Jump to content

Maria Razumovsky

Add links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Not to be confused with Maria Razumovskaya.
Maria Razumovsky
Born
Maria Gräfin Razumovsky von Wigstein

(1923-03-09)9 March 1923
Dolní Životice, Czechoslovakia
Died4 October 2015(2015-10-04) (aged 92)
Vienna, Austria
Occupations
  • Librarian
  • writer
  • diarist
RelativesGregor Razumovsky (nephew)
Secretary of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions
In office
1962–1962
Preceded byJoachim Wieder [de]
Succeeded byAnthony Thompson
Academic work
DisciplineRussian literature
Institutions

Maria Gräfin Razumovsky von Wigstein (9 March 1923 – 04 October 2015) was an Austrian librarian and writer. A Sudeten German expelled from Czechoslovakia after World War II, she worked at the Austrian National Library for four decades, with her work including serving as head of Russian literature acquisitions and of international relations. She was also a United Nations official and served as interim secretary of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions for a short time in 1962. She also wrote and edited several scholarly works, including two books on Marina Tsvetayeva.

Biography

[edit]

Maria Gräfin Razumovsky von Wigstein[1] was born on 9 March 1923 in Schloss Schönstein in Dolní Životice.[2] She was one of five children born to white émigré landowner Andreas Razumovsky (1892–1981) and Katharina zu Sayn-Wittgenstein [fr] (1895–1983).[3] Born to the Imperial Russian Razumovsky noble family, her great-grandfather was the naturalist Grigory Razumovsky.[3] She was of Jewish descent through her paternal grandmother Marie Wiener von Welten, sister of landowner Rudolf Wiener-Welten [de].[3]

Razumovsky passed her Matura at a Opava school in 1941, and attended Kautezky School in Vienna after the Nazi regime barred her from university due to her status as a 2nd-degree Mischling.[3] Her best friend from school was Gerta Hüttl-Folter,[4] who lived at Razumovsky's family residence after the Hüttls lost their home and her father sent to Dachau concentration camp when Nazi Germany annexed Austria in 1938.[5] Her family was expelled from Czechoslovakia after World War II, and moved to Vienna in 1946.[3]

Razumovsky started working at the Austrian National Library in 1946.[3] She headed the library's acquisitions department for Russian literature, as well as the Department for International Relations.[1] Drawing on her experiences with learning Russian, she helped exchange books with Eastern Bloc states when financial exchange was impractical, with the work of Chinghiz Aitmatov and Herta Müller reaching Austria while Eastern Bloc libraries received the work of Sigmund Freud, Theodor Herzl, and Franz Kafka in return.[1] Closely associated with several Russian dissidents in the arts, she helped some (including Lev Kopelev) flee the Soviet Union through the Austrian National Library's Slavic Studies Room.[3][1] In 1986, she retired from the Austrian National Library, doing so early to allow a recent father on expiring parental leave to assume a permanent position.[3]

Razumovsky was also a United Nations official in the 1950s, working at the United Nations Library and the UNESCO division of libraries, and she assisted in the ratification of the 1958 Convention concerning the Exchange of Official Publications and Government Documents between States.[3] In 1962, she served as interim secretary of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions.[6][3] She was first vice-president of the Association of Austrian Librarians [de] (VÖB) from 1978 to 1980.[1] She attended the 1991 IFLA conference amidst the collapse of the Soviet Union.[3] Werner Rotter and Eva Ramminger [de] called Razumovsky a "highly esteemed writer and librarian", saying that her "name deserves to be remembered in" the context of how librarians "ensured that concepts such as educational exchange, multilingualism, and multiculturalism are now part of our way of life".[1]

Razumovsky also wrote or edited several works, several of a scholarly nature.[3] She wrote two books on Marina Tsvetaeva;[3] Rotter and Ramminger said that Razumovsky's translations "made the author, who died at the age of 30, known in the German-speaking world."[1] She also translated several foreign works, including Eugène Ternovsky [ru]'s Portret v sumerkakh.[1] She translated her mother's diary to German and it was published as Als unsere Welt unterging in 1984.[7] She also published two volumes of diaries she and her sisters Daria and Olga wrote.[3][8]

