Boris Pil'niak

Michael George Falchikov (University of Edinburgh)

Ed. by Neil Cornwell, University of Bristol
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 2.2.2.00: Post-1917 Writing and Culture in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, 1917-present.
Vol. editors: Neil Cornwell (University of Bristol), Roman Koropeckyj (University of California, Los Angeles), Andrei Rogatchevski (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway)

Dates

Born 11 Oct 1894
Died 1938
Activity 1915-1938

Places

Born in Russia
Active in Russia; England; United States

Activities

Primary

Novelist

Resources

Pil’niak's Works

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Boris Pil'niak was born Boris Andreevich Vogau, in Mozhaisk, to the west of Moscow on 11th October 1894. His father, Andrei, a veterinarian, was of Volga German descent and his mother was the sister of the landscape painter Alexander Savinov. Boris thus grew up in a typical provincial intelligentsia family and spent his early years in a number of provincial towns in central Russia, including Nizhnii Novgorod, though he is particularly associated with Kolomna, where he lived until the mid-1920s. He studied at the Moscow Commercial Institute, but began his writing career in his teens. Exempt from war service because of poor eyesight, he began publishing in provincial journals from 1915 onwards, under the name “Pil'niak”. This pseudonym, prompted by the need to conceal a German surname…

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1423 words

Citation: Falchikov, Michael George. "Boris Pil'niak". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 25 January 2006 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=11676, accessed 23 November 2024.]