Ancient LiteratureRussian literature, like Ukrainian and Byelorussian literature, originated at the turn of the 10th and 11th centuries after Christianity was made the state religion in Kievan Rus' in 988. Since then until the beginning of the 17th century, Russia's external and internal strife, affecting the development of literature, there have been some works, mostly religious and historical works. Only the anonymous author of the end of the 12th century, "Igor's Expedition", an epic and vivid narrative of the 1185 Novgorod-Shevelsky Grand Duke Igor, a lone army to fight in the south of Mrs. Polov's defeat and captivity and finally returned to his country, through the idea of unity and defense, in terms of content and skill comparable to the French "Song of Roland" and Germany's "Song of the Nibelungen".
From the middle of the 17th century, Russian literature was enriched by the formation of the All-Russian market and international cultural exchanges. The Acts of the Chief Priest Avakum (1620 or 1621-1682) and the compositions of the court poet Simion Polotsky (1628-1680) showed a new development in religious literature. There also appeared such works of secular saga stories reflecting social life and having a democratic tendency as the Legend of Gore-Zlocharsky, the Legend of Sava Grudzen and the Legend of Flor Skobeyev, and the Tales of the Shemyak Court and the Tales of the Spiny Perch.
18th Century LiteratureThe Russian literature of the 18th century was dominated by the social reforms of Tsar Peter I, the classicism that opposed the old-fashioned and ignorant and propagated the idea of enlightened monarchs and enlightenment. Its main representatives were Lomonosov (1711-1765), a scientist and poet; Sumarokov (1717-1777), a writer of tragedy; Novikov (1744-1818), editor and publisher of satirical magazines; Gerchavin (1763-1816), a court poet who included satire in his odes; and Von Wessing (1744-1792), the author of the famous satirical play, "The Follies". 1744-1792), among others.
Influenced by the literature of England, Germany and France at the end of the 18th century, the aristocratic writer Karamzin (1766-1826) and the revolutionary Radishev (1749-1802) broke the classical aesthetic taboo and introduced the image of the lowly into literature. The former's novels depicted the love tragedies of ordinary young men and women, while the latter's "travels" from Petersburg to Moscow expressed the suffering and indignation of the peasants. Their styles are very different, but they are all characterized by the elegance of the protagonist's inner feelings, marking the rise of Russian sentimentalist literature; at that time, belonging to this genre, there was also Dmitriev (1760-1837) and his poetic creations.
Nineteenth-century Literature Influenced by the rising national consciousness and social upheaval triggered by the victory over Napoleon in 1812, Russian literature in the early nineteenth century underwent rapid changes, with the nature of the transition between the old and the new. The fables of Krylov and the comedies of Griboedov (1795-1829), although following the classical norms of poetic art, already had a distinctly realist character in the conflicts, plots, images, and vivid language of Russian society they presented. Sentimentalism was rapidly replaced by romanticism; the poetry of Zhukovsky and Bachushkov (1787-1855), among others, was born out of Karamzin, pursued inner freedom and harmony, and exuded a pessimistic and recluse tone; and the poetry and novels of the Decembrists, such as Leleyev (1795-1826) and Mariinsky (1797-1837), inherited more from the tradition of Radishchev, and were overflowing with revolutionary ideas against tyranny and for freedom. tyranny and revolutionary ideas of freedom.
