Ella Yuryevna Kagan (; – 16 June 1970), known as Elsa Triolet (), was a Russian-French writer and translator.

Biography

Ella Yuryevna Kagan was born into a

Jew Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, religion, and community are highly inte ...

ish family of Yuri Alexandrovich Kagan, a lawyer, and Yelena Youlevna Berman, a music teacher, in

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

. She and her older sister Lilya Brik received excellent educations; they were able to speak fluent German and French and play the

piano A piano is a keyboard instrument that produces sound when its keys are depressed, activating an Action (music), action mechanism where hammers strike String (music), strings. Modern pianos have a row of 88 black and white keys, tuned to a c ...

. Ella graduated from the Moscow Institute of Architecture. Lilya Brik with her mother and sister Elsa

Ella soon became associated with the Russian Futurists via Lilya, who was in 1912 married to the art critic Osip Brik; she befriended people of their circle, including

Roman Jakobson Roman Osipovich Jakobson (, ; 18 July 1982) was a Russian linguist and literary theorist. A pioneer of structural linguistics, Jakobson was one of the most celebrated and influential linguists of the twentieth century. With Nikolai Trubetzk ...

, then a zaum poet, who became her lifelong friend. Elsa enjoyed poetry, and in 1911 befriended and fell in love with the aspiring

futurist Futurists (also known as futurologists, prospectivists, foresight practitioners and horizon scanners) are people whose specialty or interest is futures studies or futurology or the attempt to systematically explore predictions and possibilities ...

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator (thought, thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral t ...

and

graphic artist A graphic designer is a practitioner who follows the discipline of graphic design, either within companies or organizations or independently. They are professionals in design and visual communication, with their primary focus on transforming l ...

Vladimir Mayakovsky Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky ( – 14 April 1930) was a Russian poet, playwright, artist, and actor. During his early, Russian Revolution, pre-Revolution period leading into 1917, Mayakovsky became renowned as a prominent figure of the Ru ...

. When she invited him home, the poet fell madly in love with her sister, marking the start of a series of artistic collaborations involving the two that lasted until the poet's death. Ella was the first to translate Mayakovsky's poetry (as well as volumes of other Russian-language poetry) to French. In 1918, at the outset of the

Russian Civil War The Russian Civil War () was a multi-party civil war in the former Russian Empire sparked by the 1917 overthrowing of the Russian Provisional Government in the October Revolution, as many factions vied to determine Russia's political future. I ...

, Ella married the French cavalry officer André Triolet, and emigrated to France, where she changed her name to Elsa, but for years admitted in her letters to Lilya to being heartbroken. She later divorced Triolet. In the early 1920s, Elsa described her visit to

Tahiti Tahiti (; Tahitian language, Tahitian , ; ) is the largest island of the Windward Islands (Society Islands), Windward group of the Society Islands in French Polynesia, an overseas collectivity of France. It is located in the central part of t ...

in her letters to Victor Shklovsky, who subsequently showed them to

Maxim Gorky Alexei Maximovich Peshkov (; – 18 June 1936), popularly known as Maxim Gorky (; ), was a Russian and Soviet writer and proponent of socialism. He was nominated five times for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Before his success as an aut ...

. Gorky suggested that the author should consider a literary career. The 1925 book ''In Tahiti'', written in Russian and published in Leningrad, was based on these letters. She published two further novels in Russian, ''Wild Strawberry'' (1926) and ''Camouflage'' (1928), both published in Moscow.Elizabeth Klosty Beaujour, ''Alien Tongues: Bilingual Russian Writers of the "First" Emigration'' (Cornell University Press, 1989; ), p. 199. In 1928 Elsa met French writer

Louis Aragon Louis Aragon (; 3 October 1897 – 24 December 1982) was a French poet who was one of the leading voices of the Surrealism, surrealist movement in France. He co-founded with André Breton and Philippe Soupault the surrealist review ''Littératur ...

. They stayed together for 42 years and married in 1939. She influenced Aragon to join the

French Communist Party The French Communist Party (, , PCF) is a Communism, communist list of political parties in France, party in France. The PCF is a member of the Party of the European Left, and its Member of the European Parliament, MEPs sit with The Left in the ...

