Talk:Serapion Brothers

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Question to Ghirlandajo. When you are updated a stub Serapion Brothers you are arbitrary changed Mikhail Slonimski to Veniamin Kaverin. Is any reference that support the fact that Veniamin Kaverin was really a member of this group and Mikhail Slonimski was not? Best regards. Vald 14:52, 9 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

When in doubt, check the Great Soviet Encyclopedia at slovari.yandex.ru. I don't know whether Slonmski was really a member, the GSE is silent on this point, but I'm sure that Kaverin is a more famous writer who has a decent article in this project to boot. If you think that Slonimski is worthy to be mentioned as well, I don't mind. --Ghirlandajo 14:57, 9 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Nikolay Semenovich Tikhonov is a writer, but Nikolai Tikhonov was a prime minister. Vald 00:17, 10 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Most of them turned career members of the Union of Soviet Writers

Their membership in the "Serapions" was simply a student fraternity, an unofficial student brotherhood documented only by their group photos of that time (something like a school photo). While in Petrograd they lived in the Governor's palace and studied at the seminars of Zamyatin, Chukovsky and Tynyanov, so lucky they were to have the "creme de la creme" of Russian literature as their teachers. Zoshchenko was a bit more mature and definitely more witty and risky than the rest of them. Zamyatin tried to stimulate them intellectually, albeit he eventually stopped waisting his time.

Tynyanov and Chukovsky were a bit more lenient with them, however, when Tynyanov died in Moscow, Chukovsky was the only teacher left, who guided the rest through the 1940s and 50s to the top positions in the Union of Soviet Writers. There, in the Moscow's official milieu, the remaining "brothers" were often rotating each other, like players in a long game, but at least one of them was always keeping the top position in the Union of Soviet Writers.

That's the name of the game ("milk the system" and get rich, regardless of what the system is doing to others), which the more talented writers, such as Zamyatin and Zoshchenko, never wanted to play. Whose works are known all over the world today? That is the question/answer. Steveshelokhonov 21:57, 26 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]