Fedor Sologub was one of the most prolific authors of the Silver Age. He wrote significant novels, plays, short stories, poems, and theoretical articles. He also played a major role in the literary culture of the Silver Age as a member of the Symbolist movement and is recognized as one of the leading innovators of Russian modernism.

Sologub was born Fedor Kuz'mich Teternikov on 17 February 1863. In later years he rarely spoke of his own life; when pressed for biographical details, he invariably referred those making the request to his literary works. What is known about him comes from occasional references to himself and from memoirs about him published by others. Teternikov's father, Kuz'ma Afanas'evich Teternikov, was a former serf who had been trained as a tailor and operated his own business in St. Petersburg. In 1867 Kuz'ma Afanas'evich died of tuberculosis and Teternikov's mother, Tat'iana Semenovna Teternikova, also a...