Background
Daniil Andreyev, the son of Leonid Andreyev (a prominent Russian writer of the start of the 20th century), had Maxim Gorky as his godfather.
Daniil Andreyev, the son of Leonid Andreyev (a prominent Russian writer of the start of the 20th century), had Maxim Gorky as his godfather.
He graduated from high school but could not attend university because of his "non-proletarian" background.
After the infant"s mother, Aleksandra Mikhailovna (Veligorskaya) Andreyeva (a great-niece of Taras Shevchenko), died shortly after childbirth, Leonid Andreyev gave the infant Daniil to his late wife"s sister, Elizabeth Mikhailovna Dobrova, to raise. Like many of his contemporaries, the boy Daniil had a pronounced literary bent. He began writing poetry and prose in early childhood.
Supporting himself as a graphic artist, he wrote in his spare time.
Daniil Andreyev was conscripted into the Red Army in 1942. He served as a non-combatant, and during the Siege of Leningrad of 1941-1944 helped to transport supplies across Lake Ladoga.
After World World War II Andreev returned to civilian life, but the Soviet authorities arrested him in April 1947, charged him with anti-Soviet propaganda and preparations to assassinate Joseph Stalin, and sentenced him to 25 years of imprisonment. He suffered a heart attack in prison in 1954, the first manifestation of the heart condition that would eventually cause his death.
In the same year his sentence was reduced to 10 years.
He was released on April 22, 1957, already terminally illinois He was officially rehabilitated on July 11, 1957. While incarcerated in Vladimir Central Prison from 1947 to 1957, Andreyev experienced mystic visions and started writing Roza Mira, finishing it after his release.
The book became known in the Soviet Union via samizdat, but was first officially published only in 1991.
In 1997 Lindisfarne Books published Jordan Roberts"s English-language translation of Roza Mira in the United States of America.