Nikolai Semenovich Leskov can be safely called the genius of that time. He is one of the few writers who could feel the people. This extraordinary personality had a passion not only for Russian literature, but also for Ukrainian and English culture.
1. Only Nikolai Semenovich Leskov graduated from the 2nd grade of the gymnasium.
2. In the Court of Justice, the writer began to work as an ordinary clerk on the initiative of his dad.
3. After the death of his father, Leskov was able to grow up in the judicial chamber to the deputy head of the court.
4. Only thanks to the Schcott and Wilkens company did Nikolai Semenovich Leskov become a writer.
5. Leskov was constantly interested in the life of the Russian people.
6. Leskov had to study the way of life of the Old Believers, and he was most carried away by their mystery and mysticism.
- Gorky was delighted with Leskov's talent and even compared him with Turgenev and Gogol.
8. Nikolai Semenovich Leskov always remained on the side of vegetarianism, because compassion for animals was stronger than the desire to eat meat.
9. The most famous work of this writer is "Lefty".
10. Nikolai Leskov received a good spiritual education because his grandfather was a priest.
11. Nikolai Semenovich Leskov never denied his belonging to the clergy.
12. The first wife of Leskov, whose name was Olga Vasilievna Smirnova, went crazy.
13. Until the death of his first wife, Leskov visited her in a psychiatric clinic.
14. Before dying, the writer was able to release a collection of works.
15. Leskov's father died of cholera in 1848.
16. Nikolai Semenovich Leskov began to print his works at the age of 26.
17. Leskov had several fictitious pseudonyms.
18. The political future of the writer was predetermined through the novel Nowhere.
19. The only work of Leskov, which did not use writer's editing - "The Sealed Angel".
20. After studying, Leskov had to live in Kyiv, where he became a volunteer of the Faculty of Humanities.
22. Leskov was a passionate collector. Unique paintings, books and watches are all his rich collections.
23. One of the first this writer made a proposal to create a book of recipes for vegetarians.
24. Leskov's writing activity began with journalism.
25. Since the 1860s, Nikolai Semenovich Leskov began to write about religion.
26. Leskov had a son from his common-law wife named Andrey.
27. The writer's death occurred in 1895 from an asthma attack, which exhausted him for 5 whole years of his life.
28. Leo Tolstoy called Leskov "the most Russian of writers."
29. Critics accused Nikolai Semenovich Leskov of distorting his native Russian language.
30. Ten years of his own life, Nikolai Semenovich Leskov gave to the service of the state.
31. Leskov never looked for higher values in people.
32. Many of the heroes of this writer had their own oddities.
33. The problem with alcohol, which was observed among the Russian people, Leskov found in many drinking establishments. He believed that this is how the state earns on a person.
34. The publicistic activity of Nikolai Semenovich Leskov is connected primarily with the subject of fires.
36. At the end of Leskov's life, not a single work of his was published in the author's version.
37. In 1985, an asteroid was named after Nikolai Semenovich Leskov.
38. Leskov managed to get his first education in a wealthy maternal family.
39. Uncle Leskova was a professor of medicine.
40. Nikolai Semenovich Leskov was not the only child in the family. He had 4 brothers and sisters.
41. The writer was buried at the St. Petersburg cemetery.
42. The childhood and youth of Nikolai Semenovich passed in the family estate.
43. The child from Leskov's first marriage died when he was not yet a year old.
44. Nikolai Semenovich Leskov during his work in the newspaper was able to visit European countries such as France, the Czech Republic and Poland.
45. A good friend of Leskov was Leo Tolstoy.
46. Leskov's father served as an investigator in the Criminal Chamber, and his mother was from a poor family.
47. Nikolai Semenovich Leskov was engaged in writing not only novels and short stories, but also plays.
48. Leskov had such a disease as angina pectoris.
49. The most serious activity of this writer began precisely in St. Petersburg in 1860.
50. In total, Leskov's women gave birth to 3 children.
51. On Furshtadskaya Street there was a house where Leskov spent the last years of his life.
52. Nikolai Semenovich Leskov was quite temperamental and active.
53. During his studies, Leskov had a lot of conflicts with teachers and because of this, he subsequently abandoned his studies altogether.
54. For three years of his life, Leskov had to travel around Russia.
55. The last story of this writer is considered to be "Hare remise".
56. Leskov was discouraged from entering into his first marriage by his relatives.
57. In 1867, the Alexandrinsky Theater staged Leskov's play with the title "The Spender". This drama about merchant life once again gave criticism towards the writer.
58. Very often the writer was engaged in the processing of old memoirs and manuscripts.
59. The influence of Leo Tolstoy affected the attitude towards the church on the part of Leskov.
60. The first Russian vegetarian character was created by Nikolai Semenovich Leskov.
61. Tolstoy called Leskov "the writer of the future."
62. Maria Alexandrovna, who was considered the empress of that time, after reading Leskov’s Cathedral, began to promote him to state property officials.
63. Leskov and Veselitskaya had unrequited love.
64. At the beginning of 1862, Leskov became a regular contributor to the Severnaya Pchela newspaper. There he published his editorials.
65. Because of the criticism presented to Nikolai Semenovich Leskov, he was not going to correct himself.
66. This writer considered the speech characteristics of the characters and the individualization of their language to be an important element of literary creativity.
67. Over the years, Andrei Leskov created a biography of his father.
68. In the Oryol region there is a house-museum for Leskov.
69. Nikolai Semenovich Leskov was a slanderous person.
70. Leskov's novel "Devil's Dolls" was written in the style of Voltaire.
Nikolai Semenovich Leskov is one of the most amazing and original Russian writers, whose fate in literature cannot be called simple. During his lifetime, his works were mostly negative and were not accepted by most of the progressive people of the second half of the nineteenth century. Meanwhile, Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy called him “the most Russian writer,” and Anton Pavlovich Chekhov considered him one of his teachers.
It can be said that Leskov's work was truly appreciated only at the beginning of the twentieth century, when articles by M. Gorky, B. Eikhenbaum and others were published. L. Tolstoy's words that Nikolai Semenovich is a "writer of the future" turned out to be truly prophetic.
Origin
The creative fate of Leskov was largely determined by the environment in which he spent his childhood and adult life.
