From whom Mayakovsky has a patrician daughter. What happened to Mayakovsky's daughter
Many people know about the relationship between Vladimir Mayakovsky and the "muse of the Russian avant-garde" Lilya Brik. However, the poet also had other women, among whom a certain Ellie Jones occupied a special place. In 1926 she gave birth to a daughter from Mayakovsky.
Who is Ellie Jones?
In fact, her name was not Ellie Jones, but Elizabeth Petrovna Siebert. Her ancestors once moved from Germany to Tsarist Russia. Later, when the Bolsheviks came to power, Elizabeth left this country as well. Siebert went to America. Fortunately, she knew several languages, including English. Ellie met Vladimir Mayakovsky in the same place, in the USA, in the city of New York, where the poet arrived on a kind of tour and visited a friend, the artist Burliuk. Then, in 1925, Jones was only 20 years old.
Ellie met Vladimir at a party, and after that she became his translator. Mayakovsky did not speak English. Gradually, their relationship developed into closer ones. This went on for several months until it was time to leave. At parting, Mayakovsky covered the bed of his beloved with a pile of forget-me-nots. And the following year, Jones gave birth to a girl, whom she named Elena.
Another surname and one meeting
Elena (or Helen Patricia) did not receive her biological father's surname at birth. At that time, Ellie broke up with her husband, thanks to whom she became Jones. In the documents of the newborn, with the permission of her ex-husband, she also indicated his last name. It is noteworthy that Helen learned the news that her real parent was a Soviet poet only at the age of 6.
Mayakovsky himself wanted to visit Ellie and his daughter, and even wrote touching letters to both of them. “My two dear Ellies. I miss you already. I dream to come to you. Please write quickly. I kiss all eight paws to you ... ”- this is how Vladimir Vladimirovich addressed them through the mail. Meanwhile, the trip to America never took place.
Mayakovsky met his daughter only once. It was in France, in the city of Nice. It was there that Ellie and her daughter were resting when the poet, having received a visa, arrived in Paris. From there he made his way to Nice. Then Elena was barely 3 years old. A few months later, Mayakovsky committed suicide.
What has she become?
Helen Jones graduated from college and worked for many years as an editor for all kinds of publications, including books and even textbooks, and also taught at the university. Helen got married in the 1950s. Wayne Thompson became her chosen one. So Elena changed her last name again and became Mrs. Thompson. The couple had a boy. They gave him the name Roger. However, the child did not save the marriage, and after a while Wayne and Helen broke up.
Mayakovsky's daughter wrote several books, some of which she dedicated to her own father. The most successful, as Helen herself believed, was the book Mayakovsky in Manhattan. Until the end of her days, Thompson was proud of her origin and sought Russian citizenship.
In the spring of 2016, Helen Thompson, aka Elena Vladimirovna Mayakovskaya, died at the age of 89 in New York.
To the anniversary of the poet Vladimir Mayakovsky the reconstruction of the museum named after him in Lubyansky passage has not been completed, so the celebration of the 125th anniversary is taking place at other sites. One of them is the memorial “Apartment on Bolshaya Presnya”, one of the few surviving apartments that the Mayakovsky family rented in Moscow.
The Mayakovskys did not live in this apartment on Krasnaya Presnya Street for long, only two years: from 1913 to 1915. In the eighties, it became a branch of the Mayakovsky Museum, thematic expositions were held here, and then this place turned into a book depository and fell out of the exhibition space for a long time. The new life of "Apartments on Bolshaya Presnya" begins with the exhibition "Daughter".For a long time, nothing was known about Mayakovsky's children even to the most meticulous researchers of the poet's life. Only in the early nineties did an American declare herself Patricia Thompson: according to her, she was the daughter of Mayakovsky and an emigrant from the USSR Ellie Jones(nee Elizabeth Siebert). The family hid this fact for a long time, Patricia was recorded as the daughter of Jones' ex-husband. But it is known that in 1928 Mayakovsky met in Nice with Ellie and her two-year-old daughter.
Patricia Thompson. 2003 Photo: RIA Novosti / Dmitry Korobeinikov
Patricia Thompson has been actively collecting various materials related to Mayakovsky all her life, and participated in the celebration of the centenary of the poet's birth in 1993. She passed away at the age of 90 in 2016, bequeathing to her son Roger to scatter some of her ashes over the grave of Mayakovsky at the Novodevichy cemetery in Moscow. He has not yet been able to fulfill the will of his mother, but is determined to do so.
