The fatal beauty Zinaida Nikolaevna Reich was the first official wife of the great poet Sergei Yesenin. She gave him a son and daughter, became his muse, experienced a painful break with her beloved. She was lucky to meet the faithful and caring Vsevolod Meyerhold, to become the prima of his theater. The bright and difficult life of the actress ended abruptly and tragically.
Young rebel
Zinaida Reich was born into the family of an Odessa citizen - a Russified German, a simple machinist, and an impoverished Russian noblewoman. Her father, Nikolai Reich, was actively involved in politics, was a member of the RSDLP, and participated in revolutionary events. Due to the political views of her parent, Zinaida never finished her studies at the gymnasium: the family was expelled from the city.
Zina settled with her mom and dad in the Moldovan port town of Bender and tried to continue her studies. However, when the girl finished her studies to grade 8, she was expelled from the educational institution, and again because of politics. The young rebel joined the Social Revolutionaries and entered the Kiev women's courses. Then Zinaida's parents left for Oryol, and she herself went to conquer the capital.
Acquaintance with Yesenin
In Petrograd, Zinaida Reich begins to attend history and literary courses, teaches jurisprudence, linguistics, and is engaged in sculpture. The fateful decision was her employment as a secretary in the newspaper "Delo Narodu", which was published by the Social Revolutionaries. There was a library at the editorial office, where Yesenin visited. By that time, he had already left in Moscow his first common-law wife, proofreader Anna Izryadnova, and joint son Yuri.
Sergei had a close friend in Petrograd, Alexei Ganin, a poet of the new peasant trend. Alexey was going to soon marry Zinaida Reich. In July 1917, the friends went together on a trip to the Vologda district.
During the trip, Sergei and Zinaida cannot cope with the surging feelings. They do not even have time to reach their destination - during a stop near Vologda, they run away from Ganin to the nearest village church and get married. Young people do not have anything they need for a wedding. On the way to Tolstikovo, the poet in love is only picking wildflowers for the bride.
Abandoned beauty
At first, Zinaida and Sergei lived in Petrograd, a quiet family life, they were going to become parents. According to the memoirs of contemporaries, Yesenin even for some time stopped participating in revels. However, family comfort was destroyed by eternal troubles, hunger, disorder of troubled revolutionary times.
The poet was not able to play the role of the right husband and future father for long. Yesenin got bored, and then could not stand it and left for Moscow, where he was actively engaged in creativity. Left alone, at a late stage of pregnancy, Zinaida went to Oryol to visit her relatives. There, in 1918, Yesenin's daughter Tatyana was born.
The young mother had to raise the child, since the husband did not take part in this. Zinaida got a job. In Orel, she served on the committee of public education, became the head of the department of art. However, the woman wanted to unite the family, she was drawn to her beloved husband.
Sergei Yesenin in Moscow rented a corner for two with the poet Anatoly Borisovich Mariengof. The latter recalled that the room was not heated, that he had to sleep under mountains of warm clothes and blankets. Reich came there with little Tanya. However, Yesenin did not expect them, although he fell in love with his daughter. A long, serious relationship was not for him. Soon the couple parted, the pregnant Zinaida and her daughter again left for Oryol.
In 1920, Yesenin's son Konstantin was born. The boy soon fell ill with typhus and infected his mother. Zinaida and her son are going to Kislovodsk to improve their health. The father sees him only in passing, accidentally meeting his wife at the Rostov train station. At 21, the poet's marriage to Reich was dissolved. Soon Yesenin marries a dancer from America Isadora Duncan.
Prima theater
Due to poisoning with typhus poison and brain damage, Reich falls into a temporary insanity and even ends up in an insane asylum. However, Zinaida Nikolaevna managed not only to survive, but also to maintain mental health, to pull herself together. Personal drama hardened her character, because it was necessary to raise children.
After a painful break with Yesenin, Reich begins a completely different life - in abundance, love and reverence. She marries the talented director Vsevolod Meyerhold, who is in love with her, and enters theater courses.
The husband idolized his fatal beauty, gave her the first roles in his plays, adopted the daughter and son of Yesenin and raised them like relatives. For the sake of his prima, he left his wife, whom he had known since childhood, lived for many years and raised three daughters. The enamored director even changed his last name to Meyerhold-Reich. Everywhere he surrounded himself with portraits of his wife.
From the care of her husband, Zinaida blossomed, turned into a luxurious, richly dressed prima of the theater. Yesenin, who broke off relations with Duncan, again began to come to his ex-wife and children. The poet maintained friendly relations with Meyerhold. Zinaida was not at all going to leave her husband, she appreciated and respected him.
However, Yesenin's ex-wife seems to have loved her golden-haired poet all her life. Upon learning of Sergei's death at the Angleterre Hotel, she fell into hysterics, together with her husband she came to see her beloved on her last journey.
Tragic departure
In the 1930s, avant-garde art was declared alien to the Soviet people. In 1938, a black streak began in Reich's life. The Meyerhold Theater was declared formalist and banned, the director himself was arrested and shot. Zinaida Nikolaevna's mental health was upset.
On the night of July 14-15, 1939, 24 days after her husband was arrested, 45-year-old Reich was brutally murdered in her own apartment. She was buried quietly, at the Vagankovskoye cemetery not far from Yesenin's grave. Only a few people attended the funeral. This is how this fatal beauty died, who was the muse of the great poet and great director, who are among the most notable figures of the 20th century.
