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Earthly Signs: Moscow Diaries, 1917-1922 (New York Review Books Classics) Paperback – December 5, 2017

by Marina Tsvetaeva (Author), Jamey Gambrell (Translator)

4.3 39 ratings

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A moving collection of autobiographical essays from a Russian poet and refugee of the Bolshevik Revolution.

Marina Tsvetaeva ranks with Anna Akhmatova, Osip Mandelstam, and Boris Pasternak as one of Russia’s greatest twentieth-century poets. Her suicide at the age of forty-eight was the tragic culmination of a life buffeted by political upheaval. The essays collected in this volume are based on diaries she kept during the turbulent years of the Revolution and Civil War. In them she records conversations of women in the markets, soldiers and peasants on the train traveling from the Crimea to Moscow in October 1917, fighting in the streets of Moscow, a frantic scramble with co-workers to dig frozen potatoes out of a cellar, and poetry readings organized by a newly minted Soviet bohemia. Alone in Moscow with two small children, no income, and a missing husband, Tsvetaeva struggled to feed her daughters (one of whom died of malnutrition in an orphanage), find employment in the Soviet bureaucracy, and keep writing poetry. Her keen and ruthless eye observes with compassion and humor—bringing the social, economic, and cultural chaos of the period to life. These autobiographical writings not only give a vivid eyewitness account of Russian history but provide vital insights into the workings of Tsvetaeva’s unique poetics.

Includes black and white photographs.

Print length

288 pages
Language

English
Publisher

NYRB Classics
Publication date

December 5, 2017
Dimensions

5.1 x 0.6 x 8 inches
ISBN-10

1681371626
ISBN-13

978-1681371627
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“Is there prose more intimate, more piercing, more heroic, more astonishing than Tsvetaeva’s? Was the truth of reckless feelings ever so naked? So accelerated? Voicing gut and brow, she is incomparable. Clad in the veil of translation, expert translation, her recklessness commands, her nakedness flames.” —Susan Sontag

“When it comes to the Russian poetry of the last century, Osip Mandelstam, Anna Akhmatova, and Boris Pasternak are reasonably familiar names, but not Marina Tsvetaeva, who is their equal.... Is she as good as Eliot or Pound, one may ask for the sake of comparison. She is as good as they are, and may have more tricks up her sleeve as a poet.... A marvelous selection from her diaries and essays in an exceptionally fine translation by Jamey Gambrell. They give us a view of the times not very different from that found in Isaac Babel’s stories. Tsvetaeva is an excellent reporter.... Tsvetaeva’s autobiographical writings and her essays are filled with memorable descriptions and beautifully turned out phases.... Gambrell sums up well the difficulties of Tsvetaeva’s work in her concise and extremely perceptive introduction.” —Charles Simic, The New York Review of Books

“This style of bold, passionate and innovative thought is much in evidence in Earthly Signs, writings by the Russian Modernist poet Marina Tsvetaeva, in this extraordinary translation by Jamey Gambrell.” —Carol Muske Dukes, Los Angeles Times Book Review

“Jamey Gambrell’s excellently translated edition with its well-researched and informative introduction graciously fulfils Tsvetaeva’s desire to see these pieces of diaristic prose bound in a single volume." —Rachel Polonsky, The Times Literary Supplement

About the Author

Marina Tsvetaeva (1892–1941), whose father was a classicist and whose mother was a pianist, was born in Moscow and published her first book of poems at seventeen.Tsvetaeva left Russia in 1922 with her two children and her husband, Sergei Efron, who fought against the Red Army in the 1918–1921 Civil War but was later to become a Soviet spy. Often living from hand to mouth, the family remained abroad until 1939. Two years later, after the execution of her husband and the arrest of her daughter, Tsvetaeva committed suicide. Along with numerous lyrics, her works include several extraordinary long poems, among them The Poem of the End, The Poem of the Mountain, and The Ratcatcher.

