Patricia Thompson and Vladimir Mayakovsky. Daughter and father.
"Two cute my Ellie. I have already missed you ... I kiss all eight paws, "this is an excerpt from the letter of Vladimir Mayakovsky, addressed to his American love - Ellie Jones and their common daughter Helen Patricia Thompson. The fact that the ocean at the poet revolutionary has a child, it became known only in 1991. Prior to that helen kept secret, fearing for his safety. When it became possible to speak openly about Mayakovsky, she visited Russia and devoted her further life to the study of the father's biography.
Patricia Thompson during a trip to Russia.
Russian Name of Patricia Thompson - Elena Vladimirovna Mayakovskaya. At the sunset of life, she preferred to call himself this way, because she finally had the legal right to declare that she was a daughter of the famous Soviet poet. Elena was born in the summer of 1926 in New York. By this time, the American journey of Mayakovsky in the United States approached the end, and he was forced to return to the USSR. Over the ocean, he had a three-month-old novel with Ellie Jones, a Russian-speaking translator, a German by origin, whose family first came to Russia by order of Catherine, and after - emigrated to the United States when the revolution was killed. 
Vladimir Mayakovsky and Ellie Jones.
Patricia Thompson against the backdrop of a father's portrait.
At the time of dating Ellie with Vladimir, she was fictitious marriage with Englishman George Jones (he helped to emigrate from Russia at the beginning to London, then to America). After the birth of Patricia, Jones showed participation and gave his girl his last name, so she had American citizenship.
Patricia was confident all his life that the mother kept the secret of her origin, fearing persecution by the NKVD. For the same reason, as it seems to her, the poet himself did not mention them in the testament. With his father, Patricia met only once, she was only three years old, they came with her mother in Nice. Her children's memories retain the touching moments of the meeting, the joy, which the poet experienced, seeing his own daughter. 
Patricia Thompson in the desktop.
Elena Vladimirovna visited Russia in 1991. Then she communicated with interest with distant relatives, literary criticism, researchers, worked in the archives. He read the biographies of Mayakovsky and came to the thought, which is very similar to the Father, also devoted himself to familiarity, serving people. Elena Vladimirovna was a professor, read lectures on Emancipation, published several tutorials, edited the novels of scans and worked in several publishers. All memories told about the Mayakov Mother have survived from Elena Vladimirovna as audio recordings. Based on this material, she prepared the "Mayakovsky in Manhattan" edition. 
Mayakovsky in Manhattan.
Family life Elena Vladimirovna has developed successfully. Her Son is a successful lawyer Roger Thompson, in many ways it looks like his famous grandfather. Elena Vladimirovna Mayakovskaya lived 90 years old, after death, she took possession of his dust at the Novodevichy cemetery over the grave of his father. Similarly, she came into their arrival in Russia, then she brought part of the dust of his own mother to bury him next to the grave of the Russian poet. 
Portrait of Elena Vladimirovna Mayakovskaya.
Roger hopes that he will have enough time to publish a book about his mother over time, the name for her already is - "daughter". This word is the only mention of Elena in the Mayakovsky diaries. Once Elena Vladimirovna has changed that Lily Brick has done everything possible to destroy any certificates about American history. But, lying through the archives, she managed to find the preserved sheet in one of the diaries, on which only this word was written. 
Mayakovsky daughter with a t-shirt on which - a portrait of his father.
Portrait of the poet of Vladimir Mayakovsky.
Face to face
Mind is incomprehensible: Mayakovsky's daughter lives in America! Yes, not just in America, but in New York, in Manhattan! By barely learning this, I got her phone completely unthinkable ways and agreed on an interview for the Russian Bazaar.
- Elena Vladimirovna, about your father, the "best, talented poet" Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky we know a lot - the school "passed." Who was your mom?
"My mother Elizabeth (Ellie) Siebert was born on October 13, 1904 in the city of Davlekhanov, in the present Bashkortostan. She was a senior child in the family, which was forced to flee from Russia after the revolution. Her father (and my grandfather), Peter Henry Sibert, was born in Ukraine, and Mother, Helen Neifeldt, - in Crimea. Both were the descendants of the Germans who arrived in Russia at the end of the XVII century at the invitation of Catherine II. The lifestyle of the Germans of Russia was characterized by simplicity and religiosity, their values \u200b\u200bwere self-sufficiency and independence. The Germans built their own churches, schools, hospitals. German colonies in Russia flourished.
Ellie was a "rural girl" who lived in the estates of the father and grandfather. It was flexible, slim and well folded, huge expressive blue eyes sparkling. She had a high forehead, a straight nose and volitional chin. Her lips with their sensual bend could express emotions without any words. Because of his harmony, she seemed higher than was actually. But it is more important that she was a woman intellectual, with character, courage and charm. She was educated in a private school, had private teachers. In addition to Russian, she spoke freely in German, English and French.
