Message on the topic of Nikolai Semenovich Leskov. Brief biography of Leskov the most important thing

1. Brief biographical information.
2. Leskov's anti-nihilistic novels.
3. The flourishing of the writer's work. The genre of the story.
4. Leskov and Christianity.

N. S. Leskov was born in 1831 on the estate of his father Gorokhov, located in the Oryol province. The grandfather of the future writer was a priest; father also studied at the seminary, but later chose a judicial career. Leskov always remembered his roots; knowledge of the life and customs of the clergy was reflected in the writer's work. Previously, Leskov's childhood passed on his father's estate: here future writer got acquainted with the life of the peasants. These impressions also provided rich material for Leskov's works.

For several years, young Leskov studied at the gymnasium, after which he entered the Oryol Chamber of the Criminal Court as a scribe. After the death of his father, Leskov moved to Kyiv, where his uncle, who was a university professor, lived. The young man entered the service of the Kyiv State Chamber.

It should be noted that Leskov's versatile knowledge was the result of enhanced self-education. In Kyiv, the future writer met university teachers and icon painters of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra. He read a lot, including works on topical topics.

A new turn in Leskov's life was associated with joining a commercial company, headed by his distant relative. On duty, Leskov traveled a lot around the country, visited the remote corners of Russia, which gave many new impressions, which were later embodied on the pages of works of art.

In 1861 the writer moved to Petersburg. Leskov had written articles and feuilletons before, but now he took up literature in earnest. His publicistic works soon attracted the attention of readers.

In their articles and works of art Leskov acted as an opponent of revolutionary changes. The negative attitude towards the revolutionaries was reflected in the novels "Nowhere" and "On Knives", directed against the then fashionable ideological current of "nihilists", as the supporters of revolutionary changes called themselves. These novels were negatively received by many of the writer's contemporaries; some even suggested that the novel "Nowhere" was written by Leskov on the order of the III Department.

However, the writer's talent was truly manifested in such works as the stories "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District" and "The Warrior", the chronicles "Old Years in the Village of Plodomasovo", "The Seedy Family" and "Cathedrals".

It is worth saying a few words about the chronicle "Soboryane". In this work, the writer promotes the idea that the clergy is not only the guardian of traditional values, but is also able to save Russia from the contradictions tearing it apart.

A generalized image of Russia emerges from the pages of the story "The Sealed Angel" and the story "The Enchanted Wanderer", which almost immediately won success with readers. It is interesting to note that Leskov wrote these works in the form of tales, in which there is practically no author's assessment of the events described. In the form of a tale, the most famous works of Leskov are written, which literary critics consider as examples of the writer's style, "Lefty" and "Dumb Artist".

Leskov showed great interest in the religious life of society, in the spiritual search for the meaning of life and true faith. Gradually, Leskov came to understand Christianity as a supra-confessional religion, in connection with which in the works of the writer one can observe a critical attitude towards Orthodoxy and rapprochement with the views of L.N. Tolstoy.

It is interesting to follow how the writer's views on Orthodoxy have evolved. If in the story "At the End of the World" Leskov considers Orthodoxy as the basis of folk life, then in the essays "Trifles bishop's life” and “Synodal Persons”, as well as in the story “Midnight Occupants” Leskoy criticizes the principles of official church life. The humanistic views of the writer are reflected in the cycle of "legends" from the life of the first Christians. These "legends" are artistically processed and creatively rethought legends that Leskov borrowed from the "Prologue" - an old Russian collection of hagiographies and legends. “The Tale of the Pious Woodchopper”, “Buffoon Pamphalon”, “Zeno the Goldsmith” act as a kind of artistic sermon of the “well-read Gospel”, alien to “church piety, narrow nationality and statehood”.

