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Russian literature refers to the literature of Russia, its émigrés, and to Russian-language literature. [1] Major contributors to Russian literature, as well as English for instance, are authors of different ethnic origins, including bilingual writers, such as Kyrgyz novelist Chinghiz Aitmatov. [1]
- Overview
- Old Russian literature (10th–17th centuries)
Russian literature, the body of written works produced in the Russian language, beginning with the Christianization of Kievan Rus in the late 10th century.
The unusual shape of Russian literary history has been the source of numerous controversies. Three major and sudden breaks divide it into four periods—pre-Petrine (or Old Russian), Imperial, post-Revolutionary, and post-Soviet. The reforms of Peter I (the Great; reigned 1682–1725), who rapidly Westernized the country, created so sharp a divide with the past that it was common in the 19th century to maintain that Russian literature had begun only a century before. The 19th century’s most influential critic, Vissarion Belinsky, even proposed the exact year (1739) in which Russian literature began, thus denying the status of literature to all pre-Petrine works. The Russian Revolution of 1917 and the Bolshevik coup later in the same year created another major divide, eventually turning “official” Russian literature into political propaganda for the communist state. Finally, Mikhail Gorbachev’s ascent to power in 1985 and the collapse of the U.S.S.R. in 1991 marked another dramatic break. What is important in this pattern is that the breaks were sudden rather than gradual and that they were the product of political forces external to literary history itself.
The most celebrated period of Russian literature was the 19th century, which produced, in a remarkably short period, some of the indisputable masterworks of world literature. It has often been noted that the overwhelming majority of Russian works of world significance were produced within the lifetime of one person, Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910). Indeed, many of them were written within two decades, the 1860s and 1870s, a period that perhaps never has been surpassed in any culture for sheer concentrated literary brilliance.
Russian literature, especially of the Imperial and post-Revolutionary periods, has as its defining characteristics an intense concern with philosophical problems, a constant self-consciousness about its relation to the cultures of the West, and a strong tendency toward formal innovation and defiance of received generic norms. The combination of formal radicalism and preoccupation with abstract philosophical issues creates the recognizable aura of Russian classics.
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Poetry: First Lines
The conventional term “Old Russian literature” is anachronistic for several reasons. The authors of works written during this time obviously did not think of themselves as “old Russians” or as predecessors of Tolstoy. Moreover, the term, which represents the perspective of modern scholars seeking to trace the origin of later Russian works, obscures...
- Gary Saul Morson
The joint discovery of sensibility and subjectivity is the hallmark of early Romanticism in Russia. From the high Enlightenment of Catherine the Great to the end of the Napoleonic Wars, a fresh conceptual model of the self, and new codes of feeling, drive literature.
Russian Romanticism refers to a literary and artistic movement that emerged in Russia during the late 18th and early 19th centuries, characterized by an emphasis on emotion, individualism, and the beauty of nature.
May 17, 2024 · It is important to note the name of the person without whom Russian poetry, as we know it today, would not exist. This is the poet and encyclopedic scientist Mikhail Lomonosov (1711-1765), the creator of the Russian prosodic canon and the Russian literary language of the New Age.
Jan 10, 2018 · There are themes which never get old, and topics which are truly universal – and love is definitely number one on both of these lists. Few writers are arguably better at conveying different shades of love on paper than Russians. Here’s our pick of the most romantic books in Russian literature.
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Russian Romanticism is a cultural and artistic movement that emerged in Russia during the late 18th and early 19th centuries, characterized by an emphasis on emotion, nature, individualism, and the glorification of the past.
