Chekhov and Tolstoy, 1901

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Russian literature refers to the literature of Russia or its émigrés, and to the Russian-language literature of several independent nations once a part of what was historically Russia or the Soviet Union.

Roots of Russian literature can be traced to Middle Ages, when epics and chronicles in Old Russian were composed. In the Age of enlightenment, literature had grown in importance, and from the early 1830s, Russian literature underwent an astounding golden age in both poetry, prose, and drama. After the Revolution of 1917, Russian literature split into Soviet and white émigré parts. Soviet Union assured universal literacy and highly developed book printing industry, but also carried out ideological censorship.

Russian authors significantly contributed almost to all known genres of the literature. Russia had five Nobel Prize in literature laureates. As of 2011, Russia was the fourth largest book producer in the world in terms of published titles.^[1] A popular folk saying claims Russians are "the world's most reading nation".

Early history[link]

Old Russian literature consists of several masterpieces written in the Old Russian language (not to be confused with the contemporaneous Church Slavonic). Anonymous works of this nature include The Tale of Igor's Campaign and Praying of Daniel the Immured. The so-called "lives of the saints" (Russian: жития святых, zhitiya svyatykh) formed a popular genre of the Old Russian literature. Life of Alexander Nevsky offers a well-known example. Other Russian literary monuments include Zadonschina, Physiologist, Synopsis and A Journey Beyond the Three Seas. Bylinas – oral folk epics – fused Christian and pagan traditions. Medieval Russian literature had an overwhelmingly religious character and used an adapted form of the Church Slavonic language with many South Slavic elements. The first work in colloquial Russian, the autobiography of the archpriest Avvakum, emerged only in the mid-17th century.

18th century[link]

After taking the throne at the end of the 17th century, Peter the Great's influence on the Russian culture would extend far into the 18th century. Peter's reign during the beginning of the 18th century initiated a series of modernizing changes in Russian literature. The reforms he implemented encouraged Russian artists and scientists to make innovations in their crafts and fields with the intention of creating an economy and culture comparable. Peter's example set a precedent for the remainder of the 18th century as Russian writers began to form clear ideas about the proper use and progression of the Russian language. Through their debates regarding versification of the Russian language and tone of Russian literature, the writers in the first half of the 18th century were able to lay foundation for the more poignant, topical work of the late 18th century.

Satirist Antiokh Dmitrievich Kantemir, 1708–1744, was one of the earliest Russian writers not only to praise the ideals of Peter I's reforms but the ideals of the growing Enlightenment movement in Europe. Kantemir's works regularly expressed his admiration for Peter, most notably in his epic dedicated to the emperor entitled Petrida. More often, however, Kantemir indirectly praised Peter's influence through his satiric criticism of Russia's “superficiality and obscurantism,” which he saw as manifestations of the backwardness Peter attempted to correct through his reforms.^[2] Kantemir honored this tradition of reform not only through his support for Peter, but by initiating a decade-long debate on the proper syllabic versification using the Russian language.

Vasily Kirillovich Trediakovsky, a poet, playwright, essayist, translator and contemporary to Antiokh Kantemir, also found himself deeply entrenched in Enlightenment conventions in his work with the Russian Academy of Sciences and his groundbreaking translations of French and classical works to the Russian language. A turning point in the course of Russian literature, his translation of Paul Tallemant's work Voyage to the Isle of Love, was the first to use the Russian vernacular as opposed the formal and outdated Church-Slavonic.^[3] This introduction set a precedent for secular works to be composed in the vernacular, while sacred texts would remain in Church-Slavonic. However, his work was often incredibly theoretical and scholarly, focused on promoting the versification of the language with which he spoke.

While Trediakovsky's approach to writing is often described as highly erudite, the young writer and scholarly rival to Trediakovsky, Alexander Petrovich Sumarokov, 1717–1777, was dedicated to the styles of French classicism. Sumarokov's interest in the form of French literature mirrored his devotion to the westernizing spirit of Peter the Great's age. Although he often disagreed with Trediakovsky, Sumarokov also advocated the use of simple, natural language in order to diversify the audience and make more efficient use of the Russian language. Like his colleagues and counterparts, Sumarokov extolled the legacy of Peter I, writing in his manifesto Epistle on Poetry, “The great Peter hurls his thunder from the Baltic shores, the Russian sword glitters in all corners of the universe”.^[4] Peter the Great's policies of westernization and displays of military prowess naturally attracted Sumarokov and his contemporaries.

Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov, in particular, expressed his gratitude for and dedication to Peter's legacy in his unfinished Peter the Great, Lomonosov's works often focused on themes of the awe-inspiring, grandeur nature, and was therefore drawn to Peter because of the magnitude of his military, architectural, and cultural feats. In contrast to Sumarokov's devotion to simplicity, Lomonosov favored a belief in a hierarchy of literary styles divided into high, middle, and low. This style facilitated Lomonosov's grandiose, high minded writing and use of both vernacular and Church-Slavonic.^[5]

The influence of Peter I and debates over the function and form of literature as it related to the Russian language in the first half of the 19th century set a stylistic precedent for the writers during the reign of Catherine the Great in the second half of the century. However, the themes and scopes of the works these writers produced were often more poignant, political and controversial. Alexander Nikolayevich Radishchev, for example, shocked the Russian public with his depictions of the socio-economic condition of the serfs. This Empress Catherine II condemned this portrayal, forcing Radishchev into exile in Siberia.^[6]

Others, however, picked topics less offensive to the autocrat. Nikolay Mikhailovich Karamzin, 1766–1826, for example, is known for his advocacy of Russian writers adopting traits in the poetry and prose like a heightened sense of emotion and physical vanity, considered to be feminine at the time as well as supporting the cause of female Russian writers. Karamzin's call for male writers to write with femininity was not in accordance with the Enlightenment ideals of reason and theory, considered masculine attributes. His works were thus not universally well-received, however they did reflect in some areas of society a growing respect for, or at least ambivalence toward, a female ruler in Catherine the Great. This concept heralded an era of regarding female characteristics in writing as an abstract concept linked with attributes of frivolity, vanity and pathos.

