The Wives: The Women Behind Russia's Literary Giants by Alexandra Popoff

Epilogue
    D espite investing themselves in greater talents, the six wives in this book made their own mark as publishers, translators, and editors. Their collaboration with writers made them prominent in their day. But their roles beside the geniuses were extraordinarily difficult. The problems they handled—shielding writers from practical concerns, balancing their moods, and dealing with their oversized egos—made them stronger and more resilient.
    Such writers as F. Scott Fitzgerald, James Joyce, and D. H. Lawrence used their marriages for literary inspiration and material. William Wordsworth relied on his family—his sister, his wife, and his sister-in-law—to copy out his manuscripts. Thomas Carlyle also wanted his wife to assist him, but according to Rosemary Ashton, the author of Thomas and Jane Carlyle , Jane “became increasingly bitter and resentful of this role, though obviously it hugely helped her husband.” In Russian literary marriages, the women did not resent taking a secondary position and, in fact, viewed their collaboration as rewarding.
    These women played important and powerful roles as the writers’ intellectual companions, confidantes, and creative partners. In their widowhood, they carried on as before, translating and promotingtheir husbands’ works, establishing their museums, and helping biographers. This book should change a popular perception of such lives as miserable, lonely, and unfulfilled.
    While Russia’s most celebrated literary couples are portrayed in this book, readers should know about other literary wives who made contributions to Russian letters. I want to mention at least two of them here.
    Klavdia Bugaev was a muse and collaborator of the prominent twentieth-century writer and poet Andrei Bely. (In 1933, the couple met the Mandelstams in the Crimea, but never became friends.) Much like Elena Bulgakov, Klavdia left her comfortable first marriage (her husband was a medical doctor) to join a writer who was barely published after the Revolution. In 1931, Klavdia was arrested as a prominent member of the Anthroposophical Society, which promoted spiritual philosophy and was banned under Stalin. Bely wrote in desperation to theater director Vsevolod Meyerhold: “Klavdia Nikolaevna is more than my life—but 1,000 lives.” 761 Later that year, Klavdia was released from Lubyanka prison due to Meyerhold’s efforts. Soon after, she and Bely officially married, which was only a few years before his death in 1934. A professional librarian, Klavdia spent the following three decades cataloguing Bely’s archive and writing a memoir, which essentially was a survey of the writer’s life and works. She analyzed Bely’s innovative vocabulary, conducting this selfless work without financial help: Bely was an apolitical writer and of no value to the Soviet state. Bely’s diary and letters, of which she made a copy, survive because of her efforts. Paralyzed and bedridden during her last seventeen years, she remained the only reliable source for Bely scholars across the world. Her reminiscences were published posthumously in America in 1981; two decades later, they appeared in Russia.
    The wife of Ivan Bunin, Vera Muromtseva, had studied chemistry at the Moscow University. She was also passionately interested in literature and met Bunin at a literary evening in 1906. Vera left university to join the writer on his travels to Palestine, Egypt, and Europe. After the 1917 Revolution, the couple emigrated to France,where Vera kept a diary chronicling Bunin’s life. His companion of forty-six years, she also collected Bunin’s archive and wrote his biography. Fluent in four European languages, she published her translations, but to the émigré community she was memorable for her dedication to the writer. Prominent twentieth-century poet Marina Tsvetaeva, who had met the couple in France and corresponded with Vera, remarked that Bunin was indebted to her for his literary achievement. “Her