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Isabel Florence Hapgood

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Isabel Florence Hapgood (November 21, 1851 – June 26, 1928) was an American ecumenist, writer and translator of Russian and French texts.

Early Life

Hapgood was born in Boston, to Asa Hapgood and Lydia Anna Bronson Crossley, with her twin brother Asa. They later had a younger son, William Frank Hapgood. Asa Hapgood was an inventor and his family of English and Scottish descent had lived near Worcester, Massachusetts since the 17th century.[1] Her mother's father had emigrated from England and owned a farm in Mason County, Kentucky.[2] While Asa was sent to Harvard University, which did not accept women (and ultimately went into the paper business), Isabel attended Worcester's Collegiate Institute between 1863 and 1865, then transferred to Miss Porter's School in Farmington, Connecticut. She graduated in 1868, the year her father died. Hapgood showed considerable language abilities, mastering many Romance and Germanic as well as Slavic languages, including Russian, Polish and Church Slavonic.[3]

Career

Hapgood became a major translator of French and Russian literature, as well as a key figure in the dialogue between Western Christianity and Orthodoxy. She helped Harvard professor Francis James Child with his Book of Ballads which began publication in 1882. In 1885 Hapgood published her own Epic Songs of Russia,[4] for which Child supplied a preface, and which received several good reviews. The next year Hapgood published translations of Leo Tolstoy’s Childhood, Boyhood, Youth and Nikolay Gogol’s Taras Bulba and Dead Souls. In 1887 her translations of the major works of Victor Hugo began publication, introducing that major French author to American audiences.

Hapgood dreamed of traveling to Russia, and so engaged a Russian lady to help her attain fluency in the spoken language. Between 1887 and 1889, she and her widowed mother traveled through Russia. While there, Hapgood met several significant Russian literary and clerical figures. After that trip, Hapgood began traveled annually to Russia.

Hapgood spent several weeks with the famous Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy on his country estate, and continued publishing translations of his works. In 1891, The Atlantic magazine published Hapgood's lengthy article detailing her observations of Tolstoy as a man trying to live his ideal life.[5]

For 22 years, Hapgood wrote for the New York Evening Post and the Nation.[6] In 1893 Hapgood reviewed a book by Kate Marsden which described her journey across Russia to find a cure for leprosy. The Royal Geographical Society lauded Marsden, but Hapgood discounted her efforts. One scholar later speculated that Hapgood was jealous of Marsden writing about "her" country or because of homophobic rumours about Marsden.[7]

Hapgood also was impressed by the Russian Orthodox liturgy and choral singing, and wanted to translate them for American audiences. Nicholas, Archbishop of Alaska and the Aleutian Islands supported her efforts and gave her a complete set of Church Slavonic texts. Then Archbishop Tikhon became her friend and gave her practical advice. The first edition appeared in 1906. She was visiting Tikhon, who had become Patriarch of Moscow and editing a second edition of the work during her trip to Moscow in 1916-1917. When the Russian Revolution broke out in 1917, Hapgood escaped with the assistance of the American Consul and returned to the United States. She became one of the first to report on the execution of the Romanov family.[8] Because Patriarch Tikhon was under house arrest, the second edition was not published in 1922, but it did contain Tikhon's endorsement dated November 3, 1921.[9] For those eleven years of work, Hapgood accepted a $500 honorarium.[10] The book received favorable reviews by Orthodox and Anglican reviewers; several editions were also published by other Orthodox denominations, including the Syrian Orthodox, after her death.[11]

A lifelong and devout Episcopalian, Hapgood continued to admire Orthodox church music. She helped organized the choir for the consecration of St. Nicholas Cathedral in New York City in 1903, and continued to help orthodox choirs in the United States, including performances at the Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City and before President Woodrow Wilson at the White House. She also compiled a history of Russian Church music, but the manuscript was never published and lost.[12]

Despite Count Tolstoy's admonition that she should marry, Hapgood never married, and had no children.

Veneration

Isabel Hapgood died in New York City on June 26, 1928, and her remains were taken to and buried in the familial plot in Worcester, Massachusetts.[13] The liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church (USA) remembers the distinguished translator and ecumenist annually with a feast day on June 26.

Own works

  • The Epic Songs of Russia (1886) (new edition with an introduction by Prof J.W.Macktail, 1915))
  • Count Tolstoi and the Public Censor, 1887[14]
  • Notable Women: Sonya Kovalevsky,[15] as it appeared in Century Magazine (1895).
  • Russian Rambles (1895)[16]
  • A Survey of Russian Literature (1902)[17]
  • Little Russian and St. Petersburg Tales (Date Unknown)
  • 'The Death and Funeral of St. Raphael'[18], New York Tribune, March 8, 1915

Works

Translations

References

  1. ^ Warren Hapgood, The Hapgood Family: descendants of Shadrach 1656-1898 (1898) p. 256, available at http://books.google.com/books?id=xT09AAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false
  2. ^ http://anglicanhistory.org/women/hapgood/ledkovsky.pdf
  3. ^ http://orthodoxwiki.org/Isabel_Hapgood
  4. ^ https://archive.org/details/epicsongsofrussi00hapg
  5. ^ Hapgood, Isabel (1891). "Count Tolstoy at Home". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2011-05-26.
  6. ^ http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/254686/Isabel-Florence-Hapgood
  7. ^ Anderson, Monica (2006). Women and the politics of travel : 1870-1914. Madison, NJ [u.a.]: Fairleigh Dickinson Univ. Press. p. 172. ISBN 0838640915.
  8. ^ http://anglicanhistory.org/women/hapgood/ledkovsky.pdf p. 11
  9. ^ http://www.roca.org/OA/135/135q.htm
  10. ^ http://orthodoxwiki.org/Isabel_Hapgood
  11. ^ http://anglicanhistory.org/women/hapgood/ledkovsky.pdf pp. 7-9
  12. ^ http://anglicanhistory.org/women/hapgood/ledkovsky.pdf pp. 10-11
  13. ^ http://www.frpeterpreble.com/2012/08/orthodox-english-translation.html
  14. ^ http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Count_Tolstoi_and_the_Public_Censor
  15. ^ http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Century_Magazine/Volume_50/Issue_4/Notable_Women:_Sonya_Kovalevsky
  16. ^ http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18165
  17. ^ http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/20980
  18. ^ http://orthodoxhistory.org/2010/12/02/isabel-hapgood-the-death-and-funeral-of-st-raphael/
  19. ^ http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Tolstoy%27s_%22Kreutzer_Sonata%22
  20. ^ http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/On_Labor_and_Luxury
  21. ^ http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/On_the_Significance_of_Science_and_Art
  22. ^ http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Article_on_the_Census_in_Moscow
  23. ^ http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Thoughts_Evoked_by_the_Census_of_Moscow (incomplete)
  24. ^ http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/What_to_Do%3F
  25. ^ http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3630
  26. ^ http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Old-Fashioned_Farmers
  27. ^ http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/St._John%27s_Eve_%28Gogol%29
  28. ^ http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2610
  29. ^ https://archive.org/details/ServiceBookOfHolyOrthodoxChurchByHapgood
  30. ^ http://books.google.com/books/about/Service_Book_of_the_Holy_Orthodox_Cathol.html?id=bHpbAAAAMAAJ
  31. ^ http://books.google.com/books/about/Service_Book_of_the_Holy_Orthodox_Cathol.html?id=fBk9AAAAYAAJ
  32. ^ http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/28961
  33. ^ http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/41201
  34. ^ http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/15994
  35. ^ http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25771
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Isabel Florence Hapgood

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