Documents for "Russian and Eastern European Literature: Biographies":

• Čapek, Josef 1887-1945, Czech writer and painter. He collaborated with his brother Karel on a number of plays and short stories. On his own he wrote the utopian play Land of Many Names (1923, tr. 1926) and several...

• Čapek, Karel 1890-1938, Czech playwright, novelist, and essayist. He is best known as the author of two brilliant satirical plays— R. U. R. (Rossum's Universal Robots, 1921, tr. 1923), which introduced the...

• Čech, Svatopluk 1846-1908, Czech poet and novelist. His strong Pan-Slavism and his love for democracy and freedom won him great popularity. His political enthusiasms animate many of his writings. Among Čech's...

• Čelakovsky, František 1799-1852, Czech folklorist and poet. A disciple of Herder and a romantic Pan-Slavist, he collected Slavic folk songs from 1822 to 1827. These he later imitated in his own intricate free verses, Echoes...

• Żeromski, Stefan 1864-1925, Polish writer. Family tragedies and emotional troubles contributed to the pessimistic strain evident in his revolutionary idealism. Among his novels are The Homeless People (1900), which...

• Ady, Endre 1877-1919, Hungarian poet. He abandoned his studies in law for a career in journalism and literature. His first volume of poetry, Versek, appeared in 1899. After 1903 he spent most of his time in Paris, where he fell in love with a woman who became the subject of many poems. A lyric poet noted for an original and creative use of...

• Afanasyev, Aleksandr Nikolayevich 1826-71, Russian folklorist. His collections, published from 1866 on, were instrumental in introducing Russian popular tales to world literature. A selection was translated into English as Russian...

• Afinogenov, Aleksandr Nikolayevich 1904-41, Russian playwright. In his early plays he wrote of labor problems and the dangers of straying from the Communist ideal. His later plays concern the difficulties inherent in the...

• Akhmatova, Anna pseud. of Anna Andreyevna Gorenko , 1888-1966, Russian poet of the Acmeist school. Her brief lyrics, simply and musically written in the tradition of Pushkin, attained great popularity. Her themes were personal, emotional, and often ironic. Among her most popular volumes...

• Aksakov, Konstantin Sergeyevich 1817-60, Russian critic and writer, son of Sergei Timofeyevich Aksakov. Like his brother Ivan, he was an ardent Slavophile and strongly idealized the village community as a voluntary association...

• Aksakov, Sergei Timofeyevich 1791-1859, Russian writer, known for his nostalgic descriptions of the Orenburg region. Aksakov's chief work is Family Chronicle (1856, tr. 1924), a partly fictionalized picture of country life in...

• Aldanov, Mark pseud. of Mark Aleksandrovich Landau , 1886-1957, Russian writer. Aldanov earned degrees in chemistry and law. He took part in the Revolution of 1917, after which he emigrated to France, where he wrote novels about social conflict...

• Alecsandri, Vasile 1821-90, Romanian poet, dramatist, and statesman. He was (1858) provisional foreign minister and subsequently served in various diplomatic posts. Besides writing lyric poetry celebrated for the...

• Alexandrescu, Grigore 1812-85, Romanian poet. Of a noble family, he was active in secret revolutionary societies. In his fables he commented ironically on the complications of living in a Russian protectorate and tried...

• Andreyev, Leonid Nikolayevich 1871-1919, Russian writer. Andreyev's early stories were realistic studies of everyday life. Gorky was attracted by the note of social protest in his work and used his influence to obtain...

• Andrić, Ivo 1892-1975, Yugoslav novelist and poet, b. Bosnia. As a student Andrić worked for the independence and unity of the South Slavic peoples, and after the formation in 1918 of the Kingdom of the...

• Annensky, Innokenty Feodorovich 1856-1909, Russian poet. A classical scholar, he translated Euripides before he began to publish verse in 1904. His highly metrical lyrics concern death, suffering, and beauty. Annensky's scant...

• Arany, János 1817-82, Hungarian poet. Arany is considered one of the founders of modern Hungarian poetry. He was an actor, notary, editor, and professor of Hungarian literature at the Nagy-Koros college. His...

• Artzybashev, Mikhail Petrovich 1878-1927, Russian novelist, playwright, and essayist. Artzybashev's early works were short stories in the manner of Tolstoy. His novel Sanine (1907, tr. 1914) created a sensation and was proscribed...

• Březina, Otakar 1868-1929, Czech lyric poet, leader of the Czech symbolists , whose original name was Václav Jebavý. The first collection of his poetry, Tajemné dálky [mysterious distances],...

• Babel, Isaac Emmanuelovich 1894-1940, Russian writer, b. Odessa. Babel was quick to embrace the Bolshevik revolution of 1917, but in the end it was the regime born of that revolution that destroyed him. He won fame with Odessa Tales (1921-23), written in Russian-Jewish dialect, and Red Cavalry (1926, tr. 1929), dramatic stories based on his life in the army (he had concealed his Jewish identity) and employing the racy slang of the Kuban Cossacks with whom he rode. The original journal...

