Vasily Avenarius

Vasily Petrovich Avenarius was a Russian writer and memoirist.

Biography

Born on 10 October 1839, in Tsarskoye Selo, to a Lutheran pastor, he graduated from the Saint Petersburg University to join first the Russian Interior Ministry and later the Office of the Institutions of Empress Maria. His first two novels, the anti-nihilist The Modern Idyll, and The Passing Craze, were deemed and 'reactionary' by the influential democratic press. Shocked by the almost unanimous negative response, Avenarius turned away from political issues and from then on have been publishing only books for children, as well as biographies, notably of Pushkin and Gogol. Several of his books, enjoyed steady success and numerous re-issues. Avenarius also published several historical novels and, later in his life, memoirs. He died in Petrograd, 9 November 1923 and is interred in the Smolensky Lutheran Cemetery.