Years of life of Moritz Yu P. Presentation "Yunna Moritz" presentation on fiction on the topic. List of used literature

Russian poetess and translator, screenwriter

Brief biography

Yunna Petrovna (Pinhusovna) Moritz(born June 2, 1937, Kyiv) - Russian poetess and translator, screenwriter. Winner of many awards.

Yunna Moritz is the author of poetry books, including “In the Lair of the Voice” (1990), “The Face” (2000), “Thus” (2000), “According to the Law - Hello to the Postman!” (2005), as well as books of poetry for children: “A Big Secret for a Small Company” (1987), “Bouquet of Cats” (1997). Many songs have been written based on the poems of Yunna Moritz.

Yunna Petrovna (Pinkhusovna) Moritz was born into a Jewish family. As Moritz says, “in the year of my birth, my father was arrested on a slanderous denunciation, after several tortured months he was considered innocent, he returned, but quickly began to go blind. My father's blindness had an enormous impact on the development of my inner vision."

In 1954 she graduated from school in Kyiv and entered the philological faculty of Kyiv University. By this time, the first publications in periodicals appeared.

In 1955 she entered the full-time poetry department of the Literary Institute. A. M. Gorky in Moscow and graduated in 1961, despite the fact that in 1957 she was expelled from there along with Gennady Aigi for “unhealthy moods in creativity.”

In 1961, the poetess’s first book, “Cape Zhelaniya” (named after the cape on Novaya Zemlya), was published in Moscow, based on her impressions of traveling around the Arctic on the icebreaking steamer “Sedov” in the summer of 1956. She later recalled about that trip:

I never forget the people of that Arctic, where I saw a completely different way of life, not the mainland, without any shops, streets, cinemas, where life depended on radio operators, on radiation, navigation, aviation, ice reconnaissance, there space is inside a person. In the mirror of the Arctic you can see who you are and what is the value of your personality, your actions, your mind and talent to be human. The feeling of the Arctic is a gift of fate, especially at 19 years old, it is divine wealth and frost resistance to “public opinions”.
Yunna Moritz

Her books were not published (for the poems “Fist Fight” and “In Memory of Titian Tabidze”) from 1961 to 1970. Despite the ban, “Fist Fight” was published by the head of the poetry department of the magazine “Young Guard” Vladimir Tsybin, after which he was fired. It was also out of print from 1990 to 2000.

In the book “By the Law - Hello to the Postman,” Yunna Moritz declared the theme of her poetry to be “pure lyricism of resistance.” To the highest values - human life and human dignity - are dedicated to the poem “The Star of Serbia” (about the bombing of Belgrade), which was published in the book “Face”, as well as the cycle of short prose “Stories about the Miraculous” (published in “October”, in “Literaturnaya Gazeta”, and abroad , and now they have come out as a separate book - “Stories about the Miraculous”).

About her literary teachers and passions, Yunna Moritz says: “My contemporary was always Pushkin, my closest companions were Pasternak, Akhmatova, Tsvetaeva, Mandelstam, Zabolotsky, and my teachers were Andrei Platonov and Thomas Mann.” In an interview with RG in 2012, she also mentions Lermontov, Leo Tolstoy, Shakespeare and Ovid. She includes among her poetic circles “Blok, Khlebnikov, Homer, Dante, King Solomon - the alleged author of the Song of Songs - and the poets of Greek antiquity” (from an interview with the Gazeta newspaper, May 31, 2004).

Moritz's language is always natural, devoid of any false pathos. The richness of colors, the use of precise rhymes mixed with assonance - this is what distinguishes Moritz's poetry. Repetitions often sound like spells, metaphors open up ever new possibilities for the interpretation of her poems, in which she tries to penetrate into the essence of existence.
Wolfgang Kazak

“An artist can be better than his time, like Chekhov, or maybe worse, like Yunna Moritz, but both types are necessary for our self-knowledge,” Dmitry Bykov wrote about Moritz.

Her poems have been translated into European languages, as well as Japanese and Chinese. Yunna Moritz's poems were translated:

Lydia Pasternak,
Stanley Kunitz,
William Jay Smith with Vera Dunham
Thomas Whitney
Daniel Weisbort
Elaine Feinstein,
Carolyn Forché (English).

