Евгения Студенская

Еvgeniya Studenskaya (7 December 1874, Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire — 17 May 1906, Tsarskoye Selo, Russia) was a Russian poet, translator, and literary critic. Her best-known work was a translation of Der Warjag poem by Austrian poet Rudolf Greinz, adopted by Aleksey Turischev (1888—1962) as an overwhelmingly popular military march "Our proud Varyag won't Surrender to the Enemy" (Врагу не сдается нашъ гордый „Варягъ“). Eugenia was married to the Military Medical Academy private docent Aleksandr Alekseevich Studensky (1871—1903) between late 1897 and his death from tuberculosis. She remarried to Russian-German scholar Fyodor Aleksandrovich Braun (1862—1942) in 1904. Studenskaya died at 32 just two years later from tuberculosis she contracted while attending A. A. Studensky on his deathbed. Name variations: Евгения Михайловна Студенская, Шершевская, Evgeniya Mikhailovna Studenskaya, Shershevskaya, Evgeniia Studentskaya. Born in an affluent family of doctors, Eugenia studied history and philology at the St. Petersburg Imperial University. She began translating poetry from German, English, Italian, Danish, and Swedish as a student, and first published in 1894 at Bulletin of Foreign Literature ("Вѣстникъ Иностранной Литературы") magazine. Evgeniya began collaborating with the New Journal of Foreign Literature, Art and Science ("Новый журналъ иностранной литературы, искусства и науки") in 1897, publishing translations and critical essays on European writers. Some of the prominent authors Studenskaya translated included Gustaf Fröding, Holger Drachmann, Antonio Fogazzaro, Lorenzo Stecchetti, Enrico Panzacchi, and Rudyard Kipling; alongside Mariya Davidova, she introduced Russian readers to Yann Nibor. Evgeniya often published under just initials, E.M. and "Е. М. Ш," also adopting her husband's last name, "Studenskaya," after she married. In 1904, Eugenia Studenskaya founded "Der Warjag" by Tyrol poet Rudolf Greinz (1866—1942), dedicated to the heroism of the naval crew of Varyag ("Варяг") cruiser in the Battle of Chemulpo Bay in the Russo-Japanese War, in a popular German magazine Jugend ("Youth"). Her translation, alongside the original, appeared in the New Journal's April 1904 issue. Soon adopted as a military march, it became immensely popular as the Russian Navy's unofficial "hymn." (The lyrics got abridged in the First World War, with the third verse removed as Japan and Russia became allies.) On several instances in Russian modern history, sailors of the sinking vessels sang "Varyag" moments before dying, including the October 1955 explosion of the Novorossiysk dreadnought battleship near Sevastopol and the April 1989 fire on K-278 "Komsomolets" nuclear submarine. In February 1977, during the devastating fire at "Rossiya Hotel" in Moscow (the world's largest hotel at the time), restaurant visitors trapped by fire also sang "Varyag."