Russian Literature
Russian literature of XVIII century has come a great way in its development: from classicism to sentimentalism, from an ideal of enlightened monarch to intimate feelings of a nobleman. The beginning of XVIII century was violent for Russia. Such events as the creation of own navy, the wars for outlets to the sea, the development of industry and trade, building of new cities affected on national consciousness growth. People of Peter times felt their implication to historical events. Boyar Russia fell into the past, imitation to European customs and European ideals came to Russia together with Peter the First.As a cult of science, enlightenment and intellect prospered in Russia, the main hero in literature became educated monarch or ideal citizen who shared Peter's ideas. Classicism ideals were a strong order and harmony personified in certain hierarchy. Poets of classicism glorified a liberty, a sense of civic duty and patriotism. They extolled a superiority of public over private, an intellect over feelings, an order over chaos, and a civilization over nature. A hierarchy developed in literature too. Classicism divided its genres harshly. A public theme was vested with a form of solemn ode, but a description of private life belonged to more "low" genres.
In poetry of XVIII century the conception of "Russian man" was identified with "Russian nobleman". Derzhavin made only a first step towards understanding of Russian national character. But the integrity and entirety of individual's inward life was not exposed yet.
19th century in Russian literature is known as "Gold Age". The literature of this period is a unique, excellent and incomparable phenomenon. It rushed into world literature and became a certain last word in literature fashion. In the early century writing art moved away from court poetry and "album" poems. Lyrics became more humane and natural, features of master-poet appeared in the history of Russian literature. This age gave us such poets as : V.A. Zhukovsky, D.V. Davydov, P.A. Vyazemskiy, N.M. Yazykov, E.A. Baratynskiy, A.S. Pushkin, K.F. Ryleev, M.Yu. Lermontov, F.I.Tyutchev, A.A. Grigoriev, N.A. Nekrasov, A.K.Tolstoy, A.N. Pleshcheev, A.A. Fet and others.
The history of Russian literary Symbolism may be traced to two separate literary circles, each arising almost simultaneously in Moscow and St. Petersburg, respectively. On the basis of common interest in western philosophers like Shopenhauer and Nietzsche, and the works of European symbolists, a literary Decadence group appeared in Moscow, uniting members such as B. Bryusov, K. Balmont, Y. Baltrushaitis, and S. Poliakov. In St. Petersburg another group appeared, this one containing members such as Z. Gippius, D. Merezhkovsky, and N. Minsky.
In the 1890's, there were two dominant schools of Symbolist thought. In Petersburg, there was the school of "New Religious Consciousness" founded by D. Merezhkovsky and Z. Gippius. In Moscow, there was the "Argonaft" group founded by S. Solovev, Andrei Bely, and others. It was later joined by A. Blok. It was this group that originally came to be known as the "Mladosymbolists".
In the 1910's, the "Futurism" movement arose. It was represented by three groups. There was the "Gileya" - "Cubo-futurists" group, consisting of D. Burlyuki, N Burlyuki, V. Khlebnikov, A. Kruchenykh, V. Kamensky, E. Guro, and V. Mayakovsky, the "Poetic Mezzanine" - "futurists" group, headed by V. Shershenevich, and the "Centrifuge" group, consisting of S. Bobrov, N. Aseev, and B. Pasternak. The latter group characteristically tried to combine the achievements of Symbolism with the poetic style of Cubofuturism. Futurism was a unique, but nonetheless Decadant school of thought, standing out because of its sharply anarchist social and aesthetic directives. Futurism promoted a revolution in poetic form, dependent not upon content, but character. ("It's not important what, but how"). It promoted the subjective will of the artist, the absolute freedom of poetic word choice, a break from all tradition. Boris Leonovich Pasternak later regarded this stage of his writing critically, never once reworking or reprinting any of his poems from that time.