her father's relationship became increasingly strained. His disapproval of her failure to apply herself seriously to her writing and to her lesbianism brought them into conflict. She graduated with the gold medal (equivalent to the western designation summa cum laude) in May 1903. Where she lived for the next two years is unknown, but because of later references to having lived in Moscow as a teenager under the patronage of Yekaterina Geltzer, a prima ballerina of the Bolshoi Ballet, it is probable that at least part of that time was spent there. Shortly before the 1905 Revolution, Parnokh was baptised into the Russian Orthodox faith. Her writings from this period reflect a new interest in religion and an exploration of Christianity. It was not unusual during this time of crisis for the Russian Jewish intelligentsia to convert, in an effort to foster a nationalist aim, rather than as a disavowal of their faith. In 1905, Parnokh convinced her father that she wanted to study music in Geneva. While studying at the Geneva Conservatory, she began a correspondence with Vladimir Volkenstein, a young poet, and later playwright, who had expressed an interest in her poetry. The two were compatible in temperament and their disdain for symbolism, and she found in Volkenstein a partner who was not bothered by her sexuality, instead judging her works as allegorical and abstract. At the end of the year, she made a trip to Florence, Italy and though she returned to Geneva, her enrollment in the Conservatory was brief; by spring 1906, she had returned to Moscow to live with Nadya Polyakova. The instability caused by the revolution and her inability to find a publisher forced Parnokh to return to her father's home in Taganrog in June. Her father's refusal to welcome her and his reduction of her allowance pressed Parnokh to begin searching in earnest for a publisher. Using her contact with Volkenstein as leverage, she asked him to help her find a publisher and instructed him to have the work printed under the name of Sophia Parnok because "I detest the letter kh ()". Though she had intended her poem Life to be her publishing debut, it never appeared in print. Instead, The Autumn Garden was her first published work, appearing in November 1906 in the Journal for Everyone, edited by Viktor Mirolyubov. Soon afterward, the relationship with Polyakova ended. Career Pre-World War I