Kulmann was born in the
Russian Empire, one of the several children of Boris Fedorovich, and Mary (née Rosenberg) Kulmann. Her father, a collegiate councilor and a retired captain, died early. The family lived on
Vasilyevsky Island in
St. Petersburg. As a child, Kulman showed phenomenal
philological abilities, learning ancient and modern languages under the direction of Karl Grosgeynrikh. She achieved fluency in 11 languages. Kulman wrote over 1,000 poems before her death at age 17.
Robert Schumann considered her a
wunderkind and set some of her poems to music including "Mailied" ["May Song"] and "An den Abendstern" ["To the Evening Star"]. Kulman was buried in the
Smolensky Cemetery in St. Petersburg, in a tomb bearing a carving by Alexander Triscorni - a marble sculpture of a girl on a bed of roses. The monument bears inscriptions in several languages, including Latin:
Prima Russicarum operam dedit idiomati graeco, undecim novit linguas, loquebatur octo, quamquam puella poetria eminens (The first Russian young girl, who knew the Greek language, and learned eleven languages, spoken in eight, and was an excellent poet). In the 1930s, the Soviet authorities moved Kulman's remains to the
Tikhvin Cemetery in the
Alexander Nevsky monastery. == Selected works ==