SOURCE: Molnar, Michael. “Introduction.” In ‘Paradise’: Selected Poems, by Elena Shvarts, pp. 9-13. Newcastle upon Tyne: Bloodaxe Books, 1993.

In the following essay, Molnar underlines the influence of Shvarts's hometown of St. Petersburg on her poetry.

St Petersburg was founded in 1703; it is therefore newer than New York, yet it is a city uniquely riddled and obsessed with history. Not just its own, or even only Russian history, but also that of Europe and the Ancient World. This is partly an effect of its neoclassical architecture—its Greek columns and colonnades, the Roman perspectives down straight streets, the Dutch or Venetian views across water, Central European pastel palaces, golden spires and domes. And when you look more closely at the friezes, walls or ironwork, everywhere you notice gods and goddesses, gorgons, fasces and the double axe, sphinxes and lions.

Elena Shvarts was born into this labyrinth of symbols and...