The fate of Maria Budberg (nee Zakrevskaya) is one of the mysteries of the rebellious twentieth century. Historians are still trying to establish reliably whether she was an intelligence officer, and if so, what country she worked for. She is credited with connections with the intelligence services of Germany, England and Soviet Union. Her love stories with prominent figures of the era only aggravate the situation: among her fans are British secret agent Robert Bruce Lockhart, security officer Jacob Peters, Estonian baron Nikolai Budberg, science fiction writer H.G. Wells and Petrel of the Revolution Maxim Gorky...
Portrait of Maria Budberg.
Maria Ignatievna Zakrevskaya was born in Poltava in 1892. The girl received a good education at a boarding house for noble maidens, and, being 18 years old, she charmed the diplomat Ivan Benkendorf and soon married him and gave birth to two children - a daughter, Tanya, and a son, Pavel. When the February Revolution broke out, Benckendorf decided to leave with his children to his estate in Estonia, but Maria remained in Moscow.
Soon Maria Benkendorf learned about the tragic death of her legal husband - he was shot. However, her thoughts were already occupied by the British Ambassador Robert Lockhart, Maria lived with him, and when security officers burst into Lockhart’s apartment on September 1, 1918 with a search, they found her there. Both Maria and Robert were sent to Lubyanka on charges of spying for Great Britain. Under the leadership of security officer Yakov Peters, an investigation was carried out, and the so-called “ambassador conspiracy” was exposed, an operation that was allegedly prepared by the ambassadors of France, Great Britain and America with the aim of overthrowing the Bolsheviks in Russia. 
Portrait of Maria Budberg.
Despite the seriousness of the charges and the fact that after the revelation of the conspiracy, the Red Terror unfolded throughout the country, Robert Lockhart was soon released from prison, he was sent to London, exchanged for a Soviet diplomat arrested in Great Britain. Maria not only arranged her own release, but also secured Lockhart’s freedom... at the cost of an affair with the security officer Jacob Peters. Maria was released, apparently on the condition that she would cooperate with the NKVD. 
Maxim Gorky and Maria Budberg.
Once free, she moved to Petrograd and began to seek help from literary acquaintances. It was necessary to earn money in order to live on something, in addition, Maria dreamed of taking her children to Russia. Korney Chukovsky promised to help her; he remembered that Maxim Gorky was looking for an assistant secretary. Gorky was amazed by Maria’s business qualities and her education: she was not only ready to handle all his documentation and help compose letters in Russian, English and German languages, but also willingly took on managing the costs of maintaining the entire house. 
Maria Budberg worked as Gorky's secretary.
Over time, Maxim Gorky realized that he not only valued Mura (as she was then called) as an exemplary employee, but also had the warmest feelings for her. This was noticed by both Gorky’s legal wife Ekaterina Peshkova and his actual wife Maria Andreeva. Despite the fact that Gorky was almost twice older than Maria, he completely surrendered to this feeling, he understood that this love would be the last in his life. And he really foresaw his tragic ending...
Maria changed many surnames during her life. Another one was Budberg. She took it when she married an Estonian baron. The marriage was fictitious; it was the only way for Mura to see her children. She went to Estonia in 1920, tried to illegally cross the border in winter along the Gulf of Finland, but was captured by the police. Gorky, having learned about what had happened, made efforts to have Mura released. True, she was immediately arrested again on suspicion of espionage (in Tallinn she was reminded of her love affairs with both Gorky and Peters). She was released by her lawyer, to whom Maxim Gorky, who had good connections in the West. 
Maria Budberg at the end of her life.
Mura lived in Europe for several years, here she waited for Gorky to move, and settled with him in Sorrento, forgetting about her fictitious husband. Despite the warmest feelings that Mura had for the Soviet writer, she visited her former lover, Robert Lokkar, several times a year. She made a stop in London when she went to visit her children in Estonia. In 1925, Mura decided to move the children to Sorrento; Gorky fell in love with them with all his soul.
