On the russian literature of the classical period

Abstract

In one of his last articles (dated 1992), the semioticist Yuri Lotman analyzes the so-called “classical period” of Russian literature that spans the nineteenth century and runs from Alexander Pushkin to Anton Chekhov. Unlike traditional literary criticism, that proposed to analyze the period as a passage from Romanticism to Realism, Lotman suggests to see it as a phenomenon endowed with a certain organic unity. Within this unit, Lotman highlights authors whose work has “binary” (such as Nikolai Gogol and Fyodor Dostoevsky) or “ternary” characteristics (among them, Leo Tolstoy and Anton Chekhov). This division is based on a more general view of Russian and universal cultures: for Lotman it is a dynamic process in which relatively stable moments are alternated by explosive periods.