Leskov was always interested in creative experimentation. Since the writer created his works in different genres - short stories, anecdotes, fairy tales, legends, memoirs, and so on - this also implied a significant difference in art style. It should be noted that Leskov achieved great success in language stylization. In the cycle of stories "Notes of an Unknown Man" the writer successfully imitated XVIII language century, in "The Hare's Remise" he used the Aesopian style of narration, the legend "Beautiful Aza" is written in colorful language, and the story "On Christmas Offended" was created in an exquisitely simple manner.

L. N. Tolstoy called Leskov "the writer of the future." Indeed, the scale and originality of this writer's talent were appreciated only in the 20th century. M. Gorky wrote a number of articles devoted to the fate and work of N. S. Leskov, B. M. Eikhenbaum in his works analyzed the features of Leskov's tale manner, B. M. Kustodiev created a series of illustrations for the writer's works. D. D. Shostakovich wrote the opera "Katerina Izmailova" based on Leskov's story "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District"; many of Leskov's works were staged on theater stage and also screened.

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

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

Most of all, he is known for the famous work "Lefty", which miraculously conveys the features of the Russian character.

There were many in Leskov interesting events, the main of which we will introduce you right now.

So in front of you short biography of Leskov.

Leskov's biography

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

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

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

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

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

Childhood and youth

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Creativity Leskov

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He spoke about Nikolai Leskov as follows:

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

Personal life

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

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

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

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

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

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

Death

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

Buried in Saint Petersburg Volkovsky cemetery.

Shortly before his death, in 1889-1893, Leskov compiled and published by A. S. Suvorin " complete collection works" in 12 volumes, which included for the most part his works of art.

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

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Biography

Literary career

Pseudonyms of N. S. Leskov

Article on fires

"Nowhere"

First stories

"On knives"

"Cathedrals"

1872-1874 years

"Righteous"

Attitude towards the church

Later works

last years of life

Publication of works

Reviews of critics and contemporary writers

Personal and family life

Vegetarianism

Addresses in St. Petersburg

place names

Some works

stories

Bibliography

Nikolay Semyonovich Leskov(February 4 (16), 1831, the village of Gorohovo, Orlovsky district of the Oryol province, now the Sverdlovsk district of the Oryol region - February 21 (March 5), 1895, St. Petersburg) - Russian writer.

He was called the most national of the writers of Russia: “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 Kyiv in his youth, and English, which he mastered thanks to many years of close communication with his elder relative from his wife, A. Scott.

The son of Nikolai Leskov, Andrei Leskov, worked for many years on the biography of the writer, finishing it even before the Great Patriotic War. This work was published in 1954. In the city of Orel, School No. 27 bears his name.

Biography

Nikolai Semyonovich Leskov was born on February 4, 1831 in the village of Gorohovo, Orel district. Leskov's father, Semyon Dmitrievich Leskov (1789-1848), a native of the spiritual environment, according to Nikolai Semyonovich, was "... a big, wonderful smart guy and a dense seminarian." Having broken with the spiritual environment, he entered the service of the Oryol Criminal Chamber, where he rose to the ranks that gave the right to hereditary nobility, and, according to contemporaries, gained a reputation as a shrewd investigator, able to unravel complex cases. Mother Maria Petrovna Leskova (nee Alferyeva) was the daughter of an impoverished Moscow nobleman. One of her sisters was married to a wealthy Oryol landowner, the other to an Englishman who managed several estates in different provinces.

Childhood

N. S. Leskov’s early childhood passed in Orel. After 1839, when his father left the service (due to a quarrel with his superiors, which, according to Leskov, incurred the wrath of the governor), the family - spouses, three sons and two daughters - moved to the village of Panino (Panin Khutor) near the city of Kromy. Here, as the future writer recalled, his acquaintance with the folk language took place.

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

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

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

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

During this period (until 1860) he lived with his family in the village of Raisky, Gorodishchensky district, Penza province.

