Aleksey Mikhailovich Remizov (russian: Алексе́й Миха́йлович Ре́мизов; in
Moscow
Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...
– 26 November 1957 in
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
) was a Russian modernist writer whose creative imagination veered to the fantastic and bizarre. Apart from literary works, Remizov was an expert
calligrapher
Calligraphy (from el, link=y, καλλιγραφία) is a visual art related to writing. It is the design and execution of lettering with a pen, ink brush, or other writing instrument. Contemporary calligraphic practice can be defined as "t ...
who sought to revive this medieval art in Russia.
Biography
Remizov was reared in the merchant milieu of Moscow. As a student of the
Moscow University
M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU; russian: Московский государственный университет имени М. В. Ломоносова) is a public research university in Moscow, Russia and the most prestigious ...
, he was involved in the radical politics and spent eight years in prison and
Siberia
Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part of ...
n exile. At that time, he developed a keen interest in Russian folklore and married a student of ancient Russian art, who brought him in contact with the
Roerichs.
In 1905, he settled in
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
and started to imitate medieval folk tales. His self-professed ambition was to catch "the bitterness and absurdity of folklore imagination". Remizov's whimsical stylizations of the saints' lives were ignored at first, partly due to their florid and turgid language, but his more traditional prose works set in the underworld of Russian cities gained him a great deal of publicity.
In his satirical novella ''The History of the Tinkling Cymbal and Sounding Brass'' (1910/1922) Remizov depicted the eccentricities and superstitions of rural sectarians. Another striking work of this period is "The Sacrifice", a Gothic
horror story
Horror is a genre of fiction which is intended to frighten, scare, or disgust. Horror is often divided into the sub-genres of psychological horror and supernatural horror, which is in the realm of speculative fiction. Literary historian J ...
in which "a ghostly double of a father comes to kill his innocent daughter in the mistaken belief that she is a chicken".
By the time of the
Russian Revolution
The Russian Revolution was a period of Political revolution (Trotskyism), political and social revolution that took place in the former Russian Empire which began during the First World War. This period saw Russia abolish its monarchy and ad ...
, Remizov had concentrated on imitating more or less obscure works of medieval Russian literature. He responded to the revolution by the ''Lay of the Ruin of the Russian Land'', a paraphrase of the 13th-century work bemoaning the
Mongol invasion of Russia
The Mongols ( mn, Монголчууд, , , ; ; russian: Монголы) are an East Asian ethnic group native to Mongolia, Inner Mongolia in China and the Buryatia Republic of the Russian Federation. The Mongols are the principal member of ...
. In 1921 he moved to Berlin and then in 1923 - to Paris, where he published an account of his attitudes towards the revolution under the title ''Whirlwind Russia'' (1927).
During his years in exile, Remizov brought out a number of bizarre works, featuring demons and nightmare creatures. The writer also developed a keen interest in ''dreams'' and wrote a few works on the subject that involved prominent figures of Russian literature (Gogol, Dostoyevsky and others). Although he was so prolific many of his works failed to find a publisher (in fact, from 1931 to 1952 there was not a single book published),
Remizov was also the first Russian modernist author to attract the attention of the luminaries of the Parisian literary world, such as
James Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influential and important writers of ...
. His reputation suffered a decline when, following
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, he announced his interest in returning to the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
and even obtained a Soviet passport (which he did not have a chance to use). After that, Remizov was abhorred by the émigré litterateurs, the most famous of whom,
Vladimir Nabokov
Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (russian: link=no, Владимир Владимирович Набоков ; 2 July 1977), also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin (), was a Russian-American novelist, poet, translator, and entomologist. Bo ...
, used to say that the only nice thing about Remizov was that he really lived in the world of literature. The years 1952 to 1957 saw a number of Remizov's books published, though only a very limited number of copies were printed.
Legacy
Along with
Andrei Bely
Boris Nikolaevich Bugaev ( rus, Бори́с Никола́евич Буга́ев, p=bɐˈrʲis nʲɪkɐˈlajɪvʲɪtɕ bʊˈɡajɪf, a=Boris Nikolayevich Bugayev.ru.vorb.oga), better known by the pen name Andrei Bely or Biely ( rus, Андре ...
, Remizov was one of the most famoust Russian modernist writers. He became known for his experimental ''
skaz Skaz ( rus, сказ, p=ˈskas) is a Russian oral form of narrative. The word comes from '' skazátʹ'', "to tell", and is also related to such words as ''rasskaz'', "short story" and ''skazka'', "fairy tale". The speech makes use of dialect and sla ...
