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The poetess's work dates back to the Silver Age of Russian literature. She wrote prose, translated texts and, of course, composed elegant poetry full of sincerity. She suffered a tragic fate, full of injustice and deprivation. However, there was a place for happiness in her wanderings. The life of Marina Tsvetaeva (1892-1941) was full of interesting events.
Ivan Tsvetaev founded the Museum of Fine Arts, studied philology, and worked at Moscow University. The poetess’s mother studied music, was fond of playing the piano, also taught her daughter this, and wrote poetry. It was from her that Marina inherited her passion for poetry. Maria Alexandrovna was very proud of her, but still paid most of her attention to her youngest daughter Anastasia. This offended the poetess a little. Tsvetaeva’s parents raised four children: three girls and one boy.
At the age of 9, the little writer entered the fourth gymnasium for girls, where she studied for only a short time. When the girl turns 10, her mother is diagnosed with tuberculosis. In this regard, the family will move to the coast between the Ligurian Sea and the mountain range. Later, our heroine will change two more places of study. In the summer of 1905, Tsvetaeva’s family will come home. They will settle in a city on the shores of the Black Sea - in Yalta. Next summer they will move to Tarusa - a place with which the life and work of Marina Tsvetaeva are so closely intertwined.
History of success
At the age of 6-7 years, the future poetess began her unique creative path, writing her first poems. At the age of 18, she published her debut collection of poems entitled “Evening Album” (1910). She had no sponsors; Marina Ivanovna published the collection on her own. The response to her work was immediate. She immediately attracted the attention of famous people. Gumilev Lev Nikolaevich, Valery Yakovlevich Bryusov and Voloshin were interested in the young writer. Acquaintance with them opens up for her a new literary world of the Symbolists, which consists of many circles where Tsvetaeva never found herself. Her style was so original and free from extraneous influences that it failed to fit into any aesthetic concept.
The poetic world of Marina Tsvetaeva is based on her life principles, which she herself carefully preserved for posterity in her notes:
The only reference book: your own hearing and, if you really need it, Savodnik’s theory of literature: drama, tragedy, poem, satire.
The only teacher: your own work.
And the only judge: the future.
Creation
First poems
In 1906, Marina Tsvetaeva wrote a passionate appeal to the generation of fathers with a request not to interfere with young people to live the way they want (“Don’t laugh at the younger generation!”). In the same year, the sublime poem “To Mama” was written, written in the same classical manner. Until 1910, most of her poems were devoted to childhood memories and impressions. The beginner Tsvetaeva composes simply and laconically, without experimenting with the meter and rhythm of the verse. She frantically searches for her style, her voice, trying well-known poetic formulas.
Her originality begins from the time when she finds a way out of the established framework of poetry and realizes her own innovative potential.
Collections and cycles
- The first collection is “Evening Album” (1910). Also in 1910, the article “Magic in Bryusov’s verses” was published;
- The Magic Lantern was published in 1912;
- A year later, the public was able to evaluate her new collection “From Two Books.”
Until the 21st, the writer takes a break and no longer publishes collections. Tsvetaeva also has publications in such magazines as: “Northern Notes”, “Almanac of Muses”, “Salon of Poets”.
While in the Czech Republic, he writes his famous poems “Poem of the Mountain” and “Poem of the End”. The collection “Youth Poems” was published gradually over two years from 1913 to 1915. In 1921, the private publication “Kostry” published the collection “Versty I”. It includes 5 poems written from 17 to 20 years. The following works are also published: “The Tsar-Maiden”, “On the Red Horse”. The collection “Psyche” is being compiled. The "" cycle is being prepared.
The writer's last collection was published in 1928 in France, Paris. It has a characteristic name - “After Russia”. All poems written from 1922 to 1925 were published there. The poetic cycle “Mayakovsky” was published in the 30th. The writer was too shocked by the poet’s suicide. Tsvetaeva is also working on creating the series “To a Friend,” dedicated to her beloved woman, Sofia Parnok. At the same time, the writer’s prose is being published. The works delight foreign audiences. Further published: “The Living About the Living” (1933), “The House at Old Pimen”, “The Captive Spirit” was published in 1934, “Mother and Music” (1935), the following year the story “An Unearthly Wind” was published “My Pushkin” in 1937, later “The Tale of Sonechka” was published.
Tsvetaeva’s most famous cycle of poems is poems dedicated to the poet A. Blok. Here is a detailed one of them, called “Your name.”
Personal life
The writer was not limited only to men. Her lover was Sofia Parnok. More details about their romance will be discussed below. The writer also had a relationship with Konstantin Rodzevich. He was a friend of her husband.
Interesting fact: after breaking up with Rodzevich, Marina Ivanovna helped choose a dress for his future wife, and also dedicated some of her works to him. Friends called their novel “the only, real and difficult, non-intellectual” in the writer’s life. The husband knew about all of Tsvetaeva’s relationships. But, nevertheless, the couple maintained their marriage. After breaking up with Konstantin, Marina Ivanovna gave birth to a son. It is still not known exactly who this child was from: from her husband or from a former lover.
Family
In 1911, Tsvetaeva and Sergei Efron met. Literally a year later they decide to get married. In the 12th year, their daughter was born, whom they decided to name Ariadne. The family affectionately called her Alya. After 5 years, another daughter, Irina, is born. Unfortunately, the girl dies at the age of 3 years. This is due to poor conditions and lack of food in the orphanage. Mom sent her daughters there during the days of revolutionary devastation, thinking that girls there had a better chance of surviving than in a poor family devastated by the civil war. On February 1, 1925, the family was replenished. A son, Georgy, is born, but everyone calls him “Moore.”
