The Presidential Library’s new collection spotlights Nikolai Leskov’s life and career

February 16, 2021 marks the 190th anniversary of Nikolai Leskov, a writer, publicist and literary critic. Marking this date, the Presidential Library prepared the collection Nikolai Leskov (1831–1895), which features books, documents, research, biographical and graphic materials.

The collection consists of two main sections. The first section entitled Oeuvre includes digital copies of the writer's journalism and fiction, in particular, the first edition of his novel At Daggers Drawn published in the Russkiy Vestnik magazine(1870-1871). The second section - Nikolai Leskov's life and career, includes research of past centuries and modern time about the writer's biography and literary legacy.

The articles by Nikolai Leskov are included in the first section. They demonstrate his numerous interests. Religious issues (the writer's grandfather was a priest, his father studied at a theological seminary) are spotlighted in the publication Grand Split (1877). Writers' interest in history is obvious in articles Jewish Official and Jewish Warrior (1891), Siberian Pictures of the XVIII Century. From the Siberian Olden Times (1893).

Leskov's fiction, along with other works, is represented by the novel At Daggers Drawn published in the Russkiy Vestnik magazine (Part 1. Chapters 1-7; Part 1. Chapters 8-9; Part 2. Chapters 1-4; Part 5; Part 6 and the last).

This novel was created during a difficult period in Leskov's life. Modern studies state that the phenomenon of the novel's style may be compared with Dostoevsky's Demons. The "anti-nihilistic" novel broaches the issue of the moral degeneration of Russian society and the tragedy of the righteous man who faces an unavoidable collision with a hostile world. At Daggers Drawn marks off the early period of the writer's oeuvre and comprises those creative ideas that will later play a significant role in Leskov's prose.

The materials of the second section, which include various research papers, for example, the review by Grigory Georgievsky, the specialist in the study of early texts, Apocryphal "Legend" or Literary Falsification (1892), and several abstracts of dissertations, allow comprehending Nikolai Leskov's life and some aspects of his work. They also define Nikolai Leskov's role in Russian literature of the second half of the XIX century.

The writer and journalist Pyotr Sergeenko, in the collection of essays Tolstoy and His Contemporaries (1911), noted that Leo Tolstoy "considered Leskov a great original artist and highly appreciated him as an independent thinker, who, according to Lev Nikolaevich, was "the first idealist of the Christian kind in the 1860s and the first writer who described the imperfection of materialistic progress and the danger of freedom and ideals from wicked people...". In his turn, literary critic Leonid Grossman wrote in the book Leskov. Life - Oeuvre - Style (1945): "a writer of a variety of genres, a rare abundance of themes and style, Leskov always sustains creative unity and his deep interest in the life of the Russian people. <...> Numerous essays by Leskov, his novels and stories made up a great collection of materials for observing Russia in the XIX century in all the diversity of its nationalities, estates and types".

The anniversary of Nikolai Leskov is a reason for a new appeal to the oeuvre of this Russian writer and publicist. The collection Nikolai Leskov (1831-1895) is available on the Presidential Library’s portal.