Vasily Trofimovich Narezhny (russian: Василий Трофимович Нарежный; 1780, Ustivitsa,

Mirgorodsky Uyezd Mirgorodsky Uyezd (''Миргородский уезд'') was one of the subdivisions of the Poltava Governorate of the Russian Empire. It was situated in the central part of the governorate. Its administrative centre was Mirgorod (Myrhorod). Demo ...

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...

— ,

St. Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

) was a

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

Imperial writer best known for his satirical depiction of provincial mores in the vein of the 18th-century

picaresque novel The picaresque novel ( Spanish: ''picaresca'', from ''pícaro'', for "rogue" or "rascal") is a genre of prose fiction. It depicts the adventures of a roguish, but "appealing hero", usually of low social class, who lives by his wits in a corru ...

. Narezhny came from a poor Ukrainian szlachta family. He studied at

Moscow Imperial University M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU; russian: Московский государственный университет имени М. В. Ломоносова) is a public research university in Moscow, Russia and the most prestigious ...

from 1799 to 1801, afterwards serving in the civil service in the

Caucasus The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, mainly comprising Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia (country), Georgia, and parts of Southern Russia. The Caucasus Mountains, including the Greater Caucasus range ...

and in

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

. During his time at Moscow Imperial University he wrote several tragedies in the

Sturm und Drang ''Sturm und Drang'' (, ; usually translated as "storm and stress") was a proto- Romantic movement in German literature and music that occurred between the late 1760s and early 1780s. Within the movement, individual subjectivity and, in particul ...

style. His work ''Dmitry the Pretender'' (russian: Дмитрий Самозванец) was published in 1804. His collection of stories ''Slavonic Nights'' (1809), set in

Kievan Rus Kievan Rusʹ, also known as Kyivan Rusʹ ( orv, , Rusĭ, or , , ; Old Norse: ''Garðaríki''), was a state in Eastern Europe, Eastern and Northern Europe from the late 9th to the mid-13th century.John Channon & Robert Hudson, ''Penguin Hist ...

, was well received. Perhaps his most famous novel is ''A Russian

Gil Blas ''Gil Blas'' (french: L'Histoire de Gil Blas de Santillane ) is a picaresque novel by Alain-René Lesage published between 1715 and 1735. It was highly popular, and was translated several times into English, most notably as The Adventures of G ...

'' (russian: Российский Жильблаз) (1814), an avowed imitation of Lesage's work. The earthy, humorous realism of this novel established him as the chief predecessor of

Gogol Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol; uk, link=no, Мико́ла Васи́льович Го́голь, translit=Mykola Vasyliovych Hohol; (russian: Яновский; uk, Яновський, translit=Yanovskyi) ( – ) was a Russian novelist, ...

in Russian literature. Narezhny's rough, vernacular Russian contrasted sharply with the sensitivity and musicality of the Karamzin school's Gallicized language. His last work, ''The Divinity Student'' (russian: Бурсак) (1824), is a romance about the adventures of a

hetman ( uk, гетьман, translit=het'man) is a political title from Central and Eastern Europe, historically assigned to military commanders. Used by the Czechs in Bohemia since the 15th century. It was the title of the second-highest military co ...

's son; George Grabowicz considered it "probably his best work." D. S. Mirsky wrote:

Narézhny had a grip on real life, which places him above all the "prehistorical" Russian novelists. But he was too little of an artist, and his books, owing to their heavy style and their diffuseness, are difficult reading. He was in fact little read, and his influence on the development of the Russian novel is almost negligible.

However, his lack of influence also had to do with the immediate suppression of ''A Russian Gil Blas'' by the censor; the first three parts were confiscated soon after they appeared and the remaining three were prohibited (the entire work was first published in 1938). Nicholas Crowe takes a more favorable view than Mirsky, calling Narezhnyi "the inheritor and fine-tuner of that solid 18th-century novel-writing tradition in Russia that established prose as a workable and valid medium":

An accomplished writer of novels and short stories alike, he represented the high point of the 18th-century fictional legacy rather than the modes of the rapidly evolving literary environment of the early 19th century in which he happened to find himself working. For imaginative sweep, wit, satirical acuity, and consummate gifts in the art of story-telling one could, during that period, do worse than turn to Narezhnyi...Nicholas Crowe in Neil Cornwell, ''Reference Guide to Russian Literature'' (Taylor & Francis, 1998; ), p. 572.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Narezhny Novelists from the Russian Empire Male writers from the Russian Empire Male novelists 1780 births Russian people of Ukrainian descent 1825 deaths