Her books helped to transform, in minds of Soviet and Russian intelligentsia, the image of Japanese and Chinese cultures from exotic "orientalist flower" into a living and powerful tradition.
In the late Soviet period, when most "ideological" texts were still dominated by dry pseudo-Marxist dogmatism, her brilliantly written academic monographs and translations were among a few bright intellectual beacons that helped many people to overcome pessimism and spiritual depression.
Later in her life, as an original thinker, she had striven to create a humanistic, holistic synthesis of Eastern and Western philosophical paradigms (symbolized by Chinese Dao (Tao) and Judeo-Christian Logos).
Grigorieva was born in the family of a prominent Soviet Japanologist, specialist in Japanese labor movement, Petr P. Topekha (Russian: Топеха Петр Павлович).
In 1980, she defended a second academic degree (the highest in Soviet academia), of Doctor of Sciences Doktor nauk in Philology, with the dissertation, based on her monograph "Japanese art tradition".