Anna Alexandrovna Malinovskaya, Bogdanov’s sister, was Anatoly Lunacharsky’s first wife (they were married from 1902 until 1922 when Lunacharsky met Natalya Rozenel, his second wife). Paola Cioni and Marina Arias-Vikhil published Malinovskaya’s memoirs that should be interesting for those who are studying Bogdanov.

Text (in Russian) can be found here. The memoirs are from Gorky Archive.

Abstract: Paola Cioni, Marina Arias-Vikhil. “Memoirs of A.A.Lunacharskaya about Maxim Gorky”. The article consists of two parts: an analytical preamble and the publication of A.A.Lunacharsky’s (Malinovsky’s) memoires stored in the A.M.Gorky Archive of the Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Science. The article focuses on the complicated twists and turns in the relationship between the founders of the Capri School M.Gorky, A.Lunacharsky, and A.Bogdanov: notwithstanding the ideological affinity, their union eventually broke up. A.A.Lunacharsky’s (Malinovsky’s) memoirs allow to shed light on a series of aspects regarding the end of the School and the rupture between M.Gorky and A.Bogdanov. Soviet historiography has always considered Gorky’s ideological affinity with Bogdanov as a temporary mistake, after which Gorky “repented” and came back to Leninist principles. In fact, things went quite differently. Gorky did not reject Bogdanov’s ideas: instead, the end of their friendship occurred because of personal dissents provoked by M.F.Andreeva’s inappropriate behavior, of which we find evidence in Lunacharsky’s (Malinovsky’s) memoirs.