Yevgeny Zamyatin
Yevgeny Zamyatin was born in Lebedyan, south of Moscow, to a Russian Orthodox priest and a musician mother. He recalled his childhood as that of a very lonely child who spent hours on his stomach over books or under the piano while his mother played Chopin. This early exposure to music and literature shaped his unique perception of the world. He may have had synesthesia, seeing letters like Л as having pale, cold, and light blue qualities. His father's role as both a priest and schoolmaster placed him at the center of community life, yet young Yevgeny found himself isolated from peers his own age.
In December 1905, Zamyatin agreed to hide a paper bag filled with explosive pyroxylin in his flat. The following day, he and thirty other Bolsheviks were arrested by the Okhrana inside their revolutionary headquarters of the Vyborg district. Plans and pistols of various types were spread out on the table when they were caught. After being beaten up, Zamyatin managed to smuggle a note out of prison instructing fellow Bolsheviks to remove everything compromising from his room and those of four comrades. During months spent in solitary confinement, he almost daily dreamed about the paper bag containing pyroxylin. Released in spring 1906, he was sent into exile in Tambov Governorate but could not stand life among devoutly Russian Orthodox peasants. He escaped and returned to Saint Petersburg before moving to Helsinki.
Zamyatin wrote essays like Scythians? in 1918 that criticized the Bolshevik party's increasing suppression of freedom. He stated that Christ victorious in practical terms is the Grand Inquisitor or a paunchy priest dispensing benedictions while collecting donations. His 1921 essay I Am Afraid compared poets who sang praises of the Soviet government to court poets under the House of Romanov. True literature can exist only when created by madmen, hermits, heretics, dreamers, rebels and skeptics, he argued. He pointed out that if the Party did not rid itself of this new Catholicism fearful of every heretical word, Russian literature would have no future beyond the past. These writings made his position increasingly difficult as the 1920s wore on.
Between 1920 and 1921 Zamyatin wrote the novel We set many centuries in the future. D-503, a mathematician, lives in the One State where people march in step and are uniformed with numbers instead of names assigned by the Bureau of Guardians. The society is run strictly by logic based on theories of F.W. Taylor. In 1923 he arranged for the manuscript to be smuggled to E.P. Dutton and Company in New York City. After being translated into English by Russian refugee Gregory Zilboorg, it was published in 1924. Then in 1927 he smuggled the original Russian text to Marc Lvovich Slonim in Prague. Copies began being smuggled back to the Soviet Union and secretly passed from hand to hand. This triggered a mass offensive by the Soviet state against him.
On the 24th of September 1929 Zamyatin mailed a letter resigning his membership in the Union of Soviet Writers. He stated that it was impossible to remain in an organization taking part in persecution of its members. In 1931 he appealed directly to Joseph Stalin requesting permission to leave the Soviet Union. His letter explained that his hopeless position as a writer at home amounted to a death sentence pronounced upon him. During spring 1931 he asked Maxim Gorky to intercede with Stalin on his behalf. Gorky told him the affair of his passport was settled but offered him the choice to return if he wished. Zamyatin chose to go abroad and left the Soviet Union in November 1931.
After emigrating, Zamyatin and his wife settled in Paris where they faced great material hardship and loneliness. Remizov wrote that he came with sealed lips and a sealed heart finding little in common with most émigrés who had left Russia a decade earlier. The screenplay for Jean Renoir's The Lower Depths from 1936 was co-written by Zamyatin based on Maxim Gorky's stage play. The manuscript was never sent because Gorky died before receiving it. Zamyatin later worked on a novel called The Scourge of God with Attila as the main character but never finished it. He died in poverty of a heart attack on the 10th of March 1937. Only a small group including publisher Marc Lvovich Slonim attended his burial at Cimetière de Thiais.
Writing in 1967 Mirra Ginsburg noted that Zamyatin gave readers a glimpse of what post-revolutionary Russian literature might have become had independence not been stamped out ruthlessly. Boris Pasternak took similar risks when handing his Doctor Zhivago manuscript to an emissary from Giangiacomo Feltrinelli in 1957 saying you are hereby invited to watch me face the firing squad. Alexander Solzhenitsyn Christianized Zamyatin's attacks against state-enforced conformity in his 1973 Letter to Soviet Leaders. Solzhenitsyn wrote that over and above physical constraints the system demands total surrender of souls and continuous willing participation in conscious lies. As part of Mikhail Gorbachev's glasnost reforms, Zamyatin's writing began again being published legally in his homeland in 1988. Even since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 his denunciations continue to have readers and admirers worldwide.
Continue Browsing
Common questions
Where was Yevgeny Zamyatin born and what was his family background?
Yevgeny Zamyatin was born in Lebedyan, south of Moscow, to a Russian Orthodox priest father and a musician mother. His childhood was marked by loneliness as he spent hours reading books or listening to Chopin under the piano while his mother played.
What happened to Yevgeny Zamyatin during December 1905?
In December 1905, Yevgeny Zamyatin hid a paper bag filled with explosive pyroxylin in his flat before being arrested by the Okhrana along with thirty other Bolsheviks. He endured beating and solitary confinement but managed to smuggle out instructions for comrades to remove compromising items from their rooms.
When did Yevgeny Zamyatin write the novel We and how was it published?
Between 1920 and 1921, Yevgeny Zamyatin wrote the novel We set many centuries in the future about a society run by logic where people are numbered instead of named. The manuscript was smuggled to New York City in 1923 and published in English in 1924 after translation by Gregory Zilboorg.
Why did Yevgeny Zamyatin leave the Soviet Union in November 1931?
Yevgeny Zamyatin left the Soviet Union in November 1931 because he could not remain in an organization that persecuted its members and felt his position as a writer amounted to a death sentence. He had appealed directly to Joseph Stalin in 1931 and asked Maxim Gorky to intercede on his behalf before choosing exile.
How did Yevgeny Zamyatin die and what were his final works?
Yevgeny Zamyatin died in poverty of a heart attack on the 10th of March 1937 while living in Paris with his wife. His unfinished final novel called The Scourge of God featured Attila as the main character and included a screenplay for Jean Renoir's The Lower Depths from 1936.