Mikhail Petrovich Artsybashev (Russian: Михаил Петрович Арцыбашев) was a Russian writer and playwright, and a major proponent of the literary style known as naturalism. He was the great grandson of Tadeusz Kościuszko and the father of Boris Artzybasheff, who emigrated to the United States and became famous as an illustrator. Artsybashev was born in Khutor Dubroslavovka, Akhtyrka Uezd, Kharkov Gubernia (currently Sumy Oblast, Ukraine). His father was a small landowner and a former officer. His mother died of tuberculosis when he was only 3 years old. He attended school in Okhtyrka until the age of 16. From 1895 to 1897 he was an office worker. He studied at the Kharkov School of Drawing and Art (1897–1898). During this time he lived in poverty, and was often unable to buy art supplies. In 1897 he attempted suicide. In 1898 he married Anna Vasilyevna Kobushko, with whom he had his son Boris. The couple separated in 1900. In 1898 he relocated to Saint Petersburg, where he worked as a freelance journalist, and published humorous stories. In 1901 he was expelled from the city for taking part in a demonstration. He wrote his first important work of fiction, the story Pasha Tumanov in 1901, but was unable to publish it until 1905 due to its being banned by the censor. He considered his novel The Death of Ivan Lande (1904) to be his best work, but his major success was the novel Sanin (1907), which scandalized his Russian readers and was prohibited in many countries. He wrote Sanin in 1903, but was unable to publish it until 1907, again due to censorship. The protagonist of the novel ignores all social conventions and specializes in seducing virgin country girls. In one notorious scene, a girl tries to wash embarrassing white stains off her dress after sexual intercourse with Sanin. The novel was written under the influence of the philosophy of Max Stirner, and was meant to expound the principles of Individualist anarchism. He moved to Moscow in 1912. In 1917-18 he published his anti-Bolshevik work Notes of a Writer. In 1923 Artzybashev was granted Polish citizenship and emigrated to Poland, where he edited the newspaper For Liberty! (За свободу!). He was known as an irreconcilable enemy of the Bolshevik regime, and Soviet critics dubbed the novels of his followers saninstvo and artsybashevchina (both terms are considered derogatory). He died in Warsaw on March 3, 1927.