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

Literary career

Leskov began to publish relatively late, at the twenty-ninth year of his life, placing several notes in the newspaper St. Petersburg Vedomosti (1859-1860), several articles in the Kyiv editions of Modern Medicine, which was published by A.P. working class”, a few notes about doctors) and “Index economic”. Leskov's articles, which denounced the corruption of police doctors, led to a conflict with his colleagues: as a result of the provocation organized by them, Leskov, who conducted an official investigation, was accused of bribery and was forced to leave the service.

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

Pseudonyms of N. S. Leskov

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

Article on fires

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

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

"Nowhere"

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

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

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

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

First stories

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

In the same years, Leskov’s works, “Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District” (1864), “The Warrior Girl” (1866) were published - stories, mostly of a tragic sound, in which the author brought out bright female images different estates. by modern criticism practically ignored, subsequently they received the highest marks of specialists. It was in the first stories that Leskov’s individual humor manifested itself, for the first time his unique style began to take shape, a kind of “skaz”, the founder of which, along with Gogol, he later began to be considered. .

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

"On knives"

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

Some contemporaries (in particular, Dostoevsky) noted the intricacies of the adventurous plot of the novel, the tension and implausibility of the events described in it. After that, to the genre of the novel in pure form N. S. Leskov never returned.

"Cathedrals"

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

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

"Lefty"

One of the most striking images in the gallery of Leskov's "righteous" was Levsha ("The Tale of the Tula Oblique Left-hander and the Steel Flea", 1881). Subsequently, critics noted here, on the one hand, the virtuosity of the embodiment of Leskovsky's "tale", saturated with wordplay and original neologisms (often with mocking, satirical overtones), on the other hand, the multi-layered narrative, the presence of two points of view: open (belonging to an ingenuous character) and hidden , author's, often opposite. About this "deceit" own style N. S. Leskov himself wrote:

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

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

1872-1874 years

In 1872, N. S. Leskov's story "The Sealed Angel" was written and published a year later, telling about a miracle that led the schismatic community to unity with Orthodoxy. In the work, where there are echoes of ancient Russian "journeys" and legends about miraculous icons and subsequently recognized as one of the best works of the writer, Lesk's "tale" received the strongest and most expressive incarnation. The "sealed angel" turned out to be practically the only work writer, who were not subjected to the editorial revision of the Russkiy Vestnik, because, as the writer noted, “passed in the shadows for their lack of time.” The story, which contained criticism of the authorities, nevertheless resonated in the official spheres and even at court.

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

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

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

"Righteous"

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

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

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

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

At the same time, the satirical and accusatory line intensified in the writer’s work (“Dumb Artist”, “The Beast”, “Scarecrow”): along with officials and officers, clergymen began to appear more and more often among his negative heroes.

Attitude towards the church

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

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

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

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

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

Later works

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

The publication of the novel "Devil's Dolls" in the journal "Russian Thought", the prototypes of the two main characters of which were Nicholas I and the artist K. Bryullov, was suspended by censorship. Leskov could not publish the story "Hare Remise" - either in "Russian Thought" or in "Bulletin of Europe": it was published only after 1917. Not a single major later work of the writer (including the novels The Falcon Flight and The Invisible Trail) was published in full: the chapters rejected by the censorship were published after the revolution. N. S. Leskov said that the process of publishing his works, always difficult, at the end of his life became unbearable for him.

