Chimes of a Lost Cathedral

Cast of Characters and Notes on Events from The Revolution of Marina M.

Marina Dmitrievna Makarova: Poet. Born 1900, daughter of a prominent Petrograd intelligentsia family. Breaks with family October 1917, joins a circle of radical poets. Marries poet Genya Kuriakin 1918. Her various aliases include Marusya, the deaf-mute, and Misha, boy hooligan and railway apprentice. Pregnant by estranged lover Kolya Shurov, she has just fled the cult of Ionia, February 1919.

Dmitry Ivanovich Makarov: Marina’s father. Jurist and Kadet member of the Provisional Government. Presently in Siberia, joining forces with anti-Bolshevik groups. Named Marina a Bolshevik spy rather than risk endangering his movement.

Vera Borisovna Makarova: Marina’s mother. Artistic society matron, a spiritualist seeker. Aristocrat. Currently the mystical figurehead of a cult based at her estate at Maryino.

Sergei (Seryozha) Dmitrievich Makarov: Marina’s beloved, artistic younger brother. Died in the defense of the Moscow Kremlin, October 1917, as a military cadet, a post secured by his father against Marina’s protests.

Vladimir (Volodya) Dmitrievich Makarov: Marina’s older brother. An officer of the tsar’s army, now fighting with the Volunteers (Whites) under Denikin in the Don.

Avdokia Fomanovna Malykh: Elderly nanny to the Makarov children, and to Vera Borisovna before them.

Ginevra Haddon-Finch: Marina’s governess. Returned to England after the October Revolution.

Basya: The Makarovs’ housemaid. Clever and vengeful. Becomes chairman of the apartment house committee (domkom) on Furshtatskaya Street, a position of power, from which she persecutes her former mistress.

Nikolai (Kolya) Stepanovich Shurov: Marina’s first and great love. Former officer, Volodya’s best friend. Speculator and adventurer. Their relationship ruptured following his infidelity with a peasant woman, Faina. Unaware Marina is pregnant.

Varvara Vladimirovna Razrushenskaya: Marina’s brilliant school friend, a radical Marxist and committed Communist, later a Cheka officer. Ruined Marina’s relationship with her family by revealing her to have spied on her father for the Bolsheviks. Briefly Marina’s possessive lover. Marina abandons her to run away with Kolya.

Wilhelmina (Mina) Solomonovna Katzeva: Marina’s childhood best friend. Chemistry student at university. Forced to leave school when her photographer father dies. Now running his studio. Briefly Kolya’s lover. Hires Marina, as “Misha,” to be her photographer’s assistant. Marina abandons her for Kolya during the first anniversary of the revolution.

Both Seryozha and Marina, as well as Marina’s poet circle, are close to the Katzev family.

Solomon Moiseivich Katzev: Mina’s father. A well-known Petrograd photographer. Championed Seryozha. Dies from the hardships following the revolution.

Sofia Yakovlevna Katzeva: Mina’s mother. A kind woman with a soft spot for the Makarov children.

Uncle Aaron and Aunt Fanya: Solomon Moiseivich’s elderly brother and his wife. Anarchists. Formerly lived in America.

Darya (Dunya) Solomonovna Katzeva: Mina’s younger sister. In love with painter Sasha Orlovsky.

Shoshanna (Shusha) Solomonovna Katzeva: Mina’s youngest sister. A great admirer of Marina’s.

Roman Osipovich Ippolit: Mina’s fiancé. Medical student.

The Transrational Interlocutors of the Terrestrial Now, many of whom lived together in a loose collective called the Poverty Artel on Grivtsova Alley.

Gennady (Genya) Yurievich Kuriakin: Marina’s lover, later husband. Futurist poet, Bolshevik. Charismatic center of the poets’ circle. Departs for Moscow with Zina Ostrovskaya to act in films after breakup with Marina. Creates a radical theatrical group.

Anton Mikhailovich Chernikov: Leader of the Transrational Interlocutors, editor of the journal Okno, Genya’s best friend and mentor. Difficult and critical of Marina. The sole legitimate tenant of the Poverty Artel.

Zina Ostrovskaya: Radical poet. In love with Genya Kuriakin. Creates an opportunity for Genya to move with her to Moscow.

Gigo Gelashvili: Georgian poet, slightly mad.

Sasha Orlovsky: Constructivist painter. Friend of Genya’s. In love with Dunya Katzeva.

