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15

Ministry of Agriculture of Russian Federation

The Department of Scientific and Technological Policy and Education

FSEI HPE “Krasnoyarsk State Agrarian University”

Report

Russian writers of pre-revolutionary epoch”

Done by: ________________

Checked by: _____________

Krasnoyarsk 2010

Content

I.Introduction 3

II.Body of the paper 4

2.1 Nikolai Volkov-Muromtsev 4

2.2 Mark Vishniak 7

2.3 Konstantin Paustovskii 10

III.Conclusion 13

IV.References 14

V.Annotation 15

  1. Introduction

I am a post-graduate student. My specialty is Russian history; therefore I research political, economic, social and cultural life of my native country. I have read a lot of Russian and foreign books about Russian history. Russia at the turn of the 19th – 20th centuries is of great interest to me. It is so called pre-revolutionary epoch, the epoch of great changes in political system and social life of the country, that left traces on Russian culture, had an effect on music, art, and literature. That is why in this report I would like to research the life of real people before the Russian Revolution of 1917.

The report includes the stories of Russian writers who lived during the turbulent period between 1894 – 1917, people from diverse backgrounds, a broad geographic spectrum, and various educational and socioeconomic levels. They speak of events which endure in their memory. Often it is of universal human experience, the consciousness of self in the face of inevitable death. It is at such times that anguish, transformed by intelligence into recollection, loses its power to injure their hearts.

  1. Body of the paper

2.1 Nikolai Volkov-Muromtsev

Nikolai Volkov-Muromtsev was born in 1902 to a family of the nobility and gentry. The family lived on its estate, a productive grain and dairy farm near Viaz’ma, a city of 30,000 east of Smolensk. Young Nikolai was tutored in French and English and had in-laws who were members of the English upper classes. His ability to combine family and personal narrative with the tumultuous historical background is keenly apparent. He writes with pithiness and clarity. The evocation of life whether in the city or on the country estate carries the stamp of unforced authenticity. Rarely in memoir literature do we see a description of a city, Viaz’ma in this case, done so affectionately and informatively.1

Viaz’ma had a population of 35,000. It was the center of the linen industry and had three leather and two match factories. The streets were cobblestoned and only the rich merchants paved in front of their homes with other materials, be it asphalt or wooden blocks. The Viaz’ma merchants were exceptional. Nowhere in Russia, I believe, was there such a congregation of old merchant families. In 1478 Ivan III conquered Novgorod, but the Novgorodians did not calm down. There were many other campaigns under Vasilii III and Ivan the Terrible. After one of these campaigns, the Muscovites decided that Novgorod would never be pacified while the old merchant class remained there. So they dispatched the merchants to Viaz’ma. It was enough to look at a list of Viaz’ma merchants to recall ancient Novgorod – Stroganov, Kalashnikov, Liutov, Sinel’nikov, Ershov, Kolesnikov, El’chaninov, etc. These families did not sit long in Viaz’ma with their hands folded. They became rich anew trading in linen and leather with the Hansa cities.

The leather factories stretched out one after the other on a bend of the Viaz’ma River. They stank horribly but people were used to it and seemed not to notice. From the river one could see huge piles of sandal shavings that looked like red pyramids.

Beyond the Smolensk gate stood two match factories, the El’chaninov and the Sinel’nikov. They were very different. The El’chaninov plant was in the “latest style.” It was rebuilt several years before the war and looked like a huge glass greenhouse. All the machinery was new with half being automated. Inside one heard the quiet hum of electric motors, central heating was everywhere, and the workers wore white coats as in a hospital. Around the factory was a new settlement for workers with small individual houses set in gardens. Nearby, the Sinel’nikov match factory looked like a barracks. Assorted lumber and odd carts were sloppily strewn about. Everything was untidy. The workers lived in the city in no set location.

The El’chaninov matches were packaged in elegant raspberry colored boxes, 2 x 2 inches and less than half-an-inch thick. “El’chaninov Factory. 48 Matches” was stamped on them. The Sinel’nikov matches came in the simplest boxes. Incomprehensibly, Sinel’nikov workers were very proud of their factory, did not complain of their fate; management was always friendly. But El’chaninov’s workers were always whining.

The linen and leather merchants were very rich. Their presence was very beneficial for the town. The merchants competed against each other as to who would excel in charity. Mikhail Ivanovich Liutov built one of the finest hospitals in Russia, Stroganov built schools, and Sinel’nikov equipped the fire department. When my mother undertook the creation of the Viaz’ma library, all the merchants wanted to build it so it would carry their name. Only after having purchased the land, and with great difficulty, was my mother able to convince the merchants to build the library jointly and to stock it. The merchants of Viaz’ma were not only rich but generous, a type of people common in Russia.

The Liutov hospital stood between the city and the railroad station. Liutov hired a superb architect for it and obtained the newest medical equipment from Switzerland. The wards and operating rooms had rounded corners so that dust would not collect there. He brought in Italian experts for the special floors. The walls were tiled. Needless to say, Liutov procured the best doctors and nurses.

In the market square there was a one-story building called the “Trading Row.” This was an arcade with a covered passageway and shops in the interior. All kinds of merchants and storekeepers had businesses there. All of these merchants were either manufacturers or curriers, but they sat in their shops daily even though they had nothing to do with linen or leather. They sold necessities. The stores had boots, axes, scythes, harnesses, matting, hammers, nails, tar. There were barrels of herring, pickles, and all kinds of other things.

The Viaz’ma merchants always wore dark blue homespun coats, similar wide trousers, boots, and peaked caps. They wore silk braided belts. And if the light, tight coat was unfastened, the whitest of white shirts could be seen underneath.

As in other cities, there were artels in Viaz’ma. I don’t know when they started in Russia. These were voluntary associations of 30–40 people, though sometimes over 50. The smaller artels had about twelve men. There were construction artels, leather-working artels, and specialized ones. They built bridges, roads, did all forms of mechanical work, and excelled in shipbuilding. They had incredibly strict rules regarding honesty and professional knowledge of their craft. Everyone knew that if an artel took the job everything would be done as contracted. My father said that the artel was the most remarkable organization in Russia, and that an artel member was synonymous with honesty and irreproachability. No one ever worried that the artel people would cheat them. The majority of the artel men were from the peasantry, honest and smart.

Viaz’ma was outside the pale of settlement, but there were many Jews. I do not know precisely what allowed Jews to live outside the pale at that time, but I think that if any Jew had a profession he could live anywhere. In Viaz’ma, for example, all three pharmacists, all six dentists, I do not know how many doctors, the oculists, public notaries, and many storeowners, almost all the bankers, tailors, and shoemakers were Jews. There were about 2,000 Jews in Viaz’ma. Out of thirty boys in my class, eight were Jews and seven of them sat in the front row because they were good students.

There were many educational institutions in Viaz’ma: the First Alexander III men’s gimnazium, the first women’s gimnazium standing opposite, the second women’s at the corner of Moskovskaia, the “realschule,” the technical school, the first and second city schools, and several common schools. I have already noted that my mother always wanted to establish a university in Viaz’ma but the war came along.2