Gippius’s lament for her husband. 1941/42

Zinaida Nikolaevna Gippius (1869-1945)
Gippius’s lament for her husband. 1941/42
Autograph manuscript poem, ‘Teresa. Teresa. Teresa’, n.p. [Paris], 1941-1942.

In Russian. One page, 181 x 110mm, written on mourning paper. Provenance: Temira Pachmuss (1927-2007, professor of Russian literature at Illinois University at Urbana-Champaign and leading Gippius scholar).

Teresa. Teresa. Teresa.
Tak chie ze proshlo mne skvozi serdche zelezo.
Ne znayu. Ne znayu. I znat ne hochu.
Ya tolko stradayu. I tolko molchu.

(Thérèse. Thérèse. Thérèse.
Whose iron went through my heart.
I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t want to know.
I just suffer. I’m just silent.)

Gippius’s lament written after the death of her husband, Merezhkovsky. Addressed to Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, the poem evokes the struggle of the soul and the incomprehensibility of pain.

Saint Thérèse of Lisieux (1873-1897) is one of the most widely-venerated of modern saints, and was a particular focus of Gippius and her husband Dmitry Merezhkovsky, whose last work, Malenkya Teresa (Little Thérèse), is devoted to her. Merezhkovsky had died on 9 December 1941 after 52 years of marriage – they have been described as the most prolific and influential couple in the history of Russian literature. Her recent loss is clearly felt in the desolate tone of the poem.

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