Nikolai Gogol Ivan Turgenev Fyodor Dostoevsky Leo Tolstoy Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin Nikolai Leskov Anton Chekhov Ivan Krylov Vissarion Belinsky Aleksandr Griboyedov Aleksandr Ostrovsky Silver Age of Russian Poetry Alexander Blok Anna Akhmatova Boris Pasternak Konstantin Balmont Aleksandr Kuprin Ivan Bunin Leonid Andreyev Yevgeny Zamyatin Dmitry Merezhkovsky Andrei Bely Nobel Prize Anton Russian writers
The first great Russian novelist was Nikolai Gogol. Then came Ivan Turgenev, who mastered both short stories and novels. Fyodor Dostoevsky and Leo Tolstoy soon became internationally renowned. Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin wrote prose satire, while Nikolai Leskov is best remembered for his shorter fiction. In the second half of the century Anton Chekhov excelled in short stories and became a leading dramatist. Other important 19th-century developments included the fabulist Ivan Krylov, non-fiction writers such as the critic Vissarion Belinsky, and playwrights such as Aleksandr Griboyedov and Aleksandr Ostrovsky. The beginning of the 20th century ranks as the Silver Age of Russian Poetry. This era had poets such as Alexander Blok, Anna Akhmatova, Boris Pasternak, and Konstantin Balmont. It also produced some first-rate novelists and short-story writers, such as Aleksandr Kuprin, Nobel Prize winner Ivan Bunin, Leonid Andreyev, Yevgeny Zamyatin, Dmitry Merezhkovsky and Andrei Bely.
