Russian Amazon Alexandra Kollontai: who was this woman?
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General Domontovich was happy. He had a daughter. This happened in the last days of March 1872. He did not yet know that this girl would become a legend of the Soviet space, change the course of history and stand at the origins of the women”s movement. The girl’s name has become prophetic — Alexandra, and she will fully justify it and become the protector of the female half of the country.
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star rising
The head of the noble family, Mikhail Domontovich, was an infantry general. He took part in the Crimean and Turkish wars and had a brilliant career. He managed to rise to the position of governor in Tarnovo, Bulgaria, and when Sashenka was born, he became the head of the military adviser and curator of the elite Persian Cossack army. First of all, Mikhail Domontovich was a member of the Geographical Society. He is the author of works on military history.
Shrochka”s mother, Alexandra Masarina Mavrinskaya, was a Finnish citizen. This was her second marriage, although there was a large age difference between her and the general. From her first marriage she had a daughter, who became the star of the opera Evgenia Mravina-Mravinskaya. She played the main role at the Mariinsky Theater. There were many famous people in the Domontovich family. Igor Severyanin, who shone on the horizon of the Silver Age of Russian poetry, was the girl’s cousin.
When Sashenka was born, her father was 50 years old. He played an important role in the relationship between father and daughter. Late children always enjoy special love. That”s why her father adored Sasha. Mikhail put his whole soul, all his knowledge and skills into his daughter. Thanks to his attitude, the girl was well versed in history, geography and politics. Her father developed her analytical skills. She received an excellent education at home. As a result, Alexandra fully understood five languages - English, Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian and German.
On her 16th birthday, Sasha passed all her exams and graduated from school much earlier than planned. Her mother, a very strict woman, did not understand the importance of further education. Sasha became interested in creativity and began to learn to draw.
Like most high-class young women, the girl led a social life. She attended balls and other events. The parents did this with the specific expectation of finding profitable matches for their daughter. However, the girl was determined. Her proud and capricious nature showed openly. She had no intention of marrying without love. At the same time, she had no end to those who wanted to get enviable brides.
According to rumors circulating behind the back of the unapproachable girl, several fans committed suicide because they could not bear the refusal of the “Snow Queen”. One of these unfortunate people was Ivan Dragomirov. It was his father, General Dragomirov, who is depicted in the painting by the artist Lepin: “Cossacks writing a letter to the Turkish Sultan.” Indeed, Repin himself, a friend of the Dragomirov family, refuted this rumor in every possible way, claiming that the boy shot himself because of another girl.
One day, the deputy of Tsar Tutolmin set his sights on her, but his dreams of a happy marriage were dashed. But, in the end, Tutolmin had the rank of general, and not second assistant to His Majesty Emperor Alexander III. After all, people have long tongues.
Adult life
Unlike her parents, Sasha chose a distant relative, a second cousin. A few years later he became a general, but his then wife remained by his side for a long time. They married in 1893, and Vladimir Korontai took his wife from her parents” monastery.
After some time, the couple had one son. However, Shlokha did not become the keeper of the stove. Indeed, when will serious political passions begin to boil in the country! The spirit of revolutionary romance and adventurism leads the mother of the family into a crazy dance. Finally, Sasha swallows a fresh breath of freedom.
Marriage and relocation played a fatal role in the fate of Shlokha. She became a member of the People”s Movement for voluminous things. Later Kollontai met close friends of Elena Stasova — N. Krupskaya and V. Ulyanova. Sasha was drawn into a whirlpool of secret meetings. She became a messenger.
The risk that the girl exposed herself was absolutely justified. On one side of the scale there was life, name and family, on the other — revolutionary romance. Sasha chose revolution and left Russia in 1898, finally abandoning her husband and son. In Switzerland, where the newly-minted revolutionaries had gone, she became a student at the capital”s university and fell into the economic movement of Professor Heinrich Hoeckner. The professor doted on Sasha, recognized her talent in learning and contributed to her acquaintance with Sidney and Beatrice Webbs. They became the founders of the London School of Economics and the Labor Party.
Two years later, Kollontai returned home, full of revolutionary ideas. She was full of new knowledge and sought to bring it to the masses. She joined the RSWP, the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, and threw herself into her work. But Sasha did not accept the white color of her homeland for long. Party quotas meant that she would again have to leave for foreign lands. So, in 1901, fate brought her together with Georgy Plekhanov, the star of the revolution.
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Until 1916, she remained a married woman in De Jure, but after their divorce, Sasha kept her husband”s surname.
Shurochka was not distinguished by any special feminine virtues. Having received freedom, she went to great lengths and plunged headlong into endless love affairs. All her difficulties disappeared, and Kollontai herself began to implement the “glass of water theory.” This means that everyone deserves love, and if you already have the opportunity to give swallows “out of a glass,” then there is no need to be greedy. In fact, the hippie with his “love under every bush” can say “thank you.”
Sasha has several famous figures of the revolution. Young followers of innovative ideas followed her like calves. By the age of 40, Kollontai herself looked much younger than her age and could teach her young peers to be “wise in love.” But “love is evil” and Shloka chose it for Alexander Gavrilovich Shlypnikov. He was an ally of Lenin. Shlyapnikov was Kollontai’s lover for a long time. But as soon as she received an official divorce, Alexander went to “try” other revolutionaries.
