Artsybashev, Mikhail

Artsybashev, Mikhail Petrovich 

Born Oct. 24 (Nov. 5), 1878, in Kharkov Province; died Mar. 3, 1927, in Warsaw. Russian writer.

Artsybashev’s work was first published in 1901 (the short stories “The Uprising,” “The Horse Thief,” and “Laughter”). The works that he wrote after 1905–07 reflect the decadent atmosphere of the period of reaction. The preaching of amorality, sexual dissoluteness, and aversion to social ideals are typical of the novel Sanin (1907). The works that he wrote between 1908 and 1912 (“The Millions,” “The Worker Shevyrev,” and the novel At the Brink) contain attacks on revolutionaries and, as before, are naturalistic and erotic in tone. Marxist criticism of the works of Artsybashev has been sharply negative. After the October Revolution, Artsybashev emigrated from Russia.

WORKS

Sobr. soch., vols. 1–10. St. Petersburg, 1905–17.

REFERENCES

Vorovskii, V. V. “Bazarov i Sanin: Dva nigilizma.” In Literaturno-kriticheskie stat’i. Moscow, 1956.
Istoriia russkoi literatury, vol. 10. Moscow-Leningrad, 1954. (Chapter 9.)
Istoriia russkoi literatury kontsa XIX—nachala XX veka: Bibliografich. ukazatel’. Moscow-Leningrad, 1963.