Under the banner of women's emancipation

Alexandra Kollontai was not only the first female minister and the first female ambassador in world history, but also the harbinger of the notorious “sexual revolution” that occurred in the second half of the twentieth century. Throughout her life, she repeatedly challenged society. Some of her famous novels took place against the backdrop of Crimean scenery.

Alexandra Kollontai, née Domontovich, was a general’s daughter who was educated at home. By the age of 16, thanks to her beauty and lively temperament, she was already driving crazy not only her teenage peers, but also mature men.

In the summer of 1889, while staying in Yalta, the beautiful Shurochka Domontovich rejected the advances of 40-year-old General Tutomlin, the emperor’s personal adjutant Alexandra III. The parents, who dreamed of such a brilliant match for their daughter, were shocked. However, she stubbornly did not want to “live like everyone else” and completely rejected the model of social success that all the young ladies of her circle dreamed of. Having broken several hearts, the general's daughter, against the wishes of her parents, married her second cousin, a graduate of the Military Engineering Academy Vladimir Kollontai, who still had to make a military career.

Alexandra Kollontai (pictured in the center) easily sparked such interest in sexual issues that the Bolshevik leaders could not extinguish it for a long time.

The first challenges to public morality

It soon turned out that the role of the hostess hearth and home Alexandra was very irritated by her caring wife, and she called her intimate relationship with her husband “conscription.” In order to somehow diversify her life, she began a whirlwind romance with a family friend, Alexander Satkevich, who was living in their apartment at that time. However, in 1898, she left her husband and broke off relations with her lover, after which she went abroad. She will bear the surname of her first husband, Alexander Kollontai, for the rest of her life, although she will never come to his funeral, which coincided with the revolutionary events of 1917.

While abroad, Kollontai met such iconic figures of the international revolutionary movement as Paul Lafargue, Karl Kautsky, Rosa Luxemburg, Georgy Plekhanov, Vladimir Ulyanov (Lenin). Since 1908, after a series of publications by Kollontai in the radical European press, she was deprived of the opportunity to legally visit Russia. Some famous revolutionaries, for example Pyotr Maslov and Alexander Shlyapnikov, become not only her political associates, but also her lovers. However, she diligently avoids formalizing relations with them.

War novel

Having received news of February Revolution 1917, Alexandra Kollontai immediately goes to Petrograd. The general enthusiasm of the revolutionary extravaganza had an intoxicating effect on her. Her speeches at rallies of many thousands evoked mass euphoria among listeners, and the crowd, obsessed with revolutionary ecstasy, gave her a standing ovation. It was during this period that the “Valkyrie of the Revolution,” as correspondents of Western publications called her, met the leader of the revolutionary-minded sailors of the Baltic Fleet, Pavel Dybenko.

The love affair that began between them immediately became public knowledge. To constant reminders from “well-wishers” that she was 17 years older than Dybenko (in 1917 she was 45, he was 28), Kollontai invariably answered: “We are young as long as they love us!”

Alexandra Mikhailovna became the only woman to join the revolutionary government. She was appointed People's Commissar of State Charity (Minister of Social Welfare). In this post, she prepared several important decrees related to the sphere family relations: “On divorce”, “On civil marriage” and “On equalization of the rights of illegitimate children with legitimate children”.

In February 1918, after the crushing defeat of the Red Army units by the Germans near Narva, commander Dybenko had to appear before a revolutionary tribunal. Kollontai uses all his frantic energy to save Pavel from execution. She registers her marriage with him. It is generally accepted that this was the first civil one in Soviet Russia, that is, registered by the authorities state power, and not a marriage union sealed by the church.

In the memoirs of the poetess Zinaida Gippius, Dybenko appears as a kind of “new Russian” of the revolutionary era: “Tall, with a (golden?) chain on his chest, a burning brunette who looked like a bathhouse owner.” Kollontai herself noted: “I love in him the combination of strong will and mercilessness, which makes me see in him the cruel, terrible Dybenko. This is a person in whom it is not the intellect that predominates, but the soul, heart, will, and energy. I believe in Pavlusha and his Star. He is the Eagle."

Alexandra Kollontai and Pavel Dybenko in the village, with Pavel’s parents.

Dybenko was extremely fond of luxury. So, in May 1921, having become the head of the Black Sea sector of the defense of Ukraine, he chose as his personal residence one of the best mansions in Odessa, located on French Boulevard, not far from the famous winery, from where he was daily delivered buckets of exquisite collection wines. The former noblewoman and successful revolutionary Alexandra Kollontai was also an attribute of social success for him, and their marriage was evidence of his belonging to the cohort of “leaders of the revolution.”

It was Kollontai after the arrest of Dybenko in Sevastopol German occupiers and sentenced to death, she seeks to have her “eagle” exchanged by the Soviet government for 12 (!) captured German generals and colonels.

Since the spring of 1919, Alexandra Kollontai has accompanied her husband, holding the post of head of the political department at his headquarters. Political work in military formation, commanded by Dybenko, was very important. After all, a significant part of its fighters had previously been part of the rebel detachments of Father Makhno and other atamans, which is why they had a tendency towards anarchy and partisanship. However, Kollontai enjoyed great authority in their circle. According to the recollections of contemporaries, she was the only person in whose presence they stopped swearing.

In May 1919, the creation of the Crimean Soviet Socialist Republic (CSSR) was proclaimed on the territory of the peninsula, the government of which was headed by Lenin’s younger brother, Dmitry Ulyanov. Kollontai becomes the chief commissar of propaganda in Crimea and editor of the newspaper Fighter for Communism. Behind short period During her stay in Crimea, she managed to do a lot, paying primary attention to the “women’s issue.”

In one of her articles of that time, Kollontai wrote: “The best guarantee of security in the rear is to attract female workers into our ranks. To enlighten the backward masses of proletarians... to unite them under the communist banner is our next task.”

Alexandra Mikhailovna achieved regular allocation of food rations for the wives, children and mothers of Red Army soldiers. However, at the end of June 1919, Denikin’s troops occupied the entire peninsula, and the government of the KSSR was hastily evacuated.

Soon a disaster occurred on the personal front. Pavel Dybenko, who during the Civil War could be away from his legal wife for months, was distinguished by a hot temperament. In addition to a lot of short-term affairs, he started a serious affair with the Odessa beauty Valentina Stefelovskaya. Apparently, it was this connection that became the main reason for the painful break with Kollontai, because of which the hero of the Civil War even tried to commit suicide. According to legend, Dybenko was saved from certain death only by the fact that the bullet he aimed at his heart hit the Order of the Red Banner. However, this act did not touch Alexandra Mikhailovna, who turned to the country’s leadership with two requests: to send her to any work abroad as quickly as possible and “not to confuse the names of Kollontai and Dybenko anymore.”

