Maria Zakrevskaya managed to win the hearts of three famous men. Alexey Peshkov and Maria Budberg: “A deadly game of love”

Alexei Maksimovich Gorky once remarked: “The smartest thing a person has achieved is to love a woman.” It would seem a strange saying for a famous proletarian writer, whose head should have been occupied with completely different things. But the “Petrel of the Revolution” knew what he was talking about: it was women who always fueled his inspiration. And the last of them, according to one version, could cost him his life...

Text Natalya Turovskaya

In 1974, on a quiet August evening in the backyard of an inconspicuous Florentine house covered with grapevines, an old stately lady, leaning with difficulty on two sticks, walked up to a closed trailer van and stopped for a moment, either remembering something or something. thinking feverishly. Her large face showed obvious signs of a love for strong drinks. And only the eyes—huge, brown, and languid—spoke of their former beauty. She took a flask with some liquid from her bosom, doused the van with it and threw a lit match at it. Everything instantly flared up, and cheerful lights danced, reflected in the dilated pupils of the old lady. She did not even think about moving to a safe distance and seemed to enjoy the spectacle. And an excited middle-aged woman was already running towards her from the garden and shouting:

- Mother! Mommy! Well, what have you done? After all, your whole life was there! Letters, diaries, your love...
“No, baby, you’re very wrong here,” the old lady calmly answered, allowing herself to be led into the shade of the orange trees. “Everything entrusted to paper can sooner or later become dangerous.” And love... cannot be destroyed. If, of course, it really was about love.

This old lady was a Russian emigrant Maria Ignatievna Zakrevskaya. She is Countess Benckendorff, she is Baroness Budberg, she is Mura.

Doesn't remind you of anything? Yes, in the West this mysterious woman was often called the “Russian Milady.” And, really, there was a reason...

NOT JUST MARIA...

Mashenka was born in St. Petersburg, in the family of Chief Prosecutor of the Senate Ignatius Platonovich Zakrevsky. It must be admitted that the girl was not particularly beautiful—tall, plump in the chest, and heavy in her gait. But among her peers, she immediately caught the eye: no one could laugh at other people’s jokes as contagiously as she could; no one had such amazing abilities for learning foreign languages; and, most importantly, from the age of 15 she was unusually attractive to men. Why? Who knows? Perhaps because I always knew how to listen carefully young man and from the first minutes of acquaintance instill in him the idea that he will never have a more devoted and understanding friend in his life.

After graduating from the Institute of Noble Maidens, Maria's parents sent her to London to improve her English.

Here, 19-year-old Miss Zakrevskaya quickly made an excellent match for herself - Ivan Benkendorf, a nobleman from Estonia who held a high diplomatic rank in the Russian embassy in England. They quietly got married and lived the usual social life for a diplomatic environment: receptions, receptions, official visits. The young wife, who also spoke excellent German, acquired a host of famous admirers, including the English envoy Bruce Lockhart, the fashionable psychiatrist Sigmund Freud, the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, the poet Rainer Maria Rilke, the Russian writer Korney Chukovsky and others. A year later, Benckendorf was transferred to the Russian embassy in Berlin, where they had children of the same age. And two years later the First began World War, and the couple hastily returned to St. Petersburg.

In 1917, Benckendorff, taking little son Pavel and daughter Tatyana, went to his family estate in Estonia. Maria could not follow him because serious illness mother. Alas, they never saw each other again: Benckendorff was brutally killed by rebel peasants near Revel, his estate was plundered and burned, and his children miraculously survived thanks to the kindness of their neighbors. Maria Ignatievna could not go to them: the railway connection with Estonia was interrupted, and she had neither a roof over her head, nor money, nor even warm clothes. And then it first appeared famous quality Moore (as her relatives called her in childhood) has an ineradicable will to live, which has never ceased to amaze the people around her over the years. Having renewed her acquaintance with Bruce Lockhart, who at that time was already the head of the English diplomatic mission in Russia, at the house of her long-time friend, she became his mistress (fortunately, the Englishman had a soft spot for her from the very first meeting!). In March 1918, the Soviet government moved to Moscow, where both the British mission and Moore went common-law wife settles in Lockhart's Moscow apartment.

Moura's vitality is incredible, she energizes everyone she interacts with. She is an aristocrat, and I see in her a woman of great charm

(From the diary of B. Lockhart)

Lockhart was seriously in love and was already dreaming of how he would marry Mura and take her to London, but fate decreed otherwise: one night, right from bed, security officers took them both to the Lubyanka. Lockhart was threatened with execution as a participant in the White Guard conspiracy led by the Socialist Revolutionary Boris Savinkov. Mouret - with her noble background - and even more so. But something incredible happened for those years: a week later, she was released, safe and sound, and even allowed to visit Lockhart in his cell every day. And soon she achieves his release on the condition that former ambassador will leave Russia in two days. How did she do it? This is a great mystery. Some evil tongues said that in the dungeons she responded, not without pleasure, to the love claims of J. Peters, who personally supervised their arrest. Others say that it was then that she was recruited by the Cheka. And still others even philosophically noted that one is not a hindrance to the other.

"IRON WOMAN"

And at this time, the popular proletarian writer Maxim Gorky was already clearly burdened by the love of his second wife, the hysterical actress Maria Andreeva, looking for a new Muse. And soon he found her in the person of Mura, whom K. Chukovsky, from old memory, got to work as a secretary at the World Literature publishing house, founded by Gorky. Chukovsky himself recalls their first meeting at an editorial meeting: “Strangely enough, although Gorky didn’t say a word to her, he said everything for her, spreading his entire peacock’s tail. He was very witty, talkative, brilliant, like a high school student at a ball.” At that time, Alexei Maksimovich was 52 years old, and Maria Ignatievna was exactly 24 years younger. But, according to contemporaries, it was not only youth that captivated the author of “The Song of the Falcon.” This woman had that amazing seductiveness that makes men lose their heads, destroy families, betray children, start wars, and so on, and so on, and so on. Within a week, “Titka Moore,” as Gorky, who loved to give his household members funny nicknames, called her, becomes his personal secretary and moves to live in his apartment. Of course, their rooms are nearby. And he is completely helpless if she is not there: she is the one who sorts out his correspondence, she is the one who translates articles from foreign newspapers for him, and finally, she is the first to listen to his new works. It’s all over with Andreeva long ago, and the ardent Gorky offers Mura his hand and heart, but... she values her freedom too much. And he uses it at his own discretion. So, when Gorky’s longtime friend, the English science fiction writer Herbert Wells, came to Soviet Russia in September 1920, Mura agreed to serve as his translator. Little by little, the author of “The Time Machine” and “War of the Worlds” falls under the spell of the former countess. And this despite the fact that she never particularly took care of her appearance: wrinkles appeared early on her high forehead, she preferred simple clock on a wide man's strap, and at lunch she could dashingly drink a couple of shots of aniseed vodka - nothing spoiled it. And only the eyes - smart, touching like a deer, understanding everything and everyone - invariably drove them crazy, bewitched and pushed men to madness.

Photographs were practically unable to convey her external charm. No woman has ever had this effect on me. She captivates with her magnetism

(From the memoirs of H. Wells)

One night Wells went to the restroom, and when he returned, he mixed up the door and ended up in Moura’s bedroom, and stayed there. In the morning, when Gorky discovered the lovers, he created a huge scandal and almost attempted suicide, to which the wise Mura said: “Alexey Maksimovich, what are you, really! After all, even for the most loving woman there are two famous writer- it's too much! And then, Herbert is older than you...” And Gorky forgave her, and Wells went home with a shattered heart.

But Mura had no time for them: she dreamed of being reunited with her children. And at the end of 1920, she illegally entered Estonia. There she is immediately arrested as a “red spy,” but again, by some miracle, she manages not only to get out of prison, but also to obtain an Estonian visa. In a letter to the poet V. Khodasevich, Gorky writes about his beloved like this: “She has become even sweeter and is still interested in everything. Ripper. She wants to marry a certain baron: we all protest - let the baron choose someone else, and she is ours!” Indeed, since the visa was about to expire and Mura was again threatened with separation from her children, a local cunning lawyer suggested an interesting solution - a fictitious marriage. To a certain Baron Nikolai Budberg, who wanted to go to Latin America, urgently needed to get married. And Mura needed Estonian citizenship vitally. That's what they decided on. When Mura returned as Baroness Budberg, the amazed Gorky exclaimed:

- You are not copper, but iron. There is no stronger iron in the world!
- Did you want me to be lace at SUCH a time? - Maria Ignatievna calmly retorted.

THE END OF “RED MATA HARI”

Meanwhile, the clouds over Gorky, who every now and then allowed himself to ask Stalin for his “old party comrades,” were thickening. He was literally forced to leave for Italy “to improve his health” and, naturally, the irreplaceable Mura settled with him in the famous villa in Sorrento. She manages all his affairs, right down to the endorsement of bank checks. To her, Maria Ignatievna Zakrevskaya, Gorky dedicates his main novel"The Life of Klim Samgin", begun in Italy in 1925. And she, in due time, persuades him to return to Soviet Russia, while all of Gorky’s friends unanimously insist that this is mortally dangerous for the writer. But he only hears his “dear tit Mura.”

