Leopold Vasilievich Brant

Background

Leopold Vasilievich Brant was born in 1813. He was the son of a lieutenant colonel.

Education

Leopold Vasilievich got his education in the 1st Cadet Corps, from which he graduated in 1831.

Career

After graduating from the Cadet Corps, Leopold Vasilievich began to work for the Office of Saint Petersburg Military Governor-General. Since 1835, he joined the Main Directorate of Railways, where he held the offices of printing house corrector (from 1836), clerk (from 1838), head of the Railway Engineers Corps staff (1846-1854), and head of the department (1854-1870), in 1867 he received the title of acting state councilor.

Brant's literary views were close to the ideas of F. Bulgarin. Leopold Vasilievich was a frequent guest of literary events. In 1840, he became a regular reviewer of Northern Bee, where under the pseudonym he criticized the natural school of V. Belinsky, N. Gogol, N. Nekrasov, as well as the novel Poor Folk by F. Dostoevsky and the poem Pomeshhik by I. Turgenev.

Brant's literary works were published in the magazines Russkij invalid, Syn Otechestva, Pantheon. Contemporaries ridiculed Leopold's literary fecundity and his addiction to self-promotion. According to critics, Brant’s short stories and tales were dull and boring examples of third-rate fiction. He responded to the negative reviews with polemical brochures, and also depicted in his novels Petersburg writers and journalists in a lampoon way.

References

• Russian writers. 1800-1917. Biographical Dictionary. Volume 1
  1989