Editing Venedikt Yerofeyev

{{Short description|Russian writer and Soviet dissident}}
{{Infobox writer
| name             = Venedikt Yerofeyev
| native_name      = Венедикт Ерофеев
| image            = Venedict Yerofeyev.jpg
| image_size       = 200px
| caption          = 
| pseudonym        = 
| birth_name       = Venedikt Vasilyevich Yerofeyev
| birth_date       = {{birth date|1938|10|24}}
| birth_place      = [[Niva-3]] [[Human settlement|settlement]], [[suburb]] of [[Kandalaksha]], [[Murmansk Oblast]], [[Russian SFSR]], [[Soviet Union]]
| death_date       = {{death date and age|1990|5|11|1938|10|24}}
| death_place      = [[Moscow]], [[Soviet Union]]
| occupation       = Writer
| nationality      = Soviet, Russian
| ethnicity        = 
| citizenship      = 
| period           = Contemporary
| genres           ={{hlist|Novel|prose poetry|satire|play|fictional diary|diary}}
| subject          = 
| movement         = {{ubl|[[Soviet nonconformist art|Soviet nonconformism]]|[[Surrealism]]|[[Russian postmodernism]]}}
| notableworks     = ''[[Moscow-Petushki]]''
| notableaward     = 
| spouse           = Valentina Vasilevna Zimakova, Galina Pavlovna Nosova
| partner          = 
| children         = Venedikt Venediktovich Yerofeyev
| relatives        = 
| influences       = 
| influenced       = 
| awards           = 
| signature        = 
| website          = 
| portaldisp       = 
}}

'''Venedikt Vasilyevich Yerofeyev''', also '''Benedict Erofeev''' or '''Erofeyev''' ({{langx|ru|Венеди́кт Васи́льевич Ерофе́ев}}; 24 October 1938 in [[Niva-3]] [[Human settlement|settlement]], [[suburb]] of [[Kandalaksha]] – 11 May 1990 in [[Moscow]]) was a Russian writer and [[Soviet dissident]].<ref>{{cite journal|title=Писатели-диссиденты: биобиблиографические статьи (начало)|journal=Новое литературное обозрение [New Literary Review]|date=2004|issue=66|url=http://magazines.russ.ru/nlo/2004/66/pisat29.html|trans-title=Dissident writers: bibliographic articles (beginning)|language=Russian}}</ref>

==Biography==
Yerofeyev was born in the [[maternity hospital]] of [[Niva-3]] by [[Kandalaksha]], [[Murmansk Oblast]], a settlement of "[[special settler]]s" employed in the construction of a [[hydroelectric power]] station {{Interlanguage link multi|Niva GES-3|ru|3=Нива ГЭС-3}} on the [[Niva River]]. (Now Niva-3 is a [[microdistrict]] of Kandalaksha.) The record made in his [[birth certificate]] declares his birthplace to be his parents' place of residence: [[Chupa (station), Loukhsky District, Republic of Karelia|Chupa]] railway station, [[Loukhsky District]], [[Karelian ASSR]].<ref>[http://arctic.org.ru/2005a/pdf_05/ero38_56.pdf "Khibiny-Moscow-Petushki. Vevedikt Terofeyev (1938-1990)"], a special issue of ''Live Arctics'' ("Живая Арктика") No.1, 2005</ref>

His father was imprisoned during [[Great Purge]] but survived 6 years in the [[gulags]]. Most of Yerofeyev's childhood was spent in [[Kirovsk, Murmansk Oblast]]. He managed to enter the philology department of the [[Moscow State University]] but was [[Expulsion (academia)|expelled]] from the university after a year and a half because he did not attend compulsory military training. Later he studied in several more [[institute]]s in different towns, including [[Kolomna]] and [[Vladimir, Russia|Vladimir]], but he never managed to graduate from any, usually being expelled due to his "amoral behaviour".

Between 1958 and 1975, Yerofeyev lived without [[propiska in the Soviet Union|''propiska'']] in various towns in Russia, [[Ukraine]], [[Belarus]], and [[Lithuania]], also spending some time in [[Uzbekistan]] and [[Tajikistan]], doing different low-level and underpaid jobs; for a time he lived and worked in the [[Muromtsev Dacha]] in Moscow. He started writing at the age of 17; in the 1960s he unsuccessfully submitted several articles on [[Ibsen]] and [[Hamsun]] to literary magazines.

==Literary legacy==
Yerofeyev is best known for his 1969 "[[poem in prose]]" (ironical assignment of the genre) ''[[Moscow-Petushki]]'' (several English translations exist, including ''Moscow to the End of the Line'', ''Moscow Circles'', and ''Moscow Stations''). It is an  account of a journey from [[Moscow]] to [[Petushki, Vladimir Oblast|Petushki]] ([[Vladimir Oblast]]) by [[electric locomotive|electric train]], one of many futile attempts to visit his small son: each time such a journey becomes soaked in alcohol and fails. During the trip, the hero becomes involved in philosophical discussions about drinking,  recounts some of the fantastic escapades he participated in, including declaring war on [[Norway]], charting the drinking statistics of his colleagues when leader of a cable-laying crew, and obsessing about the woman he [[Romantic love|loves]].

