Many articles about Leonid Andreev begin with a message that he was the founder of Russian expressionism (the basis of this trend is not a reflection of reality, but the author’s inner world generated by it). Although very often along with this definition of his work, contemporaries attributed his method to critical realism, and to neorealism, and to fantastic realism and real mysticism.
Lack of belonging to a certain direction
Leonid Andreev, on whose work so many labels were hung, at times he himself could not decide on his belonging to any particular current.
In a letter to A. M. Gorky, the writer himself asked who he really was, because for the decadents he was realist, and for realists he was a symbolist. In his work, a talented and peculiar writer wanted to achieve a synthesis, or at least a reconciliation of the two directions of world understanding, living and constantly opposing in his mind - decadent and realistic.
Two in one
Everything is clear with realism. And what is decadence? Direct translation means decline or cultural regression. In art and literature, this is a modernist trend, which is characterized by extreme forms of aestheticism, individualism and immoralism or immoralism. And these two mutually exclusive extremes wanted to synthesize in his work, Leonid Andreev. All this served as a cut for his brilliant original talent, and his prose was recognizable immediately, although he had the gift to masterfully write under someone — either under Garshin, or under Chekhov and Dostoevsky, whose creativity he admired. It must be added that from his youthful years and then throughout his life he was read by Schopenhauer and Nietzsche and considered them his spiritual mentors.
Parents
Leonid Andreyev was born in a fairly wealthy family. The paternal grandfather was the leader of the nobility, and the grandmother was a serf. The article this handsome man went to his grandfather. A heightened sense of justice and a craving for a drink - in his father, a land surveyor-taxiator (appraiser), who died of alcoholism at the age of 42 years. And the writer owes love to everything beautiful to his mother, a representative of an impoverished Polish noble family, who loves him wholeheartedly. So, in the city of Orel, in the family of an official on August 21, 1871, the future “sphinx of the Russian intelligentsia” was born, as his contemporaries called it.
Amateur artist
He learned the ABC at the age of 6 and for the rest of his life retained the habit of reading hard. He entered the local Oryol gymnasium at the age of 11, studied poorly, but wrote compositions - in exchange for solving problems - to almost the entire class, all of which were different in style. But Leonid Andreev did not think of any writing, for he was completely occupied with drawing. He did not become a professional painter, since there was no art school in Orel, but the ability to draw at one time fed the family well - he was paid up to 11 rubles for a portrait. Years after the death of the writer, his works began to be exhibited at international exhibitions along with the masterpieces of painting masters and his contemporaries.
From Petersburg to Moscow
Then Leonid Andreev, whose biography will be connected with the city on the Neva for some time, enters the Moscow University at the Department of Jurisprudence. But soon his father dies, and the family falls into such cramped circumstances that often they all had to starve. Naturally, in the conditions when such concerns fell on his shoulders, the future writer was completely apolitical. Having left the capital, the family moves to a more grain-based Moscow, where L. Andreev, over time, I must say, very successfully graduates from the correspondence department of Moscow University, with the right to work in the bar. What he did for five years.
Amorous and emotional
It is necessary to stipulate the fact that this impressive handsome man with delicate facial features was loved by women and adored them passionately - he could not imagine life without love. And along the way, he was suicidal: during his whole life he made three attempts to die - then, by his youth and stupidity, he would settle between the rails at the age of 16 (a fatalist), then he would shoot himself in the heart because of the girlfriend’s refusal to marry him. Actually, this second attempt led to heart disease and early death.
Recognized from the first story
The beginning of his literary activity, the writer Leonid Andreev dates back to 1898. It was then that in the “Courier”, in which he worked for a long time as a writer of announcements, feuilletons and other notes, his first story “Bargamot and Garaska” was published. The bright, original talent is evidenced by the fact that immediately after the first story the author was noticed by readers, critics and Maxim Gorky, who immediately invited him to the “Knowledge” society and acquainted him with the entire writing world. They started talking about L. N. Andreev, and when his story “Once upon a Time” came out in 1901, he woke up famous, beloved, recognized.
Incredible popularity
Leonid Andreev, whose biography is now inextricably linked only with writing, was an incredibly sought-after author. There was a time when, by popularity, he left behind not only Veresaev and Bunin, but also Gorky, and his fees were furious. According to the granddaughter, he was paid 5 rubles in gold per line (line-by-line in Russia, only poets were paid before him). In parentheses, it was reported that chicken then cost 14 kopecks. Leonid Andreev has an excellent literary language, unusual stories, his prose captures. Stunning works “Judas Iscariot”, “Thought”, “The Life of Vasily Thebes”, the story “He”, which contemporaries called a masterpiece of Russian Gothic - his every work was eagerly expected, read and reread, discussed everywhere.
Ardent anti-adviser
The work of Leonid Andreev is almost unfamiliar to the current generation. The Soviet reader did not know him until the 1960s, and SOS was to blame for turning to Western leaders with a request to save Russia from the Bolsheviks. This is not forgiven. Maybe something will change soon, because some of the stories of this writer are included in the school curriculum. Bright, with unexpected plot twists, written in a good, understandable language, the works bring this ingenious writer to the top of the Silver Age of Russian literature. Each of his brainchild is so perfect that it is difficult to call any of them the peak of creativity. Perhaps such would be the novel The Diary of Satan, if it were completed. The unfortunate Satan Andreeva, circled around the finger by people who have become more cunning and meaner than him, deserves the sympathy of readers and sincere sympathy. True, “Mirror of the Russian Revolution” spoke dismissively of Leonid Andreyev, but the writer’s admirers did not decrease from this.
A kind of emigration
Unlike anyone in his work, L.N. Andreev in life was not very similar to anyone. He stood out in any society. His first wife was the grandniece of Taras Shevchenko, Alexander Veligorodskaya, who died as a result of postpartum fever. The second wife was Anna Ilyinichna Denisevich, who was his first and only literary secretary.
After marriage, the whole large family moves to their own house, bought in the Finnish village of Wammelsu. 1916-1917 Andreev spent in St. Petersburg, but did not accept the October Revolution in the most decisive way. He returned to Finland, which soon separated from Russia. The author of amazing stories, such as “The Seven Hanged” and “Red Laughter,” like Ilya Repin in his Penates, became a foreign citizen.
Way home
Leonid Andreev, whose brief biography is really very short, like, in fact, life ... The writer died at the age of 48 from heart disease. He died not at home, but visiting a friend of F.N. Falkovsky. Death occurred on September 12, 1919. He was buried in Marioki. However, in 1956, the body was reburied at the Literatorsky Mostki - a site on the Volkovsky cemetery in Leningrad. The descendants of the writer live in Paris, America, and some in Moscow, in which Kliment Voroshilov helped those who wish to return .