Lilya Brik - After Mayakovsky's Death

After Mayakovsky's Death

Later in 1930, after divorcing Osip earlier that year, she married Soviet General Vitali Primakov. Primakov was arrested in 1936 and executed in 1937 in relation to the Case of Trotskyist Anti-Soviet Military Organization, a part of the Moscow Trials. The charges were dropped and he was rehabilitated posthumously in 1957.

In her 1935 letter to Joseph Stalin, Lilya Brik complained that Mayakovsky's poetic heritage was getting neglected. Stalin made a famous remark to Nikolai Yezhov:

"Comrade Yezhov, please take charge of Brik's letter. Mayakovsky is still the best and the most talented poet of our Soviet epoch. Indifference to his cultural heritage is a crime. Brik's complaints are, in my opinion, justified..."

In 1938, she married writer Vasily Abgarovich Katanyan and they spent forty years together.

Lilya Brik committed suicide at the age of 87 when she was terminally ill. She left sculptures and writings. Recently published letters between the sisters in the course of more than five decades (except six years of World War II) reveal insights into life and cultural exchange across the Iron Curtain.