Marina Tsvetaeva, Her Life in Poems - Rolf Gross

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Once or twice a month she would give poetry readings, her own and those of other contemporary Russian writers. These readings were sometimes arranged by friends. The most generous among them was Salomeya Andronikova, a member of an old Georgian noble family, who from 1926 to 1935 sent Tsvetaeva a monthly sum of 300 ffr from her own pocket and occasionally another 300 ffr that she collected from friends. To put this sum into perspective, the rent for their apartment was around 100 ffr. Marina had no compunction to beg for money. From a note to Salomeya we learn that she asked her to send an extra 80 ffr for a pair of solid shoes.[VS p.317]. Salomeya denied her nothing. She gave her clothes and furniture, and helped to find a publisher for Marina's only book to appear in France. From 1923 to 1939 Marina had one close personal friend in Anna Tesková in Prague. She shared all her tribulations and small successes with Anna in uncounted letters, the largest source for her difficult 14 years in France. These letters affected me very much. They are of no interest here, but I went through similar experiences between 1945 and 1951 as the oldest of four siblings in Germany, although mother was more down to earth and did not write poetry. A horrible time, unimaginable if one has not gone through years of hunger, cramped quarters, an emotionally paralyzed father, and utter poverty. To keep herself alive Marina still managed to write, mostly at night. A list of her poems and prose writings from these years can be found under Sources and References. After the large Prague Poema she wrote predominantly prose. She published her poems of 1922-1925 in book form, After Russia, (1927) with Salomeya Andronikova's financial help. Even the small edition of 500 copies that were printed of the book did not sell. During 1932 – 1939 she wrote four poem cycles: Poems to a Son (1932), Poems to an Orphan (1936), Desk (1937), and Poems to the Czechens (1938/39) and a few single poems. She complains many times to Teskova that taking care of her daily family chores did not leave her enough room to jot down the lines that passed her mind. Besides nobody wanted to print her poems – the book had shown that they were unsaleable. The first two cycles circle around Russia: the burning question of “to return or not to return.” When she wrote “Poems to a Son”, Mur was seven, even in Marina's eyes an unruly, rebellious child. He was too young to understand Marina's agonies. The poem must, therefore, have been directed equally at her other, grown-up “boy”, Sergey, who had spent eight months during 1931 in a Red-Cross sanatorium in the Haut Savoie, because of his tuberculosis. Poems to a Son 2. Our conscience – Is not your conscience! Enough! - Be free! - Forget all, Children, to write your own tale Of your own days and passions . Here lies the salt of Lot - 82
In your family album! Children! You have to settle yourselves the many claims of Sodom's - Destruction. You didn't fight your brother's Cause, my curly headed boy! This is your land, your age, your day , your time, Our sin, our cross, our quarrels Rage . Orphans' in napkins Dressed in rags - Drop them and awake In an Eden, where you Have never been! To fruit - and a view You have never seen! Understand they are blind Who lead you to this funeral Of a nation who eats bread And you will be given- as soon as You leave Medon - for the Kuban. Our quarrel s- not your quarrels! Children! Prepare yourselves for the troubles Of your own days. January 1932 “Everybody in the family pressures me to return to Russia,” Marina wrote to Anna Teskova, “I cannot go.” A few months later Sergey must have made up his mind. He applied for a Soviet passport. His application was rejected. He had to “earn” it first. Marina never mentioned any of this to Teskova; she may not have known of Sergey's involvement with the NKVD, besides mentioning it would have been dangerous. For a while Marina translated Russian poetry into French, her own and Pushkin, in the desparate hope of earning some money. After weeks of laboring she admited to Teskova that her efforts were dissatisfying, especially her work on her own poems. Then she tried to write poetry directly in French. A few of those have suvived: “Florentine Nights”, “Letter to an Amazon,” “Miracle with Horses,” (all 1932). In a letter to Rilke (July 26, 1926) she had characterized the three languages at her disposal: “...French is, an ungrateful language for poets...”. Her French poems are dry, cold, - in short “soulless”. How much she longed for the love of a kindred man who could follow her poetic flights! Pasternak was too distracted by his disintegrating marriage and moreover was terrified of the authorities. Their correspondence never rekindled. And then came the “catastroph”: Boris divorced his wife (1931) and fell in love with a woman friend of theirs who was already married. Marina was indignant and irate. “Zhenya (his wife) was there before me, but to love another – no way! Boris is incapable of loving. For him love – is suffering. I am not jealous. I no longer feel any acute pain – only emptiness.” She writes to Anna Teskova. 83
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Marina Tsvetaeva A Life in Poems No
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poetic power like distress and - lo
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Childhood Moscow 8 Tryokhprudny Per
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children. In “Mother and Music”
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seventeen Marina began to smoke, a
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Koktebel Maximilian Voloshin's Have
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The motley crowd of greater and les
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did not concern her. My poems, writ
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Sofia Parnok Koktebel and Moscow 19
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She writes and a few days later des
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And I'll tell you: - All the same -
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orderly. Eventually he was drafted
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In December 1915 Marina was invited
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To Osip Mandelstam A strange anxiet
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Marina escaped on flights to the ot
Page 31 and 32: Love! Love! Even in convulsions, ev
Page 33 and 34: - Alya had these frequent attacks.
Page 35 and 36: ... Dead - and risen! Just enough f
Page 37 and 38: Berlin - Prague Ilya Ehrenburg Serg
Page 39 and 40: her and writes that “he had been
Page 41 and 42: etween her insatiable need for free
Page 43 and 44: Moscow. I don't want to write about
Page 45 and 46: Swan-like... - But what happened Li
Page 47 and 48: toe of the heart, not yet touched b
Page 49 and 50: France 1925 - 1939 The Summer of 19
Page 51 and 52: German and Russian! In a postscript
Page 53 and 54: thus alien after all!) One more thi
Page 55 and 56: affirmation around a spring. Around
Page 57 and 58: horseman. Your penciled notation (i
Page 59 and 60: Boulevard de Crancy, 3 (not far fro
Page 61 and 62: in 1924 and 1925), hence my long so
Page 63 and 64: You are alive, I want to see you. A
Page 65 and 66: trug uns ein blinder Befehl durch d
Page 67 and 68: to feign halves. We, confined to ci
Page 69 and 70: German is deeper than French, fulle
Page 71 and 72: eflection when it appears in the wa
Page 73 and 74: asleep, fast asleep. I sound quite
Page 75 and 76: winter!... "You don't need to answe
Page 77 and 78: This letter became the last in thei
Page 79 and 80: France 1925 - 1939 The Lure of the
Page 81: Mur and Marina, 1936 Photo dommuseu
Page 85 and 86: People are all the same to me, And
Page 87 and 88: go. But there was, of course, no ch
Page 89 and 90: Marina Tsvetaeva, Golitsyno 1939 No
Page 91 and 92: The idea of suicide is disturbing t
Page 93 and 94: Marina Tsetaeva (1892 - 1941) Chron
Page 95 and 96: August 1, move to Prague, where the
Page 97 and 98: August 17, Marina and Mur evacuated
Page 99 and 100: Marina Zwtajewa, “Mutter und die
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Marina Tsvetaeva, Her Life in Poems - Rolf Gross

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