Larisa Mikhailovna Reisner(German) Larissa Michailowna Reissner, (13) May, Lublin - February 9, Moscow) - revolutionary, participant in the Russian Civil War, journalist, poet, writer. Sister of I. M. Reisner.
Biography
Larisa Reisner was born in the family of a lawyer, professor of law Mikhail Andreevich Reisner in Poland (Lublin). Official documents indicate May 1 as the date of birth of Larisa Mikhailovna Reisner. In fact, Larisa was born on the night from the first to the second, but chose to indicate May 1 as her birthday in the future. Firstly, this day marks a big holiday celebrated in Germany - Walpurgis Night (from April 30 to May 1), and Larisa never forgot about her (Bestsee) German roots, and secondly, May 1 is an international day of solidarity workers
In 1916-1917 she was an employee of the internationalist magazine “Letopis” and M. Gorky’s newspaper “New Life”.
In 1916-1917, Reisner experienced a stormy romance with N. S. Gumilyov, which left a deep mark on her life and work (under the name “Gafiza” the poet was published in the “Autobiographical Novel”, not published during Reisner’s lifetime). The meeting between Larisa and Nikolai took place in 1916 at the Comedians' Halt restaurant, where representatives of St. Petersburg bohemia gathered. It was always noisy and fun here: they drank expensive wine, read poetry, argued about things. Anna Akhmatova took her husband Nikolai’s passion for Larisa calmly, since this happened many times. Larisa's attitude towards Gumilyov was extremely emotional and exalted.
During the war, Gumilyov was in the ranks of the active army. Larisa was in St. Petersburg at that time.
The romance between Larisa and Nikolai turned out to be short-lived - it soon became clear that, in parallel with Reisner, the poet had a love relationship with Anna Engelhardt, whom he married in 1918, which caused her indignation.
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Revolution and civil war
In 1917 she participated in the activities of the commission for arts affairs of the executive committee of the Soviets of Workers' and Peasants' Deputies, and after the October Revolution she was for some time engaged in work related to the preservation of art monuments (in the Special Commission for the Registration and Protection of the Hermitage and Petrograd Museums); was secretary of A.V. Lunacharsky.
After joining the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (1918), Reisner made a unique career for a woman in the military: in December 1918 she became commissar of the General Staff Navy RSFSR, having previously served for several months as commissar of the reconnaissance detachment of the headquarters of the 5th Army, which took part in the hostilities of the Volga-Kama flotilla.
Together with K. Radek, Reisner, as a correspondent for Krasnaya Zvezda and Izvestia, visited Germany in 1923, where she witnessed the Hamburg Uprising. She wrote a book about him, “Hamburg on the Barricades” (1924). Two more cycles of her essays are dedicated to Germany - “Berlin in 1923” and “In the Land of Hindenburg.”
After a trip to Hamburg, Reisner broke up with Radek, went to the Donbass and after the trip wrote the book “Coal, Iron and Living People” (1925).
Reisner's last major work was historical sketches-portraits dedicated to the Decembrists (“Portraits of the Decembrists”, 1925).
Death
Larisa Reisner died on February 9, 1926 in Moscow at the age of 30 from typhoid fever, after drinking a glass of raw milk. Mother and brother Igor survived. Larisa did not recover from the illness, because at that time she was severely exhausted by work and personal worries. In the Kremlin hospital, where she was dying, her mother was on duty with her, who committed suicide immediately after her daughter’s death. Writer Varlam Shalamov left the following memories: “A young woman, the hope of literature, a beauty, a heroine Civil War, thirty years old, died of typhoid fever. Nonsense. Nobody believed it. But Reisner died. She was buried in plot 20 at the Vagankovskoye cemetery.” “Why did Larisa, a magnificent, rare, selected human specimen, die?” - Mikhail Koltsov asked pathetically.
One of the obituaries read:
She would need to die somewhere in the steppe, in the sea, in the mountains, with a rifle or Mauser tightly clutched.
Reviews about her
According to a number of wordsmiths around her (A. Blok, Z. Gippius, Vs. Rozhdestvensky), L. M. Reisner’s poetic talent was inferior to her beauty, and the somewhat mannered style did not correspond to the stormy, passionate nature of the author.
“The famous beauty Larisa Reisner,” clarifies Andrei Petrov, “loved Gumilyov so much that she even agreed to go on dates to the brothel on Gorokhovaya. And when he was shot in the twenty-first, she - already a completely prosperous Soviet matron, the wife of the ambassador in Kabul - sobbed like a woman over the news received from Petrograd, mourning the “scoundrel and freak.”
The poet V. Rozhdestvensky told how he visited the “beautiful commissar” together with his friends Mikhail Kuzmin and Osip Mandelstam:
“Larissa lived at the Admiralty at that time. The sailor on duty led us through dark, echoing and strict corridors. Before the door to Larisa’s private apartments, timidity and awkwardness took possession of us, so ceremonially was our arrival announced. Larisa was waiting for us in a small room, covered from top to bottom with exotic fabrics... On a wide and low ottoman, English books lay in abundance, next to a thick ancient Greek dictionary. On the low oriental table, the crystal edges of countless bottles of perfume and some copper vessels and boxes, polished to a shine, sparkled and sparkled... Larisa was dressed in a kind of robe, stitched with heavy threads...”
“Larisa Reisner, the wife of the famous Raskolnikov, came from Moscow,” recalled the poet’s aunt, M. A. Beketova. - She came with the express purpose of recruiting Al. Al. a member of the Communist Party and, as they say, courted him. There were horseback rides, car rides, interesting evenings with cognac, etc. Al. Al. willingly rode horseback and generally spent time with Larisa Reisner, not without pleasure, since she is a young, beautiful and interesting woman, but she still failed to recruit him into the party, and he remained what he was before meeting her ... "
Leon Trotsky in his memoirs (“My Life”) recalled Reisner this way:
“Blinding many, this beautiful young woman flashed like a hot meteor against the backdrop of the revolution. With the appearance of an Olympian goddess, she combined a subtle ironic mind and the courage of a warrior. After the Whites captured Kazan, she, disguised as a peasant woman, went to the enemy camp for reconnaissance. But her appearance was too unusual. She was arrested. A Japanese intelligence officer interrogated her. During the break, she slipped through a poorly guarded door and disappeared. Since then she has worked in intelligence. Later she sailed on warships and took part in battles. She dedicated essays to the Civil War that will remain in literature. With the same brightness she wrote about Ural industry and about the workers' uprising in the Ruhr. She wanted to see and know everything, to participate in everything. In a few short years she grew into a first-class writer. Having passed unharmed through fire and water, this Pallas of the Revolution suddenly burned down from typhus in the calm atmosphere of Moscow, before reaching thirty years of age.”
“There was not a single man who passed by without noticing her, and every third man - a statistic precisely established by me - burst into the ground like a pillar and looked after us until we disappeared into the crowd.” V. L. Andreev (son of the writer Leonid Andreev)
“Slender, tall, in a modest gray suit of English cut, in a light blouse with a tie tied like a man,” this is how the poet Vsevolod Rozhdestvensky described her. - Dense dark braids lay in a tight circle around her head. In the regular, as if chiseled, features of her face there was something non-Russian and arrogantly cold, and in her eyes it was sharp and slightly mocking.”
In culture and art
- Larisa Reisner became the prototype of the female commissioner depicted in the play “Optimistic Tragedy” by Vsevolod Vishnevsky.[[K:Wikipedia:Articles without sources (country: Lua error: callParserFunction: function "#property" was not found. )]][[K:Wikipedia:Articles without sources (country: Lua error: callParserFunction: function "#property" was not found. )]][[K:Wikipedia:Articles without sources (country: Lua error: callParserFunction: function "#property" was not found. )]] [ ]
- B. L. Pasternak’s enthusiastic attitude towards L. M. Reisner, who considered her “charm incarnate,” gave him reason to call the main character of his novel “Doctor Zhivago” Larisa.
- I. Kramov wrote the book “Morning Wind” about the life of Larisa Reisner.
- In the fourth trilogy of the cycle “The Eye of Power” by Andrei Valentinov, written in the genre of alternative reality, there is a character Larisa Mikhailovna, nicknamed “Gondla” (“Gondla” is a play by Nikolai Gumilyov, Gumilyov associated Reisner with Leri, the heroine of the play). She is also married to a man named K. Radek.