Since about the middle of the 1820s, as a result of the failure of the aristocratic revolution of 1825 and the strengthening of authoritarian serfdom, romanticism in Russian literature quickly gave way to realism, which emphasized the sober and objective observation and depiction of life, and demanded the portrayal of typical characters in typical environments. Pushkin, who belonged to the group of positive romantic poets together with the Decembrists, wrote a large number of realistic plays, novels, and poems from this time onward, and he is thus honored as the father of modern Russian literature. The later Lermontov was first a Romantic poet, and Gogol also began in Romanticism and always maintained a romantic temperament, but the former's novel "Heroes of Our Time" and the latter's plays and novels are works of grim realism; they further enriched and consolidated Pushkin's art of realism from two different aspects, namely, psychoanalysis and humor and satire. The critic Belinsky laid a solid theoretical foundation for realism (then called naturalism) by analyzing and commenting on the creations of these three writers, making it the main trend of Russian literature for more than half a century. Since then, Herzen, Goncharov, Turgenev, Nekrasov, Dostoevsky, Ostrovsky, Saltykov-Shchedrin, Tolstoy, and Chekhov have emerged as the world's foremost giants of novels, poetry, and drama. Also belonging to or close to this main school at that time were the critical works of Dubryulopov and Pisarev, the poetry of Chutchev, Koltsov and Nikitin, as well as the novels and features of Pishemski, Grigorovich, Lyskov, G. Uspensky and others.
In Russian literature of the middle and late 19th century, better known are the romantic poetry and novels of Tolstoy and the aestheticist poetry and novels of Fet (1820-1892) and Druzhinin (1824-1864), but their achievements and influence are far from being comparable to that of realism.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Russian literature took a new turn. In keeping with the objective realities of the development of society from capitalism to imperialism and the rise of the proletarian revolutionary movement, a number of genres coexisted in Russian literature. The novels of Kuprin (1870-1938) and Ponin (1870-1953) basically followed the path of nineteenth-century realism, and at the same time exuded a more sentimental tone. The creations of Korolenko, Suilafimovic and Gorky tried to combine realism and romanticism to reflect the new reality; the latter's novel Mother and play The Enemy, because of the better realization of such a combination, pioneered what was later to be named socialist realism. In addition, a number of modernist literary schools characterized by denial of tradition and bold innovation appeared, among which the more influential ones were the Symbolist poetry and novels represented by Merezhkovsky (1866-1941), Blok, and Andrei Bere (1880-1934), the novels and dramas of Jarshun (1855-1888) and Andreiev, which were born out of realism but closer to Expressionism, the novels and dramas of the latter, and the novels and plays of the latter, "Mother" and the play "The Enemy", which were later named Socialist Realism because of their better combination. Expressionist novels and dramas, Akhmedist poetry derived from Symbolism represented by Gumilyov (1886-1921) and Akhmatova, Imagism represented by Yesenin and Futurist poetry represented by Mayakovsky, and so on.
Modern LiteratureAfter the October Revolution of 1917 and up to the end of the 1980s, Russia practiced the socialist Soviet system, so its literature was also commonly known as Soviet Russian Literature; because Russia was one of the 15 Soviet Union **** and states at that time, Russian literature at this stage was part of the entire Soviet Union literature.
In the early days of Soviet Russia there existed many groups of writers in the literary world, with intense factionalism and little creativity. Lunacharsky, who was in charge of literature and art on behalf of the authorities, did a great deal to unite the ranks of writers. Soon afterward, the ruling ****producers and the Soviet government strengthened their leadership of the literary and artistic endeavors and advocated socialist realism as the basic method of creation. Consequently, in addition to such old writers as Gorky and Suilafimovich and such newcomers to the literary world as Furmanov (1891-1926), Fadeev, and Sholokhov, such writers as Mayakovsky, A. Tolstoy (1882-1945), Ehrenberg, Fedin (1892-1977), and Leonov, who had originally begun their careers in the various modernist genres, quickly turned to socialist realism, and their poetry, novels, and plays, flourished for a while. The works of the poet Tverdovsky (1910-1971), the poet and writer of plays and novels Simonov (1915-1980), and the novelists Kochetov (1912-1973), Bondarev, and Rasputin, all of whom were active in the literary world after the Second World War, strengthened the exposure of criticism of the shortcomings and errors of the Soviet reality, and gave a new character to the literature of socialist realism. The new features of socialist realist literature were given a new character. Among those who did not follow the methods of socialist realism in Soviet Russian literature and who had a wide influence on it were Zamyatin (1884-1937), the writer of anti-utopian novels; Pasternak, the poet and novelist of the Symbolist school; Bulgakov, the playwright and satirist; Zochenko (1895-1958), the humorous and satirical writer; Platonov (1899-1951), the novelist of vernacular novels with the characteristics of stream of consciousness; and Gurudin, the author of the novels of the Soviet Union, which had been widely published in Russia. 1899-1951), the old-fashioned novelist Solzhenitsyn, and the realistic-critical writer Trifonov (1925-1981).
