Somewhere deep inside all the Russian writers must have been philosophers and thinkers. There is no other Literature which looks so much at the society with such concern, angst and emotion. Let there be no doubt that it was not only intensely engaging with the questions of the outward reality, but also very inward looking. Tolstoy’s “The death of Ivan Illyich” resonates with the themes expressed in Kafka’s ‘Metamorphosis”
The fundamental or elementary questions of life: Love, faith, religion, morality, belief and existence, sin and redemption, all the grand themes as it is said, are the bedrock of Russian Literature. Mastery over the narrative technique, probing yet fluid; and an acute awareness of the minute and mammoth scale of the events being unfurled marks Russian Literature. It perhaps starts with Nikolai Gogol and is carried forward by Ivan Turgenev, Leo Tolstoy, Mikhail Lermontov, Alexander Pushkin, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Anton Chekhov, Maxim Gorky,Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Mikhail Sholokhov, Boris Pasternak and others.
Of Tolstoy, Thomas Mann writes “ Seldom did art work so much like nature.” His soul-stirring short stories like; God sees the truth but waits, How much land does a man need, The Raid, The forged coupon and The Prisoner of the Caucasus are phenomenal and works of a genius. The themes and ideas that Dostoevsky has touched upon in his novels have puzzled and captivated generations of readers: His ‘Brothers Karamazov’ being the “go to,” book to know “Russian fiction” as such. Dead Souls, Fathers and Sons, A Hero of our times, War and Peace, Anna Karenina, Eugene Onegin, Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, Mother, Quiet flows the Don are regarded as universal classics and have had an enduring influence upon writers and artists from all over the world. Russian Literature has given so much to the world, both in terms of the original and invaluable body of work it has produced, but also the inspiration it has given to numerous writers and artists over the years.
"Dostoevsky gives me more than any scientist, more than Gauss." – Albert Einstein