Chapaev civil war. What was Chapaev really like?

Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev is a famous military leader of the “red” troops, a participant in the First World War and the Civil War. He became famous for his heroism and charisma.

Chapaev's homeland is the village of Budaika, Kazan province. The future military leader was born into a family of simple peasants and was the sixth child. Chapaev was born in February 1887. The personality of Chapaev is one of the mysteries of the history of the Civil War. Even the origin of the surname is a topic worthy of a separate story. Chapaev himself signed himself “Chepaev”. One of the family legends became known thanks to the story of Vasily Chapaev’s brother, Mikhail. According to his story, Vasily Ivanovich’s grandfather, Stepan Gavrilovich, whose official name was “Gavrilov”, was the foreman of the artel and was engaged in loading logs. He supervises the loading process and often repeats the word “Take” or “Take.” This is how the nickname Chapai arose, which later turned into the surname Chapaev, which was borne by the descendants of Stepan Gavrilovich.

Researchers deduce the origin of the surname from the Turkic language. None of the versions has been proven, since there is no exact evidence.

When Vasily Ivanovich was a child, the family moved to the Samara province to the village of Balakovo, where the boy was sent to study at a parish school. It was planned that Chapaev would receive basic knowledge and become a priest, like many of his ancestors, but this did not happen.

In 1908, Chapaev was drafted into the army, but a year later he was assigned to the reserves - the reasons for this are not clear. Thus, he became a militia warrior. There are two reasons for this event: the official version is that Chapaev had health problems, so he was unfit for military service, the unofficial version is that Chapaev was politically unreliable. After being transferred to the reserve, Chapaev became a carpenter - he remained in this job until the outbreak of the First World War.

Beginning of a military career

In September 1914, Chapaev was called to the front. Place of service - the city of Atkarsk, where Vasily Ivanovich served in the reserve infantry troops. A year later, Chapaev begins to actively participate in battles as part of the infantry on the Southwestern Front (Galicia, Volyn). Chapaev showed courage and courage, which was noted by the St. George Medal.

Chapaev ended the First World War with the rank of sergeant major. During the hostilities he was wounded, but this did not prevent him from distinguishing himself in battle and becoming a professional military man.

Chapaev met the beginning of the 1917 revolution in a Saratov hospital. He supported the ideas of the Bolsheviks and became a member of the RSDLP(b) party. In December 1917 he was appointed commissioner in the Nikolaev district.

Civil War years

At the first stage of the Civil War, Chapaev was involved in organizing the Red Guard in the district - he led 14 detachments. Chapaev's first target during the fighting was Kaledin's troops; in the spring he led the campaign against Uralsk.

In the spring of 1918, by decision of Chapaev, the Red Guard was reorganized into 2 regiments. The command was exercised by Chapaev. 2 regiments became known as the Pugachev brigade. Under this name, the regiments took part in the battles with the Czechoslovaks. Under the leadership of Chapaev, the city of Nikolaevsk was recaptured and renamed Pugachev. At the second stage of the Civil War, Chapaev was the commander of the 2nd Nikolaev Division, and later, until 1919, he worked at the Academy of the General Staff. After this, he was appointed Commissioner of Internal Affairs in Nikolaevsky District.

After commanding positions, Chapaev continued his career growth. From the spring of 1919 he commanded a rifle division. At this stage, Chapaev’s troops took part in battles against Kolchak’s “white” troops. In the summer of the same year, Uralsk and Ufa were captured. The capture of Ufa could have been fatal for Chapaev - he was seriously wounded by a machine gun.

Death of Chapaev

The death of Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev is one of the mysteries of the history of the Civil War. During one of the raids, Colonel N. Borodin, the commander of the Cossack detachments, managed to take the headquarters of the 25th division in the city of Lbischensk by surprise. Chapaev died in the battle, but the circumstances of the commander’s death are not fully clarified.

Before the start of Borodin’s raid, the defense of Lbischensk was organized by the division school - it was a small force, but practically the only one, since the division itself was located 50-70 km from the city.

The reconnaissance pilots did not report that Borodin’s troops were approaching the city. According to sources, after the battle the pilots went over to the “white” side. The attack on the city caused panic - the defense was not organized - most of the “Reds” were killed or captured. A small group of people broke through to the Ural River - they were shot right on the shore. The Reds' military equipment was captured.

Chapaev himself tried to organize resistance to the attackers, but was seriously wounded. The “Reds” decided to take him across the river and save him, but the brigade commander died from his wound. The Hungarians buried him in the reeds on the shore so that his enemies would not find his body. At the present moment it is difficult to confirm or refute this - the place where, according to information, Chapaev was buried is located at the depth of the river, since it changed its course.

A more common version of the death is that Chapaev was wounded while swimming across the Urals and drowned.

Many modern historians insist that Chapaev was captured and died there. According to another version, he did not die in captivity - Chapaev survived and lived on the territory of Kazakhstan until the 60s inclusive. It is believed that he swam across the river, was ill for a long time, and then lost his memory.

130 years ago, on January 28 (February 9, new style), 1887, a hero of the Civil War was born. There is probably no more unique person in Russian history than Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev. His real life was short - he died at the age of 32, but his posthumous fame surpassed all imaginable and inconceivable boundaries.

Among the real historical figures of the past, you cannot find another one who would become an integral part of Russian folklore. What can we talk about if one of the varieties of checkers games is called “Chapaevka”.

Chapai's childhood

When on January 28 (February 9), 1887, in the village of Budaika, Cheboksary district, Kazan province, in the family of a Russian peasant Ivan Chapaeva the sixth child was born, neither mother nor father could even think about the glory that awaited their son.

Rather, they were thinking about the upcoming funeral - the baby, named Vasenka, was born at seven months old, was very weak and, it seemed, could not survive.

However, the will to live turned out to be stronger than death - the boy survived and began to grow up to the delight of his parents.

Vasya Chapaev did not even think about any military career - in poor Budaika there was a problem of everyday survival, there was no time for heavenly pretzels.

The origin of the family surname is interesting. Chapaev's grandfather, Stepan Gavrilovich, was engaged in unloading timber rafted along the Volga and other heavy cargo at the Cheboksary pier. And he often shouted “chap”, “chap”, “chap”, that is, “catch” or “catch”. Over time, the word “chepai” stuck with him as a street nickname, and then became his official surname.

It is curious that the Red commander himself subsequently wrote his last name exactly as “Chepaev”, and not “Chapaev”.

The poverty of the Chapaev family drove them in search of a better life to the Samara province, to the village of Balakovo. Here Father Vasily had a cousin who lived as a patron of the parish school. The boy was assigned to study, hoping that over time he would become a priest.

War gives birth to heroes

In 1908, Vasily Chapaev was drafted into the army, but a year later he was discharged due to illness. Even before joining the army, Vasily started a family, marrying the 16-year-old daughter of a priest Pelageya Metlina. Returning from the army, Chapaev began to engage in purely peaceful carpentry. In 1912, while continuing to work as a carpenter, Vasily and his family moved to Melekess. Before 1914, three children were born into the family of Pelageya and Vasily - two sons and a daughter.

