Tikhonov, Aleksandr Nikolaevich

(pen name, Serebrov). Born Oct. 20 (Nov. 1), 1880, in Verkhneserginskii Zavod, in what is now Sverdlovsk Oblast; died Aug. 27, 1956, in Moscow. Soviet Russian literary figure and writer.

Tikhonov graduated from the St. Petersburg Mining Institute in 1908. In 1905 he published his first works—short stories, articles, and reviews. Together with M. Gorky, Tikhonov organized a group of proletarian writers under the auspices of the newspaper Pravda and edited collections of their works, as well as the journal Letopis’ (The Chronicle; 1915–17) and the newspaper Novaia zhizri (1917–18).

After the October Revolution of 1917, Tikhonov headed the Vsemirnaia Literatura Publishing House. From 1930 to 1936 he headed the Academia Publishing House and edited the journals Sovremennyi Zapad (The Contemporary West), Vostok (The East), and Russkii sovremennik (The Russian Contemporary). In his book Time and People: Reminiscences (1898–1905) (1949; 3rd ed., 1960), Tikhonov described his meetings with Gorky, A. P. Chekhov, L. N. Tolstoy, F. I. Chaliapin, and K. S. Stanislavsky.