Abandoned by Mayakovsky. What Lily Brik's sister was hiding. The main women of Vladimir Mayakovsky Sofia Parnok and Lilya Brik

July 19 is the birthday of Vladimir Mayakovsky, a brilliant poet, impeccably handsome and a favorite of girls. But here’s the paradox: the only woman he loved and simply idolized all his life never completely belonged to him. Lilya Brik was married many times, but not to Mayakovsky. However, other famous poets were also unlucky in love: Blok, Akhmatova, Tsvetaeva. What kind of curse hangs over geniuses? About this in the exclusive investigation of Woman’s Day.

Vladimir Mayakovsky, Lilya Brik and Osip Brik

Mayakovsky is known not only for his poster poems about Lenin and October, but also for his brilliant love lyrics, which might not have appeared if the poet had not met Lilya Brik on his way. “Except for your love, I have no sun, and I don’t even know where you are and with whom,” “No ringing makes me happy except the ringing of your beloved name,” these are lines from Mayakovsky’s poem entitled “Lilichka! Instead of a letter." And Mayakovsky wrote hundreds of such lines addressed to Brik, full of despair, adoration, pain, prayer and promises.

They met in 1915, when Lilya was already married to Osip Brik. The poet at that time was dating Lily’s sister Elsa and ended up in the couple’s apartment in Petrograd. I read them my poem “Clouds in Pants” - and immediately dedicated it to the hostess. The feeling flared up instantly and completely captured Mayakovsky.

Lilya was not a stunning beauty, but her charm and magnetism captivated men at first sight. She shared his passion with Mayakovsky, but at the same time maintained a cold mind - she did not plan to part with her husband. And Osip Maksimovich himself turned a blind eye to what was happening. Mayakovsky dedicated the poem “Spine Flute” to his beloved and gave her a ring engraved with the initials L.Yu.B. (Lilya Yurievna Brik), which formed into “LOVE”.

Soon Mayakovsky moved to the Briks’ apartment. Lilya stated: “I loved, love and will love Osya more than my brother, more than my husband, more than my son. I have never read about such love in any poetry. This love did not interfere with my love for Volodya.”

However, there is another version of the trio’s life together: while making love, the Briks locked Mayakovsky in the kitchen, and he “scratched at the door and cried.” Lilya Yuryevna herself told the poet Andrei Voznesensky about this many years later.

Then the poet and his “family” safely move from Petrograd to Moscow, where they have to change several apartments. The crisis in the relationship between Volodya and Lilya broke out only in 1922. At the insistence of his muse, Mayakovsky lived separately for two months, suffered frantically and eventually wrote two poems - “About This” and “I Love”. Lilya Yuryevna believed that experiences of this kind are useful for creativity, and in a sense, she was right.

“I will scratch Lilino’s name on the chain, and I will heal the chain in the darkness of hard labor,” the poet wrote. But this same “chain,” however, did not keep him from several novels - with librarian Natalya Bryukhanenko, Russian Parisian Tatyana Yakovleva and American Ellie Jones, with whom he had a daughter. Each time, Lilya considered it her duty to destroy the “dangerous connections”, keep Mayakovsky from marrying and return him to the family. Moreover, he provided her financially. During the poet’s trips abroad, Brik bombarded him with letters asking him to buy a “little car,” perfume, stockings and dresses in the latest fashion. And she herself continued to implement the theory of free love.

Among her “favorites” were Deputy Narkomfin Alexander Krasnoshchekov and director Lev Kuleshov. She was also credited with having a relationship with security officer Yakov Agranov. Osip Brik, however, was also in no hurry to give up on his personal life. In 1925, he met Evgenia Sokolova-Zhemchuzhnaya, with whom he was in a guest marriage until his death in 1945. All this time he continued to live with Lilya Yuryevna, Zhenya only came to visit them.

Mayakovsky shot himself in 1930, unable to find happiness with his last lover, actress Nora Polonskaya. “Lilichka” remained the love of his life for him. In his suicide note, the poet asked “Comrade Government” to take care of his loved ones: “My family is Lilya Brik, mother, sisters and Veronica Vitoldovna Polonskaya. If you give them a tolerable life, thank you.” Subsequently, Lilya Brik married a major military leader, Vitaly Primakov, and then the literary critic Vasily Katanyan. Mayakovsky's muse committed suicide in 1978, taking a lethal dose of sleeping pills, at the age of 87.

Anna Akhmatova, Nikolai Punin and Anna Arens

Akhmatova’s romance with art historian and critic Nikolai Punin began in 1922. By this time, the poetess had already separated from her first husband, the poet Nikolai Gumilev, and her second, the orientalist Vladimir Shileiko.

And you will forgive me everything:

And even though I'm not young,

And even that with my name,

As with a beneficent fire there is noxious smoke,

The deaf slander has merged forever...

This is how Akhmatova addressed Nikolai Punin in verse. For the lovers, the fact that Punin was married to Anna Arens, whom he more often called Galochka rather than Anya, was not an obstacle. The couple raised their daughter Irina, lived in four rooms in the Fountain House - the former Sheremetev Palace. But after her divorce from Shileiko, Akhmatova actually had nowhere to live.

And after a couple of years, the romantic story gradually turned into a prosaic, and rather bizarre one. Anna Andreevna moved to Punin. She officially rented a room from him, but essentially became a member of the family, while Anna Arens and her daughter continued to live in the same apartment.

“It’s bad that they found themselves together under one roof,” Nadezhda Mandelstam recalled. “The idyll was invented by Punin so that Akhmatova would not have to manage, and he would not have to work hard to get money for two houses.” Akhmatova’s helplessness in everyday life was known to everyone: mending a stocking was a problem, boiling potatoes was an achievement. As a result, Galochka cooked and cleaned, pretending that everything was as it should be. She also became the main breadwinner thanks to the doctor’s stable salary.

