Sophia Parnok
“From ultimate loneliness
With a farewell plea, – not a prophecy
I call to you, young people and friends:
There is only one precept for a poet
In the east and in the west,
Up north and down south –
Do not
kow-tow
to your times,
But be
the brow of
your times, –
Be a human being.”
– Sophia Parnok (translation by Diana Burgin)
A woman known throughout Russia as one of their first openly lesbian poets, Sophia Parnok was a Jewish poet born in Russia in 1885. Though her work is not widespread, it remains impactful throughout the Russian queer community as well as the global queer community.
Sophia Parnok is referred to by many as “Russia’s Sappho.” A title she would likely have adored as she was very public about her admiration of the fellow queer poetess, and the comparison isn’t unfounded. Like Sappho, much of what is known about Parnok comes from her work, but unlike Sappho, there are reliable details outside of Parnok’s work that tell about her life.
It is known that Parnok was born in Taganrog and began writing at six, the same year her mother died. After her mother’s death, things became tense in Parnok’s household, with her father remarrying soon after. Though Parnok only begins to explicitly discuss her sexuality in her work when she was sixteen, there is evidence that her family knew that she was a lesbian sooner. That fact only heightened the conflict in her home.
She later wrote, “In the eyes of my father I am a wild slip of a girl and nothing more. My way of thinking and my tastes offend his patriarchal values, and he condescends me.” (the Russian word for tastes is often used to describe desire that isn’t heterosexual and is used in this quote for that meaning). Because of this conflict between daughter and father, another similarity appears between Sophia and Sappho, a marriage that is not as it seems.
Where with Sappho, the marriage people believe her to have is based on the Suda, an encyclopedia written hundreds of years after her death; Sophia’s marriage existed but was transparently one of convenience. Her husband was well aware of this, as he was a friend of hers who was a poet as well; she was clear with him from the beginning that they were marrying to get her out of her father’s sphere and to St. Petersburg.
Parnok had tried to get away from her father multiple times and had to return each time after financial burdens became too heavy, so to her, this marriage was a way to combine income and finally be free. Her husband seemed fine with this arrangement, and he worked to help her escape her family and arrive in St. Petersburg, where she could fully immerse herself in the art scene there. Though queerness was not accepted by most of society, actual queer people were just as common then as they are today. Parnok, finally able to find others like her in St. Petersburg, began building friendships and romantic relationships. Like Sappho’s marriage, unfortunately, it had to end, though where Sappho’s marriage was ended by basic fact-checking, Sophia went with the more traditional divorce route.
Sophia had found her marriage stifling and wanted to try again to live independently in Moscow, where she managed to make a modest living. At the beginning of World War One, Parnok had her most famous romantic relationship with a poetess named Marina Tsvetaeva. The two had a passionate relationship that would go on to influence each of their work heavily. Shortly before the eventual breakup, Parnok’s first book of poetry was released, which contained what is described as “the first, revolutionarily nondecadent, lesbian desiring subject ever to be heard in a book of Russian poetry,” by Diana Burgin, a woman who studied Parnok’s work extensively.
After that point, Sophia relocated again with a new lover to Crimea, where she wrote not only poetry but also music for an opera. It was in Crimea that her health took a turn for the worse. Since birth, she had suffered from Graves disease, but it was after her time in Crimea that the chronic illness would take an even larger toll on the woman.
Even when she left Crimea, these two aspects of her continued to contrast as her health deteriorated and her work flourished. She found herself inspired by the tenth great muse Sappho, writing two more books of poetry and published them on her return to Moscow. It was then that Parnok would meet the woman she would spend the rest of her life with, Olga Tsuberbiller, who was a mathematician at Moscow University.
Her career growth was cut short in 1928 when Soviet censorship made Parnok unable to publish any more of her work. Though she continued to write, the only works that were released were her translations. Her personal work was kept in a “secret drawer,” only to be published again in 1930. Regardless of outside approval, Parnok continued to live and write as an open lesbian for the rest of her life, even finding another lover in her later years and writing what some regard to be her greatest work.
In 1933, this all ended when Parnok died of a heart attack in a city outside of Moscow. It was not unexpected, and she was lucky enough that she was surrounded by three of the women she had been in relationships with on her deathbed. Some of whom had travelled far to be able to say goodbye to her. After she had died, her body was led to Moscow by a procession of people who had come from different parts of Russia, including her friends, lovers, and fans of her work.
Sophia suffered much in her life, censorship, chronic illness, poverty, heartbreak, and even a period of homelessness, but it can never be said she was not loved. Romantic and platonic, Parnok lived a life surrounded by people who she loved and loved her, and in the end, her death mirrored that beautifully.
While in her childhood, she had to live with her father's disapproval; the rest of her life was filled with a chosen family's support. Even now, long after all of her friends and family have also died, there are still so many who love her and her work. Some of them show this love by creating art inspired by her poems. The group Kitka is one more clear example of this, but others, whether directly or indirectly, have taken comfort and been motivated by her work. And it is there, in her death, we see the most strong connection between Sophia and Sappho.
Sophia Parnok spent much of her life admiring the Greek poetess who had come before her, even writing a book of poems to her, and this came full circle. While the two had different lives, much of their legacy remains the same. Their names are used to inspire creation, and through their work, they were able to stand on the same ground. Though these two people have never met, they have been and forever will be connected by their art, and where Sophia had an entire book, Sappho only had a small verse:
“You may forget but
let me tell you
this: someone in
some future time
will think of us,”
A prophecy that Sophia fulfilled.
Eric J. (June 11, 2014) Kitka sings hidden poems of Sophia Parnok, "Russia's Sappho" Retrieved March 30, 2017
http://kalw.org/post/kitka-sings-hidden-poems-sophia-parnok-russias-sappho
CBC (February 7, 2014) Gay and lesbian Russian writers you should know: Sophia Parnok Retrieved March 30, 2017
http://www.cbc.ca/books/2014/02/gay-and-lesbian-russian-writers-you-should-know-sophia-parnok.html
Diana B. (March 30, 2017) Sophia Parnok and the Writing of a Lesbian Poet's
Life Retrieved March 30, 2017
http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.macewan.ca/stable/pdf/2499528.pdf
Diana B. (1995) Parnok, Sophia (1885-1933) Retrieved March 30, 2017
Laura M. (March 4, 2016) Sappho, the Poetess Retrieved April 3, 2017 https://www.makingqueerhistory.com/articles/sappho
Queercult (December 6, 2010) Sophia Parnok Retrieved March 30, 2017