Ashmarin, Vitold Frantsevich (real surname — Akhramovich; 1882 – March 2, 1930) was a poet and translator, film figure and film critic, and revolutionary activist. He was born in Saint Petersburg.[1] He came from a Polish noble Catholic family and is connected to Nizhny Novgorod through a period of political exile and work in the revolutionary underground.[1]

Biography and the Nizhny Novgorod period

In 1901 he enrolled in the History and Philology Faculty of Moscow University. In February 1902, for taking part in a student assembly, he was expelled from the university with no right to enroll in any institution of higher education and was exiled to Siberia — first toYelaginsk, then to Verkhneudinsk. In 1903 he was transferred Nizhny Novgorod Region under police surveillance, where he began working in the Nizhny Novgorod Socialist-Revolutionary organization and conducted revolutionary propaganda in Sormovo.[1]

In 1905 he was reinstated at Moscow University — first in the Law Faculty, then again in the History and Philology Faculty — but was permanently dismissed in 1910. Until 1917 he was engaged in journalism, book publishing, theatre, cinema, and translation: he translated novels by Stanisław Przybyszewski, was a member of a Symbolist circle (Alexander Blok's "Rhythmic Circle"), served in 1910 as secretary of the Musaget publishing house, and contributed to the newspaper Golos Moskvy. In the field of theatre he was a student of director Vsevolod Meyerhold.[1][1]

Activities after 1917

October Revolution he worked on the editorial staff of the newspaper Izvestiya VTsIK and the Minsk-based Zvyazda, and served as a literary associate of the Nedra publishing house. Having developed a passion for cinema, he joined director Vladimir Gardin in forming a "leftist group" known as the "Kinopyatyorka" (Film Five).[1]

From 1918 he entered government service: in Belorussia he held the posts of secretary of the revolutionary committee and worker of the Cheka. In 1920–1921 he also served as member of the Presidium and secretary of the Central Executive Committee of Belorussia, member of the control commission of the Communist Party of Belorussia, editor of the party organ Zvezda, and member of the Collegium of the Belorussian Cheka.[1] In early 1921 he was appointed head of BelROSTA, simultaneously serving as secretary of the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee of the BSSR. In 1921–1922 he served in Moscow with the OGPU; from 1926 he was a member of the staff of the Central Committee apparatus of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks).[1]

Documents and archival legacy

Materials related to Ashmarin (Akhramovich) are held in the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art (RGALI): six storage units in which he appears as author, and four in which he appears as a subject.[1]

Sources

  1. unicat.nlb.by — Ashmarin (Akhramovich) was born in Saint Petersburg.
  2. rgali.ru — RGALI — person
  3. ru.wikisource.org — Letters to Ye. L. Yantarev (Nikandrov) — Wikisource