The 6 essential characteristics of Russian literature

These are the fundamental characteristics of Russian literature, shared by its authors.

All those who are book lovers will know authors such as Lev Tolstoy, Fédor Dostoyevsky or Nikolai Gogol. Russian literature has profoundly marked the path of letters.Since its (re)birth (in that Russian Golden Age that was the 19th century), its poetry, novels and short stories have become universal.

But what makes Russian literature so universal? And, above all, what is Russian literature, beyond its geographical context?

The most important features of Russian literature

In this article we will try to unravel the 6 essential characteristics of Russian literature, which are shared, to a greater or lesser extent, by all its authors.

1. Russian literature as a social denunciation

Many years before the October revolutionaries put their finger on the sore spot and denounced the miseries and oppressions in which the country was submerged, the writers of the 19th century had already captured this reality in literature.

The first writer to make a social denunciation (and also the first great writer, with capital letters, of the Russian fatherland), was Alexander Pushkin.. Recognized by his people as the "father of Russian literature", Pushkin denounced in verse the tyranny, lies and oppression, as well as the hypocrisy and frivolities of the Petersburg and Muscovite aristocracy.

In his most important work, Eugène Oneginhe offers us the portrait, satirical and tragic at the same time, of a Russian nobleman who lives a dissipated life, oblivious to the Pain of his wife's death.He is a Russian nobleman who lives a dissipated life, oblivious to the pain of those he drags along in his wake.

A worthy continuator of Pushkin's work, Nikolai Gogol established himself in the field of Russian literature a few years after the death of his predecessor, who died, by the way, in an absurd duel, in the purest romantic style.

Like Pushkin, Gogol imbues his realism with a magical and poetic breath, which can be perfectly traced in his work.which can be perfectly traced in his masterpiece, Dead Soulsfor many the starting point of social criticism in Russian literature.

At Dead SoulsGogol makes a biting satire of rural Russia, in which serfs on the estates could still be bought and sold like animals. This sarcastic aspect continued to be linked to Russian literature thereafter and was the vehicle through which authors questioned the world around them.

After Pushkin and Gogol, all, absolutely all Russian writers put their grain of sand in social denunciation, in one way or another. Whether it was Dostoevsky with his Crime and Punishment or his Tales from the UndergroundMaxim Gorky with The Underworld (where he portrays life in a homeless shelter) or, more recently, Vassili Grossman with Everything Flowswhere he leaves us the crude testimony of the life and suffering of the prisoners in the Siberian labor camps.

2. The search for the truths of life

In order to deeply understand Russian literature, it is necessary for us to join in its reflections. Russians do not only explain a story: they question themselves, they ask questions. Every Russian novel is a vital questFirst, about the meaning of the life of the individual; second, about the role of this individual in the universal gear.

Shostakovsky said that Russian literature thirsts for divine and human justice. And so it is. In a certain sense, we can consider his entire rosary of writers as a kind of "messiah" of truth. And through their pens, the characters pick up this baton. Andrei Volkonsky, of the colossal War and Peaceasks himself about the meaning of life and the reason for death. When, seriously wounded, he lies down to rest on the battlefield and looks up to the sky, he tells himself that he does not want to die.

In the same way, Ivan Ilyich, from the also Tolstonian The Death of Ivan Ilichprostrate on his deathbed, in a terrible interior monologue, he ponders the meaning of his existence. And Oblomov, the protagonist of Ivan Goncharov's novel of the same name, spends his days lying on the couch in his house, without any vital purpose, until he begins to wonder about the meaning of existence...

It is impossible, we repeat, to understand Russian literature without bearing in mind this very Slavic need to search through the mysteries of life and death.. That is why Russian works, especially those of the 19th century, are monuments to the soul and to human suffering, in which we can all feel reflected.

3. Satire

The search for truth does not prevent the Russians from deploying all their humorous artillery in their literature.. In fact, as we have already seen in the first section, it is common for them to use satire and sarcasm as a vehicle for social denunciation.

In one of the greatest works of Russian literature (in this case, of the Soviet era), The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, the author uses mockery and humor with prodigality to construct a devastating critique of Stalin's USSR.. This earned him, of course, ostracism and oblivion. His novel was not published until the 1960s, in the midst of a political opening (and profusely censored); that is, more than 20 years after his death.

