The legacy of Russian literature lives on

by R. Liyanage

My intimate knowledge of Russian literature is mainly due to certain criticism of our follow writers such as Martin Wickremasinghe who had spent much of his time in studying the history of Russia. The Russian Revolution which occurred in 1917 based on the Marxist principles of Economic philosophy is a culmination and continuation of the French Revolution. But the Russian Revolution was due to the outburst of grievances of the peasants and workers whose imagination was fired by the Russian writers.

King Zsar who exploited the peasants had to face a revolution which later became a communist regime. Lenin the humanist who sympathised with the common masses was the prime mover of the revolution and he introduced a new chapter of life to the Russian people who were oppressed by the capitalist class. The French Revolution was almost like a rebellion which arose against the State and the revolution continued under a tribunal and it was a massacre of people who were privileged and innocent.

Maxim Gorky	Fyodor Dostoyevsky	Leo Tolstoi

Our insight into pre-revolutionary Russian literature highlights the suffering of the people and how the petty lords treated the people. Lenin said that Leo Tolstoi mirrors the Russian Revolution. Dostoyevsky wrote some major novels such as Brother Karamazov, The Idiot and Crime and Punishment. Due to his novels against the Russian regime he was sentenced to death but was pardoned later and was exiled to Siberia. Even Maxim Gorky published his celebrated novel Mother which had a veiled attack on the harsh rule of King Zsar. A gun shot pierced one of his lungs and he had a narrow escape. Gorky enriched the Russian literature which is admired by critics.

Short stories

Anton Chekhov write short stories which had a great literary value. European readers admired them along with their own novels. Perhaps Ronald Hingley who wrote on Chekhov's works and his biography had greater insights into Russian life and the literature and he more than any European critics had an intimate knowledge of Russian culture. He knew much of the ideals and the temperaments of the Russian people.

Leo Tolstoi who discarded the sentimental elements in his later novels was more a saint than an aristocrat. He wanted to renounce his wealth and lead a simple life as a peasant by cooking his own food and chopping firewood. His conduct was envied by his wife and he escaped from his home and travelled in a train and died of pneumonia at a station. He was a world renowned author who was disgusted with his life in his old age. Even Gogols who wrote Dead Souls and Overcoat was disgusted with life. After writing his second volume of Dead Souls, he destroyed it and wandered in Europe like a tramp and died there later.

Ivan Turgeniev, the Russian author who wrote and admired Russian literature lived in Paris leaving his motherland. He was disgusted with the Russian aristocracy. King Zsar did not want to destroy the life of Leo Tostoi as he came from a respectable family. However, his books were banned in all the libraries and the secret police destroyed some of them. Europeans who viewed the Russian life and culture did not have a penetrating knowledge as their minds were obsessed with prejudices.

American literature

Jane Austin and Henry James of America were reluctant to depict the lives of working people and the peasants in their novels.

They were clever at depicting the wealthy snobbish society. For instance, the old French novelists such as Flaubert and Guy de Maupassant attacked the middle class in society. But Dickens' approach to life and art was diametrically opposed to that of other writers as he depicted the miseries of the lower middle class.

The Russian writers in particular indulged in a variety of form in the craft of fiction to depict the lives of farmers, middle class people and the tramps. Due to the spread of scientific and socialist ideas there is a changed aspect in the landscape and socialist ideas of Russian literature and the Russian novel is identified as an element of humanistic movement against western literature.

In western countries, especially England, America and France the novel became an expression of aristrocratic ideas.

The works of Russian writers encouraged people to rise against tyranny and oppression and capitalist exploitation.

There were some writers in the Soviet Union who wanted to throw overboard the ancient culture and to replace it with a new culture. The new culture which they dreamed of was the proletarian culture.