Urvantov, Lev Nikolaevich

Lev Nikolayevich Urvantsev (in some sources of Urvantsev ) ( 1865 - January 15, 1929 , Carlsbad , Czechoslovakia ) - Russian writer and playwright .

Lev Nikolaevich Urvantsov
Date of Birth	1865 ( 1865 )
Place of Birth	Kazan , Russian Empire
Date of death	January 15, 1929 ( 1929-01-15 )
Place of death	Karlovy Vary , Czechoslovakia
Nationality	Russian empire
Occupation	novelist , playwright
Genre	prose, dramaturgy
Language of Works	Russian
Awards

Born in one of the oldest merchant families in Kazan. He was educated in the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics at Imperial Kazan University . He entered the service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs , rising to the rank of State Counselor , awarded the Order of St. Anna of the 2nd degree , the Order of St. Stanislav of the 3rd degree , the medal "In memory of the reign of Emperor Alexander III" , the medal "In memory of the coronation of Emperor Nicholas II . "

He took up literary work, became a rather famous Russian playwright and fiction writer of the beginning of the 20th century. He posted a number of stories in Russian Thought , Historical Bulletin , Life and other magazines and newspapers. In 1904 he published a book of short stories entitled "Night."

The author of popular plays in the pre-revolutionary years that were widely played in capitals and provinces: “Vera Mirtseva” (1915, filmed ), “Grace” (1916), “The Beast at the White Stone”, “Maid of Honor”, ​​“Stream”, “Sinful” and dr. He also wrote one-act scenes, staged a novel by V. Krestovsky “ Petersburg Slums ” (1917). Urvantzov’s plays were full of entertaining ups and downs, their subjects were sometimes borrowed from the sensational chronicle, however, the intimate psychological experiences of the heroes were usually superficial. Famous actors Mironov, Polevitskaya, Pevtsov, Khodotov and others performed in Urvantov’s plays.

After the October Socialist Revolution he emigrated abroad. In Russia, it was forgotten. In the Petrograd “Krasnaya Gazeta” in 1922, the feuilleton “The Overcoat, but not Gogol” appeared, in which it was written: “A certain Leo Urvantsev, who had once cooked up two pieces of waste paper, having now fled abroad, considered it his duty to pour mud on R. S. F. S. R. in No. 548 Rulea, he tells another tale about the search: ... A man who knows how to lie ... brilliantly used this skill in the whole story about the searches. It is immediately evident that he is a “playwright”.

In exile, Urvantsov wrote a book of memoirs about Russian actors and playwrights of the late XIX - early XX centuries, several novels, including the scandalous “Tomorrow morning” , after which the writer’s works were completely withdrawn from Soviet literature, and he was removed from the repertoire of Soviet theaters still staged plays.

He is the author of several memoirs in which he wrote about pre-revolutionary theatrical life, having deleted himself from the history of Russian literature with his "archival imitation of the archiscernal Dostoevsky."

He lived for some time in Prague, then moved first to Carlsbad , and then to the small village of Sodau, seven kilometers from the resort. There he built himself a small house with his own hands and lived with his son, artist Mikhail Urvantov. There he wrote a new play in 8 acts, “From the Diary of Mill-Elena”, and then, at the end of it, proceeded to the epic “Russian” from the life of a merchant provincial family, the first part of which was called “Official Petersburg”.

He died in January 1929 in the Carlsbad City Hospital. He was buried in Prague at the Olshansky cemetery , near the church of St. Assumption, not far from the graves of A. Averchenko , I. I. Petrunkevich and other Russian writers.