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КАТАЛОГ. Фамильные фотографии
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This part of the ‘Khlebnikov Collection’ has
some special meaning: before its appearance, the
high readership knew only the photos of the poet,
his parents and his sister Vera. The Collection
opened a much wider opportunity for getting
acquainted with the ‘family photography’: there
are a photo of the poet’s grandfather – A. Khlebni-
kov, grandmother – M. Verbitskaya, sister Yeka-
terina, brother Aleksandr, cousin Boris, other
cousins, uncles and aunts in it. Later on, their pho-
tographs were included in the “Family Tree” in the
Museum exhibit.
I remember his face, so austere and shaved,
Of the rook flocks shepherd…
V. Khlebnikov "Khadji-Tarhan"
Velimir remembered the face of his grand-
father Aleksandr Ivanovich by the family photo
only from which not austere but rather tired
face of an aged person looks at us. Having
felt some distress, the grandfather sold out his
wind-driven schooners (“rook flocks”) and went
for worship to Jerusalem. He died right there
and was buried in the Khlebnikov family chapel in
Astrakhan.
The pride of the poet’s father (natural scien-
tist V. Khlebnikov) was his junior son Aleksandr.
There are three photos of him in the Collection.
He was not only an ornithologist, but also an
ichthyologist, and he became a military inventor
during World War I. He was reported missing in
action at the Polish front in 1920.
Now, two photographs of Yekaterina Khlebni-
kova, the poet’s senior sister, have got known to
us. She was a dentist and practiced in the parents’
house. But her private practice then was prohibi-
ted by the ordinance of the Soviet power and all
her expensive tools were expropriated “in profit of
state”. Having been left destitute and her labor of
love, she died of the shock (1924) in the forty se-
cond year of life.
The fate of the poet’s paternal line cousin
Yekaterina Khlebnikova (there are three photos of
her in the Collection) was also a tragedy. She left
a high school, was a sister of mercy, worked in the
cholera barracks… But her nephew, retreating out-
side Russia with the units of Ataman Semenov, sent
her a letter from Harbin. Yekaterina was interro-
gated by the NKVD and in 1941 – transported to
Kazakhstan for five years, where she went suffer
many hardships. After coming back to Astrakhan,
he worked at a night school as a teacher of Ger-
man… It was her parents’ former house, so every
time she walked through the corridors, she recog-
nized the father’s workroom, the dining room, the
children’s room… Sometimes, life gives us so se-
vere but, at the same time, so desired rendezvous
with our past.
In this family photograph, there is a young
handsome wearing his uniform and sword. This is
Boris Khlebnikov, the poet’s cousin and a student
of the Imperial Kazan University, from which he
was soon graduated “with the degree of doctor”.
At the time of war, B. Khlebnikov was called to the
colors twice: at the Russo-Japanese War he saw ser-
vice in the Far East and during World War I was
captured by the Germans. After the war, he practi-
ced in-home in Astrakhan. There are four photos
of him in the Museum funds.
The work on the further family album identifi-
cation is still far from being complete.