Zamyatin, Yevgeny Ivanovich

Zamyatin, Yevgeny Ivanovich

▪ Russian author
Zamyatin also spelled  Zamiatin  
born February 1 [January 20, Old Style], 1884, Lebedyan, Tambov province, Russia
died March 10, 1937, Paris, France

      Russian novelist, playwright, and satirist, one of the most brilliant and cultured minds of the postrevolutionary period and the creator of a uniquely modern genre—the anti-Utopian novel. His influence as an experimental stylist and as an exponent of the cosmopolitan-humanist traditions of the European intelligentsia was very great in the earliest and most creative period of Soviet literature.

      Educated in St. Petersburg as a naval engineer (1908), Zamyatin combined his scientific career with writing. His early works were Uyezdnoye (1913; “A Provincial Tale”), a trenchant satire of provincial life, and Na kulichkakh (1914; “At the World's End”), an attack on military life that was condemned by tsarist censors. Zamyatin was brought to trial, and, although acquitted, he stopped writing for some time. During World War I he was in England supervising the building of Russian icebreakers. There he wrote Ostrovityane (1918; “The Islanders”), satirizing what he saw as the meanness and emotional repression of English life. He returned to Russia in 1917.

      A chronic dissenter, Zamyatin was a Bolshevik before the Russian Revolution of 1917 but disassociated himself from the party afterward. His ironic criticism of literary politics kept him out of official favour, but he was influential as the mentor of the Serapion Brothers, a brilliant younger generation of writers whose artistic creed was to have no creeds. In such stories as "Mamay" (1921)—the name of the Mongol general who invaded Russia in the 14th century—and "Peshchera" (1922; “The Cave”), Zamyatin painted a picture of the increasing savagery of humankind in postrevolutionary Petrograd. "Tserkov Bozhiya" (1922; “The Church of God”) is an allegorical tale affirming that power based on bloodshed cannot lay claim to virtue. His essay "Ya boyus" (1921; “I Am Afraid”), a succinct survey of the state of postrevolutionary literature, closes with the prophetic judgment: “I am afraid that the only future possible to Russian literature is its past.” During this period Zamyatin wrote some of his best short stories.

      His most ambitious work, the novel My (written 1920; We), circulated in manuscript but was not published in the Soviet Union until 1988 (an English translation appeared in the United States in 1924, and the original Russian text was published in New York in 1952). It portrays life in the “Single State,” where workers live in glass houses, have numbers rather than names, wear identical uniforms, eat chemical foods, and enjoy rationed sex. They are ruled by a “Benefactor” who is unanimously and perpetually reelected. Often classed as science fiction, We is the literary ancestor of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (1932) and George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-four (1949).

      The publication abroad of We was one of the reasons for the repressive campaign launched against many writers in 1929. Zamyatin announced his withdrawal from the Russian Association of Proletarian Writers ( RAPP) and for all practical purposes ceased to be considered a Soviet author. He was no longer published, and his plays, which he had begun to write in 1923 and which had run successfully in theatres, were removed from the repertory. In 1931, after his appeal to Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and the intervention of writer Maksim Gorky on his behalf, Zamyatin was granted permission to leave the Soviet Union for an extended stay abroad. He lived in Paris for the rest of his life. His literary productivity during those years was scant.

Additional Reading
D.J. Richards, Zamyatin: A Soviet Heretic (1962); Alex M. Shane, The Life and Works of Evgenij Zamjatin (1968); Brett Cooke, Human Nature in Utopia: Zamyatin's We (2002).

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Universalium. 2010.

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  • Zamyatin, Yevgeny (Ivanovich) — or Yevgeny Zamiatin born Feb. 1, 1884, Lebedyan, Tambov province, Russia died March 10, 1937, Paris, France Russian novelist, playwright, and satirist. Educated as a naval engineer, he combined a scientific career with writing. A chronic… …   Universalium

  • Zamyatin, Yevgeny (Ivanovich) — o Yevgeny Zamiatin (1 feb. 1884, Lebedyan, Provincia de Tambov, Rusia–10 mar. 1937, París, Francia). Novelista, dramaturgo y escritor satírico ruso. Formado como ingeniero naval, alternó su labor científica con su vocación literaria. Un… …   Enciclopedia Universal

  • Yevgeny Zamyatin — Yevgeny Ivanovich Zamyatin [His last name is often transliterated as Zamiatin or Zamjatin . His first name is sometimes translated as Eugene .] ( ru. Евгений Иванович Замятин, IPA ru|jɪvˈgʲenʲɪj ɪˈvanəvʲɪtɕ zɐˈmʲætʲɪn) (February 1, 1884 – March… …   Wikipedia

  • Ivanovich — (as used in expressions) Alferov Zhores Ivanovich Bukharin Nikolay Ivanovich Chaliapin Feodor Ivanovich Chuikov Vasily Ivanovich Denikin Anton Ivanovich Fyodor Ivanovich Glinka Mikhail Ivanovich Guchkov Aleksandr Ivanovich Herzen Aleksandr… …   Universalium

  • Yevgeny — (as used in expressions) Yevtushenko Yevgeny Aleksandrovich Zamyatin Yevgeny Ivanovich Yevgeny Zamiatin * * * …   Universalium

  • Russia — /rush euh/, n. 1. Also called Russian Empire. Russian, Rossiya. a former empire in E Europe and N and W Asia: overthrown by the Russian Revolution 1917. Cap.: St. Petersburg (1703 1917). 2. See Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. 3. See Russian… …   Universalium

  • Russian literature — Introduction       the body of written works produced in the Russian language, beginning with the Christianization of Kievan Rus in the late 10th century.       The unusual shape of Russian literary history has been the source of numerous… …   Universalium

  • science fiction — a form of fiction that draws imaginatively on scientific knowledge and speculation in its plot, setting, theme, etc. [1925 30] * * * Fiction dealing principally with the impact of actual or imagined science on society or individuals, or more… …   Universalium

  • Serapion Brothers — ▪ Russian literary group Russian  Serapionovy Bratya,         group of young Russian writers formed in 1921 under the unsettled conditions of the early Soviet regime. Though they had no specific program, they were united in their belief that a… …   Universalium

  • skaz — ▪ Russian literature       in Russian literature, a written narrative that imitates a spontaneous oral account in its use of dialect, slang, and the peculiar idiom of that persona. Among the well known writers who have used this device are… …   Universalium

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