Ganzen, Pyotr (Peter Emanuel) Gotfridovich (born 30.9 (12.10 New Style).1846, Copenhagen, Denmark – died 21.12.1030, Copenhagen, Denmark) – translator, publicist.

Pyotr Gotfridovich Ganzen (Danish: Peter Emanuel Hansen) was born in the family of a merchant. He finished school in Copenhagen, studied acting, had a debut on the stage of the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen in 1865. Since 1871 he worked in Russia as a telegraphist in “The Big Northern Telegraph Society”, at first in Omsk, then in Irkutsk. In 1881 he left for St. Petersburg, where he headed Telegraph School, taught telegraphy and English. In 1877 his translation of “A Common Story” by I. A. Goncharov was published in Copenhagen. That caused correspondence between the author and the translator. I. A. Goncharov received two plays by Henrik Ibsen translated by P. G. Ganzen and outlined the lack of “the language’s spirit, vivid and conversional”. Deeply embarrassed by this P. P. Ganzen came back to translating from Danish into Russian only in the 1890-s. In the period of 1885-1897 a range of fiction, publicist and philosophical works by L. Tolstoy including “Childhood”, “Adolescence”, “Youth”, “Ivan Ilyich’s Death”, “Kreuzers Sonata” translated by P. G. Ganzen came out in Denmark. His meetings with L. Tolstoy are described in the essay “Five Days in Yasnaya Polyana”.

He married Anna Vasilyevna Vasilyeva in 1888. They created a whole library of Scandinavian translations into Russian, among the major ones are the collections of Henrik Ibsen’s and Hans Christian Andersen’s works. In numerous articles P. G. Ganzen popularized Scandinavian culture and literature: “Iceland as Treasury of Ancient Northern Literature”, “Fritjoff Nansen”, “Mythology of the North and its Influence on the Character, Habits and Customs of ancient Northerners”, “Norwegian Literature in its main Representatives”, “Habits and Customs of ancient  Northerners”, “Henrik Vergeland”, “The Russian Prince’s Court in Horsens. 1780-1807” and articles for Brockhaus & Efron’s Dictionary.

In 1899 P. G. Ganzen took part in organization of assistance to the population of eastern provinces of Russia, suffering from bad harvest. He attended Children Protection Congresses in Brussels and London, wrote the book “Childhood Protection in England” (1916). In 1917 P. G. Ganzen left for Denmark. During his last years he published articles about Russian and Danish writers and Russian theatre, worked over his memories about L. Tolstoy, V. Solovyov, I. Goncharov, H. Ibsen, H. C. Andersen and others.

P. G. Ganzen “was the first who made familiar Russian people with Danish and Scandinavian writers and visa versa – Denmark with Russian ones” (Krasnaya gazeta, March 2, 1928).

I. P. Streblova