Leonid Andreyev

Writer, playwright, publicist, amateur artist. Born in the town of Oryol (1871) in the family of Nikolai Andreyev (1847–1889) and Anastasija Paczkowska (daughter of a ruined Polish landowner). Studied law at St Petersburg and Moscow Universities (1891). Collaborated with the Courier periodical (1897). Published his first book Tales with the help of Maxim Gorky (1902). Wrote the drama The Life of a Man (1907), published by Dogrose and staged by Konstantin Stanislavsky at the Vera Komissarzhevskaya Theatre. Wrote the play Tsar Hunger (1908), a series of Symbolist works and miniatures for the Crooked Miniature Theatre of Parodies in St Petersburg. Attacked the policies of Count Pyotr Stolypin in The Tale of the Seven Hanged Men (1908). Contributed paintings to the Exhibition of Independents (1913). Lived at 1 River Moika Embankment (from 1916). Wrote for the Russian Will newspaper. Celebrated the February revolution with an article entitled In Memory of Those who Died for Freedom in Russian Will (5 March 1917). Rejected the Bolshevik revolution (1917). Emigrated to Finland. Died of heart failure in the Finnish village of Neuvola and buried at Marioki in Metsäkylä (1919), reburied at the Volkovo Cemetery in Leningrad (1956).