Once upon a time there lived a husband, wife and three children - this phrase can become the beginning of an idylistic family story. Only here... There were almost no such stories in the first half of the twentieth century in Russia. Mostly tragedies. And they are very similar to each other. It does not matter whether they occurred in the family of a peasant or a great poet.

Sergei Efron and Marina Tsvetaeva. 1911

Marina Tsvetaeva and Sergei Efron had just three children. The second daughter, Irina, died very young in hungry and cold Moscow during the Civil War. Sergei Efron was shot by the “organs” in October 1941. The eldest daughter, Ariadne, who was arrested along with her father, was rehabilitated after the camp and exile and was able to return to Moscow only in 1955 - a sick woman.

The youngest son, Georgy Efron, died in 1944 - he was mortally wounded during the battle.

O black mountain,
Eclipsed - the whole world!
It's time - it's time - it's time
Return the ticket to the creator.

These lines were written in the spring of 1939.

But this was creativity, including the poet’s reaction to what began in Europe with the advent of fascism. Tsvetaeva lived - she had to help her loved ones, who could not do without her. She wrote.

There were still two years left before death in the small town of Elabuga...

Before that, there will be a return to their homeland in June 1939. Or rather, to the USSR, to an unfamiliar country with new incomprehensible realities. The Russia in which she was born, in which her father, Ivan Vladimirovich Tsvetaev organized his museum, did not exist. Here are the lines from 1932:

Search with a flashlight
All the sublunar light!
That country - on the map
No, in space - no.
(…)
The one where on the coins -
My youth -
That Russia does not exist.
- Just like that one did me.

Tsvetaeva did not want to return. She followed her husband and daughter. She didn’t want to, apparently anticipating what would happen in the future. The premonitions of poets and writers often come true, but no one listens... And later there was the arrest of her husband, Sergei Efron, and the arrest of her daughter Ariadne, young, sunny, just flying into life.

Then - wandering around apartments with my teenage son, looking for literary income (at least some!). The beginning of the Great Patriotic War, when Tsvetaeva thought it was all over. She literally lost her head with fear.

On August 8, Marina Ivanovna and her son went for evacuation to Yelabuga. To the place of his death.

There are several versions of the reason why Marina Tsvetaeva passed away.

Moore...

The first was expressed by Marina Ivanovna’s sister, Anastasia Ivanovna Tsvetaeva. She considers her son, sixteen-year-old Georgy Efron, whom his family called Moore, to be guilty of her sister’s death.

Tsvetaeva was waiting for a boy, and finally a son was born. She raised him differently than her eldest, Alya. She spoiled me and was less demanding. “Marina loved Moore frantically,” said those who saw her in 1939–1941.

It is clear that after the arrest of her daughter and husband, Tsvetaeva began to care for her son even more and worry about him. But my son, a spoiled sixteen-year-old boy, didn’t like it. Sixteen is a difficult age. Marina Ivanovna and Moore often quarreled (although quarrels between parents and teenage children are the most common thing, I think many parents will agree with this).

Marina Tsvetaeva with her son. 1930s

One can understand that after living abroad and in Moscow, Elabuga with its small wooden houses did not really appeal to the teenager. And he didn't hide it.

According to Anastasia Ivanovna, the last straw was the phrase thrown out by Moore in a fit of irritation: “Some of us will be carried out of here feet first.” Tsvetaeva decides to stand between her son and death, decides to leave, giving him the way.

Is it really that simple? Did Tsvetaeva, who raised her daughter (with whom it was also very difficult in adolescence), not know the difficulties of the “transition period”? How can a sixteen-year-old boy, albeit precocious, be blamed for the death of an adult woman who has already survived so much? And should Moore be blamed for not coming to look at the deceased? “I want to remember her alive,” - does this phrase of his mean that he was not touched by his mother’s death? In general, internal suffering, invisible to others, is more difficult.

The accusatory assessment of the teenager, alas, is also found after Anastasia Ivanovna. For example, Victor Sosnora: “The son, a Parisian sucker, considered himself superior to Tsvetaeva as a poet, hated his mother because they were sent to Yelabuga, and teased her.” It’s strange to hear such words from an adult, a very adult person...

NKVD and “White emigrant”

Another version is that Marina Tsvetaeva was offered to cooperate with the NKVD. It was first expressed by Kirill Khenkin, and later developed by Irma Kudrova, first in a newspaper article, and then, more fully expanded, in the book “The Death of Marina Tsvetaeva.”

Perhaps, immediately upon arrival in Yelabuga, the local authorized representative of the “authorities” summoned her. The security officer apparently reasoned this way: “The evacuee lived in Paris, which means she won’t really like it in Yelabuga. This means that a circle of dissatisfied people is organizing around. It will be possible to identify “enemies” and concoct a “case.” Or perhaps the “case” of the Efron family came to Yelabuga with an indication that she was connected with the “organs”.

Elabuga, 1940s

Moore’s diary says that on August 20, Tsvetaeva was in the Yelabuga City Council, looking for work. There was no work for her there, except as a translator from German to the NKVD... An interesting point. Couldn't the NKVD entrust the recruitment of personnel for itself to another institution? Maybe on this day Tsvetaeva was not in the city executive committee, but in the NKVD? I just didn’t tell my son everything...

Why did the “authorities” need Tsvetaeva? What useful things could you say? But were all the affairs of the “organization” conducted strictly from a reasonable point of view? Moreover, Tsvetaeva’s biography is very suitable: she herself is a “white emigrant”, her relatives are “enemies of the people”. A woman in a strange city with her only close person – her son. Fertile ground for blackmail.

A certain Sizov, who showed up years after Tsvetaeva’s death, told an interesting fact. In 1941, he taught physical education at the Elabuga Pedagogical Institute. One day on the street he met Marina Ivanovna and she asked him to help her find a room, explaining that they were “not on good terms” with the owner of the current room. The “hostess” - Brodelshchikova - spoke in the same spirit: “They don’t have rations, and even these people come from the Embankment (NKVD), they look at the papers when she’s not there, and they ask me who comes to see her and what they talk about.”

Then Tsvetaeva went to Chistopol, thinking of staying there. In the end, the issue of registration was resolved positively. But for some reason Marina Ivanovna was not happy about this. She said she couldn't find a room. “And even if I find one, they won’t give me a job, I won’t have anything to live on,” she noted. She could have said, “I won’t find a job,” but she said, “They won’t give me one.” Who won't? This also prompts those who adhere to this version to think that the NKVD could not have happened here without it.

Apparently, in Yelabuga, Tsvetaeva did not share her fears (if there were any) with anyone. And during the trip to Chistopol, I could understand that you cannot hide from the all-seeing security officers. She couldn’t accept the offer or convey it. What happens in cases of refusal - she didn’t know. Dead end.

As nonsense

Another version cannot even be called a version. Because it is perceived as nonsense. But since it exists, you can’t get around it. There were always people who were ready, in order to somehow snatch the glory from the greats, to touch the “fried” side. Even if it doesn't exist. The main thing is to present it catchily.

So, according to this version, the reason for Tsvetaeva’s death is not at all psychological problems, not the poet’s everyday disorder, but her attitude towards her son - like Phaedra - towards Hippolytus.

One of those who has been expounding it for a long time and adhering to it is Boris Paramonov - writer, publicist, author of Radio Liberty.

He “analyzes” the poet’s poems under some of his own eyes, from the height of his worldview and finds in them what other readers and researchers cannot find, no matter how hard they try.

Heroism of the soul - to live

Another version is supported by Maria Belkina, the author of one of the early books about the last years of the poet’s life.

Tsvetaeva went to death all her life. It doesn't matter that it happened on August 31, 1941. It could have been much earlier. It was not for nothing that she wrote after Mayakovsky’s death: “Suicide is not where it is seen, and it does not last until the trigger is pulled.” Just on the 31st, no one was home, and usually the hut is full of people. Suddenly there was an opportunity - I was left alone, so I took advantage of it.

Tsvetaeva made her first suicide attempt at the age of 16. But this is both the tossing and turning of adolescence and the era. Who then, at the beginning of the twentieth century, did not shoot himself? Material problems, poverty (remember Gorky), unhappy love and - a blow to the temple. As scary as it may sound, it is “in the context of the era.” Fortunately, the gun then misfired.

Life, according to Belkina, constantly put pressure on Tsvetaeva, albeit with varying strength. In the fall of 1940, she wrote down: “No one sees or understands that I have been looking for a hook with my eyes for (approximately) a year. I’ve been trying on death for a year.”

But even earlier, back in Paris: “I would like to die, but I have to live for Moore.”

The constant unsettlement of life, the discomfort, slowly but surely did their job: “Life, what have I seen from it other than slops and trash heaps...”

She had no place in emigration, no place in her homeland. In modern times in general.

When the war began, Tsvetaeva said that she would really like to change places with Mayakovsky. And while sailing on the ship to Yelabuga, standing on board the ship, she said: “That’s it - one step, and it’s all over.” That is, she constantly felt on the edge.

Besides, she had to live for something. The most important thing is poetry. But, returning to the USSR, she practically did not write them. No less important is the family, for which she always felt responsible, in which she was always the main “breadwinner”. But there is no family: she cannot do anything for her daughter and husband. Back in 1940, she was needed, but now she can’t even earn a piece of bread for Moore.

