In late 1941, the society pages of American newspapers alighted with news of the newest power couple in Washington, DC: Maxim and Ivy Litvinov. Maxim Litvinov – Stalin’s commissar of foreign affairs in the 1930s – was already known to Americans as the affable Old Bolshevik who’d paved the way for the United States to formally recognise the Soviet Union in 1933. Now he was back in DC as the Soviet Union’s wartime ambassador to the US. This time, his British-born wife Ivy was by his side. Maxim arrived wearing a dirty old suit. Reporters marvelled at the dowdiness of Ivy’s dresses. In the eyes of Americans, the pair’s shabby clothes represented the challenges facing the embattled Soviet Union. East Coast socialites and powerbrokers eagerly welcomed the Litvinovs as ‘exotic’ emissaries of a Soviet reality that, for them, was at once unimaginable and in need of translation. The couple became overnight celebrities as ‘invitations piled up like a snowfall at the embassy’s front door’.
Into this American spotlight stepped Ivy Litvinov, ready to shine in her unofficial diplomatic role as the Soviet ambassador’s wife. She had prepared for this moment in the previous two decades, when her Moscow apartment had served as a receiving room for foreign visitors to the USSR eager for the type of conversation that only Ivy could provide. Known in the West as ‘Madame Litvinoff’, she occupied a unique and precarious position in the Soviet capital. In the Kremlin’s shadow, she had welcomed Anglophone visitors to her table for tea and lively conversation in her native tongue. Madame Litvinoff took on an outsized role in Soviet diplomacy precisely because she could speak fluently to those visitors in their own language. She offered ease of conversation, empathy and witty ripostes to Anglophone guests to the USSR who often entered her living room in a state of culture shock.
In the US, she was ready not only to reprise her role as the Soviet Union’s English-speaking hostess, but also to chase her full potential as a Hollywood-style celebrity in the land of American capitalism. She set out to make ‘Madame Litvinoff’ a household name. While Maxim tended his ambassadorial duties, Ivy stepped out on the town. She travelled the US, making headlines wherever she went. A self-styled people’s ambassadress, she might have spoken in English on behalf of the Soviet Union, but it was always in her own distinctive voice.
Americans have long since forgotten her. Yet Ivy Litvinov still speaks meaningfully to us today – about women and power, language and diplomacy, and the creative ways that the spouses of prominent politicians have found to assert themselves on the world stage. With her lilting British accent, Madame Litvinoff promoted better relations between the Soviet Union and its Anglophone admirers and critics alike. Dismissed to the margins of history with the insufficient descriptor – ‘British-born wife of Maxim’ – Ivy and her thankless ‘women’s work’ both deserve history’s spotlight.