Conflict with Facebook

After the publication on March 10, 2016 of a short essay “The Dead Cannot Go on a Hunger Strike,” dedicated to the murder of Russian journalists I. Kornelyuk and A. Voloshin and the hunger strike of N. Savchenko, accused of involvement in this murder, Yunna Moritz’s Facebook page was blocked by the administration of the social network without explanations of reasons. In this essay, Moritz spoke out against the campaign launched in Ukraine and the West to free Savchenko, justify her and glorify her. Moritz responded to the blocking of her Facebook page by publishing the poem “Despondency and boredom do not threaten me...”, the essay “Aggression of Russophobic sentiments on Facebook” and “Yuh knows what.”

Awards

Golden Rose Award (Italy)
Triumph Award (2000)
A.D. Sakharov Prize (2004) - “for the civil courage of the writer”
national award “Book of the Year” (within the framework of the International Moscow Book Exhibition-Fair) in the nomination “Poetry - 2005”
A. A. Delvig Prize - 2006
national award “Book of the Year” (within the framework of the International Moscow Book Exhibition-Fair) in the category “Together with the book we grow - 2008”.
Prize of the Government of the Russian Federation (2011) - for the book “The Roof Was Driving Home”

Essays

Books of poetry

"Cape of Desire". Sov. pis. M., 1961.
"Vine". Sov. pis. M., 1970.
"A harsh thread." Sov. pis., M., 1974.
"In the light of life." Sov. pis., M., 1977.
"Third Eye". Sov. pis., M., 1980.
"Favorites". Sov. pis., M., 1982.
"Blue Fire" M., Sov. pis., 1985.
"On this high bank." M., Sovremennik. 1987.
"Portrait of Sound". PROVA D'AUTORE, Italy. 1989.
"In the lair of a voice." M., Moscow worker, 1990.
"Face". Poems. Poem. M., Russian book. 2000.
"Thus". Poems. St. Petersburg, “Diamond”, “Golden Age”. 2000, 2001
“According to the law - hello to the postman!” M., Vremya, 2005, M. Vremya, 2006, M., Vremya, 2008, M., Vremya, 2010.
“Beautiful things are never in vain.” M., "Eksmo", 2006
"Stories about the miraculous." M., Vremya, 2008, 2011
"Skvozero" M., Vremya, 2014

Prose

"Stories about the miraculous." M., Vremya, 2008

Books for children “from 5 to 500 years old”

"Lucky Bug" M., Publishing House "Malysh", artist I. Rublev, 1969
"A big secret for a small company." M., 1987, 1990. Artist - Mikhail Belomlinsky.
"Bouquet of cats." M., Martin, 1997. Artist - Grigory Zlatogorov.
"Vanechka." Book of acrostics. Chelyabinsk, AutoGraph. 2002. Artist - Galina Rudykh.
“Move your ears” For children from 5 to 500 years old. M., Rosmen. 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 Artist Evg. Antonenkov.
"The roof was on its way home." "Poems-hee-hee for children from 5 to 500 years old." M., Vremya, 2010, Vremya, 2011, Vremya, 2012. Artist - Evg. Antonenkov.
"Tumber-Bumber." M. Publishing house "Papa Carlo", artist Evg. Antonenkov, 2008 (New “TERRIBLY BEAUTIFUL” poems by Yunna Moritz. Having left important things, you can devote all your time to reading.). The book was recognized as "Book of the Year 2008" in the category “Together with the book we grow.”
"Lemon Malinovich Compress". "Poems-hee-hee for children from 5 to 500 years old." M., [Time, 2011, Artist - Evg. Antonenkov.

Poet, screenwriter.

As Moritz says, “in the year of my birth, my father was arrested on a slanderous denunciation, after several tortured months he was considered innocent, he returned, but quickly began to go blind. My father's blindness had an enormous impact on the development of my inner vision."
In 1954 she graduated from school in Kyiv and entered the philological faculty of Kyiv University. By this time, the first publications in periodicals appeared.

