Tsvetaeva and Efron love story briefly. Literary and historical notes of a young technician. Diary entries and moving to the USSR

Publicist, writer, White Army officer, Markovite, pioneer, NKVD agent, repressed. Marina Tsvetaeva's husband.

Sergei Yakovlevich Efron was born into the family of Narodnaya Volya members Elizaveta Petrovna Durnovo (1855-1910), from a famous noble family, and Yakov Konstantinovich (Kalmanovich) Efron (1854-1909), from a baptized Jewish family. He studied at the Faculty of Philology of Moscow University. He wrote stories, tried to act in Tairov's theater, published magazines, and was also involved in underground activities.

After the outbreak of the First World War, in 1915 he entered the hospital train as a brother of mercy; in 1917 he graduated from the cadet school. On February 11, 1917 he was sent to the Peterhof Warrant Officer School for service. Six months later he was enrolled in the 56-1 infantry reserve regiment, whose training team was located in Nizhny Novgorod.

In October 1917, he took part in battles with the Bolsheviks, then in the White Movement, in the Officers' Regiment of General Markov, and participated in the Ice Campaign and the defense of Crimea.

In exile

In the fall of 1920, as part of his unit, he was evacuated to Gallipoli, then moved to Constantinople, to Prague. In 1921-1925 - student at the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Prague. Member of the Russian student organization, the Union of Russian Writers and Journalists

Soon after emigrating, Efron became disillusioned with the white movement, and the desire to return to his homeland grew stronger. In Prague, Sergei Yakovlevich organizes the Democratic Union of Russian Students and becomes co-editor of the journal “In My Own Ways” published by the Union, participates in the development of the Eurasian movement, which has become widespread among Russian emigration as an alternative to communism. Sergei Yakovlevich joined the left side of the movement, which, as the split in Eurasianism deepened, was increasingly loyal to the Soviet system.

In 1926-1927 in Paris, Efron worked as co-editor of the magazine Versty, which was close to Eurasianism.

In 1927, Efron starred in the French film “Madonna of Sleeping Cars” (directed by Marco de Gastin and Maurice Glaize), where he played the role of a death row prisoner in a Batumi prison, which lasted only 12 seconds and in many ways anticipated his own future fate. Since May 29, 1933 - member of the emigrant Masonic lodge "Gamayun" in Paris. On January 22, 1934 he was elevated to the 2nd degree, and on November 29, 1934 - to the 3rd degree.

In the 30s Efron began working in the Homecoming Union, as well as collaborating with the Soviet intelligence services - since 1931, Sergei Yakovlevich was an employee of the Foreign Department of the OGPU in Paris. Used as a group leader and gunner-recruiter, he personally recruited 24 people from among the Parisian emigrants. Since 1935 he lived in Vanves near Paris.

Was involved in the kidnapping of General Miller. According to one version, Sergei Yakovlevich was involved in the murder of Ignatius Reis (Poretsky) (September 1937), Soviet intelligence officer, who refused to return to the USSR.

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In October 1937 he hastily left for Le Havre, from where he went by boat to Leningrad. Upon returning to Soviet Union Efron and his family were given a state dacha by the NKVD in Bolshevo, near Moscow. At first there were no signs of trouble. However, Sergei Yakovlevich’s daughter Ariadne was soon arrested.

Arrested by the NKVD on November 10, 1939. Convicted by the Military Collegium Supreme Court USSR August 6, 1941 under Art. 58-1-a of the Criminal Code to capital punishment. He was shot in August 1941. Ariadne spent long years imprisoned and was rehabilitated only in 1955.

IN State Museum history of Russian literature named after V.I. Dahl opened an exhibition dedicated to the 125th anniversary of his birth, “The Soul That Knows No Measures...”. The main motive of the exhibition is the movement from a habitable space arranged at the will of the poet to the loss of home, solitude, and, finally, a place on earth. The curators of the project lead visitors from Tsvetaeva’s childhood to parental home in Trekhprudny Lane to youth, sanctified by the warmth of Voloshin’s house in Koktebel. Then - the beginning family life in Borisoglebsky Lane, with its stairs, attic cabin. Afterwards - leaving for emigration, Prague, Paris, searching for oneself in a new world, but, in the end, returning to the USSR following her husband and daughter, loss of family and her own corner, death.

