Mamin-Sibiryak was not the discoverer of the working theme in his native literature. Reshetnikov's novels about the mining Urals, about the troubles, poverty and hopeless life of workers, about their search for a better life were the foundation on which Mamin's "mining" novels arose ("Privalovsky Millions", 1883; "Mountain Nest", 1884; "Three the end, 1890), and novels in which the action develops in the gold mines of the Urals (Wild Happiness, 1884; Gold, 1892).
For Reshetnikov, the main problem was to depict the whole "sober truth" about the working people. Mamin-Sibiryak, reproducing this truth, places a certain social mechanism (factory, mine) at the center of his novels.
The analysis of such a mechanism and the capitalist relations that have developed and are developing in it is the main task of the author. This principle of representation is somewhat reminiscent of some of Zola's novels ("The Womb of Paris", "Lady's Happiness"). But the resemblance is purely superficial.
In the novels of Mamin-Sibiryak, social issues obscure biological problems, and criticism of capitalist relations and serfdom remnants leads to the idea of an urgent need for the reorganization of life, which contradicts the principles of rigid determinism, accepted in the aesthetics of French naturalists as an unshakable postulate. Both pathos, and criticism, and emphasized sociality - all this firmly connects the work of the "singer of the Urals" with the traditions of Russian revolutionary democratic literature.
Mamin-Sibiryak did not escape the influence of populism (evidence of this is the novel "Bread", 1895). However, the analysis of the facts of reality itself gradually convinced the writer that capitalism is a natural phenomenon and already established in Russian life, and therefore his novels oppose populist ideas.
The polemic with populist concepts is organically included in the novels "Privalovsky Millions", "Three Ends" and other works. The main thing, however, is not polemics in them, but the comprehension of complex socio-economic issues related to the problem of Russia's modern development.
Sergei Privalov, the protagonist of Privalov's Millions, "does not like the factory business and considers it an artificially created industry." Privalov dreams of a rational organization of the grain trade, which would be useful to both the peasant community and the working people, but his undertaking fails, as it finds itself in the circle of the same inhuman capitalist relations.
The depiction of the struggle for Privalov's millions makes it possible to introduce into the novel many individuals who embody the various features of a rapidly capitalizing life. Numerous journalistic digressions and historical digressions characterizing the life of the Urals serve as a kind of guide in this complex world of human passions, vanity and conflicting motives.
In subsequent novels of the writer, the emphasis is gradually transferred to the image of the life of the people. In The Mountain Nest, the question of the incompatibility of the interests of capitalists and workers becomes the main one, and in the Ural Chronicle, the novel Three Ends, it receives its greatest expression. This novel is interesting as an attempt by Mamin-Sibiryak to create a modern "folk novel".
In the 80s. the same attempt was made by Ertel, who recreated a broad picture of the folk life of the south of Russia (“Gardenins”). Both writers strive to speak about the results of the post-reform development of the country and, recreating the history of their region, they try to capture in the peculiar folk life of a particular region those patterns of the historical process that are characteristic of Russia as a whole.
In the novel by Mamin-Sibiryak, three generations replace each other, whose fate, thoughts and moods embody the transition from serf-owning Russia to capitalist Russia. The writer speaks about the raznochintsy intelligentsia, and about strikes, in which spontaneous protest against lawlessness and exploitation is expressed.
“Whoever wants to know the history of the existing relations in the Urals between two classes,” wrote the Bolshevik Pravda in 1912, “of the mining working population and the predators of the Urals, the possessors and others, will find in the writings of Mamin-Sibiryak a vivid illustration of the dry pages of history” .
In their general tendency, the novels of Mamin-Sibiryak oppose the novels of Boborykin. His work developed in the general mainstream of democratic literature of the second half of the 19th century: it took on its critical pathos and the desire to transform life. The concept of naturalism did not find its follower in the person of Mamin-Sibiryak.
At the same time, one cannot, of course, assume that acquaintance with the theory and work of Zola and his followers passed without a trace for Russian literature. In articles, letters, statements recorded by memoirists, the greatest writers responded in one way or another to the provisions put forward by Zola, which undoubtedly had a creative impact on them.
