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97-584: The Saint Petersburg Bede (Saint Petersburg, National Library of Russia , lat. Q. v. I. 18), formerly known as the Leningrad Bede , is an Anglo-Saxon illuminated manuscript , a near-contemporary version of Bede 's 8th century history, the Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum ( Ecclesiastical History of the English People ). Although not heavily illuminated, it is famous for containing

194-569: A "talent for talking politics through domesticities" and Satires In Prose (1859–1862) where for the first time the author seemed to be quite vexed with the apathy of the oppressed. "One is hardly to be expected to engage oneself in self-development when one's only thought revolves around just one wish: not to die of hunger," he later explained. Many of Saltykov's articles on agrarian reforms were also written in those three years, mostly in Moskovskye Vedomosty , where his major opponent

291-412: A Town (a sort of parody of Russian history, concentrated in the microcosm of a provincial town, whose successive governors are transparent caricatures of Russian sovereigns and ministers, and whose very name is representative of its qualities) as the work that summed up the achievement of Saltykov's first period. He praised The Golovlyov Family , calling it the gloomiest book in all Russian literature—"all

388-947: A cycle of sketches Small Things in Life (Мелочи жизни, 1881–1887), a set of realistic mini-dramas about common people destroyed by the terror of daily routine. Saltykov's last publication was semi-autobiographical novel Old Years in Poshekhonye (Пошехонская старина), published in 1887–1889 in Vestnik Evropy . He planned another piece called Forgotten Words (writing to Nikolai Mikhailovsky not long before his death: "There were, you know, words in Russian: honour, fatherland, humanity… They are worth of being reminded about") but never even started it. Mikhail Evgraphovich Saltykov-Schedrin died of stroke in Saint Petersburg and

485-444: A language that the satirist himself called Aesopian . This way, though, the writer was able to fool censors in the times of political oppression and take most radical ideas to print, which was the matter of his pride. "It is one continuous circumlocution because of censorship and requires a constant reading commentary," Mirsky argued. The use of Aesopic language was one reason why Saltykov-Shchedrin has never achieved as much acclaim in

582-808: A length of three shelf kilometers in German provenance in Russia. Russia has two additional national libraries: Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin Mikhail Saltykov was born on 27 January 1826 in the village of Spas-Ugol (modern-day Taldomsky District of the Moscow Oblast of Russia) as one of the eight children (five brothers and three sisters) in the large Russian noble family of Yevgraf Vasilievich Saltykov (1776–1851) and Olga Mikhaylovna Saltykova (née Zabelina; 1801–74). His father belonged to an ancient Saltykov noble house that originated as one of

679-425: A lively tissue now there is a chasm of emptiness. And Shchedrin's life has been curtailed, probably, for many years, by this 'excision'," wrote Korolenko in 1889. Saltykov-Shchedrin's last works were published by Vestnik Evropy and Russkye Vedomosti , among them a collection of satirical fables and tales Fairy Tales for Children of a Fair Age (Сказки для детей изрядного возраста, better known as Fables ) and

776-480: A lot of money. Stories vaguely describing this experience later made it into the novel Mon Repos Haven (Убежище Монрепо, 1879) and the collection of sketches All the Year Round (Круглый год), both books attacking the very roots of Russian capitalism. "Fatherland is a pie - that's the idea those narrow, obnoxious minds follow," he wrote. The latter collection remained unfinished due to fierceness of censorship in

873-510: A mix of a variety of genres: poetry and documentary report, epics and satire, tragedy and comedy. In the process of reading it is impossible to decide what exactly it is, but the general impression is invariably strong, as of something very lively and harmonic. Ignoring the established formats, Saltykov was driven by two things: current stream of new ideas and those lofty ideals he’s been aspiring to." Saltykov, according to Krivenko, occasionally repeated himself, but never denied this, explaining it by

970-401: A play which was quite in tune with Provincial Sketches . The production of it was banned with characteristic verdict of censors: "Characters presented there are set to prove our society lies in the state of total moral devastation." Another of Saltykov's plays, Shadows (1862–1865), about careerism and immorality of bureaucracy, has been discovered in archives and published only in 1914, when it

1067-510: A prominent literary figure, editor and publisher of the magazines Russkaya Mysl and Beseda . In 1834 his elder sister Nadezhda graduated from the Moscow Ekaterininsky college, and Mikhail's education from then on was the prerogative of her friend Avdotya Vasilevskaya, a graduate of the same institute who had been invited to the house as a governess. Mikhail's other tutors included the local clergyman Ivan Vasilievich who taught

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1164-553: A saint, rather than Christ, by his clerical tonsure . Although the letter decoration is essentially Insular in style, the figure shows Mediterranean influence, as do other elements of the illuminations, such as the foliate decoration filling in the B shown above. The Saint Petersburg Bede contains one of the two oldest surviving examples of the "m-type" text of the Latin Historia ecclesiastica (Colgrave and Mynors 1969, xliv). The manuscript also contains one of two copies of

1261-399: A separate book which evolved into his most famous novel, showing the stagnation of the land-based dvoryanstvo. The Golovlyov Family (Господа Головлёвы, 1880; also translated as A Family of Noblemen ), a crushingly gloomy study of the institution of the family as cornerstone of society, traced the moral and physical decline of three generations of a Russian gentry family. Central to it was

1358-671: A series of narratives about the fictitious town of Krutogorsk, shown as a symbol of Russian serfdom. Ivan Turgenev who happened to read them first was unimpressed and, following his advice (and bearing in mind still fierce censorship) Nikolai Nekrasov refused to publish the work in Sovremennik . In August 1856 Mikhail Katkov ’s The Russian Messenger started publishing Provincial Sketches , signed N.Shchedrin. The book, charged with anti-serfdom pathos and full of scathing criticism of provincial bureaucracy became instant success and made Saltykov famous. Many critics and colleagues called him

1455-479: A series. As the numerous members of the Petrashevsky Circle were arrested in 1848, Saltykov got summoned to the capital to give evidence on his involvement in the group's activity. There he managed to convince the authorities that 'spreading harm' was not his intention and safely returned to Vyatka. In the summer of 1850 he became a councillor of the local government which implied long voyages through

1552-473: A vague caricature upon the Russian Empire, with its sequence of monstrous rulers, tormenting their hapless vassals. The book was a satire on the whole institution of Russian statehood and the way of life itself, plagued by routine mismanagement, needless oppression, pointless tyranny and sufferers’ apathy. The novel ended with the deadly "it" sweeping the whole thing away, "making the history stop" which

1649-557: Is despicable times that we are living through... and it takes a lot of strength not to give up," Saltykov wrote. The demise of Otechestvennye Zapiski in 1884 dealt Saltykov a heavy blow. "The possibility to talk with my readers has been taken away from me and this pain is stronger than any other," he complained. "The whole of the Russian press suffered from the Otechestvenny Zapiski ' s closure… Where there's been

1746-411: Is full of heartfelt sympathy for destitute men... awakening in one humane feelings and manly thoughts," and Nikolai Chernyshevsky , who referred to it as a book "that has created a stir and is of much interest to people of the new generation." It was the publication of Contradictions that caused Saltykov's banishment to Vyatka , - apparently the result of overreaction from the authorities in response to

1843-442: Is immense, first for… its almost clairvoyant vision of the path the Russian society had to travel - from 1860s to nowadays." James Wood calls Shchedrin a precursor of Knut Hamsun and the modernists : The closer Shchedrin gets close to Porphyry, the more unknowable he actually becomes. In this sense, Porphyry is a modernist prototype: the character who lacks an audience, the alienated actor. The hypocrite who does not know that he

1940-587: Is one, and really be told that he is one by anyone around him, is something of a revolutionary type of character, for he has no "true" knowable self, no "stable" ego... Around the turn of the twentieth century, Knut Hamsun, a novelist strongly influenced by Dostoevsky and the Russian novel, would invent a newkind of character: the lunatic heroes of his novels Hunger and Mysteries go around telling falsely incriminating stories about themselves and acting badly when they have no obvious reason to. <...> The line from Dostoevsky, through Shchedrin, and on to Hamsun,

2037-619: Is the first, and one of three national public libraries in Russia. The NLR is currently ranked among the world's major libraries . It has the second biggest library collection in the Russian Federation, a treasury of national heritage, and is the All-Russian Information, Research and Cultural Center. Over the course of its history, the library has aimed for comprehensive acquisition of the national printed output and has provided free access to its collections. It

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2134-502: Is the true 'outcome' of your life in literature, and you must be pleased with it." For all his insight and taste for detail, Saltykov was never keen on examining individual characters (even if he did create memorable ones). Admittedly, he was always more concerned with things general and typical, gauging social tendencies, collective urges and what he termed 'herd instincts in a modern man', often resorting to schemes and caricatures. In his later years Saltykov-Schedrin found himself to be

2231-517: Is visible. Saltykov-Shchedrin has been lavishly praised by Soviet critics as "the true revolutionary", but his mindset (as far as they were concerned) was not without a "fault", for he, according to Goryachkina, "failed to recognize the historically progressive role of capitalism and never understood the importance of the emerging proletariat ". Karl Marx (who knew Russian and held Shchedrin in high esteem) read Haven in Mon Repos (1878–1879) and

2328-666: The French Revolution of 1848 . On 26 April 1848, Tsar Nicholas I signed the order for the author's arrest and deportation. In his first few months of exile Saltykov was mainly occupied with copying official documents. Then he was made a special envoy of the Vyatka governor; his major duty in this capacity was making inquiries concerning brawls, cases of minor bribery, embezzlement and police misdoings. Saltykov made desperate attempts to break free from what he called his 'Vyatka captivity', but after each of his requests he received

