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Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin
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Image:Kramskoj - saltykov-schedrin.jpg right|200px|thumbnail|Saltykov-Shchedrin. Portrait by [[Ivan Kramskoi|I.N. Kramskoi]]
'''Mikhail Yevgrafovich Saltykov''' ({{lang-ru|Михаил Евграфович Салтыков}}; {{OldStyleDate|27 January|1826|15 January}} in Spas-Ugol village,
Tver guverniya – - {{OldStyleDate.html">Saint Petersburg), better known under his penname ''Shchedrin'' (''Щедрин''), was a leading
Russian
satirist.html">satire|satirist, whose reputation is now in decline. At one time, after the death of the poet
Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov Nikolai Nekrasov, he acted as editor of the leading Russian magazine, the ''Contemporary''.
A scion of the most ancient and noble family, Mikhail Saltykov was born on his father’s estate in the province of
Tula, Russia Tula. His early education was completely neglected, and his youth, owing to the severity and the domestic quarrels of his parents, was full of the most melancholy experiences. Left entirely to himself, he developed a love for reading; but the only book in his father’s house was the
Bible, which he studied with deep attention.
At ten years of age he entered the Moscow Institute for the sons of the nobility, and subsequently the
Lyceum at
St 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
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron Lord Byron and
Heinrich Heine, and on leaving the Lyceum he obtained employment as a clerk in the Ministry of War.
In 1854 he published ''A Complicated Affair'', which, in view of the revolutionary movements 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 picture of Russian provincial officials in his ''Provincial Sketches''.
On his return to St Petersburg he was quickly 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 leave the government service, but pecuniary difficulties soon compelled him to re-enter it, and in 1864 he was appointed president of the local boards of taxation successively at
Penza, Tula and Ryazan.
In 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 One 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 Saltykov's masterpiece, is a penetrating study of overpowering greed.
His last publication was an applauded collection of satirical
fables and
fairy tale tales. He died in St 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".
External links
* {{gutenberg author| id=Saltykov+Mikhail+Evgrafovich | name=Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin}}
References
*{{1911}}
Category:1826 births Saltykov-Shchedrin, Mikhail
Category:1889 deaths Saltykov-Shchedrin, Mikhail
Category:Russian writers Saltykov-Shchedrin, Mikhail
ru:Салтыков-Щедрин, Михаил Евграфович
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