Works of Russian writer Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin include the verse novel Eugene Onegin (1831), the play Boris Godunov (1831), and many narrative and lyrical poems and short stories. See also: Russian: Александр Сергеевич Пушкин French: Alexandre Pouchkine Norwegian: Aleksander Pusjkin Spanish:Aleksandr Pushkin People consider this author the greatest poet and the founder of modern literature. Pushkin pioneered the use of vernacular speech in his poems, creating a style of storytelling—mixing drama, romance, and satire—associated ever with greatly influential later literature. Pushkin published his first poem at the age of 15 years in 1814, and the literary establishment widely recognized him before the time of his graduation from the imperial lyceum in Tsarskoe Selo. Social reform gradually committed Pushkin, who emerged as a spokesman for literary radicals and in the early 1820s clashed with the government, which sent him into exile in southern Russia. Under the strict surveillance of government censors and unable to travel or publish at will, he wrote his most famous drama but ably published it not until years later. People published his verse serially from 1825 to 1832. Pushkin and his wife Natalya Goncharova, whom he married in 1831, later became regulars of court society. In 1837, while falling into ever greater debt amidst rumors that his wife started conducting a scandalous affair, Pushkin challenged her alleged lover, Georges d'Anthès, to a duel. Pushkin was mortally wounded and died two days later. Because of his liberal political views and influence on generations of Russian rebels, Pushkin was portrayed by Bolsheviks as an opponent to bourgeois literature and culture and a predecessor of Soviet literature and poetry. Tsarskoe Selo was renamed after him.

Mikhail Bulgakov was born in Kyiv, Russian Empire (today part of modern Ukraine) on 3/15 May 1891. He studied and briefly practised medicine and, after indigent wanderings through revolutionary Russia and the Caucasus, he settled in Moscow in 1921. His sympathetic portrayal of White characters in his stories, in the plays The Days of the Turbins (The White Guard), which enjoyed great success at the Moscow Art Theatre in 1926, and Flight (1927), and his satirical treatment of the officials of the New Economic Plan, led to growing criticism, which became violent after the play, The Purple Island. His later works treat the subject of the artist and the tyrant under the guise of historical characters, with plays such as Molière, staged in 1936, Don Quixote, staged in 1940, and Pushkin, staged in 1943. He also wrote a brilliant biography, highly original in form, of his literary hero, Molière, but The Master and Margarita, a fantasy novel about the devil and his henchmen set in modern Moscow, is generally considered his masterpiece. Fame, at home and abroad, was not to come until a quarter of a century after his death in Moscow in 1940. Detailed Version Mikhaíl Afanasyevich Bulgakov (Russian: Михаил Афанасьевич Булгаков) was the first of six children in the family of a theology professor. His family belonged to the intellectual elite of Kyiv. Bulgakov and his brothers took part in the demonstration commemorating the death of Leo Tolstoy. Bulgakov later graduated with honors from the Medical School of Kyiv University in 1915. He married his classmate Tatiana Lappa, who became his assistant at surgeries and in his doctor's office. He practiced medicine, specializing in venereal and other infectious diseases, from 1915 to 1919 (he later wrote about the experience in "Notes of a Young Doctor.") He joined the anti-communist White Army during the Russian Civil War. After the Civil War, he tried (unsuccesfully) to emigrate from Russia to reunite with his brother in Paris. Several times he was almost killed by opposing forces on both sides of the Russian Civil War, but soldiers needed doctors, so Bulgakov was left alive. He provided medical help to the Chehchens, Caucasians, Cossacs, Russians, the Whites, and the Reds. In 1921, Bulgakov moved to Moscow. There he became a writer and became friends with Valentin Katayev, Yuri Olesha, Ilya Ilf, Yevgeni Petrov, and Konstantin Paustovsky. Later, he met Mikhail Zoschenko, Anna Akhmatova, Viktor Ardov, Sergei Mikhalkov, and Kornei Chukovsky. Bulgakov's plays at the Moscow Art Theatre were directed by Stanislavsky and Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko. Bugakov's own way of life and his witty criticism of the ugly realities of life in the Soviet Union caused him much trouble. His story "Heart of a Dog" (1925) is a bitter satire about the loss of civilized values in Russia under the Soviet system. Soon after, Bulgakov was interrogated by the Soviet secret service, OGPU. After interrogations, his personal diary and several unfinished works were confiscated by the secret service. His plays were banned in all theaters, which terminated his income. Destitute, he wrote to his brother in Paris about his terrible life and poverty in Moscow. Bulgakov distanced himself from the Proletariat Writer's Union because he refused to write about the peasants and proletariat. He adapted "Dead Souls" by Nikolai Gogol for the stage; it became a success but was soon banned. He took a risk and wrote a letter to Joseph Stalin with an ultimatum: "Let me out of the Soviet Union, or restore my work at the theaters." On the 18th of April of 1930, Bulgakov received a telephone call from Joseph Stalin. The dictator told the writer to fill an employment application at the Moscow Art Theater. Gradually, Bulgakov's plays were back in the repertoire of the Moscow Art Theatre. But most other theatres were in fear and did not stage any of th

