AKHMATOVA, ANNA ANDREYEVNA, pseudonym of Anna Andreyevna Gorenko (1889–1966). Poet; initially a member of the Acmeist movement. Her first husband was the poet Nikolay Gumilev. Notable works include “Poem without a Hero” and Requiem.
AFANASIEV, ALEKSANDR NIKOLAEVICH (1826–1871). Literary historian and folklorist, representative of the “mythological school.” He collected Russian folk tales and published the three-volume work The Slavs’ Poetic Outlook on Nature.
BABEL, ISAAC EMMANUILOVICH (1894–1940). Writer of works such as Red Cavalry and Odessa Tales. Arrested in 1939, he died in a gulag.
BAUDOUIN DE COURTENAY, JAN NIECISŁAW (1845–1929). Linguist. Born and educated in Poland, he worked in various foreign universities for much of his life. He established the Kazan School of Linguistics in the mid-1870s.
BELY, ANDREI, pseudonym of Boris Nikolaevich Bugaev (1880–1934). Poet, novelist, and theorist of symbolism. His writings include the novels The Silver Dove, Petersburg, Kotik Letaev, and the essay collections Symbolism and The Mastery of Gogol.
BLOK, ALEKSANDR ALEKSANDROVICH (1880–1921). The great lyric poet of Russian symbolism. His poem “The Twelve” addresses the October Revolution.
BRIK, LILYA (LILI) YURYEVNA (1891–1978). Osip Brik’s wife and also Mayakovsky’s companion.
BRIK, OSIP MAKSIMOVICH (1888–1945). Literary critic and theorist. An exponent of formalism, he was one of the most active members of LEF.
BUKHARIN, NIKOLAI IVANOVICH (1888–1938). Politician. A member of the Bolshevik party, he was in the Politburo from 1919–29 and on the Central Committee from 1917–34. In 1937 he was expelled from the party, tried, and executed.
BULGAKOV, MIKHAIL AFANASYEVICH (1891–1940). Novelist and playwright. His works include The White Guard, Black Snow, and The Master and Margarita (posthumously published).
BURLIUK, DAVID DAVIDOVICH (1882–1967). Painter and poet. He discovered Mayakovsky’s poetic talent and through his tenacious organizing consolidated the CuboFuturist group. In 1920, he emigrated to Japan, and in 1922 moved to the United States.
DERZHAVIN, GAVRILA ROMANOVICH (1743–1816). Poet. Considered the greatest Russian poet before Pushkin. He is known for his odes, in particular “On the Death of Prince Meschersky,” “Ode to Felitsa,” and “God.”
EIKHENBAUM, BORIS MIKHAILOVICH (1886–1959). Literary theorist and historian. A member of Opoyaz, his works include Leo Tolstoy, Anna Akhmatova, Literary Mores.
EISENSTEIN, SERGEI MIKHAILOVICH (1898–1948). Director. Author of renowned films such as October: The Ten Days that Shook the World, The Battleship Potemkin, Alexander Nevsky, Ivan the Terrible.
ERENBURG, ILYA GRIGORYEVICH (1891–1967). Writer. Author of, among others, the novel The Thaw and the autobiography People, Years, Life.
ESENIN, SERGEI ALEKSANDROVICH (1895–1925). Poet. After a period of “peasant” lyric poems, he greeted the revolution in mystical-prophetic terms. He was subsequently a leader of the imagist movement. He committed suicide in a Leningrad hotel room.
FEDIN, KONSTANIN ALEKSANDROVICH (1892–1977). Writer. His books include Cities and Years, The Rape of Europe, and Writer, Art, Time.
FILONOV, PAVEL (1883–1941). Painter and sometime poet. He developed and theorized a style called “analytical realism” or “anti-cubism.”
FORSH, OLGA DMITRIEVNA (1873–1961). Writer. Her work includes the roman á clef The Ship of Fools depicting the Petrograd House of Arts.
GIPPIUS, ZINAIDA NIKOLAEVNA (1869–1945). Poet, prose writer, and critic. Recognized as one of Russia’s most important women writers and something of a dandy. She and her husband Dmitri Merezhkovsky went into exile in 1920.
GORKY, MAXIM, pseudonym of Aleksey Maksimovich Peshkov (1868–1936). Writer. His many works include the novels Mother and The Life of Matvei Kozhemyakin. After an initial fallout with the Bolsheviks and a long period of residency abroad, he returned to the USSR in 1931.
GURO, ELENA GENRIKHOVNA (1877–1913). Writer, painter, and Cubo-Futurist.
