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Janet Fitch

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.