last years of life

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

Publication of works

Shortly before his death, in 1889-1893, Leskov compiled and published by A. S. Suvorin "Complete Works" in 12 volumes (republished in 1897 by A. F. Marx), which included mostly his works of art (moreover, in the first edition of the 6th volume was not passed by the censors). In 1902-1903, A.F. Marx's printing house (as an appendix to the Niva magazine) published a 36-volume collection of works, in which the editors also tried to collect the writer's journalistic legacy and which caused a wave of public interest in the writer's work. After the 1917 revolution, Leskov was declared a "reactionary, bourgeois-minded writer", and his works in long years(the exception is the inclusion of 2 stories of the writer in the collection of 1927) were consigned to oblivion. During the short Khrushchev thaw, Soviet readers finally got the opportunity to come into contact with Leskov's work again - in 1956-1958, an 11-volume collection of the writer's works was published, which, however, is not complete: for ideological reasons, the sharpest in tone was not included in it the anti-nihilistic novel "Knives", while journalism and letters are presented in a very limited volume (volumes 10-11). During the years of stagnation, attempts were made to publish short collected works and separate volumes with Leskov's works, which did not cover the writer's areas of work related to religious and anti-nihilistic themes (the chronicle "Soboryane", the novel "Nowhere"), and which were supplied with extensive tendentious comments. In 1989, the first collected works of Leskov - also in 12 volumes - were republished in the Ogonyok Library. For the first time, a truly complete (30 volume) collected works of the writer began to be published by the publishing house "Terra" since 1996 and continues to this day. In this edition, in addition to famous works it is planned to include all found, previously unpublished articles, stories and stories of the writer.

Leskov Nikolai Semenovich (1831- 1895)

An artist of the word, who, according to the just statement of M. Gorky, "is quite worthy to stand next to such creators of Russian literature as L. Tolstoy, Gogol, Turgenev, Goncharov."

Extremely diverse in terms of subject matter, Leskov's work had a special focus that met the essential interests of his era and, to a certain extent, anticipated the search for Russian literature of the early 20th century. The original talent of the writer was turned to the knowledge of the depths of Russian national life, comprehended by him in all the diversity of its social composition, at the most different levels of its development. To Leskov's searching gaze, Russian life was revealed both in its root basis, and in its growing fragmentation, in its age-old immobility and the drama of imminent historical changes.

This breadth of coverage of Russian reality, characteristic of the writer, determined the special quality of artistic generalization inherent in his work. According to the apt remark of M. Gorky, no matter who Leskov Nikolai Semenovich wrote about - about a peasant, a landowner, a nihilist, he always thought “about a Russian person, about a person of a given country ... and in every story of Leskov you feel that his main thought - thinking not about the fate of the face, but about the fate of Russia.

In an effort to capture "that elusive thing that is called the soul of the people," Leskov Nikolai Semenovich most readily writes about simple people of provincial Russia, "bypassed" by literature. Showing a preferential interest in "grassroots" life, he acts as the son of his time - the turning point of the 60s. In this time of crisis, on the eve and during the years of the peasant reform, the gap between the mindsets of the advanced part of Russian educated society and the self-consciousness of the people, which still represented great riddle for liberating thought.

The rapid growth of public self-awareness gives a new relevance to the formulation of national-historical problems in art. They receive the most versatile disclosure, perhaps, precisely in the work of Leskov.

Leskov's childhood and early youth were spent in the Oryol region. He retained a deep attachment to this land for the rest of his life. For a number of reasons, Leskov failed to receive a systematic education. He began his official service early and led it first in the criminal chamber of the Oryol court, and then, after moving to Kyiv, in the recruiting presence.

In 1857, Leskov Nikolai Semenovich entered the commercial company of his distant relative, the Englishman A. Ya. Shkott. New economic activity, frequent and long-distance trips around Russia further expanded his horizons, introduced him to new aspects of folk life. In the early 60s, he entered literature as an already established person who knew Russian life well, having his own idea of ​​\u200b\u200bit general condition and ways of its development.

Leskov Nikolai Semenovich himself greatly valued his life experience and often subsequently opposed it to bookish, abstract knowledge. "I knew the common people's life to the smallest detail ... The people just need to know how their very life, not studying it, but living it."

Captured by the "cleansing" spirit of the era of the 60s, Leskov Nikolai Semenovich makes an attempt to actively intervene in the discordant course of Russian life. He sends his correspondence to the Kyiv, and then to the capital's newspapers. Written with great civic temperament, his notes and articles evoke public outcry. Thus begins Leskov's many years of literary work, which has always seemed to the writer one of the most effective forms of public service.