IVANOV, VYACHESLAV IVANOVICH (1886–1949). Symbolist poet. Also a philosopher, literary critic, and translator.
IVANOV, VSEVOLOD VIACHESLAVOVICH (1895–1963). Writer. His works include the novel Armoured Train 14-69.
JAKUBINSKY, LEV PETROVICH (1892–1945). Formalist critic and linguist.
KAMENSKY, VASILY VASILEVICH (1884–1961). Poet and artist associated with Cubo-Futurism. He was also one of the editors of Vesna.
KAVERIN, VENIAMIN ALEKSANDROVICH (1902–1989). Writer. A character in his first novel, Skandalist, was modeled on Viktor Shklovsky. He also wrote many other works, including the acclaimed Two Captains.
KRUCHENYKH, ALEKSEI ELISEEVICH (1886–1969). Poet. Perhaps the most radical member of the Cubo-Futurist group, he wrote the poem “Zaum” and developed the theory of “trans-sense” poetry.
KÜCHELBECKER, WILHELM (1797–1846). Russian Romantic poet and Decembrist. Yury Tynyanov wrote a biography of him called Kyukhlya.
KULBIN, NIKOLAI IVANOVICH (1868–1917). Doctor, painter, art theorist. He organized and supported many avant-garde events and publications.
KULESHOV, LEV VLADIMIROVICH (1899–1970). Filmmaker and theorist. His films include The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West in the Land of the Bolsheviks and By the Law.
LUNTS, LEV NATANOVICH (1901–1924). Writer, playwright, and theorist. He wrote the Serapion Brothers’ manifesto “To the West!”
MAYAKOVSKY, VLADIMIR VLADIMIROVICH (1893–1930). Poet and Cubo-Futurist. Merging ideological militancy and literary experimentation, he was at the center of many important initiatives in post-revolutionary Soviet literature. He founded LEF (and the eponymous journal) (1923–25) and the New LEF (1927–29). He committed suicide.
MALEVICH, KAZIMIR (1878–1935). Painter. A pioneer of abstract art, he originated the Suprematist movement.
MANDELSTAM, OSIP EMILEVICH (1891–1938). Poet and prose writer affiliated with the Acmeists. Arrested for the first time in 1934 and “exiled” to Voronezh, he was again arrested in 1938. He died in a gulag in the Far East.
MATYUSHIN, MIKHAIL (1861–1934). Painter and composer affiliated with the Futurists.
MAYKOV, APOLLON NIKOLAYEVICH (1821–1897). Poet.
MENDELEEV, DMITRI IVANOVICH (1837–1907). Chemist and inventor.
MEREZHKOVSKY, DMITRI SERGEYEVICH (1865–1941). Prose writer and essayist. An exponent of pre-symbolist decadence. An opponent of the Bolshevik regime, he and his wife, Zinaida Gippius, went into exile.
MEYERHOLD, VSEVOLOD EMILEVICH (1874–1940). Theater director. A student of Konstantin Stanislavsky’s, he staged innovative and controversial plays. He founded his own theater in 1922, which was closed down in 1938. Arrested in 1939, he was executed by firing squad in 1940. He was later rehabilitated.
NIKITIN, NIKOLAI NIKOLAEVICH (1895–1963). Writer and member of the Serapion Brothers.
PASTERNAK, BORIS LEONIDOVICH (1890–1960). Poet and prose writer. Initially a member of the “moderate” Futurist group “The Centrifuge” and LEF contributor. The controversy over Doctor Zhivago provoked such a large-scale campaign of criticisms and accusations that he was expelled from the Writers’ Union. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1958.
PAVLOV, IVAN PETROVICH (1849–1936). Physiologist.
PYAST (PESTOVSKY), VLADIMIR ALEKSEEVICH (1886– 1940). Poet.
POLIVANOV, YEVGENI DMITRIEVICH (1891–1938). Linguist. A member of Opoyaz, in the Thirties he lived in semi-exile in Samarkand and then in Tashkent. Accused of spying for Japan during the Great Purge, he was tried and executed. He was later rehabilitated.
POLONSKAIA, ELIZAVETA GRIGOREVNA (1890–1969). Poet.
POZNER, VLADIMIR ALEKSANDROVICH (1908–1975). Writer. Born in Paris, where he returned in the Twenties after a period in Russia. He is renowned in France as a Russian-French writer and has published several novels and critical works, including translations of some of Viktor Shklovsky’s books.
PROKOFIEV, SERGEI SERGEYEVICH (1891–1953). Composer. After fifteen years of voluntary exile in the West, he returned to the USSR permanently in 1933.