A year after the divorce, in 1917, Kollontai met Pavel Dybenko. He was a sailor and an ardent advocate of innovative ideas. He changed his mind so much that Sasha married him again. This was the first time their marriage had been concluded under the new rules. Their cell opened an entry in the civil behavior record book. However, Pashenka was not distinguished by high morality and regularly went to other “glades”, since he was 17 years younger than his wife. The endless betrayal of his beloved wife deprived the revolutionary and Sasha of his unfaithful wife, and he left Russia again in 1922.
Leaving for Norway, Sasha did not long grieve for the “villain Pashka.” She met the body of Marcel Yakovlevich. He was a French subject, and the Soviet government saw a political threat in this relationship. The lovers separated.
Stormy romances and a busy revolutionary life crowded out her son from Sasha’s memory. While Kollontai was hurrying around the planet under the banner of revolution, another woman was raising Misenka, who became the second wife of Vladimir Kollontai. However, the mother’s mind recalled itself in the late 1920s, and Alexander got his son a job in the Berlin government. The mother enthusiastically took up her son’s career, and he soon went to serve in the Soviet embassies in Great Britain and Sweden. In 1927, Alexandra had a grandson, and she became an exemplary and caring grandmother.
Alexandra Kollontai”s voice
At the origins of feminism
The name of Alexandra Kollontai will forever go down in history as the first woman to defend women”s rights. Everyone knows that in pre-revolutionary Russia women had no rights, only responsibilities. Russian women were free to use: hard, exhausting work, silence, modesty. All women could do was do women”s work and raise children. There was no question about education or other activities. Kollontai could turn the course of history and stood at the “helm of women.”
Alexander was not the founder of feminism. By that time she had not yet been born. The development of the women”s movement began in the late fifties of almost the 19th century, several years before the birth of the revolutionaries. Subsequently, women”s gymnasiums began to appear, and access to higher education became possible. Several professions opened their doors: telegraph, journalism, publishing. In general, all areas where women were not burdened with heavy physical labor became available. As for family relationships and marriage, even divorce has ceased to be something exceptional; even women initiated it. Women have entered politics. Later, Nadezhda Krupskaya, Sofya Panina, Elena Stasova and others entered the chronicle of history.
Alexandra’s first thoughts about the fight for women’s rights came after a trip to a weaving factory, where she and her husband were recovering. In her diary she writes: “The mud in the huts, the lack of hygiene among schoolchildren, emaciated faces, dead babies, children covered with rags — darkness and fear of women.” Yes, the hollow young woman could not imagine the other side of life. This journey left an indelible mark on Alexandra’s soul and became a beacon for political activism.
Kollontai created a niche for women in politics, and thanks to her, free maternity hospitals, kindergartens and sanatoriums opened in the Soviet Union and an incredible gift appeared — paid maternity leave. Alexandra also raised the issue of feminine hygiene, the rules of which did not exist in principle, and women did not receive due attention.
When Korontai served as People”s Commissar for Social Charity in the first Bolshevik government, she made the impossible possible by issuing new laws. Decree on the introduction of civil marriage, Decree on marital equality, Decree on divorce and the rights of illegitimate children. She held this post for only four months, but what she achieved during this time was firmly enshrined in the country”s constitution.
Interestingly, upon entering the Soviet government, Kollontai demanded the closure of all feminist organizations, newspapers and magazines. She was able to separate the “flies from the cutlets.” The problem is that feminism is a whim of the bourgeoisie and an activity for its own benefit. Kollontai clearly saw this remark, and her disgust was boundless. Noblewomen defended their rights and did not care about peasant women and factories. They continued to treat them like slaves.
Korontai was fed up with such intrigues. She didn”t share women. Proletarianization is their business. All women, regardless of class, should have equal rights. Justice? Certainly!!! But at the same time, Alexandra leveled the floors. She erased the differences between men and women. And then the famous “comrades” appeared.
Sexual revolution
But it was not only Alexandra Korontai who promoted this. She erased the definition of female virtue and ushered in the “sexual revolution.”
While still married to Vladimir, she began a whirlwind romance with Alexander Satkevich. This officer settled in the family nest and became Alexandra”s official lover. Where Vladimir failed, Satkevich replaced him. Alexandra said, “Well, if I love you both, what can I do?” She tried to convince both men of this. But life in a love triangle turned out to be tiresome, and Alexandra decisively broke up with him and went to Switzerland.
This experience epitomized the “glass of water theory”, sexual liberation and the ability to choose when, where and who to love. Kollontai argued that a woman’s body belongs only to her and only she has the right to dispose of it. Thus, Korontai practically legalized prostitution, equated it with the work of weavers and placed responsibility on men, who were the main consumers. She presented an elegant concept of conscious motherhood, essentially giving the go-ahead for abortion.
Kollontai achieved the main thing: she freed women in all spheres of life, including sexual morality. Thanks to her efforts, women became what she wanted them to be. They became strong, independent, rejected male supervision, “installed” male despots and were able to control their emotions and minds.
