Garshin Vsevolod Mikhailovich is an outstanding Russian prose writer. Born on February 2, 1855 in the Pleasant Valley estate of the Yekaterinoslav province (now Donetsk region, Ukraine) in a noble officer family. As a five-year-old child, Garshin experienced a family drama that affected his health and greatly influenced his attitude and character. His mother fell in love with P. V. Zavadsky, the teacher of older children, the organizer of a secret political society, and left the family. The father complained to the police, Zavadsky was arrested and exiled to Petrozavodsk. Mother moved to Petersburg to visit the exile. The child became the subject of acute contention between the parents. Until 1864 he lived with his father, then his mother took him to St. Petersburg and sent him to a gymnasium. In 1874 Garshin entered the Mining Institute. But literature and art interested him more than science. He begins to print, writes essays and art history articles. In 1877 Russia declared war on Turkey; Garshin on the very first day is recorded as a volunteer in the army. In one of his first battles, he led the regiment into the attack and was wounded in the leg. The wound turned out to be harmless, but Garshin no longer took part in further hostilities. Promoted to an officer, he soon retired, spent a short time as a volunteer in the philological faculty of St. Petersburg University, and then devoted himself entirely to literary activity. Garshin quickly gained fame, the stories that reflected his military impressions were especially popular - “Four Days”, “Coward”, “From the Memoirs of Private Ivanov”. In the early 80s. the writer's mental illness worsened (it was a hereditary disease, and it manifested itself when Garshin was still a teenager); the aggravation was largely caused by the execution of the revolutionary Mlodetsky, for whom Garshin tried to stand up to the authorities. He spent about two years in a Kharkov psychiatric hospital. In 1883, the writer marries N. M. Zolotilova, a student of women's medical courses. During these years, which Garshin considered the happiest in his life, his best story, “The Red Flower”, was created. In 1887 comes out last work- children's fairy tale "Frog - traveler". But very soon another severe depression sets in. On March 24, 1888, during one of the seizures, Vsevolod Mikhailovich Garshin commits suicide - he throws himself into a flight of stairs. The writer is buried in St. Petersburg.

Option 2

Garshin Vsevolod Mikhailovich remained in the memory of Russian prose. He was born on February 2, 1855 on the territory of the Yekaterinoslav province, in the estate of Pleasant Valley (now Donetsk region, Ukraine) in the family of an officer at the court. At the age of five, he first experienced unknown feelings that would later damage his health and affect his character and worldview.

The educator of older children at that time was P. V. Zavadsky, who is also the leader of an underground political society. Vsevolod's mother falls in love with him and leaves the family. The father, in turn, turns to the police for help, and Zavadsky finds himself in exile in Petrozavodsk. To be closer to her beloved, the mother moves to Petrozavodsk. But it is difficult to share a child with parents. Until the age of nine, little Vsevolod lived with his father, but when he moved, his mother took him to St. Petersburg and sent him to study at a gymnasium.

After graduating from the gymnasium in 1874, Garshin became a student at the Mining Institute. But science is in the background, art and literature come to the fore. The path to literature begins with short essays and articles. When in 1877 Russia opens a war with Turkey, Garshin expresses a desire to fight, and immediately joins the ranks of volunteers. A quick wound in the leg put an end to further participation in hostilities.

Officer Garshin soon retires, for a short time becoming a student of the Faculty of Philology at the University in St. Petersburg. The 80s began with an exacerbation of a hereditary mental illness, the first manifestations of which began in adolescence. The reason for this was largely the execution of the revolutionary Molodetsky, who was fiercely defended by Garshin before the authorities. He is placed for treatment in the Kharkov psychiatric hospital for two years.

After treatment, in 1883, Garshin creates a family with N. M. Zolotilova, who has a medical education. These years become the happiest in his life, and it is during these years that the best work comes out - the story "Red Flower". He also wrote the stories “Signal” and “Artists”. The last brainchild, in 1887, was the children's fairy tale “The Traveling Frog”. But soon Garshin again overtakes a severe exacerbation. He is unable to cope with depression. March 24, 1888 is the last day in the life of the prose writer, he threw himself into the flight of stairs. Vsevolod Mikhailovich Garshin found eternal rest at a cemetery in St. Petersburg.

