Songs of the Prince

The tetralogy «Songs of the Prince, Who Holds the Keys» was written in the second half of the 1960s and reflects the circle of Tarshis's searches at that time: the theater of the absurd, the desire for brief aphoristic expressions, multi-layered metaphors, and biblical symbolism. The plots of the novels largely stemmed from biographical events, such as the acquaintance with her husband Sergey Sigov (1947–2014), a poet, artist, and future creative partner, her studies at the university, or political events in the USSR during those years. However, Tarshis carefully conceals the entire context through numerous contaminations, substitutions, and replacements. For example, it is difficult to distinguish in the first novel of the tetralogy, «The Trial of the Scotsman», the plot of the Sinyavsky and Daniel case, which Tarshis closely followed, and in the image of the «Scotsman» — Sergey Sigov. The second novel, «The Prince of My Sorrow», stylistically and thematically continues «The Scotsman», while the slightly later «Duel» and «Idol» show a change in relationships with Sigov and a new, largely inversive understanding of female subjectivity.