Rita Öhquist

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Rita Öhquist (as Margarita Emilia Minna Winter * September 22, 1884 at Gut Travenort , Schleswig-Holstein; † March 2, 1968 in Philippsthal , Hesse) was a German translator from Finnish and Swedish who was important for the history of reception .

Life

Born the daughter of a landowner, after training to be a teacher in 1904, she married the writer Ernst Clausen (1861–1912), of whom she had two sons (both of whom died in World War II ).

After her widowhood, she married the art historian Johannes Öhquist (born December 6, 1861 in Slavanka near St. Petersburg , † October 15, 1949 in Wolfach , Baden) in 1917 and thus became the stepmother of Harald Öhquist (1891–1971, Finnish lieutenant general and civil protection officer ). Johannes Öhquist was on the side of the Finnish uprising against Russia , was later a professor at the University of Helsinki , became cultural attachée to the Finnish legation in Berlin and published many publications in German (including chess books ).

She lived alternately in Finland and Germany. In 1960 she was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit, 1st class.

Literary activity

Rita Öhquist learned Finnish and Swedish in her second marriage and translated numerous Finnish and Swedish-speaking prose authors, including works of world literature, into German, for example by Aleksis Kivi and the Nobel Prize winner for literature Frans Eemil Sillanpää . In the 1920s to 1960s she made a major contribution to the strong reception of Finnish literature in the German-speaking area . She has also translated both academic works and children's books and has also promoted international awareness of Finnish science through her ready-to-print transfer of many doctoral theses (since at the time doctoral theses in Finland had to be submitted in English or German, but mostly not written in these languages were).

Translations

To the aftermath

The literary estate of Rita Öhquist is in the German Library ( Saksalainen kirjasto ) in Helsinki (Finland), that of Johannes Öhquist in the Finnish National Library.

personal data
SURNAME Öhquist, Rita
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Winter, Margarita Emilia Minna; Clausen, Rita
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German translator
DATE OF BIRTH September 22, 1884
PLACE OF BIRTH at Gut Travenort , Schleswig-Holstein
DATE OF DEATH March 2nd, 1968
Place of death Philippsthal , Hesse