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What made Isaac Babel’s wife go to the US at 87
I prefer women's novels memories, memoirs, biographies and diaries of famous and not very people. Their true stories of fate are steeper than many fictional plots. And even history is better to learn from them than from textbooks: you learn it from facts and details that you will not find in scientific works. True true true love, which was embracing the cruel Soviet reality - this is today's material.
The fate of a woman With a great power of love, able to survive bitterness and trials, not break down and live an interesting life, it is beyond all praise. Beautiful and sincere feelings were crossed out cruelly and tragically in his youth. Like a ragged nightingale song in early spring.
True true true love Married she was only seven years old. And for 15 years she waited for her beloved husband from exile, not even suspecting that he is no longer alive. Then until the end of her days she collected his notes, letters, drafts and memoirs of contemporaries. So a little she restored for posterity what remained of Isaac Babel.
Who is she? From the memoirs of Valentina Khodasevich, the Soviet painter and niece of the poet Vladislav Khodasevich, about I. Babel “How I saw him”, we can imagine her.
Once he told with some shy grin that he had married a wonderful woman, with an amazing questionnaire – his mother is illiterate, and the engineer herself is on Metrostroy, and her name is posted on the Board of Honor. Her last name is Pirozhkova. By the end of the working day, he runs to Metrostroy for Pirozhkova and in anticipation of her arrival worries - is her name on the Board of Honor today?
Once he came to Gorki from Molodenova with a charming, very beautiful young woman, extraordinarily feminine, but by no means devoid of obscured power, will and energy. He told us: “Here’s Pirozhkova Antonina Nikolaevna, meet” – and then something with a laugh mentioned about personal data. Antonina Nikolaevna gazed at him with her bright, stretched eyes all over her face and stared strictly at him. Babel didn't seem embarrassed, but he did. But he still had a very happy face.”
Antonina Pirozhkova - the love of all life of Isaac Babel She was born in 1909 in the village of Krasny Yar, Tomsk province. She graduated from the Siberian Tomsk Technological Institute and went to work in the design bureau of Kuznetskstroy. Then she moved to Moscow and entered Metroproject, after some time she took the position of chief designer of this institute.
Under the leadership of Antonina Pirozhkova, the Moscow Metro was designed, in particular, the Mayakovskaya, Arbatskaya, Kievskaya, Revolution Square stations. She was recognized as one of the most promising design engineers.
Antonina met Babel in 1932. That's what she's been thinking. Ivan Pavlovich introduced me to Babel: “This is a builder engineer, nicknamed Princess Turandot.” Ivanchenko has not called me anything else since he came to Kuznetskstroy one day and read a critical article about me in a wall newspaper entitled “Princess Turandot of the Design Department.”
Babel looked at me with a smile and astonishment, and at lunch he begged for vodka. “If a woman is an engineer and a builder,” he tried to assure me, “she must know how to drink vodka.” She had to drink and not wince, so as not to fall in front of him face in the dirt.
Love is the force of life After two years they began to live together. Before that, Babel had twice been in family ties. His first wife was the daughter of wealthy entrepreneur Eugenia Groinfein. Then she went to France, and Babel began to live with actress Tatiana Kashirina. In this relationship, the son Emmanuel was born. But then Babel went abroad and, despite everything, reconciled with his legal wife, and their daughter Natalia was born there. With Antonina, by the way, he never formalized relations.
Looking through memoirs of Antonina NikolaevnaYou are amazed at how different they were. She is young, graceful, beautiful. And he's 15 years older, squat, short neck, glasses. In a word, some kind of "suspicious type."
GettyImages Isaac Babel was full of literature and creativity. And his wife worked daily from morning to night at Metroproject.
Babel often joked with his civilian wife in a circle of friends. For example, he described her as “the girl he wants to marry and she doesn’t want to.” Or in his characteristic manner echoed the title of an article for a wall newspaper about his designer wife - "Equate Pirozhkova."
And he loved to give friends and acquaintances his things: watches, ties, cameras. Sometimes, forgetting, he could even give away some of his wife's belongings. And she, strangely enough, was not offended. On the contrary, without Babel and his witty jokes, she would have been bored with all her busy life. He lovingly opened a new world to her.
In 1937, their daughter Lida was born. Babel loved children, but did not manage to raise any of his own. Emmanuel's son grew up under a different surname, and his father was not even allowed to see him. Natasha's daughter lived in France. And being near Lida, alas, was not destined for him either.
They began to arrest friends, and Babel was perplexed: from what those who had recently made a revolution confess at interrogations, accused of treason and espionage. "I don't understand," he said. They're all brave people!