In 1961, the poetess’s first book, “Cape Zhelaniya” (named after the cape on Novaya Zemlya), was published in Moscow, based on her impressions of a trip to the Arctic on the icebreaker “Sedov” in the summer of 1956.

Her books were not published (for the poems “Fist Fight” and “In Memory of Titian Tabidze”) from 1961 to 1970 and from 1990 to 2000.

But her “pure lyricism of resistance,” stated in the book “By the Law - Hello to the Postman,” is open to a wide range of attentive readers, and the space of this resistance is enormous along all radii. The poem “The Star of Serbia” (about the bombing of Belgrade), which was published in the book “Face,” as well as the cycle of short prose “Stories about the Miraculous” (published in “October”, in the “Literary Gazette”) are dedicated to the highest values - human life and human dignity. ”, and abroad, and now it has been published as a separate book - “Stories about the Miraculous”).

Yunna Moritz says about her literary teachers and passions: “My contemporary was always Pushkin, my closest companions were Pasternak, Akhmatova, Tsvetaeva, Mandelstam, Zabolotsky, and my teachers were Andrei Platonov and Thomas Mann.”

Moritz's language is always natural, devoid of any false pathos. The richness of colors, the use of precise rhymes mixed with assonance - this is what distinguishes Moritz's poetry. Repetitions often sound like spells, metaphors open up ever new possibilities for the interpretation of her poems, in which she tries to penetrate into the essence of existence.

Yunna Moritz is the author of poetry books, including “In the Lair of the Voice” (1990), “The Face” (2000), “Thus” (2000), “According to the Law - Hello to the Postman!” (2005), as well as books of poetry for children (“A Big Secret for a Small Company” (1987), “Bouquet of Cats” (1997)). Many songs have been written based on the poems of Yunna Moritz.
Her poems have been translated into European languages, as well as Japanese and Chinese.

prizes and awards

A.D. Sakharov Prize - “for the civil courage of the writer.”
Prize "Triumph" (Russia).
Golden Rose Award (Italy).
National award "Book of the Year" (within the framework of the International Moscow Book Exhibition-Fair) in the nomination "Poetry - 2005".
A. A. Delvig Prize - 2006.
National award “Book of the Year” (within the framework of the International Moscow Book Exhibition-Fair) in the category “Together with the book we grow - 2008”..
Prize of the Government of the Russian Federation (December 26, 2011) - for the book “The Roof Was Driving Home.”

Yunna Petrovna (Pinkhusovna) Moritz. Born on June 2, 1937 in Kyiv. Soviet and Russian poetess, translator, screenwriter.

Father - Pinchus Moritz, was arrested in 1937, but then released.

According to Yunna Moritz, after his arrest, his father was practically blind. At the same time, she said, “my father’s blindness had an extraordinary influence on the development of my inner vision.”

From an early age she was interested in literature, especially loved poetry, and began writing poetry at an early age. Back in school years Her works began to be published in various publications.

In 1954 she graduated from school and entered the philological faculty of Kyiv University. In 1955 she entered the full-time poetry department of the Literary Institute. A. M. Gorky in Moscow and graduated in 1961. The studies were accompanied by expulsion in 1957 (together with Gennady Aigi) for “unhealthy moods in creativity.” But then Moritz was reinstated and allowed to finish his studies.

For her poems of the late 1950s, “Fist Fight” and “In Memory of Titian Tabidze,” her books were not published for almost ten years.

Fist fight

To me, narrow-eyed and big-boned,
On a February morning in a leap year,
When the dawn rushes across the sky
In a red sheepskin coat, speech would be unbearable
On the Execution Ground I would anger the Tsar
And shout: “Tsar!” You are raising a lot of troops,
But you don’t understand a damn thing about poetry,
Your breed is callous and deaf...
Oprichnina is a cruel idea,
Bloodshed is a wicked idea,
The oprichnik started a bloody battle in vain
With me on understanding the verse.
Here he harnesses his neck, arms, shoulders
In a dilemma - not to kill, but to maim,
But - don’t read, don’t hear, don’t see,
Push me off the Earth, end my birthday,
In that sunny, bright plexus
Stanzas, - with a foot shod in chrome, give in!

