Nikolai Leskov is a Russian writer, publicist and memoirist. In his works, he paid great attention to the Russian people.

In the late period of his work, Leskov wrote a number of satirical stories, many of which were not censored. Nikolai Leskov was a deep psychologist, thanks to which he masterfully described the characters of his heroes.

Most of all, he is known for the famous work “Lefty”, which surprisingly conveys the features of the Russian character.

So in front of you short biography of Leskov.

Leskov's biography

Nikolai Semenovich Leskov was born on February 4, 1831 in the village of Gorokhovo, Oryol province. His father, Semyon Dmitrievich, was the son of a priest. He also graduated from the seminary, but preferred to work in the Oryol Criminal Chamber.

In the future, the stories of the father-seminarian and the grandfather-priest will seriously affect the formation of the views of the writer.

Leskov's father was a very gifted investigator, able to unravel the most difficult case. Due to his merits, he was awarded the title of nobility.

The writer's mother, Maria Petrovna, was from a noble family.

In addition to Nikolai, four more children were born in the Leskov family.

Childhood and youth

When the future writer was barely 8 years old, his father had a serious quarrel with his management. This led to the fact that their family moved to the village of Panino. There they bought a house and began to live a simple life.

Having reached a certain age, Leskov went to study at the Oryol gymnasium. An interesting fact is that in almost all subjects the young man received low marks.

After 5 years of study, he was issued a certificate of completion of only 2 classes. Leskov's biographers suggest that teachers were to blame for this, who treated students harshly and often punished them physically.

After studying, Nikolai had to get a job. His father sent him to the criminal chamber as a clerk.

In 1848, a tragedy occurred in Leskov's biography. His father died of cholera, leaving their family without support and a breadwinner.

The following year, at his own request, Leskov got a job in the state chamber in. At that time, he lived with his own uncle.

Being at a new workplace, Nikolai Leskov became seriously interested in reading books. He soon began attending the university as a volunteer.

Unlike most students, the young man listened attentively to the lecturers, eagerly absorbing new knowledge.

During this period of his biography, he became seriously interested in icon painting, and also made acquaintance with various Old Believers and sectarians.

Then Leskov got a job at the Schcott and Wilkens company, owned by his relative.

He was often sent on business trips, in connection with which he managed to visit different. Later, Nikolai Leskov would call this period of time the best in his biography.

Creativity Leskov

For the first time, Nikolai Semenovich Leskov wanted to take up a pen while working at Schcott and Wilkens. Every day he had to meet different people and witness interesting situations.

Initially, he wrote articles on everyday social topics. For example, he denounced officials for illegal activities, after which criminal cases were opened against some of them.

When Leskov was 32 years old, he wrote the story "The Life of a Woman", which was later published in a St. Petersburg magazine.

He then presented several more short stories, which were positively received by critics.

Inspired by the first success, he continued writing. Soon, very deep and serious essays “The Warrior” and “Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District” came out from Leskov’s pen.

An interesting fact is that Leskov not only masterfully conveyed the images of his heroes, but also decorated the works with intellectual humor. They often contained sarcasm and skilfully disguised parody.

Thanks to these techniques, Nikolai Leskov developed his own and unique literary style.

In 1867 Leskov tried himself as a playwright. He wrote many plays, many of which were staged in theaters. The play "The Spender", which tells about the merchant's life, gained particular popularity.

Then Nikolai Leskov published several serious novels, including Nowhere and On Knives. In them, he criticized various kinds of revolutionaries, as well as nihilists.

Soon his novels caused a wave of discontent from the ruling elite. The editors of many publications refused to publish his works in their journals.

Leskov's next work, which today is included in the compulsory school curriculum, was "Lefty". In it, he described the masters of weapons in paints. Leskov managed to present the plot so well that they began to talk about him as an outstanding writer of our time.

In 1874, by decision of the Ministry of Public Education, Leskov was approved for the position of censor of new books. Thus, he had to determine which of the books was eligible for publication and which was not. For his work, Nikolai Leskov received a very small salary.

During this period of his biography, he wrote the story "The Enchanted Wanderer", which no publisher wanted to publish.

The story was different in that many of its plots deliberately did not have a logical conclusion. Critics did not understand Leskov's idea and were very sarcastic about the story.

After that, Nikolai Leskov released a collection of short stories "The Righteous", in which he described the fate of ordinary people who met on his way. However, these works were also negatively received by critics.

In the 80s, signs of religiosity began to clearly appear in his works. In particular, Nikolai Semenovich wrote about early Christianity.

At a later stage of his work, Leskov wrote works in which he denounced officials, military personnel and church leaders.

This period of his creative biography includes such works as "The Beast", "Scarecrow", "Dumb Artist" and others. In addition, Leskov managed to write a number of stories for children.

It is worth noting that he spoke of Leskov as "the most Russian of our writers", and Turgenev (see) considered him one of their main teachers.

He spoke about Nikolai Leskov as follows:

“As an artist of the word, N. S. Leskov is quite worthy to stand next to such creators of Russian as L. Tolstoy,. Leskov's talent, in strength and beauty, is not much inferior to the talent of any of the named creators of the sacred writings about the Russian land, and in the breadth of coverage of the phenomena of life, the depth of understanding of its everyday mysteries, and the subtle knowledge of the Great Russian language, he often exceeds his named predecessors and associates.

Personal life

In the biography of Nikolai Leskov there were 2 official marriages. His first wife was the daughter of a wealthy entrepreneur, Olga Smirnova, whom he married at the age of 22.

Over time, Olga began to have mental disorders. Later, she even had to be sent to a clinic for treatment.

In this marriage, the writer had a girl, Vera, and a boy, Mitya, who died at an early age.

Left virtually without a wife, Leskov began to cohabit with Ekaterina Bubnova. In 1866 their son Andrei was born. Having lived in a civil marriage for 11 years, they decided to leave.

An interesting fact is that Nikolai Leskov was a staunch vegetarian for almost his entire biography. He was an ardent opponent of killing for food.

Moreover, in June 1892, Leskov published an appeal in the Novoye Vremya newspaper entitled “On the need to publish in Russian a well-composed detailed kitchen book for vegetarians.”

Death

Throughout his life, Leskov suffered from asthma attacks, which in recent years began to progress.

He was buried in St. Petersburg at the Volkovskoye cemetery.

Shortly before his death, in 1889-1893, Leskov compiled and published the Complete Works of A.S. Suvorin in 12 volumes, which included most of his works of art.

For the first time, a truly complete (30-volume) collected works of the writer began to be published by the Terra publishing house in 1996 and continues to this day.

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Russian writer Nikolai Semenovich Leskov was born in the village of Gorokhovo, Oryol province in 1831. His father was an official and the son of a priest. His mother came from a noble family, and his childhood was an ordinary noble childhood. He was greatly influenced by his aunt Paula, who married an English Quaker and joined this sect. At the age of sixteen, Leskov lost his parents and was left alone in the world, forced to earn his own bread. I had to leave the gymnasium and enter the service. He served in various government provincial institutions. Here real pictures of Russian reality were revealed to him. But he really discovered life when he left the civil service and began to serve with the Englishman Shkott, like Aunt Paul, a sectarian who managed the huge estates of a wealthy landowner. In this service, Leskov acquired extensive knowledge of Russian life, very different from the typical ideas of young educated people of that time. Thanks to worldly training, Leskov became one of those Russian writers who know life not like the owners of serf souls, whose views have changed under the influence of French or German university theories, like Turgenev and Tolstoy, but know it from direct practice, regardless of theories. That is why his view of Russian life is so unusual, so free from condescending sentimental pity for the Russian peasant, so characteristic of a liberal and educated feudal lord.

Leskov: a way to literature and out of it. Lecture by Maya Kucherskaya

His literary work began with the writing of business reports for Mr. Schcott, who was not slow to notice the common sense, observation, knowledge of the people contained therein. Nikolai Leskov began writing for newspapers and magazines in 1860 when he was 29 years old. The first articles dealt only with practical, domestic issues. But soon - in 1862 - Leskov left the service, moved to St. Petersburg and became a professional journalist.

It was a time of great social upheaval. Leskov was also seized by public interests, but his highly practical mind and worldly experience did not allow him to unconditionally join any of the then parties of hotheads who were not adapted to practical activities. Hence the isolation in which he found himself when an incident occurred that left an indelible mark on his literary destiny. He wrote an article about the big fires that destroyed part of St. Petersburg that year, the culprits of which were rumored to be " nihilists and radical students. Leskov did not support this rumor, but mentioned it in his article and demanded that the police conduct a thorough investigation in order to confirm or refute the city's rumors. This demand acted like a bombshell on the radical press. Leskov was accused of setting the mob on students and "informing" the police. He was boycotted and expelled from progressive magazines.

