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Marina Ivanovna Tsvetaeva
About museum
Marina Ivanovna Tsvetaeva was a Russian poet of the Silver Age, a prose writer and translator. The future poet was born in Moscow into an intellectual family. Her father, a well-known philologist, was a professor at many universities and the founder of the Museum of Fine Arts (now the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts), and her mother was a pianist of Polish-German descent. Marina showed extraordinary creative abilities from childhood; she was taught music by her mother and literature by her father. By the age of six she was writing poems in Russian, French and German. Tsvetaeva studied at a private gymnasium in Moscow, and later at boarding schools in Germany and Switzerland, developed an interest in Old French literature and attended lectures at the Sorbonne.
Tsvetaeva's first collection of poems, “Evening Album,” was published in 1910. In 1912 the poet married Sergei Efron; the marriage produced three children. Marina published actively, releasing the collection “The Magic Lantern,” and later the cycle “From Two Books.” Before the Revolution Tsvetaeva issued collections of verse, and wrote prose and plays. However, the Revolution and the subsequent Civil War radically changed the poet's life. Hunger, the death of her younger daughter, her husband's emigration — a White Army officer — all these events found expression in her work, which was filled with motifs of loneliness, rejection and compassion.
In 1922 Tsvetaeva left her daughters in Moscow and went to join her husband in Czechoslovakia. The family lived in poverty and moved from place to place. Despite the difficulties, the “Czech period” was productive: Tsvetaeva published several books, met Pasternak, and took an active part in the cultural life of the émigré community. Later the family moved to Germany and then to France. There the attitude toward the poet changed — her love of freedom and unconventional behavior caused discontent in the Russian diaspora. Abroad Tsvetaeva published less often, but her prose gained some recognition.
The last collection of poems published in her lifetime, “After Russia,” appeared in 1928. In 1939 Tsvetaeva and her son returned to the Soviet Union, where her husband and daughter were already waiting for them. However, the family reunion turned into a catastrophe. Their daughter Ariadna was arrested, followed by the arrest of Sergei Efron. The poet's daughter was sent to a camp, and her husband was executed. Marina never learned of Efron's death. At the beginning of the Great Patriotic War (World War II), Tsvetaeva and her son were evacuated to Tatarstan. To obtain registration she needed to find employment, and she applied for a job as a dishwasher. Unable to withstand the terrible shocks, the poet took her own life.
Музеи, посвящённые персоне
Date of birth
08 October 1892
Date of death
31 August 1941
Occupation
Poet