Bochkova Elvira — a writer and author of poetry collections. She lived in Nizhny Novgorod.[1]

The Essence of the Subject

Author of poetry collections.

Biography

BOCHKOVA ELVIRA LEONIDOVNA (maiden name Polkanova) was born on March 1, 1938, in City of Gorky, into a family of shipbuilders.[1][2] Her father, Polkanov Leonid Dmitriyevich, was a professor and dean of the Shipbuilding and Physics-Technology Faculty at the Gorky Polytechnic Institute[3]; her mother, Polkanova Galina Mikhaylovna, also taught there.

She graduated from the Shipbuilding Faculty of Gorky Polytechnic Institute in 1961. She worked as a design engineer at the Central Design Bureau "Volgabaltsudoproyekt".[1]

She is the author of twelve poetry collections. Her literary endeavors were blessed by the noted poets Fyodor Sukhov and Nikolay Starshinov.[2]

She was a member of the Writers' Union of Russia.[1]

She died on March 20, 2011.[1]

Daughter, Bochkova Galina Borisovna (Talanova Galina), poet and prose writer, member of the Union of Writers of Russia.[4]

Books

  • "Dvizheniya dushi" [Movements of the Soul] (Moscow: Sovremennik, 1980),
  • "Idu k Tebe…" [I Come to You…] (Gorky: Volgo-Vyatskoe kn. izd-vo, 1986),
  • "Verna kalendaryu" [True to the Calendar] (N. Novgorod: Volgo-Vyatskoe kn. izd-vo, 1992),
  • "Spasyoshsya lyubovyu" [You Shall Be Saved by Love] (Nizhegorod. gos. tekhn. un-t, N. Novgorod, 1996),
  • "Poslednie romantiki" [The Last Romantics] (Nizhegorod. gos. tekhn. un-t, N. Novgorod, 1997),
  • "Dalyokoe-blizkoe" [The Distant and the Near] (N. Novgorod: izd. Gladkova O.V., 1999),
  • "Leto oseni" [Summer of Autumn] (N. Novgorod: izd. Gladkova O.V., 2001),
  • "Mayskiy sneg" [May Snow] (N. Novgorod: izd. Gladkova O. V., 2003),
  • "Devyataya kniga" [The Ninth Book] (N. Novgorod: izd. Gladkova O.V., 2005),
  • "Zhenskoe serdtse v grudi" [A Woman's Heart in the Breast] (N. Novgorod: izd. Gladkova O.V., 2007),
  • "Otvechayu za vozrast" [I Answer for My Age] (N. Novgorod: izd. Gladkova O.V., 2009),
  • "Put k domu" [The Way Home] (N. Novgorod: izd. Gladkova O. V., 2011).[2]

On the Poet's Work

Nikolay Starshinov: Clear, vivid, elegant, and even sweeping! Her verse contains many stanzas built on half-tones, on hints, on things left unsaid…[5]

Vladimir Vazhdaev: The author draws on the full power of imagination and the achievements of contemporary Russian verse in order to hold her own in a contest with the mundane, with a routine, spiritually empty existence. The fate of a woman mirrors the fate of the country and its people. That is why the tone is, at times, not intimate or chamber-like, but tragic…[5]

Konstantin Proymin: E. Bochkova's poetic manner is marked by great originality; her books are not for quick, superficial reading — they demand concentration and thoughtfulness.[5]

Albina Gladysheva: This is distinctly feminine poetry — in the particular "atmosphere" of the poetic stanza, in the complex, largely intuitive inner world where there is no place for harsh masculine pragmatism.[5]

Shamshurin Valeriy Anatolevich: Bochkova's poems cannot be read in one go; they are for thoughtful reading, for the unhurried work of the soul. Only then can such wonderfully expressive poetic discoveries reveal themselves and astonish — as in what is said of a cuckoo that has fallen silent: "The cuckoo swallowed some edible number in the nearby grove…"[5]

Vyacheslav Kharchev: E. Bochkova's poems draw the reader in with the intense passion of their inner world, with the desire to express everything fully and at that limit where ordinary words no longer suffice and only a barely perceptible chain of associations holds the feeling within the plane of the real.[5]

Irina Mukhina: For this poet, winter is not merely a rich source of associations. It is a kind of important philosophical sign. Exquisite beauty and a cold deadly to all living things — in the contradiction of this symbol, Elvira Bochkova perhaps finds a reflection of the contradictions of her own soul, whose ardent rebelliousness so often collides with a thirst for perfection bordering on absolute stillness.[5]

Vladimir Zhiltsov: Bochkova's heart shines with love, and that says if not everything, then a great deal. Everything has been hard-won, everything lived through. A poet's verses do not belong to the poet, but once they have broken free from the soul, they open their arms to all who feel the secret and inextinguishable call of the spirit. Bochkova's poems are open to us for love and compassion.

Aleksandr Aseyevsky: Like the vault of heaven, the theme of death and immortality rises above the poems of Elvira Bochkova. And what of Love? It moves us with its faithfulness; it is the feeling of beautiful, strong people — a feeling that does not lose the force of its romantic fire.

Official website

See also

Sources

  1. names52.ru — Nizhny Novgorod Biographical Encyclopedia — "Bochkova Elvira Leonidovna" (1 March 1938 — 20 March 2011), accessed 16.09.2026 (archive)
  2. bochkovaelvira.ucoz.ru — Personal website of poet Elvira Bochkova — "Biography" and list of books, accessed 16.09.2026 (archive)
  3. names52.ru — Nizhny Novgorod Biographical Encyclopedia — "Polkanov Leonid Dmitrievich", accessed 16.09.2026 (archive)
  4. names52.ru — Nizhny Novgorod Biographical Encyclopedia — "Bochkova Galina Borisovna", accessed 16.09.2026 (archive)
  5. bochkovaelvira.ucoz.ru — Personal website of poet Elvira Bochkova — "Reviews of the poet's work", accessed 16.09.2026 (archive)