CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · People & Ideas

Ilma Rakusa

Swiss writer, translator (born 1946)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 28, 2026
Entity authorityQ124694 ↗
Source-derived summary

Ilma Rakusa (born 2 January 1946) is a Swiss writer and translator. She translates French, Russian, Serbo-Croatian and Hungarian into German.

Biography

Ilma Rakusa was born in 1946 in Rimavská Sobota, Slovakia to a Slovenian father and a Hungarian mother. She spent her early childhood in Budapest, Ljubljana and Trieste. In 1951, her family moved to Zürich, Switzerland. Ilma Rakusa attended the Volksschule and the Gymnasium in Zürich. After the Matura, she studied Slavic and Romance Languages and Literature in Zürich, Paris and Leningrad between 1965 and 1971.

In 1971, she was awarded a doctorate for her thesis titled Studien zum Motiv der Einsamkeit in der russischen Literatur, about themes of loneliness in Russian literature. From 1971 to 1977, she was a Wissenschaftlicher Assistent at the Slavic Seminar at the University of Zurich (UZH). From 1977 to 2006, she worked at UZH as a Lehrbeauftragter.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Ilma Rakusa” as swiss writer, translator (born 1946). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Ilma, Rakusa and Swiss.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1946, 1951, 1965, 1971—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1946-01-02. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Ilma, Rakusa and Swiss providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Ilma Rakusa”, the useful work is to connect “swiss writer, translator (born 1946)” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 28, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q124694. VIAF identifies the subject as 92427396. The Library of Congress control number is n81129457. 3 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1946, 1951, 1965 and 1971.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Ilma Rakusa”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Ilma Rakusa primary sources, Ilma Rakusa archive and Ilma research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Ilma Rakusa”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Ilma Rakusa” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.