Leskov Nikolai Semenovich - an outstanding Russian writer of the 19th century, artistic creativity which was not always fairly assessed by his contemporaries. He began his literary career under the pseudonym M. Stebnitsky.

Brief biography of Leskov

Born on February 4, 1831 in the Oryol province. His father was the son of a priest, but received the nobility due to the nature of his service. The mother was from a poor noble family. The boy grew up in the rich house of his maternal uncle and studied at the Oryol gymnasium. The death of his father and the loss of a small fortune in the terrible Oryol fires of the 40s did not allow him to complete the course. At the age of 17, he began serving as a minor clerical worker in the Oryol criminal chamber. Later he went to serve in the Kyiv chamber and supplemented his education with reading. As secretary of the recruiting presence, he often travels to the districts, which enriched his life with knowledge of folk life and customs. In 1857, he entered private service with his distant relative Shkott, who managed the rich estates of Naryshkin and Count Perovsky. Due to the nature of his service, Nikolai Semenovich travels a lot, which adds to his observations, characters, images, types, and apt words. In 1860, he published several lively and imaginative articles in central publications, moved to St. Petersburg in 1861 and devoted himself entirely to literature.

Leskov's creativity

Striving for a fair explanation of the St. Petersburg fires, Nikolai found himself drawn into an ambiguous situation; due to ridiculous rumors and gossip, he was forced to go abroad. Abroad, he wrote a great novel, Nowhere. In this novel, which caused a flurry of indignant responses from progressive Russian society, he, adhering to liberal sanity and, hating any extremes, describes all the negative aspects in the movement of the sixties. In the indignation of critics, among whom was Pisarev, it was not noticed that the author noted many positive things in the nihilist movement. For example, civil marriage seemed to him a completely reasonable phenomenon. So accusing him of being retrograde and even of supporting and justifying the monarchy were unfair. Well, here the author, who still writes under the pseudonym Stebnitsky, has, as they say, “bitten the bit” and published another novel about the nihilist movement, “On Knives.” In all his work, this is the most voluminous and the worst work. He himself later could not stand to think about this novel - a tabloid-melodramatic example of second-rate literature.

Leskov – Russian national writer

Having finished with nihilism, he enters the second, better half of his literary activity. In 1872, the novel “Soborians” was published, dedicated to the life of the clergy. These Stargorod chronicles brought great success to the author. The author realizes that his main literary vocation is to find a bright, colorful spot among the everyday life of gray everyday life. One after another, wonderful stories “The Enchanted Wanderer” appear ”, “The Sealed Angel” and others. These works, which made up an entire volume in the Collected Works under the general title “The Righteous,” completely changed public opinion in society towards Leskov and even affected his career, although very slightly. Already in 1883, he resigned and rejoiced at the independence he had received and tried to devote himself entirely to religious and moral issues. Although sobriety of mind, the absence of mysticism and ecstasy is felt in all subsequent works, and this duality affects not only the works, but also the writer’s life itself. He was alone in his work. Not a single Russian writer could boast of such an abundance of plots as exist in his stories. After all, even with the plot twists of “The Enchanted Wanderer,” which the author presents in a colorful and original language, but concisely and succinctly, you can write a multi-volume work with big amount heroes. But Nikolai Semenovich literary creativity He suffers from such a shortcoming as a lack of sense of proportion, and this often leads him from the path of a serious artist to the path of an entertaining anecdotist. Leskov died on February 21, 1895, and was buried in St. Petersburg.

The second half of the nineteenth century was a real golden period of Russian literature. At this time, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Turgenev, Nekrasov, Ostrovsky, Saltykov-Shchedrin, Goncharov were creating. Isn't it an impressive list?

Another great Russian writer, known to all of us since childhood, lived and wrote during this period - Nikolai Semenovich Leskov.

Biography of the writer. Family and childhood

The future classic of Russian literature was born in 1831 in the Oryol district, in the village of Gorokhovo. His grandfather was a priest, his father also graduated from theological seminary, but he went to work as an investigator in the Oryol Criminal Chamber. After being forced to retire, he moved with his family to Panino (village), in

The writer spent his childhood in the village. It was here that he “absorbed” the language of the Russian people, which formed the basis of the unique “Leskovsky language” - a special style of presentation, which later became main feature his

The biography of Nikolai Leskov contains a mention that he studied poorly at the gymnasium. Later, the writer said about himself that he was “self-taught.” Having failed to pass the exam for transfer to the next class, the young man left educational institution and began working as a scribe in the Oryol Criminal Chamber.

