10 Facts About Alexander Belyaev

Alexander Belyaev was born in Smolensk in the family of an Orthodox priest.

However, at the same time, at the age of 30, Alexander Belyaev became ill with tuberculosis.

Alexander Belyaev suffered constant pain and was paralysed for six years.

Alexander Belyaev's wife left him, not wanting to care for the paralyzed.

Alexander Belyaev served a brief stint as a police inspector, tried other odd jobs such as a librarian, but life remained difficult, and in 1923 he moved to Moscow where he started to practice law again, as a consultant for various Soviet organizations.

Alexander Belyaev died of starvation in the Soviet town of Pushkin in 1942 while it was occupied by the Nazis.

All of this contributed to confusion about whether or not Alexander Belyaev's works are protected by copyright, and for how long.

On further appeal, a federal arbitration court found that Alexander Belyaev's works entered the public domain on 1 January 1993, and could not enjoy copyright protection at all.

In 2010, a Krasnodar cassation panel agreed that Alexander Belyaev's works are in the public domain.

Finally, in 2011 the High Court of Arbitration of Russia found that Alexander Belyaev's works are protected by copyright until 1 January 2017 due to his activity during the Great Patriotic War, and remanded the case to lower courts for retrial.