On February 15, 1947, the Soviet Union banned foreign-related marriages .
After that, not only were Soviet citizens unable to register marriage with foreign lovers, but those who were already married were also having a hard time.
But the famous composer Sergei Prokofiev was a blessing in disguise, and he became the only person in the history of the Soviet Union to have two legal wives at the same time. What is the reason for banning
?
At that time, the Soviet Union did not provide specific explanations for the reasons for the ban.
Some experts explained that the official did not want to see Soviet women being discriminated against abroad.
However, I have never seen any document explicitly mention this, and I have never confirmed that this kind of discrimination exists abroad. The most likely reason for
is caused by changing times.
In the 1930s, the door to the Soviet Union was opened so narrowly that ordinary people could not even think of going abroad.
However, The Patriotic War changed everything.
First of all, after the war, all of Eastern Europe fell within the Soviet sphere of influence. The Soviet army was stationed in large numbers in Eastern Europe, and thousands of civilian personnel stayed abroad for a long time. People continued to apply to start a family with Poles , Czechs , Bulgarians .
Secondly, during the war, millions of Soviet civilians were abducted to Germany and other places and engaged in forced labor. After the war, most of these people returned home, but some refused to return home because they could not leave their foreign spouses behind.
The number of foreign-related marriages in the Soviet Union increased significantly.
But why the sudden brakes and the one-size-fits-all approach? The background of
is that the relationship between the Soviet Union and the West has deteriorated sharply, the Cold War has begun, and the Iron Curtain has been drawn down.
Given that foreign-related marriage was actually the only legal opportunity for ordinary people in the Soviet Union to immigrate, the authorities were worried that even if tens of thousands of people went abroad, it would have a negative impact on the image of the Soviet Union and become a tool used by the West.
This kind of worry cannot be said to be without reason.
For example, Ukrainian Viktor Kravcen published a book in the United States in 1946, vividly describing the tragic conditions of collective farms, which caused a global sensation, gave Western anti-Soviet forces a pretext, and severely dealt a blow to the Soviet Union's overseas propaganda.
One Klavfken is enough to give people a headache, but if there were a few more Kravfürst among the tens of thousands of people who go abroad every year, it would be a big deal! What impact has
caused?
The ban on foreign-related marriages has the greatest impact on women.
After the war, the ratio of men to women in the Soviet Union was seriously imbalanced, with more than 20 million women outnumbering men, forcing many women to choose to marry foreigners.
These people include two categories.
First, there are the largest number of Soviet women who work and live abroad and are married to foreigners.
The second category is women who married foreigners in the Soviet Union. There are only a small number of these people, and they mainly marry members of the diplomatic corps.
As for male soldiers, military law strictly prohibits them from marrying foreign women. In some units, soldiers can be severely punished simply for having a relationship with a foreign woman.
So, the ban was initially targeted at Soviet women living abroad.
If they live in Eastern Europe, the solution is simple: the marriage is annulled and the women are deported.
For those women living in the US-occupied areas or British-occupied areas , the solution is relatively difficult.
The Soviet Union usually said that such marriages were not registered with the Soviet consulate or civil department and were therefore invalid.
And it is impossible to go to the consulate to re-register because "foreign-related marriages are illegal."
After some operations, these Soviet women were quickly sent back home.
In the late 1940s, the vast majority of Soviet citizens who were married to foreigners returned home voluntarily or involuntarily. There were only 16,000 people living in Western Europe, all of whom were married and had children. Considering the practical difficulties, the Soviet Union decided not to move these families.
As for foreign-related marriages in the Soviet Union, they are usually handled by the KGB .
The famous Soviet actress Tatyana Akunevskaya is a famous example. She was accused of disloyalty to the Soviet Union for falling in love with a foreigner, and was eventually sentenced to ten years in prison.
Soviet actress Zoya Federova fell in love with American Jackson Tedder. Not only was she sentenced to 25 years in prison for espionage, her personal property was confiscated, but her family was also in trouble, and the whole family was exiled to Kazakhstan .
As for those who were married before the ban came into effect, KGB personnel either directly contacted them or contacted them indirectly through relatives, and tried every means to persuade or threaten them to divorce foreigners.
If the foreign husband of a Soviet woman decides to leave the Soviet Union, the spouse is not allowed to accompany him, even if he pleads with a high-ranking official, it will be useless!
All of this later led to some drama and even legal trouble.
made trouble United Nations
After the ban was promulgated and before it came into effect, some Soviet women ran away with their "foreign husbands" in complicated moods.
For example, Tamara Wegg, who was married to Tito 's eldest son, moved to Yugoslavia in 1946 because of this "ban." As a result, her father, a high-ranking official, was removed from his post and expelled from the party for "losing vigilance."
Yevgenia Dumnova, who was married to a staff member of the Uruguayan embassy, was able to go abroad with her husband only after the Uruguayan foreign minister personally made a personal request to Molotov .
Couples have also experienced more serious hardships, and even caused international disputes.
