189-508: Russian literature refers to the literature of Russia , its émigrés , and to Russian-language literature. Major contributors to Russian literature, as well as English for instance, are authors of different ethnic origins, including bilingual writers, such as Kyrgyz novelist Chinghiz Aitmatov . At the same time, Russian-language literature does not include works by authors from the Russian Federation who write exclusively or primarily in
378-608: A big game hunting holiday in Ethiopia . In the aftermath, Ivanov, who very likely wanted to have an affair with her, tried very hard to persuade Akhmatova to leave her immature husband, saying, "You'll make him a man if you do." Instead, following his return, Gumilev listened to his wife's poetry for the first time with respect. Furthermore, they departed with Osip Mandelstam to found the Acmeist movement, which rejected Ivanov and Symbolism. Akhmatova's ultimate evaluation of her former admirer
567-444: A chorus , collective improvisation would merge all participants into a communal unity. Thus, he hoped, the theatre would facilitate a genuinely spiritual revolution in culture and society. Writing in Po zvezdam in 1908, Ivanov argued: The theatres of the chorus tragedies, the comedies and the mysteries must become the breeding-ground for the creative, or prophetic, self-determination of
756-574: A communist-led revolution in Afghanistan, Soviet forces invaded the country, ultimately starting the Soviet–Afghan War . In May 1988, the Soviets started to withdraw from Afghanistan , due to international opposition, persistent anti-Soviet guerrilla warfare, and a lack of support by Soviet citizens. From 1985 onwards, the last Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev , who sought to enact liberal reforms in
945-493: A refugee included Martin Buber , Sir Isaiah Berlin , Sir Maurice Bowra , and Charles Du Bos . Since his death in 1949, Ivanov's writing has been praised and referenced by Pope John Paul II , who often referenced Ivanov's metaphor about Roman and Byzantine Christianity representing the two lungs of Christendom . Furthermore, after decades of his writings being banned by government censorship in his homeland, Ivanov has witnessed
1134-470: A theosophist and a political publicist. There was no object upon which he could not throw some new and unexpected light." Nicholas Zernov later wrote about both Ivanov and the meetings in the Tower, "He attracted the intellectuals and the artists who discussed religion, philosophy, literature, and politics; they listened to music and the recitation of poetry. Berdyaev usually presided over these gatherings, but
1323-626: A troika was designated to take charge. Eventually Joseph Stalin , the General Secretary of the Communist Party , managed to suppress all opposition factions and consolidate power in his hands to become the country's dictator by the 1930s. Leon Trotsky , the main proponent of world revolution , was exiled from the Soviet Union in 1929, and Stalin's idea of Socialism in One Country became
1512-595: A Varangian from the Rus' people , named Rurik , was elected ruler of Novgorod in 862. In 882, his successor Oleg ventured south and conquered Kiev , which had been previously paying tribute to the Khazars . Rurik's son Igor and Igor's son Sviatoslav subsequently subdued all local East Slavic tribes to Kievan rule, destroyed the Khazar Khaganate, and launched several military expeditions to Byzantium and Persia . In
1701-460: A continuum, celebrating 'Symbolist' tendencies in the art and culture of civilisations distant both temporally and spatially... According to Symbolist conviction, divisions between various fields of knowledge and artistic disciplines were artificial: poetry was intimately linked not only to painting, music, and drama, but also to philosophy, psychology, religion, and myth. The intellectual cross fertilization that took place at Ivanov's 'Tower', in short,
1890-506: A country than India, which, as regards enlightenment, is three thousand years older than we are!" In 1920, Ivanov moved to Baku , where he held the University Chair of Classical Philology. He concentrated on his scholarly work and completed a treatise Dionysus and Early Dionysianism (published 1923), which earned him a Ph.D. degree in philology . The new Marxist-Leninist government didn't allow Ivanov and his family to emigrate from
2079-501: A crisis. By 1991, economic and political turmoil began to boil over as the Baltic states chose to secede from the Soviet Union. On 17 March, a referendum was held, in which the vast majority of participating citizens voted in favour of changing the Soviet Union into a renewed federation . In June 1991, Boris Yeltsin became the first directly elected President in Russian history when he
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#17328491318762268-444: A dream of his late wife ordering him to marry Vera Shvarsalon, her daughter by her first marriage. Indeed, he married 23-year-old Vera in the summer of 1913; their son Dmitry had been born in 1912. Vera's death in 1920, at the age of 30, broke his heart. According to an autobiographical sketch written by Anna Akhmatova , Ivanov first met her in 1910. At the time, Akhmatova was still married to Nikolai Gumilev , who first brought her to
2457-639: A global superpower. After World War II, according to the Potsdam Conference , the Red Army occupied parts of Eastern and Central Europe, including East Germany and the eastern regions of Austria . Dependent communist governments were installed in the Eastern Bloc satellite states. After becoming the world's second nuclear power , the Soviet Union established the Warsaw Pact alliance, and entered into
2646-895: A great revival of interest since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Born in Moscow , Ivanov lost his father, a minor civil servant, when he was only five years old and was subsequently raised within the Russian Orthodox Church by his deeply religious mother. He graduated from the First Moscow Gymnasium with a gold medal and entered Moscow University where he studied history and philosophy under Sir Paul Vinogradoff . In 1886, he moved to Berlin University to study Classics , Roman law , and economics under Theodor Mommsen . During his stay in Imperial Germany , he absorbed
2835-591: A growing respect for, or at least ambivalence toward, a female ruler in Catherine the Great. This concept heralded an era of regarding female characteristics in writing as an abstract concept linked with attributes of frivolity, vanity and pathos. Some writers, on the other hand, were more direct in their praise for Catherine II. Gavrila Romanovich Derzhavin , famous for his odes, often dedicated his poems to Empress Catherine II. In contrast to most of his contemporaries, Derzhavin
3024-421: A historical no ideological basis's) than it did to German Romanticism and to the great poets and prose writers of nineteenth-century Russia. It was not so much an artistic movement as a comprehensive worldview, an attempt to give aesthetics a spiritual foundation. The Russian Symbolists sought to preserve the insights and achievements of past civilisations and to build upon them. They viewed human creativity as
3213-617: A host of languages ... and in a variety of alphabets", while also experimenting, "in grafting Classical Greek metres and syntax onto Russian verse", and revelling, "in obscure archaisms and recondite allusions to antiquity." After capturing the attention of Russian Symbolist poet Valery Bryusov while delivering a series of lectures on the cult of Dionysus at a short-lived Russian University in Paris in 1903, in 1905 Vyacheslav and Lidia Ivanov made their triumphant return to St Petersburg , where they were much lionized as foreign curiosities. They set up
3402-778: A large confederacy, which was subsequently taken over by the Cumans and the Kipchaks . The ancestors of Russians are among the Slavic tribes that separated from the Proto-Indo-Europeans, who appeared in the northeastern part of Europe c. 1500 years ago. The East Slavs gradually settled western Russia (approximately between modern Moscow and Saint-Petersburg ) in two waves: one moving from Kiev towards present-day Suzdal and Murom and another from Polotsk towards Novgorod and Rostov . Prior to Slavic migration, that territory
3591-474: A leading international dramatist. Other important 19th-century developments included Sergey Aksakov 's semi-autobiographical writings; the father of Russian social realism poetry school, known for the sharp epic poem Who Can Be Happy and Free in Russia? Nikolay Nekrasov ; the fabulist Ivan Krylov ; the precursor to Naturalism Aleksey Pisemsky ; non-fiction writers such as the critic Vissarion Belinsky and
3780-592: A literary salon known as " Среды Иванова [ ru ] " (Ivanov Wednesdays, better known as "On the Tower", from its location). According to James H. Billington , "'Viacheslav the Magnificent' was the crown prince and chef de salon of the new society, which met in his seventh-floor apartment 'The Tower,' overlooking the gardens of the Tauride Palace in St. Peterburg. Walls and partitions were torn down to accommodate
3969-470: A look at drama, which in modern history has replaced the spectacles of universal and holy events as reflected in miniature and purely signifying forms on the stages of the mystery plays . We know that classical French tragedy is one of triumphs of the transformational, decisive idealistic principle. Calderón , however, is different. In him, everything is but a signification of the objective truth of Divine Providence, which governs human destiny. A pious son of
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#17328491318764158-459: A novel mix of narration, autobiography, and aesthetic as well as social commentary, and Yury Tynyanov (1893–1943), who used his knowledge of Russia's literary history to produce a set of historical novels mainly set in the Pushkin era (e.g., Lieutenant Kijé , Pushkin in three parts, 1935–43, and others). Following the establishment of Bolshevik rule, Vladimir Mayakovsky worked on interpreting
4347-789: A pilgrimage is The Pilgrimage of the Abbot Daniel , which records the journey of Daniel the Traveller to the Holy Land . Complex epic works such as The Tale of the Destruction of Ryazan recall the havoc caused by the Mongol invasions. Other notable Russian literary works include Zadonschina , Physiologist , Synopsis and A Journey Beyond the Three Seas . Medieval Russian literature had an overwhelmingly religious character and used an adapted form of
4536-458: A pre-realistic novel in verse, Eugene Onegin (1833). Other poets important to the movement include Konstantin Batyushkov , Pyotr Vyazemsky , Yevgeny Baratynsky , Fyodor Tyutchev and Dmitry Venevitinov , along with the novelists Antony Pogorelsky , Alexander Bestuzhev and "Russian Hoffmann" Vladimir Odoyevsky . Tyutchev is best known for the following verse: Who would grasp Russia with
