Natalia Ivanovna Sedova | |
|---|---|
Наталья Ивановна Седова | |
.jpg) Sedova in 1937 | |
| Born | (1882-04-05)5 April 1882 |
| Died | 23 January 1962(1962-01-23) (aged 79) Corbeil-Essonnes,Paris, France |
| Spouse | |
Natalia Ivanovna Sedova (Russian:Ната́лья Ива́новна Седо́ва,IPA:[nɐˈtalʲjəɪˈvanəvnəsʲɪˈdovə]; 5 April 1882 – 23 January 1962) was a Russian revolutionary and author known as the second wife ofLeon Trotsky. She wrote on cultural matters pertaining toMarxism.[citation needed]
Natalia was born in to the family of a wealthy merchant. Her father was ofCossack origins and her mother was from the Polish nobility.[citation needed] Sedova studied at the Kharkov Institute for Noble Maidens, from where she was expelled for participating in the revolutionary movement.[1]
Natalia met Leon Trotsky in late 1902, after his escape from Siberia. His first wifeAleksandra Sokolovskaya had remained behind, with their two daughters, and they were divorced soon thereafter. Natalia and Trotsky married in 1903. They had two children together,Lev Sedov (24 February 1906 – 16 February 1938) andSergei Sedov (21 March 1908 – 29 October 1937), both of whom would predecease their parents. Trotsky later explained that[2] after the 1917 revolution:
In order not to oblige my sons to change their name, I, for "citizenship" requirements, took on the name of my wife.
However he never used the name "Sedov" either privately or publicly. Natalia Sedova sometimes signed her name "Sedova-Trotskaya."[citation needed] Trotsky and his first wife Aleksandra maintained a friendly relationship after their divorce. She disappeared in 1935 during theGreat Purges and was killed by Stalinist forces three years later.[citation needed]
Lev Sedov was an active and leading member of theBolshevik-Leninist movement that his father led and was almost certainly assassinated as a result of that.[citation needed] Her other son,Sergei Sedov, who was not politically active and remained in Russia, was almost certainly killed by agents ofJoseph Stalin.[citation needed]
After her husband's assassination in 1940, Natalia Sedova remained inMexico and maintained contact with many exiled revolutionaries. Her best-known work in these last years was a biography of Trotsky, which she co-authored with fellow Russian revolutionaryVictor Serge. She was also close to theSpanish revolutionaryGrandizo Munis who had led the tiny SpanishSección Bolchevique-Leninista during the revolutionary events in the 1930s. Under his influence,[citation needed] she came to adopt the position that theUSSR wasstate capitalist and that theFourth International founded by Trotsky no longer held to the revolutionary programme of Communism. Therefore, she broke from the FI in 1951.[3] In 1960, she moved to France.[citation needed]