At the end of 1946, Lidia Lesina married The son of Chilean Ambassador Ocampo. In the autumn of the following year, diplomatic conflicts broke out between the Soviet Union and Chile, and relations broke down. However, Ambassador Ocampo and his family refused to leave the country unless their daughter-in-law Lidiya went with them. The Chilean authorities shouted support across the sea and refused to allow the mission to leave the country.
In the summer of 1948, Ambassador Ocampo was appointed as the representative to the United Nations and went to New York to take office. Little Ocampo refused to separate from his wife and rented the "National Hotel" (near Kremlin ) for a long time. In order to prevent being "abducted", the two stayed together all day long.
Later, Ocampo complained about Soviet behavior to the United Nations Legal Committee (Sixth Committee). The family matter turned into an international dispute, but it still did not shake the Soviet Union's determination to "retain" Lidia.
During this period, the KGB repeatedly approached Lidia for work and asked her to divorce. But no matter how hard the KGB forced her, or how her relatives and friends tried to persuade her, the determined Lidiya remained unmoved.
So, the KGB notified the hotel to double the room rate for the couple, hoping that they would give up.
doesn't work again! Chile's foreign minister promised to provide the money.
Later, the case of Lesina Ocampo was submitted to the Soviet Council of Ministers for discussion.
KGB chief Semyon Ignatieff suggested expelling little Ocampo from the country and arresting Lesina under Article 58 of the Criminal Code.
may for some reason his suggestion not be implemented.
A few months later, in March 1953, the political situation in the Soviet Union was in turmoil, and no one could care about the fateful couple.
In October 1953, the six-year ban on foreign-related marriages was abolished.
Ocampo and Lesina finally left Moscow, where they had been stranded for five years, and headed for Chile.
Royal Family Tragedy
The story of Lesina and Ocampo finally has a happy ending, but others may not be equally lucky.
Mishka Babichov was the son of Tsarist Russian dragoon officer Ivan Babichov and a relative of Ethiopian Emperor Menelik II .
Ivan Babichov escorted the Russian mission to Ethiopia in 1898, later settled in Ethiopia, married Menelik II's sister-in-law, and even became the commander of the army.
Mishka grew up in a military camp and followed his father to become a soldier. In 1930, he was sent to the French Air Force Academy by Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie I . After graduation, he worked as the emperor's personal pilot and was later promoted to Air Force Commander. And founded civil aviation. In 1944, he transferred to the diplomatic service and was stationed in the Soviet Union as charge d'affaires.
In early 1946, Mishka fell in love with and married a Soviet woman, Lyudmila Nesterenkova, and gave birth to her son Alexander in April 1947.
In early 1948, Mishka suffered a stroke and decided to go to Sweden for treatment. But the Soviet Union did not allow his wife and son to accompany him.
Since he was destined to be unable to return to Moscow to fulfill his original duties, in 1949, the Soviet Union expelled Lyudmila and Alexander from their Moscow residence, canceled their marriage, and confiscated their marriage certificates.
From then on, Mishka knew nothing about the fate of his wife and children, and kept writing letters to try to contact them, and even asked the emperor to ask for help, but in the end they could not reunite. In December 1964, Mishka died. In order not to offend the authorities, Lyudmila had already remarried in 1956, and her son took his stepfather's surname.
The only good thing is that in 2010, Alexander went to Ethiopia and visited his biological father's grave.
Prokofiev case
Foreign marriage ban not only creates tragic comedy , but also leads to legal trouble. This is the so-called "Prokofiev case".
You may not have thought that the world-famous composer Sergei Prokofiev was the only man in Soviet history to have two legal wives at the same time.
In 1923, Prokofiev, who was living in Spain, married Lina Cordina, a Spanish opera actress who could speak five languages.
In 1936, the two settled in Moscow with their son Oleg.
Unexpectedly, two years later, Prokofiev fell in love with Mira Mendelsohn, a female student in the liberal arts college, and lived with Mira without telling his wife.
At the beginning of 1948, Prokofiev decided to officially marry Mila as his wife. At this time, he had not yet divorced Lina.
Since the ban on foreign-related marriages has come into effect, the Civil Registry Office’s explanation is quite “impeccable”: it believes that a marriage with a foreign woman (although Lina holds a Soviet passport) concluded abroad and has not been registered by the Soviet consulate is illegal and invalid. A divorce is necessary.
Lina heard about this, made a scene and asked to leave the Soviet Union.
Since then, this suspicious Spanish woman has been on the "blacklist".
In February 1948, after Prokofiev's wedding, Lina was arrested. Nine months later, she was convicted of "espionage" and "treason" and sentenced to 20 years of reform.
In October 1953, the ban on foreign-related marriages was abolished.
In June 1956, Lina was released early.
filed a lawsuit in 1957, asserting her rights as the only legal wife of the late composer Prokofiev.
The court was surprised to find that Prokofiev's previous marriage had not yet ended, so it ruled in favor of Lina.
However, Milla believed that she was also Prokofiev's legal wife and filed a countersuit.
In March 1958, the High Court supported her request and declared that both women were "legal wives."
Later, the Soviet legal circles called this matter the "Prokofiev case", and Prokofiev became the only Soviet man to have two legal wives at the same time.