Roger, grandson
Roger Thompson now 63, he is a copyright lawyer. According to him, he was never told that he was the grandson of a famous Russian poet.
“I was five years old when I found out that Mayakovsky was not married to my grandmother,” he answered the question of AiF. “But it was not a topic that grown-ups would discuss with a little boy. They discussed Mayakovsky very quietly, and I, of course, tried to eavesdrop. When I grew up, I already knew who Mayakovsky was and who I was to him. His name was constantly mentioned in our family, so I just knew it. It was just part of my personality."
Roger Thompson came to Russia several times: first with his mother, and then on his own. He regrets that the work does not allow more time to be devoted to the "Mayakovsky question", but promises to sort through the huge archive left by Patricia Thompson and prepare her book "Daughter" for publication. He perceives himself as a Russian American.
"My paternal ancestor was Roger Sherman, one of the founding fathers of the United States. He participated in the writing of the Declaration of Independence and the signing of the Constitution. I was named after him. So I feel a strong connection to American history. But also with Russian history. And with revolutions in both countries. I have solid revolutionaries and rebels in my ancestors from all sides, ”he says.
Mayakovsky's DNA
The sculptor is also considered the son of Mayakovsky Gleb-Nikita Lavinsky(1921-1986). His relationship with the great poet became known in 2013, after the release of the documentary film "The Third Extra".
Genetic examination of Mayakovsky's descendants has never been carried out, as told "AiF" director of the museum of the poet Alexei Lobov.
“Patricia Thompson refused to take a DNA test: she was afraid that the wrong examination would destroy her whole world. Roger is ready to participate in DNA analysis if there are materials for comparison, ”he said.
The problem is just the lack of genetic material. The existing DNA fragments of the poet (this is the blood on his clothes in which he died) are not suitable for analysis. There were no heirs left for the Mayakovsky sisters, and if compared with distant relatives, then the error of the examination will be very high.
“We are quite confident about the relationship of Roger Thompson, because we have a large amount of documentary evidence,” says Lobov. - For example, Mrs. Lavinskaya says that she is Mayakovsky's granddaughter, without any documents in her hands.
Elizaveta Lavinskaya, Moscow sculptor, granddaughter of the poet Vladimir Mayakovsky, in front of a portrait of her grandfather. 1996 Photo: RIA Novosti / Oleg Lastochkin
In 1914, Mayakovsky met with 18-year-old bohemia star Sofia Shamardina. It did not last long and turned into a scandalous story; there were rumors that the poet had infected the girl with a "bad disease". Shamardina herself later called this "vile slander", and there is a version that Maxim Gorky, who was in love with a young lady, spread the information. It got to the point that, years later, Mayakovsky was going to “beat the face” of the petrel of the revolution, but settled the conflict.
Brik was two years older than Mayakovsky, and this, albeit formal, difference was noticeable: it was she who led in their relationship, while the poet played the role of a follower, a subordinate. Brik and Mayakovsky met in the summer of 1915, the future muse of the poet at that time had been married to Osip Brik for three years. Lily "stole" Mayakovsky from her sister Elsa, whom he then met. Actually, it was Elsa who brought Mayakovsky to the St. Petersburg apartment of the Briks on Zhukovsky Street. The poet read the freshest poem "A Cloud in Pants", received an enthusiastic reception, was fascinated by the hostess, the feeling was mutual. Osip helped publish Cloud, all three became friends, and Mayakovsky, not wanting to part with his new hobby, lingered in Petrograd. Gradually, the Brikov house turned into a fashionable literary salon, and soon an affair began between the poet and the new muse, which was calmly received by Lily's husband.
“Elzochka, don’t make such scary eyes. I told Osa that my feeling for Volodya was verified, firmly, and that I was now his wife. And Osya agrees, ”these words, which struck Elsa to the core, turned out to be true. In 1918, Briki and Mayakovsky began to live together, in the spring of the following year they moved to Moscow, where they did not hide their progressive relationship at all. Lilya, together with the poet, worked in the ROSTA Windows, Osip worked in the Cheka.
