Who is the mother of Mayakovsky's daughter. What did the only daughter of Mayakovsky look like

- Elena Vladimirovna, you met your father only once in your life...

Yes. I was only three years old. In 1928, my mother and I went to Nice, where she solved some immigration issues. And Mayakovsky was in Paris at that time, and our mutual friend told him that we were in France.

- And he immediately came to you?

Yes, as soon as he found out that we were in Nice, he immediately rushed over. My mother almost had a stroke. She didn't expect to see him. Mom said that he went to the door and said: "Here I am."

- Do you remember anything yourself?

All I remember is long legs. And also, you may not believe me, but I remember how I sat on his lap, his touch. I think it's kinesthetic memory. I remember how he hugged me. My mother also told me how touched he was when he saw me sleeping in the crib. He said: "Probably, there is nothing more attractive than a sleeping child." There was another case when I was rummaging through his papers, my mother saw this and slapped my hands. And Mayakovsky told her: "You should never beat a child."

- But you never met again?

No, it was the only meeting. But for him it was very important. After this meeting, he sent us a letter. This letter for my mother was the most important treasure. It was addressed to "To Two Allies." Mayakovsky wrote: “My two dear Ellies. I miss you already. I dream to come to you. Please write quickly. I kiss you all eight paws ... ". It was a very touching letter. He never wrote such letters to anyone else. The father asked for a new meeting, but it did not happen. My mother and I went to Italy. But Mayakovsky took my photograph taken in Nice with him. His friends said that this photograph stood on his father's desk all the time.

- But it was torn by Lilya Brik, wasn't it?

I know from authoritative sources that when he died, Lilya Brik came to his office and destroyed my photographs. I think the point is that Lilya was the heiress of copyright, and therefore my existence was undesirable for her. However, one entry in his notebook remained. On a separate page, only one word “Daughter” is written there.

- But after all, your mother was also in no hurry to talk about your existence.

My mother was very afraid that the authorities in the USSR would find out about my existence. She told me that even before I was born, some nasal commissar came to her and asked who she was pregnant from. And she was very afraid of Lily Brik, who, as you know, was associated with the NKVD. My mother was afraid all her life that Lily would get us even in America. But, fortunately, this did not happen.

Your mother actually took Mayakovsky away from Lily Brik, right?

I think that at the time when Mayakovsky came to America, his relationship with Lilya was in the past. My father's love for my mother, Ellie Jones, put an end to their relationship.

- Mayakovsky's biographer Solomon Kemrad found an entry in English in one of the poet's "American" notebooks: 111 West 12 st. Elly Jones. Did your mother live there?

Yes, my mother Ellie Jones had an apartment in Manhattan. In terms of money, she always felt free. Grandfather was a successful businessman, a wealthy man. In addition, her mother worked as a model and translator: she knew five European languages, learned them at school, in Bashkiria, as a little girl. She worked with the American administration. Mother devoted her whole life to trying to explain to the Americans what Russian culture is, who the Russian people are. She was a true patriot. And she taught me the same.

And by origin she is a German from Bashkiria?

Yes, her Russian name- Elizabeth Siebert. The history of the family from the side of the mother is generally amazing. My ancestors came from Germany to Russia on the orders of Catherine the Great. Then a lot of Europeans came to develop Russia, Catherine promised them freedom of religion. My grandfather was a successful industrialist. And then there was a revolution.

How did your grandfather manage to get his family out at the height of the revolution?

It was not safe to stay in Russia. If they had not left, at best they would have been dispossessed of kulaks and sent to camps. The mother's family lived in Bashkiria in a large house. It is quite far from Moscow, and revolutionary sentiments did not reach there immediately. When a revolution took place in the capital, one of my grandfather's friends advised him to leave the country, saying that people with weapons would soon come. My grandfather had enough money to take everyone to Canada. My personal opinion is that if the so-called kulaks were not persecuted in the Soviet Union, if they were not exiled, but given the opportunity to work, then this would greatly help to develop the Soviet economy then.

