Antony Beevor: The Mystery of Olga Chekhova

Reviewed by PHILIPPA JAMIESON

Popular at last year's Auckland Writers' Festival, Antony Beevor is well-known for his best-selling war histories (including Stalingrad and Berlin), and he puts his intimate knowledge of wartime Russia and Germany to further use in this biography.

The title is somewhat misleading as this book is not just about Olga Chekhova, although she certainly provides much interest and speculation: was this charming film-star with a string of younger lovers also a Russian spy? Rather, Beevor follows the fates and fortunes of two intermarried families during the two world wars, the Russian Civil War, and Stalin's purges.

Anton Chekhov, the playwright, married Olga Knipper (known to the family as Aunt Olya), an actress at the Moscow Art Theatre. The Chekhov and Knipper families became doubly linked when Aunt Olya's niece, also called Olga, married Chekhov's nephew Misha. This precocious and spontaneous elopement dissolved fairly quickly, but Olga inherited the Chekhov name, further cementing her connection with Russia's revered playwright.

Although born and bred in Russia, Olga Chekhova returned to her Knipper family's German roots by moving to Berlin in 1920. She passed herself off as an actress (benefiting from having the same name as her aunt), and became famous in Europe as a film star. Her charm and elegance ensured her a place in Berlin high society, and she was invited to receptions hosted by Nazi leaders, including Goebbels and Hitler.

Chekhova had to walk a tightrope of diplomacy, as she was suspected of spying by both the Germans and the Russians. Beevor tries to solve the mystery of her connections with Russian intelligence. Throughout the book, he refers to Olga Chekhova's own memoir, I Conceal Nothing, as frequently fanciful and sometimes factually incorrect.

The Chekhovs and Knippers were educated and wrote frequently, even between warring countries. Excerpts from their correspondence reveal the deep and enduring feelings of family members for each other.

The letters are surprisingly frank, given the censorship of the Stalinist regime and the ever-present possibility of being arrested and shot or sent to the gulag for anti-revolutionary sentiment. Beevor also describes the changing fortunes of the Moscow Art Theatre and the repression of writers and artists during the Stalinist period. It is remarkable that, by and large, the Knipper-Chekhov family escaped the brutality of the time, although they were reduced to burning books and furniture for warmth, and suffered from lack of food.

The book is sprinkled with names from the period: Stanislavsky, for instance, who was director at the Moscow Art Theatre, and probably best remembered as inventor of "method acting", which was taken to Hollywood by Olga Chekhova's erstwhile husband, Misha. There's even a surprise cameo appearance by a young Elvis Presley.

Full of events and characters, this well-researched saga left me giddy, wishing I had more background knowledge so my head wasn't reeling with names and dates. But the story really comes alive when Beevor zooms in on the simple details of daily life, when he recounts anecdotes that show the humanity and the bond of these families and how they survived war, repression and loss.

Viking $49.95

* Philippa Jamieson is a Christchurch freelance writer.