Brief episodes from a childhood spent in the Soviet Union in the 1960s reveal what life could be like behind the old Iron Curtain

Behind the Border

Children's Books

Kossman, Nina

History

Demco Media

A collection of moving, often funny vignettes about a childhood spent in the Soviet Union in the 1960s poignantly captures what life could be like behind the old Iron Curtain.

Literature & Fiction

Lothrop, Lee, & Shepard

In charming and poignant vignettes, Nina Kossman tells of her childhood in 1960s Moscow. Nina wants to become a heroine by awakening Grandfather Lenin during a class trip to his tomb, or by painting Red Square really red. But she also finds herself fascinated with life in the forbidden world "behind the border." B&W photos.

Geography & Cultures

Beech Tree Books

" .. .1 have no love for life as such; for me it begins to have significance, i.e., to acquire meaning and weight, only when it is transformed, i.e., in art. If I were taken beyond the sea into paradise-and forbidden to write, I would refuse the sea and paradise. I don't need life as a thing in itself." This, written by Tsvetayeva in a letter to her Czech friend, Teskova, in 1925, could stand as an inscription to her life. Marina Tsvetayeva was born in Moscow on September 26, 1892. Her fathel~ a well-known art historian and philolo gist, founded the Moscow Museum of the Fine Arts, now known as the Pushkin Museum; her mother, a pianist, died young, in 1906. Marina began writing poetry at the age of six. Her first book, Evening Album, contained poems she had writ ten before she turned seventeen, and enjoyed reviews by the poet, painter, and mentor of young writers, Max Voloshin, the poet Gumilyov, and the Symbolist critic and poet, Valerii Bryusov. Voloshin and Gumilyov welcomed the seventeen year-old poet as their equal; Bryusov was more critical of her, though he too, in his own belligerent way, acknowledged her talent.

In the Inmost Hour of the Soul (Vox Humana)

Tsvetayeva, Marina

History & Criticism

Humana

Po pravui͡u︡ ruku sna (Russian Edition)

Poberezhʹe

Original poetry by Nina Kossman, accompanied by a selection of poems by Marina Tsvetaeva, translated from the Russian by Kossman. Other Shepherds is the fifth book from Poets & Traitors Press, which publishes hybrid books of poetry by a single author-translator.

Other Shepherds: Poems with Translations from Marina Tsvetaeva

Poetry

Poets and Traitors Inc.

Crafts, Hobbies & Home

Gardening & Landscape Design

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Books by Kossman, Nina