Today it is generally accepted that the prototype of Volodya Sharapov in the book of the Weiner brothers "The Era of Mercy", and together with the same in the film adaptation of “The meeting place cannot be changed”, was a Moscow police officer named Vladimir Arapov. That's just the biography of the mentioned person does not correlate with the biography of the fictional Sharapov. So who really became the basis for creating the protagonist of your favorite film?
The book by the Weiner brothers "The Era of Mercy" was written in 1975 and is dedicated to the activities of the Soviet police in the post-war years. Many people only watched the film adaptation and did not read the novel, and therefore lose sight of the fact that the literary foundation was written under a powerful influenced by the events of the XX Congress of the Central Committee of the CPSU, at which, at the suggestion of Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev, there was a "cult of debunking the personality" of Joseph Stalin. Therefore, in the book, unlike the film, not only the confrontation between the police and the bandits, but also the confrontation within the police itself is much more clearly expressed.
So, the book Gleb Zheglov, thanks to the Weiners, is by no means a positive hero and not the protagonist of history, but the same antagonist as the bandits. As conceived by the Vainers, Zheglov in the work was a collective image of the old, repressive, Stalinist system and, in particular, the police. However, in the film performed by Vladimir Semenovich Vysotsky, thanks to his acting and exceptional human charisma, Gleb Zheglov looked completely different and much prettier than the book. It was thanks to the role of Vysotsky in the minds of the broad masses of the people that Zheglov was nevertheless remembered as a correct person, although not without flaws, including one who did not disdain some “radicalism”. In other words, if Volodya Sharapov would have been respectfully called a "policeman" by the people, then Gleb Zheglov would have been insultingly called the same "garbage" behind his back.
Why is this important to understand? Because Volodya Sharapov, like Gleb Zheglov, is the same collective image that does not have a single real prototype. In the view of the Viners, Sharapov is a policeman and a man with a capital letter. This is the image of a new employee of the repressive system of the state, who has not stained himself with dubious deeds and radical measures, who serves society, and not his own interests and ambitions. The conflict between Sharapov and Zheglov in the book and film is not just a conflict between two colleagues, it is the opposition of two approaches to the work of the system of repression in society. True, in "The meeting place cannot be changed" Vladimir Semenovich Vysotsky so "crushed" the game of Vladimir Konkin with charisma that we have much more often they remember not Volodya with his human attitude, but the phrase “A thief should be in prison!” Although the latter, of course, you can not argue.
If you need to go for specific people, then of course the image of both Sharapov and Zheglov absorbed the personalities of various Moscow police officers of the 1940-1950s. However, the already mentioned Vladimir Arapov is poorly suited for this role, since he did not serve in intelligence and did not even fight (he was still a child). Arapov came to the MUR only in 1951, and before that he worked in the regional police. Much more suitable for the role of Volodya's prototype is Vladimir Fedorovich Korneev, who met the war in at the age of 17 and already in 1941 got into an intelligence school, where he was taught to scout saboteur. Unlike the fictional Sharapov, Korneev was in the German rear not 44 or 22 times, but only 6. True, his group "Fast" went not so much for reconnaissance, but for the implementation of sabotage activities.
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The raids of the "Fast", as well as other sabotage groups in the rear, lasted for weeks, and a 4-month campaign through the German rear became a record for the duration of the raid. By the way, Korneev's group returned from it, bringing with them more than 50 encircled Red Army soldiers. In 1944, the "Fast" were transferred as front-line reconnaissance to the infantry, since in sabotage activities on territory with a disloyal environment did not make much sense, and the risks for our soldiers in the rear were many times increased. At the same time, Korneev was seriously injured and was discharged from service.
Having barely recovered, in 1945, Vladimir Fedorovich was found by the former bosses from the then-disbanded intelligence school and offered a new service, a job "in his specialty." Korneev got to the post of intelligence officer of the operational department of the Moscow Police Department. There, for the most part, he was engaged in the introduction into gangster groups under the guise of a “paid fraer”, and was also engaged in identifying thieves, speculators, and buyers of stolen goods. And it was then that Vladimir Fedorovich even infiltrated a whole gang, which became the prototype of the "Hunchback" from the film.
If you want to know even more interesting things, then you should read about "Meeting place can not be Changed": what went wrong in the interrogation of a neighbor by Zheglov.
Source: https://novate.ru/blogs/010322/62286/