Fig. 1 Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin (1799 - 1837)
In the 19th century, Russia's greatest literary genius, Aleksandr Pushkin, completed the process of adapting the language as a literary vehicle. His greatest poems include the verse novel Eugene Onegin (1823-31; Eng. trans., 1881); The Bronze Horseman (1832; Eng. trans., 1931), a collection of folktales; the verse play Boris Godunov; and a wealth of lyrics notable for the eloquence, playfulness, and precision of their style. The best-known prose works are the novel A Captain's Daughter (1836; Eng. trans., 1846), the tale The Queen of Spades (1833; Eng. trans., 1850), and a collection of five short stories, The Tales of Belkin (1830; Eng. trans., 1894). Pushkin's prolific career ended early when he died in a duel at the age of 38.
Another significant writer at the time of Pushkin was the playwright Aleksandr Griboyedov, whose fame rests on the comedy Woe from Wit (1823; Eng. trans., 1857). Two successors of Pushkin were the nature poet Fyodor Tyutchev and the romantic Mikhail Lermontov, whose works deal with frustration and isolation. When Lermontov died, also in a duel, at the age of 26, he left an impressive collection of lyrics and longer poems, as well as A Hero of Our Time, Russia's first psychological novel.
After Pushkin, emphasis began to shift from poetry to prose.
Nikolai Gogol, who moved from romanticism to his own eccentric brand
of realism, was an inspired and highly original talent. He is best known
for such historical short stories as "Taras Bulba" (1835; Eng. trans.,
1860), about Cossack life; for the satire The Inspector General;
for the novel Dead Souls; and for his Saint Petersburg tales, among
which "The Overcoat" (1842; Eng. trans., 1922) is preeminent.
Fig 2. Nikolai Gogol (1809 - 1852)
Realism
Although it had produced several powerful original talents, Russia
in the 1840s still lacked a general literary movement. The influential
literary critic Vissarion Belinsky sought to remedy the deficiency,
insisting that art had a duty to society, that it must reflect reality,
and that it must have a message. Under his tutelage a movement satisfying
these criteria began in the mid-1840s. At first termed the natural
school, the movement developed into the so-called realist school after
Belinsky's death.
The general characteristics of 19th-century Russian realism include the urge to explore the human condition in a spirit of serious enquiry, although without excluding humor and satire; the tendency to set works of fiction in the Russia of the writer's own day; the cultivation of a straightforward style, but one also involving factual detail; an emphasis on character and atmosphere rather than on plot and action; and an underlying tolerance of human weakness and wickedness. The leading realists began to be published in the late 1840s: the novelists Ivan Turgenev, Ivan Goncharov, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and Count Leo Tolstoi; the playwright Aleksandr Ostrovsky; the poet Nikolai Nekrasov; and the novelist and political thinker Aleksandr Herzen.
