Vera Inber

Vera Mikhailovna Inber, born Shpenzer, Russian: Ве́ра Миха́йловна И́нбер (July 10, 1890, Odessa, Russian Empire – November 11, 1972, Moscow, Soviet Union) was a Russian-Soviet poet and writer.[1][2]

Vera Inber
Born(1890-07-10)July 10, 1890
Odessa, Russian Empire
DiedNovember 11, 1972(1972-11-11) (aged 82)
Moscow, Soviet Union
Signature

Biography

Her father Moshe owned a scientific publishing house "Matematika" (Mathematics). Moshe was cousin to the future socialist revolutionary Leon Trotsky. The nine-year-old Lev (Trotsky) lived with Moshe and his wife Fanni in their Odessa apartment when Vera was a baby.[3]

Vera briefly attended a History and Philology department in Odessa. Her first poems were published in 1910 in local newspapers. In 1910-1914 she lived in Paris and Switzerland; then she moved to Moscow. During the 1920s she worked as a journalist, writing prose, articles, and essays, and traveling across the country and abroad.

During World War II she lived in besieged Leningrad where her husband worked as the director at a medical institute. According to her New York Times obituary, she "wrote for the newspaper Leningradskaya Pravda and broadcast over Leningrad radio in efforts to keep up the morale and spirit of the hard‐pressed population."[4] Much of her poetry and prose during those times is dedicated to the life and resistance of Soviet citizens. In 1946 she received an esteemed government award (Gosudarstvennaya premiya SSSR) for her siege-time poem "Pulkovskij meridian" (Pulkovo Meridian). She was also awarded several medals.

She translated into Russian such Ukrainian poets, as Taras Shevchenko, and other foreign poets, such as Paul Éluard and Sándor Petőfi. Vera Inber dabbled in cabbala, although it had been forbidden by her elders.

English translations
  • Maya, from Such a Simple Thing and Other Stories, FLPH, Moscow, 1959. from Archive.org
  • The Death of Luna, from Soviet Short Stories: A Penguin Parallel Text, Penguin , 1963.
  • Leningrad Diary, Hutchinson, UK, 1971.
  • Lalla's Interests, from Russian Short Stories from Pushkin to Buida, Penguin Classics, 2005.

References
  1. Robert Chandler (2005). Russian Short Stories from Pushkin to Buida. Publisher Penguin UK. ISBN 0141910240. Page
  2. Christine D. Tomei (1999). Russian Women Writers, Volume 1. Publisher Taylor & Francis. ISBN 0815317972. Page 979.
  3. Service. pp. 30-33
  4. "Vera Inber, Soviet Poet, Is Dead; Diary Told of Leningrad Siege". New York Times. 15 November 1972. Retrieved 16 June 2019.
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