The works of the writer and literary critic Vikenty Veresaev available in the Presidential Library’s collections

January 16, 2022 marks the 155th anniversary of the birth of the famous Russian writer, literary critic, translator Vikenty Vikentyevich Veresaev. The Presidential Library’s collections contain electronic copies of both his works and research papers, as well as works devoted to the activities of Veresaev himself in writing career: critical and analytical articles, author’s abstracts.

The future writer was born in Tula in the family of a famous doctor, but initially chose a humanitarian direction for his education, enrolling in the Faculty of History and Philology at St. Petersburg University. However, later Veresaev nevertheless followed in the footsteps of his father - in 1894 he graduated from the medical faculty of the University of Dorpat in Estonian Tartu and began to practice in his native Tula.

The first success of the writer is associated with medical activity - in 1901 the magazine "God's World" began to publish separate chapters of the story "Doctor's Notes", in which Veresaev openly and without embellishment described cases from medical practice and his experiences. An electronic copy of the full version of this work, published in 1902, is presented in the Presidential Library's stock.

Too realistic and frank for those times, the "Doctor's Notes" literally blew up society, dividing it into two camps - those who treat and those who are being treated.

Conversations about this book did not subside for several years. Different points of view on the "Doctor's Notes" are provided thanks to the electronic collection of the Presidential Library. So, in the 1902 edition of “The Doctor-Artist”, G. Medvedev writes: “The undeniably talented author has fascinatingly and artistically exposed the position of doctors and modern society in their mutual relations to each other and to medicine as a science. The reader with unflagging interest, page after page, despite the large number of incomprehensible terms, reads these notes.

The medical community, for its part, reacted with a whole stream of journalistic responses, both condemning and approving Veresaev's initiative. In particular, Nikolai Nikolaevich Ispolatov’s “Thoughts of an Old Doctor” was published in 1902.

In the "Doctor's Notes" one can feel the observation, restless mind, excited heart of Veresaev, which were reflected in his other works. The Presidential Library’s collections contain digital copies of essays, novels and short stories of the writer.

Veresaev is known to us not only as a writer, but also as a brilliant literary critic. The Presidential Library’s portal features one of his works “Pushkin in Life”, published in 1928, which is publicly available.

Today, the name of Vikenty Veresaev has undeservedly gone into the shadows against the background of such prominent contemporaries of the writer as Chekhov, Gorky, Bunin, Andreev and others. Nevertheless, we must not forget that he made a significant contribution to Russian literature with his creative finds and, of course, talented works.