Meanwhile, Akhmatova was no longer published, and she herself practically did not write poetry; she was chronically short of money. But one day her son Lev, who had previously lived with his grandmother, appeared and settled in the Fountain House. No one wanted to exist in the position of parasites...

“I gave some pennies I received to Punin for lunch (mine and Levin’s) and lived on a few rubles a month. All year round in the same filthy dress,” Akhmatova recalled.

The relationship between Punin and the poetess lasted 16 years, then they broke up, but Akhmatova continued to live in the Fountain House. During the blockade, the Punins were evacuated from Leningrad to Samarkand, and Akhmatova to Tashkent. Anna Arens, Galochka, Punin’s faithful companion and legal wife, could not bear the hardships of the journey and died in 1943. After the war, the inhabitants of the Fountain House returned to their places, but the peace was short-lived: in 1949, Nikolai Punin was arrested, convicted and exiled to the Arctic, where he died four years later.

Anna Akhmatova never married again, although she had affairs with pathologist Vladimir Garshin and, possibly, with the English diplomat Isaiah Berlin - in any case, both were awarded poetic dedications. The poetess died in 1966, she was 76 years old.

Alexander Blok, Lyubov Mendeleeva and Andrey Bely

The future poet Sasha Blok and the daughter of the great chemist Lyuba Mendeleeva met very young: he was 17 years old, she was 16. They got married a year later. Sasha was fascinated by the girl, in whom he saw a sublime ideal, his Beautiful Lady. At the same time, many found Lyuba’s appearance rather ordinary. Anna Akhmatova later spoke of her like this: “Eyes are slits, nose is a shoe, cheeks are pillows.”

Immediately after the wedding, Lyuba discovered a shocking truth: it turns out that the newly-made husband had no intention of entering into an intimate relationship with her at all, believing that their union was much higher than carnal pleasures that had a “dark beginning.”

Despite this, Lyubov Dmitrievna did not give up trying to seduce her own husband, and two years later she finally succeeded. However, “short, manly, selfish meetings” did not bring joy to either her or him and soon stopped completely. Meanwhile, Lyubov Dmitrievna remained in the center of everyone's attention as the poet's wife and the embodiment of eternal femininity, and Blok himself supported this cult among his close acquaintances - creative and passionate people. So a family friend, poet Andrei Bely, could not resist the romantic aura created around Lyuba.

What about her? “That spring, I was abandoned to the mercy of anyone who would persistently look after me,” recalled Mendeleeva, and this “everyone” turned out to be Bely. He did not hide his feelings from either Lyuba or Blok and even tried to challenge him to a duel, but the duel did not take place.

Blok reflected all these events in the play “Balaganchik” (1906). In the story, Harlequin steals Pierrot’s bride, the beautiful Columbine, and she turns out to be cardboard...

And a silver blizzard swirled

They have a wedding ring ring.

And I saw through the night - girlfriend

She smiled in his face.

Ah, then in the cabman's sleigh

He made my friend sit down!

I wandered in the frosty fog

I watched them from a distance.

The nervous and stormy romance between Bely and Mendeleeva lasted two years. Until the very end, Andrei Bely did not lose hope of divorcing the spouses, weaved intrigues, wrote letters, but in vain. Lyuba decided to save her marriage. As a result, the rejected and unhappy Bely went abroad. He was married twice and died in 1934 in Moscow.

As for Lyuba, Blok openly cheated on her - both with the actress Natalya Volokhova, to whom he dedicated the poems “Snow Mask” and “Faina,” and with the opera singer Lyubov Delmas, whom he sang in the “Carmen” cycle, and with countless prostitutes. The Beautiful Lady invented by the poet was replaced by living women of flesh and blood, and his wife still did not interest him physically.

The role of a silent and unhappy companion did not suit Mendeleeva, and she tried to find her happiness in the theater, deciding to become an actress. From time to time, Lyuba had short, non-committal affairs, and from actor Konstantin Davidovsky she unexpectedly became pregnant. I didn’t dare confess to my husband for a long time. In the end, it was too late to have an abortion. Blok behaved stoically, agreeing to accept the child as his own, but the boy was born weak and lived only eight days.

The poet grieved for him no less than Lyubov Dmitrievna herself. Their strange union continued, contrary to common sense, until Blok’s death in 1921. He died in the arms of Mendeleeva, which he called “a holy place in the soul.” Subsequently, Lyubov Dmitrievna became a specialist in the history of ballet and wrote the book “Classical Dance. History and modernity" and the memoirs "Both true stories and fables about Blok and about himself." She died alone in 1939 at the age of 57.

Marina Tsvetaeva, Sergei Efron and Konstantin Rodzevich

Marina Tsvetaeva and Sergei Efron met in Koktebel in the house of Maximilian Voloshin. Marina was 18, Sergei was a year younger. Efron seemed to her like a noble knight sent by fate:

In his face I am faithful to chivalry,

- To all of you who lived and died without fear! —

Such - in fatal times -

They compose stanzas and go to the chopping block.

Less than a year had passed since Sergei and Marina got married. Soon they had a daughter, who was named Ariadne. Anastasia, Tsvetaeva’s sister, describes this family idyll this way: “Marina was happy with her amazing husband, with her amazing little daughter - in those pre-war years.”

