Poems by Elizaveta Kuzmina-Karavayeva

Who knows whether Kuzmina-Karavayeva’s poetry would have remained in our memory had she not become Mother Maria, the nun-heroine of one of Hitler’s concentration camps. On her own volition she accompanied women and children to the gas chamber so as to alleviate their fate with her prayers in their final moments. Her heroism was legendary; and the little that remains of her poetry, written during the years of occupation in France, has great value as a human document.

While still a young girl, Kuzmina-Karavayeva caught the attention of Alexander Blok. He dedicated poems to her, not only because she was young and beautiful but because in her eyes, as in her verses, glowed the moral strength that helped her to place the lives of others above her own.