Women in the life of Maxim Gorky. Three wives of Maxim Gorky
Slender, fit MAKSIMKA is one of the strictest and most determined girls in the socion. Youthful, thin, but at the same time strong and resilient - in her youth she gives the impression of a real elf. She has a pretty face with symmetrical features, so it’s not for nothing that she is compared to Malvina. At the same time, you won’t confuse her with any other girl - you just have to pay attention to her clear figure and firm gait.
In clothes he prefers a strict style, finished lines and muted tones. The idea of symmetry and uniform (not necessarily military) is close to her soul. She doesn’t like to stand out and look extravagant, so most often she chooses not only calm colors, but also traditional shapes. You will never see a skirt with a slanted hem or a blouse with an asymmetrical neckline at MAXIMKA.
She avoids unexpected moves and is quite predictable not only in clothes, but also in relationships.
When you first meet, you will be guaranteed sweet smiles and flirtatious glances. MAXIMKA will be happy to laugh at your jokes and keep the fun going for a while. She knows how to be charming, and also seem tender, fragile and defenseless if she decides that she needs it for some reason.
But make no mistake, she has a real iron core inside her. And as soon as she feels that the relationship has begun, she will make eyes at you less often and show her demanding and possessive nature more often. At the same time, MAKSIMKIs are often romantic and sublime at heart, and also like to imagine themselves as the heroines of some novel or film.
If MAXIMKA likes you, she will not advertise it, leaving her partner to be the first to take the initiative. His excessive passivity can lead to a fading of this girl’s feelings. She is focused on being looked after, sought after, and proven to be their devotion. This is due to the fact that she does not have a very good sense of the direction in which the relationship is developing, and is afraid of being rejected. In addition, any uncertainty scares her. And this is another reason why she will not be the first to show her feelings.
If MAXIMKA talks to you, this does not mean that you have become her friend. The level of trust for women of this type is raised very high. They don't consider someone a close friend or loved one unless they trust them 100%.
From a letter from one MAKSIMKA: “I also don’t like that my own thoughts and feelings in the evening may completely differ from what I thought in the morning. This irritates me.
It turns out that you can’t trust yourself! It's somehow unpleasant. Who can then?"
You should not provoke jealousy in her in the hope of rekindling her feelings. She won't fight for you, but will simply decide that you are an unreliable partner. You are unlikely to achieve her favor even if, having assumed mystery, you either disappear, then appear, then call, or disappear from her field of vision for a long time. Remember: she will not tolerate any uncertainty.
If you have managed to earn her trust, be careful not to disappoint MAXIMKA - she will hardly believe you the second time. But if this girl saw in you a selfless friend and a faithful knight, she will become your reliable and devoted companion.
MAXIMKA is a good girl, she strives to live her life without any surprises. She knows what she wants, tries to live according to plan and does not like when circumstances interfere with the implementation of her plans. She is wary of everything new. She has not only the next week and weekend planned out, but she also has a plan for two to three months and even two years in advance. Everything is planned: study, career, marriage, children (date of birth and number), moving to a new apartment, purchasing a washing machine, trips abroad.
It is clear that in order to accomplish all this, you need willpower and determination. MAXIMKA has both, and these qualities are enough not only for her, but also for those around her. You can't spoil this girl. She will not get tired of forcing those around her to bring their plans to life every day. MAXIMKA won’t plan or do anything extra, but if she has something in mind, don’t expect it to go away soon.
Being neat, diligent and responsible, girls of this type usually study well, although they do only what is given and nothing more. The hectic student life is not very attractive to strict MAXIMOS. Because of their strictness towards relationships, they do not have many girlfriends, and even so they rarely complain about failures in their personal lives and do not talk about what is going on in their souls.
Family is very important for a woman of this type, as it is a reliable refuge where she feels protected from the complex outside world. Therefore, special attention is paid to the house; there must be order here. Pets will receive everything they need, but nothing extra. No one will go hungry at MAXIMKA, but don’t expect pickles either. She won’t tell you how and what she prepared, but there is always something simple but satisfying in the refrigerator.
MAKSIMOC make strict, demanding mothers. And if they do not skimp on showing feelings and observe moderation in “training” their children, then the latter grow up to be positive, well-mannered and disciplined people.
A high sense of duty in women of this type extends not only to the family, but also to work. MAXIMKA is ambitious and strives to make a career, although she will never neglect her household responsibilities. The management highly values the diligence, responsibility and reliability of this fragile girl, who after some time perfectly masters the necessary skills and knowledge. Very soon it becomes clear that you can, in fact, rely on her. So her career growth is guaranteed.
Representatives of this type really appreciate the atmosphere of any holiday (the most favorite is New Year). They will never miss significant family dates; they will certainly organize a home celebration with the presentation of gifts, a feast and the invitation of close friends. Leading a rather secluded, measured lifestyle, at the same time they are not averse to having fun in company, laughing and fooling around, but only if they consider this company to be theirs.
So find a good reason, arrange fun party and invite your MAXIM (or MAXIMKA). If they know that they are here to be entertained and amused, they will certainly come. And maybe they’ll even bring a false nose with glasses and a mustache. And they will only do this if they are sure that the owners will gladly pick up on their tomfoolery.
Perhaps no writer in the world knew such lifetime fame as Maksim Gorky.
Even before his departure, his native Nizhny Novgorod was renamed in his honor, a street in Moscow, two largest theaters, a motor ship, a cruiser, an airplane, and the Literary Institute were named (today, by the way, there is not even a lane named after him in the capital).
"I'm passionate!"
This glory of Gorky, and huge circulations, and luxury in everyday life, and his rapture for socialism ultimately brought him to blame, turning the hero-Petrel into an anti-hero. Gorky's worldwide fame hurt Bunina: “It’s time to tear off the mask that he great artist. True, he had talent, but he was drowned in lies, in falsehood.” A Tsvetaeva valued him more than Bunin. Lev Tolstoy, who in turn was an idol for Gorky, used to note in the margins of his works:
“Disgusting, disgusting, terrible falsehood!” H.G. Wells considered him “a Stalinist who defended everything he did Stalin" In the end, he paid for everything, including his “romance with the revolution” and with the authorities, too. The loss of his beloved son Maxim in 1934 (there is a version - he was “removed” by the NKVD). Cruel disappointment in the Soviets. Painful death in 1936 at the age of 68 (poisoned on the orders of the leader?). And as a finale - a niche in the Kremlin wall, where the urn with ashes rests, which Stalin himself carried at the funeral.