Portrait of Nikolai Semenovich Leskov. Artist V. Serov, 1894

During this time, he began to write fiction. First story ( musk ox) appeared in 1863. It was followed by a great romance nowhere(1864). This novel caused new misunderstandings with radicals who managed to discern in some characters slanderous caricatures of their friends; this was enough to brand Leskov as a vile reactionary slanderer, although the main socialists in the novel are depicted as almost saints. In his next novel, On knives(1870-1871), Leskov went much further in depicting the nihilists: they are presented as a bunch of scoundrels and scoundrels. It was not "political" novels that created real fame for Leskov. This fame is based on his stories. But the novels made Leskov the bogey of all radical literature and deprived the most influential critics of the opportunity to treat him with at least some degree of objectivity. The only one who welcomed, appreciated and encouraged Leskov was the famous Slavophile critic Apollon Grigoriev, a man of genius, although extravagant. But in 1864, Grigoriev died, and Leskov owes all his later popularity only to the good taste of the public that was not directed by anyone.

Popularity began after the publication of the "chronicle" Cathedral in 1872 and a number of stories, mainly from the life of the clergy, which followed the chronicle and were published until the very end of the 1870s. In them, Leskov is a defender of conservative and Orthodox ideals, which attracted the favorable attention of high-ranking persons to him, including the wife of Alexander II, Empress Maria Alexandrovna. Thanks to the attention of the Empress, Leskov received a seat on the committee of the Ministry of Education, practically a sinecure. At the end of the 70s. he joined the campaign for the defense of Orthodoxy against Lord Radstock's pietist propaganda. However, Leskov was never a consistent conservative, and even his support for Orthodoxy against Protestantism relied, as a main argument, on democratic humility, in which it differs from the aristocratic individualism of the “high society split,” as he called the Redstock sect. His attitude towards church institutions was never completely submissive, and his Christianity gradually became less traditional and more critical. The stories of the life of the clergy, written in the early 1880s, were largely satirical, and because of one such story, he lost his place on the committee.

Leskov fell more and more under the influence of Tolstoy and towards the end of his life became a devout Tolstoyan. The betrayal of conservative principles again pushed him to the left wing of journalism, and in recent years he contributed mainly to moderately radical journals. However, those who dictated literary opinions did not speak out about Leskov and treated him very coldly. When he died in 1895 he had many readers all over Russia, but few friends in literary circles. Shortly before his death, he is said to have said: "Now I am read for the beauty of my inventions, but in fifty years the beauty will fade, and my books will be read only for the ideas they contain." It was an amazingly bad prophecy. Now, more than ever, Leskov is read because of his incomparable form, because of the style and manner of the story - least of all because of his ideas. In fact, few of his fans realize what ideas he had. Not because these ideas are incomprehensible, but because attention is now absorbed in something completely different.

Compatriots recognize Leskov as the most Russian of Russian writers, who knew his people deeper and wider than anyone as they are.

Leskov Nikolai Semenovich (1831-1895) - Russian writer.

Father - Semyon Dmitrievich (1789-1848) - came from the clergy, but went through the civil part and rose to the rank of hereditary nobility. Mother - Marya Petrovna, nee Alferyeva (1813-1886) - was a noblewoman. Leskov was born on February 4 (16) in the village of Gorohovo, Oryol province. Childhood years were spent in Orel and in the small estates of his mother and father in the Oryol province. He was brought up mainly in the village of Gorokhovo in the house of the Strakhovs, wealthy maternal relatives, where he was sent by his parents due to a lack of his own funds for home education. In 1841-1846 he studied at the gymnasium in Orel.

The leader's task is to tune in to common goals, put everyone in their place, and help them believe in their own strengths.

Leskov Nikolai Semenovich

He left the gymnasium before finishing his studies and got a job as a minor employee in the Oryol Chamber of the Criminal Court. The service (1847-1849) was the first experience of acquaintance not only with the bureaucratic system, but also with the unsightly, and sometimes strange and comical sides of reality (from his youthful impressions, Leskov later drew material for his writings, including for his first story Extinguished Case , 1862). In the same years, mainly under the influence of the ethnographer A.V. Markovich (1822–1867; his wife is known, who wrote under the pseudonym Marko Vovchok), expelled from Kiev, he became addicted to literature, although not yet thinking about writing.

In the autumn of 1849, at the invitation of his maternal uncle, medical professor of Kyiv University S.P. Alferyev (1816–1884), he left for Kyiv. By the end of the year, he got a job as an assistant clerk of the recruiting desk of the revision department of the Kyiv State Chamber. During the Kyiv years (1850–1857) he attends lectures at the university as a volunteer, studies the Polish language, is fond of icon painting, participates in a religious and philosophical student circle, communicates with pilgrims, Old Believers, and sectarians. He was influenced by the personality and ideas of the economist D.P. Zhuravsky (1810–1856), an ardent champion of the abolition of serfdom.

In 1857, he left government service and entered the private commercial firm Schcott and Wilkins as an agent, the head of which, the Englishman A.Ya. He spent three years (1857–1860) traveling on company business, “from a wagon and from a barge” he saw “all of Rus'”. From 1860 he began to print small notes in St. Petersburg and Kyiv periodicals. The first major publication was Essays on the Distillery Industry (in 1861). In 1860, he was briefly an investigator in the Kyiv police, but Leskov's articles in the weekly Modern Medicine, exposing the corruption of police doctors, led to a conflict with colleagues. As a result of the provocation organized by them, Leskov, who conducted the official investigation, was accused of bribery and was forced to leave the service.

Love cannot exist without respect.

Leskov Nikolai Semenovich

In January 1861 he moved to St. Petersburg. In search of earnings, he collaborates in many metropolitan newspapers and magazines, most of all in Otechestvennye Zapiski, where he is patronized by an Oryol acquaintance, publicist S.S. Gromeko, in Russian Speech and Northern Bee. His articles and notes are devoted mainly to topical issues. Moves closer to the circles of socialists and revolutionaries, in his apartment lives the envoy of A.I. Herzen, the Swiss A.I. However, Leskov's article on the St. Petersburg fires of 1862, where he demanded that the police stop or confirm rumors that the fires were the work of some revolutionary organization, quarreled him with the democratic camp. He is going abroad. The result of the trip was a series of publicistic essays and letters (From a travel diary, 1862–1863; Russian Society in Paris, 1863).

Leskov's own literary biography begins in 1863, when he published his first novels (The Life of a Woman, the Musk Ox) and began publishing the "anti-nihilistic" novel Nekuda (1863–1864). The novel opens with scenes of unhurried provincial life, outraged by the advent of "new people" and fashionable ideas, then the action is transferred to the capital. The satirically depicted life of the commune, organized by the "nihilists", is contrasted with modest work for the benefit of the people and Christian family values, which should save Russia from the disastrous path of social upheavals, where young demagogues are dragging her. The pamphlet in the novel is combined with a moral description, however, his pamphlet pages were perceived by contemporaries primarily, especially since most of the “nihilists” depicted by Leskov had recognizable prototypes (for example, under the name of the head of the commune, Beloyartsev, the writer V.A. Sleptsov was bred). Leskov was branded as a "reactionary". From now on, his path to major liberal publications was ordered to him, which predetermined his rapprochement with M.N. Katkov, the publisher of Russkiy Vestnik.

In this edition, Leskov's second "anti-nihilistic" novel On the Knives (1870-1871) appeared, which tells about a new phase of the revolutionary movement, when the former "nihilists" are reborn into ordinary swindlers. The old slogans and theories, attempts to arrange a revolt among the peasants serve only as a cover and a tool for the implementation of their criminal designs. Good-hearted and blind "nihilists" of the "Old Faith" like Vanscock now evoke sympathy. The novel with an intricate adventurous plot caused reproaches for the tension and implausibility of the situations depicted (everything, in the words of F.M. Dostoevsky, “is happening as if on the moon”), not to mention the next political accusations against the author. Leskov never returned to the genre of the novel in its purest form.

Ah, beauty, beauty, how much ugliness is done because of it!

Leskov Nikolai Semenovich

In the 1860s, he strenuously seeks his own special path. On the canvas of popular prints about the love of the clerk and the master's wife, the story of Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District (1865) was written about the disastrous passions hidden under the cover of provincial silence. In the story Old Years in the Village of Plodomasovo (1869), which depicts the serf customs of the 18th century, he approaches the chronicle genre. In the story The Warrior (1866), fairy tale forms of narration first appear. Elements of the tale that later glorified him are also in the story Kotin Doilets and Platonida (1867). He also tries his hand at dramaturgy: in 1867, on the stage of the Alexandrinsky Theater, they put his drama from the merchant life Spender. Since the new courts and “modern-dressed” entrepreneurs who emerged as a result of liberal reforms are powerless in the play against the predator of the old formation, Leskov was once again accused by critics of pessimism and antisocial tendencies. Among Leskov's other major works of the 1860s is the story Bypassed (1865), written in polemic with the novel by N.G. Chernyshevsky What is to be done? (Leskov contrasted his “new people” with “little people” “with a spacious heart”), and a moralistic story about the Germans living on Vasilevsky Island in St. Petersburg (Ostrovitians, 1866).

