Tula Lefty, who glorified his homeland with the artistic prowess of his incomparable skill, is widely known for the wonderful "Tale of the Tula Oblique Lefty and the Steel Flea" by N. S. Leskov. In the first separate edition of Skaz (1882), it bears the subtitle "Guild Legend". In the preface, the author pointed out that he wrote it down in Sestroretsk "from an old gunsmith, a native of Tula", which led some reviewers to reduce the role of Leskov to "simple shorthand". Therefore, in June of the same year, on the pages of Novoye Vremya, Leskov stated:: "I wrote this whole story in May of last year, and Lefty is a person I made up"2 (that is, a literary image created by him). This did not exclude the connection of the "Tale" with Russian folklore, especially since, according to the writer himself, his idea came from a folk joke: "The British made a flea out of steel, and our Tula people shod it and sent it back to them." At the same time, the pages of "Skaz" clearly reflected some actual events.
In the early 1900s, Colonel S. A. Zybin, while researching the history of the Tula Arms Factory, discovered in its archive the case of the departure of gunsmiths Alexey Surnin and Yakov Leontiev to England in 1785 .3 What did the documents tell us? Gunsmiths were sent to England by order of the President of the Military College, Field Marshal G. A. Potemkin, to improve the production of artistic metal products .4 They arrived in London in November 1785 and were placed under the care of the Russian Ambassador, Prince S. R. Vorontsov. At first, the gunsmiths had to master the English language, but since the money for their maintenance was transferred irregularly, the training was delayed. Only in the summer of 1787 did A. Surnin and Y. Leontiev go to Birmingham and Sheffield "to inspect the manufactories and the machines used in them." Upon returning to London, Vorontsov determined the direction of their future studies. He acknowledged that "it will be much more useful for the fatherland" if they master the production of weapons instead of various artistic works.
English masters, adhering to the guild traditions, refused to take foreigners as students. Nevertheless, A. Surnin managed to become a student of the" first gunsmith " G. Nock, and I-Leontiev - of his companion D. Egg. Owner of a large manufactory that supplied weapons to the government-
1 N. S. Leskov. Collected Works, vol. 7, Moscow, 1958, p. 499.
2 N. S. Leskov. About the Russian Lefty (Literary explanation). Novoe Vremya, 1882, No. 2256, p. 2.
3 S. A. Zybin. History of the Tula imp. Peter the Great Arms Factory, vol. 1, Moscow, 1912, pp. 149-151, 330-355. The mentioned case has not been preserved.
4 s. Troynitsky. Notes about the Tula factory. "Old Years", 1916, NN 11-12, p. 88.
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As a result, Noc was known as a designer of new weapons (muskets and carbines with a simplified lock)5 . Surnin's talent and hard work attracted the attention of Nok, who informed him "without the slightest concealment of the secret of his art." Vorontsov also believed that Surnin was "indefatigable in gaining success in favor of Russia." 6
In St. Petersburg, however, they almost forgot about the Tula masters sent to England. Money for their maintenance came in sloppily, and they were " in debt and in need." The Military College feared that this could lead to undesirable actions: Russian gunsmiths will agree to be persuaded to stay in England. Surnin resisted all sorts of temptations, while Leontiev "went into a disorderly life", ran away from the master and got lost in a foreign land. In August 1791, Vorontsov sent Surnin to Russia. In a letter to Potemkin, he asked that the gunsmith be given the opportunity "to put into effect the knowledge acquired in England", thanks to which "the Russian army will receive such benefits in correcting devices for rifles, carbines, rifles and pistols, which no amount of money can buy"7 .
Surmin returned to Tula in early 1792 and set to work. The factory authorities did not contribute to his efforts to improve weapons. Only in 1794, by a rescript of Catherine II, was he designated "master of the armory and overseer of everything that concerns weapons" 8 . This gave him some freedom of action.
The quality of weapons in Russia then left much to be desired. In June 1798, a decree of the Military Collegium followed, which ordered all parts of guns to be manufactured "with the utmost precision" so that each of them "is suitable for any kind of weapon". In other words, it was required that the same parts were interchangeable 9 . This is what Surnin tried to do. Using local experience and the achievements of European technology known to him, he and his assistants developed an organization of the production process (a sequence of operations, new devices, various patterns, etc.), which ensured the production of weapon parts "with such accuracy that all parts of one weapon could fit all others." The measures taken by him contributed to improving the quality of weapons. This was noted by the government, and in December 1806 Surnin was awarded 1 thousand rubles as a "reward for excellent work and zeal for service". But his life ended early. Surnin died on August 17, 1811, at the age of 44 .
