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“The life in which there is Bach is blessed”

Vera Lothar-Shevchenko

In the camp, the prisoners cut a piano keyboard for her on the plank beds with a kitchen knife. At night, she played this so-cold instrument, that couldn’t make a sound, Bach’s, Beethoven’s, Chopin’s compositions. Her fingers, twisted by her work on the felling, ran along the fake keyboard, and the women from the barracks admitted that they heard the sounds of music, watching the hands and face of the performer.

The daughter of a French man and Spanish woman, who are teachers at the Sorbonne University of Paris, Vera Lothar studied in Paris from Alfred Corto, then she studied at the Vienna Academy of music. At the age of 12 she made her debut with the orchestra under the direction of the great Arturo Toscanini.

Being already a well-known pianist, who gave solo concerts in many countries of the world, she got married to the Soviet acoustic engineer Vladimir Shevchenko, the famous Creator of stringed instruments. In 1937, Vera Lothar-Shevchenko came to the USSR with her husband and his two children from his first marriage. In 1941 before the war, Vladimir Shevchenko was arrested. Vera rushed to the NKVD (People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs) and started to shout, using Russian and French words at the same time, that her husband is a wonderful honest man, a patriot, and why don’t they understand it? She was indignant, saying that they are fools, idiots, Nazis, and that they must take her as well… They took. So, Vera Lothar-Shevchenko will fell trees for thirteen years. In the camp Vera know about the death of her husband and two children in the Nazi siege of Leningrad.

Thirteen years later, Vera Lothar got out of that camp in Nizhny Tagil. She was 53 years old. Straight from the station wearing camp’s padded jacket, she was running to the music school on the last leg in the late evening. She knocked on the door wildly, begging for permission to come to the piano “to make a concert”. She was afraid she would never be able to play again.

She was allowed. The teachers cried uncontrollably near the closed door, not daring to come in. It was clear where she ran in padded jacket. She was playing almost all night. After she fell asleep at the instrument. Then, laughing Vera said, “I woke up and became already a teacher of that school”. On the first salary, she rented a baby grand piano. On the second, she made a concert floor-length dress. A few years later she really started to give a concerts. Her relatives called her back home, but she refused, explaining that it would be a betrayal of those Russian women, who supported her in the most difficult years in Stalin’s camps.

Vera Lothar – Shevchenko gave concerts in Tagil, in Barnaul. It was written about her in “Komsomolskaya Pravda” newspaper and Vera’s popularity grew. Academician Lavrentiev, the head of the Siberian Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences, offered Vera to live and work in an academic city in Novosibirsk. She became a soloist of the Novosibirsk State Philharmonic, and at the end of her life she gave concerts even in Moscow and Leningrad. The last sixteen years of her life, Vera Lothar-Shevchenko lived in an academic city near Novosibirsk.

She will not only became after the camp as a musician, but she will also start active touring. At her concerts, the front-row tickets couldn’t be sold because they were for those, who she shared the terrible camp years with. If you come – it means you are alive. Vera’s fingers, until the end of life, were red, gnarled, bent, mutilated by arthritis. In addition, they were broken and accreted incorrectly because a senior investigator, captain Altukhov broke them during interrogations (“slowly, enjoying each hit with the handle of a pistol”). That last name she remembered the whole her life, and never forgave him. Vera Lotar-Shevchenko died in 1982 in an academic city in Novosibirsk. She was 81 years old. Her own phrase is engraved on her grave: “The Life in which there is Bach is blessed.”

This strong woman had an amazing magical effect on people. Once, when she lived in Nizhny Tagil, she used the saved money to buy a doodle coat and returned home late night. On the street, a crowd of criminals surrounded her. They tried to take the coat. Vera looked one of them into the eyes and said: “This is my first clothes after the Gulag. After these words, they release her and promised nobody will touch her anymore in this city.

The life of Vera Lothar-Shevchenko is a vivid example of courage and devotion to her art. Since 2005, the international competition of pianists named after Lothar-Shevchenko has been held in Novosibirsk.

After the camps, this heroic woman recovered and in her 53 years old started to live anew, making her life, next to the great music, truly blessed.

It is a pity that I knew about this woman quite recently, when I am 53 years old. I didn’t know she lived near me, and I could go to one of her concerts, see and hear a living legend.

You know, in the bustle of life, we do not notice and see that there are so many talented and brilliant people around us. Sometimes the man does not know anything about himself, he does not assume that he has a lot of abilities. Because he lives by those principles and conventions imposed on him by society. The person is afraid to retreat, and has such thoughts as “What will they think about me?” and “How will they react and will they? The dreams come true of only those people who live in according their own rules, desires and goals, and their lives are full of meaning and joy.

Once I was visiting my classmate, we were already 100 years old for two of us. Over a Cup of tea, Irina told me that she would like to do music and learn to play the piano. I thought it was not serious, just words, a ghostly dream. After all, I understood that Irina had no musical education at all, she did not go even to a music school, and suddenly at the age of 50 there was a desire to learn to play the piano. This idea seemed to me absolutely unreal. I, as no one else understood, to learn to play the piano well, a person needs to learn a lot. Because I graduated from a music school, and then a music school in the piano class. I understood that learning takes years of daily work. Therefore, the words of my friend, I did not accept seriously, even laughed over her idea. I thought that she was joking. As it turned out later, my classmate was not joking.

About a year later I was visited Irina again. I saw an old German piano in the hall, on which the notes laid. Ira asked me to play something. I have not played music for many years, so I wanted to try the instrument and remember my youth. I sat down at the piano and began to play long-forgotten works, then played the notes. Ira, standing next to me, admired, praised me, and then said: “Do you want to listen to my play?” I agreed, but thought that she will play something with one finger. I thought, she really bought an instrument. However, I was shocked when the divine music of Beethoven-“moonlight Sonata” began to sound, and Ira played it with both hands from memory. Then, in a conversation over a cup of tea, I learned that she is studying at a music College successfully, going to classes on a par with young girls and boys who are 16—20 years old. My friend was not not embarrassing at all, because she had a goal to learn to play the piano.

So dear readers, a passionate desire leads to the realization of a dream. The main thing is a monumental desire. In General, my classmate is a very talented person. She paints beautifully. Her paintings are admirable. Irina learned to draw at an art school when she was a schoolchild. In adulthood, she began to write poetry. She released a collection of poems. This collection of poems is keeping at my home, courtesy of Irina. I cherish them very much. It is called “On a subtle rise” by author Irina Nayada. I recommend reading to those who love poetry.