Name Orest Somov | Role Writer | |
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Died 1833, Saint Petersburg, Russia Education V. N. Karazin Kharkov National University Books Orest Somov: Selected Prose in Russian | ||
Orest Mykhailovych Somov (Ukrainian: Орест Сомов, Russian: О́рест Миха́йлович Со́мов) (21 December [O.S. 10 December] 1793 – 8 June [O.S. 27 May] 1833) was a Ukrainian romantic writer who wrote in the Russian language.
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He studied at Kharkiv University, where he became an admirer of Romantic literature and Gothic fiction.
In 1817 he moved to Saint Petersburg where he continued his literary career. In addition to being a writer and translator, he established himself as a critic, editor and publisher, thus becoming one of the first professional men of letters in the Russian Empire. Somov was drawn to the folklore of his native Ukraine and much of his writing refers to Ukrainian history and folklore.
Somov was a popular writer during his lifetime. His works on Ukrainian themes made a big impact on the literary canon of the 1820s. His literary works were widely read and his critical opinion was highly regarded. However, after Somov's death, his name and woks were consigned to oblivion. Only in 1989 Yuriy Vynnychuk put Somov back on the Ukrainian literary radar collection of Somov’s folktales.
He is distantly related to the American actor René Auberjonois; Auberjonois' maternal grandfather's mother was a Russian noblewoman, Eudoxia Michailovna Somova (1850–1924), a collateral cousin of Somov's.