For the rest of his days, there will be a framed photo of her on his bedside table. On June 18, 1936, in Gorki, where Gorky was being treated for the flu, NKVD People's Commissar Genrikh Yagoda came to “visit” him, accompanied by several people, including a stately woman in black. Need I say that it was Mura? She spent more than forty minutes at the writer’s bedside, and two hours after she left, Gorky died “from pneumonia.” According to rumors, she either poisoned him with chocolates or the water with which he washed down the pill. And although everyone knew that the writer was indifferent to sweets, and therefore would hardly have been tempted by sweets, for some reason the glass from which he drank was subsequently not found.

After Gorky's death, 45-year-old Maria Ignatievna Benckendorff-Budberg left for England forever. She never suffered from poverty again: the Soviet government designated her as the heir to Gorky’s foreign publications, and she received royalties until the beginning of World War II.

In London, she settled not just anywhere, but in a neighboring house with Herbert Wells. Their relationship lasted about thirteen years, until the death of the science fiction writer. With enviable regularity, he invited her to become his legal wife, but Mura was adamant: they say, at her age, getting married would only make people laugh. But the aging Wells, in love, had no time for jokes.

Wells is worried and sick - he fell under the spell of Baroness Budberg

(From a letter from B. Shaw)

They say that one day, when they high speed We were driving together in the car, Wells almost by force tried to snatch the desired “yes” from Mura, but she pulled the door open and answered with all determination:
- I’d rather throw myself onto this pavement!..

When Wells died, according to his will, Mura received one hundred thousand dollars, on which she lived almost until the end of her days. Moreover, she lived vigorously, actively participating in literary life London (for example, she often had breakfast with S. Maugham, a former resident of British intelligence in Russia), for which she received the nickname “intellectual leader” in the English press. Or maybe not only in literary matters?.. She was under the close surveillance of British intelligence MI5 for a long time. The reports from one of the agents said: “This woman is very dangerous. She can drink huge quantities of alcohol, especially gin, and not lose her head.” (However, if you believe the memoirs of her daughter Tatyana, Mura simply loved to always be the center of attention and spread the most incredible rumors about herself).

One way or another, the curtain fell on the game of “red Mata Hari” on November 2, 1974, when Baroness Budberg died at the age of 83 in one of the outskirts of Florence, in the house where her son Pavel lived.

Who knows, perhaps it was not by chance that Mura went to Italy to die? Maybe she wanted to lie in the sun-drenched Italian soil, where her happiest years of life with Gorky passed? But, alas, the son transported his mother’s body to London, where she was buried in Orthodox Church and on November 11th they were buried under the cover of a dank gray fog...

WHO IF NOT MURA...

Historians are still skeptical about M. Budberg’s involvement in Gorky’s death. And one of the arguments in favor of her innocence is the fact that after the writer’s funeral she was allowed to leave for England. If she had completed Stalin’s task to eliminate Gorky, it is unlikely that he would have been interested in the life of such a dangerous witness, and even outside the USSR. But who could be the killer if not Mura? There are many versions. According to one of them, according to G. Yagoda’s testimony during interrogations, Gorky was killed by him personally on the orders of L. Trotsky. According to another, the writer was killed at the behest of Stalin by his own doctors - L. Levin and D. Pletnev. Thus, at the “doctors’ trial,” Professor Pletnev admitted that he “deliberately carried out incorrect treatment, and his accomplices were nurses, who gave the patient up to 40 injections of camphor per day.” We will probably never know what the real situation was. After all, the price of “confessions” during interrogations at Lubyanka is known. But there is no doubt that Gorky did not die from banal pneumonia. If only because his body, contrary to the will to bury next to his son Maxim in the cemetery of the Novodevichy Convent, was cremated by order of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, and the urn with the ashes was placed in the Kremlin wall. At the request of Gorky’s official widow E.P. Peshkova was refused by a collective decision of the Politburo to give her at least a particle of ashes for burial in her son’s grave...

Biography
But what a woman wants
God himself doesn’t even know.
M. Gorky For many years she was Gorky’s mistress and his secretary. After his death, she became the heir to his literary works abroad. And rumors still persist that she was his poisoner: Maria Ignatievna Zakrevskaya-Benckendorf-Budberg.
Fatal passion of the British resident
Gorky was not the only man, fascinated by Maria Ignatievna. Everyone who saw her unanimously admitted that Mura was devilishly charming. Freud, Nietzsche, and Rilke became victims of her spell. And also Chukovsky and Wells. The leaders of the Cheka are Peters and Yagoda. And Stalin.
She was born in 1893 into the family of the landowner Count Ignatius Pavlovich Zakrevsky. She studied at the Institute of Noble Maidens, and then in England. At the age of eighteen, Maria Zakrevskaya married Benkendorf, a diplomat close to the emperor and the owner of an estate in Estonia. She lived with him for more than seven years, giving birth to two children and traveling around the world.
And then Maria Ignatievna fell in love. British diplomat and resident Robert Bruce Lockhart was the first and only passion in her life. The only one, because this feeling is devastating, like sandstorm, a sober-minded person is able to experience only once in order to bury it in himself forever. And Baroness Benckendorff was a very sober person.
This love brought her bitter disappointment. She was grieving the death of her child with Lockhart. And then - the betrayal of your loved one.
Lockhart carried out a secret mission in our country. It was 1918, and he sought the non-conclusion of a peace treaty between Russia and Germany, since this agreement jeopardized all the military successes of the Allies. Diplomats and intelligence officers teamed up for this task different countries. But this event went down in history under the name “conspiracy of ambassadors” or “Lockhart’s conspiracy.”
The conspiracy was discovered. The security officers who burst into Lockhart’s apartment found a completely peaceful scene there: vases with fruit and flowers, wine and a sponge cake in the living room, beautiful woman in the diplomat's bedroom. As she was called in the KGB report: “Lockhart’s partner, a certain Mura.”
Today it is impossible to restore the details of this arrest. It is only known that Mura was soon released from Lubyanka by Dzerzhinsky’s deputy, Peters. And Lockhart was given the opportunity to leave the country, after which he was sentenced to death in absentia. But something happened in the relationship between the lovers that caused a whole ideological revolution in Maria Ignatievna’s soul and largely changed her attitude towards people.
Subsequently she will find him and forgive him. They will become friends. And many years later, in his “Memoirs of a British Agent,” Lockhart would write about Moore like this: “Something came into my life that was stronger than life itself. From that moment she never left me until she separated us military force Bolsheviks."
Also in 1918, Mura received news that her husband Benckendorff, the former Russian envoy to Germany, had been killed near Revel at unclear circumstances. She was left alone without a livelihood, with her sick mother in her arms.
It was then, in 1919, that Korney Chukovsky, who worked as a translator at the British Embassy, introduced Mura to Alexei Maksimovich. Fascinated, he took her on as his literary secretary. She was also his mistress - for sixteen years, until the writer’s death.
It was Gorky who organized the second, fictitious marriage of Maria Ignatievna. The writer paid off the huge gambling debts of a certain Baron Budberg, in return marrying him to his charming protégé. This marriage was very necessary for her: she had children from her first husband in Estonia, and marriage gave her Estonian citizenship and the right to freely visit them. So Mura became Baroness Budberg.
Mura lived for a long time with Gorky at his villa in Capri and felt like a complete mistress there. The writer offered her to legitimize their relationship, but she refused. Above all, she now valued her freedom.
It was Maria Ignatievna who persuaded Alexei Maksimovich to return to his homeland. Here in the Soviet Union, he wrote “The Life of Klim Samgin” and dedicated this novel to Mura. And here he died. And evil tongues then said about Mura: “He is “Life” to her, and she is death to him.”

