Литературный факт (Sep 2020)
Materials in M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin’s Descendants from S.A. Makashin’s Archive
Abstract
The publication introduces materials on M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin’s descendants from S.A. Makashin’s archive. By now there has been available basic biographical information about Konstantin Mikhailovich, the writer’s son and the author of the famous memoir Intimate Shchedrin (1923) negatively assessed by Soviet literary critics. Even less information survived on the writer’s daughter Elizaveta Mikhailovna, Baroness Disterlaut in her first marriage, Countess Da Passano in her second marriage. She hadn’t left memoirs about her father and therefore hasn’t become an object of interest for scholars. Materials from Makashin’s archive specify some biographical data and stir up an interest in the personality of the writer’s daughter. However it is the materials about her children, Tamara Nikolaevna Disterlaut (Gladyrevskaia in her second marriage), and Andrei Evgenievich Da Passano, that are of special interest. A part of the unpublished work by E. Gard, a journalist, appears in print for the first time: in 1934 he came to Kraskovo (Moscow region) and met the writer’s grand-daughter. Further information about T.N. Gladyrevskaia is given in the memoir written by her daughter Elena Aleksandrovna Gladyrevskaia and in the online materials about the victims of Stalinist repressions. Saltykov’s granddaughter was arrested in 1938; later her children were told that their mother had died in 1945; in fact, she was executed at Butovo Shooting Range soon after her arrest. The writer’s grandson left Russia together with his parents in 1917. His letter to G.V. Plekhanov’s daughter is published: he writes about his parents and himself. Information about A. Da Passano is specified thanks to the data available online (websites devoted to Italian comics creators and American esotery scientists). He lived a long life rich in the events, and died in the USA in 1933.
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