Rurik Ivnev

Rurik Ivnev (Russian: Рю́рик И́внев), born Mikhail Alexandrovich Kovalyov (Russian: Михаи́л Алекса́ндрович Ковалёв) (23 February [O.S. 11 February] 1891 – 19 February 1981), was a Russian poet, novelist and translator.

Rurik Ivnev was born into a nobleman's family in Tiflis (Tbilisi). His father, Alexander Samoylovich Kovalyov, was a Russian army captain. The children (Mikhail had an elder brother, Nikolai) had been brought up by their mother, Anna Petrovna Kovalyova-Prince. Among her ancestors was a Dutch count, who arrived in Russia with Peter I. After the death of their father in 1894, the family moved to Kars, where their mother obtained the position of principal in an all-girls secondary school. At the insistence of their mother, the sons entered the Tiflis Military School, where Mikhail studied from 1900 through 1908. Upon graduating from the school, Mikhail thought better of a military career and headed to St. Petersburg, where he became a student at the Law Department of the St. Petersburg University. In 1912 he was forced to leave St. Petersburg University and moved to Moscow to continue his education. In 1913 he graduated from Moscow University with a law diploma and returned to St. Petersburg, where he began his service at the office of government control.

Rurik Ivnev's first attempts at poetry date from 1904. His first publication was the poem Our Days in a 1909 student almanac that came out in Vyshny Volochek. Two years later he showed his poems and prose to Alexander Blok and received his unfavorable opinion. Another two poems were published in 1912 in the Bolshevik newspaper Iskra. Soon, Mikhail, together with Vadim Shershenevich, Konstantin Olimpov and Vasilisk Gnedov, joined the Ego-Futurist movement and became a frequent contributor to Ego-Futurist almanacs published by Peterburgskiy Glashatay, Tsentrifuga and Mezzanin poezii. In 1913 his first book of poems, Self-immolation, was published.

...
Wikipedia