Elza Triolle; The Woman Who Got Lost in the Shadow of Her Eyes

The history of literature and art is filled with names that are both famous and unknown; meaning their fame is tied to something or someone around them, while their own face and character remain hidden. One of these names is Elza (Elsa) Triolle, who owes both her fame and anonymity to Louis Aragon, the great 20th-century French poet. Undoubtedly, without the acquaintance and subsequent life with Aragon, Triolle, as a woman and also as a foreigner, would not have easily entered high literary circles in Paris. However, the overwhelming spotlight of Aragon's fame has overshadowed Triolle's talent. The year 2024, nearing its end, marks the hundredth anniversary of the establishment of the Surrealist movement; an avant-garde literary and artistic current of which Aragon was also a founder. Despite the recognition of many figures associated with Surrealism, the relationships of some figures like Elza Triolle with members of this movement are still not clearly defined. Born as Ella Yurievna Kagan on September 12, 1896, in Moscow to wealthy and intellectual Russian Jewish parents, Elza had a sister, Lily, who was five years older. Elza was both fascinated by and envious of Lily, as she was raised by their mother while Elza had a nurse. In her youth, when she moved to Berlin, memories of her childhood weighed heavily on her, prompting her to write a book based on these memories: 'Wild Strawberries,' which primarily deals with feelings of childhood rejection. This novel was one of her first works published in Russian in 1926. From childhood, Elza demonstrated her abundant talent by learning music and various languages. She learned piano from her pianist mother, German from her father who spoke it, and began learning French at the age of six, eventually graduating with honors in architecture. Her sister, Lily, joined a group of Russian revolutionaries in 1905, of which Osip Brik, her future husband, was a part. Lily introduced Elza to this group, which included prominent intellectuals of the time in Russia: Boris Pasternak, the notable Russian poet, Viktor Shklovsky, a prominent figure of Russian Formalism, and Roman Jakobson, a famous linguist and theorist who became a close friend of Elza. During these years, Elza also became acquainted with Vladimir Mayakovsky, the famous Russian poet, who gradually became her 'first great love.' However, despite being married, Lily made Mayakovsky fall in love with her. In 1917, two years after her father's death, when her family faced financial difficulties, she married a French officer stationed in Moscow named 'André Triolle,' who came from a wealthy family in Limoges, France. From then on, Elza took the surname 'Triolle.' In the summer of 1919, she left Moscow with her fiancé and held her wedding in Paris. The couple lived for a while in Tahiti, a French overseas territory. Elza Triolle recounted her experience living on this island in her first novel titled 'In Tahiti,' published in 1925 in St. Petersburg (then called Leningrad). Marrying a foreigner and leaving her homeland was more about escaping Russia than fleeing financial problems. Elza had accepted the ideas of the Russian Revolution, but the consequences of the revolution made life impossible for many, including her, in their country. While Russia sank into civil war, poverty, famine, and other problems, Elza Triolle was immersed in nostalgia for the literary circle of Moscow from an island in the Pacific. However, such a marriage, which was merely an escape from the situation, did not bring satisfaction and did not last. Two years later, in 1921, she left her husband but kept the surname 'Triolle.' After the separation, she went through a period of wandering: first to London, then settling in Berlin in 1923. In the German capital, she met Viktor Shklovsky, who had been exiled. When Shklovsky saw that Elza was no longer the Elza of Moscow and had become depressed, he urged her to continue writing more seriously. Shklovsky fell in love with Triolle, but it was an unrequited love, as Triolle was not interested in such a romantic relationship. Their correspondence was later published in a book titled 'The Zoo,' which begins with a letter from Triolle: 'Write to me how much, how much, how much you love me, because in the third 'how much,' I think of something else.' Shklovsky tried to write only 'letters that do not talk about love.' Gradually, in his letters to Elza, he expressed his reflections on literature: 'All topics except love, but always full of passion.' These letters, written in Russian, reached Maxim Gorky, who strongly encouraged Triolle to dedicate her entire life to writing. Returning to Paris and meeting the Surrealists, upon her return to Paris in 1924, Triolle stayed at a hotel in the Montparnasse district; the year Surrealism announced its existence and in an area where its cafes were the hangouts of Surrealist writers and artists like Marcel Duchamp, Francis Picabia, and Man Ray. She remained in this neighborhood until 1928 and began writing her first books; first 'In Tahiti' and then 'Wild Strawberries.' Her third book, titled 'Disguise,' also written in Russian, was published in Moscow in 1928. However, this year was also when she first encountered Aragon: 'I saw him from the window of a café smoking and shouting strange things. Then I saw him surrounded by officers and taken to the commissariat. This was the first time in my life I saw Aragon.' From the left: Louis Aragon, Elza Triolle, André Breton, Paul Éluard, and Nush, Éluard's lover. Triolle saw Aragon again. Before their second meeting, Triolle had read Aragon's novel 'The Parisian Peasant' and asked a mutual friend, Roland