- Larisa Reisner is mentioned more than once in the novel by Boris Akunin (Chkhartishvili) “Another Way” (2015)
Essays
- Shakespeare's female types: 1-2 / Leo Rinus. - Riga: Science and Life, . - 2 t.; 12. - (Miniature library “Science and Life”).
- Ophelia. - 47 s.
- "Atlantis". Play, in the almanac “Rosehip”, No. 21, 1913
- Hamburg on the barricades. - Moscow, 1924, 1925. - essays on the Hamburg uprising of 1923.
- Asian stories. - Moscow, “Ogonyok”, 1925.
- Afghanistan. - M.-L., GIZ, 1925.
- Coal, iron and living people. - M.-L., GIZ, 1925.
- In the land of the Hindenburg. - Moscow, 1926.
- Oksenov I. - Leningrad, 1927.
- Collected works. T.1. - M.-L., GIZ, 1928. - 4,000 copies.
- Collected works. T.2. - M.-L., 1928.
- Front. - Moscow, 1924, 1928, 1932. - a book of essays about the civil war.
- Hamburg auf den Barrikaden. Erlebtes und Erhörtes aus dem Hamburger Aufstand 1923. Berlin 1925
- Eine Reise durch die deutsche Republik. Berlin 1926
- RSL, Department of Manuscripts, F.245. Reisner Larisa Mikhailovna: archival fund, 1895-1929. - 819 units hr.
The expressionistic style of her books, rich in metaphors, conveying, as she believed, the pathos of the time, was not accepted by proletarian criticism, but it is this style that raises her prose, in which the image of the era arises from the wealth of author’s associations, above the level of ordinary journalism.
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Notes
Links
Literature
- Przhiborovskaya, Galina Andreevna. Larisa Reisner. - M.: Young Guard, 2008. - 487, : ill. With. - (Life wonderful people: gray biogr.; issue 1086). - ISBN 978-5-235-03073-2.
- Pole L.// Literary Encyclopedia: In 11 volumes - [M.], 1929-1939. T. 9. - M.: OGIZ RSFSR, State. int. “Owl. Encyclical,” 1935. - Stb. 593-596.
An excerpt characterizing Reisner, Larisa Mikhailovna
- Do you want me to show you how to do it?I just nodded in agreement, very afraid that she would change her mind. But the girl was clearly not going to “change her mind”, on the contrary - she was very happy to have found someone who was almost her same age, and now, if I understood something, she was not going to let me go so easily... This “ perspective" completely suited me, and I prepared to listen carefully about its incredible wonders...
“Everything here is much easier than on Earth,” Stella chirped, very pleased with the attention she received, “you just have to forget about the “level” on which you still live (!) and focus on what you want to see . Try to imagine it very accurately and it will come.
I tried to disconnect from all extraneous thoughts, but it didn’t work. For some reason this has always been difficult for me.
Then, finally, everything disappeared somewhere, and I was left hanging in complete emptiness... A feeling of Complete Peace appeared, so rich in its completeness that it was impossible to experience on Earth... Then the emptiness began to be filled with a fog sparkling with all the colors of the rainbow, which became more and more and became more dense, becoming like a brilliant and very dense ball of stars... Smoothly and slowly this “ball” began to unravel and grow until it looked like a gigantic sparkling spiral, stunning in its beauty, the end of which was “sprayed” by thousands of stars and went wherever - into an invisible distance... I looked dumbfounded at this fabulous unearthly beauty, trying to understand how and where it came from?.. It couldn’t even occur to me that it was really me who created this in my imagination... And also, I I couldn’t get rid of the very strange feeling that THIS was my real home...
“What is this?” a thin voice asked in a stunned whisper.
Stella stood “frozen” in a stupor, unable to make even the slightest movement, and with eyes as round as large saucers, she observed this incredible beauty that had suddenly fallen from somewhere...
Suddenly the air around us swayed violently, and a luminous creature appeared right in front of us. It looked very similar to my old “crowned” star friend, but it was clearly someone else. Having recovered from the shock and looked at him more closely, I realized that he was not at all like my old friends. It’s just that the first impression “fixed” the same ring on the forehead and similar power, but otherwise there was nothing in common between them. All the “guests” who had come to me before were tall, but this creature was very tall, probably somewhere around a full five meters. His strange sparkling clothes (if they could be called that) fluttered all the time, scattering sparkling crystal tails behind them, although not the slightest breeze was felt around. Long, silver hair shone with a strange lunar halo, creating the impression of “eternal cold” around his head... And his eyes were the kind that it would be better to never look at!.. Before I saw them, even in my wildest imagination it was impossible imagine such eyes!.. They were an incredibly bright pink color and sparkled with a thousand diamond stars, as if lighting up every time he looked at someone. It was completely unusual and breathtakingly beautiful...
There was something mysterious about him distant space and something else that my little childish brain was not yet able to comprehend...
The creature raised his hand with his palm facing us and mentally said:
- I am Eley. You are not ready to come - come back...
Naturally, I was immediately wildly interested in who it was, and I really wanted to somehow a short time hold him back.
– Not ready for what? – I asked as calmly as I could.
- Come back home. - He answered.
From him came (as it seemed to me then) incredible power and at the same time some strange deep warmth of loneliness. I wanted him to never leave, and suddenly I felt so sad that tears welled up in my eyes...
“You will come back,” he said, as if answering my sad thoughts. - But it won’t be soon... Now go away.
The glow around him became brighter... and, much to my chagrin, he disappeared...
The sparkling huge “spiral” continued to shine for some time, and then began to crumble and completely melted, leaving behind only deep night.
Stella finally “woke up” from the shock, and everything around immediately shone with a cheerful light, surrounding us with fancy flowers and colorful birds, which her stunning imagination hastened to create as quickly as possible, apparently wanting to free herself as quickly as possible from the oppressive impression of eternity that had fallen upon us.
“Do you think it’s me?” I whispered, still unable to believe what happened.
- Certainly! – the little girl chirped again in a cheerful voice. – This is what you wanted, right? It is so huge and scary, although very beautiful. I would never stay there to live! – she stated with complete confidence.
And I could not forget that incredibly huge and such attractively majestic beauty, which, now I knew for sure, would forever become my dream, and the desire to return there someday would haunt me for many, many years, until, one fine day, I will not finally find my real, lost HOME...
- Why are you sad? You did it so well! – Stella exclaimed in surprise. – Do you want me to show you something else?
She wrinkled her nose conspiratorially, making her look like a cute, funny little monkey.
And again everything turned upside down, “landing” us in some crazy-bright “parrot” world... in which thousands of birds screamed wildly and this abnormal cacophony made our heads spin.
- Oh! – Stella laughed loudly, “not like that!”
And immediately there was a pleasant silence... We played around together for a long time, now alternately creating funny, cheerful, fairy-tale worlds, which really turned out to be quite easy. I couldn’t tear myself away from all this unearthly beauty and from the crystal-clear, amazing girl Stella, who carried a warm and joyful light within her, and with whom I sincerely wanted to stay close forever...
But real life, unfortunately, called me back to “sink to Earth” and I had to say goodbye, not knowing whether I would ever be able to see her again, even for just a moment.
Stella looked with her big, round eyes, as if wanting and not daring to ask something... Then I decided to help her:
– Do you want me to come again? – I asked with hidden hope.
Her funny face again shone with all shades of joy:
– Are you really, really going to come?! – she squealed happily.
“I really, really will come...” I firmly promised...
The days, loaded to the brim with everyday worries, turned into weeks, and I still could not find free time to visit my sweet little friend. I thought about her almost every day and swore to myself that tomorrow I would definitely find time to “unwind my soul” for at least a couple of hours with this wonderful, bright little man... And also another, very strange thought did not give me peace - very I wanted to introduce Stella’s grandmother to my no less interesting and unusual grandmother... For some inexplicable reason, I was sure that both of these wonderful women would definitely find something to talk about...
So, finally, one fine day I suddenly decided that I would stop putting everything off “for tomorrow” and, although I was not at all sure that Stella’s grandmother would be there today, I decided that it would be wonderful if today I finally visited I’ll introduce my new girlfriend, and if I’m lucky, I’ll introduce our dear grandmothers to each other.
Some strange force literally pushed me out of the house, as if someone from afar was very softly and, at the same time, very persistently mentally calling me.
I quietly approached my grandmother and, as usual, began to hover around her, trying to figure out how best to present all this to her.
“Well, shall we go or something?” the grandmother asked calmly.
I stared at her dumbfounded, not understanding how she could find out that I was even going somewhere?!
