The turn of her poems

Scattered in the dust in shops
Where no one ever took them
My poems, like precious wines are,
Will be tasted.
M. Tsvetaeva

Marina Tsvetaeva was born on October 8, 1892 in Moscow. Her father, Ivan Tsvetaev, was a Russian historian, archaeologist, philologist and art historian, professor at Moscow University, director of the Rumyantsev Museum and founder of the Museum of Fine Arts. Mother, Maria Mein, was a talented pianist.

Marina Tsvetaeva began writing her first poems as a child in Russian, French and German. At the age of 18, she published at her own expense the first collection of poems ‘Evening Album’. It was published in 1910, and immediately attracted the attention of famous poets – Valery Bryusov, Maximilian Voloshin and Nikolai Gumilyov. Soon the collections ‘Magic Lantern’ and ‘From Two Books’ were published.

In exile, a series of her prose works becomes popular. Marina Tsvetaeva's last lifetime book, ‘After Russia’, was published in Paris in 1928.

The name of Marina Tsvetaeva has a special meaning for the literary and musical evenings of the scientific library of NSU. Their tradition has evolved over many years. Its origins are the holding of the annual series of evenings ‘Space of Poetry’, once dedicated to the 100th anniversary of Marina Tsvetaeva.

The evenings were held at the fiction lending and were a bright event, giving readers new opportunities for the emotional experience of the fate and work of the poet.

In subsequent years, the Tsvetaeva theme in our library continued in poetry evenings, in numerous conversations and lectures for the public from Akademgorodok and Novosibirsk.

The picture of the world of Marina Tsvetaeva was revealed in the complex context of the literary and historical era, in its various connections. The titles of the evenings evoke wonderful memories: ‘Their Turn Will Come’, ‘Living About the Living’, ‘Father and His Museum’, ‘Here: One Can Hear – But I Don’t Hear Words’, ‘Florentine Nights’.

To sum up, readers' interest in Tsvetaeva's evenings was maintained all the years thanks to the amazing talent of the presenter, Yulia Likhacheva.

Text: L. Y. Distanova

Photo collage: O. V. Koshevaya