Some writers, on the other hand, were more direct in their praise for Catherine II. Gavrila Romanovich Derzhavin, famous for his odes, often dedicated his poems to Empress Catherine II. In contrast to most of his contemporaries, Derzhavin was highly devoted to his state; he served in the military, before rising to various roles in Catherine II's government, including secretary to the Empress and Minister of Justice. Unlike those who took after the grand style of Mikhail Lomonosov and Alexander Sumarokov, Derzhavin was concerned with the minute details of his subjects.

Denis Fonvizin, an author primarily of comedy, approached the subject of the Russian nobility with an angle of critique. Fonvizin felt the nobility should be held to the standards they were under the reign of Peter the Great, during which the quality of devotion to the state was rewarded. His works criticized the current system for rewarding the nobility without holding them responsible for the duties they once performed. Using satire and comedy, Fonvizin supported a system of nobility in which the elite were rewarded based upon personal merit rather than the hierarchal favoritism that was rampant during Catherine the Great's reign.^[7]

• 

  Mikhail Lomonosov

• 

  Alexander Sumarokov

• 

  Gavrila Derzhavin

• 

  Alexander Radishchev

• 

  Nikolay Karamzin

• 

  Ivan Krylov

Golden Age[link]

The 19th century is traditionally referred to as the "Golden Era" of Russian literature. Romanticism permitted a flowering of especially poetic talent: the names of Vasily Zhukovsky and later that of his protégé Alexander Pushkin came to the fore. Pushkin is credited with both crystallizing the literary Russian language and introducing a new level of artistry to Russian literature. His best-known work is a novel in verse, Eugene Onegin. An entire new generation of poets including Mikhail Lermontov, Yevgeny Baratynsky, Konstantin Batyushkov, Nikolay Nekrasov, Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy, Fyodor Tyutchev, and Afanasy Fet followed in Pushkin's steps.

Prose was flourishing as well. The first great Russian novelist was Nikolai Gogol. Then came Nikolai Leskov, Ivan Turgenev, Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin, all mastering both short stories and novels, and novelist Ivan Goncharov. Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoyevsky soon became internationally renowned to the point that many scholars such as F. R. Leavis have described one or the other as the greatest novelist ever. In the second half of the century Anton Chekhov excelled in writing short stories and became perhaps the leading dramatist internationally of his period.

Other important 19th-century developments included the fabulist Ivan Krylov; non-fiction writers such as Vissarion Belinsky and Alexander Herzen; playwrights such as Aleksandr Griboyedov, Aleksandr Ostrovsky and the satirist Kozma Prutkov (a collective pen name).

Nineteenth century Russian literature perpetuated disparate ideas of suicide; it became another facet of culture and society in which men and women were regarded and treated differently. A woman could not commit the noble, heroic suicide that a man could; she would not be regarded highly or as a martyr, but as a simple human who, overcome with feelings of love gone unfulfilled and having no one to protect her from being victimized by society, surrendered herself.^[8] Many of the 19th century Russian heroines were victims of suicide as well as victims of the lifestyle of St. Petersburg, which was long argued to have imported the very idea of and justifications for suicide into Russia. St. Petersburg, which was built as a Western rather than a Russian city was long accused by supporters of traditional Russian lifestyles as importing Western ideas—the ideas of achieving nobility, committing suicide and, the synthesis of these two ideas, the nobility of suicide being among them.^[9]

Novels set in Moscow in particular, such as Anna Karenina, and Bednaia Liza (Poor Liza),^[10] follow a trend of female suicides which suggest a weakness in character which exists only because they are women; they are said by readers to be driven by their emotions into situations from which suicide seems to be the only escape. These instances of self-murder have no deeper meaning than that and, in the case of Bednaia Liza, the setting of Moscow serves only to provide a familiarity which will draw the reader to it, and away from Western novels.^[10]

Contrastingly, many novels set in St. Petersburg viewed suicide primarily through the lens of a male protagonist (as in Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment) as opposed to the females who held the spotlight in the aforementioned titles. Beyond that, instead of the few females who commit suicide in these Petersburg texts^[10] being propelled to such lengths by a love so powerful and inescapable that it consumed them, financial hardships and moral degradation which they faced in the Imperial Capital^[10] contaminated or destroyed their femininity; related to this, prostitution became markedly more prominent in popular literature in the 19th century.^[8]

Another new aspect of literary suicides introduced in the Petersburg texts is that authors have shifted their gazes from individuals and their plot-driving actions to presentations of broad political ideologies, which are common to Greek and Roman heroes—this step was taken in order to establish a connection between Russian male protagonists who take their own lives and Classic tragic heroes, whereas the women of the literature remained as microcosms for the stereotyped idea of the female condition. The idea of suicide as a mode of protecting one’s right to self-sovereignty was seen as legitimate within the sphere of St. Petersburg, a secular and “Godless…”^[10] capital. Unlike Classic tragic heroes, the deaths of male protagonists, such as in Nikolai Gogol’s Nevskii Prospekt and Dmitry Grigorovich’s Svistul’kin, did not bring about great celebrations in their honor, or even faint remembrances amongst their comrades. In fact, both protagonists die lonely deaths, suffering quietly and alone in their final hours. Until the Russian revolution in 1917, such themes remained prominent in literature.^[10]

• 

  Vasily Zhukovsky

• 

  Alexander Pushkin

• 

  Fyodor Tyutchev

• 

  Nikolai Gogol

• Ivan Goncharov(2).jpg

  Ivan Goncharov

• 

  Mikhail Bakunin

• 

  Mikhail Lermontov

• 

  Ivan Turgenev

• 

  Afanasy Fet

• 

  Nikolai Nekrasov

• 

  Fyodor Dostoyevsky

• 

  Alexander Ostrovsky

• 

  Mikhail Saltykov-Schedrin

• 

  Leo Tolstoy

• 

  Nikolai Leskov

• 

  Peter Kropotkin

• 

  Sholom Aleichem

• 

  Anton Chekhov

Silver Age[link]

The beginning of the 20th century ranks as the Silver Age of Russian poetry. Well-known poets of the period include: Alexander Blok, Sergei Yesenin, Valery Bryusov, Konstantin Balmont, Mikhail Kuzmin, Igor Severyanin, Sasha Chorny, Nikolay Gumilyov, Maximilian Voloshin, Innokenty Annensky, Zinaida Gippius. The poets most often associated with the "Silver Age" are Anna Akhmatova, Marina Tsvetaeva, Osip Mandelstam and Boris Pasternak.

