Biography Leontovich

Short stories are an extraordinary story: who killed the author of the most famous carol of music Nikolai Leontovich is known thanks to the processing of the folk song “Shchedrik”. When they added the English version of the text, the world received the Christmas hit - Carol of the Bells. The melody is exalted, but not that was the fate of the author. The newspaper Vesti reported about his death on March 2.

In fact, the murder occurred on January 23. According to the official Soviet version, the composer became a random victim of an unknown robber. True, she surfaced only in X, when the archives of the Soviet special services were declassified and found the notes of Leontovich's friends. The name of the killer was named, but it is impossible to establish the motive now.

Nikolai Leontovich was born in the year in Podolia, in the modern Vinnitsa region. In search of work I went to the Donbass. After he got to Kyiv, but the poverty of the Civil War made me return closer to the family. In the fall, he on foot overcomes kilometers to Tulchin. At home, the composer teaches at a church school, leads an amateur choir, writes the opera "For Rusal Easter." With money - a full ass.

On the winter holidays-Daughter Galina refers to her father-priest in the village of Markovka. There should be lard, butter, flour. In January, he goes by himself. Leontovich dressed in an old coat, a hat made of old blankets, homemade mittens and gray-black pants with large purple frauds. Father comes to the evening of January 21. The next evening, a cart drives up to the house.

Fedor Grabchak from a neighboring village controls the horses, with him a passenger is an unknown young man. An intelligent face, a decent coat, on the head a light cap is not according to the weather. It seems to Athanasius Grishchenko, authorized by the Cheka to combat banditry in the villages and is asked to spend the night. Family and guests have dinner together and go to bed.

The house of Dmitry’s father is small - for two rooms. In one he lies with his granddaughter and daughter, in the other - Leontovich and the guest. So that Grishchenko does not freeze, his father covers him with his fur coat. At dawn, the family wakes up from a loud sound. Father runs into the next room. Nikolai Leontovich half -sides on the bed, blood flows from the right side.

On the contrary - Grishchenko with a rifle. The shooter orders Grabchak to tie his hands with towels to his sister and daughter. The priest must show where the gold is. There is no gold. Grishchenko takes a fur coat, linen, spoons, Leontovich, shoes. The composer has to be buried barefoot. Source: Museum of Nikolai Leontovich in the declassified report of the head of the Gaisinsky district police, it says: “On the night of January, the agent of the Uzdchek Grishchenko killed the son of a priest with a rifle with a rifle.

Markovka, Kubichsky volost of Nikolai Leontovich x years, whose Grishchenko spent the night, and Grishchenko, who was hiding in the metro station, when pursuing him with the officials of the police, wounded the policeman Tverdokhloba with a shot from a rifle. " The Chekist acted on his own initiative or by order, is unknown. The archives have data on the payment of his rubles “for secret expenses”.

If Grishchenko really, as he said, was traveling from Kiblich to a greenhouse through Karabelovka, then Markovka was not on the way.

What happened to Grishchenko is definitely not known. According to unconfirmed information, subsequently, a neighbor Leontovich allegedly cut off the killer with a shovel. In the year, an American of Ukrainian descent Peter Vilkhovsky created the English version of the text. Today, only one of the hundreds, the most popular performance of Carol of the Bells gained YouTube more than millions of views.