Georgiy Arkadieviich Shengeli was a poet, translator, and playwright.

Early Years
He was born on 2 May (20 April, Old Style) 1894 in Temryuk, in the Kuban region. Orphaned at a young age, he grew up in Kerch with his grandmother. There he graduated from gymnasium and first encountered Futurist literature after attending the “Futurist Olympiad” featuring Burliuk, Mayakovsky, and Severyanin.

Odesa
In early 1919, Shengeli arrived in Odesa, where he became acquainted with local writers. However, he did not find complete mutual understanding with them. He required very little for his work, saying all he needed was “a roof over my head, a table, a typewriter, and a shelf with dictionaries.”

In just a year and a half in Odesa, he published the poetry collections “Izrazets” and “Jewish Poems,” the dramatic scenes “1871,” the dramatic poem “Nechaev,” collaborated with the newspaper Moriak (The Sailor), and took part in poetry evenings. He also released his first collection of poetic translations — forty sonnets by José-Maria de Heredia, dedicated to Maximilian Voloshin.

Shengeli remained in Odesa until the withdrawal of interventionist and White Guard forces.

Later Life
After leaving Odesa, he lived and worked in Moscow, where he married the poet and translator Nina Manukhina. Their home occasionally hosted Anna Akhmatova, who, in the mid-1920s, described Shengeli as “very, very ill and in despair.” Despite this, he survived, was neither arrested nor banned, though his poems were no longer published. His last lifetime collection appeared in 1939.

Works About Odesa
Although Shengeli spent only a short period in the city, Odesa left a noticeable mark on his work. Among the texts written here are:
• “Home”
• “Odesa Quarantine”
• “The City”