• Balmont, Konstantin Dmitrieyevich 1867-1943, Russian poet and translator. After first hailing the Bolshevik revolution, he repudiated it and lived chiefly in France, where he died destitute and forgotten. Although his early verse...

• Belinsky, Vissarion Grigoryevich 1811-48, Russian writer and critic. He was prominent in the group that believed Russia's hope to lie in following European patterns. Under Hegel's influence he condoned czarism and reaction for a...

• Bely, Andrei pseud. of Boris Nikolayevich Bugayev , 1880-1934, Russian writer. A leading symbolist , he had a close but stormy relationship with Aleksandr Blok. His poetry includes the four-volume Symphonies (1901-8); his best prose is in the novels The Silver Dove (1910) and Petersburg (1912, tr. 1959) and in Kotik Letayev (1922), an autobiographical novel in the manner of James Joyce. He was an experimenter—his involved style often mixes realism and symbolism in complex forms. In his later years Bely was influenced...

• Bessenyei, György 1747-1811, Hungarian dramatist and writer. In Vienna he came in contact with French rationalism and was an ardent follower of Voltaire and the Encyclopedists. Bessenyei's major importance lay in...

• Bestuzhev, Aleksandr Aleksandrovich pseud. Cossack Marlinsky , 1797-1837, Russian novelist and poet. He wrote popular romantic tales in the Byronic manner. As an officer in the guards he joined the Decembrists and was exiled to Siberia....

• Bezruč, Petr pseud. of Vladimir Vašek , 1867-1958, Czech poet, called the bard of Silesia. Bezruč's fame rests solely on the Silesian Songs (1903, enl. ed. 1909). In these 88 stark, moving verses the poet protests the suppression by the Austrians of the Slavic peoples living between Silesia and Moravia. Bezruč was an admirer of...

• Blok, Aleksandr Aleksandrovich 1880-1921, Russian poet, considered the greatest of the Russian symbolists. As the leading disciple of Vladimir Soloviev, he voiced both mysticism and idealistic passion in an early cycle of love...

• Botev, Khristo 1848-76, Bulgarian poet and patriot. At 17, Botev was sent to Russia, where he became enamored of socialist doctrine. He sought to promote revolution against the Ottoman domination and was killed...

• Brodsky, Joseph (Iosif Aleksandrovich Brodsky) , 1940-96, Russian-American poet, b. Leningrad (St. Petersburg). A disciple of Anna Akhmatova , he began writing poetry in 1955. He was first denounced by the Soviet government (for "decadence and modernism," among other charges) in 1963 and was exiled from the Soviet Union in 1972. Brodsky emigrated to the United States, where he became a citizen, taught at several colleges, and continued to build a...

• Bryusov, Valery Yakovlevich 1873-1924, Russian poet, novelist, and critic. He was the spearhead of the symbolist movement and wrote highly polished and esoteric verse celebrating sensual pleasures. Of his poetry, Stephanos...

• Bugayev, Boris Nikolayevich see Bely, Andrei.

• Bulgakov, Mikhail Afanasyevich 1891-1940, Russian novelist and playwright. He wrote satirical stories ( The Deviliad, 1925, tr. 1972) and comedies ( Zoe's Apartment, 1926) and the long novel The White Guard (1925, tr. 1971), in which a Kievan family hostile to the revolution is sympathetically and realistically portrayed. He condensed and dramatized this as The Days of the Turbines (1926, tr. 1934). The satirical and philosophical novel The Master and Margarita (tr. 1967, 1995) is considered his most important book; it was not published until a censored edition appeared in 1967 (other versions were published in 1973 and 1989). He worked intermittently on...

• Bulgarin, Faddey Venediktovich 1789-1859, Russian journalist and novelist, b. Poland. Bulgarin's original name was Tadeusz Bulharyn. In 1825 he and Nicholas Grech founded the influential conservative daily Northern Bee, in which...

• Bunin, Ivan Alekseyevich 1870-1953, Russian writer. Born of a poor aristocratic family, he was encouraged in his literary precocity. His first volume of verse was published in 1891. He traveled extensively, writing while...

• Cankar, Ivan 1876-1918, Slovenian poet. Considered one of the great Slovenian literary figures, he was influential in the development of modern satire, symbolic drama, and the psychological novel. The struggle...

• Caragiale, Ion Luca 1853-1912, Romanian playwright and author. Romania's foremost dramatist, his works sharply satirized Romanian society. His masterpiece, A Lost Letter (1884), describes a provincial government election...

• Chekhov, Anton Pavlovich 1860-1904, Russian short-story writer, dramatist, and physician, b. Taganrog. The son of a grocer and grandson of a serf, Chekhov earned enduring international acclaim for his stories and plays...

• Czuczor, Gergely 1800-1866, Hungarian philologist and poet, a Benedictine monk. With John Fogarasi he compiled a Hungarian dictionary (completed 1861). He also wrote folk poetry and popular epics. Czuczor was...

• Dąbrowska, Marja 1889-1965, Polish sociologist and novelist. Dąbrowska worked as a militant publicist to further social and economic reform. Her works of fiction, including the epic novel Nights and Days (1932-34)...