2425-772: The Lyceum . Korff and his successor, Ivan Delyanov , added to the library's collections some of the earliest manuscripts of the New Testament (the Codex Sinaiticus from the 340s), the Old Testament (the so-called Leningrad Codex ), and one of the earliest Qur'ans (the Uthman Qur'an from the mid-7th century). In the aftermath of the Russian Revolution , the institution was placed under

2522-756: The Ostromir Gospel , the earliest book written in the Old East Slavic dialect of Church Slavonic (which was to eventually develop into the Russian language ), and the Hypatian Codex of the Russian Primary Chronicle . He, along with other bibliophiles, also reviewed the collection of manuscripts and letters brought by Peter P. Dubrowsky (1754–1816) who had stayed in the diplomatic service for more than 20 years outside

2619-570: The Polish Sołtyk coat of arms . It gave birth to many important political figures throughout history, including the tsaritsa of Russia Praskovia Saltykova and her daughter, the Empress of Russia Anna Ioannovna . Saltykov's mother was an heir to a rich Moscow merchant of the 1st level guild Mikhail Petrovich Zabelin whose ancestors belonged to the so-called trading peasants and who was granted hereditary nobility for his handsome donation to

2716-644: The Pompadours cycle and got involved with Svistok (The Whistle), a satirical supplement, using pseudonyms N.Shchedrin, K.Turin and Mikhail Zmiev-Mladentsev. The series of articles entitled Our Social Life (1863–1864), examining “new tendencies in Russian nihilism ,” caused a raw with equally radical Russkoye Slovo . First Saltykov ridiculed Dmitry Pisarev 's unexpected call for Russian intelligentsia to pay more attention to natural sciences. Then in 1864 Pisarev responded by "Flowers of Innocent Humor" article published by Russkoye Slovo implying that Saltykov

2813-433: The Russian people. "By showing how people live under the yoke of madness I was hoping to invoke in a reader not mirth but most bitter feelings... It is not the history of the state as a whole that I make fun of, but a certain state of things," Saltykov explained. In 1873 came out The Tashkenters Clique (Господа Ташкентцы ; Tashkent ’ers was a generic term invented by Shchedrin for administrators sent to tame riots in

2910-629: The Russians in 1794 after the Partitions of Poland . The idea of a public library in Russia emerged in the early 18th century but did not take shape until the arrival of the Russian Enlightenment . The plan of a Russian public library was submitted to Catherine in 1766 but the Empress did not approve the project for the imperial library until 27 May [ O.S. 16 May] 1795, eighteen months before her death. A site for

3007-470: The Time , Pompadours ). Being dependent on his Sovremennik ' s meagre salaries, Saltykov was looking for work on the side and quarreled with Nekrasov a lot, promising to quit literature. According to Avdotya Panayeva 's memoirs, "those were the times when his moods darkened, and I noticed a new habit of his developing - this jerky movement of neck, as if he was trying to free himself from some unseen tie,

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3104-546: The West as had three of his great contemporaries, Turgenev, Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy, according to Sofia Kovalevskaya . "It is unbelievable, how well we've learned to read between the lines in Russia," the great mathematician remarked in her essay written in 1889 in Swedish . Another reason had to do with peculiarities of Saltykov's chosen genre: his credo "has always been a satire, spiced with fantasy, not far removed from Rabelais ,

3201-486: The administrative circles of Tula, Ryazan and Penza. According to Alexander Skabichevsky (who had conversations with provincial officials working under Saltykov's supervision) "he was a rare kind of boss. Even though his frightful barking was making people wince, nobody feared him and everybody loved him - mostly for his caring for his subordinates' needs and also the tendency to overlook people's minor weaknesses and faults when those were not interfering with work." Finally

3298-643: The army needs in 1812; his wife Marfa Ivanovna Zabelina also came from wealthy Moscow merchants. At the time of Mikhail Saltykov's birth, Yevgraf was fifty years old, while Olga was twenty five. Mikhail spent his early years on his parents' large estate in Spasskoye on the border of the Tver and Yaroslavl governorates, in the Poshekhonye region. "In my childhood and teenage years I witnessed serfdom at its worst. It saturated all strata of social life, not just

3395-598: The atmosphere of tough censorship came out, a satire on the society in general and its cultural elite in particular (the 'auntie' in question). In 1883, now critically ill, Saltykov published Modern Idyll (Современная идиллия), the novel he started in 1877–1878, targeting those of intelligentsia who were eager to prove their loyalty to the authorities. The Poshekhonye Stories (Пошехонские рассказы, 1883), Motley Letters (Пёстрые письма, 1884) and Unfinished Talks (Недоконченные беседы, 1886) followed, but by this time Otechestvennye Zapiski were under increasing pressure from

3492-467: The author's lively, rich language and the way he mastered both stark realism ( The Golovlyov Family , Old Times in Poshekhonye ) and satirical grotesque merged with fantasy. Of the writer's stylistic peculiarities biographer Sergey Krivenko (of the Narodnik movement, the one which Saltykov has always been in opposition to) wrote: "It is difficult to assess his works using the established criteria. It's