- How did the German girl from the distant primary prioria turned out to be here in America, met with the first Soviet poet?
- October 1917 turned over the prosperous world of the Ziebert family upside down. By the time of the revolution, my grandfather had large land ownership in Russia and beyond. He could afford traveling with his family to Japan and California. What was waiting for this family in Soviet Russia - it is not difficult to imagine. But they managed to move to Canada in the late 1920s. My mother in the post-revolutionary turmoil was able to leave Davlekhanov and worked with sleepwear in Samara. Then she became a translator in Ufa, in the American Help Help (ARA). After a while I went to Moscow. There, Ellie Siebert became Ellie Jones - she met England George E. Jones, who also worked in Ara, and married him.
- It was a real or fictitious marriage?
- Perhaps fictitious, since its main goal for my mother was to break out of Soviet Russia.
- What was this year?
- In May 1923, Mom married Jones, soon they were departed in London, and already from there - to America, where two years later, formally remaining a married woman, my mother met Mayakovsky, as a result of which I appeared. I note that George Jones put his name in my birth certificate to make me "legitimate". He became a legal dad for me to which I have always experienced gratitude.
- Please, a little more about the meeting of your parents in New York ...
- July 27, 1925, immediately after its 32nd birthday, Mayakovsky in the first and last time stepped on American land. He was in the heyday and as a poet, and as a man ("high, dark and beautiful"). A month later, this genius met with Elizabeth Petrovna, Ellie Jones, a Russian emigrant, who lived apart with her husband. The American life of Mayakovsky is reflected in his prose, verses and sketches. He left the US on October 28, 1925 and never returned to the country. During a brief two-month period, Mayakovsky and Ellie were lovers.
- And where did they meet?
- At the poetic evening in New York. But for the first time, Mom, according to her stories, saw Mayakovsky back in Russia, standing in the distance at the platform, along with Lily Bric. She remembered then that Lily had a "cold" look. The first question of Mother to Mayakovsky on that party was: how do poems do? Her interest in the art and secrets of poetic skills inevitably was able to initiate the return interest of Mayakovsky to this charming and well-reading young woman who came from the east of his native country. Most parties participants spoke in English, so it is quite natural that the conversation began between the two Russians.
- And they loved each other?
"Mom told me that Mayakovsky was very careful to her, asking more than once, is careful, in a certain sense, she. What she answered: "The result of love - children!" The last words heard from me from me were: "Mayakovsky loved you!" Mom died in 1985.
Mayakovsky himself believed that it was extremely productive during meetings with my mom. He was proud to be done in America. From August 6 to September 20, 1925, he wrote 10 poems, including the Brooklyn Bridge, Broadway, "Kemp Nits Gedagge." Is there no connection to the feeling of Mayakovsky to my mother with the flourishing of his poetic genius? Everyone who was familiar with Mayakovsky knew him as a man of deep and prolonged devotion, romance, never vulgar in his relationship with women.
- Elena Vladimirovna, and you were not interested, did anyone see your parents in New York together? After all, everything happened in the airless space ...
"Once I was led to the house to the writer Tatiana Levchenko-Sukhomlin. She told me her story. As a young wife of the American lawyer Benjamen Pepper, she arrived in New York, where he studied at the School of Journalism of Columbia University and worked in the theater. She saw Mayakovsky on the street close to the Amtorg office, talked to him. He was always happy, meeting the Russians on his trips, and asked her husband and her husband, they wanted to go for the evening of his poetry. They were invited to a party in his apartment, where, according to Tatiana Ivanovna, she saw Mayakovsky with a high, slim very pretty young woman he called Ellie. It was clear to her that Mayakovsky is very in love with her. Thanks to Tatiana Ivanovna, I know that I am really a child of love. I always believed in it, but it was important to have a "testimony of a witness" to confirm my intuitive confidence.
- You mentioned Lil Bric. She knew about your existence? And if so, how did you relate to you?
- A few days after the death of Mayakovsky Lily, Brick fell into his room in Lubyanse. Considering the Paper of the Father, she destroyed the photo of a little girl, his daughter ... Lilya was the heir of the copyright of Mayakovsky, so the existence of his daughter was absolutely undesirable for her. Since, as you know, she was associated with the NKVD bodies, my mother was afraid of all his life that Lilya will "get" us in America. But, fortunately, the bowl of us passed us. I am not an illegitimate daughter of Mayakovsky. I am his biological daughter with 23 of his genes. I was born, I repeat, as a result of the torture of love, who swallowed the poet during his stay in New York in 1925. This circumstance was predetermined by fate, not amenable to control from my parents. Love Mayakovsky to my mother, Ellie Jones, graduated from his intimate relationship with Lily Bric.
