In August 1941 in Yelabuga, Russia; the life of Marina Tsvetaeva was cut short. Her biography and poems are well known to her admirers, but few know about the poet's talisman, which became fatal for her...
I wear his ring with a challenge.
- Yes, in Eternity - wife, not on paper. -
His excessively narrow face
Like a sword.
His mouth is silent, corners down,
His eyebrows are painfully great.
In his face tragically mingle
Two ancient bloods.
These lines are addressed to the greatest love of her life - Sergey Efron. This man will play a fatal role in the fate of the poetess. They met in the summer of 1911 in the famous to the whole literary community "Voloshin's House" in Koktebel.
"I will marry only the man who can guess my favorite stone from the whole coastline the «mortal sea foam»" said her to a guest, while walking along the Black Sea shore. It is irrelevant whether this was a joke or a serious statement, but soon after Efron arrived at Voloshin, and found and gave to the young beauty her favorite stone: carnelian. Tsvetaeva was a superstitious one, and for her, "dark predictions and talismans and love" she was always defined by the fate. So this… this could not be an accident. This was a sign from above. The poet's fate was decided in an instant, and a small pebble, a gift from her future husband, has now become her talisman.
In January 1912 Tsvetaeva and Efron were married, and in September the same year they had their eldest daughter - Ariadne. It seemed that their happiness would not end, but the serene life remained only a few years. Soon after the revolution broke out in Russia, and Sergei Efron went to the Civil War, joined a volunteer detachment of the White Army. Tsvetaeva admired her husband:
White Guards! Gordian knot.
Russian valor!
White Guards! White Loads!
The Russian song!
White Guards! White stars!
Can't scrape them out of the sky!
White Guards! Black nails
In the ribs of the Antichrist!
The next time Tsvetaeva saw him was several years later, when already in exile.
Despite the reunion, life abroad gradually began to turn into a real nightmare. Soon, the extremely cramped circumstances of the family gradually descended into poverty. Already in Paris, after several years spent in Prague, Tsvetaeva wrote in one of her letters about the terrible situation and virtually starving existence. The poetess's family lived, or rather miraculously survived; on penny earnings from her literary craft and money from the sale of hats, which were sewn by her daughter Alya. There was not always enough even to eat.
In Paris, the émigré public treated Marina Ivanovna with coldness because of rumors about Sergei Efron's connection to the NKVD, so a return to his homeland was discussed long ago. Sergei fed himself with the hope that he would be able to atone for his White Guard past by cooperating with the new government.
Ariadne was the first to leave in March 1939, blinded by the romanticism of the revolution and having no idea what awaited her in the Soviet Union. His daughter was followed by Ephron, who had been implicated in the contract political assassination of the intelligence agent Ignatius Reiss. Marina Tsvetaeva and her fourteen-year-old son Georgy (Moore) remained in Paris. The boy also longed to see a country he had never been to. And only Tsvetaeva herself had no illusions, clearly understanding the consequences of returning to the USSR and foreseeing trouble. Nevertheless, she followed her husband and daughter.
Legend has it that while getting ready for a trip and moving her belongings, Marina Ivanovna dropped the carnelian given by Efron. The stone rolled into some dark corner of the apartment, and Tsvetaeva could not find it for a very long time. The talisman, as if not to let its owner in Russia, wanted to prevent her from this fatal step...
But Tsvetaeva had long ago made up her mind, and in the summer of 1939 the whole family was collected at the NKVD summer house outside Moscow… where a trap was set for them.
In August, Ariadne was arrested and sent to Stalin's camps for fifteen long years. And in October, they came for Efron. Tsvetaeva wrote a pleading letter to Beria with requests to sort things out, but they went unanswered. Sergey Yakovlevich, condemned as an enemy of the people, was shot at Kommunarka test site near Moscow in October 1941, six weeks after the death of Marina Ivanovna.
The poetess's talisman, her favorite stone, which promised long happiness, in fact, ruined her life. Nevertheless, Tsvetaeva's happiest time, by her own admission, was that summer spent in the magical Koktebel. Perhaps, even before she died, she remembered a beautiful young man with deep eyes, who put in her palm a carnelian thrown by the sea.
Carnelian is a precious mineral, one of the few chalcedony that can be found in frozen lava. Geologists believe that the stone acquires its color from the surface of the earth, under the influence of the sun and air. The colors of this stone vary from scarlet to copper-colored shades. The color depends on the amount of iron admixtures. One can also find specimens with light spots, for example cloudy white-yellow patches.
Translated by Diego Monterrey, for Northwest Forpost.
