Benedikt Konstantinovich Livshits
Benedikt Konstantinovich Livshits was a Ukrainian poet and translator born on December 25, 1886, in Odessa. He attended the Richelieu Grammar School and later studied law at St. Vladimir University in Kiev, where he began translating French poetry and writing original works. Livshits became part of the vibrant bohemian scene in St. Petersburg after moving there in 1913, mingling with notable figures like Vladimir Mayakovsky. His artistic approach sought to balance traditionalism with avant-garde elements, aiming to preserve the meaning of words rather than distort them completely. During World War I, he served in the military and was wounded, receiving the Cross of St. George for his bravery. Following the revolution, as the Soviet regime became increasingly oppressive towards experimental art, Livshits turned to translation for sustenance while still managing to publish some original pieces. Tragically, he was arrested during the Great Terror in 1937 and was sentenced to ten years of imprisonment, a fate that ultimately led to his execution in 1938, despite official claims of his natural death in 1939. Livshits' life and work reflect the complexities of artistic expression amidst political turmoil in early 20th-century Russia.
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Benedikt Konstantinovich Livshits
Poet
- Born: December 25, 1886
- Birthplace: Odessa, Ukraine
- Died: October 21, 1938
Biography
Benedikt Konstantinovich Livshits was born on December 25, 1886, in Odessa, Ukraine, and attended the Richelieu Grammar School there. From an early age, he was a rebel, and was expelled from the University of Novorossiisk for taking part in a radical student demonstration. He then moved to Kiev, where he studied law at St. Vladimir University from 1907 to 1912. During this period, he began translating French poetry and making his first attempts at original poetry.
In 1913, he moved to St. Petersburg, where he quickly became connected with the bohemian crowd there, including Vladimir Mayakovsky. However, he did not take his work to the extreme of such writers as Aleksei Kruchenykh, preferring to maintain rather than destroying the meaning of word and language. In his art, he tried to strike a balance between stodgy traditionalism and avante-garde incomprehensibility.
During World War I, he entered the military and was wounded at the front. Shell-shocked, he received the Cross of St. George, the czarist regime’s highest decoration. He then returned to Kiev to live between 1916 and 1922, at which time he returned to St. Petersburg. As the Soviet regime made experimental art increasingly less welcome, he turned to translation to support himself, although he was able to publish a few original works.
In 1937, during the height of the Great Terror, he was arrested and sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment “without right of correspondence,” a curious phrase in Soviet jurisprudence which was in effect a euphemism for a death sentence. Although official papers subsequently claimed that he died of a heart attack on May 15, 1939, evidence taken from the Lubyanka files since the fall of the Soviet Union indicate that he was in fact shot on October 21, 1938.