Aleksey Mikhailovich Remizov (; in

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

– 26 November 1957 in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

) was a Russian modernist writer whose creative imagination veered to the fantastic and bizarre. Apart from literary works, Remizov was an expert

calligrapher Calligraphy () is a visual art related to writing. It is the design and execution of lettering with a pen, ink brush, or other writing instruments. Contemporary calligraphic practice can be defined as "the art of giving form to signs in an exp ...

who sought to revive this visual art in Russia.

Biography

Remizov was reared in the merchant milieu of Moscow. As a student of the

Moscow University Moscow State University (MSU), officially M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University,. is a public research university in Moscow, Russia. The university includes 15 research institutes, 43 faculties, more than 300 departments, and six branches. Al ...

, he was involved in the radical politics and spent eight years in prison and

Siberia Siberia ( ; , ) is an extensive geographical region comprising all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has formed a part of the sovereign territory of Russia and its predecessor states ...

n exile. At that time, he developed a keen interest in Russian folklore and married a student of ancient Russian art, who brought him in contact with the Roerichs. In 1905, he settled in

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

and started to imitate medieval folk tales. His self-professed ambition was to catch "the bitterness and absurdity of folklore imagination". Remizov's whimsical stylizations of the saints' lives were ignored at first, partly due to their florid and turgid language, but his more traditional prose works set in the underworld of Russian cities gained him a great deal of publicity. In his satirical novella ''The History of the Tinkling Cymbal and Sounding Brass'' (1910/1922) Remizov depicted the eccentricities and superstitions of rural sectarians. Another striking work of this period is "The Sacrifice", a Gothic

horror story Horror is a genre of speculative fiction that is intended to disturb, frighten, or scare an audience. Horror is often divided into the sub-genres of psychological horror and supernatural horror. Literary historian J. A. Cuddon, in 1984, defi ...

in which "a ghostly double of a father comes to kill his innocent daughter in the mistaken belief that she is a chicken". By the time of the

Russian Revolution The Russian Revolution was a period of Political revolution (Trotskyism), political and social revolution, social change in Russian Empire, Russia, starting in 1917. This period saw Russia Dissolution of the Russian Empire, abolish its mona ...

, Remizov had concentrated on imitating more or less obscure works of medieval Russian literature. He responded to the revolution by the ''Lay of the Ruin of the Russian Land'', a paraphrase of the 13th-century work bemoaning the Mongol invasion of Russia. In 1921 he moved to Berlin and then in 1923 - to Paris, where he published an account of his attitudes towards the revolution under the title ''Whirlwind Russia'' (1927). During his years in exile, Remizov brought out a number of bizarre works, featuring demons and nightmare creatures. The writer also developed a keen interest in ''dreams'' and wrote a few works on the subject that involved prominent figures of Russian literature (Gogol, Dostoyevsky and others). Although he was so prolific many of his works failed to find a publisher (in fact, from 1931 to 1952 there was not a single book published). Remizov was also the first Russian modernist author to attract the attention of the luminaries of the Parisian literary world, such as

James Joyce James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (born James Augusta Joyce; 2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influentia ...

. His reputation suffered a decline when, following

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, he announced his interest in returning to the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

and even obtained a Soviet passport (which he did not have a chance to use). After that, Remizov was abhorred by the émigré litterateurs, the most famous of whom,

Vladimir Nabokov Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov ( ; 2 July 1977), also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin (), was a Russian and American novelist, poet, translator, and entomologist. Born in Imperial Russia in 1899, Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Rus ...

, used to say that the only nice thing about Remizov was that he really lived in the world of literature. The years 1952 to 1957 saw a number of Remizov's books published, though only a very limited number of copies were printed.

Legacy

Along with

Andrei Bely Boris Nikolaevich Bugaev (, ; – 8 January 1934), better known by the pen name Andrei Bely or Biely, was a Russian novelist, Symbolist poet, theorist and literary critic. He was a committed anthroposophist and follower of Rudolf Steiner. Hi ...

, Remizov was one of the most famous Russian modernist writers. He became known for his experimental ''

skaz Skaz ( rus, сказ, p=ˈskas) is a Russian oral form of narrative. The word comes from '' skazátʹ'', "to tell", and is also related to such words as ''rasskaz'', "short story" and ''skazka'', "fairy tale". The speech makes use of dialect and sl ...

'' techniques and "underground Dostoevskianism". As D. S. Mirsky notes, Remizov's works influenced

Yevgeny Zamyatin Yevgeny Ivanovich Zamyatin ( rus, Евге́ний Ива́нович Замя́тин, p=jɪvˈɡʲenʲɪj ɪˈvanəvʲɪdʑ zɐˈmʲætʲɪn; – 10 March 1937), sometimes anglicized as Eugene Zamyatin, was a Russian author of science fictio ...

Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy (; – 23 February 1945) was a Russian writer whose works span across many genres, but mainly belonged to science fiction and historical fiction. Despite having opposed the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, he was abl ...

and Mikhail Prishvin.

Selected works

Novels and novellas

* Пруд (1905). ''Pond'' * Часы (1908). ''The Clock'', trans.

John Cournos John Cournos, born Ivan Grigorievich Korshun () (6 March 1881 – 27 August 1966), was an American writer and translator. Biography Cournos was born into a Russian Jewish family in Zhytomyr, Russian Empire (now in Ukraine). His first language wa ...

(London: Chatto & Windus, 1924; New York: Knopf, 1924; Hyperion Press, 1977) * Неуёмный бубен (1910). ''The History of the Tinkling Cymbal and Sounding Brass: Ivan Semyonovitch Stratilatov'' * Крестовые сёстры (1910). ''Sisters of the Cross'', trans. Roger Keys and Brian Murphy (Columbia University Press, 2017) * Пятая язва (1912). ''The Fifth Pestilence'' * В поле блакитном (1922). ''On a Field Azure'', trans. Beatrice Scott (London: L. Drummond, 1946)

Short stories

* Светлое Христово Воскресение (1903). "Easter", trans. John Cournos (1915) * Чёртик (1907). "The Little Devil", trans. Frank J. Miller in ''50 Writers: An Anthology of 20th Century Russian Short Stories'' (Academic Studies Press, 2011). * Жертва (1909). "The Sacrifice", trans. Antonina W. Bouis in ''The Little Devil and Other Stories'' (2017) * Суженаиа (1910). "The Betrothed", trans. John Cournos (1916) * Белое сердтсе (1921). "A White Heart", trans. John Cournos (1921)

Compilations in English

*''The Fifth Pestilence'' and ''The History of the Tinkling Cymbal and Sounding Brass: Ivan Semyonovitch Stratilatov'', trans. Alec Brown (London: Wishart, 1927; New York: Payson & Clarke, 1928; Hyperion Press, 1977) * "Esprit" (1925), "Christ's Godson" (1923), "Faith in Nikolay" (1928), and "Jacob Betrayed" (1928), in ''A Russian Cultural Revival'', ed. Temira Pachmuss (University of Tennessee Press, 1981) * ''Selected Prose'', ed. Sona Aronian ( Ardis, 1985) * ''The Little Devil and Other Stories'', trans. Antonina W. Bouis (Columbia University Press, 2017)

References

External links

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