Classical Literature (Russian). Russian classical literature: a list of the best works

Historically, everything in Russia is not the same as in other countries. Here special way development of literature, the Russian soul is incomprehensible and mysterious to anyone. Russia is balancing between Asia and Europe. Therefore, the genres of Russian classics are special. Classical literature amazes readers with spirituality and truthfulness. One of the main actors in classical Russian literature is the soul. The heroes of dramas, novels and poems do not strive for wealth, fame or position, the main thing for them is the search for a place of life, ideals and truth. hallmark Russian literature has become eternal search spiritual and moral ideals.

At the beginning of the 19th century, poets turned to the life of the soul and all its diversity. Mikhail Lermontov and Alexander Pushkin reached the heights of poetry. Love for the motherland, joy and pain for it, admiration for nature, desire for freedom, bitterness of loss, joy of friendship, love sound in verses. In poetry, images of people who are looking for application on their own, suffering from their imperfection and the imperfection of the world around them, appear. These heroes were called superfluous people. These two poets took a step towards realism.

Three novelists were very popular in the second half of the 19th century - these are Leo Tolstoy, Ivan Turgenev and Fyodor Dostoyevsky. They were different people, had different views, complex characters and gifts that were quite different. They created great novels - Russian classics, which can be read online on many sites today. These works had a strong impact on the life of the Russian people.

Another feature of Russian classics is ridiculing the shortcomings of man and society, a critical look at reality. Satire and humor - character traits works of Saltykov-Shchedrin and Gogol. Critics said that the writers were engaged in slander. Readers understood that suffering was hidden behind humor. The characters were both tragic and comic at the same time. Their main task is to excite souls.

Many writers were also talented playwrights. Read books of Russian classics online, it is convenient and relevant in our time. Pay attention to such works: "Boris Godunov" by Pushkin, "The Government Inspector" and "Woe from Wit" by Gogol. At one time, these works were a real event. Alexander Ostrovsky made a real revolution in the theater.

In the late 19th century, novels and short stories became popular. The masters of these genres were Anton Chekhov and Ivan Bunin. Chekhov created a gallery of sad and comical images, showed the problems of an intellectual who is at odds with himself. Bunin became famous for his love stories. In these works, all the stages and shades of feelings were very subtly described.

Being an active reader, I will try to take on the role of an assistant and sketch out a few ideas, making a list of the most recognized and most successful, from my point of view, works of both domestic and foreign literature. Most of these novels have already won, and continue to gain popularity, which means that these are exactly the books that you need to read in order to discover and know this magical, mysterious and so tempting world of literature.

1. What to read from the classics? The relevance of the issue.

Usually a similar question arises among those who suddenly realized the need for self-education or decided to fill in their gaps from the school course on Russian literature.

This is where the main difficulty arises. Everyone wants to read something from the collection of world masterpieces. But is there such a thing as a literary masterpiece? Critics argue that it is impossible to unequivocally answer this question: someone likes Russian literature, and someone foreign, someone reads it to the holes, and someone cannot imagine an evening without an exciting love story.

Having visited one of the major second-hand bookshops in the capital, I asked the sellers what questions visitors most often ask. As it turned out, one of the most common requests is precisely the request for advice on what to read from the classics.

It turns out that in fact there are many who wish, literature of this kind is in demand, but low awareness sometimes scares potential clients.

First of all, let's take a look at the novels. By the way, they should be understood as more short form presentation of current events than, for example, a story or a story. This type of narrative is characterized by the presence of only one storyline and the number of actors is very limited.

I would highlight the following:

1. Augustine "Treatises"
2. D. Swift "Gulliver's Travels"
3. F. Kafka "Process"
4. M. de Montaigne "Complete Essay"
5. N. Hawthorne "Letter to Scarlet"
6. G. Melville "Moby Dick"
7. R. Descartes "Principles of Philosophy"
8. Ch. Dickens "Oliver Twist"
9. G. Flaubert "Madame Bovary"
10. D. Austin "Pride and Prejudice"

1. Aeschylus "Agamemnon"
2. Sophocles "The Myth of Oedipus"
3. Euripides "Medea"
4. Aristophanes "Birds"
5. Aristotle "Poetics"
6. W. Shakespeare "Richard III", "Hamlet", "Dream in midsummer night"
7. Molière "Tartuffe"
8. W. Congreve "So do in the world"
9. Henrik Johan Ibsen "A Doll's House"

