MIKHAIL PETROVICH ARTSYBASHEV: SANIN

Russian prose writer whose works were noted for their extreme pessimism and immorality.


The publication of the novel Sanin in 1907 brought Artsybashev widespread fame, or infamy. Folowing the failure of the Revolution of 1905, a wave of pessimism and cynicism overtook the Russian literary world. Its extreme expression was Sanin. The literary influence of Tolstoy is felt in this book, as in other works by Artsybashev, who dealt with metephysical and moral problems; his position, unlike Tolstoy´s, was a negation of everything except so-called primitive realities, which for him were sex and death.


Conservative critics condemned him for immorality, and modernist critics found no merit in him. He enjoyed great popularity for a time, and some of his plays have literary value. Attacked by the Sovie critics for his decadence, Artsybashev was expelled from the Soviet Union in 1923, and Sanin and his other works were proscribed.