33 monsters - Тридцать-три урода

a novel by Lydia Zinovieva Annibal (1907, Russia) presented by Eléonore de Montesquiou (edition and illustrations) with Jenny Zinovieff (bibliography, translation and iconography), Peter Zinovieff (music), Lucy Railton (music), Varvara Toropkova (illustrations), Johanna Ruukholm (graphic design) 176 Pages 23 x 17 cm Russian original / English translation illustrated Distributor: argobooks, Berlin ISBN 978-3-948678-18-0 33 Monsters, Тридцать-три урода, by Lydia Zinovieva-Annibal (Petersburg, 1907) is a young woman’s intimate diary. It is written to another woman, Vera, her lover. Vera is older than the narrator and forces her to sit for 33 male painters who will paint 33 versions of her beautiful body, the 33 monsters. Vera initiated this search for truth, the exposure of her lover’s beauty to men and to art. Art and life as an artwork will destroy each other; Vera will not survive this offering. The short novel, 33 Monsters was one of the few works of its day to openly discuss lesbianism. Back then immediately banned, then judged as not obscene, it was published in 1907.

The author: Lydia Zinovieva-Annibal Lydia Zinovieva-Annibal (1866-1907), first Russian feminist, passionate and excessive woman, rebellious child in a Petersburg aristocratic family, was an emblematic figure of symbolist circles in Petersburg in the early 1900s. With Viatcheslav Ivanov, her second husband with whom she was searching for a new ideal form of open love relationships, Lydia organised the famous Wednesday meetings in their home the „Tower“ where Petersburg intellectuals and artists of the Silver Age gathered at the turn of the century. Lydia Zinovieva died of scarlet fever at the age of 41, shortly after the 33 Monsters and the Tragic Menagery were published, the last of her four novels.