The weather in Moscow is good, there's no cholera, there's also no
lesbian love...Brrr Remembering those persons of whom you write me
makes me nauseous as if I'd eaten a rotten sardine. Moscow doesn't
have them--and that's marvellous." -Anton Chekhov, writing to his
publisher in 1895 Chekhov's barbed comment suggests the climate in
which Sophia Parnok was writing, and is an added testament to to
the strength and confidence with which she pursued both her
personal and artistic life. Author of five volumes of poetry, and
lover of Marina Tsvetaeva, Sophia Parnok was the only openly
lesbian voice in Russian poetry during the Silver Age of Russian
letters. Despite her unique contribution to modern Russian lyricism
however, Parnok's life and work have essentially been forgotten.
Parnok was not a political activist, and she had no engagement with
the feminism vogueish in young Russian intellectual circles. From a
young age, however, she deplored all forms of male posturing and
condescension and felt alienated from what she called patriarchal
virtues. Parnok's approach to her sexuality was equally forthright.
Accepting lesbianism as her natural disposition, Parnok
acknowledged her relationships with women, both sexual and
non-sexual, to be the centre of her creative existence. Diana
Burgin's extensively researched life of Parnok is deliberately
woven around the poet's own account, visible in her writings. The
book is divided into seven chapters, which reflect seven natural
divisions in Parnok's life. This lends Burgin's work a particular
poetic resonance, owing to its structural affinity with one of
Parnok's last and greatest poetic achievements, the cycle of love
lyrics Ursa Major. Dedicated to her last lover, Parnok refers to
this cycle as a seven-star of verses, after the seven stars that
make up the constellation. Parnok's poems, translated here for the
first time in English, added to a wealth of biographical material,
make this book a fascinating and lyrical account of an important
Russian poet. Burgin's work is essential reading for students of
Russian literature, lesbian history and women's studies. Diana
Lewis Burgin is Professor of Russian and Chair of the Department of
Modern Languages at the University of Massachusetts at Boston and
an Associate of the Russian Research Centre, Harvard University.
She is author of a biography in verse, numerous articles on Russian
literature, and a translator of Russian prose and poetry.
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