Lydia Leonidovna Pasternak (; March 8, 1902 – May 4, 1989),

married name When a person (traditionally the wife in many cultures) assumes the Surname, family name of their spouse, in some countries and cultures that name replaces the person's previous surname, which in the case of the wife is called the maiden name ("bi ...

Lydia Pasternak Slater, was a Soviet research chemist, poet and translator.

Life

Lydia Pasternak was born in

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

, then the second most important city of the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

, the daughter of the Russian impressionist painter

Leonid Pasternak Leonid Osipovich Pasternak (; born Yitzhok-Leib or Isaak Iosifovich Pasternak; – 31 May 1945) was a Russian painter. He was the father of the poet and novelist Boris Pasternak. Biography Pasternak was born in Odessa to an Orthodox Jewish f ...

and of Rozalia Isodorovna Kofman, a concert pianist. She was the sister of the poet and novelist

Boris Pasternak Boris Leonidovich Pasternak (30 May 1960) was a Russian and Soviet poet, novelist, composer, and literary translator. Composed in 1917, Pasternak's first book of poems, ''My Sister, Life'', was published in Berlin in 1922 and soon became an imp ...

, the author of '' Doctor Zhivago'', and of the architect

Alexander Pasternak Alexander () is a male name of Greek origin. The most prominent bearer of the name is Alexander the Great, the king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia who created one of the largest empires in ancient history. Variants listed here are A ...

. Lydia Pasternak began to study medicine at the Second Moscow University, but changed to chemistry, physics and botany. She continued her academic career in Berlin, after most of the Pasternak family had migrated to Germany as a result of the

October Revolution The October Revolution, also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution (in Historiography in the Soviet Union, Soviet historiography), October coup, Bolshevik coup, or Bolshevik revolution, was the second of Russian Revolution, two r ...

, and received a doctoral degree in chemistry in 1926. Her first career was as a chemist, and in 1928 she joined the German Research Institute for Psychiatry (''Deutsche Forschungsanstalt für Psychiatrie''), a

Kaiser Wilhelm Society The Kaiser Wilhelm Society for the Advancement of Science () was a German scientific institution established in the German Empire in 1911. Its functions were taken over by the Max Planck Society. The Kaiser Wilhelm Society was an umbrella organi ...

institute in

Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...

, where she was an assistant to Irvine H. Page. Together they studied the influence of chemical substances on the brain and published several articles on their results in the journal ''Biochemische Zeitschrift''. Lydia Pasternak left the group in 1935 as the Nazis came to power. Pasternak sought exile in Britain, joining Eliot Trevor Oakeshott Slater, a psychiatrist she had met in Munich. The two married later in 1935 and settled in

Oxford Oxford () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and non-metropolitan district in Oxfordshire, England, of which it is the county town. The city is home to the University of Oxford, the List of oldest universities in continuou ...

, where they were joined by Lydia's parents, then by her sister Josephine and her family. They had two sons and two daughters, including Ann Pasternak Slater, before divorcing in 1946. Her new family responsibilities meant that Lydia Pasternak could not continue her work in

biochemistry Biochemistry, or biological chemistry, is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology, a ...

, but she went on to become a published poet in German, Russian, and English, and she translated the poems of her brother Boris, winner of the

Nobel Prize in Literature The Nobel Prize in Literature, here meaning ''for'' Literature (), is a Swedish literature prize that is awarded annually, since 1901, to an author from any country who has, in the words of the will of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, "in ...

for 1958, into English.George Butchard
Poet Lydia Pasternak steps out of the shadow
dated August 22, 2012, at rbth.ru, accessed 28 October 2012 Lydia Pasternak Slater continued to live in Park Town,

North Oxford North Oxford is a suburban part of the city of Oxford in England. It was owned for many centuries largely by St John's College, Oxford and many of the area's Victorian architecture, Victorian houses were initially sold on leasehold by the co ...

, until her death in 1989. As the years went by, she was increasingly able to make visits to her native Russia to visit friends and relations there, although her brother Boris was never allowed to visit his family in England.

Selected publications

*''Boris Pasternak: Fifty Poems, translated by Lydia Pasternak Slater'' (London:

Unwin Books George Allen & Unwin was a British publishing company formed in 1911 when Sir Stanley Unwin purchased a controlling interest in George Allen & Co. It became one of the leading publishers of the twentieth century and established an Australian ...

, 1963); reissued as ''Poems of Boris Pasternak, translated by Lydia Pasternak Slater'' (London: Unwin Paperbacks, 1984) *''Before Sunrise: poems'' (London: Mitre Press, 1971) *''Contemporary Russian poems, chosen and translated by Lydia Pasternak Slater''. (Bakewell: Hub Publications, 1973) *''Vspyshki magniia: poėziia'' ("Flashes of Magnesium : poems") (Geneva: Poésie Vivante, 1974) *'Texts on

Óndra Łysohorsky Óndra Łysohorsky was the pseudonym of Ervín Goj (6 July 1905 – 19 December 1989), a Czech poet of Silesian origin and awareness. He is known for his works written in Lach language (intermediate between Czech and Polish) which was syst ...

', translations (with

Ewald Osers Ewald Osers (13 May 1917 – 11 October 2011) was a Czech translator and poet born in Prague, Austria-Hungary. Career He translated several important Czech poetry works of the 20th century into English, including Jaroslav Seifert, Vítězsla ...

& Hugh McKinley) in Keith Armstrong, David Gill, eds
The Informer international poetry magazine
(Oxford, 1968) *''Lydia Pasternak Slater: Writings 1918–1989: Collected Verse, Prose and Translations'' (Russian Culture in Europe) (London: Peter Lang, 2015) *Articles in ''Biochemie'' 'Journal of Biochemistry''1931–1935

Recordings

*''Boris Pasternak – Poems'' (Lyro Record Company – LYR 1, 7" vinyl, released 1960: seven poems translated and read by Lydia Pasternak Slater)Lydia Pasternak Slater
at 45cat.com, accessed 10 April 2017 *''Boris Pasternak – Poems'' (Lyro Record Company – LYR 2, 7" vinyl, released 1960: five more poems translated and read by Lydia Pasternak Slater}

References

Sources

*''Women scientists in Kaiser Wilhelm Institutes, from A to Z'' (Berlin: 1999, 107–109) *Page, Irvine H. “The rebirth of neurochemistry” in ''Modern Medicine'' (March 19, 1962: 81) *Nicolas Pasternak Slater, ''Boris Pasternak: Family Correspondence, 1921-1960'' (2012) {{DEFAULTSORT:Pasternak Slater, Lydia 1902 births 1989 deaths 20th-century Russian translators Jewish women poets Moscow State Pedagogical University alumni Pasternak family Writers from Moscow Scientists from Moscow Russian chemists Russian Jews Soviet poets