Galina Krestovskaya: Actress and would-be poet. Benefactor of Anton, Okno, and the Poverty Artel. Her apartment was the gathering place for the poetry circle.

Andrei Kirillovich Krestovsky: Galina’s husband. Owner of theater snack bars in Petrograd, source of the funding for the Poverty Artel. Killed during Red Terror, 1918.

Petya Simkin: Poet, university student, musician.

Oksana Linichuk: Poet, university student. Brought flowers to Marina’s wedding.

Arseny Grodetsky: Poet, young disciple of Genya Kuriakin’s.

Baron Arkady von Princip, the “Archangel”: Petrograd crime boss during the revolution. Unstable and brilliant, obsessed with Marina and with Kolya, who double-crosses him in a deal involving Dmitry Makarov’s counterrevolutionary conspiracy. Holds Marina captive in an apartment on Tauride Street before she escapes him during a meeting of the counterrevolutionaries.

Akim, the “Kirghiz”: Arkady’s lieutenant. Tends Marina while she is in captivity on Tauride Street. Discovering her working as “Misha,” he informs her that the Archangel has become unhinged.

Gurin: Arkady’s driver.

Borya, “Saint Peter”: The muscle in Arkady’s gang.

Dmitry Makarov’s colleagues, planning the uprising of the Czech Legion, 1918. Met with Von Princip in a dacha in the woods near Pulkovo, where Dmitry accused Marina of being a Bolshevik spy.

Ivan Karlinsky: SR Party, leader of the conspiracy.

Viktoria Karlinskaya: Karlinsky’s wife and Dmitry Makarov’s mistress. Insists that Von Princip “get rid of” Marina, considering her a Bolshevik spy. Marina reveals Karlinskaya’s identity to Varvara while in Cheka custody.

Commander Fielding Brown, the “Englishman”: a British military attaché.

Konstantin, the “Odessan”: a famous English spy.

Astronomers at Pulkovo Observatory, where Marina sought refuge as the deaf-mute Marusya.

Aristarkh Apollonovich Belopolsky, the “First Ancient”: Astronomer, director of the observatory. Discovered the nature of the rings of Saturn.

Boris Osipovich Bondarin, the “Second”: Astrophysicist.

Nikolai Gerasimovich Pomogayush, the “Third”: Chemist and astrobotanist. Marusya’s mentor.

Valentin Vladimirovich Tipov, the “Fourth”: Astrophysicist.

Ludmila Vasilievna Bredikskaya, the “Fifth”: The starushka. Physicist and spectrum analyst.

Rodion Karlovich Mistropovich: Young astronomer. Returns to the observatory with his sick wife and children during the height of the Petrograd cholera epidemic, spring 1918.

Princess Elizaveta Vladimirovna Gruzinskaya: The “white mouse.” Elderly aristocrat cultivated by Kolya Shurov. Foresaw collectivization of Petrograd grand apartments and preemptively formed a “collective” of her aristocratic friends, Emilia Ivanovna Golovina, Viktor Sergeevich Golovin, and Pavel Alexandrovich Naryshkin.

Spiritualist cult at Vera Borisovna’s family estate at Maryino—rising from the ashes of a failed experiment, the Laboratory, a large commune in Petrograd. Vera Borisovna lives in seclusion there as the “Mother,” the spiritual figurehead of the cult.

Taras Ukashin, the “Master”: Charismatic leader of the cult of Ionia. Following his teaching of inflowing, taking energy in through the skin, his followers nearly starve.

Andrei Ionian: The “intelligent.” Ukashin’s court jester. Formerly the publisher Andrei Alexandrovich Petrovin, a friend of Vera Borisovna’s and one of the founders of the spiritualist group before it was overtaken by Taras Ukashin and moved to Maryino. Commits suicide.

Other Ionians: Magda Ionian, the “gypsy”; Bogdan Ionian, former dancer at the Mariinsky Theater, Marina’s friend; Natalya Ionian, former dancer, Marina’s friend; Katrina Ionian, singer, object of Ukashin’s desire, secret lover of Pasha Ionian; Gleb, Pasha’s rival; Ilya, Lilya, and Anna Ionian.

Lyuda: Avdokia’s niece and Marina’s girlhood companion, whom she taught to read, married to the blacksmith and currently representing the village at the regional soviet. Protecting Ionia from the Cheka.

Olya: Avdokia’s half sister, instrumental in Marina’s escape from Ionia.