Tsvetayeva, Marina Ivanovna

Tsvetayeva or Tsvetaeva, Marina Ivanovna (tsvyĭtä`yəvə), 1892–1941, Russian poet. She was a major Russian poet, who survived the civil war, emigrated to Prague and Paris, and returned to Russia (1939). Noted for her lyricism and notoriously difficult to translate, she wrote on a variety of subjects, using language and rhythms skillfully. Particularly noteworthy are her longer works, Poem of the Mountain (1926), Poem of the End (1926), and the lyrical satire Ratcatcher (1925–26). Her poetry, which included works praising Czarist troops, was not published in the Soviet Union until 20 years after her death (by suicide).

Bibliography

See Y. Pasternak et al., ed., Letters, Summer 1926: Boris Leonidovich Pasternak, Marina Tsvetayeva, Rainer Maria Rilke (1985, repr. 2001); studies by M. Makin (1993), O. P. Hasty (1996), A. W. Dinega (2001), and I. Kudrova (tr. 2004).