Lilya Brik

Lilya Yuryevna Brik (alternatively spelled Lili or Lily; Russian: Лиля Юрьевна Брик; November 11 [O.S. October 30] 1891 – August 4, 1978) was a Russian sometime writer and socialite, connected to many leading figures in the Russian avant-garde between 1914 and 1930. She was known as the beloved (muse) of Vladimir Mayakovsky. Lilya Brik was married for a long time with the poet, editor and literary critic Osip Brik (1888–1945), and she was the older sister of the French-Russian writer Elsa Triolet (1896–1970). Pablo Neruda called Lilya "muse of Russian avant-garde". Her name was frequently abbreviated by her contemporaries as "Л.Ю." or "Л.Ю.Б." which are the first letters of the Russian word «любовь» lyubov, "love".

She was born Lilya Kagan (Лиля Каган) into a wealthy Jewish family of a lawyer and a music teacher in Moscow. Both she and her sister Elsa received excellent education and were able to speak fluent German and French, and to play the piano. Lilya graduated from Moscow Institute of Architecture.

The sisters were famous for their beauty. Their portraits were done by Alexander Rodchenko, Alexander Tyshler, David Shterenberg, David Burlyuk, Fernand Léger and later by Henri Matisse and Marc Chagall. When she was twenty years old, Lilya married poet-futurist and poetry critic Osip Brik whom she had met when she was 14 and he was 17; they were married March 26, 1912. (Her sister Elsa married Louis Aragon, a notable French writer).

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