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Living Section of the San Bernardino SUN June 25, 2006 
Moura, The Dangerous Life of the Baroness Budberg By Nina Berberova New York Review of Books, 2005 
Love, Revolution, Espionage - a Story of Survival Although Moura, at different times of her life known as Countess Zakrevskaya, Countess Benckendorff and Baroness Budberg has been featured in Vogue, had played a major role in the lives of H.G. Wells and Maxim Gorky and had a cult like following as a glamorous double agent, I did not learn about her until I read the recently published translation of Nina Berberova's "Moura, The Dangerous Life of the Baroness Budberg." But facts about Moura's life are scarce. She was born Maria Ignatievna Zakrevskaya in 1892 perhaps in St. Petersburg, Russia. Moura is a Russian nickname for Maria. After boarding school she was sent to England where she was known as Countess Zakrevskaya. It was at that time that she met many of the players in her future life including Lockhart, H. G. Wells and her first husband Ivan Benckendorff whom she married in 1911. By 1915 the Benckendorffs already had two children. World War I found them in St. Petersburg but the revolution of 1917 sent them back to the family estate in Estonia. In the fall of 1917, for reasons not entirely clear, Moura returned to the now renamed Petrograd alone. Within a short time she was caught in the vortex of the Bolshevik Revolution. Starving, destitute and homeless, she had to call upon her wits and charm quickly in order to survive these brutal days of the Revolution. At some point around that time she received word that rebellious peasants had murdered her husband on their estate in Estonia but that the children and their governess were safe. About that time also Moura ran into Lockhart who was acting as a "special agent" on behalf of England and in no time they were lovers. What follows is a series of tangled up events that lead to the arrest of Moura and Lockhart for plotting against the Revolution. The author's description of these events is convoluted and impossible to follow. It is not known if Maura was already working for the Cheka (the predecessor of the KGB) at that time. Years later it became known that at the time she was the mistress of a Yakov Peters, a charismatic and ruthless Chekist who was for a time chairman of the Revolutionary Tribunals but was shot during the 1930s Stalin purges. Again, whether Lockhart helped with Maura's release as he believed or she with his, is not known. Upon his release he was given two days before being deported back to England. Again left homeless and destitute, Moura found her way to Maxim Gorky's house and soon became not only his lover but also the chatelaine of his household. By then Gorky was world famous and earned a substantial amount of money from foreign royalties. As Gorky was preparing to go to Berlin, Maura managed to get through the numerous barriers of visas and passports and go to Estonia to see her children. There she married Baron Budberg in order to get a valid passport. Shortly after that the two parted ways. She joined Gorky in Berlin and later moved with his entourage to Sorrento, Italy. During these years she made countless mysterious trips to Berlin, to Estonia supposedly to see her children and to other Central European cities. Maura was a resilient survivor. When Gorky and most of his entourage moved back to the Soviet Union in 1933, Maura took a suitcase of his papers and moved to England where within a short time she was the lover of H.G. Wells and the chatelaine of his household. Maura continued her frequent and mysterious trips to the Continent. She also had several real or on-paper jobs that gave her the appearance of earning an income. She was coerced into taking to the Soviet Union Gorky's archive, which contained incriminating information that Stalin used in the purges. In 1936 Gorky died, poisoned by Stalin's henchmen. Maura remained a faithful companion of H.G. Wells until his death in 1946. After World War II, Maura, obese and slow moving, became an obsolete relic of a bygone era. She died in 1974. Berberova is considered a "writer of genius." But I thought that this book was not particularly well written, that the overwhelming details of dates, quotations from bottomless archives and perfectly choreographed tableaus of historical events, give us intimate portraits of so many people in Maura's circle but she herself remains distant and elusive. Ophelia Georgiev Roop Library Director San Bernardino Public Library |
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