Naidenov, Sergei Aleksandrovich

Naidenov, Sergei Aleksandrovich 

(pen name of S. A. Alekseev), Born Sept. 14 (26), 1868, in Kazan; died Dec. 5, 1922, in Yalta. Russian playwright.

The son of a merchant, Naidenov graduated from the School of Music and Drama of the Philharmonic Society in Moscow in 1889 and was an actor in provincial theaters for several years. His first and best play is Vaniushin’s Children (1901), which was staged by the Theater of the Literary and Artistic Society in St. Petersburg and by the Korsh Theater in Moscow. In 1902, Naidenov became friends with M. Gorky, and his works were then published by the Znanie (Knowledge) Publishing House. Naidenov’s other plays include Number Thirteen (1903), The Prodigal Son (1903), Avdot’ia’s Life (1904, staged by the V. F. Komissarzhevskaia Theater), The Walls (1907), Aunt Ania’s Romance (1912), and The Woman Worker (1915). Naidenov’s realism exposes the vices of capitalist society and the psychological alienation of people. After the October Revolution of 1917 he published the chronicle play Moscow (1921), which is devoted to the Revolution of 1905–07, and the historical revolutionary drama The Undying Light (1922).

WORKS

P’esy, vols. 1–2. St. Petersburg, 1904–11.
Deti Vaniushina. [Afterword by V. Sergeev.] Moscow, 1955.

REFERENCES

Vorovskii, V. V. “Raskol ν ’temnom tsarstve’.” In his Literaturno-kriti-cheskie stat’i. Moscow, 1956.
”Deti Vaniushina” na stsene. Moscow, 1940.
Istoriia russkoi literatury kontsa XIX-nach. XX veka: Bibliograficheskii ukazatel’. Moscow-Leningrad, 1963.

I. I. PODOL’SKAIA