“He is “Life” to her, and she is “Death” to him”
Rumors that Gorky was poisoned have been circulating for years. This was also discussed at the trial against the Trotskyist-Bukharin bloc: the murder of Gorky was one of the points in the indictment against the Bukharinites. However, no documentary evidence that Gorky was poisoned was subsequently obtained. It is officially believed that the leader of proletarian literature died naturally.
However, the version is still alive that Gorky was killed by Mura - on instructions from the NKVD, and possibly from Stalin himself. She came to Gorki from London as soon as the writer fell ill. She was with him face to face. Shortly before her death, she came to Gorky, accompanied by Yagoda. And after his death, a glass of water was seen at the writer’s bedside, which disappeared. The relatives of the deceased were unable to receive even a particle of his ashes. (The writer was cremated and buried in the Kremlin wall.)
In addition, it is known that Stalin always treated Mura with sympathy. One day she presented the leader of all nations with an accordion, and the secretary general was very happy with the gift. And according to the stories of Gorky’s granddaughter Marfa Maksimovna, Stalin “always bowed in front of her when they met. Once he sent me a huge bouquet of scarlet roses.”
It is possible that Mura was an agent of the Cheka for many years: almost from the first days of its foundation, from the time of her arrest in 1918. However, there is no documentary evidence. And attempts by Gorky’s biographers to find confirmation of this in the Lubyanka archives led nowhere.
However, British intelligence officers MI5 were convinced that Maria Budberg was a spy. She was called red Mata Hari and long years were keeping an eye on her.
Apparently, Baroness Budberg herself is to blame for this. As her daughter Tanya Alexander wrote, it was her mother who played main role in creating rumors and legends around one’s own person. She reshaped her past, disregarding the facts and creating fog. Always loving to be in the center of attention, she remained a prima in the theater of her own destiny that she created.
Secrets of the car trailer
Some time after Gorky's death, Budberg settled in England with her two children, who had previously lived in Estonia and... with another famous writer- H.G. Wells.
They met when the science fiction writer came to the USSR at the invitation Soviet authorities, and Wells could never forget Mura. While still living in Capri, Maria secretly traveled to London and met with the author of The Invisible Man. He proposed getting married to her, but in vain. Mrs. Wells Baroness Budberg never became.
For many years she was under close surveillance by British intelligence. Reports from one of the MI5 agents were made public that this woman could drink huge amounts of alcohol, especially gin, and not lose her head. “This woman is very dangerous,” the Moscow station of British intelligence signaled.
“She was smart, cruel, fully aware of her exceptional abilities, knew a sense of responsibility, not only feminine, but universal, and, knowing her strengths, relied on her physical health, energy and feminine charm. She knew how to be with people, live with people, find people and get along with them. She, undoubtedly, was one of the exceptional women of her time, which turned out to be merciless and ruthless towards her and her generation in general,” Nina Berberova (wife of the poet Khodasevich) wrote about Mura in her most popular book “The Iron Woman: A Story about the Life of M. AND. Zakrevskaya-Budberg, about herself and her friends.”
However, Maria Ignatievna herself was convinced that Berberova did not like her, because she herself sought attention from Gorky, but lost in this female rivalry. (By the way, the definition of “iron woman” was given to Mouret by Gorky himself.)
After the death of the proletarian writer, the Soviet government designated Budberg as the heir to the writer’s foreign publications, and until the Second World War she received royalties from all of his foreign publications.
In 1974, Baroness Moura set fire to the car trailer in which the manuscripts and her personal archive were stored. The papers, for which intelligence services from different countries, literary critics and historians would have paid dearly, have sunk into oblivion, leaving only myths and scraps of memories about their owner. Maria Zakrevskaya-Benckendorff-Budberg died two months after this fire - at the age of 83.