Russian music
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Russian secular music has been popular since the eighteenth century. The interest in music gave rise to the collection and adaptation of folk songs, which had a great influence on the later development of Russian music. In the second half of the century, composers and performers appeared, and by the 1970s operas reflecting the life of towns and villages were performed on the stage.
In the first half of the nineteenth century, a unique and innovative musical genre was formed in Russia, with the emergence of Glinka, the founder of Russian classical music. M.I. Glinka's (1804-1857) orchestral compositions, such as "Kamalinskaya" and "Madrid Nights", are early masterpieces of Russian symphonic music, which are distinguished from Western European music by their exuberance and boldness, and have had a great influence on the development of Russian symphonic music. Tchaikovsky, a great Russian composer, once said that the whole "Russian symphony was born in Glinka's Kamalinskaya - like an oak tree born from an acorn". Among Glinka's important works are the patriotic opera Ivan Susanin and the classical opera Ruslan and Lyudmila. The composer dissolved Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Finnish, Polish, Georgian, Spanish and other tunes into his own works, y expressing patriotic ideas and glorifying the achievements and virtues of the people. His works immediately made him one of the world's most famous composers, and his reputation still exists today.
After Glinka, the most famous Russian composer was Y. S. Dargomsky (1813-1869). He wrote many vocal works, the best of which are the operas "The Stone Guest" and "The Water Nymph". The melody of "The Water Nymph" was taken from a Russian folk song and went on to become one of the most popular operas in Russian folklore.
In the second half of the nineteenth century, Russian music entered a period of prosperity, the sixties to seventies is known as the Russian music of the "surge" of the era, the sign of musical prosperity is the emergence of a collective of composers, "Power Group". The "Power Group" was headed by M. A. Balakirev (1836-1910), a student of Glinka's, and its main members were Mussorgsky, Borodin, Rimsky, Korsakov, and Guy, whose activities were supported and recognized by the famous art theorist and critic V. V. Stasov (1824-1906). They were supported by the famous art theorist and critic V. V. Stasov (1824-1906). The "Powerful Group" aimed to advocate realism and promote Russian national music. Their compositions were mostly based on Russian history, people's lives, folklore and literary masterpieces. They paid attention to the use of folk tunes and innovations in artistic forms and creative methods. The works of M. P. Mussorgsky (1839-1881) are characterized by characterization and psychological delineation, and the tone is characteristic of folk songs. His representative works are the operas Boris Godunov and The Rebellion of the Khovansky Party. Both operas feature the Russian people as protagonists and express the people's hatred of autocratic tyranny. The masterpiece of Y. P. Borodin (1833-1887) is the opera "Igor's Gong", which is based on the "Igor's Expedition". The opera has magnificent scenes and successfully utilizes Russian and Eastern folk songs and dances. N.A. Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1905) wrote 15 operas, symphonies, romances and other musical works. Some of the more far-reaching ones include the opera "The Tsar's Fiancée", and the fantasy and mythological operas "Satkaku", "May Night" and "Snowy Gongwe", which are based on narrative poems and fairy tales.
