Rita Wright Biography

You are in courses, you are from Kursk. In fact, Rita Wright was not “from Kursk”, although she lived in Kursk. It was difficult to believe that the mother of Rita Yakovlevna was difficult, since they were Jews and did not hide their Jewry. Although, it seems, landowners were among the Jews. About the mother of Rita Yakovlevna, we only know that she died in G. apparently, she and her father were divorced.

Having finished studying medicine in Moscow, where she moved from Kharkov, Rita Yakovlevna in G. about her personal life is not known. They recall that her child died, but it is not mentioned whether she was married to someone [3]. Probably, many circumstances of her life had to be hidden: her sister Elena Lily Yakovlevna was arrested, her husband was shot by engineer Philip Makarovich Rabinovich [4].

Then Rita Yakovlevna becomes the wife of an engineer of the 1st rank, submariner Nikolai Petrovich Kovalev, he died in the city of Rita Wright in the Union of Writers as a translator. Margarita was younger than my mother and, as I understand it, was in a group with her mother’s cousin the future engineer Zhenya Greenberg, as well as with the future actor Misha Kozakov, he was remembered by many, since he was a big hut and future cybernetics Viktor Ilyich Warsaw, whose memoirs I want to quarrel: “We had one adult to capture to capture.

- Aunt Rita, Rita Yakovlevna Wright. Her daughter, Margarita, who was at home, called Pussy, and her adoptive son Shurik Kovalev, rode with us. Kovalev is the name of the husband of Aunt Rita, Nikolai Kovalev, the captain of the first rank, the flagship mechanic of the brigade of the Society of the Northern Fleet. Shurik, his real name Chernomordic, is the son of the sister of Rita Yakovlevna.

When Shurik’s father was shot, and his mother was imprisoned, Aunt Rita adopted him. He was several years older than me and in the camp in Gavrilov-Yam his name was Sasha Wright.

He was the captain of the football team, enjoyed an unquestioned authority in the camp and stood up for me and pussy, saying that only he could use the right to beat us. After the camp, he entered the Jung Northern Fleet school and died during the war, closing the steam lane broken on the boat with his body. The real name of Sasha was not Chernomordik, but Rabinovich. Joseph Degen author of the poem “My comrade in the dying agony, the boys here made Luke and Misha Kozakov too” [8].

I think this Sasha Rabinovich made them on the bow. But I have had no one to clarify it for a long time. Rita Yakovlevna writes: “In the year, we returned to Moscow, without a son, they returned from Arkhangelsk, where she left for the call of her husband from Gavrilov-Yama, in Arkhangelsk she worked on the radio. Since evacuation, there has been a certain tenderness.

Rita Yakovlevna called my mother Natashechka. I remembered, it seems to me that my mother and Sasha were the same and that my mother remained an orphan early. I don’t know whether the acquaintance was supported after the war, probably somewhere met, but I was called not only a monkey, but also a shark in the city. In my opinion, everyone who achieved the success of the translator was called precisely this word - “shark”, predator, all the best books for translation are enough for himself.

How could you miss? Of course, a lot of translated books were published in the USSR, but still not everyone got it all the same as I wanted to get a good book, artistically valuable, the famous author for translating. The publication of the translation by a translator who worked freelance was the main earnings. Even if the fee for the transfer of a large book was a significant amount, when dividing this amount into months of labor, approximately the average salary was obtained - not that wealth.

We lived in a writer’s house, about which it is now customary to say the “famous” mix me, I have not seen any great wealth. Perhaps people confuse our house on Krasnoarmeyskaya Street when we moved, it was another 2nd airport, the cooperative “Soviet writer”, with the so-called “old writer” house along Chernyakhovsky Street “Moscow Writer”, where, it seems to me, some more eminent and wealthy lived.

In fact, the richest in cooperative houses did not live, they did not have to buy their own housing, they received it from the state along with other benefits. Rita Yakovlevna had an ordinary one -room apartment - comfortable, but without any luxury. In general, not with luxury, not wealth, but-I don’t know how to put it correctly-with something than they were interested in what they went to look at, there were books.

Everything is not literally everything, but most were recorded in the library of the Writers' Union and had the opportunity to take an unlimited number of books on their home there, but they also collected their personal libraries. It seems to me that Rita Yakovlevna had no workload with books - after all, since childhood, she moved a lot and often lived not at home.

