copyright for various C20 Russian writers

[Robert Chandler]

Dear all,

Penguin Classics are commissioning me to compile an anthology of Russian short stories (both 19th and 20th century)

There are quite a number of writers who could, in principle, be in copyright, but who appear not to be.  If anyone knows of any copyright holders to any of the following, I should be more than grateful for any information.

Robert Chandler



*Teffi (1872-1952)00
No one appears to own copyright, according to Catriona Kelly, who recently included 2 pieces of Teffi in her Penguin anthology ³Utopias².  I have in front of me 4 different Russian editions from the last 12 years.  Two make no acknowledgment of copyright at all.  The other two (a Moscow publishing house called ³Lakom² and ³The Russian Christian Humanitarian Institute² in Petersburg both appear to claim copyright themselves; I suspect that this claim is misleading and that they are really only claiming copyright to their particular edition???

*Zamyatin (1884-1937)
Copyright certainly used to belong to Agence Hoffman. Probably it still does.  Two 1990 Russian editions of Zamyatin give contradictory information: one gives copyright holder as E. I. Zamyatin; the other  volume, published by ³Khudozhestvennaya Literatura² claims that ³Khudozhestvennaya Literatura² is itself the copyright holder.  But Russian editions sometimes fail to distinguish between copyright to the work itself and copyright to the layout of a particular edition.
???

*Inber, Vera (1890-1972)
There have been no Russian editions for a long time.  Editions from the twenties and forties give no indication of copyright, which presumably did not exist then in Russia.
???

*Babel (b. 1894 Odessa; d. 1940 Moscow)
The Penguin ³Collected Stories² (1994 and 1998) does not acknowledge any copyright  for the original.
???

*Vsevolod Ivanov (1895-1963)
(Northwestern Univ. Press don¹t acknowledge copyright for original.
???

*Shalamov (1907-1982)
The 4-volume 1998 Russian complete works does not acknowledge any copyright holder.
Presumably there is none.???

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