Customer Reviews

The Death Of A Poet

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This high-resolution account of Tsvetaeva's last couple of years struggles with understanding the sequence of events that led Tsvetaeva to killing herself. Much of the detail is published here for the first time, compliments of Kudrova's archival work and her interviews with people who knew Tsvetaeva and her family. Unfortunately, the data is fragmented and far from sufficient for drawing a conclusive picture about the way Tsvetaeva came to that fateful decision. Kudrova argues against the theories that the quarrel with the son or her mental illness prompted Tsvetaeva's suicide. The author ultimately blames KGB and the Bolshevik Revolution for Tsvetaeva's death. Undoubtedly, without the Revolution and KGB, Tsvetaeva would have had fewer reasons to end her life. Yet, the book offers no proof of KGB's direct involvement with Tsvetaeva. As for its indirect involvement - arrest of Tsvetaeva's family - maybe among millions of other people in the USSR whose family members were taken away she was the one especially shaken. Even before her return to the USSR and the quick successions of her daughter's and her husband's arrests, Tsvetaeva was feeling incredibly lonely: among people due to her often-abrasive manner and among poets because of the uncompromising uniqueness of her poetry. Arrest of her family may have proved for Tsvetaeva that last straw that broke the bond with the remaining kindred spirits. Still, hard as it was for Tsvetaeva to loose the loved ones to KGB and GULAG, nowhere is it apparent in the book that their arrest was the main reason for her suicide.

The theme of "one against everybody" recurs throughout Tsvetaeva's life. It may be her single most defining quality. Ever since the early childhood Tsvetaeva was a lonely figure in the family of a remote father, fully occupied with the creation of his Museum of Fine Arts, and a curt and dissatisfied with her own life mother, who moreover favored Tsvetaeva's sister over Marina. Highly original, Tsvetaeva's poetry was rarely admired by the readers or even her fellow poets. Moreover, during the long 17 years of emigration, Tsvetaeva found herself in the opposition to many Russian émigré factions since her uncompromising stand on literary and social matters alienated many. In her own family she was the only one who did not want to return to the USSR from France.

In the last two years of her life she was pursued by a series of tragic events. In her most needy time, her adolescent children were striving for the greatest independence. When KGB was the agent of terror in most people's eyes, her husband was working for the organization. While since childhood she had an intensely dear regard for Germany, reinforced by her German heritage, now nazi Germany was synonymous with evil. Both Czech Republic and France, for which she developed warm feelings over the last 17 years of living in these countries, have fallen to Hitler. Raised from the young age in the spirit of relentless labor, and always admitting that she could not do any work but literary, she was now hard pressed to find any job, even as a dishwasher, let alone as a writer. Having to evacuate from Moscow, she could not any more stand in the long prison lines to give her parcels to the incarcerated husband and daughter. Her adolescent son, who was her only soul mate at the time, in accordance with his age did not have much use for her. Everything in her life was going wrong and she felt utterly alone.

The translation feels a bit awkward. My few cursory comparisons with the original proved that the translator used a fairly freestyle approach. Although, a few places where the translations from Russian are literal may give the reader a taste for the original.

I was left with a dual feeling after reading the book. On one hand, the book's facts are decidedly for a Tsvetaeva connoisseur. The narrative spans only two of Tsvetaeva's 49 years. Moreover, roughly half of the book is devoted to Tsvetaeva's husband and daughter and considers their involvement with the new Soviet state. Some of the author's conclusions are based on the interpretation of someone's single enigmatic phrase. In this respect, the book feels like a collection of fine-point facts that should help future researchers of Tsvetaeva, but does not amount to a stand-alone work. On the other hand, even for someone not familiar with the poet or her time the book will give a taste for the horrors of one of the most original Russian poets caught between the Soviet and Nazi terror machines while struggling to piece together her literary and personal life.

Here's one

Fascinated with Russian Art age

of poetry and painting , propelled shortly before and after the tsar revolution..

What an incredibly creative age, non the less, artisically !

This book

is for ultra die hards.

Poets, ultimately con vey JOY

This book wills not to include that.

The miracle of this time

Amidst unimaginable repression

Beauty swayed .

This book does not support this .