A. A. Akhmatova and M. I. Tsvetaeva

Marina Tsvetaeva was born on 8 October 1892 in Moscow. Her father was a philologist and professor at Moscow University and the founder of the Museum of Fine Arts; her mother was a pianist. She began writing poems at five, in Russian, French and German; she considered German her second mother tongue. Because of her mother’s illness the family lived abroad and in 1902–1905 she studied in boarding schools in Switzerland, Italy, Germany and France. Her mother died in 1906. At sixteen she went to Paris to attend lectures on Old French literature at the Sorbonne. In 1910 she published at her own expense the collection «Вечерний альбом», in three sections: «Детство», «Любовь», «Только тени». «Волшебный фонарь» followed in 1912. In 1922–1939 she lived in emigration in Europe and published «Разлука», «Ремесло» and «После России» (1928). In 1939 she returned home. She died on 31 August 1941 in evacuation, in Yelabuga.