February 21, 1895 (March 6 in 2018). - Died writer Nikolai Semenovich Leskov

Leskov: nihilists, liberals, patriots and Jews in his work

(February 4, 1831–February 21, 1895). The Leskov family on the paternal side came from the clergy: the grandfather of Nikolai Leskov (Dmitry Leskov), his father, grandfather and great-grandfather were priests in the village of Leska, Oryol province. The surname Leskovs was formed from the name of the village. The father of Nikolai Leskov, Semyon Dmitrievich, served as an assessor of the Oryol Chamber of the Criminal Court, where he received the nobility. Mother, Marya Petrovna Alferyeva, belonged to the noble family of the Oryol province. Nikolai Semenovich was born in the village of Gorohovo, Oryol province, in the house of relatives on the maternal line of the Strakhovs, where his mother stayed, and then he lived there until he was 8 years old, being brought up by his mother in an Orthodox atmosphere.

Then Nikolai began to live with his parents in Orel and on the Panino estate. At the age of ten, Nikolai was sent to study at the Oryol provincial gymnasium. In 1847, after the death of his father and the destruction of all small property from a fire, he left the gymnasium and entered the service as a clerk in the Oryol Chamber of the Criminal Court. In 1849, at the request of a relative, he was transferred to Kyiv as an assistant clerk of the recruiting presence, where he did a lot of self-education in the spirit of the Ukrainian Social Democrats: T.G. Shevchenko and others. There was an early unsuccessful marriage, which subsequently broke up.

In 1857, he moved to serve as an agent in the private firm "Shcott and Wilkins", headed by an Englishman who married Leskov's aunt. The company conducted business throughout Russia, and Leskov, as a representative of the company, had a chance to visit many cities. Three-year wanderings in Russia, which gave many impressions, served as the reason for the fact that Leskov took up literary work from 1860, at first writing articles and essays under various pseudonyms.

During this period, Leskov had very oppositional liberal views. Even in 1866, the police report "On Writers and Journalists" said: "Eliseev, Sleptsov, Leskov. Extreme socialists. Sympathize with everything anti-government. Nihilism in all forms." But this was not entirely accurate, since Leskov was not a nihilist: “The social-democratic revolution in Russia cannot be due to the complete absence of socialist concepts in the Russian people and, due to the inconvenience, excite the people against whom they consider their friend, defender and liberator” . prompted him, like many other "sixties", to abandon revolutionary sympathies and utopias, which threatened not only the foundations of serfdom, but also the entire traditional way of life and morality of the Russian people. Leskov contrasted the idea of ​​revolution and radical reorganization of the social system with the idea of ​​personal improvement, the development of cultural skills among the people, and the preaching of "small deeds."

The 1862 trip abroad helped Leskov to become wiser, where Leskov began to write the novel Nowhere, in which he reflected the social movement of the 1860s. in a negative light. The first chapters of the novel were published in January 1864 under the pseudonym Stebnitsky and aroused the indignation of Pisarev and the entire "progressive public". This was followed by the novel On the Knives (1871), which occupies a prominent place among the so-called "reactionary" novels of that era (Klyushnikov's Haze, Pisemsky's The Troubled Sea, Panurge's Herd, Demons, etc.). "Sixties" Leskov portrays morally bankrupt and groundless. This theme was also continued in The Cathedrals (1872). Leskov's sympathies invariably belong to people living in a patriarchal way of life. He portrays them as resistant to the Westernized social theories that are so popular in the "saloons" of the capital.

In the following works - "The Sealed Angel" (1873), "The Enchanted Wanderer" (1873), "At the End of the World" (1876) and others - Leskov's interest is directed almost entirely towards church-religious and moral issues. Leskov's rapprochement with right-wing circles belongs to this period: the Slavophiles and the Russky Vestnik magazine, where he was published in the 1870s. In 1874, Nikolai Semenovich was appointed a member of the educational department of the Scientific Committee of the Ministry of Public Education; the main function of the department was "to review the books published for the people." In 1877, thanks to the positive feedback from Empress Maria Alexandrovna about the novel "The Cathedral", he was appointed a member of the educational department of the Ministry of State Property. Leskov's work during this period paints a cognitive picture of the life of pre-reform and post-reform Russia, the life of the clergy, officials and peasants, also exposing ignorance and bureaucracy.

However, the spiritual growth of the writer at that time for some reason stopped. Leskov unexpectedly shows up old oppositional birthmarks, prose increasingly acquires the features of a pamphlet and satire, as does his religiosity, which leads to a departure from Orthodoxy and rapprochement with a proud Protestant; Leskov recognizes his teaching as "true Christianity." "Trifles of Bishop's Life", published in 1878-1883. essays from the life of the higher clergy, cause understandable displeasure of the ministerial authorities, as a result of which Leskov is dismissed "without a petition" from the scientific committee of the Ministry of Public Education, in which he served since 1874. This marked Leskov's break with the Pochvenniks and a new rapprochement with liberal circles, although they partly corrected themselves in the 1880s. I sincerely feel sorry for Leskov, because his literary talent could give not only social and moralizing, but also spiritually mature Orthodox fruits.

