Background

Mikhail Vasilyevich Avdeev was born on October 10, 1821 in Orenburg, Russian Federation in the old Yaik Cossacks family.

Education

One of his private teaches was the Polish author and social activist Tomasz Zan, a friend of Adam Mickiewicz and a member of the Vilna Filaret Association.

In the late 1820s the family moved to Ufa where Mikhail Vasilyevich studied in a gymnasium. In the mid-1830s he enrolled into the Saint Petersburg Institute of Railroad Engineers and, having graduated in 1842, went to work in Nizhny Novgorod.

Career

In 1849-1852 Sovremennik published three novels by Mikhail Vasilyevich - Varenka, The Notes of Tamarin and Ivanov - later to become known as the Tamarin trilogy. The trilogy was very popular. Encouraged by the trilogy's success, Mikhail Vasilyevich retired from the service and settled in his Orenburg Governorate family estate to become a professional writer. His Letters of a Vacant Man from Petersburg to the Province appeared in Sovremennik in 1853.

In 1861 Mikhail Vasilyevich returned to the state service, to work as a councilor in a local court specializing in land disputes, following the 1861 Land reform. In 1859 Mikhail Vasilyevich returned to Russia from France (where he became close to Ivan Turgenev) and in 1860 published his Underwater Rock novel. The novel was criticized for being schematic and "cold". Even less successful with critics was his Between the Two Fires (1868) novel.

Mikhail Avdeev died on February 13 (February 1, o.s.), 1876, in Saint Petersburg. His last books, My Times in 1830s and In the Forties were published posthumously.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Ivanov

    (The story takes place five years after the events describ...)

    1851
  • Varenka

    (The story is Included in the "Tamarin" trilogy. (Russian ...)

    1849
  • Tetrad iz zapisok Tamarina

    ((Russian Edition))

    1850
  • Tamarin

    ((Russian Edition))

    1851

References

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