Outwardly calm, self-possessed, soft and gentle in communication with people, “easy to cry,” incredibly charming, with unusually, infinitely blue eyes (this is how his contemporaries remember him), Gorky wrote about himself: “I am a passionate person.” At the age of 10, he lay down under a train between the rails to argue: “It’s creepy, but it’s nice to feel that you’re about to fly above the ground!” At 19, he shot himself, having previously studied the anatomical atlas, but still missed his heart. Hearts, at that moment struck by unhappy love: “Why did I dress you with a luxurious mantle of dreams? Loving you, I realized that I was beautifully lying to myself and that my dream was not you!” There were three main ladies of his heart in his life. Each of them was beautiful, talented, smart and strong in character and spirit. And all of them, amazingly, were in completely normal relations with each other. It even happened that we lived “under Gorky” under the same roof. And he admitted in his declining years: “I am very lonely. And I’m tired of everything to the point of despair.”
Maxim Gorky (Alexey Maksimovich Peshkov) with his wife Ekaterina Pavlovna Peshkova and son Maxim. Photo: RIA Novosti
Lawful and Goddess
Gorky's only married legal wife remained Ekaterina Peshkova(nee Volzhina). She lived until 1965, to the age of 89. And so she remained the writer’s widow, since she never married again. There were children: daughter Katya died very young, and son Maxim, being a very close person to his father, having already married and having two daughters, lived with his family with his father - in Italy, then in a mansion in Moscow.
Met Alexey Peshkov with Katya, a beautiful noblewoman, in the editorial office of the Samara Newspaper. Both were interested in revolution and literature. And she saw her future husband for the first time... dancing on the table in the editorial room! Traditional breakfasts were so “fun” for the employees back then. But with Katya’s arrival as a proofreader, these morning feasts stopped. But the young feuilletonist Peshkov began to stay late, reading proof proofs. “I love you not only as a man, a husband, I love you as a friend, maybe more as a friend.” Having lived with her for seven years, he will leave her for Maria Andreeva, prima and first beauty - actress of the famous Art Theater. But he and his wife will remain friends for life: a huge correspondence (600 letters from Gorky to Peshkova) with such appeals to her: “My friend! You are my dear man! My daughter!" Maria Andreeva (by her husband Zhelyabuzhskaya, mother of two children) became Gorky’s common-law wife. The name was signed “Maria Peshkova”. During a joint trip to America with the writer, she was hounded in the press and even both were evicted from the hotel - as “illegal” cohabitants. She left the children, and then the stage, to be with Gorky inseparably for more than 10 years.
Maxim Gorky and Maria Andreeva pose for artist Ilya Repin. Photo: RIA Novosti
Following him, she became interested in “Bolshevism”, “commissar” in Petrograd and constantly obtained from patrons, her admirers, considerable funds for the affairs of the party and the revolution, including thanks to her passionate admirer (lover?) millionaire Savva Morozov. When he shot himself (or - again a version - he was shot by the Bolsheviks), he left a check for 100 thousand rubles to Andreeva. She took 40 for herself and gave 60 for the needs of the party. She courageously endured the situation of being “illegal,” accepted Ekaterina Pavlovna, and later, at 52, accepted a third, last love Gorky - 26-year-old Maria Budberg (Zakrevskaya). She also endured Gorky’s brief affair in 1910 with a friend’s wife, who, according to rumors, gave birth to a daughter from him. Andreeva was unable to bear the writer’s child and fell on stage. And she left him on her own. True, she later wrote: “There were periods, and very long ones, of enormous happiness, intimacy, complete fusion - but they were replaced by equally stormy periods of misunderstanding, bitterness and resentment.” He called her “a wonderful woman-friend”, “noble Marusya”. But at the same time he admitted that “the beloved should be sawed with a dull saw”: “I don’t feel any special need for anyone. I want only one thing - peace for work, and for this I am ready to pay any price.” Others considered Andreeva to be the prototype of Bulgakov's Margarita, and Gorky - the Master. It was believed that Alexey Tolstoy “copied” his Malvina from her. And she herself summed up her bitter-sweet life with Gorky: “I was wrong to leave him. I acted like a woman, but I should have acted differently: after all, it was Gorky.”
Maria Zakrevskaya-Budberg in 1972. Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org
"Cat" made of iron
About Maria Zakrevskaya-Budberg, the third and last woman of Gorky, with a light hand Nina Berberova who wrote a novel about her, they say: “The Iron Woman.” That’s what the classic himself called it. But Berberova, who knew her heroine closely, found “something cat-like” in her appearance and smile. It’s not for nothing that she was nicknamed Mura. Gorky also called her “the most Russian of the Russians.” And, dedicating his last unfinished novel “The Life of Klim Samgin” to her, he inscribed her maiden name - Maria Ignatievna Zakrevskaya. And “Benckendorf” is after her first husband, the father of her two children, who was killed in 1919 by men.
“Budberg” - after her second husband, a baron, from him the title of baroness.
A sharp male mind, strong character and inner freedom attracted everyone's attention to Mura and aroused admiration. She was not a beauty, but her somewhat wide, high-cheekboned face, intelligent and serious, could be beautiful. She probably had an invincible charm, femininity combined with toughness, and “she loved men and did not hide it” - “sex came naturally to her,” as Berberova noted. 50-year-old Gorky fell in love immediately, and soon Mura became everything to him: a secretary, a translator (she knew five languages), and a clerk. He endured her constant absences - either to the children, or to London to H.G. Wells. Yes, yes, and this is the juiciest part: Mura, in parallel with the proletarian classic, had an affair with a British science fiction writer. Moreover, for the first time he visited her in her room at night, when he was visiting Gorky in Petrograd - either he had the wrong door, or he came in to talk, and couldn’t sleep... She laughed at Alexei Maksimovich’s reproaches: “What are you talking about, even for the most loving woman there are two famous writer at the same time - that’s too much!” She broke up with Gorky. And Wells spent the next 12 years of his affair with Moura persuading her to marry him. When he died, he left her 100 thousand dollars, on which she lived.
