Iurii Nikolaevich Libedinsky
Iurii Nikolaevich Libedinsky was a notable Russian writer and political figure born on November 28, 1898, in Odessa. He grew up in a family of physicians and moved to the Ural Mountains, where his father's democratic and atheistic views greatly influenced his early development. Libedinsky's literary interests were shaped by Russian culture, though he acknowledged his Jewish identity. His writing career began in his teenage years, and he became involved with Marxism, enlisting in the Red Army during the Russian Civil War. By 1920, he had joined the Bolshevik Party and took on various roles in the new Soviet regime, including heading military-political education.
His novella, *Nedelya*, published in 1921, garnered acclaim and established him as a leading figure in the proletarian writers' movement, known for its propagandistic themes aligned with Soviet ideals. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, Libedinsky continued to explore these themes while shaping Soviet literature. He served as a war correspondent during World War II and married Lidiia Borisovna Tolstaia in 1942, who became a prominent literary figure herself. After the war, he focused on the study of national literatures and produced a trilogy about the revolutionary years in the Caucasus. Libedinsky passed away on November 24, 1959, and is buried in Moscow's Novodevichii Cemetery, with his papers preserved in the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art.
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Subject Terms
Iurii Nikolaevich Libedinsky
Fiction, Nonfiction and Children's Literature Writer
- Born: November 28, 1898
- Birthplace: Odessa, Ukraine
- Died: November 24, 1959
- Place of death: Moscow, Russia
Biography
Iurii Nikolaevich Libedinsky was born on November 28, 1898, in Odessa, Russia as the oldest of three children in a family of physicians. In 1901, the family moved to the Ural Mountains region, where Libedinsky’s father, Nikolai L’vovich, had a private medical practice. As a democrat and an atheist, the father strongly influenced his son’s personality and the formation of his literary sensibility. The young Libedinsky admired the work of Leo Tolstoy and Maxim Gorky, and especially the poetry of Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Blok. In 1909, Libedinsky enrolled at the Real School in Cheliabinsk and subsequently spent several months studying Hebrew and reading the Torah. However, the primary cultural influence in his life was Russian, and although Libedinsky never masked his Jewish identity, most critics view him as entirely assimilated into Russian culture, finding that ethnicity did not impact his writing.
Libedinsky’s interests in literature, philosophy, and social sciences formed when he was still a teenager. He wrote short stories and poetry, and developed a devotion to Marxism. In April of 1918, he enlisted as a volunteer in the Red Army and fought in the Ural Mountains and in Siberia. In February of 1920, he enrolled in the Bolshevik Party. After the end of the Russian civil war, Libedinsky served the newly formed Soviet Union as head of the training department for military-political courses in Ekaterinburg.
While serving his country, Libedinsky also found the time to devote himself to studying and writing literature. In the spring of 1921 in Ekaterinburg, Libedinsky began work on his novella Nedelya. This fiction formed the basis in terms of theme and subject matter for his future work. He completed the novella in April 1921, when he relocated to Moscow to teach at a military academy. The novella is based on actual events that Libedinsky witnessed in 1921 in Cheliabinsk and depicts self-sacrificing struggle of virtuous communists for Soviet power. Nedelya brought him acclaim from readers as well as critics and also made him, at age twenty-four, the leader of a proletarian writers’ movement. Libedinsky’s fiction often had a propagandistic edge, and he played a significant part in official, ideologically framed Soviet literature. Through the 1920’s and 1930’s, Libedinsky continued to write, primarily in the novella form and to support the philosophies of Soviet communism.
In June 1941, Libedinsky volunteered to fight at the defense of Moscow, and was severely wounded. Following his injury, he worked as a war correspondent until the end of World War II. In 1942, he married a young student named Lidiia Borisovna Tolstaia, who later became a famous and respected essayist, journalist, memoirist, and historian of Russian literature. In the postwar years, Libedinsky studied the national literatures of the peoples in the Caucasus, completed a trilogy about the revolutionary years in the Caucasus, and also composed a series of memoirs and autobiographical fiction, some of which were published posthumously. He died in Moscow of a stroke on November 24, 1959, and was buried in the Novodevichii Cemetery in Moscow. His papers are housed at the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art in Moscow.