• Derzhavin, Gavril Romanovich 1743-1816, Russian classical poet. His satirical ode to Catherine II, Felitsa (1782), won her favor, and he became poet laureate and later Minister of Justice. The Ode to God (1784, tr. in B. G....

• Dostoyevsky, Feodor Mikhailovich 1821-81, Russian novelist, one of the towering figures of world literature.

• Dyk, Viktor 1877-1931, Czech writer and nationalist. Dyk considered his novels, satires, short stories, plays, and poems as weapons in the struggle to free his country from Austrian rule. A long poem, The Window...

• Eötvös, József, Baron 1813-71, Hungarian writer and statesman. A vigorous reformer and a Christian Liberal, he was minister of public instruction and religious affairs in 1848 and again in 1867. His novel The Village Notary...

• Ehrenburg, Ilya Grigoryevich 1891-1967, Russian journalist and novelist, whose name is also spelled Erenburg. He wandered throughout Western Europe as a youth. He was noted for his articles about the two world wars. Some of...

• Eminescu, Mihail 1850-89, Romanian poet. Eminescu is considered the foremost Romanian poet of his century. His poems, lyrical, passionate, and revolutionary, were published in periodicals and had a profound...

• Erenburg, Ilya Grigoryevich see Ehrenburg.

• Esenin, Sergei Aleksandrovich see Yesenin.

• Evtushenko, Evgeny see Yevtushenko, Yevgeny.

• Fadeyev, Aleksandr Aleksandrovich 1901-56, Russian author. An active Communist, he fought in the Revolution of 1917. His first novel, Razgrom (1926, new tr., The Rout, 1957), concerns a group of partisans fighting in Siberia. Fadeyev continued this theme in the lengthy Last of the Udegs (1929-40), an unfinished epic. His novel The Young Guard (1945) describes the underground activities of a group of young Communists during World War II. Criticized, Fadeyev revised it in 1951 to give more prominence to the Communist party. In 1954 he...

• Fedin, Konstantin Aleksandrovich 1892-1977, Russian novelist. Fedin was interned in Germany during World War I and returned to Russia in 1918. His first novels, Cities and Years (1924) and The Brothers (1928), concern the intellectual's...

• Franko, Ivan 1856-1916, Ukrainian writer and nationalist. His realistic novels Boryslav Laughs (1881-82) and Boa Constrictor (1878, tr. 1961) portray the harsh existence of Ukrainian workers and peasants. Franko...

• Fredro, Alexander 1793-1876, Polish comic dramatist. From 1809 to 1814, Fredro served in the Polish regiments of Napoleon I's army, taking part in the invasion of Russia. He returned to the family estates in...

• Frida, Emil Bohuslav see Vrchlický, Jaroslav.

• Gárdonyi, Géza 1863-1922, Hungarian writer. Gárdonyi first attracted attention with a cycle of satirical novels about peasant life. His works include the play Wine (1901) and the novels The Invisible Man...

• Garshin, Vsevolod Mikhailovich 1855-88, Russian short-story writer. "Four Days" (1877), his story of a wounded soldier's ordeal in battle, first won him fame. "The Scarlet Blossom" (1833), about a madman's efforts to destroy...

• Giovanni Gondola see Gundulić, Ivan.

• Gippius, Zinaida Nikolayevna pseud. Anton Krainy, 1869-1945, Russian writer. Her St. Petersburg salon was a meeting place (1905-17) for young poets of the symbolist movement. Self-educated, she wrote Dostoyevskian novels,...

• Gladkov, Feodor Vasilyevich 1883-1958, Russian author. Born into poverty, Gladkov spent his youth wandering along the Volga and in the N Caucasus reading and teaching. He described this period in Story of My Childhood (1949),...

• Gogol, Nikolai Vasilyevich 1809-52, Russian short-story writer, novelist, and playwright, sometimes considered the father of Russian realism. Of Ukrainian origin, he first won literary success with fanciful and romantic...

• Gombrowicz, Witold 1904-69, Polish writer. After studying law at the Univ. of Warsaw, Gombrowicz published his first collection of short stories (1933). This was followed in 1937 by his brilliantly original...

• Goncharov, Ivan Aleksandrovich 1812-91, Russian novelist. Goncharov was a governmental official from 1835 to 1867. His realistic and satirical novel Oblomov (1858, tr. 1929) is a portrayal of the indolent nobleman common in Russia...

• Gondola, Giovanni see Gundulić, Ivan.

• Gorenko, Anna Andreyevna see Akhmatova, Anna.

• Gorky, Maxim [Rus.,=Maxim the Bitter], pseud. of Aleksey Maximovich Pyeshkov, 1868-1936, Russian writer, b. Nizhny Novgorod (named Gorky, 1932-91). Gorky is considered the father of Soviet literature and the...

• Griboyedov, Aleksandr Sergeyevich 1795-1829, Russian playwright and diplomat. His fame rests upon his finest play, Wit Works Woe (1825; tr. in Masterpieces of Russian Drama, Vol. I, ed. by N. R. Noyes, 1933). A verse satire of Moscow...