Vasily Chapaev with his wife. 1915 Photo: RIA News

The whole life of Chapaev and his family was turned upside down by the First World War. Called up in September 1914, Vasily went to the front in January 1915. He fought in Volhynia in Galicia and proved himself to be a skilled warrior. Chapaev ended the First World War with the rank of sergeant major, being awarded the soldier's St. George Cross of three degrees and the St. George Medal.

In the fall of 1917, the brave soldier Chapaev joined the Bolsheviks and unexpectedly showed himself to be a brilliant organizer. In the Nikolaev district of the Saratov province, he created 14 detachments of the Red Guard, which took part in the campaign against the troops of General Kaledin. On the basis of these detachments, the Pugachev brigade was created in May 1918 under the command of Chapaev. Together with this brigade, the self-taught commander recaptured the city of Nikolaevsk from the Czechoslovaks.

The fame and popularity of the young commander grew before our eyes. In September 1918, Chapaev led the 2nd Nikolaev Division, which instilled fear in the enemy. Nevertheless, Chapaev’s tough temperament and his inability to obey unquestioningly led to the fact that the command considered it best to send him from the front to study at the General Staff Academy.

Already in the 1970s, another legendary Red commander Semyon Budyonny, listening to jokes about Chapaev, shook his head: “I told Vaska: study, fool, otherwise they will laugh at you! Well, I didn’t listen!”

The Ural, the Ural River, its grave is deep...

Chapaev really did not stay long at the academy, once again going to the front. In the summer of 1919, he headed the 25th Infantry Division, which quickly became legendary, as part of which he carried out brilliant operations against the troops Kolchak. On June 9, 1919, the Chapaevites liberated Ufa, and on July 11, Uralsk.

During the summer of 1919, Divisional Commander Chapaev managed to surprise the career white generals with his leadership talent. Both comrades and enemies saw in him a real military nugget. Alas, Chapaev did not have time to truly open up.

The tragedy, which is called Chapaev’s only military mistake, occurred on September 5, 1919. Chapaev's division was rapidly advancing, breaking away from the rear. Units of the division stopped to rest, and the headquarters was located in the village of Lbischensk.

On September 5, the Whites numbered up to 2,000 bayonets under the command of General Borodin, having carried out a raid, they suddenly attacked the headquarters of the 25th division. The main forces of the Chapaevites were 40 km from Lbischensk and could not come to the rescue.

The real forces that could resist the Whites were 600 bayonets, and they entered into a battle that lasted six hours. Chapaev himself was hunted by a special detachment, which, however, was not successful. Vasily Ivanovich managed to get out of the house where he was quartered, gather about a hundred fighters who were retreating in disarray, and organize a defense.

Vasily Chapaev (in the center, sitting) with military commanders. 1918 Photo: RIA Novosti

There was conflicting information about the circumstances of Chapaev’s death for a long time, until in 1962 the division commander’s daughter Claudia I did not receive a letter from Hungary, in which two Chapaev veterans, Hungarians by nationality, who were personally present at the last minutes of the division commander’s life, told what really happened.

During the battle with the Whites, Chapaev was wounded in the head and stomach, after which four Red Army soldiers, having built a raft from boards, managed to transport the commander to the other side of the Urals. However, Chapaev died from his wounds during the crossing.

The Red Army soldiers, fearing that their enemies would mock his body, buried Chapaev in the coastal sand, throwing branches over the place.

There were no active searches for the division commander's grave immediately after the Civil War, because the version set forth by the commissar of the 25th division became canonical Dmitry Furmanov in his book “Chapaev” it is as if the wounded divisional commander drowned while trying to swim across the river.

In the 1960s, Chapaev’s daughter tried to search for her father’s grave, but it turned out that this was impossible - the course of the Urals changed its course, and the river bottom became the final resting place of the red hero.

Birth of a legend

Not everyone believed in Chapaev’s death. Historians who studied the biography of Chapaev noted that there was a story among Chapaev veterans that their Chapai swam out, was rescued by the Kazakhs, suffered from typhoid fever, lost his memory and now works as a carpenter in Kazakhstan, remembering nothing about his heroic past.

Fans of the white movement like to attach great importance to the Lbishchensky raid, calling it a major victory, but this is not so. Even the destruction of the headquarters of the 25th division and the death of its commander did not affect the general course of the war - the Chapaev division continued to successfully destroy enemy units.

Not everyone knows that the Chapaevites avenged their commander on the same day, September 5th. The general who commanded the white raid Borodin, triumphantly driving through Lbischensk after the defeat of Chapaev’s headquarters, was shot by a Red Army soldier Volkov.

Historians still cannot agree on what Chapaev’s role as a commander in the Civil War actually was. Some believe that he actually played a significant role, others believe that his image has been exaggerated by art.

Painting by P. Vasiliev “V. I. Chapaev in battle." Photo: reproduction

Indeed, the book written by the former commissar of the 25th division brought Chapaev wide popularity Dmitry Furmanov.

During their lifetime, the relationship between Chapaev and Furmanov could not be called simple, which, by the way, is best reflected later in anecdotes. Chapaev's affair with Furmanov's wife Anna Steshenko led to the fact that the commissioner had to leave the division. However, Furmanov's writing talent smoothed out personal contradictions.

But the real, boundless glory of Chapaev, Furmanov, and other now popular heroes overtook in 1934, when the Vasilyev brothers shot the film “Chapaev,” which was based on Furmanov’s book and the memories of the Chapaevites.

Furmanov himself was no longer alive by that time - he died suddenly in 1926 from meningitis. And the author of the film’s script was Anna Furmanova, the commissar’s wife and the division commander’s mistress.

It is to her that we owe the appearance of Anka the Machine Gunner in the history of Chapaev. The fact is that in reality there was no such character. Its prototype was the nurse of the 25th division Maria Popova. In one of the battles, a nurse crawled up to a wounded elderly machine gunner and wanted to bandage him, but the soldier, heated by the battle, pointed a revolver at the nurse and literally forced Maria to take a place behind the machine gun.

The directors, having learned about this story and having an assignment from Stalin to show the image of a woman in the Civil War in the film, they came up with a machine gunner. But she insisted that her name would be Anka Anna Furmanova.

After the release of the film, Chapaev, Furmanov, Anka the machine gunner, and orderly Petka (in real life - Peter Isaev, who actually died in the same battle with Chapaev) went into the people forever, becoming an integral part of it.

Chapaev is everywhere

The life of Chapaev’s children turned out interesting. The marriage of Vasily and Pelageya actually broke up with the beginning of the First World War, and in 1917 Chapaev took the children from his wife and raised them himself, as far as the life of a military man allowed.

