In many ways, a unique woman entered the history of Russian diplomacy and the Russian revolutionary movement - Alexandra Kollontai (photos are presented in the article). During her long life, she happened to be at the forefront of the fight against tsarism, join the Bolshevik government, and during the Great Patriotic War, head the Soviet embassy in Sweden. One of the stages of her career was the post of People's Commissar of State Charity, occupying which Alexandra Mikhailovna became the first woman minister in world history.
General's daughter
From the biography of Alexandra Kollontai it is known that she was born on March 19 (31), 1872 in St. Petersburg, in a we althy noble family of General Mikhail Alexandrovich Domontovich. Her father entered the history of Russia as one of the heroes of the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878, who in the last years of his life became the governor of the Bulgarian city of Tarnovo. The girl's mother was the daughter and sole heiress of a we althy B alticlumberman, which greatly contributed to the material prosperity of the family. Alexandra's half-sister, Evgenia Mravinskaya, later became a famous opera singer. By nationality, Alexandra Kollontai was Russian, but with a fair amount of Finnish and Bulgarian blood. A number of biographers also point to the distant German roots of her ancestors.
Like many people from we althy families, Alexandra Mikhailovna Kollontai (she will take this surname in marriage) received her primary education at home, under the guidance of teachers specially hired for her. From an early age, she showed an extraordinary ability to learn foreign languages, thanks to which, at a very young age, she easily mastered the main European languages: French, German, English, as well as several Scandinavian ones - Swedish, Finnish, Norwegian and some others. She also showed extraordinary abilities in drawing.
In accordance with the traditions of the circle to which her family belonged, Sasha from a young age was introduced into the high society of the capital, which later allowed her to become her own person in the most elite aristocratic salons. Very popular among the St. Petersburg "golden youth" was her second cousin Igor, who wrote poetry and published them under the pseudonym Severyanin. Subsequently, he was destined to take a prominent place among the Russian poets of the Silver Age.
The conqueror of men's hearts
About the personal life of Alexandra Kollontai already at that time there were numerous gossips in the circles of the capital's society. Deprived of bright beauty, butendowed by nature with extraordinary charm and femininity, which is also very attractive, she has been popular with men since her youth.
Knowing her worth, the young aristocrat then broke the hearts of many high society admirers, and two of them - the general's son Ivan Drogomirov and Prince M. Bukovsky - brought her coldness to suicide (documented fact). Having also rejected the proposal made by the adjutant of the emperor himself, she unexpectedly gave her heart to a modest and unremarkable officer - Vladimir Kollontai, whom she soon married.
The constant success that Alexandra Kollontai had with men, and her very unconventional views on the role and rights of women in society, which will be discussed below, created an aura of piquancy around her, which she herself indulged in every possible way. So, in her memoirs, published only many years after her death, she wrote that soon after the wedding she got along with a young officer Alexander Stankevich, and did not hide this connection from anyone, including her husband himself. Moreover, with all sincerity, she assured both of her ardent love.
From the same memoirs it is known that soon the place of officer Stankevich in her hospitable heart was taken by the editor of the Moscow newspaper Pyotr Maslov, who was replaced in turn by many seekers of fleeting love. Of course, such inclinations of a young woman did not contribute to the creation of a strong family.
Beginning of revolutionary activity
Having given birth to a son andhaving lived with her husband for a little less than five years, Alexandra Mikhailovna again showed her unpredictability - leaving both, she suddenly joined the participants in the revolutionary movement that was rapidly gaining strength. Since that time, yesterday's aristocrat has directed all her strength to the fight against the class to which she belonged from birth and among whose representatives she enjoyed constant success.
Most publications devoted to the biography of Alexandra Kollontai indicate that she was involved in revolutionary activities by another progressive woman of that time - Elena Dmitrievna Stasova, who became a prominent figure in the international communist and anti-fascist movement in the Soviet period.
Her role in shaping the future revolutionary is undeniable, but it is known that for the first time she heard about the struggle for social justice as a child from her home teacher M. I. Strakhova, who was very sympathetic to such ideas. It is possible that it was her words that became the seed that, having fallen on fertile soil, gave such abundant shoots. They also name some other contemporaries of Alexandra Mikhailovna who had a significant influence on her.
As mentioned above, in 1898, having left her husband and son, Alexandra Kollontai went abroad, where she comprehended the science of reorganizing the world, first within the walls of the University of Zurich, and then in London under the guidance of a prominent political figure of that time, the socialist Sydney Web and his wife Beatrice. In 1901, in Geneva, she met G. V. Plekhanov, whose authority at that timetime has reached its highest point.