4725-620: A public debate against Benedetto Croce , which enormously bolstered his intellectual reputation in the West. Ivanov spent the remainder of his life in Rome as a professor at both the Pontifical Oriental Institute and the Russicum , where his students included future Martyrs and confessors under Stalinism Bishop Theodore Romzha , Fr. Pietro Leoni , and Fr. Walter Ciszek . His close friends as
4914-618: A secret protocol within the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact with Nazi Germany . The Soviet Union later invaded Finland , and occupied and annexed the Baltic states , as well as parts of Romania . On 22 June 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union , opening the Eastern Front , the largest theater of World War II. Eventually, some 5 million Red Army troops were captured by the Nazis;
5103-508: A struggle for global dominance, known as the Cold War , with the rivalling United States and NATO . After Stalin's death in 1953 and a short period of collective rule , the new leader Nikita Khrushchev denounced Stalin and launched the policy of de-Stalinization , releasing many political prisoners from the Gulag labour camps. The general easement of repressive policies became known later as
5292-426: Is Russian philosophy , which reached its peak at this time (see works of Nikolai Berdyaev , Pavel Florensky , Semyon Frank , Nikolay Lossky , Vasily Rozanov , and others). Tramp squares with rebellious treading! Up heads! As proud peaks be seen! In the second flood we are spreading Every city on earth will be clean. Vladimir Mayakovsky , Our March (1917), translation The first years of
5481-635: Is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council ; a member state of the G20 , SCO , BRICS , APEC , OSCE , and WTO ; and the leading member state of post-Soviet organisations such as CIS , CSTO , and EAEU/EEU . It possesses the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons and has the third-highest military expenditure . Russia is generally considered a great power and is a regional power . Internationally, Russia ranks very low in measurements of democracy , human rights and freedom of
5670-500: Is always the same—God-like man wrestles with fate) and then at the appropriate moment we join hands and begin to dance. Imagine yourself, reader, if only for just one minute, in this role. We are the ones who will be spinning round the sacrificial altar—all of us: the fashionable lady, the up-and-coming stockbroker, the worker and the member of the State Council. It is too much to expect that our steps and our gestures will coincide. While
5859-455: Is fundamentally the Russian vernacular." Old Russian "bookish" literature traces its beginnings to the introduction of Old Church Slavonic in Kievan Rus' as a liturgical language in the late 10th century following Christianization . The East Slavs soon developed their own literature, and the oldest dated manuscript of Early Russian as well all-Slavic literature that has survived to this day
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6048-423: Is known for his satirical chronicle The History of a Town (1870) and the family saga The Golovlyov Family (1880), which are considered his masterpieces. Nikolai Leskov is best remembered for his shorter fiction and for his (together with Pavel Melnikov ) unique skaz techniques, namely oral form of narrative stylization. Late in the century Anton Chekhov emerged as a master of the short story as well as
6237-439: Is mine, and that is also mine." And the princes began to pronounce of a paltry thing, 'this is great'; and themselves amongst them to forge feuds; and the heathens from all sides advanced with victories against the Russian land. — The Tale of Igor's Campaign , 2.1 ( c. 1185 ), translated by Leonard A. Magnus The main type of Old Russian historical literature were chronicles , most of them anonymous. The oldest one
6426-526: Is rare sample of the Rococo style, erotic light poetry in Russia. Alexander Nikolayevich Radishchev , for example, shocked the Russian public with his depictions of the socio-economic condition of the serfs . Empress Catherine II condemned this portrayal, forcing Radishchev into exile in Siberia . Others, however, picked topics less offensive to the autocrat . the historian and writer Nikolay Karamzin , 1766–1826,
6615-724: Is the Primary Chronicle or Tale of Nestor the Chronicler (c. 1115). The oldest surviving manuscripts include the Laurentian Codex of 1377 and the Hypatian Codex dating to the 1420s. Anonymous works include The Tale of Igor's Campaign (a 12th century prose poem masterpiece) and Praying of Daniel the Immured . Hagiographies ( Russian : жития святых , romanized : zhitiya svyatykh , lit. 'lives of
6804-580: Is the Novgorod Codex or Novgorod Psalter written c. 1000, unearthed in 2000 at Veliky Novgorod , containing four wooden tablet pages filled with wax. Another earliest Russian book is the Ostromir Gospels written in 1056–1057, which belongs to the set of liturgical texts that were translated from other languages. The discord of the princes ruined them against the Pagans. For, brother spake to brother;—"This
6993-506: Is the world's ninth-most populous country and Europe's most populous country . Russia is a highly urbanised country including 16 population centres with over a million inhabitants. Its capital and largest city is Moscow . Saint Petersburg is Russia's second-largest city and its cultural capital . The East Slavs emerged as a recognised group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries CE. The first East Slavic state, Kievan Rus' , arose in
7182-400: Is traditionally referred to as the "Golden Era" of Russian literature. The period of Romantic literature saw the flowering of poetic talent, in particular; the names of Vasily Zhukovsky and his protégé Alexander Pushkin came to the fore. Pushkin is credited with crystallizing the literary Russian language and introducing a new level of artistry to Russian literature. His best-known work is
7371-606: The Oxford English Dictionary , the English name Russia first appeared in the 14th century, borrowed from Medieval Latin : Russia , used in the 11th century and frequently in 12th-century British sources, in turn derived from Russi , 'the Russians'; and the suffix -ia . In modern historiography, this state is usually denoted as Kievan Rus' after its capital city. Another Medieval Latin name for Rus'
7560-694: The Age of Enlightenment , literature had grown in importance, and from the early 1830s, Russian literature underwent an astounding "Golden Age" in poetry, prose and drama. The Romantic movement contributed to a flowering of literary talent: poet Vasily Zhukovsky and later his protégé Alexander Pushkin came to the fore. Mikhail Lermontov was one of the most important poets and novelists. Nikolai Gogol and Ivan Turgenev wrote masterful short stories and novels. Fyodor Dostoevsky and Leo Tolstoy became internationally renowned. Other important figures were Ivan Goncharov , Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin and Nikolai Leskov . In
7749-630: The Alps became the subject of his first sonnets , which were heavily influenced by the medieval poetry of Catholic mystics. At the turn of the 20th century, Ivanov elaborated his views on the spiritual mission of Rome and the Ancient Greek cult of Dionysus . He summed up his Dionysian ideas in the treatise The Hellenic Religion of the Suffering God (1904), which traces the roots of literature in general and, following Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy ,
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7938-455: The Apollonian and Dionysian could be synthesized within a concept of universal brotherhood would have been completely alien to Nietzsche, who had always stressed the fundamental differences between the two traditions. Ivanov, however, interpreted Dionysus as an avatar for Jesus Christ . By means of the mask, he argued, the tragic hero appears not as an individual character but rather as
8127-543: The Battle of Kursk in the summer of 1943. Another German failure was the Siege of Leningrad , in which the city was fully blockaded on land between 1941 and 1944 by German and Finnish forces, and suffered starvation and more than a million deaths, but never surrendered. Soviet forces steamrolled through Eastern and Central Europe in 1944–1945 and captured Berlin in May 1945. In August 1945,
8316-731: The Brusilov Offensive of the Imperial Russian Army almost completely destroyed the Austro-Hungarian Army . However, the already-existing public distrust of the regime was deepened by the rising costs of war, high casualties , and rumors of corruption and treason. All this formed the climate for the Russian Revolution of 1917, carried out in two major acts. In early 1917, Nicholas II was forced to abdicate ; he and his family were imprisoned and later executed during
8505-518: The Byzantine Rite . However, his sympathies towards Rome and those of many like him are based on motives of an aesthetic and mystical character, of quite vague and extremely whimsical fantasies." During an Italian voyage with his wife (1912–13), Ivanov met often with Aurelio Palmieri , an Italian scholar of Eastern Christianity, whose writings were later condemned by the Church as Modernistic . During
8694-470: The Congress of Vienna , which defined the map of post-Napoleonic Europe. The officers who pursued Napoleon into Western Europe brought ideas of liberalism back to Russia, and attempted to curtail the tsar's powers during the abortive Decembrist revolt of 1825. At the end of the conservative reign of Nicholas I (1825–1855), a zenith period of Russia's power and influence in Europe, was disrupted by defeat in
8883-677: The Crimean War . Nicholas's successor Alexander II (1855–1881) enacted significant changes throughout the country, including the emancipation reform of 1861 . These reforms spurred industrialisation, and modernised the Imperial Russian Army, which liberated much of the Balkans from Ottoman rule in the aftermath of the 1877–1878 Russo-Turkish War . During most of the 19th and early 20th century, Russia and Britain colluded over Afghanistan and its neighbouring territories in Central and South Asia;
9072-634: The Cubo-Futurism with practice of zaum , the experimental visual and sound poetry ( David Burliuk , Velimir Khlebnikov , Aleksei Kruchenykh , Nikolai Aseyev , Vladimir Mayakovsky ); the Ego-Futurism based on a personality cult ( Igor Severyanin and Vasilisk Gnedov ); and the Acmeist poetry , a Russian modernist school, which emerged ca. 1911 and to symbols preferred direct expression through exact images ( Anna Akhmatova , Nikolay Gumilev , Georgiy Ivanov , Mikhail Kuzmin , Osip Mandelstam ). Though