Chapaev's eldest son, Alexander Vasilievich, followed in his father’s footsteps, becoming a professional military man. By the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, 30-year-old Captain Chapaev was the commander of a battery of cadets at the Podolsk Artillery School. From there he went to the front. Chapaev fought in a family style, without disgracing the honor of his famous father. He fought near Moscow, near Rzhev, near Voronezh, and was wounded. In 1943, with the rank of lieutenant colonel, Alexander Chapaev took part in the famous battle of Prokhorovka.

Alexander Chapaev completed his military service with the rank of major general, holding the position of deputy chief of artillery of the Moscow Military District.

Children of V.I. Chapaev: Alexander, Arkady and Claudia

Younger son, Arkady Chapaev, became a test pilot, worked with himself Valery Chkalov. In 1939, 25-year-old Arkady Chapaev died while testing a new fighter.

Chapaev's daughter Claudia, made a party career and was engaged in historical research dedicated to her father. The true story of Chapaev’s life became known largely thanks to her.

Studying the life of Chapaev, you are surprised to discover how closely the legendary hero is connected with other historical figures.

For example, a fighter in the Chapaev division was writer Jaroslav Hasek- author of “The Adventures of the Good Soldier Schweik.”

The head of the trophy team of the Chapaev division was Sidor Artemyevich Kovpak. During the Great Patriotic War, one name of this partisan commander would terrify the Nazis.

Major General Ivan Panfilov, whose division's resilience helped defend Moscow in 1941, began his military career as a platoon commander of an infantry company in the Chapaev Division.

And one last thing. Water is fatally connected not only with the fate of division commander Chapaev, but also with the fate of the division.

The 25th Rifle Division existed in the ranks of the Red Army until the Great Patriotic War and took part in the defense of Sevastopol. It was the fighters of the 25th Chapaev Division who stood to the last in the most tragic, last days of the city’s defense. The division was completely destroyed, and so that its banners would not fall to the enemy, the last surviving soldiers drowned them in the Black Sea.

Academy Student

Chapaev's education, contrary to popular opinion, was not limited to two years of parish school. In 1918, he was enrolled in the military academy of the Red Army, where many soldiers were “herded” to improve their general literacy and learn strategy. According to the recollections of his classmate, the peaceful student life weighed on Chapaev: “The hell with it! I'll leave! To come up with such an absurdity - fighting people at their desks! Two months later, he submitted a report asking to be released from this “prison” to the front. Several stories have been preserved about Vasily Ivanovich’s stay at the academy. The first says that during a geography exam, in response to an old general’s question about the significance of the Neman River, Chapaev asked the professor if he knew about the significance of the Solyanka River, where he fought with the Cossacks. According to the second, in a discussion of the Battle of Cannes, he called the Romans “blind kittens,” telling the teacher, the prominent military theorist Sechenov: “We have already shown generals like you how to fight!”

Motorist

We all imagine Chapaev as a courageous fighter with a fluffy mustache, a naked sword and galloping on a dashing horse. This image was created by the national actor Boris Babochkin. In life, Vasily Ivanovich preferred cars to horses. Back on the fronts of the First World War, he was seriously wounded in the thigh, so riding became a problem. So Chapaev became one of the first Red commanders to use a car. He chose his iron horses very meticulously. The first, the American Stever, was rejected due to strong shaking; the red Packard that replaced it also had to be abandoned - it was not suitable for military operations in the steppe. But the red commander liked the Ford, which pushed 70 miles off-road. Chapaev also selected the best drivers. One of them, Nikolai Ivanov, was practically taken by force to Moscow and made the personal driver of Lenin’s sister, Anna Ulyanova-Elizarova.

PySy: an interesting addition from urator

"...It is curious that the Red commander himself subsequently wrote his last name exactly as “Chepaev”, and not “Chapaev”

I wonder how he should have written his last name if he was Chepaev? Chapaev was made by Furmanov and the Vasilyev brothers. Before the release of the film on the screens of the country, on the monument to the division commander in Samara it was written - Chepaev, the street was called Chepaevskaya, the city of Trotsk - Chepaevsk, and even the Mocha River was renamed Chepaevka. In order not to bring confusion into the minds of Soviet citizens, in all these toponyms “CHE” was changed to “CHA”

And photos:

photo of Arkady Vasilievich Chapaev with his nephew Arthur.

Short biography.

Chapaev Vasily Ivanovich (January 28, 1887, village of Budaika, Kazan province - September 5, 1919, Lbischensk) - hero of the civil war. Born into the family of a peasant carpenter in the village of Budaika, Cheboksary district, Kazan province. In 1913, the family moved to the village of Balakovo, Nikolaev district, Samara province. There he studied at a parochial school for just under three years. After studying there, he worked as a carpenter with his father. The Chapaev family team built cowsheds, bathhouses, houses and even churches.
Once, while installing a cross on a church, Vasily Chapaev fell, but did not receive a single fracture upon landing. Because of this incident, his comrades and relatives nicknamed him Ermak. This nickname remained with him throughout his life.
In 1908 he was called up for military service, in 1909 he was dismissed - formally due to the appearance of an eyesore, in fact - because his brother Andrei was executed for inciting against the tsar, and Chapaev was considered unreliable for this reason. In 1909 he married Pelageya Metlina. His father Ivan was against this marriage, because... the marriage was unequal - Pelageya was the priest’s daughter.
Pelageya arranged for him to work with her father to restore icons. At first everything went well, but then Chapaev and his wife were forced to urgently leave Balakovo because of a dissatisfied customer who threatened to sue him for “blasphemy.” Initially, in the spring of 1913, they arrived in Simbirsk, but due to the lack of work there, they moved to Melekess.
In 1914, with the outbreak of World War I, Chapaev was called up for military service.
For courage and great tenacity shown in the battles of May 5-8, 1915 near the Prut River, he was awarded the St. George Medal. By order of the regiment dated July 10, 1915, in the area of the village of Dzvinyach, private of the first company Vasily Chapaev was promoted to junior non-commissioned officer, bypassing the rank of corporal. For courage and bravery, non-commissioned officer Chapaev was awarded the St. George Cross, 4th degree, on September 16, 1915.
Subsequently, for the capture of two prisoners near the town of Snovidov, by order of the 82nd Infantry Division, Sergeant Major Vasily Chapaev was awarded the St. George Cross, 3rd degree. In the battles between the points of Tsuman and Karpinevka on September 27, 1915, Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev was wounded and sent to the hospital. While he was recovering, an order was issued to promote him to senior non-commissioned officer. Thus, from the time of his arrival at the front, Chapaev was awarded three times in just six months and became a senior non-commissioned officer.
For the battles of June 14-16, 1916 near the city of Kuta, in which the Belgorai Regiment, where Chapaev served, took part, he received the St. George Cross, 2nd degree. In the summer of the same year
For the battles near the city of Delyatin he was awarded the St. George Cross, 1st degree.
At the end of the summer of 1916, Vasily Chapaev became seriously ill. On August 20, he was sent to the dressing detachment of the 82nd Infantry Division. He returned to the company only on September 10th. But he was destined to fight for only one day. Already on September 11, he again received a shrapnel wound in his left thigh and was sent to the 81st Red Cross Detachment for treatment.
Arriving in Nikolaevsk in July 1917, V.I. Chapaev, was appointed sergeant major to the 4th company of the revolutionary-minded 138th reserve infantry regiment. There he met with the Bolsheviks. He was elected to the regimental committee, and in October 1917 - to the council of soldiers' deputies. On September 28, 1917 he joined the Bolshevik Party.
In November 1917, the Revolutionary Committee of Nikolaevsk appointed Chapaev commander of the 138th regiment.
He was a participant in the Kazan Congress of Soldiers' Soviets, held in November 1917.
At the same time, Pelageya Kamishkertseva became his common-law wife (his first wife cheated on Chapaev).
In the future, his relationship with his new wife also did not work out.
On December 18, 1917, he became commissar of the Red Guard and head of the Nikolaevsk garrison.
In the winter and spring of 1918, Chapaev suppressed a number of peasant uprisings. He fought against the Cossacks and the Czechoslovak Corps. In November 1918 he began studying at the Academy of the General Staff, but already in January 1919, at his personal request, he was sent to the Eastern Front against A.V. Kolchak. Chapaev commanded the 25th Infantry Division. In June 1919, his division liberated Ufa from Kolchak’s troops. In July 1919, Chapaev took part in the battles to relieve the siege of Uralsk.
On September 5, 1919, during a surprise attack by the White Guards on the headquarters of the 25th division in Lbischensk, Chapaev died. The exact circumstances of his death are unknown.