Maria Zakrevskaya is the youngest daughter of a Chernigov landowner, and then a member of the Senate I.P. Zakrevsky. She was called in the West “Russian Milady”, “red Mata Hari”. She lived with M. Gorky for twelve years, was R.B.’s mistress. Lockhart and G. Wells. Her life full of adventure, could serve as the plot of more than one novel.
Maria Moura was born in 1892. When the girl was nineteen years old, her parents sent her to England to improve her language under the supervision of her half-brother Plato, who served in the Russian embassy in London. This year has determined future fate Moore, because here she met a huge number of people from high London society and in the same year she married the Baltic nobleman I.A. Benckendorff from a side line of the princely Benckendorffs, but not the prince. At the same time, she met the English diplomat Bruce Lockhart and the writer Herbert Wells.
Then Mura and her husband moved to the Russian embassy in Germany. Life promised to be fun and carefree, Mura was even introduced to Kaiser Wilhelm at a court ball. But 1914 came, and all embassy workers left Berlin. The war changed everything.
During the war years, despite the fact that Mura already had two children, she worked in a military hospital, and her husband served in the military censorship. From February Revolution they took refuge in Benckendorf's estate near Revel. But another revolution occurred, and Mura was tired of the village, and she went to Petrograd alone to look around. At this time, the men on the estate killed her husband, and the governess miraculously saved the children, taking refuge with them with neighbors.
The situation was so difficult that it was impossible to return to Revel to the children, and Mura was soon evicted from her Petrograd apartment by the revolutionary authorities, and she found herself on the street, alone, in a city engulfed in unrest. During this crazy time, British Consul Bruce Lockhart returned to Moscow, but now not as an official diplomat, but rather as a special agent, as an informant, as the head of a special mission, called upon to establish unofficial relations with the Bolsheviks on behalf of his government.
This was the second week that Moura had been coming to the British Embassy after office hours, where she had friends whom she really hoped for. She met Lockhart there on the third day after his arrival... He was thirty-two years old, she was twenty-six.
Very soon the relationship between Moura and Lockhart took on a very special character: both fell passionately in love with each other. She saw in him everything that she had lost, but for him, Mura was the personification of the country that he loved, with which he felt a deep connection. Unauthorized happiness suddenly fell upon them in the terrible, cruel, hungry and cold reality of the Russian revolution. Both became the center of each other's lives. Love and happiness - and the threat to both were now with them day and night.
They lived in an apartment in Khlebny Lane, near Arbat. Lockhart had a large office, books, a desk, armchairs and a fireplace. And the cook was excellent: she cooked for them from American Red Cross supplies. delicious lunches. Mura was calm and cheerful in those days. But after the execution of the tsar, rumors began to circulate about the imminent expulsion of foreign observers and informants. The denouement was approaching, but Lockhart and Moura, not allowing themselves unnecessary words, which only made their hearts grow darker, courageously looked into the future, which would inevitably separate them.
That year, the chairman of the revolutionary tribunal, Peters, was thirty-two years old. He was a slender, thin, dapper brown-haired man with high cheekbones, a strong chin and lively, intelligent and cruel eyes. On the night of August 31 to September 1, he ordered the arrest of the British living in Khlebny Lane. A detachment of security officers entered the apartment, a thorough search was carried out, and then Lockhart and Mura were arrested and taken to Lubyanka. After some time, Lockhart was transferred to an apartment in the Kremlin, where he was under arrest, of course. But he knew nothing about Zakrevskaya and wrote a request for her release. Then Peters informed the English diplomat that he would be handed over to the Revolutionary Tribunal, but that he, Peters, had decided to release Mura. And on September 22, the security officer, smiling, entered Lockhart, leading by the hand his beloved Countess Zakrevskaya, the widow of Count Benckendorff. The fact that with such a pedigree, Mura not only came out alive and unharmed, but also saved Lockhart, speaks of her extraordinary talent to be a seductive woman... And, probably, very smart and also, perhaps, very calculating. The next time Peters came with Mura to announce to Lockhart that he would soon be released, the security officer looked very happy.
Moura saw Lockhart off at the station. He left this country and this woman forever.
She left for Petrograd. 1919 is an ominous year for Petrograd and Russia, a year of starvation, typhus, severe cold in destroyed houses and the undivided reign of the Cheka. Here she found her friend from working at the hospital, former Lieutenant General A. Mosolov, who sheltered her. She had neither registration nor food cards. She decided to work. One day Mura went to “World Literature” to see K.I. Chukovsky, because she was told that he was looking for translators from English to Russian. He treated her kindly, gave her some work, got her a ration card, and in the summer he took her to Gorky.
IN different time various women in Gorky's house they occupied the place of the hostess at the dinner table. With his first wife E.K. He broke up with Peshkova a long time ago, with M.F. Andreeva - even before the revolution, but she still lived in the writer’s large apartment, although she often left, and at that time V.V. took her place as mistress. Tikhonov, whose youngest daughter, Nina, had a striking resemblance to Gorky. His children, his wives’ children, and friends lived in his house. Guests often spent the night. Everyone liked Mura, and when the cold weather began a month later, she was invited to live in the writer’s apartment. Gorky's and Mura's rooms were nearby.
Within a week after moving in, she became absolutely necessary in the house. She read the letters Gorky received in the morning, put his manuscripts into folders, selected those that were sent to him for reading, prepared everything for his day's work, picked up pages abandoned from the day before, typed, translated the foreign texts he needed, knew how to listen carefully, sitting on the sofa in his office. She listened in silence, looked at him with her smart, thoughtful eyes, answered when he asked what she thought about this and that, about Dobrovein’s music, about Gumilyov’s translations, about Blok’s poetry, about the insults caused to him by Zinoviev...
He knew a little about Moore, something about Lackart, something about Peters. She didn’t tell Gorky everything, of course. What he perceived as the main thing was the murder of Benckendorff and separation from the children. She had not seen them for three years, and she wanted and hoped to return to them. Gorky loved listening to her stories. She had a short, idle and elegant youth, which collapsed from the first blow of the ax punishing this life. But she was not afraid of anything, she went her own way, and neither the Cheka, nor the fact that her husband was torn into pieces, nor the fact that her children were God knows where, broke her. She is an iron woman. And he is fifty-two years old, and he is a man of the last century, behind him are arrests, deportations, worldwide fame, and now - chronic tuberculosis, cough and hemoptysis. No, it's not made of iron.
When Herbert Wells and his son arrived in Russia, Gorky invited them to live with him, in the same large and densely populated apartment, because there were no decent hotels to be found at that time. And Mura was the official translator all days by order of the Kremlin. Towards the end of his second week in Petrograd, Wells suddenly felt depressed, not so much from conversations and meetings, but from the city itself. He began to talk about this to Mura, whom he had met before the war in London. And she was endowed with an innate ability to make everything difficult easy and everything scary - not quite as scary as it seems, not so much for herself and not so much for other people, but for the men who liked her. And so, smiling her meek smile, she took Wells to the embankment, then to St. Isaac's Cathedral, then to the Summer Garden.
When Mura tried to enter Estonia illegally to find out about the children, she was detained, and Gorky immediately went to the Petrograd Cheka. Thanks to his efforts, Mura was released. But when the railway connection with Estonia was restored, she went there again. It was already clear then that Gorky would soon go abroad. She hoped that he would go through Estonia and wanted to wait for him there. But in Tallinn she was immediately arrested, accusing her of being a Soviet spy. She hired a lawyer and was released on her own recognizance. In three months she would be sent back to Russia, where she did not want to go. But she could not leave Estonia for any other country, nor could she leave Russia. “Now, if you married an Estonian and received Estonian citizenship,” the lawyer hinted to her, “you would be released.”
She lived with the children for three months, and because of this, her husband’s relatives deprived the children of any financial support. Now she had to support them and the governess herself. And it was at that moment that that lawyer introduced her to Baron Nikolai Budberg. The baron also wanted to go to Europe, but he had no money. Mure Gorky, who was in Berlin, transferred a thousand dollars. Now her marriage to the baron decided everything: he received money to travel, she received a visa. In Berlin, Gorky energetically lobbied for Mura, whom he proposed to the authorities to appoint abroad as his agent to collect aid for the famine-stricken in Russia.
The years 1921-1927 were happy for Gorky. His best works were written at this time, and, despite illness and financial worries, there was Italy, which he loved so much. And Mura was nearby. Mura’s face shining with peace and tranquility and large, deep eyes that play with life - maybe all this was not entirely true, or, probably, not even the whole truth, but this bright and quick mind, and understanding the interlocutor at a glance, and the answer flashing across the face before the voice spoke, and the sudden thoughtfulness, and the strange accent, and the way every person, speaking to her or just sitting next to her, was for some reason deeply confident in his mind that he, and only he, at that moment meaning more to her than all the other people in the world, gave her that warm and at the same time precious aura that she felt close to her. She did not cut her hair, as was fashionable then, but wore a low knot at the back of her head, pinned up as if hastily, with one or two strands falling out of the waves onto her forehead and cheek. Her body was straight and strong, her figure was elegant even in simple dresses. She brought well-cut, well-tailored suits from England, learned to walk without a hat, and bought expensive and comfortable shoes. She did not wear jewelry; a man's watch on a wide leather strap cinched her wrist tightly. There was something hard in her face, with high cheekbones and wide-set eyes, despite her cat-like smile of unimaginable sweetness.
Gorky, together with his large family, moved from one sanatorium to another. We always lived spaciously and comfortably. When the writer felt better, he and Mura went for a walk to the sea. In Heringsdorf, as in Saarow, Marienbadan and Sorrento, he walked slowly. He wore a black wide-brimmed hat, pushed back to the back of his head, and his yellow mustache curled downwards. In the morning I read newspapers and wrote letters. Mura continued to keep order in the house. But now regularly, three times a year, she went to Tallinn to visit her children - in the summer, at Christmas and Easter - and spent about a month with them each time. Sometimes she stayed in Berlin on Gorky's publishing business. But Nikolai Budberg also lived in Berlin, her official husband, and he behaved in such a way that he could be sent to prison at any time - for gambling debts, for non-payment of alimony, for unpaid checks... She had to settle the baron's affairs - pay... Mura decided to send her husband to Argentina, and she it was a success. She never heard from him again.
When Lenin died, Gorky wrote memoirs about him, which were subject to severe censorship in his homeland. And it was then that Mura began to persuade Gorky to return to the USSR! She reasoned sensibly: the circulation of his books in foreign languages was falling catastrophically. But in Russia they began to forget him, and if he does not return in the near future, they will stop reading and publishing him in his homeland. But Mura had no intention of returning to Russia with him. What did she hope for when she refused Gorky’s help?
It turns out that all these years, when she was the secretary and friend of the proletarian writer, during her trips to Tallinn she stopped not only in Berlin, but also in London, and Prague, and some places else. She tried to renew her previous connections, and saw Wells several times. But most importantly, she was looking for Lockhart, and finally she succeeded. She met him in Vienna. He immediately realized that he did not have the same feelings for her, and she understood this. But they began to see each other quite regularly. Lockhart wrote later that Moura gave him “enormous information” in the twenties that was important for his work in Eastern Europe and among Russian emigrants. Very soon they began to count him again - perhaps thanks to the resumption of cooperation with Mura? - one of the experts on Russian affairs, and then he became a prominent journalist in the Evening Standard newspaper. He wrote the book “Memoirs of a British Agent” about the days of the Russian Revolution; it was used to make the film “British Agent” about the adventures of an English diplomat during the dramatic days in Moscow, about his love for a Russian woman, about prison, rescue and separation. Lockhart invited Mura to the first screening of the film.
In the late twenties, Gorky was already constantly traveling to the USSR and promised to return there definitively, so Gosizdat began publishing collected works of his works, and the writer received royalties, despite the difficulties of transferring money from Russia abroad. Mura had a small but constant income from Lockhart, but thanks to Gorky she did not live in poverty and even moved her children with a governess to permanent residence in London, where she herself decided to gain a foothold after the proletarian writer returned to his homeland. She prepared well for his departure: from 1931, Moura began to appear here and there as Wells’ “companion and friend.” He was then sixty-five.
Gorky left and left Mouret part of his Italian archive. It could not be taken to the USSR, because it was correspondence with writers who came from the Union to Europe and complained to Gorky about the Soviet order. But in 1936, pressure was put on Mura by someone who came from Soviet Union to London with an order and a letter from Gorky to her: before his death, he wanted to say goodbye to her, Stalin gave her a carriage at the border, they promised to take her to Moscow, and then back. She was supposed to bring his archives to Moscow. If she had not given them up, they would have been taken by force. What if she destroyed it and hid it? But Mura brought the archives to Moscow, she was taken to Gorky, and immediately after her departure his death was announced. By that time, Stalin had received from Europe all the archives he needed - Trotsky, Kerensky and Gorky - and began preparing the Rykov-Bukharin trial.
...Moura stood at the top of the wide staircase of the Savoy Hotel next to Wells and received the entering guests. She said something kind to everyone and smiled for herself and for him, because his mood Lately it was rather angry and gloomy. The reception was solemn, hosted by the PEN Club in honor of Wells's seventieth birthday. They say Wells tried to persuade her to marry him. She didn't agree.
Throughout the war she worked for Lockhart at the Free French magazine. Wells perceived her activities among the French as a necessary killing of time. He now lived in his own mansion and began to prophesy about the end of the world, because all his best books are a thing of the past. He was ill, and in 1945 there was no longer any hope of improving his health, and from that time Mura was inseparably with him. The war aged her. She began to gain weight, ate and drank a lot and was careless about her appearance. She was fifty-four years old when Wells died.
After the war, Mura lived in London completely freely, without financial difficulties. The son lived on a farm, the daughter got married. Mura traveled to the USSR several times as a British subject. At the end of her life, she became very fat, communicated more by phone and always had half a bottle of vodka on hand. Two months before her death, her son, who was already retired, took her to Italy with him.
In her obituary, The Times called her the "intellectual leader" of modern England, a woman who was at the center of London intellectual and aristocratic life for forty years.
She loved men, not only her three lovers, but men in general, and did not hide it. She enjoyed sex, she sought novelty and knew where to find it, and men knew it, felt it in her, and took advantage of it, falling in love with her passionately and devotedly. Her hobbies were not mutilated either by moral considerations, or by feigned chastity, or by everyday taboos.
If she needed anything in life, it was only a legend created by herself, her own myth, which she grew, colored, and strengthened throughout her life. The men around her were talented, smart and independent, and gradually she became bright, lively, giving them life, conscious in her actions and responsible for her every effort.

Maria (Moore) Ignatievna Zakrevskaya-Benckendorff-Budberg(, Poltava - November) - diplomat, allegedly a double agent of the OGPU and British intelligence. Author of film scripts. Married 1) Benckendorff, 2) Baroness Budberg.

Biography

In 1920, she met the English writer H. Wells and became his mistress. The connection was renewed in 1933 in London, where she emigrated after breaking up with Gorky. A close relationship with Wells continued until the writer’s death; he asked her to marry him, but Zakrevskaya resolutely rejected this proposal.

After emigrating, she visited the USSR twice: in 1936 she came to Gorky’s funeral (later this gave reason to consider her an NKVD agent) and in the late 1950s she came to Moscow with her daughter A.I. Guchkov.

Great-great-great-great-grandmother of British politician Nick Clegg, leader of the Liberal Democrats.

Write a review of the article "Budberg, Maria Ignatievna"

Notes

Literature

Nina Berberova. Iron woman. A story about the life of M.I. Zakrevskaya-Benckendorf-Budberg, about herself and her friends. - New York: Russian Publ. Inc., 1981.
A. M. Gorky and M. I. Budberg. Correspondence. 1920-1936 // “Archive of A. M. Gorky”. T. XVI. - M.: IMLI RAS, 2001.

