26 August 1933(1933-08-26) (aged 48) Karinskoye, Odintsovsky District, Moscow Oblast, Soviet Union
Pen name
Andrei Polianin (as journalist; also shown as Andrey Polyanin)
Occupation
Poet
Period
20th-century
Sophia Yakovlevna Parnok (Russian: София Яковлевна Парнок, Yiddish: סאָפיאַ פארנוכ; 30 July 1885 O.S./11 August 1885 (N.S.) – 26 August 1933) was a Russian poet, journalist and translator. From the age of six, she wrote poetry in a style quite distinct from the predominant poets of her times, revealing instead her own sense of Russianness, Jewish identity and lesbianism. Besides her literary work, she worked as a journalist under the pen name of Andrei Polianin. She has been referred to as "Russia's Sappho", as she wrote openly about her seven lesbian relationships.
Sonya Yakovlevna Parnokh was born into a well-to-do family of professional Jews in a provincial city outside the Pale of Settlement. Her mother died after giving birth to her twin siblings and she was raised by her father and her step-mother, leaving her feeling her childhood lacked emotional support. From a young age, she wrote poetry and acknowledged her uniqueness—her lesbianism, her Graves' disease, and her religion—which set her apart from her peers.
Completing her studies at the Mariinskaya Gymnasium, in 1905 Parnok moved to Geneva and attempted to study music, but lacked any real drive and quickly returned to Moscow. To distance herself from her father's control and her financial dependence on him, she published her first book of poems in 1906 under the pseudonym Sophia Parnok and married Vladimir Volkenstein in 1907. Within two years, the marriage failed and she began working as a journalist.
From 1913, Parnok exclusively had relationships with women and used those love relationships to fuel her creativity. In a succession of relationships with Marina Tsvetaeva, Lyudmila Erarskaya, Olga Tsuberbiller, Maria Maksakova and Nina Vedeneyeva, her muses propelled her to publish five collections of poetry and write several librettos for opera, before her disease claimed her life in 1933.
Her poetry was banned after 1928, and her work almost forgotten until 1979 when her collected works were published for the first time. While scholars have focused on her early influential relationship with Tsvetaeva, her best works are now recognized as those written from 1928.
Sophia Yakovlevna Parnok (Russian: София Яковлевна Парнок, Yiddish: סאָפיאַ פארנוכ; 30 July 1885 O.S./11 August 1885 (N.S.) – 26 August 1933) was a Russian...
in 1927. SophiaParnok, noted Russian poet dedicated her verses in the Half-voiced cycle to Tsuberbiller, and the educator cared for Parnok during her...
the Russian poet SophiaParnok and was the first scholar to unravel the relationship of Parnok and Marina Tsvetaeva. Her work on Parnok, revived scholarly...
poet SophiaParnok from 1916 to 1926, and the inspiration for Parnok's adaptation of the libretto, Almast. During the war years, she and Parnok lived...
many Russian poets of twentieth century, including Marina Tsvetaeva, SophiaParnok, Joseph Brodsky, Anna Barkova, Andrei Belyi, Varlam Shalamov, Maria...
optical crystallography. She was the last partner-muse of the poet SophiaParnok and was awarded the Stalin Prize and Order of Lenin for her scientific...
Taganrog. Taganrog is the native city of Anton Chekhov, Faina Ranevskaya, SophiaParnok, Alexandre Koyré, Isaac Yakovlevich Pavlovsky, Witold Rowicki, Georgy...
around the same time, she became involved in an affair with the poet SophiaParnok, who was 7 years older than Tsvetaeva, an affair that caused her husband...
sister the poet SophiaParnok. His family name was Parnokh but he later changed it to the more Sephardic–sounding Parnakh (his sister Sophia also later changed...
Artist of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. Soon after SophiaParnok died, Olga Tsuberbiller began a relationship with Antarova, which would...
friends with many artists and writers, including Marina Tsvetaeva, SophiaParnok, and Boris Pasternak. She met Tsvetaeva in Moscow in summer 1919. In...
(The Little Mermaid, 1923). The libretto for the opera was written by SophiaParnok and was based on the fairy tale of the same name by Hans Christian Andersen...
Artist of the USSR Faina Ranevskaya, artist Seraphima Blonskaya, poets SophiaParnok and Yelizaveta Tarakhovskaya, an active member of Narodnaya Volya organization...
suffragist, and poet, wrote Writ on Cold Slate (1922) on prison experiences SophiaParnok (1885–1933), Russian Jewish Silver Age poet Paula von Preradović (1887–1951)...
of Solovyova, as well as Cherubina de Gabriak, Adelaida Gertsyk, and SophiaParnok. In the twenty-first century, revived scholarship on her work has taken...
Verse, 1989, Slavica Pub, ISBN 0-89357-196-2 Diana Lewis Burgin (1994). SophiaParnok. NYU Press. ISBN 978-0-8147-1221-4. Mikhail Afanasevich Bulgakov (August...
Canadian poet, novelist Paper Trails, Leaving Now, Lake of Two Mountains SophiaParnok 1885–1933 Russian poet Алмаст (Almast, (libretto) Pier Paolo Pasolini...
Volkenstein was married three times. His first wife was the poet and feminist SophiaParnok (1907-1909). Mikhail Volkenshtein, his son from the second marriage...
steadfast friends and it would later be Gertsyk who introduced Tsvetaeva to SophiaParnok in 1914. In 1913, she gave birth to her second son, Nikita. Following...
writing the libretto himself, and the task was undertaken by Russian poet SophiaParnok. In 1916 the libretto was ready, and Spendiaryan began work on the opera...
Ah, Rose (A. Tsaturian), opus 1, No. 3, 1894 "Almast". Libretto by SophiaParnok based on Hovhannes Tumanyan's "The Siege of Tmka Castle" poem. 1918–1928...
Global Information