Leonid Maksimovich Leonov

• Born: May 31, 1899
• Birthplace: Moscow, Russia
• Died: August 8, 1994
• Place of death: Moscow, Russia

Types of Plot: Inverted; psychological

Contribution

In some of Leonid Maksimovich Leonov’s most celebrated works, written early in his career, problems of good and evil are set against a background of political upheaval during crucial periods in Soviet history. Thus, his fiction serves to document and explore the dislocation of values and traditions and the blurring of moral distinctions that followed from the social reorganization begun by the Russian Revolution. Leonov’s work deals largely with the political implications of criminal acts.

In spite of ideological objections that occasionally have been expressed by those in official positions, in his own country Leonov’s work generally was accepted as politically sound by those who determined Soviet literary standards. While adhering basically to the criteria established by Soviet authorities, he produced works that also represent original, deeply personal approaches to literature. The success of Leonov’s works disproves some critics’ contention that political requirements precluded the acceptance of crime fiction among Soviet readers.

Biography

The political and literary direction of Leonid Maksimovich Leonov’s career may reflect the circumstances of his early life. He was the son of Mariya Petrovna Leonova and Maksim Lvovich Leonov, and was born in Moscow on May 31, 1899. His father was originally from a peasant family and was largely self-educated; in addition to ventures as a small merchant, he wrote some poetry and became involved in radical journalism. He was arrested in 1908 on charges of subversion, and two years later he was exiled to Arkhangelsk, in northern Russia.

Leonov was educated in Moscow, where from time to time he published poetry and theater reviews in a newspaper his father had started; for several summers, he worked as a proofreader. In 1918 after he had completed his secondary schooling, Leonov joined his father and settled for a time in Arkhangelsk. After Allied forces that had intervened against the Bolsheviks departed from that city, Leonov joined the Red Army; in addition to working for Krasny voin, an army newspaper, he took part in operations to the south, at Perekop and in the Crimean peninsula. Although on his return to civilian life he was denied admission to Moscow University, he recommenced his literary efforts. In 1923 he was married to Tatiana Mikhailovna Sabashnikova, the daughter of a well-known publisher. With the appearance of major stories and his first novels, Leonov won recognition as an important new figure in Soviet letters.

Early in his career, Leonov met the poet Sergei Yesenin; he also became acquainted with Maxim Gorky, whom he visited in the course of a journey across Europe. Sometimes Leonov’s works came under official reproach, though he was not subjected to the proscription or persecution that befell many other writers. During World War II, he served as a correspondent on major fronts; later, in 1945 and 1946, he was one of Pravda’s reporters at the Nuremberg trials. During the onset of the Cold War, he became involved in a polemical exchange about responsibility for international tensions. In 1960, he was a member of a writers’ delegation that visited the United States. In Leonov’s later works he largely abandoned strictly political concerns, preferring to explore questions of literary criticism and issues of nature conservation. Leonov died in Moscow on August 8, 1994.

Analysis

Leonid Maksimovich Leonov’s earliest prose fiction dealt with problems of reality and morals in ways that sometimes bordered on the fantastic; such themes resurfaced in his later crime fiction, though in treatments that were markedly different. One early story, for example, concerns a man in the Arctic who comes on strange, seemingly mythical beings in an archetypal quest; in another work, a lonely man falls in love with the black queen on his chessboard. “Petushikhinsky prolom,” however, depicts the revulsion a frail, good-hearted youth feels when peasants beat a horse thief to death. In “Konets melkogo cheloveka,” a demon challenges a paleontologist’s preoccupation with the study of the past; once he has been tempted by the spirit, the protagonist considers destroying his manuscripts and abandoning his research. Eventually, the scientist succumbs to hunger and privation.

When Leonov explicitly raised questions of criminal activity, it was often in relation to larger questions of the social order. Acts of theft, violence, and rebellion frequently were depicted as the work of groups that, in keeping with their defiant postures, would sanction and encourage such undertakings. In some of his major novels, Leonov succeeded in conveying the outlook and peculiar mores of robber bands without yielding in his conviction that opposing ideals of socialism and cooperation should prevail.