9261-651: The First Duma began meeting across the road, the Tower understandably became the most fashionable literary salon of the Silver Age of Russian Poetry , and was frequented by poets ( Alexander Blok ), philosophers ( Nikolai Berdyayev ), artists ( Konstantin Somov ), and dramatists ( Vsevolod Meyerhold ). The Ivanovs accordingly exerted an enormous influence upon the Russian Symbolist movement, whose main tenets were formulated in
9450-850: The First World War , the October Revolution , the Russian Civil War , and his 1924 emigration from the Soviet Union to Fascist Italy , Ivanov converted in 1926 to the Russian Greek Catholic Church , which remains one of the smallest of the Eastern Catholic Churches . Ivanov had previously lived a life so hedonistic that he later compared his conversion in a work of Russian poetry to that of St. Augustine . In 1931, Ivanov successfully defended Christianity in
9639-459: The Germanosphere , Ivanov was a hugely influential avant garde dramatic theorist and sought, under the influence of Ancient Greek , Medieval , and Spanish Golden Age theatre, to blur and even to erase the fourth wall and make the audience into participants in the dramas they attended. The radically innovative theatre director Vsevolod Meyerhold is only one of those who has been enormously influenced by Ivanov's dramatic philosophy. Following
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#17328491318769828-487: The Great Northern War (1700–1721), securing Russia's access to the sea and sea trade. In 1703, on the Baltic Sea, Peter founded Saint Petersburg as Russia's new capital. Throughout his rule, sweeping reforms were made , which brought significant Western European cultural influences to Russia. He was succeeded by Catherine I (1725–1727), followed by Peter II (1727–1730), and Anna . The reign of Peter I's daughter Elizabeth in 1741–1762 saw Russia's participation in
10017-404: The Khrushchev Thaw . At the same time, Cold War tensions reached its peak when the two rivals clashed over the deployment of the United States Jupiter missiles in Turkey and Soviet missiles in Cuba . In 1957, the Soviet Union launched the world's first artificial satellite , Sputnik 1 , thus starting the Space Age . Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to orbit
10206-462: The Oldowan period in the early Lower Paleolithic . About 2 million years ago, representatives of Homo erectus migrated to the Taman Peninsula in southern Russia. Flint tools, some 1.5 million years old, have been discovered in the North Caucasus . Radiocarbon dated specimens from Denisova Cave in the Altai Mountains estimate the oldest Denisovan specimen lived 195–122,700 years ago. Fossils of Denny , an archaic human hybrid that
10395-450: The Rurik dynasty that ruled Kievan Rus' collectively. Kiev's dominance waned, to the benefit of Vladimir-Suzdal in the north-east, the Novgorod Republic in the north, and Galicia-Volhynia in the south-west. By the 12th century, Kiev lost its pre-eminence and Kievan Rus' had fragmented into different principalities. Prince Andrey Bogolyubsky sacked Kiev in 1169 and made Vladimir his base, leading to political power being shifted to
10584-418: The Russian Academy of Sciences and his groundbreaking translations of French and classical works to the Russian language. A turning point in the course of Russian literature, his translation of Paul Tallemant's work Voyage to the Isle of Love , was the first to use the Russian vernacular as opposed the formal and outdated Church-Slavonic . This introduction set a precedent for secular works to be composed in
10773-407: The Russian Civil War . The monarchy was replaced by a shaky coalition of political parties that declared itself the Provisional Government , and proclaimed the Russian Republic . On 19 January [ O.S. 6 January], 1918, the Russian Constituent Assembly declared Russia a democratic federal republic (thus ratifying the Provisional Government's decision). The next day the Constituent Assembly
10962-402: The Russian Empire , which remains the third-largest empire in history . However, with the Russian Revolution in 1917, Russia's monarchic rule was abolished and eventually replaced by the Russian SFSR —the world's first constitutionally socialist state . Following the Russian Civil War , the Russian SFSR established the Soviet Union with three other Soviet republics , within which it was
11151-400: The Russian Revolution of 1917, literature split into Soviet and white émigré parts. While the Soviet Union assured universal literacy and a highly developed book printing industry, it also established ideological censorship . In the 1930s Socialist realism became the predominant trend in Russia. Its leading figures were Nikolay Ostrovsky , Alexander Fadeyev and other writers, who laid
11340-428: The Russian nobility with an angle of critique. Fonvizin felt the nobility should be held to the standards they were under the reign of Peter the Great, during which the quality of devotion to the state was rewarded. His works criticized the current system for rewarding the nobility without holding them responsible for the duties they once performed. Using satire and comedy, Fonvizin supported a system of nobility in which
11529-408: The Seven Years' War (1756–1763). During the conflict, Russian troops overran East Prussia , reaching Berlin. However, upon Elizabeth's death, all these conquests were returned to the Kingdom of Prussia by pro-Prussian Peter III of Russia . Catherine II ("the Great"), who ruled in 1762–1796, presided over the Russian Age of Enlightenment . She extended Russian political control over
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#173284913187611718-474: The Siberian River Routes , and by the mid-17th century, there were Russian settlements in eastern Siberia, on the Chukchi Peninsula , along the Amur River , and on the coast of the Pacific Ocean. In 1648, Semyon Dezhnyov became the first European to navigate through the Bering Strait . Under Peter the Great , Russia was proclaimed an empire in 1721, and established itself as one of the European great powers. Ruling from 1682 to 1725, Peter defeated Sweden in
11907-451: The Soviet Union , but through the influence of his former protege Anatoly Lunacharsky , exit visas were finally granted in 1924. From Azerbaijan he proceeded to Italy , where he settled first at Pavia , where he was employed as Professor of Russian literature between 1926 and 1934. He was then elected professor of Russian literature at the University of Florence , but the Government of Fascist Italy , refused to allow Ivanov to take up
12096-412: The Soviet Union , by joining the Russian SFSR into a single state with the Byelorussian , Transcaucasian , and Ukrainian republics. Eventually internal border changes and annexations during World War II created a union of 15 republics ; the largest in size and population being the Russian SFSR, which dominated the union politically, culturally, and economically. Following Lenin's death in 1924,
12285-474: The Spanish Church , he was able to combine all the daring of naive individualism with the most profound realism of the mystical contemplation of divine things." Future Russian Orthodox nun and martyr Maria Skobtsova was then an acclaimed Symbolist poet and frequent guest at the Ivanov flat. Decades later, while living in Paris as an anti-communist White emigre who had returned to her ancestral religious roots, Skobtsova felt deeply ashamed as she recalled
12474-406: The hedonistic atmosphere among the intellectuals at the Tower. She often expressed the belief that her past self and all her colleagues at the Tower could have learned much from any rural peasant woman praying in her Orthodox parish church. Skobtsova elaborated, "We lived in the middle of a vast country as if on an uninhabited island. Russia was illiterate , whereas our milieu was concentrated all
12663-516: The mask ("Poèt i Čern") that was published in the magazine Vesy ( Libra or The Scales ) in 1904, Ivanov argued for a revival of the ancient relationship between the poet and the masses. Inspired by The Birth of Tragedy and Wagner's theory of Gesamtkunstwerk , Ivanov sought to provide a philosophical foundation for his proposals by linking Nietzsche's analysis with Leo Tolstoy 's Christian religious movement , and ancient Dionysian dramas with later Christian mystery plays. The idea that both
12852-487: The philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche while in Rome . Following a surrender to their mutual attraction one night in the Colosseum , Ivanov left his wife and daughter for married Afro-Russian poet Lydia Zinovieva-Annibal . Following their Orthodox ecclesiastical divorces and clandestine remarriage in a Greek Orthodox ceremony at Livorno , Ivanov and Zinovieva-Annibal returned to their homeland and plunged headfirst into Tsarist Russia 's literary bohemia . For most of
13041-549: The "Silver Age" are Anna Akhmatova , Marina Tsvetaeva , Osip Mandelstam , and Boris Pasternak . The Russian symbolism was the first Silver Age development in the 1890s. It arose enough separately from West European symbolism, emphasizing mysticism of Sophiology and defamiliarization . Its most significant figures included philosopher and poet Vladimir Solovyov (1853–1900), poets and writers Valery Bryusov (1873–1924), Fyodor Sologub (1863–1927), Vyacheslav Ivanov (1866–1949), Konstantin Balmont (1867–1942), and figures of
13230-494: The 10th to 11th centuries, Kievan Rus' became one of the largest and most prosperous states in Europe. The reigns of Vladimir the Great (980–1015) and his son Yaroslav the Wise (1019–1054) constitute the Golden Age of Kiev, which saw the acceptance of Orthodox Christianity from Byzantium , and the creation of the first East Slavic written legal code , the Russkaya Pravda . The age of feudalism and decentralisation had come, marked by constant in-fighting between members of
13419-448: The 16th century, Russia expanded east of the Ural Mountains . However, the Tsardom was weakened by the long and unsuccessful Livonian War against the coalition of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (later the united Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth ), the Kingdom of Sweden , and Denmark–Norway for access to the Baltic coast and sea trade. In 1572, an invading army of Crimean Tatars were thoroughly defeated in
