On this February day, just a moment before Maria Karlovna was shot in the back of the head, she saw a vast black trench, half-filled with human bodies, people standing beside her at the edge of this trench, falling into it, and already lying among the bodies, and herself among these people. Now it was her turn.
At that moment, it might have seemed to her that she was standing on a stage, with an orchestra pit in front of her, and behind her - the stage. Now it was her exit. She couldn't play this out, but she had already been firmly cast in this role - the role of a Latvian woman who was to be shot on this February day. On this day - February 3, 1938 - at the NKVD firing range in Butovo, 258 people were shot, of whom 229 were Latvians.
Latvians were executed quite a lot in that year and on other days as well. For instance, 74 Latvian surnames can be found on the lists of those shot at Butovo on February 28, 1938. To this day, there isn't a definitive number of how many human lives are buried in the Butovo trenches, but according to some estimates, this number could exceed seventy thousand. According to incomplete data published annually in Moscow's Butovo Polygons Martyrology, from August 7, 1937, to October 19, 1938, in this suburban settlement, Chekists exterminated 20,765 individuals representing 70 different nationalities. Among them, 1,142 people were shot for their Latvian origin, and every sixth woman shot here was Latvian. Additionally, over three hundred Latvians were shot during this period on the territories of other Moscow NKVD "objects." The number of Latvians living in Moscow at that time, according to the 1933 census, did not exceed half a percent of the city's population.
Nevertheless, it is the day of February 3 that will forever remain in the history of Stalinist terror as the "day of the Latvian massacre." Not least because on this day in Butovo, almost the entire troupe of one of Moscow's theaters - the Latvian theater "Skatuvé" - was shot. The theater was founded in November 1919 by Oswald Glaznieks (Glazunov), a student and associate of Vakhtangov. One of three Latvian theaters operating in the former USSR in the 1920s and 1930s and one of Moscow's three national theaters, "Skatuvé" (meaning "stage" in Latvian) enjoyed considerable success with Moscow audiences. The Latvian community in Moscow simply adored the actors of the theater on Strastnoy Boulevard, house 6.
Latvians, who had been living in Moscow for over 150 years, became relatively numerous after a large wave of migration in 1915-1916. The First World War forced the Russian government to evacuate many enterprises from Riga and other industrial Baltic cities together with their personnel. This led to the establishment of the Kauchuk Plant, the Moscow Electric Lamp Plant, and many others in Moscow; thousands of Latvians found themselves in Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, Tver, Smolensk, and other Russian cities. Some of the migrants returned to Latvia in the early 1920s, but many Latvians found work, started families, and settled in Moscow.
Moscow at that time, rich in its cultural traditions, the capital of the avant-garde and cosmopolitanism, attracted Latvian artists, writers, architects, and actors. "Skatuvé," whose troupe in the first years of its existence numbered no more than a dozen people, became a professional theater in the early 1930s. It had its own studio where young students of Glaznieks studied stagecraft in the morning and performed in plays in the evenings.
In just eighteen years, "Skatuvé" staged 88 plays, one of the most significant productions being the drama "In the Fire" by Latvian classic Rudolfs Blaumanis. The repertoire, based on Latvian drama, included plays in Russian, allowing actors from other Moscow theaters to be invited; for example, the Vakhtangov actress Anna Orochko also performed at "Skatuvé." In the mid-1930s, the theater management succeeded in "recruiting" a star of European cinema, Maria Leyko, to the troupe. Accidentally in Moscow in 1935, the Latvian actress, who had acted under Murnau and captivated Berlin audiences at Max Reinhardt's theater, agreed to stay here, excited about the new idea of performing at "Skatuvé." She did not yet know what this enthusiasm would cost her.
At the end of 1937, arrests of Latvians took on a total character. According to published confessions of NKVD investigators, "mass arrests of the so-called Latvian organization turned into a literal hunt for Latvians and the destruction of the adult male part of the Latvian population in Moscow, as far as the search for Latvians by conscription lists in the police went." The main task of this department became the search for Latvian surnames in household registers; at night, "funnels" combed through block after block, taking anyone who bore these surnames. Those arrested for belonging to Latvian surnames were offered a choice of two charges: either participation in the "counter-revolutionary nationalist fascist Latvian organization" or "espionage in favor of Latvia." In reality, there was no choice, as both formulations meant execution. The "apotheosis" of the struggle against "Latvian organizations" was the secret directive signed by Stalin on December 3, 1937, sanctioning mass terror against Latvians in the Soviet Union.
At the Strastnoy theater, things started to feel empty. On the evening of December 8, 1937, spectators at "Skatuvé" encountered a staging move that seemed overly bold for the time: there were no men in the play, only actresses appeared in the scenes. Only the desperate improvisation of the women playing in the absence of their partners saved the performance. The audience barely suspected that there were no actors in the theater anymore, as roles had already been assigned in the play directed by the country's chief director. The curtain fell.