Comparing the data of Surnin and Leontiev's biographies with Leskov's "Skaz", S. A. Zybin not without reason saw coincidences and published an article in which he claimed that Surnin and Leontiev were the prototype of Lefty, who merged "into one person with the dual character of Lefty" 11 . Zybin's arguments seemed quite convincing and were partly included in the literature 12 . But in addition, the following circumstances attract attention. Leskov died in 1895, that is, 10 years before the publication of Zybin's article. However, the facts cited by the latter were already reflected earlier in the "Tale", and they apparently could not have been known to Leskov. It remains to be assumed that Leskov also had some other sources telling about the stay of Tula gunsmiths abroad. Did such materials appear in print during the writer's lifetime? Most likely, they should have been found in the documents of the "Prince Vorontsov Archive", published in the 1870s by P. I. Bartenev, the publisher of the "Russian Archive".
Let's turn to the papers of S. R. Vorontsov. On July 9, 1790, he wrote to his brother, the president of the Commercial College A. R. Vorontsov: "You wanted to know the contents of my letter to Krechetnikov 13-here it is. It has been more than three years since two tul were sent.-
5 N. Blakmore. British Military Firearms 1650 - 1850. L. 1961, pp. 90 - 110, 121 - 124.
6 TSGADA, State Archive, category XX, d. 46, l. 586 vol.
7 TSGVIA USSR, f. 41, op. 199, d. 162-165, ll. 28-28 vol.
8 S. A. Zybin. Op. ed., p. 150.
9 State Archive of the Tula region, f. 187, 1770, ll. 425-426.
10 TSGVIA USSR, f. 5, op. 4/76, d. 1336.
11 S. A. Zybi n The origin of the gun legend about the Tula Lefty. "Weapons collection", 1905, N 1, p. 5.
12 V. Shklovsky. About a guild legend. "Ogonyok", 1947, N 19, p. 16; V. Ashurkov. The Tale of Tula craftsmanship (in the book: N. S. Leskov. Left-handed. Tula. 1948).
13 M. N. Krechetnikov, general-in-chief, in 1777 - 1793. governor of Tula, Ryazan and Kaluga, in whose subordination were Tula gunsmiths.
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Find a gunsmith to improve your skills. One of them turned too badly and doesn't want to go back. The other is as honest as he is excellent in his art; he has nothing more to learn... I want to send them back when Krechetnikov texts me to leave it still. To do this, I imagine that the danger of losing him is not far off: he can marry here, he can settle in a country where, with the ability that he has, he can earn more than 200 pounds a year. " 14 The letter directly describes those situations that are partially reflected in Leskov's "Tale". In another letter (to an unknown person, presumably a member of the Foreign College, gr. A. I. Morkov) dated August 9, 1791, S. R. Vorontsov recommends Surnin as "a man of exemplary behavior and excellent art, who preferred to return to his homeland, although here in London he could earn too 200 guineas a year. His companion, a drunkard and not at all such a skilled craftsman, did not want to leave. " 15 And here again we have facts that are partially reflected in the"Tale".
The coincidence of the situations described in Leskov's "Tale" with the facts given in Vorontsov's letters can hardly be considered accidental Leskov, as an amateur and connoisseur of his native antiquity, could have been familiar with Bartenev's publications. But even in this case, the author reinterpreted and creatively used their content according to his plan. If the development of events is shown in the "Tale" is quite plausible, then the outstanding skill of the Left-handed person is endowed with some fantastic features. And yet the writer's bold idea is not so far from reality.
Let us recall the conditions that developed in Tula in the XVIII-first half of the XIX century. The state Armory Manufactory, founded in 1712, was served by the labor of state-owned gunsmiths assigned to it. It is known that the manufactory, "systematically developing to the extreme the traditional isolation of crafts that it finds in society, thereby creates the virtuosity of partial workers" 16 . Mastering their skills from generation to generation, gunsmiths have long been famous for making "subtle" - elegant art products and various miniature gizmos .17 Once these "curio" crafts were typical of Tula, but little information about them has been preserved. In 1810, says Prince I. Dolgorukov in his memoirs, he was offered in Tula a pair of pistols weighing 3 spool, that is, 13 grams. At the Tula exhibition of 1837, two guns of the gunsmith Medvedev were exhibited, the weight of which was about 2 spool (over 8 grams) 18 .