While the Silver Age is considered to be the development of the 19th century Russian literature tradition, some avant-garde poets tried to overturn it: Velimir Khlebnikov, David Burliuk, Aleksei Kruchenykh and Vladimir Mayakovsky.

Though the Silver Age is famous mostly for its poetry, it produced some first-rate novelists and short-story writers, such as Aleksandr Kuprin, Nobel Prize winner Ivan Bunin, Leonid Andreyev, Fedor Sologub, Aleksey Remizov, Yevgeny Zamyatin, Dmitry Merezhkovsky and Andrei Bely, though most of them wrote poetry as well as prose.

• 

  Dmitry Merezhkovsky

• 

  Maxim Gorky

• 

  Ivan Bunin

• 

  Leonid Andreyev

• 

  Valery Bryusov

• 

  Andrey Bely

• 

  Alexander Blok

• 

  Yevgeny Zamyatin

• 

  Anna Akhmatova

• 

  Osip Mandelstam

• 

  Vladimir Mayakovsky

• 

  Sergei Yesenin

20th century: Soviet and "White émigré" literature[link]

The first years of the Soviet regime were marked by the proliferation of avant-garde literature groups. One of the most important was the Oberiu movement that included Nikolay Zabolotsky, Alexander Vvedensky, Konstantin Vaginov and the most famous Russian absurdist Daniil Kharms. Other famous authors experimenting with language were novelists Andrei Platonov and Yuri Olesha and short story writers Isaak Babel and Mikhail Zoshchenko.

In the 1930s Socialist realism became the officially approved style. Several acclaimed Soviet novelists of the time were Maxim Gorky, Nobel Prize winner Mikhail Sholokhov, and Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy; and poets Konstantin Simonov and Aleksandr Tvardovsky are being read in Russia to this day. Other Soviet celebrities, such as Alexander Serafimovich, Nikolai Ostrovsky, Alexander Fadeyev, Fyodor Gladkov or Demyan Bedny have never been published by mainstream publishers after 1989.^{[citation needed]}

Few of the pre-World War II Soviet writers could be published without strictly following the Socialist realism guidelines. A notable exception were satyrics Ilf and Petrov, with their picaresque novels about a charismatic con artist Ostap Bender.

Writers like those of Serapion Brothers group, who insisted on the right of an author to write independently of political ideology, were forced by authorities to reject their views and accept Socialist realism principles. Some 1930s writers, such as Mikhail Bulgakov, author of The Master and Margarita, and Nobel-prize winning Boris Pasternak with his novel Doctor Zhivago continued the classical tradition of Russian literature with little or no hope of being published. Their major works would not be published until the Khrushchev Thaw and Pasternak was forced to refuse his Nobel prize.

Meanwhile, émigré writers, such as poets Vyacheslav Ivanov, Georgy Ivanov and Vladislav Khodasevich; novelists such as Gaito Gazdanov, Mark Aldanov and Vladimir Nabokov and short story Nobel Prize winning writer Ivan Bunin, continued to write in exile.

The Khrushchev Thaw brought some fresh wind to the literature. Poetry became a mass cultural phenomenon: Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Andrei Voznesensky, Robert Rozhdestvensky and Bella Akhmadulina read their poems in stadiums and attracted huge crowds.

Some writers dared to oppose Soviet ideology, like short story writer Varlam Shalamov and Nobel Prize winning novelist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who wrote about life in the gulag camps, or Vasily Grossman, with his description of World War II events countering the Soviet official historiography. They were dubbed "dissidents" and could not publish their major works until the 1960s.

But the thaw did not last long. In the 1970s, some of the most prominent authors were not only banned from publishing, but were also prosecuted for their Anti-Soviet sentiments or parasitism. Solzhenitsyn was expelled from the country. Others, such as Nobel prize winning poet Joseph Brodsky, novelists Vasily Aksyonov, Eduard Limonov and Sasha Sokolov, and short story writer Sergei Dovlatov, had to emigrate to the US, while Venedikt Yerofeyev and Oleg Grigoriev "emigrated" to alcoholism. Their books were not published officially until perestroika, although fans continued to reprint them manually in a manner called "samizdat" (self-publishing).

• 

  Aleksey Tolstoy

• 

  Alexander Belayev

• 

  Boris Pasternak

• 

  Mikhail Bulgakov

• 

  Marina Tsvetaeva

• 

  Isaak Babel

• 

  Ilya Ilf and Yevgeny Petrov

• 

  Mikhail Sholokhov

• 

  Daniil Kharms

• 

  Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

• Josef Brodsky.png

  Joseph Brodsky

Popular genres[link]

Children's literature in Soviet Union was considered a major genre, because of its educational role. A large share of early period children's books were poems: Korney Chukovsky, Samuil Marshak, Agnia Barto were among the most read. "Adult" poets, such as Mayakovsky and Sergey Mikhalkov, contributed to the genre as well. Some of the early Soviet children's prose was loose adaptations of foreign fairy tales unknown in contemporary Russia. Alexey N. Tolstoy wrote Buratino, a light-hearted and shortened adaptation of Carlo Collodi's Pinocchio. Alexander Volkov introduced fantasy fiction to Soviet children with his loose translation of Frank L. Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, published as The Wizard of the Emerald City, and then wrote a series of five sequels, unrelated to Baum. Other notable authors include Nikolay Nosov, Lazar Lagin, Vitaly Bianki.

While fairy tales were relatively free from ideological oppression, the realistic children's prose of the Stalin era was highly ideological and pursued the goal to raise children as patriots and communists. A notable example is Arkady Gaydar, himself a Red Army soldier in Russian Civil War: his stories and plays about Timur describe a team of young pioneer volunteers who help the eldery and resist hooligans. There was a genre of hero pioneer story, that bore some similarities with Christian genre of hagiography. In Khrushov and Brezhnev times, however, the pressure lightened. Mid- and late Soviet children's books by Eduard Uspensky, Yuri Entin, Viktor Dragunsky bear no signs of propaganda. In the 1970s many of these books, as well as stories by foreign children's writers, were adapted into animation.

