(Russian: Елена Криленко)
Mrs. Eliena Krylenko Eastman, painter and teacher of ballet and wife of Max Eastman, writer and editor, died last night at her home, East Pasture, after an illness of several months. Her age was 61.
Eliena was small but athletic, even muscular, exuding an aura of easy confidence wherever she went. Born in Lublin, Poland-Russia, on May 4, 1895, to exiled Russian parents, she spoke English fluently, well enough at any rate to crack jokes, often at her own expense. Her family background was spectacular: she was the sister of Stalin's Prosecutor General, Nikolai Krylenko, whose blood-soaked career left a permanent imprint on the twentieth century. One of the things for which Nikolai is justly famous is his observation that it was important to execute not just the guilty but also the innocent. Eventually, what Nikolai had started caught up with him, too, as it did with all other members of Eliena's family: in 1938, after a trial lasting only 20 minutes, he was unceremoniously shot. Eliena's grief for her brother was limited: "You died in silence, bruised and defamed, / By your own error, not by their deceit," she wrote in a sonnet she dedicated to his memory ("They," of course, were the Stalinists).
Mrs. Eliena Krylenko Eastman, painter and teacher of ballet and wife of Max Eastman, writer and editor, died last night at her home, East Pasture, after an illness of several months. Her age was 61.
Eliena was small but athletic, even muscular, exuding an aura of easy confidence wherever she went. Born in Lublin, Poland-Russia, on May 4, 1895, to exiled Russian parents, she spoke English fluently, well enough at any rate to crack jokes, often at her own expense. Her family background was spectacular: she was the sister of Stalin's Prosecutor General, Nikolai Krylenko, whose blood-soaked career left a permanent imprint on the twentieth century. One of the things for which Nikolai is justly famous is his observation that it was important to execute not just the guilty but also the innocent. Eventually, what Nikolai had started caught up with him, too, as it did with all other members of Eliena's family: in 1938, after a trial lasting only 20 minutes, he was unceremoniously shot. Eliena's grief for her brother was limited: "You died in silence, bruised and defamed, / By your own error, not by their deceit," she wrote in a sonnet she dedicated to his memory ("They," of course, were the Stalinists).
(Russian: Елена Криленко)
Mrs. Eliena Krylenko Eastman, painter and teacher of ballet and wife of Max Eastman, writer and editor, died last night at her home, East Pasture, after an illness of several months. Her age was 61.
Eliena was small but athletic, even muscular, exuding an aura of easy confidence wherever she went. Born in Lublin, Poland-Russia, on May 4, 1895, to exiled Russian parents, she spoke English fluently, well enough at any rate to crack jokes, often at her own expense. Her family background was spectacular: she was the sister of Stalin's Prosecutor General, Nikolai Krylenko, whose blood-soaked career left a permanent imprint on the twentieth century. One of the things for which Nikolai is justly famous is his observation that it was important to execute not just the guilty but also the innocent. Eventually, what Nikolai had started caught up with him, too, as it did with all other members of Eliena's family: in 1938, after a trial lasting only 20 minutes, he was unceremoniously shot. Eliena's grief for her brother was limited: "You died in silence, bruised and defamed, / By your own error, not by their deceit," she wrote in a sonnet she dedicated to his memory ("They," of course, were the Stalinists).
Mrs. Eliena Krylenko Eastman, painter and teacher of ballet and wife of Max Eastman, writer and editor, died last night at her home, East Pasture, after an illness of several months. Her age was 61.
Eliena was small but athletic, even muscular, exuding an aura of easy confidence wherever she went. Born in Lublin, Poland-Russia, on May 4, 1895, to exiled Russian parents, she spoke English fluently, well enough at any rate to crack jokes, often at her own expense. Her family background was spectacular: she was the sister of Stalin's Prosecutor General, Nikolai Krylenko, whose blood-soaked career left a permanent imprint on the twentieth century. One of the things for which Nikolai is justly famous is his observation that it was important to execute not just the guilty but also the innocent. Eventually, what Nikolai had started caught up with him, too, as it did with all other members of Eliena's family: in 1938, after a trial lasting only 20 minutes, he was unceremoniously shot. Eliena's grief for her brother was limited: "You died in silence, bruised and defamed, / By your own error, not by their deceit," she wrote in a sonnet she dedicated to his memory ("They," of course, were the Stalinists).
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