Mayakovsky's love for Brik (to whom he dedicated all his poems) was emotional; by nature, he needed constant shaking, which increasingly tired Lily. Regular scenes, leaving-returns - the relationship in a couple was not cloudless. Brik allowed herself to speak dismissively of Mayakovsky, calling him boring, and eventually ceased to be faithful to him. This, however, did not prevent Lily from keeping the poet on a short leash, making sure that Mayakovsky did not leave her anywhere. In the will, he indicated Brick as one of the heirs, and she got half the rights to his writings.
Not only Brik allowed herself hobbies on the side; with all his love for her, Mayakovsky periodically broke into novels of varying severity. In 1925, during a trip to America, the poet ended up in New York, which struck him. Visiting David Burliuk, he took part in poetry gatherings, at one of which he met the emigrant Elizabeth Siebert (who took the name Ellie and the surname of her ex-husband - Jones). The stormy romance did not last long, the result was the appearance of the only daughter of the poet, Elena Patricia. Having learned about the child, Mayakovsky tried to get back to the States, but he was not released. The meeting nevertheless took place - in Nice, in 1928. Patricia Thompson lives in the same place where she was born - in New York, she is a teacher, author of many books, including the study "Mayakovsky in Manhattan, a love story."
A recent student who worked at the State Publishing House was a big fan of Mayakovsky's work. She called her relationship with the poet, which lasted several years, "more than a novel." Close friendship was out of the question, Bryukhanenko recalled, but despite the fact that she was “nobody, and he is a poet,” Natalya understood her importance for Mayakovsky well. Like the rest of his women, Mayakovsky tormented Bryukhanenko with outbursts of either anger, or coldness, or boundless love, but their relationship lasted until the death of the poet.
During a trip to France in 1928, Mayakovsky met an emigrant Tatyana Yakovleva, the second main woman in his life. Having bought a car for Lilya Brik in Paris, the poet was ready to forget about her for the sake of Tatyana. Brik, sensing that Mayakovsky could change hands, did her best to prevent the novel from being continued. A year after their meeting in Paris, Mayakovsky, who had begged Yakovleva to come to the Soviet Union, tried to go to France again, but was denied a visa.
Tatyana Yakovleva later became the wife of Alexander Lieberman, art director of Vogue magazine. The Liebermans lived in New York City, and their apartment was an important meeting place for artists from Salvador Dali to Truman Capote. Eduard Limonov, among others, described his meeting with Mayakovsky's second muse in "It's me, Eddie."
The last strong hobby of Mayakovsky, the actress of the Moscow Art Theater Theater Veronika Polonskaya, was 15 years younger than the poet. Polonskaya, a married woman (her husband was the actor Mikhail Yanshin), could hardly endure the scenes that Mayakovsky arranged for her. He demanded that Veronica leave her husband, became furious, not getting what he wanted. Relations were constantly in the stage of a break, as a result, everything ended on April 14, 1930, when the poet committed suicide.
- When Mayakovsky found out about your existence, did he want to return?
I am sure that Mayakovsky wanted to have a family, wanted to live with us. Everything that is written about him was controlled by Lilya Brik. It is not true that he did not want children. He loved children very much, and it was not in vain that he wrote for them. Of course, there was a very difficult political situation between the two countries. But there was also a personal moment. When Lilya found out about us, she wanted to divert his attention ... She did not want another woman to be next to Mayakovsky. When Mayakovsky was in Paris, Lily asked her sister Elsa Triolet to introduce Mayakovsky to some local beauty. She turned out to be Tatyana Yakovleva. A very attractive woman, a charming woman from a good family. I don't deny it at all. But I have to say that it was all Brick's game. She wanted him to forget the woman and the child in America.
- Many people think that it was Tatyana Yakovleva who was Mayakovsky's last love.
Her daughter, the American writer Francis Gray, came to Russia long before me. And everyone thought that she was Mayakovsky's daughter. Francis even published an article in The New York Times about Mayakovsky's last muse, about her mother. She says that on October 25 he spoke about his endless love for Tatyana Yakovleva. But I still have a letter to my mother, dated October 26, he asked her to meet. I think he wanted to cover up his politically dangerous relationship with my mother with a high-profile affair with Yakovleva.
Only letters written by Lilya Brik have been preserved in Mayakovsky's archive. Why do you think she destroyed the correspondence with other women?
Lily was who she was. I think she wanted to go down in history alone. She had public influence. It cannot be denied that she was a very intelligent, experienced woman. But, in my opinion, she was also a manipulator. I didn't know the Briks personally, but I think they built their careers using Mayakovsky. They said he was rude and out of control. But his mother told a completely different story about him, and his friend, David Burliuk, said that he was a very sensitive and kind person.
