Alja Rachmanowa

Galina was the oldest daughter of a physician in the town of Kasli near Yekaterinburg. Since her family was part of the aristocracy of Russia prior to the revolution, they suffered much in the years after 1917. Eventually Galina and her Austrian husband Arnulf von Hoyer were forced to flee to western Europe. Her diaries describing life in Russia under communism were translated into many languages. She lived in Austria from 1925 to 1945 but her works were banned under the Nazi regime. She died in the Swiss town of Ettenhausen, where she had lived since 1948. Alja Rachmanowa's literary works were all first published in German and created in close cooperation with her husband who translated them into German in the process of writing. Rachmanowa typed her Russian manuscripts in a Latin transcription, as she didn't own a typewriter featuring Cyrillic letters. According to Heinrich Riggenbach, author of the index of her literary estate, Rachmanowa's Nachlass exists as a symbiosis of her literary work and the translations of her husband.

Alja Rachmanowa was recorded at birth as Галина Николаевна Дюрягина. She also worked under the name Alja Rachmanowa (Alexandra Rachmanowa). The authorities additionally record the headings Galina Nikolaevna Dyuragina, Alexandra von Hoyer and Galina Dyuragina. Her recorded languages were Russian and German. Her recorded confession was Catholicism. She married Arnulf von Hoyer.

Alja Rachmanowa is recorded as writer, psychologist and novelist.