Aleksandr Ivanovich Levitov
Aleksandr Ivanovich Levitov was a Russian writer born in 1835 in Dobroe, Tambov province. His life was marked by poverty and hardship, which deeply influenced his literary work. Levitov's early education was shaped by his father's role as a deacon and educator, but he faced challenges at the Tambov Seminary due to his literary interests. After leaving the seminary, he endured personal tragedies, including the death of his mother and the abandonment of his family by his father. Following a brief academic pursuit in medicine, his expulsion from the Medical-Surgical Academy led him to a life of writing and alcohol during his exile.
Levitov is primarily known for his sketches that capture the lives of the Russian underclass, portraying the struggles of those living in both rural villages and urban slums. His characters often seek solace in alcohol rather than protest against societal injustices. While his early works received acclaim, by the 1870s, the shifting literary tastes diminished their popularity. Nonetheless, Levitov's sketches remain significant for their documentary insight into the lives of marginalized communities in 19th-century Russia, reflecting themes of despair and resilience.
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Subject Terms
Aleksandr Ivanovich Levitov
Fiction Writer
- Born: Summer, 1835
- Birthplace: Dobroe, Tambov province, Russia
- Died: January 1, 1877
- Place of death: Moscow, Russia
Biography
The Russian underclass was the preferred subject in the short fiction for which Aleksandr Ivanovich Levitov’s primarily is known. Levitov himself experienced poverty throughout his short life. He was born in Dobroe, a village in Tambov province, Russia, during the summer of 1835, to Praskov’ia Prokof’evna Levitova, née Kuz’mina, and Ivan Fedorovich Levitov, a deacon in the village church who also ran an inn and a school for peasant children. In 1844, Levitov was accepted into the third grade at a nearby school; however, his teaching obligations at his father’s school necessitated that he study independently and take quarterly exams. Levitov left home in 1850 to begin his studies at the Tambov Seminary, where he was often disciplined for his literary interests, which were at odds with those sanctioned by the seminary. As a result, he left in 1854, a year short of finishing. Upon hearing the news of his departure from the seminary and from family tradition, Levitov’s mother collapsed from shock and died. Subsequently, his father started drinking, remarried, and abandoned Levitov’s siblings, Mariia and Aleksei.
Levitov and a friend journeyed to Moscow, on foot, in the hopes of beginning medical studies at Moscow University. Although Levitov passed the entrance examinations, he was unable to secure a scholarship. In 1856, following a successful year at the Medical-Surgical Academy in St. Petersburg, where he was given a scholarship, Levitov was unexpectedly expelled and sent into exile in Vologda, Shenkursk, and Vel’sk. He turned to alcohol and to writing to escape his boredom. Levitov began his first literary work, “Iarmarochnye stseny,” an ocherk (sketch), a genre of Russian literature that combines fiction and reportage. Levitov’s exile ended in 1859 and he traveled, once more on foot, to his home province and then to Moscow, amassing more material for his sketches.
After living on the streets, Levitov found work as an assistant to the editorial secretary of Russkii vestnik, a literary journal. In 1861 he met a Moscow seamstress who became his common-law wife. That year, his sketch “Sladkoe zhit’e” was published in part in Moskovskii vestnik and in full in Vremia. His sketches appeared in a number of leading journals and were collected in 1865 as Stepnye ocherki. Levitov’s sketches depict life in both impoverished villages and urban slums. The downtrodden and their locales are the unglamorous centerpiece of his work. Levitov’s characters do not protest against the injustices dealt them; rather, many seek escape in alcohol. In the mid- 1860’s Levitov began moving back and forth between Moscow and St. Petersburg, often living in utter poverty. He wrote sketches of the urban poor and briefly held various jobs, including schoolteacher, railway worker, and editor. Collections of his works continued to appear in the 1870’s but were less successful than his earlier efforts because such unflinching depictions of the common people were no longer in vogue. By the early twenty-first century, however, the documentary importance of Levitov’s sketches is unquestionable.