Elena Mikhnenko: Difference between revisions

Elena Mikhnenko
Елена Михненко
Born	(1922-10-30)30 October 1922 Warsaw, Poland
Died	1993(1993-00-00) (aged 70–71) Jambyl, Kazakhstan
Nationality	French Ukrainian
Other names	Lucie
Criminal charges	Anti-Soviet agitation
Parents	Nestor Makhno (father) Halyna Kuzmenko (mother)

Elena Nestorovna Mikhnenko (Russian: Елена Несторовна Михненко; 1922–1993) was the daughter of the Ukrainian anarchist revolutionaries Nestor Makhno and Halyna Kuzmenko. Born in exile, she spent her early life in France, where she was found at the outbreak of World War II. Following the occupation of France, Mikhnenko was captured and conscripted into forced labour by Nazi Germany. She was subsequently arrested by the Soviet Union, which first imprisoned her for "anti-Soviet agitation" and then exiled her to Kazakhstan, where she died.

Elena Mikhnenko's parents, Nestor Makhno and Halyna Kuzmenko, met in 1919, while Makhno was fighting in the Ukrainian War of Independence. They were leading figures in the Makhnovist movement, which attempted to establish anarchist communism in southern Ukraine.^[1] The Makhnovists were defeated by the Bolsheviks in 1921, forcing Makhno and Kuzmenko to flee into exile.^[2] They briefly stayed in Romania, before moving on to Poland, where they were interned separately on charges of plotting an anti-Polish uprising in Galicia.^[3]

On 30 October 1922, Mikhnenko was born in Pawiak prison, where her mother was being held, while her father was himself imprisoned in Mokotów Prison.^[4] At their trial the following year, the couple were acquitted, released from prison and permitted to stay in Poland.^[5] The strain of life in exile caused the family to quickly fall apart, with Makhno and Kuzmenko frequently separating.^[6] Elena spent most of her early years with her mother, rarely ever getting a chance to connect with her father.^[7]

In 1925, the family moved to Paris, where Elena lived for most of her formative years,^[8] going on to work in her mother's grocery store in Vincennes.^[7] The families of French anarchists often looked after the young Elena, giving her the Francised pet name of "Lucie". She thus grew up speaking the French language, eventually forgetting how to speak Russian and never even learning how to speak Ukrainian.^[9] In 1929, Elena was taken on holiday by her father to the southern coastal town of Aimargues, which was well-known for its relatively large anarchist community.^[10] Sick and in poverty, her father was financially supported by the French anarchist movement, but spent most of this money on Elena.^[11] In March 1934, her father finally succumbed to his tuberculosis, leaving his daughter with the final words "be healthy and happy, my daughter", before he died in his sleep.^[12] Due to her father's political activities, Elena came to reject politics at a young age, pledging that she would "take no interest in politics or newspapers".^[13]

In 1939, Elena graduated from secondary school.^[14] Following the Nazi invasion of France, she was conscripted into forced labour and transferred to Berlin. On 14 August 1945,^[9] after the fall of Berlin, she was then arrested by the Soviets and transferred to Kyiv.^[15] While imprisoned in the Ukrainian capital, she slapped a fellow inmate after they asked if her father was "the renowned bandit".^[13]

She was eventually sentenced to five years for "anti-Soviet agitation"^[14] and subsequently exiled to Jambyl, in the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic.^[15] While surveilled by the authorities, she found employment doing manual labour in the city's canteens, factories and pig farms, but was often dismissed after her employers learnt that her father was Nestor Makhno. This fact also kept her single for most of her life, as men often left her upon discovering her father's identity.^[13] Following the death of Stalin, she was joined in Jambyl by her mother, but it had been so long since they'd been together that they did not recognize each other upon Kuzmenko's arrival.^[16]

In 1968, Elena reluctantly accepted to be interviewed by the Russian historian Sergey Semanov [ru], who described her as "edgy, irritated and trusted no one." During the interview, Elena reportedly spoke Russian with a thick Parisian accent. She declared that she felt she had no homeland, neither in France nor the Soviet Union, but nevertheless asked Semanov to send her some French newspapers, which she was unable to get in Kazakhstan.^[17]

Elena remained unmarried and childless into old age, declaring that she never wanted children, as she feared they would "share the same fate as me".^[13] She eventually enrolled at the city's Hydro-Melioration Institute, where she worked until her death.^[14] In 1993, Elena Mikhnenko died in Jambyl, at the age of 71.^[18]