As we recall, our fellow townsman Alexander Adolfovich Winkler was Sergei Prokofiev’s teacher. It is believed that he was the one who recognized the talent of the future composer and pianist in the young man. In 1909, the grateful student dedicated four piano études to his teacher, which Prokofiev later included in “Op. 2.” You can read more about Winkler here and here.
But that wasn’t the only thing that connected this brilliant composer, pianist, and conductor to our city.
In his book *Sergei Prokofiev*, researcher Igor Vishnevetsky provides the full text of Sergei Prokofiev’s birth and baptism certificates, from which we learn that his godfather was his father’s brother, Petr Alekseevich Prokofiev, a merchant from Kharkiv.
It is quite likely that little 8-year-old Sergei Sergeyevich lived with him for a while when he arrived in our city with his parents in 1899. The following interesting fact can be found in this book:
Both of his parents had somewhat poor eyesight, and, fearing that nearsightedness might be hereditary, they took the boy to a good eye doctor. The nearest one was in Kharkiv. That’s how Prokofiev’s first real trip from the village to the big city came about. The ophthalmologist didn’t find anything unusual with the boy. But in Kharkiv, Sergei really liked the elevator in a high-rise building and the circus with its water attractions. However, the fun didn’t last long: it was time to return to his home village.
Years have passed; Sergei is twenty-six, and fate has brought him back to our city once again. After all, this is where his first great love lived—Polina Podolskaya, a student at the Kharkiv Conservatory. At present, neither her biography nor her married name (if she ever married) is known; there isn’t even a photograph of her. It is only thanks to the diaries of Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev himself, published in 2002 by The Serge Prokofiev Foundation, that we can learn about this astonishingly beautiful and tragic story.
So, it was late November 1916. Sergei Prokofiev gave a concert in Kyiv for the professors and students of the Conservatory. In his diary, we read:
The concert wasn’t without a few slip-ups on the orchestra’s part; at one point, they even threw me off. I played well and with surprising composure, even when I made mistakes, for I had already received a verdict from the Kyiv musicians—and a very favorable one at that—while the rest of the audience couldn’t judge the finer points anyway. It was a great success, though not as much of a sensation as in Petrograd after *Alya*. I was called back about seven times; I played three encores, including the *Toccata*, repeating it as I had in Petrograd. A basket of white chrysanthemums appeared by the piano, out of nowhere. At first, I reacted rather nonchalantly, deciding that it was either from Eleonora (she had said: “Now that’s what I call living in Petrograd and sending flowers by telegram to Kyiv”), or from the French consul, or from the management. But then I suddenly read on the card: “Boryunochka, sending flowers, sends her regards.” The flowers immediately grew to the size of a tropical forest, and I was in indescribable delight. No! This is elegant: flowers from another city! After the concert, I pinned a chrysanthemum to Glier’s lapel and asked when the train to Kharkiv was leaving. He was very surprised, and the people at dinner were even more surprised when, in response to a question about my departure for Moscow, I corrected myself: “To Kharkiv.” But I had to turn down the consul’s offer; I was lucky enough to get tickets to Kharkiv, and by evening the next day, in the highest of spirits, I was sitting in a train car on my way to Kharkiv. I was smiling because I was looking forward to seeing Polina, whom I hadn’t seen in four and a half years—and at that age, four and a half years is an eternity. She was only thirteen back then; now she was seventeen. I sent her a telegram announcing my arrival and was sure she’d clap her hands with joy when she received it. And that’s exactly what happened. Polina met me at the train station, so graceful and young—even younger than her years—with her charming smile, a slight sway in her gait, and genuine joy at seeing me. Despite the four and a half years that had passed, neither of us had changed much, and we recognized each other immediately. Polina had gone from being light-haired to a redhead, which suited her better; she had wide-set eyes, a pretty nose, and a pointed chin. She had wanted to come to Kyiv for my concert, but her father had come to visit from Taganrog—and so it didn’t work out. We spent the entire evening together: we drove out of town, had lunch at a restaurant, went for a walk, and visited her place. At the restaurant, she asked that we dine in a private room so that I could play the piano for her. It was a charming lunch, and I happily played for her on a rather shoddy piano. She was already desperate to get to Petrograd and asked me to help her get into the Medical Institute. The problem was that she was Jewish, and the quota there was 3 percent.