3589-516: The basis of the so-called Memoranda, a series of retrospective dates found in the margins of Bede's recapitulo in Book V Chapter 24. The validity of these Memoranda (and similar notes in the Moore Bede ) as evidence for the precise year in which the manuscript was copied has been vigorously challenged. While it may not be possible to assign the manuscript to a specific year, it seems unlikely that it

3686-705: The boy Latin and the student Matvey Salmin. At the age of ten Saltykov joined the third class of the Moscow Institute for sons of the nobility (Dvoryansky institute), skipping the first two classes, where he studied until 1838. He then enrolled in the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum in Saint Petersburg , spending the next six years there. Prince Aleksey Lobanov-Rostovsky , afterwards the Minister Of Foreign Affairs,

3783-588: The branches of the Morozov boyar family. According to the Velvet Book , it was founded by Mikhail Ignatievich Morozov nicknamed Saltyk (from the Old Church Slavonic word "saltyk" meaning "one's own way/taste" ), the son of Ignaty Mikhailovich Morozov and a great-grandson of the founder of the dynasty Ivan Semyonovich Moroz who lived during the 14–15th centuries. The Saltykov family also shared

3880-495: The building was found at the corner of Nevsky Avenue and Sadovaya Street , right in the center of the Russian imperial capital. The construction work began immediately and lasted for almost fifteen years. The building was designed in a Neoclassical style by architect Yegor Sokolov (built between 1796 and 1801). The cornerstone of the foreign-language department came from the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in

3977-422: The career of "one of the strangest officials in Russian history" ended. Years later, speaking to the historian M.Semevsky, Saltykov confessed he was trying to erase from memory years spent as a government official. But when his vis-a-vis argued that "only his thorough knowledge of every possible stage of the Russian bureaucratic hierarchy made him what he was," the writer had to agree. On July 1, 1866, Sovremennik

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4074-406: The censors, Shchedrin's prose being the latter's main target. The May 1874 issue with The Well-Meant Speeches has been destroyed, several other releases postponed for Saltykov's pieces to be excised. In 1874-1879 Otechestvennye Zapiski suffered 18 censorial sanctions, all having to do with Shchedrin's work, most of which ( Well-Meant Speeches , Letters to Auntie , many fairytales) were banned. "It

4171-535: The climate in the country instantly changed. In November 1855 Saltykov received the permission to leave Vyatka, the new governor Lanskoy rumoured to be the major assisting force behind this. In January 1856 the writer returned to Saint Petersburg and in February was assigned to the Interior Ministry. By this time many of the stories and essays that would be known as Provincial Sketches have been written,

4268-661: The country of Saint-Simon , Fourier ... and, in particular, George Sand ... Such sympathies only grew stronger after 1848," he later remembered. Saltykov befriended literary critic Valerian Maykov and economist and publicist Vladimir Milyutin, and became close to the Petrashevsky circle . "How easily we lived and what deep faith we had in the future, what single-mindedness and unity of hopes there was, giving us life!" he later remembered, calling Mikhail Petrashevsky "a dear, unforgettable friend and teacher." In 1847 Saltykov debuted with his first novella Contradictions (under

4365-468: The critical response to his work, made rather a pessimistic assessment of his life in literature, Ivan Turgenev was quick to reassure him. "The writer who is most hated, is most loved, too. You'd have known none of this, had you remained M.E.Saltykov, a mere hereditary Russian aristocrat. But you are Saltykov-Schedrin, a writer who happened to draw a distinctive line in our literature: that's why you are either hated or loved, depending [on who reads you]. Such

4462-693: The earliest historiated initial (one containing a picture) in European illumination. It is so named because it was taken to the Russian National Library of Saint Petersburg in Russia at the time of the French Revolution , by Peter P. Dubrovsky . Traditionally, the Saint Petersburg Bede is attributed on palaeographic grounds to Bede's monastery at Wearmouth-Jarrow . It is also traditionally dated to 731/732 × 746 on

4559-469: The fatherland. Based on the review, Stroganov recommended to Alexander I the creation of a manuscript depot. Alexander decreed the creation of such a department on February 27, 1805, and named Dubrowsky as the first keeper of the depot of manuscripts. The Imperial Public Library was inaugurated on 14 January [ O.S. 2 January] 1814 in the presence of Gavrila Derzhavin and Ivan Krylov . The library's third, and arguably most famous, director

4656-483: The figure of Porfiry 'Little Judas' Golovlyov, a character whose nickname (Iudushka, in Russian transcription) became synonymous with mindless hypocrisy and self-destructive egotism, leading to moral degradation and disintegration of personality. In the 1870s Saltykov sold his Moscow estate and bought the one near Oranienbaum , Saint Petersburg, which he came to refer to as 'my Mon Repos '. He proved to be an unsuccessful landowner, though, and finally sold it, having lost

