阅读萨尔蒂科夫·谢德林 Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin在小说之家的作品!!! | |||
萨尔蒂科夫·谢德林于1826年出生在一个地主家庭。他自幼目睹了地主阶级的专横暴虐及他们对农民的残酷压迫和剥削。10岁时他进入莫斯科贵族学校，两年后因成绩优异被保送进皇村学校。当时别林斯基、赫尔岑的革命民主主义思想和现实主义文学理想，彼特拉舍夫斯基的空想社会主义思想对谢德林影响很深。后来，他加入彼特拉舍夫斯基小组，研究空想社会主义著作。
谢德林在学生时代就开始从事文学创作。他于1841年发表第一首诗《竖琴》，1847年他发表了第一个中篇小说《矛盾》，次年，他的另一部中篇小说《错综复杂的事件》问世。这两部作品反映了理想与实现的矛盾，大胆地提出了社会不平等的尖锐问题。作品由于带有强烈的政治色彩而被政府查禁，谢德林也被逮捕，流放到维亚特卡。
在流放期间谢德林接触了统治阶级的各种代表人物，也对人民的苦难有了更深刻的了解。1856年，谢德林获释返回彼得堡，不久发表了以流放期间的见闻为素材的特写集《外省散记》，并在《俄国导报》上连载。《外省散记》包括三十多篇特写，深刻揭露了农奴制俄国的腐败。
从1860年到1884年，谢德林先后任当时俄国进步文学杂志《现代人》和《祖国纪事》的编辑。这两个杂志及时地刊载了反映当时重大政治事件的文章，与反动派及自由主义的刊物进行激烈的论战，它们虽屡遭反动当局的刁难和迫害，但始终是当时俄国进步力量的中心。
在杂志社工作的时期，也是谢德林创作的丰收年代，他写了许多讽刺作品，其中最为突出的作品是讽刺小说《一个城市的历史》和长篇小说《戈洛夫廖夫一家》。
1884年《祖国纪事》被查封，这对谢德林是个沉重的打击，但他没有放下手中的笔。虽已年高多病，但他仍然写出了既有政治讽刺内容又有艺术魅力的名作《童话集》，《童话集》可以说是他一生创作的结晶。
谢德林爱憎分明的创作帮助了人民寻找马克思主义与革命斗争的道路，推动了俄国解放运动。1889年5月10日，谢德林不幸病逝。但他塑造的艺术典型却成为人民与敌人斗争时经常使用的犀利武器。列宁对谢德林的评价很高，认为他“曾经教导俄国社会要透过农奴制地主所谓有教养的乔装打扮的外表，识别他的强取豪夺的利益，教导人们憎恨诸如此类的虚伪和冷酷无情”。
Early life
A scion of the ancient Saltykov family, Mikhail Saltykov was born on his father’s estate in the province of Tula. His early education was neglected, and his youth, owing to the severity and the domestic quarrels of his parents, had many melancholy experiences. Largely neglected, he developed a love for reading, though the only book in his father’s house was the Bible, which he studied attentively.
At ten years of age he entered the Moscow Institute for sons of the nobility, and subsequently the Lyceum at Saint Petersburg, where Prince Lobanov-Rostovsky, afterwards minister for foreign affairs, was one of his schoolfellows. While there he published poetry, and translations of some of the works of Lord Byron and Heinrich Heine, and on graduating the Lyceum he obtained employment as a clerk for the Ministry of War.
During 1854 he published A Complicated Affair, which, because of the revolutionary activity at that time in France and Germany, was the cause of his banishment to Vyatka, where he spent eight years as a minor government official. This experience enabled him to study the life and habits of civil servants in the interior, and to give a clever description of Russian provincial officials in his Provincial Sketches.
[edit]Later life
Portrait by Nikolai Yaroshenko, 1886
On his return to Saint Petersburg he was soon promoted to administrative posts of considerable importance. After making a report on the condition of the Russian police, he was appointed deputy governor, first of Ryazan and then of Tver. His predilection for literary work induced him to end his government service, but pecuniary difficulties soon compelled him to re-enter it, and during 1864 he was appointed president of the local boards of taxation successively at Penza, Tula and Ryazan.
During 1868 he finally quit the civil service. Subsequently he wrote his principal works, namely, The Old Times of Poshekhonye, which possesses a certain autobiographical interest, The History of a Town, a satirical allegory of Russian history, Messieurs et Mesdames Pompadours; and his only novel, The Golovlyov Family (also translated as House of Greed). The latter book, often considered his masterpiece, is a study of overpowering greed.
Saltykov's last publication was a collection of satirical fables and tales. He died in Saint Petersburg and was interred in the Literary Cemetery. "The sole object of my literary work," wrote Saltykov-Shchedrin, "was unfailingly to protest against greed, hypocrisy, falsehood, theft, treachery, stupidity of modern Russians".
[edit]Works
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.
During 1869-70 he published The History of a Town, which sums up the achievement of Saltykov's first period. It is 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 — Glupov (literally, Sillytown).
Most works of Saltykov's later period are written in a language that the satirist himself called Aesopic. It is one continuous circumlocution because of censorship and requires a constant reading commentary. The style, moreover, is 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.
The Golovlyov Family was decried by D. S. Mirsky as 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.