Alexander Ivanovich Ertel (; 19 July 1855 – 7 February 1908) was a Russian novelist and short story writer.

Biography

Ertel was born near

Voronezh Voronezh ( ; , ) is a city and the administrative centre of Voronezh Oblast in southwestern Russia straddling the Voronezh River, located from where it flows into the Don River. The city sits on the Southeastern Railway, which connects wes ...

, where his father – a soldier in Napoleon's army, captured by the Russians – had settled and become an estate agent. He never completed school, and was largely self-educated. He published his first collection of stories called ''Notes from the Steppes'' in 1883. He was imprisoned in 1884 for his revolutionary ties, and afterwards exiled to

Tver Tver (, ) is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, city and the administrative centre of Tver Oblast, Russia. It is situated at the confluence of the Volga and Tvertsa rivers. Tver is located northwest of Moscow. Population: The city is ...

for four years. He published a number of novellas and stories in the 1880s and 1890s, including ''A Greedy Peasant'' (1886), and the two novels ''The Gardenins'' (1889), and ''Change'' (1891). When ''The Gardenins'' was republished in 1908, it featured a preface by

Leo Tolstoy Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy Tolstoy pronounced his first name as , which corresponds to the romanization ''Lyov''. () (; ,Throughout Tolstoy's whole life, his name was written as using Reforms of Russian orthography#The post-revolution re ...

, who admired Ertel's work. After his death, his widow Marya Vasilievna lived in Moscow, taking in paying guests who had come to learn Russian; she was helped by their younger daughter, Elena (Lolya or Lola), who became a literary translator. Their elder daughter also became a literary translator, working in England as

Natalie Duddington Natalie Duddington (née Ertel; 14 November 188630 May 1972) was a philosopher and a translator of Russian literature into English. Her first name sometimes appears as Nathalie (with an ''h''). Biography Nataliya Aleksandrovna Ertel was born i ...

. Among Madame Ertel's pupils was

Bruce Lockhart The Bruce Lockhart family is of Scottish origins, and several members have played rugby football for Scotland, but since the early 20th century most have lived and worked in England or Canada, or else overseas, in India, Malaya, Australia, Russia ...

; in his famous ''Memoirs of a British Agent'' (1932) he recorded that, thanks to her and Lolya, he became proficient in Russian, acquired a modicum of culture, and developed a deep affection for all things Russian. Marya died in the typhus epidemic in 1919; Lolya survived it and managed to escape to Britain in 1927.

Legacy

His story ''The Specialist'', and his novella ''A Greedy Peasant'' are available in English translation in ''Eight Great Russian Short Stories'', A Premier Book, Fawcett Publications, 1962. The translator of these two works was his daughter

, well known for her translations of other Russian authors.

English translations

* ''Great Russian Short Stories'', London, E. Benn Limited, 1929. * ''Eight Great Russian Short Stories'', A Premier Book, Fawcett Publications, 1962.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ertel, Alexander 1855 births 1908 deaths Short story writers from the Russian Empire Novelists from the Russian Empire Writers from Voronezh People from the Russian Empire of German descent 19th-century novelists from the Russian Empire Prisoners of the Peter and Paul Fortress Russian male novelists Russian male short story writers