Maksimov, Vladimir Yemelyanovich

▪ 1996

      (LEV ALEKSEYEVICH SAMSONOV), Russian writer (b. Dec. 10, 1930, Moscow, U.S.S.R.—d. March 26, 1995, Paris, France), was a dissident novelist and poet, editor of the Communist literary journal Oktyabr (1967-68), and a senior member of the Soviet Writers' Union. Lev Samsonov lived on the streets as a boy after his parents were sent to the labour camps; he was often jailed as a juvenile delinquent. Most of his early poetry and plays, written from 1952 under the name Maksimov, were well received. In 1968 he resigned from the editorial staff at Oktyabr in protest over the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. Thereafter, his work became increasingly critical of the Soviet political system. Maksimov was eventually committed to psychiatric hospitals for his dissident activities. He was dismissed from the union in 1973, and the next year he was deprived of his citizenship while in Paris, where he settled and edited (1974-92) the influential émigré quarterly Kontinent. His novels Sem dney tvoreniya (1971; The Seven Days of Creation, 1975) and Karantin (1973; "Quarantine") were smuggled out of the country and published to acclaim in Germany. Later books include the novels Kovcheg dlya nezvanykh (1979; Ark for the Uncalled, 1984) and Zaglyanut v bezdnu (1986; "To Glance into the Abyss") and the two-volume autobiography Proshchaniye iz niotkuda (1974, 1982; Farewell from Nowhere, 1979). Maksimov's Soviet citizenship was restored in 1990, and the offices of Kontinent were moved to Moscow shortly thereafter.

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