Isaak Emmanuilovich Babel (Russian: Исаак Эммануилович Бабель; 1894 - 1940) was a Russian language journalist, playwright, literary translator, and short story writer. He is best known as the author of Red Cavalry, Story of my Dovecote and Tales of Odessa, all of which are considered masterpieces of Russian literature. Babel has also been acclaimed as "the greatest prose writer of Russian Jewry." Loyal to, but not uncritical of, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Isaak Babel fell victim to Joseph Stalin's Great Purge due to his longterm affair with the wife of NKVD chief Nikolai Yezhov. Babel was arrested by the NKVD at Peredelkino on the night of May 15, 1939. After "confessing", under torture, to being a Trotskyist terrorist and foreign spy, Babel was shot on January 27, 1940. The arrest and execution of Isaak Babel has been labeled a catastrophe for the world of literature.

Russian writer Aleksei Maksimovich Peshkov (Russian: Алексей Максимович Пешков) supported the Bolshevik revolution of 1917 and helped to develop socialist realism as the officially accepted literary aesthetic; his works include The Life of Klim Samgin (1927-1936), an unfinished cycle of novels. This Soviet author founded the socialist realism literary method and a political activist. People also nominated him five times for the Nobel Prize in literature. From 1906 to 1913 and from 1921 to 1929, he lived abroad, mostly in Capri, Italy; after his return to the Soviet Union, he accepted the cultural policies of the time.

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (Russian: Антон Павлович Чехов ) was born in the small seaport of Taganrog, southern Russia, the son of a grocer. Chekhov's grandfather was a serf, who had bought his own freedom and that of his three sons in 1841. He also taught himself to read and write. Yevgenia Morozova, Chekhov's mother, was the daughter of a cloth merchant. "When I think back on my childhood," Chekhov recalled, "it all seems quite gloomy to me." His early years were shadowed by his father's tyranny, religious fanaticism, and long nights in the store, which was open from five in the morning till midnight. He attended a school for Greek boys in Taganrog (1867-68) and Taganrog grammar school (1868-79). The family was forced to move to Moscow following his father's bankruptcy. At the age of 16, Chekhov became independent and remained for some time alone in his native town, supporting himself through private tutoring. In 1879 Chekhov entered the Moscow University Medical School. While in the school, he began to publish hundreds of comic short stories to support himself and his mother, sisters and brothers. His publisher at this period was Nicholas Leikin, owner of the St. Petersburg journal Oskolki (splinters). His subjects were silly social situations, marital problems, farcical encounters between husbands, wives, mistresses, and lovers, whims of young women, of whom Chekhov had not much knowledge – the author was shy with women even after his marriage. His works appeared in St. Petersburg daily papers, Peterburskaia gazeta from 1885, and Novoe vremia from 1886. Chekhov's first novel, Nenunzhaya pobeda (1882), set in Hungary, parodied the novels of the popular Hungarian writer Mór Jókai. As a politician Jókai was also mocked for his ideological optimism. By 1886 Chekhov had gained a wide fame as a writer. His second full-length novel, The Shooting Party, was translated into English in 1926. Agatha Christie used its characters and atmosphere in her mystery novel The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926). Chekhov graduated in 1884, and practiced medicine until 1892. In 1886 Chekhov met H.S. Suvorin, who invited him to become a regular contributor for the St. Petersburg daily Novoe vremya. His friendship with Suvorin ended in 1898 because of his objections to the anti-Dreyfus campaign conducted by paper. But during these years Chechov developed his concept of the dispassionate, non-judgmental author. He outlined his program in a letter to his brother Aleksandr: "1. Absence of lengthy verbiage of political-social-economic nature; 2. total objectivity; 3. truthful descriptions of persons and objects; 4. extreme brevity; 5. audacity and originality; flee the stereotype; 6. compassion." Chekhov's first book of stories (1886) was a success, and gradually he became a full-time writer. The author's refusal to join the ranks of social critics arose the wrath of liberal and radical intelligentsia and he was criticized for dealing with serious social and moral questions, but avoiding giving answers. However, he was defended by such leading writers as Leo Tolstoy and Nikolai Leskov. "I'm not a liberal, or a conservative, or a gradualist, or a monk, or an indifferentist. I should like to be a free artist and that's all..." Chekhov said in 1888. The failure of his play The Wood Demon (1889) and problems with his novel made Chekhov to withdraw from literature for a period. In 1890 he travelled across Siberia to remote prison island, Sakhalin. There he conducted a detailed census of some 10,000 convicts and settlers condemned to live their lives on that harsh island. Chekhov hoped to use the results of his research for his doctoral dissertation. It is probable that hard conditions on the island also weakened his own physical condition. From this journey was born his famous travel book T

