How to play a musical instrument without touching it, why marriage hindered the career of a spy, and what made Lev Termen join the CPSU in 1991, tells the History of Science section.
Lev Theremin (not very original, but very accurate) was often compared with Leonardo, the circle of his interests was so wide and he achieved such serious achievements in this circle. Or I could have. If they would.
Prolific, talented ... It is quite possible that he is simply brilliant. “Underestimated” should have been added to these characteristics, but his whole trouble was that the inventor was precisely appreciated, and deafeningly appreciated. Such popularity was far from welcome in the circles for which he worked. And the "circles" successfully drowned out his popularity: at the age of 97, forgotten by everyone, he died in a tiny communal room, hunted down by neighbors claiming his living space. Although during his lifetime, Termen joked that if you read his last name the other way around, it will turn out “not dying.”
At the very beginning, such an outcome was not expected. Theremin was born in St. Petersburg, in a very "decent" family with French noble roots (in French, his surname was written as Theremin). The first-born in the family, he was treated kindly by his parents and received better education which he could only get. Musical ability Leo was developed by cello lessons, they did not forget about exact sciences. A physical laboratory was arranged for him in the apartment, later even a home observatory appeared. These two incarnations, music and physics, remained for Theremin the main hobbies of his whole life.
Lev Theremin
Wikimedia Commons
In 1916 he graduated from the St. Petersburg Conservatory in the cello class, while studying at the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of Petrograd University. Physics was taught to him by Privatdozent Abram Ioffe, the future pillar of Soviet science. True, he did not have to finish his studies: in 1916 he was taken to the army, where Termen served as a military radio engineer. In 1919, Abram Ioffe invited him to his institute as a specialist in radio engineering. The theremin was supposed to measure the dielectric constant of gases at various pressures and temperatures. Lev Sergeevich solved this problem with the help of an oscillatory circuit, in which the gas was placed between the capacitor plates, affecting its capacitance and, accordingly, the frequency of the electrical oscillations of the circuit.
Russian and Soviet physicist Abram Ioffe
Wikimedia Commons
History is silent about how effectively our hero coped with Ioffe's task, because the most famous of his inventions unexpectedly grew out of this task, the aerophone, which journalists later renamed the theremin (however, in English the invention is more often called by the name of our hero - theremin; also the variants "etherophone" or "thermenophone" were used).
The new musical instrument looked like a box with an antenna. To play it, it was not necessary to touch it: the theremin made sounds controlled by the musician's passes. In parallel, the same capacitor a la Ioffe led Lev Theremin to another invention - an alarm system that responded to a change in the capacitance of a capacitor in a protected room. Apparently, Termen had not yet finished this invention at that time, because subsequently the inventor often returned to it, wanting to improve it. One way or another, this system is one of the most used and most in demand today, but no one associates it with the name of the inventor of the theremin.
Theremin
Hutschi/Wikimedia Commons
In March 1922, a demonstration of Theremin's inventions was held in the Kremlin, which was attended by Lenin himself. Vladimir Ilyich even tried to personally play Glinka's "Lark" on the theremin. The new musical instrument, of course, completely overshadowed the charms of the capacitive signaling system, which, we note, under other circumstances and in another country, could have made the inventor a billionaire even without any theremin.
Vladimir Lenin, 1920
After this demonstration, inspired Theremin completely plunged into the world of inventions. In a short time, he invented many things: from automatic doors and automatic lighting to burglar alarm systems. And in 1925-26, he invented one of the first television systems, which he called "far-sighted".
On the one hand, this was a giant step forward, because the television systems available at that time had screens the size of a matchbox, and Termen invented a device with a screen of one and a half meters by one and a half meters with a resolution, however, only one hundred lines. On the other hand, this would be a giant step to a dead end, because the television that Termen developed was living out its last years, because it was based not on electronics, but on a mechanical (stroboscopic) effect.
True, the Soviet leaders really liked the Theremin far-viewer. The image of Stalin walking through the Kremlin courtyard on a screen measuring one and a half by one and a half shocked them so much that they immediately classified the invention. Under this seal, it, not claimed by anyone, safely disappeared.
Then the test of glory began. The news about the world's first electric musical instrument, on which the author personally plays and gives concerts of classical music, spread throughout the planet. Several American firms immediately applied to the USSR with an order for 2000 theremins, but with the condition that the author moved to the USA to supervise the work. In 1928, Termen went to America, having received two tasks - from the People's Commissar of Education Lunacharsky and from foreign intelligence. That is, he became a spy.
Arriving in New York, Theremin immediately patented his musical instrument and alarm, rented a six-story building in the city center for a music and dance studio for 99 years, and registered two companies - Teletouch and Theremin Studio. Where the Soviet inventor got the money for this is still arguing. It is possible that he got it from Soviet intelligence, but it is just as likely that it was money received from the sale American company RCA licensed the right to serial production of a simplified version of the theremin.
One way or another, Termen managed to successfully combine business and intelligence activities. Under the roof of the trade missions of the USSR, which he organized in a rented building, Soviet spies worked. Once a week Termen met with his curators, informing them of the information received and receiving new assignments.
At the same time, the inventor became more and more popular. George Gershwin, Maurice Ravel, Charlie Chaplin, Albert Einstein visited his studio... In parallel with business and espionage, Theremin was also engaged in his favorite business. So, in 1932, he created the rhythmicon light and music instrument. It was a huge transparent wheel with a geometric pattern applied to them, which rotated in front of a strobe lamp. As soon as the musician changed the pitch, the frequency of the strobe flashes changed along with the sound. The play of light changed the patterns and seemed to change the interior surrounding the audience, for example by raising and lowering the walls.
Lev Theremin also worked hard on his other musical invention - the terpsitone, named after the muse of dance, Terpsichore. In fact, it was the same theremin, only the sound and multi-colored lamps were controlled not by the hands of the musician, but by the bodies of the dancers - the music was born from the dance.
Lev Theremin with terpsiton
Andrew3858/Flickr
It was not possible to finish work on terpsiton: oddly enough, love prevented. In the troupe of dancers invited by Theremin to create concert program, danced the beautiful mulatto Lavinia Williams, with whom Termen fell in love and whom he later married.
On this, his popularity quickly faded, because in America in the thirties marriages of “whites” with people of a different skin color were not encouraged. Left without a stream of guests, Theremin was left without informants. As a scout, he was no longer needed, and in 1938 he was recalled to the USSR, depriving him of his wife and all the accumulated millions.
For some time he hung around without work, then he was arrested and sentenced to eight years under the fifty-eighth article. He was charged with attempting to kill Kirov with a mined Foucault pendulum. It is difficult to invent big nonsense, but it was quite enough for the judges of that time for a verdict. Once in the camp, Theremin invented a self-propelled wheelbarrow on a monorail and soon after that was sent to the so-called "sharashka" Tupolev. There he was found by the Great Patriotic War. Theremin developed equipment for radio control of unmanned aircraft, radio beacons for naval operations. Here, in a sharashka, he developed his famous Buran eavesdropping system.
After his release, Termen worked for some time at the KGB research center, developing various electronic systems. Since 1963, he began to work in the acoustic laboratory of the Moscow Conservatory, but here he did not come to court. After a publication about him in the New York Times, he was expelled from the conservatory in disgrace. He spent the last 25 years of his life in the acoustics laboratory of Moscow State University, where he was listed as a mechanic of the sixth category.
All this time, the inventor, surprisingly, was not a member of the party. He became a member of the CPSU only in March 1991, when not only the party, but the state itself was threatened with imminent collapse. When asked why he decided to become a communist after all, Termen replied: "I promised Lenin." And he kept his word.
ღ The same Lev Theremin: Inventor, physicist, musician ღThe old man lived in Moscow in a terrible buggy communal apartment opposite the Cheryomushkinsky market. When the neighbors needed his miserable little closet, they, in the absence of the old man, smashed his property, broke things, destroyed records. The old man was forced to move in with his daughter, but he fell so ill from all this that, as was to be expected, he soon died. To the delight of the neighbors in the communal apartment: the little room was vacated.
Living space. Used it and it's enough.
So what? - you ask. - It's a common story.
It still doesn’t happen in communal apartments, the neighbors could be an old man and, in general, something else ...
Just think - how long have they been waiting for its square meters to be vacated, they themselves have grown old.
And the old man, maybe also came in large numbers from somewhere. And the old man was not just a grandfather, what a thousand lives in communal apartments.
And it was Lev Theremin.
THE SAME LION THERMEN!
TERMEN Lev Sergeevich (1896-1993) - inventor, physicist, musician.
Creator of the world's first electronic musical instrument theremin (1919-20); one of the first long-range television systems (1925-26); the world's first rhythm machine rhythmicon (1932); security alarm systems, automatic doors and lighting; the first and most advanced listening devices, and so on.
Born in 1896 in St. Petersburg. He graduated from the St. Petersburg Conservatory in the cello class, studied at the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of St. Petersburg University.
Since 1919 - head of the laboratory of the Physical-Technical Institute in Petrograd, at the same time since 1923. - collaborated with HYMN" (State Institute musical science, Moscow).
In 1927 he was sent by the People's Commissariat for Education of the RSFSR on a business trip abroad. He traveled all over Europe, was one of the most popular people in New York, was a member of the club of millionaires. In 1931-38. - director of the joint-stock company Teletouch Inc. (USA). In his New York studio there were and worked such prominent people of his time, like emigrant Albert Einstein, conductor Leopold Stokowski, actor Charlie Chaplin, artist Marie Helene Bute, etc. and so on. His inventions, made in the 20-40s, have firmly entered our everyday life.
At the end of 1938 he returned to the USSR. Arrested in 1939 and sentenced to 8 years in the camps. Spends a year in Kolyma, but most term - in the legendary "Tupolevskaya" sharashka. After his release, he works at the KGB research center, developing various electronic systems.
Since 1963 - member of the acoustic laboratory of the Moscow Conservatory. In the late 60s, due to disagreements with the administration after the publication of an article about Theremin in the American newspaper The New York Times, Lev Sergeevich was expelled from the conservatory with a scandal, he was forced to go to work at Moscow State University.
Since 1966 - member of the Acoustics Department of the Faculty of Physics, Moscow State University.
For the last twenty-five years Termen has been working in the Acoustics Laboratory of Moscow State University. 6th class mechanic. He slowly worked on his theremins - he restored some, improved some, even invented one in which sound through a system of photocells arose from the mere glance of a musician.
Lev Theremin died in 1993 in poverty and obscurity, hunted down by neighbors in a communal apartment. Legendary Theremin…
His most widely known invention is the theremin, which Lenin liked. Playing the theremin consists in the musician changing the distance from his hands to the antennas of the instrument, due to which the capacitance of the oscillatory circuit changes and, as a result, the frequency of the sound.
The vertical straight antenna is responsible for the tone of the sound, the horizontal horseshoe - for its volume.
To play the theremin, you must have perfect pitch, since the musician does not touch the instrument while playing.
But not only theremin...
He invented:
1. A group of electric musical instruments:
- theremin
- rhythmicon
- terpsiton
2. Burglar alarm
3. Unique system eavesdropping "Buran"
4. The world's first television installation - far vision
worked on:
- speech recognition system
- human freezing technology
- voice identification in forensics
- military sonar.
Already at 26, he demonstrated television in the Kremlin.
At that time, televisions with screens the size of a matchbox were created, and his television had a huge screen (1.5 x 1.5 m) and a resolution of 100 lines.
In 1927, the scientist demonstrated his installation to the Soviet military leaders K.E. Voroshilov, I.V. Tukhachevsky and SM. Budyonny:
state minds watched with horror on the screen Stalin walking through the Kremlin courtyard.
This picture scared them so much that the invention was immediately classified ... and safely buried in the archives, and television was soon invented by the Americans.
Theremin struck the world scientific community with his theremin, on which he himself (and he, in addition to physics, also graduated from the conservatory) gave classical music concerts.
"Heavenly music", "voices of angels" - the bourgeois press groaned with delight.
The USSR received orders from several firms for the manufacture of 2,000 theremins on the condition that Theremin would come to America to supervise the work.
But instead of one task, Lev Sergeevich received two: one from the Commissar of Education Lunacharsky and the second from the military department.
Even upon arrival in America, he rented a six-story mansion on 54th Avenue for 99 years. In addition to private apartments, it housed a workshop and a studio. Here Lev Sergeevich often played music with Albert Einstein: the physicist played the violin, the inventor played the theremin. Einstein was fascinated by the idea of combining music and spatial images. And Termen figured out how to do it: he invented the light-musical instrument rhythmicon. Huge transparent wheels with a geometric pattern applied to them rotated in front of a strobe lamp. As soon as the musician changed the pitch, the frequency of the strobe flashes and the patterns changed - the spectacle was impressive. Well, fantasy began when the walls of the studio went up and down. Of course, not really, but with the help of the play of light. The bewitched visitors gasped in surprise!
Rumors of these experiments attracted many people to the studio. famous people. Theremin's guests included the millionaires DuPont, Ford and Rockefeller. However, Termen himself was included in the list of twenty-five celebrities of the world by the mid-30s. And even was a member of the club of millionaires.
Was he really a millionaire? It is not known for certain. Some say that a lot of money and Termen personally, and Soviet Russia brought by Teletouch Corporation. And others claim that Termen was financed by military intelligence. Because the true purpose of his business trip to America was espionage.
Every two weeks, Lev Sergeevich came to a small country cafe, where two young people were waiting for him. They listened to his reports and gave new tasks. However, these tasks were not burdensome and did not particularly distract Theremin from work. And he was already carried away with might and main by the most fantastic of his ideas - an instrument that gave birth to music from dance. In fact, this is a kind of theremin: the sound is created not only by the hands, but also by the movements of the whole body, and the corresponding name was given to it - terpsiton - after the name of the goddess of dance Terpsichore. At the same time, each sound corresponded to a lamp of a certain color. Imagine what an extraordinary sight it was, because any movement of the dancer responded with sounds and flickering of multi-colored lights!
To create a concert program, Theremin invited a group of dancers from the African American Ballet Company. Alas, it was not possible to achieve harmony and accuracy from them, the project had to be postponed. But the beautiful mulatto Lavinia Williams danced in this troupe, who conquered Lev Sergeevich not only as a ballerina, but also as a woman. Theremin decided to marry.
It never occurred to him that marriage to a black woman would radically change his life. But as soon as the lovers registered their marriage, the doors of many houses in New York closed before Theremin: America did not yet know political correctness. He lost informants, which caused serious dissatisfaction with the Soviet intelligence. And in 1938 Termen was ordered to leave immediately for Russia. Lavinia was told that she would come to her husband on the next boat.
The spouses never saw each other again. And Termen until the end of his days kept a marriage certificate issued by the Russian embassy in America.
The Great Depression that broke out at the turn of the 1930s ruined many people.
But not Theremin: the resourceful scientist had another trump card - a burglar alarm.
Theremin's sensors were torn off with hands. They were installed even in Sing Sing prison and in Fort Knox, where the American gold reserves were stored.
Thousands of Americans enthusiastically began to learn to play the theremin, and the General Electric Corporation and RCA (Radio Corporation of America) bought licenses for the right to manufacture it.
Theremin by the mid-30s was included in the list of twenty-five celebrities in the world and was a member of the club of millionaires.
In Moscow, he was arrested as a "defector", and after a month of skillful processing of socialist legality in the Lubyanka, Lev Termen confessed to everything.
For example, in the fact that, together with a group of astronomers, he planned the assassination of Kirov.
The version was:
Kirov (who by that time had long been dead!) was going to visit the Pulkovo observatory.
Astronomers have planted a land mine in a Foucault pendulum.
And Termen, with a radio signal from the USA (!!!), was supposed to blow it up as soon as Kirov approached the pendulum (!).
The investigator was not even embarrassed by the fact that the Foucault pendulum is located not in Pulkovo, but in the Kazan Cathedral.