Mura managed to turn her life into a legend, an adventure novel. She left neither diaries nor memoirs: think what you want! She was considered either a German or an English spy, or an NKVD agent. And she burned her archive. Those who saw her in her old age (she died at 82) remember a very overweight lady who smoked constantly and did not part with a flask of vodka from morning to night - this, in fact, was the case all her life: they said that she could outdrink anyone a big guy. Gorky died in Gorki in her arms. And the version that it was Moore who poisoned him on Stalin’s instructions became the last legend about her bright and stormy life.
From the series “Unknown Gorky”
GORKY, MURA AND OTHERS
There was a lot of mysticism in the life of Maxim Gorky. From birth until death.
... The morning turned out to be fresh and dewy. He wrote all night and was so excited that he didn’t want to sleep at all. The story was called “Old Woman Izergil” - perhaps the best that came from his pen. He was eager to read it to his closest person.
And this person closest to him indifferently perceived the writings of the future founder of socialist realism. At the very climax of the story, Gorky suddenly heard peaceful snoring. Olga was sleeping.
Anger choked him. He went out into the garden and kicked an innocent apple tree. I wanted one thing - to put my head in the noose...
Sad story of first love
In March it was time to give birth. I had to call the neighbor's boy.
“Run quickly to the Gunthers,” the expectant mother asked. - Call Varya, the midwife. Tell her to grab the suitcase with the tool.
Varvara Nikolaevna did not keep her waiting. She ordered the water to be boiled and clean sheets brought. And soon the Kashirins’ house was filled with the sounds of a child’s cry - a baby was born, who was destined to
become a writer. But Varvara Gunther did not know about this. As well as the fact that almost a quarter of a century later, her daughter and this loud-mouthed boy will begin to live together. Intricacies human destinies sometimes they are so bizarre that you can’t help but think about providence.
Meanwhile, it would seem that nothing foreshadowed such a turn of events.
Varvara Nikolaevna's daughter, Olga Kaminskaya, was eight years older than Gorky.She was born in Nizhny Novgorod in 1860. Her father, Yuli Alekseevich Gunter, was a home teacher, and her mother, Varvara Nikolaevna, was a midwife.
In 1877, Olga graduated from the Bialystok Institute of Noble Maidens and met members of the People's Will organization - the Grinevitsky brothers and Foma Kaminsky. Ignatius Grinevitsky subsequently threw a bomb that killed Alexander II and himself. A little later, Olga met Boleslav Korsak, who was exiled to the Irkutsk province for 5 years.
Olga Gunther went to Moscow in 1882, enrolling in obstetric courses there, and married Kaminsky. In June of the following year their daughter was born, and the couple moved to Bialystok.
Life moved slowly, but it cannot be said that Olga and Foma doted on each other. Looks like Olga is measured family life I'm already very bored.
And then in 1887 Korsak unexpectedly visited them. He was not a seducing demon. He simply became a catalyst that accelerated the breakdown of the marital relationship. And Olga became his partner.
But here love triangle police “geometers” reshaped them at their discretion. Korsak and Kaminsky, as well as Ivan Grinevitsky and his bride, were arrested and deported to where they
were born.
The Kaminskys, who again found themselves “in the same compartment,” went to Orenburg, where Olga Yulievna’s brother lived, and in September 1892 she again left her legal husband and returned to Nizhny, where her illegal husband, Korsak, joined her. Here they met with Gorky. His story “About First Love” is dedicated to this event.
The meeting with Olga Kaminskaya could never have taken place at all if Gorky had not left the house at that very moment, but not a minute earlier or later, if his route had not coincided with the route of Olga and Boleslav. But fate decreed this way. And the “uncouth Volgar,” as the “petrel” sometimes ironically called himself, was struck, as they say, on the spot. IN provincial town, as Nizhny was considered at that time, Polish outfits and manners could not help but create a sensation.
“I felt well her tenacious mind, understood that she was culturally superior to me, saw her kind-hearted and condescending attitude towards people; “She was incomparably more interesting than all the young ladies and ladies I knew,” wrote Alexey Maksimovich. “The lower lip of her small mouth was thicker than the upper, as if it were swollen; Thick chestnut-colored hair is cut short and lies on the head in a lush cap.”
However, the bailiff of the Second Kremlin unit, Chekhovsky, did not share Gorky’s enthusiasm for Kaminskaya’s appearance. Here is his message to the police chief: “Short height, light brown hair, thin, big nose, short polka-dot haircut.”
Gorky's meetings with Olga Yuryevna and her partner continued every day. “My love, as it deepened, turned into suffering,” he wrote. - I sat in the basement, watching the lady of my heart working, bent over the table (she was doing cartography - S.S.), and was gloomily drunk with the desire to take her in my arms, to carry her somewhere out of the damned basement... Painful It was difficult for me to restrain this passion - it was already physically burning and weakening me.”
In February 1890, Korsak received a foreign passport and left for France. Kaminskaya-Gunther remained. But Gorky’s efforts to achieve her love were in vain. Soon she went to Paris, to Korsak.
The future "petrel" was in a trance. And he started his first journey, wandering along the roads of Russia for two years until he ended up in Tiflis. And here he again met Kaminskaya, who, after long wanderings, also came here by strange chance. That's where the mysticism is, that's the mysticism!
And Olga Yulievna finally made Gorky happy with her affection. First he leaves for Nizhny, and then she too. Here, as reported by the head of the Nizhny Novgorod provincial gendarme department, Poznansky, Kaminskaya settled in the apartment of “the secretly supervised tradesman Alexei Maksimovich Peshkov,” with whom “she is in a love affair and has a ten-year-old daughter.”
