The Mystery of Olga Chekhova

286 Pages·2004·14.71 MB·English

by  Antony Beevor

Antony Beevor

THE MYSTERY OF OLGA CHEKHOVA
A Life Torn Apart by Revolution and War
Contents
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
MAP
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
1. The Cherry Orchard of Victory
2. Knippers and Chekhovs
3. Mikhail Chekhov
4. Misha and Olga
5. The Beginning of a Revolution
6. The End of a Marriage
7. Frost and Famine
8. Surviving the Civil War
9. The Dangers of Exile
10. The Far-Flung Family
11. The Early 1920s in Moscow and Berlin
12. Home Thoughts from Abroad
13. The End of Political Innocence
14. The Totalitarian Years
15. The Great Terror
16. Enemy Aliens
17. Moscow 1941
18. A Family Divided by War
19. Berlin and Moscow 1945
20. Return to Berlin
21. After the War
ILLUSTRATIONS
OLGA CHEKHOVA’S FILMS
REFERENCES
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
SOURCE NOTES
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
FOLLOW PENGUIN
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Anthony Beevor was educated at Winchester and Sandhurst. A regular officer in
the 11th Hussars, he served in Germany and England. He has published several
novels, and his works of non-fiction include The Spanish Civil War; Crete: The
Battle and the Resistance, which won the 1993 Runciman Award; Stalingrad;
Berlin: The Downfall, 1945; and Ardennes 1944. With his wife, Artemis Cooper,
he wrote Paris after the Liberation: 1944–1949. Stalingrad was awarded the
Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction, the Wolfson History Prize and the
Hawthornden Prize in 1999. Berlin: The Downfall, 1945 was also a number-one
bestseller and has been translated into twenty-four languages. Most of his titles
are published by Penguin.
Antony Beevor is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a Chevalier de
L’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in France. In 2003 he received the first Longman
History Today Trustees’ Award. He was the 2002–2003 Lees Knowles lecturer
at Cambridge and is a visiting professor at Birkbeck College, University of
London. He is now chairman of the Society of Authors.
www.antonybeevor.com
PENGUIN BOOKS
THE MYSTERY OF OLGA CHEKHOVA
‘Engaging, revealing, compelling. Beevor tells the parallel stories of sister Olga
and brother Lev with clarity and panache’ Guardian
‘Beevor has done heroic research’ Financial Times
‘Vivid portraits of the Knipper and Chekhov clans, setting them within their
times with the flair and rich texture one expects of Beevor … makes a good
read’ Spectator
‘Remarkable’ Daily Telegraph
‘A riveting read … Beevor writes addictively, breathlessly, but always
authoritatively. It plays out the story of one woman’s extraordinary life against
the sweeping backdrop of European and Russian mid-20th-century history to
gripping effect. A classic of the genre’ Daily Express
‘Full of incident and insight’ Mail on Sunday
‘A complicated, intriguing story’ Sunday Herald
‘One of the great adventuresses of her time’ Simon Sebag Montefiore, Evening
Standard
For Artemis
List of Illustrations
1. Victory celebrations in Red Square, 9 May 1945.
2. The searchlights and fireworks of victory night, 9 May 1945.
3. Anton Chekhov reading The Seagull to the Moscow Art Theatre, 1898.
4. Stanislavsky, Gorky and Lilina, Yalta, 1900.
5. Anton Chekhov and Olga Knipper-Chekhova (Aunt Olya).
6. Konstantin and Lulu Knipper in the Caucasus.
7. The Knipper children in 1904.
8. Konstantin and Lulu Knipper with their children.
9. Vasily Kachalov and Olga Knipper-Chekhova in The Cherry Orchard.
10. Konstantin Knipper, Aunt Olya, Lev and Olga Knipper and Vasily Kachalov.
11. Lubyanka Square in Moscow before the First World War.
12. The future Olga Chekhova with a dog, c. 1913.
13. Lev Knipper in cadet uniform, 1912.
14. Cousins and friends in 1914: Misha Chekhov, unidentified, Volodya
Chekhov, Igor Stanislavsky, Ada and Olga Knipper.
15. Members of the bourgeoisie trying to sell their possessions, 1918.
16. Red troops on an armoured train in the civil war.
17. Olga Chekhova in Der Todesreigen (Dance of Death, 1922).
18. Olga with Oskar Homulka in Brennende Grenze (Burning Frontiers, 1926).
19. Olga with her Talbot convertible and chauffeur.
20. Olga in Moulin Rouge (1928).
21. Olga directing her ex-husband Misha Chekhov in Der Narr seiner Liebe
(The Fool of Love, 1930).
22. Olga with Conrad Veidt in Die Nacht der Entscheidung (The Night of
Decision, 1931).
23. Olga in Liebelei (1931).
24. Olga with Ada and Adele Sandrock in Der Favorit der Kaiserin (The
Empress’s Favourite, 1936).
25. Lev Knipper, Lyuba and their son Andrei, 1931.
26. Lev Knipper in Red Army uniform, 1936.
27. Lev Knipper, composer and NKVD agent, 1938.
28. Olga Chekhova’s wedding to Marcel Robyns, Berlin, December 1936.
29. Olga celebrates New Year 1938.
30. Olga and Willi Forst in Bel Ami (1939).
31. Olga Chekhova with Hitler.
32. Olga’s lover Jep, the Luftwaffe fighter pilot in the Battle of Britain.
33. Olga Chekhova with Göring, Hitler and Keitel at Ribbentrop’s reception,
May 1939.
34. Olga with Wehrmacht troops in Paris, October 1940.
35. Olga visits a Luftwaffe fighter wing, September 1940.
36. Mariya Garikovna.
37. Lev and his fellow composer Prokofiev, 1941.
38. Red Army troops march past Stalin in Red Square, November 1941.
39. Lev in Teheran, 1942.
40. Olga with Rudolf Prack in Der ewige Klang (The Eternal Tune, 1944).
41. Abakumov, the chief of SMERSh, receives the Order of Kutuzov 1st Class,
April 1945.
42. Lev and Aunt Olya soon after the war.
43. Lev climbing again in the Caucasus after the war.
44. Olga Chekhova, along with Konrad Lorenz, receives the Cross of the Order
of Merit, 1972.
Photographic Acknowledgements
AD–MCY Arkhiv doma–museya Chekhova Yalta (Archive of the Chekhov
house–museum at Yalta): 8, 12, 14
AKG Archive: 29
The David King Photographic Archive: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 11, 15, 16, 38
Andrei Knipper private collection: 13, 25, 26, 27, 37, 39, 42, 43
Aleksandr Melikov private collection: 36
PAK/T Privatarchiv Knipper/Tschechowa, Berlin: 6, 7, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22,
23, 24, 28, 30, 34, 35, 40
Harvey Pitcher, Chekhov’s Leading Lady: 9
Russian State Film Archive: 41
Mariya Shverubovich private collection: 10
Olga Tschechowa, Meine Uhren gehen anders: 32, 44
Ullstein: 31, 33