(1855-1888) Russian writer

Even during his lifetime, the name of Vsevolod Mikhailovich Garshin among the Russian intelligentsia, the concept of "a man of the Garshin warehouse" became widespread. What did it include? First of all, the light and attractive that contemporaries who knew the writer saw and that readers guessed, recreating the image of the author from his stories. The beauty of his inner appearance combined with external beauty. Garshin was alien to both asceticism and dull moralism. During the period of mental and physical health, he acutely felt the joy of life, loved society, nature, knew the joy of simple physical labor.

The thirst for life, the ability to feel and understand everything beautiful in it was one of the reasons for the heightened rejection of evil and ugliness, which Garshin expressed in deep sadness and almost physical suffering. This deep sadness about the imperfection of the world and people, the ability to be imbued with someone else's pain, someone else's suffering, as if it were one's own, was the second feature of the "man of the Garshin warehouse."

Vsevolod Garshin was born on the estate of his maternal grandmother, which was called Pleasant Valley and was located in the Bakhmut district of the Yekaterinoslav province. His early years were spent in the small town of Starobelsk. Garshin's father, Mikhail Yegorovich, was an officer. A humane, gentle man, he had a reputation as a kind and fair commander. True, in everyday life he was not without some oddities and was unable to establish his family life. The mother of Vsevolod Garshin, Ekaterina Stepanovna, was carried away by the teacher of her sons P. Zavadsky and left her husband, but he managed to take revenge on her and his rival. According to his denunciation, P. Zavadsky, a member of the Kharkov revolutionary circle, was arrested and exiled. Searches were also carried out several times at Ekaterina Stepanovna's house. The situation in the house was very difficult. “Some scenes,” Garshin later recalled, “left an indelible memory in me and, perhaps, traces on the character. The sad expression prevailing on my face probably got its start in that era.

He was then in his fifth year. The mother with her older sons left for St. Petersburg, and Vsevolod remained in the village with his father. Much later, in the story "Night", he wrote several autobiographical lines about this time, which his mother could never forgive him. In them, he lovingly turned to the memory of his father, wrote that he wanted to go back to childhood and caress this downtrodden person.

In the summer of 1863, his mother took Vsevolod to Petersburg as well. From a secluded, quiet environment, the boy ended up in a not at all rich, but noisy, never empty St. Petersburg apartment: Ekaterina Stepanovna loved people and knew how to gather them around her. Vsevolod Garshin entered the gymnasium. His mother soon left for Kharkov, leaving him first in the care of his older brothers, and then, after the gymnasium boarding school, in a family of acquaintances.

Vsevolod Garshin spent ten years at the gymnasium, of which he was ill for two years (even then he began to show symptoms of mental illness) and once remained in the same class for another year.

As a high school student, Vsevolod Garshin began to write feuilletons, poems, published in gymnasium publications. In the last year of the teenager's stay at the gymnasium, it was transformed into a real school, and those who graduated from a real school, according to the laws of that time, could only study further in engineering. Garshin was fond of natural sciences and wanted to enter the Medical and Surgical Academy, but the new decree deprived him of this opportunity. In 1874 he became a student at the Mining Institute.

It was a time of social activity of student youth, unprecedented in Russia until then. Almost all higher educational institutions were engulfed in revolutionary ferment, which was brutally suppressed. Nevertheless, young people actively fought for their rights and sensitively reacted to all the most important social and political problems.

Vsevolod Mikhailovich Garshin was aloof from these events, for him it was a period of painful search for his path in life. In November 1874, shortly after the unrest at the Mining Institute, in connection with which two hundred students were expelled and one and a half hundred were exiled, Vsevolod wrote to his mother: “On the one hand, the authorities, grabbing and exiling, looking at you like cattle, and not on a person, on the other - a society, busy with its own affairs, treated with contempt, almost with hatred ... Where to go, what to do? The vile ones walk on their hind legs, the stupid ones crowd into Nechaevs, and so on. to Siberia, the smart ones are silent and suffer. They are the worst. Suffering from without and from within. It's bad, my dear mother, in my soul.

However creative work Garshin in his student years becomes more intense. He writes poetry, and in 1876 his essay "The True History of the Ensk Zemstvo Assembly" appeared for the first time in print. It painted a caustic satirical picture of the manners of Zemstvo liberals.

