Nikolai Semenovich Leskov full biography. Nikolai Semenovich Leskov: biography, facts, video

Nikolai Semenovich Leskov is one of the most amazing and original Russian writers, whose fate in literature cannot be called simple. During his lifetime, his works were mostly negative and were not accepted by most of the progressive people of the second half of the nineteenth century. Meanwhile, Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy called him “the most Russian writer,” and Anton Pavlovich Chekhov considered him one of his teachers.

It can be said that Leskov's work was truly appreciated only at the beginning of the twentieth century, when articles by M. Gorky, B. Eikhenbaum and others were published. L. Tolstoy's words that Nikolai Semenovich is a "writer of the future" turned out to be truly prophetic.

Origin

The creative fate of Leskov was largely determined by the environment in which he spent his childhood and adult life.
He was born in 1831, on February 4 (16 according to the new style), in the Oryol province. His ancestors were hereditary ministers of the clergy. Grandfather and great-grandfather were priests in the village of Leska, from which, most likely, the name of the writer came. However, Semyon Dmitrievich, the writer's father, broke this tradition and received the title of nobleman for his service in the Oryol Chamber of the Criminal Court. Marya Petrovna, the writer's mother, nee Alferyeva, also belonged to this class. Her sisters were married to wealthy people: one - for an Englishman, the other - for an Oryol landowner. This fact in the future will also have an impact on the life and work of Leskov.

In 1839, Semyon Dmitrievich had a conflict in the service, and he and his family moved to Panin Khutor, where his son's real acquaintance with the original Russian speech began.

Education and early service

The writer N. S. Leskov began to study in the family of wealthy relatives of the Strakhovs, who hired German and Russian teachers and a French governess for their children. Even then, the outstanding talent of little Nikolai was fully manifested. But he never received a "big" education. In 1841, the boy was sent to the Oryol provincial gymnasium, from which he left five years later with two classes of education. Perhaps the reason for this lay in the peculiarities of teaching, built on cramming and rules, far from the lively and inquisitive mind that Leskov possessed. The writer's biography includes further service in the state chamber, where his father served (1847-1849), and transfer of his own free will after his tragic death as a result of cholera to the state chamber of the city of Kyiv, where his maternal uncle S. P. Alferyev lived . The years of stay here gave a lot to the future writer. Leskov, as a free listener, attended lectures at Kiev University, independently studied the Polish language, for some time was fond of icon painting, and even attended a religious and philosophical circle. Acquaintance with the Old Believers, pilgrims also influenced the life and work of Leskov.

Work at Schcott & Wilkens

A real school for Nikolai Semenovich was the work in the company of his English relative (aunt's husband) A. Shkott in 1857-1860 (before the collapse of the trading house). According to the writer himself, these were the best years when he "saw a lot and lived easily." By the nature of his service, he had to constantly wander around the country, which gave a huge amount of material in all spheres of the life of Russian society. “I grew up among the people,” Nikolai Leskov later wrote. His biography is an acquaintance with Russian life firsthand. This is a stay in a truly popular environment and personal knowledge of all the hardships of life that have fallen to the lot of a simple peasant.

In 1860, Nikolai Semenovich returned to Kyiv for a short time, after which he ended up in St. Petersburg, where his serious literary activity began.

Creativity Leskov: formation

The writer's first articles on corruption in medical and police circles were published back in Kyiv. They evoked stormy responses and became the main reason that the future writer was forced to leave the service and go in search of a new place of residence and work, which was what St. Petersburg became for him.
Here Leskov immediately declares himself as a publicist and is published in Otechestvennye Zapiski, Severnaya Pchela, Russkaya Speech. For several years he signed his works with the pseudonym M. Stebnitsky (there were others, but this one was used most often), which soon became rather scandalous.

In 1862, there was a fire in the Shchukin and Apraksin courtyards. Nikolai Semenovich Leskov responded vividly to this event. A brief biography of his life includes such an episode as an angry tirade on the part of the king himself. In an article about the fires published in the Northern Bee, the writer expressed his point of view on who could be involved in them and what purpose he had. He blamed the nihilistic youth, who had never enjoyed his respect, to blame. The authorities were accused of not paying enough attention to the investigation of the incident, and the arsonists were not caught. The criticism that fell immediately on Leskov, both from democratically inclined circles and from the administration, forced him to leave St. Petersburg for a long time, since no explanations of the writer about the written article were accepted.

The western borders of the Russian Empire and Europe - Nikolai Leskov visited these places during the months of disgrace. Since then, his biography has included, on the one hand, the recognition of an absolutely unlike writer, on the other hand, constant suspicions, sometimes reaching insults. They were most clearly manifested in the statements of D. Pisarev, who considered that Stebnitsky's name alone would be enough to cast a shadow on the magazine publishing his works, and on writers who found the courage to publish together with the scandalous author.

Novel "Nowhere"

The attitude towards Leskov's damaged reputation did little to change his first serious work of art. In 1864, the Reading Magazine published his novel Nowhere, which he had begun two years earlier during a western trip. It satirically depicted representatives of the nihilists who were quite popular at that time, and in the appearance of some of them the features of real people were clearly guessed. And again attacks with accusations of distorting reality and that the novel is the fulfillment of the “order” of certain circles. Nikolai Leskov himself was also critical of the work. His biography, primarily creative, for many years was predetermined by this novel: his works for a long time refused to be published by the leading magazines of that time.

The origin of the tale form

In the 1860s, Leskov wrote several stories (among them, “Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District”), in which the features of the new style are gradually defined, which later became a kind of hallmark of the writer. This is a tale with amazing, unique humor and a special approach to depicting reality. Already in the twentieth century, these works will be highly appreciated by many writers and literary critics, and Leskov, whose biography is constant clashes with leading representatives of the second half of the nineteenth century, will be put on a par with N. Gogol, M. Dostoevsky, L. Tolstoy, A. Chekhov. However, at the time of publication, they were practically ignored, as they were still under the impression of his previous publications. The staging of the play “The Spender” about the Russian merchant class at the Alexandria Theater and the novel “On the Knives” (all about the same nihilists) caused negative criticism, because of which Leskov entered into a sharp debate with the editor of the magazine “Russian Messenger” M. Katkov, where most of his works were published.

The manifestation of true talent

Only after going through numerous accusations, sometimes reaching direct insults, was N. S. Leskov able to find a real reader. His biography takes a sharp turn in 1872, when the novel "Cathedrals" is printed. Its main theme is the opposition of the true Christian faith to the official one, and the main characters are the clergymen of the old time and the nihilists and officials of all ranks and areas, including the church, opposed to them. This novel was the beginning of the creation of works dedicated to the Russian clergy and local nobles who preserve folk traditions. Under his pen, a harmonious and original world arises, built on faith. Present in the works and criticism of the negative aspects of the system that has developed in Russia. Later, this feature of the writer's style will nevertheless open the way for him to democratic literature.

"The Tale of the Tula oblique left-hander ..."

Perhaps the most striking image created by the writer was Lefty, drawn in a work whose genre - a workshop legend - was determined by Leskov himself during the first publication. The biography of one has forever become inseparable from the life of another. Yes, and the writing style of the writer is most often recognized precisely by the story of a skilled craftsman. Many critics immediately seized on the version put forward by the writer in the preface that this work is just a retold legend. Leskov had to write an article stating that in fact "Lefty" is the fruit of his imagination and long observations of the life of an ordinary person. So briefly Leskov was able to draw attention to the giftedness of the Russian peasant, as well as to the economic and cultural backwardness of Russia in the second half of the nineteenth century.

Late creativity

In the 1870s, Leskov was an employee of the educational department of the Scientific Committee at the Ministry of Public Education, then an employee of the Ministry of State Property. The service never brought him much joy, so he accepted his resignation in 1883 as an opportunity to become independent. The main thing for the writer has always been literary activity. “The Enchanted Wanderer”, “The Captured Angel”, “The Man on the Watch”, “The Non-Deadly Golovan”, “The Stupid Artist”, “Evil” - this is a small part of the works that Leskov N. S. writes in the 1870-1880s. Stories and stories unite the images of the righteous - the heroes of the straightforward, fearless, unable to put up with evil. Quite often, memoirs or surviving old manuscripts formed the basis of the works. And among the heroes, along with fictional ones, there were also prototypes of real people, which gave the plot a special authenticity and truthfulness. Over the years, the works themselves acquired more and more satirical and revealing features. As a result, the novels and novels of later years, including The Invisible Trace, The Falcon Flight, The Hare's Remise and, of course, The Devil's Dolls, where Tsar Nicholas I served as the prototype for the protagonist, were not printed at all or were published with big censorship edits. According to Leskov, the publication of works, always rather problematic, in his declining years became completely unbearable.

Personal life

Leskov's family life was not easy either. The first time he married in 1853 was O. V. Smirnova, the daughter of a wealthy and well-known businessman in Kyiv. Two children were born from this marriage: daughter Vera and son Mitya (he died in infancy). Family life was short-lived: spouses - initially different people, were increasingly moving away from each other. The situation was aggravated by the death of their son, and already in the early 1860s they broke up. Subsequently, Leskov's first wife ended up in a psychiatric hospital, where the writer visited her until his death.

In 1865, Nikolai Semenovich got along with E. Bubnova, they lived in a civil marriage, but the common life did not work out with her either. Their son, Andrei, after the separation of his parents, remained with Leskov. He later compiled a biography of his father, published in 1954.

Such a person was Nikolai Semenovich Leskov, whose brief biography is interesting to every connoisseur of Russian classical literature.

In the footsteps of the great writer

N. S. Leskov died on February 21 (March 5, according to the new style), 1895. His body rests at the Volkovskoye Cemetery (on the Literary Stage), on the grave there is a granite pedestal and a large cast-iron cross. And Leskov's house on Furshtadskaya Street, where he spent the last years of his life, can be recognized by a memorial plaque installed in 1981.

Truly, the memory of the original writer, who often returned to his native places in his works, was immortalized in the Oryol region. Here, in the house of his father, the only Literary and Memorial Museum of Leskov was opened in Russia. Thanks to his son, Andrei Nikolaevich, it contains a large number of unique exhibits related to the life of Leskov: a child, a writer, a public figure. Among them are personal items, valuable documents and manuscripts, letters, including the writer's class journal and watercolors depicting Nikolai Semenovich's home and relatives.

And in the old part of Orel, on the anniversary date - 150 years from the date of birth - a monument to Leskov was erected by Yu. Yu. and Yu. G. Orekhovs, A. V. Stepanov. The writer sits on a pedestal-sofa. In the background is the Church of Michael the Archangel, which was mentioned more than once in Leskov's works.

Russian writer N.S. Leskov was born on February 4 (16), 1831 in the village of Gorokhovo, Oryol province. His grandfather was a clergyman in the village of Leski, Karachev district, where the writer's surname came from. The grandson of a priest, Leskov always emphasized his kinship with the estate, the image of which he considered his "specialty" in literature. "Our family comes from the clergy," said the writer. Grandfather was smart and had a cool temper. His son, who graduated from the seminary, he kicked out of the house for refusing to go to the clergy. And although Leskov’s father, Semyon Dmitrievich (1789-1848), “did not become a priest,” “having fled to Oryol with 40 kopecks of copper, which his mother gave him through the back gate,” seminary education determined his spiritual appearance. He went to the civil part, was an assessor of the Oryol Criminal Chamber, an "excellent investigator", who received hereditary nobility. While teaching in noble families, 40-year-old Semyon Dmitrievich married one of his students, 16-year-old noblewoman Maria Petrovna Alferyeva (1813-1886). According to N.S. Leskova, his father, "a big, wonderful smart guy and a dense seminarian," was distinguished by his religiosity, excellent mind, honesty and firmness of convictions, because of which he made a lot of enemies for himself.