I never personally knew Brikov. As far as I can judge, Bricks built a career, exploiting the name of Mayakovsky. How many cruel things have been said about him! That he is rude, unmanage, pathologically squeezing. And his friend David Burluk said that he was, in essence, a kind, sensitive person, and he really was so. Of course, when he was in public, that is, on stage, he was a sharp dispute, quick in responses to any challenge, very smart and ulcer. He could beat anyone if people began to pick him up - when he felt good.
- Father saw you once in life, it seems in Nice ...
- In the map recorder of Mayakovsky, on a separate page, only one word is written: "Daughter" ... yes, in the first and last time we saw with my father in Nice, where Mom went not specifically, but in his immigrant affairs. Mayakovsky at this time accidentally found himself in Paris, and one of our acquaintances informed him where we were. He immediately rushed to Nice, went to the door and announced: "So here I am here!" Having visited us, he sent a letter to Nice from Paris, which was perhaps the most precious mother heritage. It was addressed to "two Ellie", his father asked about the possibility of a re-meeting. But the second visit, my mother believed, should not have been! We moved to Italy, and Mayakovsky came then to Nice in the hope of meeting us there.
- In a suicide note, Mayakovsky identified his family: Mother, sisters, Lily Bric and Vertoldan Polonskaya Veronika. And asked the Government to "make them a tolend life." He did not mention a woman who loved nor you. Why?
"It was the question for which I had no satisfactory answer, while I didn't meet with Veronica Polonsky during my first visit to Moscow in 1991. Our meeting was partially shown in Russian TV.
Delicate and fragile Ms. Polonskaya, who was charming engine, when Mayakovsky knew her, kindly welcomed me. We kissed and embraced in her small room in a home for the elderly actors. On her bookshelf stood small, but in full growth, the statue of Mayakovsky. She also loved him, what I am sure. She said that he told her about me: "I have a future in this child," and that he has a Parker handle, which I gave him in Nice. He proudly showed her Veronica. In Mayakovsky Museum, there are currently two parkers, and one of them is undoubtedly mine.
I asked Mrs. Polon's the same question you asked me: Why did he mention my aunt, grandmother, Lilib Brick and her in his last letter? But not me and my mother? "Why are you, not me?" - I asked Polonsky directly. I wanted to know. She looked into my eyes and answered seriously: "He did it to protect me and you too." She was protected, being included, and my mother and I were protected, being excluded! Her answer is absolutely clear to me. How could he protect us after his death if he could not protect us, being alive? Of course, he hoped that those whom he loved and whom she trusted, wage me. Many people tried to recruit me at the Polon's enemies, considering it involved in death (in one way or another) Mayakovsky. Yes, she was the last famous person who saw him alive, yes, she set out her version of events. And I want to believe her!
- So, for the first time you arrived in Russia in 1991. What did you feel when I saw a monument to Father? Have you visited his grave?
- In the summer of 1991, my son Roger Sherman Thompson, New York lawyer, and I came to Moscow, where we were welcomed in the Circle of the Mayakovsky family and outside of her friends and admirers. When we went to the hotel, I first saw the Monumental Statue of Mayakovsky on the Mayakovsky Square (currently the area is called in the Old: Triumphal. - V.N.). My son and I asked the chauffeur of our car to stop. I could not believe that we finally stand here! Noting that the poet's eyes are watching Vdal, Roger whispered: "Mom, I think he is looking for you."
Several times I was on the grave of my father at the Novodevichy Cemetery, in his huge museum on the Lubyanskaya Square and a small room within this museum, where he shot himself. My son and I went to her. How strange was among the father's things with my son! (Mom always thought about him as a grandson of Mayakovsky.) I sat on his chair and concerned his table, told on the worn tree. I put, remember the hand on the calendar, forever open on the 14th of April 1930, the bottom of his last breath on Earth. My feelings are impossible to describe! When I opened a box of the table to make sure that he was empty, I felt that his hands had once touched the same tree. I felt that he was there with me. It was the first time I could touch the things he enjoyed every day, ordinary things. I felt the same comfort when I was sitting in a red velvet chair, in which my mother in recent years was engaged in needlework, read books, listened to music and met with friends who were interested in Russian culture.
On the grave of the father at the Novodevichy cemetery, his tombstone monument, I knelt and crossed in a Russian manner. I brought with you a small part of maternal dust. With our bare hands, I excavated the Earth between the graves of the father and his sister. There I placed the ashes, covered it with the earth and grass and watered place with tears. I kissed the Russian land that stuck to my fingers.
