Reich, Zinaida Nikolaevna

Zinaida Reich was born on June 21 ( July 3 ), 1894 in the Odessa suburb of Near Mills ( Russian Empire ) ^[2] , in the family of a railway engineer of German origin Nikolai Andreyevich Reich (1862-1942, birth name is August Reich, a native of Silesia ) ^{[ 3]} and Anna Ivanovna Viktorova (1867-1945) ^[4] .

Zinaida’s father was a Social Democrat, a member of the RSDLP since 1897, and her daughter adhered to her father’s views.

In 1907, due to his father's participation in revolutionary events, the family was expelled from Odessa ^[5] and settled in Bendery , where his father got a job as a locksmith in railway workshops. Zinaida entered the school for girls of Vera Gerasimenko, but after graduating from only 8 classes, she was expelled for political reasons ^[6] . She entered the Higher Women's Courses in Kiev , and since 1913 she became a member of the Party of Socialist Revolutionaries (SRs) . Anna Ivanovna with difficulty managed to procure a certificate of secondary education for her daughter. After that, Zinaida left for Petrograd , and her parents moved to the city of Orel to her mother’s elder sister, Varvara Ivanovna Danziger.

In Petrograd, Zinaida Reich entered the Higher Women's Historical, Literary and Legal Courses of N. P. Raev , where, in addition to studying the main disciplines, she took sculpture lessons and studied foreign languages. Continuing her studies at the courses, she worked as a typist secretary in the editorial office of the Social Revolutionary newspaper Delo Naroda, where she met her future husband, Sergei Yesenin , who was published in this newspaper at the age of twenty-two.

July 30, 1917 Zinaida Reich married Sergei Yesenin during their trip to the homeland of Alexei Ganin , a close friend of Yesenin. The wedding took place in the ancient stone church of Kirik and Julitta of the village of Tolstikovo, Vologda district . Witnesses from the groom were: Spassky volost, the village of Ivanovo peasant Pavlovich Khitrov and Ustyansk volost, the village of Ustya peasant Sergei Mikhailovich Baraev ; on the part of the bride: the Arkhangelsk volost, the village of Konshino, peasant Alexei Alekseevich Ganin and the city of Vologda, merchant son Dmitry Dmitrievich Devyatkov. The wedding sacrament was performed: priest Victor Pevgov with the psalmist Alexei Kratirov ^[7] .

“A hundred came out, getting married. Zinaida, ”Nikolay Reich received such a telegram in July 1917 and sent the money to his daughter in Vologda. At the end of August 1917, the young arrived in Orel with Alexei Ganin ^[8] to celebrate a modest wedding, to meet with parents and relatives of Zinaida. In September, they returned to Petrograd. Returning to Petrograd, the couple lived separately for some time. At the beginning of 1918 Yesenin left Petrograd.

In April 1918, Zinaida Yesenina, in anticipation of childbirth, went to Orel to her parents. There, on May 29, 1918, she gave birth to a daughter, who was named Tatyana . Caring for her daughter made her stay in Orel. In August, she began working as an inspector of the People's Commissariat for Education , a month later became the head of the theater and cinematography section of the Oryol District Military Commissariat , and from June 1 to October 1, 1919 she was the head of the arts department in the provincial department of public education. Before the capture of the Eagle by the White Army of A.I. Denikin, Zinaida Yesenina and her daughter left for her husband in Moscow . They lived for about three years, but a break soon followed, and Zinaida, taking her daughter, left for her parents. Having left her daughter with her parents in Orel, she returned to her husband, but soon they parted again. February 3, 1920 in the House of Mother and Child in Moscow, she gave birth to a son, Konstantin . The child immediately became seriously ill, and Zinaida urgently drove him to Kislovodsk . Little Kostya was cured, but Zinaida herself fell ill. The break with Yesenin and her son’s illness greatly affected her health. The treatment took place in a clinic for nervous patients. On February 19, 1921, the court of Orel received a statement:

“I ask you not to refuse at your disposal my divorce from my wife Zinaida Nikolaevna Yesenina-Reich. Our children Tatyana are three years old and their son Konstantin is one year old - I leave them for raising my ex-wife Zinaida Nikolaevna Reich, taking on material support for them, which I subscribe to. Sergey Yesenin."

On October 5, 1921, their marriage was officially dissolved .

Since March 1921, Reich taught in Orel the history of theater and costume at the theater courses. In the fall of 1921, she became a student at the Higher Director's Studios in Moscow ^[2] , where she studied with S. M. Eisenstein and S. I. Yutkevich . Vsevolod Emilievich Meyerhold led this workshop, with whom Reich met while working at the People's Commissariat for Education. In 1922, while still a student, Zinaida Reich married Meyerhold. In the summer of 1922, they, along with Meyerhold, took the children from Oryol to Moscow - to the house on Novinsky Boulevard . Meyerhold adopted Tatyana and Konstantin, loved and cared for them like a father. Sergei Yesenin also came to visit their children in their apartment. Soon, Zinaida's parents also moved from Orel to their daughter in Moscow.

