Lidii︠a︡ Alekseeva, 1909-

Lidii︠a︡ Alekseeva (1909- ), Russian short story writer, translator, and reviewer.

From the description of Lidii︠a︡ Alekseeva papers 1949-1955. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 702134075

Lidiia Alekseevna Alekseeva, née Devel, poet, short-story writer, translator, and reviewer, was born in Dvinsk, Latvia, in 1909. Her father, Aleksei Viktorovich, was a Russian officer descended from a French émigré. The family lived in the Crimea, but in 1920 they left Russia for Belgrade. Alekseeva finished the Russian "gimnazium" (high school) and graduated from the Philosophical Faculty of Belgrade University in the field of Slavic philology. Afterwards, she taught Serbian language and literature in the Russian high school.

In 1944 Alekseeva left Yugoslavia, but her husband, the prose writer Ivannikov, stayed behind and died in Belgrade on Septemper 7, 1968. In 1949 Alekseeva came to the United States. She worked in a factory and, for many years, was associated with the New York Public Library.

Alekseeva began to write poems at an early age and started to publish them in the thirties, first signing them with her maiden name but later using the pseudonym Alekseeva. She contributed to Russian periodicals such as Nov', Mech, Literaturnaia sreda, Grani, Novyi zhurnal, Mosty, Literaturnyi sovremennik, and Vozrozhedenie, and to anthologies such as Na zapade, Muza diaspory, and Sodruzhestvo .

Her first collection of poems appeared under the title Lesnoe solntse (Frankfurt, 1954). Other collections followed: V puti ([New York], 1959), Prozrachnyi sled (New York, 1964), Vremia razluk ([New York], 1971), and Stikhi: izbranoe (New York, 1980). She also translated the epic verse of the Croatian writer Ivan Gundulic into Russian, under the title Slezy bludnogo syna (Washington, D. C., 1965).

A. N. Neimirok, IU. V. Ofrosimov, IU. K. Terapiano, O. N. Anstei, Sergei M. Rafal'skii, T. Fessenko, B. A. Filippov, B. A. Nartsissov, G. Zabezhinskii, and E. Vasil'eva have reviewed Alekseeva's poetry.

Alekseeva herself also reviewed books, for example Sinii mir by Nonna Belavina, Stikhi by Oleg Il'inskii, Uzelok by A. Vasil'kovskaia, TSvety na podokonnike by K. Pestrovo, and others. She published them primarily in Novyi zhurnal .

Sources used: Handbook of Russian Literature (New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 1985); L. A. Foster, Bibliografiia russkoi zarubezhnoi literatury, 1918-1968 (Boston Mass.: G. K. Hall, 1970); George Ivask, "Pokhvala rossiiskoi poezii", Novyi zhurnal 162 (March 1986): 136-38; Gleb Struve, Russkaia literatura v izgnanii (Paris: YMCA-Press, 1984); Sodruzhestvo (Voshington: V. Kamkin, 1986) p. 505.

From the guide to the Lidii︠a︡ Alekseeva papers, 1949-1955, (Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library)