeared in issue 6 of the magazine that same year, when she was only 12 years old. In 1965, in issue No. 3 of the Yunost magazine, thirteen-year-old Nadya’s first illustrations for a work of art were published - for the story “Newton’s Apple” by E. Pashnev. Ahead were illustrations for the novels “War and Peace” by L. Tolstoy and “The Master and Margarita” by M. Bulgakov and the glory of the future book graphic artist, although the young artist herself dreamed of becoming a cartoonist.

Over the next five years of her life, fifteen personal exhibitions in Moscow, Warsaw, Leningrad, Artek. Her drawings were loved in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, and India. Many of them were inspired by Pushkin's poetry. In this regard, filming began at Lenfilm in 1969 documentary film“You, like my first love...”, dedicated to the Pushkin theme in Nadya’s work. However, the film could not be completed.

While getting ready for school on the morning of March 6, 1969, Nadya Rusheva suddenly lost consciousness and died several hours later in the hospital due to a ruptured cerebral aneurysm and subsequent cerebral hemorrhage. A congenital defect of a cerebral vessel ended her life at the age of 17. The doctors couldn't help.

Creation

Among her works are illustrations to the myths of Ancient Hellas, works of Pushkin, L.N. Tolstoy, M.A. Bulgakov. In total, the works of about 50 authors were illustrated.

Best of the day

Among Nadya’s sketches there are several that depict the ballet “Anna Karenina”. Such a ballet was actually staged after the death of the artist and main role Maya Plisetskaya played in it.

Her drawings were born without sketches, she always drew straight away, and she never used an eraser. “I see them in advance... They appear on paper like watermarks, and all I have to do is outline them with something,” said Nadya.

Nadya left behind a huge artistic legacy - about 12,000 drawings. Their exact number is impossible to calculate - a significant proportion were distributed in letters, the artist gave hundreds of sheets to friends and acquaintances, a considerable number of works on various reasons did not return from the first exhibitions. Many of her drawings are kept in the Leo Tolstoy Museum in Moscow, in the branch museum named after Nadya Rusheva in the city of Kyzyl, in the Pushkin House of the Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg, the National Cultural Foundation and the Pushkin Museum in Moscow.

There have been more than 160 exhibitions of her works in different countries: Japan, Germany, USA, India, Mongolia, Poland and many others.

"NADIA, PUSHKIN, SIRENKI and DR."

Nadya Rusheva, in my opinion, is an extraordinary phenomenon in fine arts our days.

Talking about her is joyful and bitter: joyful because, looking at Nadya’s drawings and talking about them, it is impossible not to feel on the high wave of a great holiday, not to feel good excitement; but it’s bitter because Nadya herself is no longer with us.

Nadya died at seventeen. Having lived so little in this world, she left a huge artistic legacy - ten thousand fantasy drawings.

Talent is generous, and this generosity of the soul, this desire to spend one’s spiritual wealth without looking back, to give people all of oneself without a trace, is undoubtedly one of the first signs, the original property of true talent.

But it goes without saying that we judge the power of talent not only by the amount of work done. It is important not only how many drawings are in front of us, but also what kind of drawings.

I visited the exhibitions of Nadya Rusheva, a student of an ordinary Moscow school, four times, and with each new acquaintance with her drawings, they captivated, captivated and delighted me more and more.

Nadya's drawings are a huge, diverse, rich world of images, feelings, ideas, interests. In her drawings there is the present day, and the historical past of the country, and the myths of the Hellenes, and modern Poland, and fairy tales, and the pioneers of Artek, and ancient world, and the terrible Auschwitz, and the first days of the October Revolution.

Mothers of the world - for peace.

Crying over Zoya.

The variety of interests of the artist is amazing. She cared about everything in the world. Everything concerned her.

But this breadth of artistic interests is not omnivorous. The selection apparatus, so important for an artist, operated strictly and unerringly for Nadya. What did Nadya select for herself from the almost limitless wealth of human culture?

Nadya loved the pure, highly poetic myths of the Hellenes. Many of her drawings are devoted to mythological motifs, and among them are the earliest. As an eight-year-old girl, Nadya draws “The Labors of Hercules” - a cycle of one hundred small sketches.

Already in the early children's drawings, the future artist is clearly visible, with his passions, with his universal eye and beautiful flexible line, with his unmistakable sense of selection and elegant laconicism of artistic language.

This is about the first drawings of eight-year-old Nadya. But here in front of me is the last composition of a seventeen-year-old artist. And again the theme is a wonderful Hellenic fairy tale: “Apollo and Daphne.” This small drawing, about the size of a school notebook page, is truly a masterpiece. The myth about the god of the sun, muses, and arts, Apollo, who fell in love with the beautiful nymph Daphne and was rejected by her, is one of the most poetic creations of Greek mythology.

This victory of the nymph over God, of Daphne over Apollo, was painted by Nadya at its most tragic climax. Apollo, who has already overtaken Daphne, reaches out his hands to grab his victim, but Daphne is no longer half Daphne. Laurel branches are already emerging from her living body. With amazing artistic resourcefulness, Nadya caught and selected the most complex, most dramatic moment of the myth. It depicts the very process of Daphne’s transformation. She is still a person, but at the same time she is almost a tree: she has both living human hands and laurel branches. The drawing is executed amazingly sparingly, precisely, transparently. The line is elastic, fluid, completed in the first and only movement of the pen.

