Home » Russia » Leonid Leonov

Leonid Leonov

Biography

Leonid Leonov was born in Moscow in 1899. His father was a self-made poet and also a political activist, for which he was often arrested and finally sent into exile to Arkhangelsk. After school in Moscow, Leonov worked for a newspaper in Arkhangelsk, edited by his father. He was in Arkhangelsk during the Civil War, when it was under British occupation. It has been suggested that he may have fought for the Whites. He later joined the Bolsheviks but this did not help him get into university. While planning to become a writer, he worked as a locksmith. He soon started publishing stories but made his name with his first two novels, Барсуки (The Badgers) and Вор (The Thief). While some of his early works were somewhat critical of the communist system, in his later works he stuck closely to the standard Soviet model. He also wrote film scripts. He died in 1994, soon after the publication of his last novel which he (but no-one else) declared his best work.

Books about Leonid Leonov

Boris Thomson: The Art of Compromise: The Life and Work of Leonid Leonov

Other links

Leonid Leonov
Obituary
Леонид Максимович Леонов (in Russian)
Леонов (in Russian)

Bibliography

1922 Бурыга (story)
1923 Петушихинский пролом (story)
1924 Барсуки (The Badgers) (novel)
1924 Конец мелкого человека (story)
1926 Запись на бересте (poetry)
1927-28 Белая ноч (story)
1927 Вор (The Thief) (novel)
1928 Бродяга (story)
1928 Необыкновенные рассказы о мужиках.
1928 Провинциальная история (story)
1928 Унтиловск (drama)
1929 Соть (The Sot; The River) (novel)
1929 Усмирение Бададошкина (drama)
1930 Саранчуки (story)
1932 Скутаревский (Skutarevsky) (novel)
1935 Дорога на Океан (Road to the Ocean) (novel)
1938 Волк (drama)
1938 Обыкновенный человек (drama)
1938 Половчанские сады (The Orchards of Polovchansk) (drama)
1939 Метель (drama)
1942 Нашествие (Invasion) (drama)
1943 Ленушка (drama)
1944 Взятие Великошумска (Chariot of Wrath) (story)
1946 Статьи военных лет (stories)
1946 Золотая карета (drama)
1947 В защиту друга (essay)
1949 В наши годы (stories)
1953 Русский лес (The Russian Forest) (novel)
1961 Бегство мистера Мак-Кинли.(film script)
1963 Евгения Ивановна (Evgenia Ivanovna) (story)
1964 Литература и время (stories)
1974 Мироздание по Дымкову (novel)
1988 Былины (selected works)
1994 Пирамида (novel)