Jamey Gambrell is a writer on Russian art and culture. Her translations include Vladimir Sorokin’s Day of the Oprichnik, The Blizzard, and, for NYRB Classics, Ice Trilogy. She has also translated a volume of Aleksandr Rodchenko’s writings, Experiments for the Future, and Tatyana Tolstaya’s novel, The Slynx. In 2016, she was awarded the Thornton Wilder Prize for Translation from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ NYRB Classics; Reprint edition (December 5, 2017)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 288 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1681371626
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1681371627
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.1 x 0.6 x 8 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #371,112 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #36 in Russian & Soviet Poetry
- #96 in History & Criticism of Russian & Soviet Literature
- #1,132 in Literary Criticism & Theory

Customer Reviews:
4.3 39 ratings

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Jamey Gambrell
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Jamey Gambrell is a writer on Russian art and culture, and the translator of Vladimir Sorokin's The Ice Trilogy, among many other works of Russian-language fiction and nonfiction.
In 2016, she was awarded the Thornton Wilder Translation Prize by the American Academy of Arts and Letters for her "significant contribution to the art of literary translation."
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Marina T︠S︡vetaeva
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marianna gindin

Genius

Reviewed in the United States on June 27, 2019

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The writings of a true genius. Marina has a voice all her own, and this is the voice you hear throughout this book. Even her prose is poetic. What an amazing read. I felt transported to Moscow 1929-20; the dead of winter; the horrors of finding yourself living in the attic of your own home, and incapable of sustaining oneself and the little children who depend on you. What a life. What a tragedy.

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doc peterson

"diaries" rather than poetry

Reviewed in the United States on December 25, 2009

Verified Purchase

The subtitle of _Earthly Signs_ is "Moscow Diaries, 1917 - 1922." I had taken this metaphorically, with the expectation and hope that Tsvetaeva's poems would be illuminated with a biography. Instead, the subtitle is literal, which was a disappointment; I had hoped for a different translation than Selected Poems (Tsvetaeva, Marina) (Twentieth-Century Classics) , which I was unhappy with. Nonetheless, her diaries did give me some insight into the character and personality of the poet, as well as a micro-cosmic view into the chaos, uncertainty and fear that many Russians felt during the Russian Revolution and the Civil War, hence the three stars.

Tsvetaeva was a melancholy woman. This is apparent in her poetry, but it is vividly shown in her dairy. Not caught up in the romance and drama of the revolution, Tsvetaeva instead was concerned with more basic things: safety, food, and the nagging worry of the safety of her family. This is a common thread throughout the diary as she travels from the Crimea to Moscow to elsewhere. The faces, conversations and concerns of those who cross her path are meticulously documented, along with her own reflections and thoughts. One passage in particular struck me, as Tsetaeva meditates on the grief that war inflicts, writing, "A daughter whose father has been killed - is an orphan. A wife whose husband has been killed is a widow. But a mother whose son has been killed?" This is fairly representative of thoughts that occupy the majority of the book.

Much of the power of _Earthly Signs_ is the result of Tsvetaeva herself, to be sure. But I can't help but think that the translator and editor, Jamey Gambrell, also played a role in this. As Gambrell writes in the introduction, "Every translation, like every poem or novel, is a voyage of sorts. My hope is that I have managed to read these earthly signs well enough, to follow Tsvetaeva's path closely enough to repave enough of her singullar road, for English readers to be translated across the river." I believe these hopes have been realized. A pity, then, that Gambrell has not (at least yet), translated her poetry in addition to these diaries.

9 people found this helpful

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Mcbruce56

Russia and her poets

Reviewed in the United States on July 14, 2021

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Russians like to say they take poetry so seriously that their government shoots poets. Which it does. Did.
This Poet, Marina T (I can never spell her last name) is considered one of Russia's greatest from the post-Revolution era. Her poetry (found in a separate book) is brilliant, moving, humbling. These diaries of her time in Moscow right after the Revolution are engaging, frightening, endearing, brave, beautiful. Read this book to make yourself a better person.