Marietta Sergeevna Shaginyan (russian: Мариэ́тта Серге́евна Шагиня́н; hy, Մարիետա Սերգեյի Շահինյան, April 2, 1888 – March 20, 1982) was a
Soviet
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
writer
A writer is a person who uses written words in different writing styles and techniques to communicate ideas. Writers produce different forms of literary art and creative writing such as novels, short stories, books, poetry, travelogues, p ...
, historian and activist of
Armenian
Armenian may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Armenia, a country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia
* Armenians, the national people of Armenia, or people of Armenian descent
** Armenian Diaspora, Armenian communities across the ...
descent. She was one of the "fellow travelers" of the 1920s led by the
Serapion Brotherhood and became one of the most prolific communist writers experimenting in satirico-fantastic fiction.
Career
Shaginyan was born in Moscow. Her father was a doctor. She received a private education, and in 1912 obtained a degree in History and Philosophy, and began her career as a writer.
In February 1912 Shaginyan wrote to the composer
Sergei Rachmaninoff
Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff; in Russian pre-revolutionary script. (28 March 1943) was a Russian composer, virtuoso pianist, and conductor. Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one o ...
, signing herself "Re". This was the first of many letters written between them over the next 5 years, many quoted in Bertensson & Leyda. Later in 1912, Rachmaninoff asked her to suggest poems he could set as songs. Many of her suggestions appeared in his Op. 34 set of that year (list of titles in Bertensson & Leyda). The first group, from
Pushkin
Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin (; rus, links=no, Александр Сергеевич ПушкинIn pre-Revolutionary script, his name was written ., r=Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin, p=ɐlʲɪkˈsandr sʲɪrˈɡʲe(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ ˈpuʂkʲɪn, ...
's poem "The Muse" of 1828, he dedicated to her. In 1913 she dedicated her first set of published poems, "Orientalia", to him.
Rachmaninoff
Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff; in Russian pre-revolutionary script. (28 March 1943) was a Russian composer, virtuoso pianist, and conductor. Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one o ...
left Russia in 1917, never to return, and their correspondence ceased at that point.
Shaginyan wrote the novels ''Miss Mend: Yankees in Petrograd'' (1923), ''Three Looms'' (1929), ''Hydrocentral'' (1930–31). In 1931, she wrote to
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secreta ...
asking him to write a foreword to ''Hydrocentral'', and received a reply, dated 20 May, in which Stalin apologised, saying he would have liked to have written one, but was too busy to do so. Reputedly, she carried the note, wrapped in cellophane, in the handbag she always kept with her.
Before and during the
Great Purge
The Great Purge or the Great Terror (russian: Большой террор), also known as the Year of '37 (russian: 37-й год, translit=Tridtsat sedmoi god, label=none) and the Yezhovshchina ('period of Nikolay Yezhov, Yezhov'), was General ...
, she was conspicuously loyal to Stalin personally. In 1934, evidently aware of the tension between Stalin and Russia' most renowned living writer, and the nominal head of the Soviet Writers' Union,
Maxim Gorky
Alexei Maximovich Peshkov (russian: link=no, Алексе́й Макси́мович Пешко́в; – 18 June 1936), popularly known as Maxim Gorky (russian: Макси́м Го́рький, link=no), was a Russian writer and social ...
, in private conversation she denounced Gorky as an "anarchist" and "a petit bourgeois populist." During the mass arrests when
Nikolai Yezhov
Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov ( rus, Никола́й Ива́нович Ежо́в, p=nʲɪkɐˈɫaj ɪˈvanəvʲɪt͡ɕ (j)ɪˈʐof; 1 May 1895 – 4 February 1940) was a Soviet secret police official under Joseph Stalin who was head of the N ...
was chief of the
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union.
...
, she had a signed half page article in
Pravda
''Pravda'' ( rus, Правда, p=ˈpravdə, a=Ru-правда.ogg, "Truth") is a Russian broadsheet newspaper, and was the official newspaper of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, when it was one of the most influential papers in the co ...
in which she claimed that prisoners now known to have been forced to make false confessions under torture were doing so voluntarily out of a sense of responsibility to soviet society. She is also reputed to have complained about fellow writers that "Just because a few people have been arrested, they make all this fuss!"
In August 1938, the first part of her novel ''A History Exam - the Ulyanov Family'', a fictional account of the early life of
Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 19 ...
was published in the magazine ''
Krasnaya Nov
''Krasnaya Nov'' (russian: Красная новь, lit='Red Virgin Soil') was a Soviet monthly literary magazine.
History
''Krasnaya Nov'', the first Soviet "thick" literary magazine, was established in June 1921. In its first 7 years, under e ...
''. It had been read and approved by Lenin's widow,
Nadezhda Krupskaya
Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya ( rus, links=no, Надежда Константиновна Крупская, p=nɐˈdʲeʐdə kənstɐnˈtʲinəvnə ˈkrupskəjə; 27 February 1939) was a Russian revolutionary and the wife of Vladimir Lenin ...
, and his brother Dmitri Ulyanov, but caused a scandal because it revealed that Lenin was part
Kalmyk. On 5 August, the novel was banned, by order of the
Politburo
A politburo () or political bureau is the executive committee for communist parties. It is present in most former and existing communist states.
Names
The term "politburo" in English comes from the Russian ''Politbyuro'' (), itself a contraction ...
, Shaganyan and Krupskaya were reprimanded, and the editor responsible,
Vladimir Yermilov Vladimir Vladimirovich Yermilov (Russian: Владимир Владимирович Ермилов) (29 October 1904 – 19 November 1965) was a hard line Soviet literary critic best known for his role in hounding the poet Vladimir Mayakovsky.
Car ...