But Gorky's happiness did not last long - only four months. In May 1893, having learned that Korsak had returned to Russia and had been arrested, Kaminskaya went to help him out. When Korsak was released, she returned to Nizhny. But a significant change occurred in their relationship with Gorky. The disagreements began to recur. Olga Yulievna got into the habit of disappearing from Nizhny often, and for a long time. “I was left alone for the most part,” she recalled. “Our conversations were laconic, rare and only touched on business.”
“She was indifferent to my stories,” wrote Gorky. “One morning, when I read to her the written story “Old Woman Izergil” at night, she fell fast asleep... I got up and quietly went out into the garden, feeling the pain of a deep pang of resentment, oppressed by doubt in my abilities.”
But they finally parted when Olga Yulievna began to show signs of attention to some lyceum student, who began to give her rich gifts. Gorky lost his temper. “I asked how she thought this sad story should end?” . “I don’t know,” she replied. “I don’t have a specific feeling for him, but I want to shake him up.” Something fell asleep in him, and it seemed like I could wake him up.”... I felt that such a life could dislocate me from the path I was on.”
Gorky suggested that she go either to her legal husband or to Korsak. And Kaminskaya did just that. She returned to her husband, and then again to Korsak. And again to her husband... She could not live long with just one man.
But Gorky remembered her. He honestly admitted: “This woman was accepted by my heart instead of my mother. I expected and believed that she was able to give me drunken honey that stimulates creative forces.”
I didn't give her anything to drink. But the mysticism did not end there. It was just beginning.
Samara proofreader
In 1895, Gorky left for Samara and got a job at the Samara Newspaper. But not everything went well for him. This is what the poet, journalist and literary critic A.A. Smirnov (Treplev): “I kept his note for a long time with such mistakes that would raise the hair on the head of a Russian language teacher.” And indeed, the aspiring writer clearly did not have enough literacy at that time.
Fortunately, a saving straw turned up in the person of a young proofreader Ekaterina Volzhina. She began to edit his reports, feuilletons and stories, sometimes she simply rewrote them, and took care of him in every possible way.
Things went well, and Gorky proposed his hand in marriage to Ekaterina Pavlovna. At the end of August 1896, their wedding took place, and a year later their son Maxim was born. In 1901, daughter Katya was born. But she died five years later, when the couple’s paths diverged, despite the fact that Peshkova was also a wife-“mother” - “the petrel chose only such people all his life, except, perhaps, Mura. But more on that later. And the divorce from Ekaterina Pavlovna was mainly due to the fact that Gorky no longer needed a literary right-hand man.
There were friends, and then - enemies...
Everyone in Russia knew Savva Morozov, from young to old. This was not a semi-literate merchant squeezing the last juice out of the workers. Morozov began his studies at the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of Moscow University, graduated from Cambridge University, and knew European languages. At the age of 25, he became the manager of several textile factories.
Women killed a millionaire. For some reason, he was only interested in married socialites. First - his nephew's wife Zinaida. And he did everything so that she would get a divorce and then marry Morozov.
But Zinaida Grigorievna soon began to feel burdened by this marriage. She gained numerous fans. However, Savva also lost interest in his “half”.
The new subject of his sighs was the actress of the Art Theater, the wife of the official Zhelyabuzhsky, Maria Fedorovna Andreeva, who favored the Bolsheviks and spent her fees to help the revolutionary cause. And she became so obsessed with her admirer that he, a gentle man by character, gave up without a fight. Fabulous sums were allocated to support the RSDLP. Morozov himself even smuggled printing equipment and prohibited literature from abroad.
The affair with Andreeva lasted, like the previous one, very briefly. To his misfortune, Savva introduced Gorky to Maria Fedorovna. As a result, he himself turned out to be the “third wheel”. Andreeva became the common-law wife of the “petrel”.
The manufacturer could not bear such a betrayal. Relations with Gorky completely went wrong. In the spring of 1905, he went to Cannes and shot himself in a hotel. According to his will, Andreeva received 100 thousand rubles. Of these, she kept 40 thousand for herself, and donated 60 thousand to the needs of the revolutionary struggle.
Another "mother"
Maria Fedorovna was four years older than Gorky. She had two children: son Yuri and daughter Katya. It is curious that Katya simply called her stepfather Alyosha. She felt that her mother had become his “mother.” But their romance, like a glass of black Algerian wine, was filled with a vague and intoxicating mysticism. Gorky and Andreeva understood what marriage was in a very unique way.
Gorky could, for example, declare that he wanted to start a new romance. Andreeva did not object. However, she herself was not in this regard.miss. She made Petr Petrovich Kryuchkov, her secretary, her lover, and he was younger than her by... 21 years. Kryuchkov replaced a certain Yakov Lvovich Izrailevich. After he severely beat Kryuchkova, hiding from the police, Izrailevich moved to Berlin.
In 1906, Gorky and Andreeva went to America, which was still quite puritanical at that time. But a major scandal broke out there. Not a single hotel wanted to accommodate a writer who left his legal wife at home (it was quite difficult to formalize a church divorce at that time) and came with his mistress.
Later Six years later, Maria Feodorovna returned to her homeland, leaving Gorky alone among his Italian mistresses. But he didn't mind. What
As for Andreeva, she was briefly imprisoned in Russia. But they took pity on her, and the actress worked in the Sukhodolsky and Nezlobin theaters, and in 1919 she created the Bolshoi Theatre of Drama, where she performed until 1926. Gorky either lived with her or left.
His mistresses
With the light hand of the “petrel”, various charitable societies and circles arose in Nizhny Novgorod every now and then, which soon fell apart. Especially women. For example, “Society for Assistance to Teachers of the Nizhny Novgorod Province” or “Society for Assistance to Needy Women.” And, of course, Gorky had many fans. Among them is the daughter of M.I., killed by the Black Hundreds. Heinze, V.N. Kolberg, E.A. Zolotnitskaya, who accompanied Chaliapin, M.I. Orekhova-Medvedev. Moreover, three out of four lived in his house.
