Diana Lewis Burgin is an author, and Professor of Russian at the University of Massachusetts Boston; she received her B.A. in Russian from Swarthmore College, her M.A. & Ph.D. from Harvard University's Slavic Languages and Literatures Department. She has been teaching Russian at University of Massachusetts, Boston since 1975.
She is the daughter of Richard Burgin, and Ruth Posselt who married on July 3, 1940. She had published a narrative poem "Richard Burgin: A Life in Verse" (Slavica Pub, 1989; ISBN 0-89357-196-2) describing her father's biography.
"The Fate of Modern Man: Solzhenitsyn's Cancer Ward". Soviet Studies. 26: 260–271. 1974. doi:10.1080/09668137408410947. "After the Ball is Over: Sofia Parnok Creative Relationship with Marina Tsvetaeva", Russia Review, Vol. 4, 1988"Sofia Parnok and the Writing of a Lesbian Poets Life", Slavic Review, 51/2, 1992, pp. 214–231Diana Lewis Burgin (July 1995). "Mother Nature Versus the Amazons: Marina Tsvetaeva and Female Same-Sex Love". Journal of the History of Sexuality. University of Texas Press. 6 (1): 62–88. JSTOR 3704438. Jane T. Costlow; Stephanie Sandler; Judith Vowles, eds. (1998). "Laid Out in Lavender". Sexuality and the Body in Russian Culture. Stanford University Press. pp. 177–203. ISBN 978-0-8047-3155-3. Katherine Bliss Eaton, ed. (2002). "Sofia Parnok and Soviet-Russian Censorship". Enemies of the people. Northwestern University Press. pp. 31–52. ISBN 978-0-8101-1769-3. Burgin, Diana Lewis (1985). "The Reprieve of Nastasja: A Reading in Verse". The Slavic and East European Journal. 29 (3): 269–278. JSTOR 307215. doi:10.2307/307215. Richard Burgin: A Life in Verse, 1989, Slavica Pub, ISBN 0-89357-196-2Diana Lewis Burgin (1994). Sophia Parnok. NYU Press. ISBN 978-0-8147-1221-4. Mikhail Afanasevich Bulgakov (August 1995). The Master & Margarita. Diana Lewis Burgin, Katherine Tiernan O'Connor. Ardis Publishers. ISBN 978-0-87501-067-0. Kornei Chukovskii (March 1982). Alexander Blok as Man and Poet. Diana Lewis Burgin, Katherine Tiernan O'Connor. Ardis. ISBN 978-0-88233-486-8. The Twentieth-century Russian Novel, David C. Gillespie, page 148A plot of her own, Sona Stephan Hoisington, page 144Pushkin and the genres of madness, Gary Rosenshield, page 209Parnok comes across as a melodramatic, needy person whose tormented yearnings and unconventional sexuality produced a provocative if insubstantial body of work. Though Burgin's thoughts about translation make for interesting reading, her assumption that Parnok's poems are autobiographical remains woefully unexamined. Still, her efforts to meld the poet's works and passions will awaken sympathy for this neglected lesbian artist while never quite justifying the series editor's claim that Parnok was "brilliant."
