Leonid Andreyev

Leonid Nikolaevich Andreyev (Orel, 1871 - Kuokkala, 1919) was, as a narrator and playwright, one of the most prominent Russian writers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Trained in Law (1897) in Moscow, he moved into the literary field just as Gorky's success was emerging and, despite their personal friendship, became Gorky's most qualified rival, remaining for some time in a strange balance between the two predominant currents: realism, of which Gorky was the greatest exponent, and the more complex and confusing symbolism.