Grandmother smiled slyly and, as if nothing had happened, asked:
“What, don’t you want to walk with me?”
In my heart I was indignant at such an unceremonious invasion of my “private mental world“, I decided to “test” my grandmother.
- Well, of course I want to! – I exclaimed joyfully, and without saying where we would go, I headed towards the door.
– Take a sweater, we’ll be back late – it’ll be cool! – the grandmother shouted after him.
I couldn't stand it any longer...
- And how do you know where we are going?! – I ruffled my feathers like a frozen sparrow and muttered offendedly.
“It’s all written all over your face,” the grandmother smiled.
Of course, it wasn’t written on my face, but I would give a lot to find out how she always knew everything so confidently when it came to me?
A few minutes later we were already stomping together towards the forest, enthusiastically chatting about the most diverse and incredible stories, which she, naturally, knew much more than I did, and this was one of the reasons why I loved walking with her so much.
It was just the two of us, and there was no need to be afraid that someone would overhear and someone might not like what we were talking about.
Grandmother very easily accepted all my oddities and was never afraid of anything; and sometimes, if she saw that I was completely “lost” in something, she gave me advice to help me get out of this or that undesirable situation, but most often she simply observed how I reacted to life’s difficulties, which had already become permanent, without finally came across on my “spiked” path. Lately it has begun to seem to me that my grandmother is just waiting for something new to come along, in order to see if I have matured at least a heel, or if I am still “stuck away” in my “happy childhood”, not wanting to get out of my short childhood shirts. But even for her “cruel” behavior, I loved her very much and tried to take advantage of every convenient moment to spend time with her as often as possible.
The forest greeted us with the welcoming rustle of golden autumn leaves. The weather was magnificent, and one could hope that my new friend, by “luck,” would also be there.
I picked a small bouquet of some modest autumn flowers that still remained, and a few minutes later we were already next to the cemetery, at the gate of which... in the same place sat the same miniature sweet old lady...
- And I already thought I couldn’t wait for you! – she greeted joyfully.
My jaw literally dropped from such surprise, and at that moment I apparently looked quite stupid, because the old woman, laughing cheerfully, came up to us and affectionately patted me on the cheek.
- Well, you go, honey, Stella has already been waiting for you. And we'll sit here for a while...
I didn’t even have time to ask how I would get to the same Stella, when everything disappeared again somewhere, and I found myself in the already familiar world of Stella’s wild fantasy, sparkling and shimmering with all the colors of the rainbow, and, without having time to take a better look around, I immediately I heard an enthusiastic voice:
- Oh, how good it is that you came! And I waited and waited!..
The girl flew up to me like a whirlwind and plopped a little red “dragon” right into my arms... I recoiled in surprise, but immediately laughed cheerfully, because it was the funniest and funniest creature in the world!..
The “little dragon,” if you can call him that, bulged his delicate pink belly and hissed at me threateningly, apparently hoping very much to scare me in this way. But when he saw that no one was going to be scared here, he calmly settled down on my lap and began to snore peacefully, showing how good he is and how much he should be loved...
I asked Stella what its name was and how long ago she created it.
- Oh, I haven’t even figured out what to call you yet! And he appeared right now! Do you really like him? – the girl chirped cheerfully, and I felt that she was pleased to see me again.
- This is for you! – she suddenly said. - He will live with you.
The little dragon funnyly stretched out its spiky muzzle, apparently deciding to see if I had anything interesting... And suddenly licked me right on the nose! Stella squealed with delight and was clearly very pleased with her creation.
“Well, okay,” I agreed, “while I’m here, he can be with me.”
“Aren’t you going to take him with you?” – Stella was surprised.
And then I realized that she apparently doesn’t know at all that we are “different” and that we no longer live in the same world. Most likely, the grandmother, in order to feel sorry for her, did not tell the girl the whole truth, and she sincerely thought that this was exactly the same world in which she had lived before, with the only difference being that now she could still create her own world.. .
I knew for sure that I didn’t want to be the one who told this little trusting girl what her life was really like today. She was content and happy in this “her” fantastic reality, and I mentally swore to myself that I would never and never be the one who would destroy this fairy-tale world of hers. I just couldn’t understand how my grandmother explained the sudden disappearance of her entire family and, in general, everything in which she was now living?..
“You see,” I said with a slight hesitation, smiling, “where I live, dragons are not very popular...
- So no one will see him! – the little girl chirped cheerfully.
A weight had just been lifted off my shoulders!.. I hated lying or trying to get out, and especially in front of such a pure little person as Stella was. It turned out that she understood everything perfectly and somehow managed to combine the joy of creation and the sadness of losing her family.
– And I finally found a friend here! – the little girl declared victoriously.
- Oh, well?.. Will you ever introduce me to him? – I was surprised.
She nodded her fluffy red head amusingly and squinted slyly.
- Do you want it right now? – I felt that she was literally “fidgeting” in place, unable to contain her impatience any longer.
– Are you sure that he will want to come? – I was wary.
Not because I was afraid or embarrassed of anyone, I just didn’t have the habit of bothering people without a particularly important reason, and I wasn’t sure that right now this reason was serious... But Stella was apparently into it I’m absolutely sure, because literally after a split second a man appeared next to us.
It was a very sad knight... Yes, yes, exactly a knight!.. And I was very surprised that even in this “other” world, where he could “put on” any energy “clothes”, he still did not parted with his stern knightly guise, in which he still, apparently, remembered himself very well... And for some reason I thought that he must have had some very serious reasons for this, if even after so many years he I didn’t want to part with this look.
Usually, when people die, for the first time after their death, their essences always look exactly as they looked at the moment of their physical death. Apparently, the enormous shock and wild fear of the unknown are great enough not to add any additional stress to this. When time passes (usually after a year), the essences of old and elderly people gradually begin to look young and become exactly the same as they were in best years of his youth. Well, the untimely dead babies suddenly “grow up”, as if “catching up” with their unlived years, and become somewhat similar to their essences, as they were when they entered the bodies of these unfortunate people who died too early, or from some kind of disease untimely deceased children, with the only difference that some of them “add” a little in development, if during their short years lived in the physical body they were lucky enough... And much later, each essence changes, depending on how she continues to live in the “new” world.
And high essences living on the mental level of the earth, unlike all the others, are even able to create a “face” and “clothing” for themselves, at their own request, since, having lived for a very long time (the higher the development of the essence, the rarer it re-incarnates into a physical body) and having become sufficiently accustomed to that “other” world, initially unfamiliar to them, they themselves are able to create and create a lot.
Why little Stella chose this particular adult and somehow deeply wounded man as her friend remains an unsolved mystery for me to this day. But since the little girl looked absolutely satisfied and happy with such an “acquisition,” I could only completely trust the unmistakable intuition of this little, crafty sorceress...
As it turned out, his name was Harold. The last time he lived in his physical earthly body was more than a thousand years ago and apparently possessed a very high essence, but I felt in my heart that the memories of the period of his life in this, last, incarnation were something very painful for him, since it was from there Harold endured this deep and sorrowful sadness that had accompanied him for so many years...
- Here! He is very nice and you will become friends with him too! – Stella said happily, not paying attention to the fact that her new friend is also here and can hear us perfectly.
It probably didn’t seem to her that talking about him in his presence might not be very right... She was simply very happy that she finally had a friend, and with this happiness she was open and open with me. I shared with pleasure.
She wanted to become a poet, but became a muse. She wanted to become equal to men, but was invariably taller than them, conquering everyone who was next to her. She dreamed of dying under bullets, but died from a sip of raw milk. It seemed that she was testing fate by writing it, like a newspaper essay, but no one’s imagination could come up with anything like her life - the life of Larisa Reisner - the woman who conquered the Revolution.
The Reisner family originated from Livonia - according to the legend spread by the Reisners themselves, their ancestors were Rhine barons. Mikhail Andreevich Reisner, professor of law, person strong character and enormous intelligence, was married to Ekaterina Alexandrovna, née Khitrovo - this was an old, noble noble family; the then Minister of War Sukhomlinov was her relative. Judging by her memoirs, she was a very difficult woman, ambitious, with an unbalanced character. They had two children: the eldest Larisa and Igor, two years younger than their sister. From childhood, their mother instilled in them the consciousness of their own uniqueness, chosenness, and the children - especially Larisa - got used to considering themselves better, above everyone else. And oddly enough, those around him were inclined to agree.
