The Mystery of Olga Chekhova Read online

  Menschen im Sturm

  Merkulov, Vsevolod

  ‘Method’ acting

  Metropolis

  Meyendorff, Irene von

  Meyerhold, Vsevolod

  Stanislavsky attempts to promote

  under Soviet threat

  supports cause of revolution

  defends Stanislavsky’s production of Byron’s Cain

  tortured and executed

  Mikhail, Grand Duke

  Miklashevsky, Igor

  Miller, General Yevgenii

  Mit den Augen einer Frau

  Molotov, Vyacheslav

  pact with Ribbentrop

  visits Berlin

  announces German invasion of Russia

  and risk of air attack on Moscow parade

  Monroe, Marilyn

  Moscow

  celebrates 1945 victory

  anti-German riots (1915)

  Bolshevik revolution in

  as capital under Bolsheviks

  exodus from (1917-18)

  post-revolution conditions

  bombed in Second World War

  German assault on

  wartime underground resistance movement organized

  repels German threat

  Moscow Art Theatre

  celebrates victory (1945)

  wishes to honour Olga Knipper-Chekhova

  established (1898)

  plays in St Petersburg (1912)

  in First World War

  Olga Chekhova claims to have acted with

  pays salary to Stanislavsky

  last production before Bolshevik revolution

  unable to pay royalties to Masha

  early revolutionary productions

  tours in civil war

  taken over by state

  and absence of Kachalov group

  Lenin supports

  reunited with Kachalov group in Moscow

  tour of Western Europe and USA

  Lev appointed consultant to Music Theatre

  under political suspicion

  honours Gorky

  Paris tour (1937)

  in Second World War

  fiftieth anniversary (1948)

  Moskvin, Ivan

  Moulin Rouge

  Mühle von Sanssouci, Die

  Murnau, Friedrich Wilhelm

  Nabokov, Vladimir

  Nacht der Entscheidung, Die

  Nadia (Olga Chekhova’s Russian maid)

  Narr seiner Liebe, Der

  Nazis; see also Germany; Hitler, Adolf

  Negri, Pola

  Nemirovich-Danchenko, Vladimir

  on Olga Knipper’s hand movements

  affair with Olga Knipper

  Olga Knipper impresses

  approves of Chekhov’s love affair with Olga Knipper

  differences with Stanislavsky

  Stanislavsky writes to on moral decline of theatre

  impressed by Kerensky

  early revolutionary activities

  and Kachalov group in Zagreb

  and Kachalov group’s return to Moscow

  and Stanislavsky’s reservations over Chekhov

  warns Stanislavsky of Soviet disfavour

  and Olga Knipper-Chekhova’s offer to play in The Government Inspector

  employs Lev as consultant

  illness

  New York

  Nicholas II, Tsar

  and First World War

  stubbornness

  abdication

  NKVD

  persecutions

  and Cheka

  authorizes Lev’s trips abroad

  censors letters

  in Great Terror

  recalls Lev to active duty

  shootings and arrests in war

  wartime anti-German measures

  Lev’s wartime work with

  in post-war Berlin

  Lev withdraws from

  see also KGB, OGPU

  Novorossiisk

  Nuremberg Laws

  OGPU

  Lev cooperates with

  overseas operations

  and Spanish Civil War

  in Great Terror

  see also NKVD

  Olga, Princess of Yugoslavia

  Olga Tschechowa Kosmetik

  Ophüls, Max

  Ostrovsky, Aleksandr

  Enough Stupidity in Every Wise Man

  Pagode, Die

  Papen, Franz von

  Paris

  Moscow Art Theatre performs in

  Pasternak, Boris

  Paul, Prince of Yugoslavia

  Pearl Harbor

  peasants

  hoard grain

  repressed under Bolsheviks

  anti-Bolshevism

  hatred of White Army

  Peck, Gregory

  People

  Petrograd, see St Petersburg

  Picasso

  Guernica

  Pilyavskaya, Sofya

  Podgorny (Moscow Art Theatre actor)

  Poland

  defeats Red Army (1919)

  German invasion and partition with Russia (1939)

  officers massacred

  Pommer, Erich-

  Prague

  Pravda

  Presley, Elvis

  Preussische Liebegeschichte

  Prokofiev, Sergei

  ‘Proletkult’

  prostitutes

  from ruined wealthy families

  Vova Knipper disbelieves in existence of

  Provisional Government (1917)

  Prozhektor

  Pushkin, Aleksandr

  Rabeneck, Leo

  Rachmaninov, Serge

  Raddatz, Carl

  affair with Olga Chekhova

  Radlov, Sergei

  Radziwill, Prince Janusz

  Raikh, Zinaida (Meyerhold’s wife) murdered

  Rasputin, Grigori

  Red Army

  in civil war

  Poles defeat

  Lev Knipper’s work with

  purged

  successes against Germans

  advance on Berlin

  Reichstag fire (Berlin)

  Reinhardt, Max

  Reymann, General Helmuth

  Ribbentrop, Joachim von

  Richter, Svyatoslav

  Ried, Marina (Olga Chekhova’s niece)

  Ried-Knipper, Yelena Luise (Olga Chekhova’s mother; ‘Lulu’, ‘Baba’)

  background and marriage

  musical interests

  sympathizes with Olga Chekhova’s theatrical ambitions

  and Olga Chekhova’s marriage to Misha

  sends money to Olga Chekhova

  Olga Chekhova hopes to remove from Soviet Union

  Ried-Knipper, Yelena Luise—cont.

