Epitomizing, according to many critics, the “decadent” nature of late-imperial literature, the novels and stories of neo-realist Mikhail Petrovich Artsybashev (1878-1927) were unavailable to Russian readers for a long time. The novel
Sanin(1907), a
roman a thèsethat seemed to preach unrestrained sex and extreme individualism, especially caused such a scandal that it was banned a year after its publication and subsequently remained locked away in the special storage sections (
spetskhran) of Soviet libraries for decades. Artsybashev’s reputation as the author of that single infamous novel has survived to this day. His work was published again in the 1990s, and recent scholarly attention to Artsybashev has been more nuanced, but has not led to a major reassessment of his writing.
The
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Citation: Boele, Otto. "Artsybashev, Mikhail". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 01 April 2014 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=13280, accessed 04 December 2024.]