The “Lingering echo of one another” book is a collection of Robert Rozhdestvensky’s poems about love, dedicated to his wife — Alla Kireeva, to whom he was married for 41 years. Their youngest daughter Ksenia Rozhdestvenskaya compiled the book. Alla Kireeva wrote in the preface to the collection: “I knew that many people envied us, of course — so many years together. But if they knew how happy we were, we would probably have been burned in a square. “Alka, I love you!” — I heard it every single day. I got so used to these words that I can’t believe that I will never (what an unforgiving word!) hear them again. However, they ring in the night, make me wake up, and leave me no hope for sleep…”.

Rozhdestvensky met his future wife in 1951 at the Literary Institute. They studied in the same year and lived together all their lives. Kireeva was a renowned literary critic and enjoyed painting. After the death of Robert Rozhdestvensky in 1994, she confessed: “Robert was unique! We had an amazing relationship… On the one hand, that is exactly what happiness is — to have had such a man in my life, on the other, it”s a misfortune because without him I don”t need anything anymore”. Kireeva passed away in 2015.

The theme of love is very important to understand the poet’s work. “It all begins with love” is the title of Rozhdestvensky’s flagship poem and one of his best collections, published in 1977. He began writing poems about love when he was still a very young man. The poet was convinced that everything in our world begins with love:

At the same time, Rozhdestvensky always tried to infuse his poems with kindness and optimism, to encourage the reader that true feelings exist. “He was not only a one-woman man but also a loyal man, a knight… It was impossible to say anything bad about anyone in his presence. Life with him was a holiday. And not just for me — for everyone. For our girls, for our mothers, for friends…” — reminisced the poet’s wife.