Marietta Shaginyan (1888–1982) was a Russian-language writer of Armenian descent, poet, journalist and literary scholar. Her works included the adventure story “Mess-Mend,” the novel “Hydrocentral,” the essays “Journey Through Soviet Armenia” and the historical and biographical cycle “The Ulyanov Family.” Over her literary career, Shaginyan published more than 70 books, worked as a newspaper correspondent and translated Armenian poets and foreign prose.

Childhood and Education in Moscow

Marietta Sergeyevna Shaginyan was born on April 2, 1888, in Moscow to an Armenian family. Her birthday falls on March 21 in the Old Style calendar. Her father, Sergei Davydovich Shaginyan, was a physician and privatdozent at Moscow University; her mother, Pepronia Yakovlevna, managed the household.

Marietta was initially educated at home, then attended a private boarding school before continuing her education at Rzhevskaya’s gymnasium. In 1912, she graduated from the Faculty of History and Philosophy at Guerrier’s Higher Courses for Women. She then went to Germany, where she studied philosophy at Heidelberg University from 1912 to 1914.

Shaginyan began publishing in 1903, before enrolling in the Higher Courses for Women. Her earliest literary work was associated with Symbolist poetry. Her collection “First Encounters” appeared in 1909, followed by “Orientalia” in 1913.

In 1912, Shaginyan visited St. Petersburg, where she met and became close to Zinaida Gippius and Dmitry Merezhkovsky. During those same years, she contributed to Moscow publications. Her poetry collections were followed by the short-story collections “The Narrow Gate” in 1914 and “Seven Conversations” in 1915.

Shaginyan returned from Germany after the outbreak of World War I. Soon afterward, she moved to southern Russia, where she began teaching and working as a newspaper correspondent.

Rostov, Journalism and Adventure Fiction

From 1915 to 1918, Shaginyan lived in Rostov-on-Don and taught aesthetics and art history at the local conservatory. She also wrote for newspapers. Between 1915 and 1919, the publications she contributed to included “Priazovsky Krai,” “Chernomorskoye Poberezhye,” “Trudovaya Rech,” “Remeslenny Golos,” “Kavkazskoye Slovo” and “Baku.”

Her husband was the literary scholar Yakov Samsonovich Khachatryants. From 1915 to 1920, the couple worked on new books and a collection of Armenian fairy tales in translation. Shaginyan’s engagement with Armenian literature began long before she moved to Armenia.

She enthusiastically embraced the October Revolution, initially interpreting it in Christian mystical terms. In 1919–1920, she worked as an instructor in the Don Department of Public Education and as director of the first spinning and weaving school. She then moved to Petrograd, where, from 1920 to 1923, she was a correspondent for “Izvestiya of the Petrograd Soviet” and lectured at the Institute of Art History.

In 1922, Shaginyan began working as a special correspondent for “Pravda.” She continued contributing to the newspaper until 1948 and, for several years, also wrote for “Izvestiya.” She combined her newspaper work with writing fiction.

In the 1920s, Shaginyan began publishing adventure fiction with a propagandist message under the pen name Jim Dollar. “Mess-Mend, or Yankees in Petrograd” was part of a series of novellas that proved highly popular with readers. The adventure novella “KiK” appeared in 1928. Shaginyan later returned to “Mess-Mend,” preparing a revised version published in 1956.

Armenia in Her Life and Books

In 1927, Shaginyan went to Armenia to the construction site of the Dzoraget Hydroelectric Power Station. There she worked as a journalist and took part in earthworks and laying railway sleepers. She also served as an agitator at the construction site.

Shaginyan drew on her experiences at Dzorages to write the novel “Hydrocentral.” The book grew out of her work and observations during the station’s construction. She turned to an industrial subject she had come to know firsthand on site.

In the 1930s, Shaginyan continued her education, graduating from Gosplan’s Planning Academy. She studied mineralogy, spinning and weaving, and power engineering, and worked at Leningrad factories as a lecturer, weaving instructor, statistician and historiographer. These activities ran alongside her journalism and literary work.

“Journey Through Soviet Armenia” was published in 1950. In 1951, Shaginyan received the Stalin Prize, Third Class, for this collection of essays. Unlike “Hydrocentral,” which was written as a novel, this book took the form of travel essays.

Shaginyan also introduced Russian-speaking readers to Armenian literature through her translations. She translated Hovhannes Tumanyan and Avetik Isahakyan, having previously worked with Khachatryants on Armenian fairy tales. In 1950, she was elected a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the Armenian SSR.

Wartime Essays and Literary Studies

During the Great Patriotic War, Shaginyan was evacuated to Sverdlovsk. She continued working as a correspondent for “Pravda” and wrote about the Urals. Her essay collections “The Urals in Defense” and “The Southern Urals” were published in 1944 and 1946, respectively.

Shaginyan also studied literary history. She researched the work of Taras Shevchenko, Ivan Krylov, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Nizami. She was awarded a Doctor of Philological Sciences degree for her work on Shevchenko.

Her monograph “I. A. Krylov” appeared in 1944, followed by “Studies on Nizami” in 1955. She also translated Nizami’s works. Another author she translated was Wilkie Collins, whose novel “The Moonstone” appeared in her translation in 1947.

During her travels in Europe, Shaginyan worked in archives and libraries. “Letters from Abroad,” written between 1948 and 1970, included essays on Italy, Czechia, France, England, Holland and Germany. Alongside her travel observations, she continued writing about literature and art.

Writing About Lenin and Public Recognition

Historical and biographical books about Vladimir Lenin and the Ulyanov family accounted for a substantial part of Shaginyan’s work. She first visited Ulyanovsk in July 1936 on an assignment from the Union of Soviet Writers. In November of that year, she returned to work on “A History Examination Question” and remained in the city until 1939.

Shaginyan met people who had known the Ulyanov family and conducted research at the Lenin House Museum, the regional library and the archives. She contributed to the local newspaper “Proletarsky Put.” In the summer, she traveled to Astrakhan, Kazan, Penza, Sursk and rural areas connected with the work of Lenin’s father, Ilya Nikolayevich Ulyanov.

During this work, Shaginyan corresponded with Maria Ulyanova and Nadezhda Krupskaya. In her letters from Ulyanovsk, she described her book “A History Examination Question,” the museum and people who remembered the Ulyanovs. Essays and excerpts from the novel were published in 1937.

She returned to the documents in later years. In 1957, she again worked at the State Archive of the Ulyanovsk Region, and in 1963 she took part in a conference on Ilya Ulyanov’s educational work at the Ulyanovsk Pedagogical Institute. She continued researching the family’s history over several decades.

The tetralogy “The Ulyanov Family” comprised “The Birth of a Son,” “The First All-Russian,” “A History Examination Question” and “Four Lessons with Lenin.” In 1972, Shaginyan received the Lenin Prize for this cycle and her essays about Lenin. In 1976, she was awarded the title Hero of Socialist Labor.

Later Works and Remembrance

In 1964, Shaginyan published “Resurrection from the Dead,” a book about the Czech composer Josef Mysliveček. She was awarded Czechoslovakia’s Grand Gold Medal for the book. A collection of her articles, “On Shostakovich,” appeared in 1979.

Shaginyan’s works were translated into the languages of the peoples of the USSR and into foreign languages. Her published autobiographical writings include “Autobiography,” which appeared in the two-volume collection “Soviet Writers” in 1959. In it, she described her life and literary career.

Shaginyan died in Moscow on March 20, 1982, shortly before her 94th birthday. She was buried in Moscow’s Armenian Cemetery. Marietta Shaginyan.