New light on Prokofiev’s Spanish wife?
NewsCarolina Codina married Sergei Prokofiev in 1923, returned with him to Moscow in 1936, was dumped by her husband four years later and would up in one of Stalin’s gulags.
Now, a Polish play in London promises fresh revelations:
Scena Polskiej.UK will stage a sensational play by the outstanding Polish playwright Maciej Wojtyszka, called Wife, whose world premiere took place 3 years ago in Ognisk. Based on previously unknown historical facts, Macieja Wojtyszko creates a shocking drama about betrayal, love and fear…
Tickets https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/scena-polskauk-10609117590
I have often thought that Sergei tried to get Carolina and the boys out of Russian during the war to the US where he had friends. (Boston, Chicago, L.A. or San Francisco). However, she was reluctant to go alone – being both fearful of never seeing Sergei again and suspicious of her husband, who would soon take up with Mira Mandelson, the future Mrs. Prokofiev.
Paul Capon is only partly correct.
Sergei Sergeyevich had already begun une liaison dangereuse with Mira Mendelson in 1938.
I had the pleasure of meeting Lina Prokofieff (the spelling she and Sergei Sergeyevich preferred) quite frequently in London in the 1980’s shortly before her death.
The first encounter was through Ivo Pogorelić and Aliza Kezeradze who were not known for encouraging any kind of personal friendships as they considered 99.9% of the world to be “idiotka”.
The Pogorelić’s had met Madame Prokofieff through Menuhin and Rostropovich when she first came to London in 1974.
Although she was clearly suffering from early stages of dementia, when lucid, her memory was surprisingly vivid.
According to Lina, ever since the Prokofieff’s returned to Russia in 1936, she was desperately unhappy living in the brutal Stalinist regime and wanted to return to the civilised West with Sergei and their family.
Despite the appalling artistic controls imposed by the odious Platon Mikhailovich Kerzhentsev and the State Committee on Arts Affairs, Prokofieff on the other hand felt much more comfortable in familiar Russian surroundings, notwithstanding his birthplace of Donetsk Oblast in present-day Ukraine.
Stalin considered Carolina Codina a thoroughly undesirable Western influence and in 1948 bundled her off to a gulag in Siberia, telling Prokofieff that she had returned to the West and wished no further contact.
Prokofieff was not unduly disconsolate, as since 1938 he had been smitten by a certain Mira Mendelson – no relation to Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy or Peter Mandelson (viz. Paul Capon above) and who was much more to Stalin’s liking.
In fact Sergei and Mira were married the month before Lina was imprisoned thus avoiding any irksome divorce claims from the feisty Catalan diva.
The Soviet courts had already ruled that as Lina and Sergei Sergeyevich were married outside Russia, the marriage was never legal in any case, so any petition for divorce was void ab initio.
After spending eight years in abject misery, Lina was finally released from the Abezlag gulag in 1956, three years after Prokofieff’s death.
Her release was not due to an mercurial spasm of compassion by the then First Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party Nikita Khrushchev, but rather the determined efforts of Shostakovich, Tikhon Khrennikov and Mstislav Rostropovich to secure Lina’s freedom.
How accurate Maciej Wojtyszka’s play turns out to be is a matter of conjecture, but there is no doubt the subject matter was indeed a person of formidable strength, resilience, beauty and courage. Lina also had a wonderfully dry sense of humour.
Once at a small soirée chez Pogorelić, the unpredictable pianist suddenly proposed that everyone present (total 6) should dance.
He then took Madame Prokofieff by the hand and proceeded to lurch and stagger around the drawing room to the unlikely strains of Frank Sinatra.
Fearful of broken toes or at least bruised calves, Lina loudly remonstrated: “Ivica, you are just like Sergei – absolutely no sense of rhythm”.
“The Pogorelić’s had met Madame Prokofieff through Menuhin and Rostropovich when she first came to London in 1974.” I believe you meant to say that Menuhin and Rostropovich connected with Lina when she first came to London in 1974, as Pogorelić didn’t arrive and settle in London until the early 1980’s.
Yes, Ludwig’s Van.
You are correct.
Both musicians had known Lina prior to 1974, and she was especially close to Rostropovich and Galina Vishnevskaya.
As an extraordinary talent and graduate of the Moscow Conservatory, Pogorelić was warmly welcomed in London in the early 80’s by the small group of outstanding Russian emigree artists either living or visiting the British capital on a regular basis.
As with almost all of Pogorelić’s colleagues and associates, these friendships faded faster than his performance of the Chopin Waltz in D-flat major Op. 64.
Why not? The Gulag theme always sells in the West.
Oh come on.
Solzhenitsyn might have something to say about that. Remember him?
Thank you Johnathan Sutherland.
I think everyone can agree that Sergei treated Lina miserably. The fact he did not push more to get her and the boys out -especially during the war – knowing what kind of life they would face in Stalin’s Russia is appalling. (he had seen the purges upon his return in 1936). Maybe the irony of him dying the same day as Stalin and being forgotten was not lost on Lina – a certain poetic justice. It was just sad she had to spend another 18 years in Russia. Nice to know Shostakovich pushed for her release – would Stravinsky have ever be so bold – or selfless?