 |
Vera PavlovaPoetess
Country:
 Russia |
Content:
Biography of Vera Pavlova
Vera Pavlova is a Russian poet and essayist who is known for her introspective and personal poetry. She was born and raised in Moscow, Russia. In her youth, she pursued musical composition and graduated from the Moscow State Institute of Music named after A. G. Schnittke. She furthered her studies in music history at the Gnessin Russian Academy of Music.
After completing her education, Pavlova worked as a tour guide at the Shalyapin House-Museum and wrote essays on musicology. Additionally, she sang in a church choir for nearly 10 years. It was during this time that she began writing poetry, starting at the age of 20 after the birth of her daughter.
Pavlova gained recognition when 72 of her poems, along with an afterword by Boris Kuzminsky, were published in the newspaper "Segodnya," giving rise to the myth that she was a literary hoax. However, she continued to write and publish her poetry. In 2000, she received the Apollo Grigoriev Prize, and her poems have been translated into 26 foreign languages.
Pavlova has participated in international poetry festivals in countries such as England, Germany, Italy, France, Belgium, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, the Netherlands, the United States, Greece, Switzerland, and more. She currently divides her time between Moscow and New York.
Family
Vera Pavlova has had multiple marriages and children throughout her life. Her brother, Sergey Desyatov, is the founder and director of the Artplay Design Center. Her first husband was Mikhail Pavlov, with whom she had a daughter named Elizaveta Pavlova, who works as a photographer. From 1992 to 2001, she was married to Mikhail Pozdnyayev, a poet and journalist who sadly passed away in 2009. She then married Steven Seymour, a diplomat and literary translator. Seymour died in 2014. Since 2015, Pavlova has been married to Nikolay Terentyev, a clown, mime, director, and co-founder of the "Licedei" Mime Theatre.
Artistic Work
Vera Pavlova's poetry primarily focuses on the personal and intimate life of contemporary women, portraying it with rare directness and sincerity. Her poems provide sociological and cultural insights into the experiences of women, from early displays of gender identity in childhood to family breakdowns, new mature love, and late marriages. Pavlova's exceptional honesty and self-analysis paradoxically coexist with fairly traditional views on family, marriage, love, men, and women.
In addition to her poetry, Pavlova has also written librettos for operas, including "Einstein and Margarita," "The Planet Pi" (composed by Irada Yusupova), "Dido and Aeneas, Prologue" (composed by Michael Nyman), "Christmas Opera" (composed by Anton Degtyarenko), "The Last Musician" (composed by Efrem Podgaits), "Chain Breathing" cantatas (composed by Pyotr Apollonov), "Shepherds and Angels" and "Willow Blossoming" (composed by Irada Yusupova), and "Three Salvations" (composed by Vladimir Genin).
Pavlova has also recorded seven albums as a reader, reciting poems by Silver Age poets. Theatrical performances based on Pavlova's poems have been staged in Skopin, Perm, and Moscow. Films about her and featuring her have been made in Russia, France, Germany, and the United States.
