July 6: "Thank you, Comrade Stalin, for our happy childhood" – the slogan and tragedy of Gela Markizova
On July 6, 1936, at the athletes' parade on Red Square, participants carried the slogan "Thank you, Comrade Stalin, for our happy childhood!" By then, the slogan had already been tried in print—as a caption to a photograph of Stalin with a dark-haired, laughing girl, holding bouquets and wearing felt boots. The girl's name was Gelya Markizova. Two years later, her father would be executed, and three years after that, she would be left an orphan.
A girl from Buryatia
In January 1936, when she became famous throughout the Soviet Union, Gela was seven years old. She was born in November 1928 in Verkhneudinsk (Ulan-Ude) to Ardan and Dominika Markizov. Her full name was Engelsina, in honor of Engels. Her older brother was named Vladlen, after Lenin.
Gelya celebrated the beginning of 1936 in Moscow, visiting her mother, who was studying at medical school there. When her father, one of the leaders of the Buryat-Mongolian delegation, arrived for an all-Union rally of collective farmers, Gelya begged him to take her to see Stalin. Her father was against it. But her mother insisted. As she saw her off, she gave her daughter two bouquets—one for Stalin and one for Voroshilov.
Reception in the Kremlin
They dressed me up really nicely—Mom bought me a new sailor suit and gave me shoes, which Dad, of course, forgot to change. I ended up standing in the presidium in my felt boots. When we approached the Kremlin, Dad was really nervous, but the guard said children were allowed in without a pass. We entered the hall, and everyone sat down at tables. And then the collective farmers started speaking. These endless speeches went on for a very long time. I was terribly bored.
Gelya decided to present the bouquets without waiting for the reception to end. She stood up and walked to the presidium. The adults didn't stop her. Stalin took both bouquets and placed them on Gelya's table. Voroshilov announced, "The girl wants to give a speech." Gelya replied, "This is greetings from the children of Buryat-Mongolia." The delegates applauded, and dozens of photographers captured the moment.
Minutes of glory
At the end of the gathering, the girl was given a personalized gold watch and a gramophone engraved "To Gela Markizova from Party Leader Stalin. January 27, 1936." At the same time, newspapers came out with that very photograph and that very caption about a "happy childhood." Gela was experiencing moments of glory—sales of sailor suits soared across the country, and the "Gela" haircut became popular among children.
[My] return to Ulan-Ude was triumphant—I was greeted like the cosmonauts later were. I was invited to all the presidiums. I was very popular for a year and a half.
Repression
In November 1937, Gela's father was arrested on charges of participating in a "counterrevolutionary pan-Mongolian organization." Eight-year-old Gela, dictated by her mother, wrote a letter to Stalin, declaring that her father was "in no way an enemy of the people." She also enclosed photographs from a Kremlin reception. There was no response. Her father was executed in June 1938.
Gela's mother and children were exiled to Kazakhstan. Gela took Stalin's gifts with her into exile. Two years later, Dominika Markizova, who worked at a children's hospital, was found dead. According to one version, she poisoned herself. According to another, she was poisoned. According to a third, she was stabbed to death. Engelsina recounted that, as an adult, she read her mother's file in the FSB archives and saw a request addressed to Beria—what to do with the exiled Markizova, who was keeping gifts from Stalin and five portraits of her daughter with the leader?—and the order "eliminate."
New surname and old portrait
Following her mother's orders ("if anything happens to me..."), Gelya went to Moscow to live with her aunt. Her aunt adopted the girl and gave her a new surname—Dobreyeva. The first thing the "new" Gelya saw at her new school was a huge "portrait of Stalin with a girl."
The image, circulated by propaganda, could be found everywhere—in kindergartens, boarding schools, and libraries—right up until the 1950s. The vexing problem of a "friend of children" embracing the daughter of an "enemy of the people" was solved ingeniously. The girl in the portrait was given a different identity. After Ardan Markizov's arrest, the name Mamlakat Nakhangova, a Tajik Stakhanovite pioneer who could pick cotton with both hands, began appearing on poster captions. Mamlakat was considerably older. But the propagandists apparently decided that a "happy childhood" was a relative term.