- Do you think Lily had a bad influence on Mayakovsky?
I think that the role of the Briks is very ambiguous. Osip helped him publish at the very beginning of his career. Lilya Brik, one might say, was included in the kit. When Mayakovsky met her, he was very young. And the adult, mature Lilya was, of course, very attractive to him.
- Elena Vladimirovna, tell me why Mayakovsky in his suicide note defined his family as follows: mother, sisters, Lilya Brik and Veronika Polonskaya. Why didn't he say anything about you?
I myself thought about it a lot, this question tormented me. When I went to Russia, I met my father's last lover, Veronica Polonskaya. I visited her at the nursing home for actors. She treated me very warmly, gave me a figurine of my father. She said that Mayakovsky talked to her about me, about how he misses me. He showed her the Parker pen, which I gave him in Nice, and told Polonskaya: "My future is in this child." I'm sure she loved him too. Charming woman. So, I asked her this very question: why?
"And why weren't you in the will?"
Polonskaya told me that my father did this to protect us. He defended her when he included him in his will, but on the contrary, he did not mention us. I’m not sure that I would have lived quietly until these days if the NKVD had then become aware that the Soviet poet Mayakovsky in America was growing a child from the daughter of a kulak.
I know that he loved me, that it was a joy for him to become a father. But he was afraid. It was not safe to be the wife or child of a dissident. And Mayakovsky became dissident: if you read his plays, you will see that he criticized the bureaucracy and the direction in which the revolution was moving. His mother didn't blame him, and I don't.
Was Veronika Polonskaya the only one Mayakovsky told about your existence?
Another friend of her father, Sofya Shamardina, wrote in her memoirs that Mayakovsky told her about her daughter in America: “I never thought that you could yearn for a child so much. The girl is already three years old, she is sick with rickets, and I can’t do anything for her!” Mayakovsky talked about me with another friend of his, told how hard it was for him not to raise his own daughter. But when a book of memoirs was printed in Russia, they simply threw away these fragments. Perhaps because Lilya Brik did not want to publish it. In general, I think that there are still many blank spots in my father's biography, and I consider it my duty to tell the truth about my parents.
When you came to Russia, did you find any other documentary evidence that Mayakovsky had not forgotten about you?
I made one amazing find when I was in St. Petersburg. I was sorting through my father's papers and found a drawing of a flower made by a child's hand. I think this is my drawing, as a child I drew exactly the same ...
Tell me, do you feel like Mayakovsky's daughter. Do you believe in genetic memory?
I understand my father very well. When I first read Mayakovsky's books, I realized that we look at the world the same way. He believed that if you have a talent, then you should use it for social, public action. I think exactly the same. And I had such a goal: to create textbooks, books from which children learn something about the world and about themselves. I wrote textbooks on psychology and anthropology, on history, I tried to present all this in such a way that children would understand. I also worked as an editor for several major American publishing houses. Edited fiction, including Ray Bradbury. It seems to me that an excellent occupation for the daughter of a futurist is to work with science fiction writers.
- You have paintings on your wall. Did you also inherit this talent from your father?
Yes, I love to draw. At the age of 15 she entered art school. Of course, I'm not a professional artist, but something happens.
- Can you call yourself a revolutionary?
I think father's idea of revolution is the idea of bringing in social justice. I myself am a revolutionary, in my own understanding, that is, in connection with the role of women in society and in the family. I teach feminist philosophy at New York University. I am a feminist, but not one who seeks to belittle the role of a man (and this is characteristic of many American feminists). My feminism is the desire to save the family, to work for its benefit.
- Tell us about your family.
I have a wonderful son, Roger, who is an intellectual property lawyer. He is the grandson of Mayakovsky. Amazing blood flows in his veins - the blood of Mayakovsky and the blood of a fighter for American independence (my husband's ancestor was one of the creators of the Declaration of Independence). I have a grandson, Logan. He is finishing school now. He's from Latin America, Roger adopted him. And although he is not Mayakovsky's great-grandson, I notice that he has exactly the same wrinkle on his forehead as my father. It is amusing to watch how he looks at the portrait of Mayakovsky and wrinkles his forehead.
To be honest, I still miss my father very much. It seems to me that if he knew me now, would know about my life, he would be pleased.