- However, your mother did not go with the whole family, did she?

Yes, she spent some more time in Russia. Mother worked for a charitable organization in Moscow, no one knew about her kulak origin. Then she met the Englishman George Jones, who worked for the same organization; married him and went to London, and then to New York. I think that the marriage was rather fictitious. Mother wanted to go to her family, George Jones helped her. By the time she met Mayakovsky, she no longer lived with her husband ...

- And how did she meet Mayakovsky?

For the first time she saw her father in Moscow, at the Rizhsky railway station. He stood with Lilya Brik. The mother said that she was struck by the cold and cruel eyes of Lily. The next meeting, in New York, took place in 1925. Then Mayakovsky miraculously managed to come to America. It was impossible to go directly to the United States, he traveled through France, Cuba and Mexico, waiting almost a month for permission to enter. When he arrived in New York, he was invited to a cocktail party with a well-known lawyer. My mother was also there.

What did she say about this meeting?

Mom was interested in poetry, read it in all European languages. She was generally very educated. When she and Mayakovsky were introduced to each other, she almost immediately asked him: “How do you write poetry? What makes poetry poetry? Mayakovsky hardly spoke any foreign languages; Naturally, he liked a smart girl who speaks Russian. In addition, the mother was very beautiful, she was often invited to work as a model. She had a very natural beauty: I have a portrait by David Burliuk, made when they were all together in the Bronx. Mayakovsky, one might say, fell in love with my mother at first sight, after a few days they hardly parted.

Do you know where they most often went? What were Mayakovsky's favorite places in New York?

They appeared together at all receptions, met with journalists and publishers together. We went to the zoo in the Bronx, went to look at the Brooklyn Bridge. And the poem "Brooklyn Bridge" was written immediately after he visited it with his mother. She was the first to hear this poem.

You must have been investigating when you were writing a book about Mayakovsky in America. Has anyone seen your parents together?

Yes. Once I was visiting the writer Tatyana Levchenko-Sukhomlina. She told me how in those years she met Mayakovsky on the street and talked to him. The poet invited her and her husband to his evening. There she saw Mayakovsky with a tall and slender beauty, whom he called Ellie. Tatyana Ivanovna told me that she had the impression that Mayakovsky had very strong feelings for his companion. He never left my mother's side for a minute. This was very important to me, I wanted confirmation that I was born as a result of love, although inwardly I always knew this.

- Was your mother the only woman in Mayakovsky's life at that time?

Yes, I'm quite sure of it. Mom said that he was very careful with her. He told her: “Be true to me. As long as I'm here, you're the only one." Their relationship lasted all three months while he was in New York. His mother said that he called her every morning and said: “The maid has just left. Your hairpins scream about you!" Even a drawing made by Mayakovsky after a quarrel has been preserved: he drew a mother, with sparkling eyes, and below his head, humbly bowed.

- There is not a single poem directly dedicated to your mother?

She said that once he told her that he was writing a poem about them. And she forbade him to do this, said: "Let's save our feelings only for us."

You weren't a planned child, were you?

Mayakovsky asked his mother if she was protected. She then answered him: "To love is to have children." At the same time, she had no doubt that they could never be together. He then told her that she was crazy. However, in one of the plays, this phrase of hers is used. “From love it is necessary to build bridges and give birth to children,” the professor says to him.

- Did Mayakovsky know that your mother was pregnant when he left America?

No, he didn't know and she didn't know. They parted very touchingly. She accompanied Mayakovsky to the ship bound for Europe. When she returned, she found that the bed in her apartment was strewn with forget-me-nots. He spent all the money on these flowers, and therefore returned to Russia in the fourth class, in the worst cabin. Mom found out that she was pregnant when Mayakovsky was already in the USSR.

When you were a child, you had the last name Jones...