Lev Sergeevich was given eight years and sent to Kolyma.
In the camp, he immediately invented a self-propelled car on a monorail, and he was soon taken to the so-called Tupolev's "sharashka", where Sergei Pavlovich Korolev was his assistant.
The war started and he developed equipment for radio control of unmanned aircraft and beacons for naval operations.
But not only. Theremin also developed the famous Buran eavesdropping system in this sharashka.
They say it is still in use today. 
The crown of this creation was a wooden panel, which was presented to the American ambassador by the Soviet pioneers.
The panel was hung in the ambassador's office, and ... soon they began to look for where the colossal information leak was coming from.
Only seven (!) years later, a cylinder with a membrane was found in this panel.
For another year and a half, American intelligence engineers struggled with the riddle - what is it? ..
But it turned out that a beam was directed from the house opposite to the study window, and the membrane, vibrating in time with the speech, reflected it back.
Along with a speech that was recorded.
In the future, Theremin improved the invention even more: it was possible to do without a membrane, its role was played by window glass.
The Soviet authorities were so happy about this useful invention that Termen was awarded the Stalin Prize of the 1st degree right in prison.
And then they were even released, which was simply an outstanding act of humanism and the triumph of socialist legality, so dear to some.
And they even made him happy with two rooms of that very “free living space”.
Well, who would not agree that two rooms were given to Lev Theremin for free? Of course, he was literally gifted. Has he earned two rooms for this country?
In the 60s, L. Termen wanted to do electronic music again, but some kind of party-gebesh mug just spat in his eyes, pointing out that "electricity exists to execute traitors, and not to create music."
These are the thinkers who decided the fate of science in the country in general and the brilliant inventor Theremin in particular.
Of course, he remained highly classified and continued to work for intelligence, because he was not hired anywhere else.
At first he was engaged in military hydroacoustics, and then he was instructed to develop a "device for searching for flying saucers."
Such idiocy did not inspire him at all, and in 64 he finally left the organs and began to work quietly and peacefully in the acoustic laboratory of the Moscow Conservatory.
Yes, it would have worked if the New York Times correspondent had not been impatient to make a report about the conservatory.
And there the correspondent came across Lev Theremin. The whole world was sure that he died in 1938, crushed by a meat grinder of millions of repressions.
When they found out in the USA that the great Theremin was alive, it was a bomb. Sensation. Achtung. Paragraph.
The scientific community of America and Europe literally roared.
An avalanche of letters from scientists and colleagues poured in to Termen, reporters and television companies rushed to him in a crowd ...
He was invited to Stanford, to Paris, to Holland, to Sweden…
The leadership of the conservatory was so scared of all this that ...
Theremin was simply fired, and his equipment and developments were thrown into the trash.
And he developed a synthesizer, which was soon successfully developed by the Japanese Yamaha, earning millions and millions on it ...
And for the next 25 years, the great scientist, who was probably not inferior in talent to Leonardo himself, the legendary inventor, whom Lenin praised and respected by Einstein, worked as a mechanic of the 6th category in some provincial laboratory.
Lived with family in two-room apartment, probably watched TV - which he was not allowed to invent -, and on TV there were concerts of rock stars on Yamaha synthesizers.
The daughters grew up, started their own families, and five lived in a small two-room apartment on Leninsky Prospekt -
L. S. Termen, daughter Natalya with her husband and two children.
With great difficulty, he managed to get another room in the buggy communal apartment, where the neighbors hunted him down.
Lev Sergeevich taught his niece Lida Kavina to play the theremin. By the age of twenty, she had become a virtuoso performer and traveled all over Europe with concerts. In 1989 Termen was also invited to the Experimental Music Festival in France. And he, 93-year-old, went!
When in 1991 in a Hamburg theater they decided to use the theremin, it turned out that almost the only performer in Europe was Lydia Kavina. Over the past years, the situation has changed a lot: playing the theremin is taught at universities, and festivals are held in different countries of the world.
October 10, 2004. Jean-Michel Jarre arranges another phantasmagoria in the "Forbidden City" in Beijing.
But most of all, at the end of his life, Termen surprised those around him with his entry into the CPSU: "I promised Lenin." Lev Sergeevich tried before, but he was not accepted into the party for "terrible crimes". So Termen became a communist only in 1991, simultaneously with the fall of the USSR.
In his famous novel Thomas Harris mentions that once Hannibal Lecter returned from Sotheby's auction with very unusual purchases. He acquired two instruments: a harpsichord created in the late eighteenth century in Flanders, and a theremin created in Russia in the twentieth century.
The latter, according to the author, aroused Lecter's curiosity from early childhood, and he even tried to build this unusual device for extracting incredible sounds on his own.
The theremin was invented by the Russian inventor Lev Termen, whose name long years carefully eradicated from the history of the country. And there was more than enough to black out, because Termen, for his long and full of incredible events, managed to leave a noticeable mark in various fields.
Pursuing scientific research and developing signaling systems and listening devices, he became famous all over the world thanks to the musical instrument he invented, originally called the "Aerophone", but with light hand journalist "Izvestia", called "theremin". It is noteworthy that despite other important developments and inventions in the field of electronics, only the theremin has a “nominal” name. 
Chronology
1896
August 15 in St. Petersburg in noble family Lev Theremin was born.
1916
After graduating from the university, Termen is drafted into the army and sent for accelerated training at the Nikolaev Engineering School, and then for officer courses in electrical engineering.
1919
Theremin receives an invitation to work at the Institute of Physics and Technology.
1921
Lev Theremin demonstrates his first theremin at the VIII All-Russian Electrotechnical Congress. The newspaper "Pravda" prints an enthusiastic review, concerts for a wide audience were held on the radio.
1923
Starts collaborating with State Institute musical science in Moscow.
1925
Invented one of the first television systems, called "far-sight".
1931
A few years after moving to the United States, Termen becomes the director of Teletouch Inc, which he founded, and develops an alarm system for Sing Sing and Alcatraz prisons. Lev Sergeevich is gaining more and more popularity and makes friends with George Gershwin, Maurice Ravel, Charlie Chaplin and Albert Einstein.
1938
Theremin is forced to return to Soviet Union. He secretly leaves the United States, having issued a power of attorney to the owner of Teletouch, Bob Zinman, to dispose of his property. He is not allowed to take his wife with him.
1939
The inventor is arrested and, under threat of execution, is forced to confess to the murder of party leader Kirov.
1947
Lev Termen is rehabilitated, he continues to work in closed design bureaus in the NKVD system, where he develops listening systems.
1991
At the age of 95, Lev Sergeevich joins the Communist Party. When asked why he joins it after the collapse of the USSR, Termen replies: "I promised Lenin."
Lev Theremin has always been torn between science and music. He graduated from the conservatory in the cello class, while simultaneously studying at the physics and astronomy departments of St. Petersburg University. 
Termen began to conduct his first experiments in the field of electronics just at the time when popular unrest began to rise in Russia, and he invented his first instrument a few years after October revolution. And while the working masses were seeking bread, Theremin staged a spectacle: he managed to demonstrate the theremin to Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, who even tried to perform Glinka's "Lark" on it. The leader of the revolution liked the theremin so much that he ordered that Theremin be given a free railway ticket "to popularize the new instrument" throughout the country.
This invention was preceded by much more prosaic experiments: at the Institute of Physics and Technology, where Theremin worked on the radio measurement of the dielectric constant of gases at variable temperature and pressure, he noticed that the device made a sound, the height and strength of which depended on the position of the hand between the plates of the capacitor. So Lev Theremin found his own voice.
But the inventor understood that his pursuit of creating heavenly music would only be funded if, in addition to art, his research would "serve the cause of the party." And he invents a burglar alarm, which is nothing more than a simplified version of the theremin: as soon as a person is in an electric field, a sound signal sounds. To this day, the principle invented by Theremin is used as the basis for the operation of alarms. 