In Italy, Gorky, not at all embarrassed by Andreeva’s presence, showed all kinds of attention to the wife of the artist Andrei Diederiks, Varvara Shaikevich. The romance proceeded very stormily, but ended, like all others, in a breakup, after which Shaikevich alternately married writers and publishers Alexander Tikhonov and Zinovy Grzhebin. Bohemia is bohemia.
This is what the artist Valentina Khodasevich recalled: “In 1919, we not only became friends with Alexei Maksimovich and Maria Fedorovna Andreeva, but it so happened that they invited my husband and me to move to live with them in a large apartment on Kronverksky Avenue. We agreed and lived with them until we left for Italy.
The apartment had 12 rooms. They lived: Alexey Maksimovich, Maria Fedorovna, Pyotr Petrovich Kryuchkov, artist I.N. Rakitsky, Maria
Ignatievna Budberg-Beckendorf-Zakrevskaya, secretary of the publishing house "World Literature", then Gorky's secretary and part-time wife, who translated his works into English language, Maria Alexandrovna Heinze, who came from Nizhny Novgorod to study at the medical academy... Maria Feodorovna’s daughter and her husband and her nephew Zhenya Kyaksht and his wife, who lived in the upper apartment of the same house, came to eat.” In addition, Olimpiada Chertkov lived in the house as a nurse.
Then Gorky became interested in Budberg-Beckendorf-Zakrevskaya, about whom we will talk further, but sometimes he made a “window” in their relationship. Once, for example, I became seriously interested in a performer of ditties, whose name history has not preserved.
Cat half smile
The world has probably never seen such an adventurer as Maria Ignatievna Budberg-Beckendorf Zakrevskaya. The poet Andrei Vaznesensky called her “Russian Mata Hari.” Among her countless lovers and husbands were the international spy Lockhart, the security officer Peters, Baron Budberg, Nietzsche, Rilke, Freud, Wells... Gorky dedicated his novel “The Life of Klim Samgin” to her. However, the list of her lovers is much longer.
Mura's ancestor (as Gorky nicknamed her for her sly, cat-like expression) was Arkady Andreevich Zakrevsky, who served as an adjutant general under Alexander I. From 1823 he was Governor-General of Finland. Pushkin called his wife, Agrafena, “copper Venus” and dedicated two poems to her. In general, Maria Ignatievna’s ancestors were not so simple.
Mura left Baron Budberg on the second day after the wedding. She lived with Benckendorf, who was a descendant of the same Benckendorf who had so annoyed Pushkin, for 12 years. Budberg was killed by peasants, and Benckendorff died himself. During this time, Maria Ignatievna graduated from Cambridge University and knew English perfectly. Suffice it to say that during her life she translated 36, and maybe more, thick novels.
After this, Mura went, as they say, into all the troubles. Naturally, she attracted Gorky’s attention. Some kind of special sexuality emanated from her; men simply could not pass by. And at the same time, as Nina Berberova put it, Mura was an “iron woman,” and the “petrel” was always drawn to such people.
Berberova lived with Maria Ignatieva for three years under the same roof. “She loved men,” Berberova recalled, “and did not hide it, although she understood that this truth offends and irritates women and excites and confuses men. She enjoyed sex, she was looking for novelty and knew where to find it, and men knew this, felt it in her and took advantage of it, falling in love with her passionately and devotedly... There was no place in her life for a lasting marriage, for children, for relatives and family relations... In many ways, she was ahead of her time. If she needed anything in life, it was only a legend she herself created, her own myth, which she grew, colored, and strengthened throughout her life.”
There were a lot of rumors about Moore. Some of them are confirmed by documents. For example, the commandant of the Moscow Kremlin, Malkov, who came to arrest Robert Bruce Lockhart, found Maria Ignatievna under the bed in his bedroom. At that time she was already living with Gorky. Much more would have been known, but Mura, in her dying days, burned her entire extensive archive.
The collective farm foreman is also a woman
On May 1, 1934, a meeting of notable people of the country took place in Moscow. Field crew leaders were sent from the Azov-Black Sea region (now the Rostov region) to this meeting, including Irina
Nikulshin, a Komsomol member who was only 18 years old.
The foremen decided to greet Gorky and went to his dacha.
And who is this girl, so small? - he asked, glaring at Nikulshin. And his eyes sparkled at the same time.
No, I’m not a girl, but a foreman,” Ira answered.
It was obvious that he liked her. When they began to drink tea, Gorky sat her down next to him and, in fact, spoke only to her alone.
You need to study, Ira,” he finally advised her.
“As soon as I achieve twelve kilograms of grain per workday, I’ll go to study,” Nikulshina said.
The foremen returned home, and a letter from Gorky was already waiting for Ira. Then one more thing, another... He didn’t write to any of the field workers, only to her. Maybe this was his latest hobby?
Fatal wife
Maxim Peshkov, Gorky’s son, was also not averse to hitting on women. Just like my father. But first his wife, nee Nadezhda Vvedenskaya, hit on him. She came to him herself on her wedding day with a friend of her father who had died the day before, Doctor Sinichkin. She came because she ran away from her husband by jumping out of the window. Well, she didn’t like him, that’s all.
On the contrary, they liked Maxim, whom they met at the skating rink on Patriarch’s Ponds. And she asked him to shelter her with him. Maxim talked to his father, and he went to meet the girl.
But they got married only in 1922, when they were in Berlin. On modest wedding Chaliapin's daughter, Lydia, was present.
Two girls - Marfa and Daria - were born in Italy. Timosha - this nickname was given to Nadezhda as a child because she had her head shaved when she was sick with typhus - was a beautiful and strong woman. She was the mistress of the house, and Maxim was interested in some frivolous projects. Then he started drinking heavily. Disagreements began. Mistresses appeared...
Gorky was persuaded many times to return to the USSR, but he hesitated. The son also insisted on this, to whom they promised to give him a car and provide him with other benefits.