Tsvetaeva’s husband was engaged in journalism, studied literature, and served. In 1941 he was sentenced to death for political reasons. His belonging to an ideologically alien class played a fatal role in his fate under the dictatorship of the proletariat. In 1955, the Tsvetaevs’ eldest daughter received permission to enter the USSR. Beloved Moore dies during the war, in 1944. The writer has no grandchildren. This means that Tsvetaeva has no direct heirs.
Other novels
Tsvetaeva and Sofia Parnok met in 1922, and then their love story began. Even at their first meeting, they felt mutual sympathy. Later these feelings developed into a romance. Sergei was incredibly jealous and caused scenes, however, the affair with Parnok lasted about two years.
But, in the end, Maria Ivanovna decided to part with the translator. The cycle of poems “Girlfriend” is dedicated to the former lover. Marina Ivanovna called this union the first disaster in her life. But upon learning the news about Sophia’s death, the writer reacted rather coldly and indifferently. However, it is Sonechka with long black braids that is dedicated to Tsvetaeva’s prose story, which domestic authors value very highly, because this prose is written more gracefully and more imaginatively than other poems.
There are rumors about other adventures of the scandalous poetess. In her small homeland, Tarusa, old-timers remember stories about the piquant details of the life of the famous author. She often fell in love and was an impressionable and affectionate person. They often talk about her connections with O. Mandelstam, A. Blok and other famous personalities.
- Germany and Ancient Greece are the writer’s most beloved countries.
- The poetess’s favorite stone is carnelian. She always claimed that her husband would be the one who guessed what her favorite stone was. On the day she met her husband, Sergei gave her that very treasured item, having accidentally found it on the seashore. This is how the fate of Marina Tsvetaeva developed.
- While moving, our heroine asked Boris Pasternak for help in packing. He brought a rope for the suitcase and jokingly said: “The rope will withstand anything, even if you hang yourself.” These words became prophetic. The writer later committed suicide on the same rope.
- Marina Tsvetaeva believed that the name given to a person at birth influences his future. An interesting life, in her opinion, was determined already at the stage of conception. She wanted to name her son Boris, not Georgiy, because she was sure that the letter “y” in the name deprives him of masculinity.
- Marina Ivanovna did not love her youngest daughter, but she simply idolized the eldest, jealous of her even towards her relatives. She considered Irina weak-minded, because the girl really developed slowly and was not as smart and quick-witted as her older sister. At the shelter, Irina often banged her head against the walls and floor, which caused bewilderment among her peers. But Ariadna had a close relationship with her mother, so Tsvetaeva tried to give her more food. When the eldest daughter fell ill with malaria, the mother blamed Irina for this and gave the sick woman all the supplies she had (she visited them at the shelter and brought food). Perhaps because of this neglect, Irina died.
- When one of the daughters ate a head of cabbage while her mother was away, the mother became so angry that she tied the child to a chair every time she left the house.
- Marina Tsvetaeva loved A. Akhmatova’s poetry very much and longed to see her, but after a cold and brief meeting between the two women, this attitude changed dramatically. Both poetesses spoke very harshly and arrogantly about each other throughout their lives.
Emigration
In the spring of 1922, the family received permission to travel abroad to join her husband and father, Sergei Efron. Their first stop is Berlin. Then they moved to the outskirts of Prague, where they lived for about three years. After giving birth to George, the writer and her family moved to Paris. Even abroad, the poetess continued to communicate with Boris Pasternak and other Russian writers.
The works released abroad did not bring much profit, although they were successful. The emigrant family was virtually destitute. The mother of the family barely managed to cook soup for the whole family from what she could pick up at the market. Her husband cannot work because he is seriously ill. The only income comes from sewing hats for the poetess's daughter. This money is too little to support a family of four.
On March 15, 1937, Alya was given permission to go home. That same year, Efron was suspected of being an accomplice in a political murder, so he decided to flee France. Later, the writer returned to the USSR in 1939.
Death
How did Marina Tsvetaeva die? The writer could not bear the death of her husband; the incident finished her off. On August 31, 1941, when her husband was shot, the writer hanged herself in the house where she temporarily lived with Moore. The cause of death is fatigue from life's squabbles and worries. Possessing extraordinary talent, the woman was forced to vegetate in poverty and drag her whole family with her. This load was too heavy for her.
Before doing this, Marina Ivanovna prepared several notes. One for those who will bury her (later this note will be called “evacuees”), another for her son, the third is left to her daughter. The great poetess was buried on September 2 at the Peter and Paul Cemetery in the city of Elabuga.
Places of Marina Tsvetaeva
Several house museums have been opened in memory of the writer. There are also memorial monuments throughout the country. There are small excursion routes in Prague where tourists are given the opportunity to visit and explore the places where the writer once lived with her family.
Petrin Hill is one of Marina Tsvetaeva’s favorite places. It was this hill that became the prototype of the mountain in the work “Poem of the Mountain”. The poetess quite often came to the Jewish cemetery in the Old Town and to the Smichov Malostranske cemetery. She walked there completely alone. Marina Ivanovna said that Prague is the only city that “crashed” into her heart.