But the calm did not last long. Like most poets, Tsvetaeva needed strong emotional shocks and violent passions to create. Of course, she sincerely loved Sergei, but this feeling alone was not enough. The first test of strength for her marriage was a meeting with 29-year-old poetess Sofia Parnok, who wore men's suits and a short haircut, smoked cigars and did not hide her penchant for same-sex love. Their romance broke out suddenly and continued until 1916. Tsvetaeva dedicated the cycle of poems “Girlfriend” to Sophia, including the famous “Under the caress of a plush blanket...”.

In addition, Tsvetaeva was credited with a short-term relationship with the young Osip Mandelstam. “Forgive me, but if besides N I also love Heinrich Heine, you can’t say that I don’t love the first one. This means that it is possible to love the living and the dead at the same time. But imagine that Heinrich Heine came to life and could enter the room at any moment. I’m the same, Heinrich Heine is the same, the whole difference is that he can enter the room,” this is how Marina explained her “Don Juanism.”

It never even occurred to the poetess to part with her husband. In April 1917, the family’s second daughter, Irina, was born. And then the revolution broke out, the Civil War began. Sergei Efron went to the front and fought on the side of the whites. There was no news from him for two years. Marina was left with two children in her arms, without money, in cold Moscow.

The youngest daughter died of starvation in the shelter, where Tsvetaeva assigned her in the hope that they would take care of her there. By 1921, Efron finally showed up in Constantinople, where he moved with other white officers. The family reunited in Berlin, then moved to the Czech Republic. And here Marina met a new love - Konstantin Rodzevich, with whom Efron became friends in Constantinople. It all started with innocent walks together in the fresh air. Rodzevich did not like or read Tsvetaeva’s poems, but this did not stop their romance from lasting about two years. The famous “Poem of the Mountain”, “Poem of the End”, “Ravine” are dedicated to him.

Sergei Efron knew about Marina’s relationship with his friend. “I am both a lifeline and a millstone around her neck. It is impossible to free her from the millstone without tearing out the last straw to which she is holding on. My life is pure torture,” the deceived husband wrote to Maximilian Voloshin.

In the end, Rodzevich lost interest in Tsvetaeva and left Prague in January 1925. And on February 1, the poetess had a son, George. “He doesn’t look like me at all. “The spitting image of Marin Tsvetaev,” Efron told friends. It is still not known for certain who the boy’s father was, but there were many reasons to suspect Rodzevich. Konstantin was not interested in the fate of the child. He later fought in Spain during the Civil War, fought in the ranks of the French Resistance, ended up in a concentration camp, from where he was liberated by Soviet troops, and lived to be 93 years old.

The union of Sergei and Marina, passionate about caring for their little son, again begins to resemble an ordinary family. But ahead of them are terrible trials, tragedies that are difficult to even imagine. Efron became an agent of the GPU abroad, and did not dedicate his wife to the details of his intelligence activities. Soon Efron was recalled to the USSR after the failure of another operation. Marina and her son followed him.

Sergei Efron was shot in 1941, and Marina Tsvetaeva committed suicide in the same year.

Zinaida Gippius, Dmitry Merezhkovsky and Dmitry Filosofov

Writer and philosopher Dmitry Merezhkovsky lived with his wife, poet and critic Zinaida Gippius for 52 years. They say that during all this time they were not separated for a single day. Moreover, the main thing in their union was the unity of souls and thoughts, and not at all a romantic feeling.

At the time of their meeting, Zina was 19, Dmitry was 23. They got married suddenly, discovering interesting interlocutors in each other. “We agreed that all sorts of “weddings” and “feasts” were disgusting, that everything should be done simpler, during the day, without any white dresses and veils,” Gippius recalled. “Afterwards, Dmitry Sergeevich went to his hotel quite early, and I went to bed and forgot that I was married.”

The newlyweds settled in St. Petersburg. Their house became the center of the literary and philosophical life of the Northern capital, it was visited by young poets and writers - those who had the courage to endure the difficult character and eccentric behavior of the hostess.

The red-haired Zinaida was called the “decadent Madonna” and the “white devil.” She appeared in public in men's suits, powdered and blushed excessively, smoked, unceremoniously examined people through her constant lens, and was always ready to make a sarcastic remark.

She was loved and feared. She was looking for passion, a burning, strong feeling, which her husband was, in principle, incapable of. According to rumors, Gippius, for fun, “made married men fall in love” with her and demanded that they give her wedding rings, from which she then made necklaces. True, the matter, as a rule, did not go beyond letters and poems.

And only one meeting determined future fate Merezhkovsky and Gippius. It all started with a collaboration with the World of Art magazine, whose publishers were Sergei Diaghilev, later known for his contribution to ballet art, and Dmitry Filosofov, a literary critic. He became a real obsession for Zinaida Gippius.

She was not stopped even by the fact that Filosofov clearly preferred men to women, and he had a long-term close relationship with Diaghilev. Zinaida Nikolaevna organized a campaign for the spiritual salvation of Filosofov, making every effort to tear her lover out of the “vicious” Diaghilev circle.

At first, Filosofov succumbed to Zinaida’s pressure, however, then he honestly admitted to her that he was “physically disgusted by the memories of our rapprochement.” But this did not stop the “demonic woman.” She bombarded him with letters, trying to captivate him, if not with her body, then with her intellect, playing on his interest in religion and mysticism. According to her scenario, Merezhkovsky was destined to become the third, equal participant in the creative union, and he had nothing against it.

Diaghilev, in turn, fought desperately for his lover. The culmination of this struggle was an ugly scene in a restaurant, where Diaghilev found Filosofov in the company of Gippius and tried to beat him.