The exhibition opens with a model of the Tsvetaevs’ house in Trekhprudny Lane. In the windows: miniature rooms of Marina Tsvetaeva, in the attic on a high staircase, and her sisters. According to Tsvetaeva, from childhood she tried on the masks of tragic heroines. Therefore, on the walls of her room hung portraits of Sarah Bernhardt, two Napoleons (her lifelong passion) and Maria Bashkirtseva. Bashkirtseva published a diary, which became a breakthrough in revealing inner essence women, which was very close to Tsvetaeva. These were not love, personal experiences, but discussions about creativity, philosophy, and so on.

When Marina was born, her mother was upset that her first child was not a son. “But he will be a musician,” she decided.

“Evening Album” is Marina’s first book, which she published in secret from her father.

Soon after this, an obese man, choking from asthma, walked up into the narrow girl’s room - a poet. He asked: “Have you read my review of your book?” Marina replied: “No, I haven’t read it.” And a little later these verses appeared:

Marina Tsvetaeva

My soul is so joyfully attracted to you!
Oh, what grace blows
From the pages of the “Evening Album”!
(Why “album” and not “notebook”?)
Why does the black cap hide
Clean forehead and glasses on your eyes?
I only noticed a submissive look
And the baby oval of the cheek,
Children's mouth and ease of movement,
The connection of calmly modest poses...
There are so many achievements in your book...
Who are you?
Forgive my question.
I'm lying here today - neuralgia,
Pain is like a quiet cello...
Your words are good touches
And in verse the winged swing of a swing
Lull the pain... Wanderers,
We live for the thrill of longing...
(Whose cool, gentle fingers
Do they touch my temples in the dark?)
Your book strangely moved me -
What is hidden in her is revealed,
In it is the country where all paths begin,
But where there is no return.
I remember everything: the dawn, shining sternly,
I thirst for all earthly roads at once,
All the ways... And there was everything... so many!
How long ago I crossed the threshold!
Who gave you such clarity of colors?
Who gave you such precision of words?
The courage to say everything: from children's caresses
Until spring new moon dreams?
Your book is news “from there”,
Morning good news.
I have not accepted a miracle for a long time,
But how sweet it is to hear:
“There is a miracle!”

Friendship with Voloshin was friendship forever, although Marina’s fate took her far. Nevertheless, in 1911 she came to Koktebel for the first time.

The exhibition shows the life of Voloshin’s house and his guests. In many photographs there is Marina Ivanovna. Koktebel played an amazing role in her life. One day she was digging the sand next to Max on the seashore, looking for pebbles and said that she would marry the first one who found a stone that she liked. Soon, Sergei Efron, who was 17 years old at the time, gave her the found carnelian bead.

At the exhibition you can see wedding ring Sergei Efron. In 1912, when he turned 18, he and Marina got married. Inside the ring there is an engraving: “Marina”. A towel embroidered for the couple by Elena Ottobaldovna, Voloshin’s mother, and Marina’s famous bracelets.

From Marina's personal belongings: beads that were hung on a donkey - her father brought them to her from the expedition. And Marina’s ring with carnelian. But this is not the stone that Efron gave her. She wore that bead without taking it off, but it was not preserved.

The house in Borisoglebsky Lane was rented by Marina and Sergei. It was assumed that their first daughter Ariadne, Ali, would have a happy childhood in it. But life decreed otherwise: happiness lasted only three years.

Poet Sofya Parnok will be the first crack in the marriage of Marina Tsvetaeva and Sergei Efron.

Since the beginning of the Civil War, Sergei Efron has gone to the front as a nurse. Marina is left alone. Being without a livelihood, she is forced to give her children to an orphanage, where she was told that the children were fed American humanitarian aid. Irina died at the shelter, and Marina took Alya.

Tsvetaeva was considered indifferent to fate youngest daughter, but that's not true. She has very frank notes in which she says that this is her cross and that she is to blame.

