Background
Lev Naumovich Voitolovsky was born on February 17, 1875, in Staroe village, Poltava region, Russian Federation.
Doctor literary critic publicist
Lev Naumovich Voitolovsky was born on February 17, 1875, in Staroe village, Poltava region, Russian Federation.
In 1893 Lev Naumovich graduated from the 1st Kiev Gymnasium. He entered Kiev University, but for participation in student demonstrations on the occasion of self-immolation in the Peter and Paul Fortress was expelled in 1897 and sent to Kharkov, wherein 1900 he graduated from the university’s medical faculty. Since 1905 he worked in Kiev, in the clinic of mental illness.
As a ship's doctor, Lev Naumovich participated in several marine expeditions. He took part in the Russian-Japanese (1904-1905) and the First World Wars (1914-1917). During the Russo-Japanese, Lev Naumovich served as a military physician of the military field hospital of the Nikolo-Ussuri fortress. He participated in the battles in Manchuria, was wounded and shell-shocked, in 1906 he was demobilized.
From 1907 to 1914 Lev Naumovich combined medical practice with literary activity. He worked as an editor of the literary department of the newspaper Kievskaya mysl'. With the outbreak of World War I he returned to military service. From 1914 to 1917 commanded a military field hospital. The war ended with the rank of captain of the medical service.
From 1918 to 1920 Lev Naumovich lived in Kiev, continued to combine medical work with journalism. In 1920, he went to serve in the Red Army. As part of the 12 army was sent to the Western (Polish) front. Demobilized in 1922 for health reasons.
Since 1922 Lev Naumovich was engaged in journalism and literary criticism. Published a novel In the wake of the war. Campaign Notes 1914-1917 (The Bloody Mars Arose). He devoted several articles and books to the tasks of popularizing the achievements of psychology and psychiatry in Russia. He was one of the active supporters of the development of military psychiatry.
In 1926 he moved to Leningrad. Collaborated with a number of magazines, engaged in literary criticism. In the early 1930s. He began to lose his sight due to old injuries, suffered several unsuccessful operations, and soon completely went blind.
Before the Revolution, Lev Naumovich sympathized with the left parties but was not a member of any of them. In 1917, he was delegated as an officer elected from the Special Army to the 2nd All-Russian Congress of Soviets, where he was featured as a Social Democrat Menshevik.
Lev Naumovich was friendly and corresponded with famous literary and public figures of different political convictions - the writers I. Bunin, M. Gorky, the head of the People’s Commissar A. V. Lunacharsky, the revolutionary and scientist N. A. Morozov, the editor of the journal Pravda V. Kozhevnikov, poet D. Poor.
Anna Ilyinichna Voitolovskaya (1879-1953) was a cousin of the literary critic S.A. Vengerov, translator Z.A. Vengerova and pianist I.A. Vengerova.
