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Vsevolod Vyacheslavovich Ivanov was born on February 24, 1895, in a Siberian village of Lebyazhe, Semipalatinsk province, Russian Empire (now Lebyazhe, Kazakhstan). His father was a school teacher. Young Ivanov studied at School of Agriculture in Pavlodar. He dropped out of school and became a circus clown and wrestler, then an actor, then a sailor, and then a printing press worker. He was reading voraciously and learned from the classic writers, such as Lev Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoevsky among others. In 1915, he published his early stories "Sny oseni" (Dreams of Autumn) and "Zoloto" (The Gold) which were praised by Maxim Gorky. From 1917-1920, he served in the Red Army during the Russian Civil War in Siberia and then worked as assistant Commissar of Propaganda in the city of Omsk in Siberian Russia.
In 1921, Vsevolod Ivanov moved to St. Petersburg (then Petrograd). He joined the literary group Serapionovy Bratya (The Serapion Brothers). The group was initiated in February of 1921, by Yevgeni Zamyatin who professed that "true literature can be created only by madmen, hermits, heretics, dreamers, rebels, and skeptics" at his literary seminars with aspiring writers. They took their name from the story of E.T.A.Hoffmann titled 'Serapion Brothers', which emphasized artistic freedom. The group included Mikhail Zoshchenko, Lev Lunts, Konstantin Fedin, Vladimir Pozner, Viktor Shklovskiy, Mikhail Slonimsky, Nikolai Nikitin, Elizaveta Polonskaia, Nikolai Tikhonov, and Veniamin Kaverin. The Serapion Brothers group was under patronage of critic and writer Yuri Tynyanov. They also attended seminars of Korney Ivanovich Chukovskiy. They lived in the famous artistic community known as 'Dom Iskusstv' (House of Arts) in a former aristocratic palace on the Nevsky Prospect in St. Petersburg. The writers of the group were non-conformists and were in opposition to the official Moscow-based Soviet literature. Their leader Yevgeni Zamyatin fearlessly criticized the Soviet policy of "Red Terror" and intimidation of intellectuals. Some writers of the Serapion Brothers' group were under severe criticism and were censored. Vsevolod Ivanov did not split from Serapion Brothers, but he remained unhappy about the Soviet official literature and politics.
Ivanov was attacked by the Proletariat association of writers (RAPP) for his "bourgeois style" of writing. Eventually, Ivanov chose to partially comply with the Soviet official line in literature and served the Soviet propaganda for survival. In 1925, he published his book 'Sopki. Partizanskie rasskazy', which presented the idealized image of the Red Army in the Russian Civil war. He co-wrote novel 'Iprit' (1925) together with his friend Viktor Shklovskiy. His 1930 story 'Puteshestvie v stranu kotoroi net' (Journey to a country that does not exist), a Menippean satire on the Soviet Union, was censored. In 1934, he sided with Maxim Gorky and became a member of the Soviet Writers' Union. In 1935, he published autobiographical novel 'Pokhozhdenia fakira' (The Adventures of a Magician) which was praised by Viktor Shklovskiy. Ivanov's better writings were banned after political attacks on Soviet intellectuals which were launched by Andrei Zhdanov under the dictatorship of Joseph Stalin. Ivanov's posthumous publications revealed the hidden side of his talent, a blend of Science-Fiction with ancient mythology, and a touch of sadness and pessimism in his later writings. His collections of stories 'Mednaia lampa' (1944-1956) and adaptations of ancient Biblical and Greek myths of Sisyphus, son of Aeolus, and Agasfer (The Wandering Jew) are among his best works. His novels 'Opalovaia lenta' (The Opal Ribbon), 'Uzhginski Kreml' (The Kremlin of Uzhgin) and 'Vulkan' (The Volcano) were also published posthumously. His literary talent was compared to that of Mikhail A. Bulgakov.
His 1922 novel 'Bronepoezd 14-69' (The armored Battle-train No. 14-69) was adapted into play in 1927 and was staged at many Soviet theatres with massive sponsorship from the Soviet government. It was also adapted into a propaganda film by director Yakov Protazanov in 1931. Ivanov received some Soviet perks, but his best writings remained banned until after his death, and he was not allowed to become officially recognized according to his real literary talent. Vsevolod Ivanov died on August 15, 1963, in Moscow, and was laid to rest in Novodevichye Cemetery in Moscow, Russia.
