Jacqueline Kennedy and Andrei Voznesensky: Love of the First Lady of America and the Soviet Poet against the Background of the Iron Curtain

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Jacqueline, or Jackie, as the whole world called her, was not just the first lady of America, but also a delicate, deeply feeling nature. She was fascinated by the Russian poet and his work. He also wrote about her: The history of this friendship, which developed against the background of the Cold War and the Iron Curtain, today seems especially surprising.

Andrei Voznesensky came to America for the first time in 1961. It was in this year that Jacqueline Kennedy became the first lady. When the president's wife attended a creative evening of the Russian poet, this, of course, added to his popularity and flattered his pride. Although his trip was already very successful. "Evenings" quickly became fashionable and attracted a huge number of poetry lovers. Voznesensky's success was also facilitated by the fact that he spoke English not only well, but brilliantly, as the newspapers wrote that year. Therefore, communication with the audience was very easy. Both the poet himself and his poems made a very strong impression on Jacqueline; Russian literature was generally included in the list of her hobbies. By the way, the first lady of America received an excellent education. She attended George Washington University and had a Bachelor of Arts with a specialization in French literature. Then she worked as a correspondent, and later as an editor in a publishing house, preparing books for publication by many writers, and therefore Voznesensky's work also aroused her professional interest.

They met personally later, at a reception with billionaire Peter Peterson (according to some sources, only in 1968 at the UN conference in New York, but most likely, this still happened earlier). In any case, according to the recollections of the poet's wife, the meetings of the poet and Jacqueline, starting from the first acquaintance, took place regularly. Jackie attended almost all of his evenings and concerts, even went to other cities for this - the program of performances was very tight. She always sat in the front row. In such cases, the press was not supposed to photograph the first lady, in the photographs of the hall she was specially exposed, but after performances she sometimes agreed to take photographs, clearly not hiding her passion for the Russian poet.

The wife of Andrei Voznesensky, Zoya Boguslavskaya, admitted later: the poet even made translations of new poems especially for his high-ranking admirer. All contemporaries noted that Voznesensky's voice had a hypnotic effect on the audience, and the rhythm of his poetry literally mesmerized. In Russia, the culture of public reading of poems was a long tradition, but for America of those years it came as a surprise. The first lady is clearly caught in the net, woven of the talent and incredible charm of the Russian genius.

Of course, Jacqueline herself was a woman who could drive any man crazy. Not a natural beauty, she nevertheless possessed a very special charm and an incredible sense of style, thanks to which she became a fashion icon for a whole generation in a few years. Everyone loved her, but the Russian poet appreciated those qualities in her that, probably, ordinary Americans rarely noticed - incredible sophistication and what is commonly called a "European touch." She perceived any art - from the classics to the most fashionable trends, this has always conquered young people, but Russian literature was her passion. Voznesensky, on the other hand, was amorous, everyone noted this, but everyone also knew that relationships with women whom he admired were usually purely platonic. For such fateful ladies who became his muses, he even invented a special word, the poet called them "destinies".

As the wife of Andrei Voznesensky said, this platonic romance lasted a very long time. For many years then, after the first meeting, the Russian poet and Jacqueline met at every opportunity - she traveled to Europe specifically to hear his performances, he visited her, in her apartment in New York on Fifth Avenue. Once, when this star couple came to an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, the administrators even quickly expelled all visitors from the hall. Voznesensky and Jackie walked around the empty museum holding hands and talking endlessly.

The fate of one memorable thing made by Voznesensky himself is interesting. The fact is that artistic creativity was also very close to the great poet. He admitted in an interview that his work was more influenced not by poets of old times, but by modern painters. Voznesensky did not write pictures, but he loved to tinker - avant-garde paper compositions from poems, twisted into bizarre shapes. One of these "crafts" was made in the shape of a butterfly, on which two words "Nabokov's butterfly" were written. The poet himself told about this story as follows:

The woman he had admired for so many years passed away in 1994, and Jacqueline's Butterfly became the symbol of the Poet and Lady exhibition recently opened in Moscow. Photos, poetic lines, memoirs of contemporaries - from the friendship, which was not prevented by the oceans and the aggressive policy of giant countries, there are not so many memorable signs left today. Unfortunately, the fragile paper butterfly has not survived either, so today only a photograph of her hangs in the living room, which conveys the atmosphere of the house of the legendary woman who became the muse of the great Russian poet.

Many popular songs were written on the poems of Andrei Voznesensky. One of them was performed incredibly soulfully by the composer and bard Sergei Nikitin. "Waltz by candlelight": life-affirming verses of the genius "sixties" Andrei Voznesensky