Olga Dmitrijewna research

Olga Forsh even Forsh and Forš (written Russian Ольга Дмитриевна Форш ; born May 16, ^jul. / 28. May 1873 ^greg. In the fortress Gunib , Dagestan ; † 17th July 1961 in Leningrad ) was a Russian writer and communist . Her novels mainly revolve around revolutionary figures from the tsarist era (before 1917). She was loyal to the Soviet state and its head, Stalin .

Life

The daughter of a general in the Russian occupation army (in Dagestan) lost her mother at an early age. When her father also died in 1881, she was sent to a girls' boarding school. In the 1890s she studied art in Kiev , Odessa and Saint Petersburg, later Leningrad. In 1895 she married Boris Eduardowitsch Forsch, who also came from an officer's family. In 1904 he resigned from the army because he refused to take part in the execution of political prisoners. The family (with two children) went to Ukraine to run a farm. Research dealt with the thoughts of Tolstoy , the theosophists and Buddhism . The lot of the rural population entered their literary endeavors; first stories appeared in various magazines around 1908. In 1910/11 she worked as an art teacher in Tsarskoe Selo near Petersburg, but her main focus from then on was literature. Both Forsch and her husband increasingly turned to socialist ideals. In aesthetic questions she was initially influenced by symbolism . Shortly after the October Revolution , she went to Moscow to take part in the reorganization of the school system. Her husband served in the Red Army , but died of typhus in 1920 (in Kiev) . In the early 1920s, Forsch returned to Petersburg, where she turned to the genre of the historical novel, with which she had her decisive successes. Like Vladimir Lidin , Marina Tsvetaeva , Ilja Ehrenburg and others, she visited Berlin, where many Russian emigrants lived at the time. In 1934 she was involved in the preparation of the 1st SU writers' congress. She achieved a leading role in the Soviet literary scene and received several awards. At the 2nd Writers' Congress, which met in Moscow a year after Stalin's death (1953), she announced as the opening speaker that “the strength of our literature” lies in expressing “the hopes and expectations of the great Lenin, the will of the Communist Party” . She died in Leningrad at 88.

Works

Moskovskie rasskazy (Moscow Stories), 1925
Odety kamnem , Roman, 1925, German Wrapped in stone , Leipzig 1926 and buried alive , East Berlin 1957
Sovremenniki (Contemporaries), novel, 1926
Gorjacij zech (Hot Workshop), novel, 1927
Pjatyj zver (The Fifth Beast), short stories, 1928

( The Assistant Teacher ), play, 1930

Sumassedsij korabl (The Ship of Fools), novel, 1930

Simvolisty (The Symbolists), novel, 1932

Pod kupolom (Under the Dome), Stories, 1933

Radiscev , novel trilogy , 1934–39, German The Empress and the Rebel , East Berlin 1957 (10th edition 1976!)

Michailovskij zamok (Michailowsk Castle), novel, 1946

Pervency svobody (The firstborn of freedom), Roman, 1953, German 1825: Roman of a conspiracy , East Berlin 1966

(Autobiography) 1958?

Wchera i sewodnja (Yesterday and Today), Stories, 1959

Russian ship of fools Roman. (Translated from the Russian, with notes and afterword by Christiane Pöhlmann.) Die Andere Bibliothek, Berlin 2020.

literature

RD Messer: Olga Forsch , Leningrad 1955
SM Petrov: Sovetskij istoričeskij roman , Moscow 1958
Gleb Struve: History of Soviet Literature , Munich 1958
JA Andreev: Russkij sovetskiy istoričeskij roman , Moscow 1962, pages 9-18
Anna V. Tamarčenko ,: Olga Forš: žizn ', ličnost', tvorčestvo , Moscow 1966
Russkie sovetskie pisateli. Prozaiki , Volume 5, 1968, pp. 467-490 (bibliography)
RA Skaldina: Olga Forsch: Očerk tvorčesta 20 - 30ch godov , Riga 1974
GE Tamarčenko (ed.): Olga Forsch v vospominanijach sovremennikov , Leningrad 1974
Marc Slonim: Soviet Russian Literature , London 1977, pp. 272-275
NP Lugovcov: Sražajuščajasja muza: literatur-kritičeskie očerki , Leningrad 1985
Svetlana Timina: Olga Forsch i sovremennost , in: Zvezda 10, 1988, pages 197-204
Dictionary of Russian Women Writers , Greenwood Publishing Group, 1994
Catriona Kelly: An Anthology of Russian Women's Writing , Oxford University Press, 1994, reprinted 2011
Monika Rzeczycka: Z dziejów ezoterycznej prozy Srebrnego Wieku. Teozoficzny debiut literacki Olgi Forsz , Studia Wschodniosłowiańskie, Białystok, Volume 9, 2009, pages 57-68

