# Ellendea Proffer

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{{Short description|American author and publisher (born 1944)}}
'''Ellendea Proffer Teasley''' (born 1944) is an American author, publisher, and translator of [Russian literature](/source/Russian_literature) into English.

==Biography==
She received her bachelor's from University of Maryland and Ph.D. from [Indiana University Bloomington](/source/Indiana_University_Bloomington), taught at [Wayne State University](/source/Wayne_State_University) and University of Michigan, Dearborn. She is a well-known [Bulgakov](/source/Mikhail_Bulgakov) expert, translator and publisher. She is known for ''Mikhail Bulgakov: Life & Work'' (1984); translations of Bulgakov's plays and prose; numerous articles and introductions, most prominently the Notes and Afterword to the Burgin-O'Connor translation of Bulgakov's ''The Master and Margarita.''

She married  [Carl R. Proffer](/source/Carl_Ray_Proffer) (1938–1984), and co-founded [Ardis Publishers](/source/Ardis_Publishers) in 1971, a publishing house specializing in Russian literature, both in English and Russian. As a publisher, she was responsible for the collected works of Bulgakov in Russian, which then triggered a Soviet edition. Proffer Teasley edited a series of well-received photo-biographies, including those devoted to [Nabokov](/source/Nabokov), [Tsvetaeva](/source/Tsvetaeva) and Bulgakov. Her memoir of [Joseph Brodsky](/source/Joseph_Brodsky), ''Brodsky Among Us,'' was published in English in 2017, after the Russian translation was published in Moscow in 2015, where it became a bestseller.

Ellendea Proffer was on the first judges' panel for the Booker Russian Novel Prize, and in 1989 received a Macarthur Fellowship for her work with Ardis.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.macfound.org/fellows/379/|title=Ellendea Proffer Teasley - MacArthur Foundation|website=www.macfound.org|language=en|access-date=2018-08-12}}</ref>

The Ardis archives, including Carl and Ellendea Proffer's papers, are held at [University of Michigan](/source/University_of_Michigan).<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://community.middlebury.edu/~beyer/ratw/libraries.htm?searchFor=proffer&goButton=go#|title = Libraries and Archives for the Third Wave}}</ref>
The archive consists of a collection of manuscripts, typescripts, correspondences, books, photographs, and proofs of selected titles.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.umich.edu/~iinet/crees/stpetersburg/library.html |title=Celebrating St. Petersburg Library Exhibit |access-date=2010-04-20 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071116153125/http://www.umich.edu/~iinet/crees/stpetersburg/library.html |archive-date=2007-11-16 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

==Lectures in English==
*"One Book, Two Cultures: Brodsky Among Us" (Harvard Davis Center, 2017). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FuBDigwrQw
*"How Censorship Leads to Tamizdat [publishing abroad]" (Tamizdat Conference, Hunter College, New York City, 2018). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOPmbJaKCGg
*"Writing in a Time of Terror: Mikhail Bulgakov" (Dillard University, New Orleans, 2019). https://vimeo.com/326628255
*"Ardis: Americans Publishing Russian Literature during the Cold War" (Princeton University, [Princeton, New Jersey](/source/Princeton%2C_New_Jersey), 2023). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myiisMjCIwg
*"Totalitarianism: Myth & Reality" (Duke University, Durham, 2024)

==Videos==
"Totalitarianism then and now." 2025. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvJ-WBwRZw0

"Totalitarianism part 2." 2025. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwqVugm2z0w

==Talks in Russian==
*"{{lang|ru-Latn|Brodskii sredi nas}}" (Dostoevsky Library, Moscow, 2015) with Anton Dolin. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijYImQyhi5U
*"{{lang|ru-Latn|O knige Karla Proffera «Bez kupior»}}" (MMOMA, Moscow, 2017) with Anton Dolin). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cn2XBbQ9Iss

==Awards==
*1989 [MacArthur Fellows Program](/source/MacArthur_Fellows_Program)

==References==
{{reflist}}
*Boyd, Brian. ''Nabokov: the Later Years''
*Vasily Aksyonov, ''In Search of Melancholy Baby''
*Lev Kopelev & Raya Orlova, ''We Lived in Moscow''

==External links==
*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqQgsgKNNII (CBS Morning Show on Proffer, 1983)
*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GpGk_HBTHE ("Russian Visa" [in Russian] program on Ardis; interview with Ellendea Proffer)
*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=771fsa2fpGM (Ardis Publishers interviews 1999) 
*[http://stanford.io/1yJGSLh Cynthia Haven,"The Book that's rocking Russia: Ellendea Proffer's Brodsky Among Us is a bestseller," The Book Haven, 20 April 2015]. Discussion of Russian publication of book with Corpus.
*https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/joseph-brodsky-darker-and-brighter/ Cynthia Haven, "Joseph Brodsky, Darker and Brighter: A spellbinding new biography rescues the poet from sentimentality and kitsch," ''The Nation'', March 24, 2016. 

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Proffer, Ellendea}}
Category:1944 births
Category:Living people
Category:21st-century American women
Category:University of Maryland, College Park alumni
Category:MacArthur Fellows
Category:Russian–English translators
Category:American women writers
Category:Indiana University Bloomington alumni
Category:Wayne State University faculty
Category:University of Michigan–Dearborn people
Category:University of Michigan faculty
Category:American translators

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Ellendea Proffer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellendea_Proffer) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellendea_Proffer?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.