Mikhail Abramovich

• Name — Mikhail Solomonovich Abramovich • Pen Name — M. A., Fantazer • Born — 1859 • Birthplace — Berditchev, Kiev Governorate, Russian Empire • Died — 1940 • Place of death — Brussels, Belgium • Language — Russian • Parents — Mendele Mocher Sforim • Children — Vsevolod Abramovich

Mikhail Abramovich was born in Berditchev to Pesya (Levin) and S. Y. Abramovich (Mendele Mocher Sforim). He was educated at the Zhitomir gymnasium, though he did not graduate. In the fall of 1878 he went to St. Petersburg to enrol in the Military Medical Academy. Being implicated in a revolutionary movement, however, he was banished to the Archangel Governorate, then to Samara and Kazan. On his return, he graduated from the Faculty of Law of the University of Saint Petersburg in 1887, and from 1901 practised law. His earliest poems appeared in Voskhod, Nedyelya, and other periodicals, on general and Jewish subjects. A collection of his poetry was published in book form in 1889. Soon after, Abramovich informally married the playwright Manefa de Fréville, daughter of the provincial secretary of the State Loan Bank in Riga. Years later, however, when their son Vsevolod was refused admission to school on the basis of the law on illegitimate children, Abramovich decided to be baptized so that they could legally marry. According to some sources, he returned to Judaism after their divorce. Abramovich left Russia after the October Revolution. He died in Brussels in 1940.