Russian literature

The term Russian language and Russian literature refers to the literary works of the Russian -speaking world of the past and present. The Russian literature and non- literary works with a special claim a novelist are counted, ie works of history, literature, history, the social sciences or philosophy, as well as diaries or correspondence.

Old Russian literature

The Old Russian literature is rooted in the medieval Byzantine literature and was written primarily to altostslawisch. There were often taken up religious themes, where especially the lives of the saints ( жития святых ) was a popular motif. Often the authors of the works are no longer known. Examples are e.g. the " Song of Igor " or " Praying Daniels of the prisoner ."

Recent Russian Literature

Alexander Pushkin established the modern Russian literature. The following era is also called the "golden age" of Russian literature. Major Russian writers of this period, in addition to Pushkin for example Gavriil Derzhavin, Mikhail Lermontov, Nikolai Gogol, Ivan Turgenev, Afanassi Fet, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Leo Tolstoy, Nikolai Leskov, Chekhov, Maxim Gorky, Ivan Bunin, Vladimir Nabokov, Mikhail Bulgakov, Mikhail Sholokhov.

The first two decades of the 20th century are in Russian literature as a silver age.

Soviet literature

During the Soviet period 1917-1991 its own expression of literature arose. Maxim Gorky, Nobel Prize winner Mikhail Sholokhov, Valentin Katayev, Alexei Tolstoy, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Ilf and Petrov Chingiz Aitmatov or were important representatives of the Soviet literature. In children's literature Samuil Marshak or Korney Chukovsky are worth mentioning. Other well-known authors of the era are Anatoli Pristawkin and Valentin Rasputin.

During the Socialist Realism was officially promoted in the Soviet Union, some writers such as Mikhail Bulgakov, Boris Pasternak, Andrei Platonov, Osip Mandelstam, Yuri Trifonov, Isaac Babel and Vasily Grossman continued the tradition of classical Russian literature against the Soviet ideal. Often, their works were not published until decades later and in a censored version. The Serapion Brothers insisted on the right, regardless of the political ideology of producing an independent literature, which brought them into conflict with the government. Neither the authorities tolerated the experimental art of Oberiuts.

Even in the post- Stalinist Soviet Union was Socialist Realism the only style allowed; Writers as Nobel Prize winner Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Venedikt Erofeev or Leonid Zypkin continued the tradition of underground literature that was often disseminated through " samizdat ". In addition, the Soviet authorities resulted in the Nobel Prize Committee that not Constantine Paustovsky the Nobel Prize in Literature 1965 was, but the loyal Mikhail Sholokhov.

The literary genres ranging from classical, realist novel to science fiction, whose best-known representatives are the brothers Boris and Arkady Strugatsky.

Emigrated writers such as Nobel Prize winner Ivan Bunin, Alexander Kuprin, Andrei Bely, Marina Tsvetaeva and Vladimir Nabokov were in exile successful.

Contemporary Russian Literature

In the Russian literature of the present, there is an internationally known group of postmodern authors. In Western countries, especially Vladimir Sorokin is known as a Russian representative of postmodernism. Next should be mentioned Dmitri Prigov, Vladimir Makanin, Alina Wituchnowskaja, Marija Sumnina, Nadezhda Grigoriev, Sergei Lukyanenko and the popular Japanese studies and author of historical detective novels Boris Akunin. Special mention deserves Viktor Pelevin, whose novels combine realistic modern motifs with mystical elements and so draw a bizarre and surreal fairy-tale world.

From living in Ukraine Russian-speaking writers Aleksandr Abramovic Bejderman and Andrey Kurkov deserve attention. Living abroad and work numerous other Russian authors, such as in Germany Boris Falkow, Boris Khasanov, Alexei Schipenko or Mikhail Shishkin in Switzerland.

New realists

From 2000, a new generation of Russian writers came. Representatives of the "New Realism " are Ilja Stogoff, Sachar Prilepin, Alexander Karasyov, Arkady Babchenko, Vladimir Lortschenkow, Alexander Snegiryov and political author Sergei Shargunov.

Having grown up in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union, they write about the everyday life of capitalism shaped by contemporary Russian youth, but without using the mystical and surrealistic elements of its predecessor.

The new generation of writers grew up as a generation in a free Russia. You have knowledge of foreign languages ​​, which were not accessible to generations before, live with free speech without censorship, travel the world and read books that were banned.

In their works the " new realists " to create a new kind of literature. Point to what is wrong in the new company. Although the New Realists are not compliant, they are not rebels in the sense of the 20th century (eg, anarchists, hippies, the 1968 ). They are authors, for which there is a place to preach, in journalism, in the social and political writing and in the media, but with the " direct action " is the responsibility of the civil society.

Bearing strength

1990 recorded books in Russia a print run of 1.6 billion books. In 2004 there were only 562 million. Edition Strongest author was going Daria Dontsova with 99 volumes and a print run of 18.1 million books.