Another great love of Mura was connected with London. After Gorky returned to the USSR, she moved to live in London. It was 1933. Here she lived with Herbert Wells. Their love story broke out back in 1920, they met then in Gorky’s house. Wells, like other men, was jealous of his beloved, painfully worried about her infidelities (she now visited Maxim Gorky from time to time) and desperately offered her to become his wife. However, all the men of Mura did this.
Interestingly, Mura did not betray any of her beloved men. She looked after Wells until his death, and Maxim Gorky also died in her arms. Who knows, maybe this could not have happened without the special services. Historians still have not established exactly who is responsible for the poisoning of the Petrel. 
Maria Budberg is supposedly a double intelligence agent.
Maria Budberg passed away in November 1974. IN last years Throughout her life, she suffered from illnesses, had difficulty walking, and many years of alcohol abuse took its toll. In history, she remained the “iron woman,” as Gorky called her, or the “red Mata Hari,” as she was dubbed in the West. Shortly before her death, she destroyed her entire epistolary heritage, leaving no answers to numerous questions for her descendants.
(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 Russian literature into English. 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 could even say that lion's share 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 survivors 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 fact, she was the youngest daughter of the Chernigov landowner and judicial figure Ignatius Platonovich Zakrevsky, who descended from the 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 her studies in England, where at that time her half-brother, Platon Ignatievich (from the first marriage of I.P. Zakrevsky), was an employee of the Russian embassy in London. 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 magnates. 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 in soon his dreams are unlikely to come true, 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 little son, but his family life was not successful. 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 she separated us military force Bolsheviks." 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 steadfastness, which is proof of the complete absence of any fear. Her vitality, perhaps related to her iron health, was incredible and infected everyone with whom she interacted. 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.
March 15, 1918 following Soviet government Lockhart moved to Moscow, which became the capital of 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, the operational leadership 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, after identification, was released, but 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 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 large multi-room apartment, densely populated by a variety of 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 acquisitions 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 a 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 appealed to the Estonian Supreme Court with a request for her immediate deportation back to Russia and for 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 white bread,” 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. For a long time the prevailing opinion about Maria Budberg’s involvement in the allegedly violent death of Gorky today seems unfounded, as well as the assertion that, as an employee of the NKVD, Mura then brought from London that part of Gorky’s secret archive, which 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 former closeness did not arise, their friendship and business relationship have not stopped 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 an apartment in London and moved there permanently. 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. Moore, 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 the dark thoughts that 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 an overly hectic life was taking its toll, and 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 Moura looked like an aging aristocrat: hung with heavy beads, wearing long, wide skirts, she spoke in a deep voice, smoked cigarettes and sprinkled her speech with unprintable 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. IN Orthodox Church At the funeral service, in the front row stood the French ambassador to 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 .
The future “red Mata Hari” received her primary education at the Institute of Noble Maidens, and then went on an internship to London, under the supervision of stepbrother Platon Zakrevsky, who worked at the Russian embassy. It was here that the girl met representatives of the European elite, learned how political intrigues were carried out and tactical negotiations were conducted. So, she met her first husband, Count Ivan Aleksandrovich Benkendorf, with whom in 1911 she went to Berlin, where she was appointed as a diplomatic husband.
The period of the First World War and the subsequent February Revolution greatly changed the plans of the young couple - Maria goes to work as a nurse, and then leaves with her family to her husband’s Estonian estate, the Tallinn suburb of Janeda, from where she keeps an eye on developments in the country. In October, Zakrevskaya-Benckendorf decides to return to Petrograd to deal with housing problems in the capital, however, at the end of December she learns that her husband was killed by rebel peasants from a neighboring village, and the family house was burned down. Finding herself in an almost hopeless situation, she turns to the British Embassy for help, where she meets and then falls in love with the English diplomat and intelligence officer Bruce Lockhart, who became an unofficial informant and delegate to establish ties with the Bolshevik government.
Lockhart’s memoirs about his Russian lover expressed in “Memoirs of a British Agent” are noteworthy: “The most Russian of Russians, she treats the little things in life with disdain and with steadfastness, which is proof of the complete absence of any fear. Her vitality, perhaps related to her iron health, was incredible and infected everyone with whom she interacted. 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."
