Moura Budberg

Moura Budberg, actually Maria Ignatiewna Zakrewskaya Benckendorff Budberg (* 1891 in Poltava, Ukraine, † November 1974) was a Russian baroness. She was the mistress of famous men like Maxim Gorky and his life was suspected to be a spy.

Life

Moura Budberg was born as a daughter of former Russian senator and member of the State Council for Saint Petersburg. In 1911 she married the senior Tsarist diplomat Count Johann Benckendorff, with whom she lived at Castle Jendel in Jäneda, Estonia until his assassination in 1919.

After the death of Count she was married for a short time with Baron Nikolai von Budberg - Bönningshausen. Before, during and after the turmoil of the Russian Revolution, she was the mistress of the celebrated British secret agent Sir Robert Hamilton Bruce Lockhart, who in 1918 was involved together with the agent Sidney Reilly in an attempt to assassinate the Bolschewistenführers Vladimir Lenin.

Later, she came as a secretary in the budget of the Russian writer Maxim Gorky, whose mistress she became. In the 1930s, she lived with the historian and science fiction author HG Wells together and took care of him during his last years of life.

In the last 20 years of her life she was considered a dazzling and enigmatic personality of London's cultural scene. She was known as an excessive drinker and was suspected of working for the secret service - but this could never be fully understood. They were called the " Mata Hari of Russia".

Moura Budberg wrote the screenplays for at least two films for the film " Three Sisters" directed by Laurence Olivier and John Sichel of 1970 and the movie " The Seagull ," directed by Sidney Lumet in 1968.

Moura Budberg was the great-great aunt of the British politician Nick Clegg, who is leader of the Liberal Democrats since December 2007.