There is also a house-museum in Tarusa, where the poetess lived for a long time. The famous autumn festivals in her honor are also held there.
Marina Ivanovna’s favorite city was Moscow, where she also has a memorial place
Interesting? Save it on your wall!
The first posthumous book of poems by Marina Tsvetaeva, “Favorites,” was published in the USSR in 1961, 20 years after the death of the author and almost 40 years after the previous publication in her homeland. By the time “The Chosen One” was published, few readers remembered the young Tsvetaeva and almost no one could imagine the magnitude of the figure she had become as she went through her tragic path.
Marina Tsvetaeva's first books
Marina Tsvetaeva was born on October 8, 1892 in Moscow. Her father Ivan Tsvetaev is a doctor of Roman literature, art historian, honorary member of many universities and scientific societies, director of the Rumyantsev Museum, founder of the Museum of Fine Arts (now the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts). Mother Maria Main was a talented pianist. Deprived of the opportunity to pursue a solo career, she put all her energy into raising her children, Marina and Anastasia, as musicians.
Ivan Tsvetaev. Photo: scientificrussia.ru
Anastasia and Marina Tsvetaeva. Photo: 1abzac.ru
Maria Main. Photo: alexandrtrofimov.ru
Marina later wrote about her mother: “The whole spirit of education is German. Enthusiasm for music, enormous talent (I’ll never hear such playing on the piano and guitar again!), ability for languages, brilliant memory, magnificent style, poetry in Russian and German, painting classes.”. After the death of her mother - Marina Tsvetaeva was 14 years old at that time - music lessons came to naught. But the melody remained in the poems, which Tsvetaeva began writing at the age of six - immediately in Russian, German and French.
When I later, forced by the necessity of my rhythm, began to break up, tear words into syllables using an unusual dash in poetry, and everyone scolded me for this for years, I suddenly one day saw with my own eyes those romance texts of my infancy with solid legal dashes - and I felt yourself washed, supported, confirmed and legitimized - like a child, by a secret sign of the family, turned out to be relatives, with the right to life, finally!
Marina Tsvetaeva. "Mother and Music"
In 1910, Tsvetaeva published her first poetry collection, “Evening Album,” at her own expense. I sent it to the master, Valery Bryusov, for review. The symbolist poet mentioned the young talent in his article for the magazine “Russian Thought”: “When you read her book, you feel awkward for minutes, as if you had immodestly looked through a half-closed window into someone else’s apartment and spied a scene that strangers shouldn’t see.”.
Maximilian Voloshin and Nikolai Gumilyov also responded to “Evening Album” in print. In Koktebel, visiting Voloshin, Marina met Sergei Efron, the son of the People's Will revolutionaries Yakov Efron and Elizaveta Durnovo. In January 1912, they got married, and soon two books with “talking” titles were published: “The Magic Lantern” by Tsvetaeva and “Childhood” by Efron. Tsvetaeva’s next collection, “From Two Books,” was compiled from previously published poems. It became a kind of watershed between the poet’s peaceful youth and tragic maturity.
"An outrageously great poet"
The small family - their daughter Ariadna was born in 1912 - met the First World War in a house on Borisoglebsky Lane. Sergei Efron was preparing to enter university, Marina Tsvetaeva was writing poetry. Since 1915, Efron worked on a hospital train and was mobilized in 1917. Later he found himself in the ranks of the White Guards, from Crimea with the remnants of the defeated White Army he moved to Turkey, then to Europe. Marina Tsvetaeva, who did not receive news from her husband during the Civil War, remained in Moscow - now with two children.
Marina Tsvetaeva and Sergei Efron. Photo: diwis.ru
Marina Tsvetaeva's daughters are Ariadna and Irina Efron. Photo: alexandrtrofimov.ru
Sergei Efron, Marina Tsvetaeva with Georgy (Moore) and Ariadna Efron. Photo: alexandrtrofimov.ru
At this time, she became close to the Vakhtangov studio students (the future Third Studio of the Moscow Art Theater), who “registered” in Mansurovsky Lane. Among Tsvetaeva’s closest friends were the poet Pavel Antokolsky, director Yuri Zavadsky, and actress Sofia Golliday. For them and under the influence of the adored “poetic deity” - Alexander Blok - Tsvetaeva wrote “romantic dramas”. Their light, elegant style carried the young poetess into beautiful distances, away from freezing military Moscow.
In February 1920, Marina Tsvetaeva’s youngest daughter died of starvation. A year later, news from Efron came from abroad, and Tsvetaeva decided to go to him. In May 1922, the couple met in Berlin. Berlin in the early 1920s was the publishing Mecca of the Russian emigration. In 1922–1923, Marina Tsvetaeva published 5 books here. A little earlier, the collection “Milestones”, the dramatic sketch “The End of Casanova” and the fairy tale poem “The Tsar Maiden” were published in Moscow - this was the farewell to Russia.
Sergei Efron studied at the University of Prague, which offered free places to refugees from Russia, Marina and her daughter followed him to the Czech Republic. We couldn’t afford to rent an apartment in Prague, so we lived in the surrounding villages for several years. Tsvetaeva was published. In the Czech Republic, “The Poem of the Mountain” and “The Poem of the End”, “Russian” fairy tale poems “Well done”, “Alleys”, the drama “Ariadne” were born, and “The Pied Piper” was started - a re-interpretation of the German legend about the rat catcher from the city of Gammeln. In the Czech emigration, Tsvetaeva's epistolary romance with Boris Pasternak began, which lasted almost 14 years.
