RUSSIAN BLUEBEARD

Greymouth Evening Star, 25 March 1929, Page 7

RUSSIAN BLUEBEARD

(HUSBAND OF 150 WIVES.. The Soviet official Schwarz, < who ' has just been put upon trial at Moscow for matrimonial frauds, appears ' to have earned a unique place in ; history. Even the elastic Soviet con- ’ ception of matrimony has not. been ’ able to tolerate his behaviour towards most of his 150 wives (writes the Vienna correspondent of the ' London ‘.‘Daily Mail”). Nearly all of * them have been formally divorced by ! him, in most cases without their 1 knowledge. He seems to have neglected statesmanship for polygamy. He was one ’ of.that little party, which included 1 Lenin and Trotsky, brought by Lud- ’ endqrff in a sealed railway coach from Switzerland to Russia in 1917 to < stir up revolution there. Directly the : infamous Checka was . established he ( ■ used his association: with it to 'terror-' ise beautiful young women of aristo- : cra.tic birth into a ceremony of mar- i riage. ..• . ( 4 - .; As the alternative was arrest, followed almost certainly by torture and.: death,, they usually • consented. He

obtained from them all information possible about the property of their relatives, insisted upon their giving him all that was under their own control, and then deserted them, obtaining formal certificates of divorce when he had time. According to accounts which have reached Russians in Vienna his record -achievement was marrying six different women in one day, in six townships a few miles apart. He is said to have accumulated a fortune of a millibn dollars, safely- invested abroad (as he thought), this being itself a capital crime in Soviet estimation.. . '■ ' ‘ . ■ • ■ ■ v ; : ■ At . the first hearing in Moscow 46 women appeared to claim orders for the maintenance of children of-whom they declared him to be the. father.: In Schwafa’s sumptuously furhish<' ed rooms in Moscow: :was found, in a ’ secret drawer in a writing’ desk, , that had once belonged to a grand duke, a little memorandum book. ’cbhtaining names and a few leading particulars, such ,as • dates of nqp.rriage and divorce, of all his 150 wives, in chronological order. Schwarz is of by no means fascinating appearance or manners, .