• Gumilev, Nikolai Stepanovich 1886-1921, Russian poet. With his wife, the poet Anna Akhmatova , and Gorodetsky Gumilev, he founded the Acmeist school of poetry in 1912. He traveled widely in Europe and, especially, in Africa,...

• Gundulić, Ivan or Giovanni Gondola , 1588-1638, Croatian poet. Born in Ragusa (Dubrovnik) of an aristocratic Dalmatian family, he became chief magistrate of Ragusa. In his early work he imitated Italian models. His greatest work, the...

• Hašek, Jaroslav 1883-1923, Czech writer, b. Prague. His experiences as a soldier in World War I inspired his famous novel The Good Soldier Schweik (4 vol., 1920-23; tr. 1930), a satire on the Austrian military bureaucracy and on war in general. The ludicrous adventures of the goodhearted Schweik make the business of war an absurdity. The...

• Herbert, Zbigniew 1924-98, Polish poet, essayist, and playwright, b. Lwów, Poland (now Lviv, Ukraine). Herbert, who had degrees in economics, philosophy, and law, was one of Poland's finest modern poets. A member of...

• Herczeg, Ferenc 1863-1954, Hungarian writer. Herczeg wrote popular romantic farces as well as historical and social novels, plays, and stories, which were generally ironic and detached in tone. He spoke for the...

• Hippius, Zinaida Nikolayevna see Gippius, Zinaida Nikolayevna.

• Ilf, Ilya Arnoldovich 1897-1937, Russian humorist whose original name was Ilya Arnoldovich Fainzilberg. In all his writing he collaborated with Yevgeny Petrovich Katayev (1903-42), who used the pseudonym Yevgeny Petrov...

• Illyés, Gyula 1902-83, Hungarian poet and novelist. Illyés came from a poor peasant family. He was educated in Budapest and Paris and supported himself with menial jobs, writing only in his spare time. During...

• Ivanov, Vsevolod Vyacheslavovich 1895-1963, Russian short-story writer, novelist, and dramatist, b. Siberia. Ivanov had an adventurous early life as a sailor, circus performer, fakir, and partisan fighter. His talent for vivid...

• Jókai, Mór 1825-1904, Hungarian romantic novelist and journalist. Jókai was a fervent nationalist who, after the Hungarian defeat in 1848, became a fugitive from the Austrians. He was later a member...

• Jósika, Miklós, Baron 1794-1865, Hungarian novelist and patriot. The originator of the Hungarian historical novel, he was often superficial and inaccurate, but was nevertheless responsible for a renewed interest in...

• József, Attila 1905-37, Hungarian poet. Born in Budapest of a poor family, József had to support himself from the age of seven with menial jobs; he was never able to earn a living from his writing. He was...

• Kölcsey, Ferenc 1790-1838, Hungarian writer and orator. A student of the Enlightenment, he aided his friend Krasiński in a reform of the Hungarian language, investigated Hungarian literary history, and introduced...

• Körmendi, Ferenc 1900-1972, Hungarian novelist. His Escape to Life (1932) won the international novel competition of 1932. Among his translated novels are The Happy Generation (1934, tr. 1945) and That One Mistake...

• Kasprowicz, Jan 1860-1926, Polish poet. His writings progressed from social revolt (e.g., From a Peasant's Field, 1891) to poems of spiritual struggle and philosophical intensity. Among his later works are To a...

• Katayev, Valentin Petrovich 1897-1986, Russian novelist, short-story writer, and playwright. Katayev's novels portray almost the entire range of Soviet life, from the period of the New Economic Policy ( The Embezzlers, 1926,...

• Katona, József 1791-1830, Hungarian dramatist. His classic tragedy Bánk Bán (1821) was among the first important works in Magyar. It was set to music by Francis Erkel (1810-93) and became Hungary's most popular opera. The work is remarkable for its portrayal of emotional...

• Kaverin, Veniamin Aleksandrovich 1902-89, Russian novelist and short-story writer. He was a member of the literary group that called itself the Serapion Brothers, and he expounded that circle's creed of independence of art from...

• Kazinczy, Ferencz 1759-1831, Hungarian author and critic. The influence of Kazinczy's works made him a leading reformer of the Hungarian language. He was imprisoned (1795-1801) for revolutionary activity. He is...

• Kertész, Imre 1929-, Hungarian novelist, b. Budapest. Of Jewish descent, Kertész spent two years in the Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps, an experience that was to shape his fiction. Later, he...

• Kirshon, Vladimir Mikhailovich 1902-38, Russian dramatist. He began his career with Red Dust (1927, tr. 1930), a play showing the degeneration of a revolutionist under the reconstruction program known as the New Economic Policy. His play Bread (1930, tr. 1934) deals with the struggle against private hoarding on collective farms. The majority of his plays concerned the social problems of the new order. Kirshon was expelled from the...

