22 Facts About Zinaida Gippius

Zinaida Gippius began writing at an early age, and by the time she met Dmitry Merezhkovsky in 1888 was already a published poet.

The death of Merezhkovsky in 1941 was a major blow to Zinaida Gippius, who died a few years later in 1945.

Zinaida Gippius's father, Nikolai Romanovich Gippius, a respected lawyer and a senior officer in the Russian Senate, was a German-Russian, whose ancestor Adolphus von Gingst, later von Hippius, came to settle in Moscow in the 16th century.

Nikolai Zinaida Gippius's job entailed constant traveling, and because of this his daughters received little formal education.

At the age of 48 Nikolai Gippius died of tuberculosis, and Anastasia Vasilyevna, knowing that all of her girls had inherited a predisposition to the illness that killed him, moved the family southwards, first to Yalta then in 1885 to Tiflis, closer to their uncle Alexander Stepanov's home.

Merezhkovsky and Zinaida Gippius made a pact, each promising to concentrate on what he or she did best, the former on poetry, the latter on prose.

The agreement collapsed as Zinaida Gippius translated Lord Byron's Manfred, and Dimitry started working on his debut novel Julian the Apostate.

Zinaida Gippius became close to the group of authors associated with the renovated Severny Vestnik, where she herself made her major debut as a poet in 1888.

Zinaida Gippius was the driving force behind the Meetings, as well as the magazine Novy Put, launched initially as a vehicle for the former.

In 1906 Zinaida Gippius published the collection of short stories Scarlet Sword, and in 1908 the play Poppie Blossom came out, with Merezhkovsky and Filosofov credited as co-authors.

Back in Saint Petersburg Zinaida Gippius's health deteriorated, and for the next six years she regularly visited European health resorts and clinics.

Still, Zinaida Gippius launched a support-the-soldiers campaign of her own, producing a series of frontline-forwarded letters, each combining stylized folk poetic messages with small tobacco-packets, signed with either her own, or one of her three servant maids' names.

In late 1917 Zinaida Gippius was still able to publish her anti-Bolshevik verses in what remained of the old newspapers, but the next year was nightmarish, according to her Diaries.

In late 1919, invited to join a group of 'red professors' in Crimea, Zinaida Gippius chose not to, having heard of massacres orchestrated by local chiefs Bela Kun and Rosalia Zemlyachka.

In Paris Zinaida Gippius concentrated on making appointments, sorting out mail, negotiating contracts and receiving guests.

Zinaida Gippius remained a harsh literary critic and, by dismissing many of the well-known writers of the Symbolist and Acmeist camps, made herself an unpopular figure in France.

Zinaida Gippius was the major force behind the Green Lamp society, named after the 19th century group associated with Alexander Pushkin.

Merezhkovsky and Zinaida Gippius spent their last year together in a social vacuum.

Zinaida Gippius spent the last months of her life working, mostly at nights.

The publication of Dmitry Merezhkovsky's symbolist manifesto proved to be a turning point: in a short time Zinaida Gippius became a major figure of Russian Modernism.

Anton Krainy, Zinaida Gippius's alter ego, was a highly respected and somewhat feared literary critic whose articles regularly appeared in Novy Put, Vesy and Russkaya Mysl.

The events of October 1917 led to Zinaida Gippius severing all ties with most of those who admired her poetry, including Blok, Bryusov and Bely.