Yuri Karlovich Olesha (March 3, 1899 - May 10, 1961) was born in Elisavetgrad, Ukraine to a family of Russian officials. In 1902, he and his family relocated to Odessa, Ukraine, where he attended the University of Novorossiya from 1916 to 1918. Over the course of Olesha’s career as an author, he published various poems, satirical prose, plays, short stories, children's works, and novels. The bulk of his most notable work was produced in the period from 1922 to the mid 1930s. During the Second World War, Olesha spent time working in radio in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan and translating local books to Russian. Throughout his life, Olesha valued freedom of expression and was at first praised for his social commentary through his literary contributions, but later in his life faced issues with government censorship and consequently slowed down on publishing his work.
 
In looking at Olesha’s art, which was (for the most part) crafted from the lens of, at the time, a newly emerging Soviet Russia, one can understand much not only about Russia, but also about the role that an artist such as Olesha had, especially in reference to the ever-changing political state. To begin, Olesha, along with several other authors, formed a new artistic movement known as the Green Lamp (Зелёная лампа) literary group. This new literary group focused on commentary on Socialist ideologies of the recently birthed Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, otherwise known as the USSR. After finding his footing in the literary scene of Russia (primarily within Odessa), Olesha moved to Moscow in 1922, where he began working for The Whistle, a well-known railway worker’s periodical. Here, under the pseudonym “The Chisel” (Зубило in Russian), he published satirical poetry directly targeting the new life and culture in Soviet Russia. It is after this phase of Olesha’s life whereupon he writes the work that he is best known for, Envy (published in 1927). This novel depicts the strange and satirical relationship between a sausage maker (Andrei Babichev) and a pathetic young man (Nikolai Kavalerov), more precisely the relationship between the socialism associated with Soviet Russia and the individualism of pre-Soviet Russia, respectively assigned to both Babichev and Kavalerov.
 
After these works, Olesha still released important works, such as Three Fat Men (written 1924, published 1928) and "The Cherry Pit" (1929), once again touching on the basis of the new cultural approach to life that the USSR presented to its people. Olesha was very well-known for his cunningly satirical writing, which is what made him popular at the time. However, as time passed and Olesha’s work became more read throughout the world, he was eventually even more well-respected by literary critics and scholars alike for his approach to writing literature from a central thematic point of view. Practically speaking, all of Olesha’s work is structured around one predominant topic, the idea of old versus new ideas of culture specifically in relation to Soviet and non-Soviet culture. Growing up in a world heavily structured around individualism and classical beliefs, Olesha was faced with rapidly changing cultural ideals as a result of the formation of the USSR. In order to cope with this shift, he wrote numerous texts from a satirical standpoint of an inability to fit into the new Soviet society. 

Another way of looking at this style of writing, particularly looking at that of Envy, is that Olesha wrote in order to demonstrate the imperfect nature of humanity, and that neither the new means of living in the USSR nor the old means of living in classic Russia were perfect, just as neither Babichev nor Kavalerov are attractive figures within the novel. Within the context of Envy, there is also no shortage of symbols employed by Olesha. The most striking of which are his repeated allusions to flowers (such as lilies, roses), Kavalerov’s comparisons of Babichev’s body to different animals (female antelopes, elephants) and the reference to an inanimate object, Babichev’s machine, by a female name Ophelia. The effect of this was a greater dialogue between the future of the USSR at the time, between man and machine.
 
It was here, after releasing several pieces of literature commenting on current USSR ideals, that Olesha’s work began drawing negative attention. Russian readers that originally enjoyed Envy and other pieces by Olesha were merely disillusioned by the ideas put forth by the author; as time passed, the Soviet public began to push back against Olesha and his writing. Witnessing the single largest change of Russian society and culture, Olesha was fascinated by the psychological aspect of the contrast between old Russian mentalities and new USSR-based ideals, which formed the primary basis for his work. Many Soviet officials began to take offense to his works, even going as far as to openly criticize the writer and encourage others to not read Olesha in the first place. Due to such intense criticism (one could even call this politically rooted criticism censorship), Olesha stopped publishing his work; however, he did continue to write memoirs and stage adaptations of his earlier works. After his death on May 10, 1960, Olesha’s work began popping up throughout global literary groups.

Yury Olesha lived a life that can only be described as chaotic and full of conflict. He was an influential man within the broader Russian literary picture, which is exemplified even more by the time in which he was actively writing, particularly at a pivotal time for Russia.

Bibliography

Kisel, Maria. “Literacy and Literary Mastery in Early Soviet Russia: The Case of Yuri Olesha's 
‘Envy.’” Ulbandus Review, vol. 11, 2008, pp. 23–45. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/25748181. Accessed 22 Sept. 2020. 

Magill, Frank Northen. "Yury Olesha - Biography" Great Authors of World Literature, Critical Edition, eNotes.com, Inc., http://www.enotes.com/topics/yury-olesha#biography-biography-1.1997. Accessed 5 Oct, 2020.

"Yury Karlovich Olesha." Encyclopaedia Britannica, 6 May 2020, 
www.britannica.com/biography/Yury-Karlovich-Olesha. Accessed 21 Sept. 2020.

“Yury Olesha.” Yury Olesha - New World Encyclopedia, 
www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Yury_Olesha.