Biography Saltykov-Shchedrin: life and work

January 15, 1826 in the small village of the Tver province was born ME Saltykov-Shchedrin. The biography of this man is thoroughly permeated with philanthropy and contempt for the reactionary state apparatus of his time. However, about everything in order.

Saltykov-Shchedrin Mikhail Evgrafovich: biography of early years

The future famous writer was born into the family of a wealthy nobleman. By the way, Saltykov is his real name. Shchedrin is a creative pseudonym. The first years of his life the boy spent in his father's family estate. For this period the hardest years of serfdom fell. When in most of the countries of Western Europe the scientific and technological revolution has already taken place or has occurred, and capitalist relations have also developed, the Russian empire has become more and more mired in its own medieval way of life. And what would somehow keep up with the development of the great powers, the state machine more actively and actively worked, extensively squeezing all the juices from the peasant class. Actually, the whole further biography of Saltykov-Shchedrin eloquently shows that he had sufficient opportunity to observe the situation of peasants in his youth. This greatly impressed the young man and left a mark on all his further work. He receives his primary education in his native home, and when he was ten years old, he entered the Moscow Institute of the Nobility. Here he studied for only two years, showing outstanding abilities. And already in 1838 transferred to the Tsarskoe Selo Lyceum, receiving a state scholarship for training. Six years later he graduated from the school and entered the ministerial military office for service.

Biography Saltykov-Shchedrin: the beginning of creative activity

Here the young man seriously takes a great interest in the literature of his time, reads Georges Sand, French enlighteners and socialists. During this period his first own novels were written: "Contradictions", "Confused business", "Notes of the Fatherland". However, the character of these works, flaunting free-thinking and satire on the tsarist autocracy, even then set up state power against the young official.

Biography Saltykov-Shchedrin: creative recognition and acceptance of state power

In 1848, Mikhail Evgrafovich sent to exile in Vyatka. There he enters the service clerical officer. This period ended in 1855, when the writer was finally allowed to leave this city. Returning from the exile, he is appointed an official for special assignments under the state minister of internal affairs. In 1860 he became the Tver Vice-Governor. At the same time, the writer again resumes his creative activity. Already in 1862 he retired from public office and focuses on literature. At the invitation of Sergei Nekrasov, Saltykov-Shchedrin comes to Petersburg and settles in the editorial office of Sovremennik. Here, and later in the journal Otechestvennye zapiski, where he fell under the patronage of the same Nekrasov, The most fruitful years of his creative work. A lot of stories, satirical articles and, of course, the famous grotesque novels: "The History of a City", "The Modern Idyll" and others - were written in the second half of 1860-1870.

Biography Saltykov-Shchedrin: the last years of life

In the 1880s, the writer's satirical works increasingly enjoy fame among the intelligentsia, but at the same time they are increasingly being persecuted by the tsarist regime. Thus, the closure of the journal Otechestvennye zapiski, where he was published, forced Mikhail Evgrafovich to seek publishing abroad. This ban on printing in his native country severely undermined the health of an elderly person. And although they were written by the famous "Fairy Tale" and "Poshekhonskaya antiquity", for several years he became much older, the forces quickly left him. May 10, 1889 Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin died. The writer, in accordance with his request in the will, was buried in St. Petersburg, next to the grave of IS. Turgenev.