Vasilii Trofimovich Narezhny
Vasilii Trofimovich Narezhny, born in 1780 in Ukraine, is a noteworthy yet often overlooked figure in the history of Russian literature. He played a pivotal role in the establishment of the novel as a prominent literary genre in Russia. Narezhny's early education took place in Moscow, where he developed a passion for literature, publishing works such as his tragedy "Dimitrii samozvanets." His experiences working as a secretary in Tbilisi inspired his satirical work "Chernyi god," which critiques Russian colonialism. In St. Petersburg, he published the successful "Slavenskie vechera," allowing him to focus on his long novel "Rossiiskii Zhilblaz," a significant work that parodies contemporary society and acknowledges the influence of French literature. Despite facing censorship that prevented the full publication of this work during his lifetime, Narezhny continued to write, producing a series of humorous novels that explored Ukrainian culture and introduced new linguistic forms to Russian literature. His contributions are often overshadowed, but they likely influenced later writers, including Nikolai Gogol, and expanded the representation of provincial characters in literary discourse.
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Vasilii Trofimovich Narezhny
Fiction Writer and Playwright
- Born: 1780
- Birthplace: Ustivitsa, Poltava, Ukraine
- Died: June 21, 1825
Biography
Although seldom remembered today, Vasilii Trofimovich Narezhny was crucial to the inauguration of the novel as a Russian literary genre during his time. Narezhny was born in Ustivitsa, in the Poltava region of Ukraine, in 1780, to Trofim Ivanovich Narezhny, a military servant and poor landowner. Narezhny was first educated at home, and then—at the age of twelve—sent to a preparatory school affiliated with Moscow University.
Beginning in 1799, he studied philosophy for two years at Moscow University, where he also took an interest in literary life, publishing poems and tragic dramas in university journals and composing Dimitrii samozvanets (Dimitrii the pretender), a tragedy that was published in 1804 and performed in 1809. Narezhny’s satire of Russian colonialism and Georgian bureaucracy, Chernyi god: Ili, Gorskie kniazia (the black year, or: the mountain princes, 1829), derives from the year he spent working as a secretary at the military headquarters in Tbilisi after leaving the university in 1801, possibly for financial reasons.
In 1803, Narezhny moved to St. Petersburg to work as a civil servant in the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The publication of the first part of Slavenskie vechera (Slavonic Evenings, 1809), a series of patriotic prose poems, was a success and enabled Narezhny to take a leave of absence from his job and begin work on a long novel in 1813, also the year of his marriage. The resultant attack on contemporary society, Rossiiskii Zhilblaz: Ili, Pokhozhdeniia kniazia Gavrily Simonovich Chistiakova (a Russian Gil Blas: or, the adventures of Prince Gavrily Simonovich Chistiakov, 1814), is considered one of Narezhny’s most important and accomplished works.
He acknowledges the influence of Alain Réné Lesage’s picaresque Histoire de Gil Blas de Sanuntilane (1715-1735) in his title, but moves beyond the imitation of his earliest works to engage with, and parody, Lesage’s novel. Unfortunately, the satirical ferocity of Rossiiskii Zhilblaz prevented its complete publication during Narezhny’s lifetime—the last three parts were censored and did not appear until 1938. Thus, in 1815 he was obliged for financial reasons to resume civil service, this time as a desk chief, and then as a court counselor, in the Inspector’s Department at the headquarters of the Ministry of War. Narezhny retired in 1821.
During the end of 1810’s and the beginning of the 1820’s, Narezhny wrote actively, creating a series of humorous novels detailing the Ukrainian character and introducing popular speech forms into the Russian literary language. In 1824, he published both Novye povesti (new stories), a collection of six stories, and Bursak, malorossiiskaia povest’ (the seminary student, a little Russian tale), a novel which invokes elements of the picaresque and the historical romance in its vivid descriptions of provincial Ukrainian life.
Narezhny’s significance as a pioneer of the Russian novel is often overlooked, yet his depictions of “Little Russia” likely influenced Nikolai Gogol. Furthermore, Narezhny introduced into the Russian literary imagination a wide range of provincial characters previously ignored by writers.