Evgeny Chirikov
Evgeny Chirikov | |
---|---|
Born | Kazan, Russia | August 5, 1864
Died | January 18, 1932 Prague, Czechoslovakia | (aged 67)
Genre | fiction, drama |
Notable works | The Jews The Life of Tarkhanov |
Evgeny Nikolayevich Chirikov (Russian: Евге́ний Никола́евич Чи́риков; 5 August 1864 – 18 January 1932), was a Russian novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, and publicist.
Biography
Chirikov was born in
His first articles appeared in the Kazan newspaper Volga Herald in 1885. He published his first story Red in January 1886, in the same paper. That same year, he met
In the 1890s he moved to
After the closing of Life in 1901, he was drawn into the Znanie Publishing Company (Knowledge), by Gorky, which published his collected works in 1908. Chirikov also became a shareholder in Znanie.[2][3] His most important play The Jews (1903), was directed against national oppression and repression, and the autocratic Tsarist regime. The value of this play, which gained praise from Maxim Gorky, was determined not so much by its artistic qualities, as the relevance of its issues. Its journalistic sharpness, clear demarcation of social characters, and progressive ideological outlook demonstrated an affinity with the dramatic works of Gorky. The play was banned from production on the Russian stage, but was widely performed abroad (Germany, Austria, France and other countries).[1]
The significant ideological and creative growth that Chirikov experienced in the period of the
In the years after the 1905 Revolution, Chirikhov began to disagree with the various changing positions of the revolutionary period: these ideological fluctuations had a negative impact on the writer, leading to his alienation from the revolutionary movement. Chirikov left Znanie and began to publish in decadent journals and collections. This move was regarded by his Marxist friends Gorky, Anatoly Lunacharsky, and Vatslav Vorovsky as an ideological apostasy. Chirikov's departure from the realist tradition started with the publication of his plays Red Lights and Legend of the old castle (both 1907), written under the strong influence of Leonid Andreyev. He next published a series of stories on religious themes ("Temptation", "Devi mountains", etc.), and the play Forest Secrets (1911), styled after the works of Aleksey Remizov. However, Chirikov did not give up his attempts at realism, publishing an autobiographical trilogy of novels entitled The Life of Tarkhanov (1911 - 1914), which included the novels Youth, Exile, and The Return (he later wrote a fourth part, Family).[1]
The
English translations
- "Faust", from Short Story Classics (Foreign) Volume 1, P.F. Collier, 1907. from Archive.org
- "The Past", from The Russian Review, Vol 3, No 1, January 1917.
- Marka of the Pits, Alston Rivers, London, 1930.
- "Bound Over", and "The Magician", from Eight Great Russian Short Stories, A Premier Book, Fawcett Publications, 1962.
- "Faust", and "Strained Relations", from Russian Short Stories, Senate, 1995.
External links
- Works by Evgeny Chirikov at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h Nikolayev, A. (1990). "Bibliographic Dictionary of Russian Writers, Vol 2" (in Russian). lib.ru. Retrieved June 28, 2012.
- ^ a b c "The Great Soviet Encyclopedia". The Gale Group. 2010. Retrieved June 28, 2012.
- ^ ISBN 0-300-04868-8. Retrieved June 26, 2012.