Zenitta Tazieff-Vivier, Chemist, Resistance Fighter, Painter

She was born in Daugavpils, in present-day Latvia, then a province of the Russian Empire. In 1903, she moved to Brussels to study at the Université libre. She would graduate with a doctorate in natural sciences and chemistry, and a degree in political science — a rare path for a woman of her generation.

Her son, the volcanologist Haroun Tazieff, would write in his memoir, "Les défis et la chance," that he owed his "left-wing" upbringing to a mother "who had taken part in the Russian revolution of 1905."

Two Marriages, Two Worlds

In 1906, she married Sabir Tazieff, a physician she had met at the Université libre de Bruxelles. Their son Haroun was born in 1914; that same year, Sabir died, serving as a military doctor in the Russian army.

In the early 1920s, she married the Liège-born poet Robert Vivier. She helped him translate from Russian and Polish — together, they translated Alexeï Remizov's "Sœurs en croix" in 1929. Vivier dedicated his novel "Délivrez-nous du mal" to her: "To my wife, to whom I owe the thoughts and feelings of this book."

Painting, in Parallel

While her husband built his literary body of work, she pursued a career as a painter and watercolorist: landscapes of the Belgian coast and the south of France, still lifes. She moved in intellectual circles, among them the philosopher Vladimir Jankélévitch.

In the Resistance

During the Second World War, she joined Belgian and Russian communist resistance organizations, operating from Brussels. She worked with Betty Limbosch-Lavachery, linked to Groupe G. The sculptor Idel Ianchelevici was able to hide thanks to her, and the Dutch survivor Henri Vles testified to her role. Much of this activity, the VUB notes, remains poorly documented. Her son, meanwhile, fought with the Partisans armés.

She died in 1984. SaisonArt will soon present one of her paintings.