View source for Leonid Andreyev

{{Short description|Russian playwright and writer (1871–1919)}}
{{refimprove|date=October 2024}}
{{for|the Uzbekistani athlete|Leonid Andreev (athlete)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2021}}
{{Infobox writer <!-- for more information see [[:Template:Infobox writer/doc]] -->
| birth_name       = Leonid Nikolaievich Andreyev
| name             = Leonid Andreyev
| image            = 1912c Leonid Andreyev Autochrome self-portrait.jpg
| caption          = [[Autochrome]] self-portrait, published in 1912
| pseudonym        = 
| birth_date       = {{birth date|1871|8|21|df=y}}
| birth_place      = [[Oryol]], [[Oryol Governorate]], [[Russian Empire]]
| death_date       = {{death date and age|1919|9|12|1871|8|21|df=y}}
| death_place      = [[Repino, Saint Petersburg|Mustamäki]], [[Finland]]
| occupation       = 
| nationality      = Russian
| period           = 1890s–1910s
| genre            = Fiction, Drama
| movement         = [[Realism (arts)|Realism]] • [[Naturalism (arts)|Naturalism]] • [[Russian symbolism|Symbolism]] • [[Expressionism]]
| children         = [[Daniil Andreyev]], Vadim Andreyev
| signature        = Leonid Andreyev signature II.svg
| notable_works    = ''[[The Seven Who Were Hanged]]'', ''[[The Life of Man]]'', ''[[He Who Gets Slapped]]''
| website          = 
| footnotes        = 
| alma_mater       = [[Imperial Moscow University|Imperial Moscow University (1897)]]
}}
'''Leonid Nikolaievich Andreyev''' ({{langx|ru|Леони́д Никола́евич Андре́ев}}, {{OldStyleDate|21 August|1871|9 August}} – 12 September 1919) was a [[Russian language|Russian]] playwright, novelist and short-story writer, who is considered to be a father of [[Expressionism]] in Russian literature. He is regarded as one of the most talented and prolific representatives of the [[Silver Age of Russian Poetry|Silver Age]] literary period. Andreyev's style combines the elements of [[Literary realism|realist]], [[Naturalism (literature)|naturalist]], and [[Russian symbolism|symbolist]] schools in literature. Of his 25 plays, his 1915 play ''[[He Who Gets Slapped]]'' is regarded as his finest achievement.<ref name=":0">{{cite book |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/10.3366/j.ctt1bh2kpq.12.pdf |title=Border Crossing: Russian Literature into Film |chapter=A Slap in the Face of American Taste: Transporting He Who Gets Slapped to American Audiences |editor=Alexander Burry and Frederick H. White |author=Frederick H. White |publisher=Edinburgh University Press |year=2016 |pages=140–164 |jstor=10.3366/j.ctt1bh2kpq.12 |isbn=9781474411424 }}</ref>

==Biography==
Born in [[Oryol]], Russia, to a middle-class family, Andreyev originally studied law in [[Moscow]] and in [[Saint Petersburg]]. His mother hailed from an old [[Polish people|Polish]] aristocratic, though impoverished, family,<ref>James B. Woodward, ''Leonid Andreyev: a study'', Clarendon P. (1969), p. 3</ref><ref>Leo Hamalian & Vera Von Wiren-Garczynski, ''Seven Russian Short Novel Masterpieces'', Popular Library (1967), p. 381</ref> while she also claimed [[Ukrainians|Ukrainian]] and [[Finns|Finnish]] ancestry.<ref>Frederick H. White, ''Degeneration, Decadence and Disease in the Russian fin de siècle: Neurasthenia in the life and work of Leonid Andreev'', Oxford University Press (2015), p. 47.</ref> He became a police-court reporter for a Moscow daily, performing the routine of his humble calling without attracting any particular attention. At this time he wrote poetry and made a few efforts to publish it, but most publishers rejected his work. In 1898 the newspaper ''{{ill|Kuryer (newspaper)|ru|Курьер (газета)|lt=Kuryer}}'' newspaper in Moscow published his first short story, "Bargamot i Garaska". This story came to the attention of [[Maxim Gorky]], who recommended that Andreyev concentrate on his literary work. Andreyev eventually gave up his law practice, fast becoming a literary celebrity, and the two writers remained friends for many years to come. Through Gorky, Andreyev became a member of the Moscow [[Sreda (literary group)|Sreda]] literary group, and published many of his works in Gorky's [[Znanie (publishing company)|Znanie]] collections.<ref>A Writer Remembers by Nikolay Teleshov, Hutchinson, NY, 1943.</ref>

Andreyev's first collection of short stories and short novels (''povesti'') appeared in 1901, quickly selling a quarter-million copies and making him a literary star in Russia. In 1901 he published "Stena" (The Wall), and in 1902, "Bezdna" (The Abyss) and "V tumane" (In the Fog). The last two stories caused great commotion because of their candid and audacious treatment of sex. From 1898 to 1905 Andreyev published numerous short stories on many subjects, including life in Russian provincial settings, court and prison incidents (where he drew on material from his professional activity), and medical settings. His particular interest in psychology and psychiatry gave him an opportunity to explore insights into the human psyche and to depict memorable personalities who later became classic characters of Russian literature, such as in the 1902 short story "Mysl" (Thought).