The younger generation of writers resolutely came out in favor of expanding the problems of literature. All life, with its light and dark sides, had to be included in the writer's field of vision. Very characteristic is Chekhov's response in 1886 to a letter from a reader who complains about the "dirt of the situation" in the story "Tina" and that the author did not find, did not extract the "pearl grain" from the dunghill that attracted his attention.
Chekhov replied: “Fiction is called fiction because it depicts life as it really is. Its purpose is unconditional and honest truth. Narrowing its functions to such a specialty as getting “grains” is just as deadly for it as if you forced Levitan to draw a tree, ordering him not to touch the dirty bark and yellowed foliage<...>For chemists, there is nothing unclean on earth.
A writer must be as objective as a chemist; he must renounce worldly subjectivity and know that dunghills in the landscape play a very respectable role, and evil passions are just as inherent in life as good ones.
Chekhov speaks of the writer's right to portray the dark and dirty sides of life; this right was persistently defended by the writers of the 1980s. R. Disterlo drew attention to this, who, characterizing the main trend in the work of representatives of the new literary generation, wrote that they strive to depict reality “as it is, in the form in which it manifests itself in a particular person and in specific cases of life.” The critic correlated this trend with Zola's naturalism.
Fiction writers really turned to such themes and plots, to those aspects of life that had not previously been touched or hardly touched by Russian literature. At the same time, some writers were carried away by reproducing the "wrong side of life", its purely intimate sides, and this was the basis for their rapprochement with naturalist writers.
Disterlo stipulated in his review that "the resemblance is purely external",106 other critics were more categorical in their judgments and spoke of the appearance of Russian naturalists. Most often, such judgments applied to works of a certain kind - to novels like Stolen Happiness (1881) by Vas. I. Nemirovich-Danchenko or "Sodom" (1880) by N. Morsky (N. K. Lebedev).
In the article "On Pornography" Mikhailovsky considered both of these novels as a slavish imitation of Zola, as works indulging the base tastes of the bourgeoisie.
However, the novels of Morskoi and Nemirovich-Danchenko have nothing to do with naturalism as a literary trend and can be called naturalistic only in the most ordinary, vulgar sense of the word. This is the naturalism of piquant scenes and situations, in which the main meaning of the depicted lies.
Among the authors who paid great attention to the "life of the flesh" were writers who were not devoid of talent. In this regard, criticism spoke of "moral indifference", which arose on the basis of "refinedly depraved sensations", as a characteristic feature of the era of timelessness. S. A. Vengerov, to whom these words belong, had in mind the work of I. Yasinsky and V. Bibikov. The novel of the latter "Pure Love" (1887) is the most interesting in this sense.
On the topic, it is close to Garshin's "Incident": the provincial cocotte Maria Ivanovna Vilenskaya, the main character of the novel, herself establishes her spiritual relationship with the heroine of Garshin, but this relationship is purely external. Bibikov's novel is devoid of that sharp protest against the social system that forms the basis of The Incident.
The fate of Vilenskaya is depicted by the author as the result of a combination of special circumstances and upbringing. The father was not interested in his daughter, and the governess from the Parisian singers aroused unhealthy feelings in the young girl; she fell in love with the assistant accountant Milevsky, who seduced her and left her, and her father kicked her out of the house. The heroine Bibikov has many rich and charming patrons, but she dreams of pure love. She fails to find her and commits suicide.
Bibikov is not interested in the moral issues traditionally associated with the theme of "fall" in Russian literature. His heroes are people drawn by natural feeling, and therefore, according to the author, they can neither be condemned nor justified. Sexual attraction, debauchery and love can be both “clean” and “dirty”, but in both cases they are moral for him.
"Pure Love" was not accidentally dedicated to Yasinsky, who also paid tribute to such views. Yasinsky also explores love and passion as natural inclinations, not burdened with a "moral burden", his numerous novels are often built on this very motive.
Bibikov and Yasinsky can be considered the immediate predecessors of the decadent literature of the early 20th century. Art, according to their concepts, should be free from any "tendentious" questions; both proclaimed the cult of beauty as a cult of feeling, free from traditional moral "conventions".