4753-428: The first national manual of library science for the library entitled Public Library Facilities and Cataloguing . The influx of new visitors required a larger reading room in the new building closing the library court along the perimeter (designed by Sobolshchikov, built in 1860–62). From 1849 to 1861 the library was managed by Count Modest von Korff (1800–76), who had been Alexander Pushkin 's school-fellow at

4850-462: The form of Załuski's Library (420,000 volumes), seized in part by the Russian government at the time of the partitions , though many volumes were lost en route to theft by Russian soldiers who sold them for profit. The Polish-language books from the library (numbering some 55,000 titles) were returned to Poland by the Russian SFSR in 1921. For five years after its foundation, the library

4947-479: The government. Partly reasons for his return to the state service were practical. In 1856 Saltykov married Elizaveta Boltina, daughter of a Vyatka vice-governor and found, on the one hand, his mother's financial support curtailed, on the other, his own needs rose sharply. Up until 1858 Saltykov continued working in the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Then after making a report on the condition of the Russian police , he

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5044-553: The governor of Ryazan made an informal complaint which was accounted for by Count Shuvalov , the Chief of Staff of the Special Corps of Gendarmes , who issued a note stating that Saltykov, as a senior state official "promoted ideas contradicting the needs of maintaining law and order" and was "always in conflict with people of local governments, criticizing and even sabotaging their orders." On July 14, 1868, Saltykov retired: thus

5141-556: The grieves of those times," he argued. According to D.S.Mirsky , the greater part of Saltykov's work is a rather nondescript kind of satirical journalism , generally with little or no narrative structure, and intermediate in form between the classical "character" and the contemporary feuilleton . Greatly popular though it was in its own time, it has since lost much of its appeal simply because it satirizes social conditions that have long ceased to exist and much of it has become unintelligible without commentary. Mirsky saw The History of

5238-680: The habit which stayed with him for the rest of his life." Finally, pecuniary difficulties compelled Saltykov to re-enter the governmental service and in November 1864 he was appointed the head of the treasury department in Penza . Two years later he moved to take the same post in Tula, then Ryazan. Supported by his lyceum friend Mikhail Reitern, now the Minister of Finance, Saltykov adopted rather aggressive finance revision policies, making many enemies in

5335-527: The heir to Nikolai Gogol . "I’m in awe... Oh immortal Gogol, you must now be a happy man now to see such a genius emerging as your follower," Taras Shevchenko wrote in his diary. In 1857 Sovremennik at last reacted: both Dobrolyubov and Chernyshevsky rather belatedly praised Saltykov, characteristically, imparting to his work what it's never had: "aiming at the undermining the Empire's foundations." In 1857 The Russian Messenger published Pazukhin's Death ,

5432-404: The house, remembered feeling lonely and neglected. Another thing Saltykov later regretted was his having been completely shut out from nature in his early years: the children lived in the main house and were rarely allowed to go out, knowing their "animals and birds only as boiled and fried." Characteristically, there were few descriptions of nature in the author's works. Mikhail's early education

5529-399: The idea of radically improving the quality of education for young women and girls. There were no decent history textbooks at the time in Russia, so he decided to write one himself. Called A Brief History of Russia , it amounted to 40 handwritten pages of compact text compiled from numerous sources. He worked on it while on vacation in a village near Tver, sending it to Vyatka to be published as

5626-478: The kind of literature that's tightly bound to its own national soil... Tears are the same wherever we go, but each nation laughs in its own way," Kovalevskaya argued. Saltykov's style of writing, according to D.S.Mirsky, was based on the bad journalistic style of the period, which originated largely with Osip Senkovsky , and which "today invariably produces an impression of painfully elaborate vulgarity." Many other critics (Goryachkina among them) disagreed, praising

5723-488: The landlords and the enslaved masses, degrading all classes, privileged or otherwise, with its atmosphere of a total lack of rights, when fraud and trickery were the order of the day, and there was an all-pervading fear of being crushed and destroyed at any moment," he remembered, speaking through one of the characters of his later novel Old Years in Poshekhonye . Life in the Saltykov family was equally difficult. Dominating

5820-506: The lawyer and author Yevgeny Utin : "I took a look at the family, the state, the property and found out that none of such things exist. And that those very principles for the sake of which freedoms have been granted, were not respected as principles any more, even by those who seemed to hold them." The Well-Meant Speeches initially contained several stories about the Golovlyov family. In 1880 Saltykov-Shchedrin extracted all of them to begin

5917-634: The library, along with its counterpart in Moscow , had around 80,000 titles available electronically. After the end of the Second World War, millions of German art objects, books and archival materials were brought to the Soviet Union. Some of these cultural assets were returned to the former GDR in the 1950s. However, to this day, among other things, there are still more than 200,000 works of art, three million books and archival material with

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6014-467: The like) in a fifth (Parkes 1982, 6-11). The opening three letters of Book 2 of Bede are decorated, to a height of 8 lines of the text, and the opening h contains a bust portrait of a haloed figure carrying a cross and a book. This may be intended to be St. Gregory the Great , although a much later hand has identified the figure as St. Augustine of Canterbury in the halo. The figure is identified as