Make way for winged Eros!

In the first post-revolutionary decade, Soviet Russia experienced the peak of political and spiritual emancipation. The proletariat, which had become the hegemon, wanted to speak openly not only about the fair distribution of the means of production, but also about gender relations. True, the matter did not reach the “Decree on Sex,” but the question of proletarian sexual morality was widely discussed even on the pages of the party press. The public consciousness was ready to enthusiastically accept a bright and liberated female image, similar to the one depicted in the famous painting by the French artist Delacroix “Freedom on the Barricades.”

However, the “first lady” of Soviet Russia, Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya, was not well suited to the role of a sex symbol of the new era. But the bright figure of Alexandra Kollontai, who in those years tried to theorize her views on the problems of family, morality and ethics, turned out to be very helpful in this regard.

Kollontai’s phrase that “for the class tasks of the proletariat, it is completely indifferent whether love takes the form of a long and formalized union or is expressed in the form of a passing connection,” which was published on the pages of the then super-popular magazine “Young Guard,” had a bombshell effect.

Later, Alexandra Kollontai’s family and gender doctrine was vulgarized and reduced to the notorious “glass of water” theory. They say that for a Komsomol member or a Komsomol member, entering into an intimate relationship should be as simple as quenching a thirst. Although for those who actually read such works of Kollontai as “New Morality and the Working Class”, “Make Way for Winged Eros!”, “Love of Working Bees”, it is obvious that she only called for equality in relations between men and women, as well as rejection of the ostentatious sanctimonious morality of bourgeois society, which does not have deep spiritual content.

However, the conservative part of the Bolshevik elite did not understand and did not accept these truly revolutionary ideas. Kollontai's views were called vulgar anarchist. They, as most party leaders believed, only distracted Komsomol youth from the struggle for the socialist reconstruction of society. The builders of the new society should not have wasted their energy on sexual pleasures. That is why at the turn of 1920 - 1930. In the USSR, a sanctimonious ideology took hold, expressed in famous phrase “We don’t have sex in our country!”

Brilliant plenipotentiary representative of the country of the Soviets

In 1922, the party sent Kollontai to the diplomatic front. For 23 years she was the plenipotentiary representative (and then ambassador) of the USSR in Norway and Sweden.

Alexandra Kollontai (center) and Pavel Dybenko (second from right) with the first delegation to Sweden

Only in 1926 did the will of the Soviet leadership throw her into distant Mexico for several months. Alexandra Mikhailovna successfully carried out responsible foreign policy assignments.

At the same time, the world's first female ambassador, who adored furs, pearls and diamonds, shone at diplomatic receptions and was a popular heroine of gossip columns in the Western press.

She hasn’t lost her ability to make outrageous antics. So, having turned sixty years old, she could jump out of the train at a small station at night, secretly from everyone, and for several days, hiding in the mountains, swim naked in icy mountain lakes. But in the end, age takes its toll - in 1942, Alexandra Mikhailovna suffered a stroke, after which she could only move in a wheelchair.

In March 1945, due to serious health conditions, she returned to Moscow. In the crucible Stalin's repressions Her former lovers had already died: Shlyapnikov was shot in 1937, and Dybenko in 1938. Formally, until the end of her days she remained an adviser to the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but in fact she withdrew from public activities and reduced personal contacts to a minimum.

It is known that in last years Kollontai’s life had lost her former revolutionary fervor, although she did not advertise it. In an intimate letter addressed to her last lover, the French communist Marcel Baudi, she wrote: “We lost, ideas collapsed, friends turned into enemies, life became worse, not better. There is no world revolution and there never will be. And if there was, it would bring innumerable troubles to all humanity.”

Alexandra Mikhailovna Kollontai died of a heart attack in March 1952, a few days short of her 80th birthday.

They called her whatever they called her during her life and after her death. “Demon of March 8th”, “Valkyrie of the Revolution”, “Sexy Revolutionary”, “Eros in the Uniform of a Diplomat”...

This is just an insignificant part of the epithets that the press awarded her. Articles about her can be found both in the book “100 Great Diplomats” and in the publication “100 Great Mistresses”. But if you put aside the scandalous flair and once again analyze the life path of Alexandra Kollontai, you can’t help but admire this strong woman who was a revolutionary in everything.

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This woman has been admired for almost half a century. A brilliant orator, a fiery revolutionary, a talented diplomat - this is how Alexandra Kollontai was seen throughout her long life. But few people knew her from the other side - Alexandra Mikhailovna was truly a femme fatale.

There are women to whom God did not give the talent to be the keeper of the family hearth. Although, it would seem, nature rewarded them with everything else: beauty, grace, charm, the ability to love, and intelligence... But Shurochka Kollontai was deprived of the desire to create family comfort, just as sometimes a person is completely deprived of hearing or voice . Back then, people weren’t interested in horoscopes; most people simply didn’t know about their existence. If Alexandra had been born in our time, she would have written more simply in her autobiography: I am an Aries! And that would say it all...

Alexandra Kollontai was born on March 31, 1873 in St. Petersburg into a wealthy and respected general family, whose roots go back to the medieval prince Dovmont of Pskov. In her autobiographical book, Kollontai wrote this: “A little girl, two pigtails, blue eyes. She is five years old. The girl is like a girl, but if you look closely at her face, you notice perseverance and will. The girl’s name is Shura Domontovich. This is me.”

For the general’s daughter had everything that was due to children of the privileged class: her own room, an English nanny, visiting teachers. And her future was quite definite: a brilliant party, children, balls and trips to the estate or abroad. Mikhail Domontovich doted on his daughter. He got married only at the age of 40, marrying a woman with three children, so Alexandra became his first child. He gave her an excellent education. Proof of this is the fact that Alexandra, who was home-schooled, passed the matriculation exams better than all the high school students.

Among Shura’s passions were dancing, and with Vanya Dragomirov they made a wonderful couple. Youthful love ended tragically. When Vanya suggested that Alexandra start a more serious relationship, she just laughed. This carefree laughter led to the young man's suicide.

It's hard to say why the example of one's own happy family did not inspire our heroine, but from her youth she herself valued little the comfort of home, warm care and the kind world of loved ones. At seventeen, Alexandra refused the young general, the imperial adjutant Tutolmin. "I don't care about his bright prospects. I will marry the man I love." Neither then nor subsequently did Alexandra’s words differ from her deeds.

