Salomea Nikolayevna Andronikova , born Salome Andronikashvili was a Georgian-Russian socialite of the literary and artistic world of pre-revolutionary Saint St. Petersburg.
Background
Salomea Ivanovna Andronikova was born in Tiflis (now Tbilisi, Georgia) in October 1888 into the family of the Georgian prince Ivane Andronikashvili (1863–1944) and his Russian wife Lidiya Pleshcheyeva-Muratova (1861–1953), a relative of the poet Aleksey Pleshcheyev.
Career
In exile she lived in Georgia (1917-1919), France (1919-1940), the United States of America (1940-1947) and Britain (1947-1982). Salomea"s real patronymic was "Ivanovna", but she thought that somewhat vulgar and adopted "Nikolayevna" instead. The Andronikashvili family claimed descent from a natural son of the Eastern Roman Emperor Andronikos I Komnenos.
In 1906, at the age of 18, Salomea moved from Tbilisi to Saint Her salon hosted, among others, the poets Anna Akhmatova and Osip Mandelstam.
After divorcing Andreyev Salomea had a 7-year affair with the Russian poet Sergey Rafalovich. After the revolutionary turmoil in Petrograd in 1917 Salomea and Rafalovich fled to her native Georgia.
She settled in Tbilisi, and co-edited the Russian-language literary monthly Orion. Here she began a love affair with Zinovy Peshkov, a French diplomat of Russian background.
In 1919 she fled with Peshkov to Paris.
She helped the Russian artist Zinaida Serebriakova escape from Soviet Russia, and supported the poet Marina Tsvetaeva during her forced exile in Europe. She worked for the fashion magazines of Lucien Vogel. During World World War II she remained in Paris until 1940, when she moved to the United States of America, where Galpern served at the British embassy.
After the War, Salomea moved back to Europe, and in 1947 settled in London.
There she remained until her death on 8 May 1982, at the age of 94 - in a house which had been purchased for her by the philosopher Sir Isaiah Berlin. In accordance with her will her ashes were scattered in Trafalgar Square.