Author. Real name Boris Nikolayevich Bugayev. A leading member of Russia's Symbolist movement, he took on the name Andrei Bely (which means "Andrew White") when he published his first poems in 1901. His novel "Petersburg", rewritten three times between 1913 and 1922, is considered one of the great masterpieces of 20th Century literature. Set during the 1905 Russian Revolution, the plot concerns a young anarchist who is ordered to assassinate his father, an important Czarist official; but the main character is the city of St. Petersburg itself, cloaked in perpetual mist and burdened by the weight of its bloody history. With the advent of communism Bely was denounced as "irrelevant" and "a literary corpse" by Soviet critics, who found the mysticism of his writing suspect; he left Russia in 1921 but returned two years later, where he tried unsuccessfully to adapt himself to the new regime. His death at 53 of heart disease probably spared him a much worse fate at the hands of Stalin's secret police.
Author. Real name Boris Nikolayevich Bugayev. A leading member of Russia's Symbolist movement, he took on the name Andrei Bely (which means "Andrew White") when he published his first poems in 1901. His novel "Petersburg", rewritten three times between 1913 and 1922, is considered one of the great masterpieces of 20th Century literature. Set during the 1905 Russian Revolution, the plot concerns a young anarchist who is ordered to assassinate his father, an important Czarist official; but the main character is the city of St. Petersburg itself, cloaked in perpetual mist and burdened by the weight of its bloody history. With the advent of communism Bely was denounced as "irrelevant" and "a literary corpse" by Soviet critics, who found the mysticism of his writing suspect; he left Russia in 1921 but returned two years later, where he tried unsuccessfully to adapt himself to the new regime. His death at 53 of heart disease probably spared him a much worse fate at the hands of Stalin's secret police.
Bio by: Bobb Edwards
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