Robert A. Maguire, who died Friday at 75, was a professor of Russian studies and an authority on Russian literature of the 19th and 20th centuries, especially the work of Nikolai Gogol.

Maguire was the author of “Red Virgin Soil: Soviet Literature in the 1920s,” “Gogol from the 20th Century: Eleven Essays,” and “Exploring Gogol.”

Maguire also worked extensively as a translator from Russian and Polish, including warmly received translations of Andrei Bely’s “Petersburg” and Wislawa Szymborska’s “Sounds, Feelings, Thoughts: 70 Poems.”

Even in declining health, Maguire forged ahead with his passion – writing about, as well as translating, the great works of Russian literature. He died just days after completing his new translation of Bely’s “The Possessed,” and only a few months after the appearance of his brand new translation of Gogol’s “Dead Souls.”

Maguire taught at Columbia University for 41 years, from 1962 to 2003, before retiring as Bakhmeteff Professor Emeritus of Russian Studies. He served as chair of the Slavic languages department three times between 1977 and 1992. Prior to joining Columbia, Maguire was on the faculty of Duke University and Dartmouth College, and also held visiting appointments at Indiana University, Oxford, the University of Illinois, and Harvard, Princeton, and Yale Universities.

An accomplished violist, Maguire was a past member of the board of directors at the Chamber Music Conference, an organization to which he belonged for approximately 40 years. The conference convenes each summer at Bennington College in Vermont. He also was active in New York’s Upper West Side amateur chamber music scene, playing classical chamber music until his most recent hospital admission.

He is survived by his brother, Tom Maguire, of Traverse City, Michigan.