Irina Odoevt︠s︡eva papers

Irina Vladimirovna Odoevtseva (real name Iraida Gustavovna Heinecke) was born in Riga, the daughter of a prosperous lawyer and landlord. Although the year of her birth is variously given as 1895 and 1901, the time and circumstances of her literary debut are more consistent with the earlier date. Odoevtseva was extremely reticent in discussing her background and early life, responding to a questionnaire for the anthology of émigré poetry Sodruzhestvo (Washington: Victor Kamkin, 1966) with the words, "Ni bibliografii, ni biografii--ia, kak pravilo, izbegaiu ikh" (Neither a bibliography nor a biography--as a rule I avoid them).

Odoevtseva entered literature as a member of the second Poets' Guild, which was reestablished in late 1920 under the leadership of Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilev. Other members of the Guild included Georgii Vladimirovich Ivanov, whom Odoevtseva married in September 1921, and Georgii Adamovich, who became a lifelong friend. Odoevtseva's first volume of poems, Dvor chudes, was published in 1922.

Ivanov and Odoevtseva emigrated in 1922. After brief stays in Riga and Berlin, they settled in Paris, where both were active in émigré literary circles such as the Zelenaia lampa (Green Lamp) of Dmitrii Sergeevich Merezhkovskii and Z. N. Gippius. By the 1930s, Ivanov had become one of the most prominent émigré poets. During this period Odoevtseva largely abandoned poetry for prose, publishing the novels Angel smerti (1927), Izol'da (1931), and Zerkalo (1939).

Prior to World War II, the financial assistance of Odoevtseva's father, who died in 1932 and named her as his sole heir, enabled the couple to live in comfort and even some degree of luxury. During the Nazi occupation of France, however, their house was bombed and they were forced to sell many of their personal possessions to survive. As a result, after the war the couple found themselves with no income other than that from their literary works, which was irregular and inadequate. The hardships affected the health of both husband and wife and the money Odoevtseva received for her novel Ostav' nadezhdu navsegda (1954) was used to enable them to move to a retirement home in the south of France. There Ivanov died in August 1958.

During these difficult years, Odoevtseva resumed writing poetry, resulting in the collections Kontrapunkt (1951), Stikhi, napisannye vo vremia bolezni (1952), Stikhi (1960), Desiat' let (1961), and Odinochestvo (1965). After Ivanov's death Odoevtseva moved to Gagny (near Paris) and joined the staff of the journal Russkaia mysl'. In 1967 she published a volume of literary memoirs, Na beregakh Nevy. In March 1978 she married a second time, to the novelist IAkov Nikolaevich Gorbov. Their life together was short; in September 1982, Gorbov died. In 1983 Odoevtseva published a second volume of literary memoirs, Na beregakh Seny.

When changes within the Soviet Union led to a new interest and appreciation of the cultural achievements of Russian émigrés, Odoevtseva returned to Leningrad in April 1987. In 1988, the Soviet publication of Na beregakh Nevy and a selection of Odoevtseva's poems finally made her work accessible to students of Russian literature in whatever country they may live. Irina Odoevtseva died in October 1990.

Sources used: Handbook of Russian Literature (New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 1985); L. A. Foster, Bibliografiia russkoi zarubezhnoi literatury, 1918-1968 (Boston: G.K. Hall, 1970); I. V. Odoevtseva, Na beregakh Seny (Paris: La Presse Libre, 1983); A. Sabova, "Snova na beregakh Nevy," afterword to I. V. Odoevtseva, Na beregakh Nevy (Moskva: Khudozhestvennaia literatura, 1988); Gleb Struve, Russkaia literatura v izgnanii (Paris: YMCA-Press, 1984).