• Kisfaludy, Károly 1788-1830, Hungarian dramatist, founder of the Hungarian national drama. Kisfaludy traveled abroad extensively and studied painting before he returned to Hungary and began his literary career. His Tatars in Hungary (1819) was the first genuinely dramatic Hungarian play and the first of the many successes by which he established the national drama and the Hungarian romantic movement. With his brother Sándor he...

• Kochanowski, Jan 1530-84, esteemed as the greatest poet of the Polish Renaissance. Kochanowski assimilated the poetic traditions of Italy and France and created new rhythmic patterns, expressive phrases, and...

• Kolas, Jakub 1882-1956, Belorussian poet and novelist, whose original name was Konstantin Mitskevich. With Janka Kupala, he was a leading figure in Belorussian national and literary life. Among his many works...

• Kollár, Jan 1793-1852, Slovak poet who wrote in Czech. A Protestant minister, he was an ardent proponent of Pan-Slavism. He promoted his ideas in a famous essay on Slavonic cultural unity (1836) and in his...

• Koltsov, Aleksey Vasilyevich 1809-42, Russian poet. Although he had little formal education, he studied great works of literature and became well known for his fresh, unsophisticated lyrics on themes of peasant life published...

• Korolenko, Vladimir Galaktionovich 1853-1921, Russian short-story writer and publicist. A member of a Populist circle, he was arrested in 1879 and exiled to Siberia until 1885. There he wrote many of his lyrical tales, notable for...

• Krüdener, Juliana, Baroness von 1764-1824, Russian novelist and mystic. Born a Livonian aristocrat, she married a Russian diplomat. She left her husband (1801) for the pleasures of literary and social life in Paris and...

• Krasiński, Zygmunt, Count 1812-59, Polish romantic poet. An ardent patriot and Slavophile, he lived much of his life abroad. His majestic works, often set in classical antiquity, include The Undivine Comedy (1833, tr. 1875),...

• Krasicki, Ignacy 1735-1801, Polish satirist. He is noted for the poems Myszeidos, an allegory on political disorder, and Monachomachia, a witty inspection of monastic life, as well as for his novels, prose satires...

• Kraszewski, Józef Ignacy 1812-87, Polish writer. He was imprisoned for political activities in Lithuania and in Germany. Wandering in exile through Europe, he died in Geneva. A large part of Kraszewski's nearly 600-volume...

• Krleža, Miroslav 1893-1981, Croatian novelist, playwright, and poet. He captured the concerns of a revolutionary era in Yugoslavia in his trilogy of social dramas about the Glembay family (1928-32) and in novels...

• Krylov, Ivan Andreyevich 1769-1844, Russian fabulist. Some of his more than 200 fables were adapted from Aesop and La Fontaine, but most were original. A moralist, Krylov used popular language to satirize human...

• Kundera, Milan 1929-, Czech-born novelist and essayist. His first novel, The Joke (1967, tr. 1974), brought him government disapproval and resulted in the loss of his citizenship. This, coupled with the 1968 Soviet invasion, prompted him to flee Czechoslovakia; he settled (1975)...

• Kupala, Janka 1888-1942, Belorussian poet and writer, whose original name was Ivan Lutsevich. Kupala was a major figure of the Belorussian national and cultural revival. His prerevolutionary works, which stress...

• Kuprin, Aleksandr Ivanovich 1870-1938, Russian novelist and short-story writer. Kuprin was an army officer for several years before he resigned to pursue a writing career. He won fame with The Duel (1905, tr. 1916), a novel of protest against the Russian military system. In 1909, The Pit (tr. 1922), his novel dealing with prostitution in Odessa, created a sensation. Kuprin left Russia after the revolution but returned in 1937. Some of his best short stories of action and adventure...

• Landau, Mark Aleksandrovich see Aldanov, Mark.

• Lem, Stanisław 1921-2006, Polish science-fiction writer. A doctor by training, Lem began his writing career as a poet before turning to the novel. In his many science-fiction works, including Return from the Stars (1961; tr. 1973), Solaris (1961; tr. 1982; films, 1972, 2002), His Master's Voice (1968, tr. 1983), and The Futurological Congress (1971, tr. 1974), he combines irony and grotesque humor with profound social, psychological, and philosophical analyses that show a concern for the moral implications of modern science and...

• Leonov, Leonid Maksimovich 1899-1994, Russian novelist and playwright. Leonov was a major figure in the development of psychological and social realism in the novel. His works, such as his first long novel The Badgers (1924,...

• Lermontov, Mikhail Yurevich 1814-41, Russian poet and novelist. Given an extensive private education by his wealthy grandmother, Lermontov began writing poetry when he was 14. He first attracted public attention in 1837 with...

• Leskov, Nikolai Semyonovich 1831-95, Russian short-story writer and novelist. Leskov was first a civil servant, then an agent for his uncle's business. Encouraged by his uncle he became a journalist and writer of narrative...

• Lomonosov, Mikhail Vasilyevich 1711-65, Russian scientist, scholar, and writer, an outstanding figure in 18th-century Russia. Lomonosov was the son of a prosperous fisherman. Concealing his peasant background, he obtained an...

