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Nikolai Semyonovich Leskov Edit Profile

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Nikolai Semyonovich Leskov was a Russian writer.

Background

He was born in Orel Province, Russia in 1831. Leskov's ancestors on his father's side were all clergymen in the village of Leska in Oryol Gubernia, hence the name Leskov.

Career

He has been called the most Russian of writers; but his intellectual formation owed much to non-Russian influences - notably to Ukrainian culture, with which he became acquainted during eight years of residence as a young man in Kiev, and to the English culture that he absorbed through years of close association with his uncle by marriage, Alexander Scott.

In St. Petersburg, where he lived from 1861 until his death, he cultivated the role of the provincial and outsider in Russian literature and constantly went against the main currents of St. Petersburg literary fashions. Leskov's literary production is so varied that it is hard to single out even half a dozen works which can satisfactorily illustrate its range. His lifelong interest in religion is illustrated in Soboryane (1872; The Cathedral Folk), Zapechatlenny ángelangel (1873; "The Sealed Angel"), and Na krayu sveta (1875; "At the End of the Earth"). Levsha (1881; "'The Steel Flea") is the most famous example of his comic, exuberant, almost untranslatable language. In contrast, "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District" is a stark account of illicit passion and murder, unlike anything else Leskov ever wrote. Ocharovanny strannik (1873; The Enchanted Pilgrim) is a Russian picaresque novel, in which the principal character is, however, less a rogue himself than a victim of rogues. NesmertelnyGolovan (1880; "Deathless Golovan") presents one of Leskóv'sLeskov's long series of comic heroes against a colorful background of Russian provincial life. Polunoshchniki (1891; "Night Owls") is a defense of Tolstoyism which sums up all the essentials of sLeskov's storytelling genius: his folktale manner, in which he uses a character as narrator, his verbal virtuosity and humor, and his skill in getting his meaning past the Russian censor. His last masterpiece, Zayachi remiz (1894; The March Hare), is a prophetic attack on political witch-hunting.

Achievements

  • Nikolai Leskov is known as a classic of Russian literature. 20th century critics credited Leskov with being an innovator who used the art of wording in a totally new and different manner, increasing the functional scope of phrazing, making it a precision instrument for drawing the nuances of human character.

    His major works include Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk (1865), The Cathedral Clergy (1872) and others.

Religion

Leskov's Christianity, like that of Tolstoy, was anti-clerical, undenominational and purely ethical.

Politics

Leskov neither believed in the possibility of an agrarian revolution in Russia, nor wanted it to happen, seeing education and enlightenment, often of religious nature, as the factors for social improvement,

Views

A profound analysis of Russia through its language was for him a major aim.

Personality

Quotes from others about the person

  • Gorky saw Leskov as a true artist whose place "beside masters like L. Tolstoy, Gogol, Turgenev and Goncharov is well-deserved".

Connections

On 6 April 1853, Leskov married Olga Vasilyevna Smirnova (1831–1909), the daughter of an affluent Kiev trader. Leskov's marriage was an unhappy one; his wife suffered from severe psychological problems and in 1878 had to be taken to the St. Nicholas Mental Hospital in Saint Petersburg. In 1865 Ekaterina Bubnova (née Savitskaya), whom he met for the first time in July 1864, became Leskov's common-law wife.

Father:
Semyon Dmitrievich Leskov (1789–1848)

a respected criminal investigator

Mother:
Maria Petrovna Leskova (née Alferyeva, 1813–1886)

the daughter of an impoverished Moscow nobleman

Spouse:
Olga Vasilievna Smirnova

child:
Vera Bubnova-Leskova (adopted)

child:
Andrey

child:
Varya Dolina (aka Varya Cook, adopted)

child:
Vera Leskova

child:
Dmitry

born on December 23, 1854, but died in 1855

common-law wife:
Ekaterina Bubnova (née Savitskaya)

Partner:
Ekaterina Bubnova (née Savitskaya)