Nadya’s line is always singular and final. Nadya did not use a pencil, did not use an eraser, did not shade the drawing, did not outline preliminary directions, did not carry out multiple linear variations. There is only one line, always final, and the material with which Nadya worked strictly corresponded to her amazing ability of unmistakable improvisation. Ink, pen, and felt-tip pen do not tolerate corrections and repeated attempts, and Nadya loved ink, pen, and felt-tip pen; she occasionally colored her drawings with pastels or watercolors.

Freckles. Seryozha Yesenin.

Dance of Scheherazade.

The precision of the line in Nadya’s drawings is simply amazing. This is some special, highest gift, some magical, miraculous power and property of the artist’s hand, which always correctly chooses that one direction, that one bend, that one thickness and smoothness of the line that is necessary in each specific case. The confidence and loyalty of Nadya’s hand is incomprehensible.

Ophelia.

The composition of Nadya’s works is equally resourceful, economical and every time undeniably final. Here is a small drawing of "Caligula's Feast". On a warm greenish background in front of us are three figures - a plump Caligula and a blooming woman next to him, and in front of them on the stones is a black slave with a tray laden with feast dishes and vessels of wine. How little is drawn and how much is said: these three figures and their position in the large banquet hall, only hinted at in the background, are enough to create the atmosphere of the feast.

The composition “Adam and Eve” is unusual. There are only two figures in the picture - Adam and Eve. No tabernacles of paradise, no tree with apples of the knowledge of good and evil. The only accompanying accessories are a snake in the foreground and an apple. The apple has already been picked: it is on the ground in front of the eyes of Eve, who, crouching down, greedily extended her hand to grab it. This violent gesture of a woman, eager to grasp and know the forbidden, is inimitably expressive. Adam, obscured by Eve, also crouched to the ground, seems to duplicate Eve’s rapid movement. Center of the picture: Eve, apple, Eve's gesture. I called this composition a painting, not a drawing, and this, in my opinion, is quite natural. This drawing is more than a drawing.

Unconquered.

The small means by which Nadya achieves a huge result are sometimes simply amazing. Here is a drawing entitled "Auschwitz". There are no camp barracks, no barbed wire, no crematorium ovens. Only the face - one face, emaciated, exhausted, suffering, with sunken cheeks and huge eyes terribly looking at the world... There are no details that would speak of the terrible deeds that the Nazis did in the death camp, but all this is clearly seen in the exhausted, gaunt face with huge eyes in Nadya’s drawing “Auschwitz”.

Such early maturation of the mind, feelings, hands, and talent cannot be determined or measured by ordinary measures, ordinary categories, and I understand the academician of painting V. Vatagin, who speaks of Nadya’s genius.

Nadya with animal artist V. Vatagin.

I understand Irakli Andronnikov, who, after visiting Nadya Rusheva’s exhibition, wrote: “The fact that this was created by a girl of genius becomes clear from the first drawing. They do not require proof of their primordial nature.”

The words “genius” and “primordial” are very big words, they are scary to pronounce when applied to a contemporary, and even a seventeen-year-old. But it seems to me that this is the measure by which Nadya Rusheva’s enormous talent can and should be measured.

So far I have spoken more or less in detail about four of Nadya’s drawings: “Apollo and Daphne”, “Caligula’s Feast”, “Adam and Eve”, “Auschwitz”, but, in essence, each of her drawings deserves the same and even more detailed conversation. The thematic diversity and richness of Nadya’s creativity is almost limitless. What themes, motives, life phenomena does not this hotly and greedily seeking soul turn to!

Nadya insatiably devolves books, and almost every one of them gives rise to a whirlwind of thoughts and a thirst to embody on paper visibly, in lines and colors, the material of the book she has read, its characters, its ideas and images.

She draws illustrations for K. Chukovsky and W. Shakespeare, L. Cassil and F. Rabelais, A. Gaidar and E. Hoffman, S. Marshak and D. Batsron, A. Green and C. Dickens, N. Nosov and A. Dumas, P. Ershov and M. Twain, P. Bazhov and D. Rodari, A. Blok and F. Cooper, I. Turgenev and J. Verne, B. Polevoy and M. Reed, L. Tolstoy and V. Hugo, M. Bulgakov and E. Voynich, M. Lermontov and A. Saint-Exupery.

The little prince with a rose.

Farewell to Fox.

Pushkin is Nadya’s special world, her special passion, her special love. Perhaps it all started with Pushkin. Pushkin awakened the dormant instinct of creativity in little eight-year-old Nadya Rusheva. It was then, in the year fifty-nine, that I visited Leningrad with my parents for the first time, visiting the Hermitage, the Russian Museum, last apartment poet on Moika 12, Nadya picked up a pen and a felt-tip pen. It was then that the first thirty-six drawings appeared on themes inspired by “The Tale of Tsar Saltan.”

From this apartment on the Moika, which became dear to Nadya’s heart, creativity began in Nadya; this is where it ended. Her last trip was made here ten years later.

The day after visiting the poet’s apartment, Nadya suddenly died. Three days before that, she visited the city of Pushkin near Leningrad, in the lyceum, in the room in which lyceum student Pushkin lived for six years.