As already mentioned, Yasinsky stood at the origins of Russian decadence; Let us add to this that he was also one of the first to aestheticize the ugly in Russian literature. Motives of this kind can be found in the novel The Lights Out, the hero of which paints the painting A Feast of Freaks. Peru Yasinsky owns a novel under the characteristic title "Beautiful Freaks" (1900). But these processes have no direct relation to naturalism as a trend either.
Naturalism is a special literary and aesthetic trend that organically took shape in a certain historical period and exhausted itself as a system, as a creative method by the beginning of the 20th century. Its emergence in France was due to the crisis of the Second Empire, and its development is associated with the defeat of the Paris Commune and the birth of the Third Republic, this "republic without republicans."
Conditions and features of the historical development of Russia in the second half of the XIX century. were significantly different. The fate of the bourgeoisie and the search for ways to renew the world were different. This created the prerequisites for a negative attitude of Russian progressive aesthetic thought towards the theory and practice of naturalism.
It is no coincidence that Russian criticism was almost unanimous in its rejection of naturalism. When Mikhailovsky wrote that in Zola's critical articles "there was something good and something new, but everything good for us Russians was not new, but everything new is not good," he expressed precisely this general idea. The fact that in Russia naturalism did not find the ground for its rooting and development was one of the evidence of the deep national originality of its literature.
History of Russian literature: in 4 volumes / Edited by N.I. Prutskov and others - L., 1980-1983
Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol was born on March 20 (April 1), 1809 in Sorochintsy near the Psel River, on the border of Poltava and Mirgorod districts (Poltava province). The future writer was born in the house of a local doctor M. Ya. Trokhimovsky. Now this place is the Literary and Memorial Museum of N.V. Gogol.
The history of the museum began in 1909, when on April 19, a rally of the village community was held near Trokhimovsky's house. During it, a board was attached to the front of the house, framed by a wreath of oak leaves, with the inscription "Here in 1809 Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol was born."
On August 28, 1911, the grand opening of the monument to the great writer took place in the center of the village. On the idea of the People's Artist Ambrose Buchma and on the initiative of local activists, in the year of the 120th anniversary of the birth of Gogol (1929), the Veliko Sorochi Literary and Memorial Museum of N. V. Gogol was founded. Residents of villages and cities of Ukraine and Russia, where Gogol lived or stayed, responded to this event. Many valuable materials came from Moscow, Leningrad, Kyiv, Nezhin. The museum was constantly enriched with new exhibits about the life and work of Gogol, his era. It was the first and only Gogol museum in the Soviet Union. But in 1943, retreating, the Germans destroyed the museum, many valuable exhibits were irretrievably lost.
On January 14, 1951, in Velikie Sorochintsy, the grand opening of a new literary and memorial museum of N.V. Gogol, designed by the Poltava architect P.P. Chernikhovets, took place.
Now the current generation sees everything clearly, marvels at the delusions, laughs at the foolishness of its ancestors, it is not in vain that this chronicle is scribbled with heavenly fire, that every letter screams in it, that a piercing finger is directed from everywhere at him, at him, at the current generation; but the current generation laughs and arrogantly, proudly begins a series of new delusions, which will also be laughed at by descendants later. "Dead Souls"
For what? Like an inspiration
Love the given subject!
Like a true poet
Sell your imagination!
I am a slave, a day laborer, I am a merchant!
I owe you, sinner, for gold,
For your worthless piece of silver
Pay the divine price!
"Improvisation I"
Literature is a language that expresses everything that a country thinks, wants, knows, wants and needs to know.
In the hearts of the simple, the feeling of the beauty and grandeur of nature is stronger, more alive a hundred times than in us, enthusiastic storytellers in words and on paper.
"Hero of our time"
Everywhere there is sound, and everywhere there is light,
And all the worlds have one beginning,
And there is nothing in nature
No matter how love breathes.
In days of doubt, in days of painful reflections on the fate of my homeland, you alone are my support and support, O great, powerful, truthful and free Russian language! Without you, how not to fall into despair at the sight of everything that happens at home? But one cannot believe that such a language was not given to a great people!
Poems in prose "Russian language"
So, complete your dissolute escape,
Prickly snow flies from the bare fields,
Driven by an early, violent blizzard,
And, stopping in the forest wilderness,
Gathering in silver silence
Deep and cold bed.
