Yuri Vitalyevich Mamleev, also Mamleyev or Mamleiev (, 11 December 1931 – 25 October 2015), was a prominent

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

novelist who began writing in the 1960s and won the

Pushkin Prize The Pushkin Prize () was a Russian literary award presented to a Russian writer considered to have achieved the highest standard of literary excellence. It was established in 1881 by the Russian Academy of Sciences to honor one of the greatest R ...

in 2000. He is considered the founder of metaphysical realism as a literary genre. His best known work, ''The Sublimes'' (), was a

samizdat Samizdat (, , ) was a form of dissident activity across the Eastern Bloc in which individuals reproduced censored and underground makeshift publications, often by hand, and passed the documents from reader to reader. The practice of manual rep ...

novel published in 1966 and translated into English in 2014 by

Marian Schwartz Marian Schwartz is an American translator of contemporary Russian literature. She is the principal English translator of the author Nina Berberova and has translated over 70 books of fiction, history, biography, and criticism into English. She is ...

. Mamleev was also well known as the founder of the Yuzhinsky Circle, an

occultist The occult () is a category of esoteric or supernatural beliefs and practices which generally fall outside the scope of organized religion and science, encompassing phenomena involving a 'hidden' or 'secret' agency, such as magic and mystic ...

, underground literary salon based out of his shared apartment on Yuzhinsky Lane in central Moscow. The illegal literary

salon Salon may refer to: Common meanings * Beauty salon A beauty salon or beauty parlor is an establishment that provides Cosmetics, cosmetic treatments for people. Other variations of this type of business include hair salons, spas, day spas, ...

attracted many non-conformist and anti-Soviet artists, writers, intellectuals, and poets, including the future philosopher

Aleksandr Dugin Aleksandr Gelyevich Dugin (; born 7 January 1962) is a Russian far-right political philosopher. He is the leading theorist of Russian neo-Eurasianism. Born into a military intelligence family, Dugin was an anti-communist dissident during the ...

, Yevgeny Golovin, and Geydar Dzhemal. He was deeply interested in Hindu and Buddhist doctrines and went on to lecture at

Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales (; ), abbreviated as INALCO, is a French Grand Etablissement with a specializing in the teaching of languages and cultures from the world. Its coverage spans languages of Central Europ ...

in Paris and

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

. Following Mamleev's immigration to the United States, Golovin took over leadership of the group. In 1974, Mamleev left the USSR and emigrated to the United States where he taught at

Cornell University Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...

until the fall of the Soviet Union. Post-dissolution, he returned to Moscow where he continued to live and write until his death in 2015.

Writings

Mamleev was strongly influenced by Dostoyevsky's themes and portrayals, such as those of death and evil. Psychopathology was also prevalent in Mamleev's works. The writer

Sergey Mikhalkov Sergey Vladimirovich Mikhalkov (; 27 August 2009) was a Soviet and Russian author of children's books and satirical fables. He wrote the lyrics for the State Anthem of the Soviet Union, Soviet and National anthem of Russia, Russian national anthe ...

commented that his characters' lives resembled a "history of illness of some schizophrenic" and his monstrous creations are an "absurd, devil's hallucination". His works were extremely popular in the non-conformist circles in Moscow. In Mamleev's metaphysical realist worldview, social reality, a falsehood of material illusions from which humans must break free, is contrasted with metaphysical reality, which truly defines both the world and human nature. With the creation of the Yuzhinsky Circle, he attempted to assemble a group of thinkers who were building 'metaphysical selfhood' and a gnostic-spiritual awakening'.

References

External links

TheModernNovel.org: MamleyevThe Sublimes (English / Russian Edition)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mamleev, Yuri 1931 births 2015 deaths Soviet writers Pushkin Prize winners