Ezrohi, Zoya Evseevna

Born in Leningrad in the family of chemists Eusei Zakharovich Ezroha and Lidia Lvovna Ezroha (nee Shik, 1910-1997) ^[1] . Received secondary special education at the Leningrad Chemical-Technological College named after Mendeleev .

In 1967-1987 she worked at the State Institute of Applied Chemistry (laboratory assistant, technician, engineer); also earned unskilled labor. Then - a pensioner, at one time engaged in private trade, sold toys.

Member of the Union of Writers of St. Petersburg since 1991.

She found her poetic voice in the second half of the 1960s. According to Z. Ezroha, her mother, L. L. Ezrohi, influenced her formation as a poet, and she herself left behind a book of memorial prose “I Dare to Object”, published posthumously by her daughter. For some time EZROKH was visited by LITO G. S. Semenova , on whose death she wrote a poem ( https://ezrohi.ru/app.htm ), as well as LITO A. S. Kushner in the library of the Bolshevichka factory. In Soviet times, Ezroha’s poems were almost never published, but were well known in the circles of unofficial Leningrad culture. The first collection of poems by Ezroha “The Winter Sun” was released only in 1990.

Zoe Ezroha’s poems were published in the magazines Neva , Continent , Hours , New World , and were included in the anthology Ostrov (1982; samizdat) ^[2] , Late Petersburgers and Russian Poems 1950–2000 years. "

Poetry and critics of various directions responded with great sympathy to Z. Ezroha’s poetry, in particular V. Krivulin , Yu. Kolker , V. Toporov , K. Kuzminsky , I. Fonyakov , B. Lichtenfeld ^[3] .

V. Krivulin in 1990 wrote about her like this: “ / ... / Having first met her verses / ... /, I was struck by the absolute discrepancy between the piercingly sincere, natural, somewhere, even deliberately private tone of these lines with the general, intense-pathetic “Facial expression” dull Petersburg official Muse. Poems of Zoe Ezroha then became a true discovery for me precisely because of their untimely openness, their absence and the shadow of snobbery, which is so inherent in the prevailing manner of writing in St. Petersburg. They seem to be “too simple,” but their apparent simplicity has nothing to do with the requirement of general accessibility and “forced democracy”. It seems to me, nevertheless, that these verses will find a wide reader, because many of us need precisely “home”, warm literature, the acute shortage of which is felt especially now. I happened to witness the poetic performances of Zoe Ezroha, and I saw with what warmth the most intimate and even everyday moments of her lyrics were perceived. / ... / ” ^[4] .

The final book of Z. Ezrohi was a voluminous volume (over 600 pages) of her poems and plays (they are equipped with her own drawings and photographs), including almost everything she wrote: “Just in case” (2002). It is a holistic evidence embodied in the word about the struggle of the lyrical heroine she created, in which very many can recognize themselves for the preservation of their souls in difficult living conditions. Poetry, the word play a decisive role in this struggle. Boris Lichtenfeld ^[5] writes about this book: “ Ezrohi, as it is now obvious, has been creating one large book for forty years. Everything written and assembled under one binding showed organic unity, having developed a pattern where themes, images, characters, life specifics and poetic techniques resonate and rhythmically repeat. Zoya Ezrohi gave the verses the freedom to organize space for themselves and, almost abandoning the selection by quality, appeared to the reader as if in spirit. / ... / [C] quietly less successful came to life surrounded by the best, the insignificant found their place, but in a strange way the best verses acquired the necessary context. " ^[6] According to St. Petersburg writer Mikhail Matrenin," <this> the book is a true encyclopedia of our life in 1970-2000, and I, as a far-sighted literary critic, would have already begun to write a comment on it / ... / <which would convey>, like book, the spirit itself, the atmosphere of the era ” ^[7] .

• Winter sun. - L. , Soviet writer, 1990 (in the Octave cassette)
• Z. Ezrohi, M. Anikin, L. Fadeeva . Feline correspondence. - SPb., 1993
• Sixth floor. - SPb., 1995
• Donkey's ears of King Midas. - SPb., 1999; 2nd ed. SPb., 2002
• Just in case. - SPb., 2002

• B. Lichtenfeld . Dancing at the plow. About the book by Zoe Ezroha “Just in case” // “ Neva ”, 2002, No. 11 (a more complete version is in: “Khreshchatyk”, No. 3, 2002)
• Yu. Kolker . What does Ezrohi rhyme (first published: Vestnik magazine, Baltimore, No. 9 (163), April 16, 1997; online publication 2002)
• M. Matrenin. You didn’t make out the elephant. "Neva", 2005, No. 2 ( http://magazines.russ.ru/neva/2005/2/mm16.html )
• Samizdat of Leningrad. 1950s - 1980s Literary Encyclopedia / Edited by D. Severyukhin . - M .: UFO, 2003, p. 382. [2]
• T. Voltskaya. "Buy, buy, passerby, bird" (broadcast on the Radio Liberty, dedicated to Z. Ezroha: https://www.svoboda.org/a/28643273.html )
• E. Lobkov. About the poetry of Zoe Ezroha. // E. Lobkov . Straight Talk. Chelyabinsk. 2012.S. 49-54.
• G. Benevich . "Dust" by Zoe Ezrohi // "Prosodia", 2019, No. 10. P. 183-200.

• Personal site
• Zoya Ezrohi in the Journal Hall