Engelsina Markizova

Engelsina "Gelya" Sergeyevna Markizova (, born Engelsina Ardanovna Markizova, later Cheshkova, ; 16 November 1928 – 11 May 2004) was a Soviet Russian historian, orientalist, specialist in Southeast Asia, and candidate of historical sciences. She achieved fame as a child after being depicted in a photo embracing the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, an image which became one of the most enduring propaganda symbols of the Stalin era, when it was widespread in schools, pioneer's camps and children's institutions.

Later in life, Markizova became an Orientalist scholar, specializing in China and India, married twice and had three children. She learned, like the rest of Russia, the extent of Stalin's bloody rule after his death.

Early life Gelya was born in 1928 to a Russian Civil War veteran, Buryat-Mongolian Soviet, party and government figure (1898-1938) and Dominika Fedorovna Markizova. The family lived in Verkhneudinsk (now named Ulan-Ude) in a house on Stalin Street. Since 1936, her father had been the People's Commissar for Agriculture of the Buryat-Mongol Autonomous Province and the second secretary of the Buryat-Mongolian Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks). Her mother was the daughter of a Transbaikal Cossack, Fyodor Pushkarev, who received a gold watch as a gift from Russian Emperor Nicholas II when he traveled through Siberia in 1896. Engelsina had an older brother, Vladlen (1926-1998), who was born in the village of Barguzin.

Gelya was named after the communist theorist Friedrich Engels, and her brother Vladlen was named after Vladimir Lenin. The Ardanovs' large house had a large library,

Meeting with Stalin In January 1936 (at 7 years old), she was pictured in a photo with Joseph Stalin which was later used for propaganda purposes after she found Stalin at a Kremlin state ceremony and presented him with a bouquet of flowers reportedly saying "These flowers are for Comrade Stalin from the children of the Buryat-Mongol Republic". Stalin then picked her up in a hug as cameras all around snapped up the now iconic image The photo was published on the front page of Izvestia on 1 May and then on 26 June in Pravda, or suicide. Now an orphan, Markizova lived with relatives in Moscow. At this point, rather than removing or altering her photos, Soviet propagandists decided that it was easier to deliberately misattribute the identity of the girl depicted in them than remove all the photos, sculptures and mosaics. Therefore, the girl in the picture would be thereon officially identified as Mamlakat Nakhangova, a Tajik girl who had earned the Order of Lenin by working as a cotton picker. The images began to slowly disappear post-1953, with the rise of de-Stalinization. According to publicist Sergei Tsyrkun, Markizova "ended up in a special NKVD detention center for children of enemies of the people".

According to Markizova's daughter Lola Komarova, of the USSR “in some minor position, like a quartermaster” and quit “for the sake of Gelya”. and a new patronymic (Sergeevna). Engelsina herself recalled: “After my mother’s death, my life was completely invisible. I was completely excommunicated from this portrait. No one needed to be told that it was me. Because no one would have believed it. I practically forgot about this episode and lived like an ordinary Soviet person…”.

Soon, Markizova moved to Yoshkar-Ola, where her cousin Geta (Tserima) lived. At that time, the Yoshkar-Ola stadium Spartak was decorated with a huge poster depicting Gelya and Stalin. In Yoshkar-Ola, Markizova was part of a group of young people, among whom was Yuri Nikolaevich Bashnin, who later became an associate professor in the literature department of the Karelian Pedagogical Institute and a candidate of philological sciences. Yuri Bashnin recalled: “I met Gela in 1947 at the Mari State Pedagogical Institute, where we entered almost simultaneously, only in different faculties. My friend Vitaly, Engelsina, her cousin Geta (Tserima), and several other guys and girls formed a wonderful group, where warm and trusting relationships were established.” Bashnin’s friend, Vitaly Bondarevsky (later a historian), was in love with Engelsina, but she refused his proposal. Later, she also taught Russian at the university, worked at the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Institute of Oriental Studies of the USSR Academy of Sciences, and the V. I. Lenin Library.

Soon, Markizova married Erik Naumovich Komarov (1927-2013), an orientalist and Indologist who held the position of Soviet cultural attaché in India in 1959-1961. Markizova's mother-in-law was the Soviet architect Lidiya Komarova. and found herself in the company of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, as well as the First Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Nikita Khrushchev and the USSR Minister of Culture Yekaterina Furtseva, who visited India, and whose photographs were published in many newspapers. From her marriage to Komarov, in 1952, she had a daughter, Lola Erikovna Komarova, who later became a Russian scientist and psychologist. From this marriage, a son, Alexei, was born. Living in Moscow with her husband, son and other relatives, she worked at the Institute of Oriental Studies. And later I learned that all these confessions were written by one investigator who was sent... And the verdict that he was found guilty...".

Death A documentary film about the fate of Markizova was also planned entitled Stalin and Gela by Belarusian documentary filmmaker Anatoly Alai, who met with Cheshkova in 2004 and recorded a 10-minute interview (in another place Alai reports a 40-minute interview). There was an agreement to shoot a documentary. In an interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda v Belarusi, the director reported: “We agreed that she would rest, get some treatment, and then we would start filming seriously”. According to Alay: “She really wanted to look even more beautiful on TV and went to Turkey to get a tan. They found her motionless on a sun lounger”. On May 11, 2004, Markizova died of a heart attack while on vacation in Antalya, Turkey, where she went with her son. She was 75 years old. The film Stalin and Gelya was completed after Markizova's death. The film was created from 40 minutes of spontaneously filmed footage and old footage from the 1950s that had Alay found in the archives.

Georgi Lavrov, who immortalised the image in marble, was later imprisoned for 17 years in Stalin's labor camps.