Eva Priester

Eva Priester, née Eva Beatrice Feinstein, (1910 – 1982) was a Russian-born Austrian journalist, poet and socialist activist. After spending periods in Berlin, Vienna and Prague, in 1939 she emigrated to the United Kingdom where, while working for the BBC, she joined London's Austrian Centre and the Free Austrian Movement. During this period, she edited and published poetry in the wartime journal Zeitspiegel, including some of her own works. In 1946, Priester returned to Austria where she joined the Communist Party (KPÔ), edited its journal Die Woche and contributed to Ôsterreichische Volksstimme. She also published several books including a Marxist-oriented history of Austria titled Kurze Geschichte Ôsterreichs. In 1951, she was a member of the group of activists who, on behalf of the Women's International Democratic Federation, visited Korea to examine conditions during the Korean War.

Early life Born on 15 July 1910 in Saint Petersburg, Eva Beatrice Feinstein was the daughter of Salomon Feinstein, a highly qualified technician, and his wife Ljuba, née Wolpe, who had studied at the Sorbonne. An only child, Eva was brought up in a secular Jewish family in a well-to-do district of the city. She was tutored at home, learning German from a governess from Cologne from the age of seven.

As conditions worsened in Saint Petersburg, the family moved to Berlin where Eva was first tutored at home and then attended the state high school Cecilien-Lyzeum in Lichtenberg until 1921.

Eva Priester died in Moscow on 15 August 1982 while visiting a health spa.

Contributions as a writer Priester's poetry, especially the verses she wrote while in exile in Czechoslovakia and London, has recently received attention. Some of her poems were first published by Free Austrian Books or the newspaper Zeitspiegel in London but most were later republished in 1946 by Globus Verlag, Vienna, in the collection Aus Krieg und Nachkrieg. Gedichte und Ûbertragungen. She is also considered to have been a highly competent translator of verse.

She is remembered in Austria for her Kurze Geschichte Ôsterreichs (Short History of Austria), a two-volume Marxist-oriented account of Austrian history which she had started writing while in London.