Educated at the University of St. Petersburg and the Petroskaya Academy, Korolenko studied forestry. Becoming involved in student politics in 1876, he was arrested for subversion and incarcerated for a time before being exiled to Siberia. On the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881, Korolenko steadfastly held to his beliefs and refused to swear allegiance to the new Tsar, Alexander III. He was finally released in 1885, but was still forbidden to reside in the major capitals. He settled in Nizhni Novgorod and it was here that his literary career began. Korolenko was an excellent short story writer and the publication of Makar's Dream brought him fame. In 1886, he published The Blind Musician, a short novel that became his best-known work. He produced numerous short stories and poetical essays over the following years. In 1893, he travelled to America and wrote Without a Tongue, based on his experiences of that trip. In 1896, he returned to St. Petersburg and became the editor of the journal, Russkoye Bogatstvo. In 1900, he moved to Poltava in the Ukraine where he spent the rest of his life. Korolenko was an outspoken anti-Tsarist, but during the revolution of 1917, he proved to be just as anti-Bolshevik. Among his other works are In Bad Company (1886), The Year of the Famine (1892), and The History of My Contemporary (1922 Posthumous), an autobiography that remained unfinished at his death.
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