Vera Kalitskaya

Vera Pavlovna Kalitskaya (or Vera Pavlovna Abramova-Kalitskaya; née Abramova; pseudonym V. Alien; April 21, 1882, St.Petersburg – May 14, 1951 Leningrad) was a Russian and Soviet writer and publicist, editor, and author of children's, popular science books and memoirs. She was a member of the Leningrad City Committee of Writers and worked as a chemist in the analytical laboratory of the Geological Committee and the All-Russian Oil Research Geological Prospecting Institute.

Early life and education She was born on April 21, 1882 in Saint Petersburg, into the family of a civil servant of the State Control, Pavel Yegorovich Abramov (1852?–1913), and Olga Ivanovna (née Lazareva; 1852?–1887), from the nobility of the Simbirsk Governorate, who owned no real estate.

In 1898, she graduated from the Liteinaya Women's Gymnasium in St. Petersburg with a gold medal.

In 1902, she graduated from the Physics and Mathematics Department of the Higher Women's Courses (Bestuzhev Courses), specializing in chemistry.

From 1902 to 1904, she studied at the Women's Medical Institute in St. Petersburg but left after 2 years.

Career Teacher and medic

From 1904 to 1907, she taught at the Smolensk Classes for Workers of the Technical Society, at the Nikolskoye Women's School, and at the Peskova Gymnasium.

During the revolutionary events of 1905, she worked as a medical worker in the underground revolutionary organization Red Cross, aiding political prisoners, where in 1906 she met the revolutionary and writer A. S. Grin (her first husband from 1910 to 1913).

From November 1910 to May 1912, she was in exile with Grin in Pinega and Kegostrov in the Arkhangelsk Governorate.

Chemist and geologist From 1907 to 1910 and 1914–1922, she worked in the chemical laboratory of the Russian Geological Committee. From 1919, she participated in expeditions to the Volga region and Central Asia with an employee of the Geological Committee, Kasimir Petrovich Kalitsky. After the liquidation of the Geological Committee, from the 1930s she worked (with short breaks) at the All-Union Oil Geological Prospecting Institute (NGRI, VNII, VNIGRI).

From 1941 to 1942, she lived in besieged Leningrad, where her husband, the famous oil geologist K. P. Kalitsky, died of starvation and pneumonia on December 28, 1941.

Literary activity

In 1904, she began publishing her first stories.

She was an employee, and later a member of the editorial board, of the journal "Chto i kak chitat' detyam" (What and How to Read to Children) in St. Petersburg (1912–1914).

She collaborated with journals (articles and editing): "Chitalnya narodnoy shkoly," "Protalinka," "Detskiy otdykh," "Tropinka," "Vskhody," "Vseobshchiy zhurnal."

In the 1920s, she was a member of Marshak's Circle of Children's Writers in Petrograd.

She was a member of the Leningrad City Committee of Writers.

From June 1942 until the summer of 1944, she was evacuated to the city of Kuibyshev.

From 1943 to 1945, she worked on her memoirs about K. P. Kalitsky, which remain unpublished to this day.

From January 1946, she worked as a translator at the Oil Institute (VNIGRI), working from home.

By 1948, she had finished her memoirs about Alexander Grin.

She died on May 14, 1951 in Leningrad at the age of sixty-nine.

She is buried at the Shuvalovskoye Cemetery.

Family First husband (1910 –1913 ) — Alexander Grinevsky (Alexander Grin; 1880–1932) — member of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, writer.

Second husband (from spring 1917, officially from 1920 ) — Kasimir Petrovich Kalitsky (1873–1941) — oil geologist.

Membership in organizations From the 1920s, she was a member of the "Circle of Children's Writers" formed around S. Ya. Marshak. 1934 — Union of Soviet Writers.