Peshkov, Zinoviy Alekseevich

Born into a Jewish family. The son of the engraver Mikhail Izrailevich and Elizabeth Solomonovna Sverdlov. Parents lived in Nizhny Novgorod on Bolshaya Pokrovskaya Street, in living rooms (now house number 6) with a pre-press and engraving workshop (workshop in house 8 is a museum).

A frequent guest of the Sverdlov family was Maxim Gorky (Alexey Peshkov) who lived in those years in Nizhny Novgorod. In 1901, Zinovy, together with Maxim Gorky, was arrested on charges of using a mimeograph for revolutionary propaganda.

In 1902, Zinovy ​​left for Arzamas , where Maxim Gorky lived in exile at that time, and participated in the reading of his new play “ At the Bottom ” in the role of Vaska Pepl ^[6] . V.I. Nemirovich-Danchenko , for whom the performance was arranged, found his dramatic and musical abilities and suggested that he begin a special musical and artistic education. In 1902, Zinovy ​​tried to enter the Imperial Philharmonic School in Moscow, but was not enrolled as a Jew, persons of Jewish faith (with some exceptions) did not have the right to live in Moscow . In September of the same 1902, Zinovy ​​converted to Orthodoxy and received from Gorky, who became his godfather , a middle name and last name - Peshkov. Upon learning of this, the father of Zinovius denied his son . However, the change of surname was not recognized by the authorities ^[7] .

From 1903 to 1904, Zinovy ​​studied at the school of the Moscow Art Theater . In 1904 he emigrated to Canada , then the USA and Italy, mainly lived with Maxim Gorky, who actually adopted Zinovia ^[8] . In 1910, Zinovy ​​Peshkov married Lydia Petrovna Burago, daughter of a Cossack officer, but five years later they broke up ^[9] . Later, having diverged with Gorky in his views, he emigrated to France , and his wife Lydia Burago with her four-year-old daughter Lisa Peshkova remained in Capri. With the outbreak of World War I, he entered the Foreign Legion .

In May 1915, he lost his right arm on the shoulder in the battle of Verdun . He was awarded the Military Cross with a palm branch. In 1916, after treatment and rehabilitation, he was reinstated in military service and transferred to officers, as a translator he was sent to the United States , where he remained until 1917 .

From 1917 to 1920 he served in diplomatic posts in Russia , Romania , China , Japan , Manchuria , Siberia (under Kolchak ), Georgia , Crimea (under P. N. Wrangel ) ^[1] . The historian Roy Medvedev in the essay “Sverdlovs. The glory and tragedy of one family ”writes of him like this:“ Zinovy, the godfather of Maxim Gorky, met the October Revolution with hostility. During the Civil War, Zinovy ​​repeatedly visited Soviet Russia as an emissary of the French government and intelligence. ” He did not support relations with the family that remained in Russia when Bazhanov B.G., former assistant (personal secretary) of I.V. Stalin, fled from the USSR and met with Peshkov in France and wanted to tell him the news about his two brothers and sister living in Russia , he replied: “that this is not his family and that he does not want to know anything about them” ^[10] .

In 1921 he served as secretary of the International Commission for the Assistance in the Collection of Humanitarian Funds for the RSFSR. From 1921 to 1926 he was an officer of the Foreign Legion in Morocco , where he participated in hostilities. From 1926 to 1930 he served in the French Foreign Ministry. From 1930 to 1937 - under the High Commissioner in the Levant . From 1937 to 1940 he served as an officer in the Foreign Legion in Morocco .

He participated in the Second World War . After the defeat of France, in 1940 he emigrated to London , where he joined the Free France movement and was his representative in South Africa from 1942 to 1943. In 1943 he received the rank of general, in 1944 he became ambassador. From 1943 to 1946 he was the head of the mission in China. From 1946 to 1949 he served as head of mission in Japan as an ambassador. In 1950, he retired with the rank of general of the corps.

In 1964, sent on a special mission to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek in Taiwan ^[1] .

He was a Knight of the Legion of Honor . He was a friend of General de Gaulle ^[11] .

He was buried in the cemetery of Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois near Paris ^{[5] [12]} . The deceased bequeathed to put in his coffin an Orthodox icon, a military cross with a palm branch, the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor and a portrait of Maxim Gorky.