The search for positive heroes, the righteous, on whom the Russian land rests (they are also in "anti-nihilistic" novels), a long-standing interest in marginal religious movements - schismatics and sectarians, in folklore, ancient Russian literature and iconography, in all the "variegated" folk life accumulated in stories The Imprinted Angel and The Enchanted Wanderer (both 1873), in which Leskov's tale-like manner of narration fully revealed its potential. In the Sealed Angel, which tells about the miracle that led the schismatic community to unity with Orthodoxy, there are echoes of ancient Russian "walking" and legends about miraculous icons. The image of the hero of the Enchanted Wanderer Ivan Flyagin, who went through unthinkable trials, resembles the epic Ilya Muromets and symbolizes the physical and moral stamina of the Russian people in the midst of the suffering that falls to their lot.

Leskov used the experience of his "anti-nihilistic" novels and "provincial" stories in the chronicle Soboryane (1872). The story about archpriest Savely Tuberozov, deacon Achilles Desnitsyn and priest Zakharia Benefaktov takes on the features of a fairy tale and a heroic epic. These eccentric inhabitants of the "old fairy tale" are surrounded on all sides by figures of the new time - nihilists, swindlers, civil and church officials of a new type. The small victories of the naive Achilles, the courage of Savely, the struggle of this “best of heroes” “with the pests of Russian development” cannot stop the onset of a new evil age that promises Russia terrible upheavals in the future.

New words of foreign origin are introduced into the Russian press incessantly and often quite unnecessarily, and—what is most insulting of all—these harmful exercises are practiced in those very organs where the Russian nationality and its peculiarities are most ardently advocated.

Leskov Nikolai Semenovich

Leskov's "chronicles" tell primarily about time, about the course of history, pushing the best types of Russian life into the past. If in the Soboryans it was about the clergy, then in the chronicle the seedy family. The family chronicle of the princes Protazanov (from the notes of Princess V.D.P.) (1874), the action of which is attributed to the beginning of the 1820s, is about the nobility.

The self-respecting “People’s Princess” Varvara Nikanorovna Protazanova, the defender of the offended Don Quixote Rogozhin, are also departing types, or rather, departed (the granddaughter of the princess tells about the events of half a century ago, moreover, from the words of the latter’s already deceased confidante). The second part of the chronicle, in which the mysticism and hypocrisy of the end of Alexander's reign was caustically depicted and the social non-embodiment of Christianity in Russian life was affirmed, aroused Katkov's dissatisfaction. As an editor, he subjected Leskov's text to distortions, which led to a break in their relationship, however, long overdue (a year earlier, Katkov had refused to publish The Enchanted Wanderer, referring to his artistic "unfinished work"). “There is nothing to regret - he is not ours at all,” said Katkov.

After the break with the Russian Messenger, Leskov found himself in a difficult financial situation. Service in a special department of the Scientific Committee of the Ministry of Public Education for the review of books published for the people (1874-1883), gives him only a meager salary. "Excommunicated" from the major liberal journals and unable to find a place among the "conservatives" of the Katkov type, Leskov almost to the end of his life was published in small-circulation or specialized publications - in humorous leaflets, illustrated weeklies, in supplements to the Marine Journal, in the church press, in provincial periodicals, etc., often using different, sometimes exotic pseudonyms (V. Peresvetov, Nikolai Gorokhov, Nikolai Ponukalov, Freishitz, priest P. Kastorsky, Psalmist, Man from the Crowd, Watch Lover, Protozanov, etc.). (In the 1860s and early 1870s, his works were published under the pseudonym M. Stebnitsky.) Significant difficulties in studying it, as well as the tortuous paths of the reputation of his individual works, are associated with this “scatteredness” of Leskov's heritage.

But do you know, dear friend: never neglect anyone, because no one can know why someone is tormented and suffering by what passion.

Leskov Nikolai Semenovich

For example, the famous story about Russian and German national characters Iron Will (1876), which Leskov did not include in his lifetime collected works, was pulled from oblivion and republished only during the Great Patriotic War.

In the second half of the 1870s–1880s, Leskov created a cycle of stories about the “Russian antiques” - the righteous, without whom “there is no city of standing”. So he, according to A.N. Leskov, fulfilled Gogol's testament from the Selected Places from correspondence with friends: "Exalt the inconspicuous worker in a solemn hymn ...". In the preface to the first of these stories, Odnodum (1879), the writer explained their appearance as follows: “terrible and unbearable” to see one “rubbish” in the Russian soul, which has become the main subject of new literature, and “I went to look for the righteous, but wherever I turned, everyone answered me in the way that they did not see righteous people, because all people are sinners, and so, both of them knew some good people. I started writing it down." Such “good people” turn out to be the director of the cadet corps (Cadet Monastery, 1880), and a semi-literate tradesman, “who is not afraid of death” (Nesmertelny Golovan, 1880), and an engineer (Unmercenary Engineers, 1887), and a simple soldier (Man on hours, 1887), and even a "nihilist" who dreams of feeding all the hungry (Sheramur, 1879), etc. The famous Lefty (1883) and the previously written The Enchanted Wanderer also entered this cycle. In essence, the characters of the stories At the End of the World (1875–1876) and the Unbaptized Priest (1877) were the same Leskovian righteous people.

In his later years, creating stories based on an anecdote, a “curious case”, preserved and embellished by oral tradition, Leskov combines them into cycles. This is how “stories by the way” arise, depicting funny, but no less significant situations in their national character (Voice of Nature, 1883; Alexandrite, 1885; Old Psychopaths, 1885; Interesting Men, 1885; Dead Estate, 1888; Pen, 1893; The Lady and the Fefela, 1894; etc.), and “Christmas Tales” are clever tales about imaginary and genuine miracles that happen at Christmas (Christ visiting a peasant, 1881; Ghost in the Engineering Castle, 1882; Traveling with a Nihilist, 1882; Beast, 1883; Old Genius, 1884; Scarecrow, 1885; etc.). “Anecdotal” in their essence and stylized as historical and memoir works are the cycle of essays Pechersk antiques and the story Tupey artist (both 1883), which tells about the sad fate of a talent (hairdresser) from serfs in the 18th century.

A great personal disaster is a bad teacher of mercy. It dulls the sensitivity of the heart, which itself suffers severely and is full of a sense of its own torment.

Leskov Nikolai Semenovich

After his second trip abroad in 1875, Leskov, by his own admission, "most of all disagreed with the ecclesiastical." In contrast to his stories about the "Russian righteous" who do not have an official status, he writes a series of essays about bishops, processing anecdotes and popular rumor that exalts church hierarchs into ironic, sometimes even partly satirical texts: Little things of a bishop's life (1878), Bishop's detours (1879), the Diocesan Court (1880), Saints' Shadows (1881), Synodal Persons (1882), etc. The measure of Leskov's opposition to the Church in the 1870s and early 1880s should not be exaggerated reasons, in the Soviet years): it is rather “criticism from within”. In some essays, such as, for example, the Vladychny Court (1877), which tells about abuses in recruitment, familiar to Leskov firsthand, the bishop (Metropolitan Philaret of Kiev) appears almost as an ideal "pastor". The same can be said about many of the stories in the essays mentioned above. During these years, Leskov was still actively collaborating in the church magazines Pravoslavnoye Obozreniye, Wanderer, and Church Public Bulletin, publishing for religious and educational purposes (his deep conviction was that "Russia is baptized, but not enlightened") a number brochures: The Mirror of Life of a True Disciple of Christ (1877), Prophecies about the Messiah (1878), Pointer to the Book of the New Testament (1879), Selected Fathers' Opinions on the Importance of Holy Scripture (1881), etc. However, Leskov's sympathy for non-church religiosity, for Protestant ethics and sectarian movements, which fully made themselves felt in the second part of the chronicle The seedy family, especially intensified in the second half of the 1880s and did not leave him until his death. This happened largely under the influence of the ideas of L.N. Tolstoy, acquaintance with whom took place at the beginning of 1887 (Leskov back in 1883 in the articles Count L.N. Tolstoy and F.M. Dostoevsky as heresiarchs and the Golden Age protected him from the attacks of K. N.Leontieva). About the influence exerted on him by Tolstoy, Leskov himself wrote: “I exactly “coincided” with Tolstoy ... Sensing his enormous strength, I threw my bowl and went after his lantern.”

Russian literature of the 19th century

Nikolay Semyonovich Leskov

Biography

1831 - 1895 Prose writer.