Individual evidence

↑ Kindler's New Literature Lexicon , Munich 1988 edition
↑ Juri Elperin (PDF; 119 kB), accessed on July 25, 2010
^ Schulz / Urban / Lebed: Who Was Who in the USSR , Metuchen 1972
↑ dradio , accessed on July 25, 2011
↑ For Wolfgang Kasack , Lexicon of Russian Literature of the 20th Century , Munich 1992, Forsch enjoyed only limited acceptance on the part of the guardians of virtue in the literary business, since research had "deviated from the official interpretation in various degrees". The two novels 1930/32 (about the artist scene) were even sharply criticized and put on hold after their first publication. With Marc Slonim , Kasack Forsch certifies a consistently “good literary level” of her “lively and colorful” work, in which captivating actions are combined with a “solid historical background”.
^ According to N. Ludwig, Handbuch der Sowjetliteratur , Leipzig 1975, "the first Soviet historical novel". He treats the 1860s.
↑ The historical novel, set in Italy in 1848, revolves around the painter Aleksandr A. Ivanov and the contradiction between art and reality. The writers Herzen and Gogol also appear. Kindlers certifies Forsch to have treated the historical accusation with "willful sovereignty". The novel is "written in an artful language, which is expressed above all in the use of a rich, pretentious lexicon and sometimes well-mannered sentence structure".
↑ Temira Pachmuss gives this artist novel an excellent testimony: "lively imagination ... delightful wit ... bold style ... sense of the grotesque ... moral and spiritual solidity and honesty ..." (in: The Slavic and East European Journal , Vol. 11, No. 2 , Summer 1967, pp. 225–226)
↑ Also published under the title Woron (The Raven). The two novels 1930/32 deal with the left art scene in Petersburg before and after the October Revolution. Among others, Alexander Blok and Maxim Gorki appear.
↑ The focus of this “main work” ( Brockhaus Encyclopedia of the 19th edition, Volume 7 from 1988) is the poet Alexander Nikolajewitsch Radishchev , opponent of serfdom and thus the Tsarina Catherine II.
↑ The work deals with the anti-Tsarist Petersburg uprising of the Decembrists
↑ The same author is represented with a Forsh article in: Ledkovsky / Rosenthal / Zirin (eds.): Dictionary of Russian Women Writers , Westport, London 1994. The article also deals with Forsch's “uneasy attitude to female identity”.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME	Forsch, Olga Dmitrievna
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Forsh; Forš; Форш, Ольга Дмитриевна (Russian spelling)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Russian writer and communist
DATE OF BIRTH	May 28, 1873
PLACE OF BIRTH	Gunib Fortress, Dagestan
DATE OF DEATH	17th July 1961
Place of death	Leningrad

[1] Kindler's New Literature Lexicon , Munich 1988 edition

[2] Juri Elperin (PDF; 119 kB), accessed on July 25, 2010

[3] Schulz / Urban / Lebed: Who Was Who in the USSR , Metuchen 1972

[4] radio , accessed on July 25, 2011

[5] For Wolfgang Kasack , Lexicon of Russian Literature of the 20th Century , Munich 1992, Forsch enjoyed only limited acceptance on the part of the guardians of virtue in the literary business, since research had "deviated from the official interpretation in various degrees". The two novels 1930/32 (about the artist scene) were even sharply criticized and put on hold after their first publication. With Marc Slonim , Kasack Forsch certifies a consistently “good literary level” of her “lively and colorful” work, in which captivating actions are combined with a “solid historical background”.

[6] According to N. Ludwig, Handbuch der Sowjetliteratur , Leipzig 1975, "the first Soviet historical novel". He treats the 1860s.

[7] The historical novel, set in Italy in 1848, revolves around the painter Aleksandr A. Ivanov and the contradiction between art and reality. The writers Herzen and Gogol also appear. Kindlers certifies Forsch to have treated the historical accusation with "willful sovereignty". The novel is "written in an artful language, which is expressed above all in the use of a rich, pretentious lexicon and sometimes well-mannered sentence structure".

[8] Temira Pachmuss gives this artist novel an excellent testimony: "lively imagination ... delightful wit ... bold style ... sense of the grotesque ... moral and spiritual solidity and honesty ..." (in: The Slavic and East European Journal , Vol. 11, No. 2 , Summer 1967, pp. 225–226)

[9] Also published under the title Woron (The Raven). The two novels 1930/32 deal with the left art scene in Petersburg before and after the October Revolution. Among others, Alexander Blok and Maxim Gorki appear.

[10] The focus of this “main work” ( Brockhaus Encyclopedia of the 19th edition, Volume 7 from 1988) is the poet Alexander Nikolajewitsch Radishchev , opponent of serfdom and thus the Tsarina Catherine II.

[11] The work deals with the anti-Tsarist Petersburg uprising of the Decembrists

[12] The same author is represented with a Forsh article in: Ledkovsky / Rosenthal / Zirin (eds.): Dictionary of Russian Women Writers , Westport, London 1994. The article also deals with Forsch's “uneasy attitude to female identity”.