Genre Poetry, translations Name Yunna Morits | Role Poet | |
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Born June 2, 1937 (age 86)
Kiev, USSR/Ukraine ( 1937-06-02 ) Notable works The Cape of Desire
The Vine Similar People Sergey Nikitin, Tatyana Nikitina, Boris Zakhoder, Agniya Barto, Novella Matveyeva | ||
Mea vido-cirklo (horizonto)
Yunna Petrovna Morits (Moritz) (Russian: Ю́нна Петро́вна Мо́риц; born June 2, 1937), is a Soviet and Russian poet and activist.
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Biography
She was born in Kiev, USSR (present day Ukraine) in a Jewish family. Her father Pinchas Moritz, was imprisoned under Stalin, she suffered from tuberculosis in her childhood, and spent years of hardship in the Urals during World War II. In the 1950s, she went to study in Moscow, where she was briefly expelled from college for her poems' critical stance and alienation from the Soviet system. In 1961, she became widely known for her collection about the Far North, The Cape of Desire, based on her journey aboard an Arctic icebreaker.
Since the 1960s, she also became known for her poetic translations into Russian from many languages (these translations, commissioned by Soviet publishing houses, often employed an intermediary literal translator and a poet). She rendered into Russian verse such poets as Moisei Toif, Constantine Cavafy and Federico García Lorca.
In later years, she attracted many young readers with her children poetry, some of which, like her adult work, became known to mass audience through guitar singers. Her other published work includes short stories, op-eds and, most recently, graphics.
She has been founding member of several liberal organizations of artistic intelligentia, including the Russian section of International PEN. She is a member of Russian PEN Executive Committee and its Human Rights Commission. She has been awarded several prestigious prizes, including Andrei Sakharov Prize For Writer's Civic Courage.
Some of her recent poetry conveys her wrath and moral resistance to perceived anti-Russian campaign by the West.