Elsa Triolet

Elsa Triolet in 1925.

Key data

Birth name	Элла Каган Ella Kagan
A.k.a	Laurent Daniel
Birth	September 12, 1896(September24,1896in the Gregorian calendar) Moscow
Death	June16,1970(at 73) Moulin de Villeneuve,Saint-Arnoult-en-Yvelines
Main activity	Writer, resistant
Awards	Goncourt Prize1944

Author

Writing language	French, Russian

Primary works

• Good evening Therese(1938)
• The first hitch costs two hundred francs(1944)
• The Red Horse(1953)
• Roses on Credit(1959)

Complements

• Spouse ofLouis Aragon
• Sister ofLili Brik

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Elsa Triolet, bornElla Yourievna Kagan(inRussian:Элла Юрьевна Каган) onSeptember 12, 1896(September24,1896in the Gregorian calendar) inMoscowand died onJune16,1970inSaint-Arnoult-en-Yvelines, is a Frenchwoman of lettersandresistancefighterof Russian origin, born of Jewish parents.The first woman to win theGoncourt Prize, she is also known under the pseudonymLaurent Daniel.

She is the sister ofLili Brikand the companion ofLouis Aragon.

Biography[edit|modify the code]

Born into a well-to-do family of Russian Jewish intellectuals, Ella Kagan (then Triolet after her first marriage, a name she will keep throughout her life) is the daughter of Elena Yourievna Berman, a very talented pianist, and of the lawyer Yuri Alexandrovich. Kagan specializes in publishing contracts for artists and writers1.She has a sister,Lili, five years her senior, who fascinates her but whom she is jealous of.She will write from her childhood memories one of her first novels in RussianStrawberry of the woods(Ziemlianika, nickname given to her when she was a child), largely imbued with the feeling of not being loved2.

She made brilliant studies, learned to play the piano, learned German from her parents who spoke that language, as well as French from the age of six1.She finished high school with a "gold medal", then obtained an architectural diploma in June 19183.She travels to Europe with her sister and her mother, for whom the arts, and music in particular, hold a great place4.

Lili joined theRussian revolutionariesin 1905,including her future husbandOssip Brik.The couple introduce Ella into their circle of friends which includesBoris Pasternak,Victor ChklovskiandlinguistRoman Jakobson, in love with her and who will always remain her friend.In 1911, she met thepoetVladimir Mayakovsky, her first great love4.

After the death of her father in 1915, she lived with her mother in financial difficulties.In 1917, she met André Triolet, a French officer stationed in Moscow, heir to a wealthy family from Limoges.She left Russia with him and married him in Paris in 1919. The couple stayed inTahitifor a year5.She who had wished to leave Revolutionary Russia, whose ideas she embraced, but hated the consequences on living conditions: civil war, misery, famine, etc., languishes in the indolence of an island where she cultivates nostalgia for his dear literary circle in Moscow.Unhappy in her marriage, Elsa left her husband in 1921.

Knowing a time of wandering, she goes first toLondon, then toBerlinin 1923 where Victor Chklovski, very in love with her and seeing her depressed, insists that she write.He publishes the epistolary exchange they had under the title ofZoo, Letters Which Do Not Speak of Love or the Third Heloise.This collection of letters is read byMaxim Gorkywho, having particularly appreciated Elsas letters, asks to meet her.During their interview, Gorky encouraged the young woman to concentrate on writing6.

Plate 5rue Campagne-Première(14^{tharrondissement of Paris), where she lives withLouis Aragonfrom 1929 to 1935.}

Plate 56rue de Varenne(7^{thdistrict), where the couple also lived.}

Back in Paris in 1924, she stayed at the hotel at 29rue Campagne-Premièrein theMontparnasse districtwheresurrealistwritersandartistslikeMarcel Duchamp,Francis PicabiaandMan Ray live.She wrote in Russian her first bookÀ Tahiti(published in Leningrad in 1925), in which she reflected on writing, thenFraise-des-Bois(Moscow, 1926), drawing inspiration from her childhood diary, andCamouflage(Moscow, 1928)6.

WithLouis Aragonat their friendPierre Seghers houseinVilleneuve-lès-Avignonin 1941.

