Olena Makhno

A young Olena (center) with her mother Halyna Kuzmenko (left) and her father Nestor Makhno (right).

On 30 October 1922, Olena Makhno was born in Pawiak prison, where her mother Halyna Kuzmenko was being held, while her father Nestor Makhno was himself imprisoned in Mokotów Prison.[1] The strain of life in exile caused the family to quickly fall apart, with Makhno and Kuzmenko frequently separating.[2] Olena would spend most of her early years with her mother, rarely ever seeing her father.[3]

In 1925, the family moved to Paris, where Olena would spend most of her formative years.[4] The families of French anarchists often looked after the young Olena, giving her the Francized pet name of "Lucie". She thus grew up speaking the French language, eventually forgetting how to speak Russian and never even learning how to speak Ukrainian.[5] In 1929, Olena was taken on holiday by her father to the southern coastal town of Aimargues, which was well-known for its relatively large anarchist community.[6] Sick and in poverty, her father was financially supported by the French anarchist movement, but spent most of this money on Olena.[7] In March 1934, her father finally succumbed to his tuberculosis, leaving his daughter with the final words "be healthy and happy, my daughter", before he died in his sleep.[8] Due to her father's political activities, Olena came to reject politics at a young age, pledging that she would "take no interest in politics or newspapers".[9]

In 1939, Olena graduated from secondary school.[10] But following the Nazi invasion of France, she was conscripted into forced labour and transferred to Berlin. On August 14, 1945,[5] after the fall of Berlin, she was then arrested by the Soviets and transferred to Kyiv.[11] While imprisoned in the Ukrainian capital, she slapped a fellow inmate after they asked if her father was "the renowned bandit".[9]

She was eventually sentenced to five years for "anti-Soviet agitation"[10] and subsequently exiled to Jambyl, in the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic.[11] While surveilled by the authorities, she turned to manual labour in the city's canteens, factories and pig farms, but was often dismissed after her employers learnt that her father was Nestor Makhno. This fact also kept her single for most of her life, as men would often leave her upon discovering her father's identity.[9] Following the death of Stalin, she was joined in Jambyl by her mother, but it had been so long since they'd been together that they did not recognize eachother upon Kuzmenko's arrival.[12]

In 1968, Olena reluctantly accepted to be interviewed by the Russian historian Sergey Semanov, who described her as "edgy, irritated and trusted no one." During the interview, Olena reportedly spoke Russian with a thick Parisian accent. She declared that she felt she had no homeland, neither in France nor the Soviet Union, but nevertheless asked Semanov to send her some French newspapers, which she was unable to get in Kazakhstan.[13]

Olena remained unmarried and childless into old age, declaring that she never wanted children, as she feared they would "share the same fate as me".[9] She eventually enrolled at the city's Hydro-Melioration Institute, where she worked until her death.[10] In 1993, Olena Makhno died in Jambyl, at the age of 71.[14]

• Darch, Colin (2020). Nestor Makhno and Rural Anarchism in Ukraine, 1917-1921. London: Pluto Press. ISBN 9781786805263. OCLC 1225942343.
• Malet, Michael (1982). Nestor Makhno in the Russian Civil War. London: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-333-25969-6. OCLC 8514426.
• Peters, Victor (1970). Nestor Makhno: The Life of an Anarchist. Winnipeg: Echo Books. OCLC 7925080.
• Skirda, Alexandre (2004) [1982]. Nestor Makhno–Anarchy's Cossack: The Struggle for Free Soviets in the Ukraine 1917–1921. Translated by Sharkey, Paul. Oakland: AK Press. ISBN 978-1-902593-68-5. OCLC 60602979.