Olga Lebedeva

{{Short description|Russian translator, linguist and Orientalist}} {{Infobox writer | name = Olga Lebedeva | embed = | honorific_prefix = | honorific_suffix = | image = Gülnar Hanım (Olga de Lebedef).png | image_size = | image_upright = | alt = | caption = | native_name = Ольга Сергеевна Лебедева | native_name_lang = ru | pseudonym = Gülnar Hanım, Gülnar Khanum, Madame Gülnar | birth_name = Olga Sergeevna Barshcheva | birth_date = 1852 | birth_place = Saint-Petersburg | death_date = 193? | death_place = France | resting_place = | occupation = | language = Russian, Ottoman Turkish | residence = | nationality = | citizenship = Russian Empire | education = | alma_mater = | period = | genre =  | subject =  | movement = | notableworks =  | spouse = Alexander Lebedev | partner =  | children = | relatives = | awards = | signature = | signature_alt = | years_active = | module = | website =  | portaldisp =  }}

'''Olga Lebedeva''' (née Barshcheva; {{langx|ru|Ольга Сергеевна Лебедева}}; 1852 — 193?) was a Russian translator, linguist and Orientalist. She was a founder of the Society of Oriental Studies in St Petersburg. Writing as Madame Gülnar, Gülnar Hanım, Gülnar Lebedeva and Olga de Lebedeff, she was one of the first to introduce Russian literature to Turkey. She is recognised for her pioneering contributions to the literary networks between the Ottoman and the Russian empires at the end of the 19th century.

==Biography== Olga Sergeevna Barshcheva was born in an aristocratic family in the Saint-Petersburg Governorate in 1852. Evidence of her early life is fragmentary.{{sfn|Olcay|2017|page=41}} She is said to have learned the Tatar language from the Tatar people that worked the local fields. Alexander Lebedev who was Mayor of Kazan between 1883 and 1886 and from 1899 to September 1903 was her second husband.{{sfn|Olcay|2017|page=42}} With him, she had three children, in addition to three children from a previous marriage.{{sfn|Akün|1996|page=243}}

Lebedeva attended Kazan University, studying Persian, Arabic and Turkish from Kaium Nasyri, a Tatar educator, as well as attending its archaeological, ethnographic and historical societies.{{sfn|Olcay|2017|page=42}}

In 1881, Lebedeva travelled to Istanbul. She had planned an extensive project of translating Russian works into Turkish. The Ottoman authorities, it was claimed, suspected her of espionage and forbade the publication of her translation of Pushkin.{{sfn|Olcay|2010|page=122}}{{sfn|Shifman|1971|page=403}} However, a set of her translations had been published in 1890 and the Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II had bestowed a medal upon her, possibly belying claims of the ban. On the other hand, a letter of hers to Leo Tolstoy suggested that strict censorship necessitated a restriction in her selection of works for publication.{{sfn|Shifman|1971|page=404}}

Lebedeva was popular in Turkey, much in demand in aristocratic circles, and appreciated for her wide learning and enthusiasm for Islamic arts and tradition. She organised literary soirees at her Istanbul hotel apartment, where the likes of Nigâr Hanım and Fatma Aliye visited.{{sfn|Olcay|2017|page=51}}

In February 1890, Lebedeva founded the Society of Oriental Studies, of which she would become honorary President ten years later. The Tsarina Alexandra became its Patron in 1911.{{sfn|Olcay|2017|pages=51–52}}

Lebedeva's last known address is dated 1913 in Saint Petersburg. Her later life and death are unknown.{{sfn|Olcay|2017|page=60}}

==Career== ===Literary=== In 1886, Lebedeva translated the ''Qabus nama'' of Keikavus from Tatar into Russian. It had previously been rendered into Tatar from the Persian original by her mentor Kaium Nasyri.{{sfn|Olcay|2017|page=42}}

In 1889, she attended the Eighth Congress of Orientalists in Stockholm, where she met Ahmet Mithat, a famous Turkish writer, publisher and the Sublime Porte's ambassador to Sweden.{{sfn|Olcay|2017|page=40}} She travelled with him to Berlin, Cologne and Paris over a period of four weeks. From this point on, they remained in touch, resulting in a programme of publication of Russian literature in Turkey.{{sfn|Olcay|2017|page=43}}