The childhood years of the future writer were spent in Orel, and in 1839, when his father retired and bought the Panino farm in the Kromsky district, the entire large family (Nikolai was the eldest of seven children) left Orel for his tiny estate of 40 acres of land. Leskov received his initial education in Gorokhovo in the house of the Strakhovs, wealthy maternal relatives, where he was sent by his parents due to a lack of his own funds for home education. In the village, Leskov made friends with peasant children, to "the smallest details learned the common people's way of life." A close acquaintance with the serfs revealed to him the originality of the people's worldview, so unlike the values ​​of people from the upper classes. In the wilderness of Orel, the future writer saw and learned a lot, which later gave him the right to say: "I did not study the people by talking with St. Petersburg cabbies, ... I grew up among the people ... I was my own person with the people ..." grandmothers, Alexandra Vasilievna Kolobova, about Orel and its inhabitants, about her father's estate in Panino, were reflected in many of Leskov's works. He recalls this time in the stories "Non-lethal Golovan" (1879), "The Beast" (1883), "Dumb Artist" (1883), "Scarecrow" (1885), "Yudol" (1892).

In 1841, Nikolai entered the Oryol gymnasium, but did not study very well. In 1846, he did not pass the translation exams and left the gymnasium without finishing it. Five years of study at the gymnasium did little good for the future writer. Later, he regretted that they taught there at random. The lack of learning had to be made up for by a wealth of life observations, knowledge, and the talent of a writer. And in 1847, at the age of 16, Leskov got a job as a scribe in the Oryol Chamber of the Criminal Court, where his father served. “I’m completely self-taught,” he said of himself.

Service (1847-1849) was the first experience of acquaintance with the bureaucratic system, and with the unsightly, and sometimes comical sides of reality. This experience was later reflected in the works "Extinguished Case", "Stinging", "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District", "Mysterious Incident". In those years, Leskov read a lot, rotated in the circle of the Oryol intelligentsia. But the sudden death of his father in 1848, the terrible Oryol fires of the 1840s, during which the entire fortune perished, and the "disastrous ruin" of the family changed Leskov's fate. In the autumn of 1849, at the invitation of his maternal uncle, medical professor of Kyiv University S.P. Alferyev (1816-1884), moved to Kyiv and by the end of the year got a job as an assistant clerk of the recruiting desk of the revision department of the Kyiv Treasury Chamber. In this capacity, Leskov often went to the districts, studied folk life, and did a lot of self-education.

The influence of the university environment, acquaintance with Polish and Ukrainian cultures, reading by A.I. Herzen, L. Feuerbach, G. Babeuf, friendship with the icon painters of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra laid the foundation for the versatile knowledge of the writer. Leskov's keen interest in the great poet of Ukraine awakens, he is fond of ancient painting and architecture of Kyiv, becoming a great connoisseur of ancient art. In the same years, mainly under the influence of the ethnographer A.V. Markovich (1822-1867; his wife is known, who wrote under the pseudonym Marko Vovchok), became addicted to literature, although he had not yet thought about writing. In the Kyiv years (1849-1857) Leskov, working in the Treasury, attends university lectures on agronomy, anatomy, criminalistics, state law as a volunteer, studies the Polish language, participates in a religious and philosophical student circle, communicates with pilgrims, sectarians, Old Believers.

Public service burdened Leskov. He did not feel free, did not see any real benefit for society in his activities. In 1857, he left government service and first entered the Russian Society of Shipping and Trade, and then as an agent in the private commercial firm "Shkott and Wilkins", headed by the Englishman A.Ya. Shkott (c.1800-1860 / 1861) - was the husband of Leskov's aunt and manager in the estates of Naryshkin and Count Perovsky. He spent three years (1857-1860) constantly traveling on the business of the company, "he saw all of Russia from a wagon and from a barge." As Leskov himself recalled, he "traveled around Russia in a variety of directions", collected "a great abundance of impressions and a store of everyday information", which were reflected in a number of articles, feuilletons, and notes with which he appeared in the Kyiv newspaper "Modern Medicine". These years of wandering gave Leskov a huge stock of observations, images, well-aimed words and phrases, from which he drew throughout his life. Since 1860, Leskov began to publish in St. Petersburg and Kyiv newspapers. His articles "Why are books expensive in Kyiv?" (on the sale of the Gospel at elevated prices), notes "On the working class", "On the drinking sale of bread wine", "On the hiring of working people", "Consolidated marriages in Russia", "Russian women and emancipation", "On privileges", "On the resettled peasants", etc. In 1860, Leskov was not an investigator for long in the Kyiv police, but his articles in the weekly "Modern Medicine", exposing the corruption of police doctors, led to a conflict with colleagues. As a result of an organized provocation, Leskov, who conducted an official investigation, was accused of bribery and was forced to leave the service.

In January 1861, N.S. Leskov gives up commercial activities and moves to St. Petersburg. In search of a job, he devotes himself entirely to literature, collaborates in many metropolitan newspapers and magazines, most of all in Otechestvennye Zapiski, where he is assisted by an Oryol acquaintance, publicist S.S. Gromeko, in "Russian speech" and "Vremya". He quickly became a prominent publicist, his articles are devoted to topical issues. He becomes close to the circles of socialists and revolutionaries, the envoy A.I. lives in his apartment. Herzen Swiss A.I. Benny (later Leskovsky's essay "The Mysterious Man", 1870, was dedicated to him; he also became the prototype of Reiner in the novel "Nowhere"). In 1862, Leskov published the first works of art - the stories "Extinguished Business" (later revised and called "Drought"), "Stinging", "Robber" and "In the tarantass". These stories by Leskov are essays from folk life, depicting the ideas and actions of ordinary people that seem strange to a civilized, educated reader. Thus, the peasants are convinced that the disastrous drought is caused by the burial of the drunkard sexton; all attempts by the village priest to refute this superstitious opinion are in vain.

In 1862, Leskov became a regular contributor to the liberal newspaper Severnaya Pchela. As a publicist, he acted as a supporter of democratic reforms, an adherent of gradual changes, and criticized the revolutionary ideas of the writers of the Sovremennik magazine N.G. Chernyshevsky and G.Z. Eliseev. Leskov pointed out with concern that the socialists' inherent desire for violent changes in the social and political system of Russia is just as dangerous as the restriction of freedom by the government. The intolerance of radical publicists to the opinions of others, Leskov argued in the pages of Severnaya pchela, is evidence of their despotism.

In the summer of 1862, the famous fires in St. Petersburg took place, causing terrible excitement among the people. Rumors circulated that the perpetrators of the fires were anti-government students. There were cases of attacks on students suspected of "arson". An article by Leskov was published in Severnaya Pchela, which caused a deafening response. In it, he categorically demanded that the police either officially provide evidence that the students were setting fire, or officially denied the ridiculous rumors. Few people read the article itself, but the rumor quickly spread that Leskov connected the fires in St. Petersburg with the revolutionary aspirations of students. In vain Leskov struggled with a completely wrong interpretation of his article: the legend was firmly established, and Leskov's name became the subject of the most insulting suspicions. His reputation was indelibly branded as a political provocateur who supported the authorities in the struggle against love of freedom and free thought. Acquaintances turned their backs on the author of the note; in society, he was publicly shown contempt. This undeserved insult made a tremendous impression on Leskov. The writer broke with revolutionary-democratic circles and turned sharply in the other direction. In September 1862, he left St. Petersburg and went as a correspondent for the "Northern Bee" on a long business trip to Europe. Leskov visited Dinaburg, Vilna, Grodno, Pinsk, Lvov, Prague, Krakow, and then Paris, he conceived a novel in which the movement of the 1860s was to a large extent reflected in an unfavorable way. The result of the trip was a series of publicistic essays and letters ("From a travel diary", 1862-1863; "Russian Society in Paris", 1863), which described the life and moods of Russian aristocrats, their servants and socialist emigrants who settled in Paris. In the spring of 1863 Leskov returned to Russia.

Actually, Leskov's writing biography begins precisely in 1863, when he published his first stories ("The Life of a Woman", "Musk Ox") and began publishing in the "Library for Reading" the "anti-nihilistic" novel "Nowhere", written under the pseudonym M. Stebnitsky . The novel opens with scenes of unhurried provincial life, outraged by the advent of "new people", then the action is transferred to the capital. The satirically depicted life of the commune, organized by the "nihilists", is contrasted with modest work for the benefit of the people and Christian family values, which should save Russia from the disastrous path of social upheavals, where young demagogues are dragging her. Most of the depicted "nihilists" had recognizable prototypes (for example, under the name of the head of the commune, Beloyartsev, the writer V.A. Sleptsov was bred). The immoral ideologues and "leaders" of the revolutionary movement and the leaders of the nihilistic circles are depicted with undisguised disgust; in their portraits, pathological bloodthirstiness, narcissism, cowardice, bad manners are emphasized. The novel created a huge, but far from flattering fame for the author. And although there was a lot of unfairness in this cruel attitude towards the novel, Leskov was branded as a "reactionary". False rumors circulated in St. Petersburg that by writing "Nowhere", Leskov fulfilled the direct order of the police department. Radical democratic critics D.I. Pisarev and V.A. Zaitsev hinted at this in his articles. Pisarev asked rhetorically: “Apart from Russkiy Vestnik, is there now in Russia at least one magazine that would dare to print on its pages something coming out of the pen of Stebnitsky and signed with his name? And is there at least one honest magazine in Russia?” a writer who will be so indifferent to his reputation that he will agree to work in a magazine that adorns itself with stories and novels by Stebnitsky? From now on, Leskov's path to major liberal publications was ordered, which predetermined his rapprochement with M.N. Katkov, publisher of Russkiy Vestnik. Leskov was able to free himself from this reputation only at the end of his life.

In the 1860s, Leskov was looking for his own special way. On the canvas of popular prints about the love of the clerk and the master's wife, the story "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District" (1865) was written, based on the story of disastrous passions hidden under the cover of provincial silence. A fascinating and tragic plot, at the same time repulsive and filled with sublime power, the character of the main character, Katerina Izmailova, gave the work a special appeal. This tale of illicit passion and murder differs from Leskov's other writings. The story "Old Years in the Village of Plodomasovo" (1869), which describes the serf customs of the 18th century, he writes in the chronicle genre. In the story "The Warrior" (1866), tale forms appear for the first time. He also tries his hand at dramaturgy: in 1867, on the stage of the Alexandrinsky Theater, they put his drama from the merchant's life "The Spender". Since the courts and "modern-dressed" entrepreneurs who emerged as a result of liberal reforms are powerless in the play against the predator of the old formation, Leskov was again accused by critics of pessimism and antisocial tendencies. Among Leskov's other works of the 1860s, the story "Bypassed" (1865) stands out, written in polemic with the novel by N.G. Chernyshevsky "What to do?" (Leskov contrasted his "new people" with "little people" "with a spacious heart"), and the story of the Germans living on Vasilevsky Island in St. Petersburg ("Islanders", 1866).