From the site: http://chapaev.ru/

Chapaev should be eliminated.

From July 15 to 25, fierce battles took place in the Usikha area between the Chapaev units and the Beluralsk army. Having overcome all the obstacles on their way, enduring thirst and hardship, feeling a lack of ammunition, the Chapaevites occupied not only Lbischensk (now the city of Chapaev in the West Kazakhstan region of Kazakhstan, the regional center of the Akzhaik region. Located 130 km south of Uralsk, on the right bank of the river . Ural.), but also the village of Sakharnaya, having covered a path of over 200 kilometers.
The Belouralsk Cossack army began to retreat south, stopping in every village. The White generals created plans for “mass cavalry attacks”, and then launched energetic preparations for a raid on Lbischensk, where Chapaev’s base and headquarters were located.

According to the version set out in the book by Evgenia Chapaeva (great-granddaughter of Vasily Chapaev) in the book “My Unknown Chapaev”, in early September the security of Lbischensk was not strengthened enough, since aerial reconnaissance reported that there were no whites nearby.
Let us quote a fragment from Chapter 16 of this book:

“Late in the evening, some of the transport workers who went to the steppe for hay returned there. They reported that they were attacked by the Cossacks and the carts were stolen. This was reported to Chapaev and Baturin who arrived. Vasily Ivanovich urgently demanded to report intelligence reports and aerial reconnaissance data in the direction of the villages Slomikhinskaya and Kazil-Ubimskaya. Chief of Staff Novikov reported that neither mounted reconnaissance nor reconnaissance flights of the air detachment, carried out in the morning and evening, for several days, had detected the enemy. And the appearance of relatively small Cossack detachments and patrols was no longer uncommon.
Chapaev calmed down, but gave orders to strengthen security. Novikov, a former officer who worked as an assistant to the division chief of staff and who had recently become head of headquarters, was beyond suspicion. And the information he reported about the enemy did not correspond to reality: the enemy with large forces of cavalry was no longer far away and aimed at Lbischensk.

As they say, the enemy does not sleep... This is exactly what some people from the arriving air squad and division headquarters did. The technical capabilities of the aircraft of that time and the lack of anti-aircraft weapons to combat them allowed flights at low altitudes. The pilots, who took to the air twice a day, could not help but notice a cavalry of several thousand horsemen... Moreover, the reeds of the dry Kushum River are not a forest to hide such a mass of the enemy.
SO, PILOTS...
It is about them that special mention must be made. The fact that they were traitors became clear even then, on September 4, 1919. But few could have guessed what motivated them... Do you think it was incredible love for the abdicated Tsar Nicholas? Or fierce hatred of the Bolsheviks? YOU ARE WRONG!!!
Everything is much more prosaic - MONEY, MONEY and once again MONEY... And very big ones. 25 thousand in gold... Yes, that’s exactly what they gave for Chapaev’s head, living or dead...
There were four pilots. I will allow myself to name the names of only those who died, like Chapaev, on September 5, 1919. These are Sladkovsky and Sadovsky. And the survivors, that is, 2 pilots, divided the resulting profit and settled into a bright future.
And yet man is constructed in an incomprehensible way. Very little time will pass, the gunpowder years of the forties will come, and two traitors in civilian life will become heroes of the Soviet Union during the Patriotic War... But that’s not all. They will occupy responsible positions in the government and throughout their lives they will “cover up” the topic of the civil war and especially Chapaev. They were probably ashamed..."

Information about traitorous pilots is also available in the book by I.S. Kutyakov “Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev”, published in 1935. Kutyakov Ivan Semenovich - commander of the 73rd brigade of the 25th division, after the death of V.I. Chapaev led the division, subsequently commanded the division until 1920, awarded three Orders of the Red Banner, the Order of the Red Banner of the Khorezm Republic, honorary revolutionary weapons, arrested and shot in 1938.
However, there is an opinion that the pilots did report information about the whites. On the Chronograph website, in the article “The Mystery of Chapaev’s Death,” it is written that Red aviation reconnaissance, flying over the steppe, discovered a Cossack corps in the reeds. The message about this immediately reached the army headquarters, but never went beyond its walls. A version has been put forward that perhaps there were traitors operating at the headquarters, probably from among the military experts of the tsarist army, attracted to cooperation by Lenin and Trotsky. In addition, military experts were not among those killed during the assault on Lbischensk.

However, the version of the betrayal of the pilots is refuted by the article “Chapaev - Destroy!”, which from the whites tells about the attack of the White Cossacks on Lbischensk.

“It was a very grueling campaign: on September 1, the detachment stood all day in the steppe in the heat, being in a swampy lowland, the exit from which could not go unnoticed by the enemy. At the same time, the location of the special detachment was almost noticed by the red pilots - they flew very close. When in the sky airplanes appeared, General Borodin ordered the horses to be driven into the reeds, the carts and cannons to be thrown with branches and armfuls of grass, and the Cossacks to lie down nearby. There was no confidence that the pilots had not noticed them, but there was no choice, and the Cossacks had to go as night fell "in an accelerated march to move away from the dangerous place. By the evening, on the 3rd day of the journey, Borodin's detachment cut the Lbischensk - Slomikhinsk road, approaching Lbischensk 12 versts."