Finally, the "petrel" decided to return. But then I bitterly regretted it. From the very beginning, the OGPU took custody of him, where the deputy of the then chairman Menzhinsky was Gorky’s longtime friend, the former Nizhny Novgorod resident Genrikh Yagoda. His career growth was ensured by another former Nizhny Novgorod resident, Yakov Sverdlov, with whom Yagoda was related. Then he married Sverdlov’s niece, Ida Leonidovna Averbakh.
Yagoda became a frequent visitor to Gorky, who seemed to be under house arrest. But Maxim Peshkov was taken to various collective farms and factories, where feasts were held and he was drunk. It all ended with Maxim catching a cold and dying on May 11, 1934 at the age of 38. Although there is another version.
A romance arose between Yagoda and Nadezhda Peshkova; Yagoda could eliminate his rival with poison. Many historians, in particular Gustav Gerling-Grudzinsky, say that “there is no reason not to believe the indictment of the 1938 trial, which states that Yagoda could, partly for political, partly for personal reasons, send Maxim Peshkov to the next world.”
But soon Yagoda himself was shot. The same fate befell the philosopher, writer, historian, director of the A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature Ivan Kapitonovich Luppola. As soon as Timosha was about to marry him, he was arrested. He died in the camp in May 1943.
Rock pursued everyone who connected their fate with Nadezhda Peshkova. In 1946, the “funnel” took Timosha’s next husband, architect Miron Ivanovich Merzhanov, to prison. He also disappeared without a trace in the dungeons of the NKVD. Finally, after Stalin’s death, her new companion, engineer Vladimir Fedorovich Popov, was also arrested. He is the only one who was released after a year and a half. But the family broke up.
The femme fatale often visited Nizhny and participated in the Gorky conferences. She died in January 1971.
Death Woman
Gorky's very last woman was the one depicted in the painting. Here’s what Valentina Khodasevich wrote: “We drank morning coffee in the hall on the top floor so that Alexey Maksimovich would not waste time and effort going downstairs. He was impatient, and even before coffee he invited me to go into his office... And I see a wonderfully painted picture. It is clear that Nesterov. I was shocked by the plot: in front of me, almost life-size on a square canvas, is a young woman dying of tuberculosis... Everything around is pearly white, her hair is black, and only clots of lips and a rose, almost falling from a lifelessly hanging, extremely emaciated hand, resembled clots blood... But I felt that with this picture death itself entered Alexei Maksimovich’s office.”
And indeed, two weeks later his heart stopped.
THE RAYS of the setting sun gradually colored the sea in pink color, but the heat didn’t seem to subside. The roofs of houses, pavements, and embankments of Sevastopol breathed with heat. The dressing room of the summer theater was stuffy and dusty. Maria Fedorovna Andreeva, one of the leading actresses of the Moscow Art Theater on tour to Sevastopol, hastily put herself in order before the start of the second act of the play. There was a knock on the door. The voice of Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was heard from behind the door: “Can I come to you, Maria Fedorovna? Only I’m not alone, Gorky is with me.” The door swung open, Chekhov was the first to enter, and after him a lanky figure appeared in the dressing room, dressed in a strange outfit. “Gorky did not dress like a worker or like a peasant, but wore a decorative costume of his own invention. Always dressed in black, he wore a thin cloth blouse belted with a narrow leather strap, cloth trousers, high boots and a romantic wide-brimmed hat that covered his hair, which fell over his ears,” his contemporaries recalled about him.
The devil knows! Damn knows how great you play! - Gorky said in a deep voice, squeezing Maria Fedorovna’s thin hand in his wide palm. Blue eyes looked at the actress from under long eyelashes, and the writer’s lips formed a charming childish smile.
“His face seemed to me more beautiful than beautiful, my heart skipped a beat with joy,” Maria Fedorovna recalled her first meeting with Alexei Maksimovich. It was this meeting in 1900 that marked the beginning of their long romance. They were the same age - both Gorky and Andreeva were 32 years old. At that time, Gorky was already known as a writer, and Maria Andreeva’s talent was admired by both the theater audience and the most severe critics. Neither were free. Five years before meeting Andreeva, Gorky, who at that time was still an aspiring journalist, married Ekaterina Volzhina, who worked as a proofreader at Samara Gazeta. Alexey Maksimovich quickly became bored with his quiet, homely, intelligent wife. And, despite the presence of two children - son Maxim and daughter Katya, Gorky left the family. However, the writer never divorced his first wife and maintained friendly relations with her until the end of his days.
Maria Andreeva was also married. However, her husband and two children, son Yuri and daughter Ekaterina, could not contain the actress’s passionate nature. Her husband, a major official Andrei Zhelyabuzhsky, was 18 years older than Andreeva and had long turned a blind eye to his wife’s amorous adventures. At that time, Andreeva had a whirlwind romance. And not with just anyone, but with the well-known millionaire Savva Morozov throughout Russia. Their relationship developed before the eyes of all of Moscow. Morozov donated huge amounts of money to the theater where Andreeva played, showered her with flowers and expensive gifts. Many condemned Andreeva. “Savva Timofeevich’s relationship with you is exceptional,” Stanislavsky wrote to Andreeva. - These are the relationships for which they ruin their lives, sacrifice themselves. But do you know what blasphemy you reach? You boast publicly to strangers that Zinaida Grigorievna (Morozov’s wife), who is painfully jealous of you, is seeking your influence over her husband. For the sake of acting vanity, you are telling right and left that Savva Timofeevich, at your insistence, is contributing a whole capital to save someone.” However, Maria Fedorovna did not care about public opinion.
EVERYTHING changed after meeting Gorky. Andreeva suddenly realized that she had truly fallen in love. She almost immediately broke off relations with Morozov (there were rumors that the reason for the suicide of the famous entrepreneur was a breakup with Andreeva), left the theater, and became interested in revolutionary ideas. In 1903, Maria Feodorovna moved to Gorky. Numerous acquaintances were surprised that two were so different people manage to coexist peacefully under one roof. Andreeva, for all the passion of her nature, as a rule, was calm and emphatically cold-blooded. There were legends about Gorky's tearfulness. “It often happened that, having understood the mourned, he himself scolded him, but the first reaction was almost always tears. He was not ashamed to cry over his own writings: the second half of every new story he read to me was sure to drown in sobs, sobs and wiping his glasses,” wrote the writer’s friend Vladislav Khodasevich.