In the plot of The Master and Margarita has tinges of a fantastic tale. The Devil, who poses as a certain Professor Voland, arrives in Moscow and devotes himself to twisting everything and revealing the most lurid secrets of the Communist Party and its people. In his messianic work, we even like the Devil because he is pleasant and attractive.

Bulgakov's style, fresh and modern, caused a real sensation among the Russians of the sixties, accustomed to the pigeonholed and monotonous Soviet literature of the years of the Stalinist dictatorship.

4. The epic

All Russian stories, no matter how short they are, are impregnated with a sense of epic that makes them enormous, cosmic, timeless.. And that is because, as we have already seen, his views go beyond the social and geographical context and become universal.

It is not necessary to read War and Peace to come face to face with the epic of Russian literature. It is not the context of the war, or of the revolution (as in the case of Doctor Zhivago of Boris Pasternak) that makes Russian literature comparable to Homer's Iliad.

It is that indelible mark of human worldview, of universal suffering. Russian literature does not speak of Russians, despite being confined to Moscow, St. Petersburg, the Ural Mountains or the Siberian steppes. Russian literature speaks about the whole of mankind.

• You may be interested in "5 differences between myth and legend".

5. Pessimism

It is a shadow that always hangs over Russian texts. It can not fail to be glimpsed in the wretched portrayed by Dostoevsky, Gorky or Grossman. In the endless interior monologues of the characters, there is always a halo of gloom, of melancholy, that moves us and shakes us inside.that moves us and shakes us inside.

However, Russian pessimism is far from being the pessimism of Émile Zola. The naturalist writer portrays the miseries of his native France, but his vision is stark, naked. On the other hand, the Russian writer (a Tolstoy, a Dostoevsky), transcends this miserable reality and elevates it to poetry.

Russians look at life as it is (they are experts in suffering because of their own history), but there is always in them that yearning for beauty, for light, for transcendence.of light, of transcendence. And it is this yearning for transcendence that leads us to the sixth and last characteristic.

6. Spirituality

I have left this point for the end precisely because I believe it is the most important when it comes to delving into Russian literature.

All Russian literature is impregnated with spirituality.. Absolutely everything. Precisely because of their search for human and divine (and therefore universal) truths, the stories and their characters bridge the gap to the transcendent.

One of the greatest examples of this can be found in the character of Raskolnikov, the protagonist of the colossal Crime and Punishment. Raskolnikov is a young student who lives in a hovel in St. Petersburg and who murders an elderly usurer who is his neighbor.

The crime, at first, is committed to rob her of jewelry and money. Gradually, however, the rottenness that lurks in Raskolnikov's soul comes to the surface, and it becomes clear that the act is rather the fruit of a "soul" disorder, of a deep disillusionment withof a deep disillusionment with life and its meaning.

The novel is a true hymn to forgiveness and redemption. First we witness the protagonist's fall, and gradually we witness his slow ascent (with many ups and downs) towards his atonement, at the hand of Sonya, the young prostitute, who plays the role of liberating angel.

We find something similar in one of Lev Tolstoy's last works, Resurrectionwhere the title itself is quite eloquent and expressive. In this novel, Nekhlyudov, an aristocrat who in his youth seduces and abandons a girl from his estate, embarks on his own path to forgiveness by defending her, years later, from a crime he did not commit...

Entering the world of Russian literature is a hard and fascinating undertaking at the same time. A path that is sometimes a bit rocky (like the path of Raskolnikov or Nekhlyudov), but which, with the right reading guidelines, can become a wonderful pilgrimage, can become a wonderful pilgrimage to the very depths of our soul..

Bibliographical references:

• Tolstoy, L. (2010). War and peace.
• Gógol, N. (2013). Almas muertas. Barcelona: Austral.
• Bulgákov, M. (2018). El maestro y margarita. Barcelona: Debolsillo.
• Nabokov, V. (2016) Curso de literatura rusa. Barcelona: Editorial B.
• Pikouch, N. (2011). Five essays on contemporary Russian literature. Mexico City: Siglo del hombre.