She was in a relationship with British spy Lockhart
However, in October 1918, Lockhart was expelled from Russia for participating in one of the significant diplomatic conspiracies, which, along with the assassination attempt on Lenin, is considered one of the reasons that unleashed the Bolshevik policy of mass terror. Together with the British diplomat, Maria Zakrevskaya is also under arrest, who is soon released at the personal request of the deputy chairman of the Cheka, Yakov Peters, subject to unconditional cooperation with Soviet intelligence. Begins new stage an adventurous biography of the “iron woman,” as her famous contemporary and memoirist Nina Berberova dubbed her.
With the help of Korney Ivanovich Chukovsky, with whom Zakrevskaya was friends, she gets a job as a translator at the World Literature publishing house founded by Maxim Gorky. It was a large-scale project aimed at mass cultural education and the creation of a library of folk literature - it was planned to publish 2,500 different books, reading which was not only a pleasant pastime, but also a way of self-education. Soon Maria Zakrevskaya becomes the writer’s personal secretary, and after the final break with ex-wife, Maria Feodorovna Andreeva, moves to Gorky.
Gorky dedicated his largest novel to her - “The Life of Klim Samgin”
The poet Vladislav Khodasevich, a frequent guest in their house, described Zakrevskaya this way: civil marriage which with Gorky lasted for 16 years: “Mura’s personal characteristic must be recognized as an exceptional gift for achieving his 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.”
In September 1920, Zakrevskaya met English writer Herbert Wells, who came to meet Lenin, and then, impressed by the trip, published the famous collection of documentary articles “Russia in the Dark.” Replying to Gorky in his suspicions of treason, she allegedly 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!” Purely feminine tricks and a subtle knowledge of diplomacy more than once rescued “red Mata Hari” in the most difficult situations.
This happened in the case of Zakrevskaya’s second official marriage - to another Estonian nobleman, the bankrupt baron Nikolai Budberg, whose marriage could have given her a chance to cross the border without hindrance. This marriage was obviously fictitious, because immediately after the wedding the groom was given a large sum of money, which he decided to use by going to Argentina. Maria Budberg follows Gorky to Italy, where she constantly takes care of him during the period of exacerbation of chronic tuberculosis. The writer’s gratitude was so great that he dedicated his most significant work, in fact his creative testament, to his common-law wife - the novel “The Life of Klim Samgin.”
In 1933, Gorky decided to return to Soviet Russia, and Maria Budberg goes to London, according to the official version, so as not to “put him in an awkward position,” but in reality - to see H.G. Wells. By the way, it is to her that Gorky leaves his Italian archive, which contains very controversial correspondence with Soviet writers dissatisfied with the state of affairs in their homeland. The writer was well aware that such materials, if they fell into the hands of the intelligence services, could catastrophically compromise him; however, the manuscripts subsequently mysteriously disappeared, allegedly in a fire in the Estonian Budberg house or ending up in the secret files of London MI5.
She is believed to have been a double agent for the OGPU and MI5
The collaboration of the “iron woman” with the British intelligence services, however, has not been thoroughly proven. However, she was closely monitored because of her contacts with the German newspaper Berliner Tageblatt journalist Paul Schaeffer, who, as British intelligence admitted, was “in close contact with persons suspected of military and political espionage.” Wells dies in 1946, leaving his Russian lover 100 thousand dollars and the opportunity to continue living comfortably in British capital until his death in 1974.
The mystery of the personality of Maria Ignatievna Zakrevskaya-Benckendorf-Budberg and the interest in her on the part of European intelligence services is easily explained by the following remark from the secret documents of MI5: “She is an extremely intelligent woman. A great conversationalist, one who, according to men, can always be listened to with charm. She has a more masculine rather than feminine mindset. There is no doubt that she achieved her position only with the help of her thinking. She loves intrigue very much. They believe that she is loyal only to herself. She lives in an old-fashioned apartment in Kensington and does not stand out in any way, except that she drinks gin like a horse.”
