Vsevolod Ivanov
Ivanov was born in what is now Northern Kazakhstan, 24 February, 1895, to a teacher’s family. When he was a child, Vsevolod ran away to become a clown in a traveling circus. His first story, published in 1915, caught the attention of Maxim Gorky, who advised Vsevolod throughout his career. Ivanov joined the Red Army during the Civil War and fought in Siberia. This inspired his short stories, Partisans (1921) and Armored Train (1922). In 1922 Ivanov joined the literary group known as the Serapion Brothers. Ivanov’s first two novels, Colored Winds (1922) and Azure Sands (1923), were set in the Asiatic part of Russia and gave rise to the genre of “ostern” in Soviet literature. His short story Baby was acclaimed by Edmund Wilson as the finest Soviet short story ever written.
Later, Ivanov came under fire from Bolshevik critics who claimed his works were too pessimistic and that it was not clear whether the Reds or Whites were the heroes. In 1927 Ivanov rewrote his short story, the Armored Train 14-69 into a play. This time, the play highlighted the role of the Bolsheviks in the Civil War. Among his later works are the Adventures of a Fakir (1935) and The Taking of Berlin (1945). During the Second World War, Ivanov worked as a war correspondent for Izvestia.
Died: August 15, 1963, Moscow, Russia
Vsevolod’s son Vyacheslav Ivanov became one of the leading philologists and Indo-Europeanists of the late 20th century.
The artist Vsevolod Ivanov presents us the Ancient Slavdom as he imagined it through the eyes of Slavic nationalist. He is deeply convinced that the history of ancient Russia is distorted or fabricated. Ivanov collects old tales and legends and creates his own vision of ancestors’ daily life. His speculative artwork consists of the series of paintings named “Vedic Rus” where he exhibits the true reality of Russia’s past. He was inspired to paint his renditions of what the original “Ur-Heimat” Indo-European civilization might have looked like from reading the Bhagavad-Gita. His paintings include images of flying machine, free energy generators, and other wonders. This is connected with the Slavic belief in the ancient Indo-European civilization known as Aratta or Trypillian. This ancient Indo-European or “Aryan” civilization existed at the end of the last Ice Age. According to Vsevolod Ivanov, anti-gravity ships, domesticated mammoths, dragons, great cities with inspired architecture and mythical characters were part of the ancient Aratta civilization.