"She was one misery"
In 1925, the Tsvetaev-Efron family, already with their son Georgy, moved to Paris. The capital of the Russian diaspora greeted them, at first glance, warmly. Tsvetaeva’s poetry evening was a success, her poems were published. In 1928, the book “After Russia” was published in Paris - the last collection of the poet published during his lifetime.
But the differences between the independent Marina Tsvetaeva and the old-school Russian intelligentsia became increasingly obvious. Her morals were too different from the habits of the masters who reigned here: Dmitry Merezhkovsky and Zinaida Gippius, Vladislav Khodasevich and Ivan Bunin. Tsvetaeva did odd jobs: she gave lectures, wrote articles, and did translations. The situation was aggravated by the fact that emigrants, most of whom did not accept the revolution, looked askance at Sergei Efron. He became an open supporter of Bolshevism and joined the ranks of the Homecoming Union. Efron insisted that he fell into the camp of the White Guards almost by accident. In 1932, he applied to receive a Soviet passport and was recruited by the NKVD.
Marina Tsvetaeva. 1930. Photo: alexandrtrofimov.ru
Marina Tsvetaeva with her daughter Ariadna. 1924. Photo: alexandrtrofimov.ru
Georgy Efron. Paris. 1930s. Photo: alexandrtrofimov.ru
Ariadna Efron was the first to leave for Moscow in March 1937. A graduate of the Louvre High School, an art historian and book graphic artist, she got a job at a Soviet magazine that was published in French. She wrote and translated a lot. In the fall of 1937, after participating in the elimination of a defector Soviet agent, Efron fled to Moscow. He was settled in a dacha in Bolshevo, and life seemed to improve.
Marina Tsvetaeva did not share her family’s enthusiasm and hopes for a happy future in the Soviet Union. And yet, in June 1939, she came to the USSR. After 2 months, Ariadne was arrested, and after another month and a half, Sergei Efron. For Marina and fourteen-year-old Georgiy - Moore at home - the ordeal began. They lived either with relatives in Moscow or at the dacha of the Writers' House of Creativity in Golitsyn. They tried to get a meeting with relatives or at least find out something about them.
With great difficulty and not immediately, it was possible to rent a room where Tsvetaeva continued to work. She made her living by translating. In 1940, a review was published by the critic Zelinsky, who branded Tsvetaeva’s book, which was to be published, with the terrible word “formalism.” For the poet, this meant closing all doors. On August 8, 1941, at the height of the fascist offensive on Moscow, Tsvetaeva and her son went with a group of writers to evacuate to the Volga city of Elabuga. Boris Pasternak and the young poet Viktor Bokov came to see them off at the river station.
“She completely lost her head, completely lost her will; she was nothing but misery", Moore later said in a letter about his mother’s last days. On August 31, Marina Tsvetaeva committed suicide. In her suicide notes, she asked to take care of her son. Georgy Efron died at the front in 1944. His father was shot in October 1941 and was posthumously rehabilitated in 1956. Ariadne Ephron was rehabilitated in 1955. After returning from exile, she worked on translations, prepared Marina Tsvetaeva’s works for publication, and wrote memoirs about her.
Marina Ivanovna Tsvetaeva was born September 26 (October 8), 1892 in Moscow. Daughter of Professor I.V. Tsvetaeva - a professor at Moscow University, a famous philologist and art critic, who later became the director of the Rumyantsev Museum and the founder of the Museum of Fine Arts (now the State Museum of Fine Arts named after A.S. Pushkin). Mother came from a Russified Polish-German family and was a talented pianist. She died in 1906, leaving two daughters in the care of her father.
The family spent the winter season in Moscow, the summer in the city of Tarusa, Kaluga province. The Tsvetaevs also traveled abroad. In 1903 Tsvetaeva studied at a French boarding school in Lausanne (Switzerland), autumn 1904 – spring 1905 studied with her sister at a German boarding school in Freiburg (Germany), summer 1909 alone went to Paris, where she attended a course in ancient French literature at the Sorbonne.
She started writing poetry in childhood. Her first collections “Evening Album” ( 1910 ) and "Magic Lantern" ( 1912 ) met with sympathetic responses from V. Bryusov, M. Voloshin, N. Gumilyov. In 1913 The collection “From Two Books” was published. The book “Youth Poems. 1912-1915" marks the transition to mature romance. In verse 1916 (collection “Versts”, 1921 ) the most important themes of Tsvetaeva’s work are formed - love, Russia, poetry.
Winter 1910-1911 M.A. Voloshin invited Marina Tsvetaeva and her sister Anastasia (Asya) to spend the summer of 1911 in Koktebel, where he lived. There Tsvetaeva met Sergei Yakovlevich Efron. In 1912 Tsvetaeva married S. Efron, who became not only her husband, but also her closest friend.
M. Tsvetaeva did not accept the October Revolution. She idealized the White Guard movement, giving it features of sublimity and holiness. This is partly due to the fact that her husband S.Ya. Efron was an officer in the White Army. At the same time, Tsvetaeva creates a cycle of romantic plays (“Blizzard”, “Fortune”, “Adventure”, “Stone Angel”, “Phoenix”, etc.) and a fairy tale poem “The Tsar Maiden” ( 1922 ).
