Elena Roerich d’après les souvenirs d’Esther Lichtmann

Elena Roerich in the recollections of Esther Lichtmann (1929-1930). Esther Lichtmann (1892-1990) was one of the close associates of Nicholas and Elena Roerich, a member of the esoteric Roerich circle in New York (the Circle or Krug in Russian). After the Roerich couple had settled in the Kullu Valley in India, she visited them twice, in 1929-1931 and in 1934. Living in the Roerichs’ “ Himalayan Ashram” in Naggar, Esther kept a diary which contains most interesting records of Elena Roerich’s every-day life (while Nikolai and her elder son George/ Yurii stayed in the usa and then in Europe, in 1929-1930). The main focus of these records is Esther’s daily conversations with Elena Ivanovna, being the paraphrase of everything she heard from the “Mother of the Agni Yoga” and the description of the things she personally witnessed. Esther Lichtmann’s diaries which make nine thick copybooks is a most valuable source of information about the life and activities of the Roerichs in their early Indian period, preceding the collapse of the Roerich Circle. In the Appendix to the article the reader will find excerpts from Lichtmann’s records focusing specifically on two topics – Elena’s recollections of her past and the description of her ailments.