July 15, 1939
Zinaida Reich, an actress and Yesenin's first wife who later became Meyerhold's wife, was murdered.
Do you remember?
You all remember, of course,
As I stood,
Approaching the wall,
You walked around the room excitedly.
And something sharp
They threw it in my face ("Letter to a Woman." S. Yesenin)
She was born in 1894 in Odessa to a railroad worker. She was politically inclined and expelled from school after eighth grade. At 19, she joined the Socialist Revolutionary Party. She moved to Petrograd and enrolled in Raev's Higher Courses for Women.
She found work as a secretary and typist at the newspaper "Delo Naroda" (People's Cause). She met Yesenin, who was publishing there. The couple married in July 1917. Their short marriage, full of breakups and reconciliations, produced two children—Tatyana and Konstantin—against the backdrop of the Civil War. Reich and Yesenin divorced in 1921.
Darling!
You didn't love me...
Reich took her separation from Yesenin very hard. She was treated in a mental hospital. In the fall of 1921, she became a student at the Higher Directing Workshops, which he directed. MeyerholdIn 1922, Reich married him. Meyerhold adopted Yesenin's children and raised them as his own.
Forgive me…
I know: you are not the one -
Do you live?
With a serious, intelligent husband;
That you don’t need our hassle,
And I myself will tell you
Not a bit needed
In 1924 Reich made her debut at the Meyerhold Theatre. She became a leading actress and one of Moscow's most renowned performers. In 1934, Stalin attended the theater to see "The Lady of the Camellias." He disliked the performance. Reich wrote to him that he didn't understand art.
In 1938 Meyerhold's theater was closed. The ailing Stanislavsky invited the director to his home. Meyerhold directed his theater for a year. In June 1939, Meyerhold was arrested. Twenty-four days later, Reich was brutally murdered in their apartment. Unknown assailants stabbed her 17 times. Nothing was missing from the apartment.
The crime remains unsolved. According to one theory, it was carried out by Beria — After the murder, people from his circle moved into Reich’s apartment.
According to Olga Berggolts’s recollections, Reich was buried “quietly, with only one person walking behind the coffin.” Meyerhold executed on February 2, 1940.
