From word art to literature
In 988, Vladimir converted to Orthodox Christianity. In 1703, Peter the Great founded St. Petersburg. At first glance, nothing brings these two events together, yet each of them will have a decisive impact on Russian literature. The first revolution was therefore religious; the monks put writing at the service of the evangelisation of a people who had hitherto been devoted to paganism. Slavon was chosen because if this liturgical language, still used today, has not been spoken for a long time, it has the undeniable advantage of being read by the greatest number, in that we could hastily bring it closer to Latin. The oldest book to have come down to us, the Novgorod Codex, a wooden and wax tablet dating from the tenth century, presents various psalms, the second, theEvangeline of Ostromir, is a parchment illuminated by the deacon Gregory in the eleventh century. Over the centuries, however, the fixed language had to adapt to the current one, and so Old Russian was born, which can be found in rare texts, including The Tale of Igor's Campaign, Sviatoslavitch's military journey in the 12th century. From this ancient period, we must finally retain the Chronicle of the Past Times of the Monk Nestor. However, the Tatar-Mongolian invasion of 1226 and the reconquest in the 16th century were already looming, Ivan the Terrible designating himself as the sole heir to Vladimir, his reign was troubled and yet an opening towards the outside world was emerging which was confirmed in the following century by the arrival of Peter the Great. The man travelled a long way, his willingness to reform and to draw inspiration from Western models was such that it had an impact on the whole of society, including literature. The alphabet was simplified, schools were created, and French culture first invaded the streets where these gentlemen walked freshly shaved, before overwhelming the world of letters where love, hitherto decried, became fashionable. A first generation of authors, in the strict sense of the word, is born. Like Antioch Cantemir (1708-1744) and Vassili Trediakovski (1703-1769), they were inspired by the translations of Greek and Latin masters, and did not hesitate to devote themselves to this delicate art, the former dedicating himself to Fontenelle's Entretiens sur la pluralité des mondes (Talks on the plurality of worlds ), which earned him censorship, but opened the doors of philosophy to him, the latter being interested in and completing the work of Paul Tallemand, Voyage de l'isle d'amour (Journey to the Isle of Love). The vocabulary was enriched, poetry was structured, and metrics were adapted to the particularities of the Russian language, which was the subject of a first treatise on grammar in 1755, written by Mikhail Lomonossov
The must-haves
Born in 1821 in Moscow and died in 1881 in Saint Petersburg, Fedor Dostoevsky produced in sixty years a work that made him one of the most famous writers of his country, a work that reflects his life, violent, intense, where extremes coexist not without difficulty. The son of a doctor, he falls prey to the alcoholic wanderings of a father who cannot control his rage, and who, according to rumours, dies murdered by the mujiks he mistreats. The truth would be quite different, it is to a stroke that Mikhaïl Dostoïevski would have succumbed, but the announcement of his death triggers in the young Fedor, then 18 years old, an attack which has all the symptoms of the great evil that will not leave him in peace, epilepsy. Enlisted under family pressure in a military career, while he undoubtedly preferred the escape offered by books, he finally resigned in 1844 to devote himself to writing his first novel. Published two years later, Les Pauvres gens earned him immediate recognition from the literary world, but also some critics who targeted his lack of manners at social gatherings. Indeed, Fedor had become accustomed to frequenting various circles, including that of the Fourierist Mikhaïl Petrachevski, who gradually became politically opposed to Nicholas I. In April 1849, the Emperor was worried about a possible insurrection and had all the members of the group arrested. Dostoyevsky was sentenced to death and, on 22 December of the same year, suffered the horror of a mock execution on Semenovsky Square. At the last moment, his sentence is commuted to forced labour, and for four years he will be exiled to Siberia, a terrible period, although softened by a few strong encounters and meagre favours, which will inspire his Carnets de la maison morte, to be discovered by the Babel publishing house in a new translation by André Markowicz. In 1854, Dostoyevsky regained relative freedom, and in 1860 the right to settle in Saint Petersburg. In spite of tumultuous love affairs-the prevalent misery-this period coincided with the writing of many of his masterpieces, Mémoires écrits dans un souterrain (1864), Crime et Châtiment (1866), Le Joueur, also in 1866, and L'Idiot , which was published in serials from 1868 to 1869. The writer enjoyed a growing influence, although in his personal life he accumulated torments, and his writings foreshadowed what would become in 1880 his ultimate novel, The Brothers Karamazov