Tsvetaeva once said: “The heroism of the soul is to live, the heroism of the body is to die.” The heroism of the soul was exhausted. And what awaited her in the future? Her, a “white emigrant” who does not recognize any politics? Besides, she would have learned about her husband’s death...

Creativity and life

The poet’s statements, and even more so his work, are one thing. A special space. And it literally, directly, primitively does not intersect with life, which is often not favorable to poets. But they still live and create. After all, Tsvetaeva lived (and wrote!) in post-revolutionary Moscow, despite hunger and cold, separation from her husband (not even knowing whether he was alive), despite the death of her youngest daughter and the fear of losing her eldest...

What happens here in our dimension works differently. Yes, everything that was mentioned above in the article (except for the conclusions and versions), all the hardships and pains - it accumulated, accumulated, piled up, trying to crush. Especially the events of the last two years. But this could hardly lead to a calm, what is called a sound mind and strong memory decision - to commit suicide. The hardships exhausted Tsvetaeva’s nervous system (especially poets have a special mental structure).

It is unlikely that she was mentally healthy at the time of her death. And she herself understood this, as can be seen in the suicide note addressed to her son (emphasis mine – Oksana Golovko): “Purlyga! Forgive me, but things could get worse. I am seriously ill, this is no longer me. I love you madly. Understand that I could no longer live. Tell dad and Alya - if you see - that you loved them until the last minute and explain that you are in a dead end.”

Poems by Marina Tsvetaeva

Requiem

So many of them fell into this abyss,
I'll open it up in the distance!
The day will come when I too will disappear
From the surface of the earth.

Everything that sang and fought will freeze,
It shone and burst.
And the green of my eyes and my gentle voice,
And gold hair.

And there will be life with its daily bread,
With the forgetfulness of the day.
And everything will be as if under the sky
And I wasn’t there!

Changeable, like children, in every mine,
And so angry for a short time,
Who loved the hour when there was wood in the fireplace
They become ash.

Cello, and cavalcades in the thicket,
And the bell in the village...
- Me, so alive and real
On the gentle earth!

To all of you - what to me, who knew no limits in anything,
Aliens and our own?!-
I make a demand for faith
And asking for love.

And day and night, and in writing and orally:
For the truth, yes and no,
Because I feel too sad so often
And only twenty years

For the fact that it is a direct inevitability for me -
Forgiveness of grievances
For all my unbridled tenderness
And too proud look

For the speed of rapid events,
For the truth, for the game...
- Listen! - You still love me
Because I'm going to die.

Evening smoke appeared over the city,
Somewhere in the distance the carriages obediently walked,
Suddenly flashed, more transparent than an anemone,
In one of the windows is a half-childish face.

There is a shadow on the eyelids. Like a crown
The curls were lying... I held back a cry:
It became clear to me in that brief moment,
That our groans awaken the dead.

With that girl by the dark window
- A vision of heaven in the bustle of the station -
More than once I met in the valleys of sleep.

But why was she sad?
What was the transparent silhouette looking for?
Perhaps there is no happiness in heaven for her?

You walking past me
To not my and dubious charms, -
If you knew how much fire there is,
How much wasted life

And what heroic ardor
To a random shadow and a rustle...
And how it burned my heart
This wasted gunpowder.

Oh, trains flying into the night,
Carrying away sleep at the station...
However, I know that even then
You wouldn't know - if you knew -

Why are my speeches cutting
In the eternal smoke of my cigarette, -
How much dark and menacing melancholy
In my head, blonde.

I like that you are not sick of me,
I like that it's not you that I'm sick of
That the globe is never heavy
It won't float away under our feet.
I like that you can be funny -
Loose - and not play with words,
And do not blush with a suffocating wave,
Sleeves touching slightly.

I also like that you are with me
Calmly hug the other one,
Don't read to me in hellfire
Burn because I don't kiss you.
What is my gentle name, my gentle, not
You mention it day and night - in vain...
That never in church silence
They will not sing over us: Hallelujah!

Thank you with both heart and hand
Because you are me - without knowing yourself! –
So love: for my night's peace,
For the rare meeting at sunset hours,
For our non-walks under the moon,
For the sun, not above our heads, -
Because you are sick - alas! - not by me,
Because I am sick - alas! - not by you!

Under the caress of a plush blanket
I induce yesterday's dream.
What was that? - Whose victory? -
Who is defeated?

I'm changing my mind again
I'm tormented by everyone again.
In something for which I don’t know the word,
Was there love?

Who was the hunter? - Who is the prey?
Everything is devilishly the opposite!
What did I understand, purring for a long time,
Siberian cat?

In that duel self-will
Who, in whose hand was only the ball?
Whose heart is it yours or mine?
Did it fly at a gallop?

And yet - what was it?
What do you want and regret?
I still don’t know: did she win?
Was she defeated?

Read other materials about Marina Tsvetaeva on Pravmir:

Video. Chulpan Khamatova reads poems by Marina Tsvetaeva:

About Marina Tsvetaeva:

On September 26 (October 8, new style), 1892, Marina Ivanovna Tsvetaeva was born into the family of a Moscow University professor and a talented pianist. The father of the future poetess, Ivan Vladimirovich, taught philology and art history, heading the Rumyantsev Museum soon after Marina’s birth and founding the Museum of Fine Arts. Mother Maria Alexandrovna had an undoubted talent as a pianist; unfortunately, it was not possible to fully reveal it, since she died early, in 1906.

For Ivan Vladimirovich Tsvetaev, marriage to Maria Alexandrovna was the second; from his first marriage he had two children, his second wife gave birth to two daughters - the eldest Marina and the youngest Nastya.

Childhood

Marina Tsvetaeva’s childhood was spent between her family’s dacha in Tarusa and Moscow. In the summer, most of the time was spent at the dacha; the rest of the year the family lived in Moscow. Tsvetaeva can be considered young and early - the future poetess began reading at the age of 4, her first poems came out of her pen at the age of 7. Musical abilities were also noticeable, but Tsvetaeva did not like to study music, so they did not develop.

As a child

We will consider the final point of her childhood to be 1902, when Marina was sent to study in Europe, where she studied sciences and languages ​​in boarding schools in Italy, Switzerland and Germany until 1905. This is an important stage of life, because the biography of Marina Tsvetaeva clearly shows that at this time the poetess’s worldview was changing, which made her a loner in life with her own uncompromising opinion and her own view of people and events.

The beginning of a creative journey

At the age of 18, Tsvetaeva published her first collection, “Evening Album,” which included the first 111 poems of the poetess. The collection was published at personal expense and found more positive reviews in the Russian literary community. It includes early, mostly raw and naive poems. Valery Bryusov called the collection a “personal diary,” but Maximilian Voloshin praised the poems, noting that Tsvetaeva “knows how to convey shades.” Gumilyov also praised the collection.

Tsvetaeva herself later wrote that

“The first collection helped to outline the guidelines of creativity, to find the relationship between the conflicts of earth and sky, life and existence.”

The second collection, published in 1912 under the title “The Magic Lantern,” received more criticism. Gumilyov said that this was a fake poem, because thematically and spiritually he duplicated the “Evening Album”. The poetess herself believed that the first two collections should not be separated at all - “in essence, this is one book” (autobiography).

Fans of the poetess should pay special attention to these two collections, since they formed Tsvetaeva’s style, and in them she learned to convey thoughts to readers in a form that was convenient for them and accessible to herself.

The years 1913-1914 consolidated the formation of Tsvetaeva’s style; during these years of early creativity, many iconic and prophetic poems were written, for example, “Requiem” and “I like that you are not sick with me”:

I like that you are not sick of me,
I like that it's not you that I'm sick of
That the globe is never heavy
It won't float away under our feet. (read in full)

Personal life

Tsvetaeva married officer Sergei Efron in 1912, who became her only husband and best friend for the rest of her life. The marriage produced a daughter, Ariadne, whose fate was also not easy.

With husband Efron

After the revolution, Sergei took the side of Denikin, who was defeated and Efron was forced to flee to Europe. Marina did not sing an ode to the October Revolution, considering it a “rebellion of satanic forces,” so it was not published in the first years after the revolution. Marina did not have close contacts with other poets of the USSR; she was always on the sidelines, stood apart and had her own opinion on the events taking place in Russia.

Marina sought the opportunity to go abroad to join her husband and received permission from the Soviet authorities in 1922. Marina and Ariadne did not live long in Berlin and moved to Prague, since her husband was studying at the University of Prague at that time. The united family lived in Prague until 1925, until the birth of their son George, after which they moved to Paris. We will return to Tsvetaeva’s personal life in the last tragic chapter, but now we will look at the stage of the poetess’s European work.

Tsvetaeva was a very amorous person - she could not exist without love, just as she could not exist without poetry. Marina’s novels numbered in the dozens, and these were not always men; one has only to remember Sonya Parnok (Efron even wanted to challenge her to a duel). The relationship with her continued in parallel with the marriage, even immediately after the wedding. Even Pasternak did not pass by, but they didn’t go far there. The most serious affair on the side happened in Prague with Konstantin Rodzevich - Marina even left her newly restored family, although she soon returned to Efron.

Fate played a strange game with Tsvetaeva - it was Rodzevich who recruited her husband Sergei Efron to the GPU, it was between them that she chose for a year and a half, but left for her husband. Partly because she felt sorry for Sergei, partly because Rodzevich abandoned her.