He was born in 1831, on February 4 (16 according to the new style), in the Oryol province. His ancestors were hereditary ministers of the clergy. Grandfather and great-grandfather were priests in the village of Leska, from which, most likely, the name of the writer came. However, Semyon Dmitrievich, the writer's father, broke this tradition and received the title of nobleman for his service in the Oryol Chamber of the Criminal Court. Marya Petrovna, the writer's mother, nee Alferyeva, also belonged to this estate. Her sisters were married to wealthy people: one - for an Englishman, the other - for an Oryol landowner. This fact in the future will also have an impact on the life and work of Leskov.
In 1839, Semyon Dmitrievich had a conflict in the service, and he and his family moved to Panin Khutor, where his son's real acquaintance with the original Russian speech began.
Education and early service
The writer N. S. Leskov began to study in the family of wealthy relatives of the Strakhovs, who hired German and Russian teachers and a French governess for their children. Even then, the outstanding talent of little Nikolai was fully manifested. But he never received a "big" education. In 1841, the boy was sent to the Oryol provincial gymnasium, from which he left five years later with two classes of education. Perhaps the reason for this lay in the peculiarities of teaching, built on cramming and rules, far from the lively and inquisitive mind that Leskov possessed. The writer's biography includes further service in the state chamber, where his father served (1847-1849), and transfer of his own free will after his tragic death as a result of cholera to the state chamber of the city of Kiev, where his maternal uncle S. P. Alferyev lived . The years of stay here gave a lot to the future writer. Leskov, as a free listener, attended lectures at Kiev University, independently studied the Polish language, for some time was fond of icon painting, and even attended a religious and philosophical circle. Acquaintance with the Old Believers, pilgrims also influenced the life and work of Leskov.
Work at Schcott & Wilkens
A real school for Nikolai Semenovich was the work in the company of his English relative (aunt's husband) A. Shkott in 1857-1860 (before the collapse of the trading house). According to the writer himself, these were the best years when he "saw a lot and lived easily." By the nature of his service, he had to constantly wander around the country, which gave a huge amount of material in all spheres of the life of Russian society. “I grew up among the people,” Nikolai Leskov later wrote. His biography is an acquaintance with Russian life firsthand. This is a stay in a truly popular environment and personal knowledge of all the hardships of life that have fallen to the lot of a simple peasant.
In 1860, Nikolai Semenovich returned to Kyiv for a short time, after which he ended up in St. Petersburg, where his serious literary activity began.
Creativity Leskov: formation
The writer's first articles on corruption in medical and police circles were published back in Kyiv. They evoked stormy responses and became the main reason that the future writer was forced to leave the service and go in search of a new place of residence and work, which was what St. Petersburg became for him.
Here Leskov immediately declares himself as a publicist and is published in Otechestvennye Zapiski, Severnaya Pchela, Russkaya Speech. For several years he signed his works with the pseudonym M. Stebnitsky (there were others, but this one was used most often), which soon became rather scandalous.
In 1862, there was a fire in the Shchukin and Apraksin courtyards. Nikolai Semenovich Leskov responded vividly to this event. A brief biography of his life includes such an episode as an angry tirade on the part of the king himself. In an article about the fires published in the Northern Bee, the writer expressed his point of view on who could be involved in them and what purpose he had. He blamed the nihilistic youth, who had never enjoyed his respect, to blame. The authorities were accused of not paying enough attention to the investigation of the incident, and the arsonists were not caught. The criticism that fell immediately on Leskov, both from democratically inclined circles and from the administration, forced him to leave St. Petersburg for a long time, since no explanations of the writer about the written article were accepted.
The western borders of the Russian Empire and Europe - Nikolai Leskov visited these places during the months of disgrace. Since then, his biography has included, on the one hand, the recognition of an absolutely unlike writer, on the other hand, constant suspicions, sometimes reaching insults. They were especially pronounced in the statements of D. Pisarev, who considered that the name of Stebnitsky alone would be enough to cast a shadow on the magazine publishing his works, and on the writers who found the courage to publish together with the scandalous author.
Novel "Nowhere"
The attitude towards Leskov's damaged reputation did little to change his first serious work of art. In 1864, the Reading Magazine published his novel Nowhere, which he had begun two years earlier during a western trip. It satirically depicted representatives of the nihilists who were quite popular at that time, and in the appearance of some of them the features of real people were clearly guessed. And again attacks with accusations of distorting reality and that the novel is the fulfillment of the “order” of certain circles. Nikolai Leskov himself was also critical of the work. His biography, primarily creative, for many years was predetermined by this novel: his works for a long time refused to be published by the leading magazines of that time.
The origin of the tale form
In the 1860s, Leskov wrote several stories (among them, “Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District”), in which the features of the new style are gradually defined, which later became a kind of hallmark of the writer. This is a tale with amazing, unique humor and a special approach to depicting reality. Already in the twentieth century, these works will be highly appreciated by many writers and literary critics, and Leskov, whose biography is constant clashes with leading representatives of the second half of the nineteenth century, will be put on a par with N. Gogol, M. Dostoevsky, L. Tolstoy, A. Chekhov. However, at the time of publication, they were practically ignored, as they were still under the impression of his previous publications. The staging of the play “The Spender” about the Russian merchant class at the Alexandria Theater and the novel “On the Knives” (all about the same nihilists) caused negative criticism, because of which Leskov entered into a sharp debate with the editor of the magazine “Russian Messenger” M. Katkov, where most of his works were published.
The manifestation of true talent
Only after going through numerous accusations, sometimes reaching direct insults, was N. S. Leskov able to find a real reader. His biography takes a sharp turn in 1872, when the novel "Cathedrals" is printed. Its main theme is the opposition of the true Christian faith to the official one, and the main characters are the clergymen of the old time and the nihilists and officials of all ranks and areas, including the church, opposed to them. This novel was the beginning of the creation of works dedicated to the Russian clergy and local nobles who preserve folk traditions. Under his pen, a harmonious and original world arises, built on faith. Present in the works and criticism of the negative aspects of the system that has developed in Russia. Later, this feature of the writer's style will nevertheless open the way for him to democratic literature.
"The Tale of the Tula oblique left-hander ..."
Perhaps the most striking image created by the writer was Lefty, drawn in a work whose genre - a workshop legend - was determined by Leskov himself during the first publication. The biography of one has forever become inseparable from the life of another. Yes, and the writing style of the writer is most often recognized precisely by the story of a skilled craftsman. Many critics immediately seized on the version put forward by the writer in the preface that this work is just a retold legend. Leskov had to write an article stating that in fact "Lefty" is the fruit of his imagination and long observations of the life of an ordinary person. So briefly Leskov was able to draw attention to the giftedness of the Russian peasant, as well as to the economic and cultural backwardness of Russia in the second half of the nineteenth century.