Listen: shame on you!
It's time to get up! You know yourself
What time has come;
In whom the sense of duty has not cooled down,
Who has an incorruptible heart,
In whom is talent, strength, accuracy,
Tom shouldn't sleep now...
"Poet and Citizen"
Is it possible that even here they will not allow and allow the Russian organism to develop nationally, by its organic strength, but certainly impersonally, servilely imitating Europe? But what to do with the Russian organism then? Do these gentlemen understand what an organism is? Separation, "split" from their country leads to hatred, these people hate Russia, so to speak, naturally, physically: for the climate, for the fields, for the forests, for the order, for the liberation of the peasant, for Russian history, in a word, for everything, hate for everything.
Spring! the first frame is exposed -
And noise broke into the room,
And the blessing of the nearby temple,
And the talk of the people, and the sound of the wheel ...
Well, what are you afraid of, pray tell! Now every grass, every flower rejoices, but we hide, we are afraid, just what kind of misfortune! The storm will kill! This is not a storm, but grace! Yes, grace! You are all thunder! The northern lights will light up, it would be necessary to admire and marvel at the wisdom: “the dawn rises from the midnight countries”! And you are horrified and come up with: this is for war or for the plague. Whether a comet is coming, I would not take my eyes off! The beauty! The stars have already looked closely, they are all the same, and this is a new thing; Well, I would look and admire! And you are afraid to even look at the sky, you are trembling! From everything you have made yourself a scarecrow. Eh, people! "Thunderstorm"
There is no more enlightening, soul-purifying feeling than the one that a person feels when he gets acquainted with a great work of art.
We know that loaded guns must be handled with care. But we do not want to know that we must treat the word in the same way. The word can both kill and make evil worse than death.
There is a well-known trick of an American journalist who, in order to increase the subscription to his magazine, began to print in other publications the most brazen attacks on himself from fictitious persons: some printed him out as a swindler and perjurer, others as a thief and murderer, and still others as a debauchee on a colossal scale. He did not skimp on paying for such friendly advertisements, until everyone thought - yes, it’s obvious that this is a curious and remarkable person when everyone shouts about him like that! - and began to buy up his own newspaper.
"Life in a Hundred Years"
I ... think that I know the Russian person in his very depths, and I do not put myself in any merit for this. I didn’t study the people from conversations with St. Petersburg cabbies, but I grew up among the people, on the Gostomel pasture, with a cauldron in my hand, I slept with him on the dewy grass of the night, under a warm sheepskin coat, and on Panin’s zamashnaya crowd behind circles of dusty manners ...
Between these two colliding titans - science and theology - there is a stunned public, quickly losing faith in the immortality of man and in any deity, quickly descending to the level of a purely animal existence. Such is the picture of the hour illuminated by the radiant midday sun of the Christian and scientific era!
"Isis Unveiled"
Sit down, I'm glad to see you. Cast away all fear
And you can keep yourself free
I give you permission. You know one of these days
I was elected king by the people,
But it's all the same. They confuse my thought
All these honors, greetings, bows...
"Crazy"
- What do you need abroad? - I asked him at a time when in his room, with the help of servants, his things were being packed and packed for shipment to the Varshavsky railway station.
- Yes, just ... to come to your senses! - He said confusedly and with a kind of dull expression on his face.
"Letters from the Road"
Is it really a matter of going through life in such a way as not to offend anyone? This is not happiness. Hurt, break, break, so that life boils. I am not afraid of any accusations, but a hundred times more than death I am afraid of colorlessness.
Verse is the same music, only combined with the word, and it also needs a natural ear, a sense of harmony and rhythm.
You experience a strange feeling when, with a light touch of your hand, you make such a mass rise and fall at will. When such a mass obeys you, you feel the power of a person ...
"Meeting"
The feeling of the Motherland should be strict, restrained in words, not eloquent, not chatty, not “waving your arms” and not running forward (to show yourself). The feeling of the Motherland should be a great ardent silence.
"Solitary"
And what is the secret of beauty, what is the secret and charm of art: in a conscious, inspired victory over torment or in the unconscious anguish of the human spirit, which sees no way out of the circle of vulgarity, squalor or thoughtlessness and is tragically condemned to seem self-satisfied or hopelessly false.