Life in Europe

European “registration” lasted until 1939, the year the family returned to Russia. During her European “exile”, Marina wrote the poems “The Poem of the End”, “The Poem of the Mountain”, “From the Sea”, “The Pied Piper” and a number of other iconic works. Most of what was written during this period was not published, since Tsvetaeva’s character did not allow her to find support among the emigrants. Marina did not want to participate in any political alliances, she was against intrigue and did not become a supporter of conspiracies against the USSR, although she had a negative attitude towards Soviet power.

Income was minimal; they often had to live from hand to mouth and rent inexpensive rooms in a village or suburb of Paris. Another reason for the frequent change of residence was that Marina did not get along well with neighbors and homeowners. If it were not for the rare, but well-aimed financial assistance of a small circle of Tsvetaeva’s admirers, then perhaps the family would have had to return to their homeland earlier.

Marina not only wrote poetry in Europe, but also published the article “A Poet on Criticism” in 1926, after which she was often invited to creative evenings, but her circle of enemies expanded. In the article, the poetess criticizes critics, which the latter did not like. Bunin “gets hit in the neck” in the article for criticizing Yesenin, and Zinaida Gippius for Pasternak. Bunin took it out on the literary and journalistic magazine “Vest”, which Efron, Marina’s husband, began publishing. He called the magazine “boring and bad,” which was painful for Sergei to hear.

Gradually, interest in Europe in Tsvetaeva decreased, behind her back they called her a “Bolshevik,” although Marina did not write any flattery towards the Soviet regime. Efron more often supported the new government, but how sincere this was from the lips of a Russian officer is a big question. Later it became known that Efron had been an employee of the NKVD since 1931, which would later put an end to his biography.

With daughter Adelaide

Tsvetaeva, while in Europe, knew very well about the fate of the royal family and in 1930 decided to convey her view of the tragic events in the “Poem about the Royal Family,” although she understood that the work would not find a response for a number of reasons. I wrote for the sake of duty to say. Today, only a fragment of “Siberia” has survived from the poem:

From Khodynsky Field of Red
To the cheerful and handsome Alexei Krovotochivy
For the last drop - generous!
Halfway through - how long has it been since midnight? -
The shining and spring - Hour - of the last reign
In Rus'...
Don't be afraid: he's alive...
Exhausted - tired - exhausted
Wait in despair - for hours!
The Heir of All Rus' is sleeping.

Since childhood, Tsvetaeva has been an extraordinary person, so her life is filled with interesting events. At the age of 16, Marina attempted suicide amid unrequited love - the gun misfired. The poetess played with death more than once even after that. So, after returning to the USSR, she quite seriously declared that she would hang herself if the NKVD came for her. Enough about the sad stuff.

In her youth, someone told Tsvetaeva that in order for her hair to curl, she had to shave her head. Marina did this ten times. Another shared that champignons help to lose weight and Marina ate only them for several weeks. At the age of 16, Tsvetaeva sent the janitor to get some tincture - she drank and threw the bottles out the window. At that time it was a nightmare.

A little later, Marina posted a marriage advertisement and then laughed for a long time when some not-so-new suitors started coming into the house. One day she liked the work of the artist she came to paint a portrait so much that when she left, she took the sketches with her under her dress.

All her life, from early childhood until her death, Tsvetaeva got up at the first rooster, doused herself with ice water and drank strong coffee. I was never picky about clothes - I preferred a baggy dress and the obligatory beads to fashionable outfits.

The icon in front of which Sergei Efron and Marina Tsvetaeva were married is now in Moscow, in the Church of the Resurrection of the Word, on Bryusov Lane. The newlyweds got married in Palashi, in the Church of the Nativity of Christ, but after the revolution the temple was destroyed and the church utensils were thrown out. A local grandmother found the icon, put it in order and returned it to the patriarchate.

Return to the chopping block

The return of the Tsvetaeva family to their homeland begins in 1937. In the spring Ariadne left for the USSR, in the fall her husband Sergei, followed by Marina and her son in 1939. The poetess knew that leaving would not bring anything good; back in 1932 she wrote to Treskova that

“In the USSR she would simply be silenced.”

And so it happened. In 1932, the poem “Motherland” was written, which was later evaluated by strict examiners of the embassy and the NKVD, assessed and given the go-ahead. What the “good” led to will soon become clear.

Marina was settled at the NKVD dacha; by this time her husband had already been arrested, which forced Tsvetaeva to write a “letter of repentance” to Beria at the end of 1939. It says that by returning she wants to get rid of loneliness, recreate the family and give her son a future. Nothing worked out, at the end of the summer of 1939 the daughter was arrested, a couple of months later the husband was arrested, and Beria did not answer the letter. Loneliness again surrounded Tsvetaeva, and it was an even tighter ring than in Europe, because in the USSR there was no family and you couldn’t write, or rather, you couldn’t publish.

The husband was soon shot (he returned), his daughter Ariadne spent many years in the camps and was rehabilitated only after Stalin’s death.

Marina takes on translations and barely earns a living. The hope for the release of a collection of poems collapsed, as Zelensky’s (hero reviewer) review pointed out “the distortion of the soul by the products of capitalism.”

At the beginning of the war, Tsvetaeva decided to evacuate, first she and her son ended up in Elabuga, then in Chistopol, where Marina had to ask to be left in this city and allowed to work as a dishwasher. The writers' meeting agreed to this, but there was no need to wash the dishes. She goes to her son in Yelabuga, where on August 31, 1941 she committed suicide (hanged herself). Having lost most of her family, being in poverty and unable to write, Marina could not bear the suffering, she was driven into a corner. In the last weeks of her life in Yelabuga, Tsvetaeva had to wash clothes for a local policeman in order to make ends meet. We can imagine the atmosphere, so we won’t judge.

There are also strange things about suicide. So Tsvetaeva began frying fish in the Brodelshchikovs’ house, then, without even taking off her blue apron, she climbed into the noose. Perhaps the pain accumulated and at some point the cup overflowed.

Much later, in 1990, the church agreed to Tsvetaeva’s funeral service. To obtain permission for the funeral service, the sister of the poetess and deacon Andrei Kuraev turned to Patriarch Alexy II. The request was granted, this can be the end of Tsvetaeva’s biography, although the poetess’s poems will survive another generation.

There is no grave of Tsvetaeva, there is only a sign indicating that she is buried in this side of the cemetery.

Film "The Romance of Her Soul"

I offer a documentary film about Marina Tsvetaeva, “The Romance of Her Soul,” in which the secrets of her relationship with her husband Efron and life in exile (Prague period) are revealed.

“...Therefore, doomed to be...”

“It’s difficult to talk about such immensity as a poet. Where to start? Where to cum? And is it even possible to begin and end if what I’m talking about is: the Soul is everything-everywhere-eternally,” - this is how Tsvetaeva begins her memories of Balmont, an attempt to decipher his, Balmont’s, poetic secret. Because every poet has his own. The soul, especially inspired by the Gift, is a piece of piece production. And it’s true - there’s no beginning or ending here. One can only make a slight approach in order to justify future reservations about the exorbitance of the chosen topic.

Marina was born a Poet, which means she was a deviation from the norm. The poetic gift predetermines the special composition of the entire being, which includes, in addition to other known ones, some other essences that are close to the unknown, mystical. If we build a metaphor in line with computer analogies, then the set of programs in the “Poet” (or “Creator”) system is special, individual, and, in addition, these programs are in an interaction uncontrolled by the mind. There is no need to guess who manages them and how. The process of creativity, and indeed the formation of the creator’s very perception of the world, is a fantastically complex combination of programs at different levels, exploring both layers of a universal scale and specks of dust in the microcosm.

The poet's personality is grandiose and inevitably deformed, that is, it is a deviation from the average norm. A different process of perceiving information, a different way of processing, and most importantly - an indispensable focus on the result - obtaining a transformed picture of the world in the form of a clot of poetic text. The poet is a foreigner among non-poets, his structure is different: “immensity in the world of measures.” But the immensity is different - differently filled.

Tsvetaeva’s poetic gift of a special kind is not balsamic streams healing wounds, nor balanced, thoughtful philosophizing. Marinin’s creative arsenal is explosive. Her games with the elements of passion are ready to destroy Marina herself, tear everything to pieces, and then force her to lick her wounds with a howl. For what? For the sake of a word red with blood - for the sake of this very “howl”, sublimated in poetic form. The catastrophe created inside the poet's soul is necessary for the acuteness of sensation, for balancing on the very edge of being-non-existence. With some part of her consciousness she realizes the uniqueness of the processes taking place in her and, like an observer-naturalist, she is in a hurry to record the results of the experience in its entirety.

Tsvetaeva works extremely hard, does not spare anyone, and above all herself, she does not tell her stories, she prefers to scream, in a broken, torn voice.

We absorb this quintessence of the world, often without analyzing the details, without deciphering metaphors, but only guessing the halo of their multi-layered meaning. What remains is a cluster of something important, incredibly precise, which cannot be said otherwise. Translation of everyday life into the language of super-feeling, super-knowledge is necessary for people deprived of the gift of poetic vision. Poetry lovers, as a rule, consist of those who are cramped in one-dimensionality, but themselves cannot get into a multidimensional vision. They have an inherent need to give their thoughts the greatest precision and beauty in words, to learn to see the world as only a poet can. The poet speaks for everyone and for everyone. This is its immensity and burden. It was Marina’s cruel vivisection, which exposed the most painful nerves, that made it possible to speak with her words in the words of thousands of “voiceless” non-poets, who, however, yearned for an expression of joy, despair, jubilation, pain, tenderness, stronger, more refined than the usual vocabulary allows.