Unlike the ideologists of Sovremennik, Leskov Nikolai Semenovich perceived the idea of ​​a revolutionary reorganization of Russian life not in its distant historical perspective, which was opened from the height of advanced theoretical thought, but in its relation primarily to contemporary reality, in which remnants were still very strong " spiritual serfdom.

The writer was convinced that due to the age-old backwardness of Russian life, the undeveloped forms of social initiative, the dominance of mercantile and selfish interests in the psyche of people, the revolution in Russia, if it happens, will not bring good changes, but will result in a spontaneous destructive rebellion.

From these positions, Leskov the publicist enters in 1862 into open polemics with representatives of revolutionary democratic thought, whom he called "theoreticians." Despite the warnings made to him in the leading press, Leskov, with all his "excessiveness" in denunciations, continues this controversy in the novels "Nowhere" (1864) and "On Knives" (1870-1871), which played a fatal role in his future writing life.

In the first of these novels, the author expresses a skeptical view of the fate of the liberation movement in Russia. Sympathetically depicting young people suffering from the "crowding" and "stuffiness" of Russian life, dreaming of a new, humanistic system life relationships(Liza Bakhireva, Rainer, Pomada), Leskov at the same time says that these extremely few "pure nihilists" have no one to rely on in their social searches. Each one of them faces imminent death.

A grotesque pamphlet depiction of circles of opposition-minded youth, a transparent prototype of a row negative characters- all this caused a flurry of the sharpest critical reviews. The author of "Nowhere" for many years strengthened the reputation of a reactionary writer.

In the light of the historical distance, today it is obvious that the concept of Russian nihilism in Nowhere is significantly different from that contained in the frankly reactionary "anti-nihilistic" novels of V. P. Klyushnikov, V. V. Krestovsky, B. M. Markevich and others. unlike these writers, Leskov, Nikolai Semenovich, did not at all try to present the liberation movement of his day without historical roots(in particular, entirely inspired by the Polish conspirators).

In his depiction, "nihilism" is a product of Russian life itself, which with difficulty came out of the state of "dead immobility" and "dumbness". Therefore, among the champions of new ideas in Nowhere are people with sensitive hearts, unmercenaries, romantic idealists who opened the gallery of Leskovsky "righteous".

Finding himself in a break with advanced journalism, Leskov is forced to publish his new works in Katkov's Russkiy Vestnik. In this journal, which led the campaign against the "nihilists", he publishes the novel "On Knives", an extremely tendentious work in which, according to Dostoevsky, "the nihilists are distorted to the point of idleness." Polemical passion to one degree or another is palpable in a number of other works by Leskov, published in the late 60s and early 70s: in the story "The Mysterious Man" (1870), the satirical chronicle "Laughter and Grief" (1871), historical chronicle "Cathedrals" (1872).

However, Leskov's rapprochement with the protective, conservative camp could not be long-term. The writer, in whose worldview there were deep and strong democratic predilections, in Katkov's journal, the spirit of aristocratic casteism, the idealization of the nobility, Anglomania, and contempt for Russian folk life that pervaded him, was disgusted.

While printing in the "Russian Bulletin" historical chronicle Leskov's "The Seedy Family" (1875), which tells about the process of spiritual and moral impoverishment of an eminent noble family, the writer interrupts the printing of the chronicle and leaves the Katkov magazine. “We parted (in view of the nobility), and I did not finish writing the novel,” he will say later, emphasizing the principled nature of his act.

Somewhat earlier than "The Seedy Family" in the same chronicle genre Nikolay Semenovich Leskov created such works as "Old Years in the Village of Plodomasovo" (1869) and "Cathedrals". it milestone artistic pursuits of the writer. Starting from the outdated, in his opinion, canonical sample of the novel with love affair, he develops the original genre of the novel-chronicle, which is based on social and ethical conflicts.

The writer believed that the chronicle genre allows you to depict a person's life as it goes - as a "ribbon", "developing charter", makes it possible not to worry about the roundness of the plot and not to focus the story around the main center. Leskov's most significant work in the new genre is The Cathedral.