"Sentimental Remembrance"
Since my birth I have been living in Moscow, but by God I don’t know where Moscow came from, why it is, why, why, what it needs. In the Duma, at meetings, I, along with others, talk about urban economy, but I don’t know how many miles there are in Moscow, how many people there are, how many are born and die, how much we receive and spend, for how much and with whom we trade ... Which city is richer: Moscow or London? If London is richer, then why? And the jester knows him! And when some question is raised in the thought, I shudder and the first one starts shouting: “Submit to the commission! To the commission!
Everything new in the old way:
The modern poet
In a metaphorical outfit
Speech is poetic.
But others are not an example for me,
And my charter is simple and strict.
My verse is a pioneer boy
Lightly dressed, barefoot.
1926
Under the influence of Dostoevsky, as well as foreign literature, Baudelaire and Poe, my passion began not for decadence, but for symbolism (even then I already understood their difference). A collection of poems, published at the very beginning of the 90s, I entitled "Symbols". It seems that I was the first to use this word in Russian literature.
The run of changeable phenomena,
Past those flying, speed up:
Merge into one sunset of accomplishments
With the first gleam of gentle dawns.
From the lower life to the origins
In a moment, a single review:
In the face of a single smart eye
Take your twins.
Immutable and wonderful
Blessed Muse gift:
In the spirit of the form of slender songs,
There is life and heat in the heart of the songs.
"Thoughts on Poetry"
I have a lot of news. And all are good. I'm lucky". I am writing. I want to live, live, live forever. If you only knew how many new poems I have written! More than a hundred. It was crazy, a fairy tale, new. I am publishing a new book, completely different from the previous ones. She will surprise many. I changed my understanding of the world. No matter how funny my phrase sounds, I will say: I understood the world. For many years, perhaps forever.
K. Balmont - L. Vilkina
Man is the truth! Everything is in man, everything is for man! Only man exists, everything else is the work of his hands and his brain! Human! It's great! It sounds... proud!
"At the bottom"
I'm sorry to create something useless and no one needs now. A collection, a book of poems at the present time is the most useless, unnecessary thing ... I do not mean by this that poetry is not needed. On the contrary, I affirm that poetry is necessary, even necessary, natural and eternal. There was a time when whole books of poetry seemed necessary to everyone, when they were read in full, understood and accepted by everyone. This time is past, not ours. The modern reader does not need a collection of poems!
Language is the history of a people. Language is the path of civilization and culture. Therefore, the study and preservation of the Russian language is not an idle occupation with nothing to do, but an urgent need.
What nationalists, patriots these internationalists become when they need it! And with what arrogance they sneer at the "frightened intellectuals" - as if there is absolutely no reason to be frightened - or at the "frightened townsfolk", as if they have some great advantages over the "philistines". And who, in fact, are these townsfolk, "prosperous philistines"? And who and what do the revolutionaries care about, if they so despise the average person and his well-being?
"Cursed Days"
In the struggle for their ideal, which is “freedom, equality and fraternity”, citizens must use such means that do not contradict this ideal.
"Governor"
“Let your soul be whole or split, let your understanding of the world be mystical, realistic, skeptical, or even idealistic (if you are unhappy before that), let the creative techniques be impressionistic, realistic, naturalistic, the content be lyrical or fabulous, let there be a mood, an impression - whatever you want, but, I beg you, be logical - may this cry of the heart be forgiven me! – are logical in design, in the construction of the work, in syntax.
Art is born in homelessness. I wrote letters and stories addressed to a distant unknown friend, but when a friend came, art gave way to life. Of course, I'm not talking about home comfort, but about life, which means more than art.
"We are with you. Diary of love"
An artist can do nothing more than open his soul to others. It is impossible to present him with predetermined rules. He is still an unknown world, where everything is new. We must forget what captivated others, here it is different. Otherwise, you will listen and not hear, you will look without understanding.
From Valery Bryusov's treatise "On Art"
Well, let her rest, she was exhausted - they exhausted her, alarmed her. And as soon as it's light, the shopkeeper will rise, she will begin to fold her goods, she will grab a blanket, she will go, pull out this soft bedding from under the old woman: she will wake the old woman, raise her to her feet: it's not light or dawn, if you please get up. Nothing to do about. In the meantime - grandmother, our Kostroma, our mother, Russia!