You have lived almost all your life under the name Patricia Thompson, and now your business card also has the name Elena Mayakovskaya.
I have always had two names: Russian - Elena and American - Patricia. My mother's friend was Irish Patricia, and she helped her when I was just born. My American godmother's name was Elena, and my grandmother's name was also Elena.
- Tell me, why do you hardly know Russian?
When I was little, I didn't speak English. I spoke Russian, German and French. But I wanted to play with American children, and they didn't play with me because I was a foreigner. And I told my mom that I don't want to speak all these useless languages, but I want to speak English. Then my stepfather, an Englishman, taught me. And Russian remained at the children's level.
Did you speak Russian with your mother at all?
I resisted, refused to read Russian. Maybe because for me the death of my father was a tragedy, and I unconsciously moved away from everything Russian. Besides, I have always been an individualist, I think I inherited it from my father. My mother also supported me in this, she was a very strong, courageous woman. It was she who explained to me that you can’t remain in the shadow of your father, be his cheap imitation. She taught me to be myself.
© From the personal archive of Elena Mayakovskaya
I would say - Russian American. Few people know that even during the Cold War, I always tried to help the Soviet Union and Russia. When I was an editor at Macmillan in 1964, I edited a test and selected photographs for Communism: What It Is. I deliberately made several edits in the text so that the Americans understand what good people live in the USSR. After all, then the Americans were drawn not quite an adequate image of the Soviet man. When choosing photos, I tried to find the most beautiful ones; to show how Soviet people know how to enjoy life. And when I was working on a children's book about Russia, I emphasized that the Russians freed the peasants even before the abolition of slavery in America. This is a historical fact, and I think it is an important fact.
Elena Vladimirovna, you assure me that you feel and understand your father. Why do you think he committed suicide? Do you have any thoughts on this?
First, I would like to say that even if he committed suicide, it was not because of a woman. He had reasons to live. Burliuk told me that he believed that Mayakovsky had been planted with bullets in a shoebox. In the Russian aristocratic tradition, receiving such a gift meant dishonor. The dishonor began for him with the boycott of the exhibition, it's just that no one came there. He understood what was happening. It was a message: if you don't behave well, we won't publish your poems. This is a very painful topic for a creative person - to be free, to have the right. He was losing his freedom. Mayakovsky saw in all this a prediction of his fate. He simply decided that there was only one way. - death. And this is most likely the only reason for his suicide. Not a woman, not a broken heart - that's absurd.
- Tell me, do you like biographical books written about your father?
Of course, I didn't read everything that was written. I'm not his biographer. But some of the facts that I read in the biographies translated into English clearly did not correspond to reality. I liked the book of the Swedish author Bengt Jangfeldt the most. The man really wanted to find previously unknown facts about my father, and he managed to unearth something.
Tell me, are you going to write a biography of Mayakovsky for the Americans? Do people in America know who Mayakovsky is?
Educated people, of course, know. And they are always very interested when they find out that I am his daughter. I won't write a biography. But I would like a woman to write a biography of Mayakovsky. I think it is a woman who is able to understand the features of his character and personality in a way that no man can understand.
- Your parents decided not to tell anyone about your existence, and you kept the secret right up to 1991 ... Why?
Can you imagine what would happen if the USSR found out that Vladimir Mayakovsky, the singer of the revolution, had an illegitimate daughter growing up in bourgeois America?
- And why did you decide to reveal the secret of your mother and Mayakovsky?
I considered it my duty to tell the truth about my parents. The well-thought-out myth about Mayakovsky excluded me and my mother from his story. This missing piece of history must return.
How do you think your mother, Ellie Jones, would have reacted to your decision to tell this secret?
My mother told me before she died in 1985 that I had to make the decision myself. She told me the whole story of their love, and I recorded it on a tape recorder, six cassettes came out. They later served as material for my book Mayakovsky in Manhattan. I think she would be happy to know that I wrote a book about their love story.
Who was the first person you revealed your secret to?
I first told the poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko about this when he was in America. He did not believe me, asked me to show the documents. I then said: look at me! And then everyone believed. And I am very proud that I became a professor, published 20 books. I did all this myself, no one knew that I was Mayakovsky's daughter. I think that if people knew that Mayakovsky had a daughter, all doors would be open to me. But there was nothing like that.
- Right after that you visited Russia?