In those same years, Vsevolod Garshin became close to a group of young artists. A passionate and interested attitude to art prompted him to write a series of articles on painting, in which he reflected on the essence of the artist's activity, on the purpose of art. One of the strongest artistic impressions of those years was an exhibition of paintings by the Russian battle painter Vasily Vasilyevich Vereshchagin. Garshin was shocked by the depiction of military scenes. And soon he himself had to take part in what caused him such horror and disgust.

In April 1877, Russia declared war on Turkey, and Vsevolod Garshin volunteered for the army. “I can’t,” he writes to his mother, “hide behind the walls of an institution when my peers expose their foreheads and chests to bullets.” He was enlisted as a private in an infantry regiment. Here, in the war, he deeply comprehended the character of a simple Russian man, his heroism and selfless service to the ideals of brotherhood. During the war, the social contradictions of Russian reality were even more clearly revealed to Garshin.

In the battle near Ayaslar, he was wounded in the leg, was treated for a long time and, upon recovery, retired. This is how Garshin's short military career looked from the outside. But her internal result was much more significant. The war and the impressions it caused became one of the main themes of Garshin's work. While still in the army, he begins to write the story "Four Days", finishes it in Kharkov during his convalescence and sends it to the magazine " Domestic notes". The story was a tremendous success and immediately made the name of its author widely known.

A year later, Vsevolod Garshin publishes a new story called A Very Short Novel. Here, as in other works of the writer, the same motives sound: pain for a person, grief for the hopelessness of this pain, endless compassion. Already in the first stories of Garshin, the heightened sense of humanity inherent in his work was manifested, that feature of his talent, which was noted by Chekhov, was revealed. In his short story “The Seizure” about the student Vasiliev, whose prototype was Garshin, we read: “There are writing, stage, artistic talents, but he has a special talent - human. He has a subtle, wonderful sense of pain in general. Just as a good actor reflects other people's movements and voices in himself, so Vasiliev knows how to reflect someone else's pain in his soul. Seeing tears, he cries; near the patient, he himself becomes ill and groans; if he sees violence, then it seems to him that violence is being committed against him ... ”This property of Garshin’s talent made him turn to one of the most acute social topics - prostitution.

The story "The Incident", which appeared in print in 1878, was not the first in Russian literature to reflect this problem. Writers have already created a certain tradition in the approach to this "social ulcer". Vsevolod Garshin generally remains in line with the same tradition. However, his heroine is not a typical product of her environment, she is much taller than her. The fate of this woman is the tragedy of an extraordinary person who found himself in more than ordinary circumstances. In essence, as Garshin shows and as the heroine herself thinks, there is not much difference between prostitution and many marriages that are not for love.

Vsevolod Mikhailovich Garshin does not give his heroes the opportunity to correct mistakes and be happy. He makes the highest demands on them. The words of G. Uspensky about writing work are applicable to Garshin: “I want to torment and torment the reader because this determination will give me in time the right to talk about the most urgent and greatest torments experienced by this very reader ...” But Garshin himself suffered no less, as his own confession says: "The writer suffers for everyone he writes about."

He published many of his works in the journal Otechestvennye Zapiski, headed by M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin. Garshin did not always share his ideas, but nevertheless he felt his spiritual closeness to this magazine, on the pages of which the problems of modern social life were truthfully and honestly covered.

Meanwhile state of mind The writer's life worsened, more and more often attacks of melancholy were found on him. In the winter of 1880, he wrote the story "Night", in which he expresses the moods and feelings of many of his contemporaries.

By the beginning of the 80s, Vsevolod Mikhailovich Garshin became one of the most popular Russian writers. The younger generation considers him the ruler of thoughts. After each student evening, if Garshin was present, he was inevitably rocked in his arms. When he appeared in the theater or at a public lecture, approving whispers ran through the hall. Portraits of the writer could be found in the albums of students, female students and high school students.

Vsevolod Garshin wrote hard and slowly. But each of his stories left an indelible mark on the minds of readers. Meanwhile, his personal and creative life was already on the verge of a severe crisis, which was due to both external and internal reasons.

The social situation in the country remained difficult, unrest among the youth continued, workers went on strike. In 1880, Count M. Loris-Melikov was appointed head of the Supreme Administrative Commission. A few days after his appointment, a Narodnaya Volya member I. Mlodetsky shot at him. The count remained alive, and Mlodetsky was arrested and sentenced to death. Garshin was shocked by both the assassination attempt and the verdict. He writes a letter to Loris-Melikov with a request to "forgive" Mlodetsky and takes it himself. Garshin came to the house of Loris-Melikov late at night, they did not want to let him in, then they searched him, but in the end the count nevertheless accepted him.