• Lukács, György 1885-1971, Hungarian writer, one of the foremost modern literary critics. Converted to Communism in 1918, Lukács served (1919) in the cabinet of Béla Kun. On Kun's fall he fled and lived in Berlin...

• Lunacharsky, Anatoli Vasilyevich 1875-1933, Russian revolutionary, dramatist, and critic. He began his revolutionary career in 1892 and joined the Bolshevik party when it appeared, forming with Gorky and Bogdanov the left wing of the group, which was in opposition to Lenin. Later he was Lenin's ally in overthrowing the Kerensky government. His most important position was as commissar of education (1917-29). He advocated the creation of a new proletarian literature, but was also instrumental in the preservation of Russian...

• Mácha, Karel Hynek 1810-36, Czech romantic poet. After studying law at the Univ. of Prague he became a civil servant. He published a number of promising poems and wrote Pictures from My Life, introspective autobiographical sketches. This work was followed by Gypsies (1835-36), a novel. His long iambic poem May (1836, tr. 1932) is considered the finest lyric work in the Czech language; Czech iambic verse dates from this work. Mácha's profoundly melancholy and nostalgic verse reveals his strong response to...

• Machar, Josef Svatopluk 1854-1942, Czech poet and essayist. A leader of the realist movement in Czech poetry and a master of colloquial Czech, Machar was active in anti-Austrian political circles in Vienna. Many of his...

• Mandelstam, Osip Emilyevich 1892-1938, Russian poet. Mandelstam was a leader of the Acmeist school. He wrote impersonal, fatalistic, meticulously constructed poems, the best of which are collected in Kamen [stone] (1913) and Tristia (1922). Although he opposed the Bolsheviks, he remained in Russia after the revolution but published no poetry after 1925. He was arrested in 1934 and died in a concentration camp. His widow...

• Marlinsky, Cossack see Bestuzhev, Aleksandr Aleksandrovich.

• Mayakovsky, Vladimir Vladimirovich 1893-1930, Russian poet and dramatist. Mayakovsky was a leader of the futurist school in 1912, and he was chief poet of the revolution. His lyrics are highly original in rhythm, rhyme, and imagery....

• Merezhkovsky, Dmitri Sergeyevich 1865-1941, Russian critic and novelist. His principal critical study is Tolstoi as Man and Artist; with an Essay on Dostoievsky (1901-2, tr. 1902), in which he represented the authors as seers of, respectively, the flesh and the spirit. This type of antithetical thought is developed in his trilogy of historical novels...

• Miłosz, Czesław 1911-2004, poet, essayist, and novelist, b. Szetejnie, Lithuania (then in Russia). Widely considered the greatest contemporary Polish poet, Miłosz was born into an ethnically Polish family,...

• Mickiewicz, Adam 1798-1855, Polish romantic poet and playwright, b. Belorussia. He studied at the Univ. of Vilna, where he was arrested (1823) for pan-Polish activities and deported to Russia. He was permitted...

• Mikszáth, Kálmán 1849-1910, Hungarian writer. He wrote witty novels and tales satirizing the decaying gentry and petty civil servants of Hungary before 1914. These include the novel St. Peter's Umbrella (1895, tr....

• Molnár, Ferenc 1878-1952, Hungarian dramatist and novelist. He studied law in Budapest and Geneva and was for some time a journalist in Budapest. He was a prolific author of plays, novels, stories, sketches,...

• Mrożek, Sławomir 1930-, Polish dramatist and short-story writer. While working as a journalist and cartoonist for a Kraków newspaper, Mrożek began to write short stories, which are often satirical and macabre and...

• Némcová, Božena 1820-62, Czech novelist and storyteller. Némcová developed the regional tale, which she enhanced with an original prose style. Her work provided escape from a wretchedly poor and unhappy life. Her...

• Narezhny, Vasily Trofimovich 1780-1825, Russian novelist. He was an important forerunner of Gogol in his realistic descriptions of Ukrainian and Cossack life. He is best known for the picaresque novel The Russian Gil Blas (1814)....

• Nazor, Vladimir 1876-1949, Yugoslav poet and novelist, b. Croatia. Nazor's early career paralleled the emergence of the Young Croatian literary movement. His verses in Croat Kings (1912) established him as the great patriot poet of his homeland. Istrian Tales (1913) revealed his storytelling skill. By illuminating the personality of the South Slavs through tales of his native Croatia, he helped to create the Yugoslav national consciousness. In World War...

• Nekrasov, Nikolai Alekseyevich 1821-78, Russian poet, editor, and publisher. Nekrasov began writing poetry when he was seven. Disowned by his brutal father for entering the university, he lived in poverty for many years. The...

• Neruda, Jan 1834-91, Czech essayist and poet, b. Prague. His popular Stories from Malá Strana (1878), tales drawn from his childhood in Prague and satiric portraits of members of the Czech middle classes, exemplifies early Czech realism. Neruda's poetry in its simplicity and lyricism has...

