Nikolai Leskov
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Nikolai Semyonovich Leskov ((Russian: , 16 February, 1831 - 5 March, 1895) was a Russian journalist, novelist and short story writer. By many Russians he is considered "the most Russian of all Russian writers".
Born in Gorokhovo, Oryol, he began his education at the Oryol lyceé. His father's death and the subsequent loss of his inherited property in an 1846 fire forced the young Nikolai to suspend his studies at the age of 15.
His literary career began in 1861 when he began working for a journal in Saint Petersburg. He published his first prose work, Pogassee Delo, the next year, and his first novel, Nekuda, in 1864.
His main works include Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk (1865) (which was later made into an opera), The Tale of Cross-eyed Lefty from Tula and the Steel Flea (1881), and the novel Cathedral Folk (1872).
As a writer and journalist in the turbulent 1860s, he quickly established a reputation for being anti-nihilist. At the same time he was not clearly a conservative, and this apparent refusal to take sides caused him economic difficulty, since he could find few journals willing to publish his works.
During the last years of his life he became a disciple of Lev Tolstoy. He died on 21 February, 1895, aged 64, from breast cancer.
He is buried at Literturskiye Mostki of the Volkovo Cemetery in Saint Petersburg.
Bibliography
- Nekuda (1864)
- Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk and Other Stories (1865)
- Na Nozhakh (1870)
- The Enchanted Wanderer (1873)
- The Sealed Angel (1873)
- The Tale of Cross-eyed Lefty from Tula and the Steel Flea (1881)
- Pamfalon the mounthbank (1887)
- Gora (1890)
External links
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