Aleksandr I. Kuprin
Aleksandr Ivanovich Kuprin was a Russian writer best known for his novels The Duel and Yama: The Pit, as well as Moloch, Olesya, "Captain Ribnikov", "Emerald", and The Garnet Bracelet – the latter made into a 1965 movie.
Early life
Aleksandr Kuprin was born 1870 in Narovchat, Penza, to Ivan Ivanovich Kuprin, a government official in Penza Governorate. and Liubov Alekseyevna Kuprina, Kulunchakova. His father was Russian, his mother belonged to a noble Volga Tatar family who had lost most of their wealth during the 19th century. Aleksandr had two older sisters, Sofia and Zinaida.In 1871 his father, aged 37, died of cholera. Three years later Aleksandr's mother moved, with young Aleksandr, into the Widows' Home in Kudrino, Moscow, a period reflected in his tale "A White Lie". In 1876 he entered the Razumovsky boarding school, the source of what he later referred to as 'childhood grievances', but also an environment which nourished his riotous nature and in which he found himself popular among peers as storyteller.
Cadet Corps: 1883–1887
In 1880, inspired by Russia's victory in the Russo-Turkish War, Kuprin was enrolled into the Second Moscow Military High School, and turned over to the Cadet Corps in 1882. Several of Kuprin's autobiographical stories, like "At the Turning Point", "The River of Life" and "Lenochka", refer to this period. "The memory of the birching at the Cadet Corps stayed with me for the rest of my life," he wrote not long before his death. Yet it was there that he develop an interest in literature and started to write poetry.Most of Kuprun's thirty youthful poems date from 1883 to 1887, the four years when he was in the Cadet Corps. Kuprin also made several translations of foreign verse. His early political awareness found expression in these works; according to the scholar Nicholas Luker, "perhaps the most interesting of Kuprin's early poems is the political piece "Dreams", written on 14 April 1887, the day before sentence was passed on the terrorists who had plotted to assassinate Alexander III in March of that year." Kuprin was 17 years of age at that date.
46th Dnieper Infantry Regiment: 1888–1894
In the autumn of 1888, Kuprin left the Cadet Corps to enter the Alexander Military Academy in Moscow. In the summer of 1890, he graduated from the Academy ranked sublieutenant and was posted to the 46th Dnieper Infantry Regiment stationed in Proskurov, where he spent the next four years.Literary career
In 1889 Aleksandr Kuprin met Liodor Palmin, an established poet who arranged for the publication in the Russian Satirical Leaflet of Kuprin's debut short story "The Last Debut", based on a real life incident, the 1881 suicide by poisoning on stage of the singer Yevlalya Kadmina, a scandalous tragedy which had also inspired Ivan Turgenev's tale "Clara Milich".Three years would pass between the appearance of "The Last Debut" and Kuprin's second publication "Psyche" in December 1892. Like "On a Moonlit Night" which followed, "Psyche" showed the aberrations of a deranged mind, investigating the thin line between fantasy and reality.
Kuprin's years of military service saw the publication of a short novel In the Dark and several short stories, mostly the artful studies of abnormal states of mind. Only "The Inquiry", his first publication to arouse critical comment, was concerned with the army, starting a series of Russian army-themed short stories: "A Place to Sleep", "The Night-shift", "Praporshchik", and "The Mission" which finally resulted in his most famous work, The Duel.
Aside from his personal dissatisfaction with army life, the publication of "The Inquiry" was probably the major reason for Kuprin's resignation, in the summer of 1894. "There can be no doubt that the appearance of such a work, written by an officer and signed with his full name, would have had unpleasant consequences for him," Luker argues.
After retiring from the service, without any definite plans for the future, or "any knowledge, academic or practical", Kuprin embarked upon a five-year-long trip through the South-West of the Russian Empire. He tried many types of job, including dental care, land surveying, acting, being a circus performer, psalm singer, doctor, hunter, fisher, etc., each of these subsequently reflected in his fictional work. All the while he was engaged in self-education and reading. Gleb Uspensky, with his sketches, became his favorite author.
In summer 1894 Kuprin arrived in Kiev and by September had begun working for local newspapers Kievskoe Slovo, Zhizn i Iskusstvo, and later Kievlianin. The qualities necessary for a good journalist, he believed, were "mad courage, audacity, breadth of view, and amazing memory," gifts he considered himself to possess in full measure. While on frequent journeys to Russia's Southwest he contributed to newspapers in Novocherkassk, Rostov-on-Don, Tsaritsyn, Taganrog, and Odessa.
