Translated material
In memory of Evgenia Katseva
Evgenia Alexandrovna graduated from Leningrad University in 1941 and soon found herself in the Baltic Fleet, with which she went through the Great Patriotic War. Petty Officer of the second class Katseva was awarded military awards. After the victory of E.A. served as a “cultural officer” under the Soviet military administration in Germany. Then she worked for many years in literary and artistic magazines: from 1957 to 1988 as the executive secretary of “Questions of Literature”, from 1989 to 1995 as the executive secretary of “Znamya”. And she constantly translated German, Swiss, and Austrian prose of the twentieth century - Bertolt Brecht and Max Frisch, Heinrich Böll and Günter Grass, Franz Kafka and Robert Musil... She translated brilliantly, and then vigorously fought for the publication of her ideologically dubious “wards.” In new times, overcoming new obstacles, E.A. built and launched several fundamentally important publications of German-speaking writers. No less effort was spent on “pushing through” translations and research by colleagues whose work was never for E.A. "someone else's" business. And this concerned not only German literature, for which Katseva, who went through a terrible war in her youth, had a special feeling - E.A. She was a real magazine devotee, in love with “her” publications (first with “Questions of Literature”, then with “Znamya”), her editorial teams, her—that is, the best—authors. People who had the opportunity to observe Katseva at work are unlikely to forget the enchanting combination of efficiency, passion, sober calculation, subtle humor and warm “homeliness” that reigned in her office. Without Katseva’s translations and her many years of laborious “labor” activity, it is impossible to imagine the history of Russian culture in the second half of the twentieth century. Those who knew Evgenia Alexandrovna personally will always remember this bright, strong, seemingly ageless, charming woman.
May the earth rest in peace.