Born on February 4 (16 n.s.) in the village of Gorokhovo, Oryol province, in the family of an official of the criminal chamber, who came from the clergy. Childhood years were spent in the estate of the Strakhovs' relatives, then in Orel. After his retirement, Leskov's father took up farming in the farm he acquired, Panin, Kromsky district. In the wilderness of Oryol, the future writer was able to see and learn a lot, which later gave him the right to say: “I did not study the people by talking with St. In 1841 - 1846 Leskov studied at the Oryol gymnasium, which he failed to graduate from: in the sixteenth year he lost his father, and the family's property was destroyed in a fire. Leskov joined the Orel Criminal Chamber of the Court, which gave him good material for future works. In 1849, with the support of his uncle, Kyiv professor S. Alferyev, Leskov was transferred to Kyiv as an official of the Treasury. In the house of his uncle, his mother's brother, a professor of medicine, under the influence of progressive university professors, Leskov's keen interest in Herzen, in the great poet of Ukraine Taras Shevchenko, in Ukrainian culture, awakened, he became interested in ancient painting and architecture of Kiev, later becoming an outstanding connoisseur of ancient Russian art. In 1857, Leskov retired and entered the private service of a large trading company, which was engaged in the resettlement of peasants to new lands and on whose business he traveled almost the entire European part of Russia. The beginning of Leskov's literary activity dates back to 1860, when he first appeared as a progressive publicist. In January 1861 Leskov settled in St. Petersburg with the desire to devote himself to literary and journalistic activities. He began to publish in Otechestvennye Zapiski. Leskov came to Russian literature, having a large reserve of observations on Russian life, with sincere sympathy for the people's needs, which was reflected in his stories "Extinguished Case" (1862), "The Robber"; in the stories "The Life of a Woman" (1863), "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District" (1865). In 1862, as a correspondent for the newspaper Severnaya Pchela, he visited Poland, Western Ukraine, and the Czech Republic. He wanted to get acquainted with the life, art and poetry of the Western Slavs, with whom he was very sympathetic. The trip ended with a visit to Paris. In the spring of 1863 Leskov returned to Russia. Knowing well the province, its needs, human characters, details of everyday life and deep ideological currents, Leskov did not accept the calculations of the "theorists" cut off from Russian roots. He talks about this in the story "The Musk Ox" (1863), in the novels "Nowhere" (1864), "The Bypassed" (1865), "On the Knives" (1870). They outline the theme of Russia's unpreparedness for the revolution and the tragic fate of people who connected their lives with the hope of its speedy implementation. Hence the disagreement with the revolutionary democrats. In 1870 - 1880 Leskov overestimated a lot; acquaintance with Tolstoy has a great influence on him. National-historical issues appeared in his work: the novel "Soboryane" (1872), "The Seedy Family" (1874). During these years he wrote several stories about artists: "The Islanders", "The Sealed Angel". The talent of a Russian person, the kindness and generosity of his soul have always fascinated Leskov, and this theme found its expression in the stories “Lefty (The Tale of the Tula Oblique Lefty and the Steel Flea)” (1881), “Dumb Artist” (1883), “The Man on the hours" (1887). Satire, humor and irony occupy a large place in Leskov's legacy: "Selective Grain", "Shameless", "Waste Dancers", etc. The story "Hare Remise" was the last major work of the writer. Leskov died in St. Petersburg.

Nikolai Leskov was born in the village of Gorokhov, Oryol province, on February 4 (16 n.s.), 1831. He was the son of an official of the criminal chamber. Nikolai grew up on the estates of the Strakhovs, then in Orel. The father retires from the chambers and buys the Panin farm in the Kromsky district, where he begins to engage in agriculture. In 1841 - 1846, the young man studied at the Oryol gymnasium, but due to the death of his father and a fire on the farm, Nikolai could not graduate from it. The young man goes to serve in the Oryol criminal chamber of the court. In 1849 he was transferred to Kyiv as an official of the state chamber at the request of his uncle S. Alferyev. In his uncle's house, the writer develops an interest in Taras Shevchenko and Ukrainian literature. In 1857, Leskov, having retired, got a job in a large trading company that was engaged in the resettlement of peasants.

In 1860 Leskov acts as a progressive publicist, which gives rise to his activities. In January 1861, Nikolai moved to St. Petersburg and began publishing in Otechestvennye Zapiski. Observing the hard life of the people, the author gives birth to the stories “Extinguished Business” (1862), “The Robber”, the novella “The Life of a Woman” (1863), “Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District” (1865). In 1862 he visited Poland, western Ukraine, and the Czech Republic, working as a correspondent for the newspaper Severnaya pchela. At the end of the trip he visited Paris. In the spring of 1863 Leskov returned to Russia. Nikolai diligently took up writing, and after a while the world saw the story "The Musk Ox" (1863), the novels "Nowhere" (1864), "Bypassed" (1865), "On Knives" (1870). In 1870 - 1880 Leskov rethinks everything; communication with Tolstoy strongly influences him, as a result of which national-historical problems emerge: the novel "Soboryane" (1872), "The Seedy Family" (1874). Over the years, stories about artists have also been written: "The Islanders", "The Sealed Angel". Admiration for the Russian man, his qualities (kindness, generosity) and soul, inspired the poet to write the stories "Lefty (The Tale of the Tula Oblique Lefty and the Steel Flea)" (1881), "Dumb Artist" (1883), "The Man on the Clock" ( 1887). After himself, Leskov left many satirical works, humor and irony: "Selective Grain", "Shameless", "Empty Dance", etc. The final major masterpiece of the author was the story "Hare Remise".

Russian writer and publicist, memoirist

Nikolai Leskov

short biography

Born on February 16, 1831 in the village of Gorokhovo, Oryol district (now the village of Staroe Gorokhovo, Sverdlovsk district, Oryol region). Leskov's father, Semyon Dmitrievich Leskov (1789-1848), a native of the spiritual environment, according to Nikolai Semyonovich, was "... a big, wonderful smart guy and a dense seminarian." Having broken with the spiritual environment, he entered the service of the Oryol Criminal Chamber, where he rose to the ranks that gave the right to hereditary nobility, and, according to contemporaries, gained a reputation as a shrewd investigator, able to unravel complex cases. Mother, Maria Petrovna Leskova (nee Alferyeva) (1813-1886) was the daughter of an impoverished Moscow nobleman. One of her sisters was married to a wealthy Oryol landowner, the other to a wealthy Englishman. The younger brother, Alexei, (1837-1909) became a doctor, had a doctorate in medical sciences.

N. S. Leskov. Drawing by I. E. Repin, 1888-89.

Childhood

N. S. Leskov's early childhood passed in Orel. After 1839, when his father left the service (due to a quarrel with his superiors, which, according to Leskov, incurred the anger of the governor), the family - his wife, three sons and two daughters - moved to the village of Panino (Panin Khutor) not far from the city Chrome. Here, as the future writer recalled, his knowledge of the people began.

In August 1841, at the age of ten, Leskov entered the first grade of the Oryol provincial gymnasium, where he studied poorly: five years later he received a certificate of completion of only two classes. Drawing an analogy with N. A. Nekrasov, literary critic B. Ya. Bukhshtab suggests: “In both cases, obviously, they acted - on the one hand, neglect, on the other, an aversion to cramming, to the routine and carrion of the then state-owned educational institutions with greedy interest to life and bright temperament.

Service and work

In June 1847, Leskov joined the Orel Criminal Chamber of the Criminal Court, where his father worked, as a clerk of the 2nd category. After the death of his father from cholera (in 1848), Nikolai Semyonovich received another promotion, becoming assistant clerk of the Oryol Chamber of the Criminal Court, and in December 1849, at his own request, he was transferred to the staff of the Kiev Treasury Chamber. He moved to Kyiv, where he lived with his uncle S.P. Alferyev.

In Kyiv (in 1850-1857), Leskov attended lectures at the university as a volunteer, studied the Polish language, became interested in icon painting, took part in a religious and philosophical student circle, communicated with pilgrims, Old Believers, and sectarians. It was noted that the economist D.P. Zhuravsky, an advocate of the abolition of serfdom, had a significant influence on the outlook of the future writer.

In 1857, Leskov retired from the service and began working in the company of his aunt's husband A. Ya. Shkott (Scott) "Shkott and Wilkens". In the enterprise, which, in his words, tried to "exploit everything that the region offered any convenience to," Leskov acquired vast practical experience and knowledge in numerous areas of industry and agriculture. At the same time, on the business of the company, Leskov constantly went on “travels around Russia”, which also contributed to his acquaintance with the language and life of different regions of the country. “... These are the best years of my life, when I saw a lot and lived easily,” N. S. Leskov later recalled.

I ... think that I know the Russian person in his very depths, and I do not put myself in any merit for this. I did not study the people by 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 the Panin’s swaying crowd behind circles of dusty manners ...

Stebnitsky (N. S. Leskov). "Russian Society in Paris"

During this period (until 1860) he lived with his family in the village of Nikolo-Raysky, Gorodishchensky district, Penza province and in Penza. Here he took up the pen for the first time. In 1859, when a wave of "drinking riots" swept through the Penza province, as well as throughout Russia, Nikolai Semyonovich wrote "Essays on the distillery industry (Penza province)", published in Otechestvennye Zapiski. This work is not only about distillery production, but also about agriculture, which, according to him, in the province is “far from being in a flourishing state”, and peasant cattle breeding is “in complete decline”. He believed that distilling hinders the development of agriculture in the province, "the state of which is bleak in the present and cannot promise anything good in the future ...".