The greatest Russian composer was Pyotr I. Tchaikovsky (1840-1893). His music began in the sixties, when the "Power Group" was active, and his heyday was from the seventies to the beginning of the nineties. Tchaikovsky's works are characterized by a profound democratic spirit and distinctive national characteristics. His lyrical operas Yevgeny Onegin and The Queen of Spades, and his ballets Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker are the peaks of Russian music and art history. Tchaikovsky's six symphonies are particularly famous for the Third, Fourth and Sixth (Pathétique) symphonies. His symphony Romeo and Juliet is known for its beautiful tunes. Tchaikovsky's compositions are in the tone of pathos, reflecting the mood of the Russian intelligentsia in the 1980s, powerfully and truly expressing the contradictions of the times, the impulse to struggle, the longing of people to seek solace, and the vision of a better future. Tchaikovsky won a worldwide reputation for the Russian symphonic school.
Later Russian composers included Glazunov and Rachmaninoff. Ser-Va Rachmaninoff (1873-1943) was a composer and pianist who left the country in 1918 and engaged in performances in Europe and America. His compositions were strongly influenced by Tchaikovsky, and his works include three symphonies, three operas (among them "Allegro" based on Pushkin's long poem "Tzigane"), 24 piano preludes, four piano concertos, and "Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini" for piano and orchestra.
After the October Revolution, several new generations of composers emerged in the Soviet Union as a result of the emphasis on traditional musical forms. They made considerable achievements in the composition of symphonies, operas and ballets. Each of these composers had his own specialties and showed different styles and characteristics.
The old composer, Lemo Greuel (1875-1956), in addition to the ballets "Red Baby Corn" and "The Bronze Horseman," wrote some operas of high artistic value by absorbing folk tunes. His student Xie-Xie Prokofiev (1891-1953) created a wide variety of subjects, fresh and vivid musical language, rich in originality, very influential in the world. He wrote the famous ballets "Romeo and Juliet", "Cinderella", "Jeweled Flowers" and the large-scale opera "War and Peace". His Fifth and Seventh Symphonies are widely circulated. Y. Y. Shapolin (1887-1966) often based his lyrical compositions on the lyrics of Russian poets. His masterpieces are the symphonic chorus "In the Fields of Kulikovo" on historical themes and the opera "The Decembrist". N. J. Myaskovsky (1881-1950) specialized in symphonic composition and wrote 27 symphonies in his lifetime, the last one being the most famous. He was a renowned music educator, having trained more than 80 composers. A.I. Khachaturian (1903-1978) was an Armenian and a student of Myaskovsky. He was familiar with oriental music styles, valued folk sources of creativity, and specialized in instrumental concertos. He composed many colorful, emotionally intense, and ethnically charged concertos for piano, violin, and cello, which had a major impact on the formation of the national symphony school.
The most famous composer of the Soviet period was Shostakovich. Ji-Ji Shostakovich (1906-1975) was the longtime chairman of the Soviet Composers' Association. His compositions, mainly symphonies, are regarded as one of the musical peaks of the twentieth century. His compositions mostly reflect major social themes, with war and peace, and the fight against fascism as the main themes. The artistic characteristic of his works is the combination of strong passion and delicate and secretive lyricism, and his style is close to that of Mussorgsky, Bach and Beethoven. He wrote 15 symphonies, as well as the opera "Katerina Izmailova" on historical themes, the oratorio "Song of the Forest" on the theme of the construction of socialism, violin concertos, etc. He also composed scores for dozens of films and dramas, such as "Maxim's Trilogy", "The Man with the Gun", and "The Young Kintetsu". The works that brought him fame are the First, Fifth, Seventh and Eleventh Symphonies. Among them, the Seventh (Leningrad) Symphony, written during the siege of Leningrad, is known for its poignancy and is a monumental work of the war years.
The Soviet Union has its own school of piano playing and is known worldwide. The founders of the Soviet school were the pianists and art educators Kon N. Igumnov (1873-1948) and G. Neygauz (1888-1964). A later famous pianist was Igumnov's pupil L.N. O Paulin (1907-1974). Famous contemporary pianists were Neygauz's pupils S. Che Lichtel (1915 I) and A. G. Gilelis (1916 I).
