Leonid Timofeev

Born Dec. 23, 1903 (Jan. 5, 1904), in Moscow. Soviet literary scholar. Corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1958); member of the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences of the USSR (1947).

Timofeev graduated from the V. Ia. Briusov Higher Literary Institute in 1925. He became a doctor of philological sciences in 1940 and was a professor at Moscow State University and other institutions of higher education. From 1941 to 1970 he was head of the department of Soviet literature at the Institute of World Literature of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.

Timofeev had his first works published in 1926. Using the approach of Marxist aesthetics, he has studied numerous aspects of literary theory and history, mainly the prosody, poetics, style, and literary method of socialist realism and 18th- and 19th-century Russian literature. Timofeev has also written textbooks on the theory and history of literature for universities and secondary schools. He has edited many scholarly publications, including Istoriia russkoi sovetskoi literatury (History of Soviet Russian Literature) and Istoriia sovetskoi mnogonatsional’noi literatury (History of Soviet Multinational Literature). Timo-feev’s works have been translated into foreign languages.

Timofeev has been awarded four orders and various medals.