When I was born, my mother was still formally married to George Jones. And the fact that she was pregnant was a very delicate situation, especially for those times. But Jones was very kind, he gave me his name for my birth certificate and generally helped us a lot. Mom was not convicted for an illegitimate child, but I got American documents: he legally became my father, I am very grateful to him. Nowadays, people forgive much more than an illegitimate child, but then it was different.

Helen Patricia Thompson was born on June 16, 1926, in New York (New York City). Her mother is a Russian immigrant, translator Ellie Jones, born as Elizaveta Petrovna Siebert, was the daughter of a large landowner. Ellie was fluent in Russian, French, German and English.

Vladimir Mayakovsky paid a visit to New York in 1925, to the artist David Burliuk, one of the founders of Russian futurism. The Russian poet fell in love with Jones, an affair with which lasted three months. The lovers were inseparable from each other, but decided to keep their relationship a secret.

After escorting Mayakovsky to a ship sailing for Europe, Ellie returned home, where she found that her entire bed was strewn with forget-me-nots. The poet spent almost all his means to say goodbye to Jones so beautifully. Because of this, he had to return to the Soviet Union "in the worst cabin", the fourth class.

Shortly after Mayakovsky's return to his homeland, Jones gave birth to Patricia. The translator's ex-husband, George Jones, put his last name on the girl's birth certificate. He became the "legal father" of Patricia, who received the status of "legitimate", and treated her like his own.

Having learned about the birth of his daughter, Mayakovsky tried to get to America again, but this turned out to be impossible. In 1928, the poet received permission to travel to Paris (Paris); his daughter and Jones arrived at the same time on holiday in Nice to "settle immigration matters". Mayakovsky came from Paris to Nice to see his daughter, then three years old. She gave her biological father a Parker pen and has never seen him since.

George Jones taught Patricia English, who also spoke some Russian, German and French. American children initially refused to play with Thompson because she was a foreigner. The girl decided that she did not want to speak "in useless languages" anymore and began to learn English. From that moment on, she stopped replenishing Russian vocabulary.

Patricia learned the truth about her real father at the age of nine, but her stepfather and mother asked not to reveal the family secret to anyone until their death. Ellie once told Patricia that Mayakovsky once announced that he was writing a poem about their love affair. Jones protested and said that she wanted their feelings to last only a day.

On April 14, 1930, Mayakovsky shot himself, which Jones learned about from the newspapers. In his suicide note, the poet did not mention anything about Patricia. She believes that this helped her to protect herself from persecution by the NKVD, since the commissariat would hardly have been delighted to learn that "a Soviet poet in America is growing a child from a kulak's daughter."

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After the death of her father, the daughter flatly refused to speak Russian with her mother. Probably, Thompson unconsciously moved away from everything Russian, although this did not prevent her from feeling like a Russian American in the future, working on a children's book about Russia and presenting to the Americans "an adequate image of a Soviet person."

Patricia was enrolled in art school at the age of 15, after which she entered Barnard College. She graduated in June 1948 and got a job as an editor. Thompson has worked for several widely published magazines, including Macmillan Publishers.

Patricia has written film and music review articles, and has edited a variety of genres including science fiction, westerns, novels, and detective stories. Pen Thompson has written more than 20 books.

In 1954, Mayakovsky's daughter tied the knot with American Wayne Thompson-Sherman. The marriage broke up in 1974. The union left a son, Roger, who became an intellectual property lawyer. Roger married and adopted a Colombian boy named Logan.

Patricia was Professor of Philosophy and Women's Studies at Lehman College in New York. She taught feminist philosophy at New York University. Thompson recognized herself as a feminist, but by no means one of those who seek to belittle the role of men. Patricia viewed her feminism as "the desire to save the family, to work for her good."

She published Mayakovsky in Manhattan, a Love Story, describing her parents' romance, based on her mother's unpublished reminiscences and conversations. In order not to forget her mother's stories, Patricia used a tape recorder and dictated as many as six cassettes.

In 1991, after the death of Ellie Jones and the collapse of Soviet Union, Patricia, together with her son, visited Russia, where the couple was greeted with great respect. Mother and son got acquainted with Mayakovsky's relatives - with the descendants of his sisters, with his friends and admirers of his work.

