Mikhail Petrovich Artzybashev

 Mikhail Petrovich Artzybashev (Artsybashev) (1878-1927), Russian novelist, playwright and essayist, is best known for his controversial work Sanine (1907, tr. 1914).

Mikhail Petrovich Artzybashev was born on 5 November, 1878 in Kharkov Province, Ukraine. As with many masters of writing of the time, he had to content himself with the art of parody, using satire and allegory to conceal the true message of his works. His early short stories are compared to the style of Leo Tolstoy, and with influences of Friedrich Nietzsche and Fyodor Dostoevsky they are filled with extreme pessimism and immorality and the themes of hedonism and free-will of the individual.