In his essay "On Synthetism" (1922), Yevgeny Zamyatin writes that "[Annenkov] has a keen awareness of the extraordinary rush and dynamism of our epoch. His sense of time is developed to the hundredth of a second. He has the knack--characteristic of Synthetism--of giving only the synthetic essence of things."
Yury Annenkov was born into a well-known family (among his ancestors was Pavel Annenkov, Alexander Pushkin's publisher); his father, Pavel Annenkov was involved with revolutionary activities that led him to exile in Siberia. The Annenkovs moved back to St. Petersburg in 1892.