Russian literature

[Kundan]

I have not read any but have heard much praise of it.

[Buffalo Girl]

The Russians are the best because many (Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Solzhenitsyn etc) lived during totalitarian regimes who would kill you if they didn't like what you said. Thus much of their intention is cloaked within the deep, penetrating, heavy nature of their work. In this way Dostoevsky criticized the Russian institutions, including the church, while evading execution.

While I do love Bulgakov and Tolstoy, Dostoevsky is the master here. That's why I chose Fyodor as my handle. His best work, The Brother's Karamazov does not show the length and depth of this penetration, even if it is his best effort. The Possessed, or The Demons is the best illustration of what it took to say 'something' during this radical time of political and social oppression.

It is unfortunate that so many people are forced to read "Crime and Punishment" which is his worst novel. Instead try either "Notes From Underground" or "The Gambler" for an introduction to his writing.

I have to agree. I began Dostoevsky with Crime and Punishment and thought it was just OK, felt a little predictable in parts. But Brothers Karamazov, for me, was thorougly engaging beginning to end. And for a work of dark characters - a murder mystery, and some pretty deep philosophical inquiries, it managed a good deal of humor.

Tolstoy's War and Peace, I found to be a page turner, once you got through the first 100 or so pages and got straight with all of the characters.

[G L Wilson]

War and Peace? God, that's so Russian - it's got jackboots.

[stlukesguild]

The Russians are the best because many (Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Solzhenitsyn etc) lived during totalitarian regimes who would kill you if they didn't like what you said.

What does the environment that an artist works under have to do with the merit or lack of merit of his or her work? Even were this true, many other writers lived under equally oppressive conditions and in dangerous times. Dante was banished under penalty of death from his home of Florence as the result of shifts in politics. The great majority of the artists and writers of the Italian Renaissance worked for rapacious, violent, and vengeful rulers who were not far removed from the Latin-American drug lords of today... and this doesn't even begin to deal with the Church especially at the height of the Inquisition, the Witch Hunts, and the various religious wars that ripped through Europe. It is quite possible that Chaucer was a casualty of the coup which ousted Richard II and replaced him with Henry Bolingbroke and the bloodthirsty Thomas Arundel, Archbishop of Canterbury and later Lord Chamberlain (Who MUrdered Chaucer? A Medieval Mystery by Terry Jones, Robert Yeager, Terry Dolan, Alan Fletcher, and Juliette Dor). Thomas Kyd was arrested for alleged libelous and heretical writings and brutally tortured before being released. He died a year later at the age of 36. Christopher Marlowe, who shared lodgings with Kyd was also summoned before the courts but died in a bar-brawl (assassination?) with known government agents. Sir Thomas More was executed on trumped up charges of high treason. Sir Walter Raleigh was also executed upon trumped up charges of treason. Any number of other writers have dealt with arrest, banishment, imprisonment, jail time, institutionalization and execution for "crimes" ranging from mental illness, treason, profanity, and obscenity to homosexuality (John Clare, Torquado Tasso, Ovid, Seneca, Oscar Wilde, Holderlin, Verlaine, Jean Genet, etc...).

Thus much of their intention is cloaked within the deep, penetrating, heavy nature of their work. In this way Dostoevsky criticized the Russian institutions, including the church, while evading execution.

The fact that a work of literature is dark, brooding, and "heavy" in no way assures us that the same work is inherently "better" or more profound than many other "lighter" or humorous books. Of course that's a prejudice common to the young and inexperienced. Dostoevsky and Tolstoy are certainly great writers... but in no way are they (and their other Russian peers) clearly "better" than the strongest writers of France, Italy, Spain, Germany, England, Greece, etc... to say nothing of Indian, China, Japan, Persia, and the whole of the non-Western world.

[Fyodor]

But I don't agree that you have actually said anything.

The Russians are the best because many (Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Solzhenitsyn etc) lived during totalitarian regimes who would kill you if they didn't like what you said.

What does the environment that an artist works under have to do with the merit or lack of merit of his or her work? Even were this true, many other writers lived under equally oppressive conditions and in dangerous times. Dante was banished under penalty of death from his home of Florence as the result of shifts in politics. The great majority of the artists and writers of the Italian Renaissance worked for rapacious, violent, and vengeful rulers who were not far removed from the Latin-American drug lords of today... and this doesn't even begin to deal with the Church especially at the height of the Inquisition, the Witch Hunts, and the various religious wars that ripped through Europe. It is quite possible that Chaucer was a casualty of the coup which ousted Richard II and replaced him with Henry Bolingbroke and the bloodthirsty Thomas Arundel, Archbishop of Canterbury and later Lord Chamberlain (Who MUrdered Chaucer? A Medieval Mystery by Terry Jones, Robert Yeager, Terry Dolan, Alan Fletcher, and Juliette Dor). Thomas Kyd was arrested for alleged libelous and heretical writings and brutally tortured before being released. He died a year later at the age of 36. Christopher Marlowe, who shared lodgings with Kyd was also summoned before the courts but died in a bar-brawl (assassination?) with known government agents. Sir Thomas More was executed on trumped up charges of high treason. Sir Walter Raleigh was also executed upon trumped up charges of treason. Any number of other writers have dealt with arrest, banishment, imprisonment, jail time, institutionalization and execution for "crimes" ranging from mental illness, treason, profanity, and obscenity to homosexuality (John Clare, Torquado Tasso, Ovid, Seneca, Oscar Wilde, Holderlin, Verlaine, Jean Genet, etc...).