An excerpt characterizing Budberg, Maria Ignatievna

The Emperor turned to one of his entourage with a smile, pointing to the fellows of Absheron, and said something to him.

Kutuzov, accompanied by his adjutants, rode at a pace behind the carabinieri.
Having traveled half a mile at the tail of the column, he stopped at a lonely abandoned house (probably a former inn) near the fork of two roads. Both roads went downhill, and troops marched along both.
The fog began to disperse, and vaguely, about two miles away, enemy troops were already visible on opposite hills. To the left below the shooting became louder. Kutuzov stopped talking with the Austrian general. Prince Andrei, standing somewhat behind, peered at them and, wanting to ask the adjutant for a telescope, turned to him.
“Look, look,” said this adjutant, looking not at the distant army, but down the mountain in front of him. - These are the French!
Two generals and adjutants began to grab the pipe, snatching it from one another. All the faces suddenly changed, and everyone expressed horror. The French were supposed to be two miles away from us, but they appeared suddenly, unexpectedly in front of us.
- Is this the enemy?... No!... Yes, look, he... probably... What is this? – voices were heard.
Prince Andrey with a simple eye saw below to the right a dense column of French rising towards the Absheronians, no further than five hundred steps from the place where Kutuzov stood.
“Here it is, the decisive moment has come! The matter has reached me,” thought Prince Andrei, and, hitting his horse, he rode up to Kutuzov. “We must stop the Absheronians,” he shouted, “Your Excellency!” But at that very moment everything was covered with smoke, close shooting was heard, and a naively frightened voice two steps from Prince Andrei shouted: “Well, brothers, it’s a Sabbath!” And it was as if this voice was a command. At this voice, everything started to run.
Mixed, ever-increasing crowds fled back to the place where five minutes ago the troops had passed by the emperors. Not only was it difficult to stop this crowd, but it was impossible not to move back along with the crowd.
Bolkonsky only tried to keep up with her and looked around, perplexed and unable to understand what was happening in front of him. Nesvitsky with an embittered look, red and not like himself, shouted to Kutuzov that if he did not leave now, he would probably be captured. Kutuzov stood in the same place and, without answering, took out a handkerchief. Blood was flowing from his cheek. Prince Andrei pushed his way up to him.
-Are you injured? – he asked, barely keeping his lower jaw from trembling.
– The wounds are not here, but where! - said Kutuzov, pressing a handkerchief to his wounded cheek and pointing at the fleeing people. - Stop them! - he shouted and at the same time, probably making sure that it was impossible to stop them, he hit the horse and rode to the right.
The newly surging crowd of fleeing people took him with them and dragged him back.
The troops fled in such a dense crowd that, once they got into the middle of the crowd, it was difficult to get out of it. Who shouted: “Go! Why did you hesitate? Who immediately turned around and fired into the air; who beat the horse on which Kutuzov himself was riding. With the greatest effort, getting out of the flow of the crowd to the left, Kutuzov, with his retinue, reduced by more than half, rode towards the sounds of his loved ones gun shots. Having emerged from the crowd of those running, Prince Andrei, trying to keep up with Kutuzov, saw on the descent of the mountain, in the smoke, a Russian battery still firing and the French running up to it. The Russian infantry stood higher up, moving neither forward to help the battery nor back in the same direction as those fleeing. The general on horseback separated from this infantry and rode up to Kutuzov. Only four people remained from Kutuzov’s retinue. Everyone was pale and silently looked at each other.
– Stop these scoundrels! - Kutuzov said breathlessly to the regimental commander, pointing to the fleeing; but at the same instant, as if in punishment for these words, like a swarm of birds, bullets whistled through Kutuzov’s regiment and retinue.
The French attacked the battery and, seeing Kutuzov, fired at him. With this volley, the regimental commander grabbed his leg; Several soldiers fell, and the ensign standing with the banner released it from his hands; the banner swayed and fell, lingering on the guns of neighboring soldiers.
The soldiers began to shoot without a command.
- Oooh! – Kutuzov muttered with an expression of despair and looked around. “Bolkonsky,” he whispered, his voice trembling from the consciousness of his senile impotence. “Bolkonsky,” he whispered, pointing to the disorganized battalion and the enemy, “what is this?”
But before he finished these words, Prince Andrei, feeling tears of shame and anger rising in his throat, was already jumping off his horse and running to the banner.

Zakrevskaya-Benckendorf-Budberg Maria Ignatievna

(b. 1892 - d. 1974)

One of the brightest and most mysterious women of the 20th century. Beloved of the English diplomat Robert Bruce Lockhart, writers Maxim Gorky and Herbert Wells.

She was called Countess Zakrevskaya, Countess Benckendorff, Baroness Budberg; considered an agent of three intelligence services: British, German and Soviet; she is a translator of more than sixty volumes of works of Russian literature in English language. They also suspect that she poisoned A. M. Gorky... Mura (as her relatives called her) during her life was accompanied by so many all kinds of rumors and speculation that it’s hard to believe it all. Moreover, she not only did not try to refute them, but also supported them in every possible way. One can even say that the lion's share of the legends associated with her name owed their origin to Maria Ignatievna herself, who artistically reshaped her past, freely handled facts and shrouded the present in fog. Either there was something to hide, or life had taught: the less truth, the more confidence in one’s own safety. After her death, no clues were found either. Mura’s manuscripts and personal archive burned in 1974, and there were practically no people alive who could shed light on her secrets, and, perhaps, there was no one who knew the whole truth about her.

Contemporaries considered her the great-granddaughter (or great-great-granddaughter) of Agrafena Fedorovna Zakrevskaya, the wife of the Moscow governor, to whom Pushkin and Vyazemsky wrote poems. In reality she was youngest daughter Chernigov landowner and judicial figure Ignatius Platonovich Zakrevsky, who descended from Little Russian Osip Lukyanovich and had nothing to do with the governor Count Arseny Andreevich, married to Agrafen. Subsequently, Ignatius Platonovich moved his family to St. Petersburg and entered the Senate. Maria and her older sisters - twins Anna and Alexandra (Alla) - elementary education received at the Institute of Noble Maidens. Mura was sent to finish his studies in England, where at that time she was an employee of the Russian embassy in London. step-brother, Platon Ignatievich (from the first marriage of I.P. Zakrevsky). This trip largely determined the girl’s future fate, since here she met a huge number of people from London high society: politicians, writers, financial tycoons. It was here that she met her future husband, the aspiring diplomat Ivan Aleksandrovich Benkendorf, a Baltic nobleman, a descendant of a count's family, who, however, did not have a title. They got married in 1911, and a year later Ivan Alexandrovich was appointed secretary of the Russian embassy in Germany, and the young couple moved to Berlin. In 1913, the family's first child was born, named Pavel. Maria Ignatievna was expecting her second child when the war began. In August 1914, the Benckendorffs were forced to return to Russia. They rented an apartment in St. Petersburg, where the Zakrevskys lived, and in 1915, having given birth to a girl, Tanya, Mura, like other ladies of the highest circle and the wives of high-ranking officials, took accelerated courses in nurses and began working in a military hospital. Ivan Alexandrovich served in the military censorship with the rank of lieutenant, dreaming of returning to a diplomatic career. But after the February Revolution of 1917, it became clear that his dreams were unlikely to come true in the near future, and Benckendorff took his wife and children with their governess to Estonia for the whole summer, where he had a family estate near Revel (modern Tallinn).

Autumn came, and the return was still postponed. The reason for this was the anxiety that was literally in the air. Many of the Baltic nobility flocked to the south of Russia, some went to Sweden. In October, Mura decided to take a step that, if she had not taken it, there would probably be nothing to talk about now. Despite the entreaties of her husband and relatives, she returned to Petrograd, intending, if possible, to save the apartment, which was in danger of being compacted, and to find out on the spot how bad things were in the capital. She was still wondering whether to stay in the city or return to her family when terrible news came from Estonia: just before Christmas, men from a neighboring village brutally killed Ivan Alexandrovich and burned the house. Governess Missy with little Pavel and Tanya managed to escape and take refuge with neighbors. Her past life collapsed, and from now on Mura had one task: to survive! Very soon she was evicted from the apartment, returning to Revel became impossible: there were no trains, somewhere out there, between her and the children, the front line lay, and no one knew where exactly; who is friend, who is enemy - everything was mixed up, and there was no one to ask for help. Her brother was abroad, her sisters were in the south of Russia, she couldn’t find any friends or acquaintances - some had left, some had died. Alone, without money and warm clothes, without jewelry that could be sold or exchanged, in a city where food had become incredibly expensive and life had become completely devalued, Mura found nothing better for herself than to contact the English embassy. It seemed to her that this was the only place where she was remembered, loved, where she would be comforted and kind. She made some friends there whom she had met in London, and they really made her feel welcome.

