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5 - Satire

from Part 2 - The culture

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 May 2006

Malcolm V. Jones
Affiliation:
University of Nottingham
Robin Feuer Miller
Affiliation:
Brandeis University, Massachusetts
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Summary

The first two great satirical novelists in Russian literature are Nikolai Gogol (1809-52) and Mikhail Saltykov (1826-89), who wrote under the pen-name of Shchedrin. Many major Russian writers, from Aleksandr Pushkin through Lev Tolstoi and Fedor Dostoevskii to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, have used satirical depiction in their novels, but it could never be said that satire is characteristic of their work as a whole. It is Gogol and Shchedrin who between them set the points of reference for the Russian satirical novel.

Of course satire existed in Russian literature before Gogol, but not in the form of a novel of European stature.' An important element in the development of the Russian satirical novel was the picaresque tradition. In its classic form, which originated in Spain in the mid sixteenth century and in the following centuries spread throughout Europe, the picaresque novel is the retrospective autobiography of a rogue, the picaro.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1998

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  • Satire
  • Edited by Malcolm V. Jones, University of Nottingham, Robin Feuer Miller, Brandeis University, Massachusetts
  • Book: The Cambridge Companion to the Classic Russian Novel
  • Online publication: 28 May 2006
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CCOL0521473462.005
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  • Satire
  • Edited by Malcolm V. Jones, University of Nottingham, Robin Feuer Miller, Brandeis University, Massachusetts
  • Book: The Cambridge Companion to the Classic Russian Novel
  • Online publication: 28 May 2006
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CCOL0521473462.005
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Satire
  • Edited by Malcolm V. Jones, University of Nottingham, Robin Feuer Miller, Brandeis University, Massachusetts
  • Book: The Cambridge Companion to the Classic Russian Novel
  • Online publication: 28 May 2006
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CCOL0521473462.005
Available formats
×