Young lyceum students Pushkin and Delvig.

Nadya Rusheva's drawings bring us one step closer to Pushkin. While working on these drawings, Nadya tried to get used not only to the image of the poet himself, but also to the atmosphere that surrounded him, to Pushkin era, see, feel, feel it - imagine with your own eyes the people of that time, their environment, the things that were around them and in their hands. Setting herself up for this, Nadya made drawings of Pushkin’s cycle with a quill pen. These days she constantly tinkered with goose feathers, mended them, burned them in a candle flame, made countless cuts of the feather at different locations from the groove in order to achieve a certain flexibility of the tip of the feather, necessary for the drawing.

Dad, let's play!

In Pushkin’s cycle of Nadya, there is clearly a consonance with the style of Pushkin’s drawing - light, relaxed, elegant, as if flying. But at the same time, Nadya remains Nadya in these drawings. There is always its laconic layout, confident definiteness of lines, improvisational freedom of drawing.

Nadya first creates a series of Lyceum drawings: several portraits of Pushkin the Lyceum student and his comrades at the Lyceum. From Nadya’s pen there appear Kyukhlya, Delvig, Pushchin, genre scenes of lyceum life, friends from the lyceum visiting the sick Sasha, a revolt of lyceum students against the mischievous teacher Piletsky.

Kuchelbecker.

But little by little, artistic thirst and the desire to understand the world of the great poet in all its breadth and diversity come into force. And then, following the lyceum series, the drawings “Pushkin and Kern”, “Pushkin and Riznich”, “Pushkin and Mitskevich”, “Pushkin and Bakunin” appear, Pushkin’s farewell to his children before his death, a portrait of Natalya Nikolaevna, Natalya Nikolaevna with children at home and at walk.

The desire to expand the field of vision, to tirelessly deepen the chosen topic, which we encountered in the Pushkin cycle, is generally characteristic of Nadya.

The Master and Margarita in the developer's basement.

In her latest cycle, dedicated to M. Bulgakov’s novel “The Master and Margarita,” Nadya is the pioneer of the topic. M. Bulgakov's novel is extremely complex: it combines reality and fantasy, history and satire in one whole.

The master is waiting for Margarita.

Nadya brilliantly overcame this difficulty of uniting disparate plans. And here, getting used to the image, she endlessly repeats Margarita’s face, for which she is looking for the most vivid embodiment.

The means of embodying such diverse characters as the Master, Yeshua, Pilate, Rat Slayer, Woland and his retinue are excellently found.

Koroviev and Behemoth.

We see the same tireless search for truth and expressiveness of the image in the magnificent cycle dedicated to “War and Peace”. Trying to present us with Natasha Rostova in all her fullness of life, Nadya paints her as a teenager with a doll and a girl inspired by a dream, bathed in moonlight in front of an open window in Otradnoye, and a loving, caring mother at the child’s bedside.

Other characters in “War and Peace” are also revealed to us in Nadya’s drawings in all the diversity of their life interests, characters, destinies, aspirations, actions and emotional movements. The artist’s examination of the material of the great novel is extremely rich and multifaceted: Pierre on the field of the Battle of Borodino, his rescue of a woman and child, Kutuzov talking in Fili with a six-year-old peasant girl Malasha, the death of Platon Karataev, the death of Petya Rostov, Nikolushka Bolkonsky dreaming of exploits...

Napoleon is in retreat.

And one more, extraordinary comparison. Trying to enter into the image, to give it in all the fullness of life, Nadya tries to get as close as possible to him, as if physically. Drawing Pushkin's cycle, Nadya wanders through Pushkin's places, visits the Lyceum, and goes to the site of Pushkin's duel. He measures ten steps in the snow and, having seen with his own eyes how terrible the distance of the duelists is, exclaims with pain and indignation: “This is murder! After all, this scoundrel shot almost point-blank.” Then he goes along the Black River to Moka and there he stands for a long time in front of the portrait of the poet, among the things that surrounded him during his life, as if absorbing the very atmosphere of this life, his thoughts, dreams, deeds, his muse, the sound of his poems. While walking in the Lyceum Garden, Nadya picks up a twig from the path and suddenly begins to draw a flying profile of the young Pushkin in the snow...

The same thing happens in the process of working on other cycles, especially dear to the artist. Drawing the pages of “War and Peace,” Nadya travels with her father from Moscow to the autumn Borodino field, wanders for a long time through a huge valley, stopping and carefully looking through the places where Bagration’s flushes were, Raevsky’s battery, Shevardinsky redoubt, Kutuzov’s headquarters...

Working on the drawings for “The Master and Margarita,” Nadya goes around all the old Moscow alleys, streets, boulevards where the action of the novel was played out, where the characters of Bulgakov’s fantasy walked, suffered, argued, scandalized, and dissembled.

And now I return to the promised extraordinary comparison. What does it consist of? Nadya's father said that she did not know how to draw naturalistically, with chiaroscuro, and never copied nature. Even when taking her self-portraits, she only looked into the mirror for a short time, and then drew from memory. Her drawings were always improvisation.

So how can one combine this improvisational style with the desire to get acquainted in detail with the lives of the heroes of one’s drawings, with the places where they lived and acted, to closely examine these places, surrounding objects, and study them?