Biography of N. S. Leskov. Commercial service

After the death of his father, the eldest son Nikolai takes over the responsibilities of caring for the family (besides him, his parents had six more children). The young man moves to Kyiv, where he first gets a job at the Kyiv State Chamber, and then moves to the commercial company of his maternal relative, the English entrepreneur A. Ya. Shkot (Scott). Due to his duty, Nikolai Leskov often travels around the country. The knowledge and impressions gained on these trips would then form the basis of many of the writer’s works.

Nikolai Writer - opponent of nihilism

As they say, there would be no happiness, but misfortune helped. In 1860, the Shkot and Wilkens company closed, and Nikolai Semenovich moved to St. Petersburg, where he began writing seriously.

At first, Leskov acts as a publicist: he publishes articles and essays on topical topics. Collaborates with the magazines “Northern Bee”, “ Domestic notes", "Russian speech".

In 1863, “The Life of a Woman” and “Musk Ox” were published - the writer’s first stories. The following year he published the famous story "Lady Macbeth" Mtsensk district”, some short stories, as well as his first novel “Nowhere”. In it, nihilism, fashionable at that time, is contrasted with the fundamental values ​​of the Russian people - Christianity, nepotism, respect for daily work. The next major work, which also contained criticism of nihilism, was the novel “On Knives,” published in 1870.

Attitude to the church

Being a descendant of clergy, Leskov attached great importance to Christianity and its role in Russian life. The chronicles “Soborians” are dedicated to the priests, as a stabilizing force of their time. The writer has novels and short stories collected in the collection “The Righteous”. They tell about honest, conscientious people with whom the Russian land is rich. During the same period, the amazing story “The Sealed Angel” was published - one of best works, created by a writer named Nikolai Leskov. His biography, however, suggests that he subsequently succumbed to the influence of Leo Tolstov and became disillusioned with the Russian clergy. His later works are filled with bitter sarcasm towards the “priesthood”.

Nikolai Leskov died in 1895 in St. Petersburg, at the age of 64.

Nikolai Semenovich Leskov left behind a large number of original works that we still love today. His biography reflects difficult path a thinking and self-searching person. But no matter how it goes creative development, we still know and love his “Lefty Man”, “The Enchanted Wanderer”, “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk” and many other creations.

Nikolai Leskov lived an interesting and difficult life. Leskov's writing path was thorny, however, he managed to break through to the stars. Many of Leskov's works are in force various reasons, found it difficult to reach the reader. Many colleagues in his role disliked Leskov; “critics” and seasoned writers did not like his work. People who are fond of literature, describing Leskov’s torment in visiting publishing houses, with the hope that at least someone will publish him, compare them with a trip to the indifferent doctors of a sick person. Hiding under various pseudonyms, Leskov published in some publications, receiving a livelihood for this.

Writer Nikolai Leskov was born in February 1831, in the village of Gorokhovo, which was in the Oryol province. The family into which Leskov was born was large and poor. Nikolai's father was a criminal investigator. Leskov was raised by his mother's wealthy relatives. When the boy turned 10 years old, he was sent to the Oryol gymnasium. Nikolai Semenovich studied at the gymnasium for five years. Studied future writer carelessly, and eventually dropped out of high school. I went to work and got a job as a scribe in the Chamber of Criminal Court.

In two years, Leskov’s father would die; the young man was 17 years old. The family found itself in a difficult financial situation. Nikolai’s uncle, on his mother’s side, Professor Alferyev, invites the young man to his place in Kyiv. Arriving in Ukraine, Nikolai Semenovich Leskov gets a job in the government chamber. Working as the secretary of the recruit presence, Leskov travels a lot around Russian Empire. In and out, Nikolai communicates with different people- pilgrims, Old Believers. Communication with them makes a certain impression on Leskov. In his spare time, Nikolai educates himself, reads, and attends lectures at the university.

In 1857 Leskov left public service and goes to work at Schcott and Wilkens. For three years, on company business, Nikolai Semenovich has been traveling all over the country. It's time to return to Kyiv. Here he again enters the public service, only this time in the office of the Kyiv Governor-General. He combined his work with journalism. Leskov's articles are published in newspapers in Kyiv and. In 1861, Nikolai Semenovich Leskov moved to the capital of the Russian Empire. Here he is engaged in journalism, writing in many newspapers and magazines. Leskov’s creative union was most successful with the magazine “Otechestvennye zapiski”.

An article by Leskov is published in the Northern Bee. The article is devoted to a series of fires in St. Petersburg. Nikolai calls on the authorities to figure out the reasons: what is it? Accident or the activity of student revolutionaries? After the publication of the article, Leskov was hit with a barrage of criticism; he was called an accomplice of tsarism and a strangler of freedom. Nikolai had to go on a business trip abroad as a correspondent for Northern Bee. In Europe, Leskov managed to visit Poland, France, and Austria. Returning to Russia, Leskov published the stories: “The Life of a Woman”, “Three Stories of Stebnitsky”, “Musk Ox” and the novel “Nowhere”. The novel “Nowhere” caused an unprecedented barrage of criticism in liberal circles, which fell on Leskov like a cold shower.

Fortunately, not all of society shared liberal ideas, and there were magazines and newspapers of other political shades. The “evil” monarchy respected the principles of political pluralism. Leskov publishes in Russky Vestnik and other conservative magazines. In subsequent years, Leskov wrote several more works: “Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District”, “Warrior”, “On Knives”. The last novel became another reason for liberals to criticize Leskov.

In the subsequent years of his life, Nikolai Semenovich Leskov will deal with issues of morality and religiosity. He will write a number of amazing works: “The Soborians”, “The Sealed Angel”, “The Enchanted Wanderer”. Nikolai Leskov is the author of many wonderful works, the most famous of which is the story “Lefty”. The people liked the story so much that the word “left-handed” became a common noun, and means a person from the people, a master of his craft. Nikolai Semenovich Leskov died in February 1895. Nikolai was buried at the Volkovsky cemetery in St. Petersburg.

Russian writer Nikolai Semenovich Leskov was born in the village of Gorohovo, Oryol province in 1831. His father was an official and the son of a priest. His mother came from a noble family, and his childhood was an ordinary noble childhood. Big influence he was influenced by his aunt Paula, who married an English Quaker and joined this sect. At the age of sixteen, Leskov lost his parents and was left alone in the world, forced to earn his own bread. I had to leave school and enter the service. He served in various government provincial institutions. Here real pictures of Russian reality were revealed to him. But he truly discovered life when he left government service and began to serve the Englishman Shcott, like Aunt Paula, a sectarian who managed the huge estates of a wealthy landowner. In this service, Leskov acquired extensive knowledge about Russian life, very different from the typical ideas of young educated people of that time. Thanks to his everyday training, Leskov became one of those Russian writers who know life not as the owners of serf souls, whose views changed under the influence of French or German university theories, like Turgenev and Tolstoy, but know it from direct practice, regardless of theories. That is why his view of Russian life is so unusual, so free from the condescending sentimental pity for the Russian peasant, so characteristic of the liberal and educated serf owner.

Leskov: the path to and from literature. Lecture by Maya Kucherskaya

His literary work began with the writing of business reports for Mr. Schcott, who was not slow to pay attention to the common sense, observation, and knowledge of the people contained therein. Nikolai Leskov began writing for newspapers and magazines in 1860, when he was 29 years old. The first articles dealt only with practical, everyday issues. But soon - in 1862 - Leskov left the service, moved to St. Petersburg and became a professional journalist.

It was a time of great social upsurge. Public interests also captured Leskov, but in highest degree practical intelligence and everyday experience did not allow him to unconditionally join any of the then parties of hotheads who were not adapted to practical activities. Hence the isolation in which he found himself when an incident occurred that left an indelible mark on him. literary fate. He wrote an article about the big fires that destroyed part of St. Petersburg that year, the culprits of which were rumored to be " nihilists"and radical students. Leskov did not support this rumor, but mentioned it in his article and demanded that the police conduct a thorough investigation to confirm or refute the city rumors. This demand hit the radical press like a bomb exploding. Leskov was accused of inciting the mob against students and “informing” the police. He was boycotted and expelled from progressive magazines.

Portrait of Nikolai Semenovich Leskov. Artist V. Serov, 1894

At this time he began to write fiction. First story ( Muskox) appeared in 1863. A great romance followed Nowhere(1864). This novel caused new misunderstandings with radicals, who managed to discern in some characters slanderous caricatures of their friends; this was enough to brand Leskov as a vile slanderer-reactionary, although the main socialists in the novel are depicted as almost saints. In his next novel, On knives(1870–1871), Leskov went much further in his depiction of nihilists: they are presented as a bunch of scoundrels and scoundrels. It was not “political” novels that created Leskova real glory. This fame is based on his stories. But the novels made Leskov the bogeyman of all radical literature and deprived the most influential critics of the opportunity to treat him with at least some degree of objectivity. The only one who welcomed, appreciated and encouraged Leskov was the famous Slavophil critic Apollo Grigoriev, a man of genius, albeit extravagant. But in 1864 Grigoriev died, and Leskov owes all his later popularity only to the fact that he was not directed by anyone. good taste public.