13608-543: The 20th century saw some of the most significant Russian technological achievements , including the first human-made satellite and the first human expedition into outer space . In 1991, the Russian SFSR emerged from the dissolution of the Soviet Union as the Russian Federation. A new constitution was adopted, which established a federal semi-presidential system . Since the turn of the century, Russia's political system has been dominated by Vladimir Putin , under whom
13797-560: The 9th century, and in 988, it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire . Kievan Rus' ultimately disintegrated; the Grand Duchy of Moscow led the unification of Russian lands, leading to the proclamation of the Tsardom of Russia in 1547. By the early 18th century, Russia had vastly expanded through conquest, annexation, and the efforts of Russian explorers , developing into
13986-479: The Archpriest Avvakum —an outstanding novelty autobiography written by the one of leaders of the 17th-century religious dissidents Old Believers Avvakum —is considered masterpiece of pre-Petrian literature, which blends high Old Church Slavonic with low Russian vernacular and profanity without following literary canons. After taking the throne at the end of the 17th century, Peter the Great's influence on
14175-583: The Byzantine double-headed eagle his own, and eventually Russia's, coat-of-arms. Vasili III united all of Russia by annexing the last few independent Russian states in the early 16th century. In development of the Third Rome ideas, the grand duke Ivan IV ("the Terrible") was officially crowned the first tsar of Russia in 1547. The tsar promulgated a new code of laws ( Sudebnik of 1550 ), established
14364-659: The Church Slavonic language with many South Slavic elements. In the 16th century, reflecting the political centralization and unification of the country under the tsar , chronicles were updated and codified, the Russian Orthodox Church began issuing its decrees in the Stoglav , and a large compilation called the Great Menaion Reader collected both the more modern polemical texts and the hagiographical and patristic legacy of Old Russia. The Book of Royal Degrees codified
14553-599: The Earth, aboard the Vostok ;1 crewed spacecraft on 12 April 1961 . Following the ousting of Khrushchev in 1964, another period of collective rule ensued, until Leonid Brezhnev became the leader. The era of the 1970s and the early 1980s was later designated as the Era of Stagnation . The 1965 Kosygin reform aimed for partial decentralisation of the Soviet economy . In 1979, after
14742-507: The Great , Lomonosov's works often focused on themes of the awe-inspiring, grandeur nature, and was therefore drawn to Peter because of the magnitude of his military, architectural and cultural feats. In contrast to Sumarokov's devotion to simplicity, Lomonosov favored a belief in a hierarchy of literary styles divided into high, middle and low. This style facilitated Lomonosov's grandiose, high minded writing and use of both vernacular and Church-Slavonic. The influence of Peter I and debates over
14931-713: The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and annexed most of its territories into Russia , making it the most populous country in Europe. In the south, after the successful Russo-Turkish Wars against the Ottoman Empire , Catherine advanced Russia's boundary to the Black Sea, by dissolving the Crimean Khanate , and annexing Crimea . As a result of victories over Qajar Iran through the Russo-Persian Wars , by
15120-914: The Provisional Government and gave full governing power to the soviets, leading to the creation of the world's first socialist state . The Russian Civil War broke out between the anti-communist White movement and the Bolsheviks with its Red Army . In the aftermath of signing the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk that concluded hostilities with the Central Powers of World War I ; Bolshevist Russia surrendered most of its western territories, which hosted 34% of its population, 54% of its industries, 32% of its agricultural land, and roughly 90% of its coal mines. The Allied powers launched an unsuccessful military intervention in support of anti-communist forces. In
15309-893: The Red Army invaded Manchuria and ousted the Japanese from Northeast Asia, contributing to the Allied victory over Japan. The 1941–1945 period of World War II is known in Russia as the Great Patriotic War . The Soviet Union, along with the United States, the United Kingdom and China were considered the Big Four of Allied powers in World War II, and later became the Four Policemen , which
15498-451: The Russian autocratic state. The destruction of Kievan Rus' saw the eventual rise of the Grand Duchy of Moscow , initially a part of Vladimir-Suzdal . While still under the domain of the Mongol - Tatars and with their connivance, Moscow began to assert its influence in the region in the early 14th century, gradually becoming the leading force in the "gathering of the Russian lands". When
15687-399: The Russian culture would extend far into the 18th century . Peter's reign during the beginning of the 18th century initiated a series of modernizing changes in Russian literature. The reforms he implemented encouraged Russian artists and scientists to make innovations in their crafts and fields with the intention of creating an economy and culture comparable. Peter's example set a precedent for
15876-532: The Russian parliament culminated in a constitutional crisis which ended violently through military force. During the crisis, Yeltsin was backed by Western governments, and over 100 people were killed. In December, a referendum was held and approved, which introduced a new constitution, giving the president enormous powers. The 1990s were plagued by armed conflicts in the North Caucasus , both local ethnic skirmishes and separatist Islamist insurrections. From
16065-518: The Silver Age is famous mostly for its poetry, it produced some first-rate novelists and short-story writers, such as naturalist Aleksandr Kuprin , realists Nobel Prize winner Ivan Bunin and Vikenty Veresaev , pioneer of Russian expressionism Leonid Andreyev , symbolists Fedor Sologub , Aleksey Remizov , Dmitry Merezhkovsky , Andrei Bely , Alexander Belyaev , and Yevgeny Zamyatin , though most of them wrote poetry as well as prose. In 1915/16,
16254-408: The Soviet Union led Russia into a deep and prolonged depression. During and after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, wide-ranging reforms including privatisation and market and trade liberalisation were undertaken, including radical changes along the lines of " shock therapy ". The privatisation largely shifted control of enterprises from state agencies to individuals with inside connections in
16443-523: The Soviet Union. The transitional disorganisation of the country's agriculture, combined with the harsh state policies and a drought, led to the Soviet famine of 1932–1933 ; which killed 5.7 to 8.7 million, 3.3 million of them in the Russian SFSR. The Soviet Union, ultimately, made the costly transformation from a largely agrarian economy to a major industrial powerhouse within a short span of time. The Soviet Union entered World War II on 17 September 1939 with its invasion of Poland , in accordance with
16632-507: The Soviet regime after the October Revolution of 1917, featured a proliferation of Russian avant-garde literary groups, and proletarian literature receive official support. The Imaginists were post-Revolution poetic movement, similar to English-language Imagists , that created poetry based on sequences of arresting and uncommon images. The major figures include Sergei Yesenin , Anatoly Marienhof , and Rurik Ivnev . Another important movement
16821-406: The Soviet system, introduced the policies of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring) in an attempt to end the period of economic stagnation and to democratise the government . This, however, led to the rise of strong nationalist and separatist movements across the country. Prior to 1991, the Soviet economy was the world's second-largest, but during its final years, it went into
17010-594: The Ukrainian leader, Bohdan Khmelnytsky , offered to place Ukraine under the protection of the Russian tsar, Alexis ; whose acceptance of this offer led to another Russo-Polish War . Ultimately, Ukraine was split along the Dnieper , leaving the eastern part, ( Left-bank Ukraine and Kiev ) under Russian rule. In the east, the rapid Russian exploration and colonisation of vast Siberia continued, hunting for valuable furs and ivory. Russian explorers pushed eastward primarily along
17199-801: The Volga-Dnieper region of southern Russia and Ukraine as the urheimat of the Proto-Indo-Europeans . Early Indo-European migrations from the Pontic–Caspian steppe of Ukraine and Russia spread Yamnaya ancestry and Indo-European languages across large parts of Eurasia. Nomadic pastoralism developed in the Pontic–Caspian steppe beginning in the Chalcolithic . Remnants of these steppe civilizations were discovered in places such as Ipatovo , Sintashta , Arkaim , and Pazyryk , which bear
17388-445: The art of tragedy in particular to ancient Dionysian mysteries. This was because, similarly to his hero Vladimir Soloviev , Ivanov, "understood Nietzsche as a Christian thinker in spite of himself. This explains why he applies New Testament concepts to Nietzsche's fundamentally anti-Christian worldview." With the assistance of both his ex-wife and the poet and philosopher Vladimir Soloviev , Ivanov's first collection, Lodestars ,
17577-505: The backwardness Peter attempted to correct through his reforms. Kantemir honored this tradition of reform not only through his support for Peter, but by initiating a decade-long debate on the proper syllabic versification using the Russian language. Vasily Kirillovich Trediakovsky , a poet, playwright, essayist, translator and contemporary to Antiokh Kantemir, also found himself deeply entrenched in Enlightenment conventions in his work with
17766-630: The canal's rippled icy surface, The drug store, the street, and streetlight. Alexander Blok , Night, street and streetlight, drug store... (1912), translated by Alex Cigale The 1890s and the beginning of the 20th century ranks as the Silver Age of Russian poetry. Well-known poets of the period include: Alexander Blok , Sergei Yesenin , Valery Bryusov , Konstantin Balmont , Mikhail Kuzmin , Igor Severyanin , Sasha Chorny , Nikolay Gumilyov , Maximilian Voloshin , Innokenty Annensky , Zinaida Gippius . The poets most often associated with
17955-576: The capital Moscow. In 1612, the Poles were forced to retreat by the Russian volunteer corps, led by merchant Kuzma Minin and prince Dmitry Pozharsky . The Romanov dynasty acceded to the throne in 1613 by the decision of the Zemsky Sobor, and the country started its gradual recovery from the crisis. Russia continued its territorial growth through the 17th century, which was the age of the Cossacks . In 1654,