Despite all the severity, this is a very busy period in Tsvetaeva’s life. During these same years, her meeting with Mandelstam took place. In St. Petersburg, in Kuzmin’s apartment. It was a short love affair - love was the breeding ground for Tsvetaeva’s creativity.

As Marina writes in her notebooks, Alya lived in her own little world, in Serezha’s attic room, among her drawings. Drawings from 1917-1922 are being exhibited for the first time. Ariadne will continue to paint in exile.

Marina's personal belongings. Cup from the Czech period. Meat skewer. View from a house in Borisoglebsky.

Sergei Efron leaves Russia. Marina is left alone. She has been looking for him for several years: she does not know whether he is alive or dead. Her poignant notes remained that if he was gone, then her life was over.

Despite the fact that all this time she had some short novels, her connection with Efron was inextricable. At the same time, Marina did not hide her love interests from anyone.

Marina instructs Ehrenburg, who lives here and now in Berlin, to look for Efron. Two years later he finds him in Prague. He entered the University of Prague, knew nothing about Marina’s fate, became interested in Eurasianism, and the connection with Russia was lost for him.

Ali has preserved memories of how his mother and father met at the train station in Berlin. Suddenly a voice: “Marina, Marinochka!” And some A tall man, gasping for breath, with his arms outstretched, he runs towards him. Alya only guesses that it is dad, because she hasn’t seen him for many years.

Marina will spend a short time in Berlin. Here he will meet and write a memoir, “The Captive Spirit.”

Marina Tsvetaeva's emigration lasted 17 years. Life is hard: she said that in Russia she has no books, and in exile she has no readers. Emigration did not accept her because she was the wife of a man who begins to collaborate with the NKVD

But at this time she writes extremely a lot.

Then she fell in love with Pasternak’s poems and fell in love with their author in absentia. She corresponds with Rilke.

Life in Prague is very expensive - family lives in different suburbs.

An amazing document remains, it is not on display, this is a letter from Sergei to Max Voloshin, who was a kind of confessor for both Marina and Sergei. He immediately realized that something had happened. And what happened in Marina’s life was Konstantin Rodzevich, Sergei’s friend in Eurasianism. Marina left amazing notes about these meetings, saying that he was the lover of lovers, that this is what she lives by. In a letter to Voloshin, Sergei says that a breakup is inevitable, that Marina is exhausted by lies and nightly departures. He tried to leave, but Marina said that she would not survive without him.

The relationship with Rodzevich ended quite quickly, and Marina gives birth to her third child - the son of George, Moore, as he was called in the family.

They live hard: they collect pine cones and mushrooms. Marina is without a table, she cleans, cooks potatoes, does laundry, the four of them live in one room.

1 /11

This portrait of Tsvetaeva by Boris Fedorovich Chaliapin, son, is being exhibited for the second time. On the back is a pencil portrait of Efron. If Marina looks quite attractive, then Efron in the pencil sketch looks like an old man.

It turns out that there is nowhere to wait for help. We are left to our own devices. But no one, as if by agreement, talks about the hopelessness of the situation. They behave as if their ultimate success is beyond doubt. And at the same time, it is clear that not today or tomorrow we will be destroyed. And everyone, of course, feels it.

For some reason, all the officers are hastily summoned to Assembly Hall. I'm coming. The hall is already full. The cadets are crowding at the door. There is a table in the center. Around him are several civilians - those whom we brought from the city council. On the faces of those gathered there is a painful and unkind expectation.

One of the civilians climbs onto the table.

Who is this? - I ask.

Gentlemen! - he begins in a broken voice. - You are officers and there is nothing to hide the truth from you. Our situation is hopeless. There is nowhere to wait for help. There are no cartridges or shells. Every hour brings new victims. Further resistance to brute force is useless. Having seriously weighed these circumstances, the Committee of Public Safety has now signed the terms of surrender. The conditions are as follows. Officers retain the weapons assigned to them. The cadets are left only with the weapons they need for their training. Everyone is guaranteed absolute safety. These conditions come into force from the moment of signing. The Bolshevik representative undertook to stop shelling the areas we occupied so that we could immediately begin to gather our forces.