Stronger than life
Maria Ignatievna Zakrevskaya, Countess Benckendorff, Baroness Budberg... She was called “red Mata Hari”, “iron woman”, “Russian Milady”, “lawless comet”. Perhaps the goal of her life was to create a legend about herself - a legend where truth would be so closely intertwined with fiction that no one could separate one from the other. She collected husbands, keeping their surnames, and great men, leaving a fiery mark on their lives. She had so many masks that it seemed like there was no one behind them. But she still was – Mura Zakrevskaya-Benckendorff-Budberg...
All her life, Mura proudly announced that she was the great-granddaughter of Agrafena Fedorovna Zakrevskaya, the wife of the Moscow Governor-General - famous beauty, glorified by Pushkin “copper Venus”. Everyone who knew her had no doubt about this - Vyacheslav Khodasevich often told Mura: “There is no need to look for examples of how to live when there was such a grandmother.” In fact, Mura’s father Ignatius Platonovich Zakrevsky had nothing to do with those Zakrevskys. He came from the Chernigov province, from where he moved with his family to St. Petersburg, where he rose to high ranks in the Senate. He had four children - Plato (from his first marriage), twins Anna and Alexandra and the youngest Maria, born in 1892. After the Institute of Noble Maidens, Mura was sent to England, where her brother Platon Ignatievich served at the embassy, to improve in English, which Mura knew from childhood. She spent the winter at Newnham Girls' School, Cambridge; she then claimed to have graduated from Cambridge University. Ambassador Count Benckendorf patronized Platon Zakrevsky, and in his house Mura had the opportunity to get acquainted with all the cream of English society and Russian diplomacy.
In 1911, Mura married Ivan Aleksandrovich Benkendorf, an attaché at the embassy and a distant relative of the ambassador. Mura always called him Count; in fact he belonged to a side branch of this famous family, who had no rights to the title. A year later, Ivan Alexandrovich was appointed secretary of the Russian embassy in Germany. At a court ball, Mura was introduced to Kaiser Wilhelm. Life promised to be easy and fun... Ivan Alexandrovich took Mura to Estland (Estonia), where he had the Yaneda family estate, and then to St. Petersburg and Revel (now Tallinn), where he had many relatives. In 1913, the Benckendorffs had a son, Pavel, and two years later, a daughter, Tatyana. A lot happened during these two years: the war began and the embassy was forced to return to Russia; The Benckendorffs settled in St. Petersburg. Mura began working in a military hospital - all the ladies from high circles considered it their duty to help the wounded. Ivan Alexandrovich served in the military censorship.
The front passed just four hundred kilometers from Petrograd, through the territory of Livonia (Latvia). Nevertheless, St. Petersburg society continued to travel to their Estonian and Finnish estates for the summer. In the summer of 1917, Ivan Alexandrovich and Mura and their children went to Yaneda, where they planned to stay until late autumn. But after the October events it was dangerous to return to the city - and it was no less dangerous to stay. Mura returned to St. Petersburg alone - to look after the apartment and scout out the situation. The Germans were getting closer and closer to Revel; Mura was about to return, but then news came: peasants from a neighboring village came to the estate at night, brutally killed Ivan Alexandrovich and burned the house. The governess barely managed to save the children, taking refuge with neighbors.
It was impossible to get to Revel; Mura was kicked out of her Petrograd apartment - the Committee of the Poor Peasants moved in; everyone she knew either left or was in the same plight as she was. The British embassy - the only place where, as it seemed to Moura, they could help her - was preparing for an urgent move to Moscow. At the station, the embassy was seen off by the Russian wives of English diplomats - Princess Urusova, ballerina Tamara Karsavina, Countess Nostitz - and Mura... Soon she also moved to Moscow.
Of her former acquaintances at the English embassy, only the young diplomat Robert Bruce Lockhart, whom Mura had met back in England, remained.
Bruce Lockhart, 1930.
Lockhart first came to Russia in 1912. He was appointed vice-consul to Moscow, although his main task was to carry out various special assignments. Having learned Russian very quickly, he made close acquaintances with the cream of Moscow society. Distinguished by his boundless charm and incredible efficiency, he quickly rose to the rank of consul general and at the same time began journalistic career. His wife, having lost her first child during childbirth, went to England to give birth to the second - and with this Lockhart considered his family life actually finished.
