The Story of the First French Translation of Nadezhda Khvoshchinskaya by Victor Derély: 'Madame Ridnieff' and Literary Friendships

• In Event: 19th-Century Russophone Women Writers II: Women and Translation

Abstract

The first French translation of Nadezhda Khvoshchinskaya’s "Ridnieva" appeared in Le Temps in 1882 as "Madame Ridnieff", translated by Victor Derély, the translator of Aleksey Pisemsky. A year later, Plon published it in book form, preceding the so-called discovery of Russian literature in France in 1884. This paper examines how Khvoshchinskaya’s novel crossed the cultural border before the works of Lev Tolstoy and Fedor Dostoevsky.

Author

• Polina Vladimirova de Mauny, Paris Nanterre U (France)