Garshin (English spelling) Vsevolod Mihaylovich Garshin

Russian novelist. Born on February 14th in Ekaterinoslav (now Dnipropetrovsk). His father was a cavalry officer. He read literary books voraciously from an early age. While attending a mining technical school, he volunteered as a private when the Russo-Turkish War broke out in 1876, but was wounded and sent back to the rear. He first published his first novel, Four Days, in 1877, based on the experiences of his comrades, and became known as a writer for the first time. After recuperating in Kharkov, he devoted himself to writing in St. Petersburg, and wrote works from this period such as Battle Scenes (1877), The Coward (1879), Attalea Princeps (1880), and The Sergeant and the Officer (1880), which are permeated with an unrelenting desire for self-sacrifice and brimming with idealistic and martyrous impulses. At the end of the 1880s, the attacks of insanity that had begun in his childhood began to recur, and he was admitted to a psychiatric hospital in Kharkov. His masterpiece, The Red Flower (1883), is a work that weaves his experiences during this hospitalization into his own theme of "flowers of evil." Other works that remain include The Story of a Dream (1882), Memoirs of Private Ivanov (1883), The Bear (1883), and The Traffic Light (1887), as well as fairy tales such as The Frog and the Rose (1884) and The Frog Traveler (1887). In April 1888, on the day he was to depart for treatment in the Caucasus, he suddenly jumped from his fourth-floor apartment, and died five days later at the young age of 33. Although he wrote only short stories and not many works, he was a unique "author of conscience" with an innocent soul.

[Toru Nakamura]

"The Complete Works of Garcin, translated by Toru Nakamura, 1 volume (1973, Seiga Shobo)"

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

ロシアの小説家。2月14日、エカチェリノスラフ（現ドニエプロペトロフスク）に生まれる。父は騎兵将校。早くから文学書を乱読。鉱業専門学校に在学中、1876年ロシア・トルコ戦争が起こると、一兵卒として志願、負傷し後送される。そのときの戦友の体験談を『四日間』と題し、処女作として77年発表、初めて文名を知られる。ハリコフで療養後、ペテルブルグで創作に専念、『戦場風景』（1877）、『臆病(おくびょう)者』（1879）、『アタレア・プリンケプス』（1880）、『従卒と士官』（1880）などはその時期のもので、自己犠牲を要求してやまない意欲に貫かれ、理想主義的、殉教的な衝動に満ちあふれている。80年末からは、少年期に始まった狂疾の発作が再発するようになり、ハリコフの精神科病院に収容された。名作『赤い花』（1883）はこのときの入院中の自己の体験に独自の「悪の華」をテーマに織り込んだもの。ほかに『夢語り』（1882）、『兵卒イワーノフの回想』（1883）、『熊(くま)』（1883）、『信号』（1887）の作品があり、『がま蛙(がえる)とばらの花』（1884）、『蛙の旅行家』（1887）などの童話が残っている。88年4月、カフカスへの療養に出発の日、何を思ったのか突如4階のアパートから飛び降り、5日後に33歳の若さで死んだ。短編ばかりで作品の数も多くはないが、無垢(むく)の魂をもった「良心の作家」として特異な存在であった。

［中村　融］

『中村融訳『ガルシン全集』全1巻（1973・青娥書房）』

出典　小学館　日本大百科全書(ニッポニカ)日本大百科全書(ニッポニカ)について　情報 | 凡例