The Mystery of Olga Chekhova
Read The Mystery of Olga Chekhova Online
Authors: Antony Beevor
Tags: #History, #General, #World, #Europe, #Military, #World War II, #Modern, #20th Century
Table of Contents
I. The Cherry Orchard of Victory
5. The Beginning of a Revolution
11. The Early 1920s in Moscow and Berlin
13. The End of Political Innocence
FOR MORE WORKS BY ANTONY BEEVOR, LOOK FOR THE
FOR MORE WORKS BY ANTONY BEEVOR, LOOK FOR THE
Praise for
The Mystery of Olga Chekhova
“This was an extraordinary life, which Mr. Beevor handles with disciplined speculation.”
—
The New York Sun
“An extraordinary drama of exile and espionage, celebrity and concealment.... As in the
Stalingrad
and
Berlin
books, though in a less deeply tragic key, Beevor’s new work brings home to younger readers what he calls ‘the fate of the individual within the mass’ during Europe’s age of tyranny, genocide and total war.”
—Boyd Tonkin,
The Independent
“Beevor has clearly enjoyed picking through the legends and his fascination with Chekhova’s story shines through.”
—Anne Applebaum,
Daily Telegraph
“Beevor’s work is, above all, the fascinating story of an extraordinary family living through extraordinary times. On those grounds alone it’s a great read. Families, as so many novelists have discovered, provide a wonderful window into the past ... Beevor tells the story with seemingly effortless grace and it reads like the very best novels. He is a gifted writer and this is an enthralling tale.”
—Gerard DeGroot,
Scotland on Sunday
“Antony Beevor’s engaging and revealing memoir ... tells the parallel stories of sister Olga and bother Lev with clarity and panache ... as engaging a read as
Stalingrad
and
Berlin.”
—David Edgar,
The Guardian
(London)
“This compelling work ... fascinates the reader by making Chekhova and her despicable brother Lev Knipper prisms through which one examines the degraded life of the citizens of Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia and explores the shadowy, morally ambiguous world of the Russian émigré. ... As in his other books, Antony Beevor is remarkably astute at digging out testimonies from living descendants and closed archives.”
—Donald Rayfield, author of
Anton Chekhov,
in the
Literary Review
“Beevor uses the story to evoke a world—the vague ideological borderlands of Nazism and Communism.... Exhibits Beevor’s big-book knack: he can write excitingly yet with restraint, and never resorts to grand guignol to grip you.”
—Felipe Fernandez Armesto,
The Times
(London)
“Fascinating. An intricate, gracefully told and often moving social history of a talented family in times of revolution, civil war, dictatorship and world conflict.”
—Rachel Polonsky,
New Statesman
“A true story that is dramatic, evocative and well worth unearthing” —
The Observer
(London)
“Literate, lucent, and well researched; a fascinating glimpse into how artists respond as the world explodes around them.”
—
Kirkus Reviews
“Given its colorful subject matter and Beevor’s well-placed narrative,
The Mystery of Olga Chekhova
never fails to absorb.”
—
The Times Literary Supplement
PENGUIN BOOKS
THE MYSTERY OF OLGA CHEKHOVA
Antony Beevor was educated at Winchester and Sand- hurst. A regular officer in the 11th Hussars, he served in Germany and England. He has published several novels, and his works of nonfiction include The
Spanish Civil War; Crete: The Battle and the Resistance,
which won the 1993 Runciman Award; Stalingrad; and The
Fall of Berlin 1945.
With his wife, Artemis Cooper, he wrote
Paris After the Liberation: 1944-1949,
now issued in a new edition.
Stalingrad
was awarded the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction, the Wolfson History Prize, and the Hawthornden Prize in 1999.
The Fall of Berlin 1945
was a number-one bestseller in Britain and has been translated into twenty-four languages. Most of his titles are published by Penguin.
Beevor is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a Chevalier de l‘Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in France. In 2003 he received the first Longman History Today Trustees’ Award. He was the 2002-2003 Lees Knowles lecturer at Cambridge and is a visiting professorf at Birkbeck College, University of London. He is now chairman of the Society of Authors.
