Talk:Marina Tsvetaeva

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Regarding the new version of the first paragraph: is it known that Stalin personally presented any opinion of Tsvetaeva's poetry? And the word "bolshevik" there is an anachronism.

Generally, the article is much too biographical for my taste. Of course, it's nice of me to talk the talk while I don't change it, and perhaps I'll try. --AV

Difficult to say, and I am trying to interpret history intelligently here; the odds are that Stalin was certainly aware of her work, and if so would have been critical. If you look at what happened to her peer, Osip Mandelstam, for example, who admittedly was openly explicitly critical of Stalin (he was eventually executed for writing poetry), or the obloquy into which Anna Akhmatova was forced, and also consider the significance of peotry within Russian culture, you will realise immediately why he would have been interested. Her work was personal and certainly attracted considerable opprobrium from the official Writers' Guilds (pah!), but just how far up the greasy pole this goes is (probably) impossible to ascertain (but I will see if I can nail this one: I remember Elaine Feinstein saying something about it and I will write to her; also I will dig out the V, Schweitzer biography and see what I can discover). The policy, however, did come all the way from the top.

On your second point, the biographical framework is just a beginning. I will deal with the poetry and her work as I go along. Your contributions will be greatly appreciated. sjc

OK: the Stalin letter of 1930 in Bolshevik which concerns "superstructure" effectively gave explicit voice to a policy which had previously been unspoken: nothing could be published which was at variance with the official point of view. This, as Nadezhda Mandelstam points out in Hope against Hope, effectively made censorship unnecessary. Given that Tsvetaeva's work was primarily personal and thus "manifestly un-Soviet", QED. sjc

It's just that, well, Stalin's explicit remarks about and interest in, say, Pasternak and Mandelstam are well-known, but I recall no evidence for his explicit interest in, or pronouncement on, Tzvetaeva's poetry. That it was the kind of poetry that was made unwelcome by Stalin's policies is clear, but did he specifically mention her or her poetry at any time? -- I don't think so, though I'm no expert in the field. --AV

You don't think the arrest and execution of Sergei Efron and the arrest of Ariadna were purely coincidental do you? Particularly since Efron by this time was a puppet in the hands of the NKVD? It was clearly orchestrated to remove her sources of support. Moreover, she was sent to Yelabuga and not allowed to remain with the other evacuated writers. The Writers Guilds closed all their doors. She was being made a non-person at someone's behest. Given what we know about Stalin and his attitude towards poets it doesn't take a lot to start to put the pieces in place. But I will endeavour to locate the concrete evidence as you are so insistent on the subject, and not because I think Stalin deserves even the remotest hint of the benefit of the doubt. I think common sense indicates that the instructions came right from the top: in Mandelstam's case we have documentary evidence; ditto the obloquy to which Akhmatova was consigned. What on earth makes you think he would have nothing to do with arranging an unpleasant fate for Tsvetaeva, who was as important a poet? sjc

This article was taken practically verbatim from: http://www.cartage.org.lb/en/themes/Biographies/MainBiographies/T/tsvetaevavanovna/1.html Some cosmetic changes were made, but large sections were copied word for word. I wonder of the additional material was also taken from a copyrighted source. Danny

This article has been around for some time -- who is to say that they didn't take the text from us? I vote to keep it. The worse case scenario is that they either are the copyright owners or think they are and tell Jimbo to remove it -- which he will. I only say this because the article was created in the old UseModeWiki days (back in February). --mav

My guess is that we took it from them just because of the material that was removed to shorten it to a more Wiki format. Also, the absence of key links. I will put it back if you think it is okay, but we should be careful. Danny

I say we put it back and give the original contributor the benefit of the doubt. Even though you are probably right this really isn't a clear enough case for me to justify deletion and the consequences if I am wrong are minor (that's if the other website ever notices). However, you probably already know that I check for and delete a lot of copyright violations -- but these are found quickly after they are created so there is no question that they are in fact violations. --mav

Well, since I wrote the body of this essay over 12 years ago, and it has been generally in the public domain for that time, I think we can safely say that the reason that this has turned up in another place is that someone has borrowed from those notes. I don't personally hold any copyrights on this since it was largely in a handout form I dished out when giving talks on Tsvetaeva. User:Sjc

This also raises the interesting question: just exactly how do we protect our backs when something like this occurs? User:Sjc