In the end, a strange trio did form - Filosofov began to live with Gippius and Merezhkovsky and spent a total of 15 years with them. After the October Revolution, the family did not accept Soviet power and decided to emigrate, but they managed to escape from Russia only at the end of 1919, illegally crossing the Polish border. In Warsaw, Filosofov became friends with Boris Savinkov, a former terrorist, and plunged headlong into politics, devoting himself to the fight against Bolshevism. The triple alliance fell apart: when the Merezhkovskys decided to go to Paris, Dmitry did not follow them, but remained in Poland. Here he died in 1940. Gippius kept the memory of him all her life. She never wrote poetry from a female perspective - with the exception of one dedicated to Filosofov:

But he lost his Psyche

And what happened will not happen again.

Psyche left, and with her

I lost his love.

Merezhkovsky died in 1941. Zinaida Nikolaevna outlived her husband by only four years. Merezhkovsky and Gippius are buried in Paris at the Russian cemetery of Saint-Genevieve des Bois in the same grave.

"Created, corrupted and exploited by the Jews", wrote the famous Henry Ford about American youth. I wonder what Soviet youth were like after the seizure of the Russian Empire by the Judeo-Bolsheviks?

Today's communists and liberals are silent about this...

When the European intelligentsia comprehended S. Freud’s conclusions about “libido,” Blank-Lenin and his accomplices took Freud’s conclusions into service and tried to apply them in an applied manner - in order to lead the youth of the captured country away from politics. Moreover, the founder of destructive Marxist technology, F. Engels, has long talked about the need to destroy and eliminate the family.

One might think that a month and a half after the seizure of the Russian Empire, the Bolsheviks had no more problems than to pay close attention to the collapse of the family, free love, debauchery - on December 16, 1917, they urgently adopted a decree on the release of women from the family - “On the dissolution of marriage ", simplifying divorces to a minute formality.

Since after the Bolsheviks came to power, the Criminal Code of the Russian Empire was completely abolished from the very first days of the seizure of power, both persecution for homosexuality and freedom rushed into all the holes and crevices.

The analogue of the modern doctor Lev Moiseevich Shcheglov at that time was a specialist in all types of sex, his fellow tribesman Zhora Batkis, who noted with pleasure:

“As for homosexuality, sodomy and various other forms of sexual gratification, which European legislation considers as a threat to public morality, Soviet legislation treats them as so-called “natural” sexual relations. All forms of sexual activity are a private matter."

No, this statement was crafty, because it became the policy and business of the new government, and the People's Commissar of State Contempt A. Kollontai, to the delight of the public, shouted: “In a free society, satisfying a sexual urge is as easy as drinking a glass of water.”

This initiative of the Bolsheviks fell on the ready soil of the “progressive” intelligentsia, which supported the revolution, and freedom carried...

The poet Marina Tsvetaeva cheated on Sergei Efron with the aggressive lesbian Sofia Parnok, then both of them made love with Sonechka Golliday, and then decided to experiment with the director Yuri Zavadsky, who was strongly connected by homosexual “love” with the poet Pavel Antokolsky.

“All of Moscow knew that a whole series of temporary men also passed through the bed of the Jewish girl Lily Brik with her permanent husband Osa and her permanent partner “Volodichka” Mayakovsky...,” noted N. Kuzmin in his book, “Lilya Brik (maiden name Kagan) ... from the age of 13 she followed men's hands and mastered some secrets in her ancient craft that were so secret that her power over men became limitless and despotic.

“The best way to get acquainted is in bed!” she declared to everyone who fell into the orbit of her perverted attention.

N. Punin, the future husband of A. Akhmatova, Yu. Tynyanov, A. Messerer, film directors L. Kuleshov and V. Pudovkin, military leader V. Primakov, a major security officer Agranov and two completely mysterious people passed through the bed of this Soviet Messalina , a big shot from a Caucasian republic, and A. Krasnoshchekov (aka Aaron Tobinson) - a tailor from Chicago... who then became one of the leaders of the State Bank in Moscow.

The atmosphere in the Briks' house resembled a dog's wedding. The men hovered around the languidly grinning Lily, desperately pushing each other... However, everyone fell silent when a gloomy, bloody high-ranking NKVDist, Yankel Agranov-Sorenzon, appeared “out of turn”... He constantly had no time, and Lilya urgently retired with him in the bedroom, not paying any attention to attention to the quiet guests...

In general, happy stellar times have come for Parnok, Golliday and Kagan-Brikov, who even wiped the nose of the “real devil” of old woman Gippius. But the rich adventurer-aristocrat and Bolshevik with international scope, the Jewish woman A. Kollontai (1872-1952), jumped over everyone.

She lived with servants in a three-story mansion, and at the age of 21 she married engineer Vladimir Kollontai. But soon she got very bored family life, and she decided to decorate it - and seduced her husband’s best friend, officer A. Satkevich, and after a while forced her conservative husband, exhausted by jealousy, to accept the “threesome” version of love. But she soon got tired of this, and she was disgusted with family life after she met the fiery, liberated revolutionary Elena Stasova, who spoke about revolutionary romance, about love with adrenaline and uttered the “indisputable” “deep” truth: “The family is a prison! "

Accordingly, the husband is a jailer, a despot and a tyrant. This was an epiphany for A. Kollontai - this is what she needs... - liberation!

She immediately fell in love with Bolshevism, as she admitted, for “its uncompromisingness,” and, leaving her husband and son, taking with her a lot of money in 1898, she went abroad “to study socialism.”

After numerous romantic adventures in the spring of 1917, Alexandra Kollontai, at the call of Blank-Lenin, who at that time lived with two women - Nadezhda Krupskaya and Inessa Armand, arrived to help him conquer Russian Empire. The cunning, insidious and cynical Lenin, knowing Kollontai’s “trump cards”, gave her a difficult piece of work - he sent another sexy 45-year-old revolutionary to Kronstadt to the unpredictable violent sailors with the task - the Baltic Fleet should be Bolshevik.