Yes, in 1991 I came to Moscow with my son Roger Sherman Thompson. We met with Mayakovsky's relatives, with the descendants of his sisters. With all my friends and admirers. When we were driving to the hotel, I first saw the statue of Mayakovsky on the square. My son and I asked the driver to stop. I couldn't believe that we were there... I was in his museum on Lubyanka Square, in the room where he shot himself. I was holding a calendar open at the bottom of April 14, 1930... the last day of my father's life.
Have you been to the Novodevichy Cemetery?
I brought some of my mother's ashes with me to Russia. She loved Mayakovsky all her life, until her death. Her last words were about him. At the grave of my father at the Novodevichy cemetery, I dug up the ground between the graves of my father and his sister. There I placed some of the mother's ashes, covered them with earth and grass. I think Mom hoped to someday connect with the person she loved so much. And with Russia, which has always been in her heart.
The history of the relationship between Elena Vladimirovna's parents, like many stories of short-term romantic loves, is full of warm, but vague memories and conclusions, which are sorely lacking in factual confirmation. Many of the events described are known only from the words of Mayakovskaya herself or from the recollections of her mother.
Here are some facts. In 1925, Vladimir Mayakovsky went to America at the invitation of his friend David Burliuk. Mayakovsky does not speak English and needs an interpreter. They become Ellie Jones, who until recently was called Elizabeth Petrovna Siebert. Elizaveta Petrovna's parents, wealthy peasants from Bashkotorstan, descendants of German emigrants, immediately after the revolution, on the advice of friends, fled to Canada, and Lisa herself briefly stayed in Russia and worked for a charitable organization. She was well educated, knew several languages, including English. At work, she met an Englishman, George Jones, whom she married and left - first to England, then to America. Apparently, by the time of the meeting with Mayakovsky, Ellie was no longer living with her husband, although there was no official divorce.
Mayakovsky spent three months in the United States, during which, according to Elena Vladimirovna, Ellie and Vladimir did not part: they went to parties, walked along the Brooklyn Bridge and, in general, behaved rather recklessly. Here Patricia Thompson quotes her mother in her book of memoirs Mayakovsky in Manhattan. A love story with excerpts from the memoirs of Ellie Jones”: “We had been close for a while when he asked: “Are you doing anything - is there any protection?” And I answered: “To love means to have children”, he said: “Oh, you are crazy, baby!” ... I am sure: in all my life the poet did not have another three months of complete freedom and absolute devotion of a woman. When we first met, he wished: “Let's just live for each other. Let's keep everything between us. It doesn't concern anyone else. Just you and me." The only time he lived with a light heart and was happy.”
Reproduction of the photo Ellie Jones with her daughter Patricia (Mayakovsky's daughter). State Museum of Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky.
In a congratulatory telegram for the new year, Mayakovsky asks Ellie: “Write everything. All. Happy New Year". Some biographers suggest that in this way Mayakovsky lets her know that he is aware of her pregnancy. For a long time, fearing censorship, Ellie does not mention her condition ("I think you understand my silence"), and only in a letter dated May 6 asks to send her 600 dollars to pay her hospital bills. Mayakovsky replies: "It's not that I don't want to help, but objective circumstances do not allow me to do what I want." Still, the NKVD does not sleep.
On June 15, 1926, Ellie gave birth to a daughter who received the name of her legal husband - Helen Patricia Jones. Everyone affectionately calls the girl the same as their mother - Ellie. Mayakovsky's letter on the occasion of the birth of his daughter has not been preserved, but Ellie's answer remains: “I was so happy about your letter, my friend! Why didn't you write earlier? I am still very weak. I can't write much. I do not want to be upset, remembering a nightmarish spring for me. After all, I'm alive. I'll be healthy soon. I'm sorry I upset you with a stupid note."
“Recht (Charles Recht, the lawyer who helped Mayakovsky with the American visa for the first time. - Esquire) will return in August,” Ellie writes further. - I'm sure you'll get a visa. If you finally decide to come, telegraph. I wrote my address. I live in Long Island. Pat is with me. She didn't leave my side the whole time. Cute. I was waiting, waiting for letters from you - but are they in your boxes? Ah, Vlad.
Mayakovsky never came to America. On one of the blank pages of the poet's notebooks for 1926, it is written simply - "daughter". Elena Vladimirovna believes that with this appeal the poet appeals to his distant daughter, whom he was destined to see only once. In his book about Mayakovsky, Swedish biographer Bengt Youngfeldt writes that, according to Sonya Shamardina, one of the few who knew about the existence of little Ellie, Mayakovsky admitted to her that “I never thought that such strong feelings could be felt for a child<…>I think about her all the time." However, he could not help his daughter either financially or in any other way.
