Background
Pyotr Petrovich Pertsov was born in Kazan, a son of Pyotr Petrovich, the youngest of the four Pertsov brothers.
Pyotr Petrovich Pertsov was born in Kazan, a son of Pyotr Petrovich, the youngest of the four Pertsov brothers.
Pyotr Pertsov studied in the 2nd Kazan Gymnasium. He graduated in 1892.
In 1887 he enrolled into the Kazan University to study law. In 1890 Pertsov published his first poems in Saint St. Petersburg newspapers Nedelya (Week) and Novosti (News) to some favourable reviews, including the one by Afanasy Fet. The infatuation with narodnichestvo, though, was short-lived and a year later Pertsov quit.
In 1895 Pertsov compiled and published the Young Poetry (Молодая поэзия) compilation, featuring the works by Balmont, Bryusov, Minsky and Merezhkovsky.
lieutenant was followed by his own set of essays The Philosophical Trends of the Russian Poetry. Portraits from the World Literature (1897).
He published the early works of Vasily Rozanov and introduced the latter to the Symbolist circle. In 1898 Severny Vestnik closed and in 1902 Gippius and Merezkovsky invited Pertsov, now a popular literary entrepreneur, to join their newly founded magazine Novy Put as an editor/publisher.
This entailed a series of disagreements, and in 1904 Dmitry Filosofov succeeded Pertsov as a formal head of this publication.
In 1906 Pertsov (whose works were published regularly by Mir Iskusstva, among other magazines) became the editor of newspaper Slovo’s literary supplement. In the early 1910s he started to actively contribute to Alexey Suvorin-led Novoye Vremya. 1917-1947
After the 1917 Revolution Pertsov resided in the Kostroma region, lectured at Kostroma University, worked in the Narkompros" museums department.
In 1927 the collection The Correspondence of V.Y.Bryusov and P.P.Pertsov came out, featuring the first 32 (of 173) Bryusov"s letters from Pertsov"s archive.
He published several museum guidebooks and the Literary Memoirs. 1890-1902 (Academia, 1934), all the while working on his magnum opus The Basics of the Cosmonomy which remained unfinished.
Neither occasional publications, nor lecturing brought Pertsov much money. He received no pension and lived in poverty.
Pyotr Petrovich Pertsov died on May 19, 1947.
He was buried at the Alekseyevskoye Cemetery in Moscow. The obituary signed by Shchepkina-Kupernik and Shyusev among others, was sent to Literaturnaya Gazeta, which refused to publish lieutenant
Only in 1942 friends helped him to become a member of the Soviet Union of Writers.