Who authorized you to sign the terms of surrender?

I am a member of the Provisional Government.

And do you, as a member of the Provisional Government, consider it possible to stop the fight against the Bolsheviks? Surrender to the will of the victors?

“I don’t think it’s possible to continue the useless slaughter,” Prokopovich answers excitedly.

Frenzied screams:

A shame! - Betrayal again. - They only know how to give up! - They didn’t dare sign for us! - We won't give up!

Prokopovich stands with his head bowed. A young colonel comes forward, Knight of St. George, Khovansky.

Gentlemen! I take the liberty to speak on your behalf. There can be no surrender! If you like, you who were not with us and did not fight, you who signed this shameful document, you can surrender. I, like the majority of those present here, would rather put a bullet in my forehead than surrender to the enemies whom I consider traitors to the Motherland. I just spoke with Colonel Dorofeev. The order was given to clear the way to the Bryansk station. The Dragomilovsky Bridge is already in our hands. We will occupy the echelons and move south to the Cossacks in order to gather forces there for the further fight against the traitors. So, I propose to split into two parts. One surrenders to the Bolsheviks, the other breaks through to the Don with weapons.

The colonel's speech is met with roars of delight and shouts:

To the Don! - Down with change! But the excitement doesn't last long. Following the young colonel, another, older and less attractive, speaks.

I know, gentlemen, that you will not like what you hear from me and may even seem ignoble and base. Just believe that I am not driven by fear. No, I'm not afraid of death. I want only one thing: for my death to bring benefit and not harm to my homeland. I will say more - I challenge you to the most difficult feat. The most difficult, because it involves compromise. You were now offered to break through to the Bryansk railway station. I warn you - out of ten, one will break through to the station. And this is at best! A tenth of those who survived and managed to capture the trains will, of course, not make it to the Don. Along the way, the roads will be dismantled or bridges will be blown up, and those who break through will have to either surrender to the brutal Bolsheviks somewhere far from Moscow and be killed, or they will all die in an unequal battle. Don't forget that we don't have any cartridges. Therefore, I believe that we have no choice but to put down our weapons. Here, in Moscow, we have no one to protect. The last member of the Provisional Government bowed his head to the Bolsheviks. But,” the colonel raises his voice, “I also know that everyone who is here - whether we will survive or not, I don’t know - will put all their energy into making their way to the Don alone, if forces are gathering there to save Russia.

The colonel finished. Some shout:

Let's all make our way to the Don together! We can't break up!

Others are silent, but apparently agree not with the first, but with the second colonel.

I realized that the thread that firmly tied us one to another was broken and that everyone was again left to their own devices.

The great-grandfather comes up to me. Goltsev. Lips pursed. He looks serious and calm.

Well, Seryozha, off to the Don?

To the Don, I answer.

He extends his hand to me and we shake hands, the strongest handshake of my life.

Don was ahead

The Kremlin is abandoned. During the surrender, my regiment commander, Colonel Pekarsky, who had recently taken the Kremlin, was bayoneted.

The school is cordoned off by the Bolsheviks. All exits are occupied. Red Guards walk around in front of the school, hung with hand grenades and machine gun belts, soldiers...

When one of us approaches the window, there is shouting and threats from below, fists are shown, rifles are aimed at our windows. Downstairs, in the school office, all officers are given two weeks of leave previously prepared by the commandant. Salaries are paid one month in advance. They offer to hand over revolvers and checkers.

Sergei Yakovlevich Efron(October 11, 1893, Moscow - October 16, 1941, Moscow) - publicist, writer, White Army officer, Markovite, pioneer, Eurasianist, NKVD agent. Marina Tsvetaeva's husband, father of three her children.

Biography

Sergei Yakovlevich Efron was born into a family of Narodnaya Volya members Elizaveta Petrovna Durnovo (1855-1910), from a famous noble family, and Yakov Konstantinovich (Kalmanovich) Efron (1854-1909), from a Jewish family originating from the Vilna province. Nephew of the prose writer and playwright Savely Konstantinovich (Sheel Kalmanovich) Efron (literary pseudonym S. Litvin; 1849-1925).