Since the death of Mother, I hoped that someday her particle would reunite with the man she loved, with Russia, which she loved until the end of his days. No strength on Earth could stop me from making the ashes of my mother to Russian land on the family grave of Mayakovsky! There was no month after my return to Moscow, as I was shocked, learning that the Soviet government gathered a collection of "great brains" for the ongoing 67 years of scientific research, aimed at identifying the anatomical roots of the genilation of my father. Mayakovsky's brain was among them, but no one in Russia told me about it.
- What kind of education did you get? Who worked?
- My father, as you know, drew well, studied at the Moscow Art School. (School of Painting, Sculpting and Architecture. - V.N.) Apparently, this gift was inherited from him, because at the age of 15 he entered the art school, then in Barnard College, who graduated in June 1948. At the end of the college, I worked as an editor of the widely published magazines - I made reviews of movies, music records, etc. I edited Westerns, novels, detectives and science fiction - quite a suitable lesson for the daughter of Futurist. She wrote under the name of Pat Jones documentary essays on various topics. I imagine how easier it would be for me to be published under Mayakovsky's name, if I chose a career in the "World of Letters". But I have done to other genres ... I could not be a poet, playwright, artist-schedule or painter, as I would be compared with my father. I could not be a translator, linguist or language teacher, like my mother. If I chose any of these classes, I would not be free. I wanted to lay my own way to glory and wealth. Perhaps this was not glory, but I made a name as a theorist of feminism and as the author of school and institute textbooks and theoretical books and articles in the Items chosen by me - a home economy. Of course, it is not by chance that I found myself in the area that appreciates women and women's work ...
- You talked about the son, the grandson of Vladimir Mayakovsky. Who is he from?
- In May 1954, I married Oral Wayn Thompson, who gave me another American name: Patricia Thompson. This marriage has opened me access to the good genes of the American revolution, which passed to my son together with my genes of the Russian revolution. My husband refused to give our son Slavic name (Svyatoslav), and therefore Roger Sherman called him - in honor of the father's ancestor, which from the state of Connecticut signed the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. After my divorce (after 20 years of marriage), my mother's second husband oversalled me. I was at that time 50 years. Steph, who did not have his children, took this step in order for me to become his heir. It was the inheritance of my mother and my receptional father that gave me the possibility of a decade later to fly to Moscow in the company with my son and a few friends to detect its roots. Now I am in America Pat, and the Russians, Armenians, Georgians and others, who else love and respects the memory of Mayakovsky, they call me Elena Vladimirovna.
- As far as I understand, Russian, German, possibly Ukrainian and Georgian blood flowing in you. Who do you feel?
"I am a Russian American, tearing out between Russia and Georgia, I love Armenia and Armenians, I feel nostalgia at the place of birth of my mother in Bashkortostan and the birthplace of Mom's parents in Ukraine and in the Crimea. Add to it that the family of my mother - Siekers and Neuphelfa - was German origin. In my heart I keep the love of Russian and German heritage.
- Are you going to write a biography of your father?
- No, but I would like to see his biography, written by a woman. I think the female scientist is better than most men who wrote so much about him, will understand the peculiarities of his character and personality. Maybe in me there is a feminist again (laughs).
- The last question, Elena Vladimirovna. Your favorite poem Mayakovsky?
- "A cloud in pants". And I am a storm cloud in the skirt (laughs).
P.S. I express my sincere appreciation to the Mark Ioffe, who helped me in a conversation with Elena Vladimirovna Mayakovskaya and in deciphering a tape recorder.
- Elena Vladimirovna, you met with your father just once in life ...
Yes. I was only three years old. In 1928, we went with my mother in Nice, she solved some immigrant issues there. And Mayakovsky was at that time in Paris, and our common acquaintance informed him that we were in France.
- And he immediately came to you?
Yes, as soon as he learned that we were in Nice, I immediately rushed. My mother almost happened to hit. She did not expect to see him. Mom told that he went to the door and said: "So here I am."
- And you yourself remember something?
All I remember is long legs. And also, you can not believe me, but I remember how I was sitting on his knees, his touch. I think this is a kinesthetic memory. I remember how he hugged me. I also told me how he was so lucky when I saw me sleeping in the crib. He said: "Probably there is nothing more attractive than sleeping baby." There was another case when I rummaged in his papers, my mother saw it and slapped me on his hands. And Mayakovsky told her: "You never have to beat the child."
- But did you ever meet anymore?