This is how someone who is strongly committed to realism usually works. But the improvising artist seems to have to do something completely different?

Nadya's drawings are improvisations. They are to some extent fantastic, fabulous, but at the same time they are inspired by concrete reality, life, a book, a fact. And Nadya is faithful to specific images, things, events. Nadya’s drawings, despite being improvisational and sometimes fantastical, are not groundless, not impersonal, and not indifferent to life. They follow life as much as they follow Nadia's creative impulse. They are fantastic and realistic at the same time. They are a fairy tale that has become reality, poetry in graphics.

Nadya draws mythical sirens. A lot of them. She loves them. But how does she love them? And what are they like for Nadya?

First of all, these are not those fierce sirens, sea divas, who in myths lure sailors-travelers into the depths of the sea with their singing in order to destroy them. You can only escape from them by covering your ears with wax so as not to hear their singing, as Odysseus did with his companions. Nadya’s sirens are affectionately called sirens, and they don’t destroy anyone. On the contrary, they are very charming, friendly, affable and, without pretending to be villains, do the most ordinary things: go to model viewings at a fashion house, serve as waiters, do a big laundry at home from time to time and, taking off their fishtails and washing They are hung in a row, like panties, on strings to dry.

These sirens are amazingly cute, and Nadya has been friends with them for a long time. She even has this drawing: “Friendship with a siren,” where an ordinary girl, perhaps Nadya herself, stands smiling in an embrace with a siren and talks peacefully to her.

Centaur with a laurel wreath.

Very domestic, sweet and centaurs, as well as centaurs and centaurs. Centaurs are as flirtatious as sirens. On all four hooves they have high, pointed, most fashionable heels. The relationship between Nadya and the centaurs, Nadya and the sirens, in my opinion, is what an artist’s relationship should be with his creations: they are completely natural, humane, and sincere. Through these relationships, the artist himself, his kind view of the world around him, is revealed very deeply and reliably.

Meeting of a Bacchus and a nymph.

And one more thing is hidden in Nadya’s images: this is the artist’s kind smile and cheerful eye, her gentle humor is soft and at the same time bold and subtle.

Minx and Spitz.

In this cheerful, playful, mischievous attitude towards the material there is something openly childish - and at the same time courageously adult, fearless. The artist does not bow down, does not servile before the myth, before the fairy tale, but simply accepts this world as artistic authenticity and is completely free and relaxed in his relations with it.

What to say?

Say what you want.

OK. I'll tell you how I got a D in math.

And she told me. The story is sweet, simple-minded, open - everything is straightforward, everything is without concealment, without embellishment. It contains all of Nadya, all of her character, all of her spiritual structure.

I watched three short films about Nadya. In them, Nadya is also as she is: without retouching or embellishment. Wandering around Leningrad... Here she is at the Winter Canal, on the Neva embankment, in the Summer Garden, a nice, sweet girl, sometimes even a girl. She looks at the wonderful city that she loved so much, in which she was for her short life four times.

IN last movie about Nadya - very short and ending with her farewell smile and the sad caption “The film could not be finished, since Nadya Rusheva died in March of the year sixty-nine...” - one gesture of Nadya is captured.

Slowly walking through the rooms of Pushkin’s apartment and peering at the relics surrounding her, Nadya, with a flying, somehow surprisingly intimate gesture, brings her hand to her face, to her cheek. This unexpected gesture is captivating; it lets the viewer know with what inner excitement, with what tremulous, hidden spiritual anxiety and joy Nadya peered at Pushkin, into his life, into his poems.

I asked Nadya’s father: did she know about her aneurysm, that her disease was fatal? Nikolai Konstantinovich answered briefly: “No. Nobody knew... In the morning, at home, getting ready for school, I lost consciousness..."

I can’t say whether it was for the best that Nadya did not suspect the death that awaited her every minute. Perhaps, if she had known, it would have deprived her drawings of that beautiful and truly great harmony that lives in them, and would have left the stamp of tragedy on them. I don’t know, I don’t know... But I know one thing - looking through Nadya’s drawings many times, I was once again and finally convinced that good wizards exist in the world, live among us...

AMAZING FACTS ABOUT THE LIFE OF THE YOUNGEST ARTIST OF THE USSR.

Older Muscovites still remember the queues at Pushkin Museum to an exhibition of graphics by a 17-year-old Moscow schoolgirl, whom the entire Union knew as the brilliant young artist Nadya Rusheva. She was the author of thousands of delightful drawings, including illustrations for “The Master and Margarita” - the best of all, according to the authoritative opinion of Bulgakov’s widow.

Nadya Rusheva was born on January 31, 1952 in Ulaanbaatar. Her father was the Soviet artist Nikolai Konstantinovich Rushev, and her mother was the first Tuvan ballerina Natalya Doydalovna Azhikmaa-Rusheva.

The first Tuvan ballerina Natalya Doydalovna Azhikmaa-Rusheva.

Nadya's parents met in August 1945. Nikolai Rushev lived in Moscow and came to Tuva on a business trip. He was always interested in the East, but from this trip he brought back not only impressions and books, but also an exotic oriental beauty. In old photographs, Natalya Doydalovna, a purebred Tuvan, looks like the Chinese women from Wong Kar-Wai's films. In the fall of 1946 they got married.