Oh, how everything that is not immediately clear,
Those who wear blood stains are afraid
On the sleeves of the camisole!.. Look into it, king.
The poet is a sacred cow,
And if the state is unhealthy,
Don't deny the song with an axe!
After all, who could from the devoted army
Moisten the grass with saliva of this property,
So that you swallow the milk of metaphors,
And the brain brightened and the body smiled?..
I'm worth the chopping block, but that's not the point,
But the fact is that the kingdom is great,
And it’s easy for the guardsmen alone.
And axes are not ice, they don’t melt,
And heads fly off like apples
With a deathly knock from the front porch,
And the brain turns black, the body becomes an idol...
- You are worth the chopping block!
- King, that’s not the point.
Execute me, but the state as a whole
Quite worthy of a better ending!..

Yunna Moritz wrote this poem at the age of 21. The poems immediately fell into the “black lists”, they were forbidden to read and publish. In the 1960s, the poet Vladimir Tsybin, who was in charge of the poetry department at the Young Guard magazine, published poems and was immediately fired.

Yunna Moritz herself explained: ““The poet is a sacred cow,” this is what caused then, is now causing and will continue to cause a roar of indignation in certain herds. But the poet is a sacred cow, it is forbidden to eat! The first line is “To me, narrow-eyed and big-boned" - this is not a self-portrait, but a pipe dream!.."

During the period when she was no longer published, she began translating. She has translated works by such literary masters as Oscar Wilde, Federico Garcia Lorca, Cesar Vallejo, Miguel Hernandez, Humberto Saba, Yiannis Ritsos, Georgos Seferis, Ovsey Driz, Rasul Gamzatov and others.

She wrote a lot for children. She acted as a screenwriter for a number of popular cartoons - “The Pony Runs in a Circle”, “The Tale of Lost Time”, “A Big Secret for a Small Company”, “Wolf Skin”, “The Hardworking Old Lady”, etc.

Yunna Moritz said about her literary teachers and passions: “My contemporary was always Pushkin, my closest companions were Pasternak, Akhmatova, Tsvetaeva, Mandelstam, Zabolotsky, and my teachers were Andrei Platonov and Thomas Mann.”

She includes Blok, Khlebnikov, Homer, and Dante among her poetic milieu.

Yunna Moritz's language is always natural, devoid of any false pathos. The richness of colors, the use of precise rhymes mixed with assonance - this is what distinguishes Moritz's poetry. Repetitions often sound like spells, metaphors open up ever new possibilities for the interpretation of her poems, in which she tries to penetrate into the essence of existence.

Her poems have been translated into European languages, as well as Japanese and Chinese. Yunna Moritz's poems have been translated by Lydia Pasternak, Stanley Kunitz, William Jay Smith with Vera Dunham, Thomas Whitney, Daniel Weisbort, Elaine Feinstein, Carolyn Forché.

Many songs have been written based on the poems of Yunna Moritz.

"When we were young
And they spouted wonderful nonsense,
The fountains flowed blue,
And red roses grew" -
I composed this beauty
I sang this nonsense to you,
When the ranks have not yet sung
And I was twenty-seven years old.
Yes, things are cool at twenty-seven
They can loosen their tongue, -
When we were young
Say it in the past tense!..
Friends, it will be very useful for you
Courage of the heart at twenty-seven.
Let the buttock be rejuvenated -
She needs to look like everyone else
But I don’t need this
Not at twenty-seven, not at three hundred.
There is an age of heaven, an age of hell -
And at this age a poet.

Socio-political position of Yunna Moritz

In the book “By the Law - Hello to the Postman,” Yunna Moritz declared the theme of her poetry to be “pure lyricism of resistance.” The poem “The Star of Serbia” (about the bombing of Belgrade), which was published in the book “Face,” as well as the cycle of short prose “Stories about the Miraculous” (published in “October”, in the “Literary Gazette”) are dedicated to the highest values - human life and human dignity. ”, and abroad, and now it has been published as a separate book - “Stories about the Miraculous”).

In 2014, she supported the policy on Ukraine and Crimea.