At that time, Robert Bruce Lockhart, formerly the British Consul General in Moscow, returned to Petrograd, now arriving as a special agent, as an informant, as the head of a special mission to establish unofficial relations with the Bolsheviks, and simply - an intelligence officer, a spy. He received certain diplomatic privileges, including the ability to use codes and diplomatic couriers. Lockhart was in his thirty-second year. “He was cheerful, sociable and clever man, without stiffness, with warm feelings of camaraderie, with a slight touch of irony and open ambition that does not offend anyone,” writes Nina Berberova, author of a book about the life of Maria Benckendorff “The Iron Woman.” In London, Lockhart left his wife and young son, but he family life failed. Meeting Moura at the British Embassy meant much more to him than just a hobby. Subsequently, in “Memoirs of a British Agent” (1932), Lockhart noted: “Something came into my life that was stronger than life itself. From that moment she never left me until the military force of the Bolsheviks separated us.” Trying to understand his feelings, he wrote in his diary: “The most Russian of Russians, she treats the little things in life with disdain and with perseverance, which is proof complete absence any fear.<…>Her vitality, perhaps related to her iron health, was incredible and infected everyone with whom she came into contact. Her life, her world, was where the people she cared about were, and her philosophy of life made her the master of her own destiny. She was an aristocrat. She might as well be a communist. She could never be a bourgeois.<…>I saw in her a woman of great charm whose conversation could light up my day.” For Mura, Lockhart became the first and only love, it was destined to happen that during the years of general collapse she experienced the strongest and deepest feeling in her life.

On March 15, 1918, following the Soviet government, Lockhart moved to Moscow, which became the capital Soviet Russia. In April, Mura joined him - from now on they lived together in an apartment in Khlebny Lane, near Arbat. The short-lived happiness ended on the night of August 31 to September 1, when a detachment of security officers under the leadership of the Kremlin commandant Malkov searched the apartment and arrested everyone who was there, including Maria Ignatievna. The fact is that, fearing the spread of the Bolshevik threat, American, French and English diplomats teamed up with Russian counter-revolutionaries and organized a conspiracy, now known as the “Three Ambassadors Conspiracy,” of which Lockhart was considered the nominal leader. As it later turned out, operational management was carried out by the famous espionage ace Sidney Reilly, but the conspiracy still went down in history under the name “Lockhart Conspiracy.” According to some Russian sources, Lockhart was arrested that same night and released after identification, while British authors write that he was not in the apartment at the time of Mrs. Benckendorff’s arrest. Three days later, the intelligence officer contacted the Commissariat for foreign affairs requesting Mura’s release and was refused, after which he went straight to the Lubyanka to the formidable deputy chairman of the Cheka, Yakov Peters, to declare Maria’s non-involvement in the conspiracy, where he was arrested. It is difficult to imagine that the experienced intelligence officer did not anticipate such a development of events, which means that he risked his life for the freedom of the woman he loved. Soon Zakrevskaya was released, and on September 22, Mura and Peters, to Lockhart’s surprise, appeared in his cell, and behaved quite friendly. It must be said that it would be a stretch to call the diplomat’s place of detention a cell: he was kept in a small, cozy apartment of a former lady-in-waiting of the Empress in the Kremlin. He freely read newspapers, from which he learned that in London, in response to his arrest, the first Soviet envoy to England, Maxim Litvinov, was imprisoned. Lockhart's imprisonment lasted exactly a month. Mura came every day, bringing food and books; by order of her superiors, they were left alone. It seems that she already had some kind of secret agreement with Peters, and Zakrevskaya was allowed a lot. At the end of September, Lockhart was released and expelled from the country “in exchange for the release of Russian officials detained in London,” and only then was convicted in absentia and sentenced to death. On October 2, 1918, Lockhart, along with other British and French released from arrest, left the capital.

Once again Mura was faced with the question: how to live further? The main feeling that gripped her after separation from Lockhart was despair. Finding no reason to stay longer in Moscow, she used her last money to buy a ticket to Petrograd. Nineteenth year - terrible year. For those who remained in the city, surrounded on three sides by the front of the Civil War, it was a year of starvation, typhus, severe cold in destroyed houses, and the undivided reign of the Cheka. Mura found shelter in the apartment of former Lieutenant General A. Mosolov, whom she knew from working at the hospital in 1914–1916. But the small room behind the kitchen, where the servants once lived, did not solve all the problems. Without a residence permit, and therefore no food cards, Mura first thought about the need to earn money. Someone told her that Korney Ivanovich Chukovsky, whom she met in a “past” life, was looking for translators from English to Russian for a new publishing house founded by Alexei Maximovich Gorky. It should be noted that Maria Ignatievna was “not friendly” with the Russian language: she spoke with a strong accent, and structured her phrases as if she were literally translating from English - she was often mistaken for a foreigner. This feature was more artificially developed (“for charm”) than naturally acquired, and, apparently, Chukovsky paid attention to it, since he did not provide translations, but found some office work, procured new documents (in them she appeared under maiden name), and in the summer he took him to Gorky.

Alexey Maksimovich lived in a big multi-room apartment, densely populated by a diverse people. Probably, everyone could live here for as long as they wanted if they were “at home.” Mura did it. But even after the “official” offer to move into an apartment, she was in no hurry, realizing that what awaited her was not a simple change of place of residence, but a transition to a new life: she spent the night either here or at Mosolov’s. An important circumstance was that the place next to the great proletarian writer at that time was occupied by M. F. Andreeva, his friend, assistant, secretary and unofficial wife. Only after Gorky broke up with her did Mura decide to move. But a week after the final relocation, she became absolutely necessary in the house: she took on the work of the writer’s secretary, translator of his letters, and typist. Gradually, all household chores fell into her hands. She, of course, did not stand at the stove - Alexey Maksimovich kept a servant - but she could well be considered a mistress. Maria Ignatievna’s entry into Gorky’s world was associated with many gains for her, but first of all, of course, with the opportunity that had opened up to feel, thanks to the support of the writer, not only the ground under her feet, but also to enter the environment of the creative intelligentsia grouped around him (F.I. Shalyapin, A. A. Blok, V. F. Khodasevich, A. A. Bely, E. I. Zamyatin, A. N. Tolstoy, etc.), to join its values, creative work, expand the circle of acquaintances and impressions. She knew how to listen carefully to Gorky, listen silently, look at him with intelligent, thoughtful eyes, answer when he asked what she thought about this and that. The poet V.F. Khodasevich, a frequent guest in the house, described Maria Ignatievna as follows: “Mura’s personal characteristic must be recognized as an exceptional gift for achieving her goals. At the same time, she always knew how to seem almost carefree, which must be attributed to her extraordinary ability to pretend and remarkable restraint. She received her education “at home,” but thanks to great tact she managed to seem knowledgeable in any subject that was discussed.”

Is it any wonder that the relationship between Zakrevskaya and Gorky soon became as close as possible, however, their intimate union was never advertised. The recently published correspondence of the writer with Maria Ignatievna makes it possible to understand the difficult-to-understand line of her behavior in the long history of communication with Gorky, which has a beginning, culmination and decline, to recognize her as an extraordinary individual with strong character, with his own mentality, rules of life, habits, to see behind the mask of the “iron woman” a person who was able to fully appreciate his friendship with Alexei Maksimovich and respond to his deep affection with many years of devotion that has stood the test of time. Already in his declining years, summing up his life, when asked by English television, “Was your meeting with Gorky a big event in your life?” she replied, “Yes, that was the turning point. It was like a fortress in those days. People turned to him for help and comfort."

Unfortunately, in a short essay it is impossible to delve far into the study of Maria Ignatievna’s relationships with such major personalities as A. M. Gorky or, say, Herbert Wells, who visited Russia with his eldest son at the end of September 1920. He stayed with his long-time friend Gorky, all in the same large and densely populated apartment, because decent hotels were hard to find at that time. Imagine his surprise when he found Maria Benckendorff there, whom he had met in London before the war. Now Wells saw her not in an open evening gown with diamonds, but in a modest dress, and nevertheless he had to admit that Moura had lost neither her charm nor her cheerfulness - combined with her natural intelligence, they made her truly irresistible. Fellow writers spent long evenings in frank conversations. The translator, of course, was Mura. During the day, she took the English writer around Petrograd, showing the sights of the northern capital. Some Western biographers of Wells believe that they first became close friends at this time.

In December 1920, Mura attempted to illegally enter Estonia to find out about the children, but was detained, and Gorky immediately went to the Petrograd Cheka. Thanks to his efforts, Mura was released and even given permission to leave, which she took advantage of a month later. Alexey Maksimovich and his household were also going abroad - he had already been repeatedly and very persistently advised to go for treatment.

