Кондиайн, Элеонора Максимилиановна

Graphic artist

Born Dresden (Germany), 27 October 1899

Died Leningrad, 1 April 1986

Eleonora Kondiain was born as Eleonora Mesmakher, the daughter of the St. Petersburg architect M.E. Mesmakher. She studied in 1919 at the Peterburg Vkhutemas where she met her future husband, the astronomer Aleksandr Kondiain.

In 1921 they undertook several expeditions to Lapland. In 1923 the couple together with AV Barchenko founded the Unified Labour Brotherhood, an occult group. In 1937 Aleksandr was arrested and shot. Ten days later Eleonora Kondiain was arrested and sent to the Gulag. In 1956 she was rehabilitated and returned to Leningrad.

1929, 1931