Nadya started drawing at the age of five. Nobody taught her this, she just picked up a pencil and paper and never parted with them in her life. She once drew 36 illustrations for Pushkin’s “The Tale of Tsar Saltan” while her father was reading this tale out loud. In her last television interview, Nadya said: “At first there were drawings for Pushkin’s fairy tales. Dad was reading, and I was drawing at this time - I was drawing what was in this moment I feel... Then, when I learned to read myself, I did it by “ To the Bronze Horseman", "Belkin's Tales", to "Eugene Onegin"..."

Little Nadya Rusheva with her parents.

Nadya has never used an eraser. The peculiarity of Nadya Rusheva’s style was that the girl never made sketches or used a pencil eraser. There are also practically no shadings or corrected lines in the drawings. She always drew on the first try, as if she was tracing contours on a piece of paper that were visible only to her. This is exactly how she herself described the drawing process: “I see them in advance... They appear on paper like watermarks, and all I have to do is outline them with something.”

There is not a single superfluous feature in her drawings, but in each work the artist masterfully conveys emotions - often with just a few lines.

The father decided not to send the girl to art school. Nadya almost never drew from life; she did not like it and did not know how to do it. The father was afraid to destroy the girl’s gift with drill and made the most important decision - not to teach her to draw. He believed that the main thing about Nadya’s talent was her amazing imagination, which cannot be taught.

Lyceum students-freethinkers: Kuchelbecker, Pushchin, Pushkin, Delvig. From the series “Pushkiniana”.

Nadya's first exhibition took place when she was only 12 years old. In 1963, her drawings were published in “Pionerskaya Pravda”, and a year later the first exhibitions took place - in the editorial office of the magazine “Youth” and in the “Arts Club” of Moscow State University. Over the next five years, 15 more personal exhibitions were held - in Moscow, Warsaw, Leningrad, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania and India.

Pushkin is reading. From the series “Pushkiniana”.

“Bravo, Nadya, bravo!” wrote the Italian storyteller Gianni Rodari on one of her works. In assessing her work, ordinary viewers and art critics were unanimous - pure magic. How can you, with the help of paper and pencil or even a felt-tip pen, convey the subtlest movements of the soul, the expression of the eyes, plasticity?.. There was only one explanation: the girl is a genius. “The fact that this was created by a girl of genius becomes clear from the first drawing,” wrote Irakli Luarsabovich Andronikov, discussing the “Pushkiniana” cycle.

"I don't know another similar example in the history of fine arts. Among poets and musicians there were rarely, but unusually early, creative explosions, but among artists - never. Their entire youth is spent in the studio and mastering their craft,” Alexei Sidorov, a doctor of art history, admired Nadya.

There were more than 300 drawings in the “Pushkiniana” series alone. Among Nadya Rusheva's works are illustrations to the myths of Ancient Hellas, works of Pushkin, Leo Tolstoy, Mikhail Bulgakov. In total, the girl illustrated the works of 50 authors. Nadya’s most famous drawings are a series of illustrations for the fairy tale “The Little Prince” by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, for the novel in verse “Eugene Onegin” by Pushkin and for “The Master and Margarita” by Bulgakov. The artist dedicated about 300 drawings to Pushkin, whom Nadya called “her dearest poet.” She was destined for a career as an illustrator, but she herself wanted to become an animator and was preparing to enter VGIK.

Pushkin and Anna Kern (from the “Pushkiniana” series).

Other famous cycles of Nadya Rusheva are “Self-Portraits”, “Ballet”, “War and Peace” and other works.

Resting Ballerina (1967).

Nadya's drawings were highly appreciated by the writer's widow Elena Sergeevna Bulgakova. Nadya read the semi-banned novel “The Master and Margarita” in the USSR in one sitting. The book completely captivated her. She put aside all other projects and for some time literally lived in the world created by Bulgakov. Together with their father, they walked around the places where the action of the novel took place, and the result of these walks was a stunning series of drawings, in which Nadya Rusheva emerged as a practically accomplished artist.

Incredibly, these drawings, created half a century ago, remain to this day, perhaps the most famous illustrations to Bulgakov's novel - and the most successful, in many ways prophetic. Having never seen Elena Sergeevna Bulgakova, the writer’s widow and the prototype of Margarita, Nadya gave her Margarita a resemblance to this woman - amazing insight, the quality of a genius. And the Master turned out to look like Mikhail Afanasyevich himself.

It is not surprising that Elena Sergeevna was fascinated by Nadya’s works: “How free!.. Mature!.. Poetic understatement: the more you look, the more addictive... What an amplitude of feelings!.. A girl of 16 understood everything perfectly. And not only did she understand, but she also portrayed it convincingly and superbly.”

One day in the spring, at an hour of unprecedentedly hot sunset...

Master and Margarita.

The first meeting of the Master and Margarita.

Margarita snatches the manuscript from the fire.

Poet Homeless.

Literally on the eve of her death, Nadya went to Leningrad, where a documentary was filmed about her. At the end of February 1969, the Lenfilm film studio invited the 17-year-old artist to take part in the filming of a biographical film about herself. Unfortunately, the film “You Like First Love” remained unfinished. Nadya returned home literally the day before her death.

One of the most striking episodes of the ten-minute unfinished film is those few seconds when Nadya draws Pushkin’s profile in the snow with a branch.