There is no exact data on the content of their conversation. It is only known that Loris-Melikov promised Garshin to review the case and did not keep his word. Mlodetsky was hanged, after which Garshin finally lost his peace of mind and peace. He left for Moscow, then rushed to Rybinsk, then returned to Moscow again, visited Tula, Yasnaya Polyana at L.N. Tolstoy, with whom he spoke about the reorganization of life, about saving people from injustice and evil, went to Kharkov, but did not get there. Relatives, alarmed by the disappearance of Garshin, found him in the Oryol province, where the writer was already in a semi-mad state. heavy mental illness Garshin forced his relatives to place him first in a Kharkov hospital for the mentally ill, and then in a private hospital in St. Petersburg. The patient's condition improved somewhat, and he settled in his uncle's estate, where he began to recover.

The life of Vsevolod Garshin recent years not rich in external events. literary work did not provide sufficient livelihood, and the writer was forced to serve.

The charm of his personality was so great that he easily found friends. One of them was the wonderful Russian artist Ilya Repin, who painted the son of Ivan the Terrible from Vsevolod Garshin for his famous painting Ivan the Terrible and his son Ivan. Repin said that he was always struck by the seal of doom on Garshin's face. And he was not wrong.

Mental illness again attacked the writer, he plunges into depression, experiences an overwhelming longing. On March 19, 1888, Garshin threw himself into a flight of stairs, and a few days later, on March 24, he died. His death became a public event, thousands of people came to bury the writer.

The fate of Vsevolod Mikhailovich Garshin seemed to personify the fate of a whole generation. After his tragic death, in order to honor the memory of the writer and create a fund for the construction of a monument to him, it was decided to publish a collection of his memory. At the request of A.N. Pleshcheev to write a story in this collection Anton Pavlovich Chekhov replied: "... I love such people as the late Garshin with all my heart and consider it my duty to sign in sympathy for them." Chekhov said that he had a topic for a story, the hero of which would be "a young man of Garshin sourdough, remarkable, honest and deeply sensitive."

Garshin Vsevolod Mikhailovich

Garshin Vsevolod Mikhailovich (1855 - 1888), prose writer, art historian, critic.

He was born on February 2 (14 N.S.) in the Pleasant Valley estate of the Yekaterinoslav province in an officer's family. Garshin's mother, a "typical sixties" who was interested in literature and politics, fluent in German and French, had a huge impact on her son. P. Zavadovsky, a leader of the revolutionary movement of the 1960s, was also Garshin's tutor. Subsequently, Garshin's mother will go to him and will accompany him into exile. This family drama was reflected in the health and attitude of Garshin.

He studied at the gymnasium (1864 - 1874), where he began to write, imitating either the Iliad or the Hunter's Notes by I. Turgenev. During these years, he was fond of natural sciences, which was facilitated by friendship with A. Gerd, a talented teacher and popularizer of natural science. On his advice, Garshin entered the Mining Institute, but listened with interest only to the lectures of D. Mendeleev.

In 1876 he began to publish - the essay "The True History of the Ensky Zemstvo Assembly" was written in a satirical spirit. Having become close to the young Wanderers, he wrote a number of articles about the painting presented at art exhibitions. With the beginning of the Russian-Turkish war, Garshin volunteered for the army, participated in the Bulgarian campaign, the impressions of which formed the basis of the stories "Four Days" (1877), "A Very Short Novel" (1878), "Coward" (1879), etc. .In the battle of Ayaslar he was wounded, treated in the hospital, then was sent home. Having received a year's leave, Garshin travels to St. Petersburg with the intention of doing literary activity. Six months later he was promoted to officer, at the end of the war he was transferred to the reserve (1878).

In September, he became a volunteer at the Faculty of History and Philology of St. Petersburg University.

In 1879, the stories "Meeting" and "Artists" were written, posing the problem of choosing a path for the intelligentsia (the path of enrichment or the path of serving the people full of hardships).