Watching the course of Russian post-reform life, Leskov Nikolai Semenovich became more and more disappointed in the possibility of its renewal. Under the influence of oppressive impressions of reality, which “excites and angers” him, the writer is experiencing an acute ideological crisis.

Fearing editorial arbitrariness, not wanting to associate himself with any "directed" publications, the writer is persistently looking for opportunities for non-literary earnings. In 1874, Leskov Nikolai Semenovich entered the service of the Ministry of Public Education, but it also ended in discord. In 1883 he was expelled "without forgiveness."

More and more alienated from official Russia with her political retrograde, "vulgar stepping back", Leskov Nikolai Semenovich perceives his dismissal as a manifestation of this overall process. Since the mid-70s, satirical tendencies have been growing noticeably in his work. “But I would like to write something funny,” he notes in a late letter to L. N. Tolstoy (July 23, 1893), “in order to present modern vulgarity and complacency.”

Leskov, Nikolai Semenovich, sharply takes up arms against the "breath" of contemporary Russian life ("Unmercenary Engineers", 1887), against the church, which, in his opinion, has lost the living spirit of faith ("Trifles of Bishop's Life", 1878), against various kinds of Russian apologists backwardness ("Zagon", 1893). With bilious causticity, he creates satirical images of zealous and confident in the complete impunity of their actions, the guards, employees of the gendarmerie investigation, who have reached the height of art in insinuations directed against people they do not like (“Administrative Grace”, 1893); Hare Remise, 1894), which, due to their exceptional social urgency, could only be published after 1917.

Throughout the 1980s, Leskov's critical attitude to the institution of the state and to all those who officially represent his interests intensified. The ideas about the fundamental incompatibility of higher ethical principles and those norms and laws of behavior that are prescribed to a person in the statutory order, expressed in the chronicle "The Seedy Family", are developed in a number of Leskov's later works.

One of the brightest of them - famous story"The Man on the Clock" (1887). Hearing at his post near Winter Palace the desperate cries of a man dying in the Neva polynya, the tormented soul of Private Postnikov finally leaves his post and rushes to the aid of a drowning man.

However, from the point of view of the state order, Noble act- not a feat of philanthropy ("dobrokhodstvo"), but a serious official crime, which inevitably entails severe punishment. The story is riddled with bitter authorial irony. Something common is revealed in the actions of superiors, due to their external status and alienating them from the world of natural human ties.

Unlike sentries, each of them, being a link in a single state mechanism, to a large extent has already drowned out everything human in himself and subordinated his behavior to what his official position, career interest, and the logic of the momentary situation require from him.

Overcoming the danger of fruitless skepticism, Leskov Nikolai Semenovich continues his persistent search for positive types, pairing with them his faith in the future of Russia. He writes a series of stories about the "righteous" who embody with their lives folk performances about morality. True to their ideals, these people, even in the most unfavorable circumstances, are able to maintain independence of character and do good.

The position of the writer is active: he seeks to strengthen his readers in "constant fidelity to good ideas", to encourage them to courageously resist the corrupting influence environment. “Characters are moving, characters are maturing” - this encouraging note sounds even in one of the most gloomy in tone of Leskov’s late stories “Winter Day” (1894), which denounces the spirit of “filthiness”, shameless cynicism, penetrating into all spheres of society.

In the last years of his life, Leskov Nikolai Semenovich turns out to be much closer to public camp, with whom he so sharply feuded at the beginning of his writing career. Annoyed at the lack of "guiding criticism," he respectfully recalls the lofty asceticism of Belinsky and Dobrolyubov. More than once sympathetically quotes Saltykov-Shchedrin in letters and works of art.