She made her debut on January 19, 1924 on the stage of the Meyerhold Theater in the role of Aksyusha in the play “ Forest ” by A. N. Ostrovsky .

Reich was one of the most famous Moscow actresses, in the 1930s she became the leading actress of the Meyerhold Theater (she played a little more than ten roles in thirteen years at GOSTiM ). Meyerhold, sincerely loving his wife, did everything to make her the only star in his theater.

Zinaida was indeed a woman of rare beauty. Passion and disposition were combined in it with sophistication and grace. Slender, tall, black-eyed and black-haired, with delicate features, Reich was bright and spectacular.

In 1934, the play "The Lady with the Camellias", in which Reich played the main role, was watched by Stalin , and he did not like the play. Criticism fell upon Meyerhold with accusations of aesthetics. Zinaida Reich wrote in a letter to Stalin that Stalin was not versed in art.

In 1938 GOSTiM was closed, and Meyerhold was soon arrested. Outside this theater, Reich's artistic activity was interrupted.

Murder

In the early 1930s, when Stalin suppressed all avant-garde art and experiments, the government declared Meyerhold’s work antagonistic and alien to the Soviet people. His theater was closed in January 1938. Sick Konstantin Stanislavsky , at that time director of the opera house (now known as the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Musical Theater ), invited Meyerhold to head his troupe.

Stanislavsky died in August 1938. Meyerhold led his theater for almost a year until he was arrested in Leningrad on June 20, 1939. On the night of July 14-15, 1939, Zinaida Reich was brutally murdered by unidentified men who penetrated her Moscow apartment in Bryusov Lane at night. The attackers inflicted seventeen stab wounds on her and fled. The actress died on the way to the hospital. This happened 24 days after Meyerhold’s arrest.

That evening, Reich sent both her children out of the apartment, and nothing was taken from the apartment. The murder is usually considered organized by the NKVD . ^{[9] [10] [11] [12]} According to Arkady Vaksberg , “Beria needed this sadistic farce,” because the actress was unusually popular, independent, frank and famous saying: “if Stalin does not understand anything in art, let he will ask Meyerhold, Meyerhold understands. " ^[13]

The mystery of her death remains unsolved. The initial charge of the murder of Zinaida Reich was brought against a friend of Meyerhold, Honored Artist of the RSFSR, soloist of the Bolshoi Theater Dmitry Golovin , and his son, director Vitaly Golovin. V. T. Varnakov (07.27.1941), A.I. Kurnosov and A.M. Ogoltsov (07.28.1941) ^[14] were shot with the charge of murder at the verdict of the Military Collegium of the USSR Supreme Court .

Reich was buried at the Vagankovsky cemetery in Moscow (17th section), in the same grave with her son, Konstantin Yesenin . In 1987, the place of Meyerhold’s burial place became known - “Common Grave No. 1. Burial of unclaimed ashes from 1930 - 1942. included.” At the cemetery of the Moscow crematorium at the Don Monastery . (By decision of the Politburo of January 17, 1940, No. II 11/208, signed personally by Stalin, 346 people were shot. Their bodies were cremated, and the ashes poured into a common grave were mixed with the ashes of the other dead.).

“My mother was killed on the night of July 15th. She was already buried at the Vagankovsky cemetery near the grave of Yesenin. Almost no one came, there were relatives and several strangers almost people; of those who always walked, no one came ... They took nothing, didn’t rob, they came to kill and wounded 7 times near the heart and neck, and she died after 2 hours, and they beat Lidia Anisimovna in the head, and she alive ... who it was, there were two of them and they weren’t found ”(From a letter from Tatyana, daughter of Zinaida Reich, Mariette Shaginyan on July 20, 1939) ^[15]

“Reich was brutally, mysteriously killed a few days after Meyerhold’s arrest and was buried in silence, and one person followed her,” wrote Olga Berggolts in a diary on March 13, 1941 ^[16] .

• Honored Artist of the RSFSR

• Zinaida Nikolaevna Reich. // kino-teatr.ru
• Zinaida Reich at the Rodovod . Tree of ancestors and descendants
• Museum-apartment Sun E. Meyerhold in Moscow (Bryusov Lane. 12). // bakhrushin.theatre.ru
• Problems of creativity of Zinaida Reich (1924-1929). // kino-teatr.ru
• Photo by Zinaida Reich. // img1.liveinternet.ru
• July 3, 1894 was born Zinaida Nikolaevna Reich - actress, wife of Sergei Yesenin and Vsevolod Meyerhold. // calendar.interesniy.kiev.ua
• VIDEO. Vitaly Wolfe’s program “My silver ball. Zinaida Reich. " The program " My silver ball " on the channel " Russia 1 " // russia.tv