The sailors had never seen such an agitator and were taken by surprise. And when Kollontai began to passionately tell that if the Bolsheviks came to power, then complete freedom would come - in the sense that “fucking” any woman would be as simple, accessible and normal as drinking a glass of water, then the sailors were simply stunned by such a prospect, immediately “ they blushed” and began dragging Kollontai around the warships to check whether the passionate agitator was lying.

- I didn’t lie! The words and deeds of this assistant of Blank-Lenin did not diverge. This is a woman from the Bolshevik center! - the shocked and pleased sailors admired, and so they called Kollontai - Tsentrobaba.

This was an extraordinary move even for the “progressive elite” - the love of the three of us and even the “pack dog” love of Kagan-Brick paled before this shocking scope - love with a crowd of sailors. The scandalous fame of Kollontai’s “exploits” thundered throughout Petrograd and in envious Moscow; many people dreamed of such “communism”...

And when the Bolsheviks captured Russia, Kollontai elevated her views on love, family and sex, with the support of Blank-Lenin, to the rank of state ideology. She published a book on the ideology of proletarian sexual satisfaction called “The Love of Working Bees,” in which she convinced that workers should, like bees in a hive, copulate randomly with anyone so as not to understand whose children, who should be raised by a society without parents in boarding schools.

“From the point of view of the national economy, the family should be recognized not only as useless, but harmful”,” Kollontai continued Engels’ line. Instead of outdated love, she promoted 2-3 days of falling in love with one partner, and then with another, third…. “Why are love and a dinner samovar together?” she asserted during the ensuing period of extraordinary rampant syphilis.

Thanks to Kollontai and the rest of the Bolsheviks, morality in workers, soldiers and youth environment were thrown back to the cave level. What F. Nietzsche drew attention to: all the gradual centuries-old civilizational accumulations of mankind, the progress of mankind in morality and ethics - the correct layers of consciousness in the unconscious: complexes of shame, disgrace, morality and ethics, conscience, the concepts of “right” and “wrong”, good and evil, morality and vice - the invaders of Russia tried to destroy all this in the shortest possible time.

The theory of “proletarian sex” Kollontai tried to “creatively” deepen the radical revolutionary Aron Zalkind, who argued that when in a workers’ community everyone copulates with each other, this will “contribute to the growth of collective feelings, class organization... (etc.)” .

Freedom for a woman liberated in Russia in the Leninist, communist way already after three months looked, to put it mildly, more than strange - unemployment, hunger and cold, armed workers and soldiers burst in every week under any pretext - and openly rob, moreover, without demand could be raped every day on the street or at home...

Please note that all of the above happened not thousands of years ago, in distant barbarian times, but in the 20th century, not even a hundred years have passed since those close tragic times...

In fairness, it must be said that “the music did not play for long”: J.V. Stalin, who took away power from the Judeo-Bolsheviks in 1929, again introduced criminal prosecution and punishment for homosexuality. And morality in an atheistic state was called upon to defend the “moral code of the builder of communism.” And the Soviet school began to take on its pre-revolutionary appearance, a new Russian technical and creative intelligentsia from the lower classes appeared - to replace the destroyed one. The Russian people have once again suffered from the heresy of the Judaizers. That's why it existed Soviet Union Until the end of the eighties of the last century, the war between good and evil went on with varying success. Therefore, the fellow tribesmen of the burry Blanc-Lenin still cannot forgive us for the fact that “there was no sex in the USSR.”

And now moral degenerates have completely lost their minds - it’s hard for them to live among an unloved culture, among an unloved people, in an unloved country...

Based on the book: Roman Klyuchnik

Technologies for suppressing the Russian people. Methods used to suppress Russians. Part three. Intellectual traps for the Russian patriotic intelligentsia. - St. Petersburg: LLC "SPb SRP "Pavel" VOG", 2016 - 672 p. ISBN 978-5-4240-0136-9

The history of world literature to this day carefully preserves the names of ladies who became muses for amorous writers and poets. Their images, shrouded in the haze of long-extinct passions, are captured in timeless genres - prose and poetry. A striking representative of this rare breed of the weak half of humanity was the owner of a unique sense of talent - Lilya Brik. The young lady, to whom the brilliant futurist dedicated his poems, did not leave either men or women indifferent. She was either admired or hated.

Childhood and youth

Lilya Brik was born on November 11, 1891 into a prosperous Jewish family settled in Moscow. The head of the family, Uri Aleksandrovich Kagan, worked as a lawyer, and in free time read books and attended literary and artistic circles. Mother Elena Yulievna (nee Berman), who graduated from the Moscow Conservatory, raised children and supported the cult of music and poetry in the house.

Lilya Brik and her younger sister Elsa

Since childhood, Lilya and her younger sister Elsa spoke fluent German and French, played the piano and were educated in a private gymnasium. From the biography of the avant-garde star it is known that Mayakovsky’s future muse had a hard time studying. After graduating from high school in 1908, Lilya decided to become a mathematician and studied for a whole year at higher courses for women. This was followed by institutes of architecture and painting, as well as the University of Munich.

Literary salon

Since Mayakovsky appeared in Brik’s apartment, fate gave Lila meetings with outstanding writers: Viktor Shklovsky, David Burliuk and Nikolai Aseev. This was largely facilitated by the irresistible charm of the extraordinary personality of Vladimir Vladimirovich’s muse.

