Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin
Mikhail 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 Russian noble family. His father, Yevgraf Vasilievich Saltykov, belonged to an ancient house that traced its roots to the Morozov boyar family. The family name originated from Mikhail Ignatievich Morozov, who carried the nickname Saltyk meaning one's own way or taste. This lineage produced many political figures including Empress Anna Ioannovna.
Saltykov spent his early years on his parents' estate in Spasskoye located on the border of the Tver and Yaroslavl governorates. Life there was defined by serfdom at its worst. He later recalled witnessing how this system saturated all strata of social life. It degraded both landlords and enslaved masses with an atmosphere of total lack of rights. Fraud and trickery became the order of the day while fear of being crushed hung over everyone.
The domestic environment inside the Saltykov household proved equally difficult for the young boy. A dominating religious father lived under the thumb of a despotic mother whose intimidating persona horrified servants and her own children. Despite enjoying relative freedom within the house, Mikhail remembered feeling lonely and neglected. Another regret he held later was having been completely shut out from nature during those formative years. The children lived in the main house and were rarely allowed outside. They knew their animals and birds only as boiled and fried food.
In 1847 Saltykov debuted with his first novella titled Contradictions under the pseudonym M.Nepanov. This work dealt with social injustice and the contrast between noble ideals and the horrors of real life. The publication caused authorities to react with severe overreaction following the French Revolution of 1848. On the 26th of April 1848 Tsar Nicholas I signed the order for the author's arrest and deportation.
Local elite members treated Saltykov with great warmth and sympathy despite his status as an exile. He became a welcome guest in many respectable houses including that of vice-governor Boltin whose daughter Elizaveta Apollonovna later married him. While stationed there he got carried away by the idea of radically improving education quality for young women and girls. There were no decent history textbooks available so he decided to write one himself titled A Brief History of Russia.
As numerous members of the Petrashevsky Circle were arrested in 1848 Saltykov returned to the capital to give evidence on his involvement. He managed to convince authorities that spreading harm was not his intention and safely returned to Vyatka. In the summer of 1850 he became a councillor of the local government which implied long voyages through the province on official business. These journeys provided priceless material for future satires.
In 1870 The History of a Town came out as a grotesque politically risky novel relating the tragicomic history of fictitious Foolsville. This vague caricature upon the Russian Empire featured a sequence of monstrous rulers tormenting their hapless vassals. The book served as satire on the whole institution of Russian statehood plagued by routine mismanagement needless oppression pointless tyranny and sufferers apathy. The novel ended with the deadly it sweeping everything making history stop which
many construed as a call for radical political change.
A series called Pompadours and Pompadouresses published between 1863 and 1874 looked like a satellite to The History of a Town. These real life illustrations complemented the fantastic chronicles while exposing corruption within the bureaucracy. Alexey Suvorin accused the author of deliberately distorting Russian history and insulting the Russian people in response to its publication. Saltykov explained that showing how people live under the yoke of madness was meant to invoke bitter feelings rather than mirth.
In 1880 Saltykov-Shchedrin extracted stories about the Golovlyov family to begin a separate book evolving into his most famous novel. The Golovlyov Family traced the moral and physical decline of three generations of a Russian gentry family. Central to this work stood Porfiry Little Judas Golovlyov whose nickname became synonymous with mindless hypocrisy and self-destructive egotism. This character led to moral degradation and disintegration of personality through constant exercise of unctuous meaningless humbug.
On the 1st of July 1866 Sovremennik magazine closed down following years of struggle against government pressure. In September 1868 Saltykov joined the re-vamped team of Otechestvennye Zapiski as head of the journalistic department. He described this journal as having its own face where talented people came as if it were their home. Most talented people trusted his taste and common sense never to begrudge editorial cuts made within its pages.
By December 1874 health
problems triggered by severe cold caught at his mother's funeral forced him to travel abroad for treatment. Nekrasov confessed in an April 1875 letter that journalism lay in tatters but Saltykov carried it all manly and bravely. The May 1874 issue containing The Well-Meant Speeches was destroyed while several other releases faced postponement due to excised pieces. Between 1874 and 1879 Otechestvennye Zapiski suffered eighteen censorial sanctions all related to Shchedrin's work.
The demise of Otechestvennye Zapiski in 1884 dealt Saltykov a heavy blow claiming the possibility to talk with readers had been taken away from him. Korolenko wrote in 1889 that the whole Russian press suffered from the closure creating a chasm of emptiness where lively tissue once existed. Shchedrin's life had been curtailed probably for many years by these excisions according to contemporary accounts. His last works appeared in Vestnik Evropy and Russkye Vedomosti among them Fairy Tales for Children of a Fair Age.
Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin is regarded as the most prominent satirist in the history of Russian literature. He managed to compile what critic Maria Goryachkina called the satirical encyclopedia of contemporary Russian life targeting first serfdom then corruption bureaucratic inefficiency opportunistic tendencies greed and amorality of those at power. Maxim Gorky wrote in 1909 that his satire possessed immense importance due to its almost clairvoyant vision of paths society would travel from the 1860s onward.
considered Saltykov-Shchedrin a personal favorite often namechecking characters like Iudushka to label adversaries including old landlords emerging capitalists Tzarist government members and even his own associate Trotzky. In 1885-1886 Alexander and Anna Lenin visited the ailing writer referring to him as the revolutionary youth's favourite writer. Karl Marx read Haven in Mon Repos and other books by the author valuing Pushkin Gogol and Shchedrin among Russian authors he studied closely.
Soviet critics lavishly praised Shchedrin as the true revolutionary though they noted he failed to recognize the historically progressive role of capitalism. Vladimir Korolenko argued that Shchedrin's laughter was essential part of Russian life heard during morbid times despite deep suffering from all grieves of those days. D.S.Mirsky saw The History of a Town as work summing up achievement of Saltykov's first period while praising The Golovlyov Family as gloomiest book in all Russian literature.
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Common questions
When was Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin born and where?
Mikhail 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 Russian noble family.
What major work did Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin publish in 1870?
In 1870 The History of a Town came out as a grotesque politically risky novel relating the tragicomic history of fictitious Foolsville. This vague caricature upon the Russian Empire featured a sequence of monstrous rulers tormenting their hapless vassals.
Who is Porfiry Little Judas Golovlyov in Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin's works?
Central to this work stood Porfiry Little Judas Golovlyov whose nickname became synonymous with mindless hypocrisy and self-destructive egotism. This character led to moral degradation and disintegration of personality through constant exercise of unctuous meaningless humbug.
Why did Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin write A Brief History of Russia?
There were no decent history textbooks available so he decided to write one himself titled A Brief History of Russia while stationed in exile. He got carried away by the idea of radically improving education quality for young women and girls during that time.
When did Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin die and what happened to his journal Otechestvennye Zapiski?
The demise of Otechestvennye Zapiski in 1884 dealt Saltykov a heavy blow claiming the possibility to talk with readers had been taken away from him. His last works appeared in Vestnik Evropy and Russkye Vedomosti among them Fairy Tales for Children of a Fair Age before his death.