Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin - Legacy

Legacy

Mikhail Saltykov-Schedrin is regarded to be the most prominent satirist in the history of the Russian literature who’s created "the satirical encyclopedia" of contemporary Russian life, targeting serfdom with its degrading effect upon the society, then, after its abolition, - corruption, bureaucratic inefficiency, opportunistic tendencies in intelligentsia, greed and amorality of those at power, but also - apathy, meekness and social immobility of the common people. His two major works, The History of a Town chronicles and The Golovlyov Family novel, are widely regarded as his masterpieces. Maxim Gorky wrote in 1909: "The importance of his satire is immense, first for its being utterly truthful, second for its almost clairvoyant vision of those paths the Russian society were to travel - from 1860s to nowadays". "The pathos of satirical humanism was his driving force. The very knowledge that people were treated cruelly and causes for their suffer might have been removed, filled him with rage and with this killing laughter that makes his satire so distinctive", wrote Alexander Fadeev.

Saltykov-Schedrin has been lavishly praised by Marxist critics as "the true revolutionary", but his mindset (as far as they were concerned) was not without a fault, for he, according to M.Goryachkina "failed to recognize the historically progressive role of capitalism and never understood the importance of the emerging proletariat". Karl Marx (who knew Russian and held Shchedrin in high esteem) has read Haven in Mon Repos (1878–1879) and was unimpressed. "The last section, 'Warnings', is weak and the author in general seems to be not very strong on positivity," he wrote.

Some contemporaries (Nikolai Pisarev, Alexei Suvorin) dismissed Saltykov-Shedrin as the one taken to 'laughing for laughter's sake'. Vladimir Korolenko disagreed; he thought Schedrin's laughter was essential part of Russian life. "Schedrin, he's still laughing, people were saying, by way of reproach... Thankfully, yes, no matter how hard it was for him to do this, in the most morbid moment of our recent history we all were hearing this laughter… One had to have a great moral power to make others laugh, while suffering deeply (as he did) from all the grieves of those times. Where did it come from, this power? I think, from his unfaltering faith in those sacred things he wanted to remind of people not long before his death," he argued.

According to D.S.Mirsky, the greater part of Saltykov's work is a rather nondescript kind of satirical journalism, generally with little or no narrative structure, and intermediate in form between the classical "character" and the contemporary feuilleton. Greatly popular though it was in its own time, it has since lost much of its appeal simply because it satirizes social conditions that have long ceased to exist and much of it has become unintelligible without commentary. Mirsky saw The History of a Town (a sort of parody of Russian history, concentrated in the microcosm of a provincial town, whose successive governors are transparent caricatures of Russian sovereigns and ministers, and whose very name is representative of its qualities) as the work that summed up the achievement of Saltykov's first period. He praised The Golovlyov Family, calling it the gloomiest book in all Russian literature—"all the more gloomy because the effect is attained by the simplest means without any theatrical, melodramatic, or atmospheric effects." "The most remarkable character of this novel is Porfiry Golovlyov, nicknamed 'Little Judas', the empty and mechanical hypocrite who cannot stop talking unctuous and meaningless humbug, not for any inner need or outer profit, but because his tongue is in need of constant exercise," Mirsky wrote.

Most works of Saltykov's later period were written in a language that the satirist himself called Aesopic. This way, though, the writer was ably to fool censors in the times of tough governamental oppression and take most radical ideas to print, which was the matter of his pride. "It is one continuous circumlocution because of censorship and requires a constant reading commentary," Mirsky argued. The use of Aesopic language was one reason why Saltykov-Shchedrin has never achieved as much acclaim in the West as had three of his great contemporaries, Turgenev, Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy, according to Sofia Kovalevskaya. "Its unbelievable, how well we've learned to read between the lines in Russia", the great mathematician remarked in her essay written in 1889 in Swedish. The second one had to do with peculiarities of a chosen genre: his credo "has always been a satire, spiced with fantasy, not far removed from Rabelais, the kind of literature that's tightly bound to its own national soil... Tears are the same wherever we go, but each nation laughs in its own way," Kovalevskaya argued.

Saltykov's style, according to D.S.Mirsky, was based on the bad journalistic style of the period, which originated largely with Osip Senkovsky, and which "today invariably produces an impression of painfully elaborate vulgarity." Many other critics (M.S.Goryachkina among them) disagreed, praising both the author's lively, rich language and also the way he mastered both stark realism (The Golovlyov Family, Old Times in Poshekhonye) and satirical grotesque merged with pure fantasy. Of the writer's stylistic peculiarities biographer Sergey Krivenko (a representative of Narodnik movement, the one Saltykov has always been opposing) wrote: "It is difficult to assess his works using established criteria. He's mixed in it such a variety of genres - poetry and documentary report, epics and satire, tragedy and comedy - that in the process of reading its impossible to decide what it is, but the general impression is invariably strong, as of something very lively and harmonic. Ignoring the established formats, Saltykov has been driven by the two things: current ideas that were coming to him and those lofty ideals he’s been aspiring to." Saltykov, according to Krivenko, occasionally repeated himself, but admitted this himself, explaining it with the fact that what he’s always been engaged with was 'hot' issues – "things which in the course of several decades were too repeating themselves with such damning monotony". "There are not many writers in Rus whose very name would that much to one's mind and heart, and who'd leave such a vast literary heritage, rich and diverse both in essence and in form, written in a very special language which even in his lifetime has been known as 'saltykovian'," wrote Krivenko in 1895. "Saltykov's gift, akin to that of Gogol, was not any lesser, neither in originality nor power," the biographer reckoned.

Saltykov-Schedrin has been a controversial figure, often an object of sharp criticism which regarded mainly his alleged 'lack of patriotism' and negativism. He's never seen himself a promoter of the latter and often proclaimed his belief in the strength of a common man, seeing the latter as holder of principles of real democracy. In 1882, as he, feeling rather depressed by critic’s reaction to his work, made rather a pessimistic assessment of his life in literature, Ivan Turgenev was quick to reassure him. "The writer who is most hated, is most loved, too. You’d have known none of this, had you remained M.E.Saltykov, a mere hereditary Russian aristocrat. But you are Saltykov-Schedrin, a writer who happened to draw a distinctive line in our literature: that’s why you are either hated or loved, depending . Such is the true 'outcome' of your life in literature, and you must be pleased with it".

For all his insight and a taste for detail, Saltykov has never been keen on examining individual cha racters (even if he did create memorable ones). Admittedly, he's always been more concerned with things general ant typical, gauging social tendencies, collective urges and what he termed 'herd instincts in a modern man', often resorting to schemes and caricatures.

In his later years Saltykov-Schedrin found himself to be a strong influence upon the radical youth at the time. In 1885-1886, Vladimir Lenin's brother Alexander and sister Anna were members of one of the numerous student's delegations that came home to visit the ailing Schedrin, latter referring to him as "the revolutionary youth's favourite writer". Saltykov-Shedrin was a personal favourite of Lenin himself, who often namechecked the writer's characters's to prove his point – Iudushka, in particular, which served well to label many of his adversaries: Russian old landlords and emerging capitalists, Tzarist government members and, notably, his own associate Trotzky.

In Nabokov's novel The Gift, the satirical fourth chapter reproduces Shchedrin's style.