During the time of the [[1905 Russian Revolution|first Russian revolution]] (1905) Andreyev participated actively in social and political debate as a defender of democratic ideals. Several of his stories, including "The Red Laugh" ("Krasny smekh", 1904), ''Governor'' (''Gubernator'', 1905) and ''[[The Seven Who Were Hanged]]'' (''Rasskaz o semi poveshennykh'', 1908), captured the spirit of this period. Starting from 1905 he also produced many theatre dramas, including ''[[The Life of Man]]'' (1906), ''[[Tsar Hunger]]'' (1907), ''Black Masks'' (1908), ''Anathema'' (1909), and ''The Days of Our Life'' (1909).{{Sfn|Banham|1998|p=24}} ''The Life of Man'' was staged by both [[Konstantin Stanislavsky]] (with his [[Moscow Art Theatre]]) and [[Vsevolod Meyerhold]] (in Saint Petersburg), two leading lights of Russian theatre of the twentieth century, in 1907.<ref>Benedetti (1999, 176–177), Banham (1998, 24), and Carnicke (2000, 34).</ref>

Andreyev's works of the post-1905 revolution period are often interpreted{{By whom|date=August 2023}} to represent the evocation of absolute pessimism and a despairing mood. By the beginning of the second decade of the century his fame began to wane as new literary powers such as the [[Russian futurism|Futurists]] rapidly came to prominence.

Andreyev completed his most well-known work, the play ''[[He Who Gets Slapped]]'', in August 1915, just two months before its world premiere at the [[Moscow Art Theatre]] on 27 October 1915.<ref name="Russian">{{cite book |author= Андреев Л.Н. |title= Собрание сочинений в шести томах |volume= 5 |location= Мoscow | type= Художественная литература "fiction" |year=1995 |language=Russian}}</ref> A critically successful Broadway production, using an English language translation of the original Russian by Gregory Zilboorg, was staged in 1922.<ref name=":0" /> The work has been adapted into several films, a novel, an opera, and a musical, and is his most-performed play internationally.<ref name=":0" />

Aside from his political writings, Andreyev published little after 1915. In 1916 he became the editor of the literary section of the newspaper ''{{ill|Russian Will|ru|Русская воля}}''. He later supported the [[February Revolution]] of 1917, but foresaw the [[Bolshevik]]s' coming to power as catastrophic. In 1917 he moved to [[Finland]]. From his house in Finland he addressed manifestos to the world at large against the excesses of the Bolsheviks. An idealist and a rebel, Andreyev spent his last years in bitter poverty, and his premature death from heart failure may have been hastened by his anguish over the results of the [[October Revolution|Bolshevik Revolution]] of November 1917. He finished his last novel, ''Satan's Diary'', a few days before his death.<ref>Herman Bernstein, preface to ''Satan's Diary'', Boni and Liveright (1920), p. v</ref>

A play, ''The Sorrows of Belgium'', was written at the beginning of the War to celebrate the heroism of the Belgians against the invading German army. It was produced in the [[United States]], as were the plays ''The Life of Man'' (1917), ''[[The Rape of the Sabine Women (play)|The Rape of the Sabine Women]]'' (1922), ''He Who Gets Slapped'' (1922), and ''Anathema'' (1923). A popular and acclaimed film version of ''[[He Who Gets Slapped]]'' was produced by [[MGM]] Studios in 1924. Some of his works were translated into English by [[Thomas Seltzer (translator)|Thomas Seltzer]].

''[[Poor Murderer]]'', an adaptation of his short story ''Thought'' made by [[Pavel Kohout]], opened on Broadway in 1976.
[[Image:Bulla Andreyev.jpg|thumb|right|Leonid Andreyev and his second wife, Anna]]

He was married to Alexandra Veligorskaia, a niece of [[Taras Shevchenko]]. She died of puerperal fever in 1906. They had two sons, [[Daniil Andreyev]], a poet and mystic, author of ''[[Roza Mira]]'', and Vadim Andreyev. In 1908 Leonid Andreyev married Anna Denisevich, and decided to separate his two little boys, keeping the elder son, Vadim, with him and sending Daniil to live with Aleksandra's sister. Vadim Andreyev became a poet. He lived in Paris.

