The book collection of the Penza Literature Museum includes a lifetime edition of Aleksey Remizov’s novella “Sisters of the Cross, ” dedicated to his wife, Serafima Pavlovna Remizova-Dovgello.
Aleksey Mikhailovich Remizov was born into a merchant family in Moscow. His mother was from the famous Naydyonov family of merchants, and his father was a second-guild merchant. His older brother was an attorney at law, and his second cousin, Maria Vasilyevna Remizova, was the mother of the famous Russian botanist, Konstantin Pangalo. Aleksey Remizov took great pride in his family and its history.
Since childhood, Aleksey Remizov was great at making up stories and fantasies. At the age of seven, he wrote down a story about a village fire told to him by his nanny — this was his first realist short story. Later, he developed this technique of writing short stories based on someone else’s account. Aleksey Remizov studied at the School of Physics and Mathematics at Moscow University. During that period, he was arrested for obstructing the police during a rally and was exiled to northern Russia for six years. Soon after, Aleksey Remizov ended up in Penza where he met Vsevolod Meyerhold. The famous director and the young writer became best friends for life. “A. Remizov, exiled to Penza on political grounds, was particularly kind to me. He introduced me to the work of Marx and, therefore, of workers’ organizations. I have taken part in creating the charter for a workers’ mutual benefit fund and attended a private meeting in the outskirts of the city with this purpose,” Vsevolod Meyerhold later recalled.
