Salon

Tatyana Bek, who died 10 days ago in Moscow, was one of those rare authors whose literary instincts were as much directed outwards as they were directed inwards. A keen lyrical poet, Bek authored several acclaimed collections of verse, taught at Moscow's Literary Institute and was also a keen journalist. Her journalism, though, was of a special kind: She would talk to her fellow poets and turn these long conversations into imaginative interviews that revealed the unique personalities of her interlocutors. Her last book, containing such interviews, as well as essays, memoirs and poems, was rather sadly titled "Good-bye, Alphabet" (Do Svidaniya, Alfavit).

Bek's father, the Soviet writer Alexander Bek, suffered at the hands of Communist hard-liners for his anti-Stalin novels "The New Appointment" (Novoye Naznacheniye) and "Volokolamsk Highway" (Volokolamskoye Shosse). Tatyana Bek carried on his aversion to all forms of totalitarianism. This was manifested recently in her reaction to the widely publicized initiative in 2004 by three reputable Russian poets to translate the poems of Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov. Bek called her colleagues' letter "with praise for Turkmenbashi [Niyazov's honorary title] the Great Poet more indecently pragmatic than outright crazy" and dubbed it "the anti-event of the year." This led to what her old friend, the satirist Vladimir Voinovich, called "a falling-out with friends."

Worsening the situation was the fact that Yevgeny Rein, one of the letter's authors, was Bek's friend and role model in poetry. "We've been friends for a quarter of a century," Bek said in a recent interview. "I knew he was a genius long before he saw his first poems in print. When I read his poems or talk to him, I feel the throbbing of poetic lava inside."

"I spoke to her every day on the phone these last days; she was in very bad shape," Voinovich said. Despite these reports, Bek was active as usual. On Jan. 26 she participated in a poetry reading at the Bookberry bookstore along with other famed poets such as Sergei Gandlevsky and Tatyana Shcherbina. Just several days before her sudden death, Nezavisimaya Gazeta published her essay on how Russian poets create their public images.

Some media outlets speculated that this "falling-out with friends" was the real cause of her death, rather than the officially reported heart attack. The radio station Ekho Moskvy reported that Bek had committed suicide.

Bek, who promised to be "an honest old woman" in one of her poems, died at 55. "I have melted, I am tired. Good-bye, Alphabet," she wrote in the poem that gave the name to her last book.