Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Zinov'ev [Alexander Zinoviev] became a philosopher by education and academic career, but, after Stalin's death and the political events of the so-called Thaw, he started his career as a man of letters.
Zinov'ev was born in Pakhtina, a village not far from Chukhloma (Kostroma district), on 29th October 1922. He was the sixth of eleven children. When Zinov'ev entered school, he was already literate, and therefore started in the second grade. He could recall entire pages of textbooks, and very soon became a remarkable student. Reading and literature were his favourite school disciplines. He especially liked the works of Mikhail Lermontov, Victor Hugo, and Knut Hamsun; later his tastes included Aleksandr Griboedov, Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin, Nikolai Leskov and Anton
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Citation: Lanin, Boris. "Aleksandr Zinov'ev". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 22 February 2006 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=11696, accessed 22 November 2024.]