Subtitles section Play video
-
Russian literature refers to the literature of Russia and its émigrés and
-
to the Russian-language literature of several independent nations once a part
-
of what was historically Rus', Russia or the Soviet Union. Roots of Russian
-
literature can be traced to the Middle Ages, when epics and chronicles in Old
-
Russian were composed. By the Age of Enlightenment, literature had grown in
-
importance, and from the early 1830s, Russian literature underwent an
-
astounding golden age in poetry, prose and drama. Romanticism permitted a
-
flowering of poetic talent: Vasily Zhukovsky and later his protégé
-
Alexander Pushkin came to the fore. Prose was flourishing as well. The first
-
great Russian novelist was Nikolai Gogol. Then came Ivan Turgenev, who
-
mastered both short stories and novels. Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoyevsky soon
-
became internationally renowned. In the second half of the century Anton Chekhov
-
excelled in short stories and became a leading dramatist. The beginning of the
-
20th century ranks as the Silver Age of Russian poetry. The poets most often
-
associated with the "Silver Age" are Konstantin Balmont, Valery Bryusov,
-
Alexander Blok, Anna Akhmatova, Nikolay Gumilyov, Osip Mandelstam, Sergei
-
Yesenin, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Marina Tsvetaeva and Boris Pasternak. This era
-
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.
-
After the Revolution of 1917, Russian literature split into Soviet and white
-
émigré parts. While the Soviet Union assured universal literacy and a highly
-
developed book printing industry, it also enforced ideological censorship. In
-
the 1930s Socialist realism became the predominant trend in Russia. Its leading
-
figure was Maxim Gorky, who laid the foundations of this style. Nikolay
-
Ostrovsky's novel How the Steel Was Tempered has been among the most
-
successful works of Russian literature. Alexander Fadeyev achieved success in
-
Russia. Various émigré writers, such as poets Vladislav Khodasevich, Georgy
-
Ivanov and Vyacheslav Ivanov; novelists such as Mark Aldanov, Gaito Gazdanov 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 literature and poetry became a mass cultural phenomenon. This "thaw" did not
-
last long; in the 1970s, some of the most prominent authors were banned from
-
publishing and prosecuted for their anti-Soviet sentiments.
-
The end of the 20th century was a difficult period for Russian literature,
-
with few distinct voices. Among the most discussed authors of this period were
-
Victor Pelevin, who gained popularity with short stories and novels, novelist
-
and playwright Vladimir Sorokin, and the poet Dmitry Prigov. In the 21st century,
-
a new generation of Russian authors appeared, differing greatly from the
-
postmodernist Russian prose of the late 20th century, which lead critics to
-
speak about “new realism”. Leading "new realists" include Ilja Stogoff, Zakhar
-
Prilepin, Alexander Karasyov, Arkadi Babchenko, Vladimir Lorchenkov,
-
Alexander Snegiryov and the political author Sergej Shargunov.
-
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. A popular folk saying claims Russians are "the world's most
-
reading nation". Early history
-
Old Russian literature consists of several masterpieces written in the Old
-
Russian language. Main type of Old Russian historical literature were
-
chronicles, most of them were anonymous. Anonymous works also include The Tale of
-
Igor's Campaign and Praying of Daniel the Immured. Hagiographies 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
-
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. 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. 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”. 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. 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 18th 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. Empress Catherine II condemned
-
this portrayal, forcing Radishchev into exile in Siberia.
-
Others, however, picked topics less offensive to the autocrat. Nikolay
-
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.
-
Golden Age 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.
-
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. 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. Novels set in Moscow in particular, such
-
as Anna Karenina and Bednaia Liza, 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. Contrastingly, many novels set in St.
-
Petersburg viewed suicide primarily through the lens of a male protagonist
-
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 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 contaminated or destroyed their femininity; related to
-
this, prostitution became markedly more prominent in popular literature in the
-
19th century. 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…” 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.
-
Silver Age 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