Rumors about the young consul's affairs spread so widely that in the early autumn of 1917 he was ordered to return to England for a while to visit his family. When he arrived back four months later, Moscow - like all of Russia - had changed beyond recognition. He saw Mura on the third day after arriving in St. Petersburg; and almost immediately after moving to Moscow, a passionate romance broke out between them. “Something came into my life that turned out to be stronger and more durable than all other connections, stronger than life itself,” Lockhart later wrote in his memoirs, “Memoirs of a British Agent.”
Mura was never considered a beauty. A pretty face and a “buttery” stocky figure are not the type of women that men turn their attention to on the streets. But her animal charm, sexuality - at a time when even this word was not known - and, most importantly, a real talent for communication and a stamina and love of life that amazed everyone made her irresistible - in those cases when she wanted it. Mura was different rare mind, practical acumen and perseverance in any situation. And even when her whole world collapsed, she not only did not break, but was able to rise above the circumstances.
Jacob Peters, 1920s.
Lockhart settled Mura in his apartment in Khlebny Lane. For them, an illicit, inaccessible, illogical happiness began... It ended on the night from August 31 to September 1, 1918, when Lockhart, and at the same time Mura, were arrested in the so-called “ambassador case.” A series of high-profile assassination attempts had just been carried out: in July, the Socialist-Revolutionary Blumkin killed the German ambassador Count Mirbach, on the morning of August 30, Leonid Kanegisser shot the head of the Petrograd department of the Cheka Uritsky, and in the evening of the same day Dora (or, as she was later called, Fanny) Kaplan shot in Lenin. At night, the security officers stormed the British embassy, and the next day they came for the consul himself. Lockhart's intelligence activities were noticed by the Cheka, and they planned to make him the head of an anti-government conspiracy; At the same time, it was decided to get rid of all unwanted diplomats.
After some time, Lockhart was transferred from Lubyanka to the Kremlin. He wrote a petition for Mura’s release - she knew nothing, and could not have known about the mythical conspiracy... Dzerzhinsky’s deputy, Yakov Petere, who was in charge of the “Lockhart case,” promised Lockhart a tribunal - but Mura decided to release him. And three weeks later, Petere and Mura entered Lockhart’s room arm in arm to announce his release.
Lockhart was forced to leave Russia. But he was grateful to Mura for his release. Many believe that Moura paid Peters with herself for his freedom; They differ only in how exactly: she gave in to his advances or began to work for him. Both are quite likely.
Left alone again, Mura sold her last earrings and returned to St. Petersburg. On the third day she was arrested - she exchanged a sable muff for two ration cards, but they turned out to be fake. She asked to call Peters - they laughed at her. Two weeks later she was summoned for questioning, and she again asked to call Lubyanka. Four days later she was released.
Maxim Gorky, 1920s.
The year 1919 in Petrograd was terrible - there was no food, warmth, clothing, only terrible cold and typhus... Mura settled with her friend from working in the hospital, former Lieutenant General Mosolov. She had no cards, no registration, no money. I had to live somehow. One day Mura was told that Korney Chukovsky was in need of translators at the World Literature publishing house. Chukovsky treated her kindly and gave her a job. Not a translator: although Mura was fluent in English, German and French, her Russian was imperfect - like that of a person who spent a lot of time in a different language environment. True, this circumstance did not prevent Mura from not only trying to translate, but also from calling himself at the end of his life a famous translator, with sixteen volumes of translated works under her belt.
The main thing that Chukovsky did was bring Mura to Gorky.
