Background
Arseniy Alekseevich Smirnov was born on June 5, 1885 in Perovo, Moscow, Russian Federation. He was the son of an attorney-at-law.
critic translator prose writer poet
Arseniy Alekseevich Smirnov was born on June 5, 1885 in Perovo, Moscow, Russian Federation. He was the son of an attorney-at-law.
Arseniy Alekseevich studied at the Moscow 3rd Gymnasium, then at the Yalta Alexander's Gymnasium (graduated in 1906), in 1907-1913 – at the Moscow University at the faculty of History and Philology (did not graduate), then for some time at the Lazarev Institute of Oriental Languages.
Arseniy Alekseevich made his debut in print in 1905 – a poem in the newspaper "Yaltinsky Kur’er" (Yalta Courier). In 1908 he published a translation of "Flowers of Evil" by S. Baudelaire. In 1907-1911 was published in the newspaper "Krymsky Kur’er" (Crimean Courier, Simferopol), "Russkaya Riviera" (Russian Riviera, Yalta), "Pyatigorskoe Ekho" (Pyatigorsk Echo).
In 1914 Arseniy Alekseevich acted as a reviewer in the newspaper "Nov" (Newground). In 1910, he became one of the founders (together with E.E. Kurlov) of the amorphous-modernist publishing house "Zhatva" ("Harvest") in Moscow and the almanacs of the same name that issued until 1916. He attracted V.Ya. Bryusov, K.D. Balmont, Yu. K. Baltrushaitis, G.I. Chulkov, A.A. Akhmatova, A.I. Kuprin to participate in the "Zhatva".
Alving’s poems received almost invariably dismissive criticism. In 1913-1915 was the member in full standing of the Society of Free Aesthetics, at the same time gave lectures in Moscow and Kiev on the ways of "new art", arguing with futurists.
After the October Revolution, Arseniy Alekseevich published the novel "Nadenka Arteneva" (1928), connected with the youth of his mother, a participant in the movement of populists, and his own childhood impressions, and the brochure "Introduction to Poetry" (1931).
In 1932-1940 he was illegally repressed.