Late creativity
In the 1870s, Leskov was an employee of the educational department of the Scientific Committee at the Ministry of Public Education, then an employee of the Ministry of State Property. The service never brought him much joy, so he accepted his resignation in 1883 as an opportunity to become independent. The main thing for the writer has always been literary activity. “The Enchanted Wanderer”, “The Captured Angel”, “The Man on the Watch”, “The Non-Deadly Golovan”, “The Stupid Artist”, “Evil” - this is a small part of the works that Leskov N. S. writes in the 1870-1880s. Stories and stories unite the images of the righteous - the heroes of the straightforward, fearless, unable to put up with evil. Quite often, memoirs or surviving old manuscripts formed the basis of the works. And among the heroes, along with fictional ones, there were also prototypes of real people, which gave the plot a special authenticity and truthfulness. Over the years, the works themselves acquired more and more satirical and revealing features. As a result, the novels and novels of later years, including The Invisible Trace, The Falcon Flight, The Hare's Remise and, of course, The Devil's Dolls, where Tsar Nicholas I served as the prototype for the protagonist, were not printed at all or were published with big censorship edits. According to Leskov, the publication of works, always rather problematic, in his declining years became completely unbearable.
Personal life
Leskov's family life was not easy either. The first time he married in 1853 was O. V. Smirnova, the daughter of a wealthy and well-known businessman in Kyiv. Two children were born from this marriage: daughter Vera and son Mitya (he died in infancy). Family life was short-lived: spouses - initially different people, were increasingly moving away from each other. The situation was aggravated by the death of their son, and already in the early 1860s they broke up. Subsequently, Leskov's first wife ended up in a psychiatric hospital, where the writer visited her until his death.
In 1865, Nikolai Semenovich got along with E. Bubnova, they lived in a civil marriage, but the common life did not work out with her either. Their son, Andrei, after the separation of his parents, remained with Leskov. He later compiled a biography of his father, published in 1954.
Such a person was Nikolai Semenovich Leskov, whose brief biography is interesting to every connoisseur of Russian classical literature.
In the footsteps of the great writer
N. S. Leskov died on February 21 (March 5, according to the new style), 1895. His body rests at the Volkovskoye Cemetery (on the Literary Stage), on the grave there is a granite pedestal and a large cast-iron cross. And Leskov's house on Furshtadskaya Street, where he spent the last years of his life, can be recognized by a memorial plaque installed in 1981.
Truly, the memory of the original writer, who often returned to his native places in his works, was immortalized in the Oryol region. Here, in the house of his father, the only Literary and Memorial Museum of Leskov was opened in Russia. Thanks to his son, Andrei Nikolaevich, it contains a large number of unique exhibits related to the life of Leskov: a child, a writer, a public figure. Among them are personal items, valuable documents and manuscripts, letters, including the writer's class journal and watercolors depicting Nikolai Semenovich's home and relatives.
And in the old part of Orel, on the anniversary date - 150 years from the date of birth - a monument to Leskov was erected by Yu. Yu. and Yu. G. Orekhovs, A. V. Stepanov. The writer sits on a pedestal-sofa. In the background is the Church of Michael the Archangel, which was mentioned more than once in Leskov's works.
Russian writer N.S. Leskov was born on February 4 (16), 1831 in the village of Gorokhovo, Oryol province. His grandfather was a clergyman in the village of Leski, Karachev district, where the writer's surname came from. The grandson of a priest, Leskov always emphasized his kinship with the estate, the image of which he considered his "specialty" in literature. "Our family comes from the clergy," said the writer. Grandfather was smart and had a cool temper. His son, who graduated from the seminary, he kicked out of the house for refusing to go to the clergy. And although Leskov’s father, Semyon Dmitrievich (1789-1848), “did not become a priest,” “having fled to Oryol with 40 kopecks of copper, which his mother gave him through the back gate,” seminary education determined his spiritual appearance. He went to the civil part, was an assessor of the Oryol Criminal Chamber, an "excellent investigator", who received hereditary nobility. While teaching in noble families, 40-year-old Semyon Dmitrievich married one of his students, 16-year-old noblewoman Maria Petrovna Alferyeva (1813-1886). According to N.S. Leskova, his father, "a big, wonderful smart guy and a dense seminarian," was distinguished by his religiosity, excellent mind, honesty and firmness of convictions, because of which he made a lot of enemies for himself.
The childhood years of the future writer were spent in Orel, and in 1839, when his father retired and bought the Panino farm in the Kromsky district, the entire large family (Nikolai was the eldest of seven children) left Orel for his tiny estate of 40 acres of land. Leskov received his initial education in 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 the village, Leskov made friends with peasant children, to "the smallest details learned the common people's way of life." A close acquaintance with the serfs revealed to him the originality of the people's worldview, so unlike the values of people from the upper classes. In the wilderness of Orel, the future writer saw and learned a lot, which later gave him the right to say: "I did not study the people by talking with St. Petersburg cabbies, ... I grew up among the people ... I was my own person with the people ..." grandmothers, Alexandra Vasilievna Kolobova, about Orel and its inhabitants, about her father's estate in Panino, were reflected in many of Leskov's works. He recalls this time in the stories "Non-lethal Golovan" (1879), "The Beast" (1883), "Dumb Artist" (1883), "Scarecrow" (1885), "Yudol" (1892).
In 1841, Nikolai entered the Oryol gymnasium, but did not study very well. In 1846, he did not pass the translation exams and left the gymnasium without finishing it. Five years of study at the gymnasium did little good for the future writer. Later, he regretted that they taught there at random. The lack of learning had to be made up for by a wealth of life observations, knowledge, and the talent of a writer. And in 1847, at the age of 16, Leskov got a job as a scribe in the Oryol Chamber of the Criminal Court, where his father served. “I’m completely self-taught,” he said of himself.
Service (1847-1849) was the first experience of acquaintance with the bureaucratic system, and with the unsightly, and sometimes comical sides of reality. This experience was later reflected in the works "Extinguished Case", "Stinging", "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District", "Mysterious Incident". In those years, Leskov read a lot, rotated in the circle of the Oryol intelligentsia. But the sudden death of his father in 1848, the terrible Oryol fires of the 1840s, during which the entire fortune perished, and the "disastrous ruin" of the family changed Leskov's fate. In the autumn of 1849, at the invitation of his maternal uncle, medical professor of Kyiv University S.P. Alferyev (1816-1884), moved to Kyiv and by the end of the year got a job as an assistant clerk of the recruiting desk of the revision department of the Kyiv Treasury Chamber. In this capacity, Leskov often went to the districts, studied folk life, and did a lot of self-education.
The influence of the university environment, acquaintance with Polish and Ukrainian cultures, reading by A.I. Herzen, L. Feuerbach, G. Babeuf, friendship with the icon painters of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra laid the foundation for the versatile knowledge of the writer. Leskov's keen interest in the great poet of Ukraine awakens, he is fond of ancient painting and architecture of Kyiv, becoming a great connoisseur of ancient art. 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), became addicted to literature, although he had not yet thought about writing. In the Kiev years (1849-1857) Leskov, working in the Treasury, attends university lectures on agronomy, anatomy, criminalistics, state law as a volunteer, studies the Polish language, participates in a religious and philosophical student circle, communicates with pilgrims, sectarians, Old Believers.
Public service burdened Leskov. He did not feel free, did not see any real benefit for society in his activities. In 1857, he left government service and first entered the Russian Society of Shipping and Trade, and then as an agent in the private commercial firm "Shkott and Wilkins", headed by the Englishman A.Ya. Shkott (c.1800-1860 / 1861) - was the husband of Leskov's aunt and manager in the estates of Naryshkin and Count Perovsky. He spent three years (1857-1860) constantly traveling on the business of the company, "he saw all of Rus' from a wagon and from a barge." As Leskov himself recalled, he "traveled around Russia in a variety of directions", collected "a great abundance of impressions and a store of everyday information", which were reflected in a number of articles, feuilletons, and notes with which he appeared in the Kiev newspaper "Modern Medicine". These years of wandering gave Leskov a huge stock of observations, images, well-aimed words and phrases, from which he drew throughout his life. Since 1860, Leskov began to publish in St. Petersburg and Kyiv newspapers. His articles "Why are books expensive in Kyiv?" (on the sale of the Gospel at elevated prices), notes "On the working class", "On the drinking sale of bread wine", "On the hiring of working people", "Consolidated marriages in Russia", "Russian women and emancipation", "On privileges", "On the resettled peasants", etc. In 1860, Leskov was not an investigator for long in the Kiev police, but his articles in the weekly "Modern Medicine", exposing the corruption of police doctors, led to a conflict with colleagues. As a result of an organized provocation, Leskov, who conducted an official investigation, was accused of bribery and was forced to leave the service.
In January 1861, N.S. Leskov gives up commercial activities and moves to St. Petersburg. In search of a job, he devotes himself entirely to literature, collaborates in many metropolitan newspapers and magazines, most of all in Otechestvennye Zapiski, where he is assisted by an Oryol acquaintance, publicist S.S. Gromeko, in "Russian speech" and "Vremya". He quickly became a prominent publicist, his articles are devoted to topical issues. He becomes close to the circles of socialists and revolutionaries, the envoy A.I. lives in his apartment. Herzen Swiss A.I. Benny (later Leskovsky's essay "The Mysterious Man", 1870, was dedicated to him; he also became the prototype of Reiner in the novel "Nowhere"). In 1862, Leskov published the first works of art - the stories "Extinguished Business" (later revised and called "Drought"), "Stinging", "Robber" and "In the tarantass". These stories by Leskov are essays from folk life, depicting the ideas and actions of ordinary people that seem strange to a civilized, educated reader. Thus, the peasants are convinced that the disastrous drought is caused by the burial of the drunkard sexton; all attempts by the village priest to refute this superstitious opinion are in vain.
In 1862, Leskov became a regular contributor to the liberal newspaper Severnaya Pchela. As a publicist, he acted as a supporter of democratic reforms, an adherent of gradual changes, criticized the revolutionary ideas of the writers of the Sovremennik magazine N.G. Chernyshevsky and G.Z. Eliseev. Leskov pointed out with concern that the socialists' inherent desire for violent changes in the social and political system of Russia is just as dangerous as the restriction of freedom by the government. The intolerance of radical publicists to the opinions of others, Leskov argued in the pages of Severnaya pchela, is evidence of their despotism.
In the summer of 1862, the famous fires in St. Petersburg took place, causing terrible excitement among the people. Rumors circulated that the perpetrators of the fires were anti-government students. There were cases of attacks on students suspected of "arson". An article by Leskov was published in Severnaya Pchela, which caused a deafening response. In it, he categorically demanded that the police either officially provide evidence that the students were setting fire, or officially denied the ridiculous rumors. Few people read the article itself, but the rumor quickly spread that Leskov connected the fires in St. Petersburg with the revolutionary aspirations of students. In vain Leskov struggled with a completely wrong interpretation of his article: the legend was firmly established, and Leskov's name became the subject of the most insulting suspicions. His reputation was indelibly branded as a political provocateur who supported the authorities in the struggle against love of freedom and free thought. Acquaintances turned their backs on the author of the note; in society, he was publicly shown contempt. This undeserved insult made a tremendous impression on Leskov. The writer broke with revolutionary-democratic circles and turned sharply in the other direction. In September 1862, he leaves St. Petersburg and goes as a correspondent for the "Northern Bee" on a long business trip to Europe. Leskov visited Dinaburg, Vilna, Grodno, Pinsk, Lvov, Prague, Krakow, and then Paris, he conceived a novel in which the movement of the 1860s was to a large extent reflected in an unfavorable way. The result of the trip was a series of publicistic essays and letters ("From a travel diary", 1862-1863; "Russian Society in Paris", 1863), which described the life and moods of Russian aristocrats, their servants and socialist emigrants who settled in Paris. In the spring of 1863 Leskov returned to Russia.
Actually, Leskov's writing biography begins precisely in 1863, when he published his first stories ("The Life of a Woman", "Musk Ox") and began publishing in the "Library for Reading" the "anti-nihilistic" novel "Nowhere", written under the pseudonym M. Stebnitsky . The novel opens with scenes of unhurried provincial life, outraged by the advent of "new people", 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 good of the people and Christian family values, which should save Russia from the disastrous path of social upheaval, where young demagogues are dragging her. Most of the depicted "nihilists" had recognizable prototypes (for example, under the name of the head of the commune, Beloyartsev, the writer V.A. Sleptsov was bred). The immoral ideologues and "leaders" of the revolutionary movement and the leaders of the nihilistic circles are depicted with undisguised disgust; in their portraits, pathological bloodthirstiness, narcissism, cowardice, bad manners are emphasized. The novel created a huge, but far from flattering fame for the author. And although there was a lot of unfairness in this cruel attitude towards the novel, Leskov was branded as a "reactionary". False rumors circulated in St. Petersburg that by writing "Nowhere", Leskov fulfilled the direct order of the police department. Radical democratic critics D.I. Pisarev and V.A. Zaitsev hinted at this in his articles. Pisarev asked rhetorically: “Apart from the Russkiy vestnik, is there now in Russia at least one magazine that would dare to print on its pages something coming from the pen of Stebnitsky and signed with his name? And is there at least one honest magazine in Russia?” a writer who will be so indifferent to his reputation that he will agree to work in a magazine that adorns itself with stories and novels by Stebnitsky? From now on, Leskov's path to major liberal publications was ordered, which predetermined his rapprochement with M.N. Katkov, publisher of Russkiy Vestnik. Leskov was able to free himself from this reputation only at the end of his life.
In the 1860s, Leskov was looking for his own special way. On the canvas of popular prints about the love of the clerk and the master's wife, the story "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District" (1865) was written, based on the story of disastrous passions hidden under the cover of provincial silence. A fascinating and tragic plot, at the same time repulsive and filled with sublime power, the character of the main character, Katerina Izmailova, gave the work a special appeal. This tale of illicit passion and murder differs from Leskov's other writings. The story "Old Years in the Village of Plodomasovo" (1869), which describes the serf customs of the 18th century, he writes in the chronicle genre. In the story "The Warrior" (1866), tale forms appear for the first time. He also tries his hand at dramaturgy: in 1867, on the stage of the Alexandrinsky Theater, they put his drama from the merchant's life "The Spender". Since the 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 again accused by critics of pessimism and antisocial tendencies. Among Leskov's other works of the 1860s, the story "Bypassed" (1865) stands out, written in polemic with the novel by N.G. Chernyshevsky "What to do?" (Leskov contrasted his "new people" with "little people" "with a spacious heart"), and the story of the Germans living on Vasilyevsky Island in St. Petersburg ("Islanders", 1866).
Leskov during this period held liberal views. In 1866, in the affairs of the office of the St. Petersburg police chief, in a note "On writers and journalists" it was stated: "Eliseev, Sleptsov, Leskov. Extreme socialists. Sympathize with everything anti-government. Nihilism in all forms." In reality, Leskov had a negative attitude towards extreme political, democratic trends, standing entirely on the basis of bourgeois reforms. He did not see the social forces on which the revolution could rely. He wrote: "There cannot be a social-democratic revolution in Russia due to the complete absence of socialist concepts among the Russian people." The anti-nihilistic motives that sounded in many of his works of the 1860s, as well as the novel "On the Knives" (1870), which shows the internal collapse of the revolutionary dream and depicts "swindlers from nihilism", aggravated hostility towards Leskov in the circle of radical intelligentsia. His best works of those years passed almost unnoticed.
The main storyline of the novel "On the Knives" is the murder by the nihilist Gordanov and his former mistress Glafira Bodrostina of Glafira's husband Mikhail Andreevich, whose property and money they seek to take possession of. The plot is full of unexpected twists, tragic events and secrets. The concept of "nihilism" in the novel takes on a special meaning. Former revolutionaries are reborn as ordinary swindlers, become police agents and officials, because of money they cleverly deceive each other. Nihilism is an extreme unscrupulousness that has become a philosophy of life. Gordanov's intrigues in the novel are opposed only by a few noble people - the knight of virtue, the nobleman Podozerov, the general's wife Sintyanina, who after the death of her husband becomes Podozerov's wife, the retired major Forov. The novel with an intricate plot caused reproaches for the tension and implausibility of the situations depicted (everything, as the expression goes, “is happening on the moon”), not to mention the next political accusations against the author. The novel "On Knives" is the most extensive and, undoubtedly, the worst work of Leskov, written, moreover, in a tabloid-melodramatic style. Subsequently, Leskov himself, with pleasure always starting a conversation about "Nowhere", avoided talking about "On the Knives". This novel is a kind of crisis that resolved the period of Leskov's activity, dedicated to settling scores with the movement of the 1860s. The nihilists then disappear from his writings. The second, better half of Leskov's activity begins, almost free from the topic of the day. Leskov never returned to the genre of the novel in its purest form.
Since the 1870s, the topic of nihilism has become irrelevant for Leskov. The writer's interest is directed towards church-religious and moral issues. He refers to the images of the Russian righteous: "We have not translated, and the righteous will not be translated." Convinced that in moments of "general disaster" the "environment of the people" itself puts forward its heroes and righteous people to the feat, and then composes legends about them with a "human soul", - Leskov comes to the conclusion about the "righteousness of all our smart and kind people."
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 schismatics and sectarians, in folklore, ancient Russian icon painting, in all the "variegated flowers" of folk life accumulated in the stories "The Sealed Angel" and "The Enchanted Wanderer" (both 1873), in which Leskov's narration style revealed its potential. In The Sealed Angel, which tells of a miracle that led a schismatic community to unity with Orthodoxy, there are echoes of ancient Russian 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. For his sins - the senseless "daring" murder of a nun and the murder of a gypsy Grusha (Grusha herself asked Flyagin to push her into the water, help her die, but he considers this act of his great sin), the hero of the story goes to the monastery. This decision, in his opinion, is predetermined by fate, by God. But Ivan Flyagin's life is not over, and the monastery is just one of the "stops" in his journey. Having won wide reader success, these works are interesting in that the writer created an artistic model of the whole of Russia in a limited plot space. Both works are sustained in a fairy tale manner: the author "hides" behind the narrator, avoiding unambiguous assessments.
Leskov used the experience of his "anti-nihilistic" novels and "provincial" stories in the chronicle "Soboryane" (1872), which became a turning point in the writer's life, demonstrating even to prejudiced readers the scale of his artistic talent. The story of Archpriest Saveliy Tuberozov, deacon Achilles Desnitsyn and priest Zakharia Benefaktov, who live in the provincial town of Stargorod, reminiscent of Orel, 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" "against the pests of Russian development" cannot stop the onset of a new evil age that promises Russia terrible upheavals in the future. In "Cathedrals" tragic, dramatic and comic episodes are woven together.
After the release of the novel, Leskov again wins the attention of readers. There was a change in his attitude. Finally, his position in literature began to "settle". "Cathedrals" brought the author literary fame and great success. According to I.A. Goncharov, Leskov's chronicle "was read to the whole beau monde" of St. Petersburg. The newspaper "Grazhdanin", which was edited by F.M. Dostoevsky, referred "Soboryan" to the number of "capital works" of modern Russian literature, putting Leskov's work on a par with "War and Peace" by L.N. Tolstoy and "Demons" by F.M. Dostoevsky. The attitude towards Leskov at the end of the 1870s changed so much that the "liberal" newspaper Novosti published his "Trifles of Bishop's Life" (1878), written with a significant amount of slyness and had a resounding success, but aroused extreme displeasure among the clergy.
True, in 1874 the second part of Leskov's chronicle "The Seedy Family", which caustically portrayed the mysticism and hypocrisy of the end of Alexander's reign and affirmed the social non-embodiment in the Russian life of Christianity, displeased the editor of the "Russian Messenger" Katkov. 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 its 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 (since 1874) in a special department of the Scientific Committee of the Ministry of Public Education for the review of books published for the people, gave him a meager salary. Excommunicated from major 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 and etc., often using different, sometimes exotic pseudonyms (V. Peresvetov, Nikolai Gorokhov, Nikolai Ponukalov, Freishits, Priest P. Kastorsky, Psalm Reader, Man from the Crowd, Watch Lover, Protozanov, etc.). This "scatteredness" of Leskov's heritage is associated with significant difficulties in studying it, as well as the winding paths of the reputation of his individual works. So, for example, the story about the 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.
"Iron Will" is a tragicomic story of the German Hugo Pectoralis, who settled in Russia. The comically exaggerated trait of the German character - willpower, inflexibility, turning into stubbornness - turn out to be in Russia not advantages, but disadvantages: Pectoralis is ruined by the crafty, inconsistent and ingenuous iron-smelter Vasily Safronych, who took advantage of the stubbornness of the German. Pectoralis obtained permission from the court to keep the fence with which he fenced the courtyard of Vasily Safronych, depriving the enemy of access to the street. But cash payments to Vasily Safronych for the inconvenience brought Pectoralis to poverty. Pectoralis, as he had threatened, outlived Vasily Safronych, but died after overeating pancakes at his wake (this is exactly the death Vasily Safronych wished the German).
After his second trip abroad in 1875, Leskov, by his own admission, "most of all disagreed with the clergy." In contrast to his stories about the "Russian righteous", he writes a series of essays about the bishops, processing anecdotes and popular rumor into ironic, sometimes even satirical texts: "Trifles of Bishop's Life" (1878), "Bishops' Detours" (1879), "Diocesan Court "(1880), "Synodal Persons" (1882), etc. The measure of Leskov's opposition to the Church in the 1870s and early 1880s should not be exaggerated (as was done, for obvious reasons, in the Soviet years): it is rather "criticism from within". In some essays, such as, for example, "The Sovereign's Court" (1877), which tells about abuses in recruitment, familiar to Leskov firsthand, the bishop (Metropolitan Philaret of Kiev) appears almost as an ideal "pastor". During these years, Leskov was still actively collaborating in the church magazines Pravoslavnoye Obozrenie, Wanderer, and Church Public Bulletin; brochures: The Mirror of the Life of a True Disciple of Christ (1877), Prophecies about the Messiah (1878), Pointer to the Book of the New Testament (1879) and others. in the second half of the 1880s and did not leave him until his death.
In the 1880s, Leskov's most productive form was the tale form, which gave characteristic examples of his style ("Lefty", "Dumb Artist", etc.). 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; "Zagon" , 1893, etc.), and "Christmas tales" - tales of imaginary and genuine miracles that happen at Christmas ("Christ visiting a peasant", 1881; "Ghost in the Engineer's Castle", 1882; "Journey with a Nihilist", 1882 ; "The Beast", 1883; "Old Genius", 1884, etc.).
Fairy-tale motifs, the interweaving of the comic and the tragic, the author's dual assessment of the characters are the hallmarks of Leskov's works. They are also characteristic of one of his most famous works - the tale "Lefty" (1881, the original title - "The Tale of the Tula Oblique Lefty and the Steel Flea"). In the center of the narrative is the motif of the competition, characteristic of the fairy tale. Russian craftsmen, led by the Tula gunsmith Lefty, without any complicated tools, shoe a dancing English-made steel flea. Lefty is a skilled craftsman who embodies the talents of the Russian people. But at the same time, Lefty is a character devoid of technical knowledge known to any English master. He rejects the lucrative offers of the British and returns to Russia. But Lefty's disinterestedness and incorruptibility are inextricably linked with downtroddenness, with a sense of his own insignificance in comparison with officials and nobles. Leskov's hero combines both the virtues and vices of a simple Russian person. Returning to his homeland, he falls ill and dies, useless, deprived of any care. In a separate edition of "Lefty" in 1882, Leskov indicated that his work was based on the legend of Tula gunsmiths about the competition between Tula masters and the British. They said that the legend of Lefty was told to him in Sestroretsk by an old gunsmith, a native of Tula. Literary critics believed this message of the author. But in fact, Leskov invented the plot of his legend.
Critics who wrote about Leskov's work invariably - and often unfriendly - noted the unusual language, the author's bizarre verbal play. “Mr. Leskov is one of the most pretentious representatives of our modern literature. Not a single page can do without some equivocations, allegories, fictitious or God knows where dug out words and all kinds of kunstshtyukov,” A. M. Skabichevsky, a well-known literary critic of the democratic trend. The narrator in "Lefty" seems to involuntarily distort the words. Such distorted, misunderstood words give Leskov's tale a comic coloring. Private conversations in the tale are called "internecine", a double carriage is called "double-seat", a chicken with rice turns into a "hen with a lynx", the minister's name is "Kiselvrode", busts and chandeliers are combined into one word "busters", and the famous antique statue of Apollo Belvedere turns into "Abolon polvedere". A melkoskop, a multiplication dolly, a popular adviser, bills of exchange, waterproof cables, a couchette, beliefs, etc., are found on every page of Leskov, insulting the purist ear of his contemporaries and incurring accusations of "corrupting the language", "vulgarity", "buffoonery", " pretentiousness" and "originality".
