Boris Brainin Austrian poet, translator of poetry into German. Date of Birth: 10.08.1905 Country: Austria

Biography of Boris Brainin

Boris L. Brainin was an Austrian poet, translator of poetry into the German language, polyglot, and anti-fascist. He was born into the renowned Brainin family in Vienna, Austria, to Leo Brainin and Rivitta Brainin (nee Trachter) in the city of Nikolaev, located in the Russian Empire. When Boris was just a few months old, his mother returned with him to Vienna from Nikolaev after visiting her parents. His birth on Russian territory later facilitated his acquisition of Soviet citizenship, which ultimately saved his life unlike his brother Wilhelm (Willi), who was born in Vienna and also emigrated to the USSR but tragically perished in Majdanek after Austria's annexation by Germany.

Boris Brainin completed his studies at the University of Vienna in 1934, earning a doctorate in philology with a focus on German literature. He became a member of the Communist Party of Austria in 1927 and led youth agitbrigades. Brainin was honored with the distinction of being an Honorary Member of the Communist Party of Austria and received the Koplenz Medal for his contributions to the fight against fascism. In 1934, following the defeat of the Vienna Uprising, in which he participated on the side of the Schutzbund, Brainin was forced to flee Vienna.

While in the Soviet Union, he was arrested by the NKVD and spent time in labor camps in the Northern Urals from 1938 to 1942, followed by service in a penal labor army until 1945. Afterward, he lived in exile in Nizhny Tagil and Tomsk, facing severe restrictions on his rights. He was rehabilitated in 1957 and relocated from Tomsk to Moscow with the assistance of S.Ya. Marshak and renowned translator Lev Ginzburg. Brainin worked for the newspaper "Pravda" and served as a literary consultant for "Neues Leben," the newspaper for Soviet Germans associated with "Pravda." He made significant contributions to the establishment, preservation, and development of Soviet German literature. In 1959, he became a member of the Union of Writers of the USSR and the Union of Writers of Moscow.

In 1992, Boris Brainin repatriated to Austria. His archive is primarily preserved at the Vienna Literature Museum (Literaturhaus) and partly at Bremen University in Germany. He is the father of Russian and German musician and writer Valery (Willi) Borisovich Brainin-Passek, born in 1948 in Nizhny Tagil.