Such works of art, causing surprise and delight of contemporaries, were widely known. Leskov, portraying the" disgraceful for the English nation " skill of the Tula people as working on one of these intricate miniature products, in fact, did not deviate from the truth of life. He left it to Lefty to do the incredible thing-to shoe an outlandish flea. Inspired fiction of the writer and actual historical facts merged together in the "Tale", becoming, in the words of the writer himself,"a tradition of antiquity, although not deep." Concluding his" Tale", Leskov wrote with regret:: "Such masters as the fabulous Lefty are now, of course, no longer in Tula." Of course, we cannot agree with this. The centuries-old traditions of unsurpassed craftsmanship, glorified in the "Tale", have not only been preserved in Tula and other old industrial centers of former Russia, but have also come down to our days.
In his book "The Development of Capitalism in Russia", V. I. Lenin considered Pavlovo locksmiths ' crafts, and drew attention to the lockmaker Khvorov, who "made locks of 24 pieces per spool; some parts of such locks reached the size of a pinhead" 19 . In 1893 - 1895, students of the Tula Factory gun school made working miniature rifles Krnka, Berdan and Mosin. They also made miniature revolvers of the Lefoche system: one weighing 8.97 g, the other-5.47 g, which fit in a matchbox. The barrels are rifled, the drums hold seven rounds each (stored in the Tula Museum of Weapons).
14 "Prince Vorontsov's Archive", vol. IX, Moscow, 1876, p. 179.
15 "Russian Archive", 1879, book 1, p. 203.
16 K. Marx and F. Engels, Soch. Vol. 23, p. 351.
17 See M. D. Malchenko. Tula Goldsmiths. L. 1974.
18 V. Ashurkov. Op. ed., pp. 10-11.
19 See V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 3, p. 430.
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This new generation of masters was not inferior to their predecessors in their art.
The victory of Great October opened up wide opportunities for creative initiative and talents. The art of miniature works has flourished with renewed vigor. Many of the first Soviet miniatures were dedicated to V. I. Lenin. In the autumn of 1918, the Red Army won important victories on the Eastern Front, and Simbirsk, Samara, Bugulma, Izhevsk and other cities were liberated from the White Guards. In honor of this victory, the workers of Izhevsk presented Lenin with a miniature three-line rifle. It was made by the hereditary Izhevsk gunsmith P. V. Alekseev 20 . "It was hard work, jewelry, "he later recalled," the weight of my rifle is 64 times less than the usual one... I made a rifle and kept thinking, let Ilyich see what our working hands can do."21 . Tula produced miniature hunting rifles, including a double-barrelled shotgun (model " B " with a length of 30 cm) as a gift to the VIII Extraordinary Congress of Soviets, which adopted a new Constitution that legislated the victory of socialism in the USSR.
In 1959, Tula craftsmen A. N. Dygeri and N. V. Vasin made a miniature harpoon gun. In the spring of 1969, the master instructor of the school of gunsmithing, M. I. Pochukaev, completed his work dedicated to Lenin's memory: in the center of the five-pointed bronze star, a small book with a format of 11.5 by 8 mm is enclosed; on the front cover, Lenin's silhouette is visible; on 35 silver leaves with a thickness of 0.12 mm, the full text of the CPSU Charter is contained - 35.5 thousand characters! (Tula Museum of Weapons). To mark the 100th anniversary of Lenin's birth, a working miniature model was made (Tula Museum of Weapons) of the hunting rifle that was presented to Lenin on April 15, 1923 by workers and employees of the Tula Arms Factory (Central Museum of V. I. Lenin). Under the guidance of the oldest craftsmen N. M. Panteleev and B. I. Baldenkov, this model was made by the best gunsmiths M. S. Ignatov, A. S. Chukanov, A.V. Zembitsky, V. V. Golovanov, V. A. Tatarinov and others.
Nowadays, such miniature products not only help to cultivate aesthetic taste, but also have practical significance. Academician A. A. Blagonravov wrote that the further development of space research "has a significant impact on progress in the field of microminiaturization of technical means in general"22 . Before the masters of microtechnics, unlimited opportunities open up for new searches and achievements that their distant predecessor, the famous Lefty, could not have dreamed of.
20 N. A. Koshcheev. Izhevsk rifle N 500 000. "Voprosy istorii", 1977, N 4.
21 M. Gorbov. Izhevsk gunsmiths. Izhevsk. 1961, p. 65.
22 A. A. Blagonravov. Spacewalk - achievements and hopes. "Literaturnaya gazeta", 12. IV. 1967.
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