  Olga Knipper-Chekhova sees in Moscow

  at Konstantin’s death

  leaves for Berlin

  Lev’s concern for

  appearance and manner

  rebukes Goebbels

  death

  Robyns, Marcel

  marriage to Olga Chekhova

  Olga Chekhova divorces

  Rökk, Marika

  Romanov dynasty downfall

  Roosevelt, Franklin Delano

  Rostov-on-Don

  Rühmann, Heinz

  Ruslanova, Lydia

  Russia (and USSR)

  food shortages in First World War

  civil war (1918—19)

  conditions following revolution

  typhoid epidemic (1919)

  White Russians evacuated from

  émigrés

  artists used for political purposes

  pact with Germany (1939)

  Germans invade (1941)

  turns tide in war

  Russian Combined Services Union (ROVS)

  Russo-Japanese War (1904—5)

  Rust, Ada (Olga Chekhova and Misha’s daughter)

  birth

  fails to recognize mother

  Olga Knipper-Chekhova sees as child in
Moscow

  Olga Chekhova hopes to remove from Russia

  grandmother Lulu’s affection for

  prosperity

  arrives in Berlin

  directs Misha in German film

  under Nazi threat for Jewish grandmother

  plays in film with mother

  and Red Army advance on Berlin

  marriage to Rust

  sends dresses to mother in Moscow

  wishes to return to Russia

  Rust, Vera (Olga Chekhova’s granddaughter; stage name Vera Chekhova)

  Rust, Wilhelm (Olga Chekhova’s son-in-law)

  Rybkina, Zoya

  Saenko (Cheka commander in Kharkov)

  St Petersburg (Leningrad, Petrograd)

  Moscow Art Theatre plays in (1912)

  in First World War

  debauch and hedonism in

  revolutions in

  Moscow replaces as capital

  under German threat

  Sakharov, Andrei

  Salza-Knipper, Anna (Olga Knipper-Chekhova’s mother)

  Sandrock, Adele

  Schaub, Julius

  Schellenberg, General Walter

  Schloβ Vogelöd

  Schnitzler, Arthur Liebelei

  Schoenberg, Arnold

  Schulenberg, Count F. W. von der

  Schwarze Husar, Der

  Serov, General Ivan

  Sevastopol

  Shakespeare, William

  Hamlet

  As You Like It

  Shchors, Colonel Igor

  Shchors, Natalya

  Shkurin, Colonel (of SMERSh)

  Shostakovich, Dmitri

  Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk

  Seventh Symphony

  condemned for ‘Formalism’

  Shverubovich, Mariya (Kachalov’s granddaughter)

  Shverubovich, Vadim

  accompanies Moscow Art Theatre tour to Kharkov

  joins White Army

  typhus

  on Olga Knipper-Chekhova in Novorossiisk

  on Kachalov group tours abroad

  friendship with Lev

  volunteers for International Brigade in Spain

  captured by German army

  sees picture of Olga Chekhova during war

  escape

  post-war treatment and survival

  Simonov, Konstantin

  SMERSh (Soviet counter-intelligence organization)

  Solodovnikovsky Theatre, Moscow

  Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr

  Song of Russia, The

  Sorge, Richard

  Sorokonozhka (‘The Little Centipede’; cabaret-theatre group)

  Soviet Union, see Russia (and USSR)

  Sovnarkom (Council of People’s Commissars)

  Spanish Civil War (1936—9)

  Speer, Albert

  Stalin, Joseph

  and victory (1945)

  signs Meyerhold’s death warrant

  rise to power

  holidays in Likani Palace

  Stalin, Joseph - cont.

  persecutions and terror

  exploits Gorky

  on writers as ‘engineers of the human soul’

  and Spanish Civil War

  xenophobia

  Mandelstam traduces in poem

  on Fascism

  and German invasion threat

  and German advance on Moscow

  reaction to German invasion

  stays in wartime Moscow

  and assassination plot against Hitler

  cancels assassination plan against Hitler

  Kachalov appeals to for information on son, Vadim

  Abakumov reports to

  obsession with Hitler

  death

  plays off Beria against Abakumov

  on Olga Chekhova’s post-war usefulness

  and son Jakov’s imprisonment

  Stalingrad (earlier Tsaritsyn)

  in civil war

  battle of (1943)

  Stanislavsky, Konstantin (Alekseiev)

  on Chekhov’s illness

  career and influence

  disapproves of Moscow Art Theatre decor

  acting theories and methods (‘System’)

  and Chekhov’s love affair with Olga Knipper

  auditions and trains Misha

  on separateness of art

  hopes for revolution

  differences with Nemirovich-Danchenko

  wartime theatrical tours

  on moral decline of Moscow Art Theatre

  saves Misha from conscription

  impressed by Kerensky

  and production of The Cherry Orchard (1917)

  early revolutionary productions and activities

  brother and nephews shot in civil war

  and Moscow Art Theatre’s tour of Ukraine in civil war

  and Moscow Art Theatre under Bolshevik control

  and Kachalov group in Bulgaria

  and Olga Knipper-Chekhova’s wish to return to Moscow

  reservations over Chekhov’s works

  gives leading parts to Misha

  with Moscow Art Theatre in Berlin

  My Life in Art

  in Germany

  in USA

  accused by Communists of disloyalty

  Stauffenberg, Count Claus Schenck von

  Stresemann, Gustav

  Strindberg, August Erik XIV,

  Stumpff, Colonel General Johannes

  Stunde der Versuchung

  Sudoplatov, Anatoly

  Sudoplatov, General Pavel

  on Lev’s interrogations by OGPU

  exploits Lev’s contacts with émigrés

  and Olga Chekhova’s collaboration with Soviet intelligence

  Beria appoints to head NKVD Special Task Group

  on Lev and Mariya’s special mission to Germany

  brings food supplies to Lev

  retains control of Lev

  charged and sentenced

  Sumser, Albert (Bert)