Thompson dug up the ground between the graves of Mayakovsky and his sister at Novodevichy Cemetery and placed some of her mother's ashes, which she had brought to Russia.

According to data from 2015, Patricia wanted to learn Russian, which she could no longer speak, and obtain Russian citizenship.

Patricia Thompson died on April 1, 2016, as reported by the State Museum of V.V. Mayakovsky on its Facebook page.

Her body was cremated in the USA. Mayakovsky's daughter bequeathed to scatter her ashes over her father's grave.

In one of the New York hospitals, the daughter of the poet Vladimir Mayakovsky, Helen Patricia Thompson (Elena Vladimirovna Mayakovskaya), died. She was 89 years old.

Next to my father. Patricia Thompson in the studio of the artist B. Korzhevsky against the backdrop of the painting "Last Minutes"
Photo: State Museum of V.V. Mayakovsky

The sad news was published on the Facebook page of the Mayakovsky State Museum. The report emphasizes that just two weeks ago, the director of the museum discussed with Elena Vladimirovna an exhibition in honor of her 90th birthday and an upcoming trip to Russia.

Patricia Thompson was born in 1926 as a result of Mayakovsky's fleeting romance with Russian emigrant Elizaveta Siebert. They met at one of the poetry evenings in New York a year before the birth of their daughter.

Mayakovsky saw his daughter only once: in 1928 he managed to get a visa and go to France, where Elizabeth Siebert and her daughter were at that moment. Two years after this meeting, the poet committed suicide.

Patricia found out about her true origin only at the age of nine - at birth, Elizabeth's ex-husband was recorded as her father. Subsequently, she became the author of 15 books, one of which was devoted to Mayakovsky's journey to the United States. She worked at the Russian-American Cultural Center "Heritage".

In 2008, Patricia visited Russia. During her visit, she laid flowers on her father's grave, and also gave an interview to Moskovsky Komsomolets. The poet's daughter spoke about how she had to prove her relationship with Mayakovsky, including Yevgeny Yevtushenko, and also about why her mother always urged her not to be angry with her father.

Patricia admitted that she dreams of obtaining Russian citizenship and mastering the Russian language again. According to her, once in Russia, she realized that she considers it her intellectual homeland.

Ellie Jones and Vladimir Mayakovsky

Ellie Jones' real name is Elizaveta Petrovna Siebert. She was born in the Russian Empire, in Davlenkovo, on October 13, 1904. Elli came from a family of Russified Germans who, after the October Revolution, were forced to flee Russia along with other landowners and aristocrats. Her family was quite prosperous - they owned land not only throughout the Russian Empire, but also beyond its borders. Elizabeth spent most of her childhood on the estates of her grandfather and father. She received a good education at home, including she learned several foreign languages, which later played a very important role in her life. After October 1917, the Sieberts emigrated from Russia. Ellie was able to get a job at the American Starvation Relief Organization (ARA), where she worked as an interpreter. At work, Ellie met her future husband, Englishman John E. Jones, and in May 1923 they got married and moved to live first in London and then in New York.

In 1925, David Burliuk, a New York artist, introduced Ellie Jones to Vladimir Mayakovsky, who came to the United States and did not know in English, and Ellie became his translator. When they met, both were young and fell in love with each other, and Ellie became the secret wife of Vladimir Mayakovsky, giving birth to his daughter in June 1926. Vladimir Mayakovsky and Ellie Jones lived together for quite a bit of time, leaving America, Vladimir and Ellie agreed to hide their relationship, and the fact that a daughter was born to a Soviet poet from a Russian emigrant who fled the Soviet regime with her family.

