Background
Maria Watson was born on December 1, 1848, near the city of Balta, Podolia province (now Balta, Odes'ka Oblast', Ukraine).
Maria Watson was born on December 1, 1848, near the city of Balta, Podolia province (now Balta, Odes'ka Oblast', Ukraine).
Maria Watson received home education. In 1865 she graduated from the Smolny Institute of Noble Maidens.
In 1874 Maria Watson married Ernest Watson. She became close to the revolutionary-democratic and liberal circles of the St. Petersburg intelligentsia — to N.K. Mikhailovsky, P.F. Yakubovich, V.G. Korolenko, G.A. Lopatin, N.A. Morozov, and others. Her works first appeared in print in 1876. Later Maria published 2 books such as Poems and War, marked by grandiloquence, an abundance of cliches, and self-repetitions in the transmission of civil and love feelings.
The proficiency in a number of foreign languages such as English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese allowed Maria Watson to do translations both poetic and prosaic. Then there was an interest in studying the history of foreign literature, mainly Spanish and Portuguese. The most significant articles are Larra, the Spanish satirist, Spanish satire of the 30s, Espronseda, Portugal and its literature. In 1899, she took the publication of “The Italian Library”, she owns 6 issues of critical biographical essays. In 1905 Maria Watson visited Spain where she met E. Pardo Basan, P. Galdos, B. Ibáñez. Later she corresponded with him. In 1907, he published the only complete novel by M. Cervantes at that time “The Witty and Inventive Hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha”.
In Soviet times a number of Maria Watson translations were published. At the end of her life, she turned to memories that remained incomplete.