This period includes the work that is the most "secret" and least embellishing of Leskov's biography: "A Jew in Russia". Here is how a modern Jewish literary critic describes his story:

“After as in the south of Russia in 1881-1882. a wave of pogroms passed, the tsarist government decided to create a special commission to consider the causes of the incident. It was headed by Count K. Palen. The question was in the following plane: are the pogroms the answer of the "crowd" to the exploitation that the Jews allegedly subjected to the surrounding population, and, accordingly, is it necessary to stop the economic activity of the Jews and isolate them from the rest of the population in order to eliminate the cause of the pogroms, or is it necessary to solve the Jewish problem on the paths of general development people's life, involving the Jews in the general civil process ... In an effort to participate in the work of the Palen Commission and influence its decisions, the Jewish community of St. Petersburg decided to prepare the relevant materials by ordering thematic developments from several writers, Jews and non-Jews. Leskov was elected as an author on the topic "life and customs of the Jews". The choice of Leskov as the author was not accidental, although not devoid of piquancy: the author of "The Sovereign Court", "Jewish Somersault" and "Rakushansky Melamed" was considered a recognized expert in this matter, but he did not escape accusations of anti-Semitism, which, however, were rather obscure and vague, both because of their absurdity and because it can be humiliating to refute such accusations. At the beginning of 1883, lawyer P.L. Rosenberg. Leskov agreed to his proposal and sat down to work. By December of the same year, he wrote an essay "A Jew in Russia. Some Remarks on the Jewish Question", about five pages long. On December 21, 1883, the text was censored and printed in a brochure in the amount of 50 copies, intended not for sale, but exclusively for the Palen commission. The author was not identified. Leskov made an inscription on his personal copy: "This book, printed with the permission of the Minister of the Interior, Count Dm. A. Tolstoy, was written by me, Nikolai Leskov, and a certain Pyotr Lvovich Rosenberg, who is noted by its fictitious author, submitted it for printing." A copy with this inscription, transferred by the writer's son to the archive, subsequently disappeared. Practically all 50 books of circulation were also lost. However, information about the text found its way into the press: fragments from it were discussed and quoted in the reports on the work of the commission. A narrow circle knew the secret of authorship: a letter was preserved to N. Leskov from that he had read "The Jew in Russia" and that "in terms of liveliness, completeness and strength of argument" he considers it the best treatise on this subject that he knows. However, the work of N. Leskov remained unknown to any wide circle of readers: it was not included not only in any of his lifetime editions of his works, but also in the bibliographic indexes of his work. The Russian writer, who came out in defense of the Jews, remained with his dark and vague reputation in this respect ... ”(L. Annensky).

Leskov's conclusions in this work: the Jews are more "industrious, thrifty, alien to extravagance, idleness, laziness and drunkenness", in comparison with other peoples and, above all, the dreamy Little Russian, who is "slow and not enterprising." “Consequently, there is nothing more natural that among such people a Jew easily achieves the highest earnings and achieves the highest welfare. In order to bring these positions into a greater balance, we see only one real means - to thin out the current crowding of the Jewish population in the limited area of ​​\u200b\u200bits current permanent settlement and throw part of the Jews to the Great Russians, who are not afraid of the Jews. In addition, “Jewishness supplies many individuals prone to high altruism,” to which Leskov attributed the socialist Jews: “Their path is most often the path of mistakes, but mistakes that stem not from selfish motives, but from the aspirations of an ardent mind, “it is possible to deliver greater happiness is possible for a greater number of people "...".

This work by Leskov, after the revolution, was published by Jews in large numbers in the United States and then several times in Israel. Comments are superfluous. Let us only note that Leskov was not interested in the morality of the Talmud and the Shulchan Aruch, since he worked out the order.

The advantages of Leskov should still include the features of his artistic prose. To interest the reader, since the 1870s. Leskov strives for documentary and exotic material. For his stories, the writer turns to historical memoirs, archives, using old folk legends, tales, "prologues", lives, carefully collecting folklore material, walking anecdotes, puns and catchphrases. Leskov contrasts skaz and stylization with the generally accepted literary language. In almost all of his stories, the narration is conducted through the narrator, whose social features of the dialect the writer seeks to convey: “my priests speak in a spiritual way, peasants in a peasant way, upstarts from them and buffoons with tricks, etc. From myself I speak the language of old fairy tales and church-folk”. One of the favorite tricks of Leskov's language was the distortion of "smart speech" by the so-called "folk etymology", which he himself invented: a melkoscope, a multiplication block, a popular adviser, etc. This sometimes brought on him accusations of "spoiling the language" and "originality".

Such quirkiness of artistic writing, together with plot sharpness, made Leskov a master of storytelling, introducing elements of a kind of exquisite popular print into "high" literature (see in particular "The Tale of the Tula Oblique Lefty and the Steel Flea", "Leon the Butler's Son", "Hare Remise" and etc.). These features of his style bring Leskov closer to the work of such ethnographers-fiction writers as P. Yakushkin and others.

Nikolai Semenovich Leskov died on March 5, 1895 in St. Petersburg, from another attack of asthma that had tormented him for the last five years of his life. He was buried at the Volkovo Cemetery in St. Petersburg.

Many writers revealed imperfections and spiritual precariousness in their creative biography. Nevertheless, their best works enriched Russian literature and were loved by the people. Nikolai Semenovich Leskov is one of those writers. Below is an excerpt from The Enchanted Wanderer.

The Enchanted Wanderer
(Excerpt)

[The story of Ivan Severyanych Flyagin about how he was captured by the steppe Tatar nomads.]

- ... I yearned: I really wanted to go home to Russia.

“So you haven’t gotten used to the steppes even at the age of ten?”

- No, sir, I want to go home ... melancholy became. Especially in the evenings, or even when the weather is good in the middle of the day, it’s hot, it’s quiet in the camp, all the Tatars fall into the tents from the heat and sleep, and I raise a shelf near my tent and look at the steppes ... in one direction and in the other - everything is the same ... Sultry look, cruel; ... and the steppe, as if life is painful, no end is foreseen anywhere, and here there is no bottom to the depth of anguish ... You see yourself you don’t know where, and suddenly a monastery or a temple is suddenly marked in front of you, and you remember the baptized land and cry.

