Maria Nikitichna Ryzhkina as a Translator of the Publishing House “World Literature” (Marcel Proust and Others)

The article examines the creative biography of the translator and librarian of the Public Library, a student of M.L. Lozinsky, Maria Nikitichna Ryzhkina (married Petersen; 1998–1984), the first translator of M. Proust’s novel Towards Swann. Special attention is paid to her activities in the publishing house “World Literature” (“Vsemirnaya Literatura”), where she is under her own name and under the pseudonym “M. Elagina” published, in addition to excerpts from M. Proust’s novel Towards Swann, the novels of R. Rolland Cola Brunion, The Enchanted Soul, A. Bero The Sufferings of a Fat Man and M. Marx The Woman, collections of short stories The Man is Kind by L. Frank and Timur by K. Edschmid, plays by G. Buchner The Death of Danton and Woyzeck. The authors of the article examine archival documents from the collections of the Russian National Library: the personal file of M.N. Ryzhkina (Petersen) and her diary (1920–1921); as well as her memoirs written in the 1980s and covering almost the entire life path, from the Archival Collection of the House of the Russian Abroad. The article gives numerous fragments from these sources. The information significantly complements the already known facts (according to other sources) about the work of M.L. Lozinsky’s Translation Studio, about his method of “collective translation,” about the relationship of students. The appendix contains archival documents from the personal file of M.N. Ryzhkina (Petersen) about her life in the period from 1919 to 1941.