Liubov Gurevich

Liubov Yakovlevna Gurevich (Russian: Любо́вь Я́ковлевна Гуре́вич; November 1, 1866, Saint Petersburg – October 17, 1940, Moscow) was a Russian editor, translator, author, and critic.^[1] She has been described as "Russia's most important woman literary journalist."^[2] From 1894 to 1917 she was the publisher and chief editor of the monthly journal The Northern Herald (Severny Vestnik), a leading Russian symbolist publication based in Saint Petersburg.^[3] The journal acted as a rallying-point for the Symbolists Dmitry Merezhkovsky, Zinaida Gippius, Fyodor Sologub, Nikolai Minsky, and Akim Volynsky.^[4]

Liubov Gurevich.

Gurevitch was of mixed social background. Her mother hailed from Russian nobility but her father was a Jewish convert to Russian Orthodoxy.^[5]

In 1905, Gurevitch joined the Moscow Art Theatre (MAT) as a literary advisor.^[6] She worked as an advisor and editor for the seminal Russian theatre practitioner Konstantin Stanislavski for the next 30 years and influenced his writing more than anyone else.^[7] Gurevich and Stanislavski had been writing to one another since the MAT's first tour to St Petersburg and became close friends.^[8]