Daniil Leonidovich Andreyev (November 2, 1906, Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

 – March 30, 1959, Moscow

Moscow

Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

) was a Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

n writer

Writer

A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....

, poet

Poet

A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...

, and Christian

Christian

A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...

 mystic

Mysticism

Mysticism is the knowledge of, and especially the personal experience of, states of consciousness, i.e. levels of being, beyond normal human perception, including experience and even communion with a supreme being.-Classical origins:...

.

Biography

Daniil Andreyev was the son of Leonid Andreyev

Leonid Andreyev

Leonid Nikolaievich Andreyev was a Russian playwright, novelist and short-story writer. He is one of the most talented and prolific representatives of the Silver Age period in Russian history...

, a prominent Russian writer of the start of the century; Maxim Gorky

Maxim Gorky

Alexei Maximovich Peshkov , primarily known as Maxim Gorky , was a Russian and Soviet author, a founder of the Socialist Realism literary method and a political activist.-Early years:...

 was his godfather. After the infant's mother, Alexandra (Veligorsky) Andreeva, died during childbirth, Leonid Andreev gave the infant Daniil to his late wife's sister, Elizabeth Dobrov, to raise. This act had two important consequences: it meant that when Leonid Andreev, like many other writers and intellectuals, left Russia after the 1917 Russian Revolution

Russian Revolution of 1917

The Russian Revolution is the collective term for a series of revolutions in Russia in 1917, which destroyed the Tsarist autocracy and led to the creation of the Soviet Union. The Tsar was deposed and replaced by a provisional government in the first revolution of February 1917...

, his young son remained behind; it also meant that Daniil was raised in a household that remained deeply religious.

Like many of his contemporaries, the boy Daniil had a pronounced literary bent; he began writing poetry and prose in early childhood. He graduated from high school but was not allowed to attend university, because of his "non-proletarian" background. He supported himself as a graphic artist and wrote in his spare time.

Daniil Andreev was conscripted into the Red Army in 1942. He served as a noncombatant, and during the Siege of Leningrad

Siege of Leningrad

The Siege of Leningrad, also known as the Leningrad Blockade was a prolonged military operation resulting from the failure of the German Army Group North to capture Leningrad, now known as Saint Petersburg, in the Eastern Front theatre of World War II. It started on 8 September 1941, when the last...

 helped to transport supplies across Lake Ladoga

Lake Ladoga

Lake Ladoga is a freshwater lake located in the Republic of Karelia and Leningrad Oblast in northwestern Russia, not far from Saint Petersburg. It is the largest lake in Europe, and the 14th largest lake by area in the world.-Geography:...

. After World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 Andreev returned to civilian life, but was arrested by Soviet authorities in April 1947 and sentenced to 25 years of imprisonment, being charged of anti-Soviet propaganda and preparations to assassinate JosephStalin. He suffered a heart attack in prison in 1954, the first manifestation of the heart condition that would eventually cause his death. In the same year his sentence was reduced to 10 years. He was released on April 22, 1957, already terminally ill. He was officially rehabilitated

Rehabilitation (Soviet)

Rehabilitation in the context of the former Soviet Union, and the Post-Soviet states, was the restoration of a person who was criminally prosecuted without due basis, to the state of acquittal...

 on July 11, 1957.

While in prison in Vladimir

Vladimir

Vladimir is a city and the administrative center of Vladimir Oblast, Russia, located on the Klyazma River, to the east of Moscow along the M7 motorway. Population:...

 from 1947 to 1957, Andreev had mystic visions and started writing Roza Mira, finishing it after he was released. The book was known in the Soviet Union via Samizdat

Samizdat

Samizdat was a key form of dissident activity across the Soviet bloc in which individuals reproduced censored publications by hand and passed the documents from reader to reader...

, but was first officially published only in 1991. In 1997, Roza Mira

Roza Mira

Roza Mira is the title of the main book by Russian mystic Daniil Andreev. It is also the name of the predicted new universal religion, to emerge and unite all people of the world before the advent of the Antichrist, described by Andreev in his book...

 was published in English in the USA.

Works

Almost all works that Andreev wrote before 1947, were destroyed by MGB as "anti-Soviet literature", including his novel Wanderers of Night about the spiritual opposition to the Soviet regime and atheism. Being imprisoned, however, Andreev managed to restore some of his poems. He also tried to restore Wanderers of Night, but he could only restore a few pages of it. Also some works of his childhood were kept by his friend, including his first poems written at the age of 8.

His main book, Roza Mira

Roza Mira

Roza Mira is the title of the main book by Russian mystic Daniil Andreev. It is also the name of the predicted new universal religion, to emerge and unite all people of the world before the advent of the Antichrist, described by Andreev in his book...

  contains a detailed description of numerous layers of spiritual reality that surround Earth, of the forthcoming religion called Roza Mira that will emerge and unite all people and states, and of the events of the future advent of Antichrist

Antichrist

The term or title antichrist, in Christian theology, refers to a leader who fulfills Biblical prophecies concerning an adversary of Christ, while resembling him in a deceptive manner...

and his fall.

Apart from Roza Mira, he wrote a poem The Iron Mystery , a "poetic ensemble" (that is what he called it) Russian gods and other works.

External links

• The Rose of the World by Daniel Andreev
• RozaMira.org - in Russian
• Site devoted to Roza Mira, including full text - in Russian
• Vseedinstvo and Roza Mira - in Russian
• Fund of a name of Daniel Andreev - in Russian