'' techniques and "underground Dostoevskianism". As
D. S. Mirsky notes, Remizov's works influenced
Yevgeny Zamyatin
Yevgeny Ivanovich Zamyatin ( rus, Евге́ний Ива́нович Замя́тин, p=jɪvˈɡʲenʲɪj ɪˈvanəvʲɪtɕ zɐˈmʲætʲɪn; – 10 March 1937), sometimes anglicized as Eugene Zamyatin, was a Russian author of science fictio ...
,
Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy
Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy (russian: link= no, Алексей Николаевич Толстой; – 23 February 1945) was a Russian writer who wrote in many genres but specialized in science fiction and historical novels.
Despite having ...
and
Mikhail Prishvin
Mikhail Mikhailovich Prishvin (russian: Михаи́л Миха́йлович При́швин) (January 23 ( N.S. February 4), 1873 – January 16, 1954) was a Russian and Soviet novelist, prose writer and publicist. Prishvin defined it this wa ...
.
Selected works
Novels and novellas
* Пруд (1905). ''Pond''
* Часы (1908). ''The Clock'', trans.
John Cournos
John Cournos, born Ivan Grigorievich Korshun () (6 March 1881 – 27 August 1966), was a writer and translator of Russian Jewish background who spent his later life in exile.
Early life
Cournos was born in Zhytomyr, Russian Empire (now in Ukraine ...
(London: Chatto & Windus, 1924; New York: Knopf, 1924; Hyperion Press, 1977)
* Неуёмный бубен (1910). ''The History of the Tinkling Cymbal and Sounding Brass: Ivan Semyonovitch Stratilatov''
* Крестовые сёстры (1910). ''Sisters of the Cross'', trans. Roger Keys and Brian Murphy (Columbia University Press, 2017)
* Пятая язва (1912). ''The Fifth Pestilence''
* В поле блакитном (1922). ''On a Field Azure'', trans. Beatrice Scott (London: L. Drummond, 1946)
Short stories
* Светлое Христово Воскресение (1903). "Easter", trans. John Cournos (1915)
* Чёртик (1907). "The Little Devil", trans. Frank J. Miller in ''50 Writers: An Anthology of 20th Century Russian Short Stories'' (Academic Studies Press, 2011).
* Жертва (1909). "The Sacrifice", trans. Antonina W. Bouis in ''The Little Devil and Other Stories'' (2017)
* Суженаиа (1910). "The Betrothed", trans. John Cournos (1916)
* Белое сердтсе (1921). "A White Heart", trans. John Cournos (1921)
Compilations in English
*''The Fifth Pestilence'' and ''The History of the Tinkling Cymbal and Sounding Brass: Ivan Semyonovitch Stratilatov'', trans. Alec Brown (London:
Wishart, 1927; New York: Payson & Clarke, 1928;
Hyperion Press
Hyperion Press was an American publishing company, based in Westport, Connecticut. In the 1970s, it published science fiction and science fiction studies including reissues of several books first published by World Publ. Co. of Cleveland and cla ...
, 1977)
* "Esprit" (1925), "Christ's Godson" (1923), "Faith in Nikolay" (1928), and "Jacob Betrayed" (1928), in ''A Russian Cultural Revival'', ed. Temira Pachmuss (University of Tennessee Press, 1981)
* ''Selected Prose'', ed. Sona Aronian (
Ardis Ardis may refer to:
* Ardis (given name)
* Ardis, Ottoman Empire
* Ardis (retailer), a supermarket chain in Algiers, Algeria
* Ardis Furnace, an abandoned experimental blast furnace in Michigan
*Ardis Publishing, a Russian-English publishing compan ...
, 1985)
* ''The Little Devil and Other Stories'', trans. Antonina W. Bouis (Columbia University Press, 2017)
References
External links
*
*
Further reading
Friedman, Julia ''Beyond Symbolism and Surrealism: Alexei Remizov's Synthetic Art'', Northwestern University Press, 2010. (Hardback)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Remizov, Alexey
Russian male novelists
Russian male short story writers
Russian calligraphers
Russian artists
Moscow State University alumni
Russian prisoners and detainees
Russian exiles
Emigrants from the Russian Empire to France
Burials at Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois Russian Cemetery
1877 births
1957 deaths
Modernist writers