In 1895 Leskov Nikolai Semenovich dies of heart disease. He himself considered the reason for it to be the unrest that had to be experienced at the release of the first collected works, when the volume in which "Trifles of Bishop's Life" was published was arrested. “I think and believe that“ all of me will not die, ”wrote Leskov Nikolai Semenovich shortly before his death. “Leskov Nikolai Semenovich is a writer of the future,” said L. Tolstoy.

With all the evidence of Leskov's sharp ideological divergence from revolutionary democrats in the social and literary self-determination of the writer in the early 60s there was a kind of paradox that deserves the closest attention. Criticizing the "impatient theorists" from the positions of "spontaneous" democracy, Leskov Nikolai Semenovich turns to the multilateral and in-depth study people's life, the need for which was most consistently insisted by revolutionary-democratic criticism.

Leskov's first essays and stories ("The Life of a Woman", 1863; "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District", 1865; "The Warrior Woman", 1866) directly pick up the tradition of Russian literature of the 40s, primarily Turgenev's Notes of a Hunter and Grigorovich's story " Anton Goremyka", which Leskov Nikolai Semenovich loved and sometimes polemically opposed to more late works populist fiction. Like Turgenev, he shows special interest to bright, talented natures, marked by the stamp of artistry. At the same time Leskov Nikolai Semenovich significantly expands the range of his observations.

His gaze rests not only on those who embody the best impulses for beauty and light, but also on those who, for one reason or another, are powerless to throw off the fetters of "spiritual serfdom." Leskov the artist is increasingly attracted to complex, contradictory characters, fraught with a lot of mysterious and unexpected things. Expanding the sphere of reality subject to artistic research, he boldly introduces into his narrative the realities of rough common life, depicts it as it is, in all its screaming ugliness.

Leskov's works, dedicated to talented Russian people ("The Sealed Angel", "Lefty", "Dumb Artist"), are distinguished by a humanistic orientation. From them it is clear that the concept of "artistry" in Leskov is associated not only with the natural talent of a person, but with the awakening of his soul, with the strength of character. A true artist, in the view of the writer, is a person who has overcome the "beast" in himself, the primitive egoism of his "I".

One of important features Poetics Leskov-satirist is the mobility of artistic accents in the depiction of persons and events, undermining the usual hierarchy of the main and secondary and sometimes radically transforming common sense depicted. Thanks to compromising details that encourage the reader to look at things differently than the simple-hearted narrator does, Leskov's word often becomes "insidious", crafty, two-voiced. These live overflows of tone of the narration are especially significant in later stories writer, in particular in those where we are talking about prominent Russian lords.

Behind the imposing appearance of these church fathers, the important slowness of their movements, the imperturbable evenness of their voice (“quietly jet!”), Indifference to good and evil, dullness of the ethical instinct, speculation with high evangelical sayings (“Unmercenary engineers”, “Man on the hours"). Leskov Nikolai Semenovich himself appreciated this “quiet causticity” inherent in many of his works, which was not always caught by contemporary criticism.

The "insidious" manner of Leskov the satirist concealed great opportunities in exposing Russian reality. However, the negation in his satire usually does not take categorical and absolute forms. It is no coincidence that the writer himself spoke of her "gentleness", and once repeated the paradoxical definition that he gave her at the time when the satirical chronicle "Laughter and Sorrow" was being printed - "good satire," Gorky wrote.

Obviously, this special tone of Leskov's satire is associated with the nature of his general worldview, akin to popular feeling. The contemporary world of Russian life is perceived by the writer not so much in the socio-historical contradictions tearing him apart, but in its integrity. He never ceases to hear in it echoes of tribal unity, dating back to the era of "solid" epic and fabulous times.

The writer's belief in the surmountability of growing alienation, the fragmentation of life is also connected with his favorite form of narration, which involves a lively appeal to another person. It was in the art of narration that the folk basis of the creative gift of the writer was most manifested, who, like Nekrasov, managed to reveal the diverse characters of the Russian people from within. In the skillful weaving of the "nervous lace of colloquial speech," Leskov, according to Gorky, has no equal.

