Big Book of Best Short Stories - Specials - Russia / Big Book of Best Short Stories Specials Bd.4 (ePub)

Maxim Gorky was born in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, on March 28, 1868. He worked in many jobs during an impoverished and abusive childhood before finding fame and fortune as a writer. Initially a Bolshevik supporter, Gorky became a critic when Vladimir Lenin seized power. However, Gorky later served as a Soviet advocate and headed the Union of Soviet Writers. He died in Moscow on June 18, 1936.
Leonid Andreyev, in full Leonid Nikolayevich Andreyev, Andreyev also spelled Andreev, (born August 21, 1871, Oryol, Russiadied September 12, 1919, Kuokkala, Finland), novelist whose best work has a place in Russian literature for its evocation of a mood of despair and absolute pessimism.
Daniil Kharms (30 December 1905 2 February 1942) was an early Soviet-era avant-gardist and absurdist poet, writer and dramatist.
Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin was born on June 6, 1799 in Moscow. His first major work was the poem Ruslan and Ludmila. His political verses associated him with the Decembrist revolt, causing him to be banished. He worked on Boris Godunov and the novel in verse Eugene Onegin before Nicholas I allowed him to return to Moscow in 1826. Pushkin died at age 37 after being forced into a duel.
Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev was born in Orel province, Russia, on 9 November, 1818. The Turgenevs were wealthy landowners, and when Ivan's father died his domineering and abusive mother oversaw the running of the farms and their serfs. After attending University of St. Petersburg, Turgenev moved to Germany and entered University of Berlin. There he concentrated on studies of history and the philosophy chiefly of Georg W. F. Hegel (1770-1831). After a time working as a civil servant he met French singer Pauline Viardot with whom he had a lifelong affair. He set up residence in France and it was there that he began writing in earnest. Travelling often between Europe and Russia, Turgenev was arrested and imprisoned for suspicious revolutionary activities.