To say that Russia has had an impact on world literature would be an understatement. The Russian-speaking world is famous for its writers among whom there are several candidates and winners of the Nobel prize.
The question remains – where to start? Who should you read?
This article is a crash-course on famous Russian authors. This will by no means cover even a fraction of the amazing Russophone authors out there.
That being said, I’ll cover some of the most widely known and revered poets, playwrights, novels, and wordsmiths. Get ready to discover the most famous Russian authors.
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Here's a quick preview of the famous Russian authors you'll discover, in no particular order.
Table of Contents
1. Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin
It’s impossible to talk about famous Russian authors without bringing up Aleksander Pushkin.
Broadly considered the god-father of Russian literature, he is required reading in Russian schools and students often have to memorize passages of his prose and poetry.
He has an extensive oeuvre ranging from short stories like The Tales of Belkin (Повести покойного Ивана Петровича Белкина) novels like The Captain’s Daughter (Капитанская дочка) as well as an extensive collection of poetry.
Pushkin even has a novel composed entirely in verse, the famous Evgeny Onegin (Евгений Онегин).
For Russian learners, Pushkin is both essential and a challenge. His influence is enormous as his works are referenced regularly and he coined a number of widely used Russian expressions.
Understandably, he uses vocabulary that can be poetic, uncommon, or outdated. Additionally, due to sound changes in Russian pronunciation, many lines of his poetry no longer rhyme as they once did.
2. Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy
When people talk about Russian writing, Tolstoy is one of the first names to come up.
Having penned War and Peace (Война и мир) Anna Karenina (Анна Каренина) he has a place in the Russian literary canon for a very good reason.
His longer novels often follow large casts of characters with particularly nuanced inner worlds. All of his works aim to portray very accurately the society he was living in.
For Russian learners, it might be a surprise to hear but Tolstoy is one of the most accessible famous Russian authors for those learning Russian.
His writing tends to be quite direct and kept to shorter, more succinct sentences without being overly verbose or flowery.
3. Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky
One of the giants of Russian literature, his work is renowned for its psychological insight and deep exploration of the human condition.
Dostoyevsky’s novels, like Crime and Punishment (Преступление и наказание) and The Brothers Karamazov (Братя Карамазов) explore themes of morality, free will, and existential despair.
These are very much stories about people’s psychological state and world view so characters are often tormented and frustrated while they grapple with profound questions about faith, reason, society and their place in it.
Dostoyesky’s works are wonderful but you should be ready to be in a pensive mindset going into them.
4. Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol
If you like work that’s a bit cooky, absurd, and often full of dry humor, then Gogol is worth reading.
Gogol’s work often uses broad caricatures rather than psychologically deep characters and stretches out their qualities to highlight social commentary on things like superficiality, corruption, issues with bureaucracy, and hypocrisy within society.
Dead Souls (Мертвые души) tells the story of a man who buys deceased serfs in order to secure his own social standing.
The Overcoat (Шинель) is about the backstory of a haunted overcoat attacking the citizens of St. Petersburg and Taras Bulba (Тарас Бульба) is the tragi-comic tale of a man so stubborn that he instigates a war with Poland.
A word of warning, Gogol’s work can be hilarious but due to the unfamiliarity of his settings, it can take some time to attune yourself to the humour.
5. Mikhail Lermontov
Other than Pushkin, Lermontov is probably the most important Russian writer of the early classics.
He writes very much in the style of romanticism and started the trend of psychological novels that focus more on a character's inner world.
Reading Lermontov can give a lot of insight into the Russian Empire of the early 1800s as he spent a lot of time in the Caucasus and wrote extensively about in stories like Hero of Our Time (Герой нашего времени).
His poems are well known in Russian with his longer poem The Demon (Демон), exploring ideas of exile, solitude, and the search for meaning.
6. Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
Chekhov is the most famous Russian-language playwright both in Russian-speaking countries and in the English-speaking world.
If you pass by any Russian-language theatre there’s a good chance one of his plays is showing or is about to.
His theatrical works like The Cherry Orchard, Uncle Vanya, and Three Sisters focus on the lives of ordinary people in unremarkable circumstances.
Aside from plays, Chekhov also wrote an impressive number of short stories. His works have a strong element of realism to them and avoid melodrama, instead portraying the quiet tragedies and triumphs of everyday existence.