Thus much of their intention is cloaked within the deep, penetrating, heavy nature of their work. In this way Dostoevsky criticized the Russian institutions, including the church, while evading execution.

The fact that a work of literature is dark, brooding, and "heavy" in no way assures us that the same work is inherently "better" or more profound than many other "lighter" or humorous books. Of course that's a prejudice common to the young and inexperienced. Dostoevsky and Tolstoy are certainly great writers... but in no way are they (and their other Russian peers) clearly "better" than the strongest writers of France, Italy, Spain, Germany, England, Greece, etc... to say nothing of Indian, China, Japan, Persia, and the whole of the non-Western world.

[stlukesguild]

Well if you are having such difficulty grasping what I have said I'll put it in simple terms: Russian literature certainly produced a body of marvelous literature but it is in no way clearly superior to the bodies of literature produced in France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Greece, England, India, Persia, China, or any number of other nations.

[Ecurb]

Well if you are having such difficulty grasping what I have said I'll put it in simple terms: Russian literature certainly produced a body of marvelous literature but it is in no way clearly superior to the bodies of literature produced in France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Greece, England, India, Persia, China, or any number of other nations.

This is certainly untrue. In one way, at least, Russian literature is "clearly superior to the bodies of literature produced in France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Greece..."

What is that way? The opinion of Fyodor, of course.

[stlukesguild]

Quite true. And isn't this where there is the source of debate... when one places one's personal opinion up as if it were a fact set in stone and beyond all question? There have been those of us who have equally questioned the assertion by one member that Ulysses is the single greatest book ever written.... or even that Shakespeare is clearly the single greatest writer without question.

[Fyodor]

It's not that I don't understand what you are saying. It's my contention that you are not saying anything.

[Ecurb]

I prefer the "who would win in a fight" argument. Since you're into painting, what about Carravaggio representing that art form. He was banished from Rome for killing a man in a sword fight.

Tolstoy may have been a soldier as a young man -- but wasn't he a die-hard pacifist later in life? That has to count against him. Byron (club foot and all) is still a hero in Greece for fighting the Turks (and athletic enought to swim the Hellespont, too). Hemmingway fancied himself a boxer, and FX Toole (of "Million Dollar Baby" fame) was a pro boxer.

I think we should disqualify professional athletes who (perhaps) have ghostwriting help for their books. WE have to go with people who are famous for their artistic talents (rather than banking on their athletic fame ot whip out some books). Didn't Alexandre Dumas fight some duels?

[JCamilo]

Richard Burton vs. François Villon.

[stlukesguild]

I prefer the "who would win in a fight" argument. Since you're into painting, what about Carravaggio representing that art form. He was banished from Rome for killing a man in a sword fight.

Artists in a bar fight. Hmmm... Caravaggio would surely be a contender... but those sculptors were involved in some seriously heavy labor. I imagine Michelangelo, Donatello, ad Bernini must have had arms like roofers.

[stlukesguild]

It's my contention that you are not saying anything.

Fair enough... considering my contention is that you don't know anything.

[mortalterror]

Fair enough... considering my contention is that you don't know anything.

As much as it pains me to agree with any statement followed by an emoticon, I have to concur with Stlukesguild on this one. Anyone who would contend that the works of Tolstoy and Dostoyevski occupy an unrivaled position in literature superior to Homer's Iliad, Virgil's Aeneid, Vyasa's Mahabharata, Ferdowsi's Shahnameh, Dante's Divine Comedy, Cao Xueqin's Dream of the Red Chamber, Cervante's Don Quixote, Shakespeare's Hamlet, and Goethe's Faust is demonstrating an appalling ignorance about world literature.

[WyattGwyon]

It's not that I don't understand what you are saying. It's my contention that you are not saying anything.

Wrong. St. Luke presented a cogent argument against Russian exceptionalism with well-chosen examples. It is you who haven't said anything.

Mortalterror,

Does a pair of waggling virtual butt-cheeks qualify as an emoticon?