In 1896 Russkoye Bogatstvo published Moloch, Kuprin's first major work, a critique of the rapidly growing Russian capitalism and a reflection of the growing industrial unrest in the country. Since then only twice did he briefly returned to the theme, in "A Muddle" and "In the Bowels of the Earth". "On this basis one is tempted to conclude that his concern for the industrial worker in Moloch was little more than a passing phase," Luker opines.
Alongside feuilletons and chronicles, Kuprin wrote small sketches investigating particular environments, or portraying people of specific occupations or circumstances, later gathered into a collection. March 1896 saw the publication of eight such sketches in a small edition entitled Kiev Types, Kuprin's first book. In October 1897 his second collection, Miniatures, came out, with one of his best known circus stories, "Allez!", earning high praise from Leo Tolstoy. In 1905 Kuprin described Miniatures as his "first childish steps along the road of literature". Miniatures, as well as his "Industrial Sketches", made in 1896–1899 after his visit to the Donbass region, definitely marked a further stage in his maturing as a writer.
In 1897 Kuprin traveled to Volhynia to work as an estate manager, then went to the Polesye area in Southern Belorussia, where he helped to grow makhorka. "There I absorbed my most vigorous, noble, extensive, and fruitful impressions... and came to know the Russian language and landscape," he remembered in 1920. Three stories of his unfinished "Polesye Cycle" – "The Backwoods", his much acclaimed love piece Olesya, and "The Werewolf" – were published between 1898 and 1901. Moloch and Olesya did much to help Kuprin build his literary reputation. In September 1901 Viktor Mirolyubov, the editor of Zhurnal Dlya Vsekh, invited Kuprin to join this popular Petersburg monthly, and in December he moved to the capital.
Saint Petersburg: 1901–1904
In Petersburg Kuprin found himself in the center of Russian cultural life. He became friends with Anton Chekhov, whom he regularly corresponded with up until the latter's death in 1904, often seeking his advice. Kuprin's friendship with Ivan Bunin would last almost forty years, continuing in emigration. Another important figure for Kuprin was the scholar and critic Fyodor Batyushkov of Mir Bozhiy. The 150 letters that are extant represent a minor part of their vast correspondence. Later Kuprin expressed much gratitude to Viktor Mirolyubov, who, as well as Maxim Gorky, exerted strong influence upon his career.In 1901 Kuprin joined the Moscow Sreda literary society, which was founded in 1899 by Nikolay Teleshov, and united mostly the young realist writers, among whom were Gorky, Bunin, and Leonid Andreyev. In February 1902 Kuprin married Maria Karlovna Davydova, the adopted daughter of Alexandra Davydova, the editor of Mir Bozhy. The latter died that same year. Maria Karlovna took over the publication; and soon Kuprin left Zhurnal Dlya Vsekh, to head the fiction section of the magazine that his wife was now editing.
In February 1903 the Gorky-founded Znanye published the collection of eight tales by Kuprin, among them "The Enquiry" and Moloch. Leo Tolstoy praised the collection for its vivid language; and critics were almost unanimous in their approbation, pointing to Kuprin's closeness in themes and technique to Chekhov and Gorky. Angel Bogdanovich of Mir Bozhy now praised Kuprin's compact style and his ability to convey a feeling of effervescent joie de vivre. Gorky himself, writing to Teleshov in March 1903, ranked Kuprin a third Russian author, next to Chekhov and Andreyev.
Despite his literary success, Kuprin's first years in Petersburg were stressful. His employment with the magazine left him little time for his own writing; and when his work did appear in Mir Bozhy, rumor had it that he owed his success to his family connections. "Life is hard: scandal, gossip, envy, hatred... I feel very lonely and sad," he confessed to one of his Kiev friends in a letter.
Kuprin wrote less between 1902 and 1905 than he had in the provinces; but, according to Luker, "if the quantity of his writing was reduced – some twenty tales in all – its quality was incomparably higher... More conscious now of the blatant contrasts prevalent in Russian society, he turned his attention to the plight of the 'little man' - thus following the best traditions of Russian literature." Among the noticeable stories were "At the Circus" praised by Chekhov and Tolstoy, "The Swamp", linked thematically with the Polesye cycle, and "The Jewess", demonstrating Kuprin's profound sympathy for this persecuted minority in Russian society at a time when pogroms were regular occurrences in the Russian South West. Other themes of Kuprin's prose of this period include hypocrisy, bigotry, and the degeneration of the idle class.
File:1907 Aleksandr Kuprin the Duel In Honours Name.jpg|thumb|227x227px|Aleksandr I. Kuprin's In Honour's Name , 1st edition in English, London, trans. W. F. Harvey