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky was a Russian novelist, short story writer, essayist, and journalist. His literary works explore human psychology in the troubled political, social, and spiritual atmospheres of 19th-century Russia, and engage with a variety of philosophical and religious themes. His most acclaimed novels include Crime and Punishment (1866), The Idiot (1869), Demons (1872), and The Brothers Karamazov (1880). Many literary critics rate him as one of the greatest novelists in all of world literature, as multiple of his works are considered highly influential masterpieces. His 1864 novella Notes from Underground is considered to be one of the first works of existentialist literature. As such, he is also looked upon as a philosopher and theologian as well. (Russian: Фёдор Михайлович Достоевский) (see also Fiodor Dostoïevski)

Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy (Russian: Лев Николаевич Толстой; most appropriately used Liev Tolstoy; commonly Leo Tolstoy in Anglophone countries) was a Russian writer who primarily wrote novels and short stories. Later in life, he also wrote plays and essays. His two most famous works, the novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, are acknowledged as two of the greatest novels of all time and a pinnacle of realist fiction. Many consider Tolstoy to have been one of the world's greatest novelists. Tolstoy is equally known for his complicated and paradoxical persona and for his extreme moralistic and ascetic views, which he adopted after a moral crisis and spiritual awakening in the 1870s, after which he also became noted as a moral thinker and social reformer. His literal interpretation of the ethical teachings of Jesus, centering on the Sermon on the Mount, caused him in later life to become a fervent Christian anarchist and anarcho-pacifist. His ideas on nonviolent resistance, expressed in such works as The Kingdom of God Is Within You, were to have a profound impact on such pivotal twentieth-century figures as Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.

also: Николай Лесков Nikolaj S. Leskow Nikolai Leskov Nikolai Lesskow Nikolaj Semënovič Leskov Nikolaĭ Semenovich Leskov Nikolai Ljeskow Н. С. Лѣсков-Стебницкий Микола Лєсков Nikolai Semyonovich Leskov (Russian: Николай Семёнович Лесков; 16 February 1831 — 5 March 1895) was a Russian novelist, short story writer, playwright, and journalist who also wrote under the pseudonym M. Stebnitsky. Praised for his unique writing style and innovative experiments in form, and held in high esteem by Leo Tolstoy, Anton Chekhov and Maxim Gorky among others, Leskov is credited with creating a comprehensive picture of contemporary Russian society using mostly short literary forms. His major works include Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk (1865) (which was later made into an opera by Shostakovich), The Cathedral Clergy (1872), The Enchanted Wanderer (1873), and "The Tale of Cross-eyed Lefty from Tula and the Steel Flea" (1881). Leskov was born at his parent's estate in Oryol Gubernia in 1831. He received his formal education at the Oryol Lyceum. In 1847 Leskov joined the Oryol criminal court office, later transferring to Kiev where he worked as a clerk, attended university lectures, mixed with local people, and took part in various student circles. In 1857 Leskov quit his job as a clerk and went to work for the private trading company Scott & Wilkins owned by Alexander Scott, his aunt's English husband. He spent several years traveling throughout Russia on company business. It was in these early years that Leskov learned local dialects and became keenly interested in the customs and ways of the different ethnic and regional groups of Russian peoples. His experiences during these travels provided him with material and inspiration for his future as a writer of fiction. Leskov's literary career began in the early 1860s with the publication of his short story "The Extinguished Flame" (1862), and his novellas Musk-Ox (May 1863) and The Life of a Peasant Woman (September, 1863). His first novel No Way Out was published under the pseudonym M. Stebnitsky in 1864. From the mid 1860s to the mid 1880s Leskov published a wide range of works, including journalism, sketches, short stories, and novels. Leskov's major works, many of which continue to be published in modern versions, were written during this time. A number of his later works were banned because of their satirical treatment of the Russian Orthodox Church and its functionaries. In his last years Leskov suffered from angina pectoris and asthma. He died on 5 March 1895. He was interred in the Volkovo Cemetery in Saint Petersburg, in the section reserved for literary figures.

Ivan Alekseyevich Bunin (Russian: Иван Алексеевич Бунин) was the first Russian writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. He was noted for the strict artistry with which he carried on the classical Russian traditions in the writing of prose and poetry. The texture of his poems and stories, sometimes referred to as "Bunin brocade", is considered to be one of the richest in the language. Best known for his short novels The Village (1910) and Dry Valley (1912), his autobiographical novel The Life of Arseniev (1933, 1939), the book of short stories Dark Avenues (1946) and his 1917–1918 diary ( Cursed Days, 1926), Bunin was a revered figure among anti-communist White emigres, European critics, and many of his fellow writers, who viewed him as a true heir to the tradition of realism in Russian literature established by Leo Tolstoy and Anton Chekhov. He died November 8, 1953 in Paris.