Russia: the 1880s A generational change. 1880 Pushkin Monument Speeches by Dostoevsky, Turgenev The...
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Transcript of Russia: the 1880s A generational change. 1880 Pushkin Monument Speeches by Dostoevsky, Turgenev The...
1880 Pushkin Monument
• Speeches by Dostoevsky, Turgenev
• The myth of Russian literature, with Pushkin as its foundation, takes shape
• Pushkin is seen as “narodnyi” – national poet, creator of the Russian literary language
Of the great novelists, only Tolstoy remains
• Tolstoy goes through religious crisis, renounces his early writings
• Espouses a radical Christianity based on poverty, non-violence, anarchy
(Painting 1887 by Ilya Repin)
Repression
• Age darkened by the assassination of Alexander II in 1881
• Police state strengthened, trials of suspects
• Pogroms break out in the areas of Jewish settlement
• Education system changed to emphasize classical studies rather than natural sciences
• Repin: “They did not expect him” (1884)
Intellectual shifts: after positivism
• Turning away from the optimism and belief in progress of the previous age
• Radical socialist ideas: terror or communism, strikes
• Pessimism promoted by Schopenhauer’s philosophy, interest in Buddhism, abnegation of will
• beginning of the ennui of the turn of the century
Deep divisions
• The intellectual world becomes divided as the industrial age reaches its peak
• Naturalism: harsh leftist vision of the sufferings of people in the industrial age: prose
• Art for art’s sake: a new aestheticism, themes from ancient Greece, symbolism, belief in a transcendent world, mysticism: poetry
Changes in the social landscape: the new reader
• Accelerated urbanization and industrialization of Russia
• Greater literacy• Need for doctors, engineers, educators • New, classless reader • Cheap mass-produced magazines and journals
catered to lower-class tastes• The short form comes to the fore: the short
story, anecdote, sketch
Vsevolod Garshin (1855-88)
• Father committed suicide in front of him when he was 7
• Fought in the Russo-Turkish war (1877-1878)
• Suffered from mental illness, committed suicide
Garshin’s work
• Left a collection of short stories• Focusses on the inner life of the individual under
extreme stress, the subconscious world • Highly compressed stories with a grimly ironic twist • “Red Flower” – about a madman who believes the
evil of the world is concentrated in three red poppies growing in the mental hospital garden; he contrives to defeat his wardens and destroy them and dies in a bout of nervous exhaustion