She metLouis Aragonin 1928 in Paris7, at the caféLa Coupole, frequented by many artists.He becomes the man of her life, the one through whom she can finally take root in French society.She becomes his muse.In 1929-1930, Elsa created necklaces forhaute coutureto support herself, and wrote reports for Russian newspapers.In the following years, she translatedFrench authorsintoRussian:Voyage au bout de la nuitbyLouis-Ferdinand Céline, in 1934;The Bells of Basel(1937) andLes Beaux Quartiers(1938)8, the first two novels of the cycleThe Real Worldof Aragon.She will also translate, during her life, many Russian authors in French, of which in particularChekhovandMayakovsky.She collaborates with numerous texts9in the dailyCe soir, directed byLouis AragonandJean-Richard Bloch.In 1937, she began to write her first novel in French,Bonsoir Thérèse, published in 1938 byEditions Denoël.

She married Louis Aragon onFebruary 28, 1939.She participated with him in theResistance, in theSouth zone(inLyonand in theDrôme inparticular) and helped to publish and distribute the newspapersLa Drôme enarmesandLes Étoiles.She continues to write short stories and the novelLe Cheval Blanc.Entering underground with Aragon, his short storyLes Amants dAvignonwas published byÉditions de Minuitin October 1943 under the pseudonym Laurent Daniel, in homage toLaurentandDanielle Casanova10,11.This news and three others12are united under the titleThe first hitch costs two hundred francs(a phrase which announced thelanding in Provence) and obtained the1945Goncourt Prizefor the year 1944. Elsa Triolet is thus the first woman to obtain this literary prize13,14.

In 1946, she attended theNuremberg trialson which she wrote a report inLes Lettres Françaises.

The period of the war inspired him the novelThe Inspector of the ruins, then the atomic threat, at the time of thecold war,The Red Horse.Belonging to the steering committee ofthe National Committee of Writers(CNE), it endeavors to promote the reading and sale of books in the 1950s and actively participates in a movement launched by theFrench Communist Partyin 1950-52: “Les Batailles of the Book ”15.She travels extensively in the socialist countries with Aragon and, although critical ofStalinismand indignant atanti-Semitismwhich raged in the USSR in 1952, also affecting her sister, she did not make a public statement1.She expressed her criticism of the regime in the novelLe Monumentpublished in 1957. She resigned the same year from the CNE steering committee, then wrote the three novels in the cycleLÂge de nylon.She actively intervened in 1963 to translate and publish in France the story ofAlexandre SoljenitsyneUne Journée dIvan Denissovitch.The way in whichVladimir Mayakovskysbiographywas falsified in theSoviet Unionis one of the reasons that led him to write the novelsLe Grand Jamais(1965) andListen-voir(1968).

Tomb of Elsa Triolet and Louis Aragon in the park of theMoulin de VilleneuveinSaint-Arnoult-en-Yvelines.

In 1965, she prefacesDominique Oriata Tronsfirst book,Stéréophonies, published byPierre Seghers.In 1966,Agnès Vardadirected ashortdocumentary,Elsa la rose, on her love affair with Louis Aragon.

After having publishedLa Mise en mots(“Les Sentiers de la Création” collection,Skiraeditions, 1969) andLe Rossignol is silent at dawn(1970), Elsa Triolet died of a heart attack onJune 16, 1970in the property it owns with Louis Aragon, theMoulin de Villeneuve, in Saint-Arnoult-en-Yvelines16.The calendar hung in the house still displays this date, Louis Aragon having symbolically ceased to count the days after the death of his beloved.This act recalls the verses of their friend Paul Éluard after the death of their loved one (see "Last love poems: We will not grow old together, Here is the day too much: Time is overflowing") Elsa rests alongside Aragon, in the six hectare park surrounding this old mill.On their graves, we can read this sentence by Elsa Triolet:

"When side by side we will finally be recumbent, the alliance of our books will unite us for better or for worse, in this future which was our dream and our major concern to you and to me.Death helping, we might have tried, and succeeded in separating us more surely than the war in our lifetime, the dead are defenseless.Then our crossed books will come, black on white hand in hand to oppose our being torn from each other.ELSA "

Decoration[edit|modify the code]

• Medal of the French Resistanceby decree ofMarch 11, 194711.

Posterity and tributes[edit|modify the code]

Many towns have given the name of Elsa Triolet to one of their streets, alleys, squares or squares, in particular:

• Amiens,Argenteuil,Aubervilliers,Avignon,Brest,Chalon-sur-Saône,Cherbourg,Dijon,Grenoble,La Chapelle-sur-Erdre,Le Mans,Lille,Mâcon,Marseille,Massy,Montbard,Montigny-lès-Cormeilles,Montreuil,Morsang-sur-Orge,Les Mureaux,Nantes,Niort,Noisy-le-Sec,Noisy-le-Grand,Orly,Ozoir-la-Ferrière,Poitiers,Rennes,Rezé,Roquevaire,Saint-Brieuc,Saint-Denis,Saint-Martin-dHères,Sallaumines,Seclin,Tours,Trappes,Trith-Saint -Léger,Valenton,Vierzon,Vitry-sur-Seine, etc.