Mikhail Andreevich served at different universities, and the family moved all the time: Lublin (it was here that Larisa was born on May 1, 1895), Tomsk, Paris, and from 1905 - St. Petersburg... Even while studying in Europe - in France and Germany - Reisner met the Russian political emigration. He communicated with August Bebel and Karl Liebknecht, corresponded with Lenin. Subsequently, he became close to the Bolsheviks and even provided them with some services as a legal specialist. The revolutionary spirit that reigned in the house infected both Larisa and Igor.
Larisa with her mother Ekaterina Alexandrovna and father Mikhail Andreevich
Everyone in the family was talented; Knowing this very well, they were proud. Pride was the main family quality of the Reisners. As Vadim Andreev, the son of the writer Leonid Andreev, who knew this family very well, recalled, “pride suited the Reisners like the cloak and sword suited the musketeers of Alexandre Dumas.” They also recalled that all Reisners were characterized by playing to the public, the desire to stand out, to become famous... And a property that was often found among the progressive intelligentsia of that time: love for all humanity with complete disregard for each individual person. All the rest - except for a select few - were called only to be spectators of the performances that the Reisners staged on the stage of life.
In a photo studio in Tübingen, Germany. 1904
The leading actress of the Reisner Theater was, of course, Larisa. Tall, slender, with bright beauty, a tenacious mind and a certain talent, she has been accustomed to shining since childhood. Vadim Andreev described Larisa this way: “Her dark hair, curled with shells on her ears, huge gray-green eyes, white, transparent hands, especially her light hands, flying up to her hair like white butterflies... When she walked through the streets, it seemed that she carries her beauty like a torch... There was not a single man who passed by without noticing her, and every third man - a statistic precisely established by me - burst into the ground like a pillar and looked after her.” Lev Davidovich Trotsky wrote about her: “The appearance of an Olympian goddess, her ironic mind was combined with the courage of a warrior.” Osip Mandelstam, in his Madrigal dedicated to Larisa, compared her to a green-eyed mermaid, and Nikolai Gumilyov praised her “Ionic curl”...
Larisa Reisner is a high school student. 1910
After graduating from high school with a gold medal, Larisa Reisner entered the Psychoneurological Institute and at the same time began attending a series of lectures on history as a volunteer student. political doctrines in the University. She, like the whole family, had two hobbies: politics and literature. During the First World War - in 1914-1915 - Larisa and her father published the semi-revolutionary, semi-decadent magazine "Rudin", named after Turgenev's hero. A statement from the editors said that the magazine is called upon to “brand with the scourge of satire and pamphlet all the ugliness of Russian life, wherever it may be.” Larisa not only wrote poetry, articles and essays for the magazine, but also did the main organizational work: looking for funds, negotiating with the printing house, purchasing paper... Alexander Blok called the magazine “dirty, but sharp.” “Rudin” existed for a year and a half - it was banned by censorship, but Larisa managed to make a name for herself in the literary circles of that time.
Having joined the motley decadent poetic company, Larisa quickly took a prominent place there. Not poetry - her poems were secondary, overloaded with beauty, ponderous and empty. The sharp-tongued Zinaida Gippius typed: “With claims; weak." But the extraordinary brightness of Larisa’s personality captivated everyone. While still a student, dressed in a strict English suit with a men's tie, she attracted the gaze of all men. Now, in fantastic “decadent” outfits, with blue lipstick on her lips, Larisa was a killer. But she herself remained cold for a long time - until in September 1916 she met famous poet Nikolai Gumilev.
1910s
Larisa was told everything right away. She cried all night, hurt by the derogatory review of the poet, known for his perfect poetic technique and subtle critical gift. But this resentment became the beginning of another strong feeling - love.
Gumilyov, frankly ugly, nevertheless enjoyed great success with women. He unerringly chose extraordinary women - beautiful, smart, talented. Larisa, without a doubt, was exactly like that.
Portrait of Larisa Reisner by V. Shukhaev. 1915
She fell in love with all the passion available to her, and it seemed that Gumilyov’s feeling for her was just as strong. He called her Leri, and she called him Gafiz. He wrote to her: “I don’t really believe in the transmigration of souls, but it seems to me that in your previous experiences you were always abducted by Helen of Sparta, Angelica from Furious Roland, etc. So I want to take you away. I wrote you a crazy letter, it’s because I love you. Your Gafiz." Larisa was ready for anything, hoping for marriage, but Gumilyov, who all his life was distinguished by the fact that he easily offered his hand and heart to his beloved girls, regardless of their and his marital status, was in no hurry to propose this time.
Perhaps the fact was that Gumilyov was in the active army at that time, and was only sent to St. Petersburg on leave to take the officer exam. He failed the exam and was soon forced to return to the regiment. For several months, their romance continued only in letters: “I spent whole days lying in the snow, looking at the stars and, mentally drawing lines between them, I pictured your face looking at me from heaven...”
In February 1917, Gumilyov returned, and their passion flared up with new strength. But for some reason the brothel on Gorokhovaya Street became the meeting place. Larisa Reisner admitted: “I loved him so much that I would go anywhere.” Finally, her dream came true - Gumilev proposed to her. But Larisa refused.
She herself explained her refusal by female solidarity - they say, she did not want to hurt Anna Akhmatova, whose talent she admired. But the marriage of Akhmatova and Gumilev had long since become a formality. Rather, Larisa was offended by the fact that at the same time as her, Gumilyov was dating others: in 1916, with Margarita Tumpovskaya, and now with Anna Engelhard, whom he married in the summer of 1918. Political differences also played a role: Gumilev, a monarchist and romantic, was disgusted by the revolution, Larisa’s ultra-left views irritated him. There was a difficult, painful breakup.
Many years later, Larisa would write: “I never loved anyone with such pain, with such a desire to die for him, as he did, the poet Gafiz, the freak and the scoundrel.”
In May, Gumilev left for Europe - Sweden, Norway, England... On June 5, he wrote her last letter: “Well, goodbye, have fun, but don’t get involved in politics...”
But Gumilyov’s suggestions were in vain. Larisa took up politics - she plunged headlong into the revolution; either fleeing from unhappy love, or in search of oneself.
After the October Revolution, the Reisners were among the winners. Mikhail Andreevich was a member of the commission for drawing up decrees of the new government. After the February Revolution, Igor Mikhailovich was the secretary of the Bolshevik deputy in the Petrograd Duma Dmitry Manuilsky, and with the Bolsheviks coming to power he began to work at the People's Commissariat of Justice and the Communist Academy. Larisa is not far behind. After February, she carried out active propaganda work among the sailors of the Baltic Fleet - as you know, it was the Baltic sailors who played main role in the October events. There is a legend that at the head of the Baltic men, who climbed onto the deck of the cruiser Aurora on the night of October 25 and ordered to fire that very empty salvo - the signal for the assault, there was a woman of incredible beauty. Larisa Reisner. The woman was in fact, although she did not come on board, Countess Panina, the head of the delegation of the Petrograd City Duma. But Larisa’s figure was so bright that it steadily, uncontrollably grew into legends even during her lifetime.
Larisa Reisner on the Volga Front in her usual outfit. Around 1919
Immediately after the October Revolution, Larisa worked under the People's Commissar of Education Anatoly Lunacharsky - she was responsible for protecting the treasures of the Winter Palace. At the same time, she was a correspondent for the newspaper Izvestia. It was in this capacity that she went to Moscow in November 1917.
She was offered to travel on a military train. At the station, Larisa heard the name of the commander - Raskolnikov; asked to be taken to him. Having introduced herself, she asked to go with him - realizing that there would be no refusal.
Fyodor Raskolnikov
Fedor Fedorovich Raskolnikov ( real name Ilyin) was one of the most prominent figures of the Bolshevik Party and held responsible positions in it. He led a detachment of sailors that was sent to Moscow, where the fighting was still ongoing. However, by the time the train arrived, the fighting in Moscow had already stopped, and a few days later Raskolnikov was summoned to Petrograd. Larisa left with him. They got off the train as husband and wife.
Their love was like the revolutionary element that brought them together: unrestrained, irrepressible, contradictory, not knowing the rules. They each lived at home, meeting in fits and starts. They were united by common views, aspirations, but most importantly - that insatiable thirst for living in the present day, which appears in people who are constantly on the brink of an abyss. Raskolnikov adored Larisa. And she agreed to be with him, but on the condition that he would not limit her in anything: neither in actions, nor in feelings.