PUDOVKIN, VSEVOLOD (1893–1953). Filmmaker. Directed acclaimed films such as Mother, The End of St. Petersburg, and Storm over Asia.
RAIKH, ZINAIDA NIKOLAEVNA (1898–1939). Actress. She was married to Sergei Esenin and then Vsevolod Meyer-hold.
REMIZOV, ALEKSEI MIKHAILOVICH (1877–1957). Writer and artist. Wrote fantastic, horror, and satirical stories and novels. After a brief period in Berlin, he moved to Paris in 1924.
ROOM, ABRAM (1894–1976). Director. After studying with Lev Kuleshov at the State Film School, he became a prolific filmmaker.
SCRIABIN, ALEKSANDR NIKOLAYEVICH (1872–1915). Composer and pianist. Innovative and controversial, he is a major figure among Russian composers.
SEVERYANIN, IGOR VASILYEVICH (Lotarev) (1887–1941). Poet. Founder and principal exponent of Ego-Futurism. One of the first poets to leave Russia after the 1917 Revolution, he moved to Estonia in 1918.
SHAGINYAN, MARIETTA SERGEEVNA (1888–1982). Poet, prose writer, and public activist.
SHOSTAKOVICH, DMITRI DMITRIYEVICH (1906–1975). Composer.
SIMONOV, KONSTANTIN MIKHAILOVICH (1915–1979). Writer. Well-known as a poet, he also wrote acclaimed plays and novels, such as Days and Nights.
SLONIMSKY, MIKHAIL LEONIDOVICH (1897–1972). Writer and member of the Serapion Brothers.
SOLZHENITSYN, ALEKSANDR ISAYEVICH (1918–2008). Novelist and historian. Authored major works such as: The Gulag Archipelago, Cancer Ward, The First Circle, August 1914, and One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. He was awarded the Nobel in 1970. Exiled from the Soviet Union in 1974, he lived in the United States until his return to Russia in 1994.
STANISLAVSKI, KONSTANTIN SERGEYEVICH (1863–1938). Theater director, actor, theater theorist. He, along with Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko, founded the Moscow Art Theater.
STRAKHOV, NIKOLAI NIKOLAEVICH (1828–1896). Publicist, philosopher, and literary critic. He wrote biographies of Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy.
TATLIN, VLADIMIR YEVGRAFOVICH (1885–1953). Painter and sculptor. An important artist in the avant-garde and Constructivism.
TERENTYEV, IGOR GERASIMOVICH (1892–1937). Theater director. Initially a member of the futurist-inspired group 41° founded in Tiflis, Georgia in 1918.
TIKHONOV, NIKOLAY SEMENOVICH (1896–1979). Poet and prose writer. One of the Serapion Brothers, his poems and stories often deal with war.
TRETYAKOV, SERGEI MIKHAILOVICH (1892–1937). Poet, playwright, and literary theorist. He was associated with the Ego-Futurists and involved in the Siberian futurist group Creation founded in the early 1920s. He also contributed to LEF and was one of New LEF’s editors. He was a victim of the Great Purge but was later rehabilitated.
TYNYANOV, YURY NIKOLAEVICH (1894–1943). Writer and literary theorist. Member of Opoyaz and author of Archaists and Innovators and The Problem of Poetic Language.
VENGEROV, SEMYON AFANASYEVICH (1855–1920). Literary historian and professor at the University of St. Petersburg.
VERTOV, DZIGA (pseudonym of Denis Arkadievich Kaufman) (1896–1954). Director. In 1922, he founded the “Kino-eye” group and the film journal Kino-Pravda. He made acclaimed films such as One-Sixth of the World and Man with a Movie Camera.
VINOGRADOV, VIKTOR VLADIMIROVICH (1895–1969). Linguist and literary theorist.
ZAMYATIN, YEVGENY IVANOVICH (1884–1937). Writer. An engineer and specialist in naval construction, he lived in England for several years. After returning to Russia in 1917, he took up literature, and is best known for the dystopian satire We. He left Russia in 1931.
ZHDANOV, ANDREI ALEKSANDROVICH (1896–1948). Politician. Involved in cultural affairs in close collaboration with Stalin. In 1946, he denounced Akhmatova and Zoshchenko (among others) in his infamous “report.”
ZHIRMUNSKY, VIKTOR MAKSIMOVICH (1891–1971). Linguist and literary theorist.
ZOSHCHENKO, MIKHAIL MIKHAILOVICH (1895–1958). Writer. Author of satirical stories and novels, he was expelled from the Writers’ Union in 1946.