15 Facts About Eduard Limonov

Eduard Limonov emigrated from the Soviet Union in 1974, but returned to Russia in 1991, where he founded the National Bolshevik Party.

Eduard Limonov's father was born in the Voronezh Oblast while his mother was born in the Gorky Oblast.

Eduard Limonov moved to Moscow again in 1967, marrying a fellow poet, Yelena Shchapova, in a Russian Orthodox ceremony in 1973.

The exact circumstances of Eduard Limonov's departure are unclear and have been described differently.

Finally, disillusioned with the country he termed "a damned outhouse bereft of spirit or purpose on the outskirts of civilization", Eduard Limonov left America for Paris with his lover Natalya Medvedeva in 1980, where he became active in French literary circles.

In 1991, Eduard Limonov returned to Russia from France, restored his citizenship, and became active in politics.

Eduard Limonov was initially an ally of Vladimir Zhirinovsky and was named as Security Minister in a shadow cabinet formed by Zhirinovsky in 1992.

Eduard Limonov was jailed in April 2001 on charges of terrorism, the forced overthrow of the constitutional order, and the illegal purchase of weapons.

In particular, on 3 March 2007, Eduard Limonov was detained by police in the very beginning of the rally the first Saint Petersburg Dissenters' March; on 14 April 2007, Eduard Limonov was arrested again after an anti-government rally in Moscow; on 31 January 2009 was detained again in Moscow.

Since 2014, Eduard Limonov supported the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation and the at the time unrecognized Donetsk People's Republic and Lugansk People's Republic, and encouraged Russians to take part in the Russo-Ukrainian War on a Russian side.

Eduard Limonov died on 17 March 2020, aged 77, in Moscow.

Eduard Limonov's novels are memoirs, describing his experiences as a youth in Russia and as emigre in the United States.

Eduard Limonov's works were scandalous for the Russian public, once they began to be published in the USSR during the late perestroika era.

In late 1990s and early 2000s, Eduard Limonov was a regular contributor to "Living Here" and later to the eXile, both English-language newspapers in Moscow.

Eduard Limonov's life is related in detail by Emmanuel Carrere in his 2011 biographical novel Limonov and in the Adam Curtis documentary series Can't Get You Out of My Head.