In the spring of 1922 M. Tsvetaeva and her daughter Ariadna went abroad to join her husband, at that time a student at the University of Prague. She lived in the Czech Republic for more than three years and at the end of 1925 moved to Paris with her family. February 1, 1925 M. Tsvetaeva gave birth to a long-awaited son, named Georgiy (home name - Moore). In the early 20s. she was widely published in White émigré magazines. Published books: “Poems to Blok”, “Separation” (both 1922 ), "Psyche. Romance", "Craft" (both 1923 ), poem-fairy tale “Well done” ( 1924 ). Soon, Tsvetaeva’s relations with emigrant circles worsened, which was facilitated by her growing attraction to Russia (“Poems to my son,” “Motherland,” “Longing for the Motherland! Long time ago...”, “Chelyuskinites”, etc.). The last lifetime collection of poems is “After Russia. 1922-1925" was published in Paris in 1928. The beginning of World War II was met with tragedy, as evidenced by Tsvetaeva’s last poetic cycle, “Poems for the Czech Republic” ( 1938-1939 ), associated with the occupation of Czechoslovakia and permeated with ardent hatred of fascism.
In 1939 she restored her Soviet citizenship and, following her husband and daughter, returned to the USSR. In their homeland, Tsvetaev and his family first lived at the state dacha of the NKVD in Bolshevo, near Moscow, provided to S. Efron. However, soon both Efron and Ariadne were arrested (S. Efron was later shot). From that time on, she was constantly visited by thoughts of suicide. After this, Tsvetaeva was forced to wander. She was engaged in poetic translations (I. Franko, Vazha Pshavela, C. Baudelaire, F. Garcia Lorca, etc.), and prepared a book of poems.
Soon after the start of the Great Patriotic War, August 8, 1941 Tsvetaeva and her son were evacuated from Moscow and ended up in the small town of Elabuga. August 31, 1941 Marina Tsvetaeva committed suicide.
The world of themes and images in Tsvetaeva’s work is extremely rich. She writes about Casanova, about the burghers, recreates with disgust the details of emigrant life and glorifies her desk, pits love against the prose of life, mocks vulgarity, recreates Russian fairy tales and Greek myths. The inner meaning of her work is tragic - the collision of the poet with the outside world, their incompatibility. Tsvetaeva's poetry, including "Poem of the Mountain" ( 1926 ) and "Poem of the End" ( 1926 ), "lyrical satire" "The Pied Piper" ( 1925 ) and even tragedies based on ancient themes “Ariadne” ( 1924 , published under the title "Theseus" in 1927 ) and "Phaedra" ( 1927 , published in 1928 ), - always a confession, a continuous intense monologue. Tsvetaeva’s poetic style is marked by energy and swiftness. More in 1916-1920. Folklore rhythms burst into her poetry (raeshnik, recitative - patches, spells - “cruel” romance, ditty, song). Each time it is not stylization, but an original, modern mastery of rhythm. After 1921 Marina Tsvetaeva appears solemn, “odic” rhythms and vocabulary (the “Apprentice” cycles, published 1922 ; "The Youth", published 1922 ). By mid-20s These include the most formally complicated poems by Tsvetaeva, often difficult to understand due to the extreme condensation of speech (“Attempt of the Room”, 1928 ; "Poem of the Air" 1930 , and etc.). In the 30s Tsvetaeva returned to simple and strict forms (“Poems to the Czech Republic”). However, such features as the predominance of conversational intonation over melodious intonation, the complex and original instrumentation of the verse remain common to Tsvetaeva’s entire work. Her poetry is built on contrasts, combining seemingly incompatible lexical and stylistic ranges: vernacular with high style, everyday prose with biblical vocabulary. One of the main features of Tsvetaeva’s style is the isolation of a separate word, word formation from one or phonetically similar roots, playing on the root word (“minute - past: minesh ...”). Highlighting this most important word for herself and rhythmically, Tsvetaeva breaks the lines of the phrase, often omits the verb, and achieves special expressiveness with an abundance of questions and exclamations.
Tsvetaeva often turned to prose and created a special genre that combines philosophical reflections, touches of a literary portrait with personal memories. She also owns treatises on art and poetry (“The Poet on Criticism,” 1926 ; "The Poet and Time" 1932 ; "Art in the Light of Conscience" 1932-1933 , and etc.). The works of Marina Tsvetaeva have been translated into all European languages.
On the very eve of the new year, 2008, in Moscow, on the 115th anniversary of the birth of Marina Tsvetaeva, a monument to the poetess was erected. Its place is Borisoglebsky Lane, opposite her house-museum. By the way, the monument was cast in bronze at the expense of the capital’s Department of Culture, as well as sponsors. The question posed itself: belated recognition, tribute or rehabilitation of dissident patriots?
So who was “the most extraordinary poet of the twentieth century” for Russians? “What did Tsvetaeva read to you when she came from her funeral?”
...Tsvetaeva was born in Moscow on September 26, 1892. Her youth passed in Borisoglebsky Lane. As a poet, prose writer and playwright, she took place in Moscow. And she settled scores with herself in Elabuga (now Tatarstan) on August 31 in the difficult year of 1941. Her grave in Yelabuga is lost. The only monuments left to her are the books of those people who knew, loved, and studied her.
