ARTSYBASHEV, MIKHAIL PETROVICH

born Nov. 5 [Oct. 24, Old Style], 1878, Kharkov province, Ukraine, Russian Empire [now Kharkiv province, Ukraine] died March 3, 1927, Warsaw, Poland Russian prose writer whose works were noted for their extreme pessimism, violence, and eroticism. Artsybashev's short stories were first published in 1901. With the failure of the Russian Revolution of 1905, Artsybashev joined in expressing the pessimism and cynicism that overtook the Russian literary world. The publication of his novel Sanin (1907) brought him widespread fame. In this novel, the antihero Sanin adopts a lifestyle of selfish and cynical hedonism in response to society's insoluble problems. Artsybashev's main characters symbolize a negation of everything except so-called primitive realities, which for Artsybashev were sex and death. Conservative critics condemned him for immorality, and progressive critics found little intrinsic literary merit in his books. He enjoyed great popularity for a time, however. Attacked by the Soviet critics for his decadence, Artsybashev was expelled from the Soviet Union in 1923, and Sanin and his other works were proscribed.