The Eitingons: A Twentieth-Century Story

by Mary-Kay Wilmers

Leonid Eitingon was a KGB killer who dedicated his life to the Soviet regime. He was in China in the early 1920s, in Turkey in the late 1920s, in Spain during the Civil War, and, crucially, in Mexico when Trotsky was assassinated. 'As long as I live,' Stalin had said, 'not a hair of his head shall be touched.' It did not work out like that. Max Eitingon was a psychoanalyst, a colleague, friend and protege of Freud's. He was rich, secretive and - through his friendship with a famous Russian singer - implicated in the abduction of a white Russian general in Paris in 1937. Motty Eitingon was a New York fur dealer whose connections with the Soviet Union made him the largest trader in the world. Imprisoned by the Bolsheviks, questioned by the FBI, was Motty everybody's friend or everybody's enemy? Mary-Kay Wilmers began looking into aspects of her remarkable family twenty years ago. The result is a book of astonishing scope and thrilling originality which throws light into some of the darkest corners of the last century. At the centre of the story stands the author herself - ironic, precise, searching, and stylish - wondering not only about where she is from, but about what she's entitled to know.

Genres: History, Biography, Russia, Nonfiction, Memoir

476 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2010

Reviews

[Dmitry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Writing a family history in a way that keeps the audience captivated is not an easy task. It helps to have a relative who is, say, the "Stalin's avenging sword", going through countries and identities, killing the enemies of the Soviet State. Or, maybe, a relative, who is the silent yet influential student of Freud, and who was instrumental in establishing the leading Berlin school of psychoanalysis and who single-handedly brought psychoanalysis to the then Palestine. Then it would be nice if the relative was a successful fur trader, inheriting a huge fortune and multiplying it ten-fold, only to see it all crumble and fall in a true book of Job-like fashion. Better yet have all three of them, and follow their biographies, their independent development, as well as their interplay over the background of much of 20-th century history of Europe and the US.

The book is very well written, is witty and fun to read. I really enjoyed it.

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is much too long!! A subject matter I find of interest, the Russian Revolution, its aftermath, the murder of Trotsky in Mexico - written by a family member of Motty Eitingon, a Russian furrier transplanted to the US. And (probably) a relative of Leonid Eitingon, a staunch Party member, Stalinist, KGB member who, even after years in prison both immediately before and immediately after Stalin's death, begs to be allowed back into the KGB. And a relative of Max Eitingon, a colleage of Freud's. So the interesting information is there. But so is every little detail to the point that I was skimming and skipping. And the fascinating subject was, I thought, buried in the details.

[Alistair · Rating 1 out of 5]

i bought this because it looked on the face of it as if it could be interesting . Three members of the same family living varied and fascinating lives linked to fur trading , the KGB and Sigmund Freud .

Instead the book was about the author trying without much success trying to unravel the separate stories whilst interjecting with her own feelings about this that and the other . Far from being a revelation it was a mundane probably a made up story .

File under fiction . I gave up reading it .

[Sherzod Muminov · Rating 3 out of 5]

While the book covers interesting events and personalities, it is not very well written. I don't mean its style, though there are questions on style too, but the fact that it is hard to know the author's intentions in writing the book and her attitude toward the main protagonists. If there's a sublime goal behind it, it is never revealed, leaving us to view the book's rationale only as the author's attempt to write the history of some of her distant relatives.

[Marren · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book had some interesting tidbits about Soviet history, but overall lots of details that would only be interesting to someone studying this family.

[Gabriel Clarke · Rating 4 out of 5]

So many people feel their family history is worth sharing with the world. When that history includes the orchestrator of the assassination of Trotsky, the rise and fall the the biggest international furriers of the first half of the 20th century and one of the founding fathers of Freudian psychoanalysis, it certainly is. I could have done with a section of short biographies to refer to but that's a minor quibble. A long, complex unpicking of how individuals act on and are acted on by history that weaves through glamour, tragedy and some of the darkest places of the 1930s.

[Sally Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting subject matter, but I did not find this to be an easy read. I learned a lot about the fur business and quite a bit about Soviet spying, but it raised more questions than it answered. Maybe that isn't such a bad thing. Recommended for twentieth century history buffs.

[Candace]

Got bogged down.Never finished.

[Ellen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully written, wonderful story, can't recommend it highly enough.