Born
in Moscow, the daughter of Professor Ivan Tsvetaev, the art historian who
founded the Pushkin Museum of Art in Moscow Tsvetaeva finished school in
1908 and went to Paris where she attended lectures on literary history
at the Sorbonne. Her first poems were printed shen she was sixteen. Her
first book - "An Evening Album" - which came out in 1912, was praised by
the critics, including Valery Bryusov. Tsvetaeva emigrated in 1922. She
lived at first in Berlin and later moved to Prague and to Paris. Self-willed
and proud, she eventually came to disagree more and more sharply with the
ultra-reactionary emigre circles. She lived in dire poverty and suffered
from homesickness. Her poems at that time were full of contempt and hatred
for the rising wave of fascism in Europe.
Poems:
The Sail.
The Dagger.
The Cliff.