In 1922
a group of young writers inspired by the work of Yevgeni
Zamyatin, founded the Serapion Brothers. The group took their
name from the story by E. T. Hoffmann, the Serapion
Brothers, about an individualist who vows to devote himself
to a free, imaginative and non-conformist art. Members included Nickolai
Tikhonov, Mikhail Slonimski, Mikhail
Zoshchenko, Victor Shklovsky, Vsevolod
Ivanov and Konstantin Fedin. Russia's
most important writer of the period, Maxim
Gorky, also sympathized with the group's views.
The Serapions
insisted on the right to create a literature that was independent
of political ideology. This brought them into conflict with the Soviet
government and resulted in them having difficulty getting their work
published.
Most members
of the group gradually conformed to the idea of socialist
realism. Some refused, including Yevgeni
Zamyatin, who, with the help of Maxim Gorky,
managed to leave the Soviet Union in 1931.
Available
from Amazon Books (order below)
