Fedor Mikhailovich Reshetnikov
Fedor Mikhailovich Reshetnikov was a notable Russian writer born in 1841 in Ekaterinburg, who faced immense hardships throughout his early life. Orphaned at a young age, he endured severe abuse while living with his uncle and later at a seminary. His tumultuous upbringing involved periods of homelessness and survival through street performances. Reshetnikov's life took a turning point during a brief exile in a monastery, where he cultivated his religious devotion and began to write about the struggles of the poor.
Reshetnikov emerged as a significant literary figure in St. Petersburg, gaining recognition for his novella "Podilpovtsy" in 1864, which portrayed the grim realities of impoverished life with striking authenticity. His works, characterized by their vivid realism, drew both acclaim and criticism for their unflinching depiction of social issues. He continued to explore the themes of labor and injustice in subsequent novels, including "Glumovy" and "Svoi khleb," the latter focusing on the plight of women. Despite his early death at twenty-nine due to health complications related to alcoholism, Reshetnikov left an enduring impact on Russian literary realism.
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Subject Terms
Fedor Mikhailovich Reshetnikov
Writer
- Born: September 5, 1841
- Birthplace: Ekaterinburg, Russia
- Died: 1871
- Place of death: St. Petersburg, Russia
Biography
Fedor Mikhailovich Reshetnikov was born in 1841 in the Russian town of Ekaterinburg to a family meagerly supported by his father’s earnings as a traveling postman. Reshetnikov had no memory of either of his parents, with his alcoholic father abandoning the family shortly after his birth and his mother dying of a fever soon thereafter. The orphan moved in with a poor uncle in the province of Perm, who regularly beat the child savagely as a means of discipline. The beatings continued when Reshetnikov was sent to a seminary for his education, nearly being beaten to death after a failed escape attempt.
Reshetnikov’s difficult life continued after he managed to successfully escape from the seminary and wandered alone through Perm, at times living with factory workers or begging and performing tricks in the streets. After returning to his uncle’s house, the young Reshetnikov became more angry and resistant to his uncle’s beatings, but they persisted at home and at the poor local school he attended. His life took an upturn when he was sentenced to a three-month exile in a monastery for a minor theft; he was able to escape systematic beatings at the relatively lax monastery and found time for studying. He left the monastery with a new sense of religious devotion.
Reshetnikov began to view himself as a literary writer, producing many sketches, essays, and stories about the brutal daily life of his region’s poor laborers, but few of these survive today. However, with a growing reputation as a man of letters, Reshetnikov moved to St. Petersburg to become a writer, supporting himself as a clerk in the courts. He became widely known in literary circles and caused a controversy with the publication of his novella Podilpovtsy in 1864, where he describes the daily horrors of the poor people in his region with stunning verisimilitude of characterization, dialect, and detail. Some critics felt his portrayal of the poor was overly derogatory and offensive, but most critics agreed that Reshetnikov had taken literary realism to a new level with this publication.
Following the success of Podilpovtsy, Reshetnikov’s literary production increased, and he took a trip to the Ural Mountains to research the conditions of the workers there, living and working with them in a local factory. His efforts paid off with the publication of the novels Glumovy (1866) andGde luchshe? (1868), which capture the hardships and tragedy of the working class masses in an alarmingly realistic way. His final novel, Svoi khleb (1870), continues Reshetnikov’s interest in capturing the lives of Russia’s exploited citizens in literature, but this time his focus is almost exclusively on the unjust burden and discrimination of women. Reshetnikov died at the age of twenty- nine of emphysema, exacerbated by his alcoholism and poverty, despite his literary successes. He left a lasting mark on Russian literary realism.