Nadezhda Rusheva. Self-portrait.

She died unexpectedly. On March 5, 1969, Nadya was getting ready for school as usual and suddenly lost consciousness. She was taken to the First City Hospital, where she died without regaining consciousness. It turned out that she lived with a congenital cerebral aneurysm. Back then they couldn’t treat it. Moreover, doctors said that it was a miracle to live to 17 years with such a diagnosis.

No one knew that Nadya had an aneurysm - she never complained about her health and was a cheerful and happy child. Death occurred from a cerebral hemorrhage.

“The merciless cruelty of fate snatched from life the newly blossoming talent of the brilliant Moscow girl Nadya Rusheva. Yes, a genius - now there is nothing to fear from premature assessment,” from the posthumous article of Academician V.A. Vatagin in the magazine “Youth”.

Nadya left behind a huge artistic legacy - about 12,000 drawings. Their exact number is impossible to calculate - a significant proportion were distributed in letters, the artist gave hundreds of sheets to friends and acquaintances, a considerable number of works for various reasons did not return from the first exhibitions. Many of her drawings are kept in the Leo Tolstoy Museum in Moscow, in the branch museum named after Nadya Rusheva in the city of Kyzyl, in the Pushkin House of the Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg, the National Cultural Foundation and the State A.S. Pushkin Museum in Moscow.

Journalist and writer Dmitry Shevarov, in his article about Nadya Rusheva, says that the work of the Soviet artist turned out to be extremely close to Japanese classical aesthetics.

“The Japanese still remember Nadya and publish her drawings on postcards,” Shevarov wrote. - When they come to us, they are surprised that there is no Rushevsky in Russia museum center, that Nadya’s works are in storage rooms, and our youth, for the most part, have not heard anything about Rusheva. “This is your Mozart in fine art!” - the Japanese say and shrug their shoulders in bewilderment: they say, how rich in talents these Russians are that they can afford to forget even about their geniuses.”

But how? Where? Why, instead of jump ropes and classics, there are books, biographies and hours of painstaking work without rest or break. A job that no one forced her to do. And why ancient Hellas, Pushkin’s biography and Byron’s “Bride of Abydos” interested a 12-year-old child more than games and chatting with friends? Alas, no one will answer these questions anymore. The girl seemed to be in a hurry to fulfill a mission known only to her and, having completed it, passed away.

Nadya Rusheva died on March 6, 1969 in the hospital due to the rupture of a congenital aneurysm of a cerebral vessel and subsequent cerebral hemorrhage and was buried at the Pokrovskoye cemetery in Moscow.

A television program from the series “Secret Signs” was filmed about Nadya Rusheva in 2008.

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There have been more than 160 exhibitions of her works in Japan, Germany, the USA, India, Mongolia, Poland and many other countries.

Author - A-delina. This is a quote from this post

Nadya Rusheva. Ariadne's thread from the tip of a pen...


“...If you want them to smolder a little, burn yourself to the ground.”
Nadya Rusheva

Nadezhda (Nadya) Nikolaevna Rusheva (birth name: Naidan, January 31, 1952, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia - March 6, 1969, Moscow) - graphic artist, author of many beautiful drawings - including for the novel “The Master and Margarita”, according to Bulgakov’s widow, the best illustrations for this work...

Nadezhda Rusheva was born in the city of Ulaanbaatar into a family Soviet artist Nikolai Konstantinovich Rushev. Her mother is the first Tuvan ballerina Natalya Doydalovna Azhikmaa-
Rusheva.

Nadya's parents met in Tuva in August 1945, where Muscovite Nikolai Rushev, a theater artist, was sent on a business trip. The young man was attracted to the East - from this trip he brought not only impressions, but also his wife - a ballerina, a girl of exotic beauty (in old photographs Natalya Doydalovna, a purebred Tuvan, looks like Chinese women from Wong Kar-Wai's films.). At that time - a rare union. In the fall of 1946, the wedding took place.

In 1950, the young family was assigned to the Mongolian People's Republic, to the Ulaanbaatar Opera and Ballet Theater, where Nikolai Rushev was a theater artist, and Natalya Azhikmaa was a teacher-choreographer. A long-awaited event took place there: on January 31, 1952, daughter Nadezhda was born. A local sage gave her the prophetic name Naidan, which means “Eternally Living” in Mongolian.

In the summer of 1952, the Rushevs moved to Moscow. Natalya Doydalovna left ballet and devoted herself entirely to her family and raising her daughter. Nikolai Konstantinovich began working at Central Television in the editorial office theatrical productions an artist. The meaning of his life was raising his daughter. Nikolai Konstantinovich doted on Nadya: he read to her a lot, shared his extensive knowledge, and knew how to tell stories in such a way that his daughter’s imagination developed uncontrollably and vividly. He was aware of her literary, artistic, and musical preferences and, of course, tried to introduce the girl to the best representatives world culture.

For half a century now, Natalya Rusheva has been asked how she managed to raise a child prodigy. And in all these years she never gave a ready-made recipe. Simply because he doesn't exist. The Rushevs raised their only daughter without going to extremes. Nadya was not an introverted and reserved prodigy. On the contrary, I was drawn to people, new faces. She moved beautifully - she famously danced the Charleston, enjoyed skiing and skating. She could have become a ballerina, like her mother - she had grace and a high, “ballet-like” lift of her feet. But Natalya Doydalovna did not want such a fate for her daughter: “Standing in the crowd is nothing to do, and being the first is very difficult.”