“Ukraine has been poisoned by the poison pots, the political fools of the West and Russia, who have given Ukraine a toxicosis of hatred towards our country. Toxicosis is a Greek word and means general poisoning with toxic substances, and hatred of Russia is such a toxic, poisonous substance. You need to drink 33 Dnieper water to wash yourself internally from this poisoning. When will this happen? After 33 Dnieper waters,” said Moritz.

She actively criticized Western policies towards Russia, incl. using your poetic gift.

I - strange man, I love my country,
I especially love it in tragic times,
When from all sides they blaspheme her alone
And they persecute you with slander - in an epoch-making harem.

Throw wood into the fire, but I won’t hand it over -

I'm a strange person, at any time
I love my country, and this is intravenous,
And regardless... when my country
He openly doesn’t love me for lying!
The era is such that vile lies
He has every right to mock us,
But miraculously I’m alive, and I won’t give her up -
The country of my love!.. And I won’t let her give up!
I am a strange person, I am hundreds of thousands of years old,
Where is the Eternal Now and eternal repetitions.
I love my country, both its darkness and its light.
I especially love it - accompanied by the barking of the fascist pack!

“And the question is: from which side and from what height should we comprehend what is happening?.. Hitler, who made soap out of people, and today’s zoological haters of Russia, cursing its history, culture, people, have one side and height, and I have one completely different! And for them this is politics and journalism, but for me it is deeply personal, intimate lyrics, love for Humanity, for precious life, which is a gift from God. Poets are different, and they have different purposes. What is the purpose of the stool? if you can sit on it, stand on it, screwing in a light bulb, and you can also completely break your brains with a stool?.. My purpose is to be and dare to screw in a light bulb,” noted the poetess.

After the publication on March 10, 2016 of a short essay “The Dead Cannot Go on a Hunger Strike,” dedicated to the murder of Russian journalists I. Kornelyuk and A. Voloshin and the hunger strike of N. Savchenko (accused of involvement in this murder), Yunna Moritz’s Facebook page was blocked by the administration without explanation. In the essay, Moritz spoke out against the campaign launched in Ukraine and the West to free Savchenko, justify her and glorify her. Moritz responded to the blocking of her Facebook page by publishing the poem “Despondency and boredom do not threaten me...”, the essay “Aggression of Russophobic sentiments on Facebook” and “Yuh knows what.”

Personal life of Yunna Moritz:

She was married three times.

First husband - Yuri Markovich Varshaver (pseudonym - Yuri Shcheglov; 1932-2006), Russian Soviet writer, prose writer, since 1978 a member of the Writers' Union of the USSR, then the Moscow Writers' Union.

Yuri Shcheglov - Yunna Moritz's first husband

Second husband - Leon Valentinovich Toom (Estonian Leon Toom; 1921-1969), Soviet translator of fiction, poet, literary critic.

Leon Toom - second husband of Yunna Moritz

Third husband - Yuri Grigorievich Vasiliev (literary pseudonym Golitsyn), poet.

The marriage in 1971 gave birth to a son, Dmitry Yuryevich Glinsky-Vasiliev (Dmitri Daniel Glinski), political scientist, graduate of the Faculty of Philology of Moscow State University (1994) and Harvard University (2013), candidate historical sciences(2000), author of the monographs “The tragedy of Russia’s reforms: Market bolshevism against democracy” and “All Faces All Races: a Guide to New York City’s Immigrant Communities.”

Yunna Moritz and Yuri Golitsyn with their son

Scripts by Junna Moritz:

1974 - Pony runs in circles (animated)
1978 - The Tale of Lost Time (animated)
1979 - A big secret for a small company (animated)
1981 - The boy walked, the owl flew (animated)
1982 - Wolf Skin (animated)
1986 - Hardworking Old Lady (animated)

Bibliography of Yunna Moritz:

1961 - Cape of Desire
1969 - Happy Bug
1970 - Vine
1974 - A harsh thread
1977 - In the light of life
1980 - Third Eye
1982 - Favorites
1985 - Blue Fire
1987 - On this high shore
1987 - Big secret for a small company
1989 - Portrait of Sound
1990 - In the Lair of the Voice
1997 - Bouquet of cats
2000 - Face: Poems. Poem
2000 - Thus: Poems
2002 - Vanechka: Book of acrostics
2003-2006 - Move your ears. For children from 5 to 500 years old
2005 - According to the law - hello to the postman!
2006 - Beautiful things are never in vain
2008 - Stories about the wonderful
2008 - Tumber-Bumber
2010-2012 - The roof was going home. Poems-hee-hee for children from 5 to 500 years old
2011 - Lemon Malinovich Compress. Poems-hee-hee for children from 5 to 500 years old
2014 - Skvozero

Translations by Yunna Moritz:

Romances about the Infantes of Lara
Oscar Wilde
Federico Garcia Lorca
Cesar Vallejo
Randall Jarrell
Theodore Roethke
William Jay Smith
Miguel Hernandez
Moses Teif
Humberto Saba
Betty Alver
Yiannis Ritsos
Georgos Seferis
Constantinos Cavafy
Evert Tob
Peter Bergman
Rita Bumi-Papa
Ovsey Driz
Riva Balyasnaya
Aron Vergelis
Rasul Gamzatov
Vitaly Korotich
Lina Kostenko
Kaisyn Kuliev

Awards and titles of Yunna Moritz:

Order of the Badge of Honor (July 27, 1987) - for services in the field of Soviet literature;
- Golden Rose Award (Italy);
- “Triumph” award (2000);
- A.D. Sakharov Prize (2004) - “for the civil courage of the writer”;
- national award “Book of the Year” (within the framework of the International Moscow Book Exhibition-Fair) in the nomination “Poetry - 2005”;
- A. A. Delvig Prize - 2006;
- national award “Book of the Year” (within the framework of the International Moscow Book Exhibition-Fair) in the nomination “Together with the book we grow - 2008”;
- Government Prize Russian Federation(2011) - for the book “The Roof Was Driving Home”

Yunna Petrovna Moritz (born 1937) is a famous Russian poetess, translator, and publicist. Her lyric poetry became the embodiment of the sharpness and sensitivity of the author's view of surrounding problems. The author is equally good at writing both poems about love and works on the topic of the day. Moritz's works have been translated into many foreign languages. More than one generation of compatriots has been brought up on the poetess’s children’s poems - “Pony”, “Rubber Hedgehog”, “Big Secret for a Small Company”.

Childhood and youth

Yunna Moritz was born on June 2, 1937 in Kyiv. Her father worked as an engineer in various transport communications. Mother had a gymnasium education, but managed to work as a teacher French and mathematicians, a nurse and even a woodcutter. The early childhood of the future poetess, like many of her peers, was difficult. Yunna Petrovna recalls that the whole family had to live in one small room, and she and her sister did not even have their own bed.

The girl was born at the height of Stalin's repressions, which did not go unnoticed by her father, who was arrested following a denunciation shortly after her birth. However, a few months later his innocence was revealed, and he was released. However, after the torture he endured, the man began to lose his sight.

Soon the war began, and the whole family was evacuated to the Southern Urals, where the father worked at one of the military enterprises. Here, in Chelyabinsk, the first children's poem about a donkey was written. Yunna and her older sister also loved to draw. After the fascists were expelled, they returned to Kyiv. Here the girl will go to school, which he successfully graduated from in 1954.

After receiving her certificate, Yunna began studying at the correspondence department of the Faculty of Philology of Kyiv University, where she had the opportunity to have her own corner in the form of a dorm room. By that time, she already had several publications in the magazine “Soviet Ukraine”.

A year later, the girl decided to go to study at the Moscow Literary Institute, where she was enrolled in the poetry department. Here she continues to write a lot, as a result of which her first collection, “Talk about Happiness,” was published in 1957. To earn her living, Yunna Petrovna got a job as a proofreader in a printing house, where she worked at night. Since then, she has developed the habit of working when everyone is sleeping.

