Ivan Sergeyevich Shmelyov (, also spelled ''Shmelev'' and ''Chmelov''; – 24 June 1950) was a Russian writer best known for his idyllic recreations of a pre-

Revolutionary A revolutionary is a person who either participates in, or advocates for, a revolution. The term ''revolutionary'' can also be used as an adjective to describe something producing a major and sudden impact on society. Definition The term—bot ...

past spent in the merchant district of

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 ...

. He was a member of the Moscow literary group Sreda. 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 ...

Shmelyov fled to France, becoming an

émigré An ''émigré'' () is a person who has emigrated, often with a connotation of political or social exile or self-exile. The word is the past participle of the French verb ''émigrer'' meaning "to emigrate". French Huguenots Many French Hugueno ...

writer.

Biography

Early life

Shmelev was born in the Zamoskovorechye to a merchant family; after finishing high school in 1894 he attended the law faculty of

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 ...

. His first published story appeared in 1895; in the same year he visited Valaam Monastery, a trip that had a deep spiritual influence on him and resulted in his first book, ''On the Cliffs of Valaam'' ( ), published in 1897. After graduating in 1898 he performed military service and spent several years as a civil servant in the provinces while continuing to write; his early stories were published by

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 ...

's Znaniye Publishing House. After the

Russian Revolution of 1905 The Russian Revolution of 1905, also known as the First Russian Revolution, was a revolution in the Russian Empire which began on 22 January 1905 and led to the establishment of a constitutional monarchy under the Russian Constitution of 1906, t ...

his popularity increased, and his 1911 story ' ( ) had tremendous success, making him one of the best known writers of the day; it "depicts, with moments of Dostoyevskyan power, the decadence of the wealthy, as seen by a simple waiter and pious father to whom son and daughter return after disastrous adventures in the world." Shmelyov's story was the basis for Yakov Protazanov's film of the same title, released in 1927, with Mikhail Chekhov in the leading role.

Career

In 1912 Shmelyov organized the Moscow Writers' Publishing House («Книгоиздательство писателей в Москве»), which published Ivan Bunin, Boris Zaitsev, and other leading writers of the day, as well as his own work. His works from this period on "were remarkable for the richness of their popular (in the sense of ''narodnyj'') language.... Particularly noteworthy was his brilliant use of the ''skaz'' technique." Shmelev welcomed 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 the fall of the autocracy; he set off on a series of journeys across Russia to see the effects of the change, and was extremely moved when political exiles returning from Siberia told him how much his writings had meant to them. However, he rejected the

and moved to the

White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...

-held

Crimea Crimea ( ) is a peninsula in Eastern Europe, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, almost entirely surrounded by the Black Sea and the smaller Sea of Azov. The Isthmus of Perekop connects the peninsula to Kherson Oblast in mainland Ukrain ...

, and when his beloved son Sergei, an officer in the

Volunteer Army The Volunteer Army (; ), abbreviated to (), also known as the Southern White Army was a White Army active in South Russia during the Russian Civil War from 1917 to 1920. The Volunteer Army fought against Bolsheviks and the Makhnovists on the ...

who had accepted the Bolsheviks' offer of amnesty and refused to follow P. Wrangel into exile in 1920, was seized by Béla Kun's Revolutionary Committee in the Crimea and shot without trial, he accepted Bunin's suggestion that he join him in exile in France. Perhaps the most powerful of Shemelev's writings in emigration is ''Solntse mertvykh'' (1923, tr. as ''The Sun of the Dead'' in 1927): "In the mosaic of the impressions of the narrator, an elderly '' intelligent'' stuck in the Crimea after the evacuation of Wrangel's troops from the peninsula, there pass the fates of the inhabitants of the Crimea—''intelligents'', workers, peasants—

Tatars Tatars ( )Tatar
in the Collins English Dictionary are a group of Turkic peoples across Eas ...

and Russians—men and women, all equally clutched in the vice of hunger and fear of the Terror... Everything gradually dies against the background of the loveliness of nature, on the shore of the azure sea, under the rays of a golden sun—the sun of the dead, because it illuminates an earth on which everything has been eaten, drunk, trampled—on which poultry, animals, and men are all dying". Another important work of his later period is ''The Year of Grace'' 'Leto Gospodne''(1933–48), an autobiographical novel full of lovingly drawn characters and beautifully observed details in which "his style reaches a high level of lyrical and epic contemplation". The tetralogy from which Shmelev has had time to complete only first two volumes of the novel "The heavenly ways" (1937, 1948) has been conceived. Operation of the third part of the novel should occur in deserts Optinoj where after many shocks and irreplaceable losses its hero finds the sincere world and the higher sense of life begins to see clearly.

Later life

The younger generation of Russian writers, who came of age in exile, sometimes did not appreciate Shmelev's traditionalism and approval of the patriarchal society. Nina Berberova wrote of a reading in Paris in 1942: "Shmelev read as they read in the provinces before the time of Chekhov: with shouts and muttering, like an actor. He read some old-fashioned stuff, churchy, silly, about religious processions and hearty Russian dishes. The audience was ecstatic and clapped."Nina Berberova, ''The Italics Are Mine'' (New York: Vintage Books, 1991), p. 416 But his rich prose and his deep roots in Russian culture won him many readers when he was finally published in his homeland. Fifty years after his death, in 2000, the remains of Shmelyov and his wife were transferred from the Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois Russian Cemetery to the necropolis of Donskoy Monastery in Moscow.

English translations

*''The Sun of the Dead'', Dent, 1927. *''The Story of a Love'', Dutton, 1931. *''Shadows of Days'', ''Christ's Vespers'', and ''The Little Egg'' from ''A Russian Cultural Revival'', University of Tennessee Press, 1981. *''The Stone Age'', Barbary Coast, 1985.

References

External links

Works
(in Russian)

(in Russian)

(in Russian) {{DEFAULTSORT:Shmelev, Ivan Short story writers from the Russian Empire 1873 births 1950 deaths Emigrants from the Russian Empire to France Burials at Donskoye Cemetery