How many women have spoken in Marina’s words: “Yesterday I looked into your eyes…”, “I like that it’s not me that makes you sick…”, “And everything will be as if I wasn’t even there under the sky...” Or biting:

Shame: to shake your hand when the itch is in a handful, -
With five fingers - yes from all five
Feelings - in memory of good feelings -
Through everything your face is an autograph!

And a poignant one, written when I was twenty:

Please still love me because I will die!

The sooner a child acquires the ability to master the mechanism of special cognition of the world - its transformation, the sharper his rejection from normal cognition.

All these simple arguments (specialists deal with the linguistic principles of poetic language at a different level of complexity) are necessary as the key to understanding such a complex phenomenon as “The Poet Marina Tsvetaeva.” A poet, and by no means a poetess, Marina exhorted those who spoke about her.

The Marina girl is already an anomaly. Already in her first manifestations it becomes obvious: Marina was a poet before birth, cut according to special patterns. And therefore, she is doomed to her own loneliness and her own secret, her own joy and the torment of otherness. Initially different. A part from another “designer” that does not fit into any proposed models.

The world of children's games, naive books, methods of adult education, and the indispensable didactics of teaching were too much for her. Unable to communicate “on an equal footing” with others, Marina rebelled, defending her space.

She was generously gifted from an early age with memory, attention, intuition, and deep experience of knowledge, as if she had lived more than her first life. She felt too keenly the currents coming to her from the world and perceived existence multidimensionally. She understood her uniqueness, valued it, and sharply resisted adults’ attempts to “shape” her according to a general template, to “build” her into the norm.

In the acuteness of the sense of being, the greed of “living all lives,” she was given much more than an ordinary person. Marina wore her “multidimensionality in the world of measures” like a crown. One, different, rarely understood, wary, ready to fight back. Stubbornly and proudly, she carried the privilege and obligation of the Calling given by someone Higher.

Callings to the Ministry of Poetry. This means an ineradicable need to conduct a dialogue with higher powers, whatever you call them: fate, stars, the Absolute, God. Her whole being, her whole creativity is a confrontation of the incomparable - light-shadow, good-evil, fire and ice, indifference-passion.

In Marina the poet and the person, one is surprised by the combination of the seemingly impossible: secrecy, vulnerable shyness and amazing openness in the poetic expression of one’s personality. No matter how lonely, complex, squeezed in his own shell a poet may be, creativity is the fuse that explodes all prohibitions, breaks down all the walls of interpersonal partitions. Creativity is the freedom of originality. A tool and material for demonstrating everything that does not fit into the norm: excessive desires, storms of passions, inexplicable actions, defiant insolence, violation of moral laws. Hence - from Tsvetaeva’s desire to embrace everything - her unquenchable thirst for passion, impressions, androgyny (“To love only women (for a woman) or only men (for a man), obviously excluding the usual opposite - what a horror! But only women for a man or only men for a woman, obviously excluding unusual native ones - what boredom!”).

“Be like gods! Any deliberate exception is terrible!”

“Any deliberate exception is horror...” From this omnivorousness, expansion into other entities, an almost predatory hunt for understanding of one’s complex, immeasurable self, yearning to be understood.

Unlike many talented creators who endlessly search for the path of their main calling, Marinin’s path was predetermined from the beginning. Called to the workshop of Poets even before birth, she was born with an already established mechanism of specialness.

An avalanche of words fell upon a four-year-old child, requiring him to form rhymes into consonances. The persistent ball-hideer, jackdaw-winder, table gone, elephant-moan. A little later, the abyss of other people's words - already composed, magically linked, half incomprehensible, filled with a special meaning from this incomprehensibility - hypnotized the girl. I fell into the book, like into a pool, but not into a child’s book, but into a forbidden, adult one. From the collection of Pushkin’s works stored in the room of his elder sister Lera, “my Pushkin” grows - half guessed, invented. Adored, secret - hers. Whose is it? Over and over again, Marina rewrites the lines that bewitched her, “Farewell to the Sea.” Beautifully, without marks, in your notebook. As if appropriating them forever. From the age of six she began to write poetry herself and hid it from adults. They considered these word combinations to be ordinary childish fun, and scribbling paper was a waste of time, which, like paper, would be better used wisely. For example, for music lessons - her mother seriously intended to make Marina a pianist. The sounds produced by the five-year-old baby from the piano were much more convincing than the “stained” sheets. For educational purposes, the direction of Marina’s activities was shaped by an effort of will: playing - “yes”, writing - “no”. “My whole childhood, all my preschool years, my whole life up to the age of seven, all my infancy, was one big cry for a piece of white paper. A suppressed cry,” recalls Tsvetaeva thirty years later. Probably, the girls still had the paper, but the pain of not being understood, of lack of encouragement for their main gift remained.

Marina adored her childhood paradise - her house in Trekhprudny. Along with your loneliness, prohibitions, secrets, grievances, victories. Here she was born, here, barely realizing herself, she felt the Poet within herself. Here a meeting took place that determined for the Poet his belonging to another world - the world of higher powers, to the eternal confrontation between good and evil.

“I had my own direct connection with the Devil, a direct line. One of the first secret horrors and terrible secrets of my childhood (infancy) was: God is the Devil! God - with a silent, lightning-fast, unchanging addition - Damn... It was me, in me, someone’s gift to me - in the cradle. (...) Between God and the Devil there was not the slightest gap - to introduce will, not the slightest state, to have time to introduce consciousness like a finger and thereby overcome this terrible fusion ... (...) ... Oh, God's punishment and torment, the darkness of Egypt! “He sat on Valerina’s bed - naked, in gray skin, like a Great Dane, with white-blue eyes, like those of a Great Dane, or a Baltic baron, with his arms stretched out along his knees, like a Ryazan woman in a photograph or a pharaoh in the Louvre, in the same a pose of inescapable patience and indifference. (...) The main features were not the paws, not the tail, not the attributes, the main thing was the eyes: colorless, indifferent and merciless... I recognized him primarily by his eyes, and I would have recognized these eyes - without everything. There was no action. He was sitting, I was standing. And I loved him.”

For Marina, he was Mousey - a name so secret that the girl uttered it only in bed or in a whisper. “The sound of the word “Mousey” was the very whisper of my love for him.”

Marina felt correctly - “it was in her, someone’s gift to her cradle.” And he guesses - the gift of poetry - “the poet’s innate comparative - contrastive passion...”

“Cute gray dog ​​of my childhood - Mousey! You enriched my childhood with all the mystery and all the tests of fidelity. And, moreover, to the whole world. Because without you I wouldn't knew that he is. I owe to you my unsanctified pride, which carried me above life higher than you above the river - divine pride - in his word and deed. I owe you my first crime: a secret at the first confession. After which everything was already a crime. It was you who broke every happy love I had. Corroding her with assessment and finishing her off with pride. For you decided me to be a poet, and not a beloved woman.”

The poet's innate comparative - contrastive passion... - God - Damn. Then it will become clear: Marina’s soul belongs to God, but she refuses to be his blind instrument, refuses to obey the rules of the game of slavish devotion, false righteousness, and longs for dialogue on equal terms. It is for this audacity of “unsanctified” pride that she - the Poet - is endlessly cast into the insignificance of her human vulnerable physicality. For even unsanctified pride is an instrument of torture. For even the great Poet is mortal. Tsvetaeva could not come to terms with this. The punishment was cruel. Punishment by Darkness. And accepted without repentance.

“...Not darkness is evil, but darkness is night. Darkness is everything. Darkness is darkness. The fact of the matter is that I don’t repent of anything. What is this - my dear darkness! So punishment or gift?

The Tsvetaev family was moderately religious. Regular attendance at the University Church and the traditional Orthodox faith were considered sufficient. It is not known what kind of agnostic would have been brought out of the rebel Marina by more zealous churching, which was initially denied by her soul.

Marina’s childhood feeling, left over from church services, is close to the feelings of other children who are much closer to the church (including A.P. Chekhov), but has nothing to do with atheism. We are talking about the rejection of a child’s heart from the coldness of church ritual, the Slavic vagueness of prayers and chants. However, it lay deep.

“I felt nothing, nothing but the most dead, cold as ice and white as snow boredom during my entire infancy in church... God was a stranger, the Devil was dear. God was cold. Damn it's hot. And none of them were kind. And none of them were angry. Only one I loved, the other - not. One loved me and knew me, but the other didn’t... One was forced on me - by dragging me to church, standing in the church, chandelier, double vision from sleep... all with Slavic slurred words - forced on me alone forced, and the other himself, and no one knew.”

The inner world of five-year-old Marina rests on three pillars: Pushkin, Mother, Mousey. Black cast-iron Pushkin is her first poet, her first brother by blood of poetry. The mother is the dear and only being, firmly connected by the umbilical cord with the eldest daughter, despite many inconsistencies. The Devil is a multivariate character, he is assigned the roles of Mystery, Fantasy, Passionate Lover, Soulful Friend - THE ONE without whom Marina cannot survive, the Power that sowed evil, so that good would have the strength to grow stronger and survive in the battle with him. Mousey denounced the money changer dashingly, as soon as Marina wished.

Marina came into the world as a poet. But which one? Landmarks are defined: PUSHKIN, MOTHER, DEVIL.