Ivan Severyanych stopped, sighed heavily at the memory, and continued:

- Or even worse, it was on the salt marshes just above the Caspian Sea: ... God forbid anyone to stay on the salt marsh for a long time ... Thank you, one wife knew how to smoke horse ribs ... That’s nothing, you can eat more similar, because that it at least smells like ham, but it still tastes bad anyway. And then you gnaw on such disgusting things and suddenly think: oh, and now at home in our village for the holiday of ducks, they say, they pinch geese, slaughter pigs, boil cabbage soup with a neck, fatty, fat ones, and Father Ilya, our priest, is kind - good old man, now he will soon go to glorify Christ, and the clerks, priests and clerks go with him, and with the seminarians, and everyone is tipsy ... Oh, sir, how all this memorable life from childhood will go to be remembered, and attack the soul, and suddenly oppressed on the liver, that where are you disappearing, excommunicated from all this happiness and haven’t been in the spirit for so many years, and you live unmarried and die inveterate, and longing will seize you, and ... wait for the night, crawl out slowly behind the rate, so that not your wife , no children and no one from the filthy ones would see you, and you start to pray ... and you pray ... you pray so much that even the snow of the Indian under your knees will melt and where tears fell - you will see grass in the morning. “They observe the letter of the dead… they are here… They are ruining God’s living work”… and suddenly, like laurels today, he turns 180 degrees to what he professed yesterday.

Perhaps, just as Tolstoy became especially aggressive in relation to Orthodoxy, after the lessons of ancient languages ​​​​and the study of biblical texts that the rabbi read to him, perhaps Leskov was also influenced ...

To what bestiality and Hitlerism we have fallen. Lord save Rus'!

You Lutherans have long since fallen. It is not for you to save our Rus'.

few pictures and photos

Not modern correctly, the author indicated the significance of the work of N.S. Leskov "A Jew in Russia". One should be more careful when evaluating the work of such a first-class writer. The story "Ear without fish" N.S. Leskov has not yet been reprinted. Why? But the work "A Jew in Russia" was published, studied and discussed by forest experts. Leskov is the genius of the Rusak nation. Read Leskov and build Holy Rus' - the Russian Republic. Moscow is the capital of the Rusak.

Leskov is the genius of the Rusak nation. Leskov never belittled Orthodoxy. All his work is permeated with the ideas of Orthodoxy. Admirers of his work should be more attentive to his legacy. Leskov knew the Talmud, the Bible and other primary sources on the religions of the world, so he could not turn off the true path. Leskov was not mistaken, but constantly searched and was in search. So please be kind enough to judge him more fairly. Study letters, articles, all stories, etc. Love Leskov. After all, according to Leontiev, Leskov is a truly Orthodox writer.

Leskov Nikolai Semenovich- Russian writer-ethnographer was born on February 16 (Old Style - February 4), 1831 in the village of Gorokhovo, Oryol province, where his mother stayed with wealthy relatives, and his maternal grandmother also lived there. The Leskov family on the paternal side came from the clergy: the grandfather of Nikolai Leskov (Dmitry Leskov), his father, grandfather and great-grandfather were priests in the village of Leska, Oryol province. From the name of the village of Leski, the family surname Leskovs was formed. The father of Nikolai Leskov, Semyon Dmitrievich (1789-1848), served as a noble assessor of the Oryol Chamber of the Criminal Court, where he received the nobility. Mother, Marya Petrovna Alferyeva (1813-1886), belonged to the noble family of the Oryol province.

In Gorokhov - in the house of the Strakhovs, relatives of Nikolai Leskov on the maternal side - he lived until he was 8 years old. Nikolai had six cousins ​​and sisters. Russian and German teachers and a Frenchwoman were taken for the children. Nikolai, gifted with greater abilities than his cousins, and more successful in his studies, was not loved, and at the request of the future writer, his grandmother wrote to his father to take his son. Nikolai began to live with his parents in Orel - in a house on Third Noble Street. Soon the family moved to the Panino estate (Panin's farm). Nikolay's father himself sowed, looked after the garden and behind the mill. At the age of ten, Nikolai was sent to study at the Oryol provincial gymnasium. After five years of study, the gifted and easily studied Nikolai Leskov received a certificate instead of a certificate, as he refused to be re-examined in the fourth grade. Further education became impossible. Nikolai's father managed to attach him to the Orel Criminal Chamber as one of the scribes.

At the age of seventeen and a half, Leskov was appointed assistant clerk of the Oryol Criminal Chamber. In the same year, 1848, Leskov's father died, and his relative, the husband of his maternal aunt, a well-known professor at Kiev University and a practicing therapist S.P., volunteered to help in arranging the future fate of Nikolai. Alferyev (1816–1884). In 1849, Nikolai Leskov moved to Kyiv with him and was appointed to the Kyiv Treasury Chamber as an assistant clerk at the recruiting desk of the revision department.

Unexpectedly for relatives, and despite the advice to wait, Nikolai Leskov decides to get married. The chosen one was the daughter of a wealthy Kyiv businessman. Over the years, the difference in tastes and interests manifested itself more and more among the spouses. Relations became especially complicated after the death of the first-born Leskovs - Mitya. In the early 1860s, Leskov's marriage actually broke up.

In 1853, Leskov was promoted to collegiate registrar, in the same year he was appointed to the post of clerk, and in 1856 Leskov was promoted to provincial secretary. In 1857, he moved to serve as an agent in the private firm Schcott and Wilkins, headed by A.Ya. Shkott is an Englishman who married Leskov's aunt and managed the estates of Naryshkin and Count Perovsky. On their business, Leskov constantly made trips, which gave him a huge supply of observations. (“Russian Biographical Dictionary”, article by S. Vengerov “Leskov Nikolai Semenovich”) “Shortly after the Crimean War, I became infected with the then fashionable heresy, for which I later condemned myself more than once, that is, I quit the rather successfully started government service and went to serve in one from newly formed trading companies at that time. The masters of the business in which I settled down were the British. They were still inexperienced people and spent the capital brought here with stupid self-confidence. I was the only Russian.” (from the memoirs of Nikolai Semenovich Leskov) The company conducted business throughout Russia and Leskov, as a representative of the company, had a chance to visit many cities at that time. Three years of wandering around Russia was the reason that Nikolai Leskov took up writing.

In 1860, his articles were published in "Modern Medicine", "Economic Index", "St. Petersburg Vedomosti". At the beginning of his literary activity (1860s), Nikolai Leskov published under the pseudonym M. Stebnitsky; later he used such pseudonyms as Nikolai Gorokhov, Nikolai Ponukalov, V. Peresvetov, Protozanov, Freishits, priest. P. Kastorsky, Psalm Reader, Watch Lover, Man from the Crowd. In 1861, Nikolai Leskov moved to St. Petersburg. In April 1861, the first article, Essays on the Distillery Industry, was published in Otechestvennye Zapiski. In May 1862, in the reformed newspaper Severnaya Pchela, which considered Leskov one of the most significant employees, under the pseudonym Stebnitsky, he published a sharp article about the fire in Apraksin and Shchukin yards. The article blamed both the arsonists, to whom popular rumor attributed the nihilist rebels, and the government, which was unable to either put out the fire or catch the criminals. A rumor spread that Leskov connected the fires in St. Petersburg with the revolutionary aspirations of students and, despite the writer's public explanations, Leskov's name became the subject of insulting suspicions. After going abroad, he began writing the novel Nowhere, in which he portrayed the movement of the 1860s in a negative light. The first chapters of the novel were published in January 1864 in the "Library for Reading" and created an unflattering fame for the author, so D.I. Pisarev wrote: “is there now in Russia, besides the Russkiy Vestnik, at least one magazine that would dare to print on its pages something coming from the pen of Stebnitsky and signed by his name? Is there at least one honest writer in Russia who will be so careless and indifferent to his reputation that he will agree to work in a magazine that adorns itself with Stebnitsky's stories and novels? In the early 80s, Leskov was published in the Historical Bulletin, from the middle of the 80s he became an employee of Russkaya Mysl and Nedelya, in the 90s he was published in Vestnik Evropy

In 1874, Nikolai Semenovich Leskov was appointed a member of the educational department of the Scientific Committee of the Ministry of Public Education; the main function of the department was "to review the books published for the people." In 1877, thanks to the positive feedback from Empress Maria Alexandrovna on the novel The Cathedral, he was appointed a member of the educational department of the Ministry of State Property. In 1880, Leskov left the Ministry of State Property, and in 1883 he was fired without a petition from the Ministry of Public Education. The resignation, which gave him independence, accepted with joy.

Nikolai Semenovich Leskov died on March 5 (February 21 according to the old style), 1895 in St. Petersburg, from another attack of asthma that had tormented him for the last five years of his life. Nikolai Leskov was buried at the Volkov cemetery in St. Petersburg.

• Biography

Nikolay Semyonovich Leskov

Russian people recognize Leskov as the most Russian of Russian writers and who knew the Russian people more deeply and broadly as they are.

D. P. Svyatopolk-Mirsky (1926)

In his spiritual formation, a significant role was played by Ukrainian culture, which became close to him during the eight years of his life in Kiev in his youth, and English, which he mastered thanks to many years of close contact with his senior in-law A. Scott.

Biography

Childhood and youth

Nikolai Leskov was born February 4, 1831 years in the village of Gorokhovo, Oryol district. Father - a native of the spiritual environment, later entered the service in the Oryol Criminal Chamber, where he rose to the ranks that gave the right to hereditary nobility. Mother - the daughter of an impoverished Moscow nobleman.

Early childhood N.S. Leskov passed in Orel. After 1839, the family moved to the village of Panino near the city of Kromy. Here, as the future writer recalled, his knowledge of the people began.

In August 1841, at the age of ten, Nikolai 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. Apparently, the reason for this was the lack of proper supervision and aversion to memorization. Leskov had a thirst for knowledge and had a bright temperament.

In 1847, he took up the post of clerical adviser to the chamber of the criminal court, where his father worked.

In 1949, his father died of cholera, after which Leskov was transferred to a ward in Kyiv with his uncle Alferyev. Until 1857 he attended lectures in a free order at the university, studied languages, religions, sects.

Leskov married in 1853 to the daughter of a merchant, Olga Smirnova.

Career

Since 1857, Leskov worked in the company of a relative in the field of agriculture and industry. He often had business trips to Russia, so he delved into the character and life of the inhabitants

In 1860, due to the termination of the company in which he worked, Nikolai returned to Kyiv. There he began to engage in literature and journalism. After 6 months, Nikolai moved to St. Petersburg, staying with Vernadsky.

Creation

Only at the age of 28 did he begin to publish. But the first pancake was lumpy: after his indications of corruption, he himself lost his job (he was accused of bribery).

Leskov's career as a writer began in 1863. In addition to writing stories, he was also involved in dramaturgy.

In 1865, Leskov, being married (his wife suffered from a mental disorder), began to cohabit with Ekaterina Bubnova, who bore him a son.

The early work of the writer can be attributed more to the nihilistic style, and towards the end of his life, Leskov switched to a sharply satirical genre, which the public did not like with cynicism and directness.

Nikolai Leskov died on March 5, 1895 from an asthma attack, which he suffered for the last five years of his life.

