Trotsky's sister and Kamenev's wife: the architect of Soviet cultural diplomacy with the West
In 1927, Sergei Prokofiev visited her in the Kremlin and wrote in his diary: 'Olga Davidovna herself seemed to be a lively, agreeable, somewhat American-style lady.'
A Bolshevik revolutionary and Soviet cultural administrator, sister of Leon Trotsky and first wife of Lev Kamenev. As head of the Theater Division (TEO) of Narkompros from 1918, she worked with Vsevolod Meyerhold to radicalize Russian theater under Bolshevik control, and as chairman of VOKS (1925–1928) she built the framework of Soviet cultural diplomacy, hosting Western intellectuals including Le Corbusier and Theodore Dreiser. She also ran a leading Moscow literary salon in the 1920s and served on the board of the Party Women's Section, but lost all positions after her husband and brother fell from power in 1927 and was shot in the Medvedev forest massacre near Oryol in 1941.
Career Timeline
- 1902Joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party
- 1918–1919Head of the Theater Division (TEO), Narkompros
- 1919–1920sBoard member, Party Women's Section (Zhenotdel)
- 1921–1923Leading member, Central Commission for Fighting the After-Effects of the Famine
- 1923–1925Head, Commission for Foreign Relief (KZP)
- 1925–1928Chairman, All-Union Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries (VOKS)
- 1927Lost all positions after Kamenev and Trotsky's defeat at the Party Congress