Russian literature
Old Russian literature consists of several sparse masterpieces written in Old Russian language (not to be confused with Old Church Slavonic). Anonymous The Tale of Igor's Campaign (Слово о Полку Игореве, Slovo o Polku Igoreve) is one of these. Bylinas, oral folk epics, fused Christian and pagan traditions. Medieval Russian literature was overwhelmingly religious in its character and used Old Church Slavonic language. The first work in colloquial Russian, the autobiography of archpriest Avvakum, was created only in the mid-17th century.Westernization of Russia (particularly associated with the name of Tsar Peter the Great) coincided with reform of the Russian alphabet and increased tolerance of the idea of employing the popular language for general literary purposes. Authors like Dmitri Kantemir, Vasily Trediakovsky, and Mikhail Lomonosov in the earlier 18th century paved the way for poets like Derzhavin, playwrights like Sumarokov and prose writers like Karamzin and Radishchev.
Romanticism permitted a flowering of especially poetic talent: the names of Zhukovsky and Pushkin came to the fore, followed by Mikhail Lermontov.
Nineteenth-century developments included Ivan Krylov the fabulist; non-fiction writers such as Belinsky and Aleksandr Herzen; poets such as Evgeny Baratynsky, Konstantin Batyushkov, Alexander Nekrasov, Alexei Konstantinovich Tolstoy, Fyodor Tyutchev, and Afanasij Fet; Kosma Prutkov(a collective pen name) the satirist; and a group of widely-recognised novelists such as Nikolai Gogol, Lev Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Leskov, Ivan Turgenev, Saltykov-Shchedrin and Goncharov.
Other genres came to the fore with the approach of the 20th century. Anton Chekhov excelled in writing short stories and drama, and Anna Akhmatova represented innovative lyricists.
The beginning of the 20th century is known as a Silver Age of the Russian poetry. Anna Akhmatova, Innokenty Annensky, Andrej Belyj, Alexander Blok, Valery Bryusov, Marina Tsvetaeva, Sergei Esenin ,Lev Gumilev, Daniil Kharms, Velemir Khlebnikov ,Osip Mandelstam, Vladimir Mayakovsky,Boris Pasternak, Fedor Sologub, Maximilian Voloshin are among the most famous authors of that period.
Sovietization of Russia affected literature after 1917. Maxim Gorky, Nobel Prize winner Mikhail Sholokhov, Valentin Kataev, Alexei Nikolaevich Tolstoi, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Ilf and Petrov came to prominence. Whilst Socialist realism gained official support in the Soviet Union, some of the writers were secretly continuing the classical tradition of Russian literature: Mikhail Bulgakov, Boris Pasternak, Andrei Platonov, Osip Mandelstam, Isaak Babel, Vasily Grossman, writing "under the table", with the only hope of being published after their deaths. The Serapion Brothers insisted on the right to create a literature independent of political ideology. This brought them into conflict with the government. The experimental art of the Oberiuts was also not tolerated.
Meanwhile, émigré writers such as Nobel Prize winner Ivan Alekseyevich Bunin, Alexandr Kuprin, Andrey Bely, Marina Tsvetaeva and Vladimir Nabokov continued to flourish in exile.
In post- Stalin Russia the Socialist realism was still the only permitted style; writers like Nobel Prize winner Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, who built his works on the legacy of the gulag camps, or Venedikt Erofeev, continued the tradition of clandestine literature. In the post-Communist Russia most of these works were published and became a part of mainstream culture. However, even before the decay of the Soviet Union, tolerance to non-mainstream art was continuously increasing. Bulgakov, Solzhenitsyn and Varlam Shalamov were published in the 60th. Social criticism of the science fiction of Strugatsky brothers and the literature of the Mitkis became popular. Another post-Stalin development was the bard poetry.
In the late Soviet era emigre authors like Nobel prize winner Joseph Brodsky and short story writer Dovlatov have been successful in the West and known in Soviet Union only in Samizdat.
In the end of the 20th century and the early 21th century Russian literature is having hard times, with maybe only several writers raising above the mass of pulp fiction, such as Victor Pelevin or Alexandr Sorokin. Of course, only history will reveal the final score of these times.
Several Russian writers have been rather popular in the West, such as Tatyana Tolstaya and especially Lyudmila Ulitskaya. Detective story writer Boris Akunin with his series about 19th century sleuth Erast Fandorin is being published in Europe and USA. Alexandra Marinina, the most popular female detective stories writer in Russia has been successful in publishing her books around Europe, especially in Germany.
Frankfurt Book Fair 2003 elected Russia as its special guest this year.
See List of famous Russians for more names.