Ieronim Ieronimovich Yasinsky (; April 30 O.S. April 18">Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="nowiki/>

O.S. April 18 1850 – December 31, 1931) was a

Russian novelist, Russian poetry">poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator (thought, thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral t ...

, Literary criticism">literary critic A genre of arts criticism, literary criticism or literary studies is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical analysis of literature' ...

and essayist. Among the numerous pseudonyms he used, were Maxim Belinsky, Nezavisimy (The Independent One) and M.Tchunosov.

Biography

Yasinsky was born in Kharkiv, Russian Empire (now

Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...

) to the lawyer and landlord Ieronim Yasinsky, a nobleman of

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Polish people, people from Poland or of Polish descent * Polish chicken * Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin ...

origins, and Olga Maksimovna Belinskaya, the daughter of a 1812 Borodino hero Colonel Maxim Belinsky (whose name he later used as a literary pseudonym). From the age of eleven, Yasinsky began to write verses and recite them at family literary and musical parties. Yasinsky, who received a good home education, continued studying in the

Chernigov Chernihiv (, ; , ) is a city and municipality in northern Ukraine, which serves as the administrative center of Chernihiv Oblast and Chernihiv Raion within the oblast. Chernihiv's population is The city was designated as a Hero City of Ukrain ...

gymnasium and in 1868 enrolled into the

Kiev University The Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv (; also known as Kyiv University, Shevchenko University, or KNU) is a public university in Kyiv, Ukraine. The university is the third-oldest university in Ukraine after the University of Lviv and ...

, which he left in 1871, after marrying V.P.Ivanova. A person of strong character, keenly interested in

women's liberation movement The women's liberation movement (WLM) was a political alignment of women and feminist intellectualism. It emerged in the late 1960s and continued till the 1980s, primarily in the industrialized nations of the Western world, which resulted in g ...

, she exerted strong influence upon her husband. In September 1870, having returned to Chernigov, Yasinsky debuted as an essayist and started to publish articles in two newspapers, ''Kievsky Vestnik'' and ''Kievsky Telegraph''. Many of these earlier pieces later found their way into ''The Kiev Stories'' (1885) collection. Yasinsky's first short novels (''Natashka'', 1881; ''The Sleeping Beauty'', 1883) were lauded by the Russian leftist literary elite (

Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin Mikhail Yevgrafovich Saltykov-Shchedrin ( rus, Михаи́л Евгра́фович Салтыко́в-Щедри́н, p=mʲɪxɐˈil jɪvˈɡrafəvʲɪtɕ səltɨˈkof ɕːɪˈdrʲin; – ), born Mikhail Yevgrafovich Saltykov and known during ...

in particular) who hailed their author as "the new Garshin." Several years later his major novels (''Irinarkh Plutarkhov'', 1886; ''The Old Friend'', 1887; ''The Great Man'', 1888, and later ''Under Satan's Cloak'', 1909), fell under sharp criticism for allegedly ridiculing the "revolutionary movement." Yasinsky saw his mission in "compiling an encyclopedia of the Russian intelligentsia types, as observed in all possible aspects of life."

Anton Chekhov Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (; ; 29 January 1860 – 15 July 1904) was a Russian playwright and short-story writer, widely considered to be one of the greatest writers of all time. His career as a playwright produced four classics, and his b ...

, who once characterized him as "either an honest garbage collector or a sly crook," was unconvinced. Similarly

Maxim Gorky Alexei Maximovich Peshkov (; – 18 June 1936), popularly known as Maxim Gorky (; ), was a Russian and Soviet writer and proponent of socialism. He was nominated five times for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Before his success as an aut ...

, who treated Yasinsky's books as cheap anti-revolutionary pamphlets, once described their author as "dirty and spiteful old man". Yasinsky repin portrait

Ieronim Yasinsky accepted the

February Revolution The February Revolution (), known in Soviet historiography as the February Bourgeois Democratic Revolution and sometimes as the March Revolution or February Coup was the first of Russian Revolution, two revolutions which took place in Russia ...

and even declared himself "an instant

Bolshevik The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, were a radical Faction (political), faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with the Mensheviks at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, ...

" after the

October Revolution The October Revolution, also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution (in Historiography in the Soviet Union, Soviet historiography), October coup, Bolshevik coup, or Bolshevik revolution, was the second of Russian Revolution, two r ...

.A History of Russian Literature, Taylor and Francis. He worked for

Proletkult Proletkult ( rus, Пролетку́льт, p=prəlʲɪtˈkulʲt), a portmanteau of the Russian words "proletarskaya kultura" ( proletarian culture), was an experimental Soviet artistic institution that arose in conjunction with the Russian Revol ...

, edited Soviet magazines (''Krasny ogonyok'', ''Plamya'', 1918–1919), wrote science fiction for children and translated

Friedrich Engels Friedrich Engels ( ;"Engels"
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''.Garshin, Leykin and Chekhov. He died, aged 81, in

Leningrad 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 ...

USSR 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 ...

Selected works

*''Natashka'' (1881) *''The Sleeping Beauty'' (1883) *''The Kiev Stories'' (1885) *''Irinarkh Plutarkhov'' (1886) *''The Old Friend'' (1887) *''The Great Man'' (1888) *''Under Satan's Cloak'' (1909) *''The Novel of My Life'' (1926)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Yasinsky, Ieronim Ieronimovich Novelists from the Russian Empire Essayists from the Russian Empire Literary critics from the Russian Empire Soviet novelists Soviet male writers Soviet science fiction writers Short story writers from the Russian Empire Soviet short story writers Bolsheviks Poets from the Russian Empire Soviet poets Soviet translators People from the Russian Empire of Polish descent Writers from Kharkiv 1850 births 1931 deaths Translators from the Russian Empire Ogoniok editors