Viktor Klyushnikov
Viktor Klyushnikov | |
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| Born | Клюшников Виктор Петрович March 22, 1841 Gzhatsk region, Smolensk Governorate, Imperial Russia |
| Died | November 19, 1892 (aged 51) Saint Petersburg, Imperial Russia |
| Occupation(s) | writer, editor, journalist |
Viktor Petrovich Klyushnikov (Russian: Виктор Петрович Клюшников, born 22 March 1841, village Leksianovka, Gzhatsk region, Smolensk Governorate, Imperial Russia, - 19 November 1892, Saint Petersburg, Imperial Russia) was a Russian writer, editor and journalist, whose debut novel, Marevo (Марево, Haze, Russky Vestnik, 1864), was for a while considered to be one of the four 'great anti-nihilist' novels of the time, alongside Troubled Seas by Alexey Pisemsky, No Way Out by Nikolai Leskov and Demons by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Both Ivan Turgenev and Alexey K. Tolstoy reacted positively, hailing the arrival of the original, even if erratic literary talent, "who [was playing] with his gift in acrobatic fashion", as Tolstoy put it.[1]
None of Klyushnikov's later works - among them Bolshiye korabli (Большие корабли, Big Ships, 1866), Tsygane (Gypsies, Цыгане, 1869), Drugaya zhizn (Другая жизнь, Another Life, 1865), Pri Petre (При Петре, In the Peter's Times, 1872, with Vasily Kelsiyev), Semya Volnodumtsev (Семья вольнодумцев, Free-Thinkers' Family, 1872, with Pyotr Petrov), Gosudar-otrok (Государь-отрок, The Young Tsar, 1880) - have come even close to repeating the success of his debut.[1]
According to the modern scholar O. Mayorova, Klyushnikov was continuously dogged by financial troubles which might have accounted for the fact that most of his novels and novelets, bearing the mark of utter haste, boasted caricature characters and improbable twists of plots, the two drawback only to some extent compensated by fine, lively language and occasionally brilliant observations of the real life. In retrospect, she argued, Klyushnikov's major achievement was his work (in 1870-1876, then 1887-1892) as the editor-in-chief of the popular and influential Niva magazine, to which he devoted himself totally. He also published his own Krugozor magazine (1876-1878) which proved to be financial disaster, and edited the Encyclopedic Dictionary of Science (1877-1886).[1][2]
References
- ^ a b c "Клюшников, Виктор Петрович". / www.hrono.ru. Retrieved 16 November 2015.
- ^ Boris Glinsky. Клюшников, Виктор Петрович at the Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary. Vol. XV, p. 446