Yunna Petrovna Morits (Moritz) (russian: Ю́нна Петро́вна Мо́риц; born June 2, 1937), is a

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

and

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

n poet, poetry translator and activist.Soviet poets are heard in Philadelphia
by

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

, 1989. She was a recipient of the

Andrei Sakharov Prize For Writer's Civic Courage The Andrei Sakharov Prize for Writer's Civic Courage (1990–2007) was an annual literary prize established in the Soviet Union by the "Writers in Support of Perestroika" association (also known as the "Aprel" (April) association), in October ...

Biography

She was born in

Kiev Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the List of European cities by populat ...

USSR The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

(present-day Kyiv,

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

) in a Jewish family. Her father Pinchas Moritz, was imprisoned under Stalin, she suffered from tuberculosis in her childhood, and spent years of hardship in the Urals during World War II. In the 1950s, she went to study 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 ...

, where she was briefly expelled from college for her poems' critical stance and alienation from the

system. Her poem was a tribute to

Titsian Tabidze Titsian Tabidze ( ka, ტიციან ტაბიძე, Mononymous person, simply referred to as Titsiani; ka, ტიციანი) (16 December 1937), was a Georgia (country), Georgian poet and one of the leaders of the Georgian Symbolism ...

, a Georgian poet executed by Stalin in 1937. In 1961, she became widely known for her collection about the Far North, ''The Cape of Desire'', based on her journey aboard an Arctic icebreaker, and she was among the few young poets favored by

Anna Akhmatova Anna Andreyevna Gorenko rus, А́нна Андре́евна Горе́нко, p=ˈanːə ɐnˈdrʲe(j)ɪvnə ɡɐˈrʲɛnkə, a=Anna Andreyevna Gorenko.ru.oga, links=yes; uk, А́нна Андрі́ївна Горе́нко, Ánna Andríyivn ...

. Since the 1960s, she also became known for her poetic translations into Russian from many languages (these translations, commissioned by Soviet publishing houses, often employed an intermediary literal translator and a poet). She rendered into Russian verse such poets as Moisei Toif,

Constantine Cavafy Konstantinos Petrou Kavafis ( el, Κωνσταντίνος Πέτρου Καβάφης ; April 29 (April 17, OS), 1863 – April 29, 1933), known, especially in English, as Constantine P. Cavafy and often published as C. P. Cavafy (), was a Gre ...

and

Federico García Lorca Federico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca (5 June 1898 – 19 August 1936), known as Federico García Lorca ( ), was a Spanish poet, playwright, and theatre director. García Lorca achieved international recognition as an emblemat ...

. In later years, she attracted many young readers with her children poetry, some of which, like her adult work, became known to mass audience through songs created by guitar singer-songwriters, especially by Sergey Nikitin. Her other published work includes short stories, op-eds and, most recently, graphics. She has been founding member of several liberal organizations of artistic intelligentia, including the Russian section of

International PEN PEN International (known as International PEN until 2010) is a worldwide association of writers, founded in London in 1921 to promote friendship and intellectual co-operation among writers everywhere. The association has autonomous Internationa ...

. She is a member of Russian PEN Executive Committee and its Human Rights Commission. She has been awarded several prestigious prizes, including

Politics

After 2014 Morits became a supporter of the Russian occupation of Donbass and Crimea. Some of her recent poetry conveys anti-Ukrainian and anti-Western sentiments, and her invective at perceived anti-Russian campaign by the West.Юнна Мориц: Так думаю и так я говорю
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References

Sources

* Post-War Russian Poetry, Edited by

Daniel Weissbort Daniel Weissbort (30 April 1935 – 18 November 2013) was a poet, translator, multilingual academic and (together with Ted Hughes) founder and editor of the literary magazine ''Modern Poetry in Translation''. He died at the age of 78, and was b ...

, Penguin Books, London, 1974,

External links

* http://www.arlindo-correia.org/040804.html * http://www.morits.owl.ru/ * http://morits.ru/ {{DEFAULTSORT:Morits, Yunna 1937 births Living people Ukrainian Jews Soviet Jews Jewish poets Poets from Kyiv Soviet women writers Soviet writers Russian women poets 20th-century Russian women writers 20th-century Russian writers International Writing Program alumni Children's poets Maxim Gorky Literature Institute alumni