Nikolay Elpidiforovich Karonin-Petropavlovsky , October 17, 1853 – May 24, 1892, was a Russian writer. His real name was Nikolay Petropavlovsky; his pen name was S. Karonin. A number of later Russian sources refer to him as Nikolay Karonin-Petropavlovsky.

Biography

Nikolay Petropavlovsky was born in Samara

Samara, Russia

Samara , is the sixth largest city in Russia. It is situated in the southeastern part of European Russia at the confluence of the Volga and Samara Rivers. Samara is the administrative center of Samara Oblast. Population: . The metropolitan area of Samara-Tolyatti-Syzran within Samara Oblast...

 province, where his father was a village priest. His father provided him with his primary education. He then studied at a seminary

Seminary

A seminary, theological college, or divinity school is an institution of secondary or post-secondary education for educating students in theology, generally to prepare them for ordination as clergy or for other ministry...

, and a grammar school, from which he was expelled for populist

Populism

Populism can be defined as an ideology, political philosophy, or type of discourse. Generally, a common theme compares "the people" against "the elite", and urges social and political system changes. It can also be defined as a rhetorical style employed by members of various political or social...

 activities. After his first arrest in 1874, he spent three and a half years in confinement, which had a negative effect on his health. He was arrested again subsequently, and exiled to Siberia

Siberia

Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...

. He published his first story The Mute (1879) in Otechestvennye Zapiski

Otechestvennye Zapiski

Otechestvennye Zapiski was a Russian literary magazine published in St Petersburg on a monthly basis between 1818 and 1884. The journal served liberal-minded readers, known as the intelligentsia...

 (Annals of the Fatherland). His works deal largely with the issues of the Russian peasants, and with lower-class intellectuals, whose purpose he felt it was to devote themselves to the people.

In an article on Karonin-Petropavlovsky, Maxim Gorky

Maxim Gorky

Alexei Maximovich Peshkov , primarily known as Maxim Gorky , was a Russian and Soviet author, a founder of the Socialist Realism literary method and a political activist.-Early years:...

 wrote: "That man was amazingly pure... I don't think he noticed how he lived, since he was completely preoccupied with his search for truth and justice."

English translations

• Perpetuum Mobile (Perpetual motion
  Perpetual motion
  Perpetual motion describes hypothetical machines that operate or produce useful work indefinitely and, more generally, hypothetical machines that produce more work or energy than they consume, whether they might operate indefinitely or not....
  
  ), and First Storm, (Short Stories), from The Salt Pit, Raduga Publishers, 1988.

Sources