Irina Belobrovtseva
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Irina Belobrovtseva | |
|---|---|
 Belobrovtseva lecturing on The Master and Margarita in Tallinn in 2013 | |
| Born | 1 April 1946 |
| Alma mater | University of Tartu |
| Occupations | Literary scholar, translator |
| Employer | Tallinn University |
| Known for | Scholarship on Mikhail Bulgakov and The Master and Margarita |
| Awards | Estonian State Science Prize in the humanities (2010) Order of the White Star, IV Class (2011) Tallinn Decoration (2016) Tallinn University Badge of Merit (2019) |
Irina Belobrovtseva (born 1 April 1946) is a literary scholar and translator in Estonia. She is professor emeritus at Tallinn University, where her research has focused on 20th- and 21st-century Russian literature and culture, Estonian–Russian cultural relations, and biographical studies.[1][2] With Svetlana Kuljus, she co-authored a scholarly commentary on The Master and Margarita, for which they received Estonia's 2010 state science prize in the humanities.[3]
Belobrovtseva studied Russian philology at the University of Tartu, graduating in 1968.[1] In a 2024 interview she identified Yuri Lotman and Zara Mints among her formative teachers in Tartu.[4]
According to her ERIS curriculum vitae, she worked as a senior teacher at Tallinn Pedagogical Institute from 1971 to 1975 and as a translator at the Institute of Economics of the Academy of Sciences of the Estonian SSR from 1979 to 1986.[1] Her first dissertation, on the artistic searches of the Russian avant-garde group LEF led by Vladimir Mayakovsky, was defended at Moscow Pedagogical University. Her later doctoral dissertation, on the constructive principles of the text of Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita, was defended at the University of Tartu.[5] Since 1986 she has worked at Tallinn University and its predecessor institutions, later becoming professor of Russian literature and professor emeritus.[1][2]
Scholarship and translation
Belobrovtseva's work has dealt with Russian literature and culture of the 20th and 21st centuries, Russian culture in Estonia, Estonian–Russian cultural relations, and literary biography.[2][6] Her best-known scholarly project is the commentary on Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita, published in Tallinn in 2006 and in Moscow in 2007.[3] Later scholarship on Bulgakov has continued to cite Belobrovtseva and Kuljus's commentary as a reference work.[7]
She has also translated Estonian literature into Russian, often with Vitali Belobrovtsev.[4] Among the works credited to the pair in the Estonian Theatre Agency database is Jaan Tätte's play Most (Sild).[8] Radio Svoboda has described her as a co-founder of the Tallinn publishing houses Aleksandra and Avenarius.[4]
In 2024 she published 20 intervjuud 20 aastat hiljem, a collection of interviews with 20 Estonian writers first broadcast on Radio 4; the book edition appeared in Estonian translation by Toomas Kall.[9]
