Sonia Ilinskagia (; 1938 – 19 January 2024) was a Greek-Russian writer, translator and professor. She was considered one of the most important scholars of modern Greek literature.

Biography

Ilinskagia 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 ...

and studied classical literature at Lomonosov Moscow University specializing in

modern Greek Modern Greek (, or , ), generally referred to by speakers simply as Greek (, ), refers collectively to the dialects of the Greek language spoken in the modern era, including the official standardized form of the language sometimes referred to ...

and

Russian literature Russian literature refers to the literature of Russia, its Russian diaspora, émigrés, and to Russian language, Russian-language literature. Major contributors to Russian literature, as well as English for instance, are authors of different e ...

. She worked as a researcher at the Institute of Slavic and Balkan Studies of the USSR Academy of Sciences. In 1971 she defended her thesis entitled "Contribution to the study of post-war poetry in Greece". In 1983 she settled in

Greece Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to th ...

where she became professor of modern Greek philology. Ilinskagia was a Honorary Professor of the

University of Ioannina The University of Ioannina (UoI; Greek: Πανεπιστήμιο Ιωαννίνων, ''Panepistimio Ioanninon'') is a public university located in Ioannina, Greece. The university was founded in 1964, as a charter of the Aristotle University of ...

. Her most emblematic achievement of this period was the publication of the entire poetic work of

Cavafy Konstantinos Petrou Kavafis ( ; 29 April ( OS 17 April), 1863 – 29 April 1933), known, especially in English, as Constantine P. Cavafy and often published as C. P. Cavafy (), was a Greek poet, journalist, and civil servant from Alexandria. A ...

in Russian in 2009, based on the Greek edition of 2003. Ilinskaya was honoured by the Greek State with the Orders of Commander of the Orders of Honor (2007) and Phoenix (2018). She was married to writer . Ilinskagia died in January 2024.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ilinskagia, Sonia 1938 births 2024 deaths 20th-century Russian women writers 21st-century Russian women writers 20th-century Greek women writers 21st-century Greek women writers Greek people of Russian descent Greek women academics Greek academics Greek translators Greek scholars Women literary historians Moscow State University alumni Recipients of the Order of the Phoenix (Greece)