World fame
Participation in the international conference on physics and electronics, where he demonstrated his inventions, brought him worldwide fame.This was followed by invitations from London, Berlin, Paris. IN last concert Theremin was an unprecedented success: such a large number of spectators have not been seen at the Grand Opera for 35 years.
Lev Sergeevich decides to move to the USA. In the states, Theremin patented the theremin and his security alarm system and organized the company Teletouch and Theremin Studio, renting a six-story building for his studio in New York for 99 years. This was the reason to create trade missions of the USSR in the USA, under the cover of which Soviet intelligence officers began to work.
In 1989, Lev Theremin met with Brian Eno. After that, Eno told how the synthesizer showed Lev Sergeevich: “I turn it on, and Theremin does this:“ Beep! ”. Then he says: “Very good” - and did not touch a single key again.
In addition to the already mentioned theremin and signal system, he developed the world's first television installation, the Buran listening device, worked on voice identification in forensics, speech recognition technology and military hydroacoustics.
But there was another, very curious direction of his scientific research: the technology of freezing a person. When it became known about the death of Lenin, it was Termen who sent his assistant to Gorki with a proposal to freeze the body of the leader in order to resurrect him from the dead years later. But it turned out that by this time the body had already been prepared for embalming. On this, Termen left his research in the fight against death. It is very likely that he saw another way to remain immortal.
Return to the USSR
Whatever Termen began to do, his passion for music always prevailed. In his famous studio Albert Einstein often came to 54th Avenue and they played music together. The physicist - on the violin, the inventor - on the theremin. Theremin even took up the implementation of Einstein's idea of combining music and spatial images. Its embodiment was a new instrument - the rhythmicon. It was a huge wheel with patterns applied to them, which rotated in front of a strobe. When the pitch changed, the frequency of flashes and the drawings themselves changed, creating the effect of the movement of the walls of the room.But he decided to go even further and invent such an instrument that would give birth to music from dance - terpsiton. The principle of its operation is the same as that of the theremin, only the sounds are extracted by the whole body of the dancer. To create a concert program, Theremin invited a group of the African American Ballet Company. Things did not work out with terpsiton, but Termen was conquered by the dancer of the troupe, the mulatto Lavinia Williams, whom he decided to make his wife. In America in 1938, such a marriage promised a lot of trouble, and Termen loses contacts important for intelligence and receives an order to urgently return to the Soviet Union.
Upon his return to Leningrad, he is arrested and a criminal case is “sewn up”. Under the threat of being shot, Termen is forced to plead guilty to the carefully planned murder of Kirov. The version of the murder of the special services came up with a very original one, to match the inventor. Allegedly, Kirov decides to visit the Pulkovo Observatory. Astronomers preliminarily lay a land mine, and not just anywhere, but in Foucault's pendulum, while Theremin, by radio signal from the USA, was supposed to blow it up as soon as Kirov approached. For some reason, no one was embarrassed that the Foucault pendulum is located not in Pulkovo, but in the Kazan Cathedral. But for such a "daring crime" Lev Sergeevich was given eight years and sent to Kolyma. But even there Termen managed to show his abilities: he mechanized the process of transporting stones for the road by building a wheelbarrow with a monorail. His brigade tripled the rations.
Soon he was transferred to the office, where he developed equipment for radio control of unmanned aircraft and radio beacons for naval operations throughout the war. Then Termen worked for the KGB for another 40 years, and even received the Stalin Prize, until at the age of 70 he decided to return to the main business of his life - music.
Lev Sergeevich gets a job in the acoustic laboratory of the Moscow State Conservatory.
It must be said that for all the years of his stay in the USSR after leaving the States, Termen was safely buried all over the world, and the year of his death was even listed in encyclopedias - 1938. The period of obscurity ended after a New York Times journalist who was preparing a report on the Moscow Conservatory , did not find out that the great Theremin is alive. A commotion began, and the frightened authorities fired the elderly mechanic (namely, in such a position he worked), and all his equipment was simply thrown into the trash.
In the last years of his life, Theremin worked in the acoustic laboratory at Moscow State University, where he continued to improve his theremin.
At the height of his fame music critics pointed out that Termen was often false. Physicists said that he did not invent anything fundamentally new, but the list of musicians using the theremin is growing steadily every year. As a joke, Termen always said that his last name should be read the other way around - "Does not die." And this joke turned out to be extremely true.
Appearance
Theremin easily made acquaintances with the right people. Soviet intelligence people. With a brilliant education and less brilliant manners, even with the most significant figures of the time, he behaved at ease and uninhibited. Lev Sergeevich dressed as a person, always ready to go on stage in front of a huge audience. A snow-white shirt with a high collar, a perfectly fitting suit and a black bow tie - an image in no way correlated with Soviet reality, into which he had to plunge so soon.
Scientist, designer and inventor.
The text is posted in the community at the request of Lev Theremin's relatives.
We decided that the most innocuous example of the “syndrome” that occurs when contacting the name of Lev Termen and his biography is a journalist who wrote that he met Lev Termen, and that Lev Sergeevich Termen was born in Nizhny Novgorod. Unfortunately, there are many less harmless mistakes, they are made by people who write about Lev Theremin, often claiming to be eyewitnesses and close friends of Theremin. I was very upset by the publication of Starokhamskaya ( levkonoe ) about Lev Theremin ("What the theremin does not sing about"). Perhaps Mrs. Starokhamskaya unintentionally distorted the facts of Lev Sergeevich's life. There are inaccuracies in the article, but the most unpleasant impression was made by the beginning of the article. We consider it necessary to bring some clarity to the history recent years the life of Lev Theremin.
“I read a story about a 97-year-old old man who lived in Moscow in a terrible buggy communal apartment opposite the Cheryomushkinsky market. When the neighbors (who, apparently, simply did not know that the Soviet Union provided all working people with excellent housing “for the most I can’t”) needed his miserable little closet, they, in the absence of the old man, smashed his property, broke little things, destroyed records. The old man was forced to move in with his daughter, but he fell so ill from all this that, as was to be expected, he soon died. To the delight of the neighbors in the communal apartment: the little room was vacated. Living space. Used it and it's enough. So what? - you ask. - The story is ordinary. It still doesn’t happen in communal apartments, the neighbors could be an old man and in general ... just think - how long have they been waiting for his square meters to be vacated, they themselves have grown old. And the old man, maybe also came in large numbers from somewhere. And then, I will answer you, that this old man was not just a grandfather, what thousands of people live in communal apartments. And it was Lev Theremin.
THE SAME LION THERMEN!
Lev Theremin died in 1993 in poverty and obscurity, hunted down by his neighbors in a communal apartment.”
It is very unpleasant to read unverified information about Lev Theremin, which has spread throughout the blogosphere, and not only. Therefore, we consider it necessary to discuss the mistakes of Mrs. Starokhamskaya and give the necessary explanations.
A lot has been written about Lev Theremin, but this is the first time this has happened. The first sentence of this article is striking: “I read a story about a 97-year-old old man who lived in Moscow in a terrible buggy communal apartment opposite the Cheryomushkinsky market.”
Immediately remembered famous poem Daniil Kharms, who, by the way, according to some sources, was not too lazy to buy a theremin in the 20s. Which is definitely very nice.
So, first Daniil Kharms, we dedicate this poem to the author of the article:
An old man lived in the world
small stature,
And the old man laughed
Extremely simple:
"Ha ha ha
Yeah hehehe
Hee hee hee
Yes boo-boo!
By-by-by
Yes, be-be-be
ding ding ding
Yes tpyuh-tpyuh!"
Once, seeing a spider,
Terribly frightened.
But, clutching the sides,
He laughed out loud:
"Hee hee hee
Yeah ha ha ha
Ho ho ho
Yes gul-gul!
Gi-gi-gi
Yeah ha-ha-ha
Go Go go
Yes, bull-bull!"
And seeing a dragonfly,
Terribly angry,
But from laughter on the grass
And so it fell:
"Gee-gee-gee
Yes gy-gy-gy,
Go Go go
Yes bang bang!
Oh, you guys can't!
Oh guys
Ahah!"