18144-413: The church and state lost control over the written word, which are reflected in the texts of writers such as Avraamy Palitsyn who developed a literary technique for representing complex characters. In the second half of the 17th century, the literature of Baroque took shape, primarily due to the initiative of tsar Alexis of Russia , who wanted to open a court theatre in 1672. Its director and playwright
18333-480: The class struggle still exists, these appeals for an aesthetic democratization are strange. His wife's death in 1907 was a great blow to Ivanov. Thereafter the dazzling Byzantine texture of his poetry wore thin, as he insensibly slipped into theosophy and spiritualism , while being preyed upon emotionally and financially by a fraudulent medium who claimed the ability to summon Lydia from the afterlife. The medium departed for other targets, however, after Ivanov had
18522-530: The control of the Golden Horde and consolidated the whole of northern Rus' under Moscow's dominion, and was the first Russian ruler to take the title "Grand Duke of all Rus'". After the fall of Constantinople in 1453, Moscow claimed succession to the legacy of the Eastern Roman Empire . Ivan III married Sophia Palaiologina , the niece of the last Byzantine emperor Constantine XI , and made
18711-476: The country has experienced democratic backsliding and become an authoritarian dictatorship . Russia has been militarily involved in a number of conflicts in former Soviet states and other countries , including its war with Georgia in 2008 and its war with Ukraine since 2014, which has involved the internationally unrecognised annexations of Ukrainian territory including Crimea in 2014 and four other regions in 2022 during an ongoing invasion . Russia
18900-834: The country was more often referred to by its inhabitants as Rus ' , the Russian land ( Russkaia zemlia ), or the Muscovite state ( Moskovskoe gosudarstvo ), among other variations. In 1721, Peter the Great changed the name of the state from Tsardom of Russia ( Russian : Русское царство , romanized : Russkoye tsarstvo ) or Tsardom of Muscovy ( Russian : Московское царство , romanized : Moskovskoye tsarstvo ) to Russian Empire ( Rossiiskaia imperiia ). There are several words in Russian which translate to "Russians" in English. The noun and adjective русский , russkiy refers to ethnic Russians . The adjective российский , rossiiskiy denotes Russian citizens regardless of ethnicity. The same applies to
19089-446: The crucial Battle of Molodi . The death of Ivan's sons marked the end of the ancient Rurik dynasty in 1598, and in combination with the disastrous famine of 1601–1603 , led to a civil war, the rule of pretenders, and foreign intervention during the Time of Troubles in the early 17th century. The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth , taking advantage, occupied parts of Russia, extending into
19278-765: The cult of Dionysus and were married in a Greek Orthodox ceremony at Livorno in 1899. Despite the rejection of Christian morality represented by both the adulterous beginning of his relationship with Lidia and their decision, similarly to many other members of Tsarist Russia's literary bohemia , to have an open marriage , Ivanov would paradoxically recall, "Through each other we discovered ourselves - and more than ourselves: I would say that we found God ." They first settled in Athens , then moving to Geneva , and making pilgrimages to Egypt and Palestine . During that period, Ivanov frequently visited Italy , where he studied Renaissance art. The rugged nature of Lombardy and
19467-586: The cult of the tsar, the Domostroy laid down the rules for family life, and other texts such as the History of Kazan were used to justify the actions of the tsar. The Tale of Peter and Fevronia were among the original tales of this period, and Russian tsar Ivan IV wrote some of most original works of 16th-century Russian literature. The Time of Troubles marked a turning point in Old Russian literature as both
19656-501: The culture of the world: the Greeks were quoted by heart, we welcomed the French symbolists , we thought of Scandinavian literature as our own, we were familiar with the philosophy, theology, poetry and history of the whole wide world, in this sense we were citizens of the universe, the keepers of mankind's cultural museum. This was Rome in the time of its decline... We played out the last act of
19845-422: The division between actor and audience in a collective improvisation), others were more skeptical. The poet Andrei Bely argued that the realities of a modern, class-divided society could not be abolished by means of masks and costumes, however earnestly adopted: Let's suppose we go into the temple-theatre, robe ourselves in white clothes, crown ourselves with bunches of roses, perform a mystery play (its theme
20034-559: The earliest known traces of horses in warfare . The genetic makeup of speakers of the Uralic language family in northern Europe was shaped by migration from Siberia that began at least 3,500 years ago. In the 3rd to 4th centuries CE, the Gothic kingdom of Oium existed in southern Russia, which was later overrun by Huns . Between the 3rd and 6th centuries CE, the Bosporan Kingdom , which
20223-571: The educational system of the Polish Jesuits . Mentioned Symeon of Polotsk created a new style which fused elements of ancient and contemporary Western European literature with traditional Russian rhetoric and the imperial ideology, which marked a key step in the Westernization of Russian literature. Syllabic poetry was also brought to Russia, and the work of Simeon of Polotsk was continued by Sylvester Medvedev and Karion Istomin . The Life of
20412-490: The elite were rewarded based upon personal merit rather than the hierarchal favoritism that was rampant during Catherine the Great's reign. I lay, and heard the voice of God: "Arise, oh prophet, watch and hearken, And with my Will thy soul engird, Through lands that dim and seas that darken, Burn thou men's hearts with this, my Word." Alexander Pushkin , The Prophet (1826), translated by Babette Deutsch and Avrahm Yarmolinsky The 19th century
20601-403: The embodiment of a fundamental Dionysian reality, "the one all-human I." By means of hero's example, therefore, staged myth would give the people access to its sense of the "total unity of suffering." Rejecting theatrical illusion, Ivanov's modern liturgical theatre would offer not the representation of action ( mimesis ), but action itself ( praxis ). This would be achieved by overcoming
20790-529: The facts of the new reality. His works, such as "Ode to the Revolution" and "Left March" (both 1918), brought innovations to poetry. In "Left March", Mayakovsky calls for a struggle against the enemies of the Russian Revolution. The poem 150 000 000 (1921) discusses the leading role played by the masses in the revolution. In the poem Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1924), Mayakovsky looks at the life and work at
20979-474: The first Europeans to reach and colonise Alaska . In 1803–1806, the first Russian circumnavigation was made. In 1820, a Russian expedition discovered the continent of Antarctica . During the Napoleonic Wars , Russia joined alliances with various European powers, and fought against France. The French invasion of Russia at the height of Napoleon's power in 1812 reached Moscow, but eventually failed as
21168-522: The first Russian psychological novel . Aleksey K. Tolstoy and Afanasy Fet were also significant. As Romanticism came to command the stage, realistic began to flourish as well. The first great Russian novel was Dead Souls (1842) by Nikolai Gogol . The realistic natural school of fiction is said to have begun with the works of Ivan Goncharov , mainly remembered for his novel Oblomov (1859), as well as Ivan Turgenev . Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Leo Tolstoy soon became internationally renowned, to
21357-549: The first Russian feudal representative body (the Zemsky Sobor ), revamped the military, curbed the influence of the clergy, and reorganised local government. During his long reign, Ivan nearly doubled the already large Russian territory by annexing the three Tatar khanates: Kazan and Astrakhan along the Volga , and the Khanate of Sibir in southwestern Siberia. Ultimately, by the end of
21546-571: The first half of the 19th century, Russia also conquered the Caucasus . Catherine's successor, her son Paul , was unstable and focused predominantly on domestic issues . Following his short reign, Catherine's strategy was continued with Alexander I's (1801–1825) wresting of Finland from the weakened Sweden in 1809, and of Bessarabia from the Ottomans in 1812. In North America, the Russians became
21735-731: The foundations of this style. Ostrovsky's novel How the Steel Was Tempered has been among the most popular works of Russian Socrealist literature. Some writers, such as Mikhail Bulgakov , Andrei Platonov and Daniil Kharms were criticized and wrote with little or no hope of being published. Various émigré writers, such as poets Vladislav Khodasevich , Georgy Ivanov and Vyacheslav Ivanov ; novelists such as Ivan Shmelyov , Gaito Gazdanov , Vladimir Nabokov and Bunin, continued to write in exile. Some writers dared to oppose Soviet ideology, like Nobel Prize-winning novelist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Varlam Shalamov , who wrote about life in
21924-409: The function and form of literature as it related to the Russian language in the first half of the 18th century set a stylistic precedent for the writers during the reign of Catherine the Great in the second half of the century. However, the themes and scopes of the works these writers produced were often more poignant, political and controversial. Ippolit Bogdanovich 's narrative poem Dushenka (1778)
22113-485: The government, which led to the rise of Russian oligarchs . Many of the newly rich moved billions in cash and assets outside of the country in an enormous capital flight . The depression of the economy led to the collapse of social services—the birth rate plummeted while the death rate skyrocketed, and millions plunged into poverty; while extreme corruption, as well as criminal gangs and organised crime rose significantly. In late 1993, tensions between Yeltsin and
22302-400: The gulag camps. The Khrushchev Thaw brought some fresh wind to literature and poetry became a mass cultural phenomenon. This "thaw" did not last long; in the 1970s, some of the most prominent authors were banned from publishing and prosecuted for their anti-Soviet sentiments. The post-Soviet end of the 20th century was a difficult period for Russian literature, with few distinct voices. Among