The same article talks about betrayal by the Reds, but differently:

“In order not to be discovered by the Reds, the Cossacks occupied a depression not far from the village itself and sent out patrols in all directions to reconnaissance and capture the “tongues.” Ensign Portnov’s patrol attacked the Red grain train, partially capturing it. The captured transporters were taken to the detachment, where they were interrogated and found out that Chapaev was in Lbischensk. At the same time, one Red Army soldier volunteered to indicate his apartment."

Another version is connected with the pilots. Mikhail Dmitruk in his article “What Chapaev prayed for” concludes that the commander died as a result of Trotsky’s machinations:

“It seems that he began to strive for another, better world, where he could only enter by having accomplished great feats, defending the Faith and the Fatherland. Hence the amazing, simply fantastic courage and heroism of Vasily Chapaev. But “the bullet is afraid of the brave, the bayonet does not take the brave.” "- he had to fight a lot, terrifying his opponents, before achieving the desired goal... When Vasily Ivanovich realized that the Soviet government was engaged in the extermination of the Russian people, he began to actively interfere with this. Chapaev stopped following the orders of Lev Davydovich Trotsky, as erroneous, and diverted the division from unnecessary losses, which the commander-in-chief demanded. Since then, Vasily Ivanovich became dangerous to the Bolshevik leadership, because he disrupted his secret plan to drown all of Russia in blood. As a result, the division commander began to be hunted... by his superiors.
One betrayal followed another. The division headquarters was continually cut off from the main forces - so that it was attacked by an enemy ten times larger than a handful of Chapaevites. But each time he managed to miraculously outwit and defeat his opponent.
Finally, Leon Trotsky presented Vasily Chapaev with the last “gift”: four airplanes, ostensibly for reconnaissance of enemy forces, but in reality - for informing the whites. The pilots cheerfully reported to the division commander that everything was calm around while huge forces of White Guards were gathering from all sides. Here his headquarters was again, as if by accident, cut off from the main forces. They cut it off when several soldiers from the training company remained with the division commander. They were doomed, but they bravely accepted the battle and died heroes."

This version, of course, is delusional if only for the reason that Trotsky, although he was one of the founders of the Red Army and the People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs and the Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the RSFSR, was not Chapaev's immediate superior. Secondly, there is no evidence that Chapaev suddenly became an opponent of the Bolshevik rule. Chapaev actually had a conflict with the commander of the 4th Army, Khvesin, who did not send reinforcements to Chapaev when he and his division found themselves surrounded. You can read about this in detail in Chapter 10 of the book “My Unknown Chapaev”.
This is what he wrote in his report to the commander of the 4th Army:

“I’m waiting for two days. If reinforcements don’t come, I’ll fight my way to the rear. The division was brought to this situation by the headquarters of the 4th Army, which received two telegrams every day demanding help, and to this day there is not a single soldier. I doubt whether there is one SOURCES at the headquarters of the 4th Army in connection with BURENIN FOR TWO MILLION (This refers to the uncovered conspiracy at the headquarters of the 4th Army.)
I ask you to pay attention to all division commanders and revolutionary councils, if you value your comradely blood, do not shed it in vain. I WAS DECEPTED BY THE SCAM KHVESINY, COMMANDER OF THE 4TH ARMY, who told me that reinforcements were coming to me - the entire cavalry of the Ural Division and an armored vehicle and the 4th Malouzensky Regiment, with which I was given the order to attack the village. I fell in love on October 23, but not only could I not complete the task with the Malouzensky regiment, but at this time (I don’t know) where it is located.”

As a result, Khvesin was removed from command of the 4th Army on November 4, 1918 - long before Chapaev’s death. What is noteworthy about this telegram is that it is addressed to the commander of the 4th Army, that is, Khvesin, and Chapaev calls Khvesin in the third person a scoundrel.

There is another version. Chapaev's second common-law wife was Pelageya Kamishkertseva. It is also written about her in the book in Chapter 4. However, Chapaev’s relationship with her did not work out - Chapaev was looking for any convenient excuse to appear at home less often. As a result, Pelageya began an affair with the head of the artillery depot, Georgy Zhivolozhinov. All the women in the area went crazy about him: he seemed to hypnotize them. Kamishkertseva also could not resist his charms. One day Vasily Ivanovich returned home... And then everything was like in the joke about a deceived husband and an unfaithful wife. The moment was the most intimate, and one of the division soldiers accompanying Chapaev broke the window and began firing a machine gun.
Kamishkertseva quickly realized what treason threatened her with, grabbed Chapaev’s children and began to hide behind them. Vasily Ivanovich reacted more calmly to what happened and simply stopped talking to Kamishkertseva. Pelageya suffered greatly and one day, taking Chapaev’s youngest son, Arkady, she went to Vasily Ivanovich’s headquarters.
He didn't even let her in the door. And Kamishkertseva, out of anger, drove into the White headquarters and said that Chapaev’s fighters had training rifles, and the headquarters had no cover. This version is also told by Evgenia Chapaeva, but it is not voiced in her book.

So, let’s move on to the actual version of Chapaev’s death. The canonical one shown in the film is that he, wounded, drowns while crossing the Urals, escaping from the whites. There is another option, also connected with the Ural River.

In the newspaper "Bolshevik Smena" (dated April 22, 1938), Chapaev's youngest son, Arkady, wrote an article about the death of his father. Surely he was guided by the story of one of the participants in those tragic events:

“Three assault groups gradually moved towards the center of the village, disarming the resisting Chapaevites. The Cossacks were unable to cordon off the house where Chapaev was. Chapaev managed to escape from the house, he ran down the street, the platoon commander Belonozhkin shot at him and hit him in the arm. Chapaev managed to rally around himself with a hundred soldiers with machine guns and rushed towards this special platoon.
He was wounded in the stomach. They laid him on a hastily put together raft made from half a gate. Two Hungarians (and many internationalists fought in the Chapaev division - Hungarians, Czechs, Serbs...) helped him cross the Urals. When we reached the shore, it turned out that the commander died from loss of blood. The Hungarians buried the body with their hands right on the shore in the sand and covered the grave with reeds so that the enemies would not find and abuse the deceased."

The version with the Hungarians finds further confirmation. This is what Klavdiya Chapaeva, daughter of Vasily Chapaev, recalls:

"...In 1962, I received a letter from Hungary. Former Chapaevites who now lived in Budapest wrote to me. They watched the film “Chapaev” and were outraged by its content; according to their story, everything turned out completely different...
From the letter: “...When Vasily Ivanovich was wounded, Commissar Baturin ordered us (two Hungarians) and two more Russians to make a raft from the gate and fence and, by hook or by crook, be able to transport Chapaev to the other side of the Urals. We made a raft, but we ourselves were bleeding too. And Vasily Ivanovich was finally transported to the other side. When they rowed, he was alive, moaning... But when they swam to the shore, he was gone. And so that his body would not be mocked, we buried it in the coastal sand. They buried them and covered them with reeds. Then they themselves lost consciousness from loss of blood...”