The call from Moscow was due to the fact that on November 17, 1917, Raskolnikov was appointed commissar of the Naval General Staff: the new government was purging old personnel in the administrative bodies. Larisa was always next to her husband. So much so that Raskolnikov got into trouble because of her.
One day she asked her husband to take her to a meeting of the Council of People's Commissars, of which Raskolnikov was a member. She came - defiantly beautiful, incredibly elegant, fragrant with perfume, wearing fashionable high red boots. Against the background of men in shabby military uniforms and worn suits, she looked fantastic. Lenin looked sideways at her, gradually becoming irritated, then demanded that all strangers be taken out, and gave the remaining people's commissars a dressing down. From now on, it was forbidden to allow outsiders to attend meetings.
In the summer of 1918, Raskolnikov was sent to the Eastern Front - by that time the most intense area of combat operations. Military detachments of all political directions fought there, and independent governments were formed in the Volga region and Siberia. Larisa went with him - she was appointed head of agitation and propaganda at the front's Revolutionary Military Council. In addition, Izvestia instructed her to regularly write about the progress of hostilities: from the essays written during the Volga campaign, the book “Front” was later compiled.
In Kazan they had to split up: Larisa remained at headquarters, and Raskolnikov went to Nizhny Novgorod, where the Volga military flotilla was formed. The flagship vessel was the yacht Mezhen, which previously belonged to the royal family. The flotilla entered battle on August 5: the Whites were approaching Kazan. On August 7, Kazan fell. Before leaving Kazan, Raskolnikov saw Larisa at headquarters: she was hanging documents on herself that she was going to take out of the city. It was agreed that she and two sailors would make their way to Sviyazhsk (20 versts from Kazan), and Raskolnikov would approach there with his detachment.
Trotsky in 1918
However, in Sviyazhsk he found not only Larisa, but also Leon Trotsky: he was sitting in Larisa’s cabin, undressed, next to the unmade bed...
For Larisa, Trotsky was approximately the same as Raskolnikov: the embodiment of the revolutionary element, which she dreamed of subjugating. Trotsky is the second man in the state, a magnificent orator, a man of incredible charisma; to conquer him as a man meant to join the revolution, to power...
Raskolnikov was able to both understand and forgive. The episode with Trotsky did not play any role in their relationship.
Larisa said: when she got to Sviyazhsk, she was informed that Raskolnikov had been captured and was sitting in Kazan. She - with just one sailor - reached Kazan, on the way back she was caught, miraculously escaped... The sailor died. But this did not upset Larisa: this made her heroism more noticeable, audacity in war is the main valor, and the winners are not judged. Larisa reveled in danger, adored risk; she was ready to die at any second. And if someone nearby died, it means that this was his fate...
In Sviyazhsk, Larisa threw herself into work: Trotsky actively engaged her in propaganda activities and, moreover, appointed her commissar of the intelligence department at the headquarters of the 5th Army. She immediately recruited a detachment of thirty Red Army Magyars and often went with them on reconnaissance. She shot perfectly - Gumilyov, himself an excellent shooter, taught her this.
Raskolnikov was busy strengthening his flotilla. Larisa was appointed his flag secretary. In all battles, she is next to him, ahead of everyone... Sometimes - despite the strict agreement between them - she interfered with Raskolnikov’s orders: it seemed to her that he was not taking enough risks. Once he even had to take her in his arms, carry her off the bridge and lock her in the cabin...
The sailors initially treated her with distrust: such a bright, spoiled beauty had no place in battles, not to mention the fact that a woman on a ship has long been considered a bad omen. In the very first days, she was tested: they put her on a boat and headed at full speed under heavy fire. We watched Larisa and waited for her to get scared. Finally, unable to bear it, they turned back. And Larisa shouted: “Why are you turning? We must move forward!”
By the way, Larisa was not the only woman on the fronts of the Civil War. Rosalia Zemlyachka was the head of the political department of the 8th and 13th armies. Alexandra Yanysheva, who held the same position in the 15th Sivash Division, together with an advance detachment of 270 people stormed the Crimean bastions of the White Guards. Valentina Suzdaltseva fought as an assistant to the head of the political department of the 6th and 9th armies. But Larisa was the only one who fought in the navy.
And yet she remained a woman on the ship. When the flotilla passed by abandoned estates, fashionable dresses, hats, and jewelry were often found there - Larisa gladly put it all on herself, showing off in front of the sailors. All these outfits suited her amazingly - both peasant dresses and the luxurious toilets of the empress, which were left at Mezhen. It is not surprising that all the sailors were in love with her. One of them was Vsevolod Vishnevsky - many years later he would write his famous play “Optimistic Tragedy”, where Larisa Reisner would be easily recognizable as the main character.
In mid-November, the flotilla reached Nizhny Novgorod, and Raskolnikov was immediately summoned to Moscow, where he was assigned to the Northern Front. Larisa remained in Moscow as a commissar of the Naval General Staff: her family lived here after the government moved. The Reisners - as usual - felt entitled to stand above the rest. They occupied an entire mansion, where - in this time of famine - they gave lavish receptions. There were rumors among the people that Larisa even took champagne baths. She herself said: “We are building a new state. People need us. Our activity is creative, and therefore it would be hypocrisy to deny ourselves what always goes to people in power.” They said that it was because of her that her assistant commissar Telegin died: during the fire of the circus, the tent rushed to catch chinchillas - for Larisa's fur coat - and burned down...
At this time, Raskolnikov - on the orders of Trotsky - in the Baltic Sea tried to organize a naval raid on Revel (Riga), where English ships were stationed at that time. Raskolnikov, like no one else, knew that the Baltic Fleet was in no condition to take part in battles, but it was impossible to disobey the order. On December 26, Raskolnikov approached Revel on the destroyer Spartak. The British quickly caught up with Spartak and surrounded it. The entire team was captured; Raskolnikov and another sailor were taken to England as hostages.
Larisa, having learned about the defeat, immediately rushed to Narva - closer to the center of events. She developed a crazy plan for a land raid across Estonia to Revel to free Raskolnikov and was even able to get this plan approved by the Revolutionary Military Council. A detachment had already been formed; everything was ready. The raid did not take place only because it became known that Raskolnikov was in England.
He was released diplomatically, exchanging him and his fellow sufferer for seventeen English officers; Larisa personally brought the English to the place of exchange. She, as if under escort, took Raskolnikov to Petrograd...
In June 1920, Raskolnikov was appointed commander of the Baltic Fleet, and Larisa moved in with him. They settled - mostly, of course, she, because Raskolnikov spent all his time on ships - in the apartments of the former Minister of War Grigorovich in the Admiralty. According to the memoirs of the poet Vsevolod Rozhdestvensky, the room was filled with their war trophies: figurines of Buddhas, exotic fabrics, countless bottles of perfume and English books. And among this barbaric splendor - Larisa herself, in an embroidered gold robe, and above her, on the wall - a revolver and an old midshipman's cloak...
In Petrograd, Larisa plunged headlong into social life - now she again had the opportunity, means, and time for this. As usual, public opinion meant little to her: when she drove through ruined Petrograd in a luxurious car, well-groomed, in a brand new naval overcoat, incredibly beautiful - the townspeople were ready to spit after her. Her walks with Alexander Blok on horses, specially brought for her from the front, were widely and condemningly gossiped about in Petrograd living rooms.
She wanted with all her might to return to the world of literary bohemia so beloved by her, and writers - some with fear, some with admiration, some from hunger, some with love - accepted her. Among her friends were Rozhdestvensky and Mikhail Kuzmin, Osip Mandelstam and Boris Pasternak. Larisa admired geniuses. One day, having learned that Anna Akhmatova was starving, she dragged a huge bag of food to her.
But even in this world she behaved with an internalized sense of permissiveness. One day she wanted to come to a masquerade at the House of Arts wearing Leo Bakst’s priceless costume for the ballet Carnival. The precious dress was guarded by a whole platoon of dressers, but Larisa was still able to appear in it at the ball, causing an incredible sensation. Unfortunately, soon the director of state theaters Ekkuzovich himself appeared there - and Larisa at that very second rushed to return the dress to its place in the official car. Returning, she watched, giggling into her fist, as the director tried to call the costume department to find out the fate of his exhibit...
She openly enjoyed her beauty, youth and position, despite the gossip and streams of dirt directed at her. Larisa said: “We must respect people and try for them. If you can be pleasing to the eye, why not take advantage of this opportunity.”