Because of early death Sergei's parents had a guardian until he came of age. He graduated from the famous Polivanovskaya gymnasium and studied at the Faculty of History and Philology of Moscow University. He wrote stories, tried to act in Tairov's theater, published magazines, and was also involved in underground activities.

After the outbreak of the First World War, in 1915 he entered the hospital as a brother of mercy on an ambulance train; in 1917 he graduated from the cadet school. On February 11, 1917 he was sent to the Peterhof Warrant Officer School for service. Six months later he was enrolled in the 56th Infantry Reserve Regiment, whose training team was located in Nizhny Novgorod.

In October 1917, he participated in battles with the Bolsheviks in Moscow, then in the White Movement, in the Officers' Regiment of General Markov, and participated in the Ice Campaign and the defense of Crimea.

In exile

In the fall of 1920, as part of his unit, he was evacuated to Gallipoli, then moved to Constantinople, to Prague. In 1921-1925 - student at the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Prague. Member of the Russian student organization, the union of Russian writers and journalists.

Soon after emigrating, Efron began to feel nostalgic for Russia, and the desire to return to his homeland grew stronger. In Prague, Sergei Yakovlevich organizes the Democratic Union of Russian Students and becomes co-editor of the journal “In Our Own Ways” published by the Union, participates in the development of the Eurasian movement, which has become widespread among Russian emigration as an alternative to communism. Sergei Yakovlevich joined the left side of the movement, which, as the split in Eurasianism deepened, was increasingly loyal to the Soviet system.

In 1926-1928 in Paris, Efron worked as co-editor of the magazine Versty, which was close to Eurasianism.

In 1927, Efron starred in the French film “Madonna of Sleeping Cars” (directed by Marco de Gastin and Maurice Glaize), where he played the role of a death row prisoner in a Batumi prison, which lasted only 12 seconds and largely anticipated his own future fate.

Since May 29, 1933 - member of the Parisian Masonic lodge "Gamayun". Expelled from the lodge on November 8, 1937 after the kidnapping of General Miller.

In the 30s, Efron began working in the Homecoming Union, as well as collaborating with the Soviet intelligence services - since 1931. Sergei Yakovlevich was an employee of the Foreign Department of the OGPU in Paris. Used as a group leader and gunner-recruiter, he personally recruited 24 people from among the Parisian emigrants. He helped transport several emigrants he recruited - Kirill Khenkin, in particular - to Spain to participate in civil war. Since 1935 he lived in Vanves near Paris.

According to one version, Efron was involved in the murder of Ignatius Reiss (Poretsky) (September 1937), a Soviet intelligence officer who refused to return to the USSR. But the rumors were refuted and he was acquitted.

IN THE USSR

In October 1937 he hastily left for Le Havre, from where he went by boat to Leningrad. Upon returning to the Soviet Union, Efron and his family were given a state dacha by the NKVD in Bolshevo, near Moscow. At first there were no signs of trouble. However, soon after the return of Marina Tsvetaeva, their daughter Ariadne was arrested.

Arrested by the NKVD on November 10, 1939. During the Efron investigation different ways(including through torture - for example, being placed in a cold punishment cell in winter) they tried to persuade people close to him to testify, including comrades from the “Union of Return”, as well as Tsvetaeva, but he refused to testify against them. Convicted by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR on August 6, 1941 under Art. 58-1-a of the Criminal Code to capital punishment. He was shot on October 16, 1941 Butovo training ground NKVD as part of a group of 136 prisoners sentenced to capital punishment, hastily formed in order to “unload” the prisons of front-line Moscow.

In the 30s, Efron began working in the Homecoming Union, as well as collaborating with Soviet intelligence services - since 1931, Sergei Yakovlevich was an employee of the Foreign Department of the OGPU in Paris. Used as a group leader and gunner-recruiter, he personally recruited 24 people from among the Parisian emigrants. He helped transport several of the emigrants he recruited—Kirill Khenkin, in particular—to Spain to participate in the civil war. According to one version, Efron was involved in the murder of Ignatius Reiss (Poretsky) (September 1937), a Soviet intelligence officer who refused to return to the USSR.

