The revolutionist

Mikhail Petrovich Artsybashev (November 5, 1878 – March 3, 1927) was a Russian writer and playwright, and a major proponent of the literary style known as naturalism. He was the great grandson of Tadeusz Kościuszko and the father of Boris Artzybasheff, who emigrated to the United States and became famous as an illustrator. Following the Russian Revolution, in 1923 Artsybashev emigrated to Poland where he died in 1927.

Artsybashev said the following in regard to his development as a writer:
"My development was very strongly influenced by Leo Tolstoy, although I never shared his views on non-resistance to evil. As an artist he overpowered me, and I found it difficult not to model my work on his. Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and to a certain extent Anton Chekhov, played almost as great a part, and Victor Hugo and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe were constantly before my eyes. These five names are those of my teachers and literary masters."