Some time later, however, the trading house ceased to exist, and Leskov returned to Kyiv in the summer of 1860, where he took up journalism and literary activities. Six months later, he moved to St. Petersburg, staying with Ivan Vernadsky.

Literary career

Leskov began to publish relatively late - at the twenty-sixth year of his life, placing several notes in the newspaper "St. working class”, a few notes about doctors) and “Index economic”. Leskov's articles, which denounced the corruption of police doctors, led to a conflict with his colleagues: as a result of a provocation organized by them, Leskov, who conducted the official investigation, was accused of bribery and was forced to leave the service.

At the beginning of his literary career, N. S. Leskov collaborated with many St. Petersburg newspapers and magazines, most of all published in Otechestvennye Zapiski (where he was patronized by a familiar Oryol publicist S. S. Gromeko), in Russian Speech and Northern Bee . Otechestvennye Zapiski published Essays on the Distillery Industry (Penza Province), which Leskov himself called his first work, which is considered his first major publication. In the summer of that year, he briefly moved to Moscow, returning to St. Petersburg in December.

Pseudonyms of N. S. Leskov

IN early creative activity Leskov wrote under the pseudonym M. Stebnitsky. The pseudonymous signature "Stebnitsky" first appeared on March 25, 1862 under the first fictional work - "Extinguished Case" (later "Drought"). She held out until August 14, 1869. At times, the signatures “M. C", "C", and, finally, in 1872 "L. S", "P. Leskov-Stebnitsky" and "M. Leskov-Stebnitsky. Among other conditional signatures and pseudonyms used by Leskov, the following are known: “Freishits”, “V. Peresvetov”, “Nikolai Ponukalov”, “Nikolai Gorokhov”, “Someone”, “Dm. M-ev”, “N.”, “Member of the Society”, “Psalm Reader”, “Priest. P. Kastorsky”, “Divyank”, “M. P., B. Protozanov”, “Nikolai-ov”, “N. L., N. L.--v”, “Lover of antiquities”, “Traveler”, “Lover of watches”, “N. L., L.

Article on fires

In an article about the fires in the journal "Northern Bee" dated May 30, 1862, which were rumored to be arson carried out by revolutionary students and Poles, the writer mentioned these rumors and demanded that the authorities confirm or refute them, which was perceived by the democratic public as a denunciation. In addition, criticism of the actions of the administrative authorities, expressed by the wish "that the teams sent to come to the fires for real help, and not for standing" - aroused the anger of the king himself. After reading these lines, Alexander II wrote: "It should not have been skipped, especially since it is a lie."

As a result, Leskov was sent by the editors of the Northern Bee on a long business trip. He traveled around the western provinces of the empire, visited Dinaburg, Vilna, Grodno, Pinsk, Lvov, Prague, Krakow, and at the end of his trip to Paris. In 1863 he returned to Russia and published a series of journalistic essays and letters, in particular, "From a Travel Diary", "Russian Society in Paris".

"Nowhere"

From the beginning of 1862, N. S. Leskov became a permanent contributor to the Severnaya Pchela newspaper, where he began to write editorials and essays, often on everyday, ethnographic topics, but also critical articles directed, in particular, against the “vulgar materialism" and nihilism. His work was highly appreciated on the pages of the then Sovremennik.

The writing career of N. S. Leskov began in 1863, his first stories “The Life of a Woman” and “The Musk Ox” (1863-1864) were published. At the same time, the novel Nowhere (1864) began to be published in the Library for Reading magazine. “This novel bears all the signs of my haste and ineptitude,” the writer himself later admitted.

Nowhere, which satirically depicted the life of a nihilistic commune, which was opposed by the industriousness of the Russian people and Christian family values, caused displeasure of the radicals. It was noted that most of the “nihilists” depicted by Leskov had recognizable prototypes (the writer V. A. Sleptsov was guessed in the image of the head of the Beloyartsevo commune).

It was this first novel - politically a radical debut - for many years that predetermined Leskov's special place in the literary community, which, for the most part, was inclined to attribute to him "reactionary", anti-democratic views. The leftist press actively spread rumors that the novel was written "on order" of the Third Division. This "heinous slander", according to the writer, spoiled his entire creative life, depriving him of the opportunity to publish in popular magazines for many years. This predetermined his rapprochement with M. N. Katkov, the publisher of Russkiy Vestnik.

First stories

In 1863, the story "The Life of a Woman" (1863) was published in the Library for Reading magazine. During the life of the writer, the work was not reprinted and then came out only in 1924 in a modified form under the title “Cupid in paws. A Peasant Romance (Vremya publishing house, edited by P. V. Bykov). The latter claimed that Leskov himself gave him a new version of his own work - in gratitude for the bibliography of his works compiled by him in 1889. There were doubts about this version: it is known that N. S. Leskov already in the preface to the first volume of the collection “Tales, Essays and Stories of M. Stebnitsky” promised to print in the second volume “the experience of a peasant novel” - “Cupid in paws”, but then The promised publication did not follow.

In the same years, Leskov’s works, “Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District” (1864), “The Warrior Girl” (1866), were published - stories, mostly of a tragic sound, in which the author brought out vivid female images of different classes. Almost ignored by modern critics, they subsequently received the highest marks from specialists. It was in the first stories that Leskov's individual humor manifested itself, for the first time his unique style began to take shape, a kind of tale, the founder of which - along with Gogol - he later began to be considered. Elements of the literary style that made Leskov famous are also found in the story Kotin Doilets and Platonida (1867).

Around this time, N. S. Leskov also made his debut as a playwright. In 1867, the Alexandrinsky Theater staged his play The Spender, a drama from a merchant's life, after which Leskov was once again accused by critics of "pessimism and antisocial tendencies." Of Leskov's other major works of the 1860s, critics noted the story The Bypassed (1865), which polemicized with the novel What Is to Be Done by N. G. Chernyshevsky, and The Islanders (1866), a moralistic story about the Germans living on Vasilyevsky Island .

"On knives"

On knives. 1885 edition

In 1870, N. S. Leskov published the novel “On the Knives”, in which he continued to ridicule the nihilists, representatives of the revolutionary movement that was taking shape in Russia in those years, which, in the writer’s mind, merged with criminality. Leskov himself was dissatisfied with the novel, subsequently calling it his worst work. In addition, the writer was left with an unpleasant aftertaste by constant disputes with M. N. Katkov, who over and over again demanded that the finished version be redone and edited. “In this edition, purely literary interests were diminished, destroyed and adapted to serve interests that have nothing to do with any literature,” wrote N. S. Leskov.

Some contemporaries (in particular, Dostoevsky) noted the intricacies of the adventurous plot of the novel, the tension and implausibility of the events described in it. After that, N. S. Leskov no longer returned to the genre of the novel in its purest form.

"Cathedrals"

The novel "On the Knives" was a turning point in the writer's work. As Maxim Gorky noted, “... after the evil novel“ On the Knives ”, Leskov’s literary work immediately becomes a bright painting or, rather, icon painting - he begins to create an iconostasis of her saints and righteous for Russia.” The main characters of Leskov's works were representatives of the Russian clergy, partly the local nobility. Scattered passages and essays began to gradually take shape in a large novel, which eventually received the name "Soboryane" and was published in 1872 in the "Russian Bulletin". As the literary critic V. Korovin notes, the goodies - Archpriest Saveliy Tuberozov, deacon Achilles Desnitsyn and priest Zakhary Benefaktov - the story of which is sustained in the traditions of the heroic epos, “are surrounded from all sides by the figures of the new time - nihilists, swindlers, civil and church officials new type." The work, the theme of which was the opposition of "true" Christianity to official Christianity, subsequently led the writer into conflict with church and secular authorities. It was also the first to "have significant success."

Simultaneously with the novel, two “chronicles” were written, consonant in theme and mood with the main work: “Old Years in the Village of Plodomasovo” (1869) and “The Rundown Family” (full title: “The Rundown Family. Family Chronicle of the Princes Protazanovs. From the Notes of Princess V. D. P., 1873). According to one of the critics, the heroines of both chronicles are "examples of persistent virtue, calm dignity, high courage, reasonable philanthropy." Both of these works left a feeling of unfinished. Subsequently, it turned out that the second part of the chronicle, in which (according to V. Korovin) "the mysticism and hypocrisy of the end of Alexander's reign was caustically depicted and the social non-embodiment of Christianity in the Russian life was affirmed," caused dissatisfaction with M. Katkov. Leskov, having disagreed with the publisher, "did not finish writing the novel." “Katkov ... during the printing of The Seedy Family, he said (to an employee of the Russkiy Vestnik) Voskoboinikov: We are mistaken: this man is not ours!” - the writer later stated.

