Our May Literary Salon was dedicated to the work of a poetess whose verses rank among the top ten most recognizable, alongside the great classics, yet whose authorship often remains in the shadows. We were talking about Veronika Tushnova.

It was she who gifted us the lines of such masterpieces as “They Don’t Renounce While Loving” (Ne otrekayoutsya lyubya), “And You Know, the Best is Yet to Come!..” (A znaesh, vsyo eshchyo budet!..), “One Hundred Hours of Happiness” (Sto chasov schastya), “And No One Knows” (I nikto ne znaet), and many others. Around 30 hit songs and romances were created based on her poems, set to music by M. Minkov, D. Tukhmanov, and K. Orbelyan.

Again, I rise at the break of dawn,

And return to the house when it is dark,

And no one knows that in this world,

I have been gone for a very long time.

Yet, paradoxical as it may sound, it is not only the author’s name that remains in the shadows; Veronika Mikhailovna’s biography is also full of mysteries. Her autobiographies and her gravestone indicate 1915 as her birth year, although researchers have proven that she was born in Kazan in 1911, having simply yielded to a woman’s weakness to appear younger.

Having received a medical education, Tushnova entered the Maxim Gorky Literature Institute in 1941 on the advice of Vera Inber. However, due to the war, instead of studying, she found herself evacuated, working as a ward doctor in a neurosurgical hospital, and later as a resident physician in Moscow. This grueling experience formed the foundation of her first wartime poems.

At times he was grumpy because

He was just half a step away from old age.

Because, surely, he was often tormented

By the heavy fatigue of war.

But a young and restless fire

Kept him from lonely thoughts—

He held so many lives with care

In his clever, broad palms.

(From the poem “The Surgeon,” dedicated to N. L. Chistyakov)

Only after the Victory did Veronika Tushnova fully dedicate herself to literature: she published poetry collections, translated foreign authors, and led creative workshops.

The profound drama of her lyric poetry was fueled by an unhappy personal life. Having survived two failed marriages, the poetess found a late love at the twilight of her days. Tushnova wrote her final book, “One Hundred Hours of Happiness,” while gravely ill with cancer and fully aware of her imminent passing. She died in July 1965 at the age of 54.

During the Literary Salon, fascinating facts from the poetess’s biography were shared, her poems were recited, and there was even a musical performance. Ekaterina Potrashkova translated V. Tushnova’s poem “They Don’t Renounce While Loving” into French and performed it to her own accompaniment.