Aleksandr Serafimovich Serafimovich

A Russian novelist. His real surname was Popov. He was born into a Cossack family. While studying at St. Petersburg University, he wrote a manifesto on the attempted assassination of Alexander III, and was exiled to Arkhangelsk Governorate in the north for three years. He began his literary career with the short story "On the Ice Field" (1889), which he wrote in the far north. In short stories such as "The Coupler" (1903) and "The Sand" (1909), which was highly praised by Tolstoy, he showed the path from the denial of the hopeless situation of workers and peasants to the awakening of revolution, and in his long novel "Steppe Town" (published in 1912) he depicted the development of capitalism and the growth of the proletariat. During this time, he came to know Gorky, and joined the Znanie school from the "Wednesday Club," becoming a leading standard-bearer of neo-realism. His representative work, The Stream of Iron (1924), is a full-length novel in which an unconscious mass of people transforms, through repeated battles in the Civil War, into a powerful group like a flow of iron. It has become a classic of proletarian literature.

[Yo Shimada]

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

ロシアの小説家。本姓ポポーフ。コサックの家に生まれる。ペテルブルグ大学在学中アレクサンドル3世の暗殺未遂に関する檄文(げきぶん)を書き、北のアルハンゲリスク県へ3年の流刑に処せられた。文学活動を始めたのは、極北の地で執筆した短編『氷原にて』（1889）によってである。『車両連結手』（1903）、トルストイに激賞された『砂地』（1909）などの短編で、労働者・農民の絶望的な状況の否定から革命の覚醒(かくせい)に至る道程を示し、長編『ステップの町』（1912発表）では資本主義の発展とプロレタリアの成長を描いた。この間ゴーリキーを知り、「水曜会」からズナーニエ派に加わり、新写実主義の有力な旗手であった。代表作の『鉄の流れ』（1924）は、無自覚な群衆が国内戦のたび重なる戦闘を経て、鉄の流れのような力強い集団に変貌(へんぼう)する長編小説で、プロレタリア文学の古典となった。

［島田　陽］

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