Ethel Lilian Voynich
Ethel Lilian Voynich, née Boole (May 11, 1864 in County Cork, Ireland, † July 28, 1960 in New York) was an English writer, translator and composer.
Life
She was the youngest daughter of the famous mathematician George Boole and Mary Everest Boole of ( 1832-1916 ). After the early death of her father in 1865 she grew up first in Cork and Lancashire in relatively poor circumstances until allowed her a small inheritance, from 1882 to 1885 in Berlin at the Academy of Music to study piano and composition. One of her teachers there was the Bach scholar Philipp Spitta. In Berlin, she became acquainted with the writings of the Russian anarchist Sergei Kravchinsky (pseudonym: " Stepniak " ) know that they had a lasting effect. This lived after he had to flee from Russia because he had Mesentsev General, the Chief of Police in St. Petersburg, stabbed there in August 1878 on the open road, in 1879 in exile in London. There Stepniak of Ethel was traced after her return to London, who became her mentor and teacher of Russian.
Inflamed now to the cause of revolution and now also of Russian powerful, they went in the summer of 1887 to St. Petersburg to visit relatives there Stepniaks. On the way there she made on Easter Sunday 1887 in Warsaw maintenance, where it is seen on the square in front of the citadel of her future husband Wilfrid Michael Voynich with a view from the cell window. They remained until the summer of 1889 in Russia, worked as a governess and teacher of English and music and supported the family of Stepniaks sister Preskovia Karauloff.
After her return, she was a central figure in the by Stepniak -founded Society of Friends of Russian Freedom ( Society of Friends of Russian Freedom ) and gave the magazine with Stepniak Free Russia out. To the circle of revolutionaries, socialists, exiles and writers who met in Stepniaks house, also included Eleanor Marx, daughter of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, George Bernard Shaw, William Morris and Oscar Wilde.
As Wilfrid Voynich arrives in London after an adventurous escape from his captivity in October, 1890, he met there again Ethel, whom he had seen on the square in front of the Warsaw Citadel. The two began working together, Wilfrid helped with the distribution of the journal Free Russia and along with other dissidents of the Russian Free Press Fund was established. Were sent to Russia banned literature, including translations of the works of Marx and Engels.
Starting no later than 1895 and lived Ethel Wilfrid together, she called herself Ethel Voynich Lily or abbreviated ELV, however, the official marriage took place until 1902 in connection with efforts Wilfrid Voynichs to British citizenship.
1895 Stepniak was run over while crossing a railroad crossing by a train. As a result, the Voynichs attracted seemingly out of the business revolution back something. Wilfrid Voynich in 1897 had founded a used bookstore, and was soon very successful in procuring rare and remote works. However, a hidden function of the antiquarian book trade was the continued distribution of revolutionary literature and raising funds for the Russian struggle for freedom.
The success of the Antiquarian brought the opening of several branches abroad with him, including in New York, where Wilfrid Voynich settled from 1915. Ethel Voynich followed him there at the beginning of the 1920s.
In the U.S., she worked mainly as a composer, music teacher and devoted himself to extensive musical and historical studies. After the death of Wilfrid Voynich in March 1930 she lived the next 30 years with Anne M. Nill, the longtime secretary of Wilfrid Voynich together in an apartment in the center of Manhattan. During this time, their translation of the letters of Chopin, which are still in print was created.
Effect
Her best-known work, The Gadfly ( The Gadfly, 1897 published in the USA), after the victory of the revolution in Russia had an immense success. The novel about the struggles and sufferings of international activists in Italy was in the Soviet Union a bestseller and school reading. Until her death in 2.5 million copies were sold in the Soviet Union, the work has been translated into 18 languages and countless thesis and scientific papers published.
1955 ( russ " Ovod ") was the " Gadfly " filmed by the Soviet director Aleksandr Fajntsimmer. The film music by the famous composer Dmitri Shostakovich ( Op 97).
More strangely, that the then still living Ethel Voynich to 1955 in Russia was unknown and vice versa, the author had of her fame and her giant editions in the Soviet Union no idea.
Even in the People's Republic of China, the work was very popular, where the " gadfly " was spread with a circulation of over 700,000 copies.
In addition, the " gadfly " in 1898 by George Bernard Shaw was adapted for the stage.
Works
Literary works
Musical Works
- Babylon, Jerusalem, Epitaph in Ballad form ( dedicated to the Irish nationalist Roger David Casement was hanged on August 3, 1916 at Pentonville Prison )
- The Sunken City