Grinevskaya, Isabella Arkadyevna

The daughter of the Jewish writer Abraham Friedberg (1838, Grodno - 1902, Warsaw) ^{[5] [6]} . After graduating from high school, in the late 1880s. She came to Petersburg, where she studied at the Higher Women's (Bestuzhevskiy) courses . Collaborated in the "Encyclopedic Dictionary" Efron. She began writing Yiddish in the 1880s in St. Petersburg ^[7] . The first publication is the story "Der yosem" ( orphan ) in the first issue of the magazine "Der Heyz-Freind" for 1888 (a separate edition - Warsaw, 1895). For this publication the stories "In der Fremd" ( in a foreign land , in "Der Hayes-Freind"), "Nisht oysgehaltn" ( unrestrained , in "Yudishe Libraries"). The story “Fun glyc tzum Keyver, and Hosn af oytstsoln” ( from luck to the grave, the groom to the payment ) was published in a separate edition in Warsaw in 1894, the story “Der Rayher Feter” (the rich uncle ) - in the same place in 1895. Used the literary pseudonym "Isabella". In 1886, she married the Jewish writer Mordkhe Spektor (1858–1925), the founder of the Der Haz-Freind magazine, in which she debuted as a prose writer ^{[1] [8]} . The following year, she moved with her husband to her father in Warsaw, where the marriage broke up ^[9] . Later I began to write in Russian and, according to some sources, in Polish.

In the 1890s she lived in Odessa for a while. The literary activity in Russian began with translations, later printed poems, plays, short stories, articles, published a number of books, her one-act plays were staged in metropolitan and provincial scenes. She herself played on stage (under the pseudonym of Tamarin ) ^{[10] [11]} , taught performing arts and recitation. In 1891, several of her articles on the East were published in Zvezda magazine: India, Japan, and Africa ^[12] . In 1895, she published the play “First Thunderstorm”, followed by a series of one-act plays (“Labor Day”, “Play for Driving”, “Fire”, “Dance Lesson”, “Letter”, “Relative Lunch”, “Petition”, “The Bear Hunt”, “By the None”, “The Letter from the Village”, “Conspired” and others) that went on the stages of the imperial theaters; a collection of one-act plays and monologues was published twice ^[13] . In 1897 she published the translation into Russian of the novel A. de Saint-Quentin “The Love of the Babis” (A. de Saint-Quentin “Un amour au pays des mages” - “Love in the Land of the Mages”, 1891). In 1897, her brochure “Exhibition in Stockholm” was also published. Collection "Lights: Stories; Poems; Plays " was released in 1900. The Poems collection was published in St. Petersburg in 1904 (St. Petersburg: Tipo-lithograph by B. M. Wolf, 1904) - the earliest poems in the collection are dated 1897. In 1905 she was a member of the repertoire council of the Modern Theater N. N. Otradina ^[14] .

She wrote and published a large number of works in various genres, but the most famous were her plays “The Bab” (St. Petersburg, 1903, 1916; staged at the Theater of the Literary and Art Society in St. Petersburg in 1904) and “ Beha-Ulla ” (St. Petersburg, 1912), dedicated to the founders of the newest religious teachings of modernity - Babism and Baha'ism - Bab and Baha'u'llah .

Starting work on the play “The Bab” as a historical drama, Grinevskaya herself was attracted by his teachings and later became a follower of the Bahá’í teachings (possibly the first in Russia). The mood on the eve of the 1905 revolution in Russia was favorable for the perception of the democratic social teachings of the Bab, which, in addition to the literary quality of the play, determined the success of the play and the production.

But all of us, all tyrants,
The most insignificant of us
Over his sacrifice
Mocks at every hour.
... people will be born at every hour
And every hour tyrants give birth, -
On thrones, in huts, in shacks and palaces,
And if we want vengeance in our hearts
Tyrants of all cast down,
It is necessary to endlessly pour blood streams,
As long as there is one that leaves the sword.

"Ah, throw the swords ... hide your swords."

In the letter to Grinevskaya on October 22, 1903, L. N. Tolstoy approvingly responded to the play “The Bab” (LXXIV, 207–08), he was deeply interested in the history and teachings of Bab and Bahá’u’lláh.