Dreamers and romantics very often try to find answers to the questions posed in verses. What to read from the classics in the poetic genre? Many things. But I would especially highlight:

1. Homer "Iliad" and "Odyssey"
2. Horace "Odes"
3. Dante Alighieri "Hell"
4. W. Shakespeare "Sonnets"
5. D. Milton" Lost heaven"
6. W. Wordsworth "Favorites"
7. S.T. Coleridge "Poems"

As for the works of our country, is there really nothing worthy? - Well, of course not! - If I were asked to answer the question of what to read from the Russian classics, I would, of course, recommend “Master and Margarita” by M. Bulgakov, “Mtsyri” by M. Lermontov, poems and poems by A. Pushkin.

3. Reading masterpieces of world literature. What does this give us?

Is it worth returning to this direction or is it better and more correct to pay more attention contemporary works? It is very, very difficult to answer this question unambiguously.

Sometimes opinions are divided just the same cardinally.

For example, opponents argue that it is already completely outdated, has lost its relevance, gradually turning into a kind of utopia. In turn, philologists and students of linguistic universities defend the masterpieces of the world epic, insisting that without studying the history, culture and subtleties of the language, it is impossible to understand and comprehend our today's world.

Well, well ... Each side is right in its own way ... Probably, everyone will agree that, say, Homer's "Odyssey" is not the so-called tabloid reading for a vacation or an empty pastime. It is difficult to read a work of such a plan and you need to do it thoughtfully, slowly and without being distracted, comprehending and remembering the details. Not everyone can do it.

It is these books that can introduce the reader to the world of both native and foreign literature, help to better understand the traditions, culture and mentality of peoples. And they will also reveal all the charm and richness of the colors of the narrative language, thereby replenishing the vocabulary of the reader.

Undoubtedly, reading all the books mentioned in this article may take several years, but in any case, it certainly will not be time wasted.

Ancient Greece

Homer "Odyssey" and "Iliad"

Did Homer really write these poems? Was he blind? And did it exist at all? These and other questions still remain unanswered, but pale in the face of eternity and the value of the texts themselves. The epic Iliad tells about Trojan War, for a long time was better known than the Odyssey, and in more influenced European literature. But the wanderings of Odysseus, written plain language, is almost a novel, perhaps the first one that has come down to us.

Great Britain

Charles Dickens "The Adventures of Oliver Twist"

A groundbreaking novel featuring real life without embellishment, Dickens composed at the age of 26. He did not have to strain his imagination strongly: main character who lived in poverty is the author himself, whose family went bankrupt when future writer was just a child. And even the name of the main villain Feygin Dickens took from life, borrowing, however, from his best friend.

The release of "Oliver Twist" had a bombshell effect in England: society, in particular, vied with each other to discuss - and condemn - child labor. Through the novel, readers learned that literature can act as a mirror.

Jane Austen "Pride and Prejudice"

Cornerstone for British literature a text as classic as "Eugene Onegin" in Russia. Quiet home young lady Austin wrote "Pride" quite young, but published only 15 years later, after the success of the book "Sense and Sensibility". Austen's phenomenon, among other things, is that almost all of her novels are classics, but Pride and Prejudice stands out against the general background with the presence of one of the most amazing couples in world literature - Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy. Darcy is a household name, without him Britain is not Britain. In general, “Pride and Prejudice” is the very case when the sign “ female romance”causes not a smirk, but admiration.

Germany

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe "Faust"

The 82-year-old Goethe completed the last, second part of Faust six months before his death. He began work on the text when he was twenty-five. Goethe put all the scrupulousness, efficiency and attention to detail inherited from the pedant-father into this ambitious work. Life, death, world order, good, evil - "Faust", like "War and Peace", in its own way is an exhaustive book in which everyone will find answers to any answers.

Erich Maria Remarque "Arc de Triomphe"

“One of the two always abandons the other. The whole question is who will get ahead of whom”, “Love does not tolerate explanations. She needs deeds ”- Remarque’s novel from those books that diverge into quotes. The love story in Paris besieged by the Germans turned the heads of more than one generation of readers, and the author's romance with Marlene Dietrich, and persistent rumors that it was Dietrich who became the prototype of Joan Mado, only add to the charm of this beautiful book.