In the fire of revolutionary events
Returning to St. Petersburg at the end of 1904, she fell into the crucible of the First Russian Revolution, and even witnessed the events of Bloody Sunday, which made an indelible impression on her. From the biography of Alexandra Kollontai, it is known that, being the initiator of the creation of the Society for Mutual Assistance to Women Workers, an organization whose goal was to assist families who lost their breadwinners, she at the same time carried out extensive propaganda work. As a result, after the defeat of the First Russian Revolution, one of the brochures she published, called "Finland and Socialism", served as a pretext for accusations of calling for the violent overthrow of power. Without waiting for the arrest, she hastily left Russia. There is no reliable information about Alexandra Kollontai's personal life during this period.
Joining the Bolshevik Party
Once again abroad, Kollontai met V. I. Lenin, whose ideas she was then very reserved. Suffice it to say that since the Second Congress of the RSDLP (1903) in the ranks of the party members there was a split into Bolsheviks and Mensheviks, she supported the latter, to whom G. V. Plekhanov, who at that time was the idol of all revolutionary-minded youth, adjoined.
A cardinal turn in her views occurred only after the outbreak of the First World War. In 1915, while in Sweden, Alexandra Mikhailovna openly declared her break with the Mensheviks, who supported the participation of Russiain hostilities, and came out with the approval of the position taken by the Bolsheviks.
Shortly after that, she became a member of the RSDLP (b). Her anti-militarist articles, published on the pages of a number of Swedish newspapers, caused extreme dissatisfaction with King Gustav V and became the reason for expulsion from the country. After moving to Copenhagen, Kollontai established contact with Lenin and was engaged in various tasks for him, among which were two trips to the United States to conduct Bolshevik propaganda among the workers.
At party work
Alexandra Mikhailovna Kollontai returned to her homeland after the February Revolution, and immediately became actively involved in the political life of the capital, becoming a member of the Executive Committee of the Petrograd Council of the Party. By this time, she had already irrevocably taken the side of Lenin and was among those few deputies of the 7th conference of the RSDLP (b) who fully supported his "April Theses".
In June 1917, by order of the Provisional Government, Alexandra Mikhailovna was arrested and placed in the Vyborg women's prison, from where she was released only thanks to the bail paid for her by the writer Maxim Gorky and the prominent revolutionary engineer Leonid Krasin.
At the historic meeting of the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b), held on October 10 (23) of the same year, she, along with other deputies, voted for the start of an armed uprising, and after his victory, by personal order of Lenin, she took the post of people's commissar of public charity. As mentioned above, this appointment made her the first in the worldhistory of a female minister.
Note that not all episodes of Alexandra Kollontai's biography characterize her as an unquestioning executor of the will of the top party leadership. So, in March 1918, supporting the position of N. I. Bukharin, she criticized the conclusion of the Brest peace, and not finding sympathy for her views among the members of the Central Committee, defiantly withdrew from its composition.
A stain on Kollontai's bright image was her attempt to requisition all movable and immovable property belonging to the Alexander Nevsky Lavra, where she appeared on January 13 (21), 1918 at the head of a detachment of armed sailors. This obviously ill-conceived action, which was also accompanied by the murder of the priest Peter Skipetrov, caused mass protests of believers and discredited the new government in their eyes. The result was an anathema imposed by Patriarch Tikhon on all its participants.
In 1921, there was a sharp deterioration in relations between Alexandra Mikhailovna and Lenin, who was then head of government. The reason for this was the position taken by her in the discussion that unfolded at the Tenth Congress of the RCP (b) on the rights of trade unions. Supporting L. D. Trotsky, who advocated the transfer of management of the entire national economy to the workers, Kollontai incurred the wrath of the members of the Central Committee and even received a “final warning”, accompanied by a threat to part with the party card.
In the diplomatic service
In 1922, Alexandra Kollontai (a photo of a woman in those years is given above in the article) is transferred to diplomatic work. The reason for this appointment was her close ties withleaders of the world socialist movement, experience in the Comintern, as well as fluency in many foreign languages. She began her activities in Norway, staying there until 1930 with a short break to perform a number of government assignments in Mexico.
The personal life of Alexandra Mikhailovna at that time was little studied, but nevertheless it is known that a prominent French communist Marcel Bodi occupied a place in her heart for a long time. She met him in 1925 at a banquet hosted at the Soviet embassy on the occasion of the next anniversary of the October Revolution. Their relationship could not have a serious prospect for many reasons, the main of which was the age difference - Kollontai was almost 20 years older. In addition, the citizenship of different states and the large family waiting for Marcel Bodi in Paris served as an obstacle.
In 1930, Alexandra Mikhailovna was transferred to Sweden, where for the next 15 years she headed the Soviet embassy and at the same time was a permanent member of the delegation to the League of Nations. It was this period of activity that brought her unfading fame thanks to the implementation of the most difficult task set by the Soviet government - to neutralize the influence of Nazi Germany in the Scandinavian countries.