"Whirlwind Russia"
Art never speaks to the crowd, to the masses, it speaks to the individual, in the deep and hidden recesses of his soul.
Mikhail Andreevich Osorgin (Ilyin) (1878 - 1942)
How strange /.../ How many cheerful and cheerful books there are, how many brilliant and witty philosophical truths - but there is nothing more comforting than Ecclesiastes.
Babkin dared, - read Seneca
And, whistling carcasses,
Take it to the library
In the margins, noting: "Nonsense!"
Babkin, friend, is a harsh critic,
Have you ever thought
What a legless paraplegic
Light chamois is not a decree? ..
"Reader"
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A critic's word about a poet must be objectively concrete and creative; the critic, while remaining a scientist, is a poet.
"Poetry of the Word"
Only great things are worth thinking about, only great tasks should be set by the writer; set boldly, without being embarrassed by your personal small forces.
“It’s true, there are both goblin and water ones here,” I thought, looking in front of me, “or maybe some other spirit lives here ... A mighty, northern spirit that enjoys this wildness; maybe real northern fauns and healthy, blond women roam in these forests, eating cloudberries and lingonberries, laughing and chasing each other.
"North"
You need to be able to close a boring book...leave a bad movie...and part with people who don't value you!
Out of modesty, I will be careful not to point out the fact that on the day of my birth the bells were rung and there was a general rejoicing of the people. Evil tongues associated this jubilation with some great holiday that coincided with the day of my birth, but I still don’t understand what else is there to do with this holiday?
That was the time when love, good and healthy feelings were considered vulgar and a relic; no one loved, but all were thirsty and, like poisoned ones, fell to everything sharp, tearing apart the insides.
"The Road to Calvary"
- Well, what's wrong, - I say to myself, - at least in a short word for now? After all, exactly the same form of farewell to friends exists in other languages, and there it does not shock anyone. The great poet Walt Whitman, shortly before his death, said goodbye to readers with a touching poem "So long!", which means in English - "Bye!". The French a bientot has the same meaning. There is no rudeness here. On the contrary, this form is filled with the most gracious courtesy, because here the following (approximately) meaning is compressed: be prosperous and happy until we see each other again.
"Live Like Life"
Switzerland? This is a mountain pasture for tourists. I've traveled all over the world myself, but I hate those ruminant bipeds with a Badaker for a tail. They chewed through the eyes of all the beauties of nature.
"Island of Lost Ships"
Everything that I wrote and will write, I consider only mental rubbish and do not respect my literary merits. And I wonder and wonder why apparently smart people find some meaning and value in my poems. Thousands of poems, whether mine or those poets whom I know in Russia, are not worth one chanter of my bright mother.
I am afraid that Russian literature has only one future: its past.
Article "I'm afraid"
For a long time we have been looking for such a task, similar to lentils, so that the combined rays of the work of artists and the work of thinkers directed by it to a common point would meet in a common work and could ignite and turn even the cold substance of ice into a fire. Now such a task - a lentil that guides together your stormy courage and the cold mind of thinkers - has been found. This goal is to create a common written language...
"Artists of the World"
He adored poetry, tried to be impartial in his judgments. He was surprisingly young at heart, and perhaps even in mind. He always looked like a child to me. There was something childish in his clipped head, in his bearing, more like a gymnasium than a military one. He liked to portray an adult, like all children. He loved to play the “master”, the literary bosses of his “humil”, that is, the little poets and poetesses who surrounded him. Poetic children loved him very much.
Khodasevich, "Necropolis"
Me, me, me What a wild word!
Is that one over there really me?
Did mom love this?
Yellow-gray, semi-gray
And omniscient like a snake?
You have lost your Russia.
Did you resist the elements
Good elements of gloomy evil?
Not? So shut up: took away
Your fate is not without a reason
To the edge of an unkind foreign land.
What's the point of groaning and grieve -
Russia must be earned!
"What You Need to Know"
I never stopped writing poetry. For me, they are my connection with the time, with the new life of my people. When I wrote them, I lived by those rhythms that sounded in the heroic history of my country. I am happy that I lived in these years and saw events that had no equal.
