Elena Shvarts’s literary career began in the cultural underground of Leningrad, which emerged in the late 1960s and 1970s and offered an alternative creative environment to intellectuals who did not want to conform to the ideology and prescriptive aesthetics of official Soviet culture. As the daughter of Dina Shvarts, a leading theatre expert, Elena Shvarts grew up immersed in literature and art. As a school girl, she participated in the usual activities for young writers, such as writing workshops at the Palace of Young Pioneers and other institutions. But she dropped out of official culture early, leaving Leningrad State University without a degree and eventually completing a distance learning course at the Leningrad Theatre Institute in 1971. Earning a modest income from translating…
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Citation: von Zitzewitz, Josephine. "Elena Shvarts". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 18 February 2013 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=13200, accessed 04 December 2024.]