, the culmination of an admirable talent and a destiny that would tragically come to an end the following year. In this tale, embellished with the suspense typical of thrillers, three brothers are alternately suspected of having killed their odious progenitor, as an echo to the original drama, but above all as a pretext to paint a Russia in full upheaval. The second half of the 19th century, decidedly fertile, greeted the birth of another great author, Anton Chekhov (1860-1904). He had an agile pen, but the seriousness of a life of toil can be measured by the hundreds of texts he wrote, while at the same time practising his profession as a doctor. From a childhood under the control of a father who combines brutality and bigotry, to an adolescence during which his family abandons him in Taganrog, leaving him, at the age of 16, with the heavy burden of liquidating moribund affairs, the man retains seriousness and a sense of responsibility, those that will incite him to write for the newspapers, winning thanks to the words he effortlessly lines up, and without suspecting his potential, the kopeks that his family, which he has finally joined in Moscow, need to survive. At the age of 25, Chekhov became a doctor and, ironically, sick with tuberculosis. A letter from a famous writer influenced his destiny, his talent was revealed to him and it was through a short story, The Steppe, and a play, Ivanov, that he kept his two promises: to abandon his pseudonyms and to devote himself more seriously to his second vocation, his "mistress", writing. The triumph was immediate, crowned with the prestigious Pushkin Prize in 1888, the public adoled him while he continued to evoke the mediocrity of existence in his private letters. Success did not wrench him from his despair, but did not take anything away from his humanistic impulses: whether it be towards his friends or his patients, Chekhov was present for his loved ones, but remained as if absent, indifferent to himself. At the end of 1889, he took the radical and misunderstood decision, particularly in view of his state of health, to go to the island of Sakhalin, where a sadly renowned penitentiary was located. A duty of conscience that will take the form of a 500-sheet report that he writes before finally agreeing on a short European journey. On his return, however, he was once again overwhelmed by his responsibilities, yet he still found the time to write Une morne histoire in 1889, Le Duel in 1891, La Salle No. 6 in 1892... In 1896, his play La Mouette, which is now one of our classics, was presented for the first time, but the public remained insensitive to the implicit meaning of this ode to freedom. Two years later, thanks to a new troupe, the play was a success and with it the love that took the form of the actress Olga Knipper. A belated but frustrating passion, recurring absences and illness too often drive away the loving hearts. Anyone who thought that he would be forgotten as soon as he left this world was mistaken, today Uncle Vania, The Three Sisters or The Lady with the Little Dog still live in our libraries.The 20th century
In the twentieth century, writers enjoyed a priori relative freedom, yet the arrival of Stalin and the socialist realism he imposed, a doctrine that required a work to reflect and promote communism, signalled the end of freedom of expression. Exile, labour camp, more or less voluntary suicide, the fate of intellectuals is delicate. Some continue to write, manuscripts circulate under the mantle, they are the famous samizdat publications, or remain in drawers while waiting for more favourable, even surprising circumstances. The history of the manuscript of Life and Destiny, the masterpiece of Vassili Grossman (1905-1964), is chilling, so much so that it reflects what man had to endure in terms of suffering and disillusionment, a pain that resonates with the career of the dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who took advantage of a relative relaxation of censorship to publish, in 1962, A Day of Ivan Dissovich, a text that explains the existence of camps in the interior of the country, earning him the Nobel Prize in 1970... and the forfeiture of his nationality. A literature, known as Gulag literature, which will also be expressed in the sublime Narratives of the Kolyma by Varlam Chalamov (1907-1982), which is urgently available from Verdier. This long century of drama takes a breath of fresh air with perestroika and the end of censorship in 1992. If freedom is never acquired, Russian literature has been reborn and continues to be exported, new names are conquering the shelves of bookshops, such as Victor Remizov who evokes the Russian hold on Siberia in Volia Volnaïa published in paperback by 10-18 in 2019, and the classics still never cease to amaze readers