This is in the very depths under the hot coals of mystery. Closer to the surface, at the level of everyday understanding, there is a clear, open character - the father.

Marina’s mother and father are both remarkable natures, alienated from the elements of everyday life. Both with torment in their souls, both in their own worlds, which, for so long, seemed incompatible with each other.

Marina Tsvetaeva's father, Ivan Vladimirovich Tsvetaev, was born in 1846 in the family of a rural priest from the Vladimir province. His family was so poor that Ivan Vladimirovich and his brothers usually ran barefoot, saving their shoes for trips to the city and on holidays. Boys learned to work hard and live according to strict moral rules.

Following in the footsteps of his father, Ivan Vladimirovich was preparing to become a priest. However, while studying at the seminary, he became avidly interested in philology and art history. The capable seminarian was awarded a scholarship and a trip abroad. The young man travels to Italy and Greece. And he is so inspired by ancient art and sculpture that the dream of creating a sculpture museum in Moscow becomes the most passionate idea of ​​his life. The talent and dedication of the young scientist contributed to the development of his academic career. In 1888 he was appointed professor of art history at Moscow University. A generously gifted, purposeful personality with extraordinary gentleness and purity of soul was capable of moving mountains. Such a “mountain”, attracting to conquest, was his dream - the creation of the Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow.

The forty-two-year-old professor married out of deep love the twenty-year-old beauty Varvara Ilovaiskaya, the daughter of his friend the famous historian Ilovaisky.

For ten years the married couple lived in complete understanding. Varenka had an easy disposition and charming appearance. Only Varya's social position did not allow her to become a professional singer - she had a beautiful, professionally choreographed soprano. But home receptions turned into continuous concerts, secular society gathered for musical evenings at the Tsvetaevs. Romances, ballads, arias from operas, duets with Varenka by brilliant vocalists, the sparkle of candles, applause, bouquets. The elegant living room is filled with vases with lilacs and daffodils, the windows into the alley are open, and either passers-by or a man on a cart will stop and be overcome by the singing spilling out into the street. “Where is the theater? We have better ladies singing here!”

From the large portrait of Varya, a blossoming young life cheerfully looks out into the world. The pearl-blue flair of the airy dress covers her slender figure, soft curls of brown hair fall on her temples - sweet, tender, all in the sunshine of joy, a successful life, she smiles in complete ignorance of imminent misfortune. My daughter turned seven when Varya gave birth to a boy. Andryusha is a son, his parents’ dream. The room of the woman in labor is littered with bouquets of white lilacs, chestnut strands are scattered on white pillows, her cheeks are glowing with blush. Leaving his wife, Tsvetaev secretly wipes away his tears: Varenka’s fever has not subsided for a week, and the faces of the doctors at the consultation leave no hope. Barely two months after the birth of her son, the young mother died.

The unfortunate widower did not choose his brides. After waiting a year of mourning, he married a second time in 1891 to a friend of his late wife, Maria Alexandrovna Main. He did not look for love, did not run from loneliness, he considered it his duty to give his children a mother.

Life at home has changed, a different life has flowed. Ivan Vladimirovich is working in his office again, and the piano is raging in the living room again. Maria Alexandrovna Main is a creative person, a serious pianist, who refused to give concerts at the behest of her father. Instead of romances, arias from operettas - Beethoven, Schumann, Liszt, instead of muslin elegant dresses - monastic austerity of clothing, instead of fresh flowers - tubs with palm trees and ficus trees, instead of guests and evenings - playing music and reading from dawn to dusk. In the couple's bedroom, where apart from black and white there was not a single spot of color, in the picture above the bed - black on white snow, Pushkin fell from the bullet of black Dantes. This was repeated endlessly. It is not surprising that the picture could have some depressingly tragic effect on the child conceived here.

The November day burned out quickly. In Trekhprudny Lane, dirt glistens under the rare streetlights. The leaves on the large poplar, which covered half the street with its branches, have not flown around - they have shrunk into gray, crisp rags, rustling in the wind. A poplar guards a one-story wooden house with a mezzanine overlooking the courtyard. The five windows of the large hall are covered with curtains, through which weak light shines: there is no electricity in the house, kerosene lamps and candles are burning. But it is not this meager light that illuminates the chilled poplar and the boring alley. Music! Now the violent sobs of the piano, now sighs, now a ringing scattering of notes pierce the air, coloring the gray evening with a divine radiance.

— Everyone plays music... And when do they live? “An elderly lady in a hat with a veil pulled her skirts higher and pressed closer to her companion, who was performing acrobatic tricks between the puddles in order to save the polished gloss of his shoes. The couple were on their way to visit. But whenever they passed here: whether in the morning or during the day, they floated in the waves of music.

— Ivan Vladimirovich himself does not play the piano and is not much of a singer. But everyone takes musical wives.

- Oh, remember how Varenka sang! Just like an Italian prima donna. If you go to them, your soul rejoices: they are elegant, they smell of pies, there are bouquets everywhere... This new one doesn’t sing at all. Proud girl. He will never even make a neighborly visit, and he will not invite you to his place. Why, Kazimir Illarionovich, my sir, have you trampled my entire hem! The new drapery has just been basted!

- So there’s always a pothole here from the wheels, Natalya Petrovna! We're not in a cab! They themselves said: we’ll take a cab on Bronnaya, it will be cheaper.

Accompanied by Schubert's sad farewell, the couple disappeared around the bend where Nikitskaya Square glowed with distant gas lamps. The gray shadow of a cat darted towards the fence under the powerful carcass and disappeared into the hole between the picket fences. Someone's hand pulled the curtain in the window tighter, and the music that had been interrupted began again loudly and harmoniously. An ordinary family evening in a renovated house in Trekhprudny.

Having become the mistress of the house, Maria Alexandrovna Main did not tolerate the elegant surroundings of the former mistress and the rules she established. Mrs. Main's taste was spartan, anti-bourgeois. The motto is restraint, practicality in everything. And no decorative, cozy philistinism. There can be no vulgarity or spirit.

The photograph of Maria Alexandrovna speaks volumes. An elongated face with a large thoroughbred nose, a tightly buttoned dark dress of a classy lady. Thin lips hardly squeeze out a faint semblance of a smile. And in the eyes there is melancholy twisted into a spring. Touch it a little, the spring will loosen and destroy all the good looks. And this tightly buttoned integrity, and the boredom of aimless existence. No, she was not happy. And no matter how much she cultivated restraint, she often broke down.

Maria Main was one of the breed of stern natures who condemned themselves to bad luck. Her only youthful love for a married man ended in a break - she gave in to her father's will. I had to give up my career as a concert pianist for reasons of class.

Having lost her mother, the heiress of an old Polish family, at an early age, Maria was raised by her father (a German with Serbian blood) and governesses. She received an excellent education at home: at the age of seven she knew world history and mythology, raved about its heroes, and played the piano superbly. She easily used four European languages, studied philosophy, wrote poetry herself in Russian and German, and early on showed serious abilities in painting and especially in music.

Not expecting any other happiness for herself, Maria Alexandrovna became the wife of a respected, but completely unloved elderly man, and took responsibility for two children with whom she did not know how to get along, much less replace her mother. She deliberately sacrificed herself. In addition, the hope of having sons was also deceived. The names were prepared: Alexander and Kirill. But in 1992 Marina was born, and two years later Anastasia. Then Marina found out and never forgot that they were both a disappointment to the mother who was expecting sons.

The house in Trekhprudny is the best piece of God’s world. On the mezzanine overlooking the courtyard there were four small rooms for children. Below is a tall white hall with five windows, next to it is a large living room all in dark red. In my father's office there is a heavy desk, a deep sofa, and the walls to the ceiling are lined with bookshelves. However, there was no electricity in the house - kerosene lamps and candles provided the usual lighting for the long winter evenings.

The first electric outdoor lighting lamps appeared in Moscow in 1880. On May 15, 1883, on the day of the coronation of Alexander III, the area around the Cathedral of Christ the Savior was illuminated using arc lamps. At the same time, the first electric illumination of the Ivan the Great bell tower was installed. After the celebrations, many wealthy Muscovites began to submit petitions to the Governor General for the installation of electric lighting in their homes. Only in 1895 did the real introduction of electricity into the life of Muscovites and the lighting of city streets begin. In the house of Professor Tsvetaev, who built the Museum of Fine Arts for Moscow, they used kerosene. “Do not ask for anything and do not desire more” - this principle of the true intelligentsia was also true in relation to sewers. Is it possible to think about the soul while dreaming of some kind of water closet? This is for the overweight bourgeoisie. And the intelligentsia is all about the fine arts, with pianos, museums and cesspools.

At the beginning of the 20th century, 11 Russian cities already had sewerage, and Moscow could boast of sewerage in the Garden Ring area. Based on the availability of amenities, you can get an idea of ​​the lifestyle of the Tsvetaev family. Only the spiritual was considered worthy of mention. Material demands concerning the body were neglected as the whim of the nouveau riche and philistines. Why did people in Russia think so much about the soul and so little about water closets? By the way, water was also transported to the Tsvetaevs’ house in wooden barrels - there was no running water.

A wooden house in the center of Moscow and summer Tarusa are Marina’s best childhood memories.

In the summer, the family went “to the dacha” - to a small town in the Kaluga province above the clean, calm Oka River. My father rented a house from the city, standing alone two miles from Tarusa. A small wooden one with a mezzanine, a terrace and a small upper balcony from which the Trans-Oka region could be seen. And the garden, and the fields with copses behind them!..

