Irina Odoevtseva, whose real name was Iraida Gustavovna Geinike, was one of the most talented poets of the first generation of Russian emigration. Her work was highly valued by Ivan Bunin and other well-known Russian émigrés.

Irina was born on August 4, 1895, in Riga to a family of Russian Germans. Her father, Gustav Geinike, was a successful lawyer. Later, she chose the pseudonym Odoevtseva and changed her name to something more familiar in the Russian language.

Having received a good education, Irina moved to Petrograd, where she got married and became passionate about poetry. She often attended poetry evenings and, starting in 1918, regularly attended lectures by Nikolai Gumilev at the Institute of Living Word. In 1921, she remarried the prominent poet Georgy Ivanov and published her first poems that same year. However, the Soviet regime promised her nothing good, and soon the couple had to emigrate.

In Petrograd, Irina managed to publish only one collection of poems, but abroad she became well-known among the Russian emigration, publishing several new collections and two autobiographical books. In exile, she and her husband remained staunch anti-Soviets, which led to persecution after World War II, including the looting of their apartment in Paris. Upon returning to Paris, Irina continued to work actively, publishing three books and describing her encounters with Gumilev, Bunin, Gippius, and other outstanding figures, as well as recounting stories about her husband.

During the perestroika, Irina returned from emigration; by that time, her husbands Georgy Ivanov and Yakov Gorbov had already passed away, and she arrived alone. In Russia, she frequently appeared on television, and one of her books was published with a circulation of 200,000 copies. Irina Odoevtseva passed away on October 14, 1990, and was buried at the Volkovsky Cemetery.