==Influence and legacy==

During the 1914–1929 period, America was avid for anything relating to Edgar Allan Poe and, as Poe's Russian equivalent, translations of Andreyev's work found a ready audience in the English-speaking world. His work was extensively translated in book form, for instance as ''The Crushed Flower, and other stories'' (1916); ''The Little Angel, and other stories'' (1916); ''When The King Loses His Head, and other stories'' (1920). Translation of his stories were also published in the ''[[Weird Tales]]'' magazine during the 1920s, such as "Lazarus" in the March 1927 edition.

Often referred to as a "Russian Edgar Allan Poe", Andreyev had an influence through translations on two famous American horror writers, [[H. P. Lovecraft]] and [[Robert E. Howard]]. Copies of his ''The Seven Who Were Hanged'' and ''The Red Laugh'' were found in Lovecraft's library at his death. Howard rated Andreyev as one of the seven "most powerful" writers of all time.<ref>Robert E. Howard, letter to Tevis Clyde Smith, circa 20 February 1928. Given in: Burke, Rusty (1998), "The Robert E. Howard Bookshelf", The Robert E. Howard United Press Association.</ref>

Leonid Andreyev's granddaughter, daughter of Vadim Andreyev, the American writer and poet [[Olga Andreyeva Carlisle]], published a collection of his short stories, ''Visions'', in 1987.

==Notes==
{{Reflist|2}}

==Sources==
* {{NIE|edition=2|year=1914|volume=1|page=625|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101064487737;view=1up;seq=745|title=Andréev, Leonid Nikolaevitch}}
* {{Cite book |title=The Cambridge Guide to Theatre |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1998 |isbn=0-521-43437-8 |editor-last=Banham |editor-first=Martin}}
* {{Cite book |last=Benedetti |first=Jean |title=Stanislavski: His Life and Art |date=1999 |publisher=Methuen |isbn=0-413-52520-1 |location=London |orig-date=Original ed. published 1988}}
* {{Cite book |last=Carnicke |first=Sharon M. |title=Twentieth Century Actor Training |publisher=Routledge |year=2000 |isbn=0-415-19452-0 |editor-last=Hodge |editor-first=Alison |location=London and New York |pages=11–36 |chapter=Stanislavsky's System: Pathways for the Actor}}
* {{Cite EBO|title=Leonid Andreyev|url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Leonid-Nikolayevich-Andreyev|access-date=13 May 2025}}
* {{cite book| title =Imperial Moscow University: 1755-1917: encyclopedic dictionary | via = A. Andreev, D. Tsygankov |location= Moscow |year= 2010 |publisher= Russian political encyclopedia (ROSSPEN) | pages =25–26 | isbn = 978-5-8243-1429-8| ref =Imperial Moscow University}}

==External links==
{{commonscat}}
{{wikisource|works=and}}
* {{Gutenberg author |id=1871| name=Leonid Andreyev}}
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=Leonid Nikolaievich Andreyev}}
* {{Librivox author|id=231|title=Leonid Nikolayevich Andreyev}}
*{{IMDb name|id=0028916|name=Leonid Andreyev}}
*{{IBDB name|92682}}
*[http://litmostki.ru/andreev/2/ Leonid Andreyev's tombstone]
*[https://explore.library.leeds.ac.uk/special-collections-explore/20036 University of Leeds archive page on Leonid's elder son, Vadim Leonidovich Andreyev]
* {{isfdb name|237592}}
* {{LCAuth|n80040433|Leonid Andreyev|151|ue}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Andreyev, Leonid}}
[[Category:1871 births]]
[[Category:1919 deaths]]
[[Category:Leonid Andreyev| ]]
[[Category:People from Oryol]]
[[Category:People from Orlovsky Uyezd (Oryol Governorate)]]
[[Category:Russian people of Polish descent]]
[[Category:Russian people of Ukrainian descent]]
[[Category:Russian people of Finnish descent]]
[[Category:Dramatists and playwrights from the Russian Empire]]
[[Category:Expressionist dramatists and playwrights]]
[[Category:Symbolist dramatists and playwrights]]
[[Category:Writers of Gothic fiction]]
[[Category:20th-century Russian writers]]
[[Category:20th-century dramatists and playwrights]]
[[Category:19th-century short story writers from the Russian Empire]]
[[Category:20th-century Russian short story writers]]
[[Category:19th-century male writers from the Russian Empire]]
[[Category:20th-century Russian male writers]]
[[Category:Imperial Moscow University alumni]]
[[Category:Soviet emigrants to Finland]]