. Triolet and Aragon fought in the

French Resistance The French Resistance ( ) was a collection of groups that fought the German military administration in occupied France during World War II, Nazi occupation and the Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy#France, collaborationist Vic ...

. In 1944 Triolet was the first woman to be awarded the

Prix Goncourt The Prix Goncourt ( , "The Goncourt Prize") is a prize in French literature, given by the académie Goncourt to the author of "the best and most imaginative prose work of the year". The prize carries a symbolic reward of only 10 euros, but resul ...

for her novel ''Le premier accroc coûte 200 francs''. She died, aged 73, in Moulin de Villeneuve, Saint-Arnoult-en-Yvelines, France of a

heart attack A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when Ischemia, blood flow decreases or stops in one of the coronary arteries of the heart, causing infarction (tissue death) to the heart muscle. The most common symptom ...

. In 2010, La Poste, the French post office, issued three stamps honoring Triolet.

Documentary

* 1965 : ''Elsa La Rose'' directed by

Agnès Varda Agnès Varda (; born Arlette Varda; 30 May 1928 – 29 March 2019) was a Belgian-born French film director, screenwriter and photographer. Varda's work employed location shooting in an era when the limitations of sound technology made it easier ...

* 2022 : ''In the eyes of Elsa Triolet'' directed by Gregory Monro

Bibliography

* ''На Таити'' (In Tahiti, in Russian, 1925) *''Земляничка'' (Wild Strawberry, in Russian, 1926) *''Защитный цвет'' (Camouflage, in Russian, 1928) *''Bonsoir Thérèse'' (Good Evening, Theresa - her first book in French, 1938) * ''Maïakovski'' (1939) translation by N. Semoniff (in Russian – published by Т/О "НЕФОРМАТ" Издат-во Accent Graphics Communications, Montreal, 2012) *''Mille regrets'' (1942) *''Le Cheval blanc'' (''The White Horse'', 1943) *''Les Amants d'Avignon.'' (''The Lovers of Avignon'', published pseudonymously as Laurent Daniel for Éditions de Minuit, 1943) *''Qui est cet étranger qui n'est pas d'ici ? ou le mythe de la Baronne Mélanie'' (''Who Is This Stranger Who Isn't from Here? or, The Myth of Baroness Melanie'') (1944) *''Le Premier accroc coûte deux cents francs'' (''A Fine of 200 Francs'', 1945, Prix Goncourt 1944) *''Personne ne m'aime'' (''Nobody Loves Me'', 1946; published in French by Le Temps des Cerises éditeurs, 2014) *''Les Fantômes armés'' (''The Armed Phantoms'', 1947; Le Temps des Cerises éditeurs, 2014) *''L'Inspecteur des ruines'' (''The Inspector of Ruins'', 1948) *''Le Cheval roux ou les intentions humaines'' (''The Roan Horse, or Humane Intentions'') (1953) *''L'Histoire d'Anton Tchekov'' (''The Life of Anton Chekov'') (1954) *''Le Rendez-vous des étrangers'' (1956) *''Le Monument'' (1957) *''Roses à crédit'' (1959), the 2010 movie

Roses à crédit A rose is either a woody perennial flowering plant of the genus ''Rosa'' (), in the family Rosaceae (), or the flower it bears. There are over three hundred species and tens of thousands of cultivars. They form a group of plants that can be e ...

is based on the story *''Luna-Park'' (1960) *''Les Manigances'' (1961) *''L'Âme'' (1962) *''Le Grand jamais'' (''The Big Never'') (1965) *''Écoutez-voir'' (''Listen and See'') (1968) *''La Mise en mots'' (1969) *''Le Rossignol se tait à l'aube'' (1970)

Notes and references

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Triolet, Elsa 1896 births 1970 deaths Writers from Moscow 20th-century Russian Jews Jewish novelists Russian communist writers Prix Goncourt winners Emigrants from the Russian Empire to France 20th-century French women writers French women novelists Russian women writers 20th-century French novelists French communist writers