6 Russian writers whose life ending was rather strange

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

For many decades, questions about the strange circumstances of the death of Mayakovsky and Yesenin have been discussed, assumptions have been made about the true and declared reasons for the duel of Alexander Pushkin. However, among Russian writers there are those whose death looked very strange. They are remembered much less often, and questions about this often turn out to be much more than answers.

Avvakum Petrov

The author of polemical works, a schismatic who is revered by the Old Believers as a saint, suffered, in fact, for his religious and political views. For resistance to reforms, he was sent into exile. After returning to Moscow from a six-year exile in Transbaikalia, he continued to criticize the church reform, which attracted the wrath of its supporters and the tsar himself. The result was yet another link and cut.

After being punished with a whip, he was thrown into prison for 14 years, from where he never stopped sending letters and petitions. The last straw that decided the fate of Avvakum Petrov and his associates was a letter to Tsar Fyodor Alekseevich criticizing Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich and harsh statements about the patriarch. The disobedient, stripped priest, along with his comrades, was burned alive in a log house.

Alexander Radishchev

Many sources tell about the voluntary departure from life of the historian, writer and fighter against the regime of Alexander Radishchev. The reason for the fatal act is indicated by the harsh criticism of Count Zavadsky in relation to the code drawn up by Radishchev, which provides for the rule of law and the availability of freedoms for everyone, regardless of origin and social status. However, the suicide version does not stand up to criticism, since the writer's funeral took place in accordance with the canons of the Orthodox Church.

The most likely reason, according to the biographers of Alexander Radishchev, is an accident. The writer by mistake drank a glass of "aqua regia" - a concentrated solution of nitric and hydrochloric acids), which the eldest son had prepared for burning out an epaulette. In church documents, the cause of Radishchev's death is indicated as consumption.

Matvey Dmitriev-Mamonov

The Russian writer and major general were declared insane due to the refusal of Count Matvey Dmitriev-Mamonov to swear allegiance to Tsar Nicholas I. They began to treat him very cruelly, tied him to the bed like a violent madman, put on a straitjacket and doused him with ice water.

For more than 30 years, Matvey Dmitriev-Mamonov spent in complete isolation in the Vasilievskaya estate, which was originally acquired to keep the writer there. By the end of his life, he really seemed to be insane, however, the isolation and bullying of the overseers fully contributed to this. The count died of burns on June 23, 1863; for an unknown reason, his shirt, abundantly moistened with cologne, caught fire on him.

Sergey Semyonov

All his life he wrote about peasants, whose difficult life he knew not from other people's stories. Sergei Semyonov himself was born into a poor peasant family, after he worked at a factory, was inspired by the works of Leo Tolstoy and began to write himself. From the great writer, he received approval for his first story.

Returning to the village, he was quite successful in farming. The writer’s neighbor Malyutin, who saw the devil's hand in Semyonov’s good housekeeping, decided to shoot the “sorcerer”. In some sources during the Soviet era, the class incompatibility of the writer and the neighboring "kulaks" was indicated as the cause of death.

However, there is a third version, according to which Sergei Semyonov was beaten to death for an affair with a neighbor's wife.

Andrey Sobol

The writer, named the best fiction writer in 1925 by the Gudok newspaper, shot himself in the stomach on June 7, 1926 at the Pushkin monument. According to unverified data, the reason for this act was a desire to prove the fact that doctors could save the great poet from such a wound. According to one version, Andrei Sobol hoped for Soviet medicine, but the injury turned out to be too serious, the patient died during the operation.

According to another version, suicide became the logical ending of the life of the writer, who suffered from depression for many years and made more than one attempt to commit suicide.

Nikolay Rubtsov

The famous lyric poet was not even 36 years old when his life was tragically cut short. It is hard to imagine that a poet, who wrote so many beautiful works, will die as a result of a banal quarrel with his bride. Poetess Lyudmila Derbina, who strangled her fiancé as a result of the scuffle, never pleaded guilty, claiming that the poet had a heart attack. The woman tried to justify herself in her memoirs, but the court's verdict was eloquent, and therefore Derbina's rehabilitation did not follow.

Mental suffering, inability to find a way out of a difficult situation, lack of money and fear of being a burden can lead to committing a fatal mistake. People of creative professions, who are distinguished by the subtlety of nature and instability of the psyche, are especially prone to suicide. What made Russian writers voluntarily leave this life against the background of external well-being?