11 Facts About Nikolay Oleynikov

Nikolay Makarovich Oleynikov was a Russian editor, avant-garde poet and playwright who was arrested and executed by the Soviets for subversive writing.

Nikolay Oleynikov was born in the village of Kamenskaya into a prosperous Cossack family.

Nikolay Oleynikov graduated from Donetsk College and in 1916 entered the Kamensky Teachers' College.

Nikolay Oleynikov worked on the editorial board of the Red Cossack newspaper, and later moved to Bakhmut where he became the executive secretary of the newspaper Russian Steamshop.

In 1925 Oleynikov received an appointment from the Central Committee of the USSR to the Pravda newspaper in Leningrad, where he worked as an editor on the magazine New Robinson, created by Samuel Marshak.

Nikolay Oleynikov wrote for the children's magazine Yozh in 1928.

Early in 1937, Nikolay Oleynikov became editor of Cricket, another children's magazine.

On 3 July 1937, Nikolay Oleynikov was arrested as a counter-revolutionary and the editors of the Gosizdat were investigated.

Nikolay Oleynikov's widow received a death certificate from the registry office that listed his death as 5 May 1942 of fever.

Regardless of the light and humorous nature of his work, Nikolay Oleynikov is considered one of the "darkest" and "most philosophically uncompromising" of the Russian avant-garde poets.

Nikolay Oleynikov was "rehabilitated" by the Soviets in 1957, and after 1964, more of Oleynikov's poems were published in the USSR as part of articles that professed to ridicule his work.