Note that we are firmly convinced that it is impossible to offend all older people, regardless of whether they are famous or not. The story that happened to Lev Theremin in the context of his room in a communal apartment is much sadder and not as trivial as the author of the article tried to show.
When Lev Sergeevich Theremin, being a very young man, invented the theremin, he first called it "Aerophone", but with the light hand of a lively correspondent of the Izvestia newspaper, the instrument was called "Theremin", which actually has survived to this day. A very touching coincidence was the appearance of Theremin and theremin in one of the rooms in the communal apartment of the departmental house of the Izvestia publishing house. Perhaps not everyone understands Termen's desire to be in this room, since it was not the housing issue that bothered him at all. He intended to use the room as his laboratory. What came of it, we will find out later.
But now I would very much like to draw the attention of our readers to the fact that throughout his life Lev Theremin had his own laboratory. In childhood - in the house of parents little Leva parents specially organized a laboratory, and in the country there was a small observatory. Later, at the Ioffe Institute, Termen was first allocated a laboratory room at the Ioffe Institute, but then, Lev Termen recalls: “Ioffe offered me to occupy a much larger room - the entire large drawing room, a special hall of the Electrotechnical Faculty of the Polytechnic Institute (on the third floor) with 20 desktops and 14 large windows. It already had two X-ray booths, the walls of which were shielded with sheet lead, as well as two brick ovens for heating with chimneys released through the windows.
Of course, Termen also had a laboratory during his stay in the USA, where, according to the memoirs of contemporaries: “All floors in the house were littered with wires. A mass of wires, tubes, screens - and there was nothing that you could call home.
A contemporary Fortune correspondent wrote in 1935: Teletouch - office, factory and laboratory is located in a brownstone house and this is a crazy place. You walk through the door, and immediately there are screams of a triggered alarm. You touch the closet - and immediately another alarm goes off. Go to the mirror to straighten your tie - but they start showing ads.
In 1938, Lev Termen was arrested, sentenced to 8 years and exiled to Kolyma, where he most likely did not have a laboratory, but, nevertheless, he first improved the design of a cart for transporting stones, and then assembled a theremin and performed in amateur performances . Termen was soon transferred to another location and provided with a laboratory and staff.
During the years of work in the laboratory of musical acoustics at the Moscow Conservatory, Lev Termen also had a laboratory, although it was not a separate room, but a place where he could work and receive advice from qualified specialists in areas of interest to him. An important fact was also the availability of the necessary technical equipment.
In 1967, a New York Times correspondent visited Lev Theremin in the sound recording laboratory at the Moscow Conservatory. He writes the following about Theremin: “The other day he received visitors in his laboratory - “I developed an electronic organ tuner”, he can tune an organ of any scale. "Here," he said, referring to another collection of tubes and resistors, a machine to photograph sounds. It has 70 channels. And here is my rhythmicon.
During these years, Lev Termen and a number of employees of the laboratory of musical acoustics repeatedly wrote to the Ministry of Culture with a request to allow organizing an experimental section of electric musical instruments, but to no avail, except for the fact that Termen was expelled from the laboratory of the Department of Acoustics of the Moscow Conservatory.
The “opinion” about the excessive talkativeness of the laboratory employee was brought to the attention of the leadership and party organization of the Moscow Conservatory. Theremin was fired, his tools were thrown away, some of them were “accidentally” broken with an ax,” wrote Vasily Borisov in the magazine “Around the World”.
Later, with the help of acquaintances, and largely thanks to Rem Khokhlov, Lev Termen managed to get a job at Moscow University, at the Faculty of Physics, as a mechanic. The title of the post did not bother Termen at all, since the physics department also had excellent equipment, but despite Termen's request, he could not get a separate room for his personal laboratory.
And then, one of the "friends" advised Theremin to try to get a separate room, under the pretext of improving living conditions, and since it was already clear that no one would ever give Lev Theremin a separate laboratory, Termen was inspired by this idea. As a result, he managed to get a tiny room in a communal apartment in a university building near Moscow State University. Lev Sergeyevich lived there for a relatively short time, since two of his pretty flatmates quickly persuaded him to exchange an apartment, and as a result of the exchange, Lev Sergeyevich was given a larger room in a house located near Moscow State University, so that it was convenient for him to go to work. This house was precisely the departmental house of the Izvestia publishing house.
Of course, it was a communal apartment, consisting of three rooms, in which, in addition to Lev Sergeevich, three elderly people lived. It is not known whether the sounds of the theremin interfered with them or not, but we think that they did not, since Lev Sergeevich did not abuse music. Having serenely laid out all the necessary ingredients, he made theremins to order, received journalists, and sometimes stayed overnight. And he really liked it. But a little later there were changes that Lev Sergeevich did not like too much. Since an elderly woman who occupied one of the rooms in the apartment died, and the Izvestia publishing house, guided by reasons unknown to us, gave this room to employees of the communal and economic department.
So, I moved into the vacant room married couple with two children, and the youngest child was breastfed, and the husband subsequently began to abuse alcohol. This situation upset Lev Sergeevich and created a sufficient number of inconveniences, which, it should be noted, he coped with very courageously and categorically refused to complain to anyone, although even the general telephone and neighbors' questions to people who called Lev Sergeyevich directly, and not neighbors, were unpleasant . Nevertheless, it was still his laboratory, and he invited people there.
Lev Theremin sympathized with his young neighbor, but it was certainly possible to use the room, but it was already extremely inconvenient. Lev Termen was even offered an apartment in Solntsevo, but Lev Termen was categorically against it, he was interested in a living space located near his place of work - Moscow State University and not far from the apartment where he lived with his daughter Natalya.
They began to poison the "old man" much later.
In 1989, Lev Termen and Natalya Termen went to the Synthesis-89 electromusical festival, held annually in the French city of Bourges, where, in parallel with Termen's authentic theremin, a new experimental model of the theremin was demonstrated.
Lev Termen gave many interviews, the mayor of the city of Bourges presented him with a medal of honorary citizen of the city, everything was very wonderful, only it was very sad that invitations for Lev and Natalia Termen were sent to the Union of Composers of the USSR and Lev and Natalya Termen arranged their trip through the Union Composers. What later played a very sad role in their fate - every year the French sent invitations to Lev and Natalia Theremin, but for the first two years they made out the trip, but in last moment there were reasons why Lev and Natalya Termen could not come to the festival, which served as a very unpleasant signal.
In 1990, Lev and Natalia Termen, at the invitation of the Swedish Committee for Radio and Television and the Electro-Acoustic Association of Sweden, performed in Stockholm.
In 1991, two weeks after filing an application with the Union of Composers with a request to arrange a trip for Lev and Natalia Termen to the festival in Bourges and Stanford University (USA), threats began to be received against Lev Termen and his family, with threats of execution, which are due to publication in the newspaper Sovershenno Sekretno, which used the headline "He eavesdropped on the Kremlin" and placed a photograph of Lev Termen taken in Sweden.
The trip to Bourges was canceled - someone from the Ministry of Culture left on the tickets of Lev and Natalia Theremin. The trip to America took place.
After arriving in Moscow, Lev Theremin for a long time did not visit a room in a communal apartment, but since many things important to him were stored there, in the end, he was forced to go there and found that his room was completely destroyed and much was missing.
Since Lev Theremin did not appear there for a long time, one could only guess when this happened. Perhaps immediately after arriving from America, perhaps during the threats, but it is absolutely certain that it was not the neighbors who did it. This was done by people who knew who they were poisoning. They poisoned the great.
If Lev Termen had been an "ordinary old man", then nothing would have happened. In our country, it is customary to blame the Soviet government for everything. This is our old Russian tradition. But the tragedy occurred during perestroika and it makes you think. There is also a tradition that as soon as Theremin begins to communicate with foreigners, in Russia they begin to break his instruments. It was from the late 80s that strange, deceitful articles about Lev Theremin began to be published, and in the aggregate it looked like a planned event.
Very unpleasant news for Lev Termen in the summer of 1993 was information about the existence of the Theremin Center at the Moscow Conservatory, and the fact that this center had existed for more than a year, we believe, helped Lev Sergeevich understand that no one was going to give him anything here.