Leskov during this period held liberal views. In 1866, in the affairs of the office of the St. Petersburg police chief, in a note "On writers and journalists" it was stated: "Eliseev, Sleptsov, Leskov. Extreme socialists. Sympathize with everything anti-government. Nihilism in all forms." In reality, Leskov had a negative attitude towards extreme political, democratic trends, standing entirely on the basis of bourgeois reforms. He did not see the social forces on which the revolution could rely. He wrote: "There cannot be a social-democratic revolution in Russia due to the complete absence of socialist concepts among the Russian people." The anti-nihilistic motives that sounded in many of his works of the 1860s, as well as the novel "On the Knives" (1870), which shows the internal collapse of the revolutionary dream and depicts "swindlers from nihilism", aggravated hostility towards Leskov in the circle of radical intelligentsia. His best works of those years passed almost unnoticed.

The main storyline of the novel "On the Knives" is the murder by the nihilist Gordanov and his former mistress Glafira Bodrostina of Glafira's husband Mikhail Andreevich, whose property and money they seek to take possession of. The plot is full of unexpected twists, tragic events and secrets. The concept of "nihilism" in the novel takes on a special meaning. Former revolutionaries are reborn as ordinary swindlers, become police agents and officials, because of money they cleverly deceive each other. Nihilism is an extreme unscrupulousness that has become a philosophy of life. Gordanov's intrigues in the novel are opposed only by a few noble people - the knight of virtue, the nobleman Podozerov, the general's wife Sintyanina, who after the death of her husband becomes Podozerov's wife, the retired major Forov. The novel with an intricate plot caused reproaches for the tension and implausibility of the situations depicted (everything, as the expression goes, “is happening on the moon”), not to mention the next political accusations against the author. The novel "On Knives" is the most extensive and, undoubtedly, the worst work of Leskov, written, moreover, in a tabloid-melodramatic style. Subsequently, Leskov himself, with pleasure always starting a conversation about "Nowhere", avoided talking about "On the Knives". This novel is a kind of crisis that resolved the period of Leskov's activity, dedicated to settling scores with the movement of the 1860s. The nihilists then disappear from his writings. The second, better half of Leskov's activity begins, almost free from the topic of the day. Leskov never returned to the genre of the novel in its purest form.

Since the 1870s, the topic of nihilism has become irrelevant for Leskov. The writer's interest is directed towards church-religious and moral issues. He refers to the images of the Russian righteous: "We have not translated, and the righteous will not be translated." Convinced that in moments of "general disaster" the "environment of the people" itself puts forward its heroes and righteous people to the feat, and then composes legends about them with a "human soul", - Leskov comes to the conclusion about the "righteousness of all our smart and kind people."

The search for positive heroes, the righteous, on whom the Russian land rests (they are also in "anti-nihilistic" novels), a long-standing interest in schismatics and sectarians, in folklore, ancient Russian icon painting, in all the "variegated flowers" of folk life accumulated in the stories "The Sealed Angel" and "The Enchanted Wanderer" (both 1873), in which Leskov's narration style revealed its potential. In "The Sealed Angel", which tells of a miracle that led the schismatic community to unity with Orthodoxy, there are echoes of ancient Russian legends about miraculous icons. The image of the hero of the "Enchanted Wanderer" Ivan Flyagin, who went through unthinkable trials, resembles the epic Ilya Muromets and symbolizes the physical and moral stamina of the Russian people. For his sins - the senseless "daring" murder of a nun and the murder of the gypsy Grusha (Grusha herself asked Flyagin to push her into the water, help her die, but he considers this act of his great sin), the hero of the story goes to the monastery. This decision, in his opinion, is predetermined by fate, by God. But Ivan Flyagin's life is not over, and the monastery is just one of the "stops" in his journey. Having won wide reader success, these works are interesting in that the writer created an artistic model of the whole of Russia in a limited plot space. Both works are sustained in a fairy tale manner: the author "hides" behind the narrator, avoiding unambiguous assessments.

Leskov used the experience of his "anti-nihilistic" novels and "provincial" stories in the chronicle "Soboryane" (1872), which became a turning point in the writer's life, demonstrating even to prejudiced readers the scale of his artistic talent. The story of Archpriest Saveliy Tuberozov, deacon Achilles Desnitsyn and priest Zakharia Benefaktov, who live in the provincial town of Stargorod, reminiscent of Oryol, takes on the features of a fairy tale and a heroic epic. These eccentric inhabitants of the "old fairy tale" are surrounded on all sides by figures of the new time - nihilists, swindlers, civil and church officials of a new type. The small victories of the naive Achilles, the courage of Savely, the struggle of this "best of heroes" "against the pests of Russian development" cannot stop the onset of a new evil age that promises Russia terrible upheavals in the future. In "Cathedrals" tragic, dramatic and comic episodes are woven together.

After the release of the novel, Leskov again wins the attention of readers. There was a change in his attitude. Finally, his position in literature began to "settle". "Cathedrals" brought the author literary fame and great success. According to I.A. Goncharov, Leskov's chronicle "was read to the whole beau monde" of St. Petersburg. The newspaper "Grazhdanin", which was edited by F.M. Dostoevsky, referred "Soboryan" to the number of "capital works" of modern Russian literature, putting Leskov's work on a par with "War and Peace" by L.N. Tolstoy and "Demons" by F.M. Dostoevsky. The attitude towards Leskov at the end of the 1870s changed so much that the "liberal" newspaper Novosti published his "Trifles of Bishop's Life" (1878), written with a significant amount of slyness and had a resounding success, but aroused extreme displeasure among the clergy.

True, in 1874 the second part of Leskov's chronicle "The Seedy Family", which caustically portrayed the mysticism and hypocrisy of the end of Alexander's reign and affirmed the social non-embodiment of Christianity in Russian life, caused dissatisfaction with the editor of the "Russian Messenger" Katkov. As an editor, he subjected Leskov's text to distortions, which led to a break in their relationship, however, long overdue (a year earlier, Katkov had refused to publish The Enchanted Wanderer, referring to its artistic "unfinished work"). “There is nothing to regret - he is not ours at all,” said Katkov. After the break with the Russian Messenger, Leskov found himself in a difficult financial situation. Service (since 1874) in a special department of the Scientific Committee of the Ministry of Public Education for the review of books published for the people, gave him a meager salary. Excommunicated from major journals and unable to find a place among the "conservatives" of the Katkov type, Leskov almost to the end of his life was published in small-circulation or specialized publications - in humorous leaflets, illustrated weeklies, in supplements to the Marine Journal, in the church press, in provincial periodicals and etc., often using different, sometimes exotic pseudonyms (V. Peresvetov, Nikolai Gorokhov, Nikolai Ponukalov, Freishitz, Priest P. Kastorsky, Psalm Reader, Man from the Crowd, Watch Lover, Protozanov, etc.). This "scatteredness" of Leskov's heritage is associated with significant difficulties in studying it, as well as the winding paths of the reputation of his individual works. So, for example, the story about the Russian and German national characters "Iron Will" (1876), which Leskov did not include in his lifetime collected works, was pulled from oblivion and republished only during the Great Patriotic War.

"Iron Will" is a tragicomic story of the German Hugo Pectoralis, who settled in Russia. The comically exaggerated trait of the German character - willpower, inflexibility, turning into stubbornness - turn out to be in Russia not advantages, but disadvantages: Pectoralis is ruined by the crafty, inconsistent and ingenuous iron-smelter Vasily Safronych, who took advantage of the stubbornness of the German. Pectoralis obtained permission from the court to keep the fence with which he fenced the courtyard of Vasily Safronych, depriving the enemy of access to the street. But cash payments to Vasily Safronych for the inconvenience brought Pectoralis to poverty. Pectoralis, as he had threatened, outlived Vasily Safronych, but died after overeating pancakes at his wake (this is exactly the death Vasily Safronych wished the German).

After his second trip abroad in 1875, Leskov, by his own admission, "most of all disagreed with the clergy." In contrast to his stories about the "Russian righteous", he wrote a series of essays about bishops, processing anecdotes and popular rumor into ironic, sometimes even satirical texts: "Trifles of Bishop's Life" (1878), "Bishops' Detours" (1879), "Diocesan Court "(1880), "Synodal Persons" (1882), etc. The measure of Leskov's opposition to the Church in the 1870s and early 1880s should not be exaggerated (as was done, for obvious reasons, in the Soviet years): it is rather "criticism from within". In some essays, such as, for example, "The Sovereign's Court" (1877), which tells about abuses in recruitment, familiar to Leskov firsthand, the bishop (Metropolitan Philaret of Kyiv) appears almost as an ideal "pastor". During these years, Leskov was still actively collaborating in the church magazines Pravoslavnoye Obozrenie, Wanderer, and Church Public Bulletin; brochures: The Mirror of the Life of a True Disciple of Christ (1877), Prophecies about the Messiah (1878), Pointer to the Book of the New Testament (1879) and others. in the second half of the 1880s and did not leave him until his death.

In the 1880s, Leskov's most productive form was the tale form, which gave characteristic examples of his style ("Lefty", "Dumb Artist", etc.). Creating stories based on an anecdote, a "curious case" preserved and embellished by oral tradition, Leskov combines them into cycles. This is how "stories by the way" arise, depicting funny, but no less significant situations in their national character ("Voice of Nature", 1883; "Alexandrite", 1885; "Old Psychopaths", 1885; "Interesting Men", 1885; "Zagon" , 1893, etc.), and "Christmas tales" - tales of imaginary and genuine miracles that happen at Christmas ("Christ visiting a peasant", 1881; "Ghost in the Engineer's Castle", 1882; "Journey with a Nihilist", 1882 ; "The Beast", 1883; "Old Genius", 1884, etc.).

Fairy-tale motifs, the interweaving of the comic and the tragic, the author's dual assessment of the characters are the hallmarks of Leskov's works. They are also characteristic of one of his most famous works - the tale "Lefty" (1881, the original title - "The Tale of the Tula Oblique Lefty and the Steel Flea"). In the center of the narrative is the motif of the competition, characteristic of the fairy tale. Russian craftsmen, led by the Tula gunsmith Lefty, without any complicated tools, shoe a dancing English-made steel flea. Lefty is a skilled craftsman who embodies the talents of the Russian people. But at the same time, Lefty is a character devoid of technical knowledge known to any English master. He rejects the lucrative offers of the British and returns to Russia. But Lefty's disinterestedness and incorruptibility are inextricably linked with downtroddenness, with a sense of his own insignificance in comparison with officials and nobles. Leskov's hero combines both the virtues and vices of a simple Russian person. Returning to his homeland, he falls ill and dies, useless, deprived of any care. In a separate edition of "Lefty" in 1882, Leskov indicated that his work was based on the legend of Tula gunsmiths about the competition between Tula masters and the British. They said that the legend of Lefty was told to him in Sestroretsk by an old gunsmith, a native of Tula. Literary critics believed this message of the author. But in fact, Leskov invented the plot of his legend.