The poetess passed away uninveterately. Half a century later, in 1990, Patriarch Alexy II gave his blessing for her funeral service, while funeral services for suicides are strictly prohibited in the Russian Orthodox Church. What made it possible to make an exception for her? “People’s love,” answered the patriarch.
Tsvetaeva was not born a “simple Russian” girl: her father was an art professor, the creator of a museum of fine arts, her mother was a pianist, a student of the famous A. Rubinstein, her grandfather was a famous historian. Due to her mother’s consumption, Tsvetaeva lived for a long time in Italy, Switzerland, and Germany; received an excellent education in boarding schools in Lausanne and Freiburg. Young Marina was fluent in French and German and took a course in French literature at the Sorbonne. That is why the girl began writing poetry at the age of 6 simultaneously in Russian, German and French.
She left three posthumous notes: an official one, with the words “dear comrades”, the second - to the poet Aseev, where she begged him to adopt his 16-year-old son and teach him (which Aseev did not do!) and to his teenage son himself - that she was in a dead end and, alas, he sees no way out...
A week before her suicide, Tsvetaeva wrote an application asking to be hired as a dishwasher in an opening enterprise, but the canteen was opened in the winter of 1943, when Tsvetaeva was no longer alive. Her son was first evacuated to Tashkent, then called to the front, where he, large and unathletic, was killed in battle at the end of the war.
...The family of the emigrant Tsvetaeva was reunited in Russia on the eve of the Great Patriotic War, in June 1939. Her husband, Sergei Efron, and his daughter Alya returned to their homeland a little earlier, in 1937. They spoke of him as “an intelligence officer confused in the West.” According to the official version, S. Efron, in order to return to the USSR, accepted an offer to cooperate with the NKVD abroad. And then he became involved in a contracted political murder, which is why he fled from France to Moscow. In the summer of 1939, Tsvetaeva and her son Georgiy returned after him and his daughter.
Soon, real hell began in the family of the repatriate Tsvetaeva: daughter Alya was taken to the NKVD as a spy, then Sergei, her beloved husband, and even with a mockery: “I was waiting for an order, but I received a warrant.” The daughter and husband were arrested: Efron was shot in 1941, the daughter was rehabilitated after 15 years of repression. Tsvetaeva herself could neither find a job nor find housing; no one published her works. According to close people, he and his son were literally starving.
“The White Guards have returned,” they whispered about Efron and Tsvetaeva. And... off we go: prison queues and hassles, hysterics, fear for herself and her children, as for the last breadwinner, tormented by the unknown ahead, she felt as if in a terrible meat grinder...
She was a passionate mother, but she did not experience harmony here either: she lost her youngest daughter during the civil war, then she made an idol out of her son, adored him literally tyrannically, and the “idol” became obstinate, ambitious, and asked not to overfeed with maternal love.
All two years in Russia, they quarreled with their son, shouting loudly in French. By the way, Efron, with paternal sarcasm, called the boy “Marin” - precisely because he was similar to his mother in both his temper and his “nervousness,” that is, sensuality. taught him to live among people as equals. Having passed away, his mother left him an outcast in a strange world.
Why did Moscow greet Tsvetaeva with caution? And not just a “Parisian”, not just “one of the former”! Namely, branded. There is a version that it was precisely her colleagues “in the poetic workshop” who were afraid of the poetess’ return. She was pushed far away even by Pasternak, with whom she had a stormy epistolary affair. And not only “politically,” but also as a man. And at a very long distance: he was afraid of a possible “fire”, it was he who once in the heat of the moment said: they say, Marina’s kerosene gas is burning with “Siegfried’s flame.” But that’s not possible!
After returning to her homeland, Tsvetaeva is preparing a collection of poems for publication, she translates a lot, but no one publishes it.
“Beggar elegance,” that’s what Tsvetaeva was called behind her back in the last period of her life. She always looked like a mouse: gray, discreet, in low heels, with a huge belt and amber beads, exquisite silver bracelets on her wrists, with a short haircut. And the eyes are green. Literally like gooseberries. And the gait is firm, almost masculine. Tsvetaeva seemed to always be overcoming something: she was afraid of street cars, of escalators in the subway, of elevators in houses, she always seemed as if short-sighted, not of this world, very unprotected.
The war declared in 1941 and the prospect of plunging into Hitler’s yoke terrified her even more, much more than Stalin’s! And she had a hard time believing in Russia’s victory. On June 22, the day war was declared, Tsvetaeva uttered a strange phrase: “I would like to exchange with Mayakovsky.” And she also said this: “A person needs little: a piece of solid earth to put his foot on and stay on it. That's all".
Judging the reasons for her suicide is, apparently, nonsense. Only she herself knew about this, forever silent.
Here are brief milestones in the biography of the poetess. During the revolutionary period, until 1922, she lived in Moscow with her children, while her husband, officer Efron, fought in the White Army. Since 1922, the family emigrated: they lived for a short time in Berlin, 3 years in Prague, in 1925 the “Parisian period” began, marked by a complete lack of money, everyday disorder, difficult relations with the Russian emigration, at which time the hostility of criticism towards her increased. The family's living conditions abroad were incredibly difficult. At home it’s even more difficult.
Tsvetaeva grew up in a democratically minded family. And if the revolution of 1917 became the guiding force for people like Mayakovsky, Blok, Yesenin and others, then 1917 appeared differently before M. Tsvetaeva.
