Vera de Bosset

Vera de Bosset Soudeikine (1888 – 1982) was a long-term mistress and ultimately second wife of the Russian composer Igor Stravinsky, who married her in 1940 after the death of his first wife Katerina Nossenko.

Stravinsky met Vera in 1921, when she was a dancer and the wife of the painter and stage designer Serge Sudeikin, while he had been married to his cousin Katerina Nossenko since 1906. The two soon began an affair which led to her leaving her husband. From then until the death of Katerina in 1939, Stravinsky led a deft double-life, spending most of his time with his first family and the rest with Vera. Katerina soon learned of the relationship and accepted it as inevitable and permanent. After her death Stravinsky and Vera were married in New York where they had gone from France to escape the war.

Vera de Bosset was born Vera Bosse, the daughter of Eduard Bosse,+ 1927 in Reval, and Hedwig von Ruckteschell *1890 + 1938 in Riga. Both parents were German Balten, Mother Baltic Nobility. Vera allegedly changed the name into a french version to hide her German ancestry. She was the only one ever to do so. There are still Bosse, her nephews and nieces and further in Europe, the United States and Chile. Sources are the von Ruckteschell Family papers, taken care of by Georg Bosse, Kentucky, USA.

Maris Haag