Russian Silver Age poetry translation series (occasional), 34/?

I first heard of Adelaida Gertsyk (1874-1925) through a dedication in Maximilian Voloshin’s poems. She had been a prominent female poet among the Symbolists, who often called her a “prophetess.” As well, she was a prominent translator, particularly of Friedrich Nietzsche, both his philosophical texts and his poetry. She also wrote a number of articles on child psychology.

Her husband, Dmitri Zhukovsky, whom she married in 1908, was also a translator of philosophy (and a biologist by education) and she helped him edit the journal “Questions in philosophy.” Together they hosted a prominent salon for literary and philosophical discussion in Moscow. (He was the son of the general Eugene Zhukovsky but seems to be no relation to the Golden Age poet and translator Vasily Zhukovsky (1783-1852), who bore that surname by adoption anyway.) Voloshin introduced Gertsyk to Marina Tsvetaeva when the former was 35 and the latter was 18, and Tsvetaeva described the meeting as as “We passionately became friends.”