The Mystery of Olga Chekhova (36 page)

p. 88
‘unforgettable’, ‘As the play finished ...’, Sergei Mikhailovich Chekhov, MS, AD-MCM/Sakharova/File 81.

p. 88
‘I am staying with Misha . . .’, ibid.

p. 90
UFA development in 1920S, see Beyer, 1992, pp. 10—11.

p. 91
‘At last!’, ‘It will be very interesting . . .’, quoted Vladimir Bonch-Bruevich, ‘Zritel i slushatel’,
Sovetskoe iskusstvo,
29January 1934, quoted Turovskaya, pp. 206—7.

p. 91
‘Here I am in Moscow . . .’, Olga Leonardovna Knipper Chekhova to Mariya Pavlovna Chekhova, Moscow, 6 June 1922, Vilenkin (ed.), Vol. II, p. 131.

p. 92
‘There was a small...’, V. V. Knipper, p. 56.

p.
92
‘For you, Olga Leonardovna ...’, ibid.

p. 93
Ada did not marry the father of her daughter, Marina Ried. Ried was Ada’s mother’s maiden name. Olga Leonardovna Knipper-Chekhova also writes in the same letter of 6 June 1922 that she is sad that her sister-in-law is to take Olga’s little daughter to Berlin, a city ‘which I hate’. This indicates that the plan for Olga’s mother to take little Ada to Berlin had been established well before Konstantin Knipper’s death in January 1924. Olga’s sister, Ada, was again living with their aunt at 23 Prechistensky bulvar. ‘I am living here with my niece Ada ...’, Olga Leonardovna Knipper- Chekhova to P. F. Sharov, Moscow, 3 August 1922, Vilenkin (ed.), Vol. II, p. 132.

p. 93
‘On my return to Moscow ...’, L. K. Knipper, p. 23.

p. 93
‘after he returned . . .’, Lev Bezymenski,
Die Zeit,
15 October 1993, and interview, 17 September 2003. See also Sudoplatov, 1995, p. 159. According to Anatoly Pavlovich Sudoplatov, interview, 24 September 2003, there is a file in the Lubyanka of secret correspondence between Lev and Olga. In December 1921, the Cheka had become the OGPU (Obeyedinyonnoy Gosudarstvennoy Poli tischeskoy Upravlenie), or Unified State Political Directorate. It became part of the NKVD in 1934.

p. 95
‘Lev has just turned up ...’, Olga Leonardovna Knipper Chekhova to P. F. Sharov, Moscow, 3 August 1922, Vilenkin (ed.), Vol. II, p. 132.

p. 95
‘a committee of professors...’, ‘to join the theatre on paper’, L. K. Knipper, pp. 47—8. Lev’s only son, Academician Andrei Lvovich Knipper, says himself that the only possible explanation for his father being allowed abroad so soon after his return was that he was working for the OGPU, interview, 23 September 2002.

p. 95
‘From time to time . . .’, quoted Lev Bezymenski,
Die Zeit,
15 October 1993.

p.
95
For Cheka and OGPU operations against émigré groups, see Andrew and Gordievsky, pp. 67-78. INO was founded in 1920 and headed by Mikhail Abramovich Trilisser. In 1941 INO became INU, Inostrannoye Upravlenie, or the Foreign Intelligence Directorate of the NKGB.

p. 96
‘main foreign target’, ibid., p. 115.

p. 96
Lev Knipper and Aleksei Tolstoy, Anatoly Pavlovich Sudoplatov, interview, 24 September 2003.

p.
97
For the Russian émigré community in Berlin, see the catalogue of the exhibition ‘Das russische Berlin 1918—1941’, May 2002.

p. 98
‘And when are we going to hear the real chimes?’ The
Tsar Fyodor
production in Berlin is described in Benedetti, 1988, pp. 252—3.

12. Home Thoughts from Abroad

p. 100
‘My fate has torn me away...’, Olga Leonardovna Knipper-Chekhova to E. N. Konshina, Paris, 12—14 December 1922, Vilenkin (ed.), Vol. II, pp. 134-5.

p. 100
‘It’s so noisy ...’, Olga Leonardovna Knipper-Chekhova to F. N. Mikhailsky, New York, 19 January 1923, ibid., p. 136.

p. 101
‘He’s thin and angular’, ‘There’s suffering in his face ...’, ‘It is so touching ...’, Olga Leonardovna Knipper-Chekhova to E. N. Konshina, New York, 18 November 1923, ibid., p. 143.

p. 102
‘I’m plunged into expressionism’, Freiburg, 14 June 1923, MMKhAT, K-Ch No. 2733.

p. 102‘I spent only three days ...’, Olga Leonardovna Knipper Chekhova to V. L. Knipper, Freiburg, 27 June 1923, V. V. Knipper,
p. 102.

p.
103
‘more slave labour in America ...’, Olga Leonardovna Knipper-Chekhova to V. V. Knipper, Freiburg, 31 August 1923, ibid., p. 103.

p. 103
‘What was our horror...’,
Krokodil,
28 October 1923, quoted Benedetti, 1988, p. 263.

