More recent Russian literature

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The period of Modern Russian Literature begins in the 17th century . New genres such as syllabic poetry , abstract drama or, in the field of prose, anecdotal stories, satirical novels , adventure and picaresque novels are beginning to displace the previous literature dominated by hagiography , sermons and chronicles .

With the “Europeanization” of Russia by Peter the Great , which in reality was a “Western Europeanization”, the influence of Western European literatures, namely German, French, Italian and English, becomes predominant. The new aristocracy created by Peter the Great becomes a new, broad class of education, which for the time being also supports literary developments. In the course of the 18th century , the Western European influences in literature were adapted to Russian conditions and to the Russian literary language, which was only emerging in the process, and thus an independent Russian literature emerged during this time , which reached its climax with Pushkin and became one of the great European literatures.

Vasily Tredjakowski and Mikhail Lomonossow were important for creating a theoretical basis for this process in the first half of the 18th century . Tredjakowski adopted the poetry , epic and drama classification from the poetics of French classicism . Lomonosov, who is considered the most important reformer of the Russian written language, defined the language styles that should correspond to the individual genres.

In the second half of the 18th century, Nikolai Karamsin continued the reform of the written language by working on his art prose. Thus, influenced above all by the French language and French thinking, a language soon emerged that could meet all the requirements of a literary language. Ivan Krylow succeeded in bringing out the peculiarities of this language in his fables , some of which were translations of La Fontaine , others were his own creations.

The first half of the 19th century is considered to be the golden age of Russian literature . The central figure of this epoch, who towered above all other poets ( Zhukovsky , Batyushkov , ...), was Alexander Pushkin , who is still regarded as the greatest and most important poet in Russia. In his poems, odes and dramas, he brought a comprehensive knowledge of European literatures to work with subjects from his Russian environment ( Russian history , Russian fairy tales , ...). With the verse novel Eugene Onegin , Pushkin wrote the first great Russian novel. The novel was to influence generations of writers not only through the figure of the " superfluous man " introduced here for the first time .
This central figure of Russian literature of the 19th century also appears in the novel A Hero of Our Time by Mikhail Lermontov in the u. a. found new means of expression by adopting romantic ideas.

Even Nikolai Gogol was from the European Romantics - especially by ETA Hoffmann  - influenced, but gave the grotesque and mystical style, a strong Russian character. In works such as The Auditor or The Dead Souls he drew a satirical picture of Russian society in the provinces. In his St Petersburg novellas, Gogol caricatures the various members of society at the time against the backdrop of the capital. Gogol's influence on Russian literature is best illustrated by the quote from Dostoyevsky, in which the latter refers to the story The Coat , the most famous of the Petersburg novels : We all emerged from the coat .

Russian realism

In the 1840s, with the first appearance of the great writers Ivan Turgenev , Ivan Goncharov , Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin , Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Lev Tolstoy, the era of Russian realism began , in which the novel became the dominant genre.

The literature of this epoch played a major role in the social upheavals of the time. The writers see it as their task to describe the social situation of their contemporaries and to influence it with the means at their disposal. Literary journals are becoming an important forum for political and scientific debates. The bearer of this strongly journalistic literature is the new social group of intelligentsia : people of different origins who are excluded from direct participation in political decision-making processes and therefore try to influence the fate of the country despite the censorship . So now non-nobles are also beginning to play a role in literature. Important topics are the situation of the serf peasants and the position of Russia towards the West. After being boosted by political successes such as B. in the Napoleonic Wars , and Europe-wide recognized cultural achievements in literature , music , art and architecture , the thesis of the cultural superiority of Western Europe, as it was advocated by Pyotr Tchaadayev in his Philosophical Letters , was increasingly called into question. The positions of Westerners and Slavophiles emerged. The struggle between these two positions became an important element not only of the literary discourse.

literature

See also: List of Russian-speaking writers