Family and friends of the arrested asked Babel to trouble. And he went to the bosses he knew, and he talked to them, meaninglessly and for a long time, and he was disappointed, he was tired, he came back home. He couldn't help anymore.
Request calls continued. Babel didn't have the strength to do that. He asked his little daughter Lida to come to the phone. And she said in an adult way: “Dad is not home,” and added from herself with childish spontaneity and in a completely Babelian way: “Because he went out to walk in new kaloshas.”
GettyImages soon came for him, too. The Chekists, knowing that Babel could resist, decided to hide behind his wife. They at five in the morning forced Antonina to go with them to the dacha where her husband was staying. Upon seeing her, Babel did not really try to flee or fight, calmly reacting to the search. From Peredelkin to Lubyanka they were taken together. Antonina then told Babel with a smile that she would consider herself as if he had gone to Odessa.
Isaac Babel was arrested on May 15, 1939, and died on January 27, 1940. Neither his mother nor his wife was informed. On the contrary, every request for his fate was answered that he was “living and serving time in prison on construction sites in Siberia.” It was only in 1954, after Babel's posthumous rehabilitation, that the truth was revealed to Antonina.
The only love and quiet old age she never married again. As before, she worked, designed the metro and resort palaces, and also taught. In parallel, she collected materials about the life and work of her husband. She became the compiler of the collection, which included memories of Utesov, Paustovsky, Ehrenburg about Babel, wrote the book “I am trying to restore the features”. Because of this, literary critics later called her the “last great widow”.
In 1996, Antonina moved to the United States to live with her beloved grandson, actor and director Andrei Malaev-Babel. She was 87 years old and starting a new life at that age was not easy. Many friends discouraged her from such an undertaking, saying how she would get used to it and what she would do there. “To write memoirs,” answered Antonina Nikolaevna calmly. "Babel"? No, I'm done with Babel. I have lived my interesting life.”
Old age was quiet and calm, probably she suffered in her youth. She went to sleep forever on September 12, 2010. She was 101 years old. The grandson then wrote: "She was born in the Siberian village of Krasny Yar a year before Tolstoy left Yasnaya Polyana, and died in Sarasota, Florida, having managed to vote for the first black president in American history." She survived her dear husband by 70 years.
It is a pity that the machine of Stalinist repression destroyed the color of the nation. And how good it was that there were such beautiful, intelligent and courageous women. This once again confirms the fact that when a person is obsessed with something, he overcomes all obstacles in his path. Her loyalty causes respect and admiration, makes you believe in the high purpose of a person.
Love is all-conquering! What do you think is the power and meaning of life?
Photo at preview and in article
The fate of a woman With a great power of love, able to survive bitterness and trials, not break down and live an interesting life, it is beyond all praise. Beautiful and sincere feelings were crossed out cruelly and tragically in his youth. Like a ragged nightingale song in early spring.
True true true love Married she was only seven years old. And for 15 years she waited for her beloved husband from exile, not even suspecting that he is no longer alive. Then until the end of her days she collected his notes, letters, drafts and memoirs of contemporaries. So a little she restored for posterity what remained of Isaac Babel.
Who is she? From the memoirs of Valentina Khodasevich, the Soviet painter and niece of the poet Vladislav Khodasevich, about I. Babel “How I saw him”, we can imagine her.
Once he told with some shy grin that he had married a wonderful woman, with an amazing questionnaire – his mother is illiterate, and the engineer herself is on Metrostroy, and her name is posted on the Board of Honor. Her last name is Pirozhkova. By the end of the working day, he runs to Metrostroy for Pirozhkova and in anticipation of her arrival worries - is her name on the Board of Honor today?
Once he came to Gorki from Molodenova with a charming, very beautiful young woman, extraordinarily feminine, but by no means devoid of obscured power, will and energy. He told us: “Here’s Pirozhkova Antonina Nikolaevna, meet” – and then something with a laugh mentioned about personal data. Antonina Nikolaevna gazed at him with her bright, stretched eyes all over her face and stared strictly at him. Babel didn't seem embarrassed, but he did. But he still had a very happy face.”
Antonina Pirozhkova - the love of all life of Isaac Babel She was born in 1909 in the village of Krasny Yar, Tomsk province. She graduated from the Siberian Tomsk Technological Institute and went to work in the design bureau of Kuznetskstroy. Then she moved to Moscow and entered Metroproject, after some time she took the position of chief designer of this institute.
Under the leadership of Antonina Pirozhkova, the Moscow Metro was designed, in particular, the Mayakovskaya, Arbatskaya, Kievskaya, Revolution Square stations. She was recognized as one of the most promising design engineers.
