Inessa Armand in crystal-clear mirror of internet

“Considerable confusion exists” * over Inessa Armand’s life  if one tries to get some basic  facts and timeline straight from what’s posted on internet.

Born in Paris Inès Stéphane (English Wiki)…or  Eлизавета Фёдоровна /Inès Elisabeth Stéphane ( Russian Wiki)- apparently, her patronymic even in the same Wiki article is spelled in two different transcriptions, and her maiden name in some Russian sources is spelled as Стеффeн (Steffen).

Date of birth: May 8th 1874, according to Eglish Wiki, and April 26th 1874 – to Russian.

Her father, an operatic singer, is described almost identically everywhere, but her mother, Nathalie Wild, is called simply “a comedian” in English Wiki, a “half-French, half-English Jewish actress” in Russian. Other Russian-language sources mention only that her parents were “actors”, another one informs us that, possibly, her parents were not officially married at the time of her birth (but tied the knot later).

Some tell us her father died when she was 5 and that she and her sister Renee moved with their aunt, who lived in Moscow and worked as a governess , when Inessa was 15. Russian Wiki skips first 19 years of Inessa’ life altogether, English – doesn’t mention her sister or the age when Inessa appeared in Russia: “father died when she was only five and she was brought up by an aunt living in Moscow” – implying she was brought up  by aunt since she was 5. From other source we learn that “orphaned Inessa” had moved to Moscow “with family”, from third – that she moved directly into house of her future husband, Alexander Armand, because her aunt was employed there.

Now the discrepancies grow: she and her sister spoke 3 languages and played pianoforte; no  – four languages and no music; her aunt provided all her schooling; no, she received perfect education in Paris; on the contrary – at 19 she knew only two languages until as adult she learned German and Polish (what happened to her English, I ask). Some say her aunt was forced to become a teacher to provide for her nieces (how did she earned her bread before?), some – that she asked Armands to house the sisters since she didn’t have a place for them to stay; oh no, say others – Inessa and Renee just “visited” Armands or were “acquainted with the family” . Russian Wiki doesn’t mention the aunt at all: it is Inessa, it says, who was a governess in Armand family.

Dio mio!

Now, however, we come to undisputed dollop: Inessa had married an oldest son of Armands’ when she was 19. Who were Armands? Oops, no consensus here, either: they were “russified French “industrialists”; “elite upper-class bourgeois “; “her father-in-law owned banks, lands, factories and retail stores”; no! he and his 2 brothers were textile and dye manufacturers with investments in other areas; “her FIL was one of the richest people in Moscow region”, etc. etc.

OK, she married Alexander…but her sister married into Armand family, too! – only which brother? Boris, per some accounts, Nicolas (Николай) – per others. One source speculates that Inessa forced Alexander to marry her by blackmailing him (she supposedly found love letters to him by some married aristocratic lady from high circles) …hmm.

English Wiki: together with husband they opened a school for peasant children. Russian Wiki: she used her husband’s money for charity, but also spent them for the needs of anti-government socialist/communist movement: ” her apartment was for a long time a meeting place for revolutionaries, a warehouse for their arms and a storage for propaganda literature”. Also, we learn that she “was a chairwoman of ladies’ charity for prostitutes”. “Prostitutes” become “destitute women”, per English Wiki, and there is no mention of her being a “chairwoman”, just that she “joined the charity”.

Now we come to first scandal.

She bore her adoring husband 4 children (consensus). In 5…no, 7…, no, 4 years..OK. And then – boom! she falls in love with his younger brother Vladimir, leaves Alexander and marries Vladimir instead. No:  she never married Vladimir becasue she never formally divorced Alexander. No: she didn’t marry Vladimir, becuse he was 11 years her junior (she was 28, he – 17). No: she choose Vladimir because she preferred his politics (Social-Democrat/communist) to Alexander’s (Social Revolutionary/socialist)

Another consensus point: Inessa and Vladimir had a son Andrey (Andrew), her youngest. No, not her youngest: later, in Switzerland she had Lenin’s baby who then died.  No, it was in Poland, not Switzerland! No: Lenin’s son survived but changed his last name and went into deep hiding abroad to escape Stalin’s reach. No: it was a daughter and she died immediately after birth! No: after Andrew Inessa had no more children! And she never had sexual relations with Lenin at all!

And so on, so on, so on.

She became a card-carrying member of SDLP in 1904(No: in 1903!).  In 1908 she was released from jail and had emigrated from Russia to France (No: she jumped bail which her first husband Alexander paid for her, about 5000 rubles, an enormous sum, and left Russia illegally). She joined Vladimir in Switzerland, where he was receiving medical care for his tuberculosis – but he died 2 weeks after her arrival (No: 2 days after!) She had3 of her children with her (No: she was trying to get her children to join her abroad!)  She met Lenin in Paris (No: she met him in Brussels!)

The speculation becomes wilder and wilder as we go along, through years in emigration and her involvement with Lenin, her professional revolutionary activities, her articles as bolshevik and feminist, her competition for Lenin’s favors with Alexandra Collontai, her return to Russia with Lenin and others riding sealed train in 1917, even her death from cholera: by some accounts, it happened in Beslan, by others – in Nalchik. Some say – Lenin sent her to Kislovodsk [to restore her health] instead of France, where she asked him to let her go, others – that she went there to cure her own tuberculosis, yet others – that it was her youngest, Andrew, who was sick (than what happened to him when she died? )

My head spins.

Finally, among 280,000 google results in English and 90,000 in Russian I found a book of I. Armand’s biography*, available in Google books for preview. I think I’ll just forget the rest of the distorted reflections online, and stick to reading that one…If what is says is trustworthy…

* R.C. Elwood, Inessa Armand, revolutionary and feminist, Cambridge University Press, 2002