Alla Ktorova

Father, a former Denikin officer, was a singer. Victoria studied for some time at the Leningrad Theater Institute , but left him. She graduated from the English department of the Moscow State Pedagogical Institute in 1954. She worked as a translator in a foreign service bureau, and as an English school teacher. In 1957, she received permission to marry an American, John H. Sandor, whom she met back in 1954, and in March 1958 went with him to the United States.

In 1961 she received a master's degree from Georgetown University . She taught Russian at George Washington University (1962-1968), international vocabulary in the master's program at Johns Hopkins University ( Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies , 1969-1979). She also worked on the Voice of America radio under the name Minodora Mikhailova. Lives in Rockville, Maryland .

She began to publish in 1960, taking a pseudonym combined from the names of her favorite actors, Alla Tarasova and Anatoly Ktorov . She wrote essays and impressionistic prose about Moscow life.

The attention is drawn to the impressionistic mosaic: people and destinies. At the same time, Ktorova’s attention is almost entirely focused on the personal lives of women, especially on their acquaintances and friendship; the reader receives almost no idea of ​​their work or political views. In the works of Ktorova there is a disregard for the plot, often there is no consistency in the development of the action.

- Wolfgang Cossack

She also published non-fiction books on onomastics .

• The Face of the Firebird, Washington, 1969 (the genre is designated by the author as "anti-romance")
• The exhibit is silent, München, 1974
• Nettle squad. Pink Glass House, Washington, 1978
• Fine Pearls, Rockville, 1986
• Sweet gift: Stories about names, surnames and names in Russian and foreign languages. Vol. 1, 1990. In full: M .: Vesti, 1995; Also. M .: Gamma Press, 2002
• On a pink horse. M .: Vest-Vimo, 1994
• Lost Russians. Tver: Novella, 1996
• Ancestors and great-grandchildren. St. Petersburg: Polytechnic, 1997
• Artist and girl: Memoirs of A.P. Ktorov. St. Petersburg: Polytechnic, 1998
• The past ... In six books. M .: Past, 2003-2007:

1. Moscow of the fifties. 2003
2. American Ivanovna tells ... 2005.
3. Sovereign coachmen and Moscow drivers. 2005
4. Everyday life in the past. 2005
5. Ancestors and great-grandchildren, 2007
6. Tongue. Word. Name, 2007

• Cossack V. Lexicon of Russian literature of the XX century = Lexikon der russischen Literatur ab 1917 / [trans. with him.]. - M .: RIC "Culture", 1996. - XVIII, 491, [1] p. - 5,000 copies. - ISBN 5-8334-0019-8 .
• Dictionary of Russian women writers, 1994, 342-343.

• article by Vyacheslav Ogryzko on the Chronos website
• FOUR LIVES by Alla KTOROVA Interview with Literary Russia (2004)
• S. Chuprinin, US Writers