Leonid Andreev

by Andisha Sabri (Reading)

Leonid Andreev was a Russian playwright and a writer of short fiction belonging to the “Silver Age” of Russian literature, [1]  who enjoyed a brief yet intense period of literary renown in the early years of the twentieth century.[2] His most famous works include The Seven That Were Hanged, He Who Got Slapped, The Red Laugh, The Abyss, and The Life of Man.[3] His writing often dealt extravagantly with dark themes, such as madness, nihilistic dismay, and the horrors of war.[4] Despite the fact that Andreev’s writing was a successful reproduction of contemporary anxieties and concerns, he was and remains difficult to place in any literary scene of his own time — he was too realistic for the aesthetic elitism of the symbolists, and too symbolic for the realist social critics, while showing an affinity for both. [5] Andreev himself believed he wrote “most realistic drama, only stylized”.[6]

Andreev was born in Oryol,^[7]Russia in August 1871. His father, Nikolai Andreev, was the illegitimate son of a landowner and a peasant girl, and worked as a land-tax surveyor. His mother Anastasiya came from an impoverished aristocratic Polish family, and despite her lack of literacy, is credited with teaching Andreev a life-long love of storytelling.^[8] Despite his poor grades from the Oryol gimnaziya [9] and the financial strain it placed on the family after his father’s death, Andreev’s mother still insisted he receive a university education.[10] He commenced his studies in law at the University of St. Petersburg in 1891, but when he proved unable to pay his fees, he was expelled from that institution only to resume his studies in Moscow. While completing his education Andreev was able to supplement the abysmal family income by writing short stories and painting portraits. Despite battling both financial hardships and depression, he did well in his final examinations in 1897 and, after graduating, worked as a barrister’s assistant and a courtroom reporter. [11] By 1901 he had produced his first book of collected short stories, and was beginning to attract critical attention.[12] The following year, he was happily married to the affectionate and supportive Alexandra Veligorskaya.[13] He enjoyed a swift rise to fame in the early 1900s, and by 1905 had established himself as a dramatist with the success of his first play, To the Stars.[14] While he enjoyed the attention lavished on him as well as the means to avoid sinking into poverty, Andreev unfortunately attracted unpleasant tabloid gossip in addition to conservative censure for the violent, racy and sometimes irreligious content of his work.[15]

Leonid Andreev is often characterized by his pessimistic and controversial subject matter, which pair well with the often gloomy depictions of his life and personality. A young, handsome writer, he was plagued by depression, existential angst, intense loneliness, and alcoholism[16] — the latter of which he believed he had inherited from his father.[17] By the age of sixteen he was already drinking to excess, and had attempted suicide for the first —but not the last — time, by throwing himself under a train. Fortunately the train passed over him and he survived uninjured, although the incident is believed to have weakened his heart.[18] He later attempted to stab himself at a party in St. Petersburg when his first love, Zinaida Nikolaevna, married another man.[19] Andreev was often plagued by suicidal thoughts — however, despite the tortured pessimism of his life, there was also another side to Andreev. His contemporary and intimate friend Maxim Gorky, in his reminiscences of the playwright, wrote of him as childish, vain, playful, and far more prone to humour as a conversationalist than he was a writer.[20] Nevertheless, Andreev was certainly returned to a very real state of misery in late 1906, when his first wife died of a post-natal blood infection in Berlin. He took refuge from his grief in Capri with Maxim Gorky, where he was introduced to Pyotr Moyseyevich Rutenburg, the revolutionary who was to inspire his story The Dark. Gorky would never forgive him for distorting the real events that inspired it, and their friendship was never the same. [21]  Much of his later work was viewed as sensationalist, and his literary fame dried up.[22]

Despite the fact that Andreev was widowed, lacking his friend, and watching his treasured fame decline as swiftly as it rose, the end of his life was not as miserable as it could have been. In 1908 he married again, to his secretary Anna Denisevich,[23] and lived for a time in a large country house in Finland near the Russian border.[24] He’d hope for a long retirement in Russia ‘free from cares’,[25] but never returned to his home country permanently and viewed the Bolshevik government and revolution of 1917 with a strong disapproval which he did not shy away from expressing in print.[26] He died in April 1919 of a heart attack, his passing almost ignored in his native Russia.[27]