In the process of working on the play, Grinevskaya studied the works of historians and orientalists (she names A. Kazembek , M. A. Gamazov and A. G. Tumansky as her sources). Nevertheless, the historical realities turn out to be deliberately distorted in her: the Bab grows in the house of her father Gurrat ul-Ain , turns out to be her dairy brother, a novel develops between them, the Bab preaches in Shiraz in the bazaar, etc. Bahá’ís, Religious Manifestations cannot be depicted on stage at all (not only Bab and Baha’u’llah, but also, for example, Buddha or Jesus), Grinevskaya, while working on the play “The Bab”, obviously could not have known. When a few years later, Abdu'l-Baha became acquainted with the texts of the plays of Grinevskaya, he made an unprecedented exception for her.

The accents in the play “Beha-Ulla” develop the ideas of non-violent, spiritual transformation of society, begun in the first of the plays. Bahá'u'lláh declares himself the messenger of God, whom the Bab prophesied:

... I hear the call of Allah.
Come all after me, we shall rise from the dust.
I am not afraid of death! Come, friends, for Him!
Allah is calling - I am with Him, friends, invincible!
Here the clouds swept by. Passed, passed eclipse -
There the sun is burning purple and gold.
I am invincible with Him. See also: patience -
It is my shield
Forgiveness -
My spear. Love is my sword, that's all
My weapons!

In 1910, Grinevskaya, as a Bahá’í pilgrim, went on a long journey to the countries of the Middle East and in the vicinity of Alexandria she managed to meet and talk with Abdu’l-Bahá . Abdu'l-Bahá expressed his approval for Grinevskaya’s literary activity and asked her about her wishes. Grinevskaya replied that she would like to see her plays “The Bab” and “Beha-Ulla” translated into German and French . Abdu'l-Baha said her wishes would come true. The translation of the play “The Bab” into the German pen of Friedrich Fiedler did exist, but it is not known whether it survived. Work was also being done on the French translation (interpreter of Halperin), with respect to whose fate nothing is known. According to Martha Ruth, Abdu'l-Baha predicted Grinevskaya also that these plays will be staged once in Tehran.

Traveling in the East, the writer kept a travel diary, excerpts from which periodically appeared in the St. Petersburg and Odessa newspapers. This essay, with a total volume of more than 500 pages, entitled “Journey to the Edges of the Sun”, was completed in 1914, but was never fully published ^[15] .

Despite the ban on the activities of Bahá’í groups in Soviet Russia since the end of the 1920s, the Grinevskaya Leningrad home address continues to be openly published as a contact address in all issues of Bahá'í World in the 1930s and 1940s, until the death of Grinevskaya in 1944.

In 1915 she performed with her own private enterprise ^[14] . In 1916, according to the script of I. A. Grinevskaya, the film “The Game of Chance” was shot.

Little is known from the life of Isabella Grinevskaya after the 1917 revolution. Her only book for all the post-revolutionary time - a collection of poems "Pavlovsk", dated 1922.

At the beginning of June, in July and August 1937, she applied to E. P. Peshkova with petitions for help in alleviating the fate of those arrested by Ekaterina Sergeyevna and Dmitry Nikolaevich Veselovsky ^[16] . On the same occasion I wrote a letter to the head of the Sevostoklag.

I. A. Grinevskaya died in 1944 after the blockade of Leningrad was lifted ^[15] . Her blockade records were published posthumously (Yearbook of the Manuscript Department of Pushkin House, 2014).

Had a daughter ^[17] .

• 1894—1944 - Nakhimson Avenue , house number 10, apartment number 32

• Grinevskaya, Isabella. Bab. A dramatic poem from the history of Persia. In 5 acts and 6 scenes. 2nd Edition. Petrograd, 1916.
  • On the server of the electronic library ImWerden : [1]
• I. Sh. Press reviews about the dramatic poem “The Bab” (from Persian life) by Isabella Grinevskaya. St. Petersburg, 1916
• Root, Martha. Russia's Cultural Contribution to the Bahá'í Faith. The Bahá'í World, 1934-1936, vol. VI, p. 707-712.
• Momen, Moojan. The Bábí and Bahá'í Religions, 1844-1944. Some Contemporary Western Accounts. George Ronald: Oxford, 1981. ISBN 0-85398-102-7 , p. 50-51.
• Grinevskaya, Isabella Arkadyevna. Pavlovsk / I. A. Grinevskaya. - Pg. : Ed. Pavlovsky Dep. Society for the Study, Promotion and Artistic Preservation of Old Petersburg and its Suburbs, 1922. - 32 p.
• Alexander Slivkin. We on Nakhimson Avenue

• Grinevskaya, Isabella Arkadyevna // New Encyclopedic Dictionary : In 48 volumes (29 volumes have been published). - SPb. , Pg. , 1911-1916.
• WWW.BAHAI.SU - RUSSIAN-LANGUAGE INTERNET-PORTAL BAHAI .