Nikolai Dmitrievich Teleshov

Born Oct. 29 (Nov. 10), 1867, in Moscow; died there Mar. 14, 1957. Soviet Russian writer. Honored Art Worker of the RSFSR (1938). Son of a merchant.

In 1899, Teleshov organized a literary circle known as the Wednesday literary gathering. He participated in publishing collections of the Znanie association. After 1917 he worked for the People’s Commissariat for Education and other Soviet institutions. His poems were first published in 1884. In the 1880’s and 1890’s he wrote short stories and novellas exposing philistinism and bourgeois morality (The Rooster, A Philistine Drama, The Duel) and portraying the disastrous fate of resettled peasants (Cod Be With You, Dry Trouble, Mitrich’s Spruce). Realism, a democratic trend, and social protest characterized Teleshov’s work before and during the Revolution of 1905–07 (Song of Three Youths, Between Two Shores, On a Black Night, Treason), during the years of reaction (The Reapers, Another Soul), and during the imperialist war (The Mine, In the Gloom). During the Soviet years his most significant works included The Beginning of the End (1933), a novella of the Russian Revolution of 1905–07, and his creative memoirs A Writer’s Notes (1925–43).