Critics who wrote about Leskov's work invariably - and often unfriendly - noted the unusual language, the author's bizarre verbal play. “Mr. Leskov is one of the most pretentious representatives of our modern literature. Not a single page can do without some equivocations, allegories, fictitious or God knows where dug out words and all kinds of kunstshtyukov,” A. M. Skabichevsky, a well-known literary critic of the democratic trend. The narrator in "Lefty" seems to involuntarily distort the words. Such distorted, misunderstood words give Leskov's tale a comic coloring. Private conversations in the tale are called "internecine", a double carriage is called "double-seat", a chicken with rice turns into a "hen with a lynx", the minister's name is "Kiselvrode", busts and chandeliers are combined into one word "busters", and the famous antique statue of Apollo Belvedere turns into "Abolon polvedere". A melkoskop, a multiplication dolly, a popular adviser, bills of exchange, waterproof cables, a couchette, beliefs, etc., are found on every page of Leskov, insulting the purist ear of his contemporaries and incurring accusations of "corrupting the language", "vulgarity", "buffoonery", " pretentiousness" and "originality".

Here is how the writer A.V. Amfiteatrov: “Of course, Leskov was a natural stylist. He discovers rare reserves of verbal wealth. Wandering around Russia, close acquaintance with local dialects, studying Russian antiquity, Old Believers, Russian crafts, etc. added a lot, over time, to these reserves. Leskov took into the depths of his speech everything that was preserved among the people from his ancient language, and put it into action with great success. and fictitious, newly formed verbal material served Leskov not for good, but for harm, dragging his talent onto the slippery path of external comic effects, funny catchphrases and turns of speech. Leskov himself spoke about the language of his works: “The voice of the writer lies in the ability to master the voice and language of his hero ... I tried to develop this skill in myself and reached, it seems, that my priests speak in a spiritual way, nihilists - in - nihilistically, peasants - like peasants, upstarts from them and buffoons with tricks, etc. On my own behalf, I speak the language of old fairy tales and church folk in purely literary speech. and did not subscribe to it. This pleases me. They say that it is fun to read me. This is because all of us: both my heroes and I myself, have our own voice. "

"Anecdotal" in its essence is the story "Dumb Artist" (1883), which tells about the sad fate of a talent from serfs in the 18th century. In the story, the cruel master separates the serfs of Count Kamensky - the hairdresser Arkady and the actress Lyubov Anisimovna, giving Arkady to the soldiers and dishonoring his beloved. After serving in the army and receiving an officer's rank and nobility, Arkady comes to Kamensky to marry Lyubov Anisimovna. The count favorably receives his former serf. But happiness betrays the heroes of the story: the owner of the inn where Arkady stopped, seduced by the money of the guest, kills him.

At one time (in 1877), Empress Maria Alexandrovna, having read the Soboryans, spoke of them with great praise in a conversation with Count P.A. Valuev, then Minister of State Property; on the same day, Valuev appointed Leskov a member of a department in his ministry. This was the end of Leskov's official successes. In 1880 he was forced to leave the Ministry of State Property, and in February 1883 he was dismissed from the Ministry of Public Education, where he had served since 1874. Leskov would not have to work hard to avert such an end to his career, but he gladly accepted the resignation, seeing in it a confirmation of his confidence that he was a completely independent person, not affiliated with any "party" and therefore condemned to arouse displeasure in everyone and remain lonely, without friends and patrons. Independence was especially dear to him now, when, partly under the influence of Leo Tolstoy, he devoted himself almost exclusively to religious and moral questions and to the study of the sources of Christianity.

Leskov is getting closer to L.N. Tolstoy in the mid-1880s, he shares the foundations of Tolstoy's religious and moral teachings: the idea of ​​moral improvement of the individual as the basis of a new faith, the opposition of the true faith to Orthodoxy, and the rejection of existing social orders. At the beginning of 1887, they met. About the influence exerted on him by Tolstoy, Leskov wrote: "I exactly "coincidentally" with Tolstoy ... Sensing his enormous strength, I threw my bowl and went after his lantern." Assessing the work of Nikolai Leskov, Leo Tolstoy wrote: "Leskov is a writer of the future, and his life in literature is deeply instructive." However, not everyone agreed with this assessment. In his later years, Leskov was in sharp conflict with spiritual censorship, his writings with difficulty bypass censorship bans, causing the wrath of the influential Chief Prosecutor of the Holy Synod K.P. Pobedonostsev.

Leskov was hot and uneven. Next to absolute masterpieces, he lists hastily written things put into print from pencil scraps - the inevitable blunders of a writer who feeds on a pen and is sometimes forced to compose as needed. Leskov was for a long time and unfairly not recognized as a classic of Russian literature. He was a man preoccupied with the problems of everyday life and the survival of the fatherland, he was intolerant of fools and political demagogues. In the last 12-15 years of his life, Leskov was very lonely, old friends treated him suspiciously and incredulously, new ones - with caution. Despite the big name, he made friends mainly with insignificant and beginner writers. Criticism did little for him.

All his life, Nikolai Leskov was between scorching fires. The bureaucracy did not forgive him for poisonous arrows directed at her; Slavophiles were angry at the words about the senselessness of the idealization of "pre-Petrine foolishness and falsehood"; the clergy were worried about this secular gentleman's suspiciously good knowledge of the problems of church history and modernity; the left-wing liberals-"communists", through the mouth of Pisarev, declared Leskov an informer and a provocateur. Later, the Soviet government awarded Leskov the rank of a moderately talented minor writer with incorrect political convictions and the right to publish occasionally. Having not received during his lifetime the literary assessment he deserved, contemptuously interpreted by critics as a "writer-anecdotist", Leskov received full recognition only in the 20th century, when articles by M. Gorky and B.M. Eikhenbaum about his innovation and dramatic creative life. Leskov's biography, compiled by his son Andrei Nikolaevich Leskov (1866-1953), was first published in 1954. And in the early 1970s, Leskov was suddenly and without explanation rehabilitated, in 1974 the house-museum of N.S. Leskov, and in 1981, in honor of the 150th anniversary of the birth of the writer, a monument to the writer was erected there, he was showered with praise and reprints. There were numerous performances and films based on his works.

Leskov's life itself was cut short for literary reasons. In 1889, a big scandal erupted around the publication of the collected works of Leskov. The sixth volume of the publication was arrested by censorship as "anti-church", some of the works were cut out, but the publication was saved. Having learned on August 16, 1889 in the printing house of A.S. Suvorin, where the collected works were published, about the ban and arrest of the entire 6th volume, Leskov experienced a severe attack of angina pectoris (or angina pectoris, as it was then called). The last 4 years of life of the patient N.S. Leskov continued to work on the publication of 9-12 volumes, wrote the novel "Damn's Dolls", the stories "On Christmas Offended", "Improvisers", "Administrative Grace", "Wild Fantasy", "Product of Nature", "Zagon" and others. The story "Hare Remise" (1894) was the last major work of the writer. Only now Leskov, as if catching up with bygone youth, falls in love. His correspondence with the young writer Lydia Ivanovna Veselitskaya is a postal novel about late and unrequited love. In his letters to her, Leskov comes to self-abasement: “There is nothing to love in me, and even less to respect: I am a rude, carnal person, and deeply fallen, but restlessly staying at the bottom of my pit.”

But the disease worsened. Anticipating the approach of the end, two years before the death of N.S. Leskov, with his characteristic uncompromisingness, writes his testamentary order: “Do not announce any deliberate ceremonies and meetings near my lifeless corpse ... I ask you not to speak at my funeral. I know that there was a lot of bad things in me and that I didn’t praise any and I deserve no regrets. Anyone who wants to blame me must know that I blamed myself ... "At the beginning of 1895, a walk around the Tauride Garden caused a new exacerbation of the disease. After five years of severe suffering, Leskov died on February 21 (March 5), 1895 in St. Petersburg. He was buried on February 23 (March 7) at the Volkovskoye cemetery (Literatorskie Mostki). No speeches were made over the coffin ... A year later, a monument was erected on Leskov's grave - a cast-iron cross on a granite pedestal.

In this man combined, it would seem, incompatible. A mediocre student, a half-educated student who left the walls of the Oryol gymnasium ahead of schedule, became a famous writer with a worldwide reputation. Leskov was called the most national of the writers of Russia. He lived, striving with all his heart to "serve the motherland with the word of truth and truth", to seek only "truth in life", giving to any picture, in his words, "illumination, subject and sense according to reason and conscience." The fate of the writer is dramatic, life, not rich in major events, is full of intense ideological searches. For thirty-five years Leskov served literature. And, despite involuntary and bitter delusions, all his life he remained a deeply democratic artist and a true humanist. He always defended the honor and dignity of a person and constantly stood up for "freedom of mind and conscience", perceiving a person as the only lasting value that cannot be sacrificed either to various ideas or to the opinions of a contradictory world. He remained passionate and unapologetic when it came to his beliefs. And all this made his life difficult and full of dramatic clashes.

Falling off is more effective than resisting. To break is more romantic than to save. To renounce is more pleasant than to insist. And the easiest thing is to die.

N.S. Leskov

😉 Hello dear readers! In the article "Nikolai Semenovich Leskov: biography, facts" - about the life of a famous Russian writer, prose writer, publicist. Interesting facts from his biography and video.

Nikolai Semenovich Leskov - Russian writer, author of the famous story "Lefty", which is included in the school curriculum. The writer deeply penetrated the essence of the Russian people, which was reflected in his works of various genres: tales, stories, novels, novels in the genre of realism, essays.

Biography of Nikolai Semenovich Leskov

Nikolai Semenovich was born thirty years before the abolition of serfdom, in 1831 in the Oryol province on the territory of the Russian Empire.

Caption: “The master's house in the village of Gorokhovo, Oryol province. Nikolai Semenovich Leskov was born in this house and his childhood was spent right there.

Parents:

Father belonged to the clergy for some time, but then got a job in the provincial criminal chamber. He served as an investigator and had an outstanding talent for investigating complex crimes.

Mother was from a noble family. At the age of eight, Nikolai moved with his parents, brothers and sisters to Panin Farm in the vicinity of Kromy. In this area, he got acquainted with the life and character of the simple Russian people.

Childhood and youth

In 1841, the future writer went to school, where in five years he could only master the program of the first and second classes.

In the summer of 1847, the young man began to serve in the office of the same court where his father worked. But the following year, his father passed away. Leskov turned to the leadership with a request to transfer him to Kyiv. His request is granted, and he settles in the city with a distant relative.

During the seven years of his stay in Ukraine, Leskov perfectly mastered not only the Ukrainian, but also the Polish languages. He took a course in philosophy and religion at Kiev University. At this time, he quite often communicated with the Old Believers and religious pilgrims.

Zhuravsky had a great influence on the writer with his ideas on the abolition of serfdom. In the last year of the educational institution, Leskov resigns from public office. He starts working for a relative of his aunt, Mr. A. Ya. Shkott. The firm was called "Shkott and Wilkens" and was located in the Penza region.

Nikolai Semenovich Leskov

At this enterprise, he received enough funds to feed himself and travel around Russia. In his travels, he deeply learns the language and culture of various regions of the vast empire. He remembers these years as the best in his life. Leskov wrote about this in the Russian Society in Paris under the pseudonym Stebnitsky.

After the closing of the trading company, Leskov returns to Kyiv and writes literary works, works as a journalist in Modern Medicine. There he becomes a scandalous author of revelations of state doctors. Accused of taking bribes, he quit his job.

St. Petersburg

Six months later, Leskov settled with his friend Vernadsky. "Sankt-Peterburgskiye Vedomosti" regularly publishes his essays. Most often, it was published in the journal Otechestvennye Zapiski, not without the assistance of a publicist friend from the Oryol province.