The Soviet Union also had its own school of violin playing. Da Fei Oistrakh (1908-1974) is the main representative of the Soviet violin school, the world-famous violin master. He played Western European music, Russian classical music and contemporary works of the Soviet Union, with a rigorous style and profound expression, and won the first prize at the 1937 Isay International Violin Competition.
Both Russia and the Soviet Union have a number of famous opera singers. F.I. Shalyabin (1873-1938) was a famous Russian baritone singer and opera singer. He specialized in singing the Volga Boatman's Song and played such figures as Sousanin and Boris. He left the country in 1922 and never returned to the Soviet Union. Opera singers familiar to Soviet audiences before the 1950s included the lyric tenor S.Y. Lemyshev (1902-1977), mezzo-soprano N.A. Obukhova (1886-1961), and the lyrical flowery soprano V.V. Barsova (1892-1967). The most famous contemporary female singer is I. K. Arkhipova (1925-)
Russian ballet is a school of its own, formed in the eighteenth century. The most famous Russian ballerina of the early twentieth century was Anne Pavlova (1881-1931). She starred in the "death of the swan", "Egyptian night", "Almeida Palace" and other traditional plays, left Russia in 1913 to travel around Europe and the United States performances, so that the Russian ballet in Europe has been spread. Since the middle of this century, the world-famous Soviet ballerinas have been G. Shea Ulanova (1910), followed later by M. M. Prisetskaya (1925). The famous Soviet ballerina of the younger generation was Ulanova's pupil Y. Shea Maksimova (1939 I).
The Association of Composers of the USSR was founded in 1948 and in 1979 had more than 2,100 members. The Society regularly organizes music festivals and concerts around the country, and the first International Tchaikovsky Music Competition was held in Moscow in 1958, and has been held every four years since. At the Sixth Tchaikovsky Concert in 1978, the first prizes were awarded to the Soviet singer Shemchuk, the violinist Grubelt, and the pianist Pletnev, and in 1969 the International Ballet Competition was held every four years in Moscow. Soviet performers have won first place more than once.
Russian Painting
The development of Russian painting went through the following main stages: the first stage was the period of Ancient Russia, that is, from the formation of the Principality of Fuqui to the time before the reforms of Peter the Great. This is the early stage of Russian feudal society on the transplantation of Byzantine culture and the formation of the ancient Russian national art period. The profound influence of Byzantine culture can be seen in Russian culture. The second stage is the entire 18th century from the reign of Peter the Great to that of Empress Ekaterina, a period of reform and "Europeanization" of Russia. Russian culture developed rapidly under the influence of Italian and French classical art, and Russian art began to be integrated into the process of European artistic and literary development, while European popular classicism was also copied and imitated in Russia at this time. The third stage is the first half of the 19th century, which was the period when Russian national art was laid down; the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, established in the middle of the 18th century, gradually trained a group of national artists in more than half a century, who breathed in the air of their own nation and absorbed the nourishment of their national culture, so that literature and art with Russian characteristics began to make their presence felt on the world stage. The fourth stage was the period from the middle of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century, from critical realism to the emergence of new schools containing elements of formalism and aestheticism, among which critical realism was the most brilliant. Russian critical realism, in its concern for reality and in its extensive exchanges with Western Europe, occupied an important position in the world art world with its diversity and originality in subject matter, genre, style and methods, and it went hand in hand with French literature at that time, each leading the way, and each of them launched its own world-class masters, constituting a string of bright and dazzling pearls in the history of literature and art. This phase of Russian literary creation has been one of the main focuses of research for more than a century.
The formation of Russian critical realism had its unique social background. In the European context, the 19th century was a complex and changing era, with frequent ebbs and flows of various literary and artistic ideas and schools of thought. in the early 19th century, classicism, which had been in vogue for nearly 200 years, tended to decline. The situation after the French Revolution and the development of philosophy and social sciences contributed to the birth of Romanticism, which developed considerably in some European countries and regions. By the 1930s and 1940s, the development and progress of Western European society and the new achievements of dialectics, materialism and natural science had turned the mainstream of art to realism, which realistically expressed life and reproduced social customs and revealed social contradictions. This strong and powerful artistic trend, because of its exposure and criticism of the existing order, is called critical realism.
