Erast Fandorin

Erast Petrovich Fandorin
Oleg Menshikov as Erast Fandorin in the 2005 movie The State Counsellor
First appearanceThe Winter Queen
Last appearanceThe Pit
Created byBoris Akunin
Portrayed byOleg Menshikov
Egor Beroev
Ilya Noskov
Simon Robson
Piotr Zurawski
In-universe information
AliasErast Petrovich Nameless ("He Lover of Death"), Genji ("She Lover of Death"), Erast Petrovich Kuznetsov ("Before the End of the World")
NicknameFunduk (schoolmates); Erasmus (Count Zurov)
GenderMale
OccupationApril–May 1876: Moscow police clerk
May–September 1876, July 1877-March 1878: Agent of the Third Section
September 1876-July 1877: Volunteer in the Serbian Army
1878-1882: Diplomat
1882-1891: Deputy for Special Assignments under the Governor-general of Moscow
1891-1904: private investigator, engineer and adventurer
1904-1905: Consulting engineer for the Railroad Police Department.
SpouseYelizaveta "Lizanka" von Evert-Kolokoltseva (1876), Eliza Altairskaya-Lointaine (1911–1914), Yelizaveta Anatolievna "Mona" Turusova (married 1919)
Children"Captain Vasily Rybnikov" (son, 1879–1905), Alexander Fandorine (son), born 1920

Erast Petrovich Fandorin (Russian: Эраст Петрович Фандорин) is a fictional 19th-century Russian detective and the hero of a series of Russian historical detective novels by Boris Akunin.

The first Fandorin novel (The Winter Queen, Russian: Азазель) was published in Russia in 1998, and the latest and the last one in 2023 (The Pit, Russian: Яма). More than 15 million copies of Fandorin novels have been sold as of May 2006,[1] even though the novels were freely available from many Russian websites and the hard copies were relatively expensive by Russian standards.[2] New books in the Fandorin series typically sell over 200,000 copies in the first week alone,[2] with an unparalleled (for mystery novels) first edition of 50,000 copies for the first books to 500,000 copies for the last.[3][4]

The English translations of the novels have been critically acclaimed by, among others, Ruth Rendell.[5]

  1. ^ Jurjevics, Juris (11 May 2006). "The Death of Achilles: A Fandorin Mystery (includes interview with author)". San Diego Reader. Retrieved 18 February 2008.
  2. ^ a b Leon Aron, "A Private Hero for a Privatized Country" in Russian Outlook Archived 2006-08-16 at the Wayback Machine, retrieved 17 August 2006.
  3. ^ Early news of All the World's a Stage sales[permanent dead link], retrieved 18 March 2010.
  4. ^ Yulia Idlis, "B. Akunin's Fandorin Saga: To Be Continued?", Kultura 1, 2006, pp. 10-15, retrieved 23 September 2006 (PDF).
  5. ^ Ruth Rendell, Fiction: The Winter Queen by Boris Akunin trans by Andrew Bromfield, The Sunday Times, 12 May 2003 Archived 28 September 2006 at the Wayback Machine, retrieved 26 September 2006.