At the end of January 1921, Maria Zakrevskaya got off the train in Tallinn and was immediately arrested. At the very first interrogation, she learned a lot about herself: she worked for the Cheka, lived with Peters, with the Bolshevik Gorky, she was sent to Estonia as Soviet spy. It immediately became clear that as soon as the news reached Tallinn that she was going to come, the relatives of her late husband I. A. Benkendorf contacted the Estonian Supreme Court with a request for her immediate deportation back to Russia and a ban on visiting her children. Only incredible luck in choosing a lawyer - and Maria simply pointed her finger at the list provided - saved her from unexpected problems. In a matter of days, the lawyer achieved her release, the ban on seeing her children was lifted, and she was no longer threatened with expulsion. Along the way, he gave Moura useful advice, which she initially did not take into account at all: to marry an Estonian citizen, at once solving the issues of citizenship, and at the same time unhindered movement throughout Europe. Much later, this lawyer, whose name remains unknown, admitted to Mouret: “I’m doing all this for my favorite writer. For the world author of “At the Lower Depths” and “Chelkash”. But on the day when Maria left the place of imprisonment, she was infinitely far from the thought of a new marriage - Mura was in a hurry to get to her children. The old faithful governess Missy, who also raised the daughters of Ignatius Platonovich Zakrevsky, lived in the same Benkendorf mansion that was half burned out on the night of Ivan Alexandrovich’s death. The children were healthy, as N. Berberova writes, “raised on fresh butter, chicken cutlets and a white bun,” and Mura enjoyed communicating with them.

Meanwhile, Gorky was already in Germany and energetically lobbied for Mura, whom he proposed to the authorities to appoint abroad as his agent for collecting aid for the famine-stricken in Russia. Later, Maria Ignatievna became the literary agent of Alexei Maksimovich. The writer gave her power of attorney for the foreign publication of his books and authorized her to negotiate the terms of their translation. Together with him, Budberg was busy publishing the literary magazine “Conversation” and shared with him all the excitement and grief associated with the publication, unfortunately, of only a few of its issues. In June 1922, Mura again took control of the household in Gorky’s house. Or rather, not in a house, but in a boarding house or hotel, since the writer moved from one resort to another in the hope of coping with the disease - chronic tuberculosis. But his health stubbornly refused to return, and by March 1924, visas to Italy had been obtained - to warm sea, in a mild Mediterranean climate, in a country that Alexey Maksimovich loved very much. It must be said that all Gorky’s biographers unanimously claim that 1921–1927. were some of the happiest in the writer’s life. His best works were written precisely at this time, and, despite illness and financial worries, there was Italy, and Mura was nearby - a friend, an inspiration and simply a beloved woman. It was to her that Gorky dedicated his last and most significant work - the 4-volume testament novel “The Life of Klim Samgin”, and her portrait stood on his table until his last days.

At the end of the twenties, Gorky decided to return to the USSR. Maria Ignatievna not only did not dissuade him, but also supported this idea in every possible way. She reasoned sensibly: the circulation of his books in foreign languages was falling catastrophically. But in Russia they began to forget him, and if he does not return in the near future, they will stop reading and publishing him in his homeland too. Before leaving, Alexey Maksimovich gave Mura part of his Italian archive, the one that consisted of correspondence with writers who came from the Union to Europe with complaints about the Soviet order - it could not be taken to the USSR. Mura did not follow Gorky to Moscow for fear that her presence might “embarrass him.” This is the official version. Perhaps she had other, more compelling reasons not to return. So, in April 1933, their paths diverged: Mura left Sorrento for London with a suitcase of papers, and Gorky went to Russia. However, leaving did not mean a break in relations. Correspondence continued, and new meetings followed, the last of which took place in 1938, when, at the request of the dying writer, she was called to Moscow to say goodbye. The long-held opinion about Maria Budberg’s involvement in Gorky’s allegedly violent death today seems groundless, as does the assertion that, as an NKVD employee, Mura then brought from London that part of Gorky’s secret archive that he left for her for safekeeping. Some researchers are confident that the mentioned archive never fell into the hands of Stalin. Budberg herself insisted that the suitcase with Gorky's manuscripts and letters disappeared in Estonia, where she left it before the war. By the way, recent archival discoveries have proven that Mura was never an NKVD agent.

The most important rule of Maria Ignatievna’s life was not to let go of the joys of comfort and communication with people of her level that she had won from life. She never lost the friends she made and never stopped communicating with her lovers. At one time, Mura made a lot of efforts to find Lockhart, and finally she succeeded. They met in Vienna. And although the previous closeness did not arise, their friendly and business relations have not been interrupted since then.

While still living in Italy, secretly from Gorky, she visited London and met with Herbert Wells. In 1933, Mura finally moved to the English capital (even earlier, in 1929, she transported her children and Missy there from Estonia). By that time, Wells was not only widowed, but also had fallen out with his last lover. He left his house in the south of France, rented a flat in London and moved there for permanent residence. His affair with Mura, which may have begun as early as 1920 in Russia, rapidly gained momentum. It must be said that the famous science fiction writer and woman lover was fantastic. His numerous novels and love affairs were the talk of London. Wells was generally a very sensual person. He constantly needed new sources of creative energy, stimuli and impressions. One of these sources was new love interests for him. He never experienced a shortage of women who wanted to share his leisure time. Mura, if she wanted, could easily become the next Mrs. Wells, if by this time she had not learned to value independence above all else. “She spends time with me, eats with me, sleeps with me, but does not want to marry me,” the writer complained. Nevertheless, Maria Ignatievna was very attached to Wells, although perhaps not as much as he was to her. In any case, she tried with all her might to distract her friend from dark thoughts who visited him more and more often. Fit of rage destroyed his former reputation as an excellent, witty storyteller. He was still blazing and seething, but physically and spiritually he had turned into an irritable, sick old man. The fatigue that had accumulated over the years from being too hectic life, besides the second half literary biography Wells' career was unsuccessful - his talent began to fade, weak books were published one after another. The author became increasingly immersed in thoughts about the need to abandon fiction and write only sociological prose and treatises on the future unified world order. But he had never been a strong philosopher or sociologist, and now they laughed at him, and he lost his temper... When in 1934 close friend Wells, the English writer Somerset Maugham asked Moura how she could love this fat and very hot-tempered man, she answered with her characteristic wit: “It’s impossible not to love him - he smells like honey.”

Mura and Wells lived separately, but spent a lot of time together, visiting friends, exhibitions, and theaters. The elderly womanizer, who was already approaching seventy, consoled himself with the fact that Mura was not marrying him because of difficulties with the divorce, since her husband, Baron Budberg, was still alive. However, they still played a symbolic wedding. The celebration in one of the restaurants in London's Soho was attended by Wells' sons with their wives and close friends - about 30 invitations were sent out in total. When the guests gathered and drank to health and well-being new family, Mura stood up and said that it was just a prank.

Wells died on August 13, 1946 (he would have turned 80 in September). After cremation, both sons - Anthony West and Jip - left for the south coast of England, on the Isle of Wight. There they hired a two-oared boat, went out to sea and scattered their father's ashes over the waters of the English Channel. Everything was done the way he wanted. According to the will, drawn up shortly before his death, money, literary rights, and the house were divided among the closest relatives - children and grandchildren; servants and relatives were not forgotten. He left Mura Budberg 100,000 dollars.

After the war, she lived in London completely freely, without financial difficulties. The son ran a farm, the daughter got married. Maria Ignatievna traveled to the USSR several times as a British subject. Years and decades passed. Now Mura looked like an aging aristocrat: hung with heavy beads, in long wide skirts, she spoke in a deep voice, smoked cigarettes and peppered her speech with unprintable words. in English words. She loved salty jokes and still had a large circle of acquaintances. At the end of her life, she became very fat, communicated more on the phone, drank a lot and did not hide the fact that in order to “function” normally, she needed alcohol.

Two months before his death, his son, who was already retired, took Maria Ignatievna to live with him in Italy. On November 2, 1974, the Times of London published news of her death and a long obituary, which paid tribute to the woman who was at the center of English aristocratic and intellectual life for forty years: Moura was a writer, translator, film consultant, and manuscript reader. for publishing houses in five languages, etc. “She could outdrink any sailor...,” the obituary said, “among her guests were movie stars and literary celebrities, but there were also the most boring nonentities. She was equally kind to everyone... To her close friends, no one could ever replace her.” The body was transported to London. At the funeral service in the Orthodox Church there were people in the first row French ambassador in London, Mr. Beaumarchais and his wife, followed by numerous English nobility, some of the Russian nobility, as well as Moura’s children and grandchildren.

Thus ended the life of the “Russian Milady,” “red Mata Hari,” as she was called in the West, the inspiration of such dissimilar writers, the “iron woman” Maria Zakrevskaya-Benckendorff-Budberg. According to our contemporary, science fiction writer Kir Bulychev, she belonged to the type of women “whose fate fit within the framework of the concept of ‘he chose me, and it’s not my fault’,” and therefore they were completely defenseless before the future and before the judgment of their descendants .

