Anatoly Aleksandrovich Bryanchaninov was a Russian fiction writer, best known for his versification of Russian folk tales. He was the author of several plays, short stories, and novels, which were published in influential literary magazines of his time.
Background
Anatoly Aleksandrovich Bryanchaninov was born on April 6 (18), 1839 in a family estate near Vologda in an influential noble family. According to the family legend, their roots went from the boyar Mikhail Brenko (or Brennik), who was a squire of Dmitry Donskoy. His father, Alexander Petrovich, was a major general. In total, the family had 3 sons and 2 daughters.
Education
Anatoly Aleksandrovich studied at the Nikolai's Engineering School and then became a student at the Nikolai's Engineering Academy.
Career
Anatoly Aleksandrovich began writing is 17 years old while studying at school. At that time he was mainly engaged in translations and the creation of short stories and poems. His first known publication was the essay Happiness in the Fog, published in 1859. In 1860, he was enlisted to the Life Guard Rifle Battalion. In 1862, he left the service with the rank of second lieutenant.
Anatoly Aleksandrovich returned to Vologda, where he began working for the chamber of the criminal court, in 1863. From 1864 to 1868, Anatoly held elected posts in local noble institutions. Along with the civil service, Anatoly Aleksandrovich continued his literary activities. In 1867 and 1868, his short story Three Datings and the story Hopeless Share were published. In 1870 he published Tales and Stories, which was a collection of love-melodramatic stories from the life of the estate nobility. The book received negative reviews: it was criticized for the lack of artistic independence, imitation of Turgenev, and indifference to social issues.
Having left the work for the Department of Customs duties in 1873, Anatoly moved to Orel. Therefrom 1875 to 1878, he was the director of the People's Bank. The imitation of Turgenev, in which the author was reproached, was since Anatoly Aleksandrovich was in a long correspondence with him. It is known that correspondence was kept exclusively by Anatoly's persistence. In the 1970s, with the support of Turgenev, Brianchaninov wrote the plays The Depthless and In peonage, which were never put on stage.
In 1881 Anatoly Aleksandrovich returned to the Vologda province, where he served as a justice of the peace till 1887 and was also elected provincial and district vowel (1882-1890). In Vologda, he published Russian Folk Tales in Poems. Critics treated the book coldly again: the language of the narration sounded quite artificial, and the very choice of epics and tales with which the author worked seemed rather strange to critics. It is known that Turgenev had sent Anatoly a commendable review of the book even before he read it.
Since 1887, he became a permanent member of Vologda province peasant affairs presence. From 1891 he worked as an editor of an unofficial part of the Vologda Provincial newspaper. In 1894 he published the story In a whirlwind of passion, which was condemned for the banality of the love line. The main idea of this work was the declaration of the corrupting influence of Saint Petersburg on the purity of the province.
In 1904, Anatoly Aleksandrovich left the service with the rank of acting state adviser. In retirement, he began to actively collaborate with the magazine Peaceful Work, publishing the novel Without a rudder and sails (1909), a series of poems Antiquities and Epics of the Pechora Territory (1910), the novels In the time of troubled years (1905-1906), as well as several previously unpublished works. The main motive of Brianchaninov's works of this period was the salvation of Russia from the coming revolution. Moreover, this salvation, according to the author, was possible only by restoring the patriarchal-idyllic relations of the landowners and their former serfs.