Aleksandr Stepanovich Grin
Aleksandr Stepanovich Grin, born in 1880 in Slobodskoi, Russia, was a notable writer known for his unique style that diverged from conventional Russian literature. Originally named Aleksandr Stepanovich Grinevsky, he faced a tumultuous childhood marked by the death of his mother and a troubled education. Grin ventured into various occupations, including a stint as a sailor, before becoming involved in revolutionary activities, which led to multiple arrests and periods of exile. His literary career began with short stories reflecting revolutionary themes, but he later shifted towards fantasy, often set in the fictional realm of Grinlandia.
Grin's most famous work is the novella "Alye parusa" (Scarlet Sails), published in 1923, which embodies a fairy-tale quality. Throughout the 1920s, he enjoyed popularity with several novels, including "Zolotaia tsep'" and "Begushchaia po volnam." However, the rise of socialist realism in Soviet literature led to the withdrawal of his works from libraries and a decline in recognition. Grin's writing was rediscovered in the mid-20th century, and translations of his work into English began to appear in the 1970s, reintroducing his imaginative storytelling to a broader audience. Grin passed away in 1932, leaving behind a legacy that continues to resonate with readers.
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Aleksandr Stepanovich Grin
Writer
- Born: August 23, 1880
- Birthplace: Slobodskoi, Russia
- Died: July 8, 1932
Biography
Aleksandr Stepanovich Grin was the pseudonym of Aleksandr Stepanovich Grinevsky, who was born in 1880 in the village of Slobodskoi, Russia. His father, Stefan Evzekevich, was a clerk and then an accountant, and his mother was Anna Stepanova Liapkova. The couple had four children and an adopted orphan girl before Anna died of tuberculosis in1893, at the age of thirty-seven. From then on, Grin had a troubled adolescence. He received some schooling in Viatka, Russia, but was once expelled from school. He read voraciously the adventure stories of James Fenimore Cooper, William Mayne Read, and other British and American authors, from which he derived a particularly English style of writing, very different from the usual Russian style.
In 1896, Grin left home and moved to Odessa to become a sailor. He held a succession of jobs until 1902, when he enlisted in the tsarist army in Pensa. He promptly deserted and became a revolutionary, doing propaganda work for the Socialist Revolutionary Party, for which he was arrested and given a sentence of ten years in exile. Pardoned under an amnesty, he was rearrested in 1906, but escaped to Moscow. By this time he had changed his name to Grin. In 1910, he married his first wife, Vera Pavlovna Abramova, daughter of a St.Petersburg civil servant. They separated three years later and were divorced in 1920.
In 1919, he was enlisted in the Red Army, although by now he was disillusioned with revolutionary politics. He contracted typhus in 1920, only surviving because the writer Maxim Gorky sent him money. Grin remarried in 1921, traveling with his new wife, Nina Koroshkova, to the Crimea in 1923, where he lived for some years. In 1930, he was diagnosed with stomach cancer, and he died in 1932.
Grin’s early literary work consisted of short stories with a revolutionary fervor, collected in Shapka-nevidimka: Rasskazy o revoliutsionerakh (1908). Other early short stories were about revolutionaries in exile, based on his own experience in the Archangel area in 1911. Just before World War I, many of his stories and poems were appearing in the literary journals of St.Petersburg.
Grin’s subsequent work, however, was more in the fantasy mode and set in the imaginary country of Grinlandia. The 1909 short story “Ostrov Reno” is somewhat in the manner of a boys’ adventure story of a sailor-hero on a tropical island. His first major novella, Alye parusa (1923; Scarlet Sails, 1967), was a fairy story. Grin held to the value of inspirational fantasy rather than the socialist realism posited by revolutionary theory.
During the 1920’s, his work remained popular, including his novels Zolotaia tsep’ (1925) and Begushchaia po volnam (1928), probably his best novel. His last completed novel was Doroga nikuda,written in 1929 but not published until 1935. He began a semiautobiographical work but was unable to complete it. With a stricter party line on realism, Grin’s work was withdrawn from libraries and subsequently became neglected. In 1956, he was rediscovered and in the 1970’s some of his work was translated into English.