Following the men, the women also disappeared. By the end of December, everyone at "Skatuvé" had been arrested. On December 27, 1937, the then Moscow leadership officially decided to close the theater on Strastnoy Boulevard, which by that time no longer had a single employee, citing the "inexpediency of the existence of the Latvian theater in Moscow." The Moscow City Council decided to "release" the employees from work "from January 1, 1938, with a two-week allowance." The actors did not receive these allowances - on February 3, the theater was shot.
It's hard not to notice that considerable effort was made to ensure that the name of the Latvian theater sank into oblivion forever: for fifty years, practically nothing was said about "Skatuvé" or the fate of its actors. If anyone in Riga was troubled by the question, "what actually happened to our Maria Leyko?" Moscow comedians, out of uniform, after a pause, would improvise something like, "she hanged herself in the transit prison cell with a German-made silk stocking."
However, the files of the Lubyanka do not burn. Some of them were made public in the early 1990s, including this: "LEYKO Maria Karlovna, born in 1887 in Riga (Latvia), Latvian, from the working class, non-party member, lower education, actress of the Latvian State Theater "Skatuvé." Resided in Moscow, Obolensky Lane, building 9, corps Z, apartment 58. Arrested on December 15, 1937. By the decision of the NKVD and the Prosecutor's Office of the USSR on January 24, 1938, on charges of belonging to the Latvian counter-revolutionary nationalist fascist organization, the highest measure of punishment - execution by firing squad - was appointed. The sentence was carried out on February 3, 1938. Rehabilitated on May 12, 1958." In March 2002, the Moscow government commission officially refused the Latvian community of Moscow to install a memorial plaque in memory of "Skatuvé."
The Latvians appealed to the Moscow authorities with a request to install a memorial plaque on the theater building, which they planned to make at their own expense according to an existing design. The city fathers deemed it inappropriate to install such a sign at 6 Strastnoy Boulevard, recommending to seek "another form" of preserving the memory of the Latvian theater. This decision of the Moscow government commission was addressed to the Moscow Society of Latvian Culture (MOLK).
The building on the corner of Strastnoy and Bolshaya Dmitrovka streets still exists in Moscow to this day. This building once housed the Latvian theater "Skatuvé." In the absence of "another form," it makes sense to commemorate its participants - they paid with their lives for this involvement. It was only in March 2020 that it was possible to achieve the installation of a memorial plaque (naturally, it does not mention anything about the fate of the theater, just "it was").
Here are their names:
1. Bantsan Robert Fritsevich (executed on 03.02.1938) - director of the Latvian theater;
2. Vanadzin Adolf Yakovlevich (executed on 03.02.1938) - director and actor of the theater;
3. Krumin Karl Yanovich (executed on 03.02.1938) - director of the theater;
4. Balodis Irma Ivanovna (executed on 03.02.1938) - actress;
5. Zudrag Zelma Pavlovna (executed on 03.02.1938) - actress;
6. Berzin Lydia Semenovna (executed on 03.02.1938) - actress;
7. Kalnina Marta Yanovna (executed on 03.02.1938) - actress;
8. Boksberg Zelma Vilgelmovna (executed on 03.02.1938) - actress;
9. Leyko Maria Karlovna (executed on 03.02.1938) - actress;
10. Prints Matilda Andreevna (07.04.1938) - for connections with actors;
11. Baltaus Yan Yanovich (executed on 03.02.1938) - actor;
12. Baltaus Karl Yanovich (executed on 03.02.1938) - actor;
13. Krumin Avgust Davydovich (executed on 03.02.1938) - actor;
12. Baltgalov Vladimir Matveevich (executed on 28.02.1938) - actor;
15. Oshe Andrey Yakovlevich (executed on 03.02.1938) - actor;
16. Bantsan Rudolf Fritsevich (executed on 03.02.1938) - actor;
17. Reingolds Preimanis
18. Zvagul Albert Yakovlevich (executed on 05.02.1938) - actor;
19. Feldman Erik Fridrikhovich (executed on 26.02.1938) - actor;
20. Zeberg Oscar Oskarovich (executed on 03.02.1938) - actor;
21. Forstman Vilis Khristoforovich (executed on 03.02.1938) - actor;
22. Tsirul Robert Petrovich (executed on 03.02.1938) - actor;
23. Zubov Nikolay Alekseevich (executed on 28.02.1938)
24. Veydeman Karl Yanovich (executed on 26.02.1938) - artist;
25. Rudzit Artur Yurevich (executed on 07.04.1938) - designer, scenographer;
26. Lessin Elfrida Avgustovna (executed on 03.02.1938) - theater secretary;
27. Ulman Fritz Ansovich (executed on 03.02.1938) - head of the production department;
28. Brederman Robert Yanovich (17.05.1938) - for connections with actors;
29. Glazunov Osvald Fedorovich (16.03.1947) - founder, director, and educator of the theater;
30. Amtman Teodor Fritsevich (executed on 03.02.1938)
31. Anderson Elizaveta Fedorovna (executed on 03.02.1938)
32. Biroys-Schmidt Edward (04.11.1937)
The artistic director and chief director of the "Skatuvē" theater, a Vakhtangov follower Oswald Glazunov (Glaznieks), was eliminated in the Gulag on March 17, 1947.