Iurii Olesha

Alison Rowley (Concordia University, Canada)

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 3 Mar 1899
Died 10 May 1960
Activity 1918-1960

Places

Born in Ukraine
Active in Russia

Activities

Primary

Film/TV Script-writer/ Screenwriter
Letter-writer/ Diarist
Novelist
Playwright / Dramatist

Resources

Olesha's Works

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Iurii Olesha was born March 3, 1899 in Elizavetgrad, Russia (today Kirovograd, Ukraine). Olesha's father, who was from the landowning class, worked as an excise officer at a vodka distillery. The family moved to the port city of Odessa in 1902. Olesha attended the University of Novorossiya from 1916 to 1918. During the Russian revolution and subsequent civil war, he did a brief tour of duty in an artillery battery near Odessa. The city was then a hotbed of literary activity, which the young man more readily embraced. Olesha was an active participant in “The Green Lamp” [

Zelenaia lampa

], a young poets' club heavily influenced by the works of Pushkin. Living in Odessa meant that Olesha emerged as a writer alongside such key cultural figures as Isaac Babel, Valentin Kataev, Eduard…

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1867 words

Citation: Rowley, Alison. "Iurii Olesha". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 10 February 2009 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=12094, accessed 23 November 2024.]