Soviet Science fiction, inspired by scientistic revolution, industrialisation, and the country's space pioneering, was flourishing, albeit in the limits allowed by censors. Early science fiction authors, such as Alexander Belyayev, Grigory Adamov, Vladimir Obruchev, Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy, stack to hard science fiction and regarded H. G. Wells and Jules Verne as examples to follow. Two notable exclusions from this trend were Yevgeny Zamyatin, author of dystopian novel We, and Mikhail Bulgakov, who, while using science fiction instrumentary in Heart of a Dog, The Fatal Eggs and Ivan Vasilyevich, was interested in social satire rather than scientistic progress. The two have had problems with publishing their books in Soviet Union.

Since the thaw in the 1950s Soviet science fiction began to form its own style. Philosophy, ethics, utopian and dystopian ideas became its core, and Social science fiction was the most popular subgenre.^[11] Although the view of Earth's future as that of utopian communist society was the only welcome, the liberties of genre still offered a loophole for free expression. Books of brothers Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, and Kir Bulychev, among others, are reminiscent of social problems and often include satire on contemporary Soviet society. Ivan Yefremov, on the contrary, arose to fame with his utopian views on future as well as on Ancient Greece in his historical novels. Strugatskies are also credited for the Soviet's first science fantasy, the Monday Begins on Saturday trilogy. Other notable science fiction writers included Vladimir Savchenko, Georgy Gurevich, Alexander Kazantsev, Georgy Martynov, Yeremey Parnov. Space opera was less developed, since both state censors and serious writers watched it unfavorably. Nevertheless, there were moderately successful attempts to adapt space westerns to Soviet soil. The first was Alexander Kolpakov with "Griada", after came Sergey Snegov with "Men Like Gods", among others.

A specific branch of both science fiction and children's books appeared in mid-Soviet era: the children's science fiction. It was meant to educate children while enterteining them. The star of the genre was Bulychov, who, along with his adult books, created children's space adventure series about Alisa Seleznyova, a teenage girl from the future. Others include Nikolay Nosov with his books about dwarf Neznayka, Evgeny Veltistov, who wrote about robot boy Electronic, Vitaly Melentyev, Vladislav Krapivin, Vitaly Gubarev.

Mystery was another popular genre. Detectives by brothers Arkady and Georgy Vayner and spy novels by Yulian Semyonov were best-selling,^[12] and many of them were adapted into film or TV in 1970's and 1980s.

Village prose is a genre that conveys nostalgic decriptions of rural life. Valentin Rasputin’s 1976 novel, Proshchaniye s Matyoroy (Farewell to Matyora) depicted a village faced with destruction to make room for a hydroelectric plant.^[13]

Historical fiction in the early Soviet era included a large share of memoirs, fictionalized or not. Valentin Katayev and Lev Kassil wrote semi-autobiographic books about children's life in Tsarist Russia. Vladimir Gilyarovsky wrote Moscow and Muscovites, about life in pre-revolutionary Moscow. The late Soviet historical fiction was dominated by World War II novels and short stories by authors such as Boris Vasilyev, Viktor Astafyev, Boris Polevoy, Vasil Bykaŭ, among many others, based on the authors' own war experience. Vasily Yan and Konstantin Badygin are best known for their novels on Medieval Rus, and Yury Tynyanov for writing on Russian Empire. Valentin Pikul wrote about many different epochs and countries in an Alexander Dumas-inspired style. In the 1970s there appeared a relatively independent Village Prose, whose most prominent representatives were Viktor Astafyev and Valentin Rasputin.

Any sort of fiction that dealt with the occult, either horror, adult-oriented fantasy or magic realism, was unwelcome in Soviet Russia. Until 1980's very few books in these genres were written, and even fewer were published, although earlier books, such as by Gogol, were not banned. Of the rare exceptions, Bulgakov in Master and Margarita (not published in author's lifetime) and Strugatskies in Monday Begins on Saturday introduced magic and mystical creatures into contemporary Soviet reality to satirize it. Another exception was early Soviet writer Alexander Grin, who wrote romantic tales, both realistic and fantastic.

Post-Soviet era[link]

End of the 20th century has proven a difficult period for Russian literature, with relatively few distinct voices. Although the censorship was lifted and writers could now freely express their thoughts, 1990's political and economic chaos affected the book market and literature heavily. Book printing industry descended into crisis, the number of printed book copies dropped several times in comparison to Soviet era, and it took about a decade to revive.

Among the most discussed authors of this period were Victor Pelevin, who gained popularity with first short stories and then novels, novelist and playwright Vladimir Sorokin, and the poet Dmitry Prigov. A relatively new trend in Russian literature is that female short story writers Tatyana Tolstaya or Lyudmila Petrushevskaya, and novelists Lyudmila Ulitskaya or Dina Rubina have come into prominence. The tradition of the classic Russian novel continues with such authors as Mikhail Shishkin and Vasily Aksyonov.

Detective stories and thrillers have proven a very successful genre of new Russian literature: in the 1990s serial detective novels by Alexandra Marinina, Polina Dashkova and Darya Dontsova were published in millions of copies. In the next decade a more highbrow author Boris Akunin with his series about the 19th century sleuth Erast Fandorin became widely popular.

Science fiction is still among best-selling, albeit second to fantasy, that was relatively new to Russian readers. These genres boomed in late 1990s, with authors like Sergey Lukyanenko, Nick Perumov, Maria Semenova, Vera Kamsha, Alexey Pekhov and Vadim Panov. A good share of modern Russian science fiction is produced in Ukraine, especially in Kharkiv, home to H. L. Oldie, Alexander Zorich, Marina and Sergey Dyachenko, Yuri Nikitin and Andrey Valentinov. Significant contribution to Russian horror literature has been done by Ukrainians Andrey Dashkov and Alexander Vargo.

