Natalia Sedova

Natalia Ivanovna Sedova was a Russian revolutionary, cultural administrator and writer, born in 1882 in the Russian Empire. As a young woman she became involved in revolutionary politics and was expelled from school for political activity before continuing her education abroad. In Paris she met Leon Trotsky after his escape from Siberian exile, becoming his lifelong companion and the mother of their sons Lev Sedov and Sergei Sedov.

After the Bolshevik Revolution Sedova worked in cultural and museum administration, helping to protect artistic and historic collections during years of upheaval. She later shared Trotsky’s successive exiles in Turkey, France, Norway and Mexico as Stalin consolidated power and persecuted the family. Their sons died during the 1930s, and Sedova was present in Mexico when Trotsky was assassinated in 1940. She continued political activity afterward, sometimes disagreeing sharply with organised Trotskyists, and died in France in 1962.