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BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

BBC Radio 3

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Twenty Minutes

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media: Arts

Eclectic arts magazine programme, exploring a range of fascinating subjects

Eclectic arts magazine programme, exploring a range of fascinating people, places and events

Twenty Minutes: The Poem of the End

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Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

The Poem of the End

04/09/2013

BBC Radio 3 - Twenty Minutes, The Poem of the End

Imogen Stubbs and David Seddon read Marina Tsvetaeva's The Poem of the End.

Imogen Stubbs and David Seddon read Marina Tsvetaeva's The Poem of the End, which charts the final moments of a passionate affair in Prague 1924.

Marina Tsvetaeva's poetic masterpiece, charting the final moments of a passionate affair in Prague 1924. Two lovers walk across the bridges of Prague, as they build themselves up to cross the final bridge - of separation. 

Marina Tsvetaeva (1892-1941) was one of the greatest Russian poets of the 20th century. She lived through and wrote about the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the Moscow famine that followed it. In 1922, Tsvetaeva left Russia and lived with her family in impoverished exile in Paris, Berlin and Prague, where she had an affair with Konstantin Rozdevitch, a former military officer. She wrote about this relationship in several poems, including Poem of the End. 

Tsvetaeva returned to Moscow in 1939. Her husband Sergei Efron and her daughter Alya were arrested on espionage charges in 1941 and her husband was later executed. Tsvetaeva committed suicide in 1941. Her work inspired a number of great poets including Osip Mandelstam, Boris Pasternak, Rainer Maria Rilke, Anna Akhmatova and Joseph Brodsky.

Written by Marina Tsvetaeva and translated by Elaine Feinstein

Performed by Imogen Stubbs and David Seddon

Produced by Emma Harding.

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

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