The Badgers

In the novel Barsuki (1924; The Badgers, 1947), turmoil and upheaval in Moscow, where the Soviet government has established its power, are contrasted with the disorders that seem to propel the distant countryside in a different direction. Around Arkhangelsk, far to the north, Soviet authorities must contend with peasant groups who have taken the law into their own hands. Apart from a few backward glances on the part of older men, the previous regime seems to have passed into history with few regrets on any side. Among many peasants, however, recollections of the more recent past remain alive: Some had undergone confinement in a czarist prison or were caught up in revolutionary outbreaks. Grim and bloody battles of World War I, fought in a cause few held dear, appear to have severed any loyalties to the older government. Memories of murderous conflict are reinforced once more by the sight of men who have been left lame or badly disfigured. Some villagers still profess religious beliefs, which are mingled with folk practices. There seems to be no consensus about the proper political course to follow. Among those who have sided with the Bolsheviks, a district committee is formed to put requisitioning measures into effect; the most immediate, though onerous, concerns they must confront are raising taxes and preventing the hoarding of foodstuffs.

Open conflict erupts when a soldier is shot, and then a prominent village leader, Petka Grokhotov, is found dead, slashed through the body with a scythe. It is learned that elsewhere a village chairman has been found murdered from stab wounds. What began as a series of local mysteries begins to take on much wider connotations. Indeed, tracking down culprits must yield to more basic concerns of self-preservation when full-fledged rebellion engulfs the area. Local chieftains are chosen to lead peasant communities; in addition to dispensing justice according to ingrained notions of fairness, they lead their people into battle against a neighboring village that reputedly is more sympathetic to the Bolsheviks. There ensues a protracted campaign in which barns are burned and Soviet convoys are intercepted; wild and seemingly spontaneous outbreaks of violence are punctuated with proceedings in ad hoc courts, imposing the peasants’ conceptions of martial law. The villagers become known as “badgers,” from their practice of digging entrenchments and placing barricades about the territory they control. Eventually, the cycle of bloody confrontations runs its course; the insurgents lack any wider aims or program, and their leader loses heart when his own brother, a commander in the Bolshevik army, convinces him that further resistance would be futile.

The Thief

Although crime and violence are tied to peasant revolts in The Badgers, Leonov’s second novel, Vor (1927; The Thief, 1931), deals more directly with lawless behavior carried out for personal gain. The urban setting, near Moscow, is marked by a bustling, impersonal air that in some ways befits the complex, interlocking series of subplots that reveal the organization and procedures of the criminal underworld around the capital. At the outset, readers are introduced to two major characters whose lives and destinies for the time being have become intertwined. Mitka Vekshin, a peasant youth who was once caught up in war and revolution, and who still is inwardly affected by his killing of a White officer during the civil war, has applied his skills to some rather dubious enterprises. Although initially he brushes aside the inquiries of Fyodor Fyodorovich Firsov, a minor writer whose work on a novel appears in counterpoint to the main action, in due course the aspiring author is introduced to a number of Mitka’s associates. Along the way, the varied circumstances that have brought them together are laid forth. Among the assorted malefactors are an expert in railway robberies, a receiver of stolen goods, and a man who serves as a scout or decoy. Some of them evidently are hardened criminals, while others have simply found no certain employment; even the latter eventually shrug aside any compunctions they may feel about the expropriation of others’ property. The characteristic manners and speech of outlaws are recorded in connection with visits to typical haunts, such as a thieves’ bar; odd bits of robbers’ lore crop up from time to time. Mitka’s own specialty is safecracking; though there are some vaults he cannot open, his success overall has earned for him the esteem of others in his immediate circle. Firsov is intrigued by this adventurous existence. Yet Mitka’s reflections about his early life lead briefly to some rather nostalgic passages that suggest the extent to which he has become estranged from once-familiar people and places.

The progress of Firsov’s work seems to illuminate some of the peculiar moral beliefs and forms of self-regard that are held by those he has met. Many of his acquaintances comment on his depiction of criminal ways to suggest similarities as well as divergences between their outlook and the views of the conventional law-abiding world. One individual maintains doubts that it is ever right to kill a man; another reproaches Firsov for offering up too many victims in his fictional narrative. Eventually, his novel, which features a protagonist presumably based on Mitka, is finished and published, but critics are generally disapproving.

