Belobrovtseva (née Gazer) Irina Zakharovna (01.04.1946, Riga) – literary scholar and translator, specialist in 20th-century Russian and Soviet literature. Daughter of economist Zakhar Gazer.
Irina Belobrovtseva graduated from Tartu University with a degree in Russian philology. From 1971 to 1975, she worked as a senior lecturer at Tallinn Pedagogical Institute. Due to her sympathy for the dissident movement, she was forced to leave the Baltics and teach at Semipalatinsk Pedagogical Institute. In 1979, she returned to Estonia; until 1986, she worked as a translator at the Institute of Economics of the Academy of Sciences of the Estonian SSR in Tallinn and pursued postgraduate studies at Tallinn Pedagogical Institute. She later worked at the same institute.
From 1990,Irina Belobrovtseva was employed at Tallinn University: between 1991 and 1996 as an associate professor at the Department of Russian Literature, from 1996 to 2002 as a professor, and from 2007 as the head of the Institute of Slavic Languages and Cultures at Tallinn University. In 1997, she earned a Doctor of Philology degree from Tartu University.
Irina Belobrovtseva is the author of over a hundred academic publications, five textbooks and anthologies on Estonian literature for Russian-language schools, and a monograph. Her works appeared in international scholarly collections and journals such as Raduga, Literaturnoe obozrenie, Druzhba narodov, Zvezda, Voprosy filosofii, and others. In 1984, she was awarded a prize by the journal Literaturnoe obozrenie.
Together with V. Belobrovtsev, she translated into Russian the short story collection Heavenly Riders by F. Tuglas, the novel Toomas Nipernaadi by A. Gailit, and other works. She was the initiator and organiser of the Samoylov Readings in Tallinn and Pärnu, a member of the organising committee for international conferences on Russian émigré literature at the “Russian Abroad” Library-Foundation in Moscow, and a director of educational and academic programmes in Slavic studies.
Irina Belobrovtseva participated in the Ruhr University grant project The Journal “Sovremennye zapiski” (2007–2009) and was an international expert in Russian literature at the University of Vienna (2007). Between 2004 and 2007, she was a member of the editorial board of Acta Universitatis Latviensis (Literature, Folklore, Arts), the Estonian-Latvian-Lithuanian Baltic Archive series, and several scholarly collections from Tallinn and Jerusalem universities, as well as the editorial board of the journal Vyshgorod. From 2000 to 2006, she was a member of the academic council of Daugavpils University.
Irina Belobrovtseva lectured on Russian literature and participated in international academic conferences in Latvia, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Poland, Russia, and Finland. In 2008, she received the Second Prize for the Best Academic Monograph of Tallinn University for her book Mikhail Bulgakov’s Novel “The Master and Margarita”: An Attempt at Commentary (co-authored with Svetlana Kulyus).
Works:
The Constructive Principles of Text Organisation in M. Bulgakov’s Novel “The Master and Margarita”, Tartu, 1997.
Under the Clear Sky, Alone and with Hope: On Estonian Literature, Tallinn, 1987.
Mikhail Bulgakov’s Novel “The Master and Margarita”: An Attempt at Commentary, Tallinn, 2004 (co-authored with S. Kulyus).
Mihhail Bulgakovi romaani “Meister ja Margarita” kommentaarid, Tallinn, 2007 (co-authored with S. Kulyus; in Estonian).
References:
Virkus R. Tallinna Pedagoogika Ülikool läbi aegade, Tallinn, 1998, No. 77, p. 109.
On the Anniversary of Irina Zakharovna Belobrovtseva Humanitaro Zinatnu Vestnesis, 2007, No. 9.