Yuri Olesha
| Yury Olesha | |
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Olesha in 1958
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| Born | March 3 [O.S. February 19] 1899 Elizavetgrad, Russian Empire (now Ukraine) |
| Died | May 10, 1960 (aged 61) Moscow, USSR |
| Genre | Fiction, drama, poetry |
| Notable works |
Envy Three Fat Men |
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Yury Karlovich Olesha (Russian: Ю́рий Ка́рлович Оле́ша, March 3 [O.S. February 19] 1899 – May 10, 1960) was a Russian and Soviet novelist. He is considered one of the greatest Russian novelists of the 20th century, one of the few to have succeeded in writing works of lasting artistic value despite the stifling censorship of the era. His works are delicate balancing acts that superficially send pro-Communist messages but reveal far greater subtlety and richness upon a deeper reading. Sometimes, he is grouped with his friends Ilf and Petrov, Isaac Babel, and Sigismund Krzhizhanovsky into the Odessa School of Writers.
Yuri Olesha was born on March 3 [O.S. February 19] 1899 to Catholic parents of Polish descent in Elizavetgrad (now Kropyvnytskyi, Ukraine). Olesha's father, Karl Antonovich, was an impoverished landowner who later became a government inspector of alcohol and developed a proclivity for drinking and gambling. In 1902 Olesha and his family settled in Odessa, where Yuri would eventually meet many of his fellow writers such as Isaac Babel, Ilya Ilf, and Valentin Kataev, and ultimately maintain a lifelong friendship with the latter. As a student, Yuri demonstrated a knack for science but favored literature above his other subjects and began writing during the year before his graduation cum laude from high school. In 1917 Olesha entered law school but postponed his studies two years later to volunteer for the Red Army during the civil war; during this time, Olesha began producing propaganda for the revolution.
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