The leading poets of the young generation are arguably Dmitry Vodennikov and Andrey Rodionov, both famous not only for their verses, but also for their ability to artistically recite them. In the late 2000s (decade) a new generation of young poets came, who prefer the classic style of writing, which inherits the traditions of the Silver Age: Maria Markova (owner of the Russian presidential award), Andrey Nitchenko (winner of many authoritative literary contests) and many others.

Trent Johnson was a leading critic of Russian literature during this time.

• 

  Vasily Aksyonov

• 

  Eduard Limonov

• 

  Vladimir Sorokin

• 

  Boris Akunin

• 

  Victor Pelevin

• 

  Sergei Lukyanenko

External influences[link]

British romantic poetry[link]

Robert Burns became a ‘people’s poet’ in Russia. In Imperial times the Russian aristocracy were so out of touch with the peasantry that Burns, translated into Russian, became a symbol for the ordinary Russian people. In Soviet Russia Burns was elevated as the archetypical poet of the people – not least since the Soviet regime slaughtered and silenced its own poets. A new translation of Burns, begun in 1924 by Samuil Marshak, proved enormously popular selling over 600,000 copies.^[14][15] In 1956, the Soviet Union became the first country in the world to honour Burns with a commemorative stamp. The poetry of Burns is taught in Russian schools alongside their own national poets. Burns was a great admirer of the egalitarian ethos behind the French Revolution. Whether Burns would have recognised the same principles at work in the Soviet State at its most repressive is moot. This didn’t stop the Communists from claiming Burns as one of their own and incorporating his work into their state propaganda. The post communist years of rampant capitalism in Russia have not tarnished Burns' reputation.^[16]

Lord Byron was a major influence on almost all Russian poets of the Golden Era, including Pushkin, Vyazemsky, Zhukovsky, Batyushkov, Baratynsky, Delvig and, especially, Lermontov.^[17]

French Literature[link]

Writers such as Victor Hugo and Honoré de Balzac were widely influential.

Abroad[link]

Russian literature is not only written by Russians. In the Soviet times such popular writers as Belarusian Vasil Bykaŭ, Kyrgyz Chinghiz Aitmatov and Abkhaz Fazil Iskander wrote some of their books in Russian. Some renowned contemporary authors writing in Russian have been born and live in Ukraine (Andrey Kurkov, Marina and Sergey Dyachenko) or Baltic States (Garros and Evdokimov).

A number of prominent Russian authors such as novelists Mikhail Shishkin, Rubén Gallego, Svetlana Martynchik and Dina Rubina, poets Alexei Tsvetkov and Bakhyt Kenjeev, though born in USSR, live and work in West Europe, North America or Israel.

Themes in Russian books[link]

Suffering, often as a means of redemption, is a recurrent theme in Russian literature. Fyodor Dostoyevsky in particular is noted for exploring suffering in works such as Notes from Underground and Crime and Punishment. Christianity and Christian symbolism are also important themes, notably in the works of Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy and Chekhov. In the 20th century, suffering as a mechanism of evil was explored by authors such as Solzhenitsyn in The Gulag Archipelago. A leading Russian literary critic of the 20th century Viktor Shklovsky, in his book, Zoo, or Letters Not About Love, wrote, "Russian literature has a bad tradition. Russian literature is devoted to the description of unsuccessful love affairs."

Russian Nobel Prize in Literature winners[link]

• Ivan Bunin
• Boris Pasternak
• Mikhail Sholokhov
• Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• Joseph Brodsky

See also[link]

• List of Russian-language poets
• List of Russian-language novelists
• List of Russian-language playwrights
• Russian formalism
• Pushkin House
• List of Russian-language writers
• Skazka
• Russian philosophy
• Russian science fiction and fantasy

External links[link]

• Encyclopedia of Soviet Writers
• Maxim Moshkov's E-library of Russian literature (in Russian)
• Contemporary Russian Poets Database (in English)
• Contemporary Russian Poets in English translation
• La Nuova Europa: international cultural journal about Russia and East of Europe
• Information and Critique on Russian Literature
• Russian Classics Bulletin by Erik Lindgren (Turgenev, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky)
• History of Russian literature Brief summary
• Russian Literary Resources by the Slavic Reference Service
• Search Russian Books (in Russian)
• Philology in Runet. A special search through the sites devoted to the Old Russian literature.
• Публичная электронная библиотека Е.Пескина
•  "Russian Language and Literature". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. 1913. 

References[link]

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Alexander Pushkin
Alexander Pushkin by Vasily Tropinin
Born	Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin (1799-06-06)6 June 1799 Moscow, Russian Empire
Died	10 February 1837(1837-02-10) (aged 37) Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire
Occupation	Poet, novelist, playwright
Language	Russian, French
Nationality	Russian
Alma mater	Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum
Period	Golden Age of Russian Poetry
Genres	Novel, novel in verse, poem, drama, short story, fairytale
Literary movement	Romanticism, pre-realism
Notable work(s)	Eugene Onegin, The Captain's Daughter
Spouse(s)	Natalia Pushkina (1831–1837)
Children	Mariya, Alexander, Grigory, Natalia
Relative(s)	Sergei Lvovich Pushkin, Nadezhda Ossipovna Gannibal
Influences Byron, Voltaire, Goethe, Schiller, Shelley, Keats, Dante, Shakespeare, Zhukovsky, Karamzin, Fonvizin, Derzhavin, Batyushkov, Chénier, de Parny
Influenced almost all Russian literature, Akhmatova, Blok, Hristo Botev, Brodsky, Bulgakov, Bunin, Chekhov, Dostoevsky, Eminescu, Gogol, Goncharov, Gorky, H.James, Lermontov, Leskov, Mandelstam, Mérimée, Mickiewicz, Mussorgsky, Nabokov, Nekrasov, P.Neruda, Pasternak, Repin, Schevchenko, Solzhenitsyn, Stanislavsky, Tchaikovsky, D.Thomas, Tolstoy, Tsvetaeva, Turgenev, Tyutchev, Vysotsky, Yesenin
Signature

Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin (Russian: Алекса́ндр Серге́евич Пу́шкин, tr. Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin; IPA: [ɐlʲɪˈksandr sʲɪˈrɡʲejɪvʲɪtɕ ˈpuʂkʲɪn] ( listen); 6 June [O.S. 26 May] 1799 – 10 February [O.S. 29 January] 1837) was a Russian author of the Romantic era^[1] who is considered by many to be the greatest Russian poet^[2][3][4][5] and the founder of modern Russian literature.^[6][7]

Born into the Russian nobility in Moscow, Pushkin published his first poem at the age of fifteen, and was widely recognized by the literary establishment by the time of his graduation from the Imperial Lyceum in Tsarskoye Selo.

