Isabella Grinevskaya

Beyle (Berta) Friedberg (Yiddish: בּיילע פֿרידבּערג‎; 3 May 1864, Grodno – 15 October 1944, Leningrad),[1][note 1] best known by the pen names Isabella (Yiddish: איזאַבּעלאַ‎) and Isabella Arkadevna Grinevskaya (Russian: Изабелла Аркадьевна Гриневская), was a Russian-Jewish novelist, poet, and dramatist. As a translator, she translated into Russian works from Polish, German, French, Italian, Armenian, and Georgian.

Beyle Friedberg
Born(1864-05-03)3 May 1864
Grodno, Russian Empire
Died1944 (aged 79–80)
Leningrad, Soviet Union
Pen nameIsabella, Isabella Arkadevna Grinevskaya, I. Grin
LanguageYiddish, Russian
GenreFiction, theatre
Notable worksBab (1903)
RelativesAbraham Shalom Friedberg (father)

Biography
Likeness of Grinevskaya by Swiss caricaturist Paul Robert

Early life and career

Beyle Friedberg was born in Grodno to Russian Hebrew writer Abraham Shalom Friedberg, later moving to Saint Petersburg.[2] There she frequented Yiddish literary circles and, in 1886, married fellow writer Mordechai Spector.[3] They moved to Warsaw the following year, where they would eventually divorce.[4]

Her first published story, a novella entitled Der yosem (lit. 'The Orphan'), appeared under the pseudonym "Isabella" in the first volume of Der hoyz-fraynd in 1888.[5] She continued to write short stories for Der hoyz-fraynd and the Yidishe bibliotek through the 1890s, depicting the social conditions of the Eastern European Jewish middle class, particularly the experiences of young educated women from the Jewish community.[6][7] In these stories, she dwells on comparisons between the older and the newer generation, and points out the dangers from a superficial modern education.[8] Her novella Fun glik tsum keyver: a khosn oyf oystsoln (lit. 'From Joy to the Grave: A Husband on the Installment Plan') was published in Warsaw in 1894.[9]

Grinevskaya's career as a dramatist began with Ogon'ki (lit. 'The First Storm'), a Russian one-act play which debuted on 2 April 1895 at the Alexandrinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, starring Maria Savina.[10] This was followed by a series of one-act lyrical comedies (Work Day, A Dance Lesson, Play for Departing, The Letter, They've Agreed, The Conflagration, Bear Hunting, and Letter from the Village), which were performed on the stages of the Imperial Theatres.[11][12] She also produced, among others, translations of Lucjan Rydel's Zaczarowane koło, Gerolamo Rovetta's La Realtà, and Gabriele D'Annunzio's La città morta,[13] the latter of which was staged at the Alexandrinsky.

As a translator, she translated into Russian works from Polish, German, French, Italian, Armenian, and Georgian.[14]

1900s–1910s

In May 1903 she published Bab, a five-act poetic drama based on the life of the founder of Bábism.[15] It was performed on stage the following January at the St. Petersburg Literary-Artistic Society Theatre (now home to the Bolshoi Drama Theatre), directed by Evtikhii Karpov and produced by Aleksey Suvorin.[14] The play was praised for its literary quality, most notably by Leo Tolstoy.[15][16] A ban on its production in the city was nonetheless imposed by government censors after five performances. Still, the drama had successful runs in Astrakhan and Poltoratsk, and would return to the Petrograd stage post-February Revolution in April 1917.[14] It would later be translated into German, French, and Tatar.[15]

Grinevskaya emigrated to Constantinople in around 1910.[17] In early 1911, she spent two weeks in Egypt as the guest of ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, an account of which she published as "A Journey to the Countries of the Sun" in 1914.[18] Her drama Bekha-Ulla, a sequel to Bab on the life of the Baháʼu'lláh, was published in 1912 but never performed.[12][19] She returned to the Russian Empire at the outbreak of World War I, settling in Kharkov.[9]

Other writings of this era include the play Surovye dni (1909; lit. 'Harsh Days'), set during the Cossack Rebellion of 1773–75, the collections Salute to Heroes (1915) and From the Book of Life (1915), and the pamphlet The Right of Books, in which she protested against censorship.[20]

Later life

Grinevskaya's only publication post-Revolution was the poetry collection Pavlovsk (1922; lit. 'Poems'). Her later years were spent largely in isolation.[15] She died in 1944.

