Russian literature
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Russian literature refers to the literature of
After the Revolution of 1917, Russian literature split into Soviet and
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 Dmitri 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 led critics to speak about "new realism".
Russian authors have significantly contributed to numerous literary genres. Russia has five
Early history
Old Russian literature consists of several masterpieces written in the
18th century
After taking the throne at the end of the 17th century,
While Trediakovsky's approach to writing is often described as highly erudite, the young writer and scholarly rival to Trediakovsky,
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
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.[10] 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.
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.[11]
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 (1833). An entire new generation of poets including Mikhail Lermontov (also known for the novel A Hero of Our Time, 1841), 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 novel was
Other important 19th-century developments included the fabulist
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Nikolai Nekrasov
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Fyodor Dostoyevsky
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Mikhail Saltykov-Schedrin
20th century
Silver Age
The beginning of the 20th century ranks as the
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:
Though the Silver Age is famous mostly for its poetry, it produced some first-rate novelists and short-story writers, such as
-
Aleksandr Kuprin
-
Andrey Bely
Lenin era
The first years of the Soviet regime after the
Following the establishment of
Stalin era
In the 1930s,
After his return to Russia Maxim Gorky was proclaimed by the Soviet authorities as "the founder of Socialist Realism". His novel Mother (1906), which Gorky himself considered one of his biggest failures, inspired proletarian writers to found the socrealist movement. Gorky defined socialist realism as the "realism of people who are rebuilding the world" and pointed out that it looks at the past "from the heights of the future's goals", although he defined it not as a strict style (which is studied in Andrei Sinyavsky's essay On Socialist Realism), but as a label for the "union of writers of styles", who write for one purpose, to help in the development of the new man in socialist society. Gorky became the initiator of creating the Writer's Union, a state organization, intended to unite the socrealist writers.[14] Despite the official reputation, Gorky's post-revolutionary works, such as the novel The Life of Klim Samgin (1925–1936) can't be defined as socrealist.
Andrei Bely (1880–1934), author of Petersburg (1913/1922), a well-known modernist writer, also was a member of Writer's Union and tried to become a "true" socrealist by writing a series of articles and making ideological revisions to his memoirs, and he also planned to begin a study of Socialist realism. However, he continued writing with his unique techniques.[15] Although he was actively published during his lifetime, his major works would not be reissued until the end of the 1970s.
Mikhail Sholokhov (1905–1984) was one of the most significant figures in the official Soviet literature. His main socrealist work is Virgin Soil Upturned (1935), a novel in which Sholokhov glorifies the collectivization. However, his best-known and the most significant literary achievement is Quiet Flows the Don (1928–1940), an epic novel which realistically depicts the life of Don Cossacks during the First World War, the Russian Revolution, and Russian Civil War.[16]
Nikolai Ostrovsky's novel How the Steel Was Tempered (1932–1934) has been among the most popular works of literary socrealism, with tens of millions of copies printed in many languages around the world. In China, various versions of the book have sold more than 10 million copies.[17] In Russia more than 35 million copies of the book are in circulation.[18] The book is a fictionalized autobiography of Ostrovsky's life: he had a difficult working-class childhood, became a Komsomol member in July 1919 and volunteered to join the Red Army. The novel's protagonist, Pavel Korchagin, represented the "young hero" of Russian literature: he is dedicated to his political causes, which help him to overcome his tragedies.[19] Alexander Fadeyev (1901–1956) was also a well-known Socialist realism writer.[18] His novel The Rout (1927) deals with the partisan struggle in Russia's Far East during the Russian Revolution and Civil War of 1917–1922. Fadeyev described the theme of this novel as one of a revolution significantly transforming the masses.[20]
Émigré writers
Meanwhile, émigré writers, such as poets
Later Soviet era
After the end of World War II Nobel Prize-winning Boris Pasternak (1890–1960) wrote a novel Doctor Zhivago (1945–1955). Publication of the novel in Italy caused a scandal, as the Soviet authorities forced Pasternak to renounce his 1958 Nobel Prize and denounced as an internal White emigre and a Fascist fifth columnist. Pasternak was expelled from the Writer's Union.
The
Some writers dared to oppose Soviet ideology, like short-story writer
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 for
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Ilya Ilf and Yevgeny Petrov
Popular Soviet genres
Children's literature in the Soviet Union counted as a major genre because of its educational role. A large share of early-Soviet children's books were poems:
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
Soviet
Since the
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 entertaining them. The star of the genre was Bulychov, who, along with his adult books, created children's space adventure series about
Mystery was another popular genre. Detectives by Vayner Brothers and spy novels by Yulian Semyonov were best-selling,[22] and many of them were adapted into film or TV in the 1970s and 1980s.
Any sort of fiction that dealt with the occult, either
-
Alexander Belayev
-
Boris Strugatsky
Post-Soviet era
The end of the 20th century proved a difficult period for Russian literature, with relatively few distinct voices. Although the censorship was lifted and writers could now freely express their thoughts, the political and economic chaos of the 1990s affected the book market and literature heavily. The 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
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 Boris Akunin who wrote more sophisticated popular fiction, e.g. a series of novels about the 19th century sleuth Erast Fandorin, was eagerly read across the country.