p.
104
‘Moscow accuses us of disloyalty ...’, Stanislavsky to Nemirovich-Danchenko, 28 December 1923, ibid.

p. 104
Prozhektor
photograph, V. V. Knipper, p. 106.

p. 104
‘a trustful relationship . . .’, Sudoplatov, 1996, p. 146.

p. 105
Olga Chekhova as ‘sleeper’, Anatoly Pavlovich Sudoplatov, interview, 25 September 2003.

p.
105
‘Here at last, Comrades ...’, quoted Andrew and Gordievsky, p. 58.

p. 106
‘Down with anti-Bolshevism!’, Helker and Lenssen, p. 89.

p. 106
‘fellow-traveller’, Anatoly Pavlovich Sudoplatov, interview, 24 September 2003.

p. 107
‘Papa gestorben . . .’, 8 January 1924, MMKhAT, K-Ch No. 2735.

p.
107
‘sobbed like a child’, etc., L. K. Knipper to Olga Leonardovna Knipper-Chekhova, 7 January 1924, MMKhAT, K-Ch No. 2734.

p.
108
‘Everyone was such a formalist...’, E. A. Akulov, 25 October 1990, clipping in AD-MCM, V. V. Knipper Fond, File 22.

13. The End of Political Innocence

p. 111
‘be happy to play the mayor’s wife’, Olga Leonardovna Knipper-Chekhova to Nemirovich-Danchenko, Freiburg, 5 July 1924, Vilenkin (ed.), Vol. II, p. 147.

p. 111
‘I have left the Gnesina ...’, L. K. Knipper to Olga Leonardovna Knipper-Chekhova, Moscow, 8 February 1924, MMKhAT, K-Ch No. 2738.

p. 112
‘Darling and dearest Aunt Olya...’, 10 March 1924, MMKhAT, K-Ch No. 2761.

p. 112
‘The Most Important Theatrical...’, Tschechowa, 1973, p. 270.

p.112
‘The theatre is full all the time...’, 16 March 1924, ibid.

p. 113
Olga’s daughter, Ada (Olga Mikhailovna Chekhova), saying goodbye to Mikhail Chekhov, Sergei Mikhailovich Chekhov, MS, AD-MCM/Sakharova/File 81.

p. 113
‘with a slightly guilty smile’, V. V. Knipper, p. 21.

p. 114
‘I am working for the Soviet state...’, Mariya Pavlovna Chekhova to Olga Leonardovna Knipper-Chekhova, Yalta, 10 October 1924, Vilenkin (ed.), Vol. II, p. 147.

p. 114
‘The commemoration...’, Olga Leonardovna Knipper Chekhova to Maria Pavlovna Chekhova, Moscow, 24 October 1924, ibid., p. 148.

p. 115
For the arrival of Lulu Knipper and the children in Berlin and Olga’s life at this time, see Helker and Lenssen, pp. 94-i oo.

p. 116
‘Dear Aunt Olya!’ Olga Konstantinovna Chekhova to Olga Leonardovna Knipper-Chekhova, Paris, 23 April 1926, MMKhAT, K-Ch No. 2762.

p. 116
‘I am stuck here again...’, Olga Konstantinovna Chekhova to Olga Leonardovna Knipper-Chekhova, 15 July 1926, MMKhAT, K-Ch No. 2763.

p. 117
‘I will be here...’, Olga Konstantinovna Chekhova to Olga Leonardovna Knipper-Chekhova, Berlin, 25 September 1927, MMKhAT, K-Ch No. 2764.

p. 118
Invitation to stay, Olga Konstantinovna Chekhova to Olga Leonardovna Knipper-Chekhova, 19 May 1929, MMKhAT, K-Ch No. 2765. The name Prechistensky was regarded as too religious by the Bolsheviks and changed to honour the dramatist Gogol.

p. 118
‘I am studying singing...’, Olga Konstantinova Chekhova to Olga Leonardovna Knipper-Chekhova, Hochgebirge, Bavaria, 23 September 1929, MMKhAT, K-Ch No. 2766.

p. 118
Love on Command (
Liebe auf Befehl
), Olga Chekhova in the United States, see Helker and Lenssen, pp. 120-23.

p. 119
‘It was shameful ...’, L. K. Knipper,
Sovietskaya muzyka,
No. 12, 1978, p. 89.

p. 119
‘My dream was to perform...’, ibid.

p. 119
‘They are making such...’, L. K. Knipper to Olga Leonardovna Knipper-Chekhova, Leningrad, 13 February 1927, MMKhAT, K-Ch No. 2739.

p. 120
‘My life is still...’, L. K. Knipper to Olga Leonardovna Knipper-Chekhova, 18 July 1927, MMKhAT, K-Ch No. 2741.

p. 120
North Wind, L. K. Knipper,
Sovietskaya muzyka,
No. 12, 1978, p. 89.

p. 120‘politically unreliable’ and Major Viktor Ilin, Anatoly Pavlovich Sudoplatov, interview, 25 September 2003.