While under the strict surveillance of the Tsar's political police and unable to publish, Pushkin wrote his most famous play, the drama Boris Godunov. His novel in verse, Eugene Onegin, was serialized between 1825 and 1832.

Notoriously touchy about his honour, Pushkin fought a total of twenty-nine duels, and was fatally wounded in such an encounter with Georges-Charles de Heeckeren d'Anthès. D'Anthès, a French officer serving with the Chevalier Guard Regiment, had been attempting to seduce the poet's wife, Natalya Pushkina. Pushkin's early death at the age of 37 is still regarded as a catastrophe for Russian literature.

Life and career[link]

Portrait of Pushkin 1800-1802 by Xavier de Maistre.

Pushkin's father Sergei Lvovich Pushkin (1767–1848) descended from a distinguished family of the Russian nobility which traced its ancestry back to the 12th century.^[8][9]

Pushkin's mother Nadezhda (Nadja) Ossipovna Gannibal (1775–1836) descended through her paternal grandmother from German and Scandinavian nobility.^[10][11] She was the daughter of Ossip Abramovich Gannibal (1744–1807) and his wife Maria Aleksejevna Pushkina (1745–1818). Ossip Abramovich Gannibal's father, Pushkin's great-grandfather, was Abram Petrovich Gannibal (1696–1781), an African page raised by Peter the Great. The only known fact was that he himself wrote in a letter to Empress Elizabeth, Peter the Great's daughter, that he was from the town of "Lagon." Russian biographers concluded from the beginning that Lagon was in Ethiopia, a nation with Orthodox Christian associations.

Vladimir Nabokov, researching Eugene Onegin, cast serious doubt on this Ethiopian origin theory. Dieudonné Gnammankou outlined the strong case in 1995 that "Lagon" was a town located on the southern side of Lake Chad, now located in northern Cameroon. However, there is no conclusive evidence of either theory.^{[8][9][11][12][13][14]} After education in France as a military engineer, Abram Gannibal became governor of Reval and eventually Général en Chef (the third most senior army rank) in charge of the building of sea forts and canals in Russia.

Born in Moscow, Pushkin published his first poem at the age of fifteen. By the time he finished as part of the first graduating class of the prestigious Imperial Lyceum in Tsarskoe Selo near Saint Petersburg, the Russian literary scene recognized his talent widely. After finishing school, Pushkin installed himself in the vibrant and raucous intellectual youth culture of the capital, Saint Petersburg. In 1820 he published his first long poem, Ruslan and Lyudmila, amidst much controversy about its subject and style.

Pushkin gradually became committed to social reform and emerged as a spokesman for literary radicals. This angered the government, and led to his transfer from the capital (1820). He went to the Caucasus and to the Crimea, then to Kamenka and Chişinău, where he became a Freemason.

Pushkin's married lover, Anna Petrovna Kern, for whom he wrote the most famous love poem in the Russian language.

Here he joined the Filiki Eteria, a secret organization whose purpose was to overthrow the Ottoman rule over Greece and establish an independent Greek state. He was inspired by the Greek Revolution and when the war against the Ottoman Turks broke out he kept a diary with the events of the great national uprising.

He stayed in Chişinău until 1823 and wrote there two Romantic poems which brought him wide acclaim, The Captive of the Caucasus and The Fountain of Bakhchisaray. In 1823 Pushkin moved to Odessa, where he again clashed with the government, which sent him into exile at his mother's rural estate in Mikhailovskoe (near Pskov) from 1824 to 1826.^[15]

However, some of the authorities allowed him to visit Tsar Nicholas I to petition for his release, which he obtained. But some of the insurgents in the Decembrist Uprising (1825) in Saint Petersburg had kept some of his early political poems amongst their papers, and soon Pushkin found himself under the strict control of government censors and unable to travel or publish at will. He had written what became his most famous play, the drama Boris Godunov, while at his mother's estate but could not gain permission to publish it until five years later. The drama's original, uncensored version would not receive a premiere until 2007.

Georges d'Anthès

In the year 1831, during the days of Pushkin's growing literary influence, he met one of Russia's other greatest early writers, Nikolai Gogol. After reading Gogol's 1831–1832 volume of short stories Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka, Pushkin would support Gogol critically and would feature some of Gogol's most famous short stories in his magazine The Contemporary, which he founded in 1836. Later, Pushkin and his wife Natalya Goncharova, whom he married in 1831, became regulars of court society. When the Tsar gave Pushkin the lowest court title, the poet became enraged, feeling that the Tsar intended to humiliate him with the suggestion that Pushkin was admitted to court not on his own merits but rather solely so that his wife, who had many admirers including the Tsar himself, could properly attend court balls.

By 1837, Pushkin was falling into greater and greater debt and faced rumors that his wife had started conducting a scandalous affair. In response, the poet challenged Natalya's alleged lover, Pushkin's brother in-law Georges d'Anthès, to a duel which left both men injured. Shot through the spleen, Pushkin died two days later. His last home is a museum now.

The Tsarist State feared a political demonstration at his funeral, which it moved to a smaller location and made open only to close relatives and friends. His body was spirited away secretly at midnight and buried on his mother's estate.

Natalya Goncharova, Pushkin's wife. Painted by Ivan Makarov (1849).

Pushkin descendants[link]

Pushkin had four children from his marriage to Natalya: Maria (b. 1832, touted as a prototype of Anna Karenina), Alexander (b. 1833), Grigory (b. 1835), and Natalya (b. 1836) the last of whom married, morganatically, into the royal house of Nassau to Nikolaus Wilhelm of Nassau and became the Countess of Merenberg.

