CnERTKOv, Vladimir Grigoryevicd (1853-1936).
Tolstoy's secretary and disciple, and executor of his will.
Danjlevsky, Nicholas Yakovlevich (1822-85). Publicist of the Slavophil school.
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor Mikhait.ovich (1821-81).
Deeply marked in early childhood by the violent death of his father, who was murdered by his peasants; muddled through a course at the St. Petersburg School of Engineering and obtained immediate fame in 1845 with his first novel, Poor Folk. About the same time, he joined a group of young liberals led by Petrashevsky, who were opposed to the tsarist regime and favored the abolition of serfdom. Denounced by a spy and arrested with his companions in 1849, he was imprisoned, sentenced to death and led before the firing squad. Just as he was being bound to the stake, he was informed that his sentence had been commuted to four years' hard labor in Siberia; but he was not allowed to return to Russia until 1859. His health had been destroyed, but he was endowed with superhuman willpower, and published, in rapid succession, The Insulted and Injured, The House of the Dead—a realistic account of his sufferings as a convict— Notes from Underground, Crime and Punishment and The Gambler, based on his unlucky experience at cards and roulette. Over his head in debt, he fled abroad with his second wife to escape from his creditors; and there, notwithstanding privation, fatigue and anxiety, he wrote his most powerful masterpieces: The Idiot, The Eternal Husband and The Possessed. lie returned to Russia at the age of fifty, wrote and published his Diary of a Writer, in which he adopted a nationalist and fervently orthodox attitude toward the major issues of the day. This herculean labor did not prevent him from producing two more major works: A Raw Youth and The Brothers Karamazov. I lis status was confirmed in the eyes of literate Russia by his speech at the unveiling of the monument to Pushkin in 1880. He died shortly afterward, without having met his great contemporary, Leo Tolstoy.
Druzhnin, Alexander Vasilyevich (1824-64). Publicist, literary critic, novelist and translator. One of the first people Tolstoy met when he arrived in St. Petersburg in November 1855.
Dudyshkin, Stbpan Stepanovich.
Literary- critic, one of the first to praise Tolstoy's novel Childhood, in Fatherland Notes.
Dyakov, Dmitry Ai.Exr.Yr.vicn (1823-91). Boyhood friend of Leo Tolstoy.
Feinermann, Isaac Borisovicfi (1863-1925). Schoolmaster, disciple of Tolstoy; began writing late in life under the pseudonym of Teneromo.
Feokritova, Varvara Mikiiailovna (1875-1950).
Friend of Sasha (Alexandra Lvovna) Tolstoy, worked as secretary in the Tolstoy home.
Fet, Afanasy Afanasyevich (1820-92); real name Shcnshin. Poet of the "Art for art s sake" school. Lived a quiet and retired life and was a friend of both Tolstoy and Turgenev. A poet of love and the night (or so he has been called), he was known chiefly for a series of slight
volumes of lyrical poetry published in the 1880s under the collective title Evening Lights, and two volumes of memoirs. In later years Tolstoy cooled toward Fet, in spite of his great fondness for him, because of the poet's unwaveringly human lyricism and reactionary political views.
Gastev, Peter Nikolayevich (1866- ). Disciple of Tolstoy.
Gay, Nicholas Nikoi.ayevicii (1831-94). Well-known painter and friend of the Tolstoy family.
Goldenweiser, Alexander Borisovich (1875-1960).
Gifted pianist and close friend of Tolstoy; professor at the Moscow Conservatory of Music, author of a book of recollcctions: Talks with Tolstoy.
Goncilarov, Ivan Alexandrovich (1812-91). Author, a realist, with an exceptionally polished style. His chief works are Oblomov (1859), an admirable portrait of a dilettante, and The Precipice (1869).
Gorky, Maxim; pseudonym of Alexis Maximovich Peshkov (1868-1936). Born at Astrakhan; his father died when Gorky was an infant. He was brought up by grandparents in Nizhny-Novgorod, which was renamed Gorky after the Bolshevik Revolution (in Russian, gorky means bitter). To escape his grandfathers brutality, Gorky went to work as cook's helper on a Volga steamboat when little more than a child. Worked at various trades, lived as a vagabond and tramp, and educated himself as he went along. The direct and colorful style of his first works attracted critical and public notice. He quickly became famous; was elected to the Russian Acadcmy in 1902, but his revolutionary views were frowned upon in high quarters and his election was vetoed by a government order, whereupon Chekhov and Korolcnko resigned in protest. Gorky then entered the political scene, took part in the Moscow uprisings of December 1905, was arrested and then released, left the country and settled in Capri, where he established a colony for revolutionary writers. Returned to Russia in 1914, was a pacifist during the war; joined forces with the Bolsheviks and supported them during the 1917 revolution, although he condemned their violent tactics. Founded his own review and fought for the preservation of historical buildings and sites, but after a falling-out with the Soviet authorities he emigrated to Germany in 1921 and then to Italy again. Already suffering from tuberculosis, he returned to Russia in 1928, recanted and ended his days crowned with honors. His most noteworthy works are autobiographicaclass="underline" Childhood (1913-14), In the World (1915-16), My Universities (1923) and Reminiscences of My Literary Life (1924-31). Other works worth mentioning are Foma Gordeyev (1899), Twenty-six Men and a Girl (1899), Mother (1907), and his plays, which include The Lower Depths (1902),
Gricorovich, Dmitry Vasilyevich (1822-99).
Author; Tolstoy first met him in 1856. His short stories and novels denouncing the poverty of the Russian peasants paved the way for the
emancipation of the serfs. Tolstoy was particularly impressed by his short story Anton Goremyka (1847). For a time both men were contributors to The Contemporary. Grigorovich was the first to call attention to Dostoyevsky, by recommending the manuscript of Poor Folk to Nckrasov and Belinsky. Grot, Nicholas Yakovlevich (1852-99). Idealistic philosopher, professor at the University of Moscow and good friend of Tolstoy. Gusev, Nicholas Nikola yevich (1882- ). Tolstoy's secretary from 1907 to 1909. Author of numerous biographical studies of the author. Herzen, Alexander Ivanovich (1812-70).
Author and revolutionary, exiled to Siberia for his subversive ideas, then permitted to leave Russia in 1846; lived in Paris and Nice and finally settled in London. There he published his periodical The Bell (Kolokol) denouncing the abuses of the Russian government. Liter, moved to Geneva and published the same review in French. hlpplus, zlnaida nlkolayevna (1869-1945).
Novelist and poetess, wife of Dmitry Merezhkovsky; emigrated to France. Katkov, Michael Nikiforovich (1818-87).
Publicist and publisher of reactionary tendency. knilkov, Dmitry Alexandrovich (1858-1914).