Going on business to Tiflis, my father took Shura with him. Here she spent time with her second cousin, a handsome and cheerful black-haired young officer, Vladimir Kollontai. They talked about politics and social injustice, read Herzen. Vladimir won the heart and mind of the young beauty. Shura returned to the capital, but Kollontai came next and entered the Military Engineering Academy. The parents dreamed of a different match for their daughter and did not allow the lovers to see each other, which, naturally, only fueled the passion. To cool his daughter down, her father sent her to Paris and Berlin to unwind under the supervision of her half-sister. But the correspondence between the lovers did not stop, and in Europe Shura learned about trade unions, Clara Zetkin, the “Communist Manifesto” - about everything that was forbidden in Russia. And it was the sweetness of the forbidden fruit that made her declare: I’m marrying Kollontai!

V. Kollontai

A year after the wedding, Alexandra Kollontai gave birth to a son, naming him Mikhail in honor of his grandfather. The parents calmed down a little: their daughter was settled in, though not the way they wanted, but they seemed to be a decent man, and he even idolized his wife. An ordinary woman would be content with this simple family happiness - but not Alexandra. After 5 years she divorced her husband...

They were a happy and beautiful couple. The husband was gentle and kind, tried to please her in everything, he was full of inventions and fun. There was nothing to blame him for, but she wanted something different. What? She didn't know herself. Shura began working in the public library, where the capital's freethinkers gathered. Her son, Misha, was not yet six months old, and his mother, having picked up the first information that not everything in this world is harmonious and fair, was already obsessed with the desire to participate in ridding humanity of universal evil. But for now she set simpler goals for herself. For example, marrying your closest friend Zoya Shadurskaya to your husband’s friend, officer Alexander Satkevich. For this reason, she even came up with the idea of ​​living in a “commune”, inviting both Zoya and Satkevich to her house. It must be said that the young family was not constrained by funds - the father provided his married daughter with a significant allowance. In the evenings, the four of us gathered and read aloud social journalism selected by Shura. Zoya listened passionately, Satkevich listened attentively, and her husband yawned. New friends of the mistress of the house came in - teachers, journalists, artists - and argued about politics until they were hoarse.

Kollontai family

Satkevich was not captivated by Zoya, but the mistress of the house completely and completely captured his feelings. A painful love triangle has formed. From that time on, Shura Kollontai began to be completely concerned with the problems of freedom of love, family happiness, duty, and the possibility of love for two men. She theorized, but could not decide on anything. She liked both. Zoya left the “commune” and rented an apartment where Shura secretly met with Satkevich. Finally, she left the marital apartment, rented rooms for herself, her son and a nanny, but not at all in order to dissolve her marriage with Kollontai and enter into a new one. She did not want family comfort; she needed a home to do her business - read and write. Satkevich was a welcome but rare guest in her apartment.

"My dissatisfaction with my marriage began very early. I rebelled against the 'tyrant,' as I called my husband." Another interesting confession made years later: “...I loved my handsome husband and told everyone that I was terribly happy. But it still seemed to me that this “happiness” somehow bound me. I wanted to be free. Small household and household chores filled the whole day, and I could no longer write stories and novels, as I did when I lived with my parents. But housekeeping did not interest me at all, and my nanny Anna Petrovna could take very good care of my son. But Annushka demanded that I myself "I was taking care of the house. As soon as my little son fell asleep, I kissed his forehead, wet with sweat, wrapped him tighter in the blanket and went into the next room to pick up Lenin's book again."

Gradually, Kollontai comes to the conclusion that love for his son is simple selfishness, and love for his husband is an unnecessary luxury. And he decides to divorce. She does not hesitate to inform her husband about this. “We separated not because we stopped loving each other,” Alexandra wrote. “I was carried away by the wave of revolutionary events growing in Russia.”

On August 13, 1898, Shura Kollontai went abroad, leaving her son in the care of her parents. She was twenty-six.

Kollontai chose Switzerland to get her education. But she fell ill with a nervous disorder and went to Italy, where she wrote articles for newspapers and magazines that no one published. Nervous breakdown worsened, the doctors advised me to return home. Then she's in last time I tried to live a normal female life in the family. Her husband fell ill, she took care of the sick man. But the role caring wife she was bored, and renewed meetings with Satkevich posed insoluble problems for her. Kollontai went to Switzerland again.

She enrolled in Professor Herkner's seminar, read a lot, and her articles appeared in reputable journals. She wrote about Finland - about the proposed reforms, about the economy, about the labor movement, and became an authoritative expert on this country. Shura quickly acquired new connections: she became friends with Rosa Luxemburg, with Plekhanov and his wife. Occasionally she came to St. Petersburg, met with a friend, but not with her husband. The mother died, the son lived with his grandfather. Satkevich dreamed of marrying Shurochka, because a civil marriage was unacceptable for the colonel. But she was categorically against it. She has already adapted to a different life. She met Kautsky and Lafargue, became an expert on the Russian labor movement and an expert on Finland.

When my father died, many everyday problems. She inherited an estate that brought in large incomes that allowed her to live comfortably in Europe. She needed money, but she didn’t want to bother getting it or burden herself with financial reports. She entrusted all matters related to the estate to Satkevich. By that time, even the colonel’s strict superiors had become accustomed to their relationship, and Shura and Alexander were no longer hiding from anyone. Father's house was sold, Kollontai rented nice apartment, her faithful friend Zoya lived with her as a housekeeper. She cooked, washed, ironed and sewed, and in addition, wrote essays, feuilletons, and reviews for newspapers. Shura Kollontai preferred only creativity: she was already the author of three books on social problems, wrote a lot about the women's movement, about proletarian morality, which will replace the bourgeois one.

In 1905, A. Kollontai discovered another talent in herself - the talent of an orator. Having become involved in the propaganda work of illegal immigrants, she spoke with pathos at work meetings. At one of them, she met the co-editor of the first legal newspaper of the Social Democrats in Russia, Pyotr Maslov, whom Lenin desperately criticized. The plump Russian economist, who began to go bald early, made an indelible impression on Shura. She spoke only about him, and Pyotr Maslov - sedate, calculating - threw himself into the pool of love, although he was legally married.

Maslov got the opportunity to give a series of lectures in Germany. Kollontai came to the founding congress of the Social Democrats in Mannheim, where her circle of acquaintances in the highest elite of European Social Democracy expanded significantly. But, most importantly, in Berlin, where she stayed for several days, Maslov was waiting for her. And in St. Petersburg, Peter was mortally afraid of publicity; secret meetings did not bring joy. But the popular economist was again invited to Germany, and Kollontai was invited to the International Congress. The personal was combined with the public.