• Father - Mikhail Izrailevich Sverdlov (died in 1921), was an engraver ; mother - Elizaveta Solomonovna (died in 1900) - a housewife. The family grew six children - two daughters (Sophia and Sarah) and four sons (Zinovy, Jacob, Benjamin and Leo). After the death of his wife (1900), Mikhail Izrailevich Sverdlov adopted Orthodoxy and married his second marriage to Maria Alexandrovna Kormiltseva; in this marriage two more sons were born - German and Alexander.
• The younger brother is Yakov Mikhailovich Sverdlov (1885-1919), one of the leaders of the Bolshevik party, chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR (after the revolution).
• Brother - Veniamin Mikhailovich Sverdlov (1887-1939). Before the revolution, he left for the USA and opened a bank there. After the 1917 revolution, Yakov Sverdlov called his brother to Russia. In 1938 he was arrested and then shot by the sentence of the All-Russian Military Council as a “Trotskyist”.
• Brother - Lev Mikhailovich Sverdlov (1893-1914).
• The sisters are Sofia (1882-1951) and Sarah (1890-1964).
• The half-brothers from his father’s second marriage are German and Alexander.
• Wife (1910-1915) - Lidia Petrovna Burago, daughter of a Cossack officer ^[9] .
• Daughter - Elizabeth Zinovievna Markova-Peshkova. She lived with her mother in Capri in Italy ^[9] , then married the second secretary of the USSR embassy in Rome, senior lieutenant of state security Ivan Markov, with whom she left for the USSR in 1937. In 1938 her husband was shot. She sat in the camp, was released, taught Italian at the Military Institute of Foreign Languages , in 1948, due to the threat of a new arrest, she urgently left Moscow for the Kuban, worked as a janitor on the beach ^[13] and died in Sochi in 1990 ^[9] . From Markov had two sons born in 1935 and born in 1938 The eldest son, Alexander Ivanovich, served in the Marine Corps, with the rank of captain, died in a car accident in 1968. The youngest son, Alexei Ivanovich, worked as a journalist in Moskovsky Komsomolets, Book Review, and others. ^[14] In turn, Alexey Ivanovich was born daughter Lisa ^[15] .
• The youngest daughter, Maria Vera (Mariuccia) Fiasci ^[15] , lived in Italy.

• A Few Glimpses into Russia, by Lieut. Zinovi Pechkoff National Geographic pages 238–285, vol 32, 1917
• The bugle sounds ,: Life in the Foreign legion by Zinovi Pechkoff 1926 ASIN B00085PURU
• Bugle Sounds: Life In The Foreign Legion (1927) by Maj. Zinovi Pechkoff Feb 13, 2009 ISBN 1-84574-128-5 ISBN 978-1-84574-128-0

• Francis Huré . Portraits de Pechkoff. - P .: De Fallois, 2006. - ISBN 2-87706-602-9 (fr.)
• Bazhanov B.G. Memoirs of the former Secretary of Stalin. - SPb .: The World Word, 1992. - ISBN 5-86442-004-2
• Brilev S. B. Forgotten Allies in World War II. - M .: OlmaMediaGroup, 2012 .-- 712 p. - ISBN 978-5-373-04750-0 .
• Spout B. Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois. Russian churchyard in the suburbs of Paris. - M.: 2013.
• Parkhomovsky M. Son of Russia, General of France. - M .: Moscow Worker, 1989. - ISBN 5-239-00643-1

• Boris Bazhanov . Memoirs of the former Secretary of Stalin
• The Jewish Electronic Encyclopedia is an online version of the Brief Jewish Encyclopedia in Russian in 11 volumes (Jerusalem, 1976-2005).
• Peter Multatuli The Black Family. Yakov Sverdlov and his brothers , excerpts from the book "Testifying of Christ to death ... Ekaterinburg crime of 1918. New investigation ”Satis Publishing House, St. Petersburg 2007
• Photo gallery about Zinovia Peshkov
• “Zinovy ​​Peshkov (Sverdlov) - unknown facts” , “Our Everything” program on the Echo of Moscow radio station, 11/16/2008