She tried to be pleasing not only to the eyes: Osip Mandelstam secretly told his wife that Larisa once threw a party specifically to make it easier for the security officers to arrest their guests...
But clouds were gathering over her head. Demonstrations against Trotsky and his supporters began everywhere; Raskolnikov and Larisa belonged to them. In January 1921, Raskolnikov, after a difficult conversation with Lenin, resigned from all posts and after that, together with Larisa, he left for the Black Sea.
Their future fate determined by a chance meeting on the way. Deputy People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs Lev Karakhan offered Raskolnikov the post of plenipotentiary representative of the Soviet government in Afghanistan. The People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs was sorely short of personnel, and Raskolnikov - an intelligent man, with two higher educations, who knew foreign languages - was a most valuable find.
Raskolnikov agreed. Larisa went with him.
Fyodor Raskolnikov (first from left) and Larisa Reisner in Afghanistan. Photo from the archive of L. Nikulin, TsGALI
There was a lot of work. The main task of the mission was to fight British influence: England hoped, if not to include Afghanistan into its empire, then at least to keep it under its influence as a buffer zone between Soviet territory and its colonies in India. British diplomats did their best to obstruct the activities of the new Soviet plenipotentiary, and Larisa managed to save the situation. As a woman, she could not - due to Eastern specifics - take direct part in political life, but other paths were available to her. She became friends with the beloved wife of Emir Amanullah Khan and his mother, and since they had a strong influence on the emir, Larisa was not only able to receive all the information about what was happening at court, but also directly influence the political situation.
When the situation calmed down somewhat, Larisa was able to devote herself to her main hobby - literature. Her book “Afghanistan” is still considered one of the pinnacles of Soviet journalism.
Larisa Reisner (second from left) and Russian embassy staff at the Afghan Independence Day. 1922
It was in Afghanistan that Larisa received the news of Gumilev's death: he was shot in August 1921 on charges of participating in a monarchist conspiracy. Larisa cried for several days. Until the end of her life, she was sure that if she had been in Petrograd then, she would have been able to save her Hafiz from death...
Gradually, Larisa began to tire of life in a well-fed and quiet Afghanistan. She began to feel burdened by an inactive, too calm existence. Raskolnikov also began to irritate her - especially after Larisa’s miscarriage. One fine day, in March 1923, Larisa simply took off and left for Russia - officially in order to arrange for Raskolnikov’s transfer from Afghanistan. But she never returned to him.
There were letters again: first full of love, then colder and colder... Raskolnikov still didn’t want to believe, he called her, waited for her... Until it became clear: she had someone else. Reluctantly, still convincing Larisa that she was wrong, Raskolnikov agreed to the divorce.
Larisa's new choice was incomprehensible to almost everyone: she fell in love with the famous journalist Karl Radek, a prominent party member, a brilliant speaker, a man of rare intelligence and talent. There were legends about Radek, who was unusually witty, that it was he who came up with most of the counter-revolutionary jokes. Outwardly, Radek was frankly ugly - bald, bespectacled, shorter than Larisa by a head and smoking like a locomotive. Larisa and Radek were immediately nicknamed “beauty and the beast”, someone altered a quote from “Ruslan and Lyudmila”: “Larisa puts Karl almost alive in a knapsack under the saddle...” And Larisa’s appearance did not play any role: she was attracted precisely Radek's talent and intelligence.
Karl Radek
On his first dates with Larisa, Radek took his daughter Sophia with him, and on subsequent dates he took books. He seriously took up Larisa’s literary education - he read her manuscripts, forced her to study philosophical works, and work on her style. It was under the influence of Radek that Larisa, having gotten rid of unnecessary prettiness and learned to think clearly and clearly express her thoughts, became a real journalist. In the fall of 1923, Larisa and Radek were sent to Germany. There in Hamburg, the Soviet government, wanting to kindle the fire of world revolution, provoked an uprising. Radek was to become one of the leaders of the German revolution, and Larisa was called upon to describe in her essays the creation of a new socialist state. But the Hamburg uprising failed, and Radek and Larisa returned to Moscow. The literary result of this adventurous trip was Reisner’s book “Hamburg on the Barricades.”
During this trip, Larisa visited Olga Chekhova in Berlin, a Russian emigrant making a name for herself on the German stage. It was then, according to some researchers, that Chekhova’s work for Soviet intelligence began. But this was not true: Olga Chekhova only responded to the proposal of Soviet intelligence, which came to her from her brother, composer Lev Knipper, only at the beginning of World War II.
And the romance between Larisa and Radek continued. The matter was complicated by the fact that Radek was married and, despite his obvious infatuation with Larisa, had no intention of getting a divorce. But Radek was for Larisa not only a husband (albeit an unofficial one), but also a teacher and spiritual mentor. As she said, it was he who restored her faith in her talent, which had faded during the time of inactivity in Afghanistan. Larisa plunges headlong into journalism. From a months-long voyage through the Donbass and the Urals, she brings back the book “Iron, Coal and Living People.” The next year, Larisa goes to Germany for treatment - using the trip not so much to take care of her health, but to study the situation of the working class, which she will write about in the book “In the Land of the Hindenburg.” Then she takes up essays about the Decembrists - Kakhovsky, Trubetskoy, Steingel... Larisa seems to be in a hurry to live, knowing that she has very little time left. A sip of raw milk - and on February 9, 1926, Larisa Reisner died in Moscow from typhoid fever. She was only thirty years old.
The coffin stood in the Printing House on Nikitsky Boulevard. Crowds came to say goodbye to Larisa - military men, diplomats, writers... Radek was led by the arms - he sobbed, barely understood where he was going. Raskolnikov had a nervous breakdown and was ill for a long time. Larisa's death caused a lot of reactions. Mikhail Koltsov wrote: “Why did Larisa, a magnificent, rare, selected human specimen, die?” Boris Pasternak wrote the poem “In Memory of Larisa Reisner”; many years later, he will give the heroine of his novel “Doctor Zhivago” the name Larisa - in her honor.
Larisa, that's when I'll regret it,
That I am not death and zero in comparison with it.
I'd like to find out what holds it together without glue
A living story on scraps of days...
Larisa's mother Ekaterina Alexandrovna died a year later - by a strange coincidence, also from typhus and also because of a sip of milk.
Karl Radek was declared an “enemy of the people” in the mid-30s and shot. Raskolnikov fled to France and died there under very suspicious circumstances - they talk about both suicide and murder by NKVD agents. Trotsky, after many years of wandering and several assassination attempts, died from a blow with an ice ax in Mexico. Everyone whom Larisa Reisner gave her love, who knew her, died. But Larisa is remembered. Her life was short but bright, and its light is still visible through the thickness of time...
REISNER, LARISA MIKHAILOVNA(1895–1926) - a prominent public figure, writer and journalist, revolutionary, woman-myth, “Valkyrie of the revolution.”
She was born on May 1 (13), 1895 in Lublin (Poland) in the family of law professor Mikhail Andreevich Reisner, who married a hereditary Russian aristocrat (Larissa’s mother, née Khitrovo, was distantly related to the descendants of M.I. Kutuzov). Since 1905, the Reisner family lived in St. Petersburg in prosperity and comfort. Larisa’s father and brother were keen on the ideas of social democracy, which determined the girl’s range of interests and worldview. Distinguished by her bright humanitarian talents, she graduated from a women's gymnasium with a gold medal and, shortly before the outbreak of the First World War, submitted documents to the Psychoneurological Institute. At the same time, she began attending lectures on the history of political doctrines at the university as a volunteer student.
During the First World War, she and her father founded the magazine “Rudin” (taking as the name the surname of the famous Turgenev character, a fighter for justice). The magazine was declared as a publication designed to “brand with the scourge of satire and pamphlet all the ugliness of Russian life, wherever it may be found.” The girl proved herself to be an excellent organizer: she looked for funds for the magazine, purchased paper, negotiated with printers, and negotiated with the censor. The publication did not last long, but became a school of public activity for Larisa.
Gifted by nature with extraordinary external characteristics (which is noted in the memoirs of almost everyone who knew her), confident in the success of her first literary experiments (she signed them with the male pseudonym “Leo Rinus”), she quickly became famous in the circles of the capital’s intelligentsia, especially the creative one. L.M. Reisner met the poet Nikolai Gumilyov in the fall of 1916 at the famous artistic tavern “Comedians’ Halt.” N. Gumilyov became her lover, which largely determined the development of Larisa’s poetic gift.