6111-420: The lyceum Saltykov started writing poetry and translated works from Lord Byron and Heinrich Heine . He was proclaimed an 'heir to Pushkin' – after the local tradition which demanded that each course should have one. His first poem, "The Lyre", a hymn to the great Russian poet, was published by Biblioteka Dlya Chteniya in 1841. Eight more of Saltykov's verses made their way into Sovremennik in 1844–45. At

6208-733: The management of Ernest Radlov and Nicholas Marr , although its national preeminence was relinquished to the Lenin State Library in Moscow. The library was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labour in 1939 and remained open during the Siege of Leningrad . The National Library began a large-scale digitization project at the end of the 20th century by taking part in the Library of Congress project Meeting on Frontiers . By 2012

6305-484: The more gloomy because the effect is attained by the simplest means without any theatrical, melodramatic, or atmospheric effects." "The most remarkable character of this novel is Porfiry Golovlyov, nicknamed 'Little Judas', the empty and mechanical hypocrite who cannot stop talking unctuous and meaningless humbug, not for any inner need or outer profit, but because his tongue is in need of constant exercise," Mirsky wrote. Most works of Saltykov's later period were written in

6402-474: The more valuable collections had to be evacuated because of Napoleon's invasion , the inauguration was postponed for two years. Under Count Alexander Stroganov , who managed the library during the first decade of the 19th century, the Rossica project was inaugurated, a vast collection of foreign books touching on Russia. It was Stroganov who secured for the library some of its most invaluable treasures, namely

6499-540: The need of always being engaged with 'hot' issues – "things which in the course of decades were in their own right repeating themselves with such damning monotony". "There are not many writers in Rus whose very name would give that much to one's mind and heart, and who'd leave such a vast literary heritage, rich and diverse both in essence and in form, written in a very special language which even in his lifetime became known as 'saltykovian'," wrote Krivenko in 1895. "Saltykov's gift

6596-467: The one taken to 'laughing for laughter's sake'. Vladimir Korolenko disagreed; he regarded Shchedrin's laughter to be the essential part of Russian life. "Shchedrin, he's still laughing, people were saying, by way of reproach... Thankfully, yes, no matter how hard it was for him to do this, in the most morbid times of our recent history this laughter was heard… One had to have a great moral power to make others laugh, while suffering deeply (as he did) from all

6693-505: The province on official business, many of them having to do with issues concerning the Old Believers . As an investigator, he traveled throughout the Vyatka, Perm , Kazan , Nizhny Novgorod and Yaroslavl governorates. In 1850 he became the organizer of the Vyatka agricultural exhibition, one of the largest in the country. All this provided Saltykov with priceless material for his future satires. In 1855 Tzar Nicholas I died and

6790-450: The pseudonym M.Nepanov), the title referring to the piece's main motif: the contrast between one's noble ideals and the horrors of real life. It was followed by A Complicated Affair (1848), a social novella , reminiscent of Gogol , both in its plotlines and the natures of its characters, dealing with social injustice and the inability of an individual to cope with social issues. The novella was praised by Nikolai Dobrolyubov who wrote: "It

6887-410: The reforms have failed and Russia remained the same country of absolute monarchy where peasant had no rights. "The bars have fallen but Russia's heart gave not a single twitch. Serfdom has been abolished, but landlords rejoiced," he wrote. In 1870 The History of a Town (История одного города) came out, a grotesque, politically risky novel relating the tragicomic history of the fictitious Foolsville,

6984-699: The remote regions of the Russian Empire), a snipe at right-wingers who advocated cruel suppression of peasants' riots, and an experiment in the new form of social novel. 1877 saw the publication of In the Spheres of Temperance and Accuracy , a set of satirical sketches, featuring characters from the classical Russian literature (books by Fonvizin , Griboyedov , Gogol and others) in the contemporary political context. The Well-Meant Speeches (Благонамеренные речи, 1876) featured characters belonging to new Russian bourgeoisie . On January 2, 1881, Saltykov wrote to

7081-456: The society, then, after its abolition, - corruption, bureaucratic inefficiency, opportunistic tendencies in intelligentsia, greed and amorality of those at power, but also - apathy, meekness and social immobility of the common people of Russia. His satirical cycle Fables and the two major works, The History of a Town and The Golovlyov Family , are widely regarded as his masterpieces. Maxim Gorky wrote in 1909: "The importance of his satire

7178-615: The standard reply: "would be premature." He became more and more aware of the possibility that he'd have to spend the rest of his life there. "The very thought of that is so repellent that it makes by hair bristle," he complained in a letter to his brother. It helped that the local elite treated Saltykov with great warmth and sympathy; he was made a welcome guest in many respectable houses, including that of vice-governor Boltin whose daughter Elizaveta Apollonovna later became Saltykov's wife. While in Vyatka Saltykov got carried away by

