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Yevgeny ZamyatinYevgeny Ivanovich Zamyatin (Евге́ний Ива́нович Замя́тин sometimes translated into English as Eugene Zamyatin) (February 1, 1884 - March 10, 1937) was a Russian author, most famous for his novel We, a story of dystopian future which influenced Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four and Ayn Rand's Anthem. Zamyatin also wrote a number of short stories, in fairy tale form, that constituted satirical criticism of the Communist regime in Russia such as in a story about a city where the mayor decides that to make everyone happy he should make everyone equal. He starts by forcing every one, himself included, to live in a big barrack, then to shave heads to be equal to the bald, and then to become mentally disabled to equate intelligence downward. Zamyatin was born in Lebedian, Russia, two hundred miles south of Moscow. His father was a Russian Orthodox priest and schoolmaster and his mother a musician. He studied naval engineering in St. Petersburg from 1902 until 1908 during which he joined the Bolsheviks. He was arrested during the Russian Revolution of 1905 and exiled but returned to St. Petersburg where he lived illegally before moving to Finland in 1906 to finish his studies. After graduating as a naval engineer he began to write fiction as a hobby. He was arrested and exiled a second time in 1911 but amnestied in 1913. In 1916 he went to England to supervise the construction of icebreakers at the shipyards in Newcastle-upon-Tyne and later wrote The Islanders satirising English life. Returning to Russia he wrote Ujezdnoje (A Provincial Tale) in 1913, which satirised life in a small Russian town and brought him a degree of fame. The next year he was tried for maligning the military in his story Na Kulichkakh. He continued to contribute articles to various socialist newspapers. After the Russian Revolution he edited several journals, lectured on writing and edited Russian translations of works by Jack London, O Henry, H. G. Wells and others. Zamyatin supported the October Revolution but became critical of censorship under the Bolsheviks. His works were increasingly critical of the regime and increasingly suppressed as the 1920s wore on. Ultimately, his works were banned and he was not permitted to publish, particularly after the publication of We in a Russian emigre journal in 1927. He was eventually given permission to leave Russia by Stalin in 1931, after the intercession of Gorki and settled in Paris with his wife, where he died in poverty in 1937. External link Zamyatin, Yevgeny Zamyatin, Yevgeny Zamyatin, Yevgeny Zamyatin, Yevgeny
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