Nadya started drawing at the age of three, and no one taught her how to draw, and she was also not taught to read and write before school." Nadya learned to read only at school, at seven and a half. They didn’t teach it at home, they decided, let’s teach her early - her daughter will be bored in class. We never put pressure on her. Is it possible to force a child, because he will do everything the other way around! - recalls Natalya Doydalovna. She started drawing, like all children, as soon as she learned to hold a pencil, her husband designs a book and hangs it on the wall. , to get a better look, and Nadya will come up and stick hers next to her. What always surprised me about her was her unchildish attitude towards things. She never tore books or broke toys.”

At the age of seven, as a first-grader, she began to draw regularly, every day for no more than half an hour after school. Then, in one evening, she drew 36 illustrations for “The Tale of Tsar Saltan” by Pushkin, while her father was reading this favorite fairy tale out loud. Having discovered artistic talent in Nadya, her father did not succumb to the temptation to teach her to draw professionally, and did not send her daughter to art school (the girl studied only in the studio of the Palace of Pioneers on weekends with teacher Lyudmila Alekseevna Magnitskaya). He allowed his daughter’s talent to develop freely, independently. Later, when Nadya had already developed in many ways as an artist, it even happened that he asked her for advice when something didn’t work out in the working sketches.

Drawing. It was, as it were, her own language - mysterious, impetuous, light. Like breathing. She herself was light, lively, cheerful, loved dancing, laughter, jokes, harmless mischief. But she always became quiet and frozen over the drawing. Over the drawing, she seemed to be immersed in another world, unknown to the others. She dominated the drawing. She lived in it. She herself said more than once: “I live the life of those I draw..” What did she draw with? Colored crayons, pencil.

At the age of six or seven, the girl became friends with a quill pen, with which everyone in the first grade diligently drew sticks and hooks. Artists usually don’t draw with it - the tool is too fragile, and corrections are excluded... Nadya loved to draw with both a felt-tip pen and pencils, for her it was equally easy; she said that she only traced the suddenly emerging contours of a face and figure on sheets of paper , contours and plots. She studied at 653 - her Moscow school, loved skiing and playing with dolls.

In May 1964, the first exhibition of her drawings was organized by the magazine “Youth” (Nadya was in fifth grade). After this exhibition, the first publications of her drawings appeared in issue 6 of the magazine that same year, when she was only 12 years old. Moscow journalist V. Ponomarev (Izvestia) wrote on April 17, 1964 in his kind and slightly ironic note: “Bravo, Nadya, bravo!” - These words were written on one of the artist’s drawings by the Italian poet and storyteller Gianni Rodari. The artist is very interested The names of the sections of the exhibition speak volumes about this: “Russian Ballet”, “The World of Animals”, “Space and Science”, “Fairy Tales and Fantasies”, “Fashions Yesterday and Today”, “Greeks and Slaves”, “The World of Children”, “ Strength and grace."

Over the next five years of her life, fifteen personal exhibitions took place in Moscow, Warsaw, Leningrad, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, and India. In 1965, in issue No. 3 of the Yunost magazine, thirteen-year-old Nadya’s first illustrations for a work of art were published - for the story “Newton’s Apple” by Eduard Pashnev. Ahead were illustrations for the novels “War and Peace” by Leo Tolstoy and “The Master and Margarita” by Mikhail Bulgakov and the glory of the future book graphic artist, although the young artist herself dreamed of becoming a cartoonist. In 1967, she was in Artek, where she met Oleg Safaraliev.

Fame, glory, recognition came. True, due to Nadya’s age, they paid her almost no fees - it was not customary in those days to pay money to a child. Everything went into the pockets of superior exhibition organizers, adult uncles and aunties, into unknown unions and committees. (Only once, with the meagerly paid part of some fee, Nadya’s parents were able to buy her a demi-season children’s coat.) However, no one asked about money; this was also not accepted in the then “super-prosperous” Soviet society. But here's an interesting and touching touch. In many of her drawings, Nadya Rusheva depicted herself in jeans. In fact, she didn’t have them - a family with modest incomes could not afford to buy a daughter, even if she was the “most to the best girl in the Union" (as the newspapers wrote) very fashion item. And Nadya allowed herself to occasionally dream about her - at least in drawings!

Self-portraits.

Fame was hot on Nadyusha's heels. They recognized her on the streets, interviewed her, questioned her, asked her about Inspiration, compared her to “Mozart in painting.” But Nadya remained just as ordinary. A calm, cheerful, friendly, completely “non-star” girl. For a very long time, Rusheva’s classmates did not suspect that there was something special hidden in her... Well, just think - she designed a wall newspaper, you never know who draws well! For children, such ignorance, not seeing Talent, is quite forgivable. And adults...Adults, in their daily, harsh bustle, also did not always discover that magical, instantaneous, inexplicable thing that was inaudibly present in her Gift and why it took their breath away and bewitched them at times.