"Lefty"

One of the most striking images in the gallery of Leskov's "righteous" was Lefty ("The Tale of the Tula Oblique Lefty and the Steel Flea", 1881). Subsequently, critics noted here, on the one hand, the virtuosity of the embodiment of Leskov's "narrative", saturated with puns and original neologisms (often with mocking, satirical overtones), on the other hand, the multi-layered narrative, the presence of two points of view: "where the narrator constantly holds the same views, and the author inclines the reader to completely different, often opposite. N. S. Leskov himself wrote about this “cunning” of his own style:

A few more people supported that in my stories it is really difficult to distinguish between good and evil, and that even sometimes you can’t make out at all who is harming the cause and who is helping it. This was attributed to some innate deceit of my nature.

As the critic B. Ya. Bukhshtab noted, such “treachery” manifested itself primarily in the description of the actions of the ataman Platov, from the point of view of the hero - almost heroic, but the author is covertly ridiculed. "Lefty" was subjected to devastating criticism from both sides. According to B. Ya. Bukhshtab, liberals and democrats (“leftists”) accused Leskov of nationalism, reactionaries (“rightists”) considered the depiction of the life of the Russian people to be excessively gloomy. N. S. Leskov replied that “belittling the Russian people or flattering them” was by no means part of his intentions.

When published in "Rus", as well as in a separate edition, the story was accompanied by a preface:

I cannot say exactly where the first tale of the steel flea was born, that is, whether it started in Tula, on Izhma, or in Sestroretsk, but, obviously, it came from one of these places. In any case, the tale of a steel flea is a special gunsmithing legend, and it expresses the pride of Russian gunsmiths. It depicts the struggle of our masters with the English masters, from which our masters came out victoriously and the English were completely shamed and humiliated. Here, some secret reason for the military failures in the Crimea is revealed. I wrote down this legend in Sestroretsk according to a local tale from an old gunsmith, a native of Tula, who moved to the Sestra River back in the reign of Emperor Alexander the First.

1872-1874 years

In 1872, N. S. Leskov's story "The Sealed Angel" was written, and a year later it was published, telling about a miracle that led the schismatic community to unity with Orthodoxy. In the work, where there are echoes of ancient Russian “journeys” and legends about miraculous icons and subsequently recognized as one of the best works of the writer, Leskovsky’s “skaz” received the strongest and most expressive incarnation. “The Sealed Angel” turned out to be practically the only work of the writer that did not undergo editorial revision of the “Russian Messenger”, because, as the writer noted, “passed behind their lack of time in the shadows.”

In the same year, the story The Enchanted Wanderer was published, a work of free forms that did not have a complete plot, built on the interweaving of disparate storylines. Leskov believed that such a genre should replace what was considered to be a traditional modern novel. Subsequently, it was noted that the image of the hero Ivan Flyagin resembles the epic Ilya Muromets and symbolizes "the physical and moral stamina of the Russian people in the midst of the suffering that falls to their lot." Despite the fact that The Enchanted Wanderer criticized the dishonesty of the authorities, the story was a success in official spheres and even at court.

If until then Leskov's works were edited, then this was simply rejected, and the writer had to publish it in different issues of the newspaper. Not only Katkov, but also "leftist" critics took the story with hostility. In particular, the critic N.K. Mikhailovsky pointed to the “absence of any center whatsoever”, so that, in his words, there is “... a whole series of plots strung like beads on a thread, and each bead in itself can be very conveniently taken out and replaced by another, or you can string as many beads as you like on the same thread.

After the break with Katkov, the financial situation of the writer (by this time he had married a second time) worsened. In January 1874, N. S. Leskov was appointed a member of a special department of the Scientific Committee of the Ministry of Public Education for the review of books published for the people, with a very modest salary of 1000 rubles a year. Leskov's duties included reviewing books to see if they could be sent to libraries and reading rooms. In 1875 he went abroad for a short time without stopping his literary work.

"Righteous"

The creation of a gallery of bright positive characters was continued by the writer in a collection of short stories, published under the general name “The Righteous” (“The Figure”, “The Man on the Clock”, “The Non-Deadly Golovan”, etc.) , heightened conscience, inability to reconcile with evil. Responding in advance to critics on accusations of some idealization of his characters, Leskov argued that his stories about the "righteous" were mostly in the nature of memories (in particular, what his grandmother told him about Golovan, etc.), tried to give the narrative a background of historical authenticity , introducing descriptions of real people into the plot.

As the researchers noted, some of the eyewitness accounts cited by the writer were genuine, while others were his own fiction. Often Leskov edited old manuscripts and memoirs. For example, in the story “Non-deadly Golovan”, “Cool Helicopter City” is used - a 17th-century medical book. In 1884, in a letter to the editor of the Warsaw Diary newspaper, he wrote:

The articles in your newspaper say that I mostly wrote off living faces and conveyed real stories. Whoever the author of these articles is, he is absolutely right. I have powers of observation and maybe some ability to analyze feelings and impulses, but I have little imagination. I invent hard and difficult, and therefore I have always needed living persons who could interest me with their spiritual content. They took possession of me, and I tried to embody them in stories, which, too, very often were based on a real event.

Leskov (according to the memoirs of A. N. Leskov) believed that by creating cycles about “Russian antiques”, he was fulfilling Gogol’s testament from “Selected passages from correspondence with friends”: “Exalt the inconspicuous worker in a solemn hymn.” In the preface to the first of these stories (“Odnodum”, 1879), the writer explained their appearance in this way: “It is terrible and intolerable ... to see one“ rubbish ”in the Russian soul, which has become the main subject of new literature, and ... I went to look for the righteous,<…>but wherever I go<…>everyone answered me in the way that they did not see righteous people, because all people are sinners, and so, both of them knew some good people. I started writing it down."

In the 1880s, Leskov also created a series of works about the righteous of early Christianity: the action of these works takes place in Egypt and the countries of the Middle East. The plots of these narratives were, as a rule, borrowed by him from the "prologue" - a collection of the lives of saints and edifying stories compiled in Byzantium in the 10th-11th centuries. Leskov was proud that his Egyptian sketches "Buffoon Pamphalon" and "Aza" were translated into German, and the publishers gave him preference over Ebers, the author of "The Daughter of the Egyptian King."

At the same time, the writer creates a series of works for children, which he publishes in the magazine "Sincere Word" and "Toy": "Christ is visiting a peasant", "Fixable ruble", "Father's Testament", "The Lion of Elder Gerasim", " The languor of the spirit ", originally -" Goat "," Fool "and others. In the last journal, it was willingly published by A.N. Peshkova-Toliverova, who became in 1880-1890. close friend of the prose writer. At the same time, the satirical and accusatory line intensified in the writer’s work (“Dumb Artist”, “The Beast”, “Scarecrow”): along with officials and officers, clergymen began to appear more and more often among his negative heroes.

Attitude towards the church

In the 1880s, N. S. Leskov's attitude towards the church changed. In 1883, in a letter to L. I. Veselitskaya about the "Cathedrals", he wrote:

Now I would not write them, but I would gladly write “Notes of the Uncut” ... Oaths to allow; bless knives; weaning through force to sanctify; divorce marriages; enslave children; give out secrets; keep the pagan custom of devouring the body and blood; forgive wrongs done to another; provide protection from the Creator or curse and do thousands more vulgarities and meanness, falsifying all the commandments and requests of the “righteous man hung on the cross” - this is what I would like to show people ... the teachings of Christ, is called "Orthodoxy"... I do not argue when it is called by this name, but it is not Christianity.

Leskov's attitude towards the church was affected by the influence of Leo Tolstoy, with whom he became close in the late 1880s. “I am always in agreement with him and there is no one on earth who would be dearer to me than him. I am never embarrassed by what I cannot share with him: I cherish his common, so to speak, dominant mood of his soul and the terrible penetration of his mind, ”Leskov wrote about Tolstoy in one of his letters to V. G. Chertkov.

Perhaps Leskov's most notable anti-church work was the story Midnight Occupants, completed in the fall of 1890 and published in the last two issues of 1891 of the journal Vestnik Evropy. The author had to overcome considerable difficulties before his work saw the light. “I will keep my story on the table. It’s true that no one will print it at the present time, ”wrote N. S. Leskov to L. N. Tolstoy on January 8, 1891.

The essay by N. S. Leskov “Priestly leapfrog and parish whim” (1883) also caused a scandal. The intended cycle of essays and stories, Notes of an Unknown Man (1884), was devoted to ridiculing the vices of the clergy, but work on it was stopped under pressure from censorship. Moreover, for these works, N. S. Leskov was fired from the Ministry of Public Education. The writer again found himself in spiritual isolation: the “rightists” now saw him as a dangerous radical. Literary critic B. Ya. Bukhshtab noted that at the same time, "liberals are becoming especially cowardly - and those who previously interpreted Leskov as a reactionary writer are now afraid to publish his works because of their political harshness."

Leskov's financial situation was corrected by the publication in 1889-1890 of a ten-volume collection of his works (later the 11th volume was added and posthumously - the 12th). The publication was quickly sold out and brought the writer a significant fee. But it was precisely with this success that his first heart attack was connected, which happened on the stairs of the printing house, when it became known that the sixth volume of the collection (containing works on church topics) was detained by censorship (later it was reorganized by the publishing house).