No, it was the only meeting. But for him she was very important. After this meeting, he sent us a letter. This letter for my mother was the most important treasure. It was addressed "to two Ellie." Mayakovsky wrote: "Two cute my Ellie. I already missed you. I dream to come to you. Please write quickly quickly. I kiss you all eight paws ... " It was a very touching letter. No one else wrote such letters anymore. Father asked about a new meeting, but it did not happen. My mother and I went to Italy. But Mayakovsky took my photo taken in Nice, with me. His friends told that this photo was standing at the father on the table.
- But she broke her Lily Bric, right?
I know from authoritative sources that when he died, Lily Bric came to his office and destroyed my photos. I think the fact is that Lily was the heir of copyright, and therefore my existence was undesirable for her. However, one entry in his notebook remained. On a separate page, only one daughter's word is written there.
- But after all, your mother also did not hurry to talk about your existence.
My mother was very afraid that the authorities in the USSR know about my existence. She told that even before my birth came to her some kind of beacon commissar came and asked from whom she was pregnant. And she was very afraid of Lily Brick, which, as we know, was associated with the NKVD bodies. My mother was afraid of all his life that Lily would get us even in America. But, fortunately, this did not happen.
Your mother actually led Mayakovsky at Lily Bric, right?
I think, at that time, when Mayakovsky arrived in America, his relationship with the lily was in the past. Father's love for my mother, Ellie Jones, put a point in their relationship.
- Mayakovsky Biographer Solomon Cermon in one of the "American" notebooks of the poet found an entry in English: 111 West 12 st. Elly Jones.. Has your mother lived there?
Yes, my mother Ellie Jones had an apartment in Manhattan. In terms of money, she always felt free. Grandfather was a successful businessman, a wealthy man. In addition, the mother worked as a model and translator: she knew five European languages, learned them even at school, in Bashkiria, a little girl. She worked with the American administration. Mother devoted his whole life to try to explain to the Americans, what is Russian culture, who are Russian people. She was a real patriot. And I taught me the same.
And by origin, she is German from Bashkiria?
Yes, her Russian name is Elizabeth Siebert. The history of the mother's family is amazing at all. My ancestors arrived from Germany to Russia by order of Catherine Great. Then a lot of Europeans came to develop Russia, Ekaterina, all of them promised freedom of religion. Grandfather was a successful industrialist. And then the revolution happened.
How did your grandfather manage to take a family in the midst of the revolution?
It was unsafe remaining in Russia. If they were not left, they would have extended them at best and referred to the camps. Mother's family lived in Bashkiria in a big house. It is quite far from Moscow, and revolutionary moods did not come there immediately. When the revolution happened in the capital, one of my grandfather's friends advised him to leave the country, said that people would come soon with weapons. The grandfather had enough money to take everyone to Canada. My personal opinion is that if in the Soviet Union did not pursue the so-called fists, did not refer them, but they gave the opportunity to work, it would be very helpful then to develop the Soviet economy.
"However, your mother did not go with the whole family, right?"
Yes, she spent some time in Russia. The mother worked for a charitable organization in Moscow, no one guess her Kulack origin. Then she met the Englishman George Jones, who worked for the same organization; I got married and went to London, and then in New York. I think the marriage was more fictitious. Mother wanted to leave for his family, George Jones helped her. By the time she met Mayakovsky, she no longer lived with her husband ...
- How did she get acquainted with Mayakovsky?
For the first time she saw her father back in Moscow, at the Riga Station. He stood with Lily Bric. Mother said that she was struck by the cold and cruel eyes Lily. The next meeting, in New York, occurred in 1925. Then Mayakovsky miraculously managed to come to America. Directly in the United States was impossible to get, he drove through France, Cuba and Mexico, almost a month waited for permission to enter. When he arrived in New York, he was invited to a cocktail to one famous lawyer. There was also my mother.
- What did she tell about this meeting?
Mom was interested in poetry, read it in all European languages. She was generally very educated. When they were submitted to each other with Mayakovsky, she almost immediately asked him: "How do you write poems? What makes poems poems? " Mayakovsky almost did not speak foreign languages; Naturally, he liked a smart girl who speaks Russian. In addition, the mother was very beautiful, her was often invited to work the model. She had a very natural beauty: I had a portrait of the work of David Burluk, made when they were all together in the Bronx. Mayakovsky, one might say, fell in love with my mother at first glance, after a few days they almost did not part.
- Do you know where they most often went? What favorite places were Mayakovsky in New York?
They appeared together at all receptions, together met journalists and publishers. Walked to the zoo in the Bronx, went to look at the Brooklyn Bridge. And the poem "Brooklyn Bridge" was written immediately after he visited him with his mother. She first heard the poem first.
You probably conducted an investigation when they wrote a book about Mayakovsky in America. Someone saw your parents together?
