Michail Prischwin

Michail Prishvin (1873–1954) was a Russian writer. Born to a merchant family near Yelets, he studied chemistry and agronomy at the Polytechnic Institute in Riga. In 1897 he was arrested for distributing revolutionary writings and was later placed under house arrest. After a brief period as an agronomist, he worked as a journalist and, during the Civil War, as a village teacher, librarian, and museum curator. He kept a diary from 1905 onward and began publishing literary works during this period. He became known chiefly for the autobiographical novel The Chain of Kashchey and the story Ginseng. His politically philosophical work The Earthly Chalice was not published in full until decades later because of censorship.