Colleges and high schools bear his name in Paris13^{th,Champigny-sur-Marne,Le Mée-sur-Seine,Lucé,Marseille,Saint-Denis,Venissieux,Varennes-sur-Seine, etc.}

Media libraries and libraries, at:

• Bobigny,Fleury-Mérogis,LÎle-Saint-Denis,Pantin,Pierre-Bénite,Ris-Orangis,Sevran,Villejuif,Villeparisis.

Several schools (nursery or primary) are also named in his honor, among others:

• Échirolles,Feignies,Frouard,Gardanne,Givors,Grigny, Guesnain,Guyancourt,La Ciotat,Lillebonne,Mitry-Mory,Montceau-les-Mines,Montluçon,Nanterre,Neuville-lès-Dieppe,Roubaix,Rouvroy,Saint-Étienne-au -Mont, Saint-Pierre de La Réunion,Sorgues,Stains,Talant,Toulouse,Tremblay-en-France,Vitry-en-Artois, etc.as well as a school inSaint-Donat-sur-lHerbasse, where she stayed with Aragon during thewar.

On his death, a tower of the Cité du Coq deJemappes(entity ofMons) bears his name, the other being calledFlora Tristan.

theJune 14, 2021The French Post officeissues a postage stamp with his effigy17.

Works

Novels, stories and essays

• À Tahiti(1925) in Russian, translated into French by Elsa Triolet in 1964.
• Wild strawberry(1926) in Russian language
• Camouflage(1928) in Russian, translated into French by Léon Robel in 1976.
• Good evening Therese,Denoël, 1938
• Mayakovsky,ESI, 1939
• Monster 42,Poetry 42n^{o2,Seghers, 1942}
• Moonlight,Poetry 42n^{o4, Seghers, 1942}
• A thousand regrets(1942)
• The White Horse, Denoël, 1943
• The Lovers of Avignon.Published under the name Laurent Daniel, which was his pseudonym, underground, byÉditions de Minuit, 1943.
• Who is this stranger who is not from here?or the myth of Baroness Mélanie, Éditions Seghers, 1944
• Le Premier Accroc costs two hundred francs, Denoël, 1944,Prix ​​Goncourtin 1944
• Nobody Loves Me,The French Library, 1946
• Armed Ghosts, The French Library, 1947
• Cartoons, with the assistance of Raymond Peynet, Bordas, 1947
• The Inspector of the ruins, Denoël, 1948
• The Red Horse or Human Intentions,Reunited French Publishers(EFR), 1953
• The History of Anton Tchekhov, preface to the complete works, EFR, 1954
• The Meeting of Foreigners,Gallimard, 1956, prize of the Fraternity2,18
• The Monument, Gallimard, 1957
• LÂge de nylon (1):Roses on credit, Gallimard, 1959
• The Nylon Age (2): Luna-Park, Gallimard, 1959
• The Shenanigans, Gallimard, 1961
• LÂge de nylon (3): LÂme, Gallimard, 1962
• Le Grand Jamais, Gallimard, 1965
• LISTEN TO SEE, Gallimard, 1968
• The Wording,Skira, 1969
• The Nightingale is silent at dawn, Gallimard, 1970.

Translations

From French to Russian[edit|modify the code]

• Journey to the End of the Night, Céline, 193419
• The Bells of Basel, Aragon, 1937
• Les Beaux Quartiers, Aragon, 1938

From Russian to French

• The Mountain and the Men, M. Iline, ESI, 1936
• La Jeune Fille de Kachine,Ina Konstantinova(en),Reunited French Editors(EFR), 1950
• The Portrait,Nicolas Gogol, EFR, 1952
• Works.Theater,Anton Chekhov, vol 6, EFR, 1954
• Works.Theater, Anton Chekhov, vol.19, EFR, 1962
• Mayakovsky.Verses and proses, chosen and translated by Elsa Triolet, EFR, 1963
• Russian Poetry, bilingual edition (direction),Seghers, 1965
• Captain Fédotov,Victor Chklovski, Gallimard, 1968
• Poems,Marina Tsvetaïeva, Gallimard, 1968