According to a number of wordsmiths around her (A. Blok, Z. Gippius, Vs. Rozhdestvensky), L.M. Reisner’s poetic talent was inferior to her beauty, and the somewhat mannered style did not correspond to the stormy, passionate nature of the author. Larisa's relationship with N. Gumilyov was short-lived, did not develop into marriage, but had an impact on her life.
AND February revolution, and the Reisner family enthusiastically accepted the Bolshevik coup.
In 1918 she joined the RCP(b).
During the Civil War, she was a cultural and educational worker - a “commissar”, fought on the Eastern Front and went along with the Volga military flotilla throughout its entire combat path, which began in Kazan in 1918. Together with the soldiers and sailors of the “commissar”, she was hungry, freezing, and suffered from lice. Despite everything, I managed to write home at the same time Letters from the front, later included in the book Front(1924). Her journalistic talent grew stronger during the trials. Having walked, in her words, “with fire thousands of miles from the Baltic to the Persian border,” she became closely acquainted with many people. Among them was B. Savinkov, the former head of the Combat Organization of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, and in those years the head of the Union for the Defense of the Motherland and Freedom.
At the front, L.M. Reisner met her future husband, the commander of the Volga Flotilla F.F. Raskolnikov. Like-minded people who firmly believed in the possibility of establishing a just world order, they got married and in April 1921 went to Afghanistan: F.F. Raskolnikov was traveling as a plenipotentiary representative (ambassador) Soviet Russia, Larisa - as a person accompanying him (at that time she was the Commissioner of the Naval General Staff).
Larisa’s brother Igor Reisner, one of the founders of Soviet oriental studies, was also in Afghanistan. The results of the activities of the young diplomats were summed up by the signing of a peace treaty between the two countries. "What am I doing? I'm writing like crazy. I’m putting my Afghanistan in a bind,” Larisa wrote to her brother, telling her that she had decided to summarize her impressions from the trip to the eastern country (book Afghanistan published in 1925). The life of the “ambassador’s wife” in this warmth and satiety seemed heavenly here after hungry Russia, but this was not enough for Larisa’s active character. When asked how she imagines happiness, Larisa answered: “Never live in one place. The best thing is on a magic carpet.”
Despite her husband's protests, she left him and went to Russia. Having found A.A. Akhmatova, she provided her with financial assistance. Larisa began an affair with Karl Radek, and F.F. Raskolnikov had to regretfully give his wife consent to divorce.
The intellectual K. Radek, with his explosive character and numerous literary talents, seemed unusually attractive to Larisa. Being close to the party nomenklatura allowed her at that time to create something like a “salon” at home, which was visited not only by those favored by I.V. Stalin, but also by his opponents, including L.D. Trotsky. Together with K. Radek, L.M. Reisner visited Germany, where she fought in Hamburg on the barricades of the failed communist revolution and subsequently described her impressions in a book Hamburg on the barricades (1925).
After a trip to Hamburg, Larisa's relationship with Karl Radek broke up. She left for Donbass and after the trip she quickly published new book – Coal, iron and living people(1925). It outlined the ways of development of the Soviet essay; sketches of the life and customs of the Ural wilderness and the villages of Donbass were interspersed with business economic considerations. L.M. Reisner inspiredly described the enthusiasm of the workers, recalling at the same time that it cannot atone for the negligence of business executives. In her essays, L.M. Reisner demonstrated the unity of analytical thought and poetic feeling, energy and figurativeness of language.
An absurd accident (a glass of unboiled milk) cut short the life of L.M. Reisner: she died on February 9, 1926 in Moscow at the age of 30 from typhus. The stormy fate of Larisa has repeatedly inspired writers: with L.M. Reisner, V. Vishnevsky wrote the image of the female Commissioner in his play Optimistic tragedy; L.O. Pasternak’s enthusiastic attitude towards L.M. Reisner, whom he considered “charm incarnate,” gave him reason to call the main character of his novel Larisa Doctor Zhivago.
Works: Collection. soch., vol. 1–2, M., 1928; Autobiography// Soviet writers. Autobiographies, vol. 3, M., 1966; Autobiographical novel. - On Sat. Literary heritage. From the history of Soviet literature of the 1920–1930s. New materials and research. M., “Science”, 1983
Natalia Pushkareva
(1926-02-09 ) (30 years)Larisa Mikhailovna Reisner(German: Larissa Michailowna Reissner, May (13), Lublin - February 9, Moscow) - Russian revolutionary, journalist and poet, writer, diplomat. Participant in the Russian Civil War. Sister of the orientalist I. M. Reisner.
Biography
Larisa Reisner was born in the family of a lawyer, law professor Mikhail Andreevich Reisner in Poland (Lublin). Official documents indicate May 1 as the date of birth of Larisa Mikhailovna Reisner. In fact, Larisa was born on the night from the first to the second, but chose to indicate May 1 as her birthday in the future. Firstly, this day marks a big holiday celebrated in Germany - Walpurgis Night (from April 30 to May 1), and Larisa never forgot about her (Baltic Sea) German roots, and secondly, May 1 is an international day of solidarity workers
In 1916-1917 she was an employee of the internationalist magazine “Letopis” and M. Gorky’s newspaper “New Life”.
In 1916-1917, Reisner experienced a stormy romance with N. S. Gumilev, which left a deep mark on her life and work (under the name “Gafiza” the poet was published in the “Autobiographical Novel”, not published during Reisner’s lifetime). The meeting between Larisa and Nikolai took place in 1916 at the Comedians' Halt restaurant, where representatives of St. Petersburg bohemia gathered. It was always noisy and fun here: they drank expensive wine, read poetry, argued about politics. Anna Akhmatova took her husband Nikolai’s passion for Larisa calmly, since this happened many times. Larisa's attitude towards Gumilyov was extremely emotional and exalted.
During the war, Gumilyov was in the ranks of the active army. Larisa was in St. Petersburg at that time.
The romance between Larisa and Nikolai turned out to be short-lived - it soon became clear that, in parallel with Reisner, the poet had a love relationship with Anna Engelhardt, the daughter of the writer and poet N.I. Engelhardt, whom he married in 1918, which caused Larisa’s indignation.
She was also in a long-term relationship with Sergei Kolbasiev [ ] .
Revolution and civil war
In 1917 she participated in the activities of the commission for arts affairs of the executive committee of the Soviets of Workers' and Peasants' Deputies, and after the October Revolution she was for some time engaged in work related to the preservation of art monuments (in the Special Commission for the Registration and Protection of the Hermitage and Petrograd Museums); was secretary of A.V. Lunacharsky.
After joining the CPSU (b) (1918), Reisner made a unique career as a woman - a military politician: in December 1918, Leon Trotsky appointed her People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs (from December 20, 1918 temporarily, from January 29, 1919 permanently ) Commissar of the Naval General Staff of the RSFSR after serving as commissar of the reconnaissance detachment of the 5th Army headquarters, which took part in the hostilities, one of the founders of Soviet oriental studies. The result of the activities of the young diplomats was the signing of a peace treaty between the two countries. "What am I doing? I'm writing like crazy. I’m putting my Afghanistan in a bind,” Larisa wrote to her brother, telling her that she had decided to summarize her impressions from the trip to the eastern country (book Afghanistan published in 1925). She then broke up with Raskolnikov (although he did not give her a divorce) and returned to Moscow, where she became Karl Radek's lover.
Together with K. Radek, Reisner, as a correspondent for Krasnaya Zvezda and Izvestia, visited Germany in 1923, where she witnessed the Hamburg Uprising. She wrote a book about him, “Hamburg on the Barricades” (1924). Two more cycles of her essays are dedicated to Germany - “Berlin in 1923” and “In the Land of Hindenburg.”
After a trip to Hamburg, Reisner broke up with Radek, went to the Donbass and after the trip wrote the book “Coal, Iron and Living People” (1925).
Reisner's last major work was historical sketches-portraits dedicated to the Decembrists (“Portraits of the Decembrists”, 1925).
Death
Larisa Reisner died on February 9, 1926 in Moscow at the age of 30 from typhoid fever, after drinking a glass of raw milk. Mother and brother Igor survived. Larisa did not recover from the illness, because at that time she was severely exhausted by work and personal worries. In the Kremlin hospital, where she was dying, her mother was on duty with her, who committed suicide immediately after the death of her daughter. The writer Varlam Shalamov left the following memories: “A young woman, the hope of literature, a beauty, a heroine of the Civil War, died of typhoid fever at the age of thirty. Nonsense. Nobody believed it. But Reisner died. She was buried in plot 20 at the Vagankovskoye cemetery.” “Why did Larisa, a magnificent, rare, selected human specimen, die?” - Mikhail Koltsov asked pathetically.
