Author. Pen name of Fyodor Kuzmich Teternikov. A leader of the Russian Symbolist movement, his work is marked by a profoundly pessimistic worldview that often veers into decadence and the grotesque. He is best known for his novel "The Little Demon" (1907), later adapted into a hit play. Its protagonist, a provincial schoolmaster driven to madness by his own lack of scruples, is one of the most memorable characters in Russian fiction. Sologub's poetry and short stories offer the same existential despair in distilled form. His other books include the novels "Bad Dreams" (1896) and "The Created Legend" (3 parts, 1908 to 1914), the verse collection "Circle of Fire" (1908), and "The Old House and Other Tales" (1915). Sologub was born in St. Petersburg. From age 19 he was employed as a math teacher, a job he loathed, while writing furiously at night and on holidays. His first book of poetry appeared in 1886. The enormous success of "The Little Demon" enabled him to devote himself entirely to literature. In 1908 he married playwright Anastasia Chebotarevskaya, who helped dramatize several of his tales. Immensely prolific, Sologub's "Collected Works" (1914) ran to 19 volumes. He supported the 1905 Revolution but not the Bolsheviks, and in 1919 he asked the new Soviet government for permission to emigrate with his family. When this was finally denied two years later, his wife drowned herself in the Neva River. Barred from publishing after 1923, Sologub was nevertheless elected head of the Leningrad branch of the Author's League, a more independent forerunner of the Soviet Writers Union. His death at 64 likely spared him a bleaker fate under Stalinism.
Author. Pen name of Fyodor Kuzmich Teternikov. A leader of the Russian Symbolist movement, his work is marked by a profoundly pessimistic worldview that often veers into decadence and the grotesque. He is best known for his novel "The Little Demon" (1907), later adapted into a hit play. Its protagonist, a provincial schoolmaster driven to madness by his own lack of scruples, is one of the most memorable characters in Russian fiction. Sologub's poetry and short stories offer the same existential despair in distilled form. His other books include the novels "Bad Dreams" (1896) and "The Created Legend" (3 parts, 1908 to 1914), the verse collection "Circle of Fire" (1908), and "The Old House and Other Tales" (1915). Sologub was born in St. Petersburg. From age 19 he was employed as a math teacher, a job he loathed, while writing furiously at night and on holidays. His first book of poetry appeared in 1886. The enormous success of "The Little Demon" enabled him to devote himself entirely to literature. In 1908 he married playwright Anastasia Chebotarevskaya, who helped dramatize several of his tales. Immensely prolific, Sologub's "Collected Works" (1914) ran to 19 volumes. He supported the 1905 Revolution but not the Bolsheviks, and in 1919 he asked the new Soviet government for permission to emigrate with his family. When this was finally denied two years later, his wife drowned herself in the Neva River. Barred from publishing after 1923, Sologub was nevertheless elected head of the Leningrad branch of the Author's League, a more independent forerunner of the Soviet Writers Union. His death at 64 likely spared him a bleaker fate under Stalinism.
Bio by: Bobb Edwards
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