Village life was much more fun - swimming in the river, boating, mushroom and berry picking, going out to visit, incessant music here too: the rare singing of Maria Alexandrovna and Lera in two voices! Ivan Vladimirovich planted Christmas trees in honor of the birth of each of his children, and they bore the names of their “godchildren.”

Everyday inconveniences both in the city and in the countryside were brightened up by a staff of servants - nannies, governesses, cooks, cooks, gardeners, all subordinate to the new mistress, who respected discipline and order.

The family’s way of life, organized in a Spartan manner, allowed only high “matter” - classical music, poetry, reading aloud classical works. Maria Alexandrovna did not tolerate laxity, disturbances of order, any kind of masquerades, zhurfixes, or dances in the house. She dressed the girls strictly, cut their hair short, did not allow tenderness, and taught them not to want sweets. At home, sweets were kept under lock and key, and children were not allowed to ask for them. You can’t ask for anything at all—it’s humiliating. “Life in the house was full of silent prohibitions,” recalls Marina. It was determined once and for all in the family: only spiritual things are important - art, nature, honor and honesty. The girls simultaneously began to speak three languages ​​- Russian, German and French. Maria Alexandrovna managed to convey to her daughters her character, alien to sentimentality and open manifestations of feelings. From her youth, Maria Alexandrovna’s soul was drawn to the lofty. The ideas of the German romantics and the high structure of music kindled a thirst for self-sacrifice in Maria. Having become the mother of the family, Maria Main suffered from a constant feeling of vegetation. And she was in a hurry to teach the children her favorite books, music, and poems. She read to the girls Chekhov, Korolenko, Mark Twain, Malo's Without a Family, fairy tales by Hoffmann, Grim, Andersen, and a little later by Pushkin, Dante, Shakespeare, with a special passion for the German romantics. Disregarding the young age of the girls, Maria “pumped” into her daughters everything that she carried in her Self, with which her soul had been charged since the joyless time of her half-orphan childhood. Moral standards in the family were the highest: material and external things were considered low, unworthy, money was dirt, politics was dirt, the main thing was protecting the humiliated and insulted - Marina understood this clearly.

She defended the offended - cats, dogs, fought with the nanny and governesses, not allowing a homeless puppy to be driven away, interceding for a janitor who was scolded for drunkenness. She bit and kicked no worse than a boy. Constant fights broke out between the children - Marina settled disputes with her fists. Large, strong hands are constantly covered in scratches, and there are never-ending abrasions on the knees. She was not afraid of pain, punishment and sitting in a dark closet. She knew how to stand up for herself: just try to tease or make fun of someone.

An awkward, plump girl with a saiga profile was not interested in mirrors and clothes. Her food is “hot coals of mystery.” Her best friend is Mousey. No one has such a thing, and no one can have such a terrible secret.

An ordinary day. Sixteen-year-old Valeria - or, as her family called her, Lera - a beauty - all like a dead mother - reading a romance novel in her room upstairs. Ivan Vladimirovich works intently at his desk in his office, despite the open door to the living room: he has learned not to notice the music and even hum something completely inappropriate - a melody from an operetta, for example. Seven-year-old Andryusha, not inclined to play music, gallops around the rooms on a wooden horse, spits peas through a straw, sticks out his tongue at the girls and tries to lure his stepsisters out from under the piano.

Two girls - with short hair, in dark blue checkered dresses and brown stockings - are busy with their own affairs. Asya cuts out flesh-pink dolls and their trousseau from a cardboard sheet. Marina - or Musya in the home - with a book. In the mirror opposite, she sees the proud profile of her mother, “her short-haired, slightly wavy, never bowed even in writing or in play, thrown back head, on the high shaft of her neck between two equally inflexible candles...”

Maria Alexandrovna, who deliberately switched to something bravura, is surprised by her daughters’ long stay at the piano.

- I don't understand! How long can you sit there? The musical ear cannot bear such thunder - after all, you can go deaf! - She closes the lid.

“You can hear better there,” Musya assures.

- You can hear better! The eardrum can crack.

- And I, mom, didn’t hear anything, honestly! - Asya inserts hastily and boastfully.

- One heard better, but the other didn’t hear anything! — the mother’s voice takes on intensely tragic notes. An indispensable refrain sounds: “And these are grandfather’s granddaughters, my daughters... oh, Lord!”

- Mashenka! Musya has perfect pitch,” the father of the family quietly left the office. “You see, she’s trying very hard.” I'll tell you: it sounds no worse than in concert!

- Excuse me, Ivan Vladimirovich, it’s not for you to judge. It's none of your business. “Maria Alexandrovna said somewhat more sharply than the situation required. Her husband's condescension towards Musya's diligent but completely uninspired piano exercises irritated her more and more. Alas, dreams of raising my eldest daughter to be a pianist were fading. Maria Alexandrovna already understood that she would have to part with them. What in return? Sheets covered with some nonsense?

“Have you even seen that she smears the paper all the time?” It's called POEMS. - Maria Alexandrovna picked up her notebook from the carpet with a disgusted grimace. — Title: “Napoleon!” Wow swing? Do you, Marina, even know who this is? Cake maybe?

- I know! This is a hero. But I wrote for myself. - Having swooped down like a kite, Marina snatched and tore the notebook to shreds, scattering the scraps in anger.

- Come on, Musenka, the papers are here, I’ll put them away along with my trash. “Father hastily collected the scraps and a stack of newspapers from the piano. These piles, which regularly spoiled the mirror gloss of the piano, were swept away by the mother in a painful and demonstrative manner.

- Brr! — Asya turned away from the pile of newspapers, supporting her mother’s disgust with all her appearance. Marina remained silent - she did not want to assent to Aska and offend her father. Although she has already defined her position long ago and forever: “newspapers are evil spirits.”

“Is it not from this juxtaposition of a piano’s mirror-like utmost purity with a disorderly and colorless heap of newspaper, and is it not from this simultaneously broad and pathetic maternal gesture of reprisal that my indelible, axiomal conviction grew in me: newspapers are evil spirits, and all my hatred for them, and all the newspaper world will take revenge on me.”

Having gathered the newspapers into an armful, Tsvetaev comfortably settled down near the piano.

- Ivan Vladimirovich, did you come to listen to us or are you waiting for dinner?

- Why am I waiting for dinner right away? Mashenka, you know how much I love music!

— One Aryan woman from “Aida” purrs through the stump of the deck. This is still from Varina’s repertoire, but I’m sure she never faked it like that! And now your singing is turning over in my grave.

- God be with you! Varenka sang heavenly! Yes, and I’m not spoiling the melody out of malice, I’m purring under my breath for the sake of my mood! - Ivan Vladimirovich crossed himself with a sigh, as he always did, remembering his unforgettable love. “God didn’t give me the talent.” So not everyone should be awarded such great talents!

— Gifts are rare, I don’t argue. From God! - Maria Alexandrovna stood up and extinguished the candles at the music stand. - But you even say “God Save the Tsar!” you can't sing!

- How can I not? Can! - the father protested and with complete readiness began to chant “Oh my God!” “But it never reached the king. For the mother, no longer jokingly, but with a truly painedly distorted face, immediately pressed her hands to her ears, and the father stopped. My father’s voice was strong.”

Ivan Vladimirovich is 20 years older than his wife. The soft, foreheaded face of a kind-hearted intellectual, a fluffy nose. A neat beard, absent-minded smiling eyes behind the shine of pince-nez. The real Russian intellectual Ivan Vladimirovich Tsvetaev seemed to personify Russian passivity and slowness.

However, the inconspicuousness and clumsiness of the Moscow University professor hid an ebullient, internally active nature, gentleness and taciturnity - enormous erudition. He was always absorbed in his duties - the department at the university, the cabinet of fine arts and antiquities at the department in the Rumyantsev Museum, teaching. And even lectures at the ethnographic public museum.

“The mother was unbalanced, demanding, contemptuous, despotic in character and pitiful in soul.” There was a father - the most loving, the kindest. The fact that this simple-minded intellectual, who realized a grandiose dream in practice, was a real ascetic, Marina realized later and appreciated his quiet heroism.

You are a poet for a child
Doomed to be -
Except for specie
All - those who inspired - to honor...

Having formulated her parental commandment in this way, Marina remained faithful to it until the end of her life. Hard work, obsession with the idea - paternal, unchanging. Inflexibility is the core of Tsvetaeva’s whole life - a trait she inherited from her mother, along with the proud hump of her nose, bright, straight and firm, unsmiling eyes.

For Maria Alexandrovna, eager for a great deed, suffering from the emptiness of her existence, fate found a way out - she was suddenly carried away with all her characteristic passion by her husband’s idea, began to seriously study the museum business, together with Ivan Vladimirovich she traveled abroad to inspect museums, select exhibits, became a comrade and friend, assistant. What an idyllic collaboration might have taken place had the young woman's life not been so short.

In the fall of 1902, Marina Tsvetaeva’s childhood suddenly ended. She is ten, she has just begun to grow up like a woman. Asya is eight - she also needs a mother. Maria Alexandrovna was diagnosed with consumption, and it was obvious that the disease would kill her. Although no one wanted to think about it. Hopes were pinned on the Italian sun and German doctors. The entire Tsvetaev family spent the next four years abroad, living in three countries - Italy, Germany, and Switzerland.

