Our Notes & References

The first appearance in print of these important poems from the troubled times of Revolution and Civil War. Includes poems about the “White Guard”, written by Tsvetaeva in 1917-20 and dedicated to her husband, Sergei Efron, who was then a White Army volunteer and took part in the Ice Campaign.

Leaving Russia in 1922, Tsvetaeva took with her a manuscript prepared for publication, but the enterprise took longer than expected. In December 1924, she writes to Struve: “I appeal to you for advice: I still have not published a book of so-called “counter-revolutionary” poems – all have found publishers, except this one” – but the collection still remained unpublished. In 1938, the poetess meets Iu. P. Ivask and offers to give hime “some materials” before his departure to Moscow. Ivask refuses apparently because of the imminent breakout of war, and advises to transfer the archive to Elizabeth Mahler, a professor at the Basel University; and so Tsvetaeva did. The war began just when the archive was integrated to the Basel Library.

It is only in 1956 that Struve went to Basel, met with Mahler and asked for a copy of The Swans’ Wedge as well as of the poem ‘Perekop’ in view of their publication. However, since Tsvetaeva’s daughter Anastasia was still living in the USSR, Struve decided to drop ‘Perekop’ in her interest, and he had only Lebedinyi Stan printed in in Munich, with an introduction by Ivask.

Provenance

Robert Eden Martin (b. 1940; American lawyer and noted collector of Russian, British and American literature works).