Thus, the first major publication, Essays on the Distillery Industry, appeared. The Sovremennik magazine praised Leskov's work.

As a writer, Nikolai Semenovich clearly manifests himself in 1863. From his pen come out "The Life of a Woman", later - "Nowhere". In these works, satire on the life of nihilism is clearly traced. The work of a simple peasant, family traditions are praised.

His parallels were easily guessed in the management of the publishing house. Therefore, his work and he himself received negative feedback. His protest against the democratic views of the writers of that time, as well as his radical inclinations, were blamed.

Many believed that he was writing novels on behalf of some third party concerned. However, the writer himself denied these speculations. But he could not publish more in popular publications. All that remained was to publish their works with Katkov in Russkiy Vestnik.

1881 was marked by the release of the story "The Tale of the Tula Oblique and the Steel Flea", which the author himself characterizes as ambiguously kind. Everything is intertwined in it, both good and evil.

It is immediately unclear who helps the common cause, and who spoils everything. But Lefty was one of the "Righteous" (a collection of portraits of Russian people, expressed in the bright characters of stories).

Leskov's personal life

Leskov was married twice:

• first wife - Olga Smirnova, daughter of a Kyiv merchant. She suffered from mental illness, was treated, but the family broke up. Children: son Mitya (died as an infant); daughter Vera;
• second wife - Ekaterina Bubnova. In this civil marriage, the son Andrei was born. In 1877 the married couple broke up.

Nikolai Semenovich was the kindest and most convinced person. He believed that a reasonable person should not kill animals.

N. S. Leskov, 1892

In recent years, the writer suffered from asthma and died of this disease in 1895 in St. Petersburg. There he was buried. Currently, the biography of the writer is studied in schools at literature lessons.

His works leave in the reader's soul a feeling of penetration into the Russian essence, into the life of the Russian people as it has been created since the time of Ancient Russia.

Don't miss the video! Here is a more detailed and interesting story "Nikolai Semenovich Leskov: biography and work of the writer"

He was born on February 4 (February 16), 1831 in the village of Gorokhovo, Oryol province, in the family of an investigator and the daughter of an impoverished nobleman. They had five children, Nikolai was the eldest child. The writer's childhood passed in the city of Orel. After the father left the position, the family moved from Orel to the village of Panino. Here the study and knowledge of the people by Leskov began.

Education and career

In 1841, at the age of 10, Leskov entered the Oryol Gymnasium. The future writer did not work out with his studies - in 5 years of study he graduated from only 2 classes. In 1847, thanks to the help of his father's friends, Leskov got a job as a clerical clerk in the Oryol Criminal Chamber of the court. At the age of sixteen, tragic events took place, which are worth mentioning even in a brief biography of Leskov - his father died of cholera, and all his property burned down in a fire.

In 1849, with the help of his uncle, a professor, Leskov transferred to Kyiv as an official of the Treasury, where he later received the post of clerk. In Kyiv, Leskov developed an interest in Ukrainian culture and great writers, painting and architecture of the old city.

In 1857, Leskov left his job and entered the commercial service in the large agricultural company of his uncle, an Englishman, on whose business he traveled most of Russia in three years. After the closing of the company, in 1860 he returned to Kyiv.

creative life

The year 1860 is considered the beginning of the creative writer Leskov, at this time he writes and publishes articles in various magazines. Six months later, he moves to St. Petersburg, where he plans to engage in literary and journalistic activities.

In 1862, Leskov became a regular contributor to the Severnaya Pchela newspaper. Working in it as a correspondent, he visited Western Ukraine, the Czech Republic and Poland. He was close and sympathetic to the life of Western twin nations, so he delved into the study of their art and life. In 1863 Leskov returned to Russia.

After studying and observing the life of the Russian people for a long time, sympathizing with their sorrows and needs, Leskov wrote the stories “Extinguished Business” (1862), the stories “The Life of a Woman”, “Musk Ox” (1863), “Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District” (1865).

In the novels Nowhere (1864), Bypassed (1865), On Knives (1870), the writer revealed the theme of Russia's unpreparedness for revolution. Maxim Gorky said “... after the evil novel“ On the Knives ”, Leskov’s literary work immediately becomes a bright painting or, rather, icon painting - he begins to create an iconostasis of her saints and righteous for Russia.”

Having disagreements with the revolutionary democrats, Leskova refused to publish many magazines. The only one who published his work was Mikhail Katkov, editor of the Russky Vestnik magazine. It was incredibly difficult for Leskov to work with him, the editor ruled almost all of the writer's works, and some even refused to print at all.

In 1870 - 1880 he wrote the novels "Cathedrals" (1872), "The Mean Family" (1874), where he revealed the national and historical issues. The novel "The Seedy Family" was not completed by Leskov due to disagreements with the publisher Katkov. Also at this time, he wrote several stories: "The Islanders" (1866), "The Enchanted Wanderer" (1873), "The Sealed Angel" (1873). Fortunately, "The Sealed Angel" was not affected by the editorial revision of Mikhail Katkov.

In 1881, Leskov wrote the story "Lefty" (The Tale of the Tula Oblique Lefty and the Steel Flea) - an old legend about gunsmiths.

The story "Hare Remise" (1894) was the last great work of the writer. In it, he criticized the political system of Russia at that time. The story was published only in 1917 after the Revolution.

Leo Tolstoy spoke of Nikolai Semyonovich Leskov as "the most Russian of our writers", Anton Chekhov, along with Ivan Turgenev, considered him one of his main mentors.

Writer's personal life

Personal life in the biography of Nikolai Leskov was not very successful. The first wife of the writer in 1853 was the daughter of a Kyiv merchant Olga Smirnova. They had two children - the firstborn, son Mitya, who died in infancy, and daughter Vera. My wife fell ill with a mental disorder and was treated in St. Petersburg. The marriage broke up.

In 1865 Leskov lived with his widow Ekaterina Bubnova. The couple had a son Andrei (1866-1953). He divorced his second wife in 1877.

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Russian writer and publicist, memoirist

Nikolai Leskov

short biography

Born on February 16, 1831 in the village of Gorokhovo, Oryol district (now the village of Staroe Gorokhovo, Sverdlovsk district, Oryol region). Leskov's father, Semyon Dmitrievich Leskov (1789-1848), a native of the spiritual environment, according to Nikolai Semyonovich, was "... a big, wonderful smart guy and a dense seminarian." Having broken with the spiritual environment, he entered the service of the Oryol Criminal Chamber, where he rose to the ranks that gave the right to hereditary nobility, and, according to contemporaries, gained a reputation as a shrewd investigator, able to unravel complex cases. Mother, Maria Petrovna Leskova (nee Alferyeva) (1813-1886) was the daughter of an impoverished Moscow nobleman. One of her sisters was married to a wealthy Oryol landowner, the other to a wealthy Englishman. The younger brother, Alexei, (1837-1909) became a doctor, had a doctorate in medical sciences.

N. S. Leskov. Drawing by I. E. Repin, 1888-89.

Childhood

N. S. Leskov's early childhood passed in Orel. After 1839, when his father left the service (due to a quarrel with his superiors, which, according to Leskov, incurred the wrath of the governor), the family - his wife, three sons and two daughters - moved to the village of Panino (Panin Khutor) not far from the city Chrome. Here, as the future writer recalled, his knowledge of the people began.

In August 1841, at the age of ten, Leskov entered the first grade of the Oryol provincial gymnasium, where he studied poorly: five years later he received a certificate of completion of only two classes. Drawing an analogy with N. A. Nekrasov, literary critic B. Ya. Bukhshtab suggests: “In both cases, obviously, they acted - on the one hand, neglect, on the other, an aversion to cramming, to the routine and carrion of the then state-owned educational institutions with greedy interest to life and bright temperament.

Service and work

In June 1847, Leskov joined the Orel Criminal Chamber of the Criminal Court, where his father worked, as a clerk of the 2nd category. After the death of his father from cholera (in 1848), Nikolai Semyonovich received another promotion, becoming assistant clerk of the Oryol Chamber of the Criminal Court, and in December 1849, at his own request, he was transferred to the staff of the Kyiv Treasury Chamber. He moved to Kyiv, where he lived with his uncle S.P. Alferyev.

In Kyiv (in 1850-1857), Leskov attended lectures at the university as a volunteer, studied the Polish language, became interested in icon painting, took part in a religious and philosophical student circle, communicated with pilgrims, Old Believers, and sectarians. It was noted that the economist D.P. Zhuravsky, an advocate of the abolition of serfdom, had a significant influence on the outlook of the future writer.

In 1857, Leskov retired from the service and began working in the company of his aunt's husband A. Ya. Shkott (Scott) "Shkott and Wilkens". In the enterprise, which, in his words, tried to "exploit everything that the region offered any convenience to," Leskov acquired vast practical experience and knowledge in numerous areas of industry and agriculture. At the same time, on the business of the company, Leskov constantly went on “travels around Russia”, which also contributed to his acquaintance with the language and life of different regions of the country. “... These are the best years of my life, when I saw a lot and lived easily,” N. S. Leskov later recalled.

I ... think that I know the Russian person in his very depths, and I do not put myself in any merit for this. I did not study the people from conversations with St. Petersburg cabbies, but I grew up among the people, on the Gostomel pasture, with a cauldron in my hand, I slept with him on the dewy grass of the night, under a warm sheepskin coat, and on the Panin’s swaying crowd behind circles of dusty manners ...

Stebnitsky (N. S. Leskov). "Russian Society in Paris"

During this period (until 1860) he lived with his family in the village of Nikolo-Raysky, Gorodishchensky district, Penza province and in Penza. Here he took up the pen for the first time. In 1859, when a wave of "drinking riots" swept through the Penza province, as well as throughout Russia, Nikolai Semyonovich wrote "Essays on the distillery industry (Penza province)", published in Otechestvennye Zapiski. This work is not only about distillery production, but also about agriculture, which, according to him, in the province is “far from being in a flourishing state”, and peasant cattle breeding is “in complete decline”. He believed that distilling hinders the development of agriculture in the province, "the state of which is bleak in the present and cannot promise anything good in the future ...".

Some time later, however, the trading house ceased to exist, and Leskov returned to Kyiv in the summer of 1860, where he took up journalism and literary activities. Six months later, he moved to St. Petersburg, staying with Ivan Vernadsky.

Literary career

Leskov began to publish relatively late - at the twenty-sixth year of his life, placing several notes in the newspaper "St. working class”, a few notes about doctors) and “Index economic”. Leskov's articles, which denounced the corruption of police doctors, led to a conflict with his colleagues: as a result of a provocation organized by them, Leskov, who conducted the internal investigation, was accused of bribery and was forced to leave the service.

At the beginning of his literary career, N. S. Leskov collaborated with many St. Petersburg newspapers and magazines, most of all published in Otechestvennye Zapiski (where he was patronized by a familiar Oryol publicist S. S. Gromeko), in Russian Speech and Northern Bee . Otechestvennye Zapiski published Essays on the Distillery Industry (Penza Province), which Leskov himself called his first work, which is considered his first major publication. In the summer of that year, he briefly moved to Moscow, returning to St. Petersburg in December.