However, despite dying forgotten, far from home, and an enemy of the Soviet Regime, a Leonid Andreev section was still included in the Ivan Turgenev museum in Oryol in the early 1960s,[28] and he was reburied in a literary cemetery in Leningrad (St. Petersburg) in the late 1950s.[29] In the 1920s Andreev also belatedly gained some readers and viewers in the English-speaking world.[30] In 1922 a translation of The Dark by L.A. Magnus and K. Walter was published by the Hogarth Press— the story of a prostitute who slaps a saintly revolutionary because he dares to be good when others are not, it was the work he took most pride in during his life. [31]  In 1924 the play He Who Gets Slapped —the tragic story of a circus clown’s jealousy in love — was adapted into a silent movie for US audiences.[32]

[1] Norris Houghton, “Russian Theatre in the 20th Century”, The Drama Review: TDR, 17.1, Russian Issue (1973), p.5 < http://www.jstor.org/stable/1144788 >

[2] Daniel Gerould, “Leonid Andreyev: An Introduction”, Performing Arts Journal, 6.1 (1981), p.110 < http://www.jstor.org/stable/3245230> ; Josephine M. Newcombe, Leonid Andreyev, (Letchworth, Hertfordshire: Bradda Books LTD, 1972) p.5

[3] “Leonid Nikolayevich Andreyev”, in Encyclopaedia Britannica, <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/24016/Leonid-Nikolayevich-Andr... ; “Prominent Russians: Leonid Andreev”, in RT: Russiapedia, <http://russiapedia.rt.com/prominent-russians/literature/leonid-andreev/>

[4] Gerould, p.110; “Review”, The Advocate of Peace (1894 – 1920), 77.10, (1915), p.256 <http://www.jstor.org/stable/20667356>

[5] Gerould, p.111; James B. Woodward, “Leonid Andreyev and ‘Conventionalism’ in the Russian Theatre”, The Modern Language Review, 66.2 (1971), p.366-367 <http://www.jstor.org/stable/3722895> ; Newcombe, p.60

[6] Leonid Andreev quoted in Woodward, “Leonid Andreyev and ‘Conventionalism’ in the Russian Theatre”, p.367

[7] 2^nd Pushkarnaya Street, Oryol - James B. Woodward, Leonid Andreyev: A Study, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969), p.2 ; Leonid Andreev House Museum, ul 2-a Pushkarnaya 41, Oryol, Russia, <http://www.lonelyplanet.com/russia/western-european-russia/oryol/sights/...

[8] Newcombe, p.6; Woodward, Leonid Andreyev: A Study, p.2-3

[9] Newcombe, p.11; Woodward, Leonid Andreyev: A Study, p.6

[10] Newcombe, p.14-15

[11] RT: Russiapedia, <http://russiapedia.rt.com/prominent-russians/literature/leonid-andreev/>; Woodward, Leonid Andreyev: A Study, p.9-14

[12] Newcombe, p.42; Encyclopaedia Britannica, <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/24016/Leonid-Nikolayevich-Andr...

[13] Newcombe, p.44; Woodward, Leonid Andreyev: A Study, p.24; Maxim Gorky, Reminiscences or Tolstoy, Chekhov, and Andreev, trans. by Katherine Mansfield, (London: Hogarth Press, 1968) p.170

[14] Newcombe, p.92-95

[15] Gorky, p.33, p.60; Newcombe, p.107; Encyclopaedia Britannica, <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/24016/Leonid-Nikolayevich-Andr...

[16] Gerould, p.110; Gorky, p.143

[17] Gorky, p.148; RT: Russiapedia, <http://russiapedia.rt.com/prominent-russians/literature/leonid-andreev/>;

[18] Woodward, Leonid Andreyev: A Study, p.6; Newcombe, p.13; Gerould, p.112; RT: Russiapedia, <http://russiapedia.rt.com/prominent-russians/literature/leonid-andreev/>

[19] Newcombe, p.16; Woodward, Leonid Andreyev: A Study, p.9

[20] Gorky, p.134-135, p.123

[21] Woodward, Leonid Andreyev: A Study, p.160-178; Gorky, p.176-185;

[22] Encyclopaedia Britannica, <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/24016/Leonid-Nikolayevich-Andr...

