Ekaterina Yurievna Genieva, OBE (Екатери́на Ю́рьевна Гéниева; April 1, 1946 – July 9, 2015) was a Russian librarian. She was director of the

Margarita Rudomino All-Russia State Library for Foreign Literature The Margarita Rudomino All-Russian State Library For Foreign Literature, historically known as the All-Union Library of Foreign Literature under the Soviet Union is a special library that focuses primarily on the acquisition of foreign literature ...

from 1993 to 2015."Ekaterina Genieva; Moscow librarian who helped Russians to access thousands of western books as the Soviet Union collapsed." ''Times'' ondon, England 23 July 2015, p. 49. Genieva was born in Moscow. Her mother was a physician and she was raised by her grandmother. She studied English literature at Moscow State University and defended her dissertation in 1972 on James Joyce. It was the first dissertation in the Soviet Union on the author, who was widely banned in the country. She went on to write criticism and bibliographies of many authors, including

Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian e ...

, Jane Austen,

Virginia Woolf Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer, considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors and a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device. Woolf was born i ...

, and the Brontës. She joined the Library for Foreign Literature in 1971 and spent the rest of her career there. The library held works in 140 languages and was a place where people could research subjects and authors that were otherwise banned or forbidden in Soviet Russia. She became deputy directory under Vyacheslav Ivanov in 1990. During the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt, she allowed the Library's photocopiers (access to photocopiers were under close control in the Soviet Union) to be used to publish resistance newspapers. A government official investigated this and Genieva took responsibility. The official simply insisted that they draw the curtains to prevent the light of the photocopiers from being seen from the street. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991, a British initiative called Book Aid which resulted in over one million books were donated to the country. Genieva coordinated the distribution of the books to libraries across the former Soviet Union. In response to concerns about what types of material to send, she said "Send it all! We've had enough of censorship!". Genieva also spearheaded efforts to identify and return over 40,000 books looted from European libraries by Soviet troops during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

. She was president of the Russian

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from 1995 to 2004, which helped establish Internet access, provide textbooks, and fund libraries throughout the country. Among the many awards she received was the Order of the British Empire in 2007. She was also the first woman proposed for membership in the Athenaeum Club.

Personal life

Genieva married engineer Yury Belenky and they had a daughter, Darya. Genieva was a

Russian Orthodox Christian , native_name_lang = ru , image = Moscow July 2011-7a.jpg , imagewidth = , alt = , caption = Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow, Russia , abbreviation = ROC , type ...

. She was a supporter of Father Alexander Men and on the board of the

Russian Bible Society The Bible Society in Russia (russian: Российское Библейское Общество) is a Christian non-denominational organization for translating and distributing the Bible in Russia, in languages and formats accessible to anyone. E ...

References

External links

Interview: "“We have reached a point of no return” Russia’s most renowned librarian talks to ‘Meduza’ about state inspections, foreign agents, and cultural exchange"
{{DEFAULTSORT:Genieva, Ekaterina 1946 births 2015 deaths Russian librarians Women librarians Officers of the Order of the British Empire Recipients of the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany Russian writers Russian Orthodox Christians from Russia