Meanwhile, Kollontai’s vigorous revolutionary activity did not go unnoticed by the authorities. She was arrested but released on bail. While she was hiding with the writer Shchepkina-Kupernik, her friends prepared a foreign passport for her, and she ran away. Her separation from St. Petersburg this time lasted for eight years. Soon she was followed by Pyotr Maslov, however, he had to take his family with him. Secret love continued in Berlin. But Shura, like most Russian emigrants, could not sit in one place. For Kollontai, home was herself, a roof over her head and a table for work. But, most importantly, she knew several European languages ​​perfectly and easily adapted to any country.

The affair with Pyotr Maslov began to weigh heavily on Shura Kollontai, since it turned into a trivial adultery, and she did not want to hear about marriage with him. She went to Paris and rented a room in a modest family boarding house. But Peter rushed after Shura, taking, as always, his family. He came to her every day, but at exactly half past nine he hurried home. It depressed her.

At the funeral meeting at the grave of the Lafargues, Kollontai noticed a gaze on her young man- direct, open, authoritative look. After the funeral, he came up, praised her speech, and kissed her hand. “He is dear to me, this cheerful, open, direct and strong-willed guy,” she wrote a little later. Then they wandered around the city for a long time and went into a bistro. She asked what his name was. Alexander Shlyapnikov, revolutionary proletarian. At night he brought her to the suburbs, to a modest house for the poor, where he rented a squalid room. He was twenty-six, she was thirty-nine. In the morning there followed an explanation and a break with Pyotr Maslov. Sanka and I decided to go to Berlin, but she still lingered in Paris: her husband, Vladimir Kollontai, arrived. Without reading, Shura signed the divorce documents prepared by his lawyer, where she took all the blame upon herself. Now her ex-husband could calmly marry the woman he loved, with whom he had lived for a long time and who loved him and Shura’s son Misha.

Kollontai wrote to Zoya that she was immensely happy with her new friend. Only with him did she truly feel like a woman. Now living with the proletarian, she believed that she had a better understanding of the lives and problems of workers. Shlyapnikov carried out important assignments for Lenin, so he was not often at home. When they managed to live together longer, Shura noticed that her friend began to irritate her. A man who, despite all his unpretentiousness, still required minimal care and attention, was a burden. He prevented her from working, writing articles and lecture abstracts. The estate gave less and less money.

The World War found Kollontai and her son, Misha, in Germany. They vacationed together this summer in the resort town of Kol-grub. They were arrested, but two days later she was released, since she was an enemy of the regime with which Germany went to war. With difficulty they managed to rescue Misha, and they left the country. Shura sent her son to Russia, and she herself went to Sweden, where Shlyapnikov was at that time. But she was expelled from Sweden for revolutionary agitation without the right to ever return. Kicked out forever. She stopped in Norway. Shlyapnikov, who sometimes visited her, was a burden to her; in addition, Satkevich announced his marriage. This upset her. The long separation from Russia and inactivity also took their toll. She became depressed and wrote about her loneliness and uselessness. And at that moment she was invited to give lectures in the USA, and Lenin himself instructed her to translate his book and try to publish it in the States. Kollontai completed his task, and the lectures were a wild success. She traveled to 123 cities, and in each she gave a lecture, or even two. "Kollontai conquered America!" - the newspaper wrote.

She got Misha, through her friends, a job at US military factories, which freed him from being drafted into the active army. The mother decided to go with her son. Shlyapnikov wanted to join, but she did not allow him. It was a break.

Kollontai was in Norway when the Tsar abdicated the throne in Russia. Lenin himself wrote to Shura to hurry back to her homeland, and then gave her a delicate assignment through his people. Shlyapnikov met her at the station in St. Petersburg and immediately took one of the suitcases. It was assumed that it contained money that the German government allocated to Lenin for the revolution in Russia. Soon Lenin himself arrived in the notorious sealed carriage, surrounded by his closest associates. Kollontai had already been elected to the executive committee of the Petrograd Soviet, therefore, having learned about the illness of her ex-husband, she barely found time to visit him, but she could not come to his funeral: she was completely absorbed in revolutionary work. The newspapers followed her every move, calling her the Valkyrie of the Revolution. Legends were formed about her inspired speeches at rallies. The crowd everywhere greeted her with enthusiastic shouts. Her stunning oratorical success prompted Lenin to entrust her with the most difficult task: influencing sailors who were completely resistant to Bolshevik agitation.

Kollontai went to warships. She was met by the chairman of Tsentrobalt, sailor Pavel Dybenko, a strong man and a bearded man with clear young eyes. He carried Shura from the ladder to the boat in his arms. From that day on, he accompanied her on all her trips, but the romance developed rather slowly. It was unlikely that she was embarrassed by the age difference - he was seventeen years younger. Everyone said that at twenty-five she looked ten years older, and when she turned forty, she seemed twenty-five. Dybenko came from an illiterate peasant family; he was distinguished by his dashing, violent temperament and impulsiveness. She decided that she had met the person destined for her.

It was a strange couple: the aristocrat Kollontai, an elegant society lady, and a tall, broad-shouldered peasant son with rough features and appropriate manners. Do opposites meet? Perhaps she lacked the “chernozem”, and he passionately wanted to know how much these white-bodied St. Petersburg “cleans” loved it. But there was another reason for mutual attraction: both were party functionaries. He is the chairman of Tsentrobalt, she is the people's commissar. The rumor about the passionate love of the Valkyrie of the Revolution with the famous leader of the Baltic sailors reached almost every Russian citizen. “This is a person in whom it is not the intellect that predominates, but the soul, heart, will, energy,” Kollontai wrote about Dybenko. “In him, in his passionately tender caress, there is not a single touch that hurts or insults a woman.” However, she also wrote something else about him: “Dybenko is an undoubted genius, but you cannot immediately make these violent people people’s commissars, give them such power... They are dizzy.”

“I did not intend to legalize our relationship, but Pavel’s arguments - if we get married, we will be together until our last breath - swayed me,” Kollontai wrote. “The moral prestige of the people’s commissars was also important. A civil marriage would put an end to all the whispers and smiles behind our backs..."

They connected their destinies first civil marriage in Soviet Russia. She went to see him at the front. Dybenko was transferred from one unit to another - Shura followed him. But she didn’t want to be “in front of someone”; it hurt her pride. Dybenko received orders to defeat Kolchak, Kollontai returned to her work in the women's department of the Central Committee and the women's section of the Comintern as Deputy Armand.

