The omnipresent terror destroyed morality in Stalinist Russia and broke thousands of backbones, but there were also those who did not bow their heads to the brutal force. They fought to the end, although on the way they lost not only their dignity, but also their loved ones. Who for love was ready to oppose Stalin himself?
The Poet's Last Hope
Nadezhda Khazina has always considered herself an "artistic soul". She learned about the fascinating world of art from an early age, whether on the occasion of trips abroad with her parents or during her studies at the painter Aleksandra Ekster's school. She also often visited artistic cellars in Kiev. In one of them, on May 1, 1919, she met Osip Mandelstam, whom she had a crush on at first sight. And with reciprocity, which caused a great sensation in the artistic world.
The feeling did not fade away even after the poet was forced to leave Kiev. Mandelstam promised to return for Nadezhda as soon as possible, and he kept his word. From March 1921, they were inseparable. Until the ruthless "Kremlin highlander" called for Mandelstam.
Acquaintance with Mandelstam, 8 years his senior, changed Nadezhda a lot. As she admitted when they met, she was naive and reckless, liked to have fun and was generally quite frivolous. She did not undergo a metamorphosis until after the wedding, which was mainly influenced by her husband. Osip Mandelstam was a difficult man with exceptional sensitivity and a fragile psyche.
Osip Mandelstam in the photo taken by NKVD officers in 1938, when he was arrested for the last time.
In order to be close to her beloved, Nadia had to accept all his whims, which were often very onerous. That is why, often under duress, she patiently copied Mandelstam's poems, and learned many of them by heart.
However, the events that took place after 1933, when Mandelstam publicly recited a poem condemning Stalin, proved to be the greatest test - and thus drew his wrath upon himself. The ensuing arrests, suicide attempts, and the poet's increasingly frequent health problems also left their mark on Nadia. Nevertheless, she remained faithful to her husband's side, never leaving him even one step.
She never stopped fighting
Mandelstam was persecuted until May 1, 1938. On that day, he was arrested for the last time by two soldiers who did not even let him say goodbye to his wife. The ailing poet, with the paralyzed right side of his body, knew perfectly well that he would experience the hell of the labor camps on his own skin. And that without Nadia, he won't survive.
You can read about the difficult love of Lina Codina and Sergei Prokofiev during the times of Stalinist terror in the latest book by Reyes Monforte, "Russian passion".
He died in September 1938 near Vladivostok - on the way to Kolyma. He was buried in a mass grave. Before his death, he managed to ask Yuri Kazarnovsky, another writer persecuted by Stalin, to find Nadia after regaining his freedom and to show her all the help.
Nadezhda Mandelstam never stopped fighting for her husband. After being arrested, she caught herself in all possible ways, just to be close to him again. She even wrote letters to Lavrenty Beria, in which she even demanded that she be considered complicit and sent to a labor camp together with her husband. In her own way, she shared Mandelstam's fate, because after his death she was censored.
For example, she could not settle permanently in Moscow, she often changed her place of residence, and during World War II she was forced to hide in Tashkent, where she was taken in by the poet Anna Akhmatova.
Nadezhda Mandelstam tried to save her husband at all costs. She even wrote to Beria himself (pictured with Stalin's daughter on her lap).
One thing she knew for sure:she must survive, because only in this way can she save her literary possessions, and above all the memory of her beloved husband, whom she faithfully accompanied in his darkest days.
More than love
Matwiej Bronstein was considered a "golden child" of Soviet science. A devilishly gifted physicist-theorist, he dealt with quantum theory, cosmology and astrophysics. He was also an exceptionally talented writer, and the contribution he made to the development of the theory of quantum gravity cannot be overestimated to this day. Bronstein, however, was extremely unlucky, because he lived and worked in the heart of Stalin's hell. To make matters worse, he was of Jewish origin and bore the same surname as the greatest enemy of the Kremlin satrap, Lev Trotsky.
Literature has always been a physicist's great passion. Bronstein devoured a huge number of books, read both prose and poetry. It was thanks to literature that he met the love of his life. In the early 1930s, he was introduced to the writer Lidia Czukowska, who realized during the first meeting that she had met an exceptional man. The young scientist impressed with manners and erudition, and he stole Chukowska's heart completely when it turned out that she could recall large fragments of many literary works.
Matwiej Bronstein (left) was unlucky because his name was the same as Stalin's fierce enemy Lew Trotsky (actually Lew Davidowicz Bronstein).
For Czukowska, Bronstein was an unlimited source of happiness and joy. It was with him that she felt truly understood and accepted. Oh, the feeling she had for him, she said it was more than love. However, she did not have time to enjoy it:in 1938 - only 6 years after the wedding - Bronstein was shot on Stalin's orders, exactly a quarter of an hour after his release.
Czukowska must have had a sense of the fate awaiting her husband. At the end of July 1937, several NKVD officers burst into their Leningrad apartment, but only a young writer was found there. At that time, Bronstein was staying at his parents' home in Kiev.
After the officers had left, Chukovskaya tried to get to Kiev as soon as possible to warn her beloved. All attempts were in vain:the NKVD arrested Bronstein a few days after a search of an apartment in Leningrad. And although Czukowska immediately began to try to free her husband, she was answered in the same way in every institution - we do not know anything about such a case.
The building where Czukowska and Bronstein lived.
A letter to Stalin himself, written by the father of Lidia Chukovskaya, also remained without any reply. The conviction was handed down on February 18, 1938. Physics was accused of counter-revolutionary activity. The news of his death came only 3 years later. The burial place has never been established.
Smile composer
Great romances also arose in Russian émigré circles, and it happened that their end was as unpleasant as in the case of Bronstein or Mandelstam. In the 1920s, the acquaintance of the Russian piano virtuoso Sergei Prokofiev with the aspiring singer Lina Codina, described by Reyes Monforte in the book "Russian passion", was widely echoed.
Prokofiev met Codina after one of the concerts in New York, where the sensitive girl lived with her parents. She immediately fell in love with the pianist's music. The feeling for Prokofiev himself germinated a little longer, but when it blossomed, it was for Lina the most beautiful thing that could happen to her in her life. No wonder that for many years she spent most of her time - as she said - composing new smiles, which she lovingly bestowed on her beloved husband.
The complete Prokofiev family in the 1930s.
His love for Prokofiev did not lose its strength even when, after returning to Stalinist Russia, he left his wife for the poet Mira Mendelson. When the pianist became the subject of increased attention of the state authorities, and then declared "enemy of the nation" and forced to introduce changes in his music, Codina believed to the end that at the time of his election, he would choose artistic independence. She was wrong, and to make matters worse, the transformed Prokofiev completely cut himself off from her.
Meanwhile, more and more problems were piling up around Lina herself. On February 20, 1948, she was arrested and imprisoned in Lubyanka, where an attempt was made to force her to confess to espionage for another country. The rope could not be broken for a long time, which cost her to be transferred to the cruel Lefortovo prison.
However, Lina Codina did not pass one attempt. When investigators began to threaten that the lack of a signature on the plea of confession would affect her children, she humbly initialed all the documents. She was sentenced to 20 years in a labor camp with a strict regime for espionage. She served eight. She never saw Prokofiev, who died in 1953 (exactly on the same day as Joseph Stalin). They parted without saying goodbye. But she forgave him for everything anyway.
***
The publication of this article was inspired by a novel by Reyes Monforte, published in Poland, entitled Russian passion (WAM Publishing House).
Buy the book on Empik.com:
