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Mira Aleksandrovna Mendelson
Ми́ра Алекса́ндровна Мендельсо́н
Mira Mendelson and Sergei Prokofiev in 1946
Born	Mariya-Cecilia Abramovna Mendelson (1915-01-08)January 8, 1915
Died	June 8, 1968(1968-06-08) (aged 53)
Nationality	Russian
Occupation(s)	Poet Writer

Mariya-Cecilia Abramovna Mendelson-Prokofieva (Russian: Мари́я-Цеци́лия Абра́мовна Мендельсо́н-Проко́фьева), typically referred to as Mira Mendelson (Russian: Ми́ра Алекса́ндровна Мендельсо́н), (January 8, 1915 – June 8, 1968) was a Russian poet and writer who was the second wife of Sergei Prokofiev. She was the co-librettist of her husband's operas Betrothal in a Monastery, The Story of a Real Man, and War and Peace, as well as the ballet The Tale of the Stone Flower.

Biography

Mendelson was born in Kiev on January 8, 1915; the only child of Abram Solomonovich and Vera Natanovna Mendelson. Her father was an economist and statistician, while her mother had earned recognition for her work as a CPSU member. As a young woman she began her studies in higher education at the Energy Sector of the Genplan Institute of Moscow, before eventually moving on to the Maxim Gorky Literature Institute.

The details of how she first met Prokofiev, or how her professional relationship with the then married composer developed into an extramarital affair remain unclear. According to her memoirs, she met her future husband in August 1938 at a resort in Kislovodsk, where they were vacationing with their respective families. After their first conversation on August 26, they began taking walks together wherein they would discuss music and literature. In a letter written to Prokofiev less than a year before their final separation, his then wife Lina recalled:

"Remember what you wrote after the first meeting. It was hardly you who chose , but they who "chose" you—where? At a health resort—you, not some speck of sand, but , the leading composer of the nation, a famous person with a family man aura, twice as old. Perhaps you will say "love at first sight"—who will believe that? There were sufficient witnesses in Kislovodsk to the fact that she followed you everywhere."

After the end of their vacation, they promised to meet again in Kislovodsk the next summer and to remain in contact in the meantime. In January 1939 he gifted to her a signed photograph of himself, which bore the inscription: "To a blossoming poet, from a modest admirer." By the fall of the same year, Prokofiev began to appear in public with Mendelson, including at the premiere of Semyon Kotko, an event at which his wife was also in attendance, leading to an uncomfortable moment between the three. At this time he began sketching out the Piano Sonata No. 8, a work whose first movement "Andante dolce" theme he told Mendelson was inspired by her. He dedicated the score to her upon its completion in 1944. Lina Prokofiev stated in interviews after her former husband's death that he initially described Mendelson as "just some girl who wants me to read her bad poetry." When he later revealed the affair to his wife, she replied that she would not object to it so long as he did not go to live with Mendelson. On March 15, 1941, Prokofiev declared to his wife that their marriage was over. He moved into Mendelson's apartment in central Moscow a few days later. Despite the acrimonious separation, Prokofiev continued to financially support his estranged wife and family, sometimes employing his friend and colleague Levon Atovmyan as an intermediary.

The German invasion of the Soviet Union forced Mendelson and Prokofiev to flee Moscow, first to the Georgian SSR, then to the Kazakh SSR. During this period they collaborated on a number of operatic projects, many of which were abandoned, including a proposed setting of Tolstoy's Resurrection. Out of that came the couple's most important artistic collaboration, the opera War and Peace, a subject Mendelson's father suggested was better suited for the composer.

After the end of World War II, the couple returned to Moscow, and spent the rest of their summers together in Nikolina Gora [ru]. While there the couple enjoyed gardening and venturing into the surrounding forests to forage for mushrooms, sometimes joined by his friend Nikolai Myaskovsky. On November 22, 1947, Prokofiev filed a petition in court to begin divorce proceedings against his estranged wife. Five days later the court rejected his petition, ruling that the marriage had no legal basis since it had taken place in Germany, and had not been registered with Soviet officials, thus making it null and void. After a second judge upheld the verdict, he and Mendelson wed on January 15, 1948. About a month after the marriage, Prokofiev's ex-wife was arrested in Moscow by Soviet authorities and sentenced to 20 years in the Gulag.

Prokofiev's final years were beset by health problems brought upon by hypertension, which necessitated Mendelson's additional assistance as secretary and sometimes caregiver. Despite his increasing physical ailments, Mendelson worked to aid him as much possible in order for him to retain his customary working schedule, as well as maintain his interests in new music and art. He died from a cerebral hemorrhage on March 5, 1953. After his death, his first wife petitioned the courts to have them reassert her rights as Prokofiev's sole and legitimate spouse. An initial ruling in her favor was reversed by the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union on March 12, 1958, which reaffirmed that her marriage had no legal validity. Dmitri Shostakovich, Dmitry Kabalevsky, and Tikhon Khrennikov were among the witnesses called upon by the court to give their testimonies.

Mendelson spent her own final years organizing her husband's papers, promoting his music, and writing her memoirs. She died of a heart attack in Moscow on June 8, 1968. According to her wishes and those of her deceased husband, she was buried by his side at Novodevichy Cemetery. Her diary was published in 2004. It was reissued and expanded with the inclusion of the entirety of her surviving writings about her husband in 2012. Two years before her death, she bequeathed various personal belongings to the Sergei Prokofiev Museum in Moscow.

References

1. Schlifstein 1957, p. 330.
2. ^ Morrison 2009, p. 158.
3. Taruskin, Richard (December 1, 1992). "Mendelson (Prokof'yeva), Mira Alexandrovna". Grove Music Online. doi:10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.o903019. Retrieved January 7, 2021.
4. Morrison 2009, p. 157.
5. Robinson, Harlow (July 31, 2019). Sergei Prokofiev: A Biography. Plunkett Lake Press. GGKEY:PKWXCCS9XG5.
6. Morrison 2009, p. 160.
7. Morrison 2009, p. 162.
8. Berman, Boris (2008). Prokofiev's Piano Sonatas: A Guide for the Listener and the Performer. New Haven: Yale University Press. p. 170. ISBN 9780300114904.
9. Morrison 2009, p. 180.
10. ^ Morrison 2009, p. 175.
11. Schlifstein 1957, pp. 172–173.
12. "Encyclopédie Larousse en ligne - Serge Prokofiev". www.larousse.fr (in French). Retrieved January 7, 2021.
13. Mendelson-Prokofieva 2012, p. 350.
14. Schlifstein 1957, pp. 170–171.
15. Schlifstein 1957, pp. 182–183, 190.
16. Samuel, Claude (1961). Prokofiev (1971 ed.). New York City: Grossman Publishers. p. 154.
17. ^ Morrison 2009, p. 311.
18. Mendelson-Prokofieva 2012, p. 25.
19. Mendelson-Prokofieva 2012, p. 26.
20. "Buchveröffentlichung über Sergej Prokofjew". nmz - neue musikzeitung (in German). August 9, 2005. Retrieved January 8, 2021.
21. Mendelson-Prokofieva 2012, p. 4.
22. "Museum of Sergei Prokofiev". www.russianmuseums.info. Retrieved January 8, 2021.

Cited sources

• Morrison, Simon (2009). The People's Artist: Prokofiev's Soviet Years. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195181678.
• Mendelson-Prokofieva, Nina (2012). О Сергее Сергеевиче Прокофьеве. Воспоминания. Дневники (1938–1967) (in Russian). Москва: Композитор. ISBN 9785425400468.
• Schlifstein, S. I., ed. (1957). Sergei Prokofiev: Autobiography, Articles, Reminiscences. Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House.

• Sergei Prokofiev
• 1914 births
• 1968 deaths
• People from Kyiv
• Russian Jews
• Soviet Jews
• Jewish poets
• Russian poets
• Soviet writers
• Soviet women writers
• Russian women writers
• 20th-century Russian poets
• 20th-century Russian women writers
• 20th-century Russian writers
• Soviet poets
• 20th-century Russian translators
• Russian opera librettists
• Burials at Novodevichy Cemetery