Early December 1916. Upon returning to Petrograd, Sergei Sergeyevich, with his characteristic decisiveness, began working intensively on the matter of Polina’s transfer. After all, even though he had never lacked female attention, his heart had been free until he met Polina, who was so different from everyone else in Petrograd.
Prokofiev turned to Joseph Hessen—a public defender (attorney at law), editor of the newspaper *Rech*, and member of the Central Committee of the Constitutional Democrats—for assistance. In addition, some time ago, Hessen himself had offered to represent Prokofiev in court if the issue of royalty payments for the use of the plot of *The Gambler* went to trial. Telephone conversations took place between the lawyer and the composer, who was in love:
Suddenly, my temperature started to rise, reaching 39°, so I had to lie down. Fearing I might have typhus (Boris Verin was already in bed with paratyphoid fever), I hurried to call Hessen so I could get this matter settled before the full picture of my illness became clear. I told Hessen that I had a matter to discuss with him regarding the Jewish question, and when he seemed somewhat surprised, I explained it was about a translation. He asked good-naturedly,
“Is it a romantic story?”
I replied,
“No, it’s an opera.” She—Polina, like my heroine—is just as red-haired, slender, and has cat-like eyes. How could I not care about her?
Hessen very kindly agreed to speak with the institute’s director, Verkhovsky, and a day later reported the result:
“What year is your Polina in?”
“First year.”
“Then it’s hopeless. Verkhovsky said that if she were in her third year, it might be possible, but the first two years are so overcrowded that it’s out of the question.” And not because she’s Jewish, but because all the labs are absolutely bursting at the seams with students.
I thanked him and wrote to Polina about this first setback.
In early 1917, Polina traveled from Kharkiv to Petrograd to be with Prokofiev, and from February 9 to 13, the lovers spent time together. The young couple lived in the same apartment. Apparently, as a sign of how serious he was, Sergei introduced her to his mother…
I returned to Petrograd on the seventh, and on the ninth Polina arrived; I gave her my room to use. I got up at seven in the morning to meet her, but the train was late, and she didn’t arrive until ten. Polina was very sweet and had already won over my mother, who is secretly hostile toward all the women who appear in my life. However, I couldn’t help but notice that in the capital, she seemed a little sadder than she should be. We spent her entire five-day stay almost constantly together, visiting all the theaters, St. Isaac’s Cathedral, the Islands, and the “Bear.” The day before her departure, I performed at Dobychina’s, where Gorky also read from his work. We had a very lovely time: her, me, Mom, and Skvortsov, who had come to visit. Polina saw the famous Maxim in person, and Maxim praised me so highly for *Sarcasms* that I hadn’t heard such praise in a long time…
The revolutionary events are unfolding at an ever-increasing pace, while Sergei Prokofiev is rushing with all his heart and soul to Kharkiv to be with Polina.
Finally, on April 16, he managed to escape from Petrograd and, on the 18th, arrived in the city to be with the one his heart longed for. How did Sergei Prokofiev, a man in love, see Kharkiv?
On the sixteenth, I finally set off for Kharkiv, having accidentally bought a first-class ticket to Kyiv. The ticket was good for me as far as Kursk. Ellie Kornelievna played an active role in getting the ticket, since it was on our way, but there was such chaos at the station that we ended up leaving on different trains. I slept soundly in my upper berth, and no more than a dozen soldiers squeezed into the aisle, all of whom behaved very decently. But starting in Moscow, the entire car—and our compartment—became so packed with both soldiers and ordinary passengers that it was impossible to get out of the car. My salvation was that I simply stayed on my top bunk for the entire thirty-six-hour journey. In Kharkiv, I grabbed my little suitcase and jumped out of the car, landing almost directly into Polina’s arms. What a coincidence: she hadn’t received a single telegram from me, but she was seeing a friend off and had just helped her board my car. After a flurry of exclamations and expressions of surprise, we set off through the city streets. It was April 18, and May 1 was being celebrated according to the new calendar; nowhere was anyone working, there were no cabs, and the trams weren’t running; the street, bathed in bright sunlight, was packed with people; processions with red flags were marching, among which blue Jewish flags and black anarchist flags flashed. We went out of town, where it was warm and green, and didn’t make it to a restaurant for lunch until six o’clock. This time we met to decide whether or not to go to the Sandwich Islands. Or rather, whether Polina was going. There was no answer from Polina.
