Elsa Triolet: biography, creativity

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Elsa Triolet is a novelist and translator, thanks to whom the names of representatives of Soviet prose and poetry became known outside of Russia. At home, she is now better known as the younger sister of Vladimir Mayakovsky's muse. After leaving Soviet Russia in the early twenties, Triolet devoted her life to writing. It was thanks to her translations that Russian literature was opened to French readers.

In Russia

Elsa Triolet was born in Russia. Her parents named her Ella, but in exile she changed her name. The writer inherited the surname Triolet from her first husband.

Father - Sergei Kagan - grew up in a Jewish family, was educated in the capital and became a famous lawyer. Mother was a pianist. Elsa, like her older sister, knew several European languages and, of course, played the piano from early childhood. Like the red-haired Lily, who was immortalized by the great Soviet poet, Elsa was not deprived of male attention. The writer Viktor Shklovsky, the futurist poet Vasily Kamensky, and the linguist Roman Yakobson courted her. The first husband was Andre-Pierre Triolet, who took her away from Soviet Russia.

Tahiti

The couple spent just over a year on the island of Tahiti. However, it did not take long to admire the exotic paradise. The early marriage did not last long either. Elsa Triolet left for Europe, where she filed for a divorce. The novel "In Tahiti" is devoted to memories of staying on the island.

In Berlin

Before leaving for the capital of Germany, Elsa Triolet spent some time in London, where she worked in an architectural workshop. But the center of Russian emigration at the beginning of the 20th century was still Berlin, where the writer soon went. A considerable number of Russian-language books and newspapers were published in this city. The first works belong to this period. Elsa Triole worked in one of the Berlin publishing houses. The books written during the years in Berlin were still rather weak. Much more valuable for biographers is Shklovsky's book "ZOO", which is dedicated to the Berlin period in Triolet's life.

Triole and Aragon

The Parisian years have become more eventful. For several months she lived in a hotel in Montparnasse. And it was in the capital of France that Elsa Triole met the writer Louis Aragon. Her biography is closely connected with this person. Beginning in Paris, the affair between Triolet and Aragon lasted forty-two years. There were many rumors about the personal life of the muse of Russian and French literature. According to one of them, Triolet's second husband was an incorrigible ladies' man. According to another, he hid his unconventional orientation, and marriage was a convenient cover for him.

BParis

In the Parisian years, Elsa revolved exclusively in creative circles. A full cultural life in the first joint years with Aragon were overshadowed by financial difficulties. Before meeting the French poet, Elsa was provided by her first husband. With the new marriage, the situation has changed. Aragon's fees were barely enough to live on.

Necklaces

In the new family, Elsa took the lead. French literature of the early 20th century is characterized by the emergence of new trends, one of which is surrealism. The works created in this direction were far from the work of Triolet, who gravitated more towards realistic prose. It was not easy for a young family to feed on the earnings of Aragon. And Elsa began to earn a living by making jewelry. The writer described the difficult period of her life, not without irony, in the novel "Necklaces". This work is one of the few written in Russian. The impossibility of publishing in the Soviet Union led to the fact that French literature was replenished with books by the author, for whom Russian always remained his native language.

Prix Goncourt

In France, this award is the most prestigious in the field of literature. And Triolet was awarded the Goncourt Prize for the novel "Avignon Lovers". The work was printed for the first time during the war, in one of the underground printing houses. In it, Triolet reflected her experiences that she experienced during the war years. Together with her husband, the writer was forced to hide, and for both, staying underground became the only waysurvive. He was a communist, she was a Russian immigrant of Jewish origin. The book was published under a pseudonym. The prize was awarded to Triola in 1944.

After the war

When the war ended, Triolet and Aragon began a completely different life. They became celebrities. The years of need were behind us. This matrimonial party was especially revered in the socialist countries. The communist views of both Aragon and Triolet caused bewilderment even among those who respected their work. Even when the truth about the Stalinist repressions became known, they did not utter a word of remorse.

In France, in Triolet's behavior, many saw, first of all, fear for his parents and sister, who remained in the Soviet Union. And already there was something reminiscent of the disappointment experienced by Elsa Triolet. Quotes from her confessions today clearly speak of the remorse that she experienced in the last years of her life. A tool in the hands of the Soviet rulers - that's what Triolet once called herself.

The last novel was published in 1970. It is called "The Nightingale Silences at Dawn". The same year is the year of the death of a French writer of Russian origin. Triolet's sister, Lilya Brik, came to the funeral. The organization of the funeral was entrusted to members of the French Communist Party. Later, a society of admirers of Aragon and Triolet was organized in France. The apartment where the couple spent the last years has been turned into a museum.

In his book dedicated to Elsa Triola, Shklovsky has repeatedly expressed the opinion that to cover the cultural worldstwo countries is impossible. Apparently he was wrong. Elsa Triolet is a writer who entered the history of French literature, but was and remains Russian. Even despite the fact that for many years she did not write in her native language.