Her attitude towards the revolution was ambiguous; Trying to find something heroic in the White Army, where her husband served, she at the same time understood the hopelessness of the counter-revolutionary movement. At that time, her circle of acquaintances was very rich. These are Balmont, Blok, Akhmatova, Voloshin, Kuzmin, Remizov, Bely, Bryusov, Yesenin, Antokolsky, Mandelstam, Lunacharsky, with whom he performs at concerts. And this is also a wide circle of actors - students of E. Vakhtangov.
There is information that at the age of 17 Marina tried to commit suicide. She even wrote a farewell letter to her sister Anastasia, which came to her 32 years later. This is what her sister wrote in her memoirs: “Marina wrote about the impossibility of living further, said goodbye and asked me to distribute her favorite books and engravings - then there was a list and enumeration of people. I remember the lines addressed to me personally: “Never regret anything, don’t count and don’t be afraid, otherwise you’ll have to suffer as much as I did.” Then came a request to sing our favorite songs in her memory on spring evenings.
These lines are particularly etched in my memory: “If only the rope didn’t break. Otherwise, being underweight is disgusting, right? – my sister wrote. - I remember these lines verbatim. And remember that I would always understand you if I were with you." And a signature.
Further, so as not to be accused of plagiarism, I bring close to the text scattered excerpts from the book of Tsvetaeva’s sister, Anastasia. “On February 1, 1925, Marina had a son, Georgy (“Mur” - short for “Purr”, who survived until the end. A dream come true! The pride of a mother. But about him at the age of 10, Marina wrote: “Mentally undeveloped...”
War. Evacuation. Marina took the declaration of war much more difficult than others, which unexpectedly broke out on the territory of her homeland, where she could hope to hide from what she had experienced in the West. She expected that the war would not come here. Marina was seized by what is called panic horror. She was rushing away from Moscow to save Moore from the danger of the incendiary bombs that he was extinguishing. Shuddering, she said: “If I had found out that he was killed, I would, without a moment’s hesitation, throw myself out of the window” (they lived on the seventh floor of building 14/5 on Pokrovsky Boulevard). But the most incendiary force was ripening in George: the thirst to free himself from maternal care, to live as he wanted.
And here’s how others said: “... Tsvetaeva came to Yelabuga, begging not to allow her to be separated from her son; children of this age were sent to be evacuated from their parents separately. The son was not taken away. What about all the difficulties of life next to this? But he rebelled. He did not want to live in Yelabuga. She took him out of Moscow against his will. He had his own circle there, friends and girlfriends. He was rude. Marina bore his rudeness with a frozen mother’s heart. How scary it was to imagine him without her worries during the war days!
The son could not live without her help. He didn't understand people. In Yelabuga he became friends with two men who came from nowhere and were much older than him. He did not want to listen to his mother, did not want to treat his sore leg. He argued at every turn. She got used to his tone, and for the last two years without her father, she endured it. They talked about Marina’s extraordinary patience with him. Everyone said that “she loved him slavishly.”
Her pride was humbled before him. He had to be grown at all costs, compressing himself into a ball. She remembered herself at his age: wasn’t she the same? “He’s young, this will all pass,” she responded to the surprised remarks of her friends about how she, a mother, could endure such treatment. The last decisive push was the threat of Moore, who shouted to her in despair: “Well, one of us will be carried out of here feet first!” "Me!" - she groaned. Their “together” is over! He doesn't need her anymore! She bothers him...
All ties with life were severed. She no longer wrote poetry, and even they would have meant nothing next to her fear for Moore. Another fear consumed her: if the war did not end soon, Moore would be taken to war. Yes, the thought of suicide had been with her for a long time, and she wrote about it. But there is a huge distance between thought and action.
In 1940, she wrote: “I’ve been trying on death for a year now. But for now I’m needed.” She relied on this need. Marina would never leave Moore of her own free will, no matter how hard it was for her. For years, Marina stared at the hooks on the ceiling, but the time came when she had to act instead of think. And a nail was enough." The mercilessly rude words of the 16-year-old son sounded in Marina's motherhood - an order of death - to herself.
In response to her son’s reproaches that she did not know how to achieve anything, to get settled, she, in bitter arrogance and momentarily flaring pride, said to her son: “So what, in your opinion, is there nothing else left for me but suicide?”
The son replied: “Yes, in my opinion, there is nothing else left for you!” This was not just the boy’s insolence! Shocked by her departure, he will not repeat her step. Let him live, young branch!
...She remembered herself from the age of 17, her suicide attempt. He was - chipped off her.
Tsvetaeva's father, Ivan Vladimirovich Tsvetaev, came from a poor rural priesthood. Thanks to his extraordinary talent and hard work, he became a professor of art and an expert on antiquity. Mother, Maria Alexandrovna Mein, who came from a Russified Polish-German family, was a gifted pianist. Therefore, the musical principle turned out to be exceptionally strong in Tsvetaeva’s work. Marina Tsvetaeva perceived the world, first of all, by ear, trying to find the identical verbal and semantic form for the sound she caught.
Tsvetaeva’s poetic originality developed quickly, but not immediately. However, from her first books, “Evening Album” (1910) and “Magic Lantern” (1912), composed of almost half-children’s poems, her work attracts complete, spontaneous, not “squeezed” sincerity. Even then she was completely herself. Do not borrow anything from anyone, do not imitate - this is how Tsvetaeva emerged from childhood and this is how she will remain forever.
