Pilniak (Vogau), Boris Andreyevich (1894-1937?): Prominent Soviet novelist. In his Tale of the Extinguished Moon (1927) he hinted that Stalin had killed the Red Army Commander Frunze by making him have an unnecessary operation. In 1929 he was chairman of the board of the Union of Writers, but was removed from this position after a violent campaign in the press because of the publication of his short novel Mahogany in Berlin. This attack on Pilniak signaled the beginning of Stalin's total subjugation of Soviet literature to his own political purposes. Pilniak was arrested in 1937, accused of spying for the Japanese and was either shot immediately or died in a camp.
Pisarev, Dmitri Ivanovich (1840-1868): Radical publicist noted for his extreme utilitarian approach to culture.
Podvoiski, Nikolai Ilyich (1890-1948): Organizer of the Red Guards, 1917. He was active in the military leadership of the Civil War and was a member of the Central Committee.
Polezhayev, Alexander Ivanovich (1805-1838): Poet.
Polivanov, E. D.: Leningrad philologist associated with the Formalist school of literary criticism.
Polonski, Yakov Petrovich (1819-1898): Poet.
Postupalski, Igor Stefanovich (1907- ): Poet, translator and critic.
Prishvin, Mikhail Mikhailovich (1873-1954): Novelist and short-story writer distinguished by his love of nature.
Prokofiev, Alexander Andreyevich (1900- ): Poet noted for his political conformism. Secretary of the Leningrad section of the Union of Soviet Writers, he was awarded a Stalin Prize and two Orders of Lenin.
Punin, Nikolai Nikolayevich (1888-1953): Art historian and critic associated with Makovski's Apollon. He was the third husband of Anna Akhmatova. During the purges he was arrested and sent to a forced- labor camp.
Rakovski, Christian Georgievich (1873-1941): Old Bolshevik. Sentenced to twenty years' imprisonment at the Bukharin show trial in 1938.
Raskolnikov (Ilyin), Fedor Fedorovich (1892-1939): Deputy People's Commissar for the Navy in 1918; Soviet ambassador to Afganistan, 1922-23. He defected while Soviet ambassador in Bulgaria in 1937 and committed suicide in Paris in 1939.
Reisner, Larisa Mikhailovna (1897-1928): Bolshevik-heroine of the Revolution, author of Front (1922); wife of Fedor Raskolnikov. After divorcing him in 1922, she became a close friend of Karel Radek. According to Trotski, she had "the beauty of an Olympian goddess, a subtle mind and the courage of a warrior."
Rozhdestvenski, Vsevolod Alexandrovich (1895- ): Poet and translator.
Rustaveli, Shota (c. 1200): Poet, author of the Georgian national epic, The Knight in the Tiger's Skin.
Sargidzhan, Amir: see Borodin, Sergei Petrovich.
Seifullina, Lidia Nikolayevna (1889-1954): Novelist and short-story writer well known in the 1920's for her realistic descriptions of Russian peasant life.
Selvinski, Ilia Lvovich (1899- ): Soviet poet.
Semashko, Nikolai Alexandrovich (1874-1949): First People's Commissar of Health, and later a member of the Soviet Executive Committee.
Severianin (Lotarev), Igor Vasilievich (1887-1941): Poet noted for his flamboyance and verbal extravagance; leader of the "Ego- Futurists." He emigrated to Estonia in 1919. After the Soviet occupation of Estonia in 1940, he managed to publish in some Soviet magazines. He died in December 1941 under German occupation.
Shaginian, Marietta Sergeyevna (1888- ): Veteran Soviet novelist and (before the Revolution) a minor poet on the fringes of the Symbolist movement. During the 1920's she was known mainly for her attempt to write thrillers and detective fiction in Western style, decried at the time as "Red Pinkertonism."
Shalamov, Varlam Tikhonovich (1907- ): Poet and prose writer who spent seventeen years in a forced-labor camp in Kolyma. His Tales of Kolyma have been published in the West in Russian and French.
Shchegolev, Pavel Pavlovich (1902- ): Historian, professor at Leningrad University, who helped Alexei Tolstoy with the research for his historical novels. (Probably he is the man referred to on p. 335.)
Shchepkin, Mikhail Semionovich (1788-1863): Famous Russian actor.
Shcherbakov, Alexander Sergeyevich (1901-1945): Veteran Communist official and associate of Zhdanov. He was appointed secretary of the Union of Soviet Writers in 1934, despite the fact that he had no connection with literature. Later he was in charge of purging provincial Party organizations, and during the war he was a secretary of the Central Committee (and candidate member of the Politburo) with special responsibility for political control of the army. His death in 1945 was later attributed to the Jewish doctors arrested on Stalin's orders in 1952.
Shengeli, Georgi Arkadievich (1894-1956): Poet, translator and critic.
Shervinski, Sergei Vasilievich (1892- ): Poet, critic and translator.
Shevchenko, Taras Grigorievich (1814-1861): Ukrainian national poet, exiled for his criticism of the social and national policies of the Czarist regime.
Shkiriatov, Matvei Fedorovich (1883-1954): Major Stalinist official, a member of the Central Purge Commission set up in 1933, and a chief assistant to Yezhov during the Terror.
Shklovski, Victor Borisovich (1893- ): Eminent literary scholar and Formalist critic, a member of LEF. Shklovski's influence in the 1920's was immense, and he continued to write articles, books and scenarios throughout the Stalinist era to the present day.
Shopen, Ivan Ivanovich (1798-1870): Author of A Historical Memoir
on the Condition of the Armenian Region at the Time of Its Union •with the Russian Empire.
Shostakovich, Dmitri Dmitrievich (1906- ): Famous Soviet composer.
Srmonov, Konstantin Mikhailovich (1915- ): Novelist, poet and playwright.
Sinaniy Boris Naumovich: St. Petersburg doctor of Karaite extraction, a confidant of the leading Social Revolutionaries. He is described in Mandelstam's Noise of Time (see The Prose of Osip Mandelstam, translated by Clarence Brown, Princeton University Press, 1965).
Sluchevski, Konstantin Konstantinovich (1837-1904): Poet.
Slutski, Boris Abramovich (1919- ): Soviet poet and translator.
Sologuby Fedor (Fedor Kuzmich Teternikov) (1863-1927): Symbolist poet and novelist, famous for his novel The Petty Demon (1907). His writings of the Soviet period remain largely unpublished.
Solovievy Vladimir Sergeyevich (1853-1900): Mystic, philosopher and poet who greatly influenced the Symbolists.