Photo: V. Khomenko / RIA Novosti
Reproduction of "Ellie Jones" drawing by Vladimir Mayakovsky. State Museum of Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky.
The only meeting between father and daughter took place in September 1928. Mayakovsky arrived in Nice, where Ellie and her daughter were waiting for their American visa. He spent three days with the “two Ellies,” and on October 27 he sent a letter from Paris (addressed with touching spelling errors of a person who does not speak English: Nice, 16 avenue Schakespeare. M-me Elly Jonnes): “Two dear, two Ellie family! I already miss you all. I dream to come to you for at least another week. Will you accept? Caress?<…>I kiss you all eight paws. Your Vol.
And they never saw each other again.
1993 marked the 100th anniversary of Mayakovsky's birth. At a symposium in New York dedicated to the life and work of the poet, Elena Vladimirovna made a presentation "What does it mean to be Mayakovsky's daughter." Unfortunately, the Symposium Proceedings are available only in five US libraries and only in paper form, so Russian readers are left wondering how the famous father influenced the life of his American daughter. One thing is obvious - in 1991, Elena Vladimirovna, together with her son, Roger Sherman, first came to Russia. In Moscow, they met Mayakovsky's relatives, visited the poet's museum on Lubyanka Square and his grave at the Novodevichy Cemetery. Thompson begins to actively speak, give interviews, tell the interested press about his parents' romance, about the only meeting with his father that took place in 1928 in Nice, that Ellie Jones was the poet's greatest love, but the relationship was "politically dangerous", and he “covered” them with a high-profile romance with Tatyana Yakovleva. Thompson also claims that her goal is to rehabilitate her father, who "just couldn't kill himself because of a woman." In 2003, a Russian translation of the book "Mayakovsky in Manhattan: A Love Story" was published, which was published in America in 1993. The material of this book was Patricia's conversations with her mother and the memoirs of Ellie Jones themselves, which she managed to dictate to tape during her lifetime.
Photo: Roman Denisov/TASS Newsreel
In the book, she recalls Mayakovsky's "long legs" in detail and speaks of a strong bond that connected her to her father for life - which is surprising, given that Thompson saw Mayakovsky only once, and then at the age of two. However, if you look at photographs of Thompson, the resemblance to the poet is immediately evident. But they are similar, apparently, were not only externally.
Patricia grew up in New York and in 1944 graduated from high school with an in-depth study of music and art, loved to draw, like her father, and had good abilities. In preparation for a career in law, she received her bachelor's degree from Barnard College, Columbia University. She then studied law for two years, even writing a draft dissertation entitled "Sources of Capital in International Law", but she never defended herself. During her studies, she begins to work as an editor in various publishing houses, and, apparently, this time she found her calling. In 1960, she received a master's degree in sociology, in 1973 she defended another master's degree in family and consumer relations, and in 1980 she became a master of education in educational programs and teaching.
For a long time, Thompson taught at Lehman College of the City University of New York. It's certainly not New York's most prestigious university, but notable college alumni include writer Andre Aciman (Call Me By Your Name), human rights activist Letitia James, and jazz musician Bob Stewart. Thompson has always described herself as an adept in feminist theory, and her scientific and academic interests have been mainly in education and gender studies. For example, over the years she taught courses on Food, Fashion and Feminism, Women and Media, Women and Power, Mothers and Daughters, and Family Relations. From 1974 to 2000, she actively spoke at seminars and conferences, wrote several books and put forward a philosophical theory of Hestian, pro-family feminism (on behalf of Hestia, the goddess of the hearth): she argues that it is worth separating domestic relationships from market relationships and that these two loci require different types of behavior from women.
In the last years of her life, however, Elena Vladimirovna concentrated entirely on the memory of her father. About 10 times she came to Russia, and in 2008 she was awarded the Order of Lomonosov (awarded "for high achievements in state, industrial, research, social, cultural, public and charitable activities, in the field of science, literature and art"), confirming her relationship with the famous poet. Thompson died on April 1, 2016, a little before reaching the age of 90, and bequeathed to scatter her ashes over her father's grave. Whether this was achieved, we could not find out.
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