Murder from Hatred

Mikhail Andreevich Osorgin (he published under the pseudonym Osorin) was an outstanding Russian writer, whose work modern readers, unfortunately, know almost nothing about. In the USSR, his books were published for a long time, as were the works of other émigrés. He was a hereditary nobleman, a freethinker, a Socialist-Revolutionary, and a Freemason. In his youth, he advocated the overthrow of the Tsar. He was arrested by the gendarmes in 1905, served time in prison, and then moved to Italy. He longed for his homeland, and in 1918—after the revolution—he returned to Russia, but found no common language with the Bolsheviks. In 1922, he was expelled from the country on the “Philosophical Steamer,” along with other opposition figures and anti-Soviet activists. But within those four years, the writer managed to write several vivid books and even, at the request of Yevgeny Vakhtangov, translated from Italian the play “Princess Turandot,” which became the basis for the legendary production. In exile, Mikhail Osorgin lived and worked in Paris, publishing in émigré journals and in the newspaper “Latest News.” There, in different years, stories were published that we offer to your attention.