Yes. Somehow I was visiting the writer Tatyana Levchenko-Sukhomlin. She told me how in those years he met Mayakovsky on the street and talked to him. The poet invited her with her husband on his evening. There she saw Mayakovsky with a high and slim beauty, which he called Ellie. Tatyana Ivanovna told me that she had the impression that Mayakovsky was experiencing very strong feelings for his companion. He did not move away from my mother for a minute. It was very important for me, I wanted to confirm that I was born as a result of love - although internally I knew it always.
- Your mother was the only woman in Mayakovsky's life at that time?
Yes, I'm quite sure of this. Mom told that he was very careful with her. He told her: "Be true to me. While I'm here - only you are alone. " Their relations continued all three months while he was in New York. Mother told that he called her every morning and said: "The maid just left. Your hairpins scream about you! " Even the drawing made by Mayakovsky after a quarrel: he painted his mother, with sparkling eyes, and below his head, humbly prone.
- There is not a single poem, directly dedicated to your mother?
She said that he once said to her that a poem wrote about them. And she forbade him to do it, said: "Let's save our feelings only for us."
You were not planned by a child?
Mayakovsky asked Mom, whether she was protected. She then answered him: "Love is that it means to have children." At the same time, she did not doubt anything at all that they would never be able to be together. He then told her that she was crazy. However, in one of the plays, this phrase is used. "From love you have to build bridges and children to give birth" - he says this professor.
- Mayakovsky knew that your mother was pregnant when leaking from America?
No, he did not know, and she did not know. They partly parted. She held Mayakovsky on a ship going to Europe. When she returned, he discovered that the bed in her apartment was sleeping forget-me-not. He spent all the money on these flowers, so he returned to Russia by the fourth grade, in the very bad cabin. Mom learned that she was pregnant when Mayakovsky was already in the USSR.
In childhood, you wore the name Jones ...
When I was born, the mother was still married to George Jones. And the fact that she was pregnant, it was a very delicate situation, especially for those times. But Jones was very kind, he gave me his name for a birth certificate and generally helped us. Mom did not condemn the illegitimate child, and I had American documents: he became legally my father, I am very grateful to him. Nowadays, people forgive much more than an extramarital child, but then everything was different.
Elena (or Helen Patricia) at birth did not receive the last name of his biological father. At that time, Ellie broke up with his spouse, thanks to which she became Jones. In the documents of the newborn with the permission of the former husband, she also pointed out his last name. It is noteworthy that the news that her real parent is a Soviet poet, Helen learned only at 6 years.
Mayakovsky himself wanted to visit Ellie and daughter and even wrote them to both touching letters. "Two cute my Ellie. I already missed you. I dream to come to you. Please write quickly quickly. You kiss all eight paws to you ... "So, by means of mail, Vladimir Vladimirovich appealed. Meanwhile, the trip to America did not take place.
Mayakovsky met with her daughter only one day. It was in France, in the city of Nice. Just there, Ellie with his daughter and rested, when the poet, having received a visa, arrived in Paris. From there he reached Nice. Then Elena almost turned 3 years. In a few months, Mayakovsky committed suicide.
- When Mayakovsky learned about your existence, did he want to return?
I am sure that Mayakovsky wanted to have a family, wanted to live with us. All that is written about him, controlled Lily Bric. It is not true that he did not want children. He loved the children very much, he wrote to them for nothing. Of course, there was a very complicated political situation between the two countries. But there was also a personal moment. When Lily found out about us, she wanted to distract his attention ... She did not want to have some kind of woman next to Mayakovsky. When Mayakovsky was in Paris, Lilya asked her sister Elz Tyol to imagine Mayakovsky some local beauty. She was Tatyana Yakovleva. Very attractive woman, charming woman from a good family. I do not deny this at all. But I must say that this was all the game Brick. She wanted him to forget the woman and a child in America.
"Many people think that it was Tatyana Yakovleva who was the last love of Mayakovsky.
Her daughter, American writer Francis Gray, got to Russia long before me. And everyone thought it was her daughter Mayakovsky. Francis even published an article in New York Times - about the last Museum of Mayakovsky, about her mother. She says that on October 25, he spoke about his endless love for Tatiana Yakovleva. But I have a letter to my mother, dated on October 26, he asked her about the meeting. I think he wanted to cover politically dangerous relationship with my mother loud novel with Yakovleva.
In the archive of Mayakovsky, only letters written by Lile BRIC have been preserved. What do you think, why did she destroy the correspondence with the rest of women?
Lilya was the one who she was. I think she wanted to enter the story alone. She had an impact on the public. It is impossible to deny that she was a very smart, experienced woman. But, in my opinion, she was also a manipulator. I did not know the briquets personally, but I think that they built their careers, using Mayakovsky. They said that he is rude and unmanaged. But the mother told about him completely different, and his friend, David Burluk, said that he was a very sensitive and kind person.
