Eugenia Kazimirovna Gertsyk was a noted Russian translator and literary figure from the Silver Age. Since the demise of the USSR, she has become noted for her memoirs and extensive letter correspondence, which provides a unique glimpse into the interwar years of Russia's past.
Background
Eugenia Kazimirovna Gertsyk was born on September 30, 1878, in Alexandrov, Vladimir, Russian Federation to Sofia Maximilianovna (nee Tidebel) and Kasimir Antonovich Lubny-Gertsyk. Her mother, who died when Eugenia Kazimirovna and her sister, Adelaida, were young children was of German and Swiss heritage, though the family was entirely Russified, they were Lutheran.
Education
All the children received a broad early education from tutors and governesses, which included the study of five languages encompassing Polish and Italian, among others. They also traveled to Europe to experience diverse cultures during their childhood. Eugenia Kazimirovna went on to further her education studying history and philosophy entering the Bestuzhev Courses in 1901, from which she graduated with honors in 1905.
Career
Eugenia Kazimirovna began her career as a translator, working on translations of writers such as Edward Carpenter, Joris-Karl Huysmans, William James, and Friedrich Nietzsche, among others. She also wrote translations with her sister, of the works of Jean-Marie Guyau, Immanuel Kant, and Nietzsche. Eugenia Kazimirovna published critical essays and articles, like Unclaimed in a Quiet Pool, published in 1906 in Golden Fleece magazine about Dmitri Merezhkovsky. In 1906 and again in 1913, she traveled to Rome, describing her impressions in the essay My Rome. The second trip was made after her conversion from Lutheranism to Russian Orthodoxy in 1911. Eugenia Kazimirovna became a close friend of the poet, Vyacheslav Ivanov, defending his classicist style against more modern trends in Russian literature and wrote an article The Religion of the Suffering God about him.
Between 1915 and 1917, Eugenia Kazimirovna lived with her sister Adelaida at her home in Moscow. During the Russian Revolution the entire family, including her brother, Vladimir, and his family, lived in Sudak. The intellectual community living there included such people as the actress Lyudmila Erarskaya, poet Sophia Parnok, composer and musician Alexander Spendiarov, and poet Maximilian Voloshin. As a group, the intellectual community worked on productions for their own entertainment. Parnok and both Gertsyk sisters wrote verse, Spendiarov wrote songs, and Erarskaya staged plays, Parnok viewed Eugenia Kazimirovna as a spiritual mother, someone who was helping her mature in her devotion. Letters exchanged with other intellectuals like Nikolai Berdyaev, who called her the "most remarkable woman of the twentieth century", and Lydia Berdyaev reflect her philosophical nature and quest to understand man's place in the universe.
The family home in Moscow was nationalized during the war, forcing the Gertsyk clan to remain in Crimea, despite the desperate conditions and famines. Her sister died in Sudak in 1925 and the following year, Adelaide's husband Dmitry Evgenievich Zhukovsky was banished to the Vologda Oblast. In 1927, Eugenia Kazimirovna, along with Vladimir, his invalid wife Lyubov Aleksandrovna, and their daughter Veronika moved to the Caucasus. Eugenia Kazimirovna provided the constant care and nursing needed by Lyubov Aleksandrovna, who had polyarthritis and helped with raising her niece. They lived in various places, such as Kislovodsk, where they remained for eleven years. Then they briefly lived in Zelenchuk and Batalpashinsk, before moving to the Central Chernozem Reserve. Around this same time, Eugenia Kazimirovna began to write her memoirs in 1936 and continued her wide correspondence with many Russian émigrés. In 1941, the reserve was evacuated and the family moved to the small village of Zelenaya Steppe. During the Nazi Occupation, which lasted from 1941 to 1943 her sister-in-law died and Gertsyk finished her memoirs.
Eugenia Kazimirovna died on 20 January 1944 at a farm in the village of Zelenaya Steppe in the Kursk Oblast.
Religion
In 1911 Eugenia Kazimirovna converted to Orthodoxy.
Personality
Eugenia Kazimirovna Gertsyk's refined culture, its sensitivity to philosophical and aesthetic trends of the era made her a prominent figure surrounded by outstanding personalities. She had a vast list of friends, often famous writers and philosophers of the time. Many pages of her memoirs are devoted to her meetings and "interviews" with them.
Physical Characteristics:
Eugenia Kazimirovna had big bright eyes, dark hair, and puffy lips. She resembled her older sister a lot.
Quotes from others about the person
Nikolai Berdyaev: "One of the most remarkable women of the beginning of the XX century. Sophisticated, cultural, imbued with the trends of the Renaissance era."