In October 1937 he hastily left for Le Havre, from where he went by boat to Leningrad. Upon returning to the Soviet Union, Efron and his family were given a state dacha by the NKVD in Bolshevo, near Moscow. At first there were no signs of trouble. However, soon after the return of Marina Tsvetaeva, their daughter Ariadne was arrested. Ariadna spent 8 years in forced labor camps and 6 years in exile in the Turukhansk region and was rehabilitated in 1955.
Sergei Efron was doomed. He knew too much about the activity Soviet intelligence abroad. The NKVD needed it in France, but it was not needed at all in Soviet Russia. In addition, the war began. Wehrmacht divisions approached Moscow, capturing one city after another. It was impossible to exclude the possibility that by mid-autumn the Germans would take Moscow (remember that according to the Barbarossa plan, the victory parade on Red Square was supposed to take place on November 7). High officials from the Soviet intelligence services were desperately afraid that Sergei Efron might end up in the hands of the Gestapo and that they would be more successful (or more experienced) in extracting testimony. And Efron, who was one of the leaders of the NKVD station in France starting in 1931, will talk about the work of the Paris station.
Its end was a foregone conclusion... Alas, these are the laws of realpolitik. Intelligence agencies of all countries in the world acted this way in similar situations. Only a hopeless romantic, an eternal volunteer, a man of honor, a knight, who knows how he ended up in the 20th century, Sergei Efron, could not understand this...
Back in 1929, having become interested in cinematography, he once starred in the silent film “Madonna of Sleeping Cars,” where he played a White Guard who found himself in a Bolshevik prison and sentenced to death. Two burly soldiers enter the cell. Efron backs into the corner, covers his eyes with his hands, resists. The soldiers beat him and drag him to the exit. Isn't this a prophecy about what will happen in 12 years?
In reality, Efron died differently than his hero on the silver screen. He was exhausted by incessant interrogations and beatings. He suffered a heart attack and constantly experienced pain in his heart. Due to severe mental shock, aggravated by bullying, Sergei began to hallucinate: he heard voices. He kept imagining Marina’s voice; it seemed to him that she was also here, in prison.
He tried to commit suicide, but the executioners and prison doctors did not allow it. In the fall of 1941, it was no longer Sergei Efron who was shot, but a half-corpse, which itself would have died in a couple of months. Most likely, Efron didn’t even understand what was happening to him or who he was when the firing squad came for him. Life, as always, turned out to be scarier and more unattractive than the movies.
Efron loved his homeland, and when it was called Russian empire, and when it began to be called the USSR. He was ready to suffer and die for her - and he suffered and died. He was ready to endure shame and reproach for her from those whom he respected, with whom he was friends, with whom he lived nearby - and he did. He, without meaning to, sacrificed to her those whom he loved more than himself - his daughter and wife. He went through his unbearably tragic path to the end.
The investigation into Efron’s case was officially completed on June 2, 1940 - on this day he signed the protocol on the completion of the investigation. But in fact the interrogations continued. A week later, they managed to extract testimony from Efron that he was a spy for French intelligence and that he was recruited when joining the Masonic lodge. Let's not imagine how we managed to get such confessions. Not every psyche can even withstand a description of what happened. What can we say about the physically and then mentally ill Efron?
On closed court hearing To the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court, defendant Andreev-Efron said: “I plead guilty in part, and I also partially confirm my testimony given during the preliminary investigation. I plead guilty to being a member of the counter-revolutionary organization "Eurasia", but I have never been involved in espionage. I was not a spy, I was an honest agent of Soviet intelligence. “I know one thing: starting from 1931, all my activities were directed in favor of the Soviet Union.”
The court retired to deliberate. (They followed the formalities, bastards!) After which the verdict was passed: Sergei Yakovlevich Efron-Andreev should be subjected to capital punishment - execution. The verdict was not subject to appeal. But it was carried out only on October 16, 1941, when the Germans were approaching Moscow.
Sergei Yakovlevich Efron did not give any incriminating evidence against any of those about whom he was interrogated...