Notes
  1. Some sources list Grinevskaya's place of death as Constantinople.
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References
  1. Grinevskaya, I. А. (2017) [1914]. "Путешествия в Края Солнца" [A Journey to the Countries of the Sun]. In Mitnik, Е. А. (ed.). Ежегодник Рукописного отдела Пушкинского дома на 2016 год [Yearbook of the Manuscript Department at the Pushkin House for the Year 2016] (in Russian). p. 434–491.
  2. Nachimson, Uri Jerzy (2014). The Polish Patriot. Cortona, Italy. p. 44. ISBN 978-1-291-91188-6. OCLC 1028992623.
  3.  Seligsohn, M. (1901–1906). "Spector, Mordecai". In Singer, Isidore; et al. (eds.). The Jewish Encyclopedia. 11. New York: Funk & Wagnalls. p. 502–503.
  4. Reisen, Zalman (1926). "Mordkhe Spektor". Leksikon fun der yidisher literatur, prese, un filologye. 2. Vilna: B. Kletskin. pp. 691–710.
  5. Izabella (1888). "Der yosem". In Spektor, Mordekhai (ed.). Der hoyz-fraynd: a historish-literarishes bukh (in Yiddish). 1. Warsaw: Ferlag Progress. pp. 67–85. OCLC 962423784.
  6. Lisek, Joanna (2010). Feminist Discourse in Women's Yiddish Press in Poland (PDF). PaRDeS: Zeitschrift der Vereinigung für Jüdische Studien. 16. p. 95.
  7. Norich, Anita (April 2020). "Translating and Teaching Yiddish Prose by Women". In geveb. Retrieved 8 July 2020.
  8. Wiener, Leo (1899). The History of Yiddish Literature in the Nineteenth Century. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. pp. 187–189.
  9. Reisen, Zalman (1926). "Izabella". Leksikon fun der yidisher literatur, prese, un filologye. 1. Vilna: B. Kletskin. pp. 66–67.
  10. Johnston, Lori (July 2002). "Storming the Stage in the Golden Age of the Russian Actress" (PDF). Studies in Slavic Cultures. 3.
  11.  "Гриневская, Изабелла Аркадьевна" . Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary (in Russian). 1906.
  12. Grachëva, A. (1994). "Grinévskaia, Izabélla Arkád'evna". In Ledkovsky, Marina; Rosenthal, Charlotte; Zirin, Mary (eds.). Dictionary of Russian Women Writers. Greenwood Press. pp. 232–234. ISBN 978-0-313-26265-4.
  13. K. K. Arsenyev, ed. (1911–1916). Гриневская, Изабелла Аркадьевна [Grinevskaya, Isabella Arkadevna]. New Encyclopedic Dictionary (in Russian). Saint Petersburg: F. A. Brockhaus and I. A. Efron.
  14. Jasion, Jan Teofil (2004). "Táhirih on the Russian Stage". In Afaqi, Sabir (ed.). Táhirih in History: Perspectives on Qurratu'l-'Ayn from East and West. Los Angeles: Kalimát Press. pp. 231–238. ISBN 1-890688-35-5.
  15. Hassall, Graham (1993). "Notes on the Babi and Bahá'í Religions in Russia and Its Territories". Journal of Bahá'í Studies. 5 (3): 41–80. doi:10.31581/jbs-5.3.3(1993).
  16. Root, Martha L. (1936). "Count Leo Tolstoy and the Bahá'í Movement". The Bahá’í World. 5. New York: Bahá’í Publishing Committee. pp. 642–644.
  17. Commire, Anne; Klezmer, Deborah, eds. (2007). "Friedberg, Berta (1864–1944)". Dictionary of Women Worldwide: 25,000 Women Through the Ages (1st ed.). Thomson Gale. ISBN 978-0-7876-7585-1.
  18. Root, Martha L. (1937). "Russia's Cultural Contribution to the Bahá'í Faith". The Bahá’í World. 6. New York: Bahá’í Publishing Committee. pp. 707–712.
  19. Smith, Peter (2000). "Grinevskaya, Izabella Arkadevna (1864–1944)". A Concise Encyclopedia of the Bahá'í Faith. Oneworld Publications.
  20. "Grinevskaia, Izabella Arkadievna (1864 – 1944)". A Bit of History. Retrieved 9 July 2020.

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