😉 Greetings to regular and new readers! Princess Salome Andronikova is one of the brightest women of the Silver Age. Patron, model of many portraits and addressee of many poems. Years of life 1888-1982.
Poets immortalized her in poems, and artists in their paintings. Anna Akhmatova admiringly called her “the beauty of the 13th year”. Neither the war nor the revolution deprived her of her talent to admire, inspire and surround herself with the best people.
When, in 1982, The Times and other newspapers were full of reports of the death of 93-year-old Salome Andronikova, the world wept for the last unique woman of the Silver Age.
Salome Andronikov-Halpern
An extraordinary beauty of her era, Salome Nikolaevna was smart, charming and witty. The daughter of the Georgian prince Andronikashvili could not have been born different, because it is not for nothing that Georgia was called the land of muses and incredible beauties.
At the age of 18, in the company of her cousin, who soon became the wife of the pianist Sergei Taneyev, Salome moved to St. Petersburg. The capital demanded large expenses for publication. The girl solved this problem by marrying a wealthy tea seller Pavel Andreev.
While Salome was organizing a secular salon, acquiring connections among artists and musicians, her husband ran after all the women of the capital. Finally, she turned to a lawyer friend for help to file a divorce.
Salome Andronikov, 1910
Already a free woman, she found out about pregnancy and was not afraid to give birth to a child alone, without notifying her ex-husband about the event. Her daughter Irina would later become Baroness Nolde, a communist and member of the Resistance in France.
Salome’s beauty was such that even women admired her. Enthusiastic Akhmatova gave her personalized collections. All the artists and painters of that time undertook her portraits: Petrov-Vodkin, Serebryakova, Somov, Chekhonin, Shukhaev. Osip Mandelstam was in love with her. Teffi admired her.
The woman’s temper matched her appearance – self-confident, bright, a little boyish and adventurous.
Petersburg-Paris
In 1917 Salome took his daughter Irina and an old friend for the company and went to the Crimea. She had no idea that she would never see her beloved Petersburg again. New times made the fragile creature forget about enthusiastic worship and plunge into everyday problems.
Salome had to emigrate first to Baku, then to Tiflis and, finally, to Paris. Wandering around the countries, she lamented that she had left her homeland in times of troubles, constantly worrying about Russia and Georgia.
She was brought to Paris by a purely feminine frivolity, as if she were making an entertainment trip. Zinovy Peshkov – the adopted son of Maxim Gorky, the half-brother of Yakov Sverdlov – was another admirer of Andronikova and persuaded her to go shopping in French shops.
In such a twitchy, incomprehensible time, she did not want to take anything to heart. She packed her suitcase and even without a passport went for her lover. Peshkov, whom her friend introduced her to in Baku, served in the French mission in Georgia.
France came to his liking, he rose to the rank of general, was surrounded by de Gaulle. But with Salome, he was divorced, although for many years they continued to be linked by warm friendship.
Salomeya Andronikova and Marina Tsvetaeva
Andronikova’s new husband, by chance, was her admirer from her former St. Petersburg life – lawyer Alexander Halpern. True, he lived and worked in England, and she lived and worked in Paris, in the fashion magazine Vogel. It was at this time that she made acquaintance with Marina Tsvetaeva, establishing an intellectual friendship.
Salome Andronikova in the paintings of artists
Salome could not help but see the poverty in which the brilliant poetess lived, so she shared with her part of her earnings. At the same time, she helped her friend arrange poetry evenings and distributed tickets for them.
She became the head of the Tsvetaeva family’s charitable fundraising committee. Thanks to this money, they were able to hold out until they left for Russia.
In 1940, Halpern and his grandson summoned Andronikova to America, where he got a job at the British embassy. Her daughter and her husband at that time were in Nazi captivity for anti-fascist activities.
In recent years, she lived in London, continuing to work tirelessly, write books, receive guests, despite her blindness and sore legs. For dinner, she invariably went out in an evening dress, like a true aristocrat, remaining witty and charming.
In poems dedicated to her, in extensive correspondence with outstanding people, in canvases, she is forever captured as mysterious and magnificent, like a true Muse.
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Here is additional information about Princess Salome Andronikova
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