If you’re a fan of the form then try out The Lady with the Dog (Дама с сабочкой), Ward No 6. (Палата номер шестой) and The Bet (Пари).
Each of these are famous for their depth and description of complex human emotions packed into just a few pages and set in relatively short spans of time.
7. Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov
Bulgakov is an outstanding dissident author from the Soviet era whose writing is famous for both critiques of society and meditations on the human condition.
The novella Heart of a Dog (Собачье сердце) is a sharp critique of culture in the early years of the Soviet Union.
His most famous work is without question The Master and Margarita (Мастер и Маргарита).
It's a large, sweeping story about a devil-like character and a talking black cat arriving in Moscow, the life of Pontius Pilate, a poet named ‘Homeless’ (Бездомный) going mad and spending time in a mental ward, a magic ointment that turns people invisible, among many other things.
The novel is at times hilarious, sad, reflective, and absurd – often all at once.
8. Anna Andreyevna Akhmatova
Akhmatova is one of Russia’s most celebrated poets of the last century.
Her verse tends to be emotionally charged and filled with longing, sadness, and intimacy.
As poetry is notorious difficult to translate, her work is harder to appreciate without knowing some Russian.
That being said, if you dive in with an open mind and a good dictionary, it’s well worth the reward.
9. Maksim Gorky
Gorky is one of the best-known figures of Russian writing from the 20th century and from the Soviet period specifically.
Throughout his time, he was a prolific writer with volumes of novels, short stories, and plays.
Gorky’s work is somewhat foundational to Soviet literature and he’s been called both the founder of socialist realism as well as the ‘Great Proletarian Writer’ (Великий пролетарский писатель).
His work often includes themes like poverty, imprisonment, and exposure to the hardships faced by the common people. Overall, these stories have a framework that you might not immediately understand but can quickly come to appreciate.
10. Osip Emilyevich Mandelstam
One of the most important Russian poets of the 20th century, Mandelstam blends a love for classical literature with pointed, often ironic observations about society at large.
His poetry, filled with dark humor and keen social insight, challenges the listener/reader to consider the world in a different light.
11. Isaak Emmanuilovich Babel
The works of Isaak Babel are intimately connected to the time and place he was living in.
They make a unique and interesting snapshot of the Russian Civil War and many aspects of daily life in Odessa 100 years ago.
Odessa Stories (Одесские рассказы) is a collection of stories that are humorous, sad, eye-opening, and very human.
His most famous work The Red Cavalry (Конармия) is a fictionalized account of his time with the First Cavalry of the Red Army and goes into great detail about the realities, hardships, and bizarre events that come with war.
12. Vladimir Nabokov
Nabokov is one of the most difficult to classify authors for a number of reasons.
One of them is that he wrote his first novels in Russian and then later started writing in English after emigrating to the US.
Much of his work has a dreamlike quality and plots that are somewhat opaque or hard to follow but very rewarding if you follow till the end.
I'd you're a Russian learner, reading Nabokov in Russian has the benefit that he wrote and/or oversaw the English translations of his Russian works and vice versa. So if you read the Russian you can always confer with the author’s own translation.
That being said, no matter what language he writes in, Nabokov’s prose is dense, strange and often uses uncommon words.
13. Arkady And Boris Strugatskiy
If you like science fiction, then the Strugatsky brothers are worth checking out as they are often considered the pinnacle of SF writing during the USSR period.
Hard to be a God (Трудно быть богом) explores the idea of trying to remain uninvolved in affairs when coming from a future society.
The Doom City (Град обреченный) follows a series of humans from different time period doing an experiment that none of them understand the purpose of.
Their most famous work is Roadside Picnic (Пикник на обочине) which is about exploring a mysterious zone where the rules of physics don’t quite work. This was later adapted by Andrei Tarkovsky as the world-famous film Stalker (Сталькер).
14. Boris Akunin
The writer of numerous historical and detective novels, Akunin sits in a strange place among Russian novels.
His work is not considered high art, but he is immensely popular and well-known with many of them being made into films.
Akunin’s stories tend to take place in the 19th century and are full of adventure, heists, clever ploys, heroism, and action.
You won’t discover any great truths about the human condition but you will have a great time.
If you're a Russian learner, Akunin’s works are very approachable if you’re at the intermediate level.
