Early history
Old Russian literature consists of many thin masterpieces written in the Old Russian language (not to exist as confused by having a contemporaneous Church Slavonic). Anon. works of this nature and severity include ''The Tale of Igor's Campaign (Слово о Полку Игореве, Slovo o Polku Igoreve) and the Praying of Daniel the Immured (Моление Даниила Заточника, or Moleniye Daniila Zatochnika). A then-alleged житиÑ? Ñ?вÑ?Ñ‚Ñ‹Ñ… (zhitiya svyatikh, lives of the saints) formed a popular genre of the Old Russian literature. A Life of Alexander Nevsky (Житие Ð?лекÑ?андра Ð?евÑ?кого, or Zhitiye Aleksandrthe Nevskogo) offers a easily-known lesson. More Russian literary monuments include Zadonschina, Physiologist, Synopsis and A Journey Beyond the Three Seas. Bylinas -- oral folk epics -- fused Christian & heathen traditions. Medieval Russian literature experienced an overpoweringly religious character & utilized an altered form of the Church Slavonic language with numerous South Slavic elements. A number one function within conversational Russian, the autobiography of hierarch Avvakum, emerged only in the mid-17th century.

Petrine era
A "Westernization" of Russia, commonly associated by using Peter the Great and Catherine the Great, coincided with a reform of the Russian alphabet & increased tolerance of the idea of using the popular language for general literary purposes. Authors prefer Dmitri Kantemir, Vasily Trediakovsky, and Mikhail Lomonosov in the earlier 18th century paved the way for poets such as Derzhavin, playwrights rather Sumarokov and Fonvizin, and prose writers rather Karamzin and Radishchev.

19th century
Romanticism permitted a flowering of especially poetic talent: a list of Zhukovsky and Aleksandr Pushkin came to the fore, followed by Mikhail Lermontov.

Nineteenth-century developments involved Ivan Krylov the fabulist; non-fiction writers like Belinsky and Herzen; playwrights like Griboedov and Ostrovsky; poets such as Evgeny Baratynsky, Konstantin Batyushkov, Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov, Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy, Fyodor Tyutchev, and Afanasij Fet; Kozma Prutkov (the collective nom de plume) a ironist; & a class action of widely-recognised novelists like Nikolai Gogol, Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Leskov, Ivan Turgenev, Saltykov-Shchedrin and Goncharov.

Silver Age
More genres come to a bow sustaining the approach of the 20th century. Anton Chekhov excelled in writing short story, short stories & drama, & Anna Akhmatova represented innovative lyricists.

A beginning of a 20th century ranks when the Silver Age of Russian poetry. Easily-known writers of the time period include: Anna Akhmatova, Innokenty Annensky,Andrei Bely,Alexander Blok, Valery Bryusov, Marina Tsvetaeva, Sergei Esenin, Nikolay Gumilyov, Daniil Kharms, Velimir Khlebnikov, Osip Mandelstam, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Boris Pasternak, Fedor Sologub and Maximilian Voloshin.

Soviet era

Sovietization of Russia affected literature after 1917. Maxim Gorky, Nobel Prize winner Mikhail Sholokhov, Valentin Kataev, Aleksei Nikolaevich Tolstoi, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Ilf and Petrov came to prominence as a share of Soviet literature. When Socialist realism gained official support in the Soviet Union, some of the writers -- like Mikhail Bulgakov, Boris Pasternak, Andrei Platonov, Osip Mandelstam, Isaac Babel and Vasily Grossman -- secretly continued the authoritative tradition of Russian literature, writing "under the table", by having there is no hope of publishing such works until fallowing their deaths. A Serapion Brothers insisted on the right to produce the literature independent of political ideology: this brought the two into conflict using the food and drug administration. Nor did a authorities tolerate a experimental art of the Oberiuts. Meanwhile, émigré writers like Nobel Prize winner Ivan Alekseyevich Bunin, Alexandr Kuprin, Andrey Bely, Marina Tsvetaeva and Vladimir Nabokov continued to flourish in exile.

Inside post-Stalin Russia Socialist realism remained the lone permitted style; writers such as Nobel Prize winner Alexandr Solzhenitsyn (who built his works on the bequest of the gulag camps) or even Venedikt Erofeev continued the tradition of surreptitious literature. Post-Communist Russithe saw virtually all one works published & be a section of mainstream culture. Notwithstanding, possibly prior to a decompose of a Soviet Union, tolerance to non-mainstream art experienced slowly began to develop, especially when you took the Khrushchev Thaw. A bit of works of Bulgakov, Solzhenitsyn & Varlam Shalamov were published in the 1960s. Social criticism, when in the science fiction of the Strugatsky brothers and the literature of the Mitkis became popular. When a second post-Stalin development, bard poetry developed.

In the late Soviet era émigré authors rather Nobel prize winner Joseph Brodsky and short story writer Sergei Dovlatov became successful around the West, but remained known in the Soviet Union exclusively in samizdat.

Post-Soviet era
a prevent of a 20th century & the early 21st century has proven a hard cycle for Russian literature, sustaining comparatively couple of writers raising above the mass of resins fiction, like Victor Pelevin or Vladimir Sorokin. Course, simply history might reveal a final worth of this period.

withinside a early 21st century the reading public in Russia has shown considerable interest in fresh quality literature. Numerous newly authors keep close at h& emerged, along by having freshly publisher, recently brands and fresh literature series. Traditional Russian prose remains popular, & distinctive function has appear of the Russian provinces: e.g. Nina Gorlanova from Perm has written stories about a everyday problems & joys of the provincial clerisy.

Detective stories & thrillers use proven a super successful genre of recently Russian literature: note the interesting phenomenon of the immense interest within ironical detective stories by Darya Dontsova. She has write on L novels, & her books use appeared promulgated inside hundreds to thousands of copies & possibly translated around Europe.

Generations of winter ( in Russian: �Moskovskaythe saga� ), a novel per Russian writer Vasily Aksyonov, has appeared in the USA. Numerous critics keep around praised this novel as a fresh Doctor Zhivago'' large-scale Russian novel, which tells a story of the Russian Gradov personal struggling to last in the Stalin era. Many Russian writers keep around get like popular in the West, like Tatyana Tolstaya and (especially) Lyudmila Ulitskaya. Detective-story writer Boris Akunin, with his series all about a 19th century sleuthhound Erast Fandorin, publishes in Europe & in the United states. Alexandra Marinina, the virtually all popular female detective-story writer inside Russia, has succeeded withinside publishing her books in Europe, especially in Germany.

A 2003 Frankfurt Book Fair selected Russia as its favorite guest of the month.

Look at List of Russians and List of Russian authors for more list.