Nadya loved to draw and could not imagine life without drawing. . When she enthusiastically created her series of drawings on various topics, she read and studied a lot, besides this she loved trips and trips, even small ones: by bus to a park, square, to the river, to the forest... She was not attracted to empty pastimes, but in the first place for her there were always some complex spiritual interests and experiences: new songs by Vladimir Vysotsky, poems by Yevtushenko, a trip to the Pushkin Museum, tickets to a ballet performance, a book about ancient art. She could argue with anyone of any age about what she considered important and necessary for a correct understanding of something: a phenomenon, thing, art, action... In history, she remained an adult child. Just like her favorite character, the Little Prince.

Nadya died very early - at 17. The day before, the girl returned from St. Petersburg, where she was filming a documentary about Pushkin. Everything happened stunningly, frighteningly quickly! This is how Nadya’s mother, Natalya Doydalovna Azhikmaa - Rusheva, spoke about the tragedy of March 6, 1969: “On March 5, 1969, my daughter and father arrived from Leningrad. They went for several days to film a documentary about Nadya. My daughter arrived cheerful, talking about her impressions. The next morning I got ready for work, and Nadyusha prepared an entrecote and scrambled eggs for the girl, she drank a glass of coffee. Her daughter was animated and joyful. She held a burning red candle in her hand, with white wax flowing down it. , look how beautiful it is!” I left, and a few minutes later she lost consciousness. Nikolai Konstantinovich sensed something was wrong in the next room. He ran to the hospital in his slippers. Finally they arrived and took my girl to the hospital in an ambulance. A few hours later, she died without regaining consciousness. She had a congenital defect in one of the blood vessels in her brain. Now it can be operated on. Then Nadyusha died from the hemorrhage.

Nadya died on March 6th. And the next day the boys decided to congratulate their classmates on March 8th. All the girls were given some toys on their desks. But Nadya didn’t come. The class was shocked by the news of her death. It happens that someone in the class is loved. And they loved her... And shortly before that, she was walking with a friend along the street and noticed a funeral procession. Sad music... And she said: well, how about it? And it’s so hard - a person died, and then suddenly this music. More more people finishing off. So, she says, if I die, I would like to be buried in an Artek uniform (her favorite uniform) and for the Beatles to play. And, by the way, it was so...” She went off to the music of the Beatles and left us with the lightness of the pen, the airiness of the drawing.

That candle, with frozen wax tears, still stands on the artist’s desk. Only now, from scarlet, it turned pale yellow. Over time, everything loses color - the drawings made with felt-tip pens fade, no matter how hard Natalya Doydalovna hides them from the light, the pages of the books that her daughter leafed through turn yellow - only the memories do not fade.

Nadya was buried at the Intercession Cemetery. A monument was erected at her grave, where her drawing “Centaur” was reproduced. Nikolai Konstantinovich now lies there - the father outlived his daughter by only six years.

As cynical as it may be, her early death only fueled the public’s interest in the young artist. There were hours-long queues for her exhibition at the Pushkin Museum. Art critics spoke with aspiration about Rusheva’s graphics. Exhibitions were held in more than two hundred cities - not only in the Union, but also in the USA and Japan. Bulgakov’s widow, Elena Sergeevna, who met the Rushevs after the tragedy, claimed that Nadina’s illustrations for “The Master and Margarita” were the best, and that the artist’s gift was on the verge of clairvoyance.

Her Master's ring is an exact copy of the ring that Bulgakov himself wore, while Margarita is the spitting image of the writer's widow... Elena Sergeevna was going to help publish the novel with Nadya's illustrations, but did not have time - shortly after meeting the parents of the artist Bulgakova died. The 15-year-old girl’s drawings on the theme of the cult novel still look fresh and exciting – it’s even strange that “The Masters” with Rusheva’s illustrations were never really published (except for the Barnaul edition of the early 90s, the printing quality of which left much to be desired).

The artist's graphics were rarely printed in the USSR due to poor printing - this was done in Japan and Germany. They are in no hurry to release albums even now, although technical capabilities have improved. “If I were rich, I would at least publish a calendar,” laments Natalya Doydalovna. The parents earned sheer tears from their daughter’s drawings: in 1976, the only album “Graphics by Nadya Rusheva” was released, father and mother were paid 990 rubles for it. But Natalya Doydalovna doesn’t even think about money: “When they make an exhibition, it’s an honor for us. In 1980, Nadina had an exhibition in Japan. The organizers printed drawings from Pushkiniana and gave me several copies.” Now the gift in a beautiful gilded frame decorates Natalya Doydalovna’s living room.

In 1994, Natalya Doydalovna handed over State Museum A.S. Pushkin has a significant share of Nadya Rusheva’s legacy. In October 2006 in high school In the village of Seserlig, Piy-Khem kozhuun of Tuva, a museum named after N.D. Azhikmaa-Rusheva was opened.

Childish handwriting children's drawing.
The flight of a feather is like the flapping of a wing.
Singing lines, thin strings
They ring, falling from the tip of the pen.

Waltzes freely on the parquet floor
Leaf hand.
Gift given to the soul by God
Foresee.
Silhouettes appear
Through the dense white Whatman paper fog.

And outlines wonderful moment
Rising from the ashes, proclaiming again,
That the deity and inspiration are alive...
And life, and tears, and love are eternal...

To us through the fog of disbelief and doubt,
From the hiding places of the immortal yesterday,
Lasts forever young genius
Ariadne's thread from the tip of a pen.