At that terrible time, Gorky, who was friends with Lenin and thus had a certain influence, tried to help everyone: he bothered, got food and passports, got them out of prison and found work. About ten people constantly lived in his apartment - not only his family, but also just people who needed his help. Gorky broke up with his wife Ekaterina Pavlovna Peshkova a long time ago (although the divorce was not formalized, and until the end of their lives they maintained close relationships), and the mistresses of his house were former actress Moscow Art Theater Maria Fedorovna Andreeva (the break with her occurred back in 1912, but she continued to live in Gorky’s house for many more years), and when Andreeva went somewhere, the wife of Gorky’s colleague in “World Literature” Alexander Tikhonov, Varvara Tikhonova-Shaikevich, whose youngest daughter Nina was striking in her resemblance to Gorky.
Gorky took Mura to work as a secretary-translator, brought her to live with him, and within two weeks she became necessary. She lived in a room adjacent to Gorky's bedroom. She managed his household, took care of his correspondence, translated, sorted out manuscripts, talked about her adventures - and most importantly, listened. Any woman can tame a man with the ability to listen, and Mura knew how to listen like no one else. He used many of her stories in his work; Gorky’s main work, the four-volume novel “The Life of Klim Samgin,” was also dedicated to Mura. In his house she finally found peace.
But, as it turned out, she was also in danger in Gorky’s house. Grigory Zinoviev, at that time the first person in Petrograd, did not like Gorky, and openly considered Mura to be an English spy - all this became the reason for a search in Gorky’s house. For the sake of appearance, we walked through all the rooms; Everything in Mura's room was turned upside down. Gorky urgently went to Moscow, where he complained about Zinoviev to Lenin.
After some time, Mura was nevertheless arrested - and after an angry letter from Gorky, he was released. For the fourth time, Mura ended up in the Cheka after attempting to illegally cross the Estonian border - she tried to get to the children whom she had not seen for three years. And again she was released thanks to Gorky...
But as soon as the railway connection with Estonia was restored, she went there again. It was already clear that Gorky would not remain in the USSR for long, and when Mura left, she planned to meet him abroad. But in Revel she was immediately arrested, accusing her of being a Soviet spy. She hired a lawyer; she was released on her own recognizance. As soon as she arrived to see the children, her husband’s relatives, who had previously supported them, immediately stopped giving money. Mura was threatened with deportation to the USSR, where she did not want to go; all other paths were closed to her. The lawyer advised her to marry an Estonian: in this way Mura would receive Estonian citizenship and, therefore, the opportunity to freely travel anywhere. A husband was quickly found: Baron Nikolai Budberg urgently needed money, and Mura had a thousand dollars, which Gorky transferred to her from Berlin. Mura immediately married Baron Budberg - and they separated as soon as they crossed the Estonian border.
Gorky's health was upset. Tuberculosis was eating him away. He - and with him a large retinue, including Mura - wandered around European sanatoriums. Heringsdorf, Saarow, Marienbad and Sorrento – Mura was nearby everywhere. Varvara Shaikevich, who left with Gorky, immediately left him; Mura remained as the mistress. She regularly visited the children who remained in Estonia, staying there for several months, and then Gorky bombarded everyone with letters complaining about her absence... Often, on Gorky’s business, she had to go to Berlin, where Nikolai Budberg settled. He was a carouser, a gambler and constantly in debt. Moura got tired of settling his affairs, and she sent her husband to Argentina. They never saw each other again. In memory of him, Mura left herself his last name and title - the only real one of all that she ascribed to herself.
But her constant trips had other purposes. Many believe that Mura carried out assignments from the Cheka; she never denied these rumors - or any rumors that circulated about her. It is known for sure that she was looking for Lockhart (by that time he had made a career in journalism, and then in the Foreign Office) - and, having found him in Vienna, she not only continued her relationship with him, but also began to supply him with information: about this Lockhart wrote in his memoirs. His book was made into a film; At the premiere, Lockhart and Moura sat together.
She explained her constant trips to England simply: only there she could sew clothes to her taste. And the English suits really suited her very well, with which Mura, instead of jewelry and hats, wore a man’s watch and a hairstyle of long, unfashionable hair pinned at the back of her head. Her main adornment was her eyes - large, deep, burning with life; it was impossible to resist their gaze. Mura knew her strength very well - and knew how to use it.