Pseudonyms of N. S. Leskov

AT early creative activity Leskov wrote under the pseudonym M. Stebnitsky. The pseudonymous signature "Stebnitsky" first appeared on March 25, 1862 under the first fictional work - "Extinguished Case" (later "Drought"). She held out until August 14, 1869. At times, the signatures “M. C", "C", and, finally, in 1872 "L. S", "P. Leskov-Stebnitsky" and "M. Leskov-Stebnitsky. Among other conditional signatures and pseudonyms used by Leskov, the following are known: “Freishits”, “V. Peresvetov”, “Nikolai Ponukalov”, “Nikolai Gorokhov”, “Someone”, “Dm. M-ev”, “N.”, “Member of the Society”, “Psalm Reader”, “Priest. P. Kastorsky”, “Divyank”, “M. P., B. Protozanov”, “Nikolai-ov”, “N. L., N. L.--v”, “Lover of antiquities”, “Traveler”, “Lover of watches”, “N. L., L.

Article on fires

In an article about the fires in the journal "Northern Bee" dated May 30, 1862, which were rumored to be arson carried out by revolutionary students and Poles, the writer mentioned these rumors and demanded that the authorities confirm or refute them, which was perceived by the democratic public as a denunciation. In addition, criticism of the actions of the administrative authorities, expressed by the wish "that the teams sent to come to the fires for real help, and not for standing" - aroused the anger of the king himself. After reading these lines, Alexander II wrote: "It should not have been skipped, especially since it is a lie."

As a result, Leskov was sent by the editors of the Northern Bee on a long business trip. He traveled around the western provinces of the empire, visited Dinaburg, Vilna, Grodno, Pinsk, Lvov, Prague, Krakow, and at the end of his trip to Paris. In 1863 he returned to Russia and published a series of journalistic essays and letters, in particular, "From a Travel Diary", "Russian Society in Paris".

"Nowhere"

From the beginning of 1862, N. S. Leskov became a permanent contributor to the Severnaya Pchela newspaper, where he began to write editorials and essays, often on everyday, ethnographic topics, but also critical articles directed, in particular, against the “vulgar materialism" and nihilism. His work was highly appreciated on the pages of the then Sovremennik.

The writing career of N. S. Leskov began in 1863, his first stories “The Life of a Woman” and “The Musk Ox” (1863-1864) were published. At the same time, the novel Nowhere (1864) began to be published in the Library for Reading magazine. “This novel bears all the signs of my haste and ineptitude,” the writer himself later admitted.

Nowhere, which satirically depicted the life of a nihilistic commune, which was opposed by the industriousness of the Russian people and Christian family values, caused displeasure of the radicals. It was noted that most of the “nihilists” depicted by Leskov had recognizable prototypes (the writer V. A. Sleptsov was guessed in the image of the head of the Beloyartsevo commune).

It was this first novel - politically a radical debut - for many years that predetermined Leskov's special place in the literary community, which, for the most part, was inclined to attribute to him "reactionary", anti-democratic views. The leftist press actively spread rumors that the novel was written "on order" of the Third Section. This "heinous slander", according to the writer, spoiled his entire creative life, depriving him of the opportunity to publish in popular magazines for many years. This predetermined his rapprochement with M. N. Katkov, the publisher of Russkiy Vestnik.

First stories

In 1863, the story "The Life of a Woman" (1863) was published in the Library for Reading magazine. During the life of the writer, the work was not reprinted and then came out only in 1924 in a modified form under the title “Cupid in paws. A Peasant Romance (Vremya publishing house, edited by P. V. Bykov). The latter claimed that Leskov himself gave him a new version of his own work - in gratitude for the bibliography of his works compiled by him in 1889. There were doubts about this version: it is known that N. S. Leskov already in the preface to the first volume of the collection “Tales, Essays and Stories of M. Stebnitsky” promised to print in the second volume “the experience of a peasant novel” - “Cupid in paws”, but then The promised publication did not follow.

In the same years, Leskov’s works, “Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District” (1864), “The Warrior Girl” (1866), were published - stories, mostly of a tragic sound, in which the author brought out vivid female images of different classes. Almost ignored by modern critics, they subsequently received the highest marks from specialists. It was in the first stories that Leskov's individual humor manifested itself, for the first time his unique style began to take shape, a kind of tale, the founder of which - along with Gogol - he later began to be considered. Elements of the literary style that made Leskov famous are also found in the story “Kotin Doilets and Platonida” (1867).

Around this time, N. S. Leskov also made his debut as a playwright. In 1867, the Alexandrinsky Theater staged his play The Spender, a drama from a merchant's life, after which Leskov was once again accused by critics of "pessimism and antisocial tendencies." Of Leskov's other major works of the 1860s, critics noted the story The Bypassed (1865), which polemicized with the novel What Is to Be Done by N. G. Chernyshevsky, and The Islanders (1866), a moralistic story about the Germans living on Vasilyevsky Island .

"On knives"

On knives. 1885 edition

In 1870, N. S. Leskov published the novel “On the Knives”, in which he continued to ridicule the nihilists, representatives of the revolutionary movement that was taking shape in Russia in those years, which, in the writer’s mind, merged with criminality. Leskov himself was dissatisfied with the novel, subsequently calling it his worst work. In addition, the writer was left with an unpleasant aftertaste by constant disputes with M. N. Katkov, who over and over again demanded that the finished version be redone and edited. “In this edition, purely literary interests were diminished, destroyed and adapted to serve interests that have nothing to do with any literature,” wrote N. S. Leskov.

Some contemporaries (in particular, Dostoevsky) noted the intricacies of the adventurous plot of the novel, the tension and implausibility of the events described in it. After that, N. S. Leskov no longer returned to the genre of the novel in its purest form.

"Cathedrals"

The novel "On the Knives" was a turning point in the writer's work. As Maxim Gorky noted, “... after the evil novel“ On Knives ”, Leskov’s literary work immediately becomes a bright painting or, rather, icon painting - he begins to create an iconostasis of her saints and righteous for Russia.” The main characters of Leskov's works were representatives of the Russian clergy, partly the local nobility. Scattered passages and essays began to gradually take shape in a large novel, which eventually received the name "Soboryane" and was published in 1872 in the "Russian Bulletin". As the literary critic V. Korovin notes, the goodies - Archpriest Saveliy Tuberozov, deacon Achilles Desnitsyn and priest Zakhary Benefaktov - the story of which is sustained in the traditions of the heroic epic, "are surrounded from all sides by the figures of the new time - nihilists, swindlers, civil and church officials new type." The work, the theme of which was the opposition of "true" Christianity to official Christianity, subsequently led the writer into conflict with church and secular authorities. It was also the first to "have significant success."

Simultaneously with the novel, two “chronicles” were written, consonant in theme and mood with the main work: “Old Years in the Village of Plodomasovo” (1869) and “The Rundown Family” (full title: “The Rundown Family. Family Chronicle of the Princes Protazanovs. From the Notes of Princess V. D. P., 1873). According to one of the critics, the heroines of both chronicles are "examples of persistent virtue, calm dignity, high courage, reasonable philanthropy." Both of these works left a feeling of unfinished. Subsequently, it turned out that the second part of the chronicle, in which (according to V. Korovin) "the mysticism and hypocrisy of the end of Alexander's reign was caustically depicted and the social non-embodiment of Christianity in the Russian life was affirmed," caused dissatisfaction with M. Katkov. Leskov, having disagreed with the publisher, "did not finish writing the novel." “Katkov ... during the printing of The Seedy Family, he said (to an employee of the Russkiy Vestnik) Voskoboinikov: We are mistaken: this man is not ours!” - the writer later stated.

"Lefty"

One of the most striking images in the gallery of Leskov's "righteous" was Lefty ("The Tale of the Tula Oblique Lefty and the Steel Flea", 1881). Subsequently, critics noted here, on the one hand, the virtuosity of the embodiment of Leskov's "narrative", saturated with puns and original neologisms (often with mocking, satirical overtones), on the other hand, the multi-layered narrative, the presence of two points of view: "where the narrator constantly holds the same views, and the author inclines the reader to completely different, often opposite. N. S. Leskov himself wrote about this “cunning” of his own style:

A few more people supported that in my stories it is really difficult to distinguish between good and evil, and that even sometimes you can’t make out at all who is harming the cause and who is helping it. This was attributed to some innate deceit of my nature.

As the critic B. Ya. Bukhshtab noted, such “treachery” manifested itself primarily in the description of the actions of the ataman Platov, from the point of view of the hero - almost heroic, but the author is covertly ridiculed. "Lefty" was subjected to devastating criticism from both sides. According to B. Ya. Bukhshtab, liberals and democrats (“leftists”) accused Leskov of nationalism, reactionaries (“rightists”) considered the depiction of the life of the Russian people to be excessively gloomy. N. S. Leskov replied that “belittling the Russian people or flattering them” was by no means part of his intentions.

When published in "Rus", as well as in a separate edition, the story was accompanied by a preface:

I cannot say exactly where the first tale of the steel flea was born, that is, whether it started in Tula, on Izhma, or in Sestroretsk, but, obviously, it came from one of these places. In any case, the tale of a steel flea is a special gunsmithing legend, and it expresses the pride of Russian gunsmiths. It depicts the struggle of our masters with the English masters, from which our masters came out victoriously and the English were completely shamed and humiliated. Here, some secret reason for the military failures in the Crimea is revealed. I wrote down this legend in Sestroretsk according to a local tale from an old gunsmith, a native of Tula, who moved to the Sestra River back in the reign of Emperor Alexander the First.

1872-1874 years

In 1872, N. S. Leskov's story "The Sealed Angel" was written, and a year later it was published, telling about a miracle that led the schismatic community to unity with Orthodoxy. In the work, where there are echoes of ancient Russian "journeys" and legends about miraculous icons, and subsequently recognized as one of the best works of the writer, Lesk's "tale" received the strongest and most expressive incarnation. “The Sealed Angel” turned out to be practically the only work of the writer that did not undergo editorial revision of the “Russian Messenger”, because, as the writer noted, “passed behind their lack of time in the shadows.”

In the same year, the story The Enchanted Wanderer was published, a work of free forms that did not have a complete plot, built on the interweaving of disparate storylines. Leskov believed that such a genre should replace what was considered to be a traditional modern novel. Subsequently, it was noted that the image of the hero Ivan Flyagin resembles the epic Ilya Muromets and symbolizes "the physical and moral stamina of the Russian people in the midst of the suffering that falls to their lot." Despite the fact that The Enchanted Wanderer criticized the dishonesty of the authorities, the story was a success in official spheres and even at court.

If until then Leskov's works were edited, then this was simply rejected, and the writer had to publish it in different issues of the newspaper. Not only Katkov, but also "leftist" critics took the story with hostility. In particular, the critic N.K. Mikhailovsky pointed to the “absence of any center whatsoever”, so that, in his words, there is “... a whole series of plots strung like beads on a thread, and each bead in itself can be very conveniently taken out and replaced by another, or you can string as many beads as you like on the same thread.

After the break with Katkov, the financial situation of the writer (by this time he had married a second time) worsened. In January 1874, N. S. Leskov was appointed a member of a special department of the Scientific Committee of the Ministry of Public Education for the review of books published for the people, with a very modest salary of 1000 rubles a year. Leskov's duties included reviewing books to see if they could be sent to libraries and reading rooms. In 1875 he went abroad for a short time without stopping his literary work.