• Novikov, Nikolai Ivanovich 1744-1818, Russian journalist and publisher. In 1769, with the Drone, he started the vogue of the satirical magazine modeled on Addison's Spectator. This and subsequent journals were halted by Catherine II in 1774 because of their sharp attacks on serious social injustice. He published several other short-lived satirical journals and huge...

• Olesha, Yuri 1899-1960, Russian novelist and dramatist. In his novel Envy (1927; tr. 1936) and in his other writing, Olesha focused on the conflict between the demands of an industrialized world and human spiritual needs. He wrote in a vivid, highly metaphoric style...

• Ostrovsky, Aleksandr Nikolayevich 1823-86, Russian dramatist. Ostrovsky's first play, The Bankrupt (1847; reworked as It's a Family Affair, 1850), was widely read but was banned from the stage. He left a government clerical post in 1851 to devote his time to writing. Most of his more than 50 plays deal with the merchant or...

• Pasternak, Boris Leonidovich 1890-1960, Russian poet and translator. Pasternak became an international symbol of the incorruptible moral courage of an artist in conflict with his political environment.

• Peshkov, Aleksey Maximovich see Gorky, Maxim.

• Petőfi, Sándor 1823-49, Hungarian poet and patriot. A failure as an actor, Petőfi became the author of exquisite lyrics. He composed the national poem "Talpra Magyar" (1848), and several epics, including...

• Petrov, Yevgeny Petrovich 1903-42, Russian writer and journalist; brother of the dramatist Valentin P. Katayev. His original name was Yevgeny Petrovich Katayev. Petrov collaborated with Ilya Arnoldovich Ilf on various satirical...

• Pilnyak, Boris pseud. of Boris Andreyevich Vogau , 1894-1937?, Russian novelist and short-story writer. Pilnyak first attracted wide attention with his novel The Naked Year (1921, tr. 1928), a loosely constructed...

• Pisemsky, Aleksey Feofilaktovich 1821-81, Russian novelist and playwright. In his realistic descriptions of country life he portrayed the peasant sympathetically. His novel A Thousand Souls (1858, tr. 1959) is the story of an ambitious...

• Platonov, Andrei 1899-1951, Russian novelist and short-story writer. Platonov's writing focuses on the threat industrialization poses to human and spiritual values. His denunciation of the Soviet bureaucracy led...

• Pogodin, Nikolai pseud. of Nikolai Feodorovich Stukalov , 1900-1962, Russian dramatist. Pogodin wrote many colorful, optimistic, and popular plays generally dealing with the theme of man's conquest of the machine....

• Preradović, Petar 1818-72, Croatian soldier, poet, and Slavophile. His early works were in German. His later lyrics, written in Croatian under Kollár's inspiration, were imbued with Slavonic symbolism. Preradović's...

• Prus, Bolesław 1845?-1912, Polish writer, whose original name was Alexander Głowacki. Prus is considered a founder of the modern Polish novel. His articles and short stories exposed the prejudice and class pride...

• Prutkov, Kozma see Tolstoy, Aleksey Konstantinovich.

• Przybyszewski, Stanisław 1868-1927, Polish novelist, essayist, and dramatist. He studied in Berlin, where his friendship with a socialist led him to prison. Under Scandinavian influence he developed his neoromantic...

• Pushkin, Aleksandr Sergeyevich 1799-1837, Russian poet and prose writer, among the foremost figures in Russian literature. He was born in Moscow of an old noble family; his mother's grandfather was Abram Hannibal, the black...

• Remizov, Aleksey Mikhailovich 1877-1957, Russian novelist, short-story writer, and painter. Remizov's emphasis on style, especially his ornamentation of colloquial speech, influenced many Soviet writers (e.g., Babel and...

• Reymont, Władysław Stanisław 1867?-1925, Polish short-story writer and novelist. Reymont's poverty-stricken farm childhood and his early manhood as a touring actor and worker in the provinces provided rich material for his...

• Słowacki, Juliusz 1809-49, Polish writer, one of the foremost Polish romantic poets. A revolutionist, he joined the Polish expatriates in Paris and died there prematurely of tuberculosis. Słowacki was extremely...

• Saltykov-Shchedrin, Mikhail Evgrafovich 1826-89, Russian novelist and satirist. Saltykov-Shchedrin was a master of the satirical sketch, which he used to attack the bourgeoisie, the gentry, and the officials of the civil service, of...

• Schulz, Bruno 1892-1942, Polish short-story writer and artist. Unrecognized until after World War II, Schulz is now considered the finest modern Polish-language prose stylist and a significant visual artist. His...

• Seifert, Jaroslav 1901-86, Czech poet. Starting as a revolutionary "proletarian" poet, Seifert soon began to emphasize fantasy and enchantment as antidotes to modern technological civilization. After signing an anti-Stalinist manifesto, he was expelled from the Communist party,...

• Shevchenko, Taras 1814-61, Ukrainian poet and artist. Born a serf and orphaned early, Shevchenko passed a wretched childhood in the service of a brutal sexton. He was apprenticed to icon and mural painters until he...

