Glushkin, Oleg

Oleg Borisovich Glushkin was born in Velikie Luki in 1937. He graduated from Leningrad Shipbuilding Institute and worked in the fishing industry.
In the years after 1990 he was the editor-in-chief of the culture magazines «Запад России» и «Параллели» ("West of Russia" and "Parallels").
He is the author of seventeen books of prose and was awarded the Kant diploma (in the year 2000) for his contribution to the development of culture in the Kaliningrad region and expansion of contacts between Russian and European culture. He was awarded the Inspiration Prize for the book of short stories «Пути паромов» ("The Ferry Roads") and the Recognition Prize for the novel «Саул и Давид» ("Saul and David"). Winner of the "Artiada of the Peoples of Russia".
He is a member of the Regional organization of writers of the Kaliningrad oblast and the executive committee of the Kaliningrad branch of the PEN-Center. And he was elected as a co-chairman of the Union of Russian Writers.

Lebedev, Sergey

Sergey Lebedev was born in Moscow in 1981. Both of his parents were geologists who worked in the remote areas of the USSR. Following their path, since the age of fifteen Lebedev worked eight seasons as a field worker in the geologist expeditions at the Far North of Russia and Central Asia. These were mainly the former Gulag areas remained untouched and non-habited since the camps were closed in the midst of sixties.
Later Lebedev became a journalist mainly focused on historical and educational issues. Also he contributed as the investigative correspondent.
Since 2010 Lebedev wrote five novels dedicated to the theme of the soviet hidden past, to the impact of Stalin`s repressions and its consequences in a modern Russian life.
Four novels are written through the lens of the family`s history.
These novels are «The edge of the Oblivion» («Der Himmel auf ihren Schultern» in Germany), «The year of the comet», «The people of August», «Goose Fritz» («Der Kronos kinder»). They form sort of a meta-novel, which explores the Soviet totalitarian trauma from the different angles and depicts a family as imprint of such trauma.
The fifth novel, «Untraceable», is an intellectual thriller exploring the shadowy world of the Russian secret services and their operations abroad.

Tolstaya, Natalya

Natalya Nikitichna Tolstaya was born on 2 May 1943 in Leningrad and died in 2010.
She was a granddaughter of Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy. Graduated from Leningrad University, she became Associate Professor at the Department of Scandinavian Philology, St. Petersburg University, where she taught Swedish. Natalya Tolstaya was known in scientific circles primarily as a strong Scandinavian philologist, with a focus on Swedish language and Russian-Swedish cultural relations. She even taught Russian in Sweden, and in her spare time began to write stories.
Together with her sister Tatyana Tolstaya she is the author of a collection of short stories "Sisters" and was regularly published in the literary journal Zvezda. Natalya Tolstaya's first literary experiments were in Swedish. Her prose is highly regarded by critics, as are her literary translations - for example, the collection of translations of poetry by the Finland-Swedish poet Edith Södergran "Страна, которой нет" (Landet som icke är / The Land That Is Not).
Among her literary awards is the Sergey Dovlatov prize.

Karamzin, Nikolay

Nikolay Mikhailovich Karamzin (Russian: Николай Михайлович Карамзин), born in 1766 in Znamenskoye, Simbirsk Uyezd, Kazan Governorate, Russian Empire, died in 1826 in St. Petersburg, was a Russian historian, writer, poet, critic and journalist who was the leading exponent of the sentimentalist school in Russian literature. He is best remembered for his History of the Russian State, a 12-volume national history.

Mäeots, Olga

Olga Mäeots is working in Moscow as a librarian, literary critic, translator and curator of various projects on books for children. She is head of the Children’s books department, Library for Foreign Literature named after M. I. Rudomino, Moscow and assistant professor, Moscow University of Print, department of illustration.

She translates from English (Jane Austen, A. A.Milne, Dodie Smith, Anne Fine, Isaak B.Singer), Swedish (Selma Lagerlof, Elsa Beskow, Helen Nyblom, Astrid Lindgren, Barbro Lindgren, Ulf Stark, Frida Nilsson, Mats Wahl, Tove Jansson, Henry Parland, Ingmar Bergman, Monika Fagerholm) and German (Uwe Timm, Edwin Moser, Ch.Nöstlinger, Quint Buchholz, Jutta Richter).

Her work has been included in the IBBY Honor list for translations of children’s books.

Bestuzhev, Alexander

Alexander Alexandrovich Bestuzhev (1797 – 1837), was a Russian writer of poetry and short prose who became acquainted with Alexander Pushkin and edited the famous literary almanac Polar Star together with Ryleyev in 1823/24. After the Decembrist revolt he was sent into exile to Caucasus, the border region where Russian Empire was at war at that time.

There writing under the pseudonym Marlinsky he became known as a romantic poet, short story writer and novelist. He was killed in a skirmish.