(Adapted from: 'Tsvetayeva, Marina Ivanovna.' Merriam Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature, Merriam-Webster, 1995). Upon the evacuation of Moscow during World War II, she was relocated to a remote town, where she committed suicide in 1941.
In 1939 Tsvetayeva followed them, settling in Moscow, where she worked on poetic translations. Marina Ivanovna Tsvetaeva (Efron) was a Russian poet whose verse is distinctive for its staccato rhythms, originality, and directness and who, though little known outside Russia, is considered one of the finest 20th-century poets in the Russian language. Tsvetayeva left the Soviet Union in 1922, going to Berlin and Prague, and finally, in 1925, settling in Paris. In the 1930s Tsvetayeva's poetry increasingly reflected alienation from her émigré existence and a deepening nostalgia for Russia At the end of the '30s her husband-who had begun to cooperate with the communists-returned to the Soviet Union, taking their daughter with him (both were later victims of Joseph Stalin's terror).