In November 1918, at the first All-Russian Congress of Working Women and Peasant Women, Kollontai delivered a report on “The Family and the Communist State.” Then the brochures she wrote, “The New Morality and the Worker,” “A Working Woman for the Year of the Revolution,” and others were published. At the party congress in March 1919, she says: “We must not forget that until now, even in our Soviet Russia, a woman of the working class is enslaved ... by everyday life, enslaved by an unproductive household that rests on her shoulders. All this prevents her from giving herself up to ... active participation in the struggle for communism and construction work. We must create nurseries, kindergartens, build public canteens, laundries, that is, do everything to unite the forces of the proletariat - male and female, in order to jointly achieve the common great goal of conquest and construction communist society."

Kollontai called not only for the social emancipation of women, but also asserted her right to free choice in love. She wrote about this in her fiction works - the collection “The Love of Labor Bees” and stories “ Big love"The ideas of Alexandra Kollontai were most clearly expressed in the sensational article of those years, “Make way for winged Eros!” In 1917, Kollontai called on revolutionary soldiers and sailors not only to radicalism, but also to free love. Six years later, already in Peaceful time, she called out not to restrain your sexual aspirations, liberate your instincts and give scope to love pleasures.

In 1924, the publishing house of the Communist University. Sverdlova published the brochure “Revolution and Youth”, in which 12 “sexual” commandments of the revolutionary proletariat were formulated. Here are just two of them. “Sexual selection should be built along the lines of class revolutionary proletarian expediency. Elements of flirting, courtship, coquetry and other methods of special sexual conquest should not be introduced into love relationships.” And “there should be no jealousy.”

They were together for a long time, but all good things come to an end.
At that time, Kollontai already understood a lot about the revolution. In her diary, she wrote that the workers were severely disappointed, but in her articles she called on women workers to make new efforts towards building a new life. And despite all her intentions to break up with Pavel, she continued to meet with him. But she was tormented by jealousy. She was nearly fifty, and she felt a young rival next to him. One day she waited for him until late at night, and when he arrived, she reproached him. Pavel tried to shoot himself and wounded himself. It turns out that that girl gave an ultimatum: “Either me or her.” Kollontai left her friend and said goodbye to him forever. Years later, Dybenko tried to renew her relationship with Kollontai, but she had already thrown him out of her heart.

Kollontai had not liked what was going on in the Bolshevik Party for a long time. She felt that the internal party struggle would not end well, and decided to hide. Zinoviev hated her fiercely. At his request, Stalin sent Shura to Norway, essentially into honorable exile.

Alexandra Kollontai's diplomatic work began on October 4, 1922, when she went to Norway as a trade adviser. In May of the following year, she was appointed head of the plenipotentiary and trade mission of the USSR in this Scandinavian country. Coats, hats, negotiations, credentials - new life Madame Kollontai captivated her. The matter was going well, she clearly had diplomatic skills.

In September 1926, Kollontai was assigned to Mexico, but the local climate proved too harsh for her health, and she returned to Norway. Nowhere was her talent revealed with such force as in diplomatic work. Kollontai made full use of her charm, ability to speak, and desire to please others. During the first years of her work, Alexandra Mikhailovna successfully established economic ties with Norwegian industrialists, concluding an agreement for the supply of herring to Russia, and sought recognition of Soviet Russia by Norway. Her motto became the words that she later loved to repeat to young people: “A diplomat who has not given his country new friends cannot be called a diplomat.”
In Norway, Marcel Bodie, a French communist and secretary, became her friend, assistant and adviser. Soviet mission. Obviously, he was the last love of Alexandra Kollontai. He had a European polish and respectfulness, and he was twenty-one years younger than Shura.

A. Kollontai among Norwegian sailors

Another conversation with Stalin, and in April 1930, Alexandra Mikhailovna became the plenipotentiary representative in Sweden. She was greeted very warily, and yet the Swedes turned a blind eye to their own decree of 1914 on the expulsion of Mrs. Kollontai from the country. The Ambassador of the Soviet Union managed to prove to the Swedes that she was no longer a fiery revolutionary, but a completely respectable diplomat.

On October 30, 1930, when presenting her credentials, Alexandra Kollontai charmed the old Swedish king Gustav V, and the newspapermen, one and all, noted the flashy toilet of the Soviet ambassador: Russian lace on a velvet dress. Muse Canivez, the wife of Fyodor Raskolnikov, recalled her meeting with Kollontai. “That morning in Stockholm I saw her for the first time. In front of me stood a short, middle-aged woman, beginning to gain weight, but what lively and intelligent eyes!..” During lunch, Kollontai complained: “All over the world they write about my toilets, pearls and diamonds and, for some reason, especially about my chinchilla coats. Look, I’m wearing one of them now.” And we saw a rather shabby seal coat, which could only be mistaken for a chinchilla with a lot of imagination..."

Both Dybenko and Shlyapnikov wrote to her in Sweden. Sometimes she went to secret, carefully kept meetings with Bodie. Terror was rampant in Russia. Letters from friends were full of despondency.

On one of her visits to Moscow, Yezhov called her and asked about Bodi. She broke off all contact with the Frenchman. Then Kollontai found out about Shlyapnikov’s arrest and didn’t even try to help, she understood that it was useless. He was shot in 1937. Then Satkevich was arrested. The seventy-year-old professor was executed according to a decree signed by Yezhov. Dybenko was arrested as a “participant in a military-fascist conspiracy” and shot in July 1938. “Life is terrible,” wrote Kollontai. A case was being prepared about “traitorous diplomats,” and her name was on the list. But no loud process followed; the diplomats were “removed” quietly. For some reason Kollontai survived...

When she was urgently called to Moscow in the spring of 1945, she was sure that it was her turn. But the matter was different: the matter reached a dead end
prominent Swedish aristocrat Raoul Wallenberg - the most prominent people in Sweden were interested in his fate. Kollontai, who was friendly with Raoul’s uncle, the largest Swedish banker Marcus Wallenberg, tried as best she could to find out his fate. And they tried to recruit Raul into the GPU, but they miscalculated. He had to be shot. Fearing the international scandal that would inevitably arise, Stalin decided to remove Kollontai from his post as ambassador.

In March 1945, Molotov telegrammed to Sweden that a special plane would fly for the ambassador, and on March 18, 1945, Kollontai was taken to Moscow on a military plane. She, who represented the USSR in Scandinavia for more than a quarter of a century, was taken out of the country so quickly that she was not even allowed to say goodbye to her closest people. She was 73 years old. In Vnukovo, Shura was met by his grandson Vladimir.

In Moscow she was received more than modestly. They settled me in a three-room apartment with government-issued furniture - she never got her own. Kollontai lived there with secretary Amy Laurenson. Her surviving friends - Pyotr Maslov, Elena Stasova, Tatyana Shchepkina-Kupernik - visited her, although years and poor health made their visits difficult.
Nephew Evgeny Mravinsky, who became an outstanding conductor, came from Leningrad. With difficulty, Alexandra Mikhailovna managed to obtain a pension - surprisingly, there was no information about her party experience. Even her name was practically forgotten.

