Dora Gabe

Dora Petrova Gabe (in bulgarian: Дора Петрова Габе) (born Isidora Petrova Peysakh, 16 August 1888 – 16 November 1983) was а Bulgarian Jewish poet, writer and translator. She published poetry for adults and children as well as travel books, short stories and essays. In her later years, she also did extensive work in translation.
She is widely regarded as one of the most famous women Bulgarian poets and is cherished by Bulgarians not only for her work but also for her deep respect for all the arts and her charitable spirit.
Born in 1886, in a country that had recently freed itself from Ottoman rule, Dora Gabe came from a family of Jewish immigrants from Ukraine. She was the daughter of Peter Gabe who became the first Jew to be elected to the Bulgarian National Assembly. When he was barred from taking office, he turned to journalism and became a well known public figure in Bulgaria.
Dora Gabe attended high school in Varna, and then pursued a degree in Natural Sciences at Sofia University (1904). Later, she studied French Philology in Geneva and Grenoble (1905–1906).
Back in Bulgaria, she taught French in Dobrich in 1907 and also began to publish poems in various journals. A quiet nostalgia emanates from her works, which are dedicated to sentimental and intimate themes, but also partly to the region of her childhood, Dobruja, a land disputed between Bulgaria and Romania.
From 1911 to 1932, she lived abroad again, in Poland, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, the Czech Republic, France, and the United Kingdom with her husband, the professor and literary critic Boyan Penev. In 1923, they separated for good but did not divorce. He reportedly had affairs and pressured her to give up her own writing to devote herself to translation. They parted ways well before his death in 1927. Reflecting on her marriage, Dora was deeply critical: "My marriage to Boyan Penev (...) drew me deeper into his pursuits. While his influence enriched me, it came at the cost of my own identity. I stopped living my own inner life and instead lived his. Sadly, I only found the space to truly flourish after his death.".
In the 1920s and 1930s, she gave numerous lectures on political and cultural issues such as the development of Bulgarian literature and the fate of the Dobruja region. In 1925, the Ministry of Education in Bulgaria assigned Dora Gabe to edit the series Библиотека за най-малките (Library for the youngest). She also served as editor of the children's magazine Window (1939–1941). She was as well one of the founders of the Bulgarian-Polish Committee (1922) and the Bulgarian PEN Club (1927). She served as a longtime president for the latter.
In Bulgaria, the political situation was very unstable during the interwar period. The alliance with Nazi Germany during World War II led to a conflict with the Soviet Union, followed by a communist coup in 1944. She could not escape the constraints imposed on the literary world by the new Bulgarian regime and published a collection in 1946, Vela, praising the communist partisans.
From 1947 to 1950, she was counselor for cultural affairs at the Bulgarian Embassy in Warsaw.
Subsequently, she continued writing, focusing on more intimate concerns.
She died on November 16th, 1983 at the age of 95, in Sofia, Bulgaria.
In 1900 in Shumen, she published one of her first poems, at only 14 years old, called Spring in the literary journal Youth. Soon after, she published a series of poems in the magazines Thought, Democratic Review and New Society in 1905–1906. This marked the start of her literary career.
In the 1920s and 1930s, she published poetry for both adults and children, travelogues, stories, essayistic fiction, impressions, theater reviews, and articles on both foreign and Bulgarian literature. She also wrote biographical sketches of poets and writers for magazines such as Contemporary Thought, Zlatorog, Polish-Bulgarian Review, Democratic Review, Falling Leaves, Dobrudjanski Review, Art and Criticism, Slovo, Age, Journal of Women, Free Speech, Dawn, Women's Voice, Thought, Contemporary, Journal of Newspapers, Dnevnik, and Fireworks.
Additionally, she contributed to various children's periodicals such as Firefly, Children's Joy, Children's World, Drugarche, Children's Life, Iveta, Nightingale, Merry Band, Window, and others.
After 1944, she was widely published in the most popular Bulgarian newspapers and journals, as well as in the children's magazine Nightingale, Squad, Children, art, books, and others.
Violets, Gabe's first lyrical poetry book, demonstrates Secession sentimentalism and a deep understanding of symbolism.
Her works have been translated in Argentina, Austria, Great Britain, Vietnam, Germany, Greece, Canada, Cuba, Lebanon, Peru, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Ukraine, France, Czech Republic.
From 1917 until the end of her life, fluent in Polish, Czech, Russian, French, and Greek, she also dedicated herself to translation work.
She translated the works of Adam Mickiewicz, Maria Konopnicka, Stanisław Wyspiański, Kazimierz Przerwa-Tetmajer, Juliusz Słowacki, Władysław Reymont, Jan Kasprowicz, Henryk Sienkiewicz, B. Leader, Adolf Dygasiński, L. Staffan, A. Slonimsky, Julian Tuwim, K. Alberti, I. Volker, F. Fletch, Vítězslav Nezval, Karel Čapek, G. Jian, Y. Seifert, A. Slutsk, V. Bronevski, C. Imber, Samuil Marshak, E. Kamberos, R. Bumi-Papa, M. Lundemis, Yiannis Ritsos and many others.
Her most renowned translation works include: