Russian literature

Russian literature refers to the literature of Russia or its émigrés, and to the Russian-language literature of several independent nations once a part of what was historically Russia or the Soviet Union. With the break up of the USSR different countries and cultures may lay claim to various ex-Soviet writers who wrote in Russian on the basis of birth or of ethnic or cultural associations.

Soviet era

Sovietization of Russia affected literature after 1917. Maxim Gorky, Nobel Prize winner Mikhail Sholokhov, Valentin Kataev, Aleksei Nikolaevich Tolstoi, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Ilf and Petrov came to prominence as part of Soviet literature. Whilst Socialist realism gained official support in the Soviet Union, some of the writers -- such as Mikhail Bulgakov, Boris Pasternak, Andrei Platonov, Osip Mandelstam, Isaac Babel and Vasily Grossman -- secretly continued the classical tradition of Russian literature, writing "under the table", with no hope of publishing such works until after their deaths. The Serapion Brothers insisted on the right to create a literature independent of political ideology: this brought them into conflict with the government. Nor did the authorities tolerate the experimental art of the Oberiuts.

Related Topics:
Soviet - Maxim Gorky - Nobel Prize - Mikhail Sholokhov - Valentin Kataev - Aleksei Nikolaevich Tolstoi - Vladimir Mayakovsky - Ilf and Petrov - Soviet literature - Socialist realism - Soviet Union - Mikhail Bulgakov - Boris Pasternak - Andrei Platonov - Osip Mandelstam - Isaac Babel - Vasily Grossman - Serapion Brothers - Oberiu

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Meanwhile, émigré writers such as Nobel Prize winner Ivan Alekseyevich Bunin, Alexandr Kuprin, Andrey Bely, Marina Tsvetaeva and Vladimir Nabokov continued to flourish in exile.

Related Topics:
Ivan Alekseyevich Bunin - Alexandr Kuprin - Andrey Bely - Marina Tsvetaeva - Vladimir Nabokov

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In post-Stalin Russia Socialist realism remained the only permitted style; writers like Nobel Prize winners slowly started to grow, especially during the Khrushchev Thaw. Bulgakov, Solzhenitsyn and Varlam Shalamov published some material in the 1960s. Social criticism, as in the science fiction of the Strugatsky brothers and the literature of the Mitkis became popular (see also Nobel Prize Winner Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who was exiled). As another post-Stalin development, bard poetry developed.

Related Topics:
Stalin - Khrushchev Thaw - Varlam Shalamov - Science fiction - Strugatsky brothers - Mitki - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn - Bard poetry

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In the late Soviet era émigré authors like Nobel prize winner Joseph Brodsky and short story writer Sergei Dovlatov became successful in the West, but remained known in the Soviet Union only in samizdat.

Related Topics:
Joseph Brodsky - Sergei Dovlatov - Samizdat

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