Mikhail Mikhailovich Prishvin (russian: Михаи́л Миха́йлович При́швин) (January 23 (
N.S. February 4), 1873 – January 16, 1954) was a Russian and
Soviet
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
novelist, prose writer and publicist. Prishvin defined it this way: “
Rozanov is an afterword of
Russian literature
Russian literature refers to the literature of Russia and its émigrés and to Russian language, Russian-language literature. The roots of Russian literature can be traced to the Middle Ages, when epics and chronicles in Old East Slavic were c ...
, I am a free application. And all…”.
Biography
Mikhail Prishvin was born in the family mansion of
Krutschevo in Oryol Governorate (now in
Stanovlyansky District
Stanovlyansky District (russian: Становля́нский райо́н) is an administrativeLaw #382-OZ and municipalLaw #114-OZ district (raion), one of the eighteen in Lipetsk Oblast, Russia. It is located in the northwest of the oblast. The ...
,
Lipetsk Oblast
Lipetsk Oblast (russian: Липецкая область, Lipetskaya oblast) is a federal subject of Russia (an oblast). Its administrative center is the city of Lipetsk. As of the 2010 Census, its population was 1,173,513.
Geography
Lipets ...
) into the family of a merchant. In 1893-1897, he studied at a
polytechnic
Polytechnic is most commonly used to refer to schools, colleges, or universities that qualify as an institute of technology or vocational university also sometimes called universities of applied sciences.
Polytechnic may also refer to:
Educatio ...
school in
Riga
Riga (; lv, Rīga , liv, Rīgõ) is the capital and largest city of Latvia and is home to 605,802 inhabitants which is a third of Latvia's population. The city lies on the Gulf of Riga at the mouth of the Daugava river where it meets the Ba ...
and was once arrested for his involvement with
Marxist
Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...
circles. In 1902, Prishvin graduated from the
University of Leipzig
Leipzig University (german: Universität Leipzig), in Leipzig in Saxony, Germany, is one of the world's oldest universities and the second-oldest university (by consecutive years of existence) in Germany. The university was founded on 2 Decemb ...
with a degree in
agronomics
Agricultural economics is an applied field of economics concerned with the application of economic theory in optimizing the production and distribution of food and fiber products.
Agricultural economics began as a branch of economics that specif ...
. During
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, he worked as a military journalist. After the war, Prishvin was employed as a publicist and then a rural teacher.
He began writing for magazines in 1898, but his first short story, "Sashok," was published in 1906. Prishvin's works are full of poetics, exceptional keenness of observation, and descriptions of nature. Many of his works were translated into different languages and became part of the gold fund of the Soviet
children's literature
Children's literature or juvenile literature includes stories, books, magazines, and poems that are created for children. Modern children's literature is classified in two different ways: genre or the intended age of the reader.
Children's ...
. Mikhail Prishvin was awarded two orders.
Selected works
*In the Land of Unfrightened Birds / В краю непуганых птиц (1907)
*The Bun / За волшебным колобком (1908)
*У стен града невидимого (1909) - selected works
*Чёрный араб (1910)
*Славны бубны (1913)
*Башмаки (1923)
*Родники Берендея (1925–26) - Enlarged and published as Nature's Diary / Календарь природы (1935).
[Russia-Info Centre http://russia-ic.com/people/general/p/294; and Mikhail Prishvin, Nature's Diary. Trans. L. Navrozov. Penguin, 1987. Introduction by John Updike]
*Jen Sheng: The Root of Life / Женьшень (1933)
* Nature's Calendar / Календарь природы (1935)
*Фацелия (1940)
*Drops from the Forest / Лесная капель (1943) - selected works
*Кладовая Солнца (1945)
*The Chain of Kashchey / Кащеева цепь (1923–1954; published in 1960)
*Осударева дорога (1957)
*Корабельная чаща (1954)
References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Prishvin, Mikhail
1873 births
1954 deaths
People from Stanovlyansky District
People from Oryol Governorate
Russian children's writers
Russian journalists
Russian male short story writers
Soviet children's writers
Soviet male writers
20th-century male writers
Leipzig University alumni
20th-century Russian short story writers
Russian diarists
Burials at Vvedenskoye Cemetery