Of Pushkin's children only the lines of Alexander and Natalia continue. Natalia married Prince Nikolaus Wilhelm of Nassau, and their grand-daughter, Nadejda, married into the British royal family (her husband was the uncle of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh).^[16] The descendants of the poet now live around the globe: in England, Germany and Belgium.

Literary legacy[link]

Critics consider many of his works masterpieces, such as the poem The Bronze Horseman and the drama The Stone Guest, a tale of the fall of Don Juan. His poetic short drama "Mozart and Salieri" was the inspiration for Peter Shaffer's Amadeus. Pushkin himself preferred his verse novel Eugene Onegin, which he wrote over the course of his life and which, starting a tradition of great Russian novels, follows a few central characters but varies widely in tone and focus.

"Onegin" is a work of such complexity that, while only about a hundred pages long, translator Vladimir Nabokov needed two full volumes of material to fully render its meaning in English. Because of this difficulty in translation, Pushkin's verse remains largely unknown to English readers. Even so, Pushkin has profoundly influenced western writers like Henry James.^[17]

Pushkin's works also provided fertile ground for Russian composers.

Glinka's Ruslan and Lyudmila is the earliest important Pushkin-inspired opera, and a landmark in the tradition of Russian music.

Tchaikovsky's operas Eugene Onegin (1879) and The Queen of Spades (1890) became perhaps better known outside of Russia than Pushkin's own works of the same name.

Mussorgsky's monumental Boris Godunov (two versions, 1868-9 and 1871-2) ranks as one of the very finest and most original of Russian operas. Other Russian operas based on Pushkin include Dargomyzhsky's Rusalka and The Stone Guest; Rimsky-Korsakov's Mozart and Salieri, Tale of Tsar Saltan, and The Golden Cockerel; Cui's Prisoner of the Caucasus, Feast in Time of Plague, and The Captain's Daughter; Tchaikovsky's Mazeppa; Rachmaninov's one-act operas Aleko (based on The Gypsies) and The Miserly Knight; Stravinsky's Mavra, and Nápravník's Dubrovsky.

This is not to mention ballets and cantatas, as well as innumerable songs set to Pushkin's verse (including even his French-language poems, in Isabelle Aboulker's song cycle “Caprice étrange”). Suppé, Leoncavallo and Malipiero, among non-Russian composers, have based operas on his works.^[18]

Romanticism[link]

Although Pushkin is considered the central representative of The Age of Romanticism in Russian literature, he can't be labelled unequivocally as a Romantic: Russian critics have traditionally argued that his works represent a path from neo-Classicism through Romanticism to Realism, while an alternative assessment suggests that "he had an ability to entertain contrarities which may seem Romantic in origin, but is ultimately subversive of all fixed points of view, all single outlooks, including the Romantic" and that "he is simultaneously Romantic and not Romantic".^[1]

Influence on the Russian language[link]

According to Vladimir Nabokov,

Pushkin's idiom combined all the contemporaneous elements of Russian with all he had learned from Derzhavin, Zhukovsky, Batyushkov, Karamzin, and Krylov; these elements are: 1. The poetical and metaphysical strain that still lived in Church Slavonic forms and locutions; 2. Abundant and natural gallicisms; 3. The everyday colloquialisms of his set; and 4. Stylized popular speech. He made a salad of the famous three styles (low, medium elevation, high) dear to the pseudoclassical archaists, and added to it the ingredients of Russian romanticists with a pinch of parody.^[19]

Pushkin is usually credited with developing Russian literature. Not only is he seen as having originated the highly nuanced level of language which characterizes Russian literature after him, but he is also credited with substantially augmenting the Russian lexicon. Where he found gaps in the Russian vocabulary, he devised calques. His rich vocabulary and highly sensitive style are the foundation for modern Russian literature. His talent set up new records for development of the Russian language and culture. He became the father of Russian literature in the 19th century, marking the highest achievements of 18th century and the beginning of literary process of the 19th century. Alexander Pushkin introduced Russia to all the European literary genres as well as a great number of West European writers. He brought natural speech and foreign influences to create modern poetic Russian. Though his life was brief, he left examples of nearly every literary genre of his day: lyric poetry, narrative poetry, the novel, the short story, the drama, the critical essay, and even the personal letter.

Pushkin's work as a journalist marked the birth of the Russian magazine culture, including him devising and contributing heavily to one of the most influential literary magazines of the 19th century, the Sovremennik (The Contemporary, or Современник). From him derive the folk tales and genre pieces of other authors: Leskov, Esenin, and Gorky. His use of Russian language formed the basis of the style of novelists Ivan Turgenev, Ivan Goncharov, and Leo Tolstoy. Pushkin was recognized by Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol, his successor and pupil, the great Russian critic Vissarion Grigoryevich Belinsky, who produced the fullest and deepest critical study of Pushkin's work, which still retains much of its relevance.

Alexander Pushkin became an inseparable part of the literary world of the Russian people. He also exerted a profound influence on other aspects of Russian culture, most notably in opera. Translated into all the major languages, his works are regarded both as expressing most completely Russian national consciousness and as transcending national barriers. Pushkin's intelligence, sharpness of his opinion, his devotion to poetry, realistic thinking and incredible historical and political intuition make him one of the greatest Russian national geniuses.

[edit] The Secret Journal

In 1986, a book entitled Secret Journal 1836–1837 was published by a Minneapolis publishing house (M.I.P. Company), claiming to be the decoded content of an encrypted private journal kept by Pushkin. Promoted with few details about its contents, and touted for many years as being 'banned in Russia', it was an erotic novel narrated from Pushkin's perspective. Some mail-order publishers still carry the work under its fictional description. In 2001 it was first published in Moscow by Ladomir Publishing House which created a scandal. In 2006 a bilingual Russian-English edition was published in Russia by Retro Publishing House. Now published in 24 countries. Staged in Paris in 2006.^[20] In 2011 new editions were published in France by Belfond ^[21] and in the USA by M.I.P. Company.^[20]

Honours and legacy[link]

• In 1937, the town of Tsarskoe Selo was renamed Pushkin in his honour.
• Pushkin's death was portrayed in the 2006 biopic Pushkin: The Last Duel. The film was directed by Natalya Bondarchuk. Pushkin was portrayed onscreen by Sergei Bezrukov.
• The Pushkin Trust was established in 1987 by the Duchess of Abercorn to commemorate the creative legacy and spirit of her ancestor Alexander Pushkin and to release the creativity and imagination of the children of Ireland by providing them with opportunities to communicate their thoughts, feelings and experiences.
• A minor planet, 2208 Pushkin, discovered in 1977 by Soviet astronomer Nikolai Stepanovich Chernykh is named after him.^[22] A crater on Mercury is also named in his honour.
• MS Alexandr Pushkin second ship of the Russian Ivan Franko class (also referred to as "poet" or "writer" class).
• Station of Tashkent metro was named in his honour.