Through her brother Andreas, Razumovsky was sister-in-law of journalist Dorothea Gräfin Razumovsky [de] the paternal aunt of artist Katharina Razumovsky [de] and historian and activist Gregor Razumovsky.[9] She was active in the Russian Orthodox Church, being part of a church choir at a Vienna church.[1]

Razumovsky died on 4 October 2015 in Vienna.[1] She had lived in a retirement home in Vienna during her final years.[3]

Works

[edit]

Authored books

[edit]
  • Marina Zwetajewa: Mythos und Wahrheit (1981)[3][10]
  • Marina Tsvetayeva: A Critical Biography (1989)[11][12][13]
  • Die Rasumovskys: Eine Familie am Zarenhof (1998)[3]
  • Mascha, Dolly, Olga Razumovsky: Unsere versteckten Tagebücher 1938–44 (1999)[3]
  • Maria, Daria und Olga Razumovsky. Unser Abschied von der tschechischen Heimat. Tagebücher 1945–1946 (2000)[14]

Translations and others

[edit]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Rotter, Werner; Ramminger, Eva (2015). "… die Barrikaden überwand. Maria Razumovsky 1923–2015. Ein Nachruf". Mitteilungen der Vereinigung Österreichischer Bibliothekarinnen und Bibliothekare. 68 (3–4): 508-513.
  2. ^ Korotin, Ilse, ed. (2007). Österreichische Bibliothekarinnen auf der Flucht: verfolgt, verdrängt, vergessen?. p. 21.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v "Razumovsky Maria". biografiA (in German). Archived from the original on 12 September 2025. Retrieved 5 January 2026.
  4. ^ Razumovsky 1999, p. 259.
  5. ^ Nozsicska, Alfred (1983). "Gerta Hüttl-Folter sexagenaria". Wiener Slavistisches Jahrbuch. 29: 117–121. ISSN 0084-0041.
  6. ^ "Past IFLA Secretaries General". International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions. Archived from the original on 2 November 2025. Retrieved 6 January 2025.
  7. ^ a b Sp., H.-B. (1985). "Review of Als unsere Welt unterging. Tagebuch der Prinzessin Katherina Sayn-Wittgenstein aus den Tagen der russischen Revolution". Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas. 33 (4): 617–618. ISSN 0021-4019.
  8. ^ Alte, Rüdiger (22 January 2002). "Maria Daria und Olga Razumovsky, Unser Abschied von der tschechischen Heimat. Tagebücher 1945-1946". Zeitschrift für Ostmitteleuropa-Forschung (in German). 51 (1): 156–156. doi:10.25627/20025117752.
  9. ^ Razumovsky 1999, p. 268.
  10. ^ Sp., H.-B. (1985). "Review of Als unsere Welt unterging. Tagebuch der Prinzessin Katherina Sayn-Wittgenstein aus den Tagen der russischen Revolution". Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas. 33 (4): 617–618. ISSN 0021-4019. JSTOR 41052863.
  11. ^ Hasty, Olga Peters (1997). "Review of Marina Tsvetayeva: A Critical Biography". Slavic Review. 56 (2): 384–385. doi:10.2307/2500830. ISSN 0037-6779.
  12. ^ Hoover, Marjorie L. (1995). "Review of Marina Tsvetayeva: A Critical Biography". World Literature Today. 69 (4): 817–818. doi:10.2307/40151719. ISSN 0196-3570.
  13. ^ Smith, Alexandra (1997). "Review of Marina Tsvetaeva: A Critical Biography". The Slavonic and East European Review. 75 (3): 511–513. ISSN 0037-6795. Archived from the original on 29 July 2015. Retrieved 6 January 2026.
  14. ^ Alte, Rüdiger (22 January 2002). "Maria Daria und Olga Razumovsky, Unser Abschied von der tschechischen Heimat. Tagebücher 1945-1946". Zeitschrift für Ostmitteleuropa-Forschung (in German). 51 (1): 156–156. doi:10.25627/20025117752. Archived from the original on 16 November 2024. Retrieved 19 January 2026.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Maria_Razumovsky&oldid=1337060143"