Yevgeny Zamyatin

Yevgeny Zamyatin by Boris Kustodiev (1923)

Yevgeny Ivanovich Zamyatin^[1] (Russian: Евге́ний Ива́нович Замя́тин, IPA: [jɪvˈgʲenʲɪj ɪˈvanəvʲɪtɕ zʌˈmʲætʲɪn]) (February 1, 1884 – March 10, 1937) was a Russian author, most famous for his 1921 novel We, a story of dystopian future which influenced George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four and Ayn Rand's Anthem ^{[citation needed]}.

Zamyatin also wrote a number of short stories, in fairy tale form, that constituted satirical criticism of the Communist regime in Russia, such as in a story about a city where the mayor decides that to make everyone happy he should make everyone equal. He starts by forcing everyone, himself included, to live in a big barrack, then to shave heads to be equal to the bald, and then to become mentally disabled to equate intelligence downward. This plot is very similar to that of The New Utopia (1891) by Jerome K. Jerome whose collected works were published three times in Russia before 1917.

Zamyatin was born in Lebedyan, two hundred miles south of Moscow. His father was a Russian Orthodox priest and schoolmaster, and his mother a musician. He studied naval engineering in St. Petersburg from 1902 until 1908, during which time he joined the Bolsheviks. He was arrested during the Russian Revolution of 1905 and exiled, but returned to St. Petersburg where he lived illegally before moving to Finland in 1906 to finish his studies. Returning to Russia, he began to write fiction as a hobby. He was arrested and exiled a second time in 1911, but amnestied in 1913. His Ujezdnoje (A Provincial Tale) in 1913, which satirized life in a small Russian town, brought him a degree of fame. The next year he was tried for maligning the military in his story Na Kulichkakh. He continued to contribute articles to various socialist newspapers.

After graduating as a naval engineer, he worked professionally at home and abroad. In 1916 he was sent to England to supervise the construction of icebreakers at the shipyards in Walker and Wallsend while living in Newcastle upon Tyne. He wrote The Islanders, satirizing English life, and its pendant A Fisher of Men, both published after his return to Russia in late 1917.

After the Russian Revolution of 1917 he edited several journals, lectured on writing, and edited Russian translations of works by Jack London, O. Henry, H. G. Wells, and others.

Zamyatin supported the October Revolution, but opposed the system of censorship under the Bolsheviks. His works were increasingly critical of the regime. He boldly stated: "True literature can only exist when it is created, not by diligent and reliable officials, but by madmen, hermits, heretics, dreamers, rebels and skeptics". This attitude caused his position to become increasingly difficult as the 1920s wore on. Ultimately, his works were banned and he wasn't permitted to publish, particularly after the publication of We in a Russian emigré journal in 1927.

Zamyatin was eventually given permission to leave Russia by Joseph Stalin in 1931, after the intercession of Maxim Gorky. He settled, impoverished, in Paris with his wife, where he died of a heart attack in 1937. During his time in France, he notably worked with Jean Renoir, co-writing the script of his film Les Bas-fonds.

He is buried in Thiais, just south of Paris. The cemetery of his final rest is on Rue de Stalingrad.

Notes

1. ^ His last name is often transliterated as Zamiatin or Zamjatin. His first name is sometimes translated as Eugene.

References

• Fischer, Peter A. (Autumn 1971). "Review of The Life and Works of Evgenij Zamjatin by Alex M. Shane". Slavic and East European Journal 15 (3): 388–390. 
• Myers, Alan (1993). "Zamiatin in Newcastle: The Green Wall and The Pink Ticket". The Slavonic and East European review 71 (3): 417–427. 
• Shane, Alex M. (1968). The life and works of Evgenij Zamjatin. University of California Press. 
• Zamyatin, Yevgeny (1994). A Soviet heretic : essays, Mirra Ginsburg (editor and translator), Quartet Books Ltd. 

External links

• Biography of Yevgeny Zamyatin
• Biography from a website on George Orwell.
• Encyclopedia of Soviet Writers biography of Yevgeny Zamyatin
• Yevgeny Zamyatin at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• The Lion complete text of the short story by Zamyatin. (1935)
• Zamyatin in Newcastle updates articles by Alan Myers published in Slavonic and East European Review.
• "The Novel Moscow Feared," by John J. Miller in the Wall Street Journal
• Review of We
• Review of We by Priya Jain
• The "twists and turns" of Yevgeny Zamiatin's Life brief, illustrated biography by Tatyana Kukushkina
• Collected works (Russian) including his Autobiography (1929) and Letter to Stalin (1931)
• Wall Street Journal Review of We
• Yevgeny Zamyatin Spartacus Educational website by John Simkin

Donate to Wikimedia