January 29, 1884
According to one version, on this day in Kursk province I was born Nadezhda Vinnikova - one of the first stars of the Russian stage, known as Nadezhda Plevitskaya. Nicholas II's "Kursk Nightingale" and an agent of Soviet foreign intelligence.
Russian song knows no slavery
She came from a large peasant family; her parents were deeply religious.
If, God forbid, someone dared to circumvent the “law,” then there was a punishment: the father and mother would pick out a thick stick from the pile of firewood with the words: “I’ll beat you with anything I can get my hands on.”
After her father's death, she took on laundry to help support the family. She spent two years as a novice in a convent, where she first began singing in the church choir.
Having moved to Kiev, She got into pop music, singing both Russian folk songs and gypsy romances. It was there that she met her first husband. Edmund Plewicki. She became famous when she performed in Moscow for merchants. Her name was put on par with Feodor Chaliapin (he called her "the Russian lark"). The singer was accompanied by Sergei Rachmaninoff, and painted her portraits Konstantin Korovin.
She delighted everyone, from the monarch to his last subject, with her typically Russian beauty and the brilliance of her talent.
(Alexander Benois)
Plevitskaya's arsenal included almost 2000 folk songs, including "Lebedushka," "Khasbulat the Daring," "Kalinka," "Dubinushka," and "From Behind the Island."
Performed in front of Nicholas II and his entourage. According to eyewitnesses, while listening to her, the emperor bowed his head and wept.
The choice of songs was left to me, and I sang what I liked. I also sang a revolutionary song about a poor peasant who ended up in Siberia for arrears. He heard me, and I saw a sad light in the Tsar's eyes.
During World War I, she performed for soldiers on the front lines and helped in a military hospital. After the October Revolution, she supported the Bolsheviks.
I can sing “God Save the Tsar” and “We Will Boldly Go into Battle” with the same feeling.
During the Civil War, having been captured by the "Whites", she met Kornilov's youngest general - 27 years old Nikolay Skoblin. When the 41-year-old bride married for the fourth time, she shaved four years off her age. She lived in France, toured Europe and America, and composed new songs.
You are covered in snow, Russia,
It was dammed up by a gray snowstorm,
And the cold steppe winds
They sing a requiem over you
In 1930, in exchange for promises to return to their homeland, Plevitskaya and her husband were recruited by Soviet intelligence (receipts survive). They were given the aliases "Farmer" and "Farmer's Wife"—likely referring to the orchards and vineyards they cultivated. The couple worked for the OGPU for seven years and were considered the best agents, helping expose approximately 20 spies in the USSR.
Skoblin was one of the leaders of the "White" Russian All-Military Union. Plevitskaya, in addition to speaking and gathering intelligence, passed on classified documents, wrote intelligence reports, and acted as a liaison.
Both were compromised in 1937, during the kidnapping of a White general. Evgeniya Miller — he managed to leave a note with Skoblin's name on his desk. Skoblin himself soon died in Spain (according to one version, at the hands of NKVD agents).
Plevitskaya was arrested by French police. During interrogations and in her prison diaries, she denied all charges. In 1938, a jury found her guilty and sentenced her to 20 years of hard labor.
The participants in the trial looked with a mixture of contempt and sympathy at the disheveled, screaming, sobbing, and fear-crazed woman, now pleading, now thrashing from side to side. They believed Plevitskaya was avoiding or not daring to look at the crowd of Russians because she sensed their hostility—and her own loneliness. All against one. One against all.
(Nina Berberova from the courtroom)
In June 1940, the French Rennes, The prison where she served her sentence was occupied. From the archives, the Gestapo learned of Plevitskaya's work for Soviet intelligence. She soon fell seriously ill (likely from poisoning) and died in October 1940.
Shortly before her death, she confessed to a priest—the text of her confession was filed in the case file. She revealed that Skoblin, "in defiance of Miller," also collaborated with German intelligence to restore the tsarist regime in Russia.
