Carl Ray Proffer

Carl R. Proffer (September 3, 1938, Buffalo–September 24, 1984, Ann Arbor) was an American publisher, scholar, professor, and translator of Russian literature. He was the co-founder (with Ellendea Proffer) of Ardis Publishing, the largest publishing house devoted to Russian literature outside of the Soviet Union, and co-editor of Russian Literature Triquarterly (1971–91).

A major force in Russian-American literary relations from 1969 until his death, Carl R. Proffer was at first known as a Slavic scholar. He received a PhD at age 25, and became a tenured professor at 34. He taught at Reed College, Indiana University and University of Michigan. A dedicated, accessible teacher, he took part in many aspects of university life, including by giving public lectures and organizing conferences.

Proffer’s first books were The Simile in Gogol’s "Dead Souls" (1968), a study of Nikolai Gogol’s style, Letters of Nikolai Gogol (a translation) (1968), and Keys to "Lolita" (1968), the first study of Nabokov’s novel as serious literature. A reviewer in the TLS referred to these works as “profferized”: 'that is, exciting, energetic with the critic’s own liveliness and enthusiasm pulsing through a scholarly apparatus formidable…. To have published these three studies within the space of a year is an astonishing achievement for a previously unknown scholar.'

The two scholarly books and Proffer’s memoirs, The Widows of Russia (1984), were published in Saint Petersburg in Russian. Proffer went on to do numerous translations, and edited many anthologies of Russian writing. Proffer wrote a series of articles about Soviet writers and censorship, several published in The New York Review of Books, and gave many radio and television interviews, believing that informing the public about culture under the Soviets was beneficial to both sides.

In 1969, he and his wife traveled to the Soviet Union for six months, which proved to be the stimulus for the creation of Ardis Publishers. In spring of 1971, Ardis began with reprints of works in Russian by Mandelstam and Bulgakov and the first issue of Russian Literature Triquarterly (RLT) (1971-1991), which centered on Akhmatova, Mandelstam, Bulgakov and Joseph Brodsky.

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