The popularity began after the publication of the “chronicle” Soboryans in 1872 and a number of stories, mainly from the life of the clergy, which followed the chronicle and were published until the very end of the 1870s. In them, Leskov is a defender of conservative and Orthodox ideals, which attracted the favorable attention of high-ranking persons, including the wife of Alexander II, Empress Maria Alexandrovna. Thanks to the attention of the Empress, Leskov received a place on the committee of the Ministry of Education, practically a sinecure. At the end of the 70s. he joined the campaign for the defense of Orthodoxy against the Pietist propaganda of Lord Radstock. However, Leskov was never a consistent conservative, and even his support for Orthodoxy against Protestantism relied, as its main argument, on democratic humility, which distinguishes it from the aristocratic individualism of the “high society schism,” as he called the Radstock sect. His attitude towards church institutions was never entirely submissive, and his Christianity gradually became less traditional and more critical. The stories of the life of the clergy, written in the early 1880s, were largely satirical, and because of one such story he lost his place on the committee.

Leskov fell more and more under the influence of Tolstoy, and towards the end of his life he became a devout Tolstoyan. Betrayal of conservative principles again pushed him towards the left wing of journalism, and in last years he collaborated mainly in moderate-radical journals. However, those who dictated literary opinions did not speak out about Leskov and treated him very coldly. When he died in 1895, he had many readers throughout Russia, but few friends in literary circles. They say that shortly before his death he said: “Now I am read for the beauty of my inventions, but in fifty years the beauty will fade, and my books will be read only for the ideas that are contained therein.” This was an amazingly bad prophecy. Now, more than ever, Leskov is read for his incomparable form, for his style and manner of storytelling - least of all for his ideas. In fact, few of his fans understand what his ideas were. Not because these ideas are incomprehensible, but because attention is now absorbed in something completely different.

Compatriots recognize Leskov as the most Russian of Russian writers, who knew his people more deeply and widely than anyone else as they are.

Nicknames: M. Stebnitsky

Occupation: novelist, publicist

Direction: realism

Genre: novel, story, story, essay, tale

Nikolai Semenovich Leskov is one of the best masters of Russian prose, “the most Russian of Russian writers”, “Russian genius”, according to I. Severyanin’s definition.

Born on February 16, 1831 in the village of Gorokhov, Oryol province, in the family of a minor official.After 1839, the family moved to the village of Panino, where his knowledge of the people began.

He received his education at the Oryol gymnasium, where he studied poorly: forfive years later he received a certificate of completion of only two classesFrom the age of 16 he served as an official in Orel, then in Kyiv. In Kyiv 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 withpilgrims, old believers, sectarians. It was noted that the economist had a significant influence on the worldview of the future writer D.P. Zhuravsky, advocate of the abolition of serfdom.

In 1861 he moved to St. Petersburg. Writing activity I started with articles and feuilletons.

In the 60s Leskov created a number of realistic stories and novellas, which give a wide panorama of Russian life (“The Extinguished Case,” 1862; “Caustic,” “The Life of a Woman,” both 1863; “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk,” 1865). ; "Warrior", 1866; play "Spendthrift", 1867).

At the same time, one of Leskov’s early articles - about the St. Petersburg fires (1862) - served as the beginning of his long polemic with revolutionary democrats. The story “Musk Ox” (1863), the novels “Nowhere” (1864; under the pseudonym M. Stebnitsky) and “Outlooked” (1865) are directed against the “new people” introduced in the novel by N. G. Chernyshevsky “ What to do?".

The writer creates cartoonish types of nihilists (the story “The Mysterious Man”, 1870; the novel “On Knives”, 1870-1871). Leskov's ideal is not a revolutionary, but an educator trying to improve social order with the help of moral persuasion, propaganda of the Gospel ideals of goodness and justice.

In the mid-70s. Leskov created images of Orthodox righteous men, powerful in spirit (the novel “Soborians”, 1872; stories and short stories “The Enchanted Wanderer”, “The Sealed Angel”, both 1873; “The Immortal Golovan”, 1880; “Pechersk Antiquities”, 1883; “Odnodum”, 1889).

In the writer’s work, the motives of the national identity of the Russian people are strong (the story “Iron Will”, 1876; “The Tale of the Tula Oblique Lefty and the steel flea", 1881). The theme of the death of folk talents in Rus' is revealed in the story "The Stupid Artist" (1883).

In the mid-80s - 90s. The writer is occupied by a new type for Russia - the bourgeois (“Chertogon”, 1879, another name is “Christmas Evening at the Hypochondriac”; “Selected Grain”, 1884; “Robbery”, 1887; “Polunoshniki”, 1891). ).

The fusion of literary and folk language forms Leskov’s uniquely bright and lively storytelling style, when the image is revealed mainly through speech characteristics. Thus, in “Lefty” the hero rethinks comically and satirically the language of an environment alien to him, interprets many concepts in his own way, and creates new phrases.

Died March 5, 1895 in St. Petersburgfrom another attack of asthma, which tormented him for the last five years of his life.