Getting her angle, she still loved to ride, watch new places, and just live in the houses of the work of the Writers' Union, where you could not take care of life and there was always someone to talk with. She loved to communicate very much. I have preserved some mother’s letters over the years, from which it is clear that they met quite often.But although my mother was very fond of a free conversation, Rita Wright’s evil language, even she was afraid of.

Once in September, they were together with Ali Yakovlevna Savich, the widow of the translator O. Savich, with whom Rita Yakovlevna was associated with a long-standing friendship. Rita Yakovlevna “Puzzle scolded Volodya M [10]. He is now called the "godfather". She met him in Riga, considers him a bastard real, illiterate idiot. She also scolded Nadka [12], in particular, she assured that she was completely incompetent in English poetry, which she judges, and gave examples of her complete ignorance of the English language.

” Kotkin "as soon as possible to go to Paris with him." That is, with good upbringing and great goodwill to the interlocutor, Rita Yakovlevna could gossip for her eyes and “express”. Then, among the intelligentsia, the conversational mat was in fashion, we called the “mat in everyday life”, but still not everyone was swearing. Perhaps, Rita Yakovlevna has this habit from that past generation, where emancipated women of good upbringing swore.

In general, she did not suffer from Puritanism, so that obscene vocabulary is not included in her translations not out of ignorance of equivalents. The indecent in the press was prohibited, Jewry could not be emphasized, the comfort of American life is also better to dwell - that theoretized all their lives about the “art of translation”. My mother still has from the 10th.

Sometimes, instead of writing in Russian or French, they wrote to mom in English, whom she did not know. In this sense, the neighborhood with Rita Yakovlevna was unusually convenient. It seems that there were enough other translators in the house, but it was easier with Rita Yakovlevna - she was generally light - educated: she did not interfere, did not switch to personal. But this is not only the case - not all of our professional translators grabbed well, what we were talking about.

Naturally, they did not know the realities - but how could one know them without living abroad of ignorance of realities, by the way, Rita Wright was accused of [13], but Rita Yakovlevna was unusually the Vostra and was not lost. Mom directly in surprise informed me in a few years by that time I had already finished the English branch of the philological faculty, but I was not in Moscow, my mother needed to urgently write a letter in English-this time everyday, American relatives, and Rita Yakovlevna did not answer the phone.

Mom went to another translator - also very famous, I do not want to give a name. And she said that she did not translate into English. Wow! We are not talking about the artistic style, but about something like that, we buy a green blouse or blue. Rita Yakovlevna had to wait, who again instantly and exactly followed the fact that all the orders contained in the letter were fulfilled everything.

In the Soviet translation school, great importance was attached to the good knowledge of the Russian language. For example, I was still a schoolgirl, walking physics lessons, went to the university then let N. Lyubimov’s translated seminar go to the university: we had to come up with synonyms for Russian words, rebuild Russian grammatical constructions, I really liked it. But somehow it was not discussed that if you understand the meaning of a foreign phrase well, then the adequate equivalent jumps much faster to the tongue.

Although it is known how carefully Rita Yakovlevna collected Russian words, asked her to help with youth vocabulary, it is also known that she translated quickly - for which some other translators “thoughtful” accused her of hack. It seems to me that she not only had good abilities for languages, but in general there was an increased ability to understand, which, perhaps, is associated with the liveliness of the mind.

And, of course, self -confidence also plays a role - that was what she could not occupy. She wanted to hear, and herself to say that without her there would be neither Salinger nor Vonnegut. I have never heard about Kafka to say that - she was a smart woman. I remember how, with her liveliness, my then friend, poetess and literary criticism, Tanya Beck - how remarkably they gossiped!

Perhaps some of their slander chatter later reached the objects of their discussions - there were enough common acquaintances. Probably offended. Recently, I read in someone’s record of a conversation with I. Brodsky that he called Rita Wright a bad word on “C” doesn’t matter which one [14] - not arguing. She began to ask, addressing all the survivors from that circle of acquaintances - no, no one remembers that she had done any dirty tricks, neither public nor personal.

So probably the gossip is explained -it is not necessary that through Tanya. In a conversation, in the house chatter, Rita Wright was, of course, completely of its completely anti -Soviet and all -understanding. But outside the house, she did not speak out loudly. In a difficult situation, she knew how to go under water. I will explain with an example.

Two autographs are now sold at the Internet auction - I came across me - inscriptions of Rita Wright Alexander Galich at the journal publications of her translations. The first on the translation of Roman W.