Subsequently, Ellie Jones and Vladimir Mayakovsky saw each other only once, in 1928 in Nice. There Vladimir Mayakovsky saw his daughter Ellie Jones Jr. for the first and last time. The fact that the “two Ellies” in Nice was reported to Mayakovsky by one of their mutual acquaintances when he arrived in Paris. He came to Nice and spent some time with Ellie and his daughter. He asked Ellie for new meetings, but she felt that it would be best never to see each other again. She kept in her memory everything to the smallest detail, 6 cassettes with records of mother and daughter's conversations about their father have been preserved. Ellie Jones died in 1985. Her daughter comes to Russia, visits her father's grave, she also wrote a book about the feelings of her mother and father.

Patricia Thompson, being an American, in her old age, often asked to be called Elena Vladimirovna Mayakovskaya.

She was remembered as a stately woman with a strong-willed chin and large features. She was distinguished by the same as that of V.V. Mayakovsky vertical crease between the eyebrows.

The story of this woman allows us to reveal the unknown circumstances of the personal life of the great poet, some aspects of Russian-American relations.

Patricia's mother (née Elizaveta Petrovna Siebert) was born in multi-ethnic and multi-religious Bashkiria, she was the daughter of a large landowner of German origin. In the early 1920s she worked in Moscow. She married American George Jones.

In 1923 she left for the USA. There she was known as Ellie Jones. Soon she broke up with her husband, with whom they remained on good terms.

Patricia's birth story

The birth of Patricia is associated with a six-month creative trip by V.V. Mayakovsky in the USA in 1925. At one of the evenings of poetry, he met a 20-year-old intellectual, Ellie Jones. Here he read his poems, and she translated them.

The poet was captivated by her naturalness, intelligence, intelligence and charm. She later became his translator and guide. The young people began a stormy romance. The following year, on June 15, 1926, Ellie had a daughter. George Jones, out of noble motives, gave the girl his last name, which was recorded on the birth certificate.

They called her the double name of Helen-Patricia. The first part of the name - in Russian, Elena was given to her by her godmother, who was friends with the girl's mother back in her homeland. And she received the name Patricia in honor of her mother's best American friend. The circumstances of the girl's birth became a secret family. Both mother and stepfather insisted that it should not be disclosed until their death.

This was also done in order to:

• Ellyn did not find herself in an ambiguous position because of an illegitimate child;
• not harm her because of the negative attitude of many Russian emigrants towards Soviet Russia;
• V. Mayakovsky did not have problems at home because of this;
• save the child's psyche and explain the situation to her at the right time.

Mayakovsky was happy about the birth of his daughter. The desire to see her as soon as possible was hampered by the difficulty of traveling to the United States.

The formation of personality

The girl's childhood cannot be called easy. Only in the early 30s did she find out who her father really was. Her mother, despite an excellent education, was forced to look for various opportunities to earn a living and raise a child on her feet. Knowing several foreign languages, she spoke with her daughter in Russian, French and German.

Patricia developed well, she showed a penchant for the fine arts, especially for abstract painting. When she was 15 years old, she became a student of an art school. Then she entered Barnard College - a private women's institution of higher education. This is one of the oldest and most prestigious liberal arts colleges in America.

Studying in it influenced the formation of a life position and range of interests. After graduating from college in 1948, she took up editorial work in well-known American magazines. When she married in 1954, she took her husband's surname Thompson and left the name Patricia.

Twenty years later, the couple separated. Son Roger became a copyright lawyer.

Footprint in life

She noted that her whole long life was a struggle for survival. For many years, before retiring, she taught at the New York liberal arts Lehman College, which bore the name of the former governor of the city, an American senator and philanthropist. She became a Ph.D. and a professor at New York City University - one of the largest in the United States.

Known as a writer and publicist. In American scientific circles, she was known as a specialist in feminism, sociology and family economics. The essence of her feminist views boils down to the fact that women, regardless of their sphere of activity, cannot leave the house and the responsibility of raising children. But on the basis of equality, they can involve men in the management of the household.

This makes it possible to enhance creativity in women's lives. Among the fifteen books she published, she considered the work on Mayakovsky's stay in Manhattan to be the main one. She was a sincere admirer of his poetry. She really liked the love lyrics of the poet. She believed that Mayakovsky in 1930 was helped to die.

