Tsvetayeva, Marina

Tsvetayeva, Marina (Ivanovna)

(born Oct. 8, 1892, Moscow, Russia—died Aug. 31, 1941, Yelabuga) Russian poet. After spending most of her youth in Moscow, she began studies at the Sorbonne in Paris at age 16. She published her first poetry collection in 1910. Her verses on the Russian Revolution glorify the anti-Bolshevik resistance, of which her husband was a part. She lived abroad from 1922 to 1939, mostly in Paris, writing varied works including poetry that increasingly reflected nostalgia for her homeland. Many of her best and most typical poetic qualities are displayed in the long verse fairy tale Tsar-devitsa (1922; “Tsar-Maiden”). Separated from her husband and daughter and isolated from friends after the evacuation of Moscow, she committed suicide. Though little known outside Russia, she is considered one of the finest 20th-century poets in Russian.