Here is how the writer A.V. Amfiteatrov: “Of course, Leskov was a natural stylist. He discovers rare reserves of verbal wealth. Wandering around Russia, close acquaintance with local dialects, studying Russian antiquity, Old Believers, Russian crafts, etc. added a lot, over time, to these reserves. Leskov took into the depths of his speech everything that was preserved among the people from his ancient language, and put it into action with great success. and fictitious, newly formed verbal material served Leskov not for good, but for harm, dragging his talent onto the slippery path of external comic effects, funny catchphrases and turns of speech. Leskov himself spoke about the language of his works: “The voice of the writer lies in the ability to master the voice and language of his hero ... I tried to develop this skill in myself and reached, it seems, that my priests speak in a spiritual way, nihilists - in - nihilistically, peasants - like peasants, upstarts from them and buffoons with tricks, etc. On my own behalf, I speak the language of old fairy tales and church folk in purely literary speech. and did not subscribe to it. This pleases me. They say that it is fun to read me. This is because all of us: both my heroes and I myself, have our own voice. "
"Anecdotal" in its essence is the story "Dumb Artist" (1883), which tells about the sad fate of a talent from serfs in the 18th century. In the story, a cruel master separates the serfs of Count Kamensky - the hairdresser Arkady and the actress Lyubov Anisimovna, giving Arkady to the soldiers and dishonoring his beloved. After serving in the army and receiving an officer's rank and nobility, Arkady comes to Kamensky to marry Lyubov Anisimovna. The count favorably receives his former serf. But happiness betrays the heroes of the story: the owner of the inn where Arkady stopped, seduced by the money of the guest, kills him.
At one time (in 1877), Empress Maria Alexandrovna, having read the Soboryans, spoke of them with great praise in a conversation with Count P.A. Valuev, then Minister of State Property; on the same day, Valuev appointed Leskov a member of a department in his ministry. This was the end of Leskov's official successes. In 1880 he was forced to leave the Ministry of State Property, and in February 1883 he was dismissed from the Ministry of Public Education, where he had served since 1874. Leskov would not have to work hard to avert such an end to his career, but he gladly accepted the resignation, seeing in it a confirmation of his confidence that he was a completely independent person, not affiliated with any "party" and therefore condemned to arouse displeasure in everyone and remain lonely, without friends and patrons. Independence was especially dear to him now, when, partly under the influence of Leo Tolstoy, he devoted himself almost exclusively to religious and moral questions and to the study of the sources of Christianity.
Leskov is getting closer to L.N. Tolstoy in the mid-1880s, he shares the foundations of Tolstoy's religious and moral teachings: the idea of moral improvement of the individual as the basis of a new faith, the opposition of the true faith to Orthodoxy, and the rejection of existing social orders. At the beginning of 1887, they met. About the influence exerted on him by Tolstoy, Leskov wrote: "I exactly "coincided" with Tolstoy ... Sensing his enormous strength, I threw my bowl and went after his lantern." Assessing the work of Nikolai Leskov, Leo Tolstoy wrote: "Leskov is a writer of the future, and his life in literature is deeply instructive." However, not everyone agreed with this assessment. In his later years, Leskov was in sharp conflict with spiritual censorship, his writings with difficulty bypass censorship bans, causing the wrath of the influential Chief Prosecutor of the Holy Synod K.P. Pobedonostsev.
Leskov was hot and uneven. Next to absolute masterpieces, he lists hastily written things put into print from pencil scraps - the inevitable blunders of a writer who feeds on a pen and is sometimes forced to compose as needed. Leskov was for a long time and unfairly not recognized as a classic of Russian literature. He was a man preoccupied with the problems of everyday life and the survival of the fatherland, he was intolerant of fools and political demagogues. In the last 12-15 years of his life, Leskov was very lonely, old friends treated him suspiciously and incredulously, new ones - with caution. Despite the big name, he made friends mainly with writers of minor importance and beginners. Criticism did little for him.
All his life, Nikolai Leskov was between scorching fires. The bureaucracy did not forgive him for poisonous arrows directed at her; Slavophiles were angry at the words about the senselessness of the idealization of "pre-Petrine foolishness and falsehood"; the clergy were worried about this secular gentleman's suspiciously good knowledge of the problems of church history and modernity; the left-wing liberals-"communists", through the mouth of Pisarev, declared Leskov an informer and a provocateur. Later, the Soviet government awarded Leskov the rank of a moderately talented minor writer with incorrect political convictions and the right to publish occasionally. Having not received during his lifetime the literary assessment he deserved, contemptuously interpreted by critics as a "writer-anecdotist", Leskov received full recognition only in the 20th century, when articles by M. Gorky and B.M. Eikhenbaum about his innovation and dramatic creative life. Leskov's biography, compiled by his son Andrei Nikolayevich Leskov (1866-1953), was first published in 1954. And in the early 1970s, Leskov was suddenly and without explanation rehabilitated, in 1974 the house-museum of N.S. Leskov, and in 1981, in honor of the 150th anniversary of the birth of the writer, a monument to the writer was erected there, he was showered with praise and reprints. There were numerous performances and films based on his works.
Leskov's life itself was cut short for literary reasons. In 1889, a big scandal erupted around the publication of the collected works of Leskov. The sixth volume of the publication was arrested by censorship as "anti-church", some of the works were cut out, but the publication was saved. Having learned on August 16, 1889 in the printing house of A.S. Suvorin, where the collected works were published, about the ban and arrest of the entire 6th volume, Leskov experienced a severe attack of angina pectoris (or angina pectoris, as it was then called). The last 4 years of life of the patient N.S. Leskov continued to work on the publication of 9-12 volumes, wrote the novel "Damn's Dolls", the stories "On Christmas Offended", "Improvisers", "Administrative Grace", "Wild Fantasy", "Product of Nature", "Zagon" and others. The story "Hare Remise" (1894) was the last major work of the writer. Only now Leskov, as if catching up with bygone youth, falls in love. His correspondence with the young writer Lydia Ivanovna Veselitskaya is a postal novel about late and unrequited love. In his letters to her, Leskov comes to self-abasement: “There is nothing to love in me, and even less to respect: I am a rude, carnal person, and deeply fallen, but restlessly staying at the bottom of my pit.”
