June 21: Lev Kassil died in the World Cup final
In Moscow, 64-year-old Lev Kassil died of a heart attack while watching the 1970 World Cup final. The children's author and screenwriter, author of "Conduit and Shvambrania" and "The Goalkeeper of the Republic," died just as Brazil crushed Italy, the team he supported.
A provincial boy from Pokrovskaya Sloboda
Lev Kassil was born in 1905 in Pokrovskaya Sloboda, Samara Governorate—now Engels, Saratov Oblast. His father, a scientist and obstetrician-gynecologist, built the first maternity hospital in the village. His mother, a music teacher, later became a dentist.
In 1923, at the age of 18, Kassil graduated from the Unified Labor School (previously a gymnasium). During his studies, he edited and illustrated a handwritten magazine at the Pokrovskaya Children's Library. By the age of 22, he had completed three years of study at the Physics and Mathematics Department of Moscow State University—and from then on, as he himself admitted, "I was irresistibly drawn to writing."
From Mayakovsky to Murzilka
In 1925, Kassil entered the literary world. Two years later, Mayakovsky introduced him to the press as a children's writer.
In 1929, one of his most famous works, the autobiographical novella "Conduct." A sequel, "Shvambrania," appeared in 1931, and in 1935 they were combined into "Conduct and Shvambrania." The novella tells the story of the lives of high school brothers in pre-revolutionary Russia and during the Civil War, contrasting the real world with the fictional country of Shvambrania. The brothers were based on Kassil himself and his younger brother Oska (Joseph).
Boris Strugatsky wrote of the story: "Apparently, under the pressure of the circumstances of the time, Kassil was forced to significantly alter the emphasis and the entire spirit of the story. Essentially, the story introduced the idea that all these intelligentsia games of 'foreign countries' were harmful and shameful for Soviet schoolchildren. A thoroughly loyal ditty appeared: 'A fairy tale is a lie, a fairy tale is dust, better than a fairy tale would be the truth.'"
After the arrest in 1937 of his brother, the writer and journalist Iosif Kassil, who was later executed, Lev’s book was not reprinted for many years.
In 1937, Kassil wrote the first Soviet sports novel, "The Goalkeeper of the Republic," an expanded screenplay for the already-produced film "The Goalkeeper." According to the author, the protagonist was based on goalkeeper Anatoly Akimov, then still relatively unknown. Following the novel's success, Soviet national football team players began inviting Kassil to friendly matches and official competitions.
During the Great Patriotic War, he performed on the radio, in schools, military units, and at businesses in Moscow and the Urals. After the war, he headed the Children's Literature Commission of the USSR Writers' Union, worked as a special correspondent for Izvestia, and then as editor of Murzilka magazine.
In 1951, he received the Stalin Prize, third degree, for the story “The Street of the Younger Son” (co-authored with Max Polyanovsky) about the pioneer partisan Volodya Dubinin.
In 1964, he wrote another fantasy novel, "Be Prepared, Your Highness!", about a crown prince from a fictional country. The character was based on a real prince, the son of the President of the Kingdom of Laos: Kassil met him while he was vacationing at the Soviet camp "Artek."
Finale
For the last 25 years, Kassil lived on Kamergersky Lane, 500 meters from the Kremlin.
On June 21, 1970, he was watching the World Cup final between Italy and Brazil at home—doctors had forbidden him from traveling to Mexico, where the tournament was taking place. Kassil was rooting for the Italians. By then, the USSR had already been eliminated in the quarterfinals.
As the Brazilians were scoring another goal (Brazil beat Italy 4-1), Cassil clutched his heart and died of a heart attack.
That match became legendary: 29-year-old Pele became – and still remains – the only three-time world champion in the world.