• Shklovski, Victor Borisovich 1893-1984, Russian critic and writer. Shklovski was an exponent of the formalist school, which held that in literature only the form and structure of a work are important, not its content or the...

• Sholokhov, Mikhail Aleksandrovich 1905-84, Russian novelist. Sholokhov won international fame for an epic novel of his native land, The Silent Don (4 vol., 1928-40; tr. in 2 vol., And Quiet Flows the Don, 1934, and The Don Flows...

• Sienkiewicz, Henryk 1846-1916, Polish novelist and short-story writer. The best-known of Sienkiewicz's vivid historical novels is Quo Vadis? (1896, tr. 1896), concerning Christianity in the time of Nero. He glorified...

• Sinyavsky, Andrey Donatovich 1925-97, Russian novelist and essayist. Starting in the 1960s, Sinyavsky, a protege of Boris Pasternak , had a number of works, all focusing on the nightmarish nature of life in the time of Stalin, published abroad under the name of Abram Tertz. In 1965, he was arrested along with the Jewish writer...

• Skvorecky, Josef 1924-, Czech-born novelist. Skvorecky's first novel, The Cowards (1958; tr. 1970), was banned after its publication because of its ironic portrait of everyday life under Communist rule. In 1968, after the defeat of the Czech reform movement, he emigrated to...

• Sládek, Joseph Václav 1845-1912, Czech poet and translator. He lived in the United States from 1868 to 1870. Sládek later taught English in Prague and translated much English and American poetry into Czech, including...

• Sologub, Feodor pseud. of Feodor Kuzmich Teternikov, 1863-1927, Russian poet and prose writer. By profession a schoolteacher and as a poet one of the older symbolists, he began his literary career in 1896 with a volume of verse, a collection of...

• Soloviev, Vladimir Sergeyevich 1853-1900, Russian religious philosopher and poet; son of Sergei Mikhailovich Soloviev. Soloviev believed in the incarnation of divine wisdom in a being called Sophia, a concept that greatly...

• Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr Isayevich 1918-, Russian writer, b. Kislovodsk.

• Sumarokov, Aleksandr Petrovich 1718-77, Russian dramatist and poet. Sumarokov wrote fables, satires, lyrics, and comic odes in the classical style. His Khorev (1747) and Tresotinius (1750) were respectively the first classical...

• Teternikov, Feodor Kuzmich see Sologub, Feodor.

• Toldy, Ferencz 1805-75, father of Hungarian literary history. Toldy edited various literary journals and founded (1842) Nemzeti Könyvtár [national library] to produce the critical edition of Hungary's classic poets. He also wrote two histories of Hungarian literature (1851, 1864-65), a Hungarian grammar (1866), and a manual of...

• Tolstaya, Tatyana 1951-, Russian short-story writer and essayist. Increasingly recognized as one of the major European writers of the postwar generation, Tolstaya is part of a Russian literary dynasty—Aleksey N. Tolstoy 's granddaughter and Leo Tolstoy 's great-grandniece. Reflecting the influences of Gogol, Tolstoy, and Dostoyevsky, her work focuses with wit, intensity, and ironic compassion on the gap between her characters' dreams and the...

• Tolstoy, Aleksey Konstantinovich 1817-75, Russian poet, dramatist, and novelist. He was a distant cousin of Leo Tolstoy. Together with two cousins he wrote nonsense verse and humorous works under the pseudonym Kozma Prutkov...

• Tolstoy, Aleksey Nikolayevich 1883-1945, Russian writer. He was distantly related to Leo Tolstoy. Of aristocratic origin, he opposed the Bolsheviks in 1917 and emigrated to Western Europe. He returned in 1923 and accepted the...

• Tolstoy, Leo, Count Rus. Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoi (lyĕf), 1828-1910, Russian novelist and philosopher, considered one of the world's greatest writers.

• Tredyakovsky, Vasily Kirilovich 1703-69, Russian poet, translator, and scholar. Tredyakovsky rose from humble origins to membership in the Academy of Sciences and a position as court poet, only to die in poverty and obscurity...

• Tsvetayeva, Marina Ivanovna 1892-1941, Russian poet. She was a major Russian poet, who survived the civil war, emigrated to Prague and Paris, and returned to Russia (1939). Noted for her lyricism and notoriously difficult to...

• Turgenev, Ivan Sergeyevich 1818-83, Russian novelist, dramatist, and short-story writer, considered one of the foremost Russian writers. He came from a landowning family in Orel province, and his cruel, domineering mother...

• Tuwim, Julian 1894-1953, Polish poet. A leader of the Skamander group of experimental poets, he was also a major figure in his nation's literature. In his principal collection of poetry, Slowa we krwi [words bathed...

• Tychyna, Pavlo 1891-1967, Ukrainian poet. Tychyna's first volume of verse ( Solar Clarinets, 1919) revealed a strong symbolist influence. His later poetry, including The Party is our Guide (1934) and To Grow and...

• Tyutchev, Feodor Ivanovich 1803-73, Russian lyric poet and essayist. Most of Tyutchev's adult life was spen