Later works

N. S. Leskov, 1892

In the 1890s, Leskov became even more sharply publicistic in his work than before: his stories and novels in the last years of his life were sharply satirical. The writer himself said about his works of that time:

My latest writings about Russian society are very cruel. "Zagon", "Winter Day", "Lady and Fefela" ... The public does not like these things for their cynicism and directness. Yes, I do not want to please the public. Let her at least choke on my stories, but read. I know how to please her, but I no longer want to please. I want to whip her and torture her.

The publication of the novel "Devil's Dolls" in the journal "Russian Thought", the prototypes of the two main characters of which were Nicholas I and the artist K. Bryullov, was suspended by censorship. Leskov could not publish the story "Hare Remise" - either in "Russian Thought" or in "Bulletin of Europe": it was published only after 1917. Not a single major later work of the writer (including the novels The Falcon Flight and The Invisible Trail) was published in full: the chapters rejected by the censorship were published after the revolution. The publication of his own writings for Leskov has always been a difficult matter, and in the last years of his life turned into unceasing torment.

last years of life

Nikolai Semenovich Leskov died on February 21, 1895 in St. Petersburg from another attack of asthma, which tormented him for the last five years of his life. Nikolai Leskov was buried at the Volkovsky cemetery in St. Petersburg.

Publication of works

Shortly before his death, in 1889-1893, Leskov compiled and published by A. S. Suvorin "Complete Works" in 12 volumes (republished in 1897 by A. F. Marx), which included mostly his works of art (moreover, in the first edition of the 6th volume was not passed by the censors).

In 1902-1903, A.F. Marx's printing house (as an appendix to the Niva magazine) published a 36-volume collection of works, in which the editors also tried to collect the writer's journalistic legacy and which caused a wave of public interest in the writer's work.

After the revolution of 1917, Leskov was declared a "reactionary, bourgeois-minded writer", and his works for many years (with the exception of the inclusion of 2 stories of the writer in the collection of 1927) were forgotten. During the short Khrushchev thaw, Soviet readers finally got the opportunity to come into contact with Leskov's work again - in 1956-1958, an 11-volume collection of the writer's works was published, which, however, is not complete: for ideological reasons, the sharpest in tone was not included in it the anti-nihilistic novel "Knives", while journalism and letters are presented in a very limited volume (volumes 10-11). During the years of stagnation, attempts were made to publish short collected works and separate volumes of Leskov's works, which did not cover the areas of the writer's work related to religious and anti-nihilistic themes (the chronicle "Soboryane", the novel "Nowhere"), and which were supplied with extensive tendentious comments. In 1989, the first collected works of Leskov - also in 12 volumes - were republished in the Ogonyok Library.

For the first time, a truly complete (30-volume) collected works of the writer began to be published by the publishing house "Terra" since 1996 and continues to this day. In this edition, in addition to well-known works, it is planned to include all found, previously unpublished articles, stories and stories of the writer.

Reviews of critics and contemporary writers

L. N. Tolstoy spoke of Leskov as “the most Russian of our writers”, A. P. Chekhov considered him, along with I. Turgenev, one of his main teachers.

Many researchers noted Leskov's special knowledge of the Russian spoken language and the virtuoso use of this knowledge.

As an artist of the word, N. S. Leskov is quite worthy to stand next to such creators of Russian literature as L. Tolstoy, Gogol, Turgenev, Goncharov. Leskov's talent, in strength and beauty, is not much inferior to the talent of any of the named creators of the sacred writings about the Russian land, and in the breadth of coverage of the phenomena of life, the depth of understanding of its everyday mysteries, and the subtle knowledge of the Great Russian language, he often exceeds his named predecessors and associates.

Maksim Gorky

The main complaint of literary criticism against Leskov in those years was what seemed to her to be “excessive superimposed colors”, deliberate expressiveness of speech. This was also noted by contemporary writers: L. N. Tolstoy, who highly appreciated Leskov, mentioned in one of his letters that in the writer’s prose “... there is a lot of superfluous, disproportionate”. It was about the fairy tale "The Hour of God's Will", which Tolstoy highly appreciated, and about which (in a letter dated December 3, 1890) he said: "The fairy tale is still very good, but it's a shame that, if it weren't for an excess of talent, would be better."

Leskov was not going to "correct" in response to criticism. In a letter to V. G. Chertkov in 1888, he wrote: “I can’t write as simply as Lev Nikolayevich. This is not in my gifts. … Take mine as I can make it. I’m used to finishing work and I can’t work easier.”

When the journals Russkaya Mysl and Severny Vestnik criticized the language of the story Midnight Men (‘excessive artificiality’, ‘an abundance of invented and distorted words, sometimes strung together in one phrase’), Leskov replied:

I am reproached for ... "mannered" language, especially in the "midnight clerks". Do we have a few mannered people? All quasi-scholarly literature writes its learned articles in this barbaric language... Is it any wonder that some petty-bourgeois woman speaks it in my Midnight Offices? At least she has a cheerful and funny tongue.

N. S. Leskov considered the individualization of the language of the characters and the speech characteristics of the characters to be the most important element of literary creativity.

Personal and family life

In 1853, Leskov married the daughter of a Kyiv merchant, Olga Vasilievna Smirnova. In this marriage, a son Dmitry (died in infancy) and a daughter Vera were born. Leskov's family life was unsuccessful: his wife Olga Vasilievna suffered from a mental illness and in 1878 was placed in the St. Nicholas Hospital in St. Petersburg, on the Pryazhka River. Her chief physician was the once well-known psychiatrist O. A. Chechott, and her trustee was the famous S. P. Botkin.

In 1865, Leskov entered into a civil marriage with the widow Ekaterina Bubnova (nee Savitskaya), in 1866 their son Andrei was born. His son, Yuri Andreevich (1892-1942) became a diplomat, together with his wife, nee Baroness Medem, settled in France after the revolution. Their daughter, the only great-granddaughter of the writer, Tatyana Leskova (born 1922) is a ballerina and teacher who made a significant contribution to the formation and development of Brazilian ballet. In 2001 and 2003, visiting Leskov's house-museum in Orel, she donated family heirlooms to his collection - a lyceum badge and lyceum rings of her father.

Vegetarianism

Vegetarianism had an impact on the life and work of the writer, especially from the moment he met Leo Tolstoy in April 1887 in Moscow. In a letter to the publisher of the Novoye Vremya newspaper A.S. Suvorin, Leskov wrote: “I switched to vegetarianism on the advice of Bertenson; but, of course, with my own attraction to this attraction. I always resented [the carnage] and thought it shouldn't be like this."

In 1889, Leskov's note was published in the Novoye Vremya newspaper under the title "About Vegetarians, or Serious Patients and Meat Pusts", in which the writer characterized those vegetarians who do not eat meat for "hygienic reasons", and contrasted them with "compassionate people" - those who follow vegetarianism out of "their feeling of pity". The people respect only “compassionate people,” Leskov wrote, “who do not eat meat food, not because they consider it unhealthy, but out of pity for the animals being killed.

The history of a vegetarian cookbook in Russia begins with N. S. Leskov's call to create such a book in Russian. This appeal of the writer was published in June 1892 in the Novoye Vremya newspaper under the title "On the need to publish in Russian a well-composed detailed kitchen book for vegetarians". Leskov argued the need to publish such a book by the “significant” and “constantly increasing” number of vegetarians in Russia, who, unfortunately, still do not have books with vegetarian recipes in their native language.

Leskov's appeal caused numerous mocking remarks in the Russian press, and the critic V.P. Burenin in one of his feuilletons created a parody of Leskov, calling him "the pious Abba." Responding to this kind of slander and attacks, Leskov writes that "absurdity" is not the flesh of animals "invented" long before Vl. Solovyov and L. N. Tolstoy, and refers not only to the "huge number" of unknown vegetarians, but also to names known to everyone, such as Zoroaster, Sakia-Muni, Xenocrates, Pythagoras, Empedocles, Socrates, Epicurus, Plato, Seneca, Ovid, Juvenal, John Chrysostom, Byron, Lamartine and many others.

A year after Leskov's call, the first vegetarian cookbook in Russian was published in Russia. She was called "Vegetarian cuisine. Instructions for the preparation of more than 800 dishes, breads and drinks for a kill-free diet with an introductory article on the importance of vegetarianism and with the preparation of dinners in 3 categories for 2 weeks. Compiled according to foreign and Russian sources. - M.: Intermediary, 1894. XXXVI, 181 p. (For intelligent readers, 27).

The persecution and ridicule from the press did not intimidate Leskov: he continued to publish notes on vegetarianism and repeatedly referred to this phenomenon of the cultural life of Russia in his works.

