Aleksandra Sokolovskaya

Who was Aleksandra Sokolovskaya?

Aleksandra Lvovna Sokolovskaya was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and Leon Trotsky's first wife. She perished in the Great Purges no earlier than 1938.

Sokolovskaya, was a Marxist revolutionary in Nikolaev, Ukraine in the 1890s. She was Leon Trotsky's first wife in 1899-1902, while the two of them were in prison and in Siberian exile together. They had two daughters, Zinaida Volkova and Nina Nevelson.

When Trotsky considered escaping from Siberia in the summer of 1902, Sokolovskaya fully endorsed his plan. After Trotsky met Natalia Sedova, his future second wife, in Paris in late 1902, his first marriage disintegrated, although the two maintained a friendly relationship until the end.

Not much is known about Sokolovskaya's life post-1902. Her daughters were mostly raised by David and Anna Bronstein, Trotsky's wealthy parents, in Yanovka, Ukraine. Sokolovskaya raised her granddaughter Aleksandra in 1932-1935 after the latter's mother, Zinaida Volkova, was allowed to leave the country in 1931 and her father, Zakhar Moglin, was arrested in 1932. According to the family, Sokolovskaya was an educator and was close to Lenin's widow, Nadezhda Krupskaya, in the early 1930s.