| Birth Name: | Mordkhai-Markus Israelevich Landau |
| Birth Place: | Kiev, Russian Empire |
| Death Date: | February 25, 1957 |
| Death Place: | Nice, France |
| Nationality: | Russian |
| Genre: | Biography, fiction, criticism, essays |
Mark Aldanov (ru|Марк Алда́нов; Mordkhai-Markus Israelevich Landau, Mark Alexandrovich Landau, ru|Мордхай-Маркус Израилевич Ландау, Марк Алекса́ндрович Ланда́у; – February 25, 1957) was a Russian and later French writer and critic,[1] known for his historical novels.
Aldanov's first book about Vladimir Lenin, translated into several languages, immediately gained him popularity. Then followed a trilogy of novels attempting to trace the roots of the Russian Revolution. He also wrote a tetralogy of novels about Napoleonic wars. All in all, he published 16 larger literary works and a great number of articles and essays. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature thirteen times.[2]
Mordkhai-Markus Landau (Aldanov) was born in Kiev in the family of a rich Jewish industrialist. He graduated the physical-mathematical and law departments of Kiev University. He published serious research papers in chemistry. In 1919 he emigrated to France. During 1922-1924 he lived in Berlin and during 1941-1946, in the United States.[1]
Ivan Bunin, the first Russian writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, nominated Aldanov for the Nobel Prize a total of six times - in 1938, 1939, 1947, 1948, 1949, and 1950.[3]
Mark Aldanov died in Nice, France.[1] His extensive correspondence with Vladimir Nabokov, Ivan Bunin, Alexander Kerensky and other emigre celebrities was published posthumously.
In 1942, while in New York, Aldanov cofounded Novy Zhurnal (The New Review; Russian: Новый журнал) together with his colleague and friend Mikhail Tsetlin.[4] Until November 1945 they both served as Editors-in-Chief of this publication, which is considered the oldest Russian language literary periodical in print published outside of Russia.[5] Among the review's contributors were Vladimir Nabokov, Ivan Bunin, Joseph Brodsky, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and other notable Russian emigre writers.[6]
Since 2007 Novy Zhurnal has been awarding The Aldanov Literary Prize conferred for the best novella or novellete authored by a Russian-language writer living outside or Russia.[5]