On June 27, 2025, Maria Kopieva, the writer and essayist known to readers as Alisa Danshoch, passed away after quietly battling illness in recent months. Friends and family gathered for a ceremony in the French town of Villefranche-sur-Mer for a service to celebrate her life on Wednesday, July 2.
Born into a distinguished Moscow family, Kopieva grew up in a home where books, music, and conversation were part of daily life. Her father was an editor and Turkish translator at Khudozhestvennaya Literatura, and her mother, an editor of a renowned music journal. Following her parents’ early divorce, she was raised by her grandparents, whose library would shape the writer she became.