7275-475: The suggestion that with Dobrolyubov's death and Chernyshevsky's imprisonment the radical movement in Russia became lifeless and dogmatic, Saltykov labeled him and his fellow pochvenniks 'reactionaries'. Finally, the rift between him and Maxim Antonovich (supported by Grigory Eliseev ) made Saltykov-Schedrin quit the journal. Only a small part of stories and sketches that Saltykov wrote at the time has made its way into his later books ( Innocent Stories , Sign of

7372-649: The time he was attending Mikhail Yazykov's literary circle, which was occasionally visited by Vissarion Belinsky . The latter's articles and essays made a great impression on Mikhail. Upon graduating the Lyceum in 1844, Saltykov, who was one of the best students, was promoted directly to the chancellery of the Ministry of Defense. This success upset Mikhail, as it ended his dream of attending Saint Petersburg University . The same year he became involved with Otechestvennye zapiski and Sovremennik , reviewing for both magazines children's literature and textbooks. His criticism

7469-705: The vernacular text of the Northumbrian aelda recension of Cædmon's Hymn in the bottom margin of "f. 107r" (actually f. 108r; see Cædmon's Hymn ). The poem has been copied in the fourth hand of the main Latin text (Parkes 1982, 6). The Saint Petersburg Bede is a frequently studied manuscript. The following is a partial bibliography of significant studies and catalogue entries: Re Illuminations: Re Texts: Russian National Library The National Library of Russia ( NLR , Russian : Российская национальная библиотека , РНБ ), located in Saint Petersburg ,

7566-661: The wake of the assassination of Alexander II . In 1875-1885 Saltykov was often visiting Germany, Switzerland and France for medical treatment. The result of these recreational trips was the series of sketches called Abroad (За рубежом, 1880–1881), expressing skepticism about the Western veneer of respectability which hid underneath horrors similar to the ones that were open in Russia (the latter portrayed as The Boy Without Pants, as opposed to The Boy in Pants, symbolizing Europe). In 1882 Letters to Auntie (Письма к тётеньке), written in

7663-703: The weak, religious father was despotic mother whose intimidating persona horrified the servants and her own children. This atmosphere was later recreated in Shchedrin's novel The Golovlyov Family , and the idea of "the devastating effect of legalized slavery upon the human psyche" would become one of the prominent motifs of his prose. Olga Mikhaylovna, though, was a woman of many talents; having perceived some in Mikhail, she treated him as her favorite. The Saltykovs often quarreled; they gave their children neither love nor care and Mikhail, despite enjoying relative freedom in

7760-436: Was Aleksey Olenin (1763–1843). Librarianship progressed to a new level in the 1850s. The reader community grew several times, enlarged by common people. At the same time, many gifts of books were offered to the library. Consequently, collection growth rates in the 1850s were five times higher than the annual growth rate of five thousand new acquired during the first part of the century. In 1859, Vasily Sobolshchikov prepared

7857-400: Was appointed deputy governor of Ryazan where later he received the nickname "the vice- Robespierre ". On April 15, 1858, Saltykov arrived to Ryazan very informally, in an ordinary road carriage, which amazed the local 'society' for whom he'd been known already as Provincial Sketches ' author. He settled in a small house, often visited people and received guests. Saltykov's primary goal

7954-671: Was closed. In the autumn Nekrasov approached the publisher Andrey Krayevsky and 'rented' Otechestvennye Zapiski . In September 1868 Saltykov joined the re-vamped team of the magazine as a head of the journalistic department. As in December 1874 Saltykov's health problems (triggered by severe cold he's caught at his mother's funeral) made him travel abroad for treatment, Nekrasov confessed in his April 1875 letter to Pavel Annenkov : "This journalism thing has always been tough for us and now it lies in tatters. Saltykov carried it all manly and bravely and we all tried our best to follow suit." "This

8051-554: Was construed by many as a call for radical political change. A series called Pompadours and Pompadouresses (published in English as The Pompadours , Помпадуры и помпадурши, 1863–1874) looked like a satellite to the History of a Town , a set of real life illustrations to the fantastic chronicles. The History of a Town caused much controversy. Alexey Suvorin accused the author of deliberately distorting Russian history and insulting

8148-501: Was copied much after the middle of the eighth century. The manuscript is written on parchment . It contains 162 folios (numbered 161, but with f. 51 repeated—the correct foliation is given on the last folio in the bottom right corner). Pages average approximately 270 × 190 mm (Writing Space: 230 × 150 mm in two columns of 27 lines). The pages have been trimmed at some point. The manuscript has been copied by four hands, with textual "accessories" ( colophons , chapter numbers, and

8245-480: Was cultivating "laughter for good digestion's sake". The latter's reply contained accusations in isolationism and elitism . All this (along with heated discussion of Chernyshevsky's novel What Is to Be Done? ) was termed " raskol in Russian nihilism" by Fyodor Dostoyevsky . On the other front, Saltykov waged a war against the Dostoyevsky brothers’ Grazhdanin magazine. When Fyodor Dostoyevsky came out with