But the disease worsened. Anticipating the approach of the end, two years before the death of N.S. Leskov, with his characteristic uncompromisingness, writes his testamentary order: “Do not announce any deliberate ceremonies and meetings near my lifeless corpse ... I ask you not to speak at my funeral. I know that there was a lot of bad things in me and that I didn’t praise any and I deserve no regrets. Anyone who wants to blame me must know that I blamed myself ... "At the beginning of 1895, a walk around the Tauride Garden caused a new exacerbation of the disease. After five years of severe suffering, Leskov died on February 21 (March 5), 1895 in St. Petersburg. He was buried on February 23 (March 7) at the Volkovskoye cemetery (Literatorskie mostki). No speeches were made over the coffin ... A year later, a monument was erected on Leskov's grave - a cast-iron cross on a granite pedestal.
In this man combined, it would seem, incompatible. A mediocre student, a half-educated student who left the walls of the Oryol gymnasium ahead of schedule, became a famous writer with a worldwide reputation. Leskov was called the most national of the writers of Russia. He lived, striving with all his heart to "serve the motherland with the word of truth and truth", to seek only "truth in life", giving to any picture, in his words, "illumination, subject and sense according to reason and conscience." The fate of the writer is dramatic, life, not rich in major events, is full of intense ideological searches. For thirty-five years Leskov served literature. And, despite involuntary and bitter delusions, all his life he remained a deeply democratic artist and a true humanist. He always defended the honor and dignity of a person and constantly stood up for "freedom of mind and conscience", perceiving a person as the only lasting value that cannot be sacrificed either to various ideas or to the opinions of a contradictory world. He remained passionate and unapologetic when it came to his beliefs. And all this made his life difficult and full of dramatic clashes.
Falling off is more effective than resisting. To break is more romantic than to save. To renounce is more pleasant than to insist. And the easiest thing is to die.
N.S. Leskov
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 was born on February 4 (according to the new style - 16) February 1831 as the first child in the family. His father, the son of a priest from the village of Leski, graduated from a theological seminary, but became an official - he served in the Oryol Criminal Chamber. Semyon Dmitrievich Leskov was known in the province as an excellent investigator, solved the most complex crimes and rose to the rank of hereditary nobility. The writer's mother, Maria Petrovna, nee Alferyeva, was the daughter of an impoverished nobleman and a merchant's daughter. Her brother Sergei worked as a doctor, served as a professor of medicine at Kiev University. One of the sisters married a wealthy Oryol landowner Strakhov, the other married an Englishman, a professional manager.
In 1839, Semyon Dmitrievich was forced to retire. The family that grew up from Orel - parents, three sons, two daughters - moved to the small estate of Panino (Panin Khutor) in the Kromsky district. They did not live well: the former investigator had neither the ability nor the desire for agriculture.
At the age of ten, in 1841, Nikolai Leskov entered the Oryol provincial gymnasium. He studied rather poorly, and after five years he received a certificate of completion of only two classes. In 1847, with the help of his father's former colleagues, Leskov was enrolled in the criminal chamber as a clerk of the 2nd category. The first rank "out of fourteen sheepskins" - a collegiate registrar, he received in the seventh year of service.
In 1848, Semyon Dmitrievich Leskov died of cholera. Less than a year later, Nikolai transferred to the Kyiv Treasury Chamber, where he was appointed assistant clerk at the recruiting table. The first rank "out of fourteen sheepskins" - a collegiate registrar, he received in the seventh year of service, when he took the place of the clerk. In Kyiv, Nikolai was patronized by his uncle, a professor. The young official was even allowed to attend lectures at the university, and he used this right. Unexpectedly for his relatives, Nikolai Leskov decides to marry the daughter of a wealthy Kyiv businessman. The marriage was unhappy, relations became especially complicated after the death of the first-born Leskovs, Mitya. The writer practically did not communicate with his daughter.
In 1857, the future writer accepted the offer of his other uncle, the Englishman A.Ya. Scott, to work at his Schcott and Wilkens enterprise. Thanks to the commercial service, Nikolai Semyonovich traveled all over Russia in three years. But the affairs of the agricultural company were not successful, after its liquidation in the middle of 1860, Leskov returned to Kyiv, where, in parallel with his service in the office of the Governor-General, he wrote articles in Kyiv and capital magazines. Six months later, inspired by his successes as a publicist, he left for St. Petersburg.
From the pen of Leskov in 1860-1862. published a mass of articles on sociology, law and social medicine. From the beginning of 1862, he became a regular contributor to the Severnaya pchela newspaper, in which capacity he became famous as an opponent of the revolutionary democratic movement. Leskov's marriage broke up.
In May 1862, fires raged in the capital. The so-called nihilists were indiscriminately blamed for the arson. Leskov, in one of his editorials, did not directly reject these rumors, and democratic publicists attacked him, as if the author were supporting the slanderers. The enraged Leskov took revenge: under the pseudonym M. Stebnitsky, he published the anti-nihilistic novel Nowhere in the journal Library for Reading. In the controversy over the novel, there were even accusations of collaboration with the Third Division.
Leskov's literary reputation perished before it had time to blossom. For many years he was denied access to the most popular magazines. The only one who agreed to publish his work was Mikhail Nikolaevich Katkov, editor of the Russky Vestnik magazine. Working with Katkov was very difficult: he introduced ideological censorship into his journal. Subsequently, Nikolai Semyonovich claimed that the editorial correction distorted all his works of that period, except for The Sealed Angel. "The Enchanted Wanderer" Katkov refused to print at all. Leskov broke the contract with him and found himself in a difficult financial situation.
From 1874 to 1883, Leskov worked in a special department of the Scientific Committee of the Ministry of Public Education for "reviewing books published for the people." This brought a small income. 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. The same year was marked for Leskov and a divorce from his second wife. His son Andrei (1866–1953) graduated from a military school and became an officer. In the 1930s and 1940s, he wrote a two-volume book of memoirs about his father, which was published only after Stalin's death, in 1954.
Leskov's articles on ecclesiastical subjects raised doubts about the credibility of the author from the chief procurator of the Synod Pobedonostsev himself. The dismissal order came from the very top, but Nikolai Semyonovich refused to submit his resignation. In 1883, he was dismissed without a petition from the Ministry of Public Education and devoted himself entirely to writing.
Nikolai Semenovich Leskov died on March 5 (old style - February 21), 1895 in St. Petersburg, from asthma, which he had been suffering from for the past five years (according to other sources, from angina pectoris). Two years before his death, the writer bequeathed: “At my funeral, I ask you not to speak about me. I know that there is a lot of evil in me and that I don’t deserve any praise or regret. he blamed himself." Nikolai Leskov was buried at the Volkovo cemetery with the silence bequeathed to him.