One of the obituaries read:
She would need to die somewhere in the steppe, in the sea, in the mountains, with a rifle or Mauser tightly clutched.
IN different times and in different countries standards of beauty have changed greatly. However, Larisa Reisner’s appearance was so bright and impressive that even today her photographs leave one impression: a beauty! Graceful figure, regular facial features. But this was not the mannered and defenseless feminine charm characteristic of the era: courage and recklessness showed through the chiseled features.
This woman fully corresponded to the characteristics of an absolute passionary, as defined by Lev Nikolaevich Gumilyov.
Family and childhood
Larisa was born in 1895 in Poland, the daughter of law professor Mikhail Andreevich Reisner. Two years later, her brother Igor was born. According to family legends, the Reisners came from an ancient aristocratic German family, whose representatives participated in the Crusades.
The family moved to where Mikhail Andreevich was offered work: Lublin, Tomsk, Paris. In 1905, the Reisners moved to St. Petersburg. Here Larisa graduated from high school with a gold medal and entered the Psychoneurological Institute, where her father taught. She was the only female student, and behaved with her classmates so naturally and confidently that the young people did not allow themselves any liberties.
Mikhail Reisner was a multi-vector politician. He wrote a very reasonable treatise on the divine origin of tsarist power, but at the same time he corresponded with Lenin and published the opposition magazine Rudin, where he denounced the tsarist government. Larisa took an active part in the publication of the magazine: she found sponsors, purchased paper, negotiated with printing houses and censors. Yet, after a year and a half, the magazine was banned as unreliable.
Romance with Nikolai Gumilyov
Larisa Reisner wrote quite good poems in the spirit of decadence, fashionable at that time. This style itself was distinguished by some pomposity, which gave those who wished it a reason to criticize the work of the young poetess.
The palette is gilded with thick, transparent varnish,
But it cannot quench a new thirst:
Dreams run without repeating twice,
And the hand clenches madly into a fist.
Zinaida Gippius described Larisa's lyrics as weak and pretentious, and the famous Nikolai Gumilev called her simply mediocre. The young poetess was so upset by his characterization that she cried the whole night. However, later a passionate romance arose between them. Nikolai at that time was serving in the active army and was in St. Petersburg only for a short period of leave. These two talented person They came up with a love game in the oriental style, where Gumilev was Gafiz, and Larisa was Leri. In their letters they called each other that way.
The poet had a reputation as a lover of women and was known for his ability to offer his hand and heart to everyone, but in his relationship with Larisa he diligently maintained his distance, realizing that this woman would not tolerate his frivolous adventures. However, upon Nikolai’s return to St. Petersburg, she agreed to a date with him in a rather peculiar place: in a brothel. However, for poets of that period, visiting such establishments was considered a sign of fashionable rebellion and self-sufficiency.
Nikolai finally proposed to Larisa, but she refused precisely for the reason that he was dating at the same time as others. Although she explained her refusal by not wanting to hurt Anna Akhmatova: the relationship between the two poets had long been nominal... In parting, Gumilyov advised his ex-girlfriend to have fun, but not to get involved in politics.
It was February 1917.
A few years later, Larisa wrote about her relationship with Gumilyov: “I never loved anyone with such pain, with such a desire to die for him, as he did, the poet Gafiz, the freak and the scoundrel.”
Larisa Reisner - sailor of the revolution
Contrary to Gumilyov’s advice, Larisa plunged headlong into political activity. The family joined the winners. Larisa's brother Igor became the secretary of Dmitry Manuilsky, one of the Bolshevik deputies. And Larisa herself was engaged in propaganda among the sailors of the Baltic Fleet and worked under the leadership of Lunacharsky. As a correspondent for the Izvestia newspaper, she met the leader of a detachment of sailors sent to Moscow. The last name of this sailor was Ilyin, but he participated in the coup under the pseudonym “Fyodor Raskolnikov.” He was not a simple person: two higher education and several foreign languages. These two became husband and wife, but the relationship was somewhat one-sided: Raskolnikov adored Larisa, but she did not want to live together and limit herself in hobbies.
Hobbies soon followed: Leon Trotsky became Larisa’s new passion. Another smart, extraordinary person with powerful charisma. Larisa worked under his supervision in Kazan. After an outbreak of passion between them, she returned to Raskolnikov.
At the same time, this extraordinary woman found herself at the center of all sorts of adventures. Delivering secret documents, she made her way through hostile territories; the men accompanying her died, she herself was captured, but managed to escape. Appointed to Raskolnikov's flotilla, she strove to interfere in the management of military affairs - it got to the point that her husband was forced to take her from the bridge by force and lock her in the cabin.
Larisa, regardless of the setting, looked smart and elegant, and loved perfume. The sailors of the flotilla treated her ironically: how could this spoiled woman be in the midst of battles? And they gave her an exam: they put her on a boat and went under heavy fire, waiting for this beauty to lower her tone and ask to go back. But Larisa reveled in the danger and did not spare the dead. The sailors themselves got scared and turned back, while the passenger was indignant at their cowardice.
The most elegant revolutionary
They never weaned her off her love of clothes; on the contrary: in abandoned estates and on the royal yacht “Mezhen” they found a lot of all kinds of dresses, from the most exquisite to peasant ones, and all of them suited the beautiful revolutionary. Larisa organized a “fashion show” on the ship, and the sailors, already completely in love with her, had no objections. One of these sailors was Vsevolod Vishnevsky, a future playwright; he later sang the image of Larisa Reisner in the play “Optimistic Tragedy.”
Larisa knew how to shoot perfectly, she was taught this by Nikolai Gumilyov, himself an excellent shooter. And she personally participated in the executions.
By order of Trotsky, the Baltic Fleet under the command of Raskolnikov was to attack the English fleet stationed in Reval. The condition of the ships was poor, they lost the battle, and Raskolnikov was captured and taken to England. Larisa personally participated in his exchange for English prisoners of war.
Larisa lived “to the fullest.” She took expensive trophies for herself, drove a luxury car, and took champagne baths. Her social circle included both politicians and bohemians. There were rumors that this woman was organizing receptions to make it easier for the security officers to arrest some of her guests. However, when someone told Larisa that Anna Akhmatova was starving, she brought her a huge bag of food.
Afghanistan
In 1921, Raskolnikov was offered the post of USSR plenipotentiary representative in Afghanistan. Larisa went with him. The main task of the embassy was to combat British influence in the region. Larisa was able to create worthy competition for European diplomacy. She became friends with her beloved wife and the mother of Amanullah Khan, through them she quickly received confidential information and influenced politics.
Here Larisa wrote the undoubtedly talented book “Afghanistan”.
While in this country, she learned that Nikolai Gumilyov had been shot. Larisa cried for several days, and until the end of her days she insisted that if she had been in Petrograd, she would definitely have saved her “Gafiz”.
Around that time, Larisa had a miscarriage. After that, she left for Russia and never returned to Raskolnikov. He worried for a long time, wrote letters to her, begged her to return, but in vain...
Last Passion
Larisa has a new passion: married journalist Karl Radek: a man with the appearance of an outright goner. He was a head shorter than his girlfriend, bald and blind. However, Larisa was attracted to his extraordinary intelligence.
In 1923, Radek was sent to Germany. The USSR provoked an uprising in Hamburg, Radek had to support it, and Larisa had to cover it as a journalist.
Over the next two years, she wrote a number of talented books: about Germany, about the Donbass, about the Decembrists...
Death and memories
This amazing woman repeatedly put herself at risk of dying in battle, but fate decided otherwise.
Upon returning to Moscow, Larisa drank a glass of raw milk and contracted typhoid fever. On February 9, 1926, she passed away. Thousands of people came to the House of Printing to say goodbye to her.
Leon Trotsky wrote about her: “The appearance of an Olympian goddess, her ironic mind was combined with the courage of a warrior.”
Osip Mandelstam, in his “Madrigal” dedicated to Larisa, compared her to a green-eyed mermaid, and Nikolai Gumilyov praised her “Ionic curl”...
V.L. Andreev (the son of the writer Leonid Andreev), recalled: “There was not a single man who would pass by without noticing her, and every third one - a statistic precisely established by me - burst into the ground like a pillar and looked after us until we disappeared into crowd."