Being a writer, a poet, and a talented expert in literature in all fields, Andrei Bely worked at a difficult time. He found both the First World War, the Bolshevik Revolution, and the turmoil of civil war that followed, and the famine of the late 1920s. He dreamed all his life to engage in literary creativity, despite the fact that he was gifted in various fields, and eventually achieved what he wanted.
The father of the future writer was a university dean, an educated and well-read man. He was familiar with many prominent writers of the time, including Leo Tolstoy, who even visited his home, where young Andrei grew up. The real name of Andrei Bely is Boris Bugaev. But all his life he signed a pseudonym. In the biography of Andrei Bely it is noted that, in his own words, the books and books of Nietzsche and Dostoevsky had the greatest influence on his life and work. In his youth, the writer was fond of the occult and was interested in the teachings of Buddhism. He graduated with honors from the prestigious Polivanov gymnasium.
While studying at the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics, Andrei Bely also had a talent for chemistry and biology. He also thoroughly studied the works of Charles Darwin. Inspired by both prose and poetry, he made contact with poets such as Bryusov, Merezhkovsky and his wife Zinaida Hippius. At one time, the closest people of Andrei Bely were the poet Alexander Blok and his wife. After a serious quarrel that put an end to their communication, Bely became so depressed that he left the country for half a year.
When World War I began, the writer returned to Russia, as he was called there. His wife, however, did not follow him, and so they separated for many years. As a result, when in 1921 Andrei Bely received permission to leave the country, it turned out that he and his wife did not unite anything, and they divorced. The politician Lev Trotsky, who called him in one of his publications a “deceased man”, meaning his works and literary style (see the facts about Trotsky), was very critical of Andrei Bely and his work. At one time, Andrei Bely was a member of two “love triangles” with women and famous poets, Alexander Blok and Valery Bryusov.
Total writer was married twice. He signed a variety of pseudonyms – A. Alpha, Delta, Gamma, Bulls, as well as some others. The researchers of Andrei Bely’s biography notice the fact that contemporaries often mentioned his “insane” view. Bely’s activity as a literary critic was highly appreciated by the Russian-American writer Vladimir Nabokov, the author of the famous “Lolita”. The house-museum of Andrei Bely in 2000 was opened in the center of Moscow, on the Arbat, in the very house in which he lived the first half of his life. The Andrei Bely Literary Prize was the first uncensored award in the USSR.
