Demyan Bedny
1883 – 1945
Place of Birth:
Hubivka village, in Kherson Province, in Ukraine
Place of Death:
Moscow
Categories:
Poetry
Soviet Russian writer, proletarian poet, publicist and Bolshevik.
He was born into a poor family in the village of Kherson Province, in Ukraine. At the age of seven his father moved him to live in Elizavetgrad (Kirovograd), but six years later sent him back to his home village to live with his mother "in extreme poverty".
When he was 14 years old, his father arranged for him to attend a paid-for place in a paramedic training college in Kyiv. Four years of military service followed. In 1904 he entered the philological and historical faculties of St. Petersburg University. His university years coincided with the tumultuous time of the 1905 revolution, and Bedny, like most students, became an ardent supporter of the revolution. In 1911 he began publishing in Communist newspapers such as Pravda, and in 1912 he joined the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party (Bolsheviks). Also in 1911, he published the poem "Of Demyan Bedny", which gave him that name, and began a private correspondence with Vladimir Lenin, which is rumoured to have developed into a long personal friendship. His first collected works were published in Basni (Fables) in 1913.
Since January 1925 he was a member of the board of the All-Union Association of Proletarian Writers. The ideology of Bedny is the ideology of the peasant who has moved to the point of view of the proletariat.
He died on May 25, 1945.
He was born into a poor family in the village of Kherson Province, in Ukraine. At the age of seven his father moved him to live in Elizavetgrad (Kirovograd), but six years later sent him back to his home village to live with his mother "in extreme poverty".
When he was 14 years old, his father arranged for him to attend a paid-for place in a paramedic training college in Kyiv. Four years of military service followed. In 1904 he entered the philological and historical faculties of St. Petersburg University. His university years coincided with the tumultuous time of the 1905 revolution, and Bedny, like most students, became an ardent supporter of the revolution. In 1911 he began publishing in Communist newspapers such as Pravda, and in 1912 he joined the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party (Bolsheviks). Also in 1911, he published the poem "Of Demyan Bedny", which gave him that name, and began a private correspondence with Vladimir Lenin, which is rumoured to have developed into a long personal friendship. His first collected works were published in Basni (Fables) in 1913.
Since January 1925 he was a member of the board of the All-Union Association of Proletarian Writers. The ideology of Bedny is the ideology of the peasant who has moved to the point of view of the proletariat.
He died on May 25, 1945.