Author's books:

The second half of the nineteenth century was a real golden period of Russian literature. At this time, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Turgenev, Nekrasov, Ostrovsky, Saltykov-Shchedrin, Goncharov worked. Isn't it an impressive list?

Another great Russian writer lived and wrote during this period, familiar to all of us from childhood, Nikolai Semenovich Leskov.

Biography of the writer. Family and childhood

The future classic of Russian literature was born in 1831 in the Orel district, in the village of Gorohovo. His grandfather was a priest, his father also graduated from a theological seminary, but went to work as an investigator in the Oryol Criminal Chamber. After his forced retirement, he moved with his family to Panino (village), in

The writer's childhood passed in the countryside. It was here that he "absorbed" the language of the Russian people, which formed the basis of the unique "Leskovian language" - a special style of presentation, which then became the main feature of his

The biography of Nikolai Leskov contains a mention that he studied poorly at the gymnasium. Later, the writer said about himself that he was "self-taught." Without passing the exam for transfer to the next class, the young man left the educational institution and began working as a scribe in the Oryol Criminal Chamber.

Biography of N. S. Leskov. commercial service

After the death of his father, the eldest son Nikolai takes on the responsibility of caring for the family (besides him, his parents had six more children). The young man moves to Kyiv, where he first gets a job at the Kyiv Treasury Chamber, and then goes to the commercial company of his maternal relative, English businessman A. Ya. Shkot (Scott). On duty, Nikolai Leskov often travels around the country. The knowledge and impressions gained during these trips will then form the basis of many of the writer's works.

Nikolai the Writer - an opponent of nihilism

As they say, there would be no happiness, but misfortune helped. In 1860, the Shkot and Wilkens company closed, and Nikolai Semenovich moved to St. Petersburg, where he took up writing in earnest.

At first, Leskov acts as a publicist: he publishes articles and essays on topical topics. Collaborates with the journals "Northern bee", "Domestic notes", "Russian speech".

In 1863, "The Life of a Woman" and "The Musk Ox" were published - the first stories of the writer. The following year, he publishes the famous story "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District", some short stories, as well as his first novel "Nowhere". In it, nihilism, fashionable at that time, is opposed to the fundamental values ​​of the Russian people - Christianity, nepotism, respect for daily work. The next major work, which also contained criticism of nihilism, was the novel "Knives" published in 1870.

Attitude towards the church

Being a descendant of the clergy, Leskov attached great importance to Christianity and its role in Russian life. The chronicles "Soboryane" are dedicated to the priests, as the stabilizing force of their time. The writer has novels and stories, united in the collection "The Righteous". They tell about honest, conscientious people with whom the Russian land is rich. In the same period, the amazing story “The Sealed Angel” was published - one of the best works created by a writer named Nikolai Leskov. His biography, however, suggests that he subsequently succumbed to the influence of Leo Tolstov and became disillusioned with the Russian clergy. His later works are filled with bitter sarcasm in relation to "clergy".

Nikolai Leskov died in 1895 in St. Petersburg, at the age of 64.

Nikolai Semenovich Leskov left behind a large number of original and beloved works by us to this day. His biography reflects the complex path of a thinking and searching person. But no matter how his creative development proceeded, we still know and love his “Lefty”, “The Enchanted Wanderer”, “Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District” and many other creations.

Leskov Nikolai Semyonovich was born on 4 (16) II. 1831 in the village of Gorokhovo, Oryol province, in the family of a petty official - a writer.

A special place in creativity Leskova N.S. occupied by works devoted to Orthodox themes: the novel "Cathedrals", the stories "The Enchanted Wanderer", "The Sealed Angel", "At the End of the Earth" and others.

Leskov Nikolai Semenovich He wrote in a bright, beautiful and very peculiar language.

Tired of misunderstanding and yielding to the pernicious demands of the time, Leskov at the end of his life he wrote several unfriendly essays about the clergy, but these works did not add glory to the writer.

Studied Leskov Nikolai Semyonovich in the Oryol gymnasium, served as an official in Orel and Kyiv. He began his literary activity with articles on economic issues, then he wrote political articles in the newspaper Severnaya pchela. One of his articles on the fires in St. Petersburg (1862) served as the beginning of Leskov's polemics with revolutionary democracy. After leaving for a year abroad, he writes the story "The Musk Ox" (1862) there and begins work on the anti-nihilistic novel "Nowhere", which was published in 1864.

In the story "The Musk Ox" Nikolai Semyonovich draws the image of a revolutionary democrat who sacrifices his whole life to fight for the awakening of class consciousness among the people. But, while portraying the seminarian Bogoslovsky as a pure and selfless person, the writer at the same time laughs at the political propaganda that he conducts among the peasants, shows Bogoslovsky's complete isolation from life, his alienation to the people.

In the novel - "Nowhere" - Leskov draws many images of revolutionary democrats in a sharply satirical, viciously caricatured form. All democratic criticism condemned this novel. Drawing young people living in a commune, the writer wanted to ridicule the specific facts of that time: the commune of the writer V. A. Sleptsov and other communes. The novel "Nowhere" is polemically sharpened against Chernyshevsky's novel "What is to be done?". Leskov gives a completely opposite interpretation to Chernyshevsky of the ideological struggle of the 1960s, trying to cross out the program of action that Chernyshevsky outlined for his heroes.

Ideas and actions of the heroes of "What to do?" Nikolai Semenovich reconsiders in his other novel, The Bypassed (1865). Here he gives a completely different resolution of both the love conflict and the problem of the heroine's labor activity (opposing the private workshop to the public workshop of Vera Pavlovna).

In 1862-63, Nikolai Semenovich wrote a number of truly realistic novels and stories about a serf village, in which he paints vivid pictures of poverty, ignorance, and the lack of rights of the peasantry:

"Extinguished business"

"Stingy"

“The Life of a Woman”, as well as the spontaneous protest of the peasants against physical and spiritual bondage.

The story “The Life of a Woman” (1863), which shows the tragic death of a peasant woman defending her right to life with her beloved, is distinguished by a special artistic power. Folklore is used in this story: fairy-tale speech, folk songs.

The same theme of passionate love is unusually vividly resolved in the story "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District" (1865). Leskov's skill as an artist manifested itself here in the depiction of characters and in the construction of a dramatic plot.

In 1867, Nikolai Semyonovich published the drama The Spender, the main theme of which was the denunciation of the cruelty of the morals of a proprietary society. It reveals the ulcers of the bourgeois reality of those years, draws a number of bright types of merchants of the old and new "temper". The play "The Spender", like the story "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District", is characterized by a touch of melodrama, and an anti-nihilistic orientation is felt in it, but all this does not change the deeply realistic depiction of the life of the bourgeoisie. In terms of content and methods of satirical typification, the drama The Spender is close to Shchedrin's comedy The Death of Pazukhin.

In the story "The Warrior" (1866), the writer brilliantly portrayed the satirical type of a misanthropic philistine and hypocrite, a morally crippled environment.

The realistic works of the 1960s, and especially the satire of The Warrior Girl and The Spender, do not give grounds to enroll him unconditionally in the reactionary camp during this period, they rather testify to his lack of firm ideological positions.

Nikolai Semyonovich continued to conduct sharp polemics with the revolutionary-democratic movement in the early 70s.

In 1870, he wrote the book The Mysterious Man, in which he outlines the biography of the revolutionary Arthur Benny, who was active in Russia. In this book, he draws with contemptuous irony and even anger the revolutionary-democratic movement of the 60s, ridicules the specific figures of this movement: Herzen, Nekrasov, brothers N. Kurochkin and V. Kurochkin, Nichiporenko and others. The book served as a publicistic introduction to the novel On Knives (1871) - an open libel on the democratic movement of those years. The distortion of reality here is so obvious that even Dostoevsky, who at that time created the reactionary novel The Possessed, wrote to A. N. Maikov that in the novel On Knives "a lot of lies, a lot of the devil knows what, as if it were happening on the moon. Nihilists are distorted to the point of idleness” (“Letters”, vol. 2, p. 320). On the Knives was Leskov's last work entirely devoted to the polemic with revolutionary democracy, although the "specter of nihilism" (Shchedrin's expression) haunted him for a number of years.

With caricature images of nihilists, Nikolai Semenovich also spoiled his realistic novel-chronicle The Cathedrals (1872), in which nihilists, in essence, play no role. The main storyline of the novel is connected with the spiritual drama of Archpriest Tuberozov and Deacon Achilles, who are fighting against ecclesiastical and secular injustice. These are truly Russian heroes, people with a pure soul, knights of truth and goodness. But their protest is futile, the struggle for the “true” church, free from worldly dirt, could not lead to anything. Both Achilles and Tuberozov were alien to the mass of churchmen, that same self-serving mass, inextricably linked with the secular authorities, which the writer portrayed some time later in the chronicle “Trifles of Bishop's Life”.

Very soon, Leskov realized that on the basis of "idealized Byzantium" "it is impossible to develop," and admitted that he would not write "Soboryan" the way they were written. The images of the "Soboryans" laid the foundation for the gallery of the Leskovsky righteous. Describing Leskov’s ideological position in the early 1970s, Gorky wrote: “After the evil novel On the Knives, Leskov’s literary work immediately becomes a vivid painting, or rather, icon painting, he begins to create for Russia an iconostasis of her saints and righteous. He, as it were, set himself the goal of encouraging, inspiring Rus', exhausted by slavery. In the soul of this man, confidence and doubt, idealism and skepticism were strangely combined” (Sobr. soch., vol. 24, M., 1953, pp. 231-233).

Nikolai Semenovichi Leskov begins to overestimate his attitude to the surrounding reality. He openly declares his departure from the reactionary literary camp led by M. N. Katkov. “I cannot but feel for him what a literary person cannot but feel for the killer of his native literature,” the writer writes about Katkov.

He also disagrees with the Slavophiles, as evidenced by his letters to I. Aksakov. During this period, he begins to create satirical works, in which with particular clarity one can see his gradual rapprochement with the democratic camp.

The review story “Laughter and Grief” (1871) opens up a kind of new stage in the creative development of the writer “I began to think responsibly when I wrote “Laughter and Grief”, and since then I have remained in this mood - critical and, within my power mine, gentle and condescending,” wrote Leskov later. The story “Laughter and Sorrow” depicts the life of the landowner Vatazhkov, for whom Russia is a country of “surprises”, where an ordinary person is unable to fight: “Here, every step is a surprise, and, moreover, the worst.” The writer showed the deep patterns of the unjust social system only as a chain of accidents - "surprises" that befell the loser Vatazhkov. And yet, this satire provided rich material for reflection. The story not only depicts the life of broad sections of post-reform Russia, but also created a number of bright satirical types, approaching the types of democratic satire of those years. The search for satirical techniques in Leskov went under the undoubted influence of Shchedrin, although his satire of the 70s. and devoid of the offensive spirit of Shchedrin. The narrator is usually chosen by Leskov as the most inexperienced in social matters, most often this is an ordinary layman. This determines the characteristic feature of the satire of those years - its everyday life.

The positive images of the "Soboryan", the theme of talent, spiritual and physical strength of the Russian people are further developed in the stories "The Enchanted Wanderer" and "The Sealed Angel", written in 1873.

