With Russia so much in the news as they try to whip Ukraine back into a new “Soviet Union,” I’ve been mentally revisiting the novels I’ve read by Russia’s greatest novelists.
Like you, I know a little about Russia from documentaries and the news. It is an ancient nation with a complex history of greatness and oppression that came to a crashing climax in 1917, when the Russian revolution ushered in the communist system that changed the country’s direction forever and put Russia at the center of a new empire, the Union of Soviet Socialistic Republics, or USSR.
What bit of understanding I have of the Russian people before and after the revolution comes more from reading the classic Russian novels than from a textbook.
In high school I determined to read all the world’s classic novels. I began with the American classics, then moved to the British and other European classics, including the great Russian novels. I am still pursuing this program with the classics, and I freely admit that even at my age— which is none of your business— I am still far from the finish line.
But my goal is to share with you the novels that have introduced the essence of Russia to me— three this week and three in next week’s column. Today I’ll describe three novels written before the revolution that deal with the nation’s pre-communist social, moral and psychological landscape.
Though it is long, the most accessible of these novels is Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. When it was published in 1878, few authors thought readers would be interested in the lives of common people, so most fiction dealt with members of the aristocracy or the monarchy. This one follows that pattern and takes place in St. Petersburg during the days of Czar Alexander II.
The plot revolves around Anna Karenina, a married socialite with a child. She is experiencing the turmoil that her brother has caused his family by his constant womanizing, which destroys the family and appalls Anna.
Soon, however, she meets and falls in love with the wealthy Count Vronsky and begins a devastating affair of her own. The couple leave Anna’s husband and daughter behind and run away to Italy, thinking they can live out their adulterous relationship in peace. But they are not received in Italian society and decide to return to St. Petersburg, where things go from bad to worse.
Many other themes make up the fabric of this novel that William Faulkner proclaimed “the world’s greatest.” It’s worth the length to be exposed to the great plot and the grandeur of Russian court life in the 19th century.
Tolstoy’s most famous novel, War and Peace, is my second recommendation. The novel is also set in the glitter of St. Petersburg but it exposes more of the moral rot of the upper classes. The historical background is Napoleon’s attempt to conquer Europe that included an attack on Russia.
The novel offers many themes such as war’s effects, love, poverty and wealth, religion and a society that is already changing because of political change. Since there are many characters and plot lines, I strongly suggest that you read the abridged version of War and Peace—if you plan to read anything else this year!
Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novel Crime and Punishment moves away from the romantic themes of the early 19th century to the realism that would mark 20th century fiction. It changes the focus from the aristocracy to middle and lower class characters and their view of the world.
This novel reflects the late 19th century’s new interest in psychology and focuses on its characters’ mental aberrations and emotional states.
Though poor and unsuccessful, the novel’s focal character, Raskolnikov, is a narcissist who sees himself as extraordinary. He mulls over his theory that extraordinary men have a right to commit any crime because of the great value of their lives to society. To prove his theory, Raskolnikov murders a horrible old pawnbroker and his half-sister, believing that even if he is found out, he should be exempt from punishment because of his exceptional nature.
Raskolnikov experiences both degradation and regeneration in this novel that foreshadows many of the serious psychological and moral themes of the 20th century.
Warning: don’t put any of these novels under your reading lamp unless you are a mature reader. They aren’t for the novice, but they do provide a great pay-off for the strongly literate.
Come back next week for three novels of Russia in the Communist era.
