Perelman's Multiple Pseudonyms

Due to the large number of articles published in the magazine, Perelman used many pseudonyms. The journalist and historian Grigori Iosipovich Mishkevich calculated 11 pseudonyms used by Yakov Isidorovich Perelman: "Y. L-noy", "Y. Les-noy" (meaning "I from the forest"), "Y. L-oy", "Y. P.", "Y. Lesnoy", "P. Silvestrov" (from the Latin word silvestrum – from the forest), "Tsifirquin" (from numbers), "P. Pelman", "P. Y-b", "Yo" ["I"], and "Y. Nedimov" (smokeless), as opposed to his older brother who used "Osip Dimov" (Osip of smoke).

Perelman—I don't have much to say about this writer. I rescued that paragraph of his biography from a website I like to visit, http://www.librosmaravillosos.com/biografia/biografia.html, because maybe one day I will revisit that point: the multiplicity of pseudonyms in a single person almost a hundred years ago. Today, more easily and within everyone's reach, there is the multiplicity of online handles used by people—it is quite a topic to address, but one that requires further development.

This Russian writer was self-taught/skilled; he didn't have a university degree, yet he wrote many books that bring one closer to knowledge on various subjects. He reminds me of Salgari, who wrote many adventure novels set in different parts of the globe, and yet had little personal knowledge of the places where he set them (for some, he never traveled; for others, including himself, he had experience as a sailor, but limited to a few training voyages). Skilled, self-taught individuals.

(Originally published on May 24, 2007)