Referred to by [[David Remnick]] as "the comic high-water mark of the Brezhnev era",<ref>{{cite web | date=2008-12-02 | publisher=[[Village Voice]] |title= Susan Orlean, David Remnick, Ethan Hawke, and Others Pick Their Favorite Obscure Books | url =http://www.villagevoice.com/2008-12-03/books/susan-orlean-david-remnick-ethan-hawke-and-others-pick-their-favorite-obscure-books/}}</ref> the poem was published for the first time in 1973 in a Russian-language magazine in [[Jerusalem]]. It was not published in the [[Soviet Union]] until 1989.

Of note is his smaller 1988 work ''My Little Leniniana'' (Моя маленькая лениниана, Moya malenkaya Leniniana), which is a collection of quotations from [[Vladimir Ilyich Lenin|Lenin]]'s works and letters, which shows the unpleasant parts of the character of the "leader of the proletariat". Alexander Bondarev tells the story of its origin.<ref>Alexander Bondarev,[http://booknik.ru/context/all/i-nemedlenno-vypil0/ "И немедленно выпил"], ''[[Booknik]]'', 24 октября 2013</ref>

Yerofeyev also claimed to have written in 1972 a novel ''Shostakovich'' about the famous Russian composer [[Dmitri Shostakovich]], but the manuscript was allegedly stolen in a train. The novel has never been found. Before his death of throat [[cancer]] Yerofeyev finished a play called ''[[Walpurgisnacht]], or the [[The Stone Guest (play)|Steps of the Commander]]'' ("Вальпургиева ночь или Шаги командора") and was working on another play about [[Fanny Kaplan]].

== Personal life and death ==
Venedikt Yerofeyev was married twice. Firstly, to Valentina Vasilevna Zimakova and then Galina Pavlovna Nosova.

In 1966 Yerofeyev's wife, Valentina Zimakova gave birth to a son - Venedikt Venediktovich Yerofeyev.<ref name="arctic">{{Cite web|title = ЖИВАЯ АРКТИКА №1 2005г.|url = http://arctic.org.ru/2005a.htm|website = arctic.org.ru|access-date = 2016-01-12|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160304231611/http://arctic.org.ru/2005a.htm|archive-date = 2016-03-04|url-status = dead}}</ref> Galina Nosova died three years after Yerofeyev - having thrown herself off the balcony of her 13th floor apartment in Moscow.<ref name="arctic"/>

In 1985 Yerofeyev was diagnosed with [[Head and neck cancer|throat cancer]]. Doctors operated on him, after which he could only speak using an [[Electrolarynx]]. A film was made about Moskva-Petushki in the last years of Yerofeyev's life and he can be seen speaking with the help of this apparatus.<ref name=Pawlikowski>{{Vimeo |id=307971930 |title= Pawel Pawlikowski: From Moscow to Pietushki - 1990}} (eg. at 7:00)</ref> In his last years he divided his time between Moscow and [[Abramtsevo, Sergiyevo-Posadsky District, Moscow Oblast|Abramtsevo]] in [[Moscow Oblast]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://dzen.ru/a/YQV8v-yKVAJqBxim|title=Места Венедикта Ерофеева в Подмосковье: Абрамцево|lang=ru|accessdate=2024-08-20|publisher=dzen.ru}}</ref><ref name= "Pawlikowski" />

Yerofeyev died five years after he was first diagnosed with the disease, on 11 May 1990, at the Russian Oncological Centre in Moscow.<ref>{{Cite web|url =http://arctic.org.ru/2005a.htm|title =Хибины — Москва — Петушки|archive-url =https://web.archive.org/web/20160304231611/http://arctic.org.ru/2005a.htm|archive-date =2016-03-04|url-status =dead}}</ref> He is buried in  Kuntsevsky cemetery.<ref>{{Cite web|title = Ерофеев Венедикт {{!}} Театр на Юго-Западе|url = http://teatr-uz.ru/erofeev-venedikt|website = teatr-uz.ru|access-date = 2016-01-12}}</ref>

== References ==
{{reflist|30em}}

== External links ==
* [http://www.moskva-petushki.ru/ Москва—Петушки], Russian website dedicated to the work of Venedikt Yerofeyev
* [http://www.pawelpawlikowski.co.uk/page9/ Documentary on Venedikt Yerofeyev by Pawel Pawlikowski]
* [http://www.theatre-library.ru/files/ye/yerofeev_venedikt/yerofeev_venedikt_1.html Walpurgis Night, or "The Steps of the Commander"]
{{Soviet dissidents}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Yerofeyev, Venedikt}}
[[Category:1938 births]]
[[Category:1990 deaths]]
[[Category:People from Murmansk Oblast]]
[[Category:Soviet novelists]]
[[Category:Soviet male writers]]
[[Category:20th-century Russian male writers]]
[[Category:Russian male novelists]]
[[Category:Postmodern writers]]
[[Category:Russian surrealist writers]]
[[Category:20th-century Russian writers]]
[[Category:Soviet dissidents]]
[[Category:Deaths from oral cancer]]
[[Category:Deaths from cancer in the Soviet Union]]
[[Category:Burials at Kuntsevo Cemetery]]