Garshin did not accept the “revolutionary” terror of the late 1870s; he perceived the events related to this very sharply. It became more and more obvious to him the untenability of the Narodnik methods of revolutionary struggle. In the story "" the tragic attitude of this generation was expressed.

In the early 1870s, Garshin fell ill mental disorder. In 1880, after an unsuccessful attempt to stand up for the revolutionary Mlodetsky and the subsequent execution, which shocked the writer, his illness worsened, and for about two years he was in a psychiatric hospital. Only in May 1882 he returned to St. Petersburg, having restored his peace of mind. Publishes the essay "Petersburg Letters", containing deep reflections on Petersburg as the "spiritual homeland" of the Russian intelligentsia. Applies to civil service. In 1883 he marries

N. Zolotilova, who worked as a doctor. He considers this period the happiest in his life. He writes his best story "Red Flower". But in 1887, another severe depression sets in: he was forced to leave the service, family quarrels began between his wife and mother - all this led to a tragic outcome. Garshin committed suicide on April 5, 1888. He was buried in St. Petersburg.

Brief biography from the book: Russian writers and poets. Brief biographical dictionary. Moscow, 2000.

Biography, life story of Garshin Vsevolod Mikhailovich

Vsevolod Mikhailovich Garshin - the famous Russian prose writer of the second half of XIX century, who was also engaged in art history and wrote critical articles.

Childhood and youth

Vsevolod Mikhailovich Garshin was born in 1855 on February 2 (according to the new style - on the 14th). This event took place in a family estate called Pleasant Valley, which was located in the Yekaterinoslav province and belonged to the officer family of the Russified Tatar Mikhail Yegorovich Garshin, who traced his ancestry to a Murza from the Golden Horde named Gorshi. The mother of little Seva was a typical "sixties". She was keenly interested in literature and current politics, she was completely fluent in French and German. Naturally, it was she who had a huge influence on her son.

At the age of five, Seva experienced a great family drama, which had a catastrophic effect on the boy's health and greatly influenced his attitude and character formation. Vsevolod's mother fell in love with P.V. Zavadsky, a young man who was the tutor of her older children, and left her family. It turned out that this man was the organizer of a secret society, and Garshin's father, having learned about this, informed the police. The oppositionist was arrested by the Okhrana, and he was exiled to Petrozavodsk. The unfaithful wife moved to St. Petersburg in order to be able to visit the exile. It is not surprising that the child was at that time a subject of contention for the parents. Seva lived with his father until 1864, and later his mother took him and sent him to a gymnasium in St. Petersburg.

In 1864-74, Garshin studied at the gymnasium. It was then that he began to write poems and stories in which he imitated Homer's Iliad and the famous Hunter's Notes. In the senior classes of the gymnasium, Garshin became interested in natural science, this was facilitated by friendly relations with the talented teacher Alexander Yakovlevich Gerd, who was a well-known popularizer of the natural sciences. On the advice of this man, Vsevolod entered the Mining Institute, and also listened with great interest to the lectures of Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleev at St. Petersburg University.

CONTINUED BELOW

Garshin began to publish in 1876 (while still a student). His first published work was an essay entitled "The True History of the N-th Zemstvo Assembly", written in the spirit of satire. Then, after rapprochement with the Wanderers, Vsevolod wrote a number of articles about their work, paying special attention to the canvases presented at exhibitions. After the start of a new Russian-Turkish war, the student quit his studies at the Mining Institute and went to the front as a volunteer, participated in the Bulgarian campaign, subsequently embodying his impressions in a number of stories that were published in 1877-79.

In a battle near the village of Ayaslar, Garshin was wounded and, after treatment in the hospital, was sent on leave for a whole year home. He came to St. Petersburg already with a firm conviction that he would be engaged exclusively in literary activities. Six months later, Vsevolod received the rank of officer, and when the war ended in 1878, he was transferred to the reserve.

Garshin continued his education as a volunteer at the Faculty of History and Philology at the University of St. Petersburg.

Attitude to revolutionary events

The young writer continued to write and publish stories in which he posed the problem of choice for the intelligentsia: whether to follow the path of personal enrichment or choose the path of service to his people full of hardships.

Garshin did not accept the revolutionary terror that broke out in Russia in the late 70s. He perceived extremely acutely and painfully all the events connected with this. The inconsistency of the methods of revolutionary struggle employed by the Narodniks became more and more obvious to him. The writer expressed in the story "Night" the tragic attitude of the contemporary young generation.