Her left arm and leg were paralyzed. But Alexandra Mikhailovna continued to work and served as an adviser to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The lights were on in the house on Kaluzhskaya Street until late. “My relaxation in the evening is history books, a monograph or a study of the ancient world. Facts, facts, I use them to draw my conclusions about the past and future of humanity... The world is very alarming...”

The once active, restless woman was confined to a wheelchair. “But in general,” she writes in her treasured notebook, “I have adapted very well.” In recent years, she went outside only occasionally in a wheelchair. Seeing a stroller, a traffic policeman would stop traffic, salute, and only when it crossed the street would he allow traffic to move. On the eve of her death, March 9, she received a lot of congratulations on International Women’s Day. She missed her 80th birthday by several days. Winged Eros finished his flight. A life full of passion was cut short.

Alexandra Kollontai was preparing for her 80th birthday. On March 9, a few days before her anniversary, she died of a heart attack and was buried at Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow. As Ilya Ehrenburg noted, “she was lucky to die in her bed.”

There are happy, self-sufficient people whose lives were spent in relative harmony with themselves, and fate protected them as best it could. Apparently, Kollontai was one of these darlings of fortune, otherwise how can one explain her amazing longevity, many years of active, unconstrained life, while nearby friends died, comrades were repressed, colleagues died in oblivion. Is it just her charm or her intelligence? Or maybe her ability to survive?.. Or maybe the naivety and feelings that she once expressed in a sketch for a story that was never written: “My head is proudly raised, and in my eyes there is no pleading look of a woman who clings to a man's passing feeling. It is not in your eyes that I seek self-assessment. My value is reflected in the eyes of those to whom I give the wealth of my creativity, mind, soul. How good life is! Life is about work, about overcoming, about successes and even difficulties. It's good to just live. I smile at life and am not afraid of it... I want to develop a theme about the separation of love from biology, from sexuality, about the re-education of feelings and emotions of a new humanity. And the expansion of the most wonderful emotion - love - to a universal girth."

A lot of time has passed since the times when MGIMO accepted only male youths and preferably from among the children of the nomenklatura, but we still rarely see women in protocol photos from events at the Russian Foreign Ministry. And if we see it, then most often in a group of translators. An example of a nationally known official representative The Foreign Ministry of Maria Zakharova is a typical case when the exception only confirms the rule. At the same time, increasing the female share in the diplomatic corps is not a squeak of fashion, but a cry of practical necessity.

As often happens, there is officially no problem with the participation of women in the work of the Russian diplomatic department. There are no formal restrictions on the admission of girls to MGIMO or to work in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. According to official statistics, the number of women with diplomatic rank in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is gradually growing and in 2015 amounted to 23.5% in the central office and 16% in foreign institutions (embassies and consulates), respectively.

But then it gets worse. Among 131 Russian diplomats with the rank of ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary, there is only one woman, out of 109 extraordinary and plenipotentiary envoys of the first class, there is also one, and among 305 extraordinary and plenipotentiary envoys of the second class, there are nine. Of the 40 departments of the Russian Foreign Ministry, three are headed by women. Among the 11 deputy ministers there is not a single woman.

It is unlikely that any senior diplomat will say that there is some kind of systemic discrimination. The main argument is this: when Ministry of Foreign Affairs officers of this level went to work at the ministry, there were almost no girls in the specialized university. The validity of this argument opens our eyes to two more features of the ministry's personnel system. Firstly, to high average age management personnel (department director level and above). And secondly, it is almost completely impossible to transfer to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from any other place of work. You can leave, but they are unlikely to allow you to return. In this sense, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is like a vertical steel pipe - you can only get inside from the very top or from the very bottom.

There are other reasons why there are so few women among Russian negotiators. For example, due to the specifics of working with foreign language and university diligence, young female employees are often given jobs as translators. If they do this job well, then over time it becomes unprofitable for management to promote them, since at a certain point their high rank will no longer allow them to perform this “service” function. It is better to keep them at the level of the first secretary.

In addition, the peculiarities of diplomatic work exacerbate some familiar dilemmas for Russian women. If an employee is sent on a long business trip abroad (say, three years in Russian embassy), then not every husband will agree to leave with her and look for work in another, often distant, country. What if the husband works in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but in another country? Even if it’s the same one, this will not solve the problem - finding two vacancies at once in one foreign institution is very difficult. In addition, tradition is not favorable to spouses who simultaneously hold diplomatic positions at the embassy. Although, of course, you can always make an exception - in his representation, the power of the ambassador is practically limitless.

However, the strongest obstacle to women’s career advancement, of course, remains the Foreign Ministry’s corporate culture. Any bureaucratic system has the ability to imitate standards imposed on them from above, while avoiding essential changes. So, while recognizing gender equality in the workplace, the Foreign Ministry’s working culture remains deeply masculine. Young female employees are often treated with paternal condescension, attentive kindness, and a seemingly unspoken understanding that one should not count on a long and successful career. Those women who nevertheless achieved success in the system are something like amazing cases that successfully fill the conditional “women's quota”.

On the other hand, why does Russian diplomacy more women in middle and senior positions? Dismissing accusations of blindly following the fashion trends of “our Western partners,” we will offer a number of arguments.

First, gender diversity in the workplace as a management practice breaks down long-established thought patterns and collective assumptions about global politics and the foreign service, thereby improving the quality of decision-making. Informal barriers to career growth women are actually left with these intellectual resources untapped.

Research shows that the benefits of women's participation in diplomatic work can also be quantified. Thus, according to known calculations by the International Institute of Peace, the likelihood that a peace agreement will last at least two years is on average 20% higher if women are involved in the peace process. Women's participation is even more important in the long term - if they were involved in creating a peace agreement, then the likelihood that it will last 15 years increases by 35%.

Secondly, a non-discriminatory approach to appointments to senior diplomatic positions will serve as a strong motivation for young female employees of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Informal restrictions on their career advancement may be explained by concern for the health and family well-being of the weaker sex in the difficult diplomatic field, but this kind of patronizing attitude is a typical “glass ceiling”, an invisible barrier to career advancement. An increase in the number of women ambassadors and a more open discussion of the topic of equal opportunities in the ministry system can create new incentives for self-realization.

