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Poèmes de maturité I (1921-1941) - Poésie lyrique
470 pages
Published February 21, 2025
About the author
Marina Tsvetaeva
582 books586 followers Марина Цветаева
Marina Ivanovna Tsvetaeva was born in Moscow. Her father, Ivan Tsvetaev, was a professor of art history and the founder of the Museum of Fine Arts. Her mother Mariya, née Meyn, was a talented concert pianist. The family travelled a great deal and Tsvetaeva attended schools in Switzerland, Germany, and at the Sorbonne, Paris. Tsvetaeva started to write verse in her early childhood. She made her debut as a poet at the age of 18 with the collection Evening Album, a tribute to her childhood.
In 1912 Tsvetaeva married Sergei Efron, they had two daughters and one son. Magic Lantern showed her technical mastery and was followed in 1913 by a selection of poems from her first collections. Tsvetaeva's affair with the poet and opera librettist Sofiia Parnok inspired her cycle of poems called Girlfriend. Parnok's career stopped in the late 1920s when she was no longer allowed to publish. The poems composed between 1917 and 1921 appeared in 1957 under the title The Demesne of the Swans. Inspired by her relationship with Konstantin Rodzevich, an ex-Red Army officer she wrote Poem of the Mountain and Poem of the End.
After 1917 Revolution Tsvetaeva was trapped in Moscow for five years. During the famine one of her own daughters died of starvation. Tsvetaeva's poetry reveals her growing interest in folk song and the techniques of the major symbolist and poets, such as Aleksander Blok and Anna Akhmatova. In 1922 Tsvetaeva emigrated with her family to Berlin, where she rejoined her husband, and then to Prague. This was a highly productive period in her life - she published five collections of verse and a number of narrative poems, plays, and essays.
During her years in Paris Tsvetaeva wrote two parts of the planned dramatic trilogy. The last collection published during her lifetime, After Russia, appeared in 1928. Its print, 100 numbered copies, were sold by special subscription. In Paris the family lived in poverty, the income came almost entirely from Tsvetaeva's writings. When her husband started to work for the Soviet security service, the Russian community of Paris turned against Tsvetaeva. Her limited publishing ways for poetry were blocked and she turned to prose. In 1937 appeared MOY PUSHKIN, one of Tsvetaeva's best prose works. To earn extra income, she also produced short stories, memoirs and critical articles.
In exile Tsvetaeva felt more and more isolated. Friendless and almost destitute she returned to the Soviet Union in 1938, where her son and husband already lived. Next year her husband was executed and her daughter was sent to a labor camp. Tsvetaeva was officially ostracized and unable to publish. After the USSR was invaded by German Army in 1941, Tsvetaeva was evacuated to the small provincial town of Elabuga with her son. In despair, she hanged herself ten days later on August 31, 1941.
source: http://www.poemhunter.com/marina-ivan...
Marina Ivanovna Tsvetaeva was born in Moscow. Her father, Ivan Tsvetaev, was a professor of art history and the founder of the Museum of Fine Arts. Her mother Mariya, née Meyn, was a talented concert pianist. The family travelled a great deal and Tsvetaeva attended schools in Switzerland, Germany, and at the Sorbonne, Paris. Tsvetaeva started to write verse in her early childhood. She made her debut as a poet at the age of 18 with the collection Evening Album, a tribute to her childhood.
In 1912 Tsvetaeva married Sergei Efron, they had two daughters and one son. Magic Lantern showed her technical mastery and was followed in 1913 by a selection of poems from her first collections. Tsvetaeva's affair with the poet and opera librettist Sofiia Parnok inspired her cycle of poems called Girlfriend. Parnok's career stopped in the late 1920s when she was no longer allowed to publish. The poems composed between 1917 and 1921 appeared in 1957 under the title The Demesne of the Swans. Inspired by her relationship with Konstantin Rodzevich, an ex-Red Army officer she wrote Poem of the Mountain and Poem of the End.
After 1917 Revolution Tsvetaeva was trapped in Moscow for five years. During the famine one of her own daughters died of starvation. Tsvetaeva's poetry reveals her growing interest in folk song and the techniques of the major symbolist and poets, such as Aleksander Blok and Anna Akhmatova. In 1922 Tsvetaeva emigrated with her family to Berlin, where she rejoined her husband, and then to Prague. This was a highly productive period in her life - she published five collections of verse and a number of narrative poems, plays, and essays.
During her years in Paris Tsvetaeva wrote two parts of the planned dramatic trilogy. The last collection published during her lifetime, After Russia, appeared in 1928. Its print, 100 numbered copies, were sold by special subscription. In Paris the family lived in poverty, the income came almost entirely from Tsvetaeva's writings. When her husband started to work for the Soviet security service, the Russian community of Paris turned against Tsvetaeva. Her limited publishing ways for poetry were blocked and she turned to prose. In 1937 appeared MOY PUSHKIN, one of Tsvetaeva's best prose works. To earn extra income, she also produced short stories, memoirs and critical articles.