Upon his return to Petrograd, the only thing that truly occupied Prokofiev’s mind was leaving the country with Polina—anywhere at all, even to Hawaii; the farther away, the better. After all, he had the money for that at the time. However, the revolutionary events prevented the lovers from being together. It turned out that even under the revolutionary Provisional Government, foreign passports were not issued to girls under the age of eighteen.
On the twenty-fifth, I received a telegram from Polina. And strangely enough, I was even a little afraid: what if the answer was “yes,” and I wouldn’t be able to get permission to go abroad on vacation… That would have been a real joke! But my anxiety, alas, was in vain. The telegram said that, as a minor, she hadn’t been issued a passport. I got angry. In my opinion, it wasn’t even a direct refusal—it was just a way of dodging the issue.
All of the correspondence between Prokofiev and Polina Podolskaya, a woman from Kharkiv, from the first half of 1917 has been lost. Nor has a copy survived of the letter he wrote to Polina when she did not accompany him to Honolulu. However, Sergei Prokofiev does quote excerpts from it from memory in the second volume of his diaries:
So, Polina, everything has been checked and weighed with a precision worthy not only of a doctor but of a full-fledged pharmacist, and you, so sensible and down-to-earth, are off to the “new” city of Taganrog! And when, looking out the window at the pigs wallowing in the mud of Taganrog’s streets, you begin to reflect on the breadth of your views, know this: I will hear you at that very moment!” —and so on; I don’t remember the entire letter, but it was written not in ink, but in venomous saliva.
They last met in Taganrog in late July 1917. Sergei Sergeyevich himself describes this difficult meeting—for both of them—with great candor in his diaries:
In Taganrog, as I sat in the cafeteria hurriedly eating a cutlet—since the train was stopped for only ten minutes—someone suddenly called out to me. I looked up and saw Polina. She was sitting across from me, looking at me. It was a completely unexpected sight. Even though she lives in Taganrog, why on earth would she be at the station just to catch my train? Besides, my last letter—when it became clear that she wasn’t coming along on the trip with me—had been so harsh and mocking that I’d considered it the end of our relationship. Now she spoke to me casually, as if nothing had happened. I was somewhat taken aback by the unexpected turn of events and at first acted as if I were dealing with only half a person. But Polina was sweet and unpretentious, and seemed to be expecting something from me. I couldn’t help myself and boasted about my release, which had been ordered by the head of the Russian government. Polina said:
“I wanted to reply to your last letter, but since it had a postmark from Nikolayevsky Station, I assumed you had sent it before leaving the country.”
It all happened very quickly, since the train was already pulling away. As I said goodbye, I told her that, after all, I was really glad I’d seen her. When the train was already moving and I was walking down the car in the opposite direction—and there was a moment when Polina was right in front of me—Polina asked:
“Will you write to me?”
Passengers who knew me were standing in the train car aisle, staring at me and Polina. I had no choice but to reply:
“All right,” even though I didn’t want to say that.
However, he did write a few letters to Polina. On May 7, 1918, Sergei Prokofiev left Moscow on the Siberian Express and arrived in Tokyo on June 1, where he spent two months trying to obtain a U.S. visa. In his last letter to Podolskaya, he wrote the following:
(April 30) May
13, to Polina, near Taganrog:Dear Polina, so, my wish is finally coming true—I’m sitting in a small compartment on the Siberian Express with my foreign passport in one pocket and a document from the British Military Mission in the other, and I’m on my way to the vast expanses of the Pacific Ocean. I send you my regards and think of you. S. P.”
However, the memory of Sergei Prokofiev’s first love lives on to this day. One of his most frequently performed piano concertos is the “Piano Concerto No. 3.” He conceived it back in December 1916, just as his romance with Polina Podolskaya, a native of Kharkiv, was taking off.
In March 1927, Sergei Prokofiev will visit our beloved city once again. But we’ll find out in the next article how he saw it and what impressions Kharkiv left on the composer at that time…
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