Russia

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky "Crime and Punishment"

Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote this novel by force, because of the need for money: gambling debts, the death of his brother Mikhail, which left his family without funds. The plot of Crime and Punishment was "inspired" by the case of Pierre François Lacière, a French intellectual murderer who believed that society was to blame for his deeds. Dostoevsky composed parts, each of which was published in the journal Russkiy Vestnik. Later, the novel was released as a separate volume, in a new edition, abridged by the author, and began independent life. Today, Crime and Punishment is part of the world classics, one of the symbols of Russian literature and culture in general, translated into many languages ​​and filmed many times (up to the manga comic of the same name).

Leo Tolstoy "War and Peace"

The epic four-volume masterpiece, written in several passes, ended up taking Tolstoy nearly six years. "War and Peace" is inhabited by 559 heroes, the names of the main ones - Bezukhov, Natasha Rostova, Bolkonsky, have become household names. This novel is a large-scale (many people think that it is completely exhaustive) statement about everything in the world - war, love, the state, etc. The author himself quickly lost interest in War and Peace, a few years later calling the book "wordy", and at the end of his life - just "nonsense".

Colombia

Gabriel Garcia Marquez "One Hundred Years of Solitude"

The saga of the Buendia family is the second most popular Spanish text in the world (the first is Cervantes's Don Quixote). An example of the "magic realism" genre, which has become a kind of brand that unites completely different authors, such as Borges, Coelho and Carlos Ruiz Safon. One Hundred Years of Solitude was written by 38-year-old Marquez in a year and a half; To write this book, a father of two quit his job and sold his car. The novel came out in 1967, at first it was sold somehow, but in the end it gained world fame. The total circulation of "One Hundred Years" today is 30 million, Marquez is a classic, winner of everything in the world, including Nobel Prize, a symbolic writer who has done more for his native Colombia than anyone else. It is thanks to Marquez that the world knows that in Colombia there are not only drug lords, but also

Many of us from the school bench have remained convinced that for the most part Russian classics are a rather boring and unthinkably drawn-out work for several hundred pages about the hardships of life, mental suffering and philosophical quest main characters. We have collected Russian classics that are impossible not to read to the end.

Anatoly Pristavkin "A golden cloud spent the night"

“A golden cloud spent the night” by Anatoly Pristavkin- a story that is piercing in its tragedy, which happened to the orphans, twin brothers Sasha and Kolka Kuzmin, who were evacuated along with the rest of the pupils orphanage during the war in the Caucasus. Here it was decided to establish a labor colony for land development. Children turn out to be innocent victims of the government's policy towards the peoples of the Caucasus. This is one of the most powerful and honest stories about military orphans and the deportation of the Caucasian peoples. “A golden cloud spent the night” has been translated into 30 languages ​​of the world and is rightfully one of the the best works Russian classics. 10th place in our rating.

Boris Pasternak "Doctor Zhivago"

Novel Boris Pasternak "Doctor Zhivago" who brought him world fame and the Nobel Prize - in 9th place in the list of the best works of Russian classics. For his novel, Pasternak was sharply criticized by representatives of the official literary world of the country. The manuscript of the book was banned for publication, and the writer himself, under pressure, was forced to refuse to present the prestigious award. After the death of Pasternak, she was transferred to his son.

Mikhail Sholokhov " Quiet Don»

In terms of the scale and scope of the period of life of the main characters described in it, it can be compared with Leo Tolstoy's "War and Peace". This is an epic story about the life and fate of the representatives of the Don Cossacks. The novel covers three most difficult eras of the country: the first world war, the revolution of 1917 and civil war. What happened in the soul of people in those days, what reasons made them stand up different sides barricades of relatives and friends? The writer tries to answer these questions in one of the best works of Russian classical literature. "Quiet Don" - on the 8th place in our rating.

Stories by Anton Chekhov

The universally recognized classic of Russian literature, occupy 7th place in our list. One of the most famous playwrights in the world, wrote more than 300 works different genre He passed away very early, at the age of 44. Chekhov's stories, ironic, funny and eccentric, reflected the realities of life of that era. They have not lost their relevance even now. Feature of it short works- do not answer questions, but ask them to the reader.