From the book Temporary Men and Favorites of the 16th, 17th and 18th Centuries. Book III author Birkin Kondraty

From the book My Friend Varlam Shalamov author Sirotinskaya Irina Pavlovna

Galina Ignatievna Gudz While collecting the archives of Varlam Tikhonovich, I met Galina Ignatievna Gudz, his first wife, probably in 1969. I hoped that she saved V.T.’s Kolyma letters. It was sweet, charming woman, short, plump, with bright

From the book Notes author Benkendorf Alexander Khristoforovich

Benkendorf Alexander Khristoforovich Notes From the preface: Before us are memories written by an officer of the Imperial Main Apartment, and quite knowledgeable about its activities at the beginning of the war as the main military headquarters of Russia. This is clear from the fact that

From the book How Much is a Person Worth? Notebook five: Archive of illusions author

From the book How Much is a Person Worth? The story of the experience in 12 notebooks and 6 volumes. author Kersnovskaya Evfrosiniya Antonovna

From the street - Pushkin, from the yard - Benckendorff “Come out with your things!” When you hear these words, your heart involuntarily shudders. Maybe to freedom? We walk around the city, apparently heading towards its center. Pushkin street. This name makes my soul feel warm. Poet

From the book Benckendorff author Oleynikov Dmitry Ivanovich

Hero, partisan Benckendorf Our hero's brother, Konstantin, began his Patriotic War in the very first days of the new year, 1812. On January 5, he, being an adviser to the Russian embassy at the court of the Neapolitan king Murat, fought with swords with Napoleon’s protege, Count

From the book Posthumously Defendant author Naumov Anatoly Valentinovich

Benkendorf and the inclusion of materials from a posthumous search in the poet’s house on February 15, the head of the Guards Cuirassier Division, Adjutant General Count Apraksin, sent several documents on the case to the military court commission cover letter next

From the book 100 famous tyrants author Vagman Ilya Yakovlevich

MARY I TUDOR (BLOODY MARY) (b. 1516 - d. 1558) Queen of England. She restored Catholicism in the country and brutally persecuted supporters of the Reformation. Mary I ruled England for only a short time - from 1553 to November 1558. But for this short period was burned in England

From the book by Galina Ulanova author Lvov-Anokhin Boris Alexandrovich

MARIA Ulanova is the creator of many characters in the ballets of Soviet composers. Special meaning for the actress, she worked on the image of Maria in one of the significant Soviet ballet performances - in “The Bakhchisarai Fountain.” “For the first time she came to our ballet stage

From the book Beginning civil war author Team of authors

A. BUDBERG. Diary April 5–9. Returned to Harbin; at the end of the journey I again felt the Russian order in the form of an incredibly dirty carriage. Here I learned that on April 5 the Japanese landed troops in Vladivostok as a response to the robbery of the Ishida office and the murder of three Japanese; Japanese

From the book Pushkin and 113 women of the poet. All the love affairs of the great rake author Shchegolev Pavel Eliseevich

Zakrevskaya Agrafena Fedorovna Agrafena Fedorovna Zakrevskaya (1799–1879), ur. Tolstaya is the daughter of the brother of grandfather L. N. Tolstoy, the collector of ancient Russian manuscripts Count F. A. Tolstoy, the wife (from 1818) of the Minister of Internal Affairs (from 1828 to 1831) A. A. Zakrevsky. She was married at the age of 19 to

From the book by Vera Ignatievna Mukhina author Voronova Olga Porfiryevna

O. P. Voronova Vera Ignatievna Mukhina

From book Strong women[From Princess Olga to Margaret Thatcher] author Vulf Vitaly Yakovlevich

Maria Zakrevskaya-Benckendorff-Budberg Stronger than life Maria Ignatievna Zakrevskaya, Countess Benckendorff, Baroness Budberg... She was called “red Mata Hari”, “iron woman”, “Russian Milady”, “lawless comet”. Maybe her life's purpose was to create a legend about

From book 50 greatest women[Collector's Edition] author Vulf Vitaly Yakovlevich

Maria Zakrevskaya-Benckendorff-Budberg STRONGER THAN LIFE Maria Ignatievna Zakrevskaya, Countess Benckendorff, Baroness Budberg... She was called “red Mata Hari”, “iron woman”, “Russian Milady”, “lawless comet”. Maybe her life's purpose was to create a legend about

From the book Children of War. People's book of memory author Team of authors

Stalin had no prisoners, but all were traitors Klenova (Boiko) Evgenia Ignatievna, born in 1927 At the end of October 1942, I was driven to Germany, and in November I already ended up in the Ravensbrück concentration camp. Large group the women, under guard with dogs, were driven into the bathhouse - they had their hair cut and dressed in

From the book My Great Old Women author Medvedev Felix Nikolaevich

Budberg brought Gorky’s Italian archive to Stalin. I knew that the magazine “Friendship of Peoples” was preparing to publish “The Iron Woman,” and asked Nina Nikolaevna to say a few words about the book. – When I sat down to write a novel about this woman, the fact of her arrival was very important to me

Booker Igor 04/20/2013 at 16:00

Maria Ignatievna Zakrevskaya-Benckendorf-Budberg, called the “iron woman” by Nina Berberova, is an incredibly interesting person on two counts: as a double agent of the British and Soviet intelligence and mistress outstanding writers Gorky and Wells. Almost all of our information about her comes from Berberova’s book, which warned that you cannot believe everything that Mura told her.

“To survive, she had to be vigilant, dexterous, courageous and surround herself with a legend from the very beginning,” Nina Berberova wrote in the book “The Iron Woman.” - Who is she? - my friends asked me when they learned about the book about Maria Ignatievna Zakrevskaya-Benckendorff-Budberg. - Mata Hari? Lou Salome?"

Mura, as her relatives called her, was born in 1892 in the family of Chernigov official Ignatiy Platonovich Zakrevsky, although all her life she lied that she was the great-granddaughter of Agrafena Fedorovna Zakrevskaya, the wife of the Moscow Governor-General - famous beauty, sung by Pushkin to the “copper Venus”. Vyacheslav Khodasevich, who believed in Murina Mura, often told her: “There is no need to look for examples of how to live when there was such a grandmother.”

Half-brother Plato served in the Russian embassy in London and in 1911 Moura came to him and studied at Newham Girls' School in Cambridge. Then she claimed that Cambridge University was behind her. Foreign languages she knew, but a long stay in a foreign-language environment left its mark on her Russian language. In the same year, Mura Zakrevskaya married an employee of the Russian embassy, Ivan Aleksandrovich Benkendorf, and began to call herself a countess, although her husband was not a count. He belonged to a side branch famous family and had no rights to the title. In 1913 she gave birth to a son, and two years later - a daughter.

In the summer of 1917, the Benckendorffs were on their Estonian estate; in October, Mura went to Petrograd and did not return. Local peasants brutally killed her husband. The children stayed with the governess and Mura for a long time did not know about their fate. Soon she was evicted from her apartment in the capital and found shelter in the British Embassy. Here she met the vice-consul and part-time British intelligence officer Bruce Lockhart. His wife, having lost her first child during childbirth, went to England to give birth to her second. Lockhart went on such a spree that in the early autumn of 1917 he was strongly recommended to return home and visit his family.

The romance between Mura and Bruce flared up almost immediately after Lockhart arrived in Moscow. “Something came into my life that turned out to be stronger and more durable than all other connections than life itself,” Lockhart admitted in his “Memoirs of a British Agent.” Lockhart settled his Russian mistress in his apartment in Khlebny Lane. Lovestory gave orders to live long on the night of August 31 to September 1, 1918, when the security officers knocked on the door. The Englishman was blamed for the “ambassador case,” in which he was involved to the fullest, and at the same time they took Mura.

Three weeks later, Dzerzhinsky’s deputy, Yakov Peters, came to Lockhart’s cell with Mura on his arm to free the spy. "Hello, my Murka and goodbye!" - the burnt agent could sing, thanking his intercessor. How Mura thanked Peters is unknown to us. The question of whether Mura was a double or triple agent, whether she worked for Soviet, German, British intelligence, remains open. The archives are still closed, and even her biographer did not advise taking Mura’s word for it.

Mura asked Chukovsky to work as a translator. Mura knew German, French, English and Italian languages. Korney Ivanovich got her a job as Gorky’s secretary. It is believed that Mura became the mistress of the loving Alexei Maksimovich. Gorky dedicated his last novel"The Life of Klim Samgin". It seemed that Mura had finally found peace and settled down in this life, but then the head of Petrograd, Grigory Zinoviev, planted a pig on her and Gorky. It is only for the sake of rhyme that it is said that “the writer Gorky Alexei was the wittiest Jew.” Bolshevik Girsh Aronovich, to put it mildly, did not like the proletarian writer, and openly considered Mura to be an English spy. Mura was arrested, but after Gorky’s letter went somewhere, she was released.

While Gorky was treating his tuberculosis, traveling abroad, Mura managed the writer’s household. On the advice of a lawyer, in order to get free travel abroad, one had to have an Estonian passport, and Mura entered into a fictitious marriage with Baron Nikolai Budberg. Unlike the previous husband, this one was truly a baron. The newly-minted Baroness Budberg gave her husband - a reveler and gambler - a thousand dollars, which Gorky had sent her from Berlin, and said goodbye to him forever, leaving herself only her last name and title.

According to contemporaries, Mura was not particularly beautiful, sometimes behaved cheekily and drank a lot. In a word, a kind of emancipation from the beginning of the last century. “She enjoyed sex, she was looking for novelty and knew where to find it, and men knew this, felt it in her and took advantage of it, falling in love with her passionately and devotedly,” writes Berberova. “Her hobbies were not mutilated either by moral considerations or feigned chastity, nor everyday taboos. She was free long before the general liberation of women."