Mikhail Artsybashev
Russian writer and playwright (1878–1927)

Mikhail Petrovich Artsybashev (Russian: Михаи́л Петро́вич Арцыба́шев; Polish: Michał Arcybaszew; Ukrainian: Михайло Петрович Арцибашев; 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 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.
Biography
Early life
Artsybashev was born in khutor Dubroslavivka, Okhtyrka county, Kharkov Governorate (currently Sumy Oblast, Ukraine). His father was a small landowner and a former officer. His mother, who was Polish, died of tuberculosis when he was only three years old. His other ethnic roots included French, Georgian and Tatar. He attended school in Okhtyrka until the age of 16. From 1895 to 1897 he was an office worker. He studied at the Kharkov School of Drawing and Art (1897–98).
“Mikhail Artsybashev” enters the record as russian writer and playwright (1878–1927). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Mikhail, Artsybashev and Russian can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q448143. VIAF identifies the subject as 69079908. The Library of Congress control number is n50001892. 5 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1878, 1927, 1923 and 1895.
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This entry incorporates text from “Mikhail Artsybashev” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.