Moura: The Dangerous Life of the Baroness BudbergNew York Review of Books, 2005 M06 30 - 404 pages Baroness Maria Ignatievna Zakrevskaya Benckendorff Budberg hailed from the Russian aristocracy and lived in the lap of luxury—until the Bolshevik Revolution forced her to live by her wits. Thereafter her existence was a story of connivance and stratagem, a succession of unlikely twists and turns. Intimately involved in the mysterious Lockhart affair, a conspiracy which almost brought down the fledgling Soviet state, mistress to Maxim Gorky and then to H.G. Wells, Moura was a woman of enormous energy, intelligence, and charm whose deepest passion was undoubtedly the mythologization of her own life. Recognized as one of the great masters of Russian twentieth-century fiction, Nina Berberova here proves again that she is the unsurpassed chronicler of the lives of Soviet émigrés. In Moura Budberg, a woman who shrouded the facts of her life in fiction, Berberova finds the ideal material from which to craft a triumph of literary portraiture, a book as engaging and as full of life and incident as any one of her celebrated novels. |
Contents
TRANSLATORS NOTE | ix |
The Beginnings I | xxii |
Love and Prison | 48 |
The Struggle | 87 |
Italian Intermezzo | 147 |
The Deal | 202 |
Survival | 255 |
301 | |
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affairs agent Alexei Allied ambassador Andreeva apartment arrest arrived asked Baltic began Benckendorff Berlin Bolsheviks British Budberg Cheka commissar death diplomatic Dzerzhinsky Ekaterina Ekaterina Pavlovna Ekaterina Peshkova embassy émigré England English Estonia Europe everything Foreign French friends German Gorky Gorky's Gosizdat guests Hicks Karakhan Kerensky Khodasevich knew Kremlin Kronverk Kryuchkov Ladyzhnikov later Latvian leave Lenin letters lived Lockhart London Maria married Maurice Baring Maxim Maxim Gorky memoirs Mikhail months Moscow Moura never Nicolaevsky night Nina Nina Berberova October October Revolution papers Paris Party Parvus Parvus's Peshkova Peters Petersburg Petrograd political Prague published Raskolnikov Reilly returned revolution Robins Russia Saarow Sadoul Schmidchen sent Socialist Sorrento Soviet Union Stalin stay story talking Tallinn Theater Timosha tion told took translated trip Trotsky Trotsky's Valentina visa Vologda walked wanted Wells's wife write wrote Yagoda young Zakrevskaya Zinoviev