A. I. Kuprin

Aleksandr Ivanovich Kuprin (Russian: Александр Иванович Куприн; 7 September [O.S. 26 August] 1870 – 25 August 1938) was a Russian writer best known for his novels The Duel (1905) and Yama: The Pit (1915), as well as Moloch (1896), Olesya (1898), "Captain Ribnikov" (1906), "Emerald" (1907), and The Garnet Bracelet (1911) – the latter made into a 1965 movie.

Early life

Aleksandr Kuprin was born 1870 in Narovchat, Penza, to Ivan Ivanovich Kuprin, a government official in Penza Governorate. and Liubov Alekseyevna Kuprina, née Kulunchakova. His father was Russian, his mother belonged to a noble Volga Tatar family who had lost most of their wealth during the 19th century. Aleksandr had two older sisters, Sofia (1861–1922) and Zinaida (1863–1934).

In 1871 his father, aged 37, died of cholera. Three years later Aleksandr's mother moved, with young Aleksandr, into the Widows' Home in Kudrino, Moscow, a period reflected in his tale "A White Lie" (1914). In 1876 he entered the Razumovsky boarding school, the source of what he later referred to as 'childhood grievances', but also an environment which nourished his riotous nature and in which he found himself popular among peers as storyteller.

Cadet Corps: 1883–1887

In 1880, inspired by Russia's victory in the Russo-Turkish War, Kuprin was enrolled into the Second Moscow Military High School, and turned over to the Cadet Corps in 1882. Several of Kuprin's autobiographical stories, like "At the Turning Point" (1900), "The River of Life" (1906) and "Lenochka" (1910), refer to this period. "The memory of the birching at the Cadet Corps stayed with me for the rest of my life," he wrote not long before his death. Yet it was there that he develop an interest in literature and started to write poetry.