- Do you think lily influenced Mayakovsky?
I think the role of briquettes is very ambiguous. Osip helped him to be printed at the very beginning of the career. Lily Bric, you can say, it was included. When Mayakovsky met her, he was very young. And adult, mature lily was for him, of course, very attractive.
- Elena Vladimirovna, tell me, and why Mayakovsky has identified his family in a suicide note: Mother, sisters, Lily Bric and Veronica Polonskaya. Why did he not say anything about you?
I myself thought about it a lot, I tormented me this question. When I went to Russia, I met with the last beloved Father, Veronica Polonskaya. I visited her in a nursing home for actors. She treated me very warmly, I gave me a statuette of my father. He said that Mayakovsky spoke to her about me, about how he misses. He showed her a Parker handle, which I gave him to Nice, and spoke Polonskaya: "My future in this child." I am sure that she loved him too. Charming woman. So, I asked her the very question: why?
"And why wasn't you in the will?"
Polonskaya told me that his father did it to protect us. Her he defended when he turned on in the plea, and on the contrary, without mentioning. I am not sure that I would live calmly before these days, if the NKVD it became known that the Soviet poet of Mayakovsky in America is growing a child from the daughter of the fist.
I know that he loved me that he was in joy to become a father. But he was afraid. To be a wife or child of the dissent was unsafe. And Mayakovsky became dissent: if you read his plays, you will see that he criticized the bureaucracy and the direction in which the revolution was moving. Mother did not blame him, and I do not blame.
- Veronica Polonskaya was the only one to whom Mayakovsky talked about your existence?
Another friend of the Father, Sophia Shamadin, wrote in his memoirs that Mayakovsky was told about her daughter in America: "I never thought that you could whims for a child. The girl has been three years old, she is sick Rickets, and I can't do anything to her! " Mayakovsky spoke to me with one of my friend, said how hard it is not to raise my own daughter for him. But when the book of memories was printed in Russia, they simply threw these fragments. Perhaps because Lily Brick did not want to publish it. In general, I think that in the biography of the father there are still many white spots, and I consider it my duty to tell the truth about parents.
When you came to Russia, did you find some other documentary evidence that Mayakovsky did not forget about you?
I did one amazing find when I was in St. Petersburg. I disassembled my father's paper and found a flower pattern there made by a children's hand. I think this is my drawing, I drew exactly the same as a child as a child ...
Tell me, you feel like a daughter of Mayakovsky. Believe in genetic memory?
I understand my father very well. When I read the books of Mayakovsky for the first time, I realized that we were equally looking at the world. He believed that if you have a talent, then you should use it for social, social action. I think the same way. And I had such a goal: creating textbooks, books, of which children learn something about the world and about themselves. I wrote textbooks on psychology and anthropology, on history, tried to imagine all this so that the children understand. I also worked as an editor in several largest American publishing houses. Edited fiction, including Ray Bradbury. Excellent, it seems to me that the lesson for the Futurist's daughter is to work with science fiction.
- You hang pictures written on your wall. Did you also inherited this talent from your father?
Yes, I love to draw. At the age of 15 he entered the art school. I, of course, is not a professional artist, but something turns out.
- Can you call yourself a revolutionary?
I think that the idea of \u200b\u200bthe Father on the revolution is the idea of \u200b\u200bbringing social justice. I am a revolutionary self, in my own understanding, that is, in connection with the role of a woman in society and in the family. I teach the philosophy of feminism in the New York University. I am a feminist, but not from those who seek to accumulate the role of a man (and this is characteristic of many American feminists). My feminism is the desire to save the family, work for its benefit.
- Tell us about your family.
I have a wonderful son Roger, a lawyer in the field of intellectual property. He is the grandson of Mayakovsky. In his veins, amazing blood flows - the blood of Mayakovsky and blood wrestle for American independence (my husband's ancestor was one of the creators of the independence declaration). I have grandson, Logan. He now finishes school. He from Latin America, Roger adopted him. And although he is not a native Light of Mayakovsky, I notice that he has exactly the same wrinkle on his forehead like my father. It's fun to watch how he looks at the portrait of Mayakovsky and wrinkles.
To be honest, I still really miss my father. It seems to me that if he found out me now, I would know about my life, it would be nice.
Almost all my life you lived under the name Patricia Thompson, and now the name of Elena Mayakovskaya is also on your business card.
I have always had two names: Russian - Elena and American - Patricia. My mother's girlfriend was Ireland Patricia, and she helped her when I was born. My American criticism was called Elena, and the grandmother was also called Elena.
- Tell me, why do you hardly know Russian?
