Ieronim Yasinsky

Ieronim Ieronimovich Yasinsky (; – December 31, 1931) was a Russian novelist, poet, literary critic and essayist. Among the numerous pseudonyms he used, were Maxim Belinsky, Nezavisimy ('The Independent One') and M. Tchunosov.

Biography Yasinsky was born in Kharkov, Russian Empire (now Ukraine) to the lawyer and landlord Ieronim Yasinsky, a nobleman of Polish origins, and Olga Maksimovna Belinskaya, the daughter of a 1812 Borodino hero Colonel Maxim Belinsky (whose name he later used as a literary pseudonym). From the age of eleven, Yasinsky began to write verses and recite them at family literary and musical parties.

Ieronim Yasinsky accepted the February Revolution and even declared himself "an instant Bolshevik" after the October Revolution. He worked for Proletkult, edited Soviet magazines (Krasny ogonyok, Plamya, 1918–1919), wrote science fiction for children and translated Friedrich Engels's poem "The Evening" in 1923, but still was unpopular with critics. In retrospect, his book of memoirs The Novel of My Life (1926) has been recognized as an insightful and valuable documentation of the Russian literary and cultural life of the late 19th-early 20th century, as were his biographical essays on Saltykov-Shchedrin, Garshin, Leykin and Chekhov. He died, aged 81, in Leningrad, USSR.

Selected works Natashka (1881) The Sleeping Beauty (1883) The Kiev Stories (1885) Irinarkh Plutarkhov (1886) The Old Friend (1887) The Great Man (1888) Under Satan's Cloak (1909) The Novel of My Life (1926)