Lyubov Dmitrievna Mendeleeva went down in history not only as the daughter of an outstanding chemist, but also as the wife of one of the greatest Russian poets. Her life was filled with various interesting facts, and in addition to her legitimate husband, Alexander Blok, she was not deprived of the attention of other, no less famous men.
It is paradoxical that the daughter of Dmitry Mendeleev had a completely unprepossessing appearance. Judging by the surviving photos and recollections of eyewitnesses, the woman was rude and had a slightly squat figure.
Blok's legendary poetess and girlfriend, Anna Akhmatova, spoke of the poetâs wife very impartially, alluding to the fact that she was rather stupid. In any case, Lyubov Dmitrievna Mendeleev, whose memories are very ambiguous, is recognized as the main muse of the great Bloc, and therefore her person clearly deserves our attention.
Childhood story
Lyubov Dmitrievna Mendeleev was born and grew up in a large family. Her father, Dmitry Mendeleev, had six children in total. From his first marriage, he already had a daughter Olga and a son Vladimir. Lyuba was born in the second marriage of the scientist - with Anna Popova. In addition to her, the family had a sister Maria and two brothers - Ivan and Vasily. Many who studied the biography of the scientist know that the fate of Lyubinâs father, like many brilliant people, was not easy. He had a rather complicated character. After he was forced into university resignation, Mendeleev, together with his family, spent most of the time on the estate, which was located in Boblovo.
Despite the fact that in the family of an outstanding chemist, children were never especially spoiled, the future wife of Alexander Blok herself recalled that her childhood was very happy, stormy and filled with joy.
Children's meetings of future spouses
The families of Blok and Mendeleeva communicated closely enough with each other and always maintained warm relations. This was the reason that Alexander Blok and Lyubov Mendeleev, whose love story will be considered in our article, had the opportunity to meet for the first time in childhood. When their parents worked together at the university, little Sasha and Lyuba were often taken out for joint walks to the university garden. But then they were just children, and serious feelings between them arose many years later, in 1898.
The stormy adolescence of the Russian poet
In the future, Lyubov Dmitrievna Mendeleev will become the only and eternal muse for the Block. But before lovemaking for this woman matured in him, he was seen in a stormy and slightly strange relationship with a certain Ksenia Sadovsky. This thirty-seven-year-old woman was married and at the time of meeting with Alexander already had three children. At the same time, Blok was only 16 years old at the time of his love for Sadovsky. The meeting of these two, it would seem, completely unsuitable for each other in terms of romantic relationships, people took place in one of the German resorts called Bad Nauheim. Blok fell deeply in love with this woman, enlightened her his poems and made secret dates. After they returned to St. Petersburg, a relationship arose between them. But very soon, Alexander grows cold to his lady and he has a new favorite - Lyubov Dmitrievna Mendeleev.
First love for each other
Once Lyubinâs mother invited seventeen-year-old Sasha to watch one of the performances that were often staged in Boblov for local peasants that summer. Lyubov Dmitrievna Mendeleev, whose biography we are considering, periodically dreamed of becoming a great actress periodically throughout her life, and, of course, she took an active part in the productions of these performances, playing even leading roles in some of them.
That evening, fatal for young people meetings on the stage of an impromptu theater were excerpts from Hamlet. Of course, Lyuba played Ophelia, and Blok himself volunteered for the role of Hamlet.
The girl made a huge impression on him, she was fresh, young, tender and at the same time strict and impregnable. At first, the young man made an opposite impression on her. She called him an arrogant pose.
After the performance, Lyubov Dmitrievna Mendeleev and Blok nevertheless decided to take a walk and were left alone. It was during this joint walk that they were imbued with mutual sympathy. Later, both recalled that this meeting was the beginning of their romance.
Passion for mysticism, Solovievâs teachings and dreams of âBeautiful Ladyâ
A well-known fact is that Blok was very attached to Solovievâs teachings and was subject to various hoaxes. He believed in the existence of some mysterious Beautiful Lady, who is the embodiment of tenderness and femininity. And the meaning of all life is to find it and love it with special love all life.
It is this Beautiful Lady who will become the main subject of the famous Blok lyric poetry, and very soon he will find a living embodiment of the image precisely in his old friend - Lyuba.
Mystical meetings in St. Petersburg
After that meeting in Boblovo, relations between Sasha and Lyuba began to cool. He returned to Petersburg and gradually began to consider for himself that their acquaintance was completely over. Mendeleeva, in turn, enrolled in the Higher Women's Courses in St. Petersburg, completely immersed in the student atmosphere. It seemed that young people had long since parted with thoughts of each other. But they began to reduce the case. Once in St. Petersburg, Blok accidentally saw Lyuba, who was going to study. He did not begin to hail the girl, but simply followed her secretly, leading her to the very building of the Women's Courses.
Very little time passed, and the poet again saw Lyuba. This time a chance meeting took place at the Maly Theater, during the premiere of "King Lear." It was then that the belief appeared in Blokâs head and was firmly rooted that all these meetings were far from accidental.
He realized that everything that happens between him and Anyone is a mystical coincidence. Solovyovâs ideas demanded to find his only âBeautiful Ladyâ, and Blok found her in the person of Mendeleev.
