Elisabeth Kulmann


Elisabeth Kulmann was a Russian-born poet and translator who worked in Russian, German and Italian.

Biography

Kulmann was born in the Russian Empire, one of the several children of Boris Fedorovich, and Mary Kulmann. Her father, a collegiate councilor and a retired captain, died early. The family lived on Vasilyevsky Island in St. Petersburg.
As a child, Kulman showed phenomenal philological abilities, learning ancient and modern languages under the direction of Karl Grosgeynrikh. She achieved fluency in 11 languages.
Kulman wrote over 1,000 poems before her death at age 17. Robert Schumann considered her a wunderkind and set some of her poems to music including "Mailied" and "An den Abendstern" .
Kulman was buried in the Smolensky Cemetery in St. Petersburg, in a tomb bearing a carving by Alexander Triscorni - a marble sculpture of a girl on a bed of roses. The monument bears inscriptions in several languages, including Latin: Prima Russicarum operam dedit idiomati graeco, undecim novit linguas, loquebatur octo, quamquam puella poetria eminens.
In the 1930s, the Soviet authorities moved Kulman's remains to the Tikhvin Cemetery in the Alexander Nevsky monastery.

Elisabeth Kulmann works