22491-452: The increasing numbers of talented and disputatious people who flocked to the Wednesday soirees, which were rarely in full swing until after supper had been served at 2 A.M." According to his close friend Nikolai Berdyaev , "Ivanov succeeded in combining an intense poetical imagination with an amazing knowledge of Classical philology and Greek religion. He was a philosopher and a theologian;
22680-572: The key figure of literary sentimentalism in Russia, for example, is known for his advocacy of Russian writers adopting traits in the poetry and prose like a heightened sense of emotion and physical vanity, considered to be feminine at the time as well as supporting the cause of female Russian writers. Karamzin's call for male writers to write with femininity was not in accordance with the Enlightenment ideals of reason and theory, considered masculine attributes. His works were thus not universally well received; however, they did reflect in some areas of society
22869-515: The largest and principal constituent. At the expense of millions of lives , the Soviet Union underwent rapid industrialisation in the 1930s and later played a decisive role for the Allies in World War II by leading large-scale efforts on the Eastern Front . With the onset of the Cold War , it competed with the United States for ideological dominance and international influence . The Soviet era of
23058-525: The latter deliberately starved to death or otherwise killed 3.3 million Soviet POWs , and a vast number of civilians, as the " Hunger Plan " sought to fulfil Generalplan Ost . Although the Wehrmacht had considerable early success, their attack was halted in the Battle of Moscow . Subsequently, the Germans were dealt major defeats first at the Battle of Stalingrad in the winter of 1942–1943, and then in
23247-411: The lead was taken by Ivanov, a man who brought people of the most diverse views and convictions into one fold; Christians and sceptics , monarchists and republicans , Symbolists and Classicists , occultists and mystical anarchists . They were all welcomed as long as they were original, daring and ready to spend hours in stimulating discussions." Even during the Russian Revolution of 1905 and as
23436-576: The leader of Russia's revolution and depicts them against a broad historical background. In the poem All Right! (1927), Mayakovsky writes about socialist society as the "springtime of humanity". Mayakovsky was instrumental in producing a new type of poetry in which politics played a major part. One of the most popular Soviet poets during the 1920s was Nikolai Tikhonov (1896–1979), a future important figure of Stalinist era, well-known for his Ballad About Nails , as follows: Could nails from such people be fashioned, you’d see That no tougher nails in
23625-455: The legacy of Peter I, writing in his manifesto Epistle on Poetry , "The great Peter hurls his thunder from the Baltic shores, the Russian sword glitters in all corners of the universe". Peter the Great's policies of westernization and displays of military prowess naturally attracted Sumarokov and his contemporaries. Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov , in particular, expressed his gratitude for and dedication to Peter's legacy in his unfinished Peter
23814-512: The limits of art, to fuse art and life, and to subordinate art to religious or mystical goals. Alexander Scriabin 's close relations with the Symbolist poets strengthened the theurgist wing of this literary school." On 19 April 1910, Vsevolod Meyerhold staged Konstantin Balmont 's literary translation of Calderón 's Adoration of the Holy Cross inside of Ivanov's St Petersburg flat. Many of
24003-616: The meantime, both the Bolsheviks and White movement carried out campaigns of deportations and executions against each other, known respectively as the Red Terror and White Terror . By the end of the violent civil war, Russia's economy and infrastructure were heavily damaged, and as many as 10 million perished during the war, mostly civilians. Millions became White émigrés , and the Russian famine of 1921–1922 claimed up to five million victims. On 30 December 1922, Lenin and his aides formed
24192-409: The mind? For her no yardstick was created: Her soul is of a special kind, By faith alone appreciated. An entire new generation of Romantic poets and novelists followed in Pushkin's steps. Mikhail Lermontov wrote the narrative poem Demon in 1829–39, which chronicled the love of a Byronic Demon for a mortal woman, as well as A Hero of Our Time (1841), which is often considered to be
24381-596: The more recently coined noun россиянин , rossiianyn , "Russian" in the sense of citizen of the Russian state. According to the Primary Chronicle , the word Rus' is derived from the Rus' people , who were a Swedish tribe, and where the three original members of the Rurikid dynasty came from. The Finnish word for Swedes, ruotsi , has the same origin. Later archeological studies mostly confirmed this theory. The first human settlement on Russia dates back to
24570-477: The most discussed authors of this period were novelists Victor Pelevin and Vladimir Sorokin , and the poet Dmitri Prigov . In the 21st century, a new generation of Russian authors appeared, differing greatly from the postmodernist Russian prose of the late 20th century, which led critics to speak about "new realism". Russian authors have significantly contributed to numerous literary genres. Russia has five Nobel Prize in literature laureates. As of 2011, Russia
24759-565: The most important figures in Russian literature at the time were either present or appearing in the play. On 18 February 1912, the writer Konstantin Siunnerberg brought Fr. Leonid Feodorov , a priest of the strictly illegal Russian Greek Catholic Church who was on his third secret visit to Russia, to a meeting of the Society of Lovers of the Artistic Word and introduced him to Ivanov. During
24948-545: The native languages of the indigenous non-Russian ethnic groups in Russia , thus the famous Dagestani poet Rasul Gamzatov is omitted. The roots of Russian literature can be traced to the Early Middle Ages when Old Church Slavonic was introduced as a liturgical language and became used as a literary language. The native Russian vernacular remained the use within oral literature as well as written for decrees, laws, messages, chronicles , military tales, and so on. By
25137-506: The new wave generation Alexander Blok (1880–1921) with Andrei Bely (1880–1934). New peasant poets was the conditional collective name of a group of peasant origin and country poetry trend ( Nikolai Klyuev , Pyotr Oreshin, Alexander Shiryaevets, Sergei Klychkov , Sergei Yesenin ). While the Silver Age is considered to be the development of the 19th-century Russian Golden Age literature tradition, some modernist and avant-garde poets tried to overturn it. Most prominent their movements:
25326-577: The north-east. Led by Prince Alexander Nevsky , Novgorodians repelled the invading Swedes in the Battle of the Neva in 1240, as well as the Germanic crusaders in the Battle on the Ice in 1242. Kievan Rus' finally fell to the Mongol invasion of 1237–1240, which resulted in the sacking of Kiev and other cities, as well as the death of a major part of the population. The invaders, later known as Tatars , formed
25515-601: The obstinate resistance in combination with the bitterly cold Russian winter led to a disastrous defeat of invaders, in which the pan-European Grande Armée faced utter destruction. Led by Mikhail Kutuzov and Michael Andreas Barclay de Tolly , the Imperial Russian Army ousted Napoleon and drove throughout Europe in the War of the Sixth Coalition , ultimately entering Paris. Alexander I controlled Russia's delegation at
25704-643: The official line. The continued internal struggle in the Bolshevik party culminated in the Great Purge . Under Stalin's leadership, the government launched a command economy , industrialisation of the largely rural country , and collectivisation of its agriculture . During this period of rapid economic and social change, millions of people were sent to penal labour camps , including many political convicts for their suspected or real opposition to Stalin's rule; and millions were deported and exiled to remote areas of
25893-414: The people; only then will be resolved the problem of fusing actors and spectators in a single orgiastic body. [...] And only, we may add, when the choral voice of such communities becomes a genuine referendum of the true will of the people will political freedom become a reality. While some, such as the director Meyerhold, enthusiastically embraced Ivanov's ideas (at least insofar as they proposed overcoming
26082-510: The poetry and philosophy of German Romanticism , most notably as represented by Novalis , Friedrich Hölderlin , and Goethe . Ivanov's main passionate interest, however, was in researching the connection between the Greek religious cult of Dionysus and his worship during the Bacchanalia with the creation of the theatre of ancient Greece . In 1886 Ivanov married Darya Mikhailovna Dmitrievskaya,
26271-586: The point that scholars, such as F. R. Leavis , have frequently described them as among the greatest novelists of all time. Tolstoy's Christian anarchism can be seen in the following quote: Plants, birds, insects and children were equally joyful. Only men—grown-up men—continued cheating and tormenting themselves and each other. People saw nothing holy in this spring morning, in this beauty of God's world—a gift to all living creatures—inclining to peace, good-will and love, but worshiped their own inventions for imposing their will on each other. Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin
26460-488: The political reformer Alexander Herzen ; playwrights such as Aleksandr Griboyedov , Aleksandr Ostrovsky , Alexander Sukhovo-Kobylin and the satirist Kozma Prutkov (a collective pen name). Night, street and streetlight, drug store, The purposeless, half-dim, drab light. For all the use live on a quarter century — Nothing will change. There's no way out. You'll die — and start all over, live twice, Everything repeats itself, just as it was: Night,
26649-559: The position. In 1934, Ivanov and his family arrived in Rome , an event he later commemorated in the sonnet Regina Viarum in 1924. Ivanov later explained his reasons for becoming a refugee by stating, "I was born free, and the silence there (i.e. in Soviet Russia) leaves an aftertaste of slavery." For this reason, according to Robert Bird, "Eloquently conversant in all the major European languages, with erudition of rare breadth and depth, Ivanov allied himself with representatives of