[23] Woodward, Leonid Andreyev: A Study, p.190; Newcombe, p.114-115

[24] Newcombe, p.113; Gerould, p.112

[25] Leonid Andreev quoted in Woodward, Leonid Andreyev: A Study, p.275

[26] Encyclopaedia Britannica, <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/24016/Leonid-Nikolayevich-Andr... Helen Iswolsky, “Soviet Literary Moments”, Russian Review, 21.2 (1962), p.144 <http://www.jstor.org/stable/126376>

[27] Woodward, Leonid Andreyev: A Study, p.275

[28] Helen Iswolsky, p.44

[29] Encyclopaedia Britannica, <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/24016/Leonid-Nikolayevich-Andr... RT: Russiapedia, <http://russiapedia.rt.com/prominent-russians/literature/leonid-andreev/>; photograph of the headstone here http://litmostki.ru/andreev/2/

[30] Richard Davies and Andrei Rogatchevski, “Groping in the dark: Leonid Andreev and the Hogarth Press”, Toronto Slavic Quarterly, 36 (2011), p.66 <http://sites.utoronto.ca/tsq/36/tsq36_davies_rogatchevski.pdf>

[31] Leonid Andreev, The Dark, trans. by L.A. Magnus and K. Walter, (London: Hogarth Press, 1922, online pub. 2008) <https://archive.org/details/thedark00andr>; Newcombe, p.83

[32] He Who Gets Slapped, dir. by Victor Sjöström, (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, 1924, online pub. 2012) <https://archive.org/details/HeWhoGetsSlapped1924VictorSjstrmUsa>

Bibliography

Andreev, Leonid, The Dark, trans. by L.A. Magnus and K. Walter, (London: Hogarth Press, 1922, online pub. 2008) <https://archive.org/details/thedark00andr>

Andreev, Leonid, Leonid Andreev Papers, GB 206 MS 606, held at Leeds University Library (1890-1976) <http://archiveshub.ac.uk/data/gb206-ms606>

Andreev, Leonid and Anna Holdcroft, “In the North”, The Slavonic and East European Review, 19.53/54, The Slavonic Year-Book (1939-40), p.14-18 < http://www.jstor.org/stable/4203578>

“Biography”, www.ANDREEV.org.ru, (2004-2007) <http://www.andreev.org.ru/biografia/index.html>

Buchwald, Eva, “The silence of rebellion: women in the work of Leonid Andreev”, in Gender and Russian Literature, ed. by Rosalind Marsh, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996, online pub. 2010), p.229-243 <http://ebooks.cambridge.org/chapter.jsf?bid=CBO9780511554100&cid=CBO9780...

Davies, Richard and Andrei Rogatchevski, “Groping in the dark: Leonid Andreev and the Hogarth Press”, Toronto Slavic Quarterly, 36 (2011), p. 66-90 <http://sites.utoronto.ca/tsq/36/tsq36_davies_rogatchevski.pdf>

Gerould, Daniel, “Leonid Andreyev: An Introduction”, Performing Arts Journal, 6.1 (1981), p.110-112 < http://www.jstor.org/stable/3245230>

Gorky, Maxim, Reminiscences or Tolstoy, Chekhov, and Andreev, trans. by Katherine Mansfield, (London: Hogarth Press, 1968)

He Who Gets Slapped, dir. by Victor Sjöström, (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, 1924, online pub. 2012) <https://archive.org/details/HeWhoGetsSlapped1924VictorSjstrmUsa>

Houghton, Norris, “Russian Theatre in the 20th Century”, The Drama Review: TDR, 17.1, Russian Issue (1973), p.5-13 < http://www.jstor.org/stable/1144788 >

Iswolsky, Helen, “Soviet Literary Moments”, Russian Review, 21.2 (1962), p.137-147 <http://www.jstor.org/stable/126376>

Leonid Andreev House Museum, ul 2-a Pushkarnaya 41, Oryol, Russia, <http://www.lonelyplanet.com/russia/western-european-russia/oryol/sights/...

“Leonid Nikolayevich Andreyev”, in Encyclopaedia Britannica, <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/24016/Leonid-Nikolayevich-Andr...

Newcombe, Josephine M., Leonid Andreyev, (Letchworth, Hertfordshire: Bradda Books LTD, 1972)

“Prominent Russians: Leonid Andreev”, in RT: Russiapedia, <http://russiapedia.rt.com/prominent-russians/literature/leonid-andreev/>

“Review”, The Advocate of Peace (1894 – 1920), 77.10, (1915), p.256 <http://www.jstor.org/stable/20667356>

Thomson, O.R. Howard, “Andreyev’s ‘Anathema’ and the Faust Legend”, The North American Review, 194.673 (1911) p.882-887

White, Frederick H., Memoirs and Madness: Leonid Andreev Through the Prism of the Literary Portrait, (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2006)

Woodward, James B., Leonid Andreyev: A Study, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969)

Woodward, James B., “Leonid Andreyev and ‘Conventionalism’ in the Russian Theatre”, The Modern Language Review, 66.2 (1971), p.365-378 <http://www.jstor.org/stable/3722895>