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The document discusses the tragedy of Soviet Russian literature after the revolution. A small number of exceptional authors were forced into silence, conformity, or exile under unofficial and official pressures. One such unusual author was Evgeni Ivanovich Zamiatin, who died in exile in France in 1937. Zamiatin was born in 1884 and showed early promise as a writer with meticulous craftsmanship and analytical powers in his early works.

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24 views1 page

Mi

The document discusses the tragedy of Soviet Russian literature after the revolution. A small number of exceptional authors were forced into silence, conformity, or exile under unofficial and official pressures. One such unusual author was Evgeni Ivanovich Zamiatin, who died in exile in France in 1937. Zamiatin was born in 1884 and showed early promise as a writer with meticulous craftsmanship and analytical powers in his early works.

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vmiszrggl
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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INTRODUCTION

It is pointless to see the tragedy of Soviet Rus-


sian literature, as some do, in the mere existence of great
numbers of literary hacks, since even democratic societies
are heavily burdened by inferior writers. The real tragedy
of post-revolutionary Russian literature lies in what has
happened to a small number of exceptional authors who,
under normal circumstances, would have made us forget
the mediocre crowd. Through unofficial and official pres-
sures, these few talented men were forced into silence, into
varying degrees of conformity, or intó exile. The names of
most of them are hardly known to their countrymen or to
the world. One of these unusual men was Evgeni Ivano-
vich Zamiatin, who died in France as a voluntary exile in
1937.

Zamiatin was born in 1884 in the Central Russian town


of Lebedian. While studying at the St. Petersburg Poly-
technical Institute, he developed an interest in social and
political problems, an interest that was to be strongly re-
flected in his literary work. He became actively involved
in the revolutionary movement and suffered both imprison-
ment and banishment. A tale called "Provincial Life,
which came out in 1911, was Zamiatinjs first ambitious
attempt at writing, and it showed him to be a meticulous
craftsman with exceptionally acute analytical powers.
Three years later these talents were again demonstrated in
"At the End of the World," a story for which the govern-
ment tried unsuccessfully to prosecute him on the grounds
of antimilitarism. In 1917 Zamiatin published "The Island-
ers" and "The Fisher of Men, tales tn which his satirical
abilities were first given full play, with the English— .

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