In the Russian boarding house in Nervi, the Tsvetaevs became close to the revolutionaries who lived in the same boarding house. The Tsvetaev family was a loyal monarchist. But the sentiments of the Narodnaya Volya members had an extraordinary effect on the innate rebel Marina. The girl writes revolutionary poems, which are subsequently lost to God knows where. As well as the desire to die for the revolution.

Another trait inherited from the mother appeared: inflexibility, a thirst to give one’s life for a great idea. And all this - at 11 years old!

At this stage, Marina’s fate includes a theme that seems absurdly terrible to us, but in those not-so-distant times, it was commonplace - early death. Not only convicts and residents of impoverished regions of Russia, families of the urban intelligentsia died out almost entirely from an incurable scourge - tuberculosis. Moreover, apart from the will of God (God gave, God took), they did not see anything strange in the funeral of the young people. In Moscow alone, 11 people died every day. Tuberculosis claims more victims than the bloodiest wars. In World War I, Russia would lose 1,700,000 soldiers from wounds and illnesses, and during the same time, 2,000,000 civilians would die from tuberculosis.

Early deaths from consumption were not uncommon in every family. Friends died, relatives died, children died. Marina was shocked by the untimely death of her loved ones and made her rebel. With all the passion of a child's soul, she rebelled to fight the irreversibility of death. Marina could not believe in the invincibility of death, she did not want to.

Marina quite often communicated with Sergei and Nadya Ilovaisky, the brother and sister of her father’s first, deceased wife. Sergei captivated her with his youthful purity, knightly honor, and unshakable thirst for life, Nadya with her charming appearance, which personified beauty and romantic love for Marina. “We were not friends - not because of the age difference, but because of my embarrassment in front of her beauty, which I could not cope with. We just weren’t friends because I loved her.”

And suddenly, one after another, two coffins covered with flowers and fir branches. What is this? Gone forever? The young brother and sister went into the unknown in the prime of life, youth, joyful hopes - why, why? Marina refuses to accept the fact of death as indisputable and starts a rebellion with all her childish strength. But the strength is not of a child, but of a poet who has awakened and seen much behind the shell of reality. Marina could not take seriously the outer, always lying, shell of life. I didn’t want to believe the adult truth, which was so often changeable. She persistently continued to seek a meeting with Nadya. I made dates in their favorite places, wrote her letters. But Nadya did not respond - she really disappeared. She never appeared again in this world. Never.

And in the summer of 1906, my mother died. She was only 38 years old. After undergoing unsuccessful treatment, Maria Main and her family returned to Moscow. It was a summer of painful and difficult dying. And these days Maria Alexandrovna wanted only Asya to be with her. Marina’s constant pain, convinced “that her mother respects her more and loves her sister,” the pain of an unloved child, which grew into painful jealousy, drove her crazy. And now it’s all over. Every day it became more and more difficult for Maria Alexandrovna to breathe. On July 4, 1906, she called her daughters.

“Mom’s gaze met us right at the door. She said: “Come…” We approached. First Asya, then my mother put her hand on my head. Dad stood at the foot of the bed, crying bitterly. Turning to him, his mother tried to calm him down. “Live the truth, children! - she said. “Live in truth...” Then, turning to the wall, she said almost silently: “It’s only a pity for the sun and music.”

The coffin with the remains of Maria Alexandrovna was transported to Moscow, carried past the house in Trekhprudny and buried at the Vagankovskoye cemetery next to the grave of her parents.

Shortly before her death, Maria Alexandrovna made a will, according to which her daughters could use the capital left by him only from the age of forty, and until that age they could live on interest. Who could have foreseen that one day Maine’s capital would disappear, and the revolution would make girls beggars - completely and irrevocably. Despite the Museum of Fine Arts built by her father, despite the Rumyantsev Library he donated to the city, there is no corner for Marina in the capital of the Soviet state...

Great Russian poetess, prose writer, translator. Literary criticism ranks her among the largest Russian poets of the 20th century.

Tsvetaeva font-family:Calibri;mso-fareast-font-family:" times="" new="" roman="">
AR-SA">- a poet with a tragic fate. Her work is still the subject of increased attention among researchers. In her brilliant poems, the highest degree of emotional stress is especially noted.

Red brush
The rowan tree lit up
Leaves were falling
I was born.

Marina Tsvetaeva was born on September 26 (October 8, old style) 1892 in Moscow into an intelligent family that revered art. Her father, Ivan Vladimirovich, was a famous philologist and art critic, a professor at Moscow University, who became the founder of the Museum of Fine Arts (now the State Museum of Fine Arts named after A. S. Pushkin). Mother, Maria Alexandrovna, originally from a Polish-German family, was a talented pianist.

The future poetess wrote her first poems at the age of six. Moreover, little Marina was able to put words into intricate rhymes not only in Russian, but also in French and German. She began publishing at the age of 16. In 1910, secretly from everyone, she released her first collection, “Evening Album.”

To my poems, written so early,
That I didn't know that I font-family:Calibri;mso-fareast-font-family:" times="" new="" roman=""> "Times New Roman";mso-ansi-language:RU;mso-fareast-language:RU; mso-bidi-language:
AR-SA">- poet,
Falling off like splashes from a fountain,
Like sparks from rockets...

The early poems of the collection, which has a diary orientation, attracted the attention of already famous writers font-family:Calibri;mso-fareast-font-family:" times="" new="" roman=""> "Times New Roman";mso-ansi-language:RU;mso-fareast-language:RU; mso-bidi-language:
AR-SA">- Maximilian Voloshin, Valery Bryusov and Nikolai Gumilyov. In the same year, Tsvetaeva began writing her first critical articles. A second collection of her poems followed very soon font-family:Calibri;mso-fareast-font-family:" times="" new="" roman=""> "Times New Roman";mso-ansi-language:RU;mso-fareast-language:RU; mso-bidi-language:
AR-SA">-"The Magic Lantern" (1912), then the third font-family:Calibri;mso-fareast-font-family:" times="" new="" roman=""> "Times New Roman";mso-ansi-language:RU;mso-fareast-language:RU; mso-bidi-language:
AR-SA">-"From two books" (1913).

Tsvetaeva’s early work was influenced by the Symbolists, although the poetess herself never considered herself a member of any literary movement. Researchers of her work, even the most daring ones, did not dare to do this. She created beyond labels.

Who is made of stone, who is made of clay -
And I’m silver and sparkling!
My business is treason, my name is Marina,
I am the mortal foam of the sea.

The years of the First World War, revolution and civil war saw Tsvetaeva's rapid creative growth.

Soon the poetess’s little daughter Irina, born in marriage to a White Army officer, Sergei Efron, dies of hunger. It's hard for Tsvetaeva's family. The poetess lived in Moscow, wrote a lot, but almost never published. She did not accept the October Revolution, finding an evil principle in it. During these years, the collection “Swan Camp” (1921) was published.

Distance: versts, miles...
We were placed, we were placed,
To be quiet
At two different ends of the earth.

In 1922, Tsvetaeva and her daughter Ariadna received permission to go abroad to her husband, who survived the defeat of Denikin and became a student at Prague University. Difficult years of emigration began for the poetess. Tsvetaeva wrote that here, outside Russia, it is “not needed,” but in Russia it is “impossible.” Her book “The Craft” (1923) was published, which critics rated quite highly. During these same years, Tsvetaeva wrote several poems and prose works.

Her independent spirit, uncompromisingness and passion for poetry become prerequisites for complete loneliness. “No one to read, no one to ask, no one to rejoice with.” “No one can imagine the poverty in which we live. My only income comes from my writing. My husband is sick and cannot work. My daughter earns pennies by embroidering hats. I have a son, he is eight years old. The four of us live on this money. In other words, we are slowly dying of hunger,” we read in her memoirs of those years.

Tsvetaeva’s last lifetime collection, “After Russia,” was published in 1928 in Paris. In 1939 she managed to return to her homeland. She dreams of returning to Russia as a “welcome and welcome guest.” However, upon arrival, her husband and daughter Ariadne are arrested.

Tsvetaeva lives alone, barely earning a living through translations. The war begins and the poetess and her son are evacuated to Yelabuga. Tsvetaeva writes a statement: “To the board of the Literary Fund. I ask you to hire me as a dishwasher in the Literary Fund's opening canteen. August 26, 1941."

She walked across the ground with a dancing step! font-family:Calibri;mso-fareast-font-family:" times="" new="" roman=""> "Times New Roman";mso-ansi-language:RU;mso-fareast-language:RU; mso-bidi-language:
AR-SA">- Heaven's daughter!
With an apron full of roses! font-family:Calibri;mso-fareast-font-family:" times="" new="" roman=""> "Times New Roman";mso-ansi-language:RU;mso-fareast-language:RU; mso-bidi-language:
AR-SA">- Don't disturb a single sprout!
I know I'll die at dawn! font-family:Calibri;mso-fareast-font-family:" times="" new="" roman=""> "Times New Roman";mso-ansi-language:RU;mso-fareast-language:RU; mso-bidi-language:
AR-SA">- Night of the Hawk
God will not send my swan soul away!

On August 31, 1941, the exhausted poetess commits suicide. In her suicide note, she asks her son for forgiveness and explains that she has reached a dead end. This is how this great life ends tragically.