Tual, who was very close to the Surrealists, to introduce her to Aragon. Tual arranged a meeting between Aragon and Triolle at the famous café 'La Coupole' in Paris, which was a haunt for many artists and writers of the time. In this meeting, which took place on November 6, 1928, neither of them imagined that this event would completely change the fate of their lives: 'The next day, Aragon met Mayakovsky. But it was completely by chance.' Gradually, Aragon fell in love with Elza, and eleven years later, in 1939, they married officially. Despite the tradition of adding the husband's surname to the wife, Triolle preferred never to be called 'Aragon' and remained Triolle. Critics interpreted this behavior as a sign of Elza's strong and independent character. In those years, when Elza had not yet begun writing in French, she started making jewelry from not-so-expensive raw materials and wrote reports for Russian newspapers. In the following years, she translated works of French authors, including Aragon's first two novels into Russian, and works of Russian authors like Chekhov and Mayakovsky into French. In 1937, she began writing her first novel in French titled 'Good Night, Thérèse,' which was published a year later in 1938. During World War II, she joined the French Resistance with Aragon and lived in hiding. During this secret period, she continued to write and published her works under a pseudonym. Along with the end of the war in 1944, she published the novel 'The First Obstacle Costs 200 Francs,' inspired by coded messages from Radio London during the occupation of France for the French resistance groups against the Nazis. This novel won the prestigious Goncourt Prize the following year, the most prestigious literary award in the French-speaking world. Elza Triolle was not only a foreigner who received such an award but also the first woman to win the Goncourt in the history of this prize. Elza died in 1970 in her shared home with Aragon in the suburbs of Paris and was buried in the yard of that house. Twelve years later, when Aragon also passed away, his body was placed next to Elza. 'The Eyes of Elza' as narrated by Aragon: 'The sea of your eyes is so deep that when I bend down, I drink blue from it. I see all the suns come to look at themselves in it. All the hopeless throw themselves into it to die. The sea of your eyes is so deep that I lose my memories in it...' (Poem 'The Eyes of Elza,' by Aragon, translated by Abbas Pezeshk). Despite proving her writing power, Elza was still recognized in France through Aragon's poems and as the muse of this poet, especially the famous poem 'The Eyes of Elza.' Aragon himself said about Elza's presence in his works after her death that if we look at all the works from the 1930s onward, we realize that even in places where Aragon does not mention Elza, she is present. Many of the names and phrases Aragon said, especially in his poetry, have symbolic meanings, especially in the works of the resistance period. For this reason, some French people said that Aragon's reference to Elza was actually a reference to France. However, Aragon rejected such a notion, stating: 'It was not so. I had no problem referring directly to my country. The name Elza was for reasons; first and foremost, love.' He emphasized: 'Talking about Elza was not talking about the physical Elza. Many interpreted 'the eyes of Elza' and 'the hands of Elza' as references to her physicality. It is true that a human being has eyes, hands, and hair, but for me, Elza is the intellectual history of my life, my life with Elza. Elza is someone who has been socially and professionally defined. This is very important.' Aragon was a communist, and this caused him to gradually distance himself from the Surrealists. Many Surrealists considered Elza responsible for such a separation. Azita Hamparian, a translator of literary works, states that André Breton, the influential and main figure of Surrealism, suspected Elza and considered her a 'Russian spy,' especially since Aragon had traveled to Russia with Triolle. 'Communism,' a definition that no longer works. Despite being close to Surrealist figures, Triolle fundamentally criticized Surrealism in her writing and called for a clearer and more explicit narrative. In an interview about writing, Triolle emphasized establishing a clearer relationship with the audience, saying: 'I really don't think we write to succeed; I think we write for the relationships we have with our readers and for those we have created for.' After World War I, Surrealists felt the duty to change the world and wanted to question all pre-war achievements with their innovation. However, Triolle agreed with the Surrealists on one thing; that words alone cannot express everything: 'Words do not say everything. I feel that, overall, human language is a very imperfect phenomenon. And I think that painting and also music can expand what language lacks.' Aragon's distancing from the Surrealists did not prevent Triolle from praising their creativity. Triolle repeatedly emphasized about the Surrealists and the literary circle of Montparnasse that they 'had no homeland other than art.' Despite the clear language and realistic stories, after Triolle's death, some critics wrote about her influence from Surrealism. The connections of Elza Triolle, a writer with brilliant and multifaceted talents, with her Surrealist environment today depict an era when the literary and cultural life in Paris was very dynamic and diverse. Now that the era of communism has ended and writers are not immediately faced with 'political labels,' critics are examining the world of 20th-century artists and writers with new approaches and a more intimate and personal perspective.