Elsa Triolet (born Ella Yuryevna Kagan; (russian: Элла Юрьевна Каган); – 16 June 1970) was a Russian-French writer and translator.
Biography
Ella Yuryevna Kagan was born into a
Jew
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""Th ...
ish family of Yuri Alexandrovich Kagan, a lawyer, and Yelena Youlevna Berman, a music teacher, in
Moscow
Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...
. She and her older sister
Lilya Brik
Lilya Yuryevna Brik (alternatively spelled ''Lili'' or ''Lily''; russian: link=no, Ли́ля Ю́рьевна Брик; née Kagan; – August 4, 1978) was a Russian author and socialite, connected to many leading figures in the Russian avant ...
received excellent educations; they were able to speak fluent German and French and play the
piano
The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...
. Ella graduated from the
Moscow Institute of Architecture.
Ella soon became associated with the
Russian Futurists
Russian Futurism is the broad term for a movement of Russian poets and artists who adopted the principles of Filippo Marinetti's "Manifesto of Futurism," which espoused the rejection of the past, and a celebration of speed, machinery, violence, ...
via Lilya, who was in 1912 married to the art critic
Osip Brik
Osip Maksimovich Brik (russian: link=no, Óсип Макси́мович Брик) (16 January 1888 – 22 February 1945), was a Russian avant garde writer and literary critic, who was one of the most important members of the Russian formali ...
; she befriended people of their circle, including
Roman Jakobson
Roman Osipovich Jakobson (russian: Рома́н О́сипович Якобсо́н; October 11, 1896Kucera, Henry. 1983. "Roman Jakobson." ''Language: Journal of the Linguistic Society of America'' 59(4): 871–883. – July 18,[zaum
Zaum (russian: зáумь) are the linguistic experiments in sound symbolism and language creation of Russian Futurist poets such as Velimir Khlebnikov and Aleksei Kruchenykh. Zaum is a non-referential phonetic entity with its own ontology. Th ...]
poet, who became her lifelong friend. Elsa enjoyed poetry, and in 1911 befriended and fell in love with the aspiring
futurist
Futurists (also known as futurologists, prospectivists, foresight practitioners and horizon scanners) are people whose specialty or interest is futurology or the attempt to systematically explore predictions and possibilities abou ...
poet
A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or writte ...
and
graphic artist
A graphic designer is a professional within the graphic design and graphic arts industry who assembles together images, typography, or motion graphics to create a piece of design. A graphic designer creates the graphics primarily for published, p ...
Vladimir Mayakovsky
Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky (, ; rus, Влади́мир Влади́мирович Маяко́вский, , vlɐˈdʲimʲɪr vlɐˈdʲimʲɪrəvʲɪtɕ məjɪˈkofskʲɪj, Ru-Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky.ogg, links=y; – 14 Apr ...
. When she invited him home, the poet fell madly in love with her sister, marking the start of a series of artistic collaborations involving the two that lasted until the poet's death. Ella was the first to translate Mayakovsky's poetry (as well as volumes of other
Russian-language
Russian (russian: русский язык, russkij jazyk, link=no, ) is an East Slavic language mainly spoken in Russia. It is the native language of the Russians, and belongs to the Indo-European language family. It is one of four living Eas ...
poetry) to French.
In 1918, at the outset of the
Russian Civil War
, date = October Revolution, 7 November 1917 – Yakut revolt, 16 June 1923{{Efn, The main phase ended on 25 October 1922. Revolt against the Bolsheviks continued Basmachi movement, in Central Asia and Tungus Republic, the Far East th ...
, Ella married the French cavalry officer André Triolet, and emigrated to France, where she changed her name to Elsa, but for years admitted in her letters to Lilya to being heartbroken. She later divorced Triolet.
In the early 1920s, Elsa described her visit to
Tahiti
Tahiti (; Tahitian ; ; previously also known as Otaheite) is the largest island of the Windward group of the Society Islands in French Polynesia. It is located in the central part of the Pacific Ocean and the nearest major landmass is Austr ...
in her letters to
Victor Shklovsky
Viktor Borisovich Shklovsky ( rus, Ви́ктор Бори́сович Шкло́вский, p=ˈʂklofskʲɪj; – 6 December 1984) was a Russian and Soviet literary theorist, critic, writer, and pamphleteer. He is one of the major figures asso ...
, who subsequently showed them to
Maxim Gorky
Alexei Maximovich Peshkov (russian: link=no, Алексе́й Макси́мович Пешко́в; – 18 June 1936), popularly known as Maxim Gorky (russian: Макси́м Го́рький, link=no), was a Russian writer and social ...
. Gorky suggested that the author should consider a literary career. The 1925 book ''In Tahiti'', written in Russian and published in Leningrad, was based on these letters. She published two further novels in Russian, ''Wild Strawberry'' (1926) and ''Camouflage'' (1928), both published in Moscow.