Their house was a kind of analogue of past literary salons, the owner of which was invariably Lilya, and the main figure was Mayakovsky. In addition to writers, cultural and artistic figures often appeared at literary evenings.

Mayakovsky

The amorous triangle Osip-Lilya-Mayakovsky was formed in 1915. Then Lily's younger sister, 16-year-old Elsa, brought the poet, with whom she was having an affair at that time, to the Briks' house. It is worth noting that initially Vladimir Vladimirovich did not make any impression on Lilya. A tall man with rough facial features and boorish behavior did not evoke any positive emotions in her.

Everything changed after the futurist, at Elsa’s request, read his poem “A Cloud in Pants.” At that same moment, Lilya was overcome by a wave of a hitherto unknown feeling that changed her life forever. It is noteworthy that after the recitation of the work, the writer, captivated by Brick’s charms, dedicated a work to Lila, originally addressed to Elsa.

The husband reacted to his wife's new passion with understanding. In her memoirs, Lilya wrote that in the year Mayakovsky appeared in their house, an unspoken agreement was concluded between her and Osip. The essence of the agreement was that each spouse lives his own life, but there is no talk of divorce. Vladimir Vladimirovich clearly did not like this agreement. The poet wanted his beloved to belong only to him.

True, despite the fact that the invisible presence of the legal husband in their amorous affairs was a burden to Mayakovsky, he did not dispute the decision made by the freedom-loving Brik. As a result, the writer replaced hatred with mercy. The writer became attached to Lily’s husband and at some point even felt the need for him. Brik became not only a friend for the futurist, but also an editor and philanthropist. It is reliably known that Osip published the poem “A Cloud in Pants” with his own savings.

According to Lily herself, Brik and Mayakovsky are two unrelated loves. One was her lover, and the other was her soul mate. Lilya became for Mayakovsky not only a muse, but also an image maker.

She forced the poet to go to the dentist (Mayakovsky was terribly afraid of doctors) and insisted that he buy false jaws. The young lady watched how Mayakovsky dressed, and it was thanks to her that the writer became a style icon.

Lilya definitely influenced Mayakovsky’s work, but it is unnecessary to say that it was she who made him a poet. By 1915 he was already a well-known figure in literary circles. The relationship with Brik filled the writer’s lyrics with inescapable tragic pathos. It is noteworthy that the extravagant person deliberately exhausted the poet. She believed that suffering was an integral part of good poetry.

Their relationship finally went wrong after Lilya found out that, in addition to her, Vladimir dedicated poems to other ladies. On April 14, 1930, Mayakovsky committed suicide. Brik, who was grieving the tragedy, wrote a letter, organizing, with his permission, a museum named after Mayakovsky.

Movies

In July 1926, Brik worked as an assistant to director Abram Room on the set of the film “The Jew and the Land.” Soviet propaganda documentary was dedicated to the anti-Semitism that flourished in the USSR in the 1920s. In 1927, the film “Tretya Meshchanskaya” (“Love for Three”) was released.

Director Abram Room and screenwriter Viktor Shklovsky were reproached for the fact that the title of the film, the plot of which is based on the love story of Lily, Vladimir and Osip, belittles the dignity of the lovers. In the spring of 1928, Brik, already as a director, in collaboration with Vitaly Zhemchuzhny, shot the film “The Glass Eye”.

Fashion and Russian avant-garde

Lilya was not only one of the most scandalous figures in Soviet reality, but also a style icon. Her interest in the world of fashion was a passion she lived by. It was Brick who painted the walls of her room in Blue colour to highlight the whiteness of the skin and the rusty gold of the hair. It was Brik who dressed in Parisian outfits at a time when everyone else wore baggy products from the Bolshevichka factory. It was Brik who drove around the streets in her own car, being the second female driver in the capital after the wife of the French ambassador.

Lilya was connected with France by her sister’s marriage: Elsa Triolet lived in Paris after her marriage and constantly sent dresses made to order by French dressmakers to Russia, fashionable accessories, silk linen and perfume. Mayakovsky's beloved woman adored Guerlain. Lilya knew a lot about fragrances: last way she was escorted out, enveloped in a wave of intoxicating “Opium” from “Yves Saint Laurent”.

By the way, Lilya Brik accidentally met the famous French fashion designer at Sheremetyevo at the age of 84. While waiting to board a Parisian flight, in a crowd of unprepossessing women, I noticed a stylish stranger in a green Dior fur coat. The acquaintance grew into a close friendship.

Lilya Brik on an advertising poster

Lily's wardrobe now includes outfits designed by the master of world fashion just for her: blouses with puff sleeves, purple velvet trousers, a silver-blue Cossack coat, a coat made of burgundy cloth. And in honor of his good friend’s 85th birthday, the couturier arranged a dinner in a Parisian restaurant, for which he made Lilya Yuryevna a chic dress made of velvet and taffeta.

The woman closely followed fashion trends and constantly updated her wardrobe. Lilya was not afraid to experiment with clothes and appearance, she came up with outfits herself and always hit the bull’s eye. She hated boredom and vulgarity, so her backgammon was bold. Bright by nature, the young lady loved shiny fabrics and geometric designs, horizontal asymmetry, trains, and scallops.

Personal life

Lily's tart charm bewitched men, and the train of her natural sexuality attracted and excited the blood. Brick knew the secrets of seduction and used them skillfully. When Lila was seventeen, her uncle fell in love with her and began to insistently demand her niece’s hand in marriage. Parents sent their daughter away from harm to her grandmother.

In order to keep their child busy, they hired a teacher for Lily, who taught her to play the piano, from whom the young talent soon became pregnant. To avoid publicity, the abortion was performed in a provincial clinic. An unsuccessful operation forever deprived Lilya of the opportunity to experience the delights of motherhood.