From a famous actress, coquette and socialite Andreeva turned into a faithful wife and ally. She conducted Gorky's correspondence, argued with publishers about fees, translated numerous works by Alexei Maksimovich into French, German and Italian languages. Gorky’s health left much to be desired (from his youth the writer suffered from lung disease), so Maria Feodorovna also had to perform the duties of a nurse, accompanying Gorky on numerous trips abroad, where he was treated, and at the same time raised funds in support of the revolution in Russia. “Alyosha writes so much that I can barely keep up with him. I’m writing a diary of our stay abroad, translating a book from French, sewing a little, in a word, filling the day in every possible way so that by the evening I’ll be tired and fall asleep and not have dreams, because good dreams I don’t see...” Andreeva wrote during a joint trip to the USA with Gorky in 1906. The trip to America left the most unpleasant memories. Alexey Maksimovich represented Maria Feodorovna as his wife everywhere, but rumors leaked to the press that the writer never divorced his first wife. Gorky was accused of bigamy, troubles began with the authorities, and the writer had to leave the States for Italy.
Shortly before the revolution, Gorky and Andreeva returned to Russia. Maria Feodorovna continued to live in the interests of Gorky. She becomes the financial agent of the party and seeks funds everywhere for revolutionary activities. For her business acumen, ability to “knock out” and get hold of her, Lenin called Maria Andreeva “Comrade Phenomenon.”
HOWEVER, Maria Feodorovna was so carried away by party needs that at times Gorky began to feel forgotten. His faithful Maria could no longer be with him all the time, she had her own affairs, she constantly disappeared at endless meetings and meetings. And the blow was not long in coming. In 1919, Maria Ignatievna Zakrevskaya-Benckendorf appeared in the life of 52-year-old Gorky. Korney Chukovsky introduced them, recommending Maria Ignatievna to Gorky as a secretary. He also described the first editorial meeting, which Zakrevskaya attended. “Oddly enough, although Gorky didn’t say a word to her, he said everything for her, spreading his entire peacock’s tail. He was very witty, talkative, brilliant, like a high school student at a ball.” Maria Zakrevskaya was 24 years younger than the writer. However, by the time they met, she had already been married and given birth to two children. The most incredible rumors circulated about this woman; she was suspected of having connections with British intelligence and the NKVD, and was called “Russian Milady.” Gorky got carried away and very soon proposed marriage to Maria Zakrevskaya. Andreeva did not forgive the betrayal. And it wasn’t even a matter of treason. Maria Fedorovna could not bear that the man to whom she had given all of herself simply threw her out of his life. Zakrevskaya did not accept the writer’s proposal, but settled in his apartment.
Best of the day
The family idyll of Gorky and Zakrevskaya was disrupted by the arrival of the famous English writer H.G. Wells, who in 1920 decided to visit revolutionary Russia. In those days, finding a decent hotel room was a problem, so Wells was assigned to stay at Gorky’s house. Maria Ignatievna volunteered to be Wells' translator. This is how Wells described Zakrevskaya: “She is incredibly charming. However, it is difficult to determine which properties constitute its feature. She is certainly unkempt, her forehead is furrowed with alarming wrinkles, and her nose is broken. She eats very quickly, swallowing huge pieces, drinks a lot of vodka, and has a rough, dull voice, probably because she is a heavy smoker. She usually carries a battered bag in her hands, which is rarely zipped properly. The hands are beautifully shaped and often of very questionable purity. However, every time I saw her next to other women, she definitely turned out to be both more attractive and more interesting than the rest.”
Before Wells left, a piquant story happened. Allegedly, the Englishman made the wrong door and accidentally ended up in Maria Ignatievna’s room. In the morning, Alexey Maksimovich found Herbert Wells in Zakrevskaya’s bed. Calming Gorky, Maria Ignatievna said: “Alexey Maksimovich, what are you, really! After all, even for the most loving woman, two famous writers at once is too much! And then, Herbert is older than you!
Gorky forgave the betrayal. They lived with Zakrevskaya for 16 years until the writer’s death in 1936. They had no children together.
After Gorky's death, 45-year-old Maria Zakrevskaya left for England, where she settled in the house of her old friend Herbert Wells. Wells proposed marriage to her many times, but Maria Ignatievna did not agree, each time answering that it was not appropriate for her age. From the Bolsheviks, Zakrevskaya received all rights to foreign publications of Gorky. She also inherited a good inheritance from Wells. She died in 1974 at the age of 83.
Maria Fedorovna Andreeva died in Moscow in 1953, when she was 85 years old.
And Gorky’s first, legal wife, Ekaterina Volzhina, died at the age of 88, having lived until 1965.
Finally I managed to return to Gorky... And instead of writing about the important and main thing, I unexpectedly took up a topic that I had never planned.
I want to talk about Gorky’s women, the main ones, those with whom he lived for a long time and with whom he had a strong feeling. I mean Gorky’s first wife Ekaterina Pavlovna Peshkova, née Volzhina. His second, common-law wife, Maria Fedorovna Andreeva and Baroness Maria Budberg. These women played an important role in Gorky's life, influenced him, his destiny and his work. When a man lives with a woman, loves her, under the influence of this woman he changes, cannot help but change, love reshapes him. I have already written that for Gorky, a woman, in comparison with a man, was a higher being. The woman was always, as it were, on a pedestal; he always looked up at the woman a little from below. In all conflicts, he is always on the woman’s side. Women better than men, they are kinder and they are weak creatures, they are easy to offend. This is the attitude towards a woman, faith in her, blind trust in her that played a role in Gorky’s life fatal role. Gorky always wrote about women as if a little from the outside; they were a mystery for him, which he did not try to solve. He wrote about women from the outside, not from the inside, as, for example, Tolstoy wrote about Anna Karenina. Flaubert wrote: “Madame Bovary is me.” Gorky could not say this about any of his heroines. This is how, from the outside, Galsworthy wrote about women, although completely differently from Gorky.
