Vladimir Maximov; Writer Exiled by Soviets

Vladimir Maximov, Russian writer and playwright and one of the former Soviet Union’s leading dissidents, has died. He was 64.

Maximov, who died Sunday, suffered from cancer.

The writer, whose name originally was Samsonov, took on a nomad’s life, running with street thieves and dodging police, after losing his parents to Soviet labor camps. He also spent time in Soviet prisons and work camps.

He began writing in 1952, gaining his first real recognition a decade later when he joined in publishing a dissident literary anthology. His short story, “Man Is Alive,” was successfully adapted for the stage.

He joined the literary review Oktyabr, but resigned in 1968 to protest the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.

Thrown out of the Soviet writers union in 1973, he was forced into exile the following year. He was stripped of his citizenship in 1975.

In Paris, he founded the Russian literary review Continent, which appeared in several languages and carried works by Andrei Sakharov and other renowned Soviet dissidents.

After the collapse of communism, Maximov returned home for visits, and his last work, “Nomad to the End,” was published in Russia in March.

Maximov is best known for “Seven Days of Creation” and “A Train for Moscow.” Another work, “Adieu From Nowhere,” recounts his tumultuous adolescence.