Marina Ivanovna Tsvetayeva

Marina Ivanovna Tsvetayeva , 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).