There is another option, also connected with the Ural River. Victor Senin recalls:

“In 1982, I, then a correspondent for the Pravda newspaper, had the opportunity, together with Viktor Ivanovich Molchanov (deputy editor of the Pravda information department), to visit the Ural River, where the story with Chapaev happened.
So, as local old-timers said, Chapaev swam across the river with the soldiers and hid in nearby houses. The local Cossacks handed over the division commander to the whites. Chapaev's last fight began. In that saber battle, Chapaev killed 16 soldiers. He had no equal in saber fights. They shot the division commander in the back... They wrote an essay "Chapayev's Last Battle", but, of course, it was not published...".

In the already cited article “Chapaev - Destroy”, Chapaev’s death is also associated with the crossing of the Urals.

“The special platoon assigned to capture Chapaev broke through to his apartment - headquarters. The captured Red Army soldier did not deceive the Cossacks. At this time, the following happened near Chapaev’s headquarters. The special platoon commander Belonozhkin immediately made a mistake: he did not cordon off the entire house, but immediately led his men into the yard headquarters. There the Cossacks saw a horse saddled at the entrance to the house, which someone was holding inside by the reins stuck through the closed door. When Belonozhkin ordered those in the house to leave, the answer was silence. Then he shot into the house through the dormer window. The frightened horse jumped out side and dragged the Red Army soldier who was holding him out from behind the door. Apparently, it was Chapaev’s personal orderly Pyotr Isaev. Everyone rushed to him, thinking that this was Chapaev. At this time, the second man ran out of the house to the gate. Belonozhkin shot at him with a rifle and wounded him in the arm. It was Chapaev. In the confusion that ensued, while almost the entire platoon was occupied by the Red Army, he managed to escape through the gate. No one was found in the house except two typists. According to the testimony of the prisoners, the following happened: when the Red Army soldiers rushed to the Urals in panic, they were stopped by Chapaev, who rallied around a hundred soldiers with machine guns, and led them into a counterattack against Belonozhkin’s special platoon, which had no machine guns and was forced to retreat. Having knocked out the special platoon from the headquarters, the Reds settled behind its walls and began to fire back. According to the prisoners, during a short battle with a special platoon, Chapaev was wounded in the stomach a second time. The wound turned out to be so severe that he could no longer lead the battle and was transported on planks across the Urals. Sotnik V. Novikov, who was observing the Urals, saw how, against the center of Lbischensk, before the very end of the battle, someone was transported across the Urals. According to eyewitnesses, on the Asian side of the Ural River, Chapaev died from a wound in the stomach."

In addition to the conspiracy theory with Trotsky, there is another conspiracy theory around Chapaev. According to her letter to the Hungarians Claudia Chapaeva, it was organized by the KGB. Here is what Yuri Moskalenko writes on the portal shkolazhizni.ru:

“Aren’t you embarrassed by the fact that the letter definitely found its addressee? Even if Vasily Ivanovich had told his daughter’s name to his saviors, and they had remembered a name that was not so simple for Hungarians, how could they have hoped that three decades later, in the crucible of the terrible war, will the daughter survive and be at the same address?

According to it, the legendary division commander did not perish in the cold waters of the Urals, but safely crossed to the other side, sat in the reeds until dark, and then went to the headquarters of the 4th Army to the commander Frunze to “atone for his sins” for the defeat of the division.

There are two pieces of evidence for this. The first belongs to a certain Vasily Sityaev, who mentioned his meeting in 1941 with a colleague of the division commander, who sacredly kept the cloak and saber of the missing Chapaev. The former Chapaevite said that a platoon of Hungarians ferried him safely across the river, and the division commander released his guards to “beat the whites” and headed to Samara to see Frunze.

The second evidence is much “fresh” and began to “walk” immediately after the crisis of 1998, when one of the division veterans “sold” a “sensational” fact to journalists, saying that he met Vasily Ivanovich already gray-haired and blind, but with a different last name. The division commander said that, having released the Hungarians, he wandered to Samara, but on the way he became seriously ill and spent three weeks resting on one of the farms in the steppe. And then he spent a certain amount of time under Frunze’s arrest. By that time, the division commander was already on the list of those who died heroically, and the party leadership considered it more useful to use Chapaev as a legend than to announce a miraculous “resurrection.” There was a reason for this - if the Red Army had learned that the legendary division commander had killed his personnel, and he himself had escaped from the whites - this would have cast a shameful stain on the entire “worker-peasant army”.

In a word, the division commander was declared an “information” blockade, and when he “let slip” in 1934, he was hidden in one of Stalin’s camps. And only after the death of the leader of the peoples was he released and placed in a home for the disabled. By that time he was no longer dangerous: who would believe the old man’s ravings? Yes, in any madhouse you can find not only Chapaev, but two or three Napoleons and Marat and Robespierre. And even more so, he would hardly have lived to see 1998 - at that time he should have already turned 111 years old!

And this “version” is very similar to the story of Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin, who supposedly did not die in March 1968, but was securely hidden in the KGB basements because he allegedly saw a cloud with angels next to the Moon...”

Well, the author of this text himself denied this conspiracy theory. As we see, Chapaev, like any legendary person, is surrounded by legends regarding the circumstances of his death. Moreover, the soil for legends is fertile - after all, Chapaev’s body was never found.

On the website centrasia.ru, Gulmira Kenzhegalieva outlines the version according to which Chapaev was captured:

“Academician Aleksey Cherekaev cites the story of the death of the Chapaev division, which he heard from the lips of old-timers: “The Chapaevites, who were in the village of Lbischenskoye, were driven by the Cossacks with whoops, whistles and shots into the air to the Urals. Many threw themselves into the river and immediately drowned. It was already September, the water was cold. It is difficult for even an experienced Cossack to swim across it, but here are men, and even in clothes." Almost every year, on September 5, on the day of remembrance of the national hero, village boys tried to swim across the Urals from Krasny Yar, working with both one hand and two hands. Even from Moscow At one time, a team of special swimmers arrived, but no one had yet managed to swim across the river in this particular place.

Local old-timers told Cherekaev what actually happened to Chapaev: “He was caught and interrogated. Then, together with his staff chests, they were loaded into carts, transported by ferry across the Urals and sent under escort towards Guryev. Ataman Tolstov was there.” Further traces of Chapaev are lost. They said that the protocols of his interrogations are in Australia, where General Tolstov moved. Academician Cherekaev, who at one time worked as an adviser to the USSR Embassy in Australia, tried to get to these documents. But the descendants of the White Guard Tolstoy did not even want to show them. So it is unknown whether they really exist or whether this is another legend about Chapaev."

And finally, there is another version of the circumstances of Chapaev’s death, also related to his captivity. It seems the most convincing and is set out in an article by Leonid Tokar in the newspaper “Your Privy Councilor” No. 13 (29) dated November 5, 2001. According to this version, Chapaev, along with his headquarters, was captured by the Whites and killed. I suggest you read it in its entirety.

Leonid Tokar. Could Chapaev reach the river?