It is difficult to overestimate Tsvetaeva's contribution to poetry. She left a diverse creative legacy: collections of poems, seventeen poems, eight verse dramas, autobiographical, memoir and historical-literary prose. Characterizing the work of her contemporary, Anna Akhmatova said, Tsvetaeva’s poems begin with the upper “C”. The same idea is supported by Joseph Brodsky, who in one of his interviews calls Tsvetaeva a “falsetto of time.” “Tsvetaeva is truly the most sincere Russian poet, but this sincerity, first of all, is the sincerity of sound - like when they scream in pain. Pain is biographical, scream is impersonal,” he asserts.

Her worldview, placed in a terrible reality, led to what Brodsky called “poetic Calvinism.” “A Calvinist is, in short, a person who constantly creates a certain version of the Last Judgment on himself - as if in the absence (or without waiting) of the Almighty. In this sense, there is no other such poet in Russia”...

Marina Ivanovna Tsvetaeva is a brilliant poetess, a brave critic, the author of numerous biographies of great contemporaries; her works are included in the treasury of Russian literature of the 20th century.

Marina Tsvetaeva became a symbol of the era of outgoing romanticism, which was replaced by pragmatic revolutionary prose. The life and work of Marina Tsvetaeva were full of tragedy and sensuality, and her death left an indelible mark in the hearts of admirers of Tsvetaeva’s talent.

Childhood and youth of the poetess

Information about who Marina Tsvetaeva is, her biography, interesting facts about her - all this is presented in some detail in the Internet encyclopedia Wikipedia, so let's try to look at the poetess a little differently - for example, through the eyes of her contemporaries.

Tsvetaeva Marina Ivanovna was born on September 26, when the day of St. John the Evangelist was celebrated, in 1892. The baby's childhood flowed smoothly in a cozy Moscow mansion under the supervision of her loving mother - the talented, virtuoso pianist Maria Main. The girl's father, Ivan Vladimirovich, was a philologist and a fairly famous art critic, taught at one of the faculties of Moscow University, and in 1911 founded the Museum of Fine Arts.

From an early age, Marina Tsvetaeva grew up in an atmosphere of creativity and family idyll, and holidays, such as birthdays or Christmas, were celebrated with obligatory masquerades, receptions, and gifts. The girl was very talented, from the age of four she could rhyme perfectly, could speak two languages ​​fluently, adored Pushkin’s poems and recited them with pleasure to enthusiastic listeners.

Playing the piano was somewhat worse for the future poetess: according to her memoirs, the girl did not feel the urge to play music. Soon Tsvetaeva’s mother fell ill with consumption and, despite all attempts to recover, died.

Tsvetaeva’s father, who was left with four children, tried to give them a decent education, but did not want to devote all his time to his offspring. The poetess’s sisters and her brother led a fairly independent life and early became interested in politics and the opposite sex.

Marina Tsvetaeva focused on studying art, domestic and foreign literature, attended a course of lectures on Old French literature at one of the faculties of the Sorbonne, but was unable to complete her education. Thanks to her mother, Marina Tsvetaeva had an excellent command of foreign languages, this allowed her to earn sufficient money and not be in poverty.

The beginning of a creative journey

The biography of Marina Tsvetaeva is full of twists and turns; her short happiness was always replaced by long-term adversity. All this influenced the poetess’s work and added a certain romantic tragedy to her poetry and prose. The first attempts at writing took place in the spring of 1910, when young Marina Tsvetaeva published her first collection of poetry, “Evening Album,” at her own expense. It included the poetess’s school essays; every page of this book was saturated with love and hope, and despite the author’s young age, the work turned out to be very worthy.

The second collection was published a couple of years later and earned very flattering reviews from eminent writers such as Gumilyov, Bryusov, Voloshin. Tsvetaeva actively participates in various literary circles, makes her first attempts to write as a literary and poetry critic, and her first work in this field is dedicated to the work of Bryusov. The revolution and the civil war that followed fell heavily on the shoulders of Tsvetaeva, who was unable to come to terms with the “red-white crack” that then divided the great country into two parts.

Marina Tsvetaeva’s sister invites her to spend the summer of 1916 in Alexandrov, to enjoy the tranquility and comfort of the family hearth. This time passes fruitfully for Tsvetaeva: the poetess writes several cycles of poetry and publishes them with success. Anna Akhmatova, to whom Tsvetaeva dedicates one of her poems, at a literary meeting in St. Petersburg says that she admires her poems and shakes her hand in farewell. Contemporaries note that this was a meeting of two great poets, two universes, one of which was immeasurable, and the other harmonious.

The revolution forced Tsvetaeva to take a new look at life. The constant lack of money forced her to work hard and write not only poetry, but also plays. At some point, Tsvetaeva realized that she could not live in revolutionary Russia, so she followed her husband Sergei Efron and first emigrated to the Czech Republic and then moved to Paris. This city has become an inexhaustible source of inspiration for her; here the poetess collaborates with the Versty magazine and publishes such works as:

• The dramatic work “Theseus”, full of longing for unfulfilled hopes (1926).
• Poems “To Mayakovsky”, “From the Sea”, “New Year’s Eve” (from 1928 to 1930).
• Prose works: the sad “House at Old Pimen”, the delightful “Mother and Music”, the restrained “My Evening” (from 1934 to 1938).

Personal life of the poetess

The personal life of Marina Tsvetaeva, according to the recollections of her sister, was bright and full of events, and the entire creative bohemia gossiped about her novels. In short, the poetess was a very flighty person, but the marriage concluded in 1912 with Sergei Efron became for her a real union for life.

A short biography of Marina Tsvetaeva, written by her close friend, reports that the meeting of the future spouses took place in the resort town of Koktebel, where Efron came to rest and recover after the tragic suicide of his mother. They felt kindred spirits in each other and soon got married, and less than a year later, shortly before Marina Tsvetaeva’s birthday, her daughter Ariadna was born.

However, the happy marriage did not last long, soon the marriage was on the verge of collapse, and the reason for this was Sofia Parnok, a young but very talented translator and writer. Marina’s stormy romance that broke out lasted two years; this story made her husband very worried, but Efron was able to forgive and accept her. Tsvetaeva spoke of this period of her life as a disaster, talking about the strangeness and vicissitudes of love for men and women. Later, the poetess would write love poems dedicated to Parnok, which would fill her books with a special romanticism.

Returning to her husband, Marina Ivanovna Tsvetaeva gave birth to a second daughter in 1917, whom she named Irina. This period was perhaps the most difficult; Efron is an ardent opponent of the Reds and joins the White army, leaving his wife with two daughters in his arms.

The poetess turned out to be completely unprepared for this; out of hunger and despair, the woman was forced to send the girls to an orphanage. A few months later, Marina Tsvetaeva’s youngest daughter dies, and her eldest mother takes her home.

At the end of the spring of 1922, she and her little daughter moved to her husband, who at that moment was studying at the University of Prague. Tsvetaeva spoke of this period of her life as throwing herself “between a coffin and a cradle,” their family life with Efron was full of need and hopelessness. The husband accidentally finds out about her affair with Konstantin Rodzevich, and this makes him suffer from jealousy, but the wife soon breaks off relations with her lover. A couple of years later, Marina Tsvetaeva’s son is born, who gives her hope for happiness.

A year later, the family moves to Paris, and their financial situation worsens to the limit. Tsvetaeva earns mere pennies by writing, and the eldest daughter exhausts herself embroidering hats. Efron became seriously ill and could not work; all this puts oppressive pressure on Tsvetaeva, she stops paying attention to herself and is rapidly aging. Out of despair, the family decides to return to their homeland, hoping for a loyal attitude from the new government.

Homeland. Death

Soviet Russia did not greet Tsvetaeva kindly at all: a few months after her return, first her daughter and then her husband were arrested. The poetess's dreams of a happy life, of a granddaughter whom she would raise, crumbled to dust. Since the day of her arrest, Tsvetaeva has been thinking only about how to collect parcels; she has no strength to engage in creativity. Soon the husband is sentenced to death, and the daughter is sent into exile.

After the death of her husband, love dies in the poetess’s soul, taking with it everything that made her happy. A few months after the start of the war, Tsvetaeva and her son are sent to be evacuated to the rear, she barely has time to say goodbye to her only friend Pasternak, it is he who will bring her a rope for bandaging things, which will later play a fatal role. Jokingly, Boris tells Marina: “This rope is so strong, you could hang yourself.”

Marina went to the rear with her son on a ship sailing along the Kama River. The poetess's condition was terrible, she lost the meaning of life, even her son did not warm her heart. After spending a little time in evacuation in Yelabuga, the poetess hanged herself with the same rope that Boris Pasternak brought. Her friends and fans wondered: why did Tsvetaeva do this, what were the reasons for suicide? The answer was hidden in her suicide notes to her son and friends, because Tsvetaeva hinted between the lines that she could no longer live without her beloved people and poems.

The poetess was buried at the Peter and Paul Cemetery in the city of Elabuga. Church canons prohibit funeral services for suicides, but many years later, at the numerous requests of believers, Patriarch Alexy II allows the ceremony to be performed for the poetess. Exactly fifty years later, her funeral service is held in the Church of the Ascension, which is at the Nikitsky Gate.

The children of Marina Tsvetaeva left no descendants. The son died in battle and was buried in the cemetery of the city of Braslav in Belarus. Her eldest daughter lived quite a long time and died at an old age, childless. Unfortunately, recognition came to Tsvetaeva only after the tragic death. Author: Natalya Ivanova