During her studies, the poetess, who was always active life position, took part in sailing in the Arctic on board the icebreaker “Sedov”. The life of polar explorers, pilots and sailors the young girl saw left a deep impression on her soul. All this did not fail to affect the themes of the works, to which the university leadership in 1957 decided to expel Moritz with the wording “for the growth of unhealthy moods in creativity.” But in the end, she was still allowed to finish her studies at the institute, whose walls she left in 1961. Yunna will present her impressions of the Far North in a collection of short prose “Stories about the Miraculous.”

The beginning of a creative journey

In the same year, the poetess’s first book, “Cape of Desire,” was published, named after the cape of the same name on Novaya Zemlya, which she visited during her student years. N. Tikhonov helped her come out after the author of the poem was once again accused of anti-Sovietism and Western propaganda. Nevertheless, Moritz was blacklisted for 9 long years and was not published in the USSR. The reason for the ban was the poems “In Memory of Titian Tabidze” and “Fist Fight”. Despite the persecution, the latter was nevertheless published by the head of the poetry department of the Young Guard magazine V. Tsybin, for which he was immediately fired.

Thanks to the prohibitions, Yunna Petrovna revealed herself as a talented person during these years. children's poet. Her works for the younger generation were published by the magazine “Youth” in the specially created for this section “For younger brothers and sisters.” Everyone is familiar with her magnificent poems about a rubber hedgehog, a pot-bellied teapot and a pony running in a circle. Well, “A big secret for a small company” has become the favorite lines of millions of children. In total, Moritz wrote eight children's books, From 5 to 500 Years.

In 1970, the poetess’s second book, entitled “The Vine,” was published. The collection includes both works dedicated to modern days and memories of the war, and lyrical passages give way to vivid sketches of urban life. The poetess's poems, as always, were distinguished by a certain harshness and severity, behind which deep sensuality was hidden.

Creative flourishing

During his creative heyday, eight lyrical collections were written, including “A Harsh Thread”, “In the Light of Life”, “The Third Eye”, “Favorites”, “Blue Fire” and a number of others. Yunna Petrovna always managed to write lyric poetry in best traditions classics, while remaining modern. Her poetic language, devoid of unnecessary pathos, is filled with precise rhymes, repetitions and metaphors. Lyrical hero The poetess is distinguished by her stormy temperament, uncompromising judgments and categorical conclusions.

For exactly 10 years, from 1990 to 2000, Yunna Petrovna’s books were not published. As the poetess said: “I haven’t published books for ten years under the regime, I won’t say who.” But immediately after a long pause, the collections “Face” and “Thus”, published in 2000, were published. On their pages you can see the author’s drawings, which Yunna Petrovna calls not illustrations but sailing poems. In 2005, the book “According to the law ─ hello to the postman!” was published. - another appeal to the reader who values human dignity above all else. In this collection, Moritz introduces his own means of payment, “lyubli,” with which the Reader and the Poet pay each other. Here the author turns color and line into a poetic gift, demonstrating them to the reader in the language of his poems.

In addition to creating her own works, Yunna Petrovna was engaged in translations of famous poets - F. Garcia Lorca, O. Wilde, C. Cavafy, R. Gamzatov, S. Velheo.

In the 90s, the poetess was actively involved in politics, participated in the activities of radical democratic movements, and actively commented on the topic of the day on Radio Liberty.

Yunna Moritz was awarded the prize. A.D. Sakharova, she is a laureate of the Golden Rose, Triumph, and International Book Fair awards.

Poetic credo

Yunna Petrovna notes that her poetry was greatly influenced by many wonderful authors who lived and worked in different times- Homer, V. Khlebnikov, A. Blok, A. Akhmatova, B. Pasternak, M. Tsvetaeva and, of course, A. Pushkin. She considers A. Platonov and T. Mann to be her immediate teachers. She calls herself a “pure poet” and does not consider herself either a dissident or a whistleblower. “That’s why nothing can be forced on me, no bullshit, in any package.”, says the poetess. She considers her main value to be human dignity, which she cannot lose under any circumstances. Therefore, in any situation, I am ready to call things as they are, and I am not used to subservience to anyone.

That is why Moritz condemned the bombing of Serbia carried out by NATO in 1999. Then the following lines came from her pen:
"Especially cultured guys,
The Balkans are being culturally destroyed".

