Marina Tsvetaeva’s return to her homeland in 1939, following her husband, a Soviet intelligence agent who hastily left France after the scandal surrounding the murder of the “non-returnee” Ignaty Reiss, is the subject of Irma Kudrova’s new book. The narrative makes extensive use of previously inaccessible documents from KGB archives, eyewitness recollections, and materials from private archives.
The story of Marina Tsvetaeva’s death, written in the genre of documentary historical prose, reads like a tragic detective story. The mystery of the poet’s death in Yelabuga in 1941 appears in a new light — and yet remains a mystery…