From the mid-1920s, Mura began to prepare Gorky to return to Russia. Her calculation was accurate: in Europe it was published less and less, and incomes were falling. The only way to maintain material well-being is to return to the USSR, where Gorky was promised an unlimited bank account and all kinds of benefits. Gorky did not want to return; but he began to come to the USSR more and more often - his books were published there, his readers lived there, streets, steamships and collective farms were named after him. In 1933, Gorky finally moved to the USSR. Mura herself, however, did not go with him - according to the official version, she did not want to put him in an awkward position in front of his legal wife and readers who professed strict communist morality. She settled in London.
When leaving, Gorky left part of the archive in the care of Mura: it could not be taken to the USSR - there was correspondence with people dissatisfied with the Soviet order. But the archive was needed - political trials were being prepared in the USSR, and letters with statements “defaming the Soviet system” would be very useful. In 1936, Mura was hinted: the dying Gorky would like to say goodbye to her, and at the same time it would be nice if she brought the archive... She had no choice - voluntarily or by force, the archive would still end up in the USSR. Mura chose not to quarrel (or simply did her job well) - and she and the archive were taken to Moscow in a private carriage. First they brought her to the Kremlin; and from there - to Gorky, to the Gorki sanatorium. He had been dying for about a month now. But recently he felt much better; they spoke of an almost complete recovery. Mura was taken to Gorky. They were alone for some time...
The legend that it was Mura who, on orders from the Kremlin, poisoned Gorky is still alive; there are no facts that can prove or disprove this.
Mura spent more than ten years next to Gorky, was his muse, secretary, housekeeper, and de facto wife. But after breaking up with him, Mura was not afraid to be alone. Since 1931, she began to be called the “companion and friend” not only of Maxim Gorky, but also of the famous science fiction writer Herbert Wells, 26 years older than her. When Gorky was jealous, she reassured him: “Even for the most loving woman, two famous writers at once is too much!” She met Wells back in England - in happy time her first marriage. When Wells arrived in the USSR in 1920, he stayed in Gorky's house - there were no hotels at that time; Mura was his official translator. Petrograd, still recovering from the terrible winter, made a terrifying impression on the writer; he became depressed. Mura saved him - she had the amazing ability to make the lives of those around her easier and simpler, simply by smiling with her surprisingly warm, “cat-like” smile. And on the eve of his departure, either Wells had the wrong room, or Mura came to him to say goodbye too late (evidence differs), but they spent the night together. Wells later called this night the main event of his life. Over the next few years, they corresponded, and sometimes Mura met with Wells on her travels around Europe – both on Gorky’s and Lockhart’s affairs. Wells, a well-known lover of women, was at that time married for a second time to Amy Catherine Robbins, whom he called Jane (she died of cancer in 1927), but enjoyed complete freedom in his marriage, constantly changing his mistresses. At that time, his constant companion was Odette Keown, who was not going to give up her place to Moura without a fight. But still Mura turned out to be stronger. In the spring of 1933, Wells made a date with her in Dubrovnik, where the next congress of the PEN Club was being held, of which Wells would become president instead of the deceased John Galsworthy.
H.G. Wells, 1932.
During the congress they were inseparable, and after it they spent two weeks together in Austria. Then Wells returned to France to Odette, but they could hardly stand each other. In addition, Odette began to blackmail Wells, forced him to give her his house in France, and threatened to publish their correspondence. In 1934, Keown - as a parting revenge - published peculiar memoirs about her life with Wells, where she accused him of all possible sins. And their relationship was over. When Wells returned from a trip to the USSR that same year, Mura was waiting for him in Estonia. They spent two weeks together and returned to London together. Moura told Wells that she would stay with him, but would not marry him. “This is not appropriate for my age,” she declared in response to his persistent proposals. He couldn’t understand it: “She hangs out with me, eats with me, sleeps with me, but doesn’t want to marry me,” Wells complained. He consoled himself with the fact that Mura was not marrying him because of difficulties with the divorce: after all, her official husband, Baron Budberg, was still alive. However, one day she agreed to have a wedding - purely symbolically. Invitations were sent out, and as the guests gathered at the Quo Vadis restaurant and drank to the couple's health, Moura stood up and admitted that it was a joke. When in 1934 Wells's close friend, the famous English writer Somerset Maugham, asked Moura how she could love Wells, this fat and very hot-tempered man, she replied: “It is impossible not to love him - he smells like honey.”