In 1890, Lebedeva came to Istanbul at Mithat's behest, staying for seven months. Her translations of Pushkin and Lermontov appeared in Mithat's newspaper. She also translated two works by Ataullah Bayazitov, an Imam in St Petersburg. At the same time, she prepared a textbook ''Anthologie orientale'', where the literature of Persia, Turkey and Arabia, old and new, was transliterated, translated and explained.{{sfn|Olcay|2017|page=47}} Lebedeva began work on translating Fatma Aliye's ''Nisvan-ı İslâm'', a discussion of women's position in society. It appeared in 1896 in the ''Bibliothèque du journal ‘Orient' et ‘La Turquie{{'}}''.{{sfn|Olcay|2017|page=48}}

For her achievements in Oriental studies, Sultan Abdul Hamid II presented her with the ''Zişan-ı şefkat'' medal, Second Degree.{{sfn|Olcay|2017|page=48}}

Lebedeva returned to Istanbul in October 1891, where her translations of Pushkin's ''The Blizzard'' and Lermontov's ''Demon'', as well as a monograph on his life titled ''Şair Puşkin'', were released by the Tercüman-ı Hakikat. Pushkin's ''Queen of Spades'' was next published by the publisher ''Alem''. She also published Tolstoy's ''Ilyas'' and ''Family Happiness'' in 1892.{{sfn|Olcay|2017|page=49}}

In 1895, Lebedeva's last Ottoman Turkish work, a magisterial introduction to Russian literature ''Rus Edebiyatı'' was published. She covered the development of the literature to the 18th century, provided sketches of nineteen authors, including Turgenev, Gogol and Tolstoy, and erudite coverage of the literary oeuvres of the great Russians. For the Turkish reading public, this was a wide-ranging and detailed introduction.{{sfn|Olcay|2017|page=58}}

===Oriental Studies=== Lebedeva is thought to have attended successive Congresses of Orientalists in London, Geneva, Paris, Rome, Hamburg, Algiers and Athens between 1892 and 1912. While she was not in the official list of delegates in the first three, in Rome, she presented two reports. One was on a letter to Bogdan Khmelnitsky by the Grand Vizier Ibrahim requesting assistance from the Khan of Crimea against Poland. The other was on women's status in the Caliphate.{{sfn|Dantsig|1976|page=318}} In Hamburg, her lecture on women's rights under Islam was presented on her behalf, while in Algiers, she spoke on the conversion of Georgians to Christianity, as evidenced in an Arabic manuscript.{{sfn|Olcay|2017|page=60}} At the Sixteenth Congress in Athens she presented ''About Sufism in Relation to the Partial Translation of al–Aushi's Treatise.''{{sfn|Dantsig|1976|page=320}}

Lebedeva published her treatise ''On the Emancipation of Muslim Women'' in 1900, which was translated to Turkish in 1909.{{sfn|Olcay|2017|page=60}}

===Educational=== Lebedeva was interested in improving the education of the Tatars. In 1893, she requested the Russian chief censor to allow her to open a Tatar school as well as a newspaper. Her request was denied.{{sfn|Olcay|2017|page=52}}

==Selected works== ===History and sociology=== * {{cite journal|title=De l'émancipation de la femme musulmane|author=Olga de Lebedeff|language=fr|journal=Içtihat|location=Cairo|publisher=Abdullah Cevdet Karlıdağ|year=1906}} * {{cite speech|title=Histoire de la conversion des Géorgiens au christianisme, par le patriarche Macaire d'Antioche. Traduction de l'arabe par Mme Olga de Lebedew|language=fr|publisher=Casa editrice italiana|year=1905|author=Olga de Lebedeff}} * {{cite book|author=Olga de Lébédeff|title=Abrégé de l'histoire de Kazan|url=https://archive.org/details/abrgdelhistoire00lebegoog|location=Rome|publisher=Società editrice Dante Alighieri|year=1899}}

===Literature=== * {{cite book|year=1895|author=Gülnar Lebedeva|title=Rus Edebiyatı|language=tr|location=Istanbul|publisher=Adadoryan Matbaası}}