During the Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-1940. thanks to the efforts of Kollontai, Sweden managed to avoid joining it, which was already preparing to transfer two volunteer battalions to the front. Moreover, by softening the positionSwedes in relation to the Stalinist government, she managed to get their mediation in the peace negotiations. In 1944, being the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Soviet Union, Alexandra Kollontai personally negotiated with the Finnish authorities about their country's withdrawal from World War II.
Last years of life
As a diplomat, Alexandra Kollontai was forced to stop her activities in 1945, but the reason for this was not advanced age, but a severe and prolonged illness that chained her to a wheelchair. Upon her return to Moscow, she continued to be an adviser to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, performed her official duties to the best of her ability and was engaged in literary activities, trusting the memories of her past years to paper. Alexandra Mikhailovna passed away on March 9, 1952 and was buried at the Novodevichy cemetery of the capital. The son of Alexandra Kollontai, Mikhail, is also buried there, like his mother, who became an employee of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and worked hard in the diplomatic field.
Ideologist of free love
About the personal life of Alexandra Kollontai in the biographies published after her death, it was said very sparingly. Until 1956, when the cult of personality of Stalin was debunked at the XX Party Congress, not even the name of her second husband, a B altic sailor, and later People's Commissar of the Navy Pavel Efimovich Dybenko, was repressed in 1938 and shot on false charges of anti-Soviet activities. Moreover, it is not known for certain whether Alexandra Kollontai had children, except for her son Mikhail, who was born by her from her first husband Vladimir. On this occasionvarious suggestions have been made.
The personal life of Alexandra Mikhailovna Kollontai attracts attention not so much for its richness - as mentioned above, she was successful with men and willingly opened her heart to them - but also because she relied on principles openly expressed by a woman that went against with established moral standards. Among her contemporaries, she even gained a reputation as an “ideologist of free love.”
For the first time she expressed her views in an article published in 1913 on the pages of one of the newspapers and containing a list of basic principles that, in the author's opinion, a modern woman should have been guided by. Among them was the assertion that her role could not be reduced to the care of raising children, housekeeping and maintaining peace in the family. Being a free person, a woman herself has the right to determine the sphere of her own interests.
In addition, without trying to suppress her natural sexuality, she has the right to choose partners at her own discretion, but at the same time obey not love experiences, but reason. At the same time, a woman should treat men without petty-bourgeois jealousy, demanding from them not loy alty, but only respect for her own personality. To top it off, she needs to develop self-discipline and the ability to deal with emotions.
This article, which appeared during the rise of the feminist movement in Russia, made the name of Alexandra Kollontai widely known. Quotes from herreprinted by other newspapers and largely determined the mood of the advanced society of those years. Later, already a member of the Bolshevik government, Alexandra Mikhailovna submitted for its consideration draft decrees on the replacement of church marriage with civil marriage, on the legal equality of spouses and the full rights of children born out of wedlock.
A new form of marital union
An example of a new approach to family issues was her relationship with P. Dybenko. Despite the absence of civil registration books in those years, the couple refused to marry, but at the same time demanded that their marriage be recognized as legal, which was announced in the newspapers.
In the autobiographical books of Alexandra Kollontai, written by her in the last years of her life, the extremely negative reaction from party leaders to her disregard for many established traditions and propaganda of the sexual emancipation of women is repeatedly mentioned. While often extremely promiscuous themselves, they nevertheless looked askance at the open declaration of sexual freedoms.
The article mentioned above, written by Alexandra Mikhailovna in 1913 and devoted to the principles that, in her opinion, a free woman should be guided by, among other things, speaks of the ability to subordinate her emotions to reason. A striking example of its embodiment in her own life is the completion of her relationship with her common-law husband, Pavel Dybenko.
When the love ardor in them began to fade, clearlythere was a difference in age - Alexandra Mikhailovna was 17 years older than her husband, and he secretly got himself a young mistress from her. Over time, this was revealed, and Kollontai told him about her departure. A stormy scene followed, accompanied by an attempt to shoot himself, but ended very peacefully: the unfaithful husband, having collected his things, moved to his young passion - an empty girl with an extremely dubious past, and Alexandra Mikhailovna, contrary to her overwhelming feelings, forced herself to be quite friendly with her for some time. correspondence. With this, she defeated her own emotions and took a step towards the ideal of a new woman outlined by her.
Literary activity of Alexandra Kollontai
It is known that she expressed her views on the relationship of the sexes and the so-called women's issue, with particular acuteness at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, in literary works, work on which she did not interrupt for many years. It is characteristic that in the novels and stories she created, the theme of sexual relations is always combined with the problem of class inequality and the struggle for social justice. The personal in her work is always inextricably linked with the life of society.
Today, most of the literary works of Alexandra Kollontai, periodically published on the pages of the Young Guard magazine, may seem naive and somewhat far-fetched, but at one time they were a resounding success. Suffice it to say that, having familiarized themselves with them, the members of the British Society for Sexual Psychology elected Alexandra Mikhailovna their honorarymember.