[Elizabeth Klosty Beaujour, ''Alien Tongues: Bilingual Russian Writers of the "First" Emigration'' (Cornell University Press, 1989; ), p. 199.]
In 1928 Elsa met French writer
Louis Aragon
Louis Aragon (, , 3 October 1897 – 24 December 1982) was a French poet who was one of the leading voices of the surrealist movement in France. He co-founded with André Breton and Philippe Soupault the surrealist review ''Littérature''. He wa ...
. They married in 1939 and stayed together for 42 years. She influenced Aragon to join the
French Communist Party
The French Communist Party (french: Parti communiste français, ''PCF'' ; ) is a political party in France which advocates the principles of communism. The PCF is a member of the Party of the European Left, and its MEPs sit in the European Unit ...
. Triolet and Aragon fought in the
French Resistance
The French Resistance (french: La Résistance) was a collection of organisations that fought the German occupation of France during World War II, Nazi occupation of France and the Collaborationism, collaborationist Vichy France, Vichy régim ...
.
In 1944 Triolet was the first woman to be awarded the
Prix Goncourt
The Prix Goncourt (french: Le prix Goncourt, , ''The Goncourt Prize'') is a prize in French literature, given by the académie Goncourt to the author of "the best and most imaginative prose work of the year". The prize carries a symbolic reward o ...
for her novel ''Le premier accroc coûte 200 francs''.
She died, aged 73, in
Moulin de Villeneuve,
Saint-Arnoult-en-Yvelines
Saint-Arnoult-en-Yvelines is a commune in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France in north-central France.
Population
Twin towns
* Freudenberg am Main (1993)
* Terras de Bouro (2004)
See also
*Communes of the Yvelines department
...
, France of a
heart attack
A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when blood flow decreases or stops to the coronary artery of the heart, causing damage to the heart muscle. The most common symptom is chest pain or discomfort which may tr ...
.
In 2010,
La Poste, the French post office, issued three stamps honoring Triolet.
Documentary
* 2022 : ''In the eyes of Elsa Triolet'' directed by
Gregory Monro
Gregory may refer to:
People and fictional characters
* Gregory (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the given name
* Gregory (surname), a surname
Places Australia
*Gregory, Queensland, a town in the Shire of ...
Bibliography
* ''На Таити'' (In Tahiti, in Russian, 1925)
*''Земляничка'' (Wild Strawberry, in Russian, 1926)
*''Защитный цвет'' (Camouflage, in Russian, 1928)
*''Bonsoir Thérèse'' (Good Evening, Theresa - her first book in French, 1938)
* ''Maïakovski'' (1939) translation by N. Semoniff (in Russian – published by Т/О "НЕФОРМАТ" Издат-во Accent Graphics Communications, Montreal, 2012)
*''Mille regrets'' (1942)
*''Le Cheval blanc'' (''The White Horse'', 1943)
*''Les Amants d'Avignon.'' (''The Lovers of Avignon'', published pseudonymously as Laurent Daniel for Éditions de Minuit, 1943)
*''Qui est cet étranger qui n'est pas d'ici ? ou le mythe de la Baronne Mélanie'' (''Who Is This Stranger Who Isn't from Here? or, The Myth of Baroness Melanie'') (1944)
*''Le Premier accroc coûte deux cents francs'' (''A Fine of 200 Francs'', 1945, Prix Goncourt 1944)
*''Personne ne m'aime'' (''Nobody Loves Me'', 1946; published in French by Le Temps des Cerises éditeurs, 2014)
*''Les Fantômes armés'' (''The Armed Phantoms'', 1947; Le Temps des Cerises éditeurs, 2014)
*''L'Inspecteur des ruines'' (''The Inspector of Ruins'', 1948)
*''Le Cheval roux ou les intentions humaines'' (''The Roan Horse, or Humane Intentions'') (1953)
*''L'Histoire d'Anton Tchekov'' (''The Life of Anton Chekov'') (1954)
*''Le Rendez-vous des étrangers'' (1956)
*''Le Monument'' (1957)
*''Roses à crédit'' (1959), the 2010 movie
Roses à crédit
''Roses à crédit'' () is a 2010 French drama film co-written and directed by Amos Gitai and starring Léa Seydoux and Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet. It is based on the 1959 novel of the same name by Elsa Triolet. It received its premiere at the 2 ...
is based on the story
*''Luna-Park'' (1960)
*''Les Manigances'' (1961)
*''L'Âme'' (1962)
*''Le Grand jamais'' (''The Big Never'') (1965)
*''Écoutez-voir'' (''Listen and See'') (1968)
*''La Mise en mots'' (1969)
*''Le Rossignol se tait à l'aube'' (1970)
Notes and references
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Triolet, Elsa
1896 births
1970 deaths
Writers from Moscow
19th-century Jews from the Russian Empire
Jewish novelists
Russian Communist writers
Prix Goncourt winners
Emigrants from the Russian Empire to France
20th-century French women writers
French women novelists
Russian women writers
20th-century French novelists
French Communist writers