Margarita Aliger

Margarita Iosifovna Zeliger () was born on in Odesa, Russian Empire (present-day, Ukraine) to a Russian Jewish family. Aliger's uncle was the physicist and university professor Myron Seiliger. As a teenager Aliger worked at a chemical plant. From 1934 to 1937 she studied at the Maxim Gorky Literature Institute. == Career ==

The main themes of her early poetry were the heroism of the Soviet people during industrialization (Year of birth, 1938; Railroad, 1939; Stones and grass, 1940) and during World War II (Lyrics, 1943). Her most famous poem is "Zoya" (1942), about Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, a young girl killed by Nazis.{{cite journal|author1=Lisa A. Kirschenbaum|author2=Nancy M. Wingfield|title=Gender and the Construction of Wartime Heroism in Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union|journal=European History Quarterly == Personal life ==

Aliger's first husband was the composer Konstantin Makarov-Rakitin, who was killed at the front near Yartsevo in 1941 after the death of their infant son (their daughter Tatyana [1940-1974] became a poet and translator), a double tragedy that left her devastated. The following year she had an affair with the author Alexander Fadeyev; from this union was born a daughter Maria (Masha Enzenberger), who married Hans Magnus Enzensberger and lived abroad for twenty years, killing herself shortly after a brief return to Russia in 1991. Aliger's second and final husband was the Central Committee official Igor Chernoutsan (1918–1990). She survived all her husbands and children, dying shortly after her daughter Maria Enzensberger. Margarita Aliger is buried in Peredelkino next to her daughters. ==Selected works==

• God rozhdeniia (Year of Birth) (1938) • Zoya (1942) • Your victory (1945) • Great Expectations • Two (1956) • Leninskie gory (Lenin Hills) • Sinii chas (Blue Hour) (1970) == References ==