Revisiting Elena Tager ’s Early Biography

Abstract

For the first time, ten letters of the writer Elena Mikhailovna Tager (1895–1964), referring to the early, least studied years of her life, are published. Among her correspondents are S.P. Milyukov, N.A. Rubakin, Viach. Ivanov and A.A. Blok. The meaning of the letters goes beyond the limits of the biography itself: for example, the letter to Ivanov contains an unknown evidence of the famous meeting of the Religious-Philosophical Society, dedicated to the exclusion of V.V. Rozanov. Letters to Rubakin contain details of the pre-war life of the Russian student-revolutionary diaspora in Switzerland. The publication is accompanied by a detailed commentary.

Keywords

• biography of the writer
• e.m. tager
• literary life
• letters
• publication of archival documents