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Curated category

19th-century male writers from the Russian Empire

  • Leo TolstoyLeo Tolstoy spent the last hours of his life on a train, preaching love, non-violence, and Georgism to fellow passengers, before pneumonia stopped him at a…
  • Nikolai GogolIn 1820, a fifteen-year-old boy named Nikolai Gogol entered the School of Higher Art in Nezhin. His classmates gave him a nickname that stuck: mysterious…
  • Vissarion BelinskyVissarion Belinsky was born in Sveaborg, a fortress town that is now part of Helsinki. He grew up in the small Russian town of Chembar, where his father…
  • Fyodor RostopchinFyodor Vasilyevich Rostopchin was born in the Kosmodemyanskoe village, now part of the Livensky District in Oryol Oblast.
  • Alexander PushkinAlexander Sergeyevich Pushkin was born into the Russian nobility in Moscow. His father, Sergey Lvovich Pushkin, belonged to an old noble family that traced…
  • Ivan TurgenevIvan Sergeyevich Turgenev entered the world in Oryol, Russia, during 1818. His father Sergei Nikolaevich Turgenev served as a colonel in the Russian cavalry…
  • Maxim GorkyAlexei Maximovich Peshkov adopted the pseudonym Maxim Gorky in 1892. The name meant bitter, reflecting his simmering anger about life in Russia and a…
  • Alexander HerzenMoscow, 1812. The city burned as Napoleon's army advanced, and a child named Alexander Ivanovich Herzen was born into chaos.
  • Ivan KrylovIvan Andreyevich Krylov was born on the 13th of February 1769 in Moscow. He spent his early years in Orenburg and Tver before moving to St.
  • Leonid AndreyevLeonid Nikolaievich Andreyev was born in Oryol, Russia, to a middle-class family. His mother came from an old Polish aristocratic family that had fallen on…
  • Nikolai LeskovNikolai Semyonovich Leskov was born on the 4th of February 1831 in the village of Gorokhovo, Oryol Gubernia. His father Semyon Dmitrievich worked as a…
  • Afanasy FetAfanasy Fet was born on the 5th of December 1820 to Afanasy Shenshin and Charlotte Becker. His father was a forty-four-year-old Russian landlord from Mtsensk…
  • Fyodor TyutchevFyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev entered the world in 1803 at the Ovstug family estate near Bryansk. His father Ivan Nikolaevich Tyutchev served as a court…
  • Mikhail Saltykov-ShchedrinMikhail Yevgrafovich Saltykov was born on the 27th of January 1826 in the village of Spas-Ugol. He entered the world as one of eight children within a large…
  • Nikolay NekrasovIn January 1823 Alexey Nekrasov retired from the army and moved his family to an estate in Greshnevo, Yaroslavl province.