Resurrection of love feelings
After meeting at the theater, young people resume their communication again. In Blok, strong feelings awaken towards Lyuba, which begin to border on some kind of obsession. She, on the contrary, in every possible way refuses to accept his ideas and considerations on mystical subjects. Based on ideological and religious considerations, they often argue and quarrel. Their relationship during this period is very unstable: they either feel tenderness for each other, then they completely cool.
The logical development of all this begins in November 1902, when Alexander makes his favorite proposal, and Lyubov Dmitrievna Mendeleev accepts it.
The poetâs relationship with his mother and her dislike of Mendeleev
Alexandra Andreevna Beketova, the mother of Blok, had a rather difficult fate. In her youth, she had a stormy romance with a lawyer, Alexander Blok Sr. It ended with the wedding and the birth of the future poet. But this marriage was very unsuccessful. The young husband loved to drink and allowed himself to raise a hand on his wife. She was forced to leave him and devoted her entire subsequent life to her son. She adored her Sasha and devoted all his free time to him. Of course, when he announced the imminent marriage, Alexandra Andreevna was, to put it mildly, not enthusiastic. She was very jealous of Blok, and besides, she didnât really like Mendeleev herself. Beketova thought her daughter-in-law was too cold and somewhat arrogant. Even after the wedding took place, the mother-in-law did not begin to perceive her daughter-in-law normally, and their relationship did not work out in any way. It is paradoxical that women could make friends many years after the death of Alexander. The grief brought them so close that until her death, Alexandra Andreevna lived with Lyuba, once hated by her.
Earthly and spiritual love in the understanding of the Bloc
Blok's adherence to Solovievâs teachings greatly complicated his married life with Lyuba, since, strictly following them, Alexander took her as an ideal, the embodiment of Eternal Femininity.
In the poet's mind, there was a clear separation between carnal, physical and spiritual love. To his wife, he harbored just the second kind of feelings and constantly avoided physical intimacy, believing that she would ultimately destroy their relationship. Most likely, this was the factor that made Mendeleev look for happiness with others in the future. At the same time, Blok did not lag behind his wife and had relations both with ordinary girls of easy virtue and made quite serious novels. The first
love triangle in this family was formed with the help of Blok's close friend - the poet, known under the pseudonym Andrei Bely.
Endless cheating and romance on the side
White in a certain period of time was very close to Blok. Alexander and his wife often visited Bely, and with each meeting he fell more and more in love with Lyubov Dmitrievna. She behaved ambiguously: on the one hand, she was not going to leave her husband, but in Bely she supported a spark of interest. He wrote letters to her with fervent confessions and requests to leave her husband, she showed them to her husband, and this trio had ongoing trials. All this continued for three years, during which Bely brought himself to a state of pathological dependence on Mendeleev. It all this in the end began to bore her. At one of the last joint meetings, it was decided that Bely with the Blok family would not see each other for the next year. He kept his word and left for Munich. After that, he met with Mendeleev several more times and finally finally cooled to her.
In this non-standard pair of intrigues on the side, not only the wife of Alexander Blok sinned. The poet himself was seen in endless relationships with girls of easy virtue, but he also had serious novels. For example, it is worth recalling one of the actresses (to whom Blok has always felt a special weakness) named Natalia Volokhova. She was quite effective in appearance, and at some point it seemed to Alexander that it was to her that he felt both spiritual, unearthly intimacy, and carnal passion. The passion for this lady was so serious that they began to talk about the imminent divorce of Blok and Mendeleev. But Lyuba was not taken aback, she herself came to Volkhova and invited the actress to take on not only the love joys with her husband, but also all other household care for him. After this, the actressâs romance with Blok quickly ended, and her friendship with her loverâs wife, oddly enough, lasted almost her whole life.
Then the intrigue starts Mendeleev, and again with one of the friends of the Block - George Chulkov. The bloc does not attach any attention and significance to this, and the cavalier Lyube soon gets bored.
Lyubov Dmitrievna Mendeleev: children
Blok's wife also had a serious affair. Her chosen one was a young actor named Konstantin Davidovsky. The woman was with him on theatrical tours in the Caucasus and honestly wrote about everything in letters to Blok. After the tour, Lyuba returns home and tears all relations with her lover. But it turns out that she was pregnant. Since the period was considerable, Blocks decide to leave this baby and pretend that he is their common one. Unfortunately, after birth, the child lived only 8 days. Paradoxically, Alexander experienced the death of the infant much harder than his own mother.
Block's departure from life
After the death of the child, in order to recover, the couple travel a lot, Lyuba tries to forget herself and is fond of the theater. She again has an affair with an actor who is 9 years younger than her. She asks Blok for a divorce, but Blok does not let her go. The poet himself, in turn, is fond of an opera singer, Love Delmas, a little later, but passion passes quickly. It would seem that this string of mutual adultery could go on indefinitely, but the strange disease of Blok put it to the end, which doctors at that time could not find any explanation. He was tormented by fever, severe incomprehensible pains. The poet died on August 7, 1921. Mother survived her son only 2 years, and this time, oddly enough, she huddled in a small communal apartment with her once-hated daughter-in-law.
Lyubov Dmitrievna Blok herself, after the death of her husband, published a book of memoirs about him, worked in a choreographic school. It is said that after the death of Alexander she did not start a single novel, thus keeping him faithful after his death and protecting the memory of him.