She considered her mission to justify her father, who, in her opinion, did not commit suicide. He sought to live, including for the sake of his daughter.

About the Russian patriotism of an American woman

All her life she considered herself a Russian patriot, although for the first time, together with her son, she came to her parents' homeland only in 1991. She spoke with pride about her Russian roots. She was an activist of the Russian-American Cultural Center "Heritage". Ten years later she visited Bashkortostan, where in the village of Davlekanovo the house of her grandparents, in which her mother was born, was preserved.

However, she could not come to Russia later, because. her only source of income was her pension. Patricia Thompson lived in the highest part of New York Manhattan, not far from the Hudson River. This is the place where the representatives of the Russian intelligentsia emigration liked to settle. She died in New York on April 1, 2016. She was 89 years old.

• Patricia Thompson's mother's ancestors ended up in Russia among those Germans who moved there at the invitation of Catherine II;
• V.V. Mayakovsky met his daughter for the only time in 1928 in French Nice, where her mother brought her to rest in June 2015, she declared her desire to obtain Russian citizenship;
• Colleges in the United States are not called secondary special, but full-fledged educational institutions that are part of the structure of a university;
• Thompson asked after her death to scatter her ashes over her father's grave at Moscow's Novodevichy Cemetery.

“My two dear Ellies. I already miss you… Kiss you all eight paws,” is an excerpt from a letter from Vladimir Mayakovsky addressed to his American love – Ellie Jones and their common daughter Helen Patricia Thompson. The fact that the poet-revolutionary has a child overseas became known only in 1991. Prior to this, Helen kept the secret, fearing for her safety. When it became possible to speak openly about Mayakovsky, she visited Russia and devoted her later life to studying her father's biography.

The Russian name of Patricia Thompson is Elena Vladimirovna Mayakovskaya. At the end of her life, she preferred to call herself that way, because she finally had the legal right to declare that she was the daughter of a famous Soviet poet. Elena was born in the summer of 1926 in New York. By this time, Mayakovsky's American trip to the United States came to an end, and he was forced to return to the USSR. Overseas, he had a three-month romance with Ellie Jones, a Russian-speaking translator, of German origin, whose family first came to Russia on the orders of Catherine, and then emigrated to the United States when the revolution broke out.

At the time of Ellie's acquaintance with Vladimir, she was in a fictitious marriage with the Englishman George Jones (he helped her to emigrate from Russia, first to London, then to America). After the birth of Patricia Jones, he showed interest and gave the girl his last name, so she got American citizenship.

Patricia was sure all her life that her mother kept the secret of her origin, fearing persecution by the NKVD. For the same reason, it seems to her, the poet himself did not mention them in his will. Patricia met her father only once, she was only three years old then, they came with her mother to Nice. Her childhood memories preserved the touching moments of the meeting, the joy that the poet experienced when he saw his own daughter.

Elena Vladimirovna visited Russia in 1991. Then she communicated with interest with distant relatives, literary critics, researchers, worked in the archives. I read the biographies of Mayakovsky and came to the conclusion that she was very similar to her father, she also devoted herself to enlightenment, to serving people. Elena Vladimirovna was a professor, lectured on emancipation, published several teaching aids, edited science fiction novels and worked for several publishing houses. All the memories told about Mayakovsky by her mother were preserved by Elena Vladimirovna as audio recordings. Based on this material, she prepared the publication Mayakovsky in Manhattan.

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Roger hopes that he will have enough time to eventually publish a book about his mother, which already has a title - "Daughter". It is this word that is the only mention of Elena in Mayakovsky's diaries. Once Elena Vladimirovna mentioned that Lilya Brik did everything possible to destroy any evidence of American history. But, leafing through the archives, she managed to find in one of the diaries a surviving sheet on which only this word was written.

A new novel, which replaced Ellie Jones, began with the poet with Tatyana Yakovleva,.