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Antonina Pirozhkova

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Antonina Pirozhkova
BornJuly 1, 1909
Krasny Yar, Tomsk Governorate, Siberia
DiedSeptember 12, 2010 (aged 101)
Sarasota, Florida
NationalityRussian
CitizenshipSoviet, American
EducationTomsk Polytechnic University
SpouseIsaac Babel
Engineering career
DisciplineCivil Engineering
InstitutionsMoscow State University of Railway Engineering
ProjectsMoscow Metro

Antonina Pirozhkova (1 July 1909 – 12 September 2010) was a Soviet civil engineer and writer, best known for her contributions to the construction of the Moscow Metro and the preservation of the literary legacy of her husband Isaac Babel.

Early life and education

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Antonina Nikolaevna Pirozhkova was born on 1 July 1909 in the village of Krasny Yar,[1] Tomsk Governorate, Siberia. Her father died when she was fourteen, and she helped support her family by tutoring children at mathematics.[2] In 1926, she joined Tomsk Polytechnic University to study construction and engineering, graduating four years later.[3]

Relationship with Isaac Babel

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In 1932, Pirozhkova met the writer Isaac Babel. They began to live together in 1934 and had a daughter Lidiya in 1937. Babel was separated from his wife, and he did not enter into a formal marriage with Pirozhkova. However, following his death, the Soviet authorities recognised her as his heir.[2]

Babel was executed at the Lubyanka on 27 January 1940. Neither his mother nor Pirozhkova was informed that he was in a Siberian gulag. Pirozhkova received confirmation of his death only in 1954, and even then was told that he had died in 1941 during the Second World War. Babel's papers including manuscripts, notebooks and his letters to her, were confiscated by the NKVD. Their fate remains unknown.[2]

Career

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In 1930, Pirozhkova was assigned to work at Kuznetskstroi, a metallurgical factory being built near Novokuznetsk. Her talents were so valued that the stationmaster of the local railway station was forbidden from selling her a ticket home.[4] Following its construction, she transferred in 1934 to Moscow where she joined the Metroproekt, the institute responsible for the design and construction of the Moscow Metro.[3] She rose to the rank of chief designer, and was responsible for some of the major stations in the network: Mayakovskaya, Revolution Square, Paveletskaya, Kievskaya, and Arbatskaya.[5]

Pirozhkova and her daughter were evacuated during the war to Abkhazia.[2] During the Second World War, Pirozhkova headed an engineering team building railway tunnels in the Caucasus.[6] In the 1950s, she was involved in the design and construction of palatial houses in the resorts of Caucasus.[7]

Pirozhkova then joined the faculty of the Moscow State University of Railway Engineering. Here she taught subway engineers, and in 1964 wrote the definitive textbook Tunnels and Subways.[2]

Later life

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She retired in 1965, whereupon she began her struggle to rehabilitate Babel and to restore his literary legacy.[3]

Following her retirement, she began to compile and edit extant literary material from Isaac Babel. In 1972, she published the recollections about him by, among others, Ilya Ehrenburg and Konstantin Paustovsky. In 1990, she published the two-volume edition of Babel's collected works, the only one available in the Russian language.[2]

Pirozhkova's transcription of Babel's 1920 Diary was published in the US in 1995.[8]

In 1996, she emigrated with Lidiya to the US.[3]

Pirozhkova's memoir of Babel titled By His Side was published in 1996, while a second volume which covered the rest of her remarkable life appeared posthumously in 2013.[2]

She died on 12 September 2010, aged 101, in Sarasota, Florida.[3]

Works

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  • Pirozhkova, Antonina, ed. (1972). И. Бабель: воспоминания современников. Советский писатель.
  • Volkov, V.P.; Naumov, S.N.; Pirozhkova, A.N. (1975). Тоннели и метрополитены. Moscow: Transport.
  • Pirozhkova, Antonina (1996). At His Side: The Last Years of Isaac Babel. New York: Steerforth. ISBN 978-1883642983.
  • Pirozhkova, Antonina (2013). Я пытаюсь восстановить черты. О Бабеле – и не только о нем. ACT. ISBN 978-5170807185.

References

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  1. ^ Krasny Yar is nowadays a village in the Kemerovo region (these are not the villages Krasny Yar, Krasnoyarsk Raid or Krasnoyarka in the district of Zyryanskoe of Tomsk region, as the biographers of A.N. Pirozhkova are used to believe). For a long time researchers were misled by the fact that in the early 1960s Antonina Pirozhkova had a meeting with her brothers in the village of Krasnoyarka/Krasny Yar village in Zyryanskoe district. Between these different villages named «Krasny Yar» there is a distance of 80 kilometres in line. However, her brothers moved to live in Krasnoyarka after the WWII war. Places, which A.N. Pirozhkova, like the frequently visited villages adjacent to its Krasny Yar, are places in the modern Izhmorsky district of the Kemerovo region now. Antonina Pirozhkova mentions in her memoirs that her native village Krasny Yar was located near the villages of Barsas and Iverka: see her book “About Babel - and not only about him: I am trying to restore features. Memories”. (Russian edition: M.: AST, 2013; pages 40-46). These settlements, Krasny Yar, Barsas and Iverka, like the Zyryansk's Krasny Yars, in 1909 were part of the Mariinsky district/uezd of the Tomsk province. 1909 they were not part of the Zyryansk county (volost), but it was the Zlatogorsk county (volost). Zlatogorsk county now is part of the modern territory of Izhmorsky district (county). She wrote: …in 1916 we left Krasny Yar to Barsas and lived from spring to fall, then we return to Krasny Yar (there is her text about the events of life in Barsas).
  2. ^ a b c d e f g de Waal, Thomas (October 31, 2010). "Antonina Pirozhkova obituary". The Guardian.
  3. ^ a b c d e Grimes, William (September 22, 2010). "Antonina Pirozhkova, Engineer and Widow of Isaac Babel, Dies at 101". The New York Times.
  4. ^ Malayev-Babel, Andrei (2011). "Антонина Пирожкова: Воспоминания". October (9).
  5. ^ Miroshkin, Andrei (April 17, 2014). "Антонина Пирожкова: хранительница наследия". Moscovskaya Pravda (in Russian). Archived from the original on August 2, 2014.
  6. ^ Schudel, Matt (September 25, 2010). "Antonina Pirozhkova, 101, preserved memory of husband, writer Isaac Babel". The Washington Post.
  7. ^ Nelson, Valerie J. (September 23, 2010). "Antonina Pirozhkova dies at 101; common-law widow of Russian writer Isaac Babel". Los Angeles Times.
  8. ^ "Antonina Pirozhkova". The Times. October 12, 2010.
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