Dmitrii Narkisovich Mamin
Dmitrii Narkisovich Mamin, also known by his pseudonym Mamin-Sibiriak, was a prominent Russian novelist born in 1852 in the Ural Mountains. He was part of a noteworthy generation of writers during the latter half of the nineteenth century and was admired by literary figures such as Ivan Turgenev, Anton Chekhov, and Maxim Gorky. Mamin was a naturalistic writer, dedicated to depicting life authentically and often drawing inspiration from the folklore and social dynamics of his native region. His notable works include "The Privalov Fortune," which critiques the moral decay associated with wealth and industry, and a trilogy that addresses the struggles of the working class. Mamin's personal life was marked by tragedy; he experienced significant loss, including the death of his first wife shortly after the birth of their daughter. He shifted his focus toward writing for children later in life, producing a collection of stories titled "Tales for Alyonushka." Mamin's literary contributions reflect both the complexity of human experiences and the societal issues of his time, before his death in 1912.
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Dmitrii Narkisovich Mamin
Writer
- Born: October 25, 1852
- Birthplace: Russia
- Died: November 2, 1912
Biography
Dmitrii Narkisovich Mamin was part of the generation of great Russian novelists who wrote during the second half of the nineteenth century. In his lifetime, he associated with and was admired by some of Russia’s greatest writers, including Ivan Turgenev, Anton Chekhov, and Maxim Gorky. Mamin was a naturalistic writer, who sought to record life as it is actually lived, distancing himself from his material in order that his stories and novels appeared completely lifelike. Many of his works are written on a vast scale, portraying a wide sweep of society.
Mamin drew from a rich storehouse of folklore, history, people, and social movements that he found in the Ural Mountain area where he was born and raised. He often used the pseudonym Mamin-Sibiriak, with the word “Sibirak” referring to Siberia beyond the Urals. Mamin was born in 1852 in a factory community high in the Ural Mountains, the son of the factory priest, Narkis Marveevich Mamin, described as a forthright, honest and caring person. His mother, Anna Semenovna, was a deacon’s daughter and a lover of books.
Mamin first pursued a career in the church and studied at a theological seminary for four years. He abandoned that career and enrolled in medical school in St. Petersburg and then attended law school. While in St. Petersburg in the mid-1870’s, he began writing short stories that were published in a weekly journal. In 1877, financial reversals and tuberculosis forced him to return home, where in 1878 his father died, leaving Mamin to assume the care and support of his family. The family moved to the city of Ekaterinburg. Mamin married Maria Alekseev, the former wife of a factory manager and a well-educated and supportive help to him. He began to undertake his writing career and by the early 1880’s was publishing regularly.
Mamin published many novels and short stories. One of his best-known novels was Privalovskie milliony (1883; The Privalov Fortune, 1958). This book originally was intended as one of a cycle of three novels tracing the rise of industry and its ultimate corruption. Instead, Mamin depicted corruption and degeneration by portraying the life of Privalov, who inherits great wealth that he dissipates in self-indulgence and neglect of the society that brought him his fortune. In 1884, Mamin published a more pointed criticism of the subsidized factory system that had created a new class of indifferent gentry. The title can be translated as “a mountain nest,” and refers to the removed and elevated retreat of the factory managers. Two volumes of his short stories appeared in 1888 and 1889, and in 1890 he began to realize his ambition to create a trilogy when he published Gornoe gnezdo, the first of three books that portray the exploitation and misery of the working class. The other books in the trilogy were Zoloto and Khleb
In 1890, he fell in love with Maria Moritsovna Abramova, an actress on tour in Ekaterinburg. Mamin created a scandal when he divorced his wife and married his new love in January, 1891. The couple moved to St. Petersburg, where they had a daughter, Alenushka, born in 1892. The day after her birth, Maria died. Left with an infant daughter and his grief, Mamin devoted his life and attention to the girl. Although he wrote one more significant novel, Cherty iz zhizni Pepko, about the experiences shared by two close friends as they grow up, most of his remaining books were for and about children. One of his most notable collections of his children’s stories is Alenushkiny skazki (1897; Tales for Alyonushka, 1978). Mamin continued to write short stories and to move in the literary circles of St. Petersburg but he became seriously ill in the last years of his life. He died on November 2, 1912.