"Righteous"

The creation of a gallery of bright positive characters was continued by the writer in a collection of short stories, published under the general name “The Righteous” (“The Figure”, “The Man on the Clock”, “The Non-Deadly Golovan”, etc.) , heightened conscience, inability to reconcile with evil. Responding in advance to critics on accusations of some idealization of his characters, Leskov argued that his stories about the "righteous" were mostly in the nature of memories (in particular, what his grandmother told him about Golovan, etc.), tried to give the narrative a background of historical authenticity , introducing descriptions of real people into the plot.

As the researchers noted, some of the eyewitness accounts cited by the writer were genuine, while others were his own fiction. Often Leskov edited old manuscripts and memoirs. For example, in the story “Non-deadly Golovan”, “Cool Helicopter City” is used - a 17th-century medical book. In 1884, in a letter to the editor of the Warsaw Diary newspaper, he wrote:

The articles in your newspaper say that I mostly wrote off living faces and conveyed real stories. Whoever the author of these articles is, he is absolutely right. I have powers of observation and maybe some ability to analyze feelings and impulses, but I have little imagination. I invent hard and difficult, and therefore I have always needed living persons who could interest me with their spiritual content. They took possession of me, and I tried to embody them in stories, which, too, very often were based on a real event.

Leskov (according to the memoirs of A. N. Leskov) believed that by creating cycles about "Russian antiques", he was fulfilling Gogol's testament from "Selected passages from correspondence with friends": "Exalt the inconspicuous worker in a solemn hymn." In the preface to the first of these stories (“Odnodum”, 1879), the writer explained their appearance in this way: “It is terrible and intolerable ... to see one“ rubbish ”in the Russian soul, which has become the main subject of new literature, and ... I went to look for the righteous,<…>but wherever I go<…>everyone answered me in the way that they did not see righteous people, because all people are sinners, and so, both of them knew some good people. I started writing it down."

In the 1880s, Leskov also created a series of works about the righteous of early Christianity: the action of these works takes place in Egypt and the countries of the Middle East. The plots of these stories were, as a rule, borrowed by him from the "prologue" - a collection of the lives of saints and edifying stories compiled in Byzantium in the 10th-11th centuries. Leskov was proud that his Egyptian sketches "Buffoon Pamphalon" and "Aza" were translated into German, and the publishers preferred him over Ebers, the author of "The Daughter of the Egyptian King."

At the same time, the writer creates a series of works for children, which he publishes in the magazine "Sincere Word" and "Toy": "Christ is visiting a peasant", "Fixable ruble", "Father's Testament", "The Lion of Elder Gerasim", " The languor of the spirit ", originally -" Goat "," Fool "and others. In the last journal, it was willingly published by A.N. Peshkova-Toliverova, who became in 1880-1890. close friend of the prose writer. At the same time, the satirical and accusatory line intensified in the writer’s work (“Dumb Artist”, “The Beast”, “Scarecrow”): along with officials and officers, clergymen began to appear more and more often among his negative heroes.

Attitude towards the church

In the 1880s, N. S. Leskov's attitude towards the church changed. In 1883, in a letter to L. I. Veselitskaya about the "Cathedrals", he wrote:

Now I would not write them, but I would gladly write “Notes of the Uncut” ... Oaths to allow; bless knives; weaning through force to sanctify; divorce marriages; enslave children; give out secrets; keep the pagan custom of devouring the body and blood; forgive wrongs done to another; provide protection from the Creator or curse and do thousands more vulgarities and meanness, falsifying all the commandments and requests of the “righteous man hung on the cross” - this is what I would like to show people ... the teachings of Christ, is called "Orthodoxy"... I do not argue when it is called by this name, but it is not Christianity.

Leskov's attitude towards the church was affected by the influence of Leo Tolstoy, with whom he became close in the late 1880s. “I am always in agreement with him and there is no one on earth who would be dearer to me than him. I am never embarrassed by what I cannot share with him: I cherish his common, so to speak, dominant mood of his soul and the terrible penetration of his mind, ”Leskov wrote about Tolstoy in one of his letters to V. G. Chertkov.

Perhaps Leskov's most notable anti-church work was the story Midnight Occupants, completed in the fall of 1890 and published in the last two issues of 1891 of the journal Vestnik Evropy. The author had to overcome considerable difficulties before his work saw the light. “I will keep my story on the table. It’s true that no one will print it at the present time, ”wrote N. S. Leskov to L. N. Tolstoy on January 8, 1891.

The essay by N. S. Leskov “Priestly leapfrog and parish whim” (1883) also caused a scandal. The intended cycle of essays and stories, Notes of an Unknown Man (1884), was devoted to ridiculing the vices of the clergy, but work on it was stopped under pressure from censorship. Moreover, for these works, N. S. Leskov was fired from the Ministry of Public Education. The writer again found himself in spiritual isolation: the “rightists” now saw him as a dangerous radical. Literary critic B. Ya. Bukhshtab noted that at the same time, "liberals are becoming especially cowardly - and those who previously interpreted Leskov as a reactionary writer are now afraid to publish his works because of their political harshness."

Leskov's financial situation was corrected by the publication in 1889-1890 of a ten-volume collection of his works (later the 11th volume was added and posthumously - the 12th). The publication was quickly sold out and brought the writer a significant fee. But it was precisely with this success that his first heart attack was connected, which happened on the stairs of the printing house, when it became known that the sixth volume of the collection (containing works on church topics) was detained by censorship (later it was reorganized by the publishing house).

Later works

N. S. Leskov, 1892

In the 1890s, Leskov became even more sharply publicistic in his work than before: his stories and novels in the last years of his life were sharply satirical. The writer himself said about his works of that time:

My latest writings about Russian society are very cruel. "Zagon", "Winter Day", "Lady and Fefela" ... The public does not like these things for their cynicism and directness. Yes, I do not want to please the public. Let her at least choke on my stories, but read. I know how to please her, but I no longer want to please. I want to whip her and torture her.

The publication of the novel "Devil's Dolls" in the journal "Russian Thought", the prototypes of the two main characters of which were Nicholas I and the artist K. Bryullov, was suspended by censorship. Leskov could not publish the story "Hare Remise" - either in "Russian Thought" or in "Bulletin of Europe": it was published only after 1917. Not a single major later work of the writer (including the novels The Falcon Flight and The Invisible Trail) was published in full: the chapters rejected by the censorship were published after the revolution. The publication of his own writings for Leskov has always been a difficult matter, and in the last years of his life turned into unceasing torment.

last years of life

Nikolai Semenovich Leskov died on February 21, 1895 in St. Petersburg from another attack of asthma, which tormented him for the last five years of his life. Nikolai Leskov was buried at the Volkovsky cemetery in St. Petersburg.

Publication of works

Shortly before his death, in 1889-1893, Leskov compiled and published by A. S. Suvorin "Complete Works" in 12 volumes (republished in 1897 by A. F. Marx), which included mostly his works of art (moreover, in the first edition of the 6th volume was not passed by the censors).

In 1902-1903, A.F. Marx's printing house (as an appendix to the Niva magazine) published a 36-volume collection of works, in which the editors also tried to collect the writer's journalistic legacy and which caused a wave of public interest in the writer's work.

After the revolution of 1917, Leskov was declared a "reactionary, bourgeois-minded writer", and his works for many years (with the exception of the inclusion of 2 stories of the writer in the collection of 1927) were forgotten. During the short Khrushchev thaw, Soviet readers finally got the opportunity to come into contact with Leskov's work again - in 1956-1958, an 11-volume collection of the writer's works was published, which, however, is not complete: for ideological reasons, the sharpest in tone was not included in it the anti-nihilistic novel "Knives", while journalism and letters are presented in a very limited volume (volumes 10-11). During the years of stagnation, attempts were made to publish short collected works and separate volumes with Leskov's works, which did not cover the writer's areas of work related to religious and anti-nihilistic themes (the chronicle "Soboryane", the novel "Nowhere"), and which were supplied with extensive tendentious comments. In 1989, the first collected works of Leskov - also in 12 volumes - were republished in the Ogonyok Library.

For the first time, a truly complete (30-volume) collected works of the writer began to be published by the publishing house "Terra" since 1996 and continues to this day. In this edition, in addition to well-known works, it is planned to include all found, previously unpublished articles, stories and stories of the writer.

Reviews of critics and contemporary writers

L. N. Tolstoy spoke of Leskov as “the most Russian of our writers”, A. P. Chekhov considered him, along with I. Turgenev, one of his main teachers.

Many researchers noted Leskov's special knowledge of the Russian spoken language and the virtuoso use of this knowledge.

As an artist of the word, N. S. Leskov is quite worthy to stand next to such creators of Russian literature as L. Tolstoy, Gogol, Turgenev, Goncharov. Leskov's talent, in strength and beauty, is not much inferior to the talent of any of the named creators of the sacred writings about the Russian land, and in the breadth of coverage of the phenomena of life, the depth of understanding of its everyday mysteries, and the subtle knowledge of the Great Russian language, he often exceeds his named predecessors and associates.

Maksim Gorky

The main complaint of literary criticism against Leskov in those years was what seemed to her to be “excessive superimposed colors”, deliberate expressiveness of speech. This was also noted by contemporary writers: L. N. Tolstoy, who highly appreciated Leskov, mentioned in one of his letters that in the writer’s prose “... there is a lot of superfluous, disproportionate”. It was about the fairy tale "The Hour of God's Will", which Tolstoy highly appreciated, and about which (in a letter dated December 3, 1890) he said: "The fairy tale is still very good, but it's a shame that, if it weren't for an excess of talent, would be better."

Leskov was not going to "correct" in response to criticism. In a letter to V. G. Chertkov in 1888, he wrote: “I can’t write as simply as Lev Nikolayevich. This is not in my gifts. … Take mine as I can make it. I’m used to finishing work and I can’t work easier.”

When the journals Russkaya Mysl and Severny Vestnik criticized the language of the story Midnight Men (‘excessive artificiality’, ‘an abundance of invented and distorted words, sometimes strung together in one phrase’), Leskov replied:

I am reproached for ... "mannered" language, especially in the "midnight clerks". Do we have a few mannered people? All quasi-scholarly literature writes its learned articles in this barbaric language... Is it any wonder that some petty-bourgeois woman speaks it in my Midnight Offices? At least she has a cheerful and funny tongue.

N. S. Leskov considered the individualization of the language of the characters and the speech characteristics of the characters to be the most important element of literary creativity.

Personal and family life

In 1853, Leskov married the daughter of a Kyiv merchant, Olga Vasilievna Smirnova. In this marriage, a son Dmitry (died in infancy) and a daughter Vera were born. Leskov's family life was unsuccessful: his wife Olga Vasilievna suffered from a mental illness and in 1878 was placed in the St. Nicholas Hospital in St. Petersburg, on the Pryazhka River. Her chief physician was the once well-known psychiatrist O. A. Chechott, and her trustee was the famous S. P. Botkin.

In 1865, Leskov entered into a civil marriage with the widow Ekaterina Bubnova (nee Savitskaya), in 1866 their son Andrei was born. His son, Yuri Andreevich (1892-1942) became a diplomat, together with his wife, nee Baroness Medem, settled in France after the revolution. Their daughter, the only great-granddaughter of the writer, Tatyana Leskova (born 1922) is a ballerina and teacher who made a significant contribution to the formation and development of Brazilian ballet. In 2001 and 2003, visiting Leskov's house-museum in Orel, she donated family heirlooms to his collection - a lyceum badge and lyceum rings of her father.