In August 1993, a family exchange took place between Lev Termen and his granddaughter, Masha Termen, and great-grandson Peter Termen. Thus, it was possible to save the only laboratory property of Lev Theremin. For Lev Theremin, this issue was very important and his granddaughter, Masha, promised not to exchange this room, but to keep it as the only laboratory that he managed to achieve in Russia.
Arriving in Russia in 1938, Lev Termen hoped to open an institute. In this matter, Pyotr Kapitsa turned out to be much more successful. Nevertheless, Lev Termen considered it necessary to fix the minimum result and keep a room in a communal apartment as a memory of himself. How the Izvestia publishing house will act in this matter is still unknown.
We will be very grateful to all fans and propagandists of the theremin and Lydia Kavina if, as a token of respect for the memory of Lev Theremin, they take into account the following information:
1. Lydia Kavina is not a close relative of Lev Theremin. People and the media who call her granddaughter, niece, great-niece, or great-aunt granddaughter are lying.
2. In her performing and teaching activities, Lidia Kavina uses an instrument similar in principle to the instrument of Lev Theremin and embodies her own concept of performing technique and sound of the instrument.
3. Lev Theremin learned about the existence of the Theremin Center in August 1993 from a radio broadcast and wrote a statement to the Moscow Conservatory, where he expressed his opinion about what was happening and asked to clarify the situation. Lev Termen was explained that his name is just a symbol and the center has the right to use Termen's name regardless of whether Lev Sergeevich wants it or not.
4. Lev Theremin believed that Lydia Kavina would consistently discredit his name and the instrument bearing his name.
The Theremin Center was founded by A. I. Smirnov in 1992 and named after L. S. Theremin, the inventor of the first world-famous electronic musical instrument theremin.
A documentary film was made about Lev Theremin.
Used materials:
Materials of the Theremin family website:
I wanted to share this information with you for a long time, but I want to warn you, this is a copy-paste (copy-paste compilation) and moreover, as far as I know, now there is a certain conflict between the Theremin Center and the family of Lev Termen, I don’t know who is right there, who is not , history will judge, but in any case, the fate of this man is amazing.
IN general lion Theremin was a real scientist, patriot and passionate person, his life was worse than spy novels.
Termen Lev Sergeevich
To the question "Who is Lev Theremin?" nine out of ten people, if they ever heard such a surname, will answer - "the inventor of the theremin." Theremin is so poorly known in his homeland that when a few years ago one of the journalists mistakenly called him “Lev Davidovich” (obviously, in consonance with Trotsky), this mistake began to roam from publication to publication, including even quite reputable media. But the biographer of Lev Sergeevich B. Galeev gives him the following description: "If there was a competition for a true representative of the 20th century, Lev Theremin could probably claim this title."
Briefly describe the main range of interests of the inventor Lev Sergeevich Termen as follows: "he was engaged in multimedia." This fuzzy term, introduced into use by computer scientists about twenty years ago, and now, by the way, almost out of use, can be interpreted, among other things, as follows: a technical device that combines various functions of influencing the human senses.
But perhaps the most interesting thing about Lev Sergeevich is not even inventions as such, but his truly fantastic fate, unique even for the twentieth century. Lev Theremin, 1930s Lev Sergeevich Termen was born on August 28, 1896 in St. Petersburg, in a noble Orthodox family with French and German roots. In the gymnasium, he became interested in physics and astronomy - according to his own memoirs, he even managed to discover a new asteroid. In 1914, he entered Petrograd University - at once to two faculties, physical and astronomical, at the same time he studied at the conservatory in the cello class. Then the war began, and he graduated from the military engineering school and the officer's electrical school. In total, by the time of his demobilization from the Red Electrotechnical Battalion in 1920, he had three diplomas - the physics and astronomy departments remained unfinished. Since 1920, Theremin has been working in the famous Fiztekh (then still a laboratory) of "daddy" Ioffe. A.F. Ioffe appreciated him and tried not to limit the flight of fancy of a promising employee. In 1921, Theremin created his epoch-making invention, which would later glorify him throughout the world: he designed the theremin electronic musical instrument (which means "theremin's voice")
It is interesting that initially he was not engaged in music at all. He was debugging a non-contact radio signaling system - by changing the frequency of the oscillatory circuit, when an intruder approached it, an audible signal was triggered on the security console1. Today, motorists are well aware of the ultrasonic "volume sensors" based on a similar principle, which are included in the set of "cool" car alarms. Radio engineer Theremin drew attention to the fact that the position of the intruder's body affects the tone of the signal in the speakers. A graduate of the conservatory, Theremin realized that this is how you can make a real musical instrument, which had no analogues in the world until now. Theremin had two antennas - when the hand approached the first, the frequency of the signal changed, and with the help of the other hand, it was possible to control its volume. Ioffe's staff described Termen's manipulations very expressively: "Theremin is playing Gluck on a voltmeter!"
In the autumn of 1921, Termen demonstrates his miracle device at the VIII All-Russian Electrotechnical Congress, where the famous GOELRO plan was adopted, which once struck the science fiction writer G. Wells (remember his book "Russia in the Dark"). The performance of music by Massenet, Saint-Saens, Minkus on the theremin interested not only engineers. After an enthusiastic review in the Pravda newspaper, special radio music concerts had to be held for a wide audience. And in March 1922, Termen was invited to the Kremlin to show his achievements to V. I. Lenin.3 However, the main goal was to demonstrate the device in the non-contact “radio watch” mode. But most of all, Lenin liked the way this universal "radio watchman" sang Chopin's "Nocturne", Glinka's "Lark". He even tried to play the theremin himself. His findings inspired the inventor: “Here, I said that electricity can work wonders. I am glad that we have such a tool.” A few days later, Lenin wrote to his then colleague L. Trotsky:
“To discuss whether it is possible to reduce the guards of the Kremlin cadets by introducing an electric signal in the Kremlin? (one engineer, Termen, showed us his experiments in the Kremlin...).”4 Radiowatch was actually used later - in the State Treasury, the Hermitage, and the State Bank. However, only experts knew about it. But for the theremin, after Lenin's blessing, the time has come for a triumphal procession across the country. Composers Glazunov, Shostakovich, Gnesin are present at radio music concerts. The inventor expands the scope of experiments - combines theremin with dynamic color, tries to achieve a synthesis of radio music with changing tactile influences (through specially equipped armrests). And concerts - in many cities of the country, tens, hundreds of performances, for the benefit of electrification propaganda, which turned out to be subject to art! It is difficult to refuse the pleasure of quoting some of the press reviews that carry the flavor of that time: "Thermen's invention is a musical tractor that replaces the plow"; “Thermen's invention did what the automobile did roughly in transportation. Termen's invention has a very rich future”; “Resolution of the problem of the ideal tool. The sounds are freed from the "impurities" of the material. The Beginning of the Age of Radio Music.
Theremin improved the theremin throughout his life. The most interesting for us are his attempts to control this system through a glance (more precisely, with the help of a photocell that follows the pupil), and in another version - with the help of biocurrents. Such control systems, as you know, are only now beginning to be implemented - at a completely different technological level. But in fact, the theremin has retained to this day almost all the features of the original invention, only amplifying tubes, of course, have been replaced by transistors and microcircuits. In the late 1920s, Theremin toured with his instrument - first in Russia, and then in Europe and America. This event was a resounding success with the public. The leader of the world proletariat was not alone in his delight - during the performances of the inventor at the Paris Grand Opera, people burned fires on the street at night to get to the concert. Theremin performed in the best concert halls Europe and America. One can imagine what impression the “ideal instrument” made on contemporaries, according to the then expression. Although we are now accustomed to all sorts of electronic tricks, but the process of the game still has a stunning effect on the audience. And in those days, when even an ordinary radio was still a curiosity, Termen's stage manipulations gave the impression of a miracle: still, a person knows how to extract real music straight out of thin air! in the union American musicians by the mid-30s, 700 representatives of the new profession "thereminer" were already registered ("theremin" in English is written as "theremin" - due to French descent inventor).