Wells was considered the leading European intellectual. But in recent years, Wells considered Moura's love to be his main achievement. For the first time in his life, Wells not only had one woman enough, but this woman contained his whole life...
During the war, Moura worked for the Free French magazine, actively collaborated with the Resistance movement, and had business relations with Lockhart and General de Gaulle. Wells could only admire her irrepressible energy: he himself was already seriously and hopelessly ill. He died on August 13, 1946, a month before his eightieth birthday. For the last year and a half, Mura has been with him inseparably. After cremation, his two sons scattered the writer's ashes over the waters of the English Channel. In his will, he left Moura one hundred thousand dollars.
Moore was fifty-four years old. Now she could live completely freely - there was enough money, the children managed without her: her son lived on a farm on the Isle of Wight, her daughter was married. But the war and the death of Wells knocked her down. This forever young woman began to grow old. She ate a lot and drank even more - they said about her that she could outdrink any sailor. Mura began to gain weight and stopped taking care of herself. But all of London respected her, considering her the smartest woman of her time. She - an unmarried wife, an emigrant, a spy, an adventurer - was able to place herself very highly in this most snobbish city in Europe. Even her spy fame - and in different time she was considered an employee of the English, German, Soviet intelligence- only inspired respect for a woman who was able not only to survive in the harshest conditions, but to subjugate this life to herself. Britain did not forget her services to the Foreign Office; France remembered her collaboration with General de Gaulle; the aristocracy of the whole world considered her - the countess and baroness - theirs. Now that she had plenty of free time, Moura began to consciously do what she had previously done on occasion: create a legend about her life. In conversations in high society drawing rooms and in interviews with leading publications, she spoke a lot and willingly about herself - but the more and, it seemed, more openly she spoke, the more and more confused her story became. Relations with Gorky and Wells, British intelligence and Soviet intelligence services, her family - everything became surrounded by so many contradictory details that it became almost impossible to establish the truth. Surprise and admiration for her power of persuasion is caused by the fact that everyone always believed Mura, no matter what she said. In one of her last interviews, she even stated that she was descended in a direct line from the marriage of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna with Alexei Razumovsky. Russia and the USSR continued to occupy an important place in her life. Mura came to her homeland several times: at the invitation of Gorky’s widow Ekaterina Pavlovna Peshkova in 1956, then in 1958, in 1960 to visit Boris Pasternak and interview him, then three more times. She was received very solemnly - both by the official authorities and the Soviet intelligentsia, who knew about her extraordinary fate. In recent years, it has been extremely difficult for her to leave the house. At this time she was described as unusually overweight, but still beautiful woman, in a long, wide dark skirt, with several strings of large beads, always with a telephone between her knees, a man's stick in her hands and a bottle of vodka at any time of the day. She eventually decided to write her biography herself. For this purpose, a huge amount of documents were collected, stored in her son’s house in Italy, near Florence - she moved here in the fall of 1974. Mura did not work in the house itself, but in a specially equipped trailer in the garden. And one day a short circuit caused a fire, which destroyed both the trailer and all the documents stored there. Mura could no longer bear this. On November 2, 1974, The Times of London reported her death and published an obituary where she was called the “intellectual leader” of modern England. At the funeral service, the French ambassador and his wife stood in the front row, and behind them were all the English and Russian emigrant nobility.
She left behind not a memory, but a myth, outliving everyone who could remember the truth about her. She herself became a myth - a woman who was stronger than life itself...
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.
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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.
Links
- on "Rodovode". Tree of ancestors and descendants
- Mura Budberg (English) on the Internet Movie Database
- Michael Dirda Washington Post 22. May 2005 (English)
- My Secret Agent Auntie(English) on the Internet Movie Database (2008) Director Dimitri Collingridge Produced by Bergman Pictures ltd (English)
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 the naked eye I 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 close 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.
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