26838-407: The press ; the country also has high levels of perceived corruption . As of 2024, Russia has a high-income economy which ranks eleventh in the world by nominal GDP and fourth at purchasing power parity , relying on its vast mineral and energy resources ; the world's second-largest for oil production and natural gas production . Russia is home to 32 UNESCO World Heritage Sites . According to
27027-417: The promotion of an ecstatic (in both the religious and philosophical senses) theatre of mass participation. Ivanov regarded drama as having the potential to be the most powerful of the arts and as capable of taking over the liturgical function of the Russian Orthodox Church and restoring religious belief to a society that had lost its faith in Christianity. Ivanov wrote in an early essay, "Let us take
27216-409: The reforms of Peter the Great , tying literary development to historical periodization. The term is generally used to refer to all forms of literary activity in what is often called Old Russia from the 11th to 17th centuries. Literary works from this period were often written in the Russian recension of Church Slavonic with varying amounts of the Russian or more broadly East Slavic vernacular. At
27405-439: The remainder of the 18th century as Russian writers began to form clear ideas about the proper use and progression of the Russian language. Through their debates regarding versification of the Russian language and tone of Russian literature, the writers in the first half of the 18th century were able to lay foundation for the more poignant, topical work of the late 18th century. Satirist Antiokh Dmitrievich Kantemir , 1708–1744,
27594-512: The remaining years of the Pre-1917 Silver Age of Russian Poetry , Ivanov presided over a weekly literary salon near the Tauride Palace in St. Petersburg . He helped discover the poet Anna Akhmatova and served as a highly influential teacher and mentor to philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev , Symbolist poet and future Russian Orthodox martyr Maria Skobtsova , and Nobel Prize -winning poet and novelist Boris Pasternak . Similarly to his contemporaries Hugo von Hoffmannsthal and Max Reinhardt in
27783-420: The rivalry between the two major European empires came to be known as the Great Game . The late 19th century saw the rise of various socialist movements in Russia. Alexander II was assassinated in 1881 by revolutionary terrorists. The reign of his son Alexander III (1881–1894) was less liberal but more peaceful. Under last Russian emperor, Nicholas II (1894–1917), the Revolution of 1905
27972-411: The rouble. High budget deficits coupled with increasing capital flight and inability to pay back debts, caused the 1998 Russian financial crisis , which resulted in a further GDP decline. Vyacheslav Ivanov (poet) Vyacheslav Ivanovich Ivanov ( Russian : Вячесла́в Ива́нович Ива́нов , Italian : Venceslao Ivanov ; 28 February [ O.S. 16 February] 1866 – 16 July 1949)
28161-462: The saints') formed a popular literary genre in Old Russian literature. The first notable hagiographer was Nestor the Chronicler, who wrote about the lives of Boris and Gleb , the first saints of Kievan Rus', and the abbot Theodosius . The Life of Alexander Nevsky is a well-known example, which combines political realism and hagiographical ideals, and concentrates on the key events of Alexander Nevsky 's political career. The earliest account of
28350-495: The same time, the native Old Russian vernacular was not only language of oral literature , such as epic poems ( bylina ) or folksongs, but it was also perfectly legitimate as written for practical purposes, such as decrees, laws (the Russkaya Pravda , the 11th–12th century, and other codes), letters (for example, the unique pre-paper birch bark manuscripts , the 11th–15th centuries, in Old Novgorod dialect ), ambassadorial messages, "in chronicles or military tales whose language
28539-467: The same trip Ivanov also routinely defended Catholicism in debates with Vladimir Ern . Following the Ivanovs' return to Russia in 1913, they made the acquaintances of art critic Mikhail Gershenzon , philosopher Sergei Bulgakov , and composer Alexander Scriabin . He elaborated many of his Symbolist theories in a series of articles, which were finally revised and reissued as Simbolismo in 1936. At that time, he relinquished poetry in favour of translating
28728-405: The school of Russian Formalism , wary of the futurists and highly influential for the global theory of literary criticism and poetics , appeared; its programmatic article The Resurrection of the Word by the scholar and writer Viktor Shklovsky (1893–1984) was published in 1914, and the peak of activity occurred in the post-revolutionary '20s. An integral part of the literature of the Silver Age
28917-611: The seat of the Metropolitan of the Russian Orthodox Church moved to Moscow in 1325, its influence increased. Moscow's last rival, the Novgorod Republic , prospered as the chief fur trade centre and the easternmost port of the Hanseatic League . Led by Prince Dmitry Donskoy of Moscow, the united army of Russian principalities inflicted a milestone defeat on the Mongol-Tatars in the Battle of Kulikovo in 1380. Moscow gradually absorbed its parent duchy and surrounding principalities, including formerly strong rivals such as Tver and Novgorod . Ivan III ("the Great") threw off
29106-678: The second half of the century Anton Chekhov excelled in short stories and became a leading dramatist. The end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century is sometimes called the Silver Age of Russian poetry . The poets most often associated with the "Silver Age" are Konstantin Balmont , Valery Bryusov , Alexander Blok , Anna Akhmatova , Nikolay Gumilyov , Sergei Yesenin , Vladimir Mayakovsky , and Marina Tsvetaeva . This era produced novelists and short-story writers, such as Aleksandr Kuprin , Nobel Prize winner Ivan Bunin , Leonid Andreyev , Fyodor Sologub , Yevgeny Zamyatin , Alexander Belyaev , Andrei Bely and Maxim Gorky . After
29295-460: The separation between stage and auditorium, adopting an open space similar to the classical Greek orchêstra , and abolishing the division between the actors and the audience, so that all became co-creating participants in a sacred rite . Ivanov imagined staging such a performance in a hall in which furniture is distributed "by whim and inspiration." Actors would mingle with the audience, handing out masks and costumes, before, singing and dancing as
29484-445: The short-story writers Isaak Babel (1894–1940) and Mikhail Zoshchenko (1894–1958). The OPOJAZ group of literary critics, a part of Russian formalism school, was founded in 1916 in close connection with Russian Futurism . Two of its members also produced influential literary works, namely Viktor Shklovsky , whose numerous books ( A Sentimental Journey and Zoo, or Letters Not About Love , both 1923) defy genre in that they present
29673-418: The sister of his close childhood friend Aleksei Dmitrievsky. From 1892 he studied archaeology in Rome, completing his doctoral dissertation there. In 1893 he met Lydia Zinovieva-Annibal , a well-to-do amateur singer, poet, and translator, who had recently separated from her husband. Through their shared descent from 17th-century Afro-Russian military officer and aristocrat Abram Petrovich Gannibal , Lidia
29862-460: The spring of 1915, I was walking in the Moscow Zoological Garden and saw a guard... beating a swan with his boot and smashing ducks' heads with the heel of his shoe. When I got home I found V. Ivanov waiting for me. I had to listen to a turgid speech about Russia's 'Christ-like image' and about how, once Russia proved victorious over Germany, this Christ-like Russia would accomplish another great task, i.e., it would spiritually enlighten India -- no less
30051-406: The state of the Golden Horde , which ruled over Russia for the next two centuries. Only the Novgorod Republic escaped foreign occupation after it agreed to pay tribute to the Mongols. Galicia-Volhynia would later be absorbed by Lithuania and Poland , while the Novgorod Republic continued to prosper in the north. In the northeast, the Byzantine-Slavic traditions of Kievan Rus' were adapted to form
30240-435: The styles of French classicism . Sumarokov's interest in the form of the 17th-century French literature mirrored his devotion to the westernizing spirit of Peter the Great's age. Although he often disagreed with Trediakovsky, Sumarokov also advocated the use of simple, natural language in order to diversify the audience and make more efficient use of the Russian language. Like his colleagues and counterparts, Sumarokov extolled
30429-405: The subsequent meeting, Ivanov then read aloud an early draft of his essay "Thoughts about Symbolism" and Andrei Bely read aloud his essay "Symbolism". Feodorov later recalled, "The first was quite interesting, the second was a typical example of the chaos reigning in the minds of our intelligentsia ... Vyacheslav Ivanov turned out to be a supporter of the Catholic Church and took great interest in
30618-523: The time Chechen separatists declared independence in the early 1990s, an intermittent guerrilla war was fought between the rebel groups and Russian forces. Terrorist attacks against civilians were carried out by Chechen separatists, claiming the lives of thousands of Russian civilians. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Russia assumed responsibility for settling the latter's external debts. In 1992, most consumer price controls were eliminated, causing extreme inflation and significantly devaluing
30807-467: The tragedy concerned with the rift between the intelligentsia and the people. Beyond us stretched out the Russian Empire 's snowy desert, a country in fetters: it was as ignorant of our delights as of our anguish, while its own delights and anguish had no effect on us. More recently, Robert Bird has been less critical, "Nomenclature notwithstanding, Russian Symbolism owed far less to French Symbolism (with which, according to Ivanov, it shared 'neither
30996-442: The turreted house. At the Tower, Ivanov spearheaded a seachange which brought Russian Symbolism radically away from the intentions of Valery Bryusov to emulate French Symbolism and the concept of art for art's sake , towards literary Philhellenism , Neoclassicism , Germanophilia , and, in particular, towards the recent German philosophy and dramatic theories of both Richard Wagner and Friedrich Nietzsche . Ivanov favored
31185-415: The turreted house. There, Akhmatova read some of her verse aloud to Ivanov, who ironically quipped, "What truly heavy romanticism ." Moreover, Akhmatova indignantly recalled that Ivanov would often weep as she recited her verse at the Tower, but would later, "vehemently criticize," the same poems at literary salons. Akhmatova would never forgive him for this. A short time later, Gumilev left his wife for