In the meantime, Mitka, who has disappeared for a short time, has undergone yet another change of heart. However disillusioned he may have become with life after the Revolution, he has never quite fit the role of a romantic villain. For some time, tragedy and betrayal seem to follow at every turn; one of his associates is shot during a police raid, and in the underworld there are rumors that an informer has been operating in their midst. Many clamor for the calling of a thieves’ court-martial to uphold their own sense of honor and respect for their fellows. Mitka’s sister Tanya, a graceful, charming circus performer, is killed when a rope becomes caught too tightly about her neck during a spectacular maneuver. Increasingly preoccupied with forebodings and guilt, Mitka consults a psychiatrist, but to no avail; after a stormy meeting with his colleagues in crime, he takes his leave of them. At the end, he recommences life as a woodcutter.

Some critics objected to The Thief on political grounds, considering Mitka’s disillusionment with the Revolution disloyal. In 1959, Leonov brought out a new edition that was intended in part to answer such reproaches.

Other problems of social justice are examined in a story from this period that, like The Badgers, has a rural setting. In this later story, however, the villagers seem to have accepted only too well the need to maintain order. When the only blacksmith in a village is caught stealing horses, a deaf and mute carpenter is chosen to be punished in his place; since there are several carpenters about, it is considered that, innocent or not, his life is expendable, whereas those of others are not.

Sot and Skutarevsky

This uneasy accommodation between collectivist ideals and older values marks other works from this period; events such as the enactment of the first Five Year Plans inspired Leonov’s literary imagination. In Sot (1930; English translation, 1931), efforts to build a paper mill in a backward region of northern Russia come to represent a struggle between rural superstition and modern industrial innovation; though some questions of sabotage arise here and there, dedication to a common task eventually takes primacy. The political orientation of the old intelligentsia is handled in the rather more complex work Skutarevsky (1932; English translation, 1936), which deals with conflict within the family of an aging and introverted scientist who, while accepting Soviet ideals, must confront opposition from those close to him. Although hitherto he has pursued his research with a single-minded devotion that seemingly excluded other concerns, Skutarevsky becomes involved in bitter debates at home with Arseny, his wayward son. Although the father cannot find an effective answer to his son’s denunciation of the regime’s excesses, Arseny becomes troubled by guilt over his part in a conspiracy. Unable to confess, he finally kills himself. Others at the scientific institute are implicated as well, including Skutarevsky’s brother-in-law and his assistant. When one of Skutarevsky’s experiments fails, he offers to resign his position, but he is accepted back once his political loyalty has been confirmed. Despite this rather platitudinous ending, skillful characterization and the presentation of conflicting viewpoints distinguish this novel from many other politically inspired works of its period. Elements of the detective story remain vaguely in evidence in some of Leonov’s works of this time, but such themes are largely overshadowed by other concerns. Doroga na okean (1935; Road to the Ocean, 1944) is an ambitious effort to recapture the ethos of socialist economic development; while political differences from the past put important characters at odds with one another, this saga of railroad building ultimately gives way to three imaginative journeys into the future.

The Russian Forest

Leonov also became known for his work with drama, and adapted some of his fictional pieces for the stage. Although controversy arose over some of his offerings, others were widely accepted. During World War II, Leonov produced plays and stories that recaptured in graphic human terms incidents of struggle and suffering. Zolotaya kareta (pb. 1946) was received with official approbation for its implication that not all had shared equally in the hardships of the wartime years. The lengthy novel Russkii les (1953; The Russian Forest, 1966), with its themes of political intrigue and family loyalties, also reflects Leonov’s concerns for his country’s woodlands; depredations against nature are depicted alongside the difficult events that followed Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. Questions of guilt, innocence, and crime are again evident in Leonov’s bold implication that, where political charges were concerned, guilt or innocence could often be construed at the whim of those who were able to bring those charges.

