# Vasily Chapayev

Vasily Ivanovich Chapayev (Russian: Василий Иванович Чапаев; 9 February [O.S. 28 January] 1887 – 5 September 1919) was a Russian soldier and Red Army commander during the Russian Civil War.

## Biography

Chapayev was born into a poor peasant family in a village called Budayka [ru], now part of Cheboksary. During World War I, he fought as a non-commissioned officer and was awarded the Cross of St. George three times.
In September 1917, he joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviks). In December he was elected commander of the 138 Infantry Regiment by a vote of the regiment's soldiers. He later commanded the 2nd Nikolaev Division and the 25th Rifle Division.

### Death

On 5 September 1919, the divisional headquarters near Lbishchensk (renamed Chapayev in his honour) were ambushed by White Army forces (Lbishchensk raid [ru]). The circumstances of Chapayev's death are uncertain and his body was never recovered. The canonical version that the wounded Chapayev drowned when trying to cross the Ural River was particularly popularized by the 1934 Chapayev (which was approved by Stalin himself and quickly gained the cult status not only in the Soviet Union, but among Russian emigrants as well).
Several other versions have been in circulation. In 1926, the newspapers Pravda, Izvestia and Krasnaya Zvezda reported on the arrest of the former Cossack officer Trofimov-Mirsky, who allegedly shot Chapaev after capturing him during a raid on Lbishensk. Chapaev's daughter Clavdiya and his great-granddaughter Yevgeniya wrote about the betrayal of the commander and the organization of his death by Leon Trotsky, as well as about the participation in the conspiracy of Pelageya Kameshkertseva. None of the "non-canonical" versions received documentary evidence.

## Private life

In 1908 Chapayev became acquainted with Pelageya Metelina, who was 18. Although his father didn't approve of their relations, Chapayev married her. They lived together for 6 years, and had three children, one of whom was Klavdiya Chapayeva. Though there was no official divorce, in 1917 Chapayev started living with the widow of his deceased fellow-soldier Pyotr Kishkertsev. Curiously enough, her name was also Pelageya. Chapayev adopted both of her children. Currently the only relative that remains is his great-great-granddaughter Vasilisa Chapayeva, with her parents Yevgenia Chapayeva and Viktor Pecherin.

## Legacy

Memorial museums of Chapaev were opened in Cheboksary near the place of his birth; in the city of Pugachev (former Nikolaevsk), with a branch in the city of Balakovo, where he spent his childhood and youth. Museums have also been opened in the buildings where the headquarters of the 25th Infantry Division was located during the Civil War: in the village of Krasny Yar in the Ufimsky district of the Republic of Bashkortostan, in the town of Belebey of the Republic of Bashkortostan, in the city of Uralsk and in the village of Lbischenskaya (now the town of Chapaev) at the site of the last battle division chief. In the Soviet years, museums dedicated to Chapaev and the combat path of the 25th division existed in many schools.
Dozens of settlements in the Samara (Chapayevsk), Saratov, Orenburg regions and other regions of Russia are named after Chapaev, Lbishensk in modern Kazakhstan was also renamed in his honor during the Soviet era, Chapaev streets exist in hundreds of settlements on the territory of the former USSR, the Chapaevka River was named after him. In 1937, the Kiev cinema "Lira" on Bolshaya Zhitomirskaya Street, 40 was renamed the "Chapaev cinema".
Monuments to Chapaev were erected in the cities of Samara (1932), in St. Petersburg (1933), in Pugachev (1957), in Cheboksary (1960) (earlier since the 1930s it was located on the territory of VDNKh in Moscow), in the village of Chapaev - a stele at the site of the alleged death and a monument on the central square (1979), in Uralsk (1982), as well as in dozens of other cities and towns of the former Soviet Union. In 1973, for the museum in Uralsk, Efim Deshalyt painted the diorama "The Last Battle of Chapaev", in 1976 for the museum in Chapaev - the diorama "Fight of the Chapaevs in the village of Lbischenskaya" by artists Veniamin Sibirsky and Evgeny Danilevsky.

## In Russian culture

After the Soviet Union had been established, Chapayev was immortalized by Soviet propaganda as a hero of the Russian Civil War. In 1923, a Russian writer, Dmitriy Furmanov, who served as a commissar in Chapayev's division wrote a popular novel entitled Chapaev. Later, in 1934, it was made into a film Chapayev by the Vasilyev brothers. The movie became highly popular in the Soviet Union. The German actor and singer Ernst Busch also recorded the song Tschapajews Tod, which talks about his death in the Ural.
More recently, he became one of the central characters in the novel Chapayev and Void by modern Russian writer Viktor Pelevin.
In November 1998, Red Comrades Save the Galaxy, a point-and-click graphic adventure game was developed by S.K.I.F. and published by Buka Entertainment (now 1C Company). The game's protagonist Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev, is inspired by Chapayev.
Chapayev, along with his aide Petka, commissar Furmanov, and Anka the Mashine-gunner, became a recurring character in popular Russian jokes.