Although the avant-garde muse herself considered the institution of family and marriage a relic of the past that needed to be fought, there were three official marriages in her life. The young lady's first husband was Osip Brik. Their wedding took place in March 1912. The young people got married according to the Jewish rite, but not in the synagogue, but at home. Lily's parents were happy that their daughter, who had been demonstrating her unbridled loving temperament since the age of thirteen, had finally come to her senses.

If Lily’s parents were happy with their daughter’s marriage, then Osip’s parents were worried about their son’s union with a flighty girl. In order to protect his relatives from nervous breakdowns, Osip had to write them long letters. The marital happiness of the lovers continued until Mayakovsky destroyed the idyll of their married life in 1915.

Lilya Brik and Sergei Parajanov

Immediately after the death of Vladimir Vladimirovich, Lilya divorced Osip Brik and married Vitaly Primakov. When he was shot, Lilya married a literary scholar who studied the life and work of Mayakovsky, Vasily Katanyan. Brik took Katanyan away from the family and lived with him for about forty years.

Death

At the age of 86, Lilia broke her hip and, in order not to suffer herself and not be a burden to those around her, she committed suicide by taking a lethal dose of sleeping pills. This happened on August 4, 1978.

Brik’s ashes were scattered near Zvenigorod (the village of Busharino, Odintsovo district, Moscow region), and at the site of the farewell ceremony a gravestone with the inscription “L. Yu. B.” (Lilia Yuryevna Brik). Mayakovsky engraved these same three letters on the ring, which the avant-garde muse did not part with for a second.

It is worth noting that two years before the tragedy, Brick had already tried to commit suicide. True, then her attempt to die was more like a rehearsed performance. The ambulance, which arrived at the performance on the day of the premiere, found a farewell note on the table in which Lilya asked not to blame anyone for her death. After the heart-warming speeches there was a signature and the name of the drug that she took to leave this mortal coil. That day, doctors literally pulled Brik out of the dead, washing her stomach and putting her on bed rest.

Memory

1915 – “Cloud in Pants” (V.V. Mayakovsky)
1915 – “Spine Flute” (V.V. Mayakovsky)
1916 – “Lilichka!” (V.V. Mayakovsky)
1918 – “Man” (V.V. Mayakovsky)
1922 – “I Love” (V.V. Mayakovsky)
1989 – “The Resurrection of Mayakovsky” (Yu.A. Karabchievsky)
2010 – “Lilya Brik. Life" (V.V. Katanyan)

Quotes

“The best way to meet people is in bed”
“I'm not kind. Kindness must come from the heart. But for me it comes from my mind.”
“We need to convince a man that he is wonderful or even brilliant, but that others do not understand this. And allow him what is not allowed at home. For example, smoke or travel wherever you want. Well, good shoes and silk underwear will do the rest.”

Sergei Yesenin and Isadora Duncan

Poets, writers, artists, in other words, absolutely all representatives of creative professions, due to their dissimilarity from others, gravitate toward tragedy. Maybe this is why all romantic stories for them end without a happy ending?

Lilya Brik and Vladimir Mayakovsky

A very real case: you brought a man into the house, and he went to your sister. This is exactly what happened to Elsa when she introduced the promising, handsome, original and at the same time increasingly popular poet Vladimir to her sister, Lilya Brik. Mayakovsky was fascinated by this woman, about whose unbridled sexuality there was a lot of talk among the capital's bohemia. That evening he read his new poem “A Cloud in Pants” to the guests, dedicating it to the hostess of the house: “To you, Lilya.” The gesture did not go unnoticed: Lilya became interested in young Mayakovsky, despite the fact that she had been married for three years.

Brik, her husband and Mayakovsky began to live together: Vladimir adored Lilia, was inspired by her image and dedicated new poems to her, and Osip, as befits a decent husband - no, he was not jealous - published the poet’s works in large quantities. One day Mayakovsky brought Lila a ring on which her initials were engraved: “L.Y.B.” – Liliya Yuryevna Brik. Placed around the entire perimeter, the letters formed the endless “L.Y.B.L.Y.B.L.Y.” The relationship lasted 15 years - until Mayakovsky committed suicide with a shot in the head in the spring of 1930. In his suicide note, he asked Lilya to love him and bequeathed all his creations to the Briks.

Anna Akhmatova and Nikolai Gumilyov

Nikolai Gumilev was in love with Anna Akhmatova so strongly and hopelessly that after her next refusal he even tried to commit suicide. And yet he managed to achieve reciprocity. However, from the very beginning, their marriage relationship developed with difficulty: both were already famous and recognized poets in the country and abroad, independent and proud. Gumilyov sought to discover new things, traveled around the world, studied Africa. Akhmatova was skeptical about her husband’s hobbies - as childish. Anna’s friend wrote about them: “Of course, they were too free and big people to become a pair of cooing “rock doves.” Their relationship was more of a secret martial arts.” They had one thing in common: the Soviet government hated both. In 1921, Gumilyov was accused of an anti-state conspiracy and shot. The son of Anna and Nikolai, Lev Gumilyov, had to pay for the love of freedom and independence of his parents: he spent more than ten years in prison on fictitious charges.