The hero of "The Enchanted Wanderer" - Ivan Severyanovich Flyagin - a runaway serf, in appearance reminiscent of Achilles Desnitsytsa from "Cathedrals". All feelings in it are brought to extreme sizes: love, and joy, and kindness, and anger. His heart is full of all-encompassing love for the motherland and the long-suffering Russian people. “I really want to die for the people,” says Flyagin. He is a man of unbending will, incorruptible honesty and nobility. These qualities of his, like his whole life, filled with great suffering, are typical of the entire Russian people as a whole. Gorky was right, noting the typicality, the nationality of Leskov's heroes: "In every story of Leskov, you feel that his main thought is not about the fate of the person, but the fate of Russia."

The epitome of the bright talent of the Russian people in the story "The Sealed Angel" are the peasants - the builders of the Kyiv bridge, striking the British with their art. They understand and feel in their hearts the great beauty of ancient Russian painting and are ready to give their lives for it. In the clash between the muzhik artel and greedy, corrupt officials, the moral victory remains on the side of the muzhiks.

In "The Sealed Angel" and "The Enchanted Wanderer" the writer's language reaches extraordinary artistic expressiveness. The story is told on behalf of the main characters, and the reader sees with his own eyes not only the events, the situation, but through speech he sees the appearance and behavior of each, even insignificant, character.

In the work of Nikolai Semenovich of the 70s and subsequent years, the motives of the national identity of the Russian people, faith in their own strength, in the bright future of Russia are extremely strong. These motives formed the basis of the satirical novel "Iron Will" (1876), as well as the story "The Tale of the Tula Oblique Lefty and the Steel Flea" (1881).

Nikolai Semenovich created a whole gallery of satirical types in The Tale of the Lefty: Tsar Nicholas I, toadies and cowards of the "Russian" court counts Kiselvrod, Kleinmikheli and others. All of them are a force alien to the people, robbing them and mocking them. They are opposed by a man who is only one and thinks about the fate of Russia, about her glory. This is a talented self-taught craftsman Lefty. Leskov himself noted that Lefty is a generalized image: “In Lefty, I had the idea to bring out more than one person, but where “Levsha” stands, one should read “Russian people”. "Personified by the people's fantasy of the world", endowed with the spiritual wealth of the simple Russian people, Lefty managed to "shame" the British, rise above them, contemptuously treat their secure, wingless practicality and complacency. The fate of Lefty is tragic, as was the fate of the entire oppressed people of Russia. The language of "The Tale of the Lefty" is original. The narrator acts in it as a representative of the people, and therefore his speech, and often his appearance merges with the speech and appearance of Lefty himself. The speech of other characters is also transmitted through the perception of the narrator. He comically and satirically rethinks the language of an environment alien to him (both Russian and English), interprets many concepts and words in his own way, from the point of view of his idea of ​​reality, uses purely folk speech, creates new phrases.

He used a similar manner of narration in the story "Leon the butler's son" (1881), stylized as a folk language of the 17th century. The theme of the death of folk talents in Rus', the theme of exposing the feudal system with great artistic skill is solved by the writer in the story "Dumb Artist" (1883). It tells about brutally trampled love, about life ruined by a despot who has power over people. There are few books in Russian literature that capture the period of serfdom with such artistic power.

In the 70-80s. Nikolai Semenovich writes a number of works dedicated to the image of the Russian righteous (“Non-deadly Golovan”, “Odnodum”, “Pechora antiques”). Many stories are written on the plot of the Gospel and the Prologue. The righteous in the legends of Leskov lost their divine appearance. They acted as genuinely living, suffering, loving people ("Buffoon Pamphalon", "Ascalon villain", "Beautiful Aza", "Innocent Prudentius" and others). The legends showed the high mastery of stylization inherent in the author.

A large place in the work of Nikolai Semenovich is occupied by the theme of denunciation of Russian clergy. It acquires a particularly sharp, satirical coloring from the end of the 70s. This was due to the evolution of Leskov's worldview, his concern for the fight against the ignorance of the people, with his age-old prejudices.

Very characteristic is the book of satirical essays “The Trifles of the Bishop's Life” (1878-80), in which the pettiness, tyranny, money-grubbing of the “holy fathers”, as well as the Jesuit laws of the church and government on marriage, are used by the church hierarchy for their own selfish purposes. The book inconsistently mixes both very important and petty, and sharp satire and simply feuilletons, anecdotal facts, and yet, on the whole, it hits hard on the church as a faithful servant of the exploiting classes, exposes its reactionary social role, although not from an atheistic position , but from the false positions of its renewal. During this period, the writer re-evaluates the positive images of the clergy he had previously created, including the images of the "Cathedrals". “Oaths to allow; bless knives, consecrate weaning through force; divorce marriages; enslave children; provide protection from the Creator or curse and do thousands more vulgarity 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, ”Leskov writes with anger. In addition to "The Little Things of the Bishop's Life", Nikolai Semenovich wrote a large number of anti-church stories and essays, which were included (together with "The Little Things of the Bishop's Life") in the 6th volume of his first collection. op., which, by order of spiritual censorship, was confiscated and burned.

Satirical images of priests-spies and bribe-takers are also found in many of his works:

"Sheramur",

in a series of novels

"Notes from an Unknown"

"Christmas Stories"

"Stories by the Way"

stories

"Midnight",

"Winter day",

"Hare Remise" and others.

In his anti-church satire, Nikolai Semenovich followed Tolstoy, who began in the 80s. fight against the established church. L. Tolstoy had a great influence on the formation of the writer's ideology and on his work, especially in the 80s, but Leskov was not a Tolstoy and did not accept his theory of non-resistance to evil. The process of democratization of the writer's work becomes especially evident in the 80s and 90s. The writer follows the path of deepening the criticism of reality, subjecting at the same time to a radical revision of his previous views and beliefs. He approaches the solution of the main social problems that were at the center of attention of the democratic literature of this period.

