Melanie Rauk

Melanie Rauk (July 25, 1905 – January 25, 1978) was an Estonian teacher and translator.

Family and education Melanie Rauk's father, Ivan (Juhan, Johan) Rauk (1880–?), was a municipal clerk, and he fled to Canada in 1906 after participating in the Russian Revolution of 1905. Melanie Rauk emigrated to Canada with her mother, Leena (or Jelena) Rauk (née Kuut 1871–1955) to join him in 1911. She graduated from high school in Prince Rupert, British Columbia, in 1923.

In 1924,

Career Rauk worked as an editor of English-language textbooks in Leningrad from 1931 to 1933, and as an English teacher at the Military Medical Academy in Leningrad from 1934 to 1938. She spent 1938 to 1939 in a prison camp, from which she returned to Estonia in 1940. She enrolled in graduate studies at the University of Tartu and studied English while working as an English teacher. Starting in October 1940, she worked as a censor at Glavlit. In 1945 she became a teacher and the head of the English department at the Chelyabinsk Pedagogical Institute. and from 1949 to 1954 the head of the English language department at Tallinn Pedagogical University. From 1954 to 1977 she taught grammatical theory and was the head of the English department at Tallinn Pedagogical University.

Rauk carried out research on pedagogy and language teaching methodology. She published more than 60 English textbooks and dictionaries, including reprints. She also translated Estonian fiction into English.