All the people sent to us are our reflection. And they were sent so that we, looking at these people, correct our mistakes, and when we correct them, these people either change too or leave our lives.
In the wide field of Russian literature in the USSR, I was the only literary wolf. I was advised to dye the skin. Ridiculous advice. Whether a painted wolf or a shorn wolf, he still does not look like a poodle. They treated me like a wolf. And for several years they drove me according to the rules of a literary cage in a fenced yard. I have no malice, but I am very tired ...
From a letter from M. A. Bulgakov to I. V. Stalin, May 30, 1931.
When I die, my descendants will ask my contemporaries: "Did you understand Mandelstam's poems?" - "No, we did not understand his poems." "Did you feed Mandelstam, did you give him shelter?" - "Yes, we fed Mandelstam, we gave him shelter." "Then you are forgiven."
Maybe go to the Press House - there is one sandwich each with salmon caviar and a debate - "about the proletarian choral reading", or to the Polytechnic Museum - there are no sandwiches, but twenty-six young poets read their poems about the "locomotive mass". No, I will sit on the stairs, shivering from the cold and dream that all this is not in vain, that, sitting here on the step, I am preparing the distant sunrise of the Renaissance. I dreamed both simply and in verse, and the result was boring iambs.
"The extraordinary adventures of Julio Jurenito and his students"
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In Russia, literature has its own direction, different from any other. The Russian soul is mysterious and incomprehensible. The genre reflects both Europe and Asia, therefore the best classical Russian works are unusual, amaze with sincerity and vitality.
The main character is the soul. For a person, the position in society, the amount of money is not important, it is important for him to find himself and his place in this life, to find truth and peace of mind.
The books of Russian literature are united by the traits of a writer who possesses the gift of the great Word, who has completely devoted himself to this art of literature. The best classics saw life not flatly, but multifaceted. They wrote about the life of not random destinies, but expressing being in its most unique manifestations.
Russian classics are so different, with different destinies, but they are united by the fact that literature is recognized as a school of life, a way of studying and developing Russia.
Russian classical literature was created by the best writers from different parts of Russia. It is very important where the author was born, because this determines his formation as a person, his development, and it also affects writing skills. Pushkin, Lermontov, Dostoevsky were born in Moscow, Chernyshevsky in Saratov, Shchedrin in Tver. Poltava region in Ukraine is the birthplace of Gogol, Podolsk province - Nekrasov, Taganrog - Chekhov.
The three great classics, Tolstoy, Turgenev and Dostoevsky, were absolutely different people, had different destinies, complex characters and great talents. They made a huge contribution to the development of literature, writing their best works, which still excite the hearts and souls of readers. Everyone should read these books.
Another important difference between the books of Russian classics is the ridicule of the shortcomings of a person and his way of life. Satire and humor are the main features of the works. However, many critics said that this was all slander. And only true connoisseurs saw how the characters are both comical and tragic at the same time. Books like this always touch my soul.
Here you can find the best works of classical literature. You can download Russian classic books for free or read online, which is very convenient. 
We present to your attention the 100 best books of Russian classics. The complete list of books includes the best and most memorable works of Russian writers. This literature is known to everyone and recognized by critics from all over the world.
Of course, our list of top 100 books is just a small part of the best works of the great classics. It can be continued for a very long time.
One hundred books that everyone should read in order to understand not only how they used to live, what were the values, traditions, priorities in life, what they aspired to, but to find out in general how our world works, how bright and pure a soul can be and how valuable it is for a person, for the formation of his personality.
The top 100 list includes the best and most famous works of Russian classics. The plot of many of them is known from the school bench. However, some books are difficult to understand at a young age, and this requires wisdom that is acquired over the years.
Of course, the list is far from complete and can be continued indefinitely. Reading such literature is a pleasure. She not only teaches something, she radically changes lives, helps to realize simple things that we sometimes do not even notice.
We hope you enjoyed our list of classic Russian literature books. Perhaps you have already read something from it, but something not. A great occasion to make your personal list of books, your top books that you would like to read.
1. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
A novel about the tragic love of a married lady Anna Karenina and a brilliant officer Vronsky against the backdrop of a happy family life of the nobles Konstantin Levin and Kitty Shcherbatskaya. A large-scale picture of the manners and life of the noble environment of St. Petersburg and Moscow in the second half of the 19th century, combining the philosophical reflections of the author's alter ego of Levin with the most advanced in Russian literature, psychological sketches, as well as scenes from the life of peasants.
2. Madame Bovary Gustave Flaubert
The main character of the novel is Emma Bovary, the doctor's wife, living beyond her means and having extramarital affairs in the hope of getting rid of the emptiness and routine of provincial life. Although the plot of the novel is quite simple and even banal, the true value of the novel lies in the details and forms of presentation of the plot. Flaubert as a writer was known for his desire to bring each work to the ideal, always trying to find the right words.
3. "War and Peace" Leo Tolstoy
An epic novel by Leo Tolstoy describing Russian society in the era of the wars against Napoleon in 1805-1812.
4. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Huckleberry Finn, on the run from his abusive father, and Jim, a runaway black man, are rafting down the Mississippi River. After some time they are joined by rogues Duke and King, who eventually sell Jim into slavery. Huck and Tom Sawyer, who joined him, organize the release of the prisoner. Nevertheless, Huck releases Jim from imprisonment in earnest, and Tom does it simply out of interest - he knows that Jim's mistress has already given him freedom.
5. Stories by A.P. Chekhov
Over 25 years of creativity, Chekhov created about 900 different works (short humorous stories, serious stories, plays), many of which have become classics of world literature. Particular attention was drawn to the "Steppe", "A Boring Story", "Duel", "Ward No. 6", "The Story of an Unknown Man", "Men" (1897), "The Man in a Case" (1898), "In the Ravine" , "Children", "Drama on the hunt"; from the plays: "Ivanov", "The Seagull", "Uncle Vanya", "Three Sisters", "The Cherry Orchard".
6. "Middlemarch" George Eliot
Middlemarch is the name of the provincial town in and around which the novel takes place. Many characters inhabit its pages, and their destinies are intertwined by the will of the author: these are the hypocrite and pedant Casaubon and Dorothea Brooke, the talented doctor and scientist Lydgate and the petty bourgeois Rosamond Vincey, the hypocrite and hypocrite banker Bulstrode, the pastor Ferbrother, the talented but poor Will Ladislav and many others. a lot others. Unsuccessful marriages and happy marital unions, dubious enrichment and fuss over the inheritance, political ambitions and ambitious intrigues. Middlemarch is a town where many human vices and virtues are manifested.
7. "Moby Dick" Herman Melville
Moby Dick by Herman Melville is considered the greatest American novel of the 19th century. At the center of this unique work written contrary to the laws of the genre is the pursuit of the White Whale. A captivating plot, epic sea scenes, descriptions of vivid human characters in a harmonious combination with the most universal philosophical generalizations make this book a true masterpiece of world literature.
8. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
“In the novel“ Great Expectations ”- one of the last works of Dickens, the pearl of his work - tells the story of the life of a young Philip Pirrip, nicknamed Pip in childhood. Pip's dreams of a career, love and prosperity in the "gentleman's world" are shattered in an instant, as soon as he learns the terrible secret of his unknown patron, who is being pursued by the police. Money stained with blood and marked with the seal of crime, as Pip is convinced, cannot bring happiness. And what is it, this happiness? And where will the hero of his dreams and high hopes lead?
9. "Crime and Punishment" Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The plot revolves around the main character, Rodion Raskolnikov, in whose head the theory of crime is ripening. Raskolnikov himself is very poor, he cannot pay not only for his studies at the university, but also for his own living. His mother and sister are also poor; he soon learns that his sister (Dunya Raskolnikova) is ready to marry a man she doesn't love for money to help her family. This was the last straw, and Raskolnikov commits the deliberate murder of an old pawnbroker and the forced murder of her sister, a witness. But Raskolnikov cannot use the stolen goods, he hides it. From this time begins the terrible life of a criminal.
The daughter of a wealthy landowner and a big dreamer, Emma tries to diversify her leisure time by organizing someone else's personal life. Confident that she will never marry, she acts as a matchmaker for her friends and acquaintances, but life brings her surprise after surprise.