page_title: Aleksey Pisemsky
section_title: Later life
hierarchical_section_title: Aleksey Pisemsky / Biography / Later life
caption_attribution_description: The tombs of Aleksey Pisemsky and his wife at the Novodevichy Convent, Moscow
context_page_description: Aleksey Feofilaktovich Pisemsky was a Russian novelist and dramatist who was regarded as an equal of Ivan Turgenev and Fyodor Dostoyevsky in the late 1850s, but whose reputation suffered a spectacular decline after his fall-out with Sovremennik magazine in the early 1860s. A realistic playwright, along with Aleksandr Ostrovsky he was responsible for the first dramatization of ordinary people in the history of Russian theatre. "Pisemsky's great narrative gift and exceptionally strong grip on reality make him one of the best Russian novelists," according to D.S. Mirsky.
  Pisemsky's first novel Boyarschina was originally forbidden for its unflattering description of the Russian nobility. His principal novels are The Simpleton, One Thousand Souls, which is considered his best work of the kind, and Troubled Seas, which gives a picture of the excited state of Russian society around the year 1862. He also wrote plays, including A Bitter Fate, which depicts the dark side of the Russian peasantry. The play has been called the first Russian realistic tragedy; it won the Uvarov Prize of the Russian Academy.
context_section_description: After moving to Moscow, Pisemsky joined The Russian Messenger as the head of the literary department. In 1866, on the recommendation of Interior minister Pyotr Valuyev, he became a local government councilor, the job providing him the financial independence he was craving for. Being now a well-paid author and a thrifty man, Pisemsky was able to build his fortune enough to enable him to leave work both at the magazine and the government office. In the late 1860s he bought a small piece of land on Borisoglebsky Lane in Moscow and built himself a house there. All seemed well, but only on the face of it. Troubled Seas (1863) and Russian Liars (1864) were his last critically acclaimed works. Then came the political drama The Warriors and Those Who Wait (1864) and the dramatic dilogy Old Birds (1864), and Birds of the Latest Gathering (1865), followed by the tragedy Men Above the Law, as well as two historical plays, full of melodramatic turns and naturalistic elements, Lieutenant Gladkov and Miloslavskys and Naryshkins (both 1867).
  In 1869 Zarya published his semi-autobiographical novel People of the Forties. Its main character Vikhrov who the author associated himself with, has been found seriously wanting by critics. In 1871 Beseda published his novel In the Vortex, driven by the same leitmotif: the new 'high ideals' had nothing in common with Russian practical life and were therefore worthless. According to Skabichevsky, all the post-1864 works of Pisemsky were much weaker than everything he'd written before, demonstrating "the decline of a talent so dramatic it was unprecedented in Russian literature."
  Then followed a series of pamphlet-type dramas (Baal, The Enlightened Times, and The Financial Genius) in which Pisemsky took it upon himself to fight the "blight of the time", all manner of financial misdoings. "In the earlier years I exposed stupidity, prejudices and ignorance, ridiculed childish romanticism and empty rhetoric, fought serfdom and denounced abuses of power, documented the emergence of the first flowers of our nihilism, which has now had their fruits, and finally have taken on human kind's worst enemy, Baal, the golden calf of worship... I've also brought light to things for everybody to see: the wrong-doings of entrepreneurs and purveyors are colossal, all trade [in Russia] is based upon the most vile deceit, theft in banks is business as usual and beyond all this scum, like angels, our military men stand shining," he explained in a private letter.
  One of his comedies, Saps (Подкопы), was so outright in its critique of higher spheres it was banned by censors. Others were staged, but enjoyed only short-lived success, having to do mostly with the sensationalist aspect, for the public could recognize in certain characters real life officials and financiers. Artistically they were flawed, and even The Russian Messenger, which traditionally had supported the author, refused to publish The Financial Genius. After the stage production of the play flopped, Pisemsky returned to the form of the novel and in his last 4 years produced two of them: The Philistines, and Masons, the later being notable for its picturesque historical background created with the help of Vladimir Solovyov. Skabichevsky described both as "anemic and dull", and even Ivan Turgenev, who made great efforts to cheer Pisemsky up, still noted a streak of "tiredness" in the author's latest prose. "You were absolutely right: I am really tired of writing, and even more – of living. Of course old age is no fun for anybody, but for me it's especially bad and full of dark torment I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy," Pisemsky wrote back in a letter.
  Losing popularity was one of the reasons for such misery. He scolded his critics, calling them "vipers", but was aware that his golden days were over. Vasily Avseenko, describing Pisemsky's visit to Saint Petersburg in 1869 after the publication of People of the Forties, recalled how old and tired he looked. "I am beginning to feel like a victim of my own spleen," Pisemsky confessed in an August 1875 letter to 
caption: The tombs of Aleksey Pisemsky and his wife at the Novodevichy Convent
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