Pyotr Gnedich

Who is Pyotr Gnedich?

Pyotr Petrovich Gnedich, also known as Gnedich-Smolensky, was a Russian writer, poet, dramatist, translator, theater entrepreneur and art history scholar.

He was a grandnephew of Russian poet and translator Nikolay Gnedich. Gnedich wrote more than 40 plays and several novels. Anton Chekhov praised Gnedich's talent; in fact, the two authors have often been linked together by contemporary critics who also noted Gnedich's erudition and artfulness as a stylist. Pyotr Gnedich's best known non-fiction works were the History of Art from Ancient Times, arguably the first popular Russian treatise of this kind, and his memoirs Book of Life.