Zinaida Reich

Her murder by Stalin's secret police is described in Testimony (1987), in which her husband Vsevolod Meyerhold appears as a character.

In 1922, while still a student, Zinaida Reich married Meyerhold.

In the summer of 1922, they, along with Meyerhold, took the children from Orel to Moscow - in the house on Novinsky Boulevard. Meyerhold adopted Tatyana and Konstantin, loved and cared for them like a father. Sergei Yesenin also came to their apartment to visit his children. Soon, Zinaida's parents also moved from Orel to their daughter in Moscow. Vsevolod Meyerhold against the background of a portrait of Zinaida Reich.

On February 19, 1921, a statement was received by the court of the city of Orel: "I ask you not to refuse at your disposal my divorce from my wife Zinaida Nikolaevna Yesenina-Reich. Our children Tatyana are three years old and their son Konstantin is one year old - I leave them for raising my ex-wife Zinaida Nikolaevna Reich, taking on their material support, which I subscribe to. Sergey Yesenin".

On October 5, 1921, their marriage was officially dissolved. The funeral of Sergei Yesenin. Reich stands behind the coffin, raising a hand to his heart, to her right Vsevolod Meyerhold.

Since March 1921, Reich taught in Orel the history of theater and costume at the theater courses.

In the fall of 1921, she became a student at the Higher Director's Studios in Moscow, where she studied with Eisenstein and Yutkevich. Vsevolod Emilievich Meyerhold led this workshop, with whom Reich met while working in the out-of-school education department of the People's Commissariat for Education.

February 3, 1920 in the House of Mother and Child in Moscow, she gave birth to a son, Konstantin. The child immediately fell seriously ill, and Zinaida urgently drove him to Kislovodsk. Little Kostya was cured, but Zinaida herself fell ill. The break with Yesenin and her son's illness greatly affected her health. The treatment took place in a clinic for nervous patients.

In August, she began to work as an inspector of the People's Commissariat for Education, a month later became the head of the theater and cinematography section of the Oryol District Military Commissariat, and from June 1 to October 1, 1919 she was the head of the arts department in the provincial department of public education. Before the capture of the Eagle by the White Army of Denikin, Zinaida Yesenina, together with her daughter, went to her husband in Moscow. They lived for about three years, but a break soon followed, and Zinaida, taking her daughter, left for her parents. Having left her daughter with her parents in Orel, she returned to her husband, but soon they parted again.

At the beginning of 1918 Yesenin left Petrograd.

In April 1918, Zinaida Yesenina, in anticipation of childbirth, went to Orel to her parents.

There, on May 29, 1918, she gave birth to a daughter, who was named Tatyana. Caring for her daughter made her stay in Orel.

July 30, 1917 Zinaida Reich married Sergei Yesenin during their trip to the homeland of Alexei Ganin, a close friend of Yesenin. The wedding took place in the ancient stone church of Kirik and Julitta of the village of Tolstikovo, Vologda district. Witnesses from the groom were: Spassky volost, the village of Ivanovo peasant Pavel Khitrov and Ustyansk volost, the village of Ustya peasant Sergei Mikhailovich Baraev; on the part of the bride: the Arkhangelsk volost, the village of Konshino, peasant Alexei Alekseevich Ganin and the city of Vologda, merchant son Dmitry Dmitrievich Devyatkov. The wedding sacrament was performed: priest Victor Pevgov with the psalmist Alexei Kratirov. "They came out a hundred, get married.

Zinaida, "Nikolay Reich received such a telegram in July 1917 and sent the money to his daughter in Vologda.

At the end of August 1917, the young arrived in Orel with Alexei Ganin to celebrate a modest wedding, to get acquainted with the parents and relatives of Zinaida. In September, they returned to Petrograd. Returning to Petrograd, the couple lived separately for some time.

She entered the Higher Women's Courses in Kiev, and since 1913 she became a member of the Party of Socialist Revolutionaries (SRs). Anna Ivanovna with difficulty managed to obtain a certificate of secondary education for her daughter. After that, Zinaida left for Petrograd, and her parents moved to the city of Orel to her mother's elder sister, Varvara Ivanovna Danziger. In Petrograd, Zinaida Reich entered the Higher Women's Historical, Literary and Legal Courses of N. P. Raev, where, in addition to studying the main disciplines, she took sculpture lessons and studied foreign languages. Continuing her studies at the courses, she worked as a typist secretary in the editorial office of the Social Revolutionary newspaper Delo Naroda, where she met her future husband, Sergei Yesenin, who was published in this newspaper at the age of twenty-two.

In 1907, due to his father's participation in revolutionary events, the family was expelled from Odessa and settled in Bendery, where his father got a job as a locksmith in the railway workshops. Zinaida entered the gymnasium for girls of Vera Gerasimenko, but after graduating from only 8 classes, she was expelled for political reasons.

Zinaida's father was a Social Democrat, a member of the RSDLP since 1897, and her daughter adhered to her father's views.

Zinaida Reich was born on June 21 (July 3), 1894 in Odessa in the Near Mills, the Russian Empire, in the family of a railway engineer of German origin Nikolai Andreyevich Reich (1862-1942, birth name is August Reich, a native of Silesia) and Anna Ivanovna Viktorova ( 1867-1945).