Comments: A REMARKABLE LIFE.

I think i got it.
It was in one of the thomes of Chukovsky autobiography where I remember reading about her.
Where he talks about Bely-Blok-Solov'ov tangle.

Also (I'm sneezing; this book dust is a nasty thing) , leafing thru his daughter's 2-volume- "Notes to Anna Akhmatova", I came across this paragraph (sorry for the leangthy quote and for untranslated Russian):

[t.1, p. 184]

2) К ней пришёл Кузьмин-Караваев, старик, сосед по Слепнёву.
-мы провели целый вечер втроём: он, я, Лёвушка, пили вино, перебирали с ним всех слепнёвских. Когда он ушёл, меня вдруг, часа через два, осенило: да ведь он из-за меня стрелялся!
...
(Here L.Chukovsky enters footnote #125; following is the partial quote from this footnote)

...о котором из братьев К-К идёт речь - точно и уверенно сказать не могу.[позже: брат Михаил]. С этой семьёй Акхматова связана была двояко: соседством по Слепнёву и общением в Цехе Поэтов. Жена Дмитрия Владимировича, Елизавета Юрьевна К.-К.... была одно время, как и А.А., членом Цеха, а муж её (тогда молодой юрист) исполнял обязанности "стряпчего". О ней...существует обширная литература - см., например, книгу, куда входят её собственные произведения и воспоминания о ней: Е.Ю. Кузьмина-Караваева. Избранное.М.1991)

Also, I've looked thru collection of Punin's letters (Akhmatova's 3rd husband) and a book by Lidia Ginzburg (which, generally, is a good counterpoint/addition to everything L.Chukkovsky says), but E.K-K isn't mentioned in either.

I'm sure I've read about her in many more sources, just don't have it at hand at the moment. Probably in one of the Boris Nosik gossipy concoctions...or in one of 100 others.

But early Altzheimer is a still a definite possibility.

Posted by Tatyana at June 22, 2006 12:11 AM

This week's NYRB has a three page thing (okay, "book review") on Akhmatova. (I usually think that synchronicity, pace Jung, is just the ape brain trying to find patterns in coincidences.) I confess that I got lost trying to keep the Бродячая собака couplings straight. (As at other times with Bloomsbury.) This isn't going to help matters any.

Posted by MMcM at June 22, 2006 01:29 AM

Thanks a lot for the research and for putting the bits and pieces together into a big picture, LH.

Posted by Alexei at June 23, 2006 03:01 AM

Fascinating. I wish I'd known her too. I wish we lived in times when people still wrote poems for other people, and meant them.

Posted by beth at June 24, 2006 12:20 PM

LH, I just went to the last link in your update. I am sorry, but there is a mistake in your post where you describe EK-K as arrested and threatened by death by Bolsheviks.
It was exactly the opposite way: she was a member of Socialist Revolutionaty Party and was elected the mayor when bolsheviks were in power. Then White Guard swept bolsheviks from town, and she was arrested for giving orders of expropriation of vineries and sanatoriums, etc. And her death sentence was changed to 2(yes, two) weeks of prison thanks to petition signed by important figures in cultural sphere of the time:

Октябрьская революция застала Кузьмину-Караваеву в Анапе. В феврале 1918 года она, в то время видный член партии эсеров, была избрана товарищем городского головы. А затем стала и городским головой Анапы. Когда к власти пришли Советы и городская дума была распущена, Елизавета Юрьевна вошла в Совет в качестве комиссара по делам культуры и здравоохранения. Но ее комиссарство длилось недолго: вскоре Анапа была захвачена белогвардейцами и над Кузьминой-Караваевой состоялся суд. За сотрудничество с большевиками и участие в национализации местных санаториев и винных погребов ей грозила смертная казнь. И лишь благодаря заступничеству группы русских писателей (М.Волошина, А.Толстого, В.Инбер и др.), которые в своем открытом письме величали Елизавету Юрьевну «русской духовной ценностью» высокого «веса и подлинности», ее приговорили лишь к двум неделям тюрьмы.

Posted by Tatyana at June 25, 2006 01:22 AM

Now I think I understand why Nina Berberova has nothing about EK-K in her book. Ties with A.N. Tolstoy...sending her daughter to Russia in 1935 (she died there in 1936...how?)...NB would have nothing to do with people like that.

Posted by Tatyana at June 25, 2006 01:27 AM