Vikenty Vikentievich
Veresaev
1867-1945
Vikenty Veresaev was a Russian and Soviet writer, doctor, translator, and literary critic. He was awarded the Pushkin Prize in 1919 and the Stalin Prize in 1943. He was born in Tula on January 16, 1867, in a family of doctors. After graduating from the Faculty of History and Philology at St. Petersburg University in 1888 and the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Dorpat (now Tartu) in 1894, he returned to Tula and practised medicine. He began his literary career as a poet in 1885 and published his first short story “The Riddle” in 1887. In the late 19th century, he joined the revolutionary movement of legal Marxism and published in magazines such as Novoe Slovo, Nachalo, and Zhizn. His works from this period focused on the search for an intelligent solution to the plight of peasants, as seen in his novels “Without a Road” (1895), “Two Ends” (1899–1903), and “At the Turn” (1902), as well as his short stories “On the Dead Road” (1896).; “The Plague” (1898), “Notes of a Doctor” (1901) and “Tales of War” (1906), all books that caused controversy due to their acute display of various aspects of the medical profession. Veresaev, as a doctor, participated in the Russian-Japanese War (1904-1905) and wrote about the heroism of Russian soldiers in “Notes at War” (1907-1908). His works were close to those of realist writers, and he was a member of the Wednesday literary circle and published in M. Gorky’s collection “Znanie”. In 1909, his novel “To Life” was published, which focused on the fate of Russian intelligentsia. This cycle also includes the novels “At a Dead End” (1922) and “Sisters” (1933), and in 1910 Veresaev published the first part of his literary and philosophical work “Living Life”. In this work, he compared the works of L.N. Tolstoy and F.M. Dostoevsky, and the second part included criticism of Dostoevsky’s views. Nietzsche’s work “Apollo and Dionysus” (1915) was published after the revolution. Veresaev, who became a recognized Soviet writer, received the Stalin Prize in 1943. His most famous works as a literary historian include biographies based on the memoirs of contemporaries, such as Pushkin in Life (1926-1927), Gogol in Life (1933), and Pushkin’s Companions (1934-1936), which were published in the 1930s. Veresaev also translated ancient works, including Homer’s The Iliad and The Odyssey.
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