Nikolai Semenovich Leskov himself attached great importance to the "setting of the voice" of the writer. “A person lives with words, and you need to know at what moments of your psychological life which of us will find words,” he said. Leskov Nikolai Semenovich purposefully achieved the vivid expressiveness of the speech of his heroes, by his own admission, it was given to him at the cost of "tremendous labor".

He collected the colorful language of his books “for many years from catchphrases, proverbs and individual expressions caught on the fly, in the crowd on barges, in recruiting presences and monasteries”, he also borrowed it from the old books, annals, writings of schismatics he lovingly collected, mastered it from communicating with different people.

In love with a living folk word, Leskov Nikolai Semenovich artistically plays with it in his works and at the same time willingly composes new words, rethinking foreign ones in the spirit and style of "folk etymology". The saturation of his writings with neologisms and unusual colloquial expressions is so great that sometimes it caused criticism from contemporaries who found it excessive and "excessive".

The work of Leskov, who in his own way was able to deeply understand the contradictions of contemporary Russian life, penetrate into the peculiarities of the national character, vividly capture the features of the spiritual beauty of the people, opened up new perspectives for Russian literature. It acquired a new relevance during the period of the revolutionary shift in Russian life, which entailed the active participation in the historical achievements of the broadest masses of the people.

At this time, M. Gorky, K. Fedin, Vs. Ivanov and other writers standing at the origins Soviet literature, with great interest turn to the study of Lesk's creativity and recognize their successive connection with him.

short biography Nikolay Leskov

Nikolai Semyonovich Leskov - Russian 19th writer century, according to many, the most national writer of Russia. Leskov was born on February 16, 1831 in the village of Gorohovo (Oryol province) in a spiritual environment. The writer's father was an official of the criminal chamber, and his mother was a noblewoman. Nikolai spent his childhood years in the family estate in Orel. In 1839 the Leskov family moved to the village of Panino. Life in the village left its mark on the writer's work. He studied the people in everyday life and conversations, and also considered himself one of his own among the people.

From 1841 to 1846 Leskov attended the Oryol Gymnasium. In 1848 he lost his father, and their family property burned down in a fire. Around the same time, he entered the service of the criminal chamber, where he collected a lot of material for his future work. A year later he was transferred to the state chamber of Kyiv. There he lived with his uncle Sergei Alferyev. In Kyiv, in his free time, he attended lectures at the university, was fond of icon painting and the Polish language, and also attended religious and philosophical circles and talked a lot with the Old Believers. During this period, he developed an interest in Ukrainian culture, in the works of Herzen and Taras Shevchenko.

In 1857, Leskov retired and entered the service of Scott, his aunt's English husband. While working for Schcott & Wilkens, he has gained vast experience in many sectors, including industry and Agriculture. For the first time, as a publicist, he showed himself in 1860. A year later, he moved to St. Petersburg and decided to devote himself to literary activity. His works began to appear in the Notes of the Fatherland. Many of his stories were based on the knowledge of Russian original life, and were saturated with sincere participation in the needs of the people. This can be seen in the stories "Extinguished Business" (1862) and "Musk Ox" (1863), in the story "The Life of a Woman" (1863), in the novel "The Bypassed" (1865). One of the most popular works of the writer was the story "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District" (1865).

In his stories, Leskov also tried to show tragic fate Russia and unpreparedness for the revolution. In this regard, he was in conflict with the revolutionary democrats. Much has changed in the writer's work after meeting Leo Tolstoy. In his works of 1870-1880, national-historical issues also appeared. During these years he wrote several novels and short stories about artists. Among them are "Islanders", "Cathedrals", "The Sealed Angel" and others. Leskov always admired the breadth of the Russian soul, and this theme was reflected in the story "Lefty". The writer died in St. Petersburg on March 5, 1895 at the age of 64. He was buried at the Volkovskoye cemetery in St. Petersburg.

Video short biography of Nikolai Leskov