Chukovskaya fell in love with a young physicist of Jewish origin , Matvei Bronstein , and the two soon married . In the late 1930s , Joseph Stalin 's Great Terror enveloped the land . Chukovskaya 's employer Detgiz came under attack for being too " bourgeois " , and a number of its authors were arrested and executed . Matvei Bronstein also became one of Stalin 's many victims . He was arrested in 1937 on a false charge and , unknown to his wife , was tried and executed in February 1938 . Chukovskaya too would have been arrested , had she not been away from Leningrad at the time
Great Terror
Great Purge
Lydia Chukovskaya