Alexis Rannit (born Alexey Konstantinovich Dolgoshev - Алексей Константинович Долгошев; Estonian: Aleksis Rannit; 14 October 1914 – 5 January 1985) was an Estonian poet, critic and literature researcher.

Biography

He was born in Kallaste, in the Governorate of Livonia of the Russian Empire (nowadays in

Tartumaa Tartu County ( et, Tartu maakond or ''Tartumaa'') is one of 15 counties of Estonia. It is located in eastern Estonia bordering Põlva County, Valga County, Viljandi County and Jõgeva County. The area of Tartu County is , which covers 6.9% of t ...

, Estonia). He spent his childhood in Saint Petersburg. In 1939, he graduated from the University of Tartu. He studied applied arts. He did research on

Lithuanian literature Lithuanian literature ( lt, lietuvių literatūra) concerns the art of written works created by Lithuanians throughout their history. History Latin language A wealth of Lithuanian literature was written in Latin, the main scholarly language in ...

and knew personally many Lithuanian authors. From 1938 to 1940 he worked as a correspondent of the

Riga Riga (; lv, Rīga , liv, Rīgõ) is the capital and largest city of Latvia and is home to 605,802 inhabitants which is a third of Latvia's population. The city lies on the Gulf of Riga at the mouth of the Daugava river where it meets the Ba ...

newspaper Segodnya. In 1940 he married Lithuanian opera singer Gražina Matulaitytė (1899–1993), moved to

Kaunas Kaunas (; ; also see other names) is the second-largest city in Lithuania after Vilnius and an important centre of Lithuanian economic, academic, and cultural life. Kaunas was the largest city and the centre of a county in the Duchy of Trakai ...

, where he worked until 1941 as a translator at the

Kaunas State Drama Theatre The National Kaunas Drama Theatre is the biggest theatre in Kaunas, and one of the oldest functioning theatres in Lithuania. There are six different creative spaces for events in the Kaunas Drama Theatre. History Its beginnings date to the 1 ...

, and later as a librarian at the Lithuanian National Library (until 1944). In 1944, as the Red Army was approaching, Rannit emigrated to Germany, where he continued with his studies at the Institute of applied arts in Freiburg (1946–1950). In 1953 he moved to the US. He remarried. From 1954 to 1960 he worked as librarian in the Art and Architecture division of the

New York Public Library The New York Public Library (NYPL) is a public library system in New York City. With nearly 53 million items and 92 locations, the New York Public Library is the second largest public library in the United States (behind the Library of Congress ...

. In 1956 he defended his master's thesis on arts history (annotated critical biography of Ciurlionis) at the Columbia University (New York). He worked as a research fellow and curator of Slavic and Eastern European collections at the

University of Yale Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

. Rannit was honorary doctor of a number of European (incl. University of Stockholm), American and Korean universities, founding member of International Association of Arts Critics, represented the Estonian authors at the

PEN club PEN International (known as International PEN until 2010) is a worldwide association of writers, founded in London in 1921 to promote friendship and intellectual co-operation among writers everywhere. The association has autonomous Internationa ...

, belonged to the editorial staff of Continent. Аlexis Rannit died on 5 January 1985 at his home in New Haven, Connecticut.

Works

Rannit started writing poems in Russian, since 1930 wrote in Estonian. Rannit translated Lithuanian poets' worksАлексис Раннит. В оконном переплете
/ref> into Estonian. He has published seven collections of poetry. Rannit's works have been translated into English, Russian, Hungarian, Lithuanian and German language.

External links

Aleksis Rannit Papers
General Collection

Yale University.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rannit, Alexis 1914 births 1985 deaths People from Peipsiääre Parish People from the Governorate of Livonia Estonian male poets Literary historians 20th-century Estonian poets 20th-century Estonian historians 20th-century male writers Writers from New Haven, Connecticut Columbia University alumni Estonian emigrants to the United States Estonian World War II refugees