Мария Степанова - In Memory of Memory

4.

Aleksandr to Sarra Ginzburg, October 17, 1907

The postcard has the caption Don’t go! and shows a woman seeing off a revolutionary in an astrakhan cap. He has a mustache and carries a revolver. In the background, snowy roofs and a little onion dome. Above the image someone has added by hand: you would have told me to go!

Sarra, this morning I sent you a letter, but I forgot that today is October 17 and so I didn’t mention it. You know that this day will always be dear to me and not just because it’s a national celebration, but because on this day two years ago we went to our first street protest, and we took each other’s hands. We hardly knew each other back then, and how could I have known that the black-eyed girl walking beside me, whose hand I held so tightly, would become so dear to me and would even agree to marry me? October 17 made us comrades and brought us together. How I love this day!

Say hallo to Katya

October 17, 1905, was the day the October Manifesto was published, in which the Tsar promised the people of Russia civil liberties and the creation of a State Duma.

5.

Mikhail Fridman to Sarra Ginzburg, December 26, 1909

A girl with large yearning eyes and hair loose over her shoulders, sitting by a window, her hands placed uselessly on her knees. Caption: Richon. If only I were a bird!

My dear Sarra! I didn’t send you my greetings for the New Year. I didn’t know where you would be, as I heard you’d left Montpellier. But then I found out that you were only away for a short while, so in the hope you will receive this I send you all the very best for the New Year. I hope you will never lose your faith in the future, and that all your endeavors will be crowned with success and you will be able to build a life for yourself that meets your ideals as far as possible.

I also hope we will see each other again.

6.

Dmitrii Khadji-Genchev to Sarra Ginzburg, Montpellier, December 29, 1909

The letter is entirely preoccupied with arrangements, the tiny cramped handwriting fills a page from top to bottom, the shifts from French to a deformed Russian look like mistakes born of haste and agitation. Two days until the New Year. Sarra is just about to return to Montpellier.

Sarrka, I right in hast, reply to you card which I just receive. I wrote day before yestday that it is better you leave Lausanne in morning and arrive here in bonne heure. Best variant is you travel at 5:45 early morning. In Lyon the train arrives at 10:13, 10:45 dep, Tarascone apresmidi in Montpellier at 7 in the evening. Another good train, but arrive late in Montpellier is at 9:17, Lyon will be at 4:05 apresmidi, depart Lyon at 5:53 arrive Tarascone at 10:23 and Montpellier 12:23 in nigt. Third variant but don’t know if there is 3 Class, is best at 12:10 at noon, arrive Lyon 4:34 apresmidi, leave Lyon at 5:53 and arrive Montpellier as last a minuit. Check this one, says it is best and with 3 Class. Please take this if you cannot take train at early morning. Then look, do as the plan says, and make sure you little head is out of window at all station and you look for me also. Otherwise we may risk not seeing each other. But we will definitely see each other on Montp station if not before. We’ll see how it is. I have decided I come to Tarascone. So you look for me there. If I don’t see you Tarascone I go to Nime, and if not there I come back to Montpellier and wait all night but I will find you. Write Ida about envelopes. Buy me I need for visite de [Nrzb] , don’t depart Lausanne this apresmidi or you have all night in train.

7.

Aleksandr to Sarra Ginzburg, January 4, 1910

A German postcard with a Berlin postmark. Two peasant lovers are kissing in the rye, he has a flaxen mustache, she wears a brightly colored skirt. To the side a little ditty concerning Liebesgedanken .

“Die Liebe bleibt immer gleich”… whether you are in Paris or Berlin. I’ve been wandering around looking at Berlin for two days now. It’s an interesting place. If I didn’t already have a ticket to St. Petersburg I’d have stayed around and tried to find some work. And then I’d have found a pretty little face like the one pressed to the young plowboy’s on this card, and found some respite from the torment of the black eyes of a Hebrewess.

8.

Dmitrii Khadji-Genchev to Sarra Ginzburg, July 27, 1912 (translated from French)

Dearest Sarra, I just received your card from Sofia. I passed my state exam a while ago. It wasn’t easy, but I passed. You know me, things work out for me from time to time.

I’m spending another two or three days here and then I’ll go to another town to take up a post as a military doctor in an army hospital. The worst part will be the lack of money, the work itself, the professional side won’t be hard. I had my first patient yesterday. They only paid two francs. I spent it all the same day. Things aren’t easy for me at the moment and all because I’ve no money. I haven’t got married and I’ll probably never get married. No one loves me, no one wants to marry me. Sarra, why don’t you write more about your past life and your future to me — I hardly know anything about you.

On the other side:

Sarra, dearest, come and live at the dacha in Dryanovo with me. It’s so nice here, so good, so free — no one around, just chickens and pigs. I shake your hand. Goodbye.

9.

Dmitrii Khadji-Genchev to Sarra Ginzburg, Tyrnovo, October 29, 1912

Greetings from the ancient capital of Bulgaria. Tomorrow I’ll be checked over and approuvé as a soldier by the conscription service. I’ll be back in Dryanovo tomorrow night and I’ll write more. My brother came to stay three days ago (back from war). He had an injury in his right arm (1/3 moyen du bras, Humerus intact). Salut […]

War on European soil began two years before the outbreak of the First World War. The First Balkan War was already underway in 1912.

10.

Sarra Ginzburg to Mikhail Fridman, November 1913

Paris, 15 novembre

Misha, you are quite the limit, your Sarra goes away, and you vanish from the face of the earth. I know one shouldn’t ask lawyers questions, but even so! I was taken to a tavern yesterday (I complained that I wasn’t getting to see much), so today I want to sleep and my head is ringing. What news have you got? How is work, what’s the mood like after the “Beilis” affair? Write and let me know or I won’t write to you either.

A jury had just vindicated Menachem Beilis, a Jewish man accused of the ritual murder of a twelve-year-old boy from Kiev; the notorious trial was often compared to the Dreyfus affair.

11.

Sarra Ginzburg to Mikhail Fridman, Paris, February 18, 1914

You’re right to say that I haven’t been writing. I’ve been conscious of it, but fleetingly, and just now when I read your postcard I realized how little I’ve been in touch. You are partly to blame. Although, no, I don’t really think that. It’s just I’ve had a lot to deal with, and it would have been hard if not impossible to tell you about it. You are too far away, things are too different there for me to be able to make it as simple and clear for you as it is for me here. But I was so much in its grip that everything else seemed remote and I was quite alone. Yes, I understand your predicament, Misha, I really do. So much effort for such little money. As for me… I’ve got such a long time to go! For a start my time here has been extended and I won’t finish before Easter, and once in Paris you can’t ever tell when exactly you will finish. God alone knows. I haven’t managed to have a photo done, in answer to your question. But then you also promised, so send yours. All the best, Misha. Send more news about yourself. S