Virginia Woolf’s Literary Heritage in Russian Translations and Interpretations

Abstract

European countries have been admiring Virginia Woolf’s work since the late 1920s; however, it took over ninety years for her novels to be published in Russia. Initially, Woolf was briefly mentioned in Dmitry Svyatopolk-Mirsky’s 1934 famous volume Intelligentsia, but, after that, she appears to be all but forgotten until the late 1950s. This chapter traces Woolf’s sparse early critical reception in Russia up to the 1970s, followed by the first translations of her writings into Russian, which evolved from publications in the 1980s to the complete editions of her novels in the 2000s. I trace the subtle historical, political and social reasons underlying Woolf’s obscurity in Russia until very recently as politically motivated rather than just an oversight of an overlooked author in the history of Russian translation. My chapter ends with a detailed overview of contemporary academic considerations of Woolf in Russia, and the hope of future scholarship as translations of her work increasingly become more accessible.