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Mikhail Zoshchenko

Mikhail Mikhailovich Zoshchenko (Михаил Михайлович Зощенко ; Saint Petersburg, August 10 [O.S. 29 July] 1895 – July 22, 1958) was the foremost Russian satirist of the Soviet period.

Zoschenko's father was a mosaicist responsible for the exterior decoration of the Suvorov Museum in Saint Petersburg. The future writer attended the Faculty of Law at the Saint Petersburg University, joined the army during World War I, then shared the views of the Serapion Brothers. He attained particular popularity in the 1920s, but lived in poverty after his denunciation in the Zhdanov decree of 1946.

He developed a simplified deadpan style of writing which simultaneously made him accessible to "the people" and mocked official demands for accessibility: "I write very compactly. My sentences are short. Accessible to the poor." (quoted in Volkov, p.40). Volkov compares this style to the nakedness of the Russian holy fool or yurodivy. This style was much admired by the composer Dmitri Shostakovich, who adopted it as a part of his own persona.

Zoshchenko wrote a series of children’s short stories about Lenin. According to University of Delaware Undergadute Research Program the stories contained criticism of the Soviet regime.

• A Man Is Not A Flea, trans. Serge Shishkoff, Ann Arbor, 1989.
• Before Sunrise. Trans. Gary Kern, Ann Arbor, 1974.
• Nervous People and Other Satires, ed. Hugh McLean, trans. Maria Gordon and Hugh McLean, London, 1963.
• Scenes from the Bathhouse, trans. Sidney Monas, Ann Arbor, 1962.
• Youth Restored. Trans. Joel Stern, Ann Arbor, 1984.

• Scatton, Linda Hart (1993). Mikhail Zoshchenko: Evolution of a Writer. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-42093-8.
• Volkov, Solomon (2004). Shostakovich and Stalin: The Extraordinary Relationship Between the Great Composer and the Brutal Dictator. Knopf. ISBN 0-375-41082-1.