Innokenty Omulevsky

Innokenty Vasilyevich Fyodorov was a Russian writer, poet and translator better known under his pen name Omulevsky and occasionally referred to as Fyodorov-Omulevsky.

Career

Originally a translator and then a poet, Omulevsky in 1862 moved to work in Irkutsk where he contributed to the local Amur newspaper and took part in the local narodnik groups. He became famous when his debut novel Step by Step came out. Banned in 1874, just before it was about to be re-issued, the novel in retrospect has been described as "the vivid monument for the Russian enlightenment led by this country's revolutionary intelligentsia, fighting for the American-type of capitalist development in Russia" as well as "highly popular among the Russia youth but soon forgotten" example of the Russian politically-charged fiction of 1860s "devoted to the idea of portraying 'an ideal new man', fighting against prejudices and for creating the new, rational and just society," according to Innokenty Fyodorov, the Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary biographer.
In 1873 in Saint Petersburg he was arrested, spent a year in jail, was freed for the lack of evidence but had almost lost his sight by the time of his release. His second novel Trying's Not a Joke remained unfinished.
The Collected Works by Omulevsky titled Songs of Life came out posthumously in 1883. The extended version of it in two volumes was released in 1906.