Later Works

Later works also include Begstvo Mistera Mak-Kinli (1961), a screenplay that concerns the scheme of a seemingly insignificant man to kill a wealthy widow to obtain money. Ultimately he hopes to be placed in a “salvatorium,” which supposedly could preserve his body indefinitely against the ravages of time and disease. Eventually, however, he abandons this notion and indeed finds himself content with his actual situation. This work, which is presumably set in the United States, refers obliquely to fictional conceptions of Fyodor Dostoevski. Some critics have also discerned in it a parody of certain attitudes that were common during that period of the Cold War. A rather different work is Evgenia Ivanovna (1963), a sensitive evocation of an émigré’s troubled feelings for her native Russia.

Because Leonov’s works possess both breadth and subtlety, a number of comparisons to other writers have been suggested; it has also been possible to trace the most important influences on his creative efforts. Although he noted that the examples of Aleksandr Blok and Sergei Yesenin were important for his poetry, the writer most frequently cited in discussions of his narrative works has been Dostoevski. On several occasions early in his career, Leonov declared that Dostoevski’s writings had been of great importance to him. Clear affinities may be found in Leonov’s interest in elucidating the subjective origins of aberrant and criminal behavior. Concerns with questions of ultimate moral truth also arise in some parts of Leonov’s work. Yet Leonov manifested little interest in metaphysical or religious issues. Where Dostoevski would consider problems of human relations to God, Leonov pondered the moral concerns of socialist society.

In his early use of fantastic elements, Leonov displayed some similarities to Nikolai Gogol. Leonov’s studies of literature focused on Leo Tolstoy and Anton Chekhov, explicating their contributions to traditions that he has attempted to carry forward. He also acknowledged the influence of Maxim Gorky.

Leonov’s handling of dialogue is particularly skillful; expressions and nuances common to various social classes are faithfully rendered. Indeed, some terms Leonov put in the mouths of fictional thieves may have become part of the written language only after he had recorded them in his early works. His grasp of regional dialects is so considerable that the distinguished Asian specialist Ilya Petrushevsky was impressed with his knowledge of Tatar speech. Leonov is also notable for the loving tribute he pays to his country’s natural beauty through his description of landscape.

When Leonov took up matters of crime or mystery, it was always in the context of a probing of the values underlying the socialist state. While managing to adhere more or less faithfully to the ideological standards imposed by the Soviet system, he found room to raise important questions and express his personal concerns.

Bibliography

Burg, David. “Leonid Leonov’s Search.” Studies on the Soviet Union 1, no. 3 (1962): 120-136. Commentary on the personal projects and investments informing Leonov’s life and work.

Harjan, George. Leonid Leonov: A Critical Study. Toronto, Ont.: Arowhena, 1979. One of the few book-length studies of Leonov written in English. Bibliography and index.

Muchnic, Helen. “Leonid Leonov.” In From Gorky to Pasternak: Six Writers in Soviet Russia. New York: Random House, 1961. Argues for Leonov’s place among the great Soviet writers of the twentieth century.

Olcott, Anthony. Russian Pulp: The Detektiv and the Russian Way of Crime. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001. Extended American study of the peculiarities of Russian crime fiction and the distinctive Russian and Soviet approaches to the detective genre.

Plank, D. L. “Unconscious Motifs in Leonid Leonov’s The Badgers.” Slavic and East European Journal 16, no. 1 (1972): 19-35. Discussion of the representation of the unconscious and of unconscious modes of representation in Leonov’s earliest mystery novel.

Simmons, Ernest J. “Leonid Leonov.” In Russian Fiction and Soviet Ideology: Introduction to Fedin, Leonov, and Sholokhov. New York: Columbia University Press, 1958. Discusses the ideological pressures on Leonov and his response to them in his writing.

Soviet Literature. No. 11 (1986). Special issue devoted to Leonov and his place in the Soviet canon.

Starikova, Yekaterina. Leonid Leonov. Translated by Joy Jennings. Moscow: Raduga, 1986. This English translation of Starikova’s extended biography of the writer and critical study of his works is accompanied by a translation of Leonov’s essay, “On Craftsmanship,” which illuminates his approach to the craft of writing.

Thomson, R. D. B. “The Lean Years of Leonid Leonov.” Canadian-American Slavic Studies 8, no. 4 (1974): 513-524. Discussion of Leonov’s least successful period, the reasons behind his lack of success, and his response to failure.