Elena Guro

Elena Guro
Elena Guro c. 1900
Born	(1877-01-10)January 10, 1877 Saint Petersburg
Died	May 6, 1913(1913-05-06) (aged 36) Saint Petersburg
Known for	The Hurdy-Gurdy Autumnal Dream Finland
Movement	Futurism Cubo-Futurism

Elena Genrikhovna Guro (Russian: Еле́на Ге́нриховна Гуро́, IPA: [jɪˈlʲɛnə ˈɡʲɛnrʲɪxəvnə ɡʊˈro] ; in marriage Matyushina (Russian: Матю́шина, IPA: [mɐˈtʲuʂɪnə] ; January 10, 1877 – May 6, 1913) was a Russian Futurist painter, playwright, poet, and fiction writer.

Early life

Guro was born in St. Petersburg on January 10, 1877. Her father was Genrikh Stepanovich Guro, an officer in the Imperial Russian Army of French descent. Her mother Anna Mikhailovna Chistyakova was a talented amateur artist. Guro spent her childhood in the village of Novosely near Pskov and at her father's estate in Luga. She inherited a government pension and property in Finland from her father, using both to support her artistic career. Her sister, Ekaterina Guro, was also a writer.

Career

Guro and Matyushin.

From 1890 to 1893 she studied art at the Society for the Encouragement of the Arts in St Petersburg. From 1903 to 1905 she studied in the private studio of Jan Ciągliński where she met her future husband Mikhail Matyushin (they were married in 1906). In 1905 she published her first short story, in an anthology of contemporary Russian writers. One year previously, in 1904, she illustrated the Russian translation of a book of fairy tales by the French writer George Sand. In 1906 she and Matyushin moved to the art school of Elizaveta Zvantseva, where Guro worked under Mstislav Dobuzhinsky, Léon Bakst and Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin. In 1908 she left the school and established her own studio. By 1908 her home was an important meeting place for discussions on art and literature.

Little Deer by Guro, 1908/09

Her first book of prose, poetry, and drama The Hurdy-Gurdy came out in 1909. In 1910 she contributed to the journal Trap for Judges, one of the first publications of the Russian Futurists. She also contributed to the second volume of Trap for Judges in 1913. Guro and her husband subsidized both issues. In 1911 Guro's manuscript of a book of fairy tales she had been planning to publish was lost by her publisher, along with the illustrations she had done for it. Her second book Autumnal Dream was published in 1912.

Guro is well-known for her fascination with the contrast between the urban world and nature, once writing in a short story about the psychology of people based in cities. Her fascination appears to have begun with the way a city looks, for example its street lights and gilded windows, but eventually, she became tired of the subject in about 1910, when the very theme was growing popular with her Cubo-Futurist colleagues. According to Matyushin, she would now stay in the countryside from Spring until Autumn.

Last days

In 1913 she continued to write and paint, even though she was suffering from leukemia. She died the same year at her country house in what was formerly Uusikirkko, Finland. At the time of her death she had nearly completed a major work The Poor Knight. Several poems and two works of prose were published posthumously, in the collection The Three and in the journal Union of Youth, in 1913. Her third book The Little Camels of the Sky was published in 1914.

A Woman in a Headscarf by Guro, 1910

Writings

Kazimir Malevich's cover for The Three, containing Guro's most famous poem Finland

• The Hurdy-Gurdy (1909)
• Autumnal Dream (1912)
• The Poor Knight (1913)
• The Little Camels of the Sky (1914)
• The Three (1913) (posthumously); contains Guro's most famous poem Finland

English translations

• The Little Camels of the Sky, from The Ardis Anthology of Russian Futurism, Ardis Publishers, 1983.
• Thus Life Passes, from 50 Writers: An Anthology of 20th Century Russian Short Stories, Academic Studies Press, 2011.