The evolution of Leskov's worldview was difficult and painful. In a letter to the critic Protopopov, he speaks of his “difficult growth”: “Noble tendencies, church piety, narrow nationality and statehood, the glory of the country, and the like. I grew up in all this, and all this often seemed disgusting to me, but ... I did not see “where the truth is”!

In satirical works of the 80s. a great place is occupied by the struggle against the anti-people bureaucratic apparatus of the autocracy. In this struggle, he went along with Shchedrin, Chekhov and L. Tolstoy. He creates a number of satirically generalized types of predatory officials, personifying the anti-people nature of the autocracy:

"White Eagle",

"Simple Remedy"

"Old Genius"

"The Man on the Clock"

The images of the bourgeoisie depicted in the stories

"Midnight",

"Chertogon",

"Robbery",

"Selective grain" and others have much in common with similar images of Shchedrin, Nekrasov, Ostrovsky, Mamin-Sibiryak. But the writer paid the main attention to the moral character of the bourgeois, leaving aside his political activities.

In the early 90s. Nikolai Semenovich created a number of politically sharp satirical works:

stories

"Administrative Grace" (1893),

"Zagon" (1893),

"Midnight" (1891),

"Winter Day" (1894),

"Lady and fefela" (1894),

The main feature of these works is their open orientation against the reaction of the 80-90s, direct defense of the progressive forces of Russia, in particular the revolutionaries, showing the spiritual, moral corruption of the ruling classes and an angry denunciation of their methods of political struggle against the revolutionary movement. The colors of satire also became evil, the drawing of the image became immeasurably thinner, everyday satire gave way to social satire, deep generalizations appeared, expressed in figurative and journalistic form. Leskov was well aware of the destructive power of these works: “My latest works about Russian society are very cruel ... 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, let her read... I want to scourge and torment her. The novel becomes an indictment of life."

In the story “Administrative Grace”, he depicts the struggle of the united reactionary camp represented by the minister, the governor, the priest and the police against a progressive-minded professor who was driven to suicide by their harassment and slander. This story could not be published during the life of the writer and appeared only in Soviet times.

In the essay "Zagon", Nikolai Semenovich's satire achieves a particularly broad political generalization. Drawing pictures of the poor and wild life of the people, who do not believe in any reforms carried out by the masters, He shows no less wild, full of superstitions, the life of the ruling society. This society is led by "apostles" of obscurantism and reaction like Katkov, who preach the separation of Russia by the "Chinese wall" from other states, the formation of their own Russian "pen". The ruling circles and the reactionary press that expresses their opinion strive to keep the people forever in bondage and ignorance. Without resorting to hyperbole in the essay, he selects such real-life facts that look even more striking than the most evil satirical hyperbole. The journalistic intensity of Leskov's satire here is in many respects close to Shchedrin's satire, although Leskov could not rise to Shchedrin's heights of satirical generalization.

Even more vivid and diverse in their artistic form are the satirical stories of Leskov N. S. "Midnight", "Winter Day", "Hare Remise". They created positive images of progressive youth fighting for the rights of the people. Basically, these are images of noble girls who have broken with their class. But Leskov's ideal is not an active revolutionary, but an educator who fights for the improvement of the social system by means of moral persuasion, by promoting the gospel ideals of goodness, justice, and equality.

The "Midnight Men" captures the bourgeois and petty-bourgeois life of the 80s, with its ignorance, cruelty, fear of the social movement and faith in the miracles of the obscurantist John of Kronstadt. The plastic expressiveness of the images of the Midnight Men is achieved by the writer mainly by emphasizing their social qualities and a peculiar, uniquely individual language. Here, Nikolai Semenovich also creates satirical images-symbols, defining the essence of their nicknames: "Echidna", "Tarantula" and the like.

But the results of Leskov's ideological evolution and the artistic achievements of his satire in the story "Hare Remise" depicting the political struggle during the reaction of the 1980s are especially expressive. Speaking about the Aesopian style in this story, Leskov wrote: “There is a “delicate matter” in the story, but everything that is ticklish is very carefully masked and deliberately confused. The flavor is Little Russian and crazy.” In this story, Nikolai Semenovich showed himself to be a brilliant student of Shchedrin and Gogol, who continued their traditions in a new historical setting. In the center of the story is Onopry Peregud, a nobleman and former bailiff, who is being treated in a lunatic asylum. He became obsessed with catching "Sicilists", which was demanded of him by the Okhrana and local police and spiritual authorities. “What a terrible environment in which he lived ... For mercy, what head can endure this and maintain a sound mind!” - says one of the heroes of the story. Peregud is a servant and at the same time a victim of the reaction, a pitiful and terrible offspring of the autocratic system. The methods of satirical typification in the "Hare Remise" are conditioned by the political task set by Leskov: to depict the social system of Russia as a kingdom of arbitrariness and madness. Therefore, Nikolai Semenovich used the means of hyperbole, satirical fiction, and the grotesque.

“Leskov Nikolai Semenovich is a magician of words, but he did not write plastically, but told stories, and in this art he has no equal,” wrote M. Gorky.

Indeed, Leskov's style is characterized by the fact that the main attention is paid to the speech of the character, with the help of which a complete picture of the era, the specific environment, the character of people, and their actions is created. The secret of the verbal mastery of Nikolai Semenovich lies in his excellent knowledge of folk life, everyday life, ideological and moral features of the appearance of all estates and classes of Russia in the 2nd half of the 19th century. “I pierced all of Rus',” one of Gorky’s heroes aptly said about Leskov.