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At the center of this chronicle of Russian provincial life in the reign of Catherine the Great stands the patriarchal figure of the author's grandfather, Stepan Mikhailovich. A man of great natural dignity, imbued with respect for tradition and love of the land, he is also despotic and virtually illiterate. Into the family comes his son's new wife, a spirited, intelligent girl from the town. Her eyes see a different world--one tainted by grossness, cruelty, and squalor--and she suffers from show more the hostility of jealous sisters-in-law and the shortcomings of a husband whom she loves but cannot respect. Her relationship with Stepan Mikhailovich is the heart of a story in which Aksakov celebrates the old feudal way of life without concealing its darker, repressive side. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
This and the succeeding two volumes in the author's Family Chronicle trilogy form one of the masterpieces of 19th century Russian literature, largely overlooked outside Russia itself. A lightly-fictionalised account of the life of his grandfather around the turn of the 18th/19th centuries, Aksakov wrote the book half a century after the events he describes in it happened, and from the accounts of family members and others, since his grandfather died not long after the author was born. Neverthe less it is utterly alive and is an extraordinary evocation of the life of rural Russia at this time.
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Folio Society
831 works; 53 members
Best Biographies, Autobiographies and Memoirs
464 works; 156 members
All Things Russia
459 works; 11 members
Trinity College Booklist (1951): Class Six, Biography
119 works; 4 members
Author Information
39+ Works 603 Members
A close friend of Nikolai Gogol, Aksakov came from the old landholding nobility. His family background became the subject for a series of reminiscences written late in life. Their objective and precise description of the often brutal provincial existence, their insight and honesty about human psychology, as well as their eventful narratives have show more made them enduring classics of nineteenth-century prose. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Awards and Honors
Series
Belongs to Publisher Series
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- A Russian Gentleman
- Original title
- Семейная хроника; Semeinaya khronika
- Alternate titles
- The family chronicle
- Original publication date
- 1856; 1917 (English translation) (English translation)
- Important places
- Russia
- Epigraph
- [None]
- Dedication
- [None]
- First words
- When my grandfather lived in the Government of Simbirsk, on the ancestral estate granted to his forefathers by the Tsars of Muscovy, he felt cramped and confined.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)May no harsh judgement and no flippant tongue ever wrong your memory!
- Original language
- Russian
Classifications
- Genres
- General Fiction, Fiction and Literature, Biography & Memoir
- DDC/MDS
- 891.733 — Literature & rhetoric Asian Literature East Indo-European and Celtic literatures Russian and East Slavic languages Russian fiction 1800–1917
- LCC
- PG3321 .A5 .Z53513 — Language and Literature Slavic languages and literatures. Baltic languages. Albanian language Slavic. Baltic. Albanian Russian literature Individual authors and works 1800-1870
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 298
- Popularity
- 106,485
- Reviews
- 1
- Rating
- (3.76)
- Languages
- 7 — English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Russian, Swedish
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 23
- ASINs
- 14