Science fiction was always well selling, albeit second to
Russian poetry of that period produced a number of avant-garde greats. The members of the Lianosovo group of poets, notably
Russian Nobel laureates in Literature
This section is in prose. is available. (February 2017) |
- Ivan Bunin (1933)
- Boris Pasternak (1958)
- Mikhail Sholokhov (1965)
- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1970)
- Joseph Brodsky (1987)
See also
- Old Russian literature
- List of Russian-language novelists
- List of Russian-language playwrights
- List of Russian-language poets
- List of Russian-language writers
- List of Russian philosophers
- Russian fairy tale
- Russian science fiction and fantasy
- Russian literature of Ukraine
- Pushkin House
- Anti-Booker prize
- Russian Booker Prize
- Geographical distribution of Russian speakers
References
- ^ Moscow International Book Fair Archived 2012-04-25 at the Wayback Machine. Academia-rossica.org. Retrieved on 2012-06-17.
- ^ The Moscow Times The most reading country in the world? Archived 2013-05-10 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Rivkin-Fish, Michele R.; Trubina, Elena (2010). Dilemmas of Diversity After the Cold War: Analyses of "Cultural Difference" by U.S. and Russia-Based Scholars. Woodrow Wilson Center.
"When mass illiteracy was finally liquidated in the first half of the twentieth century, the proud self-image of Russians as "the most reading nation in the world" emerged – where reading meant, and still means for many, the reading of literature". - ^ Letopisi: Literature of Old Rus'. Biographical and Bibliographical Dictionary. ed. by Oleg Tvorogov. Moscow: Prosvescheniye ("Enlightenment"), 1996. (Russian: Летописи // Литература Древней Руси. Биобиблиографический словарь / под ред. О.В. Творогова. – М.: Просвещение, 1996.)
- ^ Terras, pp. 221–223
- ^ Terras, pp. 474–477
- ^ Lang, D.M. “Boileau and Sumarokov: The Manifesto of Russian Classicism.” The Modern Language Review, Vol. 43, No. 4, 1948, p. 502
- ^ Lang, D.M. “Boileau and Sumarokov: The Manifesto of Russian Classicism.” The Modern Language Review, Vol. 43, No. 4, 1948, p. 500
- ^ Terras, pp. 365–366
- JSTOR j.ctt5vjszk.12. Retrieved 11 October 2022.
- S2CID 145305528.
- ^ Pritchett, V.S. (7 March 1974). "Saint of Inertia". The New York Review of Books. Retrieved 29 July 2021.
- ^ Soviet literature: problems and people K. Zelinsky, Progress Publishers. Moscow. 1970. p. 167
- ^ A. Ovcharenko. Socialist realism and the modern literary process. Progress Publishers. Moscow. 1978. p. 120
- ^ "Andrey Bely | Russian poet | Britannica".
- ^ "CAUGHT IN THE CURRENTS OF HISTORY - The Washington Post, 1997". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 2017-08-28. Retrieved 2021-09-07.
- ^ "Design Template". Jul 30, 2012. Archived from the original on 2012-07-30.
- ^ a b "Подводя итоги XX столетия: книгоиздание. Бестселлер – детище рекламы". compuart.ru.
- ^ Soviet literature: problems and people K. Zelinsky, Progress Publishers. Moscow. 1970. p. 135
- ^ "Фадеев Александр Александрович". Hrono.info. Retrieved 16 December 2017.
- ^ "Science fiction – literature and performance". Britannica.com. Retrieved 16 December 2017.
- Toronto Slavic Quarterly
- ^ "Prose poem". Merriam-Webster. Retrieved 2012-05-27.
- ISBN 9780521317375. Archivedfrom the original on 2022-12-03. Retrieved 2021-09-13.
- ^ "Kharkov Ukraine". Ukrainetravel.com. Retrieved 16 December 2017.
Bibliography
- Bartlett, Rosamund & Benn, Anna (eds.) Literary Russia. A Guide (NY: Overlook Press, 2007).
- Brunson, M. (2016). Russian Realisms: Literature and Painting, 1840–1890 (NIU Series in Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies). DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press.
- Gorlin, Mikhail (November 1946). "The interrelation of painting and literature in Russia". The Slavonic and East European Review. 25 (64).
- Grigoryan, B. (2018). Noble Subjects: The Russian Novel and the Gentry, 1762–1861 (NIU Series in Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies). DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press.
- Slonim, Marc. An Outline of Russian Literature. (Oxford University Press, 1958).
- Slonim, Marc. Modern Russian Literature: From Chekhov to the present. (Oxford University Press, 1953).
- Slonim, Marc. Soviet Russian Literature: Writers and Problems. (Oxford University Press, 1964; revised 1977).
- Slonim, Marc. The Epic of Russian Literature: From its Origins Through Tolstoy. (Oxford University Press, 1950).
- Terras, Victor (1985). Handbook of Russian Literature. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press) ISBN 0300048688
Further reading
- Gorski, Bradley (28 September 2015). "Russia's Heirs to Tolstoyevsky". Institute of Modern Russia.
- ISBN 978-0-691-15491-6.
- Wachtel, Michael (2004). The Cambridge Introduction to Russian Poetry. Cambridge Introductions to Literature. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-00493-4.
External links
- Encyclopedia of Soviet Writers
- An Outline of Russian Literature by Maurice Baring at Project Gutenberg
- Maxim Moshkov's E-library of Russian literature (in Russian)
- Contemporary Russian Poets Database (in English)
- Contemporary Russian Poets in English translation
- A bilingual anthology of Russian verse Archived 2014-02-20 at the Wayback Machine
- La Nuova Europa: international cultural journal about Russia and East of Europe Archived 2011-01-11 at the Wayback Machine
- Information and Critique on Russian Literature Archived 2012-03-12 at the Wayback Machine
- 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.
- Russian literary magazine "Reflection of the Absurd"
- Публичная электронная библиотека Е.Пескина
- Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. .