Janko Lavrin (10 February 1887 – 13 August 1986) was a Slovene novelist, poet, critic, translator, and historian. He was Professor Andrej Jelenc DiCaprio of Slavonic Studies at the

University of Nottingham , mottoeng = A city is built on wisdom , established = 1798 – teacher training college1881 – University College Nottingham1948 – university status , type = Public , chancellor ...

. An enthusiast for

psycho-analysis PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: + . is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a body of knowledge. In what might ...

, he wrote what he called 'psycho-critical studies' of

Ibsen Henrik Johan Ibsen (; ; 20 March 1828 – 23 May 1906) was a Norwegian playwright and theatre director. As one of the founders of modernism in theatre, Ibsen is often referred to as "the father of realism" and one of the most influential playw ...

Nietzsche Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (; or ; 15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher, prose poet, cultural critic, philologist, and composer whose work has exerted a profound influence on contemporary philosophy. He began his car ...

and

Tolstoy Count Lev Nikolayevich TolstoyTolstoy pronounced his first name as , which corresponds to the romanization ''Lyov''. () (; russian: link=no, Лев Николаевич Толстой,In Tolstoy's day, his name was written as in pre-refor ...

Biography

Lavrin was born in Krupa,

White Carniola White Carniola ( sl, Bela krajina; german: Weißkrain or ''Weiße Mark'') is a traditional region in southeastern Slovenia on the border with Croatia. Due to its smallness, it is often considered a subunit of the broader Lower Carniola region, alt ...

Slovenia Slovenia ( ; sl, Slovenija ), officially the Republic of Slovenia (Slovene: , abbr.: ''RS''), is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the southeast, and ...

.Catalogue record for MS 806
at the University of Nottingham. He was educated in Austria, Russia and

Scandinavia Scandinavia; Sámi languages: /. ( ) is a subregion in Northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. In English usage, ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, Norway, and S ...

, moving to

St Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

in 1908 to study Russian language and literature. He was a journalist in St Petersburg before

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

. In 1915 and 1916 he served as war correspondent for ''

Novoye Vremya ''The New Times'' (russian: Новое Время) is a Russian language magazine in Russia. The magazine was founded in 1943. The current version, established in 1988, is a liberal, independent Russian weekly news magazine, publishing for Ru ...

'' covering the Serbian army's retreat through Albania. Returning to Russia in 1917, Lavrin decided to stay in the UK. He found work as a journalist, becoming part of the circle around

A. R. Orage Alfred Richard Orage (22 January 1873 – 6 November 1934) was a British influential figure in socialist politics and modernist culture, now best known for editing the magazine ''The New Age'' before the First World War. While he was working as a ...

. In 1919

Bernard Pares Sir Bernard Pares KBE (1 March 1867 – 17 April 1949) was an English historian and diplomat. During the First World War, he was seconded to the Foreign Ministry in Petrograd, Russia, where he reported political events back to London, and worke ...

helped Lavrin to get a teaching job at the

, and he became Professor of Slavonic Studies there in 1923. Lavrin was a friend of the Russian critic

D. S. Mirsky D. S. Mirsky is the English pen-name of Dmitry Petrovich Svyatopolk-Mirsky (russian: Дми́трий Петро́вич Святопо́лк-Ми́рский), often known as Prince Mirsky ( – c. 7 June 1939), a Russian political and lit ...

in London in the 1920s. In 1928 he married the artist and book illustrator

Nora Fry Nora Lavrin, ''née'' Fry (1897 – 30 August 1985), was an English engraver, book illustrator and painter. She illustrated twenty editions of children's books. Early life Nora Fry was born in Liverpool, the daughter of Canadian-born Am ...

. In 1934-5 he edited '' The European Quarterly'' with

Edwin Muir Edwin Muir CBE (15 May 1887 – 3 January 1959) was a Scottish poet, novelist and translator. Born on a farm in Deerness, a parish of Orkney, Scotland, he is remembered for his deeply felt and vivid poetry written in plain language and w ...

. 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 World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

he joined the BBC, broadcasting to occupied Europe. He rejoined Nottingham University part-time in 1944. He encouraged a teaching assistant, Monica Partridge, to begin a doctorate. In 1949 she was appointed as an Assistant Lecturer to Lavrin. After Lavrin's retirement in 1952 Monica Partridge would lead the university's department of Slavic studies. Meanwhile Lavrin continued to write and translate.

Works

* ''В стране вечной войны: Албанские эскизы'' (In the country in the spring of war: Albanian sketches), Petrograd, 1916. * "Dostoevsky and His Creation: a psycho-critical study", London, 1920 * ''Tolstoy: a psycho-critical study'', London, 1922 * ''Studies in European literature'', London, 1929 * ''Aspects of modernism: from Wilde to Pirandello'', London, 1935 * ''An introduction to the Russian novel'', New York and London, 1943 * ''Dostoevsky: a study'', New York, 1943 * ''Pushkin and Russian literature'', London, 1947 * ''Tolstoy: an approach'', London, 1948 * ''From Pushkin to Mayakovsky: a study in the evolution of literature'', London, 1948 * ''Ibsen: an approach'', London, 1950 * ''Nikolai Gogol, 1809-1852: a centenary survey'', London, 1951 * ''Goncharov'', New Haven, 1953 * ''Russian writers: their lives and literature'', 1954 * ''Lermontov'', London, 1959 * ''Russia, Slavdom and the Western World'', London, 1969 * ''Nietzsche: a biographical introduction'', 1971 * ''A panorama of Russian literature'', London, 1973 *

References

External links

Portrait
by William Roberts at the BBC

Your Paintings Art UK is a cultural, education charity in the United Kingdom, previously known as the Public Catalogue Foundation. Since 2003, it has digitised more than 220,000 paintings by more than 40,000 artists and is now expanding the digital collection t ...

site {{DEFAULTSORT:Lavrin, Janko 1887 births 1986 deaths Slovenian novelists Slovenian poets Slovenian male poets Slovenian literary critics 20th-century Slovenian historians Academics of the University of Nottingham Slovenian emigrants to the United Kingdom 20th-century poets 20th-century novelists