Poor Orick! A story of a misprint

Abstract

The author conducts a case study with the aim of discovering what tends to cut short the careers of promising young writers of every epoch. The paper offers a study and partial reconstruction of the life of the now obscure writer Boris P. Markov, whose works were published in the early 20th c. and whose pen-name B. Orik appears in reference books on literature, albeit misspelt due to a misprint — therefore, a ‘pseudo-pseudonym.’ Markov’s later life, already unconnected to literature, is known to the researcher, who happens to be his great-granddaughter. In order to glean information about his earlier life, S. Liutova pored over archives in Moscow, Saratov, Tambov, Veliky Novgorod,as well as Łowicz and Łodź in Poland, piecing together a comprehensive view of life in Russia at the dawn of the 20th c. The author discovers that a writer’s silence can be a form of unconscious protest. The article’s most intriguing suggestion is that the memories of Markov’s literary circle (the paper infers his connection with Acmeists) and the social context of his early journalism were intentionally suppressed by the family.