I. Ilf and E. Petrov "The Twelve Chairs"

The novels of writers with a wonderful sense of humor I. Ilf and E. Petrov "The Twelve Chairs" and "The Golden Calf" take 6th place among the best works of Russian classics. After reading them, every reader will understand that classic literature- it is not only interesting and exciting, but also funny. The adventures of the great strategist Ostap Bender, the protagonist of the books by Ilf and Petrov, will not leave anyone indifferent. Immediately after the first publication, the writers' works were ambiguously perceived in literary circles. But time has shown their artistic value.

In fifth place in our ranking of the best works of Russian classics - The Gulag Archipelago by Alexander Solzhenitsyn. It's not only great romance about one of the heaviest and terrible periods in the history of the country - repressions in the USSR, but also autobiographical work based on personal experience the author, as well as letters and memoirs of more than two hundred prisoners of the camps. The release of the novel in the West was accompanied by loud scandal and persecution deployed against Solzhenitsyn and other dissidents. The publication of The Gulag Archipelago became possible in the USSR only in 1990. The novel is one of best books century.

Nikolai Gogol "Evenings on a farm near Dikanka"

Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol is a universally recognized classic of world significance. The crown of his work is considered the novel " Dead Souls”, the second volume of which was destroyed by the author himself. But our rating of the best works of Russian classics included the first book Gogol - "Evenings on a farm near Dikanka". It is hard to believe that the stories included in the book and written with sparkling humor were practically the first experience in Gogol's writing. A flattering review of the work was left by Pushkin, who was sincerely amazed and fascinated by Gogol's stories, written in a lively, poetic language without pretentiousness and stiffness.

The events described in the book take place in different time periods: in XVII, XVIII XIX centuries.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky "Crime and Punishment"

Novel "Crime and Punishment" by F. M. Dostoevsky ranks third in the list of the best works of Russian classics. He got the status cult book world importance. This is one of the most frequently filmed books. It's not only deep philosophical work, in which the author poses to readers the problems of moral responsibility, good and evil, but also a psychological drama and a fascinating detective story. The author shows the reader the process of transforming a talented and respectable young man into a killer. He is no less interested in the possibility of Raskolnikov's atonement for guilt.

Great epic novel Leo Tolstoy "War and Peace", the volume of which terrifies schoolchildren for many decades, is actually very interesting. It covers the period of several military campaigns against France, the strongest at that time, led by Napoleon Bonaparte. This is one of the brightest examples of the best works of not only Russian, but also world classics. The novel is recognized as one of the most epic works in world literature. Here every reader will find his favorite topic: love, war, courage.

Mikhail Bulgakov "The Master and Margarita"

Topping our list of best classics is the marvelous novel. The author never lived to see the publication of his book - it was published 30 years after his death.

Master and Margarita - so complex work that not a single attempt to film the novel failed. The figures of Woland, the Master and Margarita require filigree accuracy in the transfer of their images. Unfortunately, no actor has yet managed to achieve this. The film adaptation of the novel by director Vladimir Bortko can be considered the most successful.

Foundation of Classical Literature in different times replenished the outstanding geniuses of their peoples and their era. We love them for the opportunity to plunge into the world of the distant past, so classical literature remains popular at all times.

Classical Literature: General Description

It happens that a certain mood makes us pay attention to classic books, because the most famous works often the best. Not in vain, because it was these best works that inspired other famous authors - representatives of subsequent popular generations in literature. golden classic, an eternal series of books, will be a salvation for those who are not attracted by modern literary works, because it was the authors from this list of classics who were genre pioneers long before the postmodern era came, and literary world flared up with all genre diversity, which was difficult even to imagine in the conditional XIX century. Nevertheless, all this became possible thanks to the classics, as evidenced by numerous reviews.

Books of world classics: list

As you know, classical works are not just books, but also markers of the era, which are considered exemplary examples of how the best of writers saw their literary heritage. Moreover, most often the problem classical works resonates with the worldview of a whole generation, which makes the mass reader love these books with all his heart. This is also the reason why these books are often included in school curriculum different countries, because such works help to understand what a whole section of society was thinking about and breathing in a specific time frame.

This list contains only a few the best examples classical literature. But if you are wondering what to read from the literature included in the golden fund of world culture, then here you will definitely find something for yourself.