The writer and publicist Sergei Efron is best known as the husband of Marina Tsvetaeva. He was a prominent figure in the Russian emigration. One of the most controversial moments in the writer's biography was his collaboration with the Soviet secret services.
Childhood and youth
Sergei was born on October 16, 1893. The child's parents were Narodnaya Volya and died when he was very young. Despite family drama, the orphan completed his studies at the famous and popular Polivanovskaya Gymnasium in Moscow. After that, the young man entered the Faculty of Philology of Moscow State University. It was there that Sergei Efron became close to the revolutionaries and became a member of the underground himself.
In 1911, in the Crimean Koktebel, he met Marina Tsvetaeva. The couple began an affair. In January 1912, they got married, and a few months later their daughter Ariadne was born.
World War I
Efron's measured and calm life ended with the onset of the First World War. Like many peers, he wanted to go to the front. In the first year of the war, there was a stormy surge of patriotic sentiments in the country, which even blocked the dislike of the "progressive public" for Tsar Nicholas.
First SergeyEfron was enrolled as a brother of mercy in an ambulance train. However, it would be wrong to think that he dreamed of a medical career. In 1917, the young man graduated from the cadet school. By that time, the February revolution had already taken place, and a Bolshevik coup was on the way. The army fighting on the front against Germany was demoralized. Against this background, Sergei Efron remained in Moscow.
In the "white" movement
From the very beginning of the Civil War, Efron was against the Bolsheviks. While in Moscow, he found an armed uprising of supporters of the "Reds". In early November, the city was in the hands of the Soviets. Opponents of the communists had to flee to other regions. Efron Sergei went south, where he joined the newly formed Armed Forces of the South of Russia (AFSUR).
The newly minted officer did not leave the trenches for three years. He was twice wounded, but remained in the ranks. Efron Sergei Yakovlevich participated in the Ice Campaign, which became one of the most glorious pages in the history of the "white" movement. The writer fought the Bolsheviks to the end, right up to the retreat to the Crimea. From there, Efron was evacuated first to Constantinople, and then to Prague.
Marina Tsvetaeva moves in with him. The couple did not see each other for more than three years, while the Civil War was going on. They left for Paris, where they engaged in active literary activity. Tsvetaeva continued to publish poetry collections. Efron in Europe wrote a vivid and detailed memoir, Notes of a Volunteer.
In exile
Evaluating all yourpast, the former opponent of Soviet power became disillusioned with the "white" movement. Sergei Efron's letters from that time show the evolution of his views. In the mid-1920s, he joined the circle of Eurasians. It was a young philosophical trend, formed among the Russian emigration of the first wave.
Supporters of Eurasianism believed that Russia in cultural and civilizational terms is the heir to the steppe hordes of the East (primarily the Mongolian nomads). This point of view became extremely popular among the intelligentsia in exile. There was disillusionment both in the old tsarist regime and in the new Soviet government.
NKVD officer
Most of his time in exile, Efron earned his living by publishing in newspapers. In the early 1930s, he joined the Masonic lodge. Even more important was his cooperation with the Homecoming Union. Similar organizations were created by the Soviet government in order to establish contact with emigrants who wanted to be back in their native country.
It was then, according to biographers and historians, that the writer became an agent of the NKVD. The Soviet secret services had many recruiters in different countries. One of them was Sergei Efron. The photo in his personal file in the NKVD was signed "Andreev". That was his operational alias.
For several years of cooperation with the NKVD, Efron helped to recruit dozens of members of the "white" movement in exile. Some of them became murderers of persons undesirable for the USSR in Europe. During the years of the civil war inSpain, Efron was involved in the transfer of Soviet agents beyond the Pyrenees, who then joined the international brigades.
Homecoming
For almost all the "whites" who began to cooperate with the USSR, this decision turned out to be fatal. Sergei Efron was no exception. The biography of the publicist is full of episodes when he was on the hook of the French police. In the end, he was suspected of involvement in the political assassination of Ignatius Reiss. This man was a former agent of the Soviet special services and a professional intelligence officer. In the 1930s, he fled the NKVD, became a defector in France, and openly criticized Stalinism. Law enforcement agencies suspected Efron of organizing the murder of this man.
So, in 1937, Efron had to flee Europe. He returned to the Soviet Union, where he was received with demonstrative hospitality - he was given a government apartment and a salary. Soon Efron's wife Marina Tsvetaeva returned from exile. It is still debated whether she knew about her husband's double life. In none of her letters did she mention her suspicions. However, it is hard to believe that people who lived side by side for many years had a bad idea of each other's life.
It should be noted that after the murder of Reiss, Tsvetaeva was also under investigation. However, the French police were unable to find any evidence proving her involvement in the murder. This allowed the poetess to calmly return to the Soviet Union to her husband.
Arrest and execution
At the end of the 30s in the USSRthe Great Terror was in full swing, when everyone became victims of the NKVD - from imaginary traitors in the special services and army officers to random citizens on whom a denunciation was written. Therefore, the fate of Efron, who had an ambiguous biography, was a foregone conclusion on the day when he returned by ferry from Europe to Leningrad.
The first to be arrested was his daughter Ariadne (she will survive). The next in the dungeons was the head of the family himself. This happened in 1939. The investigation went on for quite some time. Perhaps the authorities kept him imprisoned until better times, when it would become necessary to carry out orders for executions. In the summer of 1941, Efron was sentenced to death. He was shot on October 16th. In those days, Moscow was undergoing a hasty evacuation due to the approach of Nazi troops.
Marina Tsvetaeva, as a well-known writer, was moved to Yelabuga (in Tatarstan). There, on August 31 (before her husband was shot), she committed suicide.
Efron's literary heritage (letters, memoirs, fiction) was published after the collapse of the Soviet Union. His books have become clear evidence of a complex and controversial era.