31374-405: The vernacular, while sacred texts would remain in Church-Slavonic. However, his work was often incredibly theoretical and scholarly, focused on promoting the versification of the language with which he spoke. While Trediakovsky's approach to writing is often described as highly erudite, the young writer and scholarly rival to Trediakovsky, Alexander Petrovich Sumarokov , 1717–1777, was dedicated to
31563-485: The works of Sappho , Alcaeus , Aeschylus , and Petrarch into the Russian language . Ivanov continued, however, to have influence over younger poets and writers. While reading his newly composed paper aloud called, "Symbolism and Immortality" on 10 February 1913, a young Boris Pasternak both echoed and summarized the ideas of both Bely and Ivanov, by saying, "Symbolism achieves realism in religion." In his diary Cursed Days , Ivan Bunin later recalled, "Once in
31752-507: The world would there be. I am an American writer, born in Russia, educated in England, where I studied French literature before moving to Germany for fifteen years. ... My head speaks English, my heart speaks Russian, and my ear speaks French. Russia Russia , or the Russian Federation , is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia . It is the largest country in the world by area , extending across eleven time zones and sharing land borders with fourteen countries . It
31941-399: Was Ruthenia . In Russian, the current name of the country, Россия ( Rossiya ), comes from the Byzantine Greek name for Rus', Ρωσία ( Rosía ). A new form of the name Rus ' , Росия ( Rosiya ), was borrowed from the Greek term and first attested in 1387. The name Rossiia appeared in Russian sources in the late 15th century, but until the end of the 17th century
32130-449: Was elected President of the Russian SFSR. In August 1991, a coup d'état attempt by members of Gorbachev's government, directed against Gorbachev and aimed at preserving the Soviet Union, instead led to the end of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. On 25 December 1991, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union , along with contemporary Russia, fourteen other post-Soviet states emerged. The economic and political collapse of
32319-407: Was Johann Gottfried Gregorii, a German-Russian pastor, who wrote, in particular, the 10-hour play The Action of Artaxerxes . The poetry and dramaturgy of Symeon of Polotsk and Demetrius of Rostov contributed to the development of the Russian version of the Baroque. In the 17th century, when bookmen from the Kiev Academy arrived in Moscow, they brought with them a culture heavily influenced by
32508-417: Was a Hellenistic polity that succeeded the Greek colonies, was also overwhelmed by nomadic invasions led by warlike tribes such as the Huns and Eurasian Avars . The Khazars , who were of Turkic origin , ruled the steppes between the Caucasus in the south, to the east past the Volga river basin, and west as far as Kyiv on the Dnieper river until the 10th century. After them came the Pechenegs who created
32697-426: Was a Russian poet , playwright , Classicist , and senior literary and dramatic theorist of the Russian Symbolist movement. He was also a philosopher , translator , and literary critic . Born into the lower Russian nobility , the multilingual Ivanov studied Classics , philology , and philosophy . He married the sister of a school friend and aspired to live as a conventional family man, until he discovered
32886-462: Was a social manifestation of Symbolist tenets." It was at this time that Ivanov wrote the first of his two plays, Tantalus (1905). Like his second, Prometheus (1919), it imitated the dramatic structure and mythological subject-matter of Aeschylean tragedy and was written in obscure and archaic language. It was his unrealised, utopian ideas about theatre , however, that proved far more influential. The ideas of Aleksei Remizov (who
33075-564: Was also a distant relation of Russian national poet Alexander Pushkin . Influenced by his recent discovery and enthusiasm for the philosophical writings of Friedrich Nietzsche , Ivanov and Zinovieva-Annibal surrendered to their mutual attraction, "during a tempestuous night at the Colosseum , which he described in verse as a ritualistic breaking of taboos and regeneration of ancient religious fervor." In 1895, Ivanov's wife and daughter separated from him almost immediately and, on 15 April 1896, Lidia gave birth to Ivanov's second daughter, who
33264-518: Was as follows, "Vyacheslav was neither grand nor magnificent (he thought this up himself) but a 'catcher of men.'" Meanwhile, according to Lazar Fleishman , "The year 1910 marked a crisis in the history of Russian Symbolism. It became clear that the movement was breaking up into two hostile camps. One, headed by Viacheslav Ivanov, constituted the theurgist line (going back to Vladimir Solovyov). The opposite camp, with Valery Bryusov as its major spokesman, rejected all of Symbolism's claims to transcend
33453-440: Was dissolved by the All-Russian Central Executive Committee . An alternative socialist establishment co-existed, the Petrograd Soviet , wielding power through the democratically elected councils of workers and peasants, called soviets . The rule of the new authorities only aggravated the crisis in the country instead of resolving it, and eventually, the October Revolution , led by Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin , overthrew
33642-448: Was found at Kostyonki–Borshchyovo , and at Sungir , dating back to 34,600 years ago—both in western Russia . Humans reached Arctic Russia at least 40,000 years ago, in Mamontovaya Kurya . Ancient North Eurasian populations from Siberia genetically similar to Mal'ta–Buret' culture and Afontova Gora were an important genetic contributor to Ancient Native Americans and Eastern Hunter-Gatherers . The Kurgan hypothesis places
33831-458: Was half Neanderthal and half Denisovan, and lived some 90,000 years ago, was also found within the latter cave. Russia was home to some of the last surviving Neanderthals, from about 45,000 years ago, found in Mezmaiskaya cave . The first trace of an early modern human in Russia dates back to 45,000 years, in Western Siberia . The discovery of high concentration cultural remains of anatomically modern humans , from at least 40,000 years ago,
34020-412: Was highly devoted to his state; he served in the military, before rising to various roles in Catherine II's government, including secretary to the Empress and Minister of Justice. Unlike those who took after the grand style of Mikhail Lomonosov and Alexander Sumarokov, Derzhavin was concerned with the minute details of his subjects. Denis Fonvizin , an author primarily of comedy, approached the subject of
34209-407: Was named Lidia, after her mother. Both wronged spouses were easily granted Orthodox ecclesiastical divorces , under the terms of which Viacheslav Ivanov and Lidia Zinovieva-Annibal were ruled the guilty parties and were accordingly forbidden a Russian Orthodox wedding. Making use of a common dodge at the time, Ivanov and Lidia dressed in Ancient Greek religious costumes deliberately reminiscent of
34398-467: Was one of the earliest Russian writers not only to praise the ideals of Peter I's reforms but the ideals of the growing Enlightenment movement in Europe. Kantemir's works regularly expressed his admiration for Peter, most notably in his epic dedicated to the emperor entitled Petrida . More often, however, Kantemir indirectly praised Peter's influence through his satiric criticism of Russia's "superficiality and obscurantism", which he saw as manifestations of
34587-412: Was populated by Finno-Ugrian peoples. From the 7th century onwards, the incoming East Slavs slowly assimilated the native Finno-Ugrians. The establishment of the first East Slavic states in the 9th century coincided with the arrival of Varangians , the Vikings who ventured along the waterways extending from the eastern Baltic to the Black and Caspian Seas. According to the Primary Chronicle ,
34776-400: Was published in 1903. It contained many of his pieces written a decade earlier and was praised by the leading critics as a new chapter in Russian Symbolism . The poems were compared to Milton's and Trediakovsky's on account of their detached, calculated archaism. Similarly to his contemporary T.S. Eliot , Ivanov drew heavily, according to literary scholar Robert Bird, upon, "epigraphs from
34965-406: Was the Oberiu (1927–1930s), which included the most famous Russian absurdist Daniil Kharms (1905–1942), Konstantin Vaginov (1899–1934), Alexander Vvedensky (1904–1941) and Nikolay Zabolotsky (1903–1958). Other famous authors experimenting with language included the novelists Boris Pilnyak (1894–1938), Yuri Olesha (1899–1960), Andrei Platonov (1899–1951) and Artyom Vesyoly (1899–1938),
35154-475: Was the fourth largest book producer in the world in terms of published titles. A popular folk saying claims Russians are "the world's most reading nation". As the American scholar Gary Saul Morson notes, "No country has ever valued literature more than Russia." Scholars typically use the term Old Russian , in addition to the terms medieval Russian literature and early modern Russian literature , or pre-Petrian literature , to refer to Russian literature until
35343-401: Was the foundation of the United Nations Security Council . During the war, Soviet civilian and military death were about 26–27 million , accounting for about half of all World War II casualties . The Soviet economy and infrastructure suffered massive devastation, which caused the Soviet famine of 1946–1947 . However, at the expense of a large sacrifice, the Soviet Union emerged as
35532-447: Was the literary manager of Vsevolod Meyerhold 's New Drama Association at this time), Fyodor Sologub , and the Mystical Anarchism of Georgy Chulkov were all part of this second phase of Russian Symbolism. Ivanov proposed the creation of a new type of mass theatre, which he called a "collective action," that would be modelled on ancient religious rituals , Athenian tragedy , and the medieval mystery play . Writing in an essay on
35721-569: Was triggered by the humiliating failure of the Russo-Japanese War . The uprising was put down, but the government was forced to concede major reforms ( Russian Constitution of 1906 ), including granting freedoms of speech and assembly , the legalisation of political parties, and the creation of an elected legislative body, the State Duma . In 1914, Russia entered World War I in response to Austria-Hungary 's declaration of war on Russia's ally Serbia , and fought across multiple fronts while isolated from its Triple Entente allies. In 1916,
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