Name Janko Lavrin Role Novelist | Awards Preseren Award | |
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Died August 13, 1986, London, United Kingdom Books Dostoevsky; a study, Russian writers: their lives, Nietzsche: An Approach, Ibsen; an approach, Gogol | ||
Janko Lavrin (1887 – 13 August 1986) was a Slovenian novelist, poet, critic, translator and historian. He was Professor of Slavonic Studies at the University of Nottingham. An enthusiast for psycho-analysis, he wrote what he called 'psycho-critical studies' of Ibsen, Nietzsche and Tolstoy.
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Lavrin was born in Krupa, White Carniola, Slovenia. He was educated in Austria, Russia and Scandinavia, moving to St Petersburg in 1908 to study Russian language and literature. He was a journalist in St Petersburg before World War I. In 1915-16 he served as war correspondent for Novoye Vremya covering the Serbian army's retreat through Albania.
Returning to Russia in 1917, Lavrin decided to stay to England. He found work as a journalist, becoming part of the circle around A. R. Orage. In 1919 Bernard Pares helped Lavrin to get a teaching job at the University of Nottingham, and he became Professor of Slavonic Studies there in 1923.
Lavrin was a friend of the Russian critic D. S. Mirsky in London in the 1920s. In 1928 he married the artist and book illustrator Nora Fry. In 1934-5 he edited The European Quarterly with Edwin Muir. During World War II he joined the BBC, broadcasting to occupied Europe. He rejoined Nottingham University part-time in 1944.
After retirement from the University in 1952, Lavrin continued to write and translate.