Following on from yesterday’s exploration of John Ryan’s reminiscence of Bohemian Dublin in the years following the Emergency, another enthralling although possibly doubtful anecdote involving Patrick Kavanagh involves a Russian exile known as Maxim Litvinov.
By the time the 1940s had rolled around and Kavanagh was reportedly regaling individuals in Dublin drinking establishments with stories of him, Litvinov had attained considerable fame. His career had seen him hold the position of foreign minister for the Soviet Union for the majority of the 1930s, before a disagreement with Stalin in 1939 over an imminent pact with Hitler saw him fall from grace.
Miraculously, despite this alienation from Stalin–which was often fatal–Litvinov managed not only to survive but also to continue his political career, being appointed Soviet ambassador to the US prior to his return to Moscow after the war where he served as deputy foreign minister.
However, Litvinov’s successor as foreign minister, Vyacheslav Molotov–noted for lending his name to the petrol bomb- famously stated that Litvinov had only survived Stalin’s purges by sheer luck.
Returning to Ryan’s memories, these include a quote from Kavanagh suggesting that approximately 40 years earlier, while exiled from Tsarist Russia, Litvinov had spent some time working as a travelling salesperson in Ireland, plying his trade in the Cavan-Monaghan region, dealing specifically in “haberdashery”.
Ryan humorously prefaced his relayed anecdote saying Kavanagh was no fan of name-dropping: “If a name was of significance to him, he enjoyed keeping it, and maybe even cherishing it.” Stories of his early publisher, Harold Macmillan (who would later become UK prime minister), and the Earl of Iveagh, the head of the Guinness dynasty and a supportive patron and friend, would often amuse his pub company.
Even among such illustrious names, “the name which could halt conversation was that of Maxim Litvinov,” Ryan concluded.
Throughout his early adult years, prior to the revolution, Litvinov spent a substantial amount of time abroad outside of Russia, mainly in imperial legacy. He was born into opulence in 1876 as Meir Henoch Wallach-Finkelstein, to a prosperous Lithuanian Jewish family. Later, to mask his identity within the prohibited Russian Social Democrat Party, he adopted the now more familiar name, Litvinov.
A stint in prison followed; he eloped from there in a mass breakout and relocated initially to Geneva and then to London. It was in the British Museum Reading Room that he first came into contact with Lenin. In 1905, he returned to his homeland, Russia, in time for the revolution, the same year Patrick Kavanagh was born. However, the risk of incarceration soon saw him banished once more. For the following decade, he was predominantly a roving trader, his wares mainly firearms which he intended to covertly ship back to Russia, an enterprise decidedly different from selling goods of haberdashery.
Litvinov was apprehended in France in 1908, discovered with 500-ruble notes believed to have been burgled from a leading bank the preceding year, in a heist orchestrated by Stalin himself in Georgia. His extradition was decreed, but he absconded to London prior to its execution and subsequently ended up in Belfast, sometime prior to the onset of the First World War. Based on an article written by Jonathan Hamill in 2011 for Old Belfast, a historical magazine, his sister and her spouse, who were also refugees, had taken residence transiently in Enniskillen and Clones before finally becoming settlers in Belfast, and they comprised his connection to the place.
Litvinov’s time in Ireland saw him as a door-to-door salesman, visiting residences such as the modest Kavanagh home in Mucker, where his entrances were a cause for remembrance. He would arrive, unfurl his carpet bag on their kitchen table and lay out items ranging from alarm clocks, religious images, combs and fake jewellery to toys and various fanciful knick-knacks. Despite the story’s quirky nature, it carries the potential of being authentic. The items did not include identifiable sewing notions, but one cannot deny his established history as a peripatetic trader, particularly in Ireland.
Upon his arrival, Hamill recounts, he had a suitcase in tow, stashed with 100,000 Rubles — a sum he designated as the sanctified assets of the Bolshevik Party. Additionally, he travelled with a cocked revolver and a Gurkha-esque blade for company.
Living in Belfast, he frequented the Central Library, devouring an impressive array of books. He corresponded regularly with Lenin, Gorky, and Prince Kropotkin while maintaining a profession as an educator. He imparted the knowledge of the 14 languages he was purported to be proficient at.
Meanwhile, tsar’s covert police, the Okranha, ceaselessly surveilled his sister’s residence. Nonetheless, at some unspecific point, Litvinov managed to evade them, slipping out of Belfast and into the annals of history as the Soviet Union’s debut, albeit unofficial, ambassador to the UK.
It seems improbable that this dynamic arms smuggler would have paused his illicit activities to dabble in door-to-door peddling in Inniskeen and its surroundings in the early 20th century, unless it was a clandestine operation or he was honing his contraband skills.
Surprisingly, his name doesn’t appear in Kavanagh’s earlier autobiography, The Green Fool, or in Antoinette Quinn’s biographical piece on the poet. However, one can never be certain.
Certain facets of Litvinov’s life remain shrouded, the specifics of his demise on the final day of 1951 being one of them. As per his family, he passed away due to a pre-existing cardiac ailment.
However, alternative narratives hint at a deliberate assassination commissioned by Stalin, with Litvinov succumbing to the resultant injuries when a lorry purposely rammed into his car.