Immediately after her first collections, Tsvetaeva wrote many poems and almost fully formed as an artist. Russia, the Motherland, imperiously entered her soul like a wide field and a high sky. In poems 1916 - 1917 there are many echoing spaces, endless roads, quickly running clouds, the cries of midnight birds, crimson sunsets foreshadowing a storm, and purple restless dawns. Her verse itself is constantly spinning, splashing, sparkling, shimmering and alarmingly festive, ringing with a tightly stretched string.
Much of what was written in 1916 - 1920 included in her collection “Versts” - Tsvetaeva’s most famous book. Her talent, which she once compared to dancing fire, was here in full force. Tsvetaeva began collecting “Versts” (original name “Mother Versta”) in 1921. And the years from the debut books “Evening Album” and “Magic Lantern” to the appearance of “Verst” (in 1922) were a time of obscurity. Meanwhile, her talent developed with extraordinary, unstoppable and resilient energy.
And the world was at war... There was a world war, then a civil war. Pity and sadness filled Marina’s heart and her poems:
Insomnia pushed me on my way.
– Oh, how beautiful you are, my dim Kremlin! -
Tonight I kiss your chest -
The whole round warring earth!..
(“Tonight I’m alone in the night...”)
The misfortunes of the people are what pierced her soul first of all:
Why did these gray huts anger you, -
God! - and why shoot so many people in the chest?
The train passed, and the soldiers howled, howled,
And the retreating path became dusty and dusty...
(“White sun and low, low clouds...”)
The years of revolution and civil war were difficult and dramatic in Tsvetaeva’s life. A little daughter died after being sent to an orphanage due to hunger. With the eldest, Ariadna (Alya), they experienced not only the most severe need and cold, but also the tragedy of loneliness. Tsvetaeva’s husband, Sergei Efron, was in the ranks of the White Volunteer Army, and there was no news from him for three years. The position of Tsvetaeva, the wife of a white officer, turned out to be ambiguous and alarming in red Moscow, and her character, sharp and direct, made such a situation even dangerous. She defiantly read poems from the “Swan Camp” cycle, dedicated specifically to the White Army, at public evenings. The poem “Perekop” (1929) is also dedicated to the white movement. Tsvetaeva’s lyrics at that time were permeated with frantic anticipation of news from Sergei Efron. “I am all wrapped in sadness,” she wrote. “I live in sadness...” A lot of poems dedicated to separation from a loved one were written (later they formed a separate cycle). But no one knew them: she wrote into space, as if throwing news into a stormy sea during a shipwreck.
At times it seemed to Marina that, dressed in the armor of poetry, she was indestructible, like the Phoenix bird, that hunger, cold and fire were powerless to break the wings of her verse. And in fact, the years of disaster were perhaps the most creatively intense and fruitful. In a short time, she created many lyrical works, which we now consider to be masterpieces of Russian poetry, as well as several “folklore” poems. Her talent was paradoxically akin to Mayakovsky's gift. But the trouble was that Marina, with rare exceptions, could not “shout out” her verse.
It is unknown how Tsvetaeva’s fate would have turned further, but in the summer of 1921 she finally received the long-awaited news - a letter from Prague from Sergei Efron. And immediately, as she put it, she “rushed” towards him. Tsvetaeva did not emigrate for political reasons, which were later attributed to her and for this reason were not published - love called her.
Emigration turned into poverty, endless ordeals and a burning longing for the homeland. For the first three years (until the end of 1925), Tsvetaeva lived in Prague. And of all the emigrant years, it was Prague, despite the need, that turned out to be the brightest. She fell in love with the Slavic Czech Republic with all her soul and forever. There her son George was born. For the first time, it was possible to publish several books at once: “The Tsar-Maiden”, “Poems to Blok”, “Separation”, “Psyche”, “Craft”. It was a kind of peak, the only one in her life, after which there was a sharp decline - not in creativity, but in publications. The fate of obscurity gave her a respite, but soon after moving to Paris, fate again closed the door to the reader. In 1928, Tsvetaeva’s last lifetime collection, “After Russia,” was published, which included poems from 1922 to 1925.
The late 20s and 30s were darkened in Tsvetaeva’s life not only by the painful feeling of an approaching world war, but also by personal dramas. Sergei Efron, who was passionate about returning to his homeland, joined the Union of Like-Minded People, where he did a lot of organizational work. His daughter Ariadne also helped him. In the end, Tsvetaeva’s husband was forced to flee to the USSR with his daughter. But their fate was deplorable: almost immediately after their arrival they were arrested. S. Efron was shot, and Ariadne was exiled. Tsvetaeva, however, managed to meet them again when she and her son Georgiy arrived in Moscow in 1939.
Returning to her homeland, Marina was soon left alone with her son again - without work, without housing, with rare fees for translations. In her poems 1940 - 1941 the motive of the near end arises:
It's time to remove the amber,
It's time to change the dictionary
It's time to turn off the lamp
Above the door…
(“It’s time to remove the amber...”)
With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, Tsvetaeva and her son were forced to evacuate virtually against their will. First - to Chistopol, where there was no work or housing, and then - to the last short refuge, Elabuga, where there was also no income. The NKVD authorities did not take their eyes off her, there is information that they tried to blackmail her...
On August 31, during her favorite rowan season, on the eve of leaf fall, Marina Tsvetaeva committed suicide.
