Vsevolod Garshin - A Short Story Collection: Russian realist author who sadly struggled with mental illness his short life

Vsevolod Mikhailovich Garshin was born on 14th February 1855 in what is now Dnipro in the Ukraine, but then part of the Russian Empire.

After attending secondary school he studied at the Saint Petersburg Mining Institute.

Wars between and on behalf of Empires were a regular feature of the decades then. Garshin volunteered to serve in the Russian army at the beginning of the Russo-Turkish War in 1877.

He began as a private in the Balkans campaign and was wounded in action. By the end of the war, in 1878, he had been promoted to officer rank.

By now Garshin, having previously published some articles and reviews in newspapers, wished to devote himself to a literary career. The decision made he resigned his army commission.

His time as a soldier provided rich experiences for his early stories. His first ‘Four Days’ was related as the interior monologue of a wounded soldier left for dead on the battlefield for four days, face to face with the corpse of a Turkish soldier he had killed, gained him early admiration as an author of note.

He wrote perhaps only 20 stories, but their influence was immense, although in these more modern times he is barely remembered and lives in the more prolific shadows of others. His characters are superbly worked into stories that come alive in the intensity and reality of his prose.

Garshin’s most well-known story is ‘The Red Flower’, also known as ‘Scarlet Blossom’ and is easily amongst the first rank of stories dealing with mental health issues.

Despite early literary success, he himself experienced periodical bouts of mental illness.

In one such bout Garshin attempted to commit suicide by throwing himself down the stone stairs leading into his apartment building. Although not immediately fatal, Vsevolod Garshin died as a result of his injuries in a St Petersburg hospital on 5th April 1888. He was 33.

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