8342-470: Was desultory, but, being an extraordinarily perceptive boy, by the age of six he spoke French and German fluently. He was taught to read and write Russian by the serf painter Pavel Sokolov and a local clergyman, and became an avid reader, later citing the Gospel , which he read at the age of eight, as a major influence. Among his childhood friends was Sergey Yuriev, the son of a neighbouring landlord and later

8439-523: Was interred in the Volkovo Cemetery , next to Turgenev, according to his last wish. Mikhail Bulgakov was among writers, influenced by Saltykov. Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin is regarded to be the most prominent satirist in the history of the Russian literature. According to critic and biographer Maria Goryachkina, he managed to compile "the satirical encyclopedia" of contemporary Russian life, targeting first serfdom with its degrading effect upon

8536-547: Was journalist Vladimir Rzhevsky. In 1862 Saltykov retired from the government service and came to Moscow with the view of founding his own magazine there. The Ministry of Education's Special committee under the chairmanship of Prince D.A.Obolensky gave him no such permission. In the early 1863 Saltykov moved to Saint Petersburg to join Nekrasov's Sovremennik , greatly undermined by the death of Dobrolyubov and Chernyshevsky's arrest. In this magazine he published first sketches of

8633-721: Was known as the Imperial Public Library from 1795 to 1917; Russian Public Library from 1917 to 1925; State Public Library from 1925 to 1992 (since 1932 named after M.Y. Saltykov-Shchedrin ); and since 1992 as the National Library of Russia (NLR). The Imperial Public Library was established in 1795 by Catherine the Great . It was based on the Załuski Library , the famous Polish national library built by Bishop Załuski in Warsaw , which had been seized by

8730-473: Was no lesser than that of Gogol, neither in originality nor in itspower," the biographer reckoned. Saltykov-Schedrin was a controversial figure and often found himself a target of sharp criticism, mainly for his alleged 'lack of patriotism' and negativism. He's never seen himself a promoter of the latter and often proclaimed his belief in the strength of a common man, seeing the latter as holder of principles of real democracy. In 1882, as he, feeling depressed by

8827-418: Was one of his schoolfellows. In the lyceum the quality of education was poor. "The information taught to us was scant, sporadic and all but meaningless… It was not so much an education as such, but a part of social privilege, the one that draws the line through life: above are you and me, people of leisure and power, beneath – just one single word: muzhik ," Saltykov wrote in his Letters to Auntie . While at

8924-476: Was premiered on stage too. Contrary to left radicals' attempt to draw Saltykov closer to their camp, "undermining the Empire's foundations" was not his aim at all and on his return to Saint Petersburg he was soon promoted to administrative posts of considerable importance. His belief was that "all honest men should help the government in defeating serfdom apologist still clinging to their rights." Huge literary success has never made him think of retiring from work in

9021-412: Was run by Comte Marie-Gabriel-Florent-Auguste de Choiseul-Gouffier . The stocks were arranged according to a specially compiled manual of library classification. In 1810, Emperor Alexander I approved Russia's first library law stipulating, among other things, that two legal copies of all printed matter in Russia be deposited in the library. The library was to be opened for the public in 1812 but, as

9118-536: Was sharp, and Belinsky's influence on it was evident. At this time Saltykov became a follower of the Socialist ideas coming from France. "Brought up by Belinsky's articles, I naturally drifted towards the Westernizers ' camp, but not to the major trend of it which was dominant in Russian literature at the time, promoting German philosophy , but to this tiny circle that felt instinctively drawn towards France -

9215-560: Was the only magazine that had its own face… Most talented people were coming to Otechestvennye Zapiski as if it were their home. They trusted my taste and my common sense never to begrudge my editorial cuts. In "OZ" there were published weak things, but stupid things - never," he wrote in a letter to Pavel Annenkov on May 28, 1884. In 1869 Saltykov's Signs of the Times and Letters About the Province came out, their general idea being that

9312-698: Was to teach local minor officials elementary grammar and he spent many late evenings proof-reading and re-writing their incongruous reports. In 1862 Saltykov was transferred to Tver where he often performed governor's functions. Here Saltykov proved to be a zealous promoter of the 1861 reforms . He personally sued several landowners accusing them of cruel treatment of peasants. All the while his literary activities continued. In 1860-1862 he wrote and published (mostly, in Vremya magazine) numerous sketches and short stories, some later included into Innocent Stories (1857–1863) which demonstrated what Maxim Gorky later called

9409-512: Was unimpressed. "The last section, 'Warnings', is weak and the author in general seems to be not very strong on positivity," he wrote. Marx was also known reading other books by the author, namely The Gentlemen from Tashkent and Diary of a Provincial in St. Petersburg ; among the Russian authors that Marx read, he particularly valued Pushkin, Gogol and Shchedrin. Some contemporaries ( Nikolai Pisarev , Alexei Suvorin ) dismissed Saltykov-Shchedrin as

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