This begs the question: why did the theremin never find such a wide niche in musical practice, as it happened later, for example, with musical synthesizers? The reason is simple: the theremin is very difficult to learn to play. Outstanding performers of all time in general - units. In addition to Theremin himself, the American Clara Rockmore, Lev Sergeevich's girlfriend during his stay in America, became a real virtuoso of playing his instrument. great niece Termena Lidia Kavina (b.1967), whom he himself taught to play from the age of nine, is now the most famous performer in the world. Here is how she characterizes playing the theremin: “Violinists have a “mechanical memory”, but the theremin is played exclusively by ear. Tactile memorization is impossible here, good hearing and precise coordination of movements are needed.
Yet the theremin was far from being forgotten after its initial triumph. "Voice of Theremin" sounds on the soundtrack to the Disney film "Alice in Wonderland" and in the musical of the same name, on the Led Zeppelin disc "Lotta's Love", in the compositions of the Beach Boys. Hitchcock used it. Now concerts of "thermen vocal" music in Russia are held by the "Theremin Center for Electro-Acoustic Music and Multimedia" at the Moscow Conservatory, there are also classes for those who wish to study. In the 50s, Robert Moog, known as the creator of the electronic synthesizer, began his career with a passion for constructing theremins. Moog Music now produces theremins with a MIDI interface that allows you to connect the instrument to computers and synthesizers.
But let's go back in time. In the mid-1920s, Termen entered the St. Petersburg Polytechnic University to finish his physical education. With the consent of A.F. Ioffe as the theme of the diploma, he chose the transmission of images over a distance. And dealt with it more than successfully! A few years before Zworykin's first experiments in America, he built a real electronic television. The TV had a screen no less than 150x150 centimeters (this is at the time when they experimented with screens in a matchbox), and a resolution of 100 lines. And worked! In 1927, representatives of the military elite of the Soviets - Voroshilov, Tukhachevsky, Budyonny - watched Stalin walking in the Kremlin courtyard with delight. You could even make out a mustache and a pipe. This demonstration was, as it turned out, fatal for the invention: it was classified in the hope of using it to protect the borders. Needless to say, it was never implemented, and Termen's superiority in this matter has been proven only in our time.
Theremin, apparently, was not very upset. In 1927, with the permission of the Soviet authorities, he went to the aforementioned overseas tour and eventually settled in America. There he made an unprecedented career for a Soviet citizen: he became a millionaire and got into the "Who is who" directory. And he did it according to all the canons of the classic "American dream": he began by patenting the theremin and selling the license to RCA (Radio Corporation of America) for the right to produce theremin "new.
At the same time, he toured the States with concerts, taught those who wished to play his instrument, and along the way he was also engaged in inventions in various fields - for example, visitors to New York's Central Park could watch the metal "Mahomet's Coffin" floating in the air (the result of magnetic fields). With money from the business, Lev Sergeevich rents a six-story building for a music and dance studio for 99 years (!) and organizes the Teletouch company. How popular Theremin was in those years can be evidenced by his social circle: among his acquaintances were Rockefeller and DuPont, Charlie Chaplin, General D. Eisenhower, L. Groves (the future head of the American atomic project), S. Eisenstein, J. Gershwin, B .show. He was friends with A. Einstein - together they played Gershwin's jazz pieces.
All this time, Termen regularly supplied information to the intelligence department of the Red Army - rotating in such circles, it was not difficult for him to get it. Its leader, Yan Berzin (Peters), who was later shot by Stalin, admonished Theremin even before his departure. It is hard to believe in the version put forward in 1998 by a certain L. Weiner from the Baltimore Vestnik that Termen and his firm were just a front for Soviet spies. It would be complete idiocy not to use such opportunities for Stalin's intelligence, but just this department, unlike its party leadership, was not particularly idiocy.
One way or another, in 1938 Termen was taken to the USSR. Theremin himself at the end of his life claimed that he returned voluntarily. This is also hard to believe - he was taken out illegally and delivered to the USSR on the ship "Old Bolshevik". If Termen had voluntarily left home, he would most likely have returned openly, there were no obstacles to this. From then until the end of the sixties in America, he was considered dead. Shortly before his departure, Theremin got married - his wife was the charming mulatto ballerina Lavinia Williams. In those years, such marriages in the United States were treated, to put it mildly, ambiguously, and from now on the doors of many houses of the New York elite were closed to him and the possibilities for collecting information were sharply reduced. Probably, this fact was the reason for his superiors from the intelligence department to return the "resident" to his homeland. Theremin was promised that Lavinia would come after him. Fortunately for her, no one was going to fulfill this promise, and Lavinia found out only in her old age what really happened.
But in fact, almost immediately upon arrival, in March 1939, he was arrested. All political accusations of that time were absurd, but it exceeded all conceivable limits: Termen was “sewn” with complicity in the murder of Kirov. Proving that he was on the other side at the time the globe, it was pointless - on August 15, by a special meeting at the NKVD of the USSR, he was sentenced to eight years under the infamous article 58-4 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR.
It is possible that the former friend of Einstein and Chaplin would have perished in Kolyma, as if confirming the premature admission of him to the deceased by American acquaintances. But he was rescued by chance and an indestructible craving for invention. In the camp, he invented a device for transporting wheelbarrows - a wooden monorail. The authorities reported to the top, they remembered his past, and since 1940 he has been working in a sharashka, together with A.N. Tupolev and S.P. Korolev. Indeed, it is not immediately possible to remember at least one famous figure of Russia and America of the 20th century, be it politics, art or science, with whom the fate of Lev Theremin would not intersect in one way or another. In a sharashka, he first deals with radio beacons for ships and aircraft, but at the end of the war he receives the task of developing a device for outdoor listening to conversations taking place indoors.
It was a truly brilliant development. It was like this: in February 1945, the heads of the three allied powers gathered for the famous Yalta Conference, during which plans were developed that determined, as it turned out later, the world order for almost 50 more years. Resting not far from Yalta in the pioneer camp "Artek" the kids presented the US Ambassador Harriman with a touching gift - the American coat of arms. The bald eagle on the coat of arms was made of precious wood. American experts, having listened and tapped the gift for the presence of "bugs", gave a conclusion about its safety. Harriman placed the emblem he liked over the table in the Moscow office, where the eagle hung for almost ten years, outliving four ambassadors. In the department of Beria, the eagle was given the meaningful code name "Zlatoust". Revealed it true purpose Americans in an indirect way - the discovered leak of information could only come from the ambassador's office. Having finally found a "bookmark", the Americans were still silent about the find until the early sixties - not only for reasons of a conspiratorial nature, but also out of elementary shame - overseas experts did not immediately guess at the very principle of operation. The "bug" was a hollow metal cylinder with a membrane and a pin protruding from it. No electronics! The secret was that when irradiated with an external electromagnetic field of a suitable frequency, the cavity of the cylinder entered into resonance with it and the radio wave was re-radiated back through the pin antenna. The membrane oscillating under the action of sound vibrations modulated the frequency of the emitted wave. Detecting the received signal was a matter of technology.
For this development, Termen not only received in 1947, on the personal recommendation of Beria, the Stalin Prize of the 1st degree (they say that Stalin himself corrected the degree from the second to the first), but also - an unprecedented case! - was even released. In the wild, however, he had absolutely nothing to do - in fact, he had been isolated from the local society for twenty years. Stalin Prize was closed, the stigma of "enemy of the people" hung. Therefore, Theremin asked to return to the sharashka - as already a civilian employee. In those years, he also developed another remote listening system, the principle of which is now considered classical: sound vibrations are detected by changing the frequency of scattered radiation reflected from window panes. According to some reports, with the help of this device, Beria bugged Stalin himself. Later, with the invention of the laser, such "eavesdropping" became very common.
In 1958, Lev Sergeevich was finally rehabilitated and even received an apartment at the Kaluga Zastava in Moscow. But the formal restoration of his rights did not help him much - he could not get a job until 1964. Everyone who knew him in the twenties had already died or left, there were no official degrees and titles, time for propaganda electronic music was, to put it mildly, inappropriate - with might and main there was a struggle with jazz and "dudes".