When I was small, I did not speak English. I spoke Russian, German and French. But I wanted to play with the American children, and they did not play with me, because I was a foreigner. And I told my mother that I don't want to talk to all these useless languages, but I want to speak English. Then my stepfather, the Englishman, taught me. But the Russian remained at the childhood level.
And with my mother you did not speak Russian at all?
I resisted, refused to read in Russian. Maybe because for me the death of the father was a tragedy, and I unconsciously left the whole Russian. In addition, I have always been an individualist, I think that it inherited it from the Father. This was supported by Mom, she was a very strong, courageous woman. It was she who explained to me that it was impossible to remain in the shadow of his father, to be his cheap imitation. She taught me to be.
© Elena Mayakovskaya Personal Archive
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 worked as an editor in the publishing house "McMilllan", in 1964, I edited the test and picked up photos to the book "Communism: what it is." I specifically made several edits in the text so that the Americans realize what good people live in the USSR. After all, then the Americans did not draw a completely adequate image of the Soviet person. Choosing photos, I tried to find the most beautiful; Show how Soviet people can enjoy life. And when I worked on a children's book about Russia, I did the emphasis on the fact that the Russians freed the peasants before the abolition of slavery in America took place. This is a historical fact, and I think it is an important fact.
Elena Vladimirovna, you assure you feel and understand your father. And what do you think, why did he commit suicide? Do you have thoughts on this?
First, I would like to say that even if he committed suicide, it is not because of a woman. He had the reasons to live. Burliuk told me that he believes that Mayakovsky lay bullets in a box from under the shoe. In the Russian aristocratic tradition, obtaining such a gift meant dishonor. The dishonor began for him with a boycott of the exhibition, there simply no one came there. He understood what was happening. It was a message: if you won't lead yourself well, we will not print your poems. This is a very painful topic for a creative person - to be free to have the right. He lost his freedom. Mayakovsky saw in all this prediction of his fate. He simply decided that there is only one way - death. And this is most likely the only reason for his suicide. Not a woman, not a broken heart - this is absurd.
- Tell me, do you like biographical books written about your father?
Of course, I did not 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 Bengta Yangfeldt. A person really wanted to find previously unknown facts about my father, and he managed to dig.
Tell me, are you not going to write Mayakovsky's biography for Americans? In general, in America know who Mayakovsky is?
Formed people, of course, know. And always very interested when they find out that I am his daughter. And I will not write biography. But I would like to be a biography of Mayakovsky wrote a woman. I think it is a woman who can understand the peculiarities of his character and personality as not a single man will understand.
- Your parents decided not to talk about your existence, and you kept the secret already until 1991 ... Why?
You will imagine what would happen if in the USSR found out that Vladimir Mayakovsky, the singer of the revolution, is the fissure daughter grow in bourgeois america?
"And why did you still decide to reveal the secret of your mother and Mayakovsky?"
I counted my duty to tell about my parents the truth. Well-invented Myth about Mayakovsky excluded me and mother from his history. This disappeared part of the story should return.
- What do you think, how would you treat your decision to tell this mystery your mother, Ellie Jones?
Mom before dying, in 1985, told me that I should make a decision herself. She told me the whole story of their love, and I recorded her for a tape recorder, it turned out six cassettes. They later served me with material for the book "Mayakovsky in Manhattan". I think she would be glad to know that I wrote a book about the history of their love.
Who did you reveal your secret first?
For the first time I told about this poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko when he was in America. He did not believe me, asked to present documents. I then said: Look at me! And only then everyone believed. And I am very proud of what I became a professor, published 20 books. I did all this myself, no one knew that I was daughter of Mayakovsky. I think that if people knew that Mayakovsky had a daughter, all the doors would be open in front of me. But nothing had nothing.
- Immediately after that, did you visit Russia?
Yes, in 1991, with my son Roger Sherman Thompson arrived in Moscow. We met with relatives of Mayakovsky, with the descendants of his sisters. With all friends and admirers. When we went to the hotel, I first saw the statue of Mayakovsky on the square. My son and I asked the chauffeur to stop. I could not believe that we were there ... I was in his museum on the Lubyanskaya Square, in that room where he shot himself. I kept the calendar in your hands, open at the bottom of April 14, 1930 ... the last day of my father's life.
Have you been to Novodevichy Cemetery?
I brought with me part of my mother's dust. She loved Mayakovsky all his life, until the death. Her last words were about him. On the grave of the Father on the Novodevichy Cemetery, I excavated the Earth between the graves of the Father and his sister. There I placed part of the dust of the mother, covered it with the earth and grass. I think my mother hoped someday to connect with a man who loved so much. And with Russia, which was always in her heart.