Gallery[link]

• 

  Self portrait 1820s

• 

  Portrait of A. Pushkin by Orest Kiprensky (1827)

• 

  Portrait of A. Pushkin by Pyotr Sokolov (1831)

• Pushkin alexander .jpg

  Portrait of A. Pushkin by P. Sokolov (1836)

• 

  Portrait of A. Pushkin by K. Mozer (1839)

• 

  "Pushkin's Farewell to the sea" by Ivan Aivazovsky and Ilya Repin (1877)

• 

  Portrait of A. Pushkin by Konstantin Somov (1899)

• 

  Pushkin's room while he was a student at the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum

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  Pushkin's writing table

• 

  Statue of Pushkin and his wife Natalya on Arbat Street in Moscow

• 

  The vest Pushkin wore during his fatal duel in 1837

List of works[link]

Narrative Poems[link]

• 1820 – Ruslan i Lyudmila (Руслан и Людмила); English translation: Ruslan and Ludmila
• 1820–21 – Kavkazskiy plennik (Кавказский пленник); English translation: The Prisoner of the Caucasus
• 1821 – Gavriiliada (Гавриилиада) ; English translation: The Gabrieliad
• 1821–22 – Bratya razboyniki (Братья разбойники); English translation: The Robber Brothers
• 1823 – Bakhchisaraysky fontan (Бахчисарайский фонтан); English translation: The Fountain of Bakhchisaray
• 1824 – Tsygany (Цыганы); English translation: The Gypsies
• 1825 – Graf Nulin (Граф Нулин); English translation: Count Nulin
• 1829 – Poltava (Полтава); English translation: Poltava
• 1830 – Domik v Kolomne (Домик в Коломне); English translation: The Little House in Kolomna
• 1833 – Andjelo (Анджело); English translation: Angelo
• 1833 – Medny vsadnik (Медный всадник); English translation: The Bronze Horseman

Verse novel[link]

• 1825–32 – Yevgeny Onegin (Евгений Онегин); English translation: Eugene Onegin

Drama[link]

• 1825 – Boris Godunov (Борис Годунов); English translation: Boris Godunov
• 1830 – Malenkie tragedii (Маленькие трагедии); English translation: The Little Tragedies
  • Kamenny gost (Каменный гость); English translation: The Stone Guest
  • Motsart i Salyeri (Моцарт и Сальери); English translation: Mozart and Salieri
  • Skupoy rytsar (Скупой рыцарь); English translations: The Miserly Knight, The Covetous Knight
  • Pir vo vremya chumy (Пир во время чумы); English translation: A Feast in Time of Plague

Prose[link]

• 1828 – Arap Petra Velikogo (Арап Петра Великого); English translation: Peter the Great's Negro, unfinished novel
• 1831 – Povesti pokoynogo Ivana Petrovicha Belkina (Повести покойного Ивана Петровича Белкина); English translation: The Tales of the Late Ivan Petrovich Belkin
  • Vystrel (Выстрел); English translation: The Shot, short story
  • Metel (Метель); English translation: The Blizzard, short story
  • Grobovschik (Гробовщик); English translation: The Undertaker, short story
  • Stanzionny smotritel (Станционный смотритель); English translation: The Stationmaster, short story
  • Baryshnya-krestyanka (Барышня-крестьянка); English translation: The Squire's Daughter, short story
• 1834 – Pikovaya dama (Пиковая дама); English translation: The Queen of Spades, short story
• 1834 – Kirdzhali (Кирджали); English translation: Kirdzhali, short story
• 1834 – Istoriya Pugacheva (История Пугачева); English translation: A History of Pugachev, study of the Pugachev's Rebellion
• 1836 – Kapitanskaya dochka (Капитанская дочка); English translation: The Captain's Daughter, novel
• 1836 – Puteshestvie v Arzrum (Путешествие в Арзрум); English translation: A Journey to Arzrum, travel sketches
• 1836 – Roslavlev (Рославлев); English translation: Roslavlev, unfinished novel
• 1837 – Istoriya sela Goryuhina (История села Горюхина); English translation: The Story of the Village of Goryukhino, unfinished short story
• 1837 – Yegipetskie nochi (Египетские ночи); English translation: Egyptian Nights, unfinished short story
• 1841 – Dubrovsky (Дубровский); English translation: Dubrovsky, unfinished novel

Fairy Tales in verse[link]

• 1830 – Сказка о попе и о работнике его Балде; English translation: The Tale of the Priest and of His Workman Balda
• 1830 – Сказка о медведихе; English translation: The Tale of the Female Bear (was not finished)
• 1831 – Сказка о царе Салтане; English translation: The Tale of Tsar Saltan
• 1833 – Сказка о рыбаке и рыбке; English translation: The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish
• 1833 – Сказка о мертвой царевне; English translation: The Tale of the Dead Princess
• 1834 – Сказка о золотом петушке; English translation: The Tale of the Golden Cockerel

See also[link]

	Biography portal
	Russia portal
	Novels portal
	Poetry portal

• Anton Delvig
• Anna Petrovna Kern
• Fyodor Petrovich Tolstoy
• Literaturnaya Gazeta
• Pushkin Prize
• Skazka
• Vasily Pushkin
• Vladimir Dal
• Kapiton Zelentsov, contemporary illustrator of Pushkin's novels

References[link]