Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin

Mikhail Saltykov -Shchedrin (Russian: Михаил Евграфович Салтыков - Щедрин, scientific transliteration Mikhail Saltykov - Evgrafovič Scedrin; * 15.jul / January 27 1826greg in Spas- Ugol, Ujesd Kalyazin, .. † 28 Apriljul / May 10. 1889greg in Saint Petersburg ), pseudonym: . N. Shchedrin, was a Russian writer and satirist.

Life

Saltykov -Shchedrin was born into a noble family and Squire grew up on the estate of his father in what is now the northern Moscow Oblast belonging place Spas- Ugol in Central Russia. At the age of ten he was sent to a posh high school in Moscow and showed there so good performances that he was two years later to study at the prestigious Lyceum at Tsarskoye Selo St. Petersburg. There Saltykov enthusiastic early literature and first wrote poetry. In addition he made in his youth acquaintance with the famous literary critic Vissarion Belinsky, which - along with his own childhood experiences in the family estate, where the misery and oppression of the peasants were not to be overlooked - the later revolutionary views Saltykows and his dislike of the Russian Empire at that time still existing serfdom had a decisive effect.

After the completion of the Lyceum Saltykov worked from 1844 in the office of the War Department in St. Petersburg. At the same time he tried to publish his early works, which he succeeded, for example, 1844 and 1845 with the publication of some poems in the literary journal Sovremennik ( " Contemporary" ). Soon, however, he moved on to poetry. He studied French utopian socialists enthusiastic contemporary fonts and joined for a time among the so-called Petraschewzen to Mikhail Petrashevsky to. End of the 1840s he published for the first time shorter prose and essays. Some of which have been classified by the tsarist censorship as to freidenkerisch what Saltykov was demoted in 1848 from Petersburg to Vyatka. There he worked at the Gouvernementsverwaltung; During this time he wrote not more but could handle a variety of his impressions from the provincial life in later works.

After the death of Tsar Nicholas I in 1855 Saltykov was allowed to move to St. Petersburg again. He served there in the Interior Ministry, where he was (which consisted of, among other things, the abolition of serfdom ) involved in the preparation of the 1861 completed peasant reform. The first literary work after the exile, he published under the pseudonym N. Shchedrin sketches from the Governorate. Over the 1860s to Saltykov -operated in the civil service in several central Russian provinces, including as Vice Governor of Tver and Ryazan. At the same time he wrote his first satirical embossed works, in which he denounced the familiar to him from his own experience as a public servant corruption. Until 1868, he published his writings mainly in Sovremennik, then in the journal Otetschestwennye Sapiski ( " Fatherland Annals " ), where he closely with the socially critical folk poet Nekrasov, also chief editor of the magazine, worked among others.

Also in 1868 acknowledged Saltykov government service and devoted himself from that time to writing. After the death of Nekrasov Saltykov was his successor in the role of editor in chief of Otetschestwennyje Sapiski. During this period, ie, essentially in the 1870s and early 1880s, he wrote and published his most famous literary works, including the history of a city and Messrs. Golowljow. In 1884 the magazine was classified and banned by the censors as too liberal in what Saltykov very hard hit and according to his own description also affected his health condition. His later works he published primarily in the journal Vestnik Jewropy ( " News Journal Europe " ), including his last novel Province Poschechonien. He died in 1889 in St. Petersburg, according to his wish on the Wolkowo Cemetery (section " literary bridges ") was buried beside Ivan Turgenev.

Work

Already the first major work Saltykows, ( очерки Russian Губернские, 1860 German ) the sketches from the Governorate, were assessed by contemporary revolutionary Nikolai Chernyshevsky and Nikolai critics Dobroliubov high. They represent the literary result of his exile in Vyatka, with whom he openly ansagte the tsarist autocracy battle. In the years of his work at Sovremennik and Otetschestwennyje Sapiski Saltykov created his most famous masterpieces, the novels The History of a City ( История одного города, 1870 German ), Messrs. Tashkent ( Господа ташкентцы, 1869/1872 German ), and Messrs. Golowljow ( Господа Головлёвы, 1875/1880 German ), in which his revolutionary-democratic views and his fierce criticism of the social conditions in his artistic connection of unsparing satire and journalistic - political sharpness expressed.

An apt psychological characteristics of the individual social groups of Tsarist Russia was Saltykov also in the cycle political- satirical manners images Pompadour and Pompadourin ( Помпадуры и помпадурши, 1863/1874 German ), in the family chronicle province Poschechonien ( Пошехонская старина, 1887/1889 German ), and ( :; сказки Russian Сатирические, 1882/1886, the virtues and the vices as well) as well as in many other satirical works in his fairy tales. The tales which early found an echo in the German labor movement, castigate the parasitic bureaucracy, the aristocratic adherents of serfdom, the frightened petty-bourgeois intelligentsia and the venal liberals. In the story the plight of the masses is described, simultaneously brings Saltykov his belief in a revolutionary change and humanity expressed. Thus Saltykov is considered one of the most consistent militant satirist of Russian critical realism.

Honors

After Saltykov -Shchedrin, among others, the Saltykov -Shchedrin St. Petersburg library was named.