Gib (whose real name was George) Mihaescu was born in 1894 and died in 1935 of tuberculosis. He fought in the First World War, in which he was seriously wounded during the battle of Marasesti against the Austrians. He was a journalist for a few years and practiced law in Bessarabia.
As a writer, he cultivated the theater, novel and short story. The Russian is one of the pinnacles of the Romanian novel and was highly appreciated by critics and readers of the time. Its author had prepared a French version of the novel, a project that fell through the outbreak of the Second World War.