Antonina met Babel in 1932. That's what she's been thinking. Ivan Pavlovich introduced me to Babel: “This is a builder engineer, nicknamed Princess Turandot.” Ivanchenko has not called me anything else since he came to Kuznetskstroy one day and read a critical article about me in a wall newspaper entitled “Princess Turandot of the Design Department.”
Babel looked at me with a smile and astonishment, and at lunch he begged for vodka. “If a woman is an engineer and a builder,” he tried to assure me, “she must know how to drink vodka.” She had to drink and not wince, so as not to fall in front of him face in the dirt.
Love is the force of life After two years they began to live together. Before that, Babel had twice been in family ties. His first wife was the daughter of wealthy entrepreneur Eugenia Groinfein. Then she went to France, and Babel began to live with actress Tatiana Kashirina. In this relationship, the son Emmanuel was born. But then Babel went abroad and, despite everything, reconciled with his legal wife, and their daughter Natalia was born there. With Antonina, by the way, he never formalized relations.
Looking through memoirs of Antonina NikolaevnaYou are amazed at how different they were. She is young, graceful, beautiful. And he's 15 years older, squat, short neck, glasses. In a word, some kind of "suspicious type."
GettyImages Isaac Babel was full of literature and creativity. And his wife worked daily from morning to night at Metroproject.
Babel often joked with his civilian wife in a circle of friends. For example, he described her as “the girl he wants to marry and she doesn’t want to.” Or in his characteristic manner echoed the title of an article for a wall newspaper about his designer wife - "Equate Pirozhkova."
And he loved to give friends and acquaintances his things: watches, ties, cameras. Sometimes, forgetting, he could even give away some of his wife's belongings. And she, strangely enough, was not offended. On the contrary, without Babel and his witty jokes, she would have been bored with all her busy life. He lovingly opened a new world to her.
In 1937, their daughter Lida was born. Babel loved children, but did not manage to raise any of his own. Emmanuel's son grew up under a different surname, and his father was not even allowed to see him. Natasha's daughter lived in France. And being near Lida, alas, was not destined for him either.
They began to arrest friends, and Babel was perplexed: from what those who had recently made a revolution confess at interrogations, accused of treason and espionage. "I don't understand," he said. They're all brave people!
Family and friends of the arrested asked Babel to trouble. And he went to the bosses he knew, and he talked to them, meaninglessly and for a long time, and he was disappointed, he was tired, he came back home. He couldn't help anymore.
Request calls continued. Babel didn't have the strength to do that. He asked his little daughter Lida to come to the phone. And she said in an adult way: “Dad is not home,” and added from herself with childish spontaneity and in a completely Babelian way: “Because he went out to walk in new kaloshas.”
GettyImages soon came for him, too. The Chekists, knowing that Babel could resist, decided to hide behind his wife. They at five in the morning forced Antonina to go with them to the dacha where her husband was staying. Upon seeing her, Babel did not really try to flee or fight, calmly reacting to the search. From Peredelkin to Lubyanka they were taken together. Antonina then told Babel with a smile that she would consider herself as if he had gone to Odessa.
Isaac Babel was arrested on May 15, 1939, and died on January 27, 1940. Neither his mother nor his wife was informed. On the contrary, every request for his fate was answered that he was “living and serving time in prison on construction sites in Siberia.” It was only in 1954, after Babel's posthumous rehabilitation, that the truth was revealed to Antonina.
The only love and quiet old age she never married again. As before, she worked, designed the metro and resort palaces, and also taught. In parallel, she collected materials about the life and work of her husband. She became the compiler of the collection, which included memories of Utesov, Paustovsky, Ehrenburg about Babel, wrote the book “I am trying to restore the features”. Because of this, literary critics later called her the “last great widow”.
In 1996, Antonina moved to the United States to live with her beloved grandson, actor and director Andrei Malaev-Babel. She was 87 years old and starting a new life at that age was not easy. Many friends discouraged her from such an undertaking, saying how she would get used to it and what she would do there. “To write memoirs,” answered Antonina Nikolaevna calmly. "Babel"? No, I'm done with Babel. I have lived my interesting life.”
Old age was quiet and calm, probably she suffered in her youth. She went to sleep forever on September 12, 2010. She was 101 years old. The grandson then wrote: "She was born in the Siberian village of Krasny Yar a year before Tolstoy left Yasnaya Polyana, and died in Sarasota, Florida, having managed to vote for the first black president in American history." She survived her dear husband by 70 years.
It is a pity that the machine of Stalinist repression destroyed the color of the nation. And how good it was that there were such beautiful, intelligent and courageous women. This once again confirms the fact that when a person is obsessed with something, he overcomes all obstacles in his path. Her loyalty causes respect and admiration, makes you believe in the high purpose of a person.
Love is all-conquering! What do you think is the power and meaning of life?
Photo at preview and in article
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