p. 120
Olga Knipper-Chekhova as an informer at the Moscow Art Theatre. Professor Donald Rayfield, the biographer of Anton Chekhov, kindly drew my attention to ‘plausible Moscow Arts Theatre folklore emanating from the late actor Mark Prudkin, for instance her remark to one of her scandalously many and young lovers: “If you make love to me especially tenderly, I shall save you [from the NKVD].”’ While Olga Leonardovna Knipper Chekhova was certainly a lot more manipulative and unscrupulous in the theatrical world than is shown in the heavily expurgated versions of her letters - the vicious gossip has been entirely suppressed - there can be no doubt that she was gossiped against in her turn. Her German origins and her marriage to Anton Chekhov provoked many hostile comments, most of which were probably unfounded.

p. 121
‘his enemies spread....’, Sergei Mikhailovich Chekhov, MS, AD-MCM/Sakharova/File 81.

p. 122
‘I both accept the West...’, Ada Konstantinovna Knipper to Olga Leonardovna Knipper-Chekhova, Paris, 10December 1931, MMKhAT K-Ch, No. 2574.

p. 123Lyubov Sergeevna Zalesskaya and Gogolevsky bulvar, Andrei Lvovich Knipper, interviews, 22 and 23 September 2002.

p. 123
‘I was addicted for ever’, L. K. Knipper,
Sovietskaya muzyka,
No. 12, 1978, p. 89.

14. The Totalitarian Years

p. 125
‘hot air factory’, Haffner, p. 97.

p.
126
‘pass through the brown shit’, quoted Burleigh, p. 286.

p.
126
Die Nacht der Entscheidung.
This work fascinates movie buffs because it has a single scene which runs for 175 feet.

p. 126
‘Adele had some fluffy garment ...’, recounted by Vera Tschechowa, quoted V. V. Knipper, p. 10.

p. 127
Viktor Semyonovich Abakumov was born in 1908. His father was a stoker, his mother a laundress. He joined the NKVD in 1932 and in 1939 he became its head in Rostov. Helped by the purges, and the number of dead men’s shoes to be filled, he became Deputy Commissar of NKVD on 26 February 1941.

p. 127
‘Did you happen to meet ...’, protocol of interrogation, 29 April 1945, by Colonel Shkurin, AD-MCM, V. V. Knipper Fond, File 22.

p. 127
Goebbels is estimated to have seen more than 1,100 films, Beyer, 1991, p. 7.

p. 128
‘Sing lower, Blondi ...’, Junge, p. 92. Zarah Leander (1907-81) and Soviet intelligence,
The Times,
11 July 2003; and Anatoly Pavlovich Sudoplatov, interview, 24 September 2003. Rybkina was operating under the codename ‘Yartseva’.

p. 129
‘What sort of good manners ...’, Tschechowa, 1973, p. 126.

p. 130
‘So late, Frau Chekhova’, V. V. Knipper, p. 47.

p. 130
‘Oh, if you ...’, Junge, p. 95.

p. 131
‘Oh, him with his little worm!’, Beyer, 1991, p. 13.

p. 132
Lida Baarova finally returned to Germany in 1975 to play in Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s
Die bitteren Tränen der Petra von Kant (The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant).

p. 133
‘If you won’t go ...’, Lenin, quoted Shentalinsky, p. 234.

p. 133
‘That doesn’t matter’, reply to Ivan Gronsky, quoted ibid., p. 257.

p. 134
‘Revolution violates art ...’, Stanislavsky, 1924, p. 566.

p.
135
‘unexpectedly asked to join ...’, L. K. Knipper,
Sovietskaya muzyka,
No. 12, 1978, p. 89.

p. 135
‘Nonsense instead of Music’, Shentalinsky, pp. 303-4.

p. 135
‘I am thinking about you ...’, 16 February 1932, MMKhAT, K-Ch No. 2744.

p. 136
‘Songs don’t live long ...’, quoted V. V. Knipper, p. 112.

p. 136
Life at 23 Gogolevsky bulvar, Andrei Lvovich Knipper, interviews, 22 and 23 September 2002.

p. 138
‘Our Olga has...’, Berlin, 9 October 1936, MMKhAT, K-Ch No. 2575.

p.
138
Invitation to the Reichschancellery, Helker and Lenssen, p. 162.

p. 138
‘I will do it gladly ...’, TB-JG, Teil 1, Aufzeichnungen 1924-1941, Band 3/II, p. 250.

p.
139 ‘own little corner ...’, Ada Konstaninovna Knipper to Olga Leonardovna Knipper-Chekhova, Brussels, 23 January 1937 (on Olga Chekhova-Robyns personal blank), MMKhAT, K-Ch No. 2577.

p. 139
‘We have had guests ...’, Ada Konstantinovna Chekhova to Olga Leonardovna Knipper-Chekhova, Berlin, 17 November 1937, MMKhAT, K-Ch No. 2578.

15. The Great Terror

p. 141
‘Papa flew into a fury ...’, V. V. Knipper, pp. 58-9.

p. 142
The Kremlin Crag-dweller,
Shentalinsky, p. 173. In the final version of this poem, the ‘cockroach whiskers’ or ’cockroach moustaches’ (depending on the translation) was replaced by ‘cockroach eyes’ when Mandelstam wrote out the poem himself for Shivarov, his OGPU interrogator.