Georgette Donchin (1922-2008)

Abstract

SEER, Vol. 8j. No. i,January 20oy Georgette Donchin (1922-2008) Georgette Donchin did not originally intend to become a Slavist, but both background and external circumstances eventually impelled her in that direction. Born in Lodz in Poland, she attended secondary school in the town (1932-38), and then the French school inWarsaw (1938-39). Her own mother died when she was very young, but she acquired a loving stepmother, through whom she learnt Russian. Shortly before thewar the family visited relatives in Egypt with a view tomoving there, but returned to Poland, only to find that the outbreak of war after all dictated their return. In Cairo her eye-doctor father set up a practice and Georgette attended the French Lycee (1940-42). She took the French baccalaureate specializing inmathematics, and intended to pursue the subject at a French university. The war made higher education an impossibility, and instead she went to work as a Russian and Polish Monitor for the Radio Monitoring Section of the UK Ministry of Information, Middle East Forces. Here she perfected GEORGETTE DONCHIN IOI her knowledge of English, incidentally meeting her future husband, George Lewinson, who was the sergeant in charge of her section. He proposed but, determined on getting a degree, she turned him down. At the end of the war chaotic conditions made study at a French university unfeasible, but in any case her world had changed, with mathematics giving way to Russian literature. Seeing friends from her section opting for London University, she too applied and was accepted at SSEES in 1946 for the BA in Russian with English subsidiary. Her studies were supported by a grant from the Polish Committee for Education. By the time she graduated with a first class degree in 1949, itwas clear that her future lay with academic research. Awarded a London University scholarship, she began researching the largely uncharted subject of French Symbolism and its impact on Russian poetry. In 1950 she agreed to marry George Lewinson who was living in Australia. Both of them completed their doctorates at the same time three years later in 1953. This was a key year for them both, since just a month after being awarded her PhD, Georgette gave birth to their son, David. In 1955 she started work as a cataloguer in SSEES library on the magnificent salary of ?475 per annum. At the same time she was preparing her PhD for publication; The Influence ofFrench Symbolism onRussian Poetry came out with Mouton in 1958, and was followed by a number of related articles on the subject. She also undertook major translations: five volumes of the letters inRussian of Chaim Weizmann and Cizevskij's History ofRussian Literaturefrom the Eleventh Century to the End of the Baroque (i960), as well as introductions to texts, large numbers of bibliographical surveys and book editing (for example, Russian Literary Attitudesfrom Pushkin to Solzhenitsyn [1976], edited with R. Freeborn and N. Anning). In all of these areas she displayed a characteristic thoroughness and attention to detail. The publication of her book not only established Georgette Donchin as a major authority in this important area, but also led at last to an academic post in the Russian Department at SSEES in i960. As a teacher Georgette was determined that her students should aim high. Her own preparation was thorough, and she wanted students to do the same. At the undergraduate level her perceptive and illuminating teaching of literature took for granted that the student would read widely, including critical literature in the original. In particular, her special subject course on Pushkin and Gogol' gave students an excellent in-depth understanding of both authors. She had a good sense of humour and tutorials could be fun, but only if the student had fulfilled his or her side of the bargain, by preparing properly for the class. Nonetheless, however exasperated she might have been with backsliders, she maintained a keen interest in all the students, their 102 GEORGETTE DONCHIN progress, problems and fates. Itwould be with considerable reluctance and after all other avenues had been exhausted that she agreed that Mr X orMiss Y would have to leave SSEES. Her care for her postgraduates, attracted...