The 6 Essential Characteristics Of Russian Literature

All those who are book lovers will know authors such as Lev Tolstoy, Fédor Dostoevsky or Nikolai Gogol. Russian literature has deeply marked the path of letters and since his (re)birth (in that Russian Golden Age that was the 19th) his poetry, his novels and his short stories have become universal.

But what makes Russian literature so universal? And, above all, what is Russian literature, beyond its geographical context?

The most important characteristics of Russian literature

In this article we will try to unravel the 6 essential characteristics of Russian literature, which are shared, to a greater or lesser extent, by all its authors.

1. Russian literature as a social complaint

Many years before the October revolutionaries put their finger on the issue and denounced the misery and oppression in which the country was immersed, the writers of the 19th century had already captured this reality in literature.

The first writer to make a social denunciation (and also the first great writer, with capital letters, of the Russian homeland), was Alexander Pushkin Recognized by his people as the “father of Russian literature,” Pushkin denounced in verse form the tyranny, lies and oppression, as well as the hypocrisy and frivolities of the Petersburg and Moscow aristocracy.

In his most important work, Eugene Oneginoffers us the portrait, satirical and tragic at the same time, of a Russian nobleman who lives a dissipated life without taking into account the pain of those it drags in its path.

A worthy follower of Pushkin’s work, Nikolai Gogol established himself in the field of Russian literature a few years after the disappearance of his predecessor, who died, by the way, due to an absurd duel, in the purest romantic style.

Like Pushkin, Gogol imbues his realism with a magical and poetic breath which can be perfectly traced in his masterpiece, dead soulsfor many the starting signal for social criticism of Russian literature.

In dead soulsGogol makes a scathing satire of rural Russia, in which estate serfs could still be bought and sold like animals. This sarcastic aspect continued to be linked to Russian literature from then on and it was the vehicle through which the authors questioned the world around them.

After Pushkin and Gogol, all, absolutely all Russian writers did their part in social denunciation, in one way or another. Whether it was Dostoevsky with his Crime and Punishment or their Stories from the underground; Maxim Gorky with The underworld (where he portrays life in a homeless shelter) or, more recently, Vassili Grossman with Everything flowswhere he leaves us the raw testimony of the life and suffering of the prisoners in the Siberian work camps.

2. Search for the truths of life

In order to deeply understand Russian literature, it is necessary that we join his musings. Russians don’t just tell a story: they question themselves, they ask questions. Every Russian novel is a vital search : first, about the meaning of the individual’s life; second, about the role of this individual in the universal mechanism.

Shostakovsky said that Russian literature thirsts for divine and human justice. And so it is. In a certain sense, we can consider his entire string of writers as a kind of “messiah” of truth. And through their pens, the characters collect this witness. Andrei Volkonsky, of the colossal War and peace, wonders about the meaning of life and the reason for death. When he, seriously wounded, lies down to rest on the battlefield and looks up at the sky, he tells himself that he does not wish to die.

In the same way, Iván Ílich, from the also Tolstonian The death of Ivan Ilych, prostrate on his deathbed, considers, in a terrible internal monologue, the meaning of his existence. And Oblomov, the protagonist of Ivan Goncharov’s novel of the same name, spends his days lying on the couch in his house, without any vital purpose, until he begins to consider the meaning of existence…

It is impossible, we repeat, to understand Russian literature without keeping in mind this very Slavic need to search through the mysteries of life and death For this reason, Russian works, especially those of the 19th century, are monuments to the soul and human suffering, in which we can all feel reflected.

3. Satire

The search for the truth does not prevent the Russians from deploying all their humorous artillery in their literature In fact, as we have already seen in the first section, it is common for them to use satire and sarcasm as a vehicle for social denunciation.

In one of the greatest works that Russian literature has produced (in this case, from the Soviet era), The Master and Margaret by Mikhail Bulgakov, The author uses mockery and humor lavishly to construct a devastating criticism of Stalin’s USSR This earned him, of course, ostracism and oblivion. His novel was not published until the 1960s, in full political openness (and heavily censored); that is, more than 20 years after his death.

In argument of The Master and Margaret It has overtones of a fantastic story The Devil, who poses as a certain Professor Woland, arrives in Moscow and dedicates himself to distorting everything and revealing the most lurid secrets of the Communist Party and its people. In his messianic work, we even like the Devil because, in addition, he is pleasant and attractive.

Bulgakov’s style, fresh and modern, caused a real sensation among Russians in the sixties, accustomed to the typecast and monotonous Soviet literature of the years of the Stalinist dictatorship.

4. The epic

All Russian stories, no matter how short, They are impregnated with a feeling of epic that makes them enormous, cosmic, timeless And that is because, as we have already seen, their aims go beyond the social and geographical context and become universal.

No need to read War and peace to come face to face with the epic of Russian literature. It is not the context of war, or revolution (as in the case of Dr. Zhivago by Boris Pasternak) which makes Russian literature comparable to Homer’s Iliad.

It is that indelible mark of human worldview, of universal suffering. Russian literature does not talk about Russians, despite being limited to Moscow, Saint Petersburg, the Ural Mountains or the Siberian steppes. Russian literature speaks of all humanity

5. Pessimism

It is a shadow that always hangs over Russian texts. She cannot help but glimpse herself in the wretches portrayed by Dostoevsky, Gorky or Grossman. In the endless interior monologues of the characters, there is always an aura of sadness, of melancholy which moves us and shakes us inside.

However, Russian pessimism is very far from the pessimism of Émile Zola. The naturalist writer portrays the miseries of his native France, but his vision is stark, naked. On the other hand, the Russian writer (a Tolstoy, a Dostoevsky) transcends that miserable reality and elevates it to poetry.

Russians look at life as it is (they are experts in suffering because of their own history), but there is always this desire for beauty in them , of light, of transcendence. And it is this desire for transcendence that leads us to the sixth and final characteristic.

6. Spirituality

I have left this point for last precisely because I believe it is the most important when delving into Russian letters.

All Russian literature is permeated with spirituality Absolutely everything. Precisely because of their search for human and divine (and therefore universal) truths, the stories and their characters build a bridge to the transcendent.

One of the greatest examples of this is found in the character of Raskolnikov, protagonist of the colossal Crime and Punishment Raskolnikov is a young student who lives poorly in a room in Saint Petersburg and who murders an elderly usurer who is his neighbor.

The crime, in principle, is committed to steal jewelry and money. However, little by little the putrid residue that hides in Raskolnikov’s soul is coming to the surface, making it clear that The act is rather the result of a disorder “of the soul” of a deep disappointment with life and its meaning.

The novel is an authentic hymn to forgiveness and redemption. First we witness the fall of the protagonist, and gradually we witness his slow rise (and with many ups and downs) towards his atonement, at the hands of Sonya, the young prostitute, who plays the role of liberating angel.

We find something similar in one of the last works of Lev Tolstoy, Resurrection, where the title itself is quite eloquent and expressive. In this novel, Nekhludov, an aristocrat who in his youth seduces and abandons a girl from her estate, undertakes his own path towards her forgiveness by defending her, years later, from a crime that he has not committed…

Entering the world of Russian literature is a difficult and fascinating undertaking at the same time. A path that is sometimes a bit rocky (like Raskolnikov’s or Nekhludov’s path), but which, with the appropriate reading guidelines, It can become a wonderful pilgrimage to the very depths of our soul