Gorky met Ekaterina Pavlovna Volzhina in 1895; he was just starting out then, just trying to write and took his first experiments to the editorial office of the Samara Newspaper. And Katya Volzhina worked as a proofreader in this newspaper. Katya was from a noble family, and her noble origin was evident in everything - in her speech, in her manner of speaking, in her voice and intonation. She was educated, graduated from high school with a gold medal, and was well brought up. Besides, she was beautiful. And Alexey Peshkov was uneducated, ugly, poor, almost in rags. He dressed in such a way that people laughed at him, he told about it himself. He earned money through physical labor, these were odd jobs. For Alexei, Katya was an unearthly creature, a pipe dream, and yet he dared to fall in love with her. It is difficult to understand how he decided to tell her about this, but he decided. Perhaps he decided because he noticed that Katya treated him in a special way. But why she fell in love with him is difficult to understand. His literary talent was still doubtful at that time; no one predicted a great future for him then. And the fact that Katya saw in him an extraordinary person, worthy of love, suggests that she herself was an extraordinary person. Of course, her parents were against this marriage, they were horrified. They hoped that their beautiful daughter would make a good match, and this would return the impoverished family to a position in society worthy of their family. Katya did not listen to her parents, broke up with them and went to Alexei. They merried. And Katya changed hers noble surname with the dissonant, ugly surname of Alexei - she became Ekaterina Peshkova, and for the rest of her life. Life for a young family was difficult, but when there is love, difficulties are easily overcome. Alexey wrote a lot. Thanks to Katya's love, he gained self-confidence. If such a girl fell in love with him and believes in him, it means that he really has a great future ahead of him. In 1897, they had a son, who was named Maxim. And soon a girl was born, the girl did not live long, at the age of five she died of meningitis. During these few years of life with Catherine, Gorky became famous writer, famous. It was published in large editions, and these editions were sold out. Fame came suddenly, we have already talked about this. Young writers began to imitate him; such writers were called “podmaximki.” In particular, A.I. Kuprin was considered such a “submaximum”. And such a Gorky, famous, innovator, writer from the grassroots, became interesting and needed by everyone. His situation and his surroundings changed dramatically. Everyone invited him, he was accepted everywhere, and a predatory woman was found who took possession of him. And she took him away from his wife and children. I think Gorky understood that all these people, his new entourage, were attracted by his fame and wanted to use it to their advantage. He understood that all this universal love was not worth one sigh from his Katya, and that what was so pure and selfless person, like her, is not in his new surroundings. I understood, but still could not resist the temptation.
(Or maybe what I’m talking about, that Gorky understood this, he actually didn’t understand. I think he didn’t understand then and never understood what Maria Andreeva was. Or maybe he understood, but late, when she was already with the GPU employee Kryuchkov. And this married couple, on behalf of the Soviet secret services, controlled his life. When Gorky returned to the USSR, Kryuchkov was forced into his secretary, and he became his main jailer, and possibly murderer.)
Gorky left his wife and always continued to love and value her highly. He did not officially divorce her, perhaps because he did not want to traumatize her, or perhaps he did not feel the need for it. When Gorky left her, Catherine was still young and beautiful, she could be liked and could fall in love herself, but she loved her Alexei all her life. And the entire subsequent life of Ekaterina Peshkova suggests that she was a person of rare virtues, a person impeccable in all respects. We don’t know how Catherine broke up with her husband, whether there was any explanation for what they said to each other. Catherine lost the person she loved, whom she had never stopped loving, but she did not allow herself to become depressed. She bravely endured the blow, held on with dignity, she even found the strength to start new life. Life without love, but full of serious content. She had two children, and raising them as a single mother was not easy. When little Katya died, Gorky and his new wife were just in the USA. Having received news of his daughter’s death, he sent a consoling letter to Ekaterina Pavlovna in Nizhny Novgorod and ordered her to take care of her son. And there was a hidden reproach in this, that she did not save her daughter. From 1907 until the start of World War I, Ekaterina Pavlovna and Maxim lived abroad, mainly in Paris. She attended a course of lectures on social sciences at the Sorbonne, not to get a diploma, but because she needed this knowledge. She understood what she should devote her life to and determined its main direction. She spent her life helping those who needed help most, those who were most difficult to help. Before the revolution, while living abroad, she worked in the Circle for Assistance to Hard Labor and Exile, organized by Vera Figner. Helped political prisoners of Tsarist Russia. During World War I she worked in organizations helping the wounded, in the Red Cross. She worked full-time in the Political Red Cross organization, headed the children's commission in the society Helping Victims of War, and, with funds from the zemstvo and city unions, organized a detachment of volunteers to search for children left behind the front line. Since 1920, she was part-time representative of the Polish Red Cross, which helped prisoners of war, Russian and Polish, return to their homeland. Since 1922, she headed the organization Assistance to Political Prisoners, the only human rights organization in the USSR, which existed until 1937. Human rights work under Stalin was a thankless task, very difficult and extremely dangerous. It is difficult to understand how Ekaterina Pavlovna survived during Stalin's great terror. But such paradoxes did occur. Perhaps Stalin wanted to demonstrate his good attitude towards the Gorky family. It's his style. Eliminate an objectionable person, and then demonstrate a good attitude towards him, praise the deceased to the skies, name cities and factories after him. This was the case, for example, with Kirov, and it was the same with Gorky.
Ekaterina Peshkova had her own political beliefs, which changed, at one time she belonged to the Socialist Revolutionary Party... But her help to people did not depend on their beliefs and party affiliation, did not depend on their class affiliation, citizenship and nationality. She helped everyone who needed help, sparing no effort and not afraid of risk. Last years In her life she was a consultant to the archive of A.M. Gorky at IMLI. She died in 1965.
I was unable to write about Ekaterina Pavlovna Peshkova as well as she deserves. Maybe because it is difficult to write about an ideal person, and she was just that. She never thought about herself, because she always noticed those people around who needed her help.
To be continued.
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