Now that is a very good question. Since we have edit histories for everything marking the exact time and date of article creation and edits (even the old UseMod ones), then I would say that in a case like this another website would have to conclusively prove that we stole from them and not the other way 'round. I will ask the list this question. --mav

I've been thinking about giving this a good going over for some time, in any case. Probably now is as good as any. It recycles a couple of canards which I regret (particularly the Lily Feiler comments about the abuse of her daughter); also the section on her poetry needs more structure to it, it's just a bit more of a biography on wheels. user:sjc

About the last paragraph ("What other writers have said about..."): this seems rather selective and is not a really useful section to me. I'd like to read "negative" or at least some criticism here, to keep the article neutral. I'd even vote to delete the section alltogether, since Boris Pasternak's opinion on Tsvetajeva's work is as useful to me as of fellow Wikipedians or my next-door neighbour - and we're certainly never going to list those. But guess that opinion will not be shared by everybody. Jeronimo 00:33 Jul 31, 2002 (PDT)

OK, there were plenty of people ready to denigrate Tsvetaeva. I'll try and balance it out. But I do think that Pasternak's views on anything are interesting. He has a rare and penetrative mind. user:sjc

Thanks for the effort - my point regarding Pasternak was that interesting is not the same as "encyclopedia-worthy". See also: Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not (shouldn't that be in the Wikipedia namespace?, btw) points 1, 7, 8 and 9. Jeronimo 00:50 Jul 31, 2002 (PDT)

The point I would make is this: if it serves to throw light on the subject, there is no reason not to include it. If I hadn't thought that it might conceivably be useful, I wouldn't have put it in. user:sjc

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My apologies to sjc and everyone for removing it in the first place. The similarities were such that I was convinced that was the original source. At least the piece got a working over. Danny

's cool. I would have drawn the same conclusions myself, and certainly would have raised the question. It's kind of interesting though, I wonder how much of stuff I've done for various poetry events etc, is or has been scattered or agglomerated over the net. If push had come to shove we'd have slaughtered 'em, in any case. There is a lot of detail in the article that probably only I and a handful of Tsvetaeva scholars would have known at the time of writing in any case; much of it has subsequently entered the public domain courtesy of the Viktoria Schweizer biography (published 1992). I will watch their article and see whether they revise it to take on board the inaccuracy in the dates (for example). :-) user:sjc

Take it as a compliment. I read the article there a while ago and found it sufficiently memorable to want to check it against the Wikipedia version, when I first saw it. :-) Danny

Have you read Viktoria's book, Danny? It is quite the most fascinating biography I have ever read. sjc

No, but I will certainly look for it. Danny

you should added that Marina Tsvetaeva hanged herself in Yelabuga. Because it seems in article that she died in Chistopol. But she died in Yelabuga. --Debora 13:59, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I cleaned out some erroneous information (Tsvetayeva never was a lover of Andrey Bely, and did not meet him in Koktebel; Mur was born in a village near Prague, not in Paris; Participation of Efron in murder of Lev Sedov is unproven; the job of dish-washer in Chistopol - is a fantasy: the dining room was only in plans, and Tsvetaeva just applied for "propiska" (pasport registration) in Chistopol, etc).140.247.103.61

[edit] On Tsvetaeva lesbian affairs

I kind of wondering, why there are no link to article about Sophia Yakovlevna Parnok? Tsvetaema and Parnok had an affair, just a year after she married Efron and born him a daughter Alya. Tvetaeva dedicated a book of poems to her, entitled "To Girlfriend"(Podruga in Russian) Also, may be this is enough to include Tsvetaeva to the list of lesbian writers?

There's no mention since no one has gotten around to it yet, I suppose. Tsvetaeva cannot be added to the list of lesbian writers, since she was not a lesbian. While she had relationships with two women (Parnok and Sonya Holliday), she had many relationships, probably dozens of them, with men. CRCulver 08:46, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Don't misinterpret the texts! Podruga simply means friend and has no sexual implications, in any case not whem Tsvetaeva lived. The dedication is definitely not a proof that there was a lesbian relationship. Especially at that time in Russia, it was common for girls to have friends of the same sex, without anything sexual happening. Afil 00:49, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Tsvetaeva acknowledged a sexual relationship in letters. As did Parnok. No biographer of her denies a sexual relationship. CRCulver 00:51, 22 October 2006 (UTC)