Finally, thirdly, the appearance of women in prominent positions in the Foreign Ministry system and as part of negotiating teams will have a positive impact on the image of Russian diplomacy. Foreign partners are seriously paying attention to this and consider it an important indicator of gender equality in Russia. This will strengthen the image of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a modern and representative diplomatic agency.

Today, women make up 72% of civil servants in Russia and hold 58.1% of government positions, although this share is halved for the highest group of positions. According to the FOM, 60% of the population believe that women should participate more actively in politics. Underrepresentation of women in top level public administration is a problem not only for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but it is this ministry that bears a special responsibility, since it is diplomats who represent Russia on the world stage.

As with many issues in public administration, it is virtually impossible to solve this problem with directives or new rules. If its roots lie in the corporate culture of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the perception of diplomacy as a “male profession,” then it is this culture and this perception that must become the object of change. World practice shows that the most effective way to change culture is through the personal example of a leader and the values ​​that he conveys to his team.

Perhaps, in this sense, the appearance of such a prominent figure as Maria Zakharova as director of the most public department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will be a powerful signal to the system. But the transition to an open and equal culture of the diplomatic service is possible only if a broad coalition is formed in the foreign policy elite, ready to update personnel policies through the equal involvement of men and women.

Anton Tsvetov and Oleg Shakirov, experts in the “Foreign Policy and Security” direction of the Center for Strategic Research (CSR)

Politics and leadership, associated in the public consciousness with male activity, with the power struggle for power, begin to mean: the ability to cooperate and partnership, not competition, to trust and the ability to express feelings, and not hide them; to the ability to perceive people with their individual qualities, and not just in connection with work. With this vision of leadership, the emphasis in the style of work in power structures also changes.

Politician and diplomat are not a profession. This is a way of life limited by strict etiquette and unwritten rules. So, people enter the diplomatic service after graduating from a specialized educational institution, or being a public politician. A diplomat is a public politician who represents not only a country, but also the political regime of that country. Women, placed in these harsh conditions, have to compete with men without any allowances for the “weaker sex”; they try to adopt male type Behavior: be tough, strong-willed, decisive, energetic. But there are women who behave like women in diplomacy: they are softer, more tolerant, attentive, and less categorical. Women's logic and intuition give the ability to take an unexpected, fresh, unconventional look at already familiar phenomena, trying to prevent, resolve conflicts, and relieve tension, and these are the traits that are so combined with the core task of modern diplomacy.

One of significant areas diplomacy, where women actively express themselves, is a moral policy, that is, a non-violent policy, the correspondence of means to the high goals that are declared in program documents; the goal is not to gain power over someone, but to use it to improve people's lives; focusing on issues of equality, development, peace. Today, moral policy is the prevention and resolution of conflicts in ethnic environments and hot spots, as well as increasing the level of security in the regions by activating the potential of women. For example, in patriarchal Caucasian states, the role of women in political life has always been negligible. The only opportunity to influence ongoing political processes was through active participation in non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and thus a kind of public rule was realized. Events in hot spots have shown that the role of women in the peacemaking process and in the further maintenance of peace is very great. Unfortunately, when it comes to official diplomacy, men make the decisions. Therefore, the emergence of such organizations as the “International Center for Women’s Public Diplomacy”, which united women living in conflict zones for their active connection to the internal and foreign policy, as well as to the process of conflict resolution within the framework of public diplomacy. The humanitarian component of foreign policy and diplomacy, resolving issues such as security throughout the world is perhaps an area where a female diplomat can fully express herself.

History knows the names of many women diplomats. For example, during the reign of Queen Tamara, Georgia achieved military-political successes; one of the peaks of poetic creativity is dedicated to her - the poem “The Knight in the Skin of a Tiger” by Sh. Rustaveli. The British Foreign Office still has a document showing that the first female diplomat was Spanish: In 1507, Ferdinand of Aragon sent his widowed daughter Katherine as ambassador to England to negotiate with Henry VII about postponing the wedding. France soon adopted this tradition in 1529. Louise of Savoy, mother of King Francis I, and Margaret of Burgundy, aunt of Emperor Charles V, held negotiations in Cambrai, which resulted in the signing of a treaty known as the Treaty of the Ladies.

Today, in many countries, women's participation in foreign policy has increased markedly. In the Philippines, two women have already become presidents - Corazon Aquino and current President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. Women in four Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands have doubled their political representation over the past 20 years (more than 1/3 of seats in parliaments and governments). The White House also actively advocates for expanding the participation of women in the American “vertical of power.”

Name: Alexandra Kollontai (Alexandra Domontovich)

Age: 79 years old

Activity: revolutionary, statesman, diplomat, first female minister in history

Family status: was divorced

Alexandra Kollontai: biography

Alexandra Mikhailovna Kollontai - first wave revolutionary, People's Commissar of State Charity, USSR Ambassador to Scandinavia and Mexico.

Alexandra was born on March 19, 1872 in St. Petersburg in the family of infantry general Mikhail Alekseevich Domontovich, a Ukrainian by birth. Alexandra's father took part in the military campaign against Hungary, distinguished himself in Crimean War. Mikhail Alekseevich was a member Geographical Society, wrote works on military history, served for a year as governor of the Tarnovo province.

The mother of the future revolutionary, Finnish national Alexandra Masalina-Mravinskaya, was much younger than her husband, but she already had her first marriage behind her. From her previous union, she left behind a daughter, Evgenia Mravinskaya, who became famous as an opera singer. His maternal grandfather, having peasant roots, created a logging company, from which he became rich.

Shura was born when her father was already 42 years old, so she developed the warmest relationship with Mikhail Alekseevich. The general instilled in his daughter a love of history, geography, and politics. Looking at her father, the girl learned to think analytically. The parents took care of the best home education for their daughter. By the end of her studies, Shura spoke fluent French, English, Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian and German.

At the age of 16, Alexandra passed the necessary exams as an external student and received a diploma as a governess. The strict mother considered further education unnecessary, and the girl became interested in painting. In addition to creative pursuits, the young lady attended balls, at which, according to her parents, she was supposed to find a worthy groom. But the headstrong Alexandra did not want to marry for convenience, although she enjoyed incredible success among representatives of high society.

In the mid-90s, Alexandra became interested in the People's Will movement; the girl sympathized with revolutionary ideas since childhood, following the example of teacher M.I. Strakhova. After Alexandra, almost against her parents’ will, married a poor distant relative, Vladimir Kollontai, and moved out of her father’s house, the girl felt free. The young woman began to disappear at secret meetings organized by her new acquaintance Elena Dmitrievna Stasova, her closest friend and.

Alexandra Kollontai was entrusted to become a messenger. The girl risked her life and name by going to disadvantaged neighborhoods with parcels and prohibited literature. The romance of the revolution quickly captured the young woman, and she abandoned all household chores. IN free time Kollontai studied the works of Lenin and.

