Marietta Shaginian

The following essay, by the great poet Vsladislav Khodasevich, was published in the book `Necropol'', a copy of which I found by chance at Leiden University Library. It provides a revealing portrait of a woman who enjoyed having mysterious bonds with influential people of her time, and sheds new light on a relationship that was indeed of vital importance to the creation of Rachmaninoff's songs, but that more than a few biographers have tended to romanticize just a bit too much.