Парнок, София Яковлевна

Sophia Yakovlevna Parnok
Born	11 August 1885 Taganrog, Russian Empire
Died	26 August 1933 (aged 48) Moscow, USSR
Occupation	poet
Nationality	Russian Jewish

Sophia Yakovlevna Parnok (11 August 1885 – 26 August 1933) (first name is sometimes spelled Sofia or Sofya) (Russian: Парнок, София Яковлевна), was aRussian poet and translator, sister of poet Valentin Parnakh and children's author Yelizaveta Tarakhovskaya.

Birthhouse of Parnokhs in Taganrog.

At the beginning of World War I, she met the young poet Marina Tsvetaeva, with whom she became involved in a passionate love affair that left important imprints on the poetry of both women. Parnok’s belated first book of verse, Poems, appeared shortly before she and Tsvetaeva broke up in 1916. The lyrics in Poems presented the first, non-decadent, lesbian-desiring subject ever to be heard in a book of Russian poetry.

Parnok left Moscow in late summer 1917 and spent the Russian Civil War years in the Crimean town of Sudak. There she wrote one of her masterpieces, the dramatic poem and libretto for Alexander Spendiarov's 4-act opera Anast, which was a big hit inBolshoi Theater in Moscow in 1930, in Odessa, Tbilissi, Tashkent, Yerevan and in Paris (1952).

Sophia Parnok is the author of the collections of poems Roses of Pieria (1922), The Vine (1923), Music (1926) and Half-voiced(1928). Soviet censorship soon decided that Parnok’s poetic voice was "unlawful," and she was unable to publish after 1928.