15. Viktor Pelevin
The writings of Pelevin tend to be described as strange, bizarre, and weird. And that fits.
His stories often connect the historical, the real, and the fantastical like in Generation P (Поколение П) where the main characters summons the ghost of Che Guevara with a ouija board to ask his advice on advertising.
Some have compared his work to that of Haruki Murakami and Thomas Pynchon and while both apply, Pelevin is really a genre unto himself.
16. Vladimir Georgiyevich Sorokin
Describing the works of Vladimir Sorokin invites raised eyebrows and puzzled looks.
Novels by Sorokin could be described as absurdist, post-modern, graphic, and violent.
In Monoklon (Моноклон) dinosaurs wear tailored suits and wield pick-axes and in Blue Lard (Голубое сало) famous Russian writers are cloned and used to power a reactor hidden on the moon.
There is a point to all the weirdness, but it can take a while to see it.
It is worth mentioning that Sorokin’s novels can be intense when it comes to things like sex and violence, so he’s not everyone's cup of tea.
17. Boris Pasternak
Nobel laureate Boris Pasternak is a big name of the 20th century.
Starting out as a literary translator, Pasternak’s version of Shakespeare is still widely known in Russia today.
He wrote some poetry and several novels eventually leading to his final and most famous work Doctor Zhivago (Доктор Живаго), a historical drama about the tumultuous early twentieth-century in Russia.
18. Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev
A writer of novels, short stories, poetry, and plays, Turgenev is one of the most important figures in 19th-century literature.
Turgenev’s works like The Diary of a Superfluous Man (Дневник лишнего человека) and Fathers and Sons (Отцы и дети) established some of the major themes and tropes of Russian literature such as the superfluous man (лишний человек).
If you're an intermediate level Russian learner, Turgenev is quite accessible for you. However, side characters will sometimes have dialogue in Russian dialects that can be difficult to understand.
19. Vasily Solomonovich Grossman
Grossman started his writing career as a journalist and war correspondent before World War I.
He continued writing during and after the war and his most famous works, the novel Life and Fate (Жизнь и судьба) and For a Just Cause (За правое дело) cover the period from the perspective of everyday people.
His work is best classified as socialist realism (социалистический реализм) and often involves large casts of characters with interweaving storylines.
Famous Russian Authors FAQ
Who is the most famous Russian author?
The most famous Russian author is Leo Tolstoy, known for masterpieces like War and Peace and Anna Karenina.
His works have had a profound impact on world literature, influencing countless writers and thinkers.
Who are the big three Russian writers?
The “Big Three” of Russian literature are Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Anton Chekhov.
Tolstoy is known for epic novels, Dostoevsky for deep psychological themes, and Chekhov for his influential short stories and plays.
Who are the Big 4 of Russian literature?
The “Big Four” typically include Alexander Pushkin, Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Anton Chekhov.
Pushkin is considered the founder of modern Russian literature, while Tolstoy and Dostoevsky wrote major novels, and Chekhov mastered short stories and drama.
What is considered the greatest Russian novel?
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy is often considered the greatest Russian novel.
Its vast scope, historical depth, and philosophical insights make it one of the most significant works of world literature.
Other contenders include Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky and The Master and Margarita by Bulgakov.
Closing Thoughts On Famous Russian Authors
The Russian literary canon is vast. With several decades of tropes, trends, and evolution with many famous Russian authors, there is going to be a writer out there who speaks to you. And hopefully, this article will help you find them more easily.
Thankfully, a large portion of the ‘great works’ written in Russian have been translated. However, reading a text in its original language is always a special experience that gives you new insight into the work.
And if you want to read Russian books in the original version, my course, Russian Uncovered will teach you how through story, not rules. Get your free 7-day trial of the course.
Olly Richards
Creator of the StoryLearning® Method
Olly Richards is a renowned polyglot and language learning expert with over 15 years of experience teaching millions through his innovative StoryLearning® method. He is the creator of StoryLearning, one of the world's largest language learning blogs with 500,000+ monthly readers.
Olly has authored 30+ language learning books and courses, including the bestselling "Short Stories" series published by Teach Yourself.
When not developing new teaching methods, Richards practices what he preaches—he speaks 8 languages fluently and continues learning new ones through his own methodology.
