Yelena Hahn

Yelena Andreyevna Hahn von Rottenstern (née Fadeyeva) (sometimes transliterated as Elena Gan) (Russian: Елена Андреевна Ган, Ukrainian: Олена Андріївна Ган; 11 January 1814 – 6 July 1842) was a Russian writer known for her contributions to the literary journals Biblioteka Dlya Chteniya and Otechestvennye Zapiski.

Her parents were Andrei Fadeyev, privy councilor and governor of Saratov, and Princess Yelena Pavlovna Dolgorukaya, a member of the princely House of Dolgorukov.

In 1835 she made a partial translation of the Bulwer-Lytton novel Godolphin, which was published in Biblioteka Dlya Chteniya, then edited by her literary mentor Osip Senkovsky.

In 1837 her first novel, The Ideal, was serialized under the pseudonym Zeneida R-va.[2] While traveling in the Caucasus in 1837 she met exiled Decembrists, an experience that informed a number of subsequent works, including Memoirs of Zheleznovodsk and Utballa and Jellaleddin, published in 1838.

Ivan Turgenev wrote, "In this woman there was ... both a warm Russian heart and the experience of female life, as well as the passion of conviction.