Russian literature

Introduction
Old Russian literature (10th–17th centuries)
- The Kievan period
- From the 14th to the 17th century
  - Moscow’s ascendancy
  - The Second South Slavic Influence
  - Possessors and Nonpossessors
  - Works reflecting Muscovite power
- The 17th century
Imperial literature
- The Petrine reforms
  - The Westernization of Russia
  - The response of writers and critics
- The 18th century
  - Catherine II the Great
  - Poetry
  - Drama and prose fiction
- The 19th century
  - The “Golden Age” of poetry
  - Aleksandr Pushkin
  - Lermontov and Griboyedov
  - Nikolay Gogol
  - Other poets and dramatists
  - The “intelligentsia”
  - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
  - Leo Tolstoy
  - Ivan Turgenev
  - Other prose writers
  - Anton Chekhov
- The Silver Age
  - Symbolists
  - Acmeists and Futurists
  - Others
Post-Revolutionary literature
- Literature under Soviet rule
- From the 1920s to c. 1985
  - Experiments in the 1920s
  - The Stalin era
  - Thaws and freezes
Post-Soviet literature

References & Edit History Related Topics

Images

The father of modern Russian literature

One of the greatest Russian writers

Portrait of Leo Tolstoy with a long white beard, wearing a dark shirt and looking slightly to the side.

Related Questions

The father of modern Russian literature — The father of modern Russian literature Aleksandr Pushkin, oil on canvas by Vasily Tropinin, 1827; in the National Pushkin Museum, St. Petersburg

Russian literature

Written by

Gary Saul Morson

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Britannica Editors

Russian literature, the body of written works produced in the Russian language, beginning with the Christianization of Kievan Rus in the late 10th century. The unusual shape of Russian literary history has been the source of numerous controversies. Three major and sudden breaks divide it into four periods—pre-Petrine (or Old Russian), Imperial, post-Revolutionary, and post-Soviet. The reforms of Peter I (the Great; reigned 1682–1725), who rapidly Westernized the country, created so sharp a divide with...

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