In exile Tsvetaeva felt more and more isolated. Friendless and almost destitute she returned to the Soviet Union in 1938, where her son and husband already lived. Next year her husband was executed and her daughter was sent to a labor camp. Tsvetaeva was officially ostracized and unable to publish. After the USSR was invaded by German Army in 1941, Tsvetaeva was evacuated to the small provincial town of Elabuga with her son. In despair, she hanged herself ten days later on August 31, 1941.
source: http://www.poemhunter.com/marina-ivan...
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
April 22, 2026
« Je suis lunaire - de deux sombres lunes. »
Ce recueil contient les œuvres de la maturité de Marina Tsvetaeva - ou pour les appeler autrement, les œuvres postérieures à sa fuite de l’URRS survenue en 1922. On retrouve dans ce livre Le Métier, Les Congères et divers poèmes dédiés à ses contemporains.
Quand on parle de poètes exilés russes, il est difficile de ne pas citer Tsvetaeva. Comme Akhmatova, comme Mandelstam, elle nous touche par son destin tragique. L’URSS a poussé beaucoup d’artistes à la mort. Tsvetaeva, abandonnée dans une fosse commune, en fait partie.
Ce recueil est traversé par le choc de l’exil. Dans une litanie, Tsvetaeva hallucine la Russie qu’elle a laissé derrière elle - les renards sont pelés et la neige blanche devient le symbole de l’armée blanche, glorieusement morte. Elle ne cesse de buter sur la figure du cygne, ce vaincu baudelairien mélancolique et maladroit. La vulnérabilité du cou du cygne l’obsède. Le meurtre est refoulé et sans cesse éludé, ce qui prête au recueil un rythme singulier.
On a l’impression de lire le témoignage haletant d’un choc post-traumatique. Les images se télescopent dans un fouillis étrange. C’est beau, une énergie certaine s’en dégage - mais il y a aussi quelque chose de rebutant et d’informe dans cet ensemble. On est emporté sans être tout à fait séduit. Le côté réactionnaire de Tsvetaeva n’y est sans doute pas pour rien. Son mari est la figure centrale du recueil : cet officier des armées du Tsar est métamorphosé en Saint-Georges, figure du combat et saint des bergers. La Russie d’avant la Révolution est pleurée avec rage et Tsvetaeva se place en prophète d’un monde aristocrate perdu à jamais. On se sentirait un petit plus concerné par cette vision apocalyptique si elle ne conjuguait pas sa nostalgie de l’ordre ancien avec des poèmes très bizarres sur l’écriture «noire» - pour ne pas dire autre chose - de Pouchkine. C’est en aristocrate nationaliste et chrétienne que Tsvetaeva se positionne, en ancienne dominante qui entend bien le redevenir. Ce positionnement rageur prête à son chant d’exil une saveur aigre.
C’est un recueil captivant. Je ne sais pas si c’est un recueil que j’affectionne particulièrement.
Ce recueil contient les œuvres de la maturité de Marina Tsvetaeva - ou pour les appeler autrement, les œuvres postérieures à sa fuite de l’URRS survenue en 1922. On retrouve dans ce livre Le Métier, Les Congères et divers poèmes dédiés à ses contemporains.
Quand on parle de poètes exilés russes, il est difficile de ne pas citer Tsvetaeva. Comme Akhmatova, comme Mandelstam, elle nous touche par son destin tragique. L’URSS a poussé beaucoup d’artistes à la mort. Tsvetaeva, abandonnée dans une fosse commune, en fait partie.
Ce recueil est traversé par le choc de l’exil. Dans une litanie, Tsvetaeva hallucine la Russie qu’elle a laissé derrière elle - les renards sont pelés et la neige blanche devient le symbole de l’armée blanche, glorieusement morte. Elle ne cesse de buter sur la figure du cygne, ce vaincu baudelairien mélancolique et maladroit. La vulnérabilité du cou du cygne l’obsède. Le meurtre est refoulé et sans cesse éludé, ce qui prête au recueil un rythme singulier.
On a l’impression de lire le témoignage haletant d’un choc post-traumatique. Les images se télescopent dans un fouillis étrange. C’est beau, une énergie certaine s’en dégage - mais il y a aussi quelque chose de rebutant et d’informe dans cet ensemble. On est emporté sans être tout à fait séduit. Le côté réactionnaire de Tsvetaeva n’y est sans doute pas pour rien. Son mari est la figure centrale du recueil : cet officier des armées du Tsar est métamorphosé en Saint-Georges, figure du combat et saint des bergers. La Russie d’avant la Révolution est pleurée avec rage et Tsvetaeva se place en prophète d’un monde aristocrate perdu à jamais. On se sentirait un petit plus concerné par cette vision apocalyptique si elle ne conjuguait pas sa nostalgie de l’ordre ancien avec des poèmes très bizarres sur l’écriture «noire» - pour ne pas dire autre chose - de Pouchkine. C’est en aristocrate nationaliste et chrétienne que Tsvetaeva se positionne, en ancienne dominante qui entend bien le redevenir. Ce positionnement rageur prête à son chant d’exil une saveur aigre.
C’est un recueil captivant. Je ne sais pas si c’est un recueil que j’affectionne particulièrement.
Displaying 1 of 1 review