In 1898, Alexandra decided to move abroad, which completely destroyed her marriage. In Switzerland, a young revolutionary enters the capital's university, and Professor Heinrich Herkner, an economic theorist, becomes her mentor. He recommends that the talented, extraordinary student go to England to meet the founders of the London School of Economics and the leaders of the Labor Party, Sidney and Beatrice Webb.

Returning to Russia for two years, Alexandra becomes a member of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party. On party instructions, the revolutionary again goes abroad, where another significant event took place for Alexandra. In 1901, in Geneva, she met the legendary Russian revolutionary Georgiy Plekhanov.

Revolution

In 1903, at the Second Congress of the RSDLP, a split arose between party members, as a result of which two wings were formed: the Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, and the Mensheviks, led by Yuliy Martov. Plekhanov and Kollontai joined the Menshevik party. But after 11 years, Alexandra changed her views and stood under the banner of the Bolshevik wing.

During the First Socialist Revolution of 1905, which was defeated, Kollontai supported working women by distributing the brochure "Finland and Socialism". After the defeat of the revolutionaries, fleeing persecution and possible exile, the revolutionary hid abroad. Kollontai does not sit in one place, she establishes connections with social democrats in Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Great Britain, France, and Norway.

In Germany, Alexandra manages to make friends with the leaders of the Communist Party, Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht. The revolutionaries help a new ally move to Sweden when Germany announces the start of the First World War.

After the deportation of a dubious revolutionary from Stockholm, she moves to Denmark. From this moment on, Kollontai finally became closer to the Bolsheviks.

Having established contacts with German intelligence and gaining access to unlimited funds, the Bolsheviks became leaders of the 1917 revolutionary movement in Russia. But after the February events, the Provisional Government manages to arrest Alexandra for spying for Germany.

In absentia, at the VI Party Congress, Kollontai was accepted as a member of the Central Committee. The brave activist became the first woman to join the Bolshevik government, along with Lenin, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Bukharin.

Lenin, who is also being persecuted by the Provisional Government, is hiding in secret apartments at this time. By the fall, Kollontai had already left prison and participated in party meetings at which the decision on an armed uprising was made.

The revolution takes place on October 25, and within 2 days the main body of power is created - the Council of People's Commissars, in which Kollontai is entrusted with the post of People's Commissar of State Charity. In fact, this is the position of minister, in which the revolutionary remained until the beginning of the spring of 1918.

Ambassador of the USSR

In 1922 it was created Soviet Union. The young state needed global recognition, so people with experience working abroad and connections in European social democratic parties were selected for diplomatic positions. At her request, the government appointed Alexandra Kollontai Scandinavian ambassador. “Valkyrie of the Revolution” heads to Norway, where she seeks political recognition of the USSR, while simultaneously establishing trade ties between the countries.

In 1926, Kollontai was appointed representative of the Union in Mexico, but, unable to withstand the hot climate, which negatively affects the functioning of the heart, Alexandra was again transferred to Oslo.

From 1930 to 1945, as the representative of the USSR in Sweden, Kollontai achieved a number of diplomatic victories. During the negotiations, Alexandra Mikhailovna manages to prevent the introduction of Swedish troops into the territory of the Union during the Finnish campaign, and in 1944 Kollontai convinces Finland to leave the war, which significantly accelerated the advance Soviet troops to the territory of Europe.

All political connections with the Scandinavian world were in the hands of a brave woman, so Stalin did not touch her during the political purges. In addition, the Leader of the Nations treated the revolutionary with humor, not perceiving Kollontai as a serious opponent, and constantly made fun of her. In turn, Alexandra Mikhailovna fully supported the policies of Joseph Vissarionovich.

Personal life

Alexandra Kollontai, as a true revolutionary, went to the end in pursuit of the ideal of freedom, so the theme of free love was relevant to her from a young age. While still very young, Alexandra insisted on her own choice of groom, who turned out to be a distant relative, Vladimir Kollontai. Parents did their best to prevent this marriage, and rich and wealthy men, such as General Ivan Tutolmin, the son of General Dragomirov, proposed marriage. But no one managed to break the girl’s will.

The wedding took place in 1893, and a year later a son, Misha, was born into the family. Kollontai had no more children. Having been separated from her parents' supervision, Alexandra falls under the influence of revolutionaries, which destroys her family. In 1898, a young woman decides to escape to Europe and leaves her husband and son forever. The marriage between Alexandra and Vladimir was dissolved only in 1916, but the revolutionary did not change her surname.

Having become a free woman, Kollontai plunged into a series of romance novels, long-term and fleeting. Famous political figures younger than her became her men, since Alexandra herself always looked much younger than her age.

In her personal life, Kollontai proclaimed the “glass of water theory,” which was based on the fact that love should be given to everyone who needs it. Kollontai was not the author of this postulate, but only its vivid embodiment. For a long time, the “Valkyrie of the Revolution” met with Alexander Gavrilovich Shlyapnikov, a former comrade-in-arms of Lenin.

But in 1917, fate brought Shura together with the young revolutionary sailor Pavel Dybenko, whom Kollontai married. The entry on the marriage of Kollontai and Dybenko became the first in the civil register. The relationship did not last long, this time due to Paul's infidelity. This was not surprising, since the military man was 17 years younger than his wife. Therefore, in 1922, Alexandra burned her bridges and went abroad.

In Norway, the revolutionary meets a French citizen, Marcel Yakovlevich Bodi. But the Soviet government intervened in the relationship between the diplomat and the young Frenchman, and the couple separated.

At the end of the 20s, Alexandra Mikhailovna finally remembers her son, who was essentially raised by a stranger, the second wife of Vladimir Kollontai. The revolutionary arranges for Mikhail first in the Berlin mission, and then in the USSR embassy in London and Stockholm. Kollontai takes care of his grandson Vladimir, who was born in 1927.

Death

On the eve of the end of the Great Patriotic War Kollontai could not withstand the overload and had a stroke. On this political biography Alexandra Mikhailovna's career as a statesman was over. In mid-March 1945, the diplomat was brought from abroad to Moscow, where she began rehabilitation.

For seven years, Kollontai was confined to a wheelchair and lived alone in her own apartment on Malaya Kaluzhskaya Street. Partial paralysis of the body did not prevent Alexandra Mikhailovna from performing the functions of a consultant on foreign policy issues: the Ministry of Foreign Affairs valued her experience. Kollontai died on March 9, 1952 from a heart attack that occurred in her sleep. The revolutionary's grave is located at the Novodevichy cemetery.