Nadezhda Ulanovskaya

Nadezhda (Esther) Markovna Ulanovskaya (1903–1986), nicknamed Nadia or Nadya, was a Soviet intelligence GRU officer, translator, English teacher, wife of Alexander Ulanovsky, and mother of Maya Ulanovskaya.

Background

Nadezhda Ulanovskaya was born Esther Markovna Fridgant in Bershad in the then Russian Empire (now Ukraine). Her father was a trader; her grandfather Nukhim Fridgant was a rabbi and possibly a descendant of a Hasidic tzaddik Reful (Friedgant). Ulanovskaya studied in private and village schools. In 1917, after the February Revolution, the family moved to Odessa. Ulanovskaya: When we were in the States [in the Thirties], it was the first time—not that I began to doubt, but that I felt, with some reason, we couldn't do what the capitalists had achieved... In the States, in spite of that terrible time of the Depression... to us it didn't look terrible at all. Buckley: You mean by contrast with what you had experienced? Ulanovskaya: We saw those jobless people who still ate better... You know, some Communist sympathizers once showed us some slums, but those slums didn't impress me at all. Buckley: Made you feel at home? Ulanovskaya: Well, the way we personally lived in Moscow at that time was worse.

Personal life and death

By 1922, Ulanovskaya had married Alexander Ulanovsky. They had a son and two daughters, of whom one is named Maya Ulanovskaya.

According to Sulzberger's 1977 memoir, Ulanovskaya had never heard of Alger Hiss, and her husband had no contact with Kim Philby, Guy Burgess, or Donald McLean.

On 5 January 1986, Nadezhda Ulanovskaya died in Israel.

Works

In 1982, she published in the US, together with her daughter, a memoir book The Story of One Family.

Regarding the Hiss Case, Ulavoskaya wrote (quoted from the new English edition of their memoir): "My story has many parallels with that of Whittaker Chambers. We met the same people, and I can thus confirm his testimony."