Moffat Russian Conference 2017: The Russian Phoenix

Lily Brik - muse and nemesis

I was given this biography of Lily Brik in 1999, the year that it was published, by the author Arkady Vaksberg.  For the first time since then, I have both the time and the motive to read it.  My motive is that the theme of our 2017 Moffat Russian Conference is 'Art and Literature in the era of the 1905 and the 1917 revolutions'. At the suggestion of our Russian partners we will be majoring on the revolutionary poet, actor and graphic artist/political propagandist Vladimir Mayakovsky. Brik was Mayakovsky's muse and, in some ways, his nemesis.

 It is an interesting story, that Vaksberg (who died in Moscow in 2011) tells well.  By all accounts, Lily Brik was an irresistible and highly promiscuous 'femme fatale' who was known on occasion to stagger out into the street, one over the eight, pick up an officer, and go with him to a restaurant with private booths, there to have her way with him.

More tomorrow!