, was sacked. For the next 18 years, she was forced to stop writing in this genre and turned to essay writing. This resolution was overturned by the
Central Committee
Central committee is the common designation of a standing administrative body of Communist party, communist parties, analogous to a board of directors, of both ruling and nonruling parties of former and existing socialist states. In such party org ...
as "erroneous and fundamentally wrong" on 11 October 1956, after which a revised version of the novel was published, and a sequel, ''The First All-Russian'' in 1965.
The two books won her the
Lenin Prize in 1972.
Shaginian spent much of her time in
Koktebel
Koktebel ( uk, Коктебéль, russian: Коктебéль, crh, Köktöbel, formerly known as ''Planerskoye'', russian: Планерское) is an urban-type settlement and one of the most popular resort townlets in South-Eastern Crimea. K ...
,
Crimea
Crimea, crh, Къырым, Qırım, grc, Κιμμερία / Ταυρική, translit=Kimmería / Taurikḗ ( ) is a peninsula in Ukraine, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, that has been occupied by Russia since 2014. It has a pop ...
, where she had bought a summer house for her family. The Russian bohemian elite gathered in Koktebel every summer and stayed there until September, spending time at the Voloshin house. She died in Moscow at the age of 94.
Personality
There is a scathing portrayal of Shaginyan in the memoirs of
Nadezhda Mandelstam
Nadezhda Yakovlevna Mandelstam ( rus, Надежда Яковлевна Мандельштам, p=nɐˈdʲeʐdə ˈjakəvlʲɪvnə mənʲdʲɪlʲˈʂtam, , Хазина; 29 December 1980) was a Russian Jewish writer and educator, and the wife of ...
. She alleged that in the 1920s, Shaginyan made a habit of kissing the hand of
Anna Akhmatova
Anna Andreyevna Gorenko rus, А́нна Андре́евна Горе́нко, p=ˈanːə ɐnˈdrʲe(j)ɪvnə ɡɐˈrʲɛnkə, a=Anna Andreyevna Gorenko.ru.oga, links=yes; uk, А́нна Андрі́ївна Горе́нко, Ánna Andríyivn ...
whenever they met. "This always put Akhmatova in a frenzy, and at the mere sight of Shaginyan, she fled or dived into the nearest doorway." But after Akhmatova had been denounced by Stalin's culture chief
Andrei Zhdanov
Andrei Aleksandrovich Zhdanov ( rus, Андре́й Алекса́ндрович Жда́нов, p=ɐnˈdrej ɐlʲɪˈksandrəvʲɪtɕ ˈʐdanəf, links=yes; – 31 August 1948) was a Soviet politician and cultural ideologist. After World War ...
in 1948, Shaginyan visited the provinces to explain that Akhmatova was "decadent." Mandelstam also claimed that Shaginyan - a "tiny wizened figure" and a "deaf old bore with her thoughts on Lenin and
Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as treat ...
, and her discovery of a direct relationship between a miner's lamp, the useful activities of
Faust
Faust is the protagonist of a classic German legend based on the historical Johann Georg Faust ( 1480–1540).
The erudite Faust is highly successful yet dissatisfied with his life, which leads him to make a pact with the Devil at a crossroads ...
, and the famous plan for
electrification
Electrification is the process of powering by electricity and, in many contexts, the introduction of such power by changing over from an earlier power source.
The broad meaning of the term, such as in the history of technology, economic histor ...
" - was unusual in that she made a "terrible fuss" if any suspected police spy came near her, when most soviet citizens simply put up with them, but Mandelstam suspected that she sometimes deliberately screamed at people whom she knew were not informers, to deter genuine spies. "Why am I always harping on this woman?" Mandelstam added, finally. "The point is that she was a typical figure of our times, and furthermore she blurted out things on which others were silent."
Family
Marietta's daughter Mirelle Shaginian was a painter, who was married to
Victor Tsigal, a Russian painter and sculptor. Their son Serega Tsigal is an artist in Moscow. His wife Lubov Polishuk was one of Russia's most famous actresses. Serega's daughter Marietta Tsigal followed her mother's steps into acting. She was named after her great grandmother. Marietta Shaginian has two great great grandchildren Anastasia Shaginian and her brother Andrei.
Legacy
A
minor planet
According to the International Astronomical Union (IAU), a minor planet is an astronomical object in direct orbit around the Sun that is exclusively classified as neither a planet nor a comet. Before 2006, the IAU officially used the term ''minor ...
2144 Marietta discovered in 1975 by
Soviet
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
astronomer
Lyudmila Chernykh
Lyudmila Ivanovna Chernykh (russian: Людми́ла Ива́новна Черны́х, June 13, 1935 in Shuya, Ivanovo Oblast – July 28, 2017) was a Russian-born Soviet astronomer, wife and colleague of Nikolai Stepanovich Chernykh, and a ...
is named in her honor.
Books
* ''Mess-Mend: Yankees in Petrograd.'' Trans. Samuel Cioran. Ann Arbor: Ardis, 1991.
* ''Lori Len Metallist''
aurie Lane, Metalworker Moscow: Gos-Izd, 1924.
* ''Doroga v Bagdad''
he Road to Baghdad St. Petersburg, 1925.
* ''Gidrotsentral''
ydroCentral Leningrad, 1929.
* ''Armianskaya literatura i iskusstvo''
iterature and Art of Armenia Yerevan, 1961.
* ''Taras Shevchenko.'' Moscow, 1964.
References
External links
Shaginyan at sovlit.netWorks by Shaginyan
{{DEFAULTSORT:Shaginyan, Matietta
1888 births
1982 deaths
Writers from Moscow
Marxist writers
Soviet women writers
Soviet novelists
Women dramatists and playwrights
Women novelists
Communist women writers
Soviet dramatists and playwrights
Soviet women novelists