Mikhail Zenkevich was born in the rural area of Saratov region. His father Aleksandr Osipovich Zenkevich taught
mathematics at the Marinsky Agricultural Community College, mother Evdokiya Semyonovna (née Neshcheretova) was a
gymnasium teacher. In 1904, after graduating the First Saratov Gymnasium, Mikhail Zenkevich traveled abroad and spent two years in
Germany, studying in the Universities of
Jena and
Berlin. In 1906 he published his first three poems in the Saratov-based
Zhizn i shkola (Life and School) magazine. In 1907 Zenkevich moved to
Saint Petersburg and started writing for magazines
Vesna,
Sovremenny mir,
Obrazovanye and
Zavety. In 1910 he met
Nikolay Gumilyov, who helped him to publish some of his poetry in the
Apollon magazine (No. 9, 1910). In 1911 Zenkevich joined the newly formed First Workshop of Poets and became part of the
Acmeist circle, striking close friendship with
Vladimir Narbut. Around this time he enrolled into the
Saint Petersburg University's law faculty which he graduated from in 1915. In December 1917 Zenkevich returned to his native Saratov to join the stuff of the local
Saratovskye Izvestia newspaper. In 1918 his second collection
The Fourteen Poems came out. A year later Zenkevich joined the
Red Army as a volunteer and served there for three years first as a secretary for
court-martial, then the tribunal official at the Caucasian Front HQ where he also lectured on infantry weaponry. Up until 1923 Zenkevich lived in Saratov where he worked for
ROSTA and gave lectures (on
Alexander Blok,
Velimir Khlebnikov and others). In 1923 he moved to
Moscow and joined first the
Rabotnik Prosveschenya magazine (as a secretary) than
Goslitizdat as a foreign literature editor. In 1923 his first translation (from
Victor Hugo) was published. Several books of poetry (''Under the Steamer's Nose
, 1926 and The Late Flight
, 1928 among them) followed. The Wright brothers biography written by Zenkevich came out in 1934 in the Lives of Distinguished People series. In 1934–1936 he worked in Novy Mir as a poetry department editor. In 1936 Zenkevich co-founded the Poets of America
anthology and since then concentrated on translating the classic and contemporary American poets. This resulted in a series of anthologies: From the American Poetry
(1846), Poets of the XX Century. Foreign poetry translated my M.Zenkevich
(1965), American Poetry in M.Zenkevich’s translations'' (1969). As the
Great Patriotic War started, Zenkevich, unfit for service for health reasons, was evacuated to
Chistopol but often went to the frontlines to give poetry recitals, and worked for the radio. In 1947 he joined the
CPSU. In 1960 he visited the United States to meet some of the poets whose work he translated, including
Mike Gold and
Robert Frost. After the War Zenkevich published several books of translated poetry, as well as his own work,
Through Thunderstorms of Years (1962) and
The Selected Poems (1973). Mikhail Zenkevich died on September 14, 1973, in Moscow. ==Selected bibliography==