Jump to content

The History of a Town

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Lembit Staan (talk | contribs) at 02:53, 3 February 2021. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

The History of a Town
First edition
AuthorMikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin
Original titleИстория одного города
LanguageRussian
PublisherOtechestvennye Zapiski
Publication date
1870
Publication placeRussia

The History of a Town is a fictional chronicle by Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin first published in 1870 and regarded as the major satirical Russian novel of the 19th century. [1]

History

In the 1867-1868 Saltykov-Shchedrin stopped working upon the Pompadours and Pompadouresses series of short stories and sketches and started upon a novel, seeing it a kind of a spin-off for the cycle. In January 1869 two first chapters ("The City Inventory" and "A Little Organ") appeared in the No.1 issue of Otechestvennye Zapiski magazine. A pause followed and lasted till the end of the year: the author wrote and published several satirical fairytales ("The Tale of How One Peasant Fed Two Generals", "The Lost Consciousness", "A Rabid Landlord" and others), started the new series called Tashkenters (Gospoda Tashkentsy; "Tashkentsy" means Tashkent dwellers) and finished "Sign of the Times" and "Letters About a Province" cycles. The rest of the novel was published in issues No.1-4, 9, 1870, of Otechestvennye Zapiski. In 1870 the novel came as a separate edition under the title The History of a Town, subtitled: "Based on true historical documents and published by M.E.Saltykov (Shchedrin)", implying the latter to be a publisher, not the author. [1]

References

  1. ^ a b Prozorov, V.V. (1990). "М.Е.Saltykov-Shchedrin". Russian Writers. Biobibliographical Dictionary. Vol 2. Ed. P.A.Nikolayev. Moscow, "Prosveshcheniye" Publishers. Retrieved 2012-03-01.