Finally, he managed to get a job in the acoustics and sound recording laboratory of the Moscow Conservatory and actively engaged in his favorite business - improving electronic musical instruments. He has visited many famous figures- for example, A. Schnittke. But this period of Lev Sergeevich's life ended rather sadly. Rumors that the once-famous Theremin was alive sooner or later had to spread, and in one of the New York Times in 1967, a note appeared announcing that the inventor of electronic music, who mysteriously disappeared in 1938, had not died. but lives and works in Moscow. The reaction to this was not long in coming. The high "opinion" about the overly talkative employee was brought to the attention of the leadership and party organization of the Moscow Conservatory. The man once welcomed by Lenin himself was fired, his tools were thrown away and broken.
Finally, on the personal order of Academician Rem Viktorovich Khokhlov, the former world celebrity was hired as a mechanic of the 6th category in the workshops of the Physics Department of Moscow State University. He worked there until his death in 1993, less than three years before his centenary. CI is here, one of the “friends” advised Termen to try to get a separate room, under the pretext of improving living conditions, and since it was already clear that no one would ever give Lev Termen a separate laboratory, Termen was inspired by this idea. As a result, he managed to get a tiny room in a communal apartment in a university building near Moscow State University. Lev Sergeyevich lived there for a relatively short time, since two of his pretty flatmates quickly persuaded him to exchange an apartment, and as a result of the exchange, Lev Sergeyevich was given a larger room in a house located near Moscow State University, so that it was convenient for him to go to work. This house was precisely the departmental house of the Izvestia publishing house.
Of course, it was a communal apartment, consisting of three rooms, in which, in addition to Lev Sergeevich, three elderly people lived. It is not known whether the sounds of the theremin interfered with them or not, but we think that they did not, since Lev Sergeevich did not abuse music. Having serenely laid out all the necessary ingredients, he made theremins to order, received journalists, and sometimes stayed overnight. And he really liked it. But a little later there were changes that Lev Sergeevich did not like too much. Since an elderly woman who occupied one of the rooms in the apartment died, and the Izvestia publishing house, guided by reasons unknown to us, gave this room to employees of the communal and economic department.
So, a married couple with two children moved into the vacated room, and the youngest child was a baby, and the husband subsequently began to abuse alcohol. This situation upset Lev Sergeevich and created a sufficient number of inconveniences, which, it should be noted, he coped with very courageously and categorically refused to complain to anyone, although even the general telephone and neighbors' questions to people who called Lev Sergeyevich directly, and not neighbors, were unpleasant . Nevertheless, it was still his laboratory, and he invited people there.
Lev Theremin sympathized with his young neighbor, but it was certainly possible to use the room, but it was already extremely inconvenient. Lev Termen was even offered an apartment in Solntsevo, but Lev Termen was categorically against it, he was interested in a living space located near his place of work - Moscow State University and not far from the apartment where he lived with his daughter Natalya.
They began to poison the "old man" much later.
In 1989, Lev Termen and Natalya Termen went to the Synthesis-89 electromusical festival, held annually in the French city of Bourges, where, in parallel with Termen's authentic theremin, a new experimental model of the theremin was demonstrated.
Lev Termen gave many interviews, the mayor of the city of Bourges presented him with a medal of honorary citizen of the city, everything was very wonderful, only it was very sad that invitations for Lev and Natalia Termen were sent to the Union of Composers of the USSR and Lev and Natalya Termen arranged their trip through the Union Composers. What later played a very sad role in their fate - every year the French sent invitations to Lev and Natalya Theremin, but for the first two years they arranged the trip, but at the last moment there were reasons why Lev and Natalya Theremin could not come to the festival, which served very bad signal.
In 1990, Lev and Natalia Termen, at the invitation of the Swedish Committee for Radio and Television and the Electro-Acoustic Association of Sweden, performed in Stockholm.
In 1991, two weeks after filing an application with the Union of Composers with a request to arrange a trip for Lev and Natalia Termen to the festival in Bourges and Stanford University (USA), threats began to be received against Lev Termen and his family, with threats of execution, which are due to publication in the newspaper Sovershenno Sekretno, which used the headline "He eavesdropped on the Kremlin" and placed a photograph of Lev Termen taken in Sweden.
The trip to Bourges was canceled - someone from the Ministry of Culture left on the tickets of Lev and Natalia Theremin. The trip to America took place.
After arriving in Moscow, Lev Termen did not visit a room in a communal apartment for a long time, but since many things important to him were stored there, in the end, he was forced to go there and found that his room was completely destroyed and much was lost.
Since Lev Theremin did not appear there for a long time, one could only guess when this happened. Perhaps immediately after arriving from America, perhaps during the threats, but it is absolutely certain that it was not the neighbors who did it. This was done by people who knew who they were poisoning. They poisoned the great.
If Lev Termen had been an "ordinary old man", then nothing would have happened. In our country, it is customary to blame the Soviet government for everything. This is our old Russian tradition. But the tragedy occurred during perestroika and it makes you think. There is also a tradition that as soon as Theremin begins to communicate with foreigners, in Russia they begin to break his instruments. It was from the late 1980s that strange, deceitful articles about Lev Theremin began to be published, and in the aggregate it looked like a planned event.
But the main thing that occupied the mind of Theremin in the last 10 years of his life was not the theremin. He was seriously fascinated by the problem of immortality. And he was on the verge of solving this problem.
Theremin seriously thought about immortality back in 1924 - when Lenin died. Lev Sergeevich then repeatedly turned to the Soviet leadership with a request to freeze the deceased Ilyich. To bring him back to life after a while. And in the 80s, Termen, explaining in an interview with Bulat Galeev his idea of “time microscopy”, which was supposed to lead him to solve the problem of immortality, said this: “Red blood cells are such “creatures” (they are visible only under a microscope) , which come in different breeds, and they change due to the age of the person. Several terms and periods of their shifts were found. And in these moments, new "beings" are at war with the old ones, hence aging arises. You need to be able to select these "creatures" from donor blood in time. And it needs a lot! Therefore, how to catch them, at what age - and you can’t tell anyone! .. "
His ideas about immortality were, of course, completely visionary. And the less likely they were to be understood. Another quote: “We have already carried out experiments at the Medical Academy, with Lebedinsky. On animals. Something has already worked. But in order to study the behavior of blood cells, to learn how to select and multiply them, we needed a 10,000 frames per second ultra-fast movie camera. And a very highly sensitive film is also needed, because these “creatures” cannot be strongly illuminated, they die from heating ... After all, when we look through a microscope, we see everything in magnification many times over. And the speed of movement of these "creatures" in the blood remains the same. It is necessary to slow it down by the same amount, and then we will perceive them in their natural form, as if we ourselves penetrated into their world. To do this, you will need to watch the film shot by a super-high-speed camera on a conventional projector. I have already tried something and even figured out how to hear their voices, which we do not notice with the ordinary ear. I not only checked blood cells, but, in addition, spermatozoa. All these "creatures", you know, dance and sing under a microscope. And in their trajectories of movement - a certain pattern. This is very important…”
These and other similar words of Theremin caused bewilderment and skepticism even among his friends from the world of science. Not to mention the people who distributed the funds ... But Termen never in his life suffered a single defeat in the implementation of his ideas, if it came to this implementation.
Theremin was neither a staunch communist, nor even an anti-Soviet; rather, he can be called simply a patriot. Politics that did not let him out of his arms for a moment during his entire life. long life, starting from that moment in the eighteenth year, when he, a member of the Red Army, had to flee from the advancing White Guards, as such, he was of little interest. At every opportunity, he took up his favorite pastime - to invent. His behavior towards the authorities could be described as "one hundred percent conformity", if not for one case. Unexpectedly for everyone, in March 1991, at the age of 95, he became a member of the CPSU. When asked why he was joining the crumbling CPSU, Lev Sergeevich answered: "I promised Lenin."
