Russian writer and playwright
Mikhail Petrovich Artsybashev
(
Russian
:
Михаи?л Петро?вич Арцыба?шев
;
Polish
:
Michał Arcybaszew
;
Ukrainian
:
Михайло Петрович Арцибашев
; November 5, 1878 ? March 3, 1927) was a Russian writer and playwright, and a major proponent of the literary style known as
naturalism
. He was the great-grandson of
Tadeusz Ko?ciuszko
[1]
and father of
Boris Artzybasheff
, who emigrated to the United States and became famous as an illustrator. Following the
Russian Revolution
, in 1923 Artsybashev emigrated to Poland, where he died in 1927.
Biography
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]
Early life
[
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]
Artsybashev was born in
khutor
Dubroslavivka,
Okhtyrka
county,
Kharkov Governorate
(currently
Sumy Oblast
,
Ukraine
). His father was a small landowner and a former officer. His mother, who was
Polish
, died of tuberculosis when he was only three years old.
[2]
His other ethnic roots included
French
,
Georgian
and
Tatar
.
[3]
He attended school in
Okhtyrka
until the age of 16. From 1895 to 1897 he was an office worker.
[4]
He studied at the
Kharkov School of Drawing and Art
(1897?98). During this time he lived in poverty, and was often unable to buy art supplies. In 1897 he attempted suicide. In 1898 he married Anna Vasilyevna Kobushko, with whom he had his son Boris. The couple separated in 1900.
[4]
Career
[
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In 1898 he relocated to
Saint Petersburg
, where he worked as a
freelance
journalist, and published humorous stories. In 1901 he was expelled from the city for taking part in a demonstration.
He wrote his first important work of fiction, the story
Pasha Tumanov
in 1901, but was unable to publish it until 1905 due to its being banned by the censor.
[2]
[4]
He considered his novel
The Death of Ivan Lande
(1904) to be his best work, but his major success was the novel
Sanin
(1907), which scandalized his Russian readers and was prohibited in many countries. He wrote
Sanin
in 1903, but was unable to publish it until 1907, again due to censorship.
[2]
The protagonist of the novel ignores all social conventions and specializes in seducing virgin country girls. In one notorious scene, a girl tries to wash embarrassing white stains off her dress after sexual intercourse with Sanin, an incident omitted from the 1914 English version. The novel was written under the influence of the philosophy of
Max Stirner
, and was meant to expound the principles of
Individualist anarchism
.
[2]
Artsybashev said the following in regard to his development as a writer:
[2]
"My development was very strongly influenced by
Leo Tolstoy
, although I never shared his views on non-resistance to evil. As an artist he overpowered me, and I found it difficult not to model my work on his.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
, and to a certain extent
Anton Chekhov
, played almost as great a part, and
Victor Hugo
and
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
were constantly before my eyes. These five names are those of my teachers and literary masters."
In a 1913 interview he gave his views on literature:
[5]
"Common sense, consistency, argumentation, a clear and concrete idea of one's subject that constitutes the plot of the work, a thoughtful evaluation of the phenomena introduced in the novel, clarity and concreteness?these are the things I demand of a literary work."
He made this comment concerning
Friedrich Nietzsche
:
[2]
"It is often thought here (in Russia) that Nietzsche exercised a great influence over me. This surprises me, for the simple reason that I have never read Nietzsche. This brilliant thinker is out of sympathy with me, both in his ideas and in the bombastic form of his works, and I have never got beyond the beginnings of his books. Max Stirner is to me much nearer and more comprehensible."
Later life
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]
Artsybashev moved to Moscow in 1912. In 1917?18 he published his anti-
Bolshevik
work
Notes of a Writer
.
[4]
In 1923 he emigrated to Poland as an optant (his mother was Polish), where he edited the newspaper
For Liberty!
(
За свободу!
). He was an irreconcilable enemy of the Bolshevik regime, and Soviet critics dubbed the novels of his followers
saninstvo
and
artsybashevchina
(both terms are considered derogatory). He died in
Warsaw
on March 3, 1927, from
tuberculosis
and was buried at the
Orthodox Cemetery in Warsaw
.
English translations
[
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]
- The Millionaire
,
Ivan Lande
, and
Nina
, (stories/short novels), B.W. Huebsch, NY, 1915.
from Archive.org
- The Revolutionist
, (story), from
Best Russian Short Stories
, Boni and Liveright, 1917.
from Archive.org
- Tales of the Revolution
, (stories/short novels), B.W. Huebsch, NY, 1917.
from Archive.org
- The Jew
, (story), from
The Shield
, Alfred A. Knopf, NY, 1917.
from Archive.org
- War
, (play), Grant Richards LTD, London, 1918.
from Archive.org
- Breaking Point
, (novel), B.W. Huebsch, NY, 1920.
from Archive.org
- Sanin
, (novel).
from Gutenberg.org
References
[
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]
- ^
"Z literatury i sztuki. Potomek Ko?ciuszki"
(PDF)
.
Naprzod
(in Polish).
XVIII
(195). Krakow: Ignacy Daszy?ski: 3. 14 July 1909
. Retrieved
1 October
2023
.
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
Biographical note by Artsybashev, from
The Millionaire
, B.W. Hubsch, 1915.
- ^
Michael R. Katz in Mikhail Art?s?ybashev,
Sanin: a novel
, Cornell University Press (2001), p. 261
- ^
a
b
c
d
Reference Guide to Russian Literature
, Taylor & Francis, 1998.
- ^
Introduction,
Sanin: a Novel
, Cornell University Press, 2001.
External links
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