Aseyev, Nikolai Nikolayevich (1889-1963): Futurist poet, influenced by Khlebnikov and Mayakovski; a member of LEF. He was awarded the Stalin Prize in 1941. After Stalin's death, he helped some of the younger poets, but was very conformist in his public utterances.
Averbakh, Leopold Leopoldovich (1903-?): Literary critic, militant proponent of the concept of "proletarian" literature, and one of the leaders of RAPP. As such, he was virtually dictator of Soviet literary affairs from about 1927 until his downfall in 1932, when Stalin abruptly changed the policy in literature to one of support for all writers, whatever their background, who were willing to accept the Party line without question. Averbakh (who was married to Yagoda's sister) disappeared during the purges.
Awakum, the Archpriest (c. 1620-1681): Leader of the "Old Believers"— schismatics who refused to accept the changes in Russian Orthodox ritual introduced by the Patriarch Nikon. Awakum's Life (1672-73) is a remarkable account of his exile to Siberia with his wife.
Babel, Isaac Emanuilovich (1894-1941?): Great Soviet short-story writer, noted for his Red Cavalry (1923). Like Mandelstam, Akhmatova and Pasternak, he was largely reduced to silence in the 1930's (at the First Congress of Soviet Writers in 1934 he said: "I have invented a new genre—the genre of silence"). He was arrested in 1939, and fifteen years afterward, in 1954, his widow was informed in an official notification that the case against him had been "discontinued for lack of a corpus delicti." In a certificate issued at the same time, the date of his death was given as March 17,1941.
Bagritski (Dziubin), Eduard Georgievich (1895-1934): Epic and lyric poet, translator of Burns, Rimbaud and others. After serving in the Red Army, he organized the first "proletarian" literary circle in Odessa, but moved to Moscow in 1925. He was a member of RAPP. Seva (Vsevolod Eduardovich) Bagritski (1922-1942), son of Eduard Bagritski, was also a poet.
Bakh, Alexei Nikolayevich (1857-1946): Biochemist. He was awarded the Stalin Prize in 1941.
Balmont, Konstantin Dmitrievich (1867-1943): Poet who enjoyed a considerable vogue at the turn of the century. He emigrated after the Revolution and died in Paris.
Baltrushaitis, Yurgis Kazimirovich (1873-1944): Russian and Lithuanian poet associated with the Symbolists. From 1921 to 1939 he was the Lithuanian ambassador in Moscow. He died in Paris.
Baratynski, Evgeni Abramovich (1800-1844) ): Major poet, contemporary of Pushkin.
Bedny, Demian (Yefim A. Pridvorov) (1883-1945): A somewhat crude versifier of great vigor who enjoyed a vogue in the 1920's and was noted particularly for his anti-religious satires. But in 1936 he incurred Stalin's displeasure by writing an opera libretto which made fun of Russia's past.
Belinski, Vissarion Grigorievich (1811-1848): Radical publicist and literary critic.
Bely, Andrei (Boris Nikolayevich Bugayev) (1880-1934): Major symbolist poet, novelist and critic. Like other Symbolists, he was at first inclined to see the October Revolution as an event of mystical significance—indeed, as the second coming of Christ. He was the leading Russian disciple of Rudolf Steiner.
Berdiayev, Nikolai Alexandrovich (1874-1948): Famous Russian philosopher and religious thinker. An ex-Marxist, he contributed to Vekhi (The Landmarks), a collection of essays (1909) in which leading Russian intellectuals critically reappraised the role of the intelligentsia, rejecting its spirit of maximalist radicalism. Berdiayev was a leading figure in the movement to revive philosophical and lay theological thinking in Russia (e.g., in the Free Philosophical Society). In 1922 he was expelled from Russia with other anti-Bolshevik intellectuals, and settled in Paris. The work referred to by Mrs. Mandelstam as Self-Knowledge has been translated into English under the tide Dream and Reality.
Bernstein, Sergei Ignatievich (1892- ): A leading linguist with a special interest in phonetics. During the 1920's he made phonograph recordings of Blok, Mayakovski, Yesenin and Mandelstam. His brother Alexander (Sania), born in 1900, is a writer of popular books on literature.
Bezymenski, Alexander Ilyich (1898- ): Soviet poet noted for his political conformism. He was a leading member of RAPP.
Blagoi, Dmitri Dmitrievich (1893- ): Soviet literary historian.
Bliumkin, Yakov Grigorievich (iS<)z}-i<)i<)): Left Social Revolutionary who assassinated the German ambassador, Count Mirbach, in 1918. Sentenced to death, he was pardoned and became an official in the Cheka and a follower of Trotski. He was executed in 1929 for carrying a message from Trotski in Turkey for the opposition.
Blok, Alexander Alexandrovich (1880-1921): The leading Symbolist poet. In the first years after the Revolution he was very active in the various cultural enterprises started by Maxim Gorki under the aegis of Anatol Lunacharski, the People's Commissar for Enlightenment.
Blok, Georgi Petrovich (1888-1962): Cousin of Alexander Blok. Editor and publisher.
Borodin, Sergei Petrovich (1902- ): Writer of historical novels, the most famous of which is Dmitri Donskoi. Until 1941 he wrote under the pseudonym Amir Sargidzhan.
Borodayevski, Valerian В.: A poet who wrote in Apollon.
Brik, Osip Maximovich (1888-1945): Friend and associate of Mayakovski. Originally associated with the Formalists, he later helped to create LEF. His wife, Lib*, was the inspiration for many of Mayakovski's love poems. She is the sister of Elsa Triolet (died 1970), the wife of the French Communist poet Louis Aragon.
Briusov, Valeri Yakovlevich (1873-1924): Major poet, editor, and theoretician of the Symbolist movement. He joined the Communist Party in 1919.
Brodski, David Grigorievich (1895-1966); Poet and translator from French (Barbier, Hugo, Rimbaud), German (Goethe, Schiller), Yiddish (Perets Markish) and other languages.
Brodski, Joseph Alexandrovich (1940- ): One of the first poets of the young generation in Russia. A protege of Akhmatova, he was exiled to the Archangel region in 1964 as "a parasite," but was allowed to return to Leningrad the following year after a worldwide outcry. Scarcely any of his work has yet been published in the Soviet Union, but much of it has appeared abroad in Russian and other languages.
Bruni, Lev Alexandrovich: Russian artist, descended from an Italian painter who emigrated to Russia in the early nineteenth century. He painted a portrait of Mandelstam.
Bukharin, Nikolai Ivanovich (1888-1938): Member of the Bolshevik Party from 1907, of the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party from 1917 to 1934, and of the Politburo from 1919 to 1929. Editor of Izvestia, 1934-37. Expelled from the Party and arrested in 1937, he was the principal figure in the last great Moscow show trial in 1938, at which he was sentenced to be shot.
Bulgakov, Mikhail Afanasievich (1891-1940): Outstanding novelist, author of The Master and Margarita, which was not published till 1967, twenty-seven years after his death. His widow, Elena Sergeyevna, still lives in Moscow.