PENGUIN BOOKS
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First published in the United States of America by Viking Penguin,
a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. 2004
Published in Penguin Books 2005
Copyright © Ocito Ltd., 2004
All rights reserved
Photographic credits appear on page xi.
eISBN : 978-1-101-17505-7
1. Tschechowa, Olga, b. 1896. 2. Actors—Soviet Union—Biography.
3. Spies—Soviet Union—Biography.
PN2728.T8M.028’092—dc22
[B] 2004043076
75 pt. Monotype Bembo
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DRAMATIS PERSONAE
The Knipper Family by Generation
KONSTANTIN KNIPPER Konstantin Leonardovich (1866- 1924). Railway engineer. Father of Olga Chekhova, Ada Knipper and Lev Knipper. Brother of Olga Knipper Chekhova (‘Aunt Olya’) and Vladmir Knipper, the opera singer. Married ‘Lulu’ Ried, later known as ’Baba‘.
‘AUNT OLYA’ KNIPPER-CHEKHOVA Olga Leonardovna (1868-1959). Actress. Married Anton Chekhov in May 1901. Sister to Konstantin, the railway engineer, and Vladimir, the opera singer.
VLADIMIR KNIPPER Vladimir Leonardovich (1877-1942). Usually known as Vladimir Nardov, his stage name. Singer, and director at the Bolshoi. Younger brother of Konstantin Knipper and Olga Knipper-Chekhova (‘Aunt Olya’), and uncle of Olga Chekhova and Lev Knipper. Father of Vova.
LULU (LATER BABA) RIED-KNIPPER Yelena Luise (1874- 1943). Mother of Ada, Olga and Lev.
ADA KNIPPER Ada Konstantinovna (1895-1985). Actress. Sister of Olga and Lev, and mother of Marina Ried.
OLGA CHEKHOVA Olga Konstantinovna (1897-1980). Daughter of Konstantin and Lulu Knipper, sister of Ada and Lev, and mother of Ada (christened Olga).
LEV KNIPPER Lev Konstantinovich (1898-1974). Composer. Brother of Olga and Ada, and husband of Lyuba, then of Mariya Garikovna Melikova and finally of Tatyana Alekseevna Gaidamovich. Father of Andrei Knipper.
VOVA KNIPPER Vladimir Vladimirovich (1924-95). Son of Vladimir, the opera singer, and first cousin of Lev Knipper and Olga Chekhova.
ADA CHEKHOVA RUST Ada Mikhailovna (1916-66). Daughter of Olga Chekhova and Misha Chekhov. Married Wilhelm Rust. Mother of Vera. Killed in a plane crash.
MARINA RIED Marina Borisovna Rschevskaya (1917-89). Daughter of Ada Knipper and Boris P. Rschevsky (1872- 1922), and niece of Olga Chekhova.
ANDREI KNIPPER (1931—). Geologist. Son of Lev Knipper and Lyuba (Lyubov Sergeevna Zalesskaya).
The Chekhov Family by Generation
ALEKSANDR CHEKHOV Aleksandr Pavlovich (1855-1913). Writer. Brother of Anton and Masha, and father of Misha. Husband of Natalya Golden.
ANTON CHEKHOV Anton Pavlovich (1860-1904). Writer, doctor and playwright. Married Olga Knipper in May 1901. Brother of Aleksandr, and uncle of Misha, Volodya and Sergei.
‘AUNT MASHA’ CHEKHOVA Mariya Pavlovna (1863-1957). Keeper of the Chekhov museum in Yalta. Sister of Aleksandr, Anton and the other Chekhov brothers. Aunt of Misha, Volodya and Sergei.
MISHA CHEKHOV Mikhail Aleksandrovich (1891-1955). Actor. Son of Aleksandr Chekhov and Natalya Golden, nephew of Anton Chekhov, husband of Olga Chekhova and father of Ada (Olga Mikhailovna) Chekhova.