caption death_date death_place birth_place image_size birth_date image article_title name occupation
soviet stamp featuring shaginyan 20 march 1982 moscow , soviet union moscow , russian empire 200px 2 april 1888 1988 cpa 5929.jpg marietta shaginyan
 marietta shaginyan writer and activist
marietta shaginyan

marietta sergeevna shaginian -lrb- ; , april 2 , 1888 in moscow -- march 20 , 1982 in moscow -rrb- was a soviet writer and activist of armenian descent .
she was one of the `` fellow travelers '' of the 1920s led by the serapion brotherhood and became one of the most prolific communist writers experimenting in satirico-fantastic fiction .
in february 1912 shaginian wrote to the composer sergei rachmaninoff , signing herself `` re '' .
this was the first of many letters written between them over the next 5 years , many quoted in bertensson & leyda .
later in 1912 , rachmaninoff asked her to suggest poems he could set as songs .
many of her suggestions appeared in his op. 34 set of that year -lrb- list of titles in bertensson & leyda -rrb- .
the first group , from pushkin 's poem `` the muse '' of 1828 , he dedicated to her .
in 1913 she dedicated her first set of published poems , `` orientalia '' , to him .
rachmaninoff left russia in 1917 , never to return , and their correspondence ceased at that point .
shaginian authored the novels `` miss mend : yankees in petrograd '' -lrb- 1923 -rrb- , `` three looms '' -lrb- 1929 -rrb- , `` hydrocentral '' -lrb- 1930 -- 31 -rrb- , for which she was criticized by soviet literary critics who found her innovative fiction to be `` decadent '' and `` bourgeois . ''
she was forced to stop writing in this genre and turned to essay writing .
for her novels about lenin 's life and activities she was awarded the lenin prize in 1972 .
shaginian spent much of her time in koktebel , crimea , where she had bought a summer house for her family .
the russian bohemian elite gathered in koktebel every summer and stayed there until september , spending time at the voloshin house .
marietta 's daughter mirelle shaginian was a painter , who was married to victor tsigal , a russian painter and sculptor .
their son serega tsigal is an artist in moscow .
his wife lubov polishuk was one of russia 's most famous actresses .
serega 's daughter marietta tsigal followed her mother 's steps into acting .
she was named after her great grandmother .
marietta shaginian has two great great grandchildren anastasia shaginian and her brother andrei .
a minor planet 2144 marietta discovered in 1975 by soviet astronomer lyudmila chernykh is named in her honor .
