Background
Semyon Vasyukov was born on June 6, 1854, in Moscow City, Russian Federation. His father was from a peasant family, a mother from a merchant family.
the Petrovsky Agricultural and Forestry Academy
Semyon Vasyukov was born on June 6, 1854, in Moscow City, Russian Federation. His father was from a peasant family, a mother from a merchant family.
Semyon Vasyukov graduated from the 3rd Moscow Gymnasium, studied at the Mining Institute in 1871-1874, at the Petrovsky Agricultural and Forestry Academy in 1875-1876. He took part in student circles.
Since 1873 Semyon Vasyukov was under the secret surveillance of the police subjecting him to arrest several times, and in 1879 he was deported to the city of Kotelnich, Vyatka province. In 1880 he returned to Moscow, for some time he served in the statistical bureau with V.I. Orlov, then he hired for agricultural work with A.N. Engelhardt, and from there went to the Volga.
In the spring of 1883, Semyon Vasyukov arrived in Moscow but was forced to leave it again by order of the police. At first, he lived in Mtsensk, then in the Smolensk province, where he wrote his first story The Derelict about the dramatic fate of a runaway peasant. In 1884, having received a residence permit in Moscow, he became an employee of the Russian Courier newspaper, then took part in the publication of the Svetoch newspaper, which was soon closed. In 1886-1892 he worked as an assistant secretary of administration of the Moscow-Ryazan Railway. In 1900-1903 Semyon Vasyukov was a special assignment officer in the Moscow Treasury. Since 1903 he lived on his estate Arkhipo-Osipovka, participated in the public life of the Stavropol Territory, and made articles defending the interests of the local population.
Vasyukov's publications of the 80s. in the newspapers Russky Vednik, Volzhsky Vestnik, the magazines' Observer, Istoricheskiy Vestnik, etc. The main issues of Vasyukov’s works are a rejection of a bitter life, which leads to the death of heroes, passive compassion in the depiction of small-scale life and the urban service of the poor, some idealization of rural life, ennobling the influence of nature and rural labor on people, but at the same time recognition of the plight of the peasantry. Generally sympathetic towards Semyon Vasyukov, reviewers at the same time noted the insufficient originality of his works, their pretentiousness, and lack of depth in assessing life phenomena. In 1899, he published a book of essays titled Careerists and Idealists according to the reviewer "written quite colorless".
Semyon Vasyukov wrote a lot about the Crimea and the Caucasus, especially in the last years of his life, including the book The healing land ... Caucasian mineral waters, The land of proud beauty, Types and characters. Caucasian Black Sea coast. The last two books received a negative review of V.G. Korolenko: "lightweight observations overwhelmed with lyricism."
