Yunna Morits

Yunna Pinhusovna Morits (Moritz) (; born June 2, 1937), is a Soviet and Russian poet, poetry translator and activist. She was a recipient of the Andrei Sakharov Prize For Writer's Civic Courage and the Golden Rose (Italy).

Biography She was born in Kiev, USSR (present-day Kyiv, Ukraine) in a Jewish family. Her father Pinchas Moritz, was imprisoned under Stalin. She suffered from tuberculosis in her childhood, and spent years of hardship in Chelyabinsk in the Urals during World War II. In the 1950s, she went to study in Moscow, where she was briefly expelled from college for her poems' critical stance and alienation from the Soviet system. Her poem was a tribute to Titsian Tabidze, a Georgian poet executed by Stalin in 1937. Since the 1960s, she also became known for her poetic translations into Russian from many languages (these translations, commissioned by Soviet publishing houses, often employed an intermediary literal translator and a poet). She rendered into Russian verse such poets as Moisei Toif, Constantine Cavafy, Giorgos Seferis, Umberto Saba, Oscar Wilde and Federico García Lorca.

In later years, she attracted many young readers with her children poetry, some of which, like her adult work, became known to mass audience through songs created by guitar singer-songwriters, especially by Sergey Nikitin. Her other published work includes short stories, op-eds and, most recently, graphics.

She has been founding member of several liberal organizations of artistic intelligentia, including the Russian section of International PEN. She is a member of Russian PEN Executive Committee and its Human Rights Commission. She has been awarded several prestigious prizes, including Andrei Sakharov Prize For Writer's Civic Courage.

Politics After 2014 Morits became a vocal supporter of the Russian occupation of Donbas and Crimea. Some of her recent poetry conveys anti-Ukrainian and anti-Western sentiments, and her invective at perceived anti-Russian campaign by the West.

English translations Post-war Russian Poetry. Ed. with an introd. by Daniel Weissbort. London: Penguin Books, 1974. .