Russian critical realism was formed in the 1830s and 1840s, flourished in the 50s and 60s, and had its heyday in the 70s and 80s. The longest period of time it lasted was the longest in Europe. The sharp edge of Russian critical realism aimed at the feudal serfdom in Russia, but also involved in the development of capitalism in Russia, it expressed a broader social life, showed the social situation of Russia in many ways, and exposed the real contradictions with considerable depth, and put forward a lot of major social problems. Many Russian literary artists came from the commoner class, and it was easier for them to get in touch with the life of the lower class people in Russia, so their portrayal of the Russian working people had a unique perspective. The first was the War of National Defense against the invasion of Charles IV of Russia, and the other was the Decemberists' Uprising in 1825, which was organized by the intellectuals of the aristocracy in the Senate Square of Petersburg. The former event inspired and encouraged the patriotic fervor of the masses and strengthened their determination to demand reforms, while the latter failed for various reasons, but showed that the protests of the Russian intellectuals against the Tsarist dictatorship had entered the stage of violent action. These two events contributed to the awakening of national consciousness and the formation of democratic ideas in Russia. Thus the Romantic literary trend, which was popular in European literature and art during this period, had a weaker reaction in Russia and its results were not significant. Pushkin, Krylov, and Lermontov in Russian literature at this time, and Giplinsky, Tropinin, and Venezionov in painting were not lacking in romanticism in their works, but already had a distinctly realist spirit. With the movement of the Russian people against serfdom and the spread of revolutionary ideas, in the 30's and 40's, writers, political theorists Belinsky, Herzen, etc., put forward the slogan of the national nature of literature and art and the use of real life as the material for creation, the progressive theoretical orientation of the mid-19th century, so that literature and art in the middle of the 19th century showed a new face. The literary creations of Gogol and Turgenev and the paintings of Fyodor Fyodorov in this period had an inestimable influence on the development of the Russian school of critical realism.
The 1860s, once called the "dawn period" of Russia, was a time when Russia's defeat in the Crimean War in the 1950s centrally exposed Russia's economic and technological backwardness and the weaknesses of authoritarian serfdom, and when the Russian people's revolt and the growing peasant movement compelled Tsar Alexander II to sign a decree abolishing all forms of serfdom in February 1861, which was a major step towards the abolition of the Crimean War and the abolition of Russian rule of law. In February 1861, Tsar Alexander II signed a decree abolishing serfdom. Before and after this, the Russian cultural field demonstrated a new situation: in philosophy, political theory, and aesthetics, materialist aesthetic theories like those of Chernyshevsky and Dubrolyubov appeared. Chernyshevsky's famous 1855 treatise, "The Aesthetic Relationship between Art and Reality," clearly stated the principles of critical realism, which provided a powerful theoretical guide for the burgeoning literary movement. The large literary journal "Modern Man" was very active in society under the auspices of the poet Nekrasov, and a large number of writers gathered around the journal, crying out for the progress of Russia and the prosperity of literature and art. The playwright Ostrovsky, the literary giants Lev Tolstoy and Saltykov Shedrin profoundly raised the social problems of Russia in their works and created a series of distinctive and philosophical literary images. In the music world, the young composers, led by Balakirev around 1855, gradually formed the Russian "Power Group" to explore the way of nationalization of Russian music. They were clearly opposed to the blind admiration of the upper classes for Italian and French music for a century and a half, and advocated the development of Russian national music by searching for creative materials in Russian history, people's lives, literary writings and folk music. The compositions of Mussorgsky, Borodin, Rimsky and Korsakov, representatives of the "Power Group", introduced a new movement of Russian music.