Marina Tsvetaeva and Sergei Efron

Tsvetaeva and Efron got married in 1912. By this time, the young poetess was already famous in creative circles, although she was very young - she was only 19 years old. Sergei Efron younger than his wife for a year, he is a high school student, writes stories, tries to publish magazines, and is also engaged in underground activities; soon he will go abroad and will be a participant there political assassination. While Efron fights revolutionary forces, Marina, in search of new poetic emotions, starts an affair with the poetess and translator Sofia Parnok. And two years later, returning to her husband and summing up this relationship, she will write: “To love only women (a woman) or only men (a man), obviously excluding the usual opposite - what a horror! But only women (for a man) or only men (for a woman), obviously excluding unusual native ones - what a bore!” Sergei Efron and Marina Tsvetaeva passed away one after another - like in a fairy tale about love, but without a happy ending. Tsvetaeva committed suicide due to poverty and loneliness. In the same 1941, Efron also passed away.

Alexander Blok and Lyubov Mendeleeva

The grandson of the rector of St. Petersburg University and the daughter of a famous chemist - they were supposed to become perfect couple. 17-year-old Sasha Blok, an aspiring poet and St. Petersburg womanizer, often visited the Mendeleevs’ dacha on a white horse, exciting the dreams of village girls about a prince on a white horse. Together with Lyubov they played in family performances: he was the brave Hamlet, she was the beautiful Ophelia with long curly hair. They got married, but were not happy in their marriage, as the romantic Lyuba dreamed of it. From Lyubov’s diaries we learn that Alexander, even after the wedding, did not dare to desecrate her holiness and purity with carnal relations. For the poet, his wife remained a Beautiful Lady, whom he admired, whom he idolized, but whom he did not dare to touch. The poet had many connections on the side. Over time, Lyubov also began to get involved with other men. They were best friends, but could not be lovers. Blok died early, he was only 41 years old. Since then, Mendeleeva never married; until the end of her days she mourned for the poet.

Isadora Duncan and Sergei Yesenin

In the summer of 1921, the world famous American dancer Isadora Duncan flew to Moscow at the invitation of the Moscow government to teach choreography to Soviet children. Isadora was famous for her independent, reformist attitude towards art and was an active fighter for the emancipation of women in all spheres of life - from dance to everyday life. Duncan’s friend, journalist Ilya Shneider, recalls their first meeting with young Yesenin: “Suddenly I was almost knocked down by a man in a light gray suit. He rushed by, shouting, "Where's Duncan? Where's Duncan?" A little later we approached Isadora. She was reclining on the sofa. Yesenin was kneeling next to her, she was stroking his hair, chanting in Russian: “Za-la-taya ga-la-va...” So they “talked” all evening on different languages literally (Yesenin did not own any of foreign languages, Duncan did not speak Russian), but seemed to understand each other quite well.”

She was almost 20 years older than him, their relationship lasted only two years, but everyone around knew that Duncan and Yesenin adore each other. But Isadora was angry that the poet was wasting his talent in drunken brawls. But he never managed to convey to her his melancholy and pain from disappointment in life. Soon, 30-year-old Yesenin, after treatment in a psychoneurological hospital, committed suicide; a few months later, Isadora died tragically, suffocating herself with a scarf that accidentally hit the wheel axle of her car before a walk.

Photo: Getty Images, press service archives

Osip, Lilya and Vladimir - the most famous trio of the Silver Age

Lilya Brik and Vladimir Mayakovsky

Photo State Museum of V.V. Mayakovsky

Lilya and Vladimir on the set of the film “Chained by Film”, 1918

Photo State Museum of V.V. Mayakovsky

On vacation, Lilya and Vladimir were often alone

Photo State Museum of V.V. Mayakovsky

Three of us again: the Brik couple and Osip’s beloved Evgenia Sokolova-Zhemchuzhnaya

Photo State Museum of V.V. Mayakovsky

Anna Akhmatova, Nikolai Punin and Anna Arens

Photo Anna Akhmatova Museum

And you will forgive me everything:

And even though I'm not young,

And even that with my name,

As with a beneficent fire there is noxious smoke,

The deaf slander has merged forever...

Photo Anna Akhmatova Museum

Photo by Getty Images

“I gave some pennies I received to Punin for lunch (mine and Levin’s) and lived on a few rubles a month. All year round in the same filthy dress,” Akhmatova recalled.

Photo by Getty Images

Alexander Blok, Lyubov Mendeleeva and Andrey Bely

Lyubov Mendeleeva and Alexander Blok

Photo by Getty Images

Andrey Bely

Photo by Getty Images

Alexander Blok

Photo by Getty Images

Blok reflected all these events in the play “Balaganchik” (1906). In the story, Harlequin steals Pierrot’s bride, the beautiful Columbine, and she turns out to be cardboard...

And a silver blizzard swirled

They have a wedding ring ring.

And I saw through the night - girlfriend

She smiled in his face.

Ah, then in the cabman's sleigh

He made my friend sit down!

I wandered in the frosty fog

I watched them from a distance.

Volokhova Natalia

Photo wikipedia

Lyubov Mendeleeva

Photo wikipedia

Alexander Blok

Photo by Getty Images

Marina Tsvetaeva, Sergei Efron and Konstantin Rodzevich

Sergei Efron and Marina Tsvetaeva

Photo House-Museum of Marina Tsvetaeva

Marina Tsvetaeva and Sergei Efron met in Koktebel in the house of Maximilian Voloshin. Marina was 18, Sergei was a year younger. Efron seemed to her like a noble knight sent by fate:

In his face I am faithful to chivalry,

To all of you who lived and died without fear! -

Such - in fatal times -

They compose stanzas and go to the chopping block.

Sofia Parnok

Photo by Getty Images

Marina Tsvetaeva

Photo by Getty Images

Marina Tsvetaeva with her daughter

Photo by Getty Images

Marina Tsvetaeva (sitting on the left), Sergei Efron (standing on the left) Konstantin Rodzevich (sitting on the right), 1923

Photo by Getty Images