===Translations=== * {{cite book|title=Кабус Намэ|translator-last=Lebedeva| translator-first=Olga|publisher=Imperial University of Kazan|year=1886|author=Keikavus|trans-title=Mirror of Princes}} * {{cite book|title=Kar Fırtınası. Puşkin'den Tercüme|trans-title=The Blizzard. Translation from Pushkin|translator-last=Dölebedeff |translator-first=Gülnar Olga|location=Istanbul|publisher=Tercüman–ı Hakikat Matbaası|year=1891}} * {{cite book|title=Lermontof'un Iblisi|trans-title=Lermontov's Demon|translator-last=Dölebedeff |translator-first=Gülnar Olga|location=Istanbul|publisher=Tercüman–ı Hakikat Matbaası|year=1891}} * {{cite book|title= Islâmiyetin Maarife Taalluku ve Nazar-I Muarizinde Tebyini|trans-title=The Relation of Islam to Science and the Heterodoxes]|translator-last1=Dölebedeff |translator-first1=Gülnar Olga|translator-last2=Cevdet|translator-first2=Ahmet|location=Istanbul|publisher=Tercüman–ı Hakikat Matbaası|year=1891|last=Bayazidof|first=Ataullah}} * {{cite book|title=Ilyas, yâhut, Hakikat-i gına|trans-title=Ilyas or Truth Wealth|translator-last=Dölebedeff |translator-first=Gülnar Olga|location=Istanbul|publisher=Tercüman–ı Hakikat Matbaası|year=1893|first=Leo|last=Tolstoy}} * {{cite journal|title=Nisvan-ı İslâm|trans-title=‘Les Femmes musulmanes' par Fathma Alié|first=Fatma|last=Aliye|authorlink=Fatma Aliye Topuz|journal=Bibliothèque du journal 'Orient' et 'La Turquie'|translator-last=de Lebedeff |translator-first=Olga|year=1896|publisher=N. Nicolaides|location=Paris|language=fr}}

== References == {{Reflist}}

==Citations== * {{cite encyclopedia|title=Gülnar Khanum|encyclopedia=Islâm Ansiklopedisi|year=1996|editor1-first=Ahmet|editor1-last=Topaloğlu|location=Istanbul|volume=XIV|first=Ömer Faruk|last=Akün}} * {{cite web|url=http://www.littera.hacettepe.edu.tr/TURKCE/16_cilt/hulya.htm|language=tr|title=Kültürlerararası İletişimde örnek bir Çevimen Kimliği Olga Lebedeva|first=Hülya|last=Arslan|access-date=2018-01-21|archive-date=2016-03-05|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160305111727/http://www.littera.hacettepe.edu.tr/TURKCE/16_cilt/hulya.htm|url-status=dead}} * {{cite book|title=Blizhny vostok|trans-title=Near East|last=Dantsig|first=B. M.|year=1976|publisher=Nauka|location=Nauka|language=ru}} * {{cite journal|url=http://ojs.lib.ucl.ac.uk/index.php/Slovo/article/view/1732|title=Olga Lebedeva (Madame Gülnar): A Russian Orientalist and Translator Enchants the Ottomans|first=Türkan|last=Olcay|journal=Slovo|volume=29|number=2|doi=10.14324/111.0954-6839.065|year=2017|doi-access=free}} * {{cite journal|journal=Проблемы филологии: язык и литература|title=Ольга Сергеевна Лебедева и ее вклад в русско-турецкие литературные связи 1|url=http://www.vash-psiholog.info/prob/20809-olga-sergeevna-lebedeva-i-ee-vklad-v-russko-tureckie-literaturnye-svyazi-1.html|first=Türkan|last=Olcay|year=2010|language=ru|location=Moscow|archive-date=2019-05-12|access-date=2018-01-21|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190512152125/http://www.vash-psiholog.info/prob/20809-olga-sergeevna-lebedeva-i-ee-vklad-v-russko-tureckie-literaturnye-svyazi-1.html|url-status=dead}} * {{cite book|title=Lev Tolstoy i vostok|trans-title=Leo Tolstoy and the East|first=A. I.|last=Shifman|location=Moscow|publisher=Nauka|year=1971|language=ru}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lebedeva, Olga}} Category:1852 births Category:20th-century deaths Category:Date of death unknown Category:Translators from the Russian Empire Category:Translators from Russian Category:Translators to Russian Category:Writers from Kazan Category:Turkish translators Category:Orientalists from the Russian Empire