Boris Schnaiderman — translator / writer with roots in the Russian Empire
Boris Schnaiderman (17 May 1917 – 18 May 2016) was a Brazilian translator, literary scholar and writer born in Uman. He served in the Brazilian Expeditionary Force in the Second World War and in 1960 became the first professor of Russian literature at the University of São Paulo. He translated Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Gorky, Babel, Pasternak, Pushkin and Mayakovsky into Portuguese, and was among the first to translate Russian classics directly from Russian rather than through other languages.
"Uman, then Odesa; the family emigrated to Brazil in 1924 or 1925 (sources differ), when he was about eight. Naturalised Brazilian in 1941."
Migration storyTracing the roots — Uman (Kiev Governorate)
Born in Uman, then in the Kiev Governorate of the Russian Empire, in May 1917, he lived in Odesa before the family emigrated to Brazil when he was about eight.
Born in Uman (Russian Empire) on 17 May 1917; emigrated to Brazil as a child.
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Uman (Kiev Governorate). At the time, this region lay within the Russian Empire, which spanned from Poland to the Pacific.
A career defined by ambition
"Translation is not crossing a bridge — it is building one."