Recently, while working at the Russian National Library and looking through a binder of the Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper for 1926, I caught my eye on the title of one of the articles, “The arrest of the murderer of Comrade Chapaev.” The article stated that, according to a message from Penza dated February 5, 1926, the local GPU arrested the former Kolchak officer Trofimov-Mirsky, who in 1919 killed Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev, who was captured. After the Civil War, Trofimov-Mirsky settled in Penza and served as an accountant in an artel of disabled people (1).
The Penza newspaper Trudovaya Pravda dated February 5, 1926 also contained an article “Man-Beast” about Trofimov-Mirsky, who was arrested in Penza. In 1919, Trofimov-Mirsky commanded a combined detachment consisting of four Cossack regiments and operating in the zone of the Fourth Army of the Soviet Republic. Trofimov-Mirsky was known for his mercilessness and bloodthirstiness, especially towards captured Red Army soldiers. They were given orders for their detachment “not to take prisoners,” and if he found out that there were prisoners who somehow survived, he personally destroyed them.
The same article states that Trofimov-Mirsky’s detachment captured Comrade Chapaev and his staff. The Chapaevites were captured through negligence. By order of Trofimov-Mirsky, everyone was brutally killed (2).
The articles interested me because they contradicted the generally accepted version of Chapaev’s death while crossing the Ural River. Moreover, one of them appeared in the central newspaper almost a month before the death of the author of the novel “Chapaev” D.A. Furmanov.
So, the novel "Chapaev" was written by Furmanov in 1923. It would seem that everything that is written in the novel is an axiom. However, the existing ambiguities and inconsistencies in the history of the death of V.I. Chapaev allow us to conclude that the commander of the 25th division died on the territory of Lbischensk, and not while swimming across the Urals.
To clarify the facts stated in the articles, I turned to official sources.
First of all, if a legendary or well-known person dies, then the central newspapers must invariably report his death. However, when studying the central press for September-October 1919, no mention of Chapaev’s death was found. Newspapers wrote about the deaths of commanders, commissars of regiments and divisions, but not a single line about Chapaev. This is all the more strange since, according to the data of the “Soviet Military Encyclopedia” (3), by a decree of the Turkestan Front dated September 10, 1919, the twenty-fifth rifle division was named after V.I. Chapaev. Everything is explained quite simply. Vasily Ivanovich was the only commander of the 25th division who died in the civil war. The earliest publication of the novel “Chapaev” that I found dates back to 1931, and all the memories of eyewitnesses date back to 1935 at the earliest, that is, after the release of the film “Chapaev”. Only a few eyewitnesses have been identified. Another interesting fact. The further from the events of those years, the more eyewitnesses of Chapaev’s death appear, the more textbook these memories become.
There are contradictions in official sources. Thus, the Soviet Military Encyclopedia (Voenizdat, 1980, vol. 8) says: “At dawn on September 5, 1919, the White Guards attacked the headquarters of the 25th division in Lbischensk. The Chapaevites, led by their commander, courageously fought against superior forces until the last bullet. enemy. Chapaev, wounded in battle, tried to swim across the Ural River, but died under enemy fire." The place of death is indicated as near the city of Lbischensk. The encyclopedia “Civil War and Military Intervention in the USSR” (4) says that the White Guards suddenly attacked the division headquarters, and Chapaev, with the security of the headquarters, entered the battle; wounded, he tried to swim across the Urals, but died. The place of death is not indicated. It also says that the name of Chapaev was assigned to the division on October 4, 1919.
Encyclopedias did not clarify the picture, so to clarify the events of September 1919, the following literature was used as additional literature:
-Kutyakov I.S. Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev. Lenoblgiz, 1935, (Kutyakov Ivan Semenovich - commander of the 73rd brigade of the 25th division, after the death of V.I. Chapaev he headed the division, subsequently commanded the divisions until 1920, was awarded three Orders of the Red Banner, the Order of the Red Banner of the Khorezm Republic , an honorary revolutionary weapon, arrested and executed in 1938);
-Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev. Historical and biographical sketch. Moscow, Voenizdat, 1938;
-I.S. Kutyakov. Chapaev's Battle Path (Microphone materials from the Local Radio Broadcasting Directorate of the All-Union Radio Committee). Compiled by P. Berezov, Moscow, 1936.
-Have a drink. (Collection of folk songs, fairy tales, tales and memories of V.I. Chapaev). Compiled by V. Paymen, Moscow, 1938;
-Chapayevites about Chapaev, Saratov, 1936.
The choice of this literature is not accidental. The fact is that these are the earliest publications about Chapaev. The more time passed since the death of the division commander, the smoother the memories became, more and more similar to Furmanov’s book. Suffice it to say that a year later, in the book “Chapayevites about Chapaev” in the memoirs of I.S. Kutyakov, some harsher assessments of the activities of V.I. Chapaev are no longer missing.
Based on available sources, we will try to simulate the events of that time.
So, by the end of August 1919, the situation of V.I. Chapaev’s division was many times worse than the situation in which General Tolstov’s army was located.
Firstly, the division was separated from its base in Uralsk by more than 200 kilometers. The complete lack of transport put the division in a catastrophic situation not only with ammunition, but also with bread.
Secondly, the strategic situation of General Tolstov’s Ural Army was more favorable due to the fact that his cavalry units could freely make deep marches and maneuvers in the vast expanses of the steppe. Chapaev could not resist this, since the vast waterless steppes were insurmountable for infantry. In addition, to assist the group under the command of one of its commanders, Aksenov (six rifle regiments and two cavalry divisions), the last reserve consisting of two rifle regiments, a cavalry regiment and a cavalry division was given. “Chapaev was left without a reserve, and a commander without a reserve is no longer able to control the battle. On the contrary, then events control him. In a fight, this leads to defeat, disaster, death.”(5)
Thirdly, Chapaev’s troops suffered huge losses, especially during the capture of the villages of Mergenevskaya and Sakharnaya during frontal attacks, when chains of six rifle regiments took these points with bayonet strikes. Up to three thousand people were lost here killed and wounded. In addition, it was necessary to satisfy the urgent need for ammunition.
For these reasons, instead of attacking the Kaleny outpost, Chapaev ordered to stop at a place to rest.
The division headquarters, supply department, tribunal, revolutionary committee and other divisional institutions with a total number of almost two thousand people were located in Lbischensk. In addition, there were about two thousand mobilized peasant transport workers in the city who did not have any weapons. The city was guarded by a divisional school of 600 people. The main forces of the division were located at a distance of 40-70 kilometers from the city.
Lbischensk attacked the 2nd Cossack Cavalry Corps under the command of General Sladkov, consisting of two Cossack divisions.
The Cossacks moved towards Lbischensk at night and on the morning of September 4 stopped in the Kuzda-Gora tract (25 kilometers west of Lbischensk), hiding in dense thickets of reeds.
On the morning and evening of September 4, four airplanes of the 25th division flew out for reconnaissance, however, they did not find anyone.
It is obvious that the pilots simply did not report to Chapaev about the movement of the White troops.
Kutyakov’s book directly states this: “Many of us were convinced that the pilots serving Chapaev were strangers in the Red Army. For six days, making morning and evening flights. Even if we assume that?, how could they not not to notice the enemy, the 2nd Cavalry Corps of the Cossacks could not be detected on the march, since it moved exclusively at night, then during the day, then it stood still 25 kilometers from our airfield! No matter how thick the reeds were, still five thousand sabers could not to hide in them from the pilots. The “myopia” of the pilots was therefore very suspicious. The personnel of the air squad were certainly counter-revolutionary. And so it turned out. On September 5 at 10 o’clock in the morning, all four airplanes flew to the enemies in Kalmykov to report the destruction of the base and headquarters by the Whites Chapaev"(6). On the evening of September 4, Chapaev was reported about attacks by Cossack patrols on the division's convoys, but, having air reconnaissance data, the division commander did not attach serious importance to this.
This is what I.S. Kutyakov writes about the organization of the defense of Lbischensk.
“The defense of Lbischensk was carried out by the divisional school. There was no well-thought-out defense plan. The head of the school set up outposts on the outskirts of the city, usually with a platoon of infantry each; the outposts were located at a distance of two kilometers from each other and did not even have telephone communication between themselves. or the outpost opened fire, cadet messengers were sent to clarify the incident. Inside the city, foot patrols were guarded at night. In case of alarm, the cadets, scattered throughout the city in private apartments, gathered on Cathedral Square... There were many armed people at the headquarters, but they were not organized into detachments, were not distributed among sectors and combat areas.
That is why, when the battle began, our fighters did not know what to do. The most active ones ran to the headquarters on Cathedral Square. Shooting in the streets forced them to run into the first houses they came across, shooting back as they went. The darkness of the night made it impossible to navigate the street battle. Both the fighters and their commanders could not understand where the enemy was delivering the main blow. It was impossible to establish a battle order under these conditions. Chaos and confusion quickly turned into panic" (7).
Under cover of night, the Cossacks penetrated through weak security into the city they knew. The city was especially well known to the First Lbishchensky Cossack Regiment, consisting mainly of natives of the city.
Furmanov in his novel is surprised about this: “That the Cossacks had a connection with the villagers - there is no doubt about that. At least in some huts, ambushes were immediately discovered; rifles and machine guns were fired from there; warehouses and divisional institutions were indicated extremely quickly - everything was prepared and was considered in advance" (8).
Simultaneously with the attack on the outposts, at about one o'clock in the morning, the Cossacks opened rifle and machine-gun fire on the convoy and threw grenades at the commanders' apartments. The battle immediately became chaotic.
Chapaev, together with his small convoy, part of the division school cadets and members of the political department, defended himself on Cathedral Square in the city center. The square was blocked by the 2nd Cossack Cavalry Division. The memoirs give the names only of the corps commander, General Sladkov, and the commander of the 6th Chizhin Cossack Division, Colonel Borodin. It is quite possible that the 2nd division was commanded by Trofimov-Mirsky.
After four hours of battle, at dawn, the Whites launched artillery; an hour later the shells finally broke the resistance of the Red Army. Lbischensk fell into the hands of the Cossacks.
By six o'clock in the morning, separate groups of Chapaevites began to make their way to the Ural River in order to escape by swimming. The Cossacks took this opportunity into account and brought up not only machine guns but also artillery to the river. The whites mercilessly shot the soldiers who rushed into the water.
It should be noted that the Ural River was located one and a half to two kilometers from the city.
By this time, Chapaev is still on the square, and the second Cossack division surrounded Cathedral Square from all sides, cutting off the Reds’ path to the river.
How Chapaev and a group of his orderlies could get to the river under these conditions is unclear. Moreover, all the commanders who were on the square died, with the exception of Vasily Ivanovich, who was allegedly able to escape to the river.
The historical and biographical essay “Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev” (9) indicates that the decision to retreat to the Urals by Chapaev was made in the second half of the day on September 5, but at dawn all exits from the square were cut off.
If you read the recollections of eyewitnesses, it becomes clear that you can only trust the recollections of I.S. Kutyakov, who writes about everything from the words of the only surviving commander - the chief of staff of the division Novikov. Kutyakov at this moment was the head of the 25th division and directly reconstructed the course of events that occurred in Lbischensk. In September 1919, D.A. Furmanov was in the political department of the 4th Army and could write his novel only from the words of Kutyakov and Novikov. The memories of the rest of the division’s fighters should be approached with a huge amount of skepticism. Thus, having read the memoirs of the chief in charge of organizing the division’s supply of flour, Kadnikov, and a division fighter, Maksimov, the only ones who were interviewed as witnesses to the death of Chapaev in 1938 (10), one gets the impression that Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev moved around the city as he wanted and was in many places at the same time . Well, how can you trust the words of a person who says: “The shooting was carried out at random, in the direction from which explosive “dum-dum” bullets were flying in a thick rain” (11).
The chief of staff of the Ural White Army, Colonel Motornov, describes the events in Lbischensk as follows: “Lbischensk was taken on September 5 with a stubborn battle that lasted 6 hours. As a result, the headquarters of the 25th division, the instructor school, and divisional institutions were destroyed and captured. Four were captured an airplane, five cars and other spoils of war" (12).
After the capture of the city, the Whites carried out brutal reprisals against the captured soldiers and commanders of the 25th Division. The Cossacks shot in batches of 100-200 people. At the sites of executions, many suicide notes were found on scraps of newspaper and smoking paper. On September 6, the 73rd brigade of the 25th division liberated the city from the whites. The Reds were in the city for only a few hours. At this time, a search for Chapaev’s body was organized, but it did not bring any results. In the bathhouse, under the floor, they found Chief of Staff Novikov, seriously wounded in the leg. He reported everything that happened in Lbischensk. The fact of the search proves that Chapaev died in the city, and not while crossing the river. Otherwise, why was it necessary to look for his body among the dead in the city? Moreover, in total, up to five thousand people died in the Lbischensk area. In his novel, D.A. Furmanov writes that there are three huge pits behind the village (read Lbischensky) - they are filled to the top with the corpses of those executed.
The capture and subsequent death of Chapaev is also supported by the fact that even according to eyewitnesses there are several versions of his death. Only those Chapaevites who were on the square could say whether Chapaev went to the Urals, but they all died. The only surviving chief of staff, Novikov, saw Chapaev there the entire time he was on the square. Novikov simply could not see Chapaev’s death while crossing the Urals, since he hid under the floor of the bathhouse so as not to be destroyed by the whites.
Additional information can be provided by the materials of Trofimov-Mirsky’s investigative case, which should be kept in the archives of the Penza FSB.
Based on the above, it can be confidently stated that the unidentified body of Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev was buried in one of the mass graves in the city of Lbischensk (now Chapaev).

From the site: http://chapaev.ru/47/Gibel-CHapaeva--Versii-/