The Literature Book

178

TO DESCRIBE

DIRECTLY THE LIFE

OF HUMANITY OR

EVEN OF A SINGLE

NATION APPEARS

IMPOSSIBLE

WAR AND PEACE (1869), LEO TOLSTOY

R

ussia in the 19th century

was the seat of enormous

creativity in prose, poetry,

and drama. Critics have dubbed

the period the country’s “Golden

Age,” not for any unity of intent

among the authors, but for the

sheer number of literary works of

international significance that

emerged there over a short time.

The literature of the Golden

Age was heavily influenced by

the modernization of Russia in the

18th century. The country, which

had been insulated by culture and

geography from the Renaissance

that affected the rest of Europe

from the 14th to the 17th centuries,

was rapidly Westernized under

IN CONTEXT

FOCUS

Russia’s Golden Age

BEFORE

1831–32 The publication of

Nikolai Gogol’s Evenings on

a Farm near the Dikanka and

Alexander Pushkin’s Tales of

Belkin signal developments

in Russian literature away from

the folkloric forms of the past.

1866 Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s

Crime and Punishment brings

the science of psychology into

literary realism to explore

human motivation.

AFTER

1880 Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s

novel The Brothers Karamazov

is published—the last great

novel of Russia’s Golden Age.

1898 Moscow Art Theatre

stages The Seagull, which

establishes Anton Chekhov

as the preeminent dramatist

of Russia’s Golden Age.

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