On September 23 the Holocaust Center jointly with the Solzhenitsyn House of Russian Abroad held a memorial evening in Moscow dedicated to the 125th anniversary of the birth of Elsa Triolet (1896-1970), the author of more than 30 novels, a member of the Resistance, sister of Lily Brik and wife of Louis Aragon.
She became the first woman and the first writer not born in France to win the Goncourt Prize (1945), the first translator of Alexander Solzhenitsyn's story “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” into French, and one of the screenwriters of the first joint Soviet-French film “Normandie - Nieman” (1960), a popularizer of Russian and Soviet culture in France. Poems by Louis Aragon, drawings by Henri Matisse, and a dress by Yves Saint Laurent were dedicated to her.
French custodians of the writer's heritage, employees of the Russian State Archives of Literature and Art presented new little-known facts and documents about the life of Elsa Triolet and her family. Dr. Ilya Altman, Director of the International Center for the History of the Holocaust and Genocides, and Dr. Victoria Khilkevich, a local historian (Armavir) revealed unique information about the biography of Elsa Triolet and her family during World War II.
The event was opened by Dr. Alla Gerber, President of the Holocaust Foundation, writer, holder of the Legion of Honor, who said: “Elsa Triolet was an independent person. She had a very active life position, was a star of literary salons, a favorite of artists, and many of her actions were characterized by a certain sacrifice”. The evening was continued by Dr. Guillaume Roubaud-Quashie, Director of the House-Museum of Elsa Triolet and Louis Aragon in France.
Dr. Valerie Posner, a senior fellow at the French National Center for Academic Research, revealed some details of the writer’s biography, traced through her numerous letters to relatives. She gave a separate account of the love story of Elsa and the poet Vladimir Mayakovsky. Dr. Elena Bronnikova, a member of the Academic Council, senior fellow of the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art, showed Elsa Triolet's books, read her warm messages to her sister Lilya Brik and her mother Elena Kagan. The guests were treated to the performance by Mr. Viktor Leonidov a bard, a historian by profession, and Mr. Vitaly Dymarsky, a journalist, described his translation of the foreword to Elsa Triolet's novel "Le Monument".
Participants from around the world, as well as a number of representatives of the Holocaust Center in the regions, listened to the event through ZOOM.
