Maya Ulanovskaya

Maya Aleksandrovna Ulanovskaya, also known as Maiia Ulanovskie and Maria Ulanovsky (Russian: Майя Александровна Улановская, Hebrew: מאיה אולאנובסקאיה; October 20, 1932 – June 25, 2020) was an American-born Russian-Israeli who, together with her husband Anatoly Yakobson, participated in the dissident movement in the USSR and became a professor, writer, and translator in Israel.

Background

Maya Aleksandrovna Ulanovskaya was born in New York City while her Jewish parents were stationed there as Soviet resident spies and Soviet intelligence officer illegals for the GRU. Her father was Alexander Ulanovsky (1891–1971). Her mother was Nadezhda Ulanovskaya (1903–1986). In a 1952 memoir, Whittaker Chambers, who reported to the Ulanovskys in the early 1930s, noted Nadezhda's pregnancy and also noted that Ulanovskaya had an older brother, "kept hostage at school in Russia (the boy was killed fighting against the Germans during the Nazi invasion)."

Career USSR

In 1948–1949, Ulanovskaya's parents were arrested on political charges. Her parents were among those cited in The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

In 1949, Ulanovskaya graduated from school and entered the Moscow Institute of Food Industry. At the institute, she met members of and joined an underground anti-Stalinist organization, organized by students Boris Slutsky, Yevgeny Gurevich, and Vladilen Furman in 1950.

Personal life

In 1956, Ulanovskaya married Anatoly Yakobson; in 1959, they had a son, Alexander Yakobson. In 1973, Ulanovskaya immigrated with her husband, son, and mother to Israel.

Works

Ulanovskaya wrote a memoir with her mother that recounts the lives of two generations of their family. Stalinism and Soviet post-war youth Women's history Russian women writers

Writings: История одной семьи (translated History of One Family) (New York: Chalidze, 1982) (Russian) История одной семьи (Moscow: Vest-VIMO, 1994) История одной семьи (St. Petersburg: INAPRESS, 2003) История одной семьи (St. Petersburg: INAPRESS, 2005) The Family Story (2016) (Hannover, NH: Seven Arts/Lulu, 2016) Jews in the culture of the Russian emigre (1995) Internal Plan of Life (on Vladimir Gershuni) (1996) Freedom and dogma: the life and work of Arthur Koestler (1996) "Why Koestler?" (1997) The Jewish National Library and its Russian Roots (1999) On Anatoly Yacobson (2010) The Serene Breathing of Sadness (2017) by Anatoly Yakobson (compiler)

Translations Hebrew to Russian: The Book of Testimony (1989) by Abba Kovner = יום זה: מגילת עדות Letters Yoni: portrait of a hero (1984) by Yonatan Netanyahu = מכתבי יוני The Last Fight Yoni (2001) by Yonatan Netanyahu = הקרב האחרון של יוני

Translations English to Russian: Thieves in the Night (1981) by Arthur Koestler The Thirteenth Tribe (1998) by Arthur Koestler Arrival and Departure (2017) by Arthur Koestler

Translations Yiddish to Russian: My memories (2009, 2012) by Yechezkel Kotik = מיינע זכרונות