Nikolai Semyonovich Leskov - the creator of the first vegetarian character in Russian literature (figure's story, 1889). Leskov also addresses various aspects of vegetarianism, food ethics and animal protection in his other works, such as the story “Robbery” (1887), which describes the slaughter of young bulls by a wealthy butcher, who, standing with a knife in his hands, listens to nightingale trills.

Later, other vegetarian characters appeared in Leskov's work: in the story "Midnight Occupants" (1890) - the girl Nastya, a follower of Tolstoy and a strict vegetarian, and in the story "The Salt Pillar" (1891-1895) - the painter Plisov, who, telling about himself and his surroundings, reports that they “ate neither meat nor fish, but ate only vegetable food” and found that this was enough for them and their children.

Leskov in culture

Composer Dmitri Shostakovich based on Leskov's story "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District" created an opera of the same name, the first production of which took place in 1934.

In 1988, R. K. Shchedrin, based on the story, created a musical drama of the same name in nine parts for a mixed choir a cappella.

Screen adaptations

1923 - "Comedian"(director Alexander Ivanovsky) - based on the story "Dumb Artist"

1926 - "Katerina Izmailova"(director Cheslav Sabinsky) - based on the story "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District"

1927 - "Woman's Victory"(directed by Yuri Zhelyabuzhsky) - based on the story "Old Years in the Village of Plodomasovo"

1962 - "Siberian Lady Macbeth"(directed by Andrzej Wajda) - based on the story "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District" and the opera by Dmitry Shostakovich

1963 - "The Enchanted Wanderer"(directed by Ivan Ermakov) - a teleplay based on the story "The Enchanted Wanderer"

1964 - "Lefty"(directed by Ivan Ivanov-Vano) - cartoon based on the tale of the same name

1966 - "Katerina Izmailova"(directed by Mikhail Shapiro) - adaptation of Dmitry Shostakovich's opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District

1972 - "Drama of Old Life"(directed by Ilya Averbakh) - based on the story "Dumb Artist"

1986 - "Lefty"(directed by Sergei Ovcharov) - based on the tale of the same name

1986 - "Warrior"(directed by Alexander Zeldovich) - based on the story "The Warrior"

1989 - (directed by Roman Balayan) - based on the story "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District"

1990 - "The Enchanted Wanderer"(director Irina Poplavskaya) - based on the story "The Enchanted Wanderer"

1991 - "Lord, hear my prayer"(on TV "Ask and you shall have", director Natalya Bondarchuk) - based on the story "The Beast"

1992 - "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District"(German Lady Macbeth von Mzensk, directed by Pyotr Veigl) - adaptation of the opera by Dmitry Shostakovich

1994 - "Moscow Nights"(director Valery Todorovsky) - a modern interpretation of the story "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District"

1998 - "On knives"(director Alexander Orlov) - mini-series based on the novel "On the Knives"

2001 - "Interesting Men"(directed by Yuri Kara) - based on the story "Interesting Men"

2005 - "Chertogon"(directed by Andrei Zheleznyakov) - a short film based on the story "Chertogon"

2017 - "Lady Macbeth"(directed by William Oldroyd) - British drama film based on the essay "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District"

Addresses in St. Petersburg

• Autumn 1859 - 05.1860 - the apartment of I.V. Vernadsky in the apartment building of Bychenskaya - Mokhovaya Street, 28;
• late 01. - summer 1861 - I. V. Vernadsky's apartment in the apartment building of Bychenskaya - Mokhovaya street, 28;
• beginning - 09.1862 - I. V. Vernadsky's apartment in the apartment building of Bychenskaya - Mokhovaya street, 28;
• 03. - autumn 1863 - Maksimovich's house - Nevsky Prospekt, 82, apt. 82;
• autumn 1863 - autumn 1864 - Tatsky's apartment building - Liteiny Prospekt, 43;
• autumn 1864 - autumn 1866 - Kuznechny lane, 14, apt. 16;
• autumn 1866 - early 10.1875 - the mansion of S. S. Botkin - Tavricheskaya street, 9;
• beginning 10.1875 - 1877 - profitable house of I. O. Ruban - Zakharyevskaya street, 3, apt. 19;
• 1877 - profitable house of I. S. Semenov - Kuznechny lane, 15;
• 1877 - spring 1879 - tenement house - Nevsky Prospekt, 63;
• spring 1879 - spring 1880 - courtyard wing of A. D. Muruzi's apartment building - Liteiny Prospekt, 24, apt. 44;
• spring 1880 - autumn 1887 - tenement house - Serpukhovskaya street, 56;
• autumn 1887 - 02/21/1895 - the building of the Community of Sisters of Mercy - Furshtatskaya street, 50.

Memory

• In 1974, in Orel, on the territory of the literary reserve "Noble Nest", the house-museum of N. S. Leskov was opened.
• In 1981, in honor of the 150th anniversary of the writer's birth, a monument to Leskov was erected in Orel.
• In the city of Orel, School No. 27 bears the name of Leskov.
• The Gostoml school of the Kromsky district of the Orel region is named after Leskov. Next to the school building is a house-museum dedicated to Leskov.
• Creative society "K. R.O.M.A.” (Kromskoye Regional Association of Local Authors), established in Kromskoy district, in January 2007, by the chairman of the TO, as well as the founder, editor-compiler and publisher of the almanac "KromA" Vasily Ivanovich Agoshkov, is named after N. S. Leskov. .
• The son of Nikolai Leskov, Andrei Leskov, worked for many years on the biography of the writer, finishing it before the Great Patriotic War. This work was published in 1954.
• In honor of N. S. Leskov, the asteroid (4741) Leskov, discovered on November 10, 1985 by Lyudmila Karachkina, an employee of the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory, is named

place names

In honor of Nikolai Leskov are named:

• Leskova street in the Bibirevo district (Moscow),
• Leskova Street in Kyiv (Ukraine) (since 1940, earlier - Bolshaya Shiyanovskaya Street, the scene of the events described in the Pechersk Antiques),
• Leskova street in Rostov-on-Don
• Leskov street and Leskov lane in Orel,
• Leskov street and two Leskov passages in Penza,
• Leskova street in Yaroslavl,
• Leskova street in Vladimir
• Leskova street in Novosibirsk,
• Leskova street in Nizhny Novgorod,
• Leskova street and Leskova lane in Voronezh,
• Leskova street in Saransk (until 1959 Novaya street),
• Leskova street in Grozny,
• Leskova street in Omsk (until 1962 Motornaya street),
• Leskova street in Chelyabinsk,
• Leskova street in Irkutsk
• Leskova street in Nikolaev (Ukraine),
• Leskova street in Almaty (Kazakhstan),
• Leskova street in Kachkanar,
• Leskova street in Sorochinsk
• Leskov street and lane in Khmelnitsky (Ukraine)
• Leskova street in Simferopol

and others.

In philately

Postage stamps of the USSR

1956, denomination 40 kopecks.

1956, denomination 1 ruble

Some works

Novels

• Nowhere (1864)
• Bypassed (1865)
• Islanders (1866)
• On Knives (1870)
• Cathedrals (1872)
• Seedy kind (1874)
• Devil's Dolls (1890)

Tale

• The Life of a Woman (1863)
• Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District (1864)
• Warrior Girl (1866)
• Old years in the village of Plodomasovo (1869)
• Laughter and Sorrow (1871)
• The Mysterious Man (1872)
• The Sealed Angel (1872)
• The Enchanted Wanderer (1873)
• At the End of the World (1875) is based on a true case of the missionary work of Archbishop Nile.
  • Its early handwritten version "Temnyak" has been preserved.
• Unbaptized pop (1877)
• Lefty (1881)
• Jewish somersault college (1882)
• Pechersk antiques (1882)
• Interesting Men (1885)
• Mountain (1888)
• Offended Neteta (1890)
• Midnighters (1891)

stories

• Musk Ox (1862)
• Peacock (1874)
• Iron Will (1876)
• Shameless (1877)
• Odnodum (1879)
• Sheramour (1879)
• Chertogon (1879)
• Non-lethal Golovan (1880)
• White Eagle (1880)
• The Ghost in the Engineering Castle (1882)
• Darner (1882)
• Traveling with a Nihilist (1882)
• Beast. Christmas story (1883)
• Little Mistake (1883)
• Toupee Artist (1883)
• Selected Grain (1884)
• Part-timers (1884)
• Notes of an Unknown (1884)
• Old Genius (1884)
• Pearl necklace (1885)
• Scarecrow (1885)
• Vintage Psychopaths (1885)
• Man on the Clock (1887)
• Robbery (1887)
• Buffoon Pamphalon (1887) (original title "God-pleasing buffoon" was not censored)
• Waste Dances (1892)
• Administrative Grace (1893)
• Hare Remise (1894)

Plays

• Spender (1867)

Articles

• Jew in Russia (Several remarks on the Jewish question) (1883) (foreword by Lev Anninsky)

• Satiation with nobility (1888)

Essays

• Tramps of the spiritual rank - a historical essay written at the dying request of Ivan Danilovich Pavlovsky.