Illness and death

In the early 70s, doctors diagnosed Vsevolod Mikhailovich with a mental disorder. In 1880, Garshin made an unsuccessful attempt to defend the revolutionary Ippolit Osipovich Mlodetsky, who made an attempt on the life of Count Loris-Melnikov. The execution of Hippolytus, which followed soon after, shocked the writer, and his mental illness worsened. Garshin had to spend about two years in a psychiatric clinic.

Having restored some peace of mind, Vsevolod Mikhailovich returned in May 1882 to St. Petersburg. He returned to literary creativity, published an essay entitled "Petersburg Letters", in which he deeply reflected on Petersburg as the only spiritual homeland for all the domestic intelligentsia. Garshin even entered the civil service and married in 1883 a young female doctor, N. Zolotilova. It was, apparently, the happiest in his short life period. It was then that Vsevolod Mikhailovich wrote his best story, The Red Flower.

However, already in 1887, Garshin again experienced a severe depression, and he left public service. Soon there were also quarrels between his mother and young wife. These events could not but lead to a tragic outcome. Vsevolod Mikhailovich Garshin committed suicide. On April 5 (March 24 old style), 1888, he threw himself down a flight of stairs.

Garshin Vsevolod Mikhailovich (1855 - 1888), prose writer, art historian, critic.
He was born on February 2 (14 n.s.) in the Pleasant Valley estate of the Yekaterinoslav province in an officer's family. Garshin's mother, a "typical sixties" who was interested in literature and politics, fluent in German and French, had a huge impact on her son. P. Zavadovsky, a leader of the revolutionary movement of the 1960s, was also Garshin's tutor. Subsequently, Garshin's mother will go to him and will accompany him into exile. This family drama was reflected in the health and attitude of Garshin.
He studied at the gymnasium (1864 - 1874), where he began to write, imitating either the Iliad or the Hunter's Notes by I. Turgenev. During these years he was fond of natural sciences, which was facilitated by friendship with A. Gerd, a talented teacher and popularizer of natural science. On his advice, Garshin entered the Mining Institute, but listened with interest only to the lectures of D. Mendeleev.
In 1876 he began to print - the essay "The True History of the Ensky Zemstvo Assembly" was written in a satirical spirit. Having become close to the young Wanderers, he wrote a number of articles about the painting presented at art exhibitions. With the beginning of the Russian-Turkish war, Garshin volunteered for the army, participated in the Bulgarian campaign, the impressions of which formed the basis of the stories "Four Days" (1877), "A Very Short Romance" (1878), "Coward" (1879), etc. .In the battle of Ayaslar he was wounded, treated in the hospital, then was sent home. Having received an annual leave, Garshin travels to St. Petersburg with the intention of engaging in literary activities. Six months later he was promoted to officer, at the end of the war he was transferred to the reserve (1878).
In September, he became a volunteer at the Faculty of History and Philology of St. Petersburg University.
In 1879, the stories "Meeting" and "Artists" were written, posing the problem of choosing a path for the intelligentsia (the path of enrichment or the path of service to the people full of hardships).
Garshin did not accept the "revolutionary" terror of the late 1870s; he perceived the events connected with it very sharply. It became more and more obvious to him the untenability of the Narodnik methods of revolutionary struggle. In the story "Night" the tragic attitude of this generation was expressed.
In the early 1870s, Garshin fell ill with a mental disorder. In 1880, after an unsuccessful attempt to stand up for the revolutionary Mlodetsky and the subsequent execution, which shocked the writer, his illness worsened, and for about two years he was in a psychiatric hospital. Only in May 1882 he returned to St. Petersburg, having restored his peace of mind. He publishes the essay "Petersburg Letters", containing deep reflections on Petersburg as the "spiritual homeland" of the Russian intelligentsia. Enters the civil service. In 1883 he marries
N. Zolotilova, who worked as a doctor. He considers this period the happiest in his life. Writes his best story "The Red Flower". But in 1887, another severe depression sets in: he was forced to leave the service, family quarrels began between his wife and mother - all this led to a tragic outcome. Garshin committed suicide on April 5, 1888. He was buried in St. Petersburg.
Brief biography from the book: Russian writers and poets. Brief biographical dictionary. Moscow, 2000.