Vegetarianism

Vegetarianism had an impact on the life and work of the writer, especially from the moment he met Leo Tolstoy in April 1887 in Moscow. In a letter to the publisher of the Novoye Vremya newspaper A.S. Suvorin, Leskov wrote: “I switched to vegetarianism on the advice of Bertenson; but, of course, with my own attraction to this attraction. I always resented [the carnage] and thought it shouldn't be like this."

In 1889, Leskov's note was published in the Novoye Vremya newspaper under the title "About Vegetarians, or Serious Patients and Meat Pusts", in which the writer characterized those vegetarians who do not eat meat for "hygienic reasons", and contrasted them with "compassionate people" - those who follow vegetarianism out of "their feeling of pity". The people respect only “compassionate people,” Leskov wrote, “who do not eat meat food, not because they consider it unhealthy, but out of pity for the animals being killed.

The history of a vegetarian cookbook in Russia begins with N. S. Leskov's call to create such a book in Russian. This appeal of the writer was published in June 1892 in the Novoye Vremya newspaper under the title "On the need to publish in Russian a well-composed detailed kitchen book for vegetarians". Leskov argued the need to publish such a book by the “significant” and “constantly increasing” number of vegetarians in Russia, who, unfortunately, still do not have books with vegetarian recipes in their native language.

Leskov's appeal caused numerous mocking remarks in the Russian press, and the critic V.P. Burenin in one of his feuilletons created a parody of Leskov, calling him "the pious Abba." Responding to this kind of slander and attacks, Leskov writes that "absurdity" is not the flesh of animals "invented" long before Vl. Solovyov and L. N. Tolstoy, and refers not only to the "huge number" of unknown vegetarians, but also to names known to everyone, such as Zoroaster, Sakia-Muni, Xenocrates, Pythagoras, Empedocles, Socrates, Epicurus, Plato, Seneca, Ovid, Juvenal, John Chrysostom, Byron, Lamartine and many others.

A year after Leskov's call, the first vegetarian cookbook in Russian was published in Russia. She was called "Vegetarian cuisine. Instructions for the preparation of more than 800 dishes, breads and drinks for a kill-free diet with an introductory article on the importance of vegetarianism and with the preparation of dinners in 3 categories for 2 weeks. Compiled according to foreign and Russian sources. - M.: Intermediary, 1894. XXXVI, 181 p. (For intelligent readers, 27).

The persecution and ridicule from the press did not intimidate Leskov: he continued to publish notes on vegetarianism and repeatedly referred to this phenomenon of the cultural life of Russia in his works.

Nikolai Semyonovich Leskov - the creator of the first vegetarian character in Russian literature (figure's story, 1889). Leskov also addresses various aspects of vegetarianism, food ethics and animal protection in his other works, such as the story “Robbery” (1887), which describes the slaughter of young bulls by a wealthy butcher, who, standing with a knife in his hands, listens to nightingale trills.

Later, other vegetarian characters appeared in Leskov's work: in the story "Midnight Occupants" (1890) - the girl Nastya, a follower of Tolstoy and a strict vegetarian, and in the story "The Salt Pillar" (1891-1895) - the painter Plisov, who, telling about himself and his surroundings, reports that they “ate neither meat nor fish, but ate only vegetable food” and found that this was enough for them and their children.

Leskov in culture

Composer Dmitri Shostakovich based on Leskov's story "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District" created an opera of the same name, the first production of which took place in 1934.

In 1988, R. K. Shchedrin, based on the story, created a musical drama of the same name in nine parts for a mixed choir a cappella.

Screen adaptations

1923 - "Comedian"(director Alexander Ivanovsky) - based on the story "Dumb Artist"

1926 - "Katerina Izmailova"(director Cheslav Sabinsky) - based on the story "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District"

1927 - "Woman's Victory"(directed by Yuri Zhelyabuzhsky) - based on the story "Old Years in the Village of Plodomasovo"

1962 - "Siberian Lady Macbeth"(directed by Andrzej Wajda) - based on the story "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District" and the opera by Dmitry Shostakovich

1963 - "The Enchanted Wanderer"(directed by Ivan Ermakov) - a teleplay based on the story "The Enchanted Wanderer"

1964 - "Lefty"(directed by Ivan Ivanov-Vano) - cartoon based on the tale of the same name

1966 - "Katerina Izmailova"(directed by Mikhail Shapiro) - adaptation of Dmitry Shostakovich's opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District

1972 - "Drama of Old Life"(directed by Ilya Averbakh) - based on the story "Dumb Artist"

1986 - "Lefty"(directed by Sergei Ovcharov) - based on the tale of the same name

1986 - "Warrior"(directed by Alexander Zeldovich) - based on the story "The Warrior"

1989 - (directed by Roman Balayan) - based on the story "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District"

1990 - "The Enchanted Wanderer"(director Irina Poplavskaya) - based on the story "The Enchanted Wanderer"

1991 - "Lord, hear my prayer"(on TV "Ask and you shall have", director Natalya Bondarchuk) - based on the story "The Beast"

1992 - "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District"(German Lady Macbeth von Mzensk, directed by Pyotr Veigl) - adaptation of the opera by Dmitry Shostakovich

1994 - "Moscow Nights"(director Valery Todorovsky) - a modern interpretation of the story "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District"

1998 - "On knives"(director Alexander Orlov) - mini-series based on the novel "On the Knives"

2001 - "Interesting Men"(directed by Yuri Kara) - based on the story "Interesting Men"

2005 - "Chertogon"(directed by Andrei Zheleznyakov) - a short film based on the story "Chertogon"

2017 - "Lady Macbeth"(directed by William Oldroyd) - British drama film based on the essay "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District"

Addresses in St. Petersburg

• Autumn 1859 - 05.1860 - the apartment of I.V. Vernadsky in the apartment building of Bychenskaya - Mokhovaya Street, 28;
• late 01. - summer 1861 - I. V. Vernadsky's apartment in the apartment building of Bychenskaya - Mokhovaya street, 28;
• beginning - 09.1862 - I. V. Vernadsky's apartment in the apartment building of Bychenskaya - Mokhovaya street, 28;
• 03. - autumn 1863 - Maksimovich's house - Nevsky Prospekt, 82, apt. 82;
• autumn 1863 - autumn 1864 - Tatsky's apartment building - Liteiny Prospekt, 43;
• autumn 1864 - autumn 1866 - Kuznechny lane, 14, apt. 16;
• autumn 1866 - early 10.1875 - the mansion of S. S. Botkin - Tavricheskaya street, 9;
• beginning 10.1875 - 1877 - profitable house of I. O. Ruban - Zakharyevskaya street, 3, apt. 19;
• 1877 - profitable house of I. S. Semenov - Kuznechny lane, 15;
• 1877 - spring 1879 - tenement house - Nevsky Prospekt, 63;
• spring 1879 - spring 1880 - courtyard wing of A. D. Muruzi's apartment building - Liteiny Prospekt, 24, apt. 44;
• spring 1880 - autumn 1887 - tenement house - Serpukhovskaya street, 56;
• autumn 1887 - 02/21/1895 - the building of the Community of Sisters of Mercy - Furshtatskaya street, 50.

Memory

• In 1974, in Orel, on the territory of the literary reserve "Noble Nest", the house-museum of N. S. Leskov was opened.
• In 1981, in honor of the 150th anniversary of the writer's birth, a monument to Leskov was erected in Orel.
• In the city of Orel, School No. 27 bears the name of Leskov.
• The Gostoml school of the Kromsky district of the Orel region is named after Leskov. Next to the school building is a house-museum dedicated to Leskov.
• Creative society "K. R.O.M.A.” (Kromskoye Regional Association of Local Authors), established in Kromskoy district, in January 2007, by the chairman of the TO, as well as the founder, editor-compiler and publisher of the almanac "KromA" Vasily Ivanovich Agoshkov, is named after N. S. Leskov. .
• The son of Nikolai Leskov, Andrei Leskov, worked for many years on the biography of the writer, finishing it before the Great Patriotic War. This work was published in 1954.
• In honor of N. S. Leskov, the asteroid (4741) Leskov, discovered on November 10, 1985 by Lyudmila Karachkina, an employee of the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory, is named

place names

In honor of Nikolai Leskov are named:

• Leskova street in the Bibirevo district (Moscow),
• Leskova Street in Kyiv (Ukraine) (since 1940, earlier - Bolshaya Shiyanovskaya Street, the scene of the events described in the Pechersk Antiques),
• Leskova street in Rostov-on-Don
• Leskov street and Leskov lane in Orel,
• Leskov street and two Leskov passages in Penza,
• Leskova street in Yaroslavl,
• Leskova street in Vladimir
• Leskova street in Novosibirsk,
• Leskova street in Nizhny Novgorod,
• Leskova street and Leskova lane in Voronezh,
• Leskova street in Saransk (until 1959 Novaya street),
• Leskova street in Grozny,
• Leskova street in Omsk (until 1962 Motornaya street),
• Leskova street in Chelyabinsk,
• Leskova street in Irkutsk
• Leskova street in Nikolaev (Ukraine),
• Leskova street in Almaty (Kazakhstan),
• Leskova street in Kachkanar,
• Leskova street in Sorochinsk
• Leskov street and lane in Khmelnitsky (Ukraine)
• Leskova street in Simferopol

and others.

In philately

Postage stamps of the USSR

1956, denomination 40 kopecks.

1956, denomination 1 ruble

Some works

Novels

• Nowhere (1864)
• Bypassed (1865)
• Islanders (1866)
• On Knives (1870)
• Cathedrals (1872)
• Seedy kind (1874)
• Devil's Dolls (1890)

Tale

• The Life of a Woman (1863)
• Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District (1864)
• Warrior Girl (1866)
• Old years in the village of Plodomasovo (1869)
• Laughter and Sorrow (1871)
• The Mysterious Man (1872)
• The Sealed Angel (1872)
• The Enchanted Wanderer (1873)
• At the End of the World (1875) is based on a true case of the missionary work of Archbishop Nile.
  • Its early handwritten version "Temnyak" has been preserved.
• Unbaptized Pop (1877)
• Lefty (1881)
• Jewish somersault college (1882)
• Pechersk antiques (1882)
• Interesting Men (1885)
• Mountain (1888)
• Offended Neteta (1890)
• Midnighters (1891)

stories

• Musk Ox (1862)
• Peacock (1874)
• Iron Will (1876)
• Shameless (1877)
• Odnodum (1879)
• Sheramour (1879)
• Chertogon (1879)
• Non-lethal Golovan (1880)
• White Eagle (1880)
• The Ghost in the Engineering Castle (1882)
• Darner (1882)
• Traveling with a Nihilist (1882)
• The beast. Christmas Story (1883)
• Little Mistake (1883)
• Toupee Artist (1883)
• Selected Grain (1884)
• Part-timers (1884)
• Notes of an Unknown (1884)
• Old Genius (1884)
• Pearl necklace (1885)
• Scarecrow (1885)
• Vintage Psychopaths (1885)
• Man on the Clock (1887)
• Robbery (1887)
• Buffoon Pamphalon (1887) (original title "God-pleasing buffoon" was not censored)
• Waste Dances (1892)
• Administrative Grace (1893)
• Hare Remise (1894)

Plays

• Spender (1867)

Articles

• Jew in Russia (Several remarks on the Jewish question) (1883) (foreword by Lev Anninsky)

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