Another response of the poetess to the sensational action of the West was the poem “Star of Serbia”, in which she writes: “The war is already underway/Not with the Serbs, but with us”. In the same spirit, she will defend a pro-Russian position during the conflict in south-eastern Ukraine. She calls herself an antidote to the “Russophobic poison,” which is why she has not been to her native Kyiv for more than 10 years and does not believe in the possibility of returning there as soon as possible. On this occasion, the poems “Another Ukraine” were written, in which she recalls the homeland that is truly close to her.

In 2016, on her Facebook page, the poetess posted a short essay dedicated to the murder of Russian journalists in Donbass and N. Savchenko, who was involved in this case. Soon after this her account social network blocked without explanation.

She categorically refuses to be published in various women's poetry collections, rightly believing that no one has yet thought of inventing a men's anthology. Despite her advanced age, Yunna Petrovna continues to create completely “non-classical” poems with rather loud titles - “Falling Leaves”, “Nayukhoem Signals” or “Culminations (Instantaneous)”.

Personal life

The poetess does not like to talk too much about the personal side of her biography. It is known that she was married several times. Among her husbands were the poet and translator L. Tom, famous writer Yu. Shcheglov, who wrote the stories “A Trip to the Steppe” and “Triumph”. She has an adult son, Dmitry, who became the organizer of the Russian-speaking Community Council of Manhattan and the Bronx.

In 1954, Moritz graduated from school in Kyiv and entered the correspondence department of the Faculty of Philology of Kyiv University.

In 1955, she entered the full-time poetry department of the Literary Institute in Moscow, from which she graduated in 1961.

Yunna Moritz's poems were first published in the magazine "Soviet Ukraine" in 1955. In 1957, the first collection of her poems, “Conversation about Happiness,” was published in Kyiv.

In 1961, the poetess’s first book, “Cape Zhelaniya” (named after the cape on Novaya Zemlya), was published in Moscow, based on her impressions of a trip to the Arctic, which she undertook in the fall of 1956 on the icebreaker “Sedov”.

For her poems “Fist Fight” and “In Memory of Titian Tabidze” (1962), Yunna Moritz was blacklisted by publishers and censors, so her next book of poems, “The Vine,” was published only nine years later, in 1970. In 1963, in the magazine "Youth" under the heading "For younger brothers and sisters" she managed to publish a series of poems for children.

From 1970 to 1990, Moritz published books of lyrics “A Harsh Thread”, “In the Light of Life”, “The Third Eye”, “Favorites”, “Blue Fire”, “On This High Shore”, “In the Lair of a Voice”.

From 1990 to 2000, her poems were not published. In the 2000s, poetry collections “Face” (2000), “In this way” (2000, 2001), “According to the law - hello to the postman” (2005, 2006) were published. The books included graphics and paintings by the poetess, which Moritz herself considers not illustrations, but poems in the language of painting.

Since 1985, Moritz has conducted author evenings at international poetry festivals in London, Cambridge, Rotterdam, Toronto, and Philadelphia. Her poems have been translated into all European languages, as well as Japanese, Turkish and Chinese.

In addition to poetry, Moritz writes stories and does translations. Her cycle of short prose “Stories about the Miraculous,” published in the magazine “October”, “Literary Gazette” and abroad, was published as a separate book in 2008.

In the 1990s, Junna Moritz took part in political life Russia, was a member of radical democratic movements, and made political comments on Radio Liberty.

Yuna Moritz. In 2004, “for the civil courage of the writer,” she was awarded the A.D. Sakharov.

In 2011, the poetess was awarded in the field of culture.

Yunna Moritz's son, Dmitry Glinsky (Vasiliev), created a youth cadet organization - the Young Russia Union - in 1990. In 2002, he served as deputy director of the Institute for Globalization Problems. Currently, he is a member of the Commission on Jewish People at the UJA-Federation of NY (since 2009) and the Commission on Immigration Issues of the New York Branch of the American Jewish Committee (since 2011), founder and president of the Russian-speaking Public Council of Manhattan and the Bronx.

The material was prepared based on information from RIA Novosti and open sources